thinking about thinking about winding down

our free-sites issue with the UVA databases got fixed this evening. There were many other sites also that were on the “free” list (meaning students don’t need to pay for minutes) that weren’t working properly either. Not just UVA. I’m glad it’s fixed and I’d really like this to be the end of our technology woes.

Today, we started pulling materials off reserve. I asked all the faculty to let us know what they no longer need on reserve, so that we can start to move materials back into the general collection. I’m fine with keeping everything that’s needed on reserve, but if some materials can come off now, I’d prefer not to have to do it all at the end. We had stacks and stacks and stacks of books piled high (and falling off) the desk today. By, the end of the day when they were all taken off reserve and reshelved in the stacks, and I looked back at the reserve shelves, there are still a ton of books up there. Nothing compared to UVA, of course, but still many for us. Sherri and I were taking stabs at what percentage of the reserve materials actually ever circulated … but I won’t post our guesses in the blog … More will come off in the next few days, though I imagine there will still be a lot until the end. It was a pretty productive day. Sherri made collection development decisions on all the textbook-like things. We got everything taken care of that we could. My goal in the next 8 days before Hawaii is mainly system documentation. We’ve got the software figured out pretty well now and we just need to write it all up for the future voyages.

Global Studies -- the class that the whole shipboard community attends -- is taking a new turn for the next 5 days. We are having short introductory remarks and then breaking into small group discussions for the duration of the class (30-40 minutes). I am co-facilitating a small group and we have 15 students -- the same students everyday for the next 5 days. (Usually students attend Global Studies (or don’t) in whatever classroom they choose.) Attendance will count as points towards the final exam. The second to last day before Hawaii will be the Archbishop, the last day will be a group of students talking about impact and activism, and then the final exam. We’re trying to use these small group discussions to move from information overload to a time for processing and reflecting on everywhere we’ve been and how we can use what we have learned to guide the world forward. It’s not an inconsequential goal for the very short amount of time we have left …

And then there was the crew talent show. They were great. There were a whole number of crew we’ve never seen before (folks who work in the engine room, the laundry, etc.) and then there were our favorite people from the dining hall and the purser’s desk and our cabin stewards … They sang and danced and played music and did stand-up and carved ice sculptures while the crew in the background all sang We Are the World (there goes another scary high-school flashback …)

Clocks go forward tonight an hour. We lose an hour every night for very many nights from here to Hawaii. Ugh …

meet george jetson

i took 6 months of Japanese long long ago. Here’s the sum total of what I remember: konnichiwa (hello), ohayo gozaimas (good morning), arigato (thank you) and I can count to five: ichi, ni, san, shi, go. Actually, in a game the other night with some students, I realized I can count to five in about a dozen different languages. Higher, only in Spanish. Hello & thank you has gotten me pretty far in all the other countries and so far so good here. Knowing how to count would have made other transactions easier, I asked for a ticket at the castle in Himeji, saying “ichi”, and it made me very proud!

Day 1. I woke up early for another port entry that turned out to be foggy and gray. It was raining. But, there were was a lot of welcoming hoopla in Kobe nonetheless. We were met by a fireboat spraying water around us, but it was really too rainy and windy and cold outside to enjoy. We also had a welcoming ceremony where some pretty immense drums were played. It was lovely. Then a group of us took the train to Himeji Castle. The train was very cool, starting with a monorail-like-thing from the port terminal. Very George Jetson-y.

Himeji Castle looks very unlike European castles. There was a fort on the site built in 1333 and the castle was built in 1580. It has a heavily fortified main tower (and we climbed to the top on steep narrow stairs). And a moat and lovely grounds around. And many many fewer tourists than the attractions in China.

Here’s a group photo of some of my favorite ship-people from that day:

Vladdy, Sue & Bianca, David & Phoebe, Robin, Mary & Michael, and (behind Mary and Michael) Giles & Kate.

For dinner we went to a restaurant where we had to take off our shoes and sit on not-quite-the-floor, but wooden benches that were pretty low with square cushions marking each seat. We ordered from a display window and did our best to communicate our desires to the waitstaff. It was a relaxed and enjoyable first day in Japan. I’m going to miss my traveling partners when we get off this boat.

Day 2 was a trip to Kyoto to visit various shrines and historical sites around the city. We started at the Golden Pavilion (Kinkaku-ji) constructed in the 1390’s by the 3d Shogun of Ashikaga. It was his retirement villa before his son converted it into a Zen Buddhist Temple. The three story pavilion is topped by a bronze phoenix and beautiful gardens with some very old trees surrounding it.

Next, we visited the Nijo Castle, built in 1603 as the official Kyoto residence of the first Shogun. Kyoto served as the capital of Japan up until the late 1800s when it moved to Tokyo. The main castle structure is only one floor, because it never served as a fort, and it is built in a zig-zag pattern like this:

. L
.. L
... L
.... L
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so that every room had a view of the gardens at the bottom. There were beautiful murals (no photos allowed). We took off our shoes to enter, as we have in most places in Asia. The wooden floor is called a Nightingale Floor and it squeaks as you walk -- to announce intruders. There’s a contraption underneath that controls the noise. It is a much nicer musical noise than my hard-wood floor which also squeaks …

Then we lunched (ship boxed lunch, yuck) in a beautiful, lovely, peaceful park. The incorporation of nature everywhere (and feng shui) is in clear evidence in Kyoto. We are in Japan just a little bit too late for full cherry blossom blooming, but there were still some flowers around. Children playing in the park:

After lunch we went to see a Shinto Shrine. Shinto is the indigenous religion of Japan and there is no human founder (wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinto). The Heian Shrine was very orange and we walked around there and learned how Shintos pray. On entry to the shrine, we passed through a gate which ritually purified us and then we purified ourselves further by washing our hands in mineral water. People then purchase little wood placards and they write wishes on them that are offered up to the gods, along with other offerings like sake and cigarettes.

Our last stop was the Kiyomizu Temple (Buddhist) which had beautiful sweeping views of the city.

