Your Culture or Your Money

When students were asked, "How has your community changed over the last 10 years?", students came up with the following list:

Photo: Class brainstorm on shifting culture in their communities.

This exchange framed a class discussion around the definition of an 'asset'.  Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad Poor Dad series of books, has said that the difference between the rich & poor is that the poor spend their lives buying assets which are really liabilities because they do not understand the difference, while the rich spend their lives acquiring things which are truly assets.

This is certainly true for the middle class in developing nations.  For example, if your income were to stop, most people would not be able to continue making they mortgage payments (and so would likely lose the house), whilst a positively cash flowing rental unit would keep putting money into your pocket. 

Therefore your primary residence, which the bank tells you is your greatest asset, is actually potentially your biggest liability.

According to Kiyosaki, properly defined: an asset feeds you, a liability eats you.

This simple definition of assets vs. liabilities can be a powerful tool for the consumerist middle class single-mindedly striving towards accumulating enough income and assets to elevate their standards of living, and could also be a powerful tool in helping families, organizations and communities manage their finances better.

However, it is too narrow a definition to be useful in the context of working towards ending poverty.

This definition of assets is framed by and perpetuates the prevailing capitalistic view of the world - one in which gross income (or GDP) is the primary indicator of a person's (or country's) overall well-being, and people are reduced to hedonistic accumulators & consumer.  It does not allow for any other paradigm.

If we limit ourselves to this definition then we deny ourselves the opportunity to account for the many other factors which contribute to healthy, thriving communities.  We deny ourselves the opportunity fully embrace the richness of reciprocal experience that is human culture, where people flourish most when given opportunities to create, contribute, collaborate, and celebrate.

Photo: Ifira Island keiki.  Are we born into this world focused on 'accumulation' and 'consumption'?

Instead, we can take this a step further and expand upon this definition to allow room for culture to evolve (adapted from Rosemary Morrow's 'Earth User's Guide to Permaculture'):

Photo: Reclassify your assets.

 

Degenerative Assets.
The more I use these, the less I have of it / the more I need of it.  Worse yet, the more I use this, the more it harms me / my community / my ennvironment.  Most items ('stuff') prized by consumerist culture falls into this category.

Generative Assets.
I can use these to make / create / modify / enhance me / my community / my environment.  Some of the things which fall into the first category could instead become 'generative' if used differently (ie using fossil-fuel powered equipment to create earthworks which pasively harvest water and rebuld soils).

Regenerative Assets.
I can use these, and they will multiply over time if properly cared for.  Biological resources, and many of our natural resources fall into this category.  If we were to focus on creating / developing / accumulating this type of asset, we take care of future generations while taking care of our own needs.

Knowledge-based Assets.
Ethical knowledge leading to self-reliance is the only asset class which can offer an unlimited yield; we are limited only by our creativity, our imagination, and our ability to apply knowledge.  When knowledge is framed by an ethical structure which values care of the earth, care of people,and stewardship of resources, it can result in actions & practices which are beneficial to all.

 

 

Traditional Food Culture in Vanuatu

Sawi treated us to a Sunday feast of traditional foods called laplap, which are wrapped in banana leaves and cooked in the traditional umu earthen oven (similar to the Maori hangi or Hawaiian imu):

Photo: The women prepare laplap dishes for our feast.

Photo: Chicken slaughtered yesterday.

Photo: Grated yam & coconut milk, tastes like a fluffy kulolo.

Photo: Fresh fish in coconut milk.

Photo: Nalalas, pig tripe & coconut milk.

I think we ate enough in one sitting to last us two days!

Shifting Food Cultures

Modern cultural pressures are acting upon even remote communities, shifting values away from traditional values of natural resource stewardship and living from the land.  Imported goods are replacing traditional foods & materials, creating new challenges ranging from how to properly dispose of plastics, scrap metals and batteries. 

Photo: Inorganic waste is buried at Dixson's Reef on Malekula Island.

Dixson's Reef community currently separates & buries their inorganic waste, while on Araki & Ifira Islands piles of leaf litter & other organic matter mixed with plastic & other inorganic wastes are regularly burnt. 

