Showing posts with label Asia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Asia. Show all posts
The Fish of Hongdo
It happened fast. Racing over the water, the small boat appeared suddenly, bashing against the minor waves as it crossed them, with the whirring of its motor growing louder as it unexpectedly closed in. The vessel I was on was larger but even if it tried to power away it could hardly have escaped. It was too late for that. What did they want?
I could only take my cue from the other
passengers and the crew, because with everything happening in Korean I was at a
minor disadvantage. The small boat sidled up to ours, its motor cut as an
animated conversation across the gap of water began. The passengers were
fussing; they seemed to be negotiating. It happened near the coast of Hongdo, Red Island ,
in the Yellow Sea .
Winter had come to South Korea
It’s in Korea China
At closer quarters the islands are similarly unwilling to conform to standardised design specifics. A vast range of rock shapes, delicate, unusual and unexpected, document the drop of the island into the sea. Or at least on Hongdo they do. One of the furthest islands from the mainland, Hongdo is famous for the artistry of wind and wave, which is why tourists go there. It’s the reason I was on that boat.
It’s not difficult to reach Hongdo. There are scheduled ferry services to cover the 115 kilometres from Mokpo City
It’s not difficult to organise the two-hour circumnavigation tour of the island by boat, which is the best way to appreciate the gallery of rock formations, nature’s art.
But before that it’s possible to follow the Il-gu-to-I-gu road, the stone and dirt pathway up the nearer hill that rises to about 200 metres. There, the camellia bushes grow large and create, in places, a tunnel. The views, over the island, over the sea and down to the villages, are deep breaths of oxygen, life-bringing. The island takes its name, Red, from the effect of each sunset on its rocks and cliffs; although in spring there is the red bloom of the camellias to be considered.
It was on the second day, near to the end of the circumnavigation tour, that the smaller boat had suddenly appeared. Aboard I could see three men, in thick jackets, two in baseball caps. They had knives.
The passengers were animated. What’s going on, I thought. It was only a matter of moments before the nature of the trouble became apparent.
It was about fish. Fresher fish there could not be. The fishermen in the smaller boat had just caught them and wished to sell them. Meanwhile the fish flapped about in a water-filled bucket.
Although I realise it’s nearly criminal activity in Bangladesh
I watched as fish were sold, the unusual part being in how they were delivered: pre-chopped and salted. With each sale the fishermen took the fish to a wooden board on the deck of their boat, scaled and gutted them on the spot, cutting them into thin strips of boneless meat. Then they were sprinkled with salt, put into a bag and handed across to the larger boat.
The even more unusual part was how they were eaten: directly. There was, I thought, a missing step in the process, in accordance with usual procedure: the cooking part. I watched as Koreans took thin strips of raw fish by hand and pushed them into their mouths.
I was fortunate, arguably, because on our boat was one Ms. Kim from Suwon , near to Seoul
At the same time from somewhere that rice wine, the Korean version called soju, surfaced, to accompany the fish. So I joined in: a nip of soju, then a few strips of salted raw fish gulped down the throat just as a pelican might do. It wasn’t bad, actually, although it might’ve been better not to know what it was. The mood on the boat became festive as everyone, and I was the only foreigner among them, drank and ate.
I don’t wish to imply it was the first time I’d faced raw fish during that preceding first week in South Korea
This result was despite my deliberately having tried to increase the chances of variation, by pointing towards the top of one menu at lunch and towards the bottom of another during dinner. Somehow, I was remarkably consistent in my random choices. Yet I was sure Koreans ate other things.
But of all the raw fish that followed, chased and hunted me down, it was the fish of Hongdo that was the most special, and clearly the freshest.
These days in Dhaka it’s usual to consider the freshness of food, especially when eating from a street side stall. Food freshness is an important consideration anywhere.
It’s just that in countries with a national cuisine that’s something like South Korea’s, a further consideration for the uninitiated might be if the food isn’t actually, on occasion, a little too fresh.
Or, probably, it’s the sort of thing one learns to enjoy.
A Place to Stand
 |
Village near Mongla, 1996
|
with guest writer Reja Ali Mobarak.
It was of cottage and
mansion dripping with subtropical weathering, Khulna Town
A simple archway on the footpath read ‘Hotel Sun King’ in
metallic letters. Before entering, I
invited the guy from the bus to share tea and samosa, behind a curtained
doorway across the street. It was
Ramadan. We had endured his constant
chatter for many hours; from the long, unbroken journey from Chittagong we were unshaven and
exhausted. He reclined and talked as I
went to the counter to deliver up the few-taka bill.
***
I used to transport live baby chingri from my home in Hatiya
to Foila. We are lower middle class
although my father was the union chairman.
The chingri business used to see out the winter months. It was seventeen years ago.
I bore the yoke of village politics that caused my father’s
strokes and the burden of maintaining the family that belongs to the eldest son
was weightier than my age. Sometimes
life must run against the current. While
waiting for the commission agent in Foila to pay me, I came to Khulna .
My business partner Nazmul, from Khulna ,
had invited me many times; yet I chose the independence of a cheap hotel called
Sun King.
In the mornings Nazmul would come. By night, at his house, his mother would feed
us. I’d seen the pens of his chicken establishment.
The Sun King manager was old with thin, grey hair and gaps
in his teeth. We’d found the habit of
sharing iftar together, the evening
meal to break the fast. It was still a
few hours but I was counting, relaxing on the sofa under the window at the top
of the stairs, in the small space that was barely a reception area. The manager sat on a stool behind his
pint-sized bench in the corner.
