Monday, May 16, 2011
There and back again, the tale of a wandering Jewess
I currently find myself in somewhat familiar territory--sitting and waiting for my flight in Suvarhnabhumi airport in Bangkok, Thailand. This is the fifth time I am doing this in the past three and a half months and my tenth overall time in this airport. I think I know it better than ewr now. Only this time feels very different, and perhaps the most foreign of m experiences in southeast Asia, which is a very high standard. And no, it is not just because this time I am waiting in the royal silk lounge whereas in the past I have been scrounging for bench while being sat on by oblivious Chinese people who seem to either not notice or not care that I am already in a seat ( it's not bein judgemental, just honest. Ask Lucy.). In about about an hour I will be boarding a plane that will take me west to Frankfurt, Germany and then further west on to new York, completing my around the world experience that started flying west out of NY to china. There are many things that have happened since my last post, and I do not have the energy in this moment to draft them together. I am in a different sort of mindset than I have often been when leaving a place I had come to consider a sort of home. It's true that many aspects of Bangkok, thailand, and Asia as a whole remained to this last moment utterly incomprehensible to me, unclear, bizarre and irrational. But my time here, so completely removed from most everything that could be considered familiar to me for 90% of the time enabled the time and the place to really in many ways take a different sort of hold over me and my mindset, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Who can say if ive been changed for the bett, but, I have been changed for good.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
things i have learned, the 4:30pm addition
1. dragon fruit is yummy, kinda like a kiwi but way more fun.
2. auntie anne's pretzels are addictive. must...have...another...
3. when lots of things are coming up and lots of things need to be done first, time moves fast. and its hardest to get out of bed early.
4. little bananas in a bunch kinda look like an animal..in a cute way.
5. telephones ring whenever you leave them too far away to answer in time.
2. auntie anne's pretzels are addictive. must...have...another...
3. when lots of things are coming up and lots of things need to be done first, time moves fast. and its hardest to get out of bed early.
4. little bananas in a bunch kinda look like an animal..in a cute way.
5. telephones ring whenever you leave them too far away to answer in time.
three days to Cambodia
The weekend following the earthquake, the time had come again for me to sojourn from Bangkok and Thailand. This trip would go to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. When I went to Saigon, Vietnam, I chose the location largely on a whim, inspired mainly by the cheap ticket price and convenient flight times. The trip to Phnom Penh, however, had been decided on several months ago, since it would have a higher purpose than merely to go see the place.
Jewish Help Hands, an organization run by Rabbi Joel Soffin (my rabbi growing up, he was even my legal guardian for a week on a trip to Ukraine in 2000), has become involved with a village near to Phnom Penh, helping to support a large group of orphans, the local school, and the development of a clinic with an especially inspiring man, Arun Sothea. The next trip of JHH to the site is not scheduled until next fall, but Soffin thought it likely he would go out to see the status of things between his last trip and the next. At lunch last January, however, I told him about my plans of being in Thailand, and the simple solution of sending me as a shalicha for him was devised.
For the first time in Bangkok, I took public transportation to the airport—I had managed my luggage on the motorbike taxi, so I figured the metro trains would be doable. Pretty reliable, happy to report.
Got to the airport and made my way through customs etc, easily enough, making a friend at the security checkpoint, when he forgot his wallet and belt at the scanner.
Eating a ‘pizza company’ personal pan pizza in the time before the flight, I soon found myself on the Airasia plane. With a team of ‘rugby players’. By ‘rugby players,’ I mean 35-50 year old anglo expats, mainly british it seemed, who play in a rugby league in southeast asia. And by play in a rugby league, I mean play a bit of the sport, and take weekends away to get drunk. And where their uniforms, so you always can tell that the idiots travel in packs . lol
I arrived to the city around 5pm, disembarked, paid for my visa, collected my luggage and went out to find my transportation waiting for me. It was the first time at an airport I’d had a driver waiting with a sign with my name—granted, he was from the hotel, but still. A little swanky.
All two of us (the driver and me) loaded into the van for the 10 kilometer drive to the hotel from the airport. After clearing the streets for emergency vehicles and maneuvering through traffic jams that make Bangkok roads look calm and organized, two hours later we arrived to the Goldiana. 5 kilometers an hour. I can definitely walk faster than that. But I wouldn’t have known where I was going. So after all that, on arrival to the hotel, I checked in, had a quick dinner with green fanta in the hotel restaurant (actually very good!) and went to bed. There was cable, so I watched some strange but amusing French musical movie.
