I recently came across this cache of stamps I bought when I was in Laos last year. I purchased them at the central Vientiane post office gift shop for about $1 or $2 per pack. Most of the stamps dates from between 1982 and 1987. It’s very interesting to see the influence of France and the USSR in the stamp design.
I recently spent a few days at Rivertime Eco Lodge, about an hour outside of Vientiane. Depsite it’s close proximity to the major population centre of Laos, it is truly like being a million miles away. It’s in the jungle. The closest village, Ban Thadindeng, is only a few hundred families.
I stayed in a little hut like this:
And swam in this river:
However, I think the coolest thing about staying in the jungle was the fact that I was able to get internet access via a 3g network! Technology continually amazes me.
In addition to swimming in the river and sleeping in a hut, I also went to a karaoke bar with a bunch of farmers, ate a lot of delicious food, and did a bit of work. Overall it was a lovely 2 days.
I have posted more photos here.
(if only the Beatles had sung about Laos instead of the USSR)
I have conducted about 5 pilot interviews, which have been getting progressively better. I think I will be able to start collecting data full steam shortly. In the meantime, I am seeing lots of old pals and enjoying catching up.
Being back in Laos after 2 years away, seeing familiar faces and places that have changed, but haven’t, has been quite surreal. I think it’s also been stimulating my subconscious mind and stirring up quite a few dusty memories. The other morning I woke up from an extremely vivid dream in which a friend of mine from Peace Corps Benin was getting married to one of my high school classmates who worked at Schaumburg Library with me from 1995-1997. I haven’t seen the Peace Corps friend in something like 6 years, and my co-worker from STDL since… 1997. It’s quite strange how memory works.
Anyway, I have enrolled in a traditional massage class, which I started yesterday. It’s a week long class about 2 hours day and so far I have had 2 lessons. It’s really quite good and I am very glad I decided to enrol. I have been making studious notes, as well as photos of every step, and getting to practice under the teacher’s careful watch. The teacher, known around town as “Ajarn (teacher) Sak”, is from Ubon Rachitami in Thailand and has been doing massage for over 20 years. His English is not fantastic, but he is an excellent teacher and I am really enjoying his tutelage.
If you are planning to be in Vientiane for more than a week, I would highly recommend visiting the White Lotus Spa and taking a course from Ajarn Sak. A 10-hour course costs $150 USD. If you are in Vientiane for less than a week, just go to White Lotus and get a 1 or 2 hour massage from Ajarn Sak. You have to ask for him specially, and you may have make an appointment ahead of time, but he is well known in town as being the best of the best, and the man seriously has magic fingers.
I plan to type up my class notes and post the photos I have taken when I have some time. For now, these photos from around town will have to do!
I finally have had a chance to wander around with my camera.
Clicking on the images will bring you to my picasa album, and more pictures.
I have no idea what a “digital perm” could be, but maybe I need to find out and go into business with mom doing magic digital perms!
The eagle has landed. In Laos, that is.
Apologies in advance for lack of photos. I will start taking more soon!
It’s really surprising how different a place can become in 2 years. What I have noticed so far:
Overall I would say Laos seems to be having an economic boom. In many ways this might be good for Laos, however, it does seem to be having a negative impact as well. I’ve only been here a few days so it’s a bit too early to tell, but thing have definitely changed. A lot.
Every time I fill out a form here, it asks me for my ethnicity. My options are usually:
How to answer? First of all, let us examine the word “Pakeha”.
“Pākehā is a Māori term for New Zealanders who are not of Māori blood lines. The word Pākehā is also sometimes used to refer to any person of predominantly European ancestry, including those that are not New Zealanders. It is also used in a wider scope to refer to any non-Māori. Opinions of the term vary amongst those it describes. Some find it highly offensive, others are indifferent, some find it inaccurate and archaic, while some happily use the term and find the main alternative, New Zealand European, inappropriate.”
According to my flatmate, Pakeha is not a derogatory term. However I can’t help but reminded of terms like “Yovo” in Benin, or “Falang” in Laos, which, although not derogatory, I found irritating and generalizing. Why would I be a “Yovo” in Benin, which literally means “white”, but my American friend, who happened to be black, wasn’t? And Falang… even worse! It translates to “French”, but they use it to refer to any white foreigner. So, without being able to speak Maori, and never having had the opportunity to actually discuss it with a Maori person, I don’t feel comfortable refering to myself as “Pakeha”. In Laos, and Africa, and other countries I have been, luckily I wasn’t often asked my “ethnicity”, and if asked, I would generally just say “I’m American” (and then hang my head in shame).
But is “American” an ethnicity?
What the hell is an ethnicity? How is it different from race?
race 2 |reɪs| |reɪs|
noun
each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics.
What are these “major divisions”, as defined in 21st century politically correct times? In the 1950’s they decided it was:
| Caucasoid race | |
| Congoid race | |
| Capoid race | |
| Mongoloid race | |
| Australoid race |
I can’t seem to find a newer list. Wikipedia says:
There is no scientific consensus of a list of the human races, and few anthropologists endorse the notion of human “race”.[103] For example, a color terminology for race includes the following in a classification of human races: Black (e.g. Sub-Saharan Africa), Red (e.g. Native Americans), Yellow (e.g. East Asians) and White (e.g. Europeans).
