Religious prejudice and xenophobia

I've noticed that the issue of a plan to build a community center containing a mosque near the former site of the World Trade Center in Manhattan has been in the news a lot in the US lately. This strikes me as yet another thing that should not really be an issue at all, and wouldn't be if it weren't for some people who, while talking obsessively about patriotism and such things, seem to lack even a basic understanding of the principles which are the US's main claim to any sort of moral high ground relative to its enemies (never mind for the moment that in the past the rather large gap between principles and actions has tended to seriously erode that moral high ground).

A major impetus to the settlement of what is now the United States was a desire among members of religious groups that were discriminated against in England to find a place to practice their religion. The Puritans commonly known as the Pilgrims settled Massachusetts for this reason, as did the Catholics who settled Maryland. People from non-English speaking countries who belong to persecuted religious groups, such as French Huguenots, also came to the US for the same reasons. Freedom of religion was considered vital by the leaders of the early US (see, for instance, the quote from George Washington that I mentioned in a previous essay stating that he didn't care if workers were Jews, Muslims, atheists, or any type of Christians, as long as they worked well).

Now we have a bunch of people in the US who want to deny adherents of a particular religion, in this case Islam, the freedom to establish places of worship, not only near the WTC site, but in other places around the country. How much more blatant a violation of the principle of freedom of religion can there be? In the case of the New York Islamic community center, the critics talk about Islamic triumphalism and insensitivity. While one might just possibly be able to make a case for saying establishing a mosque so close to the WTC site is slightly insensitive, even this requires certain questionable arguments. We should keep in mind that the WTC was not attacked by Islam itself; it was attacked by violent extremists who happened to be Muslim. The people who are planning to build the mosque represent a much more peaceful, tolerant type of Islam (attempts to tie them to Islamic extremists seem dubious at best). If no mosque should be built in the neighborhood of the WTC site simply because the 9/11 attacks were committed by Muslims, does that mean no churches should be allowed near the sites of massacres or other atrocities committed by those who were supposedly Christian? If so, there would be lots of places all over the world were churches shouldn't be built.

Those who plan to build the Islamic community center have emphasized their desire to make it a place where people of all religions will feel welcome, a place of reconciliation where Muslims and non-Muslims can get to understand each other better. What exactly is bad about that? The problem with Islamic extremists such as Osama bin Laden is that they are completely intolerant of differing opinions and ways of life. If Americans reject all Muslims, even peaceful ones who want to improve understanding with those of other religions, how are they better than the Islamic extremists?

What's more, as is pointed out in a recent article in Time (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2011400,00.html), the community center will not even be at the actual site of "Ground Zero" but several blocks away. The argument that it is insensitive to build a mosque at the site of the tragedy would make more sense if it were actually going to be built there. It's not like the time when Hindu nationalists in Ayodhya, India tore down a mosque and wanted to build a Hindu temple on the exact same site (which they claimed was the site of the birthplace of Rama). As I pointed out above and the Time article further explains, while religion was unquestionably a major excuse for the attack, the attackers don't really represent their religion, and this is not ultimately a conflict between religions. And since the mosque won't even be on the site of the attack itself, to call its construction "Islamic triumphalism" is absurd. As the article points out, there is not a single legal reason to deny permission to build the community center, and those who protest against it are going against one of the major principles that the US was founded on.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a large minority of Americans with this kind of irrationally intolerant attitude. A similar phenomenon is seen in the movement among some, even in the US Congress, to deny citizenship to babies born in the US if their parents are there illegally. Whatever one thinks of what their parents have done (and despite anti-immigrant rants about them being "criminals", it's not like they are murderers or rapists), the children certainly aren't to blame. Punishing children, whether by denying them citizenship, medical care, or education, for the deeds of their parents is frankly reprehensible. One can only hope such xenophobic attitudes, like the religious intolerance exhibited by anti-mosque protesters, do not become too common among the American public.

Update (2010/08/25): A good piece on this issue and the ironic effect it may have on American support for the war in Afghanistan can be found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/22/opinion/22rich.html . One point the writer made was that the project is not a mosque but an Islamic community center containing a prayer space. Some fairly objective seeming reports, however, do refer to the prayer room as a mosque, and I haven't seen anything detailed enough to make clear which characterization would be more accurate, so I haven't edited out my references to a "mosque". But it is worth emphasizing that the building will be a community center with many functions that will be open to all, with the mosque (or prayer room) only one part of it.

I have seen a number of conservatives deny that anyone is contesting the right of Muslims to build a mosque at the site, asserting that their opposition is purely based on the belief that the site is inappropriate because it is insensitive. However, a lot of the comments from and signs carried by opponents clearly target Islam in general (not to mention the fact that anti-Muslim right wingers have been protesting mosques in places like Tennessee, which is a long way from the WTC site), so this assertion seems rather disingenuous. Furthermore, it is worth asking (as many have) exactly how far away from the WTC is far enough to satisfy these opponents. Two city blocks in NY is quite far, and there's already a mosque four blocks away. Some also bring up the Carmelite convent that the Catholic church agreed to move away from Auschwitz after Jewish protests, but that was right next to Auschwitz, not two blocks away.

Some also liken the project to building a Japanese monument near Pearl Harbor, but this is also a questionable analogy. First of all, it was Japan as a nation which attacked Pearl Harbor, while Islam as a religion was not responsible for 9/11 (despite what some might claim), except in the same sense that Christianity as a religion is "responsible" for massacres by its own fanatics. Furthermore, while a Japanese shrine dedicated solely to Japanese dead or something along those lines on the site of Pearl Harbor itself might be objectionable, a Japanese-government-funded museum dedicate to peace and clearly condemning the Japanese role in the conflict located next to the site would be acceptable. There should be even less objection to a community center aimed primarily (but not exclusively) at and funded by the local Japanese-American population (which is a very large percentage of the overall population in Hawaii) and that's essential what this project resembles.

None of the above means that Islam itself doesn't have its problems, at least as it is practiced by many of its adherents (even more moderate ones), or that care should be not taken to try to prevent the spread of any of those more questionable practices through whatever source, including places such as this community center. But then the same applies to Christianity and Judaism, whose more fundamentalist adherents sometimes try to impose their views on, for instance, same-sex marriage on the community at large. As long as there is no evidence that the community center in question is to be run by extremists (and vague claims of money ties are hardly evidence, as Jon Stewart points out: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-19-2010/extremist-makeover---homeland-edition), there is no reason it shouldn't be established in the place proposed for it.

What I've Been Reading - 2010, Part 3

Of the variety of books I've read or finished reading in the last few months, the first was a novel called The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Gibson and Sterling are both well-known authors of the branch of science fiction commonly called cyberpunk (Gibson was the author of The Neuromancer and the originator of the term "cyberspace"). While computers play a major role in The Difference Engine, however, it is not a novel based in the future, but an alternate history novel, based on the premise that Charles Babbage successfully completed his Difference Engine, a mechanical calculating machine he was designed to calculate advanced equations, and his more advanced, programmable Analytical Engine. Babbage produced several such designs in the mid 19th century, but they were never built, due to funding and Babbage's own eccentricities. Just a few years ago, an actual Difference Engine was produced using Babbage's original plans (with adjustments for minor errors) and 19th century manufacturing tolerances, which proved that his machine could actually have been built.

In the novel, the successful manufacture of a working computer has led to a technological revolution that has radically transformed Britain and the rest of the Western world. Britain is the world's leading power, with only France as a major rival, having ensured that the United States splintered over slavery. The government is dominated by intellectuals and scientists, led by Babbage and Lord Byron, who is prime minister. Other powerful individuals include Byron's daughter Ada Byron (Lovelace), who works with Babbage and is a brilliant "clacker"(programmer), though also a gambling addict (much like the real life Ada Lovelace, who was a skilled mathematician and writer of what many consider the first computer program, but was also fond of gambling), and Lords Thomas Huxley and Charles Darwin. A number of other historical figures appear or are mentioned in the novel, including Sam Houston, Benjamin Disreali, John Keats and Percy Bysshe Shelly in some cases in roles quite similar to those they played in real life and in other cases quite different, though generally believable based on their views and personalities. Like in Wolfe's Book of the New Sun and Zindell's Neverness books, distinctive words are used for objects and professions, in this case often analogous to but not identical with those of the 20th century, e.g, "clacking" (programming), "kinotropy" (cinematography), "linestreaming" (streamlining) and "gurneys" (coal and steam powered vehicles).

The novel follows three major characters (the third, Laurence Oliphant, was a real person) through the transformed society of late 19th century London. Though in many ways technological progress and meritocracy have seemingly resulted in a better world, there are evidently many hidden flaws and injustices, and even a sinister undercurrent in the use of citizen-numbers and other Engine-based information to identify individuals -- and in some events, erase any evidence of their existence. The novel is not particularly profound, but it is an entertaining read and a creditable imagining of the way things might have been.

I also read a collection of short stories about the Templar knights called Tales of the Knights Templar, edited by writer Katherine Kurtz and assembled in more or less chronological order from early days of the order in Palestine during the Crusades up to modern times. The stories contain varying degrees of the fantastic, in some cases being essentially historical realism but in other cases involving mysticism, time travel, magic, and other supernatural elements. They are generally sympathetic to the Templars, and in many cases make use of the (in reality highly improbable) idea that they had some kind of hidden knowledge. All in all, an interesting diversion, though basically light reading.

