After living in any developed country for more than 10 years, I must say that one is not much immune to any sort of diseases Nepal harbors. Be it biological, or socio-cultural! Obvious ones are: dirty roads, you don't get to shower everyday, people are not as nice as when you first left etc,.. Your family won't listen to you when it really comes to implementing your revolutionary ideas/values. You can't make anyone change in this country. They are not innocent. They are dumb as Fcck, but they know how to show off to someone(precisely to a victim). If you have to ride a bike in Ktm, pajero/prado/mitshubishi and many other expensive cars have every rights to crush your head, and unfortunately if you are still alive, the drivers would come to you and smack your face for damaging there vehicles. There is no value of an individual in this country. If one day you were found dying in the middle of a road, no would care for you in this country. There are more than 200 big hospitals alone in Kathmandu, but to arrive to anyone of them in an ambulance would take you more than 2 hours. This is the problem of everything being centralized in Kathmandu! Just walk for a mile distance, you will see at least 5 schools with fancy English names. And the kids going to these schools can be found blowing off artistic white bright fume. And if you get to sit in your balcony with your parents, you will get the sense of social changes that has been brought to this country with the grossness of all kinds of maa-, muu-, chaa-, chii-, words. So, If you have a good job, are in good academic status or make a good living in the US, please don't ever come to Nepal to settle forever. It is nice to come and visit family once in a year or two, but living in Nepal forever is something not to fancy about...

Waiting for EP 2. Keep 'em coming !

I agree with Hydrogen Sulphide to an extent but have to disagree for calling people living back home stupid. I have been living away from Nepal for about 17 years now and I come back to Nepal almost every year. I did mention in my other posts that the cultural aspect of nepalese society has degraded. And Hydrogen Sulphide mentioned a good point about the individual value. I have to admin that I too have sensed a disregard to anyone in Nepal. The only thing that seems to have value in Nepal these days is money. Historical buildings, cultural heritage, human value, respect, some aspects of traditions are all losing their value.
But you cannot blame solely nepalese living in Nepal for not wanting to change because you brought a new idea. My mom loves to shop her groceries in small shops and hates the idea of departmental store. I completely agree with her. Some people like the human touch, like bargaining, like talking to shop keepers, like finding out where their products come from and hate giving all the power to one giant capitalistic corporation.
But the biggest blame for not bringing changes quickly in Nepal is on the nepalese who have travelled and lived outside, that is us. We got to see different culture, different way of life but when we go back home, we act like we have never left the country. We say "yes" to everything our elders say without every daring to contradict them. We buy in the cultural obligation to have to keep some sort of relationship with people we have nothing in common with or people we simply hate (we all have some in our families). We let ourselves get carried on with the comfort of our parents buying and doing every thing for us when we are in Nepal. We do not mind passing people in the line if we know the person who is taking care of the people in the line. We do not mind living with our parents with our spouse and kids in the same house, very often on the same floor even if we are wealthy enough to have a separate house. I have seen married brothers living together on the same floor while they had two or three of their houses being rented out.
The point is, if you want to see Nepal change, change yourself. When you go there, don't act like you used to when you were living in Nepal. People in Nepal won't change quickly and not always for good.

To hydrogen sulphide,
From your writings, I sense mixed emotions of reverse culture shock and quarter life crisis. Sounds like you made that difficult decision to come back to Nepal. I do not know if it is a permanent move or a temporary one, but you are entitled to your own opinions and decisions. Everyone has to pave their own way eventually.
But as a recent returnee myself after a decade plus a few years, I am loving every bit of it. Of course there are a lot of things that are wrong with Nepal, but there are enough things that are right to make up for it . I am not going to point out those things, because my personal experience might not necessarily match yours. Over the course of your stay here, if you cannot see past the dusty haze of Kathmandu, then Nepal is certainly not for you. In regards to socio cultural issues, societies just do not evolve out of the blue.
You must have grand expectations from Nepal but I had very low and clear expectations before I came and I have not been disappointed so far.

From what I have seen, these are the type of people who have an easier time settling back in Nepal

1. Has rich family
2. Has influencial family with connections (to help start own or continue one's family business)
3. Has job with foreign company but working out of Nepal

Anyone who does not have one of the above will have a tough time in Nepal because it is not easy to make something for yourself without having a good base out there.

Jepayotyehi do you fall under one of those?

To rethink,
I certainly do not fall under any one of those categories and I have a handful of close returnee friends who do not meet your criteria either. But, we certainly have similar expectations of how we want to live our lives.
So forgive me but your lens on the returnees is a little myopic in that sense.

jepayotyehi, I don't have a lens carved in stone. Those categorizations only applies in general but obviously there will be exceptions to any generalization.

Would you care to share the expectations that your group had?

That's what I thought during my last visit. Keep feeding us with more posts H2S....

Rethink is right. Few of my friend who have returned to Nepal fit in the categories mentioned by Rethink. One of them had a very well established family business. I sensed that when he was in the US. His stay in the US looked to me more like a vacation. He changed schools every year, worked hard but spent all his money on parties while I was trying to save to pay-off my fees. He never cared about his studies and as soon as he graduated, he took the next flight back home and now works for his dad. Travels around, visits India, Thailand very often. Plays tennis, goes swimming in five-start hotels and then goes back to taking orders from his dad.
The other one, was more serious. Studies hard and worked hard. But decided to return to Nepal even before graduating. Got married to one of the politicians daughter. I didn't know that his dad was also a businessman back home. Now he has business mixed with politic power, so he is very successful at what he is doing.
When I visit them, they look at me like I am a loser working my ass off in the US while they are making as much money or even more working and enjoying their life in Nepal. But I don't care because I don't work for my dad.

Wish i had rich family..i would go back right away..

I still remember an article written by a working professional in the USA about 10-12 years ago. I could not agree more with the writer. He compared most of us currently living outside and working to old days LAURE who would to India to make some money and help family back home. Though sound harsh, think about it, we are educated LAURE who either could not make it in very competitive environment in Nepal or thought western society will give us everything that Nepal could not offer.

So, my hats off to those who returned and trying to do whatever they can in Nepal. At least they are putting their effort to make Nepal better in whatever way they can such as by creating jobs, providing knowledge and experience they learned from developed world or in any other format. Most of us living outside have not contributed to Nepal. We should stop taking Nepal for granted. Had we worked really hard like we are doing here, Nepal would be better too.

Thanks Hydrogen Sulpphide, nice thoughts and experiences. People in Nepal only cares about money, even families. There is no life out there, only dust, garbages, pollution, don's, corruption, discrimination based on casts, cultures that don't make senses, martial law, police law, ethnocentric culture, no good clubs, no places to visit, no electricity, no water, no saucy women etc. I will never live in Nepal. I would rather live as homeless in USA than live in Nepal.