The diversity of island cultures throughout Vanuatu is perhaps most apparent in the diversity of languages spoken here, where even neighboring villages will often have their own distinct dialect.  Languages hold information & nuances that are very specific to people & place - even down to neighboring valleys.  On Araki Island, only 4 speakers of their native language remain.

Imported & processed foods which are cheaply & abundantly available (especially white rice & packaged noodles), present a seductive option to cook & prepare because there is much less time & physical effort expended to purchase from the store & cook a meal with these items - especially compared to the time & physical effort required to grow, harvest, clean, prepare
and cook traditional root crops & vegetables.

Photo: White rice is even featured on the signature Flying Fox dish at the L'Houstalet, a high-end French restaurant in Port Villa.

On Ifira Island, this has led to a shift of focus towards away from crop cultivation and towards income generation as the primary means to feed oneself.

This shift away from traditional food culture is already contributing to an increase in Non-Communicable Diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and is particularly tricky to address since it requires an understanding of the opposite tensions between traditional & modern culture in order to effectively re-frame simple daily choices (such as choosing to eat white rice) in such a way to affect better decision making at a household level. 

Photo: Without innovation, traditional culture stagnates & dies.  Without respect for traditional culture, traditional culture stagnates & dies.  Culture can flourish when the balance between tradition and innovation is maintained.

A facilitated class discussion was held in an attempt to re-connect traditional foods with traditional culture, so that simple acts of growing & eating foods appropriate to place & culture can regain their significance.

What is culture?

• How has your landscape impacted your culture?  Your diet?
      [Explore cultural foods, mythologies, ceremonies, processing & preservation techniques, and so on]
• How has your culture impacted your landscape?
      [Explore cultivation techniques & philosophy, village design, relationship w/ land, and so on]
• How does modern culture impact your landscape?  Your diet?
      [Share stories]
• Why save seeds?  Why grow cultural foods?

 

Photo: 'Seedsaving = No Thank you Monsanto', on Oahu, Hawaii (photo credit: Michael Broady Jr.).

Back home in Hawaii and Australia, this conversation begins by exploring the modern food system & agricultural practices (and its impacts upon planet & people), and narrows down to the simple practices of seed saving, water harvesting & stewardship, and gardening. 

As a part of this exploration, we can re-frame the political significance of these simple & peaceful acts - while understanding that in the modern consumerist society, harvesting our own water, saving our own seeds, and growing our own food are in many ways among the most radical & revolutionary acts we can do.

As one student in Hawaii (whose #1 agricultural export commodity is GMO seed) said:  

''It's like gently, but firmly saying 'F&^k You to the multinational corporations who seek to control our food and water supply."   - Student in Hawaii -

 

Here in Vanuatu, the situation in many ways is perhaps not quite so dire (subsistence farming is still widely practiced, and local food production still very much valued), though the conditions are ripening for such cancerous attitudes to fester. 

The government building on the main street of Villa boasts a large electronic notice board which flashes monthly reports of agriculture commodity exports by tonnage and dollar amount - not a bad thing in and of itself, though perhaps indicative of a broader shifting of focus away from agriculture as 'subsistence farming' and towards 'export commodity production'.

Photo: Breakfast meal served for us on Araki Island, featuring fried doughballs, imported crackers, local cooked sweet banana, and local eggs fried w/ Nalalas (Polyscias fruticosa).  We were treated later with something we dubbed 'Yambu', a delicious pudding of grated yam & coconut milk stuffed into a bamboo node and cooked in the earthen oven.

How much sense does it make to grow enough food to export & sell, to make enough money, to be able to afford your own food, which has been processed, imported & sold back to you?  A pound of harvested, fermented, & dried cacao beans sells for 200-250VT /kg(1); a couple of chocolate bars imported from Australia will cost you 200VT.

We find ourselves in a 'mitigation' situation on the ground here, where the

In order to build locally resilient communities, we must instead focus first upon growing enough to feed ourselves, then our community, and then look for opportunities to trade your surplus to in exchange for items outside of our bioregion.

 

"In Cuba, agriculture means growing food for our people to eat." 