Much less light, but just as entertaining, was The Urth of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe. This is a sequel to his Book of the New Sun, narrated by the same character, Severian. As I don't want to give away too much to those who haven't read the previous book, I will simply say that the sequel resolves certain mysteries from its predecessor, including exactly what the New Sun is and Severian's relationship towards it, as well as the origin of the Claw of the Conciliator, and is a dramatic example of the idea that sometimes you need to (virtually) destroy something in order to save it. There is a bit more obvious science fiction in this book, as it more heavily involves space and time travel, but it is still, as Wolfe himself calls it, science fantasy rather than "hard" science fiction. Like in the other book, not everything is clear, as we only see things through Severian's eyes, and he does not always spell things out, even assuming he understands them perfectly himself. Severian, despite the role he plays, remains an imperfect character (as he says himself, "a bad man trying to be good") and sometimes he does not explain his own actions clearly. However, The Urth of the New Sun is a helpful aid to understanding the complex Book of the New Sun, as well as being a worthwhile tale in its own right.

An entirely different sort of character is the prototypical sword and sorcery hero, Conan of Cimmeria, who features in a collection of the original stories of Robert E. Howard entitled The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian. This book contains close to half of Howard's Conan stories, with most of the other half appearing in second anthology and a few more in one covering all of Howard's best known characters, including Kull of Atlantis and Solomon Kane (who featured in a recent major film). The stories in this anthology are from Howard's original texts, without the latter additions by other writers that appear in many Conan books.

Howard's Conan is a character of more depth than he appears to be in later portrayals (at least according to several critics -- I haven't read the later extrapolations myself), being somewhat melancholy and prone to brooding. He is not completely flawless, nor is he unintelligent or ignorant. But he does at times seem almost superhuman, as he is frequently described as succeeding in feats far beyond the abilities of normal humans, not to mention surviving wounds that would kill most people several times over (one can imagine him as a major inspiration for the concept of "hit points" in games like Dungeons and Dragons). Aside from his fighting skills, he is a skilled sailor, thief, and leader of men -- in fact there seems to be little he can't do. It is easy to imagine that Fritz Leiber and his friend Harry Fischer to create Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser as more human heroes in contrast to characters such as Conan, as they are said to have done.

Conan is also proud of the fact that he is a barbarian, in contrast to weak and untrustworthy "civilized" men. Howard clearly sympathizes with the barbarian viewpoint as he conceives it, though not in the sense of a noble savage, but more as being somehow purer and less corrupt. Nevertheless, Howard's idea of the barbarian is still somewhat stereotypical, as indeed many of his characters are. His women are generally weak and helpless (not too mention underdressed); a few are at least somewhat more capable and strong-willed ones, such as the princess in "The Black Colossus", but nevertheless are essentially dependent on Conan. The most notable exception is the pirate queen Belit in "Queen of the Black Coast", who is a powerful and ruthless leader in her own right, but even she feels an irresistible attraction to Conan that leads her to surrender leadership to him, or at least make him her equal. Howard also makes use of (whether he believed it or not) a completely erroneous concept of evolution, with peoples in his Hyborian Age evolving separately from apes and in some cases even "regressing" to apedom, none of which is actually possible. He seems to have subscribed to the idea that racial purity is somehow superior (when the opposite is actually true); the fact that Conan is a "pure-blooded" Cimmerian is emphasized, and while some "mixed" races are portrayed as being accomplished, the implication is that this is in spite of mixed origins rather than because of them. Most disturbingly, he had an obviously racist view of blacks, who are always physically powerful but extremely savage and almost subhuman. Of course, given that Howard was a Texan writing in the early 20th century, his racism is no more surprising than that of Margret Mitchell (author of Gone with the Wind), but in both cases it can be disconcerting to see on the page.

Despite these obvious problems, and the fact that a few of the stories were more clearly churned out using a formula in order to sell, Howard's Conan stories are exciting and fun to read. Having read this volume, I don't necessarily feel compelled to try to obtain a complete collection of Howard's work or even of his Conan stories, but I would like to obtain or at least read some of the other stories that are generally cited as being his best (including those featuring other characters). While heroes such as Frodo, Severian, or even Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser might have more depth or at least seem more realistic, it's easy to see why Conan has a hold on the imaginations of many and remains highly influential.

Speaking of influential, another one of my recent reads was a novel generally considered one of the most influential of the 20th century, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. A greater contrast to Howard's Conan stories is hard to imagine (though the two authors have at least one thing in common -- they both committed suicide). To the Lighthouse doesn't have a conventional plot, but rather focuses on the thoughts and feelings of a family spending the holiday on an island in Scotland and their guests. Interior monologues (particularly based on the perceptions of the characters as they observe their surroundings) feature heavily, so like in James Joyce's Ulysses, it is sometimes hard to distinguish what the characters think from their actual thoughts and actions (though generally To the Lighthouse is not as difficult in this sense as Ulysses, in part simply because it is much shorter, but also because it doesn't have the dramatic shifts in style that Joyce employed). Rather than telling a tell in the usual sense, the book explores the characters' relationships to each other, including their sometimes contradictory thoughts about each other, as well as women's relationship to men in the society of the day and the struggle to create, as typified by Lily Briscoe's attempts to paint.

The family at the heart of the story is the Ramsays, headed by the brooding philosopher Mr. Ramsay, who despite his intellectual accomplishments feels insecure and has great difficulty relating to others, and his wife Mrs. Ramsay, who holds the family together but accepts a subordinate position despite her own capabilities. The first section of the novel takes place in the course of a single day (again like Ulysses), culminating in a dinner party presided over by Mrs. Ramsay. In contrast, the middle section (appropriately titled "Time Passes"), only slightly touches on the human characters at all, but instead focuses on the deterioration of the house during a ten-year period when the family doesn't use it. The third part of the story takes place during another single day, when the remaining members of the family and their guests return to the house on the island.

Though it is not the kind of novel I would want to read just for fun, I can see why To the Lighthouse has a good reputation among critics. It is well-written, very original, and thought-provoking (though I would argue that books like Wolfe's and Zindell's are just as thought-provoking, though in different ways). Wolfe's insights into individual perspectives are fascinating. As a personal aside, I found it almost disturbing that I have a number of things in common with the intellectual student Charles Tansley, who is not a big favorite of many at the house, though I'm pretty sure I'm not as insensitive to the feelings of others as he is (particularly the little boy James Ramsay, whose obvious desire to go to the lighthouse is trampled on by both Charles and James's father, who keep saying the weather certainly won't allow it).

Among the other fiction works I've read in the last few months have been a number of sci-fi short stories, including some older ones by Frederick Pohl and newer ones from a recent anthology, and a Terry Prachett Discworld novel, Equal Rites. Regarding these, I'll just briefly state that Pohl's stories are good, though usually cynical and sometimes a bit out of date in certain ways (such as the role of women), a lot of the more recent sci-fi stories were also quite good, and Prachett's book, though not the equal of some of his best satire and straight humor (such as may be found in Small Gods, Wyrd Sisters or Hogfather), was still fun, and contained more than a little serious commentary in the guise of humor.

Just recently I also completed a book that I had been reading over a long period of time, a non-fiction work by Isaac Asimov entitled Asimov's New Guide to Science. This book I had been employing mainly as bedtime reading material, and as I have had less opportunity to read before bed than in the past, it took a lot longer to finish than it would have otherwise. The book is divided into two parts, "The Physical Sciences" and "The Biological Sciences", the first of which I actually finished perhaps a year ago or earlier, and the second of which I started some months later, having read other things before bed in the interim (such as Darwin's Origin of Species, which I have discussed in a previous post). But while I chose to read the book before bed in part because its relatively soporific qualities in comparison to a lot of fiction (including Asimov's own) or even some more dramatically paced nonfiction, it was by no means boring (nor nearly as sleep-inducing on average as Darwin's book). It was very educational, and written in about as clear and understandable a manner as possible considering the often very in-depth subject matter.

I cannot claim to have thoroughly understood every topic Asimov covered -- though I think I can fairly claim to have follow the vast majority, at least in a general sense -- and I have already forgotten much that I did understand clearly, all this despite the fact that I would have said (and in fact would still say) I knew more about science than the majority of people. But I do now comprehend more thoroughly certain things that I had previously only had a vague grasp of, and learned a lot of new things as well. For instance, despite all the references to enriched uranium and occasionally to centrifuges in news about Iran's nuclear program, I had previously no idea of the significance of either. In fact to create a sustained fusion reaction in a bomb, it is necessary to have sufficient quantities of a relatively rare isotope of uranium (to be precise -- with a quick reference to the book -- uranium 235, as opposed to the far more common uranium 238). The centrifuges are used to separate the lighter, more fissionable form of uranium from the more common form.

