Mere Perception

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noreply@blogger.com (Stephen_I) — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 07:12:00 +0000

So after a 5 hour flight from Kathmandu to Hong Kong, an 11 hour layover, an 11 hour flight to Los Angeles, a 24 hour layover, a 3-4 hour flight to Atlanta, a 1 hour layover, and a 1.5 hour flight to XNA, I made it home a few weeks ago. Reverse culture shock (and winter) kicked in, and I haven't updated since. This will be my final post on this blog.

Returning to the wealthiest nation on the planet from one of the poorest was quite an eye-opener for (hopefully) obvious reasons. On top of that, I came back at the height of the Christmas season, when people spend money they don't have on things they don't need for reasons they usually don't even fully understand.

A few things I've noticed/done since I've been home:

--One of the first things I did was go and stick my face under the sink and drink water. Because I could.
--People in America are extremely over concerned with time--being late, checking their watches, scheduling like crazy, etc. I've been on "India time" for the semester. Weird.
--The majority of people here are able to eat for enjoyment. There is a luxury of variety in American diets that is unheard of in developing countries. Don't like olives? You don't have to eat them. Craving Italian food tonight? Fine.
--That said, there are not enough meals in the day for me to be able to eat all of the foods/at all of the places I want to before I leave again.
--We should value, if nothing else, the stability of our political system.
--Although Americans have a surplus of pretty much everything, they are some of the most selfish people ever. Their houses are so large, with so much empty space, and they have so much junk they don't need--but they rarely donate their extra stuff. A trip to the Salvation Army once a month is too much for most to handle.
--Most people can't handle not getting their way. Life in exile would not flow well with 99% of Americans.
--The cars here are HUGE. Also, American drivers are horrible compared to Indian/Nepali ones. They may have shitty roads and shitty cars, but they know how to drive. There isn't the cell phone texting or bad music blaring or generally not paying attention that happens in America. (I wasn't in a car the entire time that wasn't a manual. Take that, soccer moms.)

I'm tired of doing bullet points. Anyway...the point is, we have it good yet noone truly realizes it.

It's also been difficult because it's so odd to be home and to see familiar things and people. Everyone else has continued their lives just like I did over the past few months, and the inside jokes are uncomfortable from both sides. I don't know what movies are out (or were out), new books or music, concerts, etc. It's weird to be out of your own "loop," but I guess it was bound to happen. Most of the time I just feel like not really seeing anyone or doing much of anything. Yet I haven't even finished going through my ~6000 pictures.

I've said this to a few people, but I can't stress it enough to those who are thinking of going/studying abroad in the future. I have not been to Europe or any other Western nation, but I am confident in my choice to study abroad in Asia for this semester. Seeing (literally) the other side of the world and how it thinks and operates has more value than my not-yet-fully-matured mind can comprehend. If you go to Spain or France or Germany or Italy, for example, you are basically going to an America where everything is older, the people are smarter and more cosmopolitan. The food is great--nothing too different than what you're used to. You might go to stereotypical tourist attractions like the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Piza, or one gothic cathedral too many. You'll stay in fancy hotels and eat at nice restaurants and go shopping. This is exactly what I did not want to do. I wanted to stay in a homestay and learn what foreign (eastern) family life is all about. I wanted to go somewhere where there was visible poverty and I wouldn't see flashy Gucci bags or ridiculously large sunglasses or iPhones or people going to/from the mall. I wanted to experience a culture that has been relatively static in comparison to Western ones for thousands of years. It was a risk, in a way, to throw myself into direct contact with people 360 degrees different from the American norm I've grown up with having never left the country before.

And I'm glad I did it.

So my advice: if given the chance, choose Asia over Europe in case you don't have the chance to travel again.

I'm also so glad I kept up with this blog, and that other people did as well. It has made it so much easier--I've gotten so many less "So how was it?" and "Did you have fun?" questions than I would have had I not kept up with this. It was amazing, and yes I had fun. If you have any real questions, let me know. I'd be happy to answer.

Finally, I leave for another semester abroad on January 26. I've started another blog, so keep up with it!

Is cheese a side effect of prosperity?

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen_I) — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 09:36:00 +0000

Ok. So we're leaving tonight to come home. WHAT?!

My ISP went well. Made it back to Kathmandu just fine.

I have no time to write because I have to finish making slideshows for the semester (I got put in charge. Joy.), then buy last minute gifts and put then in our bags so we can go eat dinner and catch the flight.

