Month: November 2014

  • Zanzibar!

    Have you ever written a sonnet?*

    A sonnet’s beauty and difficulty both lie in the restraints placed around its form. Fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, and a rhyme scheme of a-b-a-b;c-d-c-d;e-f-e-f;g-g, the sonnet is no quick jaunt on a summer day. It is hard work to fit depth of thought and poetic sentiment within its narrow frame. But when it works, it’s magic: the sonnet emerges as just reward for the poet’s pains.

    This trip I have just begun (arriving in Paris on November 17th, and checking in now from Barcelona) is a bit like writing a sonnet.

    Why?

    Have I mentioned that I am traveling with my partner? And have I mentioned that said partner is traveling on a Ghanaian passport– a document that grants today’s international traveler few privileges?

    Well, I am, and he is.

    We arrived in Europe knowing that we would have to leave within 30 days– the length of his visa. Yesterday, we returned from the Moroccan Consulate in Barcelona giddy with disbelief. We would not continue on to Morocco by ferry as we had expected.

    Why?

    Because one week prior the Consulate had received instruction to grant Moroccan visas only to residents of the Barcelona area. We would have to return to the U.S. or Ghana now to apply.

    And so we are back to square one. The fourteen lines, iambic pentameter and strict rhyme scheme of travel sonnets and bureaucratic poetry close in ever tighter.

    The following two maps represent our respective “green zones” for international travel. Green and yellow mean we can obtain visas on arrival or do not need them. Gray typically entails a lengthy visa application process, and often the necessity of returning to the U.S. to undertake it.

    Were you to lay one map on top of the other, the world would be mostly gray.

    Add to that the places we do not wish to travel, for various safety concerns, and the gray spreads farther still.

    Yet even as borders tighten and possibilities shrink before my eyes, I feel an odd sense of freedom then, faced by our obstacles. When our plans shatter and we are forced to return with all haste to the drawing board, we have to opportunity to create a sonnet of exceptional spontaneity.

    Where will we go now?

    To Zanzibar! (You may have guessed it.) City of rare consonants that beckons my imagination to wander. To East Africa. Nairobi, Kenya first, in fact– though its lack of Z’s renders it a less tempting contender for title line– then on to Botswana and Tanzania and maybe South Africa.

    I hope the sonnet that emerges is worth all the trouble.

    ~

    *[The credit for this analogy goes to a friend– he managed to express perfectly the nature of this trip.]

  • What is Cultural Immersion? I Don’t Think It’s This…

    “When I’m in a new place, I don’t want to go to the tourist places; I don’t want to go to museums. I want to see real things.”
    Thus began my tour of Nanxun, a water village 1.5 hours outside Shanghai. Our guide, Stacy, began her introduction loudly, Midwestern inflection un-dampened by seven years in China.
    Here we go, I thought. I would not be sleeping as I had hoped, for all 18 participants would be introducing themselves next. I’m not sure I had ever been on a real group tour like this before, but that weekend I had the distinct pleasure two days in a row.
    Will I do it again? Quite unlikely. Am I glad I went, if only for the wealth of new writing material to come of it? Oh yes.
    As our bus hiccupped out of Shanghai, the platitudes rolled on. Introducing her partner, Mike, Stacy continued, “Of course, because Mike is Chinese, he’s good with numbers and dates and things.” 
    Chinese towns, people and art, on this tour, were only authentic if over 80 years old.
    Those who know me are aware of my crusade against terms like “real” and “authentic.” Last year, after months around tourists bemoaning the loss of “real” Tibetan-Nepali-Indian-etc culture, criticizing restaurants, cafes and people who were not “authentic” and congratulating those who were, I lost my taste for such judgments. After reading a large amount of literature on these discourses, I am convinced that “is it real?” “is it traditional?” and “is it authentic?” are the wrong questions to ask.
    Our first stop in Nanxun, naturally, was for toilets. We pulled up outside a large, nondescript hotel where around 40 staff reluctantly moved through their “morning exercises”—something resembling the bastard son of the Macarena and the electric slide. They looked especially mortified to have an American, camera-laden audience, and I couldn’t find the spirit to take any pictures. After all, we all know the miserable feeling of dragging through forced routines.
    Indeed, much of the day felt disturbingly reminiscent of an elementary school field trip I and my two aunts didn’t want to be on. We were the disruptive kids at the back of the bus.

    As we marched single file through the house of a certain Mr. Wang (a retired blacksmith well over 80 years) to see his traditional Chinese oven, all I could think was, “What is the point of this?” 
    I, like Stacy, enjoy seeing into people’s lives and homes. I tend to be nosy and curious and have few boundaries when I travel. I have participated in many home-stays and exchanges. But I hope I would never be so entitled as to walk into a stranger’s home, practically without conversation, take a few pictures, and leave.
    What did we all learn that day in Mr. Weng’s home? I, for one, have no idea.
    Stacy has branded her tours as off-the-beaten-track cultural immersion experiences. Certainly, I saw parts of Nanxun and Shanghai that I may not have stumbled on alone, but is it even possible to immerse ourselves in another culture in any meaningful way in just 8 hours? 
    I wonder.
    We spent a hefty chunk of the afternoon in a retirement home with three charming Chinese women. Why? Because, “these old folks have so much wisdom to share.” Our interview, however, proved far too short to extract much of any depth. And though I did learn that I should not dry my face immediately after washing it and that “There is more food now” than in the Mao years, that was about it.
    One spry and flexible 90-something retiree led us through her morning Qi Gong routine. Later, I had the dubious honor of hearing “Jingle Bells” played on traditional Chinese instruments. Still, each stop on our itinerary, our “conversations” with local people, and our glossy overviews of entire schools of religious thought struck me as more shallow than anything else.

