Travels in the Riel World

You’ve heard about the British penchant for the stiff upper lip and their disdain for unseemly displays of emotion. But you wonder how true it really is. After all, we live in an age of emotion. People bare their souls on reality television shows and Facebook pages every day. Old habits, though, die hard. The British may be less formal and more emotional than they once were, but they’re stoic and serious compared to Americans. Or at least that’s what they want to believe.

A perfect example of the battle the Brits engage in between stoicism and emotion came in the public response to Kate Winslet’s sobs of joy during her recent Golden Globes acceptance speech. The event - and its aftermath in Britain - is captured nicely in this story:

Britons are a chauvinistic bunch, proprietary about their place in the world and eager to see their talents recognized abroad. So they were gratified in January when Kate Winslet, one of their favorite home-team actors, snagged a Golden Globe Award, her second of the night, for her performance as a frustrated prisoner of suburbia in “Revolutionary Road.”

That is until, failing her own actorly advice to “gather,” she began hyperventilating and burst into convulsive sobs, right there on stage…

Oh my God, was the general reaction in Britain. “Most people watching actually wanted, literally, to die,” wrote Caitlin Moran in The Times of London…

Why were they so harsh? Part of it was that, despite their increasingly American forays into public displays of feeling … many English people still feel repelled by all that capital-E emoting. Instead, said Frank Furedi, professor of sociology at the University of Kent, they stick to the old standbys: self-deprecation, false modesty and humor.

“While British actors are dying to get those awards as much as anyone else, they are supposed to pretend they don’t really care and that it doesn’t really matter,” he said in an interview.

Most people would consider Vietnam a difficult enough country to visit on one’s own, never mind with 10- and 7-year-old children. But Cathryn Prince and her husband did just that, and she wrote about the experience for the Christian Science Monitor.

When I told friends that my husband and I planned to travel to Vietnam with our two young children, I received many surprised looks. They couldn’t understand why we’d want to visit a tropical country in the height of summer – a place where you’re cautioned to brush your teeth with bottled water…

But we remained undeterred about our trip. Sure, we had concerns about the flights, the food, and even fatigue, but leaving Nathan, 10, and Zoë, 7, at home never entered our minds. Overall, we found Vietnam to be incredibly child-friendly…

Despite our planned itinerary, Nathan and Zoë had their best cultural connections when we weren’t following a strict agenda – such as when Zoë got up close and personal with a villager’s python in the Mekong Delta, or when Nathan carried an elderly woman’s wares in the Hoi An market. More than any museum or palace, these moments linked our children to this land and its people.

As we were told, few travel here with young children, but if you do, it will be well worth it. Even though Zoë began to yearn for soft-serve ice cream like that found at home, she also relished the memory of eating an incredibly tender elephant fish wrapped in rice paper in the Mekong Delta.

This is the time of year that people’s thoughts turn to steaming mugs of hot chocolate during chilly evenings at home. So I was pleased to stumble across this story about the history of hot chocolate in Latin America. This region is arguably the home of hot chocolate, which was once sipped in a more bitter form by the ancient Mayans.

 Today, each region or country has its own twist on the sweet beverage:

In many parts of the world hot chocolate is blended with boiling water, but in Latin American warm milk is used, making it just that much more creamy and smooth (if also fattening) in consistency. While still retaining its power as a special drink, Latin Americans typically sip hot chocolate after dinner or as a treat…

It is also common for different countries to give the drink a special twist. In Colombia and Ecuador for example, it is common to have chocolate caliente con queso, essentially hot chocolate with a slab of fresh cheese, on the top and left to melt. It might sound bizarre but the salty flavor of the cheese mixes perfectly with the sweet chocolate flavor. Possibly an acquired taste, but most who try it are pleasantly surprised. Peruvians tend to put in a little extra chocolate syrup to their warm chocolate milk, the enhanced sweetness making it a dessert, but a very good one at that.

In Argentina, hot chocolate is served up in many fashions, the most popular being the submarino, consisting of steamed milk in a mug with a chocolate bar on the side. The bar should be submerged into the milk and will quickly disappear, melting into the liquid. A quick stir and a dash of sugar make it extra creamy, but the best part is that it tastes, and is, freshly made.  

