Reading all Night

I used to read through the night all the time. Now, I usually stop at 2:00 or 3:00 am. Unless it is a really gripping one, of course. I do take books with me everywhere. Mostly I read at home, but I also read in the car, while waiting for Liping doing her shopping, while sitting at the dentist -- simply everywhere.

The books I got now are special, though. There is so much useful information about sailing in there, that it would get lost if I were to read it real fast. So what I am doing is reading three books at the same time, bit by bit, in order to be able to absorb. I just finished Bernard Moitessier's first book Sailing to the Reefs and it might make it to the top of the list as my all-time-favorite sailing book. That title is being held by another one of his, a world wide bestseller called The Long Way.

The other two I am reading are both trimaran books. I want to know just what has changed in the world of multihulls over the last 40 years or so. Especially in these older books you find a lot of stuff in what to avoid when buying a boat and all kinds of neat little tricks on how to fix things. Or how to keep eggs when the fridge has died and stuff like that. How to preserve your fish in "cans" using a pressure cooker. Most of this I know, since I have been reading books like that intensively since 1983, but once in a while a completely new technique comes up.

And there is no doubt in my mind that all this reading has prepared me far better for unexpected situations than other sailors who have spent the same amount of time actually sailing. Experience is best, but second-hand experience comes right after that.

Adventure!

To tell the truth I don't much like "adventures" while they are happening. It's later, often a considerable time later, when they seem to be fun and entertaining. Here's my favorite quote on the subject:

Quote:
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"We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them."
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But yes, having had them, now that is altogether a good thing! I would have nothing worthwhile to write about otherwise.

On the other hand, I just stumbled across this one from Alain Gerbault:

Quote:
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"Adventure means risking something; and it is only when we are doing that that we know really what a splendid thing life is and how splendidly it can be lived... The man who dares never does; the man who never risks never wins. It is far better to venture and fail than to lie on the hearthrug like a sleepily purring cat. Only fools laugh at failure; wise men laugh at the lazy and the too-contented and at those who are so timid that they dare undertake nothing."
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Taiwan Independence?

Funny things happening lately. I never thought I would agree with the top generals of the military anywhere, but since those guys came out of the woodwork and strongly condemned Taiwan's president's attempt to call for a referendum, I find myself warming to them. According to the original report, 22 top-ranking generals of the Taiwan military consider the referendum or any other attempt to steer the island towards independence dangerous.

What I find a bit confusing, is the fact that the Ministry of National Defense (MND) came out to say that this information was untrue. I thought I saw one of the guys on TV though.

~~~~~

When the President was first sworn in four years ago, he was going to set the course towards independence right away. Then he had a top-secret meeting with the top brass -- and the issue of independence all but disappeared until the campaigning for the next presidential election started just a little while ago.

Now the President is in a bit of a bind. He only won last time because another candidate split the majority - and that is not going to happen this time. Another reason he got what he got is the independence issue. And that one gets trickier and trickier all the time.

~~~~~

One thing is for sure. If those guys continue to pull the whiskers of the dragon across the Taiwan Straits, Liping and I may have to move a lot sooner than we had intended. I sure as hell don't plan to watch yet another civil war from anything resembling close proximity.

