My China

Photo

2009-08-08T11:51:00.000+02:00

I am currently in Seattle, attending the Watson Fellowship conference for returning fellows. All fifty of us have to give a 10 minute presentation on our past years. I put together this photo slide show for my presentation. It is admittedly unpolished and somewhat hard to follow with few explanations, but you may want to take a look if you've been following my blog. You'll notice a lot of repeat photos from the blog as well.

Homeward bound

2009-06-30T16:29:00.002+02:00

Hello!

Believe it or not, I left Boston for Lima 365 days ago. That makes a year, which means my Watson Fellowship is coming to an end. I'm now in Singapore, and will be leaving here in less than 12 hours for a long voyage back home to Concord, Massachusetts.

I haven't thought too much about what this blog will become when I'm home; I imagine I'll keep posting photos, perhaps some reflections on this past year's odyssey, and the like.

Lebuh Gereja and other Portuguese influences

2009-06-26T12:00:00.004+02:00

I am now in Malacca (Melaka) which, along with Georgetown, was recently made into a UNESCO World Heritage Site. As a crucial port along the straits of Malacca, the city is a mish-mash of influences from the Portuguese, Dutch, British, Chinese, Indians, and of course, the Malays.

It just occurred to me that the street name "Lebuh Gereja" is derived from Portuguese; (Lebuh means "street" in Malay) "Gereja" is derived from the Portuguese word for church, igreja. Some people still speak "Kristang," a language that has evolved from Portuguese spoken in along the southeast Asian maritime routes. Incidentally, tempura, yes, the quintessentially Japanese deep-fried veggies/seafood, also has Portuguese origins.

Vietnam (snapshots)

2009-06-24T22:08:00.000+02:00

Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Taiwan (snapshot)

2009-06-24T21:57:00.002+02:00

Beigang, Taiwan. Mazu's birthday celebration.

...I ALSO miss Taiwan.

Rio de Janeiro (snapshot)

2009-06-22T19:29:00.003+02:00

Adding to the somewhat strange textures that "found" filters can create...

Ipanema beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

snapshots

2009-06-22T18:51:00.001+02:00

One eye open

2009-06-22T18:48:00.001+02:00

Perhentian islands, Malaysia

The Watson is coming to an end...

2009-06-22T13:50:00.002+02:00

SIM cards I've accumulated over the year.

Social support and the Chinese

2009-06-22T10:16:00.005+02:00

"Thanks to the social security system in America which provides a worry-free life to my mother, [it] in turn relieves my burden to support my mom's living... In China, there is no social security or welfare for the elders. It is one of the big reasons that the Chinese children have a stronger sense
of responsibility for their parents." -- Mom

I've been meaning to write about social support and the Chinese for a while. I became interested in this subject while doing research for my senior thesis, as I tried to understand the effects of China's diminishing social support systems following economic reforms in 1978. The economist Amartya Sen argues that the Chinese preference for sons is primarily a socioeconomic one. Basically, many Chinese turn towards their families to provide adequate social support, particularly in old age. Because of traditions of patrilineal marriage, daughters are "given" in marriage and live with their in-laws. Sons stay "in" the family and are expected to provide care for their parents.

It's easy to see why sons are favored when there is little state support for the elderly. Most Chinese, both in and out of Chinese, seem to be largely apolitical, and rarely use politics to try and solve social problems (in marked contrast to most Latin American countries, for instance). And because most Chinese do not receive -- nor expect -- support from the state, they often turn toward their extended families for support.

Although the research has been out for a couple years at this point, the New York Times just published an article about gender bias even among overseas Chinese in the U.S.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/nyregion/15babies.html

I'd rather be working

2009-06-15T14:33:00.003+02:00

You know those t-shirts that say "I"d rather be [doing favorite hobby]?" Like I'd rather be sailing, be golfing, be hiking, etc.? Last night on the street I saw a Chinese-Malaysian woman wearing a shirt saying "I'd rather be working."

I think this pretty much sums up the famous work ethic of Chinese immigrants. Throughout my journey across the Chinese diaspora, I have consistently seen Chinese immigrants pull 12, 14 hour days, six to seven days a week with little complaint. Often their only complaint is that they miss China. I think many Chinese people view hard work as an act of filial piety, of loyalty towards one's family and ancestors. Even the poorest of immigrants send what little money they have to their families in China, or to construct temples and homes to pay homage to their ancestors. Sure, Chinese parents may spoil their kids -- especially their sons -- but I think this is closely related to the expectation and the responsibility of their children to pay them back, and to take care of their parents in old age (a topic worthy of a dissertation).

It's funny, going to Chinese communities, where on Sundays or other holidays all the shops are closed except the Chinese ones. For many Jewish-Americans, for instance, going to a Chinese restaurant on Christmas has become a tradition in of itself. Shops in Georgetown seem to close early, but I was noticing that the employees of one Chinese restaurant that closed after lunch simply began to work on the street stalls at night.

Islam in Malaysia update

2009-06-14T04:47:00.003+02:00

OK, so I just learned that Islam is, in fact, the official state religion of Malaysia. Ethnic Malays, intriguingly enough, are technically defined as Muslim in the constitution. I find it strange when ethnic groups are defined by their religion; take the Hui, who constitute an ethnic minority in China, by way of the fact that they are Muslim. Many of the Hui are in fact ethnic Han, who form the vast majority of Chinese people (I am, and pretty much every Chinese person you know is Han).

Back to Malaysia. I think Malaysia has done a pretty good job so far of balancing a multi-ethnic society, and has thus far avoided the kind of ethnic tensions in neighboring Indonesia between locals and the Chinese, or between religious groups. Nevertheless, coming from the other southeast Asian countries where cheap beer flows freely, I cannot help but notice the heavy taxes levied on alcohol (a 330ml can of beer starts at about $2.50 USD here. In comparison, this would probably cost about $0.25 USD in Vietnam or Thailand. And although Malaysia is a bit more expensive, street food, fresh juices and other drinks can still be had for less than $1 USD).

I will have to keep my eyes open as I move down the Malaysian peninsula, as Malaysia gets more Malay. Penang is apparently the only state where the Chinese form a plurality, so we'll have to see whether beer prices go up even further or drop off the shelves altogether (although I doubt that). Anyways, the high alcohol taxes seem to have worked, I haven't had a single alcoholic beverage yet. Coconuts and honeydew smoothies all the way!

Vietnam (snapshot)

2009-06-13T18:39:00.002+02:00

Cholon, Ho Chi Minh City. A Vietnam-born Chinese entrepreneur. Despite speaking Vietnamese fluently and fitting in visibly, most Vietnam-born Chinese still maintain strong Chinese traditions and can write and speak Chinese fluently. They have their own temples, worship their ancestors, and their homes can easily be identified by the red paper calligraphy outside their homes.

Hong Kong (snapshot)

2009-06-13T18:23:00.002+02:00

A mosque in Georgetown

2009-06-13T17:51:00.004+02:00

At the end of the day today, I somehow found myself in the main mosque in Georgetown. There seem to be several small mosques around town, although given the multi-ethnic and multi-religious nature of Malaysia, none seem to dominate the town's architectural landscape as a church does in Latin America or a mosque in the Middle East. Hindu temples, Buddhist temples, Chinese ancestral temples, Anglican churches, and mosques are scattered around the town (Okay, no synagogues, but oddly enough there is a street called "Lebuh (Street) Katz").

I got into a conversation with the security guard and what appeared to be the mosque's PR guy. To make a long conversation less long, he seemed to say that Islam was very similar to Christianity and Judaism (assuming I came from a Judeo-Christian background), albeit a more pure, less adulterated religion that has avoided the corruption that comes with institutionalization and cultural adaptation . On the other hand, when the subject of gender equality came up, he admitted that what Muslim societies often practice isn't what Islam actually says. No surprises there. I did want to ask him, but didn't get the chance, why during prayer time all the women were off in a little cordoned-off room, whereas the men got to pray in the main prayer area. Separate, and certainly not equal.

I should say, though, that I am always impressed by the intense devotion of Muslims. Muslims are supposed to pray five times a day, and visitors to Muslim societies can attest to the (sometimes deafening) frequent calls to prayer, and the subsequent emptying of streets. The centrality of prayer, I think, sets Islam apart from the way most other religions are practiced.

On the subject of institutionalized religion, I remember reading something by some guy who practiced Sufism, a kind of mysticized Islam. I think the article was actually in reference to esoteric Christianity, but I'm getting off topic. The point was the guy said that mystics have always been persecuted, because they show that people don't need institutions (the Catholic church, for instance) to connect with God or higher powers.

Georgetown (snapshot)

2009-06-13T17:48:00.003+02:00

I think I probably should have just started posting random snapshots I like when I started it. I have to a certain degree, not all the photos (or what I write about) are project related, but I have so many that I wish I had just posted without trying to come up with a justification. This sort of has to do with my next post and the fact that I go home in less than three weeks!

Georgetown, Malaysia

2009-06-12T18:30:00.003+02:00

Georgetown is beautiful. The old Chinatown is probably one of the coolest urban areas I've been to, alongside Cape Town's Bo Kaap neighborhood (whose residents, incidentally, came from the Malaysian archipelago) and Havana. A lot of the buildings look like they haven't changed since the 1960s or even earlier, with many buildings in various stages of decay and renovation.

Georgetown was recently inaugurated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which I think is entirely deserved. The architecture here is unique, a mix of traditional southern Chinese village housing with British colonial influences, as well as Muslim influences from the town's Indian population.

These photos don't give you an idea of what the town is like, but the old advertisements certainly help contribute to a feeling of being stuck in another era.

See me?

Malaysia

2009-06-10T16:26:00.003+02:00

I am now in Georgetown, a city on the island of Penang, in Malaysia. Sorry about the radio silence.

In case you were wondering, Annalisa is working on an excavation outside some old abbey in northern France.

Things they left behind

2009-05-25T18:40:00.003+02:00

I just posted on a friend's blog with photos from China, of a near-empty village where many people have moved to Brazil and the United States. I've posted there mainly because the readership of Mauricio's blog is largely Brazilian (Mauricio is from Sao Paulo), and I haven't figured out how to cross-post it onto my blog.

The link is here:

Aqui e Acola: Things they left behind

The snake

2009-05-24T21:19:00.005+02:00

Today I witnessed the slaughter of a snake and its subsequent consumption in Saigon. I have only seen a slaughter a few times in my life -- I witnessed the slaughter of huge pig in Cuba on Christmas eve, some fish, chickens with their heads plucked off, and that's about it. In a way, if you are going to eat an animal, I think you should be able to see where it comes from, how it ends up on your plate.

I had deep fried snake once before, in China. This snake was served in a stew. Snake meat is kind of like a cross between tough fish and chicken.

Those with snake phobia (Annalisa), you might want to skip this post.

The snake out of the bag.

Gutting the snake.

Squeezing the blood out to mix with rice wine.

Amazingly, the snake -- gutted, head cut off -- still wrestles with itself.
Removing the innards of the snake

This guy ate the raw gall bladder of the snake.
Snake soup. THese are snake eggs that the slaughtered female snake carried inside itself. They kind of just taste like egg yoke.

Rice wine mixed with snake blood and bile. Down it as fast as possible.

Cholon, Ho Chi Minh City

2009-05-24T12:24:00.006+02:00

Cholon is the historical "Chinatown district" in Saigon, now officially known as Ho Chi Minh City.

In case you hadn't realized already, most Chinese immigrants are good entrepreneurs. Hence, when the Communists came smashing through and closed all the free markets, many Chinese people fled Vietnam. With markets opening up once again, the Chinese people are once more beginning to show off their entrepreneurial talent.

Funny thing. After arriving in Vietnam from China, I've been making many comparisons between the two. I've been surprised how tolerant most Vietnamese people are with having their photo taken, at least in comparison to their Chinese counterparts. Most don't seem to mind, and there are rarely angry security guards that make up arbitrary rules prohibiting photography in public places.

Nevertheless, when I got to Cholon, I noticed immediately how much more camera-shy the Chinese there were. Originally, I would have liked to take a portrait of this trio, apparently grandparents and their grandchild. But the man and woman casually covered their faces while allowing me to photograph their child, with little protest. The result seems somewhat funny to me.

Since I'm travelling alone I don't get many photos taken of me. My college photography professor required us to take at least three self-portraits on each roll of film (remember those?), and I've gotten in the habit of taking them. Here I am wearing my new blazer and shirt I got tailor-made in Vietnam, because apparently that's what you do when you go to Vietnam. It's quite incredible, really, little shops can spit out an entire suit in less than 12 hours of you walking into the store.

Vietnam

2009-05-23T05:43:00.002+02:00

I am in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon. I have been in Vietnam for more than a week now, having traveled southwards from the Chinese border.

A map of the Chinese diaspora

2009-05-19T09:06:00.003+02:00

My friend Julian sent me this link, a world map of the Chinese diaspora. I met Julian nearly a year ago in Lima, Peru -- incidentally, Julian is also a Chinese-American.

http://www.wallpaper.com/madeinchina/diaspora

The map shows the major Chinese settlements of around the world. What seems to be missing is a more updated version showing Chinese immigration in Africa. Nigeria has upwards of 100,000 Chinese people, and Ethiopia has between 40,000-50,000.

Mannequins

2009-05-11T16:58:00.005+02:00

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Birmingham, England

I've actually taken quite a few photos of mannequins on this trip, starting with my very first stop in Peru. Some street near the Barrio Chino in Lima specialized in suits and had a bunch of scary looking mannequins. Mannequins are strange; large, idealized figures meant to represent humans in an odd, overgrown barbie-like fashion.

2009-05-11T16:54:00.003+02:00

The two images below, from Ethiopia, reminded me of this photo I had taken two years ago in India.

Two from Ethiopia

2009-05-09T21:11:00.002+02:00

Arat Kilo (near Addis Ababa University), Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

B&W photos from Taishan

2009-05-09T20:46:00.003+02:00

Black and White photos from Taishan county.

Women sort through a pile of mud in order to find baby crabs, which they then sell to a man at 100 crabs/20 RMB (a little less than $3 USD). The guy then either sells the crabs or raises them until they are big and he sells them for a crabload. We got our full-size crabs for 45 RMB, about $7 USD.
For two nights, I stayed in Sha-Lan village, which has recently seen a large emigration to Brazil. Indeed, two of the families I met in Brazil hailed from this village, and I was able to contact their families to see their homes they left behind.

The family I stayed with had a son who was 19, and was quite severely mentally retarded. He acted like a 3 or 4 year old, crying when he didn't get something, pouting to his mom, and woke up everyone at 5 am for no reason. He seemed to love photography; I allowed him to take my photo and he loved it when I took his. At one point, he ran to his older sister's room and grabbed her Hello Kitty. I like the picture for some reason.

Sha-Lan village.
Sha-Lan village

Taishan, the roots of the diaspora

2009-05-09T04:33:00.007+02:00

The above photo is of my maternal grandfather's village in Haiyan, literally "Sea Banquet." We had seafood everyday. One meal I counted a total of eight different kinds of fish.

Side note: Blogger has a somewhat annoying format in that it seems to post photos backwards in the order in which I upload them.

