by Mike
“Do you think that Barack Obama is as smart as George Bush, even though Obama’s black?” The Thai homestay-owner, Sam, surprised me with the question, and without even thinking I blurted out, “Of course!” Later, he doled out a little anti-Semitism, not knowing I’m Jewishish, and throughout the night he emphatically displayed sexism. At one point he asked Azure to take a picture of us three men: me, Sam and Ali (a young British traveler). Azure obliged, with a double-edged smile. (read more)
Sam believes that genetics, essentially, make black people less intelligent. He called it “instincts,” but he implied that these “instincts” couldn’t be overcome, so I thought of it as genetics. He said instincts, like how Jews are two-faced and women are untrustworthy, are “hidden” in people and there’s just not much anyone can do about it.
In America it’s an unwritten rule that people have the same capacity for intelligence (happiness, pain, love, compassion, etc) regardless of their race (sex, sexual orientation, religion, etc). Another unwritten American rule is that you don’t openly question the first rule. Don’t worry, this post isn’t going there.
This story is beside the point, but it will illustrate Sam’s dedication to Buddhist practice. Sam lived with a nagging, painful neck injury caused by a car accident. Finally, eleven years to the day after the accident he decided to get rid of it for good, so he sat down and meditated for three consecutive days. He didn’t eat, didn’t drink, didn’t move from the spot upon which he sat. He focused all his attention on his neck, visualizing it healed. When, 72 hours later, he finished the meditation, he could move his neck freely – he twisted in either direction to prove it. Healed. Hearing this story before the questionable comments, I thought, “Wow, to meditate that much means this guy must be a river of compassion!”
Sam’s phobias seem inconsistent: Buddhism teaches you to love others unconditionally, I thought, so how does he reconcile the practice with the lack of respect? (Well, there are plenty of people who manage to hate despite their loving leaders, so perhaps Sam is to Buddha as America’s anti-gay Christians are to Jesus and the Taliban is to Muhammad).
Sam asked Ali what he believes happens after we die. Ali responded that he feels this is it – there’s no afterlife. Sam said, “So you don’t even believe in re-incarnation?” (which, I suppose, is an afterlife scenario halfway between “this is it” and “there is a heaven”). Sam does believe in reincarnation, obviously, in which one’s karma determines their station in the next life.
So I wonder, Does Sam believe a person’s race is determined by karma from their previous life? In his beliefs, would a good dog be reborn as a Jew? Would a bad Eskimo be reborn as a Latino? It all seems ludicrous to me, but who am I to judge? I have no evidence either way.
I never asked about racial hierarchy as dictated by karmic law because I wanted to be polite: I was in his house, after all. The more relevant topic to come out of this exchange is how a guest should relate to their host. I was brought up to be polite (which in our culture means not talking about touchy subjects) in someone else’s home, but that could be just as much a culture-based practice as the one about not questioning racial equality.
About being a challenging guest, one view is that we travelers can claim “ignorant’s license,” which allows us to say or do things that might be rude in the town we’re visiting but can be written off as cultural differences. For example, Ali suggested that Sam’s hellion of a son (my words) needs more attention from his father, especially considering that Sam splits time between his two families in different cities. It would be inappropriate to say such a thing in England or America, but Sam doesn’t know that, so it might as well be said and written off as a cultural difference. And to be fair, we don’t even know if such a statement is inappropriate here in Thailand. So Ali chose to say what he was thinking and put the onus on Sam to blame the cultural difference if the statement does prove to be insensitive.
(I have a British client who says, “I don’t know why American parents are always gushing about how much they love their kids… I mean, my kids are alright. They’re just kids.” Who knew parental gushing/pride was cultural?)
Anyway, back to the story at hand: So, can a guest challenge their host’s opinions? Mathew says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks (Sam’s in his late 50s), so you might as well just listen politely and even goad them, then later blog about how fucking crazy that guy was. To all the old dogs reading this – can you teach an old dog new tricks? Have you been open to major philosophical changes as you’ve aged?
I’m coming to the conclusion that if you can manage to cleanse your argument of judgment, then these topics are fair game. The key – as is the case with any communication – is to avoid taking anything personally and think about whether you’re making unfair assumptions when you’re speaking. For example: ‘having unconditional love for all people’ and ‘thinking that Jews are two-faced’ aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive.
Here’s the argument that won me over: I’ve spent 30 years wandering among millions of people on this planet, starting on North America. Sam has spent almost 60 years wandering among millions of people on the opposite side of the world. Finally, after all this time and all these people, he and I have come together for one night to talk face-to-face on his porch, and it will never happen again. The odds are astronomical that we should be here! With that in mind, it seems like a waste of an opportunity that politeness prevent us from discussing important topics. To me, the devil is in the intent.
