the "developed world"

what i've seen of japan is clean, quiet and orderly - environmentally and socially. the streets are immaculate, everything is landscaped and sculpted, even plants and trees that aren't intended to be. for example, pine trees. i haven't seen anyone who looks poor, definitely not homeless. except for their ethnicity, most people look like they just stepped from the pages of either elle, gq, vibe, or rolling stone. i saw one building that looked like it could be the projects, but i didn't see any people there - definitely not the projects. people watching from an overpass at the central train station in kobe during the lunch rush, the streets were crowded with people and cars, but it was quiet. no car horns, no one raising their voices, swarms of people crossing the streets in an orderly fashion at the light. quiet.

i was tempted to blow off japan, it being our last international port. at this point, the thought of even thinking about planning travel, is tiring. notice i said thinking about planning travel, not traveling. no matter how fatigued one gets thinking about disembarking at another port (especially when there were only two days between china and japan, and less than a week before we were in vietnam - seems like ages ago), once you get out in the streets, one is revitalized by the hustle and bustle of another place.

other than honolulu and san diego, japan is the only port in what is referred to as the developed world. during the japan logistical preport, we were warned about sticker shock (protecting one's assets can be interpreted more literally here) and fixed prices (no haggling), rather than the water, mosquitoes, crime, muffler burns, and rabid monkeys and dogs.

my only plans for japan, were a s@s arranged homestay, which would be two days of hanging out in japan, where all i had to do was meet and greet the family i'd be staying with, and be charming. that would happen day two. day one i decided to just tag along with lesly (dr. matt's wife), dr. matt, and gloria (anthropology prof.). by the end of the day we had used the citibank atm (atms are generally the first stop at each port) picked up their rail passes at the train station, ate fresh baked chocolate covered belgian waffles (rum raisin and maple were also available), resisted the hagen daz shop, ate noodles, visited the botanical garden, bought a japanese style smock like wrap fron "hondya", a store that specializes in original japanese designs, checked out a pachinko parlor (think chain smoking japanese at slot machines; and the nosiest places in japan if not the world), people watched, and walked, and walked, and walked. not bad for not planning anything. i've always said my favorite days are those when there is nothing that i have to do. apparently, it can be applied away from home too.

the next day i met takako and kiyoshi (pictured) ikoma. after a brief shipboard program for all homestay participants, the families took a s@s student, staff or faculty person home with them. kiyoshi and takako are 69 and 70 year old retirees. kiyosho use to work for panasonic and takako was a teacher. they live in hirkata, located between osaka and kyoto, and not far from nara. takako wasn't with kiyoshi when he picked me up at the ship. she was participating in a kimono club fashion show (i saw 500 women in kimonos) at the ritz carlton in osaka. we would pick her up on our way to their home in hikarta. kiyoshi and i took the train to pick up takako. then, together, we walked the probably two kilometers to their place, stopping for tea and roll cake at a cafe housed in a space set-up like a traditional japanese home, with low ceilings, tatami maps, screens, linens, and pottery that would have been used in the past. i would soon find out why they thought the cafe was such a quaint novelty that i had to see - takako and kiyoshi have a much more modern life, with all sorts of gagets and conveniences. after the cafe, we walked through the narrow streets of hirkata, stopping at a pottery store, some bakeries, and a boutique where she bought me some japanese slippers made of folded fabric.

as retirees takako (pictured) says "everyday is sunday, we don't do anything". on the contrary they seem to fill their time, well. takako, with her kimona club, hippo family club (the language learning club that organizes homestays), and doll making. kiyoshi and i had lunch together (best seafood i've had outside of new orleans and todos santos) in the subway station en route to meeting takako. he told me then that on mondays and wednesdays, he goes to the gym, tuesdays he goes to yoga, and the rest of the time he does chores and plays golf - now how sweet is that. they have three kids, one in malaysia, and have close relationships with korean and american students that lived with them while studying in japan. they have traveled extensively and have things from all over the world in their home, a condo in a highrise with big views of the region.



their modern condo has a shower and tub that requires a phd to figure out. but, my favorite gaget of theirs is an electronic japanese-english dictionary. we visited three museums in nara together, two of which had gardens - this is japan after all. it became a challenge for me to provide the english name for the flower or tree before takako's electronic dictionary could. the first night she served me a salty tea with a cherry blossom in it. i asked why her and kiyoshi weren't having the same, she simply replied "for guests only".

here is takako and i in front of a cherry blossom at the shohaku art museum that was exhibiting the paintings of uemura shoen. shoen perfected a genre of modern japanese painting known as "bijinga", or paintings of beautiful women. she's also the first japanese woman artist to receive the "order of cultural merit". the wisteria was also photographed on the museum grounds.



there are at least five control panels near the door in the family room. i have no idea what all were for, but when it came time for me to bathe before bedtime, i found out that one was the intercom to the bath tub, which also tells you when the tub water is full and what temperature the water is. i'm not going to give a detailed description of the bathroom, i'll just say it's two rooms, spacious, and when i sit upright in the tub, the water comes above my arm pits, and my favorite, the water stays warm. there's a heater in the tub. that's not all that's heated.

the biggest adjustment to being in a new country, or away from home in general, can be adjusting to different bathroom facilities or more specifically their toilets. i can do a lengthy blog posting on international toliets. since mauritius, squat toliets have been the norm, which are just a couple notches above the latrines we dug at escola formigas du futuro when i was working in angola. however, the major advantage of squat toliets are that they have plumbing, including porcelin bowls built into the ground. the difficulty is getting your butt close enough to the ground and the bowl. there are porcelin foot grips, but believe me, they won't prevent you from falling over. there just there so you know where to put your feet.

according to shirley, one of our guides in xi'an, china's reputation for poor toilets was so bad that it was incentive for the folks at the wild goose pagoda to build what she referred to as a ten star toilet, which she showed us upon arrival. given all the toilets i've seen abroad and at home, a simple toilet seat doesn't qualify as a ten star toilet, which is pretty much what she directed us to. i'd rather have a squat toilet (i've pretty much mastered them by now), in a clean facility, a stall that had toilet paper, a hook/tray for ones belongings (squatting with handbags and souvenirs doesn't work), soap, water and a way to dry one's hand at the end of the process.

