How the 1% live: In very bad taste

Catch up if you can

I’d imagined Savannaket to be an industrial boomtown. A new bridge spanning the Mekong makes it a gateway for regional trade. Thailand is just across the bridge to the west and Vietnam is now easily accessed to the east.

It doesn’t look like an industrial boomtown. There are few signs of new wealth compared to Vientiane or Luang Prabang. I can ride on the roads without being run off by gigantic SUVs. There are still vast tracts of the city that haven’t been razed and rebuilt in faux French colonial or pink Roman-greco birthday cake style. Wealth doesn’t pour in through tourism and I don’t see big money in international aid. When I go to the bank, other people deposit money in wads like I do rather than from suitcases like I’ve seen in other cities.

This is my hypothesis. Without distortions of easy money, students and schools focus on education. I haven’t seen anything like it elsewhere.

Books have sold the quickest in Savannaket with more than 1,000 in four days. Only one school administrator so far has refused book promotions. I have never had so many invitations to help and teach and I have never met so many competent school directors with MAs from foreign universities.

Education is the big business here. People seem to understand that this is the most sensible and sustainable option. At the same time, it’s a game of catch up with neighboring countries and I’m not sure if that will ever be possible. With the Mekong corridor open, many students simply go and get a better education in Vietnam or Thailand.

I’m impressed when I see people doing their best. I like the sincerity and discipline of the Teacher’s Training College here, but in a few conversations, I can assess what they’re up against. I think they’re better managed than most places, but there are no computers available for the students to use. I repeat…… There are no computers.

Public Spaces in transition

Post-Getty Deconstructualism: Savannaket, Laos 2009 - …

Where is everyone?

It’s a Sunday in Savannaket, the second largest city in Laos. Everything seems shuttered and I don’t see many people. It’s a ghost town and I can’t imagine selling a thousand books here. I call the printer in Vientiane and make a very modest order for books. It takes three hours to find a guesthouse. I’m choosy because it takes at least two weeks to cover a new town and it’s a nightmare to get stuck in a bad place. Sometimes walls are thin and I have to listen to what people are doing all night. Quiet is my highest priority, but it worries me when an entire city is silent.

I finally have to ask someone. “Where is everyone? Why is there nobody here in the second largest city in Laos?” They tell me everyone’s gone to the rocket festival (a call for rain). I’m still dubious that people actually live in this city, but Monday confirms that it’s quite a normal place.

I can’t quote directly, but I bet the Lonely Planet Guide book describes Savannaket as nondescript. “Not much more than a transit point”, “Not worth more than a night”, “Go see the Buddhist temple and you’re done.” Local people bemoan their lack of attractions. Not much in the way of caves, waterfalls, Khmer ruins or anything else to pull in tourists. Savannaket is off the map.

I think it’s a blessing. Change will come slower and will be more manageable. In the meantime, people seem pretty content. Contentment translates into niceness. People are nice. People are very nice. I have not found a place in the entire country with nicer people. Within two days, I am completely won over.

Ambushed by Colonel Sanders

This is the south so the road is straight and flat. No plastic-bag gripping, stomach-wrenching rides like in the north. In fact, the VIP service between Pakse and Vientiane is a sleeper bus with fully reclining seats, sheets and a meal.

I’m going mid-way to Savannaket so the bus is just a local. It leaves pretty much on time, but the driver stops every hour for snacks, for energy drinks and cigarettes.

Bus rides are mesmerizing, especially when I can sit by an open window and suck in the warm air. The scenes flash by frame-by-frame; sugar palms, rice fields, truck stops and people lazing in the heat. Bus rides are hypnotizing and I usually end up in a drool-puddle doze.

The bus brakes and I wake up just in time to see a mob rushing the bus. Instantly the bus is filled with people shouting and wielding skewers of roast chicken, lotus seeds, termite mushrooms, fried bugs and palm pods. On a local bus, meals aren’t served on plastic trays and there is no beverage service. There is no need to put your seat in an upright position and you can throw chicken bones out the window.

