Crystal Chen

Yunnan, China! – an email from 11/28/06

Crystal — Fri, 18 May 2012 06:38:25 +0000

4 Days in Yunnan Province of Western China

From Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, we flew over soft, mountainous terrain into the northern city of Lijiang. A white shuttle bus took us to Old Town Lijiang about 20 minutes away. Old Town Lijiang is a World Heritage sight and the primary reason visitors come to Lijiang.

A view of Lijiang Old Town from a hill at sunrise.

Old Town is where quite a few of the Naxi minority people live. They sell their trinkets by day and let out their homes to visitors at night. There are hundreds of guesthouses and inns to choose from in Old Town, so housing is never an issue here. The streets of Old Town are cobblestone and the houses made of wood in the Naxi style.

An earthquake which hit Lijiang in 1996 leveled a good chunk of modern Lijiang, but Old Town seemed fine. Clear streams run through much of Old Town via canals; there was an article on the plane which compared Venice to Old Town Lijiang…though I think that was a little bit of a stretch.

What I enjoyed most about Old Town was the attitude of the Naxi people. They are unpretentious people and singing and dancing, to them, is a natural part of life. Here and there, I could always hear a Naxi woman letting out a melody. The elderly Naxi women especially loved to dance together.

Naxi people dance in rings.

The weather was never very warm, a brisk 50 something degrees and particularly chilly at night. Despite it being low season, the streets were still filled with tourists; I wonder what spring and summertime are like here!

The next day, we booked a round trip van ride to Lake Lugu, which was 6 hours northeast

of Lijiang. Typically, a 6 hour ride can sound long, but bearable…for roads in decent condition!!!! Half of our trip was over unpaved road (made of cobblestone) with no safety guards to prevent our little van from falling 1000 feet or more down the mountainside. Our driver was a man who thought he was on a mission; he ripped around the winding turns just as quickly as a straight path and bypassed every vehicle which came in his way. We went up, down, and over 2 extremely high mountains and avoided various rocks which had dropped onto the road from above. The view was, of course, very beautiful, but a little hard to appreciate given the imminent risk of death.

The first descent after leaving Lijiang. Let’s begin our journey!

Homes we passed of the locals of Yunnan.

Finally, after much praying and screaming for help, we reached Lake Lugu, a clear high-altitude lake and home to the Muosuo minority people.

We were taken to an inn called Zhaxi’s House and checked in for the usual 50 RMB for a double room with private bath (that’s $6.41 USD). We walked about and noticed large white stone burners which honored the Mountain God.

A large rock mountain dominated most of Lige, the small ‘town’ where we were staying. Lige was more like a row of 10 wooden lodges along the lake and that was all.

In the afternoon, we noticed young women outside roasting baby pigs over basins of timber fires. Being low season, the town had a certain deserted feel to it. I would say in total, there were about 15-20 guests staying in Lige that night.

After dinner we met Zhaxi, the owner of our lodge, in his restaurant on the 2nd floor. He was a tall, handsome Muosuo man. An entire wall of the restaurant was dedicated to photographs of him. He had been a monk for 10 years (from ages 8-18, I calculated) in Taersi Monastery before deciding to return to mortal life.

Zhaxi, our dashing host.

He escorted us to the town’s little party at a nearby lodge where the young people danced Muosuo dances around a fire and sang Muosuo songs plainly for our amusement…though they looked like they were having some fun too.

Muosuo girls trying to stay warm between dances.

