It comes as a surprise for me to watch the reactions to the awarding of the The Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama. Not because I think he doesn’t deserve it but actually because I think he does.

I whole-heartedly agree with what I believe is a rather astute choice; a choice that demonstrates that the Nobel Committee is far from out-of-touch, but actually strongly in-touch with what goes on at ground level, on street corners across the globe.  From what I have seen, this Nobel Prize is not an award for Obama’s work as president, but everything leading up to it.  I say this as a guy who’s been traveling around the world at street level, for the better part of the last three and a half years.  The media’s view and the street view, I’ve learned, are often two entirely different things.

Ultimately the question that the Nobel Selection Committee must ask is, ”Who has done the most in the previous year to enhance peace in the world?”  While there is certainly countless individuals from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe that are deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize, no one has done more for peace this year than Obama when measured on a global scale.

I left on a solo, independent journey around-the-world in 2006, with only my then virgin passport, a backpack and a plane ticket to China.  As a young American on his first overseas experience I have been greeted warmly as an individual in every country and every culture; though prior to Obama’s election, often at the mention of The United States as a country, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and especially George W. Bush, the talk turned critical, I turned defensive and I found myself continually making excuses for the ‘American way of life.’

Suffice it to say, from the chai stands of India to the kebab shops of Qatar, much of the world had (and has) lost faith in America.   Talking with people from the dusty cafes in Nairobi to the skyscrapers of Hong Kong, I learned that when America has been at its best, it has shown as a beacon of hope in all that is possible, and the enduring spirit of America, the belief that better days are always ahead, served to lift the spirits of many, but since the turn of the century, as the lethal combination of arrogance and ignorance, coupled with a big mouth, resonated from America—personifying the now enduring stereotypes of all Americans–the world’s view of the US, and the hope it had inspired, was marginalized and eventually manifested itself in, what Obama recently called, “reflexive anti-Americanism worldwide.”  The open armed embrace for Americans traveling abroad had become a cold shoulder, and I’ll tell you from personal experience, I’ve felt it more than once.

Things changed in 2008.  As the US election approached, as I made my way through the streets of Indonesia, the world’s curiosity turned to palpable excitement as it became clear that Obama may win. His victory in November of that year, nearly instantly changed the tone of everyone’s greeting when I mentioned ‘I am an American.’  The first question I was typically asked changed from, “Did you vote for Bush (skeptical)?” to “What do you think about Obama (hopeful)?”  Obama’s campaign of hope changed the world’s view of America and inspired people to hope not just for change in America, but change in their local communities and lives. I heard a collective sigh of relief from the streets of Melbourne to the tea shops of Shanghai the day of Obama’s election.  Nearly overnight, Obama and his message of hope change the atmosphere of the conversations I had with strangers on the street, and thus changed the tone of dialogue in much of the world.

“In a short time he has been able to set a new tone throughout the world and to create a readiness for dialogue,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel observed today in The New York Times.

You can’t create peace if no one is open to dialogue.  This new world climate, not only allows Obama to continue his work as president on climate change, nuclear disarmament, and such, but also gives the rest of us in the world an opportunity to roll up our sleeves and pitch in on the work needed in our own backyards.

From my vantage point on the streets of the world, one year ago today the world was not ready for dialogue, and it would have been hard to believe then that one person could be responsible for changing the way people talk on nearly every street corner in the world.  Billions of dollars are spent by governments and corporate advertisers to try and change the mind of the average person on the street, and Obama did it as just one person.

Obama has inspired much of the planet and the direct result, though not a tangible peace accord or the end of a war, is instead a shift away from the negative thought patterns that consumed many of us, and with that his vision has opened up a better space for all of us to move forward on the biggest of global challenges we face.

I’m not privy to what goes on in the halls of government, but I can tell you what it feels like here on the streets.

Obama did all of this before he spent a single day as president, and it is for that, that he is deserving of the award.

Big changes don’t always come in big boxes.

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• Read more ego talking from Andy:
  • How To Change The World: A Hand Up, Not Out
  • Welcome to The Real World
  • Marching For Democracy In China

(Kathmandu, Nepal) I first began to suspect I was being conned as the taxi rounded the corner–after spending an hour stuck in a water logged traffic jam–and the driver stopped abruptly in front of a shop whose name had no resemblance to the name of the agency on my bus ticket.  The driver’s English vocabulary was limited to the words “fast,” “yes,” “go” and “WWF.”  He had brought me here based on a note I had handed him that had, scribbled in Nepalese, what I was told were direction to the location where I was to board a bus to take me on the 34-hour journey from Kathmandu, Nepal to New Delhi, India.

