Grushenka

I’ve created another blog to share my musings into socio-political issues.

http://grushenka.wordpress.com/

The title of the blog Grushenka comes from a Dostoevskyan character but has otherwise nothing to do with her. Grushenka was an informal, common name among female peasants throughout 19th century Russia although i’d never heard of this name until i read Dostoevsky. The Russian word for pear is grusha, so if anything, the name reminds me of pears and fruit and shapely women. And maybe outspoken women? Wow… i didn’t realize Grushenka had so much meaning for me! So yes, maybe the simplicity of the name is also important because my blog is essentially very simple and limited since i’m just a fledgling pseudo intellectual..

Finally uploaded to youtube!

More here :)

Kyoto & Osaka

Yesterday I hitchhiked back to Tokyo after spending a week in Kyoto and Osaka.

I recon I saved about $300 by using cs for accommodation and hitchhiking. In Kyoto, my host was Shoji, a Japanese farmer who set up a house for his guests and has hosted over 250 since he began last year. There was a Danish couple, 4 Belgians, and two French girls staying there besides me.

The cs house is a traditional Japanese house (not a condominium in a building) and Shoji’s walls are covered with graffiti left by his guests. My contribution was not so nice… (one of those times when I should of stopped closer to when I began)

Kyoto is a very small city compared to Tokyo and famous for its temples. But I visited only a few. For one, I had trouble waking up early. And two, I am navigationally retarded. And being that this is the end of my trip… i feel tired of being a tourist. I just wanted to sit somewhere and read…

In Osaka I stayed with a Canadian guy and his roommates. I’ve been thinking about going to Montreal later this year but hearing my host’s story about hitchhiking the width of Canada made me desirous of such a trip. Perhaps my unemployed (anyone looking to hire someone with great analytical ability, sense of humour and a BA in economics?) brother could join me.

I decided to return to Kyoto rather than hitchhike directly from Osaka. If I wasn’t alone I would have traversed the complicated highway system from Osaka, but being that the navigational part of my brain is on holiday I thought it better to take the simpler route. I figured that if I start hitching on the expressway that goes directly to Tokyo it would be easier to find rides going in my direction.

I woke up at 5:30am and decided I needed 10 more minutes… and kept extending this decision until it was 7am. (I was tired because i had gone to sleep around 3am because I wanted to finish my host’s Murakami book which I had started the night before)

I was on the train to Kyoto by 8:30. Somewhere near the main train station there was a bus I needed to take to the expressway and this bus only ran once an hour. It passed me as I got to the bus area so I had to wait until 9:54 for the next one.

When the bus driver told me to get off, I expected to see a service area not an entrance to the expressway for the cars. So i wondered around seeking a good place to hitch (even walking along the entrance itself to the toll booths). One employee of the booths suggested I walk back to the gas station  and try from there. She and the other Japanese man who tried to help me by drawing a big sign that said “Going to —” knew all about hitchhiking.

Of course any experienced hitchhiker would have known to start from the gas station…

I managed 6 rides within 5 hours. But these barely took me 200 km! Some people were nice and smiled as they signaled that they were going a different way, but some people refused to even open their windows when I knocked on their car. Did I look more untrustworthy than I did 1 week ago?

Of the 6 drivers I had only one was a woman. She was going with her husband to the mountains in time for the blooming of the flowers. They were a couple in their 60s with grown children. They spoke English well.

The last of the 6 were two engineers, both married with children. And yet they seemed like 2 boys fresh out of college (but more innocent and humble then America’s graduates). I sat in their car, weary and tired. Before letting me go they said that they had an idea. They were going to get me a ride to Tokyo. By looking at the license plates they could tell which ones were from Tokyo (I had tried to do this too but asking people proved simpler).

And that’s how I got my last ride, the one that took me all the way to Tokyo, all 350 km. He may have been mildly retarded but he was kind. I left him a little Buddha another driver had given me in Thailand as a symbol of my gratitude.

As close as i got to Mt. Fuji...

He went out of his way for me. I only asked him to deposit me near any train station in Tokyo and I thought he understood… but I had make the mistake of telling him my final destination and it stuck in his mind. He called his friends for advice on how to get me there while I tried desperately to explain that it wasn’t important. But the dictionary I had did not translate the word “any” in the way I needed and the poor guy couldn’t shake off his confusion.

