FabuLao

Yes, another unpatented book title. We’ve printed 5,000 each of part I & Part II and I’m depending on these books to sell. They’re aimed to take the place of the ever popular “Headway” and “Interchange” books so I’ve added to the heading, “Interway your learning, Headchange your life.”

It’s a four-skills book appropriate for the classroom with a story line tying the two books together. An alien visits Luang Prabang. A Lao girl teaches the alien about Lao life. She’s rewarded with a trip to his planet, but finds it too technologically advanced. She does become more diligent and wins a scholarship to Japan, giving her the chance to learn and find ways to help her country. Don’t know yet if she’s a good girl in part III.

Writing I & II (III pending)

English speaking guides in Luang Prabang make the best money, but their attitude is dismissive when they say, “I can speak, but I can’t write.”

Maybe the same goes for the Lao language and that’s why there’s virtually nothing to read. Literacy is not just about reading, it’s about writing too.

The 6,00 books that I’ve printed is the biggest gamble. The popularity of grammar may end up being a placebo, but writing is the bitter pill. I tell students they’ll make history if they learn how to write and we’re not just talking about how to cross a “t”.

GrammaWow I & II

People will ask why the “r” is missing in “GrammaWow”. I try to explain that the name of a grammar book has to sound glamorous and wonderful.

Today, someone asked what “wow” means. Hard to explain, but once anyone tries saying it, they will know. “WOW!” they say automatically.

Many people believe that studying grammar will make them fluent, but if they follow the rules, they’ll never be able to say, “Hey, long time, no see.”

The trick is to convince students that the past perfect is not used just to show off one’s knowledge of fancy grammar. We have the past perfect so we can show how deep our regret is: “I wish I hadn’t gone out with him. I wish I hadn’t drunk so much that night. I wish I had followed your advice.”

There are those days

There are those days, when it just rains too hard and that slippery slope I’m trying to climb turns to mud. My heart sinks as I feel my feet slide.

Those are the days when everything becomes preposterous. How could one possibly sell books in Laos? It’s not just that most people don’t read, most have no business experience either, so how can this whole operation work?

Business is a complex social exchange right up there with language. It only makes sense when two parties are satisfied with an exchange. If the balance isn’t right, it’s called theft. Just as the financial books must be tended meticulously, a social balance is equally important. “I’ve done this for you. You’ve done this for me. I’m aware that I owe you. I’m aware that you’re aware that I owe you. I’m aware that you’re not aware that I feel you owe me.” It goes on and on. That’s why we use money and make contracts.

One common social agreement is that until you compensate me, what I consider is mine is mine and not yours. That’s where book selling in Laos gets tricky. I leave them on consignment with people. My assumption is that people understand it is not their property until they pay for it. That’s why it astounds me to find books crammed in a case, covered with dust and half eaten by termites. “I didn’t have time,” is a common response.

Money is a complex concept. It may be it in your hand, but that doesn’t mean it’s yours. Not all people think that way and that’s why it’s used sometimes to buy beer or pay off bills. What can I say? They treat me like a tax collector when I come around.

Business means risk and investment. Most people don’t understand. In a rare occasion, a small bookshop agreed to pay in cash for 120 books. The price was agreed on, but she balked when it came to paying. She wanted a discount. I said no. She got mean and said, “OK, forget it, I’ll just call up the company.” That was pretty funny. She thinks there’s a company somewhere. Certainly she’s going to have to pay more going through a middleman. I slam a pack of books back in my bag. We’re testing each other. Who’s going to blink first? I know I’m ready to walk out though I hate to think of towing 120 books on my bike again. I guess she does want the books. She throws the money over and acts like I’ve just abused her. Maybe that bridge is burned. Maybe I could have been nicer. After all, the customer is supposed to be god – supposed to be. I don’t think these petty bookshops realize I’ve taken more than 2,000 books to local schools. They’re arrogant and mean because they think they’re dealing in rare commodities. I’ve heard some people stash away whole inventories and wait until the value goes up. They think they’re doing business. I think that’s theft.

