11/8/11 China

China is a country on the move!  I was amazed by how quickly it has developed since I was there 23 years ago. Granted, I only had the opportunity to visit the cities of Hong Kong and Shanghai on this trip, but the changes were immense.  One big difference was that in 1988, Hong Kong had not yet returned to being part of China, and was (and still is) much more developed than China. Shanghai is catching up quickly.  Instead of people wearing drab gray clothing and riding bicycles everywhere as they did in 1988, they are dressed in business clothing and taking transportation such as the Maglev train that gets them from the airport to downtown Shanghai at a speed of 430 km/hour!!!! In the 5 years since it came to Shanghai, Starbucks has opened 500 restaurants that look exactly like the ones in the USA. Jeff said he saw the most beautiful McDonald's restaurant in the world in Guilin, China. Both Hong Kong and Shanghai have skyscapes like you can't believe, especially at night, when all the skyscrapers are lit up and the cities are putting on their nightly laser light-shows. The view of Hong Kong from the top of Victoria Peak is unreal; it rivals the view of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge from the top of Mt Tamalpias.

The communist government was much more visible to me in China than it was in Vietnam.  There were Chinese officials wearing red armbands hanging out in all public places, making sure that people were behaving. Some of my shipmates had trip guides tell them that they could not discuss certain subjects in public places for fear of being reprimanded and having to go through "re-education." I was told that you can not own a home in China. You can lease a home for a maximum of 70 years, at which time the government will reclaim it. The government does compensate people well for the property it retakes, so families have money to re-lease a place to live in the city, or move to the suburbs. Many websites and social media sites are fire-walled by the Chinese government, so we were unable to get on Facebook or Blogspot while we were there.

The healthcare system in China varies wildly. I took an injured student to a dental specialist in a POSH high-rise building in Hong Kong. The office was nicer than any doctor's office I have seen in the USA, and the service was impeccable. We sat down in the waiting room and they served us coffee, found us a hotel for the student to stay in that night, and mailed my postcards for me. Meanwhile, in mainland China, one of the voyagers was pushed over by a motorcycle and taken to a hospital for X-rays due to shoulder pain. That facility was much more primitive, with non-existent privacy and employee's motorcycles parked in the stark waiting room. 

I'm sorry to report that the Chinese food in China was not all that great, in my American opinion.  The biggest problem was probably that it was tough to figure out what we were ordering, and it wasn't always what we hoped it would be.  Also, we again ran into the issue of skin and eyeballs and fat encasing much of the cooked meat and fish that was served. That is hard to get used to when you haven't grown up eating it. The sweets are completely different than anything we have in the USA, and not calorie-worthy (again, in my American opinion). I'd be willing to bet that the Chinese feel the same way about American food when they visit us. I know our friend from Nigeria was none-too-fond of most American food. It's amazing how much your culture of origin influences even your taste buds!

I did not travel inland at these ports, so my experiences were limited to two beautiful cities. Jeff took a trip inland to a place called Guilin. He had an absolutely amazing time, and wishes he could have spent much more time in China. When he gets caught up on his blog posts, you'll be able to visit his blog site to see some amazing pictures of beautiful China.

10/30/11 Vietnam

We are back on the ship after spending 6 days in the beautiful country of Vietnam.  It really is beautiful.  It's green, lush, tropical and vibrant.  People really do work in the rice paddies with their conical Vietnamese style hats, and the women look elegant in their traditional dress of a fitted floor-length tunic, cut on both sides all the way to their waists, with pants underneath. The people are, almost without exception, small and slender.  Their diet consists mostly of rice, fish/seafood, vegetables and fruits.  Fruit was the only dessert served to us. The people were very friendly and seemed happy to host our big ship full of Americans.

Ho Chi Menh City (Saigon), is a thriving, modernizing city, where you can find most anything you wish.  I was hard-pressed to find anything to remind me that this city exists in a communist country, except I didn't see any homeless people on the streets. I'm told that certain internet sites are blocked or limited by the government, and that government corruption is alive and well here, but the people seem quite content with their lives.  I still don't quite understand the arrangement between the government and all the privately-owned businesses here, but I think the limitations on owning a business are mostly related to politics; specifically, not compromising the Communist political party.  Vietnam is a 90% cash economy, so what people report to earn in a year is often vastly different than what they actually earn. This county is very tolerant of religious differences. Although the majority of people are Buddhist, it seems that you can find a large number of people who are involved in a large number of different religions.  We saw temples of all different faiths in our travels across Vietnam, some of them ancient.

