Reverse Culture Shock

I am back having emerged from the protective wall that the People’s Republic of China provided to ensure that I was not corrupted by access to Facebook, YouTube and my own Blog during my stay in that country! My release almost coincided with that of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei – but my lips are not sealed.

I guess that most people have suffered the effects of culture shock. It is not particularly nice in that it alienates you from the people amongst whom you are living. One symptom of this dysfunction that appeared during my Chinese adventure was an angry reaction to starers. When I first arrived at the school being stared at was novel and almost aggrandising. It is difficult to believe that our appearance is so different to the local Chinese when their phenotypes are so diverse (I had a boy in one of my classes who was tiny by any standards and another who could almost pop the ball directly into the basket). Nonetheless we did stand out evoking reactions ranging through shock, amusement or fear. One young lady walked into a stationary car whilst ogling us and we caused some near traffic accidents for which we could surely not be held responsible.

Whilst in a good mood I stared back at the starers, laughed at the laughers, said hello - in Chinese - to the smilers (the majority) and ignored the ignorant. But in a darker mood I found the experience of being an innocent spectacle intensely irritating: this is culture shock; there are other symptoms.

We left China in stages, finally easing ourselves through the decompression chamber and escape hatch usually known as Taiwan. As our departure approached my wife became more and more excited; she was even perky as we stepped off the plane at 5 a.m. following a long, double hop flight. My spirits balanced hers precisely: depression fogged my mind as home drew closer.

Dragging forty kilogrammes of luggage (really) along St Giles and the Woodstock Road I failed to respond to the waiting sights of the Ashmolean Museum, the Martyr’s Memorial or St John’s College. I barely glanced at the Eagle and Child and its opposition, the Lamb and Flag, despite a six month respite from real ale. I do not believe that I even bothered to glance at the inspiring sight of the Radcliffe Observatory or into the mystery of tree-lined Plantation Road. My consciousness was filled with the pain emanating from body parts injured during my Asian sojourn and my task as a determined packhorse.

I found little joy in entering our neat little apartment or in the task of unpacking. I noted without surprise that a tribe of immigrants had hidden away in the large suitcase: they were those tiny ants that penetrate the tightest of packaging in search of food. I sent them to another world. Margaret’s enthusiasm was soon assuaged by sleep and I stepped out to do some essential shopping. I found the environment full of irritants. The church opposite had sealed off its gardens and installed cameras as a result of anti-social visitations. People did not look nice: they did not look at me, they did not speak, they did not stare. There seemed to be an excessive number of dubious people around: dossers, alcoholics, lunatics. This is reverse culture shock and it happened in the leafy luxury of North Oxford.

And so my depression, already billowing, descended. I found little of interest or of joy. I did not even enjoy my first beer festival on the second night. I inwardly criticised the beer, the people drinking it, the place where it was held, the speeches made at regular intervals, the food – everything. I was not good company and I humbly apologise to the good friend who took me there.

The next day I led my first tour. Taking a party around Oxford after six months absence is a great challenge to the brain. As a guide you store up an immense cache of knowledge over a long period of time. On any one tour you only utilise a small percentage of it – but you do not know what you will need of your database or when and where. There is no way of checking that the information is there – the cache is just too immense. The only test is to do a tour, in fact to do many different tours. This test did get my adrenalin flowing especially when coupled with the fact that I was called urgently by the tourist centre in the morning with a heart sinking “why aren’t you here” message (they had given me the wrong time for the tour). So I rushed into action and it helped. There were a few things missing. I could not remember the title used by the head of Exeter College (rector). The name of St Peter’s College eluded me and the middle order of the Tower of Five Orders (Ionian). But these omissions are easily dealt with and I really enjoyed my first tour. Great bunch of people. And from this point on reverse culture shock began to diminish.

Today, though still unable to run, I revelled in a walk around my area and admired the sturdy Victorian residences washed with cool sunlight and dappled with the shadows of grand trees. People looked nicer and their behaviour had become more or less normal to me. I have been weaned back onto real ale in my favourite pub and have even enjoyed a party in the gardens of our cluster of apartments.

So what is inverse culture shock all about? Travel, especially the prospect of travel, promises new dawns and sunsets, new lands and people, new experiences and ideas, and it still excites me. Perhaps it is not therefore surprising that the end of a long period of travel is, for me, synonymous with bathos. Sure, I am pleased to see friends and relatives, meet fellow drinkers and landlords in my favourite pubs, renew acquaintanceships, and see the beauty of Oxford and Cotswolds again. I have missed the people and the places.