DAY 2
I had very nice plans to wake up early and start exploring Phnom Penh from just after sunrise, just like Fodor’s suggests. It was a very nice plan, but sleeping in, it turned out, was a nicer one. Despite a 4am phone call from my mother, I managed to wake up around 8 enough to go downstairs and have breakfast and take my malarone. Then I went back upstairs to lie down again until around 11. Encino Man was on, and I have a thing for Brendan Fraser.
I left the hotel and hopped onto one of the waiting motorbikes. He asked me what places I was interested in seeing; for the day, my plan was the Tuol Sleng Prison Museum, a former school turned into a torture center and prison by the Pol Pot clique, followed by a trip to the Killing Fields, a final destination for many who passed through Tuol Sleng. My moto-taxi driver and I agreed on a fare to hire him for the better part of the day for both these outings.
Tragic Pasts
Arriving at Tuol Sleng, the museum had every feeling and inclination of the total loss of humanity and dignity required for such a place to come into existence. Similar to Dachau, the organization and systematic approach to the whole thing is at the same time incredible and sickening. The museum allows visitors today to see the places that all levels of individuals were brought to, read their stories, and see into the lives and current criminal trials of the individuals who enabled this regime to operate. The irony of the way that the use of a school can be perverted—that classrooms that had been established in a set way to enable cooperative learning, private instruction, etc. are inclined to support isolation, confusion, and depravity.
The 15 kilometer drive out of the city on the back of the moto to the Killing Fields was a mixed experience (and not entirely comfortable, as I think the bike seat and I are the same age). Driving the same route to a vastly different purpose than those whose memory I was exploring, I arrived to the field with the slight apprehension you feel whenever visiting a cemetery, that mixed emotion of selflessness and arrogance. The field itself was relatively raw. The shallow mass graves were no more than 4 feet at the deepest, 7 at the widest, and frequently next to each other, like giant footprints. Occasionally on the ground were scraps of clothing—I overheard a guide tell some other tourists that the scraps were there since the field had been ‘in use’, although with the natural weather patterns of the area, I don’t know if I believe that pieces of cotton cloth would have survived 30+years. In the center of the property was a spire and shrine, containing bones that had been uncovered from the mass graves. Throughout the area, chickens and roosters and chicks poked around. Even in the wake o f tragedy, life goes on?
It was getting a bit later in the day by this point, especially since everything in Phnom Penh seems to close at 5. As I was leaving the grounds, my cell phone rang—work. Even on a day off, in Cambodia—what powers of technology.
Upon leaving the Field, I found my moto-driver, and we embarked to return to the city. This time, because of the relative slow speed we were driving at, I was brave enough to be taking pictures from the back of the bike, up to the point where he suggested I put away the camera, as we were entering in to a more trafficky area, and people are known to steal bags and things from especially tourists on motorbikes. Instead of going back to the hotel, I asked him to bring me to the National Museum.
No Need to Visit Temples
For the most part, in Cambodia many of the older temples, ruins, etc. are not something you need to visit, as all the Buddhas, etc have been removed to the National Museum. The Museum itself is set up lie a beautiful pagoda with a courtyard complete with lotus ponds and koi fish. At the first room to the museum was a lovely installation about traditional Cambodian dance, and after that it largely all gave way to buddhas. It didn’t take long to full explore the exhibition, since really many Buddhas are not so different from each other. The entire area, however was lovely. By around 4:30, having finished seeing the pieces, I bought a water and sat in the courtyard.
Making a friend
This is when I met Wen. She was sitting at the same corner of the patio as me, drinking a coke. Or maybe a pepsi. Anyway. We started to chat. She was born in China, from Florida/New York. Having quit her job last year, she decided to backpack southeast asia for a while before going back to the real world. She was on month 7, of a probable 11.
The museum closed at 5, and she and I decided it would be fun to take a sunset boat ride on the Mekong. We finally found a boat that would not be a private boat (two relative strangers, better to find more strangers), boat some beer (her) and coke (me) (the soda), and boarded with the 4 others who would be joining the trip. Not quite sure how six people at $6 a head can make it profitable to operate such a large boat, but all the same, it was a nice ride, and the opposite banks of the river could not be more different from each other. On one side, a relative metropolis with tall buildings and construction, full of lights as the sun sets. On the other, clusters of huts and long fishing boats tide to posts in the grass.
The boat dock was near to the night market, which Wen and I perused—cute, but nothing to Bangok’s markets. Maybe100 vendors were here.
As it was nearly 9:30 by now, we thought we might get some dinner, and so we wandered over to the nearby, waterfront FCC (foreign correspondents club.) Its not really functioning as one anymore, but it was very neat all the same. And really good food and cocktails. And lots of lizards crawling all over the place. After dinner by the water, and then lounging in overstuffed leather chairs chatting for a while, we decided to call it a night around 11, since the next day I was getting picked up by Arun at 7am. We walked to Independence monument, agreed to meet the next night to see a traditional dance show that was in my guide book, and went to our respective ‘homes’.