I was sitting, with nothing to do, when I saw two
fair-skinned foreigners and one Bangladeshi come up the stairs with too much
baggage. They asked the manager for a
room and I stood, moved a few paces closer.
I was curious.
***
Language was a frustration.
I wanted to bargain with the manager directly but the non-stop-talker
had the advantage. I didn’t trust him
much so after a few sentences I did what I wanted to do all day. I told him to be silent. I asked for a room, the koto, the how much, we’d already learnt. The manager wrote a figure on a paper scrap:
150 taka for a double. It was cheap; but
we nonetheless went into auto-bargain.
It was South Asia and we believed
that’s what one did.
As usual we turned to walk away in faux outrage. But the old man didn’t shower our retreat
with better offers. We didn’t proceed
beyond the first landing on the way to the ground floor.
***
It was strange: the manager told them the price and they
walked away! We always thought bideshis stay five-star, like at the
Sonargaon in Dhaka . I hadn’t had much experience with bideshis
but because my father was Chairman they used to come to the house sometimes
from the Red Cross. I remember they’d
sit at the table on the veranda and chat in English. From a young age I was expected to serve their
tea and my father would encourage me to speak English. But I felt shame so mostly I was silent.
I remember how awkwardly they sat, straight-backed and
serious, their faces tense. It was nothing
like when the neighbours would visit.
But these two, there was something different about them: they’d come to
such a standard hotel, they were unshaven with messy hair. I wanted them to stay there. Fortunately they came back and I looked one
of them in the eyes and in poor English said the room rate was okay.
***
That guy who’d been hanging out in reception said the room
rate was okay. I took a brief moment to
study his face: he had very green eyes.
But I was looking for honesty and we couldn’t rely on the
non-stop-talker. It’s really very odd
but examining his face it wasn’t only that I thought he was probably honest: in
some way I recognised it. I told myself not
to be stupid. But we took the room.
***
I don’t know why he believed me and didn’t bargain further, but
as they filled in the book at the counter I couldn’t help it, I read over their
shoulders to know where they were from.
In the ‘Citizenship’ column he wrote ‘Australian.’
***
He read over my shoulder as I filled out the Register. It was a bit rude.
***
When we talked to foreigners we felt as citizens of a poor
country and because of the language problem in communicating, shame; but when
he was bargaining with the manager I did not feel like that. When I saw him at
first I felt as though I already knew him. I don’t know why. He finished the work around taking the room
and wanted to go there. I don’t know
much English but I asked him to share iftar
with us. He understood my offer easily,
without even trying.
It was astonishing.
After about an hour he came from his room wearing lungi! My eyes fell open at the sight: inside I was
thinking, ‘maybe this foreigner doesn’t hate Bengalis.’ He sat on the sofa as the adhan sounded for iftar to begin. The manager had chopped onions and chilli,
mixing oil with muri. I’d brought a few sweet jilabis and some piazu.
It was all laid out on a sheet of the day’s news. Nazmul was
late and the bideshi’s friend was
still sleeping. He didn’t know how to
eat with his hands and bits of the muri mix were sticking to the sides of his
fingers and falling on the floor; although he didn’t understand Bangla he
helped me to communicate. He spoke
slowly and understood my meaning when I knew the English words were wrong. It made me so happy! I wished to speak to him more after iftar but I didn’t know what he felt.
***
It was the only day in Bangladesh when I had a strong desire
never to speak to another Bengali: a product of the non-stop-talker and the
long journey. Sleep was made complicated
by the mosquitoes that came in through the big hole in the wall. I decided to fight them no longer and got up,
still with zero desire to connect with locals.
I didn’t want to start with the ‘country?’ and work our way up to the
amount of my father’s salary. Yet the
idea of travelling was to meet people and learn something; and if I’d always
maintained such a negative attitude we would have missed out on so much. So when I saw him sitting on the sofa under
the window and there being nothing else to do, my objections softened. I decided not to judge him solely on the
rudeness of having looked over my shoulder as I’d signed in.
It wasn’t my first iftar.
I saw him watching how I ate with my hands and was embarrassed for my lack of
skill. Afterwards we heard shouting from
the street below. Through the window we
watched a really angry mob pass. They
were punching the air with fists clenched, chanting slogans, holding banners I
couldn’t read. It must’ve been related
to the upcoming election. Many Bangladeshis
had spoken about politics.
***
BNP was attempting to hold an election but Awami League was
set to boycott. We watched an opposition protest march down the street. I did my best to explain things from my
perspective. He shared his experiences of Bangladesh , good and bad. I felt so much shame when he said some Bangladeshis
asked him for a visa, or tried to cheat him, that I could not look him in the
eye. But it was great to hear that despite his young age he had visited many
countries and it was rare how hospitable Bangladeshis were. On average he had
quite a good idea about Bangladesh .
What was stranger was that some ideas coincided between us.
 |
| Near Mongla, 1996 |
***
He told me about his family, his village in Hatiya and his
business. I’d seen Hatiya from the
ship. It was an island lit by dim
kerosene light in the darkness.
We spoke of Australia
but his questions came like a river, naturally and without being boring. When he spoke about local politics without
invitation water rose in my eyes and I only hoped he wouldn’t notice. It wasn’t that he said anything new but as we
were nearing the end of our stay in Bangladesh I suppose I had already started
processing and there was this insurmountable disjunct between what seemed to be
the suffering of poverty, and on top of it the political tensions, with the
hospitality, even happiness that seemed in Bangladesh to be as common as earth. In Sydney
it is rarer.
The strangest part was that although his English wasn’t
great, to comprehend his meaning was without strain. In some things we thought similarly. It made an impression: how could two people
with entirely different backgrounds see the world so much the same? I knew him.