japan has the holy grail of toilets. the first one i encountered looked so complicated that i chose the simpler squat toilet, because there was less of a learning curve. the main difference between the japanese toilets, other than all the buttons and hardware, is noticed immediately upon sitting down - the seat is very warm. roman letters are a rarity in japan, so the multitude of buttons to push on the armrest of the toilet (actually, it's probably just a control panel, not intended to be an armrest) are totally indecipherable for those of us who don't read japanese. i'd later encounter a similar panel with pictures, but at that moment i was on a ritz carlton toilet with a lot of buttons tempting the hell out me. i pressed one. warm water shot between my legs. there was considerable water pressure. it wasn't unpleasant, but soon thereafter i was ready for it to stop. after all, kiyoshi was waiting for me. i thought, like automatic flushing toilets, it would stop on it's own. it didn't. hummm, how to make it stop? is there a motion detector? lift up a little, see if it stops. nope, didn't work. refer back to control panel - many buttons, many japanese characters - no clue. once i was able to see beyond the buttons and characters, i saw the colors, including red. halleluja! i'm outta here.

the toilet at the ikoma's was similar, except that the control panel was on the wall and it had pictures, in addition to water between ones legs, air was possible. malaysia's toilets are similar in concept, but more rudimentary - they simply provide a water hose that extends from the wall. i didn't want to talk at length about toilets, but it's hard not to given the differences, and the fact that toilets are something you must experience in every country. one can get away with not eating the local food, using the public transportation, or speaking the language, but...

one more quick sexist toilet sidebar. while working for habitat for humanity in new orleans there was one of many outhouses designated for women. the difference was that it had a mirror.

back to the homestay. for those blog readers who are planning to do s@s in the future, if you haven't figured it out from my india and japan postings, in port, homestays are the way to go. they are the best way to see a place. you get your own personal tour guide, great accommodations, transportation, home cooked meals, introduced to great restaurants and more. i was a little nervous, because i figured the family would be expecting a white college student. but, i figured if they're willing to host some random person this way, they must be pretty flexible and openminded. however, someone had put some thought into pairing people up, because the ikoma's and i were a good match, and probably more unusual than the average participant. i don't think one of our s@s wild childs would have enjoyed the ikoma's as much as i. from what i overheard in the dining hall, the many other s@s students who did homestays seem to have had a really good time too. most were assigned to younger families with kids, from toddlers to teenagers. there were probably some nightmares too, but i'm keeping it positive until i hear otherwise.

the first night at the ikoma's, takako pretty much fed me from the time we got home until shortly before bed,including a wonderful traditional osaka dish she prepared. we also looked at maps, family pictures (i wish i had brought some; i did bring them some south african wine), and watched some japanese baseball on tv. the following day, before taking me back to the ship, we visited two fine art museums in the suburbs of nara. we had lunch (tempura and soba noodles) at a restaurant before heading to the big regional attraction, the todai-ji temple (8th century; pictured), where the great buddha vairocana - the biggest buddha you'll ever see - with thousands of other tourists, including a s@s bus load. they were going back to the ship on a bus with 40 others and i would ride back with the ikoma's in their mercedes.

my second great adventure/discovery in japan was another day where i had no plans. i slept in read and planned to hit the streets around noon. luck would have it that by the time i was ready to leave the ship, judyie (theater prof.) and mary (religious studies prof.) had plans to walk across the bridge to the park. outside the ship, to the left was a bridge that appeared to lead to an industrial area. to the right was the portliner subway to the kobe city center and transportation to all other parts of japan. most of us had gotten use to getting off the ship and hopping on the subway. An unchartered area without the subway, endless shops, neon and the masses was looking pretty appealing on a very pleasant spring day in japan, our last. the area across the bridge turned out to be the antithesis of the city - two parks connected by a singular walkway - one with smooth giant rocks to climb and warm one's body on, and a peace park with peace memorials from cities around the world.

the whole way was lined with public gardens (mostly un-japanese like cottage gardeny beds of flowers. there also was a green cafe surrounded by a wooded area, a flea market, an eco store promoting recycling by selling second hand stuff, basically it was just a thrift store - the most orderly, and cleanest, i've ever seen. this day was the beginning of the golden days holiday period so families were out playing, picnicing and barbecuing in the park. as we were strolling in the area, what ultimately drew us to the peace park at the end of the trail was drumming, very african like drumming. there were drums, other percussion instruments, and three girls, one in the shortest shorts i've ever seen and platform shoes, another in similar attire with stilettos. they could have been flygirls in a musicvideo. it was very reminiscent of brazil - tits, ass and lots of percussions. they didn't have much in terms of t&a, but what they did have they were shaking it seriously. i would love to know the history of this area. most (last photo is an exception) of the space was so unjapanese like in it's seemingly improvised and unmanicured nature, with an emphasis on peace, and the environment.

beijing and xi'an

14 sites in 4 days, including 8 history museums (2 had multiple buildings) in two days. i'm not the type of traveler that needs to see everything a place has to offer (not possible in any chinese city i'm sure, but the tour agencies cram as much in as possible). i can be content seeing a couple of key attractions and stumbling around discovering things on my own and meeting people. this is not the chinese way. chinese tourism is an art form in and of itself. i've spent most of my life on the california coast, where people come from all over the world to drive highway one. seeing bus loads of asian tourists on california highways and in cities like san francisco and la is common. busloads doesn't begin to explain the volume of mostly asian tourists in beijing and xi'an. the orchestration of it all is mind boggling. everywhere we went there were buses loading and unloading tourists, tour guides carrying company flags (we only had a white flyer enclosed in plastic which ming, our guide, raised over his head for us to follow) to keep their herds together. herds were also identifiable by the baseball caps, t-shirts, or badges the tour agency distributed so that the tour guides can identify their group members from a distance, just in case one should stray. s@s lost one at summer palace (she ran into another s@s group and made it back to the ship). some had bull horns (we didn't) so that you can actually hear what they were saying (the history and significance of the place, how long you had to stay there, where the toliets were, when the bus was leaving etc.) amongst the many chattering guides and tourists. you can sum up the whole process in a mastercard commercial:

the great wall of china. tinanamen square. the forbidden city. tour guide. three meals a day. flag and bullhorn, priceless.