School girls in a Kyoto train station

Osaka at night

Tokyo

I spent 5 days in Tokyo staying with an American teacher of English i met in Thailand 2 months ago. The flight from Bangkok was only 6 hours, but because i spent my last ‘night’ at the airport – and slept only 2 hours – I was very tired when i arrived my friend’s place. This fatigue lasted for the next several days and worst of all, my lower back hurt (probably from the monster that my backpack evolved into after i crammed in all that junk i bought in Bangkok 20 minutes before i left for the airport)

I spent my days very casually, waking up late, visiting museums and walking, and returning home around 7 to make dinner with my friend. I almost mastered Tokyo’s complex subway system consisting of a million privately owned lines requiring new tickets and exits for the transfers. Every station is almost as busy and large (or busier and larger) as New York’s Grand Central, and usually more complicated. But Japanese people will often go out of their way to help you and even as i stood momentarily paralized by the grandiosity i felt wonder not anxiety.

ticket machines and a map of JUST one of the metro lines in Tokyo

Queueing for the subway. Can you imagine this in NY?

View of Shibuya intersection

On Sunday i attended an earth and peace celebration near Shibuya park. Besides the hundred little booths selling organic stuff there was a stage where musicians played traditional Japanese instruments in non traditional ways and people danced. I danced too of course!

On Monday i set off for Kyoto with a near empty back pack (I left most of my things at my friend’s place) and an atlas of Japanese roads. I found my way to a Mc’Donald’s near the entrance of an expressway and tried to hitch a ride by standing 50 meters from the entrance point. No one stopped.

Holding my umbrella close, i tried another way. I approached the cars as they collected their food at the drive-through. Three women, a mother, her daughter and a grandmother scooped me up and took me 30 kilometers south to a parking space on the expressway. Before they left me they insisted i accept a water and a sweet bun that the daughter had run out of the car to buy in the rain especially for me. After that everything was very easy.

Kyoto is about 515 km away from Tokyo and the road is a straight path on the expressways. Unlike hitching in Thailand almost all the drivers i had insisted on finding my next ride. All i had to do was wait. Six rides and 8 hours later i was in Kyoto. I met 11 friendly people and cannot imagine a better way to have gotten to Kyoto.

My only complaint is that it’s raining every day but otherwise i am very happy :)

bye bye ราชอาณาจักรไทย

My flight to Tokyo is at 5am tomorrow, which means i should be there by 4… which means i might as well “sleep” in the airport. The last tourist bus to the airport leaves around 11pm.

For some reason, i never feel like partying in Bangkok. I love to stay out late and dance (in Ko Tao and elsewhere i went to sleep with the sunrise) but in BKK i always feel so languid and bored. Maybe it’s because i’m alone most of the time in BKK. I come here on my way elsewhere… so i come knowing no one. The hundreds of tourists flailing around just don’t appeal to my senses. Once or twice i’ll see one i’d like to get to know but then the crowd eats him.

Funny coincidence. I’m reading a funny surrealistic story by Malamud called Pictures of Fidelman which takes place in Italy. The book i read before had a few lines in Italian. And in Ko Tao i spent some time with Italians…

Here i go… 5 hours left to say goodbye to Thailand (for the time being!)

I’ve been pining for Cambodia lately.

Ko Tao

A tourist bus is a large privately-owned bus with soft reclining seats utilized only by tourists. I took such a bus for the first time last week. The passengers were separated into five or six groups according to destination and confined to a section of the bus.

It was almost 3am, I’d finally found a comfortable place for my feet when the light went on and a bus-man began prodding us to wake up. I ignored him. He’s just crazy I decided dreamily.

But I was forced off the bus anyway. Ten of us waited on the street until a minibus came and took us to another station where someone jammed on a guitar and someone sang until 7am. Then another bus came and took us to the pier where we boarded a boat for Ko Tao. Three hours later, sea-sick and sleepy, I cheerfully left stepped on Ko Tao.

...on to the boat

...that's Ko Tao ahead (after 3 hours)

I followed some of the travelers I met to a secluded bay. Aow Leuk bay is beautiful, the waters are blue and transparent, fish swim around you while you stand in the water, and the water doesn’t sting your eyes if you open them inside. But because of the steep rocky and sandy path to it the bay is not really accessible.

Aow Leuk Bay (that's me and a friend swimming in the middle)

We had a number of difficulties getting to our guest house, Nice Moon, because it was even more secluded than the bay. I felt like a caged bird. I had come to the island to be around people and the nice view and clear water was not enough compensation. So after spending the night with my new friends I left to Sairee beach, the most touristy part of Ko Tao.