As I think I’ve mentioned before, if we could do something about the tourists, I could totally be a monk. It was beautiful up there and peaceful and lovely. Most of the tourists on this trip were Japanese school children. Almost all in uniform, laughing and learning and saying “hello” to us as we passed. I remembered (almost) always to respond with “konnichiwa”. They would smile and laugh. We also got a Japanese lesson from our tour guide on the bus from Kobe and now I can count to 10 again. We’ll see how long it sticks.

Japan is so different than the places we’ve been to thus far. It’s all very orderly and planned. None of the madness of China or India. The train station has writing on the station floor so that you know where the doors will open and you can queue up appropriately before the train arrives. And the train arrived exactly the moment it said it would. There are vending machines everywhere that sell everything from soda to snacks to ice cream to coffee.

They are banks and banks of vending machines all over the place. Even the packaging is different. Part can, part bottle. Keeps the soda cold, like a can (yup, it’s aluminum), but twist-cap open and re-sealable like a bottle. I started calling them "canolottles". Why don’t we have these???

Everything is crystal-clean. On the highway today, we noticed the barriers that are on the sides of the road to contain the noise curve in at the top, instead of ours that are straight up. Does a much better job (or so they say) of preventing noise and exhaust pollution. Taxi cabs have doors that open and close automatically. The bus parking lots are in long numbered lanes. One bus pulls forward in behind the next. You remember your lane’s number. The buses can advance in the lane (the first bus pulling out and the rest advancing), but it can’t change lanes. With this, they don’t have to back in/out of parking spaces and it is easier for you to remember where to find your bus. The escalators stop when no one is on them. To conserve electricity. When you step just before the first step, they start moving again. Some of them are bidirectional. If you step at the bottom, it goes up. If you step at the top, it goes down. In some of the public toilets, you wash your hands into the back of the toilet tank rather than having a separate sink. When you flush, a spigot turns on and water flows for you to wash your hands into the tank which is then used to fill the toilet. Good for water conservation, also a good use of space -- you don’t need a separate sink. People queue up for the elevator. No jaywalking allowed. The traffic lights make bird-sounds when it’s time to cross. Public restrooms (though many of them are still squat) have noise-making machines in the stalls so that you don’t have to listen to everyone do their thing and many public restrooms (or many of the western ones) have toilet-seats that heat up because their buildings don’t have central heat. Some toilet stalls also have other buttons that do other things too … The whole place sets this tone of “we’ve got it figured out”. No worry, no stress, we know what to do, we’ve thought of everything. Meet George Jetson …

Many of the cars here have the side-view mirrors out on the hood instead of by the front windows.

I wonder if that’s something we’ll get too soon, on all those cars that are Japanese? … Looks kind of odd to us-Americans, but it also makes a lot of sense. Keeps you looking forward.

Our guide today was excellent, one of the best I’ve had on this voyage. She taught us a ton. The last thing she taught us as we arrived back into Kobe was: ichigo, ichi-e … once chance, once meeting. Every encounter occurs only once. No matter how many repeated meetings or events or occurrences. Each individual moment occurs only once. Several people on this voyage have sailed more than once. Someone said the other day though nonetheless: even if you get the opportunity to do it again, you go around the world the first time only once.

Day 3 was a trip to Nara for more temple-viewing. By the end of the day, I had to confess that I think I’m done with all the temple-viewing. They are beautiful and lovely and peaceful, but we’ve seen an absurd number of them all told on this voyage. The Buddhist temples here, though, are much different than elsewhere. The Shinto influence is clearly present. We went to two Buddhist Temples and one Shinto Shrine in Nara. The Shinto shrines are all about purification. There are gates (tori-i) as you enter to purify yourself and then you further purify yourself before entering by pouring water over your hands with a ladle. First you pour the water on your left hand, then on your right hand, then again on your left hand from which you can drink to clean your mouth and then you tip the ladle and pour out the excess water over the handle to purify the ladle itself for the next person. The Buddhist Temple we visited also began with this Shinto purification ritual. The Buddhist Temples in India and Malaysia and China were all about color. Beautiful painted color. Here, in Japan, they were much more natural wood-color, although the Shinto shrines in both Kyoto and Nara were bright orange. The Buddhist Temples here also incorporate nature in more substantial ways than those in any of the other countries. They are planned with nature in mind and the grounds are all meticulously manicured. We started at the oldest surviving wooden structure in the world (Horyu-ji), built in 607:

And moved to the next temple, Todai-ji, which is the largest wooden structure in the world.

It was built in 743 but destroyed by fire several times and the current building dates from 1706. It is considered the world’s largest wooden structure, but the original building was actually considerably larger. The park surrounding the Temple is called Nara Deer Park, because there are deer everywhere. They are perfectly tame and people feed them from their hands. As with previous days, there were groups of schoolchildren everywhere:

The big wooden structure contains a very big Buddha – a bronze statue of the Cosmic Buddha. It was immense. We ended the day in Nara with a visit to the nearby Kasuga Taisha Shinto Shrine. The pillars are bright orange and the building is surrounded by stone lanterns in a lovely forest:

Deer are considered messengers to the Gods in Shinto. The story goes that a white deer arrived at the Kasuga Shrine in Nara as its divine messenger. And so deer are considered sacred and free to roam. Mary, our trip leader today who teaches spirit possession, warned us to be careful that we don’t get possessed along the way in travels through the forest. Shintos believe that you can become possessed by the Kami spirits (go look it up on wikipedia). We were very careful! Although, on our meanderings back to the bus, Joyce talked about how she was going to miss our wanderings throughout the world. When we get back to real-life. So, we have all definitely been possessed by the Spirit of Meandering & Travel & Wanderlust. And the Spirit of Short-Attention-Spans. I’m a little worried that it will be hard to work a complete five-day week after this voyage …

Day 4. Saturday in Hiroshima. Mary & Michael & I took the monorail in Kobe … to the subway … to the bullet train … to the street car … to the Peace Memorial Park in Hiroshima. Afterwards we took a ferry to Miyajima. And from Miyajima, we took a ferry … to the Hiroshima subway … to the bullet train … to the Kobe subway … to the monorail … back to our ship. The transportation system couldn’t possibly be easier here. Everything was completely intelligible even if you don’t speak Japanese and each vehicle left perfectly on time and arrived to exactly the place we expected perfectly on time. It was astounding.

