Indiana to India

Back to India

2009-09-22T23:56:00.001-06:00

For anyone who's ever looked at this blog: I'm probably going back this coming summer.

Sociology of Religion Coursework

2006-10-01T17:19:00.000-06:00

I was up until four last night finishing homework for my Sociology 390 course, all about the sociology of India's religions. It was a really nice combination of academic thought and laid-back attitude - expectations of logos with a healthy dose of pathos mixed in. I emailed it to my professor, who wrote back to tell me he'd gotten it. Then he wrote back again:

Nephi: Thank you for your write-ups, they were a pleasure to read. I especially wish to thank you for your final paper. A teacher can only hope that what he/she teaches falls on those who wish to be taught. An author once said that all learning requires to revelation of ignorance. It is such a life-altering experience to see that God loves everyone, really. One is compelled to reinterpret what were once seen as exclusive statements and doctrines from their own religious tradition and suddenly see in them universality. Again, it was exciting for me as a teacher to see that one was taught. May I use your paper (either with or without your name, up to you) for future students to learn from as well?

Ralph

I guess I did all right in the course. So here's what I wrote. If you have any thoughts about it, let me know.

My crisis this summer: Is my God in India? Was my idea of God an exclusive, ethnocentric view, blind to whatever truths might be around me just because I wasn't in a place where my American God wasn't immediately available? In a lot of ways, the answer to that question was yes: I couldn't find much of anything in India that I could easily call God. I had learned to call God a Being I could contact and get in touch with when I was alone with my thoughts, in a quiet or remote place. In India that type of situation seemed impossible to find. God for me had been a Father, in some very literal sense of the word, and I was to be like Him. Nothing around me indicated that possibility at all. It had me distressed - until, that is, my final night in India. That night, almost exactly a month ago as I write this now, I came to understand that God understands and appreciates cultures, and reveals truth within cultural contexts to allow humans to live moral, beautiful lives full of light.

One of the main concerns fueling my crisis was the idea - my conviction, really - that Jesus as the Christ performed an atoning sacrifice for the sins of all humanity. The concern stems from that last point - that every person, throughout the world, has been given the gift of the Atonement. If that is true, what of the cultural differences between those who already know about the Atonement and those who know nothing to speak of about it? I stood on a rooftop overlooking Varanasi one morning and wondered how God saw all the people who lived there in that town, those who had perhaps never understood what Christians believe about Jesus, or had never even heard His name. In the case of these people, would Christian belief require the abandonment of cultural values and beliefs? Giving up such a large part of a person's identity sounds like an awful challenge. Does God expect that of them?

That last night in India, in the mosque, I found myself again (as I had before) in the comfortable company of Muslims, this time watching through one-way mirrors from a soundbooth looking over Sunday night's prayers. I'd been invited by a generous bearded man who'd introduced himself as a retired police officer and bought me a Coke; his friend, who ran the mosque's sound, translated the night's Hadith lecture for me, and I found myself feeling there many of the same religious feelings I'd experienced back home - feeling I'd come to identify with the experience of 'feeling the Spirit', learning that something was true by the presence of the Holy Ghost. Something was true there, it occurred to me. And yet how could it be, if Islamic revelation (and Hindu, and Sikh, and, Buddhist and Jain) seemed to contradict Mormonism's apparent monopoly on revelation?

There's where I found a place to resolve my crisis: at the question of ownership. We must not have been the only people on the earth to have acquired revelation from God. An overwhelmingly large percentage of the world's religions contain quite common rules concerning moral and ethical conduct, as well as advice on how to interact respectfully with other people. And yet the sheer number of cultures present among the world's peoples doesn't lend itself toward such striking similarities: one would expect that the gamut of cultures would also result in countless shockingly different moral and ethical codes. In this light, the idea becomes more likely that truths have been given from one Source to peoples willing to live a 'good life' and not developed independently as ideas that merely give us the illusion of universal truth. Smaller discrepancies between behavioral codes, given that God allows cultures to differ, would themselves be allowed to grow and develop naturally, adding variety and interest to the world.

In Bodh Gaya, a couple weeks before my experience at the mosque, I had discussed my crisis with Kem Ramirez, a Peruvian student who had traveled before to Thailand and was one of the group's most familiar with Eastern religions and thought. He said he had been thinking about the same thing, and that something he had learned in previous courses and then traveling was that "it isn't about this life". Having given it some thought, I've come to understand that statement in the following way: that God is an infinite Being who, while indeed working with and for us in the short-term, sees the end from the beginning and maintains a perfect understanding of who we are individually, who we can and will be, and what that will take. Given His understanding of who we are right now, it must be said that He therefore understands us not only as human beings but also as cultural beings working under rather specific paradigms. If that's the case, then the smaller, less important, more 'cultural' precepts that make up specific peoples' codes will be able to be correctetd as we go through the eternities. Some people are working those things out in their own lives now, of course, which will be a benefit to them and others as they go on after this life. But for everyone, this will be a very long process, and in God's eyes that must be all right.

It has been a struggle to return to Provo with these new discoveries. God, working with cultures, has seen fit to restore His Gospel in a country where Puritan piety reigns among the faithful, a certain perfectionism that has wielded some great influence in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You get what you deserve. You work harder and you'll get more. Those who don't have, haven't worked hard enough. Somehow less wealthy, less popular, less beautiful indicates less blessed. My struggle in returning has been, How could God let the Truth be restored in such an environment as this, where our cultural values lead us to a place where we are so prone to judge one another - and thereby keep each other down instead of doing anything to understand and build each other up? Why in the world would He do such a thing? Is it possible that these tenets I've held to so dearly are in fact not Truth?

Actually, there's the value of listening to what the actual scriptures and the Church's highest leaders are teaching us instead of following the practices that have become culturally acceptable. Rather than preaching a religion of judgment, these sources try to convey the importance of patience, of being slow to speak and quick to reflect on a situation, of recognizing the hand of the Divine in people's eternal (and not just terrestrial) lives. The blind man that Jesus healed wasn't afflicted because of anything he or anyone else had done, as some of the more prominent Jews evidently thought; he was just blind, and that was that. Jesus had compassion on the man and healed him, whereas those placing themselves among society's most righteous despised the man for his affliction. There is no reason to do follow along blindly while people make the same mistakes of judgement today; rather, looking for what God teaches will benefit both us and those around us.

What's more, it's here that we find the value of learning from other religious traditions: along with the religion comes a culture that can shed additional, beautiful light on a worldview that we probably thought was already fully illuminated. My experience with Muslims taught me a new reverence for the holiness of God. My time with Sikhs taught me to always be thinking of how to be more honorable my way of greater service to other people around me. From Jainism I understood how little I needed in life. With Hindus it was a respect for others, as they are right now and as they will surely be in the future. Buddhists taught me the power I had within myself to be holy. And Baha'i taught me to find the good in all of these religious traditions. It has been a rather hard road for me these past five months - I can even perhaps say that my foundations have been shaken or that I've had to face what an old roommate used to call the abyss. But learning what I have about God and how He works with men and women in the world, I think I've come to a greater appreciation of all the beauty there is to be had here, and how much learning I still have to do. I expect the answers I've found to these questions will become still more refined, more satisfying, and that that too will present me with some scary times. But I welcome those times and am glad I've already had to wrestle with these questions this summer in India.

NY Times on Dwindling Zoroastrians

2006-09-06T19:10:00.000-06:00

I just found this article on Zoroastrianism on the New York Times' website. I should have been writing up my final paper for anthro 495, my field-research course, but heck this is practically just as good!

We had originally planned on trying to find Zoroastrianism to study while in India for part of our sociology of religion course, but we found it was unlikely. This is a nice insight into one of the big aspects of Zoroastrian culture - the world is seeing fewer and fewer Zoroastrians. There are other related insights in the article.

A Friend Bikes Southeast Asia

2006-09-03T10:10:00.000-06:00

Well I've just gotten an email from my friend and classmate Kem that he's started a new blog. Kem and I were on the India field study together, but he's planned the whole time to stay in Southeast Asia for a while. He tells us he's got quite an affinity for Thailand, and will be cycling through Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos as well. He's at kemramirez.blogspot.com, and his stuff should be pretty good once he gets writing. Maybe he'll throw photos up too. I don't know. Anyway, if you're interested in anything Southeast Asia I think Kem's your man. Oh, and he's Peruvian, too, so he's a good guy to talk to about South America. Wow, Kem's impressive!

I need some feedback....

2006-08-28T01:45:00.000-06:00

Okay hi everyone. I'm back in the States safe and sound, and I'm really grateful for the 'safe' part. We're putting together our apartment but we have some naked walls. So we thought, why not blow up some photos I've taken and put them up? To find out what it would look like, we took some pictures. Please give me feedback about what you think!

Homeward Bound...

2006-08-21T06:01:00.000-06:00

I can't believe it's over. I'm coming home. I'm in Chennai and soon to head back stateside, back to Utah, and back to a lot of headaches. Schoolwork? Job-work? Financial aid? Man, life's about to get a lot harder.

I spent my last night in India at a mosque in Bangalore, just by chance. I felt like going out alone for a walk, and as the sun was sinking a man sitting outside of the rather largue mosque motioned for me to come over and sit with him. He bought me a Coke and introduced me to his dozens of friends as they walked by in long white shirts and pants, caps on their heads. The time for the call to prayer was coming, and my new friend stood and beckoned me to follow him. We went down through a large underground parking area, then up and up flights of stairs to a room where we removed our shoes as the call to prayer was starting to sound from the loudspeakers in the pink light outside. I removed my shoes, walked through a door to our right, and found myself looking at the man who was doing the call to prayer over the microphone. The room we were now in was full of sound equipment - little lights and knobs and lots of cables - and the man held his hands to his ears and let these melodies float from his lips to the world outside. He sang, paused, sang again, repated the process over and over. I couldn't help but be moved.

The men I was with invited me to have a seat and observe the prayers led by the imam, then a long lecture given by a visiting scholar from Delhi. I was honored. When it was all done, my new friends offered me a Qur'an and left me with embraces, held hands, and kisses on the cheek.

I had felt a few weeks before that I wasn't finding my God in India. Yesterday it occurred to me that an Omnipotent, Omniscient God is working with men's cultures throughout the world to enlighten their lives. I'm glad I had my experience last night, one last night of learning in India.

Can't wait to be home though, of course. I'll see you all soon.

Finishing Up in India. Busy.

2006-08-17T00:21:00.000-06:00

We've visited a bunch of cities the past week, and I'm kind of sick of traveling. Which is okay, because I land in SLC on the 22nd. I've got a lot of coursework to cram in the next few days, including transcribing some interviews, finishing my footage notes, and writing up my World Religions and Cultural Proofs work. This is going to take some time.

Oh well. Here are a couple photos. First, from Sravalabelagola (say that five times fast - Kem just decided to pronounce a bunch of random syllables and hope people understood). This is a statue of a Jain deity, I've been told. Or he may have just been a Jain saint, a 'skyclad' ascetic who seeks spiritual progress by rejecting all material things. Notice the vines around his arms. I was unable to find out why they're there, but I wonder if they represent a union with nature, or maybe that he stood there for so long, ascetically, that vines simply grew around him.

Second, the palace at Mysore. A pretty romantic sight - too bad we're on a field study and that public displays of affection are pretty taboo in India. A few Indian guys were playing tag on the grass, and Marc and I joined them. They were a lot faster than Marc and I expected, and we embarrassed ourselves by tripping and falling down. But it was a nice place to be anyway. The guys we were playing with were really cool.

Finally, two photos of something called a Temple Chariot at the museum on the campus of the University of Mysore yesterday. Fascinating stuff - full of carvings meant for public education on religion, historical figures, and even health practices. I've included one photo of special interest to much of our group - a lot of the students were really interested in public health and/or women's health. The carving represents childbirth at the time, the woman giving birth supporting herself on two other women, and the woman behind putting pressure on the belly as the baby comes out. From what I understand, these chariots were used for one village or a group of smaller villages and served as their own sort of social education programs. Very interesting.

Okay, well I'm gone. I'll prolly update one more time before we leave India, and then from the good ol' U-S-of-A. Thanks, everyone, for keeping up with me this summer. I'll have things to write about as the semester goes on this Fall, especially about editing, so be sure to keep checking back. Maybe writing samples, film ideas, etc. I've gotten such good feedback on a lot of my writing that I figure I should keep it up. So thanks. See you soon.

Musings on Varanasi - As I Leave Bodh Gaya

2006-08-09T00:02:00.000-06:00

August 5, 2006 - 08:47 IND

As I expected it might, Varanasi came at me in ways that would make any man do some falling-out-of-love with a town. Of course I couldn't have seen it, I couldn't have known right away that every smiling face I found was only looking for another way to slip more money out of my pants pocket. But the men offering their services as ghat-side explicators of funeral pyres, the boys inviting us to tour silk factories, the endless stream of rowers wanting to show us the holy sites along the river - every one of them, and the countless others who subversively approached us about like services without initially being clear about their purpose, spent their time turning the Ganges into something like a theme-park river ride. Like an ecstatic saint who's given herself up as a whore, too much of Varanasi has turned its mystical, spiritual being into a cheap thrill - and quite frankly who could resist her, at these exchange rates?

I actually have more to say about Varanasi than that; I think I've managed to resolve my issues with Varanasi in large part. I just didn't have the stamina to churn out the rest of my thought when I originally sat down a couple days ago to write what you see above.

Here's a photo from Bodh Gaya, taken especially for my brother Jed, who lived in Japan for two years. This is at the Nipponji Buddhist Temple, where I did some interesting observations of the temple and the meditations there.

Varanasi

2006-08-01T07:58:00.000-06:00

July 30, 2006 - 20:32 IND

Stepping off our train today in Varanasi and into our autorickshaws, we fully expected to be hounded by crowds and crowds of people fighting to get our money however they could - anything from selling their wares to picking our pockets. This was going to be a hot, sweaty, terribly crowded and bossy town we were getting ourselves into, this Varanasi.

But Varanasi met us with cool weather and cloudy skies. Riding through town on the main roads, I felt like something was different from how I imagined the whole city, and I think the weather was the first indication. And step out of our rickshaws, grab our bags, and follow our driver through the maze of paved back alleys, and we were all struck by just how much we liked Varanasi. Rather than feel cramped in its narrow backstreets, we were all taken with the simple beauties of everyday life here. I would even say these slivers of streets felt broader and kinder than even the generous, green plots of the Red Fort or India Gate. Blue wooden doors stood opening to sunlit staircases down halls of dark brick. Boys sitting with their fathers in shops shouted hellos between toothy grins. We met motorcycles inching through, friendly cows with swishing tails, and pilgrim after orange-clad pilgrim.

And then came the Ganges. Each step down our twisting, turning path had brought us closer to the holy river, and we hadn't even known - not until, suddenly, the buildings around us gave way and all that was left was a stone clearing, sloping down in stairs to the windswept brown waves of the river we'd come to see. There was no sound for a moment. No one moved. No one had known how sacred this place could feel. But under the majesty of weighty gray clouds, with birds soaring in the breeze above and naked-chested men bathing in the water below, graced on one side by balconies and temples and on the other by sands and shrubs, the scene - one countless vagabonds and holy men had come upon before we did today - could only stop our bodies from breathing. For a few seconds I felt the Mother Ganga welcome me to a home I'd never known.

I can't tell you exactly why I felt that way coming down to the Ganges. But I can maybe guess - and guess pretty accurately - at one of the big reasons. Every image I've ever seen of Varanasi's ghats, those platforms and stairs at the river's edge, has been one of the sun's scorching rays bearing down on hundreds and thousands of dark-skinned bodies, bathing and dipping in the river's brown waters, bodies lining the ghats in noisy confusion, an endless mass of frantic Hindu devotion. Today rather than stimulus and disorientation I found myself under the influence of an ambience of calm. That calm must have been magnified by the contrast between what I expected and what I in reality found.

I fully expect, in the next couple days I have here, to find myself dealing with the same culture shock I've experience anew in every town we've come to. But for now, durinig this 'honeymoon' phase of experiencing Varanasi, I'm pleased to announce that I'm pleasantly surprised at how much I'm liking it.

One more thing about today. We went down to observe some of the cremations on the riverbank, and on a balcony overlooking the scene, Shawna was talking to a man next to me about the particulars of these ceremonies. As they got onto the topic of who performs the ceremonies, priests came up. Shawna turned the conversation pretty immediately to things she wanted to know about - how often this guy went to temple, and for what god, and what he did there. She wasn't at all afraid to just ask the questions she wanted answered, and I feel like that's a trait I need to work on in my own research and fieldwork.

Four Cities. Three Weeks. One Tired Nephi.

2006-07-29T03:51:00.000-06:00

Well we leave in about 40 minutes for the New Delhi train station. We have four more cities left on our tour out of six total, and I'm planning on spending the time looking at Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Jainism. I've already done work for Sikhism in Amritsar and Baha'i here in Delhi at the Baha'i temple.

Delhi has treated us well, thanks to some pleasant heat and humidity (I think I'm the only person who likes humidity in the whole group) and the relief of air conditioning. One member of the group, Chelsea, had a small but important bag stolen in Amritsar (I get the feeling that's a rarity there), but she was able to get a new passport and visa within the last week and is on her way out of town with her group. I saw a Bollywood movie at the cinema - it was a terrible movie - and Thursday night we took our host, Richard, to see Pirates of the Caribbean. I plan on asking folks on the trains about Bollywood and gender, Bollywood and politics, Bollywood and economics, etc. to fulfill some of my cultural proofs course.

I should say that the Baha'i temple, while beautiful, just didn't feel the same as the Golden Temple. I attribute certain feelings with divine experiences - feelings that I had repeatedly among the Sikhs but not really at all in the Baha'i house. And I don't mean God's not looking down on them and smiling or anything. What I mean is that there was some element missing the seemed to keep me from experiencing the divine there the way I have in other churches, temples, and mosques. I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of this religions tour pans out; it's giving me some insights into my own beliefs.

Sorry that this has been such a short post; we're awfully rushed to get out of here and catch our train. Much love, all of you.

One last photo before I go. These are Sikhs (and probably some Hindu Indians as well) listening to a Sikh man preach at the Golden Temple. Again, this is from Kem's camera.

More Pictures - Can You Believe It?

2006-07-26T07:36:00.000-06:00

I've already put some photos down in the last entry, but here are a few more for you. Again, they come from Kem's camera, and I didn't take a single one of them.

A monk looking out over a misty day on Temple Rd. at McLeod Ganj. The hotels have sprung up within the past five years, from what I understand, accommodating a neverending flow of Indian and Western tourists.

I originally thought (without looking closely at all) that the carved words (painted red) in the bottom stone read "om mani padme hum", words that make up a sacred chant for Tibetan Buddhists. I asked once what they mean, but the Tibetan I was talking to couldn't answer my question; he said translation was too difficult. But I'm not sure I was right about what the characters mean. Oops.

Shrines to Buddha and His Holiness the Dalai Lama in the main temple complex at McLeod Ganj.

A young Tibetan monk helps out another monk by shaving his head. As part of the monastic life, the vast majority of Tibetan monks and nuns are not allowed to have long hair.

The Golden Temple, a Sikh holy site. The Sikhs' holiest site? In any case, the most spiritually beautiful place I've experienced since coming to India. If you have a chance to talk with Sikhs and spend time with them, take that chance. They're beautiful people.

Wait, What? Pictures?!

2006-07-25T10:47:00.000-06:00

Yes, children, I've finally found myself in a place where I can upload some photos onto this blog again. I hope y'all enjoy them.

The moon above Kem, Marc, Brandon & Ashley's place in Chaavadipudur. I didn't take this - Kem did. Actually, all this photos came from Kem's camera.

The view from McLeod Ganj. Down there's Dharamsala. This is taken from TIPA Road, I believe - the road I hiked every day to get to TIPA and do my filming. Beautiful, isn't it?

Autumn spins prayer wheels at the south end of the main temple complex, McLeod Ganj.

A stupa and gate in the shape of one of Tibetan Buddhism's symbolic wheels. I can't remember which wheel this is - maybe the Wheel of the Law. Again, McLeod Ganj (right next to the prayer wheels above.)

In Delhi - A Quick Update

2006-07-23T05:42:00.001-06:00

23 July, 2006 - 17:52 IND

Delhi is just fantastic. We stayed one night at the Major's Den (check the Lonely Planet for a listing, it's in the Pahar Ganj area) and then got up the next morning for church. I'm glad we finally found it because the Branch President offered to let us stay at his place. So I'm at his computer right now while Kem, Autumn, Ali, Chelsea, and Shawna sit and chat in a neighboring room. Weather here is hot and muggy, just the way I like it. Poor Ali couldn't sleep last night so we were going to have to look for a place with A/C - staying at the home of an expat is really nice. I guess his family is Stateside for a while and we're the replacement until we leave for our next site. I plan to spend lots of time at the Baha'i temple while we're here for my sociology of religion course, and last night we saw a Bollywood film at a big multiplex. (It was nice to go to the cinema but not much of a movie. It was the director's first feature, I found out later. No wonder that during the movie I turned to Ali and told her I felt like I was watching a student film.)

Here's a little something I just wrote that I figured I'd put out there. It could use some refining. So sue me.

Delhi had stopped feeling so enormous to Andy. This wasn't just a street anymore, but his street. The row of spikes along the top of the neighbors' wall was the place where the mottled bird came and sang. The construction workers across the street had lost their anonymity. Dust on the windows next door collected, was washed off, collected again. From time to time he ventured into the city and from the raised metro lines, the clean glassy car, would look out at how the brick and mortar sprawled impossibly over countless miles; the journey home always had him recognizing more and more spots until he would arrive at a point where recognition became so habitual he could call it familiar. From here it was only a matter of a few dozen unmindful steps before Andy was home. Here the trees weren't Delhi's trees, but his. Andy's trees, Andy's neighbors, Andy's barking dogs and passing trucks. Andy's sounds of hammering from where men were gathered on the next block. Here was home, Andy decided, and here was a place just like ten million unknown places in the monster of a town.

No More McLeod - Amritsar and then Delhi

2006-07-19T23:38:00.000-06:00

All right, all right. So I haven't really given you guys much to read these past weeks. I've been finishing up research in McLeod Ganj and welcoming the rest of the BYU group, who came up from their research in Tamil Nadu to see McLeod Ganj for a while. It was busy.

Let me give you a quick run-down of how my last days in McLeod Ganj panned out. With about three weeks left in my research, I finally made my way up to TIPA, the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. That sounds like I was just wimping out or scared to go, and actually in part that's true: at the gate to TIPA there's a sign that says no visitors or photography are allowed. That kind of restriction can make it difficult for an American hoping to shoot a documentary. But a friend of Ben's, an influencial monk in the community, had a connection up there and said it would be no problem for him to walk up the hill to TIPA and give me a recommendation. It took a week more than we were expecting, but when he reported back to Ben that I could go, I didn't waste much time at all making my way up to the office and saying hello. Still, I had to go through three people over the course of four days to feel like I was okay even spending time on the campus there. I was really looking for a way to help out around TIPA, too, and it turned out that they had received a couple of Macs and Final Cut Pro to edit on, so I was able to contribute that way. So volunteer I did, usually in the mornings, followed by fits of filming in the afternoon and at night. I did most of my shooting while students and staff were hanging out between and after classes, and eventually I started shooting during classes as well. Everything was blurred as I'd planned to shoot it, and I got some good stuff.

Interviews took me a while longer. I should point out that it took me a while to feel like folks at TIPA were really comfortable with me, both students and staff. At first no one would talk to me at all, and even after three weeks only a handful of students would just come up and speak with me or call me over to them out of the blue. But those that would, did, and after some time I would say we were on our way to becoming pretty good friends. One moment that sealed it was at the Dalai Lama's birthday celebration, when I was just hoping they would let me tag along. Instead, one of the guys from TIPA met me outside the gate and invited me in with him and his friend and told me that he thought I should have lunch with them all. I sat at and shot from TIPA's mixing board and helped out whenever I could, and eventually I found my way back to the room where TIPA sat between performances. Then after the celebration we were straightening up and sweeping the room, when the oldest man from TIPA grabbed my hand and pulled me out the door. I followed him around the building we were in to a rooftop where there were bins and bins of food waiting for us. He had invited me to have lunch, too, and I really appreciated it. I sat down with a group of the male students and ate under the overcast sky. After lunch I waited with them and the male staff members for the TIPA truck to arrive; we loaded it up and went back up the hill to the TIPA campus together, unloading amidst good feelings and smiles.

