Silver Monkey in Asia

Hacky-sack meets Shuttle-Cock

2008-09-29T09:48:00.000-07:00

This is a retrospective entry about the first project I undertook in China. All throughout my travels in SE Asia, I interacted with local children playing "kick-kick". Kick-shuttle-cock is the national sport of Vietnam, a favorite pass-time of Cambodia, and very popular in China as well. The local players were invariably surprised and quite pleased that I was able to play with them. My experience with hack-sack gave me the skills to keep up with most of the people I found playing "kick-kick". Very few activities got me smiling with the locals as quickly as kick-shuttle-cock.
I brought with me to Asia, five of my own hacky sacks to share with people I met along the way. I had no idea that they would have their own sport so similar to hacky sack. A kick shuttle-cock looks very different from a hacky-sack (or foot bag) but functions much the same. A feather, or group of feathers, attached to a washer shaped base is the basic form of a kick shuttle-cock. because of the feathers it flies a bit slower than a hacky sack, and has more directionality, but is otherwise almost identical in function.
In response to the mixing of cultures that I experienced I thought it would be very appropriate to make a new toy that is a hybrid of the hacky-sack and kick shuttle-cock. Using scrap material from a local tailor, small peas from the grocery store and feathers from a feather duster, I fashioned my own "hacky-cock" if you will.
Here is a photo of the two prototype designs, as displayed at the exhibition in Jinan.
P.S. They worked fabulously!

Red, white and black

2008-09-29T08:55:00.000-07:00

Red is an important color in China. According to Wikipedia, in Chinese culture "it carries a largely positive connotation, being associated with courage, loyalty, honor, success, fortune, fertility, happiness, passion, and summer." Even with all of these positive inferences, red is also a symbol of blood, death and danger. Red is found all over Shanghai - on the Chinese flag, on shop signs, automobiles and traffic signs, on banners and clothing... if green is the color of the Pacific Northwest, then red is the color of Shanghai (and maybe all of China).
Red is also strongly associated with communism. Russia was the beginning of this association with the red star of communism. Now, China and Vietnam also use the red star to symbolize their tie to communism. While Brooke and I were traveling in SE Asia before coming to China, Brooke had a strong reaction to the red star, particularly in Vietnam, where it is prominently visible all over the country. I also was aware of it, but on a less conscious level. As Brooke stopped to take pictures I became more and more aware of how frequently the red star, and the color red, are used in Vietnam and China.
It wasn't until Shanghai, when I tried to make a photographic composition using Christian's bright red pants, that I remembered about the chromatic filter on my digital camera. Canon has a clever function built into most of their cameras, called "color accent" that allows the user to pick any color in the frame and isolate it by turning all other colors to grayscale. I took a reading off of Christian's pants and snapped a photo one afternoon on the Bund. Reviewing the photo brought to my attention something else that was almost identical in hue to Christian's pants - the red flag of China. For the rest of our stay in Shanghai I left the red filter active on my camera and snapped hundreds of shots - finding bits of red in every nook and corner of Shanghai.
Many of the photos stand on their own, but I am still striving to find a way to use them all as an installation for our final exhibition in the Laverne Krause gallery. One idea suggested to me was to use a bag from from my travels and have the photos spilling out. If we end up using Ryan's idea of the "Chinese street theme", I could post my photos throughout the gallery, as most of them were taken while walking through the streets of Shanghai.

Shanghai Museum

2008-09-18T03:40:00.000-07:00

People's Square, only about five blocks from our Hotel, was the hub of today's activities. The Shanghai Museum on the south end of People's Square, houses four floors of Chinese art and artifacts. I was particularly taken by the exhibit of cast bronze on the ground floor. The level of craft and detail present in pieces that are 3ooo years old is humbling. I think most of the pieces were from the Zhou, Qin and Hahn dynasties - roughly 1100 BC to 200 AD.
What artifacts will remain of our contemporary culture, 3000 years from now? It seems like today's artifacts for the future may not have a physical manifestation, and are not of any particular nation or culture. While there is still a richness of cultural individuality in this world, the great accomplishments of the information era have no durable artifact.
Will we leave behind a trail of computers? I can't fathom how our world will be remembered 3000 years from now. I look at the Bronze pieces of ancient China with a certain awe and respect. Will today's accomplishments be viewed the same way? The pessimist in me doubts that future generations will have much respect for the artifacts we leave behind.

Soft Sleeper

2008-09-16T19:48:00.000-07:00

From Jinan to Shanghai we traveled in style. Jackie, the director of International Affairs at SUAD, managed to get a us a free upgrade on the train to the soft sleeper class. I'm not a seasoned rail traveler (thanks to the US for having the worst passenger rail system of any developed nation), but I thought our four person private sleeper compartment was awesome. It beats every plane and bus I've been on hands down. The steady quiet rhythm put me right to sleep. No honking, no swerving, no ear popping, no turbulence, no pooping babies, no barfing ladies... the only casualty was a lost paperback book. I left my book on my bunk, stepped off the train and turned right around to get it. In the 60 seconds it took me to get back to my bunk, someone had already snagged the book. Who would want an English book? It's a small loss, but I was really enjoying Kingsolver's commentary on American food culture.
We arrived in Shanghai to the find ourselves booked in a super modern, western style high rise hotel suite. I have no idea how we can afford to stay here, but I'm not complaining. We must be getting an amazing group discount.
The cityscape is remarkable, and we have an excellent view of it from our 14th floor suite. I wouldn't call it beautiful, but that's just my aesthetic. It is a strange patchwork of old two story, tile roofed houses and giant glass and steel sky scrapers. Some of the architecture is very bizarre. You can expect to see some photos and hopefully a few sketches posted soon.

Hungry Man

2008-09-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

Here it is. My partner art project with Jared (Yu Zhaorun). This was the first time doing stop motion animation for both of us. Considering the challenges, I'm very pleased with how it turned out. Looking back, my only regret is not finding a way to make it a bit less gloomy. I hope you enjoy it.

Crackers

2008-09-15T05:23:00.000-07:00

The morning started with a two hour musical performance, showing an eclectic mix of contemporary and traditional styles. We roasted a bit sitting in the sun, but our host was kind enough to buy us all white baseball caps to wear. A lot of the performers were lip-syncing, and most of the music was pre-recorded. The live drummers, however, rocked the audience without any help from a PA system. There was dancing, martial arts, comedy, pop-rock, and more. For a "cultural festival" there was a more modern pop culture than I expected. Something about "cultural festival" made me think traditional folk culture.
After the concert we got a quick tour of some of the older streets. Tucked down these back alleys are mostly tourist shops, but many of the original structures and architectural styles are still present.
The cracker factory was awesome! This is a video of a lady making sesame crackers. We ate some of them fresh off the griddle, and they were delicious - hao chi! (Good eats!) When we got back to the old campus later that night we discovered that the local government had bought us each an entire bag of crackers, something like 3 kilos of crackers for each of us! I'm going to have to buy another duffle just to get my crackers home.

