Hong Kong

I went to Hong Kong for visa reasons. Although Hong Kong is part of China, you must pass through customs, completely exiting China. It feels much different from China for many reasons. For one, they speak Cantonese and use the traditional, more complex form of writing. The city design is obviously influenced by the British. There is freedom of press and the people can actively show their dissent in various ways similar to North America and European countries.
The people are more religious as well. Some continue ancestor worship traditions in which fake paper money, "hell money", and paper representations of material goods are burned as offerings intended to service the dead in the afterlife. This photograph is of a paper boat that will be burned, perhaps for a deceased fisherman to continue his fishing. There are paper cars (often replicas of expensive brands), houses, karaoke sets, televisions, washing machines, clothes, and racetracks.

Mongolia

Daniel and I took a 10 day trip to Mongolia early this month. We took a 30 hour train ride from Beijing to Ulaan Baatar (the capitol of Mongolia) which was pleasant and amusing. The gauge of the train tracks is 1435mm in China and 1520mm in Mongolia and Russia so the train cars must be hydraulically lifted so that the wheels can be adjusted to make the switch. I'm not sure if the whole wheel sets must be changed or merely adjusted--they seemed to be adjusted as we watched the train cars lined up next to us.

More later...

Getting Used to Beijing

While I was in Japan, I had been missing bits of China. I love both cultures but more superficially, it was a bit tiring to be pinching pennies in expensive Japan than breathing easy in China. For example, it's more enjoyable to be able to eat your fill on $4 than to barely be satisfied on $9. Of course, after the build-up, my first meal back in Beijing with Daniel and Alec was a harsh reminder of all the little things that are sometimes a problem in China. We went out to get a late dinner at a chain restaurant, Zhou, which specializes in rice porridge. First, it takes a long time to get a waitress to take our order and then she informs us that they don't have any rice to go with the dishes we ordered. Rice is essential for diluting the strong flavors and heavy oils. How can a rice porridge restaurant have no rice? They must've at least had it in porridge form.

A week ago, I saw a grandmother passing me on the sidewalk wearing an over large cheap white t-shirt with "I (heart) Myspace" screened on the front. I can't imagine where it came from.

The Olympics were worrisome at first with fears of terrible crowds, high prices, and excessive security. But it turned out pretty well. I was mostly disappointed that the equestrian events were in Hong Kong and I was never able to watch them on TV or online. I do love watching horses. Overall, I am not fond of the Olympics since they seem to be more about making certain sponsors rich or fostering nationalism than they are about creating goodwill and peace on Earth. However, it was amazing to see so many sharp, well-behaved volunteers.

The photos show the variation in air during the Olympics. It's not necessarily all smog, a lot of it is the usual haze you get with warm, muggy weather. But it's not always pretty.

Border Crossing: China to Kazakhstan

A Kazakh consulate exists in the famous Silk Road city, Urumqi, next to a myriad of neighborhood alleys that all have the same name but get disconnected by intersecting blocks. When we finally wandered out of the maze, into wider, recently-developed streets, the flags and the line of Kazakhs made it obvious. The line was orderly, it was in fact a line, but everyone stood pretty close to their neighbors and were cheerily chatting away while a large, intimidating guard stood glaring at them from the gate. We stood and watched for about ten minutes, and scanned some papers on a noteboard, trying to get a grasp of the process for entering the building. Someone must've indicated that we enter the gate so we apprehensively approached the scowling guard who, when we showed him our American passports, miraculously gave way. Apparently the line was for Kazakh nationals and there was another process for other foreigners. The building looked like a house. A bit of yard in front and a short stairway up to the entrance. Inside we managed to get our paperwork done with a mix of English and Chinese. With one clerk, we couldn't seem to figure out which language the pair of us knew more of.