After that I was pretty at ease asking the kids about going on camera. The first girl didn't want her face to appear on screen - which is fine, that's why I added the option to my consent form. I hoped other students would be more willing to show their faces, and of course I would blur their faces, but I couldn't know. Only one other kid decided not to show his face. Again, everyone's been blurred.

The interviews went pretty darn well. I did a bit of cognitive mapping on my (admittedly small) sample, asking them to draw a map of Tibet and then the places in Tibet that were important to them. After that I asked them to draw the places they thought all Tibetans should know or know about and finally asked them to mark the place they would go back to with a star. I think it was across the board that the interviewees marked the place where they had been born with a star - or if they hadn't been born in Tibet, they marked the place their parents came from. Almost as universal was the data my study became most interested in: with no pushing (that I can remember - we'll see when I go back to the tapes) almost all of the interviewees doing the map activity drew or listed the three 'ethnic' regions of Tibet, Kham, Amdo, and U-Tsang. (Some people call them provinces.) I have a feeling this is pretty important in understanding the dynamic of Tibetans living in exile, and I think that will be the focus of the edited piece I finally put together.

I'm really glad I came up with a sound research method besides the participant-observation-and-interviewing combo that so many folks have relied on before. I understand those tend to be the backbone of anthro research, and to tell you the truth they were really the center of mine too. But I'm glad I got to use this time to work through another method, one I may be able to use in future research or films. And I'm awfully pleased to have been in a research site that allowed for this specific method because it's so visual. After each drawing activity I filmed the person holding the map in front of his or her face, only his or her eyes showing (and, of course, blurred). I think this might work.

Not that this piece is going to be the most entertaining thing in the world. A month and a half ago when I was talking about filming the Tibetan rock band in McLeod, a buddy of mine named Evan found me online and we chatted about how much cooler he thought my project was than his because of entertainment value. And while there is a certain sexiness in rock and roll that isn't quite there in an NGO down in Tamil Nadu (let me know if that spoils your surprise for my readers, Evan), I though both of our projects were at least interesting. Now they're both just interesting. Maps aren't sexy.

Anyway, that's pretty much how I spent my final weeks in McLeod Ganj. The folks at TIPA were just too good to me, despite their reservations. (Somewhere around 60 filmmakers and photographers have come through promising to send TIPA advance copies and give full credit to TIPA, but not a single one has followed through - getting in took some convincing.) I also finished doing English conversation with my friend at the restaurant and even found a little time to read Holes there over the course of about four lunches. (It was a quick read, my first 'quick read' in years!) But really all my time was focused around TIPA.

Pretty soon I was saying my goodbyes and we were taking a taxi to Pathankot and a train from there to Amritsar, where you'll find the Sikhs' Golden Temple. This town is so beautiful, full of kind people and pilgrims. When we stepped off the train, of course, we were surrounded by rickshaw drivers competing for our tourist money, but one man who spoke perfect English ("I just learned from people," he said) stood with us and kept them at bay, and two other young Sikh guys, Bawa and Miki, insisted on helping us catch the free bus from the station to the Golden Temple. When the free bus arrived it was being mobbed by potential passengers and was going to be absolutely packed, but the tall, aging Sikh driver stood and held a bamboo pool between the bus's front door and a compartment to his side. He motioned to pass our bags through the window there. Bawa looked at me and said, "I will guard your seat!" I figured he just wanted money, but it turns out these guys just wanted to make us welcome. When the bus finally arrived at the Golden Temple complex (it's huge), they guided us to the free housing for tourists and talked us three through getting a few beds. Before they left they made sure to leave their numbers and tell us that at the gurdwara we could get free food, 24 hours a day. These Sikhs are just so kind.

We've spent hours and hours at the golden temple. One Sikh man with only his front teeth, who seemed to not speak a work of English, took interest in us and guided us around the temple's big pool (google it and find pictures - worth it!) and then into the temple. From there he showed us staircase after little staircase, leading us to places we never would have known about or been gutsy enough to enter without him. One of these was a long gallery just packed with historical depictions and portraits of significant Sikhs, of men being killed or tortured or in the middle of glorious acts. One was of a famed woman military commander. I couldn't help but feel a certain brotherhood with the Sikhs; Mormons too look to their past with keen interest and are often told to remember their history. Mormons too have gone through persecution that united us in a common, beautiful cause.

Tomorrow we leave for Delhi, where I'll be studying Baha'i. I don't have much to say about Baha'i now - that's why I'm going to be studying it - but I'll have something soon. I have in fact decided to head down to the Taj Mahal, even though it's a big-time touristy thing to do and I don't really have a reason. (Sorry, Dave and the rest of the ISP crowd. Peer pressure is something else, I'll tell you... I'll try to get in an interview about Bollywood on the way or something.)

Okay well time to get going. Lots to do today if I'm going to feel like I've made the most of Amritsar. Much love. Thanks for everything.

Safe!

2006-07-12T09:06:00.000-06:00

Just so everybody knows, I'm safe. The bombings happened a long ways from where I am now, and I didn't even hear about them until late this morning (late last evening for you) when I checked my email and the New York Times website. Thanks, if you're checking here to see if I've updated. I'm alive.

Sorry for the Delay

2006-07-02T21:18:00.000-06:00

Hey all I'm doing my best to keep everybody happy here, but I've just been so busy with some recent developments that I haven't been able to keep up with everything. I'll update you soon about what's been going on. Just know that I'm safe and happy and looking forward to the USA Independence Day on the 4th. We're planning a picnic between us four from BYU, complete with meat (rare for us while we're here in India), an apple pie and vanilla ice cream. Not our normal kinds of meals, but we figured we'd do something different for the Fourth.

Okay bye. Much love and thanks for reading.

More updates from Dharamsala

2006-06-19T02:45:00.000-06:00

June 16, 2006 - 09:05 IND

Here it is Saturday, and for the first time since I arrived in India it feels like a weekend. Maybe it's that I'm getting into a routine here, doing one-hour conversations Monday through Friday with my friend at the restaurant and getting used to the incomings and outgoings of the rich Punjabi tourists as they have their breaks from their own workweeks. Or maybe it's the way this morning's panning out, cold and cloudy in the pine trees of these Himalayan foothills. It's the kind of weather that breeds a lazy day.

In any case, I'm taking advantage of this morning (and of the water heater in the girls' bathroom) to do some laundry and to warm up my cold feet with a hot bucket shower. The clothes are soaking a little in the bucket next to me now while I type at a table we've just put into our room. Someone brought the table to our guesthouse yesterday, and one of the guys who takes care of the place, Surindr, offered it to us for our room. We put it in the corner of the room by my side of the bed and set up all my things with it - computer and my contacts and toothbrush on top, clean and dirty clothes all rolled up on a little shelf below the tabletop, and a folded-up wool blanket on the floor below so my bare feet don't get too cold while I sit and work. To the left of the table I stow my camera (which is beautiful) all set up on a tripod while it waits to be taken out for shooting the next day, along the packpack that carries my rainjacket, boom pole, and consent forms. From this corner I can sit and study in the mornings: as I take a seat in my chair here the windows are to my back instead of in front of me, and the light from the windows shines on my book instead of my face when I sit down to read. It's made all the difference.

Speaking of Surindr, this week we've really seen a good relationship develop between him and us. I give Ben the credit; since their long conversation about work and school the other night I've sensed that he knows we're really interested in him as a person. He feels comfortable stopping in at night or just stopping to say hi through our window. He makes jokes with us about how much we work, and the other night when I went down to watch the end of the England-Trinidad and Tobago match he was there too. He knows we're interested in football (soccer - 'football' and 'match' have just become habitual phrases for me now) and gives us results each morning. More importantly, I think he feels comfortable coming to us with his frustrations at work and in life, and I'm glad we can be here to hear him out.

Ben's playing some music on his computer. She said the man in the Gaberdeen suit was a spy... Meanwhile, I realize I don't know how to spell Gaberdeen.

Yesterday I went back again to watch the dancers from a certain village in Kham (a region of Tibet) prepare for the Karmapa's birthday celebration. I don't know what village they've all come from, but they get together every day to rehearse for the Karmapa Lama's upcoming birthday celebration. Since I've been going every day for a week now, I think they're getting pretty comfortable with my being there. I've learned the melody to the song they sing as they dance, and one day I even jumped into the circle of dancers and tried to follow along. I think they appreciated all of that. So yesterday I pulled out the camera, and Ben grabbed the boom and ran the microphone for a while. They were nervous at first, but eventually I started to sense that they were accepting my presence there - especially when the dance leader, a hard-looking man who wears traditional clothing and a couple of turquoise jewels in his ears, approached me behind my camera and looked at the image in my LCD. I decided to just allow for a timecode break, rewind the tape a bit, and show him what I'd been shooting, and when he saw himself on the screen he got a big smile on his face. I hadn't seen him show any real signs of smiling at all up until then, and I felt like this might have been a big step in building trust with the group.

You should know that I've decided the best way to maintain the safety of those I video and of their families and friends still in Tibet, and still keep some kind of artistic unity throughout the whole piece, is to simply blur every shot I take. I think I've said that already in my last entry. And I think that's actually going to prove to my benefit as I go shooting. The fact that the man in traditional clothing, the dance leader, saw that he was unidentifiable to the viewer likely made it much easier for him to accept the fact that he was on tape. And that fact - the fact that he can trust me to not reveal who he is - allows him to share that trust in me with others. What I mean is, it helps ease some of the doubts or fears that Tibetan refugees would have appearing on tape and makes my job of shooting and interviewing that much easier. I only have 3 1/2 weeks left here on site, so I hope those relationships can grow, both in number and in strength, within that time.

Some things I think I'll need to do soon: try to set up interviews with some educated and influencial folks who can tell me more about Tibetan regionalisms and other divisions that might exist between Tibetans, especially differing opinions they have about policy regarding Tibet's political position relative to China. I'll also be heading up to TIPA - Tibetan Institute for the Performing Arts (?) - to see what they think about my filming preparations for the Dalai Lama's birthday and interviewing some of the students there. I'll have to take a tape that shows blurred footage so they know that I'll be shooting everything like that. Otherwise I too, like everyone else, might have to obey the signs at TIPA's gates that read 'Cameras strictly prohibited'.

12:02 IND

I've now done some laundry, taken breakfast, and showered from a bucket of hot water. That last one felt goooood, believe me. My clothes are up on the roof hanging from a communal clothesline, but since it's so cool and humid out I doubt they'll be ready to wear any time soon. Today I'm going to talk to my friend at the travel agency to see about meeting for a more extended period of time tomorrow afternoon. Though it's Sunday, I feel okay about meeting with a friend and just shooting the breeze - even if some of the byproducts of that meeting are directly related to my research.

13:42 IND

I've just had a realization, while taking a moment to open H. Russell Bernard's Research Methods in Anthropolgy, a book I've come to really enjoy. Before I left Provo and got to 'the field', I imagined myself looking forward to coming home each night to report about what I'd learned or observed. What I'm talking about here is field notes. For some reason - well, maybe because it's just something I've tended to do all through school - what I expected to be an enjoyable endeavor in learning has often turned into drudgery. I'm not sure what the reason is for this constant fight to keep my ideals alive, but I need to find a way to rejuvinate them.

Ben's just come home with momos, little vegetable-filled Tibetan dumplings, and I'm chomping down on one of them right now. (Like I've said before, Ben's always helping out everybody else.) I guess this kind of thing might help rejuvinate me in my efforts to enjoy this because man-oh-man do these taste good...

June 19, 2006 08:30 IND

Happy Father's Day, Dad. (Sorry it's late. I was thinking about you yesterday though!) (Mom, I'm well aware that your birthday's coming up.)

Last night I had a conversation with my friends from BYU - there are four of us here in McLeod Ganj - about our upcoming world religions tour of India and how I'm really not looking forward to it. A lot of my frustration stems from the fact that I'm here to do my research and to do the video documentary piece on Tibetan refugees, and everybody heard me out and that was good - in fact, we share some of the same frustrations. But this morning I had a thought. As I'm getting on that plane in Chennai headed for Mumbai, or as I'm boarding in Mumbai for Frankfurt and eventually Los Angeles, how am I going to feel? Will I be looking back, or forward? And if I am looking back, how do I want to see my time here? As seven weeks of utility and a wasted rest-of-the-summer? It's pretty obvious to me that that won't do me any good. So I might as well embrace this tour of India - which, I have to say, I've been able to do on several occasions while preparing for and being on this trip, though that's been inconsistent. I'm just going to have to get out and shoot everything I can and set up all the interviews I can in these next two or three weeks and let that be enough and work with it in the editing room later.

I think a lot of my frustration comes from things here not matching up to my ideals, and from my unwillingness to detach myself from those ideals. And it seems like that's a problem. First of all, why should I expect all my ideals to become realities? And second, why am I so attached to these ideals, as if they were actually important just because they're mine? After all, maybe my ideals aren't actually for the best - the long-term best - anyway.

Better I think to just go with the flow a little bit more and relax.

09:18 IND

Here's a bit from a letter I'm sending to my family. I thought it was of general interest, too.

"Actually, I'm glad we did go to the pool in Bhagsu because it's what happened as we left it that was really great. On our way up some stairs toward the Hindu temple, I saw a Western guy, kind of middle-aged, with bushy hair and a video camera. He was standing on a small platform overlooking the pool and filming all the folks swimming and playing around, and there was a Western kid, around 20 years old or so, standing right behind him with a backpack. I thought maybe the kid was an assistant or something - but he looked like he could have been a son. Anyway, we walked past them and I realized they were using the same model of camera I had brought to India, a Panasonic AG-DVX100B. On top of that, he had some model of Nikon digital SLR with a big ol' fatty zoom lens on it. (I didn't get good enough of a look to tell what model of still camera it was.) We stepped away from the pool complex and rounded a corner, where we could see beautiful Bhagsu falls, but we didn't go any farther because it was just full of people. So we turned around and walked back between the pool and the temple up towards the main road.

"I realized suddenly that the two Western guys were ahead of us on the road, and that we were catching up. I kept our pace and soon we were coming up right behind the kid with the backpack, who was trailing the man with the camera. I happened to glance at the kid's back, and right there, between the kid's backpack straps, was the word UTAH, in all caps. No way, I thought. No way.

"I didn't even say hi - just blurted out (probably too loudly) "Are you from Utah?!" They turned around, kind of taken aback, and replied that yes, they were. Whereabouts? Salt Lake City. I couldn't believe it. I told them I was at BYU, and we had a great conversation about what we were all doing there. Turns out they are in fact a father-son team and that the father's wife works for the Salt Lake Tribune. She, from what I understood, was unable to go on this assignment, but these two guys had been visiting Tibet and were writing some pieces on Tibetans for the paper, as well as doing a vidcast in a couple weeks - thus the camcorder. (Incidentally, they told me it had been the son's dream since childhood to visit Lhasa, and that this was sort of a present too since he'd just graduated from high school and was starting at the University of Utah this fall. Cool present - even if he had to work during the trip.) They seemed to like the idea of my project as I explained it to them, and I told them a little bit about BYU's International Studies Program here. I figured they were busy and wanted to get back to the peace of my guesthouse back McLeod Ganj myself, so I let them go, but they said I could send them an email - which I might do soon, while they're still here in town - and check out the Tribune's website in the next couple of weeks to look for the stories and the vidcast. I can't wait to see what they'll turn out."

That was kind of a cool experience. I'll have to email them; I'm really curious about their work, and I think they're a little curious about mine.

Updating more frequently from now on?

2006-06-15T22:21:00.000-06:00

June 14, 2006 - 10:18 IND

If I have anything to say about it, this is going to be a busy day. There are a couple of people I'll be hanging out with so I can get to know them better - really nice people I've met over the past week or so who probably have important things to say about 'being Tibetan' or 'traditional Tibetan' dance or Tibet's future. One of them is a guy I met a few days ago in front of a clothing/curio shop where I hang out often (we know the guy who works at the desk there). This guy introduced himself in English that was just beautiful and then told me he'd received his masters in economics from a university about four hours out of Mumbai (formerly Bombay). We went up into his office and he helped back-translated a consent form I have to use for the university's ethical interests, and he was awfully friendly. A couple days later I ran by with some Indian-versions-of-muffins (not muffins like I know them, but tasty!) to say thanks. Today I think I'll just spend some time chatting with him.

Right now, at 11, I'm going to my daily one-hour English lesson with a woman who works at a Japanese restaurant here. She's quite friendly but (understandably) finds English to be quite difficult. I don't blame her; learning about their syntax I can see why she says "English is backwards". I happen to think the same thing, from my frame of reference, about Tibetan! But we get along well enough; I'm trying to give her some - what's it called? - comprehensible input (good old i + 1, for all you second-language teachers out there) in the hopes that she'll be open enough to pick up on some things during our few weeks of conversation.

She's also been a source of some information I'm just not sure I would find anywhere else. It's kind of like I remember Seinfeld doing - never talking about the same thing, and trying to extend the list of things you can talk about. What that means is that we're both (I think) trying to find meaningful topics to discuss given her limited vocabulary, and that that's making us cover a large variety of subjects. Each day, it seems, goes into a new subject (though many revolved around Tibet and Buddhism), and where I feel so inclined I ask further questions that might be useful in my research. I don't think this is unethical: I don't try to turn the conversation in any certain direction 'so that' it fits my research, and I didn't start doing the conversation lessons as a way of doing research. It was just a way to help out. And it's just happened to be beneficial for both of us, on a lot of levels. (I also don't ignore the fact that spending an hour every day doing these conversations, while not totally altruistic, helps me stop thinking that my research and my life are the only important things going on here. I get to forget about myself a little bit while I'm there.)

Another place I need to go is this café run by the rock band I want to interview, together with their mother. (All the band members are brothers.) One of the guys in the band knows our friend Sonam, and I introduced myself to him the other day. He seemed more than open to talking with me, but before I do anything with them and video I hope they'll be comfortable with me. That's what today's about, really: building relationships with the people around me and understanding them more deeply.

If you're wondering why I'm not using a lot of names, I don't feel comfortable doing so when most of the people I'm talking about here are political refugees, often with many family members and friends back inside Tibet. The last thing I want to do is endanger them or their loved ones through thoughtless use of their names in such a public venue as the Internet. Now ask me if that's a problem for filming their faces and showing them to audiences...

June 16, 2006 - 07:35 IND

The things I wrote so optimistically in that entry two days ago just plain didn't happen like I'd hoped. I mean, I had my English conversation with the woman who works at the restaurant (the TV was on this time, and she gave me a synopsis of the storyline - it was kind of like a Tibetan Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, with the daughter falling in love with a doctor from some African country) and I did in fact stop by the other two places to talk to my masters-in-econ friends and the rock and roll band. But neither went like I'd hoped.

My meeting with the guy with the masters degree was at his workplace, and I couldn't tell if he was annoyed with having to deal with such a pestering American, or whether what I was sensing was just some tension because he was trying to negotiate a relationship with another human being with his work responsibilities (and thus a relationship with his boss). I'll hope it was the latter; he didn't seem too put out to schedule a time for us to meet this Sunday, when he's off work. Usually Sundays are kind of off limits as far as doing field work goes because I try to maintain a posture of worship on the Sabbath, even while I'm here, but this seems like it's all right. First, I'm sitting down to get to know an individual a little more deeply. Second, he's a peaceful enough guy to where I probably won't feel like I'm in party mode during our visit. Deep down, I kind of hope I can also use this time together to ask him about the possibility of his translating an interview for me sometime, but if it doesn't happen right away I'll be all right with that. Anyway, the reason I didn't feel like it had gone really well with him was that tension I mentioned above. But talking about it now, I think maybe everything was a lot better than I imagined coming out of our conversation.

The result of my time with the rock band was unequivocably worse, however. I went into the café they run and had a late lunch with Ben and Elizabeth at about 3:00 or 4:00 in the afternoon (my breakfast that morning had consisted of two huge pieces of Tibetan brown bread w/ butter and cheese, plus half an omelette on each to make a sandwich - two sandwiches!). The 'Potato Home Fried' was very good, and afterwards I went up to pay. It was the band's drummer, a long-haired Tibetan twenty-something in decidedly Western clothes with whom I'd spoken before, who stood behind the counter. A really nice guy. I paid (and bought one of their peanut-butter cookies to boot) and then just before leaving asked the guy if I could come back and get to know the brothers in the band sometime that would be best for them. Were they awake in the mornings, maybe, when the café might be less busy? He smiled and shook his head - I figured he meant they would be in bed, hung over or something. But then he shook his head again. Something bad was coming. "No man, the band, we're on a break right now, not really doing anything. So, no filming. No documentary, man." I gave him a smile and a friendly "Naw, that's okay!" and walked out the door and took a few steps before it really hit me what this meant. This meant the piece I'd put so much credence and excitement into just plain wasn't going to happen. I'd planned on looking at Tibetan traditional performing arts versus Tibetan rock music, but at this point it sounded like it just wasn't going to happen. Where was I going to get another idea, though, that would be as exciting? Or even viewable by a general audience? The whole thing really threw me for a loop.

So that was two days ago. Yesterday I woke up still in sort of the same mental state but still left in time to head down to do my daily hour of English conversation. On my way down to her small apartment I was thinking about the whole situation and just decided I needed to start filming, and that to avoid the ethical and artistic issues in blurring some people but not others, I would just blur everyone and everything. Every shot would be blurred. And when people say, "Man, that was really frustrating to watch!" I'll say, "Imagine how frustrating it was to shoot!" So waiting on the gravel-covered street in front of the woman's house, I got my camera out and just started getting shots of all the flyers and bills posted on walls and telephone poles: Tibetan cooking, yoga classes, meditation and cafés were all advertised there. These people really knew their audience.

While I was filming a couple of Tibetan cooking flyers a young Tibetan man came up behind me and looked at my LCD screen. "You can't even see the letters," he protested. I turned and saw he was with an older gentlemen, and that both were smiling. I explained to him a little bit about the ethical problems in filming refugees and what my solution was, and he seemed to think that was pretty cool. I noticed he was wearing a German national soccer jersey. We introduced ourselves, and he introduced the other man as his uncle, and then I just decided to ask if I could meet with him later that afternoon to do an interview. He said that was fine, and at 2:00 that afternoon I was at his house having my first consent form signed and doing my first taped interview. I felt like maybe he was giving some of the answers he thought I wanted to hear, but it was good nonetheless.

I need to start asking about people's views about what should be done with Tibet. That could get them speaking their own minds instead of a canned answer that they've heard other Westerners publishing in print and film. Apparently there's a lot of controversy and division in that question, and I wonder if any of the side-taking regarding autonomy and independence corresponds to other factors - why some people agree with the Dalai Lama in his 'middle path' approach and why some don't.

Well, in any case it's time to start my day with breakfast and some scripture studying, so I'm out of here. I think maybe I'm back on my feet - even if I don't know where I'm going with all of this.

I'll probably post this pretty soon - like this morning - and keep you better updated in the future. I'll try to post more regularly.

9:50 IND

A quick shoutout to my friend Evan, who has emailed me saying he enjoys the blog. Thanks. Just so everyone knows, this is also my journal. Yes, you're actually seeing pretty much everything I type so I can either (A) remember for myself, (2) think through my problems, or (D) show off to friends. (That last one is the least honorable I think...) I type it up on my cheap laptop and save it under file names like "ElectronicJournal6" (which was this one) and throw it on my USB drive to bring to Internet cafés so I don't have to spend a fortune just to type.

I just spent probably an hour or so doing some observations in a café I go to for breakfast a lot, so I might throw those expanded fieldnotes up on the blog like I did with my temple notes last time.

Okay bye.

Oh, and still no photos. Sorry everybody. I'll get to it eventually - just so busy with research and school stuff!

This is a long one! With a photo!

2006-06-13T04:17:00.000-06:00

June 8, 2006 - 21:07 IND

I don't know how to think anymore. And maybe that's a good thing.

