フランクフンク

Planning the new semester (part 3/3)

2011-03-19T17:12:00.002+08:00

The other half of my time at work I tour a few high schools. Usually I have the toddlers in the morning and the high schools after lunch. This is a great way to start the day with crazy energy and intuition and finish it with some more intellectually stimulating material. It is so different that it almost feels like a completely different job.

Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays I teach at the Kunming number 28 high school. It is a girls' school. I teach 8 classes of about 40 girls a week. Half the classes are city girls and half of them countryside girls and there is a huge difference in attitude. Although I have my favorite and least favorite class, I pretty much managed to create a welcome language learning environment in all of them and the girls have an improving mindset about learning language. I have a great time teaching them. The salary in this school is not too high, but it's my oldest workplace and I just stay loyal to them.

My favorite class, the first one on Tuesday.

During class.

Do you understand?

Last year I started working for Kunming number 1 high school, in a special program for financially privileged students outlined by a British organisation called NCC. This program was focussed on getting the students ready for studying in universities abroad. I had a great chance to get some experience teaching the more complicated English that is needed for the IELTS and TOEFL exams. Apart from this I was asked to teach a course called "cultural studies". In those classes I had to guide the students in doing some individual research and writing a quasi scientific paper about the difference between the Chinese and Western education systems. Although the students didn't do a good job at all, I was very stimulated by the idea of a course like this.

Some of the NCC students performing a play, showing off their break dancing skills.

Obviously, the NCC program has been struggling. It starts from the completely false premises that it won't leave any students behind. This may sound very promising to rich factory owners with lazy kids, but it is just not coherent with reality. Some kids are just not made for school and especially not for university abroad. The exuberantly high tuition that parents pay for their kids made the management keep students in the program whatever happened. So with this greatly inconsistent strategy in place it was quite a struggle to motivate some of those lazy, rich kids to start working. The students were nice, for sure, and I liked being among them. But there was a great deal of motivation lacking. The management didn't handle those issues efficiently and was communicating indirectly to all parties. They indirectly communicated to me that they were going into the next inefficient reform, and that there was no place left for a part-time teacher. It proved to be a blessing in disguise...

Recently, I made some new contacts that offer me a course for high school kids. The kids are all planning to go abroad, and the course should prepare them for their time in a foreign university. As I have quite some experience with classes like this, the school asks me not only to teach, but also to develop a curriculum and syllabus. The parents are paying quite some money for this course as well, but as it is a private school, the kids are bound to be much more driven and motivated. I have started working on this curriculum as soon as I heard about the lessons. The first thing that I have to take into account that the lessons should be as fun and interactive as possible. It should also have a very solid outline and captivating lesson plans. A big mistake that foreign teachers make when they try to prepare Chinese kids for the much freer education systems abroad, is that they fixate only on the freedom. Doing this, the lessons tend to get chaotic and without any obvious goals.

In my curriculum I have quite a few important goals. Instead of only introducing the kids to the freedom of the system, like it is in their imagination, I try to project them as responsible international students that are studying mainly to enrich their minds and to get a more all-encompassing world view. With studying anything, it is crucial to understand that there should always be a combination of old fashioned rote learning and the use of creativity. In our lessons, we will look at some case studies about cultural misunderstanding about "the West" and "the East". The students will be asked to read, write, research, discuss and present about those case studies. As the whole thing is in English, the language learning involved in this course will be based on how much trouble the students have with grasping the material. I will be working together with two professional assistants, who will help me recognize those problems. My goals are to make the students more responsible, inquisitive, critical, assertive, open minded, worldly, objective, independent and aware. I can put a lot of my creativity and working experience into this project, and it is very stimulating. And eventually, it might turn out to be lucrative as well...

As you might have concluded, I'm very happy with my job as an English teacher in China. People sometimes react like: "Oh, yeah of course, a teacher..." or "Oh I'm so happy I don't have to teach." They tend to downplay the job like something everybody can do. They insinuate that it is just an unimportant and irresponsible way of making some easy money as a foreigner. But while there are probably plenty of people who don't take the job seriously, I certainly don't see it that way. I am definitely not tired of my teaching job and will keep on doing it for a few more semesters for sure.

Planning the new semester (part 2/3)

2011-03-16T21:08:00.005+08:00

This semester I took on considerably more work in kindergartens. As uninteresting and uninspiring I thought it would be in the beginning, as exciting and stimulating it actually turns out to be. In contrast to the wrestling I had to do in the beginning, I now thrive on a kind of constant flow of ideas and don't need to do very much preparation. That doesn't mean it's easy. With the toddlers you always need to have something in backup. They won't give you a break if you fall quiet, no matter how much they like you.

Even though I know they would like it very much, I detest singing songs and I feel like I'm not up for it. So, as I mentioned before, the fun in the classes is mostly based on clowning and acting out a certain situation. I get better and better and this week I even started to (successfully) experiment with a slapstick act. Obviously, I try to balance the fun and the actual learning as good as possible, dependent on the class. The learning that takes place has the goal of the children getting used to the concept of another language and erasing structural mistakes that will affect their fluency on the long run. Most of it is practicing pronunciation. I developed a useful phonics system and get better and better to recognize where the crucial problems lie. And this means that I also train the staff at my new kindergartens to review those phonics.

As promised, I took some pictures Tuesday morning at work...

Throwing the imaginary pancake in the air, which will inevitably stick to the ceiling and ruin the imaginary cooking plans. Well, it was worth the try...

Excitement rises when they mimic the movement pattern at the start of every class.

Practicing the "K" sound without the Chinese "eeeeeeh" at the end.

"Now watch my mouth!"

"What did you say?"

Ready for class.

"Good morning!"

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PART 3 following soon about my high school teaching

Planning the new semester (part 1/3)

2011-03-15T21:54:00.004+08:00

Last year I stopped posting when my job got too busy. My schedule is getting busier and busier at the moment, and to prevent me from ceasing all bog activities again, I decided it would be nice to write a little update on my weekly activities. There are quite a few people that can't make out what I actually do for a living when they read this blog, and that's a little silly.

As was probably already vaguely known, I teach English. I do this parttime at various locations in and outside Kunming. I do 30 hours of teaching a week, with 15 hours of commuting and 10 hours of lesson preparation. Currently I fill up the majority of my free time with studying, writing and sports.

Right from the moment I arrived in Kunming I started to work as a teacher. As I was new in the teaching scene here, completely unexperienced and unqualified, and not even a native speaker, I started working for some shady and untrustworthy employers. Sometimes my pride was put to the test as people hired me just to showcase a foreigner, no matter what the blonde monkey was going to do. Despite some of those discouraging and embarrassing situations, I soon developed a passion for the work and put all my energy and resources into it to produce the best possible results. My value as a teacher went up and while keeping firm grip on the fruitful and stimulating contacts, I systematically got rid of the rotten apples among them.

My first lesson ever taught was to a bunch of about fifty pure adrenaline driven primary school kids and completely unexpected. Me and my employer took the cab to the school and I remember that I was trying to make it as sure as possible that I was just coming in to see how the old teacher was organizing the classes and to get some insight into the materials. When we arrived at the school, however, the old teacher was nowhere to be seen. "Ok," said my employer. "Seems like you're gonna have to introduce yourself to the kids." The tremendous bluffing about years of experience working with big groups of children had suddenly made my options surprisingly limited. I was hammering myself cartoonishly on the head in my imagination when I walked through those corridors that lasts moments, desperately trying to come up with something exciting to tell those little bastards. From then on, I knew: Always have a backup plan. Never just rely on the situation. It were 40 long minutes, but I turned out to have made a reasonable impression on the class and my employer.

Some of the little devils in that first class. (May 2008)

Slightly later I started working with a group of adults that were working for a local branch of a German company. I came to their offices twice a week and offered a course on practical business English, so that they would get better in communicating with their German colleagues. We got to know each other pretty well and it was a great learning experience for both them and me.

