Why is it that the mere appearance of something like Sur le bateau d'Ulysse, a series of talks on Radio France Culture dedicated to the exploration of the Greek heritage, raises my blood pressure? I love the Greeks. I should eat this stuff up.
That it does rattle me, of course, has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of such production, especially that emanating from France, is aimed at creating the ideological apparatus with which to shore up imaginary boundaries between us and them – broadly speaking those whom we will have in Europe (e.g. modern Greeks) and those whom we will not (e.g. modern Turks). As such, much of this effort is the first cousin of “Revealed Truth” and “the white man’s burden” – and all the other high-sounding dreck which has been generated over the centuries in order to infuse with a sense of noble purpose otherwise less than noble projects, like the crusades or, closer to home, colonialism.
But also because the “culturalist” thinking is simply intellectually bankrupt.
In the 25th installment of the series on RFC, with the electrifying subtitle La Grèce au risque de la Chine (the which risk, to exonerate its speaker immediately of any responsibility for the subtitle, is actually never mentioned by him at all in the course of the interview) was an interview with François Jullien, a professor at Université Paris VII, who has written widely on Chinese classics. In the course of the interview, the speaker points out many differences between the Greek and the Chinese classics – two large bodies of literature which arose almost simultaneously, independently, and at the opposite ends of the Eurasian continent. He points out things such as the absence in ancient China of epics or drama, the absence of an explorer figure similar to Odysseus, absence of the concept of “essence” (this was introduced along with Buddhism under the guise of “original face”), and different approaches to philosophical discourse.
This is all very interesting, of course, in the way in which comparing stamps or butterflies may be, and I love to do nothing else, actually, as long as we do not take any it to mean anything. The absence of an explorer figure in Chinese ancient classics hardly means that the Chinese have not explored (either then or since). That Chinese discourse is generally more agreeable, hardly means there haven’t been different schools of thought directly, sometimes even violently, opposed to each other. China created its own epics and drama in due course. And essentialism has been taken lately by many western philosophers to be more of a bane than boon in western philosophy. I’d like to honor the professor for not claiming otherwise in the interview.
But he does not avoid all risks and skirts terribly close to bankruptcy: noting that the Chinese language has no tenses he moves on to claim that in classical Chinese there is no concept of time; only concepts of “occasion” and “duration”. The western (true?) concept of time, he adds, is more like that of a flowing entity, like a river.
Really? A westerner since birth, I somehow managed to live all my life in the company of all sorts of westerners without once noticing this inalienably and uniquely timelike quality of time.
But alright, I can be blissfully clueless sometimes. Maybe “time” really is more like a river; still, I fail to see the significance of the finding. How does exactly this fact account for the westernness of the west, the scienceness of its science, or democtraticness of its democracy? How does it make the West more significantly unlike China – more significantly than, say, forks?
The suggestion made by the professor appears to be (if I understand him well) that the ancient Chinese were therefore somehow unaware of, or less nimble with, such concepts as “the past” and “the future”. This is – I apologize for the directness of this phrase but I can’t see how I can put it any less brutally – utter bunk.
The professor, says his entry in the French wikipedia helpfully, has studied at the Peking University. Which is impressive, of course, but – how well actually does the good professor speak Chinese? Does he feel in the language the way I do – at home? If so, when thinking and speaking in Chinese does he experience difficulty thinking about time (which I do not)? And if he does, could one perhaps suggest that the fault isn’t of the Chinese concepts but of his -- maybe not so fluent fluency? I don’t seem to experience such difficulty, and neither do any of my Chinese friends. The professors findings puzzle me.
Really, I feel tempted to point out that the French language lacks (yes, lacks) the superlative form of the adjective. Do the French therefore experience difficulty comparing more than two objects? Is the French mind therefore somehow less capable in this area than Italian? (“Perfettissimo!”) Certainly not, it would appear, since the thought that “The Greek (er, French?) Heritage is the best” comes so easily to the French mind.
Aug 31, 2008
Aug 30, 2008
Why you should not hire guides
"In the summer of 1902 there appeared in Paris a number of Orientals, of doubtful aspect and mysterious actions, who laid before the astonished eyes of the Paris experts a series of gold medals, similar to the ones found many years ago near Tarsus, but far surpassing them in beauty and boldness of their design. But the possessors inspired little confidence; the whole business looked too "fishy"... It was the astounding quality, preservation, and the bold workmanship of these medallions which prejudiced numismatists against them in the early days of their discovery." (E.T. Newell, The Gold Medallions of Aboukir, AJN XLIV (1910), p. 128)
11 of these Aboukir medals, having first been acquired by J. P. Morgan Library and bought from them by Gulbenkian in 1949, are today at the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon. They are astonishing: large (about palm sized), round, very yellow gold (perhaps 20K), with very high relief of excellent quality. The obverse represents busts of famous military figures -- chiefly Alexander the Great but also Caracalla, the other a smaller scale figure in action: a man spearing a boar, an armed goddess holding up a shield.
Although fragments of several such series survive, and more may have been made in antiquity, their purpose is completely unknown. Some have suggested a propaganda effort, possibly by Caracalla who aspired to great conquests in the East.
The guides leading groups through here announce blandly that these were -- Olympic medals.
Aug 26, 2008
Blabbering old fools
A financial discussion board breaks out in one of its occasional asides. They are always longer and juicier, but rarely interesting. This one is typical: a discussion of Eastern European politics by a mixture of Poles, Russians, Germans and Jews. In their real lives these men are accomplished professionals: traders, bankers, industrialists, real estate developers. There is even a jeweler. But when it comes to politics and history, they are all blabbering fools repeating whatever propaganda their elementary school has taught them and whatever prejudice they sucked with their mother's milk. There isn't much we can do about mothers, but spare a thought for education. Would it be nice if it actually taught us something? Taught as in -- delivered facts?
Aug 25, 2008
In The Tangier Medina
In the Petit Socco, the typical odd-shaped Medina square (they would call it a campo in Venice), I sat around 3 pm in a street-side café, drinking a mint tea. (All tea here is green tea, unlike further in the Arab East where all tea is black; and it is stuffed full of fresh mint leaves, and sweetened with way too many clumps of sugar). I was drinking, or rather not drinking my tea (not drinking, is the essence of the art of successful café-going), watching tenacious touts touting their trundles to tourists. They were quite vicious with the tours passing by; but they did not hesitate to invade the cafes and attack the tourists sitting at the tables there; it is a hard, persistent sell, friendly but dogged. I kept imagining how I, with my many years' experience at this sort of thing, would respond to an advance, but didn't have to. No one seemed to bother me at all. Must be my leather shoes (instead of flip-flops) and the long pants (instead of baggy shorts). I don't wear the international uniform of the rich tourist: I am perfectly camouflaged. In fact, no one here has offered to sell me anything in the street, no shopkeeper has tried to shortchange me, even though I speak not Arabic but lousy French, and Tangier is famous for pretty vicious touting. Everyone but me. I am made of teflon. I am invulnerable.
At 4 I got up and slouched over to the American Legation. It is the first US Embassy abroad. It was set up in 1777, only one year after the American Declaration of Independence, in a building gifted to the young nation by the then Sultan. (It is in return for this, it is said, that the US was the first country to recognize Moroccan Independence in 1950's). The building is now a museum of Old Tangier and a lending library; the building itself is supposed to be interesting and there is a Paul Bowles room. But I only know this by hearsay. The museum opens from 10 till 1 and 3 to 5, but if the day is hot, or there is a vicious wind, or the caretaker has other business, or it has been raining, or it is a holiday somewhere -- or for any other reason at all, it may not reopen after lunch. And some days it may not open in the morning, either, which makes its continued closure after lunch -- automatic.
At 4 I got up and slouched over to the American Legation. It is the first US Embassy abroad. It was set up in 1777, only one year after the American Declaration of Independence, in a building gifted to the young nation by the then Sultan. (It is in return for this, it is said, that the US was the first country to recognize Moroccan Independence in 1950's). The building is now a museum of Old Tangier and a lending library; the building itself is supposed to be interesting and there is a Paul Bowles room. But I only know this by hearsay. The museum opens from 10 till 1 and 3 to 5, but if the day is hot, or there is a vicious wind, or the caretaker has other business, or it has been raining, or it is a holiday somewhere -- or for any other reason at all, it may not reopen after lunch. And some days it may not open in the morning, either, which makes its continued closure after lunch -- automatic.
Aug 24, 2008
A Paul Bowles Short Story
Mustapha is a square, silent sort, with square jaws, low forehead, and thick black hair slicked back. His wrestler’s exterior hides a warm, generous, caring and polite beast. He has taken good care of me. He keeps surprising me by his gentleness. Two days ago, returning home around midnight we discovered a lady at the door struggling with the lock. I rushed back to open and hold the door for her, by doing this, I startled her. Only then I noticed that Mustapha's reaction was the opposite of mine: to fall back and leave her alone to achieve her doings in peace. He’d never correct me, but when I asked him he explained that educated Moroccans know to keep a distance, to be circumspect.
