5. Discuss a reading (1)

The Opium WarsMy travel reading for this course was a history lesson on one of the darkest periods in China’s long history. Before the Cultural Revolution and the Nanking Massacre was the Opium Wars. This two part war forever changed China’s future albeit violently and at high cost. In short, the wars were due to British smuggling of opium from British controlled India in the defiance of Chinese law. Historically, China was the most advanced civilization for centuries. It had coveted treasures that nations far away obsessed over. European want for Chinese tea, silk, and porcelain created a trade deficit in silver, the only form of payment that the Chinese would accept. The British solution to this problem was to import opium. The addictive nature of the drug created an instant consumer base and the British trade problem was reversed. The opium trade was highly lucrative and British opium traders as well as Chinese port merchants greatly benefited. Wu Bingjian, known to the British as Howqua, was the most influential of these merchants and at one point was the wealthiest person on the planet. This one sided war demonstrated the ethnocentric fall of China. The British, at this point, were the most technologically advanced people. Their steam powered ships and superior cannons tore through Chinese ports without hesitation.

The Opium Wars signaled the end of Chinese isolationism, albeit forced, and is now thought of as the beginning of modern Chinese history. Due to a wide number of unequal treaties created by the victorious British, Hong Kong was ceceded to Britain and five more treaty ports were indefinitely opened to the west. The Treaty of Nanjing not only saw the cession of Hong Kong but the Treaty of Tianjin, during the second Opium War, that saw the legalization of opium importation in China. The Opium Wars effectively opened up China to the west as France, Russia, Britain and the United States were granted rights to set up legations in Beijing. Russia and the United States piggybacked on a most favored nation clause, stating that whatever rights Britain and France received, they would in turn receive.

Western influence in China is evident now as Shanghai has its own “french concession”, and a big french population. Hong Kong is titled as a Special Administrative Region and is an area still governed by two countries. Macau, also lost during the Opium Wars, is the other SAR and is governed by China and Portugal. The Bund, perhaps the most famous landmark in Shanghai has seen its share of foreign direct investment and has housed numerous western banks and financial institutions, which can all be traced back to the opening of Shanghai as a treaty port after the Opium Wars.

After having the kind of experience in Patagonia, which left me without words, I decided to read about Bruce Chatwin’s time there, for which he had 199 pages worth of things to say. Within the first few chapters, I believe I had to refer to Wikipedia nearly twenty times to look up the various historical and literary allusions Chatwin inserts as frequently as commas. Though my reading was moving at a glacial pace, I did think I was learning a great deal. And perhaps I’m just slow, but it took me at least 50 pages to realize that Chatwin was not merely presenting a flowery description of the same place I went to—interspersed with unusual and narrowly related facts—but that his novel was an almost too seamless mixture of fact and fiction.

book cover: In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin

It was right about the time that I started to read a detailed account of the personal lives of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, that I began to wonder…but in the end it didn’t really matter. Once I broke the silly habit of trying to match everything Chatwin wrote with some secondary source on the Internet, it was thoroughly enjoyable to pour over the multitude of rich descriptions that resonated with my memories of Patagonia. It became almost a secondary level of excitement to try and figure out which of the ambiguously plausible descriptions were true. Like this one for example:

“The fleet entered the Magellan Strait with the southern winter already begun. A sailor’s frostbitten nose fell off when he blew it…” (87) Could that happen, I thought to myself, maybe so?

I can’t say that my experience in Patagonia was much like Chatwin’s—aside from similar observations of the physical landscape. The only foreigners I saw were travelers like myself, rather than the exiled Europeans, and miscellaneous eccentrics that Chatwin may or may not have come across. But for some reason Chatwin’s illustration of Patagonian people struck a chord with something in the recesses of my memory. There was something familiar in his landscapes filled with sheep herders, asados, quiet and nearly uninhabited pueblos. Something that reminded me of the hostel keeper, waiter, or tour guide, who lived in those places even after we left, whose accordion-like “forehead whined a story of immobility and repressed ambition.” (84)

In Patagonia is a great read, even if you haven’t visited to the southern region. Chatwin’s imaginative journey in search of the origins of a mysterious piece of animal skin (alleged by his mother to be from a dinosaur) is whimsical, rich, and extremely clever in the way that it weaves back and forth between personal account, historical fact, and fiction, using common locations in Patagonia as the links between the tales.

