Endpiece

In my last couple of days in Japan, I do occassionally see for myself what some might consider indicators of the less boast-worthy sides of the country. The younger sister of my friend Jun (Jun, despite having seen me only once since the second grade, went out of his way to provide me with many contacts and suggestions from his current location in DC) explains to me on a boat ride on the Sumida river how every university junior in Japan must conform to the same appearance once they begin searching for jobs--same attire, same died black hair, etc--and proceeds to point out these aspiring businessmen and women on the train later on. When I attend Akiko's performance at a cafe along with Tokyo's Macalester contingent, the models/aspiring singers that are also on the bill (and should without question stick to modeling) are fawned over by decidedly creepy old men that may have made up the largest segment of the crowd. And before the boxing match, I come across a spot in the sports complex where hundreds of guys are standing around just smoking and playing lottery--it looked as though they might have been doing so for hours. There was also the decadence of late-night Roppongi, where West Africans somehow have cornered the market of strip club doormen and aggressively pursue customers (especially white ones--I cannot seem to wrap my head around why) as they try to make their way down the street. By the way, if you ever try to attend a club in Tokyo that advertises a night of "Old-School Hip Hop," do not think that you will necessarily hear old-school hip hop. ___________________________________________________ But my overall impression of Japan is that it is a generally well-functioning and (at least in modern times) a peace-seeking society--one that is deeply suffering from the global recession but one where an inept prime minister from a political family tree may not create the chaos that he might in some other countries (i.e. mine), because the populous appears to function pretty well on its own. However, I should emphasize on both ends--and I'm probably stating the obvious--that my observations here are not exactly substantial or nuanced. After three weeks of fairly intense gathering of information and perspectives of Israel/Palestine, I have to say--only partially in retrospect--that my travels that followed were pretty intellectually lazy. Not to say that mindless travel doesn't have its occassional merits, but I'm admittedly iffy on whether it has always warranted free-flowing public observations, and if there was something I would have done differently, it would have been to maintain a much higher level of curiosity. To put a positive spin on this point, it's another justification to partake in the self-indulgence of independent travel again if the opportunity ever presents itself. ___________________________________________________ As for basic personal enjoyment, I can't complain much, and I close my trip on a good note. The boxing match on my last evening, whick I attend with Jun's friend Daisuke, is a total experience. The fighters are not especially impressive, aside from a couple promising young guys early on and one Panamanian on the co-main event who had god-awful luck--a no-decision due to an early incedental head-butt in a fight he was totally dominating (this is only interesting to me). The crowds, on the other hand, are great--not the same level of intensity as in the Mexican v. Boricuan fight I saw in Chicago with Pete E, but decked out in the freshest of costumes according to the fighter they are supporting and totally engaged. After the fight, Akiko meets up with me in Shibuya and we grab some tea--the obvious drink of choice on a Saturday night. If I may be allowed one last instance of supreme-extra-cheese in my first (and probably only) foray into blogging, I have to say that the way I closed out my trip felt right: not having it out with the Japanese nightlife or seeing an interesting new sight or doing anything especially different from home, but just having good conversation with a friend who I hadn't seen in a long while. Akiko gets me on the last train back to my hostel (barely), and after three hours of passing time, I set back out in the dark to catch the first train out to Narita Airport. I crash as soon as I get on the train, but wake up once for a few seconds and catch a last glimpse of Tokyo at sunrise.

Converting to Shinto

When I leave my hostel on my first morning in Kyoto, the falling snow doesn't exactly fill me with nostalgia for Minnesota, but once I get across town to the first set of temples, the pay-off is twofold: the snow, often paired with equally intermittent sunshine, only makes everything in Kyoto even more attractive, and the cold seems to keep the destinations less crowded and more peaceful. At some locations, such as the Ryozen Kannon, I have the entire site all to myself for the full 20 or so minutes I'm there. The site itself was the first of several that made a pretty big impression on me: outside were big, isolated gravestones against the mountain, and inside are drawers and drawers filled with lines of little tablets naming soldiers that died on Japanese soil--not just from Japan, but from around the world. Inscribed on the center of the memorial is "All honor to him, friend or foe, who fought and died for his country. May the tragedy of his supreme sacrifice bring to us, the living, enligthenment and inspiration, fill us with ever-mounting zeal, for the all-compelling quest for world peace and brotherhood." Moving stuff, and something that, along with the peace memorial in Hiroshima that I did not get to see, says a lot of good about the society of Japan. ___________________________________________________ The temples and shrines in Kyoto--and there are just tons of them--are of course the big draw, and some of them are amazing places. Ginkakuji, for example, is covered by a mossy garden that I probably could have stared at for hours if not for the fact that I was trying to pack a lot into two days. And Fushimi Inari, a series of tunnels and paths over ascending stairs in the mountainside--the tunnels made of literally thousands of torii--was awesome at night. The torii were lit up all the way along the paths, which led to some of the most incredible views of the city, views that stretched to the mountains on most sides and to the skyline of Osaka in the distance to the south. Again, I'm the last person there, and it was kind of spooky (okay a little bit more then "kind of" when a cat breaks my solitude at a cemetary near the top of the path and starts howling like crazy), but walking through all of those torii in the dark is for the most part an, um, religious experience. I unfortunately do miss out on a couple of must-see temples though, including Heian Jingu, where I had really hoped to retrace the steps of the legendary Scarlett Johansson. I'm not joking at all. ___________________________________________________ Kyoto also has a ton of beauty beyond the sites. The city itself--and it's easy to forget there is a big and modern city there before you visit when all of the pictures you see are of removed, ancient locations--has some great residential architecture, and one really nice curvy walkway along a stream through several northern neighborhoods. And the mountains really do come *right* up to the edge of the city--at any given intersection you will see them in three directions, with the homes creeping up their lowest parts. At one point I walk through a couple of beautiful parks--another thing Japan seems to do excellently across the board--in the western edge of the city, and when I keep walking upwards in one of them, I find myself on a path along a mountain side, with a river flowing in the valley below. About a half-mile in, the city basically disappears. ___________________________________________________ While I loved being in many locations across the city, I think my favorite site was the Sandal Wood Hostel, with its rich history of all of four months. The operators of the hostel are an insanely cool and affectionate women named Jumi (who also happens to reinforce Kyoto's reputation for gorgeous women) and a very quiet but sweet-as-can-be guy named Zin. When you come home from hours of walking around, Jumi greets you with a big hug and asks you how your day went, listening attentively while you talk about the places you liked most. You sit down in the cozy living room and Zin puts on a jazz CD, brings out a cup of tea, and sits down to talk (or maybe just to sit) until the next guest returns. Later, Jumi cooks some pasta for those present, and follows the meal with a big plate of fruit. After eating, you gather on the floor around the table on the other side of the room with a bottle of sake and plum wine, and Jumi brings out guitars and a keyboard, which in this instance leads to an absolutely top-notch Aussie/Japanese jam session (the Aussies at the hostel were for the most part really thoughtful and interesting and artistic--totally breaking down the stereotypes I had developed over the course of the last month about the general void of substance within the continent). At some point you learn that Jumi and Zin were in an alternative band together, as the bassist and guitarist, respectively. The band was called "The Niplets". Seriously. Incidentally, they also have among their wide selection of CDs "Illmatic" and "Hell on Earth", and now KRS-One's self-titled album, which I bought in Tokyo but felt compelled to leave for their collection. Anyways, back to the evening: you stay up chatting with the other guests and the hosts (when they're not doing some of the occasional hostel management), and when you finally go to bed, at some late hour, Jumi gives you another big hug goodnight, and thanks you and wishes you safe travels because you probably won't see her before you leave the next morning, because she'll probably be sleeping past noon. I consider myself aware of superficiality, maybe even overly suspicious of it, but I think there is pretty much zero at this place--Jumi told me she started it less so to be a business and more so just to get to know people from around the world, and considering I had to remind her on several occasions that I still owed her money for my last night, I don't doubt her for a nanosecond. Best hostel on Earth.