Knowing Mustapha is a bit like stepping into a Paul Bowls short story. He’s been in Tangier these 18 months, looking for a job. (Back in Casablanca he worked for his father’s construction company and ran his own internet shop). His job search routine is persistent and the same every day: he wakes around 1 or 2 in the afternoon; if it is the maid’s day in (she comes 4 times a week for 4 hours each, at 100 euros a month), he helps her clean up the house and cook; if not, he goes out to the beach; then he takes a nap; then he goes out to read his newspaper in a cafe (he reads Arabic with difficulty, moving his lips: he is an Arabic speaker but French reader), then to eat something in the dining quarter, usually some grilled wonders in some hole in the wall, then comes home around midnight, chats with his boyfriend on internet and surfs the web for music videos or watches TV. He turns in around 4 or 5 in the morning.
Last week, after visiting several jewelry shops, mostly machined 18K, I observed that there surely must be an opportunity in importing Indian jewelry; costume, if not gold. After all, Moroccans love beautiful, colorful, busy things; and the Gulf Arabs eat that stuff up. “Excellent idea”, said Mustapha. “On Monday I will investigate the legal ramifications”.
He’s investigating still.
Knowing Mustapha is a bit like stepping into a Paul Bowls short story. He’s been in Tangier these 18 months, looking for a job. (Back in Casablanca he worked for his father’s construction company and ran his own internet shop). His job search routine is persistent and the same every day: he wakes around 1 or 2 in the afternoon; if it is the maid’s day in (she comes 4 times a week for 4 hours each, at 100 euros a month), he helps her clean up the house and cook; if not, he goes out to the beach; then he takes a nap; then he goes out to read his newspaper in a cafe (he reads Arabic with difficulty, moving his lips: he is an Arabic speaker but French reader), then to eat something in the dining quarter, usually some grilled wonders in some hole in the wall, then comes home around midnight, chats with his boyfriend on internet and surfs the web for music videos or watches TV. He turns in around 4 or 5 in the morning.
Last week, after visiting several jewelry shops, mostly machined 18K, I observed that there surely must be an opportunity in importing Indian jewelry; costume, if not gold. After all, Moroccans love beautiful, colorful, busy things; and the Gulf Arabs eat that stuff up. “Excellent idea”, said Mustapha. “On Monday I will investigate the legal ramifications”.
He’s investigating still.
Aug 23, 2008
Being swooped down upon
Walking very briskly through the Medina two nights ago I was startled by a slender woman in black with a haggard pointy face swooping down on me very close, nearly soundlessly, like a prowling owl, and then running along in small, busy steps, talking to me urgently in a rasping voice. She was asking for a handout. I was startled, but kept walking on, shaking my head. She persisted through several turns of the walkway – walking through the Medina is essentially like walking through Venice – but then was chased away by a passerby. Don't give her anything, he said. She will just use it for drugs. She was once a beautiful woman with her own house. She smoked it all.
Aug 22, 2008
Skirting the Rif
Driving to Chefchauen (in a shared taxi, which is a beat up old Mercedes, driver + 2 in front, 4 in the back – I soon learned the trick to pay double and have the whole shotgun seat to myself) is very pretty, with rolling hills, mostly green, covered with pine and cedar near their tops, with occasional craggy rock above. It must be delicious in the spring, after the rains.
Chefchauen itself is a pretty Medina on a slope of a mountain, with a view of a broad valley before it, with white towns and villages here and there, and a huge, delicious spring at its base. It is painted pretty white and blue; and for this it is crawling with tourists both foreign and Moroccan. Moroccans are forgiven for thinking it great: it is still cheap and the people are still friendly; and Moroccans like the feeling of visiting an international resort, even if the Ghauris who make it so are badly dressed and vulgar European backpackers. (The backpacker is an international phenomenon, I have learned: one can’t tell the Spaniards or French from the Ozzies or the Americans by merely looking: same dress, same hairdos, same tattoos). Having said that, Chefchauen is still learning how to be a backpacker haven: they haven’t learned the Banana Lassi trick, yet. (Give them time).
From Chefchauen to Oued Laou the road is beautiful, it skirts the Rif, descends through some pretty magnificent rocks, tiny villages populated mostly by goats, and onto a broad, moon-shaped beach. The beach is not much: no trees anywhere, the village is rough and the sand is black, but the sea is clear and wonderfully cold. From here back to Tetuan one can drive along the coast, on a road which goes several hundred meters above the sea (since the Rif comes down to the sea here) and in places flies over cute little beaches hidden between the rocks, each with a huge apartment complex under construction. (Those worried about the absence of good cheap accommodation in Morocco need only wait: all of this will soon be available for a song).
Chefchauen itself is a pretty Medina on a slope of a mountain, with a view of a broad valley before it, with white towns and villages here and there, and a huge, delicious spring at its base. It is painted pretty white and blue; and for this it is crawling with tourists both foreign and Moroccan. Moroccans are forgiven for thinking it great: it is still cheap and the people are still friendly; and Moroccans like the feeling of visiting an international resort, even if the Ghauris who make it so are badly dressed and vulgar European backpackers. (The backpacker is an international phenomenon, I have learned: one can’t tell the Spaniards or French from the Ozzies or the Americans by merely looking: same dress, same hairdos, same tattoos). Having said that, Chefchauen is still learning how to be a backpacker haven: they haven’t learned the Banana Lassi trick, yet. (Give them time).
From Chefchauen to Oued Laou the road is beautiful, it skirts the Rif, descends through some pretty magnificent rocks, tiny villages populated mostly by goats, and onto a broad, moon-shaped beach. The beach is not much: no trees anywhere, the village is rough and the sand is black, but the sea is clear and wonderfully cold. From here back to Tetuan one can drive along the coast, on a road which goes several hundred meters above the sea (since the Rif comes down to the sea here) and in places flies over cute little beaches hidden between the rocks, each with a huge apartment complex under construction. (Those worried about the absence of good cheap accommodation in Morocco need only wait: all of this will soon be available for a song).
Aug 21, 2008
Juj
The shape of Morocco is the cipher juj – the Arabic for “two”. Write a horizontal stroke, right to left, near the top of the page. This is the Rif Range. Then beginning at the end of the first, write a second, longer stroke going down and sloping to the left: this is the Atlas. The space below and to the right is the useless Sahara; the space to the left and above is the narrow coastal strip, useful only in parts.
The coastal strip can be further divided into Belb el Makhzen and Belb es Siba. The former is “governed” -- they are three large, fertile areas, watered by mountain streams or underwater aquifers. Over near the bottom, to the left, is Marrakech, the southern capital; in the upper left corner, Tangier; and at the kink – the place where the two strokes meet – the fertile central valley with the northern capitals, Meknes and Fes. Settled, fertile, rich and densely populated, these areas were amenable to centralized rule. They produced an easy life of plenty, and with it a morally ambivalent and permissive approach to life. Forgetting about God, people grew wine and enjoyed the arts.
But these areas are but islands in the sea of Siba – the marginal land, populated in times of plenty, but deserted in times of drought; consisting of thousands little oases, often no more than scraps of meadow in which to herd one’s sheep in wet years, sometimes no more than a cave from which to run a smuggling racket. Life here has always been chancy; the dwellers repeatedly forced to fall on robbery to support themselves through the hard times. The residents of the Siba are thus not merely country bumpkins of the sort you and I might know because they are shaped by a different, more rigorous, more fundamental environment. Their bodies are sinewy, their laws simple, and their religion undisturbed by doubt.
Their roughness revolts the Makhzen while the decadence of the Makhzen both tempts and disgusts them.
The history of Morocco is the history of the climatic pendulum and the oscillating relationship between Siba and Makhzen which the pendulum drives: sometimes, after a long drought, when Siba has been emptied by a long drought, the climatic pendulum turns back, rains come back, things begin to turn well, the Makhzen springs back to life first and then soon generates sufficient profits to control and repopulate the Siba; then the Siba grows; and as it grows, it becomes too large for the Makhzen to control; then the drought returns, Siba, at best times marginal, becomes unlivable, and, now overpopulated and hungry, it turns against the Makhzen.
Throughout the history of Morocco, time and again, the hungry Siba has conquered the Makhzen, usually in the name of religion, and it is these roughneck desert men who preside over each reflowering of Morocco when the climate (as it always does) turns friendly again. Muslim historians have seen the "moral renewal" (i.e. the imposition of the rude standards of Siba) as the source of the revival; but morality, like the bloom on a tree, is no more than the product of the cycles of the weather which come and go in their own rhythm.