Yet, organizations such as the US Census still employ the term. even though the recognize that it’s an obsolete or undefinable term. They ask us to tick a box next to a race, and say:
The racial categories represent a social-political construct for the race or races that respondents consider themselves to be and “generally reflect a social definition of race recognized in this country.”
So…. it’s not even physical anymore. It’s about social-political constructs and people’s feelings, and reflects a “social definition”. How much more ambiguous could these terms be? Just look at the Wikipedia page about Race & Ethnicity in the US Census to get an idea of how confusing this all is, especially with regards to the Latino/Hispanic category… which of course is, genetically speaking, those who are descendant from the Spanish and Native American, so, technically, “Caucasian”, right? But no, the US government must know how many brown people are living in our country!
I guess, according to the little bit of research I’ve done, no one can even agree on what a race is, or if we should even be using the term anymore. As far as ethnicity…. there’s another ambiguous category. The dictionary says:
ethnicity |eθˈnisitē|
noun ( pl. -ties)
the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition .
So… in that case, what am I? Am I American? It’s lovely to think of America as a color-less, class-less, giant melting pot of a social group… but we all know that’s not true.
What group do I belong to? Who do I share my cultural traditions with? Is it my European ancestors? Is it my fellow middle-class, white Americans?
Uhhh.. none of the above?
For the time being, I will continue to check the “Other box”, and write in “Cacausian”, however obsolete and inaccurate a term it may be. I’ve convinced myself it’s politically neutral, and actually identifies me as being American, without even having to write American, to people familiar with the wacky ways we try to classify people.
All this in the hopes of making it easier to stereo-type and generalize, put people in nice little categories, and assume we know something about each other, without really having a clue at all.
Last Thursday I realized I would have a 4 day weekend, so I decided to take a trip and see some other parts of Laos besides Vientiane.
On Saturay after I finished working, I took a bus to the Southern Bus Station, and then got on another bus going to Thakeak, about 6 hours south of Vientiane, on the Mekong river. I arrived around 10 pm, and took a tuk-tuk to the guest house where I had made a reservation. I hadn’t eaten dinner, so I went in search of some noodle soup. It was about 11 pm, but the entire city was completely silent. I saw some guys sitting around a table at a beershop and I said “Do you have food?”, and they said “Eat beer!” and tried to offer me a glass. I said thanks and kept walking. I came across a group of girls sitting on front of a house. “Where can you get food around here?” I asked in Lao. They discussed between themselves. “Ok, I’ll show you.” one said, and then got on her motorbike. I said “Somewhere within walking distance?”. Again they consulted between themselves. “No. Come on, let’s go!” she said. I said “Ok.” and got on the bike. She drove me about 5 minutes away to the only shop in town still serving food. I got a bowl of noodle soup and we had a halting conversation in my shitty Lao. I discovered that she was 20 years old, and studying in the environmental science department at Dong Dok, and was home on holiday. I tried to offer to buy her some soup but she said she had eaten already. After I finished the soup she took me back to my guest house, and again I thanked her, and tried to give her some money for driving me around town, but she wouldn’t accept it. It was a very lovely evening and it felt good to be on my own in an unfamiliar place and able to get by with my knowledge of Lao, in a situation where I’d put myself somewhere between tourist and local.
I woke up really early the next morning and some very tan guy in the bed next to mine was doing pilates. I was so totally bewildered and confused about where I was for a few moments I had no idea what was happening. Then I fell back asleep and when I woke up again, everyone was gone except me, even though it was only 8 am. I went for a walk into town, and tried to stop at the tourist information centre to book a 2-day trek into the Phu Hin Boun National Protected Area, but after walking 20 minutes, I arrived at the centre to find it closed. Not wanting to spend another day in not very interesting Thakeak, I decided to get back on a bus, go north about 1 hour to Vieng Kham, get off the bus, take another bus to Ban Na Hin (another hour west of Vieng Kham) and then the following day, go to Tham Kong Lo.
Tham Kong Lo is a cave (Tham) about 8 kms long with a river running through it, underground. I had heard a lot about Tham Kong Lo from other people who had been there, all of whom told me how amazing it was. I also knew that a 2-day trek from Thaekak would cost me about $100, so I ended up saving myself some money and getting to meet a lot of interesting people along the way, including randomly running into a guy I know from Vientiane on the bus to Vieng Kham.
Ban Na Hin is stunningly beautiful, completely quiet and peaceful, and full of lovely, friendly people.
I felt like I was a million miles away from the motorbikes and noise of Vientiane. Children even grown on trees there!