Hiroshima was astounding. We stared in the Peace Park, whose central memorial is the A-Bomb dome.

The building was built in 1915 with a central green dome. The name of the building varied, but largely it was the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. It was used to display and sell prefectural products and do market research and consulting for local businesses. Its galleries served for art exhibitions, fairs, and other events. When the bomb was dropped on August 6, 1945, it was one of many buildings that were heavily damaged but this one was the one chosen to memorialize the event. The dome was still recognizable after the bomb. A number of preservation/reinforcement projects have occurred over the years, but it is largely as it was in 1945 immediately after the bomb was dropped. The park is beautiful. It spans both sides of the river and there are various and separate memorials all around. There is a flame that will burn until the last nuclear bomb is destroyed; there is a monument to memorialize student victims, child victims, Korean victims, and more. There is a centograph that contains the names of all the people who died. People were praying there at the centograph and laying flowers. There is a bell for visitors to ring to bring peace to the world. The children’s memorial park holds a collection of origami cranes. The story goes that a little girl dying after the war from leukemia -- the result of radiation -- believed that if she could fold 1000 cranes, she would not die. But, she did die before she finished and her schoolmates folded the remaining cranes in her memory. As did schoolchildren all over Japan. The kids on the ship here (children of faculty and staff) folded 1000 cranes over the last several weeks and they delivered them to the children’s peace park this week.

The park is beautiful and calm and amazingly peaceful. The museum itself is very intense. There was an introductory movie that I had to walk out of. Michael had commented earlier that he heard the movie was really hard to sit through. I said, at that time, that this is why were here, right? To bear witness in some way. But, I literally felt like I would pass out. I had to leave the auditorium.

Giles and Kate (who had gone the day before) were critical of the museum for its general presentation of what happened during the war and the role (not-so-much-acknowledged) of Japanese aggression. They cited a recent U.S. newspaper article that criticized the use of the passive voice in the museum labels: “the war erupted” … “children died who would not have died had the war not ever happened” (by the A-bomb? by the war in general? -- take that however you like, a lot of thought went into that choice of language …) … but, in fact, the passive voice was used regarding American transgressions as well. Several times it said “the bomb was dropped” without that same sentence attributing agency. Certainly, though, it could be surmised by the context. I wondered if the passive voice was just more the Japanese narrative style, I don’t know. The translations were all good -- there weren’t any of the odd translations that we see on the streets -- so I’m not sure anything was lost in translation. And they do attribute agency in many other places: “In 1941, with a surprise attack on the U.S. army and navy bases at Pearl Harbor, Japan started the Pacific War against the U.S. and its allies.” I thought it was pretty fairly balanced, although all the information definitely comes (as it does always) from a particular perspective. Giles studies how history gets told and who gets to tell it and who gets left out, so they noted the lack of mention of the comfort women and the broader history of the Allied/Axis powers and he is right there. No mention of anything there. There is a lot of auxiliary information that is noticeably missing. But, it’s a memorial museum to the bomb, its after-affects, and the start of the nuclear age. Not the history of World War II. Made me wonder what a 9/11 museum would be like (will be like?) …

We passed this sign alongside some roof tiles that have rough bubbles on them due to the explosion: “Feel free to touch these items. They are safe.” I thought this was fascinating. The restriction on touching museum objects are usually intended to keep the museum objects safe. It’s usually (always?) about the objects, not about the people. They also had on display a metal lunch box that was full of ash from the meal originally contained inside. There were many artifacts on display, that one just really touched me.

Something to note: the Japanese consider Pearl Harbor to be December 8^th. Because of the time difference … And while we (Americans) all have memorized the date of Pearl Harbor, I had no idea of the exact date the bomb was dropped. Almost every plaque here started with: “At 8:15 a.m., August 6, 1945 …” It’s all about perspective ... “We see things not as they are but as we are.” ...

I came back for the end of the movie to catch back up with Michael and Mary. At the end there was a beautiful song and I’ve spent the morning trying to google the lyrics, to no avail. I wish I could share it with you. It was a likely a poem set to music, I’ll keep searching …

We walked through the park again to other parts we didn’t catch in the first pass-through. De-compressed, let back a little air into our lungs. Breathed in the beautiful sunny 65-degree day. Recovered.

Afterward, we took a ferry to Miyajima to visit the “floating shrine”. The Shinto shrine and the accompanying tori-i gate are constructed of wood and built to look as if they are floating in the water. We were warned by our guidebook that most often they are sitting in mud. The ferry ride was unexpectedly fabulous. It went up the narrow river through Hiroshima for quite a while and then the river opened up much wider and there were mountains in view and fishing boats and fish farms. And blue blue water (as if we haven’t seen enough blue water by now). Michael and Mary and I spent the 35 minute ride largely talking about where we were on 9/11. Vietnam/Iraq … Hiroshima/September 11. How we go there in our heads …

We arrived on the island and walked along the water up to the shrine and indeed it was surrounded by mud. People were walking along the beach, which was lovely, and the shrine was definitely very beautiful but it was sitting in the middle of mud.

We toured the shrine, did some shopping, and as we came back around we could tell the tide was coming in. We went to go find some dinner and then went back to the shrine just as the sun was setting. By that time, the water had come up all the way to make it appear indeed to be floating. It was very beautiful:

And then we took the ferry … to the Hiroshima subway … to the bullet train … to the Kobe subway … to the monorail … back to the ship … This day ranks as one of the best of the trip. Mary and Michael were great to travel with, the travel logistics were a breeze, there was history and culture and sadness and relief and hope and peace and calm and beauty. I had a perfect day.