One more element makes part of the picture: Al Andalus: Spain. The Moroccans conquered and reconquered Southern Spain several times; holding onto it, or recovering it, has always been the central dream of any Moroccan government as soon as it managed to strike some balance between the Siba and the Makhzen. This was for the simple reason that Spain has a better climate, more reliable rainfall, and more plentiful crops. Every new dynasty of Morocco (and it is always a Siba dynasty) have always felt that if only they could seize and hold Spain, they could then use her resources to alleviate, perhaps even prevent, the political turmoil of the perpetual climatic ebb and flow of Siba and Makhzen. And so they wasted uncounted precious resources on the dream of holding onto Spain; and even now, when it is lost forever, Al Andalus inspires a dreamy reverie in any Moroccan. You see, by comparison to the rigors of Moroccan climate, the easy Al Andalus is, simply put, heaven.
The coastal strip can be further divided into Belb el Makhzen and Belb es Siba. The former is “governed” -- they are three large, fertile areas, watered by mountain streams or underwater aquifers. Over near the bottom, to the left, is Marrakech, the southern capital; in the upper left corner, Tangier; and at the kink – the place where the two strokes meet – the fertile central valley with the northern capitals, Meknes and Fes. Settled, fertile, rich and densely populated, these areas were amenable to centralized rule. They produced an easy life of plenty, and with it a morally ambivalent and permissive approach to life. Forgetting about God, people grew wine and enjoyed the arts.
But these areas are but islands in the sea of Siba – the marginal land, populated in times of plenty, but deserted in times of drought; consisting of thousands little oases, often no more than scraps of meadow in which to herd one’s sheep in wet years, sometimes no more than a cave from which to run a smuggling racket. Life here has always been chancy; the dwellers repeatedly forced to fall on robbery to support themselves through the hard times. The residents of the Siba are thus not merely country bumpkins of the sort you and I might know because they are shaped by a different, more rigorous, more fundamental environment. Their bodies are sinewy, their laws simple, and their religion undisturbed by doubt.
Their roughness revolts the Makhzen while the decadence of the Makhzen both tempts and disgusts them.
The history of Morocco is the history of the climatic pendulum and the oscillating relationship between Siba and Makhzen which the pendulum drives: sometimes, after a long drought, when Siba has been emptied by a long drought, the climatic pendulum turns back, rains come back, things begin to turn well, the Makhzen springs back to life first and then soon generates sufficient profits to control and repopulate the Siba; then the Siba grows; and as it grows, it becomes too large for the Makhzen to control; then the drought returns, Siba, at best times marginal, becomes unlivable, and, now overpopulated and hungry, it turns against the Makhzen.
Throughout the history of Morocco, time and again, the hungry Siba has conquered the Makhzen, usually in the name of religion, and it is these roughneck desert men who preside over each reflowering of Morocco when the climate (as it always does) turns friendly again. Muslim historians have seen the "moral renewal" (i.e. the imposition of the rude standards of Siba) as the source of the revival; but morality, like the bloom on a tree, is no more than the product of the cycles of the weather which come and go in their own rhythm.
One more element makes part of the picture: Al Andalus: Spain. The Moroccans conquered and reconquered Southern Spain several times; holding onto it, or recovering it, has always been the central dream of any Moroccan government as soon as it managed to strike some balance between the Siba and the Makhzen. This was for the simple reason that Spain has a better climate, more reliable rainfall, and more plentiful crops. Every new dynasty of Morocco (and it is always a Siba dynasty) have always felt that if only they could seize and hold Spain, they could then use her resources to alleviate, perhaps even prevent, the political turmoil of the perpetual climatic ebb and flow of Siba and Makhzen. And so they wasted uncounted precious resources on the dream of holding onto Spain; and even now, when it is lost forever, Al Andalus inspires a dreamy reverie in any Moroccan. You see, by comparison to the rigors of Moroccan climate, the easy Al Andalus is, simply put, heaven.
Aug 18, 2008
Sitting
One thing that strikes you upon arrival in Morocco are the rows and rows and rows of men sitting in street side cafes lining both sides of each street, drinking (or rather not drinking) their teas and coffees, glancing at their newspapers from time to time, sometimes chatting (though mostly not). It seems a strange custom. Do they not have anything else to do? And what is the attraction of sitting endless hours in cafes doing nothing?
Well, cafe life is like the cake, its proof lies in the doing. Try it. The moment you sit down, a strange languor comes upon you, a feeling of utter calm; all cares and worries leave you; nothing in your life seems important anymore except sitting here, doing nothing.
Well, cafe life is like the cake, its proof lies in the doing. Try it. The moment you sit down, a strange languor comes upon you, a feeling of utter calm; all cares and worries leave you; nothing in your life seems important anymore except sitting here, doing nothing.
Aug 15, 2008
Ergot, like yoga, is natural
“In the clouds of nonsense” was a title of my favorite book as a child. “Clouds” is actually not a good translation: Polish “opary” means a kind of stifling emanation, like steam in a Turkish bath, or the fetor of a sulphuric spring: one that blinds the eyes and offends the nose. The disorienting, mind-boggling power of “opary” is tacitly implicit. Assonance with “opicie” (drunkenness) is also readily apparent.
I am reminded of this title when I talk to my newly met female Moroccan upper-middle class friends. They are all about vegetarianism, feng shui, meditation, yoga, healing through polarization, reiki – precisely the same stuff and nonsense I discovered in some Indian upper middle class females two years ago, German last year, and Polish middle this. This new age ideology is a strange beast: it is not clear why all of its disparate elements should hang together, except their sheer stupidity (and perhaps their slight whiff of dissent), but they do; and they spread together, like a single body; perhaps like a kind of symbiotic conglomerate of fungus, slime, and rot. They spread like ergot through wheat, or mold through bread, through long dark musty crevices of empty minds and crop up unexpectedly in full fledged form, bloom and eject their poisonous spores clear across the globe.
The only way to destroy this thing would be to burn the whole crop.
Our minds have been poisoned.
We are lost.
I am reminded of this title when I talk to my newly met female Moroccan upper-middle class friends. They are all about vegetarianism, feng shui, meditation, yoga, healing through polarization, reiki – precisely the same stuff and nonsense I discovered in some Indian upper middle class females two years ago, German last year, and Polish middle this. This new age ideology is a strange beast: it is not clear why all of its disparate elements should hang together, except their sheer stupidity (and perhaps their slight whiff of dissent), but they do; and they spread together, like a single body; perhaps like a kind of symbiotic conglomerate of fungus, slime, and rot. They spread like ergot through wheat, or mold through bread, through long dark musty crevices of empty minds and crop up unexpectedly in full fledged form, bloom and eject their poisonous spores clear across the globe.
The only way to destroy this thing would be to burn the whole crop.
Our minds have been poisoned.
We are lost.
Aug 14, 2008
Besides
Of course, there is a structural change of sorts going on also. Time was when people had time to take holidays and went somewhere for the whole summer. Or large part of it. Cape Cod in the 50’s rarely rented for anything under a week, but a month was far more common. Today Cape Cod, even in the height of season is a 3-4 day affair, a week is tops. The change is this: people stay shorter periods, but in return they can afford to pay higher day rates. (And they work longer hours to support them). This creates an economic environment which for us retirees is unsupportable: the day rates are just too high. Favorite tourist destinations become inaccessible for any longer stretch, the most anyone can stay is a few days. And pay through the nose for it. We are all being forced to live like the hardest working of us. This does violence to my lifestyle. I resent it.
Aug 13, 2008
How the middle class ruin my world
Touristically, all value has gone out of India, and the whole third world is going the same way – thanks to the rise of the middle class in the third world.
I don’t mean of course that India hasn’t anything to offer to a tourist: indeed, few places posses a richer palette of wonders, experiences, and knowledge; and few places will change you the way a good visit to India will. But India is simply no longer good value. Accommodations are lousy, food is often poisonous (if delicious), getting from place to place is a bloody pain. It has always been thus, of course, but until recently it was also – cheap.
One didn’t get quality, but one also didn’t pay for it.
Now one does, and how.
In 2001 I stayed in the YMCA in New Delhi: $20 bought me a very basic room: stone floor, camp bed, a tuberculotic wardrobe, a sink, a shower, a single setting a/c, a big, very antique-looking sort of phone which connected me (feebly) to reception. Everything was, like everything has been in India since the Brits left (and perhaps since the Mughals were toppled) a little tired, a little tatty. But then one only paid $20. In 2005 I stayed in the same room and paid $55: the same room in which nothing has changed, only a little more paint has peeled and the bed squeaked more for all the abuse of the intervening years.
All this means that, from the point of view of value -- when one is compelled to pay for Indian vacations about what one pays for Venetian holidays -- then it is hard to find any VALUE in the Indian holidays: the quality of the wares is simply too low to justify that sort of price. One might as well go to Venice, or Paris, or elsewhere. Maybe the spiritual values gained are no more, but the quality of creature comforts is much more -- and all at the same price.
Indians blame this dramatic repricing of India on the BRIC phenomenon. (Some Wall Street guru declared that henceforth all money would be made in BRICs, them being Brazil, Russia, India and China). Nothing like a good acronym to move the market: western businessmen began to arrive en masse. And here a shocking statistic: all of India has 100,000 hotel rooms, less than New York City. And hotelier’s response to increased demand is not to build more, but to – jack up rates. Five star hotels which in 2001 went for $120 now go for $350, with no change in quality. YMCAs went up in line.