Shake your linga

I’ve taken a day off (sort of) to come to Wat Phu, one of the major southern attractions and a recently designed UNESCO world heritage site. It’s special to me because it’s not mobbed. Today, I hid behind a ruin for a bit to let the French tour group pass on. After that, it was just apsaras and Hindu gods.

There’s a grove at the top. There’s the wind, there are birds singing and the sound of falling mangos. It didn’t register in my mind at first that these squashed and oozing fruit covering the paths were wild mangos. Some were tart like apricots, others were sweet like peaches. These luscious treats were literally falling from the sky.

The place is a Garden of Eden. Once upon a time, Eve offered Adam a mango and rather than saying how suddenly ashamed and inadequate he felt, he said, “That was really good. Let’s do it again.” After all, this is Wat Phu, the temple of Shiva in the kingdom of Lingapravata.

Shiva is the god of creation and destruction and his fertility is symbolized by the linga, or in other words, a big dick. Wat Phu is at the base of a mountain, claimed to be understood by anyone who sees it as a very sacred big dick.

But you begin to wonder, at what time in religio-political history did the dick get sole copyright for fertility symbolism? Why don’t we worship the caves, the cracks and stone crevices found everywhere? I begin to suspect that Angkor Wat was built by a succession of rulers with very small members and that these monumental spires were challenges to any competitors who claimed to have a bigger one. Then, the slaves were exhausted, the natural resources were depleted and monuments like these became UNESCO sites. That sounds more like male folly than fertility

At Wat Phu there is a small museum, of course filled with stone penises. I found a curious answer there. One display panel tried to explain why Shiva was represented with such a svelt and smooth torso. It explained that Shiva was “androgynous” and pointed out that some sculptures have just one breast. Shiva was a lady-boy with an incomplete implant?

We’ll never know. All the best archeologists and all the best anthropologists can’t get into the minds and world-views of those who have left only UNESCO sites. The jumble of rocks are the last scraps in a big cultural puzzle. It only reminds us how myopic our own views of the world are and reminds us that the difference between apples and mangos is far greater than we ever imagined.

Pakse is planted

Pakse is just about done. I feel it’s been planted and it’s time to move north. There are still lots of bald patches, but I’ll have to be content for now. If watered properly, it won’t die. Apparently, the Lao way to talk about investing in the future is to talk about planting a mango tree. Plant it, water it, put a little fence around it so cows don’t eat it, pray for rain in March and if you can be patient and consistent, eat delicious fruit after a few years.

I can say that I have never seen my book in a garbage can, ripped up or scribbled over. That would be sad and I’m hoping that they are being used and valued. I must say that this whole book thing started when I once saw how a monk had used plastic adhesive covering to protect a little Canon printed booklet I had made.

In these last days, I peek around in bookstores to see if they’re selling. Funny, that if you’re growing a mango tree, you’d be happy to see it with more leaves, but in my case, I’m happy when I see empty shelves.

After they leave my hands, they’re beyond my control. That’s the free market. I’ve printed “17,000 kip” in big type on the book, but one place has wrapped them each in plastic and priced them at 20,000. Another place sells them for 30,000. It’s not their fault because some are buying from Vientiane or somewhere else along the chain and they get marked up every time. I’m still pretty much doing this on my own and I can’t keep up.

Sometimes I get complaints for pricing them so low. “Why do you put the price on the books?” I don’t always have time to explain the meaning of the title, “English for the Masses”, but since it refers to their system, they should know. Maybe they don’t know. Maybe we don’t know. Sometimes we forgot who brought us applesauce.

It's a market out there

Everyone has their place, but paths do cross in the market. You wouldn’t know it at first, but the Pakse market is where Southeast Asia intersects. The Lao sell vegetables and herbs on the outside, the Cambodians sell used clothing down one corridor and the Vietnamese sell everything else you’d need in the middle. I’m not sure if the gold shops are Chinese or Vietnamese.