Another Giant City

I do some exploring while on my own my first couple of days in Tokyo, but I'm still not back to 100 percent, and I find that after two or three hours of walking around I'm ready to go back to the hostel and relax or take a nap. But I manage to see some nice temples in Asakusa, the old neighborhood where my hostel is located, and stomach a bit of tempura at a famous nearby restaurant, where I'm seated with a couple of American businessmen who kindly tell me that "konichiwa" does not mean "thank you" (*slaps forehead*). I see a couple of very nice parks and gardens, and a couple of great acrobatic performances in Ueno Park, and visit a couple of hip hop shops in the busy and popular area of Shibuya. And I stop by the Tokyo Dome and get the scoop on a boxing match the following weekend: I had wanted to catch a Daisuke Naito fight--he's one of my favorite current fighters to watch and according to the mother of one of my mom's former students (I met the two of them for a very nice visit to the Edo-Tokyo museum a couple of days later) he's also "very nice"--but the fighters who were fighting looked to be pretty good as well. ___________________________________________________ Meanwhile, I spend almost no time exploring the Tokyo nightlife. There was an R&B night that I wanted to check out at a club in Shibuya called "Harlem", but again, my body was telling me to go easy, so I spend most of my nights hanging out at the hostel and going to sleep early. I meet a couple interesting people, including a Swedish girl who is planning to take the Trans-Siberian rail back home and already has her next flight booked for Easter Island (I never went too long feeling especially adventurous on my trip), and spend plenty of time in my bed, a wooden box that sort of felt like a big coffin, but I guess afforded some decent privacy. The one time I do a little walking around at night, it's too early to see anything too exciting, although I guess it was sort of interesting getting accosted by a woman outside of a "massage parlor" who grabbed a tight hold of my arm while urgently whispering "Seckesa! Seckesa!" before I freed myself from her grip. ___________________________________________________ My proper visit to Tokyo really starts when I met Akiko in Shimo-Kitazawa, the place where she grew up and lives now, on an uncharacteristically warm day. It's a quirky, artsy neighborhood--the type of place where on Valentine's Day, you could walk out of a restaurant and find four nerdy guys on a mat at the intersection yelling to the passing girls (as translated to me) "We want chocolate! Give us chocolate!" Unfortunately, like in many of the most interesting neighborhoods in the US, a real estate and development crunch is not being kind to current members of the community, but for now, it definitely seems to be maintaining its character. We walk through these great little commercial streets and then along one residential street with a stream running down it (the urban planner bells in my head were ringing loudly) to a park where there is a small festival celebrating the plum blossoms, and then stop for a while at an empty little garden set up next to the park, and then walk back through a few other residential streets with beautiful homes and yards until we find a nice cafe, where I satisfy a long-held craving for pizza. It was sort of a perfect little tour, and it made me wonder what I missed out on by not having friends in places like Hanoi and Guangzhou. We finish by visiting the 25th floor of a nearby building called the Carrot Building, where there is a big lounge with these amazing views of the lights of Tokyo, going off endlessly in every direction. Akiko says it's a place she's always been able to go when she's needed to wind down, and I could see why.

Of Hong Kong and Moderation

Mike greets me at his MTR station in Hong Hong with a cheap local beer, and I quickly sense that any level of restraint in my visit will be short-lived. When we take a brief walk through his neighborhood on the way to dinner, a huge building looms a few blocks down his street--the Nina Tower, Mike tells me, built by and named for recently deceased billionaire Nina Wang. Originally it was designed to be the tallest building in the world, but because of its proximity to the airport (it really isn't *that* close), it had to be remodeled into two separate structures, the taller of which is still over 1,000 feet tall. Mike says it was a totally unnecessary development, built mostly for pride and extravagance. Another early indication that Hong Kong and moderation are essentially polar. ___________________________________________________ I do some sightseeing the next day while Mike is working, capped by a visit to Victoria Peak, which really is a complete mind bender the way in which the views dwarf such a massive set of buildings. When I meet Mike back down at the bottom, we head through some of the central business district, and I get a brief tour of the architectural advancements contained within. For example, I learn that the HSBC Building can be taken apart quite easily--you know, just in case the time ever arrives when HSBC needs to transport their huge headquarters down the street a few blocks. We stop for a quick drink at a swanky downtown bar, one where we very noticeably do not fit in, overlooking the river and then Kowloon (the mainland) on the other side. Scotch and Amaretto for me, Brandy and Coke for Mike. When we polish them off, we leave as inconspicuously as possible with glasses still in hand. Apparently this is standard procedure for Mike. He stops us at a wine store in the shopping center below the bar and buys a cheap Chilean red wine, and he refills the glasses before we pass through a fancy department store on the way out of the building. Nobody seems to mind too much. ___________________________________________________ Across the river by way of the Star Ferry, we head to a riverfront plaza to watch the light show. The show, done every single night at 8 PM, is a symphony of neon lights that dance on various buildings along the unbelievably long skyline comprising the west side of Hong Kong Island, harmonized to the tune of cheesy Chinese music that can only be heard on our side of the water. These are the highly practical everyday occurrences that show the Hong Kong leadership is hard at work (I have to be honest though, it was pretty damn cool). Once the show is over, we head through another uber-fancy set of stores along the water and in some indeterminate direction inland, passing a couple of Ferraris along the way. We end up at a Korean Barbecue, where we indulge in a huge assortment of meats and pickled vegetables--it was celestial--and finish the bottle of wine, leaving the glasses from the bar on the table. Nobody in the restaurant seems to mind that we brought the bottle in either. Joined by another friend of Mike's, we head through a big night market and spend way too much time looking through an enormous collection of patches at one stand (I found and bought one of these), and we head back to the apartment to crash well after midnight. Mike is a hell of a team player--I was able to sleep off the wine but he had to go to work early the next morning. ___________________________________________________ The rest of my tour of Hong Kong is a little more low-key, but lots of fun. We get proper dim sum on a Friday afternoon, get a couple drinks in the bar district with Mike's buddies the same night, and the next day go to Mike's old stomping grounds: a big, isolated hill (above the park where Bruce Lee used to train) with a great view of Kowloon from the other direction. Getting up on the hill took a small amount of trespassing, but was of course totally worth it. The only time I ever felt the need to question Mike's sense of adventure was when he cooked a meal of fresh produce--very fresh produce--from his local market. I was semi-comfortable eating unknown meats in Nanning, but feeling the crawdads kicking in the bag before they met their demise on the stove was a little further outside of my comfort zone. ___________________________________________________ We had planned to do some other sightseeing--a tour of the light rail in a more working class neighborhood (kind of reminds me of a nuisance from life back home) and a trip to a theme park--but on the way back after visiting Mike's hill and playing some basketball, I begin to feel pretty under the weather, and my condition gets worse as the evening goes on. I spend the last two days of my stay barely able to leave the couch, and had just enough of my energy back the following morning to get to the airport and catch my flight to Tokyo. Mike made sure I had everything I needed (basically the couch, water, whatever food I could manage to swallow, and a few comedy DVDs)--I suppose I was going to get sick and one point or another, and I feel fortunate enough that I caught whatever I caught at his place rather than in transit or at a hostel somewhere.

