eventually... In the meantime, it is a beautiful fall day and I am
off to help move firewood...
Oct 25, 2009
Back in Kodiak
eventually... In the meantime, it is a beautiful fall day and I am
off to help move firewood...
Oct 9, 2009
There and back again
Lao Tsu
A welcome home mojito at LAX. Mixed feelings...
China, chimay, far away
I've had that Greg Brown song in my head for days... "so you say you're going away to china, china, chimay, far away". Unlike the song, I know when I am leaving china- waiting now in the airport fo LA - but I have a feeling this is not the last time I will travel in this country.
I've been surrounded this past week by a people in the grip of patriotic furvor- you can see it in their faces as they walk and wave theirini flags, wearing heart stickers with the flag and "60" in gold, as they take photos of each other ad nauseum in Tiananmen square and in front of chairman Mao's portrait. And holy crow, there are a lot of people. I was told that everyone leaves BJ during national holiday week (making it impossible to travel elsewhere in China)- but I think the opposite happened this time. I feel kind of privileged to have been a tourist in the presence of so many local tourists; even though overwhelming, it was a sight to see.
Today I spent the morning walking along the street of calligraphers- not only art displayed, but also the shops where artists come to buy their inks, brushes, and rice paper. I watched a few at work- quiet, modest men, so different from the litany of shopkeepers jabbering "I make-a you a good price". One man reached the end of his scroll and, with an uncharacteristic flourish, stamped his bright red signature at the base.
Today I also fell in love with a teapot. The shopkeeper claimed it was Ming dynasty, around the 16th century, which I find hard to believe- but it certainly stood out (although the shopkeeper was very surprised I noticed it- I had to laugh when she guilelessly complimented that I had very good taste...for a foreigner). It was made of very fine clay, with a very worn grass tether from lid to handle, and large enough for at least 4 cups of tea. A very simple round shape, but perfect and proud- dark earthy color, but it may have had a red glaze at some point. It was impossible to tellthe true color-this was a well loved pot and many, many hands had worn at the surface until it had a dull sheen...really, the thing seemed to glow a bit under the desk lamp- I can't fully describe how special and captivating it seemed. I couldn't handle the1500 dollar asking price though, so had to settle for taking several loving pictures and walking away.
Of course I did spend some money for a fine meal... 3 guesses what I had for lunch... I went to a tiny hole in the wall that is reknowned for it's Peking Duck- the real deal. Tasty, tasty yum.
So long, Beijing, it's been fun!
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Oct 7, 2009
Mini concert
classical? Complex and beautiful...
Oct 6, 2009
Peking Opera
Much less singing (and "cat gut" does come to mind) and much more
elaborate facial expressions, highly choreographed dance, acrobatics,
and sword fights.
Oct 5, 2009
Indulgence
and some of the a la carte gourmet: chefs special scallop and shrimp.
Have to keep up the energy, you know. A few items on the menu I was
not brave enough to try: homemade marinated pig maw, pork skin jelly,
& braised pig trotters with soup. Other interesting dishes with fun
names: spicy duck chin, drunken fish- and a few interesting combos:
braised bullfrog with pepper in pot, lotus root stuffed with glutinous
rice, & braised sea cucumber with deer tendons (anyone in kodiak want
to help me try and recreate this?). Had to waddle around the hutongs
all afternoon to work it off...
Lama temple
a madhouse - I spoke to soon about the end of the holiday...). This
temple has anabsolutely enormous Buddha famous for being carved out of
a single piece of sandlewood...
Oct 4, 2009
Big blue sky: Mongolia II
From a few notes in my sorry excuse for a journal. Late night cafe,
pina colada, Beatles blaring Let It Be, smoke in the air, expat
atmosphere. How does anyone ever go to sleep here???
pina colada, Beatles blaring Let It Be, smoke in the air, expat
atmosphere. How does anyone ever go to sleep here???
- Goat. My last experience was in Kenya, and I swore I was off goat
for life. Just goes to show. The flavor is unmistakeable, and has a
tendency to ooze out of the pores the next day, a goaty odor in a haze
all around...