    Museums and retirees are equally “real.” Back alleys are not intrinsically superior to touristy main ways. Cultural immersion does not emerge automatically with the right combination of orchestrated meetings and exposure to dirt. Cultural immersion does not literally mean walking in and out of a local person’s kitchen. It is far more elusive. It requires more depth.

    That is not to say we should give up hope of having meaningful, culturally immersive experiences when we are short on time. 
    But let’s not place the things we see into two categories: real and unreal.
    When we have the opportunity to engage with another culture, let’s really engage. Ask questions. Look and see and taste and listen.
    Let’s decide for ourselves what is real.
    What is cultural immersion? That is a big question to answer, and maybe later I will try to go into it (though I’m not sure I have a satisfactory answer to give), but I am fairly certain it is not this.
    ~

  • Airports

    In the last three weeks, I have spent approximately 35 hours in airports. Just in airports. I stayed the night in JFK, had a 10-hour layover in Newark, and passed in and out of the truly lovely Burlington International Airport at least 4 times. In my time here, I’ve noticed a few things.
    Airports are strange. They are a bit like the purgatory of travel—the holding area you must pass through before moving on to better things (or worse, depending on where you’re heading). And this limbo-land of modern-day crossings offers every temptation your heart might desire: free WiFi (with the notable exception of JFK), cuisine from every part of the globe that never quite satisfies, an orgy of coffee and a baffling number of retail options.
    Like purgatory, airports play host to every kind of person, too. Uniformed escorts wheeling old ladies with too much perfume to and fro. Business men in suits. Children visiting relatives, signs that read “unaccompanied minor” (or something to that effect) draped around their necks. Students carrying tattered backpacks. The mysterious person who left an empty handle of cherry-flavored vodka lying on the bathroom floor at the airport in Detroit. Somebody had a very drunk, cherry-scented neighbor on their flight Monday.
    These vague, loosely defined souls crowd onto escalators and through security lines, into cafes and along moving walkways, each with their own, individual mission to arrive. They rarely seem to notice one another.
    Babies are the notable exception to this rule. They will stare at you forever if no one stops them.
    In the first class lounge (which I talked my way into in Newark), the light is softer, the announcements muted, and the cushions thicker. (Oh yes, and the food is free.) But you can make yourself comfortable elsewhere if you only find the right nook, the right corner in which to nest. I have found, too, that it is worthwhile to buy a drink or a sandwich at a sit-down restaurant just to have someplace to sit.
    There is a 24/7 diner in JFK where the waitresses don’t mind if you lie down and sleep at night.
    In Detroit, there is a really interesting fountain that can easily kill 10 minutes if you are early—I have been sitting here gazing at it for at least that long now. I have yet to find the pattern the jets of water follow.
    I have noticed that most people are happy to chat if you engage them, like the Australian girls I met in Newark, or the guy working at the Skinny Pancake in Burlington. Others are perhaps too happy to chat, like the people trying to buy drinks for the Australian girls in Newark, whom I obdurately ignored. Still others will surprise you by how much they don’t want to talk, like the woman I smiled at in line last week who abruptly turned away in response.
    Airports exist at a strange midpoint between private and public space. Most people seem to carry a small bubble of impermeable air with them as they travel through. I know I certainly do. And yet our meals, our naps, our personal conversations and our arguments take place in shared, public space. The airport paradox.

    It is always too cold, or too loud, or too hard or too rushed. Airports are anything but comfortable and warm. And yet, I kind of like them. They are the limbo-land of my crossings to the next place, my next destination, and for that alone, they are bearable.
    And then there is this awesome tunnel at DTW (Detroit):
    https://www.flickr.com/photos/nirak/1314140482/?rb=1

    ~

  • Shanghai Snippets

    In Shanghai, everything is new. Or it wants to be new. Or it will be new just as soon as the old is knocked down and rebuilt. Retirees participate in state-sponsored activities in the park: old men manipulate Chinese yo-yo’s with surprising prowess, women join enthusiastically in chaotic dance fitness classes, and a single lane fills with the discordant cacophony of 20 different sound systems. I like it. More than I had expected. I take a stupid number of pictures of funny signs and storefronts, animal parts that no one wants to see, and gates and doors. My aunts take charge of photographing the family, and other things people will want to look at. Nonetheless, I want to share a few of those photos I took. These are the snippets and bits that caught my eye. I hope you will enjoy…
    Dancing in the park with maracas, what else?

    Fish heads– for sale or to discard? I’m not certain.

    Fresh pomegranate juice just outside the metro station.

    The Bund at night.

    Street food (pre cooking). For all of the street food fun, check out
    http://twohungryvagabonds.com/2014/10/25/cheap-eats-in-shanghai/

    “Open Lock. Make Key. Fix Lock.”
    An apt description of services offered.

    “Alley Curd,” purveyor of (the apparently
    very trendy) juice served in IV drips.
    Gates and doors.
     ~