Likewise, I hadn't previously been aware that starch and cellulose (used by plants such as trees and grass for their bodies, as it were) are both made of glucose, and in terms of chemical makeup are basically the same thing, the only difference being their structure -- something which nevertheless makes a huge difference, as we can digest starch (and do in large quantities) but not cellulose. For that matter, even cattle and horses (which eat grass) and termites (which eat wood) are themselves also unable to digest cellulose, but have bacteria in their systems which do it for them, another thing I hadn't known. Likewise, I hadn't previously had any real idea how antibiotics work, or why they don't work on viruses. (Essentially, they closely resemble the structure of chemicals that the bacteria need to reproduce and function properly, and they attach themselves to the receptors for these proteins, in effect jamming the cells' machinery. Viruses, on the other hand, are so simple they have little or no machinery to jam, at least without damaging cells you want to leave untouched, such as those of our bodies.) Certainly I can say I got a much better understanding of organic chemistry than I had previously had from the book, though there is still a huge amount I don't know.

Not all parts of the books were equal informative to me personally -- the first chapters, for instance, cover astronomy, a subject I am far more familiar with, and so consequently had little that was new to me. And of course, given the fact that the book is an early 1980s update of a work first published in the 1960s, there is much that is out of date in many fields (astronomy not least among them). But in some cases, even the out of date passages were informative. For instance, at the end of the chapter "The Earth", Asimov explains how human production of large amounts of carbon dioxide may result in a warmer planet, and that studies were already showing that glaciers were receding. He goes on to say, however, that while temperatures had clearly gone up in the first half of the 20th century, there had been a slight downturn in temperatures since then, which he speculates might have been due to increasing smog and dust in the air blocking sunlight, so that the two forms of human pollution were canceling each other out. Of course since the book was written, the average global temperature has resumed its rise, so his last comments no longer apply. But this passage alone shows that despite what some global warming deniers like to assert, the concept of anthropogenic global warming is by no means a recent invention but was widely accepted in science decades ago, nor was there any kind of consensus among scientists in the 1970s that the Earth was entering a long-term cooling trend. In fact, everything since is simply a confirmation about what Asimov had to say about global warming three decades ago.

Another point about the book I might note is that, as befits a scientist who is also a science fiction writer, Asimov at times speculates about future trends. He also does not attempt to restrain himself from occasional comments about human society and behavior, and what he thinks people can do to improve things. He has particularly harsh comments for those who try to deny evolution and those who resist non-coercive population control measures. But all of these comments come out of the science he is discussing, so they don't bother me (of course it helps that I agree with nearly all of them anyway). He is also not entirely above a little self-promotion, as in the section on robots where he talks about his own three laws of robotics (and mentions, accurately, that he coined the term "robotics"). But considering the detail he goes to regarding other people's achievements, these references to his own don't seem like much. All in all, while there are certainly more up-to-date science books for the general reader out there, I can't imagine that there are many which can as easily give the reader as comprehensive an understanding of science in so many fields.

Recent News - Simkins, Sherrod, and Kosovo

A few weeks ago there was a news item about a school I once attend, the University of Texas at Austin. It seems that a historian published some research he had done about William Simkins, a former law professor at UT that a dormitory near the law school had been named after. Not only had Simkins been a leader of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 19th century, but the dorm named after him had been opened just as the nation's courts were ruling against segregation in schools. It appears that the university consciously chose to name the dorm after a known racist and KKK leader in an attempt to intimidate any blacks who might contemplate applying for UT. This research has led UT to consider renaming the dorm.

Naturally there was debate at UT and elsewhere about whether renaming the dorm was the right thing to do, and some journalists and commentators also discussed the more general issue of whether other buildings, streets, and other such things that were named after people whose views we might now question should likewise be renamed. Of course, as some pointed out, it would be difficult to rename every building in the South that is named after a Confederate leader or known member of the KKK, as there are huge numbers of them. But also, not every Confederate leader or even everyone who was at some time a member of the KKK was really reprehensible in their views and character. Robert E. Lee was certainly no worse a person, and probably better in many ways, than Union generals like William Sherman, Philip Sheridan (who was guilty of particularly bloodthirsty actions against the Native Americans after the Civil War), or even Ulysses Grant. For that matter, some prominent Southerners who were at least for a time members of the KKK were actually fairly progressive, including Bibb Graves and Hugo Black of Alabama and the recently deceased Robert Byrd of West Virginia. Also, every public figure in history did or said at least a few things that would be seen as bad today, if not in their own times. But equally obviously, someone who was guilty of egregiously terrible acts or who held particularly reprehensible opinions should not have buildings and streets named after them. Of course the most sensible approach in naming such things is to not name them after people at all (the proposed new name for Simkins dorm at UT, for instance, is Creekside).

There is, of course, a lot more to be said about this issue of names and renaming, and it is a topic of particular interest in countries like Taiwan, where large numbers of streets, districts, and even towns were renamed for political reasons by the KMT government in the mid 20th century, and in some cases by previous governments such as the Qing. But for now I'll leave the topic of Simkins, except to note that in the course of reading about it, I looked up information about UT dorms and learned that several new ones have been built since I was at school there, and many dorms that were once single sex are now co-ed. In fact, Simkins, a dorm which I remembered the name of but virtually nothing else about (I'm sure I was never inside it, and I don't think I even noticed it much when I passed by it), is now the only male-only dorm left.

Related in a way to the Simkins issue, in that it involved the reputation of an individual and a gap between perception and reality, was the Shirley Sherrod story. This one has pretty much been rehashed to death in the American media, so I'll only say that this started out as an unfortunate example of something I've touched on earlier, namely that if you try to make an overall judgment about a person (or even about a particular comment they made) based on incomplete or even biased evidence, your conclusion will be suspect, to say the least. Regrettably, the high speed, low content nature of today's media makes it easier for this sort of thing to happen. Of course it doesn't help if you have right-wing bloggers, media figures and politicians who deliberately twist and take things out of context in order to support their warped thinking. That's not to say that liberals aren't sometimes guilty of taking things out of context, or blowing slips of the tongue by politicians on the right completely out of proportion. But it seems to me (and I'll grant that this may be at least partly due to my own biases) that extremists on the right are worse in this regard (the nonexistent "death panels" and the manufactured controversy over climate scientists' private emails are just two examples that come to mind). Still, I'll give credit to the conservatives who apologized or said positive things about Shirley Sherrod and her speech -- they at least proved they could be objective about some things.

Another recent news item was the International Court of Justice ruling that Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia was not in violation of international law. This ruling is generally seen as positive for independence movements around the world and negative for governments trying to suppress them. I agree with the ruling in principle; after all, if Kosovo's declaration of independence was illegal simply because Serbia didn't approve, then the United States' declaration of independence from the United Kingdom in 1776 was similarly "illegal". But I would say that what really counts is reality. If there is a functioning independent state, than it is a country regardless of any declarations, recognition, or court rulings. So Taiwan is a country, though not widely recognized as such, and North (Turkish) Cyprus should probably be considered one too. Places like South Ossetia and Abkhazia are more questionable, as they are highly dependent on Russia (most of their citizens have Russian passport) and so they don't function like truly independent states (North Cyprus also depends fairly heavily on Turkey, but not quite to such an extent). Even Kosovo is not quite a functioning independent state, as it is still to some degree dependent on the UN and the EU.

Of course the whole issue of what sort of grouping can or should constitute a nation is complex, and worthy of a lengthier discussion. Briefly put, while I in principle support the right of regions to declare independence from larger nations, the issue is more complicated when the independence movement is ethnically based, as so many of them are, as then the issue of whether even smaller groups within the independence-seeking region should then be allowed to become independent (as is indeed an issue in Kosovo, with a Serb-majority part of Kosovo now essentially separated from the rest). Ideally, the rights of the minorities in a country should be well enough protected that they don't feel compelled to seek independence. Also, of course, below a certain minimum size it's difficult to have a truly viable state. In some ways, I'd be in favor of abolishing nation-states altogether, but then we'd have the issue of what to replace them with. Optionally, if all nations were of roughly the same size in terms of population and resources, there would be fewer instances of strong nations (e.g., China, the US, Russia, etc.) bullying the weak. But again that would take a drastic redrawing of the world's boundaries. Again, this is a topic for another day. For now, I'll simply restate my support in principle for the right to self-determination, as long as the rights of minority groups receive sufficient protection.

On a final note, here's a very interesting article by the most prominent scientist of the 20th century, talking about capitalism, socialism, and democracy:
http://monthlyreview.org/598einstein.phpo

Nepal

Not too long ago, I posted a cursory and incomplete account of some of my travels. Though I still haven't written even an overview of the big five-month trip that came immediately after the place where that account left off, as I noted in my afterword, I did write down some impressions of a couple of the individual countries we visited on that trip. The first country we went to after Thailand (which was almost like our base of operations, as we returned to it twice more in the following months) was Nepal, which is the only country that I finished my write-up on. I had only typed half of it into the computer previously, but now I have finished the job, so it can be posted. As I recall, I actually started writing it while we were still in Nepal, though I finished it later (exactly when I don't remember). In typing up the last half, I noticed that a number of little incidents, especially from later in the trip, were left out, so I may have finished it a bit hastily. Also, I'm not sure that I would still agree with all of my impressions as I wrote them then (of course they were much fresher then, but now I also know more about not only Nepal but many other places, knowledge which might have led to different impressions if I had had it at the time). Nevertheless, I am posting the essay essentially unchanged, except for few changes to punctuation, even fewer to wording, and a handful of additional comments in brackets.

