Karina Emilia's blog

chicken soup

As is quite obvious, my experience with this class has been a little bit more drawn out than others.  I’ve taken my sweet time to get to this final thoughts entry.  Can I make a corny joke here about how it’s the journey and not the destination? 

Even though the class has been “over” for quite a while, “travel” has not been far from my mind.  Rapidly approaching graduation, friends going back to their home states, the famous post-grad Euro trip—all have been very in my face and hard to ignore.  For the most part, I’m quite jealous of all of these people I know that get to go to these far off places.  I’ll be stuck here in NJ, looking for a job and wondering what happened to that great big adventure that I planned on having.  I know that my travel story isn’t over yet, though, that there are still many years left in my life and lots of places to fill them with.  Until then, however, the urge will keep pulling at my heartstrings and I’ll feel shackled by the desire to wander but the reality of having to stay here.

As I’ve said in most of my previous posts, I completely understand why someone might want to get away.  There is always something out there to chase—the unknown, the greener grass on the other side, or that better tasting fruit.  Ibn Battuta couldn’t help but feel like Morocco wasn’t cutting it.  Cabeza de Vaca’s career was built out of finding new places.  Herodotus and Marco Polo wondered about other cultures, a curiosity that could only be satisfied by seeing them with one’s own eyes.  And Columbus was in search of gold and fame.  While I know that my experience of travel would most definitely be quite different than our heroes of centuries past, I’d like to know what it’s like to feel uncomfortable, to fall asleep in a land where I know completely no one, and to wake up knowing that I’m already late for my next destination.  Is it selfish to want to leave the comforts (and I emphasize comfort) of home for uncertainty?  I guess this metaphor of travel (is it a metaphor?) can be applied to any big decision we make in life—whether or not we stay in a relationship, where we choose to go to law school or art school, or whether we go for a sedan or a motorcycle.  Maybe I’m getting too Chicken Soup for the Soul here, but what this class and all of these books have made me realize is that life is too short to just spend it all in one place, or spend it all living the same identity every single day of your life.

Travel means to me the ability and idea of being someone else, being uncomfortable in your own skin, learning a different subway map, or speaking a new language.  It isn’t just getting on a plane; it’s what you do when you get there.  It isn’t just eating new food; it’s eating it with new friends.  (Ok, I’m definitely getting too new age here…)  I guess maybe all of our heroes traveled because they weren’t happy with their life’s story.  This has gotten very stream of consciousness, but the bottom line is: I feel inspired.  I wish I could make more of an analysis of what these books did for culture, how they made me feel about my womanhood, or what implications they might have in the literary world, but the truth is, my final thoughts are more like final feelings. With the exception of Christopher Columbus, I really look up to and admire our travelers.  They saw the value in feeling uncomfortable, and I think I’ve got to see that for myself too. 

syc: trap'd in a tree

I have always been fascinated by magic.  In fifth grade, when others did presentations on their trips to Medieval Times, I tried homemade alchemy.  My mother unsuccessfully attempted to dissuade me from my efforts, but I was fairly certain I could turn flour into gold.  (I had just seen the “critically acclaimed” A Kid in King Arthur’s Court).  10 years of Fox “Behind the Illusion” or whatever they’re called television specials later, I realize that magic, for the most part is truly just sleight of hand, trickery while we’re not looking, and special effects.  In spite of my enlightenment, however, I still love a good old magic story.  Perhaps this is why I liked The Tempest so much.  While of course I was interested in the racial undertones, themes of the “other,” allusions to feminism and even class relations, I was most excited by Prospero’s ability to make his surroundings do whatever he wanted.  Simple excitement, aside, however, I think that further investigation of the theme of magic in The Tempest might be more intellectually potent than meets the eye.  If I remember correctly, alchemy, magic, and all that Merlin type goodness was for the most part, frowned upon back in the day.  Why, just across the pond, and about 100 years after Shakespeare wrote this play, supposed witches were getting burned at the stake for dancing around boiling pots of goo.  It only stands to reason that magic would be a controversial subject for the people of Shakespeare’s time too.  So, why is it that Prospero was not looked upon as a silly character, but rather, as one who evokes sympathy, and even some respect?

