Into the World:
The Random Thoughts in My Mind

The other day, the author found himself at the street food market of the little highlands town that he calls home. Severe downpours drowned out the streets while he was going for his brunch on the streets. Thankfully, the market is covered by a thatched roof, leaving a whole group of locals stranded under it for a couple of hours. There was some dismay, but little tension among the crowds. All sat down in the food markets' various stalls, picking up cups of tea, a few pastries, and some newspapers, whiling away the rainy hours with a few chats.

在著者爲組織運營的小店旁邊有一個販賣盜版DVD的商家。每天從清晨到傍晚，門前的一個巨型音響會將店内正在播放的任何DVD傳播到整個村裏。在這裏，這種DVD店非常常見。 若干月前，著者也談到它們正成爲把韓劇帶入當地人民的視野 。它們巨大的聲音給平靜的農村生活帶來一些色彩，也同時讓無電視、無網絡的農民間接的瞭解外面的世界。甚至可以説，當地農民的世界觀被這些店面銷售的DVD決定，而在他們無法走出農村的現實下，對外面世界的好奇心在某種意義上被滿足。

There are many things provided as public goods that people in other parts of the world take for granted.  Many of those public goods simply do not exist out here in Tanzania, and the importance of those public goods are not realized until they are found to be non-existent.  One of these public goods is street addresses.  Even in the largest and most developed cities of the country, most streets have no names, there is no such thing as house numbering even on the streets that do have names.  Partially given the woeful state of the postal system , no systematic effort is undertaken to change this reality.

The house that I resided in rural Tanzania was also inhabited by a 4-month-old kitten, a sort of pet that my roommate was looking to acquire for some time. So far one of the most interesting thing about the experience is to observe how the Tanzanian housekeeper who showed up thrice a week interact with (or, more accurately, behaves toward) the kitten. To put concisely, it is almost one of bipolarity, petting the animal and giving her attention one moment, but loudly (and rather harshly) shooing it away whenever the kitten gets jumpy and playful enough to interrupt her housework.

“The great-grandfather of the current King is probably the most honored one of all the recent kings of Buganda,” the smiling young man kindly showing the author around the great halls of the Buganda Parliament proudly noted as they passed under a gigantic portrait of the young-looking king sitting on his throne at the turn of the 20 th century.  “After all, he is the one who wrote a letter of Queen Elizabeth, asking her to specifically send Christian missionaries to the Buganda Kingdom so that the people can be taught of the great religion.”  He was quick to add as explanation.

In a world where political labelling is rife, it is not easy to precisely define a set of values that constitute a political ideology.  "Liberalism" is a particularly tough one at that.   People speak of certain values being universal, especially when it comes to the field of human rights .  For such people, those who dare to oppose such values are not only barbaric and uncivilized, but also on the right side of history, sure to be perceived in the negative light in the history books of the future.  To them, it is simply unfortunate that these barbarians do not see their own barbarism and make self-motivated efforts to correct themselves.

The rural Tanzanian town that I resided in is a classic truck-stop kind of town. Sitting on a top of a hill, it nonetheless serves as a transport hub where two of the country's major cross-country highways intersect. An east-west highway connects the country's main port at Dar es Salaam with Zambia, providing ocean access for trucks coming from the landlocked interior of the continent. And spurring off that east-west highway is a north-south highway leading north to the country's new showcase capital of Dodoma , where MPs and other political types from across the country congregate when the legislature is in session.

When one lives in a big Asian city, one tends to forget about what is up in the sky.  The context simply does not allow for casual relaxed upward observations.  On the streets, there are always people clamoring behind to ensure people move faster on sidewalks and pedestrian areas; high-rise buildings of all sorts densely sprouting out everywhere block out any chances of clear sky views at the ground level, and worst of all, flashy neon signs of commercial districts , along with thousands upon thousands of electrical illuminations make it impossible to see the sky clearly at night.

What does a nuclear weapons test in North Korea and the an iPhone release have in common?  At first sight, probably not much.  The political fanaticism of a dirt-poor autarky and a global business giant's latest attempt to wow the market have neither correspondent target results nor similar methodologies.  One is bound to end with worldwide criticisms , and one, even in the most pessimistic of outcomes, will get enthusiastic response from long-time fans as well as scores of reviews and analyses by tech geeks and market specialists.

On the previous post, the author already mentioned that the Olympics is fundamentally a game for richer countries .  Smaller countries with little resources to provide right training facilities cannot expect to win at the international level no matter how much raw talents are found in their citizenry.  On this note, this year's Rio Olympics so far does not look too different from others, with the usual major sporting powers (US, China, Japan, Australia, Russia) gobbling up a significant portion of medals on offer so far.  The individual athletes of individual events remain dominant due to availability of systematic training to succeed.