A day earlier a black haired Nepalese travel agent in a cramped office in a Kathmandu alley had provided me with the bus ticket for the mere rupee equivalent of $30 USD, and he insisted that the scribbled note in Nepalese contained directions for a taxi driver to get me to the appropriate bus agent the following day.

The note certainly got me to a bus agent, although I had a sinking suspicion it wasn’t the right bus agent, but despite my insistence we’d arrived at the wrong place, the taxi driver hustled me into the shop to meet a woman who spoke no English, she only pointed me to a bench in the corner.   After a lengthy wait I was hustled across the street to a rusty bus with a cracked windshield that was parked under an abandoned gas station awning.

The black haired Nepalese travel agent who had sold me the original ticket the day earlier, had also promised me that the $30 was buying me a ticket on a ‘tourist bus,’ a phrase that conjured images in my mind of a relaxing ride with a bus full of German, Dutch and Kiwi backpackers, all of us trading travel stories and drinking Cokes, as the Himalayan foothills rolled passed the tinted windows.

It seemed, upon boarding the rusty grey bus with the cracked windshield, that the black haired travel agent and I had quite different definitions of what consists of a ‘tourist bus.’

My bag, with all my worldly possessions, was shoved in the engine compartment at the rear of the lumbering bus and I was directed up its contorted stairs to find it completely empty—no Germans, Dutch or Kiwi backpackers to be found.

After a half-hour wait, and an hour past the scheduled departure time, the whoosh of the air brakes startled me, as the driver revved up and pulled his dinosaur into the middle of a muddy, jam packed arterial road—it seemed this tourist would be making the 34-hour journey to New Delhi alone—-if I wasn’t killed first.

Waiting for the bus’ departure, sitting in one of the 70 empty seats, I was so convinced I was somehow being tricked, conned or driven off to my demise, I quietly snapped photos of the bus, its license plates, its driver and the abandoned gas station’s ramshackle surroundings, complete with a group of gruff men placing burning trash in a barrel fire nestled under the gas station’s awning.

I was alone on a bus, not completely sure I even knew where it was going.

After reviewing in my mind how I got here, and convincing myself it would take quite an elaborate scheme for this all to be a setup, I settled in my upright seat with a book, and decided the only thing to do was to wait and see what happened.

Two pages into my reading, the bus came to an abrupt stop in front of a grey building, and out of it came a group of 42 Nepalese men and a monk.  One by one they climbed the bus’ contorted staircase and after perplexed looks of disbelief to see a young tourist, with an equally confused looked on his face–tucked in the corner of the bus reading an English language book–they all proceeded to stow their bags and take their seats—including a man with freshly polished shoes and well-tailored pants, who took the seat next to me.  None of them, it seemed, spoke a word of English.

34 hours on a bus, 42 Nepalese men, a tourist and a monk.  I was either being conned or I had inadvertently walked into the opening line of a joke.

[.... Continued in Taken For A Ride | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ]

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(all images are copyright 2008 Andy Stoll, and should not be used without prior permission.)

• Leave a comment on this post below, tell us your favorite photo
• See my normal sized photos from elsewhere in Tibet
• Read a bit about my Seven Days In Tibet or read some of my short stories from Tibet.
• See some more of my photos from Japan, Beijing, Hong Kong and Vietnam

If you’re a regular reader here at noboundaries.org, you have probably figured out, I’m posting stuff in chronological order, following along the path of my trip, which began in August of 2006.

There are a couple of reason why there is a lag between when I visit a place and when I actually post about it: 1) it takes me time to write and edit the stories, process the photos, and caption the videos, as I am constantly traveling on trains, planes, cars, buses and boats, in addition to the fact that 2) its often hard to find a fast enough (and reliable) internet connection in much of the world to do such things.

To help minimize a bit of this lag, and due to popular demand (including a request from my mom) I’ve added a new ever-growing gallery onto the travelogue called Around-The-World In Photos. This is, and will continue to be, a collection of self-portraits (which I have a tendency to shy away from) of me on my trip, in which I’m doing interesting things in interesting places.

That way (mom), you can get a sense of the place I am currently in, and you can confirm that I am breathing and alive. Although you might have to wait a bit for the story about the pictures, it’ll at least show you a bit about what I am doing presently.

Bookmark the gallery (and bookmark this travelogue or add our RSS Feed if you haven’t already) and check back often, as I’ll try to add photos to this gallery regularly.