Ironically, the guests, most of whom were Han Chinese, engaged in a kind of competition with the Muosuo group…on who could sing their songs better and louder. The Han Chinese would belt out popular Mandarin pop tunes over the Muosuo young people’s traditional songs. Innocent though it seemed, I couldn’t help but think that it was all too indicative of what the Han Chinese have been doing and are doing best…

What is most distinctive about the Muosuo people is that, here, the women run the show. The Muosuo are the only, if not last, remaining matriarchal society in the world. Women own the property and the lineage runs down through the women’s side of the family. This system evolved after countless generations and it seems to work for both sides! Maybe we in the West should take a hint! Here is how it works: if a Muosuo man wants to marry a Muosuo woman, he begins to visit her every night. During the daytime, he is expected to work and earn his living as part of his mother’s household. If he has children with his wife, the wife raises the children with her household members (i.e. mother, sister, brother, mother’s brother). The man isn’t totally scott-free though, he has the duty of raising his sister’s children. Each household earns their own income. If the marriage breaks up for lack of love, there is no wealth or property to separate nor will their children experience any change in guardians. Fascinating. I could sense a little of the matriarchy by the way the young women behaved around men. They were friendly enough, but they also seemed a little on the haughty side. The young ones especially were conservative and didn’t commiserate with the men for too long.

Muosuo girls dressed up for photos.

Before we left Lake Lugu, we visited another small town, Luoshui, on the west side of the lake. Though more populated and commercialized, the scenery of the lake from here was even more beautiful than from Lige. I’m sure the sunrise here would have been fantastic! As I wandered around the shore, the locals were sitting in circles of a dozen people or so, playing cards and having a good time of it. Seemingly the best way to pass the time here…in a world where televisions and technology don’t mean much.

Tibetan prayer culture is found around Lake Lugu.

So there it is, the highlights of our trip to Yunnan. Hope you enjoyed it!

Beijing Impressions – an email from 11/16/06

Crystal — Fri, 18 May 2012 06:11:49 +0000

First Impressions of China

I arrived in Beijing, like any foreigner, with strange ideas in my head about what life might be like in a Communist country. I had seen from photos on the internet how modern and capitalist the cities had become, and yet, in my mind, from the many news reports I had read, I was sure the images I had seen were all “presented” and there would be destitution and despair just behind the facade.

And yet, my first impression of Beijing was very positive. Despite whatever may lay behind it, the first impression is always the first impression. The airport was incredibly modern and nothing less than of international standard. The highway to my university was smooth, well paved, and marked. It was lined with forests of tall and dignified trees, giving me a sense that things had always been this way. Signs were written in both English and Chinese. Even the campus of the Beijing Sport University looked clean, well-tended, and broad. My dorm room was very modern and clean, and the water which poured out from the modern bathroom was also hot and clean. Recalling all this in retrospect now, I’ve realized that this is exactly the first impression Beijing hopes all visitors will have arriving into the city, especially come 2008.

Daily Life

What do I see of daily life in Beijing? Construction on a primitive level is always taking place. Peasants in worn, street clothes wearing no helmets and sometimes no shoes are operating highly dangerous steel cutters. Construction is rarely taped off. I step away to avoid the embers falling on me.

I never knew what a brick of coal looked like until China. I never had even an inkling of the concept of energy usage until seeing here it at its most basic level. An old man pulls a wooden cart. Inside there are a hundred neatly stacked black, cylindrical bricks of coal. He pulls the cart down the street and sells the bricks to his regular customers. They store the bricks in stacks just inside the entrance ways of their homes and businesses. I see the bricks used to heat large, black woks set up on the sidewalk, or in a man’s cart. From those woks they sell the sweet potatoes that I sometimes buy. For roasted chestnuts, coals ground to the size of gravel are put in the wok and heated. The chestnuts are added and the man uses his shovel to stir the coal. From what I have seen in all the cities I’ve visited all over China, coal is still a very important means for survival for many people.

delivering coal on a gorgeous fall day. this guy is modern, he has a bicycle cart.

chestnuts being sold in front of Beijing’s High Tech Park

I have developed the habit of always bargaining in China. Despite the fact that my lunches and dinners are between 3-5 RMB (40-60 cents) and taxi rides to the city are 25 RMB (3 US Dollars), I always feel the need ask for a fair price. In the shopping areas in Beijing, merchants will quote all customers (Chinese and foreign) a price that is between double and triple what the item really should cost. If you don’t bargain, they figure everyone is happy with the price, especially them! Haggling a little about the price is a protection measure for me, just something to make sure that, as a foreigner, they can’t pull the wool over me so easily.