Dim Sum Alone

The night I arrive in Guangzhou, it wins me over quickly--a state-of-the-art and english-friendly rail system, subsequent arrival to a fun little waterfront neighborhood where my hostel was located, a great meal at a nearby Muslim Noodle Restaurant, and a walk along the pier looking across the river to downtown. The next day I follow the recommendations of the hostel receptionist and go to the Chen Clan Academy, an exhibit of just unreal Chinese sculptures and paintings, contained in different rooms in a temple that was impressive in its own right. Even the stuff in the gift shop was out of this world (and not at all unaffordable). I'm far from an art-head, but I walked away with my jaw on the floor. ___________________________________________________ My other stop was Yuexiu Park. The parks I went to in China were so different than I expected: they were more like hilly forests, with paths and stairways through a huge variety of trees and plants that lead to all sorts of different features, big and small: a big sculpture of rams, or a hidden waterfall, or a temple, or a mini-theme park for kids. The activities of the patrons were equally diverse: chinese chess, badminton, ballroom dancing, singing and playing music, etc. Towards the end of my walk I come around a corner and in front of me are a set of basketball courts. I can't resist hopping in a three on three game--leaving my passport and other belongings under the hoop--and end up playing until dusk. I'm rusty and honestly intimidated by all of the eyes on me, so I probably disappoint, but in the end I hold my own against my smaller foes and my team wins most of our games. When it gets dark and everyone gets ready to leave, a couple guys invite me to play the next day, but I tell them I'll be on my way to Hong Kong by then. Otherwise I definitely would have gone back. I would love to visit the city again. ___________________________________________________ The only blemish on my brief experience in Guangzhou is my ill-fated attempt to get dim sum by myself before leaving town, at an acclaimed downtown restaurant. The highlight of the debacle is probably when I abandon all that I had been told about Chinese etiquette (maybe outdated information anyway) and choose not to consume the full plate of six tennis-ball sized custard rolls I somehow managed to order. I end up making a full spectacle out of myself, but I think I make the right decision, because vomiting all over my table probably would have been far less well received. The waitress voluntarily bags up the remaining four rolls, and with a sympathetic smile, sends me on my way with my leftovers.

A Warm Reception in Nanning

In a visit filled with spotty weather, my last day in Hanoi is gorgeous, one where it's almost impossible not to be in a good mood. I visit the jam-packed Temple of Literature--as I leave the crowds make room for a music-led, double-file entrance of maybe a hundred women wearing long, light-blue dresses--and have lunch across the street at a well-designed non-profit/business venture called Koto. Later, I take a book out to the lake, and I guess by virtue of my solitude, end up attracting a couple of local residents, including the single most adorable adult human being I've ever met: a little university student wearing a big pink hat who quietly joins me on my bench and ends up talking with me for over two hours, despite the language barrier. Every time I say something to her, she repeats the last word of my sentence and nods assertively--it was sweet. I round out the day by going with a Danish girl from the hostel to make a last round to my favorite Old Quarter food spots--a pho street-stand and a hole-in-the-wall restaurant that makes nothing but pork-filled rice crepes all day. I'm up at 7:30 the next morning and soon on board an 8-hour bus ride to Nanning. ___________________________________________________ Word on the street--and in my China guidebook--was that Nanning had little to offer a traveler, so my plan was to catch a sleeper the same night to Guangzhou. I make it across town from the bus station to the train station pretty easily, but when I go to the ticket counter, the clerk informs me that the next train available is February 8--nine days away. Awesome. Thankfully, I had looked up a cheap hotel in Nanning before leaving, just in case. After eating a meal of unknown meats at the train station--the girls behind the counter laughing uncontrollably at me the whole time--a guy who hears me trying in futility to order in my native tongue senses I may be a lost puppy, and takes the time to assist me in getting a taxi to the hotel (I'm at peace with whatever it was that I ate--I was starving and tired and it tasted good). Once I got settled in my room, I felt pretty good about my delay: I watch TV while going to bed, sleep nine hours, and take a long, consistently warm shower the next morning--all firsts for my trip. ___________________________________________________ The next morning I head back to the bus station and buy a ticket for the following day, and then I get to exploring the city. I don't know how Nanning got it's reputation for being drab, because it's actually really, really nice: very walkable, full of energy and street life, maybe the greenest big city I've visited, and packed with tasteful and attractive parks and plazas. But whatever it was, the reputation must be widespread, because over the course of my visit, I literally saw tens of thousands of people across the city, and I was the one and only Westerner in sight. A brief categorization of the reactions to my exceedingly foreign presence: a) Amusement: similar to my experience with the girls in the train station restaurant, many occasions on which I was a customer were greeted with strangely elongated and intense laughter. b) Wonderment: children gave me prolonged looks filled with awe, but even some adults seemed sort of fascinated by my presence. The guy next to me on my bus to Guangzhou watched my every move--every time I changed a song on my I-Pod, turned a page in my book, or turned to look out the window. c) Thrill: this one was an exception--my taxi driver to the bus station the morning of my departure, who was clearly good-hearted but more than a little crazy. She was bursting with excitement to get to speak her recently acquired English with me--even forced me to move to the front seat so we could talk more easily--and when we got to the station she refused to accept my money. d) Empathy: a couple people went out of there way to help me out, including the guy at the train station and the only English speaker on my bus, which was very nice. ___________________________________________________ The most common reaction, though, truly seemed scornful and disapproving. I started noticing the trend while walking through downtown--people's facial expressions would transform into what I perceived to be a glare immediately after noting my presence--and the reactions became so regular while walking in People's Park (the flora-filled centerpiece of the city) that after a while I felt compelled to leave. When I got back to the hotel and spoke with the woman at the front desk, I asked (probably with little tact) why I was getting so many looks that seemed so negative, and she replied: "They are probably upset that they can't have a conversation with you because they can't speak English and you can't speak Chinese. But in the future, Nanning will get better and better!" The explanation that I got from a couple English teachers at the hostel in Guangzhou seemed more natural: that I was misinterpreting the body language and what appears to an American to be a glare is simply a long look-over out of curiosity or surprise. They were probably right, but whatever the case, at the time I had such a distinct feeling of being ostracized just because of my appearance--it's definitely a feeling that a white male growing up in the US doesn't experience too often.

