Planes, Trains, Autombiles, and Home

This is the last blog post before we arrive home.  It has been a long and amazing journey.  We will have taken 18 airline flights, 62 bus rides, 3 train rides, a multitude of subway and taxi rides, 2 ferry boat rides, a dozen auto-rickshaw rides, pedicab rides, bicycle rides, a camel ride, and an elephant ride.  The travel has often been part of the fun but also challenging at times — such as leading 27 students through the crowds at the Delhi train station, exiting all the students with baggage from the high speed train at Tai’an China in the one minute allowed (literally), and negotiating the bureaucratic security at the India airports.

We are looking forward to arriving at home and seeing Ali, Mark, & Sean, our extended families & friends, and pets — Zena, Kiwi, and Mango.  After a long journey happiness is home.

A few last thoughts on this journey:

Happiness is sometimes elusive and difficult to find.  Bad things happen in life and happiness can vanish in an instant.  That happens to all of us.  But we still retain some capacity to increase our happiness by the type of life we choose to live.

Hope is the most essential ingredient for happiness.  We have found that people around the world who have hope can still find some happiness even if they have little else.

Katherine Boo, author of “Beyond the Beautiful Forevers,” a remarkable book (which we read for our global course) about the very difficult life in a Mumbai slum concluded, “The astonishing thing is that some people are good, and that many others try to be.”  That is a statement of optimism that I have come to believe and which gives hope for the world.

Thanks for reading the blog!

Look for the forthcoming novel by Paul Legler, “Song of Destiny,” to be published late summer 2013.

Last photos.

Mark enjoying street food.

Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North Korea and South Korea.

DMZ II.

North Korea and “Bridge of No Return”

North Korean soldier.

The dream of reuniting North Korea and South Korea and the hope for the future.

Students with Mr. We from Yonsei University at DMZ.

Change and Happiness

We just returned from a three day excursion to further study Korean culture.  We first drove to Jeonju City and visited traditional village houses.  Local residents provided instruction in traditional Korean Mask Dance, traditional Korean singing, and paper making.  The students recreated a traditional Korean Wedding.  We also visited Geumsansa (Golden Mountain Temple), the head temple of the Jogye Order of Korean Buddhism.  It stands on the slopes of Moaksan Mountain in Gimje City and is one of the most serenely beautiful temples we have visited on our global travels.

We enjoyed many traditional Korean meals on this trip.  Much of the food was delicious, although frequently unidentifiable.  The third day we spent skiing at Yangi Pine Resort — just for sheer fun.

Confucianism continues to have a major influence in Korean life.  Confucianism is not necessarily regarded as a religion, but a philosophy or way of life, allowing one to be a Taoist, Christian, or Buddhist and still profess Confucian beliefs.  Confucius said this about change and happiness:

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

Confucius was talking about the need to be flexible and change.  The reality we experience today is not the reality we experienced in the past or will in the future.

Mark, Julie, and Paul at Geumsansa.

Geumsansa II.

Geumsansa III.

Geumsansa IV.

Geumsansa V.

Geumsansa VI.

Traditional Korean folk singer.

Puppy at traditional Korean village.

Traditional Korean meal.

Mark and Paul at Yanghi Pine Resort.

Skiing with students.

We can do it!

We are currently staying at Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea and studying Korean Culture.   The rise of South Korea in recent years has been remarkable.  In 1955, after the Korean War, South Korea was one of the poorest countries in the world with a GDP similar to the poorest sub-Sahara African countries.  By 2011 South Korea had become the 12th country in the world in total GDP with many advanced technological industries leading the way.

One of our lecturers commented that Korea rose so rapidly because the people are so hard working and have the attitude: “I can do it!  We can do it!”  Frankly, it is heartwarming to see the pride that South Koreans have in the success of their country.  Another lecture suggested, however, that the happiness of South Koreans was greatest when they were striving so hard and that it has declined recently just as the country has attained the pinnacle of success.  Food for thought.

Our son, Mark arrived this week to visit us in South Korea.  We love having discussions about these issues with him over a lunch of Pho.

