Technology in Exile

Travel Writing

2011-11-08T02:09:00.001-07:00

Some thoughts on the media of travel writing:

I never considered myself a creative writer. I still do not consider myself a creative writer. However, I've been doing a fair amount of creative writing this summer, and it has given me some food for thought.

I've written in three formats: a daily, personal journal, bi-weekly blog posts, and a final essay.

Personal journal: This writing is different from the others in that it covers the wide range of thoughts and experiences I had in a day. Things that were on my mind that never made it into blog posts I recorded here--my best friend in the Philippines, my distaste for Harry Potter films, my excitement and trepidation for interviews--and therefore help to encapsulate the range of personality that defines me. I really value that sort of writing. On a day when I decided to write down everything I did, the entry reminds me of little things about McLeod, like walking around for thirty minutes to find a trash can, that helped to define my experience. The range of topics shows the dynamics of my personality, which I also value. Though I am hesitant to allow people to read anything from my personal journal, the text remains personally valuable.

Bi-weekly blog posts: I am inordinately proud of these posts. Sometimes I reread them just because they help me remember those moments in India that stood out as important, defining, and somehow significant. I never wrote a post about something that didn't really matter to me at the time. I would usually sit down every few days and think, what happened that was interesting in these last few days? I wrote at least one draft for each post and did my best to tie together ideas from my reading with the personal experiences that were so important to me. I love this post in particular, and not just because it received a positive response from the people who commented. I liked being able to blend several experiences, to show an evolution of sentiment, all in one post. I liked the unity of text and ideas and experiences. Years from now, when I want to reminisce about India, I will most likely go to my blog posts and read through some favorites, laughing about the crazy and wonderful things that happened there.

Final essay: I am also quite proud of this paper, though I worry that it will never be finished. This is the most limited of the formats and yet the most deep. I only share four stories--the one of the Jewish man, polyandry, the beggars on the kora, and a story of a Tibetan girl making its debut (I didn't post about it) but I am able to explore a single theme in much more depth than the other formats. In my essay, I deal with the issue of becoming a Christian (that is, trying to follow Christ) and the ambiguity that can exist in the process. Though the essay is, in some ways, an excellent representation of my time in India, it cannot show the shallow scope of my personal journal or the snippets of the blog posts.

All three formats have merit, and so I am glad I wrote all of them. As for which is the most authentic--I couldn't say. Is it the mundane, everyday thoughts and actions recorded in a journal that defines the time? Is it a little, thoughtful reflection on some highlights in a blog post? Is it the post-field interpretation of the most significant of those experiences? I would say that, without the three taken together, one could not have a full understanding of what it meant to be a field study student in McLeod this summer.

Photo credit: doug88888

Symbols part two

2011-11-08T01:36:00.000-07:00

Significant to both Hindus and Buddhists, the lotus flower is a symbol of purification from the imperfections of the body, speech, and mind. Many Buddhist deities are portrayed sitting on lotus flowers.

The endless knot represents the unity of religious knowledge and non-religious knowledge. This symbol is endlessly popular on architecture, particularly as the filler on railings and fences.

Popularized by the Lama in Kipling's novel Kim, the wheel symbolizes the rotation of life in accordance with Buddha's teachings.

This picture, the center of the tapestry around which the other pictures are stitched, unites the eight auspicious symbols into a single, cohesive whole. The picture is the unity of doctrine and meaning, the ultimate symbol of Buddhist thought.

Prayer beads. Each of these strings contains exactly 108 beads, which the Tibetans will often wrap around the wrist and tick while walking to work or school. These beads are similar to rosary beads in other faiths. When Amalah used her prayer beads, she would say "om mani padme hum" each time as she slid a bead, all the way around.

These are Tibetan monks wearing wine-red robes. The robes symbolize the vows they've taken as they have become monks, and they always wear them. Robes like this come in small sizes, for the 13 year old monks I met at the TCV, and up.

The turban is symbolic in the Sikh faith. Sikh warrior men do not believe in cutting their hair, so they keep it wrapped up in turbans on their heads. This functions as an automatic head covering when they visit holy sites such as the Harmandir Sahib, the holiest site in the world for Sikhs. The turban is one of the five traits of a Sikh warrior; the other four are a special comb, a silver dagger, particular undergarments, and a metal bracelet.

Pilgrims walking around the Harmandir Sahib must cover their heads. Women cover their heads with a dupatta and men with a turban. Covering your head in a holy place is a sign of respect for the sacredness of the setting.

This bell, hanging at the entrance to the Hindu temple in Amritsar, is a ghanta, a bell used to rid the area of devils and invite gods to come. Bells are traditionally used in Hindu pujas, religious rituals.

As the sign indicates, this statue is of Lord Shiva. Shiva is one of the three main Hindu gods, the destroyer god. He is often portrayed in meditation, but because he is such an important god, he is portrayed in many different actions.

These hats add to the highly theatrical aspect of the entire Indian-Pakistani border closing ceremony. Their behavior and dress emphasize the "official" status of their countries as peacefully separate, but the truth of the matter is that violence continues between the two nations.

This is me (and an elephant!) and I am wearing a salwar kameez. The dupatta is the scarf around my neck, and it is a symbol of female virtue. In a traditional mindset, an Indian woman would never be seen without her dupatta because it would be tantamount to being a prostitute.

This is me with my host family the day I left McLeod. We have khalags around our necks, the white silk scarves that Tibetans give to family and friends at greetings, at weddings, and at partings.

Symbols part one

2011-11-04T18:47:00.001-06:00

Tibetan prayer flags: These colorful cloths, hung all around outside between the branches of trees, are printed with prayers and left outside forever. The idea is that, as natural elements slowly break the prayer flags down, threads of prayer flag will fly around the world to bless people everywhere.

Om mani padme hum: This is the Dalai Lama's mantra of compassion. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the god of compassion, and this mantra (which, literally translated, means "the god from the lotus flower" as far as I gathered) is chanted like a prayer. It is everywhere--engraved on the rocks around the kora, printed on little flaps of fabric on my host family's front door, and sung in songs that shopkeepers play on the streets.

I learned "tashi delek" as a greeting, much like the way we use "hello." What I learned in McLeod is that tashi delek was not a normal greeting in Tibet. It was reserved for the special holiday Losar, Tibetan new year, and it was not used at any other time. (Think about it--do we ever say "happy new year" to people except on the days directly surrounding January 1?) It literally means something along the lines of "best wishes." The usage of the term as a casual greeting, however, is unique to the exiled Tibetan community.

Oh, the cow. Cows are not sacred to Tibetans--only Indians--but because the Tibetans are living in India, they are respectful of the animal. This cow is hanging out in the middle of the kora because he can, not because it's really a legitimate place for a cow to be. They have carte blanche in the town. They wander around and eat whatever they can find all day long. Beef is, of course, illegal, but I heard that there's a black market in Delhi. Apparently it wasn't so hard to come by in McLeod, either.

This woman is putting a khalag, a white silk scarf, around the neck of a member of the wedding party. This is the wedding ceremony itself--the bride and groom and family sat on a couch and every wedding guest came to place scarves around their necks. The hostess also tied scarves around our necks when we left the wedding. When a family member leaves for or returns from a long trip, the family will give a white scarf. When I left my host family, we all exchanged khalags. (I think that picture will be in part 2)

A pangden, the striped colorful apron. This is my Julia friend in her beautiful chupa and pangden. I don't have one because the Tibetans in exile only wear a pangden when they are married. It's much harder to miss than a wedding ring. This is another cultural symbol unique to the exile community--a pangden in Tibet simply means that a girl has come of age (which is why the unmarried Miss Tibet contestants all wore them). In India, however, the symbol has changed.

This woman is spinning a giant prayer wheel. They were originally created for illiterate Buddhists to be able to participate in prayer (since they couldn't read them) but they have now become entrenched in Buddhist tradition. Each wheel contains a prayer written inside of it, and a single full clockwise rotation is the equivalent of praying. Spinning the prayer wheels clockwise while walking clockwise around the kora is, for many Tibetans, a daily ritual.

Om mani padme hum, the Dalai Lama's mantra of compassion, in someone's rear window.

This Hindu monk has his hand in the gyan mudra position, one that we practiced every day at yoga and meditation. The gyan mudra position helps the mind to meditate and improve concentration. It will remove headache, insomnia, stress, and anger. The gyan mudra position will also help to reduce negative thoughts.

Prayer wheel instructions.

Butter candles. These ones at the Dalai Lama's temple are always lit, but the one in our house was only lit during the most auspicious month of the year, specifically June. They are an aid to meditation and offer light to the world. The idea of an everlasting flame as a tribute to His Holiness exists in a single enclosed lamp in the middle of the kora.

This is the endless knot, one of the eight auspicious symbols that are very popular in Tibetan design. This one is the most popular though, showing up in architecture and artwork all over the town.

This is om, the symbol of the universe, in Hindi script. It is the mystical force that runs everything (an idea which I name God) and exists as the same word in both Tibetan and Hindi. This particular symbol was painted by my yoga teacher on the wall of his studio when he was bored one summer. We spent a lot of time chanting "om" over and over, chanting cleaning mantras with the word "om," and saying "om, shanti shanti shanti" at the end of every yoga class. Fun fact: did you know that T.S. Eliot's modernist poem "The Waste Land" ends with the words "shantih, shantih, shantih"? Just like the end of yoga class.

The peacock feather is significant to Indians (and many Asians) as a symbol of good fortune. My yoga teacher hung this fan on the window of his studio to invite good fortune to grace his livelihood. They also had a decorative function, adding to the ambiance of the studio.

Five of the Eight Auspicious Symbols

(Found in art all over McLeod)

The parasol dome is a symbol of wisdom and the sash below is a symbol of compassion, a central idea in Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. The parasol represents the union of wisdom and compassion.

This is the treasure vase, full of wealth and various treasures. It is associated with storage and material satisfaction as well as Buddha's spiritual plenty.

The conch (also symbolic in the Hindu faith), is for calling people together for religious purposes.

The victory banner is a symbol of Buddha's enlightenment, the end of ignorance and the beginning of knowledge. It is also a symbol of Buddha's victory over hurdles, or negative traits, the Maras.

The golden fish represent happiness since they are free as they swim about in the water. Since they swim in a pair, they also represent fertility and fidelity.

Taj Mahal

2011-10-31T03:27:00.000-06:00

I am not ashamed to admit that the Taj Mahal has been a significant part of the draw of India for me. Ever since I read and reread Kathryn Lasky's rendering of Jahanara's diary during my historical fiction kick as a child, the story of the Taj has had an irresistible pull on my imagination. Happily, it did not disappoint.

Once inside the temple compound, we face an imposing red entry gate.

A young, college-educated Indian man eagerly pounced on us, promising that his tour guide services were perfectly free and immensely useful. We reluctantly agreed, and we were fortunate in that he never did insist on payment. He regaled us with tidbits about the symmetry of the building,

the best places to take photos of each other,

the paradise of gardens that fill the compound despite the merciless Indian weather,

the four minarets,

the matching guest house and mosque on either side of the tomb,

the white marble, jasper, jade, crystal, turquoise, lapis lazuli, sapphire, and carnelian stones that make up the interior design,

the carefully carved marble flower inlay, always perfectly symmetrical,

the herringbone visual tricks on the exterior,

the quiet beauties of the guest house next door,

more photo opportunities from within the guest house,

the trick that allowed us to photograph the Taj reflected in our sunglasses,

the leafy green retreat back to the gate,

and the elaborate archways that enclose the compound.

I snagged an almost-straight shot of the Taj when I had a moment in front of it by myself

and consented to a photo of myself as well.

The Taj Mahal is not only the most exquisitely beautiful building I have ever seen, but it also functions as a museum for the glories of the Mughal empire. The Mughals were Muslim rulers of much of what is now modern India, and their religion shows in the Koran calligraphy engraved on the exterior of the buildings in the compound. The powerful Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal in memory of Mumtaz Mahal, his wife and the mother of my friend Jahanara. He was so heartbroken at her death that he built this for her tomb. Now the building is swarmed with tourists (it is a significant source of income for the Indian government, so much so that they went to great lengths to protect it from bombs during WWII) but I imagined Shah Jahan standing there by the reflecting pool, entirely alone, mourning for his beloved wife.

Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal weren't buried in the upper room where tourists are allowed but down beneath it. Her cenotaph is exactly in the center, the core of all the symmetry in the entire design, centered on the line that runs throughout the compound architecture.

Today, the Taj Mahal functions as a draw for tourists. We encountered everything from camels pulling carts of people to little boys following you, trying to sell overpriced trinkets. Our tour guide was a Hindu man who clearly could not be bothered with the Muslim faith (or with the flocks of tourists for that matter), but he understands the source of revenue that is the Taj and he made it work for him. Like so many things worth seeing, the Taj is not the easiest to see, but as we realized, walking through the dark inner chamber of Mumtaz's cenotaph, it was worth all the trouble.

A Chinese Feast

2011-10-24T02:32:00.002-06:00

I got home from a long day of research one evening just in time for Trisong to get a phone call from his friend. Tam Kho was preparing dinner, and it was nearly time to eat. When Trisong hung up, he said,

"Do you want to have dinner with my friends?"

I said, "Well, yes of course!"

And so Tam Kho turned off the stove and put the lid on what was now to be tomorrow's dinner. We put on our shoes and headed across town to a tiny Chinese restaurant near His Holiness's temple. There were about 30 people there, but we couldn't even eat all the food. Every person but me was Tibetan, and we were all eating Chinese food.

Here's the thing: Panda Express is not what Chinese food tastes like. Nothing was sweet and everything was hot. I got a bit nervous when I noticed that everyone was using chopsticks, but when my bowl of rice came there was a spoon instead, and Tam Kho was kind enough to use a spoon, too.

I tried seven different dishes on top of my rice--all the plates I could reach--and they were quite good! The first I tried was Tam Kho's favorite: chicken fried in chili and spices accompanied by chunks of green bell pepper (which here, apparently, is capsicum). The chicken had huge bones in it, so I had the usual problems eating the meat without choking on bone. At home we usually have a discard plate but there wasn't one here, so I made a little pile of bones on the tablecloth like Tam Kho did.

Then I tried the pork dish, large chunks in a dark sauce cooked with cabbage, but unfortunately my pork was actually a slice of fat. Ah well. Third were small pieces of mutton in a light-colored sauce with thin white noodles. I used to think noodles on rice or bread was strange but now it is normal. That dish was quite good, though somewhat bland.

At some point I snagged a piece of mutton from a different dish before the woman across from me finished it off, and I could tell why it was gone so quickly! It was more tender than mutton usually is and it had just enough spice to be interesting but not overbearing. Next were thin slices of potato interspersed with long red chilies that reminded me of painful moments at Thai restaurants at home. The potatoes were surprisingly hot.

Then I tried another dish with thin slices of mutton and thinner slices of green bell pepper. That one I really liked because the peppers were fresh and the mutton bits were very small. Also, that one didn't have any sauce.

By this time I was almost out of rice but I had one more to try, chicken in a thick brown sauce that might have inspired Panda's sweet and sour chicken (though it was neither sweet nor sour). The sauce was savory and spicy like everything else, and I was pleased to find a few boneless pieces of chicken.

The available beverages were: mountain dew (the most popular), coke, sprite, fanta, pepsi, and bottled water. Turns out that the restaurant owner had set out this feast for his friends because his visa had just been approved so he could go see his wife who is living in Belgium. What a kind, generous man! And he makes great Chinese food. It was interesting, though, to eat Chinese food with a group of Tibetans. They all enjoyed it a lot, so it seems like that the animosity doesn't extend to a culinary boycott.

Me and Norbu

2011-10-20T11:52:00.001-06:00

Learner-Owned: Digital Civilization

2011-10-15T02:08:00.003-06:00

What is self-directed learning?

I enrolled in Dr. Burton and Dr. Zappala's Digital Civilization course because I knew the course work was self-directed. It means that you get to shape your education to your own interests, major, and goals. I enrolled in the class as part of my preparation for my field study to a Tibetan community in India, intending to read and blog about Tibetans as I learned history and technology in the class. My first post, Tibetans and More, connected the ideas of Thomas More's Utopia with the exiled Tibetans' relationship to their homeland, and my addendum mused about the Utopian ideas of classroom technology--iClickers, Blackboard, and websites. Later on, I took a poll of a few classmates to discern their digital literacy and put together a working definition for my research.

For part of our course requirements, we were supposed to become familiar with new technologies and try using them. I started using Skype and ended up chatting, just through text, with Norbu Jinpa, an administrator in the school where I was hoping to conduct my honors thesis research, and with an exiled Tibetan blogger. I posted these conversations on my blog where they generated more conversations with classmates and other peers.

One of the most useful posts was my research grant application draft. I simply posted the entire text online and asked for feedback from anyone and everyone. Several people responded with thoughtful suggestions, including one woman whom I'd never met, and I ended up with a good proposal that received funding.

Self-directed learning is all about making education applicable to your own life. In one post I wrote, entitled Common Sense, I discussed the concept of modernism along with Einstein's theory of relativity, which I'd found interesting in my physical science class, and finally tied those ideas to digital culture and Tibetans in India. Sometimes I could not think of a way to connect the ideas, but I usually found some interesting relationship that helped me further understand Tibetans and prepare for three months of interaction with them.

The structure of our final exam, which was actually a project, was a beautiful example of self-directed learning. We began by proposing ideas for projects, things that reflected our own interests and the things we had learned in the course. I proposed an exploration of exiled Tibetan digital literacy, since that was related to the course material and to my honors thesis research plans. A few of my classmates were kind enough to join me, and we became the Digital Literacy Without Borders group. In the end, we interviewed Norbu over Skype and created a five-minute video of our interview highlights to show at our Digital Revolution final event.

About four months after this class was over, I departed the U.S. for McLeod Ganj, India, where I lived with a Tibetan family for three months. I conducted my honors thesis research, studying Tibetan digital literacy and the impact of internet on Tibetan culture, at the TCV where I'd originally hoped to go. I was so prepared for my field research by that point that I entered the school on the second day, acquired the letter that gave me permission to conduct research on the premises, and dove right in to translating my consent forms. I met Norbu, my Skype friend, and added many more Tibetans to my Facebook friends list. I lived some of the most memorable moments of my life in McLeod Ganj and returned to Utah with more than eight classes of completed surveys and ten interviews--I had a new appreciation for diversity, be it religious, socioeconomic, or racial. I met some of the most wonderful people I have ever known, and I became more like the person I've always wanted to be.

I think this paragraph from my final Digital Civilization post sums up self-directed learning quite well:

India will be a hugely significant part of my education. Not only will it consume two years of my life (what with preparation, field research, and writing and defending my honors thesis) but I can feel it changing my education right now. Instead of trying to find some book someone wrote twenty years ago about Tibetans, I have access to real time information from a real life Tibetan in India. My research is suddenly relevant to the world right now and to my own varied interests (I like lots of things-- science, psychology, technology, cool books, learning new ideas, French, religion, school in general, literature, Harold, digital literacy, integrating secular and spiritual knowledge, my family, teaching, digital tools, my past, friends, history, cool people, cool people who think I'm cool, helping people, etc.) I feel like my education is coming full circle (not to mention my life!) Suddenly, things that I like can be part of my schoolwork (for example, I LOVE that I can have music on my blog! Check out my new widget on the right had sidebar at the bottom!)

Ah, life.

And that is the value of a self-directed, learner-owned education. You can make your life into whatever you want it to be.

Photo credit Bill Gracey

Yog

2011-10-08T14:51:00.001-06:00

"Today, I did a whole lot of meditation and yoga."

This is how I began my 23 July entry in my personal journal, but it could have begun most of my entries in McLeod. We--that is, Rachel, Megan, Elizabeth, and me--decided to take an intensive training course and become certified yoga instructors. It wasn't just yoga, though--no, we are also certified in pranayam, or breathing exercises, and several types of meditation.

At first, it was hard to keep a straight face. Om has a rather eccentric way of speaking English, and some of the postures are quite amusing.

As the class went on, though, it became more and more apparent to me that much of yoga and meditation is wrapped up in Hindu worship. We began and ended each class with a "silent prayer for God," which was just fine for my Christian beliefs, and then Om would sing a Sanskrit mantra. We did a bit of reiki, natural Indian healing, sometimes, which consisted of holding our hands over our eyes to self-heal. (Mahinder, our massage teacher, would also do a bit of reiki, believing that our bodies have natural energy to heal ourselves and others.)

Pranayam, the breathing exercises, had different purposes. One of them, in which you breathe in through one nostril and out the other, is supposed to cleanse the room you're in to allow good energy to prevail. Others, the ones my host family would do in the morning, were supposed to strengthen abdominal muscles. We'd usually just do one pranayam after our prayer and then get into the asanas.

The asanas, the postures, are what I used to think was all of yoga. They have different purposes--balance, strength, and flexibility are a few. One posture, the palm tree, is supposed to make you taller (and, incidentally, I am now 5'2.5", whereas the last time I measured I was 5'2". That means it works!). Two postures are considered the master postures: the lotus and the headstand. The lotus is the one where your feet are up on top of your thighs while you're sitting cross-legged. That one isn't so hard for me. The headstand is the master of all postures, and I cannot do it without a wall spot. (My strength is definitely in flexibility, thanks to gymnastics and dance, and not in strength or balance.)

We had meditation every evening. Meditation has a lot to do with the Hindu religious tradition. First we did silent meditation--just sitting there, cross-legged or in the lotus position, eyes closed, for an hour. We were supposed to focus on our ajna chakra, our third eye, right between the other two eyes, but I would sometimes get distracted by counting the number of times the hare krishna mantra was repeated in the music we were listening to (it was about 200 repetitions in 50 minutes).

Another meditation we did was cleansing mantras, in which we cleansed our muladhara, swadhisthana, manipura, anahata, vishuddha, and ajna chakras (when you cleanse all the other six, the seventh, sahasrara, is cleansed). Another meditation was om meditation, in which we said om over and over for an hour. Meditation was not my favorite, considering how much my back and legs hurt after sitting in the half-lotus position for so long.