Visas in hand, we were ready to enter Kazakhstan. From Urumqi, we took an overnight bus to one of the border towns. There is a train from Urumqi to Almaty (the once-capital of Kazakhstan and a large city on the South-Eastern side of the country). We arrived in this tiny, dusty Chinese border town Sunday morning to find out that the border is closed on Sundays. So we drove around with our taxi driver, looking for a place to stay. He would report the price of a suggested place and always, I would answer, we need something cheaper, cheaper. Finally, he said, I know a place, and drove to the outskirts of town along the main (half dirt) highway. Turned out to be his house. He explained that a Uzbekistani man was also staying at his house that night and he could take all of us to the border tomorrow. The price would include our meals. He and his wife (they were both Kazakhs who had been raised in China and were both teachers) would take care of us.

Their house was a series of four rooms arranged linearly with a glass covered hallway along one side that let in a lot of light. The sleeping rooms had raised floors so that the entry was a bit lower, intended to be a place to step out of your shoes. The raised floors were covered in rugs and had low tables. Along the walls were stacks of bedding to be rolled out in the evening. The glass hallway faced the yard which may be a garden in the later spring but still seemed to be dormant. In the corner of the yard was the outhouse which included a box of loose school papers with childrens drawings on them to be used for toilet paper.

We spent the day playing cards quietly and went on a walk in the late afternoon because the house began to feel confining. The taxi man was out all day, working, and his wife was sweet but busy with her own tasks so we were left alone.

In the evening we ate and tried to chat. The taxi man and his wife were able to speak Uighur, I think, which is the local minority language and is similar to Uzbek so they could speak to their other guest. They could then speak to me in Chinese. So we were able to gather that the Uzbek man had been in China on business and learned about our hosts' situation as Chinese citizens.

The next morning, we finally made it to the border. We had no idea what an ordeal we were facing. Airports are extremely efficient border crossings because there is a lot of money involved in keeping the travelers moving on those flights. Rich people cross borders that way and they don't want to wait. Trains are also usually orderly and fairly quick. Walking across the India-Nepal border was fine, it was even lazy. Since there was no line for those walking, it was simple. There was a long line of cargo trucks but that didn't conflict with our crossing.

The China-Kazakhstan border crossing was hell. First there was a mass of people waiting (in no real line) outside the gate into the Chinese side. People were carrying large boxes over their heads that contained rice cookers, tvs, rc cars, and fans. This was also the first time I was seeing white people again. It took me a while to realize they were all Russians. I was also shocked to be seeing women in black leather with scarves in their hair, gold front teeth, and a black eye.

After the first gate into the Chinese border, there was a crush to get your stuff through the x-ray machine. Next was a rush to get on shuttle buses that drove the mile distance between the border processing buildings. So on the Kazakh side, we had to go through the same thing; another crush for an x-ray machine, and another round of filing through bottleneck gates. Then, when we had been released into the wide Kazakh expanse with no more need to be crushed together, we had to pay another shuttle-type bus to get us from the border crossing to the regular taxi stand a half mile away. It was all quite confusing.

When we were dropped at the taxi stand, we were swarmed and a tall youngish driver dragged us off to his taxi, physically. He was pretty menacing toward the other drivers and got pretty angry when we started following someone else. It was scary and I felt resentful that I was being bullied but was still too frightened to make a stand for the sake of not being bullied. Once our bags were safely in his trunk, he relaxed and we agreed to wait for a few other travelers to make the ride cheaper. So we got soup at the cafe nearby with him and a few other drivers. After soup, he passed us off on someone else he knew that was going to Almaty and we finally got on our way.

The border crossing took 6 hrs. We probably only crossed a couple of miles. Then the ride to Almaty took another 4 or 5 hours, landing us there just after dinner, in a raggedy-but-cheap, old, soviet-style hostel. I rate it as the absolute worst border crossing ever. But the next two were pretty trying as well.