Anyways, I've spent the past few days in the countryside, in the Guangdong county of Taishan, a major exporter of fine Chinese products. I mean immigrants. In many of the countries I've been to so far, a large number of the immigrants have come from this single county, Taishan. I think I read somewhere that over half of the population that is "Taishanese" is actually living abroad.

Apparently I am 75% Taishanese, which I had no idea about until recently, when I found out that my paternal grandmother's family was originally from a village in Taishan. Going back to my "old home" in China is an incredible experience; an auntie who helped guide me around the villages pointed out villages in the distance, commenting, "that village went to England. That village went to Brazil."

Brazil.

Everyone was talking about Brazil. Brazil is the new America, by the way. Seriously, everybody was talking about Brazil, and everybody is going to Brazil. I guess people have started realizing that America isn't America anymore.

Old ladies in my maternal grandfather's village in Haiyan. They have just been given 100 RMB (about $14 USD) by a successful entrepreneur who made it out of the village.
The ancestral temple in Haiyan. The first character on the temple reads my mother's last name, "Rong," or "Yung" in Cantonese.

The house that my maternal grandfather built. He was a "Lao Hua Qiao" (overseas Chinese) who went to America, and apparently South America as well. He died when my mom was five and she has no recollection of him. Apparently he suffered prejudice in America. Surprise.
The ancestral shrine in the house my grandfather built.

Now we can move on to my paternal grandmother's village, or at least what I believe is my paternal grandmother's village. She was born in California, but her parents were from Taishan. She even has the same last name as my maternal grandmother, Wu, or "Ng" in Cantonese. Yes, nnnnnngggggggggg. It's not missing at consonants. Try it.

Actually, the village wasn't that remote.

That's me in front of my paternal grandmother's village.

The final village is my maternal grandmother's. I had an "American returning to his roots" moment in which I jumped on the back of a motorcycle to get to this village, because it was inaccessible by car. It was deeply romantic, and I wish I had a film crew on hand.

The driver checks to see if it's the right village. I take photos. This is the ancestral temple.

The Communist ancestral temple. No, just kidding, but I think it used to be the party headquarters, see the faded star?

One more step back in time

2009-05-02T16:36:00.003+02:00

I am now in Guangzhou, China... made it here for May Day. One of my mom's best friends from middle school, Zhang JunHe, showed me these photos of my mom from the early part of the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), before both of them were "sent down" to the countryside.

Zhang JunHe has shared with me fascinating stories about those times and their classmates, and stories about my mom I had no idea about. The stories themselves are so long, so epic, and so full of heroes and villains (guess who the heroes are) that I'm not going to share them here, at least for now.

I really like the photo of my mom and Zhang JunHe, both smiling with their hands on their hips. I am often surprised when I realize that my mom was just a teenager, younger than me.

The photo in front of Tiananmen square, in the upper left, is also striking to me. Perhaps its that for Chinese, having your photo taken in Tiananmen is like a pilgrimage to Mecca. Everyone has one. And that particular time, during the Cultural Revolution, when everyone was wearing the same clothes and holding Mao's little red book. It's strange to actually see my mom in that historical context -- looking stonefaced at the camera -- in contrast to every other photo, where she's smiling.

Roots and Happy Early Mother's Day

2009-04-29T18:28:00.010+02:00

I grew up in the largely homogeneous town of Concord, Massachusetts. It's probably instructive to look at some demographic stats I've knicked from Wikipedia:

"The racial makeup of the town was 91.64% White, 2.24% African American, 0.09% Native American, 2.90% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 2.12% from other races, and 0.99% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.80% of the population.

....The median income for a household in the town was $115,897, and the median income for a family was $135,839. Males had a median income of $92,374 versus $67,739 for females. The per capita income for the town was $51,477. About 2.1% of families and 3.9% of the population were below the poverty line, including 3.7% of those under age 18 and 3.3% of those age 65 or over."

If numbers scare you, the point is this: Concord is a very rich, predominately White town. In fact, it is probably even more wealthy and White than the census suggests, as there is a maximum security prison in Concord that probably makes it seem more diverse in the census. Yep.

So what was growing up in Concord like? Quite nice, obviously! People still can't seem to get over the fact that my parents spoke English to me at home, which has led to my inability to speak Cantonese and my learning Mandarin in college. Perhaps more importantly, however, I really had no interest in figuring out those sort of existential questions about where I come from, who I am. Part of the reason is that all the hardships endured by my ancestors are so far removed from the comforts of Concord. Cliche, but true.

But like any American, I wanted to piece together my inevitably interesting family history. My mom's aunt (my grandmother's brother's wife) in Hong Kong whipped out a stack of photo albums today, from when my mother arrived in Hong Kong in the early 1970s. I had already figured out a large bit of my mom's history (also known as the epic story of how she got to America from China. Seriously, it's epic.), and knew that she had arrived in Hong Kong having witnessed some of the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution. The photos my mom's aunt showed transported me back to 1970s Hong Kong, where I'm sure my mom and her brother (who both escaped) were so happy and felt so free to be out of China.

I've found it hard to imagine these people as my family, because I have never met them, and if I have met them, I've forgotten. But family seems to mean an awful lot in the clannish nature of Chinese society, and my mom often reminds me of the kindness of her family in Hong Kong when she had arrived from China, with literally nothing.

To my delight, these photo albums were not arranged in chronological order. Photos from the 1970s, and even the 1960s, appear alongside digital photos from 2006. Photos capture a moment in time, and I find it magical when two photos of the same person are juxtaposed, taken decades apart. I'm reminded of my own mortality, that one day I'll grow old and wrinkly, and will lose my sharp wit and youthful figure.

What year is it anyway? Hint: not 2009.

2009-04-29T18:01:00.004+02:00

On my journey thus far, I have been to two countries for which the year is not, in fact, 2009.

In Ethiopia, I just missed the Y2k party, and am actually still chilling out in 2001.

Over in Taiwan, I'm actually getting ready to celebrate the year 100, since it's year 98.

I never figured out why it's still 2001 in Ethiopia, figuring the Ethiopian calendar had something to do with the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian church. Besides, the fact that I was still in 2001 in Ethiopia was just one of many eccentricities in Ethiopia; the clock begins at 6 am (sunrise) which is 0:00. Noon is thus 6 o'clock, 6 pm (sunset) is 12 o'clock. Things run differently in Ethiopia. Accept it.

A side note, since we are talking about numbers in Ethiopia. I learned the ever-useful phrase, "How much is this?" in Amharic, but neglected to study my numbers carefully. I learned 1-7 (and this is the only thing I can repeat on command). Intriguingly, the number of 7 is sabbat, i.e., the sabbath. Cool.

Well, Taiwan is currently in year 98. More specifically, it's the Republican year of 98, denoting the fact that the Republic of China was founded in 1911, the year the Qing dynasty fell. There's kind of an interesting story here about Taiwan, which is officially the "Republic of China" after Chiang Kai-shek fled the mainland in 1949.

For a country to even consider using a different calendar, other than the standard Gregorian calendar, is, I think, a sign of nationalism. I kind of enjoy it, getting little receipts that are dated with the year 98, or the giant electronic clock in Taiwan's post office that says "Republican Year 98." Or the giant millenium celebration billboard in Addis Ababa that was put up just last year. It's kind of endearing.

Screw the rules of photography!

2009-04-28T18:19:00.005+02:00

I took one formal photography class, in college, with a professor named Jay who shortened his name to J. My college has a reputation for being somewhat of an iconoclastic institution (which is sort of an oxymoron), a reputation that has in part been maintained by professors like J. He took half a class to talk about the "rules of photography," (the rule of thirds is the most infamous) and spent the other half debunking these so-called "rules." When finished, he ripped off a paper that said "the rules of photography" and instead wrote "Screw the rules of photography!"

I was sort of thinking about this when people give me suggestions on what to photograph when traveling. Many people have specific ideas about what photography should be, be it certain genres such as landscape, documentary, or portraits. I see the same problem in travel writing: people follow dumb rules which ultimately make travel writing and photography quite boring. This book review in the New York Times explains just why I often find travel writing dull:

"After he spends time with an elderly woman in Ecuador, he puts the purple ink into his desktop printer and notes that 'her eyes and head were full of wisdom acquired from a lifetime in the jungle.'

...There is no wit in “Gringo,” no humor, no sharp observations, no strange or thrilling adventures. (Mr. Boudin should have remembered another of Mr. Theroux’s remarks: 'The worst trips make the best reading.') "

I think the same can be applied to the practice of photography, particularly travel photography. That's why I've tried to avoid making my blog a travel photo blog.

Latin music in Taiwan

2009-04-26T04:38:00.003+02:00

Latin music is surprisingly big here in Taiwan. Maybe people don't know who so-and-so singers are, or can't differentiate salsa from samba, but seriously, I've heard it all. Granted, often it's at Western establishments, but also at little street stall restaurants, somewhat fancier Taiwanese restaurants, at a hookah bar, on buses, at bus stations.

But seriously. I've heard it all. From capoeira music (no joke) to "La Bamba" in the elevator, to the meringue playlist of my gap year in Nicaragua. The Girl From Ipanema seems to like the smoggy streets of Taiwan just as much as the beaches of Ipanema. I don't know why. Maybe she just wants to make Taiwan a bit brighter, and the people a bit happier.

Mazu's birthday

2009-04-23T04:30:00.005+02:00

Mazu is a Daoist deity that is highly revered among Chinese immigrants, largely because she is considered a protector of fisherfolk and other seafarers. Apparently, she was the daughter of some official in Fujian province in the 10th century A.D. I think she's a big deal in coastal provinces like Fujian and Guangdong, as well as Southeast Asian countries with substantial Chinese populations, such as Taiwan, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

Anyways, Mazu's birthday is something like the 23rd day of the 3rd month (using the lunar calendar), which happened to fall on April 18 this year.

Mazu is a huge deal here in Taiwan, they have all sorts of festivals where villages bring their Mazu image to commune with the mother image, which is usually at some big temple. These photos are from Chaotian temple, one of the oldest and most important temples in Taiwan in the town of Beigang.

They had these huge floats with kids dressed up as Chinese gods throwing candies at adults. It was like Halloween, in reverse.

I've been telling people that the entire festival was very pyrotechnic and bloody. Yes, bloody (I'll get to pyrotechnic later). Some was fake blood, like in the two images below, where this handicapped guy would put these young guys into a (fake) trance.

This guy, pictured below, was actually using a sharp metal spiky thing and pounding it on his head and back. In other words, real blood. And I'm pretty sure he went into a real trance, if there is such a thing.

Tattoos are big here.

Now we get to the pyrotechnic part. Firecrackers, lots of them. If you go to a Chinese street celebration, definitely bring earplugs. This bit almost seemed a bit masochistic: a guy would run around in circles in a costume as about 5 to 10 other guys would literally throw firecrackers at him. When the smoke had cleared, most of the costume was burnt.

The music was pretty cool, very loud trumpet-like horns that actually sounded a bit like bagpipes. I've got a sound recording somewhere.
Annalisa says, "Taiwan never ceases to amaze me." Exhibit 7c: One village decides to bring their Mazu image decked out in disco lights, dancing, and playing disco music.

Three months left

2009-04-09T16:53:00.011+02:00

On April 1 I left New Zealand (did I say I went to New Zealand? I went to New Zealand for a brief and glorious two and a half weeks.) for Taiwan. April 1 marks the nine month mark of my fellowship, and also means I have three months remaining. It also means I have to send a "quarterly progress report" as required by the fellowship, which is a sort of informal report on how I'm doing, one of the few concrete requirements of the fellowship.

After writing my report, I began to realize why I was having some difficulty with photography when I got to Australia. I spent most of my time in Sydney, which has a huge Asian community. Up until Australia, I spent most of my time in cities with a proportionally smaller Chinese community; although the Australian census doesn't collect statistics on ethnicity, Sydney has a huge Chinese population, and Mandarin and Cantonese are together the most widely spoken second language. Now that I am in Asia, I will continue going to countries with even higher proportions of ethnic Chinese people (Taiwan, Malaysia, Vietnam are obvious examples) -- countries where the influence of the Chinese is even stronger. And the Chinese food will be better.

The way I'd approached photographing "the Chinese diaspora" up until Australia had largely been to focus on the Chinese immigrant experience, which meant documenting a minority ethnic group in a very different cultural environment. Now, however, I can't really do that. Simply put, the Chinese are everywhere!!

In other news, I've been taking some photos of beautiful light.

Sunrise on an alpine meadow in the Dart Valley, New Zealand

Rainforest in Australia

In Sydney's Chinatown:

Some pretty spectacular light in Chinatown: simultaneous heavy rain and sunshine (didn't see any rainbows, though). That's Sydney's monorail in the second photo.

And just some pretty things:
Some beach area on Australia's east coast

Cascade Saddle, New Zealand.

Kea, the notorious alpine bird in New Zealand. Because of visitors feeding the kea, they are quite curious and can get aggressive and will start picking at anything of human origin. Like the camera. weeeth theeer POINTY beeeeeks.

2009-03-14T14:49:00.000+01:00

School

2009-03-13T03:05:00.004+01:00

After this awesome year is over, I am going to medical school in New York. Right now I have to fill out some paperwork -- which is really quite excessive -- listing every course I ever took, when I took it, what grade I got. Considering how academic-free this year has been, I am amazed I made it through college.

I was a bit of a masochist in college, taking more than five years of classes in four years. I just filled out my sophomore year, first semester schedule. I can't believe these were the courses I took:

Photography I
Principles of Chemistry
Third-Year Chinese
Multivariable Calculus
Classical Chinese Philosophy

I'm a pretty big fan of the American liberal arts education, of being able to mix and match philosophy with photography and chemistry, all in one semester (not so much the maths... my professor was kind of crazy). The American liberal arts education system is unique among basically every other country in the world, and it's a shame med school doesn't offer any Japanese drumming, African music, or modern Chinese literature classes.

Australia

2009-03-13T01:32:00.004+01:00

Apologies to my loyal readers for going AWOL on my blog. I am in fact still in Sydney, Australia. Sydney is a good city, but it's so much like an American city, that I feel it's almost under-stimulating.

Australia is considered the fourth most developed nation on the UN's Human Development Index. The index, like most aggregrate measures of something quite subjective and complex, has its obvious flaws, but its a pretty good yardstick that actually takes into account a host of other development factors besides GDP per capita -- such as infant mortality, education, literacy, income inequality, and gender equality.

It may come as a surprise to some U.S. Americans that we are only number 15 on the list (our Canadian neighbors beat Australia to #3; Iceland is #1 and Norway #2). The main thing worth pointing out there is that even though the U.S. has a massive economy and is a very wealthy nation, we've got quite a few problems ourselves (and that's excluding the financial crisis).

Anyways, I am very impressed with Australia. The quality of life here is very good. Even the "rough" suburbs of Sydney are nothing in comparison with some parts of the U.S. or the UK. Maybe I should start telling Chinese immigrants to go there instead of America ... yes, even in Australia, Chinese immigrants still say, "America is better, isn't it?"