The problem for me, I think, is that returning is exactly that:  a return rather than a venturing forth. Yes, I missed fish and chips and baked beans and cheese, and yes I missed some home comforts – and they are all great to indulge in once more, but they are satisfying rather than stimulating. And so I will now slide happily back into my enjoyable rut and plan the next adventure.

I suspect that I now know the solution to my ailment, my reverse culture shock, but am not willing to accept it fully just yet. Probably it involves leaving something at home that I cannot really do without.

I've been deblogged

I have been temporarily barred from accessing my own blog! I am currently in China, teaching English near a town called Fuping which is near to the fabled city of Xian with its protective army of terracota warriors. We shall be here for a contract period of four months so I hope to be blogging again in June.

Why access to the blog is denied I cannot say. I did write about the Philpinnos and their cocks, but surely that's not a banning offence? I did visit Taiwan for two weeks as well but surely it cannot be that. Maybe it is all part of the G double oh GLE problem here.

Meanwhile I am sending emails to interested parties. I f you want to be placed on the distribution list then please email me at rob@satin.co.uk. You cannot keep a good man down. But am I good? And who determines goodness - my goodness?

Transporting the Soul

One of the books that I carried took with me on this Asian trip was The Dig by John Preston. I think it is a fine book, but I am biased. In my life the longest period that I have lived in one place was for fifteen years in a small Suffolk town called Woodbridge. Nearby is Sutton Hoo a place that became famous when Basil Brown unearthed the burial ship of an Anglo-Saxon king; a royal burial ship that quite remarkably had remained untouched since its incarceration some fifteen hundred years ago.

The book is semi-fictional tale of the dig from the points of view of Basil Brown, Mrs Pretty the owner of Sutton Hoo, and various other key players. There are personal details to give pep to a story that might otherwise not expand to a full novel; there is a sensitive portrayal of the dispute between the local amateur archaeologist (Basil) and the experts drafted in from Cambridge and London; and for me there is the added bounce of recollection: places in Woodbridge are mentioned that I once knew really well.

The treasure discovered in the Sutton Hoo burial ship was amazingly intricate and the find proved that the English Dark Ages were not so dark at all. However, what darkened the soul of Woodbridge was the transporting of the treasure to the British Museum. Naturally local people felt that it should have been held locally and displayed in the context of East Anglia where King Radwald had reigned. This loss is still felt, and the book explains Mrs Pretty’s odd decision to some extent.

In the Philippines boats are used for their true purpose: with more than 7000 islands boats are in the blood rather than the reverse. Rusty ferries ply between the islands and delightful bumboats buzz around them - their bamboo outriggers giving stability and character; their occupants mostly engaged in fishing of one sort or another. However, in this deeply religious desperately distributed country the serious business of transporting souls is left to the roads rather than the sea: roads that can be as choppy as the sea in some places. I find Philippine road transport fascinating, especially public transport. We have now travelled on pedicabs, habal-habals (literally pigs mating, actually multi passenger motorbikes), trikes ranging from motorcycle and sidecar to motorcycle and covered trailer, jeepneys (jeeps of astonishing length and decoration), vans with open tops, vans with air-conditioning, and an astonishing range of vintage buses. All of these heave, hiss, pant, roar, belch and grind along heavily congested roads mostly at speeds which are well below the limits of western countries.

Why so slow and why so congested? There are private cars here, but not many and they are not the source of congestion. The problem has much more to do with the strange uses made of the roads and in some cases their poor condition coupled with an almost complete lack of pavements. Here are a few of the uses that I’ve noted in the weeks that we have spent here:

1. Ambling (Philippinos do not walk and certainly do jog)
2. Drinking (overspill from the roadside bars and karaoke joints)
3. Chatting
4. Shopping (the shops often push right up to the road and at least one into it)
5. Drying (anything from rice to corn to coconuts laid on sheets or directly onto the road)
6. Grazing (usually tethered cows, goats, water buffalo, chickens)
7. Sleeping (I have had to circumvent a patchwork of prone dogs on some motorcycle rides)
8. Repair (anything from all of the vehicles listed above to aircon units and boats)
9. General retail
10. Urinating (mostly males who smile and engage you in conversation whilst peeing)
11. Parking (of course)
12. Watching (at regular intervals there are ‘resting stations’ for sleeping, chatting, observing)
13. Travelling in the wrong direction (can be very scary)

All of this slows progress to a speed somehow suited to this moist and hot climate and its cheerful ‘que sera, sera’ (in Tagalog ’ bahala na’) people, but does result in a constant beeping of horns from the lower orders and bellowing from the large buses and trucks. It is not the music to transport souls to, but, blended with the outdoor karaokes and discothèques, is the music of the Philippines.