Tiny Women and Happy Water

On the sleeper to Lao Cai, I share a room with a sweet, happy Vietnamese family of four, including a precious two-month old baby (the baby is sleeping the whole time, which presumably means he is happy too). They invite me to join a makeshift Tet celebration before we all go to bed, which consists of cheap beer and beef jerky, and we chat for a while as best we can. I go to sleep in good spirits, but get woken up by a loud knock on our door at 5:00 the next morning when we reach Lao Cai, and sleepily walk outside to a cold, heavy fog. Needless to say, my mood wasn't so good anymore, and only worsened by the fact that a visit to the spectacular hills in the northwest corner of Vietnam is only worthwhile if you can actually see the hills. ___________________________________________________ After breakfast in nearby Sapa, my tour group--a decidedly unhappy bunch at the time--is taken on a van ride and then led on a short walk down a muddy hill to a small village, where we all try to keep our shoes and pants as clean as we can. On the way down, tiny women from the village pair off with us and begin asking us questions about where we're from, our families, etc. This is all exceedingly confusing to us all until we realize that our "short walk" is actually a ten-mile hike, most of which is along a narrow, slippery, hilly path along the hillside across from the village. It is absolutely impossible to keep your footing on the path, especially when you're wearing old, worn out New Balances, and every step feels like a disaster in the making--at least after my first fall, straight on my rear, I don't have to think about keeping my jeans clean anymore. At one point, as we're crossing the tiny ridge of a water-filled rice terrace, I'm being held up at the hips by our guide while my tiny woman is gripping my front arm, which is all that can be done to keep me from falling face-first into the water. I'm seriously wondering at this point if I should just turn back, get on the next train to Hanoi, and fall back asleep. ___________________________________________________ After a while, when our bodies warm up and we start to find both the challenge and the humor in the whole sort of surreal hike we're on, the mood brightens a bit. And, although during the hike itself I was too busy watching my shoes and finding God to stop and look around, we do pause occasionally at little landings to regroup, and the fog has cleared enough to see our surroundings--it really is as breath-taking as advertised: a long, green valley with seemingly endless rice terraces in both directions, big rolling hills above them, a rocky stream flowing at the bottom, and a few scattered homes along the ridge. When we get moving again, it's still impossible to get up the hills of the path alone, but the women are shockingly strong--even though they couldn't be more than 4'6" and 80 pounds, they are able to hold or pull the entire weight of their comparatively inept partner without slipping or stumbling once. I was too in awe of my tiny woman to feel at all demoralized that a tiny woman was holding my hand in order for me to survive the hike. When we get near the next village, the women pull out the bags they're carrying and transform into saleswomen--so I guess they weren't just helping a bunch of tourists out of the goodness of their hearts. We all buy things, in essence to pay them for their services, and they head back to their village with their spoils. ___________________________________________________ After a lunch break, the rest of our walk is pretty easy--a dirt road, and then a steep (but thankfully dry) path down a long hill to the village where we'll be spending the night. On the way down, the view of our destination and the valley/hills stretching behind it is again really spectacular--at times we just stop and stare for a while. When we get to our homestay, we are treated to an array of really good dishes, and after we are done eating, our guide breaks out a Aquafina bottle filled with potent "Happy Water" (i.e. home-brewed rice wine, which is much closer to vodka than it is to wine). Our tour group (five Germans working in Beijing, two middle-aged Israeli-American couples, a pair of cheery young Australians, and myself) relaxes and chats while downing shots to the traditional cheers of our various homelands. Shockingly, I end up in a long and frustrating debate about Israel/Palestine with one of the Israeli couples, but for the most part, everything is really relaxed and totally enjoyable, no doubt due in large part to the perfectly peaceful setting. It ends up being one of the nicest nights of my trip. When the Aquafina bottle is polished off, around 8:30 PM or so, the group slowly shrinks as people head to the row of mats in the homestay house and fall into sleep. ___________________________________________________ The next day is much warmer, and everyone is decidedly more well-rested and happier than on day one. The village is filled with farm animals (it seems to have embraced the economic benefits of tourism without losing its foundation as an agricultural village), and when I walk downstairs, the first thing I see is a male and a female pig walking towards each other down different streets that meet at our guesthouse, almost like businesspeople on a weekday morning. The pigs meet at the intersection, the male sniffs the female's behind, and they each continue on their way to to their respective destinations, the female wagging her tail vigorously. I love animals. After a breakfast of crepes, we head on a nice hike along the rocks beside a stream, eventually reaching a small waterfall, and then after lunch, back up the hill to the main road, which is a tough but rewarding climb. A few hours back in Sapa to eat street food and rejoin the mass of tourists, and then we head back to Hanoi as a dirty, foul-smelling, and pretty content group of folks.

Chuc Mung Nam Moi

After crossing into Jordan and arriving at the Amman airport with almost too few inconveniences, I was left with twelve hours to kill before my flight to Bangkok. I kill much of the time switching back and forth between a book called "Bethlehem Besieged" and my Hanoi guidebook, sort of easing my way into a less intense breed of travel. I arrive in Hanoi the following night and, after my reserved hostel proved to not exist, I catch one of the last available cots at the Backpackers Hostel, which turns out to be, for all intents, an international bar (Australians making up the large and boisterous majority) with a bunch of beds. ___________________________________________________

It only takes me a day to see most of the sights in my book, and while some of them are definitely worth seeing (a couple of nice pagodas, a nice complex dedicated to Ho Chi Minh) they are pretty overrun by other tourists. I find a little more interest in just searching for an average neighborhood--it's not readily apparent where residential streets actually are--and I think I find one when I dip into a side street just south of the Temple of Literature. The disjointed "streets" are really no more than five feet wide, and the small balconies of the attached tube houses almost touch each other, leaving a sliver of daylight. I weave my way through, and notice that almost all the doors are open, exposing these cozy, beautifully decorated living rooms. ___________________________________________________

I read in my guidebook that Hanoi is an interesting mix of communist reverence and full-blown capitalist impulses, and I find the description to be very accurate--Ho Chi Minh is treated like a god and the biggest downtown park is named after Lenin, but people are everywhere working to make a buck in one way or another. I also note immediately that the motorbike drivers of the city have foregone both ethoses in favor of complete and total anarchy. The drivers, which essentially fill up entire streets in giant packs, weave through one another with almost no regard for traffic signals, crossing or oncoming traffic, or the well-being of bewildered American tourists. On one occasion on my second day, after getting hopelessly lost several miles off of the boundaries of my map, I had the pleasure/terror of hugging one of these bikes for dear life behind an especially reckless driver who would not stop at any cost. When we reach the center of town near the hostel, he lets me off, smiles warmly, and gives me a firm handshake. I tell him he's the best cyclo driver ever, which was pretty much gibberish to him, and limp away. ___________________________________________________ Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, is celebrated the night after my arrival with a degree of free reign as well. I arrive at the street around Hoan Kiem Lake, the centerpoint of the city, around an hour before midnight, and it is packed shoulder-to-shoulder. I look up at the sky and maybe about thirty den troi are peacefully floating above--as soon as one disappears into the smog, another shoots up in its place. Eventually I start passing groups huddled around the den troi, lighting them and holding them upright for flight, and I realize this sport is actually somewhat dangerous, as there's no guarantee they actually leave the ground when you let them go. Also, it is seemingly impossible to control their direction--thank goodness nothing flammable is around the lake, other than a couple hundred trees. ___________________________________________________ The teenagers are by far the most festive in the crowd--as the crowd slowly moves, chains of up to fifty kids intermittently tear through with great joy, each holding the hips of the one in front of them. And at one point along the lake, one teen is beating a drum on a rickshaw while several others take turns holding a giant dragon mask over their heads and charging at the crowd, creating a small circle for this dance of sorts. At one point a car inexplicably comes through the crowd and the kid with the mask jumps and dances on its hood and roof, to loud cheers (the driver appears not to be pleased). After a big fireworks display, I walk back to the hostel--older people are on the curb in front of nearly every door, silently and methodically making small fires and burning away fake money and paper ornaments.