- Roberto Perez, Permaculture Activist featured in 'The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil' documentary -

 

See the full gallery on Posterous

Photo: Learning about lactobaccilic ferment by making kimchee.

 

_________________________________________

(1) http://www.nuipacific.org/home/vanuatu-development

Mongolian Permaculture: Day 38 - The Gobi's Great Secret

RICK ASKS BUDDHA PERMISSION TO ENTER

Early start today for a special treat... we are off to visit the Hamariin Hiid Inergiin Tow Hysliin Uul Energy Center in the Gobi Desert.

We stack all our bags and hop into a mini-van waiting outside for us, then head out of Sainshand towards Erdene.

The Gobi landscape is pretty flat and featureless, though by the meandering dunescapes we can tell that at one time this land was shaped by water. The recent rains this year have brought forth a flush of greenery, though the sparse spacing between each clump of shrubbery shows just how little water is available here.

Now however, the low dunes are clearly shaped by wind sweeping across the gently undulating plains, keeping everything that does grow low to the ground, clinging stubbornly to its patch of sandy soil.

HARMUG PROLIFERATES IN THE SANDY DESERT SOILS

We stop a short way out of town as Minde spots some Harmag, the Gobi fruit he has been telling us about for the last few kilometers, a tiny, succulent red berry growing on a spiny shrub clumping over little sandy islands in the dessert. Handfulls of berries later, we are still grinning at the tart taste as we hit the road again.

GOBI [HARMAG] BERRIES!

Cracking in the exposed earth tells us there is a higher clay content here, and water flows can clearly be seen in little erosion gullies filled with finer sand particles, often lined with a dominant plant species following the water lines. Every now and then we cross a larger dry river bed at the low point in the shallow basin, and trees cluster along the dry river banks, meandering along the larger water flows into the distance.

The sandy dunes begin to erupt with volcanic bassalt, molten bombs that were spewed ages ago, then the white sands turn to a rich red colour as we near the ancient volcanic core.

CHANGING LANDSCAPE AS WE NEAR THE ENERGY CENTER

Even with the higher mineral content in the volcanic soils here, the low rainfall is not still enough to support a significant increase in plant life. The howling winds and water runoff in the spring have cut some small valleys here, providing some sheltered spots where trees can spring up; we are shown again what a marked difference wind shelter makes in plant growth out here.

The Energy Center is a Bhuddist temple built on an ancient volcano.

Mongolian heads of state, business leaders, and even the Japanese Prime Minister all make regular treks here to re-energize… one of only two energy centers in the world, it is said that this place is located at the confluence of geographic energy meridians, and one can absorb some of this energetic goodness by simply standing and opening yourself to receiving this energy.

Minde tells us that this is Mongolia’s best-kept secret, one that perhaps should not have been shared with the outsde world.

During Socialism times, locals kept this sacred place hidden from Government. Buddhist monks have been coming to this place for eons to meditate, and I can feel the different energy as soon as we step out of the car.

SAURAG

We walk up to the entrance and as we crest the hill, the temple reveals itself to us. Saurags, or buddhist shrines that look like Mongolian Wrestler’s hats, are built around the perimeter.

A pair of Buddha eyes painted onto the wall of the main entrance watch us silently as we descend the pathway towards the southern gate; this is the gate that lay people enter from. Dignitaries and important people, enter from the East, if you are sick you enter from the North, and I can’t quite remember what the West gate was designated for…

Our driver walks us through all the protocols of offerings and tradition and prayer – light incense here, ask for permission to enter there, throw rice in the air here, dip your finger and throw vodka into the air there – until we make our way over to a circle of red stone; the Energy Center.

GOOD, GOOD, GOOD, GOOD VIBRATIONS...

Shoes off, center yourself, and enter the circle to sit, open-palms to absorb all the good vibes. Thus re-energized, we move towards the row of stone bowls filled with water leading up to an oversized stone table upon which three stone bowls full of rice grains sit.

...RICK LOOKS LIKE HE JUST ATE SOME OF BUDDHA'S RICE...

WHICH I AM PRETTY SURE HE DID!

We pause here to offer some of the rice we have brought into each of the bowls, sit at the table and munch on a few grains ourselves – sharing a meal with the Buddha.

