Cotton Castles in the Air

It was a long three-hour bus ride from Selcuk to Pamukkale. An interminable procession of low mountains, small towns and cities, and fields. But it wasn't all boring. There were friendly local passengers who tried to strike up conversations and one who actually gave a gift (even though we were just about complete strangers!) And then there was the shining white top of Pamukkale glistening in the distance. It looked somewhat like a huge dollop of toothpaste accidentally squeezed onto that part of the mountains by a giant. Or a huge layer of icing sugar, perhaps.

There used to be a large Roman city and health centre on the top of the Pamukkale plateau: Hierapolis, it was called. The place was like a Roman-era spa resort, complete with hot springs and pools. The Romans sure knew how to enjoy themselves.

The next day, after having watched the Netherlands almost not get beaten 1-0 in the World Cup finals (and it was only 4 more minutes too! Though admittedly Spain was visibly in control of the game by then), we headed back to Selcuk to visit the ruins of another large Roman city. Ephesus, the capital of the Roman province of Asia and home to the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world. Some of the ruins were quite pretty---the restored façade of the Library of Celsus, for instance---but overall it wasn't really very impressive. Not even as impressive as Hierapolis---though that's partly because it wasn't as well-endowed geographically. It might have been partly, too, because much of the ancient city still lay below ground, undiscovered, unexcavated, unseen. (Off on a tangent: Istanbul has many ruins underground too; I wonder how many of its hills are not natural hills, but in fact made up of the ruins and rubble of its long history?) But mostly it must have been due to the ravages of time. The Temple of Artemis used to have 127 columns, impressively arranged in colonnades, resting on majestic foundations and topped with imposing roofs. All that remains today is a single, rebuilt column, standing in the middle of an overgrown field of grass. The forces of nature and history have claimed the rest.

Lütfen Dikkat

So you speak the world's new lingua franca. Perhaps you are entirely, or essentially, monoglot. But that doesn't matter now, does it? Because everyone speaks some English, don't they? Or enough people around speak enough of it to get around anyway. Why do I need to learn these other troublesome, pesky small languages?
Well if you would just care to observe carefully---the next time you speak to someone whose doesn't have native-speaker proficiency in English---how different they sound out of their native language. They usually sound hesitant, timid, withdrawn and a little defensive, no matter how extroverted, lively or, bold they may be in person.   If the conversation was initiated by the other person, in another language, you may well be able to feel the brief, but palpably awkward, slightly disappointed silence after you reply in English: oh, we don't share a language.
Of course you don't actually have to care about all this. As long as I get my message across, what does it matter? But you know, it would only be nice to take notice, and to at least try to bridge the gap.

Göreme

Apparently the name of the town meant "cannot be seen" in Turkish (gör root for "to see" + negative suffix -eme.) Because although the fairy chimneys were very much visible, it was very difficult for jaded military patrols who didn't know better to spot signs of human habitation amidst this surreal but entirely natural volcanic moonscape.

It was pretty cool. There was even a jandarma (police) station inside a fairy chimney. The only downside was that ventilation was always not very optimal. It was invariably comfortably cool inside, but a little stuffy with a few hints of mould. They should have worked on ventilation technology.
But then again, maybe they did have the technological know-how, but just didn't implement it in the fairy chimneys for some reasons. The underground cities---or at least Derinkuyu, which we visited---had very fresh air even seven storeys below ground, courtesy of an elaborate system of ventilation shafts and tunnels. These underground cities were truly invisible too: were it not for the concrete shell of an entrance built for the benefit of tourists, we would have been entirely clueless to the presence of the vast twelve-storey complex of tunnels we were standing above.

Can you imagine staying for weeks, months even, cooped up deep underground, or holed up in the mountains, cut off from the rest of the world and for all intents and purposes invisible to them? Life back then cannot have been fun.

It is I

I, Hasan the son of Muhammad the weigh-master, I, Jean-Leon de Medici, circumcised at the hand of a barber and baptized at the hand of a pope, I am now called the African, but I am not from Africa, nor from Europe, nor from Arabia. I am also called the Granadan, the Fassi, the Zayyati, but I come from no country, from no city, no tribe. I am the son of the road, my country is the caravan, my life the most unexpected of voyages.

Amin Maalouf, Leo Africanus 

Custodians of the Crossroads

In Istanbul we took ferries between Europe and Asia. Sometimes several in a day. Once we tried to take a bus from Asia to Europe too, but we missed it, so we settled for the ferry yet again.