As for Sam, his views are consistent with Buddhism in this way: he says that they all come from careful observation. I imagine (assume) he’s dealt with a few Black people he found to be dumb and a few Jews he found to be two-faced. We asked him whether he would ever visit America and he said that even if he was given a free ticket he wouldn’t go. “Too dangerous.” He’s afraid of the guns (of course) and thinks Americans hate people from other cultures (he mentioned Iraq and Afghanistan). In response, Azure showed him pictures of our house, our chickens, the Demeules’ lake house, our friends cooking and smiling, and Sam said, “You must live in a really nice part of America.” Well, yeah, I guess we do.
Either way, it’s hard to trust the opinion of someone who learns about the world through observation but would refuse a free ticket to a place they’ve never been. Not that we’re even close to understanding how his version of the world operates, but is his observation of race so different that he had to ask if Obama was as smart as Bush?
Posted on January 15, 2010 at 7:31 am.
Ari’s uncle is in focus on the right, Bapak is on the left.
by Mike
Ari’s Bapak (father) and diabetic uncle did not eat with us. The two old men sat behind us, ghostly, neither following the English conversation nor talking with each other. They happily contributed, though, when finally addressed. (read more)
Years ago, Ari’s uncle converted from Hinduism to Christianity in an effort to become a better person. I don’t necessarily think Christianity’s values are any better than those of Hinduism, but Hinduism is the religious norm of Bali. Religious conversion would be a monumental, conspicuous declaration, a tangible reminder to himself that being good is a decision. I’m familiar with the strategy of rejecting cultural norms to feel I’m living intentionally, I noted, as Christmas approached in the US. I even got a tattoo to remind me.
Maybe I’m projecting. Ari’s uncle converted, then he was miraculously cured of some sickness in his leg, then he really let the faith rush in. He never brought up relgion, though, except when I asked.
Uncle swims farther against the tide in practicing organic farming on his clove farm. His pesticide consists of tobacco leaves burned under the tree to smoke out the insects. He uses natural sulfur to fight fungus on the roots. He sources his organic compost from the town’s restaurants & food stalls. Before the shift to organics, the chemical fertilizer stripped the soil of important components, and his clove trees hung sick until he tried the compost. He’s the only organic farmer locally. I asked if his religion and farming practices were related, but Ari said they weren’t. I think it’s too much a coincidence that the only Christian and the only organic farmer we’ve met happen to be the same person. My own conclusion is that this man thinks critically, holds himself to high standards and makes an effort to move in the direction of his principles – that’s how he’s different. I found him to be extremely thoughtful and polite.
Bapak
Bapak, a 71-year-old who looks 85, said his family split from a larger kingdom near Ubud (on Bali, crossed the mountains and established their new home in 1883. His is the seventh generation since the split, Ari’s is the eighth, the kids running around the living area comprise the ninth generation in Munduk. He emphasized that the pioneers’ names – and even those of the second and third generations – were never recorded and are forgotten.
The family has lived on this land – where we ate and talked – since the 1883 exodus. In 1965 Munduk got a road and was officially established. Ari can remember the road being bumpy and unpaved even in his lifetime. The lakeside fisherman’s village we visited, Limpah, still lacks a road. I asked if people live differently in Limpah than do people here in town. Ari didn’t understand the question at first, then he said, “no.” I suppose I asked a strange question in the first place, I’m not sure what answer I expected.
The Dutch ruled Indonesia for 300 years. During WWII a base building (like a communication hub) operated in Munduk, and Bapak remembers a Dutch soldier giving him a piece of bread when he was seven-years-old. Then the Japanese forced the Dutch out, ending the 300-year rule. The Japanese didn’t give Munduk trouble since it was so small and poor, they simply claimed all of Bali and that was it. Apparently they had a presence in Denpasar. Indonesia gained its independence when we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I asked if Bapak had been frightened after the ruling powers left (would there be civil war?) but he said, “no.” Apparently Bali was pretty well-united.
We asked Bapak if he’s friends with Bapak Dewa from across the street – the coffee farmers’ grandfather. Satisfyingly, he is. They’re about the same age and I imagine they grew up together and share memories of different times. At a little temple in Ubud I met another old Bapak dressed in a nice sarong and headscarf; he asked me for money after I took his picture. Today we ate lunch with a family following a private tour of their farm, and they let us hang out and ask prying questions the entire day. They even bought us snacks. Then this evening another family cooked us dinner, and Ari translated all night while we asked prying questions of Bapak and the uncle. At no point throughout the day would anyone accept money from us, and though we spent almost nothing, it was by far the most valuable day we’ve had.