So even though looking into Sydney's Chinese community isn't as interesting as, say, Ethiopia's, I've become interested with Sydney's multicultural mix that (almost) rivals New York's.
Those that know me well know I have a fascination with films dealing with social integration into "first world" societies -- films like "La Haine" (French), "Made in Britain" (UK), the similarly titled "This is England" (UK). I don't know what it is that I like about these films, perhaps it's that they depict a dark side of society in the popular media (On the other hand, I had little interest in studying these things in college, and would still not bother studying them).

I just saw this new indie Australian film called "The Combination" about Lebanese immigrants in Sydney's suburb of Parramatta, just one town over from where I am staying, West Ryde. The film was a bit too dramatic for my taste, and I'd prefer it without a completely predictable romance, but I liked it nonetheless. It paints a pretty bleak picture of race relations in suburban Sydney, making clear that Australia isn't all a bed of roses for immigrants. It made it seem like Australia is going in the direction of the U.S., a more xenophobic, less tolerant nationalistic place that has somehow forgotten that it is a country of immigrants. The film is set against the Cronulla riots, a series of xenophobic riots (and counter-riots) back in 2005. Incidentally, I had just visited Cronulla a day before watching "The Combination," oblivious to this dark shadow that loomed over the pretty beaches of this lovely wealthy suburb. And I didn't even know about the movie until it was featured in the news; apparently, there were riots at some of theaters and they had to close them down. It's kind of sad to realize that it isn't just the stuff of movies.

Finally, while hiking two days ago, I saw a python on the trail. It was big.

Historic journey to the Afro-Alps (and my blog becomes a travel blog)

2009-02-28T13:18:00.011+01:00

The Simien mountains are a relatively unknown mountain range; I for one didn't even know Ethiopia had great mountains when I put forth my Watson proposal (then again, I didn't know a lot of things.).

Conveniently, visiting the Simien mountains usually means you transit through some of Ethiopia's greatest historical treasures along the way, at least if you go by land. And why wouldn't you go by land, what with the new Chinese-built road that runs out of Addis. I felt confident going onto these roads, knowing that a path had been blazed by my Chinese compatriots. On the other hand, my flatmate in Addis warned me about the roads, saying that they broke the axle of the 4x4 Land Cruiser she rented, and she had just been there a few months earlier.
"Take a plane," she said. I did consider booking a plane, only to find out they were ridiculously expensive -- over $100 USD for a 40 minute flight in a propeller plane. So I went by bus. At any rate, it would be a great way to see the roads that the Chinese were building all across Ethiopia.

The bus ride from Addis Ababa to Bahir Dar took about 13 hours to cover some 350 miles; granted, about 5 of those hours were spent on the side of the road continuously changing the left rear tire.

The journey was fantastic. Along the way, the road ran right through the middle of little villages, and we'd often have to brake for some cattle or goats to cross the road. Burned out Russian tanks littered the side of the road, relics from Ethiopia's flirtation with communism during the 1970s. I also began to realize that nearly every village had an "Obama restaurant" or an "Obama hotel," in homage to the current U.S. president. We even ate an Obama restaurant in Bahir Dar, which was actually quite good. When we'd stop in villages to fix the bus, people would run up and ask, "China or Japan?" I hated this question, because I was neither, and the fact that people couldn't believe that I was actually born and raised in America. Kids would also pose the question, "Manchester or Arsenal?" "Liverpool," I said.

On the road near Bahir Dar, we even saw some Chinese lanterns lit up on the side of the road. The road must have been nearly complete. Unfortunately, it was late and dark and there would be no potty breaks by the Chinese construction compound.

At any rate, I began travelling with two students from Germany, Klaus and Franziska; Klaus had worked with GTZ in Addis, a German aid organization. I met Klaus in Addis and it turned out we wanted to go to similar places at the same time. Klaus was very resourceful when we got to the Simien mountains, and since both of us were trying to save money, we organized the trek ourselves ("Let's self-organize," Klaus agreed. I imagine the German translation would sound hilarious). and forewent the recommended guide and cook. We went along the normal historical circuit, which included the lakeside town of Bahir Dar, and the ancient Abyssinian capital of Gonder.

Bahir Dar was pleasant enough; the city is the jumping off point for the island monasteries on Lake Tana, which stretch back to the 13th century (I think). Ethiopia has its own form of Orthodox Christianity, one of the many things that sets Ethiopia apart from the rest of Africa. Perhaps more importantly, Ethiopia is the only country in Africa to have never been colonized by Europeans (although it was briefly occupied by Mussolini), a fact that is the source of enormous pride among Ethiopians.

On that note, Ethiopia also has its own way of telling time and years. 6 am (sunrise) is 12:00 and 6 pm (sunset) is also 12:00. Apparently we're in year 2002 or 2003; I can't remember. At any rate, the Ethiopian millenium was in our year 2007. Yeah, it's confusing.

Bahir Dar's monasteries were enormously disappointing. Apparently restoration means rebuilding the monasteries with concrete slabs and tin roofs. And the best preserved monastery is off limits to women.
"Don't tempt me." The only cool island monastery is off-limits to women.

When visiting the British Museum in London, I learned that showing both eyes in Ethiopian art was a sign of good, whereas only showing one eye was a sign of evil. In the depiction of a battle between Ethiopians and Italians (in which the Ethiopians triumphed), guess who had two eyes. Oh yeah, these are the twelve apostles.

Lake Tana. I took this photo at about 11 pm, when the sun had long set, but the moon was nearly full.

This photo is so stereotypically "African," so I don't really like it, but I'm posting it anyway. Naked African boy paddles down up the mouth of the Blue Nile on Lake Tana. This is why I am posting this photo, so people don't think Africa is all backwards and full of people without clothes.

Ethiopian food: This is beyainatu, a little bit of everything. This was one of my favorite dishes -- an assortment of various vegetarian stuff and ground chick peas. My other favorite, kitfo -- raw meat, I only had it good once. They sometimes do it as either ground goat meat (kind of like a French tartare), and sometimes with raw beef cubes.

This is a close-up of injera, the spongy, pancake-like thing that is the staple of Ethiopian food. It's made from tef, a highly-nutritious cereal that is endemic in the Ethiopian highlands, and apparently only grows there.

Gonder palace. Cool stuff.

Now we begin the trek in the Simien mountains.

Gelada baboon. Apparently they can get violent and throw you off cliffs.

We tried to the trip as cheaply as possibly, foregoing the recommended guide but taking the mandatory armed scout. I felt a bit bad for him, since he didn't speak a word of English and was stuck with us until nighttime when we got to camp, and he got to talk with the other scouts and guides.

Another somewhat inappropriate photo. I was slightly disappointed that our scout only had a rifle, and not one of the submachine guns or automatic assault rifles that I saw some of the other guides had. On the other hand, this rifle was probably more useful in the Simien mountain terrain, as he could pick off any incoming enemies (provided the gun actually worked and was loaded).

Me, Franziska, and Klaus at the first camp.

And now that I realize this blog post is becoming a travel blog post, I present you with some overprocessed images. Unfortunately, for reasons too complicated and boring to explain here, the colors are actually off from how I saved them (for nerds, I save them in aRGB and not sRGB).

The landscapes we saw were enormously varied -- some dense treelines, some dusty desert areas, and some landscapes like these. These trees were endemic in maybe only about 5 sq kilometers, pretty cool.

Sunset at the second camp.

Guides, scouts, and porters play soccer at the second camp. It was very exposed, above the tree line, with high winds, and at about 3,500m. What a terrible place for a camp, but we weren't allowed to camp anywhere else.

Klaus, the ever resourceful German, made a stove out of a quick-cooking oats tin. We didn't want to pay for a cook and didn't want to buy a gas stove. It's called the hobo stove, and you just feed little pieces of firewood in the top. Klaus was pretty great -- and was always after making things more "efficient." He said things like "She's sleeping very efficiently" (i.e., sleeping soundly in the backseat of a bumpy bus on a dirt path), "You are reading inefficiently" (holding the book in such a way as to only allow one person to read at a time), and "We must make this fire burn more efficiently!" No, he wasn't a caricature of a German, and we got along well.
Goodbye, Simien mountains! Goodbye Ethiopia!

From Addis to Sydney

2009-02-26T14:13:00.003+01:00

I didn't say I was in Australia. I'm in Australia, have been here for a couple days now, hence the posting on the blog thing. Internet was abominable in Ethiopia; it took me six minutes to load my Gmail inbox in basic HTML mode, and that was when internet was actually working. Blogspot was blocked there, and incidentally, the government also blocked Skype, which they apparently see as a threat to their monopoly on telecommunications (this isn't unique to Ethiopia; I met two journalists from Abu Dhabi in the UAE who said Blogspot and Skype were also blocked there... only they had fast internet connections).

The Ethiopians wouldn't let me go without one final waltz at the airport. We had a power cut at Addis Ababa airport, which I suppose is entirely normal given the frequent power cuts, but you'd think they would at least have a decent generator for the airport. The security guy at the gate took my wallet, rifling through my bills to see how much money I had, and then declaring that I was taking too much Ethiopian money (about $12 USD) out of the country. Capital flight is a very scary thing for an impoverished country, and he asked why I hadn't changed my money at the bank. I told him I would gladly change my money, if there were a bank, but for whatever reason there was no bank at the departure gates.

Actually, I could have changed my money with the sketchy waiter at the airport cafe who offered to give me bad black market exchange rates. Ethiopia overvalues its own currency at about 11.20 birr to the US dollar, whereas a "free" rate of exchange might be closer to about 15 birr. Obviously, this spells black market doom and gloom, but thanks to the large Ethiopian military state, they've shut down most black market operations. The problem is when you try to change your birr back into dollars (or other foreign currency). Reportedly, the maximum you can change is about $100 USD; the government is extremely piggish with its foreign currency, and it also realizes that if if they honor their 11.20 birr/dollar rate, they're getting screwed. In the end, I ended up donating my $12 USD in Ethiopian birr to UNICEF on the plane to Australia.

Oh, but the waltz didn't end there: the little shuttle bus that brought us to our plane took us to the wrong plane at first. So when we were allowed onto a plane, I was seriously worried that I was getting onto the wrong plane, or perhaps my bags were getting on the wrong plane. Alas, all turned out well, and I found my bags and myself in Australia.

I was expecting to come to a land filled with criminals in Australia, and contemplated extending my contract with my hired gunman in Ethiopia (more on this later). I was of course worried that his aging rifle would be no use in the lawless streets of Sydney, and would have preferred a submachine gun or an AK-47 like the other gunmen had. Surprisingly, Australia is not in fact overrun by convicts, and I found the streets surprisingly safe. Sydney actually seems like a very American city, sprawling suburbs, front lawns, big cars. I suppose the one thing that sets it apart, other than the funny accents and the fact that they drive on the wrong side of the road, is that the Aussies have somehow worked out a functioning public transportation system to navigate all the suburbs surrounding Sydney, and the city rail is fast, efficient, clean, and relatively cheap.

Some photos from Brazil I like

2009-02-23T15:34:00.004+01:00

Riocinha favela, Rio de Janeiro. November, 2008.

Sometimes I am boggled by what is considered "good" photography. I often don't understand a lot of the commentary on what I consider bad photography, where it seems to me what a critic or the photographer says is given equal value to the photographs themselves.
I used to consider most portraits dull and uninspired, and could never understand why great portrait photographers were considered great. But maybe this is changing; over the course of this year, I've begun to take more portraits, because I find so much can be said in the way people compose themselves, either deliberately or candidly. And although I haven't become completely comfortable with taking portraits, I've realized that my main interests in photography lies in photographing people (this was partially realized when, after telling a Chinese construction worker in Ethiopia I was a photographer, he asked me "do you photograph scenes or people?" "People," I answered.).

I guess what I am interested in is how people interact with their environments. I tend not to take "isolated" portraits of people in front of a monochrome background, but to somehow convey a relationship between people and the spaces around them. My favorite photos -- my own and those of others -- are almost always of people and their environment. That all sounds pretty general and squishy, which is probably why I have avoided talking about photography on this blog in the first place.

Here are some of my photos I took in Middletown, Connecticut, during my junior (third) year at Wesleyan University in the autumn of 2006. Incidentally, this was the last time I shot entirely on film. I actually miss using film, something I hope to change once I get back to the States. The smell of toxic chemicals in the darkroom, the magical appearance of images on the paper, and satisfying click and subsequent winding my camera after each exposure -- these are things I miss.

Sometimes I feel my job is pretty hard (well, not the actual fellowship job), because I don't get to photograph things that are obviously beautiful. People sometimes ask why am I photographing this and that, like dorms in a construction site, which might seem mundane. But photographing something like a construction site to me is far more interesting than something like Iguazu falls, where one can find enough pretty pictures on Google images.

Sao Paulo, November, 2008
Sao Paulo
Sao Paulo
Curitiba, Brazil. October 2008

China in Ethiopia

2009-02-20T14:13:00.010+01:00

If you ask Ethiopians what the Chinese are doing in Ethiopia, they will most likely answer that they build roads and buildings. Huge housing projects are being put up around the capital, Addis Ababa, with many contracts given to Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOE's). One major corporation, China Road and Bridge Construction (CRBC), has come under fire from the World Bank after some shady dealings in the Philippines.

One CRBC employee told me that he hated the corruption of Ethiopia -- and Ethiopia is supposed to be better than many other African countries in this regard. Nonetheless, collusion with the local government is often considered necessary to get things done.

"I respect the Chinese because they are willing to do things that other foreigners aren't willing to do." Whereas many Western organizations and corporations in Ethiopia are not willing to get their hands a little dirty, the Chinese seem willing to work alongside the Ethiopians, in poor working conditions, often living in temporary tin shacks put up next to construction sites.

The Chinese have been put in charge of constructing the new African Union building, perhaps a symbolic move of China's growing influence in Africa.

Chinese workers are paid two to three times the amount they would normally make in China. Many Chinese workers have worked in other African countries, such as Angola, Nigeria, the Congo, and Algeria.

Unlike in most other countries, many of the Chinese in Ethiopia were young, educated, single men. In a way, we had a lot in common -- we'd just graduated university, had a thirst for some adventure abroad, and were open-minded to new places.

Perhaps in testament to the excellence of Ethiopian food, many Chinese people remarked that they'd rather eat Ethiopian food, than try to eat Chinese food all the time.

13 Months of Sunshine in Ethiopia

2009-02-03T14:06:00.000+01:00

This is the official slogan of the Ethiopian tourism board. Aside from the chaotic and somewhat anarchic streets of Addis Ababa, the climate of the capital is quite good. Addis is set at about 2,000m, making it a cool and sunny place where reggae, Nigerian high life, and Amharic riffs float through the streets until the wee hours in the morning.

Unfortunately, it appears as if the government has blocked Blogspot, so I'm going to forward my posts and have them posted by Annalisa.

The Chinese people here mostly work through state-run corporations, such as the China Road and Bridge Corporation which, you guessed it, builds roads and bridges. They've also opened vocational schools to train engineers, electricians, mechanics, and other kinds of technicians. Just ran into two guys working for a bottling company, who are soon off to Rwanda. They had just come back from Djibouti and Somalia. The technician's hand was broken by an angry official at the Djibouti airport when the technician refused to give a bribe. Apparently the bottling industry is big in Somalia -- they were paid $800,000 USD to build a factory. I asked, "isn't... Somalia... dangerous?" "SO DANGEROUS! There were UN tanks and soldiers everywhere, and guys with rocket launchers and machine guns." I think I'll leave Somalia off my Watson fellowship, thanks.

