Embracing Failure and Imagination

Like many people, I gobbled up each and every Harry Potter book as it was published. I marveled at J. K. Rowling's storytelling abilities, and how deep and complex the plotlines were. I mean, come on - the boy has to deal with terrorism and politcal corruption. And this is something many elementary school kids understand!

So I was eager to read Ms. Rowling's Harvard commencement address last June, titled The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination. The following passage sums up why I think everyone owes it to themselves to read this:

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

It's when we engage our imagination that we're able to put ourselves in someone else's shoes and ask, "what would that really feel like?" There's certainly no lack of need for compassion and understanding in this world, and we need everyone's imaginations in full gear.

First Ever International Body Music Festival

About 13 years ago I went to my first Keith Terry workshop. Wow. I'd been studying Afro-Cuban drumming, and was amazed by what he taught: body percussion. And may I say that, after schlepping heavy congas drums around, it was a revelation to realize that my body was an amazing instrument! And required no additional heavy lifting.

Keith lives in the Bay Area will be hosting the 1st International Body Music Festival December 2nd through the 7th. The festival will feature performers from all over the world. Hambone, gumboot, palmas, beatboxing, stepping, kecak (monkey chant), snapping, clapping, you name it. Long before we humans developed instruments, we used our bodies to express our musical ideas. Almost every part of the world has some form of body percussion or mouth music.

If you can't make it to the festival, bring Keith to your town to teach a workshop. I guarantee it'll be great fun.

United We Sing

I'm so grateful to the friend who sent me a link to a Bill Moyers interview with Mark Johnson, a record producer who's traveled the world uniting musicians through common songs. The end result is a documentary called Playing for Change: Peace Through Music and includes incredibly moving footage of musicians from all over the world, from all kinds of circumstances, singing songs like Stand By Me and One Love People Get Ready - recorded at different times, but edited together into one rich, beautiful tapestry of humanity and creativity.

As Mark Johnson says:

I think that in order to really unite people we have to show that in our darkest situations and in the places with the most struggles in the world, that we can find a way of uplifting each other out of it. I remember hearing somebody that said, "The last person who knew why we were fighting died a long time ago."

We all know the world is changing. And we get to decide if it's changing for the better or if it's changing for the worse.

And so with music, it opens up these doors that ordinarily wouldn't be opened.

You can check out the Playing for Change blog, which has news and information about the foundation that was created to build schools in some of the communities where the documentary was filmed.

Music and Language

I love languages. I love learning new words and phrases to open up possibilities when I travel, creating opportunities to connect and usually learning something about the culture in the process. Trying to learn Chinese, Thai or Khmer stumps most of us Westerners because these are tonal languages where one word has five different pronunciations based on rising, falling, or middle tones. Our ears just aren't trained to hear all the subtleties and mimic the sounds.

I hadn't thought about the link between tonal langauges and music until recently listening to a RadioLab episode called Musical Language. Diana Deutsch is a professor specializing in the psychology of music, and has conducted experiments with people who's native language is tonal (i.e., Mandarin and Vietnamese) and discovered they're exponentially more likely to have perfect pitch. In one experiment, she recorded a Mandarin speaker saying a sentence in the exact same pitch every time . . . on different days.

Sound Made Visible

If sound waves could be drawn, what would they look like? I saw a video today called "Cool Salt" and got an idea of what that looks like. They put a speaker under a flat surface with salt, and as the pitch coming out of the speaker rises, the salt moves into different patterns.

If this is for real, what effect does pitch have on our bodies? What reactions are our cells having as pitch rises and falls?

Fun food for thought.

Northwest Folklife Festival

I can't imagine Seattle without the Northwest Folklife Festival. I just can't. I've been going to this 4-day, free music festival over Memorial Day weekend since I moved here in 1989 and I always see and experience something new every year.

I recently heard about something called a "hang drum" from Switzerland, which has a 2-year waiting list to buy and costs close to $2,000. I went on YouTube to hear what this instrument sounds like, and fell in love. Lo and behold, there at Folklife this year was a guy not only playing two hang drums at the same time, but didgerdoo as well. Wow. The sound was incredible, and he was strategically placed right next to a tent offering massage. Perfect.



Earlier in the day I passed by some visiting mbira players from Zimbabwe, the band Mawungira. These guys put on a great show, and are fantastic musicians. Their music is soulful and playful, and has the rhythmic complexity Shona music is known for. So beautiful.



This last photo is of a guy I've seen at Folklife before, and I wish I knew his name. He makes and plays this amazing sculpture made of metal and strings, and the sound is truly ethereal.

