What exactly is "New Age"? And what are "New Agers"?
I've been wondering about this a bit recently, and I am having trouble separating New Agers from what the Hippies were doing in the 60s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Age versus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippy
To tell the truth, I am still not entirely clear on the subject. It seems to me, as if New Agers were a subgroup of Hippies and that the groups of New Agers and Hippies still overlap in many areas, especially as far as religion, mysticism, magic and so on are concerned.
Can anybody shed a bit of light on this one?
http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=655177
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Happy Birthday, Jack!
Exactly 82 years ago today Jean-Louis Kerouac alias Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. Boy, did that guy ever have an influence on my life!
While he is most famous for "On The Road" and he himself apparently considered the books about his childhood and early life as the most important, I got inspired by his most commercial piece of work -- The Dharma Bums.
I was still a teenager living in my hometown of Flensburg when I first read a German translation. I was instantly on fire. Finally here was a guy who did exactly what I wanted to do! And not only that, he also opened a few doors and windows into realms I had not even considered. Zen? I didn't have the foggiest notion, but I was determined to investigate it.
California was a bit far away, living in a wooden shack would have been suicidal in our temperatures, but at least there was almost a whole continent open for exploration by hitchhiking. I crisscrossed that continent over the next few years, read more books by Jack and his friends and reread "The Dharma Bums" many times.
There was absolutely no doubt in my mind: I wanted to become a Dharma Bum myself. So, with only fifty bucks in my pocket, I ventured into Morocco and ended up without a penny in Marrakech. Fortunately I still had the ticket for the ferry back to Algeciras in Spain. That trip only wetted my appetite for the real thing.
Two days after I graduated from high school, I started on the trip of all trips. Overland to Asia.
My head full of lines from "The Dharma Bums", I met people who were looking for the same dream, people who had lived the dream and embodied it. Many strange and wonderful things happened, some rather more dangerous than I was aware of at the time and after three months I had decided that I would study Chinese just like Japhy Ryder (Gary Snyder) had done in the book. I still very much wanted to be a Dharma Bum.
So I enrolled to study Chinese, went to China and after two years I moved to Taiwan where I still live now. I lived in an old Japanese wooden house with a wild garden full of bananas, bamboo and flying squirrels. I studied Kung Fu with an old Chinese master and after a while I spoke mostly Chinese. These days I even swear and dream in Chinese, but then again, by now I've been here for almost 22 years.
Somewhere along this time I realized that I in fact had become a Dharma Bum myself, not quite the same kind like the people in the book, but a Dharma Bum nonetheless.
So I bought a sailing boat, called it DHARMA BUM and went on a trip of a different kind. After that came DHARMA BUM II and right now I am looking for DHARMA BUM III.
And still, after all these years, I am looking. Looking for the dharma, the truth. Except that it is my very own personal truth which is not transferable to other people or even other circumstances.
Thank you for writing that book, Jack! And Happy Birthday!
© 2004 Holg / KrautHolg / Holger Jacobsen
Peace & Boat Drinks Discussion Board
Exactly 82 years ago today Jean-Louis Kerouac alias Jack Kerouac was born in Lowell, Massachusetts. Boy, did that guy ever have an influence on my life!
While he is most famous for "On The Road" and he himself apparently considered the books about his childhood and early life as the most important, I got inspired by his most commercial piece of work -- The Dharma Bums.
I was still a teenager living in my hometown of Flensburg when I first read a German translation. I was instantly on fire. Finally here was a guy who did exactly what I wanted to do! And not only that, he also opened a few doors and windows into realms I had not even considered. Zen? I didn't have the foggiest notion, but I was determined to investigate it.
California was a bit far away, living in a wooden shack would have been suicidal in our temperatures, but at least there was almost a whole continent open for exploration by hitchhiking. I crisscrossed that continent over the next few years, read more books by Jack and his friends and reread "The Dharma Bums" many times.
There was absolutely no doubt in my mind: I wanted to become a Dharma Bum myself. So, with only fifty bucks in my pocket, I ventured into Morocco and ended up without a penny in Marrakech. Fortunately I still had the ticket for the ferry back to Algeciras in Spain. That trip only wetted my appetite for the real thing.