the enormity of the production at most every site we visited (the forest of stone tablets was an exception) was mesmerizing and tiring, but no matter how weary one became, one was continuously awestruck by the grandeur of chinese history - the dynasties; the emperors - their lives, their deaths, their palaces; and the pottery, costumes, and philosophies of long ago. while we saw what seems like a lot of museums and sites, beijing and xi'an, the cites we visited, have many many more. believe me there is no shortage of history museums in china. there's something very wonderous about visiting such an old civilization and being able to stand before, and in some cases, touch objects from such a distance past. i felt quite privileged. it saddens me to think of the ancient artifacts lost in iraq, because the myopic and culturally insensitive u.s. government didn't have the intellectual capacity to think of protecting them during the fall of baghdad. it angers me that myself and others will not be able to see those lost artifacts of "our" civilization.

we arrived in beijing at 1600, then checked into the jianguo garden hotel in the tiananmen square-forbidden city area. you can probably fit two of my houses in the hotel lobby. beijing didn't seem as croweded as you might think, given the size of the population. chennai, india felt much more populated. all the asian cities seem to have had major traffic problems, and i'm not talking about how they drive, just good old fashion congestion. rush hour in beijing is from 7-10 in the morning and 17-2000 at night. however, when i went out at 2130 one night it sure seemed like rush hour to me.

i'm not going to bore you with a play by play of our generally 5 day, 12 hour day itinerary, but below is a list of the places we visited in beijing and xi'an. after two days in beijing we flew to xi'an, then back to qindao, where the ship moved to while we were traveling.

DAY ONE IN BEIJING:


the great wall of china. i climbed the 2000 odd stairs to the top. some of the steps are at least a foot high. it wasn't a long distance, but it was quite the incline, and they were steps. i didn't think i'd make it, but the old people coming down, not even breathing heavy, shamed me into going the distance. in case my heart stopped, i tried to stay close to dr. matt.

summer palace, an expansive spread, where an emperor and his daughters lived.







DAY TWO IN BEIJING:

tiananamen square:





forbidden city:





temple of heaven (no photo)

DAY ONE IN XI'AN (the oldest city in china, and where the silk road began):

big wild goose pagoda:



shaanxi provincial museum (no photo)

terra cotta warriors museum:



DAY TWO IN XI'AN (my camera battery died, but the highlights included):

--calligraphy lesson (much fun)
--forest of stone tablets, china's great books (this capped off a very nice literary morning)
--bell tower and the peoples square (opted out for reading under a tree in the square)
--yang tombs of the han dynasty, comprised of two museum buildings driving distance apart

in between all this siteseeing was three heavy chinese meals a day; above average temps, so no respite from the heat (some repieve from the humidity), a thick hazy air pollution that had me coughing and my eyes watering again; and endless kitschy shopping opportunities. between the hello hawkers and the the souvenir shops at every turn - even as one ascends the great wall, where each tower is accompanied by vendors. the chinese have seriously embraced capitalism. i guess it's a good thing, because who would the u.s. be able to borrow so much money from.

the 2008 olympics will be in beijing. much construction was going on everywhere, and the hello hawkers were selling all sorts of memorialbilia already. we passed by the "birdsnest" the stadium for the opening ceremony. i've never been to an olympics before so i'm sure there is an orderly way to host the world community, but considering the masses of tourists i saw at places like tinananemen square and the forbidden city, the only way i can imagine there being enough room in beijing is if the chinese stay home.

navigating china is no joke either. although i whine about the hop on hop off tours, i can't imagine trying to navigate beijing or xi'an without being able to speak or read mandarin. for monolinguals planning to visit, i recommend staying at a luxury hotel with a good concierge. tell the concierge where you want to go; he or she will write the address on a hotel business card for you to give to the taxi driver. the card is prepared just for this reason. on the back of the card it says in english and mandarin "please drive me to". the concierge fills in the address.

my only opportunity to do some exploring on my own was our first night in beijing, where dinner and the rest of the evening was at our leisure. most of the group decided to attend an acrobatics show. i'm not much of a group person and there's only a handful of people i know i enjoy traveling with, mostly because they're all comfortable walking alot and hanging together or apart when necessary. more importantly, they will always make time to read. well, i had found three live jazz venues in the lonely planet (lp) guide. two of them looked worthwhile. one even served cajun food, along with live new orleans jazz, the blues, and r&b. the concierge called them for me (i had photocopies of the the lp pages), to make sure they were open, still at the cited location, and had live music that night. the only cheap thing (good thing there are few fixed prices)in beijing, other than the hello hawkers' souvenirs is cab fare. on hello hawkers: you can get much for one dollar from these new capitalists. right now, their english is limited to "hello" and "one dollar".

after having indian food at the hotel i was off to the "cd jazz cafe". the crosstown fare was only $3 (21 yuan). i paid $5 (35 yuan) for a capucinno. the club was small and could have been in greenwich village. photos of jazz greats and celebrity visitors covered the walls. on stage, a quintet of young asian musicians played all sorts of jazz classics. gwyne, a young chinese vocalists, sat in on a few numbers. this little lady had much soul and was delightful to listen to. when i got there i was homesick. when i left i wanted to stay in beijing longer. in part because i found a "time out beijing" in english, with page after page of music, theater, art and literature listings, and articles about contemporary beijing intellectuals and issues of interest to them. in contrat, everything on our intinerary was at least 1000 years old. the sites we'd visit in xi'an were from 2000-3000 years ago.

i had a few gin and tonics, chatted with gwyn, bought a few cds, and got a cab back to the jianjuo garden hotel around one am. the next day i was back with the group for a full day of hop on hop off tourism, which would cumulate in a two hour flight to xi'an. from xi'an we would fly to qingdao, where the ship traveled to while we were galavanting around china.

the highlight of the xi'an trip was, of course, the terra cotta warriors. incredibly, i had never heard of this major historic discovery until this trip. in 1974 a farmer was digging a well and found what turned out to be one of the new seven wonders of the world - 6000 (so far) life size soldiers and horses made of terra cotta clay and arranged in military formation, were constucted in rectangular vaults, with bricks floor and timber supports. emperor qin shi huang had his army recreated in clay and buried near him to watch over his tomb. clearly a type a paranoid personality, with a little ocd thrown in, but not enough for he himself to do the work. nonetheless, it was good planning on his part, because a year after his army for the afterlife was done, emperor qin died.

as remarkable as the army is, the hangar the chinese have built over the excavation site is almost equally so. from above tourists can view what was never intended to be seen, what has been uncovered of the army at the archaelogical site, which is comparable, in size, to a football field.

