Traveller

The Killing Fields

Tuesday, 8. May 2007, 01:53:00

Cambodia has only recently become a popular tourist site after twenty years of war and isolation. The people suffered particular horrors during the genocide committed by the Khmer Rouge and their leader Pol Pot between 1975 and 1979.

Pol Pot renamed the country 'Democratic Kampuchea' and in a crude and brutal imitation of the cultural revolution of Chairman Mao, attempted to create a peasant dominated farming economy. Hundreds and thousands of Cambodians, including the vast majority of the country’s educated people, were relocated to the countryside, to be tortured to death or executed. Many starved to death or died of disease. Almost two million Cambodians perished as a direct result of the policies of the Khmer Rouge

In the capital city of Phnom Penh are the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Here are the graves of 17,000 men, women and children executed by the Khmer Rouge.

A white memorial building called a stupa stands among the129 mass graves. Inside are shelves stacked from the floor to the roof containing over 8000 skulls found on the site. The fields are marked with the depressions of the graves, and human bones and clothing have been left as they were found, in a silent memorial to those who were killed.

A movie that provides some insight to these times is The Killing Fields a 1984 film by Roland Joffe.

A web site that is rich with information is http://www.mekong.net/cambodia/

Also, http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/destinations/asia/cambodia/essential?a=culture

And a book that tells the story of the relocation, from a young girl’s point of view, is When Broken Glass Floats by Chanrithy Him

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“Incredible…Angkor the Great.”*

Monday, 30. April 2007, 08:29:05

Last holiday, Grace and I went to Cambodia to see the temple monuments at Angkor. One of the first tourists, an American Frank Vincent Jr., arrived by elephant in 1876.

“…suddenly we emerged from a rain forest into a clearing and saw across a pond filled with lotus plants, a long row of columned galleries, and beyond—high above the beautiful cocoa and areca palms—three or four immense pagodas, built of a dark grey stone. And my heart almost bounded into my mouth as the Cambodian driver turned and said with a bright flash of the eye and a proud turn of the lip, ‘Naghon Wat’; for we were then at the portals of the famous old ‘City of Monasteries’, and not far distant was Angkorthom—Angkor the Great”

Rediscovered by a team of French archeologists in 1866, the temples cover an area of 200 square kilometers and were founded in the 7th century by King Jayavarman ll. At that time, the Khmer Empire, as Cambodia was then known, occupied much of what is now Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, and formed a vast territory on the trade route between India & China.

It’s language, religion, and culture, were greatly influenced by India. The temples at Angkor are based on Indian designs and the Indian influence can be clearly seen in the decorations and bas-relief.

When Cambodia was conquered in 1492 by Thailand, Thailand in turn adopted much of the Cambodian culture. By the middle of the 17th century most of Cambodia had been absorbed by Thailand & Vietnam, and the country had shrunk to the relatively tiny size it is today.

Of all the temples we visited, and Angkor Wat was certainly the most impressive, we liked Ta Phrom the best. While many of the temples are slowly being restored and preserved, Ta Phrom has been left overgrown.Huge balsa trees grow in courtyards and cover the walls with massive roots.

It looks today, like the entire complex of Angkor must have looked the day it was first discovered by the Portuguese in the middle of the 16th century.

“Ta Phrom’s state of ruin is a state of beauty which is investigated with delight and left with regret…” *H. Churchill Candee, Angkor: The Magnificent, The Wonder City of Ancient Cambodia

A good reference book, from which I also quote, is Angkor by Dawn Rooney. The photographs and illustrations are remarkable.

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Holiday Treats

Monday, 9. April 2007, 03:50:43

During the holiday season, Rob & Yvonne came over for drinks before going out to dinner. I made some shortbread biscuits and a mulled (hot) red wine. I used a toaster oven to bake the shortbreads, and the day before I baked an orange banana walnut muffin cake. Usually you bake muffins in a special muffin tin with 6 compartments, but since I didn’t have a muffin tin and couldn’t find one in Zhanjiang, I used a glass ovenproof baking dish.

The shortbreads turned out rather well and Yvonne and Rob enjoyed the mulled red wine, also called ‘Glogg’ in Germany and ‘Vin Brule’ in France, so I thought I would pass on the recipes. The red wine is easy to make in large quantities. If you are having a party, use a larger saucepan and double the recipe, but be careful -- hot red wine can make you very happy.