Thanks for coming along,
Andy

Key to the mosaic above: 1. Yau Ma Tei, Hong Kong, China, 2. Hong Kong Island, Hong Kong, China, 3. North Point, Hong Kong, China, 4. Shatin, Hong Kong, China., 5. Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong, China, 6. Central, Hong Kong, China, 7. Central, Hong Kong, China, 8. Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, China, 9. Beijing, China, 10. Bandling, China, 11. Tokyo, Japan, 12. Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, 13. Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, 14. Kyoto, Japan, 15. Hakone, Japan, 16. Sai Kung, Hong Kong, China, 17. China, 18. Family Photo, 19. Macau, China, 20. Xun Zhou, China, 21. Xun Zhou, China, 22. Singapore, 23. Angkor Wat, Cambodia, 24. Angkor Wat, Cambodia, 25. Near Saigon, Vietnam., 26. Near Saigon, Vietnam., 27. Vietnam, 28. Danang, Vietnam, 29. Hui An, Vietnam, 30. Hui An, Vietnam, 31. Vietnam, 32. Hue, Vietnam, 33. Hue, Vietnam, 34. Hue, Vietnam, 35. Halong Bay, Vietnam, 36. Zhongdian, China

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• See the cool web tool I used to make the above Mosaic automatically from my Flickr gallery.

I was to spend the next four days on the island.

In mainstream American newspapers and on television, not a day goes by without a story of the unprecedented growth in China. The shining, postmodern skyscrapers of Shanghai, the frantic and methodical re-birth of Beijing for the 2008 Olympics and the financial markets and shipping epicenter in Hong Kong are often splashed across front pages, web banners, and nightly news lead-ins. And, yes, China is growing (and fast) but what the media often fails to mention is that of the 1.3 billion people in China (Over 1/5 of the world’s population), only 30% live in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and other cities, while 70% of the country lives in rural farming and fishing villages—similar to the one I was now visiting.

I had been invited by my Hong Kong friend Sheena to join her family on a trip to visit her grandma in their homeland. This was an exciting chance, I figured, to get off the beaten tourist/backpacker tracks to see the “other side” of China that is rarely spoken of in the media outside of Asia. What I found, I think you’ll find very interesting, and I will try to share it with you in writing, photos and videos in this and my next few posts.

The best way to sum up the village in a few short sentences is to say that it is a place that is about 75 years behind where I come from in the US (or probably any other developed country). There is no running water, some motorized vehicles but not modern cars, and limited electricity—which they’ve only been hooked up to for less than a decade. The island appeared to subsist on fishing and basic, small-scale agriculture (rice, vegetables, grains), and there was a very obvious lack of mechanized equipment to do most things—outside of a few small trucks and scooters running with small, two-stroke engines.

But while the amenities were not as “developed” as where I come from, in no way do I mean that the people were not. The house I stayed in was a rather nice three story home, and it may not be the best representations of where most of rural Chinese people live—the family obviously had done well for themselves and were able to provide a relatively comfortable and well provided life. (Watch for a future post with a video tour of the house). And despite a lack of air conditioning (it was about 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside), having to take a shower out of a bucket (no running water), and having a limited variety of food (vegetables and lots of seafood…it was a fishing village), I think life in this particular home would be comfortable, in a relative sense.

What struck me most about the experience was that despite the lack of “modern” amenities, the lack of any English and being surrounded by foreign people in a foreign land over 10,000 miles from my home, most everything was eerily familiar. My mother’s parents were wheat farmers in rural western Nebraska (USA), and each summer we’d make an annual trip to visit them amongst the dusty bluffs overlooking the Oregon Trail and amongst cows, sheep, corn and wheat. This visit to Sheena’s grandma’s home in China, despite the obvious differences in context, had all the same ingredients. There was the long drive with eager anticipation to get their; the rowdy laughter, smiles and gift exchanges upon arrival; the crazy aunt who was always over eager to, metaphorically, “squeeze your cheeks;” the doting grandmother, the little kids running underneath the dinner table, and the eager questions from relatives about the goings on in your life. And, despite the fact I was a foreigner from a place they knew little about and I spoke a language they could not understand, they took me in like family, and they asked me lots of questions, laughed at my jokes (well, kind of), were generous with their time, and overstuffed me with food—-exactly as my grandparents had once done to me in Nebraska.

Chinese culture puts a high value on family and oftentimes it goes above all else (it even comes first when they write their names): Children live with their parents typically until they are married, grown children who work often give their parents part of their monthly paycheck, and which family you come from often can tell a lot about who you are. As we walked around the island through rice fields, fishing net shops, oyster harvesting, and village streets, I often got dubious looks as an obvious “foreigner”, and at times they would ask, “Who are you?” When I told them I were staying with the Zheng family, I was greeted with wide smiles and warm invitations. Despite my differences, I felt, in a way, part of the family, and in a home so very similar to my own grandparents on the other side of the world.