He invited me to dinner but said we’d have to wait for his
business partner Nazmul to arrive because they’d planned to hold a business
meeting first.
Nazmul was a young guy dressed in impeccable neatness from
hair part to polished shoes.
Surprisingly he said I could sit in on the business meeting; I think he
didn’t wish to leave me waiting alone.
So the three of us went to his room and found space between the bed and
the chair that belonged to the little desk.
The room had no window; but it also had no hole in the wall.
I thought it would be boring; but as they started conversing
in Bengali I discovered a smile: how
absurd it was to be at a meeting between a Bangladeshi prawn seller and a
chicken farmer. The unfathomable Bengali
language wanted to make me laugh! I felt
so privileged and fortunate and I had not overcome those feelings when he said
quite suddenly their meeting was done.
‘Are you sure you’re done?’ I laughed.
The meeting had lasted less than five minutes.
Dinner was biryani something at the hotel across the
street. I tried to pay the bill but
there was no way he’d let me. ‘I’ll get
my own back,’ I thought happily.
***
I wanted to talk to him all night but I thought he would
think badly if I talked too much, that I would disturb them. So we decided
instead to visit the Sundarbans together and I would meet them at Mongla port
the following afternoon. Afterwards I imagined I should have gone with them in
the morning but mistakenly I thought they would mind it, as if I was a
loafer. I told them I had other business
meetings, thinking I should go to Foila for money.
***
I’d wanted so much he should come with us to the Sundarbans
but it could hardly be expected he’d be able to just drop his business. I asked a few too many times but lastly
decided to press further would be rude. But
he agreed to meet us in the afternoon. I hope he hadn’t felt obliged.
A clod of earth was Khulna Town
find the elements
air
fire
water
earth
ether
This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: A Place to Stand
find the elements
air
fire
water
earth
ether
This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: A Place to Stand
The Battle of Aleppo
It was on the bus from Qamishli that I first saw him. By and large he looked as any passenger would,
with the only distinction to his appearance being perhaps the keffiyeh in red
and white check that he wore. He was an
Arab. But the keffiyeh is common in Syria so even
that couldn’t make him stand out in a crowd.
He may have had a sort of downy stubble that stretched down
his cheeks but failed to reach the promise of a full beard, when I think of it,
and from the thinness of his face his bones may have given a stronger outline to
his features. These traits, I suppose,
lent him a look that was slightly avian.
But it’s easy to think such things now.
When he took his seat on the bus which was, by happenstance, next to
mine, there really wasn’t any clue he was a man of the birds.
To read about, Aleppo
is a war zone: a battlefront of street fighting, bullets and shelling, a
growing list of human casualties. But in
the days of Hafez al-Assad when, in terms of daily life at least, normalcy
seemed to prevail, the battle of Aleppo
wasn’t that. In those days there was a
different type of battle, more of the feathered and wing variety, and it was
limited to the rooftops and the Aleppite skies.
It’s that earlier battle that’s been waged in Aleppo for many centuries, the battle of the
birds.
In rather broken English we talked and when I asked, he
spoke of trading: a business of some modest arrangement involving the carriage
of goods for sale from Qamishli to Aleppo ,
or more likely from across the Turkish border.
He spoke of his country, that once Syrians had been a people of great
hospitality who prided themselves on hosting parties and socialising. In more recent years, he said, the culture
had changed, with the sense of community weakening in part due to higher prices
and living costs. Few people thought
much about hosting celebrations any longer.
But it wasn’t these topics that engaged him and before much
time went by he spoke instead of his passion, his pigeons.
When the bus reached the city I saw he was a man of boxes, unloaded
from the undercarriage onto the footpath and likely of Turkish origins. I asked how to find a hotel; it was already
late. He said if I wished I could stay
at his house and I said if it would be no trouble I might just do that. Or at least I tried to say that in singular
vocabulary. It was fine to be invited:
perhaps he was in a small way recreating that older, more hospitable Syria .
His apartment was in an old building, sandstone-like and of
the type that sort of half-says Aleppo
is one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities. Inside it had a broken decorative railing to
its stairwell. He showed me to a
metallic framed single bed in a longish room with a window at the far end. I gather he usually slept there but on that
night it became the guest room. From the
journey I slept easily.
 |
| The pigeon man (centre) with pigeon trader and his friend |
It was in the morning he took me to the rooftop. I found a space of perches and nesting boxes
with a sizeable aviary on one side. He
introduced me to his pigeons, pointing out the special or rare ones that I have
no hope of describing now. They must
have been of a different breed, with fluffier feathers or a fashionable colour.
I’m not sure why but that morning he’d shaved the downy
stubble off his cheeks. It can be that the
stubble was a kind of feather-like reminder for when he travelled only, or he
may have wanted to look his best for his birds.
He explained how he let his pigeons fly freely most of the
time and tried to make their home aviary as comfortable as possible to
encourage them back, and to encourage newcomers. He showed in the sky that circling pigeons
were an Aleppite signature. Holding one
pigeon in his hand, he held it up and then quickly dropped it down a little,
giving rise to its instinct to flap its wings.
Still in his hand it flapped with vigour and I heard that this was
another way to attract new birds to his rooftop. It was the aim of every pigeon fancier in the
city, to capture the best of the flock, in the more traditional battle for Aleppo .
I wondered at his enthusiasm. It’s not that there aren’t worse hobbies, but
what did it matter who had the best pigeons in the city?