Down and Out in Paris

The first book I read for our class was Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell. Published in 1933, this vivid memoir, written in two parts, details Orwell's life as a penniless writer living among the poor and destitute of society, first in Paris then in London. The book documents in painstaking detail the squalor of the lives of those of the poor underworld--washing dishes in a grungy hotel kitchen, staying alive on scraps and stolen loaves of bread and starving in between, pawning every last coat and pair of trousers just to scrounge enough money to pay the next month's rent. Orwell's account of what it is really like to be down and out is desperately touching and sadly familiar looking at modern Paris; the number of homeless in Paris is staggeringly high, and it is all too obvious walking around the streets of the city. Every corner is home to a beggar man and his dog. Every street is another poor man's territory. Their signs all read the same sad lines: "S.V.P. J'ai faim." Please. I'm hungry. A few coins in a tattered old hat, a moth-eaten coat, faces buried in thin dusty blankets. As I go through my weekly routine, I pass the same homeless people, over and over again. The woman outside the Sorbonne, her face as brown and tired as beaten leather. The hunched old grey-haired man outside the Passy subway who's constantly clutching his arms around him to keep warm.

Each time I see them, walk by and look at them, a certain part of Orwell's memoir comes to mind. He is discussing a Russian friend of his he met in the public ward of a hospital who, once a waiter making a hundred francs a day, had since become bed-ridden and therefore as poor as Orwell himself. A war veteran, this friend Boris often entertained Orwell with stories of his glorious fighting days. He had since been forced to pawn almost everything in his possession just to buy food. The few things he had kept, refused to sell regardless of their potential value, were his old war medals and photographs, which he treasured with all his heart. Almost every day, he'd lie them across his bed and talk about them proudly with a glaze in his eye. They were the things he deemed too important to let go of, the few remnants of his past life, the few things he still had that belonged to his person. I think of this each day I walk by a certain homeless man on Rue St. Jacques. He is a dirty-faced man with a long grey beard and a sharp chin with black pirate eyes. He sits on a crude brown blanket with his spotted dog, and reads a tattered old book whose title I've never seen. Sprawled around him on the blanket is a collection of various trinkets, photographs, and books. There is a mint green oval tin, worn and rusted on the edges, inside which are a few coins and crumbs of dirt. There is a photograph of a grand two-masted ship, its edges curling and tea colored worn. There is a stack of flaking paperbacks at his feet, pieces of paper (letters? lists? wind carried flyers?) stuck throughout as bookmarks. He is there every Thursday and Friday afternoon, and every day I walk by, I look, and I wonder about this man and his collection. These things he's chosen to save are perhaps mementos of a past life, a past real life, full of things, family, purpose. This tin, did it once hold his mother's stamps, or his wife's jewelry, or his own life savings? The ship, did it belong to his father, did it take him across the world, is it merely a dream he refuses to let go of? These books, were they gifts from a best friend, did they comfort him in summer nights of his youth, or once accompany him across vast oceans of travel?

Each Thursday and Friday afternoon I walk past him, southbound to my job where I stay well into the evening. Walking back at the grey twilight of dusk, he is always gone, the rusty square outline of his blanket the only evidence of his presence. I wonder where he goes. Does he have a home, a friend, as Orwell did? Does he have a family, a circle of companions? I sigh and walk on, down the hill towards the Seine, and don't look back. I know I will see him tomorrow.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

For my first reading for this course, I chose to discuss one of my all-time favorite books by Czech author Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. The story takes place in the 1960’s and the story follows a young womanizing Czech physician named Tomas who goes on several erotic encounters as a substitute for getting involved in Czechoslovakian politics, and uses it as a way to feel that he is in control, as he feels that he has no control or freedom in his country. Eventually, however, he ends up falling in love with a woman, (his wife Tereza) while ending up being drawn into the political unrest while trying to choose between the women that he has begun these erotic journeys with, or the woman he fell in love with. It essentially is a character development plot set against the tumultuous political system within the Czech Republic at that time. It’s a bit of a doozy to explain the plot further, but essentially, Milan Kundera uses the characters as a method of posing though-provoking questions in existentialism, and other philosophical outlets. These questions spoken through said characters analyze mankind, and most importantly what it truly means to be human. This novel has still left me thinking a year after I initially read it.

