Two books you should read, and one you shouldn't

Silk Road to Ruin by Ted Rall was recommended to me (I think...) by Amanda, and was recently shipped to me by my mother. Rall covers much of the same ground covered by Colin Thubron (whose books I reviewed here), but his style of writing couldn’t be more different. While I hate the phrases highbrow and lowbrow, I’ve got to admit they’re the best choices for comparing the authors’ different takes on presenting Central Asia. Thubron is definitely highbrow, while Rall totally writes for the masses. His writing is highly entertaining, and Ruin contains several formats: prose, photography and graphic novel. It certainly provides an accurate sense of life in Central Asia as seen by a tourist, and it’s most definitely not your typical tourism. I definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in what life is like over here. However, I feel I should take Rall’s editor to task. Not only were there two factual errors that I caught (the Russian Revolution was in 1917, not 1918, and it's called a balbal, not a bubble), but there were numerous typographical errors. Additionally, while I enjoyed most of Rall’s adventures and misadventures in Central Asia, his tale of bribing airport officials to kick passengers (who had already bought tickets) off the last airplane out of Osh to make room for his tour group to escape the military clashes with Uzbekistan which were happening in 2000 didn’t sit well with me at all. Nonetheless, I still class this book as a recommended read.

I often go to Fatboy’s in central Bishkek for the purpose of snagging books from their “library” – most of the books there aren’t exactly literary, but as I’m a big fan of escapist mysteries, I can usually stock up. The other week, however, I found a particularly good find: Sputnik Caledonia by Andrew Crumey. This is a totally bizarre work of modern fiction, a la Pynchon, written in a non-linear style from several different points of view, with a bit of a dystopian alternate reality thrown in. It’s set in Scotland, although it features cosmonauts and black holes, nuclear waste and secret government installations, and it was thoroughly engrossing and weird as hell. Definitely give it a read.

It’s really hard to find decent books on religion. When I was in Korea, I really wanted to learn more about Buddhism. I purchased a book called Buddhism for Beginners (which I reviewed here), which really should have been called “Buddhism for those who have been practicing for a short while already and know a good bit about the religion but want more info.” Sigh. I decided to try to learn more about Islam, so I purchased Islam: Religion, History and Civilization by Seyyed Hossein Nasr, as it received numerous excellent ratings and reviews on Amazon.com, but I just couldn’t get past the first chapter. Not only is the text filled with unexplained religious terminology, but it’s written in a thoroughly obtuse style. I mean, it’s full of sentences like, “Unity cannot manifest itself without entering into the world of multiplicity, yet this manifestation is the means whereby humanity is led from multiplicity to Unity.” Huh? Anybody have any recommendations for readable books on Islam?

Free Kittens in Georgia!

One of my mom's coworkers fround a mother cat and five kittens. Unfortunately, she can't keep them all. Anyone in Georgia (or north Florida) interested in one of these adorable furballs? Please let me know!

Dammit, dammit, dammit.

What the US Embassy had was my old, expired Florida drivers license, which must've been in my wallet, too. Shit.

Awesomeness times two!

I got more things published in Everywhere Magazine! (Yet another reason you cats should subscribe to it.) They published some photos and my story from my trip to the DMZ in 2004, and a picture of Joanna from our 2006 trip on the Trans-Siberian. Small images are below :-) And in equally FANTASTIC news, someone found my drivers license and turned it in to the US Embassy!! :-)

A terrible week.

Sorry for the lack of posts of late. I was struck down with either food poisoning or stomach flu, which had me confined to the bed/bathroom for a full three days, and I am just now getting back on my feet again. And in the midst of all this, I received an email from my mom saying that another one of her cats had died: Isis, one of my favorites, whom we rescued from a parking lot in Florida six years ago.