Next we climb the hill to a large stone ovod at the head of the temple grounds, stopping to pick up a stone to toss on the pile as we do our three clockwise circles to give thanks for our safe journeys thus far, and ask for guidance and protection as we continue. The blue cloths tied around the flagpole at the center of the pile flap in breeze, their shredding threads sending our prayers off into the breeze.

In the distance to the Northwest of the ovod a low mountain peak winks at us, and we are instructed to take a swig of the blue vodka bottle that our host has bought with us, and throw some in the air to the mountain to say thanks for the good vibes and re-energizing.

Behind the ovod is a stone monument with a musical verse and lyrics inscribed in its side. We join hands and sing together, a song of praise and love dedicated to an unseen Sweetheart, or perhaps, to an unseen Deity.

One more ceremony to complete before we leave the temple grounds, as we walk back towards the south gate, another stone circle lies in our path. This one, we are told, is a dream machine – we enter the circle, take the rocks which are strewn about within, and arrange them into representations of what we want to wish for.

As we leave the temple, the Buddha eyes watch again until we disappear from sight and head off to the meditation caves 800m away.

MEDITATION CAVES CARVED INTO THE DESERT LANDSCAPE

These caves are remarkable. The land here is very ancient, cut into the sides of a small gorge winding its way through the volcanic rock, worn away and shaped over a millenia by wind and rain.

10 caves are visible from where we stand, though we are told that over 108 exist throughout the landscape here, a retreat for Buddhist monks through the ages seeking enlightenment through intense meditation. The largest of the caves are perhaps just large enough for a man to stand in, and would be sealed once entered for 108 days, with only a tiny entrance to pass one meal /day through. Now that’s commitment.

WHERE'S THE HOSHO AT?

From here we hit the road again, stopping briefly at another Buddhist temple on the way out for a quick visit and take-away meal of hosho [fried meat dumpling], bought from an old woman waiting in the shade of a massive monument emblazoned with a scorprion for passers-by with her homemade hot box [cardboard lined with styrofoam and a woolen blanket].

Three more hours later, we pull into our new home for the next 5 days: Bayan Bhukel Co-Operative.

Mongolian Permaculture: Day 22 – Potato Fields and Pit Latrines

CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION.
NOTICE TSURREN IN THE BACKGROUND,
WONDERING WHAT PLANET I'M FROM

Spent the afternoon working the potato fields with the women of the Co-Op.

Our mission today was to start digging an irrigation trench network to catch and use some of that rainfall which flooded the hasha on the Day 01 of the PDC.

We’ve had two more heavy downpours since then, and the co-operative has dug a trench outside the walls to protect the potato crops from being washed away. Since the roadway outside basically drains all the water off to us, we can and should catch and use this water constructively.

So, we dig a trench under the northern fence with an earth berm in the outside moat big enough to catch and divert smaller flows but small enough to let excess water pass. If we have a really heavy rainfall that is too much for our little catchment and distribution network then we can simply close the ‘tap’ by closing off the inlet trench.

OUR HANDIWORK

This inlet trench runs perpendicular to rows of potatoes, so we use it as a ‘spine’ to bring water in, and run ‘ribs’ off it at right angles into the rows of potatoes.

The adjacent crop rows run parallel to the inlet trench at the bottom of a small slope, so we dig a ‘bathtub’ here – just a deeper, bigger pool - to slow the water before distributing it again. The ‘ribs’ run of radially down the slope here, very shallow trenches to ensure the water doesn’t pick up enough velocity to be damaging.

Mongolian women are tough!

We dig through a rocky layer into the brickie-sand soil about a foot down to create our ‘bathtub’ catchment and pile the soil onto hessian bags, which are then carried two-by-two over to the potato crops and used to mound the plants. When covered with soil in this way, the plant produces more tubers where it is in contact with the soil.

Whatever I do, I must not drop one of these heavy bags of soil that they tote around with one hand...

It is a great way to connect with a people, getting your hands dirty by sweating it out in the fields side-by-side. They teach me some Mongolian words: rain [boro], potato [tummus], onion [tsongion] …and we have lively conversation about our families through signing and guessing at what the other is saying. Lots of smiling and nodding.