SHORTBREAD

Preheat oven to 325F (163C)

Cream 1 cup of butter 236ml with 1 tsp vanilla extract.

Sift together:
2 cups of all-purpose flour (476ml)
1/2 a cup of sifted confectioners’ sugar (118ml)
1/4 tsp of salt
1/2 tsp. of baking powder

Blend the dry ingredients into the butter.

Press the stiff dough very flat and thin on a floured board. Cut into round biscuit shapes with the top of a glass. Re-shape and press dough as necessary to use it all up.

Arrange dough circles on a flat metal baking pan and bake for 10 minutes. You may need to do several batches depending on the size of your pan. Makes about 20 biscuits

ORANGE, BANANA, WALNUT MUFFINMakes 12 medium muffins. Cut recipe in half for one small cake

Pre-heat oven: 400F(200C)
In a food processor or blender, reduce to puree with1/4 cup of sugar:
one whole orange including skin – cut in sections and remove pips first.

In a small bowl add and combine well:

2 eggs

1/4 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of butter
2 small mashed bananas
orange puree as prepared
1/2 cup orange juice

In a large bowl combine well:
11/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 cup of chopped walnuts

Combine wet and dry ingredients and fold together gently until just mixed. (Don’t over mix). Spoon into greased muffin tin, small pan or ovenproof glass bowl. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on rack before eating.

MULLED RED WINE

Place in a saucepan, covered over high heat:
I bottle dry red wine
4 sticks of cinnamon
6 cloves
Peel of one orange
3 tbls. sugar.
Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat and gently simmer.
You may uncover it and light it so it flames before serving in mugs or glasses

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The Last of the Tiller Girls

Tuesday, 26. December 2006, 15:12:58

Emma was a dancer. She toured Europe at the turn of the last century, and in 1909 she went to America. She was an original ‘Tiller Girl’.

The Tiller Girls were popular dance troupes, first formed by John Tiller in Manchester England, in 1890. John Tiller was a wealthy Englishman who produced amateur shows and danced as a hobby. John started the Tiller Girls in 1885 in England after watching a stage play in 1883 called the Gaiety Girl. His troupe was the 'Four Sunbeams' who had a big performance at the King's Manchester Theater in 1890. The Sunbeam's later grew into the Tiller Girls.

Tiller and his wife Jennie opened a Tiller dance school in Manchester, England. In certain shows a Tiller line-up could be as many as 32 girls who were selected for uniform height and weight. John Tiller died in 1926.

The Tiller girls were most famous for their high-kicking routines, -- called 'Tap and Kick', which was originally called "Fancy-Dancing" but today is known as 'Precision Dancing'. (The New York Radio City Hall Rockettes originally were based on the choreography of John Tiller).

Emma stopped dancing when she married an American called Jemison, a porter she met on the train she rode across America. She had two children, Frank and Arthur. The marriage did not last, and she left America for England and opened a sweetshop in Nottingham.

She raised the two boys by herself and lived until she was ninety-nine years old. She was just a tiny bit famous, and the newspapers wrote about her death. She was the last surviving member of the original Tiller girls.

Her son Arthur died young of tuberculosis. Frank, my father, is still alive and will be ninety-five on December 31, 2006. Send him birthday greeting if you like: frankjhunt@hotmail.com Ninety-five is a pretty big age to be. The ‘J’ in his name is for Jemison.

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Another journey...a blueprint for personal integrity, behaviour and self-development

Thursday, 7. December 2006, 05:38:11

My student, Li Zhe, wrote to me recently and asked me this question:

“Yesterday in our campus there was a speech given by a famous professor. It was a great speech about psychology. Through this speech I found that I had lacked an important thing--basis.
I'm not a guy with basis. So when I'm faced to many problems, I hesitate, drag my feet and become very confused, or even don't know how to deal with it. I considered for a long time, but just can't come up with anything about correct basis.
In addition, there's no a dividing line between right and wrong, and I'm not the man who is wise enough to obey all the rules.
Could you please help me to define what is the correct basis?”

I thought I would share my answer:

Dear Li Zhe,

It is interesting you should ask the question so many have asked before you—Philosophers, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims. It is a new question to you, but an ancient one to history.

Religion is a set of strongly held beliefs, values, and attitudes to life.