Issyk-Kul, Tuz-Kul and Barskoon

(I've only posted a few of my photos from this trip below; to see the full set CLICK HERE)

Last weekend I went out of town, which accounts for the lack of recent blog-posts around here. My boss took me, Katy, Ben and Joe as well as Florence and Kat (who are studying Russian at the school) to the southern shore of Lake Issyk Kul for the weekend. We left on Friday night, and drove the the small village of Kara-Koo (pronounced Kara-Koh), where we had stayed back in February. In case you don't remember, Kara-Koo is where my boss's husband is from, and where his brothers and mother still live, and we stayed at their house. We arrived late in the evening, and after our hosts plied us with tea and fried breads smothered in jam, we went to sleep.

The next morning, after a hearty Kyrgyz breakfast, we set off for the village of Barskoon (pronounced Bars-kone), which is located about two hours east of Kara-Koo. Barskoon is unfortunately known for its close proximity to the Kumtor gold mine, which in 1998 spilled two tons of cyanide into the Barskoon river, killing hundreds, injuring thousands and causing the worst pollution event in Lake Issyk Kul's history. (You can read more about that here.) The Barskoon waterfall is located halfway up the side of a mountain on the left side of the road, roughly midway between the village of Barskoon and the Kumtor gold mine.

At the side of the road at the spot where the waterfall first comes into view is a bust of Yuri Gagarin. Legend has it that as he was being rocketed into space on the first ever manned spaceflight, Gagarin looked out of his space capsule and saw this waterfall. Apparently he was so impressed by what he saw, that after returning to earth, he came to see it on vacation. As such there are two monuments to Gagarin at this site. One is fairly new and in good condition. The other, erected by the Soviets, has been thoroughly defaced over the years.

(You can see the waterfall to the left of Gagarin's neck...)

From here we began our hike up into the mountains. That waterfall might not look all that far up there, but let me tell you, getting there was strenuous work. There are three main cataracts to this waterfall, and our first goal was (obviously) the lowest one. While the trek to the lowest falls is fairly steep, it isn't that great of a distance and it was certainly well worth the view.

Back to front: Kat, Florence, Joe, Katy, Ben, me

After the first cataract, the climb got considerably steeper, and our pace grew considerably slower. Florence didn't make it the whole way to the top, and Ben, Kat and I seriously considered wimping out. However, Joe and Katy forged ahead and soon came back to tell us that we had collapsed a mere five minutes from the view of the second cataract. So, we dragged our exhausted selves further along the trail to a pleasant view at the base of the second falls. We didn't try for the third.

The view was spectacular, although it was difficult to get a decent photo without falling into the river. Plus the sun was directly behind the falls at that point. Sigh...

After basking in the cool spray of the falls for a while, we began our trek back down the mountain, which was much easier than the trek up! We soon arrived back at the base of the mountain, where our boss and her family had prepared a wonderful picnic for us, with tons of delicious shashlik and homemade bread. Heaven!

After lunch, we began our drive back to Kara-Koo. Along the way we stopped twice: once to check out this bizarre thing under construction at the side of the road. Apparently it's supposed to be a gigantic tourist resort which allegedly will hold 7000 people and is themed after the legendary Kyrgyz hero Manas (wikipedia). Currently all that's there is a very long wall painted with curious murals and topped with bizarre statues. If you peer through the cracks in the unfinished wall, you will see that there's nothing on the other side. We also stopped to swim a little bit in the famed Issyk Kul itself. Issyk Kul means "hot lake" in Kyrgyz, but that water was frigid. As a native Floridian, I didn't spend much time in there.

A giant mural to a manaschi, or Manas story teller, at that bizarre place on the side of the road.

Our swimming spot on the southern shore of Issyk Kul. Also, there was a smudge on my lense, dammit.

That evening we returned to Kara-Koo for an evening of scruptious food and singing (as in February), and we went to bed fairly early.

My boss and her in-laws

The next morning, we went first to visit a local family known in the Kara-Koo viscinity for making yurts and othter traditional handicrafts. The quality of these items was really incredible, and I would love to buy a yurt (the smallest size, a 4 person yurt, costs $1000), but not only do I not have an extra grand lying around, but I suspect a yurt would simply grow moldy in the humidity of south Georgia!