In a few rare places, I’m lucky to make contacts with the tops in schools or hotels. They can wave through decisions. They’re usually savvy and know what’s needed. The problem is that the stronger they are, the weaker the subordinates are. I couldn’t get through to a manager in the top hotel in Laos because the front desk was too scared to disturb him. They told me he was out and I knew it was a lie. I had to chase him in the lobby.

People don’t like to see others succeed. It sets a new standard. Most don’t want to take the effort to reach it. It’s not the rain that makes the mud.

Busy, busy

Strakhov relates Dostoevsky’s own description of his epileptic ecstatic aura

“For several moments,” he said, “I would experience such joy as would be inconceivable in ordinary life – such joy that no one else could have any notion of. I would feel the most complete harmony in myself and in the whole world and this feeling was so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss I would give ten or more years of my life, even my whole life perhaps.”

The evolution of mankind

It all started with beer of course. The idea to tie helium balloons to a lawn chair and float over the neighborhood. He thought about doing it to his best friend-slash-nemesis whom he secretly hated, but why not show everyone once and for all. He strapped himself into his own destiny without resistance.

There was enough beer flowing at the party to make it all happen in minutes. Without a jerk, he elevated. His buddies burst into wild guffaws and he knew they were rolling their bellies in the lawn though he couldn’t see them. Already 10 meters high, he knew he’d roll over if he looked down.

Then he found himself laughing alone. He couldn’t hear his friends anymore and he suspected his familiar world had already collapsed into a google map. There was no wind because he was moving at the same speed. In fact, it was silent and silent enough to suddenly make him terrified.

Up and up and up. He broke out into a sweat in the way one does when the dentist drill comes close. The sun was glowing through the balloons and he could imagine god assessing his life. He had no reason to go to purgatory. He was faithful to his wife, he had kids, a dog, a car. He had just bought a new set of power tools. He suddenly became intensely nostalgic of his simple honest life. He wanted to go back.

Then he realized it wasn’t all over. He had scissors. He was prepared. He wasn’t that stupid. All he had to do was cut the string and he’d be back home in minutes. He friends would cheer and he’d be a celebrity. “Man flies in a lawn chair.” Simple. No sweat.

When the string was between the scissor blades, it started to vibrate like an umbilical cords. He couldn’t cut it. He became confused as to what life he was trying to save and what life he was yearning for.

First he heard the voice of his wife nagging him. “Why don’t you listen to me? I told you to take out the garbage.” Then his boss telling him he’d be fired if he dared to make another mistake. What mistake? Whose garbage? It wasn’t that he was disgusted with those voices or wanted to escape. It was just that he realized that they were far below him and way out of hearing distance. It didn’t seem to matter anymore. He felt no anger, no yearning, no discontent. He felt elevated.

It must have been the sun and the thinning air. He was giddy and light-headed. The blue of the sky had turned to an inky intensity and the clouds were crystalline. It wasn’t just the balloon cord vibrating. The entire sky was vibrating and in an astonishingly and harmonious way.

Then the image of the clouds began to peel like wallpaper. It was quiet like a movie set without action. In a clean cesarean cut, the photofinish surface of the world he knew unzipped and in that instant, he knew what his life had been printed on. He started to laugh with a joyous gurgle and his lawn chair picked up speed. He had nothing to steer with, but it zeroed in on the Kodak finish, photoglossy surface, straight to the slit that was opening wider to accommodate his lawn chair and then he sailed straight through to the other side.

What a foolish man. Darwin would have shook his head. Darwin spent all that energy and time to put the world into scientific order. Why would someone not cut the string?

 

Naughty artist

In the beautiful crumbly historic section of Savannakhet, some delinquent didn’t have spray-paint so opted for charcoal. It’s Lao graffiti and a defilement of a historic building. On the other hand, nobody really considers this a significant building so maybe it’s art. I think it’s art. It gives me great pleasure and that’s why I took this picture.

Today, I did a little teacher training. I was asked to compare Japanese and Lao students. I was told that Japanese are all smart. My response was that there’s “smart” in terms of people who do perfectly what they’re told and there’s “smart-smart” in terms of people who rebel against what they’re told to do and in turn do something magnificent. Like anywhere in the world, you can find both types.

I was told that Japanese are healthy because they live until 100. Of course there’s “healthy” in terms of living until 100 and then there’s “healthy-healthy” in terms of living vigorously to any age.