Ethics is the study of moral choices--about the values that lie behind them; the reasons people give for them, and the language they use to describe them. It is about innocence and guilt, right and wrong, and what it means to live a good or bad life. It is about the dilemmas of life, death, sex, violence and money. It explores human virtues and vices, rights and duties.

There are many western philosophers like Plato, Tomas Aquinas, Nietzsche, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Bentham and Kant who make a variety of ethical arguments.

But this is not a simple web site search, the process of understanding ethics does not come quickly, and you may not really establish a philosophy of your own until much later in life.

Like many westerners, when I was young, I read Rudyard Kipling's poem - 'IF'

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

Rudyard Kipling's (1865-1936) poem is a set of rules for 'grown-up' living—set in the Victorian context of the British Empire. Kipling's 'If' contains mottos and maxims for life, and the poem is also a blueprint for personal integrity, behaviour and self-development. Lines from Kipling's 'If' appear over the player's entrance to Wimbledon's Centre Court - a reflection of the poem's timeless and inspiring quality.

I was brought up in the Christian faith, and I have studied Buddhism. Now I have come to prefer the simplicity, thinking, and self-analysis of Buddhism to the “I am God, have faith and believe in me” approach of Christianity.

Buddhists have five basic precepts or guides to moral behaviour:

Not to destroy life, and to minimize the suffering of other species
Not to take what is not given, to be dishonest or grasping for material goods
Not to speak falsely, not to lie or give a false impression
Not to use sexuality to harm, and to treat women with respect.

Buddhists cultivate four mental states:

Love - to all creatures including yourself
Pity – compassion for all who suffer
Joy – an unselfish sharing in the happiness of others
Serenity – freeing oneself from the anxieties of success and failure, and being equal minded in dealing with other people.

Both Christianity and Buddhism have some things that are the same:

• A respect for life
• A respect for the weak and disenfranchised
• A rejection of violence
• An emphasis on charity and good deeds

Both religions say: “Treat other people as you would like to be treated yourself”

Buddha: "Consider others as yourself."
Jesus: “Do to others as you would have them do to you."

Other similarities:

Buddha: "If anyone should give you a blow with his hand, with a stick, or with a knife, you should abandon any desires and utter no evil words."
Jesus: "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also."

Buddha: "Hatreds do not ever cease in this world by hating, but by love: this is an eternal truth. Overcome anger by love, overcome evil by good ... Overcome the miser by giving, overcome the liar by truth."
Jesus: "Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. From anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt. Give to everyone who begs from you; and if anyone takes away your goods, do not ask for them back."

Buddha: "If you do not tend one another, then who is there to tend to you? Whoever would tend me, he should tend the sick."
Jesus: "Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me." (Simply: If you do not care for the least important members of society then you do not care for me.)

Buddha: “Abandon the taking of life”
Jesus: "Put your sword back into its place; for all those who take the sword shall perish by the sword."

Buddha: It's easy to see the errors of others, but hard to see your own. You winnow like chaff the errors of others, but conceal your own — like a cheat, an unlucky throw. If you focus on the errors of others, constantly finding fault, your effluents flourish. You're far from their ending.
Jesus: "Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, "Friend, let me take the speck out of your eye," when you yourself do not see the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor's eye."

Li Zhe, I have spent many years trying to answer your question for myself. Sometimes I think I have accomplished this and sometimes I don’t. My journey, however, has always been an interesting and satisfying one.

Think for yourself, believe in yourself, and treat others with respect. That's a good start for any journey.

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A Family Affair

Wednesday, 15. November 2006, 15:17:35

We go to dinner every Tuesday night. It’s a good opportunity to get together, talk, and exchange ideas. Westerners like to spend a lot of time over meals, especially in the evening. We always go to the same place: Jie Mei Xiang Cai Guan, The Two Sister’s Hunan Style Restaurant from Xiang. Turn right out of the gate, walk past all the fruit stalls, stores and restaurants, until you get to the very end then turn left over an old bridge, and one restaurant later you are there

Yvonne and Rob discovered it first. It used to be owned by someone else and when they left to buy the place next door, Yvonne and Rob stayed with the sisters, because they asked if they would. Because of this, the sisters treat us very well, a little bit like family I think—especially Rob & Yvonne.

Yvonne translated the menu so any foreigner can order. Among our favourites are:

Tudou qiezi bao: Potato & eggplant casserole. Tie ban shu cai (yang cong, hu luo bo, deng long jiao, xi hong shi): A sizzling plate of onion, carrot, capsicum & tomato.

