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March 03 Qara Koz, the Enchantress of FlorenceFeeling tired (of life) and depressed (because of lack of meaning in life) yesterday I came across thes passages in the Salman Rushdie's new book, The Enchantress of Florence. Oh, I know how this feels.
(Qara Koz is the Enchantress of Florence, a Mughal princess that followed her lover a great Florentine-born warrior from Turkey to Florence. This is her first night in a new place.)
As for Qara Koz, however, when the door closed behind her and her Mirror she found herself unexpectedly drowning in a flood of existential dread. These sadnesses came over her from time to time, but she had never learned to be on her guard against them. Her life had been a series of acts of will, but sometimes she wavered and sank. … This was the inevitable consequence of having chosen to step away from her natural world. The day she refused to return to the Mughal court with her sister Khanzada she had learned not only that a woman could choose her own road, but that such choices had consequences that could not be erased from the record. She had made her choice and what followed, followed, and she had no regrets, but she did, from time to time, suffer the black terror…. She had perfected the arts of enchantment, learned the world’s languages, witnessed the great things of her time, but she was without family, without clan, without any consolations of remaining within one’s allotted frontiers, inside her mother tongue and in her brother’s care. It was as if she was flying above the ground, willing herself to fly, while fearing that at any moment the spell might be broken and she would plummet to her death. February 16 A new dimension to Slow-nessMy concept of 'slow' has received a new dimension after a three hour layover at Johannesburg airport (South Africa).
Yesterday, I was flying from Hong Kong to Sao Paulo. I arrived at Johannesburg airport at 6:15 am and left for Brazil at 10:25 am. And all I managed to do in three plus hours is to have two cups of coffee and buy one t-shirt. The service was SO slow that I cannot imagine how that country is holding together.
I was nearly expecting the South African Airlines plane to fly at half-speed, but luckily, the laws of aerodinamics are the same all around the world, and the S Africans had to comply with them. January 30 Cool Chinese: awake to the emptiness of lifeHere is why I find the Chinese language so fascinating.
I came across a word that, in two characters, describes one of the key ideas of Buddhism. This word is 悟空 (wu4kong1).
Character 悟 means “to apprehend, realize, become aware”
Character 空 means “empty, hollow, bare, deserted”
Together, these characters form a word 悟空 that means “awaken to emptiness, to the nihility of life”.
I found this word when I came across a text of the Journey to the West, a classical Chinese novel (1590s), in Chinese, for the first time. Sun Wukong 孙(孫)悟空 is the original name of the famous Monkey King as he is known to the West. (the “Sun” part is something to do with his monkey-ness.). When I looked up the word 悟空 in the dictionary, I thought it was extremely 酷 (ku4) – “cool”, “great” :-).
mystic Russian soulA good friend wrote to me in reply to the “old diary” entry: "I think it is healthy to look back to the past, but it is unhealthy when it starts closing out today, and tomorrow : “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”.
Optional, but not for all. Some souls do not exist without suffering :-) For these, suffering, not happiness, is what makes life meaningful.
Google search on “suffering” + “Russian soul” brings you to Wikipedia which has an entry called Russian Soul (Russian: Русская Душа; also great Russian soul, mystic Russian soul). And here we go:
Sentimentality, sensitivity and guilt are general characteristics of the Russian soul. According to Dostoevsky, "the most basic, most rudimentary spiritual need of the Russian people is the need for suffering, ever-present and unquenchable, everywhere and in everything" (hear that, Wouter?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_soul
And indeed, why else would Russians patiently endure all the hardships that fell on them during the last few centuries (slavery under the Tsar, communism, WWII, Stalin, chaos of the “new economy” and, most recently, the new dictatorship under the new government).
Reading further, “The Russian soul has been described as: sensitive, revere, imaginative, an inclination to tears [but not publicly], compassionate, submissive mingled with stubbornness, patience that permits survival in what would seem to be unbearable circumstances, poetic, mysticism, fatalism, a penchant for walking the dark, introspective, sudden unmotivated cruelty, mistrust of rational thought, fascination - the list goes on.
I am feeling Russian again :-). But perhaps this applies to ANY human soul?
January 28 恭喜发财！Welcome the Year of Ox! Some explanations due with this photo...
First, I am holding a Chinese ancient weapon (a modern imitation of it!) called 关刀 "guan dao" which was supposedly introduced by a legendary Chinese General Guan Yu. Guan Yu's mask is on the Ox's face - this is how a Chinese traditional opera mask could look like, and this face is how Guan Yu would be portrayed in the old paintings or statues, always together with guan dao.
The Ox (as in "the year of Ox") is standing this week at a small square opposite my appartment building in Sheung Wan.
The photo is taken last Saturday, when sifu and the other students were returning from a Saturday afternoon training session - we had tea and snacks at a nearby restaurant and decided to have a small photo session with the Ox.
