I N T E R N A T I O N A L T E L E T I M E S ***** **** *** * * ***** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * **** ***** * * **** * * * * * * * ***** ***** ¥ Vol. 3 No. 3 April 1994 ¥ ------------------------------------------------------------ CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------ -- Features -- SEPERATE REALITIES: INDIA "What can a visitor hope to absorb of India in a short time? Nothing but glimpses, dancers captured in the light of a flash gun. How you see a place affects what you see, how you feel affects what you experience." - by Dr. Euan Taylor TSUKUBA: SCIENCE CITY "Founded in the 1970's, Tsukuba is amongst the newest cities in Japan, a nation in which most towns and cities have histories spanning centuries. It's also Japan's Technological capital." - by Surekha and Prasad Akella IMPRESSIONS OF THAILAND "Thai society is extremely status-conscious. Your social status depends on many factors: monetary wealth, family connections, relatedness to the royal family, religious standing, and so forth." - by Ken Ewing HAWAII PUBCRAWL "But what do you do after you've returned the snorkel gear and showered off your Goldfinger-like suit of number-137 sunscreen? Watch TV in your room?" - by Ken Eisner GUATEMALA TRAVEL NOTES "I was told of a German tourist who became so seriously dehydrated that a med-evac to Guatemala City was necessary. Once there, his passport was confiscated and a bill for $12 000 was presented for the helicopter ride." - by Brian Quinby TORONTO TO VANCOUVER BY TRAIN "Every now and then we pass a lake, completely frozen over, flat and white, smooth as a skating rink. I'd love to walk to the center of a big frozen lake like that and just sit there for a while. I'd feel like the first blot of paint on a fresh silk canvas." - by Paul Gribble -- Departments -- THE LATIN QUARTER "On the night Marcos arrived in San Cristobal, he was serenaded by women with hired guitarists outside the 16th century cathedral where he was staying. In Mexico City, women talk about spending a 'fantasy night in the jungle' with Marcos, and others have confessed to discussing their lust for the dashing leader with their psychiatrists." - by Andreas Seppelt "These are strange times for Mexico - awash in scandal, kidnappings, armed insurrection, assassinations, and swirling conspiracy theories; only four months ago it all seemed so fine." - by Andreas Seppelt KEEPERS OF LIGHT "An excellent darkroom technician, Wolchock seldom employs any tricks or manipulative techniques in his work, preferring to concentrate on strong images that present best when simply properly printed." - by Kent Barrett DEJA VU "Writing an article in a forum such as Teletimes about a topic like gun control can be quite difficult...It is the author's hope that this brief article will suggest to the reader that further inquiry is required before forming an opinion about the right to keep and bear arms." - by Gerry Roston MUSIC NOTES "Long a favorite of critics, John Hiatt has undergone a transformation from angry '70s new waver to tasteful roots rocker, all the while turning out songs that other musicians have lined up to cover." - by Jay Hipps THE WINE ENTHUSIAST "Like wine, beer is a wonderful alcoholic beverage that can have complexity, sophistication, and be a delight to the senses. Like wine as well, the majority of beer produced is made to appeal to as wide a market of consumers as possible, and because of this most beers lack the above mentioned qualities. " - by Tom Davis NEWS ROOM "Should we limit what represents 'acceptable' opinion, or are universities and colleges places where it should be possible and acceptable to express any opinion without restraint? If there are to be limits on the permissible -- what should they be and how should they be defined ?" - by Dr. Euan Taylor, Jon Gould, Paul Gribble CUISINE "Chiles are exceptionally good for you. High in vitamin C, the chile adds flavor to food without adding many calories, sodium, or fat. Poorer countries have known for years that you can feel full on less food if the food is highly spiced." - by Brian Silver ------------------------------------------------------------ EDITOR'S NOTE ------------------------------------------------------------ -- Photo Contest! -- Welcome to the 16th issue of International Teletimes. It's my pleasure to announce the first annual Teletimes Photography Contest, PHOTON '94! Kent Barrett, our Photography columnist, along with a couple of other well known Vancouver photographers, will be judging the photos. Winners to be announced in the July '94 issue. Prizes have not yet been finalized, although we are guaranteeing a colour Teletimes tee-shirt to the winner in each category. Cash prizes are a possibility if we get sufficient entries. The deadline for entries is May 31st. For more details, see the official information sheet and entry form at the end of this issue. Stay tuned for new developments. I'd like to ask all of our readers to help us promote this contest by downloading the Photon '94 poster from our FTP site, printing it out, and distributing copies to photography stores and other such places in your area. The poster consists of two postscript files (front and back) and can be found at ftp.wimsey.com in the /pub/photon_94 directory. We would greatly appreciate your help. One last thing before I let you go on to read the rest of the issue. I'd like to welcome Ken Eisner aboard Teletimes. Ken is a writer from the Georgia Straight, a Vancouver Weekly newspaper who will be running a new Arts & Entertainment here in Teletimes, starting May '94. You can see his article, Hawaii Pubcrawl, in this issue (Features). Ian Wojtowicz Editor-in-Chief ------------------------------------------------------------ MAILBOX ------------------------------------------------------------ -- Los Ego-Boosters -- You are setting a high standard for electronic zines! Keep up the good work. Also, it is nice to see that your subject matter is not restricted to topics that would be, stereotypically, of interest only to net junkies. - Seth R. Trotz, Brookline, MA, USA This is great -- I really enjoyed the editorial content, the style, and the inline art (the Gallery show and interview). KEEP IT UP. This is the future of on-line journalism. - Andrew Shaindlin THANKS GUYS. WE LOVE ENCOURAGEMENT! LOOK FOR SOME GREAT IMPROVEMENTS IN THE MONTHS TO COME... -- A True Teletimes Fan -- Last month, Martin Janzen became the first reader to donate money to Teletimes. We'd like to thank him publicly and let everyone know that donations are being saved up to be reinvested into the magazine (ie: eventually paying contributors, photo contest prizes...) THANKS MARTIN!!! (Donation information is provided in the Teletimes Staff/Info section.) On Wed, 16 Mar 94, Martin Janzen writes: For WWW readers it'd be nice to get an e-mail message saying that the new issue is available, without getting all 1600+ lines of the email version... GOOD SUGGESTION. I'VE NOW CREATED A MAILING LIST FOR WWW READERS. IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON THE WEB AND WOULD LIKE TO GET NOTICES OF NEW ISSUES, MAIL ME AT EDITOR@TELETIMES.COM AND I'LL PUT YOU ON THE LIST. ------------------------------------------------------------ FEATURES ------------------------------------------------------------ -- Separate Realities: India -- You can see a lot of a place without really seeing anything, or see very little of it and still see a great deal. This was brought forcibly home to me by a recent trip to India. I spent just over a week in Rajasthan, travelling, living cheaply, seeing things that tourists see. One face of India. The second half of my stay was spent in and around Delhi to see two of my friends (both Indian) get married. Suddenly, I was face to face with (one part of) the real India, not a posed photo, not a cardboard cut out for the foreigner, not an image from years ago. For the first time I felt myself in a fundamentally different place. What can a visitor hope to absorb of India in a short time? Nothing but glimpses, dancers captured in the light of a flash gun. How you see a place affects what you see, how you feel affects what you experience. India can be a very cheap place to visit, how much you spend can be however much you want, it depends on your tastes. The biggest problem with India and the arrival in Delhi is the shock of the new. If you are thinking of going (and I strongly recommend it) then make a hotel booking for the first night before you arrive, and don't worry too much if you are getting ripped off by the taxi driver that first day. Try and get out of Delhi the first full day, get a