Rejected from Eastern Tibet

March 10th is the anniversary of a 1959 Tibetan uprising against Han Chinese Communist forces. This year (2008) many pro-Free Tibet groups are organizing campaigns to redirect some of the Beijing Olympics spotlight onto the Tibet-China tensions. Our original plans had been to cross into Tibet from Nepal but the incongruent red tape in China would've cost us our rare 1-year multiple-entry Chinese visas. They would've canceled these and made us buy 30-day single-entry visas if we wanted to enter through Nepal. So our alternative was to fly to Hong Kong, one of our planned destinations anyway and work our way across China to Tibet instead of vice versa. If we had gone straight into Tibet, we would've arrived only a few days before the riots broke out. We probably would've had our cameras confiscated and been pushed out of the region into the rest of China with only three weeks left on our shortened visas.

Instead, we were traveling to Chengdu, one of the largest cities in Western China (more like the middle of China), from Guilin when the riots began. We spent almost a week in Chengdu, watching the news and inquiring about access to Tibetan areas. Foreigners were banned from the Tibetan Autonomous Zone (which is a single province) but ethnically Tibetan areas extended outside this political boundary into the neighboring provinces, including Sichuan, where Chengdu is located.

After a detour south to visit the 3rd largest Buddha statue in the world, we took a day-long bus ride west to get to the Tibetan areas of Sichuan. Our destination was a town called Kangding. As we started up into the foothills of the mountain ranges that border the Tibetan Plateau, we began seeing long convoys of army trucks. Most of them had soldiers holding their protective shields peeking out of the back. We passed over a hundred of these vehicles. More and more as we got closer to Kangding. A couple hours before nightfall, our bus stopped at the police checkpoint outside of Kangding and the two policeman that came on scanned the passengers and then motioned for Zack and I to get out. We brought along our carry on bags, unsure of what was going on. But when we got out, the bus driver was already pulling our larger packs out of the storage bins underneath so it was obvious we were not going to be allowed to continue with the bus. The officers were wearing their full length green winter coats that make them indistinguishable from soldiers. They brought us into their small gate room and invited us to sit on the cots. None of them spoke a whit of English but made an effort to explain when I asked in Chinese. You wenti ma? The key word in their response was anquan, safety. It wasn't safe for us to go to Kangding, they said.

We had to wait a bit for them to convince a bus that was going away from Kangding to give us a lift down to Luding, a Han Chinese town, where we could stay the night and then tomorrow we would have to go back to Chengdu. So we rode an hour back down the road in an empty bus which stopped for a bit for a wash. There are a lot of places along the roads in China that have the characters for car wash, xi che, spray painted on the wall. We watched the military convoys go by and waved a bit at the young soldiers who were amused and often surprised to see us foreigners this far out and waving at them.

On arrival in Luding, the bus just let us out and kept going. It seemed we were left to our devices to find a room, which was fine by me. There was a fancy hotel nearby but that was too expensive, at least 150 kuai (~$20). I left Zack with the bags for a bit so I could look around faster. Finally, I found a super cheap place that was around the corner from the fancy hotel. I'd been wanting to try one of these places that looked like a residence and was marked only with the characters for "room to rent". The woman running the place was very nice and we arranged to stay there for 20 kuai. Of course, it was the worst room we'd ever been in, but tolerable. There was no way the bed linens were clean, but we had sleeping bags anyway. The windows were cracked and letting in the outside air but, again, the sleeping bags nullified this concern. The toilets were no better than a hole in the ground. If there was running water, we wouldn't have used it anyway. For one night, it was fine. Like sleeping outside but with a basic roof and walls. We did get boiled water in a tall thermos though.

After we had warmed up, processed the recent events, and were contemplating going out to eat dinner before it go too late, the proprietress came back and told me that we needed to move somewhere else and that the police were here. I kept asking for clarification because I wanted to get it straight before we ran into the police again, if that was going to be the case. She told us we had to bring all of our things and gave me back the money for the room. I was confused at first because we were quite happy about finding our cheapest room yet and wanted to stay. But we finally allowed ourselves to be ushered up to street level where a well-dressed middle-aged plainclothes policeman was waiting. He explained that the place we were staying in couldn't host foreigners and led us over to the fancy hotel and insisted that we stay there against my complaints that it was expensive. He insisted that we stay there and leave for Chengdu tomorrow on the morning bus that would leave from this same hotel. We had to fill out 3 copies of hotel registration forms and buy our bus tickets while he waited and watched. Finally, when he was sure we were in the proper hotel and would leave tomorrow, he left and we were able to go next door to get a late dinner before returning to the nicest of rooms we ever stayed in.

