India Journal

Last night I finally found the tiny moleskine journal I kept in Mumbai, Chennai, and Andhra Pradesh last spring. Here it is, unadulterated, unedited.

Day 1
Taylor and I sit on the balcony of our hostel, the honking of cars on the street sounding much the same now at 11am as it did when we arrived around 5. So far little to relate other than a pleasant air-conditioned sleep, being hustled out of a lean 40 rupees by an unaffiliated taxi middle-man at the airport, and various preliminary observations on India and the stark contrast it provides from Japan. Exchanges almost never involve Thank yous or your welcomes even between perfect strangers. Things run a little faster as a result. Men and dogs sleep on cars, platforms, anything available. Cows roam the streets. A diamond jewelry billboard advertising above a rotting lean-to. Plans for today include finding the Gateway of India and catching a boat to Elephant Island.

Day 4
We're in Chennai now. A lot different than Mumbai, most obviously (from my perspective) in that it doesn't cater to tourists in any way. Mumbai was an incredibly vibrant city, with one of the strongest heartbeats I've ever felt. Everywhere there was activity, laughing, arguing, horn honking, bargaining- 17 million people, 8.5 million of whom live in slums, who seem to be living a life relatively unhampered by the unending rules and codes of conduct that filter Japanese and American interactions. The “Reality Tour” we took of Mumbai's largest slum was probably the experience that will stick with me the most. I'm still processing everything I saw. Images of aluminum foundries bordering two-story sheet metal houses filled with children, all of the thousands of micro-businesses operating in remarkable efficiency and resourcefulness. One of the primary industries of Mumbai slums is processing recycled goods and selling materials to manufacturers. There were schools operating under the auspices of NGOs and volunteer teachers. Crime was virtually non-existent. Everyone knows each other, everyone shares the same overarching situation, everyone has molded their existence to mutual dependency and common goals. And they seemed happy. We've been trained to look at such things with pity, with the implied duty to donate a dollar to the Red Cross to help improve things. But these people are self-sufficient and seem to have struck a balance between what they can have and the many things they can't.

Crazy Chowphatti beach rides (man-powered ferris wheel and swinging ship) and amazing 480 rupee group dinner. Calaba market, growing love of bargaining. Woman feeding us in cave. Gandhi museum, bought hand-made paper book, very inspiring.

Day 5
Sweating. Diarrhea. Long train, bus, and boat rides. So Thursday the 30th has been.
Indian people- no bullshit.
More freedom. More happiness?
Sense of respect for overpopulated populace carrying on.

Day 9?
Tuesday. We hit a motorcyclist into the lake on our bus ride into the village yesterday morning. I heard the metal clatter against the broad side of the bus and turned to look out the window, seeing him standing in knee-deep, muddy water, his defeated motorcycle on its side on the bank next to him, him glaring and gesturing and shouting at our driver. A few of our group went out to check on the unlucky guy. Returning to the bus, someone asked “Is he pretty mad?”
Rob: “Well yeah, but not nearly as pissed off as I would be”. The dirt roads are hardly wide enough to accommodate a bike next to our monstrous, attention-grabbing tour bus.
I've learned to look at cows a lot differently. Not quite as holy yet, but after reading an exposition on the subject by no less than M. Gandhi I've come to respect their gentle, slow, peaceful nature. They pass on roads amidst honking traffic and add a natural, incongruously serene element to the chaos of Indian roads and markets.
The communities here are close knit. At night, from Mumbai to our little Dalit village, most everyone seems to come outside, just to enjoy each other's company. During the day men in twos and women in threes walk together, sit on porches together. Everyone's children mix in throngs. They play volleyball and cricket, no one seems strained, their interactions are genuine and familiar. And they seem happy because of it. It throws our atomized, individualistic, eat dinner in front of the TV in the evening societies of the U.S. and Japan into sharp, unpleasant relief. Logically, humans are meant to live in groups, not at work and on the bus, but in the real settings of life, after dinner, in the mornings, during lunch breaks.