Where would you like to live? If you could be guaranteed a reasonable facsimile of your current job, family situation and network of friends anywhere in the country, where would you choose?

The Pew Research Center did an extensive study on where Americans would like to live, and the top three cities were Denver, San Diego and Seattle.  Next up were Orlando, Tampa and San Francisco. David Brooks wrote a recent column about this study and described what he saw as America’s geographic state of mind.

If you jumble together the five most popular American metro areas — Denver, San Diego, Seattle, Orlando and Tampa — you get an image of the American Dream circa 2009. These are places where you can imagine yourself with a stuffed garage — filled with skis, kayaks, soccer equipment, hiking boots and boating equipment. These are places you can imagine yourself leading an active outdoor lifestyle.

These are places (except for Orlando) where spectacular natural scenery is visible from medium-density residential neighborhoods, where the boundary between suburb and city is hard to detect. These are places with loose social structures and relative social equality, without the Ivy League status system of the Northeast or the star structure of L.A. These places are car-dependent and spread out, but they also have strong cultural identities and pedestrian meeting places. They offer at least the promise of friendlier neighborhoods, slower lifestyles and service-sector employment. They are neither traditional urban centers nor atomized suburban sprawl.

What do you think? Does it meet your definition of utopia?

I love this blog post that was published recently on Vagabonding. It references a study on happiness which indicates that life experiences lead to greater happiness than do material possessions. Here is Scott Gilbertson’s take on the topic:

According to a recent study, using money to achieve life experiences — like traveling — leads to greater happiness. Spending money on things like traveling, satisfies what psychologists call “higher order needs” — like the need to feel truly alive and part of the world. Spending money on material objects is much less likely to satisfy such needs…

That probably isn’t news for vagabonds. Given $2000 would (you) rather buy a swank new sofa or spend three months in India? Is that even a choice? But what vagabonds might find interesting is that the study results were the same regardless of the amount spent or the income of the consumer. In other words, traveling on a shoestring budget is more likely to bring you happiness than staying in that high paying job that doesn’t leave you time to travel.

So why would living like a pauper abroad bring more happiness than living like a king at home? It turns out that the key is memory, not money. In the scenario supported by this study, the long term happiness comes from the “wealth of memories” the experiences provide. We don’t get bored of memories the way we do objects. Just consider how often you find yourself reminiscing about your amazing new kitchen tile. Not much, huh? How about that weekend you ran with the bulls in Pamplona?

Of course that doesn’t mean you should gut your life savings and leave your family blowing in the wind. Other studies have long shown that debt leads to stress, and stress is not a recipe for happiness regardless of the amazing memories you might accumulate on your way to poverty.

No, the real beauty of this study is that it confirms what travelers have long known — experience is happiness.

Experience is happiness. Sounds like a great motto.

So says a nomadic guide to Joe Ray, who wrote a nice article for the Boston Globe about his experience trekking the Sahara in southern Algeria. The piece captures the harsh beauty of the desert as well as the unique culture of the Touareg nomads who live in the region.

The author on the desert:

Desert silence is disconcerting, melting time and perspective, leaving you listening to the blood swish through your veins as Polaris and the Southern Cross play cat and mouse across the night sky. Later, the sense of time dissolves and the silence becomes addictive: literal quiet comfort that allows the beauty of the desert and the people who live here to reveal themselves…

Over the course of a few days, fear of the unknown is replaced by a heightened sense of surroundings. Our first night out, we sleep beneath a freestanding rock arch hundreds of feet high. With no light pollution, the stars are so bright that picking out the principal constellations becomes tricky. Orion has a bow-shaped string of stars to his side that I’ve never seen and all seven sisters of Pleiades are visible. One moonless night, I take a 10-minute walk to the top of a dune and, once there, realize I’ve done it by starlight.

And on the Touareg nomads:

“We don’t follow time,” says guide Abdou Zounga as we share a pungent lamb, barley, and vegetable stew called chorba. “No one here ever asks what time it is.”