The next morning I went to the market to catch a bus to Kong Lor Cave, a 8 km underground river that goes through a mountain. The bus was supposed to leave at 8, but didn’t go anywhere until 10. Along the way we picked up a few more “falang” passengers, and eventually arrived at the boat dock around 11:30 am, and for about $12, hired a boat for 3 people to take us into the cave and then back to the bus. We got into the boat, and took off down the river. The bright sunshine and birdsong quickly became total darkness. I was completely terrified.
It was unbelievable.
It was like something straight out of Harry Potter and I expected some evil zombies to come up out of the river at any moment, but some how I made it through and then back out alive.
It was really amazing and I highly recommend going, though be warned – it’s really quite far off the beaten path, and you need to be patient, flexible, and open-minded to enjoy such a trip! Like anything in Laos… bor pen nyang!
Here’s a website about the cave:
http://www.travelfish.org/location/laos/southern_laos/khammuan/konglor_cave
We went to eat Pho today for lunch, and then on the way back the ladies wanted to stop and buy some fruit. When we got back to the office they took the lychees and bananas they had bought and arranged them as so:
Then they asked me “Do you know what it is?”
“I think so…”
“Have you ever seen one before?”
I said “That’s a secret!”.
Despite what my CV may say, I’m not really that familiar with Twitter, or many of these other “Web 2.0” technologies. Considering I live in Laos and we barely even have an internet connection at the University, it’s surprising I even know what it is. My director certainly doesn’t. Yesterday when helping him complete an eIFL.net survey, he asked me to define RSS, Blog, Wiki, Twitter, Second Life, and Social Networking. However I do try to at least be hip with the lingo, so I know about tweets and podcasts. So here is my tweet:
Even after one year in Laos I still manage to encounter culinary surprises. Yesterday I was served embryonic chicken eggs at lunch.
Ok that’s the end of my tweet. Backing to being overly verbose. Speaking eIFL.net, the “Electronic Information For Libraries Network” is pretty amazing and I really like the work they are doing. This includes subsidizing e-resources for libraires in developing countries, such as Laos, and many countries in Africa and Asia. eIFL.net has just negotiated a deal with JSTOR where all the members of LALIC (the 12 libraries mentioned in previous postings…) will get TOTALLY FREE access to all of JSTOR’s holdings, current and archived content, for the next 2 years. They are also waiving all of the initial membership fees and whatnot, which probably value over $20,000 total. eIFL.net has also negotiated a reduced subscription rate if we want to continue membership after 2011, for ridiculously low access rates. They coordinate access to many other e-resources and have helped the University Central Library be able to provide AGORA, BioOne, EBSCO, Cambrige University Press, and Oxford Online resources for mostly free !!! Unfortunately our use of e-resources is still ridiculously low, owing to a number of factors me and my colleagues are exploring in our research project “The Electronic Information Seekhing Behaviour of NUOL Students and Academic Staff”. I hypothesize that the main issues are language barriers (few people can read and write a foreign language fluently enough to use these academic resources) and a really unreliable and slow internet connection (for example, almost non-existant at the University). Anyway, I love what eIFL.net is doing! Now if only they would hire me…
Happy Rocket Festival!
So, this is my basic understanding of the Lao Rocket Festival.
At the end of the dry season (May), Lao people build rockets from PVC pipe and bamboo and laundry detegrent and god-knows-what-else to shoots into the sky in order to, essentially, piss off the skies and make them send down rain.
Here are some pictures.
This also has something to do with fertility and the whole relationship between the rockets penetrating the skies, the rain penetrating the earth, rain making the rice grow, etc etc. So there’s a lot of cross dressing and strange phallic symbols happening at the same time.
This Sunday me, my friends Valerie, Tracy, Sack, Luck, Sai, and Kham drove in Valerie’s car to Luck’s brother-in-law Nat’s village, about 2 hours south of Vientiane, where they were having a big rocket festival. Everyone got drunk on Lao Khao (rice whiskey) and the entire village was celebrating. They had set up a huge stage and a festival-area around the temple in the centre of the village, and we all danced Lao Lamvong together. Luck and Sai, along with the village naibon (chief) polished off a litre of the stuff, specially distilled by Nat’s father himself. When Luck get’s drunk he likes to repeat a phrase he learned somewhere that goes “You don’t smoke the cigarette, the cigarette smokes you!”; or “You don’t drink it. It drinks you!” and gestures to the Beerlao. He also likes to exclaim “What’s up man!” at various intervals and things that sound like this “I know you don’t know but I know, and you know I don’t know but, it’s ok, I know.” . At this point I usually start repeating my favorite Lao phrase: kee mao (alcoholic).
Another spectacular Lao sunset..
Valerie let me drive her car back to Vientiane on the way home… terrifying but exciting, and I’m pretty sure totally illegal since I don’t have an international driver’s license… but who cares ?! It’s been nearly a year since I have driven a car, and the last time I drove one it was the long-haul straight from Montreal to Chicago with a stop in Ann Arbor. I’m always trying to convince my director to let me drive his car but for some reason he never lets me. Maybe it’s because I don’t know how to drive a motorcycle they all think I must be completely useless with motorized vehichles.
quaking blog 