- Blue. Every ovoo I saw was wound with the blue silk scarves
available at stores outside of Buddhist temples. From a halting
conversation: blue=sky, yellow=god/spirit, white=mother (mother's
milk), red=family, and green=the earth or the ten thousand things (a
little lost in translation). The scarves are usually in packs of 5,
one of each color. I am not sure why, starting with the more
Shamanistic peoples of Baikal, all the way through primarily Tibetan
Buddhist Mongolia, but at every pile of stones (ovoo) or likely
looking tree / other natural landmark, the blue scarves are
predominant. I would also love to find out what about a site makes it
likely for a scarf/stone shrine. In Mongolia, these are everywhere,
but definitely in high places with views or especially lovely natural
features (like the Orkhon waterfall). We stopped at a few on the
drive, and the driver would walk 3 times slowly in a clockwise
direction around the shrine, adding another stone at the end. What is
it about the human tendency to pile rocks? And, in the case of
Mongolia, how is this more shamanistic practice woven into buddhism?
On our last morning in the ger camp, we had an early morning cup of
tea in the host family's ger, which of course is more richly decorated
than the guest gers, with a small shrine, more intricately painted
wood, and - lovely in early morning light through the removable center
roof panel, a single tattered blue scarf draped from the tiny bit of
sky entering the ger to one of the center supports.
- Bones. It is easy to rhapsodize about the exoticism of Mongolia,
but to balance it out a bit: nomadic presence in the Orkhon valley was
anything but a "lightly on the land" ideal. The manure of yak, sheep,
and goat is literally everywhere, and the bones are scattered just as
thick: fragments of pelvis and scapula, skulls, piles of whole furred
legs discarded as butchered. The grass is cropped incredibly close to
the ground from complete overgrazing, and the bare patches of sites
where gers camped in the summer and then recently moved to their
winter grounds are always in close proximity to ad hoc middens of
plastic, discarded clothing, tin. This is not a place you can walk
with bare feet: shards of glass glitter in the afternoon sun, and
there is an endless stash of empty vodka bottles in rock crevices, and
along the river. By contrast, the inside of the gers we visited were
always a miracle of homemaking, with everything exactly in its place
and an entire family sharing the same circle of space. The little
girl of the family we stayed with in Orkhon had a split in the crotch
of her trousers: diapers were not an option, and with one pair of
pants, the obvious solution. Still, I watched as she was clearly
included and loved in the family circle- the circumstances were not
neglectful.
I admire the lifestyle still practiced by so many in Mongolia, because
of the skill and toughness and knowledge about the land required, but
can't help but compare it in some ways to the many dilemmas facing
Alaskan villages.
Below I've included a comment by a friend of a friend, Wallace
Kaufman, to an article in the WSJ:
Story: Wall Street Journal: The Global Downturn Lands With a Zud on
Mongolia's Nomads (132 days ago)
Comment: The US, Japan, World Bank, and European nations have poured
foreign aid into Mongolia, much of it for rural communities and
herders--most of it sadly mistargeted. A few years ago I attended a
briefing where the head of one of the largest projects summed up by
saying he was afraid most of the foreign aid efforts were intended to
do little more than "to make poor herders better poor herders."
The emotions and cultural misperceptions that drive many aid projects
came home to me as I was traveling through roadless Mongolia with
World Bank and other foreign aid workers advising banks and
businesses. They praised the pastoral simplicity of the herders'
lives, their closeness to the land, their love of horses, their
apparent health. A Texas banker said, "Look, they have grown up riding
and they are bow legged from spending so much time on horseback." The
visitors in various ways expressed a longing for such a healthy and
simple life and a desire to preserve it. A week later in the capital,
Ulaan Baatar, an American doctor told me that the bow legs came from
the vitamin deficiency rickets. A few months later a winter 'zud'
(harsh and prolonged sub zero temperatures and deep snows) killed
hundreds of thousands of animals and plunged their owners back into
poverty.
Mongolians, like other Central Asian herders, have to make the
transition from traditional herding to a modern technologically
efficient economy. They have resources. They have an intelligent and
hard working population. They have universities and teachers ready to
develop the human resources. So many rural women have headed to Ulaan
Baatar's schools and universities that the men left behind complain.
Despite recent troubles, Mongolians have a democratic structure that
worked through several changes of ruling party (more than any other
Central Asian country can say).
Rural aid projects have also focused on cashmere production. That
production is not only highly volatile, it relies on ecological
devastation. The best cashmere, with the thinnest fiber and highest
price, comes from animals grazing on stressed rangeland. Almost all of
Mongolia is terribly overgrazed. A foreign aid project found that if
present areas of range were protected, its short stunted growth grew
tall with grasses and forage.