You can not travel to Vietnam without revisiting the horror that was the Vietnam war (or American war, as the Vietnamese, call it).  We were reminded, time after time, how there really are no winners in war.  The Americans lost about 56,000 soldiers in the war, and then another 60,000 veterans to suicide in the decade that followed. The Vietnamese lost between 5 and 10 MILLION soldiers and civilians in that war, depending on where you get your numbers. The average age of the American soldiers was 19!  These boys were asked to hike through jungles that were filled with landmines and the most horrific, violent, spiked traps you can image.  We visited the Cu Chi tunnels, where the Vietnamese spent weeks and months, in a 300 mile long tunnel network under the ground, in order to keep from getting killed and to sneak up on the Americans.  They buried their dead in the walls of these tunnels, in addition to urinating and deficating in them.  The tunnels are small (you have to crawl in most parts of them), dark and hot, and I just simply can not believe that people were able to keep their sanity, having to live in those conditions.  One of the worst parts of the whole thing for me, is realizing that we are currently involved in another war, killing more innocent civilians, and losing more of our own young men and women. It's hard for me to believe that humanity has still not been able to declare war obsolete, and find humane ways to deal with our differences. I guess the only person whose attitude we can change is ourselves. I'm reminded of the quote, "be the change you wish to see in the world," and the line in Michael Jackson's song, "I'm looking at the man in the mirror, I'm asking him to change his ways, no message could have been any clearer, if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change."

On to more pleasant subjects... Ha Long Bay was gorgeous. We boarded a wooden boat that had an open top deck complete with lounge chairs and potted plants, and a window-filled lower deck with tables and benches for eating. We spent the next 4 hours exploring the bay. It is a body of water with wonderful, green rock formations jutting out all over the place.  Some of these islands are big and contain huge caves full of stalagtites and stalagmites, which we were able to explore.  After this little sunny taste of paradise, we were fed a huge seafood lunch. There were whole shrimp (yes, removing or eating their heads and legs was required), crab cakes served in crab shells, and various types of fish, along with fried squid.  Along the way, families who lived on boats on the bay would hop on our boat and try to sell us all kinds of things.  Sometimes they would just put their 3 year child on our boat, armed with a bunch of bananas for us to buy.  I guess they have figured out that it's harder for us to resist those cute little kids. I couldn't resist, and ended up with more bananas than we could eat.

One of the more unique cultural experiences we had in Ha Noi was seeing the water puppet show.  On a stage next to the water sat an orchestra made up of traditional Vietnamese instruments and the narrators. In high-pitched, squeely voices, 2 women provided the voices of the puppets. The puppets were plastic figures of people and dragons and such, and were attached to long sticks controlled by people in tall fishing boots, standing in the waist-deep water behind a back-drop. Although I wouldn't characterize this play as great, it was certainly unique.

I do hope that I can spend more time in this part of the world. It's just a nice place to be, full of nice people. Now on to China...

10/22/11 Malaysia

We are now half way through our voyage!  It's going way too fast, and all of us wish we had more time in all of these ports. I especially wish I had more time in Malaysia because I was on-call for the 3 days we were here. Being on-call means I have to be able to get back to the ship in 1 hour if someone needs me, and that I hold a morning clinic each day.  Usually it hasn't been too big of a deal.  This port was a little different. I spent one whole night dealing with students who had gotten some severe jellyfish stings and then with a student who had fallen through a second-story roof and gotten pretty scraped up and bruised.  Luckily, everyone is ok.  It meant I spent much of the following day sleeping while my family was out exploring the National Forest and eating fabulous Malaysian food. I really can't complain though. If it weren't for this job, none of us would be having this amazing experience, and the job is an amazing experience in itself. For example, until now I have never seen first-hand the damage a jellyfish can do!  OUCH!!!!