Guilin is a little too large for my tastes. We only stayed one night and left the next day for Yangshuo, a smaller town not too far away. The highway between the two is small and has a lot of bicycle traffic between various villages along the way so I saw students riding home from school in their uniforms and a half dozen plump, live brown chickens tied upside down to the back of a scooter. After we arrived in Yangshuo, a man speaking English convinced us to come see his hostel and kept dropping his price until we agreed to stay, 70 RMB per night for both of us. He had said it was an international youth hostel but we realized later that there are a dozen hotels who have named themselves international youth hostels in Yangshuo, we should've kept looking and we might've found the real one. The town is small enough that we are walking between these sharp limestone hills which are more technically described as karst hills. It's quite touristy but I feel like I can get away from the tourism easily so I don't mind.

It's been tiring sometimes trying to communicate in Chinese. I haven't been in Chinese class for 9 months and I haven't been in a Chinese-speaking environment since I studied in Taiwan in the summer of '06. I can make do but my ears are rusty and I am forgetting simple stuff. But slowly, it's coming back to me. I am stressed sometimes because Zaq is relying on me to pass on my faulty understanding of whatever situation we may be in and to order a decent array of dishes at each meal. I'm sure he would prefer to fend for himself. Menu recognition is my top priority.

I am happy to see cats in China, they were rare in India and Nepal. Here, they lounge on sacks of grain in shops and mew for attention or food.

We took a 9.5 hour bus ride from Guangzhou to Guilin. So far, the buses here in China are large, clean, and comfortable with uniform stations everywhere. There were a pair of Germans on the bus with us that I helped when we stopped for lunch. The bus attendant motioned to me and explained in Chinese that we would get small meals for free if we showed our tickets at the restaurant. My ears were not well trained yet but I could figure out her meaning from a few words and some good guessing. Later, the German folks had tried to ask the attendant if they could get off the bus early and then asked me to try to translate for them. I was pretty sure that the attendant was telling me she had understood and agreed to their request but it was my first time helping strangers and I was afraid my poor Chinese would create a misunderstanding I didn't want to be responsible for. It's easier to make mistakes for yourself (and your traveling partner).

The bus ride took us through beautiful fields, divided into small crops of various types, small towns and villages of old stone architecture, decorative roofs, and large healthy chickens. Large towns have big four-story buildings with shiny tiles facing the main road and shops on the bottom floor. Almost every doorway is outlined with red papers of auspicious sayings.

After we arrived in Guilin, we had the specialty noodles of the town in a place that kept live chickens, ducks, fish, and eels to the side of the entrance out front so that customers could go out and select which one they would like for their meal.

It's raining and humid here but not hot.

Homestay Families

Since we arrived on the first morning of the Tibetan New Year, Losar, we've spent a lot of time in family spaces. Zaq's homestay family is better off so they keep inviting us back for meals. We go to see my homestay family a couple of times but only briefly.