while china has opened up economically, it remains closed politically. in a "frontline" episode, beijing university students were shown a photo of the tank man incident in tiananamen square and asked if they were familiar with it. none were. they repeatedly asked for context. one asked "is it art?" the one time, shortly after the 1989 event, china showed the tankman showdown, it was presented as an example of army restraint and never shown again.

an interport lecturer and student board the ship in the port prior to the ship's arrival in their country. tung, (hong kong university), the interport student who sailed with us from saigon to hong kong, attended the post-vietnam students of color meeting, where the discussion included criticism of the u.s. educational system with regard to coverage of the vietnam war; the antiwar movement, then and now; the paralles between the vietnam and iraq war; and everyone's favorite, u.s foreign policy, and what right we have to tell other countries what political and economic policies to adopt.

tung was stunned by our openness and expressed how seeing chinese people fight one another, in the "frontline" tankman episode, showed in global studies, made him tear up. i don't know if it was the first time he had seen the tankman footage. he's of the generation that is likely not to have.

on a lighter note, one unforgettable aspect of china is me being man-handled by the chinese for photo opts. either, i'm the only black person many had seen, or i'm the most beautiful person they've ever seen, or they thought i was whoopi goldberg. which, i'll never know, because i speak no mandarin. although i couldn't understand a thing they said, i did get that they were quite amused. the funny part was that some of the people laughing, snaring and snapping photos had the worst perms i've ever seen in my life. they had not only permed their hair, but teased it too. the first time it occurred, i was on top of the great wall of china. a woman grabbed my arm, positioned me next to her, and pointed to her husband to snap the picture. at first i thought she was asking me to take a picture of her, but a split second later, it was clear her intentions were otherwise.

the following day at the forbidden city, the same thing happened repeatedly. even my s@s group was getting tired of it. some even joined the fun and took pictures of me with themselves. since i couldn't take a picture with myself, i had my picture taken with some of my new chinese friends. if you can't beat them join em.

hong kong

the ship docked in hong kong the morning of april 17. this was the first port i didn't get up early to watch our arrival. my group, "hong kong 02", going to beijing, would be the first group off the ship so we had to be packed and ready to go at 8:45, after the diplomatic briefing, which ended up being canceled. it didn't seem important enough, or right to follow our memorial service for the virginia tech students, with a diplomatic briefing.

beforehand, i did however make it to the dining hall for breakfast. when i walked out onto the deck of the sixth floor aft dining hall, the hong kong skyline commanded my attention. whoa, it was close and massive. i've lived in san francisco and new york. they don't even compare. other than the view from the ship, all i would see of hong kong would be from a bus on the way to the airport. i don't know much about architecture or design, but i do know that the office buildings, highrise apartment buildings, and bridges that i saw weren't done by ordinary architects - they were design masterpieces - mouth agape, i was in awe - very cool.

hong kong is considered the commercial and economic center of china, beijing the political and cultural center, and xi'an the historical center.

tourism and life on the mekong delta

my second day in vietnam i went on an s@s overnight trip to the mekong delta. like i suspected my water craft experience would continue. in addition to riding around on riverboats (ones with less amenities than the ones in brazil), we had to take a ferry to get to cantho, where we would stay overnight.

on the boat we cruised the southern ah binh area and visited a snack food production business, where they made toffee like candy and sweet rice cake snacks (left and below). we saw how they were made by hand. of course they gave us free samples, and provided plenty of time for us to buy as much as we wanted. ill try not and eat all of what i bought so that some of you can try some too. however it's possible trader joes or cost plus sells them too. then there's the tenderloin and chinatown. i'm not trying to diminish my international experiences or their work, but packing and lugging stuff around the world is an unfortunate part of the travel experience.

sweet tangy rice cakes near the end of the packaging process:



candy making by hand:



i can only imagine what these people feel like with boat loads of tourists passing through snapping photos of them all day. we also rode through the residential areas of the river where many of the people who work on the floating markets live and grow their produce (since the 1986 reforms that permitted foreign investment, farmers have been allowed to own their own land). the homes range from meager to what would probably qualify as a mcmansion in these parts.

the nice thing about vietnam, not only are the people so friendly, but there seems to be plenty of food for the citizenry and export. phuc, our guide for this tour, said that the vietnamese people hold no animosity against their aggressors, because throughout history they've been invaded so many times they now see defending themselves as a fact of life - some countries have earthquakes, floods, or tsunamis, vietnam has invaders.

day one we visited a fairly small floating market in the an binh region. the farmers, and others, pay a tiny mooring fee to sell on the river. they live on their boats while they're selling. one piece of tall bamboo towers above most boats. whatever is sold on the boat is tied to the bamboo pole so buyers can see what they're selling from a distance. the homes and businesses that line the river don't look very substantive, but all in the area have cable satellite antennas on their roofs.

antenna skyline:



after spending hours on the river we ferried and bused to our hotel, the saigon cantho hotel in cantho, had a great meal that evening, and i enjoyed a five dollar massage at the hotel by a young woman name phoung, the same as the female protagonist in the quiet american, another piece of classic literature about men behaving badly. that evening we also heard some type of public broadcast over a public address system. the next day we asked phuc, our guide, about it. he said it was "propaganda". it airs certain mornings and evenings. social, economic and political messages are piped into communities over speaker systems installed on street corners, i guess its better than cameras. it's sort of a combination of the old advice manuals and the modern evening news, except that you can't can choose to purchase it or turn it on.

saigon cantho hotel:



larger market, where several rivers meet:



robin enjoying fresh pineapple bought, skinned and carved on the river; sweet doesn't begin to describe it.



got cabbage?



boatmaking along the river:



got lycee juice, pineapple juice, coke, 7up, aquafina? by the time she finished with us, she could have taken the rest of the day off.



still life on the river:



there is so much more i want to see in vietnam - in saigon, in the north (hanoi and cambodia), and the middle (hue). it's a very comforting and welcoming place.

when i left the cafe terrace last night, like when i leave anywhere here, there were motorbikers, ready to wisk me off wherever i wanted to go. "madam, madam", they call. "motobike, motobike?" getting to less visited tourist attractions like the botanic garden and the fine arts museum requires much more consultation and pantomiming to overcome the language barrier. the "war museum" is the museum franca. so when the drivers hear museum they automatically take you to that museum, despite the fact there's others. luckily, i had already been there so when we arrived i knew we had a communication problem.