Malaysia is a tropical, lush, green island with nice people and great food.  The combined influence of the Indian, Chinese and Malay locals makes for some wonderful cuisine.  It would take a long time for me to tire of it, especially the variety of flat breads and curries.  The highlight of this country for me was going up Penang Hill on on a tram on rails.  The grade was steep and the scenery amazing, with tropical plants all over and homes perched on the side of the hill.  At the top we had amazing views of the ocean and of green rolling hills.  I was left wishing I had time to do some hiking and exploring on the nice path system they have constructed on the hill. This society is relatively well-to-do compared to the countries we have recently visited, and there are luxuries such as air-conditioned malls and Starbucks coffee houses with free WiFi internet access.  Skype is a wonderful thing, and I was able to connect with one of my friends back home.  I tried to Skype with my sisters the next day, and the internet connection was down.  Oh well, 50% success with my Skype attempts is better than I've had so far on this journey, usually due to my inability to get somewhere with a good internet connection.  By the way, if you'd like to leave comments on my blogs, I'd love to hear what you think.  The best way to communicate with me while I'm on this journey is to use my Semester at Sea email address which is: hlwarner@semesteratsea.net.

10/17/11 India

After 6 wonderful days in India, it's time to catch up on my blog.  India is a land of excitement and possibility, of extreme poverty and tremendous wealth, of ridiculously delicious food and unbelievable hospitality, of smothering heat and scary pollution.  One of our preport lecturers said, "Whatever you say about India, the opposite is also true."  In the few days I was there, I certainly had enough experiences and heard enough stories to support that quote.  I was taken twice by by auto rickshaw drivers to places I did not want to be (because they would get a cut from the store owner if I bought something) and was lied to about why I was there.  Another auto rickshow driver spent 17 hours with a shipmate helping her get through a stressful experience, telling her to "put back her tears," and staying with her until he knew she was ok.  When asked what she owed, he told her to pay whatever she thought was fair, if she felt he had treated her with kindness. I saw the slums with people living in "tents" made of pieced-together plastic bags, and stayed with a wealthy business owner and his family in a beautiful home. It is a land of contrasts.

Jeff and the boys stayed with the above-mentioned host family for 2 days prior to me joining them, because I was on-call those first 2 days.  I joined them the morning of the 3rd day.  The family-hired driver, the son, Madhu, and Jeff picked me up outside the port at about 9 am.  Upon getting to the home, I met Rao, the father, and Malathy, his wife.  Malathy was very busy in the kitchen cooking a feast for breakfast, which she and her son served to my family and her husband.  Since this was my second breakfast of the day, I tried to take it easy with the delicious homemade fried Indian flatbread, curried shrimp, and vegetable side dishes she served.  She refused to sit with us out of need to serve us, and absolutely forbade me to help cook or clean.  This was all translated through her husband, because she and I did not share a common language.

Jeff and I sat and talked with Rao for the next 2-3 hours about family, social issues (such as the place of women in Indian society), and spirituality.  He is Hindu and we asked a lot of questions about that religion.  Because they believe that God is present in everything, practicing Hindus are very kind to their fellow humans and to animals.  Rao told me that when people act poorly it doesn't make him angry, because to him it just means that they have not yet connected with God.  If they knew God, he said, they would be unable to act in a way that was angry or not kind. When I asked him to explain the multiple Gods in the Hindu Faith, he stated, in a nutshell, that he believes there is only one God, and that the different Hindu Gods are all part of that one God.  They are a way for humans to connect with, and explain the various attributes of God, and a way to make something that is totally intangible, more "real."  It was an exciting conversation and I felt very connected to this spiritual human being.

I was then told that their family has a tradition of giving a saree to all the women guests who stay with them for the first time, on the condition that the guest will wear it that day.  Not wanting to upset the apple cart, I gladly picked a beautiful pink and silver saree from a pile of new sarees.  Rao's daugher Sujathe, and her husband Kartic, then arrived at the house to go to lunch with us. Sujathe took me to her old bedroom and began the complicated process of dressing me in the saree.  After twisting, folding, tucking and pinning me in to yards and yards of material, I felt like a princess.  Sujathe and her mother then adorned me with matching jewels; a pink and gray pearl necklace with pink pearl earrings, bright pink bangles for my wrists, anklets, flowers and jewels for my hair, and a pink bindi for my forehead. Now I felt like a queen.  We all piled into cars and went to eat at an Indian restaurant, where an amazing South Indian meal was waiting for us.  Rao refused to let us pay for any of it.  Stuffed full of delicious breads, vegetables and sweets, we got back into the cars and drove to the school where the kids and Jeff were to do their "$100 solution" presentation.