"This is a place of stories...tales of how the town came about through different influences..." the introduction to the newly opened Regional Museum at Iringa cheerfully outlines what the visitor should expect from its collections.  Housed in the Boma, a distinctive architecture of Swahili and European influence constructed during the German colonial era, the museum certainly provides a promising cultural venue, something that had been distinctly lacking in a town that is more marked by cultural isolation than anything else.  Unfortunately though, the rather small collection brought more boredom than fulfillment of that promise.

The author, despite continued ridicule from friends and suffering ofttimes hardships in the most inconvenient times, have for the past years resisted purchasing a smartphone despite the device being more and more commonplace across even the poorer parts of the world.  The desire to remain disconnected from barrage of messages that always seem to require immediate response may be the most compelling reason he can put up to what is increasingly perceived an irrational, eccentric behavior.  But perhaps, in the recent days, there is one more powerful reason to resist smartphone adoption.

昨日であの当時日本在住だったの皆さんの人生を変えた事件から五年になる。マスコミの報道を見ると、福島の復活や被害者の「第二人生」を描く楽観的なストーリーがあれば、被害地の人口が6％減るとか、現地の経済が完全に国の支援だけでまわされているなど、悲観的な指摘も少なくはない。だが、これらの報道に一つ残念なことがあるとしたら、たぶん「量」である。前年度に比べると、この記念すべき一日は人々の注目を浴びなくなっている。各報道局はこの傾向を認知しているのに違いない。

In rural Tanzania, I ate the same lunch every workday when I went to the villages. It was a combination of rice, boiled beans, boil vegetables, and beef chunks stewed in tomato sauce. In this little local street-side eatery in the rural village where I went to work, this combo plate is the only thing on the menu. The young owner of the shop makes the exact same thing for lunch and dinner every day, day in and day out. Interestingly enough, her eatery is sustained by the same customers who work in the area, who come to eat the exact same thing, day in and day out.  I was one of them.

That was the key phrase of the night as the author found himself at a posh poolside bar on the rooftop of an otherwise ordinary-looking hotel inside a walled compound of an obscure side street.  It was the last few minutes of 2015, and this neighborhood, like any other in Nairobi after nightfall, remained dark, quiet, and devoid of pedestrians.  But as soon as the heavy metal gates of the high-security walled compounds are flung open, a whole new world opens up .  Smartly dressed young locals and expats (but vast majority being locals) headed up to where the DJ was keeping the music thumping.

Before December arrived, the author heard from multiple sources of the supposed madness of a lengthy Christmas season in this piece of African outback.  There will be non-stop Christmas music blasting from every home from December to February, they said.  All the bus tickets will be much more expensive because everyone will be traveling home, they said.  And the whole country will all the sudden become a much more festive place, they said.  Exaggeration, without a doubt, but even taken with a grain of salt, such words can be credited for heightened excitements in some boredom.

In multiple occasions on this blog, the author mentioned how he misses the convenience store culture that is prevalent in many parts of urban East and Southeast Asia .  The ability to walk out to the streets from one's residence or office for five minutes, and find food, drinks, basic medicine, and other daily needs just seem so fitting to a city of the future where dependency on automobiles for personal transport is drastically reduced.  Naturally he thinks that dense cities with pedestrian-friendly blocks of dense street-level shops surrounded by high-rise residential buildings is fitting with that future.

In rural Tanzania, there is one thing that is often noticeable in any market area. Next to the usual arrays of vegetable stalls are sections devoted to colorful clothes, some hanging, some in big piles on spread-out sheets on the ground. The clothes are almost exclusively foreign in nature, easily identified with their Korean lettering, Chinese characters, European logos, and even American flags. Yet most show little sign of wear-and-tear, no doubt due to careful selection, cleaning, and ironing. At the equivalent of a couple of USD per shirt, they make for an affordable supply for locals.

When the author was growing up as a secondary school student in the US, a favorite conversation topic among his Asian-American group of friends was the perceived "weirdness" of their respective Asian families.  The concrete example of "strange" were mostly bouts of what can be termed social aloofness, with awkward gift-giving during holidays, awkward presence and absence of affection, and even more awkward get-together of friends and families .  The comparisons were always with non-Asian families, were social occasions, to the Asian kids, seems always so smoothly conducted.

There is no doubt that the terrorist attacks in Paris is unfortunate, and it is perfectly justified that traditional media are filled with news of latest developments and social networks are filled with messages of condolences.  Killing of innocents are morally and legally wrong and deserve to be condemned.  But the label "terrorism," after years of its continued threat to the Western world , should be more or less learned by now.  The very purpose is to generate attention through fear, with collateral damage to innocents as a tool.