Two days after I graduated from high school, I started on the trip of all trips. Overland to Asia.
My head full of lines from "The Dharma Bums", I met people who were looking for the same dream, people who had lived the dream and embodied it. Many strange and wonderful things happened, some rather more dangerous than I was aware of at the time and after three months I had decided that I would study Chinese just like Japhy Ryder (Gary Snyder) had done in the book. I still very much wanted to be a Dharma Bum.
So I enrolled to study Chinese, went to China and after two years I moved to Taiwan where I still live now. I lived in an old Japanese wooden house with a wild garden full of bananas, bamboo and flying squirrels. I studied Kung Fu with an old Chinese master and after a while I spoke mostly Chinese. These days I even swear and dream in Chinese, but then again, by now I've been here for almost 22 years.
Somewhere along this time I realized that I in fact had become a Dharma Bum myself, not quite the same kind like the people in the book, but a Dharma Bum nonetheless.
So I bought a sailing boat, called it DHARMA BUM and went on a trip of a different kind. After that came DHARMA BUM II and right now I am looking for DHARMA BUM III.
And still, after all these years, I am looking. Looking for the dharma, the truth. Except that it is my very own personal truth which is not transferable to other people or even other circumstances.
Thank you for writing that book, Jack! And Happy Birthday!
© 2004 Holg / KrautHolg / Holger Jacobsen
Peace & Boat Drinks Discussion Board
Friday, March 12, 2004
Trying to get a new boat seems to be a lot more difficult than I thought....
Here are some of the cruising-catamarans I am considering at the moment:
Used boats for sale now:
1994 Jeanneau Lagoon 37 $119,000 http://tinyurl.com/2ejp6
1993 Jeanneau Lagoon 37 $124,900 http://tinyurl.com/yrces
1987 Catana 40 (v. old) $126,134 http://tinyurl.com/2hogn
1993 Antigua 37 Maestro $131.277 http://tinyurl.com/33pkv
1999 Admiral 38 $139,000 http://tinyurl.com/3bhd6
Here are some of the cruising-catamarans I am considering at the moment:
Used boats for sale now:
1994 Jeanneau Lagoon 37 $119,000 http://tinyurl.com/2ejp6
1993 Jeanneau Lagoon 37 $124,900 http://tinyurl.com/yrces
1987 Catana 40 (v. old) $126,134 http://tinyurl.com/2hogn
1993 Antigua 37 Maestro $131.277 http://tinyurl.com/33pkv
1999 Admiral 38 $139,000 http://tinyurl.com/3bhd6
Friday, February 13, 2004
Fun Links
Give Holg a score
Give Liping a score
Wanna meet her or her? ;-)
Or maybe join this community? If so, I will need your eMail address to invite you.
Give Holg a score
Give Liping a score
Wanna meet her or her? ;-)
Or maybe join this community? If so, I will need your eMail address to invite you.
Sunday, February 08, 2004
The Captain's Gone
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just found out that my old friend Robert Adair has died from complications of cancer. He lived aboard his trimaran EPICURUS in Bonbonon, Philippines.
*****
Sometime during the "Wirtschaftswunder" Robert Adair left Germany and started a boatbuilding yard in Canada. He fell in love with multihulls early on but developed a serious ulcer and on his doctor's advice took a break from his business. Said break consisted in Robert building the 36' trimaran TANYA in only 10 months. He then sailed it to the Caribbean and when his money ran out, Robert started doing charter business. Apparently this new life-style suited him, for he never went back to run a business. Instead he crossed the Atlantic numerous times, as he chartered out his TANYA in both the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. He didn't have any electronics, in fact, he had no electricity on board. No engine, either.
When modern times caught up with the Caribbean and tourists started arriving in ever-increasing numbers, Robert and his American wife Jerry went through the Panama Canal into the Pacific to explore new sailing grounds. Enroute they acquired a small seven-horsepower diesel engine - but it took many years until it was finally installed. They were also given an old echo-sounder, which got installed after Robert scraped across a coral reef somewhere.
The next few years were spent sailing the South Seas and finally TANYA arrived in the Kingdom of Tonga, where Robert started designing and building racing canoes for the king. Robert used modern CAD techniques and built the canoes (which hold 42 rowers) with very thin marine plywood and epoxy resin.
