Bhutan is trying desperately to manage/control the influence of the modern world. Tourism is strictly limited and heavily taxed ($200/day per person). There is little evidence of external media. Although mobile phone and internet service is available it is not a culturally dominant factor. Traditional dress is the rule, not the exception, even in Thimphu, let alone the rest of the country. Standard of living is simple and there is little evidence of extravagance anywhere.
Still the future is beginning to leak into the country. But it seems to be leaking into the country in a mostly simple naive way. Witness these posters on the wall of a building on a side street of Thimphu.
Crime, corruption, drugs and other accoutrement of the modern world are insignificant. Bhutan is experimenting with an interesting and highly customized form of democracy. Other than a few rivers suitable for hydro generation, it has few resources worth plundering. It doesn't occupy a strategically interesting placement on the world's geopolitical map. And perhaps because of all that, it is filled with simple, open, friendly, and happy people.
I hope the country can preserve what's best about all this, and adopt only what is genuinely useful from the modern world that's 100 years further in its journey to the future. I fear it is on the cusp of change and that now may be the last decade in which to see it in its genuine form.