I'll be home on Tuesday at about 1 a.m. local time.

WHAT?!

(I'm a little nervous about coming home--more on this and everything else in a few days).

EDIT in the Hong Kong airport, 3:46 Kathmandu time, 6:01 Hong Kong time. Yes, I'm tired.

So that was written while a) trying to frantically finish three slideshows of photos from the semester for the 'final dinner' last night, as well as b) buying last minute gifts, etc., because I had been making slideshows.

I've gotten about, oh, 15 hours of sleep in the past three days. I think. I finished my 53 page paper on Wednesday, got it printed (about 4800 rupees for two copies printed and bound for both Darby and myself, which is about 60 USD. Bah.), and gave my 30 minute presentation on Friday. I would have been done after that, but our teacher sort of volunteered me to make slideshows for the final dinner, which took hours upon hours.

One amazing thing, though, is that Darby and I bought thangkas. Four! Pictures later I think.

It's pretty sad to be leaving all of the people on this program (about half of them stayed in Kathmandu and will leave at varying times in the future, while the other half took the group flight). There were people from all over the country from all walks of life with different majors and interests and reasons for being there. While it will be great to see family and friends in a two days, I can't really forget that these people have been both friends and family for the past four months.

The airport is already insanely weird. For instance, I ate at Burger King for breakfast and it was absolutely amazingly delicious. It's so clean--the bathrooms are amazing, the carpet is spotless, none of the glass has smudges. Also, there are white people everywhere and they aren't looking at me like I'm the only person like them in the universe.

We were back in Kathmandu for about five days. Most of those days were taken up by watching other peoples' ISP presentations. There were projects done on everything from woodcarving in Nepal to how the tourist industry is affecting the people of Mustang to how climate change is affecting locals in rural Nepal to the recent meetings in Dharamsala to various ideas regarding political activism in both Dharamsala and Nepal.

If you really want to read my paper (which I'm fairly proud of, I guess, in the sense that it's the longest thing I've ever written), follow the link below; let me know if it doesn't work:

Big ass paper

Guess what the first thing I heard in the Hong Kong airport was:

Christmas music.

What? American holidays? It's going to be so weird to go home and it be Christmas time. Usually, holidays come on gradually. This, as with many other aspects of American culture, is going to be sudden and confusing. Hence the term "reverse culture shock," which I'm beginning to dread. I already miss India/Nepal and the people I met there, and knowing that I a) won't go back for a long time and b) might not see these people for a long time is pretty sad.

So after this 11 hour layover in Hong Kong after the 5 hour flight from Kathmandu, we have a ~14 hour flight to Los Angeles. Darby and I have a 24 hour layover in L.A. We fly out the next afternoon, and arrive in Tulsa late that night. We also gain a day back with time changes (after losing one on the way here).

There is a Popeyes Chicken in this airport. I bet they have barbeque sauce. I'm going to investigate later. . .
EDIT: I LOVE BARBEQUE SAUCE.

Before: Hong Kong airport on September 2

After: Hong Kong airport on December 15

Looks like I grew hair (on my face and on my head) as well as glasses; Darby grew a tikka (the dot which has since worn away).

"Would you like some Engrish tea? Engrish tea?"

“You spit boogers on me and you’re too strong and I can’t win ever.”

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen_I) — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 14:12:00 +0000

Tuesday, 25 November 2008

So here we are in South India. Things are, in a word, crazy.

The main reason I haven’t updated here in quite a while is because the electricity here goes out for probably 18 hours a day. The internet café is technically open from 9-11 a.m., 3-5 p.m., and 7:30 (or sometimes 9) to 11 p.m. It’s only really open, though, when there is power. Yep. Kind of frustrating, but we’re used to it. We’re also good at going to the bathroom in the dark and doing work by candlelight.

(Children's Day at the school. The teachers arranged games, songs, etc. for the kids. There is also a Teacher's Day.)

I can’t remember if I ever wrote about our ISPs. Each student went separate ways for a month to do research on any topic of their choosing, as long as it relates to Tibetan culture in some way or other. I’m doing my project on modern (secular) education at the Drepung Loseling School, and Darby is doing hers on former political prisoners. We have twelve (TWELVE!) days before we leave to go on the train back to Delhi and then fly back to Kathmandu. After four days in Kathmandu, we leave to come home. What?

(Monks debating in the huge debate courtyard. View at night from our window.)