With rice and mantou (steamed bread), we order enough different dishes for seven foreign teachers and the occasional guest to share. We put our money into the pot and every once in a while there is enough left over to pay for a complete dinner.

One sister had a baby girl last year, and she brings her over every week to see us and we are watching her grow. Every night the chef, her husband, comes out of the kitchen to say hello and to see if we like the food.

“Yes,“ we say, “thank you very much, it is the best food on campus! And your baby is very beautiful too!

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Sunday Brunch

Tuesday, 7. November 2006, 05:52:57

I used to spend Sundays in my favourite restaurant and bar (Allen’s, Joe Fortes, depending on the city) reading the New York Sunday Times. A big fat newspaper that cost $8.00. There was enough in it to last through Sunday brunch--about 3 hours--with a lot left over to read during the week.

I liked to start with a champagne and orange juice drink called ‘mimosa, while I read the news section and the business section, both of which could then be discarded for other customers to read. By the time my eggs benedict arrived, I had started the entertainment section. I kept the travel section and Book Review to take home, along with the magazine, but not before I had made a significant inroad into the crossword puzzle.

When I moved to Maple Bay on Vancouver Island, I could no longer get the Sunday New York Times so I switched to the Saturday Globe & Mail, Canada’s national newspaper--not nearly as thick as The Times, but still large enough to save their Book Review to read during the week.

Since I have been in Zhanjiang, China, I have not had the luxury of a weekend paper (or a favourite bar). The Weekend China Daily News is a poor skinny little thing I can read back to front before my first home made mimosa can be served.

And then, this last National Holiday, I was in Hong Kong on a Sunday and Eureka! I discovered the Sunday Morning Post, (and a favourite bar--China Bear). What a nice surprise. What a nice, thick, juicy newspaper package.

And surprise of all surprises was the literacy and length of the news articles--big meaty interviews, pages of reviews, insightful stories on the theatre, art and fashion. I had discovered The Times again on the South China Seas. I spend Sunday and most of the week splashing around the pages.

Sample stories and articles: ‘need to know’ a five minute primer on issue making headlines. Agenda - 3 full pages of contemporary features and stories. Special Report – 4 pages of in-depth political analysis, travel, fashion and trends-this issue-National Holiday week and China of course. YourMoney – 3 pages of personalized articles describing unique investments - a vineyard operation training program in France, a moon cake bakery in Hong Kong. theReview – a whole section on sight and sound, books, the arts and what’s happening—full page interviews with directors, singers, artists and writers.

And what was so much better than the New York Sunday Times was the fact that the Sunday Morning Post covered the whole world - Asia, Antipodes, Americas and Europe. (Something I have also learned to appreciate with Pearl and ATV World television). No more that paranoid American point of view of their world. Whew, what a relief!

I like the Sunday Morning Post because it is big, toothsome and so well done--an extensive national and international news section, a fat entertainment section, a business section, a sports section, a classified advertising section and a magazine with a crossword puzzle--what more could a Sunday morning man ask for? I’ll have another mimosa please…

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Rosebud

Tuesday, 7. November 2006, 05:41:21

I first saw Citizen Kane when I was a student. It was on the classic movie channel at 11:30 after the news. I had never read about it, or even heard of it before. It just came on and I sat mesmerized for two hours.

The last time I saw it was almost forty years later, with my class of English Majors. I have seen it many times in between and it still mesmerizes me. And to think, Orson Welles was only 25 years old when he made it. Not that much older than my students.

I have read since, that the cameraman Greg Toland had a great influence on the look of the film, apart from the innovative chiaroscuro lighting, but it was Orson’s stage background that brought such power to the characters in their wonderful long scenes and use of their own actions to create close-ups. And it was his radio experience that brought such innovations as overlapping dialogue and layers of sound. No shaky camera here. No flashy editing. Just a straight, solid, dramatic performance, with a wonderfully fluid camera that knew when to stop and simply stare. And all in a rich, glossy black and white.

The film was written by Herman J. Mankiewicz and Orson Welles, with remarkable performances from Orson’s Mercury Theatre group. All dead now, but all remarkable stars in their day.