How to "hear" with your whole body

A friend recently told me about the TED Talks, and I'm completely hooked. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, and the talks feature a wide variety of speakers on a wide variety of topics. One of which is Evelyn Glennie, a deaf percussionist from Scotland.

Evelyn Glennie's TED talk is on hearing music with your whole body, and explores the idea of music, sound-producing, and sound-receiving. I find Evelyn's sensitivity to sound and vibration fascinating, one that challenges the notion of being tone-deaf. What is tone, anyway? And can we "hear" it in other ways?

Another resource for exploring music, sound and vibration is the film, Touch the Sound. This movie features Evelyn Glennie and takes the viewer on a journey through her sensory perceptions, and offers up a whole new world in terms of experiencing music.

"See ability, not disability"

That's the tagline for the first ever Asian Festival of Inclusive Arts, also known as Spotlight, which just ended a one-week run in both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap in Cambodia. Epic Arts was offered a grant by the Nippon Foundation to bring together a diverse range of disabled and abled-bodied artists from all over Asia to put on a series of free performances to help raise awareness about disabled people and the arts.

Close to 5% of the population of Cambodia is disabled due to land mines, traffic and work accidents. There have been other "inclusive arts" festivals in Asia, and Hannah Stevens, the producer of Spotlight, got the idea for the festival after seeing a similar event in Hong Kong. Nothing on this scale had ever been done in Cambodia before, and receiving the grant from the Nippon Foundation paved the way and opened doors.

I was able to see two of the performances while I was there: Ramesh Meyyappan, a deaf actor from Singapore who was outstanding; and a Vietnamese contemporary dance troupe that includes hearing-impaired dancers, Getting Higher, performing a piece called Stories of Us (on YouTube). (I found out after I came home that Stories of Us was performed here in Seattle at On The Boards back in March, 2007.) Creative and inventive, both performances illustrate the point that Spotlight wants to make: that art and creative expression can challenge our ideas about disability, and give people who are typically marginalized the opportunity to be heard and seen and share their own, unique message.

Maybe some day we'll see one of these festivals in the U.S.

SE Africa comes to SE Asia

Mary's been traveling with an mbira, a small instrument (good for travel) from Zimbabwe, and played it for some village kids at a Hindu temple we visited yesterday in the Takeo Province. Their eyes lit up, and one serious-looking girl called it "foreign music." Another girl gave it a try, and laughed at the sounds she could make. Our guide explained that the instrument came from Africa, but I don't think these kids know what that means.









Experiences like this make me wonder about this "cultural cocktail" we're part of: take two American women, a handful of Cambodian village children, mix them together with an instrument from Africa, and serve "on the rocks."

Random cultural notes

In no particular order, here are a few of the things I've learned in the past 10 days:

• I've seen many women out in the hot sun wearing face masks, hats, and gloves that come up over their elbows. I assumed they were trying to avoid the pollution, but was told they're avoiding darkening their skin. Skin lightening is becoming very popular because women think men want light-skinned women. Considering the popularity of tanning salons in the U.S., I'd say we're never happy with what we have.
• A 50-kilo bag of rice will feed an orphanage of approximately 30 children for a month, and costs about $25.
• Garbage, garbage everywhere! Hundreds of small stores sell small quantities of everything, meaning lots and lots of packaging which gets tossed onto the street and into the river.
• Begging is extremely common with small children who hang around tourist areas. I must admit I'm starting to experience "charity fatigue", and yesterday told a begger boy I'd pay him $1 if he picked up all the trash in the area. He seemed to like that idea, and started cleaning up right away.
• The drive to Takeo Province is lined with trees. Apparently the Chinese planted all these trees because the bark can be used to make paper. But the trees are extremely thirsty, requiring several kilos of water, and are sucking the moisture out of the soil during the dry season. The Chinese have since abadoned their paper-making from the trees, and the Cambodians are left to deal with these large water-guzzlers. Miles and miles and miles of them.
• In contrast to many other countries where dowries are involved, in Cambodia it's the man's family who needs to come up with the dowry. Usually this involves a large sum of money to pay for the wedding, which traditionally would last for three days. If he doesn't have the money to build his own house, he'll move in with his in-laws.
• The Khmer Rouge killed two million men, women and children. Many brutal dictators have killed people they perceived to be inferior, but Pol Pot murdered his own people. Two million of them. That's equivalent to about 15% of Cambodia's current population.
• For every $100 spent in Cambodia from tourists, 10% stays in the country; the rest goes to foreign owners of many of the hotels, restaurants, guesthouses, etc.
• Many of the young people I've met come from huge families, usually around 7-10 kids. During the late-1970s and early 1980s there was a desire to repopulate the country following the fall of the Khmer Rouge. A large percentage of Cambodia's population is under 30.