It seemed unusual how content he was to sit for several
hours on that rooftop with his birds, how much anticipation there was for the day’s
expected visitor, a pigeon trader. I
wanted to explore the city but I sat there too, in part enjoying the
unusualness of finding myself on an Aleppite roof learning about pigeons and in
part wondering what was the correct etiquette: when was too early to politely
excuse oneself from pigeon adoration in order to be a tourist?
Eventually I took my leave to visit the city.
With not more than a few pots in the apartment in Dhaka it’s hardly a garden I have. Each plant struggles through the periods of
disinterest, wilting in the days and weeks of inattention drought; but they
sprout anew when I decide to like them again.
It’s in the latter periods when Aleppo
comes to mind. When a leaf is worth
taking note of, when a stem marginally lengthened is pleasing, it becomes easy
to appreciate the man who loved his pigeons.
I wonder what he’s going through now.
Disclosure: Author wishes to acknowledge having pet birds in the past. Notwithstanding, there was never a pigeon man’s passion
to it.
 |
Syrian music band from Ottomon Aleppo in the 18th Century (image: wikipedia) |
From birds on the roof, to accidentally farming buffaloes, or enjoying a little rodent tourism, or even running away to live with the kangaroos, animals keep us busy.
This article also published in Star Magazine, here: The Battle of Aleppo
In Ink, On Silk
 |
| Indian ink and colour on silk, 11th century Chinese painting (image: wikipedia) |
To state that the artist takes inspiration from the
landscape is to say nothing in the way that stating the obvious is
nothing. But could there be a landscape
that takes its inspiration from artists?
If there was such a place, it might be the countryside along the Lí Jiāng,
the Li River in China .
In the sixth century, art critic and writer Xiè Hè documented his six principles of Chinese painting in the preface to his book ‘The Record of the Classification of Old Painters.’ The first principle, ‘spirit resonance’ refers to the flow of energy that encompasses theme, work and artist. Without it, Xiè Hè remarked, there was no need to consider a work further.
It’s a house of camel hump hills, the banks of the Li, an arrangement of karst peaks and fog that’s become renowned. The water currents flow simply, with humility
and the mist of cloud and rain rises slowly to reveal the white and pinkish
hues of the limestone faces of the mountains.
There is sadness and mystery in their cliff expressions: perhaps they
are images of old age.
And the theme? It’s
up the viewer obviously, but might I suggest it’s about eternity? It’s worth considering if long ago histories
and, like serving tea, the smallest traditions that have marked China ’s
millennia, aren’t on display in the mountainsides, caught up in the banded,
uneven cliffs and rocks. The sadness
might be the usual result of longevity; of change and reformation and
change. The mystery might be of an eon,
ritual and repetition variety where seeming stillness is in fact gradual evolution. The Li might be the very portrait of China ? The spirit resonance is there, no doubt, and Xiè
Hè would not dispute the need to further consider the Li.
His second principle is the ‘bone method,’ the way of using
the brush. It’s about the marriage of
handwriting and personality, and calligraphy and painting were indivisible in
his day. It’s the texture and brush
stroke of the picture too.
From Guìlín to Yángshuò the tourists go, by boat they float
along the Li. It’s the critic’s route to
admire the work, a vista dabbed softly with a fog and stone admixture. It’s more than pleasing to the eye. Each hill is unique, standing like an expert
stroke of Chinese calligraphy, in ink on silk.
It’s about the texture. It’s
about the brush. Each hill is deceptively
relaxed and straightforward as can only happen if it’s been rehearsed a hundred
times beforehand. Only then can it
become so natural.
The third principle of Xiè Hè is ‘correspondence to the
object’ which relates to shape and line, the depicting of form. The Li has incorporated that challenge too,
in the gentle unexpected curves, horizontally in the river’s chosen path, its
repose, and in the lazy line of the tourist boat, as well as vertically in the
ridges of the mountains that seem purposefully to bring to the sky no harsh
outline. Only a master artist could have captured such gentleness, could have thought to capture such gentleness.
‘Suitability to type’ is principle four, concerning the
application of colour, layers, value and tone.
It’s a mop of green brush hill-hair, the banded strips of cliff in grey
and pink and the opaque darkening of the fade-to-distance-summits that the Li
offers in response. Colour is in the
modern faces in sunhats too, viewing the offering through a screen and talking
in many languages. They come from many
countries to admire the Li. Layers are found
in the flattened smaller motor boats, historical, to be privately hired from
one or other bank, and the tone is brought to life by the contrast between the
red and yellow Chinese flag fluttering about the boat’s back that screams ‘here
and now’ and the hills beyond which again, make all human resolve appear small
and impermanent. China was, is,
will be: what the mountain-art might be saying.
It’s about an older China , an old woman and an old man, a civilisation that runs beyond the glare of Shanghai's neon.
‘Division and planning’ is Xiè Hè’s penultimate principle,
about composition, arrangement, space and depth. There’s little to add to that, with each hill
placed as though with astute deliberation in the formation, ink stroke by ink stroke,
that in combination makes a character.
The Li has not overlooked this aspect.
Lastly, Xiè Hè considered ‘transmission by copying,’ a
virtue which referred not only to real life but also from the works of
antiquity. Copying means learning and
appreciating in an art form where new and original were not the sole desired
elements. It means being a part of
bigger traditions. And here too it
cannot be said that the Li disappoints, since as much as each hill is unique so
the downstream has learnt from the upstream, like newer from older, and the
treasures of antiquity there are, in the passage of the message of eternity,
from Guìlín to Yángshuò by boat.
As the boat pulls up beside the Yángshuò dock, it’s
indisputable: with the Li, Xiè Hè could not but be pleased.
 |
| 'Hill Growing to Green and White Clouds,' by Gaō Kègōng (1248-1310) (image: wikipedia) |
Life: perhaps it's less of a legendary river and more of a little salt lake or a pitch black sea? What do you think?