Zounga, 30, is a Touareg, desert nomads descended from Berbers who have roamed the northwest African desert for millennia. Though he earned a degree in computer programming and had a desk job in the city of Tamanrasset, the call of the desert was too strong.

“One of the first things I learned as a child was respect for my elders,” says Zounga, explaining a system where the final say always goes to the oldest in a group. As part of a team of guides, this might mean he calls the shots on one trip and washes dishes on the next, all depending on the ages of the others.

Aside from an old-fashioned respect for elders, one of the most important traits that Zounga explains is solidarity among Touaregs, no matter which country they are from. Another is sharing whatever you have, whether it’s with someone who needs it more or as a way to express gratitude.

As globalization creeps into every corner of the globe, the traditional values of some cultures are bound to clash with the changing values and morals of a younger generation that has been exposed to a wider world. And so in India, when young women go out to a club after work, it offends the sensibilities of a more conservative segment of society that still believes in a world where single men and women don’t mingle over drinks in public. The International Herald Tribune has an interesting story on this clash of cultures within India.

A mob attack on women drinking in a college-town bar has set off the latest battle in the great Indian culture wars, uncorking a national debate over moral policing and its political repercussions, and laying bare the limits of freedom for young Indian women.

The latest Old versus New India hubbub began one Saturday last month when an obscure Hindu organization, which calls itself Sri Ram Sena, or the Army of Ram, a Hindu god, attacked several women at a bar in the southern Indian college town of Mangalore and accused them of being un-Indian for being out drinking and dancing with men…

Eventually, more than 10 members of the Sena were arrested, only to be released on bail in a week. Since then, they have promised to campaign against Valentine’s Day, which they criticized as a foreign conspiracy to dilute Indian culture, and they said they did not disapprove of men drinking at bars.

The conflict surrounding so-called pub culture in India set off nearly two weeks of shouting matches on television talk shows and editorial pages. Politicians have also jumped into the fray…

The debate comes as a new generation of Indian women steps out of the home for work or play in a rapidly expanding economy and finds itself having to negotiate old social boundaries, harassment and, sometimes, outright violence.

So there’s finally a catchphrase for the growing number of people who try to stitch a living out of wandering from project to project. Marci Alboher wrote a book a while back and she has a blog about people who have slash/careers, or multiple vocations. But now Tina Brown has created a mini-media storm with an article about what she has dubbed “The Gig Economy.”

No one I know has a job anymore. They’ve got Gigs.

Gigs: a bunch of free-floating projects, consultancies, and part-time bits and pieces they try and stitch together to make what they refer to wryly as “the Nut”—the sum that allows them to hang on to the apartment, the health-care policy, the baby sitter, and the school fees.

Gigs: They’re all that’s standing between them and…what? The outer-outer boroughs? Eating what’s left of the 401(k)? Moving to Alaska? Out-and-out destitution?

To people I know in the bottom income brackets, living paycheck to paycheck, the Gig Economy has been old news for years. What’s new is the way it’s hit the demographic that used to assume that a college degree from an elite school was the passport to job security.

Brown ended up doing an NPR interview about the topic, ABC News chimed in with tips for accidental freelancers, and before long almost everyone was writing about the gig economy. Newsweek had one of the more prominent stories, asking “are freelance and part-time gigs the future?”

In this economy, a job isn’t just a job: It’s a pastiche of part-time gigs, project contracts and fill-in freelance work…Some 2.5 million full-time jobs have evaporated in the last 13 months, contributing to what’s being called the “gig economy.” But there is a convergence of other, more developed trends at play as well. Tight-budgeted company managers long ago embraced outsourcing to only pay for what they can use. A new generation of workers has 24/7 connectivity, lacks corporate loyalty, and thinks like mavericks. Put them together and you get gigonomics.

Equally important in the Newsweek story, though, are the challenges and policy issues it raised. Let’s face it, our economy and our safety net are still a relic of the time when people went to work for one company and stayed there for an extended period of time.

In a freelance-based job market, talented, skilled and energetic people can still do great work and make good money. But those highly qualified workers who aren’t good at the business side of selling themselves, over and over, can suffer. Even connected, ambitious, talented giggers can hit slow periods, and that’s where the gigonomics start to pinch. “You have to bring in a project and then the project ends, and then you have to bring in another project,” says Challenger. “That can be a difficult time. It can make you doubt yourself when you might be good.”