Hebron

I go to Ramallah twice while in the West Bank, on the second occasion successfully navigating the city on my own (baby steps...) and getting my visa to Jordan. The city itself is bustling, and the occupation is barely perceptible while I'm there, but the road to Bethlehem is full of reminders: olive tree stumps, settlements with over-reaching barbed-wire fences, and a checkpoint where me and my guide on the first trip are stopped for an ID check along with the five Palestinians in our van. Thankfully for us, we are sent back on our way in time to catch Obama's inauguration, but I imagine that dealing with this inconvenience every day--and being subject to the whim of IDF guards-- would be frustrating. ___________________________________________________ The ride to Hebron also ends up providing some context to the occupation, although in a different way. Baha's brother Ala, my tour guide on this day, stops our conversation to translate the radio playing on the van: a woman in Gaza is talking about going on Gaza's radio station to convince those in areas of attacks to leave their homes--that their lives are more important--but then had her own home destroyed and has had some second thoughts about her own message. Later we discuss the predicament of the tens of thousands who have lost their homes in Gaza. Israel can, in fact, pretty much claim or destroy any home in Palestine, with or without the pretext of war, if they find a reason, and they do so liberally. To rebuild a new or lost home, one has to pay a relatively high sum of money for a permit from Israel--again funding the occupation--or expect their home to be destroyed again. Israeli settlers receive subsidies from this same government to live in some of the same areas. ___________________________________________________ In contrast to Ramallah, Hebron is brimming with tension. Settlements have not been built around the town, but rather cutting across the center, virtually on top of Palestinian homes and businesses. The several hundred settlers are forthright that they eventually want to drive the 200,000 or so Arabs from the city, and demonstrate their intentions with physical assaults and by throwing their trash and dirty water down on the businesses they overlook. I'm reminded more than once that these settlers do not represent all settlers--many are peaceful and simply are taking advantage of subsidies or other benefits--but their system is supported by the Israeli government and military, and I would venture to say most Israelis are at the very least passive towards their existence. ___________________________________________________ Hebron is physically divided between Palestinian and Israeli control. Ala takes me to the Ibrahim Mosque, which has been divided into a Muslim and a Jewish section ever since the massacre by Baruch Goldstein, but is in the Israeli controlled part of town. We go through security and hand the Israeli guards our IDs in order to enter. The guards have a lot of questions for me. "Are you Muslim?" "No." "Are you Christian?" "No." "Are you Jewish?" ".........Uh, my father is." Ala didn't tell me I was supposed to pretend not to be Jewish, I think intentionally just to show how the soldiers would respond, and I got caught between telling the outright truth and lying outright, which as usual did me no good whatsoever. "What about your mother?" "She was raised secular." "Well, she has to have a religion." Three different soldiers pepper me with similar questions, and after holding our IDs for several minutes, we are eventually told we are not permitted to enter the mosque. Oh well. ___________________________________________________ We stop by an organization called the Christian Peace Team on the way back to the center of town, and one of the workers takes us on their roof to view the geography of the city. The area outside of the central Israeli settlement, under Israeli control, is desolate. Hundreds of Palestinian shops were forced to close because shoppers could no longer go there peacefully and because a curfew is enforced by the IDF after 6 PM. The woman from CPT tells me about the organization, which mostly works in the villages, protecting shepherds and schoolchildren from settler assaults. We talk about the occupation for well over an hour. ___________________________________________________ On the way back to Bethlehem, I ask Ala what he thinks the solution is, and without hesitation, he says a single, secular state. "I'm not against Judaism. Anyone can live here. I'm just against a Jewish state." The idea seems ludicrous considering the past century of history and how many people on either side of the conflict have done everything they can to suppress such a vision--but as someone who occasionally bends towards idealism, a big part of me is drawn to his answer. Two segregated states seems like such a weak result that doesn't address the root of the problem. I think back to the quote from "Arab and Jew" with which I began my writing, and think about what would happen if Israeli and Palestinians were coerced to grow up together before they could be taught opposition. It's totally hopeless, but I think about it anyway, and I imagine some type of vision that initially seems ludicrous is necessary for Palestinian activists--or maybe anyone living in these circumstances or who lives with the hope of true coexistence in the region--in order for them to keep from going off the deep end. ___________________________________________________ I was deeply impressed by the personalities and the collective resolve of all of the activists I met, both Palestinian and international, and I would have loved to spend more time with them. The activism wasn't a surprise to me though. The part that really blew me away was the hundreds and hundreds of Palestinians I saw in streets and stores and organizations who were doing their best to live prosperous and active lives and to maintain their positivity and normalcy in the face of the wall and the checkpoints and the settlers. I'm not generalizing here--people I met were almost without exception positive and especially good-natured, and given what weighs most of them down every single day, it's an awesome thing to see. I mentioned this to Jared the night before I left, and he observed (I think astutely) that this approach to life here is its own form of resistance. It's just such a crying shame that, on top of being oppressed, these communities have such an incredibly false reputation as violent and abrasive--such an injustice of its own.

Walking in Bethlehem

My good friend Thomas, who's own birthright/world travel journal (not blog) was one of the things that inspired me to take my trip as I enviously followed along during the prior Minnesota winter, told me before my trip that I could not really understand the situation in Israel until I visited the West Bank and saw the occupation for myself. He was right: you can read books and articles about it, even see movies about it (Slingshot Hip Hop was another prod), but when you experience it yourself and spend time with people who live through it every day, you feel it in a completely different way. ___________________________________________________ When I arrive in Bethlehem, Jared (my host and Thomas's friend) is still on his way back from Ramallah, running late due to an hour-long delay at the checkpoint between the two cities. His roommate Baha lets me in, and it's not long before he's schooling me on the other side of the conflict, both past (he says Israeli authors rediscovered records of 32 strategically located Jewish massacres of Palestinian villages and large corresponding displacement that occurred before the war in 1948) and present (the reported 'mistake' of bombing a school in Gaza, the reported execution of a family in a house in Gaza before it was bombed). "Nobody asks what has been going on in Gaza for the past 8 years. The past 2 years." Baha works for the Olive Tree Campaign, which has planted tens of thousands of olive trees in Palestine to replace the 600,000 that he says the Israeli government has cut down, for no conceivable reason other than to cripple part of the Palestinian economy. I meet Jared and some of his friends over the course of the evening, and in between episodes of Black Books, they school me some more: e.g. I note that Bethlehem seems pretty low-key, and one responds that it is, but that the vibe is occasionally interrupted by Israeli authorities entering Bethlehem and kidnapping or killing a suspected dissenter. ___________________________________________________ Jared, who by all accounts has been working non-stop during the attack on Gaza at his news agency, has a rare day off the next day and is gracious enough to take me on a tour of Bethlehem, which as a town is hard not to love--amazing history, architecture, scenery, vibrancy, etc. Jared is extremely well informed about the politics of the region, so I pick his brain while walking through the streets. On the way to the Church of the Nativity, we talk about the economic situation in the West Bank: not only has the occupation systematically destroyed its economy, but in what seems like a cruel joke, a significant amount of both Palestinian tax dollars and humanitarian aid are apparently captured by the State of Israel, in effect funding some of this destructive occupation. We head into the church and spend a few moments at the spot where Jesus was born. We head back outside and Jared points out the covered bullet holes in a wall of the church where Israeli troops shot during the second intifada while Palestinian militants were taking refuge inside. ___________________________________________________ We then walk to the wall to divide Israel and the West Bank, which comes right up to now-vacant Bethlehem homes and businesses, and the to the adjacent Aida refugee camp. At the entryway to the camp is a sculpture of a giant key, which represents the desire of Palestinians to return to their old villages even after generations of displacement, and walk through a couple of the streets. I ask Jared how people survive in the camps and he says that, while foreign aid has been helpful, they mostly rely on a supportive family structure; nobody lets a family member go hungry. Our next stop is the Diyar Consortium, where we get a tour from Jared's friend Faith, one of the few foreign staff people. The consortium has an amazing number of different programs to enrich the lives of Bethlehem residents (arts, education, health, etc.) and employs about 100 Palestinians, but is also designed, according to Faith, "to show the world that Palestinians are not inept; that something else is the problem." ___________________________________________________ We head back to the apartment after the long tour, but Jared says he wants to show me one more thing before we call it a day, and we head out on a short walk to an adjacent hill. On the way down, he points out a beautiful, almost completed recreation center on the hillside where a bunch of kids are playing soccer, and then an abandoned and decrepit military base at the top of the hill. Apparently, a group of Israelis are aiming to get the blessings of the government to build a settlement there, and have been showing up regularly to scope out the land. The Jewish Settlements are generally small, but typically and intentionally fence off much more land than they need in order to relieve it from Palestinians--and the fence of this particular settlement would clearly take the recreation center out of Palestinian access, along with one of Bethlehem's only wells (water shortages are plaguing the West Bank) and a piece of land to soon be developed into a much-needed hospital. If the malicious and perverse intentions of the settlers were at all a question, a visit to the military base clears the air: blue graffiti covers its walls with stars of David and statements such as "this land belongs to the Jews." This strikes me as awfully aggressive in and of itself, but Jared tells me that it's relatively subdued compared to some of the Hebrew writing: "a good Arab is a dead Arab."