Arun, and the village.
Arun, an orphan of the Khmer Rouge with incredible personal drive and strength, and another volunteer picked me up the next morning shortly after 7am. Early. The village would be about an hour and a half’s drive, on the other side of the river (requiring a ferry ride). To see how rapidly the landscapes changed around me, from city to developing to truly east asian rural, with dirt roads, footpaths, rice fields, you name it. Arun showed me how far inland the river would rise during the wet season, almost unbelievable. Things are on stilts for a reason. We arrived first to the clinic. A very modest sized 1 story building, the waiting room in front is a grass hut on stilts with a few IV poles set up. The property, which was donated by the neighboring monastery, is full of mango trees. The clinic itself is half a maternity center, as an average of 30 babies are born there each month. Due many factors, the water is unfiltered and delivered to the clinic by pump from a water tank, and there is only enough power generated through solar panels to have lights for deliveries at night; however, patients who are treated at the clinic are treated free of charge.
After the clinic, we went to the school, a five minute further drive up the road. Since it was a Saturday and the start of the Lunar New Year 3 week vacation, the school was not too busy, but we were able to look in on the Saturday extra computer class that was in progress. Moving on from the school, we went further into the village, stopping at the construction site of Arun’s future learning and community center for his orphan group, and then on to the temporary center, a house he is renting where the large group of children can come and meet, talk, play, etc. Part of my job during the visit on behalf of JHH was to take many pictures, which I did at the school and the clinic. But in this instance, surrounded by at least 25-30 children from 3 to 18 years of age, my shutter only moved a few times. It felt less appropriate—in this instance, the supposed subjects of my pictures were not something I could describe, explain or relate to in any realm. These kids who are supported by Arun so their foster families will allow them to go to school instead of work, who have lost more and done with less than I could ever know how to, looked at me and spoke with me, shifting between smiles and shy faces. And in response, what could anything I have to give them be worth?
Back
We arrived back to my hotel in the midafternoon. After thanking Arun for his time and effort, I decided to go upstairs, both for a short nap and time to reflect.
After I got up, having gained some idea of the geography of the city, I decided to visit a particular Wat that is home to Phnom Penh’s only working elephant, Sambo, and stopped at an unexpected silk shop on the way there. Dress to come.
By the time I made it all the way to the Wat, there was just enough time to give Sambo some bananas and take some pictures before the compound closed for the day. The rest of the evening consisted in meeting Wen, NOT finding the dance show, giving up and getting food and drinks at a little café by the water I’d found. $2 cocktails, and some of the best mozzarella sticks I’d had in a while. It was nice to have some company for a while, too.
Day 3
Uncertain of how the traffic would be getting back to the airport after the 2 hours it took coming from, the next morning I slept in, packed up, ate breakfast, checked out, and went to the airport. Once there, however, I could not check in until 1.5 hours before my flight, so I hung out in dairy queen for a while and read pride and prejudice on my ipad. No, the story never gets old. Finally checked in, paid my exit fee (more than the entrance visa!!) and went inside the airport. There was a spa and everything up there—you would think airport s would want you inside sooner, you’d be much more likely to buy crap at duty free, etc.
Oh, and the ‘rugby team’ were on my return flight, too.
Jewish Help Hands, an organization run by Rabbi Joel Soffin (my rabbi growing up, he was even my legal guardian for a week on a trip to Ukraine in 2000), has become involved with a village near to Phnom Penh, helping to support a large group of orphans, the local school, and the development of a clinic with an especially inspiring man, Arun Sothea. The next trip of JHH to the site is not scheduled until next fall, but Soffin thought it likely he would go out to see the status of things between his last trip and the next. At lunch last January, however, I told him about my plans of being in Thailand, and the simple solution of sending me as a shalicha for him was devised.
For the first time in Bangkok, I took public transportation to the airport—I had managed my luggage on the motorbike taxi, so I figured the metro trains would be doable. Pretty reliable, happy to report.
Got to the airport and made my way through customs etc, easily enough, making a friend at the security checkpoint, when he forgot his wallet and belt at the scanner.