Dalit Talk
Potential of rebirth in higher caste functions as justification for keeping the Atai Shudra (Untouchables; slaves) down. Dalits are restricted in the trades they can choose. In India, only Dalits (still) do shoe making and shoe repair. Dalit means “broken people” in Sanskrit. They prefer to go by “Shudra”, meaning “lowest caste”.
Discrimination and segregation via the caste system is programmed into Hinduism, into India's religion and culture. Brahma (God) is synonymous with justice. Dalit's are born believing that their position is sanctioned by transcendent authorities. No wonder the village we work in and many others are increasingly turning to Christianity instead...

Gmail chat from Reed

RReed: ichibrawn

my love for you is like a lawn

whose grass ever greener grows

whose lengths no sad mower mows

the man's a poet and doesn't know it.

Summertime

Welcome back to Japan. The time is 1:40am, when words come alive. Two months (and some change) have passed since I last wrote, but I'm not dead quite yet. Maybe soon, but not yet.

I could tell you about crashing my bike at 30mph helmetless in the middle of a busy five-way intersection downtown or the threatening late night visit from an adult english student's enraged husband who accused me of having an affair with his wife (then apologized later that night for the misunderstanding by bringing me a six pack of Suntory Rich Malt and some kit kats- Rich Malt has been my beer of choice since), but I don't want to worry the motherly readership of this blog any more than necessary. For the rest of you, when I'm home remind me to tell you some of the stories that don't make it on here.

I can tell you right now that this entry, an attempt to convey where I'm at right now (literally and figuratively), will flip around like an epileptic acrobat at a rave nursing a sprained ankle. Here we go.

I'll start in the immediate future, to help paint a picture of where I am at the moment (in my boxers, on my couch with a fan pointed at me, alone and typing on Alex's computer at just shy of 2am). Come Sunday I'll fight in a local karate tournament against black belts aged 21 and over. Sweet Holy Jesus. I'll be both the only white guy and white belt in the place. It's not full contact (I'm not that tough) so I shouldn't walk away with anything worse than a few bruises and a tweaked neck after repeated roundhouse kicks to the head. The important thing here (for my self esteem) is that Kimura Sensei, to my complete surprise, asked me to join the dojo tournament team a month ago. This ostensibly means I'm making some progress after about a year of training. Just look at this intimidatingly shaved dome from a festival at Japan's primary Honda factory this summer:

Sitting near my sliding door here in the living room with the screen affording a view of the porch outside (along with letting in that pleasant textured melody of crickets that lets you know you live in/near the countryside) I can't help but wonder how many cats pass silently by every night as I sleep. At least four is my guess.

Anyway, I got served another generous portion of humble pie yesterday afternoon when I failed my Japanese Driver's License test for the second time. The test is extremely detail-oriented, and at least from an outsider's perspective, can seem fundamentally disconnected from the practical real-world skills it's meant to gauge. Not unlike the English tests I grade. A Chinese woman, who I had also taken it with last week, passed today after her 12th go at it. The other two American guys and I were shown the big X for batsu (fail) for our collective second tries, all of us given vague instructions to check our mirrors more often (than I thought possible). Meaning the road ahead should be seen only out of your peripheral vision as you swivel like a bobble-head in anticipation of maniac tricycle gangs hopped up on milk tea and Crunky bars who could launch themselves suicidally between you and the curb at any moment.

Here's a picture from a fun hike up Mt. Aso last month:

I own a beautiful white Toyota Starlet which has waited silently and patiently in my parking lot for close to two months now as this licensing process runs its meandering course. Ah, to be a machine. But hey, you either accept these red-tape mountain ranges while living in Japan, go crazy, or go home. I've learned to take constant failures a little more philosophically. And by philosophically, I mean with two tall cans of Asahi and a quarter flask of Jack and Coke on the porch with Lloyd yesterday followed immediately by a nice 5:30pm nap. Which led to waking up at 1am, which led, happily enough, to writing this.

