Dunhuang After a Fashion

 Here's another picture that has wafted in from the past. This is from my friend Kerry, who wasn't on this part of the China trip (that is, the far west) which means that I sent it to her fourteen years ago and now she's returned the favor. Here I am with the other professors on the Silk Road/Journey to the West faculty trip, in this case at Dunhuang. At the time I don't think I understand how much I was hanging by a thread emotionally (and obviously physically). In between leaving one woman and being dumped by another, I found myself being robbed of my past and my future. Obviously, I ended up in a very nice spot - and had many adventures along the way - but I think I was simply too destroyed to enjoy, appreciate, and learn from an amazing opportunity. Since that time I've taught several classes relating to Journey to the West and the Silk Road, but the classes would have been much richer if I had not been wavering so close to the edge then.

I remember not being as impressed by Dunhuang as I should have been, no doubt partially because I was still in my love affair with India - mainly I was thinking that I had simply seen more amazing places in India and thus I was mindlessly dismissive of the experience.

So Many Camel Rides

 It's funny, I hadn't thought about my first trip to China in a long time (it was fourteen years ago, and, well, a million things, both good and bad, have happened in my life since then). And then I bumped into my friend Kathy a couple weeks back and she sent me some pictures - and then my friend Kerry sent along some pictures - and suddenly I'm awash in China pictures. That said, the memories are not flowing as torrentially as the pictures are. Back in the day I used to travel with actual physical journals and I wonder if any of them from that trip are still buried in my desk? Despite the adventure of my first trip to China it was also a real low point in my life and maybe I don't want to read them. Still, I might do some digging.

Here's a picture from somewhere in western China, probably along the borders of the Taklamakan Desert. I was thinking that maybe it was the first time I ever rode a camel, but that was 2009 and I had travelled to Jordan for the first time five years earlier and I must have ridden one on my first trip to Petra. Since then I've ridden several camels. I'm sure this particular one enjoyed the ride more than most since I was about fifty pounds lighter in separation/divorce/misery diet mode.

Oddly, one place I never rode a camel was in Oman, the place where I saw the most camels. It seemed like every time Laura and I turned around there were dozens of them ambling about.

There's Something Wrong With That Boy

 I ran into my friend Kathy Leo-Nyquist the other day and we were reminiscing about the time that we were part of a crew of Champlain professors who travelled to China. It was part of the infamous seven country/seven week trip that I made in 2009 when I was freshly separated and my sense of self-loathing was at its most intense (as you can see from my relatively skeletal body - I was in the middle of the breakup diet that far too many of us go on at one time or another); it helped that I actually had some place to sleep other than my office and something to eat other than ramen noodles. Unfortunately, on my last stop, Barcelona, my camera was swiped so most of the pictures - and memories - the trip were lost. Happily, Kathy sent me a bunch of pictures of the trip, the one below being one of them. We were all together for a week or so in Beijing before the rest of the professors took off for southern China on a faculty development tour and I went off to far western China alone on a different one.

Seriously, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing in this photo - either yelling or just gesticulating wildly in the midst of a ridiculous story or some combination of the two.

The Misery Diet

My most excellent friend Kerry sent along this picture today as part of another discussion, and I shamelessly swiped it.  Actually, I don't know if I ever saw it before now. She snapped it, now ten years ago, when we were in China together. A group of Champlain professors took advantage of Dave Finney's (or Champlain president then) Faculty Internationalization Initiative (FII), of distant memory, to travel to China on CIEE tours. I had actually arrived a couple days earlier because I presenting at a conference. It was shortly after I had left my ex-wife and I was living on the floor of my office and eating a lot of ramen noodles. Since I had Global Modules business to do, and because I had no place else to go, I embarked on a seven week, seven country trip from the Middle East to China to Central Europe to Western Europe. I spent some amazing days with a friend in Barcelona at the end of the trip, but mainly I just hung out by myself for almost two months, with the exception of my time in China. It was great to see China with Kerry and Craig before they took off for southern China on their CIEE tour, whereas I headed west in my Journey to the West-themed tour, making it as far west as Kasgar. Anyway, Kerry snapped this picture of me in the Forbidden City on our day there. I'm sure I must have some posts associated with it somewhere (as I close in on 2000 posts I'm, not surprisingly I guess, sometimes surprised by posts I don't remember writing about places that I only vaguely remember visiting).

