Scott’s Land

The stone just outside the writers museum in Edinburgh: “This is my own, my native land -Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)”

I find that everywhere I go in Edinburgh, Sir Walter Scott just comes back. I knew of him as a writer and a part of the romantic movement. What I didn’t realize was that he would be present in and handling so many of Scotland’s symbols and landmarks. His spire on Princes street is visible from afar, he opened the chest that held the honours of Scotland, he even gets a special place of honor just outside of the writers museum in addition to being one of the three prominent writers with objects on display inside. His last name’s even “Scott”. In literature we speak of the need to share common stories as part of becoming a nation and we speak of writing the nation as well, but my time in Edinburgh showed me that he may as well have invented modern Scotland.

 

Perhaps it would be good to give a bit about Sir Walter Scott’s life and his work here. The work he completed that people are most likely to recognize is the novel Ivanhoe, for which I have a link to through the Walter Scott Digital Archive where you can get some sense of what it’s about. Another one of his more popular works is “The Lady of the Lake”, based in Arthurian legend. With these two works alone you get a sense for Scott’s interests and can see how his work contributed to nation building. His less literary work “Manners, Customs, and History of the Highlanders of Scotland” helped to bring Highlander culture into Scotland’s national identity. When I dropped into the writers museum (which is free) I was able to hear a dramatization of Scott’s conversation with James Ballantyne, an editor and publisher who worked with Scott. Somewhat ironically or purposefully, the conversation included Scott stating a wish to be anonymous in publishing his work. He is very far from anonymous in Edinburgh, and his name is not bound to books alone.

He literally left his mark in literature, history, and in architecture as it’s next to impossible to buy a postcard of Edinburgh without his spire as part of the panorama or taking up its own place in a montage. It’s also a bit startling to see him sitting right across from so many modern shops given the clear medieval gothic influences at work here in his monument.

 

Scott Monument in Edinburgh on a clear day

During my ten days in Scotland, I spent a lot of time hearing about his place in national history and literature, yet he seemed most prominent to me in Edinburgh. Whether quoted on a pub wall, pictured as an iconic part of the cityscape, taking an entire room in the writers museum, or being pictured in Edinburgh castle rediscovering the honors of Scotland, Scott seems to have done more than just write Scottish identity, he very physically helped shape it.

Traveling as an Asian-American

So I am preparing to go to Scotland soon and will no doubt have a blog post about that in 2 weeks, but after having traveled so much too I’ve been reflecting on how being away from home changed my identity and the way I act. One big difference is how I’ve come to think of myself as an American of Asian descent rather than Asian-American. Part of that may just be that I when I am in the US with other Americans, I think of myself in relation to different ethnic groups in the US. Being abroad though, has shown me how American I really am even if I do have to answer a few questions when I introduce myself as being from the United States.

I’ve also noticed that I don’t get as angry about being asked questions like “Where are you really from?” I’m not saying it is good to assume that my face means I can’t be anyone else from anywhere else, but I can’t help thinking that if I was someone with relatively little knowledge or interaction with someone from America, or someone from Asia, or someone with an Asian face who came from America I might ask well-meaning questions and not realize how it comes off as offensive. I think there’s a difference between someone who says and does these things maliciously and someone who is curious. I’ve definitely seen people too, who are aware of American racial politics or curious people who are afraid of offending others squirm a little. My time in Europe has certainly put me in a context apart from American race politics. I sometimes have had to take the time to understand how it may be strange to people not from particularly diverse parts to understand where I come from.

I also think that I am enough generations down that simply putting my identity issues down to the tension between Asian and Western values is rather insufficient. Those tensions may be there, but sometimes my problem feels more like the tension between how I personally identify as being very American and how other people understand my physical appearance. At other times too, I’ve been reminded that the term “Asian-American” describes a very large community and a lot of people with different backgrounds and experiences. Which is partly why I’d like to hear from others who have traveled or thought about their identity in the comments below. What are your thoughts or experiences on traveling as a person who does not match the image some people outside of the US believe Americans look like?

Swissmas, Come Not Early, But Twice!