How to Find Your Mate

2008-09-15T05:22:00.000-07:00

As we stroll through a park with the SUAD students, one of them says "Who wants a new girlfriend, or new boyfriend?" Li Li, Brooke's partner, beckons to Brooke and laughs. She says, "Come on, let's find a new boyfriend." Brooke asks why, and says she's happy with one she's got (Awwww). It turns out, there's an entire section of the park set up for personal ads. I don't know if this is a once a year thing, or every day. Either way, it was full of people browsing the ads. Li Li said that it's mostly parents looking for a match for their kids.
Jared (Yu Zhaorun, whose name I keep mis-spelling) and I ended up lost for a little while. So we just sat on the side of the small mountain, looked out over Jinan, drank iced tea and smoked a cigarette. I pulled out my Chinese phrase book and we perused it, finding ways to make small talk.
On the way down we stopped to shoot a bow and arrow - sort of like at an amusement park. I won a rabbit tail keychain.
After the park we went to KTV, which stands for Karaoke Television. It's the classiest karaoke place I've ever seen. We rented an entire private room, and spent most of the afternoon singing karaoke with the reverb turned all the way up. The chinese students, on the whole, were definitely better at karaoke than us americans were, but we put on a pretty good show too.

Pounding Out Art

2008-09-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

Day three of three. Considering the challenges we've faced trying to produce a stop motion animation project in such a short amount of time, I'm very pleased to announce that we have something to show for it! There's still a few details to wrap up, but the meat of it is finished. I wanted to post the video of it today, but ran out of time at the last minute and had to catch our bus back to the hotel. I promise to post it by Monday.
the video is about as far from polished as animation gets, but it makes me laugh, and we had fun creating it. I got to try using a home made blue screen for the first time. That was tough. I also got to try making wire figure that could be easily animated and stay standing on his own. That was tough. I also got to do it all with as much hand flailing communication as with words. Yu Zhouren was a great sport, and kept a positive attitude the whole time. He's generous, artistically talented and has a sense of humor. I wish we had picked a project that took more advantage of his talents. Part of me wants to speak chinese and have more academic conversations with him. Another part of me is happy that we clumsily and eagerly try to share ideas even though most of what we say doesn't make any sense to the other person.
Just before we left the new campus, Yu Zhouren gave me an awesome pair of woven straw slippers and a simple wooden model to build because he remembered that I like working with wood. Now, if I could just come up with something as thoughtfull to give him.

Partner Projects

2008-09-12T06:41:00.000-07:00

With only three work days to devlop our partner projects, every minute counts. Today was our second day at SUAD working with our partners, and everyone is feeling the pressure. Yu Zhouren (Jared) and were hoping to get all the still photos shot for our stop-motion animation. We spent most of the morning trying to set up a stage. The wire figure was almost completely lost in the busy background paintings I made. We decided to shoot the wire figure on a blue-screen and superimpose the backgrounds so we could control the relative size, lightness and darkness of foreground and background. Of course, with more flexibility comes more complexity. By the time we got the lighting and backdrop worked out it was after lunch. With the bus leaving at 5pm I was only able to shoot a couple of actions.
The other big chalenge was working with computers when all the menus are in Chinese. It took me a while but I finally figured out how to change the menus from Chinese to English on the macintosh towers. The computer lab had an impressive selection of hardware - mostly Mac Pro towers with dual xeon processors. Final Cut Pro moved along at a healthy clip.
The animation studio and photography room were also impressive, offering some very nice equipment. The big hurdle was not being familiar with any of it, and overcoming the language barrier. Edwin and Ying helped out a lot, as well as several of the Chinese students who spoke English. Without them we would have worked it out, but gathering all the equipment we needed was much easier with their help.
At times I fealt foolish trying to form long winded sentences through an translator, when a few quick hand gestures would have sufficed. Oh well.
The online translator was interesting. More than half the time it screwed up grammar and verb conjugations, but at least it was entertaining.
At lunch I busted out my new fountain pen and asked for help filling it with ink. Being the ignorant american that I am, I had no idea how a fountain pen works. Evidently, every chinese student knows how to use one, so there was no shortage of assistance. Initially, I used the ink I had for brush painting to fuill my pen and apparently that was a bad idea. Now I've got the rigth ink, but the damage may be irreversible. Se la vie. For three bucks, I think I can afford another one. Tomorrow is another big work day. If everything goes perfectly, we might actually finish our project in time!

Getting to Know SUAD

2008-09-10T07:03:00.000-07:00

Morning was spent planning our partner project. Yu Zhouren and I get along great, and although neither of us speak much of the other's language, communication is more entertaining than frustrating.
Lunch with the chinese students fealt like our first opportunity to have a 'normal' meal. The cafeteria serves all variety of Chinese dishes, and since none of it is spelled out for us in english, it's pretty much up to our partners to pick for us. I found their choices to be well within the range of 'normal' food. Nothing they ordered was too weird to handle.
After lunch we toured the school gallery - a remarkable collection of ancient and contemporary chinese art and artifacts. My favorite was the wood working tools. for the most part, not much has changed in the last thousand years ( or more). Sure, we've got electrical power tools now, but everything on display is still used today. This is a picture of ink lines, the precursor of todays chalk lines.
After the gallery, we received a crash course in chinese calligraphy. They made us both write "I love you" in chinese and pose with our teachers. The three character sounds are "Wo ai ni", each one translating directly in sequence. The reason they look different, as you may have guessed, is that one is an ancient style, the other modern. Sadly, I don't remember which is which. I'll say that mine, being the more beautiful, was also probably more ancient.

Confuscious and 6666 Steps to Heaven

2008-09-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

Qufu, the birthplace of Confuscious. Also a tourist hot spot. I think it's important to mention that "tourist" in China doesn't mean the same thing it did in most of SE Asia. Tourists here are mostly Chinese - not European, Australian or American.
The tour guide had a tiny loudspeaker attached to her hip, which at first seemed silly, but later proved necessary to be heard over the other tour guides who also had tiny loudspeakers on their hips. As part of our ongoing artistic expression in China, Brooke and I did a short photo commentary on the foolilsh and awkward ways that westerners try to use everyday chinese objects. On many occasions throughout China and southeast Asia, locals have had to patiently (or not so patiently) explain to us how to eat food, catch a bus, use a bathroom, etc. For example, we went to a hotpot restaurant, with a menu partially in english, and proudly ordered a giant bowl of broth, and a small dessert plate.

The woman looked at me inquisitively, waiting for me to finish my order... Then she fired off a few sentences in Chinese, pointed at a bunch of pictures of meat and vegetables, and waited again, pen in hand. So it was that I learned how to order a hot pot - start with a broth and order each ingredient seperately. Oops. The small stools at Qufu are not difficult to understand and use, but just to make a point, Brooke and I behaved as awkwardly as possible. We both think those stools are awesome, and we might have to bring a couple home since they're sold at nearly every tiny hardware store. Speaking of tiny hardware stores, as far as I know, there are only tiny hardware stores. And they are packed to the brim with miscelaneous parts and tools. Browsing is hugely entertaining and also futile if there is something in particular you're looking for.

Getting back to Confuscious, I opted out of seeing the Kong family cemetary (that's Confuscious' family name), and instead saw a display of women's shoes from the era of feet binding. I have one word - brutal! I read somewhere that the last shoe manufacturer specializing in shoes for bound feet went out of business sometime in the last few years. That time has past... we have entirely new forms of bizarre body modification. According to our tour guide, the reason for feet binding was simply that one Emperor had a fetish for small feet.

Lunch was huge - nuf said.

The afternoon took us up a mountain, which I think is called Tian Shan (literally "heavenly mountain"). We went most of the way up via an impressive cable gondola. If we'd had more time we might have walked up the 6666 steps (why 6666? because 9 is Confuscious' favorite number) I was amazed to see the amount of concrete work done at the top of a mountain where there appears to be no roads, only stairs and a gondola. There's a full fledged hotel, several large communication towers with antennas galore, four heavenly gates facing in the four cardinal directions, a temple to make offerings, and gift shop after ridiculous gift shop for your shopping pleasure.