When I taught yoga, I had students from Israel, Russia, the U.S., Germany, and elsewhere. Yoga is popular among the various hippie types of Europe and the U.S., and McLeod is a meeting place for yoga enthusiasts. On the whole, the experience was a manifestation of the diversity of McLeod, a diversity that depends on the many tourists who pass through.

People Watching

2011-09-22T01:16:00.000-06:00

August 8
I am sitting in the Chicago O'Hare airport, domestic terminal, just past security on a cushioned chair (a chair with a back, mind you) beneath the massive departure screens. I am between my fifteen-hour flight from India and my three-hour flight to Salt Lake. I'll be here for another seven hours, though, so I don't know which gate to go to yet. In the meantime, I'm people watching.

The long flight was 98% Indians, which was surprising to me considering the many vehement complaints I've heard about obtaining an American visa. Unlike my flight to Delhi, though, this proportion didn't make me feel slightly uneasy at being so obviously a minority. After going through customs, I took a train to terminal three and walked back into America.

I felt an unacknowledged kinship with the few Indians I could see. One guard insisted a woman take off her bangles for the security check. He was a bit short with her as he demanded she remove the symbolic equivalent of a wedding ring. An elderly woman was helping a frail little relative to remove his jacket. A family checked their boarding pass as they searched for the proper gate. One woman walked by with a shaved head and maroon robes. Part of me wanted to call for the attention of these people; they were more familiar than the bleached-blonde tourist wearing booty shorts and carefully applied make-up. Last year that man wearing a turban and black-rimmed glasses would have been strange to me, but now all these Caucasians are strange.

There's a twelve-year-old boy with a plaid shirt and a mullet pulling his brown belt on to his khaki pants. An overweight couple hurries by, wheeling their carry-ons and sporting bright polos. Handsome young businessmen in sharp black suits. An athlete in Nikes. A girl dressed in neutral colors carrying a hot pink bag labeled "LIVE" in block letters. I suddenly remember that the young girl looking at my notebook can read English just as well as I can. A semi-Jewish college student from Massachusetts sits next to me and strikes up a conversation. He'd spent a month in Israel this summer. We talk and people watched for over an hour. He was late for his flight when he left.

I've forgotten what it's like to understand what the people around me are saying. I'd forgotten how different this place is from the other side of the globe.

There's a girl with her brown hair tied back in a ponytail wearing a striped sweater, jeans, and moccasins, lugging two enormous bags on her shoulders. There are Africans and Asians and Mexicans and indistinguishable whites. When we make eye contact we quickly look away.

But the longer I sit here, the more normal it becomes. Yes, my seat has a back and leather-covered padding--so what? Isn't that normal to dress and act as Americans at the airport do? It's not long before the woman in the elegant brown sari is less natural than the woman in the super tight jeans and wedge heels. Rachel was right; I probably won't have a lower standard for public restrooms in the U.S. after India. I will probably revert to the same standard as before.

But in some ways, I have changed. These are specific and blatant, like my views on the politics between Tibet and China and the way that I went through that new security scanner that shows an x-ray of you beneath your clothes without batting an eye, but also subtle and undefinable. I gained confidence as I came of age in India. I also gained a new understanding of life and humanity. The American way is not the only way, nor is it always the best way. This isn't the first time I've thought that, but it's the first time I've understood and believed it. Wearing a sari, squatting on the kitchen counter to make chapatti, honking instead of signaling--these are foreign, not inferior. A bucket shower saves water; walking keeps you fit and cleans the air.

The woman behind me is telling her husband that she read about people in the States who don't have cars. She is wondering how they shop for groceries and concludes that they must shop every two days and not entertain guests for dinner. "It's just a different norm than the one I've known all my life," she said.

In short, Indians and Americans are "same same, but different." We both hang out in the Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Our lives are different, but under the skin we're the same.

Birthdays

2011-09-22T00:55:00.001-06:00

August 4
Tibetans don't keep track of their birthdays. When I asked Amalah which day is her birthday, she told me June 6. I asked Gyurme when his birthday is. June 6. Then I asked Tashi which day he was born. June 6. What are the odds of that?

Actually, the reason they all have the birthday of June 6 is because they don't know which day they were born, but for official refugee documents they need a birth date. It's easier to remember one date than three, so they all chose the same day for their "birthday."

When I found out, in July, that I had missed their communal "birthday," I was determined to make it up to them. I decided to purchase dessert for each of them on three separate days. The only dessert they ever eat is fruit, since they don't like things to be too sweet. I asked them what their favorite fruit was--Amalah loves watermelon, Tashi likes litchi berries and bananas, and Gyurme's favorite is pineapple--and then I planned the celebrations. A birthday celebration day meant that I would say, in the morning, "Happy birthday, Amalah!" and she would laugh, knowing that I'd be bringing fruit for after dinner. I, having always had special accommodations on my birthdays, couldn't feel right about forgetting the birthdays of my Tibetan family members.

In her essay "St. Augustine and the Bullfight," Katherine Anne Porter argues that we should not simply live through adventures but allow them to affect and change us, to fully experience adventures. A few days after we finished our final fruit-dessert birthday celebration, I had the chance to see some change in myself. It was my penultimate night in McLeod when I came home to my very own birthday party. Since August 3 is a few weeks in advance of the date I was born, I was quite surprised by the event. We had mothuk, or momo soup, which is so delicious and so difficult to prepare that my host family eats it only once per year. It's like the turkey and stuffing that we only make on Thanksgiving. It was my special birthday dinner. The momos were mutton filled, which we've never had before. We also had the special Tibetan pastry that we eat only on holidays. And lands, let me tell you, it was delicious. I ate way more than I should have.

Dorjay, Amalah's cousin, came over to help make the mothuk and attend my advance birthday party. Then, after dinner, Gyurme gave me a tee-shirt that I'd liked and tried on in Chonor House a few weeks ago. That was so kind of him! That store is very expensive, though he probably gets a good discount because he's the manager. Anyway, it was so sweet and I said thank you and cato tashi too many times. Then Amalah pulled out her beautiful little bracelets that she braids by hand and told me to pick one. I was debating between two and she just gave me both, tying one around my ankle and one around my wrist. I was just overwhelmed. I am going to miss my sweet host family so much.

Who knew that I would come to love a Tibetan family in India?

World Religions

2011-09-01T20:54:00.000-06:00

Some of the my most extraordinary experiences abroad were the different religions I encountered. I kept track of the number of different religious services I attended--five, six, eight--and I felt blessed to meet devout people of so many faiths. In London I went to an Anglican service, the 5 p.m. Evensong by the Choir of Westminster Abbey. One Friday I ended up at a Jewish Shabbat feast, and another time I walked the kora on the most auspicious day in Tibetan Buddhism. I've been to Hindu temples, Sikh temples, the great Muslim tomb that is the Taj Mahal, and plenty of LDS services. One Sunday I even headed down to the old Anglican chapel in McLeod to a Protestant service led by an American pastoress. Here are some picture highlights from my unofficial study of world religions:

The LDS temple in London

The Buddhist temple at the TCV

A Sikh entering the Golden Temple compound

The Golden Temple

The bell at the Hindu temple

Head coverings in the Hindu temple

Pilgrims walking around the Golden Temple compound

Lord Shiva

Enjoying the free meal at the Golden Temple

Pilgrims sleeping at the temple compound

The perfect symmetry of the Taj Mahal

Church of St. John in the Wilderness, McLeod Ganj

A Hindu monk

Spinning a giant prayer wheel at the Dalai Lama's temple

View of the Taj Mahal from the guest house

From my field journal, 17 July

This morning I took a rickshaw out to the beautiful Anglican church St. John's in the Wilderness. The English service was unique and interesting. An Asian American boy played guitar and sang in a microphone for quite a few hymns. A Swiss girl named Sapporah (Zipporah?) harmonized in a second microphone and held up a half sheet of lyrics for the guitarist to reference. The rest of us stodo and followed their lead for the melody since we only had the printed lyrics to read. We didn't sing any hymn I recognized; indeed, I don't have a clue as to the origin of the hymns we sang, and a brief perusal of the lyrics revealed only two familiar songs: Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing and Rock of Ages, Cleft for Me. I guess it doesn't really matter if we were singing religious songs composed by the guitarist since all hymns were just regular songs in their beginnings.

We sang a few songs standing and then sat (glory hallelujah, I was a sick girl who was not happy standing) for morning worship. That meant a girl spoke some scriptural texts, including the Lord's prayer and the Apostle's creed of the Catholic church (Catholic? Anglican?) and we responded by reading from our program at the right time. Oh! I forgot to mention the prayers. The guitarist spoke all the prayers into the microphone, and they were beautiful. He used "you" rather than "thou" and solely expressed thanks to a generous God. After the morning worship recitation we had a talk (sermon? message?) by an elderly American woman who may or may not have been a preacher from the South.

She spoke for at least 30 minutes and I was genuinely interested the entire time. She began with a story about a boy and his twice-bought boat, a symbol of redemption, and proceeded to explain land redemption in the Israel of the Old Testament. She then expounded the book of Ruth in great detail, explaining in common language every aspect of the story, and concluded by explaining that the relationship between Ruth and Boaz is a type of the redeeming power of Christ. In becoming mortal, Christ literally becomes our kinsman. I learned a great deal and have a much deeper understanding of the story and meaning now. We did a few more hymns, the guitarist prayed, and then they served tea and biscuits outside to encourage everyone to linger. I was feeling really unwell, so I didn't stay for the next meetings, even though I wanted to because they were in Hindi.

India is the birthplace of many world religions. Buddhism, for example, began in India, though its practice among Indians has all but died. The Tibetan Buddhists in India today, though, continue to practice in Gautama's homeland. As I've mentioned before, many foreign tourists in McLeod come for religious reasons, sometimes to practice their faith and sometimes to find a new religion. The German boy I met was very interested in the Hindu faith, and that Swiss girl was solidly Christian. I was impressed by the level of religious tolerance I witnessed. Though I know people of different faiths have not always mixed well in India, the diverse people in McLeod seem to be interested in and respectful of the faiths around them without any hostility.

Happy Birthday, Your Holiness! (And Lalita!)

2011-09-01T10:05:00.001-06:00

The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was born on July 6, 1935, my yoga teacher's daughter Lalita was born July 6, 2008, and July 6, 2011 in McLeod was one big party!

In some places, the celebrations for His Holiness's birthday last three days. Here in McLeod it lasts all morning (even though His Holiness wasn't even here because he was in Washington D.C.). We headed to His Holiness's temple after yoga in the pouring rain and saw at the main entrance that we wouldn't even be able to get up the stairs and into the main courtyard because the crowd was so huge that it spilled down the steps. We pushed through anyway, refusing butter tea and accepting buttery pastries on our way, and managed to penetrate about ten feet into the crowd. Unfortunately, though we could hear the TCV students singing, the only way we could see the dancing children was on the display screens of tall people who held their cameras far above the crowd to snap pictures. For a few minutes we stood there, too uncomfortably close to the people around us to enjoy the festivities, and then decided that our time would be better spent watching the live broadcast on television. We pushed back out of the crowd and then decided that we might as well try the upper floors first. The second floor was no better than the first, but the third boasted small groups of students dressing up in their costumes and preparing to go onstage before the enormous crowd. We'd essentially found the backstage dressing room, so we settled in and took plenty of photos of the adorable little children in their bright costumes. Since we couldn't watch the dancing, we took the next best option.

They learn to play these traditional instruments in extracurricular classes at the TCV

The kids were a bit shy about being photographed and nervous to go on stage

We weren't the only ones taking pictures of these cute kids

Three young performers

Older students wearing silk patterned chupas

Ready to perform

For exiled Tibetans in India, these striped aprons have taken on new meaning--they are now a symbol of marriage

Girls in elaborate costumes with long braids

Wearing a chupa and ornamental necklace

Tuning his instrument

Fortunately, I've been at the TCV enough over the last few weeks to witness, from a comfortable, uncrowded front row seat, the rehearsals for this performance, so I've seen all of it done by mischievous, laughing kids in street clothes. It was probably more entertaining than the straight-faced show they were putting on downstairs. The dancing was indistinguishable from the performance at TIPA some time ago, so I will let that description suffice. The narration of the story was more clear, however, with a messenger heralding two royal figures who sat in chairs and were always higher than the people around them. The students seemed to enjoy dance rehearsal for the most part.

Later that night we headed to Lalita's birthday part at the yoga studio. We ate her favorite white sweets, birthday cake, samosas, bananas, and fruit juice. As a group, we bought her the most elaborate barbie doll we could find, and I think she really likes it!

Lalita clapping

Since the Tibetans believe His Holiness to be a reincarnation of the Bodhisattva of compassion, they revere him as a divine being. He has also been the face of the Tibetan cause and the head of the government in exile since he was a young boy. All Tibetans I met respect the Dalai Lama. Most of the photos in my host family's home are of the Dalai Lama and the times when Gyurme and Tashi met the Dalai Lama. His face and words are found in classrooms, computer labs, and offices around the TCV. In fact, it's more common to find a picture of the Dalai Lama in the room with you in McLeod than to not see one. Thus, his birthday is a huge celebration! And not only is it a huge celebration, but it is a manifestation of Tibetan culture. The dance, song, instruments, costumes, and performers are all thoroughly Tibetan, and the event is therefore an exercise in cultural preservation.

Makin' Momos

2011-09-01T10:04:00.001-06:00

I read (on the menu of an Amdo-French restaurant) that the best cooks in Tibet are found in Amdo. Since Amalah is from Amdo, I believe it! I've been offering to help cook and saying that I want to learn to cook Tibetan food for a while now, and little by little I'm allowed to help.

I cannot even express how much I love eating Amalah's momos. I've helped with the assembly every time--it's actually a family affair (it takes a village to make a momo) and it takes us a long time. Amalah makes the dough (flour and water) and filling (potato, onion, masala, and cilantro is my favorite) and then spreads plastic on the floor. We all gather around, sitting on cushions because sitting on the floor will give you a stomach ache. There is a bit wooden cutting board and wooden rolling pin in the middle. One person starts by pulling off small segments of dough, which the rest of us form into flattened balls and then disks. Then someone rolls out the disks into momo shells (this is my newest skill) and the rest stuff them with potatoes and fold the edges into a pretty finish. We alternate tasks in a rotating assembly line, so every person gets to do each stage until we've made about 150 of them. Then we steam them for dinner and fry them for breakfast the next day. Momos are an entire dinner!

The easiest shape is "balep," bread, the flat round double thick momo, and the second easiest is the Lhasa crescent shape, the same as potstickers from Costco. The cute round Amdo momos are tricky, but the momo soup dumplings (not shown here) win for most difficult shape.

Thenthuk is a soup full of thick, wide noodles. The noodles are flour and water kneaded for ten minutes and shaped into snakes. After the broth, chicken, and bokchoy are on the stove, we make the noodle snakes into long, flat necklaces and rip off small pieces into the pot. You would not even believe how fast Amalah is at noodle ripping! My fastest is half her speed. After those are done, we add tomatoes and cilantro and have our thentuk dinner/breakfast.

The very careful use of food, the daily purchase of fresh vegetables and daily preparation of every meal from scratch, is part of the nomadic lifestyle that Amalah left in 2003. In a nomadic society, a woman like Amalah learns how to cook when she is 15, marries a few years later, and then cooks every day. It's just part of survival. Her cooking has changed a bit in India--she uses masala and much less meat--but the pattern of her food preparation has not. Every morning she wakes up around 5:30 to make fresh balep, or bread, and every evening she makes momos, thentuk, chowmein, or rice with vegetables. She's very good at it, and I think she loves doing it, too.

Amalah ripping thentuk noodles

Why I Love Massage Class

2011-08-27T16:37:00.003-06:00

July 30
In just two words, Mahinder Kapoor.

The pleasant ring of his name alone doesn't quite express the brilliance of his class, though.

I met Mahinder at exactly the right time. I'd met Raj a few days before, the young Indian man who nearly ruined Indian men for me. I was walking up the endless Jogiwara stairs on my way to buy fruit for our post-sacrament meeting potluck when Raj tapped my shoulder. Could he please share myumbrella? I consented, thinking he just wanted shelter from the suddendownpour. As it turned out, I was wrong.

We reached the top of the stairs,and when I said I was going left he was no longer headed right. At the fruit stand,he insisted on buying the mangoes and bananas for me. I was not going toaccept, but the fruit man said the price in Hindi so I couldn’t pay. Then Rajaccompanied me on the entire fifteen minute walk down the hill. “Please, can Ihave your number? Where do you stay? Will you come to my hotel? Visit me inCalifornia? Here’s my card; call me if you ever need a ride to somewhere faraway. Please, ma’am, just one kiss? Just one? Please?” My “engagement ring”didn’t stop him from putting his arm around my shoulders, but my armful offruit and umbrella didn’t hinder me from swatting that arm away either. “No, Iam engaged,” I insisted repeatedly, “only my fiancé can kiss me.”

I blame smutty American actressesfor his beliefs about Western women, but Raj was certainly responsible for hisown behavior.

At this point, I’d been harassedby one too many Indian men, and my tolerance was waning.

It was soon afterward that I metMahinder. It was just when I was searching for a reason to appreciate Indianmen, when I was looking for my white chalk, that I realized I was a scientiston a boat in the middle of the Pacific wishing that I had some salt water. Iwas absolutely surrounded by white chalk.

Mahinder has long practiced thatart of human contact, so when he put his hand on the small of my back as thefour of us stood there discussing massage class I didn’t have any flashbacks ofRaj. With Mahinder, contact is natural and comfortable, like putting your handon your little brother’s shoulder when he’s feeling down. There was neveranything inappropriate in his demeanor or behavior, but I already knew thatwould be the case from the first time I met him.

Mahinder is eager to take hisstudents into his confidence. He began with lighthearted tales of that studentwho squeezed the oil bottle too hard and emptied the contents right into thebeard of his Israeli partner, or the time his student came back five yearslater on her honeymoon, bringing her husband to learn massage from the bestteacher. His later stories included his heartbreak over his first girlfriend,the difficulties of his arranged marriage, his enormous affection for hisdaughter, and the long, miserable hardship of radiation treatments for hisgenetic skin fungus.

Mahinder never concealed hisaffection for his, his first group of entirely American students, either,always telling us how he loves us even when our skin is pale or dry. “Tell yourmother that you’re beautiful,” he said to me several times. Other times, whenhe was sad that we’d soon be leaving, he said, “I will always be with you, andyou will be with me. It doesn’t matter if we write or don’t write because weare friends.”

And every day of massage class,you’d find Megan, Elizabeth, Rachel and I dipping steadily increasingquantities of chocolate biscuits into Mahinder’s homemade herbal tea.

We couldn’t have known when wesigned up, but Mahinder's massage class was exactly the white chalk we needed to concludeour time in India.

Lessons Learned

2011-07-27T07:02:00.002-06:00

27 July
He's never been to the US, but that's Abraham Lincoln's face on the five dollar bill in his breast pocket. He pulled it out to teach me about cultural values.

"Lincoln, he is not alive. But you put his face on your money because you value him. And you, all you Americans, trust each other and trust that value. It's the same in India, but we have Mahatma Gandhi on our money."

It was something I'd never thought of before. "But it's not Lincoln or Gandhi who gives this the value of five dollars or one hundred rupees," he continued, "it's my trust, your trust, the government's trust. People around the world trust the value of five dollars. That's not because of Abraham Lincoln."

I am not entirely sure how this is related to the preservation of Tibetan cultural values that we'd been discussing before, but the director's next lesson was not lost on me.

"So you are a student here?"

"Yes."

"And you live with a Tibetan family?"

"Yes."

"That is good. You cannot get a 100% education from textbooks. If you only read books, your education is not complete."

I nodded and thought of Goethe's Faust. This fatherly man was determined to teach me, like so many of my Tibetan friends.

**************************************************

"I will tell you the great Tibetan secret," said my host uncle Gyurme. I knew what was coming, and I didn't have the heart to tell him that I've known the secret for months.

"My brother and me, we share a wife. We all love each other."

I nodded and kept silent. Gyurme doesn't like to be interrupted.

"In Tibetan we say dhoba." (This word has two definitions, one being lust and the other wishing or desiring.) "In Tibet it is traditional, but in India it is because of dhoba. I think this is the same reason that gays and lesbians are can marry in your country."

I was speechless.

*************************************************

The head administrator of the TCV schools looked at me with his piercing gaze. "Every student should come to Asia," he said, "after they graduate. Then they can see what real life is."

Is it just Asia, though? After reading Tessa Santiago's essay "Brother Wiseman" twice, and crying both times, I've thought that post-apartheid South Africa must be as rich an experience as McLeod. This summer I have dear friends living in Cambodia, China, Korea, France, and Austria, and we're each having frustrations, adventures, and unforgettable learning moments. Sometimes I read Elisabeth's Paris blog and wonder, "why am I not in France?"

And then I remember the things I learn in India, and not just in my intensive yoga class and glorious massage class. I remember the evening that Amalah and I stood in her tiny kitchen making noodles for the thentuk. We were discussing marriage in Tibetan nomad communities.

"I married eighteen," said Amalah in broken English.

"Oh, so young!" I said.

She laughed. "Nomad married sixteen, eighteen, yeah nineteen," she explained. "Yes, very young."

"So if I were a nomad, I would be married by now, because I am nineteen."

"No," she said, perhaps misunderstanding me. "In America, you go to school. You no marry young."

And Amalah, my sweet host mom who is just ten years my senior and a few inches shorter than my 5'2" stature, looked at me with an expression that communicated far more than she could say in English. Maybe she would not have chosen this life for herself. Maybe she did not want to flee to India in 2003, to juggle two brother-husbands, to spend her life in the kitchen making bread and soup and rice and momos three times a day and washing the dishes afterward. Maybe she would have liked to go to school and travel and live independently like I do. Maybe not, but maybe.

And just like that, my heart nearly burst as it filled with affection for Amalah and a new understanding for the extraordinary privileges that have long been a normal part of my life.