train to Jaipur, or Jodhpur, or just somewhere else and save Delhi for another time. (Speaking for myself, I hated Delhi when I arrived, but when I went back a week later it was a wonderful, vibrant place. I had changed, not Delhi.) In Jaiselmer stay in the walled city if you can do it. By all means take a camel safari but don't book one until you have looked around at the prices. Some travel guides say you should take a full 4 days of camel safari to see the desert etc. For me, once you have seen the desert, it is not especially interesting, the scenery is quite repetitive, and riding a camel is very uncomfortable. The only people I met who really, unreservedly, enjoyed their desert trip had just hired a motor bike for the day and buzzed off alone. In general, be prepared for the slowness of things in India, if you keep looking at your watch and worrying about your schedule you'll go nuts. Don't be surprised or unduly worried by long pauses, or painfully slow progress on the roads and railways, it is normal. Also stay away from anything run by the official government tourist agency. If you want to go to the Taj Mahal do not take a bus trip from Delhi, take the daily express train to and from Agra. It is cheaper, much quicker, gives you much more time and freedom to look around, and gets you back to Delhi hours earlier. That's it for my tourist bit, now what about India? During my "holiday" I barely scratched the surface of India. As a tourist I never felt as if I was in India, just looking at it. A week later I had begun to see beneath the skin of this wonderful land and its culture, it was a different place from the one I had just visited. When I was a guest, my experience was undoubtedly shaped by the attentions and deference of my hosts although they eventually started to relax a little (and so did I). But several things have rooted in my mind: -- In general, the shop keepers the taxi drivers, the officials, and practically everyone with any publicly displayed reponsibility was a man. Having said that, in my friends family there were several daughters, one a hospital doctor, one a scientist (doing her Ph.D.) in North America. However much one may generalise, it is important to realise that things are always changing. -- The coffee (which I was offered every ten minutes) was very milky, very sweet and quite weak. It seemed perfectly natural and normal in India but if I was offered it here I'd probably spit it out. The things going on around you can deeply affect what you find acceptable and even pleasant. -- Hand shaking. Having once been introduced to people at the house (guests, relatives etc.), every time I ran into them they would make a point of shaking hands and saying hello. I got used to it, but the apparent formality of it made me extremely uncomfortable for a few days. -- Servants. In a moderately well off household, middle class, not too fancy by western standards, people frequently have servants. In fact, they may lack many of the "modern conveniences" many of us take for granted (like a dish washer, a stereo system, a coffee maker, a home computer or whatever). But they are more likely to have servants, to do the washing, the ironing, the cooking, maybe even the driving. Human labour is cheaper and easier to obtain than many other things and it keeps a lot of Indians employed. -- Kindness and friendliness. I was overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity (I mean social rather than financial) of my friends' families. I had begun to accept India as a rough, dirty, aggressive, tiresome place, but now I found it warm, relaxed, friendly and sophisticated. It was suddenly a wonderfully enriching and uplifting experience to simply be there amongst these people. (And yes being with a well off family must have helped to shape that perception.) -- Indian society is very different from North American (in general). Parents and adults and older people are generally more respected. Marriage, children, and a decision to suit the family are much more expected and normal than might be the case here. It was particularly sobering to encounter the real differences in how Indians saw their society. Some thought that it was a privilege to be a good son/daughter, a fulfilment, a service to others to bring up children, get them married, have grand-children, etc. Some saw merely a cycle of dependency, look after your kids, teach them to be dependent on you until they get married and have job, then they will teach their children to be dependent and therefore obedient. Is the bottle half full, or is it half empty? -- Richness. From my place as guest and friend in a relatively very well off family, the dirty, squalid, crowded, noisy, disorganised society of Delhi appeared entirely different. From that point of view it was exciting, alive, interesting, vivid, striking, almost intoxicating. My final feeling (which may pass) is that there is no such thing as the truth about any country. There are only points of view. I don't mean anything so trivial sounding as "different opinions," I mean real substantive differences in nature of reality depending on the situation from which you see a thing. The true situation, the true nature of society, real life, are all subjective (to a large extent). Despite the incredulity of some of the more narrow minded people around here, I understand why my friends are so homesick for that country, why it is home, and this place is not. I have always understoood homesickness in an intellectual sense of course, though never really felt it. Now I have seen two people I know quite well in the North American environment slip so comfortably and easily and naturally into a place in a fundamentally different life in a society whose conceptual basis is different from mine. Now I see them perhaps with slightly different eyes because I have seen some of the forces which have shaped them. I understand in my stomach what they miss (even if I could never feel at home there). - Dr. Euan Taylor, Winnipeg, Canada etaylor@cc.umanitoba.ca -- Tsukuba Science City: The City of the Future? -- The chances are that you have not heard of Tsukuba (Science City). We don't blame you, many Japanese haven't even heard of it! In fact, when we first moved to Tsukuba from Palo Alto, California, we were certain that the travel books we had read were written by people who had never set foot in Japan. After all, weren't the roads nice and wide? and straight? and tree lined? Where was the amazing public transport system that had been so eloquently described? The beautiful, old temples and castles? The ladies in bright kimonos? Could it be that we were back in the United States? Well, not quite. Founded in the 1970's, Tsukuba is amongst the newest cities in Japan, a nation in which most towns and cities have histories spanning centuries. It's also Japan's Technological capital. Until the 70's, most of the Japanese national labs (run by either the infamous Ministry for International Trade and Industry, MITI, or by the Science and Technology Agency of Japan) were located in the Tokyo metropolitan area. With the growth of the Japanese economy, and the realization that it was time to start generating the ideas in addition to the products engineered elsewhere in the world, the national government decided that it was time to expand these labs. It was also decided that the labs should be located close to each other so as to foster inter-disciplinary work. To relocate a dozen labs to a spacious campus, which are home to a few thousand researchers, was quite a challenge. As almost everyone knows, the cost of real estate in Tokyo is astronomical. So, rather than spend a fortune trying to find room in Tokyo, someone decided that it was time to build a new city. The rest is history. Tsukuba was placed bang in the middle of a little pine forest and some paddy fields, about 60 kilometers north of Tokyo. (The pine forest was the only contiguous piece of land available within a reasonable distance of Tokyo.) While the labs started moving out from the late 70's, Tsukuba was formally inaugurated in 1985 when the World Expo was held here. In one of the inaugural shows, a wonderful anthropomorphic robot from the Waseda University grabbed the attention of the visitors. This humanoid played the piano along with an entire orchestra in a concert! Having labored to build similar machines, I was extremely impressed -- even after I visited Waseda and heard that an army (50-100) of graduate students had hand coded every motion that the poor robot made. The infrastructure that was set up for the Expo became the basis for the Science City. Today, Tsukuba is home to about 170 