The Philippino men and their cocks

Soon after arriving in the Philippines you become vaguely aware of something different, something strange. It is not one of the obvious things like climate, people, buildings, or language: it’s something else, something fairly ordinary yet not so ordinary; something that’s constantly in the background; in Manila there are sounds that you would certainly not hear in central London or any other big city that I have visited. And there’s something else, not remarkably special but just a little odd: men carrying cardboard boxes. The boxes are about the size of carrier bag, perforated and tied with string. There is something alive inside these boxes. Sometimes they make an unmistakeable sound.

Then you see your first tethered chicken (cock actually) and perhaps a man carrying one under his arm: gently, respectfully, even lovingly, and everything falls into place. The men of this country are obsessed by cock fighting. In most countries the display of magazines for sale is much the same even if the language differs: there are car magazines, computer magazines, angling magazines, girly magazines and so on. Here in the Philippines the displays are dominated by what, in translation, must be “Cock Fighters Weekly”. Really and truly. I have a photo of a magazine stall from the streets of Manila and there are at least seven different cock related magazines, all displaying a fine specimen, undoubtedly a champion.

I became obsessed. I had to know what this thing was all about. In Miagoa I met the deputy mayor in a bar. He was drinking with a local lawyer and an engineer: the engineer was a cock man. He had the least English so the other two talked about him and his hobby. They told me that many wives felt jealous of their husband’s cock because he paid it more attention than her. They told me that the cock was better fed than the children, that the cock was given special food to enhance its fighting ability, that the cock was even given steroids and other drugs which makes the loser inedible.

Later I met Eddy who had been a seaman (in common with so many Philippino men) and was now retired, running a small resort near Miagoa. Behind his house was a field dotted with little huts and tethered to each was a cock. I soon found that there are thousands of cock-rearing enclosures like this in the islands. Eddy showed me his pride and joy, a three time winner and very good looking bird. He had won Eddy 10,000 pesetas in one of the fights. Eddy breeds cocks and sells them to a middle man in Manila who sells them on to individual cock fanciers. Cocks are big business in this country.

I had to see a fight. In a way I was repelled by the whole business, but I still felt the need to observe it – even though I am quite determined never to attend a bull fight in Spain since I regard bull fighting as particularly cruel. Cock fighting is different I reasoned, they do it anyway and no one is sticking barbs into their shoulders to weaken them.

In Bais City, Negros, we walked a long way to a beach. The beach was quite disappointing but the walk was fun. We were constantly greeted by the people who live in the ramshackle huts that we passed. Children smiled and waved, hard-faced beachcombers forever resting in hammocks shouted “Hey Joe”. We took a trike back; we had been over-greeted and could take no more. Along the way I spotted something going on and thought, “aha cockfight”. I stopped the trike driver and he seemed to agree that there was a cock fight. In fact what I had seen turned out to be preparations for a beauty contest that evening, but people were climbing the steep slope alongside the arena - and some were bearing cocks. I asked around and there was indeed cock fighting up there somewhere. I immediately started to ascend. Mrs Walters demurred. A sudden aversion to the bestiality of the cock fighting world? No, she thought the slope was too steep/dangerous/slippery. I helped her up one slope by holding her hand. Trouble was that I had difficulty getting the impetus needed to rise as she hesitated behind me. The second slope was worse and when she saw an old man slip she would not go further. I went on alone then returned to report that it was pretty easy beyond the sharp muddy slope. We managed it with some difficulty and at last got to the cockpit. There were lots of people there, almost entirely men. There were also lots of men with cocks. A heaving group surrounded the almost invisible pit (just a flat, fenced square further down the slope). I couldn’t see much and wondered whether I really wanted to. I tried to photo the fight from above. Typically in this country one man wanted to move me to the front, he kept on and on but I did not want to be in the crush or to spoil things for the people really taking part. M could see even less than me on account of height (in fact she didn’t really see a fight at all). We wandered around. I watched a man removing the knife that they tie to one of the spurs from his dead cock; blood spotted the area around him. I could not gain any sense of his emotional state since he was fixated on the task in hand. We looked at the knife stall. It reminded me of a cutlery box, very shiny sharp knives about four centimetres long with a clip at the end for the cock’s leg. This use of a knife seems unnecessarily cruel. I put this view to a Philippino in a bar later. He looked puzzled then said, “But the winner has to kill the loser”.

