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A local shop selling and making laolao aka rice whiskey

Last night’s accomodation can be best described, at best as “basic” at worst as “dismal.” As we unloaded off the boat, we were bombarded with touts who wanted to bring us to their insanely overpriced guest-houses. The one Hugh and I finally settled on is probably the most basic one we have ever stayed at, thus giving us a new thresh-hold of pain we can withstand: the bed was rock-hard, though it did kindly have a mosquito net rigged up above it. The toilet, though western-style, had to be flushed by pouring water down it. The hot shower was down the hall.

None of this would have really been bad except for the fact the rooms were basically jerry-rigged out of pieces of corrugated steel. We could hear conversations happening clearly in rooms all around us and the room was freezing. The power went out at 9pm, but that didn’t matter as Hugh and I were already shivering ourselves to sleep while fully dressed. On the positive side: Mama Souk who ran the place was a very industrious, energetic, hilarious woman. (ie: we were trying in vain to get her to pronounce Hugh’s name, which is notoriously difficult for Asians to pronounce. She kept saying “Cue, cue!” so finally I said, “No, Hugh–you know, like the actor? Hugh Grant?” and she gave me this huge cheeky grin and knowingly said, “yeah yeah, Cue Gran!” Okay, Cue it is.) How she managed to not only sell us the rooms but also lunch in the morning is a testament to this woman’s business skill.

Boys bathing before dinner in a village by the Mekong

The next morning, the boat journey continued on a decidedly crappier boat. Instead of the nice leather seats we had yesterday, we were treated to poorly constructed wooden benches. It really wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact we had to listen to a couple travelers whining on the boat for hours on end. One guy, we’ll call “Eric” was pissed off that a bottle of beer cost 20,000 kip on the boat instead of 10,000. He refused to pay the bill, but also refused to stop whining about it for 4 hours straight. Christ man, just buy the damn beer. I really don’t understand the attitude of people who travel solely for the cheap beer.

I should add that 10,000 kip is about $1.25, so he was angry about having to pay $2.50 for a giant bottle. The whining finally stopped, but naturally, we had to pass a small wooden boat laden with Beerlao bottles so the bitching started all over again. At one point he also commented, “Man, this boat is too touristy.” But he must have been ignoring the dozen or so locals and their cargo. He also whined when we stopped to drop off those locals. Also, new roads being built mean anyone who can take a road will take a road–the locals lived in village with no road access. Without tourism, the once bustling river traffic would disappear. It’s give and take.

New friends eating a well-deserved feast

We finally arrived in Huay Xai, however, it was too late to cross into Thailand. The 5 of us (now 6–we picked up a Chinese girl named Jaja) were a bit disheartened, until we were approached by a woman offering us rooms in her guesthouse. The price was 200baht (about $6)–the same as last night, but we were offered warm rooms, GLASS in the windows, hot showers in the rooms, and amazingly, television. It was amusing watching how fast our spirits were raised by little things such as glass and sealed rooms. After settling in, we set out and had a bit of a Thai/Lao feast and really great conversation. See, bad mornings don’t always turn into bad days. =)

I knew she was sick, but Japanese people never talk about these things. Before I left they told me that she had cancer, but she was going to be okay. But I could always tell they were lying. Japanese people don’t like to talk about terminal illness or death.

I never got to say goodbye to her. She was too sick to come to my farewell party. People just told me she was too busy. It makes me so mad. I wish I had known. :/

A friendly local expat explained what was going on. It seems they fairly regularly have drills to practice what to do if they ever declare independence, since China has stated they’d blow Taiwan out of the water if something like that ever happened. We waited inside the station for about 30 minutes until all the metal guarders opened. I saw thousands of people pour out of the buildings they were stuck in.

I’m sure most Taiwanese people don’t live their lives wondering what China will do, but at the same time it was a pretty odd experience and a reminder of what a tricky political situation Taiwan is in.

Speaking of censorship, I had a few of my SMS texts censored. I texted Jon a message that said “the Philippines is a diverse country,” and he got the message with the word “diverse” turned into squares. Innnteresting.

I digress. I’m distressed over what to do with my car back in Japan. I’m trying to sell it for less than $1000 US dollars and it still won’t sell. Le sigh. There’s nothing wrong with the car, btw. In a different country I’d be able to get between $3000-5000. That’s just way the shit plays in Japan, I guess.

I’m also distressed at this tropical storm which is dumping rain over HK and thus putting a pretty big damper on going around. Oh well, Taiwan is up on Wednesday.