In 1987 I showed up in Tonga. I was going to buy a small sloop, but the seller reneged on the deal. Fortunately I ran into Robert, who was going up to Vava'u to see the race and join the birthday celebrations for the old king. At that time he had spent almost 20 years living on boats already. When I stepped aboard TANYA, it was actually the very first time I set foot upon a proper yacht as opposed to a sailing dinghy. I had read everything about sailing I could lay my hands on, had bought a sextant and was eager to try things out for real.
We hadn't even left the harbor when I got violently seasick. It may have had something to do with the exorbitant amounts of beer I had drunk at the farewell party the night before. And as soon as we were out of the harbor, Robert went below to sleep and left me to figure out how to sail a 36-foot trimaran.
When later I peeked into his cabin, I noticed that it was absolutely packed with books on philosophy. That's also when I found out that he was in fact German, for until that moment we had only spoken English.
We had a pleasant sail up to the northern island group of Vava'u and became good friends in the process. I considered having a boat built by him. His quotation was more than reasonable, it would be a state-of-the-art catamaran and it would be where I wanted to sail it, namely the South Pacific. But in the end I opted for a second-hand boat.
It turned out that the king didn't have any money to pay Robert for his efforts, so Robert got an island instead. Pangaimotu is right in front of the capital Nuku'alofa and the Adairs built two houses and a boatyard over there. Very cool, very relaxed and very romantic living. A 15-minute ride with Robert's little motorboat and you were in the middle of town.
*****
Robert and I stayed in touch and when I was in the Amazon delta with my catamaran DHARMA BUM, I got a postcard from him requesting a parrot, "to complement my image of Long John Silver." Turned out he had lost a leg, grown a beard and a long gray ponytail. It didn't stop him from doing whatever he had in mind, though.
*****
Our trimaran DHARMA BUM II got hit by lightning while we were sailing from Tahiti to Tonga in 1995. We couldn't hear Robert because of the damage to our antenna - it had been turned to melted chunks of orange metal which rained from above - but apparently he could hear us. Thus it happened that when we limped without an engine past the reefs into Nuku'alofa, that Robert was there in a little dinghy to welcome us. I was in a really foul mood as I hadn't slept for days because of the reefs and suffered from a pounding headache. The joys of sailing...
Robert stepped aboard and asked what we were moaning about. He praised the boat and with him there, the whole atmosphere quieted down. His Captain Ahab style wooden leg didn't seem to be a problem at all. Later I found out that the modern ones just couldn't handle all the sand at the beach.
Robert proudly showed off EPICURUS, which he had designed and built all by himself. I actually sailed on the machine, and though there was jut the tiniest breeze, she promptly lifted one of her three hulls out of the water and took off as if a whole swarm of hornets were after her. I was more than impressed. Speechless. While Robert talked of his impending voyage to New Caledonia, Micronesia and Asia aboard that boat, I had my private doubts.
There wasn't only the wooden leg, you see. EPICURUS was equipped with a wing-mast, which operates on the same principle as the wing on an airplane. That's also one reason why she sailed so damn fast -- even without any sails at all on her. And unlike sails, you can't easily take the mast down when you run into really bad weather.
We left Robert and Jerry to sell our boat for us and I was quite surprised when I found out that they had left Tonga. I got one eMail from New Caledonia - so they had made it - and that was that.
*****
Until I surfed the net and saw his boat for sale. Robert only got to be around 55 years old. But I think one can say that he didn't waste much of his time on this planet.
I am still trying to contact his wife, Jerry.
Holg / KrautHolg / Holger Jacobsen http://tinyurl.com/23fww
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I just found out that my old friend Robert Adair has died from complications of cancer. He lived aboard his trimaran EPICURUS in Bonbonon, Philippines.
*****
Sometime during the "Wirtschaftswunder" Robert Adair left Germany and started a boatbuilding yard in Canada. He fell in love with multihulls early on but developed a serious ulcer and on his doctor's advice took a break from his business. Said break consisted in Robert building the 36' trimaran TANYA in only 10 months. He then sailed it to the Caribbean and when his money ran out, Robert started doing charter business. Apparently this new life-style suited him, for he never went back to run a business. Instead he crossed the Atlantic numerous times, as he chartered out his TANYA in both the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. He didn't have any electronics, in fact, he had no electricity on board. No engine, either.