Upon arriving at Kathmandu's airport, it was immediately obvious that Nepal differs somewhat from a place like Thailand or even China. Instead of impressive rows of official-looking immigration counters, there were two counters manned by half a dozen officials running back and forth. The counters had signs hanging above them which informed us that one was for foreigners who already had a visa, the other for those without one. At the latter counter, however, we were told to go to the former to get our visas. Upon learning that we wanted 30-day visas the officials at the second counter sent us back to the first (they only had the stamp for 15 days). Now that we were at the correct counter, we had to pay for our visas in US dollars (local currency was not accepted) and we were given change from a drawer in which bills were rather casually stacked.

After leaving immigration and passing through a rather chaotic baggage claim and customs area, we went to buy tickets at the taxi counter. The guy behind the counter sold us the ticket while expounding on the virtues of one hotel to which we could have a "free taxi". We exited the airport to see dozens of touts for various hotels all waiting outside flashing cards. We pushed to the crowd to the taxi (which had no markings whatsoever identifying it as such - apparently the only way to tell in many cases is by the color of the license plate ). Many "volunteers" appeared offering to help us load our bags into the car (we ignored them, not wanting to pay for unnecessary services).

The car drove away from the airport, which was not surrounded by warehouses and such, but rather by fields. The taxi wound thru narrow streets to the tourist area of Thamel, a journey accomplished fairly quickly, making it clear that Kathmandu is much smaller than, say, Bangkok. In fact, most of Kathmandu can be seen on foot, though one must take care not to lose one's sense of direction in the narrow winding streets.

After arriving in Thamel and turning down the hotel the taxi took us to (the driver apparently having been bribed by a tout who had squeezed into the taxi with us), we walked around looking for a cheap place (the hotel we were taken to cost US$6, which is pricey for Nepal). On the way, we were constantly approached by guys offering, in conspiratorial tones, tiger balm, Gurkha knives, chess sets, and hashish (at least for this product the whispering made sense ). Having found a place to stay (US$2 for a room with common bath) we spent the next few days exploring the city.

Wandering thru the streets of Kathmandu, in particular the older sections of the city, one encounters a place which seems to have little in common with capitals of countries farther east. While in a city like Beijing or Seoul one can see monuments and palaces of the distant past, in old Kathmandu not only are there temples dating back centuries, but even most of the buildings that the people live and work in seem to be ancient. Many of them are cracked and lean into the narrow streets, seemingly on the verge of collapse. It is not difficult to imagine that the Kathmandu of medieval days differed but little in appearance from that of today.

Of course, there are still reminders that this is the 20th century rather than the 15th. When moving thru the crowds of people on a narrow market street, one frequently has to move aside for bicycles and motorcycles, and even the occasional car. Though traditional dress is still commonplace (particularly among women), Western style clothes are also in evidence. Certain ubiquitous Western products, e.g. Coca-cola, are available as readily as in most other places, and there was even a Wimpy's fast food place under construction during our visit.

It is possible to some degree to escape the more negative aspects of modern life which Kathmandu exhibits (namely traffic and touts) by going to the town of Bhaktapur a short distance away. It has the same medieval atmosphere as Kathmandu's old city, but fewer motor vehicles and not quite so many people selling tiger balm. In each of the three cities of the Kathmandu valley (the third being Patan, just across the river from Kathmandu), the heart of the town is in its Durbar Square. Durbar means palace, so not surprisingly there is a palace in each of the three Durbar Squares, harking back to the days when the three towns were separate principalities. The squares in front of the palaces are dotted with temples, shrines, and statues and it is easy to spend hours wandering around in them (if one can avoid the touts and sadhus. I'll say more about these two types momentarily).

The temples, however, are not concentrated solely in the cities' Durbar Squares. In virtually any part of the three towns' older sections one will come across temples and shrines. At one intersection in Kathmandu, the front of a relatively modern building, there is a small, inconspicuous Buddha statue which is said to be well over a thousand years old. Bakthapur has a small square in the town's oldest section (predating its Durbar Square) with several ancient temples and nearby there is a wooden window fantastically carved in the shape of a peacock. Scattered around Patan are four Buddhist stupas said to originally have been erected by the Indian emperor Ashoka over two thousand years ago, and throughout all three cities one comes across red-painted rocks sticking out between the paving stones which offerings have been placed on.

We saw a number of interesting street scenes while in the Kathmandu valley. Once while eating dinner in a second-floor restaurant in Bhaktapur, next to the valley's highest temple, we watched as large numbers of children in the square below taunted and were chased by a man wearing a mask and costume (actually there were two men but they took turns). Occasionally they would stop running around and ask for money from adults passing thru the square. Also in Bhaktapur, and in Patan as well, we saw snake charmers with crowds gathered around them.

One of the biggest differences between Nepal and the west (or Japan, Taiwan, etc.) is wealth --- we have it, they don't. Fortunately not all Nepalese treat tourists like walking money trees, but some do (and though irritating, it isn't hard to see why, when the average annual income is below US$200). As mentioned before, Nepal has large numbers of people selling all sorts of stuff, to the point where it is difficult to stand or sit in one place for a minute without being approached. In Kathmandu's Durbar Square, while we sat on the steps of a temple, we were approached by a boy of about eleven or twelve who first tried to sell us a souvenir, then wanted to change money, and finally, offered to be our guide. His English was quite good, and when I told him I was from Taiwan he simply replied "I don't think so." Nearby on Freak Street we encountered a guy who offered us some "dynamite" ("It'll blow you sky high, man").

Aside from those trying to sell something, there are, naturally, plenty of beggars. A special type are the sadhus --- normally these are men who give up their worldly possessions and go on a spiritual search, living on whatever alms they are given, but some are less genuine than others. In tourist areas some sadhus will come straight up to tourists, sprinkle flowers on their hair, smear red paste on their foreheads and ask for payment for the (unsolicited) blessing they've given. A far more common type of beggar is children --- a large proportion of them will, upon seeing a foreigner, stop whatever they're doing and ran over asking for "one rupee, school pen, chocolate" or offering to pose for "one photo" (for payment, of course).

Despite all this, we enjoyed our time in Kathmandu immensely, and after leaving Nepal, looked back longingly on its tourist-oriented Western restaurants (some of Asia's best Italian food can be found in Nepal [this may be a slight exaggeration, but I can't remember well enough to be sure]). Since, however, we didn't want to spend all our time in the Kathmandu valley, after five days we took a tourist mini-bus (the passengers were mostly but not all foreigners) south over incredible -- and at times incredibly scary -- mountain roads down to the Terai, the flat area which makes up Nepal's southern half. This part of the country is semi-tropical, and much of it is covered in forest (though, as elsewhere, not so much forest as in centuries past). Since malaria was mostly eradicated in the fifties, it has become the most heavily populated part of the country.

Our objective, however, was a place known not for its human population (it has almost none) but its non-human one -- Royal Chitwan National Park. The bus dropped us off in a town called Tadi Bazaar. Upon getting off the bus we were immediately surrounded by a horde of touts (at least twenty) offering lodging and/or jeep rides. We went along with one of them, the jeep bouncing its way over dirt roads and a ford (we were told that during monsoon season they had to use boats) to the village of Sauhara on the edge of the park. The village still has plenty of people living fairly primitively, and it had only gotten electricity a few weeks before we arrived, but there is also a lot of accommodation for park visitors.

We found a place to stay and during lunch the manager came to tell us about all the services they offered. We were taken to see the park's trained elephants and even fed one. The next day, accompanied by a guide, we took a canoe downriver into the park and walked back thru the forest, not without first being informed by our guide of the ways to deal with the various types of animals we might encounter. We saw a number of monkeys and even two crocodiles dozing in the sun on the bank of a stream. In addition we saw traces of other animals, such as the tracks of sloth bears and rhinos. On one tree we saw the claw marks of a tiger and elsewhere fresh tiger droppings [at least that's what the guide said they were].

On the following afternoon, we took a ride on one of the park's elephants, together with some friends from Taiwan who we met just by chance while going to the elephant landing [it was a British guy I'd lived with in a hostel in Taipei and his girlfriend; I'd had no idea they were in Nepal]. While on our hour and a half ride thru the park we saw seven rhinos (though we might have seen some twice) including a mother and calf [I recall that she was not too happy to see us, but compared to an elephant, even an adult rhino looked small, so she wasn't a real threat]. We ate that evening in a restaurant in the village we'd first visited the evening before and talked with the children who worked there (a girl of nine and a boy of seven, both with excellent English for their age). The next day we took a jeep to Tadi and a bus back up into the mountains.