000 people associated with about 50 government labs, about 50 corporate R & D labs and a couple of national universities. (Depending on who is counting, and what the criteria are, I have seen numbers of up to 190 labs!) By bringing in the multi-nationals along side the Japanese corporate and national labs, it was hoped that Tsukuba could become another Cambridge or Palo Alto. The unstated hope was that the Nobel prizes would start flowing in once people settled into this intellectual atmosphere. Reality, sadly, is quite different from this wonderful dream. What has resulted is an interesting mix of good and bad. At the positive end is the variety of excellent labs of international stature located in town while at the negative end is the fact that folks here do not really believe in collaborations. For the Japanophiles reading this article, we suggest that you take a look at an interesting volume of the magazine, "Science" [see end of article] for details on the Tsukuba area, on the national and corporate labs in the city, and on MITI's role. A city which was founded as far back as 20 years ago does not really provide one with much to talk about. So we shall only briefly touch upon the life here. Unlike most cities in Japan which are unplanned, Tsukuba is a planned city. A consequence of this is that there is a campus-like feeling. Architecture is fairly standard (brick and glass construction in the MITI campus). Buildings are separated by paddy fields and open spaces. The city itself is large, spanning five smaller cities that were combined to form the new city. However, the core of the city is small -- it takes less than a half hour to ride through the main part of town! As the public transport system is almost nonexistent, bikes are a common mode of transport. Of particular interest is that fact that the poor public transport system has spawned off a Silicon Valley-like atmosphere where almost everyone drives around. The wide roads have spawned off their own sub-cultures amongst the more lively kids. One bunch, called the "bozozukas," attempt to vent their feelings by removing the silencers on their Harley-Davidsons and Hondas and thereafter proceeding to blast the neighborhoods with the deep roar of their powerful engines. Another group meets every Friday and Saturday night for a most interesting "you- stay-in-your-car-while-I-stay-in-mine" dating (mating?) drama. They cruise down the road in two's, talking across open windows. Things are so different in Tsukuba that we have had Japanese friends come up from the more traditional Kyoto and Osaka areas, only to shake their heads and wonder if they were in Japan or in the US! We find this bizarre mix of new and old to be most fascinating. So, if you are looking for a place to relax in and to mix with the people who are striving to have something to do with the future of mankind, while not having to mess around with the bustle of Tokyo...Tsukuba is for you! If you do decide to head to these parts, remember to give us a call! We might even show you around... - Surekha and Prasad Akella, Tsukuba, Japan prasad@mel.go.jp Sources "Science in Japan," Science, Volume 258, 23 October 1992. -- Impressions of Thailand -- In 1992 we spent two weeks in Thailand as part of a South East Asia trip. We spent one week in Bangkok and one week in the North, around the city of Chiang Mai. The following article describes some of my impressions of Thai culture. Every few years I get to take an exotic trip somewhere in the world. I usually travel with friends and we create our own itinerary. Packaged tours have their place, but I prefer the adventure of finding my own way around. I typically spend up to a year studying about a country before going. I like the sense of adventure and challenge that comes from finding my way around a strange, exotic place. I always embark on a trip with a bit of a fantasy of being like James Bond starting a mission. A Few Cultural Points One main point of Thai culture is the idea of status. Thai society is extremely status-conscious. Your social status depends on many factors: monetary wealth, family connections, relatedness to the royal family, religious standing, and so forth. Personal interactions follow a rather strict protocol depending on the relative difference of social status between two people (most of this protocol goes completely unnoticed to foreigners). The Thai language has something like 28 different words for the pronoun "you" to be used between differing levels of status (i.e.; depending on whether you are talking to someone of higher status, lower status, and greater or lesser differentials of either, or if you don't know the status of the other). Another dominant point of Thai culture is what we might call a strong element of superstition. For millennia the Thai people believed that innumerable spirits populated the land. These spirits (which are generally unpredictable) can favorably or unfavorably affect the lives of people. With this in mind, it becomes important to appease these spirits and avoid offending them. At least in some measure, you still find this kind of belief in Thai culture. And if this belief is not exactly literal, it is at least figurative or latent in that Thai culture is extremely conscious of fate and luck. Astrologers and fortune tellers are ubiquitous in Thailand. There also are numerous national lotteries, and one dominant cultural characteristic in Thailand is the constant search for the "lucky break." People The Thai people are exceptionally friendly, so much so that after a while you begin to distrust it (as if you were being set up for something). Occasionally you might really be set up -- I got my pocket picked on my last day in Bangkok. Oftentimes I think that the Thai people see a Westerner and just want to practice their English. You will be walking down the street and someone will just start talking to you as if they know you well. It can be fun, but it also can be so incessant as to become bothersome after a day or two. Some Practical Points The monetary unit in Thailand is the Baht (abbreviated "B"). The exchange rate is about 25:1 (i.e.; 1 B equals around 4 cents US). My trick was to remember that 100 B equals US$4.00. A map of Bangkok is a must. There are some good tourist maps that list interesting things to see. They are also good for overcoming language barriers with taxi drivers, bus attendants, etc. Your hotel or guest house probably sells maps, but if not, there are lots of bookstores around town. One of the most important rules for Bangkok is DICKER ON THE PRICE BEFORE DOING ANYTHING! Except for the bigger stores, most prices are haggled. This includes taxis, tuk-tuks, street markets, food stands, etc. Especially before riding a taxi, tuk-tuk, or long-tailed boat, ABSOLUTELY AGREE ON A PRICE BEFORE GETTING IN. Transportation There are numerous ways to get around town in Bangkok. Taxis are the most luxurious mode, relatively speaking. Some are air conditioned, some are not. 50 B will take you pretty much anywhere in the downtown area. Tuk-tuks are a tradition in Thailand. These are three-wheeled, two-stroke motorcycles with a canopy over the back. Ex-kamikazes drive them. They are generally cheaper than taxis, but they are open-air vehicles that spew clouds of blue exhaust. Busses are fairly easy to figure out. There are bus maps at all the stops. The busses cost 4-7 B. For water transportation, there are three kinds of boats: water ferries (which simply go across the river), express boats (which travel up and down the river), and long-tail boats (which are the "taxi cabs" of the river and canals). For the water ferries and express boats, you pay at a ticket counter on the dock (1 B for the water ferries, 4-7 B for the express boat). For the long-tail boats, dicker for the price. Food Of all the oriental cuisines, Thai has always been my favorite. And I must say, the one thing that I most missed when I left Thailand was the food! Even an average Mom-and- Pop foodcart on a street corner had the best-tasting Thai food I've ever had. Thai restaurants in the US just don't seem the same to me anymore. All the travel books warn about the food and drink in Thailand, and rightfully so. The books warn against eating from any street vendor. After a few days we regularly ate from the street carts, and we never got sick. Actually, you are more likely to get sick from the dishes than from the food, since the dishes might be washed in the local water. As a rule, you should avoid drinking any water or fluids that don't come from a sealed container. Avoid foods that could have been washed in water (such as salads, fruits, etc., although