The director was right. This is not something I can learn from a textbook, or even something I could have learned by staying in Utah. Sometimes we must live and learn, or perhaps live to learn.

Walking in the Rain

2011-07-27T06:25:00.002-06:00

23 July

One day I was walking up Jogiwara and I saw an elephant. Who knew that they hang out in the Himalayas? This one probably wan't here if his own accord, though, since he was being dragged around by a bunch of Hindu holy men who wanted 100 rupees from me because I touched the trunk of their trophy. Heaven only knows how much they would have demanded if I had actually climbed aboard the elephant as he stood in the traffic-laden main square, car horns blaring at the crowd around him. As much as I wanted to find out, though, I never got to ride the elephant. My opportunity was spoiled by the rain.

As Khushwant Singh says in his novel Train to Pakistan, monsoon is not another word for rain; monsoon is a season. Monsoon means that every morning, I slide my feet into wet sandals that haven't been dry since the hot roads of Amritsar. It means that I no longer forget my umbrella at restaurants. It means that we haven't seen the sun for days, and it means that I gave in to the 70 rupee rickshaw ride to the TCV.

It's really easy to be irritated at the torrential rain. Once I was walking back from the TCV when the clouds broke. I hadn't rolled up my pants in time, so the linen was soon sopping wet. As I plodded along, I regretted refusing the rickshaw driver and motorcyclist who had offered me rides. On the deserted mountain road there was no shelter, so by the time I trekked the five kilometers I was soaked from the elbows down. In my mind I was reviewing all the things in my flimsy backpack, which I had clutched to my chest, that would lose the battle with the water. A cell phone, a digital voice recorder and its record of my interviews, and the irreplaceable notebooks that represented weeks of school work were what I stood to lose. Oh, please oh please don't make me analyze Kim again . . . .

After I read G.K. Chesterton's "On Running After One's Hat," though, I decided to change my attitude about the monsoon. No longer was my umbrella an additional, obnoxious appendage. No, now it is my cane, and I am a stately gentlewoman riding in my coach that is really a rickshaw. And now my umbrella is a spear with which I must save myself from yet another furious barking dog. And, right after, it's a cane again, and I'm an old woman who takes a very long time to climb the stairs.

I was walking home from meditation in the heaviest rain of the monsoon so far. The wind actually blew my umbrella inside out, exposing my head and precious backpack to the furious downpour, but I just laughed because I am a character in Mary Poppins, and that's part of the territory. The road was a brown river, but that's as it should be, because I'm a pirate jumping from rock to rock to avoid the crocodiles. I want to take a picture, but my camera battery died, which is just as well because I'm Rachel's avatar Shelley, and I'm just experiencing this moment instead of trying to capture it. When I finally reached a shelter, halfway home, I leaned on my umbrella cane and laughed as fat droplets fell on my head after they slid down the underside of the pavilion. Because I'm a girl in the Indian monsoon, and that's half the fun.

Photo credit lokenrc

Fruit!

2011-07-25T04:50:00.000-06:00

Elizabeth, Bonnie and I had a fruit feast! Sadly, I can't add the photos yet, but I will describe the experience in such luscious detail that you won't even need a picture.

First, the bargaining. This did not go well. We thought we might get a discount for buying so much fruit, but turns out that it's actually more expensive to buy fruit in large quantities . . . or something. In any case, most of the fruit and vegetable vendors have small scales and weigh the produce to determine the price, so it's also possible that we paid fair price. Grand total: 110 rupees. Breakdown: 40 for three mangoes (one of each of the types you find in McLeod), 45 for a bunch of litchi berries, and 25 for a papaya. He wouldn't take a rupee less.

Then we headed down to the kora to eat our fruit. We got many strange looks for making such a mess with so much fruit, but the only lasting damage was a lot of fruit juice dripped on the cement, and that didn't hurt anyone.

The small green mango: medium sweetness, stringy, pleasant size. The baby size, green mangoes are aesthetically pleasing with their golden yellow interior and lime green exterior. It's the perfect size to get a mango rush without being overwhelming.

The football mango: firm, least sweet, most beautiful. These mangoes are my favorite because of their dual-toned exterior--crimson and green. They are the least messy and the least sweet, but their smooth texture is irresistible. Also, it's fun to say football mango.

The yellow mango: all juice, very messy, very sweet. The yellow mango was responsible for most of the juice splattered everywhere. I think it's almost too sweet, though if you're in it for the sugar this is your best friend. Impossible to eat without making a mess on your face.

The papaya: sad day! The papaya was not at all ripe. None of us knew how to tell if a papaya is ripe or not, but perhaps its firmness and greenness should have been the telling factors. The fruit man assured us that it was perfectly ripe. Actually, its seeds weren't even developed and it tasted like a papaya-flavored watermelon rind. We fed it to a cow on the kora who was really pleased to eat it.

The litchi berries: these little guys have a sweet, tangy flavor. Their skin looks like a dragon hide and they hide an enormous seed under their milky white, semi-transparent flesh, but don't be frightened--they are a really delightful treat. Just be careful if you are holding them when you come across a pack of monkeys because they will attack you to get the berries!

In Tibetan culture, fruit is dessert. A few nights per month, Amalah will bring some fruit home--cantaloupe, watermelon, litchi berries, football mangoes, and once some sour little crabapples--cut it into slices and place it in a dish in the middle of the table. I really don't know how my host family manages to eat without spilling juice everywhere because I always make a mess on dessert nights. The natural sweetness of fruit is the only dessert that my host family likes, though sometimes they'll take t-i-n-y portions of chocolate just to try it. (They were shocked the first time they offered me a chocolate and I popped a whole one into my mouth instead of breaking off 1/20th.) For a while Elizabeth's host family would offer her a banana after dinner every night. She was really confused until she realized that it was dessert. The only time I've had bananas at home was when I was sick and Gyurme bought them to help my stomach.

Since I missed my host family's birthdays (apparently all three of them were born on June 4) I am buying them each their favorite fruit as a late birthday present. Yesterday I brought home a pineapple for Gyurme, but sadly it was not quite ripe (despite the fruit man assuring me that it was) and had a few rotten spots.

In Indian culture fruit is not dessert, but it is the pride of the country. I learned from a billboard in the airport that 50% of the world's mangoes are produced in India. There are plenty of brands of mango juice available here, none of which I particularly like because they add sugar to mango juice (isn't it sweet enough already?!).

A few more notes on fruit here: there are a lot of bees on the fruit at the stand. That used to make me not buy fruit, but now I don't so much care. They have pomegranates and apples, but they are extremely expensive. An apple is 80 rupees and a pomegranate was more, though I can't recall the exact price. I've seen little yellow-green spheres that might be lemons or perhaps limes. They look like lemons disguised as limes. Other available fruits: apricots, plums, and pears.

Shopping for a Salwar Kameez

2011-07-22T07:57:00.000-06:00

20 July
In an open field near a gravel pit there is a dirt mound. The view of the gravel pit is dark and hopeless, "what nothing really is." If you take a few steps on a "tract of unlit sand," though, you come to the dirt mound with its "weed-covered slope." From there you can see everything--mountains, city lights, and the moon. In the gravel pit you'll hear the soundless vacuum of emptiness and feel the colorless loneliness of nothing. On the dirt mound you'll hear the breeze and feel the reverberation of the silent voices of the night. Clearly, the mound is the place to be, but the gravel pit is not to be resisted.

Dr. Burton's text works as a metaphor for my mind--the gravel pit of depression and the dirt mound of joyful relief. The tract of sand has its place, too, as neither one nor the other. For my mother's sake I'll not that, like the narrator, I do not jump into the pit but merely look in. I should also note that gravel, sand, and dirt are all natural states of rock in the same way that these mental states are normal parts of my life.

Just before we left for Amritsar a group of us went shopping for salwar kameezes. The excursion began happily, as I'd just spoken to my adorable family on Skype, and swiftly went downhill from there. We discovered that the time needed to tailor the clothes meant that we would not have them in time to wear in Amritsar, which was the only reason I was buying one. I therefore requested to see the ready-made options, none of which I liked at all. I was unfortunately in the company of an aggressively opinionated Indian woman named Ragni who insisted that this one looked great with my face and I ought to buy it. I consented to appease her, and then looked around at the other fabrics.

"I like that one," I said, and the employee pulled down a peach colored cloth embroidered in a dull brassy thread.

"It's the same as someone else I know," said Ragni dismissively, not impressed with my choice. The employee pulled out a few more clothes. I picked one up.

"No," said Ragni, "You already have a shirt that color. Every time you buy clothes you should buy a new color." She held up the other fabric. "This one is good." I liked the green but hated the purple in the pants and scarf. "It will look good on you and it's a very pretty fabric. You should get this one tailor made." We'd been there a long time, I had a headache and it was threatening rain. I didn't resist Ragni and consented again. I hadn't even planned to buy two.

Then another half hour of Ragni's errands and we came back to McLeod.

"Please, Ragni, can we buy you lunch?" asked Megan. "You can choose the restaurant. We're just so grateful that you took us shopping." And that's how I ended up sitting in a pricey Indian restaurant in the late afternoon with an ugly brown salwar kameez, wondering how I could have forgotten to pack my ibuprofen and what I'd tell that guy who I had promised to meet this afternoon and how I could be so far behind on my project anyway, dreading seeing that gaudy purple salwar kameez when we returned from Amritsar. I spent some time looking at the gravel pit that day.

After a few more cycles at the pit, the sand tract, and the dirt mound, though, I headed down to Ragni's apartment where the tailor had delivered our finished clothes. I had long since recovered from the shopping trip, but I was not excited to see that awful purple again.

Maybe it was my very low expectations, or maybe the purple had never been that bad, but I didn't hate the pants when I saw them. It's different to see finished clothes rather than a few yards of fabric, and besides I was very encouraged that this salwar kameez was the same size as I am. The ugly brown one I'd worn in Amritsar was at least four sizes too big.

"Try it on here," said Ragni. "If it doesn't fit we can send it back to the tailor. I obliged, and by the time I pulled the blouse over my head I'd forgotten all my loathing for the purple. It actually looked quite nice, and it definitely looks Indian.

"Oh," said Ragni, "it looks beautiful! Good fit. Nice colors. The silver on the edge looks so good. It looks very good on you."

I smiled a lot. "Thank you so much! I really like it, too."

The rain was coming down mercilessly, unaware that I didn't really want to get my new salwar kameez wet, but as I hurried home for dinner I was singing the West Side Story song "I Feel Pretty" to myself. It didn't even matter that I am not currently loved by a "pretty wonderful boy" like Maria was. Who needs boys when you have a pretty salwar kameez?

I think life is like that, not just me. Sometimes you're at the gravel pit and other times on the dirt mound. Plenty of times you're just in between on the tract of sand. It's a point on which I differ from Buddhist philosophy--I would rather have the hard times, the opposition, and the great times than avoid both on the middle way.

Highlights from an Interview

2011-07-18T23:21:00.000-06:00

"Students hardly get the chance to hook up in the internet, so whenever they get the chance they always try to go for some entertainments . . . social networking, email, chatting, visiting each others hi5 profile or facebook profile, and most of the time they use it for sending messages and pictures and emails."

"This year we are trying to make the internet really common for the students . . . [but] we're trying to block all these social networking sites. We are trying to encourage them to use the internet for distance learning."

"There are so many good things about Tibetan culture and so many backward things. Culture itself has to be improved; it has to be changed. Good things should be maintained and bad things should be abolished."

"There is a problem, that's true, but that's not because of the internet. I think the problem is the one who uses the internet."

Precious Pills and Parasites

2011-07-18T07:28:00.002-06:00

16 July
Have you ever wondered how folk wisdom comes about?

My guess is that it is not unlike the way Thalia's neighbors in Donald Marshall's "The Week-end" generated their own version of her getaway: a grief-driven trip to escape the home where her mother died. The neighbors are wrong about Thalia, but that possibility never occurs to them. Perhaps, later, the story will become an old wives tale--"I once knew a woman who was so crazed with grief at her mother's death that she locked up her house, leaving her pets in there to starve, and ran away to California with the postman. That's what grief will do to you." Two parts truth, eight parts fabrication.

A friend of mine learned from the folk wisdom of Ukraine that sitting directly on the floor will cause barrenness because it will freeze your eggs. Tibetans believe that sitting directly on the floor will cause a stomachache, and that is why Amalah always hurries over with a cushion if I sit on the floor to read. Bits of folk wisdom are the quirks about foreign cultures that usually make me laugh. It stopped laughing, though, when it became necessary to trust my health to folk medicine.

Julia was the first in our group to get sick. She ended up at the traditional Tibetan hospital and acquired some "precious pills," along with perhaps 20 other pills of still unknown function. A precious pill is a tablet that has been blessed by His Holiness the Dalai Lama and can only be taken on auspicious days. Fortunately, Julia had fallen ill on an auspicious day, so her host mom helped her dissolve the pill in boiled water, which she was then supposed to drink. If you were a child like me and chewed on a pill that you didn't know you were supposed to swallow whole, then you know what Julia tasted not only as she drank the water but as she tried to forget about drinking it for the next several hours. It didn't do much for her already-ill stomach.

Fortunately, we've had only minor illnesses so far.

In fact, up until the trip to Amritsar I needed only one antibiotic and a couple ibuprofen.

We realized in Amritsar that Elizabeth probably had a parasite. When Bonnie and I fell ill the day we returned to McLeod, with Elizabeth's same symptoms, it didn't seem like too much of a stretch to conclude that we'd shared more than a hotel room in Amritsar. We piled into a taxi to lower Dharamsala to visit an Indian clinic.

I sat on his little square stool. "Stomach?" he asked. I nodded and described my symptoms briefly. He felt my pulse on my wrist. Then, without further ado, he explained that I had "eaten something that I shouldn't have eaten" and gave me two small packs of pills. They may or may not have helped; I think the smaller ones at least settled my stomach.

Now it's been five days and I think I'm almost recovered, which means that it most likely was not a parasite. The most memorable moment, however, from those days when I felt too lightheaded to stand, was the moment I woke up on the second day. Gyurme greeted me with, "Ah, Kurstill, how is today?" I explained that I was still sick. He understood, but he wanted me to get up anyway.

"Many sleeping is not good."

"What?" I asked.

"It is not good to sleep so much when you are sick."

"Why?"

"In Tibetan experience, we have learned that sleep is not good for you when you are sick."

Ah, that's right. Elizabeth's host mom also refuses to let her sleep when she's sick. Folk wisdom. Well, there wasn't a lot I could do while I tried my best to avoid standing up, so I read until Gyurme went to work and Amalah to English class. Then I slept.

I don't know of a time in India when I was quite so keen on returning to America as the time when folk wisdom got the best of me.

Is This My Life Right Now?

2011-07-18T07:13:00.005-06:00

13 July
It was some godforsaken hour of the morning when we arrived at our hotel in Delhi. The taxi, annoyed that we'd pre-payed inside the airport, had gone off the instant we evacuated his vehicle, leaving us to wonder if that mangy stray dog was chewing on a real animal or a stuffed one as we made our way to the hotel's glass door. There were people and dogs sleeping on the streets, and through the glass we could see the hotel employees sleeping on the couches in the lobby. Rachel knocked and woke one of them, and he ambled unhappily to the door.

"I made a reservation here," said Rachel. She handed him a card.

The man was tired and didn't care. He was ready to turn around and lay back down on the couch. A group of men, spotting us standing there vulnerably, surrounded by our luggage, swarmed with offers of alternative "very nice" hotels "not far" from here. I pretended that I could not speak English. Then I heard Rachel say, "excuse me--no--I have a reservation!" and I turned to see the door shut and watch that employee go back to bed, leaving us completely stranded on the street in Delhi at 2:30 a.m., with only the dog, its meal, and the group of hotel-men for company.

It was this moment when Julia thought, "is this my life right now?"

The phrase became representative of our summer in India. When the train to Amritsar pulled up to the station in Pathankot, so full of Indians that they were spilling out the doors, looking like pictures I've seen of Jews on their way to concentration camps, Julia said aloud, "is this my life right now?" Nevertheless, we boarded the train ten minutes later. We were fortunate; that same day, a train identical to ours crashed fatally elsewhere in India.

A few days later we decided to see how many people we could fit in a rickshaw. Turns out that the large Amritsar auto rickshaws could fit all seven of us without any problem. The catch was that three of us--Elizabeth, Bonnie, and myself--had to ride in the back seat facing oncoming traffic. Bonnie and I, on the sides, were reasonably secure, but Elizabeth did not have the walls of the vehicle to prevent her from falling out during a quick stop (like the two occasions when our driver ran into other vehicles). I held the latch of the little half door with an iron grip and linked my other arm through Elizabeth's while Julia wrapped a scarf around her waist in a makeshift seatbelt. Elizabeth was too tall to keep her head inside the little car, though, so she stuck it outside, grinning hugely at the motorcyclists as they drove by. Once I heard her shout delightedly, "is this my life right now?"

Until you've been here, you don't know the half of it.

I remember skimming parts of my brother's letters when he spent two years in Madrid simply because I had no frame of reference for stories about living abroad. Last summer, I would have found Patrick French's Tibet, Tibet boring, but now in the light of the Wanderlust I find it fascinating. My brother began his first email to me in India with the greeting "welcome to the world!" I guess that giving in to the Wanderlust and living its lows, in a train station in Pathankot, and its highs, on a rickshaw in Amritsar, is an initiation of sorts.

And sometimes, the experience is neither a high nor a low, but profound all the same. Some of these times are when "the Wanderlust has taught me . . . it has whispered to my heart/ Things all you stay-at-homes will never know." This happened one night in the city of Amritsar when the time was nearing midnight.

I was wrapped, literally, in a royal blue sari edged in gold flowers and small blue beads. At the Golden Temple, Harmandir Sahib, the holiest location on Earth for those of the Sikh faith, visitors are required to cover their heads and remove their shoes. Periodically I rearranged myself--pull up the skirt, pull down the head cover, try to cover your midriff--as we took tiny steps into the communal kitchen within the temple compound. Those Indian women make walking in a sari look so easy; "it's like I'm wrapped in my bedsheets," Rachel murmured to me.

At long last we arrived and sat on one of the long straw mats on the floor. A glance around confirmed that sitting cross-legged was the norm, but a futile attempt proved that Indian style was another motion not permitted by the sari.

We placed our silver plates, spoons, and bowls on the floor in front of us as the man carrying chapatti came by and gave us each two. Next came a boy with a bucket of daal. He ladled it expertly into one of the plate's compartments. A second compartment received a milky, sweet liquid, and the bowl was filled with water.

And as we sat there, dipping chapatti in daal and gazing around at row upon row of pilgrims enjoying this free meal together regardless of caste or creed, I was blown away by the places life takes me. Was I really sitting on the floor in India, wearing a sari, in the middle of the night? Had I actually survived that unbearable heat, my dupatta catching on the cycle rickshaw's tire, and getting lost on the way back to the hotel? Is this my life right now?

The answer is yes, and because the answer is yes I can see the world that Robert Service describes, with both "the water you can EAT" and "God's flood of glory [that] burst its bars." And there's no going back. "For there's never a cure/ When you list to the lure/ Of the Wan-der-lust."

Practicing

2011-07-18T06:49:00.003-06:00

9 July
"Tell me about your project."

Usually this can be translated as, "please give a synopsis of the boring academic side of your trip to India that does not exceed two minutes in duration." People are generally disinterested in the relationship between Tibetan cultural preservation and digital media, so I feel like a professor lecturing on the history of economics to a class of sleeping students. No matter how enthusiastic you are about The Wealth of Nations or technology in developing countries, some listeners won't care.

When Ashley asked, though, my two-minute synopsis didn't satisfy her. She wanted to know what I'm doing and how I'm feeling about what I'm doing. She asked about my anticipated final product, a hazy vision that's slowly and privately been taking shape in my mind. She wanted to discuss my interview questions and read my survey and meet my informants. Best of all, she wanted to help me improve my efforts. In that thirty minute conversation Ashley encouraged me to articulate the focus of my project and decide what I was most interested in. "Your interview questions right now will get you a lot of background information, which you don't need anymore. How about you revise them so that they focus on cultural preservation? Also, you might email Sandee and ask for permission to conduct a few informal interviews with students. Have you though of talking to people here in McLeod as well?"

Like the wise mentor in Kenneth Grahame's "The Roman Road" from The Golden Age, Ashley has a vision that far surpasses my own. She's been to Rome, as it were, and come back to tell me about it.
The next day, Ashley and I headed up to the TCV in a green and yellow auto rickshaw. I showed her around the campus until my interview with the middle section headmaster. Unfortunately, my interview was a rather uncomfortable, unnatural one, enhanced dramatically by my intimidation from both the headmaster and Ashley. Thanks to Ashley's clear thinking, however, I scheduled two more interviews directly afterward with staff member that the headmaster suggested. A third interview subject was more difficult to reach--he was the manager of the small company that provides the internet for the TCV. After some difficulty, the interview was arranged, and Ashley and I immediately set out for his office. After a brief but informative discussion with him, we headed back to the mess hall for lunch.

"My interview was too short," I said with regret, remembering that I'd only hit thirty minutes.

"You used your questions as a crutch," said Ashley. "I want you to try an interview without looking at your questions."

Wait, what? That is not the sort of thing that sounds pleasant to a perfectionist.

"How would I do that?"

"Just treat it like a conversation. Ask questions about things that interest you. Here, why don't you practice on me?"

For a short while I interviewed Ashley about her first field study, when she studied in India as an undergraduate like I am doing now. She told me a bit about her study, which involved religious ideologies and development. I paused the interview at a natural break.

"How am I doing?"

"Better, but you're still too much in your head and some of your questions aren't specific enough."

As she said that, I recognized where the flaws had occurred. I said in mild consternation, "interviewing is hard!"

Ashley laughed. "Please come tell that to the prep class! They never believe me." That's true--I certainly didn't see why an interview would be difficult while I was back in Provo.