Afterwards, we we drove about an hour to Tuz-Kul (which means salt lake in Kyrgyz). The lake, while not as salty as the Dead Sea was still very salty, and we were incredibly bouyant and left thoroughly encrusted in salt.

Tuz-Kul

Despite allegedly being a "dead" lake on account of the salt, we discovered that Tuz-Kul was teeming with these things, which we christened Primordial Fish Things. Any idea what they could be?

Look! We're floating!

After leaving Tuz-Kul we headed back to the nearby shore of Issyk Kul in order to wash off the salt. However, while the comparatively small Tuz Kul had been relatively warm, Issyk Kul was frigid, and I simply couldn't bring myself to get in. I did take photos though.

This was Joe's reaction to the water. Seriously, would you get in after seeing that?

While the northern shore of Issyk Kul is filled with tourists this time of year, the southern shore is un-developed and tourist-free.
Please CLICK HERE to see the full set of photos from my trip!

Introducing Heelix

(I know it's an odd name, but that's what I've chosen, and it seems to fit her.)

This furball of unbearable cuteness needs a name. Suggestions?

This was the last thing I needed...

...but I couldn't just leave it frantically running down the sidewalk mewing pathetically.

Rock, thefts and racism

I didn’t write much about the rock festival that Katy and I went to last Saturday, as I was more concerned about my stolen wallet. (I’m still rather concerned about the loss of the drivers license, as according to the GA DMV website, you need to know your license number in order to replace it, and I don’t.) Anyway, as I mentioned in the post about the wallet, the sound quality at the rock festival was definitely sub-par. Even groups which we had heard before, which we knew normally sounded good (such as our friends in the band Cadillac), sounded terrible at this event. As such, I won’t bother wasting my time uploading any videos. I will, however, post some shots of Cadillac performing:

While at the festival, we ran into Lyuba, a girl of 17 who is one of Katy’s former students. I told her how I’d just had my wallet stolen, and her reaction was, “But you’re OK, right?” She then gestured to a vertical scar bisecting her lower lip and told me the following story:

One night as she was walking home, she was surrounded by a group of Kyrgyz men. (I should probably mention that Lyuba is ethnically Russian and doesn’t speak any Kyrgyz.) They began shouting at her in Kyrgyz, then one of them pulled out a knife. At this point she gave them her wallet, saying (in Russian) “Take my money, but please don’t hurt me.” They took her money, then one of them punched her in the face, splitting open her lip and knocking her to the ground. They kicked her repeatedly as she lay on the ground. Later, Lyuba was told by several ethnic Kyrgyz to whom she related this tale that “her people” often attack/injure/kill Kyrgyz people in Russia, so she probably deserved it.

The thing is, there definitely are racially motivated attacks against non ethnic-Russians in Russia, but that hardly justifies retribution against 17 year old girls in Kyrgyzstan! Additionally, I find it fascinating that both in Russia and here in Kyrgyzstan, my students have insisted that racism is a problem endemic to America (I was told just last night that in America all whites hate all blacks and vice versa!) and that there is no racism in either Russia or Kyrgyzstan...

On a lighter note, I bought a new wallet:

My cats are really weird

Advanced Opinions

This month I’m back to teaching all lower level classes, although during April and May I taught an advanced class. It was loads of fun, as my students were actually able to share their opinions with me (as opposed to the lower level classes, where conversation revolves around simple questions like “What did you do yesterday?”). I’m really going to miss my advanced class. Anyway, here are some of the (unedited) answers they wrote on their exam; I thought you might be interested in their opinions.

What is your opinion of the “compensation culture” that has developed in America?

In America it is very stupid I think. Because in some situation the person guilty by himself, not because floor is wet or coffee was very hot. People should be more careful. If I were a judge, I never decide that people should take money if they wasn’t be careful. But in our country, if you are say truth and you are right, unfortunately, to win in judge is very difficult. You must give bribes for a jury. But if you give bribes, it is not make you sure that you will win. Because defendant can have given more bribes. I hope that in the future the government to realize this and make it better.

