TravelStream™ news feed for member tysonv on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/tysonv en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 13 May 2009 00:24:29 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tysonv/5/1211055960/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tysonv/5/1211055960/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tysonv/5/1211055960/tpod.html Wed, 13 May 2009 00:24:29 -0400 2008 around the world

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Helsinki, Southern Finland, Finland

1 April, 2009 (adapted from an essay written March, 2008)
Caring for Capacity Now for some pessimism, brought to you by basic ecological theory
Fellow humans: are we doomed? These days, doomsday theory is more popular than ever. Is this merely a product of our overblown cyberspace - where every nut job has their say - or is there enough evidence mounting through our experiences on this planet that it is more realistic to buy into a 'we are screwed' hypothesis? As a pessimist, I've always been drawn to the gloomy truism that says: every species that has ever lived on planet Earth has eventually gone extinct. That is bleak, but what's worse is that by destroying our planet so, we are doing ourselves in much faster than any species has ever had the lack of sense to do. Unfortunately, I have also studied enough biological, ecological and environmental science to reaffirm my notion that we humans are just passers-by on this rock floating in space - not only us personally, but our species as well.

My pessimism, mixed with the realism that is sought after in the sciences, does make for a depressing set of beliefs. But fear not: our species has a knack for inventing itself out of self-imposed catastrophe (usually after turning a blind eye to the readily-available foresight that would have prevented the calamity to begin with). In this case, who knows if we have the wherewithal to use our brains to save ourselves? Let us hope we do. Just over a year ago, as I drove for days and days across the desolate wastelands of central Australia, I dismally contemplated the possibility of a non-religious human apocalypse. During this time I was reminded of one of my favorite ecological theories, which I believe applies very well to the reality of humanity at this moment in time.
Perhaps due in part to the recent decades of increasing resource use by humans and the resulting environmental degradation, ecologists have developed a concept called carrying capacity. This refers to the ability of a closed ecosystem to support a finite number any one particular plant or animal species. The number of animals in a population of, let's say, sharks, is dependent upon many factors: water conditions, hunting by humans or other predators, suitable breeding grounds, disease, resource competition, etcetera. Theoretically, if all those factors are constant in a given ecosystem, the major indicator for survival, fitness, and fluctuation of a population is how much food is available. Pretend the sharks' primary sustenance is a certain variety of fish. When schools of these fish are plentiful the sharks eat well; they succeed in reproduction and their population increases.
In order to keep things balanced, however, nature has developed a way of evening things out. When the shark population becomes too large, their food source is diminished in the form of depleted fish stocks. Then a portion of the sharks go hungry and die and the population crashes. This natural correction occurs because the shark population is above the particular habitat's environmental carrying capacity for them. Now, assume the only factor controlling the feeder fish population is shark predation. With fewer predators, the fish population recovers and exponentially increases just as the sharks' did previously. The cycle has come full circle, as the fish are again in abundant supply for the sharks, whose population has in turn begun to increase. The sharks will again decimate the feeder population, securing their imminent cyclical fluctuation. Carrying capacity is nature's version of ecological checks and balances and it works effectively with all species living in resource-limited, finite ecosystems.

For the most part humans have managed to circumvent the laws of carrying capacity - at least up to this point - by transporting themselves out of low-resource areas via migration, or by growing crops to feed the masses, or by inventing and participating in the technology of trade. Thus, our carrying capacity is not often subject to the micro-ecological influences that regulate most ecosystems. Instead, due to our resourcefulness, humanity has a planetary carrying capacity - a theoretical number of people that the planet can support without becoming so degraded or polluted that humans themselves suffer. Due to progress in health science and technology his number is unknown and easily debatable. In specific ecological zones, though, such as the desert or the arctic, it is obvious that humanity has a low natural carrying capacity. The limited amount of reliable food sources in the arctic and lack of water in deserts limit the size of human populations. Only if food and water are brought from outside the resource-poor system can a population continue to grow.
In all probability we humans have reached far beyond our planetary carrying capacity; far beyond the point where our environment can sustain the population without major detriment. This can be witnessed by the destruction of almost every natural habitat useful to man, a net decrease of food, water, and mineral resources across the globe, and a worldwide rate of species extinction never witnessed before throughout the history of this planet. Meanwhile our population is still increasing exponentially - just like the sharks' numbers did for a short while as the fish began to run sparse.
For tens of thousands of years the planet only supported a population of a few million humans or less - small groups of nomads, bands of hunter and gatherers, and more recently, primitive sedentary agricultural societies. As far as Mother Earth was concerned this was the way it was supposed to be - a small number of humans coexisted harmoniously with nature and were subject to the same harsh realities that other species face. When the buffalo herd dwindled, the Native American tribes who fed from them began to suffer as well. Many ancient civilizations were in tune with these natural laws, knowing that the destruction of a habitat or species would spell certain death for them too. They moderated their behavior to preserve their existence and the balance on Earth was maintained. However, since the dawn of industrialization and the unnatural over-utilization of resources that has come with it, the human population on Earth has increased several thousand times over, mostly in the last couple of centuries, and it is increasing faster than ever. Needless to say, we are out of sorts with nature's balance, consuming much more than our environment has to offer.

Since we have, in all likelihood, reached our natural carrying capacity, why is the human population still increasing so rapidly? Well, nature didn't intend for it but we humans had an evolutionary card up our sleeves called intelligence. Humans are a resourceful and tricky bunch that has been able to use its unparalleled intelligence to thwart the natural law that dictates the survival of all other species. We are the only species that can think logically, better ourselves through science and purposeful community organization, and make unnatural changes to our own environment. Our species has invented and embraced technology on a macro scale and used science and agriculture to improve and extend our lives, and our population has benefited and multiplied. In effect, The Industrial Age, as witnessed by the population graph above, raised our carrying capacity - albeit artificially. Unfortunately, we have been so successful in the unnatural endeavor of environmental manipulation that we have done irreversible damage to the Earth by upsetting the balance in the ecosystems so that the planet will take hundreds of millions of years to recover from the pollution and the lost biodiversity from species extinction and habitat loss after we are gone - if it can ever recover.
In this unnatural manner we have shunned the notion of carrying capacity in the modern world. But we teeter on a slippery slope when it comes to toying with the laws of nature. There was a time when the scientific community believed that our resources were infinite - or that at least our relatively small population had no way of exhausting them anytime soon. Since the 1960s, though, the dubious notions of infinite resources and perpetual human population growth have been under scrutiny by scientists. Evidence has continued to undermine the plausibility of a sustained human population at the bloated levels seen now, especially if these people are to maintain the quality of life (QOL) enjoyed by much of the First World at this moment. It has been shown, via the unfortunate depletion of world resources over the last half century, that the planet's resources are finite and our consumption of them is at much too high a level to sustain our current population. Simply put: the planet is running out of food and water. In ecological terms we are beyond our carrying capacity and unless we can continue to thwart natural law, our cyclical decrease is impending. Continuing the shark metaphor, it's sink or swim.
In the past the answer to the problem of resource scarcity was to improve technology. Also in the past, not only did technology have a lot of room for improvement, but there were plenty of untapped resources to use in its development. Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore. Most ecosystems are already pushed beyond their capacity and the bio-rich habitats, such as jungles, have been 90% harvested. Due to over-farming and drought related to global warming, there is increasingly less arable land on the planet. Crop yields are dropping in many areas, and desertification is increasing across the globe. Millions of starving farmers are unable to make a living and are flooding cities, overwhelming the already tenuous infrastructure of Third World capitals. History would dictate that, as in the past, there is an easy technological fix for this destruction. But there are limits to what our technology and knowledge can do for us on a planet with a fixed amount of water and biomass. Regardless of any new scientific breakthrough, we are working in a closed system, and without an influx of resources we are just treading water - and losing ground.
For optimism's sake let us pretend that humanity once again, over the coming generation, staves off a population crash by inventing new technologies, and that our species continues to grow at an alarming pace. In this scenario we would only be prolonging the inevitable: a significant population downturn. Because no matter what humans do to manipulate the environment with invention, the ecological concept of carrying capacity guarantees one thing: that an exponential increase in any population, human or other, beyond the capacity for the system to support it, will inevitably be followed by a natural, but no-less-disastrous, population crash - eventually. Interestingly, the same technology that humans have used to vault themselves to such a dominant position in ecosystems across the globe is the technology that has so far allowed man to stave off this inevitable crash. Only time will tell if the continuation of this technology will also be able to help us face a less dire population crash. Whether technology can unnaturally soften the imminent blow is yet to be seen.
It is useless to speculate if our population crash, such a long time coming, will follow the model of carrying capacity as dictated by the principles of ecology. This would result in a steep backside of the curve - caused by a horrific environmental collapse due to humanity's over harvesting of nature's bounty, and followed by a subsequent population crash, where hundreds of millions would starve to death. Or there could be a more humane, unnatural reduction in the masses, slowed by our careful planning but characterized by a major overall downsize and a decreased average resource consumption per person. Likely, the reality will lie somewhere in between. Through good science, technology, and conservation we could likely soften the blow, but it is important to stress that we have already have already pushed things beyond the point of no return. There will be a reduction and it is going to be painful to many,
Because roughly 90% of the worlds inhabitants are poor, are living in developing nations, and, even now, have access to so few resources, it is going to be those already impoverished folks who will be most impacted by the crash. With little economic cushion and governmental support, they will suffer greatly. As always, the poor take on the brunt of the world's problems. But because the deprived use so few resources, a reduction in average consumption in the population of the worlds destitute will do very little to solve the overall problem of diminishing resources. Even hundreds of millions of deaths might not tip nature's scales in the right direction. The 10% of the world who control most of the resources and live the First-World life, complete with high consumption standards, are the ones who are going to have to downsize the most, on average, when the human population is so large that even technology cannot bail us out. Since the dawn of industry, most First World citizens, by definition, have had a robust economic security blanket protecting us from economic downturn. But when this blanket unravels, the average QOL in developed countries is going to plummet as well. It's tough to imagine this happening in the USA, as every successive generation has become wealthier and lived better than the previous, save for perhaps the survivors of the Civil War. But that trend is about to change. The sharks are running out of fish.
There is no telling when the average QOL will begin to fall because many new technological advances still artificially boost our success in feeding the hungry masses. But it will happen and soon. Perhaps it's already begun. Resources are at an all-time low so how can the average quality of life continue to increase? Oil prices reached their historical peak last summer. Fish stocks around the world are so depleted that scientists predict a collapse in the majority of them within the next several years. There are food and water shortages everywhere. Pollution and habitat loss have destroyed much of the Third Worlds' arable land. The majority of the world's virgin forests have been decimated by clearing. The resources, agriculture, and species humans rely on to survive are stretched far beyond their limits. If not in this generation then one very soon, for the first time since the Black Plague of the European Middle Ages, the quality of life for the average human will likely decrease.
The crash will lead to a major QOL adjustment, which will be felt by all but the very richest of society: the economically unflappable and multimillionaires. For the rest of us, this change is going to be very difficult to weather, because while it is easy and convenient to acclimate oneself to a life of steadily increasing luxury, as we Americans have for decades now, its extremely difficult and painful to experience the opposite. Whether technology, which has both infinitely helped us up to now but also brought us, ironically, to this tipping point, can reduce the intensity of this inevitable carrying capacity crash is only a matter of speculation. For the sake of the human population and the planet we are rapidly destroying, we can only hope so. If not, like the sharks, we will all be swimming with the fishes.

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Kunming, Yunnan, China

25 April, 2008
Vietnam Phenom
Every night on Hanoi's bia hoi (cold beer) corner, a famous Old Quarter institution, the most frugal and most filthy travelers, those who don't mind street grime in the glasses of their nearly free beers, mingle with the few locals who have sufficient funds to afford cheap keg beer. The plastic chairs on which the patrons sit are the size and shape one would expect to find being used as a stool at a preschool. Anyone larger than a three-year-old toddler must succumb to a fetal-like sitting position to maintain any semblance of balance, much less to avoid destroying the cheaply made chair under their weight. The tables are also shoddy Chinese imports, 12 inches off the ground, plastic, cracked, and covered in a grimy, sticky film. Glasses, which are washed between patrons by being dipped in a bucket of scummy water, top the tables and are filled with a sweet but bitter, watered-down version of Vietnamese keg beer, which is, according to legend, brewed fresh everyday. The rumor may hold true - when one keg is finished, the next one arrives magically on the back of a moto. But from where it comes nobody knows. All four corners of the intersection at the bia hoi corner are storefronts converted into these cramped drinking establishments. Until about 11pm each night, enthusiastic patrons on rickety plastic stools spill out into the street, either drinking to get a cheap buzz or working up the courage to try out some of their newly learned Vietnamese terminology on the locals. Each corner competes for customers by keeping the price of bia hoi ridiculously low. The going rate is currently 3000 Vietnamese Dong for a glass - about 18 cents. If a bar on one corner of the intersection lowers their price, others must follow suit in order to stay in business. The bia hoi corner is the epitome of capitalistic enterprise - the market economy come full force - in a country so recently plagued by socialism-based food and goods shortages; a country that now basks in the cheap overabundance of all things consumable. Marketplaces thrive; competition is fierce; free enterprise is ubiquitous. The lack of governmental regulation in any visible form in the private sector ensures that the system functions as an enormous competitive swap meet of goods and services. Capitalism, not socialism or communism, is the quintessential social force in Vietnam today. These observations, however, are in direct contrast to the very essence of the political foundation of this country. Even the name, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, seems to suggest that the kind of unregulated free enterprise taking place at the moment is absurdly contradictory to the idealistic creed of the country's formation. Vietnam is purportedly a socialist state, where the representatives of the people (the government) or worker's councils would theoretically have control over all goods production and enterprise; where private businesses and non-regulated enterprises are barred; where economic freedoms, choices and even voices are banned or silenced; where chosen or elected bodies control most everything, from the production of goods, to the division of labor, to the educational curriculum, to the food available in stores and restaurants. But Vietnam appears to be almost without any regulation whatsoever. Sure, political dissidents are silenced, but economically speaking, if someone acquires a marketable product they are seemingly free to vend it without any interference from social regulation. All socialist countries' representatives, in this day of market globalization, must make the decision as to how much the various aspects of society are controlled. Examples have shown that the more freedom a socialist regime allows economically, the more the free market flourishes, until the point where, like now, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam's economy seems to run in a more efficient, productive, and competitive manner than some of the western economies who pioneered free market concepts. It requires a more in-depth look and a wary eye to begin to understand how these complex socio-political contradictions are reconciled; how socialism and capitalism are able to co-exist in this multifarious society. After spending enough time in Vietnam, one becomes attuned to the chaos of crowded, third-world country. Only then is it possible to peer through the haze and noise produced by millions of motos and their constant barrage of horns. For a Westerner it takes time, but one can scrape off the layer of pollution beginning to cover the old propaganda signs of the Soviet-era influence. One can discern that there is a society, a socialist republic, in a state of extreme growth and flux, but still heavily influenced by a powerful and socialistic government. Just trying to cross a chaotic and dangerous street used to be enough to distract me from the distinctly unique underbelly of this complicated and contradictory country. But now I believe I am able to recognize the way the two opposing forms of government, socialist and capitalist, are inexorably intertwined in , and how the contradictions can be rationalized, even to the extent that the benefit to the average citizen can be discerned. Not three kilometers from the bia hoi corner, the heart of capitalistic Vietnam, is the most sacred and distinctly socialistic location in all of Vietnam: the mausoleum of the late, great Ho Chi Minh. Minh was the leader of North Vietnam up until a few years before the Vietcong army sacked Saigon, on April 30, 1975, and forced out the invaders from America, ending the Vietnam War (called the American War there), 'liberating' the southern Vietnamese, and uniting a country split apart for decades.