Eating a ‘pizza company’ personal pan pizza in the time before the flight, I soon found myself on the Airasia plane. With a team of ‘rugby players’. By ‘rugby players,’ I mean 35-50 year old anglo expats, mainly british it seemed, who play in a rugby league in southeast asia. And by play in a rugby league, I mean play a bit of the sport, and take weekends away to get drunk. And where their uniforms, so you always can tell that the idiots travel in packs . lol
I arrived to the city around 5pm, disembarked, paid for my visa, collected my luggage and went out to find my transportation waiting for me. It was the first time at an airport I’d had a driver waiting with a sign with my name—granted, he was from the hotel, but still. A little swanky.
All two of us (the driver and me) loaded into the van for the 10 kilometer drive to the hotel from the airport. After clearing the streets for emergency vehicles and maneuvering through traffic jams that make Bangkok roads look calm and organized, two hours later we arrived to the Goldiana. 5 kilometers an hour. I can definitely walk faster than that. But I wouldn’t have known where I was going. So after all that, on arrival to the hotel, I checked in, had a quick dinner with green fanta in the hotel restaurant (actually very good!) and went to bed. There was cable, so I watched some strange but amusing French musical movie.
DAY 2
I had very nice plans to wake up early and start exploring Phnom Penh from just after sunrise, just like Fodor’s suggests. It was a very nice plan, but sleeping in, it turned out, was a nicer one. Despite a 4am phone call from my mother, I managed to wake up around 8 enough to go downstairs and have breakfast and take my malarone. Then I went back upstairs to lie down again until around 11. Encino Man was on, and I have a thing for Brendan Fraser.
I left the hotel and hopped onto one of the waiting motorbikes. He asked me what places I was interested in seeing; for the day, my plan was the Tuol Sleng Prison Museum, a former school turned into a torture center and prison by the Pol Pot clique, followed by a trip to the Killing Fields, a final destination for many who passed through Tuol Sleng. My moto-taxi driver and I agreed on a fare to hire him for the better part of the day for both these outings.
Tragic Pasts
Arriving at Tuol Sleng, the museum had every feeling and inclination of the total loss of humanity and dignity required for such a place to come into existence. Similar to Dachau, the organization and systematic approach to the whole thing is at the same time incredible and sickening. The museum allows visitors today to see the places that all levels of individuals were brought to, read their stories, and see into the lives and current criminal trials of the individuals who enabled this regime to operate. The irony of the way that the use of a school can be perverted—that classrooms that had been established in a set way to enable cooperative learning, private instruction, etc. are inclined to support isolation, confusion, and depravity.
The 15 kilometer drive out of the city on the back of the moto to the Killing Fields was a mixed experience (and not entirely comfortable, as I think the bike seat and I are the same age). Driving the same route to a vastly different purpose than those whose memory I was exploring, I arrived to the field with the slight apprehension you feel whenever visiting a cemetery, that mixed emotion of selflessness and arrogance. The field itself was relatively raw. The shallow mass graves were no more than 4 feet at the deepest, 7 at the widest, and frequently next to each other, like giant footprints. Occasionally on the ground were scraps of clothing—I overheard a guide tell some other tourists that the scraps were there since the field had been ‘in use’, although with the natural weather patterns of the area, I don’t know if I believe that pieces of cotton cloth would have survived 30+years. In the center of the property was a spire and shrine, containing bones that had been uncovered from the mass graves. Throughout the area, chickens and roosters and chicks poked around. Even in the wake o f tragedy, life goes on?
It was getting a bit later in the day by this point, especially since everything in Phnom Penh seems to close at 5. As I was leaving the grounds, my cell phone rang—work. Even on a day off, in Cambodia—what powers of technology.
Upon leaving the Field, I found my moto-driver, and we embarked to return to the city. This time, because of the relative slow speed we were driving at, I was brave enough to be taking pictures from the back of the bike, up to the point where he suggested I put away the camera, as we were entering in to a more trafficky area, and people are known to steal bags and things from especially tourists on motorbikes. Instead of going back to the hotel, I asked him to bring me to the National Museum.
No Need to Visit Temples
For the most part, in Cambodia many of the older temples, ruins, etc. are not something you need to visit, as all the Buddhas, etc have been removed to the National Museum. The Museum itself is set up lie a beautiful pagoda with a courtyard complete with lotus ponds and koi fish. At the first room to the museum was a lovely installation about traditional Cambodian dance, and after that it largely all gave way to buddhas. It didn’t take long to full explore the exhibition, since really many Buddhas are not so different from each other. The entire area, however was lovely. By around 4:30, having finished seeing the pieces, I bought a water and sat in the courtyard.
Making a friend
This is when I met Wen. She was sitting at the same corner of the patio as me, drinking a coke. Or maybe a pepsi. Anyway. We started to chat. She was born in China, from Florida/New York. Having quit her job last year, she decided to backpack southeast asia for a while before going back to the real world. She was on month 7, of a probable 11.