But the truth is that Indians blame foreigners for something for which they themselves bear full responsibility. Foreign arrivals in India are not up all that much. It is the Indian middle class, finally paid something resembling real wages (in the same order of magnitude at least, if not quite in line, with western middle class) who travels – and books all those hotels, and all those restaurants. Eager to spend their earnings, they bid up prices to western levels; which is way out of line with what a similar property might fetch in, say, Europe. To Indians it is still cheap: to go and stay at a lousy hotel in Goa for $55 seems a great deal if you do not have to pay for the airfare to Europe to do this. But for Europeans to fly to India only to pay home-style prices for Indian-style quality is plain silly.
Don’t.
Now I see the same happening in Morocco. Waterfront properties here rent in August for silly money: you could do better in Sicily, or Portugal.
Damned Bourgeoisie. It’s all their fault.
I don’t mean of course that India hasn’t anything to offer to a tourist: indeed, few places posses a richer palette of wonders, experiences, and knowledge; and few places will change you the way a good visit to India will. But India is simply no longer good value. Accommodations are lousy, food is often poisonous (if delicious), getting from place to place is a bloody pain. It has always been thus, of course, but until recently it was also – cheap.
One didn’t get quality, but one also didn’t pay for it.
Now one does, and how.
In 2001 I stayed in the YMCA in New Delhi: $20 bought me a very basic room: stone floor, camp bed, a tuberculotic wardrobe, a sink, a shower, a single setting a/c, a big, very antique-looking sort of phone which connected me (feebly) to reception. Everything was, like everything has been in India since the Brits left (and perhaps since the Mughals were toppled) a little tired, a little tatty. But then one only paid $20. In 2005 I stayed in the same room and paid $55: the same room in which nothing has changed, only a little more paint has peeled and the bed squeaked more for all the abuse of the intervening years.
All this means that, from the point of view of value -- when one is compelled to pay for Indian vacations about what one pays for Venetian holidays -- then it is hard to find any VALUE in the Indian holidays: the quality of the wares is simply too low to justify that sort of price. One might as well go to Venice, or Paris, or elsewhere. Maybe the spiritual values gained are no more, but the quality of creature comforts is much more -- and all at the same price.
Indians blame this dramatic repricing of India on the BRIC phenomenon. (Some Wall Street guru declared that henceforth all money would be made in BRICs, them being Brazil, Russia, India and China). Nothing like a good acronym to move the market: western businessmen began to arrive en masse. And here a shocking statistic: all of India has 100,000 hotel rooms, less than New York City. And hotelier’s response to increased demand is not to build more, but to – jack up rates. Five star hotels which in 2001 went for $120 now go for $350, with no change in quality. YMCAs went up in line.
But the truth is that Indians blame foreigners for something for which they themselves bear full responsibility. Foreign arrivals in India are not up all that much. It is the Indian middle class, finally paid something resembling real wages (in the same order of magnitude at least, if not quite in line, with western middle class) who travels – and books all those hotels, and all those restaurants. Eager to spend their earnings, they bid up prices to western levels; which is way out of line with what a similar property might fetch in, say, Europe. To Indians it is still cheap: to go and stay at a lousy hotel in Goa for $55 seems a great deal if you do not have to pay for the airfare to Europe to do this. But for Europeans to fly to India only to pay home-style prices for Indian-style quality is plain silly.
Don’t.
Now I see the same happening in Morocco. Waterfront properties here rent in August for silly money: you could do better in Sicily, or Portugal.
Damned Bourgeoisie. It’s all their fault.
Aug 12, 2008
How an egoist travels
The Irish couple’s reactions to Morocco are typical of many Europeans visiting the third world: they are focused entirely of income inequality and political freedom. They are of course convinced that their solutions (usually based on whatever it is that they have at home) are the best and must immediately be applied here and now and tisk-tisk at every instance in which local conditions differ from those at home. (Construction workers in tents?! Fie!)
They are not entirely wrong: democracy and capitalism do seem to work everywhere better than any other system; and respect for human rights is everywhere better than the lack of the same.
But they are also blind: there are more matters in life than income inequality and political freedom. The further away one gets from dire poverty the less income inequality matters; or the less it should matter – after all, how many cars does one actually need? And political freedom, once acquired, tends to be important once in a blue moon – at elections, around some burning political issues (such as wars and presidential sexual dalliance).
Once the political and economic basics have been achieved, other issues become more important: the amount and quality of one’s free time, the quality of one’s relationships, extracurrical concerns like clubs, sport, literature and art. It is because these things matter to me more than my income relative to that of others, that I come to places like Morocco to learn: the food, the music, the manners, the clothing, interior decoration, a new way of brewing tea; I am less inclined to teach. Maybe because I am more humble; or perhaps because – I am more selfish.
They are not entirely wrong: democracy and capitalism do seem to work everywhere better than any other system; and respect for human rights is everywhere better than the lack of the same.
But they are also blind: there are more matters in life than income inequality and political freedom. The further away one gets from dire poverty the less income inequality matters; or the less it should matter – after all, how many cars does one actually need? And political freedom, once acquired, tends to be important once in a blue moon – at elections, around some burning political issues (such as wars and presidential sexual dalliance).
Once the political and economic basics have been achieved, other issues become more important: the amount and quality of one’s free time, the quality of one’s relationships, extracurrical concerns like clubs, sport, literature and art. It is because these things matter to me more than my income relative to that of others, that I come to places like Morocco to learn: the food, the music, the manners, the clothing, interior decoration, a new way of brewing tea; I am less inclined to teach. Maybe because I am more humble; or perhaps because – I am more selfish.
Aug 11, 2008
Tents!
Some Irish travelers were shocked that construction workers were housed here at the construction sight in -- tents. One would not countenance that in Ireland, they said. What they don’t understand is that climate has its rights: one generally lives here more out of doors than in Northern Europe, because one can; but also because often it is nicer that way. In Marrakech home owners sleep on rooftops, camping out in the open air, just like these construction workers. And they do so because they want to, because it is more comfortable that way. Besides it is not impossible that the men working at the sites have grown up living in tents; that a tent is an abode with which they have grown up and to which they are used; and would not necessarily love living in a cinder block shack. And it is more than certain, in any case, that if they were offered a more permanent form of housing at the construction site in return for some kind of reduction in wages, they would probably refuse it.
Aug 10, 2008
Damned Replacements
Headline inflation is an item about which many central bankers and investors appear to fret these days. But the headline inflation is only a number. It is an artificial figure. For example, from it the cost of energy and food is stripped out. “Because they are volatile, up one month down the next”, say the inflator-deflator folk (responsible calculating inflation); but this should go to undermine their credibility since rather persistently food and energy have been up and up of late, with precious little down. The inflation deflator, as it now stands, does not reflect that pain to the pocket.
A more worrisome idea is that of “replacement” which was incorporated into inflation calculations. This seemed like a good idea at first: why compare prices of the same item in the same department stores from month to month when into the neighborhood comes a Walmart with radically lower everyday low prices on a private-brand product replacing the one whose price we wish to measure. (Cheapy beans vs brand name beans, say). But there is a danger here, for one could easily take this too far, by saying for example “why compare the price of lemons this and last month when this month we have a new lemon juice extract, as healthy and as useful in cooking, one bottle being the equivalent of 7 fresh lemons, which makes it, on a per lemon basis, much cheaper”? And further: one could say, yes these Florsheim shoes are up 10% this month, but one could buy flips flops instead, which are in fact much cheaper than the Florsheims, and thus by their cheapness reduce the notional cost of Florsheim shoes (which no one is obligated to buy) and thereby – inflation.
More worrisome is another aspect of replacement: when a whole segment of a market, usually the bottom, disappears. In early 90’s the whole segment of cheap shoes – shoes for under $20 dollars – seemed to disappear in the US. Merchants no doubt preferred to sell the expensive sort and didn’t feel much incentive to carry the cheap; and consumers were rich enough by and large to go happily with the expensive sort; so the cheap shoes just disappeared. The disappearance of the cheap segment of the market did not therefore seem to happen by violence or manipulation, but it did happen. Yet, I do not think this was reflected in the inflation deflator figures: no one in the inflation calculation department seemed to have said: “wait a minute, the cheap shoes have been replaced with the expensive ones! Let’s calculate that!” The same seemed to happen with eyeglass frames after the establishment of Luxotica as a major market leader. It is still possible to buy reading glasses in the US in cheap frames – for under $10 a pair, which proves that cheap glass frames can be made and distributed; but such cheap frames for normal prescription glasses have disappeared from optical shops. In both cases, the resulting pain to the consumer was huge – a matter of several hundred percent in price increases – but not reflected in inflation calculations at all.
And what about cars? Cars cost now nearly double what they cost a decade ago. This has in part to do with such phenomena as the increasing size of the average vehicle – a market phenomenon perhaps comparable to what happened in the shoe market; but also in part with the government mandated air-bag which added $1,200 to the price of an average car. The option to buy a no frills car without an air bag has been closed, and that segment of the market eliminated forever.