Okay so that was a bit of a cheap thrill. But how many cities can boast of straddling straits and continents? And of a history so rich ... though perhaps that comes with the territory. Such a commanding position--- between the Black Sea to the north and the Marmara to the south, between Anatolia and the Levant to the east and Europe to the west---would inevitably have drawn empires and conquerers, eager to gain control of strategic and lucrative trade and communication routes.
So the Greeks came. And then the Romans. Then the Byzantines, and the Seljuks, and the Mongolians, and the Ottomans ... Also, along the way, latter-day Europeans, though not as conquerers, but only as visiting merchants come to do business in one of the world's great crossroads. Each left their trace on the place, some more than others. The aqueduct, the columns in the Hippodrome and beyond, the Hagia Sofia, the great mosques, the palaces, the bustling marketplace of Galata and Pera.

How much of that can really said to belong to the history of the Turks, to the modern, unitary nation-state of Turkey? Very little, I submit. Istanbul's history has been, above all, a long and rich discourse between nations and civilizations. The Turks can only claim it as part of history in the sense that they are now the custodians of that discourse and its heritage.

Space Most Sublime

Istanbul's grand mosques all looked similar from the outside: grey brick topped by a slightly-flattened semicircular main dome, supported by a pyramid of semidomes, flanked by one or more pairs of minarets. They all seemed to take after the Ayasofya. Actually, they looked rather similar on the inside, too---not entirely the same, though. The most strikingly different feature in the interior of the Blue Mosque was the set of four elephantine pillars that held up the main dome. Those were truly huge---far thicker than an elephant's feet, really---and divided the interior space into portions of quite quotidian dimensions. The most unique feature of the interior of the Ayasofya, on the other hand, was the immense, soaring sense of spaciousness. The vast main dome, with its gilded calligraphic ciphers is not directly supported by any pillars, large or small; instead a complex structure of secondary semidomes directs the stress away towards the walls and buttresses. A ring of windows just below the dome bathes the interior with light from above, adding to the sense of space.

The resulting sense of spaciousness was simply awe-inspiring. It might have been an enclosed space, but it felt just as open and unbounded as a vast plaza. It was grand, mystical, sublime. It was truly a piece of art.

The Workday Just Ended

Forget Amsterdam. The weekday evening crowds along İstiklal Caddesi bring a whole new shade of meaning to "every day is a holiday."

Ex aura

Is that what maturity amounts to today's world---understanding that mediocrity is the easiest and most rational way forward, and accepting its muddled path? What if I understand but refuse to accept ... would that still count?

Reminder to Self

You're on holiday. Quit sweating the small stuff, take a deep breath, and relax. Like a still pond. Remember?

Spotted

Tout est pour le mieux dans le meilleur des mondes possibles

-- Voltaire, Candide (after Leibniz) 

"Real Men Take Risks!"

Taken out from an entirely trivial context and placed into an only slightly less trivial one. Cheers.

"Something unbelievably raw ..."

I wish I could quote Schumann or Chopin at will. Words are such clumsy substitutes.

当局者迷

So the MV Rachel Corrie has been boarded and diverted to Ashdod without too much incident. It's an immense relief to see that both sides have learnt to be a little less block-headed after the sorry fracas on board the Mavi Marmara.
But you know, in a way, those directly involved in that tragic incident, who were in the heat of everything, were really the most innocent parties of all. With the "Free Gaza" sentiment having been whipped up into such a frenzy, how could the activists on board the flotilla have been reasonably restrained when the IDF started boarding their ships? And when the activists started attacking the boarding commandos so relentlessly, as the situation dictated would happen, how else could the commandos have eventually reacted other than fall back to their last resort, the use of lethal force? It was all bound to happen once the ball started rolling.
So don't blame the commandos, for doing what anyone in their situation what have done. Don't blame the activists for provoking them, because could they really have stood by calmly while their ships were boarded? After all that rhetoric and sentiment? If you really need to blame someone, anyone, blame those who set things in action. Blame the senior command of the IDF for such woeful preparation that lethal force had to be resorted to. Blame the Israeli government for trying to block the flotilla at any cost. Blame the senior leadership of the Free Gaza Movement, those who drummed up support for the cause and organized the flotilla, but conveniently declined to join the action themselves. Blame the armchair "pro-Palestinians" who think supporting the Palestinians is a mighty fine cause (and aren't shy about proclaiming that), as long as other people are willing to do the risky bits for them.
The others who were throwing plates and wielding knives, or pulling pistols and firing live rounds, were only their pawns.

We Love Civil War

The Uganda pavillion at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai has a brightly-painted mural as its backdrop. A car features prominently on one corner of the mural. The car's license plate reads "AK47". For a nation that has been wracked by so much civil disorder, and continues to be harassed by the Lord's Resistance Army, it was not the best of choices.