The arts in Cambodia

Brutal dictatorships tend to target artists first. You know, creative types would just put such a damper on their plans. The Khmer Rouge was no exception, and a lot of traditional Khmer music and dance nearly died out during that dark time.

I'm happy to say that today there are many, many organizations working to both revitalize traditional art forms and to also encourage creativity and new expression. Below is a list of what I've found so far, and I'd encourage anyone who wants to see freedom of expression take hold in Cambodia (as well as give street kids another option than begging to survive) to donate something to one of these groups.







Phare Ponleu Selpak (Brightness of Art)
Formed in 1986 in a refugee camp on the Thai border, this organization now works with orphans and trafficking victims and offers them schooling. Approximatey 35% of their students study visual arts, music, circus, drama and dance.

Epic Arts
This group works to integrate disabled and able-bodied people through Khmer dance, contemporary dance, creative movement, drama, art, crafts, music and puppetry. It's worth noting that nearly 5% of Cambodian's population is disabled due to land mines, poor health care and increasing numbers of traffic and work accidents.

Cambodian Living Arts
Cambodian-American refugee Arn Chorn-Pond, after gaining recognition in the film "The Flute Player", founded this organization to support the revival of traditional Khmer art forms.

Sovanna Phum (Golden Era)
Created in 1996, they offer free performances at their space in Phnom Penh, and also travel to rural areas. Currently the director is using puppet theater to teach villagers about the bird flu epidemic. (Their new website will be launched in spring 2008.)

Amrita (Eternity)
Working to preserve the performing arts in Cambodia, Amrita also runs the Cambodian Artists Program.

Spotlight - Asian Festival of Inclusive Arts
This festival is brand new and debuts tomorrow with a parade here in Phnom Penh. I will be attending a couple of the events this weekend, and will write another post just on this festival.

Rohal Village

The Cambodian government has a plan to introduce tourism into villages that have traditionally lived off the land. Rohal Village is one of a handful of areas that hopes to attract tourists by providing crafts for sale and a chance for visitors to experience village life close-up.

Rohal Village is down a tiny, dirt road past some of the ruins at Angkor Wat, with signs in both khmer and english. We'd read that their specialties (in addition to growing rice and fruit) are making musical instruments and carved, wooden ox and carts. I imagined workshop spaces buzzing with activity and power tools, people eagerly creating items for sale.

Not exactly. For starters, there was hardly anyone there. And if we hadn't come with our own translator we'd have no way to communicate with anyone there. There was one ox and cart sculpture sitting on a table, but no one seemed very eager to create more than that. Further back we found where the musical instruments are made, but again, no one was working. A teenage boy brought out a couple double-stringed "fiddles" for us to try, which were quite painful to play.

Mary snapped lots of pictures of village life with women carrying water and babies in hammocks, and we watched some boys playing volleyball with a rather deflated ball in a big, open field while chickens, dogs and cows wandered around. The houses were a mixture of traditional thatched-roof and thatched-walled buildings, alongside newer concrete boxes painted bright colors. The only way in and out of the village is either by foot, bicycle or motorcycle; there are no real "roads", just jaggy dirt paths between the houses.









The idea has great potential, but I don't think the villages have quite caught up to the concept yet. I'm sure in another four years all of this will change drastically.

Kids coming out of the shadows

It's truly amazing how many NGOs are here in Cambodia, working in just about every sector you can imagine to improve people's lives. One organization, Krousar Thmey, trains street kids to sing, dance, and act with puppets to put on a show for tourists at La Noria Guesthouse and Restaurant.

The puppet show depicts different folk tales, with the kids using shadow puppets beyind a large sheet that's hung in the restaurant. A live band of mostly children provides music, both for the puppet show and the dancing that follows. The kids range in age from about seven to twelve years old, and guests are allowed to get up and wander around and peek at the action behind the curtain as well as in front.









We were on our way out just as the manager of the guest house, Michelle, was waving goodbye the the truckload of kids on their way home; their costumes sparkling and all the props, lights, and instruments squeezed in between them. We chatted with her for a bit about all the options available to street kids in Siem Reap today. The day prior we had visited an orphanage that Krousar Thmey funds, and were so impressed with how nice the place looked. Clean, lovely courtyard where the kids eat, classrooms with khmer, english and french posters on the walls.

I wonder if things don't just naturally balance themselves out. For all the corruption in the Cambodian government, making life harder for the average Cambodian, there are many, many organizations working to build schools, house and feed children, and improve conditions in several other ways.