Getting to Work
There’s the morning rush: finding a CNG, hoping the jams
will be less on account of the late start, remembering to tell the driver not
to attempt that foolhardy ‘short cut’ through Lalmatia. There’s the evening slog: there almost
certainly won’t be any available CNG from Gulshan. It’s commuting in Dhaka :
on the plus side, no two days are the same.
While waiting for a CNG, the morning flock of empty
rickshaws passes like ducks flying north for the summer. They sometimes stop to inquire, like the guy
who happened to be sporting a blue United Nations cap with the initials of some
mission or other across it. ‘Nice hat,’
I couldn’t help but say.
‘What is it?’ he asked, ‘Police or something?’
‘Yes, more or less police.
And it looks great!’
Finally a CNG arrives.
It’s not an unusual thing, the passenger door fixed shut by a long bit
of string wrapped around part of the vehicle’s frame. It’s unwound.
I get in. The driver surgically
bandages the door shut again. ‘What kind
of system do you call this?’ I asked, ‘Is it digital?’
‘Exactly!’ he laughed, ‘Digital!’
Some months ago a CNG driver took the opportunity to tell me
I’ve become Bangladeshi, as we pulled up outside the office. It was a strange first sentence between us. ‘Why do you say that?’ I asked.
Well, he’d heard me speaking some version of Bangla on the
mobile along the way and was taken by my smoking a Navy cigarette rather than
Benson. I laughed and said, ‘Yes, I made a big mistake, didn’t I?’
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Well, tell me, what are Bangladeshis like?’
‘Oh really not good, bad, bad,’ he said without hesitation.
‘So I made a big mistake then?’
‘Yes, you did!’
And a work colleague told me something similar once as we
walked along Gulshan Avenue . ‘You’re so Bangladeshi,’ he said, ‘there’s a
footpath and still you’re walking on the road.’
When time allows I’m prone to stopping at the tea shop
before office and there was one morning I heard another customer saying to the
shopkeeper, ‘give me half a cigarette.’
‘You want to buy half a cigarette?’ said the shopkeeper,
laughing, ‘Maybe you should buy a whole one?’
‘Bhai,’ the
customer replied, ‘you know how it is. If I buy a whole one I’ll have to break
a note to pay for it and once you break a banknote it’s all spent before you
know it. So just give me half.’
The shopkeeper obliged and having smoked half, the customer
carefully stubbed out the cigarette and gave the remaining portion back to the
shopkeeper to hold onto until he came back later.
And of course there are easier days too, transport
wise. After office, there used to be
Charlie ‘Pajero’ Brown, the short, balding fellow employed as a driver. As is customary he takes extra passengers
when his boss isn’t around. Charlie used
to be a semi-regular transport link, but I haven’t seen him for a while. Still, commuting by someone else’s private
car isn’t irregular in Dhaka . One of my friends once travelled across the
city as a fare-paying passenger in an ambulance! Life in the Mega-City is nothing if not flexible.
Then there are the human instincts: in Dhaka
everything’s reversed. When the road is
empty the immediate thought is, ‘what’s going on? Has something happened?’ In another city that thought would be because
of a traffic jam, not the lack of one.
And there was a day when a CNG pulled up, peak hour, Gulshan
to Dhanmondi, and it usually costs the earth.
I asked the price and to my horror the driver said, ‘there’s a meter,
isn’t there?’ It was very odd. My immediate reaction, without a moment’s
thought was, ‘and what kind of scam is that?’
In the last few years no other CNG driver has ever so readily offered
the meter in the evening rush from Gulshan!
And it’s hardly common at other times.
I had to question him.
‘Are you new in Dhaka ?’
‘I’ve been here for twelve years,’ he said. I was quite suspicious. I monitored the driver and the route to make
sure of no sudden tricks or unwarranted detours! But nothing untoward happened. It goes to show, in Dhaka
anything is possible: even using the meter.
And yet, there's more joy to be had in Dhaka's traffic! There are the mysterious teachings of rickshaws, especially if you've got a driver from the north. When frustrated there's always dreaming of the Bangladeshi metro, or just throw it all in and move to Lilliput.
This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: Getting to Work
Bangladesh Dreaming: Article Index for articles about Bangladesh
And yet, there's more joy to be had in Dhaka's traffic! There are the mysterious teachings of rickshaws, especially if you've got a driver from the north. When frustrated there's always dreaming of the Bangladeshi metro, or just throw it all in and move to Lilliput.
This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: Getting to Work
Bangladesh Dreaming: Article Index for articles about Bangladesh
The Box of Mangoes
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| The Mangoes. They might have been fazlis. (Image: wikipedia) |
Now, it’s a small matter really and probably not something to fuss about. It might be altogether better not to mention it. But on the other hand, if promises are meant to be kept, so it’s true:
Now, in writing that, I suppose I am not suggesting ‘India’
in the sense that Sonia or Manmohan or even one Ms. Banerjee of Kolkata are, or
should be, struggling with their consciences over said outstanding mango
box. India is clearly a big country with
any number of issues upon the table in a singular instant and it’s reasonable
to conclude that a certain minor mango debt is not one of their larger
concerns. No, when I write ‘India ’, I suppose I am referring more precisely
to the individual promisor in the matter of said box, a one Mr. Nurul Islam, a
professional rickshaw driver by trade, from Malda Town
I like Malda
Town Himalayas
and it’s neither too small nor large a town to be burdensome. A further advantage is that foreign tourist
numbers are sufficiently limited for the experience of a more genuine,
unadulterated India
to be had. With the main sites sixteen
kilometres to the south in Gaur, some kind of local transport is required for
the tourist, and as the morning train pulls up alongside the Malda platform
there would usually be a handful of rickshaw drivers waiting to oblige.