My roommate, Ben, has come to me with all kinds of new additions or modifications to his theoretical approach to his research. Problematizations of the words 'identity' and 'memory', and of the distinctions and similarities between each and of the manipulation of one to create another and of the imposing of one on the other and all kinds of things. And some good sentences come out of it - for instance, "They have not lost their religion, so it has become less of a focus within the cause or their struggle for memory. They fear losing Tibet, not Buddhism.... Their culture is one of looking forward, toward gaining a Tibet they have not known, while those who knew Tibet are looking back to a Tibet they have lost." But the theory, or analysis, or whatever happens in the background of that writing, has held him in our room (spacious and bright and beautiful as it is - thank you, Kailwood Guesthouse) and in the Tibetan Library for the past couple of days and held us in a couple of conversations revolving around abstractions and nuances, and I'm just tired of it.

Don't get me wrong, I don't villify Ben for any of this stuff. I'm not put off by his doing it either. Heavens no! I like this guy as much as just about any of the friends I've ever had. After all, how would you go about disliking somebody who spends every moment thinking about things he can do for other people? No, it's more that I just don't know how any more thinking is going to do me any good. During the past semester, in a course we had together, we spent four months working on our research proposals, and for a long time (until just the week before finals) I thought I knew what I was doing. Then, at professors' recommendations, I had to revamp the thing. Twice. And quite frankly, by the end of that whirlwind I just didn't know which way was up anymore, and now that I'm here I see that things are even less clear than I thought they would be, and I think it's going to take me a lot longer than the time we have here to straighten my thoughts out.

It's also that all told, we've only got seven weeks to finish our projects, and we're already two weeks in. And I've just today started getting footage of folks learning traditional dance, and I've only done the one interview with the producer from Channel V so far. (Oh, I just realized I haven't told that story yet. I'll get to it below. Sorry.) At the pace I'm currently going I'm wondering how much footage I'm going to end up with, and the limited amount of footage I may end up with would of course limit the numbers of connections I can make between clips while editing - which could make for a really schizophrenic piece when it's all over. So I really need to start talking with more performing-arts folks like those up at TIPA and the band I mentioned earlier, as opposed to sitting and agonizing about what kind of approach I'm going to take. I guess that's sort of in motion, though: our friend Sonam talked to Chigme, who's in the band, and Roommate Ben talked with the monk he does conversation classes with about finding a way for me to go to TIPA and start research up there. All I need to do, I guess, is take the next step with Chigme and wait for the word from Ben's influential monk friend after the weekend, and then I can start with those two veins of my videoing. (By the way, I think a lot of the decision-making process as far as My Approach goes happens in the editing room, once all the footage is gathered. Maybe that's why I feel like I should jump in a bit more readily than the other kids. Or at least more readily than I was originally doing.)

Another frustration is that with every step Ben takes in his thinking, I'm finding it more difficult to differentiate his research from my own - or maybe his theoretical perspective, rather. And to hear somebody else say what you wanted to say all along, and to know that both your projects are going to be based on these underlying ideas - that's a really frustrating thing. It's like I don't have any motivation to think any more - like I don't need to have any motivation for thinking. Why would I, after all, if Ben's doing all the hard stuff for me?

So I'm just letting myself take steps towards videoing. Or rather, I'm videoing. I've already mentioned some of the footage I've captured so far, and that the next steps are interviews and actual rehearsals for the Dalai Lama's birthday celebration. Today was especially important because I found a guy ('Chophel'), a young guy who just received his masters in economics from a university down by Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and speaks English really well, who might agree to doing some translation work. I don't know - maybe I overstayed my welcome today at his office, asking him to back-translate my consent form, which someone else had already translated from English to Tibetan. In any case, the next couple times I see him I'd just like to take it easy and treat him to some food or something. He's an awfully nice guy; it's too bad that the first day I met him was also a day I needed to find somebody who could do the back-translation. It would have been nice to just hang out for a while before I suddenly 'used' him.

What I'm thinking is that a couple weeks of listening for what people here say is going to lead me better in my research than looking for what academics have said about the people in this community. It's that kind of thing that usually sparks video ideas in me, too. So this is probably a good idea, just jumping in instead of thinking how warm or cold the water's going to be. Thinking is nice in the classroom, but out here, I just don't know how much good it's doing me.

June 10, 2006 - 23:47 IND

The World Cup is upon us, and while that Trinidad & Tobago - Sweden match I just finished watching was quite a thrill, it's not what I'm wanting to talk about tonight. When I came back up the hill from the guesthouse that neighbors ours below, Ben was in our room talking with Surindr, one of the guys who takes care of the whole place. I did my spiel about Trinidad & Tobago's brilliant keeper, etc., and then they continued their conversation. It was centered on Surindr's education and work situations and quickly moved to his family back home. The guy hasn't saved any of his money because he sends it back to his family - especially his younger brother who is in the 11th grade, the second-to-last grade before finishing school here (from what I can gather) and the very grade Surindr himself was in when he left school. "He can finish school," says Surindr, "go to university, do any job he wants." Our friend here at the guesthouse takes it upon himself to take care of his little brother. "That's his luck, we say."

Ben went for a bit deeper of an understanding. "Is that his karma? Would you say that?"

"Yes!" replied Surindr. "You know the karma?" I felt a connection form between Ben and Surindr then. And it occurred to me, as it had before, that karma is for well over a billion people a completely sensible and effective way of understanding and making peace with their current situations in life. I think that's one of the basic needs - spiritual, psychological, or otherwise - that we all have in our lives, to find a way of looking at our current situations in a way that allows us to be happy. For me, I'm of the school that says that God, a loving Father, has put us in the place and time where and when we will be able to make the greatest possible progress for our real, long-term happiness, even if that means postponing temporary pleasure or even comfort. For who-knows-how-many people, the explanation is karma, and for others it's the idea of Camus's absurde and, beyond that, existentialism. Across the world different ideas and systems have developed in order to make peace to some degree possible.

To a large extent I'm convinced by the idea of karma, too, and I think many of my friends will be surprised at how easily they would agree with it as well. I'll quote below a little bit from Huston Smith's The World's Religions (copyright 1991 by the author, Huston Smith), but first you should know that Smith's translation of the word karma is essentially 'work'. Thus one of the ways Hindus can see themselves coming to God is through 'work':

"[A]ccording to Hindu doctrine every action performed on the external world reacts on the doer. If I chop down a tree that blocks my view, each stroke of the ax unsettles the tree; but it leaves its mark on me as well, driving deeper into my being my determination to have my way in the world. Everything I do for my private wellbeing adds another layer to my ego, and in the thickening it insulates me more from God. Conversely, every act done without thought for myself diminishes my self-centeredness until finally no barrier remains to separate me from the Divine." (38)

Many thanks to Mr. Smith for such a beautiful passage. This is an image that's stuck with me very strongly since I read these words for the first time about a month ago, and I've thought a lot about the analogy and what it means for us to overcome our lower, natural selves and be higher, more refined beings. You might say more human, in the very best sense of the word. (To Mr. Smith and HarperCollins: Please don't sue me for using a section of your book. I'm simply reading it for a course and especially enjoyed this example, both in content and in form. I really have read the copyright in the book and am trying to keep with the spirit of what you've laid out there.)

Of course, Hindus (among others) will apply this to reincarnation - an idea which in fact makes plenty of sense (ask me sometime how I sort of invented it for myself when I was 10 years old or so and contemplating The Mysteries of Eternity) but to which I don't adhere. And this is where Surindr has found his explanation for why he's perfectly content giving his earnings to his family so his brother can continue attending school and one day graduate from a university: his karma and his brother's karma have placed them in a place that's just for them, based on how they have acted in the past, as they continue on in their quest for detachment from this world. Now they have their roles to play, and each will play his own to the best of his ability.

The point here is not whether reincarnation is what really happens in life; I've already told you I don't think it is, but I'm still bringing it up because it brings us to the greater purpose in this discussion. Surindr has, like many others, found a way to see his world in a way that helps him to make sense of it, to come to terms with it, and to feel peace in the midst (and perhaps in spite of) it.

I think if we realize that that's something we really do need in our lives, and recognize how beautifully our belief systems help us do that, we can learn to appreciate our own beliefs even more. And what's more - and maybe more important - we can find incongruencies and address them honestly and earnestly so that our worldview and our resulting actions really can bring us true happiness. For me, the center of that worldview is Christ, but I've found that several of my ways of thinking about Jesus and His role in my life haven't fulfilled their purpose in making me happy. As I've addressed them very honestly, with my faith and my mind and heart together, I've actually found better answers that make my way of thinking and living more complete. It hasn't been an easy process, and I admit it's a bit scary walking into the dark like that. But it's shown me a better way each time, and I really have become happier.

On the lighter side, our otherwise very sober friend Benjamin Brady on the topic of big slugs: "Put it on the blog, man! The turd was walking!"

12 June, 2006 - 16:57 IND

I just realized I still haven't written out what happened the other night. It was a nice experience and one worth sharing, though maybe not the most profound. It all started at Nick's Italian, a favorite resaurant and hangout for foreigners here in McLeod Ganj. (We usually go to less expensive - and less touristy - places for our meals, but we had a craving for this thing called Banaffi pie, you see...) We were there shocked at a couple of Tibetan girls at the table next to ours who let their plates be taken away half full of pasta and American-style French fries, when I heard some drums next door.

Now I may have mentioned that there's a Tibetan rock band here that's caught my attention as a potential documentary subject, in juxtaposition with those doing traditional Tibetan dance and music. Aaaand it turns out the restaurant we were at was right next door to a café they and their mother run. So when I heard the drums I thought there might be a rehearsal going on next door, and I ran out of the restaurant to find out.

I pulled back the curtain across the front door and stepped into the café, a red-lit room measuring maybe 15-by-20 feet, and found myself in maybe the only open spot on the crowded wooden floor. Cigarette smoke curled through the air towards the ceiling, and a million different languages came at me from the café tables that had packed a capacity crowd of Western backpackers into the room. The Doors were playing above me. A slender woman with a dark, wrinkled face stood behind the small counter wearing a chupa, an elegantly simple traditional Tibetan dress I'd seen on the streets and in the temple.

I assumed this was the mother of the band's members - who are all brothers - and decided to ask her where the rehearsal was going on and whether I could visit. "No, not tonight," she said, "but come tomorrow. Tonight there is the television here, you see. You come tomorrow." And as she explained I saw four or five people pour out of the kitchen into the already crowded dining room, two of them armed with video cameras and bright lights and one following close behind carrying a boom mike. They moved like a curious machine, zooming up to the nearest table and stopping like they'd been programmed for unison, hunching over it with their cameras like scientists over their microscopes. If I wanted to film, I'd come too late.

Back outside, I sat myself down on the café's front step next to a heavy Indian man looking at a small camcorder that he held in his hands. He seemed out of place after the scene I'd just come from inside, and yet he looked like he was supposed to somehow belong to all of that. He affirmed that yes, he was part of that crew, that he'd come with them from Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and that they were all working for Channel V, a worldwide youth and music station, and furthermore that they were doing a piece on the same band I wanted to. (Not that this last bit was any news to me...) When I told him what I did he asked to see my camera. I think he was surprised when I took mine out - surprised that a kid would have something like that. I figured he'd been around cameras quite a bit. And then I had an idea. Maybe, instead of feeling like I'd missed out on an opportunity to talk to the band, I'd actually come up on a rare or even unique chance to talk to someone who'd talked to the band. I could get a popular, media perspective on this band and its significance and find out where other folks figured this group into the music scene. I proposed as much to the guy next to me, and he admitted that he couldn't make any decision like that, that I'd have to talk to the producer. Fair enough, I would wait for them to come out.

Turns out that didn't take long. They soon came bursting through the café's front curtain, lights and mike and all, and sat down their female talent along with some American or German or English or French girl who could answer some questions about her interest in the band and the café. So, rather than thinking too much about the band, I turned my camera on and got a shot of their cameras. A crowd was gathering and noise started to build, so they ended their interview pretty soon, and I found out that my camera had attracted the attention of their crew. They gathered around me, and the producer came up and introduced herself and heard my case. She was actually friendlier and more inviting than I ever could have hoped, and pretty soon we were sitting down to do a short interview right there in the café. But it turned out the low light just wasn't going to work out for us there so I started putting my things away. "It's too bad," I said, "but that's all right, you know? I'll still get the band." "Well," she answered, "why don't I give you my cell number, and you come up to our hotel and do the interview there, man? We don't get to bed until midnight or one anyway, so you'd have plenty of time." I told her I thought it was a great idea, and we sat down and chatted for a while - quite a conversation about how she ended up getting into a producing job like this one - and then the VJ/talent (I'm afraid to use names here - could I get sued?) came and sat down and started telling me her story too. Both of them were just great, really friendly and fun to talk to. And soon I was all packed up and on my way home for a spell.

I ended up trying to call maybe half an hour later, after taking a quick banana curd and the monk-operated Shangri-la restaurant on Jogibara Road, but I got the producer's voice mail (some Dylan song, actually... maybe "Like a Rolling Stone"??) and just figured I would try to find the hotel the whole crew was staying at. (I had gotten directions from her before leaving the café.) It didn't take me long - there are only four main roads here in McLeod, and only one goes to the Dalai Lama's temple - so I actually ended up beating the producer and the VJ back. The whole rest of the crew was already there though, just a bunch of guys hanging out after a long day of work, so we just took a load off and talked video for a while on the balcony in front of their rooms. They were every bit as interested in my equipment as I was in theirs; we spent a good half hour comparing cameras and booms and things, and one of the guys brought up a really impressive rig that allowed you, at the simple flick of a rest essentially, to set up a camera on any flat, sturdy object and then set it at any imaginable angle. Really ingenious stuff, I thought. I'm pretty sure it was the same guy I had sat with in front of the café before, and I was really glad we had met. The other guys were awfully nice, too, showing me their cameras and offering me food and talking boom and sound. Anyway, I felt like maybe I could find my place among folks like these;.by the time the producer and VJ came up the stairs we were practically old friends. (Except I couldn't remember their names. Indian names are always hard for me.)

When the other two members of the crew got there we set up for an interview, which was a fun experience in its own right. It was really nice both having my own crew to work with - and that's really how they were acting, it was great - and learning from them as we went. I picked up some good tips from the guys, and soon we were ready for the shoot. The producer, I thought, was having a good time finally being in front of the camera instead of looking through a viewfinder, and despite some repetitions we needed to do (especially thanks to some Indian folks being loud down on the street below us), it all came off really well. I mean, she had some great stuff to say, stuff I'll really be able to use!

We were finished then and exchanged email addresses and business cards and such, and I was glad that I had finally done my first interview for this project - unorthodox and surprising as it had been.

20:41 IND

I felt today like I hadn't felt in a while. (And I can talk about this some now, by the way, because the venue where we were watching the US-Croatia World Cup match had some bizarre electrical problem tonight, and we lost power in the 38th minute. It was 2-0 Croatia, and I wasn't feeling very peaceful about the whole thing at all (to say the least - I really howled at that first goal by Koller), so maybe it's better that the power be out down there so I can just come up and relax my nerves.) I've had kind of a breakthrough in my research, and that's felt really good, like I'm moving beyond my old, stale ideas to look more deeply into the problem and find out more about what's going on in this community (and all this even though it's come from some interpretation of field notes as I've gathered them, which Bernard tells us is pretty much a big no-no). But it's been something else, too.

I was discussing ideas again, in an exciting way like I hadn't since some of my most recent classroom experiences at BYU. I'm talking theoretical stuff here, like a couple questions brought up by a Korean guy in broken English: "Does civilization cause culture or does culture cause civilization?" "Is culture more mental or physical? What about civilization?" I mean, it was fun to have to think off the top of my head and feel like I was doing an okay job at it - I wonder how I'd lived for a month and a half without that kind of interaction!

But then again, I dunno... this whole classroom thing and these unanswerable questions - are they doing us any good? I guess maybe individually, as we attack real-world problems. What I mean is that I should probably figure out which answers work best for the world I see around me and give those answers credence in my worldview and models. Isn't that what academic-types do anyway? And then can't they use those worldviews when new problems surface? And once that happens, it seems like their answers take greater force as they explain and defend them to the folks who do stuff about the problems, like create policy and such. So maybe there is value here.

Or maybe I'm just thinking about this all wrong. I'm gonna go to bed.

...

Okay now it's later and here are just a couple more things. First, a sample of my field notes - just so you guys know what I'm doing here. Here's the sample.

~0026 Dalai Lama's Temple MCLD 050606 REL MTHD MAR GNDR:

On a whim I decided to spend some time this afternoon at the temple. Sitting in the small park between the temple and the Dalai Lama's residence, I heard one man chanting loudly upstairs in the main temple. It sounded like his voice was being amplified by his being in one of the large temple rooms. I decided to go up and see what was happening, and when I reached the top of the stairs I found myself looking at hundreds of Tibetans around three sides of the temple (the three sides with windows and doors), most chanting in unison. Around the actual central temple structure there were monks and nuns in their burgundy robes, seated on cushions, pillows, and blankets. Then there was a pathway between one and two feet lower than the area where the monks and nuns were seated; I was familiar with this pathway, as I had done circumambulations on it before with Elizabeth. (Prayer wheels were located in three sections along the parts of the main temple structure's walls that were not already made up of windows or doors.) On the other side of the pathway, the rest of the floor was again elevated to the same height as directly around the main temple structure, and lay people sat near the pathway - probably over a hundred of them - on all three sides of the structure. There were also pockets of lay people just behind the monks and nuns, on the main elevated floor closer to the temple. All these individuals, however, were along the edges of the platform and in almost no case sat in front of anyone dressed in burgundy robes. A few lay people also did circumambluations in the lowered pathway around the two temple structures. Moreover, just as I was getting there (at around 3:30 pm) a group of monks were ending some kind of ritual session in the other temple structure, a ritual that involved percussion and 'brass' (because from my observations they use only lips directly applied to a mouthpiece) instruments.

Though all monks and nuns have shaven heads, I started to pick up on an overall tendency in the crowd of burgundy-robed people: those on the right side (while facing into the main temple structure towards the Buddha at the hall's far end) all displayed more masculine characteristics in their faces and far more bore broader shoulders and more musular arms. In general, those on the left side (a space created an aisle between the two, at least outside of the temple structure's walls) bore more 'feminine' features. The monks were separated from the nuns. However, I noted that there seemed to be a dozen or so exceptions - of men on the women's side, but not vice versa. What's more, all the lay people on the right side, from my observations, were men. A couple of lay men were on the nuns' side, also. But the lay individuals on the other side of the pathway seemed to have no order to it as far as gender separation went. I sat next to an elderly woman of perhaps 70 or 80, and she sat next to a man on the other side of her, who in turn was seated next to yet another woman. A group of woman sat together on cushions to my left, leaning on the railing that lined a stairwell down to the park and HHDL's residence. From my vantagepoint I observed that every visible person seated on the inner raised floor had removed his or her shoes, and many of these shoes were lying on the lower pathway.

One couple I noticed in the nuns' section shared a blanket and seemed to interact with each other. I assumed they were married, but that could of course prove to be wrong.

Most of the crowd chanted in unison with the man's voice on the loudspeakers, though as I sat with the lay section of the crowd I heard the people around me chanting something that sounded like a repetition of something and not at all in unison - neither with the man on the loudspeaker nor or with each other. Most of the individuals chanting in unison, actually, were in burgundy robes and held thinnish orange paperback books in their hands. They consulted them almost constantly, and at one point I noticed one nun look to another, only to have the second point to a spot in her own book. The first quickly turned to a page in her book and began chanting. Some people chanted with eyes closed, some with eyes open fixed on a certain point, and still others shifted their gaze from one place or person to another. Most sat supporting their own weight - some rather straight up but most individuals hunched over a bit as they chanted. A good number - 25 or so, I think - sat leaned back against railings (like the women I mentioned above), walls, or the large yellow pillars around the temple. This group was made up largely of lay individuals, but I noticed three or four people in burgundy robes doing the same as they were able according to their position around the temple. One robed young man in particular was apparently supporting as little of his own weight as he could and to my eyes was sending all kinds of signals that he wasn't very interested at all: his eyes travelled all over, he consulted his book far less frequently than his neighbors did theirs, and his posture leaned one shouler against a rear pillar and turned his body so it wasn't centered on the temple like everyone else's but rather toward the back end of the crowd, parallel to the lower pathway that ran behind the monks and nuns.

At one point in the ceremony I was surprised to find a number of men walking through the temple - Tibetan men, I take it, and most of them wearing matching light-blue button-down shirts - handing something to each person gathered there. There were at least four of these men. I was even more surprised to see that they were all wearing shoes there in the temple. More surprising yet was what they were passing out - notes of 500 rupees to every person dressed in burgundy robes, each holding a pile of the notes in one hand and distributing one note to each monk and nun. (It's possible there were individuals not actually belonging to the sungha - community of monks or nuns - but also not lay people, as I found out from talking to Dorgye in the café a few days ago. In any case, I didn't see any of the many lay people there receive money from these men.) (Also, I don't know where this money comes from or where it might go - food? housing? clothing? charity projects? Does it need to be accounted for? Are expenses recorded? Actually, come to think of it, I'm not that interested in many of these latter questions anyway.)

Periodically I heard cymbals or a gong sound loudly on the microphone, at which point the man leading the chants would stop and there would be a lull in the chanting as well. This would only last a few seconds, however, and the microphone would come back on and the man would then start his chanting again, followed within the first few words by the rest of the people gathered. (Whenever the cymbals sounded they were even harshly loud, leading me to believe they were likely very close to the microphone. When the man came back in on the microphone I could hear, quite loudly, the lingering ring of the cymbals, reaffirming that thought. I was not in a position to find out if their proximity to each other was as close as I thought it might be.) I noticed after around an hour that one man in robes would hold his orange book to his head each time the cymbals sounded. These breaks in the chanting, accompanied or initiated by the cymbals' sounding, grew in frequency until it was happening two or three times a minute - the man touching his book to his head each time - until a number of the people closed their books and procdeded until the end of the ceremony without referring to it again.

A quick note on these books - they were uniform, orange and thin, paperbacks. On each page I saw 25 or so lines of Tibetan and a page number. As I don't know Tibetan, I don't know what was printed on the pages; I couldn't understand what was being said over the loudspeaker, and even if I'd been close enough to the books I couldn't have been able to read anything.

I sat there with these people for well over an hour - how long I don't know as I didn't have a watch or any kind of timepiece, but it was significant. After the point in the ceremony when people were closing their books, the same men who had been handing out money came around and picked up these books. I noted that the couple I mentioned above had a book, which the man started to give back only to hesitate, bring the book to his forehead much as the monk I mentioned above had done when the cymbals sounded, and then finally yield the book to its collector. Many more people closed their eyes and chanted at this point in the ceremony.

Then, quite suddenly, the chanting stopped and people were gathering their blankets and cushions and things, putting on their shoes, and leaving down the two sets of stairs that lead to the ground level, park, some shrines, and the Dalai Lama's residence. The area around the temple cleared within five minutes, leaving only a large collection of cushions where the members of the sungha had been sitting in and around the structure. A number of people joined those that had been circumambulating during the whole end of the ceremony.

I must say that if this was participant observation, the only participating I did consisted of some frustrating efforts to get the attention of the frequent Indian (I mean mostly Punjabi) tourists who came up the stairs not knowing there was a culturally inappropriate direction to walk around the temple - circumambulating clockwise (relative to a vantagepoint above the temple) is the only proper, auspicious way to do it. See note 29 to see how that may have helped my relationship to the community (albeit in a very small way) and open up a door to relationship with an individual from within that community.

...

And, finally, a photo.

Research and Film Progress: Slowly But Surely...

2006-06-05T02:42:00.000-06:00

May 30, 2006 - 23:59 IND

I was finishing up some laundry just now and thinking about Midnight's Children by Rushdie - a lot of kids in the BYU group are reading it. Not including me, though I have some idea of what it's about just from talking about it with folks. I guess it's an appropriate book to be thinking about at this time of night.

