Feet in a Cambodian folk dance.Wednesday, December 09, 2009
Cambodian breakfast
Sadly blurry, but a delicious part of the buffet at our fancy hotel in Siem Reap.Cold rice vermicelli, coconut curry, fresh cucumber, peanuts, banana flower, beansprouts and herbs.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Ricefields of Bali
Rice cultivation in the town of Ubud (Pengosekan). I did yoga at a studio that overlooked these fields.
Monday, November 30, 2009
Weaving for the volcano
Handwoven leaf and bamboo decorations honouring Gunung Agung (the large mountain) in Bali.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
How to order a double-double in Singapore
Just ask for coffee, or rather kopi. If you want to get tea or coffee without milk or sugar you have to specify - the default is white and very sweet.
Apparently the national breakfast of Singapore is coffee and kaya toast - hot buttered toast spread with coconut jam. My packed eating schedule didn't allow me to have it for breakfast, but I tasted it as an afternoon snack all the same. Sweet, but delicious.
Apparently the national breakfast of Singapore is coffee and kaya toast - hot buttered toast spread with coconut jam. My packed eating schedule didn't allow me to have it for breakfast, but I tasted it as an afternoon snack all the same. Sweet, but delicious.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Omu raisu
Omuraisu, or omelet rice, from a mall food court in Kagoshima City, where I ate lunch with what appeared to be the entire teenage population.Omuraisu is total comfort food, fried rice with a thin egg omelet draped overtop. It's often served with curry, demiglace, or ketchup, but this version unusually has the okonomi toppings of brown sauce, mayo, bonito flakes and shreds of red pickled ginger.
Beside the "white diaspora", the other tourist group catered to in Bali is Japanese, and I was amused to see a sign outside a restaurant advertising "omu nasi"!
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Photo: Detail of the A-bomb dome in Hiroshima.Probably an odd reading choice for South-East Asia, but I've always wanted to catch up on the classics I missed in my misspent youth...
After having read about the origins of Buddhism, it was interesting to turn to a book that deals so heavily with the development of Christianity, albeit in a way that was terribly controversial on publication in the 1780s.
The whole thing being a bit massive, this was an abridged version that only came to under 700 pages, but which had most of the first three volumes intact.
If being a tourist here in Bali makes me feel like a member of the idle rich, reading Decline and Fall while sitting on a patio drinking fresh papaya juice and local coffee felt incredibly decadent, as if I were one of those effete youths on Grand Tour so often described in novels about the decline and fall of the British empire.
I'm carrying on the classical theme with Ovid's Metamorphoses, which is a more obvious choice for transformative journeys...
Cooling off after the onsen
This is Daimon-san in the Ibusuki area of Kagoshima prefecture. Just behind the photographer is the onsen where I was buried in hot volcanic sand with the sound of the surf crashing only metres away.It was an amazing experience, the sand so hot that my hands and feet began instantly to pulse, as if I had four extra hearts. The combination of the heat and the weight were so relaxing I wanted to stay - but you can only remain for 15 minutes and even at that my skin got very slightly burnt.
Afterwards, to remove the yukata and clean off the sand, then soak naked in the onsen waters, before heading outside to drink an iced coffee and gaze happily at the mountain while the sea breeze cools you...bliss.
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
Photo: samurai armour in Matsuyama castle.This vast novel by Haruki Murakami was my companion for most of my time in Japan. I was on my third reading when I finally, reluctantly, gave it up in Kyoto in exchange for some new material.
It's fascinating, absorbing - and despite multiple readings I don't understand it enough to say much about it except you should read it too. It's probably bad to make comparisons but the obvious one in my mind is Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, for the sweeping breadth and for the way that political and domestic history are intertwined; and for the surrealism. But this is Japan, not South America, and the comparison only goes so far.
It's about a young man abandoned at the bottom of a well, about his marriage and the strange machinations of his wife's family; it's about the atrocities committed by Japan before and during WWII, and the terrible fates that awaited the individuals that carried out the orders from on high, as well. It's about strange connections between strangers and the cost of letting go of reality in order to be able to heal.
I think it's probably a lot about the "soul" of modern Japan, except that I feel too ignorant to really understand; but happily the ignorant can feast on the book anyway. Ah, I am going to read so much once I come back to settle somewhere with a bookshelf and a library card again...
It's fascinating, absorbing - and despite multiple readings I don't understand it enough to say much about it except you should read it too. It's probably bad to make comparisons but the obvious one in my mind is Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, for the sweeping breadth and for the way that political and domestic history are intertwined; and for the surrealism. But this is Japan, not South America, and the comparison only goes so far.
It's about a young man abandoned at the bottom of a well, about his marriage and the strange machinations of his wife's family; it's about the atrocities committed by Japan before and during WWII, and the terrible fates that awaited the individuals that carried out the orders from on high, as well. It's about strange connections between strangers and the cost of letting go of reality in order to be able to heal.
