New to my Shelf

When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge
Chanrithy Him
A memoir from Cambodia, this story is well written and, as you would expect in a story of genocide, sometimes painful to read. The author grew up in a relatively well-educated family in Phnom Penh, whose life was turned upside-down when the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975. The book is full of dignity and humanity, standing witness to the appalling lack of either from those in power at that time.

Snow on the Moon
Keith Heller
I picked up this book quite randomly at a used bookstore - there is one bookstore in Hanoi with used English books which I found long long ago J . A novel loosely set in a small town in Spain late in World War II, it is written in a style which reminded me of so many English literature ‘classics’ that I’ve read. The impression was strengthened, I think, by the actual book – a high quality paperback that is dog-eared from use and brown from humidity. The story is snowy and mysterious, the strength of a child’s prescient naiveté playing against an adult’s hesitant willingness to be involved.

Catch 22
Joseph Heller
I guess this is one of those classics that I never got to until recently. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and spent a great deal of time laughing while I was reading this book. The story is of a bomber pilot at the end of World War II. The story, however, is in the telling of it. The satire is sharp and irresistible, it’s just been too long since I read something which made me laugh and think at the same time!

The God of Small Things
Arundhati Roy
A beautifully woven story of complex characters, Arundhati Roy’s first novel is transfixing in detail and inexorable in tragedy. It is a novel truly deserving all the praise heaped on it. I’m not sure how it happened that I didn’t read it sooner.

Dragon Fighter: One Woman’s Epic Struggle for Peace with China
Rebiya Kadeer
The endless expanse of the Gobi Desert, paradoxically ancient yet fragile and crumbling remains of Silk Road cities, Kashgar’s incredible carpet bazaar, the cool underground streams of Turpan on a sunny afternoon, a blood-stirring drum and fife sidewalk performance by local boys in Urumqi, the friendly welcoming smiles of new acquaintances, long hours on uncharacteristically (for China) empty trains; these are my memories of Xinjiang, western China. Rebiya Kadeer’s memoir recounts her experiences growing up and her life as a mother, entrepreneur, big business owner, government representative and, eventually, prisoner, in Xinjiang, and finally as a Uyghur activist from the other side of the world. It is an inspiring story of fortitude.

China in Africa
Chris Alden
A technical and analytical look at the rapidly growing influence of China in Africa, economic and otherwise, this book is short and full of data. I appreciate the academic approach to this topic; it seems that most of what I come across to read on this theme, from my Western-centric media consumption habit, is in passing, shallow and frequently inflammatory. Alden presents a well-supported overview of China’s impacts on Africa, as well as exploring the various motivations for this natural expansion of influence and the potential ramifications both for Africans and Chinese.

Wolf Totem
Jiang Rong
This is a truly fascinating novel set in China’s grasslands of Inner Mongolia during the Cultural Revolution. A Chinese student travels to the grasslands to live among the Mongol herdsmen to learn about them and, as usually happens in such cases, to learn about himself. It was written and published in Chinese before being translated, and features a great many philosophical discourses ranging from the respective characteristics of nomadic vs. agricultural societies, the Han Chinese relationship to ethnic minority groups, the impact of development and migration on nature, to, perhaps in the most grandiose interpretation, a general critique of the ‘Chinese character’. It is a very compelling read. While sometimes veering into an overly idealistic view of nomadic life or presenting a simplistically monolithic view of the above-mentioned ‘Chinese character’ (from an outsiders perspective, the diversity of China seems more prominent to me), the fable-like tone of the writing makes it a good read regardless of one’s interpretation.

Phnom Penh and touring Saigon

Catching up from Cambodia, after Siem Reap I took a boat to Phnom Penh, a fast boat across a big lake, not all that interesting. Phnom Penh was just too quick for me to enjoy it. I got there, went to my guesthouse and dropped my backpack, then hurried off to the Tuol Sleng (S-21 Prison) Museum which I wanted to see, after that went for an even more interesting motorcycle ride in the daily downpour 12 km out into the countryside to see the memorial at the Choeng Elk killing fields, after this I was exhausted and feeling rather sick. That was, judging by the symptoms, something that I ate, not from riding motorbike in the rain. Nor from the stomach-churning nature of the only two places I went to see in Phnom Penh, I wanted to see someplace else to bring my experience in the country up to the present, but did not have the energy. So that night I laid in my bed trying to figure out if I had enough energy to ride the bus the next day, which it turns out I did. I took a bus to the border (which was a long and very bumpy ride) and walked across the border to another bus which brought me the rest of the way to Saigon where I got a room and drank great quantities of water and fruit juices and started taking my traveler’s diarrhea pills, which seem to have worked, mostly.

My friends got here fine on Monday. Tuesday we tried to get them adjusted, and took a tour on a procession of three cyclos to some sights in Saigon - a temple, some old French buildings like the Notre Dame Cathedral (NOT the one in Paris...), and the former Presidential Palace. Wed. we took a group tour up to Tay Ninh province and saw the place where the Cao Dai sect started and their big temple, then in the afternoon we toured the old Vietcong tunnels at Cu Chi - where during the war communists just kept popping up out of nowhere and nobody could figure out where they were coming from. Thursday we went to the history museum here in town and the War Remnants Museum. Today we took another tour to the Mekong Delta, rode a bunch of boats, big ones, little ones, and in-between ones, and ate some luscious fruit and saw lots of water and other amusing stuff like a bee farm and our guide walking around with a python around his neck offering to plop it on anybody who wanted a picture (it was a fat python, not very hungry I would judge). They are amused by the downpour that happens most every afternoon, and the geckos you see on every wall, and the way Vietnamese people put pickup truck loads of stuff on bicycles. So I feel old and experienced ‘'cause I had forgotten about all of that stuff. Anyway, it is really fun to hang out together, I have not heard so much about home for a VERY long time. Tomorrow (Saturday) morning we get on a bus to Dalat, in the central highlands.