The real deal

After four days of visiting temples, and only hearing a couple leaf players, I had given up finding the one I had heard four years ago. I was sad because he was so good, and none of the players we'd seen could compare to the soaring melodies I'd heard before. Musicians at the temples throughout Angkor Wat must now register and pay the park service a fee, and as a result there are fewer bands.

On our last day, after visiting the beautiful faces of Bayon, I (yet again) described where I'd heard the music I was seeking: there were elephants and a hill, and the band sat at the foot of the hill to the left. It was so vivid in my mind, and I think a part of me didn't want to give up. He knew the place, but had said to me a couple times that there were no longer musicians there. To humor me, I think, we stopped by that same place late in the day.

Voila! There he was. The same guy. The very same guy. His band had doubled in size, but I recognized the music and could hear how different it was from everything else we had heard. We walked up and talked to him, and then he proceeded to play two non-Cambodian tunes: Sealed With a Kiss, and another one I didn't recognize. He handed me a leaf, but still I couldn't make a sound. The whole band played some Khmer dance music, and tourists stopped by and tapped their feet and rocked their heads in time to the groovin' drum rhythms.

I have his name on the recording, and will post a clip of his music. You'll be amazed!

Cambodian leaf blowers

Today I met a musician whose instrument brought me back here: a leaf player. The humble leaf can make a mighty beautiful sound in the hands of the right person, and four years ago I first heard the amazing melodies a good player can create.

I just couldn't get the sound of out my head all these years. Kind of like an Indian raga, but distinctly SE Asian, soaring way up high and then swooping down like a bird. Siem Reap has changed drastically over the past four years, but thankfully I was able to track down a leaf player at the Banteay Seray temple.

The leaf is not a traditional Khmer instrument, but played in recent times as a portable and readily-available option. Although, I was amused at the six or so leaves this player had in front of him, like harmonicas in different keys, or guitars with different tunings. Sadly, I didn't get his name, but he did let me give it a try. He curled one of the long edges of the leaf, and put it in his mouth and blew. Not so easy! I tried and tried, until I nearly passed out, and couldn't make a single sound.

Like many of the bands playing at the temples of Angkor Wat, this group of seven players are all survivors of land mines. They make their living playing at the temples every day, selling CDs and playing as soon as they see tourists walking by. One had his prosthetic leg standing behind him, a couple of them are blind, and several are amputees. It's one of life's many ironies that out of tragedy springs beautiful music.

In addition to the leaf, other instruments include a single-stringed fiddle that's bowed while held vertically on the knee, a wooden xylophone, a kim (looks like a small sitar), drum, hand cymbals, and a hammered dulcimer. They allowed me to record them, and said their wish for this story is to encourage people in the U.S. to come visit Cambodia. A crowd gathered around us, and three people bought a CD from them.

We decided to share with them the mbira, or thumb piano as it's called in the U.S. My travel companion brought one with her, and pulled it out to play for them. They'd never heard of or seen such a thing, and one of them tried it. He immediately matched the pitch of one of the keys to his kim, and I marvelled at the unversality of the language of music. We may not speak each other's language, but we all understand "do, re, mi . . ."

Khmer adventures

We're at the end of our first full day in Cambodia, and I'm still in shock at how different everything is. It was only 4 years ago that I was here, but I feel like I'm in a different country. The airport is brand new, and the old airport is now only used for domestic flights. The roads are all paved from the airport to Siem Reap (NOT the case 4 years ago), and the city itself has grown 40% (yes, 40%!) since 2004. New hotels, tons of people; it's insane. I was looking forward to the drive from the airport down the red, dusty roads full of motorcycles. But instead it was a lot of big cars (the many motorcycles, tuk tuks and bicycles are still thankfully in use) on a new paved road.

However, we've had some amazing adventures today and did get out of the city altogether. In the morning we went to two of the oldest Angkor Wat temples east of the city. Then we drove to a village where the road is no longer paved, let alone driveable. So we hopped on the back of motorcycles for the most fun ride I've ever had. My driver was probably 16 or 17, and pencil-thin. I felt like an Amazon, holding on to his tiny waist as we bumped and wove our way down this very long, washed-out, dirt road. We passed through villages with houses on stilts - they create a shady area under the house for a place to eat or just relax. It was like being in another era completely - no electricity (they do have generators), no running water, and no cars. We rode and rode and rode, and then the village gave way to rice fields. Big, beautiful rice fields with vibrant shades of green. The rice was planted about a month ago, and will grow to 3 or 4 months before it gets harvested. The new growth is really such a lovely shade of green.