Freedom in Tel Aviv-Jaffa

We return to Tel Aviv from the north for our last day of the birthright tour and, totally worn out as a collective, we struggle through a packed agenda--the site where Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated; a big, bustling marketplace; the hall where David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel a state in 1948. Afterwards there is a sentimental farewell dinner, dampened (for me at least) only by an impromptu speech from the Minister of Environmental Protection in the Likud Party, who happens to be eating in the same restaurant. The Minister gives a verbal pat on the back to George W. Bush and encourages us to stand against "the anti-semitism on college campuses in the US" (uhhhh...) A fitting farewell from the state of Israel. ___________________________________________________ At the airport, I quickly give goodbye hugs to everyone and catch a ride with Young Judaea staff back into Tel Aviv. I hop on a bus to my hostel, get out and walk past the same big market our group dove into earlier that day--now empty--and all of the sudden I'm hit with this really deep sense of loneliness and yearning for my group, or some type of company; it completely caught me off guard. I had randomly bumped into Dan and his tour again earlier that day, and we had planned to meet up, but my energy is just gone at this point and I go straight to my bunk (turns out the phone number his friend left me was short a couple digits anyways)--the hostel is dingy and the bed is uncomfortable. My roommate, a Frenchman, chats with me a little bit and laments that he's flying home tomorrow to return to work--that makes me feel a little better, but not much. Once I lie down, it doesn't take me long to pass out. ___________________________________________________ It takes me a while to get going again, but over the next few days, I get acclimated to my relative solitude. My revolving set of roommates are an interesting and geographically diverse mix, and I spend time with a handful of them, but I also do a lot of walking around alone. I get bored with Tel Aviv after a couple of days, and eventually make my way to the older (by about 4000 years) city of Jaffa just to the south. Unlike the developed and commercialized waterfront of Tel Aviv, Jaffa's beach is miles of dirt and rocks, presumably to be developed into something more pretty in the future. I go out on some big rocks by the water for a while--it's just me and a couple of fishermen--and then walk into the city, which is way more interesting than Tel Aviv: curvy, narrow roads; lots of kids playing; an amazing aroma coming from a house about every couple of blocks; prayer booming from a loudspeaker at a mosque somewhere. On the way back I stumble into the first restaurant I see and it ends up having the best kabob I've ever eaten. ___________________________________________________ On the last night of my stay, I meet up with one of my hostel roommates (a straggler from the far-left birthright program--I had no idea such a thing existed--the tour had to stop inviting soldiers to participate because they would always verbal altercations with the tourgoers) at an anti-war/anti-Israeli occupation march from Tel Aviv to Jaffa. I'm not always the biggest fan of protests, but this one had a really good vibe to it--all things considered, of course--and after birthright, it was really refreshing to see a couple thousand Israelis who outwardly question their leadership instead of falling into line with the status quo (I have great pictures from it that I still can't figure out how to get onto the various computers I've been using...hopefully soon). On the way back, I converse with one of the townfolk who is walking the same direction. When I mention the heavy propaganda in my tour, she replies, "I was in the army; I know propaganda." Her motivation for participating in the protest: "I was taught as a baby that it would be peaceful when I got older; now my friends are teaching their babies the same thing." Pretty basic.

The Birthright Agenda

Alongside all of the rich history, physical beauty, and modern achievements of Israel (or perhaps in tandem with them), a lasting impression of my Birthright tour was how effectively it guided the majority of a mostly progressive group--one that I think would typically be at least sympathetic to a people facing deep injustices such as the Palestinians--into wholehearted lovers and supporters of Israel. I mean to say this without judgment, because I felt the love too at times, and it truly was hard not to. Throughout the tour we are fed loads of compelling information about the greatness of Israel, and have so many enriching and enjoyable experiences that we come to associate with the country, and meet so many wonderful and charismatic Israelis, and rarely have a moment's time to stop and think about the context of our trip: the fact that our trip is funded by wealthy Zionists who surely are not simply interested in us liking Israel; the fact that we are told specifically not to think about the conflict in Gaza on several occasions--only to think about it when a polished presenter is discussing it from "the Zionist perspective"--and never discuss the West Bank; the fact that we are introduced to dozens of Israeli Jews, but the only Arab we meet out of the millions living in the region is a Bedouin, on the fringe of the conflict (though I learn later that Bedouins have also been subject to very poor treatment by the Israeli government). ___________________________________________________ I could point to a number of frustrating examples of perspectives that we were given that, in retrospect, deserved some serious critical thinking and disseminating. The Brit who gave us the "Israel Update" acknowledged his bias at the beginning of his lecture, but that meant little after he charmed the socks off of the room with a witty and almost lyrical approach to his presentation. It was hard for me to tell if others in my group flinched when he said outright and without pause that a "Jewish Democracy" was a conundrum, that it either had to be "Jewish" or a full "democracy", and that it would be a "demographic problem" if Arabs were to outnumber Jews--a perspective that is not only inherently racist but could also, say, lead to the large-scale, totally unethical and unprovoked displacement of Arabs in the region who have lived there for centuries (the newly elected mayor of Jerusalem, incidentally, won on a campaign where he promised to knock down Arab neighborhoods and replace them with Jewish homes). The same presenter used the depravity of Hamas to justify the cluster bombing being used by Israel in Gaza that has taken hundreds of innocent lives, an approach that, a friend told me just before the lecture, was condemned the same day by every country in the UN except for the United States. ___________________________________________________ There was also the quintessential yenta at Hadassah Hospital that gave us a sermon about how we as a generation "are among the most ignorant Jews in history" and the woman at Independence Hall in Tel Aviv who proudly noted the part of the Israeli Declaration of Independence about the equal treatment of other peoples. The presenter that offended me most, though, was the supposed expert on the coexistence of Israelis and Arabs at a Jewish community village in the diverse but fully segregated northeast region of Israel. When we walk into the room, there is an image on the screen saying "welcome" in English, Hebrew, and Arabic, and behind it are two hands clasping one another--maybe a superficial start, but nothing that led me to suspect the almost painful patronization to come. ___________________________________________________ Our presenter starts by noting that when we talk about Arabs, we are talking about people "who don't embrace the concept of state" (Palestinians have been trying to secure a free state for decades; maybe he confused their resistance to the concept of state with resistance to a particular state, one that treats them as a "demographic problem"). He showed a video that I guess was supposed to show us that the victory by an Arabic soccer team in the Israeli Cup was a sign of growing acceptance of Arabs, and used the example of a peaceful protest of 100,000 Palestinians as a sign of growing co-existence (obviously, the fact that those violent Arabs were being peaceful was a sign of their progress; no mention of what it was they were actually protesting). I asked him how he responds when the Arab-Israelis he knows bring up the occupation in the West Bank, for example, and he responds dismissively that "I am aware of their narrative." No apologies for anything. And in response to my question of whether or not he ever does these presentations alongside an Arab-Israeli: "We decided now was not a good time for that." The perspectives that we are not afforded; if this man was the expert on coexistence in Israel, there is truly no hope. A short bathroom break after the presentation, and we are quickly whisked off again to the next site. ___________________________________________________ Perhaps as a postscript to this vent of sorts, I should briefly (yeah right) note two instances later that day, during which the subject was the defense of Israel against its neighbors. First, at a fortress used in battles with Syria, Elad makes note of something (I neglected to write it down...I sort of checked out after the co-existence seminar) and qualifies it by saying "this is not propaganda." Then, at a video on I think the Yom Kippur War, Elad stops the group before we leave the room: "I am not trying to brainwash you, I am not speaking for birthright, I am speaking for myself. Nothing is black and white--but if someone wants to shoot me, I am going to shoot first." I wondered what prompted Elad to qualify his statements in that way; if he had overheard someone in my trip discussing the "agenda", or if he knew of birthright's reputation, or if he too thought some of the other information we received was loaded with propaganda. I had really hoped to meet up with him after the trip and discuss that among other things, but never had the chance.