(Monks take off their shoes; Gaden)

After the longest train ride ever, we arrived at Hubli. Geshe Tsundue, a friend of Geshe Dorjee, and one of his students picked us up at the train station. They had come the night before and gotten a hotel room so they didn’t have to get up and leave for Hubli at like 5 a.m. We went to their room took a (cold) bucket bath, and checked e-mail. After breakfast and lunch there, we (and about 6 other monks) piled into a car and drove the hour to Mundgod, the Tibetan settlement where the Drepung and Ganden monasteries are located.

(Outside our window)

(Possibly my favorite picture of His Holiness ever. "You stay classy, Tibet.")

It turns out we never actually got permits to be here—or even bribery permission. As always in India, good intentions but miscommunication. We went to talk to the administration after a couple of days, and the guy (who was a friend of Geshe Dorjee) basically said that they can usually bribe the police and get permission for people to stay for maybe three or four days, but since we were staying thirty it was pretty much out of the question to even ask. So we were basically under house arrest for the next few days, and only really left at night. I think the police switched duties, and the new guy was a friend of someone important, so we started being able to leave. (This just changed; we’re back to hiding as of yesterday,

We’re staying in the monastery’s guest house/hotel. It’s pretty nice—western toilet, plenty of windows. We’re the only people here. Our food is brought up to us for every meal, and we don’t even order—I think Geshe Dorjee ordered all of our food for us (and set us up here). We don’t even pay for anything now—we have a tab. Actually, the monks switched duties this weekend (they switch jobs every three months—some cook here, some run the internet place and the little shop, etc.), so we got a bill for our food up until this point. Three meals a day (except for a few we ate somewhere else) and about thirty 1 liter bottles of water cost us about 2100 rupees—total. That’s about $45 for two weeks worth of food and a bazillion bottles of water. Our room will cost somewhere between Rs. 150 and 300 per night. That’s about $3-6. Think about it.

(Beehives hanging on the ceiling at Gaden Monastery!)

(Gaden looking badass)

(Geshe Dorjee's Amala and niece)

On one of the first few days here, we ran into Ngawang, the monk and soon-to-be Geshe that lived with Darby’s family in Dharamsala. We thought he was in a monastery that was farther away, when really he was right next door. He belongs to Drepung Gomang, the smaller counterpart to Drepung Loseling. All of the three big monasteries in Tibet (Drepung, Sera, and Ganden) were split up into two smaller monasteries based on where the monks were from (different dialects spoken) and probably other reasons. Therefore, there are Drepung Loseling and Drepung Gomang that have been recreated in exile; there are also two different schools, and I’m only focusing on the Loseling one for my project (mainly because Geshe Dorjee-la hooked me up big time). The Drepung monastery was the largest one in Tibet before the invasion and is still the largest one in exile.

(Gaden Monastery)

(Ghandi statue @ Gaden)

Monday is the weekly ‘holiday’ here, so none of the monks have classes and they get to do whatever they want. Also, this means that our guest house doesn’t have any food. We’ve been going to either Geshe Tsundue’s place (the old Minyak Kangtsen) for some meals, and Ngawang’s for a few. Darby has found an enchantment with chive momos, and we made French fries for Geshe Tsundue. Ngawang is from the Amdo region of Tibet, and Geshe Tsundue came from the region of Kham. The monks are split up by region—most of the Kham and Lhasa (I think) monks go to Drepung Loseling (as they did in Tibet), and most of the Amdo ones go to Drepung Gomang. This also decides where they live—all of the monks live in “kangtsens,” which basically amounts to a dorm. Most don’t even have fans—I’m sure it’s hell in the summer months, since it’s always really hot right now during the cool months. Apparently this is the nicest time to be here—by January/February, it’s crazy-hot again and the mosquitoes are out in force. Lucky for us—(more than) half the time the electricity is out, which means the fan is also out.

An aside—the outlet that our hot water heater in the bathroom is plugged into doesn’t work, and we haven’t told anyone. This means we’ve only had fairly cold bucket baths, and no hot showers since Kathmandu. Also, I need to bathe more, but I’m just too lazy. My beard is getting crazy though—I haven’t shaved/trimmed since I left home.

(Gaden Monastery)

(Darby and I at Gaden)

During the week, most of the monks don’t really have access to the news. They could spend the time in the internet café looking it up I guess, but there aren’t many Tibetan language news sources. (Many could look up Chinese sources, especially the ones who grew up in Amdo or Kham, the more eastern/closer to mainland China regions of Tibet, since they were forced to learn the Chinese language after the invasion. However, they don’t have the time, nor money, nor willingness to sit and read Chinese to do so). So what happens is someone here records the news for the entire week (some sort of Tibetan news channel?), and once a week (Sunday evening I think) they play it on a big screen in the field next to our guest house. Quite a sight.