For a short time we were clear of the smog, but that only lasted about twenty minutes. The sun is so dark and red most of the time, it feels very ominous.

Perhaps the most intriguing site was the huge piles of locks with chinese characters engraved on them. We later learned that these locks are placed here by couples wanting to immortalize their devotion to eachother. Strange, but very adorable.

A Warm and Hearty Welcome

2008-09-08T06:57:00.000-07:00

Our Jinan hosts from the Shandong University of Art and Design (SUAD) herded us off the train and onto their comfortable, air conditioned bus... but not before a group shot of all of us holding a UO and SUAD banner. Dinner was amazing. With all of us seated around a table fit for King Arthur, we were served a meal fit for a king. The plates kept coming - whole roast chicken, pork foot, beef noodle soup, egg soup, yam, peanuts, shredded potato, bok choy, whole fried fish, beer, rice wine, mushrooms, fruit platter... and that was probably about half of what was served TO EACH OF US!
We met several of the professors and department heads. A couple of students were shooting video and still photos, there were two translators, and many of them took time to toast to us and welcome us warmly to Jinan.
After two hours of food and drink we wrapped up with some Chinese Karaoke performed for us by our hosts, and we sent a couple of our own up for a little a-capela.

We retired to our new home - the SUAD "Mansion" for visiting students and professors. It's not what I would call a "Mansion" but rather a hotel, directly adjacent to the student dorms.

In the morning we were fed another feast, with meats and vegetables I havge never seem before, let alone considered eating for breakfast. There were some western standards such as sliced bread and jam, scrambled eggs with zuchini, fried bread, boiled eggs and ham... then there were some stranger things, warm milk, salty sausage, unidentifiable vegetables, corn meal broth, tang, a few more REALLy salty things... It's going to take some getting used to.

To meet our partner students we traveled 45 minutes by bus to the edge of town where the new SUAD campus is located. They welcomed us with a standing ovation and were eager to get to know us. We each were intorduced to our partners, and spent a short time getting to know a little about eachother. Yu Zhouren is my partner, he is 21 years old, and specializes in flash animation. His english is better than my Chinese, but we can barely hold a conversation - so we use an online translator sitting side by side on computers. He said I am like his big brother because I'm seven years older than him. Then he asked me for an American name. I though for a bit and with some encouragement from Brooke decided to name him Jared, in honor of my own little brother, and because "Zhouren" sounds almost like "Jared". For those of you who don't normally read pinyin chinese, "Zh" sounds like a cross between "Ch" and "J". "N" doesn't sound anything like "d", so you have to use a little imagination. Oh, and of course "Yu" isn't a given name, it's his family name.

For four hours we shared samples of all of our individual art. I was dually impressed by both the SUAD students and our own class.

After another feast of a lunch, we got a tour of campus. The "bookstore" is small, but usefull. I browsed for a minute and decided to buy some pencils and a brush and ink. Before I realized what happened, Jared had paid for my stuff anf bought me an iced tea. I walked out feeling gracious and a little dazed. Then Brooke's partner, LiLi, handed me an ice cream bar she had bought when I wasn't watching. We're totally spoiled.

Dinner was on our host students as well. It was everything we could do just to pay for a one way cab ride back from the restaurant. I feel bad letting them pay for everything, but I think it would be worse for me to refuse their hospitality. Someday I hope I can return the favor.

Beijing to Jinan

2008-09-07T06:56:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Baru! We left Beijing behind, and said farewell to our favorite tiny kitty, who we named "Baru". In Malay, Baru means "new". We saw it written on a bag of chips and thought it was a good name. A light drizzle cleared some pollution out of the air. We all piled into taxi cabs and headed for the Baijing South Rail Station. More than 20 sets of tracks converge here. This place is on the scale of an airport. When will we see such devotion to mass transit in the US?
245 kilometers per hour! That's about 150 mph. That's how fast I was moving on my way from Beijing to Jinan. Amtrak, you suck! The high speed rail system here is cheap, easy, comfortable and on time. All of western Europe does it, China does it, Japan and Korea too! WTF!? I know I'm preaching to the choir, but I really wish the US would "get on the train".
Edwin and I were discussing the differences between China and the US, and he pointed out the huge disparity in infrstructure funding. I don't know how much money China spends on pension plans, health care, and education. But according to Edwin, China is more capitalist than the United States in those regards. China seems to be setting aside a lot of public services in order to push forward with infrastructure. Is it more important to develop roads and rails, or pay for education and healthcare? I'm going to wait to see what happens in the next twenty years before I decide for c ertain. Nevertheless, I have a good guess which way will prove best in the long run.

The Great Wall at Simitai

2008-09-06T16:53:00.001-07:00

Before leaving Beijing we had to make a proper visit to the Great Wall. Driving for a little over two hours brought us to a popular hiking portion of the wall. With Simatai as our final destination, we hiked past thirty towers, along bricks and stones, some ancient and some newly placed. The wall at Simatai is roughly 1500 years old! Much of it was rebuilt more recently - but there is still plenty of the original wall to hint at it's wise old age.
We made quick work of the hike, barreling through in about three hours. We got a bit fuddled up in the beginning, Ying stayed back to help with a badly swollen ankle, and Edwin had to play catch up with us for the rest of the day, only to finally catch us at the very end. Brooke and I had a small adventure trying to talk our way past a guard when we turned back to find Edwin. Because we had a group ticket, which was with Edwin, there was nothing we could show to the guard to prove that we hadn't sneaked onto the wall. And speaking a grand total of about twenty words in Chinese, we were hard pressed to explain our situation. Eventually, and miraculously, we flailed our arms in just the right way, and the guard seemed to understand. We didn't find Edwin, but we found Ying's cousin, who also spoke only Chinese. More hand waving ensued and we deduced that Edwin, Megan and Steven had taken a shortcut - avoiding a significant part of the wall. So we kept on truckin'.
The hike was amazing, I only wish I had budgeted my time better to spend some time relaxing on the wall and taking in the scenery.
Getting into Simatai proper from the wall involved a zip line that I couldn't turn down. I think that all but three of us ended up on the zip line. Yeah, it's sort of cheezy, but worth it!

Heavenly Temple

2008-09-05T16:57:00.000-07:00

Dutifully, we followed up a vist to the Forbidden city with a visit to the Temple of Heaven. Picking up where we'd left off the day before, we walked from Qianmen (just south of Tienanmen square) through an awkwardly deserted and very recently remodeled street of shop-fronts. At Ying's suggestion I tried to imagine that I was part of an Emperors regal parade from the Forbidden city to the Temple of Heaven. This is in part where an emperor went to make prayers for his kingdom - asking for a bumper harvest or giving thanks for a battle won. It was our task to each find our own prayer for humanity and make an offering at the Temple of Heaven.
As we sat huddled in the shade of a short rock wall, thinking about our wishes for humanity, I plucked at the grass growing stubornly up through cracks in the stone pavers. Ihad four stems in my hand, each branching out into three seed heads. With four seasons and twelve signs of the zodiak, I decided that the grass seed was a very suitable offering. I asked Brooke and Steven to help me make the offering - so we linked our hands together, holding the grass seed. My wish for humanity is world-wide cooperation in nurturing the diversity of plant life that we need to sustain ourselves and our children.