It's been a long and full day. We headed out together this morning and earlier than usual, foregoing our traditional practice of waking up, reading scriptures on the patio that overlooks the valley, taking breakfast on said patio, showering, and doing schoolwork until noon. Why skip such a lovely routine? Well, Elizabeth and Lily are really keen on the idea of requesting a private audience with the Dalai Lama, and we had agreed that since Lily would be going on an excursion to lower Dharamsala today for a few needed items (including, I believe a book she needs for one of her courses), we would try to sign up as early as possible. It didn't quite work out, as requesting a private audience means going down to his offices near his private residence - which we didn't know until we found the office we thought we were supposed to be at. Fortunately, we found a nice, cheap food stand with sort of European-style pancakes (I'm thinking of what I call 'German pancakes' - sorry if you're European and confused or offended) and some good French (again, I'm sorry) toast. (I've actually heard from a friend who served an LDS mission in France that French toast really is French. They call it 'pain perdu' - lost bread - and make it with bread that's gone stale.) Then I went continuing this hunt I had going for some political histories of Tibet in bookstores. The man there, who was helpful but a little shady in that he kept telling us that if we wanted a taxi or a guide or anything we should come talk to him, found some titles for me and was nice enough to reserve them for me until I came back from looking at the library for the same books.

After all that we did get to do our studying, in case you were in suspense.

At about 13:00 we headed out for the Tibetan library, located on the Government-in-Exile's complex. The walk down was pleasant and familiar to a certain point - that point being a row of prayer wheels Ben and I happened upon yesterday while looking for a hotel called Chonor House. I had wanted to find it so I could get the address of the Norbulingka Institute down in Dharamsala, an organization whose efforts center around Tibetan cultural preservation and where I might be able to make connections that could ultimately help me locate a translator. Anyway, we missed it by a long shot (take the little uphill path just a dozen or so meters outside of the Dialectics gate, if you're ever looking for Chonor House) and ended up at this row of prayer wheels at the opposite end of the temple complex. The hill above them was just covered with string after string of prayer flags, ordered as always blue-white-red-green-yellow, as well as shrines and stupas, and the mid-afternoon's yellow light made the whole place shine. Mostly elderly folks came by, circumambulating clockwise (as always) around the temple complex and spinning the wheels as they went.

That was all yesterday. Did you get confused? Anyway, so today we passed that and asked a man how to get to the library from there. He pointed us to the monastery on the other side of the road and told us to follow its stairs down between pale-yellow buildings and eventually to the shortcut path. So we did - the steps were like something out of a surrealist painting, just a maze really - until we reached at path that led us down through some rather thick woods. We kept looking backwards in the hopes that we would be able to remember the way back up to the monastery when we eventually left the library down below. The path wasn't very clear and branched of again and again into these sort of ambiguous semi-paths, and we just tried to manage the best we could as the ground started getting covered - blanketed, really - in long conifer needles that made the whole path slippery.

So there we were, not really sure where the library was, or whether this path would even take us to the library, or whether what we were on was even really a path, but looking back the whole time to be sure we could retrace our steps on the way back up. I didn't think of it till now, but the whole thing had sort of an absurd buzz about it, didn't it?

Well we finally found the library, but not before I had myself some deep fried momos (mamma mia) and a mango drink Coca-Cola puts out here (not carbonated!). At the library I signed up for a one-month membership that allows me to look at the books (which are not available for browsing but must be requested) but not take them home. That cost me 50 rupees, whereas a membership that would have allowed me to take the books with me would have cost 250, plus I would have had to leave my passport at the library to take the books. No thanks, I'll just read there and take notes. Eh, call me cheap. You're probably right.

Reading was probably the best part of the day. The book, Tibet: Past and Present, was written by a Brit who was serving as ambassador or some other kind of diplomat to South Asia. He spent a long time in Tibet and wrote this book (among others) about the country, which gave me some really significant info for my research. For instance, I was talking to a young guy in the street who said he had fled Tibet near Mt. Everest and made it into Nepal (get this) "by the grace of His Holiness the Dalai Lama". I wasn't expecting that phrase at all, or anything even resembling it. But there it was. So how did "the grace of His Holiness the Dalai Lama" fit into the cultural structure of Tibet? Well, Bell (the British diplomat who wrote the book) says that Tibetan myth describes the origins of the Tibetan people as the union of Avalokitesvara and a she-devil (I've seen it elsewhere that she was a rock demoness), who had six children - the predecessors of today's Tibetans. Well check this out: Avalokitesvara is the Bodhisattva of Compassion, the very Bodhisattva who reincarnated is - guess who - the Dalai Lama. So you can see how such importance might be placed on him. I don't know if that made any sense or was in any way significant to you, but to me it was a revelation and really fascinating.

Other things came up, too, but it's really late and I should just go to bed.

I've finished my consent form, emailed it to a professor at BYU who's going to look it over, and sent my address to a company in India that can replace my windscreen. Research mode is coming along. Now I'll need to focus on finding a translator for both my form and interviews, and on just getting to know people. Lily, who's up here in the North group, is a lot better at that than I am. Or maybe I'm just hesitant to until I have a translator. Aw heck, what am I talking about? Why shouldn't I get to know people? That's crazy talk!

Oh yeah, did I mention I got a haircut? Yeah, it's true. I'm not sure it's really me - I really dig the long hair thing. I'll be sure to get a photo up sometime soon.

I've had some thoughts on representation and manipulation and skepticism that I'll need to write on soon, too, so expect that.

02 June, 2006 - 23:59 IND

Don't ask how I got started at 11:59 on two journal entries in a row - and I'll probably get to this one a little later because I need to get to bed, but I just needed to get this one started so I would have more of a reason to write about some of the things I need to think through in my journal.

I think that coming into McLeod Ganj, my biggest hesitation was that I would play the part of the stupid and naïf Westerner (sorry, I just can’t use 'naïve' here - that's the feminine form in French, and it just feels unnatural) who'll believe whatever he hears from anybody he talks to. That fear - no we'll keep using the word 'hesitation' - that hesitation should probably be important to anyone doing anthro research. At least, that's the impression I've gotten from the classes and readings and conversations I've had. But it becomes a probably even more pointed concern when you consider that Tibetans have lived for a long time with a political agenda and a popular Western attitude that backs it up. And while that attitude is probably justified - there are human rights abuses going on in Tibet, from everything I can see - Western support for the Free Tibet movement has probably washed back into Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj via the media (Brad Pitt and the Beastie Boys come to mind) and the endless stream of travelers and spiritual folks coming to look for answers. So who's to say that the research I'm doing won't be affected by that - by Tibetans in India telling me what they think I'll want to hear, telling me what they think America thinks? You can see the risks as I try to get to the 'reality' of the state of Tibetan culture here in exile.

...So that was a real guiding thought or feeling as I began performing my research, and it sounded healthy as far as science was concerned. But when I thought about it as a human being it just didn't settle right in my mind or my gut - and folks who know me also know that I tend to trust my gut over just about anything. So I was relieved to find that I might have a heart after all when I caught the tail end of a TIPA performance tonight. TIPA, the Tibetan Institute for the Performing Arts (I hope I have that right...) is up the mountain from McLeod Ganj, relatively easily accessible via (get this) TIPA Road, which I just happen to be living on now. The Institute is a small complex at the top of the road with a handful of largish buildings, a big courtyard with a stage at one corner, and a couple of basketball goals. (That's what I've come to call them - I hear from Sports Illustrated it's an Indiana thing. What would you call them? Hoops?) When we first visited the place with our friend Sanje (whose name I do not know how to spell), I listened to a constant cadence of drums and other percussion instruments - cymbals, I think, as well as a few kind of unique to Tibetan culture. I thought it might be a particularly nice place to ask about being able to film some preparations for the Dalai Lama's birthday celebration and maybe interview some folks; the stage, after all, has a big painting of him with the number 70 and a short dedication to him - apparently left over from last year's celebration of his 70th birthday. So when Lily and I heard that TIPA would be having a concert of music and dance, we decided to go. (Okay, that was kind of confusing. We're back to tonight now - are you caught up?) We caught the very end of the performance, which was held in a packed and very hot performance hall. It consisted of a number of men with long locks of hair or ropes attached to the tops of their heads who after their group performance each took a solo of what you might call (in Western shorthand) head-banging while all the other drummers on stage played, from what I could tell, according to the beat with which the soloist swung the rope from his head. I wish I could describe it better. It was really impressive and got a lot of enthusiastic applause from the crowd, which was made up of mostly Tibetans.

But after that was what really struck me. In Tibetan and then in English, an unseen announcer asked the whole crowd to stand for the singing of the Tibetan national anthem, and I watched from outside - physically and emotionally - while one of the performers came out in his Tibetan garb, bearing the Tibetan flag on a thick pole. He fixed his view at some point in space and led the hundreds of Tibetans present in a melody that was both haunting and beautiful, proud and sad. Everyone sang every word.

It's going to sound ridiculous, but I hadn't ever realized that Tibetans would have their national anthem. It just didn't occur to me that anyone - let alone everyone - would still know the words to the national anthem of a currently non-existent country. I didn't even realize it would ever exist. But now I'm forced to think of all this in a new way - to consider that despite all the factors that still could spell political bias in interviews and the need for caution on my part, there are real emotions involved in all this. Preservation is not just an issue for academic review but a human endeavor for what are, for these individuals, very real and very important reasons. Lily was talking last week to a woman who owns a bookstore with her husband and asked whether the woman was happy that everything's working out for Tibetans here in Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj so well, happy that they were able to maintain some of their culture while they're here and at least have some peace. "No," said the woman, and Lily was taken aback. "I'm supposed to be in Tibet."

That wasn't the clearest story and I know I had paragraphing issues, but I hope it got the message across all right.

As far as the film goes, I'm between two ideas now. The culture-of-cultural-preservation as encapsulated in the Dalai Lama is still a good idea I think, but I've heard about a band around here that my friend Sonam calls 'the only good Tibetan rock band', and I think that's got some merit to it too. Plus rock and roll is a whole lot sexier to an audience than cultural preservation through dance and costume in preparation for the Dalai Lama's birthday celebration. But what if I took a look at both? I mean, I wonder if this band I've heard about (who also runs a café in town, which would be a nice dynamic for the piece) does its rock thing in the name of the Free Tibet movement. In that case wouldn't it be interesting to see the two ways groups are doing performing arts in the name of Tibet - 'traditional' vs. 'Western'? Frankly it sounds a lot more interesting to me because of the contrast visible between the two, and as I've said rock and roll will sure have a lot of sex appeal.

I just realized that that kind of thing might not be the best thing to put up on a blog, for the whole world to see. Fine, okay, just go ahead and steal my ideas, see if I care... Wait, I take it back.

I caught a pretty gross cold this past week, but I think it's about done for now. The first night, though, I practically didn't sleep and when I finally got up in the morning I had a terrible sinus headache so I just stayed in bed and drank hot stuff (like hot lemon-ginger with honey, mmm...) and tried to pamper my way to health. Now I'm doing fine, though, and I'm all kinds of ready to get back and do more work in town. That'll mean going out and doing more work like the other day when, after expressing concern and surprise to the rest of the group about my apparent inability to build any kind of relationships with folks I've met here, I ducked into a little restaurant/café and ended up at the only 'free' table with a guy in the common burgundy robes of Buddhist monks. I pulled out my notebook, where I'd written a couple of Tibetan phrases, and got about halfway through "What's your name?" (Kherang-gi tsen la ga rey yin - see, it's long!) when he finished the phrase for me, smiling. Turns out he spoke a good amount of broken English, so we spent some time talking about the Dalai Lama and monastic life versus laity. Turns out he's 'in the middle' - not a layman and not a monk - because he hasn't 'taken the vow' yet. Too many rules, he says. But he and I got along just great, and I'm going to try to play it really chill, just like that time, from now on.

Oh, by the way, turns out there's another Lama who's also an incarnation of Avalokitesvara, so I'm not sure what to make of this whole thing. Would both be seen as father figures for Tibetans? How can one Bodhisattva have multiple incarnations at one time? Also, where does the incarnation of a Bodhisattva end and the individual we see begin - the Dalai Lama talks about his imperfections but (from what friend and fellow BYU student Elizabeth tells me) teaches that the Boddhisattva doesn't have imperfections.

More later.

03 June, 2006 - 22:34 IND

Today was the Buddha's birthday, and we missed it. We were at the farmhouse that belongs to our guesthouse owner - she'd invited us a number of times, and something had always happened (most recently my cold), so when we figure out that today would really work we just went for it. She's been so kind to us that we felt that the continuing appearance of these complications was only beginning to strain our relationship, and we wanted to go and let her share some of her pride and joy with us. I guess I'll have to just plan on going to the Karmapa Lama's birthday celebration (it's about an hour away - I've forgotten the name of the town) on the 26th of this month. Oh wait, that's my birthday too! And up until now I didn't think any celebrities had been born on my birthday...

It's weird to me that a bunch of my friends are playing ultimate in Provo right now, as I get ready for bed. (For those of you who don't really know much about me but are reading anyway because you don't have anything better to do, Provo, Utah, is where I've been living for the past few years while I'm at school at Brigham Young University. 'Ultimate' means ultimate frisbee, and I've played every Saturday, rain or shine, in sickness or in health, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, for about two years - plus a few stretches where I'd play four or five times a week for a couple months.) So to those of you who are playing right now, know that in a way I'm jealous because (1) I don't get much exercise these days and (2) this trip is really expensive. Sometimes I get a little homesick when I think about everybody out there playing. So please, let's keep playing when I get back yeah? I'm kind of taking comfort in the fact that Tony, James, and I are all living like a block away from Kiwanis Park - and I know that's not Joaquin Elementary, but I figure they're probably going to start tearing the field up anyway, right? Or have they already? Wow, that was a weird realization - that a place that's been such a part of me for such a long time (four years!) is probably gone now. Stupid developers... Anyway, I can't wait to get back and experience Provo again with everybody. But for now, I have to figure out where in the world my research is going (will that process ever stop?) and how to finally put together this movie thing...

05 June, 2006 - 10:57 IND

Just a quick note before I shower, do some laundry, and run out to put this entry up on the blog. Really, thanks everybody for reading. Sometimes this switches between stuff that's really meant for you and stuff that's just reflection on my part, so if you're willing (or able, for that matter) to make your way through it thanks for sticking with me. I do want to hear how everybody out there's doing, so please send me an email or leave a comment here because they're sent to me through my GMail account anyway. And if I don't know you then by all means tell me who you are and what's your interest in the blog. Y'all are great. Thanks.

Photos coming soon.

Arrived in Dharamsala - I mean, McLeod Ganj

2006-05-26T10:53:00.000-06:00

May 17, 2006 - 09:33 IND

It's a cloudy, cooler morning in Chaavadipudur. There's a slight breeze that's blowing the palm leaves outside now, and a metal fan sitting on a short wooden stool is the only thing keeping me company now in this room .

It's just like so many cloudy days I had on my mission in Brazil. I just want to go home.

And in writing that, even if my eyes are tearing up a little bit, even if there's a painful lump in my throat and I feel myself trying to suppress a couple of sobs that would like to come out, I don't feel like this is any kind of failure - though that concern certainly does exist. I mean, it's true that I'm wondering why in the world I feel so lonely, why this comes as such a surprise since I've gone through it all so intensely before on the mission. And I think back to what Ruth, one of my anthro professors this past semester who spent all her schooling years at Cambridge, said to me about anthropology grad work: "Anthropology, I think, is a very good undergraduate degree because it teaches you to think. But for graduate school, you may think about film instead. You see, fieldwork is so very lonely." And I thought to myself then that I could handle that loneliness, that I could even embrace it, learn from it, become stronger through it. What's more, I figured I was able to anticipate, even as she talked to me about those feelings of isolation and disorientation, how bad it could be and somehow through that anticipation reduce the effects of those feelings. I wasn't afraid, you see. I could be stronger than the feelings.

But I forget so often that emotions are felt - really felt! - and that that's what makes them so difficult to contain. Unlike thoughts, which (at least in my own experience) can be conjured and manipulated by the mind for consideration and analysis and still remain importantly in the realm of the Separate-from-Self, feelings for me appear in response to stimuli. I don't find in myself much - if any - ability to conjure feelings like I can thoughts, to manipulate them and experiment with them in the name of emotional knowledge. I think that's because I don't think of them as separate from me but rather as a part or facet of my persona that manifests itself in response to my environment - be it worry for the future, fear of a dog, or love for a girl.

And while I'm thinking about feelings like I was that day in Ruth's office, they sure do resemble thoughts. The fact that I'm thinking about these abstract, unsurfaced things rendered unreal by their non-appearance leads me to forget how difficult they'll prove to be when I find myself facing them - 'them' as a part of 'me' - in the future. And it's that 'them'-as-part-of-'me' bit that makes it most difficult, isn't it? How do you address something that's so linked to you, you the individual who feels drawn to change it?

I'm tempted to feel that all of this means that I've failed. Failed in my inability to anticipate how those emotions I was thinking about would feel, failed in my apparent ineptitude at toning these now-surfaced emotions down to the level of thoughts. But on the other hand (and I think this is closer to being a correct or healthy way of thinking of the thing), it doesn't really seem like those are realistic expectations for anyone. I don't think I mean that feelings can't or shouldn't be controlled (though in my case that kind of control has eluded me). But is there a way to at the very least not be so surprised at them when they appear - and appear to take me over? It seems like the work I'm in need of doing is in the direction of accepting and embracing these feelings; it hasn't proven as easy as I imagined it would be.

It makes me think that it might be nice to have someone with me when I'm doing work in the field later on - someone to share all of this with, and someone who can share with me these same feelings when she needs to. I guess I mean a wife. I may not include that thought on my blog.

May 22, 2006 - 09:46 IND

On a train headed for Delhi. I'm lying in the top, windowless bunk of a small side compartment, separated from the other passengers by a thick (though far from soundproof) curtain, a narrow aisle, and another curtain - one for each full-size compartment opposite my own. My berth now (consisting of a blue plastic mattress, a small light for reading, a blue mesh pocket in which I've stowed yesterday's edition of The Hindu, a chain for stopping the train, and a placard warning passengers what risks they run by pulling the chain needlessly) runs parallel to the aisle, but on the other side the comparments each have four beds (in sets of two bunks), a small table, and some space to move around in. And universal access to a window. Ben, Lily, Elizabeth, and I are all in these confining side berths, with Lily and Elizabeth in a single bunk and me and Ben in separate bunks further down the car - and there's a stream of what I think is Hindi coming from across the aisle and a little further down the coach, closer to the girls in the group.

Most of what I hear is, from all I can tell, a couple of mothers lecturing their children. Each of the two neighboring compartments from which I hear the most Hindi is housing a small family, one with two young boys and one with a very small daughter. Last night the two boys spent most of the evening wrestling before finally falling asleep, and the little girl in the last compartment down has had free reign of the aisle, the length of which she likes to run in very heavy shoes and, having done so, scream back to her "Pa-PA!" at the other end of the car. She also enjoys singing her ABCs - in English - something her mother seems quite proud of.

Across the aisle from me, in the large compartment, a man speaks more and more loudly into his cell phone so it'll work better. I think it's a business call. And an adolescent male voice sings on a pop melody some English-sounding words among which I can make out an occasional "Jeee-suuus...". Strange to know that American cultural trends transfer so seamlessly across continents.

Not that I'm completely disliking this train thing. Or that I'm purely disliking the noises and the wrestling and such. Heck, I'm liking the Christian pop that's coming my way. A couple of things could make it more pleasant, of course - like if they'd let me open the car's doorway, for example, and watch the country roll by instead of effectively confining me to this cramped (though padded) sleeping cell. But I did read 100 pages yesterday, finishing Karen Armstrong's Buddha for my sociology of religion course. That many pages is really unheard of for me in a single day. And now you and I are getting a chance to catch up a little bit on each other, so that's useful too. And what's more, I really just like being on trains.

Plus I've had time for a really nice conversation with Ben about Buddhism, the Self, the self, and spiritual knowledge. One of the things that really struck me about Armstrong's book was her constant reminders that understanding the Buddha's dhamma could not ultimately be an exercise in intellectualism or metaphysical philosophy. Instead, she points out, true knowledge or understanding of Buddhism could only come after certain self-disciplinary action that would allow an individual to tap into his or her own deeper levels of consciousness; after that, meditation on the Four Noble Truths, for example, would place them firmly in the subconscious, make them a deeper part of what one's core instead of just what one does or thinks or feels on the surface.

May 25, 2006 - 23:25 IND

We arrived in McLeod Ganj (upper Dharamsala - where I'm doing my research) rather unscathed, except for missing glasses and a missing foam windscreen for my microphone. The missing glasses are also mine, but don't worry - I have enough contacts to make it all the way through the summer, so I'll be fine. (That was for Mom and Dad.)

This town's about as different as it gets from the other places I've seen in India. First of all, it's downright cool at night. As I type this up - I should really be in bed, but I got to my field notes a couple of hours too late - the stone floor I'm kneeling on is honest-to-goodness cold on my knees, and I'm considering buying a fleece Tibetan-style shirt (with metal buttons on the right side instead of in front) to keep warm. It also rained a lot this afternoon, which I think may have cooled us off even more.

As the rainclouds started rolling in (along with some scattered thunder) we were on our way back, on foot, from Bhagsu, a town just about a 15-minute from where we're staying just off McLeod Ganj's main roads. We had been looking at an alternative place to stay for the next six weeks where electricity wouldn't be a problem. Apparently Ben tried to use his computer here and tripped a breaker because the wiring has been weakened as wintertime tourists run space heaters in the rooms. I don't know how well that story flies, but we're going to see if other rooms' wires stand up better to our electrical demands so we can all stay here instead of finding another place. (By the way, we decided not to do the Bhagsu thing because we want to prevent any potential danger for anyone in the group - especially the girls - on the way back from doing interviews or other research as the sun goes down.)

Prices here at the Kailwood Guest House in McLeod Ganj are really reasonable, and there's a big balcony where we took breakfast and some light dinner today. That sounds touristy, I know, but I figure there are some tourist-types out there wanting to know about where to stay. I recommend this place. The rooms are comfortable for the most part, and the management shows themselves to be both competent and friendly. What's more, it's off of the town's three major tourist roads I've found, which means more Tibetans, fewer Westerners, and a quieter time.

McLeod Ganj's streets are lined by shops and beggars. And restaurants, with names like Chuki's (with a sizable Israeli section on their menu), Nick's Italian, and The Chocolate Log. All three (the shops, the beggars, and the restaurants) center on the tourist/backpacker population, and as this is major tourist season things are in full swing. We ate at Chuki's last night, drawn in by the reggae and blacklights (and the fact that it was about the only place left open), and today we had an incredibly tasty lunch at a little restaurant at the entrance to the Ladies' Venture Guest House. The Something-or-other Dragon was its name. I don't remember what the middle word was. But it's run by a couple of guys (brothers?) who left Tibet a few years back and just opened up the place in September of last year. We spent about 40 minutes there enjoying what Elizabeth seemed to think was the best lemon-ginger with honey she'd ever had, as well as veg. chow mein far better than what I'd had here until then.

As far as shops go, I admit I did venture into a few curio shops looking for a box this evening. In talking to Kirk, a BYU professor whose interests lie in South and Southeast Asia, I realized I needed to keep my videocassettes under lock and key until I destroy them; this is because my subjects are practically all political refugees, some of them former political prisoners, and they and their families (who for the most part have not left Tibet) could be in danger if they're identified. As a researcher I should have no part in anyone's capture, indictment, or punishment or anything of the sort, so I'm taking precautions to be sure this project puts no one in danger. So today I went to talk to a few Kashmiri shopkeepers about wooden and papier-mache boxes with locks that I might purchase. I know, I know - they sound about as tamper-proof as a wet paper bag. So tomorrow I'm also going down to lower Dharamsala (which I've only seen now in passing, on the bus from Pathankot yesterday) to see if I can find a metal lockable box somewhere in the town's shops.