Much of the overgrazing could be avoided by clear and enforceable land
and water rights, assigned to individuals, families or cooperatives.
Such "enclosure" would cause some disruptions, but in the end it would
allow the best herders to optimize their production and encourage
those who do not have the talent and desire to be herders to find
other occupations.
Back to Beijing
Soo... I am back in Beijing for the week, and so will have no access
to the blog except through email - sorry about the formatting!
to the blog except through email - sorry about the formatting!
We crossed the border to China late last night, after a much briefer
process than Russia/Mongolia... some official green and brass, and
then we were into the shed for the changing of the bogies, which took
a few hours: Chinese rails run at a different width than Russian and
Mongolian, so someone came up with the brilliant idea that the train
cars be separated, lifted on hydraulic jacks, and the entire wheel
setup (I don't know how else to describe it) be exchanged for the
smaller size. I was in a compartment with a Mongolian couple, who
kindly shared some goat pastries and could have cared less about the
whole thing. The rest of us tourists were sticking our heads out the
one open window, trying to photograph this bizarre scene.
After a day watching the bleak Gobi Desert go by, I woke up this
morning to the extravagance and cultivation of China, with brick and
mud courtyard villages, people harvesting their small plots of corn
and hay mostly by hand, trees and dramatic mountain landscapes,
including the last few hours before Beijing where I think we went
through no fewer than 30 tunnels as we were winding through an
impressively steep river valley. I'm a little sad that this was my
last train ride of the trip, the official end of the Trans-Siberian
(or the Trans Mongolian, as the case may be). I really, really love
traveling by train!
I am also in love with Beijing. The excitement of the one night I had
here on the way to Moscow is back - this is a truly great city. I am
staying in a hostel near the center of the city, a few blocks from
Tianmen Square - but I am in a "courtyard" hostel, which is located in
one of the hutongs - the old parts of the city that are all narrow
alleyways and, although they are becoming more touristy, sport a lot
of the old classical China feel - old men playing what I think is
mah-jong (sp?) on the streets, people taking their songbirds for a
walk, streetfood everywhere, labyrinths of courtyards and small
passages. I walked into a tea shop this evening and was invited to
sit at a table where an elegant woman was pouring herself tea in an
elaborate process of tiny pot, glass with filter, and then finally
tiny cup. She used to manage the store, but now just teaches all
about tea with the same company, and comes in on weekends to taste the
store's tea. We sat and she poured several brews of different green
teas, and then suggested I should try a "champagne oolong" tea, made
from young leaves instead of the "adult" oolong leaves. It was a very
relaxing and insightful way to unwind from the train trip. I love the
hutong where I am at: there are more tea shops than I know what to do
with, an entire street that just sells caligraphy supplies and
paintings, and plenty of storefronts with a variety of massages
advertised. Not only that, but as previously discovered, I think BJ
is just one enormous foodie haven. I intend to stuff my face for the
next 5 days. Tonight, spicy chicken and green pepper stir fry in the
Sichuan style for less than $2 at a boisterous little hole in the
wall. LOVE IT.
On another interesting note, the city is still in the grips of their
week long holiday that started on October 1, the 60th anniversary of
Mao's declaration of the People's Republic from Tianmen Square. I was
told that the 1st and 2nd are possibly the worst time to visit China,
since the entire country picks up and moves around and the pomp and
circumstance in the center of Beijing is out of control... definitely
saw evidence of this at the train station today. But, I think for the
most part, daily life has resumed. Ironically, I have been reading a
fantastic book, "Wild Swans", which is a memoir by Jung Chan about her
grandmother, mother, and herself set in the context of 20th century
Chinese history. HIGHLY recommended. It is gripping- her grandmother
was concubine to a warlord and suffered through the series of civil
wars at the beginning of the century, and her mother was an idealistic
young communist at the rise of Mao, both her and her husband became
very high ranking party officials, and then went through the
atrocities of Mao and the family suffered incredible persecution. The
last half of the book details the Maoist period in great detail -
events that I was abstractly aware of, but now I can't walk down these
streets without seeing stooped elderly people and wondering about
their history here. The book is still banned in China, and I was a
little nervous when my bag was searched at the border, but they didn't
look in my backpack :) I think I will go to Tianmen early tomorrow
morning, which will be a little surreal after this reading. I still
have a few things I wanted to add about Mongolia as well, but will try
for more later!
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