Initial photos from South Korea below.

Mark arrives and Julie is happy.

Gyeongbok Palace.

Changing of the guard at the Palace.

Palace III.

South Korea on the rise.

Mark exploring the city.

South Korea is famous for its street food.

Mark and Paul at Seoul Art Museum for Tim Burton exhibit.

Seoul Cat Cafe.

More Pho at Pho Roi, Vietnamese Restaurant, Shinchon.

Censorship, Life, Death, and Happiness in China

We just arrived in South Korea but we were unable to post a blog during our stay in mainland China.  The Chinese authorities exercise tight control over the internet and I could not access many websites including my business e-mail, the New York Times, and our travel blog site.  I never knew that travel blogs could be considered so subversive!

Other than the censorship issues, we mostly enjoyed our China travels.  We covered a lot of ground in twelve days.  We first spent a few days in Shanghai where we celebrated Christmas with the students.  It took a lot of searching to find a very small artificial Christmas tree but we were still able to create a memorable Christmas; sharing family traditions, singing Christmas carols, and opening “Secret Santa” gifts.  Our touring in Shanghai included visiting the Shanghai Art Museum, the Lion Grove Garden, and the Humble Administrator’s Garden.  Then we were off to the city of Tai’an by high speed train where we climbed Tai’an Mountain and visited the Confucius Temple and Family Mausoleum at Qufu.

Another high speed train ride brought us to Beijing — a remarkably modern and beautiful city.  There we visited Tienanmen Square, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, and the 2008 Olympic venues.   We climbed the Great Wall north of Beijing, enjoyed street foods and a fabulous Peking Duck dinner, and took a pedicab ride through the Hutung District to see ancient Chinese residences.

We were impressed by how modern and clean the cities of China appear, the superb Chinese highways, and the smoothness of the high speed trains.  There are new skyscrapers being built everywhere and the highways are full of new cars.  All of the government officials drive brand new black Audis.  One of our lecturers observed that China has made as much progress in the last ten years as the U. S. has made in the last forty years.  There is still immense poverty in the countryside and many people still depend upon bicycles for travel (even in the bitter cold and snow), but China is rapidly making progress in reducing overall poverty as well.

We were also struck by how the citizens of China continue to revere their deceased Chairman Mao Zedong.  Mao memorabilia is everywhere.  We saw one woman selling Chairman Mao hats, pulling them out of a Walmart bag.  Even with the censorship in China most of its citizens must be aware by now of the millions of deaths caused by Mao and government mismanagement during the Great Famine of 1958 – 1961 and the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people killed during the Cultural Revolution.  We watched an educational show on Chinese television about the life of Mao.  It runs on a continuous cycle.  Chairman Mao is often shown surrounded by adoring men and women, smiling, clapping, and apparently ecstatically happy.  One has to wonder about this.  Aristotle said that happiness is the highest good, but if it derives from the appeal of a leader who has created a cult of personality while millions have perished, is it still a good thing?

We ended our visit by celebrating the New Year countdown at the Summer Palace.  We were allowed to attend this exclusive celebration, carefully orchestrated for Chinese television, through a special invitation by the Chinese government.  They apparently saw this as an opportunity to show Americans enjoying tourism in Beijing.  We were surrounded by television cameras and newspaper photographers who were especially excited to capture shots of our blond students from Minnesota.  New Year’s Eve often seems to create an artificial happiness but they put on a spectacular show and the happiness seemed real when the clock struck 12:00.

Happy New Year!

Modern Beijing, new buildings arising everywhere.

Superb highways, at least in Shanghai and Beijing

Modern China – Many stores selling Gucci,
Chanel, and Rolex

Tienanmen Square

Tienanmen Square II

Near Confucius Cemetery

Confucius’s Grave

Lion Grove Garden

Humble Administrator’s Garden

Forbidden City

Temple of Heaven

Summer Palace

Great Wall

Great Wall II

Birds Nest at Olympic site

Street Food

Street Food II

Street Food III

Street Food IV

Street Food V.