At the end of the long dirt road was a canal with a boat waiting for us. We slowly motored down the the winding canal, and then through the most amazing place I've ever seen. A fishing village with stilt houses waaaay above the ground - the stilts probably 30 meters high. The canal feeds into the lake (Tonle Sap) which rises several meters every year when the Mekong River surges. So the houses sit way up high to withstand the change in water level. The water level is at its lowest in February, so these houses just tower above the ground. These people have lived like this for centuries. My travel companion snapped away, taking photos of children, mothers, men with fishing nets. It was almost unreal - like a movie set. We finally reached the lake and it took about an hour to cross, before reaching a floating village on the north shore where houses on pontoons rise and fall with the level of the lake. The largest fresh water lake in SE Asia, Tonle Sap accounts for 40% of Cambodia's employment, fishing being their #1 industry.

Now, this is the real deal; the real Cambodia. Rural, lovely, friendly, and beautiful.

PNW music and the Andaman Sea

In anticipation of meeting musicians in Cambodia I burned several CDs of a collection of music from the Pacific Northwest: some KGB, Ruthie Dornfeld, John Miller and John Reischman, a mix of acoustic, folk-based music.

The bar at the Narima Bungalows plays great music, so I decided to give them one of these CDs to add to their collection. The bartender thanked me kindly, and I figured maybe he'd listen to it privately before subjecting the patrons to whatever foreign sounds were on there.

A few minutes later we're sipping our Singha beers and looking out across the Andaman Sea in the warm moonlight, balmy breezes rustling the palm trees, and out comes the fiddling of Claude Ginsberg, mandolin by Dave Bartley, and the piano-playing of Julie King. KGB has arrived in SE Asia! It was somewhat surreal hearing my friends' music in the midst of Thais, Swedes and Germans.

I wasn't sure what to make of hearing that music in such a setting and was concerned they were just being polite, and perhaps that would be the only time they played the CD. As soon as we left they'd probably put the Bob Dylan or Ben Harper back on. But the next day, as I was walking down the steps from the upper deck where the restaurant is, I could hear fiddle music. They were playing the CD, and not just to be polite! That made my day.

The world felt just a little bit smaller.

The riddle of the Swedes

OK, so they won't kill me if I don't answer three questions, but I have wondered why there are so very many Swedes on the island of Ko Lanta.

I'm fairly well-traveled, and I have never visited a place with so many Swedish people. Probably 75% of the travellers staying at our bungalows are Swedish, every excursion we've been on has been more than half Swedes, and the cooking class I took had seven Swedes, one Aussie and two Germans, and one of the owners is Swedish.

Now, if there's a good beach to be found, you can bet you'll find Germans there. I remember being in a tiny village in southern Turkey asking where the best beach was. They told us to drive an hour down a pot-holed, rough dirt road for an hour and we'd find what we were looking for. At the end of all that, sure enough, there were two cars with German plates.

But Swedes?! I'm sure they love a good beach like the rest of us from cooler climes. Well, mystery solved; I found out there are three Swedish schools on Ko Lanta, and direct flights to Krabi in southern Thailand from Copenhagen. So families can come and the kids go to school while the parents get a bit of a vacation.

For now, I'll say "hej da!"

No strings attached

While in Bangkok we went to the Joe Louis Puppet Theatre (their site seems to be down, but click here for images of the puppets and click here for more information about the theater.) What a treat that was! Rather than marionettes on strings, operated from above, these puppets perform with a team of three people per character: one person controls the head and left hand, another the right hand, and still another the feet.

In order to perform, puppeteers must first be trained in Thai classical dance. Then they study for one year to be considered for a trio as one of the characters. The puppets act out their parts using traditional dance moves, which the puppeteers do while they're performing. The effect is a bit like looking at a funhouse mirror with everything in quadruplicate, but beautiful, graceful and expressive.

The story we saw comes from the Indian Ramayana, and is called "The Myth of Rahoo and the Lunar Eclipse." It involves Hanuman the white monkey king, a beautiful girl (but 'natch), demons, and the moon. When one of the demond gets killed by being cut in half, the moon becomes hidden until it reappears by coming back out where he was cut in half.

The puppets were absolutely enchanting. Hanuman and the Princess greet theater-goers as they arrive, play tricks on people and have their photos taken. After the performance they wander through the audience, interacting and joking. The skill of the puppeteers is so impressive, especially when you consider the ability to interact with people from all over the world and get them all smiling. At one point, Hanuman grabbed a baseball cap from a boy, and put it on. Then he turned the bill around to the back and starting making "yo, yo" gestures like a rapper.

Ah yes, the power of MTV.

Island life

Going from Bangkok to Ko Lanta is a little like going from Las Vegas to Hana on Maui. The pace here is slooowww, and we're are definitely on "Thai time".