Expo 2010

The official publicity loves to promote the Expo as an opportunity for the exchange of culture and ideas. In reality, while that might be happening at some level, for most of the 45-million and counting visitors it is not much more than an expensive but interesting circus. Many, especially those following the massive tour groups, don't really bother to read the explanatory captions or even listen carefully to what is being said; instead, they just shuffle around and gawk at all the bright new things around them. That being said, it doesn't mean there was nothing worth seeing. Not at all. In fact, there were too many things worth seeing to recount all of them. So instead only the Best (and the "Best") will be recorded here.

Best single exhibit
The animated 3D version of the 清明上河图 in the China pavilion was just cool. And to use it to showcase urban development in ancient China was rather clever, too. The violin-playing robot in the Japan pavilion would have been a strong contender, but the one time I visited it tripped and fell flat on its face when entering. D'oh!

Best visual effect

The Hong Kong pavilion was pretty nifty, but not especially outstanding compared to the myriad of other pavilions in the Expo. Still, the crystalline pavilion design was very pretty to look at, even from the inside.

Best photo gallery

Lots of the pavilions at the Expo were really nothing more than glorified photo galleries: collections of photos and media which were nice to look at and all, but weren't really very interesting. The Belarus pavilion, however, was a nicely-illustrated kaleidoscope of images. It may not have been as realistically informative as a photograph collection, but it was so much more fun to look at, and prettier, too.

Best video
Many other pavilions chose to feature prominently a video showcasing their country or organisation. Mostly, like the photo galleries, these videos turned out to be decent and showy but ultimately rather tedious and droll affairs. The one in the Iceland pavilion, though, was actually exciting and didn't come across as self-congratulatory in any way. Though to some extent, much like the winner of the Best Single Exhibit, that owed as much to the sheer power and beauty of the source materials as anything the latter-day creators have done with it.

Masterstroke

The Japan pavilion had a lot of cool exhibits. Water-purifying technology, electricity-generating floorboards, cameras with extraordinary zoom, extremely versatile multi-touch wall displays ... but there was more to it than just awesome technology. For the Show segment, the Japanese chose to express their message in the form of the prized local opera tradition of the host, 昆曲. And they didn't do it badly at all. We aren't just here to show off our best things, it says. We also understand you and what you are proud of, and respect that.

Cheapskate Award
The wall tiles on the exterior of the Philippines pavilion look pretty decent. Once up close though, you'll realise they're actually just printed mounting boards. Wonder how durable that is.
Bang-head-on-wall award
Upon entering the Benin booth in the African Joint Pavilion, you'll see nothing. Then you turn a corner, go down a passage, and there's ... a row of empty display cabinets! Oh, and a LCD screen displaying a screenshot of two random photos.

Best overall pavilion design

The Hamburg House at the Urban Best Practices Area (UBPA) clearly incorporated passive design features in an edifying way. It did add to the queues though, because the passive design called for strict crowd control in order for the house not to overheat.

The Netherlands pavilion, on the other hand, with its open design concept, maximised its capacity and minimised any queues leading into it---I never did see any throughout my 3.5 days at the Expo. The whole pavilion was designed as a "Happy Street" snaking through the air, with the ground level given to AstroTurf and plastic ruminants, and various "houses" along the street housing intriguing exhibits.

Clear Message Award

Many pavilions at the Expo tried to do too much at once, so that I walked out of them somewhat washed-out and with no clear overall impression or idea about what they were all about. There were some notable exceptions though. The Porto Alegre pavilion at the UBPA was small and not particularly impressive, but clearly brought across its message that collaboration can lead to better outcomes. The UK pavilion, colloquially also known as the pincushion, spoke clearly about the role of Nature (and greenery in particular) in cities: its centrepiece, the Seed Cathedral, was not merely a flash showpiece, but served to highlight its central message. The USA pavilion, though it didn't have too much in the way of concrete exhibits, at least clearly brought across the inspiring message of how the American values of vision and teamwork can bring about a brighter future.

Best overall experience

There were a lot of things worth seeing in the Expo ... but many of them became much less worth seeing due to the overwhelming crowds. Sometimes the queues were just too discouraging---up to 6 or 7 hours for the Saudi pavilion at one point; more often the surging crowds would be far too distracting and mar any sustained appreciation of the exhibits. The Taiwan pavilion was one of the few pavilions to implement measures to avoid this---by strictly limiting visitor numbers to perhaps 350 an hour, in groups of 25 at a time. As a result of this, plus the much warmer, more personalised reception they were able to give visitors as a consequence of it, the overall experience felt a lot better.