Yes, the Misery Diet. I think I was down to less than 200 pounds, which, on my frame, is pretty skeletal. This was also after I had my infamous bike wreck and wrapped my face around a guardrail, so I was a bit of a mess. But, somehow, I made it through. I never complained about it at the time because, as my father always told me, "You were born a free, white man in America, so you can never complain about the consequences of your decisions." Essentially, he was saying that I was born with a ton of privilege and thus could actually make decisions, so I needed to keep my mouth shut if they didn't turn out the way I hoped. I was miserable because I had left my wife - and failed her and my son - so I probably deserved a hell of a lot more unhappiness than I found.

Cruel Summer (Palace)

Just as there is something great about getting an unexpected letter or email from someone, there is equally something wonderful about receiving a picture that you didn't know existed.  My great friend Craig just sent me a picture that he came across when organizing his files from the summer that he and I, and several other Champlain professors, traveled to China.  Here's a shot of me at the Summer Palace outside Beijing.  This was before we all split up and went our separate ways, an entire group to southern China and me, alone, per usual, heading off to the Taklamakan Desert.  It was the summer when I was first separated from my wife and pretty miserable, living in my office and mainly eating ramen noodles, and trying as best I could to find new ways to be unhappy and guilt-ridden.  So, I embarked on a seven country, seven week tour, with stops at multiple universities and presentations at a number of conferences.  At least I had a place to sleep and food to eat.  A day before I left I had a spectacular bike wreck, wrapping my face around a railing, knocking out a tooth and resulting in stitches - just to make the entire experience even more special.  Still, I survived, as we do when we keep plugging away, and lived to see another day.

Normally in pictures I looked either amused or angry, but in this one I just seem confused, and more confused than usual (which makes it a pretty solid metaphor for my emotional state at the time).  I also can't help noticing how thin I am.  The divorce misery diet is a wonderful way to lose weight, although I wouldn't normally recommend it.

I Can Find the Desert Anywhere

Wow, now this is a surprise, and a pleasant one.  My most excellent friend Kerry Noonan found pictures on the CIEE website from the Silk Road professional development tour that I took several years ago.  Kerry and several other folks from Champlain were in China at the same time - we all met up in Beijing - but they took off on a separate CIEE trip, leaving me to go my own way (which is the norm).  Here I am bestride a camel out in the wilds of western China.  As my friends like to point out, even when I go to China I end up drawn to the desert or the Islamic world.

I'm doing my best Aurel Stein impersonation.

Exhaustion

Every so often I come across an old picture which amuses/amazes/intrigues me.  Tonight I was searching around on my computer for a Powerpoint on preparing annotated bibliographies and, as one would expect when faced with the tedium of discussing annotated bibliographies, I became easily distracted and wandered into one of my picture folders.  Here's one from my trip to China a few years ago, which was right in the middle of an epic seven week seven country trip.  I think the picture was taken somewhere in western China, although I'm not certainly exactly where.  What strikes me about the picture of how absolutely exhausted I look, and how I feel much the same way right now.  Some of my current exhaustion relates to the manic travel I've been doing lately - as we discussed earlier, I ended up travelling around 7/8 of the way around the globe in around a week. Having said that, travel is a funny thing.  In today's world we complain about how tiring the thirty hour trip from Canberra, Australia to Burlington, Vermont is, while losing sight of the fact that it's going to the opposite side of the planet in a little more than a day.  Imagine how long that trip would have been a hundred years ago.  That said, I am exhausted at the moment, both physically and spiritually.  For the second straight semester I have an overload, although that is tiring in a good way - I do love to teach, and it feels great to be back in the classroom full-time and not fighting the endless battles of running the Global Modules program.  I think I'm so exhausted now because I'm just tired of waiting for my life to begin.  I tore up my life a few years ago - and caused some real pain to people I care about a lot - with the goal of finally finding some peace and happiness.  Truthfully, I feel that I'm on the right path and I think that the next few months will bring me where I need to be - just wish I were there already.  However, just as with travel, I guess it's all perspective.  It wasn't that long ago that I was pretty miserable with seemingly no hope of anything better - and wallowing in the unhappiness that I probably so richly deserved - and now I'm in a really great relationship, and that's what I try and focus on.  As Marcus Aurelius reminds us, life is only what we deem it to be.