Barbara, Echo, Kalen, Lena and me at Kurz. (September 2008)

With my initial teaching experience being mostly with adults and smart high school kids, I wasn't eager at all to start teaching small kids. I considered rationality a crucial part of the fun that I had when teaching and I didn't think toddlers would be interesting or fun to work with at all. However strong this feeling was, for some reason I ended up in a classroom with them anyhow. The people seemed nice and the pay was well above average. I could at least give it a try... The first lesson went worse than that first lesson with those primary school kids. During the 10 minutes they gave me everything that could go wrong went wrong. I stunned the kids with drawing a map of Holland on the blackboard and asking them far too rational questions like: "What kind of animals do they have in Holland?" "Do you take the bicycle to school like the people in Holland?" Even my juggling tricks to save the tense and distracted atmosphere didn't have any positive effect. I was very lucky that they decided to give me a chance anyway. After a few difficult and almost desperate weeks, patient coaching of the professional teaching staff slowly made me realize what was important when teaching toddlers. Gradually I started to experiment with crucial matters like timing, small kids humor, energy balancing and simplicity.

Currently, half the work I do is in Kindergartens. I teach an estimated 1000 toddlers a week. Every morning I start in a class with a bunch those freshly awoken bundles of energy and I now find it amazingly stimulating and interesting. Once I learned the ropes, everything turned for the better and the children and me were able to establish some kind of mutually beneficial bond. A big part of my task consists of clowns performance to keep the children happy and let them know that learning a language is fun and contact with a foreigner is nothing to be afraid of. As classes can get as big as 80, tight management of the energy levels in the group is of the utmost importance. It is something that I experiment with everyday. You can have a weak energy the whole class which isn't fun for either party. You also shouldn't hype the children up too much, for they will get burned out soon and probably after the first five minutes their energy will start to drift in all possible directions as it will not be able anymore to maintain a steady focus. Or it can be just enough, resulting in focussed children that enjoy themselves and absorb material at the same time. This is quite a thin line and makes me develop a great deal of useful intuition.

+++

PART 2 following soon with lots of photographs of the kindergarten teaching

Serge Christophe accompagné par Henri Debs et Son Combo - On Bel Ti Chatt'

2011-03-12T09:45:00.003+08:00

I've been awfully busy again and didn't have time to post anything or to react to any of the kind and thoughtful comments. I will do that as soon as possible. In the meantime, please listen to this great tune uploaded by Naim. It has a great spring feeling and I listen to it all the time. Actually naim's profile at soundcloud showcases many great tunes that he recorded from his precious 45 collection. Please go there, enjoy the great music and leave some comments. Stay tuned...

Serge Christophe accompagné par Henri Debs et Son Combo - On Bel Ti Chatt' by Naïm

Anarchy in China (part1)

2011-02-28T12:03:00.005+08:00

on the lawlessness and irrationality of Chinese logistics

“Hey, where did you learn to drive, you fool?” “Where do you think you are going, you shitfaced moron?!” “GET OUT OF THE WAAAAAAY!” A-social and irrational traffic behaviour is indisputably one of the most frustrating phenomena that I have to put up with living in China. Let it be clear; I taught myself from the beginning to use my native Dutch when I blurt out my grotesque and sometimes unjustified fulminations pointed at people involved in the ridiculously destructive traffic situations around me. Although the Chinese tend to be far from macho personalities up for the good old all-settling street fight, I still think it's better to avoid any unnecessary provocations. Let's have a look at how and why some people in China tend to make logistic decisions that completely contrast and downplay all the existing rules (written and unwritten) regarding safety, other people in general and above all; common sense.

I guess I would generally be considered as a relatively peace-loving and reasonable fellow who wouldn't judge people's behaviour without a fair reason. Whenever I'm participating in traffic, however, my alter ego awakes. I would never resort to any physical violence. But even the most secular person with only the slightest understanding of Dutch words would probably develop serious moral objections cycling next to me. Whenever I feel there is only the slightest injustice being suffered by me on my bike, I resort to the most horrific and shallow name-calling imaginable. I just can't help myself. And this is all the more true for Chinese traffic. Cars honking their way on the wrong side of the road through crowded bicycle lanes, Sunday drivers swaying slowly from lane to lane deliberately slowing down anybody else behind them, people cruising red and getting stuck to gridlock everybody who has a green light, people bluntly beaming their blinding fog lights in your face in the middle of brightly illuminated city streets, the list goes on; and it just keeps on firing me up.

Kunming traffic

Admittedly, as I only have the experience of living in Kunming, I can't really speak for the whole of China. Although I doubt it, people in the north might be far more alert and social drivers. But let's take Kunming as a representative example for the rest of the country. The Yunnanese are regarded as very laid-back and slow-paced by people from other provinces. If this is assumption is true, it seems to have a disastrous effect on the people's mentality in traffic. Driving trainers take their students to provincial roads and approvingly sit next them while they create massive traffic jams by driving fifteen kilometres an hour staring mindlessly concentrated at the road surface in front of them. After a few of those “lessons”, they are presented with their license and declared ready to take on the congested city streets. Those incompetent driving trainers are a result of a massive private car owning boom of the recent years. It hasn't been easy to cater to this sudden ambition of China's new rich middle class to own and drive their own cars while the only drivers that were known in their parents' time were drivers of buses, trucks or some agricultural vehicles like the tuolaji.

Another noticeable problem in Kunming that is probably shared by other new booming agglomerates is a narrow road system that is lagging behind the economical developments that result in more car usage. A few Chinese mega cities successfully dodged the bullet by swift anticipation. But a good share of them find themselves in the position where it will only be harder to recover the longer they wait or take missteps in their logistical planning. Situations in other giant Asian cities like Manila, Bangkok or Jakarta spring to mind. Corruption obviously plays an integral part here. In Kunming we owe our cramped streets for a big part to the former vice mayor Hu Xing (胡星). Mister Hu was responsible for the development of the Kunming road network and reportedly took 40 million Yuan in bribes without developing much roads. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2007 after a short disappearance to Singapore. Often, the Chinese government deserves credit for their courageous and effective decision making that obviously benefits the bustling country. But some developments are just not easy to foresee and react to with infrastructural projects that often take years or even decades. And you never know how many cases like Hu Xing's never surfaced.

Comrade Hu Xing being handcuffed in court

Finally, this nightmarish traffic story is a result of some kind of super strong anarchistic spirit that the Chinese possess. I recall an anarchistic Belgian friend of mine with somewhat extreme views once saying: “I hate China and the Chinese people. They just blindly follow their government and obey rules. They are the opposite of true anarchists [like me].” Since then I have been closely listening to people making incorrect assumptions about China, but never really heard one that was so totally wrong in its absolute completeness. Although it is true that Chinese people are subject to a mighty totalitarian government, they certainly don't tend to obey rules. This defiance is reflected in traffic situations in which stand-offs between traffic police officers and rule defying drivers are very common. Most people treat the officer like he is their 4 year-old nephew with a whistle in his mouth. People in China bend, ignore or ridicule the rules much more than most people would expect. Some branches of the police are wholly disrespected and bluntly cold-shouldered. Although Chinese people might generally be seen by many Westerners as law abiding, Politburo-fearing people, they are very true anarchists in their own special way.

Currently they are building a new subway system in Kunming. So with the most important roads partly closed off we are suffering for a few years to make everything better in the future. And although the car ownership boom is likely to stay soaring for another while, the amount of mountain bike riders is also massively increasing. To be honest, I'm somebody who just has a passion for cursing. Also when I participate in traffic outside China, I see some kind of art in it. I'll live. A big factor in the improvement of the situation, though, has to do with the Chinese willingness to respect written and unwritten traffic rules. The longer I live in China, the more I realise that this anarchism is a crucial realisation in understanding the country. The examples are all around us. Very often you hear foreign businessmen complaining about Chinese employees who refuse to work according to certain rules. Just open any book on China's booming monster economy and read about an economic system that is largely built on the notion of short-cutting or leap-frogging around certain rules. This notion is obviously material for a later post, depending on your enthusiasm and my schedule.