I practiced some more on the rickshaw back and voice more concerns about unscripted interviews.

"Be sure you're showing interest in the things your informant is saying. You can occasionally share some information about yourself, too--that makes the informant feel more comfortable and might cause them to think of some tidbit that you'd never even know to ask about." Ashley is a wealth of knowledge on this topic.

In the Bean cafe we split a Hello to the Queen and I asked my last question. "How is it fair that we get your help in field when the other students don't?" I knew, of course, that Ashley had come to India to see about moving the field study location from McLeod Ganj to Bylakuppe, and furthermore I had been more nervous about her visit than excited for it, but now I was feeling particularly privileged to have her insight.

She just smiled. "I'm glad I could help."

Desire vs. Satisfaction

2011-07-18T06:32:00.000-06:00

6 July
I was sitting in the senior section staff room writing when Tenzin, my friend who teaches Tibetan, began to argue with some of the female teachers.

"I don't care, I just want his money. You can never have too much money," said one teacher, looking up from her Apple laptop to discuss a very rich yoga master.

"Then you are greedy," said Tenzin.

"Maybe I am greedy," she replied, "but I still wouldn't mind having his money. I don't care about his yoga."

Another teacher piped up. "Humans have an unlimited capacity to want," she said.

That was the last straw for Tenzin.

"What? You think people can't be satisfied with what they have? Maybe there are some people who always want more but they are greedy. Hey!"

He was talking to me. I looked up from my notebook. "Yes?"
"She says that humans have an unlimited capacity to want. Is that true?"

I don't know why I am the deciding vote, but everyone is now listening to me so I give diplomacy my best shot.

"You both have good points. It depends on your definition of wants and needs." Oh, great, I sound like a politician. I tried to explain for example that you might want more clothes than you actually need to survive, and there is certainly something in human nature that will never be satisfied with any amount of money, fame, or power. I don't think my diplomacy helped the argument much, but it certainly gave me food for thought.

There are some people, myself among them, who can't be satisfied knowing only one corner of the world and must travel. There are some, like the clerk in Hans Christian Andersen's story "The Magic Galoshes," who can't be satisfied with the life of a clerk and must experience the lives of a poet and a lark. Among the many reasons that we travel, though, is the oft-forgotten appreciation for the way things are at home. We experience the good and the bad in the foreign culture, just like the clerk saw the pros and cons of being a poet, and that realization allows us to see our normal lives in a new light.

On the fourth of July, after we sang the Star Spangled Banner to an English woman and indulged in apple pie and ice cream, I was chased by a ferocious, barking dog, nearly attacked by a pack of monkeys, harassed by an Indian guy, and terrified by the largest spider I've ever seen as it marched into the bathroom while I was changing. All of those things made me wish that I was back in Utah, where monkeys and enormous spiders don't threaten me with rabies and poison. That might be my unlimited capacity for want--when I'm in India, I want to be in Utah. When I'm in Utah, I want to go to India.

I do think Tenzin had a good point, though, and I like to think that I could be happy living anywhere. The probable result of the clerk's wanderings as a poet and a lark is that he appreciates his life as a clerk more. Sometimes I picture my future and find equal excitement in the possibility of marrying a farmer and living in Idaho and not getting married and going to school in England. I intend to live fully, and I hope to take advantage of opportunities to travel to Australia, volunteer in a preschool, or open a flower shop, as the case may be. Maybe what I'm trying to say is that I think we can be satisfied with our lives and still want to take advantage of the wonderful options that living provides for us.

Stylistic Imitations Cont.

2011-07-18T06:14:00.001-06:00

You can read my first four here.

5. The best to come to India is in January. When you visit in July you've come in the middle of monsoon. The Tibetans and Indians are on their guard, and one of them will warn you, shaking his head, eyes weary, "The streets turn into rivers of dirty water. If you think you can walk to the TCV in the heavy rain, you should think again." What you must do is walk down the road, keeping your umbrella over your head and your backpack on your front, pretending you can't hear the obnoxious squeak your wet sandals make.

6. One summer, in 2011, I went to a hill station in India with a group of six other students for three months. We all got sick from the water and had to take pills twice or three times per day and one girl got locked on a roof; but besides that the field study was a success and all of us thought there was nothing in the world quite like that hill station in India.

7. The research process is now as firmly established in academia as the professor's lecture or the essay exam. First you decide on a topic of inquiry, conduct the research, and then publish the results. This is capable of expression by the formula inquiry > research > publish, or IRP. Last year, when I started my research blog, I began an inverse procedure: PRI, for publish > research > inquiry. Fortunately, the results of publishing my early thoughts included in-field contacts, good rapport, and a several pre-field interviews, which resulted in a more developed project proposal than my vague preliminary idea for my fieldwork--a classroom experiment in which students used facebook for homework. In light of the process I made from so simple a change as documenting my thoughts and experiences on a public blog, it's too bad that I am just an undergraduate researcher. A full-blown professor, with impressive credentials, years of education, research experience, extensive knowledge, and the wisdom of age would surely produce something extraordinary.

8. As far as I could guess no white girl had set foot in this tiny Chinese restaurant before I came. I was told before we arrived that we were going to dinner with friends. I took this to mean that we were going to eat at someone's home, perhaps Tashi since he had come to dinner twice before. I didn't think that we'd be joining a group of about thirty Tibetans for an ironically Chinese feast.

9. Sacrament meeting again. We're sitting on a green painted bench at the Dalai Lama's temple, as we do every Sunday, trying to avoid being a photo op for large groups of Hindu and Sikh tourists, which is always impossible. We are that group that encompasses everyone at one time or another: religious minority.

10. TCV? It's a 45 minute walk from McLeod, a beautiful trip that takes you along a Himalayan trail, and if you are someone escaping Westernized McLeod or just seeking Tibetan culture, then by all means come here. Nestled in the hills, overlooking the hot Indian plains, and behaving like its own city, it is a Tibetan boarding school with heavy monsoon rains for a quarter of the year, roughly June to October. There are adorable children, really extraordinary hydrangea bushes and calla lilies, and if you have permission from the headmasters, the classes, though difficult to navigate, are excellent, which, when you consider that many of the students are orphans and refugees, is a very good thing. Almost everything in the TCV is pleasant, though, so before coming here you should do two things: befriend an administrator and buy an umbrella. Following this advice will allow you to access the libraries, classrooms, and staff lunchroom without getting your hair wet, though the same cannot be said for your shoes. The TCV is a city of students, a school where teachers are also parents, an unconventionally family. This is somewhat like the community in McLeod, where many people have left their families behind in Tibet and therefore recreate those relationships in India; for that matter, McLeod and its TCV have another common denominator: self-containment. The average Tibetan, for instance, thinks Christianity and the Pope are the same thing, whatever that may be--in any event, he doesn't care; and some Westerners, captivated by maroon robes and low-voiced chanting, come to agree.

Imitation of Models (reversing number 7)

He might have written a masterpiece, had he eaten a Long Island duck, a pair of lobsters, a thin sword-fish of steak of generous area, a few ears of fresh-picked corn, three sauteed soft-shelled crabs, some bay scallops, a peck of steamers, a bowl of clam chowder, and a dozen Gardiners Island oysters. It's a pity that Proust forewent this hearty appetite in favor of such mild a stimulus as "a light cake made with sugar, flour, lemon juice, brandy, and eggs," the madeleine. My significantly more robust taste--travel, Cote Rotie, stuffed tripe, stewed rabbit, and small birds--was happily recreated when I once read The Food of France. My experience could be expressed in the formula BMT, for Book > Memory > Taste. The inverse, TMB for Taste > Memory > Book, occurred when a man ate a biscuit, the taste evoked memories, and he wrote a book. This process is now as firmly established in folklore as Newton's apple or Watt's steam kettle. It's the Proust madeleine phenomenon.

The Price to Ask of Sahibs

2011-07-09T00:18:00.000-06:00

In order to use a public restroom in McLeod, you need to pay a few rupees. The exact amount that you pay, however, is not posted, and that is because it depends on the color of your skin and hair. A Tibetan or an Indian will pay three rupees to the man who guards the door; an American, Australian, or European will pay five.

Two rupees, of course, is a negligible cost that won't make a dent in anyone's wallet, but the issue is in the principle of the thing. Rudyard Kipling's character Kim in his novel of the same name is an Irish orphan raised in India. Hindi was his first language and his is intimately familiar with Indian culture. At one point in the text, however, he is wearing the clothes of a Sahib, or white boy, and asks a letter-writer how much he will charge for one letter. The letter-writer tells him four annas. Annoyed, Kim, speaking in the vernacular, calls his bluff--"That is the price to ask of Sahibs"--and demands a real quote. Eventually, he gets his letter for one and one half annas, less than half the Sahib price.

Unfortunately, I am not very good at bargaining. The best bargain I ever made was only an accident, and I didn't buy the item because I'd never intended to. As it turns out, genuine disinterest is an excellent way to encourage the shop owner to drop his price. Megan in my group is excellent at haggling, and so far five of our group members have purchased, for the same price, a pair of yoga pants which she reduced from 300 to 200 rupees. With fruit we've had worse luck--a papaya, two mangoes, and three bananas cost 110 rupees and the fruit stand man won't budge. The price doesn't add up (35 rupees for the papaya, mangoes cost 20 each, and three bananas for 15 should be 90) because apparently when you buy large amounts of fruit the price of mangoes increases. If you choose the right fruit guy, though, you can get three bananas for the price of two, and then you'll feel better.

It's hard to blame them, though, if their livelihood depends on manipulation of customers. One day, as I was leaving the broken ATM with the same amount of cash as before, I was waylaid by a man sitting at the side of the road. "Just look," he insisted, "I'm not asking you to buy anything." I hope I don't fall for that one again. He proceeded to show me his little embroidery hoop and handy rug-making tool. "You can write names, make pictures, all very easy." He went on and on, describing how the little rug pictures are made and handing me a little plastic bag with two rug-making tools. "Four hundred," he said, "and my pictures are for sale, too."

I considered the offer, thinking that my mother or her sister might like the little tools, but I told the man that I didn't know if I wanted it, I didn't even have enough rupees since the ATM was broken, and I had to go anyway. He asked me if I'd be back tomorrow. I made a noncommittal response and a mental note to avoid the road near the ATM for the next few days as I hurried off. As I walked, I realized that the tools weren't worth the expense since they would require fabric, embroidery hoops, and the proper sort of thread in addition, and who is to say that my mother and aunt want to make rug pictures anyway? I was relieved the next day when I didn't see the rug tool man.

A few days later, when I'd forgotten him entirely, the rug man appeared suddenly and waved his embroidery hoops in my face. "Ma'am, excuse me, you remember? You buy my tools?"

"I'm not interested, thank you," I said, taken aback by his abrupt and unwelcome appearance.

"Ma'am, you promised. I give it to you four hundred."

I had not promised. I kept walking.

"Okay, I make it 350."

"No, thank you, I am no longer interested."

But the rug man would not take no for an answer. He followed me and matched my quick pace.

"Three hundred."

"I'm not interested."

"Ma'am, I give you three hundred."

"No, thank you."

"Okay, for you, two fifty."

"No, thank you."

"Ma'am, you promised . . ."

He was following me across town. Sometimes I thought he'd given up when he would turn up again at my shoulder, naming his ever decreasing price and accusing me of breaking my promise. (Had I promised, I wondered? No, I am sure I would have thought twice before something so foolish. He must have misunderstood something I said.) Finally, he named his drastic, lowest price yet:

"One hundred. Ma'am, both for one hundred or you name your price."

If I had at all wanted to buy those rug making tools, that would have been the moment. I could have paid less than a quarter of the original price. Around two dollars. The great deal did not change the fact that I did not want those tools at any price, nor did it erase his original manipulation or the way he had been following and harassing me. I refused again and he gave up. A few days later, though, I saw him following another tourist, waving his embroidery hoop in her face. It was probably a bad week for business.

What I've learned from this: the best deals are the ones I didn't mean to make, and the best bargaining tactic is to remind the seller that you control your purse strings and won't buy unless the price is right. I'm sure I've ended up paying "Sahib prices" plenty of times. It's hard to avoid. I guess I'm just getting good karma for supporting local business owners.

"Om . . . "

2011-07-08T06:23:00.000-06:00

29 June
"Okay, so next, toes together, your feet close, hands upside, interlock the fingers, inhale . . .

"Exhale, your hands down.

"So next, right hand up, all body right side turn, you sitting comfortable position, your hands gamotra position.

"Three times speak the om verse.

"Om . . .

"Om . . .

"Om . . .

"Next your hands . . .

[We all rub our palms together furiously]

"Few seconds touch the eyes, self-heal. So feel all positive energy of zhe, negative energy outside they are finished. You feel all positive energy of zhe, negative energy outside they are finished.

"Few seconds face massage . . .

"And next thanks for God . . . thanks for God . . .

"One time speak 'om,' three times 'shante.'

"Om, shante shante shante . . .

"Class closed, so namaste, namaste, and namaste. Have a good day."

Om, the name we call our yoga teacher (which is also a sacred syllable in Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism), speaks in a soft, mystical voice, breathes audibly, and sings Hindu mantras while seated in the half lotus posture. His yoga studio faces the mountains and the windows open to a majestic view of the valley. He teaches yoga, pranayama, meditation, reiki, acupressure, and reflexology. His studio is a pilgrimage destination, just like so many places in India. The lama in Kipling's Kim regards the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama as a holy land and comes seeking enlightenment at the River of the Arrow. Likewise, meditating, yoga, and reiki in the hills of the Himalayas are like finding the holy grail, fountain of youth, and philosopher's stone together in Jerusalem. For others, it's walking the kora, spinning prayer wheels, and hearing His Holiness expound scripture for hours at his temple. Half the time we're literally living in a cloud up here like those gurus who sit on top of mountains to reveal the secrets of life to climbers. It's no wonder McLeod is such a popular travel destination.

Ishmael in Herman Melville's classic Moby Dick heads to the sea to escape the "damp, drizzly November in [his] soul" and explains that the sea has always been a source of inspiration and healing. Well, besides the sea that falls from the sky every day in monsoon season, the Om Yoga and Meditation center is very far from the sea, yet it claims the same ability to inspire and heal. Actually, by doing yoga and meditation, I am reducing my extra body fat, solving any back, spine, leg, arm, ankle, neck, and stomach problems I may have, erasing my depression and anxiety, and dissolving all my stress (though sometimes I think I am just inflicting physical pain).

If nothing else, the 2.5 hours I spend every day on yoga and meditation will increase my flexibility, but perhaps the other health care benefits are more than the placebo effect. A certain Harvard scholar has written a lengthy tome about the physiological benefits of hatha yoga, the very book that Om tossed on my lap one evening when I'd come early for meditation. "Study," he said. In his introduction, the scholar states that Westerners, believing so deeply in science and experimentally proven medicine, dismiss the time-proven health benefits of yoga as superstitious. They might be right--I can't imagine any benefit from the cleaning mantras we chant for an your every evening--but the poses might significantly improve my overall health as I practice them daily. And I do think full body relax is reducing my stress levels.

So here you are, the formula for stress reduction. As Om would say, self practice so your all body fresh:

"Okay, so next, few minutes full body relax. So open your legs, open your arms, relax, breathe, normal. Breathe normal . . . .

"Yoga time happy time . . . .

"Yoga meaning . . . peaceful life. Yoga meaning . . . peaceful life. Yoga meaning . . . no any type of tensions. Yoga meaning . . . no any type of tensions. Yoga meaning . . . all health is good. Yoga meaning . . . all health is good . . . .

"Yoga time no any type of tension. So no money tension . . . no family tension . . . no home tension . . . no friend tension . . . no school tension . . . and no . . . job tension. Yoga time, no any type of tension . . . .

"Relax. All muscles relax. So your feet . . . relax . . . your to-es . . . relax . . . knees . . . relax . . . thighs muscles . . . relax . . . hips . . . relax . . . stomach . . . relax . . . chest . . . relax . . . shoulders . . . relax . . . neck . . . relax . . . eyes . . . relax . . . mind . . . relax. All body relax . . . All muscles relax . . . ."

Sometimes Om's students fall asleep during full body relax. I don't, but I do forget my stress for a few minutes of peace.

Are We Not All Beggars?

2011-07-06T03:09:00.000-06:00

25 June
The middle of June contains the most auspicious day of the year. On this day, spinning a prayer wheel one time is like spinning it (or praying) a hundred times. It is very easy for your good karma to increase exponentially if you behave well on this day (but the reverse is also true--if you do bad things on the most auspicious day then you get 100 times worse karma). School and work are on holiday so you have plenty of time to work on your karma.

That day I walked the kora, the path around His Holiness the Dalai Lama's temple. There were more beggars than usual, every one of them helping you increase your good karma by giving you the chance to give to the poor. On a regular day, there are about 10 beggars at various points of the kora. On the holiest day in Tibetan Buddhism, there are 2,000.

I don't know if I can really explain what it means to walk amidst 2,000 beggars. They were all Indian. They lined the path on each side, mothers and fathers and grandparents and children. Lepers with missing fingers and limbs. Men with gory, bleeding sores, prominently displayed to arouse revulsion and sympathy. Children without pants or diapers. Women no older than myself with four children. Nursing mothers. Wizened faces. A small family gathered around a saucepan, dipping spoons into a mush of corn. Monks and holy men. Beautiful, brightly colored saris. Gold jeweled nose rings. rumpled hair. Brown skin. Sad, perplexed, angry, excited eyes. Squatting on dirt, on mats, on rocks. Holding silver plates and bowls. Begging for rupees.

Two thousand. At least two thousand.

I was the only white person in sight. I was swept in a river of Tibetans and outstretched begging hands. The Tibetans gave hundreds of coins to these hands. Some of them had been saving coins in a jar all year for this day.

At first I looked away. How do I face this? Children would smile hugely when they saw me and say, "hello!" I said hello and smiled in return.

Then I stopped avoiding gazes. I looked these men and women and children in the eyes. I greeted some. My eyes locked with one woman. She was close to my age. She is my sister and neighbor. I walked past her and a thousand other women.

When I reached the midpoint I pulled out my rupees. I handed five rupees to a group of four children who looked lost and angry. Three reached for the note. One girl snatched it and quickly hid it away.

I had only one rupee left besides my big bills. I gave it to a little boy who called "money! money!" as a hundred others had. When I gave it, ten others rose and help out their cups, calling to me. I showed my empty hands and felt sick. I resolved to change all my bills to coins and go along the kora again, giving to as many as I could. I went to two places but couldn't find anywhere with change before I had to go to my group meeting. I did not return to the kora. I did not give to any more beggars.

I wish I had given the money that I used to buy choco balls. I wish I had given more. I wish I had given the widow's mite and been the good Samaritan. I wish I had done what Christ would have done.

What do you do after you see 2,000 Indian beggars in thirty minutes? You go to your group meeting. You stay after, talking to Rachel, Elizabeth, Julia, and Matt in Jimmy's Italian restaurant. You meditate for an hour. You eat chowmein. You do some travel writing homework. Life goes on.

But maybe I left part of me on the kora that day, part of me that I lost when I saw that girl and knew that she and I are sisters. Now I can't remember her face or the color of her sari, but I can't forget her either.

Maybe one day I will have to answer for my actions on the kora that day. I have walked by many beggars and given only occasionally. The good Samaritan did not ignore his neighbor in need, though you could argue that the unconscious man needed a lot more help than the beggars in McLeod. Still, I think of King Benjamin's sermon in Mosiah--are we not all beggars? We're not supposed to suffer the beggar to put up his petition in vain. I've always thought that was quite a straightforward rule, and when I see a homeless person in downtown Salt Lake I don't have any problem emptying my change pouch into his hands. This is possible because I don't spend much time walking around downtown Salt Lake.

Here in McLeod things are different. I walk everywhere I go, and walking the full length of the town takes no more than 30 minutes. In those thirty minutes you will see at least five beggars sitting or leaning on crutches at the edge of the road in high traffic areas. They are strategically placed in the least avoidable locations, sometimes around a corner so you nearly trip over them. Many of the beggars are lepers and hold out their fingerless hands for money. They usually extend their hands, kiss them, and then extend them again. This motion draws immediate attention to their disabilities. Usually they have silver jars beside them because they can't hold the money.

Much more persistent are the young mothers in dirty saris who approach you directly, carrying half naked babies, to beg for food. I once tried to give one of these women money but she refused, insisting I buy milk for her. Well, a box of milk costs 280 rupees (which is far more than I was going to give to her) and I have since heard that the women sell the milk right back to the store and keep all those rupees. Since she refused, I gave the rupees to a crippled man a few feet away, and he was grateful to receive them.

In the end, though, these are my neighbors as much as anyone else. Here is my game plan: I am going to start buying things that cost 12 rupees rather than 10 or 15 so that I will have rupee coins. Then I will be able to give coins to beggars. When it comes down to it, giving out two rupees per day for a 90 day field study would be less than five dollars. Really, I can afford that.

The Survey

2011-06-25T00:23:00.000-06:00

Okay, it is ready.

I followed my professor's advice and spent some time observing classes (and teaching classes, actually) and talking to teachers, administrators, and students to make sure my survey questions were relevant and useful. I decided to simplify from the 20-30 questions I'd originally planned and instead stick with nine.

Here they are:

I go online: every day, several times each week, several times each month, several times each year
What do you usually do on the internet?
What are your favorite things to do on the internet?
How do you use the internet for schoolwork?
True or false: I can almost always find what I am looking for on the internet
Why is it useful to talk to people on the internet?
Why do you use facebook?
Why do we have internet? How is it useful?
His Holiness the Dalai Lama said that his main concern is to preserve Tibetan culture. Does internet make Tibetan cultural preservation easier or more difficult? How?

The principal is currently reviewing my survey and will tell me on Monday if I can proceed. She might have some ideas for revisions, and it may be that I give the survey once and decide to revise, but I am happy with it so far. I have, with the teacher's permission, posed most of these questions in TCV classrooms and had excellent verbal responses, exactly what I had hoped and anticipated I would find. I am optimistic about the written responses because students are much more comfortable writing English than speaking it.