I found free accommodation at AC resort where I signed up for a dive course. I’d wanted to try SCUBA diving since I arrived in Thailand 10 months ago, but circumstances always resulted in something else. (It is possible to dive without certification but most places wont rent you equipment without it) The course lasts 3 days and includes a text book, homework, an exam, skills training inside a swimming pool, and 4 dives in the sea where students repeat some of the skills. It cost 8000 Baht and included a free bungalow for 4 nights, breakfast, water, and wifi.

I was worried that I’d have problems inside the water. That for some reason I was going to be one of those few people who physically cannot withstand the pressure of water. But the only problem I had was with equalizing my ears and this was easily solved with a decongestion pill after my first dive. The lowest point I reached was about 15 meters =)

getting ready

the air tank. contrary to popular belief it's not pure oxygen, but ordinary air

checking our 2nd regulators

Most of all I love the weightlessness and the different ways of movement under water. I like the fish and the corals. I like pretending to be a fish myself and imagining what life would be like if humanity evolved differently. If I had more time here I would do an advanced diving course (diving deeper and diving at night) but I need to return to Bangkok and fly to Japan on Tuesday.

But I don’t want to leave…

Sairee beach

fire dancer

per l’amaro e il dolce…

Hong Kong felt a lot like New York minus all my friends and familiarities.

The sky scrapers, condominiums, smartly dressed men and women, the Chanels and Diors, traffic, massive trollops of people, and general claustrophobia is one aspect of Hong Kong; the other is a green place, an archipelago of islands on which stand hundreds of lush mountains.

Unfortunately my sickness and the wicked heat of the islands induced me to spend most of my time passively.

a friend and me stand on Victoria Peak overlooking central Hong Kong

Stanley beach in HK

Yesterday: Almost missed my flight to Bangkok and hurt my legs running through the airport with my backpack; I read and finished a book on the 2+ hour flight (a simple one, Mitch Albom’s Five people you meet in heaven); shared a taxi with a guy from the UK to Khoasan Rd and found a room (the worst one i’ve stayed in yet perhaps) for the night.

The circus on Khoasan Rd...

Hong Kong felt a lot like New York minus all my friends and familiarities. Despite t

39 hours of busses and train

A very long journey awaited me. I had enough for a bus ticket to Kunming after changing what was left of my Baht. The bus was a sleeper (with beds) and left Lijiang at 8:30pm. I was in Kunming’s bus station before sunset, where the bus had stopped and let the sleeping passengers doze until 6am. From 6 to 8 I slept on the chairs in the bus station, amidst lots and lots of unventilated cigarette smoke. I then went to eat breakfast at this place near the station that serves a thali set of Chinese food for 6 Yuan. By 8:45 I was on the bus on my way to Rachel’s workplace to collect my card.

At her office I distracted her a bit as I tried to activate my new card. I couldn’t do it because I didn’t know the account # but my cousin was finally able to do it for me in New York. I walked away very cheerful and almost applauded the machine when it presented me with all those Yuan!

Afterwards I went to the train station, intending to buy a ticket for later in the afternoon for the 24+ hour journey to Guangzhou (the city I originally flew in to from Bangkok). I had been trying to buy an air ticket instead but without success. The prices when I first started looking were less than twice of the price of the train ticket which was very good and reasonable, but the site ELONG.net requires immense verification for foreign credit card purchases, so despite sending them copies of my passport, credit card (from & back) and signature I didn’t make the cut and they cancelled my tickets. What I couldn’t provide them was my signature on the document they wanted me to sign because I didn’t know where to print it out and re-scan or fax it. It was all too much hassle, especially with the time constraints because it was evening already when I was trying to book these tickets and was leaving to the Gorge the next morning. And since they don’t guarantee prices until confirmed it made less economic sense to buy later.

It was 10:59am when I bought my ticket to Guangzhou and saw that the ticket was for 11:50am! Instead of seeing about whether I could book another train later I scurried with my newfound time-gem to look for provisions. I bought bananas, two pieces of flat bread (like naan in appearance but more eggy taste), two cakes from the bakery, and gogi berries (seven 250g packs of them!) I didn’t have time to buy tea for which Yunnan province is so famous. There were many tea shops but the employees never spoke English and none of the teas had English names and I couldn’t identify good or bad from just smell. I had been putting off this purchase till now because of the finances and now with the clock approaching 11:40 it was too intimidating. I walked briskly back to the station and was in my cabin by 11:45. Five minutes later, exactly on schedule, the train pulled out of the station. A contrast from Burmese trains.