Kunming - Vientiane - Kunming 2011 - Itinerary

2011-02-21T17:44:00.013+08:00

Initially I was planning to post a boring, dry and technical account of my trip and then tell some stories later. The stories will follow in the coming week(s) and please stay tuned. But as I planned I will first post this itinerary. My first draft was very boring and uninteresting so I added some pictures. But please don't think those pictures are in any way representative for the great time that I had on my trip. As I said, I am allergic to cameras especially when the moments are most memorable. I tried to take a few during the trip with blogging plans in mind, but it still is a meager attempt with a shabby result. Despite this, I hope it will make it a little bit more exciting. Real stories and thoughts will follow soon, first this practical summary.

KUNMING - VIENTIANE - KUNMING (2011)

Day 1 Sat 15 Jan

Kunming - Tonghai

Dist: 155 km
Cycled: 8 hours 30
Avg: 18,3 km/h Max: 50km/h
Weather: 4'C Snow
Terrain: Hilly with no real climbing

On the first day after a 100 kilometers. Wearing nearly all my clothes.

Day 2 Sun 16 Jan

Tonghai - Shiping

Dist: 120 km
Cycled: 7 hours
Avg: 17,1 km/h Max: 50km/h
Weather: 10'C Fog, rain
Terrain: Hilly with one 15 km climb

This road was an involuntary detour of around 40 kilometers.

Day 3 Mon 17 Jan

Shiping - Honghe

Dist: 85 km
Cycled: 4 hours 30
Avg: 18,7 km/h Max: 50 km/h
Weather: 10'C Rain, heavy wind and thunderstorms.
Terrain: 50 km descent and 15 km heavy climb

The clouds that caused the rain and muddy roads during my descent

Day 4 Tue 18 Jan

Honghe - Lüchun

BUS
Dist: 200 km
Time: 7 hours

Approaching Lüchun.

Day 5 Wed 19 Jan

REST

Resting in the charming town of Lüchun, drying my clothes and sitting around the fire with the friendly old lady that was running the guesthouse, eating delicious mountain honey. This is a silly snapshot from my balcony.

Day 6 Thu 20 Jan

Lüchun - Jiangcheng

BUS
Dist: 200 km
Time: 6 hours

Day 7 Fri 21 Jan

Jiangcheng - Mengla

BUS
Dist: 215 km
Time: 6 hours 30

The bus Jiangcheng - Mengla with my bike on top.

Day 8 Sat 22 Jan

Mengla - Roadside 40 km from China-Lao border

Dist: 110 km
Cycled: 6 hours 30
Avg: 16,9 km/h Max: 47 km/h
Weather: hot
Terrain: Hilly

The first time camping in an old shack with some chickens as my roommates.

Day 9 Sun 23 Jan

Oudomxay - Vientiane

BUS
Dist: 650 km
Time: 18 hours

Day 10 - Day 21 - Monday 24 Jan - Friday 4 Feb VIENTIANE

Day 22 Sat 5 Feb

Vientiane - Toutan village

Dist: 103 km
Cycled: 5 hours
Avg: 20,5 km/h Max: 52 km/h
Terrain: Flat/slightly hilly

Day 23 Sun 6 Feb

Toutan village - Kasi

Dist: 105 km
Cycled: 5 hours 30
Avg: 18,9 km/h Max: 52
Terrain: Hilly

I was getting more resourceful in picking good camping spots, like this one at the side of a river a few kilometers outside Kasi.

Day 24 Mon 7 Feb

Kasi - small village near Pho Kham

Dist: 100 km
Cycled: 6 hours 30
Avg: 15 km/h Max: 54 km/h
Terrain: Mountainous, climbed for approximately 70 km

During the 70 kilometer climb.

The camping place I found at the edge of the village was totally amazing. The picture made by this crappy photographer pulling out his I-phone doesn't show you the stunning view into the valley from the hammock. Unfortunately I was only able to record that in my memory.

Day 25 Tue 8 Feb

Pho Kham - Luang Prabang

Dist: 87 km
Cycled: 4 hours 15
Avg: 20,4 km/h Max: 56 km/h
Terrain: Started with big descent, afterwards hilly

Day 26 Wed 9 Feb

Luang Prabang - Hatgna

Dist: 30 km
Cycled: 1 hour 30
Avg: 20 km/h Max: 42
Terrain: Slightly hilly

The perfect way to hang the hammock, I was getting good at this.

Day 27 Thu 10 Feb

Hatgna - Wanghin

Dist: 100 km
Cycled: 5 hours
Avg: 19,1 km/h Max: 54
Terrain: Hilly

The sun started killing me in Lao. Naturally, instead of buying a sturdy jungle hat, the only model I could find was this silly one that is usually worn by babies.

Day 28 Fri 11 Feb

Wanghin - Oudomxay

Dist: 80 km
Cycled: 5 hours 15
Avg: 15,1 Max: 48
Terrain: Mountains with some significant climbing

Day 29 Sat 12 Feb

Oudomxay - Shanggang

Dist: 115 km ( cycled: 70 km, walked: 20 km, hitchhiked: 25 km)

Crappy dust road in Northern Lao (currently getting repaired by the Chinese). This is just before I crossed the border into China with a broken back wheel.

Day 30 Sun 13 Feb

Shanggang - Jinghong

BUS
Dist: 180 km
Time: 3 hours 30

Day 31 Mon 14 Feb

Jinghong - Menghai - Jinghong

Dist: 120 km
Cycled: 7 hours
Avg: 16,5 km/h Max: 43
Terrain: Hilly

The bike with lighter packing for the day trip to Menghai.

Day 32 Tue 15 Feb

Jinghong - Lüchun

BUS
Dist: 400 km
Time: 10 hours

The Mekong river in early morning Jinghong.

Day 33 Wed 16 Feb

Lüchun - Xiaowengbangcun

Dist: 115 km
Cycled: 5 hours 30
Avg: 19,5 km/h Max: 54 km/h
Terrain: Mountainous, mostly descending

Lüchun's main street by sunrise.

Friendly lads that invited me over for lunch.

Passenger transport by "tuolaji". Obviously the worst moment to time this picture as it is probably the least crowded one.

The bike with full packing.

Countryside halfway through the descent, just before riding into the banana fields.

Day 34 Thu 17 Feb

Xiaowengbangcun - Jinping

Dist: 83 km
Cycled: 6 hours
Avg: 13,7 km/h Max: 54 km/h
Terrain: Starting hilly with a tough 40 km climb at the end

Beautiful trees carrying bright orange flowers instead of leaf. They are quite plentiful but unfortunately I don't know their names. I've been told their Chinese name but forgotten just as quickly.

Day 35 Fri 18 Feb

Jinping - Manhao

Dist: 80 km
Cycled: 5 hours
Avg: 15,5 km/h Max: 45 km/h
Terrain: 20 km climb at the start, afterwards a long descent

Climbing out of Jinping (into a layer of icy foggy rain clouds).

Day 36 Sat 19 Feb

Manhao - Gejiu

Dist: 90 km
Cycled: 7 hours
Avg: 13,4 km/hour Max: 64 km/hour
Terrain: Massive climb all the way

40 kilometers of dirt road steeply ascending. The last day of biking was definitely the toughest.

The last picture of the bike resting against a village name sign, with the photographers right index finger blocking nearly 20 percent of the lens.

Day 37 Sun 20 Feb

Gejiu - Kunming

BUS
Dist: 270 km
Time: 4 hours 30

TOTAL:

25 days of traveling (3800 kilometers)

Traveled by bicycle: 1650 kilometers in 100 hours (17 days)
Traveled by bus: 2150 kilometers in 60 hours (8 days)

Maps:

Red lines represent cycling, blue lines are trips by bus.

Map 1 (Day 1 - 6)

Kunming - Tonghai - Shiping - Honghe - Lüchun - Jiangcheng

Map 2 (Day 7 - 9)

Jiangcheng - Mengla - Oudomxay [- Vientiane]

Map 4 (Day 22 - 28)

Vientiane - Kasi - Pho Kham - Luang Prabang - Oudomxay

Map 5 (Day 29 - 35)

Oudomxay - Shanggang - Mengla - Jinghong - Menghai - Jinghong - Jiangcheng - Lüchun - Jinping - Manhao

Map 5 (Day 36 - 37)

(Jiangcheng - Lüchun - Jinping -) Manhao - Gejiu - Kunming

I'm back!