Maybe it’s in small markets like this that the invisible hand works in the most peaceful ways. Maybe there’s a peaceful equilibrium established through petty trade. In the old days, not all people were in it just for silk or salt. Some probably just wanted a good excuse to get away from home, hang out, see the sights and have some fun. Of course there are plunderers, predators, exploiters, conquerors, imperialists and colonialists in the picture too, but in Pakse in think they ignore the small market. They’re busy with bigger things.

Here in this market, we have three major ethnicities literally rubbing shoulders in a hot and crowded place. Wouldn’t this supply the right chemistry for a race riot? What does it really take to make people fight and do nasty things to each other?

Here, everyone has their own products so there are no fights about undercutting cucumber prices. Everyone seems to have their own territory staked out and it’s rented so there aren’t territorial wars. People are paying, not praying so there’s no reason to get hot and agitated about religious differences. Language is neither a barrier nor something to wave a flag about so why fight about that either?

Maybe these are simple observations made in a good mood. There are ethnic complexities that I really can’t/won’t touch here.

Head in a basket

I didn’t necessarily have my head in a basket or in the clouds, but it took a long painful week to de-Balinize. It was physically and mentally hard for me to understand why I couldn’t look forward to hot Masala Chai tea and organic walnut-carrot cake with wifi in the afternoon. I couldn’t understand why 200 books hadn’t sold in the last two days. The reason of course was because I hadn’t been out selling. I’d lost the urge and maybe the ability to keep the books moving.

There was no particular impetus, but like a slumbering elephant getting back up on its feet, I started again, hitting all the schools I could find, including night classes disguised as elementary schools in the day. Bookshops aren’t listed in the yellow pages and at big hotels it sometimes takes some wrangling to talk to general managers so finding the right pockets is always a hunt best done on a bicycle. In the end, the best sales come from trying every shop along any street one-by-one.

I’ve mapped out the town. The ship is back on course and books are selling well. I wouldn’t mind taking a break in a basket, but I’ll wait until the books are gone.

Back to the Books

Here is another example of how the inner radar or gyroscope helps us to be positioned at the right place at the right time.

I rode to Pakse in southern Laos from the Thai border. I didn’t think 45 km would be much of an effort on a new bike, but the heat sapped my energy. I got into town and had time only for a quick shower. I had to trace where the books might be. They’d been sent the night before from Vientiane by bus, but as things are done in Laos, if you’re not right there when the bus arrives at four in the morning, you often have to go to the bus driver’s house or find out where he’s sleeping. In this case, I had to cycle 20 minutes to some intersection as instructed over the phone. So, I’ve found the bus and I’m told that someone took the books away in a truck that very morning (900 books). One voice in me said, “You’re screwed” and then the more sensible voice said, “The printer probably asked his friend in Pakse to pick them up.”  It was confirmed and the next step on the treasure hunt was to track this man down in a store somewhere in Pakse. Of course the third voice that actually spoke whined, “nobody told meeee.”

I’d already had enough for a day. An iced coffee didn’t help and I had decided to go back to the guesthouse for a nap before chasing geese again. On the way back, I saw a large stationary/copy store and decided that I needed to buy some invoice sheets and carbon paper. I walked in and right there on my left was a complete shelf of momobooks. Not just one or two, but five tiers and five rows making an impressive display. The effect was just as I had imagined once in Luang Prabang when I was trying to convince some lady to replace her rack of postcards with my books, just for a week’s trial of sales. But I wasn’t in on this plan and voice #1 in my head said, “This is not possible.” Wiser voice #2 said, “Well, you’ve found the store.” Audible voice #3 didn’t convince the shop guy of my serendipity.

What’s the moral to this story? Maybe, “What we’re looking for has already arrived.” It’s back to the books, not only in the sense of selling them, but also in the sense of learning more how this mysterious world works.   

Role of the dice

In high school, I knew someone who was a genius at math and physics. He said that when watching dice fall, he’d automatically calculate the probabilities. Calculating probabilities or calculating luck? Or simply anticipating how a dice will fall?

