Terribly Happy

Labeled “the greatest Danish western ever made” - a title as clear to me as the String Theory (I tried, I promise). The film follows the story of a policeman – the sheriff I suppose – who is displaced from Copenhagen to a provincial doggy town. Weird stuff starts happening. People die. The usual commotion. However, the story was bought by Hollywood studios and soon there will be a new version of the same Danish western- this time it should be the real deal. I imagine, the sun is setting, the sheriff gets the pretty girl and they all live happily ever after.
A terribly happy ending.

Storm

The climatic conditions nowadays are so unpredictable and unprecedented that few things seem surprising. But the storm that is roaring outside is scary. The sky has opened and is trowing thunders at us. It is 14:00 p.m but daylight has taken a vacation break down south in Bali. It seems like the weather and the remaining human beings outside are amidst tropics cyclone warfare. And of course such weather is not normal for this time of the year. Not to mention the temperatures. Of course, climate change again, what else.

Life-span

What about time? What about those 80 something years we have on Earth? Imagine a life devout of time pressure. When choices are not defined by their relative weight on the future. Imagine a double life-span.. say 160 years. 30 years of childhood, 30-40 years of youth, 30-40 years of adult life and then seniority. You'll have plenty of time to live through each stage of human life, to learn, to experience and not hurry up to prepare for the next episode. Plenty of time to decide what do you want to do with your life, plenty of time to waste in whatever makes you happy. Life would be less valuable. Days would stop reminding us that the clock is ticking. May be we would be less inclined to make stupid choices just because there is no time. And there will be a completely new class of problems.
I would never want to live forever... just longer. “Life is short” people always tell you “Live it up” and all that jazz. I am wondering how life would be with more time on our side. Or with no time at all....I guess people will start saying “Life is too long, better have some fun to kill the time”

I hope that someday I'll see without these frames...

I remember

Days are slipping away. Weeks collide and turn into ending months. And all my days remember is the cruel desire to be alone, to shut down the hardware. This is the part of me that that never stops shouting “I want to be alone. People do not need me and I do not need them”.

There is another part as well. One that pursues connection and wants to be plugged in. One than needs sharing, pro-actively marching towards entering the global mind.

Making those two stubborn entities collaborate is a full-time job with long-term benefits, no sick leave and no paid holidays. But right now, I am stuck at shouting “I need to shut down the system. Where is that red pill?”

"I have hiked the Great Wall"

...is written on every T-Shirts at the Mutianyu Section. Probably in the other sections as well. The sellers approach me with clothes, souvenirs, green military hats, Mao's little red book. In front of my eyes spreads out a magnificent spring view. Endless mountain ranges. A shy village in the foothills, full of tourists, buses, bikes and souvenir stands. Behind your back, the Great Wall of China. I turn around and think to myself “Damn, I really did it, didn't I”.

I did not even rub my eyes at 5 a.m. In the the morning, when the alarm went off. The symphony of groans coming from the other beds in the dorm, protesting against the second and the third beep , did not even have the time to reach me, as I was dashing to the door. Toothbrush in one hand, backpack in the other- the usual artillery of every backpacker. I ran through all morning habits in a haze- toilet, teeth brushing, dressing up – and before I knew it, I was in the metro, walking towards the meeting point, sitting in the mini van and waiting for the time to come.

On the way to the Great Wall the scenery from the minivan was monotonous – bare three branches, factories, dumps. Nothing but an irksome overture to one of the world's unhidden wonders. When we arrived the place was nothing like my expectations (may be that's why people normally tell you to leave them home). Hundreds' of tourists, of course. Buses, cars, bikes, no surprise. Stalls and vendors, what else. But an entire fair, with carousels and little cars sliding downhill from the Wall was a bit uncommon. If you can scoop up your own piece of solitude, select the stairs instead of the lift.. well may be you can pass by the tourists commotion unnoticed. The weather was sunny and bright, welcoming and warm and the journey begun. From one sentinel post, to another, the view was changing every 5 minutes. A new hillside was added up with every 10 step. The Wall was changing with a snake-like move, generously inviting severe picture-taking.

And, no thank you, I don't want to buy a T-shirt.







I have hiked the Great Wall,

Inspired by

It will be time to leave soon. May be that's why I dream about having a cup of tea with the Chairman of the Republic. May be not.

Macau Arts Festival

In May 2010 the Cultural Centre of Macau will open doors to welcome Macau's 21st Arts Festival. The internationally-acclaimed event will cover the entire month of May and will be staged at various locations around Macau. Tickets for the festival could be found via the Macau Kong Seng Ticketing Network starting from March 21st

Macau Arts Festival is an unique multicultural blend of exhibitions, opera, visual arts, theatre, dance and installations and much more. Present this year will be the the Kransy Sisters from Australia, winners of various prestigious international awards including the Herald Angel Award at the Edinburgh Festival 2006 with their Heard It On the Wireless. The Gaia Theatre from Peru will perform a kinetic, non-verbal act in the mime/puppet theatre The Worlds of Fingerman, while Storm (Germany) and Discipulos do Ritmo(Brazil) will reveal the connection between dance and geometry in their famous hip-hop performance Geometronomics.

With more than 70 performances from 20 different countries the festival is a celebration of multicultural diversity- an image widely promoted by Macau's authorities. The program includes acts from USA, Brazil, Canada, Cuba, Australia and while also giving opportunity to local works to debut on a international front. Such are the drama teatre Stories of the Rose Alley performed by the Hiu Kok Drama Association and the Outdoor Performing Arts Showcage with artists from various generations and traditions in Macau.