And it isn’t just about feelings. The complete lack of a safety net for independent workers is the key policy challenge of the gigonomic era, says Horowitz, who received a prestigious MacArthur fellowship for her advocacy work in this area. Her organization is pressing President Obama to include relief for self-employed workers in his stimulus plan. She is lobbying for a savings system in which contingent workers could get some government-matching funds when they put rainy-day money away during fat times.

She would also like to see other policy initiatives aimed at the independent workforce, including more non-employer mechanisms for affordable group health insurance, flexible retirement plans, and tax breaks to address the additional Social Security and Medicare taxes paid by the self-employed.

Just wondering how many of you are part of the gig economy, and what are your thoughts on this topic?

I remember when I first went to Europe in the 1980s and became enchanted by the cafe culture there, then came home and bemoaned the fact that there were precious few places where I could relax with a coffee and do a bit of work or reading. Now, of course, the U.S. is overflowing with coffee shops, and even though many of them are chain-owned and similar in appearance, the situation has vastly improved during the past two decades.

Still, there is something to be said for the cafe culture that has developed over decades or centuries in some other countries, so here is a compilation of my favorite international cafe cities. Perhaps some other time I’ll follow with my favorite North American locales. Remember, these are only places that I’ve personally experienced, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on other cities that I’ve missed.

1. Paris, France - People either love or despise this city. I love Paris. I love the history, the art, the gardens, the romance, and the food. And the cafes. How can you not enjoy sitting at a sidewalk table at a Parisian cafe with a coffee and a chocolate croissant? Or a coffee and a good book? The Austrians may have invented Europe’s cafe culture (see below), but nowhere is it as satisfying as it is in Paris.

2. Rome, Italy - I went to Italy expecting to love Florence and to tolerate Rome, but my experience was just the opposite. Yes, the art in Florence is difficult to top and the view of the historic city from Piazzale Michelangelo is memorable, but the city often felt like to me like Epcot Center on steroids. Rome seemed more authentic and enjoyable. And the art and history are pretty breathtaking there, as well! As are the cafes.

3. Buenos Aires, Argentina - The Argentines learned a thing or two about cafe culture from their Italian and Spanish ancestors and nowhere is this more evident than in Buenos Aires, a vibrant city of wide boulevards, romantic people, and an eclectic collection of cafes. If you want a heavenly experience, find a seat outside on a sunny day in Plaza Dorrego in the San Telmo area of the city and order a submarino (a mug of steamed milk and melted chocolate), then sit back and watch the tango dancers heat up the cobblestoned square.

4. Hanoi, Vietnam- Not many Asian cities are regarded as great cafe venues. But the French colonial influence left a mark on Southeast Asia, most notably in Hanoi. The Old Quarter of the city is an ancient and charming maze, filled with people, produce peddlers and motorbikes. Relax with a coffee and watch the buzz of Vietnamese life. If it’s too hot for a coffee, try a fresh fruit shake, which are delicious and available throughout Vietnam.

5. Dahab, Egypt- The more conventional Egyptian choice here would be Cairo, where coffeehouses abound. But I had a more enjoyable experience in the small town of Dahab, on the east coast of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, where we could relax in a cafe for hours just feet away from the lapping waters of the Red Sea. It’s a Bedouin town that has been overtaken by tourism, but is still small enough and slow-paced enough to be truly relaxing.

6. Vienna, Austria - The legend is that the first European cafes were opened in Vienna in the late 17th century with beans that were left behind by defeated Turkish soldiers (as the Ottoman Turks already had a coffeehouse tradition). No one knows the real truth, but there is certainly a long and glorious cafe tradition in Austria and Vienna is a great city in which to experience it, perhaps while pondering why so many great composers came from there. Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn and others all once called Vienna home.

7. Prague, Czech Republic - The Czechs share a history with the Austrians, as they were once part of the Austrian Hapsburg Empire, and they also share a love of coffee and cafes. Old Town Square survived World War II with much of its historic core still intact, and is today one of the most beautiful and best preserved squares on the continent. It’s a wonderful place to have a coffee and soak in the atmosphere of old Europe.