My amala is a single mother with two young daughters. The older daughter is boarded at another town an hour away. The Tibetans were able to create their own school system that, while still linked to the Indian educational system, was mostly designed to meet their needs. The students have a month-long break over Losar so both of my amala's daughters were present while I lived there. I never got the story about her life and the father. She was actually born in India, just north of Dharamsala. Her parents must've been part of the early waves of exiles who lived in small refugee camps while arrangements were still being negotiated with the India government but the nascent Tibetan government-in-exile. Her home is part of an elementary school stepped down the sharp hillside and she works as the janitor of the school and caretaker of the children who board during the school year. The space allocated for her home consisted of a large room where the childrens' bunks were situated, two squat toilets and a shower(without running water when there hadn't been enough precipitation), and two small side rooms which made up her private space. One room still stored students' trunks and had one empty bunk and the dual gas burners that made up the kitchen. The other room had one bed, where I slept with my head below the altar. Amala would sleep with the 7-year-old daughter on the bunk in the kitchen room and the older daughter, about 11, would sleep on bedding rolled out next to my bed each night. There was electricity for the lights and the television which was a recent addition. The food she prepared was great. Often she made Indian curries, always vegetarian for me. She spoke some English. It was easier to communicate about school and food than to ask questions about life experiences. In the mornings, I enjoyed pretending to be asleep while she tended the altar, watching her light incense, murmur prayers, and refill the bowls of water and food. It was a pleasant way to slowly wake up. Breakfast came next, usually some fresh bread with honey and peanut butter. Extras in a Bob the Builder lunch box. I used to be so finicky about the hard boiled eggs she'd given me, trying to hide them to throw out later if I found the inside wasn't thoroughly cooked. Only recently I've realized how much raw egg I've ingested in my life in the form of cookie dough.

This year, she has another student who is already bed-ridden with some kind of stomach troubles. But my amala is very kind and welcoming but, as usual, seems slightly stressed by the demands of caring for three people. Her youngest daughter, Pema, is super shy at first, as though I'm a stranger again. She warms up later, especially when she comes with her mother to see me off on my last day, a gesture that assures me that they always were, and still are, fond of me. It must be strange for them to have us foreigners dropping into their lives from unimaginable distances. I doubt my homestay sisters have ever been to Delhi. Someday, they will, though, when they are older. Maybe for university, like one of Zaq's homestay brothers who is in his first year.

Dharamsala

We arrive in McLeod Ganj, the smaller town perched above Dharamsala in the foothills of the Himalayas. We took a night bus from Delhi - 12 hours. The last half of which was on increasingly bumpy, windy roads, narrowly scraping (and I mean inches that would be lost if the buses weren't perfectly parallel as they passed) by other rickety buses at frightening speeds next to steep drop-offs. I get small bruises on the elbow that I bouncily try to lean on the window frame.

A few observations about India. Men and poor people pee everywhere except the grass in designated parks. Telephone and electricity wires are haphazard rats' nests of odd wires, some a couple inches thick, draped over tilting posts, ledges, and corners of buildings. Street vendors stir cackling snacks in spitting oil pans. Touts wander through stopped traffic offering small toys, newspapers, water, sliced coconut, oranges, and baked nuts to drivers and passengers. One man spins an empty basket on a finger and makes a kissing noise at me in my bus window. The kissing noises, along with gropes and cat-calls, is called Eve-teasing here and the problem is given a lot of lip-service in the newspapers. I think its a telling name for the behavior because it reveals a victim-blaming attitude that explains these actions as inevitable reactions to a perceived female sexuality. Because India is not known for having a large Christian population, I assume that the Eve reference fits into the variation of British English that is spoken in India.

Indian buses have large cabs up front, sometimes with space for extra passengers during the day and for the extra men who help the driver by checking and selling tickets, dealing with luggage, filling the gas tank, wiping the fogged up windshield, and navigating slim passes with other vehicles. The cabs are decorated with images of Hindu deities, blinking lights, and various tassels. Along the route bus hands pick up and drop off various large sacks at small towns, providing a delivery service as well.

We arrive in McLeod Ganj on the first day of the Tibetan New Year, Losar. The owners of the Om Guesthouse give us a key and never check us in - they are busy entertaining family. McLeod Ganj is the home of His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government in exile. It is the center of the expatriated Tibetan community. There are many settlements in India but all expat Tibetans (I have yet to hear of an exception) come to McLeod Ganj at least once. For some, immediately after they leave Tibet, usually via Nepal, feeling it necessary to be blessed by H.H.. Zaq and I lived here for a month in homestays two years ago, learning the Tibetan language, politics, history, and religion.