Pedicab in Beijing

Street Musician, Shanghai

Chef preparing Peking Duck.

New Year’s Eve

Pho Happy

Saturday we leave for Shanghai, China.  We have really enjoyed our time in Hong Kong.  It is a beautiful city on a magnificent harbor and surrounded by scenic mountains.  It is also very modern, clean, and efficient.  Twenty-eight million Chinese from the mainland visited here last year for tourism and to buy luxury goods.  The unemployment rate in Hong Kong is 3.4 percent.

One of our students commented that if Hong Kong was the future, it gives hope for the world.  It is not Shangri-La, it is crowded and frequently smoggy, but we felt that we could be happy here.

We recently traveled to the Po Lin Monastery on Lantau Island to see the “Big Buddha,” spent time exploring the many markets, and searched for the best Pho in the city.  Below are the last photos from Hong Kong.

We found the best Pho yet at Nha Trang Vietnamese Restaurant.

The “Big Buddha” at Po Lin Monastery, Lantau Island.

Temple at Po Lin Monastery

View from cable car on Landau Island.

Falun Dafa (also called Falun Gong) is an advanced self-cultivation practice of the Buddha School. The central Chinese Government considers them a cult. They have many supporters, like these, in Hong Kong. But we have also seen several protests against them.

I have no idea what these Santas (or Grinches?) were up to on a street corner adjacent the Jade Market in Hong Kong but tis the Season.   Merry Christmas!

The Arts and Happiness

We have greatly enjoyed studying a variety of arts through the course at the Chinese University of Hong Kong: paintings, ceramics, jade, bronzes, calligraphy, Buddhist and Daoist art, architectural monuments, gardens, Chinese music and opera, and “the Art of Chinese Tea.”   We also visited the Hong Kong Museum of Art, the University Art Museum, and attended a performance of the Nutcracker by the Hong Kong Ballet.

Recent research from the London School of Economics, the “Mappiness Project,” gathered three million data points from short random surveys to determine the most happiness-inducing activities.  Those ranked highest were:

1. Intimacy, making love
2. Sports, running, exercise
3. Theater, dance, concerts
4. Singing or performing
5. Exhibition, museum, library
6. Hobbies, arts, crafts

It is interesting that four of the top six activities are arts-related.

Below are more recent photos from Hong Kong.

Mr. Ip Wing-chi at the Tea House, Hong Kong Park, demonstrating the Art of Chinese Tea.

Umbrella and pond reflection at Hong Kong Park.

Hong Kong Art Museum

Star Ferry, Hong Kong Harbor

City view from Star Ferry

Bank of China Tower (center) was designed by renowned Chinese architect I. M. Pei.

With students at Hong Kong Ballet performance of the Nutcracker.

Hong Kong Herbal Market.

Chinese herbalists do brisk business dispensing ancient remedies.

Dried lizards used to treat asthma.

Hong Kong night life.

10,000 Buddhas

Should existence be ethereal, let it be among the Buddhas up in Heaven;

Should existence be secular, let it be in the midst of joy and free of cares;

Should there be sufferings and weariness, let there be liberation all at once.

Inscription of a Buddhist stele at Longman Cave, Henan Province, China.

We visited the “Monastery of 10,000 Buddhas” on the mountainside near Sha Tin.  There really are statutes of 10,000 Buddhas there, a few huge, hundreds life size, and others a few inches high.  The grounds of the monastery have a very peaceful feel.  It was moving to see Hong Kong residents climb the mountain to worship at the monastery.

Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowski used the example of the Buddha to argue that we can never be truly happy and indeed, that even God could not be happy.  Speaking about Nirvana he said, “Is a person in this state aware of the world around him? If not—if he is completely detached from life on earth—what kind of reality is he a part of? And if he is aware of the world of our experience, he must also be aware of evil, and of suffering. But is it possible to be aware of evil and suffering and still be perfectly happy?”