I haven't been posting much about my project at all, and that is partially because I limit my time in internet cafes and also because I cannot publish my raw data. I can say, however, that I had a great conversation with Phuntsok yesterday and he is very excited about my research. He says that I am the first person to research in this area and that the school is eagerly anticipating reading my final report.

All I can say is--I have a lot of work to do.

Me and My (Unrealistic) Expectations

2011-06-25T00:06:00.000-06:00

22 June

One thing I've learned about travel is that things won't turn out like you expect them to. You've seen pictures of Delhi and London and Paris before you go there, but the pictures you've seen are artistic shots of beautiful architecture or poetic renderings of quaint streets. You haven't seen that street our hotel was on because no one wants that part of Delhi framed on their wall.

Like the boy in James Joyce's "Araby," I've had to learn that the bazaar isn't the romantic Eastern land of enchantment I expected but a half closed, silent, dark collection of shops whose keepers aren't even all that friendly (so to speak). When I went to the Tibetan wedding I had a lot of preconceived notions about what a wedding is--a formal ceremony, a smiling and kissing bride and groom, a white dress, dancing, and so forth. Of those, the only thing present was dancing, and that was just one guy after he got a little tipsy. I wasn't actually aware when the wedding ceremony started, and it consisted simply of a line of guests laying white scarves around the necks of the wedding party. When I went to the Welcome Cafe, I expected just about anything except a Jewish worship service. I also had no idea of the bond that traveling in India would forge between the members of my group since we didn't know each other at all before field studies.

In my project preparation, however, I was both remarkably accurate in my anticipation and woefully unaware. I did not expect the hassle of transportation to and from the school, the week-and-a-half school holiday (not to mention other unexpected holidays), the problems getting a hold of my translator, the early morning summer schedule that conflicts with breakfast, yoga class, and the bus schedule, the extensive revision to my survey . . . in short, I did not understand the challenges of field work. On top of that, I could not foresee my inconvenient illness or the urgency of preserving my mental health by any effective means. And that is how I find myself midway through my field experience with newly restored health, heaps of finished coursework, plenty of beautiful and unbeautiful cultural experiences, and a slowly settling panic that I am behind on my project.

Really, though, it will be okay. I still have plenty of time for interviews and surveys now that the consent forms are translated. I have done lots of observations and taken copious notes and I have learned a lot, not just about internet here but about field work. I don't think I'll have any problem getting data or writing my thesis. I just need to remind myself of this when I compare my proposed schedule to my actual time in the field.

"Tashi Delek!"

2011-06-24T23:50:00.000-06:00

Last week I went to a Tibetan wedding. It started only thirty minutes late, which is amazing because they'd had only two days notice that the wedding would even occur! The young bride wore an exquisite chupa made of red patterned silk and her hair was done in two French braids. The groom wore a traditional black suit and both wore fur-lined hats. The family had placed a bucket of milk and a pile of manure on their front porch in the morning to give the couple good luck. Everyone was dressed in Tibetan clothes: the family wore silk chupas and the guests wore cotton chupas. All the shoes, however, were Western. Dolma, the bride's sister-in-law, wearing a pair of high heels exactly like a pair I have at home, told me that she never wears heels except for weddings. As a result, her legs and feet were in quite a lot of pain as we ascended several of McLeod's many steep roads.

When we arrived we stopped at the door, flicked seeds into the air three times, ate some floury substance (which turned out to be tsampa) and flicked a liquid into the air three times (which was chang, a beer made of barley). This procedure represented the first offering or gift, which goes to God. Then we entered and sat down to a plate of cookies. They were mostly Tibetan cookies, which have only a trace of sugar, but a few chocolate and butter biscuits, too. We were offered no less than six different beverages, and we declined all but water and Fanta since we don't drink traditional Tibetan butter tea, Coke, Mountain Dew, or alcohol. Soon afterward we had a dish of spicy peas, peanuts, and lentils to accompany the cookies.

During this time we were talking to Dolma and taking some pictures of the festivities. There was traditional music coming from enormous speakers that sometimes made it difficult to hold a conversation. The room was decorated with brightly colored streamers and a large, bright poster that had the bride and groom's names around the huge, bold red word "WEDS."

In the corner, next to an elaborate altar and many photos of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, sat the bride, groom, their parents, and Dolma's adorable little daughter. The guests stood in a line before the altar holding white silk scarves. When it was my turn I place one across the altar, one around the groom's neck, then the bride's, and then the other family members. (Their necks became very heavy laden with the scarves from perhaps 100 guests, so Dolma pulled them off of their shoulders and recycled them to guests like me who didn't realize we needed eight scarves rather than two.) I said "tashi delek" each time I placed a scarf, a greeting that means "good luck" and is traditionally reserved for special occasions like weddings and the Tibetan new year. (In the exiled community in India, however, tashi delek has become a common greeting just like we say "hi" or "hello" in the States.) In front of the bride and groom was a pile of presents to which I added a white envelope. I'd written the bride and groom's names on the front along with "Tashi delek and have a happy married life!!" I wrote my name on the reverse and sealed 100 rupees inside.

Afterward, Elizabeth, Megan, Rachel and I played a card game and took more pictures. The groom thought the photographers were quite funny, like paparazzi maybe, and smiled often, but I had a hard time getting a picture of both bride and groom smiling. My host family almost never smiles when I ask for a picture, though, so I don't think smiling for pictures is expected.

Lunch was an enormous feast--long tables in the center of the room were laden with steamed rolls, Amdo-style vegetarian momos, rice, cooked vegetables for the rice, chow mein, fried chicken, fried bittergourd, cucumber tomato salad, dal, and a tomato sauce. The food was excellent, particularly the momos. Afterward, Dolma's husband offered us bananas for dessert. Since we'd been there nearly five hours by the time lunch was over we decided to depart, and as Dolma saw us leaving she hurried with some of the white silk scarves, which she wrapped around our necks. We accepted another round of bananas and left.

Like so many elements of the community here in McLeod, the wedding was a conscious preservation of traditional Tibetan culture. The clothes, music, ceremony, and food were all decidedly Tibetan, and when some American hip-hip song came on the DJ immediately changed it. In fact, the only things I noticed that wouldn't have traditionally been a part of a Tibetan wedding were the shoes everyone was wearing. Since the entire wedding was planned in a few days (this is because it was a love marriage and her family had to decide whether she was allowed to marry someone they hadn't chosen), everything present was there at a considerable effort. The elaborate golden box containing the seeds, tsampa, and chang at the entrance, for example, had obviously taken some effort to put together, yet it was a top priority because of its significance to Tibetan culture. Events like this are prime opportunities for Tibetans to gather and recreate their homeland.

Friday Night at the Welcome Cafe

2011-06-21T23:18:00.000-06:00

18 June

I didn't realize it, but the slender bearded middle-aged man seated on the cushion next to mine was in charge of the entire event. He was, I discovered shortly, a Jew from Brooklyn, "a little place in New York City with only six million people." I gave him license to mock me like the others had when I remarked dryly that six million is twice the population of Utah, a feigned serious response to a flippant statement that did, in fact, lead to more compliments on my English: "it's really almost like you're a native speaker!"

We were a crowd of extraordinary diversity. We were African, Indian, and Caucasian, American, French, Russian, and Austrian, Jewish and Mormon and Protestant and maybe even Hindu. We were gathered in a small cafe perched on the top of the mountain, seated on cushions around five low tables, looking around in the dim lights that blended smoothly into the surrounding darkness and cast strange shadows around the room.

The generous cafe owner tapped the Jew on the shoulder, prompting him to begin. The Jew welcomed us all and explained that he would pray first in English and then in Hebrew. The prayer was as familiar to my ears as it was foreign--our faiths are thousands of years apart but they still resonate in the same way. He then said a prayer from his own heart, thanking God for life, and split a piece of chapatti to pass in both directions around the table. He himself drank the Coke that he had substituted for wine. Outside, the two lit candles still burned and flickered.

The we feasted on falafel and chicken and rice and chapatti and hummus and cucumber jalapeno tomato salad. I do not know who paid for that food but I know I didn't. Someone's generosity allowed us to observe the Jewish Sabbath quite comfortably.

Religion has long had a complex relationship with travel. I think many early travelers were missionaries--the Spanish in Mexico, Belgians in the Congo, the English in India--which unfortunately fed a feeling of superiority among Christians. This sentiment is beautifully expressed in Kipling's poems "The White Man's Burden" and "Recessional" and has subsequently been buried by advocates of cultural sensitivity. Today it is as repellent to any Christian as it would be to Christ himself to refer to a foreigner as "half devil and half child."

Before our feast in the Welcome Cafe that night, as we sat outside listening to a drummer, guitarist, and singer making music, I looked around at the group of us and wondered how we all came to be there at that moment. When Devin, a college student from Georgia, started talking to me I learned that he and a small group of guys are here for a month, hanging out and having their own Christian worship service every morning. I heard Kyle, one of his friends, zealously telling a young couple about his conversion and faith. Sarah, the singer from Ohio, told me that she is traveling here by the grace of God. The Jewish man from Brooklyn said he is here for a good time and good food. Outside of that gathering, many Westerners come here on a pilgrimage to see the Dalai Lama and practice or learn about Buddhism. The other Jew, you may recall, was searching for God, and that search brought him here.

I, of course, am here as a student researcher and not a missionary, but I've several times reflected on the fact that my group and I are the only LDS presence in northernmost India. That might make a difference for one Columbian traveler who asked for "an application to be a Mormon" and instead received a pass along card, and perhaps even for the South African woman traveling with him.

Religious communities today are no longer concerned with the White Man's Burden and all its racist implications but with freedom and tolerance. The thirty of us at the Welcome Cafe exemplified that. In the words of Joseph Smith junior, "we claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may."

The Emily Post

2011-06-16T03:50:00.000-06:00

June 15
Robert Louis Stevenson's text The South Seas, or at least the portion I read, focuses on the twin experiences of foreign hospitality and breaches of etiquette on the part of the traveler. Certainly, when all social cues are removed by immersion in an unfamiliar culture, the traveler is bound to make some blunders! My worst so far was asking, in my first few days, to have the table so I could lay my sweater out to dry (I am one of those people who obeys the care instructions on the tags of my clothing, and that sweater insists that it cannot be hung on a clothesline with everything else). The table was the best available surface, and I thought it a bad idea to risk dampness on the couch-beds where we sleep. Unfortunately, I was not thinking right. The table is the only table in the house. We use it to dine, do homework, place mugs and papers, and generally fulfill the table purposes for which American homes have 20 table surfaces of varying sizes. And it was this table, the table in the center of the house, the table around which life revolves, that I selected to house my wet sweater and thereby took out of action for the day.

Fortunately, my ridiculous request was only partially honored, and the sweater was moved to a better location outside. The lesson to me, to learn and respect the way my host family lives, was stamped on my brain in permanent ink. I've read Emily Post's giant book on etiquette, but it didn't go as far as tell me how to behave in a Tibetan home in India.

The narrator in Stevenson's South Seas evaluates the Marquesan people in terms of the manners in his own culture. To some degree this is unavoidable. Some things have been so thoroughly ingrained in our minds as socially unacceptable that we don't recognize them as unique to our own culture. When I sit in the kora and write my reading journal for my literature class, my writing seems to fascinate the people sitting around me. Bound by Emily Post's laws, I can't shut my notebook from prying eyes for fear of being rude myself, yet I can't stop myself from thinking it impolite for a stranger to lean over and read my journal.

But that's just the thing--different cultures have different rules of etiquette that Emily Post doesn't know. The waiter in Delhi, who stared brazenly at the four of us eating, even taking a video recording on his cell phone, was acting in accordance with the restrictions and allowances of his own culture. Likewise I, when eating chow mein noodles twisted around my fork in small bites so that I take twice as long as everyone else to finish dinner, act in accordance with the Emily Post bible. The point is to learn the rules of the foreign society--don't walk counter-clockwise on the kora, clasp hands and nod to greet, refer to the Dalai Lama as His Holiness, don't ever come late for dinner--and then to treat them with the respect that you know Emily Post would.

Stylistic Imitations

2011-06-16T03:33:00.000-06:00

These are some short passages I wrote for my travel writing class:

The waterfall had many clear pools amid the boulders and a great many places to sit. I might not have gone to the top if it weren't for the mighty roar of the largest column of falling water. Yet the sound promised natural beauty of the purest sort, such as is found all throughout the Himalayas. This waterfall is nestled between two green hills. It is long and narrow. Its origin is high out of man's reach. Its water falls in white sheets. Its roar is the only sound. We took to the hill, admiring its excellent and clean beauty. It looked like the perfect place to sit in peace. But this was not so. For it was home to a hundred bathing Indian men, and they were all too pleased by the sight of six girls.
The other day I was walking at the kora and, stopping midway to read, encountered a bearded monk who gave me an old Tibetan book, which he insisted I keep. The writer had been a fine-fingered man who was also likely a monk. The 44 beautiful pages were unbound, their dyed crimson edges exposed on every side, and the pages were an old, stained orange. There were prayers, perfectly formed in Tibetan script, hand-lettered with ebony ink that had smeared in some places, and the whole volume, with its worn corners and small holes from stray incense offerings, seemed to express the religious devotion of a devout community. I brought it to my host family and, while we were entertaining a friend of mine, listened to the title read aloud: "[Insert Tibetan script here]." (I don't know how to type Tibetan script, sorry!)
It happened at the kora, a holy place for Tibetan Buddhists. I was sitting at the covered pavilion, which is at the halfway point of the path across from the prayer flag garden and the temple's back steps. The monastery entrances are on either side. The pavilion was build for the tired Buddhists to rest before ascending the steep hill to the temple gate. It is not private, but quiet enough. The other benches, set up on the steep hill, are less desirable; cold metal, inadequate roofs, and high traffic. On that day I looked up to see, walking toward me, a man, a Buddhist monk, who had an unshaven head. He was younger than many, perhaps forty, though unorthodox, with long hair and a beard. He was tall, and he was wearing the normal maroon robes that adorn all Tibetan monks. The thing he had in his hand was a find book, old and edged with crimson dye, recalling the treasures displayed in museums. Its shape was long and narrow, its words were perfectly etched in ebony ink, and there was something sacred about its careful preservation, something rarely given to a stranger.
When I decided to teach English abroad, I thought that teacher training would cross cultures without trouble. I know now that teaching changes with every class; it turns out that Tibetan classes vary as much from each other as they do from their American counterparts.

More to come!

Where I Am and What I'm Here For

2011-06-16T03:20:00.000-06:00

June 11

(Written with gratitude and appropriate credit to Henry David Thoreau)

I went to the mountains because I wished to live differently, to meet and live with people from a culture, or, indeed, a world, distinct from mine. When I come to die I do not want to find that I've only stared at Plato's shadows of the world and never seen reality. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life. Culture shock, the bewilderment of the eyes seeing an excess of light, eventually becomes a fresh understanding of life and humanity.

I am learning something about Thoreau's "simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!" here in a home that is just larger than my bedroom in Utah, in a culture that operates on polychronic time, and among people who have spent their entire lives in Tibet and India. Every day I walk around the kora, the path around His Holiness the Dalai Lama's temple, and sit on the benches across from the prayer wheels. Tibetans spin these wheels clockwise, and one rotation represents one prayer. The wheels were originally created so that the illiterate, who cannot read prayer books like the monks do, could also pray, but today everyone uses them.

Honestly, though, I don't know how Thoreau did it. I get depressed when I don't speak to a living soul for an entire day. There are two reasons people in McLeod speak to me: one, they want my money, or two, they want a private English tutor. Every so often I think someone is just friendly . . . and then they ask for my number and an English lesson. I am disheartened by this, so I have retreated into my shyness. I spend whole days reading and writing my coursework, very productive and very alone.

Yesterday I became anxious at the thought that I might finish my coursework early (which I will, if I continue at the rate of four books per week) and then have nothing to do in McLeod. Fortunately, Rachel invited me to lunch just then and helped me realize that there are plenty of pleasant activities available in this city. I've made a list of things I'll do when I finish my coursework: full day hikes, yoga instructor training, shopping for gifts, meditation and prayers, the Norbulingka institute and lower Dharamsala, hit the live music scene, take a cooking class, figure out how to replicate those extraordinarily delicious chocolate balls, find the Tibetan library.

Still, I don't know how Thoreau did it, alone in his cottage with nothing to do. The hardest part is to be always alone.

Tradition and Modernity

2011-06-08T22:49:00.001-06:00

8 June
On the day I met my Tibetan host family I asked, innocently, a question that probably embarrassed my thirteen-year-old host sister Pema: "Is Tashi your father or is it Gyurme? I'm a bit confused."

She gave me a strange look. "Tashi. Gyurme is my uncle."

My confusion came from the way Gyurme had introduced me to the family. "This is my brother Tashi, my sister-in-law Amalah, this is Pema and this is Sonam," he said, indicating a man, a woman, a girl and a boy. "Tobgyal is away at school; he is twelve years old." Later, though, he referred to Sonam as his son, a small comment that nonetheless provoked my question for Pema.

A week or so later, when all the children were again away at school, Amalah stopped sleeping on the bed out on the porch and moved inside to the bed that shares a corner with my own in the one-room home. Tashi and Gyurme, however, stayed put. I waited until one morning when Amalah and Gyurme were still asleep in the corner bed and Tashi walked in, back from morning yoga, to be certain that I was living in a polyandrous household, but by that time I had few doubts.

When I spoke to the girl from my school who had lived with this same family a few years ago, I learned that she, too, had been introduced to Amalah as Gyurme's "sister-in-law" and had, like me, discovered that description to be euphemistic. She offered some insight: "Gyurme's probably embarrassed by polyandry because he's such a 'modern man.' That's what one of his British friends said."

Polyandry is, in fact, a traditional Tibetan practice. In an article published in Natural History I learned that nomad brothers in Tibet often share a wife and thereby prevent the family from splitting into different groups, only the eldest of which could inherit the family's property. It was desirable for the woman, who would have multiple incomes to support herself and her children.

I concur with Gyurme's friend, however, who believes that he is embarrassed by the arrangement. Everything about Gyurme--his Abercrombie label clothes, management position, cigarettes, determination to speak English well, habit of watching television from the time he gets off work to the time he falls asleep--belongs to a modern Tibetan man, not a nomad still living in the semi-feudal society that was pre-1950 Tibet. Like the Dalai Lama himself, Gyurme refuses to recreate Tibet as the isolated, timeless place it was and insists that Tibetans match the pace of the rest of the world. To this end are TCV students carefully trained in science and technology, advances that had bypassed even the best educated in Tibet. In My Land and My People, the Dalai Lama lists the curriculum for standard education in the Tibet of his childhood: drama, dance and music, astrology, poetry, and composition (22). By contrast, the upper Dharamsala TCV curriculum for a junior high class matches, except Tibetan and Hindi, my own education: English, science, geography, mathematics, computers, and religion.

I realized the other day that my own conflict between my past and present selves is the same core problem that Tibetans face: tradition versus modernity, past versus present. It must have been extraordinary to enter the world of technology and international politics after living so long in isolation on the roof of the world. No culture could have remained perfectly intact.

The question of Tibetan cultural preservation is not a matter of returning to Tibet-as-it-was, the isolated home of the Forbidden City. His Holiness believes that the proper policy would be to "welcome visitors from every part of the world" (38), which would eventually result in significant changes from influences around the world. Gyurme's balance of tradition and modernity is his own interpretation of Tibet in today's world, just as Tibetans who wear only chupas and sell homemade momos to tourists have determined their interpretations of modern Tibet. As the China/Tibet politics unfold, more and more Tibetans will decide what it means to be Tibetan in the 21st century.

Miss Tibet 2011 Finale

2011-06-06T06:25:00.000-06:00

We changed the time of our group prayer meeting last night to accommodate the highly anticipated Miss Tibet competition and awards ceremony. We arrived 30 minutes early, but not early enough to get a good seat. In the end we were too far to see the faces of the contestants, but fortunately we didn't have to stand for the three hour program! Due to technical difficulties, the pageant started 45 minutes lat. We were surprised at the beginning because the host welcomed the crowd and introduced the event in English. He then introduced the judges--another surprise as they were both white Westerners, one American and one English.

The host then announced Lobsang, the pageant's founder, who came out in all his glory: shimmering silver suit, flowing waves of waist-length hair, and a practiced model's strut down the red-carpeted runway. His speech was entirely in Tibetan.

Next came two previous Miss Tibet winners in evening gowns to tell how the program had changed their lives. Last year's Miss Tibet is now working as a supermodel in south India.

The rounds of competition were separated by dance performances. The first was a solo Indian dance performed by a bare midriffed woman in flowing pants with bells at the waist. Her dance was simple and was interrupted by further technical difficulties. The second dance was a Tibetan woman in a short blue skirt performing an interesting hybrid dance that seemed, to me, to be an Indian Pacific Islander cha cha. Maybe that's my ignorance of cutural dance. The third dance was a large group of Indian women, split into a tall and a short group on opposite sides of the stage. The women were entirely covered in clothes except their faces. The dance seemed to be a story of conflict or competition between the tall and short groups of women, though I didn't understand the Hindi lyrics so I can't be sure.

The six Miss Tibet contestants had four appearances. The first was their introduction of themselves and their causes. This was entirely in English, and the women invariably spoke of forwarding the Tibetan political cause and empowering Tibetan women. Three girls were from Tibetan settlements in India (one from McLeod), one from Switzerland, one from Australia, and one from Minnesota, USA. One was a registered nurse and another was a certified accountant.

The second round was Western-style evening gowns (though the sole Tibetan dress, in long red silk, was my favorite). The third was traditional Tibetan apparel and the fourth was a question for each contestant from the judges. By far the best answer came from the McLeod girl, who spoke with honest grace about what she would do if she did not win the competition. Several of the questions and answers revealed a communication barrier between the judges and contestants, the same problems I've experience in my host family.