Day 22

I was "moist" from my mother's birthday on March 17 until I went "dry" November 24. The goal is a minimum of three months.

~~~~~~~~~~

Still completely dry and Saturday I even went to the pub where I imbibed only tonic water. The really strange thing, which has never happened before, is that I didn't even have the slightest desire for a real beer.

Maybe it is because of a friend and neighbor in KrautLand, who is in the process of dying from cirrhosis of the liver caused by - what else? - alcoholic liver disease. Or maybe it is because I have developed a taste for Holsten Non-Alcoholic* of which I recently bought more than ten cases. Popped the eyes of the saleswoman, too.

Still, a friend tried to tell me that beer is OK and that it's only hard liquor which does the real damage. Not so!

I checked that out on the net, not because I didn't know the answer, but because I like to go into discussions like this with the ammunition of a few links to support what I am saying.

Any alcohol (even beer) can damage the liver ...

Study Links Beer Drinking, Pork Consumption to Alcoholic Liver Disease.

"In men who drink over a period of years, the equivalent of as little as 2 ounces a day (20 ounces of wine, 40 ounces of beer, or 6 ounces of whiskey) can cause liver damage." (40 ounces = 1.18 liters)

"Moderate alcohol consumption does not cause liver disease, but more than 80 grams of alcohol per day (=4 shots of whiskey, 13 oz. of wine, or 32 oz. of beer) generally is felt to be the threshold above which cirrhosis can occur." (32 ounces = 0.95 liters)

I have easily been above the threshold for more than 20 years. And I DO have a fatty liver - even saw a picture of it... So I guess, I'll stick with my Holsten "non-alcoholic" beer for the time being.

More can be found here at Google.

Ah, yeah... Since I am busy counting days anyway... Another 25 days until the due date. :-))) I wonder whether Ulani will look more Chinese or more German. Or whether she'll look like some beautiful mixture in between.

(* That may not work for everybody. Here's more.)

Peace And Boat Drinks

Overconsumption Over The Ages

People do over consume. This is nothing new. My God, look at the pyramids, The Louvre, Buckingham, the Great Wall, the Hanging Gardens, Colossus of Rhodes.

Still, it looks as if we are getting better and better at it. ;-))

About ballet & music classes.... I dunno what it's like over there, but here it is torture plain and simple. It has nothing to do with culture - and everything to do with fake pretend aspiring middle-class bullshit. Keeping up with the Joneses in a new dimension. My kids can do better than yours and I can afford more and more expensive classes than you can. It really disgusts me. And the kids hate it. Not when they are very little, of course, because daddy and mommy are beaming and they are just performing in order to garner the praise of the adults. Later on it's a different picture though. Those guys go to school all day long and then they go to special classes until 10:00 pm. And THEN they go home to do their homework. They all go to bed past midnight. They are so tired in the evening classes that they literally fall asleep on their chairs. Most of them do it six days a week, some go to special classes seven days a week.

They never have time to really play - not in this city they don't - and if they have a few minutes on the weekend, all they can do is watch TV and play computer games. It might be different in the country-side, I can't vouch for that. In that respect this city is about the worst for kids I can possibly imagine.

And home schooling? I guess there's simply good as well as bad. Some misguided people don't think of the overall picture and those kids then have the equivalent of a Koran school education. Bad news that. But others are apparently doing an excellent job. We intend to try and we will certainly try to do an excellent job.

UNESCO recently criticized Germany for "the absence of organized pre-school learning". And here I thought that kids were supposed to spend their time playing and figuring things out for themselves before they are put in the brain-washing straight-jacket which is called school. And apparently, the only good solution is to send kids to school all day long as opposed to only in the morning as they have done in KrautLand for generations. No wonder we are all so uncultured and under-educated!

I do have to admit that there is a problem though. The lower social strata and especially the many immigrants are having a really tough time right now. I just don't think the way to fix this is to fuck it up completely for everybody.

Books, Presents & Gifts

When I give material stuff, it's a book...

Same here. Liping never gets tired of books and neither do I. It may get a bit repetitive, but the only thing I would really like to get as a present is a good novel.

For my parents it is mostly tickets for a play, a concert or something like that or else they might get an overland bus trip or a cruise on a ship. Last time they got this one (www.hurtigruten.com) from their four sons together. My ancestors from my father's side come from Norway and the trip goes through many fjords all the way up to the North Cape in the Arctic.

The 2004 one is still in the planning stages somewhere in the Mediterranean.

What I'd really like to get them one day is this one (www.aranui.com) -- but I think right now it is more than a little bit above the budget. This isn't a cruise-ship, but the regular supply ship for the remoter islands of French Polynesia.

I've pretty much given up on books for other people, though. Time and again I find that they don't read them. It looks as if they have more important things to do than read books. Maybe reading the newspaper or magazines, I wouldn't know. Or perhaps everyday routine life is eating up all their time.

Just a little while ago I mentioned that I got a big box of 16 old and rare books via StevPete [Thanks again, Steve!!!] and a friend of mine mentioned that those books would last him ten years or more. I very much doubt that they will last me more than a couple or three months.

22 Rules of Trading

(from http://www.frontlinethoughts.com/index.asp by John Mauldin)

1. Never, under any circumstance add to a losing position.... ever! Nothing
more need be said; to do otherwise will eventually and absolutely lead to
ruin!

2. Trade like a mercenary guerrilla. We must fight on the winning side and
be willing to change sides readily when one side has gained the upper hand.

3. Capital comes in two varieties: Mental and that which is in your pocket
or account. Of the two types of capital, the mental is the more important
and expensive of the two. Holding to losing positions costs measurable sums
of actual capital, but it costs immeasurable sums of mental capital .

4. The objective is not to buy low and sell high, but to buy high and to
sell higher. We can never know what price is "low." Nor can we know what
price is "high." Always remember that sugar once fell from $1.25/lb to 2
cent/lb and seemed "cheap" many times along the way.

5. In bull markets we can only be long or neutral, and in bear markets we
can only be short or neutral. That may seem self-evident; it is not, and it
is a lesson learned too late by far too many.

6. "Markets can remain illogical longer than you or I can remain solvent,"
according to our good friend, Dr. A. Gary Shilling. Illogic often reigns
and markets are enormously inefficient despite what the academics believe.

7. Sell markets that show the greatest weakness, and buy those that show
the greatest strength. Metaphorically, when bearish, throw your rocks into
the wettest paper sack, for they break most readily. In bull markets, we
need to ride upon the strongest winds... they shall carry us higher than
shall lesser ones.

8. Try to trade the first day of a gap, for gaps usually indicate violent
new action. We have come to respect "gaps" in our nearly thirty years of
watching markets; when they happen (especially in stocks) they are usually
very important.

9. Trading runs in cycles: some good; most bad. Trade large and
aggressively when trading well; trade small and modestly when trading
poorly. In "good times," even errors are profitable; in "bad times" even
the most well researched trades go awry. This is the nature of trading;
accept it.

10. To trade successfully, think like a fundamentalist; trade like a
technician. It is imperative that we understand the fundamentals driving a
trade, but also that we understand the market's technicals. When we do,
then, and only then, can we or should we, trade.

11. Respect "outside reversals" after extended bull or bear runs. Reversal
days on the charts signal the final exhaustion of the bullish or bearish
forces that drove the market previously. Respect them, and respect even
more "weekly" and "monthly," reversals.

12. Keep your technical systems simple. Complicated systems breed
confusion; simplicity breeds elegance.

13. Respect and embrace the very normal 50-62% retracements that take
prices back to major trends. If a trade is missed, wait patiently for the
market to retrace. Far more often than not, retracements happen... just as
we are about to give up hope that they shall not.

14. An understanding of mass psychology is often more important than an
understanding of economics. Markets are driven by human beings making human
errors and also making super-human insights.

15. Establish initial positions on strength in bull markets and on weakness
in bear markets. The first "addition" should also be added on strength as
the market shows the trend to be working. Henceforth, subsequent additions
are to be added on retracements.

16. Bear markets are more violent than are bull markets and so also are
their retracements.

17. Be patient with winning trades; be enormously impatient with losing
trades. Remember it is quite possible to make large sums trading/investing
if we are "right" only 30% of the time, as long as our losses are small and
our profits are large.

18. The market is the sum total of the wisdom ... and the ignorance...of
all of those who deal in it; and we dare not argue with the market's
wisdom. If we learn nothing more than this we've learned much indeed.

19. Do more of that which is working and less of that which is not: If a
market is strong, buy more; if a market is weak, sell more. New highs are
to be bought; new lows sold.

20. The hard trade is the right trade: If it is easy to sell, don't; and if
it is easy to buy, don't. Do the trade that is hard to do and that which
the crowd finds objectionable. Peter Steidelmeyer taught us this twenty
five years ago and it holds truer now than then.

21. There is never one cockroach! This is the "winning" new rule submitted
by our friend, Tom Powell.

22. All rules are meant to be broken: The trick is knowing when... and how
infrequently this rule may be invoked!

Why Environmentalism?

Maybe I am a limousine-liberal.....

After all, the Earth is just a rock in space.

Yes. I don't want to preserve our environment for some mystical reason or because I believe in a Gaian soul, but because we live here.

And humanity will probably manage to hang on to dear life, more or less like cockroaches or viruses, even on a piece of empty rock floating through space. So, it's not merely survival that I am talking about, either.

I simply happen to prefer living on a blue & green planet with whales and dolphins, glaciers and ice-caps, the Gulf Stream, seasons, different climate zones, tropical rain forests and all that stuff. Maybe VR will replace all of that one day - Remember the Matrix? Remember William Gibson? - but until then, I enjoy the very selfish pleasure of simply looking at things.

And while the stars and nebulae are amazing as well, I would rather have diversity for my tired old eyes. And that, actually, is a very big reason why I will take my daughter sailing to far-away places. Every island resembles every other island more and more every year. People even begin to talk about the same TV programs everywhere and diversity is harder and harder to find.

It may be hard to believe, but even in the short time that I have been traveling around, so many interesting things have been lost already that people who haven't seen the difference for themselves just can't appreciate what has been lost. There used to be hundreds of dolphins accompanying boats all the time, now there are maybe three to five. Where coral reefs were alive and flourishing, teeming with all kinds of fish, we find most of the fish gone and the coral dead or dying. I don't even want to talk about Brazil....

But here, look for yourself what is there now. http://www.pbase.com/mayonick/2003&page=all
It will be gone in no time, you may be sure of that.

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty." -- Albert Einstein

http://pub38.ezboard.com/fpeaceandboatdrinks66759frm2.showMessage?topicID=221.topic

http://boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=19990859

joyrides without maps -- notes on an uncalibrated way of life

the lander's blog

In reply to the following thread at the Bombay Wise Up Club Martini Club

Um..... While it may have come across as such, I had not intended that post as a glorification of poverty. I have spent too much time amongst people who didn't have enough, and instead of making them somehow noble, it made them stingy and mean. Some felt entitled to take advantage of others - they have so much, so they sure can spare this - or even to steal from people who were just as poor as them. Whenever this type of yachtie showed up in an anchorage, people battened down the hatches, the harbormasters got very unfriendly and all in all things became very unpleasant in a hurry.

I don't think that's the way to go at all, in fact. What I had in mind was more along the lines of having what you need, instead of having what you want, or even worse, haven even more than what you want.

Happiness only through struggle? Doesn't sound very appealing, does it? But I am afraid that without struggle it is rather difficult to get there. And I guess you are right, after we've been there for a while it palls and we have to struggle all over again. The only drug that I never get bored with in its various manifestations is alcohol. But then again, a friend is right now in the process of dying because his liver has finally given up the fight. So.... I am taking a little breather at the moment.

My own blog often careens towards anti-bourgeois broadsides as well.

I had to laugh out loud when I read that sentence. A pleasant surprise on an otherwise rather unpleasant day. But it is true, recently I am given a bit to firing broadsides while my ship is turning to all points of the compass. And what's worse is that I am giving no thought to returning fire, or tactical considerations on where and how to dodge the cannonballs which might come my way.

The rake? Sounds like a damn fine one, worthy to be fixed.

What kind of company I am keeping? Why, the same one I have kept for years. Mostly misfits and alcoholics, writers and disillusionists. I am not overly worried about them sinking into the soft cushion of over-consumption. If anybody, it is more myself and our little family that I am worried about. I am straining at the bit, itching to go and I can see that it will be quite a struggle to cast off and get away from here.

Life is comfortable, too much so. It deadens the senses and it inhibits any kind of action. It would be stupid to leave just like that and it would be even more stupid to stay. The people who have more or consume more are the ones that I hold up in front of my eyes, saying: This is not what you want, old boy! End up in a ditch, yeah, sink with all hands - all that is part of the game. But never even trying? I am extremely wary of the path of least resistance, the comfortable middle-way. Maybe it's just me, but I just can't see myself on my deathbed being satisfied with myself when all I could look back to is a life of mediocrity, safety, security, comfort and luxury.

But there's something else, which has nothing to do with my particular slightly insane quest for a meaningful life (Quote my father: "Not all people can or want to live your way!") - I just really hate waste of all kinds. And all this overconsumption-business encourages waste on a monumental scale, even down to the rape and destruction of the planet we live on. And yet it is one of the cultural mainstays of every country I have ever been to.

As far as scaling back is concerned, I would have to say that I could be classified as a minimalist in everyday life. The only thing that I am really attached to is my library. And since I already lost one because of a typhoon years ago, I know that it may hurt, but it isn't all that bad after all. Who knows, maybe that was a lesson to be learned as well. I have read the books, the ideas have become part of me and changed me, so why should I be attached to the possession of the actual volumes? So far I still am, I have to admit.

Family History

Chinese often know their family history back to about eight generations. But since I don't want to write a thick volume of recent Chinese history, let me start with just one or two generations ago.

Liping's grandmother is still alive and I have seen her several times. When I first met her, she surprised me when she said that I should call her Oma. When I asked her how she knew that we call our grandmothers Oma, she said that she had had a Dutch neighbor 65 or more years ago in Jakarta who called his grandmother Oma.

Liping's grandparents were rich coffee plantation owners in Indonesia. They were so rich that the children didn't walk around, but were actually carried by servants. They never received any proper schooling, though. Liping's grandparents also were Hakka, the most traditional of all Chinese "tribes". It is usual that the Hakka-women are in charge of the finances of the family, while the men are left with the illusion of power. That, unfortunately, was not the state of affairs in Liping's family.

When the communist and anti-Chinese scare hit Indonesia in the 50s, Liping's grandfather sold the whole plantation, converted the proceeds to many bars of gold and went looking for a fishing boat which might take them to safety in Taiwan. He paid an absolutely horrendous amount of gold to secure passage for his family. Only the eldest daughter was left behind as she had already married. She still lives there now and the grandparents and Liping's mother's generation still mainly use Bahasa Indonesia to communicate.

When the family arrived in Taiwan, it didn't take long for a local conman to cheat them out of the remaining gold. Suddenly they found themselves destitute without any useful skills. There aren't too many coffee plantations that need to be managed around here. In fact there aren't any.

So the grandfather went to work as an unskilled laborer in a factory and became a very bitter man. The promised land turned into a hellhole for him and all Liping remembers is an angry old man, sitting in his undershirt in the kitchen, smoking one cigarette after another. He died before I got to know Liping.

The nine remaining children, almost all daughters, were sold for bride-money. That didn't exactly endear them to their parents, especially as they had until that time lived a very sheltered life. Liping's mother was one of them, and she had to be sold off pretty early, as, you see, she was already pregnant. In fact, the family was extremely lucky that Liping's father was willing to marry her.

About the father's side, not too much is known, as he was kidnapped by the Nationalists one rainy night and conscripted into their army. He never saw his family or his homeland again. Originally he was from Canton province, and there might still be relatives around, but we know next to nothing about them. Fortunately for him, he had already finished high-school and was therefore one of the higher educated amongst the KMT soldiers. He managed to save up some money and thus was able to pay the bride price. Most other soldiers never got that far and lived in loneliness until they died. Even now many of them can be found in concierge jobs.

Liping's parents then proceeded to build a rudimentary hut on government land. That's where Liping grew up. The family was desperately poor and one of the sons was sold, because there wasn't enough food. Still, he died. Liping's mother became more and more unhappy with her situation, started drinking and quarreling, had boyfriends outside and finally kicked the old man out. She still somehow managed to relieve him of all his money every month, and when he didn't have any left - but she needed something - she sent him to steal it. Liping's father never complained very much. He was of the opinion that he was already very lucky and didn't really deserve such a beautiful wife anyway. He took on a second job selling sesame-balls in the streets, loved his children dearly, but was absolutely powerless to do anything about the worsening situation.

We don't know exactly what happened, it may have been sleep-deprivation or something more sinister, but one day he apparently stumbled with his push-cart into the traffic, got hit and killed. Liping was about thirteen years old when this happened.

Now things got even worse, because although Liping's mother got a pension, it was still less than before. The mother drank more, got more angry, beat the little sister even more and often simply left home for a period of time. More than once Liping came home from school to find her little brother literally crawling in his own shit. [<-- excrement]

When the little sister couldn't take it anymore, she left home and lived on the streets. She was twelve at the time. Liping left as well, but since she had always been an excellent student, she got good scholarships and lived in school dormitories. Her sister didn't even finish elementary school. Her older brother joined the military and the little brother followed a few yeas later.

Liping found a place to live for both of the little ones, and while it worked out fine for the brother, nothing seemed to work for the sister. She was simply too damaged, couldn't stand it to stay anywhere for long, couldn't develop any kind of trust and quit one job after another.

That was about the time when I appeared at the scene. We were both worried about her little sister and Liping continued to persuade and cajole her to stay with a job and to go to night-school to get at least a rudimentary education. It didn't look too good.

Liping herself had managed to get into the best program and the best university in the country. Her older brother, while being a very nice person, had somehow inherited the weakness of her father and never was any help. But that didn't really matter.

After a few years the little sister somehow realized that she would be in deep trouble if she continued what she was doing and made a real effort. It must have been a real killer for her, as she also had to work long hours for very little money at the same time. Then she met Ah-ji, they got married and things are looking good, although Ah-ji's family has its own troubles as well.

Both brothers are going to get married any time soon, and all they want is safety and security. They may be the most boring people you can imagine, but they know what they have and they will never ever risk it.

And Liping? The whole ordeal has left her a lot stronger than she otherwise would have been. I know her classmates quite well and I can say for sure that not one of them is as independent-thinking and as independent-acting as she is.

That turned out to be very important for me as well, as Liping told me that one of the main reasons that attracted her to me was the fact that life with me would never be boring, but unpredictable and always full of surprises. :-)))