BTW, thanks everyone who has been following my travel blog. Just a reminder though, not every post gets crossposted to LiveJournal. I don’t crosspost entries that are backdated (which I have to do when I don’t have internet access) or entries by Hugh, so if you like our blog, please just access it directly. =)

A beautiful sunset over Leifeng pagoda...

I hope the weather clears up a little today. We’re in Hangzhou, supposedly China’s most beautiful city, but it’s impossible to look over the famous West Lake because it’s been so hazy (or smoggy, you choose!)

Tomorrow we leave for a 30+ hour train trip to Guangzhou. China proved more difficult than we expected and we’ve cut out some of the more tricky parts of our trip and decided to leave China a week early (we’re going to Macau and Hong Kong for more time–technically China, but so not.)

I have NO idea how people who can’t read Chinese characters manage to get around independently, but I salute you. We’ll go to travel agencies that advertise they book train tickets and speak English, but the minute we go there the staff rolls their eyes (before they even know I am non-Chinese) and then tell us to go to the train station (in perfect English of course) to book the ticket. Thanks guys, seriously.

I’ve realized that the “higher up” people are (English speaking staff, concierges, etc) the less they seem to like doing their job. It’s always been the people in the low-paying work who have been the kindest and most helpful. Waitresses who go out of their way to help us order things on menus, taxi drivers who gesticulate wildly to tell us how to cross a busy street, etc. Anyone we thought we could depend on to help us through things seems pretty unwilling to help, while the people we expected to be brusque and unhelpful have always been sympathetic. Go figure.

Once again, I thank god that I can read Japanese. It’s made buying train tickets (a challenge in line-jumping in and of itself) so much easier.

Anyways, the weather looks good (albeit humid) so that means we should be able to get some nice views of the lake and the city. The pagoda we visited yesterday (although it’s been rebuilt) was really, really beautiful. I spent awhile sitting in a bench by the lake, viewing the pagoda through wispy willow branches and thought, “Ahhh, China…” Views like that make it all worth it. It’s the sort of beauty I’ve never actually seen IN PERSON and I often think that maybe if I just steeled my spine some more I’d be able to see more beautiful things deeper in the country… but I guess I’ll just have to save that for another trip to China.

Ahh China.. Being here really makes me realise how good I had it in Japan.  The little things that used to get under my skin seem like nostalgic past times when compared to daily life in China.  I am not trying to say Japan is the perfect but China hasn’t been easy, and it makes me think about Japan and I miss it. I won’t bother mentioning line cutting and general shoving because I had prepared myself for that. I’ll start my rant with littering.  I have seen more public trash cans in China than I have ever all over Japan in 3 years but people here insist on dumping trash at any chance.  Finish your duck butt on a stick, toss it on the ground in front of you.  Needless to say, a street cleaner will sweep it up with their bamboo broom (they keep the streets clean, an advantage of having millions of people that will work for pittanse), but does that really give anyone the right to trash and disregard their own country, let alone the environment?

Littering is one thing.. spitting is another.  Doing it in your private home or on the sports field can be necessary and acceptable but doing it in public is gross.  I am not talking about releasing the watery moisture in your mouth, these perpetrators call up from the deepest and darkest part of their throat a wad of snot that hits the pavement with a thud.  The footpaths are all marked with fresh splatters, giving you something else to watch out for on the streets.  What really made me write this entry was a visit to ‘Watsons’ a large pharmaceutical chain outlet (like Walgreens or Mychemist) where I witnessed something truly remarkable.  While I waited in line at the register to purchase some insect repellent, a man dressed like a manager smiles at my action of purchasing and then creates a deep throat grunt as he loosens a big one.  As I say to myself ‘I guess he has to swallow that one..’ he lays it down on the floor.  In the shop!

SICK!!!

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PEOPLE. WHAT?

A lady from one of the schools I visit was all, “ooh and we were all wondering who should congratulate you on your baby,” Wait, wait, back the hell up woman, what baby?

“I’m not pregnant!” I admonished,

“Oh really….oooh where did we hear it from? Someone said you were….”

“Why did you think I was pregnant?” I asked in my most polite voice. Just be honest and say it’s cause I’ve gotten tubby around my middle, I thought darkly, while my face showed a friendly smile and the finest in Japanese tatemae.

“Oh, I don’t know…your face seemed glowing and full, like the face of pregnancy!”

At this point I bit down my tongue and held back the urge to say, “So you mean cause I have a fat face?” Instead, I countered with this gem:

“But, but… I’m not even married!” I said shyly.

“Oh, well, you know… we thought you were being a modern woman and were going to hang in there and have one anyways.”