There were stalls selling beer of course with enormous bottles of Red Horse on display. Then I found a gap with some vantage to one side of the pit and managed to get a view. Each fight starts with the owners holding and stroking their cocks. There is a referee between them. Some announcements are made. The birds are poked at one another but not released, their hackles rise. Their knives are wiped by the referee and their feet carefully cleaned by their owners. All is ready for the fight and an enormous cacophony of shouting arises from the crowd. Hands being held up with fingers extended. This is the betting phase and I could not understand it. The cocks are then pushed at each other and released. They fight in a furious flurry of feather that I could not disentangle and nor could my camera. Within a minute or so one is lying prone. The referee then picks up both birds and if the prone one is still alive pokes them at each other and releases them again. There is another fight, the victor seeming to peck at the eyes of the loser. This process is repeated until the loser is dead.The victor is held up and those who bet for it cheer loudly. Payment is then made and the whole thing repeated. Each bout is about ten minutes, the fight itself probably three. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but as I led M down a different slope, this time with steps, I was glad that I had witnessed it. I don’t think our presence either encourages or discourages the practice.

What an odd activity it all is! It is a natural pursuit and mostly the fights take place on a Sunday in this land which claims a population 90% Christian, mostly RC.  On the next leg of our exploration of this strange but fascinating country we saw an advert for a six cock fight offering a first prize of 2.5 million pesos! That’s about £35,000 – a fortune to most Philippinos who mostly live in very poor housing and certainly do not have a car. That’s why public transport here is so varied, so good and so cheap. But that’s another story.

The last hotel room in Iloilo (22/1/2011)

As often happens when travelling we had help. The lady we met on the flight from Manila to Iloilo (pronounced ee-lo ee-lo) told us that she had a brother who worked in the airport and he would advise how best to get to the city (we were still smarting from taxi problems in Manila). She was true to her word: the brother, a big man in uniform was soon found. He asked what hotel we were staying at, I said that we did have one and he then pronounced the chilling statement “All hotels are full for Dinagyang”. We discovered that Dinagyang is a big festival to celebrate Santa Niño, an effigy of Jesus found by the Spanish. We didn’t even know that it was on – what great luck. Of course it did mean that we had nowhere to live – but I’m an optimist, something always turns up. A young man was delegated to guide us to someone who could help. We followed him through the airport only to arrive at a hotel booking office which we could easily have found ourselves. There was no one there, the place was deserted. Perhaps there really were no hotel rooms left in Iloilo. I had found a potential place – the City Corporate Inn – in the guide book. I mentioned this to our helper and he whisked us away to a taxi where various people flustered around us to get us into the cab – once again we could have done all of this ourselves but the people of the Philippines are so kind.

The journey into Iloilo city was interesting. After the airport the scenery became quite rural with cows grazing in open fields. The road itself was filled with the famous jeepneys – very colourful long-wheelbased jeeps with a capacity of maybe 16 passengers on the two long bench seats and a loading of upwards of 30 at busy times. Many seemed to be under repair at the roadside. Regular notices appeal to everyone’s innate morality “Do not lie. Do not steal. Do not make promises that you cannot keep.” The traffic thickened as we hit Iloilo. Jeepneys were joined by motorcycle combinations with a capacity for three passengers and a possible loading of 10! And there were trikes and bikes and cars and buses and fumes and jams and hooting and tooting above the constant roar. It was getting dusky as we arrived at the hotel. It had a decent foyer which was encouraging. But it was full. I asked the receptionist if there were other hotels nearby. And so this delightful young woman began making a series of calls to other hotels to find us a room. At the end of each call she said thank you and my heart sank a little lower. By the time she had called five my optimism was beginning to desert me. I thought we would have to move to another city – and time was getting on. I think it was the 11^th call that was different. She invited the owner of her hotel to take over to take the call. This lady talked for a while then told me that the Harbor Town Hotel had a room. I smiled. She told me the price – three times her own rate, I stopped smiling. She asked if that was OK then pointed out that I had no choice, I agreed. We were soon whisked off with our two backpacks and other clutter in another taxi to the Harbor Town Hotel. It was not far away and the driver charged us very little. It seemed rather noisy and there was bunting fluttering everywhere. It looked as if we were right in the middle of the festival – great.

It was not easy to talk to the receptionist because the music from the street was so loud. Finally we were shown to our room which at three times the basic rate should be good. As we stepped out of the lift on the third floor the sound of music was even louder. Worse still we turned to the right – in the direction of the music. We struggled up the corridor straining against the booming bass. The porter stopped at the last but one door, then changed his mind and took us to the very last door room, 308, which could easily have been Orwell’s 101. The room itself was not bad. It was a bit worn looking, but had the essential feature of aircon. However, the noise was deafening.  I found that it was a little quieter in the bathroom but not much. Maybe we could sleep in the shower cubicle.