Oyona, whom I picked to be about 19 or 20, is actually 29 and married with 5 kids. Baska is the wife of Mogi, my friend the Watchman. Tsuuren is quiet and stone-faced, Attakka takes a mobile phone call every half hour like any other teenager, and Mama tells me that I have to think of a better nickname for her because she is far to skinny to be a mama. I can’t pronounce her name, she is my Mum’s age, and she has smiling eyes that remind me of Mum, so that IS the best I’ve come with so far…

At one point, we all stop and watch a herd of horses mosey past the hasha, and suddenly everyone is riding the steppe with the wind in our faces …then the moment passes and its back to the rhythmic digging, heaping, carrying, and mounding of the precious crops.

Meanwhile, we’ve had a major breakthrough with the class this morning… Rick and Kat have found that the students are simply parroting back examples the instructors have given during the reviews, showing a lack of understanding and independent thinking to make connections of their own.

It is not a lack of intelligence or in any way a reflection of the capacity of anyone in the room - many of the students are college educated. It is more so a symptom of a western university system which values a lecture format and formulaic teaching methodology, and perhaps some leftover quota-mindset from the Socialism era.

Case and point: at one point Rick mentions that he has no idea exactly how much vetch seeds you would need to collect in order to plant out enough to fertilize a crop field. One of the agronomists quickly pipes up with the answer, “Ten-to-twelve kilos.”But the connection between this plant’s growing requirements and functions, and actually designing use of this plant into the fields as a green manure system has not yet been made, and the highly specialized knowledge has sat filed and unused while the co-operatives continue to manually collect and haul animal manure as fertilizer for their fields and struggle to efficiently maximize production.

So an adjustment in teaching methodology is introduced, and a shift towards forcing independent thought and connections between the principles that have been laid is made.

This is done effectively by setting problems that small groups have to solve themselves using what they have learnt: parameters are set to design a greenhouse for rural and urban settings, and the 4 unique [and quite clever] designs produced at the end of the session show that the cogs are starting to turn in students’ heads.

STUDENT DESIGN:
A GREENHOUSE ON A GER!

Composting toilets turn out to be another favorite subject, not really that surprising when Rick produces a bottle of poo-coloured water, points out that the pit latrines we use each morning are 4 meters deep, the water table is 5 meters deep, and by the way who would like a sip of his bottle of poo water? …because this is what the water supply in the soums will look like if the populations continue to grow and use their current septic system.

He then presents his crazy idea for the day, a wild possibility for a multi-function sewerage system for the cold Mongolian winters – giant yellow icy-poles. Yup. He went there.

Imagine: it is so cold outside that your urine freezes almost as soon as it hits the ground. Your body shuts adjusts so that you only go once a day. You know that cartoon of an eskimo peeing ice cubes? Like that. Worse if you are a woman, and worse still when it comes to number 2s…

The Problem is the Solution, right?

So why not pee in a bucket in the greenhouse/airlock outside the ger door, then place the bucket outside so that it freezes solid? Better yet, why not put your shovel into the bucket to make a large icy-pole? Then, when the bucket fills up you can simply pop out the giant icy-pole, walk it out to your crop field, and kick it off the shovel.

Over the winter your crop field will become dotted with frozen yellow pee-pops, which will melt in the spring to fertilize your fields. It’s a lot more comfortable way to use the toilet , your waste is harnessed and converted to a valuable resource, and you have the additional multi-function of portable salt licks for the livestock!

The class gets a good laugh out of this wild scenario, which is presented in jest as a humurous way to broach a subject that we don’t even like to talk about in the deveoped world.

All kidding aside, there may be some merit in the idea, which was just thrown out there to open the door to conversation, thought, and discussion about better ways to deal with human waste in rural and urban contexts.

Kat walks the class through her ‘Bucket’ composting toilet system in Melbourne, outlining why she has chosen specific design elements and highlighting the safeguards in place to ensure safe treatment of potential toxins and pathogens. Rick then walks everyone through an above-ground rotational system that could suited to the soums, and possibly adapted for use in and around Ulanbaataar.