I think if you go far enough down the itinerary  you get to Happy.  The key is to keep travelling.

My Imbecility

I came across this picture the other day that my friend Marcie (one of the great folks from the CIEE Silk Road trip) sent me. I suppose I might be posting it because it reminds me of the thousand and one incredible meals we had in China, and, well, truthfully, that is part of it. However, I think I'm probably posting it because it is a reminder of how inept I am at all things (probably being re-enforced by my clumsy battles with Arabic). We used chop sticks during every meal in China, and it's not as if I had never used them before that point, but during one of our last meals a student turned to me and asked if this was the first time I had ever tried them. I could only smile.

Just a Picture

OK, just a few moments before I head off for a Faculty Senate meeting (and, doubtless, pray for death's sweet release). I was cleaning out my office and came across a CD that my good friend Marcie Patton from Fairfield University sent me. She was one of the great crew that were part of the Silk Road CIEE trip I took in summer 2009. It was part of a seven week, seven country marathon that was right in the middle of the lowest point in my life. However, although it was gruelling, it was good for me and by the end I was in a much better place emotionally - as evidenced by this silly picture of me that Marcie snapped while we were off in the mountains of western China (I'm thinking somewhere in greater Tibet, but I'd have to go back and check my notes). For some reason it really expresses a moment in time for me.

Dunhuang Market

Once again, I have no time for devoting more effort to getting caught up with the blog, so I'm stealing a couple moments here and there to post one picture and briefly comment on it (before it all fades away completely). Here's another picture from the time I spent in Dunhuang in western China, which, with the exception of Kasgar, was my favorite part of my time in China. This is a shot taken in the traditional market in Dunhuang. I especially love the live fish, just inches away from where he is grilling dinner - guess we know it's fresh. What a wonderfully weird time - it was the same day as the donkey wine adventure - about a block away. There was also a murder across the street while we were drinking the donkey wine - some woman stabbed her boyfriend to death right out on the sidewalk (and you thought those things only happened in the U.S.). We passed through the market again a couple days later and I had cold soup, which is exactly like it sounds. I was hanging around with the tour guide and he asked if I wanted to eat with him - and seemed very pleased when I said yes. He asked if I wanted the cold soup, which was very popular in the summer. Being hard of hearing I thought he said cold soup, but figured it was just a Chinese word that I wasn't picking up. It turned out to be cold, noodle soup, with a bit of a hot sour (or in the case, tepid sour) soup taste to it - he told me that it was popular there in the summer as a break from the heat. My friend Yanfeng walked in and was very pleased that I was eating a bowl of the cold soup and plopped down and had a bowl himself. That said, we then jumped on the bus and took off for a couple hour drive on one of the bumpiest roads in the world - and I was sitting in the last row - and I just about lost my dinner, which would have thrown away any points I had scored for downing my entire huge bowl of cold soup. I swapped with another professor, using the excuse that I had enjoyed the extra leg room long enough and should really share, crept up to the front of the bus, and managed to survive. All the sloshing around just about did me in.

Dunhuang

I am way too busy to be spending any time catching up with the blog - so much of the summer is unaccounted for in the blog - and because of the camera theft in Barcelona some of it will never be documented. Still, I'm dedicating break time to at least posting individual pictures and very short stories. Here is a picture of the sand dunes in Dunhuang, the infamous location of the donkey wine adventure. As I said, you fly into the oasis that makes up Dunhuang by covering some of the most inhospitable desert you can imagine. We stayed at a very nice, and, sadly, essentially empty hotel on the edge of these massive sand dunes (the hotel folks were very happy to have us there). You could rent a bike and ride over to the edge of the dunes, but it cost something to actually get past the gate - once there you can ride camels and go sled riding down the dunes. It was an absolutely astonishing experience to sit out on the balcony, watch the sun go down, and the dunes slowly disappear - matched only by getting up early to see them reappear over breakfast in the morning. It was a short trip into town for donkey wine, cold noodle soup and a walk around a great traditional market.