Just before the award ceremony, all the contestants danced to the popular modern Tibetan song for freedom while still dressed in the traditional attire. TIPA's power went out halfway through, but after 15 minutes it came back on and they started the dance again from the top.

The 17-year-old contestant from Switzerland won, despite mine, Rachel's, Megan's, Elizabeth's, and Bonnie's solid support for the contestant from McLeod Ganj, the one whose answer I liked. Fortunately, however, four of the contestants were named Tenzin (after His Holiness) and the others were named Dolma. We were rooting for Tenzin, and Tenzin won! Dolma was first runner up, and Tenzin second :)

My host family also attended the pageant finale. When I got home around 10:30 Tashi told me that he didn't find any of the contestants beautiful in the slightest, nor the winners from the previous years. His brother explained that people have different eyes and think different things are beautiful. That, he says, is a very good thing, and I agree.

Altogether the pageant was a melange of the same elements that compose McLeod Ganj itself--Tibetans, Indians, and Westerners, Tibetan, Hindi, and English, tradition and modernity, east and west, politics, art, dance, costume, and power outages.

Traditional Tibetan Dance

2011-06-06T05:54:00.001-06:00

On May 26, I went to a dance performance at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA). The show started about 30 minutes after the time scheduled. There were six traditional Tibetan dances and one modern song. A live band of 3-4 musicians seated on the left side of the stage played a flute, a stringed instrument, and some percussion. The dances represented different regions of Tibet, some from the cold nomadic regions in the east and some from the warmer cities in the south. All of the costumes were made for a cold climate, though--men wore fur-lined hats and boots and several layers of wrapped fabric that could serve either as decoration or as additional insulation. Women wore simple chupa dresses, with colorful aprons to signify their marital status, and intricate headdresses. Both women and men wore long-sleeved tunics over their clothes, one arm through a sleeve and the other sleeve hanging down the back. Both genders also had golden ornaments hanging from their belts. The costumes were colorful and nearly identical, with small variations in pattern or ornament. Each dance had a different costume, representing the region of the dance's origin, but the costumes were all quite similar (and, as His Holiness notes in his autobiography My Land and My People, similar to traditional Persian dress).

Because of so many layers of clothing, the dancing was limited. The men kicked, stomped, knelt, and jumped, sometimes while playing stringed instruments, but mainly walked about and swayed in time to the music. The women, whose movement was even more restricted, primarily performed graceful hand motions in addition to the walking and swaying. The dances were simple: all dancers did the same motion at the same time, though groups of men and women usually differed. Choreographed movements into new positions were the primary changes in the dances.

The one solo was a distinctly modern song written by a contemporary Tibetan composer. The song is a poignant plea for the freedom of Tibet. It is quite popular in McLeod--it was the final number in the Miss Tibet 2011 finale. The modern instrumentation combined with Tibetan wooden flutes results in a blend of ancient and modern, western and eastern, that represents McLeod Ganj quite well. Performing traditional dances is an important part of preserving Tibetan heritage, which is the main concern of many Tibetans, including His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Tibetan Language

2011-06-06T05:17:00.000-06:00

One of my cultural proof credits is a study of Tibetan language. I have some basic knowledge from a class I took on my campus winter semester, but I have a long way to go.

I bought a little book by Norbu Chophel entitled Say it in Tibetan: Conversations in colloquial Tibetan to guide my language study. Here is my schedule for studying the book (based on headings of different sections):

May 15-June 5: pronunciation guide, introductory phrases, social phrases, basic questions and answers
June 6-12: talking about yourself, making yourself understood, travel directions, bus and taxi
June 13-19: post office, telephone, restaurant
June 20-26: sightseeing, visiting a monastery, hiking and camping
June 27-July 3: shopping, books and stationery shop
July 4-10: parts of the body, stores and services, domestic items
July 11-17: clothing and accessories, colours, materials
July 18-24: meat, vegetables, grains and cereals, fruits
July 25-31: weather, time, days of the week
August 1-7: months and seasons, family members and relatives, counting

Though I can't reasonably attempt to memorize the entire book, my goal in this study is to learn phrases and words to use when speaking with my host family and in brief exchanges with Tibetans I meet. Throughout the process I will be keeping a vocabulary log of words I learn and want to remember. My host parents are learning English, so I help them with their homework and in return they are happy to help me pronounce words and produce sentences.

The most difficult part of Tibetan is reading and writing the script. I will be studying the 30 Tibetan consonants and learning to write and pronounce each one. I will also learn to write my name in three different ways.

Other proofs will be listening to spoken Tibetan on television, radio, and in person to increase comprehension. Usually, during meals, the Tibetan television or radio station is on, and occasionally I tune in to see what familiar words I can pick out. Over the three months my vocabulary will increase, and so will the number of words I recognize.

Et voila!

Food

2011-06-06T00:11:00.000-06:00

3 June
As evidenced by my personal journal, the one thing that I can't stop thinking about is food. I recently tipped some balance so that instead of usually feeling hungry I am now usually not hungry. I suppose there are a lot
of reasons that I was already counting the hours to my next meal while still eating the last one, and I'm not quite sure how it happened that I stopped wanting to eat all the time, but I hope this new digestive norm will be better for my health.

However, that quandary is only part of the reason that food is on my mind. Amalah's cooking would give anyone sweet dreams (though sweet is the wrong word--Tibetans don't like sweet things), and the process she goes through to produce three meals every day has got me thinking a great deal about this life-sustaining activity, the key to survival anywhere around the world.

In Kipling's "Mandalay," the narrator pines for the spicy garlic smells of India, a single sensation that defines the nation quite well. "Rikki-tikki-tavi" is all about food--the mongoose eats the snake who eats the baby bird. The story is a drama of the food chain. All the trouble in A Passage to India happens because of a special picnic breakfast, one which Dr. Aziz plans meticulously so that no Hindu or Muslim or Christian will eat anything that does not please and satisfy them. The Poisonwood Bible dwells on food and its preparation for a huge portion of the text, since that is the Price's biggest challenge in the Congo.

Of course, I've always known that food doesn't grow on grocery store shelves, but as an American I take the extraordinary convenience of the supermarket and drive-thru window for granted. There is no such thing in McLeod.

Amalah makes everything from scratch. Last night we made momos, a traditional Tibetan food whose Lhasa shape is the same as "potstickers" from Costco. She made the dough, which we rolled out into small circles and filled with a potato-onion-parsley-masala mixture (note the Indian spices). Then we pinched up the edges into beautiful Lhasa-style momos. The process of rolling out noodle dough and filling the momos takes at least an hour with all four of us working quickly. Then Amalah steams the momos and we eat them with chilly and vinegar. They are sublime! And the deliciousness doesn't stop there--we make so many momos that we cannot eat them all, even with my host siblings back for summer break. So, the next morning, Amalah fries all the leftovers and we eat them will chilly vinegar and tsampa. Let me tell you--fried momos and chilly vinegar and tsampa are as good as it gets!

Tsampa is: barley flour, boiled water, and butter. It is not cooked but mixed. I love it a lot, but not as much as His Holiness the Dalai Lama who eats it at 3 a.m. every day when he wakes up. My host family tells me it's his favorite food, and indeed he mentions tsampa on the second page of his autobiography My Land and My People. In His Holiness's birthplace in Tibet, called Amdo, tsampa is a staple food, essential for proper nutrition.

Even here in McLeod, where you can buy mango cheesecake at Nick's or, at the market, a mango so divine that it will make you regret ever eating its stringy American cousin, it is hard to imagine a place so far removed from Wal-Mart as Amdo. There, tsampa is necessary for survival, not the occasional special breakfast it will be when I go home.

Food is the universal necessity, one major commonality among all cultures around the world. Thank goodness for Amalah--without her I'm sure I'd still be hungry. As one who is inordinately excited to get married so I can have someone to cook for, I believe learning and thinking about food in McLeod and Amdo will arm me with simple, nutritious, and delicious meals for my someday family.

Eastern Hospitality

2011-06-02T22:46:00.000-06:00

"I still haven't tried the lemon ginger honey tea," said Rachel as we sat in Nick's glorious Italian eatery.

My jaw dropped. "What?! It's delightful! You must try it!"

"Well, I want to . . . ."

My mind wandered, as usual, to life after field studies, and I remarked, "I want to make lemon ginger tea when I get back to America, but I don't know when. We don't usually invite guests over and offer them tea like the Tibetans do, you know?"

"Well, you can if you want to!"

Hey, wait a minute! I could do that! How nice that would be, to fix up some lemon ginger tea for my friends when they visit and to invite unexpected visitors to come inside and have some tea.

Hospitality in India is not what I am accustomed to. Dr. Aziz in A Passage to India goes into debt, spends the night at the train station to ensure punctuality, borrows a slew of servants from his friends and rents an elephant to ride just to provide Mrs. Moore and Miss Quested with the ideal picnic breakfast at the Marabar caves. While I haven't been the recipient of such an elaborate excursion, I have certainly experienced Asian hospitality! I wanted to list everything, but that wouldn't be possible. Here are a few examples:

The adorable TCV students have excellent manners. The most surprising event of my field study so far was my unexpected temporary position as a computer instructor. Through some misunderstanding, when I arrived at the class I meant to observe the students informed me that I was the teacher. Well, all right! Fortunately, I am well versed in classroom games. The students well extraordinarily well behaved--they would ask my permission to enter the room, they applauded when I told them about my research, and at the end of class they all stood and sang, "Thank you, teacher, have a nice day!" Later, when I was waiting for the bus, a cute little boy opened his newly purchased chips and offered me one.

In the staff room I've been offered tea, boiled water, biscuits, bread and chickpeas, bananas, daily lunch, a place to sit, and interviews for my research. The teachers are happy to show me to my classrooms, the lunch building, or the bus stop when I'm lost. The computer teacher invited me to his class and even lent me his copy of the class textbook for my reference.

My host family would never allow me to sit on a hard surface without a cushion if they could help it. Every morning Tashi asks me if I slept well, and each time I return home Amalah asks how my day was. This is in addition to delicious breakfast, dinner, and lemon ginger tea every day, a place to sleep, and immediate attention to anything I request (I am extremely careful with my requests). Sometimes they turn on the BBC because I can't understand Tibetan television. And it's not just me who receives special treatment--Amalah will make a cup of tea for any guest who comes over.

Hospitality is present in my own culture, but different. I think we are generally less concerned with it. I've learned from Dr. Aziz and many Tibetans, however, the conventions of hospitality in India, and I'm excited to make lemon tea for my guests when I'm home again!

People

2011-05-30T06:13:00.000-06:00

May 28
Right now, I'm having a hard time even understanding what happened on Thursday (partially because I am trying to erase it from my memory), so it's more difficult to combine it with the themes and ideas from The Canterbury Tales, Kipling's poetry, and A Passage to India.

Maybe what I should do is describe people I've met here, somewhat like Chaucer does. After all, it is complexity that creates humanity and, by the same token, ambiguity. People are rarely so thoroughly corrupt as the monarch in "The Ballad of the King's Mercy." We are more like Dr. Aziz or Mr. Heaslop: good parts and bad parts.

Administrators at the TCV are all graciousness and hospitality. They are as good as anyone I've met. Today, the headmaster, who is an intimidating man due to his intelligence (but who minimizes intimidation by being an extremely courteous host), invited me to sit down, offered me refreshment, introduced me to a computer teacher and gave me a timetable of the remaining computer classes. His polite smile and respect for me calmed my nerves. He was dressed in clothing that was both professional and weather-appropriate--slacks and a button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up.
Sanjay's friend, a Tibetan teacher from a settlement in southern India, came to the door on Wednesday. He was thoroughly bewildered when I answered the door and thought he'd come to the wrong house. He had thick, beautiful hair and a young face. He was polite, inquiring about my origins and time in India, and he expressed his approval at my developing momo-making skills. He was quite forceful in his opinions about Tibetan politics--he dislikes the new Tibetan Prime Minister as much as he liked the former. He is a pleasant and loyal friend to Trisong.

Amalah, who I met some time ago but am just getting to know, is as sweet as any woman I've ever met. When I was worried that she was mad at me (she hadn't intended to rinse that laundry twice, and I could have moved it but didn't) she just gave me a huge, genuine smile as usual. When she learned that I was sitting on the roof alone she brought a cushion for me to sit on and now she's sitting next to me, studying English while I write.

Let's hope that the goodness of these three will counteract the description of the Jew.

He is not all bad. He is manipulative, he took advantage of a sensitive young Mormon girl, and he would do it again, but he isn't all bad.

I was walking to the bus stop when a stooped, bearded old man wearing a white buttoned shirt, a polyester jacket, cargo pants, flip flops, and a newsie hat asked for my help answering his phone. I would guess that he is in his late 70s. He had Parkinson's and struggled to move at all. Upon learning that I am from Utah he asked if I am Mormon and then asked all manner of questions about my faith. (I thought I was doing good. I think it's within the ISP rules to answer questions about the Church, and I believed him genuinely interested.)

He, being disabled, needed my help to sit down, move to a less bumpy spot on the bench, stand up every 5-10 minutes, walk to the donut shop, feed him ice cream, relieve himself on the side of the road, purchase a drink, locate a straw for that drink, go to the doctor's office twice (this involves me walking backwards across town and bumping into people and things), fetch a chair, purchase tissues, deal with the doctor and nurses, and, most repulsively, rub the foul smelling brown ointment from his rotting legs while I told him what Mormons believe and what Jesus did and who Joseph Smith is and the few things I recall from reading Preach My Gospel. He is embittered of Indian drivers and any person who tries to speak to me about him ("Don't talk to them, it's none of their business, if you tell them what's wrong with me it'll just make it worse"). Eight hours of mine was not enough ("I want to study with you every day"). He is looking for instantaneous healing ("Do they do long-distance healing from Utah? I'm sure someone in your church does"), and he wants to know God, have a long and healthy life, and wealth.

In my defense, I was trying to be Christ-like. I was easy to manipulate. The emotional toll was heaviest--after the good feeling came the awful feeling of being trapped. He wouldn't let me out of his control. The last hour was me saying firmly, "I must go now" and him saying "help me stand up once more . . . do me one more favor . . . please, please buy some tissues and wipe off the ointment so I can roll my pants back down . . . please then will you take the chair back . . . help me stand up again . . . no, you cannot go until you talk to Rosie [Rosie's phone is off] . . . don't go until you talk to Rosie . . ."

I was distraught.

There is always good and bad in people. My view of the Jewish man is forever tainted by the emotional heaviness of that entire day, but there is also good in him just like there is good and bad in me.

Library and Cyber Cafe

2011-05-28T05:11:00.000-06:00

Project update!

I have done some observations and interviews at the TCV and I've found some amazing things! For example, today I spoke to the headmaster for the high school but I wasn't able to get permission to observe classrooms yet. Instead, I found the library! It exceeded all my expectations--there were at least ten computers around the perimeter of the room, and the librarian informed me that they have free internet access for students for an hour after school and for four hours on Sundays. During school hours they have E Granary, a program that allows students to conduct research offline. The library was exactly what I needed, and I have a feeling that I'll be spending a fair amount of time there over the next ten weeks.

After speaking to the librarian I went to the cyber cafe on campus. The internet there is available to students after school and on weekends and holidays. The cost is 5 rupees for 5-10 minutes, 10 rupees for 10-30 minutes, and 15 rupees for 30-60 minutes (which, when compared to the 30 rupees/minute cost in McLeod, is a great deal). I asked the employee if the students have Facebook profiles, and he told me that virtually every student has a Facebook profile, but I'm not sure if he meant all of the TCV students or all of the students who frequent the cyber cafe. I asked him what students most often do in the cyber cafe, and he said that they chat on Facebook or on Yahoo messenger. He also told me that they check their email accounts--frequently gmail--and said that a few students maintain blogs. I had to leave before the students came, but I am sure I'll be spending time in the cyber cafe, too.

The limited internet in the library and the 15 rs/hr charge for the cyber cafe are the result of the expense of maintaining an internet connection. I realized, though, that because students will have to pay for their time in the cyber cafe they'll use the internet for shorter time periods. Therefore, more of the 2,000 students will have access to the limited number of computers.

The survey is still pending. The TCV goes on summer break for 1.5 weeks beginning next Wednesday, and I'm hoping to have the survey ready to go by the time they return. Transportation to the school is still an issue, though I think I have a solid way of getting back to McLeod. Altogether I think the project is going well!

Homesick

2011-05-25T06:42:00.000-06:00

On Sunday evening, after our pancake-and-mineral-water sacrament meeting at the Dalai Lama's temple and after walking to the top of an extraordinarily beautiful waterfall, Rachel, Matt, Julia, Bonnie, Megan, Elizabeth and I walked clockwise along the path around the temple, a route called the kora. We stopped in the middle, beneath a pavilion that protected us from the fickle rain, spoke, prayed together, and indulged in three sleeves of America's, and milk's, favorite cookie. (It's really too bad we didn't have any milk.) The flavors: regular, strawberry cream, and chocolate peanut butter. At 49 rupees a pack, oreos are certainly a luxury, but this time the benefits outweighed the cost: eating an oreo is almost like being in America.

Homesickness is one of the symptoms of culture shock that also continues in the absence of culture shock. Ulysses, in The Odyssey, notes that "there is nothing dearer to a man than his own country and parents, [no matter how] splendid a home he may have in a foreign country." If we reduce homesickness to simply longing for familiar foods, then it's easy to see its effect on our group: the most frequently ordered menu item in any restaurant is french fries (or "finger chips," as the case may be). Homesickness is more than food, though: A cold bucket shower immediately reminds us of shower heads and water heaters. A faulty internet connection and failed skype conversation pours fresh salt on the parts of our hearts we have left after leaving half of them in America (or something :).

It may be for the best that we cling to oreos and french fries, though, because if we were to eat of the lotus (in this case, fried momos and sweet bali and lemon ginger honey tea) then we might never be able to leave Dharamsala!

In all seriousness, though, the ultimate punishment for a traveler is to restrict him or her from returning home. This is the curse that Cyclops wished on Ulysses and certainly my own worst-case scenario. Just like a toddler feels comfortable running around a playground because his mother is waiting on a bench, like Ulysses's can sail around the world because he knows his wife is at home, and like I can come to India because my family is in Utah, a secure base makes adventures possible. Sometimes, like when Elizabeth and I walked the kora discussing burgers and ice cream and other glorious things we'd eat again in August, the promise of returning to the secure base is the only motivation to push through the challenges of the present.

So why travel? Why leave home if you'll just wish you were back? Ulysses sought glory, but I wanted something else. I didn't know it when I left, but I wanted to meet Tasneem the Indian poet who writes to correct misconceptions between Indians and Westerners, Lorraine from London with the winning smile, and Lhamo, the former nomad from Tibet who laughs easily and teaches me Tibetan phrases. When my view of the world was limited by the Rocky Mountains, I didn't realize that a Buddhist monk in India might wake up at 5:30, pray for hours, eat tsampa for breakfast, and then study for most of the day without knowing or caring that the Pope controls the Roman Catholic church, not all of Christianity. And where else could I learn to write my name in three different forms of Tibetan script?

There is a reason to travel, and it involves experiencing real life in a completely new way. That is worth the trouble of leaving the secure base.

Skyping the Family

2011-05-23T22:08:00.001-06:00

In our group meetings lately we've talked about our support system back home, including the field studies office, our family, and our friends. I just spent about an hour talking to my family over skype, so I thought I'd share the text messages that went on with my little brothers, aged 8 and 6. (The word "napa" is part of our Finnish heritage, and it means belly button. My mother's father was an immigrant from Finland.)

[8:06:24 PM] Cardon Family: i iove you
Cardon Family: hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi hi

Kristen Nicole: hi kids
Kristen Nicole: yeah, you're made of cheese

Cardon Family: cheese napa
Cardon Family: your a cheese napa
Cardon Family: your a cheese napa
Cardon Family: do you like mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Cardon Family: you nnnnnnnnnnnniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiccccccccccccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Cardon Family: I
Cardon Family: I
Cardon Family: I
Cardon Family: I .................miss.
Cardon Family: I miss you

Kristen Nicole: i miss you, too :)
Kristen Nicole: yes, I like you n stuff

Cardon Family: I miss you
Cardon Family: I miss you
Cardon Family: i wish that you did not leave us
Cardon Family: . from Dallin

Kristen Nicole: adorable :)

Cardon Family: IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII lllllllllllllllllllllllllloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
Cardon Family: i em so sad from dallin
Cardon Family: eloamego [translation: hello amigo]
Cardon Family: 11111111111122222222222222222333333333333333333333333333333334444444444444444444444444445555555555555555555555555555556666666666666666666666666777777777777777777777777778888888888888888888888888888899999999999999999999999999999999999999111000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000011101011010101001111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111110000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Cardon Family: 111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111144444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444444477777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777777
Cardon Family: i will git you somtheng from the first grade store
Cardon Family: 33333333333333335640147
Cardon Family: mh,.bkfgjkjgjfigjfijgkfgjfipifygurhtiuhrgioshfjhgnmdkfhguhiurioqythlsdagggbnbvbvnvm,vcvcxbcshskhjsglkhsljgflkuoiurouoiruiro
Cardon Family: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
Cardon Family: abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz fffffffffffffffffffoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
[8:34:07 PM] Cardon Family: I've weared this shirt since preschool. from dallin

The Maiden and the Red Beard

2011-05-23T00:22:00.002-06:00

Once upon a time in a faraway land lived a young woman, who was good and happy, and an old man-witch. Every day when the girl walked by to fetch water the angry man-witch watched her. "Why does she have youth and happiness when I have nothing but this red beard to comfort me in my old age?" said the man-witch, "I must put an end to her pleasure or I cannot bear her existence." Stroking his red beard, the man-witch muttered a curse on the girl for he had learned dark magic from his mother's knee.

Thou who has been bless'd,
Thou must take this test.
Each time I twist my long red beard
The worst will pass, just as thou fear'd.