Ethiopia is a really beautiful country, and I haven't even gotten to the "beautiful parts." It's a relatively safe country compared to its neighbors (Somalia and Sudan come to mind), but unfortunately has seen its fair share of political violence and famines in the recent past.

Barack Obama is a hit here. Today I saw a cafe called "Obama coffee cafe" with images of Obama on its sign. The monitor backgrounds to the internet cafe's computers are all images of Barack Obama. One Ethiopian employee at the China Road and Bridge Corporation offered to show me around, on the condition that I voted for Obama.

If you guys could just listen to me for a second --

2009-02-03T14:02:00.004+01:00

Blogspot appears to be down in Ethiopia; Cedric has added me as a contributor to his blog, so I can post the things he emails me. So far this amounts to one post, which I'll put up in a second; it was emailed a couple of days ago, but I've been out of touch in backwoods Laos. Now I'm in relatively cosmopolitan Phnom Penh, where there are such things as "computers" with "the internets." Cheers.

To Ethiopia!

2009-01-27T02:51:00.003+01:00

It's 2 AM and I have a flight out of London to Rome in 5 hours. I arrive in Rome at 10 AM and then have about 12 hours to roam around Rome, then I will take a midnight flight to Addis Ababa, arriving in Ethiopia around 8 AM local time. So 2 days without any real sleep.

Ciao, Europe!

Liverpool England

2009-01-25T23:33:00.003+01:00

Here are some photos of the Liverpool Chinatown celebration

This last one is the president of the Chinese freemason society having a ceremonial lunch with the mayor of Liverpool.

Happy Chinese New Year

2009-01-25T20:11:00.005+01:00

I'm writing from Liverpool, the only, and incidentally, the oldest, Chinatown in Europe to be celebrating Chinese New Year today. Today is actually Chinese New Year Eve, and almost all cities have their official celebrations on the first Sunday following Chinese New Year.

I rather like Liverpool. Whereas Birmingham was simply postindustrial, Liverpool is charmingly postindustrial. Apparently the Chinese arch is the largest ceremonial arch outside of China. You get the feeling that Chinatowns are competing for the biggest, the oldest, the goldest, the most expensive. Wing Yip -- the richest Chinese person in the UK, who made his fortune in groceries -- had a pagoda built in Fujian and shipped piece by piece to Birmingham, where it was then gifted to the city, and is currently at a rotary in the city (have pictures, but not here)

Liverpool Chinese gate

This is my mom's ancestral hometown (although my mother grew up in Guangzhou), "Hai yan," 海演, in Mandarin.

Lakes district, England

2009-01-18T23:37:00.004+01:00

I know I haven't posted project-related photos recently, mostly because the 12 megapixel photos tend to clog my computer's memory. As a result, you get mostly "fun" photos, when I'm not taking out my fancy schmancy camera, but my little camera. These are from England's Lake district, a beautiful area about two hours north of Birmingham in northwestern England that I visited over the weekend. Mom also complained that I wasn't posting enough photos. So here.
Cold and windy in the Lakes district

You didn't tell me about second dinner!

2009-01-16T02:58:00.003+01:00

I'm now in Birmingham, the "armpit of England," the second most populous city in England and definitely one of the most ethnically diverse. The city looks like how I might imagine a stereotypical English city -- rather grimy, post-industrial, gray, old pubs on every other corner. I came to England for about six days when I was in seventh grade, and all I can really remember is some famous tower in London and my pilgrimage to Legoland, also known as Heaven.

I'm too tired to post anything substantial (again), but, I just had two dinners, with a very nice family friend of a family friend who I address as "Uncle" and "Auntie." I may or may not have been cajoled into singing "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion. I chose "I want you back" by the Jackson freely, however.

Best and worst food after 6 months

2009-01-14T00:39:00.002+01:00

I've just arrived in Birmingham, UK, and it's now been a little over six months on this journey, which means I'm more than halfway through my yearlong journey.

Countries I've been to on this trip -- Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, the UK (this includes countries I've just passed through)

Best Chinese food:
1. The UK (ok, I don't really know, but just had pretty decent dim sum)
2. Brazil

Worst Chinese food:
1. Italy
2. Peru (Peru's Chinese food isn't terrible, but it is really overrated and vastly inferior compared to Peruvian food)

Best food:
1. Italy
2. Peru
3. Argentina

Worst food:
1. Bolivia
2. Spain

España!

2009-01-06T12:12:00.003+01:00

I just got to Madrid! Haven't done anything, but it'll be nice to speak the language once again. In other news, I miss speaking Portuguese, not because I was very good at it (I wasn't), but it's a really nice language to speak.
Now... to find the Barrio Chino...

$70,000 USD

2009-01-05T01:24:00.003+01:00

This is the cost of paying a Chinese smuggler -- or "Snakehead" -- to get you (a hypothetical Chinese person) into the United States. At least according to some of the Chinese immigrants here in Milan. For reference:

$14,000 USD into Europe. France, Italy, Spain seem like popular destinations.
$10,000 USD into Brazil. Brazil obviously doesn't have the same appeal to Chinese immigrants, but it comes with a nice little legal bonus: if you have a child born in Brazil, you can become a legal resident, and eventually a citizen.

$70,000 is a lot of money. A lot a lot of money. Where this money goes -- bribing officials, obtaining ill-gotten passports or visas, or otherwise, all depends on a case to a case basis, I am told. I find it incredible people would pay this (or go into debt by this amount) in order to pursue the "American dream," which as far as I know, is alive and well for Chinese emigrants.

Observations of Italy's "Centri Sociali" during New Year's

2009-01-03T18:52:00.005+01:00

January 1, 2009 marks the midpoint of my fellowship, and of course, a new year. The Chinese New Year doesn't start until January 26, when Chinese communities will welcome the Year of the Ox -- my year -- which means I'm turning twenty-four this year. Aside from being vaguely frightening at the thought of turning twenty-four, I'm also supposed to be watching my back this year, according to a friend from the Buddhist temple in Sao Paulo. Apparently one is more prone to bad luck during when the Zodiac revolves to their year (For those unfamiliar with the Chinese zodiac, the zodiac revolves around a twelve year cycle. I was born in 1985 in the year of the Ox; 1997, 2009, 2021 are thus also years of the Ox ... or oxen?).
But what I want to talk about is how I spent my New Year's Eve at a Centri Sociale, yes, a "social center," here in Milan.

I can't remember where I first read about Italy's Centri Sociali, which are basically squatted warehouses and other unused urban sites, started by students and other left-leaning Italians. I went to the biggest Centri Sociale in Milan, Leon Cavallo, currently located at Via Watteau, 7. Apparently, the center moves every few years as city authorities arrive to kick out the squatters. I'm sure the police know about Leon Cavallo's current location -- they make no secret about it -- but like the "illegal" favelas in Brazil's cities, it's probably more hassle to kick out the social centers than to just leave them be if they're not causing any trouble. As far as I could tell, the social center used to be some sort of warehouse and included a few smaller buildings in a courtyard. The buildings reminded me vaguely of art district 798 in Beijing -- although the usage of the buildings was quite different. And because the center makes little effort to comply with the law, basically everyone was smoking inside (smoking inside is illegal in Milan).

The center offers free language classes to Milan's many immigrants; it also pushes an agenda for greater social integration of Milan's immigrant communities. Indeed, one of the themes of the New Year's Party was a "new year free of racism." The center also includes a kitchen with cheap and delicious food, as well as pretty fantastic bookstore. Of course, one of the main focuses of the social center is to offer social events that provide a welcome respite from Milan's otherwise elitist social scene -- offering free or cheap concerts, movie screenings -- and is apparently the birthplace of Italian hip-hop (I can't say, however, whether or not this is a worthy distinction).

When midnight struck, there was no anticipatory count-down or ball-drop -- the music simply went on. Okay, a few people threw some firecrackers in the courtyard. But I suppose the party was only getting started: the hours were officially 11 pm to 9 am or something insane like that. The place featured four rooms with different music in each room, although the largest room was devoted, regrettably, to electronic music.

The demographic at the Center was very strange, and I spent most of the night speculating on why the Center drew the crowd. I'd say the Center was probably evenly divided among white Italians, Arab immigrants (I think mostly from Egypt), and African immigrants (mostly from various West African countries). But whereas the white Italians were more or less evenly divided among males and females, the Arab and African attendees were exclusively male, except maybe one or two Arab girls I saw. This meant the whole male to female ratio was probably about 10:1. Also absent were south Asians (Sri Lankans, Indians, Bangladeshis...) and Chinese immigrants. As a result, I seemed to get a lot of unwanted attention among the Arab attendees, for whatever reason, the African and white attendees didn't seem to give me any unusual attention.

What I found most strange was the lack of Arab and African females at the place. Okay, there were essentially no south Asians or east Asians, but that I could more or less comprehend. But why were there Arab and African people, but only males?

Milan's large immigrant community is relatively recent, so I'd guess the majority of ethnic minorities are first-generation immigrants, with a few exceptions. First-generation immigrants generally draw heavily upon value systems from their country of origin. I began to think that perhaps engaging in public social life is probably frowned upon for many women in the developing world, and this prejudice is carried over (and in some cases, even worsened) during emigration. Perhaps immigrant families are wary of exposing their daughters in unknown social environments, where social values and gender norms are unknown quantities. Patriarchal protection is unnecessary for male immigrants, who are probably curious to explore the contours of gender relations in their adopted country.

I used to think that preventing women from engaging in public life -- whether through social life or income-earning work -- was the principle factor that contributed toward gender inequality. Although I still believe that engagement in public life is critical toward greater gender equality, my experiences in Chinese culture suggests that the picture is much more complicated. For instance, in one Chinese immigrant family I met in South America, both the father and the son did not work, whereas both the mother and daughter worked full shifts everyday. Apparently, certain work is considered "fit" for women, mostly low-paying labor-intensive work, whereas men are expected to fulfill higher-paying, more "honorable" work positions. For the father of that family, it was probably more honorable to remain unemployed than to do "woman's work." The son told me he did not to do low-paying labor, and that was okay.

So, back to the Centri Sociali. The social aims of the Center are undoubtedly noble. But who is actually showing up to the Center? Or rather, who isn't showing up, and why not?

Spain, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Taiwan, China

2008-12-27T02:01:00.004+01:00

Although I probably won't go to all these countries, and don't know how much time I will spend, I now have approval to visit these countries for my project. Okay, Taiwan isn't a country. Sorry Taiwan!

I crossed New Zealand off the list. I feel like I just got another Watson with this important approval. The Watson Fellowship is largely about independence and flexibility -- an acknowledgement that plans change and that as a fellow with few outside requirements, I must constantly re-evaluate the trajectory of my project.
All in all, I'm very happy about this change. The only reservation is I am only allowed two weeks in mainland China -- having spent six months in Beijing before, I am not supposed to return to a country I have spent time in before. This policy is a result of the Fellowship philosophy of having new experiences and thrusting oneself into unknown territories. Indeed, I will be spending my time in Taishan county, the county that I have often written about -- the hometown of my maternal grandfather.

*There's an interesting topic in what exactly counts as a country. Is Taiwan a country? Well, not really, but it is enough of a country to be counted separately from China. More controversially, I once was browsing through past Watson Fellows project abstracts -- which list their initial country list. Someone listed "Tibet" as a project country. Of course, I do not support China's current Tibet policy, and believe everybody would be better off if Tibet had real autonomy. But nobody recognizes Tibet as a country, not even the Vatican City/Holy See, which doesn't recognize mainland China diplomatically (and is under no economic pressure to do so, unlike many small countries...) , not even Taiwan, not even India, which hosts Tibet's government in exile.

No lump of coal for Christmas, but...

2008-12-26T23:53:00.004+01:00

A PINK SPANDEX SHIRT FOR GIRLS!!!

Yes, yes, this was indeed my only present during Christmas this year. I'm not bitter (I'm really not, I promise), after all, I'm in a new country with no family. And being on the road means that I don't want to be carrying lots of stuff.

At any rate, I wasn't exactly expecting presents. And I'm not really keen on gambling, in any form, so I wasn't going to buy 10 bingo tickets in hopes of winning some prize at the Chinese community Christmas party (skimming over the last four words, "Chinese community Christmas Party," I think I just read "Chinese Communist Party." Maybe I spent too long in my thesis carrel in college). But the father of the Chinese Catholic church in Milan was nice enough to give me one of his bingo tickets, so I could participate. There were tons of prizes, maybe fifty in total, so pretty much everyone could win something (or two or three somethings). All the stuff was donated by some of Chinese wholesalers, so it was a melange of trinkets, clothes, basically a random sample of things you might find in a Walmart. All of course, made in China.

Epilogue: A woman who was trying to be nice offered to switch my present, and I said "no, no, it's fine," but she insisted. I couldn't exactly insist further on keeping a pink spandex shirt for girls -- which might raise some eyebrows -- so now I have a nondescript black hat instead.

Merry Christmas from Milan

2008-12-25T19:33:00.002+01:00

Milan, Italy, 2008.

Buon Natale, Feliz Navidad, Feliz Natal, 圣诞快乐, Merry Christmas.

Food (x) versus Photos (y)

2008-12-24T11:07:00.009+01:00

I came to the conclusion a while back that the quality of Chinese food I was eating was quite interestingly correlated with the quality of my project photos.

That is to say, the better Chinese food I was eating at the time, the better my projcet photos were. This relationship is shown below:

You will notice that the relationship is not strictly linear. I believe there are several reasons for this:

1) While the quality of Chinese food can keep going up and up, unfortunately, I don't think I can say the same for my photos yet. I'm trying to be critical of my own photos, after all, how can I expect to get better?
To paraphrase a photographer I admire, "To take good photos isn't hard, to take great photos is very difficult, to take exceptional photos is almost impossible."
Maybe the same can be said for Chinese food, but I must have lower standards. Yum.

2) With a small increase in the quality of food I eat, I get great returns on my photos. After a while, I begin to reach my asymptotic line. Sorry large banquets, I'm getting diminishing returns on your delicious food. In fact, when great Chinese food is served, the quality of project photos might even go down as it is usually in a formalized setting with poor light and too many people too nervous to act natural.

So why is there this relationship?

1) I think most kinds of good documentary photography rely on access. If you can get good access to things, your photos will improve immeasurably. Perhaps my project has strayed from street photography in Peru toward documentary photography in Paraguay and Brazil, back to street photography in Italy. This is largely because of my difficulties with access in both Peru and Italy.

2) In general, most Chinese immigrant communities are relatively insular groups that aren't welcoming of outsiders. If they don't invite you to eat delicious food, you won't be snapping away happily. If you are a welcome presence, you will be offered food and you will eat it. This has proved all too true in six months of project.
2a) As a sidenote, I find it interesting when food gets in the way of photography. Sometimes I'm enjoying a delicious crab (I LOVE CRAB), my hands are all dirty, and I see a good photo pass before my eyes. Shouldn't have been slacking off!