There are small patches of snow on the ground, something I never saw the last time I was here. My previous visit had been during an unseasonably warm year. The cold creeps in through the few centimeters of breathing room between the door and its frame. The windows aren't doing their best either. No heater. After an early morning nap, Zaq and I head first to get some lunch from the J.J.I. Cafe which is owned by one of the older Tibetan women who taught our language classes, Nima-la. She is a mischievous woman who loves teasing us and playing a part in some of our schemes. Her sons are a successful Tibetan rock band, the J.J.I. Brothers, so the family has had opportunities to travel. Unfortunate for us, she was in Holland with them while we visited Dharamsala. The town is quiet and empty of Tibetans because many were up early for prayers at the Tsuglhakhang, the main temple next to His Holiness' house. The first day of Losar is spent at home with family. Here, the holiday is 3 days long but in some places, it is celebrated for one to two weeks.

There are quite a few Westerners in the J.J.I. and I wonder which ones might be current S.I.T. students. Instead, I am discovered by Sean, the older brother of a good friend and former housemate of mine. The world has suddenly spasmed into its miniature form in which, no matter the distance, everyone is a hug away.

Delhi Day 3

Old Delhi is all small winding streets, a true bazaar. Each alley or section of street is full of tiny shops selling the same things as their neighbors. Coils of strip metal, stationery, bearings, springs, tassels, handles & knobs, metal pipes, etc. It is quite the opposite of the American tendency to spread away from your competitors unless you intend on taking their customers. These groupings of same shops makes sense for a time and place without uniform addresses with consecutive numbering. I've heard that sometimes multiple separate shops are owned by the same person so they work together to get you what you're looking for. While we are in old Delhi, school kids are getting out of class and riding 6 or 8 packed into a cycle rickshaw, all matching uniforms and with their backpacks hanging from hooks, clustered on the back. One student followed us awhile, chatting with Zaq and later forcing upon me a gift of 10 rupees which surprises and confuses me because my experience has only been that kids ask for money and pens from me.

After lunch at the famous Karim's (claiming roots in Mughal times- amazing naan and curries), we head across town on the Metro (very clean and cheap, jam packed at rush hour) to the Indira Gandhi Memorial. We have to walk 15 minutes through some of the wide residential tree-lined streets of walled compounds set back from the street. Indira Gandhi (the daughter of Nehru who is not related to Mahatma Gandhi), the first female Prime Minister of India, was assassinated at her home. It is now a nice memorial, filled with keepsakes and photos for visitors to view, including the clothes she and her son were wearing when each were (at separate times) assassinated.

A few minutes away is the Mahatma Gandhi memorial at the place where he was assassinated. The bottom floor of the building is full of various detailed accounts of the day he died. My favorite describes him as having just returned from Calcutta where he was "dispelling hate with love", as if it were his job. I guess it sort of was.

Delhi Day 2

Zaq and I spent the day running errands. We managed to find the Kyrgyzstan embassy but they are on holiday. I'm not sure if there's a holiday in either Kyrgyzstan or India that the embassy should be celebrating.

Delhi is better than I remember it, perhaps because the weather is pleasantly cool. There are trees lining most of the streets, offsetting the dust from the partially excavated brick sidewalks. There is a lot of construction everywhere, creating a bit of disarray but still a positive sign that there is money to be spent on improvements. Construction work is slow in India, I'm not sure why. I often see people standing around chatting or sleeping on a patch of grass, at the construction sites or near fields. Sometimes it is difficult to determine who is a worker because they wear no uniform and there don't seem to be bosses or managers around.

Here, workers don't mix cement in a bucket, they dump the dry cement into a pile and pour water in the center, making a bowl of the extra dry cement and mixing wet cement in the middle. Saves on having a bucket or a wheelbarrow.

Delhi Arrival

My flight left San Francisco in the first five minutes of the third of February. Fourteen hours to Taipei, Taiwan, an hour layover in the early morning of the 4th and then seven more hours to Delhi. I finally arrive at 1pm. Delhi and New Delhi are both one city but it has noticeable layers of development.