This possibly causes the story to suffer a bit, simply because the philosophical aspect of the book undermines the ability for Kundera to go into great psychological depth with the characters, but merely uses them as pawns for his philosophical ramblings (which, quite honestly, isn’t a bad thing...they are fascinating!).  What I found most fascinating about this book is the fact that Kundera manages to explore humanity to a depth that I’m still left puzzled as to how his level of understanding reached such heights. In the midst of political oppression, Czechs believe that the only things that they can still hold on to are love and sex, which is why the characters manipulate themselves and others to still feel as if they are in control.  Kundera toys with the reader by making them look deep within themselves to wonder if this need for control is merely weakness in the face of adversity, or strength in reasserting one’s dominance as a human being creating some sort of impact. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, makes us think whether our actions here on earth truly have ramifications and staying power, long after our time is up, or if they are in fact, “light” and fleeting, and if we ourselves are the ones that are able to attach importance to our actions, or if we are reliant on others to do so. This debate continues throughout the length of the novel, and rather than answering the question, Kundera gives readers the freedom to decide for themselves. 

Open Letters: Vaclav Havel

The readings by Havel is poignant because as a dissident during the Communist regime and being blacklisted, he puts so much effort to help people. One of the essays, “Dear Mr. Husak,” Havel writes about a consolidated society, where the rich and poor are able to succeed and have equal opportunity. Dr. Husak was the general secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and Havel writes an open letter to him. The open letter consists of scenarios about ordinary citizens that are suffering. Additionally Havel encourages Dr. Husak for a more “consolidated” and fair society. He also talks about the oppressors of society. The oppressors, being the past history for Czechoslovakia. He talks of how Czechoslovakia was marred and oppressed by the communist regime that no matter what the government does, the people of Czechoslovakia will be afraid and will never speak up and thus hinder the ideal society. I liked reading Havel’s letters because it not only brought up many communist references but also made me think about the great efforts of people like Havel who are able to change history. Havel was extraordinary because as a playwright, he was an outsider to the political world and yet made such an impact for Czechoslovakia. Even though he was blacklisted and probably threatened by the communist regime, he continued to encourage the Czechoslovak people and even criticize the regime for oppressing the people and demanding change. This got me to wonder how brave and self-sacrificing he must have been to have put himself on the line for his country. I cannot imagine a society where speaking about one’s country and leaders were a subject of threat and where one must always oppress your opinions. It is lucky and fortunate that we as Americans are able to do this and not feel pressured or afraid so do so. However, I think that America, though progressive, must always think ahead. Today we hear about the topic of gay marriage. Opposing gay marriage, in itself is wrong. I do not see why the government must dictate and approve of two people who care for one another must be banned from getting marriage. Regardless of sex, marriage should be one’s choice and the government should not be involved. It is a pity that Proposition 8 cost so much money to advocate and how the opposing side spent millions of dollars to campaign against them. All of that money could have been spent on something else. Whereas arguing about something we already know and should not even be arguing about is a waste of time and money. During the time of Vaclav Havel, where an open letter could impact so many people, I feel that America needs their own Vaclav Havel.

Will TizardI always assumed that how a guidebook describes a place is how that place really is. I failed to take into account or think about how they are written and by whom. Last week, Will Tizard, editor of Time Out Prague came to my Travel Writing class to discuss his career as a guidebook writer. “We are given a stipend and a set time to finish a project by,” Tizard stated when asked how exactly does a guidebook writer work. Not every hotel bed is slept in and not every museum is visited. There is not enough time or money. The once glamorous life of a guidebook writer I had so prized in my head has now been reduced to average Joe, but just getting by. I read the majority of the guidebook after this class because I really wanted to understand Will’s impression of Prague. Subjection always comes through in writing even if the assignment is an unbiased description. In the beginning, he describes young Czechs out on the party scene as “a fashion shoot for Cosmopolitan or GQ.” Though I haven’t had a reason to disagree with a guidebook before, I am jealous of the impression Tizard got from young Czechs considering fashion is “nonexistent” as my writing teacher says and deodorant is an afterthought. I can’t blame him though. Until Tizard’s presentation in class, I had no idea that guidebook writing is a one-man job, at least in his case. He described his work as a “cult”, that it’s a way of life. Since he is never “off duty” when he is doing a project, staying at the Four Seasons does equate to rest and relaxation.