Nothing like some good old Aussie toilet humour to loosen things up [excuse the pun – I am clearly spending too much time with Rick…]. …and judging from the questions and enthusiastic discussion during and after this session, this light-hearted approach to teaching this subject worked very well.

RICK'S SPECIAL ICY POLES...

A DEFINITE IMPROVEMENT OVER THE EXISTING PIT LATRINES.

Mongolian Permaculture: Day 6 - Nadaam in Tosontsengel

NO SIGNS OF MALNUTRITION HERE

Today I travelled in time.

Standing there in the Soum’s Nadaam wrestling arena as stark eagle shadows circled the grass, big burly Mongolian wrestlers in their traditional garb circled each other while the entire village watched, as they have done for a thousands of years.

I am developing my own genuine Mongolian squint in the bright glare of the Mongol sun.

This is a fierce people, hardened by the harsh conditions of their land, a deeply proud and noble people with warm hearts and sunny smiles.

This is a people who walk with a confidence in their step born of a connection to their past, which lives and breathes in them with every step on the steppe.

This is a people who know that at one time they ruled over most of the known world. You feel it when they look into your eyes.

They have lived so close to the land for so long, walking a fine line between death and survival through -40?C nights in the long winter, living like marmots for half the year and then emerging into the flowering plains, blinking in the stark sunlight.

I sit in the crowd and watch the wrestling, men built like yaks who move like apes, lumbering about in their big boots, flying like eagles to pay respects to their tradition, exploding in a flurry to bring their quarry down.

Rick has designated me his champion should he be challenged to a bout, so should we be challenged my strategy is to find the biggest, baddest dude and lose to him without hurting or humiliating myself [ie last for more than 10 seconds]…

Meanwhile, Rick has entered the local chess tournament and is getting himself whooped and having a great old time. Kat has made friends with some locals and has been having a conversation for the last hour or so about what she has no idea, though the crowd that has gathered around her drawing things in the sand are all quite pleased about the way the conversation has been going.

Bek has left us to catch up with some work and sleep back at the compound, so Ingktor patiently waits and watches us and the wrestling.

Suddenly, the stadium starts emptying and Ingktor piles us into our 4WD. Clouds of dust trails rise into the sky from the mountain behind us, and everyone jumps on the nearest horse, motorcycle, car, or person and charges up the hill. The horse races have been spotted in the distance since we saw them start and disappear hours ago – we’ve guessed that their course was one lap around the basin, probably about 50km or so – and we pile back out of the 4WD with the rest of the soum to watch the end of the race.

Four riders gallop to the finish line, at first just another dust trail rising form the horizon, then a speck, then four specks, then we can see its an all-out battle for the finish… the third rider pulls to the front as they thunder down the home straight, and I rub my eyes to make sure I am really seeing what is unfolding. The riders are about 6 or 7 years old, charging along at full bore, whipping their glistening mounts while the crowd whoops with delight.

The rest of the field is not far behind, and everyone is home safely within five minutes of the leaders, at which point the entire crowd turns around and races back down the mountain towards the stadium to show of the winning horses.

Nadaam. Wrestling. Horses. Mongolia.

Oh yeah, and there was archery.

Awesome.

Tasmania: Day 1 - Blister in the Sun

Theme Songs of the Day:

1. "Blister in the Sun", by The Violent Femmes
2. "American Music", by The Violent Femmes

Q: What do rock & roll legends do when they retire?

A: Open a tea-house in Hobart, Tasmania.

Hobart is a beautiful old port town of short and squat historic buildings built to keep out the cold southern winds. Perched upon the waterfront of the Derwent River, which empties into Storm Bay, the Tasman Sea, and the Southern Ocean, I have never made the one-hour flight down to explore this corner of the world despite ten years of living in Melbourne.

The sun us setting and the clouds look as though they are glowing from the inside as we pull into the city center in search of Chado: The Way of Tea... A couple of short paragraphs grazed over the in-flight magazine on Tiger Airlines alerted us to the place, run by Brian Ritchie, bassist for the Violent Femmes, and his lovely wife Varuni Kulasekara.