I give up, Japan. I get it, you think I’m fat. Yes, I will start going on an even stricter diet and start working out now. Thank you, just when I thought I was making progress with my weight.
…
Wait, wait…hold the phone! They thought I had HAD a baby already, so that must mean I AM making progress with my weight. Well, hot damn! Apparently my perfect body weight was when I was 85lbs and had twig-legs, back then all the Japanese girls complimented me on my tiny face and skinny legs. I think I’ll just stick to my bigger boobs, fuller thighs, and ghetto booty. I like it better, my boyfriend likes it better–leave me alone, Japan!

The case is interesting because the man was 18 at the time, a minor according to Japanese law, so people believe this was done to send a message to would-be youth criminals. Recently, there’s been a rash of violence committed by young people in Japan. The numbers aren’t that high comparatively, but in the US we have guns. Any idiot can kill someone with a gun, usually much to their chagrin. A knife takes some nerve, let alone skill, to hack a body to bits.

In recent news:
- a British girl was hacked to bits, her body found in a tub full of sand on the balcony.
- A young man who ran through a station with a knife stabbing people randomly
- An 18 year old who pushed another man off a train platform onto a platform
- 23 year old man buries a student alive
- Random old ladies being stabbed in Fukuoka
- Random youth picks up a child and throws him off a pedestrian walkway onto incoming traffic

You may have noticed many of these are not crimes of passion, they are random acts of violence. When asked their motive, killers have answered, “I just wanted to try killing someone.” This scares Japanese people, and rightfully so. I don’t really know what percentage of crimes are actually random, but I read a poll last year that something like 90% of Japanese people feared an attack by a random stranger. So because of all of this (and a lot of other things) Japanese people are asking, “why?” Naturally, there’s the blame on video games (the random station stabber liked ninja games, apparently), broken families, etc. The usual suspects. But we all know this stuff is not the cause, so what’s the real issues here?

I would say part of the blame is the general lack of psychology/psychiatry in Japan (though this is changing, and thank god). There are plenty of people who need serious psychiatric help out there who have nothing but the intarwebz to ruminate on. You think we have psychos in America? Try having psychos in a country where people (up till now) didn’t believe in psychos, just poor parenting.

I also think in Japan there’s a lowered empathy for other humans (stay with me here), which I don’t blame on the Japanese themselves. It’s not a cultural thing, just an aspect of modern society. Take the view towards women: no one seems to care that 50 year old men lust after pre-pubescent girls, unless of course that girl gets raped (but if she just gets felt-up in a train or dates her teacher, that’s okay). But she’s going to need to prove she wasn’t asking for it. At convenience stores little boys can see magazines of anime girls tied up with semen dripping off their breasts, they know their fathers go to strip clubs and sex clubs while their mothers cook dinner, they can watch TV shows where men stare at young girls and measure their breasts and ask them to jump up and down (we have that too, but in America it’s generally considered chauvinist). What are women other than objects then? It’s said the reason that it took until the 1990s for the birth-control pill to come to Japan is because doctors didn’t want to lose their main source of income (abortions). The bullying problem is notorious and shocking here that elementary school children threaten and commit suicide. Kids come to school obviously physically abused at home, but people just turn the other way because they don’t want to get involved. Japanese people care about what other people think of them, but a lot of people don’t really think about what other people feel.

A lot of Japanese commentators and academics see the same problems, but instead of doing anything about it they just yell at young people on tv (Hosoki Kazuko, anyone?) which makes for quality programming, but not quality society. One of my host fathers complained that Japanese young people don’t know how to empathize anymore (actually, he said that their hearts don’t feel anymore–eesh), he pointed at lack of keigo (polite language) as a surface sign–I don’t know about that, but clearly there’s something out there people are worried about.

I’ve been told by older Japanese people it’s all the fault of us god-awful young people and our lack of morals, but who teaches the morals? No one. Exactly. So many parents tell me they’re worried for the future of Japan and kids are too spoiled and bratty these days, but they do nothing to discipline their children. So for me, I blame the older generation. Nowadays, elementary schools have morality class (which they never needed before–so what changed? discipline, mostly) and the stuff they teach sounds a whole lot like Common Sense 101: “if you hit someone, it hurts them!” Teachers like to ask me, “how do Americans learn to be moral?”

Um, church? Fear of eternal damnation and being poked by goblins in hell? I’m agnostic (functionally an atheist), but I will say a *little* spirituality isn’t always such a bad thing. Is what keeps you from sleeping with a 12 year old the law, or is it the inherent belief somewhere that doing so is morally wrong? I used to believe in moral relativity and boo on religion and boo on spirituality…but after living in an extremely secular place and befriending so many people from very secular places I guess I will say that it’s made me change my mind on the importance of a strong moral compass based in SOMETHING (vegetarianism, Buddhism, Xenu–whatever).