“Compensation culture” is a really strange phenomenon for people of Asian and CIS countries. Maybe we just didn’t get used to live in a pure civil society where all laws are strictly observed by all people including highly ranked militaries and top government officials. Civil society puts a law higher than all other moral values, it is actually the highest moral value itself. And that is why Western and mostly American people take all benefits from their constitutional rights, suing everyone and everything just because that they know the law is on their side.

Well, as I read in book, news, and heard from others, it is a big and serious matter in America. Because it is very often that people claim for compensation by suing companies, restaurants, even poor people who can’t even feed themselves and their families. If the reason of compensation is logical and acceptable, it’s ok. But mostly the reason is unbelievable and still they get a lot of money for suing that person or company. In my opinion in compensation cases, the jury should be those who were sued for some unbelievable reason. So that they could try to fix the problem gradually. Cause America has a famous name in world compensation statistics. And they have to do something about it and very fast.

Jane, I suspect that I wasn’t at this lesson and unsure about the “compensation culture.” If it came from the idea to get compensation for something, such culture could be helpful sometimes. Thanks to this “culture” people could know more about the law and their rights. But I’ve read a lot of stories about very weird situations when people were trying to get compensation. Some of them are just stupid and crazy! The compensation culture is very poor in our country because of corruption and imperfect court system.

Do you agree with the saying “money makes the world go round”? Why?

This saying is quite truthful, but not only money makes the world go round. Money is just speeding up the world’s processes, they help to develop relationships between countries and the peoples. But what would happen if money didn’t exist? Maybe then the universal equivalent of goods would be some another thing, for example, a sheep. And we would exchange sheeps for other goods and it would make the world go round.

No, I’m not agree with this point. Of course, money can help you to make your life better, but it doesn’t mean that if you have a lot of money you can buy everything. Money couldn’t bring you happiness if you are alone. Money couldn’t give you good healthy if you are very illness. It depends on people. If the person knows how to spend the money and will spend it on good things, like charity, he could change the world around him and help other people make their lifes better too.

When I studied at school I was disagree with this phrase. Because I was too young to realize it. But now I know that money plays great role in our life. Because you can get everything if you have money, you can allow yourself to do everything what you really like. You can even become president of very famous company without playing any role in its progress. But I know some people who are rich but they aren’t flashy, and they’re doing a lot of charity, they just live and help people. I think we must know that money only serve for us and nothing else.

What aspects of the education system in your country would you change? Why? How?

Actually, the system is good. However, there are many other problems in the country which cause bad education. The main one is low economic level of the country. Lots of people (about 80%) are poor. Some cannot even afford to buy elementary set of school stationary for their children. Teachers, tutors and professors have so little salaries that they are subjected to take bribes and they are not motivated in their work. So, the problem is not in the education system. Simply, we need new generation of politicians.

(This student is from Afghanistan) Well, education in my country isn’t that good, but if I could change something in it I would change all school books which are in a very bad conditions. They are old, many times printed and copied again, and has lost all its quality. You can barely read them. Second, I will start schools of co-education because it really helps a nation by getting shame out of mind, become couraged and have self confidence. Next, I will bring international language book and subjects into schools so that our students can get in touched and should be capable of standing in international society.

The education system in our country is not so strong and effective. We’ve got many universities, colleges, schools, but don’t have enough well-qualified teachers. Also, the salary of these teachers is very low, that’s why we have a big bribery system in education. First of all, if it would be possible, I would attestate all the universities, colleges and schools. Then I would try to increase qualification level of teachers, organize them a lot of trainings, and of course, increase their salaries.

In my opinion, the educational system of our country could be really good if our government took care of poor families and orphans. You know there are too many children working at our markets: Osh Bazaar and etc. They can’t get an education because of family problems, like not enough money, or there are five or six children in a family and a widow has to take care of everyone. Besides, it’s really expensive to study at one of the top schools of the city. Every parents want their children to get a high education. I think our ministry of education must take care of it. The other aspect which I really dislike is a bribe, which is very common in our university. You can easily get a first-class degree with money. It’s not fair!
Are there any subjects not commonly taught at schools in your country which you think should be taught? What? Why?
(This student is from Afghanistan) The first and main topic is that in schools students should be taught first-aid topics and which is important for every day life. Second, there should be cooking classes more and often, specially for teenage girls. Because I am experiencing that females are going away from cooking. Early times women and girls were attracted to cooking. Maybe like 99% women cooked. But now maybe 70% women don’t know how to cook small and easy dish.

