Thoughts on Japan

I feel the need to say something in reference to the recent disasters, tragedies, and chaos in Japan in the wake of the major earthquake and tsunami last week.

First, I should confirm that all of my friends in Japan are okay, and, as far as I can tell, so are all of their friends and family. They are all quite shook-up though. Even in the areas not directly effected by the quake, it seems that everyone is nervous or even scared. The scare at the Fukishima reactors, and the spectacular job the media is doing in fueling people's fear of it all. As far as I can tell, things are calming down a bit. The aftershocks are weakening (you can check out up-to-date details on recent earthquakes here). For a saner and more academic perspective on the Fukishima plants, I suggest reading the articles here. Up here in Himalayan India, I find myself glued to the news every morning and evening. I must read ten or fifteen articles about it every day.

My heart aches and goes out to all the people affected by the disaster, from the people stuck in elevators caught during black-out rotations in elevators to the people who watched their grandma get washed away by the tsunami because she couldn't run fast enough.

I had been planning to visit northern Honshu and Hokkaido for about a week on my way home from India in May, but these recent events have altered my perspective. I still want to go to Japan, provided it is stabilized and safe, but I want to spent at least a part of my time there doing relief work.

In the mean time, I am working to fold 1000 paper cranes. As the Japanese legend goes, if someone folds a thousand cranes, their wish will come true. My wish is that Japan will completely recover and that its people will find comfort in the wake of this disaster. As I have shared this wish and ambition with my friends, co-workers, and even students, many of them have jumped at the idea of folding cranes to show their support for Japan. It's a small gesture, but it is a gesture that they can make right here from Kangra District. With me working on our team in Shahpur and Vandana working with the team in Khaniyara, we collected 82 cranes yesterday alone. Through this project, we are also able to educate local people on another foreign culture and encourage sensitivity to events happening in the world outside local people's immediate sphere of influence.



With everyone's help, we have collected 188 paper cranes so far. While I had brought some origami paper back from Japan with me from my trip last spring, it is nowhere near enough to make a thousand. So, I've been collecting pretty paper from whatever sources I can and cutting it into squares. The Tibetans have a recycled paper factory that makes lovely papers, and Norbulingka, a Tibetan arts institute, makes beautiful printed wrapping papers that we can cut up as well. My students and colleagues have cut up old reports and homework to make cranes with as well. When I have a thousand, I will string them up in garlands of a hundred and attach our wish in three languages: Hindi, English, and Japanese. I am hoping to get anyone who folds for the project to sign their name as well.

I do want to assure anyone who is reading this that I do plan to be smart about going to help in Japan. I am watching the news very carefully and I do not plan to go unless it does look safe. If I can't go, I will find some other way to get all the cranes to Japan as a show of support from people living in rural India.

A True Story

This is a tale of chance encounters and true love.

Yesterday, faced with the tragedy of an emptying kitchen, I stopped at the In-and-Out in Dharmsala on my way home from work. I sought only muesli, soy milk, cookies, and other such daily needs. Making my way down one of the two aisles, I found my soy milk and my breakfast, but then I saw it.

Tucked into a corner between the muesli and the instant idli mixes were the familiar blue and orange boxes from my childhood: Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. Seizing four boxes into my arms, I was swept away by the thrill of encountering my first love. It had braved all obstacles to find me in this remote part of the world.

Cookies forgotten, I took my Mac and Cheese to the counter, only to discover that it had been so recently stocked that no one knew what its price was supposed to be. While the two cashiers punched fruitlessly at their computers, searching for a price, I was joined at the counter by another foreign woman, also clutching a box of Mac & Cheese in her hands.

We exchanged feelings of mutual thrill at finding our beloved dinner on such an unlikely shelf. I admitted to having long finished off the supply of Mac & Cheese that my parents had mailed me while she lamented that, of the ten packets of cheese sauce she brought with her, very few were left.

She asked me if I was a fellow Canadian, as Canadians enjoy Mac & Cheese more than any other people in the world. I replied that I was a Minnesotan, but I may as well be Canadian for my love of Macaroni and Cheese.

Finally, the clerks discovered that each box was only 150 rupees, so we paid and parted ways, me with my macaroni and she with hers. Although the bus I rode home was one of the most crowded I have ever ridden and my bags were heavy with groceries, I hardly noticed, the lightness of excitement of my dinner date for that evening sending me floating home.

