Sherri Hong’s Reflection from the Summer of 2024
Lastly, I investigated the potential integration of the Nagarik app, an online government service app, to support local exporting businesses by streamlining vehicle registration, tax filing, and legal procedures. By analyzing data from government documents and surveys, I identified recurring challenges in e-Governance in Nepal. The prevalent lack of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure and ICT illiteracy prompted me to develop a list of solutions and recommendations to enhance technology-integrated education within trade-promoting platforms and agencies.
Professional Development at Vrock & Company:
During my internship at Vrock & Company in Nepal, I assisted in assessing the hydropower potential of key water sites across the country. I compiled and analyzed data on electricity distribution, theoretical power potential, operating cost, and maintenance costs of major hydropower projects. By comparing these data with total power generation, I highlighted the critical need to expand hydroelectric infrastructure and investment to fully realize Nepal's hydropower potential.
Additionally, I took on a support project of developing Water Governance after seeing many of my Nepali friends living in areas with limited water access. Through international case studies of Burkina Faso, the Philippines, and Cambodia, I thoroughly analyzed the common challenges of water management worldwide and the proposed structures for new regulatory bodies. I extracted important lessons from each country to form recommendations for the Nepal government in reorganizing water authorities, water infrastructure, and water policy under the framework of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)
As an individual aiming to drive energy-efficient, sustainable change worldwide, I led hydrogen technology research for a collaborative project with Kathmandu University (KU). Specifically, I focused on technical development, pricing evaluation, and market analysis of the Green Hydrogen Value Chain for potential implementation in Nepal. By collecting data from test trials and published reports, I assessed major Green Hydrogen technologies based on factors of production rate, lifetime, H2 purity, and stage of development. Through analyzing commercial projects and market forecasts, I compiled a detailed list of CapEx, OpEx, component prices, and fuel cell prices across Asian and European markets. Additionally, I evaluated the average storage/transportation cost of green hydrogen (daily, weekly, monthly) and of alternative strategies of converting hydrogen into ammonia. I then conducted a feasibility analysis of Nepal's ambitious plan of exporting green hydrogen to Bangladesh via India by estimating its green ammonia production cost, transportation cost, and generation cost while taking into consideration of geopolitical tensions and cross-national policies.
Personal Blog
(with her blog snippets, Sherri shares her daily interactions and influences that left an impression during her stay in Nepal)
Chandrika Didi
I met Chandrika didi at an English Professor’s new book launching party. Surrounded by a large crowd of male scholars who were eager to impress one another, I found myself stranded on an island of unfamiliarity. They spoke lavishly as if performing a majestic ritual of exclusive “knowledge.” I waited timidly and debated whether to say anything at all. A woman came in late and sat next to me. She almost started to speak to me instantly as we were the only few women present. We talked about our lives, as care-takers, life-givers, and lovers. We spoke of books we had read and attempted to write, love we gained and abandoned, goddesses encountered and betrayed. She held my hand as spoke of something only we could understand. When I asked about women in her life, she brought up goddess Durga. “Sherri…,” she looked into my eyes, “the times I was giving birth, I thought I would have died. I prayed to goddess Durga. Only when I realize I am forever part of her, and her part of me, continuation of life became possible.” She squeezed my hands lightly and said, “she made me feel I had this flesh, these bones, and holding all of my life intact…I am fierce fire of love.” I looked into her as if she was mounting onto something impossible. I saw how she felt, and somehow I was part of her, something immensely beautiful.
Motorbike
On the backseat of the motorbike through thickening traffic and racing on roads of monsoon, I felt I could expand wings and fly to some unnamed god. My heart was free, life endless. I could see people crowding up inside bus while casting curious glances at me. When I smiled and waved at them, they often waved back.
Life felt like the belt of goats running through the streets in the morning, children between parents on a motorbike, Buddha smiling benignly at the gate of Lalitpur. All felt like a love reincarnation where I could become, continue to be, a spirit that holds the balance of the intricate web of life, right here, between my two small pedals on the bike.
Nose Piercing
In Chinese culture, my hair, teeth, and skin are derivatives from my sacred ancestors, parents, and serve as continuity to my future progeny. A bruise, a wound would mean signs of disharmony and evil omens. Dying hair or adding tattooes would mean disrespect to all ancestors and parents combined. Expectedly, when communicating with parents on the phone about nose piercing, they said DONT YOU DARE TO THINK ABOUT IT.
I hung up the phone and booked my first appointment with friends. It was a sense of urgency, or a change of mind, when I saw women, ranging from grandmothers to young girls, wearing beautifil gold piercings across the cities of Kathmandu. They were held by some sacred bond, an oath, a hiden name, that I was blinded to. Yet, their beauty, blended by the golden metal, somehow makes them more life-like, blossoming into a testimony of the divine.
I ran through the streets of Patan as my piercer rushed me to the appointment. When I entered the room and sat on the chair, they measure the distance of that tiny little hole to my nose bridge. When they sanitized the base of my nose and pierce it through with a needle, I could feel the sharp needle entering into the core of nostrils, breath suspended, heart dropped, life pierced like a gentle bleeding of heart. My eyes closed tightly and emotions melted into tears.
I thought of Hanuman ripping open his chest to show divinity of Sita and Ram inside his heart. I felt like a song interrupted, but quickly escatalated into flow of thunder and rain. When I open my eyes, I saw my friends surrounding me. My heart wrinkled with small pains, and my finger looked longer. The beautiful stud on my nose, like a small root of star, remind me of a promise, ancient and alive.