The Forbidden City

2008-09-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

The Forbidden city seems to have outgrown its name. The place is crawling with tourists and vendors. Walking throught the complex from north to south was a fluctuating feeling of complete ignorance, frustration and awe. I was trying to imagine a thousand years past, who would be stepping over these tall thresholds. What hands carved painstaking detail into hundreds of tons of solid stone? Then I would just keep walking, past ancient relics made possible by an ancient emperors reign over countless human lives. The gravity is a bit hard to experience with the buzz of a thousand tourists at your back.

Before leaving the city, Brooke and I tucked through a side gate and around a corner where we found a little quiet respite. We were in dire need of a snack but took a few minutes to sketch our surroundings.
The afternoon was comprised of first finding a restauraunt for some lunch. What we found had no english menu, but at least there were pictures...
Note the chinese characters below each of these two dishes, and imagine that you are at a restaurant starving for lunch, speak little to no Chinese, and your waiter speaks zero english. Now imagine that you order the one on the right but get served the one on the left. The "meat" is more skin and fat on cartilage and tendon than it is meat. So you send it back and demand the one that you ordered. It takes five minutes to explain this with hand gestures but finally you succeed. The new dish is much more palatable but still completely unidentifiable.It turns out, when you show these pictures to a translator that you first ate duck tongue and followed it up, convincingly, with duck heart! Welcome to Beijing.

Art districts tour

2008-09-03T17:04:00.000-07:00

We toured several of Beijing's art districts, as well as CAFA (Central Acadamy of Fine Arts). The empty architecture studios of CAFA looked just like our studios at the UO after the end of a quarter. From the outside CAFA is just another gray brick building amongst a sea of new construction on the outskirts of Beijing. Exploring the campus further unveils a remarkable museum which is now exhibiting a variety of designs proposed for the 2008 Olympics. The building is clad in heavy slate tiles which look like scales on the back of a dragon. It looks so heavy, how did they fasten those tiles!? Inside the gallery no photos are allowed, the entry displays bizarre clothing designs for the opening ceremony. It looks like something from a recent Star Trek set. They have a sea of promotional posters and an impressive collection of art made for or about the Olympics. The curvacious interior remains true to it's domed shell of massive slate tile. Very impressive!
Also at CAFA we met the much less conspicuous but equally impressive man behind the team of students who designed the Olympic medals!
Earlier in the day Brooke gave Mao a high five. Strange for so many reasons...
Pekin Art Studios was a bizarre and disorienting collection of cubic gray brick buildings housing much more intriguing artwork. The bottom floor of each studio exhibits the artist's work while the top floor is a work area. I was struck by the decision to use the same gray tile on the roads between buildings as on the walls themselves. The neutral background and monotonous pattern brought the natural wood grain of fences and doors out into the spotlight. This is a characteristic that I also noticed at the Commune. We use so much wood in the northwest, the beauty of it is often lost.
Our final stop before returning to the hostel is the private studio of a couple of young men who work for the CAFA professor mentioned earlier. I'm sorry we waited unti ldark to see this studio. It was easily the most intersting work space we toured. Two grids offset by about 30 degrees distinguish the two floors. A gargantuan smoke stack towers immediately adjacent and visible through a wall of glass - in fact a partial ceiling of glass affords a full view of the tower from within the studio. Out back there is a fish pond underfoot - yes, you actually walk over it thinking it's a strange place to use plexiglass tiles before it becomes aparent that there are fish in the shallow trough. The only part that really didn't appeal to me was the bathroom which is separated from the main work area by a hanging sheet. Not a lot of sound privacy there.

The Commune at the Great Wall

2008-09-02T17:03:00.000-07:00

At Ying's suggestion, Brooke, Ariel and I booked a tour of the "Commune by the Great Wall". This is not quite what it sounds like. There is no one actually living at the commune, it is jsut a collection of modern style residences which are rented out to rich diplomats and business men for conferences and such. They also double as a "museum" of modern architecture - exhibiting award winning work by some of Asia's finest architects.

The houses are indeed "modern" and the architecture is intriguing. If I were to guess at their age I would say maybe 30 or 40 years. Not right. In fact the oldest was build only seven years ago. They are in reasonable condition but not well maintained. The style is mostly of an era past. While it was well worth visiting, and several of the houses were truly inspiring in their design, I was less than blown away by the innovation or care exhibited in the details of these buildings.

Our favorite room was the living room of one of the more post-modern looking houses. Buried below a living roof that blended almost seamlessly with it's environment was a cool, stone-clad haven that looked out over the valley through a continuos wall of northwest facing glass. The acoustics were delightfull with BB King playing in the background, and the simple layout flowed from kitchen to dining area to living space with just enough enclosure between to create a hint of separation.
To finish our tour we relaxed at the hotel with a mediocre $6 iced coffee (note that a typical iced coffee in Beijing costs less than a dollar).
We arrived back at our Hostel in time to greet the rest of our Art in China class and go out for a dumpling feast.

Bangkok to Beijing

2008-09-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

Beijing seems to me stuck between a real, functioning city, and a Disneyland theme park. The theme being Olympic city.
Streets are full but not overly congested as I had expected. Sidewalks and gutters were relatively clean. And most impressive of all was the blue sky for our first two days!

The flight from Bangkok was a mere six hours delayed. Thankfully the Bangkok airport is not a bad place to spend your morning. Sri Lanka air gave us a free meal in the airport thanks to Brooke's friendly and persuasive manner.
During our free meal I was "blessed" by a mouthfull of cappucino after cracking a joke at an untimely moment.
The flight itself was mostly pleasant. I got free whiskey, watched Iron Man, and was just far enough away from the woman hurling her breakfast that I could ignore her and enjoy my movie. Brooke was quick to discover that a cup of coffee hovering just below the nose could mostly drowned out the smell of stomach bile.

As bad as it sounds, the flight was actually fine. We arrived in Beijing only about 4 hours late (they hauled ass), got some help from a chinese woman who spoke perfect english, and caught a bus into town.

Once in the right neighborhood we figured it would be easy to ask anyone for directions to the hotel. We had the address written down. How hard could it be?

Three hours later, Brooke and I were about ready to bite eachothers heads off. The map we had was useless, the oh so eager to help locals had no idea where our hotel was, and almost no one we met spoke English!

After being confidetly placed on a local bus by some friendly twenty somethings, we found ourselves no where near our destination only to ultimately discover that we had literaly walked right past the alley to our Hotel about an hour earlier.

Argh!

We recovered, and spent the next day poking around the perimeter of the Olympic village. We couldn't get very close. They were preparing for the paralympic games and kept us a good half mile away from the birds nest and aquatic center. We took a couple of token photos and left.

Thai farm cooking school

2008-08-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

Chiang Mai, Thailand. Comercial and cultural hotspot of northern Thailand. We took it upon ourselves to a bit of cultural enhancement for our own lives - so we signed up to do a day learning Thai cooking and a day learning Batik.