Or maybe this is all just fear tactics? I’m fairly certain most advanced countries have a, “oh life was so much better in the 1960s!” wave of nostalgia.

Our global generation of degenerate slackers is doomed! Or maybe we’ll all be fine. I’m going to go lock the door now, anyway.

Minku Kujira…or in English, whale meat.

I’m not a vegetarian. However, I have always been bothered by the Japanese take on whale meat. They constantly claim it’s for scientific research and not primarly for consumption, as you can see in this photo it about $5.00 for about 300g. To put that in perspective, that is LESS than the cost of beef in Japan. Furthermore, this is a typical grocery store in rural Japan–not a fancy food store. I’ve actually had it for school lunch before! They must be killing a lot of whales to sustain that, and we all know that they are and it really isn’t for scientific research.

Yes, yes, I’ve had whale. No, I don’t really feel guilty for it. I don’t know what’s worse, killing the poor thing under the guise of science or me throwing out food when people are starving in the world because of my (hypocritical) moral indignation. I’ll admit it’s delicious, at least if it’s been deep fried (but what ISN’T delicious when deep fried? Okay, okay, the Midwest girl in me is coming out…)

Like I said, I am no vegetarian–and while I say I’m not that into animal rights, I didn’t mean I go kicking puppies or anything. On the contrary, I pay about $5 for six eggs because I make the effort to buy honest-to-god free range eggs (and not ones that claim to be free range and aren’t really.) I’ve made every effort to educate myself on how animals are treated in industrial farms and try and stay away from that.

At the same time, I disagree with notions that we shouldn’t eat whale because they are smart or cute. Sheep are pretty cute. Pigs are quite smart as well. In my head, there’s no hierarchy for which animals we can eat and which we can’t. Harpooning whales isn’t anymore or less horrifying or disgusting that shooting a metal bolt into a cow’s head. I think we should stop deluding ourselves and really understand how we go from cow to red cubes in white styrofoam tray. If finding out that cows get shot in the head disgusts you, then go vegetarian. The less you know about the food that goes into your body, the more dangerous that is. The reason we shouldn’t eat whale is because by most accounts they are endangered, or at the very least, threatened. On a global scale, there are far more deer and rabbits than there are whale.

I also have a problem with the guise of scientific research. Why exactly do they need to kill thousands of minke whales a year? Uh, for science? Unless of course, the scientific research is this: The Thesis Of Whether Or Not Feeding School Children Whale Will Cause Them To Be Lifelong Consumers of Whale

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I am sad to admit that this year I took a very shocking amount of sick leave, on the tune of once a month on average. However, in one year did ANYONE scold me or talk to me about it? Nope. It came up during the obligatory drinking party though (search my old entries for an explanation of what an “enkai” is). My old boss (who was moved to another section) told me in a drunken haze how much he loved me and how he was so worried about me always being sick and how I must take care of myself because he reminded me of his daughter (while he was telling me I also looked sexier with my new short hair.) Drinking parties are when the criticisms, the new proposals, and any sort of productive communication happens. I can absolutely take it, I just find it sad that it can’t be done without alcohol.

Maybe it’s just me being too American, but I just really dislike how no one can tell anyone directly to do anything. The JET program would be much better if supervisors just straight up said, “Hey, stop wasting our money and playing on the internet all day!” It would save time, money, and help relations.

You know how those men’s magazines claim that women never say what they mean?  ”YOU know why I’m mad!” and “I GUESS you can go to the poker game tonight, but….” [Men's Magazine Decoder: If you go to the poker game, I'll be pissed when you come home] Imagine dealing with that every single day of your working life. I’m not really frustrated by it since I’ve gotten used to it and often use it to my advantage, but sometimes I just want to shake someone and scream, “If you want me to serve tea to the mayor, just ask me!” It takes far less energy to tell me to do it than to be all, “So, the mayor is in the guest room and….he likes tea…and….well, the tea set is over there…and, the usual tea lady is on vacation soo..(continued)”

Oh well, that’s just how it is and there’s nothing that can be done about that (how very Japanese of me to say that!)

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While that’s lovely for me right now at this very moment in time, this really does not bode well for the American economy nor does it look good for my prospects to (one-day) return to the U.S. in the future.

At the moment I weigh 110lbs (at 5’5)…

I know I have gained weight (and as I typed that sentence my self-esteem did a recoil) but geez, pregnant? Really?

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