With two other similar festivals- Macau International Music Festival which takes place every October and the April's International Video&Film Festival- Macau is becoming one of the most popular festival cities in Asia, attracting thousands of festival-goers each year. Will Macau be the laid-back multicultural festival capital of Asia? Only time will show.

The Null Hypotesis

B1: How do you spend you Saturday afternoons?
Me: I am testing the null hypothesis.
B1: What do you mean by the null hypothesis?
Me: The null hypothesis is: Ho: “I am not becoming a giant nerd”. The mean score of my nerd-ness is being compared to the mean score nerd-ness of other people around me. Coefficient of significance <0.05, the chance that I am not becoming a giant nerd is less than 5%, therefore µ1≠µ2 and the null hypothesis is being rejected. Conclusion: I am becoming a giant nerd.
B1: Yes, you are you are you.

"I've learned it from a book" March Book Review

One year in the Merde, Steven Clarke
A hilarious account on the experience of a Brit in France. Steven Clarke takes us to France and shows us how to get one foot at a time in the merde, how living abroad makes you foreign in your own country. Strongly recommended if you are looking for a good lough!

“A French politician without a mistress is like a sheriff without a gun—people think he has no firepower.”

The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown
Honestly, I needed some time getting convinced to read this book. For some reason, the name Dan Brown, has assumed a monstrous position in my list of readable authors. But after chasing away the stubborn label “voluntary brainwashing” and read the first 10 pages of the book, I understood why is he the most popular novelist of our time. Quoting the person who gave me the book said “I wish more people spoke about religion like Dan Brown does”.

Have a little Faith, Mitch Albrom
The true story of Mitch Albrom's journey to re-discovering faith. A strangely moving story about people, their lives and a philosophical view on religion. In a century when religion has lost its place in modern society, where people continue dying because of their religions beliefs, one Rabi takes a different stand of spirituality and religion. This book is a meditation in itself.

The Magus, John Fowles
On a remote Greek island, one young Brit finds himself entangled in mysteries and physiological games that will turn his life around. Have you seen a movie which end completely takes you by surprise and forces you to rethink those two hours again? Well this is a book of the same sort. A very intelligent sort.

A portrait of an artist as a young man, James Joyce
A rather complicated read. Following Joyce's mind throughout the pages requires serious focusing at times. The adventures of Stephen Dedalus, a young imaginative Irish boy who rebels against his family, school, religion and country in order to be an artist. Some say a portrait of James Joyce as a young man.

Rail your way through China

Even though we live in times of amazingly cheap budget airlines, trains remain the preferred mode of transport for a great number of people. Some destinations are better seen in full view from the train window rather than being glimpsed at from the airbus (And this is of course if you are lucky enough to get a window seat and an on-demand clear view) - this is when the transitory route becomes an attraction itself, when the purpose of the journey is not final destination but the journey itself. Sitting on a train, daydreaming your way thought landscapes and cities, listening to the melancholic monotony of the rail tracks is somewhat a classical approach to traveling in times of high speed and lack of time.

I am talking about traveling here for the mere purpose of traveling, exploring, enjoying and backpacking. But the trains in Mainland China serve a rather different purpose- they provide the people of China with an affordable and relatively fast option to transit thousands of miles in their homeland from the highly urbanized areas in the South and North East to the rural and still underdeveloped zones of Western China. During the Chinese Lunar New Year (January-February, in 2010: February 14) some 150 million passengers use the railway services to visit their relatives, millions of migrant workers return home by train, respectively direction East-West creating probably the largest channeled movement of people on the planet.

The expanding railway network also attracts and caters to foreigners: groups of backpackers, families with children on a long vacation, lone travelers. Falling into the last category, I happened to participate in this amusing and sometimes tiring train ride across the Mainland. The 2475 km between Hong Kong and Beijing was around 400 Euros by plane compared to the 80 by train (one-way). And it is a journey worth embarking on. In case you value comfort and privacy like me, there is a Soft Sleeper option, with 4 hard beds, excellent if you travel with some company. My only company though was the view outside- spectacular vistas of mountains and rivers, rural and urban landscapes. Within 24 hours the might of the Chinese economy enfolded in front of my eyes- massive factories, workers residential areas, mining sites, infrastructure development, endless agricultural fields (and this is when in my utmost excitement the camera batteries fail me big time).

Walking around the coaches, one is constantly bewildered by the variety of locals using the rail – from mothers with newborns to 90+ chain smokers. Yes, chain smokers. I almost panicked at the sight of a old lady who took the 30 meter stretch from her bed to the smoker's area in 25 minutes in order to smoke 2 cigarettes within 5 minutes. It is however, relatively clean, well-maintained, soap -and-toilet-paper-facilitated and safe. Of course, you need to take care of your belongings and bring your most valuable stuff with you to the bathroom, but in general there is no real danger of theft. And the guards are everywhere.

Sitting at the window in the cafeteria, sipping on a San Miguel (Where was the Tsingtao in those most precious moments of solitude?) on the 20th hour of this full-day trip upon return to Hong Kong I couldn't shift my mind from the idea of how I just crossed a whole continent, the distance between Madrid and Helsinki without even crossing a single border (of course until the customs in Hong Kong). I have seen landscapes unknown to any other country – awe-inspiring, mysterious and saddening at the same time. I talked to locals on their journey back home, met ABCs (American Born Chinese) enthusiastic about their first visit to China, shared drinks with fellow travelers, played with cute German toddlers and had some of that second-hand chain-smoking into my lungs eventually. How could you capture such moments on a plane? You simply cannot.