When modern times caught up with the Caribbean and tourists started arriving in ever-increasing numbers, Robert and his American wife Jerry went through the Panama Canal into the Pacific to explore new sailing grounds. Enroute they acquired a small seven-horsepower diesel engine - but it took many years until it was finally installed. They were also given an old echo-sounder, which got installed after Robert scraped across a coral reef somewhere.
The next few years were spent sailing the South Seas and finally TANYA arrived in the Kingdom of Tonga, where Robert started designing and building racing canoes for the king. Robert used modern CAD techniques and built the canoes (which hold 42 rowers) with very thin marine plywood and epoxy resin.
In 1987 I showed up in Tonga. I was going to buy a small sloop, but the seller reneged on the deal. Fortunately I ran into Robert, who was going up to Vava'u to see the race and join the birthday celebrations for the old king. At that time he had spent almost 20 years living on boats already. When I stepped aboard TANYA, it was actually the very first time I set foot upon a proper yacht as opposed to a sailing dinghy. I had read everything about sailing I could lay my hands on, had bought a sextant and was eager to try things out for real.
We hadn't even left the harbor when I got violently seasick. It may have had something to do with the exorbitant amounts of beer I had drunk at the farewell party the night before. And as soon as we were out of the harbor, Robert went below to sleep and left me to figure out how to sail a 36-foot trimaran.
When later I peeked into his cabin, I noticed that it was absolutely packed with books on philosophy. That's also when I found out that he was in fact German, for until that moment we had only spoken English.
We had a pleasant sail up to the northern island group of Vava'u and became good friends in the process. I considered having a boat built by him. His quotation was more than reasonable, it would be a state-of-the-art catamaran and it would be where I wanted to sail it, namely the South Pacific. But in the end I opted for a second-hand boat.
It turned out that the king didn't have any money to pay Robert for his efforts, so Robert got an island instead. Pangaimotu is right in front of the capital Nuku'alofa and the Adairs built two houses and a boatyard over there. Very cool, very relaxed and very romantic living. A 15-minute ride with Robert's little motorboat and you were in the middle of town.
*****
Robert and I stayed in touch and when I was in the Amazon delta with my catamaran DHARMA BUM, I got a postcard from him requesting a parrot, "to complement my image of Long John Silver." Turned out he had lost a leg, grown a beard and a long gray ponytail. It didn't stop him from doing whatever he had in mind, though.
*****
Our trimaran DHARMA BUM II got hit by lightning while we were sailing from Tahiti to Tonga in 1995. We couldn't hear Robert because of the damage to our antenna - it had been turned to melted chunks of orange metal which rained from above - but apparently he could hear us. Thus it happened that when we limped without an engine past the reefs into Nuku'alofa, that Robert was there in a little dinghy to welcome us. I was in a really foul mood as I hadn't slept for days because of the reefs and suffered from a pounding headache. The joys of sailing...
Robert stepped aboard and asked what we were moaning about. He praised the boat and with him there, the whole atmosphere quieted down. His Captain Ahab style wooden leg didn't seem to be a problem at all. Later I found out that the modern ones just couldn't handle all the sand at the beach.
Robert proudly showed off EPICURUS, which he had designed and built all by himself. I actually sailed on the machine, and though there was jut the tiniest breeze, she promptly lifted one of her three hulls out of the water and took off as if a whole swarm of hornets were after her. I was more than impressed. Speechless. While Robert talked of his impending voyage to New Caledonia, Micronesia and Asia aboard that boat, I had my private doubts.
There wasn't only the wooden leg, you see. EPICURUS was equipped with a wing-mast, which operates on the same principle as the wing on an airplane. That's also one reason why she sailed so damn fast -- even without any sails at all on her. And unlike sails, you can't easily take the mast down when you run into really bad weather.
We left Robert and Jerry to sell our boat for us and I was quite surprised when I found out that they had left Tonga. I got one eMail from New Caledonia - so they had made it - and that was that.
*****
Until I surfed the net and saw his boat for sale. Robert only got to be around 55 years old. But I think one can say that he didn't waste much of his time on this planet.