When he had finished the wicked curse, the maiden was just passing in front of his hut. She stumbled and spilled her water, then looked around in surprise. She had never before fallen on those steps. From the foul-smelling hut next to the path she heard a wicked little laugh and saw the man-witch pointing at her. "Wicked man, why do you mock a fallen girl?" The man-witch did not reply but twisted his red beard. Frightened, she hurried away.

The next day, when the young woman woke, she discovered that her only shoes had been stolen away in the night. Weeping a little, she put on a pair of little slippers and went about to fetch the water. As she walked outside, a little red bird tore a hole in the pocket of her dress, and she didn't see it because the sun was shining so brightly. But by and by, when she came to the well, all her coins had fallen out of the hole and little children had run away with them. Even the bright sun was unkind to the poor girl, and it burned her face and arms until they were red. The girl, feeling disheartened, walked back to her house. By accident she stepped in some rotten vegetables that a market-woman had dropped on the way, and her little slippers became dirty.

When she got home, however, the girl found that her aunt and uncle were speaking a language that she could not understand, and try as she might she could not speak to them. Quietly, she ate a little supper of green beans and flour and butter, but the food pained her stomach and gave her bad dreams.

The next day, when she woke up, the pain in her stomach had gone but the bad dreams wouldn't leave her mind. As she walked by the little hut to fetch the water, she heard the same wicked laugh from the day before. Seized by a sudden burst of courage, the woman pushed aside the moth-eaten curtain to look inside at the man-witch. He sat on a stool, smoking a huge black pipe and twisting his red beard.

"Maid, why dost thou disturb a poor old man on his death bed?" he asked. "Witch!" cried she, "why does your beard stink of black magic?" For the donkey outside had whispered in her ear the secret of her misfortunes. Seizing a piece of broken glass, the maiden cut the red beard until it fell away from the man-witch's face with a mighty crack. The man-witch, touching his bare chin, howled like a wounded bear, and his pipe fell from his lips and shattered on the stone floor. Then the man-witch vanished, for he had sold his soul for a pipe that never went out, and when it broke the devil claimed him.

The young woman, left alone in the shack holding a thick red beard, hurried away to her house where she dug a hole for the beard and buried it. Free from the black magic of the man-witch, the beard grew into a beautiful red bush that protected the young woman to the end of her days.

The Tapestry

2011-05-19T00:51:00.001-06:00

I've now begun the meat of my travel writing course work for my time here in McLeod. Twice every week I'll write short pieces reflecting on what I've read and experienced so far. I've decided to post these on my blog instead of emailing them to my professor, so what you'll see are rough drafts of creative non-fiction (personal essays) about my time in India. Here is the first installment:

May 18

There seem to be many aspects of my life intersecting here as I sit in the red bean cafe in McLeod. The life experiences, thoughts, and experiences of any one person are complex and, I've often thought of my own, incomprehensible. It is both a battle and a quest to achieve coherence among the countless threads that compose the fabric of our lives.

How is it done? How do I weave my past with my present with my future, my cultural identity with my experiences abroad? I left the passions of childhood when I became a responsible, practical, frugal adult. It is impractical, when there is so much to be done, to read or write for pleasure, or indeed to pursue anything solely for pleasure. The dishes must be washed, so it is better to convince yourself that you thoroughly enjoy washing dishes (which I have successfully done). In an attempt to avoid the illusion of the greener grass, I will note that both of my personalities (habits? lifestyles?) I've just described have positive and negative components. It is ambiguous rather than white and black. However, as any anthologist has learned, there is a finite amount of space in the canon (or time in a day, or paper in a notebook), and we must choose and exclude in filling our days and canons and reflective writing assignments. It therefore stands to reason that in becoming the practical woman that I am I no longer have room for the passionate child.

I am living in the "strange dualism" that Dr. Burton mentioned in the introduction to travel writing, and it is indeed "a schizophrenia between who-I-am-here and who-I-was-there." It is a matter of both space and time. I, who would never dare spend more than $35 on only the most essential groceries, find myself indulging in Cadbury's chocolate and lemon-ginger-honey tea? I, who would be perfectly content living the rest of my life in Bountiful, Utah, find myself in love with cosmopolitan London and increasingly comfortable with the Tibetan way of life? I see the patterns of my childhood re-emerging--I am spending hours in the red bean cafe, thinking and reading and writing, powerless against the spell of words--but perhaps parts of me are new. Maybe Twain was right that "travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness," or maybe the ambiguity of Stephen Schwartz's lyrics are better suited--who can say if I've been changed for the better? But I've certainly been changed for good.

When I was in Delhi my life fell apart. My best friend sent me an email detailing the specific terms for the end of our friendship--no further contact, removal from my email list, no sharing the mission address--and cutting off her support indefinitely. My father and I had a stressful misunderstanding about money to top off an already strained relationship, my financial security for fall semester fell through, my honors thesis proposal was insufficient, my heart missed Bountiful and London and my mind and body united in opposition to all things Delhi. I sent some teary emails to my parents and many prayers heavenward, since God was my sole remaining anchor to the person I had been and the life I had lived.

My mother replied with an anonymous but much celebrated poem about God weaving the beautiful tapestries of our lives. The dark threads--sorrows burdens challenges--are just as important in the final design as the gold and silver.

The tapestry metaphor may now serve a dual purpose: first as inspiration for a gift to bring to my mother (Tibetan wall hangings are beautiful!) and second, perhaps a theme for my field study experience in McLeod Ganj, India. The threads might be old, like the remnants of my childhood love for reading or long suppressed emotions, or new, like the relationships with my host family and group. They might be beautiful, like hiking in the Himalayas and the Calla lilies growing around the Upper Tibetan Children's Village school, or ugly, like the smells of squatters or the missing and matted fur of a stray dog. They will be both joyful, like making friends with Su Nam, and sad, like seeing beggars. In the end I hope to have added a beautiful layer to the tapestry of my life.

Culture Shock, Part 2

2011-05-19T00:21:00.000-06:00

Okay, so I thought I was transitioning into the irritation/hostility phase of culture shock a few days ago, and I was proud of myself because it was so mild. This morning, though, was the point of no return, and I am overwhelmed by its intensity. The reason for the suddenness and intensity was, of course, a triggor--in this case, my shoes were stolen. They weren't just regular shoes, though, they were the most expensive shoes I've ever owned--chacos, the shoe-of-choice for study abroad students, those amazing shoes that are supposed to last for years without wearing out (though I will never find out if that's true), those shoes that I should have paid for but I allowed my parents to buy for me, one more straw of guilt on the camel of my finances. You have to know that everyone and their dog told me these shoes would be indispensable for my field study, you have to know that they were growing on me to the point that I actually liked them, you have to know that they were perfect for protecting me from rocky roads and unidentifiable liquid substances and whatever other horror I see on the road, you have to know about all my cultural sensitivity training in my prep class, where I learned to do as the locals do and always be considerate of my host family, you have to know that on the very first day I came to my host family's house I was directed to leave my shoes outside, like they all did, to keep the house clean, you have to know that I would never ever ever consciously do something that would offend my host family, especially bringing my shoes inside when I'd been specifically instructed not to, you must know that I have only two pairs of shoes to wear in McLeod--my chacos and some cheap plastic shoes for which a street vendor ripped me off, purchased to wear in the shower as my host family does, you have to understand that I was really liking McLeod and feeling confident in my plans for this day when I opened the door to go to the city, and you have to know that the very last thing I expected at that moment was to not see my shoes sitting by the door, and then maybe you'd understand how my culture shock went quickly from honeymoon to anger, why I glared at the people I saw on the street and couldn't decide if I wanted to yell or cry or slap anyone who tried to speak to me, how the rocks beneath my feet on the path to the city, the rocks that I could feel for the first time today, added one by one to the mounting fury that encompassed me while I walked, why I sought out the familiarity of a computer screen and keyboard to get away from everything that makes me mad, and why I've been crying why I write this post. Anyway, I am feeling less furious by now, it took me about an hour to cool, and fortunately Norbu was very kind:

[10:46:35 AM] Kristen Nicole: hi Norbu, I was planning to come to the school today but I was robbed this morning and I'm really upset
Kristen Nicole: so I don't know if I'll make it today

Norbu: o hhhh
Norbu: wat happened
Norbu: u robbed means like wat

Kristen Nicole: well, someone stole my shoes
Kristen Nicole: they were $100, which is about 5,000 rupees
Kristen Nicole: and now I don't have any shoes to wear for three months
Kristen Nicole: so I'm really upset

Norbu: ohhh thats bad
Norbu: well cheers gal
Norbu: its not great deal...obstacles are the means to make u stronger...all u got to do is over come it...
Norbu: thats like you got to more cautious when watever u do next time...coz u are in different world out here
Norbu: there is a saying " when u know u can't get back things lost or can't undo the past...
Norbu: there's no use worrying or being upset of that
Norbu: but if something can be done or there's any hope...you could do any thing to make it happen...
Norbu: so anyways relax and breathe and jsut get over with it...

Kristen Nicole: okay, I'm working on it
Kristen Nicole: Lands, thank you Norbu
Kristen Nicole: you've really helped
Kristen Nicole: I'm still not sure what I'll wear on my feet for three months, but I'm not as upset anymore

Norbu: buy one shoe...that's it...
Norbu: its not so costly...or a slipper...cost only some hundred ruppees n shoe cost around some hundred to 1500 rs. u can get quite a good items
Norbu: in mcleod ganj

Kristen Nicole: yes
Kristen Nicole: probably
Kristen Nicole: not as good as my chacos, but probably good

Norbu: :)
Norbu: thats the spirit...materialism isnt the perfect solution...all things that one posses must either lose or worn out someday...all thats filled get empty and all things that comes to world must go...so.........

Kristen Nicole: :)
[11:17:56 AM] Kristen Nicole: Thanks Norbu

I may as well share the story of the monk now since there is a small chance that it could provide a miraculously happy ending to this story (hey, I just read Hansel and Gretel this morning, I believe in fairy tale endings)

Yesterday was wonderfully bizarre. After spending the morning working on homework in a cafe, I went wandering about town where I accidentally made the best bargain of my life (and proceeded to not buy the jewelry anyway) and then got lost and ran into a pack of monkeys. Having just learned that the monkeys have been known to attack and bite people, I became rather nervous, especially when one of the big monkeys growled (?) at me. Then who comes along but Karma! Yes, the very man that my group and I met on the bus to Dharamsala, the one with the funny jokes and hilarious laughter. What are the odds of that? So I told him I was scared of the monkeys and he laughed and walked with me so they wouldn't attack. As we walked I asked him if his name was Karma, and he stopped short. "How do you know that?" I am pretty sure he was freaked out at this point. I quickly explained that I'd been one in the group of students he'd met on the bus, and he laughed and went on about what a small world it is. Indeed!

Irrelevant but funny.

Then I went to a conversation class for English learners where I made some new friends, including a monk who is just beginning to study English. Through a translator I learned that he wanted me to give him private English lessons, and I refused because I already have so much to do this summer. He kept asking, and finally I caved and said that I could help him for only thirty minutes every week, right after the conversation class. After class I realized that I didn't know where we could go, but the translator told me that the monk knew a place we could go. I assumed it would be a monastery--I was wrong! He promptly took my bag and wouldn't let me carry it (is it chivalry or the perfect way to ensure that I actually come with him wherever he goes? Readers, you decide!) and took me to his tiny one-room house, which was actually only a minute's walk from where I'm living. We went over the ABCs a few times, he recorded me saying them, and then I insisted on leaving. He carried my bag again (I think that time was actually chivalry) and ended up sitting in my host family's home, drinking tea and talking to Tankho and Lhamo Kyab for about an hour while I studied Tibetan. And before he left he paid me several compliments (in English, with the aid of a little conversation book and my host family) and made certain that I knew he expected to see me again the next day (which, of course, is today) at the conversation class.

So here's my only hope for my shoes: If they were stolen by someone who intends to wear or sell them, then I don't have a prayer of ever having them again. But! If this monk, who may have taken my bag to ensure that I followed through with a private tutoring session, got it in his head that stealing my shoes was a good way to make sure I come to the conversation class today, then I may get my shoes back at 4:00. It's a long shot, but it's the only hope I have for my dearly departed chacos.

But, most likely, if you come to McLeod tomorrow you'll find me standing in the market, wearing plastic shower shoes, bargaining for a new pair of sandals with the glint of a hardened traveler in my eye.

McLeod Ganj . . . Or is it Dharamsala?

2011-05-15T05:22:00.001-06:00

As the title suggests, I'm not exactly sure if the locals refer to their hometown as McLeod Ganj or Dharamsala. I've seen and heard both all over. Ah well, small potatoes.

I haven't started up my project yet, but here are some of the potential problems I'm noticing:

Location of TCV. I think it might be far-ish away, and I can't easily afford daily transportation. I am planning to take a rickshaw there tomorrow and see if it will be feasible
Language barriers. These I definitely underestimated--I was confident because of Norbu, Phuntsok, and some other contacts that English wouldn't usually be a problem, but I've had some communication problems with my host uncle who speaks English really well. The best course of action may be to read through my interview question with a bilingual, like my host uncle or Norbu, and see if they would make sense to the average TCV employee. Or maybe I'll just pilot an interview with Nobu and test both the time it takes and the clarity of the questions. (I don't want to overburden Norbu, either--I think I'll do a pilot interview with him and then give him some time off from heavy-duty helping me)
Survey language barriers. I was always planning to translate the survey into Tibetan, backtranslate, and then distribute (which could be a really time-consuming process, especially considering that the survey is still incomplete), but I'm now concerned about translating the answers the students write. That's something I hadn't thought of before, oddly enough
Having time for everything. It's my second day in McLeod and I'm already feeling pressed for time. It probably has to do with the Honors thesis proposal, which I should have had ready by now, and the fact that my course work is entirely independent from my project.

I'm a bit unsure as to what my next blog posts will be, I think I will be using this blog for both project purposes and classwork purposes. Personal stories and insights are mainly for my emails home and my journal, but when you add field notes, jottings, and analysis and reflection for my literature and writing classes, the writing piles up and looks quite daunting. We'll see where this goes soon enough :)

Even More IRB and the Honors Thesis Proposal

2011-04-20T14:48:00.000-06:00

I have an abundance of good news!

My IRB protocol was accepted with changes! I have 29 days to make the changes the IRB board requires and resubmit my protocol. After that, I am cleared to begin my research in Dharamsala! This is a huge relief equal to the huge burden that it was to write the protocol.
I finished my honors thesis proposal and submitted it to Dr. Burton and Dr. Dean, the English department honors coordinator. It is 25 pages long. If you keep in mind that my IRB protocol was 24 pages long, you might become a little bit worried about the length of my honors thesis itself. I guess I'm just long winded!
Google voice. Who knew that Google would change my life again? Google voice is a free tool that "gives you a single phone number that rings all of your phones, saves your voicemail online, and transcribes your voicemail to text. Other cool features include the ability to listen in on messages while they're being left, block unwanted callers, and make cheap international calls." It costs $.02 per minute to call London and $.06 per minute to call India. I am now planning to bring my cell phone with me so that my family will be able to contact me in the case of an emergency. We're planning to use Skype most of the time since it's free, but Google voice will be perfect for emergencies.
I just booked my train and hotel for Paris. I will be there for two days, speaking French with French people!
I have a killer prep class final in five hours and a meeting right after that is going until midnight.

Okay, so number 5 isn't really good news, but it's the reason that this blog post is so short. I just wanted to give some updates so that my faithful readers know what's going on with this whole project :)

Technology in Exile

2011-04-13T23:23:00.000-06:00

I revised the background, significance, and literature review section of my project proposal. Here's what it says now:

We live in the midst of a digital renaissance, reflected in swift technological advances and cultural revolution. Often, those living in the United States have nearly constant access to technological resources, especially the internet. Developing nations like India, however, have significantly limited access by comparison (Fink and Kenny 20). The Tibetan community living in exile in McLeod Ganj, India is a contradiction--residents boast a high level of digital literacy but usually lack computers, particularly in personal settings like the home. The high level of digital literacy in the Tibetan community is a phenomenon that academia is just beginning to understand, one that links the digital natives in India to the digitally literate around the world and challenges the Tibetans who are seeking to preserve their culture as they live in a foreign land.

Previous scholarship regarding digital culture do not adequately address the unique situation in Dharamsala, India. Though scholars such as Paul Levinson (2009) and Charlie Gere (2002) have studied the implications of the digital renaissance in first world countries, that which involves developing countries has focused on the digital divide between nations. Now, due to the advances of mobile technology, the phenomenon of developing countries "digitally leapfrogging" developed nations displaces the notion of digital divide (Fink and Kenny 15). The result is a gap in scholarship concerning digitally literate communities without prime access to technology, especially for the Tibetans' unique exiled location in India. The digital renaissance is global in its effects, largely because global communication is easier than ever. In addition, the swiftly evolving nature of digital culture necessitates frequent updates as information becomes outdated. Therefore, current scholarship concerning digital literacy must extend beyond national borders just as its subject matter does.

Digital literacy is a hallmark of the rising generation worldwide. "It has long been recognised [sic] that literacy, and a literate population, are keys not only to economic development but also to personal achievement and social well being everywhere . . . but only recently have we begun to understand the importance of 'beyond literacy' developments such as information literacy, digital literacy, and complementary literacies" (Ameen and Gorman 100). Digital literacy requires, at its foundation, proficiency with technological hardware and basic internet functions such as navigating browsers, websites, and search engines. Beyond these, the digitally literate are comfortable with unfamiliar programs, online collaboration, and multi-tasking. They expect high-speed internet connections and immediate results. Further, "the evolution of media has so integrated the modes of communication and transportation as to make us expect any device that does the first to be able just as easily to do the second" (Levinson 229). This is related to "the annihilation of physical distance and the dissolution of material reality by virtual or telecommunication technologies" that is already prevalent and threatens to become increasingly so (Gere 11). With mobile internet devices, the wealth of online information is available anywhere, and online information and products are often free. One Tibetan man noted that "with the coming of the computer and internet we can do lots of things now, we can do anything" (Jinpa). For the digitally literate youth in Dharamsala, digital literacy is certainly present, though it is likely to be different from other digital natives as a result of the unique Tibetan circumstances.

Many Tibetans in India are actively involved in the digital renaissance, but its effects on Tibetan cultural preservation are yet to be understood. The Dalai Lama has Twitter, the Tibetan Children's Village school has a Facebook group, and Dharamsala has a wireless mesh that provides internet for the entire city (Cardon "Internet"). Indian government policies encourage information technology to foster the digital paradigm (Ameen and Gorman 99). Yet in 2003, there was a 70-fold difference in access rates between US and Indian households (Fink and Kenny 20). Nevertheless, the mark of the digital renaissance results in marked changes in the Tibetan community as it does worldwide. As instant global communication fosters a single "new culture for [Tibetans and] for everyone . . . [since] we are getting so much mixed" the previous distinctions between cultures become less clear (Jinpa). As one researcher found, "Tibetan refugees are members of a population whose culture and language are in danger of being subsumed by dominant culture and language" in the digital age (Tillberg). Thus, for the Tibetans whose primary goal is cultural preservation, the global nature of the digital renaissance could pose a threat. Adopting a global identity necessitates losing the unique Tibetan culture to some degree. However, "as a culture is neither as new as it might appear, nor is its development ultimately determined by technological advances, [it] would be more accurate to suggest that digital technology is a product of digital culture" (Gere 13). In fact, literacy itself is associated with a "unifying cultural heritage." "The idea of intellectual, and to some extent political, universalism is historically and substantively linked with literate culture" (Goody 50). Technology, then, so closely tied to civilization and progress, is simply the culmination of a need for that technology within the culture itself. In this instance, digital literacy is functional as an outlet for society's needs and an aid, not a detriment, to cultural preservation while facilitating progress into modernity. It is possible that "the Internet and multimedia technology may present both direct conflict with traditional values for such a population, as well as opportunity to protect and promote use of an endangered language and culture" (Tillberg). With the digital renaissance comes the question of its relationship to Tibetan cultural preservation, and the constant advances in technology only serve to make this question more pressing.

"Ultimately," says one Tibetan man, "we need to preserve our identity" (Jinpa). With 5-6 million Tibetans, the entire heritage and culture is at risk. The Tibetans boast a unique digital literacy to match their unique political and social position, though the nature and degree of digital literacy in a community that lacks the level of access available in the West is still in question. Further, and more crucially, the question of survival of Tibetan culture is magnified by and intimately related to the modern digital renaissance, a relationship that is yet to be understood. For thousands of exiled Tibetans, digital culture is a potent feature of modern life and a notable consideration in the preservation of traditional culture.

I have come a long way over this semester, though my roots are certainly still present in the final product. Despite all my work, though, I realized in class today that I have a lot of necessary revisions in my project design even though I've turned it in. Isn't that the story of life, anyway? My project will never be perfectly prepared, and at this point I think all there is left is to do it!

Cultural Attitudes of Tibetan Refugees

2011-04-08T15:37:00.000-06:00

Do you ever find the perfect source after you write your paper? Fortunately, I haven't yet turned in a final draft of my project proposal! Here is the abstract of an article, "Cultural Attitudes of Tibetan Refugees toward Multimedia Technology," by Heather Tillberg of the University of Virginia. The article comes from the World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications (EDMEDIA) in 2004.

Tibetan refugees are members of a population whose culture and language are in danger of being subsumed by dominant culture and language. The Internet and multimedia technology (computer, television, radio) may present both direct conflict with traditional values for such a population, as well as opportunity to protect and promote use of an endangered language and culture. Digital divide research is concerned not only with access to computers and the Internet, but also knowledge about and interest of potential users in using these tools. Existing research suggests limited materials exist on the Internet for speakers of languages besides English, limiting the adoption of Internet use by some populations. I will present data analysis from a series of interviews with four Tibetan refugees in the United States. This analysis will help portray Tibetans' attitudes toward the impact of multimedia technology in their lives, and give insight into the complex issues of the digital divide.

Tillberg's analysis will rely on the notion of the digital divide, which I have argued is outdated by the new notion of "digital leapfrogging," but it's likely that her data is highly relevant to my project. I'm looking forward to reading her findings and revising my proposal to include them!