Finally, the story about me and guan dao: I have been practicing a guan dao form for a couple of months already, and am getting ready for a performance at HKU on 8 February. I keep it at home, and every night after work I go over the form several times on the rooftop of my building. I just cannot go to do a performance feeling I have not trained enough... it's tough, but a lot of fun, too. I am gradually getting into the martial spirit, and watching Chinese costume dramas (like: Curse of the Golden Flower - Jay Chow has a good guan dao performance in it; Red Cliff II - since it is out in Hong Kong right now) helps a lot. I am starting to realise that martial arts performances are artistic as they are athletic.
January 20 from an old diaryjust found my diary of three years ago, and a record made on 25 March 2006:
"When you give someone your whole heart, and he doesn't want it, you can't take it back. It's gone for ever". - how much LONGER??!!! December 29 Return to Sri LankaThis trip was a comeback – to myself of five years ago. Five years ago, in Sri Lanka, I lost faith in love. Five years ago my lover saw me off to the Kandy train station and we said our goodbyes. I have not seen him again. It felt like falling from the top of the Mount Everest to the bottom of the Grand Canyon; it was a painful transition from being madly in love to being abandoned by my lover.
And it was in Sri Lanka five years ago where I slowly started to find my way out of the Canyon. Desperate, deranged and not really “there”, I went to visit the Kandy’s Tooth Temple, the largest Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka, and, in their book shop, opened a random book which said, in the first chapter: “This, too, shall pass”. I started feeling better.
The book was talking about impermanence, pain that comes with attachments to things, people and desires, and about how to learn to overcome these through taming our monkey mind. For the remaining of my stay in Sri Lanka I sat in seaside bungalow reading chapter after chapter and meditating to the sound of the sea waves.
It was a Buddhist text for beginners. For the next six months, I read nothing but Buddhist texts. From my seaside bungalow, I went to a Buddhist book centre near Colombo, to buy more books; and kept buying them when I was back home in London.
I was still at the bottom of the Canyon during these months. Exotic destinations in South America did not provide enough distruction for the mind; I remember lying on a beach in the North Chile and thinking, will this pain ever go? And, if not, would it be easier to finish with the life right there?
For these six months, I have kept the Buddhist text close to me, taking them as drugs. I remember sitting on a long-distance bus going from North Chile to Salta in Argentina and keeping an orange colored book on my knees, using every stop to read a chapter or two.
I remember very well when I smiled for the first time at the end of these six months. This was the first day which I lived through without crying. Soon, I was able to read other books… but the Buddhist interest have remained with me ever since.
And, for the last couple of years, I felt that I needed to go back, to the days and places where it started. (Or ended, depending on what you are talking about.) So last week I went back to Sri Lanka.
Upon landing on a beach (the Colombo airport is only 20 min drive from the Negombo beach), I felt that I needed to leave the sun and the heat of the coast for my next destination – Kandy – as quickly as possible. I felt I needed to see the Kandy temple again. Once in Kandy, I went near it, saw all the pilgrims (and tourists) going in and out and… did not go in. I thought that idol worshipping is not what Buddhism is all about. I thought these people were wasting their time. I visited into the Buddhist Publication Society bookshop on the lakeside, and bought a few books. I felt my Kandy visit was completed.
Despite what you may read in a guidebook, Kandy is a noisy town, and the only peaceful place for me there was the Kandy lake (with its surroundings which make you feel as if you are in Switzerland). Walking around the lake, I felt the tears and anger coming back; I felt pity for myself of five years ago. And I tried to bury any bitterness that I still retained in me at the bottom of the lake.
From Kandy, I planned to go to Nuwara Eliya, a former British “hill station”, to spend Christmas in the atmosphere of the old England and amongst tea plantations. After that, I had three more days before my flight back, and uncertain plans to spend them on a beach. But in Kandy, I called Cathay Pacific and moved forward my return date by three days. Lying on a beach always seems like a good idea to me, until I actually arrive there and start dying of boredom. This time, I realized that already in Negombo, on my first night.
And, frankly, in Sri Lanka I missed Hong Kong; I missed China.
St Andrew’s Hotel in Nuwara Eliya is everything you need if you want to experience an English Christmas in the middle of Asia. I booked a car to go to Hatton’s Plains National Park for a day, because I was curious see a natural wonder that is called “the World’s End”. This matched my mood exactly J I was counting hours to the boarding of the Cathay Pacific flight back to Hong Kong.
However, the way home was rather long and exhausting. I left Nuwara Eliya at noon on the 25th of December, and landed in the Hong Kong airport on the noon of 26th December. In between, there was a seven hour bus ride from Nuwara Eliya to Colombo, an hour and a half bus ride from Colombo to Negombo, a taxi ride from Negombo to the Airport Garden Hotel where I had dinner before finally leaving for the airport at eleven o’clock at night. My flight didn’t take off until 1:45 am in the morning, so there was a heavy-eyed wait at the airport but a tea shopping spree in the Duty Free area helped to pass the time. And, finally, a seven hour overnight flight to Hong Kong.