The museum closed at 5, and she and I decided it would be fun to take a sunset boat ride on the Mekong. We finally found a boat that would not be a private boat (two relative strangers, better to find more strangers), boat some beer (her) and coke (me) (the soda), and boarded with the 4 others who would be joining the trip. Not quite sure how six people at $6 a head can make it profitable to operate such a large boat, but all the same, it was a nice ride, and the opposite banks of the river could not be more different from each other. On one side, a relative metropolis with tall buildings and construction, full of lights as the sun sets. On the other, clusters of huts and long fishing boats tide to posts in the grass.
The boat dock was near to the night market, which Wen and I perused—cute, but nothing to Bangok’s markets. Maybe100 vendors were here.
As it was nearly 9:30 by now, we thought we might get some dinner, and so we wandered over to the nearby, waterfront FCC (foreign correspondents club.) Its not really functioning as one anymore, but it was very neat all the same. And really good food and cocktails. And lots of lizards crawling all over the place. After dinner by the water, and then lounging in overstuffed leather chairs chatting for a while, we decided to call it a night around 11, since the next day I was getting picked up by Arun at 7am. We walked to Independence monument, agreed to meet the next night to see a traditional dance show that was in my guide book, and went to our respective ‘homes’.
Arun, and the village.
Arun, an orphan of the Khmer Rouge with incredible personal drive and strength, and another volunteer picked me up the next morning shortly after 7am. Early. The village would be about an hour and a half’s drive, on the other side of the river (requiring a ferry ride). To see how rapidly the landscapes changed around me, from city to developing to truly east asian rural, with dirt roads, footpaths, rice fields, you name it. Arun showed me how far inland the river would rise during the wet season, almost unbelievable. Things are on stilts for a reason. We arrived first to the clinic. A very modest sized 1 story building, the waiting room in front is a grass hut on stilts with a few IV poles set up. The property, which was donated by the neighboring monastery, is full of mango trees. The clinic itself is half a maternity center, as an average of 30 babies are born there each month. Due many factors, the water is unfiltered and delivered to the clinic by pump from a water tank, and there is only enough power generated through solar panels to have lights for deliveries at night; however, patients who are treated at the clinic are treated free of charge.
After the clinic, we went to the school, a five minute further drive up the road. Since it was a Saturday and the start of the Lunar New Year 3 week vacation, the school was not too busy, but we were able to look in on the Saturday extra computer class that was in progress. Moving on from the school, we went further into the village, stopping at the construction site of Arun’s future learning and community center for his orphan group, and then on to the temporary center, a house he is renting where the large group of children can come and meet, talk, play, etc. Part of my job during the visit on behalf of JHH was to take many pictures, which I did at the school and the clinic. But in this instance, surrounded by at least 25-30 children from 3 to 18 years of age, my shutter only moved a few times. It felt less appropriate—in this instance, the supposed subjects of my pictures were not something I could describe, explain or relate to in any realm. These kids who are supported by Arun so their foster families will allow them to go to school instead of work, who have lost more and done with less than I could ever know how to, looked at me and spoke with me, shifting between smiles and shy faces. And in response, what could anything I have to give them be worth?
Back
We arrived back to my hotel in the midafternoon. After thanking Arun for his time and effort, I decided to go upstairs, both for a short nap and time to reflect.
After I got up, having gained some idea of the geography of the city, I decided to visit a particular Wat that is home to Phnom Penh’s only working elephant, Sambo, and stopped at an unexpected silk shop on the way there. Dress to come.
By the time I made it all the way to the Wat, there was just enough time to give Sambo some bananas and take some pictures before the compound closed for the day. The rest of the evening consisted in meeting Wen, NOT finding the dance show, giving up and getting food and drinks at a little café by the water I’d found. $2 cocktails, and some of the best mozzarella sticks I’d had in a while. It was nice to have some company for a while, too.
Day 3
Uncertain of how the traffic would be getting back to the airport after the 2 hours it took coming from, the next morning I slept in, packed up, ate breakfast, checked out, and went to the airport. Once there, however, I could not check in until 1.5 hours before my flight, so I hung out in dairy queen for a while and read pride and prejudice on my ipad. No, the story never gets old. Finally checked in, paid my exit fee (more than the entrance visa!!) and went inside the airport. There was a spa and everything up there—you would think airport s would want you inside sooner, you’d be much more likely to buy crap at duty free, etc.
Oh, and the ‘rugby team’ were on my return flight, too.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
the earth moved
Thursday night, lying in bed, i felt myself start to rock, as if i were on a ship, and not in an apartment building eleven stories above bangkok. Of course my first thoughts were of myself-- i had been feeling sick lately, was something wrong enough to make me so dizzy and off center?