Day 5. I want to live in Japan. Today I roamed around Kobe, starting with Robin & Giles & Kate walking into town from the ship, rather than the monorail. And then they went back to the ship after lunch to grade papers and I just roamed aimlessly some more. Lunch wasn’t great, but we had salad and I drank ice-water -- which is the first time in 3 months that I’ve had salad and ice-cubes! The water is safe to drink here and tap-water-washed-salad is safe and street food is safe. In Japan, I had fish-on-a-stick from the street vendors, and chicken-on-a-stick, and corn-on-a-stick, and ice cream. Like water, they suggested we not eat non-cooked dairy products in other countries as well. It felt totally wonderful to not have to worry about everything you put in your mouth! I may not have eaten terribly healthy here, but it was oh-so-fun! Back to today -- I was trying to find some gardens several people mentioned, but my map wasn’t very good and I was not at all successful. And, I got detoured by beautiful little streets and beautiful big streets and became totally absorbed by city life. Walking and walking and taking photos and dropping into the occasional store, but mostly walking and walking and taking photos and watching people go about their lives. I didn’t see any other Semester at Sea people, just Japanese people walking and talking and living.

This is the beginning of a week-long national holiday, Golden Week. And people were out everywhere, living their lives and enjoying their holiday. I walked until I couldn’t walk anymore and then took the monorail back to the ship. I loved Japan. I could totally live in Kobe. It’s amazingly easy to navigate, even without speaking Japanese. They literally couldn’t make it any easier. From the trains to finding a ladies room in a public space, all incredibly easy to manage. The orderliness, the calm, just reverberated back to me. I felt totally peaceful here, even in the middle of the downtown with people rushing living their lives. They’ve got a mission, they’ve got a plan, stress feels low, chaos is non-existent (or maybe just not allowed in). The Peace Park is about hope, not about sadness. The purification rituals are about being present in the moment. It was the coolest thing. I’d have to get used to not-jaywalking, and Robin kept shushing me all morning because I’m much too loud and everything around, even downtown public spaces, is much more quiet than I can manage, and having done a little-shoe shopping I learned that there’s no hope of finding shoes here in size 8 … so that would all be problematic. But other than those few little things, I could totally live here. I need to find a way to bring that kind of peacefulness into my life. Breathe it in. It is unbelievably refreshing.

Speaking of chaos … I have managed to do ok with the Internet access for most of this voyage. It helps that I have dial-up at home and so my expectations were adequately low. On my overnight trips, I hardly had any withdrawal at all. Being off the ship and tooling around, I had other priorities. But, being in Japan on the ship at night with no Internet access was really really really hard. We’ve seen a number of ads throughout Asia for Internet Addiction Recovery Centers and such, which seemed pretty amusing at first glance. But, feeling so much much much better now that I’m back online -- physical relief -- I actually do wonder about my state of Internet health …

Late last night, I stood on the deck and watched the lights of Kobe disappear behind us. Ready or not, here we come.

music in the library

Julie, who is an ethnomusicologist, holds her ensemble classes in the Union, which is right next to the library. She teaches African drums and African xylophones. On many afternoons, we get music in the library. Like today. It’s quite pleasant.

Busy busy again in the library. We have a workaround for yesterday’s problem, but haven’t actually identified or solved the issue. Clunky but do-able. The traffic in both course research and in Japan travel guides is very heavy. I’ve done no research on Japan. I have tomorrow free and so far no plans. The next two days I have day trips to Kyoto and Nara. Day 4, I’m hoping to get to Hiroshima and day 5, I’m free again. I’ll be sleeping on the ship at night and theoretically could blog along the way, but we’re told that we will have no Internet access while in Japan. Something about satellite interference. Cingular told me my cell phone wouldn’t work in Japan either. Seems odd. Japan is perfectly technology modern, so there has to be some better explanation (or solution).

We have a combined logistical/cultural pre-port tonight, which they have been doing lately rather than one on each night. We also got some culture in Global Studies this morning, which was really nice. Usually it’s history/politics/econ -- social science emphasis. But, today Mary taught us about the Shinto religion and the Japanese concept of Ma ("the space between", the interval of space or silence) and Robin did a part on the intersections between Japan and the West and the artistic influences of each on the other. We learned that the Jesuit missionaries set up a painting school in Japan to teach Japanese artists to paint Christian religious art. Jesuits, Jesuits everywhere. Pretty much everywhere we’ve been in any case. Gene wrapped up with a bit of the military history of 20^th century Japan and then demilitarization after the war, ending with the question of whether (and how) countries can become superpowers in ways other than military conquest. It was a good Global Studies.

Kobe should be cool, mid/high 60’s. Much happier weather in my opinion. China turned out to still be fairly warm, except for that last day in Qingdao. We sat outside on deck six for dinner tonight, but it was very chilly. Windy too. I hope I still get a bit of spring in C-Ville when I return before it becomes too hot.

More after Japan …

you’ve got mail

got another real-life-card today from UVA. I was confused a bit because it all seemed like they were writing at the beginning of the voyage. And then I looked at the address. It was mailed to Mauritius, but somehow just caught up with us in China! Thanks to everyone who signed -- I enjoy getting real mail!

Today was a crazy crazy day in the library. The good news is the catalog is back up online and I’ve met the new IT crew-guy and all seems good there. There was some software conflict. And they’ve documented what they did, so in case it happens again … But, we’re having some problems connecting to the databases again and we’re having troubles diagnosing it. It’s not a proxy server problem. The proxy server is working fine. It seems to be something wrong with the ship’s free-site-server. Sometimes the UVA link passes through as free, sometimes it gives you a 404 File-Not-Found error. If you are logged into the pay-Internet, it works fine always. We don’t know why or what’s wrong but folks are looking into it. It’s another issue of each person only understanding one part of the picture and it’s hard to put the puzzle pieces together. Our stapler ran out of staples around lunch time. You can’t imagine what a crisis it is when our stapler runs out of staples! And many offices around here (except for the library, of course) close for lunch so we had many lines of grumpy students while we waited to get refills for the stapler. Sounds dumb I know, but here are the joys of working in a tiny library. And the stapler is the primary reason that most folks come to the library anyway … Someone stole our scissors and someone stole our calendar from behind the desk while we were at port and that makes me grumpy. Lots of students (way more than normal) responded to this morning’s swath of overdue notices telling us they dropped them in the book drop while we were at port. Except they weren’t there. Note to Jean: I think you need to talk to the Purser’s Desk about being the overnight/port drop-off since materials are secure there. And it’s been busy, busy, busy. There are only 2 days between China and Japan and much paper-writing is underway. The Internet has been sporadic the last two days too which adds to the fun. People underestimate the quality of the print collection. There are some decent materials there, but it does make things difficult when technology misbehaves. A lot of students were doing a lot of work in the library today. And there is so little physical space that it gets very overwhelming very quickly when lots of people are in line needing attention.