the only place they know better than the war museum is the ship. so when the driver at the cafe terrace asked "motobike". i said, "you know ship"? "of course, yes madam," and i was flying through the streets of saigon again.

my battery died before i could post what i was working on at the cafe. i was back on the ship so quickly though, i was able to plug in my computer and recover what i thought was lost.

other saigon excursions included, the zoo, which is in the botanic garden, and the water puppet show at the history museum (see photo). i need to find out how they do this without drowning. i'm pretty sure it's partly mechanical.

i got my heat relief that day at an air conditioned war propaganda posters store. i bought several. it took me forever to decide which - some were good for the message, others for the design, and others for the historical aspect.

today, i'm not going to even bother with the heat. i slept in (missed breakfast), read an international herald tribune, and a usa today, and am posting this blog entry. i'll do an early lunch (served 11:30-1:30) on ship, read, shower and pull my self together before heading out around sundown for one more saigon excursion - the post office, which is open until 10pm, like most other stores, and back to the cafe terrace for their hi-speed internet connection and my last decent meal until hong kong.

singapore slinging in saigon

the voyage is winding down. we're at that stage where we start looking back and thinking about the highs and lows. vietnam is definitely a high. and, not just because i'm sitting in the cafe terrace (just a one dollar motorbike away from the ship), drinking a singapore sling (preceded by a cheeseburger, fries and cappuccino cake), and enjoying their hi-speed internet connection. well, that has a little to do with it. but, day one i was captivated by saigon (apparently only the government calls it ho chi minh city).

my first day here i did a s@s trip, where we visited a vietnamese man (name in my notes, not with me) who was an upi (united press international) photographer during the "american war", and the war remnants museum, formerly know as the museum of french and american war crimes. what made the photographer visit interesting was that the photographer and our tour guide, (from a younger generation) had two very different perspectives about the the government. the guide, phoung, translated the photographer's answers to our questions, but later made a point of saying that he was strictly translating not interpreting, and everything the photographer said about the government, civil rights (like free press) issues and what it's done, or hasn't, for the people, were lies. according to the tour guide, "he's just bitter". since according to phoung, the photographer is much better off, financially, than he portrayed himself to be, he must only be bitter for being unjustly imprisoned. similarly, our tour guide on the mekong delta overnight trip, discussed how him and his father viewed the government differently. the father doesn't trust the government, but the son believes that the government has done much for the people.

only 2% of vietnam's 84 million people are actually communist party members. however, i'm sure marx is rolling over in his grave at the thought that they call themselves communists. the country has been open to foreign investment since 1986. health care and education, even grade school, is no longer free, which of course isn't a problem for the folks hanging out here at the cafe terrace, but for the families selling produce in the floating markets on the mekong delta, and other rural areas, it probably is - this is an aspect of globalization that i've seen at every port, the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer (mostly as a result of less government support - jobs, housing, education, etc.), and the gap between them getting larger.

photographer:



ok i got a little side tracked. saigon has this incredible mix of old world charm and modern sophistication. the museums are more old world - climate control isn't a priority, even in the fine art museum, but the old funky building is gorgeous, especially looking out to the inner courtyard, from the inside. the tile and iron work, not to mention the stained and other colored glass, add to the idyllic charm, definitely a holdover from the french.

fine arts museum:



in the tropics, one advantage to going to a museum, should be ac. not here. the modern aspects of vietnam are cool because they are uniquely asian, they don't attempt to import or imitate the west. instead of the garish high end hugo boss, gucci, and louis vutton stores i saw in kuala lumpur (these stores may be here, but they don't dominate the landscape), alongside street vendors, you have these quaint little boutiques selling nice high end asian style clothes and accessories. the key word here is little. i'd have to lose fifty pounds before even considering doing more than window shopping.

i found my own way home from the war remnants museum, passing the palace, where the tanks crashed through the gates on april 30, 1975, the defining moment of "the fall of saigon". i also stopped at the ben thanh(?) market (major censory overload, but bought fresh ground coffee and a one cup filter to make my own coffee on the ship); and passed the legendary rex and continental hotels; and a jazz club - "sax and art". during my wanderings that first day i experienced saigon rush hour. the key word here is rush - what a rush. i thought la was the traffic capitol of the world. not. what makes saigon traffic such a rush, is that there's probably ten times more vehicles on the road than in la, mostly motorbikes, and it's not bumper to bumper, but a flood of traffic rushing around at crazy speeds. i had no idea how to capture it on film, but i found a post card by someone who did.

i haven't taken many pictures of myself, but i would love to have one of me on the back of a motorbike, attempting to make a left hand turn in the middle of an intersection, with traffic coming directly at us with no apparent intention of stopping. there was no traffic signal in sight to know who actually had the right away (i'm sure that the concept doesn't even exist in vietnamese driving vocabulary). the oncoming traffic didn't stop they just went around us. so basically just walk or drive out into oncoming traffic and the traffic will skillfully, actually quite gracefully, maneuver around you. i wasn't quite as graceful, but i learned to be. i'm not sure what it says about me, but i'm sure one of my favorite experiences of the voyage will be crossing the street in vietnam - i eventually relished every opportunity to do so.

my battery is low, and i'm sure it's getting late, so i should head back to the ship. tomorrow i'll try and fill out this saigon post and post something about my mekong delta trip, which will feature the floating markets. the $5 full body massage was a treat too.

this time you can blame all the typos on the singapore slings.

pirates?

at lunch, i discovered we were completely stopped. i asked mazraim, one of the dining hall workers, if we were stopped because there was a traffic jam ahead. boats were still about everywhere, including several tethered to us, one big one port side, three smaller ones, starboard side. of course, the students first thought them to be pirates. these areas, especially around malaysia are notorious for pirates. i heard students set up a pirate watch between india and malaysia, any excuse to sleep on deck at night.

on the bridge tour i learned that our best and only defense against pirates (other than 702 students) was the water hose for putting out fires. students were disappointed that captain jeremy didn't carry a gun. i don't think we have to worry about pirates. however, after shopping our way around the world, we probably have as much in consumer goods as the container ships.

turns out, the boats tethered to us are fuel boats. they hang out refueling vessels on the fly. mazraim said, if he could be on one of those boats, he definitely wouldn't be on ours. apparently, it's a very lucrative operation.