Winter in Switzerland is one of my favorite times. The snow on the mountains, the wooden booths arranged around the large Christmas tree in downtown Lugano, the smell of vin brulee, apple rings, and roast chestnuts, the lights strung up everywhere and the shop displays put me in the Christmas spirit as no other place really has. Though, living in Ticino, the snow doesn’t last quite as long and it can be strange to see the palm trees bent over from the snow covering them. But winter is also a frustrating time as I have final exams and that was why I was so disappointed at the end of last semester when I couldn’t hear Diccon Bewes at Orell Füssli discussing his new book.

Well I needn’t have feared!

The spoils of this winter.

In the end, I didn’t have to catch a quick train up to Zürich and back. He came to Lugano to give a talk, sign and sell books, and I had the opportunity to meet the author of a book that helped me to understand my second home a little better and additionally helped me connect with others who really enjoyed it (including Swiss people)! I’m still recovering somewhat and I’m sorry I struggled so much to find something to say, but I am now the proud owner of a signed copy of Slow Train to Switzerland. I can’t wait to dig into it, and I highly recommend Bewes’s other book, Swiss Watching which is a very accessible read. I found that the book had a nice balance of personal observations, history, and very practical tips for interacting with Swiss people. I read it during my second year here as a student, and so found it helped to fill in for the gaps in my knowledge as well as helped me look at the little things to make up life in Switzerland (I am always looking to see who has red shoes).

This being a literature and travel blog, I feel it’s only right to give some sense of this new book too. Slow Train to Switzerland is Bewes’s account of following Thomas Cook’s first tour of Switzerland through Miss Jemima’s Swiss Journal. While I found the concept for his book fascinating in that he repeated a journey taken in 1863 a mere 150 years later, to hear him speak about the process he went through was equally fascinating. Though I knew Switzerland’s wealth came largely with British tourism, I never realized that this was truly the birthplace of modern tourism: rail passes, fixed hotel rates, and group travel. Nor had I realized how much of the current rail system came into place because of 19th century British tourism and being a frequent train rider myself (I can do the announcements in 3 different languages as we approach a stop) I have a hard time imagining what Switzerland might be like without trains. I may come back and do a full review when I have finished reading it all the way, but for now it’s feeling like a second Christmas!

You can get some sense of Bewes’s writing here on his website. Again, I really recommend Swiss Watching to anyone and especially those who plan on staying in Switzerland for a while.

Norway? No way!

At the end of 9 days in Norway, all I can think of is how little immediately springs to mind when you mention it but what a great influence Norway and Norwegian people have really had abroad. While our travel focused on sustainability and innovation and we spent a great deal of time talking about Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, I first came to this realization as I was learning about the arts. For example, a number of people I spoke to before I left said they didn’t know much about Norway but Edvard Munch, Gustav Vigeland, Henrik Ibsen, and Edvard Grieg are all from there. If these names don’t immediately spark recognition, then I’m sure that the following will:

Edvard Munch. The Scream. 1893. Image from Wikipedia.

Nobel Peace Prize, designed by Gustav Vigeland. Image from the Nobel Prize website.

The other side of the Nobel Peace Prize. Image from the Nobel Prize website.

Another familiar Grieg tune is “Morning”, which is another tune composed for Henrik Ibsen’s play “Peer Gynt”. Other than “Peer Gynt”, Ibsen is best known for the play “A Doll’s House” which can be found on project Gutenberg. Despite its being written in 1879, it remains a very relevant and powerful work due to its exploration of relationships and identity.

To come back to my course’s focus on sustainability and the sovereign wealth fund in particular, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is among the two biggest in the world. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is where they save the money made from oil for the future when the oil runs out. It doesn’t just sit there and grow though, some of it’s been invested in large global corporations. There’s an ethical component to making investments and the government will not invest if it sees that a corporation is involved in human rights violations. My expertise is not in finance or management or any related areas so I won’t dig too deep into it, but I can tell you that the sovereign wealth fund has the potential to be very influential in pushing discussions and guidelines on ethics and sustainability in business. If politics and economics are more your expertise, I recommend you look into Norway’s sovereign wealth fund to learn more about the current debates around how the money is being managed.

Basically, I think it’s amazing that Norway draws such little attention and association at first mention but has contributed so much culturally and in terms of its political and economic system.

Although, a certain viral video has put Norway on the map for different reasons rather recently.