It is a not so thinly disguised portrait of Randolph Hearst, the newspaper baron from the American 30’s, played by Orson Welles. Joseph Cotton as Kane’s best friend, and Everett Sloane as his business manger and most loyal employee are outstanding among a troupe of outstanding performances. I particularly liked Agnes Morehead as the stiff, unrelenting mother who gives the young and newly rich Kane up to the banker (played by George Couloris) who is to become his legal guardian and custodian of his fortune.

Just how Kane spends this fortune and what he does with the power it brings, is the story told through the eyes of a relentless investigative reporter, played by William Alland. Starting with Kane’s death and working backwards and forwards through his life, in a remarkable series of flashbacks, the reporter searches for the meaning of Kane’s famous dying last word “Rosebud”.

Ruth Warrick is Kane’s long suffering first wife, and Dorothy Comingore is his ditsy mistress, who Kane is determined to make into a world class opera singer. A song bird with very little talent, it is his mistress (who Kane marries in the movie only through an unusual respect for conventional morality) that brings down the mighty Kane and reduces him to an eccentric and bitter recluse,

Living in a Xanadu, a great palace filled with art, sculptures, and all the exotic creatures of the world, Kane and his mistress are locked in a struggle over her singing talent that eventually leaves Kane alone and quite mad. It is here the end comes mercifully for Charles Foster Kane in a series of remarkably under lit scenes, and the death breathing of the final word and McGuffin of the film—“Rosebud”

The first time I saw Citizen Kane I missed the revealing of rosebud, and I had to wait to see it again on television for quite a long time (no movie rentals then), before I did catch the reference. But I prefer Gore Vidal’s revelation in 1989 that “Rosebud” was in fact a euphemism for his mistress’s most intimate little muffin. Nothing else could have quite conjured the rage that Randolph Hearst expressed in his attempt to repress the movie when it was first released.

Nothing else could have been such a grand and naughty gesture worthy of Orson Welles’ reputation as the enfant terrible, player of tricks (War of the Worlds*) and master of this magic art form.

* War of the Worlds, a 1938 radio docudrama produced, directed, and starring Orson Welles, that had thousands of American believing their country was being invaded from outer space.

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…the most exciting thing you can do with your clothes on…’

Wednesday, 1. November 2006, 13:05:51

I was not a good academic student. I’m still not. Learning Chinese is very difficult for me, I’m just not a linguist. I failed French in high school, so I did not get a high enough score to get into a really good university. But my English marks were excellent.

Even with my very bad French, I was going to take a year off and go to Paris to become a writer, just like Ernest Hemingway, I had just missed the beat generation, but I was going on the road anyway.

Then a teacher introduced me to Ryerson University, (then Ryerson Polytechnical Institute). Ryerson was a relatively new college for students exactly like me – not exactly top university material - but still too bright to let go wandering around Europe.

Ryerson offered a wonderful array of courses. I could study engineering, hotel management, chemistry, child care - all that boring stuff - or interior design, fashion design, theatre arts, photography, journalism, and radio and television arts - all that exciting stuff.

They taught a combination of the academic and the practical, and I jumped in to radio and television arts—then the absolute cutting edge of communication- with both feet firmly on the studio floor and both hands on the typewriter.

I did well. I stood second in my class. I was awarded a degree. I got a good starting job with very low pay as a very assistant producer in an advertising agency, and started a career which some advertising wag called ‘…the most exciting thing you can do with your clothes on.’*

I was very lucky. I was very motivated. I was doing something I thoroughly enjoyed. Some important person said, ‘If you don’t look forward to going to work everyday, you don’t have the right job.’ Well, I had the right job.

I was in turn a producer, a writer, an art director, a commercial film director and eventually the owner of a small television commercial production company.

I took advantage of every opportunity, every training program, and every night school course that interested me. Along the way I studied photography, directing, writing, Asian cooking, and scuba diving.

I even learned how to teach scuba diving, and that led to the sea, and that led to sailing. And I became master of my own ship ‘Nancy Blackett’ and sailed her around Central America for three years.

And that led to teaching English in Mexico and that led to teaching English in China. And that’s where I am now.

I live an exciting, interesting life. I get to travel, I get to cook lots of Asian food, I still scuba dive, and I still love going to work every day.

But sometimes I wonder: what would have happened to me if I had passed my high school French exam?

*Bill Cosby

(With acknowledgement to ‘The Verger’ by Somerset Maugham)

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