Finally, beggars. I think they know to come to McLeod Ganj because of all the Western travellers here, and the influx of these visitors is probably constant enough that many of the panhandlers probably do okay. After wrestling with the beggar question for a few weeks I've decided, thanks to Ben our local Great Mind, that I'm going to give to one beggar a day. And today I had already given when two adolescent boys, Indians, approached me and held out very dirty hands. Now this is always a very uncomfortable situation, but I knew that I meant the very best in telling myself I would make it a point to give to someone each and every day, and I felt at ease telling these kids that I was sorry, but I couldn't today. Tomorrow was a possibility, but not today. They wouldn't take no for an answer, as is the practice among Indians (and not just beggars, I've found - it's something cultural), and came up to sit next to me on the steps where I was taking some notes on my observations. They watched me write for a while and periodically pressed me to give them some money, meeting my refusal each time. There was some obvious disagreement between them as to what they should do next, and one of them just stayed seated next to me while I wrote as the other went back into the narrow street in front of us to continue begging. He did so for a while, to no avail until the monotony was broken by a tourist-looking guy who gave the boy two sticks of gum, one for him and one for his friend whom the tourist saw sitting next to me. The kid came from the street already popping his share of the booty into his mouth and handed my companion the other piece. I looked at the kid and said, "Don't chew that." He was puzzled. I put my fingers together to my lips (meaning 'food' or 'eating' in India) and then shook a slightly raised hand, palm showing, meaning 'no'. "Don't chew that." He didn't. He sat there and pondered over his earnings, toying with the wrapper. I continued. "You can sell it. Sell. Give gum to someone for money," and I pointed to the dozen-or-so people passing by. "Sell it." He looked confused, maybe understanding but hesitating nonetheless. I reached into my pocket and just hoped as hard as I could that there would be a rupee in there. There was. I pulled the coin out and showed it to him. "Here," I said. "I'll buy it." He understood immediately and quickly put the gum into my hand, taking the money from my fingers.

When he did that I saw, just for a second, a real life in his eyes that hadn't been there before. They got really wide and just lit up. Maybe he was seeing this situation in a way he'd never seen it before. Or maybe he was just excited to have some money. Either way, I think begging - when done with the mentality that I, the beggar, am purely a victim with no chioce or agency or ownership or responsibility in what I do about this situation - can really deaden the humanity inside a person. Something about this interaction between the boy and me had was felt like an awakening effect on the kid - I could actually see it happen, just in a flash like that. (Most of the Tibetans I've seen begging, by the way, have somehow escaped that. They seem awfully at peace with what's going on in their lives - something that's surprised and puzzled and relieved me a bit these past two days.)

I don't think I'm any kind of hero for doing this, but it felt like it was at least a creative and potentially productive alternative to just saying 'no', which is all I had been able to do before. And seeing that kid's eyes widen and light up like they did... I wonder what could come out of this. Something really good, maybe - like maybe he learned something important. Or maybe even something really bad, like that they should steal stuff now and try to sell it themselves. In any case, I hope you'll agree that it was worth a shot.

A quick update on how research is starting, and then I'll get to bed. I think I'm a bit in the honeymoon stage of culture shock again, but it's been good to have a couple days to sit back and just observe a bit of how this place works, at least on a superficial level. I'll be doing much of the same in the next few days, as well as finishing up a consent form for any research subjects and getting that translated and back-translated. I've been meeting a number of Elizabeth's friends, and they're just great folks; I've enjoyed spending time with them and have already learned a lot from (and about) them sitting with them in their shops and walking with them to Bhagsu today. Right now my research is taking the form of really laid-back observations and meeting and getting to know people with whom I might be able to work later as the research develops in the next two weeks. This approach to research feels right to me - making sincere friends and learning through them and about them, doing my best to give back to them when and where I can, mixing all that darn academia stuff with good old-fashioned interaction. I'm having a really great time here.

Of course, this stage of research will end soon enough. I'll keep you posted on how it all goes. Thanks for reading.

Chavadipudur

2006-05-16T02:54:00.000-06:00

This entry's a little different. We've spent the past couple of days in Chaavadipudur, just outside of Coimbatore, and I'm a little self conscious about pulling out the laptop because I don't really want to call attention or waste our host family's electricity (and money). Of course, I had no problem pulling out the video camera yesterday to work on color settings since I messed them up in California (see the photo below), so maybe I'll just forget it and do the regular laptop thing again. For now, you'll have to live with my recollections of a couple of memories that I didn't type down the day they happened. Bear with me.

We've been sleeping at the branch president's house, though he's been away at work practically the whole time. He rides his motorcycle to his workplace on Monday mornings and back on Saturday nights or Sunday mornings - my dad did the same thing for a few months during my senior year of high school, so I know how hard that can be on a family. But it ended up being a big blessing to us as well, as he had the chance to think a lot during those long trips across Indiana, and one weekend he came home and announced he was going to take the discussions Saturday and be baptized Sunday.

So it's nice to live with a family. The mother, Jiva, is quite the matriarch (we refer to her on any domestic question), and she has just taken her young daughter Priya to pick up her son (whose name escapes me) from boarding school. I think they took a train, and they stayed overnight, having left yesterday and planned to return today.

There was a blessing and naming of a baby Sunday - I think they had spent what normally would have been Fast Sunday watching DVDs of General Conference. This is one of the oldest LDS Church buildings - maybe the first? - in India, just a modest, pleasant hall with a nice garden outside, all surrounded by a shortish painted cinder block wall. The whole place was filled just yesterday (Monday) with members of the family's baby who, though not LDS, were holding a lunch celebration and family reunion at the chapel, where the baby's mother is a member. We ate with them, sitting cross-legged on folded-up sleeping mats eating from banana leaves on the floor. The food was excellent and far more than anyone could have finished off. Afterwards the family members gathered around the neighboring house (all three structures - our house, the other house, and the church - are next to each other), and we kids from BYU went home and read or napped. Over the din from the festivities next door I read Karen Armstrong's Buddha.

I've actually spent probably 90% of my time in Chaavadipudur there at Matthew and Jiva's house. It's a much quieter lifestyle than here in the city, and I'm content just sitting on the veranda - the shallow, wide, covered front porch - and reading or watching the family's chickens or trying to sound out the names of Tamil-speaking kids who walk by and introduce themselves in broken English. I've been piecing together some Tamil these past couple days too, and I've actually had successful communication once or twice using words beyond the "Onga peeru" and "En peeru" (Your name/My name, respectively). One time was yesterday, when I was attracting a bunch of little kids on the road just outside of the church building. The next structure is a thatched-palm open-front house, and there was a woman sleeping inside. She looked like she really wanted to be sleeping, too. I couldn't keep the kids quiet to save my life, but on the way back the words for 'she' and 'sleep' came to me - 'ava' and 'takkum' - and they all said that yes, she was sleeping. So I put my finger to my closed lips, and they all did whatever was appropriate to mean the same thing here in their culture (I think the syllable they kept using was 'bosh!'), and they actually hushed up as we passed her! Of course, once we'd gone only a foot or two past the hut they were all excitedly shouting again anyway, so I don't know if my efforts did any good in the end, but it was nice to know I'd gotten through.

Before we ever came to Coimbatore and Chavadi (Chaavadi?), you know from my last entry that I spent some time talking with a man we've called Ali. The day before we left Madurai I sat with Ali again, and we talked about Islam for upwards of an hour. I had discovered that the backstreets were much more palatable (spelling?) than those in-your-face, touristy main roads, so I took these narrow alleys to his downtown shop by the temple. Ali was a very energetic, charismatic thirty- or forty-something young man who was very excited about his religion, and we sat on two cushioned stools and had an intimate discussion about his beliefs. The stories were endless, it seemed, and it took great effort to write them down as he dictated, being careful to take verbatim the phrases I found interesting or important. (Incidentally, he refused to be photographed due to religion.) His English was very expressive, and from time to time he would get so into a story that he would grab my knee to really make a point. Don't worry - it's completely appropriate given the cultural context. This was easily the dearest experience I've had yet in India.

Afterwards, as we BYU kids were going out from the hotel to have dinner a motorcycle came close and started honking. Nothing new - the vehicles warn you when they're approaching all the time. I kind of like that about traffic here. But this time the rider was waving enthusiastically. In the dark I could just barely make out that it was Ali! What in the world?

He stopped and said, "My friend, I have come here twice looking for you." (I think my group, which had given him a lot of business in the days before, had told him which hotel was ours.) "Here is this," he continued, and he reached out his right hand. In it he was holding a black journal - the one I had taken to his shop for our interview before. I couldn't believe it. If I had had any doubts - any doubts at all - about whether this man had been sincere in his willingness to sit down and do an interview, or whether he was just interested in keeping our business (and in a tourist town like Madurai, you never know), this seemed like proof that I could let them all go. This guy was for real, and I felt a real human bond then. He took off before I hardly had time to thank him for his thoughtfulness.

But now I'm staying in Chaavadi, and that's how life's been the past couple days - slow, personable, and pleasant, if a bit hot. Things are good, and Saturday we board a train for Delhi. From Delhi we head for Dharamsala.

The first two photos were taken in Chennai, the last one in Chaavadipudur last night.

Chennai to Madurai

2006-05-12T02:31:00.000-06:00

Here's the latest from my journal. Sorry it hasn't been kept up like I wanted. But there's some good stuff in here.

May 7, 2006 - 20:17 IND

Defeated by the city. After spending 30 minutes sending out emails and updating the blog (I really feel like such a nerd saying things like "Oh, just updating the ol' blog" so off-handedly like that), Ben and I took a moment to relax in the rather dimly lit hotel lobby. There were English- and Tamil-language newspapers there, so Ben grabbed the English paper and started reading about some of India's hot topics. Election day is tomorrow, so I think many buildings and facilities that would normally open will be closed. There were stories about several political parties and about restrictions placed on exit pollers, and once we made it through those we browsed on to sports, entertainment, and opinion sections. Two older men stood transfixed watching (what I assume was) a Tamil-language Bollywood film, a fan blew air down from the low ceiling. City life continued its tulmult outside.

After this time we decided to take a walk. I realized that I had left the key in the room (Kem had said "Lock the door" but not "Take the key"! I should have understood...), so the walk sounded like a good enough idea. We passed the shops lining the walkway that led us out to the gated complex out front. Through the low gates and into the street we went, careful to avoid the cars, busses, and bikes that were making their way through the narrow way. It was a flood of flashes in the early evening's darkness, an overload of stimulus as the sights and sounds and smells of the street all competed for my attention. We came to the corner, where countless vendors had set up shop and been at it at least since we returned from church early this afternoon. Their one-word calls to come look over their wares ("Buy! Buy!") only added to the confusion, and I was suddenly not in any mood to be out and about in the city. Still, we walked a block towards where we had been dropped off by the public bus after church, and Chennai kept at it. Small clothing and electronics stores, fruit and shoe vendors' stands, trash and children in the streets. At the next corner, where we stopped, I watched a man who was sitting in the middle of the traffic circle there, on the grass beneath a tall statue, showing no sign that he for any reason would seem out of place.

And I realized that my likely problem was that my sense of space was being violated, undermined, ignored. On the way back I noticed a man closer to my hotel whom I had seen before, but this time I realized that what he was doing had the same effect on me: he was wearing little clothing and a long gray beard and was perched on a broken cement fixture just off of a wall to our left. The clothing and the beard didn't bother me at all, just his position. I was becoming keenly aware of the fact that I didn't know where people belonged in this place - or if there was any sense of 'belonging' and 'not belonging' at all among it residents. Back home these were the kinds of places you sat when you wanted attention. Or if you didn't want the attention you were bothered when you inadvertantly got it. The two men in question seemed too comfortable where they were to suggest that they expected the same kind of attention one would gather at home, and I found myself thrown as to why in the world this behavior wasn't abnormal. And that disorientation, on top of the flood of sensory stimulus I was getting, was too much. We returned to the hotel, asked for a spare key at the front room, and came upstairs.

It occurs to me that this feeling of defeat and the retreat into my air-conditioned room to type in my journal is probably a sign of some culture shock. Maybe some major culture shock. I can admit that - though, believe it or not, a few years back I would have considered culture shock sort of a shameful thing to be going through, as if somebody experiencing it were somehow weak, shallow, or closed-minded. Well, either that's not true - people who go through culture shock can actually be strong, profound, open individuals - or to some extent I myself possess those 'negative' characteristics I saw in other people, and now I'm just big enough to admit those traits.

May 9, 2006 - 02:45 IND

On today's tour of a couple of Chennai city sites, I felt less despair in the face of the city. I think being aware of culture shock is greatly helping prevent it from festering. What's more, Ben and I took a short walk to locate an ATM today, and as we got further from the street where our hotel is located, which is right in front of a major train station, the number of cars and vendors dropped by probably 90%. Suddenly the city became manageable, and I saw that this was not a neverending flow of humanity. There was plenty of that to be had, of course, but at least there was some place I could let my mind feel at ease for a while.

Also on that walk, I discovered a topic that really interested me here in Chennai. I'll have to see if this phenomenon occurs in other towns and cities as well here in India. There was a tall gold statue, marked as representing a mayor (former or past, I'm not sure), and while that in itself was not uncommon - there are gold statues on pedestals in a number of public places throughout the city - here I noticed something strange to my eyes. There was a narrow, walled metal platform that ran in front of the statue, parallel to the street the statue faced, and leading up to the platform was an open staircase. Anyone who wanted could approach this statue of a mayor and do anything to it. I had seen flowers around some other public statues' necks (as well as around Hindu images, hanging both from paintings' frames and around statues' necks), but I did not know how they had gotten there. Ben pointed out that if anyone wanted to they could go and break an egg right on top of his head, and he was right. I did see that something now dry had dripped down his head, but I didn't seen any other possible sign of vandalism. I wasn't even sure that that's what this was.

So were these stairs and platforms for political or religious purpose? Or some other purpose? I don't know what they're used for, who uses them, or how often. But this is interesting stuff with potentially interesting theoretical significance - for example the question of public access in general, and more specifically of public access to religions, political, and/or mythical figures. Is this something to make up for a lack of popular access to public works? Or perhaps a reflection of the public's involvement in politics or religion? Perhaps (or probably) none of these. But an interesting question nonetheless.

Sleep patterns are getting strange since I went with Brandon and Kem to pick up Chelsea at the airport yesterday morning at 2:30. We didn't come home until around 5:00 or 5:30, and I just wasn't tired. So I didn't sleep. I stayed up and read my scriptures, then showered and laid down while the sun came up and lit our room bit by bit. Marc stepped into the bathroom for a shower and Ben woke up. I asked if he'd like to go get some breakfast, and he agreed. We invited Marc as well, and he accepted. Kem was still asleep.

Kem slept for a long while, and during the beginning of the trip I was a little concerned. He had gotten suddenly quiet on the way back from the airport that morning when I interrupted him in the middle of a story to point out a line of motorickshaws to Chelsea. Since then he hadn't really talked, and I wondered if our interaction hadn't triggered some fit of depression. When I was working through some emotional stuff after my LDS mission the strangest things would trigger a depression episode - usually dealing with wanting to do multiple things to help or be with multiple people, especially when they suddenly came up one after the other, and all seemed important. Little things that triggered a huge emotional response.

So I was worried about Kem, but as I had done so many times before, he seemed to come out of it quite a bit as he got out, moving around and interacting with people and with the world around him. Jokes didn't help, offers of emotional support didn't help, showing interest didn't help. Only his own self-motivated (to some degree - there was some indirect social pressure that initially got him out I think) locomotion and social interaction led him out of whatever funk he was in. I was really glad.

(Later he went with Autumn and Marc to pick up a camera for Autumn. I fell asleep before they returned, but I remember waking up to Marc talking about the beach too, so I imagine they had a good time.)

During our group tour today I got really frustrated with being around so many people, becoming terribly conspicuous and very uncomfortable interacting with any locals for fear of drawing a Western crowd around me. On the street, in the Gandhi park we visited, or on St. Thomas Mount where a church and monuments have been constructed to memorialized the spot where Thomas the Apostle is said to have been martyred, I only wanted to be in (at the very least) a smaller group. Maybe even by myself.

I wasn't unhappy, you have to understand. I did get really quiet - as a reaction to the group dynamic thing, I think - and that could be taken as depression. I think Brandon got a bit worried, and he came up and asked how I was doing. I think my "I'm actually doing really well" convinced him, and that's good. I hope I didn't bring the group down emotionally, though I think part of my internal motivation for separation and quiet was in part to somehow pull a little of the 'edge' off of the group - to reduce the level of noise coming from a big white group of Westerners.

That, and I was tired from being up since 2:30. I'll try to maintain a more normal sleep pattern.

21:39 IND

I'm on a train with the whole group. It's a sleeper car - 2nd class Air Conditioned - and I'm in a lower sleeper underneath Ben, who's asleep on a bed up top from where I've tried to hang a sheet to hide the fact that I'm using a laptop. By now, though, most of the lights in the car are out and I think most of the folks around are probably aware that the computer's here. I just didn't want to show it off. Maybe I should have just used it to avoid more attention-getting. What's funny is that the car's attendant man, who was in the middle of bringing out sheets and blankets and small pillows, laughed as he came by in the middle of my efforts to hang this sheet up. What's more, he stopped the next time by and put it up the rest of the way for me. I was kind of embarrassed to have caused such a disturbance, but it was probably worth it for this trial run.

Today we were coming back from purchasing Coimbatore-Delhi train tickets at the Chennai Central Station (you have to buy them way in advance) and I noticed that everyone was really giving to each other. I bought Ashley and Brandon's tickets from Egmore Station (right down the road from our hotel) to Central Station, as well as the return tickets - something I wouldn't have done before but thought would be nice. And standing with the group waiting for our return train I realized that maybe one of the reasons I don't like this group dynamic thing is really just that I don't know how to function well in it. I mean, yes, there is definitely still the issue of making noise and drawing attention, things that I think can really hinder the efficacy of our interactions with local residents. But maybe - no, proably - I don't actually know how to 'play well with others'. I don't know that I ever learned to just really give, to think of what folks around me might need or want. And that must make all the difference in being happy within a group. It made me think that, sometime here in the next couple of months, I might have to learn these kinds of lessons about how to really help out a bunch of people in need.

For example, tonight we were looking for our train to Madurai at Egmore station. We really didn't know where we were going, but I knew I could help figure it out. So I set off in the lead, talked to people around us, and tried to locate our train platform. We got there relatively quickly, and I think I was able to contribute significantly to that effort.

Maybe I can learn these lessons sooner rather than later.

Right now it's getting pretty late - almost 10 pm - and I've been falling asleep as I've typed up my field notes and this journal entry. I'm going to pack up this laptop, my camera, and all the 20+ mini DV tapes I pulled out of my backpack. Then I need to sleep so I can be awake when we go looking for Madurai-Coimbatore tickets when we arrive at the Madurai Station at 4am.

May 12, 2006 - 02:29 IND

I've just woken up in the middle of the night and figured that since my computer was on the bed I should get to the old journal. Sorry you haven't heard from me since I was leaving Chennai. The past two days in Madurai have proven to be busier than I expected, and for some strange reason I can feel myself succumbing to this city's pandering to the tourist crowd. The huge temple here (worth Googling!) attracts tremendous numbers of people (though this, being the hottest time of the year in Madurai, lands us right in the middle of the offseason for tourism in the city), and all around the hotel where we are staying there are all sorts of vendors who have been 'well seasoned' - as my friend Ben has put it - to the presence of tourists. We find ourselves describing Madurai's residents as 'pushier' than those in Chennai, 'more relentless', and simply more concentrated. I've gotten very good at avoiding eye contact with just about anyone, and at raising an uplifted hand and blurting out a quick "No, no thank you" at the first hint of a sales pitch. Still, periodically an especially bold or desperate vendor will prove to be more relentless than what we're used to even here in Madurai, and it takes some real fortitude to just keep your path and let them wear themselves down or see that you're just not going to be interested. It's worse for the women when they are in groups by themselves without a man: for some reason many vendors respond immediately to a man's 'No' and will persists even at a woman's repeated refusal. I have been in groups with girls where, several times in the same walk, they were being hounded by vendors and all it took was for me to turn, look the man in the eye, and give my firm "No, no thank you" routine - and they walked away. On a number of occasions we have been offered drugs - it's happened more in these last two days than it did throughout all of high school. I mean easily more times. Like by a margin of 100 to 200 percent.

Still, many of the people I have met have been awfully endearing. Even - I should say especially - one of the shopkeepers, a charismatic man whom I'll call Ali. Ali is a family man with a wife and a child who came to Madurai from up north in Ladakh, where he also ran a store geared toward tourists. Three other members of the BYU group and I discovered his shop while looking to enter the Hindu temple here. We had already started to enter through a different gate but felt strange about it when a woman insisted that we needed to take our shoes off and leave them outside before we come in. By outside I mean right by the wall of the temple, next to the gate forming the fourth part of a four-way intersection with two very busy streets. Though there was indeed a pile of shoes there, I didn't feel at all comfortable with leaving ours in such a heavily trafficked place, and all the more when she insisted (and you just stop trusting people here in Madurai) that this was the main gate to the temple. So many random people have attached themselves to vendors here and try to guide tourists to their patron-vendors' shops that I just don't trust anyone to lead me, disinterested, to do anything while I'm here. Plus I trust my gut. So we told the woman we just wanted to see the outside of the temple and walked along the outside wall, which spanned a couple of city blocks both ways. Rounding a corner to the right we continued on and eventually came from the western gate to the northern, where once again we were told to remove our shoes. But this time a man led us across the street to an enclosed shop to leave them, and we felt much better about that. Plus two of us - Ali (whom I know originally from church at BYU) and I - stayed behind to watch all four students' shoes while two others went in to look at the temple's interior. We would switch later. This shop proved to be run by the man who would quickly become our new friend Ali.

Ali reports (in very clear English even) that he came to Madurai because whereas the tourist season here lasts around 9 months out of the year, only three peak months attract tourists to Ladakh. More money was to be had here. Not that the move didn't come with some (substantial) sacrifice: with a smile Ali tells me that here it far too hot. And so he relishes his return visits to Ladakh, where in fact his family is now waiting for him to join them for a holiday. (I have to admit that it really would be far too hot for many of the folks back home to take - I'm thinking of Dad especially here. Sorry if pointing you out specifically embarrasses you, Dad.)

He also uses those two weeks in the North to seek out more wares for his curio (is that the right word?) shop, where we found ourselves looking through an extensive and beautiful collection of statuettes in bronze and rosewood, jade and silver jewelry, painted boxes of paper mâché, and throws and scarves in endless piles. The wide variety and beauty of the wares took us aback, and Ali's knowledge and visible genuine excitement for each piece were evident. Periodically he would beckon us back to the far end of the shop, where he would crouch down and retrieve a piece from a lower shelf, where several more scattered pieces seemed to be hidden. "This piece," he would say, "is very special piece," and then he would go on to show us how fine the handiwork was, how beautifully an artisan had put together a certain inlay, what kind of care had gone into a certain carving. He really carried a deeply felt fondness for his work.

It was while Ali showed off his collection the first night that I happened to look above the shop door and see a placard in Arabic and a photo of the Prophet's grave in Saudi Arabia. "You are Muslim, sir?" I asked, and he gave a quick nod of his head. We continued looking through the various items for sale, and before long Shauna and Lily returned and I left with Ali for the temple. (I've just realized that A-li and a-LI look the same in writing. I hope you can tell them apart from context. Best of luck to you.)

A question soon arose that I felt I should somehow address with Ali: he being Muslim, how did he feel selling images supposed to represent Deity? Islam prescribes to its faithful (as I have come to understand it) a rejection of the applying of physical features to God, who in ultimate and magnificent superiority remains formless. To give God any physical attribute is to bring God down from Heaven, is to pinpoint God and therefore is to deny God's infinite and eternal nature. You can see how any image of God would represent an atrocity in the Muslim's view. And yet here were the statues of Ganesh, of Vishnu and Shiva and Krishna and Kali. I would have to make a return trip to discuss the question with our new friend.

This we did - Ali, Shauna, and I, along with Sara. We went to shop as well - Ali picked up some gifts for her little sisters and Sara fell in love with some jewelry she found there. But as the girls made their selections I sat down in the narrow walkway between the jewelry case and the rack of statuettes and started to ask my question. Ali, I was pleased (and a bit surprised) to find out, was happy to answer. "That, sir," he began, "that is my big blunder. That is my only blunder. I go to God now, I have to tell Him, 'Yes, I sell those things.' I am not proud of this thing. A man came in here the other day, a Muslim man, and he wanted to start his own shop. He asked about the shop, about the figures. I tell him, 'Sir, I sell these now because I started so long ago. I cannot now stop. Sir, do not start.' And he left. 'Sell all this, the jewels, the scarves, the other things. But do not start to sell these things.' Now, whether he do or whether he don't, I don't know. But I tell him, 'Sir, do not start.' This man was older, yes. I have longer to live, yes, but this man, this man should be in mosque."