Smoking is rampant. When I am eating in a restaurant, a man is always smoking at the table next to me. Maybe four or five men are smoking at tables next to me. I can never taste what I am eating this way. The restaurant is always filled with smoke and the hostess must open the door at times to let the smoke out. When sleeping in the 2nd class trains, every 5 minutes, a man is smoking in the hallway and the entire train car smells of smoke. When I get home from the train station, my clothes smell like smoke. There is no avoiding second-hand smoke in China.

The sound of men and women, young and old, hawking phlegm, fills the air. They spit it anywhere. I’ve learned to avoid stepping in the mucous-saliva puddles on the sidewalks. Men and women pick their noses in public, vigorously. If it is not pickable, they will cover one nostril with a finger and blow out their noses as hard as they can until the offending item ejects/sprays out of their nose and onto the sidewalk. Some will do this over a trashbin out of courtesy.

But Beijingers, on the whole, are a simple group. They seek a simple, uncomplicated life. And in many respects, there is an innocence in their thoughts. They have the best intentions in mind. Why did the school clerk not give me a receipt for my purchase? Because he has it written down right there in his books of course! They don’t even imagine that things could be done otherwise; that they wouldn’t do the right thing. Maybe they believe that everyone else is doing the same. Is this their key to happiness?

I have one, genuine Chinese friend. He is on track to be a gym teacher, but he actually wants to be a businessman. The other day, he texted me his excitement about having the opportunity to join the Communist Party. He sounded so happy. He said he was very lucky and would now have a chance at a better job in the future. After my initial reaction, I was able to wish him good luck. He, like all other undergraduates, lives in a dorm room smaller than mine with 5 other bunkmates. They have a shared bathroom for the whole floor and the shower facilities are in an entirely different building and run only during specific hours.

typical BSU undergrad dorm

I have my own bathroom and hot shower in my room and can stay up whenever I please; their lights go out at 11:30pm. When he’s online, he messages me from the desktop computer that’s inside his bed. His bunkmates also have computers installed at the foot of their beds. Seeing my condition compared to theirs, I felt too spoiled.

My BSU International Student dorm

International students here. We are placed in our own dorms, taking our own classes in a separate building, and not informed of the university functions. Life for the Chinese students is not interrupted by our presence. It is likely the same situation for many international students in many universities around the world. I suppose some students enjoy the comfort and safety this provides; whereas, I am only chagrined at the lack of immersion. When living in a foreign country, I enjoy actively adapting to become one of the locals. China is the first country where I could not nor had the desire to do this. Sadly, for this reason, after 3 months of living here, I could not tap into this culture. I don’t understand, even on an intuitive level, how the Chinese people think and feel. In other countries, my lack of language ability did not hinder my ability to sense/pick-up the general vibe, but here, I feel I have nothing to grab on to.

Maybe the bleak, cold weather has affected my thoughts, but I can only guess they are thinking, “At every corner, everywhere I go, it is easy to see hardship. Best to do what is necessary to improve one’s condition. I don’t want to work all day for 60 RMB.”

a common vegetable market in Anhui province

a common crowd getting on Platform 6 for the train from Beijing to Hangzhou

A Daughter’s Wedding – an email from June 10, 2006

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 05:16:18 +0000

Aloha everyone,

Much thanks for your enthusiastic responses regarding my India Mails. My memory becoming pretty hazy, so it is time to send another one.

Love,

Crystal

The Wedding

The official wedding was scheduled for Thursday and Friday. Three major events occurred on these two days: 1) The exchange of rings between the boy and girl on Thursday night 2) the Muhurtham on Friday morning, which was the religious ritual portion of the wedding, and 3) the Reception on Friday evening. Unlike Western weddings, there are no rehearsals.