We're staying at The Narima, which has fantastic bungalows on the southwest side of the island facing the Andaman Sea. The Thai owners, Wan and Yodchai, are a very sweet couple from Bangkok who've decided to "retire" to live by the sea. This isn't exactly the life of luxury for them, but they've created one of those magical, rare places that has it all: a beautiful location, wonderful facilities, and a warm and welcoming staff. We feel like we're visiting someone in their home. Wan and Yodchai lived in the U.S. for 11 years, we've had some great conversations about cultural differences, tourism in Thailand, and Thai politics.







We three American women are somewhat of an oddity here. Most of the people we've seen are couples or families from either Sweden or Germany. With direct flights from Scandinavia to Bangkok, Thailand is the vacation of choice for many Swedes. Although, just tonight we met two women traveling together; one from London living in Vietnam, and the other from Australia living in Vietnam. Here at the internet cafe I met three Americans from, of all places, Portland. But for the most part, we spend our days hearing more Swedish and German than Thai.

We've been on two snorkeling trips. The first was onboard a longtail boat to a group of five islands where we went through a very long (60 meters, I believe) cave that opens up to a hong, an opening in the center of the island with emerald-green water and tall, sheer cliffs of lush greenery. The second trip today was to Ko Rok, an hour by speedboat to the southwest. Amazing! Lots of beautiful coral, schools of fish (swimming among dozens of parrot fish is a wild ride), and long, sandy, powdery, white beaches.





We saw monkeys in the trees near our bungalows, and a pair of elephants live in a yard a few meters across the road. Geckos chirp us to sleep at night, and exotic bird calls and cicadas greet us in the mornings. We watched a scorpion scamper across the sand at dinner the other night, while a table of (who else?) Swedes photographed it. It was like the "scorpion paparazzi." There's a white cat that's been died pink at a place a few doors down, but we don't know why.

Time to go. There's a coconut drink with my name on it waiting for me at the bar on the beach. I love island life.

Thai one on

OK, so Chinese food was good. Really, really good. But Thai food . . . oh, man. The lime, the ginger, the chilies, mango, papaya, fruits I can't even begin to identify, all so fresh and yumilicious. As with most travel, food seems to be the most satisfying way of sampling the culture, and therefore becomes the quest we plan our day around.





It's great to have the company of friends now after traveling alone for a couple weeks. We've been up and down the Chao Praya River a few times in the last couple of days. For 15 baht (approx. $.40), you can cruise the length of Bangkok and watch the world go by: beautiful, shiny, gold wats rise up skyward with ornate tile work and carvings; trash and debris float by; a man sits on a marble wall and washes himself in the filthy water; longtail boats with their 2-stroke motors go roaring by; dense green vegetation peeks out wherever possible; skyscrapers loom in the distance; and people from all over the world get on and off the water taxis, toting either maps or groceries, children or shopping bags full of treasures.





Yesterday was Chinese New Year, and the temples were full of worshippers kneeling in front of gold, Buddha statues. They hold three sticks of insense, bow their heads to the ground three times, and bring offerings of fruit or oil. Some buy little squares of gold leaf, and rub them onto the Buddha statues, giving the figures a funny, fuzzy appearance. Someone strikes a large gong three times, and the sound reverberates for several minutes, hanging in the air as heavy as the humidity.







Wat Pho houses an enormous reclining Buddha with intricate, mother-of-pearl inlay on the soles of the feet. Worshippers purchase a small cup of coins, and plink-plunk them into metal buckets along the far war, filling the space with a lovely, almost musical sound. Wat Phra Kaew houses an emerald Buddha that sits high up in the air on a gold-, mirror- and tile-encrusted altar. The royal palace has more ornate stupas, buildings, pillars, and altars everywhere you look. Creatures that are half-monkey, half-man stand squat along the ground with their arms raised, holding the pillar up. Half-man, half-bird figures stand regal in their golden glory, looking (if you'll excuse the pun) cocky and confident. The aesthetic here is just amazing. Colorful and ornate, a big contrast to the gray, utilitarian look of China.







A trip to the Suam Lum Night Bazaar last night provided us with ample shopping possibilities. It's the largest night market in the country and you can find just about anything there. Bargaining is the name of the game and we had fun partaking in the fun of it all. Clothes, home furnishings, linens, furniture, artwork, tchotchkes of all shapes and sizes.