There is one page of food items on the menu, and pages upon pages of exotic names with descriptions of the exotic teas served up. Our servers are a two beautiful women from Japan and India, who gracefully invite us in to sit and enjoy a meal - even though we are the only two people in the place.

Tea sets line the walls and a bamboo flute plays softly in the background. Apparently, Brian often stops by the shop to play for customers - not folk-punk bass guitar but the shakuhachi, or bamboo flute - and we missed him today as he played for the lunchtime crowd...

Dinner is delicious: bento boxes, Violent Femmes-style - served by the band's groupies with flaming sake bombs and everyone's favorite riff from everyone's favorite Femmes anthem blasting as the food comes out... "and we go ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, like a Blister in the Sun........"

Welcome to Tasmania, wild cultural hub of the southern oceans! This is going to be a good trip...

OK, SO MAYBE I EXAGGERATED ABOUT THE GROUPIES.
AND THE FLAMING SAKE BOMBS.
AND THE BLARING MUSIC.
BUT GEEZ, THAT FOOD WAS DELICIOUS!



# # #

voyeur

THEME SONG FOR THE DAY:

1. "Guaranteed" by Eddie Vedder, from the soundrack "Into the Wild"
   

ACLAND STREET ROOFTOP

Today I people-watched.

This afternoon the sun broke through they grey of this morning, and so I ventured down to Acland Street in St Kilda, the wonderful little corner of the world that my Dad affectionately calls "The Armpit of the World".

It is such a surreal little stretch of asphalt, the gaping maw of Luna Park welcoming you to an avenue lined with cakeshops and coffeeshops and bookstores and boutiques. Garish characters on rooftops leer at you and wander the street muttering to themselves, while artists and musicians and other denizens of bohemia sit and sip on flat white coffees, passionately discussing existentialism, politics, music and art.

This trip to Melbourne has so far been a wonderful whirlwind of reunions with family and friends, a blur of lattes and pints of beer and delicious meals shared with warm conversations and catchings-up. I feel like I could quite easily spend the whole of the next 12 months looking up old friends and acquaintances... It would be so easy, and so safe to just stay here...

As I wandered through the streets and gardens today, I observed myself observing others, a surreal feeling of watching a movie that is playing out in real time right before your eyes, except that you are participating, and watching, all at the same time; a lucid dream, except that I am wide-awake...

...a now-familiar feeling has been growing in my belly - it is the feeling that bubbles up to my conscious thought stream and whispers "I am no longer here". I am ready to move on.

Being a happy child surrounded by loving family in Hawaii is a blessing that I shall always treasure - all my childhood memories are full of joy and laughter. You don't truly appreciate the beauty of a place until you leave it.

As little people we all make decisions about ourselves, other people, and the world based upon our experiences, that shape our thinking, and therefore our words, actions, and habbits....and therefore our REALITY.

The despair, angst and sheer anger that I felt during my teen years served to drive much of the outward material successes I enjoyed in my 20s, though has long since faded. Anger, when focused to a point, can create positive results. The problem is that anger is a poor foundation upon which to build a legacy, and, when suppressed, will explode violently.

This stands in stark contrast to my current experience of Melbourne: peaceful, joyful, and connected. I have made my peace with this city, and with the experiences and emotions of the past.

Today I wandered and watched, enjoying the simplest details - snippets of conversations overheard in the street, the laughs of a young family tending to their plot in the community garden, the cacophony of screeching seagulls and cawing crows bathed in the soft, warm glow of the afternoon sun. The big, cold blue sky stretches far away above me, fading into deep indigos as the quiet drama of another Melbourne sunset slips away on the horizon.

"...A mind full of questions
And a teacher in my Soul..."
- "Guaranteed", from the soundtrack "Into The Wild"
by Eddie Vedder -

THE ARMPIT OF LUNA PARK

# # #

Job Application

I had so much fun shooting this over the last week....er, OK well mostly today...thought the deadline was next week and SUPERMOM came to the rescue again, texting me with the news that the application vid was actually due in TODAY.

So in true procrastination-drives-creative-genius form, I spent the day filming like a maniac with my Couchsurfing Buddy [and new best friend] Lucie Voelcker [THANK YOU Lucie!!]