PS. So, why was I so unhappy in Sri Lanka? May be I was hoping that, by returning to the place where I was wounded, somehow I can un-do the past, un-do the wounding, so that no scars remain. And I am now trying to accept that this is not possible, and I have to live with these scars for the rest of my life. And the only solution is to learn to forget about them.
October 23 What I learnt at Shaolin
This month, I spent five days at Shaolin in Henan Province, China, training at the Shaolin Wushu Guan 少林寺武术馆. The Wushu Guan is the government kung fu school at the Shaolin Temple, and it provides kung fu performances at the Temple and outside it, even outside China. Anyone can come to train there, provided they can pay their way (but only RMB 50 per hour, with a minimum of four hours training per day). One little complication, they only speak Chinese…
Every day I would do basic training 基本功 followed by sword training 剑术. During my spare time, I would walk around Shaolin, sometimes hiking in the mountains, sometimes visiting nearby temples.
The place can be very touristy during the day, but is very peaceful and contemplative after the visiting hours. The monks would leave their Temple jobs to go home to nearby villages; the Chinese tour groups would have a noisy, alcohol-fuelled dinner at the Shaolin restaurant, then go back to their tour bus and leave; darkness and silence would cover everything. The window of my room was on the mountain side, and, once the darkness fell, there was not a spot of light outside. I slept with the curtains open and woke up with the first rays of light lost in the morning fog.
What I learnt in Shaolin
October 17 Do you get up? I've found another wonderful quote that relates so well to the insecurity currently experienced by all - well, at least by all living in the "bubble" of the Western world of industrialised countries, living beyond their means/on credit and now facing the bills to pay - for the first time. Yes, that's my cynical view on this "global financial crisis" - I see it as rather as a market correction, or return to common sense. Here comes a quote that may help you to see the light :-) It worked for me more than once. It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up. Vince Lombardi October 12 Performance on 28 Sept in Hong Kong July 13 A true Kung Fu Master is one who never figthts, but always practicesI am reading a book by David Carradine, the actor who plays Bill in the Kill Bill movie. I didn't know, but he is an old kung fu guy, and a star of the very first Western kung fu TV show "Kung Fu" (1972-1975). Some quotes from his book, the Spirit of Shaolin. On the use of kung fu for self-defense and fighting: A true Kung Fu Master is one who never fights, but always practices. … In the practice of real kung fu the subject and the object are the same thing – oneself… there is no opponent, or, perhaps more importantly, there need be none. … As far as self-defense goes, the confidence and insight which comes with gaiing the knowledge of one’s own body will turn away all but the most determined efforts at agression with ease. There is no real need for violent action. One very important aspect of proficiency in kung fu and in all phases of life is purposefullness – the ability to act deliberately rather than artibrarily. Most of us spend our lives in random fashion, reacting to simuli without thinking, as though we were chemicals in a compound, instead of creatures of free will. Kung fu teaches us to choose, to have the power to see all the alternatives and to act according to our own wills rather than on the whims of other people or events. This power is much more useful for self-defence than are mere kicks and punches. "He who knows he has enough is rich"...said Lao Tzu. July 06 Russian Wushu Head Coach speaksexcepts from the interview with Gleb Muzrukov, the head coach of the Russian National Wushu Team source: http://www.expert.ru/printissues/russian_reporter/2008/13/interview_vostochnye_edinoborstva (10 April 2008) (translated by me) А как ушу оказалось в России? How did wushu come to Russia? В СССР, как известно, восточные единоборства были под запретом. К тому же страна была закрытая, и идеи извне в нее проникали с трудом. Но где-то в начале 1980−х годов наш известный тренер Гусейн Магомаев уже преподавал один из видов ушу — тайцзицюань, которому его научил один уйгур. В Союзе на территории Киргизии и Казахстана были китайские деревни, где жили дунгане — китайцы, говорящие по-китайски, но пишущие русскими буквами. Что-то пошло от них. Но в основном энтузиасты подпольно занимались по книгам, привезенным с Запада. As you know, all Oriental martial arts were prohibited in the USSR. Besides, it was closed country, and it was very difficult for any ‘outside’ ideas to penetrate. However, in 1980s our famous coach was already teaching taijiquan, which he learnt from an Uygur guy. In the USSR, in the Kirgyz and Kazakh republics there were Chinese settlements whose inhabitants also helped to bring some of the Chinese martial arts into the USSR. But most people were training undercover using books imported from theWest. В 1985 году я как раз устроился