Of the hundreds of cooking schools now available in Chiang Mai, we settled on the Thai Farm Cooking School. This was the only option we found that took us out of the city limits, to a quieter, greener environment.
I was amazed at the clean, calm atmosphere of the food market we stopped at. In every respect it resembled all the other market's i've seen in SE Asia, except
it was tidy, clean and relaxed. The instructor, a small Thai woman, not more than 30 years old, gave us a brief tour o the market, explaining a little about curry ingredients, the many types of rices, and a bit about how to find our way around the market. Then she asked us which dishes (from a selection of about 18) we would each like to prepare. It took her only a short time - maybe ten minutes - to collect ingredients for all seven of us. Meanwhile, I paced off the dimensions of the market and sketched some details for later use this fall in my design studio. Brooke quickly found the closest Cha Yin cart and we both partook of some delicious Thai iced tea. It's going to be hard when I have to pay more than 50 cents for a big bag of Cha Yin.
When we arrived at the "farm" we got a short tour of the various plants that we would be using to spice our dishes, as well as some of the major ingredients. The farm was more like a big garden, which appeared to function solely as a learning environment, not as a food producing business.
The food was fabulous - while it may not compare to Thailand's finest, I'm pretty sure I was on par with the best Eugene has to offer. If only I could repeat that performance at home.

.
The following day we joined another couple for a day long Batik class. The four of us were taught by a very friendly thai woman (Anne) who has a studio in her home. She lives with her husband, daughter and mother. While we spent the morning drinking tea and learning the basics of Batik, Anne's mother prepared lunch for us. By the end of the day we had two complete projects to take home. If I learned a bit more about preparing the wax, getting the temperature right and so forth - I just might try to incorporate Batik into my Architectural work... where there's a will there's a way

Trek to Hmong mountain village

2008-08-25T04:31:00.000-07:00

Laos' majority and dominant population is, not surprisingly, Lao. Along with a few other groups of low-land dwellers they make up the larger group known as Lao Loum. Around Luang Prababng there are two well known minority tribes that live further up in the mountains. They are the Khmu and Hmong.
We arranged a private one day trekking tour of three minority villages. Our tour guide, Li, is 24 years old, and is studying to be a teacher. He is originally from a Hmong village, and came to live in the city when he was nine. We walked with him for about two hours, through a Khmu-Lao village, and part way up into the mountains to a Hmong village. Here wee stopped for a couple of hours, in the hopes of having some time to experience a taste of life in the village and maybe play with some of the younger children.
Most of the village was further up the mountain, working on the ricee fields. There was one older man in the village making baskets, several older woman - some sowing - and a gaggle of young children mostly just staring at us.
We are cleearly not the first westerners they have seen. Many more have passed through here before us - but only in the last decade - this is the first generation with any substantial exposure to western culture. I think my overgrown beard was especially strange to them. None of the Lao, Hmong or Khmu people that I've met could grow a beard like me.
Li told us a lot about Lao and Hmong culture, and asked us a lot of questions about our own culture. He has never been outside of Luang Prabang, but I would not have guessed that from the thoughtfull questions he asked. We talked about government, school, work, relationships...
There is NO free school in Laos. Of course, it is very cheap by our standards - but most Lao make VERY little money. I think that $50 a month is not uncommon. The government is making some effort to get modern resources to the minority villages, and as such many villagers are moving out of the high mountains and closer to big towns. This particular Hmong village moved closer about 7 years ago in order to be near a school and have easier access to trade goods with the towns people. They still live without electricity or running water, but only two hours hike away is a more modern village with sattelite TV, convenience stores, and a school.
I played kick-kick with Li and one of the village boys. The boy enjoyed it, so I gave him the kick-kick. I don't think kick-kick is a Lao sport - I've only seen it in Vietnam and Cambodia. In fact, I underestand that it is the Vietnamese national sport! If you don't know what "kick-kick" is that's probably because "kick-kick" is local slang for "kick-shuttlecock", and if you don't know what a "shuttlecock" is, that's probably because badmitton isn't a very big sport in the US. So you should understand by now that "kick-kick" is badmitton with your feet. But more frequently, it's just played in the street much the same way we play hacky-sack.
Getting back to the trek... we didn't spend very long with the Hmong villagers before we had to start back to our jeep. The hike down was much quieter than the hike up. Brooke and I were mostly deep in thought about what we had witnessed in the village, and Li seemed to understand this, so we walked quietly most of the way back.

I have no answer

2008-08-20T22:33:00.000-07:00

I realize that in the "about me" blurb I said this would be a blog documenting not only my travels but also my evolving perceptions. I don't feel like I've stood up to that promise.
It is incredibly difficult to come to grips with my perceptions of the cultures and people we've met in Indochina. I am haunted by the percieved poverty that I witness in both the cities and rural areas.
The VIP bus with aircon rumbles down the road carrying me and a few dozen other rich tourists and a handfull of locals, with our iPods, neck pillows and bottled water from one scenic attraction to the next. The local kids look at us with curious expressions, pausing from their chores to watch us whiz by - us staring back with equal curiosity. What are they thinking? What am I thinking?
How aweful is it to litter plastic bags and food wrappers everywhere, poop and bath in the same water, and try to fanagle as much out of a foreign tourist as possible? Is that really so bad, when I am contributing more to global warming in one day of flying, than an entire household will in a year? Is that really so bad when all of my electronic waste gets shipped overseas where the heavy metals leach out and reach poisonous concentrations in ground water supplies? Is that really so bad when most of the clothes and goods I buy are made overseas in factories that pay low wages and offer few benefits? My choices do all their harm where I cannot witness the effects. The choices faced by most rural villages here have repercussions that they must face immediately. How can I want them to "clean up" after themselves when my waste is so much worse? Every day I ask myself these questions. Every day I have no answer.

Bussing through Laos

2008-08-20T22:12:00.001-07:00

I am going to refer you to Brooke's blog for a more thorough account. But here are the critical numbers.
2 Bus rides
35 Hours
2 Little boys pooping their pants
6 Abnoxious cell phone users
5,000,000 Pot holes
15 Close calls with cows or goats in the road
1 Bus actually running into and killing a water buffalo
1 Bus running over a chicken
2 Fallen trees requiring removal
14 Fallen trees that could be driven around
7 Mud slides partially blocking the road
1 Mud slide resulting in our bus sliding precariously close to a steep precipice
1 Near abondement at border crossing
13 Women trying to scam me with money exchange
1 Very wet luggage bag
3 Very dirty luggage bags
1 Fish head with rice and egg for dinner
1 Fish butt with rice and egg for dinner
6 Kung Fu videos
2 Free bottles of water
4 Free moist towellettes to wipe the persperation off your face after a near death experience
5 Pee stops
2 Worn out travelers

A Haircut in Hue

2008-08-20T21:13:00.000-07:00

The lightning storms in Hue were truly astounding, and we were lucky enough to see one of the better displays on our first night. I can't help but post another photo from that night... Sitting on the north bank of the perfume river, with a plate of chicken wings and 500ml of huda beer, we watched the clouds burst with electricity. Oddly surreal as this was, the whole scene was made even stranger by the rainbow sequence of colored lights on the bridge. Someone with a little spare time decided to mount a couple hundred stage floods on the bottom of the bridge. The lights slowly cycled through about five or six different neon colors, brightly illumintating the sides of an otherwise dull grey structure.