On Wednesday morning, which was bright and sunny, wedding preparations were already underway. A banana leaf veranda adorned with flowers was constructed in front of the bride’s home and the front door of the bride’s house was framed by giant garlands of flowers.

An auntie told me that just as the bride’s side was performing activities in her home today; the groom’s side was likewise performing activities in his home. The families on both the bride and groom’s side had been eating vegetarian for at least 15 days prior to the wedding. All the women on the bride’s side were now dressed in their finest silk saris of traditional design. The bride was dressed in a sari which reminded me of the colors of a sunrise. Of what I could gather, the bride asked for blessings from the altar of her grandparents and performed puja in their family altar room. A giant stone mortar was brought out into the kitchen and turmeric and other grains were pounded throughout the course of the morning in the kitchen by the women.

For some reason, the Bangle Fitting for the morning was a couple hours delayed. Once it commenced, the Bangle Dealer carefully fitted the bride with the glass bangles she would wear for the duration of the wedding while family members watched from either side. After the bride’s bangles were selected, each woman on the bride’s side was also fitted with glass bangles for the wedding. At some point during the fitting, the women on the boy’s side arrived to be fitted as well.

A catered lunch (where servers walk by placing portions of food on your ‘aak’) was then served on the rooftop of the bride’s home. The cooks had arrived and started preparing the lunch since the night before and all that morning.

That afternoon, before leaving for the Exchange of Rings, the bride and her party (including myself) walked from her home to a small temple nearby and asked for the priest’s blessings. From there, she hopped into a car decorated with roses to the Wedding Hall, the rest of us following in our own vehicles. The wedding hall was a vast room close to the size of a football field and housed a kitchen and dining area along with small rooms on the sides to accommodate the bride and groom’s families (segregated of course). This was the place where the rest of the wedding events would occur.

An instrumental group played Indian wedding music near the entryway where a bronze Ganesha sat to greet guests. A banana leaf enclosure for the events was constructed on the stage at the front. The bride’s clothing seemed to become more exquisite now, with more hairpieces and attachments, including a gold belt. Her sari reminded me of the bright blue sky.

Three hours after we arrived, the ceremony still had not started. Unfortunately, I was hit with an intense case of fatigue from jet lag and was driven home by my driver before the events began.

Friday Morning: the Muhurtham

The Muhurtham, no matter what, was to take place between 9:30 and 10:20 am as dictated by the astrologer at the time the wedding was arranged. This was the most auspicious time for the boy and girl to be wed and if it was missed, the whole wedding would have to be rescheduled until another auspicious time could be found. The boy’s side had gone to a nearby temple and I believe that during this time, it was the bride’s family who had to go and fetch him to keep him from “running away”.

Once he and his party walked in, the music seemed to become lively; he looked like a prince in his traditional clothing. He and his party walked to the stage and stood under the banana leaf enclosure, awaiting his bride. Members of the bride’s family held up a white cloth before his eyes to prevent him from seeing her. Once the bride arrived, they stood facing each other for quite a while while rituals by the priest took place. It was a feeling of being so close, yet so far! The bride’s sari was a pure white color with gold trim, the same as the grooms. The exact process of the wedding ritual requires a lot of further study on my part since there were many procedures involved. This included a lot of kum kum (the red powder which I will explain in another email) and bathing the feet of the bride and groom, and the parents of the groom. Eventually they were wed, rice was thrown on them, and well over 600 people queued up to shower each with flowers and pour milk over the coconut they were mutually holding.

The Reception

Between 1200-1600 people attended the wedding reception. For the newlyweds, that meant standing on the stage for at least 3-4 hours in front of the cameras and lights as a neverending queue of parties awaited their chance to have their photos taken with them. Srinath was moving about doing a marvelous job of managing the dinner and greeting guests. They had only anticipated 800-1000 guests and so there was a potential shortage of food; he had his hands quite full with that.