2011-02-21T09:50:00.005+08:00

Hi everyone,

It's been a year now since I last posted something on my blogs. A year of unexpected silence in which an awful lot has happened. While I was in the middle of some blogging activities March 2010, I suddenly got caught up in a very busy and serious schedule at work, and all of a sudden I was left without time to summon the inspiration or the courage to catch up with current events in blog posts. And then it was silent.

Anyway, today I decided to break the silence with some posts about my latest trip through Yunnan and Lao by bicycle. This might be a possibility for a more consistent kind of blogging in the near future. Which would create a trusting readership coming back for more and commenting where excited. I hope so.

I scanned my computer for some representative pictures of last year. Unfortunately I seem to have become almost allergic to any electrical device that comes close to resembling a camera, especially in special or memorable circumstances. As a result, that makes me completely dependent on others taking pictures of my life and sending them to me.

Well, although it might be a bit parsimonious, I managed to select a few.

This one shows me and Ben fully equipped on my motorcycle.

Here I'm teaching some kids using the "English Boxing Position" (never to underestimate)...

In this one you see me and Daniel during our "DJ Agbadza and his Voodoodrummer"-act.

This is me during a small stop over on a road trip I made with Jolieke to Jianshui.

This is me drinking tea with my good friend He Qijun (on the right) and some other guests.

oh, that silly Chinese...

2010-02-11T13:50:00.005+08:00

Hi,

Today I launched a new blog with some writings in Dutch. The plan is to post consistently on a weekly basis. I don't expect the regularity of the posts here on Furankufunku to be affected.

Take a look if you're interested!

All the best,

New posts following soon!

The French Revolution in Reverse

2010-01-30T15:04:00.006+08:00

One of the unmistakable pillars of the 'modern western world' is the right of the people engage in a democratic system. They vote for their leaders and more and more often vote for political decisions participating in referendums. Obviously, there are various problems with maintaining such a system. Apart from the tendency of the people to vote for people who are obviously not serving the interest of their country, they also tend to fiercely oppose certain measures that will most definitely improve their situation. Why does the failing cooperation of the voters so often stand in the way of successful decision-making? Why is this system so often tackled by one of its own main principles, namely the fruitful engagement of its voters?

Why do people often vote against their interest?

And what to do to avoid this kind of unnecessary argle-bargle getting in the way of the interest of the country?

Trouble on two wheels and a wedding in Jianshui

2010-01-28T14:16:00.018+08:00

The plan was to meet everybody in Jianshui for the wedding of mr. Wang. Me, Tim, Ben and Elise in one car; in the other Luo Bu, his wife, Leon and James. In Jianshui we were supposed to meet my old friend Stephan, who had lived in Vietnam for over 6 months. We hadn't seen each other for about 6 years now, and as I had instructed him over e-mail to come to Jianshui and meet us all at the wedding, we were up for a truly memorable reunion.

At the dinner table: left to right; Tim, Luobu and his wife, James, Leon, Elise, Ben and me.

Jianshui has a very charming old city center and one of China's largest and most significant Confucian temples. Perfectly suitable for a Sunday stroll...

The wedding was some experience... The groom was the son of the local Godfather of Jianshui. Already in Kunming I was picking up rumors about the 'more than one thousand people' that would be attending the main dinner on Sunday. The groom and his father were running an influential automobile company and were widely respected. Over the years, Wang Senior had been very successful in winning the sympathy of the government and therefore he was now a raging alcoholic, spreading his wisdom and fueling up from table to table, and frequently bursting out in trembling roars of laughter. He was very well respected. His appearance was typical for many of the successful businessmen of his generation. After Deng Xiaoping launched his 'Four Modernizations' many of them had profited greatly from the fact that some of the privileges previously only in the hands of officials, were suddenly 'for sale', supposedly in the name of economic reform. Hence, with China's well known relation-economics and the taste for wild partying of Chinese officials in mind, his entrepreneurial successes were almost solely a result of his ability to drink 'baijiu' (the infamous alcoholic drink in China that contains 52% alcohol) and by doing so befriending the right officials at the right time. The company, that his son is soon to be taking over, is structured in the same (relation-economical) way. Family members were driving around in 4-wheel drive Porches with many of them filling up questionable positions within the company. Any economical analyst would tell you that financially and organizationally, the whole thing is utterly unsustainable.

Their hospitality was incredibly warm...

As we were the last table, Mr. Wang's speeches were deep and outspoken.

Cheering with the happily married couple.

Accordingly to Chinese customs, we were taken to the couple's new house to get shown around.

Some heavy gambling going on in the living room.

After the wedding I had plans driving through the region with my freshly purchased old farmers' motorbike. Unfortunately these would only stay plans. Although I had spent 5 weeks trying to confirm the bike's status over and over again to ensure our trip, when we arrived in Mile they were still fiddling on it. On top of that, when they got it running and I told them about my plans to drive to Yuanyang the next morning, they shook their heads and informed me of a missing number plate, which would disable us from driving out of Mile district. A was furious. After a lot of meddling that only led to frustration after frustration, we decided to take the bus to some nearby cities, to go and play over there. We did go out with the motorbike one afternoon, reluctantly only staying within the district.

Got it running; in the background you can see my school.

As you might notice, an enormous drought has hit Yunnan. We drove some seriously dusty roads.

Playing majiang smoking the Yunnanese bong.

A park in Mengzi.

The gatekeeper.

Mengzi is one of the best places to eat fermented ('stinky') tofu.

Gejiu, one of my favorite cities...

Back to the news

2010-01-25T12:28:00.004+08:00

After some unique get togethers, some funny playing, and slight disappointments in Honghe Zhou (one of my favorite districts in Yunnan, Mile is part of Honghe Zhou), I'm happy to be back in Kunming for the Monday news.

To set the atmosphere, I'd like to start with a small quote from Fareed Zakaria's article in Newsweek:

Will China's new attitude cost it in economic terms? Perhaps. Certainly many scholars, like Carnegie's Minxin Pei, argue that the tensions between China's authoritarian regime and its economic ambitions are growing as the economy and society modernize. [Google CEO] Schmidt argues that limiting information and communications cannot produce the kind of economic growth, creativity, and productivity that China seeks in the long run. But whether or not that is true, one thing is becoming clear: while the Internet is changing China, China is also changing the Internet. And while globalization has shaped China, China is also shaping globalization.

Although I don't necessarily agree with Zakaria, this little alinea makes up for a lot.

You can also indulge yourself upon a classical attempt of the Chinese propaganda system to distort the facts into their advantage at the Global Times (one of the English language Chinese newspapers). In this article it's so painfully obvious that the writer is just blindly wrestling around for foothold, unsuccessfully attempting to establish some connections between his utterly ridiculous points and the actual facts...

Anybody curious about the actual internet situation in China please read this post on Chinayouren

To be continued...

On the escalating state of China's information policy

2010-01-14T15:09:00.010+08:00

“Our country’s Internet situation is unique. Compared to all kinds of restrictions in foreign countries, China has the most open Internet in the world.”

«我国互联网形态有特殊性。相对于国外的各种限制，中国的互联网是全世界最开放的。»
- Zhou Xisheng (周锡生) Deputy Chief of Xinhua News Agency, Director-General of Xinhua News Net.

From notes taken at the ninth session of the 2009 SCIO Internet News Work Training Session.

***

We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China’s economic reform programs and its citizens’ entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

Posted by David Drummond, Google's Senior Vice President for Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

***

"This is a lose-lose solution for both Google and China,"

Hu Yong of Beijing University's School of Journalism and Communication.

So many voices in this fresh debate. Is it a bluff? Is it likely they're gonna leave? Won't they do it out of business considerations? Here is James Fallows' first reaction, which is definitely worth a read. Primarily, let's all hope for the best...

To be continued...

Red power: Don't fuck about!

2010-01-03T14:15:00.008+08:00

China's current blocking of blogspot.com, with me sweating to work my way around this block using slow VPN's and proxies, might as well just provoke me to write something 'liberal reactionary rightist', as Mao's wife Jiang Qing would have called it...