That’s my list. What is yours?

O.K., I think we have time for one more entry in our review of destinations for 2009. This one is courtesy of the New York Times, which came up with a list of 44 diverse and interesting destinations for the coming year. A sampling of this eclectic list:

Monument Valley, Arizona - Monument Valley, in northeast Arizona, with a small section extending into Utah, is undeniably one of the most beautiful spots in the American West, a place that inspired Willa Cather to write: “Elsewhere the sky is the roof of the world, but here the earth was the floor of the sky.”

Zambia - For years, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa have been the Big Three of the safari world, producing most of the major outfitters and serving up the most African wildlife adventures. But for outdoor enthusiasts seeking a more intimate animal-watching experience and a less-beaten jungle path, the southern African nation of Zambia is emerging as the insider’s alternative.

Chicago - They’re already calling it the “Building of the Century.” No, not the new Trump hotel and tower, though the 92-story skyscraper does command attention as Chicago’s (and the United States’) second-tallest building. The real buzz is the long-awaited Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago. Designed by Renzo Piano, the immense limestone-and-glass addition opens May 16, and will house some of the 20th century’s greatest art, including Picasso’s “Mother and Child.”

Penang, Malaysia - Grilled fish balls in Bangkok? Been there. Spicy pork skewers in Ho Chi Minh City? Done that. Adventurous foodies are turning to Penang, the culinary capital of Malaysia, where they are eating their way through one of southeast Asia’s liveliest street-food scenes. Blogs like Fried Chillies and Penang Street Foods have sprouted in recent years, deliciously chronicling the pan-Asian flavors of dishes like assam laksa — white rice noodles with fermented shrimp paste, cucumber and pineapples. The best part? There are city-run hawker stands everywhere, and even refined dishes like char koay teow — noodles with prawns, chili paste and cockles — rarely cost more than $2.

South Africa - Two words: Affordable luxury. With the rand down about 35 percent against the dollar over the last year, this idyllic country — which offers, in addition to its famed safaris, everything from world-class wineries to fabulous beaches — is becoming one of the best bets for travelers looking for a high-end experience at relatively low-end prices.

Kazakhstan - Shelve the Borat jokes. The oil boom poured serious money into Kazakhstan, transforming it from a former Soviet backwater into an emerging luxury center, with Astana and Almaty emerging as the dueling Dubais of Central Asia. Big-name architects are transforming the landscape…And in the nearby Chimbulak mountains, Robert A. M. Stern is creating a ski resort for the 2011 Asian Winter Games.

I’ve previously covered couchsurfing on this blog, both the idea behind it and the actual organization that connects people around the world by offering free places to stay. Now comes an interesting story that compares Western and Asian cultures in terms of their levels of comfort with the idea of hosting strangers in one’s home.

It’s great for soaking up the sights on a shoestring budget, but as some Asians have found, “couchsurfing,” or staying at a stranger’s home, can be a culturally jarring experience, especially if you reciprocate…

Juana Jumat, a Muslim from Singapore, was offered a breakfast unlike any other during a recent holiday to Germany. “My hosts fed me breakfast with their local beer at 8.30 in the morning and I told them I can’t drink, but the host’s mum told me “you are in the Bavarian Alps and you should drink,”" said Jumat of a recent “couchsurfing” experience.

And when the time came for her to play host, Jumat had to persuade her conservative mother of the benefits. “Initially my mum was like, why are you hosting people whom you do not know and simply asking them to come to our house?” said Jumat, who has since hosted 50 couchsurfers, mostly from Germany and Australia…

For some Japanese, the responsibility and hospitality that comes with taking care of guests may act as a deterrent.

“When my friend stayed over at my house, my mum was feeling stressed because she thought she would have to cook her meals and wash her clothes. My mum even sewed a hole on my friend’s trousers when she saw it,” said couchsurfer Ayami Kobayashi.

Despite the Asian reticence, though, the concept continues to gain in acceptance. Couchsurfing now has well over 800,000 members worldwide and is growing quickly in Asia.