Jerusalem

On our first morning in Jerusalem, we head to the Old City to see the Western Wall. First, we tour the tunnels that show the bulk of the wall, which was covered in an early case of gentrification after the Romans took Jerusalem almost 2000 years ago. I read in one of my books that when Israel excavated these tunnels, many Arabs suspected the project to be a plot to infiltrate the Dome of the Rock, to blow it up and reconstruct the third temple. This didn't actually seem as outlandish when I read shortly thereafter of a plot in the 1980s by the Jewish Underground to infiltrate the Dome of the Rock and to blow it up so they could reconstruct the third temple...a plot that was almost successful and would have surely led to bloodshed dwarfing that of the current situation. At one point, the tour guide uses the stones in the wall as a metaphor for the perseverance of Israel--on either side of him is a woman praying, one standing motionless with her forehead against the wall and the other rocking back and forth with the good book covering her face. ___________________________________________________ Outside at the exposed part of the Wall, after being redirected by an attentive fellow tourgoer before I almost enter the female side, I slip a prayer for peace in a crack on behalf of a co-worker who asked the favor. There are thousands of prayers written on little pieces of paper in every reachable crevice in the wall, and part of me wants to take a handful out and read what people are praying for (although I suppose most of it is in Hebrew). I step back a few yards on the plaza, and just look at the wall for a good few minutes, and the scattered people praying in front of it...it's really powerful, a lot to soak in. At one point, I'm interrupted by a beggar asking for charity, which takes me out of the moment a little bit. I give him two shekels (about 50 cents), and he gives me a half shekel in change (???). After we regroup and head to an overlook of the wall, Elad explains how meaningful Jerusalem is to the Israeli people by telling us a prayer said by Jews at marriage for thousands of years: "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth." ___________________________________________________ Back on the bus, Elad reads the headlines from the day's newspaper. The lead article is about the war in Gaza, how the second battle for Israel is one of advocacy, to let the world know "we had no choice" (a different, more objective opinion--worth reading--is here). Other headlines include a win by Maccabi Tel Aviv over Josh Childress and Olympiakos (instead of partying the previous night I had watched some of the game with Elad and some of the other Israelis, but couldn't keep my eyes open past the third quarter), and a story about a popular Israeli singer touring homeless shelters--Elad says that he doesn't know what's worse: being in a shelter or having to listen to this woman sing. ___________________________________________________ After a true and much needed day of rest for the Sabbath, and a lecture on the state of Israel the same night (to be discussed later), we head to the Holocaust Museum to start our most emotional day of the trip. The museum is harrowing, a path woven through the rise of Hitler and growing anti-semitism, the Jewish ghettos in Poland, and the incomprehensible violence of the concentration camps ("The Germans killed, slaughtered, and murdered us tranquilly and with peace of mind"). The scale of the violence is not the hardest part to see--it's the microcosmic stories of children being shot, water deprived people being led to showers that let out gas, the story of Nazi leaders gathering to figure out ways to kill Jews even faster. By the end of it a few people are crying and I think all of us are a little shook up. As we come out of the children's memorial and around a corner, I bump right into my friend Dan, travelling on a separate birthright trip--if there was any point at which I needed an old friend to embrace, that was it. The final message from the tour guide: "Do not be bystanders. Do good things. Mazim Tovim." ___________________________________________________ Later that day, we visit Mount Herzl, a gorgeous cemetary. We stop at the grave of Yitzhak Rabin (Elad describes his assassination as "our 9/11") and then at the one of Jewish hero Hannah Senesh, where we listen to the beautiful song she wrote, "Eli Eli", and then to that of an American who joined the Israeli Defense Force with especially great zeal. Our fourth stop is Elad's former commander, killed in Lebanon. Elad is emotional, and reminds us that he could be called back any time. We are turned to face four freshly dug graves in the next row, of soldiers killed in Gaza. A few more people are crying. I'm saddened as well, although I can't help but wonder how many other people are also thinking about the hundreds of Palestinian men, women, and children who have also been killed.

Mifgashim

The third night of our trip is spent at an entirely inauthentic Bedouin Camp--someone in my group dubs it "Bedouin Disney World"--where about ten different birthright trips scurry around of one tent to another. A Bedouin gives us a presentation on their culture and its modernization; I ask him about the sentiment of Bedouins towards the current conflict and he tells me that they are the least involved, that they just want there to be peace. He adds, "but we do not feel that we are treated as equal," before moving to the next question. After the presentation we proceed to another tent for a huge feast, do some one-on-ones with fellow group members, and return to the campfire to sing songs. I forego much of the shenanigans and fall asleep in our tent at about 9:00. ___________________________________________________ The next morning, Elad takes us on a hike/tour of Masada (very interesting), and then we proceed to the Dead Sea for a swim. After happily floating around for a while in the especially buoyant water, we are met on the shore by the seven soldiers of the Israeli Defense Force assigned to our trip for the next five days: four young men and three very pretty young women, including one American from Philly who made Aliyah a couple of years ago and chose to serve. Thankfully, our group is not led in any faux boot camp drills. Actually, the soldiers become fast friends with members of our group, and we get far more of a chance to know them and like them on a personal level than I think any of us expected. By the end of their stay with us, some of them are making plans to see members of our group in New York and talking about it as one of the best experiences they've had, as a soldier or otherwise. ___________________________________________________ I spend a good chunk of time befriending the American-born soldier, Aliza, an especially pleasant person who, in between the average life conversations, puts up with my (sometimes incendiary) prodding/commentary regarding the current conflict. Aliza is no doubt a defender of Israel: when I mention a documentary I saw in a Jerusalem movie store called 'The Wall', about the giant structure steadily enclosing the West Bank, she jokes, "it's not a wall, it's a fence", and she is quick to remind me of the big role of other Arab countries in the displacement of Palestinians during the war in 1948. She also believes that military force is not the answer to the conflict--that the support of social infrastructure in Arab communities is a better solution (I can see significant problems with that approach as well...although what approach doesn't have problems)--and notes that Israeli Arabs are treated as second class citizens. ___________________________________________________ We also have an opportunity to ask the soldiers questions as a group one night, and get a variety of perspectives. One soldier says he believes that the strength of Jerusalem is its diversity and that it's not just for the Jews--another soldier shows a strong aversion to this opinion. A couple of the soldiers talk about working with Arabs in restaurants and how they believe they are not bad people and another, a really sharp guy who later breaks down to me the racism within Jewish communities (as if there isn't enough divisiveness out here), laments that he never had a chance to meet Arabs growing up. There is a mix of opinions as to whether or not peace can ever be achieved...some solid 'nos' in the room. ___________________________________________________ Also a part of the mifgashim was a big, gregarious soldier named Israel--who I hope will be okay with me sharing about him. As I'm taking pictures of the spring we hike to right after leaving the Dead Sea, a friend from our group quietly tells me that she had been talking to Israel on the way up, and he shared with her that a close friend of his was killed in combat in the Gaza Strip--he had just found out two hours before joining us. By chance I end up next to him on the way back down and, not really knowing what to say, I strike up casual conversation. He talks about visiting a long-lost cousin in Brazil after his service (their parents don't get along, but he feels family is too important, especially after having lost so much of it in the Holocaust), and he tells me he was a world class judo fighter as a youth, and hopes to teach it one day. He puts on a good face, but I take a couple glances at him when Elad stops us to tells us something along the way down, and as one would expect, you could see that he was completely torn apart. ___________________________________________________ At the Old City in Jerusalem the next day, I again have a chance to talk to Israel, and he tells me a little bit more about himself. He wanted badly to be a combat soldier, but has a shoulder injury from judo that disqualified him. His grandfather was killed in Russia for wanting to come to Israel, and as such he felt it was his duty to fight for the country: "I have to do it." He begins to discuss his friend: "My family and his family are all together, crying...my mother told me to stay on the trip, and mother knows best...when I heard, it was like a kick to the face, with an army boot." Again, I don't know what to say. ___________________________________________________ The more time I spend with Israel, the more I grow to like him (and I was far from the only one...he was very popular). He had an unbelievably obscene sense of humor, but behind it he was about as nice a person as you could meet. He laughs a lot, and makes people laugh a lot, and he clearly just loves being around people. He buys a woolen pancho in a market early in his stay and pretty much wears it nonstop until its end. During a free night in Jerusalem, he takes me and a friend from the trip to a restaurant called "Meat Burger" along with a couple of his friends; me and my friend finish off 250 gram burgers (about half a pound) but he puts us to shame by tearing through a 400 gram lamb burger, commenting on the manliness of the meal the whole time. When we are heading to the airport on the final leg of the trip, Elad gets a call and puts his phone up to the bus microphone. "Hi everyone, its your favorite pancho bear!" Israel wishes us safe travels and tells us one more time how happy he was to have met us all.