At home, I made my Macaroni & Cheese, and it was delicious.

His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama

Yesterday, I had the chance-in-a-lifetime opportunity to go hear the His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama give a teaching in McLeod Ganj. I attended with Vandana, the visiting Shansi fellow Erika, and her friend Barbara. Even before we could go, because of security reasons, we all had to register for the teachings. Erika and Babs took our passports and two passport sized photos to an office in McLeod, then returned with a little yellow card in Tibetan, with one of those photos and our registration information.

We met up on Monday morning and headed down to the temple together. I have never seen McLeod Ganj so packed full of people before. At the temple we went through a vigorous security scanning. Basically anything that isn't allowed on an airplane was not allowed in the temple, plus no cellphones, cameras, or other electronics, with the exception of little FM radios. The radios were necessary for translation. Then we all got a thorough pat-down before we were allowed to enter. Entertainingly, of the three security lines, one was for Tibetans, one was for monks and nuns, and one was for foreigners. Vandana, an Indian, was told to join us in the foreigner line. I am sure that was a first for her in her own country.

Even with our attempt to arrive early, hundreds of people had arrived before us already. The four of us found a place to sit on the ground in front of the temple, sitting on shawls or our shoes for a bit of cushion. Although we were not in a position to see His Holiness while he spoke up on the second level of the temple, we could see him enter and climb the stairs at the beginning as well as when he descended at the end. Just as in the photos, he looked unassuming with a warm, contagious smile. He was greeted with chanting and throat singing from the monks and Tibetans, then he started to speak.

He began the teachings in English, welcoming the special guests from Thailand who had requested the teaching and everyone else, then explaining what text he would be teaching from. Even with the speakers projecting his voice all over the temple compound, it was still very good to have our little FM radios that we had borrowed from Dr. Barbara. There were several local channels going: one for the Dalai Lama's speech, an English translator, a Thai translator, and probably a couple of others. We brought two radios and ear-bud headphones with us, but we quickly discovered that one of the radios did not work. Once he switched into lecturing in Tibetan, we scrambled to find the translation channel, then one of the two people sharing the headphones would have to repeat what she heard to the other two. That job usually fell to me or Vandana, though we traded off with the headphones. His Holiness did switch in and out English a couple of other times. His voice, even when I could not understand him, was deep and very pleasant to listen to.

His morning teachings went on for three hours. He gave a short history of Tibetan Buddhism, touched on its main points such as cultivating compassion, knowledge, and single-focused meditation. He then went on to talk about the relations of suffering and happiness to the other parts of life and how causes and outcomes, in a religious way, were related. He stressed again and again that the important practices and values of Buddhism appear in essentially all other world religions, but is a sense of morality and not a deity that prompts pious living in Buddhists.

During the talk, Tibetan bread and butter tea were served and blessed, then everyone ate and drank. The bread came around first, and we being stupid and hungry foreigners, ate ours right away. It wasn't until the tea was poured out for everyone that the Tibetans ate theirs, dipping it in the tea. Tibetan butter tea is an interesting experience, and not one I have ever partaken in outside of a temple. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it tastes like a cup of salty, melted butter. It is easier to think of it as a soup than a tea. That said, it was hard for me to drink without the bread to wash it down. The Tibetans sitting near us noticed that we didn't have any bread with their tea, so they broke their rolls in half and shared it with us. It was very sweet of them.

The teachings broke for lunch and His Holiness descended from the temple. A shiny new SUV pulled up into the temple, he got in with a bow and a wave, and he was driven away to his residence for lunch. No one clapped. People only put their palms together and bowed in a gesture of respect to him as he departed. His car was no more than 20 feet from where we sat.

Then, everyone mobbed for the main gate. Again, I marveled at just how crowded McLeod could get. The four of us got some lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon lazing around McLeod Ganj. We didn't realize that there were also teachings in the afternoon. That was alright, however, as Erika and I were starting to feel a bit sick and Vandana had to go back down to Sidhbari for a meeting at Jagori in the afternoon. There were teachings again today, but none of us went. Erika and Babs are on their way to Amritsar, Vandana is working, and I am taking a much needed day off.

I am really glad I finally got to go hear the Dalai Lama speak, after spending so much time living so close to his temple. It was a great introduction to Tibetan Buddhism for me. I feel like I understand their culture a lot better, even after listening to him speak for only three hours.