I am still trying to contact his wife, Jerry.
Holg / KrautHolg / Holger Jacobsen http://tinyurl.com/23fww
Friday, February 06, 2004
ROAD RAGE
This ain't exactly about peace. It ain't about no boat drinks either.
*****
When the Suzuki Wagon R Solio tried to slide into the parking place I was about to enter, I was only slightly annoyed. After all these things happen all the time and every day. Being a stubborn SOB, I didn't intend to let him get away with it either. There was a little baby in the backseat and the driver looked like a normal harried family father on some errand or other.
He didn't wanna give up either, so things started to get a bit more heated, but when he started shouting abuse, I simply rolled up the windows and ignored him. The ridiculous part was that now none of us could enter the parking space. By now I was more than a bit annoyed, as it is VERY expensive to get caught standing next to a red line as I was doing. He, of course, was standing double-parked and blocked one lane of the heavy traffic.
When Liping came back, I pointed the @#%$ out to her and said joker suddenly went ballistic. He jumped out of his car, his face contorted with rage, at which point I locked my car. He kicked it. I drove away, but didn't get far as a red traffic light blocked my progress.
He jumped back into his car, followed, overtook me with screeching tires and tried to block my way. I drove around him and heard a thud. I decided to get out of there, stepped on the gas and turned right. Unfortunately the road was full of cars, too. He came after me again, overtook, and this time slid to a stop sideways so that he now blocked two lanes of traffic right in front of me.
He also jumped out of the car again, but this time the maniac had a baseball bat which he was swinging like a demented gorilla. By now I was getting worried and while I managed to swerve around him, I asked Liping to call the cops. Which is what she did. The fuckers were totally useless. Told us to phone a different department. Gangster-guy was by now behind us and throwing rocks at our car. More thuds, some of them rather frightening. The lunatic was completely out of control and trying to ram our car.
Phoned the police once more and those goons asked us to stop our car and wait for them. Also, we were supposed to take notes. Right! Guy coming at me trying to bash my brains in and I am gonna wait patiently for him to do his bit.
In a bit of rather rude driving I cut in front of a taxi which had the effect that his rocks now had to fly across that car -- and taxi drivers in Taiwan don't take kindly to that kind of attention. Still Mr. Solio didn't want to give up. I only saw one chance and that was to take yet another turn and then drive on the wrong side of the road as that road was just as full of cars as the other two. That finally did it and the police rapidly lost interest.
Now I've got a damaged car and when I went to the garage they told me that it is pretty much unfixable. Not worth fixing, they mean. And I don't even know whether the @#%$ got done by the taxi-driver or not.
Very annoying that.
Discussion
This ain't exactly about peace. It ain't about no boat drinks either.
*****
When the Suzuki Wagon R Solio tried to slide into the parking place I was about to enter, I was only slightly annoyed. After all these things happen all the time and every day. Being a stubborn SOB, I didn't intend to let him get away with it either. There was a little baby in the backseat and the driver looked like a normal harried family father on some errand or other.
He didn't wanna give up either, so things started to get a bit more heated, but when he started shouting abuse, I simply rolled up the windows and ignored him. The ridiculous part was that now none of us could enter the parking space. By now I was more than a bit annoyed, as it is VERY expensive to get caught standing next to a red line as I was doing. He, of course, was standing double-parked and blocked one lane of the heavy traffic.
When Liping came back, I pointed the @#%$ out to her and said joker suddenly went ballistic. He jumped out of his car, his face contorted with rage, at which point I locked my car. He kicked it. I drove away, but didn't get far as a red traffic light blocked my progress.
He jumped back into his car, followed, overtook me with screeching tires and tried to block my way. I drove around him and heard a thud. I decided to get out of there, stepped on the gas and turned right. Unfortunately the road was full of cars, too. He came after me again, overtook, and this time slid to a stop sideways so that he now blocked two lanes of traffic right in front of me.
He also jumped out of the car again, but this time the maniac had a baseball bat which he was swinging like a demented gorilla. By now I was getting worried and while I managed to swerve around him, I asked Liping to call the cops. Which is what she did. The fuckers were totally useless. Told us to phone a different department. Gangster-guy was by now behind us and throwing rocks at our car. More thuds, some of them rather frightening. The lunatic was completely out of control and trying to ram our car.