We cut our time short in Hue because the end of our trip is quickly closing in on us. To occupy our only full day in Hue we wandered throught the local market - browsing through everything from meat to fruit to fabric to coffee to toys to you name it. Our mission was to find Vietnamese coffee filters. They're cheap, perforated aluminum cups that perch atop your mug. For only a dollar a piece we bought three, each one just a little different from the others. The perforations seem too large for fine western grind coffee. So we bought about a kilo of the super dark roast, super coarse ground Vietnamese goodness to bring home with us. We'll be throwing a coffee with sweet milk party later this fall. Don't miss it.
After a tiring bout in the public market, we revived our sweaty selves with a cupfull of said coffee (the woman who sold us the coffee grounds also sold us two ca phe sua da - coffee with milk and ice - with the same beans so we knew what we were buying.)
Wandering further from downtown we stumbled accross the sound equipment, lighting fixtures, and tooth whitening street. As logical as this may or may not seem to you, they all appeared to be running successfull businesses in harmony with eachother.
I was acting like a kid in a candy store, bouncing from one stereo shop to the next. Most were cheap rip-off brands, but more impressively, most shops carried a large supply of bargain parts and tools for repair! Oh how I long to have shops like these in the states.
The biggest surprise of all was when we neared the end of the street and stumbled upon a barber shop. Two middle aged men sat reclining in their barbers chairs, with eyes mostly shut, listening to the radio. It didn't take more than a few seconds for the men to notice us standing their and invite me in for a haircut. How much? He picks up a piece of paper and writes "50. VND" or 50,000 dong, or roughly three us dollars. I can afford that.
The man spoke no English, so there was no way to tell him how to cut my hair. It was all in his hands. And he did a spectacular job. Using the full array of barbers tools - scissors, electric buzzer, straight razor, thinning scissors, some other thingy mabob, comb and brush - he proceeded to give me the most precise and thorough haircut I have ever recieved. All the way down to the peach fuzz on my ear lobes. Add a shampoo, scalp massage, shoulder massage, and chiropractic adjustment for another 30,000 dong and you've got a whole new class of barber-shop experience.
I was so pleased with my haircut that I spent the rest of the afternoon blabbering on about flying that guy back to the states and opening a barber shop with him in Eugene. I'll never be satisfied with a haircut again!

Nudibranchs in Nha Trang

2008-08-17T18:18:00.000-07:00

Nha Trang is the up-scale coastal city with all the whistles and bells you need for a beach vacation. To get right down to it, we booked a one day SCUBA trip, which was Brooke's first time diving. She's a natural.
Conditions were very good, and the shallow reef seemed well protected. We saw all the usual tropical fish, anemones, urchins, puffers, shrimp, eel, sea cucumbers, nudibranch (just one, but it was beautiful), sea stars... and on and on. Not a lot of big fish, probably because of the shallow depth.
After an amazing morning of diving we took the afternoon to completely dishearten ourselves by attempting repeatedly to purchase plane tickets to Beijing for the fifth time, only to be denied over and over, and have our cards blocked for suspicious activity. Grrrrr.
I think, maybe, we've got it taken care of now, and will actually be able to make it to Beijing. For a minute there it wasn't looking good.

Roses are red...

2008-08-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

If you're a boy, and you like a girl, give her a red rose. If you're the girl and you like him back, give him a white rose. If you're not interested, and he won't stop bugging you, give him one of these:
...it's called a "pig shit" flower, and it means "you smell bad" - as I interpreted it.

Favorite photo of the week

2008-08-17T18:09:00.000-07:00

This picture was taken in Hue, during a lightning storm that blew my socks off (figuratively). We had dinner on the river bank, watching the storm from a distance - lightning flashes lit up the clouds every four or five seconds. It took me about 60 tries to get this shot, even with all the lighting, timing the photo was just luck.

Abseiling

2008-08-17T18:03:00.000-07:00

Catching up quickly, we booked a canyoning adventure in Dalat for one day of abseiling, swimming, trekking and water slides. For those of you not in the know, abseiling is the sport of lowering yourself precariously down the face of a waterfall using rock climbing equipment. Best $28 dollars yet!

I like Dalat a lot

2008-08-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

Dalat is the honey moon town of Vietnam. The climate is cooler, more temperate, the prices all a little higher, and the activities very entertaining. We started with a "cultural" tour of the surrounding area. Our friendly guide Trung, a student of tourism at the local university, took us to a long list of sites, including; a flower nursery, coffee plantation, rice-wine making business, silk factory, mushroom business, waterfall and budhist temple. It's worth noting that Dalat is one of the coffee capitals of the world. Every hillside has coffee plants. And everyone drinks coffee. It is served black or with condensed milk, iced or hot... and that's about the extent of your choices. Having never seen raw coffee beans, it was somewhat surprising to find that they are green and red!
The silk factory was also humbling in that I am completely ignorant of the silk making process. Of particular interest was the fact that the worms are actually eaten after the silk has been removed from the coccoon. The raw silk feels course and strong, and requires an acid bath to soften it up.
Rice wine is the Vietnamese version of vodka, as far as I can tell. And it is frequently used in conjunction with healing hearbs to make a tonic. Considering that it's distilled, and has only a slightly lower alcohol content than most liquor, it hardly seems to qualify as a "wine".
The waterfall and happy buddha are friendly neighbors. I can't say that I have aver set eyes on a happier buddha. Since you can't reach the belly because he's HUGE, the big toe suffices for good luck.
Elephant water fall, not more than 500 yards from the happy buddha offers a close up experience for the brave - walking BEHIND the massive cataract. Of course, the moisture was too much for me to take pictures, just imagine the wind and mist nearly knocking you off your feet.

Mui Ne fishing village

2008-08-17T17:10:00.000-07:00

Fishing in Mui Ne is the number one industry as far as I can tell. Famous for it's fish sauce, every other shop along the road displays rows and rows of the savory stuff. To get an up close and personal feeling for the fishing culture we took a short tour through one of the fishing villages. It was around 9am, and most of the days business was finished. We got there in time for the tail end, which included a very strong odor as the temperature was steadily rising.
One of the more curious sights was the giant wicker baskets used to shuttle people and goods through the small breakers at the shore. With no prefered orientation the baskets are ideal for handling the small waves with little concern for being turned sideways. One wooden paddle is lashed to the side of the craft and it is propelled with a skulling motion. Slow but steady.
All along the beach were women and children picking up any by-catch that was worth keeping. One woman found an eel, and was brutally killing the thing as we watched in mild horror.

I want that toy!

2008-08-12T07:00:00.001-07:00

While we were in Mui Ne, enjoying the gazillions of gorgeous shells that litter the beach (intermingled with a healthy amount of trash that the last storm blew in), I met a fellow from Austria with a toy that I MUST have. I think the correct term is "power kite". He had what looked very much like a kite-boarding kite, but it was smaller and didn't float on water. Too big for your typical recreational kite, too small for kite boarding or paragliding. He was sliding and bounding down the beach and through the shallow surf as if perfectly balanced with the force of the wind on his kite. Curiosity got the best of me and I chased him down the beach to find out more.
Better than just information I got to fly the kite. With the two control lines in my hands, wrapped around my wrists with neoprene padding, I stood there wondering why nothing was happening. The kite hovered quietly about a hundred feet above me, fluttering slightly. It wasn't untill I began working the kite back and forth that it started playing with me. With a little practice I was skidding accross the sand, wide eyed and laughing.
I always thought kite flying was for kids, and I was right - this was just a reminder that part of me will always be just a little kid.