Posted on December 31, 2009 at 12:00 pm.
by Mike
Philippe’s grandfather was found dead in the Maquis with his back against a tree and his rifle across his lap. Philippe sat in the position to show us as he retold the story, holding his arms to his chest as if clutching a rifle. “The Gestappo – the Italian police, you know? – they were in the Maquis on a full moon night and saw the light shine on the barrel. When they found him he was dead. Heart attack at 46.”
Philippe shares his grandfather’s passion for guns and hunting, as many men do on this island. A common scene was the Hunter’s Bar in Ota: a bunch of men sat drinking Pastis and looking at guns on a computer or in magazines. They wore camouflage jackets and hats and there were boar’s heads and stuffed birds on the walls. They poured more Pastis and played cards and other hunters came and went, everyone greeting everyone else.
I asked Philippe if he hunts with dogs and he said he doesn’t, he prefers to hunt at night. “Wow, that’s intense,” I said.
In the book we’re reading about Corsica (Granite Island by Dorothy Carrington) there’s a chapter about other night hunters, the Mazzeri. The Mazzeri were improperly baptized individuals who lived in the villages but apart from the people. They had the gift, though, of foretelling death. At night they’d hunt in the fragrant Maquis and kill the first animal that came along – a dog or a boar or whatever. Then they’d roll it onto its back, look in the face and recognize somebody from the area. In the morning they announced the news that the person they saw would die within a year.
Carrington writes that the Mazzeri didn’t actually cause the deaths, rather they interpreted what was sent to them. They were compelled to go into the Maquis to hunt just as the animal was compelled to cross their path. It was Destiny, and their only part was to read it. But she writes that night hunting becomes addictive for some Mazzeri, despite their reluctance to read more deaths.
The closer you look at the tradition of the Mazzeri, the further back you look “into the night of time,” further back even than the megalith builders who inhabited the island thousands of years ago, whose works you can still see and touch, faces carved into upright, human-sized stones. The Mazzeri reflect a people grappling with the basic human activities of hunting and dying at the dawn of cognizance.
When I asked Father Joseph if the megaliths were interesting to visit, I was kinda annoyed by his answer, “Well, they’re ok if you’re interested in rocks and old stuff.” But now that I better understand the historical context I can see why he answered that way. The megaliths (“rocks and old stuff”) were symbols for the beliefs and traditions that Christianity struggled for a thousand years to dislodge. The megalith builders were active on the island since 3000 B.C., while the traditional customs & beliefs lasted from the dawn of cognizance deep into Christianity’s crusade – even up until the Second World War Corsica remained an island writhing in the coils of busy myths. By contrast, Christianity has only been here since about 500 A.D. That means that in the year 3509 A.D, it will still be another 2000 years before Christian beliefs will have been on this island as long as the megalith builder beliefs have been here to now.
A couple weeks ago I wrote to you about touching the stones that ancient people touched and trying to imagine what compelled them to build. I wrote that I hoped “my mind would be refilled with the mind that built those walls” and maybe I’d tap into something fundamental to the human experience that I’m missing now. Only I failed to connect. Obviously I don’t believe I can conjure the minds of the past, I don’t believe in that. But I’m starting to realize that a fundamental piece of human experience that I’m missing is the very instrument that allowed people to communicate with their ancestors – magic.
The disappearance of magic is a symptom of the changed pace of the world. I think that the key to understanding another person’s experience is living the rhythm of their life, and to understand the wall builders I’d have to quit using a car and stop working a job and extract the internet from my body and ignore the media. It would mean living with the seasons and working with my body and living a shorter life but maybe living in constant wonder.
Philippe, stroking the barrel of his gun, said, “This is my dream, realized. I wanted my life to be hunting, guns, motorcycles, cheese, goats.” He didn’t mention his wife and daughter in the next room. “And now I have it.”
We left his house late at night and as we rode home I thought about what it would be like going into the Maquis with a rifle and just sitting and waiting and listening. I thought about what I would feel if I sat still for a night, and what I’d hear if I didn’t talk, and what I’d see if there were no lights, and what I’d sense if time and rhythm slowed to heartbeat and breath. I wondered if Philippe was addicted to night hunting like the Mazzeri and if I could be too.
The scooter pulled through the night to the crest of the hill and from a height that felt like floating, we looked down the spine of Corsica. There were a few towns hidden in folds facing the sea. It felt mythical at that time, and the next night we went back to the same spot to take pictures. I thought about my own dream realized, honestly: traveling with Azure by motorcycle (the scooter has done fine) with a camera and my journal, trying to learn the rhythm of other people’s lives.