~~~~~~~~~~

As to how they broke the vicious cycle: We will have to take Liping's words for that. According to her, the main reason lies with the fact that Taiwan was booming at the time. Another very important fact was that the Confucian work-ethic was still very much alive then. And the third was the fact that the country was ruled by a comparatively benevolent military junta.

In my own estimation the second one is probably the most important. No matter where you turned, whether it be to teachers, classmates' parents, or anywhere else in society - everywhere you got the mantra that hard work pays off in the end, that beginnings don't really matter, that trying your best is what it's all about. And like they said in Illuminatus: What I tell you three times is true. Sooner or later you believe it and when you believe it, it will give you confidence and with that confidence it is indeed possible to overcome.

~~~~~~~~~~

Things have changed drastically over the last twenty or thirty years. The boom has fizzled out, the junta has given way to a young democracy and you are beginning to see the first homeless. The Confucian work-ethic is a thing of the last generation and my students have so far lived their life in such luxury that it isn't easily imaginable for the average Westerner. The big issue now is independence. Many people want it at any price and the others are afraid of a war with China. Nobody - I mean not even 0.1% of the population - wants to be part of China. Take part in the boom which has moved over there, yes. But that's all.

Christmas Shopping

We've come across COSTCO, SUVs & suburban life-style in many articles before. I would like to expand on that a bit. Expand it to include both the city as well as the countryside, the chic boutiques as well as the Home Depots, the Mercedes-Benzes as well as the pick-up trucks.

At the same time, I'd like to confine the topic to consumption. I don't want to talk about how bad chain-shops are for the environment, or how they destroy all kinds of other shops in the vicinity, how they exploit labor or show up execrable taste or behavior. Valid concerns, to be sure, but just not my main focus right now.

~~~~~~~~~~

A few weeks ago I went and had a look at a local tycoon's newly furnished apartment, and besides the main door which reminded me of a bank-vault, I was very much impressed by the walk-in closet which had enough space to hang up 250 suits. The place is for sale right now, it is a couple of minutes walk from where I live and the guy is asking a cool 19 million. My friend Alex, who renovated the place for 7 million just recently, thinks it is worth about 15 million. As far as I know said tycoon spent exactly one night in the place.

But back to the suits and back to consumption. Who needs 250 suits? I use the word need on purpose here, because one may want 250 suits, but it is hardly conceivable for one to need them. Who needs several furnished, but otherwise empty houses? Three or more cars? Several hundred pairs of shoes with matching handbags?

Of course I am picking out extremes for my examples, but that is only to make a point. Why are we all so hell-bent on consumption? There's my unemployed friend - the one who wrote only a few months ago that they were "barely eating" - who is now drinking Beaujolais Noveau whilst eating the most expensive soft cheeses. He just bought a brand-new van, too. He didn't suddenly inherit a princely sum of money or won the lottery. All that happened is that he finally found a job and got his first couple of paychecks.

Why is it that although technology advances and we should by all means have more leisure time and a better life, the rat-race has never been more insane than right now and all we have to show for it is more THINGS? Everybody is always busy, busy, busy and while people say that they are working towards financial independence or any other dream-goal, I have yet to see more than one that actually does it. I am not advocating living on bread and water only here. I like a bit of luxury now and then just like anybody. I like a comfortable car, I like good food, and I like vacations on tropical beaches. Maybe somebody else likes other things, but that is not the issue.

What I don't get is what the Chinese call "Yue Guang Zu". Zu means "tribe", guang means "empty" and yue stands for "moon", or in this case, "month". The tribe of people who have no money left at the end of the month. This is not related to how much they make, because these tribal people manage to spend any amount of money. I have good friends who easily go through $300k a year - and that is although the company pays for their sumptuous apartments and gets them all kinds of other perks that ordinary mortals have to do without. Not a few of those guys actually have a negative bank-balance.

But enough of this ranting now.

What I ask myself is why this is happening. Does all the blame go to those clever marketing guys, who know more about our unconscious then we ever will? Are we all victims, not only of fashion, but of consumption in all its aspects? Is it just the old "Keeping up with the Joneses" syndrome in a new and much deadlier dimension? Somehow I don't think so. People are responsible for themselves, so they should be able to see that this is not a path that leads straight to happiness. It probably doesn't lead there at all - and still we march on.

Or is it perhaps a more serious problem, deeper down in our psyche. So deep down, in fact, that we have no clue how to go about solving it. Maybe all this consumption is nothing but "Ersatz" (replacement)? We shop until we drop, because real satisfaction is so hard to come by? Maybe deep down in our genes the programming is out of synch with the real world that we live in right now.

~~~~~~~~~~

Different angle again. A couple of years ago I went to Germany to visit some old friends. I had to make an appointment - everybody is busy, remember? - and we met in the nicely landscaped garden. There was a crisp tablecloth on the outdoor table, home-made cake was served and the coffee was caffeine-free. In the beginning our conversation was dominated by topics designed to help us to catch up on each other. But after a little while, there was nothing more to say. They showed us their house, obviously expecting praise on how they had refurbished and furnished it. Same with the garden and the landscaping. Finally, the talk came around to growing tomatoes. And got stuck there.

Here were my old friends, stuck in their middle-class lives, with all the things that a middle-class person might aspire to and the most exciting topic of conversation was the growing of tomatoes. We hadn't seen each other for at least two years. I somehow doubt that Liping & I will go there the next time we are back in Germany.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against gardening or tomatoes in particular, but if that is the most exciting thing happening in your life, then I am at a loss on how to deal with that. This simply can't be all there is.


Is that all there is?
If that's all there is my friend
Then let's keep dancing
Let's break out the booze and have a ball
If that's all there is


Maybe true happiness is not to be found according to things that we want, but according to things that we need. Maybe these needs are anchored in our ape-genes and not so much changed by our learning over the last few thousand years. But of course we can't admit that because that wouldn't be sophisticated now, would it? But then I ask myself where this so-called sophistication is getting us. I do not see much evidence to show that we are improving overall. No "net gain in happiness" as I read a while ago in a popular science-fiction novel.