We’ve been spending a lot of time at the Loseling School, and have been volunteering there quite a bit (considering what else we have to do). Darby and I have been teaching English classes to the students (monks, of course)—her moreso than me. I’ve been teaching computer classes/skills to two of the computer teachers on an almost daily basis. They are already pretty good, and I’m afraid to say they might be better at Photoshop than me (OK, at least at some things). I’ve mainly taught them how to make charts in Excel and everything they know about PowerPoint. We’ve gone to the internet café a couple of times, and I showed them Google Earth and other things. The extensive use of hotmail and yahoo e-mail addresses in India still cracks me up (I have seen a few Gmail ones, though). Many of the students are quite good at English, especially grammar, but are very shy and aren’t good at speaking. They need some good, long-term native speakers to teach (attention, all you even remotely wealthy English speakers who need something good and rewarding to do with your time).

(The Loseling School)

(Geshe Tsundue la is the disciplinarian of the school. See here how he intimidates this little monk at the morning assembly.)

(Classrooms, computer lab, library. Monks come and start in the lower levels if they can't test out of language classes, even if they're a 20 year old entering Class 1. I don't know why this is underlined.)

(Science teacher's 'office')

(The science teacher, Pasang Tsering, in class)

(Cardboard cutout of His Holiness at Gaden. There is also one at Drepung. Self-explanatory)

The students at the school are also working on a science exhibition (which happens tomorrow, the 26^th). They have a very basic understanding of science, but given the fact that they are monks and their focus is Buddhist philosophy, it’s actually quite impressive. They’re always trying to reconcile the differences in the views of Buddhism and science, but it’s in a way not as difficult as it sounds. Sometimes they actually agree—there are things in the sutras (scriptures) that have been true for them well before science verified them. More on this after the science fair happens, and more in my ISP.

Most of the teachers at the Loseling School are monks (many of whom are graduates of the school), while about 5 are laymen. The science teacher and I think all of the English teachers are laymen who get a salary from the Indian government. One of them, the upper-level English teacher named Tsering Dorjee, agreed to be my advisor. It’s interesting because most of them learned English in school, and are teaching it now, but have never talked with native speakers.

It’s quite an experience living in “monk city.” We’re the only “enjees” here, and I’m one of maybe 7 people who wear pants besides the random Indians who come here to sell things like fruit or vegetables or ice cream. We can see monks debating in “debate stadium” at night from our room, and hear chanting on a daily basis (including waking up to random gongs in the early morning hours. Many of them get up at like four or five to do prayers/chanting/puja/what have you all before breakfast and classes).

We’ve also been going to see one of the coolest people ever, Geshe Wangchen. He was one of Geshe Dorjee’s teachers, and he lived in England for seven years. This means his English is pretty good, and he likes to talk with us and practice. He’s one of the most well-respected teachers here. Geshe Wangchen is 73, and like many people here, left Tibet in 1959. The older monks (not ones in the school) go to their teachers’ rooms for philosophy lessons instead of the teachers going to a class. We got to see him come and teach at Minyak Kangtsen, one of the dorms of Loseling for people who are from the Minyak area in Kham in Tibet (and the dorm Geshe Dorjee is from and still sends money back to). This was apparently a really big occasion—a teacher like Geshe Wangchen only comes to a kangtsen once a year, and it’s a different one every time. Luck? We got to go and were told to take pictures. I’d call that pretty auspicious. Picutres below.

(Geshe Wangchen and Geshe Tsundue, the monk who has been taking care of us)