fruits that can be peeled, like oranges and bananas, are OK). Also avoid foods that have been sitting out for long periods of time. In general, we thought we could judge if a given food stand was okay. The ones we ate from seemed to have fresh food that was made daily. Also, if you really get desperate, there are plenty of McDonald's, Arby's, and the like (the ice and the soft drinks in these places were safe). Religion and Culture Religion is an overwhelmingly dominant characteristic of Thai culture. You cannot understand Thai culture without becoming acquainted with the religious heritage of the country, which revolves around Buddhism. Buddhism came to Thailand around the 12th century when Buddhist missionaries traveled there from Sri Lanka. Thailand today is one of the most thoroughly Buddhist nations in the world (95% of the population). The country has 30 000 temples (450 in Bangkok, 300 in Chiang Mai). Thai Buddhism incorporates many of the animist beliefs that were prevalent before Buddhism came (such as beliefs in spirits of the land and the household). The result is a unique religious mix that sets Thai Buddhism apart from Buddhism in other countries. For example, everywhere you go in Thailand, you see what look like fancy birdhouses in front of buildings. Some of these "birdhouses" are very ornate, like miniature temples. In reality, these are "spirit houses." One characteristic of these spirits is that they are very capricious and easily offended. A big part of the culture for centuries has been to appease these spirits and avoid offending them. One way of doing this is to keep them away from you, especially out of your house. But how do you get spirits out of your house? Answer: build them a house of their own, of course. But how do you guarantee that they will leave your house and go to the spirit house? Answer: make the spirit house "better" than your house. You also want to make sure the spirits know you have not forgotten them (they might be offended), so you leave little offerings (food, flowers, incense) at the spirit house from time to time. The highest-ranking social class in Thailand is the Buddhist monk. (The King ranks #2 behind the lowliest monk.) For this reason, there are many rules for social propriety when around the monks and temples. For example, when in a temple, never sit in a lotus position. This is the position that the monks sit in, and for a layman to sit in this position is to say that you are equal in status to the monk. (The proper way to sit is to bend down with your knees to the floor, knees together, sitting on the heels of your feet, with your feet pointed behind you.) If a monk approaches you at a temple, a Thai Buddhist will bow down three times with his face to the floor (the symbolic meaning is that the layman's head is lower than the feet of the monk). Monks live a very simple lifestyle. They are forbidden to have money. They live in very austere quarters. They have very few possessions, mainly consisting of their saffron robe and a food plate. Monks are allowed to have at most only two meals a day: one at daybreak and one at midday. The midday meal must be completed before noon, after which the monk may not eat again until daybreak the next day. If you rise early (around 6:00 AM or so), you will see the monks wandering the streets gathering their food for the day. In Thai culture a monk collects his food from the people. He wanders the area with his food plate (which looks like a large pie plate) and the people bring food items and put them into the plate. When the plate is full, the monk has collected his food for that day. Here in the West we might look on this practice as freeloading, but in Thailand it is seen as a service. Buddhism in Thailand (unlike the philosophical varieties that I have heard described in the US) is an elaborate system of "works righteousness" (i.e.; it consists of rituals and deeds designed to acquire heavenly merit.) One way for a layman to gain heavenly merit is to give food to the monks. So, by wandering around early in the morning, the monks are providing a service to the people by giving them an opportunity to gain heavenly merit. One of the biggest ways to acquire heavenly merit is to become a monk. Thai men are not required to become monks during their lives, but they are strongly encouraged. The minimum "tour of duty" is one rainy season (about 1-3 months -- my sources differ on the exact duration). To become a monk, you must be a man (most men who become monks do so around age 20). There is a ordination that takes place in July (the beginning of the rainy season). You must vow to obey 227 rules of conduct, including poverty, chastity, etc. You can choose to remain a monk for as long as you want after the minimum stay. In the Buddhist scheme, becoming a monk not only gives merit to the man, but also to the man's whole family. Hence you see mothers urging their sons to become monks so that the whole family can benefit. Thai women can become Buddhist "nuns", but this does not carry the same status (or heavenly merit) that comes from being a monk. Buddhist temples are fabulously ornate. They usually contain many gold images of the Buddha in any of five postures (two in a lotus position, two standing, and one reclining -- each posture has a particular significance). Conduct inside a temple is often different from a Westerner's expectation. Particularly, we tend to equate a Buddhist temple with a Christian church. The significant difference is that the Christian church service is a corporate affair, where the people assembled participate as a group. In the Buddhist temple, though, the worshipers are very individualistic. Each person is carrying out an individual ritual strictly for himself or herself, so you can walk around, watch, engage in conversation, etc. (i.e.; without seeking to be arrogant or obnoxious) and you will not be intruding upon the activities around you. A typical Buddhist ritual consists of the individual bringing (or buying) some incense sticks, candles, and a piece of gold leaf. The worshipper bows down before the Buddha statue, engages is some ritualistic prayers while shaking the incense sticks, then lights the incense and the candles, makes his or her requests to Buddha, then finishes by applying the gold leaf onto the Buddha statue. Requests might be for such things as a good mate, success in business, winning the lottery, or some other kind of good luck. Redlight Districts Bangkok is world-famous for its redlight districts. Sex is an outright industry in Thailand. Our guest house happened to be two blocks from Patpong, one of the famous districts from the Vietnam era. Virtually anywhere in Bangkok you can get pestered about the sex parlors, but this especially happens near the redlight districts. The parlors employ people to stand out on the sidewalks and solicit customers. Particularly if they see a Westerner, they walk up and begin their pitch: "What you looking for?" "Wanna massage? Wanna massage?" "Nice girls! Nice girls!" If they stick with you long enough, they will even pull out their color glossy brochure about their sex parlor. The unfortunate reality is that many of the girls in the parlors are only teenagers (as young as 13). Many of them are from country farms where the family needs money so the father basically sells his daughter into slavery. In addition, about 70-80% of the girls are HIV positive. Thailand today is one of the worst hotbeds for AIDS in the whole world. It's not just risky to indulge in the sex parlors, it's a virtually assured infection. Final note Thailand is a fascinating, exotic, exciting place, but it's also very wearing. Throughout my time there, I never once felt in any kind of physical danger (and we walked all over, city and country, at all hours of the day). But, strangely enough, at no time did I have the feeling I could let my guard down. Particularly in Bangkok, the place never rests. There is the air pollution...the incessant activity...the traffic...being hounded by tuk-tuk drivers...being approached by street vendors...can I eat or drink this?...dickering the price for everything. By the time we left, we were both mentally exhausted. We are both experienced world travelers, but the culture shock still got to us. I am glad I went, but I will have to take a good long rest before I go back. - Ken Ewing, Beaverton, Oregon, USA kene@sequent.com -- Hawaii Pubcrawl -- The beach rules. Don't look for any arguments here. But what do you do after you've returned the snorkel gear and showered off your Goldfinger-like suit of number-137 sunscreen? Watch TV in your room? Or go catch Charo in the non-stop