работать в Институт Дальнего Востока (ИДВ) РАН СССР. Началась перестройка. И вот волею судеб мне в руки попала изданная в Пекине тамошним Институтом физкультуры книжка с базовыми упражнениями ушу. Мы с друзьями стали по этой книжке заниматься. Открыли подпольную секцию. И так получилось, что к нам пришел заниматься сын советника Горбачева — академика Абела Аганбегяна. Я подумал: а ведь это — шанс легализовать ушу в Союзе. In 1985, when perestrojka started, I started working at the Institute of the Far East Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. By chance, I got hold of a book on wushu basic training published by the Beijing Institute of Physical Education. My friends and I started training using this book, and we also opened an undercover (secret) martial arts school. We happened to have among our students a son of Abel Aganbegian, then advisor to Mr Gorbachov. I saw it as a chance to legalise wushu in the Soviet Union. Сын Аганбегяна устроил нам аудиенцию у своего отца. Тот нас послушал и говорит: «Но карате же запрещено!» Я ему: «А я и не предлагаю карате. Я предлагаю культивировать китайскую гимнастику ушу как элемент советско-китайского культурного обмена». Это был хитрый ход с моей стороны — тогда советское руководство как раз начало искать точки сближения с КНР. И Аганбегян согласился: только, говорит, давайте без спаррингов, кулаков и всего такого. Я, конечно, не возражал — важно было принципиально сломать запрет. Аганбегян говорит: «Пишите письмо на имя Горбачева». Я написал, оно через Аганбегяна пошло наверх, и все завертелось. Aganbegian’s son arranged a meeting for us with his father. He said “but karate is illegal!’ I said, “I am not talking about karate; I am offering to promote Chinese wushu gymnastics as part of the China-USSR cultural exchange”. It was a shrewed move as, at the time, the USSR were seeking to get closer ties with People’s Repulic of China. And Aganbegian agreed, on a condition that there wouldn’t be fights, sparring etc. I did not object, what was important was to lift the ban on martial arts in principle. I wrote a letter to Gorbachov, Aganbegian helped to move it to the right places, and we kicked off. Хотя, конечно, по тем временам это было очень опасно. Была же статья 219 УК РСФСР, прямо запрещающая занятия карате. Когда я открыл первую секцию при ИДВ, в газете «Труд» появилась статья на целый разворот под заголовком «Карате под маской ушу». Ко мне пришли из Прокуратуры СССР и из ОБХСС, и спас меня тогда только случай. Вскоре я создал Федерацию ушу СССР. Наша первая школа при ИДВ называлась Центр изучения оздоровительных систем Дальнего Востока. Естественно, все, кто подпольно занимался карате, хлынули туда. Так все и началось. Although at these times it still was dangerous. There was a specific article in the Criminal Code which prohibited karate training. When I opened the first wushu school, one of the central newspapers published an article “karate masqued as wushu” and I received many unwanted visitors, but chance saved me. Soon I created the Russian Wushu Federation. All undercover karate practitioners came to our school. This is how we began. В 1989 году мне удалось съездить на полтора месяца в Китай. Приняли нас радушно, отвезли в пекинскую школу ушу, представили тренеру. Я и семь бывших со мной учеников прошли там подготовку, получили дипломы инструкторов по ушу, вернулись в Союз и начали преподавать уже более-менее системно и профессионально. In 1989 I and my seven students spent 1.5 months in the Beijing Wushu School. We got certified as wushu instructors there and afterwards we have been training on a professional level. Китайцы как раз в то время начали создавать Международную федерацию ушу. В 1991 году под ее эгидой прошел первый чемпионат мира. Мы к нему подошли уже с полноценной командой и заняли шестое место. Сейчас Международная федерация ушу объединяет более 100 стран, а мы входим в тройку сильнейших: Китай, Вьетнам и Россия. То есть даже Гонконг с Макао позади нас. Хотя выступают за эти команды те же самые китайцы. At that time the Chinese set to establish the World Wushu Federation and conducted the 1st wushu tournament in 1991. We came 6th in that. Nowadays there are more than 100 countries in the Federation, and we are among top three (China, Vietnam and Russia). Even Hong Kong and Macao are behind us. Занимались мы на Херсонской улице в Москве, в здании школы легкой атлетики, 13 лет находившемся в состоянии ремонта. Я ушел из института, потому что совмещать его с тренировками стало невозможно. Тогда время было такое — появился шанс заработать много денег, купить квартиру, машину. Большинство так и делали. А я свои первые деньги — 7 тысяч рублей — вложил в школу. И машины у меня не было до 93−го года, пока я не купил себе «Оку». Потом пришла комиссия и удивилась: «Как это так — школа больше десяти лет ремонтируется, из пяти этажей сдан один, и там дети занимаются?» В результате меня сделали директором всей школы. У нас появился постоянный зал, мы положили там ковер, нарисовали шаолиньскую фреску, сделали душевые, и к нам стали приходить ученики. Занятия были бесплатными. Вот из этих детей и выросли наши первые чемпионы