~~~~~~~~~~

I recently got a whole bunch of rare and old books. I haven't finished even one of them yet, because I want the pleasure to last as long as possible. I peeked into two of them and they have one thing in common. They both show how some people are standing head and shoulders above their contemporaries. Although times were much harder those days, these guys accomplished things that almost all people of these times would find pretty much impossible to duplicate. That is with the help of modern technology and knowledge. One of them is William Albert Robinson and the other one is Hanoi-born Bernard Moitessier. How did they say that again? Men of steel on boats of wood - and not the other way around.

~~~~~~~~~~

Somebody once said that real happiness is not found in the realization of those dreams which we developed as adults, but only in the realization of the dreams we had when we were children.

For Liping that means a happy family. She would go to Tierra del Fuego, if that's where she could find a happy family life. For me it is adventure. We are totally different, but so far we complement each other just fine.

~~~~~~~~~~

And one more phrase which has been jumping around in my head for a few days. After that I'll shut up. Here it is:


Are you amazed at yourself now? If not you better hurry up!

Winston

Just a short one, as I just woke up and should get ready for work now.

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the 'worst' form of Government except for all those others that have been tried from time to time."

If we were only to listen to our fearless leaders, democracy would surely be the best of all worlds, while the problems it entails are negligible. Not so.

Democracy as we know it is susceptible to all kinds of influences which you can observe for yourself any time. If your campaign budget is too small, you don't even need to try to run for president. If you have had a lot of media exposure, you have a very serious advantage over the other contenders. (Remember Arnie?) Powerful special interest groups can - and do - sway elections. And so on.

There is another side as well. Democracy has always been resting on the assumption that the advantages of majority-rule outweigh the disadvantages. That assumption should at least be questioned because said rule may not be the wisest.

When you look at the serious mess we have maneuvered us into, not only in the States, but in many places and not only environmentally, but also economically (Various deficits, anyone?), and socially (The widening rich - poor gap in many democracies comes to mind. There's a growing education-gap as well.), then even a person who has grown up in our cultures could have his doubts. Humans are supposedly guided by enlightened self-interest, but they are also thinking notoriously short-term and are very selfish beings. In fact, they are downright stupid. :-) To deny this would be to make the same mistake that the original theorists of socialism and communism made. Humans are highly imperfect and we have to take that into account when thinking of politics.

So why should people in Africa, in the Middle East or in Asia not come to the conclusion that democracy is not the right way for them, but the western way into decadence and destruction? Maybe to them it seems that the right way is instead guided by their religion - or whatever else they may choose. And who are we to deny them their own experiments? We've certainly tried our ways which include feudalism, slavery, and a whole host of other equally beautiful concepts. To me the righteous feeling of the people who insist that democracy is the only way to go smacks of the conviction of a fervent socialist but a short while ago.

Oh, and I almost forgot one thing. Mussolini arose out of a democracy. And so did the man with the mustache.

http://pub38.ezboard.com/fpeaceandboatdrinks66759frm2.showMessage?topicID=211.topic

Scientific Method

While it may be the best method we have of coming closer to figuring out what is going on, it is pretty useless when it comes to values. Values aren't usually arrived at by cogitating until smoke pours out of our ears, but are handed down from parents, teachers, peers, society at large. What seems like rational thoughts to explain our values are usually just rationalizations which we make up after the fact - long after these values have become totally ingrained into us. (And that facts change, while societies cling to their old values and taboos is yet another story.) These values are the lenses through which we see the world and because we all have a different set, we all see things differently.

Even when we all grew up in roughly the same conditions, we still see things differently because of the weighting we attach to the different values. Different priorities, different lenses, different view of the world.

The question I ask myself is this: How do I go about trying to be as objective as possible? How do I avoid cultural bias while at the same time trying to give people the cultural space that they need?

Maybe an example will illustrate what I mean. In 1980 in Afghanistan there were only about two out of a thousand Afghanis who didn't either actively or passively support the fight against the Russians. In the end the Russians had to leave Afghanistan (although resistance may not have been the only reason). It looks like the situation in Iraq is rapidly heading into the same direction.

So, forcing either the Afghanis or the Iraqis into a western-style democracy is probably not going to work. But what *is* the right, long-term good thing to pursue? Just leaving them cutting each others throats as has been happening in Afghanistan for countless decades somehow doesn't seem the right way either. Kick out the bad guys again and again to let "the people" find their own way? That gets to be a pretty big job as well after a while - never mind that no voting public will support that course of action for long.

When I examine the problem, I realize that I am still looking through my own cultural lenses. I know very little of what the people over there think about the situation. And even if I do, I may have to strongly disagree with them - the treatment of women by the Taliban comes to mind. Can't very well say, it is their way, it is their right to do things like that and leave it at that, can I? So, again, I impose my cultural values.

And since these values are simply handed to me, I am where I started. I can't spend ten or twenty years in each place to understand what is really going on and I can't always moan "I don't understand" and refrain from forming an opinion. But of course, mostly the opposite happens, and people form a very strong opinion - the stronger the less they know about the situation.

Take South Africa during "Apart-Hate". Almost anywhere in the west there was only one opinion and it was uniformly against the then government. Boycotts were organized, boycotts that may have done more harm than good, but that was not really the point. The point was, they *felt* good.

People who actually took the trouble of going there and checking out what was going on there, were far more careful when judging what was going on there. All of a sudden, no more blanket statements or hot-headed calls for action. Instead confusion, a questioning of why things looked so different from afar and right there and then. (No way can you properly understand another culture vicariously through only books, films, music, and so on. There is always a big piece missing - just look at the America-haters for confirmation.)

So, then, what is left?

"Ours is an age of criticism, to which everything must be subjected. The sacredness of religion, and the authority of legislation, are by many regarded as grounds for exemption from the examination by this tribunal. But, if they are exempted, and cannot lay claim to sincere respect, which reason accords only to that which has stood the test of a free and public examination."

I haven't come across any shortcut or method in which to evaluate things so far. The only thing that I resort to time and again is to go there and see for myself and then let good old common sense be my guide.

Culture

Yesterday I stumbled across the word again, this time in a narrative about a circumnavigation. The author met a captain of a cargo ship that was trading all over the world. They met in the Solomon Islands and the captain looked like a movie star. Top Gun sunglasses, crisp white shirt, tanned like Tarzan, and efficient like hell.

But the only thing he talked about was his home in Hamburg. He said he missed the cooler climate there, and the food, and the fact that things worked when you expected them to. But what he missed most of all, he said, was the culture. He was talking about the theater, and the opera, maybe even the movie theaters. He was thinking of museums and jazz festivals, galleries and exhibitions.

The same captain refused an invitation to visit the yachtie on his boat and never spent any time at all with the people from the Solomon Islands or anywhere else. He didn't even realize that he sailed right past places with cultures just as diverse and interesting as his own, cultures that probably won't be around for much longer. He was blind to everything that didn't fit into his scheme of things.

Vendée Globe Challenge

It's been more than eight years since I've been sailing. Sometimes I miss it and sometimes I am glad that I don't have to work so hard to maintain my boat. And worry about anchors slipping, or bad weather or getting sick far away from the next doctor.

Other times I think I am wasting my life not going sailing right away. As far as I am concerned no other mode of life can live up to the intensity of sailing across oceans, of circumnavigating.

Isn't everything worth doing also uncomfortable, difficult or dangerous? Or all of them at once? Why is it that everybody simply assumes that safety, comfort or even luxury are the goals that we should strive for in life?

Last Sunday, before we embarked on a long drive into a truly remote place in northern Taiwan, Liping & I saw a documentary on the Vendee Globe Challenge. It's a single-handed non-stop yacht race around the world. Not for ordinary mortals as they boats alone cost millions.

The weather down there is atrocious or even downright deadly. It is the equivalent to trying to emulate Reinhold Messner and climbing one of the highest mountains in the world without the help of oxygen and other modern technology. Only half of the boats made it to the finish, several guys had to be rescued - very close calls indeed - and one guy was lost at sea.

Still, I would like to go down there.

Liping on the other hand, cried big tears when she thought of the wife and daughter of the guy who didn't make it.

I guess I won't make it down there. At least not any time soon.

Pain, Misery, Hardship and Suffering

I don't really know what started me thinking about this. Perhaps it was somebody who was of the opinion that there are plenty of writers that write well - but without anything meaningful to say. Or it might have been books by Orson Scott Card, which I re-read recently. And then again, it might simply have been that people I know are suffering and I wondered if that was really necessary.

When you first think about it, you are tempted to say that pain and suffering are wholly bad concepts and if only we could overcome them somehow, we'd all live in a better world. Soon, you realize that pain serves a very useful function - if there were no pain, our bodies would soon stop to function altogether since we wouldn't even know that there was a problem. So, at least in a physiological sense, pain is indeed necessary.

But what about emotional pain? What's that good for? What purpose does heartbreak or loneliness serve? The loss of a loved one? Feelings of inferiority? The list is endless. And again, most people would think that we are way better off without all these things. In many ways we act in order to avoid these unpleasant feelings and we might even be more motivated by the avoidance of pain than by a striving for pleasurable feelings.