Just beyond our room the corner of the hotel was rounded and glazed forming a sort of viewing area. We could look down on the main street with its canopy of densely fluttering bunting and the two corners of the side street that the hotel was actually in. On each corner there was a pyramid of loudspeakers maybe eight high. The biggest array of speakers I have ever seen outside of an auditorium. Fed from some recorded source, these were our immediate neighbours.

I told Margaret that it was possible to drive people mad by prolonged exposure to loud noise. I don’t think she heard me. I went down to the reception to demand a quieter room. They told me I had the last room in the hotel. One young man said that this is the way they like to enjoy themselves during the festival. I asked when the music stopped and was given two times for “the curfew”: 9pm and 10pm. That was good – but I doubted that it was true. I knew already that the Philippinos were never in too much of a hurry. Meanwhile the thumping went on, threatening to crush my skull. We escaped, leaving the hotel to find a quieter spot until curfew time. We had to pass in front of those awful speakers and felt the woofers flapping our clothes as we did so. We blocked our ears with our fingers as we walked by, much to the amusement of some of the early dancers who pranced in front of the ear denting array.

The streets were packed with people and lined with stalls. Everyone seemed happy and many smiled at us or said hello. Things got better and better as we distanced ourselves from the monster speakers. Then we approached more speakers and discovered that many street corners had similar arrays beating out pop music dominated by the bass line. We learned to hurry past them with our ears blocked and at last found a live stage. The crown was massed in front of it but we found an open air bar of sorts at the side and were given star treatment by the owner, a flat-faced large lady with dark brown skin and a ready smile. Beer (San Miguel Pilsner) arrived. It was not bad. Two bottles later all was well. Margaret was a little tipsy; I was enjoying the music of a couple of local kids who were much loved by the crowd.

We roamed around and found another stage. It was 10pm. The group was about to finish. The curfew was real, we thought. Once again seats were vacated so that we could sit and drink beer. The music went on – and on – and on. And it was great. The Philippinos are great performers and the exact opposite of shrinking violets. Finally they said their final, final goodbyes and the music ended. Suddenly there was silence apart from the movement of the crowds and the fluttering of the bunting. We found our hotel with difficulty. And we found that it was silent. Glory be, the monstrous array was curfewed. I studied the wiring for possible direct action later. We went to bed at gone midnight and were rocked awake by the audio monster at 7am. Unbelievable! No lie in for us that day.

Fortunately it was Sunday: the main day of the festival. I saw the tribes assembling when I went running. The main parade of warriors, dancing girls, placards praising the mayor and advertising Coca-Cola, men dressed as lizards but looking like animated bananas, an inflatable Santo Niño, lads disguised as spiders and crickets, and so on and on, filed past. Thankfully those awful speakers were silenced so that we could hear the drums of the tribes as they competed for a big cash prize and an even bigger development award.

We had a great day, even got ourselves tattooed on the street (the arm actually, henna actually). And we survived another night of music and beer. Problem now is that communication between us has become difficult. I say something like, “Look at that jeepney over there, its stuffed to the gunnels.” And Margaret turns to me saying, “Just look at the number of people in that Jeepney.”

Still, we did get the last hotel room in Iloilo! I hear it could have been worse, what?

A cold shrug from Atlas.

I’m sitting in my top coat with two pairs of socks on my feet and a mug of hot jasmine tea at my side. I am the victim of the inverse snow effect. Britain does little to prepare for snow because it’s rarely a problem. The Taiwanese do nothing to prepare for winter because it’s so short. The temperature is about 12 degrees which doesn’t sound bad, but coupled with extremely high humidity constantly refreshed by near constant rainfall and a nasty cold contacted (I think) from two feverish Australians who tried to bag our seats on the plane to Hong Kong. All this coupled with a complete dearth of heating and a prevalence of restaurants which are little more than frontless tents leaves me depressingly cold, stultifyingly cold.

On the bright side I have finally finished reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. It was recommended to me by a friend and I am grateful to him. The book is large in scope, in size, large in almost every conceivable description. When I was less than quarter of the way through it really seemed to me that the book was spent; there was little more to add to the story, but I was so wrong. That early part provided a solid platform for what was to follow.

It is not an easy book to categorise. It is a novel of course – though much more than just a novel. It is certainly a book on moral philosophy and yet could be regarded as a work of science fiction. It contains romance, sex, intense relationships, evil, good, heroes and “rotters”. It has a good story line which is both complex and satisfying. It also contains long political/philosophical speeches: one which is made by the near-perfect man (John Galt, a scientist and philosopher) lasts for three hours and I must admit that I skipped some of it. As a radio broadcast, which it purportedly was, it would certainly have lost most of its audience. The book is a sociological study and an outright attack on socialism.