You Can’t Map a Sense of Humor

I haven’t put much up on here lately, but this is one of my favorite images. Full quote below.

“You can’t map a sense of humor. Anyway, what is a fantasy map but a space beyond which There Be Dragons? On the Discworld we know that There Be Dragons Everywhere. They might not all have scales and forked tongues, but they Be Here all right, grinning and jostling and trying to sell you souvenirs. ”

― Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic

Sweet Times in Morocco

It’s been a while since I last updated, but in that time I had the wonderful opportunity of going to Morocco on a trip exploring music and meaning. The trip itself was pretty sweet because 1) I was participating in music and dance everyday for college credit 2) the food was great, the pastries were awesome, and the mint tea was like nothing I’d had before 3) not to be forgotten, I met a lot of very sweet Moroccan people. There was a moment early in the trip when I hadn’t broken down my bills yet and a woman paid for my food when I didn’t have the right amount of change. I was very embarrassed about my misstep and self-conscious about pulling out a large bill. I feel that self-consciousness more strongly when I’m traveling since I don’t want to give off the sense of being a rich American or catch someone’s attention for waving money or expensive things around.

A plate of sweets from our night in Sidi Kaouki. You can see many different influences in Moroccan cuisine.

We went a little off the beaten path with this travel and skipped out on Casablanca and Marrakesh.We started in Rabat then went on to Essaouira,Fes, Meknes, Azrou and Sidi Kaouki. We had the opportunity of going to many different performances in pretty intimate settings and listened to Sufi, Gnawa, and Arab-Andalusian music. Although, listening is putting it mildly. Music in Morocco always involves dance or participation at some level and we were on our feet frequently.

One thing that really excited me about this trip was that we spent some time talking to other students about music in everyday life in Morocco. I’m thinking of one moment in particular when one of the Moroccan students asked us what message our music sent after we asked if Moroccan music was largely political. My response was that our music really had no message, the most popular songs seem to be the ones we can dance to without necessarily hearing the words. He then said “There is no music without a message. What message is your music sending?” and I had to rethink things a little. My group came to the conclusion that most popular music is about happiness or meant to touch on relatively universal feelings, about going out and having a good time. But as we continued discussing, we realized that genre can change the primary messages sent by music. We also talked about the differences between the US and Morocco, and it was interesting that our Moroccan friends said that there was no music without a message and that a lot of their music was political. I feel that in the US it is not unusual to launch criticism at a musician who takes a stance on an issue by saying “He/She’s an artist, why does he/she care?” or something along those lines. It was a very thought provoking conversation.

A group of us riding around the beach after arriving at Sidi Kaouki.

This probably wouldn’t be much of a travel blog if I didn’t say something more about what I saw. Towards the end of our trip, our class rode ATVs from Essaouira to Sidi Kaouki where we stayed for a night. I was terrified at first because I took a long time to get my drivers license and hadn’t ridden an ATV in a long time. Well, I didn’t need my driver’s license and though I was nervous I thoroughly enjoyed the scenery. We rode over some pretty steep dunes, passed camels and cows, went across the beach and up some steep rocky hills. I was worried about catching up, but I was able to get over my nerves because everything was so pretty. I can’t get over that beautiful red soil, the shifting sand over the dunes, or the smell and feel of air near the ocean. What made this trip even better was when we stopped for big lunch and had yet another performance right next to the castle that inspired a Jimi Hendrix song. While my experiences were shaped by the fact that I was in a course examining the different roles music plays in expression and identity, I do feel that music is everywhere in Morocco and that the multitude of its music genres, foods, and the array of clothing seen on the street really represent all the different influences that have come through that part of the world.

Though this trip certainly had many sweet moments, there were also some very bitter ones. A childhood friend of mine who had been going through a lot died while I was away and I got the news the night before my professor found out he’d lost his mom. It hurt a lot, and knowing that when a person dies we remember the best of them, I was afraid that I was going to walk away from a very important, if very hurt side of my friend. The most important thought for me to hold onto through all of this was realizing that yes, this friend was more than the goofy, innocent kid I knew in elementary school but he was also more than all the pain he went through later or that the rest of us felt when he was gone. I spent a lot of time focusing on one or the other and struggled to see him as a whole. Being able to say “That’s not all he was” was very important in holding onto my sanity and being able to accept the loss. I miss him a lot and hope that he has found peace.