And maybe that's where it gets interesting. Maslow's Pyramid of Needs, maybe a rather old concept, but still useful to conceptualize what I am talking about. On the lowest level, survival, just imagine somebody who has suffered from hunger, thirst, cold, or any of the other things that threaten his continuing existence. Obviously he feels pain and suffering. But might not this pain guarantee, that he will try harder to avoid being in the same situation in the future? And, moving up the pyramid, might not this "pain" do the same thing on every level of the pyramid?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Several years ago, 1997 to be precise, I felt vaguely dissatisfied with my own life. I didn't know what I was unhappy about, I just experienced a feeling of unhappiness without being able to pinpoint where exactly it came from. We had decided to spend the summer vacation at home. The idea was that maybe we needed a real break, not work, not travel, nothing but relaxation. Maybe that would cure the problem. As luck would have it, it rained almost the entire vacation. So much so that our lawn turned into a swamp and the house got muddy inside. Instead of feeling better, I felt worse and worse. Life didn't seem to be worth living anymore. Didn't I have all the time in the world, wonderful books to read and an even more wonderful wife to cheer me up? Still, it didn't seem to be enough.

Then a friend came by and we talked about books. I confessed that it had always been my dream to write a book. He immediately seized upon the idea - not unlike a terrier, really - and didn't let go until I had promised him that I would at least give it a decent try. Which meant doing my utmost of course. Guess what? No sooner had I embarked on the project than my feelings of discontent began to evaporate and while the project took years longer than I had envisioned, it finally came to a successful conclusion a couple of years ago. But, you see... If there hadn't been any "pain" in the first place, then there wouldn't be a novel around now. There would not be that feeling of accomplishment, either. No pain, no gain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And when I look back upon my life and remember the times when I felt pain and suffering, I come to the conclusion that it has changed me more often than not. The miserable time in high-school and my abominable performance there has encouraged me to look for different ways to go. And to work harder at them then I otherwise would. The divorce from my first wife, painful as it was, has probably made me a better husband. Or so I hope. I am sure there are more examples, but these will have to do for now. What really concerns me, is not really my own life, as I will certainly strive to avoid hardship just like everybody else.

Maybe what prompted my thinking about all these rather unpleasant human affairs, is how the parents of my students deal with their children.

The parents had a rough time when they were young, as Taiwan then was not all that dissimilar to the Vietnam of today. Liping, for example, lived in a ramshackle hut with no toilet. Her mother was sold to her father in order to raise bride-money. Her father was captured on the fields in China and never saw his own family again. Often there was not enough food in the house. One of her brothers died while still a kid.

Now, of course, these people have children themselves and they are determined that their kids should not suffer as they did. Certainly understandable and the parents go to great lengths to ensure that this won't happen, often denying themselves in order to provide ballet-, piano-, or violin-lessons for their offspring. They go further than that and try to protect their children from ALL pain and suffering, at least as far as they can.

And this is where the whole story gets complicated. The children treat their parents little better than their personal slaves. They are not motivated to do anything, but watch TV and play computer-games. Maybe read comic-books. The rant could go on, but you get the picture.

I haven't made a graph of this, but it looks almost as if the richer and more over-protective the parents are, the worse the kids turn out. Since nobody here is truly poor, I can't tell you what a control group would look like. But I do know of a few Chinese people who were truly poor. As Liping's family was.

So when Liping left home at 15, she had to work in a factory to support herself. (Her sister left at 12 and learned her lessons on the streets.) School wasn't a problem as a scholarship took care of that. But working in a factory was such a horrible experience for her, that she vowed to get into one of the best schools or else. After the factory experience, she worked much harder than before and finally made it into a good school. Not in order to amass a fortune or impress her friends (well, maybe a little :-), but much more in order to avoid having to work in a factory for the rest of her life. Without the pain of her early life, she would not be the woman she is now.

But how can my students get similar experiences? When they constantly eat in five-star restaurants, get brought to school in a limousine, when their mobile phones are always the latest model and their phone bills dwarf those of a small-size business? Aren't they being set up for major disappointment later on when father and mother can't protect them from the realities of life anymore?

Or maybe they will turn into what sociologist Yamada Masahiro called parasite singles?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Which reminds me of a Japanese proverb: If you love your son, don't help him.

Fortunately I still have a few years to mull these issues over, but as things stand right now, I am pretty sure that a bit of controlled hardship for my child may be better in the long run than growing up without. Not that I am overly worried that hardship, pain, suffering and misery won't crop up all of their own and without my interference.

Peace & Boat Drinks!

Holg

Repatriation & Reintegration

Last night I talked to a friend who used to live in Taiwan for many years. Five years ago he moved back to his hometown. His wife is Chinese and had no big problems getting used to life in a new country. She now speaks the language well and has found a satisfying job, too.

Not so my friend. Although he managed to land a good job, he has made no real friends over the last five years and he really misses life in Asia. Nor is he the only one. It seems to be a recurring theme for many if not most of my friends who went back.

It's not that they are too shy or don't have the opportunity to make friends. It isn't that they don't like the people over there, either. The crux of the matter is that after a short while of pleasant small-talk, there's nothing to talk about anymore. No common ground. My friends just can't get that excited anymore about those topics that people back home find interesting.

And the new acquaintances soon get tired of topics they can't really relate or contribute to.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There are quite a few studies on the net dealing with reverse culture or re-entry shock. I had a look at several of them, but what I read there is more or less that this is a problem that can be overcome. A bump in the road.

And I have friends for whom this would be true. Maybe the first one or two years were tough, but sooner or later they felt at home again. The episode abroad is viewed as an enriching experience, but there is not necessarily a desire to leave once more. Some, to be sure, have resigned themselves to living back home because of various constraints and try to make the best of it while many are genuinely happy.

But for others this is not a bump in the road, but a major disaster. They have been irrevocably altered by living in a foreign culture for so many years and many of them will never fully reintegrate. Just imagine you learned Bahinemo and moved to live with that particular tribe in Papua New Guinea. No matter how long you lived with them, you would still always be the outsider, you would never really fit in. That's what it feels like to some of my friends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That is one of the main reasons why one them went back now instead of later. He has three young children, and he figured that while it wasn't sure that the jump would be successful now, it is almost certain that with each additional year the odds would get worse and worse.

As for me, I am pretty sure that it is too late for myself. I enjoy living the way I do way too much to give it up. Plus, I am definitely infected with the sailing virus - although I am fully aware of all the costs - financial and otherwise - hardship and danger involved. But who knows what will happen? And who knows where I will finally end up?

Peace & Boat Drinks to you all!

Holg

Future Plans & Sailing

My friend Herbert Salvenmoser recently went sailing with Wolfgang Hausner http://www.wolfgang-hausner.com/logbuch.html . He's been sailing and living on catamarans since 1965, circumnavigated the world twice and lives now on his boat in Cebu, Philippines. He also has a daughter, Vaitea, who is now 15 years old.

Wolfgang and his wife Gerti didn't opt for an Austrian or German http://www.deutsche-fernschule.de/index.htm education http://www.ils.de/index.php?rf=http://www.ils.de/fernlehrwerk.php , but instead went for home-schooling American style, through the Calvert School http://www.calvertschool.org/hs/homeschool_title in Maryland. The results seem to be more than encouraging, with apparently no problems as far as socialization is concerned.

I have always been interested in home-schooling and distance education, especially since Liping checked it out and got her 2nd degree in Organizational Behavior http://www.bbk.ac.uk/manop/op/courses.htm from the University of London http://www.lon.ac.uk/colleges.htm on our last trip in 1994/1995.

I did a fair bit of research those days about Master's Degree programs, but now I am more interested in courses for children. Home-schooling programs for elementary, junior, and senior high school. I used to teach some of the "kids" living on boats years ago and my impression was very positive.

*****

What I would really like to do, is go and buy another catamaran http://www.yachts-in-greece.com/multihull.html in about 2007, something like an Antigua 37 or a Catana 40 . Somewhere in the range of 38' to 42', big enough for a family with kids, but small enough to handle for one person alone.

And then slowly, slowly sail through the South Seas, from island to island, and from country to country. Not like last time, in a hurry to cross the Pacific before the cyclone season sets in again, but with long breaks here and there. Perhaps even make it a permanent lifestyle, like some of my friends have done. And if it gets tedious after a while, what with all the work, the dirt and the anxiety, maybe settle down on one of those islands.

*****

By far the biggest change and challenge, however, is that this time it won't be just Liping and me, but our child and us. That's why 2007 seems about the earliest reasonable time to go. (I did help by boiling lots of water when one of my friends gave birth on her boat, but I am not all that keen to repeat the experience. :-)

Maybe this is all a bit crazy, but then most of my past ventures fall into that category. As I know people who have done it, it is definitely do-able, the only questions that remain are whether it a good thing to try and do and whether we can actually handle it.

So far, it is just a dream or a plan. I constantly make many of those and almost all of them get discarded at one stage. I hope that this particular one doesn't.

Cheers!

Holg

*****

Boy, it does look ugly with the links like that, doesn't it?

Taipei, 1990

I had received a telegram, the very first one in my life, that I was urgently needed back in Taiwan. Also, there might be a chance for a reconciliation, which prompted me to quit my job at the Hotel des Roches in Kourou, French Guyana, on the spot.

A few days later I flew with Minerve Guyane to Paris and soon I was back in Taipei. Unfortunately I stood in front of locked doors and it soon transpired that my services were no longer needed, that, in fact, my presence was not convenient at the moment.