With both Chinese and world media being absorbed by stories speculating about China's might compared to that of the United States, an unhealthy wave of arrogance sweeps the Chinese policy makers, who have been illustrating this with a straight forward don't fuck about-attitude.

With the further tightening of China's internet control being an obvious fact during the months that I have been away, I can still consider myself lucky. If I would have lived in China's restive western province of Xinjiang, I would have had to put up with a total disappearance of anything that in a far, echoing past was called 'the world wide web'. In Xinjiang they have lived without any digital contact with the outside world for over the past 6 months now, and only speculative voices are attempting to estimate for how long this chastity belt is going to be left on. Don't fuck about! Read all about on this blog.

Speaking about Xinjiang and their much hated Uighurs; just before Thailand exports some needy Hmong refugees back to Laos, where they obviously will be in unimaginable trouble, China cuts short a shady deal with Cambodia. 22 Uighurs, who felt too intimidated by all the violence in their west Chinese province and had fled to Cambodia, were suddenly deported back to China, awaiting severe punishment. What happened? Does the Chinese foreign office own Cambodia's immigration policy? A day after the deportation the Chinese vice president Xi Jinping visited Cambodia and the reasons became clear soon enough. China, being already the top foreign investor in the weak and fragile Cambodia, came with great investment promises. 'The Uighurs were being deported because it was determined they entered the country illegally', Cambodian foreign ministry spokesman Koy Kuong stated.

Having gone to the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong suit case, a mentally deficient cab driver from north London was executed last Tuesday for entering the capital of Xinjiang with four kilos of heroin in his bag. According to his family the man was lured into the crime with promises of a career as a pop singer. Although it might be noted as a bit peculiar that this person ended up to make his way from north London to enter western China carrying a significant load of narcotics, it quite is a harsh sentence. Although they should have prevented their feeble minded brother from traveling and being able to carry out crimes like this, the family's pleas for any kind of mercy could have at least been taken in consideration. Triggering a giant anger wave through the British media, he got a lethal injection on Tuesday. Don't fuck about!

'China presents it's Christmas presents'; 'China puts more people to death than all other nations combined'; 'China doesn't show mercy for mentally ill drug mule'; it resonated through the English press. With comparisons of this British attempted interference with the Opium Wars being made daily in every newspaper, the Chinese aren't less furious. When I brought up the subject at work, my Chinese students were all ensuring me of the fact that mr. Shaikh was a spy. 'The problems are deeper than you think, it's a dirty political game by the British.' I didn't even want to imagine what the Chinese press had been telling them. Secretly disappointed I told them with a smile that he would have been a horribly unsuccessful spy ending up on the Chinese death row for drug smuggling charges.

Yet there was reason for even more anger. On Christmas day, a two hour trial in Beijing ruled to put one of the country's most prominent dissidents behind bars for 11 years. Having had some earlier judicial problems, Liu Xiaobo's peaceful dissent had been hesitatingly permitted. But having established some platform for unpunished individual criticism, Chinese dissidents still have to count on being charged for 'inciting subversion' when they try to organize their nonconformity. Liu was jailed right after launching a petition called charter 08, which pleaded for more human rights, freedom of speech, a dismantling of the Communist party and other bold outcries. The western media was once again outraged.

David M. Lampton, director of China studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: "Somehow the administration signaled to the Chinese that we need them more than they need us. We're in the role of the supplicant."

With the Obama administration maneuvered in a vulnerable position opting for closer ties at times of their economical decline, we might be up for some heavy misunderstandings in the near future. Now the United States, being used to dictate the legitimacy of world affairs, decided to sell F-16s to Taiwan and provide the Dalai Lama with a warm welcome on his next visit, they might be wary of the Chinese reaction. Having the futile deal in Copenhagen (where only a deputy foreign affairs minister showed up from Chinese side) in mind, the Americans obviously hope for the best. They still need a lot of cooperation from the Chinese in consideration to Iran, North Korea and economical restructuring.

...to be continued...

Always welcome to tell us what you think, only one click to post a comment!

Reviving Soul Music

2010-01-03T13:12:00.006+08:00

Today, while listening to a record called Bill 'Ravi' Harris and the Prophets - Funky Sitar Man (1997), I stumbled upon some interesting information. The album, which you can download here for as long as it lasts, is a groovy piece of soulful world music covering James Brown (the Meters, JB's) using a sitar.

I found out that a bass player called Gabriel Roth had something to do with releasing the album. Gabriel Roth is the co-founder of Daptone Records, a label which has a fair share in keeping the musical spirit represented by vynil records alive. The label works to stretch the lifespan of original raw soul music and currently even releases some contemporary Afro Beat (the infamous Budos Band).

Gabriel Roth's musical view, which for a significant part is shared by me, is explained in this New York Times article. It illustrates his tiring efforts to keep an enormous distance from the mainstream music industry, while keeping real music alive. A real inspiring and interesting read!

Roth plays the bass in Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings. You all know their music for they produced the instumentals on Amy Winehouse's 2007 Back to Black album. Funny to read how Roth hangs his platina album just next to the downstairs toilet and is constantly averting assumptions that he has anything to do with Winehouse.

Reading the article, I recalled some fun memories attending a Dap-Kings concert in Leuven, where I was summoned on the stage by Sharon Jones. The picture below shows Roth, Jones and Binky Griptite from right to left, surrounded by other members of the Dap Kings and members of the Budos Band.

曲靖

2009-12-30T15:33:00.005+08:00

A week and a half ago, a good friend of mine took me to the city of Qujing. Qujing is situated some 150 kilometers north east of Kunming. The trip was very spontaneous, as I just phoned to watch a movie and an hour later I was sitting in the train. We were off to meet up with mister Yang, who recently moved from Kunming to Qujing. I was told that some more people from Kunming were also on their way. Mister Yang used to open a restaurant in Kunming and was now working as a chef in a typical imperial style Chinese kitchen. The food we had was close to the best Chinese food I've ever had. The feast was accompanied by some glasses of the infamous Chinese white spirit (Bai Jiu), and immensely stuffed and slightly tipsy, we made our usual way into the KTV. It was a typical Chinese evening out.

Unfortunately there are only pictures taken before and after. I just wanted to share the footage of me sitting in the train on the way to Qujing, and me the next freezing morning in front of the Qujing station.

Yi zu music

2009-12-25T16:24:00.007+08:00

With only me and the woman of the fish restaurant next door dancing crazily, my Afrofunk party in Mile was a reasonable success. With people regularly not being used to the complex genius of the West African rhythms, it was not the first time I encountered timidity on the dance floor. Anyway, I will keep on trying till everybody agrees it is the best music ever made.

Last week, my friends in Mile were up for surprising me with an unexpected musical discovery. They kept on playing a CD with some songs by Chinese Yi minority people. The singing and traditional instruments are supported by some modern beats. Obviously the producer is influenced by reggae. It has a sort of Celtic feeling and some Indian influences here and there. Not only catchy, also interesting. The only thing I know about it (I copied it from a copied CD with no label) is that the music comes from Yi minority people.

Tell me what you think about it, and please inform me when the link stops working; it has a limit of 10 downloads...

DOWNLOAD YI MINORITY MUSIC！

UPDATE: I actually found out that it were some foreigners playing with the traditional Yi minority singers. Anyway, I didn't get any comments so you probably think it's no big deal.

Christian Korean schooling abroad

2009-12-24T11:31:00.008+08:00

Since I decided to lead a double life working partly in Kunming and partly in Mile, with the big group of particularly socially active Chinese friends filling the gaps in between, I didn't have much time to sit down and keep a reflection going. The next couple of days, though, I will be able to share some moments and discoveries.