The ride was smooth. I had the cheapest bed, the 3rd bunk. I don’t know why I always buy these beds. One reason is probably that I don’t like the feeling of sleeping under someone’s bed and always worry that it will fall and crush me. Another is that I still experience that childish delight at being on the top and untouchable. Either day it was an acceptable place to sleep… but not to do much else. I couldn’t even drink water from my bottle up there because of the small distance to the ceiling.

I recall the first time I woke up, not long after the train started off. I looked out the door and at the windows and they were dark and the chatter and noise seemed to have died off. Could it be night already, I thought to myself, encouraging the possibility as if it would come true if I could convince myself. I liked the idea that half my travel time had passed so smoothly without my participation… but alas the next time I opened my eyes there was sunlight and noise. Only two hours had passed.

I spent the next hours sitting on the seat near the window in the hallway, reading Lonely Planet’s chapters on Chinese history (of which I know very little). Once I tried to make a drawing. I like the reflection on the window of the two old men still in their cabin that was across from my little table. They were sitting on their beds and talking but I already forget what they looked like. They didn’t look ethnically Chinese. I think they were darker and their features more broad. This makes sense, since Kunming, where they’d gotten on, is the most ethnically diverse province in China, home to half of the 55 minority groups residing in China. Did you know that the one child policy does not apply to these ethnic groups?

I succeeded in starting the drawing by sketching my self and the other man at the table. My sketches are always grotesque in a way because of my inability to reconstruct natural proportions and lack of technical skills. But I like my drawings because often, despite these serious lacks and their technical simplicity, they can (at least to me) convey certain emotions very strongly. And in my untrained mind, since I can’t see or appreciate artistic technical virtues I judge art only by it’s emotional influence.

unfinished

There were no foreigners in my car and no one tried talking English to me. Someone offered me some fruit (lyches) but everyone refused a piece of cake from me. In the morning one man tried talking to me, but as is common among the Chinese – in Chinese! What I mean is that despite seeing that I couldn’t speak his language he continued asking me questions and commenting in it. This characteristic is uniquely Chinese (in my humble minutely-experienced opinion)… no other Southeast Asian person will speak his dialect to an uncomprehending year so thoroughly as if the more he repeats himself the better you’ll understand. I don’t mind it at all, I find it amusing and charming.

Back in New York, Chinese always seemed too loud and awkward. But in China it has lost its pique. Maybe like the food it is better in China. Chinese food back in America is nooooooooooothing compared to the delicious variety I’ve found on the mainland!

Twenty-six hours later I was in Guanzhou’s main train station, steered along like a calf through its swarming corridors, when I saw a foreign head. I had a look at the face which seemed roughly familiar. Then I looked at his backpack and shoes and those looked familiar. I tapped him, “didn’t we go to the Gorge together?”

And so I had a travel companion. He was also heading to Hong Kong. The sun was setting when we finally split up – he to find a guest house and me to my cs host’s flat on Hong Kong island. We made plans to sight-see the city together today and I should be at one of the vegetarian restaurant’s by noon to meet him. It’s almost 10am now. I take too long to get ready so this is goodbye for now =)

Tiger Leaping Gorge and a poor attempt to express my views on interaction between travelers and locals.

One of the most famous canyons in the world is located in China’s Yunnan province. At sixteen kilometers long, the Tiger Leaping Gorge runs along the Yangtze River, the third longest in the world. My hike through the gorge began in the village Qiaotou, where the pansexual proprietor of Jane’s guesthouse took in backpacks of those travelers who planned to continue further north after the hike. After insisting we photograph the large map with routes and her phone number on the wall she wished us good luck and we set off.

The entrance fee to the gorge is 50 Yuan, but a 50% discount is available to anyone with a (self-made or authentic) student ID card. The gorge takes its name after a tiger who supposedly leaped 25 meters across the river as he ran from the hunters pursuing him.

Our group of 9 met at Mama Naxi’s guesthouse in Lijiang. Every day travelers meet at this amiable guest house, become friends over the communal dinner at 6 o’clock and make plans to hike the length of the gorge together.

The hike lasted two days. As we climbed we met an old Naxi woman. She had a loaded basket strapped to her shoulders and seemed many times more at ease than us on the rocky path. Desiring to capture and remember this eccentric and charming woman, I took out my camera. “Three Yuan” she said in Mandarin.