This time our destination was a town several hundred kilometers west of Kathmandu called Pokhara. The attraction here is neither culture and history, as in Kathmandu, nor wildlife, as in Chitwan National Park, but mountains -- specifically the Himalaya, the world's greatest mountain range. Thought the Himalaya is visible at a distance from the Kathmandu Valley, it is often obscured by haze, pollution, or intervening smaller mountains. In Pokhara one is right up against them, a stunning array of towering white peaks. The portion of the Himalaya nearest Pokhara is known as the Annapurnas, a collection of mountains all over 7000 meters high. The nearest mountain of all is the slightly smaller (just under 7000 meters) Fishtail, which dominates the skyline. We spent several days enjoying the view [though I was briefly ill and acquired a tick bite on my shin, which later became slightly infected and left a scar which took a long time to fade], took a short hike up to a higher viewing point, and saw our friends off on a trek before heading back to Kathmandu on a video bus, meaning we were treated to an Indian [Bollywood] movie (action? comedy? romance? music? convoluted yet predictable plot? you name it, they've got it) and a Bruce Lee kung fu classic.

On arrival in Kathmandu we shook off the few (but very persistent) touts and got on a city mini-bus. It was no problem getting on as it started its route from the bus station, but it was no simple matter getting off -- it got so crowded we could barely see the door, even though we were sitting next to it (indeed, if another foreigner -- who looked like he might have first come to Nepal in its hippie heyday in the seventies -- hadn't told us when we arrived in Thamel, we might have missed our stop). We got a room in Mom's House (perhaps the best -- or worst -- named hotel in Asia) and spent a few more days enjoying Kathmandu's excellent restaurants (actually Pokhara's are also quite good) -- some of which also have great names, like Alice's Restaurant.

On our last full day in Kathmandu we took an auto-rickshaw (a three-wheeled mini-taxi) to a Hindu temple near the airport. There were huge crowd of people, many lining up to go in, others, like us, climbing a nearby hill to look down at the temple. We also visited a Tibetan Buddhist stupa, which like the similar stupa on the other side of town was surrounded by the relatively new houses of the relatively well-to-do Tibetans -- when one sees teenagers wearing jeans and other expensive Western-style clothes in Nepal, they're usually Tibetans. [I'm not sure how I knew this, assuming it is accurate, though simple appearance might have been the main basis.]

Back in the city, we noticed groups of children ambushing cars by pulling a string across narrow streets and demanding money from the driver or going to a shop entrance and shouting at the owner for the same purpose. That night there were many bonfires built around which people stood talking or singing. We learned that all this activity (and the crowds at the temple) was due to Shivarati, a holiday in honor of the god Shiva. The next day we caught a taxi to the airport and after waiting an hour or so in the waiting room (there was only one, as there was only one gate), boarded an airplane to our next destination.

So ends my account of our trip to Nepal. When I'll get around to finishing accounts to the other destinations on that trip or subsequent ones only time will tell.

Texas school board miseducates Texas children

As I have observed in the past, one thing I as a student of history strongly detest is deliberate distortions of history. The most obvious guilty parties in the modern world are authoritarian states like China, but not all democratic nations are free of such problems either. One good example is Japan, where a lot of the country's more brutal acts during the WW II era are whitewashed in their schools' textbooks. But such things can even occur in the US, with the most recent attempt to rewrite the facts coming from the state I grew up in, Texas.

As the articles linked to above explain, the Texas school board, or rather certain of its most conservative members (though there are no liberals on the board at all), recently has attempted to force a new view of US history into the textbooks used in Texas, and thereby much of the rest of the country, as many publishers will sell textbooks conforming to Texas standards nationwide. This follows on an attempt by some of the same board members (with Don McLeroy, a self-professed believer in the appallingly ignorant "Young Earth Creationism", in the lead) to include the pseudoscience of intelligent design alongside evolution in biology textbooks or at least to include language designed to sow doubts about evolution itself, an attempt which fortunately failed. This year, in their efforts to indoctrinate Texas children with their beliefs, they shifted their focus to US history.

Now I will acknowledge that we are not talking here about the kind of blatant fabrications you might find in, say, a Chinese history textbook talking about Tibetan relations with China. I will also acknowledge that, as pointed out in the NY Times magazine article, the group commonly referred to as the "founders" were in fact Christian (at least in a broad sense), and Christianity did play an important role in the early history of the US. But as several experts also point out in the article, the founders did also clearly make an effort to avoid using explicitly Christian language (as opposed to language which would at least accommodate other monotheistic religions such as Judaism and Islam), and they did intend a separation of church and state, deliberately leaving God out of the Constitution.

Also, a number of the founders has views that today's Christian fundamentalists would strongly opposed to. Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and one of the most important founders was a Deist who produced his own version of the gospels which deleted all references to miracles, the divinity of Jesus, and even the resurrection. Given this, one can only imagine what kind of reception Jefferson would get if he were to run for office in the modern US. Barack Obama gets accused of being a communist for doing things that even Republican presidents have advocated from time to time (such as health care reform); what would Jefferson be called? "Godless anti-Christian blasphemer" would probably be the least of it. But, as explained in the NY Times article, they are quite willing to use Jefferson's Declaration, with its reference to God, to compensate for the lack of reference to God in the Constitution itself.

The views of Benjamin Franklin, another of the more important founders, on religion varied over the course of his life; he became a Deist, stopped attending church, and attacked organized religion in his youth, but later concluded that organized religion was a positive force. However, even when he held this view, he was, according to historian David Morgan, a "champion of generic religion"; i.e., he did not exclusively advocate one type of Christianity or even Christianity over other religions, and he explicitly stated that he though a good religion should be able to survive on its own, without any help from civil authorities. And a month before he died, he wrote the following in a letter:
"As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the world ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupt changes, and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some Doubts as to his divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and I think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an Opportunity of knowing the Truth with less Trouble...." This (particularly the part about doubting Jesus' divinity) no doubt would not meet with approval from Don McLeroy and company.

Even the "father of the Constitution", James Madison, late in his life wrote an essay opposing the appointment of official chaplains for Congress and the armed forces, as it would amount to an establishment of a national religion and would exclude smaller religions and sects. In this essay he also refers to "the danger of a direct mixture of Religion & civil Government". George Washington apparently didn't take communion (though his reason for not doing so is unknown; he may have simply felt he was not sufficiently "in the will of God") and he is thought by many to have been a Deist. He certainly was an advocate of religious toleration, not only of Christians but of non-Christians as well; regarding the hiring of workers for Mt. Vernon, he wrote: "If they be good workmen, they may be from Asia, Africa, or Europe; they may be Mohammedans, Jews, or Christians of any sect, or they may be Atheists."

Then there are the Puritans commonly known as the Pilgrims, the group that first settled Massachusetts. Claims by people such as Texas school board member Cynthia Dunbar that the highly Christian language of the Mayflower Compact "clearly delineates us as a nation intended to be emphatically Christian" are obviously nonsensical, as the Pilgrims were simply a religious group who settled in America to practice their religion in peace; they were not, in their own minds, setting out to found a nation, so what they said about the reasons for their own journey can hardly be claimed as evidence that the United States (not established until over a century later) was created for the same reasons. The same might be said of the phrase of Puritan leader John Winthrop most beloved of those who want to claim the US as a Christian nation, namely his statement that "We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us." Again, he was referring to the Pilgrims themselves as a religious colony, not a nation. In any case, the same conservatives who so love that quote from Winthrop seem to be unaware some other things he said, such as "The care of the public must oversway all private respects" and "We [should] be willing to abridge ourselves of superfluities for the supply of others' necessities." Oh no! The leader of the Pilgrims was as much a socialist as Barack Obama! (Regarding the latter, see: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0701/Is-Obama-really-a-socialist-Some-say-so-but-where-s-the-evidence)

Of course someone who is looking for "evidence" that the founders were Christian will find plenty of quotes, as references to the Bible and Christianity were pervasive in those days. But it is equally clear that any claim that they explicitly intend the US to be a Christian nation ignores a mountain of evidence to the contrary.

What's more, all this talk about what the founders intended also ignores the fact that the founders were far from perfect themselves, and they lived in a world that was very different from today's. There is no reason that their thoughts and ideas should be treated like some sort of religious scriptures that we cannot deviate from in any way. As Thomas Jefferson said in his forward to America (The Book) - A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, "I was...looking forward to this opportunity to dispel some of the mythology surrounding myself and my fellow Founders.... We weren't gods. We were men. We had flaws.... We created a blueprint for a system that would endure, which means your lazy asses shouldn't be coasting on our accomplishments. We were imperfect. It was imperfect. And we expect our descendants to work as hard as we did on keeping what we think is a profoundly excellent form of government supple, evolving and relevant." Okay, Thomas Jefferson didn't really write that, but the point is valid nevertheless. People like these members of the Texas school board should stop trying to twist history to fit their agenda, and Americans in general should worry less about what the founders "intended" (as if they could even have imagined the world of today, much less anticipated it) and more about what sort of society we want for the future.

My Travels: A Brief Overview (Part 1)

This week happens to be the 18th anniversary of my arrival in Asia, so as a form of commemoration, I'm posting a bare-bones account of my early travels (up to 1995) that I wrote a number of years ago.

I intend to eventually write down detailed accounts of all the various trips I've taken over the past decade, but for the time being I thought it might be a good idea to make a general summary (in case I never get around to finishing the detailed accounts). This is not intended to be particularly colorful, but rather a bare recitation of places visited and maybe a few notable sights and events.