These changes make our life more expensive. They do so by stealth and they are not reflected in the inflation deflator. But they hit us in the pocket; and hit us in the pocket more than then 2% rise in the cost of toothpaste recorded in 2007. Don’t be lulled by the inflation figures put out by the central bank.
A more worrisome idea is that of “replacement” which was incorporated into inflation calculations. This seemed like a good idea at first: why compare prices of the same item in the same department stores from month to month when into the neighborhood comes a Walmart with radically lower everyday low prices on a private-brand product replacing the one whose price we wish to measure. (Cheapy beans vs brand name beans, say). But there is a danger here, for one could easily take this too far, by saying for example “why compare the price of lemons this and last month when this month we have a new lemon juice extract, as healthy and as useful in cooking, one bottle being the equivalent of 7 fresh lemons, which makes it, on a per lemon basis, much cheaper”? And further: one could say, yes these Florsheim shoes are up 10% this month, but one could buy flips flops instead, which are in fact much cheaper than the Florsheims, and thus by their cheapness reduce the notional cost of Florsheim shoes (which no one is obligated to buy) and thereby – inflation.
More worrisome is another aspect of replacement: when a whole segment of a market, usually the bottom, disappears. In early 90’s the whole segment of cheap shoes – shoes for under $20 dollars – seemed to disappear in the US. Merchants no doubt preferred to sell the expensive sort and didn’t feel much incentive to carry the cheap; and consumers were rich enough by and large to go happily with the expensive sort; so the cheap shoes just disappeared. The disappearance of the cheap segment of the market did not therefore seem to happen by violence or manipulation, but it did happen. Yet, I do not think this was reflected in the inflation deflator figures: no one in the inflation calculation department seemed to have said: “wait a minute, the cheap shoes have been replaced with the expensive ones! Let’s calculate that!” The same seemed to happen with eyeglass frames after the establishment of Luxotica as a major market leader. It is still possible to buy reading glasses in the US in cheap frames – for under $10 a pair, which proves that cheap glass frames can be made and distributed; but such cheap frames for normal prescription glasses have disappeared from optical shops. In both cases, the resulting pain to the consumer was huge – a matter of several hundred percent in price increases – but not reflected in inflation calculations at all.
And what about cars? Cars cost now nearly double what they cost a decade ago. This has in part to do with such phenomena as the increasing size of the average vehicle – a market phenomenon perhaps comparable to what happened in the shoe market; but also in part with the government mandated air-bag which added $1,200 to the price of an average car. The option to buy a no frills car without an air bag has been closed, and that segment of the market eliminated forever.
These changes make our life more expensive. They do so by stealth and they are not reflected in the inflation deflator. But they hit us in the pocket; and hit us in the pocket more than then 2% rise in the cost of toothpaste recorded in 2007. Don’t be lulled by the inflation figures put out by the central bank.
Aug 9, 2008
Politeness and dignity
I like my afternoon siesta here because I like my room. The hotel is an old colonial building and the room has what few modern high class hotels have: a high ceiling and a tall window (with shutters). The room also has something difficult to grasp – shape. There is something to these old buildings, something to their proportion, which is so very satisfying. No one knows quite why; when asked, people sometimes mutter “golden section” though when they try to make the calculations, it usually isn’t. We have insufficient intellectual apparatus to understand it, but we do sense it. Modern buildings don’t have that satisfying feel to them. They are indifferent.
And instead of carpet the room has tile.
But my afternoon nap yesterday was interrupted by noise in the courtyard: a Dutch family lunched there, their kids ran around in circles unsupervised and screamed, the adults talked at the top of their voices to work through the noise. The management asked them twice to keep it down, unsuccessfully. I had to close my window and did it rather demonstratively, but my demonstration, though noticed, was ineffective.
When they have finished yelling, they went away, and I reopened the window. Only after some time I noticed the quiet murmur of voices below: five Moroccans, and several small children, sat under my window – eating, drinking, and talking in low voices. Same number of people, kids roughly the same age; yet, they were barely noticeable.
The experience is typical in the entire middle-income third world. Though the Europeans like to talk about that part of the world as less “civilized” – by which they mean that buses belch smoke or land titles are not clear or the plumbing isn’t working – the truth is that when one encounters cases of pure sociopathic rudeness here, they are nearly always – in my experience always – acts of Europeans. Europeans point shoes at people, bare unattractive body parts, speak loudly, throw cigarettes wherever (because “nobody cares”). Thereby they show that they don’t care: a kind of blindness to the existence of others, a lighthearted lack of respect for fellow men. Which the natives perceive as a striking absence of dignity, since lack of respect for others is tantamount to a lack of respect to oneself.
Agatocles claims that the same Westerners would not dare behave in those same ways back home (certainly not throw the cigarette butts), by which he is suggesting, if you think about it, something very dark indeed. I am prepared to be more forgiving in my judgments, even if, in some instances at least – dress code, for example – there certainly is an element of being contrary, or scoring a point (presumably for freedom in dress taken facilely for a matter of women’s rights).
But that’s an aside. My main point was – politeness as subspecies of dignity: “I respect so that I may be respected back”. By giving respect to others one gives himself dignity.
Westerners don’t seem to understand the concept of dignity anymore. I don’t know why. Unlike Hutchinson, I do not want jump to winded (and worthless) explanations. So I say that I don’t know why, even if one explanation at least suggests itself instantly: cutting the head of one’s king is a sin against the divine order of the universe and calls for divine retribution.
Whatever the cause, we have lost dignity – our women don’t know how to be haughty anymore. I can’t help feeling that we have been thereby impoverished and that my years in Asia have helped me recover at least a certain degree of sensitivity for this quality which animates so much of the world outside the West.
And instead of carpet the room has tile.
But my afternoon nap yesterday was interrupted by noise in the courtyard: a Dutch family lunched there, their kids ran around in circles unsupervised and screamed, the adults talked at the top of their voices to work through the noise. The management asked them twice to keep it down, unsuccessfully. I had to close my window and did it rather demonstratively, but my demonstration, though noticed, was ineffective.
When they have finished yelling, they went away, and I reopened the window. Only after some time I noticed the quiet murmur of voices below: five Moroccans, and several small children, sat under my window – eating, drinking, and talking in low voices. Same number of people, kids roughly the same age; yet, they were barely noticeable.
The experience is typical in the entire middle-income third world. Though the Europeans like to talk about that part of the world as less “civilized” – by which they mean that buses belch smoke or land titles are not clear or the plumbing isn’t working – the truth is that when one encounters cases of pure sociopathic rudeness here, they are nearly always – in my experience always – acts of Europeans. Europeans point shoes at people, bare unattractive body parts, speak loudly, throw cigarettes wherever (because “nobody cares”). Thereby they show that they don’t care: a kind of blindness to the existence of others, a lighthearted lack of respect for fellow men. Which the natives perceive as a striking absence of dignity, since lack of respect for others is tantamount to a lack of respect to oneself.
Agatocles claims that the same Westerners would not dare behave in those same ways back home (certainly not throw the cigarette butts), by which he is suggesting, if you think about it, something very dark indeed. I am prepared to be more forgiving in my judgments, even if, in some instances at least – dress code, for example – there certainly is an element of being contrary, or scoring a point (presumably for freedom in dress taken facilely for a matter of women’s rights).
But that’s an aside. My main point was – politeness as subspecies of dignity: “I respect so that I may be respected back”. By giving respect to others one gives himself dignity.
Westerners don’t seem to understand the concept of dignity anymore. I don’t know why. Unlike Hutchinson, I do not want jump to winded (and worthless) explanations. So I say that I don’t know why, even if one explanation at least suggests itself instantly: cutting the head of one’s king is a sin against the divine order of the universe and calls for divine retribution.
Whatever the cause, we have lost dignity – our women don’t know how to be haughty anymore. I can’t help feeling that we have been thereby impoverished and that my years in Asia have helped me recover at least a certain degree of sensitivity for this quality which animates so much of the world outside the West.
Aug 8, 2008
And he never loved again
They end old tales with the words “and he never loved again”. The presumption is that the original experience was so good that the hero could simply never hope to match it. The truth is that this is only a presumption and that the opposite is more likely true: that the experience was so bad that the hero never wanted to risk it again.
Aug 7, 2008
That Russian is a broken language
The puzzling fact that I simply do not understand Russian political discourse – I mean the sort of stuff ordinary Russians say about politics – was suddenly put in perspective for me by the reading of a Russian historian-scholar (yes) about the Khazar state which, he said, I quote (yes!) had once been “a politico-military octopus sucking out the blood of the Russian state”. (Come to think about it, this sentence is such damnable nonsense that we should name the culprit in order to shame him. Voila: Lev Gomulev).