Today was also pretty cool. We got to take pictures at a huge puja in the new prayer hall/temple of Loseling. About a million monks were there, and it was really overwhelming—I don’t really have the words to explain it. It was quite a sight to see them getting food—baskets full of bread, kettles upon kettles of tea, and buckets of some sort of vegetable stuff to eat with the bread (along with tons of bananas and boxes of “juice” that is really mostly sugar). It was a special day for reasons we’re not quite certain of—some sort of Geshe offering ceremony, mainly for the principal of the school who became a Geshe recently (within the past year or two?). He (and others) gave katas (see previous posts) and money to the important people at the huge puja (including the abbot, maybe?), all of the statues up front, even the empty chairs of important people that weren’t there. Also Rs. 20 to each monk. And believe me, it was a lot of monks. I didn’t realize it was mainly for him (as there were other monks/Geshes participating and doing the same things) until we ended up in the temple of his dorm (each one has a small temple) and every one of the monks from the school and various other important people started coming in with katas and offering envelopes (money). I was taking pictures (as requested) for what seemed like forever. Here’s a picture of the biggest pile of katas I’ve ever seen (and they are very, very thin). Afterwards we had lunch at his dorm, and an awesome layman in traditional Tibetan dress was there. He escaped from Tibet eight months ago to see the Dalai Lama, and had a story about how His Holiness touched/grabbed his hand and, long story short, his big turquoise ring was blessed). Turns out he was arrested for yelling “free Tibet,” and Darby is going to interview him for her project tomorrow. Pictures below: the puja and the inside/outside of the new Loseling prayer hall (finished this January).

(Geshe Tsundue and Geshe Ngawang Gyatso, the principal of the Loseling School. Little english, big laugh.)

(Statue of His Holiness; Chant Master)

(I'm determined to bring home a thang-ka of this)

(this is how you feed lots of monks)

(This lay man was a true badass. He's participated in numerous hunger strikes for Tibet, including the huge one in New Delhi last year.)

(It's always a feast wherever we go).

(Largest pile of katas ever.)

(end)

(beginning)

(The most elaborate door frame ever)

Speaking of the project, we have twelve days to write a 25-50 page paper and make a PowerPoint for a 30 minute presentation. Things are going to be a little stressful.

We get home in something like three weeks. We’ve started craving foods like nobody’s business—the only times we really get angry at each other is when one of us can’t stop naming foods (with details) we want, making the other person think about it too. I’ve been craving salsa and cheese dip like nobody’s business.

We’re starting to get fairly nervous about coming home. While it’s going to be good to see family and friends and eat foods we’ve been craving, it’s going to be absolutely insane. Our sleep schedules will be crazy, we’ll be able to drink tap water, and we’ll probably try to drive on the left side of the road and honk a lot. There will be so many fat people, the food will be so much faster, everyone will speak our language, and the toilet paper will not be a pink streamer (literally). We’ll be able to touch the animals and there won’t be cows in the road wherever we go. It is guaranteed there will be towels and a toilet that flushes when we get to our hotel in L.A. (we have a 24 hour layover), and the food will cost more than a dollar or two’s worth of rupees.

Friday, 28 November 2008

Soooo, not much has changed since I wrote that last bit. Thanksgiving apparently occurred, except not really. There are no turkeys or any other food that we would ever eat at home. We had, guess what—meat momos! It was kind of weird to miss Thanksgiving, but I think it helps that we have a ton of work to do and seemingly no time to do it.

We’re back to what amounts to house arrest. Apparently the police changed, and now the guy is a grumpy one—the last one was a ‘friend.’ So I haven’t been to the school in two days, and I really need to be going to finish my research so I can write this stupid paper. This is bad—if it doesn’t work out, I don’t know what will happen. Maybe I’ll talk the principal/teachers into coming to my room. Haha.

Tonight (weather permitting—it actually looks like RAIN) we’re going to Gaden monastery (one of the big three) to watch debating. Actually, it’s some sort of debating ‘tournament’ that happens once a year for twenty days. One of the big monasteries—Sera, Drepung, Gaden—hosts it each year, and they house/feed the monks from the other two monasteries for the duration. It should be pretty exciting.

Here are pictures from the science exhibition!

(Earth model; solar eclipse explanation)

On a wildly different note: here are my first two papers that I wrote for class. If you're interested, be my guest. Sorry for the crazy links.

Paper 1

International%20Support%20-%20Essential%20for%20a%20Free%20Tibet.pdf

Paper 2

The%20Electrification%20of%20Lo%20Manthang%20and%20Its%20Effects%20On%20Local%20Culture.pdf

I will be home in about two and a half weeks. That seems so far away because of this paper, but at the same time so incredibly close considering how long this semester has been.

Alive

noreply@blogger.com (Stephen_I) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:16:00 +0000

So I just heard about the attacks in Mumbai (here, here). Just a quick note to say I'm alive, and am nowhere close to this.

Things are stressful (though, of course, an adventure) in south India, and I'll try to put up a long update in the next couple of days.

Here are a couple of pictures that will (hopefully) suffice for the time being:

(outside our window)

(big puja--SO MANY MONKS)