“Are you a Bush or are you a Clinton?” I later figured out was not a question with political motivations, but in fact an honest question of who I was. In China, your family often tells a lot about you, and my host, knowing only two American “families,” was asking me an honest question of where I come from. “I come from Iowa…in the United States….I said,” which may have caused The Handsome Uncle to wonder for a moment how different a place it was. I assured him and I assure you that, cultural differences aside, it’s a lot more similar than you might at first imagine.

The rooftops of Jinxua, China at sunrise.

So, I put on my best fitting running shoes, protective long pants, and of course, grabbed my camera before heading out of the door.

Then, on the way there, I stopped by Starbucks and grabbed a chai tea…venti size.

“Huh?,” you remind me, “Andy, you can’t light a chai tea on fire and throw it through a storefront window!?”

+ + +

Chinese-American relations have been on shaky ground for quite some time. In the last decade alone: an American military plane crash lands while spying on China, all ends well but the Chinese threaten to keep the plane; Americans love the “low prices” of their Chinese-manufactured goods, but then turn a blind eye when sweatshops are discovered; America need China to negotiate with North Korea to end its nuclear weapons program and everyone is buddy-buddy,but then tainted Chinese toothpaste shows up in American consumer’s bathrooms, spurring threats of US Congressional trade sanctions.

Asked by Pew Researchers in February 2006 whether they viewed China’s emergence as a world power as a “major threat, minor threat, or not a threat to the well being of the United States,” 47% of Americans saw it as a major threat, while 34% called it a minor threat (that would mean 84% of American see China as a ‘threat,’ either minor or major).

“How can the people of China support an oppressive authoritarian communist government (with an emphasis on the word ‘communist’) that doesn’t even let their people read Wikipedia!?” asks an American.

“Isn’t it hypocritical for America to mettle in our country over isolated ‘human rights violations’ that we ARE trying to clean up, when they’ve just made a total mess out of The Middle East against the wishes of the rest of the world!?” asks a Chinese.

The reality of it all is that things are a bit different then most seem to perceive based on what I’ve seen, and my experience during the pro-democracy march helps to begin to illustrate this (And my hope is that my upcoming posts about my travels in China will help me share my new found perspective on this relationship).

You see in the end its much more complicated than, ‘the kung fu masters, oppressed by the communists’ versus ‘the freedom-loving Americans’ (as many Americans often see it). And its much more than the ‘hip-hop wearing American’s with cool movies and TV, power-mungering around the world’ (as many Chinese often see it). Things on either side of the Pacific are a little bit different than most perceive.

Let’s start with Hong Kong.

As it turns out, the pro-democracy march I speak of was held July 1, 2007 in Hong Kong. Hong Kong, though officially part of China, is not really like the rest of China—but it IS China. It developed for 150 years on its own as a British colony before being handed back to the Chinese government on July 1, 1997 (10 years ago), with the requirement that the Chinese Communist Party make no changes to the laws for 50 years. (The most embarrassing thing about being an American here is that huge number of Americans who believe that Hong Kong is in Japan?….including the Oscars.)

So despite what you hear about China, Hong Kong is a bastion of freedom, consumerism, internationalism, Chinese culture, wealth, air conditioning, busy streets, sleepy cafes, wide beaches, tall skyscrapers and, often contrary to the general intuition of those who have never visited, it is home to:

• The world’s freest economy (the US is tied for third)
• The world’s most efficient subway system
• The world’s best airport (as voted in passenger surveys)
• One of the lowest tax rates of any developed country (if it were a country), at a flat rate of 15% (the US ranges from 25%-39%).
• The above mentioned tax rate with a respectable per capita income of $27,466 USD (as opposed to Mainland China’s $2,001USD and America’s $44,190 USD)
• The world’s best shopping (more Louis Viton stores than Paris, France, plus all the cheap goods from China you could ever want)
• 1.3 mobile phones/person (The US is at .74.), with one of the world’s most advanced cell phone networks
• Unfiltered internet, unlike Mainland China (so everyone can read Wikipedia, and does)
• Reportedly, the most Rolls Royce’s per capita.

Not exactly the Hong Kong you were thinking of, eh? Hong Kong has all of this, yet the citizens are not allowed to:

• Vote
• Assemble without a permit (though the law grants ‘the right to assembly,’ in theory it can be limited by the permit process, though the freedom to assemble is generally respected)

The debate to pass “universal suffrage” (i.e. one person, one vote) in Hong Kong is a complicated, long running debate, and may never find an end—right now the legislature is elected by a sort of representative democracy in which representatives of different sectors of society vote on behalf of their sector for the legislature and the head of the government. (On its surface it seems pretty fair, but there is a lot of accusations of fixing by China’s Central Government in the process.)

So Hong Konger’s have low taxes, great subways, and lots of Rolls Royces, but they can’t vote and are discouraged from mass assembly.