            Like all things in life, there seem to be two different sides to this magic story: the rational and the irrational.  In The Tempest, we see two different types of magic.   Prospero represents the rational, gentrified side of magic.  He is not a purveyor of voodoo, he does not dance around fires, and he does not wear a tall, pointy hat. Rather, Prospero is a gentrified nobleman—a man who cared more to study than to rule and who used his intelligence to divine authority over the nature around him.  Shakespeare contrasts Prospero’s rationality with the unkempt and uncivilized nature of Sycorax.  While we do not even meet her, we know that she is a witch of the wild who cruelly trapped Ariel in a tree and gave birth to a rapist son.  Of course this difference in rationality between the warlock and the witch might be quite obvious—for one, quite simply, Prospero is a man and Sycorax is a woman.  In earlier stories we read in this class, women, especially magical ones are quite dangerous. Remember Circe or the Sirens?   In fact, Sycorax’s cruel treatment of Ariel is entirely reminiscent of Circe’s illogical transformation of Odysseus’s men into pigs.  Like a lot of women in literature written by men, Sycorax is just another broad who can’t control her emotions.  Also, if my research is correct, some scholars claim that Sycorax, in addition to being a woman, she is banished from Algiers, implying that she is also Black--yet another reason why she might be “rationally inferior” to the educated, noble Prospero.

             So, what have I learned from examining the foil relationship between Prospero and Sycorax?  Well, just writing this has made me agree even more with scholars that say that Sycorax can be seen as a symbol for the silenced ethnic woman.  As one ethnic woman, myself, I feel that I must side with Sycorax.  She is just a victim of her circumstantial absence from the play, and severely misunderstood.  My newfound sympathy for Sycorax hasn’t made me feel any ill will towards Prospero, however.  I just see them as more or less the same.  Both banished, both alone and misunderstood, and both somehow controlling a person that each deems beneath him or her.  It seems that magic was only one among many things that they have in common.

Coahuiltecans

The University of Texas at Austin has an amazing website dedicated to Cabeza de Vaca. Called Texas Beyond History, the site aims to inform students and visitors alike of the ways in which Cabeza de Vaca’s narrative helped to inform later generations of Texans of their ancestors' past. It begins with an editor’s note explaining how Cabeza de Vaca was lucky to have been picked up by the Native Americans of South Texas, and how we in turn benefit from their mutualism,.  Now, we have scores of material that would not have been available had Cabeza de Vaca not been around to write it all down.

In particular, the site highlights the ways in which Cabeza de Vaca’s association with the Native Americans exposed their “foodways,” in other words, their hunting and gathering practices. Because of Cabeza de Vaca, South Texan Indians’ techniques for cooking and hunting, as well as general information on the area’s natural wildlife and flora and fauna are available.

In addition to foodways, the site explains how Cabeza de Vaca’s association helped to bring to light some nomenclature that the Natives used for animals, plants and places, as well as their general trading practices and other customs. While there is too much detail to go into it here, it is worth it to note the name of the Natives with which Cabeza de Vaca had most of his encounters. Inhabitants of the Southern part of Texas and Northern Mexico, Cabeza de Vaca's traveling partners are called the Coahuiltecans. The Coahuiltecans lived in small family groups. Groups of families that spoke the same dialect would sometimes come together to form what the Spanish dubbed “naciones,” but what we would called tribes. Though they were all called Coahuiltecans, they were a diverse group of people with vastly different languages. In addition, various groups of Coahuiltecans subsisted off of the wide range of fruits, livestock and other forms of sustenance available in the Southern Texas region. Naturally, the differences in eating habits led to differences in lifestyle, foodways, and migration patterns.