Two hours later, reading the news, I saw the truth-- 6.8 earthquake in myanmar, spreading all the way to bangkok.
A couple weeks previously, a titan-like tsunami swept villages and their inhabitants into the seas along the coast of Japan,while nuclear reactors seep their contents into the air, all caused by an earthquake that had moved the foundations a few days earlier.
An apathetic, uncaring, unknowing force in the earths physical realm made a move, perhaps relatively small considering the size and age of the physical planet,and yet...the lives of so many have been forever changed, entire worlds destroyed, irreparable, unknowable, forgotten? if something passes away without record, without those who would remember and tell of it, did it really ever happen to begin with? and in that case, were these worlds destroyed, if no one knew that they had been?
did the earth just move, or did it become something else, something it had not been before, something to which the world before is irrelevant and alien?
364 days ago, the world moved, changed. A man took a life in violence, and the earth shifted. and now we have lived in world that doesn't know the woman it last for 364 days, and it wonders if she even existed-- was she more than her loss, did she exist in a different form once? did the world shift for everyone, or just those of us who felt it? if someone didn't feel it, did it happen? did it even matter that it happened?
will the fact that the earth has shaken and changed really be understood by someone who doesnt feel it, didnt know what it was before or realize there is an after?
"the misery of other people is only an abstraction, " Ray insisted, "something that can be sympathized with only by drawing from one's own experiences. But as it stands, true empathy remains impossible. And so long as it is, people will continue to suffer the pressure of their seemingly singular existence."
"and mistreat each other, won't they?"
Ray nodded. "Horrendously."
Two hours later, reading the news, I saw the truth-- 6.8 earthquake in myanmar, spreading all the way to bangkok.
A couple weeks previously, a titan-like tsunami swept villages and their inhabitants into the seas along the coast of Japan,while nuclear reactors seep their contents into the air, all caused by an earthquake that had moved the foundations a few days earlier.
An apathetic, uncaring, unknowing force in the earths physical realm made a move, perhaps relatively small considering the size and age of the physical planet,and yet...the lives of so many have been forever changed, entire worlds destroyed, irreparable, unknowable, forgotten? if something passes away without record, without those who would remember and tell of it, did it really ever happen to begin with? and in that case, were these worlds destroyed, if no one knew that they had been?
did the earth just move, or did it become something else, something it had not been before, something to which the world before is irrelevant and alien?
364 days ago, the world moved, changed. A man took a life in violence, and the earth shifted. and now we have lived in world that doesn't know the woman it last for 364 days, and it wonders if she even existed-- was she more than her loss, did she exist in a different form once? did the world shift for everyone, or just those of us who felt it? if someone didn't feel it, did it happen? did it even matter that it happened?
will the fact that the earth has shaken and changed really be understood by someone who doesnt feel it, didnt know what it was before or realize there is an after?
"the misery of other people is only an abstraction, " Ray insisted, "something that can be sympathized with only by drawing from one's own experiences. But as it stands, true empathy remains impossible. And so long as it is, people will continue to suffer the pressure of their seemingly singular existence."
"and mistreat each other, won't they?"
Ray nodded. "Horrendously."
Sunday, March 6, 2011
one night in saigon, 40 years of questions.
Have you ever seen the movie “The Reader?” Probably, since it won so many awards and in general was a great movie, most people have, and more recently than me, who only saw it for the first time a month ago. In it, Hannah Schmidt is put on trial 20 some-odd years after the end of the Second World War for her part in the Holocaust, serving as a guard at a camp. From what I gathered, she was never armed and had no authority, was more administrative than anything else, though this is not really the point, the point is that she knew and to some extent enabled the atrocities that happened happen. And she stood trial for it, and went to prison for a very long time, as many others have. Michael Gruber, a Croatian boarn-Austrian living as a retired mechanic in Rockland, New York, was deported to Austria in 2002 at the age of 86 to stand trial for his service as an armed SS-guard at Sachsenhausen. Even though (nearly) none of these people committed illegal acts by the standards of the times in which they were acting, the world saw fit to hold them accountable, and to continue to ensure the responsible nations hold these individuals accountable indefinitely, as well as remembering their own national responsibility in the situation. There is not currently a child in Germany who goes through the German school system without studying WW2 and the Holocaust in particular. And I would say rightly so, as would people, especially Jews.
What is the relevance of this? It’s coming.
I just got back from one night in Saigon. The particulars of the city and the trip will have their place and time, but this is not it.