As a small honor to a man who helped usher in a new way of thinking, Saigon was renamed Ho Chi Minh city and a new communist country, called the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, was born. As a much larger honor, although against his wishes, upon his death, he was preserved through embalmment, ala Joseph Stalin and other communist leaders of debatable historical character. To those throughout the world who support communism in general, and in particular the current socialist regime leaders in Vietnam, Minh is seen as god-like. Exploring the mausoleum and its grounds is a trip into propaganda heaven and an adventure in strict social behavioral code, reminiscent of a totalitarian communistic environment. Surrounding the complex on every side are enormous billboards containing pictures of various types of Vietnamese citizens all doing their part to improve the industriousness of the nation: the field worker, the academic, the mother and her daughter, the laborer. All their eyes gaze proudly and in unison toward a Vietnamese flag. Beyond the flag are bridges and high-rise structures that their hard work will create to make Vietnam a better place. These images are quite convincing, actually, when one views the industrial and economic progress of such socialist examples as China in the last few decades. They are probably even more convincing if someone grows up listening to loud speakers all over the city blasting messages detailing the government in power's commitment to helping society succeed.

nside the complex, which, in true communist fashion, is free of charge to all who want to pay their respects to the great leader (I went twice), the rules are many. Here is a smattering: you are not to wear hats. You are to cover your shoulders and wear pants. You will have your bag searched not once but three times. You will pass through two metal detectors. This is no different than the respect one would show when visiting the Vatican. But it becomes even more authoritarian. You will follow the rigidly drawn lines that lead to the mausoleum. You will walk at a controlled speed, in two-by-two formation. You will not smile. You will not talk. Your camera and cell phone will be confiscated. You will be pushed along by guards armed with rifles. You will be scorned and threatened for stepping out of line. Finally, the mausoleum appears, and the crowds, in formation on the walkway, hush eerily. Red carpet is rolled down the tomb's stairs every morning at 7:30 until 10:30am, except Monday, and Friday, and the two months a year when Ho Chi Minh's body is taken to Moscow for preservation maintenance. The stairs are guarded by several stoic sentinels, complete with bayonet rifles. They are so immovable that they look embalmed themselves. The only way to force them to break their picture perfect posture is to step off the red carpet, to crack a smile, or to slow below the heavily regulated pace of the formation of human traffic. This last lofty crime against the state causes the guards to grab the arm of the perpetrator and shove him forward swiftly and purposefully, to maintain the systematic normalcy of the social order. Entering the mausoleum itself, a cool dry waft of air blows upon the onlookers, as the climate is specially conditioned for the preservation of a modern day mummy. After a few turns on the red carpet the silence of the crowd intensifies further as the line of spectators enters the small, dark room containing the body. At this point the number and importance of guards increases. There are no less than eight officers standing watch in the room where Minh is encased in thick, bulletproof glass. The room is U-shaped and the crowd travels around three sides of the perimeter viewing the case in a treadmill-like fashion, each person staring wide-eyed at the slowly decaying body under eerie light. Any moment of pause for a better glance ensures a push in the back and a grunt from a nearby guard. The flood of humanity must flow on. It is quite obvious that not only is the proletariat seen as an entity rather than as individuals, but it is not important for the masses to see the body, just to have gone to see the body, to pay due respect to a god. Marching two by two, it's nearly impossible to catch a lengthy glimpse of the wrinkled, tiny, embalmed leader, a ghostly white appearance of his former self ¨C the skin of his face pulled so tightly over his skull as if all the facial muscles have been removed. His head of stringy white hair appears to be a set of poorly planted plugs. His tiny body, cloaked in a robe, has an unnatural bend, as if his back has been snapped to improve his post-mortus posture. Worst of all, his skin takes on a pasty, waxy characteristic, lit by a sickly glow from a light aimed more at preserving him than illuminating him. If The Simpsons' Mr. Burns were embalmed, he could easily replace the body of Ho Chi Minh without anybody noticing ¨C that is, if Mr. Burns first aged another half decade or so. The crowd breathes a deep sigh of relief as they exit the mausoleum; the fear of the ghastly air of death is replaced by a perceivable murmur of disbelief that the body that was just viewed was truly Ho Chi Minh and not a wax replacement. The surrealistic experience ends as the red carpet draws the crowd out of the mausoleum and into the daylight. Later, that evening, at the bia hoi corner, cramped tourists squirm in their plastic chairs for an impossible-to-find comfortable sitting position, while discussing Ho Chi Minh and his legacy. As the beer flows ceaselessly, conversations ramble from the impression of his embalmed body to his dubious stature in Vietnamese society. Eventually the merits of socialism are drunkenly debated. As we all know, idealism complements copious amounts of alcohol ever so well. No matter how good the idea of an egalitarian society sounds to an intoxicated, financially secure traveler, however, due to inebriation and distraction, definite conclusions are never reached in these sometimes heated disputes. The distractions are provided by local entrepreneurs, who incessantly interrupt the bia hoi patrons' discussions, peddling roasted dried squid, bootlegged photocopied versions of The Lonely Planet, baskets of fruit, and campy t-shirts. These locals are capitalists, if opportunists, who spend 18 or more hours a day marketing their cheap wares in the streets. The market thrives due to tourism and a lack of regulation. A few sales per day is enough to maintain their simple existence, and to exacerbate the exponentially increasing realm of free market economics that continues to provide endless contradiction in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Superficially, on this corner every evening, the balance of the interaction between socialism and capitalism in Vietnam seems to be very much weighted toward the market economy. But underneath the chaos lies a strict socialist regime that maintains order. This land of contrasts is difficult to grasp, especially after several bia hoi, when, instead of debating the merits and downfalls of a particular socioeconomic scheme, it becomes more interesting just to watch the endless progression of a phonomenally complex society on the move.
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Irkutsk, Siberia, Russian Federation

31 May, 2008

Trans-Siberiandipity

From the moment I purchase my ticket in the Eastern Siberian
town of Irkutsk, things go a little differently than I had imagined
them to go in this attempt at a cross-country train voyage. I arrived
in Russia just a few hours ago, crossing the border from Mongolia, and
I want to secure an onward ticket as soon as possible, so as not to
become stranded in an isolated town in the center of the Asian
continent. The conversation with the babushka at the ticket
window takes place entirely in Russian, of which I know none. I
translate a few words from my guidebook but, between the two of us, as
far as we really get is that I want to go to Moscow on a certain day.
At least I think we are both talking about Moscow. We don't even
pronounce it the same way, so I have no idea where I am actually
headed. The ticket, however, costs 258 dollars so I knew I am going
somewhere distant. It says it is going to MockBa and I can only
hope that means Moscow. If it does then I feel fine, because once I set
foot on that train for the four-day journey along the longest
continuous stretch of railway in the world, things will work themselves
out - at least I figure they will. The day before the train departs I
purchase a few provisions: some instant noodles, a bottle of water, and
a cheaper bottle of Russian-made vodka. Anything else I will eat or
drink I will have to fend for during the many brief station stops in
small Siberian villages along the route, as I chug across the world's
largest country.

All goes according to plan. I board my train on Sunday, May 17th at
13:04 Moscow Time, but it is actually five hours later in this part of
the country. To prevent confusion in a country that spans eight time
zones, every region operates on Moscow Time (MT). But if you live in
eastern Siberia you may be MT+6 hours. I am due to arrive on May 21st
at 04:11 am. I will be living in this train for the next 90-odd hours,
or three and a half days - at least that is what I had learned from
reading my ticket since I had bought it a couple days back. Stepping on
board, the first thing I notice are the lack of throngs of tourists who
supposedly frequent these trains. This particular train originated a
day or so East of where I am joining on, and it is full of tired, poor
looking Russians. Fine by me - maybe I will actually have some cultural
exchange during these long days of train riding. Or even better - not.
Truly, I am on this train for two reasons. To write for a few days
without being interrupted, and to cross Russia overland to have a
glimpse at its infamous and vast Siberian geography. Maybe I can even
fit in taking a few pictures. Not after I notice how filthy the train
is. I can hardly see through the sheet of grease and dust that covers
the windows. Mine is an old wooden car that looks far beyond its years
of service. But it's my home.

A distrusting, middle-aged man leads me to my compartment, which he
curiously has the key for. Besides me, it's only him in there, in a
compartment meant for four. The train is about half full but I bet we
pick up some passengers along the way. As we pull out of the station I
look across the tracks to see another train with the same destination, MockBa,
written on its side. It looks clean, comfortable, new and about five
times faster than the heap of communist scrap metal I have just
boarded. But no matter which ticket the babushka at the ticket
window sold me, I'm on my way to Moscow. My fate is sealed and I have
absolutely nothing to worry about. The adventure begins. I immediately
take out my camera to play the tourist and realize that the filthy
windows don't open. I can't pull the old wooden things down. That is a
let down: there will be no photo documentation of this journey. I
wonder if there is even heat on this train (there isn't) and if I will
freeze during the cold Siberian nights. Nevertheless, the trip is under
way.

Knowing we have a long journey in front of us I play it cool with my
retirement-aged cabin mate for the first 24 hours, happy that only two
of the four beds in our compartment are occupied. We can stretch out
and relax. Our only exchanges come from as far as I can get with my
limited Russian from the back of my guidebook. Phrases such as "Where
is the toilet?" and "I need a doctor!" most likely aren't going to be
useful on a long train ride such as this - at least I hope not. So I
tell him I don't speak at all by saying the only thing I can muster up
with my limited vocabulary: "Nyet Ruski (No Russian). Ingleskiy."
We do not even exchange names. During the first 24 hours, our only
other interaction takes place during the first night, when apparently I
am snoring and he reaches over and smacks me. It does the trick. I roll
over.

By day number two it is mission accomplished for me. I have finished
some writing and no new people have invaded our cabin. I am at peace
with day after day of wild countryside rolling past our gritty windows.
Other than my guidebooks I have intentionally brought no entertainment
with me. No music; no playing cards; no games; no conversation skills;
no interference with pure thought. It is just me, my mind and a train
ticket. I can think of nothing better than, for the next four days, to
have absolutely nothing to do, nothing to worry about, no stress, no
anxiety, no pressure, no deadlines and no expectations. My brain and I
have 90 hours together to enjoy peace and tranquillity. To some this
would be utter torture. But since I have been travelling for months
without entertainment or distraction I have learned to pass time by
daydreaming or simply sitting and staring. I don't need any stimulation
to fight boredom. I think about the past, the present, the future; the
good times and the bad times; the times I have not thought about for so
long that I am surprised I can remember them, and I realize I will
probably never have another similarly long streak of spare time for
them to reach the forefront of my memory again. This is my time for my
self.

The sun sets at 11pm and rises at 5am. I doze off during those
hours, more or less. I envision four nights passing in this manner.

It's at about hour 26 that my good fortune and socialization
instincts finally get the better of me. My compartment mate, who looks
not unlike Leslie Nielsen, boards the train after a stop with an
enormous bag of food. He clears off our compartment table and goes to
work, chopping freshly grown tomatoes and cucumbers. He pulls out a
smoked fish, half a roasted chicken, some lamb, half a dozen hard
boiled eggs, strong smelling, real cheese, the likes of which I haven't
tasted for five months, and a huge loaf of hearty, dark brown, Russian
bread, which he breaks into chunks with his hands. He also slips a
bottle of vodka underneath the seat, along with some lemons. There is
going to be a party in compartment VII this evening.

I realize I better clear out of the cabin, as I watch him prepare the fish and chicken by hand. Anyway, it's time I prepared my
dinner: a bag of instant noodles. He obviously has a dinner date;
probably with his large friend from another car, who frequently visits,
and has a shiny row of gold teeth in his lower jaw. They've been
chatting in Russian all day in our compartment. They seem to be
associates of some sort - perhaps comrades? Before I have a chance to
track down some boiling water for my noodles, the big man enters the
cabin. I scoot over on my bed and offer him my seat so the two can sit
across from each other at the table while they eat. They both say "Nyet!"
and motion me to eat with them. They are not asking; they are
demanding. I cannot say 'no' for fear of insulting them. I take my
seat. The bottle of Vodka appears. Here we go.

Three large shots of vodka are poured. By now I have done enough
research to know that 1) one is never to turn down food offered to them
by a Russian and 2) it is even worse to turn down vodka. That is a
serious faux pas. The rules that accompany Russian eating and drinking
are rigid and not to be broken, I have read. Serious insult can occur
if a foreigner turns down a genuine offer. If somebody offers me food I
am not even considering turning it down. Insult or no insult, it is
free food. I will take it.