The statement is sheer nonses: the relationship between the Khazar and the Early Russian state is no more clear (there simply are no documents to say one way or another) than the scholar’s metaphor: after all, octopi are not blood suckers. Surely, the author of the sentence knew it, but didn’t care. In fact, he didn’t care about the patent nonsense of the metaphor at all.
Why?
This statement has suddenly thrown for me into sharp relief similar statements coming from my Russian friends about “mongol-muslim hordes” and such. This is, it turns out, how all Russians speak when they talk of politics, and they speak that way because, I suddenly realized, they do not have what other nations might term political discourse (that is, rational speech about conflict of interests); their political language is no more than an overactive praise/abuse apparatus imported wholesale from the old Soviet/Russian propaganda machine wherein argument was avoided (one could hardly argue for any Soviet/Russian policy?) in favor of naked (and empty) emotional appeals.
And so, for example, “reactionary forces” (itself a meaningless propaganda-smithed verbal nonsensity) were “the beslobbered dwarf of reaction”. That closed the issue; it was not necessary to analyze further why we were all supposed to be against “reactionary forces”, for, after all, who could possibly want to be for “beslobbered dwarves”? Matters stand similarly with blood-sucking octopi.
Now, language is a crucial tool for thought – if you cannot say something and then analyze it for content, then you have no idea what you really think. (I think one can make this claim about Lev Gomulev’s statement about octopi). But language is also extraordinary fragile; it is easily broken. Why, to the extent that most of us use language to emote rather than think, one could suggest that every language is constantly subjected to a kind of process of entropy, a constant slide into chaos of meaninglessness. As great analytical philosophers knew, it takes all of one’s effort to protect our language from falling into the thick fog of nonsense, and to create and maintain the verbal tools necessary for meaningful speech.
By contrast, a sustained effort to break down a language will easily break it down, since it works, as it were, with gravity, downhill, towards natural degeneration and degrengolade. Russian political language has been broken in this way through centuries of battering with propaganda nonsense and no one seems to be trying to fix it.
The truth is that those who use it to spout nonsensical abuse understand what they say no better than I do. Quite literally, the stuff they say means nothing.
The statement is sheer nonses: the relationship between the Khazar and the Early Russian state is no more clear (there simply are no documents to say one way or another) than the scholar’s metaphor: after all, octopi are not blood suckers. Surely, the author of the sentence knew it, but didn’t care. In fact, he didn’t care about the patent nonsense of the metaphor at all.
Why?
This statement has suddenly thrown for me into sharp relief similar statements coming from my Russian friends about “mongol-muslim hordes” and such. This is, it turns out, how all Russians speak when they talk of politics, and they speak that way because, I suddenly realized, they do not have what other nations might term political discourse (that is, rational speech about conflict of interests); their political language is no more than an overactive praise/abuse apparatus imported wholesale from the old Soviet/Russian propaganda machine wherein argument was avoided (one could hardly argue for any Soviet/Russian policy?) in favor of naked (and empty) emotional appeals.
And so, for example, “reactionary forces” (itself a meaningless propaganda-smithed verbal nonsensity) were “the beslobbered dwarf of reaction”. That closed the issue; it was not necessary to analyze further why we were all supposed to be against “reactionary forces”, for, after all, who could possibly want to be for “beslobbered dwarves”? Matters stand similarly with blood-sucking octopi.
Now, language is a crucial tool for thought – if you cannot say something and then analyze it for content, then you have no idea what you really think. (I think one can make this claim about Lev Gomulev’s statement about octopi). But language is also extraordinary fragile; it is easily broken. Why, to the extent that most of us use language to emote rather than think, one could suggest that every language is constantly subjected to a kind of process of entropy, a constant slide into chaos of meaninglessness. As great analytical philosophers knew, it takes all of one’s effort to protect our language from falling into the thick fog of nonsense, and to create and maintain the verbal tools necessary for meaningful speech.
By contrast, a sustained effort to break down a language will easily break it down, since it works, as it were, with gravity, downhill, towards natural degeneration and degrengolade. Russian political language has been broken in this way through centuries of battering with propaganda nonsense and no one seems to be trying to fix it.
The truth is that those who use it to spout nonsensical abuse understand what they say no better than I do. Quite literally, the stuff they say means nothing.
Aug 6, 2008
That travel does not broaden the mind
The same two Dutch girls do not like Moroccans much, saying that they are all “very tense”. Whatever that means (it means, no doubt something else in Dutch), the reason for it is soon apparent. Asked what places during their 2 and ½ week’s visit they liked best they name Essaouira, Marrakech and the one night spent sleeping in a tent in the desert. They did in other words the standard tourist thing. Back in 1800’s tourists meandered through the Firenze Duomo their Baedekkers in hand according to the complex path laid out by the guidebook. From the guidebook they read out numerous complex facts and by glancing at the objects of their visitation they confirmed their continued existence in their alleged location. Nowadays tourists don’t visit monuments, or rather they hardly do, but they still go through a strict ritual laid out by the guides – from one ersatz “must do” experience to the next. (And they are all as ersatz as the night spent in the desert in a tent: no one in his right mind sleeps in the desert in a tent at night. At night one sleeps under the open sky, looking up at the stars and taking in the cool breeze. The tent is for camping during the day, for hiding from the intense heat of the midday sun, not for stifling one at night when the outdoor is the so much better place to sleep. But tourists don’t know that, do they? It is far easier to sell to them something they already know from home – a night in a tent. (Not too much reality, please, as someone once said: our ability to absorb unfamiliar facts is simply too limited).
But what I wanted to say is not that mass tourism is one great foolery, a species of Disneyland; nor that it spoils the places wherever it goes (by throwing up ugly buildings and cheap trinket shops); but that it spoils the locals. The difference between Marrakech and Rabat is the case in point. Rabat is the capital, with large industry, trade and government employment and relatively few tourist attractions. People here do not live off tourism, but off their proper jobs. Ergo, by and large, they ignore me. No one here, since I arrived here 48 hours ago, has approached me to offer me anything – no woman, no hotel room, no hashish, no camel ride. Er, I take it back, two fellows did in the Kasbah, which is the only tourist destination here and where I will not set foot again; but even they were more tentative and furtive than anything I experienced in Marrakech. Certainly, no one has attempted to brow beat me or blackmail me into anything. In Marrakech of course it is the other way around: there is nothing going in Marrakech other than tourism and every foreigner is free game to be fooled and fleeced and dumped. (The real art lies in doing all this without being noticed, but, as with everything else in life, few attain to real art).
The locals realize that this is very bad; that it corrodes their souls more than it ruins our holidays: after all, who wants to be the sort of man tourism obliges them to become? So they try to compensate through emphasizing their kindness and empathy – humanity if you will – in their dealings with other non-guests (natives). They overcompensate, total strangers become their brothers by the mere dint of being Marrakechi, there is far too much shoulder slapping and hand shaking. That’s not good either: one loses the precious intrapersonal distance without which one cannot be himself. Even worse things happen when a long term visitor begins to cross the line between us and them, when one actually begins to like him, when he is no longer that other species to be fleeced and dumped – one now has to account to his people for this strange fact, and protect him, and the other way around, too. It is a terrible thing, certainly most unprofessional, and one should be on one’s guard, but even the people in the tourism industry are mortal and from time to time simply begin to like someone.
But I am straying. What I wanted to say is that the Dutch girls don’t like Moroccans because all they know is the people in the tourism trade (who are hard to like). They don’t like Thais, either, for much the same reason. In fact, they don’t know either Moroccans or Thais and are in this the perfect illustration of the fact which I have come to understand a long time ago that travel does not broaden the mind in the least. You go out, busily and expensively go around the world, and return home as stupid as you had departed.
But what I wanted to say is not that mass tourism is one great foolery, a species of Disneyland; nor that it spoils the places wherever it goes (by throwing up ugly buildings and cheap trinket shops); but that it spoils the locals. The difference between Marrakech and Rabat is the case in point. Rabat is the capital, with large industry, trade and government employment and relatively few tourist attractions. People here do not live off tourism, but off their proper jobs. Ergo, by and large, they ignore me. No one here, since I arrived here 48 hours ago, has approached me to offer me anything – no woman, no hotel room, no hashish, no camel ride. Er, I take it back, two fellows did in the Kasbah, which is the only tourist destination here and where I will not set foot again; but even they were more tentative and furtive than anything I experienced in Marrakech. Certainly, no one has attempted to brow beat me or blackmail me into anything. In Marrakech of course it is the other way around: there is nothing going in Marrakech other than tourism and every foreigner is free game to be fooled and fleeced and dumped. (The real art lies in doing all this without being noticed, but, as with everything else in life, few attain to real art).
The locals realize that this is very bad; that it corrodes their souls more than it ruins our holidays: after all, who wants to be the sort of man tourism obliges them to become? So they try to compensate through emphasizing their kindness and empathy – humanity if you will – in their dealings with other non-guests (natives). They overcompensate, total strangers become their brothers by the mere dint of being Marrakechi, there is far too much shoulder slapping and hand shaking. That’s not good either: one loses the precious intrapersonal distance without which one cannot be himself. Even worse things happen when a long term visitor begins to cross the line between us and them, when one actually begins to like him, when he is no longer that other species to be fleeced and dumped – one now has to account to his people for this strange fact, and protect him, and the other way around, too. It is a terrible thing, certainly most unprofessional, and one should be on one’s guard, but even the people in the tourism industry are mortal and from time to time simply begin to like someone.