Polynesian follies at the Hilton (Don't worry: she has a contractual clause allowing Joan Collins to step in if she gets too old to perform her duties). I like Hawaii during the annual International Film Festival, in mid- November, but when some die-hard urbanites switch cities, they find cinema-going too passive, preferring an environment which serves up live music with a decent daiquiri. The Don Ho virus is rampant throughout the islands -- years of forced "hospitality" and a sentimental strain in their traditional music have made the Holiday Inn croon endemic to even the best Hawaiian singers -- but it's possible to step off the tourist-trampled path and find a vital, if slightly undernourished, alternative music scene in Honolulu. To answer your first inevitable question: yes, plaid has come to Hawaii! While surfwear still dominates club-going garb, it's not unusual to see leather jackets, flip-flops, and a knee-length lumberjack shirt on the same college-age person. (This isn't as absurd as the tropical climate would suggest, considering how frigid the buses and restaurants are kept. Which seems to suit Doc Martens-togged 20-year- olds who peer out their windows and, at the first hint of rain, dream of exotic Seattle.) I was surprised at the number of name acts in town: Ladysmith Black Mambazzo, KRS-One, Fishbone, and the Violent Femmes were gigging at small-hall or outdoor concerts. Suicidal Tendencies was at After Dark, an industrial-style club on the Nimitz Highway; and C-5, on isolated Sand Island, had scored Babes in Toyland. Still, I wanted to check out the local angle. Much of the obvious nightlife in Honolulu is centred in that thumb-shaped lozenge of hotel towers and fluffy white beaches called Waikiki -- familiar to millions, if only from reruns of Hawaii 5-0 and Magnum P.I. Waikiki is cut off from the rest of the city by the Ala Wai Canal, and its choicest hunk of real estate, smack in the middle, is still inhabited by the U.S. military (standing ready since 1893). This makes for a rather hemmed-in stroll for trinket-hunting visitors; after a few days, it's easy to feel like fish in a large circular aquarium. There are no footbridges across the canal, and this is most certainly a tourist-corralling device. But most of the beachfront entertainment is of the hotel-lounge variety, and if you want to get away from the Pukalani Brothers's slack-key version of "Feelings", a good place to start is the small university district. The number 4 bus zigzags across the canal and winds uphill to the University of Hawaii. The stop across from the Varsity Theater (the film fest's flagwaver) lands you in front of Moose McGillycuddy's, a dark-wood, top-40 joint much like college suds-barns everywhere. Notably, though, it hosts a once-a-month, all-night blowout with about a dozen local bands. I prefer a few at a time, and about two long blocks west on main-drag Beretania Street is Anna Bannana's. A beat-up club with an amiably split personality, its lower level is a classic biker's bar, with pool tables, surly bartenders, and Bud on tap; upstairs, a coterie of local bands, like Melodious Thunk and the metalheaded Poynt Blankk, play for students. The night I went, multi-race/gender house favourites Pagan Babies were holding forth with their impressively versatile (if slightly synthetic) blend of world beat, funk, and jazz-rock styles; the cluttered, multilevel room was rocking with serious dance-itude. Moving further east, just before the Diamond Head area, is Kapahulu Avenue, a long strip of T-shirt shops and good restaurants. In the middle is the Java Java Cafe, a plain- looking deli which favours bagel dishes and black-clad existentialists. Up some vaguely defined back stairs, I found a door, oddly marked "Lost Lizard", behind which a terrific jazz group called Money, Sax & Power was cutting loose in a Coltrane vein, while scattered patrons sipping non-alcoholic beverages sat uncomfortably on folding chairs. Java Java has since closed this room, staging occasional jazz and poetry performances in the deli proper until it can expand into larger premises (two similarly jazz-minded coffeehouses are called, appropriately, Cappuccino's and Tri Espresso). Found far west down the ocean-side Ala Moana Boulevard, at the end of a nondescript mall-strip known as Restaurant Row, is the Blue Zebra, an airy, L-shaped room with good acoustics and a reputation for encouraging class jazz acts. My first encounter, though, yielded a rather desultory blues band, complete with hats and shades. When Dan Aykroyd didn't show up, I took off, but a few nights later, the club hosted a sparkling piano trio (there were international jazz acts at the nearby Honolulu Academy of Arts, which also features local classical and new music events). Also in the Row, Rex's Black Orchid is home to numerous hardcore bands, like Action Figures, Cache, and the unforgettably named Two Guys and Two Girls. Further into a residential neighbourhood close by, I discovered My Favorite Eggplant, a cavernous warehouse space recognizable only because of a red light blinking over a huge crack carved in one cement face. Inside, disconsolate teenagers stared at snowy TV screens and faux Greek columns, or danced, semi- moshingly, to a reggae-grunge band called Red Sessions. The gaggle of New York film-makers I dragged there grumbled at having to settle for power shakes at the all-ages bar. They've since had their revenge: the joint recently closed, and is now searching for a less neighbour-annoying location. Ironically, the most fun I had was around the corner from my hotel, at the Wave Waikiki. A steamy, windowless box only a few blocks from the beach, the Wave is frequented by guys in Gold's Gym tank-tops, and the odd pack of miniskirted women practising their model pouts as they make a bee-line for the washroom or mezzanine above the stage. I went on a Tuesday, which offers local favourites, and I was lucky enough to encounter two great bands: Elvis '77, a Soundgarden-type noise trio driven by a twin-pigtailed drummer; and the Love Gods, an exceptionally tuneful quintet boasting inventive, REM-ish songs from frontman James Figueira and g-spot guitarist Porter Miller Ñ they were the one group I saw with breakout potential. Of course, my judgement could have been flawed, since Tuesday is also "bucket night"; I didn't realize my scotches were actually triples until a waiter politely asked me down from my bar stool, adding that I could stop cheering the band -- the house had already been playing videos for five minutes. Access The best way around Waikiki is on foot or better yet, by bicycles, widely available for rental. Buses are cheap, if not quite plentiful enough, at 85 cents a ride Ñ less for students! Taxis are needed for Restaurant Row, Sand Island, and other outer limits, and are reasonable by mainland standards. Here are some venue locations (808 is the area code for the whole state): Moose McGillycuddy's Waikiki, 1035 University Avenue, 944- 5525 Anna Bannana's, 2440 S. Beretania Street, 964-5190 Java Java Cafe, 760 Kapahulu Street, 923-9952. Blue Zebra, 500 Ala Moana Boulevard, 538-0409 Honolulu Academy of Arts, 900 S. Beretania Street, 532-8768 The Wave Waikiki, 1877 Kalakaua Avenue, 941-0424 For event listings, listen to KPOI 97.5 FM (The Edge) and KIPO 89.3 FM (Hawaii Public Radio, which actually plays CBC news on Sundays), or pick up the Honolulu Weekly, Metropolis music magazine, and Artbeat, a hip bi-monthly newspaper. - Ken Eisner, Vancouver, Canada -- Guatemala Travel Notes -- I have just returned (January 6th) from Guatemala. Here are some travel notes I wrote: The war in Chiapas (Mexico) is going to cause problems for people who want to travel off the beaten track in Peten. The Guatemalan military is increasing its activity along the border and is paranoid about gringos given the Mexican government's assertion that "foreigners" are involved in the revolt. When I flew into Flores, there was so much military activity, it looked like the opening scene from the Oliver Stone film, Platoon. Beware of Tikal Jets. I encountered many people who had complaints...overbooking, overselling and selling tickets on flights that simply didn't exist. In Flores, Hotel Yum Kax is a perfectly good place to stay. Doubles with ceiling fan run $19 per night. Air conditioning is about $4 more but not worth the noise. No hot water but in the jungle, who needs it. The hotel has a swimming pool which is nice and the staff are very eager to please. At the airport, I was quoted 100 Quetzals for the trip to Tikal. At Yum Kax it was 30. The hotel ran vans at 4 am (for the cosmic folks who want to see the sunrise) and