"Wait a minute!" I thought. "This is my bloody school here!"

But the locks had been changed and apparently it was my former father-in-law who was now the legal owner of my school. Surprise, surprise! Apart from anger and emotional upheaval, never mind a boat sitting in the middle of some jungle-bay in Amazonia, there were all kinds of technical problems to take care of.

I didn't have a roof to sleep under, didn't have all that much cash and was stranded on the wrong side of the planet. So I didn't worry all that long, but did what I usually do when the excrement has hit the air-conditioning and went to the pub.

Which is where I ran into Johnnie Ah-Hong. Six beers and two phone calls later, I was all set up. Johnnie's friends had a "safe-house", which was nothing more than a little house in a quiet suburb, where Johnnie and one of his "brothers", named Xiao Lu, lived at the time. They didn't have to pay any rent, as the guy who owned the place owed the "brothers" so much money, that a lifetime of rent wouldn't be enough to pay for it all. And since that man valued his health and the intactness of his bones, he was more than happy to let the brothers use the house for as long as they wished or until the debt had been paid off.

Xiao Lu, it turned out, was an ex-cop, who got seriously pissed off that the guys he was chasing all the time made a lot better living than he did on his meager salary. So, one day he simply quit his job and joined the brothers. That was years and years ago, though. Both he and Johnnie were excellent cooks and when I inquired into the matter, they told me that jail was a very good place indeed to learn cooking. Later I found out that it is also a top-rate language center.

So I was living with a bunch of brothers from the "Bamboo Union" gang and since they had lawyers and accountants and all kinds of other professionals on their payroll, they promised me to check out the legal situation concerning the sudden transfer of ownership of my school. The gangster-lawyer guy came back to me a couple of days later. The expression on his face told me that there wouldn't be any good news.

"It's watertight," he said. "From a legal angle there is absolutely nothing we can do."

The "we" kind of worried me, but I had made it very clear to Johnnie that I would not be part to highly illegal proceedings. He said, "But when I need to borrow some money, you'll give it to me!" It seemed like a reasonable request at the time and when later I did lend him a major sum of cash, I got all of it back, albeit in a different currency.

The news from the lawyer-guy were a major blow, so there was nothing for me to do, but go to the pub once more. Not to drown my sorrows, mind you, but to figure a way out of the pickle I now found myself in. Luck was on my side once more in the form of Richie. Richie had a language center as well, we had both learned under the same couple of guys and our methods were almost identical. And Richie needed a teacher! Lucky me! Lucky Richie! Lucky everybody!

The arrangement was almost perfect. I hopped on my bike, a small 125cc Sanyang, a Honda copy, and drove to Richie's school where I had a second breakfast of beer and noodles. The first breakfast at home consisted only of beer. Richie didn't mind the beers as long as I did my job properly. He even videotaped the classes and one day when I was particularly out of it and had to hold onto the desks in order to avoid keeling over, I surprised even myself because on the video everything seemed to be completely under control. Classes were over at 10:00 pm and I went straight to the pubs and clubs where I usually hooked up with Johnnie and Xiao Lu and whoever was with them. There were always a lot of young girls, sex and drugs and rock'n roll, there seemed to be an almost unlimited amount of money flowing (the bill often was in the vicinity of a thousand bucks US) - basically it was partying non-stop. Often the parties would continue at the "safe-house" as well.

I got to know many of the brothers. One time the very big boss, Ghost, invited me to ride with him in his sports car and told me proudly that he had gone to Kaohsiung on a whim, just because he wanted to be with one particular girl. He apparently made it down there, about 400 km and back, with the girl, before the party was over. I was glad that I hadn't sat next to him on that particular trip, as it would probably have scared me to death. And that simply wouldn't do with these guys. They detested weakness of any kind and I would have been out on my bare arse in minutes, blood-brotherhood or not.

But this little trip was not in order to exhibit superior driving skills. He wanted the whole story of my school again and we talked all the time in Chinese. After that there was a short silence and then he switched to English and said just one word: "Violence!"

The way he said it, matter-of-factly, after evaluating all the alternatives, gave me the shivers. I replied in Chinese and said that I would think about it and let him know. He nodded and that was the end of that. But I did let the brothers know that I was not interested in this particular option.

After about six months, it was time for me to fly back to my boat, as I had managed to save enough money. I packed my few belongings, said good-bye to Richie, Johnnie, Xiao Lu and the brothers and a short time later I was back on DHARMA BUM.

*****

Johnnie got busted with amphetamines and ecstasy and has been in and out of jail several times since.
--
Xiao Lu got in trouble with the brothers and had to leave Taipei to live in Hualien.
--
Richie shared my fate but a little while later, but is now happily married again and his wife is expecting, too.
--
Ghost was set up for a major heroin deal in Bangkok, took the fall, hit the headlines, went to jail - and miraculously got out again. Nobody knows whether he was actually working for the cops, used his family-influence or a major bribe to get out, for the laws in that respect are extremely strict in Taiwan. I saw him myself and he was in excellent spirits.
--
Oh, and BTW, I changed their names.

Berlin 1980

It was pretty late when our old diesel 250 Mercedes Benz rolled into town. My friend Burkhard was driving, pretty Tina and I were stoned to our gills, as we had to finish the weed before crossing into the communist part of Germany. Homegrown, from seeds out of Ghana and watered faithfully by my dad who didn't have a clue what those pretty plants might be. Or so he says.

The sky was gloomy, smoggy and all the buildings seemed to be poured of gray concrete. I was taken aback. I was supposed to live in this concrete jungle for at least four years? We rolled on and on, directed by Tina who lived in a factory-sized loft with a few fellow artists and hippies. Burkhard crashed on the floor and I went out with Tina's sister Petra, just as pretty as Tina, but a bit more crazy, as I would soon find out.

***

Since I grew up near a small provincial hick town, I had serious difficulties adjusting to a big city in the beginning. It seemed so ugly and so noisy after the peaceful countryside where I had spent so much of my time. I missed my friends, people made fun of my strong north German "fishhead" accent and grad school was not at all what I had expected. I had studied three years of Philosophy with a gifted teacher whereas at grad school everybody seemed to be interested in only one thing. Showing off. Nothing about "philos" or "sophos" to be found there. So, I made Sinology/China studies my major, dropped philosophy and took anthropology/ethnology instead.

***

Things got better after that. I slowly got my bearings, readjusted my expectations, and made some new friends. Cool cats they were, in the "scene", they knew all the hot nightspots and soon I did, too. Punk & Dub Reggae replaced the hippie music I had listened to for years. I took up Kung Fu and spent days and nights discussing the latest novel or what was happening in the squatter scene. Heady days. Pretty good, actually, especially since things were also going better with my studies.

It took me at least a year to feel reasonably at home in Berlin. My new girlfriend, Sabine, with whom I am still in touch today, found a small apartment and we moved in together. That was another part of my ongoing education, as Sabine was my first "real" girlfriend and living together proved to be much more difficult than the paradise I had imagined it to be.

But what really annoyed me after a while was not Sabine, but certain other people in our circle. For one, there were the squatters. While what they were saying certainly made a lot of sense - there was a bad housing shortage at the time & many of the buildings were empty because the owners were more interested in real-estate speculation than in renting them out - I found out fairly quickly that these arguments were merely a facade. Much more important than that, was the fact that it was fashionable to be a squatter. As a squatter you were on moral high ground, you were daily proving your courage facing police raids and you were definitely showing that you were not part of the establishment, of the rotten "system" that so many of us despised.

Also, it was for free. Squatting saved a couple of hundred bucks which would otherwise have to be spent on rent. So far so good. But there was a small, but very persistent group of people amongst all the squatters, who took saving money to extremes. These "Schnorrers" free-loaded wherever they could, never bought a single beer for themselves, or food or anything else for that matter. They invited themselves to your home, helped themselves to whatever happened to be in the fridge and called everybody but themselves a reactionary. One of them came from my hometown and when I found out that he not only smelled abominable, hadn't had a wash, bath or shower in a couple of months, but had also stolen several things from our apartment, I had enough. I severed diplomatic ties and kept my distance from the squatter crowd from then on.

***

Another group that got on my nerves where the artists who never produced any art. Film-makers who were talking about making films, writers who would one day write great masterpieces and painters who would create the new Mona Lisa. Not a single one of them was actually doing anything but talking. At the same time they called themselves writers, painters, film-makers, sculptors and whatnot. They expected, nay, they demanded to be treated as the real thing. Of course we had to put up with their tantrums, we had to support and encourage them for the great sacrifice they were making, we had to buy them beers and we would have to nod sympathetically when they told us that nobody understood them. Everything else would have been uncool in the extreme.

If it had been one or two guys, this wouldn't have been a problem. If I hadn't had many musician friends back in my hometown, who practiced hours and hours and hours to get ever better at what they were doing, it probably wouldn't have mattered. Who knows, anyway. I vowed never to call myself an artist then. Not unless I had something to show. And now, anyway, I know that these specimens were nothing but a bunch of losers, who would stay that way forever. I know this for a fact. Word gets around.

***

It would be many years later, that I would meet any "artists" again. In fact, for about a decade, I went out of my way to avoid people like the "Schnorrer" freeloaders and "Schwaetzer" artist-talking-heads of my Berlin days.