Kasgar

I've been promising to talk about Kasgar, my favorite part of last summer's China trip, but have had no time - and certainly have no time right now - but I'm going to go ahead and post some pictures now anyway. Kasgar is about as far west as you can go in China, and it really felt much more like the Middle East than in China. A good friend of mine found that she could easily chatter away with the merchants in the marketplace in Turkish. What was amazing is that in the space of an hour we went from the bustling traditional marketplace to a cybercafe, where it was possible to get a moche for 28 yuan (which meant that it cost almost exactly what it would cost in the US) and also check your email. In the market itself you would stumble across these amazing stalls full of anything you could imagine. I love the picture at the top - I was standing on the wall above the stall, leaning forward, to get the shot as symetical as I could. If you look at the bottom of the picture you can see the dried snakes, which you grind up and put into hard liquor to make "snake wine" (which is, like donkey wine, an aphrodesiac). After walking past the dentist's office I was glad that my teeth were in good order.

I Blend

I still can't begin to figure out why I don't blend in more seamlessly when I travel . . . Here is a picture of me wandering around the backstreets of the old market area in Kasgar in far western China. I think I have a version of this picture from every place I ever visit - I never fit in. Even in Russia, according to my friend Katya, it was just so obvious that I was an American that all the beggars, pickpockets, pandhandlers - or just kind souls who wanted to talk to an American - could always instantly find me. I thought I might find it a little easier to slide along unnoticed in Russia, but even there I failed miserably. Katya, without thinking, just went down a laundry list of my failings - my coat was undone (no Russian would walk around like that apparently), I just looked "English," I was smiling way too much, I was carrying my books and notepad out in the open (Katya had me put everything in a Banana Republic shopping bag, which she inisted, somehow, made me seem more Russian), etc. During the summer I spent in India I was being absolutely beseiged by beggars or merchants looking for an easy and prosperous sale - that is, I just looked like the common international perception of an American - not very bright or shrewd and having money just falling out of his pockets. In India I eventually came up with the ingenious approach of just pretending to be from another country - many Americans do this, obviously (my friend Michelle would always put a little Canada flag on her clothes to try and "pass" as Canadian) - but I added my own unique wrinkle. I met these two European women who were travelling across India and they thought I could pass for Finnish (I'm sure that no one from Scandinavia, the Baltic states or Russia would think so, but these two were Scottish and Italian, respectively). So, after a while, to alleviate the constant pestering, when anyone would ask if I spoke English - which was always the first step to an invitation back to their shop - I'd just try and look confused and then say, "Finlandia." My thinking was that I had to choose a country that they had heard of (as compared to say Andorra or Lichtenstein), but not one that would be so common (like France or Germany) wherein they might know the language. Oddly, it worked, and I got a lot more peace and quiet. There are times when standing out is nice - when I was in Turfan in western China this gaggle of little Chinese boys started following me around as if I were the Pied Piper, and were very happy when I finally stopped and asked if I could have a picture taken with them.

A Kasgar Mosque

OK, so I'm not finished posting from the Russia trip - or the other parts of the summer trip for that matter, which prompted me to decide to take a couple minutes each day to get caught up (or at least within walking distance of being caught up - of course, in the process I'm ignoring the fact that there is a deadline today for getting my proposals in for three different conferences - yes, I'm in that much of a state of denial). Anyway, here's a picture I really like. It was taken in a mosque in Kasgar, which turned out to be my favorite part of China - and of which I'll have much more to say later (I've already talked about my adventures at the Kasgar International Airport and sleeping on the tarmac). As you know, mosques are remarkably unadorned, which makes for a startling comparison to the Tibetan Buddhist temples I saw - or the Daoist temples I saw - or, for that matter, the Russian Orthodox churches I just saw - so maybe this is why this picture has floated back to the surface. Here are four older Chinese Muslims praying. Their hats show that they are from four different ethnic groups, but they are united in prayer. Normally I would never think of taking a picture inside of any religious institution when there is a service being performed, although the Chinese didn't seem to care one way or another - I guess one of the advantages of putting religion on the backburner - so I happily snapped away.