I think there are some subjects which should be taught at schools. They are sex culture and etiquette. Etiquette should be taught at junior classes. Sex culture would be better to be taught to high school children. Our children don’t behave well at the public places like in marshrutka or cinema. Their behavior is just awful. As for a sex culture, I believe that children should know about AIDS and others dangerous sickness.

Well it's June...

...and we still have running water, even though it's still cold. Additionally, for the past 3 nights, the power has stayed on ALL NIGHT! Are we returning to civilization??

Boobs in Bishkek

Okay, so this post isn’t actually about boobs or Bishkek, but I simply couldn’t resist the alliteration; this is actually a book review. One of the books Ben Jr brought with him to Kyrgyzstan was Revolution Baby, the story of Saffia Farr, the pregnant wife of a British government aid employee who moved to Kyrgyzstan when her husband was transferred here shortly before the 2005 “Tulip Revolution” [wikipedia]. After reading the book’s back cover, I was excited to delve into this book, although both Ben and Katy warned me that I wouldn’t like it. And for the most part, they were right.

See, Saffia Farr is VERY different from me and my friends, and her life – even when she was living here in Bishkek – is vastly different from my own. I had a tough time relating to her, or even to her version of life in Kyrgyzstan. She essentially spends the bulk of the book complaining about life in Bishkek, bitching about being unable to find a good place to get her legs waxed (!) and constantly reminding us that she has Really Big Boobs (she manages to do this twice in the forward alone). It takes her a good 18 or so months before she decides that she might actually like Kyrgyzstan after all. Maybe.

If you can’t tell from my writing, most of the book annoyed me to no end; I simply couldn’t relate to someone with her own personal driver and who brunches regularly at the Hyatt. However, I did find the final chapters – when the revolution finally happens – to be quite interesting. I remember when the revolution actually happened it received *very little* coverage in the West; I only knew about it because I regularly read blogs pertaining to Russia and the former Soviet Union. I remember wishing it had received more coverage. As such, it was definitely interesting to read her firsthand descriptions of what was going on at that time. But all in all, I wasn’t a big fan. Unless you have a particular interest in the Tulip Revolution, or unless you’re a ‘trailing spouse’ planning on making your way to Bishkek and hobnobbing with the bridge playing, soiree throwing, Hyatt brunching set, I’d give this book a pass.

Some fucker stole my wallet

Katy and I went to a rock festival today. It was sort of a "battle of the bands" kind of thing, a competition between rock groups from different local universities. Our friends who have their own band were playing, so we went. The festival wasn't that great, mainly because the sound equipment was so bad that even the groups that were good sounded terrible. However, it was a beautiful day, and we had a good time hanging out with the guys and people-watching. Unfortunately, on our way to the festival, we took a marshrutka. These are notorious places for theives, so I'm always pretty careful with my things. I had my wallet in the outer pocket of my backpack - which was a pretty horrible place for it - but, I was holding tight to the zipper so no one could get into it. Then the marshrutka swerved suddenly, knocking me of balance, and I let go of my bag just long enough to grab the bar and steady myself. My hand was off it for about ten, maybe fifteen seconds... and yep, it got snagged. Luckily, I didn't have much money in it (maybe $15 worth of soms) and my credit cards were at home in my apartment. Sadly, my drivers license was in there (which will be a bitch to replace, I suspect) as was my social security card (why I brough it with me, I don't know... why I never took it out, I also don't know, but I signed it when I was in third grade, so I won't be too sad to get a new one). I'm mainly pissed because my wallet was where I kept my spare battery for my camera... and now I don't have an extra one. Grrr. Also, I'd had that wallet for 6 years and it was nice, dammit.