La Pe...Spanish stereotype or no? I know that I skipped this entry a few weeks ago, but I did so because I was unsure of what I was reading. I finally settled on an academic book that I found in an English bookstore in Madrid called Constructing Spanish Womanhood, Female Identity in Modern Spain. It is made up of several chapters by individual writers who explore how women have developed their identity in Spain throughout the changes in politics. I took a class last spring called Gender and Communications that explored how women are represented and viewed in social, political, and professional venues in the United States, and I felt that to gain a perspective on how women define themselves in another country and another culture would be an interesting contrast. Spain differs from the United States in everything in general. For example, it is the norm here for children to continue living with their parents until they are in their late twenties, or until they get married. Very few young people move out of their parents homes to go to university because most of the big universities are in the city. The school systems work differently here as well, but that’s an entirely different subject. Women’s roles in Spain have been limited to “wife, mother, and guardian of the home…is evident in all areas of Spanish life” (21). The way women define themselves in Spain has a great deal to do with the Catholic Church and religion, and also depends heavily on whether she is married or not. Mary Nash writes, “Political conservatism, the weight of the Roman Catholic Church as a pervasive political institution, and economic underdevelopment have often been argued as the key explanatory factors to the situation of women in contemporary Spain” (25). Maria Argentina, our friend’s mother who I wrote about for my person, is a prime example. She moved from her pueblo when she was 16 to work. She never went to school, and when she married she became a wife and a mother of two. Their family was devastated three years ago when her husband died, but her children still live with her and she works every night in the taberna, keeping everything just as her husband left it. She explained last night now the reason they were closed every Sunday was because her husband always said it was the day for family. So it is today. One area that interests me most that the book did not really cover was the role of women in sports here. In the United States, it is fully accepted for women to play sports, and our women’s soccer team is the best in the world. I was shocked that in a country where futbol is life, the only way women can play soccer is with organized teams, and they are rare at that. Everything is more relaxed, the level is lower, and the ages range from 16 to 27 on the team I play with. However, upon the suggestion (made by a Spanish man who coaches the B team) that the US had better female soccer players, one of the girls exhibited every Spanish female stereotype we have been taught, from the rolling eyes to the tossing hair to the rapid-fire speech claiming that no one does anything better than Spanish women. It was an interesting moment for me, as I have experienced very few instances of stereotypes here.

“Tango was the soul of the country,” (pg. 46)

“The first thing you need to know is that in the tango, the man controls everything,” (pg. 53)

Long Alter Midnight at the Niño Bien, by Brian Winter… well long after midnight is certainly true. After the first one hundred pages, this book is only relatable on certain levels to what I have experienced in Buenos Aires. It is about a boy, who rather than finding a job, decides to move to Buenos Aires on a whim after graduating college; the narrator and I have our ages in common. He immediately fixates on tango culture, and attempts to learn the dance, makes friends with the local tango legends, and takes lessons from there, but it seems it is really about scoring chicas.

Tango plays an interesting role in the book, and in the culture of the city today, and in many ways it is hard for me to relate to. So far, I have had two noteworthy experiences with tango, the first completely for my benefit, and the second, a secret I unearthed. I was in San Telmo, the oldest neighborhood in Buenos Aires, a surprising combination of gritty and touristy, where some of the best publicized tango milongas are, but where it is likely you’ll get jumped at night. I was eating at an outdoor table in a café, when a couple, my age or younger, brought a boom box, laid down a long piece of cardboard, and began dancing melodramatic tango for tips in the same way kids break dance on the trains in New York. My second noteworthy run in with tango happened when I went to meet a friend of a friend in a bar in Barrio Norte last weekend. We found the bar after asking for directions from three people on the street, and following their incoherent Spanish to a smoky, hole in the wall bar with six tables encircling six men. They were young, also mid-twenties, sweaty and awkward, wearing big black leather jackets and t-shirts, playing two guitars, a stand-up bass, a harmonica and one singing. Young people sitting around drinking Quilmes, smoking, and watching these awkward people play Astor Piazzolla was mesmerizing. An old man came up from the audience and sang, dripping melodrama, and everyone lapped it up.