Whilst I was deeply engrossed in reading Atlas Shrugged I met a man who knew of the author’s writing. He dismissed her work in two words: “right wing”. But short labels are as dangerous as short books. Atlas Shrugged is a big book – in all respects.

For anyone who has not read this book the basic theme is that society is gradually being taken over by looters, liars, and power grabbers who do their dastardly work in the name of the public good. These people produce nothing and expect those with ability to supply their needs. They are evasive, forever avoiding straight statements and burying their true meaning in obfuscation. On the other side are the producers: the entrepreneurs who bravely risk all to achieve their own happiness meanwhile providing for the needy by creating jobs, technology, food and so on. These people are pure in spirit and expect to trade rather than beg.

The story focuses on the Taggart railroad network which I guess is a symbol for the core functioning of an industrial society.  Ayn Rand, writing in the 50s, would undoubtedly annoy today’s liberated women by her constant and regular use of the generic “men” which for  her includes all human beings. Yet she places Dagny Taggart, a dynamic young woman who holds the centre ground of the book, as the true controller of the vast Taggart network whilst her brother (a looter and rotter) has the figurehead role.

The vocabulary and some of the prose is dated: there is an awful lot of chuckling which we rarely seem to do nowadays. It is quite amusing to meet so many “rotters” and smokers. Smoking is a given for everyone in the book which seems odd to a 21^st century reader. Yet for all of that the introduction of a motor that draws its power from static electricity, the use of speech activated locks and other technological innovations have stood the test of time. The action is mostly quite gripping and the intensity of feeling between Dagny and her various lovers is convincingly described without overt sexuality. And, the three hour speech aside, the moral philosophy is nicely hidden away within the action and is rarely obtrusive.

I liked this book and was very impressed by it. There was much that I could relate to and it certainly made me think about our own society. I was a convinced socialist in my youth and had to learn a lot about human nature before I escaped its bewitching, naïve, goodness.  The world created by Ayn Rand is a simplification of our own, but the rotters are certainly about and seem drawn to power. Sections of our society are overly dependent on hand-outs from central government and rewards are often not related to achievement – bankers pay being a topical example. But perhaps post-industrial England is something that Ayn Rand did not envisage. We did not become the People’s Republic of England and the need for producers in the strange service-oriented economy that obtains right now is minimal – at least in the short term.

Much as I enjoyed the book , when my friend offered me another by Ayn Rand I refused – I need a rest. Atlas Shrugged has been a good travelling companion in Spain and Asia. My copy has tiny print and has tested my eyesight sorely – maybe destroyed it, but it has accompanied me through a minor crisis in which I was refused permission to enter Taiwan from Hong Kong on New Year’s Eve, and it came with me into mainland China where I waited for the Hong Kong British Embassy to reopen after its public holiday. Finally it came with me to Taiwan and endured the damp cold of a sub-tropical winter. I have now given it to my son who lives on this green island and who celebrated his 31^st birthday with us last night. However, I doubt that he is quite ready for Ayn Rand at his age.

Like all good books I miss it now that I have finished it. But there’s plenty more books to read - that’s why my backpack is so heavy. Why, oh why can’t I make the transition to eBooks? I will, just give it time.

Working Stone

Have a nice holiday. That’s what people say to me as I leave England for our place in Spain. I try to explain that I am not going on holiday. They smile and say - enjoy your holiday. After all that’s what Spain is for isn’t it? Holidays. Though why anyone would come to Spain, certainly the Spain that we know, for a holiday in the winter beats me. Rather than holidays we think of electric blankets, portable gas heaters, wood fires to be lit, fed and cleaned; and my wife misses central heating in the way that I miss real ale.

Nowadays I spend nearly all of my time with stones. I carry them about, I hit them with hammers and chisels, I cut them with a diamond wheel, I split them and I talk to them. Yes, I confess, I do talk to them. And they talk to me!

The stone in our area is a form of sandstone. It can vary in colour between straw-yellow through orange to red. When exposed to the atmosphere it very gradually blackens and greys like an ageing person. All of the older houses are made from stones that vary in size from a cricket ball to a boulder. Some of the stones, especially the corners, are worked to provide a flat, scored surface; but the bulk of the stone presents a naturally occurring ‘face’ to the beholder. Traditionally the stone walls of houses and farm buildings were bedded in clay, a cheap natural material now replaced by mortar. Some time ago the stone of most homes was covered with a soft mortar probably to prevent the drafts that developed as stones moved and clay cracked. Later the mortar-covered walls were painted a violent blue for disinfecting reasons or looks or both. Picasso lived in our area for a while and some claim that visit as the beginning of his blue period. Nowadays much of the blue paint and mortar has been removed exposing the old stone which has been cleaned, chipped out and pointed in modern mortar. The restored houses look really good, but I would prefer the unpointed walls of the many casitas and animal shelters that blend so well into the arid countryside.