Cupping

OK, so several weeks back I included a posting on the very cool and eclectic Nanluogo Xiang Street in Beijing, which is not that far from the Forbidden City. In passing I mentioned the story of my friend Craig who, unintentionally, ended up getting a cupping as part of a massage. Again, this is where, after a thorough skin scraping, heated glass bulbs are placed on the back, which, allegedly, helps to remove impurities. It is very popular. On a flight in western China I saw the tell-tale marks on the back of a stewardess. Anyway, I was sitting on a rooftop bar enjoying a Tsingtao Beer and french fries while Craig, Susyn and Kathy went over to the massage parlor. Craig stumbled back after his cupping, and I was finally able to track down a picture (thanks, Kathy). Notice the blissful picture of the man drinking Tsingtao Beer and eating fries and compare it with the horrible disfigurement of Turtle Boy. What can we learn from these pictures?

Silk Road

I thought I would post a map, which I found on the net - thanks, Google - of the actual Silk Road and some of the cities that played a part, both in the ancient trade route and also in my travels this summer. You can also get a sense of where the entire adventure started, Beijing - I spent a week and a half there presenting at a conference before heading out on the actual Silk Road CIEE professional development tour. The old Silk Road started in Xi'an (which used to be called Chang'an, which was the capital of a series of Chinese dynasties), and that's where I flew after leaving Beijing. Then we essentially followed the Silk Road west, passing through some of the major cities along the route - Turfan (or Turpan), Dunhuang, Urumqi and finally all the way west to Kashgar (also known as Kashi) - before heading back and ending up on an off-shoot of the Silk Road in Xining and then Lanzhou where the trip ended. As you follow the route west you can see it split just beyond Dunhuang - this is to get around the Taklamakan Desert, which is supposed to be the world's most inhospitable desert - and it certainly looked like - before coming back together around Kashgar. I would have loved to continue the journey west, moving out of China and through a whole series of countries before ending up at the Mediterranean - maybe someday, insh'allah.