There are also many rules which apply strictly to the way in which
vodka is drunk. One is that vodka is never mixed with anything. It is
always drunk straight. Fine by me. Also, once a bottle is open it is
inevitably finished. Fine by me. The vodka is always drank in one gulp.
Fine by me. The gulping occurs after one person in the group makes a
simple toast. Every shot is led up to by a toast, which rotates in
order, and the toast can be as simple as a phrase or as complex as a
speech. I am already prepared for what I am going to say when I am
asked to conduct a cheers.

The last, and most important rule is that a group always eats while
drinking vodka. If the drinking is happening outside a normal meal
time, it is called a zakuski, during which cold meat, salads,
pickled vegetables, and sometimes sturgeon or caviare is nibbled on
while drinking. Outside of the caviare, I would say we have ourselves a
zakuski set out right out in front of us. Even though the
Russians drink the vodka straight, each shot is invariably tempered by
a morsel of zakuski, which may save me from permanent damage to
myself this evening. The Russians find it ridiculous to mix vodka with
anything but even more ridiculous not to chase it with food. In fact,
there is a saying that goes, 'Only drunkards drink without food. Well,
from the amount of vodka we are about to consume, drunkards also drink with food.

With all these rules in mind I nervously grab my first shot of vodka
and, after one of them proposes a toast, we cheers amongst ourselves in
Russian. Down the hatch it goes and we dig into our feast, hands first,
with no utensils. The bread is thick and delicious, the fish lean and
strong,. It is likely a sturgeon from Lake Baikal. The cheese is
aromatic and the lemon wedges make a fine chaser for the vodka. The
cucumber and tomatoes are cold and fresh. I am in the heaven of Siberiandipity
and I've done absolutely nothing to deserve it. As the fat man pours a
second shot, no more than sixty seconds after the first one is
finished, he suddenly shocks me with his English. "We are Azerbaijani.
You American?" "Yes," I reply. Then for ease of explanation,
"California." "California! Hollywood?!" They are elated. "Your name?"
(oh great, here it comes). "Tyson" "Tyson?!" They cannot believe
it. They are so shocked that before they can even brandish another
miserable, run-of-the-mill Mike Tyson reference, they must have another
vodka shot. Predictably, after the brief celebration over my name, the
big man puts up his fists. "Yes, like the boxer," I methodically
succumb. But he isn't finished with his hand gestures. He begins
thrusting his hips forward and back on the compartment bench, his
wobbling gut hanging out of his AC Milan warm up suit top, pumping his
fists forward and back repeatedly. "Oh," I say, a bit more shocked but
intrigued by the novelty of his actual reference. "Yes, like the
rapist."

A few minutes and a few shots down the line and we have already
finished half a liter of vodka. Another bottle appears from somewhere
underneath the compartment cushion. It is opened. According to the
rules, it will now be finished. Out of nowhere the big man speaks more
English. "He is my friend (pointing to my roommate, Leslie). I am
captain. He is tourist." Suddenly it all comes clear. The reason I have
nobody else in my room; the reason my roommate has the keys to the
compartment locks; the reason he has access to a refrigerator full of
smoked sturgeon and fine vodka. He is buddy-buddy with one of the
conductors. Why I have been put into this compartment I am unsure, but
so far it has made my trip glorious. Perhaps it was just a stroke of
luck. Or it could have been the babushka who sold me the
ticket, trying to help out a non-Russian-speaking foreigner. I will
never know the reasons behind it but I am quite sure of its outcome: I
am drinking chilled vodka and eating the finest meal I will have in
Russia, entertained by a 55- and 60-year-old Aijerbaijani - and loving
it.

Shot number seven. They look at me. Finally it's my turn to toast. I
know I should not bring politics and booze together but deep into the
second bottle it is a risk I am willing to take. I say, "Bush," and
point my thumb downward and then "Medvedev," (Vladimir Putin's elected,
but more-or-less appointed replacement) and give the thumbs-up sign.
Medvedev received over 70% of the vote so I know I am safe on that
side, and regardless of where you are in the world it is not much of a
gamble to go thumbs down with Bush. Cheers erupt in the cabin and
either I am imagining myself a hero or I feel the glasses clink with a
little more vigor on this particular shot. We are drunk. There is no
other way to say it. During dinner, over the course of thirty minutes,
we have finished nearly a liter of vodka. It feels outrageously good
now but the effects have not even begun to kick in. I suppose it is all
in a day's work for these fellows but I am anticipating some serious
side effects from this rapid consumption. We continue.

The train comes to a halt in a tiny, no-name Siberian town. We have
a fifteen minute break. I want use this break as an excuse to get off
the train, gather my thoughts and let the eight or so vodka shots
settle in. But as I get up the captain motions for me to take his cell
phone. He wants to show me something. It's a short, pixelated cut,
downloaded from the internet, of a huge-assed, naked, brown woman
thrusting her hips toward the floor of an empty room to the song "Who Let the Dogs Out?"
Mistakenly thinking he was going to show me a picture of his niece or
something of the sentimental variety, I explode with laughter. This
provokes him to show me more videos. The second is a perplexing
contrast to the first: a somber video of the twin towers collapsing,
mixed to symphonic music. "Yes," I say, unsure of the kind of response
he was aiming for, "big buildings." The third is a close-up of a dildo
being automatically inserted into a woman. The shot pans out and the
sex toy is connected to some sort of archaic, Soviet-era sprocket
system that is thrusting the device in and out of the lady. "Okay," I
muster. The final video is a short movie about a Russian cop, who kicks
over a bucket of apples being sold by a peasant lady. He laughs, but
the last laugh comes at the delight of the old lady, who squeals with
joy when the Russian cop gets his head caught inside a car's closing
window and is repeatedly violated from behind by men outside the
vehicle. "Wow." I utilize this awkward moment as my opportunity to
excuse myself to vacate the car and step off the train for a few
minutes.

The platform is refreshingly calm and quiet. I know that when I
board the train again it will be chaos: laughter, silliness and more
vodka. My only concern is not being able to record these precious
moments in my head while they are taking place. For me, there is a fine
line between drinking while socializing still observing my surroundings
with enough attention to make decent observations. With this much
potato juice in me it is going to be difficult to retain anything. I
decide to write things down as the night progresses.

I step back onto the train much dizzier than when I stepped off. Not
much to my surprise, our compartment full of food and vodka has
attracted a group of leeches. It's like a Siberian college dorm room,
with people coming in and out at a torrid pace. Along with me, the
gold-toothed captain and my Azerbaijani compartment mate, there is now
a wiry Russian, Ruslan, about 23 years old, with notebook in hand, who
claims to be a business associate of the Azerbaijanis. Also entered is
Irki, the Uzbeki, a shifty, flat-faced, timid fellow, with darker skin
than the rest of us. He isn't talking to anybody or hiding the reasons
for his appearance. He just drinks vodka when it is his turn and picks
at the scraps of our zakuski the rest of the time. Finally,
there is Nashtya, a Russian uniformed train attendant, who is on duty
in another car, but has come to flirt with the captain, who claims that
Nashtya is his girlfriend. A half hour earlier he claimed he was
married. I believe him in both cases. Nashtya is wearing a wedding band
but the only thing her fingers are currently married to is tickling the
captains oversized belly. She speaks very clear Russian. The
compartment's door is closed to limit the amount of visitors we receive
and the stale air absolutely reeks of body odor. Nobody has showered
for at least three days but I have been relying on deodorant to battle
my personal smell, and it has worked well. But nobody else is taking
any precaution. Despite the fact that it might be another week before I
get a shower I make a mental note to discontinue the use of precious
deodorant at once. When in Siberia...





Irki, Tyson and Leslie


The shots keep coming. I sit in the corner of the compartment,
keeping a low profile, and attempt to write while the conversations
continue in Russian. Every few minutes somebody shouts, "Tyson!" either
to include me in the conversation or to take a shot, followed by a
lemon wedge. I don't want them to think I am bored or that I am being
rude so I sit and hold a polite smile as long as possible. Then, when
the focus goes away from me, which does not take long during these
vodka-soaked minutes, I get back to quickly scribbling my thoughts in
my notebook. I am trying to register anything that seems worth
mentioning before the thought sets sail and drifts away down a river of
Siberian vodka, never to be remembered again.

If this were the age of pre-Soviet-era Victorian Europe, as described in Dostoevsky's "The Gambler,"
this multilingual group would be from all the corners of Western Europe
and we would all be speaking broken French and German, which I could at
least partly participate in. We would be drinking champagne, eating
caviare and laughing until our monocles fell into our pretentious,
overdressed laps. But this is the post-Soviet-era, on a cheap, local
Russian train, full of former-Soviet-republic refugees from now-failing
states. A group of international misfits, outsiders in their own former
country, trying to make it anyway they can get by. So it's vodka, lemon
slices and bastardized Russian we are all speaking, except me who sits
and smiles politely.



"Tyson!" My turn for a shot. The toasts have gone out the window by
this point in the evening so I slam my shot down and, just like that,
the second bottle is finished. Urki and Ruslan clear out of our
stench-laden cabin. Nashtya stays. There is a feeling of melancholy in
the air, mixed with uneasiness about the immediate future, as our fluid
entertainment is gone. I seize the moment, in an attempt to inject my
contribution into the party, pulling my bottle of vodka from my stash
underneath the bench. I am terrified of being chastised for the warm,
low quality bottle I produce, but they take one look at it and say,
"Vodka Ruski!" I am momentarily a hero. A foreigner from nowhere who
magically presents Russian-made vodka at an opportune time. The bottle
is opened. It will be finished.

Even more intoxicated than I had originally anticipated becoming, a
new concern looms in my swirling head: can I out-drink two old, Soviet
comrades, who have been consuming straight vodka since before birth,
when their mothers nourished them pre-natally via their
charcoal-filtered placentas? The answer is yes, I can probably
out-drink them. Few can drink me under the table. But this is not a
contest. It is a semi-leisurely paced social event, guided by
increasingly less-strict regulation. For me it's basic survival as
well, because I do not know what to expect at any turn. Cheap, packaged
meat appears out of somewhere and our zakuski continues.

At this mellow point in the night my friends are allowing me to
slide a little on my writing. However, I am convinced they believe I am
a journalist and have lost a little trust in me. Rather than
socializing I am getting down some good thoughts. But I cannot think
clearly enough to piece anything insightful together, between my double
vision and the nearly temporally predictable barrages of "Tyson!"

"Tyson!" yells my compartment mate, and motions me to the cabin
door. He wants me to leave Captain Gold Mouth and Nashtya to their own
devices inside our very own quarters. Om, okay. I step into the dark
clanking hallway of the carriage, happy that I am able to work in an
unmolested manner. At least I thought I could. A drunk, shirtless
Russian walks past me, swilling beer from a plastic two-liter
container, and yanks the back of my hair, uttering something in
Russian. Then Alexi, a young military man with a newborn baby at home
in Eastern Siberia, through a series of hand signals, forces me to go
with him into the unventilated smoking area in the back of the car.
It's filled with smokers. Most of them are aggressive, 18-year-old
Russian army guys on their way to or from some forlorn frontier outpost
in the Russian empire. With their commander on board they aren't
allowed to drink so they chain smoke instead. They don't seem to be
bothered by the intense grey cloud hovering at head level. The smoke is
burning my eyes so badly I can barely see the photo of his
one-month-old girl on his cell phone.

As Alexi tries to explain something to me in Russian about his life
or his wife my mind wanders out of the smoke-filled chamber, down the
hall, and, regrettably, back into my compartment, where Nashtya and the
fat captain are engaging in untold transgression. Out of respect for
his friend, whatever unfaithfulness is taking place between the captain
and Nashtya, is probably happening on my bed. I shudder and do my best
to avoid losing my zakuski at the thought of the captain's fat,
hairy belly, now released from its previously confining AC Milan sweat
suit top, jiggling about in ecstasy, while he smothers his paid-off,
mini-skirted train mistress. Just before I leave Alexi, now
chain-smoking his third consecutive cigarette - not that bringing a
cigarette into this metallic smoke cave is even necessary - Nashtya
walks by, heading back to perform her other paid, but legal, duties in
another train car. She is adjusting her hair and her uniform. She
doesn't acknowledge me.




Nashtya and the captain


I head back to my compartment, number VII, passing number VIII on my
way, which is blasting ABBA Gold, dubbed entirely with Russian lyrics.
I walk in to find the remaining vodka gone and the two Azerbaijanis
sitting almost completely horizontally, relaxing with cups of tea.
Their AC Milan warm-up suit tops are pulled up high and their t-shirts
rest upon their exploding bellies. They rub them in satisfaction. The
captain's eyes are virtually popping out of his head, so excited about
his exploits with Nashtya. But without vodka the night is waning. I
write as the two converse quietly, somehow content to end the night
with a few glasses of tea rather than with more vodka, as I would do.
Laudably, they are no Yeltsins; they were drinking purely to socialize
in a traditional way. I write and listen to the sounds of spoons
clinking in glasses, the dissolution of sugar cubes, lemons squeezed
over the tops.

"Tyson!" I am yelled at one final time. It's my rommate. He tells me
that Gold Mouth is retiring to his captain's quarters, wherever they
may be. I wish he had found them with Nashtya. He departs. My
60-year-old Azerbaijani friend and travel mate is lying down, tired and
drunk, ready to call it a night. I hit the overhead lights but keep my
reading light on - a few more minutes to bask in the vodka, cigarette
smoke, body order ambience of the old, rattling, unventilated,
unheated, uncooled, wooden train carriage. The slow pace of the train
making its way across the Siberian taiga has a repetitive bumpiness
which lulls one into the inevitable relaxed stages leading to sleep.
The toxins and endless tracks overcome me and I fall asleep. I wake up
a few times to a few smacks from my compartment mate. I must have been
snoring.