at 7 am (for the more laid back types.) For those who don't understand what happens to the human body when it is very hot and humid, let me explain: you become dehydrated. If you go to Tikal, bring bottled water with you. I was told of a German tourist who became so seriously dehydrated that a med-evac to Guatemala City was necessary. Once there, his passport was confiscated and a bill for $12 000 was presented for the helicopter ride. In Panajachel, I stayed at the Cacique Inn. Adela Schuman (a wonderful woman whose age I won't hazard a guess at) runs the wonderful hotel. $50 per night for a double. El Dragon is a superb restaurant for dinner (22 to 27/Q) and the Deli has great cappucino and eggs benidict (17/Q). In Guatemala City, Hotel Excell (9a Ave & 15 Calle in Zone 1) is a great bargin at 95/Q per night. They have a car park that is secure. Rooms are large, they include a TV -- but no cable -- and have ample hot water from the little heaters on the end of the pipe. Restaurant Gran Central (across the street from the Excell) serves excellant Peruvian food at very low prices and also is very international at night. When I was there (December 18th to January 5th) the Quetzal averaged 5.78 per dollar at the bank, and about 5.85 on the street. One final note: Guatemala now seems to be more of a drug market than a transit point. I received more offers on the street to purchase marijuanna from Belize than ever before. Rumor has it that the product is of high quality but the reality is that Guatemalan jails are are not worth the hassle. - Brian Quinby, Aurora, Illinois, USA quinby@imsa.edu -- Toronto to Vancouver by Train: Paul Gribble's Journal -- I'm twenty two years old and I've just had a spontaneous pneumothorax ("doctorese" for a lung which spontaneously decided to collapse). Yeah, I may be complaining, but I should be dead. I was blacklisted by my chromosomes. Charles Darwin gave me the thumbs down; Natural Selection gave me the finger. Why have we slowed down to 5 miles per hour? I don't mean society, I mean the train. I'm on a train -- the "VIA-1 Canadian" train from Toronto to Vancouver. Oh good, it's speeding up again. I've been on it for about six hours now, and I'll be on it for another 77 hours. Maybe I should carve out the hours on my bathroom wall... Maybe they'd leave me to rot in Winnipeg with my surgical scars and my Powerbook. I suppose any risk of the lung re-collapsing is not a risk worth taking. Dr. Ergina sandpapered the outside of my lung, then sandpapered the inside of my chest wall, then slapped them together like bologna and mustard on rye (ooh, I think it's dinner time soon). He thinks the changes in air pressure inside of an airplane might rip them apart before they get a chance to bond like crazy glue. I certainly wouldn't want to have to press the call-button on my aisle seat and ask the stewardess if she happened to have a scalpel and a chest-tube on board the aircraft. I can't help thinking about that M*A*S*H episode where Radar has to do a tracheotomy with a pocket knife and a fountain pen. I suppose I'd have to use the tubing from the pneumatic headphones -- that is, if they haven't switched to electronic ones yet. Yes, I think it's dinner time now. Maybe I'll meet some interesting and amiable people in the dining car and have a friendly, comfortable conversation about recently cherished events. Maybe I'll sit in front of vile, smelly yobs who blow cigar smoke in my face and jeer about the waves in my hair. Maybe I'll sit alone and stare out the window. That may be the most interesting option. Yum. I think I'll just eat the cheesecake from now on. The halibut was bland. I think they have some sort of rule about clustering people together at tables -- preventing people from sitting alone. I sat with a woman and her adult son (Betty and Bill) and this guy from Brockville, Ontario. Betty and Bill are from Vermont. She seemed sweet, he seemed like an overgrown hippie. They're going to Vancouver, and then to Portland; they say that the equivalent Amtrak route through the US sucks big-time, that it's boring and the train is in terrible condition. It made me proud for a second that two Americans would come to Canada to make their trans-continental journey. After dinner I went back to my "bedroom" berth. It reminds me of a hotel room I had in Japan last summer. The hotel room was bigger -- but not by much. Here, at least the view changes. There's a sign above the faucets by the sink that says "Undrinkable Water." I wonder what's in it? The light switch for the light in the closet that houses the toilet says "Annex Light." Annex? At least the French below it is honest enough to say "Toilette." There's a sign above the toilette that says "Please Do Not Flush When Train Is In Station." I saw the sign just after I flushed...and then realized we were in a station. Oops. I sat in my room with the door locked waiting for very angry, very smelly station workers to come knock down my door. I remember dreading this trip, being trapped on a train for 3 days, but now it's kind of nice to be able to just sit here, staring out the window, letting my mind wander, without worrying about where I have to be or what I should be doing. The view doesn't really change that much from minute to minute, it's all just trees and snow right now, but it doesn't feel boring or repetitive. The bed is barely too short. I can fit on my side with my knees bent, but on my back, my toes are smushed against the wall. I had trouble falling asleep and I kept waking up. Whenever the train goes along curved track it rolls you back and forth and up and down in your bed. I guess this is what it feels like to be a Bingo ball. I think we're somewhere in western Ontario now. I had no idea that the province of Ontario is so wide. We've been chugging along for almost 24 hours now and we still haven't reached Manitoba! Winnipeg is the next major stop -- a lot of people are leaving the train there. The "Map" control panel on my Powerbook says Toronto to Winnipeg is 940 miles, and Winnipeg to Vancouver is 1160 miles, so I guess Winnipeg is technically the half-way stop. We'll probably arrive sometime this evening. Maybe I'll get off the train and call home. I hope the train won't leave without me. I sat in the "Domed Observatory" (the bubble-car) this morning as we chugged through the forest. In this part of the country the landscape is mostly short trees and underbrush. It's not mountainous, but not flat like the prairies -- rolling hills, I suppose. It must be ideal country for summer camps and family camping grounds. There are streams and rivers every few miles, some frozen over, some not. Sometimes you can make out a layer of brownish, yellowish, frothing filth collecting in a side pool or along the shore. A quick scan of the treetops will usually reveal a factory, or maybe just its smokestack, spitting stuff up into the air. Every now and then we pass a lake, completely frozen over, flat and white, smooth as a skating rink. We passed one lake that was absolutely huge -- it looked like it went on forever. I've never seen such a simple display of nature's beauty. I'd love to walk to the center of a big frozen lake like that and just sit there for a while. I'd feel like the first blot of paint on a fresh silk canvas. Well, I seemed to have missed the prairies completely. Yesterday evening around supper-time we left Winnipeg, and when I woke up this morning we were in Edmonton, Alberta; I think we passed through Saskatoon, Saskatchewan sometime around 3am last night. So much for endless fields of sunflowers and wheat. I'm actually quite disappointed. I was looking forward to seeing the prairies for the first time. I suppose it would have looked like tundra this time of year, anyway. After passing through the entrance to Jasper National Park (10,878 square kilometers, collectively declared a "World Heritage Site" by UNESCO in 1984) and Disaster Point (a stark mass of rock that drops almost straight down into the Athabasca River, except where it was blasted for the railbed), we arrived in the town of Jasper, Alberta (pop. 4 000) this afternoon. Now these are mountains! I'm instantly jealous of the people who live here. My favourite peaks are the jagged ones, with long, sharp ridges and snow-covered sides. They look triumphant. They stand tall and proud, smug in their knowledge that humans will never create anything as large, beautiful, and permanent. They even rise above the clouds. I suppose our only rebuttal is to climb them and hoot from atop their peaks. The smaller, rounder mountains look less victorious. They don't seem to have as much energy as the jagged