Everyone is starting to think about the end. How to process all the places we’ve been to when there is no time to do so between ports, how to prepare for Japan when we have only 2 days and are still flummoxed by China, how to best use the time between Japan and Hawaii (8 days) to bring things together -- both educationally and experientially. How to get all the work done that needs to get done before the end. How not to panic and how not to be exhausted. How not to be focused so much on the end that we forget we still have 21 days left. I feel like I’m on an emotional roller-coaster and I’ve gotta say, despite the fabulous experiences, I’m a little bit looking forward to getting off … the roller coaster that is … the ship, I’m not so sure … it’s definitely an odd space to be in.

Tonight we all had to get our temperature taken because Japan has stringent health requirements for entry into the country. All 850 of us. It’s really amazing how efficient they can be on this ship, processing us all through the bureaucracy quickly.

I didn’t get China photos up today, other than the few in yesterday’s blog. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get them up before Japan, so both will have to be projects as we cross the ocean.

Tonight was open mike night after China. They do this after every port, though I often have one conflict or another. Tonight, it was both China debriefing and debriefing about Virginia Tech. It was hard and sad and lovely at the same time. There were poems and songs and a student from Virginia Tech spoke and also a student who was a high-school friend of one of the students who was killed. Lots of people talked about their experiences in China and many talked about how both events intersected in their minds. I talked a little bit also about some of the things I put in yesterday’s blog. Everybody here has a lot of "stuff" in their heads right now.

We lose another night of sleep tonight, so I’m headed to bed early …

please be well seated and always make yourself safe

we woke up Tuesday morning to the news of the massacre at Virginia Tech which had happened while we were all sleeping on the other side of the world. I got up about 6:30 for the reportedly beautiful view coming into Hong Kong. Here’s what I saw:



Eventually it cleared a little:



and Dean Mike came on the loudspeaker to announce that the diplomatic briefing would be preceded by a few words and a moment of silence for the victims at Virginia Tech. I didn’t know what he was talking about. Normally, I stake out a seat in the Union for mandatory meetings (including the diplomatic briefing) but our flight to Beijing left early and our group was assigned a satellite classroom to gather. It was rather surreal, we all had our stuff, excited to be headed into mainland China. Marvel -- one of the mental health folks on board -- read the statement from the University President, which at that time still said 22 victims. And then the Archbishop spoke and brought us all to tears. There are three Virginia Tech students aboard and many more, of course, with friends there. One of those students sat crying on the floor in front of me. She had no information and was getting on a plane to go to Beijing for 5 days. Her friends promised her they’d help her find an Internet café. They canceled the diplomatic briefing in the end because there was no way to change course and go on with that, and then we left for Beijing. All I saw of Hong Kong was the hazy skyline coming into port and the road to the airport.

I’m sure you are all watching news coverage around the clock, the same frightening stories over and over and over. Most of what we learned came from the English language newspaper, China Daily and what we eventually saw on CNN International once we got to the hotel. The shooting has been the top story in China Daily each day also. The first story had used the passive phrase, the shooter "was killed" but never indicated if this meant shot by the police or whether he killed himself. At first I thought this was maybe some cultural commentary on suicide. But maybe they just didn’t know at the time of this first article. All the other articles did say he shot himself. And there was much commentary about America’s obsession with guns. China Daily quoted an Italian paper saying the shooting was "as American as apple pie".

The plane ride to Beijing was worth writing about. 3 -- count them, three -- rounds of the beverage cart, and a full meal (though not good), and a Hagen-Dazs ice-cream dixie cup. And little television screens where we got to watch us take off and land, as if we were looking out the front windows in the cockpit. Way cool. We arrived in time for dinner (despite the meal on the plane) which was at a place that is famous for Peking Duck. The meal was duck, duck, and more duck. The appetizers were all different parts of the duck. And then dinner was duck. I like duck, but it was a lot of duck! After dinner, I walked back to the hotel with a couple of students for the opportunity to walk through Tiananmen Square at night. All lit up. The vastness of the square takes your breath away. It’s mammoth. To think about all those people -- all those students -- in the square when the tanks pulled in and opened fire. Takes your breath away. Back at the Rex Hotel in Saigon that night with everyone telling Vietnam stories, I said my first real political memory was watching the Iran hostages come home. I remember very clearly watching them get off the airplane. I was 9 then. But Tiananmen Square was a different kind of experience. It was June of my senior year in high school. I was excited about going to college. Those students were not much older than I. I had been to D.C. a number of times in high school for protests -- to get the U.S. out of Nicaragua, to loosen immigration policies for Jews trying to get out of the Soviet Union ... I’m sure they were comparatively small protests, they felt like a lot of people. I wasn’t a hard-core activist, but I had been a student protesting like these students were protesting. The night was a beautiful night, the portrait of Chairman Mao at the one end and buildings of mammoth scale forming the square around. It took my breath away and struck me hard.





Day 2. The next day, we woke up early and headed to the Great Wall. There are several places around Beijing where tourists can climb. The part we were at did not at all match the image I had in my head. First off, Beijing is perpetually hazy from pollution and so we didn’t even see the mountains until we were right there at their feet. There are a ton of stairs up to the top as it climbs up the mountain, but the wall itself isn’t all that high off the ground. If you measured the length from the ground up at any point. That surprised me. I made it up to what we called the "first top" -- there were other tops, but I was perfectly pleased with where I got.