back to civilization

i actually made it up for breakfast this morning. the first time in a while. i ate out on the garden lounge deck, and was struck by how we were no longer the only kids on the block. ships and boats everywhere, even land. some of the container ships are so big they look like land. not surprisingly, this is quite a busy little area - the south china sea, i believe. i'll have to make a point to try and get outside during the day, more than i tend to. i'll also have to buy some new binoculars in vietnam. the first time i took them out, i broke the ones sesheta gave me for xmas. sorry shay shay.

yesterday we did a man over board drill, or i should say captain jeremy did. the drill is basically making the necessary turn to rescue the person overboard. it's happened twice on s@s voyages - once a drunk girl was seating on the rail and fell over. another time a boy decided to traverse down the side of the ship to touch the water. apparently the current is a lot stronger than it looks from above. they were able to rescue him, but he was expelled from the program. i think i mentioned recently how resourceful these students are. this particular one, although expelled from the program, met the ship at each port thereafter. listening to and watching some of these students, some parents probably gladly paid the $17,000 tuition and expenses to get them out of their hair. some families sent multiple kids. one set of twins are my favorite. i'd pay $40,000+ grand to have them out of my hair. just kidding, they're quite fun.

since the beginning of the voyage we've also had a couple of lifeboat drills. we don't actually get on the boats, we just put on cool weather clothes and life vests, and go to our muster areas, where we are suppose to gather and be accounted for. we (except the videographer and photographer) can't take pictures during the drills, but i look quite fashionable in my vest. one student had his cool weather clothes on and snorkeling gear. one of the questions on the bridge tour, was "are there enough lifeboats for everyone". these kids, you gotta love em.

from traveler to tourist

(an alley in penang). shayla, my next door neighbor, and assistant to the dean, asked me today where we were last. earlier, i had wondered the same. clearly we’re wearing down. all the ports are starting to blur together. while in malaysia, i spent a day in penang and two nights and one full day in kuala lumpur. the difference from india was huge. well, that’s a useless statement. most places are different from india. aspects of malaysia are very modern and very western – the roads (better than ours), the stores (all the food chains everywhere; many of the same non-food products), the language (most speak english, although it’s not an official language); and their own little silicone valley. they differ from the u.s. most in that they have a thriving manufacturing economy – palm oil, rubber, electronics, and only 3% unemployment.

for the first time in my life, i participated in a bus tour – you know one of those hop on, hop off sightseeing tours. both were semester at sea field trips, one a “city orientation” in penang the day we arrived, and the other a kuala lumpur (kl) trip. after fumbling around cities on my own, albeit happily, i thought i was ready to just get on a bus and be escorted around. not. these buses are what distinguish the travelers from the tourists. mostly, i saw a lot of chinese tourists, and school children on field trips. in addition to limiting opportunities to truly discover stuff and meet local people, the experience is mind numbing. the only perk is air conditioning, but i still prefer the natural ac of indian rickshaw rides.

to make matters worse, i didn’t realize until hours before docking in penang that i was assigned to be the trip leader for the kl trip. this meant i had to keep track of and supervise large numbers of students, students who would be spending two nights in a kl hotel room. college students and hotel rooms aren’t a good mix, especially in a country where some drug offences carry the death penalty. ok, no i didn’t expect this type of problem, but a call from the front desk in the middle of the night wasn’t out of the question. didn't happen either, but our tour guide did say that students were dancing and singing in the hotel lobby in the middle of the night. i got out of being trip leader, by agreeing to be a bus leader, thinking it might be less responsibility. not. when there are three buses of kids, 120 total, at two different hotels, a group at your hotel and another at the official trip leader's hotel, essentially there is no difference between a trip and bus leader? the biggest drawback to either position, is that you can’t opt out of any of the itinerary, unlike the students. they’re not totally foolish, except for the fact they spend all their time shopping for clothes and accessories that they can get at home from the same retailers. the exchange rate is only $3.44 rm to a dollar, so it’s not like they’re saving that much money, especially when many will be shipping purchases back home from honolulu or san diego. however, for many disposable income is their middle name.

many not only opted out of parts of the itinerary, but some flew back to penang or other points, instead of coming back to the ship with the group on the bus. they are resourceful, i’ll give them that. whatever they want, they tend to find it and get it.

well after hopping on and off a bus for three days, i was ready for a day in kl to myself, which of course wasn’t part of the itinerary. 20-45 minutes at museums, pagodas, temples, monuments, palaces, gardens and some drive by architectural viewings was most of what i did in malaysia. oh and of course, reminding students not to talk over the tour guide, to be on time, and keeping track of who had decided to leave the group and do their own thing. i was envious. oh, and i use to like chinese food. i know billions of chinese eat it everyday, but i need some variety, especially in kl, where i saw every type of ethnic restaurant imaginable. i suppose only the chinese, known for their huge banquets, can easily accommodate 120 guests at once.

the one evening we did have to ourselves, we had a great dinner at a malay restaurant one of the hotel workers recommended (he even called the restaurant to make sure we arrived safely). my stuffed squid in a ginger-tumeric sauce, with a fragrant rice, with fruit relishes was perfect. the atmosphere and decor was minimalist chic with a young multiethnic crowd - people from different ethnic groups were seated at each table, and many tables were mixed - very cosmopolitan. the restaurant was in a neighborhood where there were all sorts of bars, restaurants, and cafes that catered to young, hip, locals, rather than the bars and restaurants that cater to young tourists, like our students, who want to get drunk and dance to deafening music in an environment, where the ability to communicate isn't a priority.

when i turned in my bus leader folder (paperwork - how many kids you left and returned with, evaluations, etc.) and first aid kit (another drawback to being bus/trip leader is having to carry around a fanny pack full of drugs and other first aid materials. during one of the numerous orientations at the beginning of the voyage, dr. matt passed on some professional inside information for emergency situations – “bleeding eventually stops.” great stuff huh?), i left a note for the field program office to not assign me to be trip/bus leader for my next tour which will be 5 day trip in china, and require flights from hong kong to beijing, beijing to xi’an, and xi’an to quindao.

with all the bus riding, i did get a lot of reading done, most of foreign babes in beijing, behind the scenes of a new china, which is fun and culturally informative, but not what i'd call great writing.

in kl i bought a device to easily upload my pictures with. other great finds in kl were ricola cough drops, to comfort me from an allergy cough that has been an ongoing problem; hagen daaz; and dare i say it, starbucks coffee, my first decent, non-expresso cup of coffee since cape town.

penang architecture:



registrar, dia draper, at the butterfly farm in penang:



butterflies eating pineapple:



students at a kl war memorial:



kl twin towers from the viewing deck of the 4th largest telecommunications tower in the world:



worker on palace lawn in kl:



next stop vietnam.