peaks, and most of them look patchy and torn from clear-cut logging. They look tired and glum. How did trees ever start to grow on rocky mountaintops? Will they ever return there in my lifetime? Everything here is covered in snow and ice. Some trees are bent over from the weight of it, kissing the ground. There are little footprints in the snow atop frozen creeks and rivers, but I haven't seen anything smaller than a moose walking around in the light of day. They look very disturbed when you catch sight of them from the train; kind of like you'd look if a bunch of strangers suddenly came barreling through your home in a long steel noisemaker. I wonder if the animals frolic and have fun in the snow, or if they're cold and miserable. Every couple of hours we pass through a tiny little settlement, with a few log houses and a road or two. I wonder if they live off of the land or off of 7-11 and J. Crew. Tonight we will pass over the Alberta-BC border, losing an hour as we change from Mountain to Pacific Standard Time. During the night we'll pass through Clearwater, Kamloops (doesn't that sound like some kind of kid's cereal? Hmmmm...maybe I need a snack), Ashcroft, Boston Bar (yeah, and maybe a drink too), Hope, and by first light we will be in Chilliwack. Wasn't there a hit single by a band called Chilliwack in the early eighties? What was it called? I've been listening to too much U2 on this trip. I wonder what these towns like "Boston Bar" and "Ashcroft" are like that they'd schedule the train to go through the Rockies in daylight, and these places at night: Ashcroft, BC (pop. 1,900) gets only 18 centimetres of precipitation a year, earning it the title of "the driest town in Canada." The landscape is desert-like, and both cactus and sage grow in abundance. Erosion has created odd formations from the reddish bluffs, such as hoodoos, isolated pinnacles of rock that remain after a hill has worn away. (From "Enchanting Horizons: VIA Rail's Log to Western Canada") Oh. I guess in the high-school of the wilderness, hoodoos aren't as popular as towering jagged snow-covered mountaintops. Hoodoos probably sit in the library during lunch hour, or alone outside, just watching the world go by. Snow-capped jagged peaks get all the attention. It's pitch dark now as we chug towards Clearwater. I hope that's not an inaccurate name for the place. When I wake up I will have spent more than 77 hours on the train, crossing most of our country by land. I usually make the same trip by plane in about 5 hours. On the train I was in constant contact with Canada, feeling bumps and hills and curves even as I slept: my body on the train, the train on the tracks, the tracks pinned to the land by spikes sunk deep into the ground. On the plane I look down nervously towards the ground, and the view from 30,000 feet up is airplane wing and clouds as we speed impatiently over the countryside. On the plane I feel like one of a herd of nervous, hurried sheep, with no privacy and no personal space. Stewards and stewardesses constantly demanding things of me - my boarding pass, my attention, my cooperation, my choice of dinner entree. My nerves are constantly frazzled by sudden, unexpected air pockets and turbulence. I arrive stressed out and jet-lagged, luggage optional, Toronto to Vancouver. Tomorrow we will roll into Vancouver awake and refreshed, with an eternal appreciation of the rich and diverse texture of the lands we share, but also with a nagging disappointment that our lands seem to have been soiled by the society which enabled us to make the journey. - Paul Gribble, Montreal, Canada gribble@motion.psych.mcgill.ca ------------------------------------------------------------ DEPARTMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------ -- The Latin Quarter -- Romance in the Hills of Chiapas In his last visit to Mexico, Peruvian Novelist and former Presidential Candidate, Mario Vargas Llosa, caused considerable agitation and official outrage when he exclaimed, "Mexico, the other Latin American nations stand in admiration of you. You are the 'perfect' dictatorship, all under the guise of apparent democracy." He was quickly hustled out of the country, as much for his own safety, as for any further potential embarrassing remarks he might make. Now, Mexico can even lay claim to having the "perfect" revolutionary leader. Not since the dark, brooding, mustachioed Emiliano Zapata rode his white horse out of the hills of Morelia, into Mexico City, has a leader captured the imagination and public appeal as the charismatic, ski- masked leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, Subcommandante Marcos. On the night Marcos arrived in San Cristobal de las Casas for the recent negotiations with Government negotiator Manuel Camacho, he was serenaded by women with hired guitarists outside the 16th century cathedral where he was staying. In Mexico City, women talk about spending a "fantasy night in the jungle" with Marcos, and others have confessed to discussing their lust for the dashing leader with their psychiatrists. In these ten weeks since the insurrection began, Marcos has certainly not discouraged the romantic fantasies, and many women are treating his often poetic "press releases" as personal pleas. In San Cristobal, Marcos gave a passionate speech, asking, "Why do we (the Zapatistas) have to sleep with our boots on, and our souls hanging by a thread?" However, there is more to Marcos than a mysterious revolutionary, sending of romantic sound-bites. Handwriting analysts have suggested a man who is extremely intelligent, egotistic almost bordering on vanity, often exhibiting a mood of omnipotence, impulsive, and occasionally depressive. He has demonstrated a clear understanding of Mexican history and its even more poignant relevance now, and many of his "communiques" indicate a knowledge of military tactics and organizational principals. His Spanish sounds only lightly Mexican, and his conversation is peppered with jokes and occassional phrases in rough English. He has joked that he learned his English by spending his nights in the mountains reading Playboy and Pentagon manuals. As he has in the past, Marcos has refused to divulge his real name or age. While he has admitted to commanding the Zapatista's military offensive, he continues to insist that his role is subordinate to the indigenous leaders -- thus the title "Sub"commandante ..."My commanders are the Mayan Indian campesinos." Rebel leaders have carried weapons and worn ski masks at news conferences, but Marcos said they have put away their guns, but kept their masks for the present negotiations. "If you want to see what faces are behind the ski masks, it's easy. Pick up a mirror and look into it!" ... and in a recent missive from his camp in the Chiapas mountains, Marcos promised, "I am prepared to take off my mask if Mexican society will take off its own mask." Marcos has also shown a clear understanding of the international attention focused on Mexico and the subsequent pressure that its leaders feel, "What is at stake in Chiapas is no longer just Chiapas or even Mexico, but perhaps even the free trade agreement or the whole neoliberal project in Latin America (sweeping economic changes in Mexico and other Latin American countries). Recent changes have brought little, if any, improvement in the lives of the poor. "It's not because we have great force, but because people are saying, 'All right, what happened here? What is going to happen elsewhere? What costs are there going to be?" Motioning to the reporters before him, he added, "if that were not true, you all would not be here." During their initial occupation of San Cristobal, Marcos issued his first communique, "The war we declare is a final but justified measure. We have nothing, absolutely nothing. Not a dignified roof, nor work, nor land, nor health care, nor education." As the latest details of the recent accord were read to the press by govermnent negotiators (on March 3) in San Cristobal, Subcommundante Marcos sat behind, smoking a pipe and reading various reports, no doubt preparing his own impassioned statement from the men and romantic women of Mexico. -- The Latin Quarter -- Tragic Comedy Under Aztec Sun These are strange times for Mexico - awash in scandal, kidnappings, armed insurrection, assassinations, and swirling conspiracy theories; only four months ago it all seemed so fine. The North American Free Trade agreement had just been approved by U.S. Congress, the new Presidential Candidate, Luis Donaldo Colosio, was given the nod by the President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, interest and inflation rates were at