I had anticipated this answer, though one other possibility - that these were not the One True God and therefore didn't matter - had entered my mind as well. Still I was taken by how fervently Ali had answered, and I could see that this was not an answer given just to be playing to my expectations. This was a sincere answer, the right one for him, and he had shared a piece of himself in giving it. I'll be going back for a third time now tomorrow, and perhaps I can find a way to share somehow a piece of myself too.

One more item before finishing this entry - it's just after 04:00 IND now. I hope I haven't betrayed Ali by sharing some of his feelings here. Please understand that this is an individual, a really nice and caring man with real feelings and a real family and business and life to take care of. And a spirituality as well. I thought that sharing something of this conflict between religious belief and practice might be enlightening for all of us, and I appreciate Ali's willingness to share with me. I am far too often too willing to open myself up to the world, to wear my heart on my sleeve, and sometimes that ends up revealing information about others that needn't be shared. I hope you understand that I've done my best to treat Ali - whose name I have changed here - with the greatest respect, as religious practice is a deeply personal thing that has raised conflict in my own life as it has in his. Please take this not as an opportunity to learn about the strange Other people Out There, but take a moment to find out what Ali's situation might mean in your own life as well. I think you might find something worthwhile.

Just a couple images from Madurai, by Jed's request. Kind of touristy stuff.

...And we're off!

2006-05-08T20:43:00.000-06:00

We're leaving for Madurai by train tonight, and I'll try to update the blog there. Before we leave I'm planning on visiting a couple of mosques, one of which is right next door to our hotel.

I'm keeping up on my journal really well, so don't worry - you'll have plenty to read soon. I think I'll have a picture or two as well. Thanks for reading.

Journal Entries

2006-05-07T07:24:00.000-06:00

The following LONG entry coems from the journal I've been keeping on my laptop since I left Provo. Enjoy.

May 3, 2006 - 10:55 MDT

Well we're on our way. I spent the morning rushing to get everything finally ready - including a mad rush to the BYU Bookstore to pick up some earbuds/headphones, a big bottle of contact-lens solution, and some traveler's checks. Wait... where are my traveler's checks? Oh, here they are in the bag right next to me.
I'm sitting in the back bench seat of a silver minivan, listening to some local rock station and opening up this laptop for the Second-Time-Ever. The last time I used it (First-Time-Ever) I was in BYU's library running a bunch of Windows updates and installing Mozilla Firefox so I wouldn't have to succumb to Microsoft's insistance that I use its crappy browser. Still, I'm keeping this whole thing pretty minimalist: Firefox is the only software I'm planning on installing here, unless I end up throwing Microsoft Office (I know, I know - Microsoft) so I can take notes more effectively. (Word offers a number of formatting options that WordPad simply doesn't.)
I just found out the station we're listening to is KOHS, run by Orem High School students (OHS - get it?) almost completely by requests.
This Utah scenery is beautiful here along I-15. On my left are the majestic Rockies standing over a blanket of green fields polka-dotted with grazing cattle. On the right, some softer-looking mountains whose faces are made not of rocks and crags, but of gentle valleys and rolling peaks. An old brown barn, a rusty silo, an occasional field of dandelions bordered by a white fence, a sign reading ARABIAN HORSES. I watch the power lines bounce between poles along the highway.
Autumn, 25, is driving the van we've rented. We initially ordered an economy-class vehicle, but we got a 'free upgrade' because no economy cars were available when she and Lily went to pick it up. It's not exactly economy anymore, I think, since the minivan will be getting worse mileage than our original car would have - and what's more, gas in Provo is at $2.70. Who knows what it will be in Nevada... or worse, in California. I've heard rumors it's at $4.00.
Autumn's the only legal driver of the van as far as I know - solely due to age - but I've just checked and we'll all be sharing in the driving responsibilities on the way down, even though we're all 24. Autumn comes off as kind of an experienced traveler and has given us some really useful tips in preparation for India. Among the best is a back velcroed pocket cut out of a pair of pants with a long piece of cord run through holes in it so it can be worn as a belt. It goes underneath your pants so no one knows you're carrying hundreds and hundreds of American dollars down there. Autumn has recently spent a good amount of time in Spain and is one of the most excited about going to India. She was also excited to see that I bought Chaco sandals; I guess it puts me in a certain class of granola that I couldn't have belonged to before. In any case, I'm glad Autumn's in the India group because she seems so knowledgeable.
As far as excitement for India goes, I'm caught between a few feelings. I think the strongest are bewilderment and nervousness - bewilderment because this is the first time I'm doing any real traveling outside of the context of missionary, when just about everything is done for you and you just know you're going to be okay, and nervousness because I want to do really good work here but am just inexperienced when it comes to scientific research. Especially in the social sciences. I've been doing anthropology for about eight months now and serious documentary work for only about a year. I've felt that my work has been all right so far - even good at times - and I've seen myself progress as I've gotten deeper into the subject. Still, though, will eight months prove sufficient preparation for this intensive two-month period of fieldwork?
I suppose it will have to be. And if it isn't, from what I've heard no one's first experience in the field is perfect anyway. Not even their second, or third, or any of them for that matter. Field researchers learn every time - even when they're doing really good work already - so I might as well start somewhere. I feel like these months of experience collecting data, and then the analysis of that data, will supply me with a greater opportunity to learn in the classroom and in my readings later; I'll have a context to put all the book learning and classroom dicussion into, and that will in turn make me better prepared for my next research or film project.
That said, I think I'll close this laptop down, relax, and look around a little bit more. This Utah scenery's beautiful.

22:44 PDT

We've dropped Autumn off at LAX and are now on our way to Ali Warcup's house in San Diego. It's already been a long day, and it turns out I still have to finish doing a bit of Internet research before bed so we can know where to go tomorrow to pick up microphone and tape equipment. On top of that adventure (I think we have to go to Annaheim for that equipment) we need to stop and buy a couple of things like Ziploc baggies, a sheet for sleeping in, and an extra pair of pants. And we have to make it to LAX by 4pm so we can return the car and make it to the terminal by 5pm, two hours before we take off.

I've found a flaw or two in my laptop. Battery life seems to not be as good as I was hoping for - either that, or I've somehow left the machine running between this morning and now, when I took it out again. Also, there's a crack in the body by where the left side of the monitor meet the bottom portion. It flaps open and closed a little every time we hit a bump. I just hope I didn't do that to the machine by packing it into a backpack with my camera and everything else.

May 4, 2006 - 19:36 PDT

I'm currently on the airplane listening to regional Indian music and really taking advantage of this laptop. I'm going to try to stay awake through this whole flight - yes, all of it, right over the USA, the Atlantic Ocean, and much of the European Union - so I can sleep through the Frankfurt-Mumbai flight and be as close to being on an Indian-time sleep schedule as possible.

Today has been a day absolutely full - of business, of fun, and even of some small miracles. Business Item #1: I just dropped so much money on video equipment in San Diego. Usually I feel really bad about that kind of frivolous thing, but let's face it - today's expenses were far from frivolous. This is graduate school and my career I'm talking about, and moreover my gut (which has never been wrong) never told me 'No'. In fact, I'm still going the direction I am with this doc-film career idea because it's felt so right in the past and because my gut still hasn't told me to stop. $o today $pend it wa$, and $pend I did.

Business Item #2: I'm just hoping that the money I'm supposed to get from my video job this past winter comes in soon. Spending so much money today really came close to wiping me out, and the $300 I'm expecting should keep me going in India for a considerable time.

Okay, Fun time. Fun Item #1: Besides spending money and catching our flight, we had some other pretty serious things on our to-do list today. Like finding an In-N-Out to eat at. So around Carlsbad we just decided to forego Making Good Time and just take a random exit and hope for the best. We ended up on a beautiful drive that ran along the beach, where we stopped a couple of people and asked, just like any good naïve tourist-types, where the nearest In-N-Out was. Their directions were clear, and even though we ended up backtracking to an exit on I-5 that we'd already passed, getting back on the highway and back up to LAX was easy.

Fun Item #2: Dude, I finally saw a beach in California. That happened at... I don't remember the name of the town, but it might have been Solana Beach. A really nice community, I think. Anyway, we all got out at a public parking lot, and after a quick bathroom break I grabbed the camera out of the rental van and got all set up to tape Ben and Lily down on the beach. It was nice to know that the mic and everything work, and even though I took a while to figure out why in the world my image wouldn't stop being so blue (I forgot that I had adjusted my white balance), I got some really nice footage. It ended up being kind of a nice confidence booster before we headed off to India. The whole time, by the way, I couldn't stop thinking about Robert Frost's 'A Record Stride' and getting "the United States stated."

I hope the folks who manage Frost's estate don't sue me over that. I hear anybody who manages estates is pretty uptight about even the smallest things.

So Miracles you ask? Miracle Item #1: We got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight. We had to go from Poway, CA, south into San Diego and then back north towards LA. Mixed in with all that were a bunch of those Business Items we talked about already, not to mention our having to deal with traffic, purchases made at Target, bathroom breaks, the time at the beach, and the all-important In-N-Out Experience. (The Double-Double meal with a vanilla shake really hit the spot.) So the fact that we handled all of that stuff and were spared the pains of serious traffic jams means a lot to me. When we pulled off the highway at the LAX exit all I could say was "Thank Heaven." And tonight I probably should.

Miracle Item #2: We managed to pack all of the video equipment into our bags. I say 'we' because this was only achieved with the help (and extra bag space) of my two wonderful friends Lily and Ben. On the shuttle from the car rental place to LAX we broke open everything we had bought that day and started stowing it in any empty spot we could find. Ben took some extra Ziploc bags, Lily grabbed my new mic equipment, and tape ended up dispersed all over the place. (Our last count was that Ben got 13, Lily got 5, and I got the remaining 32.)

Some other notes: There's a little cartoon character I keep seeing in Air India media, both video and print. He's sort of a Mr. Magoo-type character in that he's simply drawn, short, and kind of static. He'll stand there, then break into some sort of sudden action like opening a door for you or bowing low, his arm along his waist. And this is what really gets to me - he's 'at our service'. And he's dressed in what amount to apparently British Raj-era clothing but is wearing a turban and sports a long, thick, black moustache. And he's 'at our service'. It seems to me that Air India has decided to stick with a sort of self-sponsored colonialism here, played to the Orientalist in all of us, in an effort to create a sense of comfort in the fact that India is still around to serve us Westerners.

And what then about the many people I spot on board who I can reasonably guess are from India? First, do they consider it any kind of disconnect, the way I do, that this little guy is around even though the Raj isn't? Second, is the Raj still around - even if not in person, in culture? And third, if it isn't present in the Indian psyche, then what do the Indians on board think of being represented in such a colonial light?

It occurs to me that I need to maybe gather more data now and not interpret so much right off the bat. But is it that bad to think about things like that, even in the middle of fieldwork? I'm going to venture a no on that one. Thinking about what I've found so far can only help to guide me to further questions and gather more interesting, maybe more revealing data.

Well a couple of hours have gone by, and my battery has shot down from near 100% to about 8%. It's not the best battery. I'm just going to do my best to stay awake now and take in this Indian music.

May 7, 2006 - 00:32 IND

Marc, Kem, Ben and I are in our hotel room. I've plugged in to hotel power via Ben's adaptor, and I'm really glad to see that my computer isn't getting fried. Marc, who just checked in at the hotel after being picked up at MAA by Brandon and Kem, has just stepped out of the shower, and I'm getting ready to use the restroom and get to bed. These have (understandably) been the fastest four days of my life, from Wednesday morning to Saturday night, all under the umbrella-label of 'travel'. Especially Friday, which zipped by as Ben, Lily, and I were flying East practically the whole day. I should get to bed, really - we're going to church at 9 am, and I'm tired as it is. But I decided to start the field notes process tonight, and Ben and I have been chatting and laughing with Ashley while her husband (that's Brandon) went for Marc.

I've noticed that being in India has reminded me a lot of being in Brazil. This hasn't been a naïve impression (I'll get to that in a minute), but it has been, surprisingly, a sort of relief. In the taxi (reminiscent of the ones in Born Into Brothels) from the airport, I was struck by the proximity of foot and automoblie traffic, by the maneuvers of the cars and motorcycles on the highway, by the venders on the sidewalks, by the trash in the streets. The colors, the layout, the shops - all of it was in some very strong ways reminiscent of Manaus's streets. I could buy coconut still in its green shell, citrus fruits by the handful, the thin-skinned banana maçã that I loved so well on my mission. It was bright and loud and confusing. And suddenly I realized - and I told Autumn, who was in the taxi with me - that I was enjoying it. This was much more free of pressure than was Manaus. I didn't carry the weight that came with being Elder Henry, just the easier pleasure of being with people and witnessing how they live. I suddenly realized that my stomach had been tensing up like it always had seemed to do in Brazil, and I relaxed. Chennai was beautiful.

Then something else hit me. This wouldn't be exactly the same as being-in-Brazil-except-hey-cool-now-I'm-not-a-missionary. In fact, this would be different in one very important, sort of all-encompassing way. This wasn't Brazil. No samba, no arroz e feijão (but plenty of arroz!), no Portuguese... no really Western way of life, I guess. This was South Asia, the Subcontinent, and this would take a completely different set of experiences while I get accustomed to the whole thing. I think back now to earlier today, taking off from Mumbai and landing in Chennai - more especially the second of these - and how I saw hundreds of rooftops and imagined hundreds of Brazilian-style houses with Brazilian-style culture going on inside them. I saw a bigger, white house with clothes drying in the wind on the painted cement roof, a large white sheet blowing between pants and shirts. I imagined o pessoal lá em cima, listening to pagode and samba music and drinking their Antarctica-brand beer and talking futebol. I pictured a cheap TV and hundreds of metal folding chairs filled around it while the green and yellow played in the World Cup.

But none of that would happen here. It just wouldn't. This was India.

Fortunately, I have something good to report out of this. Yes, I miss Brazil - even to the point of wishing I could do fieldwork there sometime, just to be able to justify going back. But so much stress is still tied to that place because I felt it so strongly there, and I think that made me not be able to deal with and understand the culture there as well as I could have. And while returning there under less stressful conditions will doubtless prove beneficial to me, these four months give me a chance to sort of redeem myself from what I understand was a grossly imperfect culture-learning experience. I have a chance to practice fitting in with much less pressure, and that can make me much happier.

On a less profound but equally important note, I have forgotten to send an email to my parents. Even though it's Sunday, that's going to have to be a priority. I think that right now they need to know I'm doing okay more than I need to worry about Setting an Example. I'll be sure to avoid situations like this in the future.

16:45 IND

We've been to Church now in Chennai. We stayed for all three meetings plus a baptismal service afterwards, and the sacrament meeting, which was held first, was among the most uplifting that I've had in months. Probably in years. Today was fast Sunday - meaning that the entire Church is asked to fast on this day, and to use that opportunity to fast in order to draw closer to God. Moreover, we give what we would have eaten (or the money equivalent - or even more than that) to the Church to be redistributed to the poor in our congregation. The lessons I taught as a missionary describe these Sundays as a great opportunity for tremendous spiritual experiences, and today was one of those. I sat down, surrounded by scores of people - probably at least a hundren - just so pleased to be there that day. There was a piano player (something rare for many branches in Brazil), and when the first notes of the opening hymn sounded I couldn't help but tear up. I was amazed at how peaceful this room was despite the mass of humanity outside, how true the feelings of brotherhood in the room were, how sincerely the congregation smiled, how respectfully the sacrament had been prepared. The hymn, "How Gentle God's Commands", made me understand that Zion is being built in the hearts of God's children across the globe because of their willingness to love and care for each other, and to obey those commandments out of love for their Heavenly Father. I felt united with the members of the congregation throughout that hymn and during the prayers and sacrament service that followed. That feeling only grew stronger while the branch president announced the arrival that week of two newly released missionaries. I thought back to my own missionary experience and could understand their visible enthusiasm as they spoke of their own time in the mission field. And when the branch's members - including those recently returned elders - bore testimony, intermingled with the testimonies of members of my own group from BYU, I couldn't help but marvel at how gentle God's command really was, and at the kindly manner in which he guides us safely home. All of us.

This is a photo of me and my friend Kem, from the BYU group, eating on my first full day here. Eating with the right hand like we are in the picture is a very common practice here.

Just Checking In

2006-05-04T10:14:00.000-06:00

We're in San Diego County - Poway, actually - and I'm about to buy mic equipment in San Diego and tape in LA before we fly out of LAX. See you in India.

Links to My Research Proposal and Papers

2006-05-02T10:49:00.000-06:00

As promised, here are my research proposal and three anthro papers. (1 2 3) I'm kind of proud of all this stuff! I'll add a link to my research proposal there on the sidebar in case you're ever not clear on what I'm doing. Enjoy.

24 Hours and Counting...

2006-05-02T10:14:00.000-06:00

Today's May 2, and that means tomorrow's May 3. And that means tomorrow's the day I leave Provo for LA. (Four or five of us are flying out of LAX.) I finally moved all my stuff out of my house and put it in the storage unit I'm sharing with two of the girls going to India with me - and many thanks to Ben (also going to India) for the use of his truck while we go.

It felt like I had a lot more stuff than I ended up actually having. I guess that's what happens when you share a small little room with somebody who's got a bunch of stuff to store as well. But I'm leaving a lot of my excess stuff with Deseret Industries (we tend to just refer to it as DI), a place that will remind a lot of Eastern folks of just a really big Salvation Army or Goodwill thrift store. So that reduced my load a good amount.

So now I'm up on campus returning some books to the library and one to an anthro professor. I wish I'd had time to get more into this literature, but coursework just kept me too busy this semester, and I think I missed out on what could have been important theoretical stuff for the research project. What I think I'll do is run off some of what I see as being the most important sections so that I can access them in India, and then just destroy/recycle all that stuff when I get back. My backpack's pretty full already, so I'm not sure how much paper product I'm going to be able to fit.

I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to get my microphone equipment and tape in time to leave, and I brought that up with my sister a couple days ago while I was talking to her on the phone. "But you're going to be in LA!" she said. Oh, yeah! I'm going to be in a place that's just full of video equipment! So I'll be bopping on in to some video-equipment store Thursday to pick up the microphone, cable, boom, tape, and extra battery I need.

I guess things are really winding down. Or, since soon I'm heading out to do something I think of as big and maybe even important, maybe we're just getting started. In any case, the next time you hear from me I'll probably be in India.

Done and Done... Now the Real Fun Begins.

2006-04-27T20:15:00.000-06:00

Good news, all. I'm finally done, and that's meant a little bit of relaxation time - in between all my preparations for India. Today I went and picked up a couple books (this and this) for my summer-term coursework over there, and then bought some Chacos (which came at an exorbitant price but from what I've heard will last me years). Later on I met with Lily and Ben (who are going to Dharamsala with me) and Autumn (who isn't - she's staying in Chavadi down south, close to Coimbatore for her research), and we talked logistics. We're renting a car to get from Provo to LAX, and Autumn finally got her car sold and is flying out about 24 hours before Lily, Ben, and me, so we three who were originally driving down together had to shift our plans to about 24 hours earlier. Which is fine: our friend Ali (also going to Chavadi for research) is from San Diego, so we'll just go down there and crash for the night before returning to LA and flying.

Now I've gotta get a mic, a cable, another battery, tape, and a tripod. And a backpack, a laptop, notebooks and pencils, and some extra underwear. And one more vaccination shot. And pack up everything I own for the summer. And then pay for tuition. Man, is it just me or is the room spinning a bit? I'd better sit down...

Just 5.5 Hours Left...

2006-04-26T18:30:00.000-06:00

If you've been checking back regularly and can't figure out why I'm not updating (this means you, Jooj), be relieved to know that, yes, this is the last day of finals here at BYU, and that I'm just working on a paper that's due by midnight. (I've been going nonstop, kids, for about two weeks now - and I can't wait to be done! At this point I'm just willing to take whatever grade they give me and accept it as my very best, because I really feel that's what I've given it this semester.)

As I leave for India in just a week, I'll be posting a lot of stuff soon, including some links to these anthro papers I've been working on, and especially to my newly updated research proposal. (Majorly updated twice in under two weeks, by the way. That's the reason I've been in the library so much...)

By the way, Invisible Children's site has been acting goofy today. Is it just receiving a mess of traffic because of the Oprah broadcast?

Oprah to Discuss Invisible Children Wednesday?

2006-04-24T20:42:00.000-06:00

One more thing about Invisible Children. I just discovered from another blog that Oprah is doing at least a short segment on Northern Uganda this Wednesday, April 26. I also see from the listing on her website that George Clooney's going to be on. Will he be championing the cause for Uganda's kids?

I hope this helps us recruit even more. Celebrities have been getting really big in the political scene for a few years now...

Invisible Children - Full Video

2006-04-24T18:53:00.000-06:00

You can now watch the whole Invisible Children rough cut video on line; I just found this out from Ann Arbor's Invisible Children MySpace site. (My brother Jordan's at UMich in Ann Arbor, so I check every once in a while to see if he's signed up for the Global Night Commute.) It's about 55 minutes, and when they say it's a crappy rock-n-roll documentary, they're being really honest. Just watch it and - please - sign up for the Global Night Commute.

Invisible Children

2006-04-21T10:56:00.000-06:00

All right, this doesn't have to do with my research or even with India. But we've got almost 31,000 people (at last count) across the country who are trying to raise public awareness of what's going on in Uganda. Our thought is, isn't there some way to stop war crimes and genocide from our side of the pond? It seems like government involvement (i.e., pressure) has been the only effective tool, but in the case of Uganda and the kids being kidnapped and killed there, practically no one here knows. So our national representatives have no reason to even think about the issue.

Well, we're forcing the issue. Go to invisiblechildren.com to find out about the Global Night Commute (GNC). Each night kids in Uganda walk for hours to find a place to sleep in the hopes of avoiding being kidnapped by the rebel army there, taken into the bush, and turned into hard, mindless, heartless soldiers. Kids are disappearing from Ugandan towns. Many are killed by the rebels in front of the others to harden them into warriors. And nobody here knows.

We're taking this lying down. On April 29 we're doing our own night commute. In the country's major population centers we're all walking to a local central spot in the name of these kids and sleeping. The media have been invited, and our hope is that we'll raise awareness and interest in what's turned into a nightmare in Uganda. Then, with more of the media and the public aware, maybe we can get something to happen on the ground over there. Again, please go to invisiblechildren.com and click Global Night Commute on the bottom to sign up in your town. If you're not in a place where it's happening (like Sydney, Australia or London, England, for example) then maybe you can start it up there. You'll find me signed up in Provo, Utah.

The Final Straw and Doctor Jay

2006-04-21T10:24:00.000-06:00

Guys, it's finals, and I've gotta tell you that I'm awfully frustrated. After talking with my Anthro Methods professor (whom I really like as a professor - smart, personable, and really helpful), I feel like I need to revamp my whole theoretical question - and therefore my research question. This kind of got dropped on me the last week of classes, and I've got final stuff to do! And while I see the value of rethinking, I'm awfully frustrated to have missed the deadline for turning in the final research proposal for the course on Wednesday. So last night, after finishing a big ol' French paper and a bunch of stuff for my India prep course, I sat down again (I'd already worked on this thing for hours!!) and tried to hack some stuff out. Then I emailed it to Jay, my India-prep instructor/facilitator/TA, and he replied. Here's our conversation.

My email to Jay:

"Jay

"This might take a little effort to wrap your head around and appreciate. I'm sorry about the time it might take, but I really am thankful for your willingness to help.

"Nephi
------------------------------

"A considerable and important divide separates two theoretical approaches to studying refugees. On one side stands Geiger (2000), whose approach to refugee studies appeals to common understandings of the problem by recalling refugees' apparent purpose in leaving their homelands. Having worked with Vietnamese refugees in the Philippines, Geiger asserts that becoming a refugee represents "a decision to try, by migrating, to preserve something of what people have learned life can be." (68) The refugee, living in what are hoped to be temporary conditions, is actually subjecting him or herself to temporal instability in order to maintain a sense of permanence – cultural, linguistic, biological in the case of survival, or otherwise. (Then I expand on that for a couple paragraphs using some thought experiments. The point in these expansion paragraphs is that it's not the leaving in groups that matters, but the settling as a group that serves to maintain culture. Back to my words now...)