A kilometer later we came upon a small table laden with provisions, water and marijuana. An old man stood nearby and demanded we pay him for photographing ourselves on the scenic cliff nearby.

In our group were two Germans, one Belgian, two Israelis, three Americans, and me (a Russian-American). One of the American girls tried to buy something from each seller we passed (it was her way of supporting the villagers). After we passed the old man at the cliff I instigated a discussion on the topic of money and tourism.

I asked the Belgian why he’d paid the old woman for her photo. He replied that he felt he was taking something for which he should compensate her. “But what did you take,” I wanted to know.

True, my Belgian friend has inherited the rights and social mobility of European civilization’s legacy, middle class privileges, an education and all the opportunities that these accord him. “I have choices, she doesn’t, she’s ignorant, therefore my life is better.” I suggested that he was imposing his conceptions without considering the diverse cultural composition of the villagers.

Freedom is a cultural construct. Its definition and value varies across cultures. Amongst the nomads of Venezuela, the Yanomami, freedom is understood in terms of territory rather than interpersonal relations. In this society, women do not feel violated because they are pressured to marry young. According to Good’s narrative, they do not even feel violated during a rape. (Into the Heart, by Kenneth Good) But show the nomads the ways of the others and make them feel inferior and they’ll adopt the cultural values and aspirations of the others.

I am not romanticizing the life of the Naxi woman, but I think that the questions are too complex to be answered by direct charity. I too want to see people live better but generosity without awareness may not be goodwill at all. Rather this generosity (much like missionary efforts) may simply undermine the lifestyle of these villagers or put them in circumstances far worse than their present ones.

I too am guilty of being obsessed with freedom. I too have spent countless hours insisting that everything could be better if everyone appreciated their freedom. I too have worried that those who lack freedom are deprived and miserable.

Indeed, if the Naxi woman lacks choice and freedom, the important question is not how can we help her attain it but how does this affect the quality of her life. If we have any desire to maintain cultural diversity on our earth, we ought to consider how we interact with the strangers we meet in the mountains, forests, and plateaus of distant lands. Traveling is an opportunity to witness these differences directly and to partake in the lives of strangers rather than pity them for lacking the conveniences and customs we are accustomed to.

As tourists, are we customers by nature? Or is this gap between traveler and local person individually constructed? Are we undermining our travel experience by turning ourselves into customers more and more directly? Perhaps the answer is yes only if our reasons for travel are inter-cultural.

Instead of using the camera as a means to unite us, it becomes a tool that differentiates and turns travelers into customers and locals into providers. By paying the Naxi woman for her photo we ablate the possibility of a non-consumer relationship. We’re no longer guests in her land who have honored her by photographing her; we’re foreigners and the money we paid her is symbolic of our separateness. Our exchange is finished. She will relate her luck to her neighbors and they will follow suit, juicing tourists like oranges. We are catalysts in the transformation of human relationships. And as such, maybe it’s because of us that a man decides to stand on a piece of grass in his village and demand to be paid for trespassing it?

Lijiang

I arrived in Lijiang from Dali a few days ago planning to stay with a host from CS. Otherwise i would have gone to Shangra-La, the beginning of Tibet because that was the city i really wanted to visit. My first day in Lijiang was uneventful. I walked around the old city, lit up and noisy, amidst hundreds of Chinese tourists. I treated myself to dessert, an 18 Yuan cheesecake at the restaurant where my host worked.

Later at night, my host nonchalantly told me that he had guests coming and that i had to leave the next day. Of all the CS experiences i’ve had this was probably the worst, despite all the hosting experience and positive references he had. To agree to host me for several days and then tell me to leave was ugly and i think it’s because he hosts so often that he’s stopped caring for his cs-ers. Ironically, he had so many of the qualities i seek in people: well read, interested in simple living, even a vegetarian. And yet, he was cold and not a question or word came without my prodding.

In any case, it was a blow.

But it turned out well. I found a bed at the quaintest place… Mama Naxi guesthouse. Run by a middle aged Naxi woman who speaks of herself in third person and treats her guests with the familiar way of an aunt. The guesthouse is always full of travelers, mostly from Israel, western Europe and America and nights here are full of chatter and laughter.

Since Kunming i’ve spent about $50 on the train to Dali, food, guesthouses, bicycle, bus to Lijiang, and the gorge entrance fee. Lijiang is even less expensive than Thailand and yet nothing seems cheap enough. I hate counting every Yuan. On Monday i’ll be back in Kunming =)