The guests had an easier time of it, chatting with friends and listening to Carnatic music, which enhanced the mood of the reception to a something of a lively and peaceful feel. Eventually, by 11 pm, the guests all left, some taking a favor which was a bag with a plantain, a leaf, and a coconut inside.

Describing the proceedings of this wedding alone took a bit of writing without much space for my personal reflection; there were so many levels and aspects which I did not describe. The religious significance and role played in this wedding for one, and the role of the bride’s family in this wedding. In a Hindu wedding, it is the bride’s family who pays all expenses for the wedding and arranges all details of the event, down to the utensils. I was told somewhat tongue-in-cheek, “All the groom’s family has to do is show up.” Most members of the bride’s close relatives participate in some way. Kavya and Danya told me the family’s “close relatives” include about 400 people; distant relatives are counted somewhere in the thousands. Maintaining such large ties requires a lot of caring, a lot of effort, and a lot of heart, all of which this family gave to me in ample abundance. With my time in India now fading into the past, their love remains as the most beautiful and tangible thing I will remember and keep with me for a long time to come.

South India: how to eat – a leaf, your hand, and love

Crystal — Fri, 18 May 2012 05:00:22 +0000

Hi everyone,

Another installment, so soon I know. It’s only a matter of time before I forget most of the details, so I thought I had better geta move on in sharing it with you folks!

Crystal

Eat, Drink, and do Mehndi

My increasing sensitivity to wasteful consumption is a result of the vegetarian diet I have been following for the past two years, that I know for sure. The practice has essentially opened a small, rare window through which I can glimpse a different scene from the immediate reality, a scene which yields a more personal understanding of the vast, vast amount of the Earth’s resources and creatures destroyed in order to satisfy such an inconsequential thing as the tastebud. Somewhere in the Bhagavad Gita (one of India’s ancient texts), it talks of taste being the most uncontrollable of the 5 senses of the material world. I am beginning to agree. What ordinary person can resist the offer of a glass of wine, a barbequed steak, and chocolate cake? But I digress. All of this leads to the actual topic: how I came to appreciate the earthy, ingenius, compassionate, simplicity of the Indian way of partaking food.

It all began with the leaf. The ‘aak’ as I learned it is called; a large, fresh green banana leaf cut cleanly to the size of a place setting. It is placed right on one’s table or on a steel plate. The aak is used in all dining occassions, from a casual meal at a’hotel’ (the Indian term for restaurant) to a sumptuous wedding banquet. Once placed in front of you, the general practice is that you take water from the cup, pour it into your cupped hand, and sprinkle the water over the aak to cleanse it. Use the fingers to rub the water about the aak, then hold up the aak and let the excess run off on to the table.

This is your plate.

Completely biodegradeable, beautiful, natural, still vibrating with the energy of life. From a reiki standpoint, this is important. And from an economic standpoint, no need for dishwashing. Scrap the hired dishwashers, pass the savings onto the customer. Krishna, an important Hindu god, asked his devotees to offer him a leaf, a fruit, a flower, and some water… so, it seems to go with the overall Indian psyche to have one’s meal on a leaf.

the aak on a steel plate

Your utenstils: your fingers

During mealtime at the Krishna temple, I would sometimes see some of the more “hardcore” devotees neglecting their spoons and eating with their right hand, the fingers becoming a gooey mess. This was natural for them; it was I who was out of place with my sterile plastic spoon. After some tries, I adapted and became comfortable using my right hand to eat the temple food. Thank God I did. Everyone in India eats with their hands. It is not a novelty gesture or an old custom or what not. No one thinks twice about it; this is just how to eat. The practice is to use your fingers to blend the curries in with the plain rice (and blend it well, I say!). Scoop a parcel of it to the mouth, and with a quick push of the thumb, you can consume it quickly and cleanly. I felt now, how many Americans feel when they are with a family of Asian descent at a Chinese restaurant. No one in the family thinks twice about using chopsticks, but to the non-Asian, it’s jarringly unfamiliar.