The stairs were really uneven. Some were so shallow you almost wanted to skip one, but others were crazy deep you had to haul yourself up. Going down was almost as difficult as going up. The views from above were very hazy but beautiful nonetheless. I sat up there above and watched China below before climbing back down. There were a billion tourists speaking a million different languages and it was fun to watch how the grunts and groans of exhaustion are pretty universal regardless of language. At lunch there was the requisite shopping and I bought a jacket I like a lot. Not formal (more like work-clothes) but something that would work well enough with a Chico’s skirt for the Ambassador’s Ball (more on this below). I got more than $50 off with the negotiation skills I’ve been perfecting as we travel round the world. After lunch was a tour of the Summer Palace. Lonely Planet describes it as "the playground of the royal court." There is a beautiful lake and amazing gardens and elaborate buildings and a crazy marble boat. The original plan was dinner on our own and shopping/roaming, but an optional acrobatic theater performance was offered to us. After much debate, we decided to go. I was afraid it’d be high on the hokey-quotient and high on the touristy-quotient. But it was quite enjoyable. Crazy what people can do with their bodies. There were a ton of people everywhere all day and someone joked that we saw 1 million of the 15 million people that live in Beijing in our travels just that one day. Beijing has twice the population of New York City. It’s crazy big and traffic reflects it. We spent a lot of our time in traffic. Just keeping up with our tour guide and trying not to lose our group in the crowd was a lot of work!

Day 3. Today was the organized trip to Tiananmen Square. Our guide told us all about the celebrations held there. Especially the day they announced that Beijing would host the 2008 Olympics. There is much Olympic prep going on here. They are building arenas like mad and hotels like mad and planting trees to help curb pollution (as if that will solve their problems before next summer). They are clearly very excited about the spotlight the world will be putting on this city next year. The guide told us about the crowds in the Square on the day of the announcement and he told us all about how he used to rollerskate in the Square as a kid. That the Square is "a place of celebration." He said nothing about the massacre until one of the professors on the bus finally asked if he would "speak about the events of 1989". He said yes, that things were very "complicated" then. That there were a lot of corrupt politicians and that students were protesting the corruptness and that what happened was "inevitable". He used that word multiple times: inevitable. He said the government couldn’t control it and so they made "some mistakes". That was really all he said, ending it all again with "it was very complicated" but not elaborating at all as to why or how. Our guide was pretty informative throughout our time in Beijing, but he gave us a number of vague non-answers to most of the political questions we asked during the trip. During Global Studies we had seen a clip of "Tank Man", a documentary about Tiananmen Square and we learned that China basically whitewashed all evidence of the massacre in their textbooks and their political storytelling. The interport student (from Hong Kong, incidentally, not mainland China) got up after the video clip and said he hoped that we wouldn’t just think of what happened in 1989 when we think of China. That China has so much more to offer than those days in 1989. I think we were all surprised how western-looking a city Beijing is. We knew that of Hong Kong, but Beijing is incredibly big and built up with skyscrapers and evidence of commercialism and corporate logos and neon and wide boulevards and all things we associate in our minds as western. After Tiananmen Square, we walked to the Forbidden City and toured the immense palace, with again about a million of our best tourist-friends. Built in the 15th century, it is called the "Forbidden City" because it was off limits to the general population for 500 years. Two dynasties of emperors lived there. After a not-so-great lunch, we toured the Temple of Heaven which was beautiful and peaceful with Beijing residents playing cards and hacky-sack and singing and hanging out together. And then we got on a plane to Xi'an. The English signs in Beijing were plentiful, but oftentimes oddly worded. On the shuttle bus to the plane, I found the title of this post. Please be well seated and always make yourself safe. Which may be my new slogan for this whole whirlwind trip around the world.

On the bus-ride to the hotel from the airport in Xi'an, the tour guide pointed out a square where people were dancing. I took a walk over there after we checked in. I had understood it to be some kind of performance but it was really just a public dance floor on a piece of cement underneath the highway overpass. I stood there and watched fascinated for an hour. There were couples of all ages though most were retired. Some were dancing-dancing (swirling and twirling) and others were just walking in wide circles swaying and talking. There were many females couples and, unless Xi'an has a huge out gay population (hard to imagine), women-friends must just do this too. Music was coming from a loudspeaker. I was the only white person there for the first bit and I attracted some attention. I had my camera. Some folks wanted to see their photos on my screen, but most just passed me by smiling. I got pretty far on my only 2 words of Chinese (hello and thank you) and later with the help of a very nice elderly man who spoke English pretty well. Eventually, two other white women showed up with their cameras also. "Your friends", my new Chinese friend said to me. Turned out they were French and so we couldn’t really communicate either. But they started dancing with a few Chinese men in the crowd and I went quietly back to semi-anonymously watching from the perimeter. It was lovely. It was a really nice night and the dancing and the love and the neon and the complete un-self-consciousness of the people dancing nearly brought me to tears.



Day 4. We started at the Tang Dynasty Art Museum and the Wild Goose Pagoda. The Pagoda was constructed in 648 AD, built to house the Buddhist scriptures brought back from India. A very early library. From there, we went to the Shaanxi Museum which was nice as museums go but mostly served to teach us something about the various Chinese dynasties. Which, believe me, was much in need. After lunch in a place that Sue started dubbing "bustaurants" -- a place where bus-loads of tourists are taken and fed in 40 minutes, huge tables with spinning lazy susans in the middle and tons of various Chinese dishes (this one at least had really good noodles!), we went to the Terracotta Warriors Museum. I loved this. Barbie’s pictures from the summer voyage don’t come close to representing the enormity of the excavation site or the life-sized-ness of the warriors, as I’m sure my pictures won’t either. The expression of power and expense and the size of the excavation/preservation endeavor are incredible. The warriors are 2000 years old and were unearthed only in 1974 when a farmer was digging a well. They face east in battle formation and they are each different, holding spears and daggers and axes. There are also horses and chariots. There will be more pictures up eventually. As with the previous blogs, only a few now to get this post up speedily.