their lowest in years, and Mexico was basking in the attention and praise of the international business community. Enter "stage right" a few rebels in Chiapas wielding old rifles and rusty peeshooters, led by the charismatic ski- masked Subcommandante Marcos (many people have suggested that Marcos is in fact a Jesuit priest), issuing communiques about the lack of democracy in Mexico and the economic dichotomy which Mexico's indigenous peoples will only further suffer under Free Trade. Throw in a couple of major kidnappings (most notably, the president of one of Mexico's leading banks, Banamex), daily protest marches by campesinos, farmers, and students, and the assassination of candidate Colosio, and suddenly Mexico finds itself reeling like a "four in the morning" tequila drunk. Since Colosio was shot on Wednesday March 23rd, in a poor suburb of Tijuana, Mexican streets and newspapers have been full of conspiracy rumours. Official government press releases have insisted that the assassination was simply the work of a disturbed 23 year-old mechanic seeking attention for himself. But Mexico City's cab drivers know better, many insisting that this act of violence was masterminded by the unanimously despised Ross Perot, in an attempt to undermine the Free Trade agreement! More pragmatic voices have suggested that conservative elements within Mexico's political system stood to lose under some of the economic and democratic reforms which Colosio was preaching. Mistrust of officials is such that people on the streets almost matter-of-factly blame the shooting on anti- democratic elements within Mexico's ruling class. They believe that Colosio was reform-minded and viewed as a threat to those dinosaurs within Mexico's ruling class. The Zapatista's in Chiapas said as much in their recent communique: "The hardliners and the militarist option inside the government planned and brought to completion this provocation to end all the peaceful intent of democratization of the country." Recent developments in the shooting, with the arrest of a second suspect, have only further fueled the conspiracy theories. ln an effort to stabilize the situation, President Salinas quickly announced his new choice for his successor, by naming Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Leon, former Education Secretary, and campaign manager for Colosio. This traditional practice of "dedazo" or the "tap" whereby the president chooses his successor, has continued for sixty years, robbing the public of an opportunity to voice its opinion for alternatives. Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, one of the few "high profile" and vocal critics of the government and its lack of democratic initiative, commented, "Mexico is not a country of one or two men, but rather of many men, and this authoritarian exercise deprives us of the riches of democracy and casts an ominous shadow over the electoral process and the elections of August 21." To add a good measure of comedy to an otherwise tragic and ridiculous situation, U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, James Jones, called Zedillo's choice as presidential candidate a bright and competent decision, and predicted the country's elections will be fair and competitive. "It is going to be a very spirited election, and I have no idea who is going to win," Jones was quoted in a March 30th news conference. Gee-whiz Senor Jones, we'll give you one guess! l'm hoping that this statement can be attributed to a momentary lapse of reason, or a sudden surge in ozone and carbon monoxide levels over the American Embassy. Either way, it's painfully "par for the course" when it comes to American foreign policy and its apparent awareness in Mexico. The next months will be extremely telling ones, possibly determining the course of Mexican political and sociological developments for the next decade, at least. I'll keep you posted. - Andreas Seppelt, Mexico City, Mexico -- Keepers of Light -- Matthew Wolchock: Gentleman Photographer I first met Matthew Wolchock about twenty years ago in a howling gale while I was photographing a grated window of the very famous Ship Inn, a storied watering hole in downtown St. John's, Newfoundland. I was testing a new high definition film and he was curious about the project. He handed me a card. In yellow type on black it said: Matthew Wolchock-Gentleman Photographer. We went inside and had a pint by the fire and talked about photography, and we've been talking about it ever since. Wolchock works with a variety of camera formats from 110 to 4"x5", but the bulk of his work is done with 35mm film. He shoots a lot it. He never goes anywhere without at least one loaded camera, and he's always looking for shots and checking out the light (something to emulate if you're serious about becoming a better photographer). He uses Canon and Nikon cameras and has an impressive array of them, but he's not an equipment snob. One of his favorite tools is the disposable "stretch" cameras that come preloaded with film. An excellent darkroom technician, Wolchock seldom employs any tricks or manipulative techniques in his work, preferring to concentrate on strong images that present best when simply properly printed. The one exception is his work in xerography where he uses collage and hand tinting effects, as in his calendar series. [Photo of "Untitled 1" appears here in graphical versions] Wolchock's eye for composition is sharp, and he knows light. In Untitled 1, the model stands firmly in the centre of the frame, balanced, arms by her side, looking out to sea. the horizontal stripes in her shirt are echoed in the horizontal stripes of dark sea, white foam, silver sand and the black beaches of Belle Island. To her left the monotony is broken by an angle wave in the centre of the frame and to her right this is balanced by the slowly rising shoreline of and island across the bay. [Photo of "Untitled 2" appears here in graphical versions] In Untitled 2 we have an unusual portrait. A woman lays on the floor beside a chair with bright chrome legs. She holds some sort of child's toy over her face. The image has been printed with very high contrast to give a sharp, eye-popping and just plain strange impression. [Photo of "Untitled 3" appears here in graphical versions] In Untitled 3 we are presented with a vastly different tonal situation. The image of a young man looking very recently awakened a tousled bed in gentle morning light. The large pale wall area, rather than leaving the frame looking empty, becomes the sky in this formscape of skintones and wrinkled cotton. The vertical lines of the bedpost lead the eye back again and again to the subject's enigmatic smile. [Photo of "Pizzaman" appears here in graphical versions] Pizzaman. What can I say? This, er, informal portrait of fellow photographer Manfred Buchheit is a good example of how it pays to always carry around a loaded camera. It's also probably a good example something else, but I can't for the life of me think what, unless it's not to let photographers with loaded cameras into your house on those early Sunday mornings when you just have to get naked and eat cold pizza. That's it for this month. Join our contest. Happy photographing. - Kent Barrett, Vancouver, Canada kent@wimsey.com -- Deja Vu -- Exploring Some Myths of Gun Control [Here is the long awaited rebuttal to Jon Gould's article, American in Denial, published in Teletimes December '93. Enjoy! - Ian] Writing an article in a forum such as Teletimes about a topic like gun control can be quite difficult. The reason for this difficulty is two-fold: First, many well educated people who are typically open-minded with respect to important social issues have a preconceived notion that guns are bad and that eliminating them from society would prove to be beneficial. Second, the vast majority of the media outlets present a biased view against the private ownership of firearms, thus tending to strengthen these beliefs. It is the author's hope that this brief article will suggest to the reader that further inquiry is required before forming an opinion about a social policy as important to liberty as the right to keep and bear arms (RKBA). Before delving into the substance of this paper, it is worth noting that this particular issue is decidedly American in nature. The Constitution of the United States, the defining document of the world's first modern democratic republic, is the only national constitution of any modern country that specifically forbids the infringement of the individual citizen's right to keep and bear arms [1]. Many foreigners who observe the US wonder why there is so much controv