I’m a little bit bothered that such a patchwork of different peoples with different languages and customs can be grouped under one name—the Coahuiltecans—but it is good that these people are getting the recognition that they deserve. I think it’s important to note that while the explorers might be the people who were “discovering” new lands, and writing it all down, they wouldn’t have been able to do so without the help of the willing and generous Natives. It’s also good to know that Cabeza de Vaca’s narrative is a potent source of material for learning about America’s native peoples. What we seldom see when reading travel literature is the point of view of the people that lived there first. While we can’t really get that directly from the Coahuiltecans, at least we can use what we do have to learn about them too.

Navigation!

It seems that people back in the day just had a better sense of direction. Story after story we read here in Travel Classics depicts weary travelers stranded in lost isles, floating in the middle of the ocean, or shipwrecked in strange worlds. Miraculously, however, most if not all of our heroes have a general sense of where they are, where they plan to go, and where they actually end up. Not too keen on the navigational arts, I found myself extremely curious while reading these tales. How did they find their way without all the conveniences of modern technology? In this day and age, every car comes with a GPS system named Kathy, John or Michael ready to guide you all the way to the 7-11 up the street from your house. I even know people that get a little bit frightened when they can’t figure out which way is uptown after coming out of the subway. I think that a little bit of old fashioned sense of direction could do me and a lot of other people good, so here is some info on how they did it:

The Digest of Columbus’s Log-Book on His First Voyage reveals some especially interesting ways that the explorers determined their location. First, and perhaps cutest of all techniques, was the use of animal sightings for navigation. On September 17, the crew sees a “white bird called the tropic-bird, whose habit is not to sleep on the sea.” And on September 21, they note that “a whale, a sign that they were near land, for whales always remain near land.” On September 29, they describe a “booby…a sea-bird but does not settle on the sea, and does not fly more than twenty leagues from land.” While it may seem tedious, the mention of animals in the log is so numerous and detailed that it must have been an extremely important tool for determining proximity to land. This makes me wonder, though—did all sailors have to have such vast knowledge of sea-faring animals? Or was there a special guy on board who knew all of this stuff? And what about sailors’ knowledge in general? What made a sailor a competent sailor?

While googling for an answer to some of these questions, I was directed to The Columbus Navigation site, an apparently award-winning site that tells all about Columbus and (Surprise!) his navigation techniques and tools. It seems that Columbus was a follower of the Dead Reckoning school of navigational thought—a method in which the navigator determines his position by measuring the course and distance traveled from a known location. It involved using pins to mark location on a map at the end of the day, and using that location as the starting point at the beginning of the next day. Speed and distance had to be measured every hour, and it was recorded on a special instrument called a “toleta,” also known as a traverse board. Seems like a lot of work to be doing every hour on the hour while there’s so much other stuff to worry about—maintenance of the ship, weather, pirates, etc. But apparently, the Dead Reckoning method is one that predates celestial navigation, so it’s understandable that it isn’t exactly the easiest method to maintain. (Side note: I wonder—do things get easier or harder to do with technology? I probably could do neither dead reckoning or work a GPS system in an SUV, but that’s just me)

According to the Columbus Navigation Site, however, some critics say that Columbus was actually a celestial navigator, but kept those records hidden for some reason. Just to make trouble, I’m sure, another camp claims that Columbus only experimented with celestial navigation and that any records that might exist are FRAUDULENT. The debate, I must admit, is quite amusing. I hate to take sides, but I’m going to say that Columbus was a dead reckoning navigator who sometimes experimented with celestial navigation and that any records of celestial navigation that exist are probably not fraudulent. But seriously, it’s actually really interesting. Celestial navigation was a product of the Portuguese. Columbus was from Genoa, which is why it makes more sense for him to have been a dead reckoning navigator. (According to The Columbus Navigation site, he must have learned it from Genoese pilots.) However, because he was an explorer for Spain, it makes sense that he would have spent some time in Portugal and might have learned the new art of navigating by the stars. Isn’t it funny how celestial navigation was the “new thing?” And here I thought it was the oldest type of navigation possible. You learn something new everyday.