The sun rises early. By the time I wake up he is already on his
second cup of tea. He says in Russian, "You were snoring so I hit you."
I say, "Okay." We are back to our pre-vodka-party level of negligible
communication, exacerbated by lack of effort in the morning. He says in
Russian, "How do you feel?" pointing to his head. I feel awful but I
lie. "I feel great." He says, "Me too." He is not lying.
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Chengdu, Sichuan, China

20 April, 2008


Resiliency and Rice Liquor

Hanoi's streets take on a distinctly dark and ominous characteristic
during the witching hour. In this busy city the brief period spans only
from about three to five am, when the most opportunistic
fire-roasted-squid vendors, desperate free-lance recyclers, and
persistent moto taxi drivers lurk the streets in search of meager
earnings - while the remainder of the city's entrepreneurs catch a
much-needed break from their hectic, 20-hour work days. The streets are
silent and shadow-filled - a welcome respite from the daytime havoc.
This is the only hour, day or night, when it is possible to cross the
narrow streets of Hanoi without fear of being plowed over by oncoming
traffic, ranging from speeding motos to overloaded bike carts to the
rare king of the road, the car, which brakes for nobody. In fact, due
to the extinguished street lamps this time of night, the sidewalks are
so dark and full of unlit obstacles that the safest place to walk is
right down the center of the road. On one Old Quarter street during the
witching hour, however, especially approaching a weekend, one will
notice that not everyone is asleep. There is a stir, much in contrast
to the quiet surroundings, on a drag called Duong Hang Bac,
which shoots west out of the quarter. Dimly-lit pockets of humanity
lurk suspiciously on the dusky sidewalk. Along this road late at night,
packs of teenagers and twenty-somethings congregate in small groups of
two to four, sitting cross-legged and shoeless on straw mats set right
onto the ground. Under candlelight they imbibe rice spirits and chat
peacefully, while munching on freshly roasted squid. I find them, or
rather, they find me, at a time in the night when I should also be
sleeping, just like the rest of the sensible Hanoi residents; early the
next morning I have a patriotic and symbolic date to visit the tomb of
Ho Chi Minh. As per the rules, this visit must terminate before 10:15
am. Yet, according to my watch, as I emerge from the smokey bars with a
friend, it is already 3:38 in the morning when the candle-lit
silhouettes, crouched on the sidewalk, beckon us over - two stumbling
Westerners who have no business drinking any more alcohol this
particular night - for a lesson in Vietnamese hospitality. They
gracefully motion that we take a seat with them on their straw mat. We
remove our sandals and sit down next to our three new acquaintances on
their woven square in a seemingly preconceived, pentagonal pattern,
crosslegged together, immediately a tightly knit group of five, in
balance with the cosmos. The blurred and shaded faces ask us, in the
international language of pointing, if we would like a drink. Who are
we to decline? There are surprisingly few elderly folks to be found
moving about in the streets of Vietnamese cities - even fewer than one
might expect in a city full of hazards for those less capable of
fending for themselves. Several clear reasons exist for this reality.
One is that the Vietnamese population is, like that of many third-world
nations, bottom heavy, in that the fertility rate is high, so the
majority of the population is under 18. Vietnam has an unsustainable
annual population growth rate of 3.3%, which is a hallmark of a
developing country. Another reason, also developmentally related, is
that the average life expectancy is about 70 years. People do not live
as long there as they do in the West. However, there is an underlying
factor, unrelated to demographics, that keeps the older generation off
the streets of bustling cities such as Saigon and Hanoi - this
generation died in Vietnam's horrific, bloody conflicts of the 1950s,
'60s and '70s. A man who was 20 in 1974, at the end of the Vietnam war
(or American War as it is referred to in Vietnam) would be only 54 in
2008. This means that anybody currently over the age of fifty would
have had to survive the extremely deadly conflicts of that violent
period. In most countries, one would expect to see plenty of men in
their fifties strolling the boulevards, drinking tea with his friends
at a cafe or still working for a living. Sadly, the rare male aged 50
years or older one encounters in the street in Vietnam is often limping
slowly, burdened by some injury suffered during the intense period of
regional conflict, and is commonly starving and begging in the street,
unable to work due to his debilitation. The most recent and horrific
major war, the one most burned into the psyche of this war-torn nation,
is the conflict that developed between the North Vietnamese and a
weaker South Vietnamese army, who were aided by the invasion of the US
military. Although our new late-night friends were not even born at the
time of the war's end, this tumultuous and bloody period left an
unparalleled legacy of violence and horror in the minds of the
countrymen with whom I now sit. Yet here I am, an American amongst
several North Vietnamese youths, whose grandfathers surely, and fathers
likely, brutally fought against my parents' generation - our
contemporary ancestors mercilessly slaughtered each other just one
generation previous to this occasion. And here we mingle peacefully,
harmoniously, cross-legged, in silence and mutual respect, while
drinking to our 'health.' "Cham fo cham!" toasts one of our new friends, raising a shot glass of rice liquor to the middle of our square. The rest of us follow suit. "Cham fo cham!"
A dulled crinkle is emitted from the brief union of our plastic glasses
in the center of our formation as all of us together slurp down the
dry, potent liquor. Following an instant of intense oral discomfort,
smiles reemerge all around and everyone reaches to a plate in the
center of the mat for a piece of shredded squid, one that has been
freshly roasted over a portable bucket of coals, courtesey of the
late-night calimari queen across the street, who works the streets late
into this night. A dip into a sweet chili paste to zap away the
liquor's burn and the clamor of elation again returns to the group.
This ritual is repeated several times over the next 10 minutes, until
the bottle of rice liquor runs dry. After a moment's silence, the
Vietnamese fellows, my friend and I all sit on the dark square of
pavement staring at each other with an understanding that transcends
verbal communication, a look of mutual approval. One of our new friends
hops up to grab another bottle of cheaply distilled booze from across
the empty street. The outgoing fellow next to me breaks the silence,
and rumbles, "You America? America great country!" My mind wanders. 'These guys should hate me,' utters my
paranoid subconscious. The US has caused nothing but harm to the people
of Vietnam in the past, while destroying the land in some areas for
generations to come. How can they not be angry with me? How can they
say, "America great country!" when shaking my hand enthusiastically,
after I peevishly reveal my roots, when America cowardly dumped
millions of gallons of carcinogenic chemicals directly on their
citizens from planes overhead just 35 years ago? In the US, some people
still hold grudges against the English for the colonial period over
three centuries ago; some Americans hate the citizens of Japan for the
incident at Pearl Harbor; some even fault the French people for not
participating in the unwarranted invasion of Iraq in 2003 - it is
always convenient to blame citizens, who are never guilty, for the
actions or inaction of a particular government. But the Vietnam War was
not a colonialistic rebellion three hundred years ago. It was a brutal
civil war, intervened in by idealogical outsiders, who did infinitely
more harm than good. And it took place merely three and half decades
ago. It is recent history, fresh in the minds of many. It claimed
millions of lives, disrupted so many more, made orphans of legions of
children, caused deformations and cancer to thousands, broke up
families, destroyed livelihoods, villages, cultures - an entire
country. It effected irreparable harm to the citizens and environment
of Vietnam. And the United States is at fault for much of the atrocity.
With these truths clearly out in the open, how can they look me in the
eyes and say 'cheers' to me with rice liquor?


An example of the horrific tragedy suffered by the population doused with the chemical Agent Orange
The Vietnamese don't have the time or energy for hate, anger or
vindictiveness. They are too busy working hard to change their future.
If they mentally lingered over their recent history, they would never
move forward as a nation or progress as a culture. They realized long
ago, when sifting through the ashes of their charred villages, that
they must forgive and try to forget. There is no remedy for the horrors
of the past so the only positive outlook is to concentrate on the
future. To survive the decades of warfare the Vietnamese have evolvef
beyond the simple moralistic inclinations of revenge and insidious
grudges. Instead of hate and negativity they fostered inventiveness and
resourcefulness, ingenuity and industriousness. Instead of focusing on
the negative outcomes that have befallen them over centuries of
warfare, they maintained an optimistic outlook, so when the fog of war
cleared, they would still be around to enjoy a more prosperous period.
All the while, the citizens, enduring war after war, honed a
survivalist instinct and waited for their opportunity to arrive to show
their resiliency. During the conflicts of the mid-20th century, the
Vietcong dug thousands of miles of tunnels, stretching from Saigon to
the Cambodian border in every direction, in order to penetrate into
enemy territory. The intricate network, which was entirely underground
and invisible to the opposition, supported entire cities of people,
complete with triage and surgery centers, kitchens and meeting rooms.
There were factories, where failed US ammunition and supplies would be
skillfully crafted into much needed basics for the under-supplied North
Vietnamese army. High caliber rifle bullet shells would become
lighters, while tires from US vehicles were made into sandals for the
troops. Unexploded artillery that was stolen from US bases or dropped
from planes were manufactured into land mines, knives and booby traps
to be used against the enemy.

A worker at the Cu Chi tunnels shows how sandals are made from army vehicle tires


Unexploded artillery, dropped by American planes, found by Vietnamese troops in the jungles near Saigon
Entire communities lived in up to three claustrophobic levels of hot,
sticky underground tunnels, subsisting on the root of the cassava plant
and little else. Ingenious methods of survival were perfected, along
with a strong sense of fortitude. The industriousness necessary to
survive during these trying times is still apparent in the manner the
Vietnamese go about their everyday lives, finding incrdicble solutions
to myriad difficulties and relying on industriousness and productivity
to survive.

A guide makes his way through a restored tunnel dug by the Vietcong in the 1960s.
There are many examples of Vietnamese resourcefulness to be found
throughout the country today, even when examining the rapidly changing
society. It is even still possible to find US military issue equipment
from the 1970s in use. When I visited an ancient temple complex in
central Vietnam, built by the intricately artistic Champa culture in
the 12th century, I found a perfect example of the Vietnamese culture
of ingenuity. From the entrance gate to the temples, a group of
visitors was piled into an old jeep. I instantly recognized the make -
an old US-issue relic - from having driven a similar era make in high
school. This jeep had run over 400,000 miles since it had been
abandonded by the US military in the early 1970s. The Vietnamese had
kept it running since the war and now use it to cart around American
tourists.


The next day I hopped on a motorbike with a driver, who took me to
a sacred Buddhist pagoda on the outskirts of an expansive, central
Vietnamese river town. As Vietnam has recently enacted a helmet law for
all motorcyclists, my driver donned an olive green helmet as we sped
off. I noticed on the back it had some Americanized painted numbers and
some sort of USGI insignia. It looked antique and well used. Through
the wind, I yelled ahead into his ear, "Where did you get this helmet?"
He turned toward me and uttered one word, which was enough to verify my
inclination. "War." To obey the new law he had converted an old US army
helmet from the '60s into a motorbike helmet.



The sentiment I hear echoed time and time again around the globe, wherever I travel, is the same in any language or culture: life is difficult.
This is a cry so authentic and pure that every time I hear it, whether
mentioned in passing by a gardener in Kashmir, aggressively by a drunk
miner in Bolivia, or passionately by a tourist tout in Morocco, I have
trouble holding back the involuntary response that yearns to burst
forth. When I hear the same thing over and over from such good, honest
and hard-working people, I struggle not to shed tears for the less
fortunate on this earth. I am so privileged while so many others are
not. The fact that people from every part of the globe, regardless of
race, religion, or belief, say the same thing about the difficulty of
life, leaves no doubt in my mind that this is the true reality of the
human condition for the majority of those living on the planet. In
Vietnam, as in other developing countries, I often hear that life is
difficult. If there is one thing the impoverished are not, it is whiny.
They are not complaining; they are merely stating the facts. Life is
tough in Vietnam. A good wage is six dollars a day, and that wage is
reserved for somebody who has developed a specialty, such as being able
to speak fluent English, and can work in the tourist sector. The
remainder of the workforce survives on much less than this amount,
toiling seven days a week for up to 20 hours per days, which provides
them with just barely enough to eat. Food in Vietnam is cheap by
Western standards - rarely over a dollar for a meal. However, the
average wage-earner in Vietnam cannot afford three decent squares a day
on their meager salary. Yes, life is tough and only the strong,
industrious, resourceful, cunning, and forgiving survive. These are the
characteristics that define the Vietnamese of today. And if they are
not working themselves to the bone for their own subsistence, then they
are honoring the generations before them, whose populations were
decimated violently in the pursuit of a peaceful and prosperous future
for their offspring. Today's Vietnamese hope to offer the same peace
and prosperity to the next generation. On the straw mat the
conversation has begun to ramble on to the useless but passionately
discussed topics inherent with the swilling of excessive amounts of
alcohol. We have reached the point in the night where we are
identifying our favorite English Premier League football clubs. The
fifth round of liquor, in rapid succession, has brought much more
animation to the group. The discussion, which is more lively but
contains less and less actual language, more hand motioning, physical
interaction and smiling, has transcended language barriers completely,
thanks to the liquor and our hosts' genuine kindness - their kind
spirits and their kindness with their spirits. Even before the journey
to the sidewalk my friend and I were already well enough along the
train to Buzzville, but it becomes increasingly more difficult to say
'no' to these generous kids interested in cultural exchange. Meanwhile,
as the time approaches 4:30 am and Ho Chi Minh will be unveiled to us
in only three and a half hours, we continue to enjoy our serendipitous
situation. Finally, cross-legged, cross-eyed and woozy, we decide it is
time to leave, before we wear out our welcome or forget our
whereabouts...after one more shot of course. "Cham fo cham!" All toast and reach for one more round of fiery squid.

"Cam on
(Thank you)," I say to our hosts, exercising the only Vietnamese I can
muster up at the moment. They do not say 'You are welcome.' Instead, to
my surprise, they thank us for the experience. I reach for some cash.
In the 45 minutes we sat with them they spent nine dollars on liquor
and snacks, two days' work for some of these youngsters. It is the
least I can do to chip in. They refuse the donation, looking surprised
and a little disappointed that I would not accept their invitation
unconditionally. Without trying to insult them I offer again. They
refuse resolutely. I can only rise from the mat, stumbling as a young
llama taking his first steps, and exuberantly thank our hosts one final
time. They repeat their thanks to us again, clearly pleased to have had
the chance to show Vietnamese hospitality to a couple of Westerners.
Again we walk in in the lonely, dark streets of Hanoi, wandering past
still more candlelit groups, still sitting on mats, hidden in the
shadows of the pre-dawn sidewalk on the Duong Hang Bac. Again, some groups motion to us to come join them. We politely decline. Fortunately, they do not insist.
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Tallinn, Estonia

dsfg
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tysonv/5/1207649100/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tysonv/5/1207649100/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/tysonv/5/1207649100/tpod.html Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:07:01 -0400 2008 around the world

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Hanoi, Vietnam

daySURFnight

The first sign the day is upon me sings from the beaks of the chirping parakeets, which roost in large groups in the stiff pine trees overhead. The instant any hint of light brightens the horizon they spring to lively action in a cacophony that crescendos, corresponding to the sky's luminosity, until it reaches a dull roar. By this time it is almost too late. I will not be the first person into the water. But if I hasten, perhaps the second or third. While gearing up, a foreboding rain cloud passes overhead, briefly darkening an otherwise pale sky. It drops a warm morning shower over me, as if warning me of the dangerous sea. I scoff at the cloud's futile attempt to thwart my activities. "I think I will have a look at the ocean for myself. Besides, do you think getting me wet will stop me? I will soon be in the water anyway." Gliding gently across the vulnerable beach so early in the morning, the only sound is the noise of fine, tan sand squeaking through my toes. Now I gallop toward the incoming tide, unable to control my excitement for the brisk exhilaration of crashing through the first set of crisp surf.