Notes:
a. This only applies to Chinese food
b. This is a preliminary study, results may change with more data points

College, seven months later

2008-12-22T00:45:00.005+01:00

I think this comic pretty accurately describes my college years:

From xkcd.com

Get me away from here, I'm dying

2008-12-16T03:03:00.015+01:00

The title of the post is just a joke, or more correctly, the name of a song. Anyways, after two weeks in Milan, and unrelenting rain for almost a week now, I need to get out for a breath of fresh air. Frankly, I need a day or two to not think about my project.

Actually, I've been in cities nonstop since I arrived in Ciudad del Este more than three months ago, the only exception being two days on Ilha do Mel (Honey Island) in Brazil. The more time I spend in cities, the greater the urge to get as far away from cities as possible when I take a breather from my project. In fact, while in Brazil, I was planning on having my two day vacation in Florianopolis, a beautiful beach town in southern Brazil. I eventually decided against it, because it seemed too popular and too big. I was happy to hear that Ilha do Mel was "màs salvaje" -- more savage, or rustic -- than most other islands along the southern Brazilian coast.

Now, my project revolves exclusively around cities, and though I've come to appreciate urban living, I do need an escape. I didn't grow up in a city. In fact, Beijing was the first city I felt like I knew intimately after spending about six months there. Since then, I can claim knowing, at least somewhat intimately, New York, Lima, Ciudad del Este, Sao Paulo, and to a lesser degree, Cape Town. Note that I'd probably leave Boston out of that list, despite growing up only thirty five minutes away.

All of which is to say, I decided late today that I'm gonna hop on a train tomorrow and get to the Italian Dolomites mountain range. I've always wanted to see it, and now is a great time -- during the week just before all the Italians go on Christmas vacation and flood the region with tourists, raising price levels. I just need a breather, something refreshing before I jump back into my project, head first.

A few sublime images from my time in South America:

Geysers at sunrise near the Bolivia-Chile border.
Ilha do Mel coast, Brazil

View from the train to Morretes, Brazil, where you then transfer to Ilha do Mel.

Cycling along an incredible lunar landscape in Chile, near Bolivia. The landscapes changed at every corner. Wouter, the Dutchman in front, and I seemed to be the only cyclists braving the winds that day.

My precious time out of cities I want to spend in the most remote, most naturally beautiful places. Perhaps one unexpected side effect of this project is that I'm becoming a naturalist.

America is difficult, English is difficult

2008-12-15T04:09:00.010+01:00

"You're from America? Life there is really difficult, isn't it?" An unemployed, single man from Fujian asked me this today in Milan.

I was almost relieved to hear someone say this.

I've been outside of the United States for nearly six months now -- the midpoint of my journey -- and up until today, no one from any of the Chinese communities seemed aware of the many hardships that confront immigrants in the U.S.

To many people, the U.S. is Disneyworld; even some Italians said they were surprised how different New York City is compared to how it is portrayed in Sex and the City.

Is it the influence of American culture and media? Maybe: one bored day in Sao Paulo I spent with a first-generation Chinese family watching American music videos from Mariah Carey to 50 cent, and then watched the first two "High School Musical" movies. Mind you, I had never seen any of the above, and considered the day well spent if for purely ethnographic purposes. One of the kids later told me that when he was in China, Michael Jackson was hugely popular, and he had bought a couple music videos of "Thriller" and "Billie Jean" when he first got to Brazil. American movies, television shows, music, have an enormous influence everywhere in the world, which undoubtedly help create a certain idea of America.

To be clear, I'm not saying that the "American Dream" doesn't exist. I know it does -- at least for a lucky few -- like my family. But it is this fantasy that the U.S. is paradise that is especially striking. Perhaps Europe may seem less appealing to Chinese immigrants, since Europe has only recently become an immigrant destination. Maybe, for poor Chinese immigrants, America's culture of individualism and capitalism are more promising than Western Europe's more socialist-leaning tendencies. I don't know.

Oh, and about English being hard: I got asked a bunch of English grammar questions by a first-generation Chinese immigrant, who at age sixteen, has only been in Italy for three years. The questions were mostly about distinguishing prepositions such as on/above, on/over, through/across, etc. As a native speaker of English I know instinctively what is right and what is wrong, but found it nearly impossible to explain these differences. I took comfort in the fact that the textbook was in Italian and I was trying to explain it in Chinese. But nevertheless, it made me remember how hard teaching English is. I did it for a few months when I was eighteen, in Nicaragua, and ffter that informative experience, I decided I could never do it again.
Kudos to my friends teaching English as a second language!

Living in a Buddhist Temple, Sao Paulo

2008-12-11T23:53:00.005+01:00

As you may know, I lived in a Buddhist temple for nearly three weeks upon my arrival in Sao Paulo. The temple, 中观寺 (Zhong Guan Si), celebrated its fifteenth anniversary during my stay there. It was opened by a monk from Taiwan; now, it is run by four nuns. Three are from Taiwan, and one is from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The temple is located in an upper middle class district of Sao Paulo, Vila Mariana. Almost all of the people that go to the temple are Taiwanese -- the first large Chinese group to settle in Sao Paulo during the 1960s and 1970s.

Sao Paulo, first generation

2008-12-11T21:24:00.003+01:00

Shopping Center, Mogi das Cruzes, Sao Paulo

Li Jinwang's apartment, Sao Paulo

Cantonese Fish market, Sao Paulo

Senior Citizens Dance, Sao Paulo

Senior Citizens Dance, Sao Paulo

Mogi das Cruzes, Sao Paulo

Rain and snow

2008-12-11T01:25:00.012+01:00

Today I had my first snowfall in Milan. I love snow and rain (in small doses, of course). People who have grown up around snow know there is a special feeling when you wake up to a world of white.
My apartment when I woke up. You can see the snow on the building across the street; this is a color photograph, no joke.

The tram-tracks by my apartment.

Snow has a way of cleaning things up, before making them all dirty again.
I love the sort of moody film noir feeling one gets when photographing rain in low light. Rain creates new worlds, through reflections, puddles, raindrops on windowpanes. Now if only I had a weatherproof camera and could shoot at ISO 3200 or 6400.... maybe Christmas??

I like to photograph in the late afternoon and early evening, when light is subdued, when people are subdued, when natural light mixes with the artificial.

Curitiba, Brazil

Next time it rains, go outside and pay attention. Just look and see, look for patterns, for light, for the way light hits raindrops. Sometimes beautiful things appear.

Can anybody figure out who this is?

Monochromatic Milan (Where I live)

2008-12-08T00:13:00.008+01:00

Remember how I was saying how Milan has no colors, and everything is black and white, or in between? I was being serious.

Exhibit A: my beautiful, if monochromatic apartment.

From the entrance to the apartment: bathroom and wall. Notice black scarf on the right.

Plant life always manages to mix things up and reaffirm the existence of the color palette.

The bedroom. Look closely and you'll realize it's a color photo, although the same can't quite be said about the apartment.

The kitchen in the afternoon.

My awesome apartment mate Sergio. Sergio is a furniture designer for Antonio Citterio in Milan, but is originally from small town in Puglia, in the south of Italy. Note the white clothing (weekends), which is contrasted from the black clothing he wears to work (weekdays). Also note the video projector that he uses to project movies onto the white canvas he has painted on the opposite wall.
Me, being monochromatic and preparing for the cold. This is Sergio's black jacket against the white wall.

Me on the balcony. In an act of restrained rebellion against the Milan fashionistas, I am wearing my red Oktoberfest shirt (from Blumenau, Brazil) under a black v-neck sweater.

Samba in Sao Paulo

2008-12-07T18:54:00.007+01:00

Sorry about the high-compression images; my mini-computer can't handle anything else.

Retired Chinese people dance samba

Daude from Bahia performs on Black Consciousness Day
At the Ó do Borogodo bar in Sao Paulo. Samba group at right.

samba

Multicultural Milan

2008-12-05T01:47:00.005+01:00

The first Italian restaurant I walked into was owned by a family from Wenzhou, China. The second one as well. The third, a pizzeria called "American pizza" (but my Italian host assures me they have great pizza), is run by Egyptians. The hostel I stayed at is run by Lebanese youth.

These are just my direct direct experiences, which doesn't include the many West Africans and South Asians I see on the streets selling various things. On the city trams, I see ads for "migrart.it," a site apparently where immigrants can post art relating to their immigrant experiences. Europe is changing, and the face of Milan, the economic heart of Italy, is changing as well.

This was perhaps the most startling observations upon my arrival in Milan, Italy from Sao Paulo. I was expecting Milan to be quintessentially European, if not Italian. To a certain degree, it is: beautiful buildings, art, parks, a clean and orderly city (at least in comparison to many South American cities!). But as immigrants begin to stream into European cities, the face of Milan will change noticeably.

Sao Paulo to Milan

2008-12-02T23:09:00.005+01:00

I was thinking of all sorts of witty things to say, all kinds of astute observations to record on my transfer from Sao Paulo to Milan. It's now 11:30 pm in Milan, and although only 8:30 pm in Sao Paulo, I'm really tired. Slept about three hours on the twelve hour plane ride, after dealing with Brazilian bureaucracy/airport security.

Apparently the immigration officer in Foz do Iguacu in Brazil only gave me forty days in the country, even though my visa explicitly states I could stay for ninety days. As a result, I "overstayed" my visa by about two weeks, which amounted to about a $50 USD fine, payable on my return to Brazil. Either that, or I can petition it at a Brazilian consulate here in Italy in the next five days. Both options are less than ideal.

Anyways, I am now in Milan, where I feel safe walking around alone at night with my camera. But I must say, Milan lacks the kind of vitality that is pervasive in the streets of Sao Paulo, for better or for worse. Everyone in Milan walks around in monotones, in different shades of black and brown. They just walk, almost nobody hawking anything, no music, no colors. Nevertheless, it is still beautiful in that kind of elegant European way, and the cathedral is awesome. Witness:

I walked down the main Chinese street, Via Paolo Sarpi, and chatted with a little eatery owner. To my surprise, she also insisted that the U.S. was infinitely better than Italy. What is it about the mystique of the United States?

Milan, Italy

2008-11-30T16:22:00.001+01:00

... is where I am going on Monday, December 1st.

It's a hard life I lead, I know.

Loving and hating São Paulo

2008-11-29T19:16:00.002+01:00

São Paulo, the ultimate megacity, is a city of contrasts. I feel great affection for the city just as much as I loathe it. Sure, it is a cliché, but as I approach nearly two months living in one of the world´s largest cities with roughly 20 million inhabitants, I must admit that my relationship with the city has developed into a love-hate relationship.

I arrived in São Paulo with an ambivalent attitude, feeling lost in the giant metropolis and scrambling to try and find my bearings. Part of me wanted to go back to Curitiba, the pleasant capital city of Paraná province, with its pleasant parks, smaller size, and already some promising contacts in the Chinese community. But I knew that São Paulo was the big prize of Brazil, where tens of thousands of Chinese immigrants have flocked to over the past couple decades. How I was going to tap into this community was a challenge, quite honestly, I wasn´t sure I was capable of meeting.

My experiences in the city are reflective of these conflicting feelings, contrasting environments. Within my project, I have been able to witness and follow many strands within the Chinese community -- everything from living in a Buddhist temple to watching the Chinese mafia sing karaoke. I´ve followed both the Taiwanese and mainland communities -- which share as many similarities as differences.

There are many things I love about this city -- the amazing music, the multitude of cultural events available every day and nearly every hour, the vitality of the city. Of course, I´ve also seen the dark underside of the city: the violence, the fear and suspicion, the coldness that great cities seem to create from too many humans living too close to one another. I think whatever your feelings are about São Paulo, like any great photo, it will make you feel something. Maybe it is disgust, maybe joy, maybe anger.

I´ve got two more days left in São Paulo, and over these two days (and probably more), I´m sure I´ll be thinking a lot about all that has transpired here, and over these past five (FIVE!!!) months in South America. Five months have gone by remarkably quickly, but at the same time my arrival in Lima, Peru, seems like lightyears ago.

Sadly, I´m now on my third camera (first one stolen, second one broken and in the U.S. being fixed). On the other hand, I think my photography has improved a lot, and my hair has grown to a previously unimaginable length.

A lack of photos and posts

2008-11-21T16:37:00.002+01:00

I realize that I haven't been keeping up with my output of photos or blog posts of Peru or Paraguay. The main reason is my poor access to internet in Sao Paulo, i.e., my house doesn't have internet. I can go to an internet cafe, but that gets expensive, so if I want to spend an hour on the internet, then I will go to a cafe and use my computer.

Regarding my photos, I've run into an interesting problem. Aside from not having a good camera for about three and a half weeks, my camera is now "too good." The camera my dad loaned me, a Canon XSI, has twelve megapixels, which produces files so large that my little computer says "not enough memory to complete this operation" when I try to resize them. I will have to find another solution.

Being robbed in Sao Paulo

2008-11-21T15:30:00.007+01:00

"Assalto! Assalto!" (Assault! Assault!) It was somewhat eerie listening to the entire congregation at the Chinese Baptist Church in Liberdade (the "Asian" district), Sao Paulo practicing their Portuguese, with these violent words. The church is made up of almost entirely mainland Chinese immigrants, including the Fujianese man who was murdered a fortnight ago.

The Taiwanese pastor was having the entire church practice saying "assalto" for two reasons. Should the churchgoers be robbed, they would (1) know that they were being robbed -- robbers always say "assalto" -- and (2) they would be able to call 190, the police, and inform them of the robbery.

(The first point shouldn't be taken for granted. A Buddhist friend told me of a robbery of a Buddhist congregation in Aclimacao district in Sao Paulo, when two men came in with guns yelling "assalto." The Buddhist service continued without interruption, the monks reciting from sutras, unaware what "assalto" meant. Only my friend spoke Portuguese, and had to inform the Chinese congregation that they were being robbed, and later had to serve as a translator for the robbers when they tried to extort money from the monks. She had to explain to the robber that Buddhist monks have very few possessions or money.)

"Say 'Assalto,' as clearly as possible. Do not say 'Asado,'" the pastor said half-jokingly and half-seriously. "'Asado' means barbeque."

* * *

"Assalto! Assalto!"

About five seconds passed before I realized that the restaurant was being robbed, and I was in it, and there was no escape.

In fact, my first thoughts when these two men came running in were that I recognized one of the men. Hey, is that Nivaldo, the nice man who has been attending and working at the Buddhist temple for ten years? Who puts his hands together in prayer every time we meet? No, that can't be, this guy's got a scar on his left cheek. It was not in fact Nivaldo, the guy from the temple. Noticeably more aggressive. Oh. Crap. He's robbing the restaurant. Crap.

* * *

I hopped on the back of Li Jinwang's motorcycle, a friend of a family friend, and rode down Cons. Furtado street in Liberdade. I normally try not to walk down the street; it is somewhat desolate during the day, and noticeably dodgier than the main streets of Liberdade. But as we rode off, I noticed Chinese restaurants here and there, which I had never seen because of my avoidance of the street.