And you know what? These new artists were quite a different bunch. They didn't walk about bragging about things that only existed in their heads. They didn't even brag about things that they had created and that were excellent. If anything, they were shy about it and tried to steer discussions elsewhere, so as not to appear pompous. They were not - for the most part in any case - substance abusers or throwing tantrums every five minutes or insisting that the rest of the world had a *duty* to support and admire them. They were, instead, working their asses off in the same way my musician-friends in far away Flensburg were practicing day after day after day to master their craft. And after many long years of hard work, maybe, sometimes something magic would occur and they would get IT, whether it was in music or in writing or in whatever it was they were doing.

And while they were doing their art, practicing it religiously in fact, they did their best to make a living as teachers, copy editors, gardeners, concrete-pourers, and and and. Some of them were married, some were raising children. And you know what? Most of them were happy, contented people. Almost not a single one of them chose to be a martyr, although many of them had been through rather rough periods in their lives - Am I doing the right thing here? Is it really worth it being this poor? Did I lose my wife/husband for this? - and quite a few of them were just barely scraping by as far as living expenses are concerned. I take my hat off to them. I admire them, and I am proud that several of them like me enough to call me a friend.

All that said, I would not like to live like most of them. From hand to mouth, with the future ever uncertain. If a genie asked me whether I wanted to trade with Jack Kerouac or Jack London or Albert Einstein, I'd say "no" without a moment's hesitation. As far as I can tell, they were driven to their work, they produced something outstanding - but they did not live a happy life.

And what good would it be, if I created another masterpiece while I was deeply unhappy with myself? Would that be good for the people around me, for the ones I love? I don't think so.

***

The funny thing is that not one of my artist-friends would like to exchange his life with mine, either. They think I am crazy and want no part of it. ;-)))

Cheers!

Holg

Koh Samui, Thailand -- February 2003

The heavy base guitars were deafening, they made the beer in my glass tremble as if T-Rex was on the prowl nearby and my mind was reeling. The only way to describe the feelings that were furiously attacking my brain is with a cliche: culture shock

Where I had expected quiet little streets with a few street vendors and some dilapidated restaurants, I found row upon row upon row of go-go bars, whores, whores, whores, techno bars, pubs tailored to specific nationalities, Mac Donalds', 7-elevens, discos, bowling alleys, blazing, humming and throbbing neon signs galore as well as restaurants from simple tourist rip-off to 5-star mega-tourist-rip-off. Shocked indeed. The uneasy feeling settled like a pint of ice-cold water into my stomach and I was contemplating whether I had ****** things up for this little vacation. Maybe we would have to pack our bags and beat a hasty retreat to Kho Pha-Ngan or even farther away. Maybe, for once, I should have listened to my friends.

I ordered another Singha Beer in desperation, waiting for Liping to show up again, back from a little shopping spree upon which she had embarked with glee. We were sitting in an "Italian" restaurant, as we had just arrived at 10:30 pm and were ravenously hungry. I had tried to make conversation with a guy who most resembled a traveler, but no luck. I had tried another guy, who looked pretty lonely, just to escape the fact that I might have screwed up mightily, but he wasn't interested either. If this continued, the vacation would turn into a write-off.

Although I was dog-tired, I kept ordering and drinking Singha Beers until 2:30 in the morning and finally crawled under my sheets.

*****

What a surprise when I opened my eyes the next morning! The beach was perhaps twenty meters from where I found myself. Gently rolling waves made a sound - which would make me drowsy later on while reading - and what was more, it was almost deserted. It didn't take me long to embark on a running start into the Gulf of Thailand. The water was *warm*, I realized with pleasant surprise. Where then were the hordes I had seen last night? Or was it all but a bad dream, crept upon me while I was hiding under the sheets? No, but it couldn't be, there was the moss on my teeth and the dragonflies in my head to prove it.

The situation explained itself while I sipped an ice-coffee on the veranda, listening to "Light My Fire" by Jimi Hendrix & Jim Morrison. It seemed as if everybody except Liping and me was grumbling about the weather. It was overcast, as it usually is at this time of year, which makes life a lot more pleasant than when the sun is blazing down with brute atomic power to singe your skin, frizzle your hair, ruin your eyes, rob you of all energy and make you perspire as you wouldn't believe. Still, it was around 85°F , the humidity was way op there in the stratosphere - but a gentle breeze wafted in from the ocean. Perfect! Except for 99% of the other tourists, who felt cheated of the sun.

Things got better steadily after that. We left all our stuff at the inn and set off along the beach. It got more and more deserted the farther we walked. The bungalows turned into huts, which again turned into the most simple A-frames without mattresses or electricity. We had to wade through a little river, where the water rose above our waists, and after that we came to a place where several small open fishing boats were moored. If you judge a boat by the paint, they were in bad shape. I had the feeling that it was more lucrative to work as a waiter in "town" than to go fishing these days. Town, by the way, consists of a single street parallel to the beach, but as touristy as you can possibly get.

At that point we had to literally run for cover, as huge black clouds were approaching rapidly, whipping up a strong wind with promise for a tropical downpour. We made it just in time to a little beach restaurant constructed entirely from one material: coconut palm tree in all its manifestations. I love those things, but I am afraid that they will be gone all too soon. You can watch one being built in one afternoon by a group of skilled workers, which is exactly what we had done in Viet Nam. But they don't last as long as ones built with corrugated iron and a variety of plastics. Well. I guess, I wouldn't like to rebuild all the time, either....

Liping sipped on a coconut - unfortunately from my point of view, not one of the giant golden "King Coconut" they have in Sri Lanka - while I was hard pressed to decide between Mekong Whisky and Singha Beer. In the end, they decided for me, as hadn't got any limes. We got out our books and spent a few hours reading and discussing what we were reading, seeing, smelling, feeling and drinking. My worries from the night before had gone the way of the dodo and the Tasmanian tiger, but there was another feeling now. I felt disconnected from reality, as if slightly stoned, except that I wasn't stoned or drunk or anything like that. Strange, weird feeling. It lasted for many hours and it came back every day for our entire stay.

When we went back to the inn http://www.sawadee.com/samui/lamaiinn/details/, we heard Jimi Hendrix wailing "Foxy Lady". Much as we wanted to avoid it, we had to go downtown again to exchange some money, buy a couple of things and get some food. I ran into a couple of masons or bricklayers from Germany and two teachers from the little island Bornholm in Denmark. The latter were quite pleasant to talk to, but they had already eaten and so they couldn't join us for dinner. Too bad. It was the last dinner we had in town, and it was just so-la-la. It had one redeeming feature, though. On the way back from that particular restaurant, I developed a case of terminal thirst, which again made me look at every single bar we passed like Old Eagle-Eye. Liping had her eyes peeled as well, only it was for the bikinis and tangas across the street. Finally we passed a bar that passed inspection. From then on every night ended at that particular one. http://www.pocahontasbar.com

The owner was a young guy from Denmark and while there were more than your usual share of Scandinavians around, I ran into a couple of Indians from Malaysia and two guys from Newcastle as well. We had plenty of fun with our accents and an ungodly amount of drinks to lubricate our conversation.

From then on we had our dinners right at the beach. Once in a while a massive downpour chased us under the roofs made from palm-fronds, but it was just as pleasant down there. There was a variety of excellent Thai food. Liping opted most of the time for different kinds of sea food, whereas I am more partial to really spicy Thai curries. All went well, except for one time, when we went to a particularly traditional place and I ordered a green curry. Dunno how people without a palate made from asbestos eat that stuff. But I managed to do it in the end, though I wouldn't have been able to without the help of one bottle of Mekong Whisky. We had one of those with every dinner. When that was finished, Liping would sip on her chilled white wine, while I would continue with beer. Most of the time Singha, but also a fair amount of Carlsberg.

When we ordered the very first bottle of Mekong, strictly according to how Paul/Neo/Drift would have done it, I thought it only fitting to propose a toast to PABD. Collectively first, and individually later, with a specific wish for every one. We liked the idea so much, that from then on we did it with every bottle of Mekong we had. [We brought four big bottles back to Taiwan with us, so we can continue the tradition for a while. If we only have the occasional sip, that is. Right now, we are both drinking Chardonnay, so as not to waste any of our treasures. ;-)))]

And, like I said before, every evening we ended up in our favorite bar and talked to interesting people from all over. Time was rushing past us at warp five at least.

Then Nick & Jocelyn showed up. Nick took us to "No.1 Lookout", which was definitely worth the ride in the tuk-tuk. http://www.into-asia.com/bangkok/tuk-tuk/ We went on to Chaweng, where I experienced culture shock once more, only much much worse. I'd stayed there before in '86 or '87 and now I sat amongst all the glitzy splendor, vainly looking for a Thai person anywhere. Even the waiters were mostly foreigners. I didn't see a single whore there! The average age of all the tourists was way up there, the prices were out of this world and I couldn't wait to get back to Lamai. We had decided to go to bed early, as we were flying the next day and actually made it to bed at 2:30. So far so good.

The trip back was unpleasant. When I had to pay airport tax for the fourth time on this trip, I finally lost my temper. Didn't help things, of course. When I ran into the vast crowds at the airport in Bangkok, I was about ready to just say "eff this" and head back the way I had come.