Since my main concern here is with my foreign trips since adulthood, I don't intend to say much about trips I took as a child or even those I took as an adolescent or when in college. Briefly, together with various members of my family I have visited many parts of Texas, such as Galveston (where my maternal grandfather lived at one time), Huntsville (where my paternal grandparents lived), Hereford (where relatives of my father lived), San Antonio, Big Bend National Park (several times; once I believe we took a short boat ride across the Rio Grande to Mexico), Guadalupe Mountains National Park, and many other places. When I was going to college in Austin I also took two trips down to South Padre Island with various classmates during two successive spring breaks (on both trips we also made brief expeditions across the border to Mexico).

We also made trips to New Mexico, Colorado, and Oklahoma several times, and on one trip out west we also went to Arizona and Utah. I went on a number of trips with my mother and various younger brothers to visit her relatives in Michigan, usually going by train but at least once going by bus. On these trips we passed through various cities of the Midwest including Chicago and St. Louis, though my memories of these places are limited to a few mental images.

When I was very young we went to California once or twice to visit my grandparents (before they moved to Huntsville). They were then living in Palos Verdes in the L.A. area. When we went the last time I was about four or five. All I remember is a vague impression of their neighborhood and parts of a trip to Disneyland (a simulated rocket trip, a submarine ride, and a haunted house ride). I even lived in L.A. once but since I was about a toddler at the time I have no recollection of that, and it is no surprise that I also have no memory whatever of the trip Mom and I took to Hawai'i to meet Dad during his R&R from Vietnam when I was about 8 months old (which in fact was my first overseas, though not foreign, trip).

Between my junior and senior years in high school I took part in a week-long seminar for "talented" students with an interest in science and math (I think we were invited on the basis of our Practice SAT scores) at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. This was my first solo trip. We spent the vast majority of our time on campus taking classes, hearing interesting stories, and one night having a toga party (actually I was among those who didn't really join in, for better or for worse...; several of us spent most of our time listening to music in our dorm room and only occasionally wandered outside to watch other people reeling back and forth in various states of intoxication). We also took a day trip up nearby Pike's Peak.

The one major foreign trip I took as a child was a three-week vacation in Europe when I was ten years old. I went with my parents and the oldest of my younger brothers (my other two brothers stayed with my grandparents as my parents considered them too young for the trip; Mom was pregnant with my youngest brother at the time). On the way there we changed planes in New York, though we didn't leave the airport. We spent most of our time in southern Germany (Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Rotenburg, Munich, and a few small towns in the south) but we also spent a few days in Salzburg, Austria and Venice, Italy. I have clear memories of certain moments or places from this trip, but I have forgotten too much to put them into any clear sequence or context. In other words, I'll have to visit these places again someday!

My travels really began in late June 1992 when I left Dallas for Taiwan. I had a long stopover in L.A. which I spent sitting around in the airport. From L.A. I flew directly to Taipei (Taibei) across the date line, arriving on the evening of June 24, Taipei time. As I had gotten a job in advance with Hess Language School, they were supposed to have sent someone to meet me at the airport, but there was no one there. I called their head office but they didn't seem to have a clue (the girls who answered the phone spoke little English, and my Chinese was far too limited to help, as I'd only had a semester's worth of classes). However, they were able to tell me that there was another new Hess employee who had arrived on the same flight and like me had called their office asking about our missing transportation.

I was able to find my fellow new employee, a girl named Kim. She had come with her Taiwanese-American boyfriend. The latter's family came to pick him up, and since it was clear that our ride was not going to show up, they offered us a ride and a place to sleep. So on my first night in Taipei I ended up sleeping on the floor of an apartment in Neihu. The next day Kim and I were finally picked up by a Hess van and taken to the Taipei Hostel in the center of the city.

I won't describe my first year in Taiwan in detail here. For now, I'll stick to mentioning that I took my first major trip out of Taipei in early August when I went to Hualien (Hualian) and saw Taroko Gorge. I also took a day trip to Yehliu on the northeast coast in late July. In mid September I went to Meinung (Meinong) in Kaohsiung (Gaoxiong) County with a girl I knew (her family lived there). In late September I went on my first day trip with Dana and one of her friends to Tamsui (Danshui) to the northwest of Taipei, where we visited an old Spanish-built fort and Tamkang University, the school the girls were attending.

During the last week of August, I also took my first trip out of Taiwan to another part of Asia when I went to Hong Kong to pick up my resident visa for Taiwan. During this trip I went to the top of Victoria Peak, took a ferry to Lantau Island, the biggest island in the colony (larger than Hong Kong Island, though much more sparsely populated) and wandered about in the main tourist areas of Tsim Sha Tsui, at the southern end of Kowloon, and Central and neighboring districts on Hong Kong Island. I also took a one-day tour to Shenzhen, just across the Chinese border.

I took one more major trip within Taiwan at the end of October. It was in fact a company trip for the employees of Hess Language School where I taught English at the time. We went to the mountains of central Taiwan, visiting Puli, Hsitou (Xitou) and Shanlinhsi (Shanlinxi). Of course this trip differed from most others I've taken in that it involved huge numbers of people (Hess employees from all over the island) in tour buses, mass meals in cavernous restaurants, lots of group walking tours and so forth. The scenery was impressive in places, though, and I amused myself by spending a lot of time walking and talking with a few of the Taiwanese girls.

I took my first long trip to other parts of Asia in the spring of 1993, departing in mid March and returning to Taiwan three weeks later, in early April. My first stop was Thailand. After a few days in Bangkok visiting temples and other tourist sites, I took an overnight train all the way down to Malaysia. Getting off the train in Butterworth, I headed across to Georgetown on Penang Island where I spent a few days, hiking to the top of Penang Hill with an English fellow named Alan who staying in the same dorm room as me. I then went on to Kuala Lumpur by bus, visiting the Batu Caves during my brief stay there. From KL I took a bus to Singapore, where I spent a few days walking around, visiting Fort Canning among other places. I also spent some time in the local bookstores.

After a few days in Singapore, I took an overnight bus all the way through Malaysia to Hat Yai in Thailand. I met a Singaporean girl on the bus who was meeting her boyfriend in Hat Yai, so after arriving in Hat Yai, I joined them in catching a bus to Surat Thani, then an overpriced songthaew to the pier, a boat to Ko Samui, and then a second boat to Ko Pha-Ngan. After a couple of quiet days at a bungalow on the south side of the island, I took a ferry to Ko Samui, where I headed to Lamai beach. Here I ran into Alan, the guy I had met in Penang ten days earlier.

I spent several somewhat crazy days on Samui before heading to Surat Thani with Alan, where we caught an overnight train to Bangkok. Unfortunately there were no seats, so we had to sleep on the floor of the train (not a lot of fun). A couple of days after arriving in Bangkok, Alan and I took a trip to Kanchanaburi, where we visited the bridge over the River Kwai and Erawan Waterfalls. I returned to Bangkok and spent a few more days there before returning to Taiwan.

I didn't take any more trips out of Taiwan for the remainder of 1993, but I did take a few trips within Taiwan. The most important of these was in late June. My younger brother K. had come to Taiwan for a visit and we took a week-long trip around the island. First we we went down the east coast to Hualien, where of course we visited Taroko Gorge, on this occasion taking a bus up to Tienhsiang (Tianxiang) at the top of the gorge. From Hualien we went south to Taitung (Taidong). From Taidong we went west across the mountains to Fenggang (I think) then to Hengchun, and finally to Kenting (Kending), the national park at the tip of the island. Here we met Dana and some of her classmates. After a few days in Kenting we headed north, passing throung Kaohsiung and stopping in Taiwan's former capital and chief city, Tainan. From Tainan we returned to Taipei, stopping off on the way in Changhua (Zhanghua), which we toured with my friend Angela (Chen Yahui).

My first trip after K. left was to Alishan, the mountain resort in central Taiwan, with Dana. Aside from a couple of days in Alishan, we also stopped in Taichung (Taizhong). During this trip my relationship with Dana began to progress beyond ordinary friendship. It was as a couple that we took our next trip together, to Suao and Hualien in December of that year.

My first international trip in ten months was in February of 1994, when I took advantage of Chinese New Year to go to the Philippines. I spent several days in Manila where I hung out with a variety of people (two Filipinos, an English guy, the sister of one of my Hess co-workers, and a group of four Korean girls, one of whom developed something of a crush on me). After a few days checking out the sights of Manila, I took a boat to Cebu (my first overnight boat trip). I spent a few days in Cebu City, after which I took a boat back to Manila (abandoning more ambitious plans to do a loop through other islands). The day after my arrival in Manila I left again, taking a bus and boat to Puerto Galera, a beach on the island of Mindoro. I spent several days there, hanging out with an Australian guy I met. I then returned to Manila, where I hung out with the Filipino guys and my co-worker's sister. I flew back to Taiwan a couple of days later, having spent 16 days in the Philippines.

Less than three months later, in early May, I took another trip out of Taiwan, this time to South Korea. I spent a couple of days in Seoul, seeing some of the sights with one of the Korean girls I'd met in the Philippines. I then took a bus to Kyongju, the former capital of Silla, one of Korea's ancient kingdoms. I spent several days seeing the historical sights there with various fellow travelers I met in the yogwan (hostel) I was staying at. I then went back to Seoul and saw more of the sights there, and also hung out with three of the girls I'd met in the Philippines and several of the travelers living in the yogwan (we also got some unanticipated excitement in the form of a slightly unbalanced Korean girl who was staying there). I returned to Taiwan eight days after my departure.