Phoned the police once more and those goons asked us to stop our car and wait for them. Also, we were supposed to take notes. Right! Guy coming at me trying to bash my brains in and I am gonna wait patiently for him to do his bit.
In a bit of rather rude driving I cut in front of a taxi which had the effect that his rocks now had to fly across that car -- and taxi drivers in Taiwan don't take kindly to that kind of attention. Still Mr. Solio didn't want to give up. I only saw one chance and that was to take yet another turn and then drive on the wrong side of the road as that road was just as full of cars as the other two. That finally did it and the police rapidly lost interest.
Now I've got a damaged car and when I went to the garage they told me that it is pretty much unfixable. Not worth fixing, they mean. And I don't even know whether the @#%$ got done by the taxi-driver or not.
Very annoying that.
Discussion
Friday, January 23, 2004
Grad School
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was the draft. And the only place where you couldn't get drafted was West-Berlin. Apparently seeing a psychiatrist for three years as a failed suicide hadn't been enough not to get drafted.
Berlin had the reputation of being the most left-wing (Rudi Dutschke had been there, hadn't he? Pity he got shot...), crazy and bad-assed university in all of Krautland. They had excellent China Studies/Sinology and Philosophy departments and it was far enough away from home to satisfy me. I had to check out a big city and what better city than Berlin to start with? (People over there think that only NYC could possibly be more interesting than Berlin.)
So I applied to grad school, got accepted, rolled four joints and got into a Mercedes with my old friend Burkhard and the incredibly sexy Tina. Since Burkhard had to drive, he couldn't partake in the perishables and since the border to the GDR was coming up rapidly, Tina and I had to hurry. We were flying in no time. We took this little country road - The Corridor - surrounded by the communist countryside and communist coal-smoke and every couple of minutes we had to cross some damn railway tracks which hit us like lightning in the head.
It took forever and when we finally rolled into Berlin, it was already evening. Everywhere I looked I saw concrete, and huge gray walls. My heart tried to emulate a U-Boat under attack while I asked myself what the fuck I had gotten myself into. So many people and so much construction? Being from a tiny village in the boondocks I felt overwhelmed.
If I had known then that it would take me almost a year to find a place to live, I would have probably left right away. I slept in lofts and on couches for ages, until my then girlfriend Sabine (also doing China Studies) and I found a tiny little hole in some backyard in a rather wild district of Berlin. We had to not only renovate, but rather re-build the place as it had been intentionally destroyed by the former tenants. Sabine, a really tough punk-girl (me, a hippie with long blond hair) was in tears when after ten days no noticeable progress had been made.
But we fixed it and turned it into a really cool place, right next to a canal with trees everywhere. Lots of Turkish neighbors and the market was 100% Turkish, where nobody spoke a word of German. It was a pleasant year. Sabine still lives in the same building and it doesn't sound as if she is planning to leave either.
As for the university.... The philosophy department was a total write-off, but the China Studies one was right on target. Located in the villa which originally belonged to a heavyweight boxing champion of the world in the thirties, Max Schmeling, it is the German equivalent of the FALCON program at Cornell, which again is sponsored by the DoD.
I did half a year of Sanskrit/Hindi as well, but those guys lived in the glory of the past with dust settling on the professors' spectacles, so I concentrated only on China after that.
And here I am now. Burkhard (M.A. Urban Planning) is a taxi-driver in Berlin, Tina went back to Flensburg and is a singer in a Latino band. Sabine is a head-nurse in some hospital in Berlin. Burkhard, Sabine and I all started our jobs to make some pocket money while we were still students.
Peace & Boat Drinks Discussion Board
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was the draft. And the only place where you couldn't get drafted was West-Berlin. Apparently seeing a psychiatrist for three years as a failed suicide hadn't been enough not to get drafted.
Berlin had the reputation of being the most left-wing (Rudi Dutschke had been there, hadn't he? Pity he got shot...), crazy and bad-assed university in all of Krautland. They had excellent China Studies/Sinology and Philosophy departments and it was far enough away from home to satisfy me. I had to check out a big city and what better city than Berlin to start with? (People over there think that only NYC could possibly be more interesting than Berlin.)