мира. We trained at a sports school building on Herson Street in Moscow. I left my job at the Far East Insitute, because I could not manage it with the full time training. My first real money – 7 000 roubles – I invested in the wushu school. (I didn’t have a car until 1993). A statutory commission came to inspect the school building and found out that it was being repaired for the last ten years. They eventually made me the director of the wholel school bulding and we have secured a permanent training hall. We laid a carpet, made shower rooms and started to receive our first real students. Training was free of charge. These were our first world champions. Так за какие-то пять лет, прошедшие с момента снятия полного запрета на восточные единоборства, мы стали к началу 90−х годов одним из лидеров мирового ушу. И остаемся им по сей день. Когда мы регулярно стали привозить медали с международных чемпионатов, на школу обратило внимание государство. И сейчас мы не бедствуем: тренер получает у нас официальную зарплату более 90 тысяч рублей. In mere five years, from lifting of the ban on the Oriental martial arts training, to early 1990s, we have become one of the world leaders in wushu, and we remain it till now. When we started to bring back medals from the world tournaments, the government has finally noticed us and started to support. Nowadays, a wushu coach receives over 90 000 roubles per month. Но ведь в Россию ушу пришло позже, чем в большинство стран мира. Чем можно объяснить такие успехи? If wushu came to Russia much later than to most of other countries, how do you explain such success? У нас сложилась своя тренерская школа. Если почти во всем мире пошли по пути приглашения китайских специалистов, то я начал воспитывать своих, российских тренеров. И сейчас у нас есть тренеры такого уровня — например, заслуженный тренер России Татьяна Куприянова — что, скажем, национальная сборная Казахстана перестала ездить в Китай и в прошлом году подписала контракт с нами: они теперь будут тренироваться в Москве. Здесь же, у нас, тренируется спортсмен из сборной команды Англии, приезжают финны, итальянцы. We have our own coach community. In most other countries, they have Chinese coaches, but I started to develop our own. We now have coaches of such high level that some wushu teams (eg Kazakhstan national wushu team) has stopped training in China and will now train in Moscow. We also have athletes from England, Finland, Italy training here. У нас и школы свои успели сложиться. Сильнейшая в стране школа мужского саньшоу — дагестанская. Она дала сборной удивительных ребят. Например, Муслим Салихов, завоевавший в профессиональных боях титул «короля китайского саньда» (свободных поединков в полный контакт), — первый в истории некитайский чемпион. В Китае его на улицах узнают. Еще бы, высадил всех китайских профессионалов! We also have our own successful schools. The strongest sanshou school in the world is Dagestan’s. For example, Muslim Salikhov, who has been crowned as the “king of Chinese sanda” is the first non-Chinese champion in history. They recognise him on the streets in China. Или Джанхуват Белетов, недавно награжденный в Кремле национальной премией «Золотой пояс» в номинации «За волю к победе». Парень в 1/8 финала чемпионата мира сломал руку. Ему наложили гипс. А он ночью его разгрыз, снял, пришел на четвертьфинал и победил. А потом победил в полуфинале и в финале. Со сломанной рукой выиграл три схватки и стал чемпионом мира! Победил китайца, иранца и египтянина — самых сильных спортсменов — одной рукой, левой. Or Dzhanguhvat Beletov, who in the 1/8th of the World championship had his hand broken. His hand was put in a cast. Overnight, he took it off, came to the quarter-final and won the fight. Then he won in the semi-final and final – a Chinese, Iranian and Egyptian opponents – the strongest ones – with one left hand. У нас вообще нормальная национальная сборная. В том смысле, что, к примеру, национальные сборные США, Канады, Аргентины, Малайзии, Индонезии, Сингапура состоят сплошь из этнических китайцев. Они наряду со сборными Китая, Гонконга, Тайваня (тоже все, естественно, китайцы), а также Вьетнама и Японии и есть наши основные конкуренты. На олимпийский турнир в Пекине российские спортсмены полностью выбрали всю национальную квоту — восемь мест. В действительности прошли десять человек, но двоих нам самим пришлось убрать. А из остальных европейцев квалифицировались только двое: итальянская спортсменка Сю Хуйхуй из китайской провинции Сычуань и англичанин Ричард Дивайн, который тренируется в России. We have a true
national team, in the sense that, for example, the national teams of USA,
Canada, Argentina, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore all consist of mainly ethnic
Chinese. These teams along with the China,
Hong Kong, Taiwan
teams (also all Chinese) and Vietnam
and Japan
are our main competitors. For the Olympic tournament in Beijng all our athletes
(ten) have qualified to participate in the tournament. From other European
teams, only two athletes qualified: an Italian athlete who is a Chinese girl
originally from Sichuan, and an English guy
who trains in Russia.