I think it's probably a lot about the "soul" of modern Japan, except that I feel too ignorant to really understand; but happily the ignorant can feast on the book anyway. Ah, I am going to read so much once I come back to settle somewhere with a bookshelf and a library card again...
Believe!
Boddhisattvas are all loving-kindness, but there are more forceful deities to help convert the masses. These fearsome statues are often placed at the entrance to temples to help instill a sense of urgency in the not-yet-devout.The kawaii never stops
Instructions for how to purify yourself before entering the grounds of a temple or shrine in Japan.Siddhatta vs. Siddhartha
Photo: Jizo at a Shinto shrine in downtown Kyoto.Before I left on my trip, one of my preparations was to stop at a used book store to let serendipity help me choose what to read at the beginning of my trip. Pulp Fiction on W. Broadway happened to have a good Asia non-fiction section, and the first of the books I ended up reading was Karen Armstrong's biography of Buddha (titled: Buddha).
I had already read her very interesting A History of Myth and listened to her TED talk on compassion, so I was looking forward to it. I ended up reading the whole thing in the first few jetlagged days, so that it was caught up in the early fog of arrival. Then I read it again more slowly midway through the trip (I read each book I bought at least twice before finally getting some new ones in Kyoto!).
I don't really know much about Buddhism, so rather than trying to offer a critique of the book I can just say that it really awakened my interest, making me want to read more fully about the history of Buddhism as it developed as a religion. It also made me want to explore more fully the gaps that lie between the official history and theology of a religion and the understanding that believers have; and the distance between how it's practiced by monks and by laypeople. Despite also not knowing much about Hinduism, I'd had the same feeling when I had the chance to take a religious studies class about it at university. The teacher strongly believed in the importance of studying practical Hinduism with equal weight, rather than sticking solely to the textual tradition, and I really absorbed that attitude. The little that I know from listening to people who practice Buddhism gives me a really different idea than what I took from Armstrong's version of Buddha's teachings.
Japan is the only Buddhist country I've visited so far, and it's a fascinating and unique one, given the deep and longlasting syncretism with native Shinto practice. That's a whole post (or lifetime of study) in itself, and even looking just at Buddhism in Japan shows such a huge variety of sects and beliefs in monastic practice, let alone about how most Japanese feel about or understand Buddhism. I am excited to travel soon to Vietnam and to see Buddhism in a totally different context (not without syncretism of its own, of course).
Something else that I found myself thinking of as I read this book, was another book I studied at university in a German lit class - Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. (Armstrong's book is mostly based on the Pali canon and so she uses Pali spelling rather than Sanskrit, so I am making a distinction between Hesse's Siddhartha and Armstrong's Siddhatta). Leaving aside the whole problem of cultural imperialism and Hesse's appropriation of Indian tradition (and noting that Armstrong too is a Western interpreter of Eastern tradition), I remembered my visceral reaction to the book when I read it at 19. I HATED it. The contrast of noble Siddhartha with fleshy Kamala made my skin crawl. The whole thing just seemed like typical male self-indulgence - sure, subsist on the food that the women prepare and donate to you, and adopt their sons into your sanghas, but be sure to point out to them their inferiority, their hopeless trappedness in samsara BECAUSE YOUR CULTURAL LAWS WON'T ALLOW THEM TO ESCAPE IT.
While Armstrong's depiction of Buddha isn't quite as creepy as I remember Hesse's being, she does point out the misogyny in the Buddhist tradition, wherever it originally crept in. Women could only be admitted as nuns subservient to the monks and following an additional set of rules; and in a whole large branch of Buddhism today there are no nuns because it is now viewed as impossible to fulfill those conditions.
In her broader discussion of the Axial age in which both Hinduism and Buddhism developed, she points out that along with the new spirituality came a new and more crippling misogyny, which is something that tends to keep me from identifying with any religion I've ever heard of, however impressive some of it other aspects are. The question of why those two strands developed together near-simultaneously in discrete parts of the world is a fascinating one. I do find it hard to get past what seems to me like clear hypocrisy antithetical to a true state of enlightenment. But of course that's just my lesser feminine self speaking!
To complement the history, I also picked up a book on Buddhist practice by the Dalai Lama. Even though I'm not going to Tibet I thought it might help provide more context for mostly Buddhist South-East Asia. I can't say that I feel any closer to enlightenment, but it was certainly an interesting text to read and ponder.
All of it a bit moot of course, in Hindu Bali.
I had already read her very interesting A History of Myth and listened to her TED talk on compassion, so I was looking forward to it. I ended up reading the whole thing in the first few jetlagged days, so that it was caught up in the early fog of arrival. Then I read it again more slowly midway through the trip (I read each book I bought at least twice before finally getting some new ones in Kyoto!).