"all they understand is money"

since leaving india i've had all sorts of problems trying to complete my india posting. much of what follows was composed in the three days between india and malaysia (we’re leaving malaysia in 5 hours). thus, the narrative will be a bit fragmented. in part because of the technical problems, and in part because india is intense and there’s a lot to process. even those students whose main goal at every port is to drink themselves into oblivion had to find something else to do and think about in india. if they stayed in and around chennai, a bar, hotel or anything remotely touristy or western was not available. instead, heat and humidity, beggers and hawkers, trash and soot had to be dealt with before one could enjoy the people, food, spirituality, land, and culture, in general. some were better at it than others.

"all they understand is money" are the words of the child of an indian sex worker in calcutta's red light district. one of the great things about shipboard life is that films loop between 8pm and 8am everyday on the closed circuit tv channels that are piped into our cabins. it's like a floating international film festival. the stations and films shown are categorized as edu-tainment, entertainment, and family. there's a lot of crossover between edu-tainment and entertainment. in addition to documentaries, pbs series, and international (from or about the countries we visit) and or indie films may show on the edu-tainment, whereas most of the entertainment are mainstream feature films (i.e., memoirs of a geisha, the perfect storm, the committments, bend it like beckham). i've watched many films that i've missed in the theater, including "born into brothels", which i couldn't bring myself to see, for all the obvious reasons. "all they understand is money" comes from "born into brothels", which i thought was about children sex workers, but is not. it's still not uplifiting, by any means, but i was very impressed at how the children theorized their lives. of course, the depressing part is that these precocious and talented children are also so very deprived.

students of color, myself and other faculty and staff allies meet after each port for dinner and to debrief about our experiences in port. the india debriefing started off with many humorous stories about rickshaw ride/driver experiences. haggling the cost of a rickshaw ride and one's destination (you wouldn't think this would be negotiable) is part sport and part public theater in india. the drama is fun early in the day, in route to one's destination, but at the end of an exhausting day you just want to get back to where youre going, not their cousin’s, or anyone else's, craft shop.

towards the end of the meeting the students had me in tears as they eloquently articulated how india impacted them in ways they never experienced before - how it felt to not be recognized as american or have that questioned; and how it felt to have one's normal insecurities disppear - in india, surrounded by so many who have so little, insecurities seemed irrelevant. many of the students of color not only have to deal with their identities in port, but on the ship as well. how they relate to the white community, some of who they can identify with and some which they can't. they also struggle with their place with other students of color who they may or may not relate to as well - the age old questions of who am i and how do i bridge these multiple identities. it made me recall similar struggles of my own at that age. as i sought answers from my own past, i realized it's not that i resolved them, at some point i just became comfortable with them and the contradictions.

i'm really glad i decided to be a trip leader for the nargercoil trip. myself and the four students had a great time with our host family, eating like indian royalty, and visiting various industries and cultural sites in the area. the afternoon we arrived in chennai we took a motorcoach the short distance to the train station where we met prof. prem kala (teaches english at the local university, and a native of nargercoil) and her niece mahisa (a japanese translator; pictured w/students), who was coming along for the fun of it. prem kala was our local guide who would accompany us on our homestay and village-farm-plantation visits. we traveled to nargercoil on an overnight sleeper train.

the train left chennai at 5:30 pm and arrived in nargercoil at 6:05 am. the train was comfortable enough but i didn't sleep much because i was excited about the trip and was in a compartment with three strangers who came and went at different times during the night. also, at certain stops the attendant would knock on the door when trying to find the appropriate compartment for a passenger. on the way back i had a compartment to myself. i slept through the night. in part, because i was exhausted from trying to keep up with these young students who seem to be able to go 24/7 and need to experience everything. funny how they can go all day and night and anxiously agree to get up at 6am for more sightseeing, but can't get to global studies class at 9:20am in the morning.

our host family, the kumaraswami's, had a teenage son at home and a son at the university in chennai. they've traveled all over the world. their first stay in the u.s. was in santa barbara - small world, no? latha, mrs. kumaraswani, met us at the train station in the air-conditioned coach that would carry us everywhere the three days we were there. after arriving at her home we cleaned up and had breakfast, the first of many incredible home cooked meals we'd eat with our fingers and occasionally on banana leaves. latha never gave us a chance to get hungry before we were fed again. the motorcoach we were transported in was also stocked full of snacks and beverages. i can't tell you everything we eat, because every meal was different, and unlike indian food in the u.s. we talked much about food, and any time we mentioned a certain type of food, it would be served at the next meal. while driving down the road, we passed a herd of goats. recalling the many west indian goat rotis i had in brooklyn, i asked latha if they eat goat. the next meal we had goat. after our discussion of crunchy and sweet plantains in puerto rico, fried bananas were served at our next meal. latha had quite a staff, men and women who prepared our meals, men who served us our meals, a woman who cared for her mother-in-law, and men who maintained their yard, animals, garden and greenhouse.

we didn't realize exactly how wealthy the family was until we visited the rubber plantation, and thread factory. her husband was there to greet us at the rubber plantation and show us how the operation worked. it wasn't until the end of the tour that we realized that they actually owned the plantation. midway through the tour of the thread factory we asked if they owned that too. they did. we stopped asking. we each brought gifts for the family, which seemed small and trivial given their status. before we left, latha, had given us each a book and nice hand carved incense burners, as if she hadn't done enough for us already. i can't remember how many acres the rubber plantation was but it was large and picturesque. under the rubber trees were also bee hives, which produced honey for them as well.

at their thread factory, we saw the entire production process from the raw material (cotton) to thread. the factory operates 24/7.

we also saw how certain traditional products, coir mats (think pottery barn jute rugs and door mats) and pottery were made by hand, without any type of automation. because like products are being produced by machines at a much lower cost than the handmade ones, these industries and traditional ways of doing things are in jeopardy of being lost forever. the government is subsidizing what's left of the tradition to protect it. the kumaraswami's don't own these industries, but the easy access they have, and the respect granted them, was further evidence of their status and influence in the community.