On October 9th I'll take the GRE in Osaka. So I've been studying for that. Not sure yet what I want to commit to doing for the rest of my life, but I'll try and narrow that down in the next three weeks so I know where to send the scores. The Bushey School of Animal Painting is all I have so far for sure, though I hear it hasn't quite been the same since the passing of dear old Ms. Kemp-Welch. Failing that, New York or somewhere else on the east coast could be a vibrant change of pace from the alternative Northwest lifestyle, and of course an entirely different world from Japan. Mmm, pizza bagels.

Next Sunday I leave for Beijing with Alex, then we'll head to Shanghai and return a week later. China! Beyond a Great Wall tour reservation we'll figure things out as we go along, part of the greatness of traveling with a flexible friend.

This is from a visit to my friend Erin in Seoul:

I've been subsisting somehow without a computer since the beginning of July (it fatally overheated almost exactly a year after its first meltdown- pending a second resurrection it's essentially a phoenix) so I've been corresponding sporadically by email via cellphone and have spent only a handful of hours on the internet at work in the last two months. It's been liberating. The endless current of youtube videos, wikipedia articles, NY Times editorials, games, Facebook profiles, stock research, streaming t.v. shows and flash movies can suck up hours in an instant, and when you get cut off from all that you realize how long an evening at home actually is. After a while I picked up Ender's Game and started reading for pleasure again, then went back to the local bar I hadn't set foot in for eight months, and tried out my Japanese with the Ueki townsfolk. I've also come to enjoy spending a bit of time before bed each night out on my porch, no music, no distractions, just sitting there and looking out past the fence. Does wonders for a good night's sleep.

My good friend Greg Hansen came to visit for a spell, and just took off last week. We traveled around Kyoto for a few days then took the overnight bus back to Kumamoto, not an easy twelve hour ride for a man who stands two meters tall, or for the yenny-pinching friend squeezed against the window beside him. Despite his prolonged bout with what may have been the swine flu, we had a grand time stomping around this fair country, culminating in a massive JET beach party down south in Ashikita for the final weekend. Here he is tenderly eating the salt off my head.

This legendary man's visit came when I was missing Seattle and the USA pretty strongly and beginning to turn an unfairly harsh eye on my surroundings (having just rounded the one year mark, yearning to drive to an onsen with the AC on). So it was a big breath of fresh air and a good chance to see things reframed through the wry but appreciative eye of a friend with honest insights and similar tastes. Who I could probably wrestle down in a heartbeat (in case you're reading this Hansen). Here's us rolling down a hill in a giant sphere, courtesy of Holly:

If the fates are kind my friend Caity will be flying over in the spring for sakura (cherry blossom) season, which would be Amazing. Especially if we make it up to see Kyoto's fabled hanami vistas.

Here's a shot from a dinner with Terry, who taught down south in Yatsushiro and is now working with the Japanese Consulate in Tennessee, before she headed home this August:

My Japanese is coming along, so very slowly, but the process has significant and usually immediate rewards. I finally reached a milestone earlier this summer- completing the Heisig course of 2,040 common-use kanji, whose forms I can now (often) recognize and match with a simplified English definition, thanks to creating thousands of short stories connecting the disparate elements within the characters. Sound time consuming? Yeah, a bit. The next step is to fit them into actual Japanese readings, and gradually learn to read. The cryptic puzzles of this world will slowly unravel into coherent soft drink advertisements, utility bills, and safety warnings, which for me is more exciting than it sounds.