As I step in, the water tightens around my legs and seems chilly for and instant. Then it quickly becomes bathwater; it retains more of yesterday's heat than the dawn air. I paddle rigorously on my stomach toward the pounding surf in the distance. A light onshore breeze pushes the crests of tiny inbound waves over the tip of my fiberglass vessel, lightly splashing my face. I wince as the salty brine splashes playfully in my eyes, as if to keep me focused. Farther out, beyond the break, waves peak tall and delicately thin. So clear is the water I am able to distinguish the colors of sunrise through their a-frame design - a pink hue, fading higher in the sky to a dull orange. These colors are skewed by the thin sheet of clear water across the wave's peak. They take on a momentary purplish tint before the waves fold over upon themselves and collapse into eerie pink foam. Below, the water is perfectly lucent, as if I am swimming thorough air. I glide over sand banks, ten feet under the surface, sculpted in slopes and lined like farmers wheat fields viewed from a great height. Today's calm and this early hour almost guarantee a swim-by from a pod of inquisitive dolphins, who boastfully perform aerials in the breaking waves, making it clear that I understand they don't need a board to have fun. They curiously investigate any surfer in the water, surfacing close enough to be touched, and then dive again for a meal, reassured that we are mutually harmless to each other.

Finally out beyond the breakers, after an exhilarating swim, the sun peaks over the horizon; the sky lights up blue; the earth breathes deeply then shudders as it begins to warm; the day begins.

Despite the ominous rain cloud at dawn, the shock of entering the water, and the saltwater splash reminders, I am lulled into complacency by the morning's wondrous calm. I rest, relaxed, sitting up on my board. I feel in tune with nature, having ignored its cues of just who is in charge. She reprimands me for my negligence. It is almost too late by the time I notice the disruption of tranquility. Seemingly out of nowhere, a powerful, fast eight-foot wave appears 10 yards in front of me. Momentarily I think of paddling furiously toward it, but, sitting vulnerably on my board, out of paddling position, I only have time to brace for its punishment. The wave slams hard over just a few yards in front of me, rudely interrupting the dawn's peace and my safety. I only have time to dive off my board before the white wash, a three-foot high wall, engulfs me, sending me flipping backwards in a water avalanche and folding my body into contortions a yoga master would be proud to see performed. Spinning in the whitewater as if in a washing machine, I do not know which way is up. As soon as I strain one arm to swim in a direction I am sucked back into the cauldron of churning water. Parts of me briefly graze the sandy wheat fields below, destroying their delicately carved lines, but before I gain orientation I am whipped in another direction.

Finally, when I have almost given up hope of a life above water, the wave releases me from its spiraling torture chamber. Eyes open, I head for the light above me. I realize I am a little deeper than I thought. Even though I am so close to the surface, I have been held under for a bit longer than I was prepared. I enter the phase of panic where I wonder if I will make it before I simply must breathe - how much longer will my hastily-drawn breath last? After what seems like hours I finally break the churning, foamy surface, which once so calm and peaceful, is now a class five rapid. When I am quite sure my mouth is clear of the water's stirred-up surface I gasp for the biggest gulp of air I can get before...Crash! The next wave in the set demolishes me and I am again tossed uncontrollably, a rag doll, back into the salty spin cycle.

Okay, nature, now you have got my attention. I am fully aware of your force. The complacency of early morning has been spun out of me. I am awake, recovering by sitting on my board and waiting for the next set - now a little farther out. Always a mind game, a surfer must decide with the precision of a physicist where to post up to wait for the rideable waves. Too far out and the wave is not developed enough to paddle into. To far in and, well, I just witnessed the result. Too far to either side and the peak and power of the wave will be missed. With constantly changing tides, winds, sand banks, wave heights and swell direction a surfer is less a jock than a skilled oceanic scientist, wave theorist and meteorologist, visually calculating scores of variables instantaneously.

Today's conditions are far from perfect. There are shifting peaks, fickle waves and increasing winds, as the atmosphere gains solar energy. I face a dilemma common to novice surfers such as myself: whether to paddle out a bit further to wait for the giant set which might never come, stranding me and my board for an hour without catching one wave; or to stay in and surf smaller, less rewarding waves and get pummeled by the large, outer-breaking sets. Based on the wave that steamrolled me on my way out I choose the former option. I will go for the big sets, as they seem to be coming in consistently enough. I am in luck. Not three minutes after paddling out a bit farther I spot a set rolling in. The first good-looking wave in a set is always tempting to take because you never know what is behind it - maybe nothing - but patience is often rewarded. Generally, its bigger brother is following right behind. I wait nervously for my first take off of the day. However, by placing myself where I currently am, I have already done 95% of the work.

Being in that perfect spot when the wave arrives is the final step to ensure a good catch. If too far back, then the wave is not steep enough to paddle into. Too far in front and the wave crashes over the top of the board and punishes us both. To far from the peak on either side and there will not be sufficient swell to drop into and generate power to move on the wave. This is the moment when the hundreds of hours of wave theorizing and atmospheric examination come in handy. To the untrained eye, surfers look like a bunch of slackers wasting away their lives sitting on their boards in the sun beyond the breakers. What is actually taking place is a drawn-out, exhaustive examination of wave measurement. The surfer predicts the frequency, velocity, period, amplitude and angle of the wave, as well as its progression. He has sat there for hundreds of hours assessing the attributes of these waves under every possible atmospheric condition - so that when the right wave finally comes, he is ready and he springs to life.

I see my wave growing, its curled barrel darkening - a sure sign it will break at any moment. I turn to paddle. It takes a powerful, concerted effort to propel the board forward to the speed necessary to catch a wave. Full force, my arms and legs flap determinedly in a flurry of activity so contrasted from the calm of board-sitting an instant ago. I feel a sloping bulge of water push the back of my board, which is suddenly leaning forward, aimed down a 45 degree grade of dark blue. Now is the point of no return. I either quickly jump to my feet or I am thrown into the gurgling abyss below. Every take off must be treated like it is the last. Absolute concentration is required to muster up the precision necessary for the balance transfer of a human body jumping to its feet while riding on a tiny accelerating board on the face of a steeply angled crest. As I feel the wave pushing me forward there is no need for more paddling. As quickly as possible, I push up from the board and slide one foot up to the tail of the board, one up to the center, while angling slightly left so I don't flop straight over. I am up just in the nick of time as the wave begins to break over my right shoulder.

Solid. I am planted with a low center of gravity. The angle steepens; I need to get out of the break this instant or I will face the painful penalty of the wall crashing over the top of me. Leaning left, I push my left foot down the slope of the wave and skim down its face through brilliantly smooth water. There is still a steep angle in front of me, but my left turn leaves the continuously advancing break behind for the moment. In full concentration, as my speed increases, the only noises I hear are the wind rushing past my ears and the smooth sound of my synthetic board swooshing through slightly turbulent, nearly glassy water. Whoosh! Ripples vibrate the bottom of my surfboard. I glide into open, flat water, clear of the breaking wave. My speed begins to slow. Inevitably, the quick-forming lip has already caught me and the crest is about to topple over me. I cut sharply left back up the slope of the wave and dive into the water behind it. My five seconds of active exhilaration have finished. But the elation will last much longer.

After a day relaxing and avoiding the brunt force of the sun, it has finally waned and I float lazily in the water again. Nothing is better than a morning surf session - except complimenting it with an afternoon session. A warming glow saturates the atmosphere as the golden sun fades to orange on the horizon. The wind falls to a murmur. It seems to lack motivation, only blowing to keep out dead calm. The water's silky surface shines luminously, as if lit from underneath. Small waves of tangerine mirrored glass bend and shatter onto the flat, haggard beach, which bear the wear of the tide's impudence for its well-being. Motionless and nearly silently, I glide to shore, finished for the day, powered by a foamy, churning wave engine. Looking as exhausted as I feel, the sun tucks behind a green forested mountain, splashing the earth with one final palette of waning color. I reach the sandy shore and gear down from the long day. In the calm silence of dusk, above me, the parakeets have reassembled and are chirping away ceremoniously. But as the light diminishes, their decrescendo corresponds, to silence.

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Ho chi minh city, Vietnam

Less than Home, Part II: A Homeless Guide to Paris

Perhaps it is that I have never had to pay for accommodation in Paris. Every time I have visited I have always known somebody there who would host me. Or maybe it is because I was too stingy to fork out the cash for a hostel; or too lazy; or because the hostels are always full in the summer. Maybe I just did not feel eager about the complex process of finding a place to stay. Whatever the reason, during the three times I have visited the enchanting city of Paris I have adamantly asserted some misguided, romantic notion that the megapolis should take care of me rather than me taking care of myself. I have come to expect nothing less than the red carpet treatment.

During the summer of 2001, during a ten month stint in Europe, I may have treaded on the same red carpet too many times, until it looked like worn crimson Astroturf. In light of my abuse and disdain for first-class treatment and complimentary accommodation, the carpet was finally rolled back up.

My friend, who had generously hosted me a few weeks previously in Paris, seemed none too excited about my return to Paris from Sweden . In fact, she did nothing to hide that I was unwelcome in her flat. Undoubtedly, something I had done on my first trip through town had decreased her interest in re-hosting. I wondered which of the many offenses I committed was the one that resulted in the ban, or whether it was a build-up of social law-breaking, but she sternly told me that she'd had too many guests and there was to be no more - a kind way of telling me to get bent. Truthfully, I didn't care why I couldn't stay there, but that I now had no place to crash, after I had already made plans with her help in mind.

So now what, I wondered. Moping down her stairway and into the street. I expected to stay for free in Paris. Damn it, I will stay for free in Paris, I resolved, with unwarranted confidence. Hard-headed and stubborn as ever, I formulated a plan. I had about five days to kill until I was to meet with some friends to catch a train to Pamplona, Spain for the Festival San Fermines and the Running of the Bulls. Therefore, killing time and finding shelter until then were the key issues.

Regarding the city of Paris, the weather was dry and hot in early July, so there was nothing preventing me from partaking in 24-hour outdoor living. Besides, I felt that I knew the city pretty well, if not above ground then below. I had explored the ancient medieval catacombs under the city and toured the intricate sewer system. Above ground, I felt I had investigated thoroughly enough to navigate and keep myself safe. Just the other day I had tracked down Jim Morrison's grave on the day marking his 30-year deathaversary. I felt comfortable in the city. I spoke the only French I needed to survive: baguette et vin, s'il vous plait. Merci. So here was my chance. What was stopping me from living the dream of vagrancy? This time, nothing. Looking around me in the streets I suddenly felt at ease. I wasn't homeless. Quite the opposite. I was home. Now everywhere was my home.

I soon realized that the best place to be during the day in the Paris summer was in one of the many neighborhood parks. Lush and shady, the small squares nestled amongst the narrow streets, provided perfect reprise from the city's chaos. They were a fabulous place to sit and drink wine discreetly or to sleep on the bench and clear a homeless man's clouded head, which I predicted I would often need to do. I doubted much good sleep would occur during the night because the parks closed in the evening. That is when men had to begin to fend for themselves. Thus, resting and relaxing during the day was crucial.