On the whole, the job in Mile is pretty satisfying. For the two and a half days a week that I am around my salary is quite high, and most of the classes are fun. Though, the notion of the twenty something Korean high school students situated in Mile didn't become less awkward. The principal is a timid, paranoia and ferociously Christian Korean woman with a son and a daughter attending the classes in the school. She has been running Korean middle schools in different places in China for about ten years and promotes the schooling abroad to the parents in Korea as an opportunity for the kids to learn Chinese in a Chinese environment. But for several reasons the kids are not able to acquire any affinity or touch with this Chinese environment. First of all, the principal has not been able to establish a healthy working relation with the Chinese part of the school. So there are no classes shared with the Chinese students. Thus also on the campus, there is hardly any interaction between the students of both countries. On top of that, being very afraid of the "H1N1 thread", she is reluctant to let the children go into town, except for a boring weekly visit to the bakery on Sundays. They are barred from going to any other establishment, including the very popular visits to the internet cafe. This ban is partly a result of personal paranoia, partly of some typical Koreans prejudices against the Chinese, which are being imposed upon the children on a daily basis.

When I asked the children about what they thought about the school, they were in the best case lukewarm. They considered it strange, boring and stressful to be here. Although the classes are generally lively and fun, most of the children are skeptical about the schools organization and very eager to get back to Korea. Less lively and fun are the classes I have with the principal's daughter on Wednesdays and Thursdays. She is an immensely gloomy and socially backwards seventeen year old with no intention to communicate with anybody whatsoever. My classes, focused at improvisation, courage and creativity when learning a language, are the worst thing that could have happened to her. With my countless attempts to break the ice all in vain, the classes have an increasingly cold and grim atmosphere. I basically keep on asking her very easy questions about life, and with her keeping to refuse answering, this only results in awkward silences for minutes on end.

Me: 'Good morning! How are you doing?'
-Awkward silence for a minute or two-
Me: 'So, do you like any music?'
She (mumbling): 'No.'
Me: 'But you go and play the piano every break, what about that then?'
She (mumbling): 'I hate it.'

When I ask her if she wants to do something else during our lessons instead, she just repeats her catchphrase; 'I don't care.'

Obviously, I have to put away with some pretty straightforward frustrations during the long and painful 3 hours a week I have to teach her. But I have to remember not to be angry at her. She is shaped like this by her mother. It has been more than ten years now that she has been kept in a country she obviously doesn't have any affection with. Apart from that, her mother and her at some point for mysterious reasons figured it would be for the best that she got her personal classroom. With no regular contact with the other students, she has had the chance to cultivate the most introverted and creepy attitude you can imagine. And on top op that, she just hit puberty... Last Thursday I was lucky. She hates me and my classes so much that she just didn't show up. I'm trying to see my efforts as a challenge, but was actually quite relieved counting the minutes away in my office, reading the newspaper the whole morning.

Apart from some other frustrations regarding the phenomenally indirect and one-way communication methods that characterize the principal, me and my colleague are enjoying our time with the classes. With the oldest bunch I have quite lively discussions about the death penalty, educational systems and even drugs. As I have some contacts in town, we decided to try to get around the principals Swine Flu warnings and arrange a Chinese weekend for the kids, in which I will mobilize my friends to arrange a fried fish lunch (Guizhou style, with Sichuan peppers and cumin) and a Chinese tea ceremony lesson. Maybe we will have to do this after the five weeks winter break starting January the 8th. As the principal was too timid to tell me in person that I would be out of work for more than a month, I had to pick this up from the students when I was planning some weekly speeches.

Settling in

2009-12-14T12:05:00.006+08:00

Since the last few weeks I've been back home here in Kunming. From the start I knew that I made the right decision coming back to this part of the world. People in Yunnan are incredible. Apart from reuniting with the friends here, I immediately started to look for housing and job opportunities. I found a job in Mile, some 150 kilometers south east of Kunming. Mile is famous for its natural hot springs, delicious chicken soup and open mindedness. I will commute from Kunming on Tuesday mornings and come back on Friday. The buses are not ideal, so I decided to look out for a motorbike so that I can drive myself. Since I don't have a drivers' license yet, I will have to blurt out a very American 'What's the problem, officer?' with a very naive look on my face when I get stopped by the police.

The job I found in Mile is in the international department of a school that was built by the exuberantly rich tobacco company of Honghe (the district's capital city), it is known as the best and most beautiful school of the area. After a brief get together in Kunming with the uncommunicative principal of the school, who appeared to be Korean, I decided to go to Mile and talk about details there. When I arrived in Mile, it appeared that the students also were Korean. I really wasn't expecting a group of about 20 something Korean high school kids living on the campus this school in Mile, but tried to act as normal as I could. They immediately offered me a room in the school and wanted me to start straight away. I told them that I first wanted to talk about some more details and that I had some business in Kunming the following days. When I was satisfied with the details, I decided to come back and start next week.

Mile is the hometown of some of the friends I made in Kunming last year. Coincidentally, one of them just opened a bar there. After finding out the details about the school, I took a look in his new place. It is a great space, with beautiful (Maoist) interior and space for a dance floor. So I decided to launch parties on a weekly basis to practice some DJ-ing. The parties are called “The Heartbeat of Music”, and they will surprise the open minds of Mile with a selection of 70's world music. When I arrive tomorrow, I will start spreading these flyers around for the party's first edition on Thursday.

The night before Kunming

2009-11-23T03:13:00.004+08:00

I can't sleep. After some unexpected island hopping from Taiwan to the Philippines and Hong Kong, the moment is finally there. Tomorrow I'll be back in Kunming after more than a year. And it's cold out there; at this moment Kunming is in the middle of probably its coldest winter of the last decade.

So now during my last night in my coffin-like hotel room in Kowloon I find myself restlessly listening to the same Chinese pop song over and over and thinking about how it will be to be back in my self proclaimed home town and reunite with the great friends there. Apart from being eager to dive back in the intense social circus of the city, other things also pop to mind. Will I be able to pull it off? I'll have to really do it now. Create a financial basis in another continent. I have lots of ideas and I will not be afraid to try any of them. The future will tell, and I'll try to keep you updated through this lovely medium.

There are obviously a lot more stories in the making about my previous 3 months of traveling. They will gradually appear. Here is a little map of the route I made.

We Are Burma

2009-11-14T12:38:00.004+08:00

Just want to remind everybody in Europe to keep their 12th of December free and move to Brussels to attend the 'We Are Burma' event. This event is partly organized by the NGO 'Blood Foundation' I mentioned earlier.

'We are burma' is an event that will bring together thinkers, social entrepreneurs, politicians, artists and media, to encourage individuals in their own small way to take responsibility for the situation in Burma.

For more information, please check out their website!

If you are around Brussels: GO!

Sex and the city-state

2009-11-10T09:34:00.014+08:00

The first time I came to Singapore had been a strange experience. The night before, in Kuala Lumpur, I almost didn't have any sleep. This made me somewhat edgy and sceptical about the things that were going on. I had already learned from different sources that it probably wasn't going to be my favorite city. Just before I left I even read a book about Singaporean dissidents, who accurately revealed their experiences with the Singaporean government. Many of them had in some way or another upset the ruling party, the PAP (People's Action Party), and payed a huge price for it. During their time in jail, various torture techniques were used to make them state that they were subversive communist terrorists on national television. This again illustrates the always shamelessly well streamlined connection to propaganda systems you notice when looking at totalitarian governments. A typical Singaporean torture technique was to make the victim stand naked in the middle of the room and let several air conditioning systems blow on the coldest mode. Here you see a modern convenience turned into a Medieval torture. Most of those 'subversive communist terrorists' were just some lawyers who tried to make the Singaporean system more humanitarian.

The leader and most important founder of the People's Action Party is Lee Kuan Yew. 'Harry Lee' was sent to an anglophone school by his father, a third-generation Chinese immigrant. Later he polished his English studying law in Cambridge. He came back to Singapore with 'Double Starred First Class Honours'. From different angles, Lee Kuan Yew can be considered as having an obsessed and severely twisted personality. From when his party won the elections in 1959 and Lee Kuan Yew acquired sole leadership in 1965, the city would never be the same.

We all know about Singapore's deeply neurotic cleanliness and safety policies. What I considered surprising being in the middle of it, is that there is almost no visible police present. The full week I spent in the place, I didn't see a single policeman. Apart from fanatic camera surveillance, I think the conformation to the general atmosphere of social responsibility of the Singaporeans plays a big part in filling this gap. I can't even recall how many times people came up to me to remind me - in a very polite way that made me think of Christian missionaries - that I would get a serious fine if I would carry on behaving the way I did.