But I am straying. What I wanted to say is that the Dutch girls don’t like Moroccans because all they know is the people in the tourism trade (who are hard to like). They don’t like Thais, either, for much the same reason. In fact, they don’t know either Moroccans or Thais and are in this the perfect illustration of the fact which I have come to understand a long time ago that travel does not broaden the mind in the least. You go out, busily and expensively go around the world, and return home as stupid as you had departed.
Aug 5, 2008
Hutchinsonian Babes
The two pretty Dutch girls (though perhaps not as pretty as they themselves think) at my hotel in Rabat are Hutchinsonians. I know this because comparing Thailand and Morocco they claimed, knowing about the subject nothing whatsoever, that the two cultures are surely very different, presumably on account of religion, race and distance. I have heard this erroneous (but strongly felt) opinion frequently before. I suppose they also think that America and Europe are very similar; an opinion I have also frequently heard before, expressed not only by Asians (who usually cannot know better) but also by assorted “Westerners” (who should).
The cultural differences between America and Western Europe are really quite striking. All one needs is willingness to see beyond the claptrap of fashion, movies and lingo to notice that, for example, Americans’ friendships tend to be numerous, shallow, and temporary, while Europeans like to pretend at least that they have a small number of “friends for life” who are more special to them than the rest of their acquaintances; or that Europeans do not have any of the American’s good natured empathy to strangers (“hi!”), but on the contrary tend to think that homo homini lupus; that Americans go to great lengths to create an impression of folksy classlessness while Europeans are quite hierarchical; that Americans are by and large civically minded, while Europeans are not (some more than others); and so forth.
The truth is that, at least as far as I can tell, there are three kinds of societies: America, Europe, and the traditional middle-income third world. What countries in the last group – in which I would include Turkey, Thailand, Taiwan and now Morocco – have in common is a certain conception of the kind of person one should be: decorous, noble, polite, loyal to family and friends, generous, reasonably selfless. There is an overwhelming sense of dignity and decorum here. In Morocco and Thailand the cosmetic aspects of this are different – dress codes are different, Moroccans shake hands while Thais bow, etc. and this confuses my less insightful friends into thinking that the differences run deeper; but these friends simply fail to see that these are but cosmetic aspects, customarily determined and totally arbitrary ways of expressing the same thing that lies at bottom: one’s dignified respect for strangers, which is really one’s dignified respect for oneself.
The truth is that going from Thailand to Morocco is less of a cultural shift than going from France to America. Because, perhaps, going from Thailand to Morocco is going from one traditional society on the cusp of the great change to another, while going from France to America is a visit from the future to the far future of the world (at least the way things seem to be going now).
But my Dutch friends would not know it, would they. Certainly no more than Hutchinson would: they have not had sufficient exposure to know.
The cultural differences between America and Western Europe are really quite striking. All one needs is willingness to see beyond the claptrap of fashion, movies and lingo to notice that, for example, Americans’ friendships tend to be numerous, shallow, and temporary, while Europeans like to pretend at least that they have a small number of “friends for life” who are more special to them than the rest of their acquaintances; or that Europeans do not have any of the American’s good natured empathy to strangers (“hi!”), but on the contrary tend to think that homo homini lupus; that Americans go to great lengths to create an impression of folksy classlessness while Europeans are quite hierarchical; that Americans are by and large civically minded, while Europeans are not (some more than others); and so forth.
The truth is that, at least as far as I can tell, there are three kinds of societies: America, Europe, and the traditional middle-income third world. What countries in the last group – in which I would include Turkey, Thailand, Taiwan and now Morocco – have in common is a certain conception of the kind of person one should be: decorous, noble, polite, loyal to family and friends, generous, reasonably selfless. There is an overwhelming sense of dignity and decorum here. In Morocco and Thailand the cosmetic aspects of this are different – dress codes are different, Moroccans shake hands while Thais bow, etc. and this confuses my less insightful friends into thinking that the differences run deeper; but these friends simply fail to see that these are but cosmetic aspects, customarily determined and totally arbitrary ways of expressing the same thing that lies at bottom: one’s dignified respect for strangers, which is really one’s dignified respect for oneself.
The truth is that going from Thailand to Morocco is less of a cultural shift than going from France to America. Because, perhaps, going from Thailand to Morocco is going from one traditional society on the cusp of the great change to another, while going from France to America is a visit from the future to the far future of the world (at least the way things seem to be going now).
But my Dutch friends would not know it, would they. Certainly no more than Hutchinson would: they have not had sufficient exposure to know.
Aug 4, 2008
Some thoughts concerning babeliciousness
On a train from Marrakech to Rabat I woke up suddenly to find myself surrounded on all sides by three most babelicious things I have had the opportunity to set my eyes on in a long time. They were “modern” Moroccan girls, which meant that they were a) naturally endowed (massive hair, huge eyes, round shoulders, good skin various shades of olive) and b) they were taken care of in a way in which European women rarely take care of themselves these days: hair, mascara, lipstick, nails, bijou – the full monty. (“18 adornments of a lady” was once a popular genre of North Indian miniature painting – and North India is really in a cultural continuum with Morocco; the same aesthetic concepts circulate unimpeded from Atlantic to the Brahmaputra only to fall off the cliff somewhere near Tangier).
Though the monty was heavy, it was not overwhelming: it projected the impression of a precious jewel beautifully set, of a well taken care of treasure; it was rich and clearly noticeable, but not over-rich. It was like a Moroccan meal: perfect to satiation and not a drop of thé du menthe more. Add to that their regal manner – they barely graced me with a disapproving glance (how glad I was the damned dog was not with me to complete the picture of my utter misery) – and their pronouncedly unhighbrow interests – they were reading ladies’ magazines in French, with articles entitled “Ou recharger les batteries?” (i.e. which beach this summer) and “Si nous retombons amoreuse” (what else), and the image was complete: precious, hard to get, but not intellectually tiresome. In short, they were the perfect… babbles. (“Yes, we speak French fluently – and use it to talk trash”).
Perhaps not surprisingly I was seized by a violent desire to marry all three of my neighbors immediately. And closing my eyes (their frosty gazes did not encourage continued examination) I began to reflect on the means necessary to accomplish the task. The most expeditious system appeared to me to become a bandit, or better yet a pirate, build up a following, turn it into a political power base and in time to set up myself as a sheikh in control of some piece of desert (or sea) with a particularly profitable trade route across it. With my wits and stamina and a little capital, perhaps a little help from my friends, this should be easily accomplished within – oh, say, 15-20 years. Then I could have all three of them, plus one more, for wife, and maybe several mistresses on top.
This appeared the only sensible way to proceed since it was immediately clear to me that I could never make up my mind for any one of these girls. For if I should only set myself to the (rather smaller) trouble of getting only one of them (which I might accomplish within months rather than years and rather without much bloodshed); and succeed; then it I would forever be turning my head now this way, now that, at all these other women around me, all these precious babbles, which I did not get, never satisfied with a mere one. And I could not possibly be satisfied with any one of them – there simply did not appear any grounds for choosing any one over any other. And what misery that would be: to have a precious jewel, and yet forever to want more.
(How different the situation on the Marrakech-Rabat train from my life in Venice where I simply cannot imagine a single one woman in the city I could possibly desire to possess – rather then, well, rent. Or maybe I could imagine – just one. The Venetian market is simply not as deep as the Morrocan one. This has an important advantage, actually: it makes choices easy).
Then of course I realized that such a goal – a sheikdom complete with a harem – was a project doomed to failure; for once having accomplished the task – having ensconced say 10 of these babbles in a walled garden – I would of course dedicate myself entirely to its consumption and the government of the sheikhdom would soon fall into neglect, disrepair, and eventually – my enemies hands. Thus I would perhaps have my babbles, so strenuously won, for a mere few months.
There was a Turkish Sultan like that once, who upon enthronement dedicated himself entirely to the strenuous consumption of all the goods offered by his post. He possibly outlived his plan, which could not have been more than a few months, his reign having lasted the surprising duration of a full year. He was a wise man: he chose brief but uninterrupted pleasure over the more subtle, shall we say, pleasures (so as not to say drudgery) of running a government for many dull years. The man bet high – for a few months of joy – and, I can’t help feeling – by getting a full year – won. (Chapeaux to a consummate and successful gambler).