Gaur was the capital of the Pala and Sena dynasties from the
seventh to twelfth centuries, although the ruins date from a later period, mostly
the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries during Muslim Nawab rule. As the ruins are scattered about the greenery
of rural Paschimbanga, a few-hour leisurely rickshaw tour is a wise
choice.
Now, in everybody’s life there are instances when something
borrowed or pledged was never repaid or delivered for whatever reason and
despite intentions. A box of mangoes is
indeed a small thing so it’s best not to consider it further.
The essence of success in a tour of Gaur from Malda is in
the character of the chosen rickshaw driver.
Ideally the driver should not take short cuts or stretch out the
bargaining process over small matters through the duration of the day.
It wasn’t immediate that we found Mr. Nurul Islam. As the drivers at the station for the most
part seemed eager to turn a quick profit, my friend Situ and I chose at first none
and went instead to find lodgings. After
a good hour we stopped for tea, ironically back at the train station where the
best tea stands were, and from the original flurry of drivers there remained
just one. He sat near us as we drank. Patiently he waited until the negotiation
commenced, and I bargained hard, less because of the price, more to know him
better. He seemed alright.
And so it was that we three sealed a deal over a pending departure
cup of tea.
Mr. Nurul Islam wheeled up his vehicle and we started, first
following the long road beside the railway then gradually working our way out
of town until we reached the open highway.
It’s not easy, a rickshaw on a highway with overloaded Tata trucks
bowling along at ungodly speeds, trucks that really need that extra pair of
eyes painted onto the side fenders. For
the rickshaw driver, it’s not easy to know when to be forced onto the road
shoulder for the sake of continued life.
But closer to the ruins the roads are quiet.
Along the highway it was common to pass other rickshaws
heading towards town and it was usual enough to be considered a trait that some
of the other drivers on seeing Mr. Nurul Islam had a foreigner on board were
given to calling out, sometimes rather greedily, ‘how much?’ It’d surprise me if in Malda-Mango rickshaw
circles there weren’t big fish tales of what foreigners had been induced into
forking out. But our Mr. Nurul Islam
replied, ‘I’m taking them for free.’ I
liked him already.
Now, it’s not because of the mango debt I stopped speaking
of Malda. What occurred was really
something. I quit the chat of Mango Town
Rickshaws give time for thoughts and mine turned to Mr.
Nurul Islam, his life and how similar or different it might’ve been from that
of his colleagues in Hatiya in Bangladesh ,
many of whom are friends. It was
impossible not to notice his shirt had a tear that seemed to rival the Brahmaputra in length and that one of his sandals was
broken. He was a family man, he’d said,
and he had a pot belly that must’ve sheltered a sizeable colony of worms. It’s never a good thing, worms, as the
condition brings lethargy and drains strength, but it’s particularly
inconvenient when you’re on a rickshaw for a living.
I pictured his house, making it Hatiyan-similar with thatch
and no sanitation, though probably its roof was tiled. I wondered at a world with both of us in
it. I was on a tour for not more than
pleasure; he was all about physical survival.
Meanwhile to the east the long zigzag of the black fence had
come into view. On the other side was Bangladesh and
I wanted to stop the rickshaw, run to the fence and somehow embrace Situ’s
country, but certainly there’s no way to embrace a whole country. Close enough to the border, like the mango
orchards the ruins of Gaur spill onto the other side.
Now, when I think of it the details of the mango promise
were never finalised and whether it was talk of the gopalbhog, langda or
khirsapati varieties, what he had in mind I couldn’t say. Perhaps it would’ve been a mixture of
varieties?
I could describe the various ruins but half of Gaur is in
the ease of the subtropical paddies and mango trees by the pace of a
rickshaw. There’s the stopping for tea
and chatter; and the finding a spot in the yards about the ruins to relax and
ponder a bit. There is, however, one specific site to mention, the Qadam Rasul
Mosque which is said to house the footprint of the Prophet Mohammed, peace be
upon him. Most of the ruins are fairly
open but at that mosque there’s a gatekeeper who fusses about with keys to
unlock the padlock to let the smattering of tourists enter. He wanted baksheesh but he seemed a bit
self-appointed to me; yet Mr. Nurul Islam, I saw him, from a fold in his lungee
quietly pushed a few rupees into the padlock unlocker’s hand.
Now, when I think of it Mr. Nurul Islam simply said he’d
present a whole box of mangoes if I came back to Malda during the season. He probably would’ve picked them from random
trees in his village, so I’m thinking there’s a decent chance they would’ve
been fazli, or a majority may have been fazlis. How long would it take to eat a box of fazlis?
By lunch time which is around two p.m. in Bengal
we’d finished our tour and asked Mr. Nurul Islam to take us to a decent
restaurant. He’d chosen the best place
he knew, a truck stop diner along the highway and, as once had been the custom
in Hatiya, when he followed us inside he chose to sit at a distance, at another
table. The rights and the wrongs of it I
don’t know but in Hatiya in the young days I’d made a point that the rickshaw
drivers sit at the same table as us, for why should they not? In Hatiya the tiny gesture had been
well-received, though at first it really took some coaxing such that I wondered
if I wasn’t disturbing them. In any
case, after some cajoling, at the truck stop the three of us ultimately ate
together.