+ + +

All this is what had me walking down Hennessy Road on July 1st, 2007 in Hong Kong, with an empty Starbucks cup and a camera, not quite sure what I was about to see.

What I did see was between 25,000-50,000 people (depending on who you ask) of all sorts—Chinese, British, French, German, American, Filipino, young, old, fat and skinny–all marching in a four hour long protest (it was actually more of a parade than a protest) across Hong Kong Island to the government’s main offices.

What struck me most about it was that not everyone was chanting and screaming for ‘universal suffrage’—as the protest organizers had promised. Sure they had that in mind, but they also had a hundred other causes as well, from stopping “genocide” in China, to the freeing of Tibet, to domestic workers rights, to putting an end to the ill-treatment of Hong Kong’s orphaned pet population (”Hong Kong’s should adopt a ‘No-kill policy’ to pet over-population,” declared one sign). The signs were as varied as the faces of the people and though it was, at its heart, a pro-democracy march (calling for the government to give all Hong Konger’s a vote), it was really a march for much more—and I guess, that’s the point of democracy: anyone can stand up and fight for whatever they want and in any way they choose. This is a right that has not always been respected in Hong Kong’s long history, and maybe something that some of my American friends take for granted.

But coming from a small, liberal, hippie, protest-oriented town in middle America (Iowa City), a town known as the home of the university that first admitted men and woman on an equal basis, one of the first towns to have fair housing laws to allow African-Americans affordable housing, and most recently a key campus in the worldwide “Students Against Sweatshops” movement, I’ve seen a protest or two, and know how to exercise my right to assemble. The protesters in Iowa have their own causes too: “Farmers for Fair Trade Coffee,” “Iowans for Peace in Israel,” or one of my all-time favorites “Students Against Students Against Sweatshops.” In the end, everyone has their own cause and they stand up for what they want—-and in a free society, that’s the point, right?.

In the end, maybe the scenes (both in Hong Kong and Iowa) were summed up by two Europeans I caught rigging up hand-made signs on a curb as I walked across Hong Kong. Wide smiles crossed their faces as they chuckled and stretched long strips of grey duct tape on the back of a piece of ripped cardboard, taped to a bent broom pole. As they tossed the tape roll aside, exchanged glances, laughed a bit, and ran into the melee of 50,000 protestors, I was just able to make out what their sign said: Hastily written in plain black marker across their ragged piece of cardboard were the words, “Down With Evil.”

And maybe that sums up the experience best, I think we’re all against evil, however we define it, but I guess that’s also where the problem lies too, because what we may think is ‘evil,’ might actually turn out to be a lot more like us then we might at first have imagined.

See more photos from the march in my Flickr account by clicking here.

What you can do now:

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• See more of Andy’s photos from the Pro-Democracy March in my Flickr account.

• Read about Andy’s first impressions after first arriving in Hong Kong last August and Surprise #1 and Surprise #2 on my first day out of America.

• Read about Hong Kong, Japan and The Academy Awards.

• See some of Andy’s photos of Hong Kong Places

Name: Davey “Dance” Fishel

Hometown: New York City, NY USA

Where he is traveling: Europe

Davey Dance will make you smile. He is a friend of mine from college. He is traveling in Europe, is a film director, writer and editor, and he just moved out of Paris headed to an editing job in Germany. In the meantime, he’s made a really funny set of videos that involve him, an iPod, a famous landmark and an improvised dance route to a hit pop song.

From locations around Spain, France, Italy, and elsewhere Davey dances to the tunes of Tom Waits, The Postal Service, The Beatles, and even Vanilla Ice.

The results are hilarious, and you can see them all here. Below I tried to choose my favorite, but it was a tough call so I chose three: #1 (in Paris) is my selection for the the “best dance moves” category, #2 (at The Vatican) wins in the “best dance in a crowd” category, and #3 (in Barcelona) wins in the “best background extras.” Watch all the videos yourself, and comment on your favorite in the comments section of this travelogue.

Keep dancing Davey, and maybe I’ll have to submit my own dance video to your collection.

(Careful good readers, don’t click the links unless you’re ready to lose an hour of your day….)

Davey Dance Blog -6- PARIS – Katerine – “Apres Moi”

Davey Dance Blog -1- VATICAN – Tom Waits – “Chocolate Jesus”

What you can do now:

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• Suggest yourself to be featured as a future noboundaries.org “Guest Traveler” by contacting us.
• Read entries from other “Guest Travelers” featured on noboundaries.org:
  • 陈峦 – Chen Luan, a friend from Shanghai on her trip to Lugu Lake in Yunan, China.
  • Nicole Bruskewitz saving turtles and backpacking the back roads of Central
    and South America for a year.
  • Richard Bitbaba, Iranian-born adventure traveler, takes on Mt Everest.
  • Davey Dance, a travel video series I guarantee will help you lose an hour of your day.