I guess my exploration into the art of navigation won’t really help me out. I don’t plan on sailing any time soon, and I’m fairly sure if I do, my voyage will come with room service. But I do feel quite humbled knowing that people back then could do so much more with just their eyes, ears, and a few simple mathematical equations and tools than I can do with my computer.

Journey: Escape, Journey--so appropriate.

In class, we unpacked the reasons why Ibn Battuta might have traveled.  He was a scholar, he was on the most epic journey of his religious life, et cetera, et cetera.  Naturally, all of these are correct and are probably even more correct than what I’m about to propose.  Given my natural tendency to psychoanalyze people, I, of course was more drawn to thinking about the emotional reasons why a loved and lucky man would embark upon a lonely 30 year journey—leaving behind his family and friends in his home town, just to make more family and friends and leave them along the way too.  He went from woman to woman, learned what he could from the scholars that he could then left them, went to Mecca twice, but was still, after all of his travels, never satisfied.  To be quite honest, I think that Ibn Battuta’s deepest motivation was just simple loneliness.  While we don’t really get too much of a glimpse of his life in his hometown, one can only imagine how a young scholar during his time felt that the coastal city of Tangier just didn’t cut it.  In fact, I find his story resonates with my own story.  Growing up in a tiny town, thinking I was destined for more, the taste of travel and toying with the idea of never coming home, or more importantly, how empowered the freedom of travel made me feel—I saw all of these feelings in Ibn Battuta.  I imagine Ibn Battuta approached travel not only as a way to gain knowledge, but also as a way to gain ownership of himself and of his loneliness.  Perhaps he derived strength from the vulnerability he felt at not recognizing, not seeing and not being any place he knew.  Or maybe it was as simple as him trying to leave his loneliness behind.  I guess I don't really know.  All I do know is, I could identify on a completely visceral and gut level.  Most people can probably relate.

Speaking of which, as corny as it may sound, reading Ibn Battuta brought to mind an epically popular song by legendary 80’s/90’s arena band Journey (oh, how ironically appropriate).  In “Don't Stop Believin',” we encounter “a small town girl,” and “a city boy raised in South Detroit,” who “took a midnight train going anywhere.” Steve Perry, or whomever currently serves as the lead voice, tell us of two “strangers…their shadows searching in the night,” and how their story goes “on and on and on and on.”  It’s a bit of a stretch but one could say that maybe (just maybe) Ibn Battuta was just like one of them.  Instead of a train, he got on a camel.  And instead of searching for someone else, he was just searching for himself.  It turns out that a centuries old young scholar on his Rihla might not be that different from "us" afterall.  (I am not really too serious about this metaphor, I just found it slightly amusing.)

Lord's Prayer: Amen?

As a Catholic school veteran, I cannot help but get a warm fuzzy feeling inside whenever topics of Christianity appear in my readings. Because I’m not necessarily a religious person, and my experiences in Catholic school left much to be desired, the feelings are mixed—ranging from disgust with the seemingly arbitrary rules to get into Heaven to the surprisingly fulfilling discussions on what it means to be a good person. In spite of all those touchy feely religion classes tinged with blind prejudice concerning certain groups of human beings, my favorite religion related discussions focused mostly on its history, origins, and transformation throughout the years. I was fascinated by the politics of the Church—the ecumenical councils that decided the rules that the Church has followed for hundreds of years, differences in geographic allegiances to various men claiming to be the rightful Pope or Bishop, the Great Schism, and the conversion of service from Latin to vernacular, just to name a few. Now, I can add the story of the illustrious Kublai Khan and his predilection towards Christianity to my list.