In June, my youngest brother B. came to Taiwan for a visit. Dana joined the two of us for a trip to Tainan. We visited several sights in the city and one, the big temple at Luermen, outside. We then went by train to Touliu (Douliu) where Dana left us (she had to go back to Taipei) and B. and I caught a bus to Tsaoling (Caoling), a mountain resort. After a couple of days there we went to Changhua where we spent the night. We took a day trip to Lukang (Lugang) the next day, then went to Taichung, where we spent another night before returning to Taipei.

On the last day of August 1994, I set off on my first really long trip. I flew from Taiwan to Hong Kong, where I spent a few days getting a visa for China, opening a bank account and wandering about. On September 4 I took a train to Guangzhou. I spent a night and a fairly eventful day (talking to locals, nearly getting pickpocketed, and so forth) there before leaving the next evening on a train for Beijing. On the train I met a few other travelers. After a 36 hour ride we pulled into Beijing in the very early morning. I spent a week in Beijing seeing the major sites (the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, etc.) and otherwise wandering about.

I took a night train to Zhengzhou, where I saw traces of the ancient Shang dynasty walls and had dinner with a Chinese guy who was staying in the same four-person hotel room as I was (this was one of the few occasions where there were locals in a dorm room with me; most places segregate locals from foreigners). Next I took a bus to Kaifeng, which had been a capital city for a time about a millennium ago. I saw the sights there before taking another bus to Qufu (see my essay entitled One Day in China: A Traveler's Tale). After visiting all the Kongzi (Confucius)-related sites in his hometown, I proceeded on to Taian. Here the attraction was Taishan, one of Taiwan's holy mountains, climbed by dozens of emperors from Qinshihuang to Mao Zedong, most of whom left graffiti along the route up. I climbed up and down the 6000-some steps in one day, though I paid the price for a few days afterward. From Taian I took a train back to Beijing.

Back in Beijing, I mostly hung out with other travelers for the next few days. Two fellow travelers (an Australian guy and a Norwegian girl) and I decided to travel together to Xian (we met an English girl on the bus to the train station who also joined our group). In Xian we went to see the major sites (including, of course, the terracotta warriors guarding the tomb of Qinshihuang). On several occasions we were joined in our wanderings around the city by other travelers we'd met after arriving in Xian.

After a few days in Xian the Australian guy and English girl decided to travel on to Chengdu, while the Norwegian girl persuaded me to join her on a trip to Luoyang, which took a couple of days. Aside from seeing the place she wanted to see (Shaolin Temple) we also saw the Longmen cave sculptures. We then went back to Xian. The next day the two of us, joined by a Danish girl, took a train to Chengdu. In Chengdu we met up with the Australian guy we had been traveling with before and several other people, and spent several days hanging out and seeing the sites. I also took a short trip to nearby Leshan with the Danish girl.

Altogether I spent more than a week in Chengdu. During this period our little traveling group broke up as everyone went their separate ways. I took a train to Panzhihua in Yunnan on which I met some more travelers, including a Dutch couple traveling with their baby son and an American woman (who had lived in both China and Taiwan for long periods) and her younger brother. Upon arriving in Panzhihua we had planned to catch a bus to Lijiang, but we decided to eat lunch first and ended up missing it, so we had to stay overnight. The Dutch couple and I took a bus to Lijiang the next morning (the Americans had decided to go to Dali instead).

After a very scenic ride (but also at times a nerve-racking one, especially at first since I was sitting in the very front next to the driver -- later I changed seats), we arrived in Lijiang where I spent a few days. I joined the Dutch couple on a brief bike trip to the area just to the north, and the Dutch guy and I also joined a Belgian couple on a bus trip to Hu Tiao Xia (Tiger Leaping Gorge). From Lijiang I took a bus to Dali, where I spent a few more days, also running into a number of people I'd met elsewhere in China.

From Dali I traveled on to Kunming. I spent most of the last week of October there (the first couple of days I was sick, so I didn't see as much as I might have liked). Rather interestingly, the intersection the main travelers' hotel was on happened to be the area where the city's streetwalkers congregated, though the majority had no interest in foreigners. Getting a ticket out of Kunming was a bit of a hassle (though no more so than Chengdu), but finally I got a train to Chongqing, arriving on the last day of October.

I spent only a couple of days in Chongqing before getting a boat down the Yangtze river. On the second day we passed through the famous Three Gorges, which were fairly impressive, if not so much so as the Tiger Leaping Gorge or Taroko in Taiwan. On the third day the boat stopped at Wuhan (by this point the river was so wide that the river banks were quite far away), and on the evening of the fourth day we reached my destination, Nanjing.

After a couple of days in Nanjing visiting the sites I took a train to Shanghai. Here I spent a week, mostly just wandering around the city (I tried to take a trip to Suzhou, but because I couldn't find a bus to the train station in time, I missed my train). It was mid November when I left Shanghai, taking a train to Xiamen, a place which like Zhengzhou and Kaifeng had relatively few backpackers (at least I didn't meet any), though it seemed to have plenty of Taiwanese. After a few days there I took an overnight bus to Guangzhou. I didn't stay overnight but caught a boat upriver to Wuzhou. From here I took a bus to Yangshuo, which thanks to a series of tire problems and some engine trouble did not arrive until one in the morning.

I spent most of the last week of November in Yangshuo, relaxing and enjoying the scenery. I also took a couple of bike trips to the countryside (actually one involved a boat trip up the river to a village which was having its market day, and then riding back to Yangshuo from there). All in all it was a good way to spend my last week in China.

From Yangshuo I took an overnight bus back to Guangzhou where I spent one day before taking a train back to Hong Kong (Kowloon) on the last day of November. I spent a little under a week in Hong Kong (also taking a day trip to Macau) before returning to Taiwan.

My original intention was just to visit Taiwan for a few weeks and then continue my travels. The plan was for Dana and me to apply for graduate school and then for me to travel while she stayed in Taiwan and worked then in the fall we would go to the US together. With this in mind I bought a round trip ticket to Taiwan in Hong Kong with a flight on to Thailand. However on my return to Taiwan I decided I'd rather stay in Taiwan with Dana. Furthermore she wasn't ready to apply for grad school that year as she hadn't taken the necessary tests yet (and I was too lazy to start applying myself anyway). So I got a teaching job at ETLS and changed the dates on my tickets to Hong Kong and Thailand to late January.

By late January the paperwork for my resident visa was ready so I had the visa sent to Thailand so I could pick it up when I was there. I flew to Hong Kong where I spent two days before flying on to Bangkok. In Bangkok I bought a ticket back to Taiwan and picked up my resident visa. I also ran into Peter, an English guy who like me had lived at the Amigo and worked for Hess. We took a short trip to Khorat in the northeast, where we joined another traveler on a day trip to nearby Phimai which had a ruined temple from Khmer times. Back in Khorat we were followed around by a strange Thai girl as we wandered around the city. I returned to Bangkok the next day where I spent a couple more days before flying back to Taiwan.

My second major trip in 1995 was my first visit to the US since coming to Asia and my first overseas trip with Dana (it was also her first foreign trip). We flew to LA where we changed planes and flew on to Dallas. We took a trip down to Austin with my brother T. and visited with a couple of my old college friends. We also took a day trip to San Antonio. After returning to Dallas, Dana and I borrowed one of the family cars and drove to New Orleans where we spent a couple of days before going back to Dallas. We then took a trip down to Huntsville with most of the family to visit my grandfather and his new wife. After a final few days in Dallas we then flew to LA where we rented a car and checked out a few sites around the area before going back to the airport to catch our flight back to Taiwan. All in all it was a nice visit, though of course it seemed too short.

Dana and I took our second overseas trip together that October when we went to Japan for a week (actually seven days and eight nights). We flew to Tokyo where we stayed a day and then caught a night bus to Kyoto. We spent a few days seeing the sights in the former capital and also took a day trip to Himeiji to see the castle there. We took a night train back to Tokyo where we spent a few more days checking out the sights and the various districts of the city, before finally flying back to Taiwan.

The first part of this overview of my travels ends there. Unfortunately I've only written a tiny bit of part 2, which was intended to cover our lengthy 5-month trip through Southeast and South Asia. I did write a more detailed account of my impressions of Nepal, the first country we visited on that trip (other than Thailand, which served as a sort of base). However, it was originally handwritten and only part of it has been typed into the computer. If I can find the original I may finish it up and post it sometime. Or maybe I'll manage to find the time and sufficient motivation to write part 2 of this overview. We shall see.

Some interesting articles

In place of a lengthy essay/exposition/diatribe/rant, today I'm just going to post a few links to interesting articles on various topics that I've come across in the last few months.

Just the other day, the NY Times published a series of articles about the effect daily use of computers is having on people under the title "Your Brian on Computers". Here is one of them: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/technology/07brain.html?ref=garden Thankfully I think I can say I'm not nearly as bad off as some people in this respect, since while I use the computer much of the time both at home and at work, I only use desktop computers (though that may change in the near future, as I have considered getting something portable) and so I don't use computers at all when I am commuting or really anywhere other than my study or my desk at work.