In the airport, I have to wait almost an hour and a half for my first bag to turn up on the baggage claim conveyor belt. It may have been the first one on the plane because I watched 200-300 bags pass by me. I have either never been on a plane with that much luggage or I have been lucky enough to have bags earlier in the queue. As I waited, I watched workers beginning to saw wood next to the baggage claim, working without goggles and ignoring the young boy wandering nearby looking for his family's luggage. I also examined the the various styles of turbans the many Sikh men waiting with me were wearing. Later on in India, my friend, Zaq, and I will notice the many 'Singh's on the reservation lists for the trains. It is common for Sikh men to take the last name Singh.

Once I get my bag, I head out and prepay for a taxi to Majnukatilla, a Tibetan colony in the northern section of Delhi, near a river. It's an hour drive across Delhi from the airport. I'm a little disappointed that I am not riding in an Ambassador, just a regular little hatchback. Ambassadors are beautiful old cars, fully metal, heavy, and painted in the bright colors required for city taxis (black with yellow and green stripes for Delhi) or black or white for private cars.

I get used to being on the left side of the road pretty quickly. It takes a few more days to learn how to look the correct way before crossing the street. I am a little more surprised to see how many more men are out in public than women, a severe majority. I had forgotten. My driver tells me that there are three female rickshaw drivers in Delhi. A lonely contingent. He also tells me that the key to driving in India is, "a good brake, good horn, and good luck".
The air smells musky, a bit sweet, not as bad as I remember. It is about 65 degrees Fahrenheit, amazingly temperate. Delhi will get hot in a month.

After I drop my bags in a room at the Tibetan-run Wongdhen House, I wander around the narrow streets - too narrow for vehicles, only the occasional rickshaw. Zaq shows up after dinner from Mumbai/Bombay. He and I were classmates here two years ago for a Tibetan Studies program in the School of International Training (SIT).

Expectations for Culture Shock Upon Arrival in Delhi

Looking forward to my arrival in Delhi in four days, I imagine I will be a bit shell-shocked the first day or two. Though I've been to Delhi a couple times before and will be heading straight to Majnu Ka Tilla, the Tibetan colony I once stayed in, I think my mind will be reeling as I attempt to adjust my expectations (which are based of foggy memories and highlighted imprints) to what I am actually experiencing. Some filmmakers do wonders capturing the beauty and detail of the world but they are always lacking the tactile and the periphery. Similarly, it takes a lot of effort for me to bring those essential details into my conceptions of The Way Things Will Be.

On the Privilege of Having the Opportunity to Travel

These thoughts might be better voiced at Thanksgiving but they've been a necessary part of my process preparing for this trip. Since I don't have definite plans of schooling, working, or volunteering, I've been trying to come up with ways to make sure I will feel justified in making this trip. So far, I plan on writing (hence this blog), drawing and other art, practicing my Mandarin and learning other languages, and reading a lot of books. I have also been thinking about what makes it possible for me to take a trip that few people can. So I find it necessary to outline as best I can what elements of my life have led me to a time and place in which I am capable, as so few people are, to spend five months traveling in Asia.

To begin with, I am a young white, college-educated American. I don't mean to say that belonging in such a category is necessary, but it sure helps. My parents have always encouraged me to do whatever suits my character and still continue to support me in many ways. The small, liberal arts college I attended in the Northwest (U.S.) sends about half of its students abroad, creating a campus culture in which the idea of studying abroad is hard to avoid and students can all find a program that will cost them no more than their school costs for that same time period.

At college, I was also lucky enough to have a good friend who studied Mandarin and had spent a gap year during high school in India. Hearing his stories and having been raised to feel capable of tackling most anything, it was easy to believe that traveling for long periods of time in places as foreign as Asia had seemed was actually possible.

As did half my classmates, I went abroad two years ago to the School of International Training's semester-long Tibetan Studies Program in Northern India and Bhutan. Including a summer intensive Mandarin course in Taizhong, Taiwan and some travel in between, I was abroad visiting eight countries in nine months.

Thus is my luck of the draw...