The "$100 Solution" is a project that encourages small donations of $100 to communities to help fund projects that will become part of sustainable solutions to issues of concern for those communities.  Reade, Tate and Jeff are leading the Semester at Sea pilot program to see how the concept works with school-age children.  If successful, Semester at Sea hopes to make it part of the school age children "curriculum" while at sea. After making their presentation to the school kids, ideas for how best to use that $100 were discussed, and it was decided that they would use it to help fund a "green" project to reduce plastic bag usage by replacing them with reusable canvas bags.  Part of the proceeds from each bag sale will go back into the project to fund more bags, thus making it sustainable. The kids and Jeff did a wonderful presentation in a stuffy, VERY hot classroom while I sat proudly and suffered with rivers of sweat running down my saree-clad body.  After the presentation, the school fed us again - sweet rice, vegetable filled pockets, and sweet, milky tea.  The plan was to go out to dinner a few hours later, but the Warner family was so stuffed full of Indian deliciousness, that we decided to skip that idea, and went back to the host home.  Forever the hostess, Malathy and her two servants cooked us an amazing dinner anyway.  When it was time to leave, I took off my jewerly to return it to it's rightful owner, and was flatly refused.  In fact, the jewerly was taken upstairs, packed up carefully, and given back to me as a gift I "must" take. Then we were given a wood-inlaid "picture" of Ganesh, one of the Hindu Gods. With this gift, Rao said they were hoping we would think of them every day, whenever we saw the picture.  Their driver took us back to the ship late that night.  We hope they will come visit us in Colorado some day.

From this experience, I was forced to think hard about generosity and hospitality.  The small gestures I've made to my guests in the past now seem embarrassingly little, and I hope I will do better in the future.  India felt like a very spiritual, hospitable country, and the USA could certainly learn from some of India's cultural attributes.

10/11/11 Mauritius

It's been a week since we left Mauritius, but I'm just now getting around to blogging about it. 

I was on-call the one day we were in Mauritius, so I had a different experience than many others.  I spent the day walking around the port area and seeing the market where the locals shop.  That was lots of fun and I ate one of the best veggie samosas I've ever had.  Most of the population here is Indian and the food reflects that with lots of curries and naan bread readily available.

The most interesting thing that happened to me in Mauritius was that I ran into an Indian man who wants to imigrate to the USA.  He had all kinds of questions for me, many which I couldn't answer.  Before we parted ways he insisted I give him my email address so that he could send me a copy of his resume to forward to someone who would hire him.  Somehow, I don't think it will be that easy for him.  I did email him back with information on how to apply for a job with V-ships, the company that staffs Semester at Sea with it's crew.

As previously mentioned, I was on-call this day.  I got back to the ship early for the clinic we hold prior to leaving each port.  I was warned that alcohol is a problem in this port because many of the students go out on snorkeling trips that include lots of alcohol along with the lunch barbeque. It didn't take long until some of them started staggering into the clinic, having failed the sobriety test at the gangplank.  There were actually only a few very drunk students, which is a big improvement from previous journeys, I'm told.  Those that got drunk enough to need babysitting in the medical clinic will start accruing bad-boy (or girl) points that can ultimately get them kicked off the ship.  It only takes 10 points to get booted, and a couple kids came quite close to that number for behaving poorly in addition to being drunk enough to require medical attention.  We sat there with them for hours until they were able to blow a number that allowed them to leave.  Despite that experience, I must say that I haven't seen nearly as many alcohol-related issues as I had expected, and have been VERY impressed with this group of students overall.  For the most part, they seem to be a thoughtful, hard-working, friendly group of kids that hope to make a difference in the world.

9/30/11 The Piano Bar, M.V. Explorer

I'm sitting here in the piano lounge listening to the spouse of one of the professors brilliantly play the piano (he used to be a professional musician).  Other people are playing chess, writing in their journals, studying, or chatting with their friends.  It is really lovely, to quote one of my new South African friends.  I must leave in a few minutes to meet a patient in the clinic who fractured his proximal humerus and dislocated his shoulder in a bicycling accident in South Africa.  He was treated by an orthopedist at the hospital in Cape Town, but needs a little help managing the pain, as expected.  The clinic has been quite busy recently, mostly with viral upper respiratory illnesses, but a good variety of other minor stuff.  The clinic is interesting because it's small, and therefore, we are on top of each other all the time.  There is only one room with meds in it, and a different room with the strep tests, etc.  If I need something in the room that Dr. Sloane is in, I have to interrupt, and vise versa.  Somehow, we manage to make it work.  It's been a fun job so far, and I pray it stays that way.