So I bought one! A casita that is. It sits in what the Spanish call a huerto (think of a large allotment garden in terraces with irrigation channels passing through it). Traditionally people who worked the huerto lived in the stone casitas during the growing and harvest seasons as did the animals, implements, tools, etc. This was sometimes called stone camping and has mostly been superseded by the availability of motor vehicles. We intend to return to the earlier way of life.

Our casita was quite small but had two floors, the one above for the bats and below for the rats. It was not inhabitable. So I’m making it bigger and cleaner and will one day install solar electricity and a water system, even a shower and some form of toilet. But first I have to make it bigger. The existing walls are traditional clay and stone and are a half meter thick. I am copying them, though I am filling the space between the inner and outer wall with mortar not clay. Hiss, hiss say the traditionalists. But they are wrong, mortar is better, they just didn’t have any in the old days.

The rate of my building is so slow that increases in height are only detectable by monthly photographs – like those films of flowers growing, but slower. I spend most of my time wandering between my many piles looking for the right stone for the current space. The job is similar to doing a mammoth jigsaw where none of the pieces quite fit and there is no picture to copy. I have names for the sort of stone that I am looking for: flat-bottomed sloper, angled dipper, etc. The stones want me to place them in the wall. They shout, “Take me, take me”, but until I find a suitable candidate for a trial I reject them with comments such as “too fat, too round”. Those that I carry (or roll for the larger ones) to the wall for an audition are often rejected; they then lie near the wall hoping for a second chance. Some are cheats. They pretend to be near fits then, when I work them with the hammer and chisel; they display hidden faults and break asunder. These are punished. I use them as fillers in the interspace where I put the mortar: they will never see the light of day again.

Locals think that I am mad and perhaps you do too. They admire the work and sympathise with the slow progress by saying “poca a poca”, but in their minds they wonder why I don’t use concrete blocks like everyone else.

Just what has all this to do with a blog attached to a bookshop (www.robsbookshop.com)? Well, almost every day I make notes about the work on the casita and the huerto so one day there will be a book – or a set of stone tablets. Don’t hold your breath.

Culture in Teruel Province

In Spain we live in a province called Teruel (pronounced Tear Well as in tearing a piece of paper –well). Many Spanish say this is the place no one comes from and no one goes to: it has an incredibly low population for its vast size. Here drivers proudly display a ‘Teruel Existe’ sign, in case of doubt. There aren’t any big cities of course. Our nearest is Alcañiz and it’s small.

The decision to go to a concert there was a last minute one – it was Saturday night and we were already going to a play somewhere else. The play started at 10 pm (really); the concert started at 7 pm – so we had time to do both (everything is arranged around dinner which is at nine). We arrived at the Teatro Municipal on time. We then had to wait for Spanish 7 o’clock to arrive. Still it gave us time to look around at the audience which contained a frightening proportion of children: a fact that does not bode well for a classical concert. But it was cheap and in aid of a charity for the disabled. And the theatre was warm, plush and comfortable.

At last a tall, elegant lady appeared on the stage in a sparkling, figure-hugging, dark-grey dress. She gave a long introduction and the curtains then opened to display the orchestra (actually a banda). Shock and horror – no violins – and some very young musicians mixed with some older ones. They were not good. Dvorak rose from his grave and committed suicide during the mercifully shortened version of his ninth symphony. Still they tried. It is, I believe, very difficult to synchronise wind instruments. I was fascinated by a large white-haired man who stood, without moving a muscle, to the right of the orchestra during the entire first half. He played no instrument, held no baton, showed no emotion. He just stood there. Why?

After a short and noisy break, a long announcement, awards given to various members of the audience, a present for the announcer which she unwrapped while we watched, a box of sweets for the players, and individual introductions to a large proportion of the banda the second half finally got under way. It was very good: especially the rendition of Gulliver’s Travels. I suppose the first part included rising musicians, the second the top echelon. However, my enjoyment faded after a while, the brassy effect of a wind orchestra began to offend my ear so I started to watch the audience.