Here's a picture of a baseball game reunion up north in Fukuoka with most of the India group:

Almost done here. It's about 4:20am, a time which has distinctly different meanings for a Whitman college senior and an assistant English teacher with a special pre-tournament training session in six hours. Despite the consistent routine of 8:30-5:15 workweeks (with half-day Fridays), my experience thus far has felt more like an extended study abroad program mixed with summer camp than the career of a true Japanese schoolteacher (try 8am-9:30pm and near-parental responsibility for a classroom of kids). As I've heard from my predecessors, the government's dual purpose for funding JET is to stir up the admittedly homogeneous Japanese culture with some different languages, natural hair/eye colors, and personalities, while leaving a favorable impression on the promising young college graduates who participate and will go spread the good word about Japan back home, then potentially get involved with some line of foreign service work between the countries. Which, incidentally, is what I hope to do (coordinating joint American/Japanese investments in developing-world microfinance projects is the dream). Unfortunately for a lot of recent college grads JET is being scaled back in response to the pressing economic crunch. 27 new ALTs came to Kumamoto this year, compared to 69 last year. Looks like I made it in just in time.

This is from my friend Taylor's photo show earlier this summer. By accident I occasionally get to be in pictures with beautiful women.

I'm flying home to Seattle for Christmas (December 17-January 4), so hopefully I can see a lot of you then. Here are the things I miss most from home:

Family and friends

New movies in theaters

Being able to read/understand things/ convey urgent messages

Microbrews

Taco Bell and Wendy's

Leavenworth

Diner breakfasts

Watching basketball and primetime TV

Watching awful reality shows on late-night TV

Bagels

Kenmore's Cozy Inn

Ruffy

My old piano

Loud and unpredictable people

Listening to 93.3, 95.7, 97.3, and 103.7FM in the car

the list goes on, but I'll stop before profuse tears of nostalgia fall and short-circuit Alex's computer.

Thanks for reading, and if you ever want to say "hey man, this one Rogaine commercial made me think of you" or "when are you going to pay me back for that couch" or "stay in Japan, slagbiscuit" you can send an email to my phone at anderskg@docomo.ne.jp. anderskg@gmail.com always works too. Hearing from you, however briefly, would make me pretty happy. Atode mata.

my life is average.

it's always funnier when you can you can relate to something.

http://mylifeisaverage.com/

Magic Happens

It’s been a special day, and not just because I rode to work in bike shorts and forgot to bring underwear. Today a small miracle happened during third period English.

Our speech repetitions were suddenly interrupted by a crash on the hall window followed by a little brown wren slamming into a boy's shoulder in the back corner before ricocheting off onto the ground and feebly fluttering in circles on the floor. Immediately my heart sank- the bird was a goner. I'd seen this before. I exchanged sympathetic looks with the handful of students comfortable with openly expressing emotions as my teacher, Kawaguchi Sensei, tenderly gathered the injured bird into her hands. She then cupped it firmly between her palms and slowly paced back to the front of the room, resuming the lecture as she walked. The students seemed to accept that class would go on as normal as their teacher held a perishing kamikaze bird in her hands.

Kawaguchi Sensei then asked me to lead a few pages of reading while she carried the bird out to the sink in the hallway. Was she going to put it out of its misery by drowning it? Let it struggle harmlessly around the sink basin until class ended? Turns out she was just giving it a little drink and smoothing its feathers.

Reading aloud from the textbook, "Andy, this is my friend Takeshi", I couldn't help glancing over to watch her curious efforts with the doomed bird. Teenage voices repeated "Andy, this is my friend Takeshi" back in the usual narrow spectrum of monotones, though the attention of several students was openly fixated on the sink outside.

"Hi, Takeshi. I'm Andy". Kawaguchi Sensei now had the wren on its side, balanced between her two open palms, and was shifting its weight back and forth. "Hi Takeshi. I'm Andy."

"Hi, Andy." The bird was upright, standing on her finger. "Hi, Andy."

"Are you a soccer fan?" She held the poor flightless bird out the window, looking like she was about to fling it into space and let it arc down like a feathery stone into the ground two stories below. "Are you a soccer fan?" I didn't have a great alternative in mind for disposing of live birds that crash into the classroom, so I looked on with trepidation out of the corner of my eye and continued reading.