Because of the simplicity of a bum's life, the daily routine manifested immediately. There are only three major sought-after amenities: shelter, food, and sleep, with booze as a short-term replacement for any of the three. If I wanted to be successful on the street, these were the keys to my existence. Excited about the prospect of my new life on the street, I began my routine by satisfying two of my needs straight off: I spent about two dollars, purchasing a three Franc baguette and a 12-Franc liter-and-a-half plastic bottle of non appellation (non-certified) French table wine. One more similar such shopping spree in the evening would supply enough homeless sustenance for an entire day - a purposeless, four dollar day. With my bounty, it was off to the park, where a grand feast and boisterous celebration of vagrancy was to occur, compliments of me and attended only by me. A good wine buzz at this time in the morning, capped by fresh-baked French bread, under bright skies, is truly the stuff of bum legend. Had I known at the time that this was the best and most rested I would feel for the duration of my stay in France, I would have celebrated even more energetically. However, at that moment, feasting in the park, my prospects seemed fine.
Soon, at my peak of liveliness for the day, I decided it would be fitting to leave the park and head out for a walk. I aimed myself at the Place d'Italie, in the 13th arrondissement. There was always something exciting taking place there. Traffic spiraled into this vortex via eight major boulevards, spinning in one non-stop, thundering, and dizzying traffic circle. I figured there I could enjoy the lively chaos of the French business day for a couple of hours.
However, my fabulous morning quickly took a turn for the traumatic as I dashed across one of the boulevards that fed the circling beast. An old man stepped into a lane of oncoming traffic and was put down by a quickly moving vehicle. In my negligence - I was watching him carry his groceries across the street rather than looking at the road I was crossing - it could have just as easily been me who was walloped by that hurried motorist. He wasn't halfway across the street when BAM! - the sound of a body glancing off a car. The car's breaks screeched but it was too late. The gray-haired man lay, immediately killed, his sacks of groceries spread out in the street, oranges rolling in traffic. He collapsed into the oddest of positions. Kneeling, his bald forehead fell against the asphalt as if he was praying toward Mecca, but his hands lay back towards his feet, still gripping some of the grocery sacks. He was gone. All the pedestrian onlookers and some of the traffic itself froze. Several of us watched and waited a few minutes for the ambulance, which was useless at this point. I forced myself to watch in order to appreciate the fleetingness of life. To see how quickly it can depart, to know that it just as easily could have been me, right there, right then.
This was only second time I had seen someone die and the first when it was so unexpected. His body looked so cold and, well, lifeless, other than the fleeting animation in his face. He was dead. Forever. In this desensitized world it becomes easier or more convenient, over time, for people to utter the words, "he is gone," without thinking much about how true those words are - that person will never be conscious again. He was dead and he will never smile or wonder; never take another step on the planet; never eat the oranges rolling out of his grocery bag and into the street. Even for me now it is difficult to relate to the strength of the feelings I had at that moment, sun ablaze, intoxicated, without wondering: what if the scenario had played out differently? What if it were me who had been hit by the car? Imagining my own mortality, my own loss of life and the eternal end, I contemplated the possibilities over and over. What if I had mistakenly stepped into one of the eight roads of swiftly moving cars coming into Place d'Italie? The idea was so overwhelming that I suddenly felt faint and weak. I staggered into the middle of the traffic circle and lay on my back in the grass for a good time, pondering cruel fate, as the cars spun counter-clockwise around my ocular perimeter, further adding to my queasiness.
-----
Nightfall for the man without shelter is a serious issue. No more navigation by light. No more parks. No more trustworthy public citizens. This is when the vilest of the street vermin thrive, their mystery only enhanced by the blackness of the night. I was a newbie on the scene. Those who had been in the streets for any length of time knew their home turf infinitely better than me and had adapted so well that they were mostly invisible to my untrained eye. The few I saw maintained a low profile, slithering through the shadows. I stuck out like the homeless rookie that I was, walking alertly and pensively, hoping to spot potential threats or promises of safer night shelter.
Every potential protective shadow, it seemed, had its drawbacks: too light so I would be overly visible; too dark and therefore dangerous, too isolated and unsafe, already occupied by an unsavory character, or an illegal domain. There were a million factors that could ruin a likely shelter. All I could do was continue to walk and search, constantly prepared to break out of a dangerous situation by speeding into a full sprint. By midnight the streets had cleared and I narrowed my search for the chance of an evening's sleep to a series of patches of thick, bushy undergrowth on the side of a main road in the 13th arrondissement. The spot was dark and solitary enough that nobody could see me, but perfectly light and public enough so that I could make a scene if I was physically threatened. I reluctantly made my decision, crouching toward the ground. Lying down on the unforgiving land, where roots dig into ribs, is not a comfortable position, no matter how much unregulated French wine one has consumed. That night I never slept longer than an hour before one of my limbs fell asleep and I was forced to move, or a disruption occurred in the street and I had to find a new spot. These are the kinds of sleep patterns that drive bums to insanity.
By 6am, after so much shelter shifting, the sun was up and blazing. A new day dawned. Yawn. A hot, fresh baguette would do, followed by a new plastic bottle of psychosis-inducing wine. But on day two, like the demented street dweller I was becoming, I was constantly groggy and confused. I could not clear my head, no matter how much head-shaking or wine-chugging I accomplished. My level of consciousness wavered between marginally aware and asleep sitting up. It was a good thing I didn't have to go out and earn my six dollars of daily wine and bread money, because I didn't feel mentally or physically capable. Maybe this is why most homeless folks do cartwheels in the streets for quarters - they are absolutely exhausted. If this was day two, what kind of zombie would I become after a week of life on the street? What about a month or a year?
By the third day I couldn't even form proper memories and I kept forgetting which day it was. Concentrating enough to purchase my daily amenities was about all I was good for. Socializing seemed out of the question, even when I was given the rare opportunity. Around mid-day, sitting on the park bench like always, alternating between guzzles and drowsy rocking, I noticed a girl staring thoughtfully at me from another bench across the park. Instead of smiling politely, as I would have done just a couple of days previous, I broke eye contact. My sleepless paranoia kicked in. Did I know her? Is she an undercover police who knows I am homeless? Maybe I should leave. After a few minutes I got up to exit the park. As I stumbled up the steps I heard, "Hey, are you American?" in a distinguishably west coast US accent. "Yes," was the most clever response I could come up with, turning back toward the girl from the other bench. She had seen me drinking wine, both today and the day before, and was quite curious about my pointless existence. So I showed her just how meaningless it really was.
We walked and talked. I showed her my hideouts and I continued to drink. She questioned me politely and was visually disgusted at the majority of my answers and behaviors, but hid it well. A student from UCLA, she was in Paris studying French, just like the thousands of other Americans. I couldn't have cared less what she was doing. I just hoped to be able to talk my way off the streets for the night by forcing her to pity me or tricking her into fancying me. She told me she had eczema on her hands, which broke out when she was nervous - and I made her nervous. Eventually, after hours of talk, I convinced her that I was truly homeless. Likely, out of pity, or less likely, out of some mild perverse attraction, she invited me to her luxurious apartment. In truth, it was likely far from luxurious, but indoor plumbing was a luxury at that point. I rewarded her generosity by passing out somewhere in her apartment long before any meaningful conversation could take place.
She woke me up at some time in the morning and told me to leave. So, as quickly as it had ended, I was back on the streets again. At least I had gotten some sleep. It appeared that another day of sitting in the park was on the agenda. One more of those and I could head for Spain. Sometime in the afternoon, UCLA materialized in the park, emotional. She told me she had spent all day looking for me. Her eczema had flared up. "Well, why didn't you check the park first? I pretty much live here." Apparently, in my sleep-deprived and delusional state of trying to impress my potential hostess, I told her fancy tales of how I would be meandering the graceful turns of the river Seine's left bank that day. These were precisely the kind of fraudulent lines that had earned me shelter the night before. Although secretly proud of myself, I was shocked and somewhat apologetic that she thought I would do anything other than sit on a bench drinking wine that day. She must have ignored all the evidence that I was homeless, lifeless and far beyond an attempt at such creativity and recreation in my emotionally barren world.
For some reason she didn't hate me. In the dark, we walked together toward nowhere in particular. I attempted to mend the wounds in order to sooth her stress - and to win me another night in the first-world comforts of an actual building. As if by plot, in the streets we ran across my friend who had disallowed me to stay at her apartment in the first place. She was also walking with a friend. What were the odds? She acted as if nothing between me and her had happened. Technically, she was right. Other than the red carpet being yanked out from under my feet, time had passed mostly uneventfully. I wasn't angry. But then, as I stood by emotionless, she began telling UCLA what a great guy I was. Then why had I been left to fend for myself in the streets by her? My brain could not comprehend such contradiction. As they chatted on, I wandered off, eventually losing all of them and ending up in one of my usual nightly hiding spots. At this point I was more comfortable lurking in the shadows than socializing pretentiously. The unwelcoming night darkness came and went yet again. And in less than 24 hours I was on a train headed to northern Spain.
In the book Down and out in Paris and London, by George Orwell, Orwell is the homeless man's advocate. No doubt partially because he was the person experiencing street life, he asserts the view that the homeless man is either 1) a victim of circumstance, for instance when there are no jobs available to an unskilled worker, or 2) the homeless man prefers not to be part of the system. The system he is referring to is the one which forces a slave-like workforce to make their livelihood by performing meaningless task that cater to the elite, such as being a bellboy or dishwasher at an overpriced and mediocre restaurant. In this bleak outlook of employment, which the common man in most societies is forced to enter if he wants to survive, those who choose to not work, and therefore live in the street, are sometimes better off than those who work tirelessly, day in and day out, producing nothing worthwhile, and then only treading water financially. The homeless man, at least, has not lost his workplace dignity or his free time.
My brief homeless experience in Paris put me in the former category. I was one who fell victim to circumstance. Although, there was a major difference between my mild bout of vagrancy and one experienced by a destitute individual. Ultimately I chose the street rather than was obliged to it. I had the financial means to pay for accommodation and to claw my way back into comfortable society. Those who are forced into street life have no other option. However brief, this dose of living low did increase my empathy for those who are forced onto the street without a say, and I now better understand their plight, their uncomfortable survival, and constant struggle and search to acquire basic necessities. For all of us who have never had to endure the hardships of being destitute, it behooves us to revel in our good fortune. But if that day should one day come, just hope you happen to be in Paris, close to a French bakery.

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Sydney, Australia

It Makes no ¢ent$

Halfway through last year, while listening to a radio program, I heard a statistic that made me cringe: in 2006, the average person saved -.75% of their income. That means that on average, each wage earner in the US spent more money than they earned - about one percent more. Clearly this pattern isn't sustainable for an individual or family. In the most elementary terms, when more money goes out than in, the end result is inevitably bankruptcy.

When I heard this statistic I thought to myself, well, perhaps more people took out loans for education or to pay home mortgages in 2006, or people spent on investments that will pay off in the future. But I was dead wrong. Essentially, we just spent more money than we earned. Well, so what? It's easy to do, with lines of credit so readily available. Borrow now and pay later is the creed of the day. Everyone does it. Maybe it's not such a big deal.

But the next statistic was scarier still. The negative .75% savings rate was the lowest rate at which Americans have saved since the Great Depression, a time when there was almost no money to be made, unemployment was at an all-time high, and the world economy was in freefall. This, however, was the economic dark ages compared to today. We are not in the 1930s. So how could we be saving equally so little? As Americans, we currently dwell in the most prosperous of times in the most prosperous country in the history of humanity. Basic necessities such as food are at historic all-time lows, relatively. The interest rate is very low and decreasing further, while inflation and unemployment are quite low. Wages are high; goods and services are relatively cheap; US businesses are running smoothly, comparatively. How, in these bountiful times of overabundance, can we be losing money?

Alarmed by these statistics, I felt the need to begin pointing fingers at potential culprits for fiscal mismanagement and financial irresponsibility. I wanted to know why we are going broke and who was at fault. With a lack of any background in economics, other than high school, where I mistakenly sunk the balance of my fantasy stock into Pep Boys because it had a round share price that was easy to calculate, I asked around to people I know who are closely associated with markets and finance. The arcane responses I received as to why we are losing money were fraught with economic mumbo jumbo, unsureness, differing opinions, and most of all, complexity that sparked only more questions. I believe such multifarious solutions are what have gotten us into this mess to begin with. Simple, sound and fundamental economic policy has been lost in the shuffle of modern day convoluted financial solution. Therefore, I decided to simplify things, based on my understanding of the most rudimentary economic principle: you can't take more than you make. Here is my assessment on who is to blame for the recent financial woes in the US.

First and foremost, it is always convenient, if not our duty as Americans, to blame the federal government. I do so for two reasons. Reason number one: Iraq. I remember clearly, in late 2002, living in Las Vegas, watching interviews with Hans Blix on Fox News. The chief UN weapons inspector was pleading with the US not to invade Iraq until the body of inspectors had finished ruling out whether there were weapons of mass destruction being hidden by the Hussein regime. But the Bush administration refused to wait. Whatever true purpose they had for invading the country was imminent and needed to bee addressed that instant. Could it be that Bush and Co. didn't want the weapons inspectors to find the weapons? Or that the government knew that no weapons even existed? Well, as it turns out, yes. But that is another long story.

I paced around my apartment, screaming non-sequiturs at the television or anybody else who would listen, "You can't do that! Why invade? It's illegal! What is the good in starting a war?" How can an invasion on a sovereign nation be rationalized, I wondered. Just eleven years earlier, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in a similar manner to the US invasion of Iraq, the US used the grounds of an unprovoked invasion to pummel Iraq into oblivion, with the support of the world, I might add. However, in a true definition of double standard, the US was permitted to march into sovereign Iraq, remove its leader, and destroy the country's infrastructure without a single repercussion from the rest of the world. Who is in charge of pummelling the US? Despite my isolated verbal outrage directed at Fox News' positive coverage of the invasion, and the UN Security Council's stern warning and opposition to it, the US went into Iraq five years ago today and began a long, bloody and costly occupation. I was flabbergasted, not so much for what was to become a crippling economic mistake, but on the principles of basic human rights and Geneva Convention protocol.

It turns out, though, that the economic repercussions, not loss of lives, will likely be the costliest outcome of the invasion for the average US citizen. A report released on March 10th, 2008 tracked government spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so far, and that number is close to a trillion dollars (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080310/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_war_costs). Every month the occupation continues, the US drops 12 billion greenbacks just to keep the operation intact, with another $13 billion already being paid out monthly to ailing veterans and for the associated costs of war. Besides the fact that the US will likely be in Iraq until at least 2015, the money wasted there, not the thousands of lives lost, is what is really going to hurt the average US citizen personally in the long run. Spending on war veterans usually tops out about 50 years after the end of a conflict. Payouts to World War II veterans peaked in 1992 - and in this war, due to a less developed military triage and hospital systems, a much lower proportion of troops survived the war and received aid in their later years. In contrast, due to enhanced medical procedures in the past few decades, the number of veterans severely wounded in Iraq, who will require government assistance for the remainder of their lives, is staggering. We haven't even seen the beginning of the spending for this unwarranted invasion.

The costs of the invasions and occupations are already taking their toll on the US economy. In past wars, the US economy was stimulated by having to produce massive amounts of military equipment and weapons for the war effort, reducing unemployment. This time, however, the contracts and payouts from the wars are going to private contractors and companies with ties to government officials. This money is effectively wasted, not that going to war is an excuse to stimulate the economy. Although, I sometimes wonder if the Orwellian nightmare, described in 1984, where goods are only produced so that they can be squandered in pointless or imaginary conflict, which propels a, cyclical, self-serving economy and government, is taking place in its own manifestation here and now.

Further, not one dollar spent in Afghanistan or Iraq has come from money budgeted by the Bush administration. Each additional $100 billion spending packaged funded by congress, whose members are rightly frightened to cut the financial supply line to the troops for fear of being labelled unpatriotic, is an enormous sum the government is borrowing from itself. All this cash is considered emergency funding and comes from outside Bush's proposed budget. This means that every cent has to be paid back to us by us in the future, with interest. By racking up a several trillion dollar debt against ourselves, we are devaluing our currency worldwide and adding to our unbalanced budget, which we, as taxpayers, will all have to chip in for. This blank check spending is the definition of irresponsible financial management. And unfortunately this irresponsibility is mirrored in other sectors of the economy.