The evening was scheduled to be a "spectacular Tang dynasty show and dinner". I was fried and had a headache and couldn’t bear another bustaurant and a billion people (no offense truly, that’s the only way to do this efficiently and affordably for 69 participants but I just couldn’t do it). After originally thinking I was the only one bailing, Bianca and Sue and David and Phoebe and I opted for dinner on our own. We had a five-star dinner at the Shangri-La Hotel with beautiful and amazingly delicious Chinese food. There will be pictures of this too eventually! It was exactly what I needed: calm and relaxed, quiet and slow. And then I bought a jacket in the store that actually is dressy enough for the Ambassador’s Ball. It’s red and silk and has Chinese characters on it. $70. The clincher was when Bianca (a fellow Chico’s shopper) said, you’d pay $125 at Chico’s at home for something like that & this you are getting in CHINA! So, I’ll wear it with a shell and a black Chico’s skirt and I’m set (minus the heels, but I don’t have much hope for them). Also, in an odd conversation, Bianca persuaded me to wear it buttoned. I never where jackets buttoned, I don’t know why … It has the Chinese buttons you think of, long cords across the divide. So now I can officially stop obsessing about Ball attire …

Day 5. I didn’t sleep well overnight and so I bailed on the optional calligraphy lesson and hung out in the room watching CNN. I think I was watching Larry King and Anderson Cooper live -- 12 hours ahead of the East Coast. Kind of odd to realize. Both were about Virginia Tech so I learned a few more of the details and considered myself grateful that I wasn’t hearing these stories 24x7 like I’m sure you are all. I also heard the tape of Alec Baldwin yelling at his kid and realized that I’m not missing CNN all that much. In the 2 ½ hours that I watched the "news", I heard not one thing about Iraq. I joined the group for lunch at a rotating restaurant overlooking that city. Except that it didn’t rotate. We never learned what was up with that. After lunch, we went to the Han Dynasty tombs which is also an active excavation site as well as a museum. They have only opened one tomb there, for an emperor and an empress. Found gold and ceramics of people and animals and pots, etc. They gave us funny plastic bags to wear to cover our shoes and we walked on glass platforms, underneath which was the open tomb. It was incredibly cool! It was a really interesting way to see all the artifacts. Good museum. Dinner and another airport flight to meet up with the ship which had sailed in our absence to Qingdao. Xi’an has 7-8 million people, about the size of New York City, but it’s considered in China to be a "medium developing city". It was the capital of China for over 2000 years and so contains much much history. There is some pretty amazing stuff to see. There was much less English signage here than in Beijing, but the Coke logo and the Pepsi logo and the McDonald’s logo and the Microsoft logo are all immediately identifiable on billboards no matter what script they are written in. Again, crazy globalization and hard to reconcile with the socialist/communist government.

Day 6. We got back to the ship around 11:30 the night before and I had an all day trip planned for day 6 that I thought about bailing on, but I knew if I slept late, I’d never get out. Like the energizer bunny, I just had to keep going going going while I had momentum. We started at a Taoist temple which (despite all the tourists) was omigod beautiful. Built into the side of a mountain overlooking the sea. I want to be a monk in my next life and I want to live here (minus all the tourists of course). Mountains and water all at once. The sound of bamboo crackling all around as the wind (very cool here) moved through the trees.



Then we headed to a Buddhist Temple which was very pretty (I’ve seen a LOT of Buddhist temples by now!) The best part of the tour was at the beginning when the guide explained the history of Buddhism in China. He talked about how Buddhism came to China from India and was active there until the "liberation" in 1949. After the liberation, the government said that the Chinese "couldn’t believe in Buddha anymore, they had to believe in Karl Marx." And so, they believed in Karl Marx for many years … "but now they don’t know what to believe" so many people are coming back to Buddhism. They are coming to the Temple again and laying out their problems before the Buddha. My first question was whether (and how) they laid out their problems before to Karl Marx … hmmm … The whole narrative made me laugh.

Then we went to a Catholic church. The Germans colonized Qingdao interestingly enough and so this was a Gothic cathedral that looked very much like other Gothic cathedrals. The best part was the signage. The tourism focus is clearly not catering to a western (Christian) audience, it caters to Taoists and Buddhists. So the signs don’t tell you about the architectural structure, they tell you about Christianity. I’ll get up photos up eventually, but they say things like:

The Altar and the Lecturn are placed in dominant places in the church because of their important roles in the Eucharist Celebration.

and:

Mary was the Mother of Jesus, the Savior of the world. She was an ordinary Jewish girl engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The angel Gabriel was sent to God to ask her to be the mother of Jesus, the Son of God. She agreed to do God’s will and became pregnant. According to Church tradition, her body and soul went to heaven after her death.

I found it refreshing to be in a place that didn’t presume that everybody was Christian and would know these things.

Dawn and I walked back to the ship with a few life-long-learners and got to see a little bit of Qingdao on my one and only day there. And thus begins the email-checking/blogging/photo-uploading activities …

I didn’t really know what to expect from China. It wasn’t on my top 10 places to visit. But, as with the other Asian countries we’ve traveled to, it totally blew me away. It’s huge and really more populous than it is possible to wrap your brain around. The buildings in Beijing are not only high, but they are wide. They are built (as is Tiananmen Square) on a scale that is just immense. The modern looking buildings are immense. The Forbidden City is immense. The scale of the country is truly hard to comprehend. It takes your breath away.