Tango here is a secret obsession, and a commodity. It is interesting to watch, but even in the secret hole-in the wall, locals only, what are you doing here Americans, places its hard to get over the cheese and the gender roles. And it’s strict, a cult, ruled by an ancient culture, underground, hard to buy into, only inviting as a spectator

In the introduction of Travelers’ Tales in the Prague and the Czech Republic, Czech author, Ivan Klima, writes, "I do not like stories about tourist experiences, and I refuse to accept generalizations about a place, let alone a people. Fortunately, my concerns were unfounded." While Klima is writing this about the works found in this collection of stories, the same could be said about Prague itself. I came to Prague bearing in mind the laundry list of stereotypes that often exist about central and eastern European post communist countries. I felt I, simply by reading travel and guidebooks, was an expert on Czech culture. I thought that because I was well aware that I shouldn’t smile at Czechs, and that I should refrain from talking on the subway, I knew what to expect when I entered this new city. However, like Klima alludes to, when one leaves the realm of “tourist” and enters that of “traveler”, all stereotypes dissipate. The book, “Travelers Tales” is a compilation of stories that aim to show hidden places within Prague and the Czech Republic that reveal the true essence of the city and country. The book attempts to cover the “real”, rather than a nuance discovered during just a few days in the historic “Old Town” district of Prague. Just like how when I meet a man in Albert, the local grocery store, who, while without knowing any English, offers to help me find yogurt, I am constantly discovering that Czechs, can, in fact, be nice. Stereotypes are most often false. The places and moments that are written about in Traveler’s Tales also aim, as best they can, to show the prospective traveler what real experiences in the Czech Republic are like. My experience in Prague so far has shown me that for every grey day, angry face, and cold snow, there is also a beautiful building, a happy child, and a waiting warm drink. Prague, while a city thriving on its tourist stereotypes, is also one breaking free of them.

Grey times. Prague's grey haze is typical of wintertime.

In “A Room with a View” by E.M. Forster, The protagonist, Lucy Honeychurch is touring Italy with her overbearing older cousin, Charlotte Bartlett. The novel opens with their complaints about the hotel 'The Pension Bertolini' because they have been promised a room with a view, and instead are given a room that looks out onto a courtyard. One of the other guests at the hotel, George Emerson, offers to switch rooms with the two women. The two women choose not to accept the offer until persuaded to by another guest, and clergyman, Mr. Beebe. They feel discomfort from the offer, and feel that Emerson is using undignified behavior.

            The novel touches upon many issues surrounding society and politics in the early 20th century in England. Much of the novel focuses on the complaints of the hotel guests over the Emerson’s unusual behavior. The Emerson’s do not fit into the rigid guidelines dictated by Edwardian culture. Lucy and The Emerson personify a younger generation, while Miss Bartlett and the older hotel guests represent and older and repressed English culture. Florence acts as a backdrop for this clash of cultures, but the story says a lot more about English culture then an Italian lifestyle. In the novel, the characters have surrounded themselves with other English hotel guests, and rarely communicate with any Italian people.

            I found the discussion of a clash of cultures to be very interesting. Instead of feeling a clash of cultures based on generation, my travels abroad have taught me a lot about Italian cultural differences. When entering any new culture you must be careful, no matter how similar the people you meet may be, there are going to be certain things that cannot be communicated across cultural lines. Many of these cultural differences have given Italians a very bad image of Americans, and there are many negative stereotypes that you must battle as an American in Florence.

            While the book offered little insight into Italian culture, it did have extremely vivid descriptions of some Florentine landmarks. There is a detailed description of Piazza Santa Croce that describes it just as it is today. I really enjoyed the novel and felt it was an interesting perspective on being a tourist during the early 20th century.