I still find him in little ways on a daily basis like old photos or the video games he played with us. Even in Morocco, when I rode the ATV over a steep dune and thought of how much he would have loved that. That’s when my heart really broke, but when it broke the first strong feeling I had was strange. I wanted to tell everyone I cared about them, that I appreciated them for the different things they did, and that I never wanted to lose them. I’ve heard of heartbreak from rejection, but this was like it just burst and let love out. And I can’t forget that feeling, which I didn’t expect in those circumstances but I thought it was important to remember and hold onto for later, and for others I haven’t lost and still have time for.

You Never Forget Your First

As it’s been a while since I last wrote about adventures of any sort, I’m taking today’s post to write about the city that really kicked off my interests and the idea for this blog. I first had the opportunity to travel to Ireland as part of a course on modern Irish literature and went around the island to better understand writers such as W.B. Yeats, Seamus Heaney, and Samuel Beckett. I visited the Dublin Writer’s Museum, saw Endgame (but still don’t understand it), and had a night out on the Literary Pub Crawl. If you’re into Irish writers, I’d highly recommend checking out the pub crawl as it’s lead by two actors who read/act various passages of works, tell you fun trivia as they lead you from pub to pub, and at the end they have a small quiz. If you answer a question correctly, you can win a prize ranging from whiskey to a guide of Dublin’s pubs and literary connections to a t-shirt. If I remember correctly, it’s about 10 euros a person. And this was all just in Dublin. This doesn’t scratch the surface of everything I saw in the West and Northern Ireland.

Over time I’ve fallen in love with Dublin’s current poetry and songwriting scene which is very much alive. My favorite haunt is the basement/lounge of the International Bar on a Monday night. That’s when and where the Monday Echo, a songwriter and poetry night, goes on. The atmosphere is nice and it’s not unusual to find the audience participating in the performances, humming along to a local songwriter’s new work or shouting along with one of the featured performance poets. Once all the featured acts for the night have finished, the mic opens up for whoever wants to read or perform. Have I also mentioned that if you come early to this you can get a bowl of stew for 3 euros? As if a night of free music and poetry wasn’t good enough. It’s also a great place to learn about other spoken word, writing, or musical events going on during the week. I highly recommend it to those travelers interested in the arts and looking for a meal on a budget. I have unfortunately become an “irregular” at the International Bar due to my studies but look forward to going back someday and checking out if the Thursday improv night is still going on, it was supposedly started by the man who plays Dougal in “Father Ted”.

Those of you into pop culture might want to watch “Father Ted” before you travel to Ireland. I honestly can’t see a show like it in any other context than Ireland. To give you an idea of what I mean, it’s a comedy about three Catholic priests living together on Craggy Island somewhere in the rural West and their misadventures. Once you watch it, you’ll hear people referencing it all the time. I myself wish I had more people around me who understood when I say “It’s like that one episode of Father Ted…” Joyce fans may enjoy the Dubliners reference made in one episode. Speaking of Joyce, I’m hoping that my next adventure in Dublin is Bloomsday when you can find people acting out parts of Ulysses and even rapping and remixing the book. I already have my kit and garter ready to go. In the meantime, I’ll post the first episode of Father Ted below for you all.

“Upon All the Living and the Dead”

This was the quote that came to mind today as I wandered through snowy Zürich this morning. I set out for a daytrip in Zürich before the sun came up, intending to pass through the zoo, the national museum, the old town and to do a little shopping. On my way to the zoo from the tram stop though, I saw a sign for Fluntern Cemetery and remembered that James Joyce was buried there. With his works The Dubliners, Ulysses, and Finnegan’s Wake forming such an important part of Irish literature, some people are surprised to find out he’s buried in Switzerland. He was in and out of Zürich during his life, the first time to take up a position teaching English (though when he got there he learned that he had no such position) and the second and third resulting from pressures during both world wars.

His wife Nora supposedly remarked that he would have liked the spot he’s buried in since he would have been able to hear the lions roaring.