One interesting feature that this article links to is a pair of tests on your ability to filter out distractions and your ability to switch between tasks. The first of these was rather reassuring, as I've begun to wonder if my memory is not what it used to be when I was young and it seemed that I could remember almost everything. It probably really isn't what it was in certain respects, but at least judging by this test my short-term memory is doing okay, as I was able to get every test right, which is apparently much better than average (the main point as far as the article is concerned is that multitaskers did much more poorly on this test than non-multitaskers, but I did better than either).

The second test I didn't do as well on. I actually took this one twice, as I didn't think I was really concentrating the first time (it was late afternoon at the office, and I was a bit tired), but even the second time my answers were slower than average. I did get all of them right, and interestingly I showed no significant delay because of switching between tasks, so in this sense I did better than both groups the study focused on. In other words, I took extra time on each test, but I took the same amount even if I was switching between the two tasks. In a way, this result wasn't that surprising either. I am often accused of overthinking things, and while in most respects I might argue that you can't think too much, I wouldn't deny that there is some truth to it. And even when I was young and was outscoring nearly all of my classmates on standardized tests, my one weakness was that on tests that required computation I would sometimes take too much time thinking about my answers and run out of time to finish (though I'd still usually outscore most other people); I had the same problem with the GRE math tests, on which I scored quite well, but fell short of perfect scores because I was too slow. So at least frequent use of computers doesn't seem to have fried my brains yet.

For some articles on completely different topics, here are a few on politics from several months ago on Newsweek. "We the Problem" by Evan Thomas (http://www.newsweek.com/2010/02/25/we-the-problem.html) makes a lot of good points. At some point I may write something related on the illogical self-centered thinking of those who want the government to eliminate the deficit without raising taxes (especially their taxes), cutting benefits (or at least benefits they get or expect to get), or cutting anything they personally think is important (e.g., defense spending). Another one is on a topic I've commented on before, the current Supreme Court majority's efforts to make elections safe for corporate oligarchy (yes, I swiped that from the Onion's "historic" headline on Woodrow Wilson): http://www.newsweek.com/2010/01/22/high-court-hypocrisy.html. This one has been made even more relevant by the court's recent decision throwing out Arizona's state public funding system for elections. And then there's "Know Your Conspiracies", an overview of some of the loony things some people in the US (particularly on the right) believe: http://www.newsweek.com/2010/02/11/know-your-conspiracies.html

In addition to the above, there was also an excellent article on another topic that I've touched on before, namely the tendency for our views of history to get somewhat altered (or distorted) with time, and the difficulty of using historical analogies for current events. The article was entitled "The Mythology of Munich" and it reassesses the historical facts of the Munich agreement between Britain and France on one side and Hitler on the other, as well as explaining (as indeed should be obvious) that Hitler was a complete different order of threat to Europe and the world than Saddam Hussein, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or most other later leaders who have inspired some to raise the specter of Munich in calling for forceful action. Unfortunately the article, while referenced all over, seems to have vanished from Newsweek's website.

Finally, there is an article critical of Barack Obama's penchant for compromise entitled "Obama and the Curse of Moderation" from Al-Jazeera: http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/05/2010518111649460720.html . While I don't agree with all the writer's points, as I think that some amount of compromise is often necessary, including in many of the areas Obama has had to deal with (particularly as in a few cases the radical solution has major flaws), I do agree that Obama has often gone too far toward the middle. On some issues, at least, I also think that Obama would be better off taking a firm, even radical, stance and sticking with it (in some ways, this harks back to the above-mentioned Newsweek article "We the Problem").

While there are one or two other articles I've seen recently that I may want to comment on later, the above will do for a start. Until next time....

News Briefs - Thailand and Israel

Having written something on Thailand's political crisis several weeks ago, I'd like to comment briefly on the end of the Red Shirt protests. Not having seen enough of the real evidence (as opposed to secondhand reports and hearsay), I can't be sure whether the Thai government used disproportionate force in clearing out the protest area and arresting the Red Shirt leaders. Certainly indiscriminate firing (which there were some reports of) was unjustifiable, and it is questionable whether they should have been using live ammo at all, as for the most part the protesters were much more lightly armed (though we shouldn't underestimate the damage that even their makeshift weapons could cause).

However, it is clear that there were at least some well armed and violent people mixed in among the protesters. In the violence near Democracy Monument in April, there apparently was video showing grenades being shot into the ranks of soldiers. Then there was the incident were grenades landed among groups of anti-Red Shirt protesters around the top of Silom Road, across from Lumpini Park and near the edge of the Red Shirt area, causing a number of deaths and injuries. While both sides blamed the other, it is hardly credible that the military would have attacked the pro-government protesters. as there only possible motivation would have been to create an excuse to attack the Red Shirts -- and as they didn't launch any attack, this reason doesn't hold water. Then there was the invasion of Chulalongkorn Hospital by some Red Shirts which forced many patients to be evacuated (and which their leaders apologized for). So it seems clear that there was an armed and violent element among the Red Shirts, though they probably weren't representative of the protesters as a whole, and in any case, even their presence wouldn't justify excessive force.

As with the motivations and goals of the two sides in Thailand's political divide, there are no obvious heroes and villains in the violence accompanying the end of the protest. It is worth noting, however, that while in principle even one death is always too many, the number of deaths in the crackdown was not nearly as high as might have been expected. Certainly it can't compare to similar violence in Burma recently, or the Tiananmen Square massacre in China. So while the Thai government's actions should be scrutinized closely, their use of force was not so blatantly excessive as that of other governments in the past, and given the amount of coverage, including by Western journalists and residents in Bangkok, it would have been difficult for them to hide an overly brutal crackdown (unlike the situation in places like Burma and Tibet).

Regardless of who deserves most of the blame, for me the violence in Bangkok had more meaning to me personally than similar violence elsewhere, simply because much of it occurred in places I have been to many times. CentralWorld (formerly World Trade Center), a large shopping mall that we went to on numerous occasions (mostly music and book shopping, and for meals), had already been closed for weeks, since it was at the center of the Red Shirt protest area. But in the final violence, some of the rioters set it on fire, and judging from the few photos I've seen, it was pretty thoroughly gutted, with some parts collapsing. In Siam Square, one of Bangkok's last single-screen theaters, the Siam Theatre, was also burned. Though we never watched a film there, we often passed by it or waited for buses in front (the nearby Scala, where we once saw 12 Monkeys, survived and is now the last stand-alone cinema in Bangkok). Of course even without this destruction, Bangkok is constantly changing. But these two places have been there every time I've gone in the past, and it will be strange to see those locations without them (though I believe they intend to rebuild/renovate CentralWorld). Regardless of the legitimate complaints of the Red Shirts (and they did have some), those few who rioted and caused this destruction get little sympathy from me.

Another incident in which there seems to less black and white than shades of gray occurred just the other day in the Middle East. I'm referring to the Israeli attack on the flotilla of ships carrying supplies to Gaza, and the resulting deaths of 10 activists (or nine in some reports). I don't want to get into all the rights and wrongs of the whole Israeli-Palestinian struggle, but I will say that on the one hand I sympathize with the Israeli desire to protect themselves, while having no sympathy whatever for their building of settlements in the Palestinian territories (including Arab parts of Jerusalem). Regarding the latter, I think the US should be prepared to cut aid to Israel severely if the building doesn't stop completely. As for the blockade of Gaza, I am dubious about the need for such a rigorous blockade, though I don't really have enough information to have a definite view on the matter. Certainly Israel could do more to ensure humanitarian supplies get through in sufficient amounts.

But as for the activist flotilla and the Israeli attack on it, from what I've seen, things are not so black and white as some of those protesting against Israel are saying. To be sure, there are a lot of black marks against Israel in the affair. For one, the Israeli seizure of the ships appeared to have taken place in international waters, and so was of questionable legality. As some Israeli military experts pointed out (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100601/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_israel_palestinians), the Israeli military could have used non-lethal weapons such as tear gas, and a former general asked why they didn't just sabotage the boats' engines instead of sending commandos to board them. And in the final analysis, whatever the provocation, the Israeli soldiers killed people, and it's always hard to justify that.

However, it does seem that there was more than a little provocation. I've seen the video released by the Israeli military, and it clearly shows the activists on board the ship swarming the Israeli soldiers as soon as they landed and attacking them with clubs, and in one case throwing a soldier overboard. While it is possible that the soldiers somehow managed to attack first, perhaps by shooting as they landed, it doesn't look very likely. It certainly appears that the activists simply attacked them. It's also notable that all or at least nearly all the violence took place on one ship, with others simply surrendering. Unless it just happened that the soldiers landing on that one ship were unusually trigger happy, it seems probable that the activists on the ship started the fighting. This doesn't necessarily excuse killing them, but I have to admit that if a bunch of people attacked me or my friends with clubs and I was carrying a gun, I'd probably use it on them. Of course all the evidence has to be examined closely, and as I said Israel most likely deserves condemnation for launching the raid in the first place, and thus creating a confrontational situation (not to mention the question of the morality of the blockade itself). But it isn't absolutely clear to me that the activists themselves don't have to take at least a little of the blame.