Food from hand to mouth. No need to cut down acres of bamboo, no need to mold tons of plastics or smelt metal. The body’s energy can interact with the food before it has even entered the body’s system. And the sticky fingers? All eating areas seem to have a conveniently located niche in the main room called the Hand Wash. Or, if you do not want to get up, pouring water from the steel cup over your fingers and into a dish is fine too.

First Evening

My first evening at the bride’s house in Bangalore, the aunties, children, bride and I were all sitting about the 2nd floor room having mehndi applied to our hands by two professional mehndi artists, one solely for the bride, and one for the rest of us. The boys, no older than 10, were jumping about and the the girls, of the same age range, were sitting together talking amongst themselves. One of the aunties, Tanuja, arrived in the room with a vat of what looked like pongal, soft rice flavored with spices. The children gathered round as she began to take the rice in her one hand and press it in such a way that it went from being a sticky glob to becoming a smooth, rounded egg of rice. The children would come from here and there, open their mouths, and she would pop the rice “eggs” into their mouths. Once a child finished his/her first mouthful, he/she would approach again and Tanuja would place another fresh-made egg into his mouth. I was fascinated by it all. It reminded me of the way a bird regurgitates her food and offers it to her peeping chicks in the nest. It struck me as such an endearing practice, food from hand to mouth. My only conception prior to this of how to feed a 6-year-old child, if one even did feed a 6-year-old child, was with a spoon or fork. This method was infinitely more intimate; perhaps one of the thousands of ways in which the close bonds of the Indian family are created.

Mehndi Time

The application of mehndi by the artist took about 10 minutes per person. In speaking with her, she said she began the practice 8 years ago; she also mentioned that it is something she never tires of. If the mehndi appeared too dry, we dabbed sugar water on it to dampen it so that it could continue to stain the skin. I was told I should sleep that night with the mehndi on my hands, after which I could wash it off in the morning and apply Vicks Vapor Rub on my hands to help it set. The bride’s mehndi, however, was applied on her forearms and feet as well as her hands. Her pattern was intensely intricate and her mehndi process took well over two hours.

With nothing to do but wait until everyone had their mehndi applied, I decided to engage the children by asking how to count to 10 in Telugu, one of the main local languages of Karnataka state. Suddenly, the boys and girls all began to crowd around me, teaching me the numbers and telling me how many numbers they knew. “I can count to 60 in Telugu!” proclaimed one boy. “I can count to 100!”, claimed another. From numbers, they moved on to talk of snakes and told fantastic stories. Each child was so excited to have his/her chance to speak that they sometimes began to speak before the other was done. It was as if, finally, an adult was listening to what they had to say. And they had plenty to talk about: animals, ghosts, their favorite Hindu gods (I enjoyed that particular conversation immensely). I began to become aware of the range of intellect among them. One small boy in particular was able to express himself more eloquently than the average American adult I thought.

By now it was nearly 10 o’ clock and, save the bride, we all (about 7 aunties and 10 kids) had mehndi on our palms. Even the boys had some on their left palms just for fun. I was called down to dinner, and, not having the use of my hands, an auntie I had never met before offered to hand-feed me with a spoon. I accepted the offer thinking about the hand-to-mouth practice I had seen earlier. Even when my memories began at two years of age, I have no recollection of having been fed by my mother or my aunties. The children in India, from what I had seen, will have clear memories of this. Despite looking completely ridiculous, I experienced the doting love that came with being fed by an Indian mother.

the results of my mehndi night

South India: the First Encounter – an email from June 2, 2006

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 04:00:08 +0000

The India Surprise

Though I’ve spent a bit of time these last 2 years exploring various aspects of Indian thought and culture, the semi-immersion in no way prepared me for what was South India. I say South India, because I did not venture any further north than Bangalore and they say that North and South India might as well be two separate countries. So my thoughts encompass the temperate and more fertile areas of four of India’s southern states: Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh (A.P.) and Tamil Nadu. Not to say that South India was overwhelming, but that, for all the years spent throughout my life with close Indian-American friends and, more recently, at the Krishna and Shiva temples in Oahu, I had only seen a fraction of one percent of the whole picture of what is India…such a rich, diverse, and multifaceted place as I have never seen…