Secondly I fault the government for its lack of financial regulation within the business market. With the magnificence of our get-rich-quick, free market economy come its inevitable repercussions. Non-regulation in the credit sector has led to the current 'credit crisis' the US is now facing. Credit and mortgage companies have been permitted, without any government oversight, to offer variable rate loans to consumers, who do not have the means to pay back the loans when the rate rises from 3% to 12% a couple years into the mortgage. More often we are seeing that the consumer is forced to declare bankruptcy and concede the loss of their home. When many home owners stumble in this way, the next step is the faceless companies themselves, who expected high payouts from their devious loans at the expense of consumers, are hit so hard by the lack of loan repayment that they slide close to bankruptcy. This is the current trend. Finally, the federal government, again borrowing from its imaginary coffers, financially bails out the creditors and consumers, increasing federal debt further. On March 14, the government saved the 5th largest investment bank in the US, Bear Stearns, from going under. This is another prime example of irresponsible fiscal management, for which I believe the feds are again mostly at fault. By permitting the unreasonable business practice of allowing consumers to enter into leases which will stretch them beyond their means to pay, they exacerbate the woes in the economy further.

The next culprits in the war on savings are the credit card companies. Perhaps taking a cue from the federal government policy of money mismanagement, and spurred on by the lack of regulation in the credit market, large credit banks have also made a habit of allowing the consumer to borrow money well beyond their ability to pay it back, especially with exorbitant interest and hidden penalties tacked on. Clever marketing by credit card companies, coupled with a consumer culture where individuals are constantly barraged by consumer pressure to buy new and better products, only exacerbates this situation. And the credit card companies are laughing all the way to the bank-ruptcy court, as that is where many folks end up. Neither consumers nor creditors win in this scenario and again the economy is hit. The feds must gain some control and pass regulatory legislation in this freefalling free market economy.

Finally, some blame falls on the consumer. Although most people simply emulate the example of irresponsible spending set forth by the federal government and spend without caution, or exploit the ridiculously large lines of credit offered to them by the banks and credit card companies, financial ignorance in these economically cut-throat times will only get a person so far. To me, at least, it seems logical that I cannot feasibly spend more than I earn. If I do I am in debt, and the only way out is a steadily increasing uphill battle. But apparently many people in the US are taking the Bush administration's approach and planning on paying their debts back in the future - a future that isn't looking as bright anymore. A sense of individual accountability must be established if the country is going to get a handle on its overspending and debt, and that will have to start from the top down - the government must lead by example, regulating its own spending first, then regulating business practices second and consumers third. Because apparently we can't regulate ourselves. We have a long road ahead. No wonder the financial prophets and pundits are predicting recession.

Thus ends my assessment.

As a contrast to the bleak outlook for the US economy, over the last six years I have watched the American dollar slide against the Euro, plummeting from 1 dollar purchasing 1.17 euros, to 1 dollar buying only .63 Euros - almost a 50% drop! During this time, the Australian government, as an example of non-mismanagement, has done three major things differently than the US when it comes to economic policy: not borrowed uncontrollably from itself, not started any wallet-draining wars, and disallowed variable-rate mortgages and loans. The consumer is well-protected down under. That is not to say that life is easy: interest rates are high and housing is barely affordable, but the economy is not in freefall. In fact the Australian dollar is itself bordering on parity with the US dollar, which was incomprehensible just a few years ago. The Aussie dollar, like all 19 of the other top 20 performing currencies in the world, is putting the US dollar to shame at the moment. That definitely says something about our current practices.

George Bush spoke to the US public yesterday, in his speech commemorating the five year mark since the invasion of Iraq, and defended the decision, adamantly stating that financial and human cost of the war has been well worth it. I believe the evidence firmly points in the other direction - so clear are the facts that I don't even feel the need to defend that statement. This obstinate regime, which the US populous re-elected on the campaign motto 'Stay the course,' is too proud to admit its past or current military mistakes, which slows down the process of recovery from such blundering errors. The same is true for the economic rationalizations that come out of Washington lately. So when I hear "Stay the course," whether militarily or economically, whether in reference to surging troop levels or pumping billions of non-existent dollars into an already overspent economy, I absorb the cliché with a handful of salt. If the government isn't going to do its job and look out for us, we are going to have to do it ourselves. I will start right now by saving more than I spend this next year.

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Adelaide, Australia




The time has come
To say fair's fair
To pay the rent
To pay our share
The time has come
A facts a fact
It belongs to them
Lets give it back
How can we dance when our earth is turning
How do we sleep when our beds are burning

-Midnight Oil, Beds Are Burning

In the small, lazy and scalding outback towns of central Australia, it's easy to overlook many of the inhabitants, who, along with having the darkest skin, have found the shadiest and most hidden places, at least from the sun, to avoid the heat. I sit next to my car writing, within sight of them, but afraid to wander over and start up a conversation. They sit together in a mellow, purposeful group that doesn't seem to invite outsiders. Their lounging, which is peaceful and passive, like a pride of lions relaxing between hunts, is in stark contrast to me, 100 meters away, sweating furiously in the heat, swatting the annoying and omnipresent bush flies that track me down no matter where I go. In search of water in the dry heat, the pesky insects cover my eyes and nose every time I stop swatting at them long enough to finish writing a sentence. As I sweat through my shirt, watching from afar, I notice no movement coming from the group of about a dozen Aborigines, who have found solace from the radiating ball in the sky under the thickest-leaved ghost-white gum tree in the dusty central Australian town of Alice Springs. No sweating; no scratching; no swatting. They lie. So dark is the shade that I can only make out their forms, like silhouettes in an otherwise blindingly bright world. I rub my eyes, wondering if they are really even there. The white people in town scurry about, never spending more than a few seconds outdoors exposed to the sun, and are seemingly unaware of the presence of the darker members lazing in the daytime shadows, as if this group doesn't even exist.


My current preoccupation with Aborigines stems from what little I understand of their plight in Australia, and the comparisons I can draw with the systematic extermination of native North Americans after the arrival of European settlers on both continents. As a direct result of these genocides, both indigenous North Americans and native Australians suffer unspeakable horrors, the kind of suffering one would expect from a forced societal breakdown. Perhaps the major difference I notice between the two groups is that the Native Americans live on reservations in the US. In Australia, there are specific areas of land the Aborigines have reclaimed, but the majority have abandoned the nomadic way of life and moved to small cities and cattle stations in the outback, where they are subjected to indignities similar to those which have befallen the Native Americans: poverty, rampant alcoholism and drug abuse, child and domestic abuse, and an appalling 15 year gap in life expectancy compared to their white counterparts! All these problems stem from the methodical crushing of culture and the purposeful stomping of long-existing races of humanity.

The parallels that run between the two histories of these downtrodden cultures couldn't be clearer in my mind. But in the US I have always been afraid to address them by confronting an Indian, fearing the negative reaction a native might have toward the pandering sympathy from somebody whose ancestors benefited from confiscating tribal lands. But here in Australia, I don't feel as directly guilty for what happened to the natives as I do curiosity for some insight into their reality. Like in the US, many of the indigenous here keep to themselves and do not interact with whites. But unlike the US, I don't have to intrude onto a reservation to do some freelance cultural anthropology. I can just meander over and sit down next to the group in the gum tree grove in any outback town, if they will indulge me.

By now it's an old social war cry here in Australia, those who want to compensate the indigenous population for the stolen land and the other atrocities synonymous with an invasion and displacement. There are various loosely affiliated groups in the population of Australia, who represent differing views of the situation: the sympathetic whites, who protest the injustices through investigative journalism or artistic output such as music; the adamant Aborigines, who employ localized activism or political representation for change; and, increasingly, there is an apathetic majority, who don't have a clue how to atone for the wrongs of the past. Consequently, nothing much ever comes of the public outcry. I wonder how this kind of movement would fare in the US. Maybe it has already succeeded, as the federal government gives millions of guilty dollars to tribes across the country. Only lately in Australia, under the new government, has the effort for reconciliation gained a little momentum. Just last month, the new prime minister, Kevin Rudd, who succeeds a very conservative John Howard - the Australian neo-con sympathizer and George Bush ally - offered a formal verbal and written apology to all Aborigines for wrongs committed by former Australian governments. The statement, read aloud in parliament, was a first step in reconciliation, other than a 'National Day of Apology' offered some years back.

The conservative Howard government always opposed a formal apology to the Aborigines, stating that the current Australian generation should not have to apologize for the actions and policies of former governments. Many Australians feel this way and it is a fair argument, but in some ways it ignores the travesties that were faced by the indigenous population throughout the colonial years and even into the late 1970s, when the policy of stealing Aborigine children from their mothers was still practiced. The purveyors of these acts, often Christian do-gooders, believed they were saving the children from certain doom because the Aborigines were a dying race. Whatever the motive, after experiencing the horror of being taken unwillingly from their biological parents, the 'Stolen Generation' certainly cannot be faulted when major, cyclical social-structural problems such as alcoholism and child abuse rear their ugly heads. By refusing to apologize over the past, the Howard government cemented a path that permanently absolves Australians of any guilt, and therefore an obligation to any form of reconciliation or reparation. Quite clever. But the tide toward compensation has shifted just a smidge under the new Rudd administration, with talk in the air of some blanket monetary compensation for all Aborigines, although a huge number of Australians oppose any such program. At the moment, the country has said only, "Sorry about that, mate," to the Aborigines, but nothing more.

In search of cross-cultural interaction, I travel from the center of the country, Alice Springs, to its northwest corner, Broome, whose population also consists of a large contingency of Aborigines. Upon arrival, the moment I navigate to the center of town, I find the masses of dark-skinned locals, just like in every other outback town, huddled together and sitting under a lone, enormous gum tree on the perimeter of the Australian Rules football field, which is a giant oval. This posse, however, behaves less like a pride of lazy lions like those in Alice Springs, and more like a pack of hyenas. There is much squirming, yelling, babbling and even semi-playful pushing taking place amongst this bunch. I quickly attribute this behavior to the heat - even though the mercury reaches no higher than it did in Alice, the humidity is cranked up to full volume. One's brain might boil inside its skull if out in the heat unprotected for several hours. I contemplate how to initiate myself into this group. The obvious choice is running to the bottle shop to grab some alcohol. Several of my Australian friends told me that if I show up to any gum tree party with a box of wine, or goon, as it is called here, I would be a legend and therefore be able to talk with the group to my heart's content. I am all for breaking the ice this way, and in this heat I could certainly enjoy a nice cold glass of cask chardonnay.



Upon further examination I decide against the wine for three reasons. One is that it is very assuming, bearing gifts of booze or not, to show up and sit down at a party to which I was never invited. My ploy must be culturally sensitive. Also, I have read and seen signs in some cities that outback and Western Australian towns have been attempting to cut back on violence and abuse by banning alcohol in public areas. I suppose this means that these people are homeless because a public liquor ban doesn't prevent anybody from getting drunk and beating their kids at home, where all illegal activities could take place in private instead. Finally, I feel a bit morally reprehensible supplying alcohol to a crowd of probable alcoholics, who could very well be dry, in which case I would be upsetting a delicate balance. Even if they are wet, I would be willingly contributing toward societal evil solely to appease my meaningless curiosities.

Instead, a brilliant idea comes to me: I will bring them cigarettes rather than goon. Aborigines in every town have been asking me to bum a smoke, as packs are very expensive. I could easily break the ice by showing up with an overflowing box of tobacco. Morally, I am appeased. By inhaling hundreds of carcinogenic chemicals they will only be harming themselves, rather than drinking booze and destroying the future of youth or breaking up households. Why add fuel to the fire by taking them alcohol, I reasoned. I will buy cigarettes. Because who has ever been harmed by tobacco, anyway? I trudge off, or seemingly swim through the sizzling, soggy clouds of moisture, to grab a pack of cancer sticks.

I have read that on certain Indian Reservations in the US, alcohol abuse and its related ills have become so detrimental that the tribe has decided to ban it altogether. Results, of course, are varied, because this policy only entices residents to leave the confines of the reservation to procure liquor, which can then be consumed in public, or worse, in cars on long drives back to the reservation. The story of Australian alcohol restriction in native population seems to be following a similar pattern as in the US. In many cities, alcohol is completely banned in public, which cuts down on all-day drinking benders. These booze fests are sometimes dangerous because they can lead to interpersonal anger and violence that arrive home along with the drunk and take the form of spousal and child abuse.

There are already restrictions in place in many towns as to how much alcohol one person can purchase in one day, and at which hours goon, or cheap 4-liter boxes of wine, the staple of Aboriginal drinking -and of my own, I must admit - can be sold. According to urban legend, goon is an Aboriginal term meaning bag or pillow. The term arises from the culmination of a day of drinking in the treacherous outback sun. When an Aborigine has drunk enough goon to pass out cold on the cement in the town's square, he can make his drunken slumber that much smoother by reinflating an empty 4-liter boxed wine bag with air and utilize it as a pillow. Without wishing to convey unsubstantiated rumors, I do disclaim the former definition of goon. But these are exactly the kinds of questions I endeavor to find answers to while visiting the humbled societies of these once great shepherds of the land. Besides the truth about goon I want to know: what do they think of the current government? Can the Aboriginal culture recover from the brutal history of occupation? Is compensation the answer? Why are Australian and Aboriginal culture so seemingly incompatible? Do they hold a grudge against Australians? And can you pour me another cup of goon?


Even further restrictions on alcohol are being considered in many Northern Territory and Western Australian towns, with such measures as complete booze bans on certain days or even totally dry cities, ala prohibition, being mentioned. Who knows if these solutions are the true answers or if they are lust slicing off the visible limbs rather than attacking the roots of the problem? On February 27, 2008, a new measure was approved in Western Australia that regulates the welfare checks to families with histories of child negligence so that they are only permitted to spend their government benefit on certain consumable products and not on alcohol. This type of control is now commonplace in small towns across the outback where government intervention at every level has failed to stem the flow of booze and abuse through a traumatized society. The amount of finance, effort and legislation being committed to repairing these broken societies elucidates the scope of the problem.

Having purchased a pack of smokes, I walk back toward the football oval, hesitant about my next move. Sputtering toward the crowd anxiously, I pull a gem from the old social parlor trick book. I will ask the group if anybody has a light. In the process of lighting a cigarette I will also strike up a conversation. Undoubtedly at this point, my $14.60 pack of cigarettes will be ravaged in the process. Good, I don't smoke. I will then ask to sit down. I will tell them I am a journalist or a friend form another country or whatever sounds clever. We will smoke harmless tobacco in peace. And I will fire away questions eagerly to obtain my coveted answers. A Brilliant plan, I believe.