I don't really know much about Buddhism, so rather than trying to offer a critique of the book I can just say that it really awakened my interest, making me want to read more fully about the history of Buddhism as it developed as a religion. It also made me want to explore more fully the gaps that lie between the official history and theology of a religion and the understanding that believers have; and the distance between how it's practiced by monks and by laypeople. Despite also not knowing much about Hinduism, I'd had the same feeling when I had the chance to take a religious studies class about it at university. The teacher strongly believed in the importance of studying practical Hinduism with equal weight, rather than sticking solely to the textual tradition, and I really absorbed that attitude. The little that I know from listening to people who practice Buddhism gives me a really different idea than what I took from Armstrong's version of Buddha's teachings.
Japan is the only Buddhist country I've visited so far, and it's a fascinating and unique one, given the deep and longlasting syncretism with native Shinto practice. That's a whole post (or lifetime of study) in itself, and even looking just at Buddhism in Japan shows such a huge variety of sects and beliefs in monastic practice, let alone about how most Japanese feel about or understand Buddhism. I am excited to travel soon to Vietnam and to see Buddhism in a totally different context (not without syncretism of its own, of course).
Something else that I found myself thinking of as I read this book, was another book I studied at university in a German lit class - Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha. (Armstrong's book is mostly based on the Pali canon and so she uses Pali spelling rather than Sanskrit, so I am making a distinction between Hesse's Siddhartha and Armstrong's Siddhatta). Leaving aside the whole problem of cultural imperialism and Hesse's appropriation of Indian tradition (and noting that Armstrong too is a Western interpreter of Eastern tradition), I remembered my visceral reaction to the book when I read it at 19. I HATED it. The contrast of noble Siddhartha with fleshy Kamala made my skin crawl. The whole thing just seemed like typical male self-indulgence - sure, subsist on the food that the women prepare and donate to you, and adopt their sons into your sanghas, but be sure to point out to them their inferiority, their hopeless trappedness in samsara BECAUSE YOUR CULTURAL LAWS WON'T ALLOW THEM TO ESCAPE IT.
While Armstrong's depiction of Buddha isn't quite as creepy as I remember Hesse's being, she does point out the misogyny in the Buddhist tradition, wherever it originally crept in. Women could only be admitted as nuns subservient to the monks and following an additional set of rules; and in a whole large branch of Buddhism today there are no nuns because it is now viewed as impossible to fulfill those conditions.
In her broader discussion of the Axial age in which both Hinduism and Buddhism developed, she points out that along with the new spirituality came a new and more crippling misogyny, which is something that tends to keep me from identifying with any religion I've ever heard of, however impressive some of it other aspects are. The question of why those two strands developed together near-simultaneously in discrete parts of the world is a fascinating one. I do find it hard to get past what seems to me like clear hypocrisy antithetical to a true state of enlightenment. But of course that's just my lesser feminine self speaking!
To complement the history, I also picked up a book on Buddhist practice by the Dalai Lama. Even though I'm not going to Tibet I thought it might help provide more context for mostly Buddhist South-East Asia. I can't say that I feel any closer to enlightenment, but it was certainly an interesting text to read and ponder.
All of it a bit moot of course, in Hindu Bali.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Kouyou
Looking down at the red leaves near Fukushima City, Fukushima, on the way to the summit of Azuma-san.
Mochi
Though I'm far from Japan now, there are still lots of photos to catch up on. One of the many things I miss about Japan is the delicious mochi, which I tried to eat every day (and mostly succeeded).Mochi is both the Japanese sticky rice, and the sweets that are made from it. Mochi is usually made by cooking the rice, then pounding it into a paste and shaping it into cakes of various shapes and forms, but you can also have sweets that use the whole grains of rice. Mochi isn't necessarily sweet either. My first night on the
farm in Fukushima, we had nabe or hotpot, and one of the ingredients was sliced pieces of plain mochi, chewy and delicious.Pictured first is the kind of mochi most available in North America - daifuku. Unfortunately the packaged kinds do not compare to the fresh version, which you can often buy at temples. This one is from Ninna-ji in Kyoto. It's chestnut-flavoured mochi around an unusually smooth, pale red bean filling, and it was incredibly delicious. The mochi is chewy and soft, the filling firm, dry, and a little grainy, and the richer sweetness complements the plainer taste of the rice.
Sadly less available
outside of Japan are the many varieties of plain grilled mochi. The other two pictures are from Matsuyama, where my newfound friend and I had dessert sets after our lunch of traditional udon.Abekawa mochi is plain rice cake coated in kinako, toasted soybean flour. It has a vaguely peanutbuttery flavour that goes beautifully with the mochi. I really love this sweet.
Iso mochi is brushed with shoyu (soy sauce) and eaten with nori, which might not be your idea of dessert, but it's equally yummy.
There are many many more kinds of mochi, and I tried to eat all the ones that came my way, but I know there are still more left untried...oh well. There's always a reason for another trip!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)