To us, Nepal must be full of people wearing traditional Sherpa mountaineering clothing and ready for another one of their brave and successful climbs up Mount Everest. This, of course, is a stereotype, which is an uninformed belief that many people hold about a person or thing. The problem with stereotypes is that sometimes they are not true, or else they are too simple and don't give the whole picture. Sherpas are actually a small ethnic group in the eastern mountain area of Nepal. (Ethnic groups, or ethnicities, are groups of people that share the same culture or come from the same place.) So why do people believe the stereotype? Well, many people don't even know where Nepal is because it is a very small country. If people from other countries do know about Nepal, it is usually because they know about the famous mountains of Nepal. Sherpas are also famous for living in and climbing the Himalayas. So, people including me thought everyone lived in the mountains and looked like the Sherpas.
Now that I am in Nepal, I know that Sherpas are only one of the ethnic groups in Nepal. There are actually 40 different ethnicities here! My homestay family in Kathmandu is from an ethnic group from Illam, in the eastern hills of Nepal. My family in Larjung was Thakali, an ethnicity from the western mountain region of Nepal. Nepal is so rich in cultural diversity, meaning that people come from many different places and have different special cultures.
Another stereotype about Nepal is that it is a very poor country. And yes, it is true that many people in Nepal don't have a car and live in small houses. But is Nepal poor? I have learned that in the United States, we have a very specific definition of rich and poor.