I decided to come back and find him after going to see the lions myself (and the penguin parade, the baby gorillas, the gibbons, the red pandas and Mongolian wolves…). The walk from the entrance was pretty much straight up the road until reaching a few steps next to a sign pointing the way. When I got there I only knew it was Joyce’s plot because he was looking over it with a book in his hand. The snow had completely covered his grave so that you couldn’t see his name or the time he’d lived. I found it a fitting image for the final lines of his story “The Dead” despite its being set in Ireland:

“It was falling on every part of the dark central plain, on the treeless hills, falling softly upon the Bog of Allen and, farther westward, softly falling into the dark mutinous Shannon waves. It was falling, too, upon every part of the lonely churchyard on the hill where Michael Furey lay buried. It lay thickly drifted on the crooked crosses and headstones, on the spears of the little gate, on the barren thorns. His soul swooned slowly as he heard the snow falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living and the dead.”

As I left the zoo and the cemetery behind, looking out the windows of the tram back to the city center, a light snow really was falling over everything: from Joyce’s grave to the UniversitätsSpital to the Hauptbahnhof. It was just one of those quiet moments when you really feel how well the arts can express human experience, and how the world imitates art. I’m hoping that as I travel more and track down literary history where I can find it that I have more such experiences, though I don’t suppose they will always be as quiet or sobering since not all stories end on the same note as “The Dead”.

Heart in Seoul

Shopping centers that open at 8AM and close at 6AM the next day, cardboard cutouts of men in cosmetic shop windows and on street corners, sidewalks by made narrow by the crowds walking down them and the endless rows of street vendors… a typical night in Seoul, a city that spilled over with life day and night during my ten days in South Korea as part of a course on communications in everyday life.

What was particularly interesting about our trip’s timing and the places we went to was the rise of the Korean Wave, or hallyu, which refers to the growing popularity of Korean media (dramas, kpop etc). Being in Korean in the wake of PSY’s success with “Gangnam Style” meant seeing cardboard cutouts of him on every street corner and of course, watching his song and dance in ads for a lot of things that ranged from cell phones to refrigerators. I even managed to acquire some special socks for myself:

Every time I put them on, I feel like dancing.

But while it was amazing to see how a viral youtube video spurred on so many parodies, competitions (the Korean Tourism Board recently held a Korea Style video contest), and had come to have such a large presence, we also had the pleasure of going to an important Korean Wave site: Chuncheon.

Chuncheon is particularly important to the Korean Wave as arguably it is where the wave began with the drama “Winter Sonata” (or “冬のソナタ”, fuyu no sonata, as it would be called in Japanese). “Winter Sonata” was originally aired in Japan to fill up an empty time slot in TV programs, but its popularity exploded beyond what was expected and it was aired a few more times, and even in the original language with subtitles as opposed to the common practice of dubbing foreign films. Tourists started coming to Chuncheon to see the very places that they had seen in the series and where the characters all went to school together. I started watching the series myself while in Chuncheon and immediately began to pick up on all the signs, statues, and souvenirs that marked key locations in or related to the drama. In the Republic of Naminara, they sold little snowmen like the snowmen in the 2nd episode. In downtown Chuncheon, they had Christmas lights up and signs with the actors’ faces out even in mid-October. And while passing by the water, I couldn’t help but notice all the signs with Lee Min-hyung’s face followed by a summary of what had passed at that location in the drama. As a communications and media student, it was interesting to see how much the drama was marketed for tourism. One thing I can’t help but think about is how media shapes our perceptions of people and places, and how in Chuncheon has responded to the tourism by offering a chance to live out a drama. I won’t say it has changed itself to fit the drama, but it is selling it.

All in all, this was definitely one of my favorite, if not my absolute favorite, academic travel experience. As I am now back in cold Switzerland where everything closes at 5 or 6pm, where we have quiet hours, and there’s considerably less Asian street food, I am sorely missing the people I’ve met and my time in Korea. I hope to go back someday and to see more of Asia than I have. Chuncheon was especially beautiful in the fall and hiking up to Cheongpyeongsa temple was extremely picturesque. I would love to return and see the puppet festival and the Kim Yu-jeong House of Literature. Someday…

In the Footsteps of Great Writers…

…as literally as I possibly can. Posts covering anything from travels to Greece and the classics to living breathing performance poets coming soon!