June 23 Woman travelling solo in PakistanI have been asked, numerous times, why I like to travel in Pakistan, and how I feel there, travelling by myself. Here are Q&As I prepared after my first trip to Pakistan Q What kind of clothes should I be wearing? A Salwar kameez, or its approximation, with LONG sleeves, and dupatta (as a veil or as dupatta on your shoulders, see below). I hate salwar trousers, so I was wearing my usual lose fitting long trousers which would roughly match the colour of kameez. Kameez should be with long sleeves, and preferably tailor made (ie not bought ready made from the market). As I see it, we women feel more confident and more comfortable if we like the way we look so I'd make sure that my kameez fits me well and is of a colour that my skin can stand. Finding a fabric that more or less feels natural AND the colour goes well with white skin was a challenge: bazaars were full of clothes of wild colour combinations which felt very much polyester-ish. So, for my next trip Ive decided I'll bring my own fabric but will leave the tailoring to the Pakistani tailor, its cheaper, and they know better how a proper kameez should look like. Most tailors will make you the full set in a day. It cost me Rs120 for kameez only, Rs150 kameez with an embroidered front (I bought embroidery separately). It should cost more with salwar, but not much more. The fabric cost me under Rs 200 for kameez only, but there is a wide range of prices (silk is more expensive). (100 Rs is roughtly 1 EUR - see how cheap it is!) Q Do you have to cover your hair all the time or are there some places or situation where it's not needed. A YES, in 90% of cases. In some areas of Hunza, namely Karimabad, I wasnt wearing a veil because there were (relatively) many tourists in town and the Hunza people belong to Ismaili Muslims which is a relatively liberal tradition. Still, I advise to follow the dress code that the local women adopt, and with exception of several women in Islamabad, all others were wearing a hijab - a veil covering the head. I interpret it this way: back home in Europe or America, you dont appear in public without covering your breasts? Wearing the veil in an Islamic country is the same principle with slight difference in details. Dupatta/veil is a symbol of your modesty, and modesty is the biggest virtue of a woman  As I understand, the rule for local women is that the only acceptable body parts that can be exposed to the public are: feet and hands; sometimes face. Follow this rule and you there is no reason why you should not be treated with the same respect as the local women enjoy. I have never covered my face, only hair and the neck, but I did develop a habit of pulling a veil to cover some of the face also when I find myself walking through a busy junction or through a crowd of people (usually men). The veil protects you from dust, sun and stares. Q In what for kind of hotels/guest houses have you slept?( budget or the more expensive ones). If you slept in budget, did you feel safe in the room. A I mainly stayed in hotels from Rs 250 to Rs 400 per night, except for a couple of places. The hotels (unfortunately) were barely occupied, at most 30% of their capacity. The main occupiers were foreign budget travellers (that just reflects the way I picked places to stay) and there was NO reason for me at all to feel unsafe. No one was trying to get into my room. One place though in Lahore was a hotel which I picked because the guidebook recommended, Internet Regale Inn, was full, and the hotel I picked (next door) was more expensive at Rs 1,000 and catered primarily for the Pakistani tourist or business visitor. And, on my second and last night there I discovered that I had mice in my room, and I did feel unsafe for this one night (I then switched the A/C on to scare them off - and slept well until the morning when I left the hotel and the city). In Mingora, where I decided to stop for the night, on my way from Chitral to Peshawar, completely on impulse, I was greeted by local policemen immediately when I got off the bus. I was probably the only foreigner visiting the city that time. Policemen wanted to know where I was going to stay and for how long - for my own safety I gather. One policemen got into an auto-rickshaw with me and went the hotel, and he was there until I agreed on the room price - he even went to check the room! Imagine my bargaining power when I had police on my side Later that evening in Mingora I went out to the bazaar to have a meal and people were greeting me Are you Russian and my friend the policeman was also on the bazaar - I felt like I had a lot of friends in Mingora, even if I only arrived and was leaving the following morning. No need to mention that I felt very safe in that hotel Q As a woman yourself, have you been able to meet and talk to some Pakistani women, or is it something just impossible. A First of all, more often than not I was the only woman on the street. In more liberal places, like Hunza, yes, I met women. I would also often travel with other women on a bus (they put all women together, on the front seat with the driver or on the second row). Unfortunately women that I met, except for two school girls in Lahore, did not speak English and I don't speak any of Pakistani languages. Female education still leaves much to be desired! So, most of the time, we had to use sign language, and I even managed a 15 min conversation using this sign language during a walk with a Hunza lady in Passu village. I also met some female relatives of my guide in Passu, and sisters of some Pakistani men who invited me to their houses for lunch. But I had to communicate with them through their men I should say that Pakistani women were eager to speak to me, and were getting very excited seeing a Western woman in veil . Q How is it to take photographs of the people there? I'm a photographer and normally knows how to deal with the people when I want to take some pictures of them . Many Muslim people just don't allow it, but how was it in Pakistan and especially if it is a woman who is taking photographs. Do you have any experience with it? A