Temples of Angkor

Photos from Angkor Wat and other temple compounds outside of Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Angkor and the Bolaven

I am right now in Cambodia, in Siem Reap right next to Angkor Wat. I spent the last two days wandering through ancient temples. It was, well, it was amazing, and it was also an amusing tourist experience aside from being amazing. On the amazing aspect of it, I took I think more pictures than I have ever taken in such a short time, including when my Lao friend commandeered my camera and filled it up with pictures of her and her family in front of Buddha statues...

Anyway, did I tell you about Pakxe? That was in southern Lao, and the most exciting thing that happened there was that I rented a motorbike for a day and went way up to some place called Bolaven Plateau and saw lots of coffee plantations, and ethnic minority villages, and an amazing waterfall called Tat Fan or something like that.

And tomorrow I will take the boat (I still do get to take a boat, only this is kind of a fast boat I think) to Phnom Penh, and I'll probably go the rest of the way to Saigon on Sunday. My boat starts near here, on the Tonle Sap Lake. This lake is weird - in the dry season it is one quarter of the size it is in the wet season. The funny thing is, that is not just because of runoff from around the lake. The Tonle Sap is connected to the Mekong by a relatively long river, and in the dry season the water runs down the river to the Mekong, and to the SEA at Ho Chi Minh City as one would expect. However, in the wet season the level of the Mekong rises and the water says ‘Hmm lets see now, should I go to Saigon or should I go to Siem Reap?’ and some of it decides to go to Siem Reap, and thus the river turns around and flows INTO the lake, taking away some of the extra water from the Mekong. I don't think it gets all that much deeper, but it is really flat here, so the lake just gets way way bigger. All that (and more) I learned in a museum here set up by an NGO that works with street kids.

Another place I went to was the landmine museum. The guy who set this up got thrown in jail for a while because either A) he had dangerous (still active) mines and ammunition in the museum like the police said, or B) the police and the people in charge here didn't want the road to Angkor Wat to be 'marred' by signs for a landmine museum, reminding tourists (like they had forgotten) that Cambodia has more history than the Angkorian period. Anyway, that was interesting and I only went there because the guy I hired to drive me around to all the temples on his motorbike told me about it - there are no signs for it anymore. And the guy who started this museum, really just a big collection of leftover bombs etc, is the same age as me - his parents were killed when he was five, he then worked for the Khmer Rouge and learned to lay mines, then was captured by the Vietnamese (who invaded Cambodia in 1979 and took power from the Khmer Rouge) and worked for their army, then after the Vietnamese left he worked for the new Cambodian army (still fighting the Khmer Rouge) and after the UN came in he stopped being a soldier and worked as a de-miner, which he still does, as well as providing a home for numerous mine victims. All of this in a little shack, really, that serves as a “museum”. So, like I said, that was interesting.

My flight here was uneventful, in spite of all the bad things I had heard about Lao Aviation. It was a propeller plane, but there were maybe 15 people on it with room for maybe 60-70, so we were certainly not overloaded. When I got here I had to sign a paper that said “I really really really honest to my Grandma do not have SARS, and if I do I'll stand in a corner with my nose on the wall all day long” ha.

Oh, that ha reminded me, when I was motorbiking in Lao I had a funny conversation. I got a helmet with my motorbike (rather a novelty in this part of the world, but it made me feel a bit better about my novice motorbiking skills). But they didn't have full face helmets, only the kind with nothing over your face/jaw. So, anyway, I am going along gaping at the forest and being amazed at life in general, when suddenly this fat bug comes sailing up to me and dives into the space between my head and my helmet, and I know he was fat because he got stuck right in front of my ear. That was good, because I could hear what he was saying - first he said “Well what the sam hill was that?” Then he said “Aha, it's a person, just a funny color, I know what to do with these people.” And he proceeded to firmly plant his sharp end in the side of my head. OW. Well I stopped my motorbike very quickly (without flipping myself off the front) and tried to take off my helmet as fast as possible without forgetting to unstrap it. Well, the bug left, ran or fell or flew or something, I don't know. But there was some big piece of him planted in my head. He was a good planter too. In a string of amazing coincidences, I had my swiss army knife with me in my bag, AND remembered that I had it in my bag, AND remembered that it had a tweezers in it. So, in probably the first time I ever legitimately used those tweezers, I got them out to pull out this piece of bug from my head. It was conveniently placed for me to see it clearly in my bike mirrors, and I could see exactly how it stuck in my head and when I pulled on it, my head moved right along with it - it must have had some nasty barbs on it or something. Anyway, I got it out soon, probably like two minutes after it was put in. My head is still sore there - I'm glad it wasn't stuck there too long, or I might not have been able to put my helmet back on! Anyway, that's just a note for anyone who was wondering what the dangers of riding a motorbike with a faceguardLESS helmet were!

I didn't really talk about Angkor did I? Well, there are loads of temples and monuments around here, Angkor Wat (Wat meaning temple, Angkor being the name of the place/kingdom I guess) is just the kind of best preserved/restored one. It's also really big. Most of the stuff was built around 11th - 13th Cent I think. Did you know you can go up in a hot air balloon to watch the sun rise/set over the temples? And the incredible $40 that it costs for a three day pass goes mostly to a Cambodian oil company... go figure. And I should go eat dinner now, I have to get up early tomorrow to get on this boat to Phnom Penh.