Homestay in the Mekong Delta

2008-08-06T04:40:00.000-07:00

Getting from Phnom Penh to Saigon went something like this:
We booked a slow boat (should be renamed "loud boat") from Phnom Penh to Chau Doc, Vietnam. After being almost certain that our tour agency had abandoned us I knocked on the window of a van at the neighboring hotel and managed to get a lift to our boat.
The boat was narrow, full, slow (as advertised) and very loud. About two feet directly behind me and to my right was a 2" galvanized pipe connected directly to the exhaust manifold located two feet directly behind me and to my left. No muffler. I cannot express how relieved I was to have remembered earplugs.
I know this sounds like a small nightmare, but once on the river, with earplugs securely in place, the ride was actually delightful. Border crossing went smoothly. The second boat was much more comfortable. And we made friends with a woman from Ireland, Caroline, who had been traveling for two and half years straight!
One night in Chau Doc was all we gave ourselves before embarking on a two day tour and homestay on the Mekong Delta that would deliver us to Saigon.
After a short visit to a small village and floating fish farm we piled onto a van to Can Toh, where we met our friendly local guide Dua. He is a small and very energetic Vietnamese man who thus far is the only person to have the honor of being adde to my contact list (I have lofty ambitions of arranging for one person - maybe Dua - to be sponsored to fly from SE Asia to Oregon for a visit). He took us by boat to his uncles house in a small quiet village about 5km from Can Toh.
Dua's uncle, Hung, is a full time host to tourists. It is his business to make travelers feel at home and to provide a glimpse of village life on the Mekong Delta. Caroline, Brooke and I were the only ones at Hung's homestay for the entire afternoon and evening. We gave ourselves a tour of the village and nearly every young child shouted hello from his or her doorstep. We sat out the afternoon downpour sipping iced coffee with the locals. They don't speak english, we don't speak vietnamese, it was great.
Dua gave us a tour of Hung's family farm which was primarily watermelon and rice paddies. The path was very muddy, narrow and raised about four feet above the watermelon beds. We had to stay intently focussed on our footing to keep from falling into the watermelon patch. In fact Brooke did fall, albeit very gracefully, off the path and into the watermelon drainage ditch. The workers all had a good laugh - so did we.
For dinner, about a dozen more tourists arrived, and we made traditional fried spring rolls while Hung's family cooked up some elephant ear fish and tofu.
According to Hung, most of the work in the village is finished by 6 am! I have no idea how they manage to work at night in the fields, and honestly I think that either he was exagerating or something was lost in translation. Either way, it's either very hot or very rainy during the daytime, so it makes sense that they would take all of the afternoon off.
From Hung's village we were shuttled by boat to a small rice noodle making outfit, and then a floating market - i.e. a herd of river boats milling around selling mostly fresh produce in very large quantities.
The floating market was our last taste of Mekong delta life, litterally - it tasted like pineapple, purple sweet potatoe and star fruit - with a lingering odor of exhaust fumes and floating garbage.
Now we are deep in the heart of Saigon, preparing for our next adventure - the Vietnamese central coast and highlands.

Strongest coffee ever!

2008-08-06T04:22:00.000-07:00

The highlite of today's adventures in Saigon was a visit to the local drug dealer, I mean street side coffee vendor. Deep inside a narrow back alley, past the feral dogs, fresh fruit stands, hanging laundry and honking moto drivers, you will find a very serious vietnamese woman selling some very serious coffee.
Her operation is simple. Two tin coffee filters drip molten black coffee into glass cups, as if to proudly display it's remarkable opacity. Beside them is a plastic 1.5 liter water bottle with more of the rich black drug already prepared. Behind her is a small pyramid of sweetened condensed milk and a bucket of sugar. Beside her, a small iceberg.
With only a small amount of confusion Brooke managed to order an iced coffee with sweet milk (condensed milk) to go. I stand by curiously watching the process. About 1 oz of condensed milk, a couple ounces of sludge from the 1.5 liter bottle, about the same from the freshly brewed cups... stirred briskly. Then she grabbed a block of ice in her left hand, a crescent wrench in her right, and smashed the ice. Before I realized what she was doing there were shards of ice hurdling towards me. After the initial shock, I decided it felt rather refreshing.
The coffee was amazing, and after most of the ice melted it was still the strongest coffee I've ever tasted. No wonder this city is so fast paced.

The Hottest Couple in Cambodia?

2008-08-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

...you decide.

Fried Chicken Feet and BBQ Barracuda

2008-07-31T06:00:00.000-07:00

The elections are over, and the same party that's been in power for the last 25 or more years is still in power. I have a sense that a lot of voters in this little coastal community feel a little disheartened. Maybe I'm just projecting my own disappointment.
I saw at least two cars with UN election obersers' stickers on the rear windshield, which gives me hope that at least the election wasn't rigged.

The weather in Sihanoukville has been very nice for the last few days. The daily downpours have subsided slightly, and we're enjoying the sun and shade. Today we enjoyed breakfast at the Starfish Bakery and Cafe before heading to the beach to sunbathe and hunt for shells. Starfish is a grassroots organization that raises funds to help young and disabled Cambodians learn valuable trade skills. They sell amazing food and beautiful crafts, and it feels very good to know that my money is going towards a noble cause.

The food this weeks has run the gamut from the very western bacon cheeseburger, to a gourmet seafood dinner in a French restaurant, to ramen and fried chicken feet. Earlier in the week we tested the waters of the local street food by munching on chicken feet dipped in a salty lime sauce, and crisp cucumber salad. While traveling by boat through the mangroves of Ream National Park we were treated to a lunch of BBQ fresh local Barracuda and coleslaw with coke in a bottle. Yesterday for lunch we had the simplest of simple, a bowl of ramen noodles with green onion and sweet chile sauce. And last night we had the most spectacular gourmet seafood platter with grilled giant prawns, ceviche in lime and olive oil, scallops in some sort of delicious butter sauce, more BBQ Barracuda, and calamari - with a lovely view of the beach on our left a small Cambodian child, a dog and a cat on our right and no doubt a few dozen geckos watching from the rafters.

Yes, the food is amazing.

After a few discouraging conversations with tour agencies about the possibility of visiting Ream National Park, we were very pleased when we finally found ourselves motoring through the mangroves on arguably the most beautiful day of the week. Our guides were very quiet only speaking when we should be looking at a stork or eagle flying overhead. We pulled ashore by a very small fishing village - not more than 40 residents - and walked about 30 minutes through the jungle, past a HUGE spider, over countless red ant trails, past about thirty termite hills with birds and cicadas in the background until we emerged at a beautiful white sand beach.

When the afternoon thunderclouds rolled in we hustled back to the shelter of the jungle, and made our way to the awaiting lunch spread of BBQ barracuda, coleslaw, bread and coke - with fresh pineapple and banana for dessert. The Barracuda was phenomenal! Still kicking myself for not getting the recipe. Of course the pineapple and banana was delicious too.

Yesterday was to real adventure! We rented a 250cc trail bike to ride about 15 miles out of town to a waterfall. The bike was fine, the driver (me) very capable, and the rider (Brooke) an experienced rider... everything else? Well, you might imagine what it's like but let me elaborate: The good news is we had a great time. The adventure was navigating the nearly anarchists traffic, negotiating our way past a fake park ranger who had run a chain across the road to try to scam entrance fees out of naive tourists, and making it back to a gas station after some little brat kids stole most of our gasoline while we weren't looking. Oh, and being told that if we weren't careful we might get held up at gunpoint - or worse, shot just because we're white tourists! That wasn't very encouraging.
Well, in the end, all we really suffered was losing about $6 in gas, and some rather stinky armpits thanks to a higher than average stress level. The waterfall was awesome... Worth it.