Maybe all the pavilions should have learnt from the Taiwan pavilion. But then I wouldn't have been able to visit nearly as many pavilions as I did either ... oh well. In conclusion: visiting the Expo can be like touring the world without leaving your own country (不出国门 游遍世界). But it's such a poor substitute. Especially when the Expo is being held in China.

The Road Ahead is Long

And far from easy. And at some point, you're going to be tired. Exhausted. Drained. You'll feel so much pain coursing through, no matter whether you go on or stop to rest. You'll wonder what you're doing. You'll wonder what on Earth you were thinking when you agreed to do this. You'll probably kick yourself for even thinking of it. 

But when that happens, remember that it's not the first time you've been there.

And remember that if you can endure and finish what you set out to do, everything will turn out pretty well.

The Infernal Hurricane

Io venni in loco d’ogne luce muto,
che mugghia come fa mar per tempesta,
se da contrari venti è combattuto.

La bufera infernal, che mai non resta,
mena li spirti con la sua rapina;
voltando e percotendo li molesta

(Dante, Inferno, Canto V)

Except I don't even know where the storm winds come from. Damnit.

Mr. Ge Shuffles the Deck

One pat-tern. [Smack]
Second pat-tern. [Shhhhh-uck]
Third pat-tern. [Wham]
Okay. Deal.

Redefining the Problem

If the circumstances required, you could very well do without a home. You only need one for familiarity and comfort. But if you can learn fast, adapt and make yourself comfortable wherever you go, you'd be good to go everywhere.
Is this an admission of defeat? Well, in a way. But only in the sense that adopting guerilla tactics in the face of overwhelming strength is an admission of defeat.

Flashback

I like your philosophy

I could have been normal / But why the hell would I want to be

Nemine contradictione

Your heart follows its own logic. For better or for worse, you'll be a lot happier if you don't try to confront it head-on.

Next stop is People's Square

You may interchange to Lines 1 and 2.
You may alight from both sides.
Please, get ready.
And ... SCRUM!

Here and Now

I'll never go home. Who told you I wasn't at home?

"How could we explain it?"

Somehow the topic of June 4th came up during lunchtime. It was a sad reminder that the wound continues to fester, unheeded and unattended.

Andante spianato

I am a still pond. No matter how many ripples the passing winds and flotsam leave on my surface, nothing, nothing, will ever perturb the serenity of my depths.

A Moment in Time

Keeping with the spirit of traveling in a rush, after Hong Kong I went to 武汉 to see the cherry blossoms.
They were still in bloom, and quite beautiful.

I realise, though, that catching a single glimpse shouldn't really count as 赏花. Rather, to really 赏花 would entail having seen the buds start to appear, and then bloom, and the blossoms finally wither and fall. Not just a single glimpse of the flowers frozen at a single point in time. Especially with cherry blossoms, which are supposed to be symbolic of transience ...

But I couldn't stay so long, even though I had awesome company. Mostly because I had to get back to skiving around at the school work.

Noblesse Oblige

Aristocracy is a state of mind. Despite your (not very) valiant attempts, Mr. and Ms. Lee, you're not quite there yet.

Bleeding Heart

Why is that a derogatory term? How could any informed person with a conscience not have a bleeding heart in the essentially cruel, unfair world we live in?

Whooosh

So I'm a speed junkie. Oh well, aren't we all.

Malthus would laugh at China

Hong Kong was extraordinarily dense. The tall apartment buildings invariably hugged close to one another, and to the mountains on one side and the sea on the other. That was as much a function of the geography, which limited the proportion of the land which could be built on, as of high population density.
Perhaps that also helps to explain why the city didn't really feel very crowded, especially compared to Shanghai or Guangzhou. There weren't crushing crowds on the streets or on the metro or on the busses; the train stations and bus stops weren't overflowing with human traffic; the restaurants and shops weren't being overwhelmed by hordes of customers.

Because it was so much less crowded, everything felt in control and nice, instead of being messy, chaotic and harried as mainland China tends to be. Even though a lot of the infrastructure and systems were actually pretty similar in design in both places. The bus terminals for instance. They're essentially the same design, but the ones in Shanghai always seem to on the brink of chaotic breakdown thanks to the crowds of commuters, whereas the ones in Hong Kong are paragons of neat order.

Moral of the story: overpopulation makes everything hellishly harder. Cue Malthus.