9/29/11 South Africa

We are back on the ship after spending 6 wonderful days in South Africa.  Cape Town is a beautiful city that you can't wait to explore once you set eyes on it. 

Our first day there, we went on a sunset hike up Lion's Head, a mountain in Cape Town.  Our guide warned us that this was a true mountain climbing experience (and may not be a good idea for children under age 12), but I wasn't prepared for the ladders, foot- and hand-holds, and chains we had to use to get up the last part of the climb.  The kids scampered up like little mountain goats, making friends with all the college kids and guides on the trip, and proving that kids can not only do this hike, but can beat all the adults and college students up, no problem.  The dinner on top was simple, but nice, and the views were spectacular.  After sunset, we headed back down in the dark (with headlamps). I was certain that there must be a safer way down, since we were descending in the dark, but that was not the case. I did wonder what kind of a mother I was, exposing my children to possible dangers like falling off cliffs in the dark.  All of us made it back to the ship in one piece, I'm happy to report, my motherly reputation intact.

We had lots of memorable experiences in South Africa, including a wonderful, one-day safari, a scenic cable-car trip up to the top of Table Mountain to see the panoramic views, and a fancy dinner in a treehouse.  The most memorable day for me though, was the last.  We went on an FDP (faculty-directed practicum) to the Amy Biehl Foundation, which provides supplemental and after-school opportunities for children that would never have such opportunities.  It also provides a well-balanced meal once per day for the kids in it's program.  Amy Biehl was an activist against apartheid, who was stoned to death by 4 kids in a political rally.  Her parents, rather than looking for revenge, started a foundation to continue her work and help disadvantaged kids.  Two of the young men who killed Amy Biehl now work for her foundation.  It is a story of absolute forgiveness and generosity that can't help but amaze anyone who hears it. 

We spent a couple of hours driving through the townships that these disadvantaged children come from.  Picture hundreds and hundreds of corrugated steel and plywood shacks, all connected to each other, with narrow aisles between them and occasional concrete rectangular boxes that house the toilets.  Many of the people leave their doors open, so we could see inside some of the shacks as we drove by.  Some were tiny, with a small bed and table and not much else.  Others seemed to be bigger, with several connected shacks and a few separate rooms, and some seemed to have some modern appliances and TV's in them.  Some were in shambles, and others looked very neat inside. We were told that typically, when one person in the area gets a job and can pay for power, they let their neighbors splice into their power lines, and thus share resources.  Unemployment in some of these township is as high as 40%, and HIV rates are as high as 30%! 

I was just blown away by the mess that the founders of apartheid made of things.  They took housed black people from locations near work opportunities, and pushed them out of their housing without any compensation, away from sources of work, and made them start over with nothing -  thus the shanty-towns.  The vast consequences of this act were clearly not anticipated, and when apartheid was finally outlawed, the blacks had been reduced to poverty-sticken, uneducated populations.  Now the govenment must try to compensate the displaced blacks by providing them with proper housing, which it can only accomplish painfully slowly and with revenue from only 9.1% of the population that makes enough money to be taxed.  Public education, although provided by the government, is bare-bones, and many parents still can not pay the school and book fees required.  Therefore, many of the children still do not get educated.  Of note, I did not see one single white face in the townships we drove through.

Afterwards, our last evening in Cape Town, the staff, faculty and their families got the honor of getting to personally meet Nobel Peace Prize winner, Archbishop Desmond Tutu. If you check out my facebook "wall," you can see a picture of Tate giving a high-five to Desmond Tutu, with the rest of us looking on, behind him.  The reception for him was nice, but the speech that he gave to the entire shipboard community afterward was amazing.  He is clearly a deeply spiritual man, who recognizes the absurdity in distinctions between humans being based on physical attributes.  He made the point that you can not tell anything about a person's generosity of spirit, capacity for forgiveness, or anything else that matters at all, by looking at the color of their skin or size of their nose (yes, Phillips family, he did imply that our large noses do not necessarily make us superior beings :).  He was appalled that populations (such as the USA) have spent MILLIONS of dollars in a few seconds, testing nuclear warheads.  His words, and I paraphrase,  "Do you have ANY IDEA what we could have done with that amount of money to improve the lives of our people????"  He then spoke of how none of us (Semester at Sea participants) would come home the same people.  We would never again be able to ignore injustice, and we would fight for those less fortunate than us. He used very formative, compelling, inspiring language, and I had to fight back the tears.  You can just feel when you are in the presence of someone great.