at the coir factory and the pottery factory, we saw the whole process from raw material to shipping (see photo of pottery shipment). these cooperatives and communities have been doing this work for generations. it was really incredible. it's so cool to see how things are made. in 1992, when i was living and working in angola, africa we also visited factories to see how everyday things, like garden hoses, were made. i remember thinking that such field trips should be part of the curriculum in u.s. schools, but then i wondered if the u.s. actually makes anything anymore. our role in domestic and global economies seems to be that of consumer. the cultural and environmental implications of this are frightening.

nagercoil is near the southern most tip of india, where three bodies of water meet, the arabian sea, the bay of bengal and the indian ocean. kanyakamauri is the focal point of this very popular indian tourist area. latha took us there to see "the rock", where the vivekananda memorial is. the rock is an island about 400 meters off shore, and only accessible by ferry. on this trip i feel like i've been on every type of water transport possible - ship, riverboat, ferry, water taxi - and with the mekong delta ahead, i don't think i've seen the end of it. swami vivekananda meditated on the rock in 1892 before before becoming one of india's most popular crusaders. he has an institute in the la area, and toured the u.s. in the late 1800s. the memorial, the mandapam, was built on the rock in the 1970s. the views from the island are peaceful and serene, despite the many hindu pilgrims who flock here. we were the only westerners. actually, in chennai, nagercoil, and kanyakamari, there was no sign of tourism at all - no hotels, no tour operators, no westerners.

latha, prem kala, and i on the rock, resting in the shade.

latha also took us inside a 3000 year old temple, with all of the hindu gods carved into the outside . the temple was created over the reign of three gods. i felt somewhat uncomfortable and out of place, but latha really wanted to share it with us. we bought offerings for the god that was being honored that day, and visited three others. worshiping all could have taken hours. latha called it the short cut version. ghandi's shrine is also in this area too. although the attendants at the temple didn't given any indication that non-practicing foreigners weren't allowed, i don't think we would have been permitted in if latha wasn't with us. with latha, mahisa and prem kala by our side, the attendants guided us around and explained the significance and history to us. although it was hard to understand sometimes, they were very patient and gracious.

latha's family also owns and operates a school we visited. instruction is in english. we spent time at the school interacting with the students, who were finishing up there end of the year exams. the students' native language is tamil, the language of this part of india (tamil nadu). in chennai, hindi is the lingua franca. there are 22 official indian languages.

despite the busy streets, filled with every type of motor and peddle transport one can imagine, as well as every type of commerce imaginable, nargercoil is a rural community. unlike chennai, where one is hard pressed to find any open space, trees, or agricultural production.

after returning from nargercoil, i had two days to spend in chennai. the first day i spent shopping with students. the exchange rate is around 43 rupees to the dollar, which makes things ridicuously cheap for us. restaurant meals average about 150 rupees, and clothes in stores 150-300 rupees. i didn't buy as much as i thought i might. it's just so overwelming, there's so much to choose from. in chennai, more than shopping, i mostly enjoyed riding around on the motorized rickshaws. if you like carnival rides, you'll like rickshaw rides. you can cover a lot of ground in these zippy little things. their openness makes for nice natural air conditioning. riding a rickshaw is about the only time you'll feel the air move. it's stifling hot and humid, and the soot from all the motor bikes makes for a pretty grimmy experience. the pool deck was closed while we were docked in chennai. students were disappointed, but by the end of our stay it was clear why. there was a thick layer of soot over all the outdoor decks. for the first time there was actually visible dirt for the housekeeping crew to clean. normally, they seem to be cleaning and polishing what already seems to be clean.

i love this photo of prem kala and latha, taken on the ferry to the rock. i don't know how indian women manage to stay so clean and fresh in their beautiful saris, but they do. while in india, i don't think i've ever sweat so much in my life, especially when i returned to the ship right after two bus loads of students returned from agra (there were field trips to the taj mahal and other places in the north). after walking back from the post office in the heat, i had to wait in line behind all these students with luggage that needed to be checked for contraband (booze, food not sealed in it's original packaging, hookahs, etc.) before boarding the ship.

the second day in chennai, i went on an s@s field trip to the working women's forum, a self identified indian feminist cooperative, that has a microlending and education program for women entrepreneurs. the president, dr. jaya arunachalam, organized a nice program for us, where we were told about how they promote self-relaince for indian women. we were also allowed to visit the bank where the women leaders, those who managed an eight women cohort of borrowers, were repaying loans.

indian women were fascinated by me, especially my hair. although i'm clearly a part of a group of white americans, they never believe that i'm from the u.s. the population in southern india is quite dark, so while i'm fairly dark, especially with all the recent sun exposure (as one student put it, i'm sun drunk), i'm lighter skinned than many of them. yesterday while shopping in a traditional indian store, a little girl and her mother came up to me because her adorable little daughter wanted to talk to me, the strange lady fumbling her way through the three step checkout process at the store (shop and get your selections written up at the different counters; take invoices to the window to pay for merchandise [1215 rupees; visa accepted]; then to another window to pick up your merchandise, which were brought there from the different counters you selected them).

i've never been to asia before, so i've been looking forward to this part of the voyage most. so far it hasn't been a disappointment at all. i feel farther away than i have elsewhere. although in one mall in chennai, there was a subway and pizza hut, i haven't seen a starbucks since puerto rico. i'm sure mcdonalds is somewhere in india, although because cows are sacred in india, maybe not.

there are three days in between india and malaysia, barely enough time to get one's laundry done and pack again. in malaysia, i'll be traveling to kuala lumpur, but right now we're on the move again, and there is nothing but big sky and wide open seas that continues to mesmerize me.

for those of you following my reading habits, you'll notice that i've diverged from my planned reading list. i came across reef by romesh gunesekera, an award winning sri lankan writer, in the shipboard library and decided to read it while in india. today is a no class day. the library is only open 1200-2300, and i'm only working 3-4 hours. i hope to have time to start foreign babes in beijing. i've picked up a couple other books along the way that i hope to read, so you may see those as current readings too. reef is a short book, so it was read before i got a chance to update the blog. it was sort of ironic that i read it while being constantly waited on at the kumaraswamis. it is the story of trinton, the servant of mister salgado, who meets and falls in love with nili, who moves into the household. the story is told from trinton's perspective, and focuses on their lives together and his development, and ultimate independence, after many years of service. i'd never heard of the author, but it was a good find.