Now, the fazli are large, green skinned and
sensational. The favourite picture of
Situ and me in the same frame is of us sitting on the ground at his wife’s ancestral
home eating, dripping in fazli delight.
It’s not even in focus, that photo.
After lunch I don’t know, I thought I wanted to buy one Mr.
Nurul Islam a new shirt. It’s not the
sort of thing I’m great at doing but on a short trip with a Sydney salary it
didn’t seem like much, so we asked him to take us to the clothes market and to
the best shop he knew. We set off, back
into town, without Mr. Nurul Islam having the slightest inkling of the
substance of the plan. On the way I
coaxed Situ into, as he would say, ‘technical’ talk of the worms, on the
delicate subject of the intricacies of Mr. Nurul Islam’s intestinal tract; and
we stopped by a pharmacy to collect a couple of those chewable tablets,
standard and almost free. We tried to
explain how to avoid the problem.
It was an ordinary shop he chose, a floor space surrounded
by shelves in the corner of a building.
We removed our shoes upon entering and sat on small stools as the shop
attendants fussed about pulling shirt possibilities from plastic packets. I didn’t know how to unveil the surprise so
at first I just asked Mr. Nurul Islam which shirt he thought would look
nice. He was agreeable to all; to be
expected. Then I put one shirt, a plain
brown one against him to check its size; and said I wanted to buy it for him.
Now, suppose it’d been a box of a decent size, say fifteen
or twenty fujlis inside, I’d estimate it would’ve lasted most of a week unless
Situ had been there when I’d collected said box such that its contents would
have to be shared.
Of the shirt Mr. Nurul Islam protested. ‘No, no, I can’t,’ he said; through Situ I
made him understand it was okay, not to worry.
But by this time his eyes had the first signs of dampness about
them. So we agreed on the brown shirt in
part because in front of the shop assistants it was all rather embarrassing;
and we left. Our tour was done so we
asked Mr. Nurul Islam if he’d take us back to the train station and on the way
with Situ’s help, I made him promise not to tell the other rickshaw drivers
about the shirt. It’s important to think
of the tourists who’ll come later and who wants a Malda Mango where rickshaw
drivers demand shirts and higher prices?
Mr. Nurul Islam promised not to say anything; but his mind was focused
on his family.
‘My sister-in-law,’ he sobbed slightly, ‘she’ll say I
cheated you for this shirt. But I
didn’t, I didn’t.’
When he pulled up and dismounted from the rickshaw he
couldn’t hold it. A certain Mr. Nurul
Islam burst into full-blown tears with his hands about his face. ‘You are not only a human,’ he told me, ‘it
is Debota’s work you do.’ I knew those tears.
Those are the tears of someone bothering: not family, not friend and not
for any reason. By that stage my eyes
were watery too and it was interesting that as a Muslim he’d used the Hindu
word Debota, perhaps because he knew I wasn’t Muslim, although religions are in
the habit of blending a bit in North Bengal .
Well he’d blown his first promise, our Mr. Nurul Islam, if
not in technicality at least in practicality, for his wailing had drawn the
attention of other rickshaw drivers who rushed towards us to see what the
foreigner and his friend had done to make him cry. I thought we should leave in case they
misunderstood and started to hit us, so I pushed the payment, a little extra,
into Mr. Nurul Islam’s hand and he didn’t even look to see how much was there. He didn’t look. I suppose that’s what in this part of the
world honest people do.
‘You come again in mango season,’ he said, the last we spoke
to him, ‘I’ll give a whole box of mangoes.’
But he still had a broken sandal.
Other small matters not worth mentioning might include a little list written on paper, three short words or a dog with a line of credit...
This article also published in Star Magazine, here: The Box of Mangoes
India Will Decide: Article Index for articles about India
Bangladesh Dreaming: Article Index for articles about Bangladesh
 |
| Firoz Minar at Gaur (Image: wikipedia) |
Other small matters not worth mentioning might include a little list written on paper, three short words or a dog with a line of credit...
This article also published in Star Magazine, here: The Box of Mangoes
India Will Decide: Article Index for articles about India
Bangladesh Dreaming: Article Index for articles about Bangladesh
Golf and Papaya Juice
 |
| Temple at Lotus Lake. Wikimedia sourced image by Benjiho |
Anyone for golf? In two smiling rows they stood, on the steps into the vestibule from the port-cochère. The mini-bus stopped at the exact point where the uniformed employees made a human gate. As we walked between them they cheerfully applauded: I’m not sure what they were happy about.
Of glass and wood the building was modern and
grand, and as porters attended to luggage waiters moved about serving
complimentary juice. I believe it was
papaya. All the staff members were
Filipinos; the guests Taiwanese. I stood
in bemused bewilderment that I was, by luxurious accident, there. I’d never been on a Taiwanese golfing tour
before. There was nothing to do but sip
papaya juice.
It was perhaps a basic matter of wu-wei. In the Chinese religion of Daoism wu-wei is
the concept of non-action. Surrendering
one’s will for action aligns oneself with the world’s natural ‘dao’ or path: the
recipe for harmony.
It’d taken a week to move from Taipei along the island’s east coast to Kaohsiung,
the city in Taiwan’s
south. There’d been traditional towns
like Suao and a stop at some hot
springs. Taiwan is a
mountainous island of some beauty and everything had progressed satisfactorily
except the budget. In Kaohsiung
I wondered how my finances would last for ten more days before my return flight
to Bangladesh.
Taiwan
was remarkable for its English schools.