A dice falling is just a blur to me, but sometimes a blurred state can be very accurate. I was in Hua Lamphong station in Bangkok. I’d gone to the last car to load my bicycle and instead of going back directly to my seat, decided to look for the pineapple on sale that I remembered seeing near the first car. The pineapple was gone, but guided by an odd intuition I decided to walk through the train cars rather than on the platform even though that would mean maneuvering through a cramped corridor. That’s where I ran into a friend I hadn’t seen in more than five years. 

That wasn’t the first time on a Thai train. I’d been more accurate before when my reserved seat was directly facing someone I knew – knew from the past, but of course didn’t know he’d be on that train . Or so I think.

A friend tells me that some things are determined in our lives. They’re determined at birth because we pop into the world at a specific time and place that will never be repeated again. The only accurate measurements of such time and space are the positions of the stars. At the same time, we have volition and will. If the car is our fate, the way we drive it is our free will and we are wisest if we try to know what kind of car we’re driving so that our destinations are realistic.

In essence, we’re watching the dice fall at every moment. Sometimes it happens too fast for rational judgment to be useful. Sometimes the results look like luck, but maybe it’s just lucky that we had insight into that moment.

On the edge of the world

Some people say the world has ended. The more exacting say that what has ended is the world as we’d known it. In other words, the world isn’t flat after all.

Someone told me that Hindu tradition dictates that in the latter half of life (post-50) we should either becomes a hermit or an itinerant teacher. Is it possible to do both? I don’t have a cave, but I’m very, very satisfied to spend an entire day silently working on texts. I also realized the other night that the room I found was so satisfying because of the thick concrete walls and ceiling that blocked out any sounds from neighbors. And being an itinerate trader counts, doesn’t it? If possible, I don’t want to be a “teacher” anymore. It’s too pedantic. Teachers who have taught too long tend to stand on podiums rather than converse. Anything you try to express to them ends up being a footnote for their exposition. These days, I just want to disperse books like Johnny’s apple seeds. Throw and grow. Shake and bake.

I’m not sure if it’s a Hindu tradition, but another friend told me that after 50, it’s important for humans to know what their material requirements are in life. I think what that means is that time is up and we can’t enjoy chasing our tail anymore. There’s a limit to material desires. It’s antithetical to traditional economic fundamentals, but maybe those under 50 can do enough consuming and chasing to keep the world spinning.

I know what I can’t live without at this point. I can’t live without my laptop (hermit) and my bicycle (itinerant trader). There are a few other things, but they generally fit into one bag.

I’m not saying I’m a guru or something silly like that. I’m not saying other people should do the same thing. I’m just saying that if the world that we (know)(knew)(had known) has ended, it’s our chance now to peer into other worlds, ones which are sometimes richer and many times more rapturous.

Coming attractions

Judge a book by its cover? 

You bet. 

I make the covers when the end comes into sight.

They're getting dressed for printing. 

Eight to be exact, though several more are in the works. 

Of course there are many intimidating details to be worked out, but the intention is simple; 

they must be done.

All in a Day’s Work

This is my typical workday, now that I’m not selling books. I’m concentrating on preparing the next set of texts so it takes some discipline. I wake up around 5:30, go for a bike ride and try to get some writing done before breakfast. Work will continue right up to lunch if there are no errands to do. An afternoon coffee will keep me going until evening and into late night with just an evening exercise and a dinner break. A good day is ten hours of writing.

OK. There’s a catch. I admit it. I’m in Bali. The 5:30 morning wakeup call is done by a rapturous chorus of excited fowl. Every morning in Bali is exciting because its creation re-created. A bicycle ride actually means riding through monkey forest where the thick canopy of Banyon trees hide the dawning of a pink/powder blue sky morning. When the sun comes up higher, bits of gold hit green.

Back to the guesthouse, I can settle down to work on a veranda chair. A simple breakfast is served and I can give my eyes a rest by filling them with the garden view, lovingly and meticulously maintained to supreme beauty. When afternoon coffee calls, there are endless choices in Ubud and now that it’s slow season, it feels like I have the whole town to myself. The final luxury among luxuries is the silky quiet nights giving me time to get down another few pages. I know, pitiable me.