In A Shopping Mall in Tokyo

Japanese English provides some good laughs to many foreigners, here is a case-in-point. We were waiting in a shopping mall in Japan when I came across this little translation blunder. This is a construction wall (you know the kind they put up to hide new construction, like in a shopping mall) I can’t read Japanese, but my assumption is that someone didn’t read the sign and decided to learn.

Craft Store. Shibuya District. Tokyo.

No one would argue with me that the Japanese culture is obsessed with cute things. Here is a cute little frog/alien picture frame/height measuring board for your cute kid with a “cute” idea on how to have some cute “fun”. Seems kid and adults in Japan, have similar ideas of fun.

APA Hotel Bedstand, Ita-bashi. Tokyo.

This was good for hours of laughter. As we inspected our new hotel room in Ita-bashi, we came across this little package right next to the Gideon Bible. None of us could read Japanese, but by the looks of the picture it appears that what we’re dealing with is a depressed raccoon. The raccoon is so depressed, he has decided to kill himself. Thank god the APA Hotel provides sterile suicide bags WITH directions. Seriously, click on the photo for a bigger version and look at the picture and directions, and try to figure out what this is for.

Ok, in all actuality, for those of you who are curious: Turns out this bag is meant to be used if there is a fire. Here is my take at the translation of the step-by-step instructions (you can follow along with the step-by-step photos):

* Step #1 Fill bag with air.

* Step #2 Flee the building with the bag over your head.

* Step #3 Die of asphyxiation as you stumble down the stairs as the smoke-filled hotel burns to the ground.

* Step #4 Be reincarnated as a raccoon.

After groaning and dragging ourselves out of bed, Erick and I took quick showers and made our way out to the windy brisk Tokyo morning. The cavernous streets lined with the towering skyscrapers of the Ginza District held a few passing people scampering on their way home from what appeared to be last night’s party. Otherwise the lack of cars and pedestrians stood in sharp contrast to the masses of people, vehicles, lights and noise that had greeted us a day earlier, upon our arrival in Japan.

My brother, Adam, had been living in Tokyo for the last four months, studying at Shenshu University, and he and his Japanese speaking-ability joined Erick and I for a few weeks of travel across Japan. The cast of characters also added two ladies: Jenni, my brother’s girlfriend from Omaha (USA), and Maya, a friend of mine (who incidentally is an Indian-Chinese Canadian who grew up in Atlanta, was schooled in Holland and Boston and now lives in Hong Kong). All of us arrived at the Tsukiji Fish Market as the sun just began to rise in the midst of whirring carts, reversing cargo trucks, thousands of pounds of ice, and hundreds and hundreds of unbelievably expensive raw tuna carcasses.

Tsukiji is the world’s largest wholesale fish market and one of the largest wholesale markets of any kind. Our friends at Wikipedia report that the market does about $6 billion dollars (US) of business each year. It opens each day around 3am and at 5am the tuna auction begins. Large, frozen, and hollowed tuna bodies are laid out in neat rows as busy wholesale buyers scurry between them scribbling fervently on little notepads in chicken-scratched Japanese characters. The auction process reminds me of a cattle auction that I once attended as a kid, but these tuna go for a bit more per head, around 120,000 Yen per fish (that’s about $10,000 US).

We made our way out of the auction house and into the densely packed narrow aisles that slice like a grid through literally thousands of small shops selling over 400 kinds of seafood. Yellow fish, salmon, octopus, crab, sea weed, scallops, mussels, caviar, jelly fish, snails, shrimp, sea cucumbers, tuna, star fish, and more. Slices of freshly cut tuna are eloquently laid on lit beds of translucent ice chunks, squirming eels slither in rat’s nest-like balls in white styrofoam basins and scampering live silver fish flop around in empty gray plastic tubs with their gills squeezing for their last breaths—a fish out of water, the fact that this could be foreshadowing via metaphor of my next few weeks in Japan, as a non-Japanese speaking tourist, was not entirely lost on me.

After our group split up, explored, snapped some photos, and poked a few fish ourselves, we set out to find, “The Best Sushi In The World.” It was 7am.

My brother took us to what we were told was the best sushi bar of them all, a quaint little place that sits about 12 people with four sushi chefs wielding dangerously sharp knives, cleanly slicing thin pieces of raw fish and neatly placing, rolling and squeezing them between and on top of sticky balls of vinegar and sugar-laced white rice and paper-thin sheets of dried seaweed (nori). It was 7:10am, but a line had formed in front of the door and snaked back on itself, not unlike the black eels we had just seen. We got in line and waited an hour and a half. “This better be good,” I thought, though the line this early, added to the whole argument as “The Best Sushi In The World.”