Amazingly, late comers kept arriving until almost the end of the show – and they were still allowed in! Some stopped to chat to people they recognised as they made their way to a seat. One member of the orchestra, a youngster, got up from his seat in our row and went into the corridor to play with his friends! We could hear them running about. Two little girls in front of us were fighting. They were separated which started multiple trips to the toilet, then conducting from the floor, then playing with their parents’ hair. A little girl behind me clapped a lot whilst the music was playing. She also wandered around the aisles smiling at anyone who would respond. At last the performance seemed to be over. Everyone had been hugged and kissed, the curtain had closed, and the audience had risen to its feet. Then the encore started. We slipped out.

The journey to Cretas took over half an hour. We just had time for a quick carajillo in a nearby bar then into the place where the wine festival is held for the play. It started at 10 pm which was odd. Actually it started at 10.20 pm which is normal. Why so late? People have to have their dinner, explained Willy, a friend from our village and the reluctant husband of one of the stars. This is the first play that I had seen which was entirely in Spanish, without sub-titles, and where I knew everyone on the stage – including Patchy who is a part-time barman, part-time builder and the play’s producer, writer and performer. He is a big man and, on stage dressed as buxom female civil servant, he seemed gigantic. My Spanish understanding was too poor for me to follow the play, but it was fun to see Dolores (the wife of Willy) perform as the unwanted grandmother who the daughter (Christina, the tour guide in our village) was trying to commit to a home, and to see Dolores real daughter Sandra appear as her marijuana-soaked granddaughter. The performance was enthusiastic, the stage set fragile, the audience large and mixed in age, the ticket price zero, the length of about an hour just right. After the curtain call Patchy whipped off his wig to show his glistening baldhead and to thank everyone of the cast by name and individually. The Spanish like to glow. And so ended our night of culture. It was good. Not at all like being in Oxford of course – but when in Spain...

The magic of olives

Where we live in Spain there are three important topics: olives, almonds and football. Or, if a person is not interested in football (how I miss the football free pubs of Oxfords) and is not keen on nuts then there’s olives. The trees drape the slopes of the valleys and climb upwards until they finally loose the battle against the high altitude pines. They fill the fields of red earth so carefully cultivated and rolled to create a neat pattern of swirls around the trees. They line the roads and caminos and are even planted in parks. They vary from spindly youngsters to centuries old gnarled and split-boled survivors. They are beaten, shaken, plucked, pruned and robbed of the valiant suckers that sprout gaily from the roots each year. They are capable of bearing intense cold and heat and withstand droughts that would deprive a camel of its hump.

We have a huerto (a sort of veg garden with water) and our bottom terrace has seventy very young trees of variable conformance: from bushy trees of some three metres to sad sprouting which could hardly bear the name of a bush. Last year just one tree had olives, twenty of them, but when we returned to harvest them in the early spring they had gone. This year we tried to sneak up on the fruit and were delighted to find the very first tree laden with black berries. Then we became progressively depressed as we found many trees with none, others with meagre green fruit and a few with wrinkled berries as if prematurely aged. We also had to beat our way through weeds that are almost as tall as the trees themselves, and this after paying a man to cultivate our grove in spring!

Still, we took a small harvest; we bought a black rubbery bucket and filled the bottom of it with a hundred or so fine specimens. I am now washing them daily before placing them in brine. Some say that washing is unnecessary. Others that they should be place in a vinegar and solution. Some that they should be kept for a year, others a month. There are probably as many recipes for preserving olives as there are for apple pie – no, there are more. It’s all quite fun and we may be eating our own olives by Christmas. In the meantime we are eating some given to us by a Dutch couple who run a wonderful camping site near our village. Many people give us the things – is there any point of having our own?

One day we hope to have enough to make oil. The author of the book I’m reading on olives (see my bookshelf at www.robsbookshop.com) is obsessed by olive oil. He barely mentions eating the things. He travels from mill to mill around the Mediterranean basin talking to growers and millers about the production and pressing of olives. Each visit ends in a marvellous meal cooked in – would you believe it - olive oil. I can’t get too excited about the oil. For one we would never have enough to get our own back from the press, and for another the oil, it seems to me, is a means to an end in a meal: as a salad dressing or as an addition to garlic-rubbed toast or, most likely, as hot liquid in which to fry the food itself.

Today, as I took my lunch break away from my main obsession here (extending the stone casita on the huerto so that we can become seasonal migrants) I looked out over our little grove. The wind was fairly high sending waves of disturbed air through the silvery green leaves of my little trees (also through the reddish brown of the weeds) and it all looked very beautiful. At night the trees look ghostly in the lights of a car. In the sun they glint as light winds turn the narrow leaves. As you may notice I am coming under the spell of the olive, which may not be a bad thing. After all it is the symbol of peace and the name of Popeye’s girl.