So I applied to grad school, got accepted, rolled four joints and got into a Mercedes with my old friend Burkhard and the incredibly sexy Tina. Since Burkhard had to drive, he couldn't partake in the perishables and since the border to the GDR was coming up rapidly, Tina and I had to hurry. We were flying in no time. We took this little country road - The Corridor - surrounded by the communist countryside and communist coal-smoke and every couple of minutes we had to cross some damn railway tracks which hit us like lightning in the head.
It took forever and when we finally rolled into Berlin, it was already evening. Everywhere I looked I saw concrete, and huge gray walls. My heart tried to emulate a U-Boat under attack while I asked myself what the fuck I had gotten myself into. So many people and so much construction? Being from a tiny village in the boondocks I felt overwhelmed.
If I had known then that it would take me almost a year to find a place to live, I would have probably left right away. I slept in lofts and on couches for ages, until my then girlfriend Sabine (also doing China Studies) and I found a tiny little hole in some backyard in a rather wild district of Berlin. We had to not only renovate, but rather re-build the place as it had been intentionally destroyed by the former tenants. Sabine, a really tough punk-girl (me, a hippie with long blond hair) was in tears when after ten days no noticeable progress had been made.
But we fixed it and turned it into a really cool place, right next to a canal with trees everywhere. Lots of Turkish neighbors and the market was 100% Turkish, where nobody spoke a word of German. It was a pleasant year. Sabine still lives in the same building and it doesn't sound as if she is planning to leave either.
As for the university.... The philosophy department was a total write-off, but the China Studies one was right on target. Located in the villa which originally belonged to a heavyweight boxing champion of the world in the thirties, Max Schmeling, it is the German equivalent of the FALCON program at Cornell, which again is sponsored by the DoD.
I did half a year of Sanskrit/Hindi as well, but those guys lived in the glory of the past with dust settling on the professors' spectacles, so I concentrated only on China after that.
And here I am now. Burkhard (M.A. Urban Planning) is a taxi-driver in Berlin, Tina went back to Flensburg and is a singer in a Latino band. Sabine is a head-nurse in some hospital in Berlin. Burkhard, Sabine and I all started our jobs to make some pocket money while we were still students.
Peace & Boat Drinks Discussion Board
Thursday, January 22, 2004
World Travel & Understanding
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As world travel should provide an understanding of other cultures....
Unfortunately that doesn't always work out. I've known that for a long time, but it was made very clear to me by a post on the Mechanical Investing board at TMF quite a while ago. A guy who grew up in the Middle East mentioned that understanding happens only very rarely. What happens much more often, is that either prejudices get reinforced or illusions get shattered and sentiment makes an about-turn.
My own cousin is a very good example of the latter and I have known hundreds of people who came out here because they were fascinated with ancient Chinese art and culture in general. They were thinking in terms of Taoism or (much more rarely) Confucianism, of Kung Fu or T'ai Chi Ch'uan and a whole host of other typically Chinese endeavors. They conveniently "forgot" the other aspects of Chinese culture and were not at all pleased with the general selfishness that usually comes with it.
"If you don't like the way they drive, get off the sidewalks!" was a joke for some, but an offense for others. Getting an elbow rammed into the solar plexus because an old lady wanted to be first on the bus was generally not appreciated. The crowds, the noise, the chaos, the dirt, the unbelievable ugliness of the cities and the constant talk of money, money, money had the effect to turn the erstwhile Chinese-lovers into Chinese-haters with an attitude.
And it ain't only China or Asia where this happens. The same is true in the Middle East, when tribal cultures come into contact with modern civilization, and everywhere else on the planet.
What I am trying to say is that understanding doesn't necessarily come about by world travel, especially not if the contact is brief. And it sure as hell doesn't come about by reading books alone. It needs time, a whole lot of time, it needs actual contact "on the ground" and more than anything else it needs constant effort to try and understand the other side.
This may seem a bit harsh, but I would say in 99% of the cases the understanding is merely superficial. I am talking of long-timers here. (Just asked Liping and she thinks so too.) This comes to light when trying to predict how a person of a particular culture might react to a certain dilemma, say the divorce of a daughter or the inheritance of a distant relative and things like that.