Today we made a trip to a gem dealer, and learned about choosing precious stones. The clerk pulled out a small black box of sapphires with depth and clarity, facets within facets reflecting light, color and shine. This is where jewelers and gem dealers from all over the world come to buy stones wholesale. Evidently Thailand gem makers know how to fire the stones for the best clarity and brilliance. Most of the world's sapphires come from Vietnam and Burma, and are cut here in Thailand. They cook the stones in little ovens on the street, and if one comes out not looking good enough, they throw mixtures of chemicals into the fire to get the effect they want. Not exactly scientific, but I guess they know what they're looking for.





I wish I could write about some lovely Thai music I've heard, but the only live music we've come across has been a violinist at the hotel restaurant playing western music (theme from Love Story, anyone?) to a karaoke-like back-up machine of tinkle-y piano and drum rhythms. Maybe we'll have better luck on Ko Lanta, our island paradise that we're going to tomorrow.

A tale of three cities

Beijing is a pretty mind-boggling city all around. To say it's massive is an understatement. The population of Seattle is just over half a million people (slightly more than 582,000), and the population of Beijing is 17.5 million. That's nearly 35 Seattles rolled into just one city.

For a city this size, it's natural there would be distinct cultures within that population. But here in Beijing the distinctions are incredibly pronounced. The differences between imperial Beijing, modern Beijing, and the small neighborhoods called hutongs are huge.

Imperial Beijing is the history and former glory of the centuries of emperors (and a couple emperesses.) The Forbidden City sits grandly opposite Tiananmen Square, as if to say, "You'll never take away my legacy." Courtyard inside courtyard, palace after palace, like those Russian nesting dolls. I felt like a rat in a maze, wondering if there was cheese at the end of one special corridor. Why the cultural revolution spared this amazing site I don't really know, when so many other historic relics were destroyed.

Modern Beijing rises up high in the sky, in gleaming glass and polished stone towers. It's also found in the stark, vast, marble of Tiananmen Square. The square looks back across at the Forbidden City as if to say, "Your days are long gone, old man." But some Chinese tell me that the communists are really just one more dynasty along the path of life. It seems like most dynasties lasted about 300 years, and they say the cycle just repeats itself. Modern Beijing has taken down the walls, and has opened up to the world. And modern Beijing sells knock-off Mao memorabilia and $1 t-shirts at every tourist attraction around.

The hutongs seem to be the heart of "real" China - winding, twisty neighborhoods of gray walls that house the homes and courtyards of ordinary folks, just living their lives in the shadow of both imperial and contemporary Beijing. This is the way the Chinese have lived for centuries, no matter who was in power. But winning the bid for the Olympics this year has resulted in the government razing many of these little neighborhoods to make way for more tall, gleaming towers.

I hope Beijing can stay a tale of three cities, but only time will tell.

The Peking Opera goes Broadway

Traditional Peking Opera isn't something most foreigners have a desire to experience. For one thing, performances last four hours (Wagner would fit right in.) For another, the high-pitched singing and percussive nature of the music is strange to our ears. But an interesting blend of east and west is happening here in Beijing, with attempts to make the Peking Opera more contemporary and accessible to visitors.

Through a friend in Seattle, I've had the great fortune to meet the artistic director of one of these shows and learn more about his company's efforts to create a Chinese form of entertainment that's akin to a Broadway show. Their current show is The Legend of Kung Fu, an opera with a Chinese story and a veteran Broadway director (complete with a rap number, I'm told.) With updated music and acrobats, the show has toured internationally. And now the production company, China Heaven Creation, is working on a new show called White Snake Lady. The story is about a snake that turns into a woman and falls in love with a man, and a monk who makes assumptions and interferes in their love story.

It's interesting to hear about the struggles within the production company to find the balance between being true to the original story, and also staying true to the artform of the Peking Opera, while finding a way to make it contemporary. How far should you go to change the nature of an artform in order to communicate something about the culture that it comes from? If an opera is sung in a forest and no one's around to hear it, does it make a sound?!

Of elephants and blind men

I had hoped to learn something about Chinese culture in two weeks. Nothing big, mind you. Just enough to feel like I peeked inside the window of this country and saw something I could comprehend. But what I've learned is that thousands of years of history means thousands of layers of meaning, symbolism and a complexity I can't even begin to understand. I feel like one of the blind men touching the elephant, wanting to know what an elephant looks and behaves like. There's just no way.

Take the language, for instance. There's no punctuation in the written language, and one character can have several meanings. So context is everything. In Haerbin I took a photo of an English translation because I was so amused by the flowery language used. But now I understand that the translator was simply trying to pack all the many nuanced meanings into that translation. The Chinese language is so deep and rich, and to try and translate that into English is a monumental task. Over time, every character has more and more meaning attached to it, and after 3,000 years that's a lot of subtlety.