Having let my mind – tortured by the desert, the sun, the heat, and the women, ah the women – wonder in this wasteland long enough, I then pulled myself short. I began to reflect how much luckier I was as a single, unattached man. For as long as I remained uncommitted to any one of these women, or to any particular plan, I was potentially the husband of them all. For, after all, as long as I remain single, who is to say that one day I might not come into possession of every pretty woman in Morocco all at the same time? True, with every passing year the odds of that, long to begin with, become longer and longer, of course, but there always is a chance, however tiny; and the least chance represents some value, is worth some money to someone (as the options market shows everyday). An, surely, an unfulfilled potential in these matters is surely better than any degree of fulfillment (the last being inevitably so disappointing).
And thus I have come to my resolution to cultivate this worth – to paraphrase Wellbeck, “the possibility of a super-harem” – by giving the three pretty girls in my compartment my own frosty and haughty gaze.
Or better yet, none at all. I opened my eyes and buried my gaze in my dog-eared copy of Ibn Battuta; regretting only that it was not some 11th century Koranic commentary. A manuscript, of course; in kufic. Several stories above the reach of their idle brains.
(Here a haughty pout).
Though the monty was heavy, it was not overwhelming: it projected the impression of a precious jewel beautifully set, of a well taken care of treasure; it was rich and clearly noticeable, but not over-rich. It was like a Moroccan meal: perfect to satiation and not a drop of thé du menthe more. Add to that their regal manner – they barely graced me with a disapproving glance (how glad I was the damned dog was not with me to complete the picture of my utter misery) – and their pronouncedly unhighbrow interests – they were reading ladies’ magazines in French, with articles entitled “Ou recharger les batteries?” (i.e. which beach this summer) and “Si nous retombons amoreuse” (what else), and the image was complete: precious, hard to get, but not intellectually tiresome. In short, they were the perfect… babbles. (“Yes, we speak French fluently – and use it to talk trash”).
Perhaps not surprisingly I was seized by a violent desire to marry all three of my neighbors immediately. And closing my eyes (their frosty gazes did not encourage continued examination) I began to reflect on the means necessary to accomplish the task. The most expeditious system appeared to me to become a bandit, or better yet a pirate, build up a following, turn it into a political power base and in time to set up myself as a sheikh in control of some piece of desert (or sea) with a particularly profitable trade route across it. With my wits and stamina and a little capital, perhaps a little help from my friends, this should be easily accomplished within – oh, say, 15-20 years. Then I could have all three of them, plus one more, for wife, and maybe several mistresses on top.
This appeared the only sensible way to proceed since it was immediately clear to me that I could never make up my mind for any one of these girls. For if I should only set myself to the (rather smaller) trouble of getting only one of them (which I might accomplish within months rather than years and rather without much bloodshed); and succeed; then it I would forever be turning my head now this way, now that, at all these other women around me, all these precious babbles, which I did not get, never satisfied with a mere one. And I could not possibly be satisfied with any one of them – there simply did not appear any grounds for choosing any one over any other. And what misery that would be: to have a precious jewel, and yet forever to want more.
(How different the situation on the Marrakech-Rabat train from my life in Venice where I simply cannot imagine a single one woman in the city I could possibly desire to possess – rather then, well, rent. Or maybe I could imagine – just one. The Venetian market is simply not as deep as the Morrocan one. This has an important advantage, actually: it makes choices easy).
Then of course I realized that such a goal – a sheikdom complete with a harem – was a project doomed to failure; for once having accomplished the task – having ensconced say 10 of these babbles in a walled garden – I would of course dedicate myself entirely to its consumption and the government of the sheikhdom would soon fall into neglect, disrepair, and eventually – my enemies hands. Thus I would perhaps have my babbles, so strenuously won, for a mere few months.
There was a Turkish Sultan like that once, who upon enthronement dedicated himself entirely to the strenuous consumption of all the goods offered by his post. He possibly outlived his plan, which could not have been more than a few months, his reign having lasted the surprising duration of a full year. He was a wise man: he chose brief but uninterrupted pleasure over the more subtle, shall we say, pleasures (so as not to say drudgery) of running a government for many dull years. The man bet high – for a few months of joy – and, I can’t help feeling – by getting a full year – won. (Chapeaux to a consummate and successful gambler).
Having let my mind – tortured by the desert, the sun, the heat, and the women, ah the women – wonder in this wasteland long enough, I then pulled myself short. I began to reflect how much luckier I was as a single, unattached man. For as long as I remained uncommitted to any one of these women, or to any particular plan, I was potentially the husband of them all. For, after all, as long as I remain single, who is to say that one day I might not come into possession of every pretty woman in Morocco all at the same time? True, with every passing year the odds of that, long to begin with, become longer and longer, of course, but there always is a chance, however tiny; and the least chance represents some value, is worth some money to someone (as the options market shows everyday). An, surely, an unfulfilled potential in these matters is surely better than any degree of fulfillment (the last being inevitably so disappointing).
And thus I have come to my resolution to cultivate this worth – to paraphrase Wellbeck, “the possibility of a super-harem” – by giving the three pretty girls in my compartment my own frosty and haughty gaze.
Or better yet, none at all. I opened my eyes and buried my gaze in my dog-eared copy of Ibn Battuta; regretting only that it was not some 11th century Koranic commentary. A manuscript, of course; in kufic. Several stories above the reach of their idle brains.
(Here a haughty pout).
Aug 3, 2008
Shoes and toothbrushes
I was obliged to spend several days shopping for sports shoes. I was struck by their ugliness; and uniform ugliness, too: there are certain design traits which they all share, a kind of lumpy swelliness emphasized by the use of piece-meal decoration in contrasting colors, intended to look like shards of blown up egg splattered on the broken shell. I said to two ladies, who having been rendered helpless by the appearance of the shoes, stood before the shelf with their shoulders drooping in a dispirited resignation, unable to choose, perhaps unwilling to take any one in hand: "They all look like toothbrushes, don't they?" The ladies agreed emphatically and with a kind of relief at being understood, but we were all wrong: the toothbrushes are now like like sports shoes, not the other way around. God only knows why, but the sad consequence is that I am obliged to brush my teeth with my eyes closed. Otherwise I feel that I am brushing my teeth with a sneaker.
A leaflet advertised one of the shoe designs as having an "aggressive profile". It boggles the mind.
A leaflet advertised one of the shoe designs as having an "aggressive profile". It boggles the mind.
Aug 2, 2008
I am a slave and I am proud
On the train back I sat in the dining car. A young, business-dressed woman with a primitive prole face sat behind me and made a succession of loud telephone calls to friends and sundry whose point was to inform them, and everyone else, that she was busy busy busy working hundred hours a week for her firm and clients. (Both words, though old, have a new ring in Polish, having not been used under communism at all; 15 years after communism's break up, they continue to breathe novelty, western-ness, capitalism). Like most people who promote such fact, the woman took pride in it, and perhaps expected everyone else to take in it envy, it being to her mind incontrovertible proof that she is -- irreplaceable. Though perhaps more so on account of her willingness to be so exploited than unique ability to do the work: to me, of course, it was proof of something else: that she didn't know how to organize her work. I felt pity for her: for the hours she was obliged to work, and for her inability to imagine better ways to spend her time, or better causes for pride.
Aug 1, 2008
Meanwhile a long long time ago
All day today I remembered an exchange from the Kokinshu:
Poem No. 645
When Narihira visited the province of Ise, he met, in secrecy, the
person who was serving as the High Priestess there. The next morning,
before he was able to find a way to send her a message, this poem was
delivered from the woman:
きみやこし
我や行きけむ
おもほえず
夢かうつつか
ねてかさめてか
(kimi ya koshi
ware ya yukikemu
omooezu
yume ka utsutsu ka
nete ka samete ka)
That is:
Did you come to me?
Did I go to you?
I cannot know.
Was it dream? Reality?
Was I asleep? Was I awake?
To which Narihira replied (Poem No. 646):
かきくらす
心のやみに
迷ひにき
夢うつつとは
世人さだめよ
(kakikurasu
kokoro no yami ni
madoiniki
yume utsutsu to wa
yohito sadame yo)
I wandered, too
in heart-blinding darkness
Was it dream
or reality?
Let others decide
Nete ka, samete ka. I suppose that would be in Polish nie wiem czy na jawie, czy mi sie snilo.
Poem No. 645
When Narihira visited the province of Ise, he met, in secrecy, the
person who was serving as the High Priestess there. The next morning,
before he was able to find a way to send her a message, this poem was
delivered from the woman:
きみやこし
我や行きけむ
おもほえず
夢かうつつか
ねてかさめてか
(kimi ya koshi
ware ya yukikemu
omooezu
yume ka utsutsu ka
nete ka samete ka)
That is:
Did you come to me?
Did I go to you?
I cannot know.
Was it dream? Reality?
Was I asleep? Was I awake?
To which Narihira replied (Poem No. 646):
かきくらす
心のやみに
迷ひにき
夢うつつとは
世人さだめよ
(kakikurasu
kokoro no yami ni
madoiniki
yume utsutsu to wa
yohito sadame yo)
I wandered, too
in heart-blinding darkness
Was it dream
or reality?
Let others decide
Nete ka, samete ka. I suppose that would be in Polish nie wiem czy na jawie, czy mi sie snilo.
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