One of the other significant but less well known signs of Lee Kuan Yew's neurose can be traced back to the strange and compulsive idea of 'Asianness'. He is an obsessed supporter of the idea of racial superiority. In his view, Chinese are a very strong race with excellently functioning glands. The Indians and Malay are less blessed, being used to 'an easier life in a milder climate'. He launched his 'Social Development Unit' to promote breeding between racially pure Chinese. He then confronted this newborn Übermensch with various campaigns to support them to speak pure Mandarin instead of the many regional dialects that were dominating the their ancestors' dinner tables of. This resulted in a generation of cosmopolitan anglophone Chinese businessmen who have a very weird and superficial idea about 'being Asian'. Seeing them streaming out of the anglophone Christian get-togethers on Sundays with their perfectly clean cut Sunday-clothed family members, will make you to picture scenes of them sitting by the Christmas tree or singing 'for he's a jolly good fellow...' on a friends birthday. I kept having the strong impression to be walking around in one big severely Christian boarding school. Singapore's cultural diversity was clearly streamlined into some strange post-colonial conformity with some Western values and artificial ideas about racial 'awareness'.

My hotel was in an area called Bugis. The recent history of Bugis is also typical for Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore. In the old days, the neighborhood had been a wild assemblage of drunk sailors and prostitutes and transvestites with countless ethnical backgrounds roaming the streets. Naturally, the place had been a poisonous thorn in the eye of Harry Lee from the very beginning. Not long after the start of his reign, the area was completely dismantled. It was not until the growing focus on tourism in the eighties that the government started to respond to some voices in the international media calling Singapore 'dull'. They decided to rebuild Bugis, but this time in the line of the technocratic PAP-mindset. In these sterile and efficient new buildings, prostitutes made way for tourists, shopping families and lunching businessmen. With its small land marked historical corners, it breathes the energy of the artificial atmosphere that you will find being forced upon you in theme parks.

Though, I knew, human beings will always look for a certain way out of any enforced ideas, even if it would only be temporary. In Singapore, some of the ways to do this are Christianity, shopping, good food and sex. This apparent urge to find 'a way out' and the enormous influence of Western sexual values led to Singapore being a place were you can sense a free sexual energy flowing around everywhere. As I witnessed in other places in Asia, the sexual relations were mostly determined by financial security. You can see some of the worlds (physically) most attractive women swinging out of Singaporean Porches. Others will find their way to the various bars and nightclubs. On a Saturday night you will see this places full of expats, young executives and sexy girls dressed in their finest on a quest to either drink lots of alcohol, or trying to hunt down the most appealing member of the opposite sex, or maybe both. Singapore is the only place in Asia were I was shocked to witness young couples French-kissing in the streets.

With my temporary lack of relativation on my first trip, I couldn't`t help from feeling sorry for this people, who are even being conformed in senses of their creativity. On one of my various strolls, I came across a juggler in some busy shopping district. His enthusiasm was contagious and he was very skillful, but he was clearly a Singaporean juggler. Wearing football shorts and a sweat band around his head, he was dancing to some nineties disco beats. Looking at him might lead you to consider juggling as a difficult to master kind of sports rather then a form of art. I smiled at him and dropped a dollar in his basket. I was imagining he had probably payed loads for his place on Orchard Road. When I was walking even further down this road, I was surprised by even another typical Singaporean event. After I had been able to make my way through the obviously entertained crowd of people, I saw some 15 brand new cars lined up on the sidewalk, having some groups of men leaning against them. I learned the details and as it turned out, they were indeed leaning against the cars to see who was the last one to give up. The one who could keep his right hand on the car the longest, could take it home. The longest man standing of last year lasted eighty one hours.

When I walked the illuminated camera surveilled streets later on, I couldn't keep from picturing Lee Kuan Yew rubbing his hands looking out over his personal creation in his unimaginable luxurious roof terrace somewhere. This man had been so successful. One of the first steps he took to make the city's economy so big was to let big companies install sweat shops in Singapore. From there it had just been expanding and expanding. And by successfully silencing his political opponents in his Potemkin-democracy, Lee Kuan Yew remains the most important political figure in the city-state till today. It is the only place in the world where a single man has had so much influence on the way it was shaped.

This first day in the city, a blind urge to pollute and vandalise the place were suppressible but clearly present. The next time I came, I was tempered a lot milder. After a month of only having contact with sexually drawn back Tellonesian women, I even considered going into the Singaporean Saturday night to join in on the fashionable hunting ceremony I described. Maybe it was the culture shock that withheld me from diving into it, maybe it just didn't feel like my thing. Instead I spent the nighttime hours in the Mustafa center in Little India drinking Chai with very friendly Pakistani gemstone merchants.

FOLLOWING SOON: 'The Boat Trip' and 'Natural Taiwanese Spirit'. Please stay tuned and possibly drop a comment.

The Koh - Some images

2009-11-05T12:58:00.006+08:00

A neighboring boy is looking out over the two containers in which the Koh keeps his crabs and crayfish at the back of the house.

The Koh sorting out the flesh of a recently slaughtered giant sea turtle. He had to tie up all the dogs to prevent them from snatching parts of his expensive merchandise.

Note that the pictured scene is not staged.

FOLLOWING SOON: Next post - 'Sex and the city-state'

The Koh

2009-11-02T21:20:00.008+08:00

The airport of the big north Sumatran city of Medan is not a cheerful place. I had used Medan as a sort of waiting lobby for a day and out of boredom I arrived in this soulless place far too early. I spent approximately an hour and a half in the waiting room of the departure gate. To polish the dim atmosphere I quickly installed my headphones and immediately the gloomy hall transformed into an interestingly familiar dance of passages. A Dutch couple and their daughter of around thirty came in and after some arguing they couldn't bring their bottle of water. In the first few moments following, the father of the family sat down trying to calm down. But he kept looking back and eventually wasn't able to swallow the injustice brought forth. Friendly but visibly agitated he walked up to the officers again and even grabbed one by the arm. Of course they strictly prevailed and the man had to walk back with a smile that was probably regularly shown to the colleague back at home he had had disagreements with. The three luggage control officers were unmistakably as bored as could be and the social climax of their evening was a switch of guard. After his joyful entrance, a fresh young man with slightly feminine movements swayed his way to the changing room. He came back in his carefully ironed white uniform and in the context of the mentioned ambiance in the Medanese airport hall this made me think of the first couple of steps you make on a new workspace, only to disappointingly realize you wouldn't ever get on the same wavelength with the things going on. On the very contrary of the way I was feeling, this Indonesian young man was apparently showing lots of joy in his personal appeal. I was happy for him and his colleagues. In the middle of the hall a lesbian couple that made an Indian impression was clumsily overdoing their public intimacy. Some expats started a conversation with a serious looking Asian businesswoman and before boarding one of them entered her number in his glistening touch screen phone.

In fact, everybody in the room was pretty much minding his own business, with me being the big exception in this perspective. All these so familiar situations in this strip lightened third world airport where standing in an odd contrast to my recent experiences in rural Sumatra, out of which I had only partly been able to draw some conclusions. I had to suppress flashbacks to dark winter morning exams and midweek banalities prickling through my body. Luckily I had some brilliant Beninese latin tunes to help me reminding my euphoria about the plans I made in some of the most urbanized parts of Asia for the coming weeks.

On Tello island, only every other night there is shared electricity. This is a significant improvement in regard to the situation before the elections. The amount of work being done on the roads connecting the handful of villages is also increasing. To the surprise of some, little by little some political promises are being fulfilled. Not taking into account some generator owning Chinese households, it will have been a lot quieter and darker during the nights on the island a few months back. One of those Chinese families with a generator has been our host for over a month. The father of the family is called Ben-Hok, but is mostly referred to as the 'Koh', which means 'head of the house'. Ben-Hok is in many ways a truly fascinating character. He is a member of the minority of Chinese people that spread across Indonesia during colonial times. Sometimes I'm truly amazed when I hear stories of Chinese groups that settled in the most remote and unthinkable corners of the world, to successfully engage in doing business in truly unimaginable matters. That business spirit is also apparent when looking at the group of 'Chinos' on Tello. With its 15 kilometer fringe it's much smaller then neighboring islands like Tanah Balah, Pulau Batu or Tanah Masah. Though, these Chinese settlements had boosted Tello into a small but unmistakable economical heart of the island group.