Women's Day 2011

Happy belated International Women's Day! As can be imagined, given the feminist nature of the organization I work with, there were many celebrations to be had this week. This year is the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day, so the events had to be particularly special. Officially, the day falls on March 8th each year. Nishtha held their celebration on Tuesday while Jagori held its two days later on Thursday. That way, the staff and friends of both organizations could attend both events.

Nishtha's celebration fell on a lovely spring afternoon. Participants were greeted at the gate with a hug from the Nishtha women. They put a dot of red coloring on my brow and tied a red protection string around my wrist, with a marigold tied into it.

The event started in Nishtha's community center with a video on water and environmental concerns made by Vandana. Making women's participation in environmental issues a focus for the afternoon, they went on to discuss issues such as cementing in streams and burning plastic. I was shocked to see just how many local women did not know burning plastic releases cancer-causing toxic gasses. There were gasps of horror and surprise from among the audience. This gives me all the more reason to be glad that Nishtha used Women's Day as a platform to spread awareness.



After those talks, everyone moved outside to the lawn for speeches, songs, skits, and dancing. Though it was a relatively small gathering of about fifty people, I feel that it was a great success, seeing the smiles on everyone's faces.



Jagori held its event in Shahpur, near where I am teaching these days, an hour and a half away from where I live. It was on a much larger scale, with around five hundred people attending. I rose at the crack of dawn, put on my purple kameez with white salwar, and hopped in a van packed with other Jagori team members all headed for Shahpur. We spent most of the morning setting up the tent area with streamers, tables, a stage, and all sorts of other glitzy yet necessary things. I do admit to spending a lot of time transfixed, watching Manju create this colorful welcome design out of colored saw dust. It was fascinating.



As we were setting up, we were visited by a Brahmin Hindu holy man. He approached Manju and the others at the front of the tent and demanded to know what we were doing. When they explained our women's day celebrations to him, he angrily protested that such feminist things were not needed. If men respect women and act properly, they will become like gods. Likewise, if women respect men and fulfill their roles properly, they will also become like gods. Therefore, feminism isn't needed and is misleading. Or something like that, anyway. From what I can see, Brahministic Hinduism certainly does not allow for women's liberation.

He then went on to insult the Jagori team saying that we were all uneducated and very stupid. To make his point, he pointed to the buttonhole on his vest and asked them what it was called in English. Rightfully, my colleagues claimed it to be a buttonhole. He vehemently disagreed with them, so they brought me over and asked me what I thought it was. I also answered that it was a buttonhole. He began to scream at me saying over and over that that was a huge mistake and that I was stupid too. Shrugging, I admitted that I was only an English teacher from America, so I would not know these things. (Besides the fact that I am something of a seamstress.) Crazy as the man was, I was quite proud of my successfully executed use of sarcasm in Hindi. He eventually declared that it was really called a 'stitching hole' (not true, friends), then lost interest and wandered off.

When the event began, I was a bit nervous at how few people were attending, but slowly and surely, women trickled in to fill our tent to the brim. They came from all over; from Shahpur itself and from distant, remote villages in the mountain, all ready to celebrate being women and support each other in how far they still have to go together, to gain equality and respect.



The four hour even included a number of guest speakers, songs, a skit, and special recognition for women who were recently elected into their village panchayats (five-member councils that govern each village).

Leading up to the elections this last December, Jagori worked at training women and sympathetic men in how to stand for the elections and how to act once they were elected. There is a law stating 33% of all members of the panchayats must be women, and, in alternating years, the pradhan (head of the council) must also be a woman. While this is a great start towards given women a voice, frequently men force their wives to stand for the election and are the real power behind their wife's political seat. Seeking to empower women and actually give them a voice, Jagori trained many women for almost a year leading up to the elections. At the event, Jagori handed out certificates of congratulation to all the people attending that had successfully been elected and had them recite and sign a pledge to work for the interest of women in their villages.



All in all, the even was a huge success, and everyone on the team seems really happy with it. While my Hindi still isn't good enough to understand everything, I was able to follow most of the proceedings and thought it was all very exciting. The empowered energy of the day was exciting, and after it all, we broke out into spontaneous dance. I am very glad that I was able to be a part of this this year, a day celebrated by women all around the world. Though struggles and issues may be different across the globe, we women are united in our quest for equality.