Land of Smiles

See, just because a country is described as a "Land of Smiles" doesn't mean its denizens will smile and be kind indiscrimately to every passing stranger. It doesn't mean you can walk in in a terrible funk, seething and raging and all impatient, and expect to come out feeling completely at ease, calm and serene. It just means that if you go in and are nice to people, people will be nice to you in return. Or a little more specifically, it means that as long as you keep an open mind and try hard to be nice---and people can see that---people will generally be nice to you in return.
This thinking can be applied to bring new perspectives to many specific situations. For instance, the way delays are dealt with in the country is, if you are strict about it, really terribly inefficient. But who said you had to treat a delay purely as an avoidable inconvenience? If you can be philosophical about it (and if you've done enough planning to be able to afford to be philosophical about it), it's really no big deal. Or, for another instance, lots of travellers complain about the flabbergastingly long queues at airport immigration. But it's not news. You should know about it already. You could have prepared yourselves for it (by not turning up too tired, by minimising carry-on luggage, and just by being mentally prepared.) If you're prepared, it doesn't have to be that bad.
In short: there's nowhere in this world where you can expect kindness for nothing. Only places where you don't have to pay so much in kind before others start reciprocating. And sometimes, hospitality is best experienced by those who are not really expecting it, or at least have an open mind.

Everywhere and Nowhere

Nothing will ever deprive you of your home. Because your home is scattered far and wide, and you will find it reflected everywhere you look. Because it is not something so mutable and impermanent as a house or a city, much less a country, but an intricate tapestry of memories and relationships richer and more magnificent than anything history and geography, much less mere parochial nationalisms or politicians, can even conceive of.
So don't be sad. Because it really is only a formality. A pushing-around of a few inconsequential bits of paper. It can't affect the web that will hold you firm and rooted in the slightest, unless you choose to let it.

My point exactly.

You are required to.

Do you have any idea how painful that was? But never mind. Even I didn't before it hit.

Expect delays. Be happy.

The State Railways of Thailand are reminiscent of the state of the nation in a few ways. Both are a little decrepit and could do with a bit of an overhaul, but generally still work reasonably well. The Railways are one of the more obvious manifestations of heavy state involvement in the economy.

And the ubiquitious delays provide a glimpse of local attitudes to time and life. The trains here set off on time, but generally arrive late. The Express train from Bangkok to Nong Khai arrived an hour late. The train back arrived an hour-and-a-half late. The Rapid train due to arrive after that from Denchai was three hours late. But nobody ever really complains. Nobody, except noisy, short-tempered farangs (and Chinese.) Why bother getting worked up? It's only a train. It's not worth losing your temper for.

Applied in moderate doses, that makes a lot of sense. Don't you think?

Look! Land border!

Aren't land borders the most irritating things? They stretch a short journey out into a process of hours, days, months (if visa formalities are involved.)
Like how the 25km from Nong Khai to Vientiane took three hours. Between outbound immigration formalities, waiting for and taking the bus across the Friendship Bridge, inbound immigration formalities, and sweltering transport from the middle-of-nowhere to central Vientiane. Why are the two border cities so far away from each other anyway? (Actually I suppose they were not meant to be neighbouring cities, but modern transportation has brought them close enough to be thought of as such.) The journey back on the Thai-Lao International Bus was smoother, but it still took a while to clear all the immigration formalities. Partly because some of the immigration officers type English reaaally slooowly. You could see the queue at the booth getting longer as they slowly figured out where each letter was on the keyboard. I suppose touch-typing training isn't completely useless, really.
On the bright side, Laos was nice enough to waive visa requirements for ASEAN citizens. So do most other ASEAN members apparently, less super-paranoid, slightly eccentric Myanmar. You see, ASEAN isn't completely useless. We just work at a pace that all of members are comfortable with. We work at ... a Lao pace (actually, that would explain a lot.)
Which means anything remotely resembling Schengen would be aeons away from conception here. I suppose land borders are here to stay for a while in this part of the world. At least they add variety to the journey. Where else do you get to see self-intersecting roads and big bilingual signs saying "Stop! You're going the wrong way"?

 

Can you believe that it's a whole different country on the other side? I can't. Or actually, maybe they aren't that different.

Near near-miss

Police and military personnel were assigned to the Victory Monument skytrain station and nearby areas after intelligence reported that possible sabotage efforts in Bangkok this weekend.

Hey, wasn't I there on Friday evening? Oh well.

Stress-Induced Impulses

Some of the more idiosyncratic ones:

• To roll up into ball and hide in a locked room.
• To greet everyone with a wai 
• To prostrate in front of an empty wall.
• To write the most ridiculous and random things.

Probably some sort of siege mentality at work. Bah.

(Biased) Score Report

With the help of a mass civil engineering effort from a large team based (apparently) mostly in Western Europe, we now have

Onions 1 Ostriches 0.

Now if only there were some way to report in real-time when the other team scores ...