In the half misted airplane window I witnessed the angular figure of Singapore's nightly illumination gradually appear. Straight from the moment we landed our attention was drawn by slogans like "Commerce is a craftsmanship, leave it over to us" and "The power to help you succeed". I couldn't keep from grinning while realizing I was unmistakably coming back to the world of increasingly efficient advertising and a sky-is-the-limit collection of consumption choices. I was curious whether I would feel less intimidated by the Singaporean mindset than the last time I visited the place. I had felt alienated in the midst of this workaholic-shopping mentality and the signs everywhere telling me to "please handle matters with care" were definitely not helping. But when I was rolling into the Singaporean Saturday night after having had a most lovely talk with the stewardesses of my flight at the airport, I felt confident it might be turning out better than expected. It was exciting to be back in city life.

Everybody knows Ben-Hok. You can also find people that are in debt to him everywhere. During our trip to the most remote parts of the island group we found people nodding with familiar looks in their eyes when we mentioned him. The Koh is one of those people who convincingly make the impression not to be intimidated by anything or anyone on their path. He has some vague history living on a remote island in the neighborhood. Over there, at some point he had got into some kind of conflict and since he has been missing a thumb, a little finger and parts of flesh from his back, which resulted in some gruesome scars. He has business in about all the islands most profitable market segments like dog breeding (for slaughter after 5 months), petrol, flour and pigs. His back yard functions as a small harbor for fishermen from the poorer neighboring islands. They bring in living lobsters, crayfish and crabs, and sometimes giant sea turtles. The sea turtles are up for quite a macabre episode. The way of the local Chino's to slaughter a turtle starts by leaving him tied down on his back in the boiling sun for several days. The procedure carries on with Ben-Hok and his brother removing the turtle's house in front of the interested eyes of the local clientele while the creature is still living. This wise animal, having lived maybe eighty years out in the oceans, will eventually die somewhere during the hacking up of his flesh. While everybody in the village is considering this as the most standard of procedures, I have to admit I was uncomfortably swallowing for a couple of times during the event. These lashing fishermen also regularly bring in chopped off pieces of coral, used to improvisingly mount up the level of the sea at the back of the building. The Koh has plans on expanding his house on this newly won strip of land. Sometimes he can be mysteriously cryptic in his way of communicating, especially considering his economical situation. Ben only found out after one year that the family not only owned the neighboring houses but also the empty church opposite which is now inhabited by some friendly people.

The Dutch have based a proverb on the scenes pictured by the painter Jan Steen. When a household is considered messy and chaotic, like in the painter`s pictures, they refer to it as 'a household of Jan Steen'. And despite the obvious financial security the family of Ben-Hok I would like to refer to them not as a household of Jan Steen but as the household of Jan Steen. First of all, the area is one big garbage disposal. As at the other households, most of the garbage ends up in the light blue and fertile reef waters around the islands. While there is cooking going on at almost all of the times of the day, the plentiful dogs, cats and rats indulge themselves on the pots and pans of the soon to be served food. Ben was constantly providing me with instructions to avoid sharing the families food in a polite way. He told me the story of a seven year old son of the family who had died some time back. I stood in awe of the immune system of the family members. In plenty of ways they illustrated the enormous sense of tolerance the Indonesian people possess. When there is no electricity the Koh installs a rusty secondhand generator that produces the most hideous of noises right in the central area of the house. They will spend the night watching television about five meters away from this machine. Later on some of them fall into a peaceful sleep in the hammocks located even closer to it. Ben told me that I hadn't seen anything yet. A few months ago the karaoke system still worked and the children would then install it next to the generator. They would sing songs off the same VCD disc for hours. According to Ben most of the times they were rather successful in outvoting the many decibels already flying around the area. All along, I knew I was in the right place...

And then there I am rolling a cigarette in Singapore's Little India. A thick black hair sticks to the bottom of my cup of tasteful chai. Not so much like Singapore. The quality of the food was like the city, though; outstanding. After contentedly paying my bill and walking across the road, I suddenly witness a fat Chinese guy running out of some shopping area. I had to step back to avoid a collision with his two sturdy Indian pursuers. He didn't really stand a chance as they worked him to ground on the other side of the road. His face was showing total despair and I felt sorry for him. The Singaporean legal system doesn't go easy on shoplifting. Briefly I was experiencing that old feeling of intimidation bubbling up again. I am happy to be flying to Taipei tomorrow.

September 2008

2009-11-02T21:14:00.005+08:00

And there I am, writing my first blog post in about a year in Hat Yai, southern Thailand. The previous year has been blessing me with good and less good times, lazy and busy times, inspiring and boring times, serious times and party time, love and heartbreak; so many moments can fit in one year... As for the moment I'm getting back to myself for a bit. Some time for reading and studying, some exercise, enjoying Asian life and just getting some rest after a quite hasty life in Europe for the past couple of months. It was quite exhausting to be constantly moving from one place to another, but luckily working on the road as part of Fratelli Fiasco kept inspiring me a lot.

I've been breathing the South East Asian air for some weeks now. In Bangkok, I met Julia with whom I traveled almost directly to Fang, a likable small Thai city near the Burmese border. We rented a scooter in Chiang Mai and drove to Fang from there, some 150 kilometers of fun riding the excellent northern Thai highways, only to be surprised by some serious tropical thundershowers halfway. Luckily it just added up to the fun we were having making the trip. We were about to meet up with Ben en Jildou, who have been active in Fang for some years now, developing all sorts of inspiring projects. They focus for example on Burmese migrant workers who work under truly depriving circumstances at orange farms around Fang. Their rich Chinese employers want their lands to be treated with pesticides that are so harmful that they are even illegal in Thailand (I am already imagining the fanciness of the banquets provided for the regional Thai agricultural chief). Even without a formal refugee status and this horrible health situation with deformed babies being born regularly, they are still happy to be away from Burma. Obviously this is enough reason for Ben and Jildou to keep emphasizing the severity of the Burmese situation and set up their NGO called "Blood Foundation" to for example provide evening classes for the workers teaching them Thai. They will be able to read the labels of the products they are using and develop a stronger negotiation stand within the labor market. The humanitarian efforts of blood foundation are supported by commercial projects like Monk for a Month, that stay in line with the foundations philosophy and even compliment the efforts put forward. Check out their website(s)!

This is not the last you will hear about this from me.

While Julia stayed in Fang and eventually traveled to Birma, where she is right now, I went south to prepare my travel plans to Indonesia and China. As I just picked up my Chinese visa in the nearby provincial capital of Songkhla, I'll travel to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow to make one for Indonesia. Ok, you will be hearing from me soon.

Getting ready for the ride to Fang.

Being on the way.

Stopped over to share some Pakistani soul music with the local pancake merchant.

At one of some excellent dinners we had together with Ben and Jildou.

Diving into the Fang nightlife.

Terug van weggeweest

2009-11-02T21:00:00.002+08:00

Na een jaar afwezigheid op deze blog, gaan er vanaf nu in verband met een reis door 10 Aziatische landen van September tot December 2009 weer geregeld posts online komen. Ik zal deze berichten schrijven in het Engels om onze talrijke niet-Nederlandstalige vrienden de mogelijkheid te geven mee te lezen. Schroom niet om commentaar te geven in welke taal dan ook. Ik zal eerst een klein stukje posten over mijn verblijf in Thailand dat ik anderhalve maand terug al heb geschreven. Daarna volgt een groot bericht aangaande mijn huidige situatie terugkijkend op een verblijf in Indonesie afgelopen maand.

Liefs,

Frank

PS; luister eens naar een vol uur durende mix van liedjes van mijn favoriete band 'Orchestre Poly rythmo de Cotonou Benin', waar jullie op deze blog ook nog het nodige over zullen horen. Miles Cleret Poly Rythmo Mix !