"On the other side of the theoretical divide sits an amalgamation of core ideas coming from Lévi-Strauss (1969), who theorizes broadly on a culture-versus-nature dichotomy, and from Massey (1995), whose observations lend themselves to bringing Lévi-Strauss' ideas into refugee studies. When considered together they indicate that, ironically, a refugee leaving his or her homeland will actually lose original culture rather than preserve it. (Actually Massey's stuff might do it alone, so here's the gist of what she has to say...)

"Massey, in considering a sense of home, theorizes that one's sense of place is not a sense just of space, but also of the interactions related to that space. Leaving place means, therefore, not just leaving space, but leaving the interactions occurring across and within that space. Leaving place means leaving culture.

"Lévi-Strauss' creates a Culture-Nature dichotomy (with intentionally capitalized C and N) and says (in the context of the sex act) that leaving the cultural is approaching the animal or natural. Under that assumption, the only place one has to go to when leaving culture is nature.

"Okay, it's obvious refugees are leaving their culture behind. Are they leaving capital-C Culture as well and heading for a rule-free, Culture-free natural? Aren't they entering into a place where some kind of small-c culture exists anyway, like Tibetans among Hindus or New Orleanians among Chicagoans after Katrina? (HERE COMES THE MAIN POINT!) Well, it depends on whether there is a psychological tie between place of enculturation and one's sense of Culture. If I was born in Lhasa, Tibet, and there received formal and informal education, would I necessarily connect that place with the idea of rules and Culture (Lévi-Strauss connects the two), and exclude other places from being Cultural places for me? Am I more animal in those places? In short...

"Is there a link between place of enculturation and one's sense of the Cultural?

"(Some side notes, mostly for myself: Does Massey's position have the strength to stand alone in opposition to Geiger, and more importantly does the contrast between the two open up the theoretical space to examine leaving culture and leaving Culture?
What's missing here is that link. Is that my research question, whether or not that exists? But that's too, too big for two months. Is there a smaller piece of the theoretical puzzle to work on now, with the promise of more to come? What I mean is, how much can I break down the theoretical question I have – into how small of pieces? That's probably what I'd need the most personal help with; I need a sounding board to help me ask the right questions to break down the question of Culture-with-a-big-C's link to place of enculturation.)

"This is a bit confusing I guess. I'll have to clarify it and make it more logical in my proposal. Thanks again for working with it.

"Nephi"

... and here's Jay's reply:

"This actually looks really good. As far as "opening up the
theoretical space," I think this does the trick. You'll have to
decide yourself whether Massey is an even match for Geiger ... just
reading these few paragraphs, where you give them each pretty equal
stage time, it's actually Massey who comes across to me as being a bit
more advantaged because he's not alone in his argument--Levi-Strauss
backs him up. Even if you think Massey's position is strong enough on
its own, I would still mention Levi-Strauss: "Massey's perspective is
reminiscent of Levi-Strauss's assertion that leaving the cultural (he
is discussing the act of sex) means a move towards the animal or
natural" ... or something to that effect.

"You have cleared a lot more ground than you'll be able to cover in two
months (a better situation than not having cleared enough). I think
you need to define a bit what's going on with this big question (Is
there a link between place of enculturation and one's sense of the
Cultural?)--have a clear definition of terms, clarify what you mean by
enculturation, culture of both the little and big C varieties. Ask
yourself what the indicators of these processes are--think a bit like
a scientist and ask yourself what is measurable--not that you're
necessarily converting these concepts to numbers, but if you ask
people's feeling about their homes in India, will their responses in
some way demonstrate what is going on with some aspect of your
question? What would be some characteristics of leaving culture and
moving towards the natural (do Mauss or Levi-Strauss discuss some?) I
think as you do this clarification work, that more detailed,
articulated questions will likely become apparent, and you'll see some
specific direction to go with this. You may, for just some random
example, study individual participation in religious rituals or their
attitudes towards ritual as an indicator of whether they are more in a
state of Nature or in a state of Culture. We were brainstroming about
education with you the other day--that might be another direction. Or
you might do something completely different. What kind of link are
you looking for, and what would it look like if it was there? But you
need to identify the indicators of your big question before seeing
what elements of the culture you feel are significant to your study.

"This may mean more reading for you, but I don't think it necessarily
has to. Let me say that 1) even this last minute scrambling is
valuable to you--you've gotten a lot done in the past couple of weeks
that will be impossible in the field, and 2) especially having
identified a larger research question at this point, you have a
workable field experience before you--you will be articulating your
question throughout your time in India, and that's fine. Last summer
we met a PhD student who was talking about a survey he was developing
in the field much like you talk about your project now--confusion and
bewilderment tend to be the lot of ethnogrpahers for most of the time.
You don't need to be afraid that you won't be up to par, just because
it all isn't clear before you at the moment.

"Nuff said. I'm glad you're going. You'll have to tell me what you
think when you get there and how things are going (what IS your blog
address?). And at any time they come up, feel free to email me
questions, concerns, problems, whatever--whether it be tomorrow or a
month from now.

"Jay"

Jay's such a good guy!

A Creative Way Around the Ethical Dilemma

2006-03-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

Another friend of mine gave me what I thought was a fantastic idea. I was talking to her about the problem of filming political refugees' faces, and the obvious answers like "Film bodies, hands, houses - anything but faces" came up. But we discussed two other ideas that have artistic merit, if I pull them off.

One: What about backs of heads? I guess I'm thinking of Marsalis from Pulp Fiction, maybe, or for some reason I'm recollecting an image from a commercial I saw once of a the back of a girl's head, wet and wearing a swim cap, and an indoor pool in the background. Maybe I never actually saw that, actually, but it sounds like the kind of slow-motion image you would see in a credit card commercial or something.

Two: There's the question of filming at the Dalai Lama's birthday celebration in July. Public shooting might create the most risky footage - I won't be able to guarantee that everyone there is willing to be on camera, and I definitely won't be able to get their signatures on release forms. So why not shoot impressions of the celebration? Blur the images as much as I can and allow the viewer's mind to do the work, a little bit (or a lot) like Rodney Smith's experiments with impressionistic images.

I Didn't Quite Get Canon-ized

2006-03-22T00:39:00.000-07:00

Here's the reply I got to my letter asking for a video camera.

From the Canon Corp, printed on a sort of smallish card:

"Thank you for the opportunity to review your organization's request.

"Canon U.S.A. contributes to a wide variety of activities throughout the Americas, including Canon Envirothon, the Canon National Parks Science Scholars Program, the Yellowstone Park Foundation (Eyes on Yellowstone is made possible by Canon) and Canon4Kids, which supports the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

"You can learn more by visiting www.usa.canon.com/environment.

"While we cannot support every request, we do wish you every success in your endeavor.

"Corporate Social Responsibility Department
"Canon U.S.A."

And "OUCH" says my bank acocunt. Looks like I'm going to have to buy this camera myself, or just not do the film thing. Still, a buddy at work asked me why I wouldn't write them another letter, just because they said No the first time. So I think I might - you know, be a little more straightforward, describe the film's importance more...

As far as the film's ethics go, the same friend and I thought that it might be a smart option to just eliminate all faces from my footage. That might do a lot for the theory of the thing. Or maybe it'll just be gimmicky. In any case, I'll have to see if it's been done. And even if it has, I might just have to copy it.

How Can I Call This Ethical?

2006-03-20T17:07:00.000-07:00

It dawned on me today what exactly I was thinking of doing. I was planning on waltzing on in to a community of political refugees - people who in many cases still have family in the place they fled - and then filming them, putting their face on camera just like it didn't matter, like anonymity weren't an issue here. That's probably because, for me, those faces are anonymous. I wouldn't have any way of placing a name, for example, on the faces from my last post's footage. That seems obvious enough. But that doesn't mean someone else couldn't.

For example, I don't have any idea what the Chinese government might (or might not) do to the families of those I film there in India, Tibetans who have left their homes for cultural and political (and, many say, survival) reasons. To put refugees' faces on video, and then to put that video in the public eye, may put those individuals and their families in very real danger. It might just be the media influencing me, but the possiblities of imprisonment and torture seem too real for me to make a film like this one public.

And granted, it's less than likely that anything like that would happen; I find it pretty far-fetched that somehow the Chinese government, bent on showing those Tibetans who's really boss, track down (or even pay attention to, if they come across it) my footage and start scouring any records they may have to find the families of those they find out have left Tibet. Let's face it, I'm just an undergraduate kid at a private American school who tends to back away from the political Tibet question, who also happens to have a blog about his upcoming academic endeavors in the region. Not exactly spy-movie material here. I'm not even sure the Chinese hold any kind of agenda like that. How could I know?

But here's the thing: I also just can't know what might happen, and I'm going to have to weigh the academic, professional, political, and personal possibilities that surround this whole project. And it hit me today that that's heavy.

Feeling pretty sure that I would need to cut the film part of my project entirely, I turned to the Code of Ethics of the American Anthropological Assoctiation. One of the facilitators of my India program, Jay, had provided me with a copy of the document last week, but I hadn't gotten to it because of time. Today, I made time, and some of the principles there, though not quite resolving the whole issue, started me thinking that maybe this could work. For my current concerns, here are the most important elements:

Certain ethical obligations "can supersede the goal of seeking new knowledge, and can lead to decisions not to undertake or to discontinue a research project when the primary obligation conflicts with other responsibilities, such as those owed to sponsors or clients." One of these is "to avoid harm or wrong" by considering the negative change that might come from my work and from its publication. Another of these obligations is "to consult actively with the affected individuals or group(s), with the goal of establishing a working relationship that can be beneficial to all parties involved."

"Anthropological researchers must do everything in their power to ensure that their research does not harm the safety, dignity, or privacy of the people with whom they work, conduct research, or perform other professional activities." I don't know waht that might entail, but it seems in my case to be in conflict with the following:

"Anthropological researchers should utilize the results of their work in an appropriate fashion, and whenever possible disseminate their findings to the scientific and scholarly community."

I'm not kidding when I say I think my research could really add to the scientific conversation, and while I don't plan on getting rich from this film, I consider it a potentially vital part of the research. Sharing it and making it public may not be categorically wrong here. But if there's a way to make them ethical, what is it? The solution may lie in the following:

"Anthropological researchers must determine in advance whether their hosts/providers of information wish to remain anonymous or receive recognition, and make every effort to comply with those wishes. Researchers must present to their research participants the possible impacts of the choices, and make clear that despite their best efforts, anonymity may be compromised or recognition fail to materialize." That quote, combined with "the goal of establishing a working relationship that can be beneficial to all parties involved" (a repetition from text above), leads me to consider that there may be individuals in Dharamsala who will be willing to be filmed and even to risk being identified.

I plan on being very clear, then, what the risks might be. And that means I'll need to get informed about what the Chinese have reportedly done regarding Tibet - whether it be any kind of punishment, or absolute passivity, or anything in between. To me, that means that I'll need to prepare release forms for these people to sign, but the AAA says that "informed consent, for the purposes of this code, does not necessarily imply or require a particular written or signed form. It is the quality of the consent, not the format, that is relevant." Which doesn't mean I don't need written consent, period. It just means the AAA doesn't require it.

Finally, an excerpt concerning topics I've covered before in this venue: "While anthropologists may gain personally from their work, they must not exploit individuals, groups, animals, or cultural or biological materials. They should recognize their debt to the societies in which they work and their obligation to reciprocate with people studied in appropriate ways."

I'm glad Ben and I thought of this before we realized it was an issue recognized on the part of the AAA. It shows that we're complying with this final principle emphasized by the Association: "Anthropological researchers must expect to encounter ethical dilemmas at every stage of their work". Maybe I'm smart enough to pull something like this off after all.

Interesting Footage from Dharamsala

2006-03-20T10:15:00.001-07:00

I found this through Google Video and thought I would post it here, using a little bit of HTML that I've been trying to learn how to use. The footage originally from Englightened Films. Let me know if it doesn't work.

What's perhaps more interesting than the footage itself are the captions included on the bottom and the underlying assumptions revealed there about cultural identity. Dibyesh Anand (2000) asserts that only after China came into Tibet did the Dalai Lama come to represent all of Tibet. Granted, today the effective symbolism is that the Dalai Lama represents the whole country, but I wonder how that came to be so widely accepted among Tibetans and whether there was any resistance as the process of establishing the Dalai Lama's symbolic identity unfolded.

Exploiting Tibet?

2006-03-08T17:48:00.000-07:00

My friend Ben and I just spent about an hour discussing our research in India this summer, and a surprisingly serious and frightening concern surfaced. We were talking about the interviews we would be doing in Dharamsala, the kinds of questions we might be asking and of whom we might be asking them. And it dawned on us just how personal these questions might get, and that we would actually be divulging the answers to such questions to our various audiences (which would likely be small and few, but still very real - that was undeniable.)

This work very quickly took on a feeling of severe exploitation. We would actually be trying to pry into people's very senses of identity and home, and to what end? To present? To publish? To make a film? To build a résumé? For fame? For gain? For position?

And I realized that yes, I was still thinking of this field study as my big opportunity to build a future. It was a thought that disturbed me. I had to face the fact that I've been pretty schizophrenic about the whole thing, professing purely disinterested, academic or even holy causes (though - and this is important - not missionary causes), but still talking to everyone I knew about how big an opportunity this is and how much it'll affect my future, that it will let me have the career I want, the life I want for me.

How do you avoid that? Ben asked if all anthropology isn't necessarily that way, by its very nature. I couldn't reply any way but affirmatively. Still, there had to be some way out of it, some saving grace for something that has come to mean so much in my personal and academic life. I told Ben I thought as much, and we tried to find an honest way out of our problem.

It occurred to me that if there was a way out, it must revolve around gospel truths. For example - how convenient! - the one that came to mind was charity. I've long held that charity is a byproduct of understanding and that Jesus can only have charity because he's suffered what we've suffered, therefore being able to understand things as we do and feeling perfect compassion. It strikes me as even necessary that we too, if we're to follow Christ's examples, learn understanding by sharing in experience and thereby grow in charity. If we can rightly justify all this seemingly exploitative behavior and all this spreading of peoples' innermost feelings, there are certain assumptions we'll have to get right.

Number one is that all of it must be done primarily in the name of understanding and not in the name of gain. Gain in this case could be professional or material, or maybe some other kind. And I include 'primarily' because I don't think documentary films that make a profit are categorically evil because of the money they make. They are only wrong if they're made without primary interest in understanding - it's the purpose of the thing that its ethics hinge on. And then gain, I think, must be shared with those who have sacrificed their own identities for the study, the presentation, or the film. If money is involved, then the individual dignity of those studied must be respected in every way possible. Understanding, then - not money or position - becomes paramount, even if some gain is had. The giving of a share of profit from what is made reduces its importance in the researcher or filmmaker's life and frees the research subject from being objectified.

There are, I'm sure, other ways to approach social research that help the researcher in avoiding exploitation. I don't know what they are. Maybe I'll figure some out. If you have an idea, please let me know.

Ben and I also talked a lot about whether this first-time research as undergrads can be good, let alone significant. I'll be commenting on that soon.

Working with Wording

2006-03-06T21:13:00.000-07:00

I've been working to pin down my research topic for Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj. This is a quick attempt to summarize my topic, hypotheses, and theoretical approach. I'm taking a sort of materialist look at the concept of home in displaced persons, and how that displacement might affect relationships and interpersonal behaviors in the family. Let me expand on that a little bit.

I'm working with the idea that a displaced population like the Tibetans in Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj (or New Orleans refugees in Chicago, or Northeastern Brazilians in Sao Paulo) would struggle with the newness of the physical world around them - towns, road, trees, houses, foods, etc. In the case of Tibetans in India, that world is, as far as I know, considered temporary to some degree because of their desire to return to Tibet. What then does that mean about how they think about their homes? If their homes are temporary, do they become less important to their residents somehow, and if so, does that spill over to how they think of the other people living within that space, within those walls? Does the temporariness of living in a space cause (or correspond with) a disregard for the futures people will have with the members of their families? Or, given the Tibetans' attempt to maintain cultural permanence by settling outside of Chinese Tibet, do those attempts at permanence override any effects of material temporariness? Those are the core questions I want to answer.

And here's a new note that I'll have to consider: What about the Buddhist attempt to eliminate attachment and thus eliminate suffering? Maybe, just maybe, their philosophical and religious beliefs inform their culture in a way that actually reduces any differences in behavior towards their family. That's a question I'll need to consider.

If anyone has any feedback on any of this, let me know. What am I missing? What should I read? I'm liking what I'm hearing about Lévi-Strauss, so I'll have to take a look at him. I'm new to this anthropology thing, so I need all the help I can get.

Sirensongs Sent Me.

2006-03-06T20:43:00.000-07:00

I just saw that Sirensongs has added a link to my blog from hers. It's actually given me a good amount of traffic the past few days, so if you're coming from Sirensongs' blog, welcome. In the next two months I'll continue to focus on preparation for India, but in May I'll be adding notes from India regularly, so don't give up now if you're not into what I'm posting quite yet.

Threadless

2006-03-04T02:21:00.000-07:00

All the coolest t-shirts - and apparently a lot of my recent traffic here on Indiana to India - come from Threadless.com!! Take a moment to check them out! I'll probably put up a permanent link on the blog, so if you want to give me $3 or so then just go through my link to Threadless and buy a t-shirt!

An Open Letter to Canon

2006-03-04T02:05:00.000-07:00

This is an almost-ready draft of the letter I'll be sending to Canon on Monday. Wish me luck.

Canon U.S.A., Inc.

One Canon Plaza

Lake Success, NY 11042

Dear Sir or Madam:

I'm looking for Canon's help. You see, a week or so ago, I had a conversation with a woman who introduced herself as the chief financial officer of a company working with IMAX film. Her company opens and operates IMAX theaters in a variety of locations and has also participated in film production. It was the production part of her work that most interested me, as I am a student currently working toward acceptance into a visual anthropology graduate program within the next couple of years. I have high hopes for a meaningful career in documentary filmmaking.

The conversation moved to how I had discovered my interest and talent in the field, and how I was getting ready to apply to such competitive schools. I told her that I’d done some independent documentary work on any equipment I could borrow and that that work had helped me find a job filming and interviewing for Brigham Young University, where I’m a senior. I also told her I’m trying to best prepare for graduate work by participating in an anthropology field study in northern India, where the Dalai Lama and the exiled Tibetan government are stationed. Moreover, I told her my real objective went beyond just written research: the project merited a film.

Probably thanks to her CFO position, without missing a beat she asked, “Who’s paying for that?” And I had to admit that, at least in part, I didn’t know. On top of taking a full-time course load, I’d been working three jobs – two on campus and one off – to be able to afford airfare and tuition, and at least those two expenses would be taken care of. Living expenses were still up in the air but wouldn’t present too big of a problem. The film equipment, of course, was another matter. Despite my very best efforts, raising the funds for tape, sound equipment, and above all a camera capable of producing satisfactory footage has simply proven impossible.

Her response was, “You should write to Sony!” And after hearing stories of how she’d sought corporate assistance in her professional life and even before, I had to admit contacting a corporation was an excellent idea. But not Sony! My current off-campus job uses Sony’s HVR-Z1U cameras, and while HD was beautiful and all, and as much as I do want to shoot in 16:9 like HD allows, I just hadn’t gotten the same feel from Sony as I had from your XL1 while working for BYU in the past. I resolved to contact you instead.

So even if this is idealistic, I’m asking for Canon’s help. If there’s a digital video camera that your company can spare to jump-start one student’s career, will you consider sending it for this project? My dream is to shoot on an XL2, but of course I’ll appreciate anything you’re able to donate, new or used. I’m afraid I can’t do much, but I would absolutely love to credit you at Canon for your generosity in the film. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Nephi (full name withheld)

A Canon Digital Fan

According to Theory

2006-02-13T10:57:00.000-07:00

All apologies for the two weeks or so that have gone by without a post. I've been busy doing lit reviews and trying to figure out what theoretical approach I'll be taking on my field study, and reading is not my forte. That comes as a surprise to a lot of people, but I got tested and it turns out I'm in the tenth percentile among college seniors for reading rate. That's not the top 10 percent, either; that means 90 percent of college seniors read faster than I do! So getting through academic articles has never been easy for me, especially when they're so concentrated on theory, and this lit review has really done a number on the amount of time I've been able to dedicate to the blog - let alone to my other coursework!

What that means, though, is that I'll be posting a 1000- or 2000-word lit review on the blog for anyone to review, something I'm not sure is a good idea but that I'm just going to do anyway. I'll probably host it as a Word document, or maybe just a text file, on my BYU webpub space and put a link on the blog. It probably won't be very interesting reading unless you're into the theory thing - and my interest there is, it seems, growing.

Saturday four other students from the group going to India - the other three who're going to Dharamsala plus one who's going to Tamil Nadu - went up to Salt Lake to the House of Tibet, a restaurant on 1300 South with excellent food and friendly people. We're really coming together, our group, and the time we spent together eating momos and noodles and curry was a time for us to talk about issues we don't get to bring up in our preparation course like how we'll conduct church and what we'll be sleeping on and how much clothing we should take. We're becoming good friends, and after the meal we drove around SLC relaxing to some nice music and looking at all the interesting houses and pretty neighborhoods.

On an almost completely unrelated note, I finally did cut my hair this weekend so as to comply with the BYU Dress and Grooming Standards. (Now I look more like this than this.) I'm okay with that, though I must say I have some serious concerns about the way that too many Mormons (and I am a pretty darn faithful Mormon) have taken things like BYU's Dress and Grooming Standards or the LDS missionary dress code and turned them into doctrine, meaning that lack of compliance with them means a reduced influence of the Holy Ghost in one's life. One girl I know, rather recently home from an LDS mission, gave me a big thumbs-up of approval when she saw that I'd gotten my long hair cut, and that's exactly the reaction I was dreading. It seems obvious to me that LDS folks should realize long hair does not mean disobedience to God's laws. Jesus, from what we get in artists' renditions, had long hair, and Samson was even commanded not to cut his hair. So length of hair simply cannot be a universal evil. It must then be something else, something I've come to understand as just a cultural norm reinterpreted as a doctrinal or dogmatic practice. Or rather, a cultural norm misinterpreted.

New Addition! This American Life Link

2006-01-30T22:22:00.000-07:00

One more thing before I go to bed! (I'm retiring early so I can get up and run tomorrow morning. The surgeon said Friday that I'd recovered enough from the hernia surgery to get the green light on "full activity", and I can't wait to be active again. Hey, will it jeopardize my rapport with Dharamsala and McLeod Ganj's residents if I run in the mornings there?)

Notice the link to the left that will take you to This American Life's website. Take a listen - it's entertaining, very smart, and very free! All you need is a RealPlayer. Enjoy!

Another Day Another Update

2006-01-30T21:54:00.000-07:00

Winners at the Sundance Film Festival were announced yesterday, and from what I'd heard I wasn't too surprised by the Grand Jury: Documentary prize. God Grew Tired of Us was by all accounts a really nice piece, and one I can't wait to see. With classes and three jobs, I was just too busy to make it up to Park City very much at all, though I did make it to pre-festival screenings of Good Night, And Good Luck. and angry monk - reflections on tibet, as well as a Thursday-afternoon screening of Christian Frei's The Giant Buddhas. (Here is a link to the film's official website.) Another of Frei's documentaries, War Photographer, was nominated a while back for the Best Documentary Oscar, and it's well worth your time.

I'm currently doing preliminary research for the field study and trying to get through the more logistical details so I can dedicate my thought to research. Talking to some of the folks in charge, I expressed my concern that two-and-a-half months might be pushing it quite a bit if I'm doing research and trying to put together a film of any feeling or meaning. Other groups going to places like Ghana or Guatemala, from what I've gathered, stay for as much as a month and a half longer than we would because we take a world religions tour of India, whereas they stay more in their immediate villages or areas.