I have very few photographs of women but many - of men and children. Even in Hunza women were reluctant to have their pictures taken. Men and children, they loved having their pictures taken, except for one or two - some of them would even ask me to take their picture. See my photo link. Q Was it OK to travel at night in the train or bus and to arrive as lone woman in a city at night. A I think the general consensus is to AVOID travelling after dark. Only once I did arrive at my destination at night (half past midnight), on the bus trip from Gilgit to Chitral which took approx 16 hrs and was done as one day trip (but you can split it into two if you wish). I was worried that my hotel will be closed, so one of the guys on the bus (travelling with his wife so he naturally took care of me, another woman on the bus, also) invited me to stay in their house but I said no, thank you, hotel should be OK. But it wasnt, it was closed, and the bus driver could not wake up the hotel staff. So, the driver said I know another hotel and took me to the hotel in which he was staying himself, and got me a room there. Q Is it considered rude for a woman to start a conversation with a man? (I'm normally a very sociable person who really enjoys the contact with the locals) A I also enjoyed very much contact with locals - and for that reason I preferred to travel by public transport, walk in bazaars and eat street food. And I didnt have to start a conversation myself, unless I needed to ask for information. Locals were very curious seeing a white woman travelling alone and wearing local clothes and a veil, so they usually started by asking me if I was working in Pakistan (which pleased me enormously, by the way). You also should take into account that, in the places where I travelled, even including Lahore, English is not widely spoken, and is spoken by the educated classes. By people who know how to approach a foreigner without being intrusive (ie there is none of this Which country Wherere you goingstuff hmmK). Being a single traveller, you have much better chances of a conversation with a local, I think you know it already. June 08 Gilgit: one man's mission to save the worldI arrived in Gilgit by bus from Hunza. The bus stopped in the town centre, off the Airport Chowk… I had no idea how to get from here to my guest house. So I asked the very first shopkeeper I see for “NLI Chowk” who immediately stopped a motorbike and told the driver (pointing at me): “NLI Chowk”. I climbed the bike, with my backpack on one side and my handbag on the other. I grab the guy by his shoulders and off we go. And I thought, this surely was breaking every local custom I can think of. For a short time, we became the centre of attention of the Airport Chowk. I was cool about it, “you can stare as long as you don’t throw stones at me”. The bike finally reaching the NLI Chowk, I told the driver “Madina Guest House” and I saw the familiar green iron gate. Such was my arrival at Madina this time. Mr Yaqoob, the guest house owner, was at the reception. He looked at me and said “you have been here before”. I do remember him, but how can I expect him to remember me, almost four years and hundred (thousands?) guests later. But such is Mr Yaqoob, he puts you as a centre of attention, he cares about you as if he was your immediate family, and you never forget how, in the middle of such culturally and physically challenging place as Pakistan, you suddenly feel at home in his care. That night I was too tired to do much except to arrange a trip to Fairy Meadows, with departure early in the morning of the following day. I woke up early, but my breakfast was already awaiting me at 6:30 am. Mr Yaqoob himself cooked it. Despite of having fool time cook and an army of helpers (most of whom are unpaid volunteers learning tourist business and practising English), he gets up the first one, and retires to bed the last one, all day long caring for his guests and his staff. I don’t know when he has any time for his family, a wife and four lovely children. I returned from the trek two days later and found Mr Yaqoob with a book. He was reading the Holy Quran and making notes in a notebook. There, we started talking, and were talking non-stop until three days later, when I left Gilgit. Mr Yaqoob started Madina Hotel and Guest House in 1990, catering exclusively to foreign budget travelers. He chose the name “Madina” after someone told him about the legendary hospitalilty and kindness of the people of Madina, a city in Saudi Arabia. Hospitality and care for others became his life occupation. Born in Gilgit, Pakistan, he is Muslim, but reads (and contemplates over) the Bible as well as Quran. He believes that all of us are children of Adam, equally deserving love and respect, both from the God and from each other. His care for his guests extends far beyond the guest house business, I have read and heard stories of his taking care of hospital expenses, buying airplane tickets for guests who happen to fell ill while in Gilgit. By his own admission, he has tried to leave Pakistan several times, to make a new, more comfortable life, in some other place where he could make a living without being pray to corrupt governments or selfish religious leaders. He failed as many times as he tried. He now believes his fate is irrevesibly tied to Pakistan, and he no longer tries to leave. His mission is, through promoting tourism and cultural exchange in Pakistan, to create a better understandging between different cultures and religions. His dream is “to see peace and harmony on Earth”. Mr Yaqoob
often talks of himself as a poor, illiterate man. I daresay many of
well-educated, well travelled and well-read people still haven’t advanced as
much as he did in the basic laws of humanity. That all living being on our
planet equally deserve love and respect. That, instead of seeking differences
and proving whose religion or whose nation is the greatest in the world, we
should seek to understand and help each other - as equals. That caring for
others is more worthwhile life purpose than caring for oneself and proving
one’s greatness to the world.
