The Pakistan the Media Does Not Show You 🇵🇰

An evening in the Hunza Valley in two halves, neither of them arranged as an attraction: dinner at Akram’s family home, and then an invitation to a recording studio in a very small village, where local musicians play live for about twenty people.

The food is the most local eating of the whole trip — molida, made from bread, cheese and apricot oil — and the conversation produces the practical texture the cluster has been asserting in general terms: why the English is so good, how many languages people here actually speak, and what the hot springs up the road are supposed to do for you.

The studio half is the reason for the title. The musicians are entirely self-taught from YouTube, because there is no degree in music production or sound engineering in Pakistan to be had — a parallel Harry immediately draws to his own videography.

Obs: this page is based on auto-generated subtitles. The musicians are not named: Harry credits their music and links it, which by the bundle’s usual test for creators would earn them a page, but no source renders a name. See the log.

Key moments

• [00:30] −5 to −10°C outside, and the first hotel in days with heating in the room and decent wi-fi.
• [01:31] Arriving at his guide’s family home — carpets everywhere, a fireplace, and a room he describes as a den.
• [02:01] Akram’s father holds a Guinness World Record for the largest blue sheep taken; he has hunted here for years and is well known locally.
• [02:32] One room is shut up for the season because part of the family is down in the city. The heating is firewood, not electricity.
• [03:37] Chips made from potatoes grown here, and molida — a local dish of bread and cheese with apricot oil poured over it.
• [04:37] His description of it: the texture of porridge but savoury, with the apricot oil coming through strong and sweet at the same time. He can’t place the taste against anything.
• [05:07] Hunting talk: if you miss the animal you can expect several minutes before a second chance (from video – unverified — the transcript garbles the detail).
• [05:37] Dried fruit from the garden, including dried apple, which he hasn’t had before and rates for how much flavour it keeps.
• [06:44] A chicken dish with chapati, and the football on in the background.
• [08:09] Why the English is so good: everyone at the table works in tourism. One of them speaks seven languages plus Urdu and understands Chinese. Harry’s response is that he speaks one, maybe one and a half.
• [09:11] Two Japanese climbers came through two days earlier; the mountain called Lady Finger has, he is told, never been summited (from video – unverified).
• [10:15] Hot springs up the road, with some volcanic activity behind them, where people soak for 15 to 30 minutes for back and knee pain.
• [10:58] The host’s own framing of that, which Harry lets stand: many people get relief, and it depends on what you believe.
• [11:36] The invitation to the studio, from musicians who are well known in the area.
• [12:06] A stringed instrument he can’t place — something between a violin and a lute — and another fire lit to warm the room.
• [12:36] Self-taught from YouTube, because there is no music production or sound engineering degree in the country. Harry: same as him with video, plus trial and error.
• [14:10] One musician layering four parts live — guitar, bass, keys and voice — which is what prompts the line that opens the video about talent beyond elite.
• [17:23] He stops filming: about twenty people in the room by now, and his own verdict that this is the part of the trip worth being present for rather than recording.

Extracted pages

• Hunza Valley
• Pakistan
• Mac
• Akram