Parking outside a nondescript Chinese restaurant, we went inside, into a quiet Hot Pot restaurant. We chatted with the Taiwanese owner for a while, going through the list of usual conversation topics:

1) The economy and local business
2) The wildly fluctuating exchange rate (It was 1.8 reais to the dollar when I got to the Brazilian border in Paraguay, and now it is 2.4 reais to the dollar.)
3) How much better the U.S. is than Brazil (with my futile attempts to convince them otherwise)
4) The recent spate of robberies and murders in the Chinese community

At about 10:30 pm, as the restaurant was closing up and the security guard had already packed up and gone home, the two men came in screaming that word the Chinese have come to fear and recognize.

My second thoughts, after realizing we were being robbed, was that I had my camera on me. Not any old camera, but the camera that I had only gotten two days ago when my parents left Sao Paulo and my dad left me with a fine, working digital SLR. How awful would it be to have this camera robbed, just two days after finally having a working camera, after all the bad stuff my cameras have been through? Luckily they didn't take it, they were after cash and not much more.

Both men had one hand in their shirts, as if to conceal a firearm. They never showed it during the entire robbery, which was to last less than ten minutes; I seriously doubted they had guns, but it was not something I could do anything about.

One man kept lookout at the doorway while the other, with the scar, ushered all the restaurant patrons -- maybe fifteen in all -- into the back room and had us put our hands on the ground. He yelled at all of us angrily, most of which I couldn't understand. He demanded our money, especially dollars. I had about 35 reais (about $17 dollars) and about five U.S. dollars on me, which wasn't anything I was terribly concerned about. I handed it over. The Chinese man behind me, who let out a sigh, handed over more than 50 reais (about $25 dollars); Li Jinwang handed over 20 reais. An old Chinese family handed over a measily 6 reais, or three dollars. They were clearly smart and perceptive. I should have been smarter, these guys clearly weren't pros, and handed over some pitiful amount of money.

He then demanded our phones; I think all of us caught onto the fact that this guy didn't know what he was doing, and I don't think anyone handed over their phones, even though all of us had them. He pointed to me demanding my phone, and following the lead of Li Jinwang, who showed the man an empty cell phone case, I said "Nao tenho," (I don't have it), shrugging my shoulders. I gave myself a mental pat on my back.

Unfortunately, the guys made off with about 800 reais from the poor restaurant owner. I felt really sorry for her, and her workers. As we left about five minutes after the robbery, all I could say was "I'm really sorry" and patted her on the back. Li Jinwang offered to pay by credit card, which she declined.

Being put out twenty dollars is no big deal, but the psychological effects of such an episode can be far greater. A range of emotions overcame me that night -- anger, a desire for vengeance, fear. I wanted some sort of justice, some sort of karmic retribution for the two men. I mainly felt for the poor restaurant owner and her workers -- how hard they must work to earn money, only to have it taken away in blink of an eye!

But as dark and despicable these acts of violence are, I cannot let them cast
a shadow over my time in Sao Paulo, or my life in general. So many people have been victims of robberies here -- Li Jinwang said it was his fourth or fifth -- that there's no point in whining about it. Life goes on, business as usual; I will keep shooting photos; the Hot Pot restaurant will open tomorrow.

Qin-Qi! (Relatives!)

2008-11-13T02:58:00.004+01:00

This post is probably an inaccurate description of my relations, but that doesn't seem to matter because however tenuous the relation, we're somehow relatives:

Today I met up with distant distant relatives; I think it goes like this: my mom's dad's distant cousin's child married a woman, whom I call Goy yi-yi, who is also a distant relative of my mom's, but has a different last name (Li as opposed to Rong, my mother's maiden name). Apparently the government moved Goy (Li) to the "Wang" village after a dam was constructed flooding her village, and the "Wang" village shunned her, and she asked my mom's family (Rong or the Wu's... my maternal grandmother's family) to get her out of China. My mom's family in the U.S. had a distant relative who was willing to marry Goy and thus bring her to the United States. They now live in New York City; Goy sells fruit on the streets.

Goy is close to my mom's family, she shows up at all of the family gatherings in NYC. She is an extremely generous person, despite what little has come her way. Goy's younger brother's wife is the younger sister of a woman who I am staying with her. So there you go. We're Qin-qi (relatives)!

I think I've complained here more than once how conservative and "closed off" the Chinese community is, just about anywhere. I'm not saying they aren't nice, but in general, they aren't the sort of people who will let acquaintances or even friends into their personal lives easily. I've found this insularity is both somewhat lessened and exacerbated within the diaspora. For instance, one family in Curitiba was extremely open to me, even after knowing me for just a couple hours. I'd hypothesize that it might have to do with the relatively small Chinese population in Curitiba -- to see another Chinese person was cause for great excitment. When I insisted on paying for a drink and they refused, they said "You're Chinese! Chinese people must help one another!"

On the other hand, in a big city like Sao Paulo, where there are many clans and subcommunities within the Chinese population here, people tend to be more suspicious. You can't just be "Chinese," you have to be "Li," "Wang," "Xie," and not only that, but from the right clan of Li Wang or Xie. Throw in the recent violence (and the likelihood of complicity within the Chinese community) against the Chinese, and everyone has slammed the door, and probably locked it, on the gringo-Chinese dude who popped out of nowhere with the funny accent. And the funny last name (Bien is extraordinarily rare... as is Rong, my mother's last name).

On the other hand, if you have Qin-qi, you're golden. Even if the relationship is as unclear as it is to them as it is to you, most Chinese people will treat you like a long-lost child/sibling.

"Who's killing all the Chinese people?"

2008-11-13T01:45:00.004+01:00

"Who's killing all the Chinese people?"

This isn't the question you want to hear asked of you, especially when you're researching the local Chinese community.

Yet after explaining my project at a bar in Sao Paulo, I was asked this very question. Not a good sign, eh?

I don't know the answer to this question, but it's a fascinating subject. Four Chinese merchants have been murdered in the past two months, and forty to fifty have been robbed. The circumstances are usually more or less the same: someone breaks into an apartment, usually at night, perhaps knowing who is living there, takes the cash. Whether or not violence follows seems completely unpredictable. Apparently it is well known here that many Chinese immigrants keep their money (in cash) at home, rather than putting it in a bank. Many carry loads of cash around themselves in the first place. I've heard some people claim that this is a cultural difference, but it may also be a very practical thing -- many immigrants here are illegal, and therefore don't open any sort of account.

I happened to stumble upon the crime scene of the last murder, which didn't fit this profile at all. A Fujianese man was beaten to death in the early morning of a Saturday, inside of store on a quiet street in Pari, a commercial district. He was just a worker, and not the owner -- and given the strangeness of the crime -- the murder seemed completely random. Other Chinese merchants around the area knew about the murder, but didn't know him nor any details. One Taiwanese family two streets down was good friends with him, and said he was a very... "straight" and "abiding" man (terrible translations, sorry). Apparently he used to live in Ciudad del Este with the Taiwanese family, and were regular churchgoers in Sao Paulo.

Violence is a strange thing, which has unfortunately touched the heart of the Chinese community here in Sao Paulo.

Hard times in Sao Paulo

2008-11-08T13:34:00.006+01:00

It has been over a week since I've last posted. I've been living in the guesthouse of a Buddhist temple here in Sao Paulo, which has been a fascinating experience. There are four nuns that live here, and one other person who lives in the guesthouse. Overall, I have been very glad to have had this experience. I am about to move to student housing after an unsuccessful quest for a Chinese homestay (see below). The guesthouse will be needed in the next week for a convocation of monks coming from the United States.

My time in Sao Paulo has been wrought with difficulties. My SLR camera has failed and it looks like the shop -- an authorized Canon dealer -- will not be able to fix it. I believe the problem is with the camera software, and not the actual camera itself, which means that probably only Canon will be able to deal with the problem.

On the project front, the Chinese community here is in crisis. There has been a recent spate of robberies, and more alarmingly, four murders in the past two months. All the murders have been of Chinese merchants in the 25 de March area. There is much speculation as to why this is happening: distrust between the Chinese merchant community and the Brazilians who work for them, distrust among the different Chinese clans; distrust within the different Chinese clans -- with the added twist of the Chinese mafia. These events have put the entire community on edge, perhaps reinforcing the clannish tendencies of the Chinese community.

Obviously, this makes for a fascinating case study of the Chinese population here, but has also made it doubly difficult for me to make way into a community deeply suspicious of outsiders, and made it impossible for me to find a homestay with a Chinese family.

2008-10-29T19:36:00.002+01:00

In case you haven´t noticed, I have craftily changed the title of my blog. My Portuguese is getting better, but is still really just a translation of the Spanish, or speaking Spanish with a Portuguese accent.

Three month progress report

2008-10-27T17:08:00.004+01:00

Lima, Peru. July 2008.

Curitiba, Brazil. October, 2008

In other news, my main camera, the Canon XS SLR has died! It won't turn on now! I was out shooting last night with some monks in Liberdade (formerly Japan-town, now Pan-Asian town), and it suddenly stopped functioning! And my "guarantee" from Paraguay is only good in Paraguay! Hopefully someone here will be able to fix it.

Concrete jungle

2008-10-22T21:54:00.003+02:00

Sao Paulo is a megacity. I have never seen anything like it. I took this photo on the 35th floor of some old bank building modeled after the Empire State building.

As you can imagine, it's all quite overwhelming. I'm sure one could do (or has done already) a whole photo essay on the concrete jungle quality of Sao Paulo. I give you one more photo from inside Galeria Page.

Sao Paulo

2008-10-21T21:22:00.003+02:00

For the record, I am in Sao Paulo now. I expected I might escape the chaotic streets of Ciudad del Este in coming to this city, but I was sorely mistaken. The street "March 25," a major commercial street in Sao Paulo (and where many Chinese immigrants set up shop), is strangely reminscent of Ciudad del Este. Heck, there's even a Galeria Page, even bigger and badder than the one in Ciudad del Este. Tons of people selling all sorts of things on the street. I suppose one difference is that there are lots of police here, and every time a police car rolls around, everyone scrams and picks up all their stuff, and sets it right back down on the ground when the police car drives away.

Sao Paulo is a concrete jungle. I have never seen anything like it. Photos to come.

Oscar Niemeyer

2008-10-15T04:59:00.003+02:00

"It is not the right angle that attracts me.
Neither the straight line, hard and inflexible, created by man.
What attracts me is the free and sensual curve. The curves i find in the mountains of my country, in the sinuous course of its rivers, in the clouds in the sky, in the body of a beloved woman.
The Universe is made of curves, Einstein's curved universe." -- Oscar Niemeyer

The first thing I learned about Brazil I learned from a book at the Concord Public Library, where I worked in high school. I was shelving books in the 700s under the Dewey decimal system, which is full of art and architecture books. Before the library was renovated in 2004, the 700s were located in the Thoreau room, a beautiful room with large windows, magnificent light, and great art books.

I came across an architecture book on Brazil's capital, Brasilia. I started flipping through the book, which had many photos on the construction of Brasilia, a capital that was created during the 1950s under president Juscelino Kubitschek. The main administrative buildings were designed by the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who worked with the famous Swiss architect/urban planner Le Corbusier.

The architecture of Brasilia, an entirely planned city, amazed me. Today I had a chance to go to the Museu Oscar Niemeyer, a great art/architecture museum here in Curitiba.

Here is a photo of Brasilia:

There are some great photos of Brasilia during the 1960s here

BRAZIL (Brasil)!

2008-10-14T05:34:00.003+02:00

I am in Brazil! Just got into Curitiba, after hanging out in Foz do Iguacu for a few days. Curitiba is a pleasant city, with a great public bus system, sidewalk cafes and restaurants, art galleries, bookstores, cobblestone streets, old restored colonial buildings.

There is a small community from Taishan county, China, which happens to be the county where my mother is from. They seem to own small sandwich shops around the center, and a few import clothing shops. That's it, though, nothing compared to Ciudad del Este or Lima.

In the throat of the devil

2008-10-14T03:34:00.006+02:00

"Galeria Page" is a shopping mall anonymously tucked inside one of many busy streets in the commercial center of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay. Although Galeria Page is busy with commercial activity all day, it is a hidden cove obscured by a barrage of signs advertising Adidas footwear, electronics, fishing gear, and batteries. All told, Galeria Page appears to be one of many shopping centers in Ciudad del Este, with little to offer.

But Galeria Page is special. The owner of Galeria Page is a member of the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, who apparently uses the Galeria as a front for all kinds of illicit activities -- such as money laundering, trafficking, and organizing of terrorist activities.

I knew that Hezbollah (and the Chinese mafia) had found Ciudad del Este to be a friendly place for their evil operations, but all the Chinese I talked to said the mafia had come and gone with the fortunes of this frontier town. That is to say, since business started souring about five years ago, the mafia has seemed to have left the area. But I had no idea where Hezbollah was -- nor did I particularly have any good way of asking. Despite living in the Lebanese part of town (Two shawarma and hookah cafes, "Edificio Lebanon" a block from me, as well streets "Mohammad Hussein Taiyen" and "Rahal Canan"), the last thing I was going to do was ask my neighbors if and where Hezbollah was in Ciudad del Este.

Anyways, I started talking with two Brasilians who worked in the area, and they brought up Galeria Page as the center for Hezbollah activity. Of course, I had to pay a visit -- it wouldn't exactly be guarded by terrorists armed with AK-47s (although a guard or two with shotguns is standard in CDE) -- as I learned in Ciudad del Este, organized violence is bad for business, and worse yet, draws official attention to the city. Better to keep things discreet and under the table.

I tried to locate the Galeria Page a few times, but even after asking around for it, I was unable to find it. It was simply far too anonymous for me to find by myself; few people could recall what street it was on, and if they did, there were far too many signs to be able to distinguish it.

Finally, I found out that Mr. Huang, a major figure in the Taiwanese community in Ciudad del Este, happens to own a business very near Galeria Page. I asked him what he thought about his neighbors, simply saying that there were suspicions they were involved in "bad activities." He simply said, "I don't know, I don't want to know. I've been here for over twenty years, and I've done perfectly fine here."

Perfectly fine indeed. I visited his house, located in a private neighborhood called the "Parana Country Club," where Ciudad del Este's wealthy own sprawling mansions within a guarded, gated community. I'm hesitant to post photos here, but Mr. Huang's place (not exactly a house, nor a mansion, but a giant building) was so big, that at first I couldn't believe it was actually a house. Perhaps even more ostentatious was the house he built for when his "mother or guests come visit," as big as the mansions in Concord, Massachusetts. I think there must be some sort of contest going in the Parana Country Club, because even though the house was enormous, most of it seemed empty and unfurnished. But like most things Chinese, it is perhaps all about "saving face," or perhaps showing it off, of putting on a beautiful facade and showing off your success, especially in a commercial city like Ciudad del Este.

But now I'm getting off topic. I believe my only interaction with my Hezbollah hosts was when I asked permission to photograph their hookahs (permission denied), but being the intrepid photographer that I am, I took a photo, no, TWO photos anyway! Eventually the angry/suspicious stares won over, however.