We spent the day asking unsuspecting tourists and locals to say, "HE WAS BORN FOR THIS JOB!!" into a stranger's video camera....and everyone happily obliged!! I'll follow up with the blooper reel on another post; this was so much fun!!

Of course, Mom thinks that I am a shoe-in for the job [love you Mom]; I thought "Well why not?!" In any case, now that it is out there we'll see what happens, aye??

Special thanks to: Mom & Dad, Lucie Voelcker, Laurens Laudowicz, Miles Burkhart, James Lynch, Jens Trumpa and his beautiful children, Pete Richards, Jim Schmit, Tom who we sail with every Friday [what the heck is ur last name??], Antoinella, Atlantis, Da Kalihi Boyz, that lovely couple from the west coast who we met on Diamond Head, and Morning Brew Cafe in Kailua.

Lion's Blessings

LIONS PROWL THE BEACH IN FRONT OF JODO MISSION, LAHAINA

For the last 24 years, Au's Shaolin Arts Society has been making the journey to Maui to bring in Chinese New Year by sharing traditional Chinese Lion Dance performances and Kung-Fu demonstrations across the island, occasionally venturing over to Molokai and Lanai to perform as well.

I've been making the journey with the family since I started my martial arts training seven years ago...it has been two years since since I ceased training in order to heal some wounds I suffered, and two years since I've joined them full-time. I make the decision to go at the last minute, so it is a surprise to many of my brothers and sisters when I show up in Maui...they barely skip a beat: "Welcome back, brother."

It is difficult to describe the experience to someone who has not come along for the ride: 2 teams of 8-10 people, 50+ performances ranging from 1-6 hours in length over seven days. Playing Lion's head requires strength, stamina, agility, and creativity....imagine carrying and animating a 15-pounds paper-mache mask over your head, flirting with the crowd, becoming the lion...or, playing the tail by following your head player's footwork, keeping your head down, and crab-walking to keep the illusion of a heavenly four-legged feline, engaging your audience for hours at at time....INTENSE. And that doesn't include the kung-fu demonstrations!

You find out a lot about your physical, mental, and emotional limits. If you survive the experience, you are hooked. For life.

This year we have an apprentice [rookie] on board from a sister school in Long Island, New York. He is athletic, talented, and physically very strong, though nothing could have prepared him for this...our first performance? A 5-hour marathon with a skeleton crew down Fort Street Mall in Chinatown Honolulu.

He survives, with a look that says "What-the-heck-was-that??"....by the end of the week, his grin tells us that he is hooked; he'll be back. Happened to our brother from Kentucky too, the whitest, most red-necked good 'ole country-boy Chinese person you have ever met ;-) ...he has made the pilgrimage for seven years now, his only experience of Maui being from inside the Lion...

I realize on my first day back, how much a part of me this has become....my legs and shoulders feel the burn almost immediately, and my body hits the wall early, recognizes it like an old friend, and pushes through
happily. The drum beat moves me, infusing my movements with the spirit of the lion.

The lion dance drum beat sets the rythym of the year, cleansing the negative energy of the past year through the very pores of my skin, and clearing the way for the blessings of a new year to be welcomed in. Reflecting over the sometimes spectacular mess that has been my life over last 2 years, it is clear to me how much this rythym has been missing...when I get back on the drums I quickly remember the old beats and riffs, and am soon smiling as I start to throw in new riffs here and there. Hello creativity, where have you been? Nice to meet you again....

Playing for the children is what makes us happiest; they are scared and thrilled and happy all at the same time, and they love to feed the Lions their lai-see offerings for good luck. Young and old alike squeal with delight as the Lions nibble hands, legs and the occasional small child on their way to the red envelopes and lettuce offerings.

We get to be superstars for a week each year; some of the people in our audience have watched the Au children grow up, and have been following us for 15- 20 years... and despite the inevitable behind-the-scenes drama that will unfold when bodies and minds in such close proximity are pushed to the limit, we all grin when it is over. The bond that is formed when you share an intense collective experience goes beyond words. Each of us walks a little taller, feels a little stronger on the other side of Chinese New Year's celebrations ...walking in the knowledge that if we can do that....we can do anything.

And thus, a new year begins....