"Yes, I-." One final launching swing of her hand and the bird suddenly and miraculously took off through the air, flying up freely into the blue sky! I literally stopped talking in mid-sentence. The class laughed as I tried again, "Yes, I am", and Kawaguchi Sensei reentered the room.

"What- how did... Sensei, did you just heal that bird?"
She smiled cheerily. "Re-ha-bilitation, ne?"
"Rehabilitation? That... was magic!"
"Hahaha, yes! I am magic."

I went from wondering if my teacher was picking the broken wren up to snap its neck, to watching it effortlessly take off with a rapid fluttering of functional wings in five minutes. It made me uniquely happy to witness that. Even some of the students appeared to look at their teacher and calm, confident healer of our wayward animal friends with a new sense of respect. At least the class behaved itself for the last ten minutes, a small miracle in itself at this school. So you never really know when magic will happen.

the world as seen through the eyes of an amateur investor

Looks like the global economic crisis is wrapping up. East Asia is doing a lot of the work in making that happen. And now is still probably a good time to buy strong next generation tech stocks- Apple alone has gone up over 30% in the last few months, and Google's looking real good too. Now's the time people! Invest!

Day Six in Andhra Pradesh

I woke up to a phone ringing at 6am this morning, as I have most mornings this week. Sometimes the call is earlier, later, doesn’t come at all, or in the case of this morning, the sleepy young man inexplicably rings one minute after the 6:00 call to say “Hello.” “Hello again”, I respond. “It’s 6:01 sir.” “Thank you?” “You're welcome sir.”

A few leftover scraps of butter nan and empty bottles of Thums Up cola litter the hotel room Taylor and I share. Last night we played cards and ordered room service, the night before we watched a lightning storm knock out the city’s power from the hotel rooftop.

We gather in the hotel lobby at 6:30am and board a rented tour bus to the village, where a cheering throng of village children greet us every morning. Their stream of delighted energy hits us as strong as a pot of black coffee to the face and continues unabated throughout the day, making it impossible not to return some of the love. We spin them and toss them in the air, play cricket and volleyball and a complex variety of hand games, practice English, recite 1-10 in Telegu or simply provide a climbing structure as we lose the strength to lift them by the end of the day.

The work itself is exhausting, passing cement trays and bricks to form foundations, corner pillars, walls and slabbed roofs. By noon we are soaked in sweat, our clothes filthy with dirt, dried cement and brick dust. A vegetarian lunch and one-hour siesta follow before getting back to work for the cooler afternoon work session. At dusk we eat dinner, play with the kids and unwind, pleasantly exhausted, having shared and accomplished a very tangible goal for the day. The bus ride back provides an opportunity to mitigate the profound ninety-minute transition from mudflat village to bustling industrial city by playing word games, sharing travel stories or quietly listening to music and processing the last thirteen hours.

Allow me to shed some light on this experience by sharing some fast facts about the Dalit.

1. The Hindu potential of rebirth within a higher caste functions as justification for keeping the Atai Shudra (Untouchables; slaves) subjugated throughout their lifetime.
2. In addition to being physically separated from the rest of society, in the economic sphere Dalits are explicitly restricted to a few undesirable trades. In the traditional regions of India, only Dalits (still) do leather tanning and shoe-making.
3. Dalit means “broken people” in Sanskrit. They prefer to go by “Shudra”, meaning “lowest caste”.
4. Brahma (God) is synonymous with justice, and Dalits are born believing that their position is sanctioned by transcendent authorities. Not surprisingly, the village we work in and many others are increasingly turning to Christianity instead...

Despite the heavy burdens placed upon Gummallapadu Village, hope exists not only by means of external volunteer efforts, but from the internal resiliency of its citizens and healthy ambitions of its younger members (one of whom will leave in a few weeks to study as a mechanical engineer in Shanghai). Along with the open communication, honesty, and a strong sense of community pervading the village where we did our work, this is proof that beautiful things often grow in harsh environments.