Sunrise on Tel Aviv

When our flight to Ben Gurion Airport departs, it is almost sunset in New York. I'm sitting next to a Haverford student who is on a separate birthright tour with her school. We start chatting and she turns out to be incredibly interesting to talk to...grew up in a mostly black neighborhood in Brooklyn, spent time in Indonesia working with women with AIDS, wants to design her own major around liberation theology. Naturally, the conversation turns to our respective trips, and our shared skepticism regarding their content, as well as our own biases. Some of this conversation is carried in unnecessarily hushed voices, as though we'd get in trouble if someone heard our topic of conversation. I have a sense that this might be the only conversation like this I have with another birthright traveler, and I definitely don't take it for granted. As we fly into Tel Aviv, the sun is coming up again, and though from the center isle I can't see the full view of Israel that my Bubbe told me about, the sliver I can see looks amazing, and I transition into 'wide-eyed traveler' mode for the time being. ___________________________________________________ At the airport we are introduced to Elad, our guide for the next ten days, and after a brief introduction by a staff person of Young Judaea (the organization running my specific tour) we quickly get on our bus and taken to the Negev, the desert covering southern Israel. We are taking an indirect route to the east to avoid areas near Gaza where Hamas has been shooting missiles. I feel like a schmo because I still can't figure out if our route went through the West Bank...I don't recall any checkpoints or other indicators but unless I was mistaken, Elad pointed out Jericho at a gas station. I ask him about it and he gives an answer about "two west banks" that I don't really understand, and when he shows us our route later at the grave of David Ben Gurion--'the architect of Israel'--the West Bank isn't shown on the map. ___________________________________________________ Elad is a charming, sharp, and genuine guy, and he quickly endears himself to all 30 members of the trip. During our drive south along the Dead Sea he plays us Israeli hip hop (I can say with complete confidence in my objectivity that Palestinian hip hop is considerably better) and takes us on a short hike in the afternoon. The Negev is pretty--at some point I'll throw up some pictures--and the 'you must love and support Israel' message is not being laid on us too heavily yet so it ends up as easily the most relaxing section of the trip. In the evening we head to a kibbutz (which sort of reminds me of a makeshift retirement village, only with playgrounds for kids) where members of our tour begin to get to know one another--it's by and large an amicable group of Jews, and with Young Judaea being one of the more progressive of the 25 or so agencies doing birthright, most of the group shares similar views. ___________________________________________________ I wake up at 2:30 the next morning and, after trying to get back to sleep for a couple hours, I decide to trek to the top of the kibbutz to watch the sun rise over the desert and practice my boxing technique for a while. The whole set up makes me feel sort of like Rocky Balboa, only terrible, and I appreciate to moment of solitude...soon we're all back on the bus together and heading to the 40-km Ramon crater for a long hike. On the way, we see a stray dog and a donkey playing together by the side of the road, which was not only unbelievably cute but was also the best example of co-existence I think I saw the whole trip. The hike is absolutely great. I spend a lot of it talking with an evaluator who has joined us to check up on our safety--I'm not sure how we could possibly be unsafe in the middle of a humongous crater, but anyhow, she's also had some experience with community development work and trying to change cycles of poverty in northern Israel, and we end up having a really good conversation. At the end of the hike, Elad shows us how the crater was formed using a roll from last night's dinner. ___________________________________________________ After visiting an especially odd dance school and later meeting a member of the impressive Ayalim (the "Rolls Royce of Zionism", an elite group of students dedicated to social service--clearly Young Judaea knows its audience), we head back to the kibbutz. After dinner and an evening activity, we're all out on the deck again, drinking and trading jokes along with our guard for the trip, a sweet young guy with a big smile, who ends up being a lot of fun to have around. In a field adjacent to the hotel, a different birthright group is being introduced to their soldiers the hard way (each group is accompanied by Israel soldiers for a few days during their trips): the soldiers are leading them in mock drills--push-ups, laps around the lawn, etc. Meanwhile, someone asks our guard to tell any Palestinian jokes he knows. "I don't have any jokes......They're dumb. I can tell you that they're dumb. And they smell bad. Not clean. When we arrest them, we don't enter their houses." I look back and the soldiers are now leading the other group in what looks to be team wheelbarrow races. Absolute absurdity.

Jumpoff

"They will not escape from one another. They will not find peace in treaties, or in victories. They will find it, if at all, by looking into each other's eyes." --David Shipler, "Arab and Jew" __________________________________________________ I am sitting in a hostel in Tel Aviv, feeling completely sapped and floating on my own after a ten-day Taglit-Birthright trip through Israel. Since I have several free days in Israel before having to figure out my way to Amman for further travels, I should have plenty of time to sift through my loads of notes and share my experiences and thoughts on the tour. Besides being a fascinating experience, birthright is a relatively minor--but still controversial--component of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the role played in it by the United States. I guess the best context I can provide for the hopefully coherent mass of text to follow is that I was often saddened and upset by the information the tour shared about the hardships of the Jewish people, and was equally saddened and upset by so many things that I know were not said about Israel's direct role in the hardships and oppression faced by many Palestinians. __________________________________________________ I still have mixed feelings about the idea of Zionism in and of itself that probably will remain mixed--everything is so complicated here--but I don't know if the concept is even worth debating at this point. I have, to be sure, learned not to doubt the genuine attachment to and passion for the state of Israel felt by its Jewish residents, and even felt a tinge of it myself on more than one occasion...it's an amazing and impressive country in many ways. In turn, even as an outsider, I was increasingly embittered by the need felt by many Israelis to regard Arabs who have long lived in what is now Israel as only a faceless 'other' that are only as important as their resistance to a state that was imposed on them--let alone by the predominant unwillingness of Israelis to face their own continuing misdeeds and injustices towards those who have called this place home since before the Zionist movement. It's not so much that I see Israel as the full fledged 'bad guy'--its people have been victimized too--as much as I see it as a country that has done a number of unquestionably unjust things over the last six decades but, atleast through the lens of birthright, appears too proud--almost fanatically so--to fully acknowledge them or reflect on them. The reasons for this approach are not so hard to explain (and the history, of course, is miles away from black-and-white) but, in my opinion, it is very hard to justify as righteous or productive. I don't pretend to be able to put myself in the shoes of anyone in this region, and I'm still very green on the dynamics here--I basically just have a lot of thoughts from the trip that I want to express from this nascent, but hopefully somewhat objective, perspective. ___________________________________________________ I should note that I really appreciated my time with the people I met on birthright and found the shared experience really fulfilling, even if my perspective on it was a bit different than most of my fellow travelers. I grew to respect and care for almost all of the Israelis I spent time with on a personal level, and in a way feel some guilt in criticizing the country about which they are so passionate. After I finish disseminating my birthright tour and the rest of my time in Israel, which will likely be far more than anyone wants to read but not enough to really say everything I want to say, I hope and expect the rest of my six-week trip will be far less heavy handed, and that I will be able to write about that as well. This is really supposed to be a vacation too.