I told the student facilitators what I thought about my situation, and they came across much more open to my ideas than I thought they might. Dave, the director (and an awfully nice guy!), was however not there, and the folks I did talk to urged me to speak with him. They insisted that he has a real knack for "crystalizing" the factors in weighing two options, and that he can help me see what I really need. It kind of sounded like they thought Dave would be able to change my mind and were passing me off to him, but I like these kids so much that I just can't believe that's what they were doing. So we'll see.

Finally, I've started in with a little bit of Hindi, and I found out that one of the student facilitators actually has the exact Tibetan-language materials I was hoping to buy on line. (I'll probably still get them for myself, but it's nice to know I'm getting something that someone else has found useful.) What's more, we're all getting excited about plugging in to the Tibetan population in Salt Lake City, where there is either one or two Tibetan restaurants currently in business. I can't wait to get up there and meet them. We'll probably go as a group, me and the other kids going to Dharamsala; tomorrow night we're getting together to play some games and get to know each other better. I have a good feeling, like we're really going to feel like a community by the time this whole thing's over with.

25 General Questions - India & Dharamsala

2006-01-24T21:03:00.000-07:00

The Student Facilitator who's working with my field study group asked us a few days ago to put together a quick list of 25 questions we have about our time in India, and to turn them in tomorrow. Here are mine. Please, if you've got some feedback or any answers, send me an email.

1 - How hard can Tibetan be? (ha ha)

2 – How in the world do I manage to build a relationship with a family that permits my filming them?

3 – If I do focus on a parental-filial relationship, how would Tibetans and other local residents take it if I have women as my subjects? Would any kind of taboo prevent me from creating the friend relationships with women that I would need to be able to film them comfortably?

4 – I’m hoping to find a family that has some recognition in the community, but I don’t necessarily mean money or power. Maybe musicians, artists, or anything else that might be common between generations of men or women. Is the Tibetan community one in which that kind of “recognition phenomenon” exists?

5 – I found a place in Delhi where I can get language materials cheap – like a $20 book here is around $6 there. But there’s no online checkout option, and I’m not sure how to place an order and get them the money the way an Indian would expect it. I’m also not sure about shipping costs and delays in arrival. Should I just order it stateside?

6 – How open are monasteries to those who are genuinely interested?

7 – How do we hold Church sacrament meetings there?

8 – How much will an Internet café cost me when I need it?

9 – What shots will I need to take before leaving?

10 – (One of my really burning questions) I’ve been reading Born in Lhasa, and I can’t help but wonder about the similarities and differences between the actual homes I’ll see in Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj and those in Lhasa I’m reading about. I guess that’s not a question.

11 – What’s the significance of butter? Butter tea, butter sculptures, butter lamps… are these just arts and technologies because of the available livestock in Tibet? Even if they are due to local resources, do they hold any cultural and/or religious significance?

12 – How are prayer flags a part of (Tibetan) Buddhism? What about the several colors - does each carry a meaning, or are they all equal?

13 – Born in Lhasa’s author talks a lot about female deities. Is Buddhism polytheistic, and if so to what point is it?

14 – For that matter, was Buddha a prophet, a messenger, a deity, or something else? I hate to sound ignorant, but in this case I am.

15 – What is Buddhist scripture? Is there one sacred book, are there many, is there a canon?

16 – Where does Buddhist scripture come from?

17 – What is a Lama?

18 – How does reincarnation fit into Buddhist theology?

19 – How much difference is there between sects of Buddhism? Does “Tibetan Buddhism” have a more official name?

20 – Where do the several sects of Buddhism come from?

21 – Why do Buddhist monks wear the same burgundy robes?

22 – What purpose does circumambulation serve?

23 – How much ritual is there to prostrations? Are there certain times for them like in Muslim prayers? Is there a certain way to do prostrations?

24 – What are the houses in Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj constructed of? (Pictures on blogs seem to indicate cement, much like the construction I’m used to from my mission to northern Brazil, but it’s COLD up there in the winter, so I don’t know!)

25 – What kinds of things do they eat in the region?

I imagine all of these have answers I can find myself, but that's really okay. Getting them into vision, actually seeing the words, that gives me all the more reason and motivation to answer them.

Don't Forget to Contact Me

2006-01-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

Hey all, I'll probably do this every once in a while. This is just a reminder to contact me at the address listed up top of this page or by following the link on the left. I'd love to hear from those that are reading - especially if you're interested in Dharamsala, McLeod Ganj, Tibet, or India. If you care to either hear what I have to say or tell me what I can expect, let me know. (Remember, I'm going for research and not tourism!)

Also, any ideas about what kind of camera to take? I originally considered an XL1, but a wise friend advised me that something smaller might be more flexible - and safer - for a project like this. GL1? (I'm limited on the budget side of things, so a new XL2 or GL2 is pretty much out of the picture.) Any other ideas?

Excitement about Research and Film Ideas!

2006-01-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

Preparation for India and for the research there is going well. Between financial, mental, and academic preparations, this semester really is focused on going to Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj, doing quality research, and putting together a quality film.

First a couple quick personal notes. Recovery from the surgery is going really splendidly, though a church tubing activity last night at Soldier Hollow (cross country skiing venue for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games) had me worried for a little while. I'm getting back into the swing of things and could be back to playing ultimate as soon as the 28th! I've been getting back into school mode as well, and that's required some effort to find balance. Long blog posts like the last one have intimidated me and probably kept me from coming back for the past two weeks. So we're going to take baby steps to keeping this thing updated regularly - small and consistent.

The most exciting development in my preparation for India is my research topic, germinating from a discussion with BYU's International Study Programs coordinator, Dave, and from some readings for my senior-level anthropology theories class. The conversation with Dave put a fire in my belly for thinking about the father- or grandfather-son cultural differences in Tibetans living in a community that's had plenty of Western focus and attention. All that attention likely means influence, and influence means change. Given the great malleability of youth relative to that of older individuals, there would likely be a number of differences between generations raised in "modernizing" India and those raised in traditionally reserved Tibet, and representing those differences - and the struggle to reconcile them - in one family might present some compelling and involving content.

Then readings for another course started me thinking about the concept of home - a topic I've been interested in all my life, but more in an emotional than academic way. Filming these men in their home setting might give me insights not just about a vague (and, quite frankly, obvious) "modernization" of culture, but more specifically about the nuances and semantics of the word "home" in Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj Tibetan populations. Moreover, I wonder about the same concept in North African populations in Paris, northeastern Brazilians in Sao Paulo, or New Orleans hurricane refugees in Chicago. Methodologies are obviously a challenge with this kind of research on the internal workings of culture, which of course I worry about. But I think presenting this as a film will make it accessible, and hopefully those watching will find something of themselves in my work.

Considerations of Visual Anthropology

2006-01-08T20:52:00.000-07:00

I have some real concerns. Before I get to them, I should frame my thoughts in a couple recent experiences I've had.

I sent an email to my friend Ben at NYU yesterday with some questions about DVD authoring. But it had been a while since I'd talked to him at any length - my fault, really - so my simple technical question grew to a sizable update of my whole recent life. Though he's not in NYU's Culture and Media grad program, he hopes to work with one professor who is in fact the program's director and is taking several of the program's core courses. I informed Ben that, for better or for worse, I was planning on pursuing grad work in visual anthro, and that NYU was a pretty clear #1 on my list (though a couple other programs have caught my eye).

Ben's reply was affirming and still full of thoughtful reservation - both characteristics that I've come to appreciate (and should expect by now) in him. First, I guess I should (have) know(n), "visual anthropology" may be a dead or dying phrase. From an earlier communication with Ben I remember his telling me that anthropology itself is facing a sort of crossroads of identity. Also, some wind seems to be going out of "culture and media" (NYU's replacement label for "visual anthropology") programs' sails at institutions across the country. It wasn't clear, but I thought Ben was hinting that it was because some great people had been heading up these programs, people who have grown old and passed away. I'm not sure if it's really a question of the discipline's vigor or intrinsic worth. It may just be that its defenders and champions aren't being replaced by individuals of the same caliber. If that's so, I can understand how its strength might wane.

Also this week, I saw three films that have made an impact on my thinking. The first, which I saw with my friend Molly (music fan and film major) in Park City Thursday night was angry monk - reflections on india. The next night I went back to Park City with Molly and our buddy Rick. We failed to get locals-only Sundance ticket privileges, but we did see George Clooney's Good Night, And Good Luck. Then Saturday, after the date with my nurse, I came home and watched the first film on my new Netflix membership, Born Into Brothels (and please do take the time to follow that link).

The first, angry monk - reflections on tibet, promised to be everything I was looking to do with visual anthro - research on important aspects of cultures, presented in the form of motion picture. I appreciated the efforts to take a close look at an important figure in Tibetan history, and the filmmakers' efforts for creativity and quality of cinematography were not overlooked. However, I was distressed to find the Swiss director credited under nothing (that I found at the screening, at least) except direction. Research, interviews, writing, camerawork, and editing, from what I saw, were all done by others. I wondered if this was what anthropological filmmaking was. Was he even in Tibet and India? Or was he just being generous in crediting everyone else involved and not hogging the spotlight? This is, of course, probably a false dichotomy. In any case, if detached filmmaking is what he did on this project, it created a work containing significant content, the presentation of which was overarchingly flawed. The thesis and final purpose were unclear, the filmmaker's motive hazy, the messages taken away lacking any important affect. All in all, it was worth the drive and the free screening, but not much more.

I wondered if I would do better. Moreover, I wondered if there was better work to be done at all.

The next two films, you'll see, though far better, provided me with a deeper fear. Our return to Park City found us at a five-dollar screening of Good Night, And Good Luck., and on the way back we three found ourselves in as involved a discussion as I'd had in recent weeks, one about the cinematography and the writing and acting, and then about messages, media, and politics. In the middle of it we took a break for a metaconversation and pointed out that Clooney's film had done what it was probably supposed to, that is, getting the audience talking. And the next morning I woke up and in the shower (where I do all my best thinking) had some fun theorizing about the film and how its shots present and represent truth through negotiation of narrative levels. We had been uplifted, challenged, and propelled toward thought. In short, our boy George had given us a masterpiece.

Finally, there was Born Into Brothels. Follow the preceding link and the one above to find out more. (Please. This may not be because I want you to be wrapped up in these kids' lives, though that of course wouldn't be a bad thing. I'm just hoping to raise awareness about these kinds of things in general. Maybe I'm preaching to the choir.) To sum up, the brothels spoken of are in Kolkata, India, and the subjects of the film are children born into brothels, as indicated by the title, and have a photography class with a very kind English woman, also credited with directing the film. She becomes highly involved in the kids' (as they are referred to throughout) lives, and the audience can't help but find itself doing the same. I was shocked at how little I initially liked the cinematography, especially since I thought much of it was shot by the same woman, of course a photographer. (One other man is credited.) But as the film progressed I gave up my ideas of what the pictures "should" look like, and having embraced what I was seeing, I even began to love it. By film's end I was so enthralled that the next morning - this morning - found me unable to get those pictures out of my mind. The colors and people and objects and places kept racing around my brain, and I didn't really want them to leave. It was a moving film not only in its concept and execution, but also in its honesty as the photography teacher dedicated every energy she had to the kids' welfare.

Here are four photos taken by the film's kids, from the official website: 1 2 3 4 All

By the end of these two films, I wondered if I could do as well.

Rick, who saw Good Night, And Good Luck. with me, told me that I was not only setting an unfair mark for myself, but that I was also doing prematurely, having as yet never really ventured into these things. I'll grant him that, for now. But those doubts and anxieties still exist.

Do I have a real voice here? Do I have it in me to put together the kind of quality found in those last two films, or is there only film like angry monk - reflections on tibet in my future? And moreover, if my work is more academic, if it distances itself from the social and political, does any of that matter? If it's meant to inform and not to persuade or to entertain or make (or raise) money, does any of that matter? (I doubt I've been entertaining enough to keep you reading up to this point!)

To me it does matter. I know myself well enough to know that I won't be happy unless people are happy watching my work. I don't want to simply produce entertainment - Clooney's film addresses that issue. But purely heady film doesn't work either. I do believe in the intrinsic value of education and learning, and strongly at that, but I know that folks want to like what they're reading or watching, and if I'm hoping to help people think, I hope I'm also helping them to feel and to love. Engaging entertainment , I think, can do just that.

Maybe important work that does entertain necessarily invites social change. Maybe I can't avoid getting political - at least a little bit - and maybe that's not a bad thing. I just hope I can be detailed and nuanced enough - and entertaining enough - to make these projects not only memorable for those involved, but also involving for those who view my work.

I guess I might not have so much to worry about after all when it comes to this film thing. Not as far as these issues are concerned. Not if I have such strong (and sound, I think) opinions about them already. Now I just need to figure out how to start my career.

Hurts So Good

2006-01-04T11:54:00.000-07:00

This post will likely have nothing to do with India, Dharamsala, or anything Tibetan or Buddhist, but as promised, here's an update on the hernia surgery.

Jed and I got up at 5:00 am yesterday and headed for the surgical center, where I signed a mess of forms that said I had to be okay with dying during the operation. Then they took me back to change into a hospital robe and write "YES" with a permanent marker on the side of my body that they were supposed to operate on. I laid down and got prepped by the surgeon and anesthesiologist, and then the latter of the two wheeled me into the operation room. I talked with him for just a second, and the next thing I knew I was being woken up by a pretty young nurse.

It was funny to come out of this thing and realize I wasn't exactly conscious. I remember asking the nurse if the surgery went all right - she said yes - and then asking the same question again just a minute or two later. She said yes. I vaguely remembered already asking the question, and when I asked if I had she laughed and said I had. I asked my brother, who was in my recovery area with me, a couple of repeated questions as well.

Now I can't tell if it was really what I was thinking or if it was just the drugs, but I was really digging this nurse. A lot of it was that she was awfully confident and had what seemed like a pretty quick wit. I don't drink, so I'm not sure what the "drink 'em cute" phenomenon feels like, but this may have been the closest I've ever come to it. "Drink 'em clever." But then again, maybe not. I'm a pretty good judge of when my judgment's off, and besides, by the end of the whole ordeal I was pretty well back to normal. Anyway, I saw through the curtain around my recovery area that there was a whiteboard assigning the nurses to various patients, and that my nurse was named Breanna. Maybe I should think up an excuse to go back and talk to her again.

I can't tell you how many times Breanna repeated my post-operation instructions to me - when and how to take the drugs, how often to get up and walk around, etc. - but when I got to the pharmacy at BYU's Student Health Center I had to have my brother repeat it all to me a couple more times. I was really spacy.

My local anesthetic was still working, so Jed and I walked around the BYU Bookstore a while - he needed a sketchpad and we both wanted to look for this coming semester's textbooks. Then we picked up a couple of friends, Brooke (who was sick) and Brenda (who wasn't), and came back to my house to watch In Good Company. (The Weitz brothers put out some great stuff, I think, and a lot of it related to the process of becoming a man, which I dig.) Then a couple other friends, Molly from Portland and Beckie from Seattle, brought over Season 1 of Arrested Development on DVD. We watched it for the rest of the evening. I hadn't wasted time like that in a very long time, and while watching TV for 12 hours was painful, it hurt as badly as my groin when the anesthetic wore off.

I was supposed to take either one or two painkiller pills every four hours. I decided I was tough and that one would suffice. But at 4:00 this morning, when I got up to take a dose, I went to the bathroom and nearly wept, the incision hurt so badly. I decided that once I woke up for good this morning I would swallow some humble pie and take two pills at a time. Ouch.

Since then I've been feeling better. Jed has been over quite a bit to help out, I've been filling myself with Godiva ice cream and Fuji apples, and I think I'll be okay for the movie tomorrow night. Until then, I'll be doing some work and prepping myself for the next semester's advent. I'll tell you what I thought about the movie sometime tomorrow night or Friday. Maybe Saturday.

Affording India

2006-01-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'm home in Indiana, but tomorrow (Monday) I fly out of Detroit, back to Provo. I'll be flying with my brother Jed, an animation major at Brigham Young, where I'm studying French and anthropology.

On Tuesday Jed and I get to leave my place in Provo at around 5:30 in the morning so I can go through with hernia surgery. Apparently I've been living with this thing for a while, but it feels like it's gotten worse in the past couple weeks, so I went to the doctor, and we decided that it was probably time to go under the knife.

I'm not actually nervous about the surgery itself, I guess. Not as worried as I am about paying for the blasted thing. I'm expecting that this sucker's going to run me anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 dollars - maybe even more - and that's money I really needed for airfare and camera equipment. And tuition. Oh, and food. As I hope you've read in my post Some Obstacles to Overcome, my GPA from the last few semesters (the last of which really took me by surprise) requires me to buckle down and focus on school even more than I had been; however, the only thing I can think to get rid of now is work, and that option only limits my chances to (A) get to Dharamsala and (B) take equipment to let me dip my toes into visual anthro.

I sat down with Mom and Dad, who have always supported my decisions (despite an understandable level of concern when my decisions take me to places far away), and they've offered to help pay for the surgery - at first out of savings, and then after rethinking things somehow given our current cashflow situation. My job is to try to negotiate with the insurance company to find some kind of payment plan besides the one-lump-sum method.

I'll keep you posted on how surgery went, how I'm dealing with the recovery, and anything else of relevance. Jed and I are hoping to go up to Park City on Thursday to see angry monk - reflections on tibet as part of the Sundance Institutute Documentary Film Series. The film is part of the World Documentary Competition for the 2006 Sundance Film Festival; there's a locals-only sneak preview that I hope is free. I'm determined to face the pain and get myself out of bed and get up there to see it. You never know whether you'll get the tickets to the films you want to see at Sundance, so this might be my only chance.

Thanks to the folks who've already checked out Indiana to India, especially those who've sent me feedback. I do want to build community here, so please do drop me a line either via comment or email.

Dharamsala Posts by sirensongs

2005-12-29T23:16:00.000-07:00

For another take on Dharamsala, you may want to follow this link. Sirensongs is a blogger with a good sense of humor and a genuine interest in all things India. This is just one post but will lead you to more about Dharamsala and Mcleod Ganj. She and dancer were both in the same cybercafé (in McLeod Ganj, I think) last night while I emailed back and forth with the latter of the two.

Going Public - Adding Myself to Search Engines

2005-12-29T22:12:00.000-07:00

In an effort to make Indiana to India more accessible, I've spent the past few minutes adding it to a number of blog search engines. I've been encouraged by my experience so far communicating with those interested in Dharamsala, and I hope this will help me build that sense of community. Check around blog search engines in the next couple of days to see if we're listed there - I think I hit most of the major ones! If you don't find the blog, please let me know either with a comment here or via email.

Adding a New Link - Dharamsala Diary

2005-12-29T00:09:00.000-07:00

You'll see on the left that I've added a link to a wonderfully written diary by 'dancer', a very kind woman who's in Dharamsala now. The link will be a permanent one. I've found in our short communcations and in reading her entries that she has a pleasant style and friendly personality. I think you'll agree. Enjoy!

I hope to add a few more here as I find time. I've seen a number of good blogs and diaries out there already!

Some Obstacles to Overcome

2005-12-28T18:38:00.000-07:00

I say obstacles. I don't really think I mean things standing in the way of doing the Dharamsala field study, but possibly in the way of even more important things. It looks like I've got some major challenges to face if I'm going to do grad work in visual anthropology.

Today BYU released this semester's grades, and for the third straight term I'm barely finding a way to claw my way above a 2.0. At the end of the past two terms I understood what was happening: at the time I was taking a full undergraduate class load and teaching a daily section of French 101. That meant that there were no "off days"; before each night's homework could begin I simply had to have a spot-on lesson prepared. I was responsible for 25-30 students' educations, and I forgot that I should have first been responsible for my own. I would come into the Student Instructor office just defeated. I was at the point of wondering if higher education was really for me, why I was jumping through all these hoops just to receive a piece of paper that meant nothing more than my success at jumping through those hoops. Eventually I arrived at the point of discovering Camus's absurd, of taking down the façades around me and seeing the nothingness behind it all.

The beauty - and irony - of this desperate period is that I started reading lots of Camus. I took him with me to Denver where my roommates and I saw U2 on April 21. I brought him home and kept reading him over the summer. As I became more caught up in how closely my experience with the absurd matched Camus's description, I ironically found a very real meaning behind the "façade" of academia: I was getting into these texts because they meant something! These were not boring ideas to memorize because of school or tests or requirements; they were important to people and their worldview.

This sincere interest in education - in real education - slowly grew over the summer. Working during that time on the Education in Zion Project, the initiative to create a standing exhibition for BYU's new Joseph F. Smith Building, I learned what education really meant, and my worldview continued to grow. My critical-thinking skills became stronger. I was thirsty to get back into the classroom, not hesitant. Moreover, I was happy to live principles that I believed in like thrift and diligent work, rather than forcing myself to live those ways because I felt I had to.
When the semester finally came, I considered it an experiment to see if this new attitude could actually last, and I was surprised to find that by the end I approached books and thought with almost the same vigor and thirst as when the term began. I considered this a good sign. If I had indeed been overhauling my ways of thinking, as I thought was the goal of our educational system, then the educational system would certainly reward me with its highest honors - a whole mess of great grades. What's more, it seemed like I was busy the entire semester. I can't remember a single night that found me just slacking off. But when grades were finally released today, I found my overall GPA not recovering as I had hoped, but falling just as steadily. Once again I was treading water just barely keeping my head above a 2.0. Once again I was left trying to find a solution to my problems.

Except this time my problems seem bigger. Now I have direction and purpose in my life, and try as I might I'm not finding the ways to make progress toward that purpose. If I'm to get into a first-rate graduate school, do top-notch research, put out important work because I've been well trained, then I need to recover from this series of academic blows. Moreover, I'm worried that cutting back on work so I can focus on school will wipe out my opportunities for funding my India trip, since my GPA may now be so low that I'm ineligible for awards the University and other organizations may offer. On top of that, I feel a need to take some serious media equipment with me - a digital SLR still camera like a Canon 20D, or a digital video camera like an XL1 or XL2 for example. I had been working enough to afford these items, items that could have served to really move me closer to admission into a visual anthropology program. Instead I may be faced to forego luxuries like these, and possibly even the India trip.

I can only work to resolve all this, and (as my dad reminds me) pray.

The Inaugural Entry (Does Anyone Have a Champagne Bottle to Break?)

2005-12-27T23:14:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Indiana to India.

I'm really sorry you have to type so much to get here - really! This blog's URL, indiana2india.blogspot.com, is too long. I agree! I tried to come up with a shorter URL to use here, but all the cool URLs (there are two: i2i.blogspot.com and i-2-i.blogspot.com) were taken. "Eye to eye" is such a common phrase, I should have realized anything like it would be unavailable. I probably could have claimed one of those for myself had I done this earlier; I guess this is what I get for waiting so long to jump on the blog wagon.

That brings us to the topic of the blog. I might have jumped at the chance to spend hours at a keyboard, waste away my eyesight, and risk carpal tunnel syndrome, all in the interest of self-expression to what would probably end up being an empty audience. And enticing and motivating as all that was, I resisted. For the life of me I couldn't come up with any topic that would mean anything to anyone. I started to register at Blogger a number of times, but I got scared off every time by the fact that I didn't have a title, and I decided I wouldn't have a title until I had a topic.

Fortunately, tonight I happened upon Kangpa Tshapo's excellent weblog, my thoughts and activities in dharamsala, located at http://dharamsalalight.blogspot.com/. My life has recently come largely into focus, and it looks like I'll soon be working for a graduate degree in visual anthropology. I'm still an undergraduate at Brigham Young University in Provo, UT, majoring in French, but some recent experiences (perhaps the most significant, working on the Education in Zion project at BYU) have left me wanting to do anthropology at the graduate level, eventually leading to a visual anthropology program. BYU offers an International Field Study program to India, where it looks like I'll be spending four months (May through August 2006) in and around Dharamsala, India. So Kagpa Tshapo's blog mentioned above has become my inspiration. Thanks to you, if you do happen to read this!

I have a few objectives here:

- To let you know about how I'm gearing up for my time in India

- To keep a pretty good journal of my personal experience (as opposed to my field notes - though I imagine there'll be a good amount of overlap)

- And to solicit your advice on traveling to, in, and from India, especially northern India

I hope you'll take the time to drop me a line. If you speak Spanish, French, or Portuguese, I speak, read, and write in all three, so feel free to go that route if you're uncomfortable with English.

Thanks and happy reading!