The Lao don’t need to compare. They have great potential for learning languages. Most people are bilingual or trilingual considering all the minority languages, dialects and the fact that they listen to Thai girls screaming on Thai TV dramas every day.

The Lao are talented communicators and can make sure you’re not treated like a stranger. Formal education doesn’t tap into this talent, but rather smothers and chokes it to death in a cloud of authoritarian chalk.

I asked the teacher if she liked teaching. She said she didn’t. I asked why. She said because she’d rather work in rural development. I asked why. She said because that’s her mother’s wish and she’d love to fulfill her mother’s intent. I asked why her mother wants her to work in development. She said because her mother is a teacher. Aha! See! All roads go back to the same source.

It’s how we define words like teacher, student and school that determine if we’re talking about art or defilement. I felt today’s “teacher training” was successful because the teachers understood the spirit of it all. I think they know that there’s joy in watching a flower bloom especially when you’ve been a part of it. Likewise, it’s not much fun to watch shrinking violets die because they’ve been told they have no worth.

High tide

Sometimes I look at a calendar to check that I haven’t missed Thanksgiving or Christmas or New Year for that matter. It’s easier to keep track of time by noticing when pineapples are in season or when the Mekong is high.

The swelling and drying up of the Mekong are dramatic markers of time. In the dry season, you can practically walk to Thailand. Big bushes grow on the sand spits and you’d forget you’re even looking at a river. In the rainy season, it turns into a big brown swath of water that can easily be seen from an airplane or rocket. In this season, if you tried to swim to Thailand, you’d probably be swept down as far as Cambodia.

Many people like to ask how long it took me to finish the books. I could be poetic and say it took four rainy seasons or 49 phases of the moon, but I usually just say around three years. That’s not an exaggeration when I think about the time it took to learn how to type Lao. I didn’t know anything about InDesign and made mistakes like throw away all the links.

I figure you just have to keep moving. I will not get stuck, even on books. Laos will have fiber cables and broadband in five years and I’m going to get ready for that. There will be a day when schools won’t be necessary either. That’s what I think.

I’m happy that I’m 49 and I can still move. There are bureaucrats who would resist changing the position of their desk and I can’t really imagine how they’ll ever be useful to anyone else. 

Magic handlebars

There is a solar energy company in Laos. They use German technology and try to make it affordable for the rural Lao. They have lots of magical things like a solar powered water pump, a solar powered water purification machine, a solar powered water heater and a solar powered refrigerator. They also have an electric bicycle.

I took one for a spin. They look like normal shopping bikes, but with a slight twist of the handlebar you move silently forward with a surprising jolt. They say it’ll take you uphill.

What would life be like if I were coasting up hills? I could load 120 books and cruise around with no sweat. The thought is tempting and it’s hard to forget the sensation of twisting that handlebar.

I know it’d be hard to go back. It would be hard to get back on a regular bike and pump again. A regular bike would feel slow and ponderous and I’d never want to accuse a bike of such things. 

A bike is a bike is a bike and it can still do wonderful things. The other day, I swung into the temple school to bring books. I heard the novices murmuring, “The book seller’s here. The Japanese-on-a-bike-book-seller’s here.”

There was a small group of novices buying pickled fruit from this man. His handlebars don’t have magical propulsion, but they serve well to display his products. I’m sure when he too sells out, he cruises on home feeling light and happy.

Not a shabby breakfast

Yes, it’s been more than two months. Is Martin slacking off? No, not really.

It’s almost a year since the first books were printed, so momobooks and the board of directors convened for an annual assessment. Future strategies need to be hammered out. In reality, momobooks inc. still consists of one person, so the board meeting was pretty much a solitary night of tossing and turning.

The decision is to forge on. A complete curriculum is more convincing than a handful of books and if the dry rot is to be attended to, a new structure must be built. Most people agree there’s dry rot and most people agree that a nice house would be better, but most people don’t know where to begin. My job is to pick up the hammer.

It’s easier to keep hammering when I can imagine what the house is going to look like. There will still be more bent nails along the way, but the job will get done. These days, it’s not so hard to wake up to another day and appreciate a good breakfast.

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.