On life and growth…

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

                                                 - Neale Donald Walsch

I just came across this quote, although it’s apparently been around for a while, and I was struck by it. So simple, but there is a lot of truth in it.

It may be a bit far-fetched, but it’s a real goal for at least some African leaders, most notably the new chairman of the African Union, one Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. The obstacles to such a union are daunting, but an article in the International Herald Tribune lays out the pan-African dream that Qaddafi and others would like to pursue.

Qaddafi is an ardent supporter of a long-held dream of transforming Africa, a collection of post-colonial fragments divided by borders that were drawn arbitrarily by Western powers, into a vast, unified state that could play a powerful role in global affairs. He has repeatedly proposed immediate unity and the establishment of a single currency, army and passport for the entire continent. He pledged Monday to bring up the issue for a vote at the African Union’s next summit meeting, in July.

While a few African leaders share his passion and his timetable for this pan-African vision, most prefer a go-slow approach, given the political realities that have emerged in the half-century since most of Africa became independent.

“In principle, we said the ultimate is the United States of Africa,” said the Tanzanian president, Jakaya Kikwete, the previous African Union chairman, according to the BBC. “How we proceed to that ultimate - there are building blocks.”

I had the pleasure of seeing Slumdog Millionaire this past weekend. I enjoyed the movie and can see why it’s a favorite of awards voters this year. But in addition to the accolades, the movie is also receiving its fair share of criticism for what critics have dubbed “slum voyeurism.”

I don’t get the criticism, frankly. Yes, there are graphic scenes of poverty and child exploitation, but the film just mirrors reality. It’s an unfortunate fact of life in India that so many people are so desperately poor. But it’s certainly not the only fact of life in India, which is a fascinating place where all of the wonderful and abominable extremes of life somehow co-exist quite openly.

The film has not proved to be quite as popular in India as it has been in the West, perhaps because of the very familiarity of its subject:

“You can’t live in Mumbai without seeing children begging at traffic lights and passing by slums on your way to work,” says Shikha Goyal, a public relations executive who left halfway through the film. “But I don’t want to be reminded of that on a Saturday evening.”

Goyal was quoted in a story about the movie in Time magazine, which explores Slumdog’s improbable rise from indie film to Oscar contender. Also worth checking out is this interview in Newsweek magazine with director Danny Boyle. An excerpt from Boyle’s comments:

In India itself, there’s been a cloud over what have otherwise been very sunny skies for the film. Some activists have claimed that the title is demeaning. What did you mean by “slumdog”?
This is one of the saddest things for me. People are absolutely entitled to say whatever they think about the film. Protest is a healthy part of life in India, provided it doesn’t become violent. Basically [the title] is a hybrid of the word “underdog”—and everything that means in terms of rooting for the underdog and validating his triumph—and the fact that he obviously comes from the slums. That’s what we intended.

Some people seem to feel that you are shining a spotlight on Indian poverty.
It’s an entertainment, in the end. It’s not a documentary. But we wanted to depict as much of the city as possible. For me, it wasn’t the romantic “Rocky” story. My central thrust was to try to capture, within our narrative, as much of the city as possible, and you cannot ignore that part of life in Mumbai—nor would I want to. It’s crucial for me. That’s the bedrock, the starting point. I would do that again because it is one of the most extraordinary things that hits you about the city, the way that the slums sit beside everything else. They’re not ghettoized, they’re not separated—everything sits side by side.

For me, the slums were so extraordinary. This is something that’s very difficult to convey. I think when you go, if you don’t know the city, as I didn’t, part of you expects abject poverty. And what you find, of course, is an extraordinary energy of life there. People on all sorts of levels are all working, doing bits of business. You sense a kind of resilience against all odds. It’s really breathtaking. As a filmmaker, I wanted to try and capture that energy, as well as show the circumstances in which people are forced to live. But despite that [the people] are extraordinary. I hesitate to use the word inspiring because you would be foolish to use that word about it, but on a human level, it is inspiring. If we could all live our lives as resourcefully as people with so little do! Whereas we [in the developed world] live in such luxury, yet complain about things and moan about things. There are people who are making the most of themselves in very limited circumstances.