When we finally arrived at the door, we were hustled inside with some quick Japanese words. Since we had a party of 5 and the entire place only sat 12, we were separated and spread along the sushi bar. My brother had prepped us for the experience, explaining that there were many different kinds of sushi, but if we wanted a wide sampling we could order the special set that contained a variety of 12 sushi pieces. “Set-o” he taught us how to say it in Japanese to our non-English speaking chef. The cost $36 (US). I figured, “Well, when in Rome…” (”when in Tokyo,” really.) It was 8:30am.

“Set-o.” I said. The chef nodded and went to work crafting a dozen fresh pieces of sushi, setting them in front of me as a cup of steaming hot green tea landed at my spot on the bar. I was wedged with a bag on my lap and a sushi diner cramped on either side. I fumbled with my chopsticks in the tiny room, like a man does with a pool cue when the pool table is wedged in the back of a bar with a low hanging light and placed too close to the walls. We ate quickly because there was an unarticulated pressure to hurry, since the eel-like line outside was growing quickly and the raw fish fillets spread along the sushi bar weren’t getting any fresher.

The sushi was good. Was it the best in the world? I’m not sure yet. My favorite: the semi-fatty tuna roll. My least favorite/most hated: sea urchin. (Sea urchin is brownish orange, has the consistency of toothpaste, and tastes like shit. Or fish. Or fish shit.) I have been traveling for six months and the only thing I’ve had so far that I will never eat again is sea urchin. I had it in China and hated it. I had it again here, but mostly because the chef, who was standing right in front of me in a very small room, had an exceptionally sharp knife and didn’t speak any English. Thus I ate ANYTHING he put in front of me.

Nearing the end of our sushi breakfast a friendly English-speaking Japanese couple sat down next to Maya and I and struck up a conversation. The husband and wife were nice to share with us a bit about the sushi bar, what we were eating, and asked about our initial thoughts on Japan. As we were getting ready to leave the wife leaned over and asked us if we had tried a certain type of fish she had just been served, saying the name in Japanese. “Um, no,” I replied, not really understanding her. “We haven’t. What is it?” I ask nicely. The woman looked at us a bit nervous, glanced quickly to the side a few times, and using her hand to cover her mouth so her neighbors could not see, she said, “It’s…” mouthing the rest of the sentence towards us. I wasn’t able to read her lips, but as a courtesy I nodded.

“Would you like to try it? You really should,” she told us. “Well, um…” I paused.

“It is only good absolutely fresh,” she said. “And this restaurant is the only place you should get it because it is the best and the freshest,” she insisted. The line outside snaked back further and turned another corner, the crowd grew more impatient as they waited.

“Well, we couldn’t, we must get g….”I said, as she cut me off by offering up a taste. The small, white noodle-like thing slid a bit around the plate. “Well, if its the best in the world….” I said and used my chopsticks to grip the little elongated bite and put it in my mouth. It didn’t taste like much, it was a bit slimy, and tasted similar to some of the strange sushi pieces I had in my “set-o.” I asked, “What kind of fish was it again?” “White fish,” the woman assured. “White fish,” I thought. We thanked the couple, paid our bill, and slipped out of the restaurant into the early morning sunshine.

As we wedged our way between the crowd, clinging tightly to our bags, Maya poked me in the ribs, exclaiming, “I can’t believe you ate that!”

“Ate what?!” I questioned.

“The…um….from the lady,” Maya smirked.

I stopped. “What? What was it? I couldn’t read her lips, what was it?”

Maya laughed. My stomach sunk and my face dropped. “What was it!?” I demanded.

“It was….um…um…” Maya paused purposely and glanced cautiously to the side a few times, whispering so that no one might overhear, “The woman said….it was…um…. FISH SEMEN.” She smiled proudly.

The next hour was spent in search of a stomach pump and a Coke machine. In the end, I survived. The lesson here is: When in search of “The World’s Best” anything, you better damn well make sure that you actually want it.

(click the photo below to see more photos from the Tsukiji Market)

The “English name” phenomenon in China was surprising, entertaining and puzzling at the same time for me. In many parts of China (especially in Hong Kong) everyone has two names: Their Chinese name and their English name. As far as I can derive, this is for three main reasons:

1. In times gone by, an English name was a sign of status and a sign that one had been to University or been abroad.
2. In the computer age, it is often easier to type/print someone’s English name (example: “Jackie”) rather than his Chinese name (”港生” pronounced and ofter written in English as “Sing Lung”).
3. Westerners often have a difficult time pronouncing and/or remembering Chinese names. As in, its easier for us to remember Jackie Chan, rather than Chan Sing Lung(陳成龍) [in Chinese, the surname is listed first, as in this case: Chan]. As Westernization continues, there becomes a need/expectation for a western name.