Aid for Laos, buy a doorknob

Wattay International Airport in Vientiane. It’s small, but nice, but a little eerie. It doesn’t feel like Laos, it’s Japan recreated down to the last detail. That’s not a wonder since it’s been funded and built by the Japanese along with bridges, schools, roads and just about anything else in Laos. This airport feels like Japan because everything apparently is from Japan.

I know because I’ve seen these exit signs, the particle boards, the duty free shop shutters, the plastic chairs, the floor tiles, the Seiko wall clocks, the air vents, the blue vinyl benches, the switches, the lighting fixtures, the window knobs, the blinds…. No, the newspaper rack looks local, though all the newspapers on them are Japanese. The toilet sign has Lao script, but only that makes it Lao. I recognize these things because I spent so many years in Japan. Japan has been recreated here in excruciating detail and it’s not even supposed to be a theme park.

It’s a pretty nice gift, an entire airport basically exported from Japan. Isn’t it amazing that airports can be exported? That means all the concessions are contracted in Japan servicing all the people who make shutters and doorknobs and particle boards. There are formalities for bidding for these contracts, but I’m sure a good amount of money is exchanged for these sweet deals. It kind of captures the whole essence of the development industry, “We’ll do something nice for you, but we’ll certainly make sure we profit in the process”.

Speaking of airports, this was written in the Thai newspaper The Nation (March 30,2009 9A). It’s about the Suvarnabhumi International Airport in Bangkok. “…Bt 1 billion contract for ground services awarded to a Singapore-registered company whose owner was traced to a derelict house in the Bangkok suburbs; Bt 4 billion for wiring and ducting to a company with no track record; half a billion for luggage trolleys of unbelievably chunky quality; Bt 5 billion for operating security guards; Bt 3 billion for limousine services; an allegation that Thaksin’s sister demanded a bribe of Bt 300 million for the car park concession; and advertising concession to Thaksin’s son; and a Bt 8 billion contract for building drains allocated to the family of another minister. (Exchange rate 36 baht / dollar – you get the point).

So the next time you donate tax-exempt money to a charity that claims to build schools for illiterate minority children who are vulnerable to malnutrition and human trafficking, consider that your money might go to retirement benefits for staff who’s full-time job is to canvass for donations, or maybe it goes to the government official consultant who needs not a jeep, but a mini-hummer to do surveys upcountry because everyone else has the same kind of vehicle parked in the ministry lots. In other words, you might be buying a very nice doorknob.

This is what 30,000 books look like

Sometimes it’s overwhelming. Preparing for books is one thing. Paying for the printing is another. Printing thirty thousand books is one thing. Selling them all is another. I try to count sheep to go to sleep, but I end up counting books and that keeps me wide awake.

Years ago, it started with classroom handouts. After Xeroxing came a Pixma Canon printer. Then, the first order from a real printer was 500, then 3,000 and now it’s not worth counting anymore. I asked the printer what he thought would be a profit-making volume and he said 300,000 a year. Well, that’s still only 5% of the Lao population.

You may think it’s getting out of hand, but …but.. what’s the metaphor? It’s like, if you need 7 eggs, you might as well buy a dozen. If you need a new faucet, you might as well buy a new sink. No, those aren’t good metaphors. Anyway as I see it, if I’m going to try to do the job of getting good texts out there for Lao students, try to really make a difference in the way people learn, I might as well try to cover the whole curriculum and the whole country. Then, I can call it a good day.

A star is born

I wish I knew what this boy is saying, or for that matter, what he’s doing, but for now, we’ll just have to assume that he’s getting ready for something real big.

It’s been more than five weeks since I’ve visited the deaf school. There’s still a lot of work to do. I have the students look over the drafts. They are just photos of words/signs, but I see kids running their fingers over the pictures as if it were text in a book. When humans get ready to enjoy a good read, we kind of wiggle our butts into our chairs like, “Ah, this is going to be good” and that’s how I observe the kids with the drafts. It proves again that books are a primary pleasure and people are starved for them when there aren’t enough. It must also mean that seeing one’s world represented in any form must be pretty fascinating and very satisfying.