Up until I set foot on her ground, India, in my mind, was a dreamland. It was a place of mystery located far off on some impossible point on the earth, perhaps a fantastic country created from a collective imagination. The reality is that Bangalore, one of India’s more internationally known cities, is a mere 4-hour flight from Bangkok. India does exist. I can even say that it exists on a higher plane of energy than most places on this planet. There is magic there and yet, it is still a country, a member of the international community with over 1 billion citizens. You can imagine the logistics behind supporting this sheer number of people; the bus stations, the trains, the construction, the one-lane roads clogged with at least five different modes of transportation spread across five millenia: bull carts, autorickshaws, bicycles, cars and trucks all moving side-by-side.

I arrived into Bangalore at midnight and therefore had the benefit of seeing the city nearly empty. The city had beautiful and large buildings of the British colonial style here and there, mature trees, and a even large lake. Either this was the remnants of British colonial rule or, the Indian sensibilities regarding urban planning and style had been influenced greatly by the British. Having seen Taipei and other Asian cities untouched by western influence, I was ready to see yet another Asian city devoid of Nature’s presence and wholly unaware of the concept of aesthetics. In Bangalore, this was not entirely the case, and I felt pleased.

The Servant Class

Srinath, along with some of his friends, had fetched me from the airport and brought me to a service apartment called the Naga Apartments.

My room was immaculately clean and included marble floors and a veranda overlooking the eastern part of the city, as well as something extra which I did not expect whatsoever, servants. Two of them lived in the centralized living space just outside the four rooms which made up the floor, including mine. They slept on mats at night and rose early in the morning to fulfill their duties, which included cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, and doing whatever I so desired. It was the very first time I was referred to as “the madame” or “madame”. How did I suddenly go from being a grad student in an entirely democratic country to being “the madame” who should suddenly have some kind of position to tell these people what to do and how they should do it? Waiters and waitresses at restaurants in the US function to serve, but they still have their identities, their dignity, and their right to be treated just as well as the next person once they’ve gone off duty; this was entirely different. These people seemed solidly ensconced in the world created for them. I was not to cross the line and I’m not so sure that they would have wanted me to either.

South Indian Food: an introduction

My first dawn in Bangalore/India, I listened to the whirly-whooping of a bird I had never heard before. I sat in my apartment hesistant to ask my cook, Bikram, for food, mostly because I had no idea what I could order. What do people in South India usually eat for breakfast? I was pretty sure there would not be cereal or oatmeal on the list of available foods. Fortunately Srinath arrived early enough to fetch me to his house and I was treated to a small meal by his mother which turned my mouth into a flaming inferno. South Indian breakfast foods, I later learned, consist mostly of the following (in order of what I felt to be most popular):

idly: a flat orb of fluffy cooked rice flour eaten with chutney or sambar.

dosai (“doh-sah”) a thin, slightly crispy bread rolled up like a pipe and over a foot long served with sambar and chutney.

pongal: (pictured left) a mild, slightly sweet rice mush eaten with sambar and chutney.

uthappam: most resembling a pancake and eaten with sambar and chutney.

Though, I believe they are not solely relegated to the breakfast category. I think these are foods which can be eaten at anytime of day and there are no broad restrictions (such as ordering a steak or pizza for breakfast). One thing which I couldn’t understand was why, when it’s sweltering hot out is the food that is served so very hot (both spicy and temperature-wise) and very heavy? Is it just a matter of hygiene and prevention of bacterial infection? For the Japanese readers, it is like eating “Japanese curry rice” in 38 C weather and “zaru soba” not even existing. Or for American readers, something like eating Shepards Pie in 90 F degree weather.

More to come in the next segment.

Crystal