These things have always fascinated me, so much so that I started doing my original master's thesis on something called "cultural dimensions". I worked on it for a couple of years, but in the end decided that marketing would be more useful in a career as I still thought I wanted to be a manager then.
*****
When I first started China Studies/Sinology I vowed to be different. I would have plenty of Chinese friends and not only hang out with other foreigners. I would learn the language, learn how to read and write and I would integrate. Above all other things, I would try to understand.
Well, I have failed. I do have Chinese friends, quite a few and more than a handful of them have been my friends for two decades. I have lived almost all of my adult life over here and if I stay but a few more years and my hair turns even grayer, some people might call me an old China hand. And still I have not learned to enjoy Mah Jong, or Shaohsing Wine, I still get pissed off by the thoughtlessness and selfishness and I more then ever question the way this society is going.
I have not learned to share their values, I do not think that working 365 days a year is the way to go and I still don't get it why people place so much value on that damn face-thing of theirs. And while I am saying all this, Liping and other Chinese people call me the most Chinese of the foreigners they know. And I think they are right on target, too.
Peace & Boat Drinks Discussion Board
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As world travel should provide an understanding of other cultures....
Unfortunately that doesn't always work out. I've known that for a long time, but it was made very clear to me by a post on the Mechanical Investing board at TMF quite a while ago. A guy who grew up in the Middle East mentioned that understanding happens only very rarely. What happens much more often, is that either prejudices get reinforced or illusions get shattered and sentiment makes an about-turn.
My own cousin is a very good example of the latter and I have known hundreds of people who came out here because they were fascinated with ancient Chinese art and culture in general. They were thinking in terms of Taoism or (much more rarely) Confucianism, of Kung Fu or T'ai Chi Ch'uan and a whole host of other typically Chinese endeavors. They conveniently "forgot" the other aspects of Chinese culture and were not at all pleased with the general selfishness that usually comes with it.
"If you don't like the way they drive, get off the sidewalks!" was a joke for some, but an offense for others. Getting an elbow rammed into the solar plexus because an old lady wanted to be first on the bus was generally not appreciated. The crowds, the noise, the chaos, the dirt, the unbelievable ugliness of the cities and the constant talk of money, money, money had the effect to turn the erstwhile Chinese-lovers into Chinese-haters with an attitude.
And it ain't only China or Asia where this happens. The same is true in the Middle East, when tribal cultures come into contact with modern civilization, and everywhere else on the planet.
What I am trying to say is that understanding doesn't necessarily come about by world travel, especially not if the contact is brief. And it sure as hell doesn't come about by reading books alone. It needs time, a whole lot of time, it needs actual contact "on the ground" and more than anything else it needs constant effort to try and understand the other side.
This may seem a bit harsh, but I would say in 99% of the cases the understanding is merely superficial. I am talking of long-timers here. (Just asked Liping and she thinks so too.) This comes to light when trying to predict how a person of a particular culture might react to a certain dilemma, say the divorce of a daughter or the inheritance of a distant relative and things like that.
These things have always fascinated me, so much so that I started doing my original master's thesis on something called "cultural dimensions". I worked on it for a couple of years, but in the end decided that marketing would be more useful in a career as I still thought I wanted to be a manager then.
*****
When I first started China Studies/Sinology I vowed to be different. I would have plenty of Chinese friends and not only hang out with other foreigners. I would learn the language, learn how to read and write and I would integrate. Above all other things, I would try to understand.
Well, I have failed. I do have Chinese friends, quite a few and more than a handful of them have been my friends for two decades. I have lived almost all of my adult life over here and if I stay but a few more years and my hair turns even grayer, some people might call me an old China hand. And still I have not learned to enjoy Mah Jong, or Shaohsing Wine, I still get pissed off by the thoughtlessness and selfishness and I more then ever question the way this society is going.
I have not learned to share their values, I do not think that working 365 days a year is the way to go and I still don't get it why people place so much value on that damn face-thing of theirs. And while I am saying all this, Liping and other Chinese people call me the most Chinese of the foreigners they know. And I think they are right on target, too.
Peace & Boat Drinks Discussion Board