No photos here

2008-07-31T05:58:00.000-07:00

While we were in Phnom Penh, Brooke organized a trip to a local orphanage where we spent two hours playing with about a dozen or more Cambodian children between the ages of maybe 5 months and 7 or 8 years. The kids loved us, and we loved them. It was refreshing to be able to just play. I'm so used to kids harassing us and trying to sell anything and everything for a dollar. These kids just wanted love.

On the other end of the emotional spectrum, the Killing Fields in Phnom Penh, much like the land mine museum in Siem Reap, is a sobering experience. The monument of skulls piled in layer after layer of grim silence... leaves me with few words. And to think that this all happened very nearly in my lifetime!

Even though we are only two weeks into the trip, I feel as though we have been hurdled through the beauty and the horror of humanity past and present. Pollution and poverty, the ruins of Angkor Wat, the slums of Phnom Penh, golden temples, endless craft markets, children digging through garbage, children smiling and giggling in my arms... people trying to help us, people trying to rip us off. And we have another seven weeks to go!

Awesome Angkor

2008-07-25T05:22:00.000-07:00

Remember that narrowly evaded scam at the Bangkok tour agency? Yeah, it tracked us down at the border, and I didn't even realize it until 24 hours later. Let's just say Brooke and I gave a little economic stimulus check to Cambodia.
Cutting to the chase, the Angkor ruins near Siem Reap are ASTOUNDING! Really, truly, honestly staggering. I hesitate to post pictures because I'd have to post a thousand just to give you a taste. Here are a couple, which you can think of as a faint whiff from afar.The ruins are spread all across Cambodia, but some of the most remarkable are all within a 30 minute tuk tuk ride from Siem Reap. Angkor Thom, the 12th century city in which resides the "largest religious building in the world" - Angkor Wat - , was the focus of our attention. If you want to learn more I suggest looking it up on Wikipedia.
The pestering vendors inundated most of the ruins, sending their adorable children after us. At first it was hard to say no, but we got into the swing of it. I am now an expert at saying "no, thank you" in Khmer (sounds like "tay, ah-koon"). Of course, they all speak english, and some of them even pretend not to speak Khmer. One little girl said "What does 'tay' mean? I am not Cambodian.... I am a tiger! Raar!" and then giggled.
The Cambodian people have proven to be very friendly, and very determined to rise from the ashes of the last thirty years or so of terror and hardship. In two days Cambodia is having a major election. I know very little about the politics here, but understand that Cambodia has much to gain from ousting the existing party in favor of one that will act on its words.

Vegas meets Thailand

2008-07-25T04:43:00.000-07:00

Four days of hustle and bustle in Bangkok was enough. Khoa San Road, aka "tourist hell" was elbow to elbow tourists and street vendors. Although we were staying at Khoa San Palace, dead center on Khoa San road, we did our best to avoid the place.
After first being the target of a tour agent scam (which we narrowly avoided) we booked a four day package to take us to Siem Reap, Cambodia where we would explore the ruins of Angkor Wat. Our last night in Bangkok consisted of a trip to the local boxing arena, which of course features Muay Thai kickboxing. The problem there was that they charge FIVE times as much for a tourist as for a local. Two times, three times, sure... so we decided to head across town to the Siam Niramit theatrical performance.

Siam Niramit is a Thai cultural extravaganza, presenting five acts that represent different aspects of Thailand's music, art and religion. Having never seen a real Vegas show, I can only say that Siam Niramit is precisely what I would imagine a Vegas performance to be like. Or maybe it is the Disney version of Thai culture. The point is, we had a great time but left wondering whether any part of the show really resembled the regions historical culture.
The theater is devoted entirely and solely to this one show, with a large gift shop and replica of northern and southern traditional villages. It holds some world record for the tallest theater. You can even feed a real baby elephant!
After the show, we dilly dallied long enough to get on the shuttle bus with a bunch of the performers. We were dropped off at the subway, which is either brand new or meticulously cared for. We took the subway to the sky train and the sky train to a taxi. I pause briefly when we exited the sky train to snap a few photos of a Bangkok city streetscape. Very beautiful in a brutal urban sort of way.

Two travelers in a Tuk-Tuk

2008-07-19T20:27:00.000-07:00

You know you're traveling in a foreign country when Brooke turns and says to you; "Good news, I just farted."

Since we moved to our new hotel - Khao San Palace - by the River Chao Phraya, the local food and culture has become our focus. The jet lag seems to have passed, and we are now Tuk-tuk-ing our way around town, eating at the street venders, seeing statues of Budha, and being heavily solicited to buy jewelry and custom tailored thai silk suits.

Sometimes Budha is sitting, sometimes reclining, smetimes standing. The biggest was probably 60 meters high. Because it was Budha day on Friday, many of the "Wats" (temples) that are normally closed to the public were open. Two of them were completely empty when we arrived -which felt very VIP.

By the end of the day we learned that Tuk-tuk drivers get a gasoline voucher if they take tourists to one jewelry store and one tailor. We learned this because our second tuk tuk driver told us explicitly that our fare would be much less if he took us to two stores along the way. In the first one we didn't try very hard to look interested and the driver said we had to do a better job of pretending otherwise he wouldn't get his voucher. We put on a pretty good show with the tailor, and with the second jeweler, so our driver was happy.

I couldn't help but wonder if the vouchers were government sponsored, mandated, or entirely voluntary on the part of the store owners.

For dinner we wetted our appetites with some BBQ squid... mmm, spicy and very chewy. And then found some fresh pineapple for about 30 cents. For the main course we had Pad Thai and spring rolls. Two large servings cost us about a dollar each. Amazing.

Tomorrow we leave by bus for Cambodia to see Angkor Wat, and then Phnom Phen to see the capital and get Visas for Vietnam.

Day one

2008-07-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

For a jet-lagged, stupid american tourist, I am pleased to announce that I have not yet been scammed... at least not that I am aware of. We walked by a temple... on our way to a giant shopping complex, which I have to confess, is where I spent most of my first whole day in Bangkok. Brooke and I window shopped for most of the day, bought a Thai phrase book so that we could attempt to be cordial with the locals, watched an american movie in a giant movie theater, and tried out some local food. Oh, and I bought a hip new pair of european leather shoes. In defense of the mall, the art galleries were amazing! Some of the furniture and interior lighting stores had impressive collections of original designs. And one of the atriums had living walls, with plants growing five stories up the side of the building.

Our next mission is to a find travel agent and get a little advice. I have some interest in doing a meditation retreat, but I doubt I'll be able to convince Brooke it's a good idea. And I quote: "It just sounds like bull shit to me..." ...She wants to do something more active. Oh well, maybe a bicycle trip is a better idea anyway.

Anticipation

2008-07-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

It's 11pm the night before Brooke and I leave for Bangkok. Considering the duration of this trip - 9 weeks - I feel disturbingly calm. Leaving Eugene 5 days ago was a sort of beginning to the trip, allowing time to remember not to forget all the little bits and pieces. But really, when it comes to enjoying my time in Asia, all I need to bring is a passport, an ATM card and a change of underwear. Everything else I can get along my way.
Planning thus far has gotten us two nights stay at a Golden House Hotel in Bangkok. The rest... got any suggestions? Having freedom to go anywhere is liberating, and a little bit intimidating. For six weeks we will have to intuit and discover each new piece of this journey. The last three, although well laid out with the Art in China program, also hold much mystery.