In other news, "The Devil's Throat" (Garganta del diablo) is the most stunning area of Iguazu Falls, the part that lies on the Brazilian/Argentine border. Funny how accurate it seems to describe some of the illicit activity around here. Here are some photos of the Devil's Throat, which are not stolen from Google images, taken with my very own camera, straight from inside the throat of the devil.

Brasilian webpage with a list of accused Hezbollah members in the Tri-border area.

BBC page (unfortunately, in Portuguese... can't seem to search in English here in Brazil!) on the same topic.

Chinese people in Ciudad del Este

2008-10-09T05:07:00.005+02:00

I finally figured out how to resize images in my computer (I'm using a non-conventional, stripped-down version of Linux). I know you may be wondering what the City actually looks like, and I will put photos up of the city later. But here are some people.

Buddhist temple

General update

2008-10-08T06:03:00.005+02:00

Hi readers,

Sorry I have gone AWOL over the past week. I'm still in Ciudad del Este, wrapping up this stage of my project; it's now been a month since I came here.

Although Ciudad del Este is not a particularly pleasant city, I have had a wonderful time here. I met many incredibly kind people, who have helped me understand this place and invited me into their lives.

I spend most of my time trying to document daily life, banal as it may be. In order to make things more interesting and to focus the scope (avoiding the "lens" pun, or not) of my project, I've dabbled in various themes of documentary, which I won't get into now. Nevertheless, the major event I did cover this past week was the 97th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of China (ROC) which was celebrated here with a big banquet dinner, dance performances, and in typical Chinese fashion, karaoke.

Fang sheng

I also attempted to cover the Buddhist practice of Fang sheng, or "releasing life," in which one buys condemned animals and sets them free. They usually aren't big animals -- nobody (to my knowledge) goes out and buys a cow and set it free on some pasture -- instead, they are usually birds or fish.

Alas, the releasing of animals was cancelled due to inclement of weather: torrential rainstorms all day on Saturday. Hopefully I will be able to witness it before I leave Ciudad del Este. Maybe the fish will end up condemned down Iguacu falls or the Itaipu dam -- the world's largest hydroelectric dam before the Chinese outdid them with the Three Gorges Dam.I suppose I'm being pessimist.

New Zealand out, Southeast Asia in

In other news, I've been thinking over the past couple weeks of making some slight changes to my original itinerary. I was planning on going to New Zealand in April, but have now decided that my project time would be better spent with more time in Southeast Asia. Malaysia is the last designated stop on my itinerary, but I will likely add Thailand, Vietnam, and/or Indonesia. Of course, I probably cannot cross of New Zealand and add all those countries, so I'll have to pick and choose. It's all up in the air -- I need to think about this more and do more research before proposing such a major change.

Brazil... photography... China... gender...

2008-10-01T04:00:00.008+02:00

I normally don't post about photography-related things, but since I spend a lot of time taking photos and looking at photos, I'm going to make an exception now for a really cool photography exhibition. French photographer JR , has an awesome public photography exhibition in Rio de Janiero on women. Yes, he's too cool to have a real name, apparently he's an "underground" photographer that first gained fame (or notoriety?) through his illegal exhibition of mural-sized photos in public spaces; later, his stuff became recognized and received positive reviews. The exhibition displays blown up portraits of women in Brazil's notorious favelas -- slums or shantytowns within Brazil's big cities such as Rio and Sao Paulo. Favelas are infamous for their high murder rates, drugs, and poverty.

Although I haven't seen any of JR's stuff in person, it is really impressive; it is socially-conscious photography that is made even more impressive by its public, mural-sized exhibition. The first stuff that I saw was a series of portraits that he took following last year's riots in Paris's banlieues, which were then exhibited as large mural-sized photographs around Paris. You can see an awesome short film on the project, I highly recommend viewing it on youtube here:
The 28 millimeter project

I hope the exhibit might still be up in Rio when I make it to Brazil. You can see photos of the exhibit here at the photography website Lensculture.

Here's a photo of the favela at night:
On gender

On a similar note, I first became fascinated with gender equality in college in my development-related classes, and reading about the Nobel Prize-winning Grameen bank's microlending to Bangladeshi women. The Grameen bank famously found that women were much better clients for loans -- they used money more wisely, and also contributed to many beneficial externalities (better child health, education, etc...).

A woman's position in society is not only a good index of a country's economic development, but also a good index of it's social development as well. My own thesis work also examined gender equality initiatives under China's communist government, which found a positive relationship between political emphasis on gender equality and improved child health. But I was also disturbed by the phenomenon of China's missing women: the phenomenon that since economic reforms began in 1979, the sex ratio of China's population has become far more biased toward males. For instance, in most normal populations the sex ratio at birth is about 105 to 107 male births for every female births. In China this has increased to about 116 male births, and this bias is pervasive in other cohorts as well.

In fact, many Asian and Muslim countries have this problem, including economically developed countries such as Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. The most basic explanation is that in these countries male children are more valued than female children, and hence practices such as sex-selective abortion, female infanticide, and selective neglect has lead to imbalanced sex ratios within these societies. Strangely, Latin America doesn't seem to have the problem of sex ratio, despite being an infamously "macho" society. I would hypothesize that this might be partially due to the cultural and religious abhorrence toward abortion; of course, this doesn't explain everything. Anyways, this is a subject that I have found fascinating, and I still do not fully understand the underlying reasons.

Another phenomenon is that of China's extraordinary rate of female suicides: in most countries, the male to female suicide rate is about 4:1, in China, it is 1:1. What is driving China's women to commit suicide at such an alarming rate? Are the pressures China's women (or for that matter, East Asian women) face similar to those among Chinese women abroad?

Consider this an introduction to a future post about my observations on gender within Paraguay's Chinese community.

Iguazu falls

2008-09-30T04:35:00.002+02:00

Oh yeah, I also finally saw Iguazu falls this weekend! The waterfalls are a series of waterfalls along Rio Iguazu, that separates Brazil and Argentina. They were beautiful, mesmerizing actually. The best part is the Garganta del Diablo, or the Devil's throat, which is right along the border -- two-thirds of the falls are actually on the Argentine side.

On the other hand, perhaps I'm becoming a bit jaded by mother nature's beauty. I was expecting the falls to be more stunning, in the way that the Andes mountains seemed to hit me. But now I'm just being picky and unappreciative and a snob. So yeah, Iguazu was incredible.

Thanks, Google images.

(No) photos from Paraguay (yet)

2008-09-30T04:07:00.007+02:00

I apologize for not posting any photos from Paraguay yet. The main reason I haven't is that my internet connection is very slow here, and I can't resize my photos to make them smaller in my new camera, like I could with my old camera. That makes posting photos online very difficult. If I can figure out a way to resize them -- or get a decent internet connection -- I will.

The project is coming along quite well here, I think. I've been able to follow several individuals and a family. Here are some sketches:

Mr. Yu is the owner of Dou Jiang Dian, or Soy Milk restaurant, which advertises vegetarian food and Paraguayan food. Mr. Yu came to Paraguay twenty-six years ago, spurred on by a failed business venture in Taiwan. He apparently tried to open up a business here in Paraguay, but that failed, and for the past ten years, has run Soy Milk Restaurant. The restaurant appears quite successful.

Soy Milk Restaurant is special and therefore successful, I think, for two reasons. Firstly it is the only Chinese restaurant that specializes in breakfast food and vegetarian food. I'd contend the former is more vital for business than the latter; although there are vegetarians here, there aren't many, while everyone needs a good breakfast, especially when you have to wake up at 4 or 5 am. Soy milk restaurant has tons of Chinese breakfast pastries, congee (rice porridge, delicious), oil sticks (also delicious...), and pretty much every other traditional Chinese breakfast food. The Chinese business community here loves it.

Secondly, Soy Milk Restaurant sells Paraguayan food as well. I'd argue that the restaurant is beginning a process of gastronomic syncretism (thanks to my liberal arts degree from Wesleyan, I am allowed to make up obnoxiously complicated phrases for simple concepts), that is, it is beginning to mix Chinese and Paraguayan food. Along Avenida Avay, there are five or seven (depending on how you count a restaurant...) Chinese restaurants, and as far as I can tell, the only one that regularly attracts non-Chinese customers is Soy Milk Restaurant. They sell Paraguay soups and mains, with a little Chinese ingredients and flavors added in.
I think this may be the first step toward a greater melding of cuisines that you'd see in Peruvian-Chinese chifa cuisine or American Chinese cuisine, such as chop suey.

Mr. Yu wakes up every day at 2:30 am to begin preparing breakfast by 3:00 am. I had the sleep-deprived pleasure of accompanying him last week at 3:00 am. For some reason I doubted he'd be punctual for our date, but then I realized that this was his job, whether some American was there to photograph him or not. He prepares the soy milk, the porridge, everything, until his workers start coming at around 4:30 am.

People start calling and placing orders as early as 5 am, and business is open by 5:30. Mr. Yu's wife comes in around 6, and Mr. Yu then retires home.

Hopefully, I'll be able to post some photos of Mr Yu, and continue the sketch, since there's more!

A few points about the Paraguayan Taiwanese

2008-09-21T22:52:00.004+02:00

Earlier I wrote that most of the Taiwanese immigrants here came in the 1949 immigration, but that seems to be less true than I originally thought. In fact, many of the people I've talked to have said that their family has been in Taiwan for hundreds of years, part of an earlier Han-Chinese migration to the island.

One family said that many of the first Taiwanese immigrants in the 1970s left Taiwan not only because of poor economic conditions, but also because of political reasons as well. It may seem hard to believe now, but the "East Asian tigers" (Taiwan, S. Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong) were very poor countries even in the late 1960s. I can't remember the exact ranking, but I remember in my East Asian and Latin American Development class the GDP ranking of Taiwan and South Korea was in the ballpark of countries like Congo and Sudan, which they have obviously surpassed. Suffice it to say, only thirty or forty years ago, these were poor countries.
Furthermore, only in the past thirty-something years has Taiwan (as well as a slew of other developing countries, such as S. Korea, Brazil, South Africa... and notably NOT mainland China) moved towards a functioning democracy. Apparently the Kuomintang, (KMT) the ruling party in Taiwan after 1949, suppressed any kind of opposing political activity for its first few decades in Taiwan. As a result, many immigrants came to South America. That same family that came to Paraguay for political reasons told me that the father went panning for gold in the Brazilian Amazon during the late 1970s and early 1980s, getting malaria a remarkable eighteen times!

One final remark about Paraguayan-Taiwanese relations: they exist (diplomatically, that is). Taiwan, or more correctly, the "Republic of China," is only recognized by 23 countries, mostly countries you haven't heard of. Surprisingly, most are in the Americas, mostly Central American countries (Nicaragua, Panama, Honduras...), and little Caribbean islands. Paraguay is the only country in South America that recognizes Taiwan.

Why so few? Well, the People's Republic of China, aka mainland Communist China, makes cutting relations with Taiwan a prerequisite for diplomatic relations. Most countries, such as the US and all of Europe (sans the Vatican City, which still recognizes Taiwan), have jumped ship and joined the PRC sometime in the 1970s or 1980s... Taiwan also lost its seat in the UN then.

So why recognize Taiwan? For small, poor countries -- which describes every country (excepting the economic powerhouse, Vatican City) with diplomatic relations with Taiwan -- Taiwan can offer lots of aid and economic opportunity. While the PRC is obviously an economic powerhouse, Taiwan is perhaps more willing to engage in "aid-diplomacy," exchanging lots of cash and economic aid in exchange for diplomatic recognition. Hospitals are built. Public facilities constructed. Money injected into the economy. Let us not forget, either, that Taiwan is not excluded from the World Trade Organization: whereas the UN can function politically without Taiwan's participation, the world economy is far more dependent on Taiwan's participation. If anything is going to keep the current status quo and keep Taiwan afloat, it's Taiwan's economy.

Okee, one final anecdote. So the Lonely Planet guidebook alleges Paraguay is the most bribe-hungry country outside of Africa. I haven't seen much police around here, and saw my first police car earlier this week -- which had decals all over it reading "donated by the Republic of China."

Put your right foot in...

2008-09-18T23:45:00.004+02:00

Took the local bus to Foz de Iguaçu today, the Brasilian city in the Tri-border area. Have I mentioned enough what a hilarious (and occasional nightmare) of a border crossing it is? This time the bus passed both customs before I had a chance to run out and get my passport stamped. On the other hand, during rush hour, it takes about an hour to cross a 100 meter bridge or so, because of traffic and Brazilian customs searching for contraband and maybe a bribe or two.

As I mentioned in a previous post, many people commute between the tax-free haven of Ciudad del Este and the pleasant city of Foz. I can see why, as Foz is much more pleasant and peaceful than Ciudad del Este; people actually live there and have social lives. Bookstores and little cafes. Ok, it's not the nicest city, but it's far more liveable than Ciudad del Este for a gringo like me.

That said, I appreciate Ciudad del Este for what it is. And when I came back I stopped by the mooncake shop and just started chatting with some local Chinese dudes, some who I know, some who I don't. After I told them I'm going to Sao Paulo later, they all sighed and rolled their eyes, saying how inaccessible and unfriendly the city is. In Ciudad del Este, they go, people are friendly, people know each other. One guy even goes, "Hey look, I don't even know you and we're still so friendly to each other!"

He's right. The people here are generally far more receptive and open to help in any way they can than in Lima. I think a large part of this is that the Chinese community is so small, that Ciudad del Este doesn't lend well toward "integrating into the local community." Unlike Lima or Sao Paulo, Ciudad del Este doesn't have any strong local cultural activities (although when I was walking home last night, I heard a band practicing in some living room. They were actually decent.). At any rate, the guy then offered to help me should I need it and gave me his phone number.

Oh, in Foz I was visiting a family I met at the Taiwanese Commercial Guild of Ciudad del Este (Taiwan Shang hui), a nice family that owns a travel agency in Foz. Also I had an açai berry smoothie, which was positively delicious.

1949

2008-09-16T18:33:00.003+02:00

Maybe I'll expand this post later when I have more time, but I find this quite interesting: Most immigrants here are from Taiwan, and most came from the 1949-1950 migration to Taiwan that resulted from the Communists winning the Chinese civil war. When one guy asked about my ancestry, he seemed insistent that I qualify the fact that my parents are from the mainland with the fact that my dad also left China in the 1949 migration. Also, whenever I say my dad's family ended up in America, most people seem to chuckle and say, "that's where you went if you were educated and had money!"

Why Ciudad del Este?

2008-09-16T17:28:00.004+02:00

I've been told in both Peru and Paraguay, "Wherever there is money you can find Chinese people." That seems to be a pretty big generalization, but it might be worth trying to explain why Chinese people have flocked to the City of the East, which in fact feels like the wild, wild West. Ciudad del Este is a border town, along the tri-border area of Argentina and Brazil.
Paraguay, as a land-locked country, has heavily depended on Argentina and Brazil for international trade. Without any port cities, Paraguay was basically forced to set up frontier trading towns along the border with Argentina and Brazil.

With such a dependence on foreign trade, it's no surprise that Paraguay should have relatively open international economy. Paraguay industries are hardly export-ready, and Paraguay must thus depend on the international market for its wealth.