Mr Yaqoob is on my Friends list on the Facebook - feel free to drop him a note. He needs all the support he can get. Serving the humanity alone is a difficult task.
May 19 hot, hot, hotSafely back from Fairy Meadows and it's hot, hot, hot in Gilgit. Staying at Madina GH, and spend all time chatting with the owner and guests. Tomorrow we are planning to go to Naltar Valley to get some fresh air. After that, I'll start my slow way back to China on Thursday morning, with the end point in Hong Kong on Sunday evening. Don't really want to leave... May 15 Finally, in Gilgit
It took me four days (and one very complicated border crossing) to get here; I stopped over in Karimabad, Hunza on the way here. Meet old friends, talk history, hike up to Ultar Meadows and Eagle's Nest. I am in Madina Guest House in Gilgit, it is so nice that so many people remember me from my last visit, in Hunza and now in Gilgit... Am leaving for a three days trek tomorrow: Fairy Meadows to Nanga Parbat Base Camp and back to Gilgit. Ouffff... May 11 Kashgar and Heavenly Horses
To go to Kashgar is to go as far away from Hong Kong as possible without leaving China. I did this trip in one day, visiting four large China airpors and flying God knows over how many provinces. Shenzhen – Zhengzhou (left a sigh about not going to Shaolin AGAIN) – Urimqi – Kashgar. I had a three-four hours layover in the Urumqi airport, and entertained myself by going to International terminal to join the crowd of tour agents and touts meeting disoriented foreign arrivals. That evening, we had two flights, one from Novosibirsk (big Russian guys with Putin's faces, semi-naked Russian girls on high heels) and from a Central Asian capital (serious looking guys and women in long modest robes). It has been about three years since I was in Russia, so seeing compatriots was a kind of remider to myself how they look like. Not at all like me...
The plane to Kashgar unusuall had more foreigners than locals, everyone was going to Kashgar in time for the famous Sunday market. The last thing I remember when I was dowsing away in the hotel was the sound of the KTV one floor below with Moscow Nights in Chinese (sung very well, I must say).
Sunday was all about buying ticket to Pakistan and going to the Sunday Market. The ticket was a mixed success, in that I bought it but at 4 pm I still was the only person going to Sost tomorrow. So, with the bus almost likely to be cancelled, I returned the ticket and I booked a car for RMB 2000 two day trip. It is a lot of money but I am eager to cross into Pakistan, and do not see myself sitting any longer in Kashgar.
The Sunday market... surprised me. I evidently love horses... I always thought i was scared of them. But when I passed through rows and rows of cattle, sheep, donkeys (all for sale), I found myself in the horse area, and I stood still in that spot, completely stuperfied. Not only they were beautiful, they also were fast and furious – several guys were trying various horses once in a while, with the youngest (12-13 y.o.) boy being the best rider.
After the livestock market, there was the Sunday Bazaar, which was extremely similar to the one in Istanbul. I spent most time in the area with Uygur knives, because they also had some jian and dao – more like ma dao, the Russian saber). Bought one small knife for my father, it cuts EVERYTHING, including metal. Tonight, pack my bag for the next two days on the road... Target – Gilgit. May not have internet until I come back to Kashgar... May 05 On martial arts and trainingRecently, I noticed that, whenever I find myself next to a guy – in the MTR, in a shopping mall, on the street - I size him up, thinking, if we were to fight, would I be able to put him down. Would my (still limited) skill, speed and attitude win over his body mass advantage and strength. Most of these guys are usually drifting along, chatting on their
mobiles, completely unaware of what’s happening around them, and - very annoyingly - not even
looking in the direction where they are going. What would happen to this
sleek and confident urban metro-sexual, if you take away his fat wallet and
fancy mobile phone and have him stand up for himself in a fight? From Adam Hsu, Sword Polisher's Record: “Martial arts is the great equaliser. In fighting situations, everyone stands on their own…. Rich or poor, handsome or ugly, when a punch is thrown in your direction you’ll either block it or get knocked down. You choose. We use fighting as a tool to slice away the layers of illusion, to uncover and acquaint each of us with our true selves.” It's not only about the fighting ability; it's also about inner strength. You don’t get born as a martial artist. Every successful punch, every successful block is a drop in the thousands of litres of sweat poured into training. And, with them, tonnes of self-confidence and resoluteness. Something that no one can take away from you - which cannot be said about confidence that comes with having a lot of money. Adam Hsu again: “In the martial art, the body is used as a vehicle for personal realisation and development. From the beginning, systematic kung fu training teaches the student to endure the painful rigours of recasting the body into the kung fu mold. As the body changes and develops, so does the mind and the character. The practitioner begins to internalise and actualise what previously were only empty intellectual concepts, like patience, perseverance, mental resoluteness, physical diligence and toll, faith, trust, and confidence in himself and the teacher.” That's why I love martial arts. It's all about who we are, not about how we want to present ourselves to the world. |
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