In the city, I paid a visit to the War Remnants Museum, which when it opened in 1975 was called "The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government [of South Vietnam]." Later it was renamed the Museum of American War Crimes, then as the War Crimes Museum, being renamed what it currently is in 1993 after relations between the US and Vietnam were attempted by Bill Clinton. The reality is, before this I did not know very much about the Vietnam war beyond what we saw in Forrest Gump, and in many aspects I still don’t. That is a part of the problem. The museum was of course heavily biased, ignoring all aspects of atrocities on the part of the Viet Cong, ignoring what was occurring that invited Western involvement to begin with. But that is not the point either. What matters here is what happened on the ground, part of individual incidents that repeated themselves. And were ignored. And were let go.
Former Senator Bob Kerry, as a leader of a unit of Navy Seal, lead an attack on a peasant village called Thanh Phong. Reports vary as to numbers, but it seems that in 1 night, 21 people were killed, 13 of them being women and especially children. In the War Remnants Museum, there is the cylinder of a well in which three children—siblings—were hiding. All three were dragged out, where 2 were stabbed to death, the third, disemboweled. It may not have the numbers of Babi Yar, but it has the brutality. In countless incidents villagers without discretion for children, pregnant women, etc. were lined up and shot, a scenario out of Goldhagen’s “Hitler’s willing executioners.” Only these weren’t Jews, they were Vietnamese peasants, and these weren’t Nazis, they were Americans.
I have never been in war. I have never been in battle. I am not trying to diminish the level of respect that should be paid to American veterans, of all wars; I also am not some bleeding heart liberal—while I am liberal, I believe in punishments fitting crimes and am not wholly against the use of extreme measures when it is truly necessary (this last part, however, is where I and many others who support various ‘torture’ methods differ). However, no matter how honorable and brave the members of the American military are at some instances should not absolve them from their ‘errors in judgment,” nor should the fact that the other side had begun using such violence first.
The indiscriminate use of chemical materials whose effects were not known is still having massive impact today. Babies are being born—or stillborn—with horrifying ailments and deformities. Why have we turned our backs to this?
I am disgusted that individuals who partook and lead such events have not been asked to answer for their actions just as we, as Americans and as Jews and as the entire world have forced Germany and all Germans to do. I am terrified that I did not know these things already. If we do not learn from the mistakes of our own actions, what will stop them from repeating, what prevents us from allowing those we send out to fight for us in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, from losing their morality, too? What makes us different from Goebbels, Mengele, Eichmann?
We continue to condemn the world for their actions and their histories, Rwanda, all of Europe, South Africa. When will America look in the mirror and take responsibility to our own history and mistakes?
What is the relevance of this? It’s coming.
I just got back from one night in Saigon. The particulars of the city and the trip will have their place and time, but this is not it.
In the city, I paid a visit to the War Remnants Museum, which when it opened in 1975 was called "The House for Displaying War Crimes of American Imperialism and the Puppet Government [of South Vietnam]." Later it was renamed the Museum of American War Crimes, then as the War Crimes Museum, being renamed what it currently is in 1993 after relations between the US and Vietnam were attempted by Bill Clinton. The reality is, before this I did not know very much about the Vietnam war beyond what we saw in Forrest Gump, and in many aspects I still don’t. That is a part of the problem. The museum was of course heavily biased, ignoring all aspects of atrocities on the part of the Viet Cong, ignoring what was occurring that invited Western involvement to begin with. But that is not the point either. What matters here is what happened on the ground, part of individual incidents that repeated themselves. And were ignored. And were let go.
Former Senator Bob Kerry, as a leader of a unit of Navy Seal, lead an attack on a peasant village called Thanh Phong. Reports vary as to numbers, but it seems that in 1 night, 21 people were killed, 13 of them being women and especially children. In the War Remnants Museum, there is the cylinder of a well in which three children—siblings—were hiding. All three were dragged out, where 2 were stabbed to death, the third, disemboweled. It may not have the numbers of Babi Yar, but it has the brutality. In countless incidents villagers without discretion for children, pregnant women, etc. were lined up and shot, a scenario out of Goldhagen’s “Hitler’s willing executioners.” Only these weren’t Jews, they were Vietnamese peasants, and these weren’t Nazis, they were Americans.
I have never been in war. I have never been in battle. I am not trying to diminish the level of respect that should be paid to American veterans, of all wars; I also am not some bleeding heart liberal—while I am liberal, I believe in punishments fitting crimes and am not wholly against the use of extreme measures when it is truly necessary (this last part, however, is where I and many others who support various ‘torture’ methods differ). However, no matter how honorable and brave the members of the American military are at some instances should not absolve them from their ‘errors in judgment,” nor should the fact that the other side had begun using such violence first.