The challenge of language is to use strange sounds and stranger squiggles to represent meaning thoughts and collective cultures. On the other hand, the physical worlds that we have constructed are already physical texts of collective cultures and political mishaps, but it takes scrutiny and knowledge of history to decipher them. Why is Vientiane filled with architectural examples of 60s American Modernism? Why is Luang Prabang being re-created in faux colonial style, or better yet, what are the true examples of neo-colonialism? Why is Watay Airport in Vientiane Japanese? What skills of interpretation do we have to answer these questions since the book hasn’t been written yet?

49

It’s funny how people deliver their lines perfectly and not even know that they were given the part. This morning I was paying for another night and the guesthouse lady says, “Ah, yes, March 21st.” Then I remembered, “Today’s my birthday.”

I gues that’s why I decided not to take the 6 hour mountain bus ride with a 100 books, but instead opted for a slow day. Maybe that’s why today was the first day of blue skies after weeks of thick, sooty air and why the main street was quiet, almost barren of tourists, and perfect for a truly nice cup of coffee.

Barbie’s not a thousand years old, but I’m almost 50 now. Who’d ever think I’d be here.

Climb Mt. Phousi

One of the main sightseeing attractions in Luang Prabang is Mt. Phousi. That’s why there’s a Phousi Hotel and a Phousi Guesthouse and Phousi this and that.

“Why not open up a Phousi shop?” That’s Jill’s idea after I fed her the idea of making “Phousi rolls”. I’m tired of rubberstamp businesses. A new idea like fruit shakes in plastic cups or mango cakes come once in a decade and then are copied to death. Why not just make a new cinnamon roll that peaks upward and call it a Phousi Roll?

In the Bangkok Post today, there was an article about some convention or some new magic concept that was going to pull the country out of a recession. It’s called “creative business” or something along the lines that every true entrepreneur should be doing all the time anyway. We’d never have things like Barbie Dolls if someone hadn’t figured out “creative business” a thousand years ago. (Barbie’s not that old).

Jill is a master of ideas. She said she grew up making up new ideas with her siblings and then watching TV a few years later saying, “Hey, they took our idea.” She didn’t need “Toys R’Us”, but ripped tissue paper into figurines, infused them with personalities, histories and personal issues and entertained herself in the back seat of a car for hours. We’re eating in a restaurant, but when I see how she’s absent-mindedly made the rice basket into a gyroscope, I’m convinced she’s a cornucopia of ideas.

So, let’s put in print. All these ideas are credited to Jill: T shirts that say, “I climbed Mt. Phousi” or “My boyfriend climbed Mt. Phousi and all I got was this stupid T-shirt.” If you come to Luang Prabang and see an ethnic minority beauty shop where you can get Akha haircuts, Khamu henna tattoos and neckrings (in installments), it’s Jill’s idea. She says it’s gotta be a hit in Los Angeles. After all, “The neck is the next thing”.

Why not the world?

Some tailwinds are inexplicable. This one blew for two days and took me distances I’d never dreamed of before.

There’s a school I tried to work with a few years ago. Working there drove me to the edge. Nobody there wanted change (other than the students) and I had brick marks on my forehead from too much banging.

Now there’s a turnaround and the doors have slid open. They’re ready not only for change, but are ready to change Luang Prabang. “It has to start somewhere,” they say, “and it might as well be here”. They’re open to trying a whole new system and though I’ve warned them of the risks, they say they’re ready. I’ve committed myself to be back in July and set up the system. We’ll start in September. More details later.

The next jaw drop happened on the next day. It answered the second prayer; a distribution system. There’s a school that has done something unprecedented; set up private language schools in every province in the country (except for Attapeu. Poor Attapeu). We’ve already begun shipping books out in the hundreds to the provinces. For someone who started off selling books one -at –at-time going literally door-to-door, it’s-a-dream.

My friend so wisely warns, “Love letters written at night shouldn’t be sent until the next morning.” I’m sure there’s the Lao equivalent for warning about counting chickens that aren’t chickens yet so yes, I will try to keep my wits together and not take a vacation yet or something crazy like that.