"Now, we can do anything!"

2011-04-08T15:23:00.000-06:00

Fortunately, my passport and visa are safely in my possession, and I'm 2.5 weeks out! Here are some of the things that have been going on in my mind and life:

I gave my project presentation to a wonderful audience of three people on Wednesday. It went well; I showed the video that my group had made of the interview with Norbu last semester because it occurred to me that it would be the perfect introduction to my project! Not only did Norbu give background of the Tibetans in Dharamsala and the TCV but he made many excellent points about digital culture. Here is one of my favorite quotes from the video: "I think [computers and internet] are a wonderful thing for us, for everyone. I think it's a new culture for everyone . . . . With the coming of computers we can do lots of things. Now, we can do anything!" In addition, the fact that I even have Norbu as a friend (thanks, Facebook and Skype!) and the interview itself are excellent representations of my project--the things that you can do with technology have changed the way I do my project and indeed the way I run my life.
One of the questions asked after my presentation was how am I practicing proper reciprocity with Norbu? It is an excellent question. Norbu has been so kind and helpful to me for a long time. I certainly need to respond with some kindness and generosity of my own, and I have yet to decide what I can do for him. One thing that I think I have done for him, however, is give him the opportunity to have his voice heard. He wants people to know about Tibetans and their situation, and the video we presented at our digital civilization event informed our audience (including many college students and faculty) of just that. I also published Norbu's statement about his culture on my blog, which has a respectable audience as well. If all goes as planned, I may even present the same video at a much larger honors conference in the fall (more on this to come!)
There are two main challenges that I see in my project right now: the first is that I am unbalanced in my field experience proposal. I am leaning heavily on my academic project and I have not given nearly as much thought to my overall experience of cultural immersion. I need to work on balancing my thinking here. The second challenge is my methodology--I am probably trying to do too much (c'est la vie) and I need to revise my methods.

I have a great deal more to do, and not just with this field study preparation. Let's see if I can get my life back in order!

Coping With Culture Shock

2011-04-04T23:58:00.000-06:00

"For most Westerners, operating abroad involves a fairly severe bout with culture shock." I could spend this post discussing the symptoms of culture shock, as discussed in Ferraro's book Coping With Culture Shock, but I think it will be most helpful if I discuss ways to combat the culture shock. Here are some of Ferraro's suggestions:

As soon after arrival as possible, become familiar with the immediate physical surroundings. He suggests buying a map and studying it so as to feel more comfortable with the layout of the place where you'll be living. I think this is excellent--I know that I struggled moving to college because I didn't know landmarks or road names, but if I could combat that by studying a map I'd be much better off.

Within the first several days of arrival, work on familiarizing yourself with some of the basic, everyday survival skills that your hosts take for granted. These include capacities such as using the local currency, using the public transportation system, and buying stamps. Honestly, I have a fear of public transportation because I've never in my life relied on it. This will be one of the most challenging aspects of my time abroad, because it is not only a public transportation system but a foreign one. However, I have hope because many, many people use public transportation and they get along just fine. I think that as long as I am humble enough to ask questions when I don't know what to do, there will be kind people around who will help me.

Understand that flexibility and resourcefulness are key elements to adapting to a new culture. I should accept now, or just try to be okay with the idea, that most of the things I plan and try to carry out will not work according to schedule. When problems and conflicts arise, I need to be prepared with resources and patience to cope with them. Hopefully, my friend Norbu will be willing to help me with those things that will seem impossible to work with.

Be adventurous. You know how you have different aspects to your personality? Well, I certainly have an adventurous streak or I wouldn't have ordered ceviche knowing that it was uncooked fish. I'll just have to nourish that streak and play down that part of me that refuses anything that is not both comfortable and familiar.

I loved this quote from Ferraro:

The anxiety resulting from trying to operate in a different environment is normal. Give yourself permission to feel frustration, homesickness, or irritability. Eventually, you will work through these symptoms and emerge with a much richer appreciation of the host culture.

The idea that culture shock enhances the international experience is a lovely one. They say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, so as long as I can cope with the symptoms (unexplainable fits of weeping, anyone?) I will be better for it.

History of Tibet

2011-04-01T23:43:00.000-06:00

Reading Thomas Laird's The Story of Tibet was probably the best idea I ever had. The book is an interesting combination of history, culture, and folklore told through the eyes of the 14th Dalai Lama. Certainly the book takes a Tibetan rather than Chinese perspective when it comes to that conflict, but I think the stance toward Tibet's political status is appropriately moderate rather than offensive.

As an American, it is intriguing to read a book that delves more deeply than I have ever gone into Asian history. I know quite a bit about the history of the Western world and the Middle East, but the histories of China, Mongolia, India, and Tibet have not been part of my education until now. There is an entire hemisphere of the world about which I know very little, and I am fascinated to learn more about it now. Here is a beautiful excerpt:

The First Dalai Lama had already founded Tashilunpo, and his master Tsongkhapa had been dead for decades. "The First Dalai Lama was getting old," the current Dalai Lama said, "around eighty-two. One day he was explaining the Buddhist scriptures, as he did every day. Then with a deep sigh he said, 'Now I am near to dying.' One disciple responded, 'Now according to your past indications, you are going to go to the Pure Land of the Buddhas.'

"'No,' the First Dalai Lama said. 'I have no wish for that. My only wish is to take rebirth wherever there are more problems and suffering.'

"This is wonderful," the Dalai Lama told me, looking up with a smile of radiant happiness. "Many years ago I read this and was really impressed." He spoke softly, reverentially, as he continued. "I wept when I read this the first time. His way of thinking, (it) deeply influenced my mind. I prefer rebirth in this world continuously. Many lamas would prefer to take rebirth in Shambhala (a near-heaven realm), but not me. My strong feelings about this were influenced by what I read long ago in the biography of the First Dalai Lama."

Though I don't know if or how I will incorporate this into my project, it is valuable to know the Dalai Lama's values. I have come to respect him much more as I have read the history of Tibet through his words.

Generation Gap

2011-03-30T23:27:00.000-06:00

Today in my prep class we were discussing current events. One of the things we mentioned was the recent election for a new political leader of Tibet (since the Dalai Lama is stepping down), the results of which will come out next month. The favorite candidate is young Dr. Lobsang Sangay, a Harvard PhD with exceptional credentials. Dr. Sangay is especially popular among the younger generation. In this context we discussed the widening gap between the older and younger generations of Tibetans.

As I thought about the methodology of my project today, I realized that it works quite well with this generation gap. Here is a brief synopsis of my methodology:

I will distribute surveys to classes of Tibetan students. The survey questions are based on the International Society for Technology in Education's five standards for digital-age learning. The inquiries will probe the ways in which Tibetan students in India "demonstrate creativity and innovation, communicate and collaborate, conduct research and use information, think critically, solve problems, and make decisions, and use technology effectively and productively" ("NETS for students"). My mentor and I will design 20-30 survey questions to discover what cultural effects are unique to Tibetan culture and interview questions regarding positive and negative perceptions of the digital renaissance. These survey questions include domain analysis to generate a Tibetan definition of “technology.” The survey takes 60 to 90 minutes to complete and is completely voluntary.

If the teachers in whose classrooms I distribute surveys are willing, I will obtain written consent from them and conduct a semi-structured interview consisting of 10-20 questions and taped recording. These interviews will address Tibetan culture and its relationship to the digital renaissance as perceived by teachers and administrators. An interview will last 1-2 hours, and may result in 1-4 follow up interviews if the participant is particularly insightful. In the time I am in their classrooms I will conduct unstructured interviews when I have the chance to talk to them about what I observe in the class, taking careful notes during or after.

If you think of the older generation as representing Tibetan culture and traditions and the younger generation as representing modern Tibet, the nation in the digital age, then my methods fit beautifully. The students, the younger generation, will be a source of information about modernized, digital Tibet. The older generation will be the source of information regarding traditional Tibetan culture. Beautiful!

Good News!

2011-03-30T15:43:00.001-06:00

Sometimes, despite my efforts to keep up with the digital renaissance, I forget what wonderful things are available on the Internet. Case in point: I own this beautiful book, the DK Eyewitness Travel Guide to India. The book is an excellent resource for travel in India, and it has certainly proven useful and likely will prove useful when I am in India. However, the section on Dharamsala itself is short, of course, since India is a large and diverse country. Today I found Wikitravel, a project to create a "free, complete, up-to-date, and reliable worldwide travel guide." So far Wikitravel has 24,659 destination guides written and edited by travelers from around the globe. First of all, what a great idea! Second of all, I love the Internet!

Here's the email I wrote to my parents about this good news:

Hey mom and dad,

I was browsing the internet today and I found this wonderful online travel guide for Dharamsala! I thought you might be interested in seeing it since I will be living in this town for nearly the entire summer. I got really excited (especially reading about the food!) (and then reading about the PRICES of that food!) (and then reading about the TWO FRENCH RESTAURANTS!!) and so I thought you might like to see what I'll be up to this summer :)

I also got excited when I followed the suggestion on the guide to look up the Dalai Lama's schedule, which I have done. As it turns out, he will be teaching about Buddhism in the Dharamsala TCV school (the very one that I will be visiting!) on the 3rd and 4th of June. He'll also be teaching at the main Tibetan temple June 28th and 29th. Obviously, since I respect Tibetans and their beliefs, I will not be present at the TCV teaching if it is not appropriate. I am not a Buddhist or a TCV student, so it may be that I am not invited. But I think there's a chance, especially because my contacts in the TCV are so kind to me, that I could be in the same room as the Dalai Lama and hear his teachings about Buddhism! Isn't that basically the greatest thing you've ever heard?!

Also, the picture of the waterfall is not even the first beautiful picture of a waterfall I've seen from the Dharamsala area, so I have a feeling that I will be doing lots of hiking this summer :)

I love you both; thanks for being my parents.

Kristen Nicole

Until now, my dominant feelings about my field study have been stress and anxiety. Maybe that's a bad sign. However, I am genuinely excited about these things I just learned, and I'm still hopeful that this field study is a good idea for me.

Thank you, Wikitravel!

Flexibility

2011-03-28T23:59:00.001-06:00

Today in my prep class I made a brief list of some challenges I anticipate for my field study:

too many surveys
language barrier
technological difficulties
subjects who dislike me
hygiene, especially contacts and contact solution
public transportation
homesickness
laundry

One thing I didn't think of that I really should have was the way to balance my personal pursuits and my academic project.

My teacher gave us four suggestions of ways we can improve our flexibility to better handle the challenges of a field study. Here are her suggestions and my thoughts on them:

1. Time

This is the one that we think of first when we think about being flexible, probably because we're American and cannot think of a day other than that period of time we divide into 24 equal segments. So, when things don't go according to plan, what is the solution? Simply give it time. I think flexible time will work for many of the problems I face in the field--I'll have to adjust to something like doing laundry differently, and that will take time. However, this is a rather passive approach that ignores some other ways I could be flexible. Read on!

2. Expectations
The goal here is to redefine success. Instead of thinking of myself a failure if I cannot complete 200 surveys in 90 days, I can call myself a success because I adjusted my project when I needed to and learned from my failures. Successful people aren't successful because they never made a mistake; they succeed because they learn from their mistakes.

3. Set goals for yourself, not others
Making a goal to have 10 interviews the second week in the field depends on me but also on 10 other people, and there is a chance that one or more of those 10 could let me down. Thus, if I set goals that are based on my own efforts (perhaps that I will spend a certain amount of time each day building rapport with those around me and looking for possible interview subjects) I am in control of my own field work. This will be important for me as I tend to set goals without regard to the people that need to be involved in them.

4. Understand context
This means that I need to try to understand what else is happening, why things are going the way they are. I may be upset because I think that a subject doesn't like me (I have anxiety about these things) but that may be because I don't realize that I am behaving rudely toward them without realizing it. If I can speak to someone about the situation, someone with whom I am already friends like Norbu, perhaps I will be able to work out the context of the problem and find a solution for it.

Obviously I can't prepare in advance for every challenge that will arise, but at least I'm on my way to developing the necessary flexibility!

Translation

2011-03-24T00:00:00.000-06:00

One thing I didn't address in my IRB protocol (that may be the downfall of said protocol) is the translation of my consent forms and surveys. This is something that I knew I would need to do but I didn't do in time for the IRB deadline. I am hoping that Norbu will be able to put me in touch with someone who can help me with all this translation, but I'm not sure how much it will cost me.

In any case, one important step I learned from Liann Seiter's presentation "Where's My Babel Fish?" is that I need to also back translate all of my texts to make sure that they still say what I want them to. This means that I get a translator to go from English to Tibetan, another to go from the Tibetan back to English, and then take note of the problems in the back translation and find someone who can help me to say in Tibetan what I actually mean.

Today in my Tibetan language class I asked me teacher how to say "computer" in Tibetan. I was planning to ask after that how to say "internet," but his answer to my first question made me think that the second one wouldn't work well, either. My Tibetan teacher hasn't been in India for a long time, so he isn't certain that the Tibetans haven't come up with a new word for the tool, but as far as he knows the Tibetan word for computer is simply to say the word "computer" with a Tibetan accent.

I have some hope, perhaps misplaced, that the English language will be significantly prevalent in Dharamsala, to the point where communication will not be an enormous barrier to my project. The TCV Facebook group is almost entirely in English, and Norbu and I have not had any major problems communicating in English.

However, it's probably best that I go forward with the translation into Tibetan. There will likely be many children who are much more comfortable with their native language.

The Story of Tibet

2011-03-21T17:15:00.000-06:00

I am reading a remarkable book by Thomas Laird called The Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama. Laird is a journalist who had been living in Nepal for 30 years at the time that he received permission to interview His Holiness the Dalai Lama one-on-one in Dharamsala, India in 2006. The result was the beginning of "a popular history of Tibet, something that has not been done with a Dalai Lama since the 1600s" (from the book jacket). Laird records the events of the interview along with the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso's recollections, his summaries of Tibetan history and mythology, and his philosophical reflections.
I decided that this book would be perfect for broadening my understanding of Tibetan culture, both historically and currently. The majority of the text is historical, but it is told through the lenses of both Thomas Laird and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. It thus represents a modern and subjective interpretation of the history, one that reveals the current Tibetan culture at the same time since it is the product of Tibet's spiritual and political leader. I am learning more about Tibetan Buddhism, politics, and thought.

Here is a significant excerpt:

On one occasion, I asked him to talk about the importance of the Potala, which I saw as one of the most significant symbols of the Tibetan nation.

He looked at me blankly. "It's just a building," he shrugged with a small laugh. [...] "For someone who has trained his mind, the Potala is still just a building. Meditation is not a philosophy; it is a technique to develop that type of attitude, detachment." (6)

In many ways, His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the embodiment of Tibetan culture. I imagine that his opinion of digital media will be a significant factor in the opinions of teachers and administrators at the TCV in Dharamsala. Perhaps the Dalai Lama represents not just Tibetan culture but modern Tibetan culture as it makes its way into the digital age. After all, I anticipate that since the Dalai Lama himself is involved in the digital renaissance, computers and internet won't be seen as at all hostile to Tibetan cultural preservation.

Photo credit thriol, Jan Michael Ihl

Inquiry

2011-03-21T16:30:00.001-06:00

One of the girls who is going to India with me next month went to Ghana last summer and studied the authenticity of various media she used to interpret her field experience. The project was inspired by the conflict she perceived between her major (English) and minor (anthropology). She decided to reconcile creative writing with thick ethnographic description, two types of writing prized by her disciplines. Since she also has a photography business, she incorporated photography as a medium by which she experienced the field and used a camera lens as a beautiful analogy for her project itself.

Picture an extremely complex camera.

I am now relying on Wikipedia, since my knowledge of cameras is woefully limited, but the interior of a complex camera lens has multiple layers that give it the capability to do the amazing things that modern cameras can do. For example, this is a diffractive optic lens in a 2001 Canon camera:

Evidently, "the 400 DO lens had a multilayer diffractive element containing concentric circular diffraction gratings to take advantage of diffraction's opposite color dispersion (compared to refraction) to correct chromatic and spherical aberrations with less low dispersion glass, fewer aspheric surfaces and less bulk." In other words, the special multiple layers in the lens made for a better camera and better pictures.

This concept is an analogy for Rachel's fieldwork in Ghana. Which medium, or what combination of media, provides the most accurate depiction of an American girl living for three months in Ghana? In reference to the conflict between creative and ethnographic writing, which is a more authentic form of documentation?

In order to explore the various aspects of her own experience, Rachel created five "avatars" of herself that would take turns leading a day of experiences. Akua was her "native" self, for times when Rachel tried to be part of the Ghanaian population, Shelley was the "experiencer," the one who did not take notes at all but simply lived, Myra was the photographer, Ava was the romantic anthropologist, and Gipsy was the postmodern traveler and writer. Thus, Rachel explored her experience in terms of different aspects of her personality.

However, she didn't stop there! Rachel also kept record of all the other media she used to describe and understand her experience--her jotting notebook, her "good things that happened today" journal, her diary, her coursework and cultural proofs, her blog, her photography, her field notes (both typed and handwritten), her books, her emails home, her physical body, and her group. I think of all these media as the multiple layers within the camera with which Rachel interprets her life in Ghana.

Rachel presented her research at the inquiry conference last week. She mentioned many interesting things in her presentation besides the analogy to a camera lens that I love. First is that solely descriptive notes miss the aesthetic element present in other written records of the experience. Do we as humans need art in order to have a full experience? Think for a moment about life without music and I think you'll know the answer. If you want further proof, try watching a movie with the soundtrack removed.

Another element of her project she discussed was the difference between typed and handwritten notes. The most obvious difference to her was the length--because of the speed of typing, she had many more descriptive, thorough notes when she typed them. Her computer breaking midway through her field experience forced her to explore the authenticity of the shorter, less descriptive handwritten notes and to ponder the function of each. I, for one, prefer to write important things by hand. I subscribe to the notion that a thank-you note to my mother or a letter to my best friend on a mission means more when my hand wrote it than when my fingers typed it. There is something more personal and indeed authentic about a person seeing the script that is unique to me, with all the flaws and idiosyncrasies contained therein.

Rachel also shared her experience with authentic versus "essence" pictures.

This is an "essence" picture:

And these are authentic pictures:

Notice that the essence picture is beautiful and dramatic--it's something you would see in National Geographic, it's something you would want to have on your wall. It bears Rachel's watermark for these reasons. However, she considers the three other pictures to be authentic because they actually represent her lived experience in Ghana. The girl in the essence photograph was someone she never got to know, she was just somebody who posed for a picture. The three authentic pictures came from a time when Rachel decided to take a photograph every hour on the hour for an entire day. The black picture was taken at 6:00, right when the power went out as she was watching the world cup with her host family. Though not an artistic achievement, the photograph is a triumph of authentic field experience in a way that the essence picture is not.

In the end, Rachel concluded that experiences are fragile, subjective truths, from which came her title "Based on a 'True' Story."

Photo credit Rachel, marcp_dmoz

Travel Writing

2011-03-16T23:59:00.000-06:00

Here's the thing about life: you get only one crack at it.

As much as I once wanted to, I have never been able to rewind to earlier in my life and start over with all the things I know now. I could be so great by now if only I knew then what I know now!

That's a bit how I'm feeling about my travel writing class. This is a three credit course that will count toward my English teaching major for which I am planning to make a contract for my time in India. When I first went in to talk to my professor about this course, I didn't know there was such a thing as creative non-fiction. I mean, really? In my mind, creativity belongs with my all-time favorites, Nancy Drew and Harry Potter. Carolyn Keene and J.K. Rowling are creative. Who even thinks of being creative when writing some boring non-fiction book about rocks?

What I didn't realize is that you actually can be creative and still tell true stories! What's more, I've done this very thing! For my freshman writing class last year I wrote a personal essay that I thought was pretty good (which is why I was upset about the A-). The frame story was my eighteenth birthday party, when two of my best friends sang Ben Jelen's "Come On" to me with the entire crowd watching and my daddy filming. I added flashback memories within the frame to illustrate my friendship with one of those boys.

Fast forward to today, nearing the end of my second year of college. I don't read books for pleasure anymore because I don't have the time. I left my books at home because I knew that I'd be tempted to escape from my responsibilities by sneaking away with a book, as I've often done in my life.

I've never considered myself much of a writer though I write a great deal. I used to fill pages in my notebook with my thoughts when I needed to understand what was happening in my head. I called them mental vomits. I would write similar things in my journal every night. If you were to open that notebook you'd also find a fair amount of poetry and . . . unique prose. I don't do any of that anymore.

I write one sentence in my journal every night. Sometimes two.

I write lots of academic papers.

And I write long letters to my friends.

I guess I write blog posts too, but I don't know that I've really written anything profound on here.

I am not even sure what I am trying to say in this post. Maybe I've just grown up too fast! I am still a teenager for five more months, yet I've left behind many things that I loved in my childhood.

But, for the sake of finishing by the deadline, I will end my soul searching and be responsible again. This travel writing class will be an excellent path to cultural immersion while I am living in India this summer. I will keep a regular journal of my experiences abroad and write longer reflections every two weeks. I will focus on what I've read (out of a large selection of travel literature--I want to read Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own because I love Virginia Woolf!) and on what I've experienced. These are short memoirs that I will use to write my final personal essay, 10-15 pages that I'll finish within a month of returning home. I will thus be analyzing my life in India and seeking to draw personal meaning from my experiences there. It is just as important to learn from cultural immersion as it is to complete a research project and honors thesis.

And maybe I'll find part of myself, too. That little girl part of me who loves to read and writes long, profound prose simply for the sake of understanding herself and her world.

I would like to record a series of potentially uninteresting thoughts.
Living numbs the soul. The energies and instinctive happiness of the human spirit are sadly dissolving in this world.

I began a journal entry that way when I was fifteen. Now I begin every entry with the same cookie-cutter phrase.

Deadline is in three minutes and I think I'd better stop.

Photo credit Starbuck Guy