Thanks to the historically trade-phobic economic policies of Brazil and Argentina, however, Paraguay capitalized on the high tariffs rates of Brazil and Argentina and began importing stuff from Asia and exporting it to its neighbors.

That's where Ciudad del Este comes in. Ciudad del Este is basically one giant duty-free shop, where Brazilian and Argentine traders come and buy up all kinds of stuff tax-free. Stuff gets exported, too, although somewhat under the table (or under the border). Although Argentine and Brazilian governments are well aware of the many illicit activities that have been undertaken in Ciudad del Este, it is nearly impossible to clamp down the border (think about how hard it has been to seal our border with Mexico).

"Ten years ago Ciudad del Este was a gold mine."

Ten years ago -- everyone seems in agreement -- was the golden age. Brazil still had many tariff peaks (i.e., high taxes on specific or groups of items), and basically anybody could come to Ciudad del Este, begin importing anything and everything from Asia, and make a handsome profit. The riches of Ciudad del Este reportedly even attracted the Chinese mafia, who got snuggly with sleeper cells of Hezbollah here (a side note: there's a substantial Lebanese population here, who people seem to have strong prejudices against).

After all, the Chinese people here are all merchants. They're here to make money. All of them own some sort of store or work in one, selling everything from clothes, food products, to electronics.

Now, however, everyone seems to agree that business is down. The mooncake seller told me that the mafia has since left and gone elsewhere -- Argentina and Brazil. I don't know the history of Brazilian economic policies, but it seems as if Brazil's recently liberalized economy has hurt business in Paraguay. Electronics are still a good business, but you can no longer simply buy from Asia and sell to Brazil. Now, Sao Paulo residents can buy most things in Sao Paulo for not much more or the same price as in Ciudad del Este. I suspect the same goes for Argentina, although trade with Brazil has been far stronger. All that seperates Brazil and Paraguay is a footbridge that can be crossed in about ten minutes by foot. This is an incredibly porous border, and I had to chase down customs on both sides in order to get my passport stamped.

Despite the famous corruption and illicit activities of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay's government simply can't afford to clamp down on the city. It relies on the chaos, on the crazy commercial center that is open from 4 am to 3 pm (Paraguay lags an hour behind Brazil and Argentina, and many people who work here in fact live in Brazil), on the laissez faire nature of this wild town.

Some Bolivia photos

2008-09-15T02:47:00.006+02:00

Because the landscapes were incredible.

ok, the bike photo is actually outside of San Pedro de Atacama, Chile, which is only about an hour's drive from the Bolivian border. The lunar landscape is fittingly called "Valle de la luna (Moon valley)."

New camera!

2008-09-14T04:15:00.002+02:00

I eventually surrendered to the fact that I needed to buy a new camera, even if it is more expensive than in the States. I bought a Canon XS; I was going for the XSi , but then when I realized that Bank of America wouldn't let me take out the money to buy the more expensive XSi, I took it as a sign that I should accept the XS.

I bought it from a store called Monte Carlo, a nice looking store owned by some Lebanese guy. Keeping in line with the "Money over God" theme mentioned in a previous blog post, the salesperson took my $730 USD in cash and placed it directly on top of the Koran, the Islamic holy book. I don't know too much about Islam, but I do know that the Koran, the actual physical book, is quite sacred, and many people keep it wrapped up. Touching it isn't a simple matter; I was once told that only certain people are allowed to hold it.

In other news, it's Mid-autumn festival, a time to buy overpriced mooncakes and have banquets. One family here has been very kind to me, and helped introduce me to all sorts of people and helped me out with my project, so I bought them some mooncakes. I don't really like them that much, so don't buy me any, thanks.

We came here for God, but also to get rich

2008-09-11T19:12:00.004+02:00

A Spanish conquistor once uttered these famous lines (or something approximating it), when describing the Spanish Crown's motives for colonizing Latin America. Although many came here to bring Catholicism to the new world, many simply came to plunder its riches.

Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, reminds me a bit of this sentiment. Ciudad del Este rests at the confluence of Rio Iguaçu and Rio Parana (two rivers) on the border with Brazil. The entire region, which includes the famous Iguazu Falls, is a tri-border area where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet. Brazil is a ten minute walk away (across a bridge over Rio Parana), and Argentina is a forty minute bus ride away.

The city is crazy. Brazilians come here for day trips and buy cheap electronics and other merchandise, then cross the border back to Brazil. Foz de Iguaçu, the Brazilian sister city, is comparatively nicer, and many wealthy merchants from Ciudad del Este in fact live in Foz and commute to Ciudad del Este for work.

So why does this city exist in the first place? Well, it used to be called "Puerto Stroessner," named after the ignominious Paraguayan dictator Alfredo Stroessner. It is a free trade zone, thus giving it its capitalism-gone-wild ambience, and with no taxes and direct imports of thousands of electronics from Asia everyday, it appears to be the cheapest electronics outlet in all of South America. Or so I am told.

Within the city, there live approximately 4,000 people of Chinese descent. 3,000 of these are Taiwanese: Paraguay is the only country in South America to recognize Taiwan diplomatically (most countries, like the US, don't have formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan because of their ties with China).
There are also about 3,000 Koreans and an unknown number of Arabs. But their influence is felt: Korean barbeque restaurants, a Korean methodist church, Shish kebab cafes, hookah cafes, a Mosque are all within the city limits. And in a city of about 200,000 inhabitants, these outsiders' presence is felt quite strongly.

People also seem to come here for religion. Within the city, there are five Chinese-language churches, a Buddhist temple, and perhaps more. A beautiful, modernistic Catholic cathedral is just three blocks from my hotel. I've only met one American: a pastor from North Carolina. He lives by the Pizza Hut.

Five countries, five days

2008-09-06T03:44:00.003+02:00

In what has got to be the most intense country-hopping thus far, I will be going through five countries over five days, starting yesterday. Here's the rundown:

1 Uyuni, Bolivia
2 San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
3 Salta, Argentina (Maybe Resistencia, Argentina, depending on how tired I am... do I want to break up a 26 hour bus ride?)
4 Foz de Iguazu, Brazil
5 Ciudad del Este, Paraguay

By the way, I'm in Salta, Argentina. Just got here after a 11 hour bus ride from San Pedro de Atacama. Went over the Andes. Finished "In Cold Blood." Roomed with a Spanish guy in Chile who quit his insurance job in Madrid four years ago, and has since then cycled across Asia and is now cycling across South America.

Time for some Argentinean steak and wine.

Disaster

2008-09-01T21:13:00.004+02:00

"Your number will come up at some point," my thesis advisor told me last May. At some point, disaster strikes: Jim (my advisor) had just recounted how during a year of travelling Eurasia, a motorcyclist had ridden off with all of his stuff near the Taj Mahal in India. I think both of us considered ourselves smart travellers, but at some point, something disastrous happens, even if it is completely preventable.

Yesterday was my number came up. I lost my camera, three lenses, four memory cards, all worth about $1600 USD. I think my travel insurance can pick up $500 of it, and I will of course have to buy a new camera soon (likely in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, known for its cheap duty-free electronics).

Here's what happened. I was scheduled to take a 6 pm bus from La Paz to Uyuni, a town in the south of Bolivia on the way to Paraguay. The bus was late, and the office workers said it would leave at 645 (no bus leaves on time in Bolivia), so I sat down in the terminal to wait. In general, bus terminals are pretty dodgy areas, and I didn't discount the La Paz bus terminal. At any rate, an English girl asked me to watch her bags while she went to the bathroom, and I did so. When she came back, I did the same, she watched my bags while I went to the rest room. When I came back the first thing I said was "where's my camera bag?" It's pointless to blame anyone, and I'm not even sure that the camera bag was there when I left for the bathroom -- it could have easily been snatched while I was guarding everything. I looked all around, asked everyone in the area, and went to the police office, knowing that it was gone. Nobody who steals a camera is going to hang around the same area.

Mostly, I just felt pathetic and stupid for letting this happen. I wasn't held up at gunpoint, I managed to make it through Lima without any such incidences (where foreigners constantly hear horror stories), and this really shouldn't have happened.

To make matters worse, I got sick for the first time since touching down in Lima on the 12 hour bus ride to Uyuni. The bus driver refused to stop for seven hours, and then at about hour 10, the bus broke down on the dirt road to Uyuni. To make matters worse, it was literally freezing -- windows icing up -- and the windows wouldn't stay shut. Eventually we got to Uyuni after about 14 hours on the bus.

I'm trying to get to Ciudad del Este, next to the Brazilian and Argentinean border (and the splendid Iguazu Falls) by next week, which will involve a series of buses through Chile and Argentina. I've taken buses in Chile and have been quite impressed, and have heard similar good things about Argentinean buses as well. Wish me luck!

"Avoiding the touch"

2008-08-31T22:06:00.005+02:00

In contrast to the dramatic incidences on Nevado Pisco in Peru, I had a rather uneventful climb up Huayna Potosi, a 6088m (19,974 feet... just 26 feet under 20,000! grrrr) peak in Bolivia's Cordillera Real. Huayna Potosi is a popular climb, dubbed the easiest 6,000m climb in the world. The base camp is at about 4,700m and a refuge at about 5,300m. You could probably camp on the snow, but it is really, really cold.

I honestly thought I would suffer a lot more up Huayna Potosi, as I was having difficulty getting enough oxygen into my lungs at 5,300m on Nevado Pisco. The conditions on Huayna Potosi were great, however, and I didn't suffer (perhaps to my disappointment...), feeling great during the entire climb. I think I've gotten in much better shape since Pisco, too, and gotten more adjusted to the +3,700m altitutde. On the way down, I offered to carry some of my fellow climber's gear, almost feeling sad that the mountain hadn't pushed me to my limits -- and that I hadn't "touched the void."

It's a relaxing 3 hour hike up to the refuge from the base camp, which includes a lovely refuge complete with hot showers and a fireplace. I think it can easily be done in 2 hours, but our guides seemed to insist that we were all whimps and needed frequent breaks. We didn't have any donkeys, which I suppose made it a much more "pure" climb, and I carried all my equipment -- plastic boots, two ice axes (only one was necessary, however), crampons, harness, three liters of water -- up to the refuge at 5,300m.

At the refuge at 5,300m, the night before the ascent. The view was incredible.

At the refuge on the glacier, we melt some snow for a warm tea before setting off at 3 am for the summit. Two guides accompanied two Israelis, an Englishwoman, and myself. We heard it was a four to five hour climb, and we managed it in almost exactly four hours, summiting at 7:08. The climb wasn't technical at all: the only two parts that necessitated ice axe usage were a 50 degree ice wall at about 5,700m, and then a narrow ridge about 30m before the summit. Unfortunately for me, a lefty, this required using the ice axe in my right hand. Although my right arm is more or less as strong as my left, it was a bit like trying to play tennis with my right arm -- each ice axe strike was a pathetic mis-hit on the ice.

Ok, so the two Israelis were smart enough to make summit posters before the climb, and I had to take a picture with one of them. This one apparently says "I love you mom" (I love you mom! And happy birthday tomorrow!) in Hebrew. Tal, the one who made this poster, is to my left. Tal didn't seem to be in great shape, but was definitely determined: he had been sick for the past day and vomited five times on the climb.

Don't worry, this won't become a mountain climbing blog, as I'm about to head out of the Andes and into the eastern part of South America -- Paraguay.

Bolivian update

2008-08-31T03:02:00.004+02:00

I'm on my way to my next destination on the Watson Fellowship -- Ciudad del Este, Paraguay -- and am transiting through Bolivia. Most travellers I met in Peru raved about Bolivia: the landscapes, the people, and of course, the prices. Nevertheless, there are far fewer U.S. Americans in Bolivia than in Peru, perhaps because of the recent $135 USD visa fee slapped on all (and only) US residents.

At any rate, because I am spending so little time here, I will offer only the most superficial observations.

1. The Bolivian navy on Lake Titicaca. Bolivia has a navy, which is slightly ironic considering Bolivia is a landlocked country (one of only two in South America, the other being Paraguay). I noticed this on Lake Titicaca, which is shared by Peru and Bolivia, and at 3900m, is supposed to be the highest navigable lake in the world.

2. The one chifa I went to in La Paz was an artist's residence rented out to be a Chinese restaurant, which apparently in two years time, will become an art museum. For now, however, it's just a chifa.

3. Evo Morales. Bolivia's first indigenous president seems to have a lot of support in the La Paz region -- everywhere there are political slogans painted on buildings supporting "Evo" and his political party, the "Movement toward socialism."

4. Llama fetuses. On the street where I am staying in La Paz there seems to be a proliferation of herbal medicinal remedies, which include different kinds of alcohol as well as llama fetuses hanging from the ceiling. Apparently people sacrifice them here in homage to Pachamama, a goddess in Aymara and Quechuan cultures here in the Andes.

Ciao, Peru!

2008-08-24T00:25:00.002+02:00

I left Peru for good today, making my way to Bolivia along Lake Titicaca. Right now I'm on "Isla del Sol," or Island of the Sun, on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. The lake is incredibly large -- the islands remind me a bit of the Greek islands in the Mediterranean Adriatic.

That's it for now.

Cell phone drama

2008-08-18T23:57:00.004+02:00

So I've been using a Motorola Tri-band GSM phone I bought two years ago in Beijing. The main reason I bought it was so that I could use it in other countries -- simply swapping SIM chips in and out of it whenever I go to new countries. I've now collected SIM chips from China, India, South Africa, and now Peru.

Unfortunately, in all the aforementioned countries (with the notable exception of China), using cell phones is prohibitively expensive. As a result, most people send short text messages, which are far cheaper. An additional bonus to text messages, especially when service is a bit dodgy, is that communication is always clear. No constant "what? what?" as the other person descends into static.

I had already blown through about $10 USD worth of cell phone credit in my first week in Peru, so I tried to send mostly text messages. Unfortunately, I began to realize that my text messages were not sending when nobody was replying -- I checked the status of about ten text messages and saw that it just said "sending in progress." I was able to receive text messages but not able to send them. I gave up on text messages for the next couple weeks in Lima.

After turning off my cell phone during my time in Huaraz, and coming back to Lima, my cell phone magically discovered how to send text messages. As a result, about ten text messages were sent all at once, their contents no longer relevant. Examples:

"Good I'm in front of the office waiting for you"

"Dinner? I'm interested in the Quito move" (a response to a friend that had contemplated moving to Quito, Ecuador)

"Are we going to meet in the school?"

"Come to Miraflores for ceviche"

"I'm on Avenida la Marina I'm coming now"

"What was the name of the place we went to last night and where is it?"

As you may suspect, these messages were no longer relevant three or four weeks after I had originally intended to send them.

The replies I got were funny:

One called me three times before sending me an email asking me why I was bothering them.

Another responded "it's called Sargeant Pepper's let's go tonight" (in response to the last text; I know for a fact it was not Sargeant Pepper's, but I appreciated the reply regardless)

To "Let's meet at the school," the response was a curt, "I'm at work."

Thanks Mr. Thomas J. Watson

2008-08-18T23:46:00.001+02:00

Due to the declining value of the dollar, the Watson Fellowship office has just sent an email saying that all fellows will get a one-time $3,000 supplement to their original stipend.

YESSSSSSS.