I look across the oval confidently, plan in hand, where the Gum Tree Gang is now in sight. With one look ahead, a sudden realization occurs to me concerning the reason Alice Springs was a peaceful lions' den and Broome is a hyenas' ground. While in Broome alcohol flows freely, in Alice liquor is totally banned in public. Now I see why. Just ahead of me I witness absolute chaos. An afternoon melee has erupted on the oval. Several scuffles have splintered off the main formerly calm circle. Old ladies in print dresses are screaming at nobody in particular while spinning in circles. Incomprehensible yelling, flailing, pushing and pointing radiate from groups of salivating men. Others are passed out amidst the furor. Many have fled the scene into the street for a calming cigarette. Trash looks like it has exploded out of bin. Goon bladders litter the oval grass. Loud, meaningless accusation bursts from pockets of men unexpectedly. Calm becomes disorder. Confusion preempts logic. It is a hellish, non-sensical, alcohol-fueled riot.

Predictably, as if on cue, the cops arrive in a paddy wagon. Both are white. One man and one woman. They have that another-day-at-the-office look on their faces. First they unsuccessfully attempt to quell the most riotous and violent of scuffles. Then they half-physically, half-verbally address the most obnoxious and inciting individuals, who scream uncontrollably at the nearest person to them, or the one who has most recently offended them. The behavior seems so foreign and unpredictable to me that I would expect a group of LSD-laden psychopaths to act more rationally. If these people had machine guns this would be a scene from the movie Jacob's Ladder. As I photograph and take video of the carnage, the police slowly gain control. One drunk refuses to cease screaming full-volume at the cops, five feet from their ears, that his people have been here 50,000 years so just f*ck off. Touché. Several of the worst instigators, from young men to old women, are cuffed and piled into the wagon, crutches and all, to make their daily booking into Broome Central Jail, just around the corner from the bottle shop. Nobody resists arrest. The detained are suddenly complacent, calm, passive like a pack of cuffed and defeated lions.



Standing 100 yards from ground zero I look down at my feet, where a reinflated goon bag lays on the steaming pavement under the hot sun.

I think to myself, 'well, it looks like I am out $14.60 for those cigarettes, more than the cost of a box of wine.' More importantly, I have missed out on my opportunity to obtain the answers to all my burning questions. The answers are more elusive than I thought, and perhaps can't be garnered so simply as in an afternoon of tobacco smoking. Today is not my day to understand them.



Last summer, in Alaska, my brother and I spent an evening in the streets of downtown Anchorage, killing time outside the bars rather than money in them. What we witnessed that night was nearly a mirror image of the scene described above. Drunk, indigenous Inuits, who had been boozing heavily since the 515 Club opened at 9am that morning, spilled out into the street at an almost customary hour of night. The drunken Indians proceeded to fight verbally and physically, tossing items at each other, and were promptly arrested by some sort of citizen-funded paddy wagon, containing two robotic, white officers. The arrest scene was serene as well as sad - equally so to the one in Broome. Old women and young men piled into the paddy wagon methodically and were taken away.

Explanations for these types of scenes, so common in the indigenous communities of the US and Australia, come a dime a dozen: these populations hadn't been exposed to alcohol until the colonists arrived; inequality breeds poverty breeds social problems; the sense of community and culture in these populations has been destroyed. From my perspective, it is difficult to pinpoint the root causes. But what is clear are the similarities of the Native American plight and the native Australian plight. These similarities run deep; their histories parallel. When a culture is destroyed or forced into submission life can become meaningless, stripped of significance. Without a source for moral and rational behavior, spurred by a substance which tears at the fabric of society, it becomes unglued. The bottle of chaos is shaken and cork of sanity blows off.

Later, at the bottle shop, I discuss what transpired earlier with the white liquor clerk. "Man, it was utter chaos out there at the oval today. Is it like that every day?" I ask.
"Mate, there are good days and bad days," he says, complacently.
"In Alice Springs they had none of this," I blabber, hoping for more clues into the state of this town. Both clerks perk up, interested in the new information.
"Oh yeah? That's good to know. So it works, I reckon?"
"Better than here," I grant. Three Aborigines I recognize from the oval stumble through the front door. The old lady is the sloppiest. In the entry she supports herself on a display of wine bottles. One guy has a bandage over most of his head.
"G'day," all three enthusiastically slur, making their way to the refrigerated section of the store. The clerks watch them nervously. One clerk says, "Well, I was wondering why so many of them keep showing up in Broome every day. Must be because booze is illegal everywhere else. Well, our day will be up soon." I finish my transaction. "Yeah, man, it was quite a bit calmer in Alice," I repeat, struggling to keep the conversation alive while the clerks focus on the drunken patrons. Just then I am accidentally nudged sharply in the back by the old lady. I jump to the side. She slams a fifth of Jack Daniels and two cokes on the counter. The clerk says, "$42.16," to the old lady. Then he looks at me, winks, and says, "Welcome to Broome."

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Broome, Australia


Words
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } 21 February, 2008

Less than Home

My homeless episodes during the past several weeks, when a car was my shelter and the ocean my shower, have got me thinking about some of my past precarious traveling moments.

Long ago, during my idealistic, adventurous, and slightly depressed late teen years I entertained an ambitious idea for a book. With only my train ticket in hand, a journal, and the clothes on my back, I would travel to New York City by rail. There I would join the huddled masses in their street culture. I would be homeless and penniless, with no way of escape other than working my way back out of poverty. I would interview the bums, learn the ropes of living destitute, find my niche, and briefly become a part of the community. The idea was that within weeks of arriving on the streets with nothing I would have earned enough money, through shrewd behavior, to buy decent clothes, apply for a job, work and slowly pull myself back out of the gutter, whereupon I would earn enough for a train ticket out of New York City and back into my real life. I would write the whole process up, while coming away with some amazing stories of the misunderstood and lost souls of the indigent. I would elucidate their plight and tell their tales to the public. The book would be the vagrant world's answer to Black Like Me. Homeless Like Me was going to prove that all Americans have the opportunity to create a good life for themselves as long as they are mentally capable and physically willing.

I had thought this plan through quite seriously. But there were potential problems. Keeping up with the homeless situation in New York City in the late 1990's, I had learned that Mayor Guliani's mission was to clean up Manhattan. Times Square, where I found it quite simple to purchase a fake ID as an 18-year-old, was being de-sleazed. Bums were being pushed into the fray of other boroughs or being swept under the rug so that NYC's public image would improve in the eyes of the world. I realized that in this new Manhattan I wouldn't be able to sleep in the many spots I had scoped out - like the secret places in Central Park.

Also setting me back were the book critics' voices, which I could already hear:

"Of course a well-educated, non-mentally diseased rich kid can pull himself off the streets on which he never belonged. He has the tools and skills the homeless don't have and the initiative they don't want. He is a silver-spooned fraud."

In the end it wasn't these two problems that prevented me from executing my plan in early April 1998, while I was locked out of the dorms for nine days during my college Spring break in Connecticut . The major reason I didn't proceed was that I was frightened. I was scared to brave the elements, away from my comfortable existence, and live in a world without shelter. I was scared to face the hardship and realities of street life. Instead I spent nine days on various long-distance Greyhound buses, exploring the American Midwest, South and Mid-Atlantic regions, where I got a heavy dose of Americana nonetheless. I avoided living rough in this case. But some perverse interest in homelessness had been awoken in me that still has not died to this day. The simplicity of living off the hand. Having no cares, nothing to lose, nothing to gain, only needing to survive. For some reason, this was an experience for which I had a burning desire.

Over the years of traveling I've been forced into the adverse exhilaration of street life several times for various reasons. But rarely on my own accord. There was the time in Venice in the middle of August, when every hostel was full, so hundreds of us travelers were camped outside the train station late night, huddled up in our warmest gear and staying close to each other to avoid danger - the groups of girls latched onto other travelers such as myself, to avoid the seduction and smooth-talking of the seedy Italian men roaming the darkened train station vicinity. I met three goddesses from Lima , with skin and hair lighter than mine but with a wonderful Latin swagger, who were in the same situation as me. They were unprepared and chilly so I offered them the use my sleeping sack as a gesture, hoping they would decline. They accepted and thanked me and were warm. I smiled and shivered all night, unable to sleep on the cold pavement. The next day the Italian police found me passed out on a park bench, finally able to slumber in the warmth of the August heat. This was illegal so they inspected my passport and threw me back onto the street. This was a brief but harrowing experience without a roof over my head.

Then there was the time I boarded a 'deluxe' bus in Manali , India , en route to Dharmsala, the holy home of the Dali Lama. I will mention that a 'deluxe' bus in India means precisely nothing. There is no difference separating it from the other classes of busses, other than in name. 'Deluxe' doesn't speak for the quality of the vehicle or its amenities, the route it will take - direct or indirect - or whether a paying passenger will have a specific seat. The only thing certain on a long-distance Indian bus ride is that it will blow a tire or suffer some debilitating mechanical failure at some point during the journey. And all its passengers will get out and stare at the problem as if intense gestures would fix it. One further guarantee is that the bus will inevitably stop at some ungodly hour at a filthy roadside food stall called a dhaba, where passengers will gorge on fried, savory Indian pastries and head for the slippery, hopelessly dark, and rancid squat toilets out back before returning to the bus.

As it happened in my case, I boarded the 'deluxe' bus later than all the other passengers and quickly realized that my assigned window seat reservation was apparently imaginary. The only remaining seat was the middle seat on the back bench of the bus, where I would have the next 15 hours to either work on my posture by sitting perfectly straight up or fall out of my seat onto the floor. There would be no sleep for this weary traveler. The bus was full of young married couples, who seemed to be going on vacation to some resort town. It was obvious that somebody had sold me a ticket on a bus that was going to a location much different than the city I was supposedly going to.

Exhausted, I pleaded with the newlyweds next to me to allow me to sit in my assigned seat by the window so I could at least lay my head against it. But in typical Indian-logic fashion he reasoned with me that the ticket I had was for the back middle seat, which it clearly wasn't, according to the stickers above the seats. I ceased my futile arguing, though, because I had lost this argument before and I would lose it again. Besides, I didn't want to break apart the seating arrangement of the young happy couple on their first vacation together. I had to say to myself, as I did almost daily in India , 'Tyson, calm yourself. It could be worse.' I invoked my Theory of Relative Suffering, which I had developed in India, seeing how Indians seem to be amazingly adept at withstanding what appears to be extreme amounts of suffering. Relatively, the suffering in this case for me was mild. It really could be worse.

And it would be.

Ten minutes into the ride the young men on both sides of me, likely fatigued from their overwhelming sensation of infatuation to their new brides, fell asleep. And as only Indians seem to do, these guys managed to lean their heads onto my shoulders and balance them perfectly in place throughout the ride, despite the bumpy ride. This cuddly pose precluded me from any sort of personal movement. The only thing I could do was close my eyes and breathe deeply.

After about 12 hours of head-bobbing and white-knuckled hand bracing on dark, mountainous roads, the bus came to a halt on a pitch-black, empty stretch of highway. The driver came to the back of the bus to relate the following to me, "Dharmsala." Looking out the window it was readily apparent from the absence of light that we were nowhere near any city. I said, "Where?" He said, "Oh, just there!" pointing to the blackness out of the window. "You can catch a bus from here."

Damn it! I thought I had already caught a bus! What is this? I paid full price to go to Dharmsala!

Those were the statements I considered screaming but a cool head got the better of me. I didn't want to be the ugly American. Besides, this was India. I understood India like I understood the intricacies of quantum physics or Rush Limbaugh's logic. To me, India was inside out, backwards, upside down and opposite of any reality I had experienced. And I was always the one who was out of place and incorrect.

Tyson, calm yourself. It could be worse.

So I gathered myself, slowly stood up, somberly, and stepped off the bus into the darkness. Not even the moon was there to help lighten my surroundings. Handing me my bag, the driver pointed toward the black abyss again.

"Dharmsala."

Sure, buddy.

I can sometimes see the look of apology on someone's face when they know I have been wronged but are unable to do anything to help the situation. That is the look the driver gave me as the bus sputtered off. I hate that look because when I see it I know I am screwed.

It was 3:30 am. I could tell I was on a road, but without light that's about all I could make of my surroundings. The area was deathly dark, still and quiet. Feeling blindly through the shadows I found a structure of some sort on the side of the road. Maybe it was an old, rundown food stall. Because no traffic was passing I knew I wasn't going anywhere for several hours at least. I thought I might as well get comfortable. Sitting inside the structure on what seemed like a pile of wood scraps, I tried to contort my body to mold to the perplexing angle of the pile. I slumped into a laying position, pieces of wood stabbing me from all sides. It felt like lying on a bed of nails. Collapsing my shoulder and head onto my backpack I felt I might actually have a position I was capable of maintaining for a couple hours until I could make out my surroundings in the morning. Then I heard a growl from below.

Only a few feet away from me, just inches from my outstretched leg, was a feral animal of some variety. Of course, I couldn't see it; I could only tell how close it was from its growl. I didn't dare jump up and move. I just grabbed a sharp piece of lumber from under the pile in case I needed to protect myself. The beast had to be as scared of me as I was of it. Om, right? Maybe it was just identifying itself. It was probably fortunate I couldn't see what or where it was because I didn't have anywhere else to go. I just accepted that this night I would be sleeping in the company of, and perhaps protected by, a pack of wild Indian dingoes.

And rats. I could hear things rustling and racing around below my wooden sleeping pile for the next several hours. Paralyzed, I don't remember if sleep came or not. I just became part of my surroundings. The next morning, when light hit, I lifted my sore body and frazzled nerves up off the woodpile and walked back to the road. A half an hour later I caught a bus up the hill, in the direction the driver had pointed, to Dharmsala.

These situations were no doubt intriguing and intense, and by all rational logic, should've quelled my hankering for experiencing street life. However, both of these experiences occurred against my will. I had homelessness thrust upon me. I still yearned for a down-and-out situation that I had control over. One where I could choose my own adventure and carve out my own reality.

Where better than on the streets of glorious Paris?

To be continued...
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