I must admit, Kublai Khan seems a fascinating person. This comparison may be far fetched, but I imagine him to be quite similar to Jose Arcadio Buendia of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. In this story, Jose Arcadio Buendia, patriarch of the Buendia family in Macondo, a town which he happened to found, is perpetually and incessantly fascinated by the various toys, gadgets and bits of science that gypsies parade through the town every so often. Like Kublai Khan, Jose Arcadio Buendia is charged with the task of democracy, innovation and mediation. He keeps peace among groups, he makes sure that decisions and distribution are equitable, and most of all, his curiosity helps to advance his little town of Macondo into a veritable Mecca for scientific and economic growth.

Of course, there are many more literary and real life characters I could compare to Kublai Khan. I guess my point here is that the history of Christianity is almost mystic to me. In a way, it’s almost novel like—and maybe not so far from magical realism itself. Basically, Kublai Khan fell in love with the idea that there is this God, whose son came down to the Earth, whose blood we drink, who made wine out of water and fed thousands with only one loaf of bread and a few fish. If we don’t think about it too hard, the stories of Christianity are not so different from those that we consider fairy tales, or even the stuff of books like One Hundred Years of Solitude. Corny as it may sound, it seems to me that a lot of great leaders, Kublai Khan and the fictional Jose Arcadio Buendia have abided by a simple, but profound question—What would Jesus do?

Marmots: Gold-Digging Ants

We’ve all read tales of explorers, novice travelers and imperialists encountering crazy spectacles in distant lands. Herodotus’s The Histories places his encounters in much the expected light. He meets Egyptians, Indians and everyone in between—weaving together a story of fantastic creatures, unusual customs and fairytale landscapes. We are met with the very shy phoenix that appears only once every 500 years, the ibis that protects the poor Egyptians from the wrath of the venomous snakes with wings and the venerated crocodile with leeches in his mouth. He describes the animals with awe and disbelief, noting their colors, shapes, sizes and diets. He then employs the same technique of observation and recording when speaking of humans. Because of the way that he speaks of the Egyptians, Indians and Ethiopians, I can’t help but feel that he looks at “the other” with a sense of prejudiced disdain. To Herodotus, it seems that those on the African continent are beasts with seldom touches of class—those customs that he manages to admire are of course, adopted from the Greeks.

Herodotus’s fear/fascination of “the other” is particularly highlighted in Book Three, a passage in which he describes the economic and dietary customs of the Indians. His story begins with the tale of a cannibalistic tribe called the Padaeans, “wanderers that live on raw flesh.” According to Herodotus, it was their custom to immediately kill any one of their tribe that fell ill, so that his or her flesh could be enjoyed before it spoiled away with sickness. Naturally, the cannibals were ruthless—in spite of protest from the sick member of the tribe, any sign of illness was a death sentence. He follows with a description of a tribe in which the dead or the ill are of no matter. Of course, “all the tribes…live together like the brute beasts,” and when he says that “they have also all the same tint of skin, which approaches that of the Ethiopians,” we can assume he means brown.

I know I should be more forgiving of Herodotus for his cultural ignorance. Times were different and I can’t blame the guy for having been born and died before globalization. I suppose what makes me more mad is the fact that in 2009, we as a society are in some ways, still shackled by fears of the other. Thousands of years later, imperialism, racism, and ignorance still abound. We still talk of people with different skin tones, languages and customs with the same sort of prejudiced disdain that pervades Herodotus's writings. I hate to bring the whole being Asian thing in here, but I just can't help myself. I've had to deal with thousands of questions--ranging from "What type are you?" (note the lack of reference to what type means, I'm supposed to assume "type of Asian.") to "Have you eaten a dog?" In fact, I’ve even joined in at making fun of my own Asian-ness to make other people feel more comfortable. Even more ironic, I've had to make fun of myself for being a Filipino in China, with a group of non-Asians. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the way we talk about "the other" has become more subtle, but the fear and ignorance persists. I won't claim to be the most culturally sensitive or learned person ever, but hopefully, we're all a little bit less ignorant than Herodotus.