The indiscriminate use of chemical materials whose effects were not known is still having massive impact today. Babies are being born—or stillborn—with horrifying ailments and deformities. Why have we turned our backs to this?
I am disgusted that individuals who partook and lead such events have not been asked to answer for their actions just as we, as Americans and as Jews and as the entire world have forced Germany and all Germans to do. I am terrified that I did not know these things already. If we do not learn from the mistakes of our own actions, what will stop them from repeating, what prevents us from allowing those we send out to fight for us in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc, from losing their morality, too? What makes us different from Goebbels, Mengele, Eichmann?
We continue to condemn the world for their actions and their histories, Rwanda, all of Europe, South Africa. When will America look in the mirror and take responsibility to our own history and mistakes?
catching up
Been a while since the last post. I'll try to stop making a habit of it.
Last weekend was Avishai and Stop's wedding; unfortunately I was unable to attend the ceremony, so I cannot tell you what a Thai wedding is like. I can tell you what an Israeli/Thai party is like though-- lets just say that glasses were broken, and not just when stepped on by the groom.
The ASB Brass were here for the past week, and it was a good experience for me. I was included in almost all of the happenings, which (as corny and adolescent as it may sound), really made me feel included and valued; its hard to explain, in many ways the company is a big mispacha, and this week, I was invited to sit at the grown-ups table.
Otherwise the week went by fairly standard, with the benefit of being able to learn more about the history and future of the company, and to get to know my bosses better.
Saturday morning I left for a weekend in Saigon, Vietnam--30 days already. As a physical city, I liked Saigon better than Bangkok-- it was more accessible, I could cross the street with only a mild sense of imminent danger, I had sidewalks to walk along, parks to pass through. The people and culture, however, did not suit me. Perhaps it is just those who are in tourist industries, perhaps its a result of communism (mannerisms in former USSR countries are offputting to me, as well). In any event, the people I interacted with were very aggressive and pushy--my cyclo (rickshaw/bike) driver literally blocked my way from exiting the bench while convincing me to take a longer drive. In the market, if you walked away from something or a stall, the sales person would literally grab your hand, arm, whatever, and hold on, requiring some force, or force of bargaining, before you could get away.
Otherwise, I spent my time relaxing in my hotel room tub on a rainy night, eating pho (before a bug appeared on my chopstick), drinking jackfruit shakes, and visiting museums, namely the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, and the War Remnants Museum. The latter deserves its own discussion, coming up next.
Last weekend was Avishai and Stop's wedding; unfortunately I was unable to attend the ceremony, so I cannot tell you what a Thai wedding is like. I can tell you what an Israeli/Thai party is like though-- lets just say that glasses were broken, and not just when stepped on by the groom.
The ASB Brass were here for the past week, and it was a good experience for me. I was included in almost all of the happenings, which (as corny and adolescent as it may sound), really made me feel included and valued; its hard to explain, in many ways the company is a big mispacha, and this week, I was invited to sit at the grown-ups table.
Otherwise the week went by fairly standard, with the benefit of being able to learn more about the history and future of the company, and to get to know my bosses better.
Saturday morning I left for a weekend in Saigon, Vietnam--30 days already. As a physical city, I liked Saigon better than Bangkok-- it was more accessible, I could cross the street with only a mild sense of imminent danger, I had sidewalks to walk along, parks to pass through. The people and culture, however, did not suit me. Perhaps it is just those who are in tourist industries, perhaps its a result of communism (mannerisms in former USSR countries are offputting to me, as well). In any event, the people I interacted with were very aggressive and pushy--my cyclo (rickshaw/bike) driver literally blocked my way from exiting the bench while convincing me to take a longer drive. In the market, if you walked away from something or a stall, the sales person would literally grab your hand, arm, whatever, and hold on, requiring some force, or force of bargaining, before you could get away.
Otherwise, I spent my time relaxing in my hotel room tub on a rainy night, eating pho (before a bug appeared on my chopstick), drinking jackfruit shakes, and visiting museums, namely the Ho Chi Minh City Museum, and the War Remnants Museum. The latter deserves its own discussion, coming up next.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
things i have learned, the 7am addition
1. starbucks does not have the venti size in bangkok
2. pouring grape juice over your cereal actually isn't too bad
3. being able to be out and about walking, etc. for more than five hours makes you a badass
4. thai people are very good at sharing
5. drinking 3 litres of water a day is hard.
2. pouring grape juice over your cereal actually isn't too bad
3. being able to be out and about walking, etc. for more than five hours makes you a badass
4. thai people are very good at sharing
5. drinking 3 litres of water a day is hard.
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