Posted on March 13, 2009 at 6:38 am.
by Mike
I woke up at 8:35 to go to mass this morning, I brought my camera thinking there might be some good pictures but of course I was over ambitious… I’m not going to take pictures during a church service. I did take a video, though. It was of the choir from Porto Vecchio singing during the mass – it was apparently a special occasion to have them there, so I’m glad we caught it. The service would have been pretty dry without, I’m sure.
I’ve been unimpressed with this church. I guess I shouldn’t have expected much since we are staying in a convent – it’s not going to be revolutionary – but there seems to be an enormous disconnect between the Fathers and real life.
Father Joseph was skeptical of me at first, probably because I rang during lunch, but then he warmed when Azure showed up. I told him we were here to learn. I think when I said that he understood me to mean that I wanted to learn about Christ and Christianity. Of course I’m way more curious about the life of a Catholic priest living in a convent, but it didn’t translate.
I asked whether he’d studied Judaism and Islam, two religions based on the same god and the same core texts. He said he had, but he was dismissive of them, saying essentially that the Jews had missed the boat and then he downplayed Mohammad’s importance. It sounded silly from where I was sitting. Here’s how he sounded from my perspective: A guy handed people a book from god and it was ok at the time. Then another guy came along and amended that book and added his own stuff and only fools didn’t follow. Then a third guy came along and amended that book and added his own stuff and only fools did follow. It sounded childish, narrow-minded.
I told him we were going to a prehistoric site that day and asked if it was good. “Well, it’s fine if you’re interested in rocks and old stuff.” (Which, actually, I am). I asked him what he was interested in. He pointed to the beautiful blue sky and the sun.
“The sun?”
“God.”
“Oh, right.”
His lectures to us were in line with what I understand of traditional Christianity: “People say that the earth was created long ago and life formed slowly, but what force drove it? There must have been some force.” “I live to serve others. You need to ask yourself, are you doing something for others or for yourself? If it’s for yourself, it’s egoism.” “Some people think that when you die that’s it, you disappear, but I believe part of us lives forever.” “My life is about knowing god. I aim to reject all material comforts.”
We got one glimpse into their part of the convent and it felt like sneaking into the teachers’ lounge. Everything was extremely clean, extremely organized. He showed us the sun room and it took our breaths away – the sun room had the best view we’d seen of the town and valley, and it must be the best you can find without renting a helicopter. The convent is perched on the side of a hill and the priests’ quarters stick out a little farther for unobstructed 180 degree views. The sun room was bright when the rest of the convent was dark, but what caught our attention was on the table and window sills – there were a dozen orchids staring at us appearing simultaneously fragile and stately and defiant and precious. It didn’t seem right for him to have orchids after what he repeated about materialism.
His office, actually, was the only place that wasn’t neat. Papers were spread on the desk as he prepared his Sunday sermon. I asked what the sermon would be about. “Well, it’s about the gospels.” Well, what’s the subject? “The teachings of Jesus… here,” he handed me a small book, almost a pamphlet. “Every church in the world follows this book so every Sunday you get the same message no matter which church you go to.” I opened the book which was organized by date. It was just excerpts from the bible, as far as I could tell.
This happened again and again when talking to him – I’d ask for perspective or an interpretation or insight and he’d defer to something like, “Well, I reject materials and try to live simply. I’ve made my choice to follow God. Other people make other choices, but you can’t go around changing your mind.” That last statement, ‘you can’t go around changing your mind,’ got under my skin. It’s either ignorance or stubbornness.
–
The first piece read at Mass today was about Adam and Eve getting expelled from the Garden of Eden for choosing to pursue knowledge. I looked at our, “we just want to learn” statement a little differently. I have two aims when I travel: To learn and to experience (which teaches). It makes my life look incredibly at odds with the aims of the Church. If the apple represented the forbidden fruits of knowledge, then humans were rejected from the Garden of Eden for satisfying their curiosity (learning) and lust (experiencing).
The Mass was bland, uninspiring, he didn’t say anything about real life and in general it looked like he was trying to project authority. Here are the quotes I wrote down: “Readjust your attitude during these 40 days.” (before Easter), “You are made in God’s image.” “Separate your heart from materials.” “Spread the Good News to your neighbors.”
The Mass was conducted in such simple words that I could understand almost everything. The message I received from our week at the church is one that I wasn’t expecting: “Don’t question things. Let God take care of it.” I’m open to talking about religious philosophies (it’s where the rubber meets the road, after all) but not if it’s without critique. Not if I’m simply told to “have faith.” I guess I don’t.
(By the way – If anyone [like Fred, especially] has some insight on the apple story I’d welcome critical comments).
Posted on March 2, 2009 at 1:44 pm.