Kolakowski contends that it is not.  We can experience love and joy but not true happiness.  If Kolakowski is correct, perhaps we should not seek true happiness but instead be satisfied with maximizing love and joy.

Monastery of 10,000 Buddhas.

A group of monkeys decided to take a rest on the Buddhas.

If Joe was a Buddha.

High in Hong Kong

We arrived in Hong Kong.  We have a room on the 16th floor of the Hyatt for the next month and I have to admit that it is a very nice place to stay after the cold showers and squat toilets of India.  We are studying the history of Chinese Art at the Chinese University of Hong Kong nearby.  We have also begun to explore the city.  It is crowded, but clean and orderly, and the people are extremely friendly.

Three random ideas about happiness:

The conditions that make happiness and unhappiness are not as far apart as we think.

Don’t try to create happiness.  Create a habitat for happiness.

Happiness is equal to wanting what you have divided by what you have or, in other words, gratitude divided by gratification.

View from our window.

Love that Pho!

We attended a soccer game — Hong Kong vs. Guam in the East Asia Cup Tournament.

Finding Bliss in Thailand

We arrived in Thailand on November 14.  This is the week where the students have a break and we all go separate ways.  After a quick tour of Bangkok, Julie and I flew to Phuket and then drove an hour and a half north to a beach resort near Khao Lak.  Here we found miles of uncrowded white sand beaches, swaying palm trees, and fabulous Thai food and wine.  The weather is gorgeous and we have a view of the ocean from our beach house.  We skype or email our children and they seem to be doing fine.  What more could someone want?  Maybe this is as close to bliss as we can find on earth, if only for a very brief period of time.

The Thai people are very friendly and generally happy.  They have a mai pen rai attitude — meaning “never mind, get on with life.”  The Thai people are fun loving and pride themselves on having a cool heart — not a cold heart, but not getting worked up about small things.

Sunset from Khao Lak beach.

Local fishermen, early morning.

View from resort towards ocean.

Local market.

Wild water buffalo spotted while biking on jungle road.

Royal Palace, Bangkok

Royal Palace II.

Royal Palace III.

Royal Palace IV.

Reclining Buddha, Bangkok. 15 meters high and 46 meters long.

The Enigma of India

We left India two days ago and arrived in Thailand.  Here are some random thoughts and photos about India.

As one professor told our group, there is a “shining” India with all the new buildings, millionaires, and rising GDP.  There are 400 million Indians considered middle class and they enjoy a relatively prosperous life.  There is also a “grey” India with about 600 plus million people living in poverty on less than $2 per day.  We had a number of lecturers talk to us about the caste system in India.  Although officially outlawed, it still controls virtually all aspects of social life in India.  About 16 percent of the population are Dalits (untouchables.)  They do the most menial work and live in extreme poverty.  India is a lesson to the rest of the world on what happens when income and class inequality become institutionalized within a society.  The most disturbing aspect is that most wealthy and middle class Indians seem to accept the system as it is.

On the last day of Dawali we took a bus tour of Delhi.  The bus got stopped twice by the police in a scam to secure “bakeesh,” what we would consider a bribe or graft.  The police position a person in the street.  When the bus drives around them they are stopped for illegally crossing the center line.  The bus driver must pay the police to avoid further trouble.  This is an annual event on Diwali.  Diwali is the festival of lights to celebrate the victory of good over evil but for police it is an opportunity to line their pockets.

Overall India ranks rather low on international scales of happiness.  That is not surprising given the extreme poverty and income inequality.  Yet, most of the people we met are very friendly and kind.  Most Indians are good and spiritual people at heart.  The amazing thing is that so many are able to find happiness in a difficult and trying environment.

Our guide for the Taj Mahal, an architectural scholar, said this about happiness: “People say ‘I want happiness.’  First they must get rid of the “I,” the ego.  Then they must get rid of the “want.”  What you will have left is happiness.”

Monkeys fighting over fruit in street, Delhi

Children living on the street

Milking cow, early morning

Elephant at Mysore Palace.

At Gate of India, War Memorial

Sikh Temple, Delhi

Farewell to India