Despite the enormity, all three cities we saw were so much more internally focused than any of our big cities. There were lots of Chinese tourists but not so many international tourists. There was not the urban feeling that exists in our large cities. The cities feel provincial despite their size. In Qingdao, folks reported that they had a really hard time finding ATMs and that no one accepted credit cards (or those other than Bank of China). Even at the Walmart. There was a Walmart in town but it didn’t take international credit cards. U.S. corporate enterprise in China … but not. Globalization … but not. International tourism … but not. Sharing their history … but not. Sharing only the parts that they want. China seems to want all that they want all at once, but it’s hard to see how they can move into the global economy without becoming part of global history and global politics. Especially with the Olympic spotlight soon to arrive. There is so much more I want to tell you about China, but this post is already much too long. We arrive in Japan in 2 days and I know there won’t be enough time to get it all in.

One of the things this trip has accomplished for me is to give me a sense of other places I need to go in my life. I definitely need to go to Thailand and I need to go to Cambodia and I need to see other parts of China. The Chinese man at the dancing kept inquiring: Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai? And I kept answering, Beijing, Xi'an. And he would return with: Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai? .. Shanghai? … This trip has definitely made the Asian countries more accessible in my mind. Bringing the world closer together. Which I guess (hope?) is what happens when you seat yourself well and try to make yourself safe in the world. Much love to all those sharing in the grief at Virginia Tech.

tomorrow in hong kong

we dock tomorrow. There's lots of travel-guide checkout-activity going on in the library. Which, fortunately, doesn't require a library catalog. Also, btw, lots of proxy server handing-out-of passwords, I should mention that too. Folks doing research for papers due between China & Japan.

I won’t be really spending any time in Hong Kong. I would have liked to, it was a hard decision, but I also really wanted to take the big overland trip to China. We leave the ship at 9:45 tomorrow morning and fly to Beijing. We see the Great Wall and all that and then we fly to Xi'an to see the Terracotta Warriors. From there, we fly to Qingdao to meet up with the ship. The ship will be sailing from Hong Kong to Qingdao with about 75 faculty/staff/students aboard who are not doing overland trips. It might have been nice to stay on the ship too, quiet and all.

I'm really excited about this trip. Amazing sights for sure. And tons of faculty/staff are on this same trip. In many ways, it kind of feels like the last hurrah. I have day trips planned in Japan, but nothing big. Then we’re only in Hawaii for one day. And then we’re done. So, it will definitely be nice to do this last big trip with a fun group. There is Robin & David & Phoebe & Sherri & Giles & Kate & Anne-Claire & Simon & Joyce & Bob and other nice people I'm not sure I’ve mentioned on this blog. Anyways, it should be nice. We're gone for 5 days, so this will be the last post for a bit.

I missed breakfast this morning because I missed the time change. This is the first time I've done that. They remind you both at the noontime and dinnertime announcements when we need to advance our clocks, but nonetheless I totally forgot. I was in the shower when the announcement came on for Global Studies. I made it to class on time, but breakfast was already closed. We're back to 12 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, which is easy for the math at least. In the next 29 days, we'll be advancing another 12 hours. Yipes. The last 3, though, will be in the air from San Diego to Charlottesville.

The summer voyage is under-enrolled. Yesterday, they offered discounts to our current students if they want to sail again in summer. There is lots of speculation as to why the enrollment is so low. This is the first time there is a language requirement (Spanish), as they are going all around South America. Some people are wondering whether the language requirement is a deterrent, since there are so many other good study abroad opportunities for Spanish-speaking students. Summer is always lower than fall & spring, but current enrollment is still considered low by comparison to other summers. This voyage that I am on now has a record 702 students. More than ever and students were turned away. If you know any college students who would like to take a voyage to South America, send them to http://www.semesteratsea.com. The summer voyage is 65 days long and they take 3 classes for 9 credits. And they will have to take Spanish at "their current level of fluency". The full itinerary is on the website.

grumpy days in the library

destiny (the new library catalog) is down and we don’t know why and we don’t know how to fix it. They installed the new Microsoft updates on the server and now Destiny refuses to run. Despite the fact that it is normal class days for us, it is the weekend in the States and we are 11 hours ahead, so we’re having trouble getting technical-support. And by the time it’s Monday morning in the States, we’ll be in Hong Kong. Kenny, the IT crew guy on the ship, knows lots about the server but little about library systems. I know about library systems, but not so much about why the Microsoft updates caused us problems. We tried all kinds of things either of us could think of, but no luck. Ugh. And, Kenny is going off in China. A number of our crew are leaving in Hong Kong and more in China. Kenny’s relief arrives in Hong Kong, they sail together the 2 days to China, and then Kenny goes off in China. I’m going overland from Hong Kong to China and so won’t be on the ship during the transition. I’ll get back on the ship in China and there will be a new crew-IT guy who hasn’t been through any of the Destiny issues with us. I’m a bit nervous – and grumpy -- as you might imagine …

Today, was a Global Studies exam. So, lots of photocopying of people’s notes going on in the library yesterday. First, we learned that the students have the photocopier access code and are making free copies. Which made me REALLY grumpy. The copier requires that one of us put in an access code, so when we see someone standing there, we always ask if we can help. Yesterday, I asked that and the kid said no. I walked over and he had the access code written on his paper. He wouldn’t tell me where he got it. So, then I had to track down Kenny to change the access code, which it took us forever to figure out how to do. Students were copying Global Studies notes all day long. Particularly, one set of notes that was 22 pages long. Students would come up to fill out the invoice form and try to calculate the cost of 22 pages (25 cents/page). We spared them the math. We all knew. $5.50. Those notes got copied over and over. At one point, someone must have miss-copied because all of the sudden all the students were paying for 21 copies instead. I let them know they were missing a page!

And then -- the rest of the day, besides photocopying and catalog woes, was spent tracking down potential plagiarism. I had two faculty ask me for help in trying to prove plagiarism. And students well know that plagiarism is cause for UVA’s single sanction (expulsion).

The only library good news is that the collection is small enough that working without a catalog isn’t the end of the world. And we have a dump of the catalog we did a couple weeks ago to send back to UVA. That’s a little bit helpful. And everyone has been very understanding. We’ve got a backup circulation system going that’s working ok. Clunky, but manageable.

Yours, in hoping tomorrow will be a better day in library-land …