And then a curious thing happened. While I had been feeling the "disconnect" every day at the beach, Liping got that feeling as soon as we were back in Taiwan. The weather and everything was OK actually, particularly for this time of the year. But still.... Something seemed not right. What with all the rushing and the grim faces and the dollar signs shining out of everybody's eyes. Something was amiss for sure, but it seems to slip farther and farther out of our grasp with every single hour we spend amongst the multitudes. And in just a few more days, in just one week, we will finally be back and we will have accepted that *this* is reality and the beach is what everybody says it is. A dream. And what a pleasant dream it is.

Cheers!

Holg

http://pub38.ezboard.com/fpeaceandboatdrinks66759frm7.showMessage?topicID=5.topic

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PABD/message/484

Enter a long URL to make tiny:

Re: The Artificial Chinaman
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From the eMails and other responses I got, I deduce that my little article didn't quite come across the way I had intended. Goes to show how difficult writing and communication in general is. :-)))

---

When I first moved to the small mountain community of Garden City near Taipei, I found out that a lot of famous writers, painters, film-makers and other artists lived there. One of my new neighbors was Bo Yang, who also happened to be the father-in-law of one of my best friends. Naturally I got to know him and later I taught his wife - a good poet in her own right - English and helped her in her work with Amnesty International (Taiwan) of which Bo Yang was the chairperson at that time. Soon I found out that Bo Yang had spent almost ten years in prison for his writings. Finally I picked up his book "The Ugly Chinaman and the Crisis of Chinese Culture" www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1863731164/krautnet and read it right through in one go. It was amazing! But if a foreigner had mentioned even one tenth of the issues of "cultural criticism" Bo Yang has written about, he would have been labeled a racist [I had a discussion about the subject in my home country and guess what happened? Right, they found out that Holg was a fucking racist.] or at least Anti-Chinese and he would have lost many of his friends. Which is why I have always kept my trap shut on the subject, although I agree with Bo Yang in almost every single instant.

But that was then and this is now. People don't get thrown in jail any more when they don't show proper respect for the president. (Or when they go dancing, for that matter.) And after more than twenty years here, I feel I have enough understanding to finally speak up. Unfortunately, almost all of the chapters in Bo Yang's book are still as valid today as they were when the book was first published. Now back to my story.

---

Boy, am I glad that I posted here instead of following my original plan! I intended to write this piece for a big (Chinese language) newspaper here in Taiwan, in order to re-kindle the debate that Bo Yang's writings had caused such a long time ago. (The country was under martial law until 14 July 1987.) Since the audience is almost exclusively Chinese, I thought that they might see a reflection of themselves in the story. Of course my friend in the story is actually a composite of many of my friends here on the island, and some of them are not really my friends at all, but show these cultural attitudes and values very well.

Of course, some people would get upset by this parody. Some would probably get very angry and question my right to criticize them. And many more would agree with them. But some others would perhaps question their own values and maybe get a little different look at some of the problems that are plaguing them.

So, how should I change my story in order to get this across more clearly?

Any constructive criticism is most welcome.

Cheers!

Holg

groups.yahoo.com/group/PABD/message/502
boards.fool.com/Message.asp?mid=18618801


Edited by: KrautHolg at: 2/20/03 5:56:21 am http://pub38.ezboard.com/fpeaceandboatdrinks66759frm2.showMessage?topicID=33.topic

The Artificial Chinaman
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The Artificial Chinaman

Taipei, Taiwan, 2003

The Artificial Chinaman lives in a suburb of Taipei in a villa which cost him US$ 865,000 and he paid most of it in cash. Those were the good old days! When he isn't hiding from the rays of the sun in his villa, he is lying in his Mercedes SLK 230 Kompressor, cowering in his brand new Cadillac Escalade ESV, or his regular car, a Mercedes Benz S320. Usually on his way to the office - where he spends almost sixteen hours per day - or on the way to a fabulously expensive restaurant or KTV. The food isn't very good there, but they treat him like a king, which is the whole idea. It makes him feel good and it gives him a chance to impress his friends and clients. He doesn't even know what the word pretentious means and would have trouble understanding it when he looked it up in a dictionary. And then he would solemnly declare that he doesn't much care for that kind of people.

His skin is white, almost translucent, in contrast to the foreigners, who look red. Also, they are extremely hairy, whereas he is smooth, almost completely without body hair. They perspire a lot and tend to smell bad; probably because they don't shower every day. He doesn't know whether he should give credence to the reports, but he has heard that some of them are positively dirty in this respect. He has never gone on a picnic, has never gone fishing, avoids walking whenever he can and exercise of any kind seems like the height of absurdity to him. Why did he study and work so hard, if in the end he still has to toil like a lowly peasant? If he gets fat, so be it. If he dies early, it would be a shame, but it can't really be helped. Anyway, all this talk about healthy living is greatly exaggerated.

He gets sensitive when he talks to people who went to a better university, have a higher position or significantly more money. At the same time, he is extremely proud of his achievements, of his material wealth which he shows up compulsively and in exaggeration. He is also very proud of his children who only enjoy the best. The best tutors, the best violin-, piano-, and ballet- teachers, the best food, the most fashionable clothes - the best of everything. But he doesn't spoil them! Only ignorant people do that and he sure isn't ignorant.

He does not get on with their teachers who show a complete lack of understanding for the difficulties his kids go through. He is slightly exasperated by their tutors, who though highly recommended, don't seem to do much for their grades. The grades, of course, are the shame of the family, but since only the system is to blame and all friends have quite similar problems, the whole issue either isn't mentioned or has become a conversation topic with real close friends.

His son, eleven years old, naturally has the very best credit card and the newest Nokia that money can buy and things are getting a little expensive. Well, not really. They will get slightly more expensive later on, as he has promised his only son - the apple of his eye - a sports car as soon as he passes the entrance examinations to the university. Any university. He is not yet aware of the fact that his son is probably not going to enter a university. One of his daughters might, but it is far from sure.

The Artificial Chinaman's wife has a Filipina maid. She had a couple before, but they didn't do a good job, and every Sunday they wanted a day off, which is intolerable. She tried an Indonesian maid, but that was even worse than before. Within less than a week she had sent her back to the agency. Friends have been telling her that Vietnamese servants are the way to go, and she is definitely going to try it out next time. They look much less like peasants, not so black and sun-burnt, and they are supposed to be really hard workers. One could almost mistake them for Chinese, if the truth be said. Actually, aren't they really Chinese? Their country once belonged to China and only a quirk of history has changed that fact. OK, they could be honorary Chinese. Kind of.

The Artificial Chinaman's wife has a problem. She is bored to tears. You can only have your hair done so many times, you can only play Mah Jong a couple of times per week - lose or win a grand doesn't mean a thing, it'll all be spent on inviting the losers to dinner or KTV anyway - and the movies get worse and worse these days as well. She has only one solace, or maybe two. Shopping of course! Gucci, Hermes, Aigner or Louis Vuitton, never mind. As long as it is expensive, looks expensive and has class. Never mind taste. That word belongs to another universe. Certainly not hers. The other reprieve is gossiping. She meets her friends in coffee-shops, really fancy coffee-shops, and she talks about any juicy subject that presents itself on TV or the specialized gossip magazines. Sex, scandal, politics cum sex & scandal - that's the stuff.

She loves her kids dearly, and so does the Artificial Chinaman. They never go out of the house unattended - the driver gets them to school and picks them up again - and their lives are safe. Not quite safe enough, what with all the kidnappers, madmen and incompetents around, but as safe as money can get them. Last week the kids had a bit of an adventure: Dad called up a taxi and told him exactly where to deliver the three of them, but the kids were in charge of paying the taxi, ordering the drinks at Starbucks and making it to their tutor by themselves. They were thrilled! Taking a taxi ride all alone, what an amazing adventure!!

The Artificial Chinaman has bloodshot eyes, not because of too much booze, which he doesn't like very much anyway, but because he can't sleep at night. He never slept much more than five hours anyway, but with the economy going the way it is and the high-interest debts he had to take on to jump-start his company, he is worried about the future. Not his future, of course, he could live on white rice and soy-sauce, but the future of his children and of his expensive and high-maintenance wife. What will happen if he can't pay the bills any more? Already business has gone down an alarming 70% - but he can't move out of the posh (and mindblowingly expensive) highrise downtown, because that would signal his clients that he isn't on the ball anymore, that the swing has started tipping in the wrong direction, that the end is near. Which again would spook them because they worry that they will be next in line. What a mess! To stay gets one deeper into trouble and to leave would mean the end right here right now. What to do?

He would love to talk to someone about his worries, but it would be the height of bad taste to mention it to friends and no real man would bother his wife with serious things like this. Wives shouldn't need to worry, that's the man's responsibility! He has no respect for people who can't even manage that much. But things have started slipping and he's been deeply ashamed to not even fly business class anymore, but had to endure an agonizing hour cramped in a tiny seat amongst the riff-raff in the back.

What is the world coming to? Hasn't he always worked hard and followed every sound business principle he has ever come across? The Artificial Chinaman is more than a little bewildered. What went wrong all of a sudden? Just a couple of years ago everything seemed so easy and so perfect. Almost, almost, he had made his one billion Taiwan dollars. And he would have retired, he really would have, if only he had made it that far. I swear, he would have.

And what makes this story even more sad, is that he happens to be my best friend on this island.
Cheers!

Holg http://pub38.ezboard.com/fpeaceandboatdrinks66759frm2.showMessage?topicID=33.topic