There were billboards everywhere and book-carrying students seemed to make
their way to coaching centres at all hours until late in the evenings. I had no intention of teaching. I already missed Bangladesh. So when the middle-aged guest house manager
pulled me aside to ask slyly if I wanted to teach and stay for free, the vision
that came to mind was not money in my pocket but a subsequent police raid in
search of undocumented foreign workers.
No, the budgetary dilemma made me think rather of the Luzon Strait,
the water body to Taiwan’s
south.
It’s not for a lack of courses that I’m not
a golfer: in Sydney
there’s more than a few golf links. When
I was at school some of my friends had an interest in it, and against my better
judgement they persuaded me to try. When
Phillip invited me to Lane Cove Golf Course, a significant challenge had been
to actually hit the ball. More often it
was a clump of dirt that went flying.
The most difficult hole required the ball to be hit across a small gully
onto the fairway. It was a hopeless
endeavour. Each golf ball I hit duly
took its place in the scrub. I gave up
and took a stroke penalty, restarting on the far side.
The Luzon Strait
was like that gully. On the other side
wasn’t Phillip but the Philippines,
a much cheaper destination than Taiwan. I had happy memories of slow and dreamy
Tagalog songs and easygoing people. Was it
not possible to fly from Kaohsiung to Laoag City
in Luzon’s north? I’d been to Laoag before.
Globally speaking, the Luzon Strait
is a modest stretch of water. Perhaps as
at Lane Cove I could simply take a stroke penalty and start again in the Philippines,
this time for the sake of the budget?
I saw a Kaohsiung travel agency advertising Laoag flights
but only the destinations were written in English. There could be no harm in asking. The girl behind the counter spoke no English
but was very cheerful. When all I could
do was point at Laoag written on the wall she wrote a price on a piece of paper
and with a calendar we pointed at dates.
She called a friend who had a little English for me to speak to over the
phone. ‘Come back tomorrow evening,’ I
was told.
The next day I visited Lotus Lake,
one of Kaohsiung’s
attractions. It features Chinese style
pagodas and a number of temples. In
Buddhism the lotus symbolises purity and Confucian scholar Zhou Dunyi wrote, ‘I
love the lotus because while growing from mud it is unstained.’ There were the tiger and dragon pavilions set
out on the water, the pagodas of autumn and spring and a Confucian temple on
the northern shore.
Taiwan is
interesting for its several religions.
Often they intersect inside the same temple and the Taiwanese have no
qualms about believing in all of them at the same time, although their
teachings must contradict. Perhaps it’s
the Chinese expression of religion that best conveys even to outsiders the
universal quality of spirituality and the strength of peaceful coexistence.
Yet for this tourist the day at Lotus Lake
was marked by a different question: what was going to happen about the Laoag flight?
It was so sweet what she did, so
helpful. She’d written a small letter in
Chinese and with her friend translated it into English. I was presented with a very neat script that
evening explaining the details. One
thing that puzzled was her written insistence on re-confirming the date of the
return flight beforehand. I imagined searching
for a Filipino phone and trying to figure out how to use one, so at some pains
I made her understand I would not be doing that unless I wanted to change the
return date. I wondered why it was an
issue. I handed over the fare and she
wrote up the ticket by hand.
It was the other passengers’ clothes that
first raised the prospect that the flight to Laoag wasn’t ordinary. There appeared to be an over-representation of
tweed and tartan patterns among the chosen apparel. There was tartan in some of the carry-on
luggage; and while there was no reason to be concerned about too much tartan,
it’s not exactly Taiwan’s
image. There was also a young and not
unattractive Taiwanese lady, travelling alone, who kept glancing my way. I was unaware she may have been imagining
leisurely walks together around the golf course.
The reality of the situation fully dawned
on me when from the plane window I noticed that in the luggage being lifted
into the undercarriage were a number of golf club sets. Taiwan is heavily populated. The Philippines
is cheaper, plus northern Luzon has the available
land for golf courses. It was a charter
flight. I’d become a golf tourist!
The Philippines didn’t disappoint. Even within the terminal the laid back
disposition of the immigration officials, that hammock-swinging version of
English accent they have, the heat, the lack of rush: it was as I remembered. But there was a problem. Laoag
Airport isn’t in Laoag
and there wasn’t any public transport into town. In the car park was only a white mini-bus
from the resort in wait for the latest flock of Taiwanese golfers. I was really just standing there considering
what to do when the hand of a mini-bus attendant grabbed my luggage. He was very efficient. Before I could say anything he’d loaded it
into the mini-bus. I thought that
perhaps the bus might pass the town on the way to the resort. So I got in, and that young woman kept
glancing towards my seat.
The resort vestibule was spacious and along
the right hand side was the reception counter.
After finishing their papaya juice each of the Taiwanese guests made
their way to the desk to collect the keys to their rooms. I went there too, to say, ‘Excuse me, but is
there any transport from here into Laoag
City?’
They said there wasn’t but someone from the
resort might be going into town for supplies in a few minutes. I could get a lift.
And I wondered about the East Asian
sentiment, renowned as they are for their wish to travel in groups. The particular horror they show at the
mention of travelling alone: their fear of loneliness. By contrast, for the western traveller, for
the real travelling travellers, going solo is probably the best circumstance there
can be; because travel is about wu-wei and following the dao. Because the world’s way will arrange the
elements of daily life better than any human ever could. Sometimes the dao is a luxurious accident; sometimes
it’s golf and papaya juice.
 |
| Kaohsiung Harbour. Wikimedia sourced photo. |
Of course the wu-wei doesn't only go on in Taiwan. There's a bit of the old wu-wei, surely, in the toss of a coin for a cow, in the sweet misfortunes of a villager come to the city, in Transylvanian knitwear, and even in the way people think...
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