Journey to the West - for a burger

OK, here is an epic tale of one man's quest for a burger, and the extraordinary obstacles he overcame to stuff his face - and how it all related to the Silk Road and the classic novel Journey to the West - or maybe I'm just making too much of the story. Anyway, it began in western China. Even though the food was extraordinary from the beginning of the trip to the end, there are times when you do crave a cheeseburger - and this was especially true when one of our guides mentioned a Chinese McDonald's copycat fast fast place called Best Food Burger. This put the thought in my head that I'd have to get a Best Food Burger cheeseburger. So, the quest began in the city of Turfan. We were on a CIEE professional development tour and we were learning about the old Silk Road that ran from China all the way to the Mediterranean. Our leader, Yanfeng Li, was also fascinated in the classic Chinese novel, Journey to the West, which has its origins in an actual famous journey of a Buddhist monk who went on a journey along the Silk Road until and down into India to bring back real Buddhist manuscripts. The story was eventually blown up into a wonderful novel, which featured the monk, a character named Pigsy (a name which I've now bestowed upon my nephew Eli) and Monkey (who is a wonderful character who is always getting into trouble - a bit of a trickster - and has to help the monk to make up for his crimes). So, when we'd be bumping along in the bus or sitting down for a beer in the evenings we'd take turns reading passages from the novel - again, it's a professor thing. Anyway, we were in Turfan, which I'll talk more about later, because it was one of the stops along the Silk Road. Yanfeng (my donkey wine brother), my friends Randy and Marcie, and I set out one night to find a Best Food Burger (mainly because I had pestered them into it). However, along the way, Yanfeng spotted this little hot pot place and talked us into eating there, and it was fantastic, but it was the first in a number of obstacles to me getting my burger (and I began to envision myself as the monk in the story) - and turned it around so that Monkey was trying to keep me from getting the burger - and my friends, being nerds like me, were happy to play along as we developed this mythology. So, then the next day we moved on to Urumqi, before the ethnic violence broke out, and I browbeat the entire group into walking across the street to the local Best Food Burger. So, even though they wanted to go someplace nice, they relented in the face of my constant badgering. Well, we make it to the restaurant - which looked exactly like a McDonald's - and I pointed at the sign and said I wanted to have the cheeseburger. The girl behind the counter, who didn't speak much English, said that they didn't have burgers. I replied, "Yes, but, not only is there a burger on this sign, but the name of your establishment is Best Food Burger." She asked the manager to come out, who explained to me that they didn't serve burgers, and had never served burgers, and no Best Food BURGER restaurant had ever served burgers, ever. The others, at this point, gave up and went in search of another restaurant, but my good friend Randy hung around and placated me by eating a chicken sandwich, and fries and ice cream. Once again, Monkey had foiled my planes. So, fast forward a couple more days and we've now moved as far west as Kasgar, which is just about as far west as you can go in China. After an amazing day exploring the old market, which I'll talk more about later, we had a huge meal and we had separated to do some exploring before getting together in the evening for some performance. So, although we were stuffed, I cajoled Randy into going with me to the local Best Food Burger as I continued my quest. We walked in and ordered a burger, and the girl behind the counter asked if I'd rather have a chicken sandwich. I said, no, I'd really prefer a BURGER, and they sadly agreed - and twenty-five minutes later I had my burger. Of course, in the process we were really late to meet the others, but I proudly walked onto the bus with my hard-won cheeseburger - much to the shock and chagrin of the others. The rest of the trip everyone was worried about Monkey's vengenance.

The Glamorous Life

As part of my continuing series designed to dispel the notion that my travelling is one long romantic getaway.

When it was time to fly out of Kasgar - and make it back to Urumqi for a night in a five star hotel, which we were all looking forward to - it turned into a night of disasters. The flight was delayed and it was delayed, which meant that our precious time in the five star hotel was dwindling, and we didn't end up taking off until close to 11:00 p.m. (Beijing time, not the unofficial Kasgar time). Once on the plane we sat and sat, and I fell asleep, which I have a tendency to do, and when I woke up we still had not moved - and so I fell back asleep. And when I woke up we had moved about a hundred yards out onto the tarmac, and we just stopped. And then the pilot asked us to leave the plane because of a problem - and the plane did not return to the gate, so we just stumbled out onto the tarmac. Essentially, we were told that there was a problem with the electrical system and they were going to reboot the plane - turn it off and turn it back on. I laid down on the tarmac and took this self-portrait.

Eventually I fell asleep, and one of my friends took a picture of me sleeping on the tarmac. After the plane was rebooted we wearily climbed back on it and completed the flight to Urumqi, but it was too late to go to the five star hotel, so we slept on the bus - and I slept on the floor of the bus - before getting back on a flight to Xining. So, instead of sleeping in a soft, comfy bed in a far star hotel, I slept on the tarmac of the Kasgar airport and the floor of a bus. And I wouldn't have traded the experience for anything.

Making Friends in China

Here is a picture that my Champlain friends took of me as we walked the backstreets of Beijing near the Forbidden City. As is always the case, the best way to learn about a city is just to get out and go exploring, and as far off the beaten path as possible. Here I am making friends with some folks and their dogs. Kids and dogs always sense my inherent goodness - it's only perceptive adults who immediately dislike me.

International Ambassador

Here is a souvenir t-shirt that is very popular in Beijing (BJ). I tried to cajole my friends from Champlain into buying it for me, figuring that if they did then I'd have a definite shield of plausible deniability when asked by my bosses why I was wearing it to commencement. You see, even I have enough sense not to buy that shirt for myself, although not enough sense not to post the picture.