Chinese people seem to choose their English name in many ways. I find it interesting that it is a rare situation in which one actually gets to choose ones own name, a privileged in America typically held for movie stars and those in the witness protection program.

Some Chinese take a lot of time to decide on their name, consulting English teachers and the like in picking their name, others seem to nonchalantly pick something that sounds good and change it just as arbitrarily. Still others try literal translations of their Chinese name, as in Zhang Chao (<- first name last), who may translated his name (chao ‘超’ literally meaning “super”), and go as Super Zhang—-in my opinion, not all too bad of a name. Others use names they they feel represent their personality as in Monkey, Turtle, or Promise. Just like Americans, some people name themselves after famous people. Since Hollywood films are so prevalent here, you may run into Tom, Brad, and Julia.

Below is a little short video on ‘Chinese English Names’ from DanweiTV, a great little blog (primarily written in English) and media group that produces videos and blogs about Chinese media, advertising and life.

So, the point of the story is: It worked. (Though any hope on that Starbucks endeavor, clearly has failed.)

One of the most difficult things for me so far in traveling is dealing with the language barriers at times, and it has been fortunate for me that English is the langua franca of the world. And I’ve come to realize how essential knowing English is to being able to operate globally. For example, in Hong Kong, you can always count on an English speaker maning the counter at Starbucks, cause how in the world do you say “venti drip vanilla double soy espresso macchiato with room con pana” in Chinese? (actually I don’t even know what I just said in English?)

Cantonese is the main language spoken here in Southern China, though English is very prevalent in Hong Kong (all street signs, subway info, most shops, and many menus are in English) so it hasn’t much prevented exploring the city, though my spoken English has had to be simplified a bit. This leads to my attempt to learn Cantonese and Mandarin, an endeavor which has proved to be quite difficult. Chinese (and its numerous dialects) is based on a tonal system, which means that the same word, depending on if your voice rises, falls, stays level, etc, as you say it, can mean entirely different things.

For example, the word in Mandarin for the number “four,” (pronounced like “si” with your voice falling as you say it), if mispronounced (as “si,” with a tone that goes down and comes back up) can instead mean, death. This of course means, that in a restaurant when flirting with the cute waitress and attempting to give her your phone number, you may instead, inadvertently, tell her to die—–which is frankly, a slightly awkward social situation to put yourself in (trust me).

Interestingly this also makes 4 an unlucky number in China, as are many numbers that end in 4, which, if also said incorrectly, can sound close to some other not so lucky phrases including: 14 (’must die’) and 24 (’easy to die’). This leads to people avoiding the number 4 when giving gifts, the removal of the fourth floor in many buildings (not all too different than American’s removal of the 13 floor), and incredibly cheap prices on mobile phone numbers involving multiple number 4’s. (9461 4444 for example). Though in reverse, mobile numbers, license plates and addresses containing lucky numbers like 8 are often auctioned off for thousands of dollars. So when speaking Chinese, it is very important to pay attention to your tones, which has been very difficult for me (and I imagine most people whose 1st language is not so tonal), and I have struggled greatly. But I am reminded that Chinese is not the most difficult language in the world, one of which I recently learned more about from a friend.

From an email from my friend Eric McDermott, who is living in Wema, South Africa and who is learning the local language of siSwati (aka Swazi or Swati) and some Zulu, which involves “clicks” among other sounds. He writes:

“To make the sound of the letter c in siSwati, you stick your tongue to the top of your mouth and then release it (kind of like the sound my Grandpa Burke would make if he was shaking his head back and forth in response to something really unfortunate happening). Zulu has the same c but also has x and q. The q is the clicking sound made by popping your tongue off the top of your mouth (that’d be what most people get from watching [the movie] The Gods Must Be Crazy – which I watched with my first family.)The x is more similar to the sound you might make to get a horse to move faster- but with more of a click to it. The ‘hle’ sound is similar to how you would pronounce an s in Spain. ‘th’ and ‘ph’ are just like p or t. All of these sounds are reasonably simple (and I like the fact that I can at least properly execute the sound on its own, since I can’t with the double-r in Spanish), but put one or two of them in the middle of a word and it gets trickier…”

Thus, if I were to order a ‘venti drip vanilla double soy espresso macchiato with room con pana’ in a Chinese owned Starbucks in Wema, South Africa, it might be easier to just ask for the #4, or, um, order a water.

Truly the Gods must be crazy.

(If you have your own language story to share, send it my way or post in the comment section below.)