Another interesting note about the language is that the characters all have the same meaning, whether you speak Cantonese, Mandorin, or any other local dialect. Everyone can read the same book and understand it, but if they were to read out loud they wouldn't understand each other. Mao tried to standardize the spoken language, but so many nuances would be lost that the effort failed.



Another cultural characteristic difficult for me to understand is that of "saving face." On the one hand, I've found people to be much more straight-forward and honest than back home, and yet there's also a complexity in gettings things done. For instance, no one will ever say they can't do something. I've learned not to begin a question with, "Is it possible . . .?" The answer will never be "no" even if it's not possible. So I have to decode the response and look for clues, and then offer other possibilities. One of which, hopefully, will actually be possible, and allow the person to save face and not let me down.

The Communist China I grew up reading about is nothing like the China I'm experiencing. People pay taxes, there is no free healthcare for all, and the free market feels like it's about to launch into outer space. Asians, in general, are extremely brand conscious, and young Chinese want all the cool toys we do: iPods, digital cameras, etc.

The best I can hope for is to be able to describe the elephant's left, front knee. And to be humbled by the realization that I am blinded by my own culture's youthful idealism and expectations.

Oh my. The food.

I've always loved Chinese food, but I never dreamed it could be like this. Yes, sometimes dog meat is on the menu. And yes, there's often a bewildering array of odd-smelling condiments on the table. But, my oh my, what gastronomic pleasures there are here!

Tonight in Xi'an for dinner I had a local specialty, yanrou paomo. They bring a bowl with two rounds of a doughy flat bread you break into small pieces. Then they take the breadcrumbs away, and bring them back drenched in noodles and a rich lamb broth. Salty, chewy, almost buttery tasting. Oh. Heavenly. The price? Under $3 for a huge bowl of this wonderful soup.

In Haerbin I tried "tomato on a stick": small crab apples skewered, then dipped in a sugar syrup. The cold temperatures freeze the small, ripe apples and the effect is like eating fruity ice cream with a thin, hard shell of sugar. Tart and sweet, creamy and crunchy. Like nothing I've ever tasted before.



Earlier today, in the Muslim Quarter, we stopped in for dumplings. A big, round bamboo tray comes out with the freshest steamed dumplings I've ever had. Stuffings of chicken, seafood and pork are tenderly wrapped in little purses of fresh dough, and then you dip them in a spicy sauce.

You know that saying about Chinese food, that in an hour you'll be hungry for more? I think it's because there's just so much to try. Why wait for the next mealtime?! Gotta go. I smell fresh noodles somewhere.

Haerbin, China

Greetings from the frosty north!

I'm here in Haerbin, China, in the neartheast near the Russian border, visiting the annual ice and snow sculpture extravaganza. Thousands of blocks of ice are cut out of the frozen river, and stacked and carved into various sculptures, then lit from within and placed in a carnival-like setting. It's Burning Man meets Disneyland with really bad speakers. Loud Chinese pop music blares and crackles out of loud speakers, while festival goers ice skate, ride ice bikes, climb ice walls, and slide down ice chutes on pillows. With the evening temperatures hovering around -20C/-5F, you need to stay active to keep from getting frostbite. I'm so very happy I bought those hand and foot warmers from REI.









Yesterday we visited a spot along the river where Mongolian horsemen offer rides across the ice. There's also a swimming pool, carved into the ice, for any brave souls wanting to test their mettle. One victorious woman was parading around on a horse, in her bathing suit, giving a victory sign after her victory lap in the pool. Brrrr! These people are HEARTY.





The other highlight of yesterday was the beautiful Temple of Bliss. A series of shrines with large, golden Buddhas housed in traditional Chinese buildings with curved tile rooves and red, tapered pillars. Swags of beautiful, yellow, embroidered silk hang from doorways, and carts with smokey insense for offerings stand steaming in the cold courtyards. After traffic, crowds, and noise in this big, industrial city, it was a nice change of pace to be in such a peaceful, beautiful and serene place.









Today I fly to Xi'an, which is hopefully not one of the cities affected by the big storm in the eastern central part of the country. After that I'm looking forward to spending more time in Beijing, and seeing what hidden gems lie beneath the gray exterior. My first full day in China was spent at a brunch hosted by Australians for Australia Day, followed by a session at an Irish Pub with American and Canadian musicians. I was also able to connect with a Chinese friend of a friend, and treated to a wonderful, authentic Chinese meal to remind me where I was. Of course, there was that heavenly hour-long foot massage I was treated to the evening before after traveling for 16+ hours.

An interesting technology note: I was not able to access this blog from Beijing, but got through at the hotel here in Haerbin. I'm not sure I completely understand China's Internet policies, but I may not be able to post again until I reach Bangkok.