U.S. Repatriating Blues: Dark Reflections after a Decade Away

There isn’t any easy to put this, so I’m just gonna be blunt: being back stateside suuuuuuucks. From top to bottom, there doesn’t seem to be any light. It is a worse off cultural wasteland than when I left it, and considering I’ve been living amidst Asians for little over a decade, this recognition is felt doubly so. But fair warning, it could be me.

So here are the observations of a healthy male, educated, married to a lovely woman, socialite, with probably an above average proclivity towards bi-polar disorder, whose traveled deeply into, if not lived in around thirty different countries.

The U.S:

Cities have all gentrified, suburbs have all corporatized, people are more atomized, younger generations are more commodified, the ageing have had their brains liquidized, and the country hasn’t been this polarized since Nixon, at least. Culture rot is not confined to anyone culture or socio-economic strata however. Rich and poor alike are populated with more infantile brats than ever, which is perhaps the most obvious trait Americans have in common. The wealthiest counties as well the poorest revealed their shared backwardness in the election of a biblical villain if there ever was one, an alpha-brat, affrming a deeply retarded understanding of nobility. And despite all the mongering of ageing white dudes, the language police have not stymied what I see as newly affirmed freedom to express bigoted comments. I think that much is obvious, no? Instead what this silly ass group has to offer is gender tokenism as a more important expression than economic justice. That’s their “revolution” – policing the use of the right or wrong gender pronoun.

Amidst the wreckage of this experiment  its readily apparent to this expat that any sense of community that may have existed in what was already a brittle idea of a common culture has been drowned out by the noise of capitalism’s massive train, that roars on with ever more fervor through the minds and souls of all. The sense of civic duty is almost looked down upon from the seat of the consumerzen: there’s just no reason to respect our elders, no reason to help guide our young, unless we are commercially facilitated to do so. No reason to be welcoming to a stranger, who knows what they want? (or have?). So many schools are completely bonkers. Children have are readily handed addictive technology. These factories that feed on the souls of teachers…who get spit out at the end of their careers so emotionally exhausted that I wonder if they can even feel any joy of retirement.

The virtue of humility has been engineered out of awareness as the population is increasingly segmented and corralled into their custom made social implosions, where outrage is recirculated instead of oxygen.  No one is available to the public, much less aware of it, of an “us”, in this gulag of short lived gratifications, and I don’t blame them. Unlike the plazas of Europe, or the open air markets of Asia, or “the streets” of old America where people went out and took solace with just seeing each other, public gathering spaces today have either been bulldozed into oblivion, are designed to keep you shuffling (or the police will), or are inundated by the meth head stank of the nouveau homeless: young white people.

Relatedly, crime is back on the rise, hate crimes, attacks on the elderly, and other nihilistic flourishes. As I became re-sensitized to guns during my time away, you feel just how insane this daily stream of gun murders are, much more the disturbances of mass shootings. Yet Americans are too busy to care as their sprint for salvation across the field of runaway capitalism grows faster. And as they watch their bretheren collapse here and there on the manic field of runaway capitalist history, the pressure to live solely for the betterment of the individual self grows ever stronger.  Today, its the strongest I’ve ever seen, a sign of things to come in Korea no doubt.

When not working the levers of this great spectacle, “adults” don’t have the fun they once did. The grind of capitalism has shortened those hours by seemingly half or more. Bars empty out much sooner, parties end much quicker, there is no spirit for social revelry, no spirit for celebration, it is instead wasted away on consuming a wide host of the most inane shit ever facilitated through the halls of Stanford tech, Princeton politicians, and their state educated subordinates. I wonder if Americans know how lame they have it…the joy de vive that permeates the streets of Europe, the Middle East and Asia is lost on this country anymore, and the one age group that is allowed such a freedom perverts it. The art of living IT up has dried UP and instead our blinders have been more tightly bound. We don’t need authoritarian capitalism to keep our mouths on the bit, its been internalized in us beginning with the first wholly corporate manufactured generation: the boomers, and even more so by their successors. Yes Gen Z, you’re actually even more “boomerish”…your generation will never experience ANYTHING like a Woodstock. You will never see “the streets” your grand parents did, where everyone came out, and knew each other. You will never experience the pre-digital unbridled enthusiasms of Gen X, where if you spent too much time on anything remotely like a computer, you were labeled nerd! Now tou’re raised from day one in the digital googleplex, as young professional (YP) therein, speaking the tongue of eugenics.

The famous French dinner nights could never fly here, where friend and family commonly stay up late, in love of life. The gatherings you see among the ageing Koreans, nothing like it here. Every working stiff must hurry home to incubate, for Monday is the start of another week! Ugggh. NYC – the city that never sleeps? Puuuhhhlease…any midsized Asian city has exponentially more action than anything offered in any of our coastal or river cities. I suspect much of this has to do also with a felt sense of crime, whose absence was so refreshing in the East. I didn’t have to walk my girlfriend to the subway or friends to their cars, as I once did here in the states, and will probably have to do again soon for living in a cool part of any town that isn’t riddled with criminals and meth roaches will probably cost you 30-40% your monthly salary. Not that it’s all that fun there, for your living amidst the alienated Americans bores listed above. So we have that to look forward to.

There is no public culture, no gatherings of normal people in public, no old men sitting outside the shop, talking shop, no women gathering in the plaza to share the family’s joys. Shit, its hard to see kids out exploring in the majestic wild of their respective parts of town. It’s a nation that’s estranged from each other, speaks in this Chilis corporate restaurant tone with each other, that’s engineered that way: to suck down Netflix and work unto retirement, where Netflix gets replaced by the 24 hour outrage machine: cable news.

I’m now residing in a city filled with disaffected  non-native mid-westerners, and having trouble resigning myself to this reality. And I can’t help but see the current president as most symbolic figurehead of this state of affairs. A systemic change needs to occur and if you think anyone but Bernie can possibly pull that off, you’re more than likely one of these sorry bastards Ive listed above.

Or it could be me. all me.

I think its somewhere in between….you tell me.

Hugs and kisses,

HN

 

(SPOILER ALERT)Bird box metaphor.

Something that started in Russia has now spread to the states. The very atmosphere has become demonically possessed, and you basically need only to look into the outside world to be immediately driven to suicide. However, the (criminally) deranged (it seems) portion of the population see something so beautiful in this otherwise demonically possessed atmosphere and instead of being driven to offing themselves by the most immediate means available, they feel compelled to show others the view, by force if necessary, with total disregard for their well-being. Regardless of the film’s quality, the metaphor was a maga-nificent!

 

Grateful Dead and the Traveling Soul

I told Althea I was feeling lost
Lacking in some direction
Althea told me upon scrutiny
That my back might need protection

There are many tales as to how the Grateful Dead arrived at their name, but the best is rooted in pre-modern Britain, and can still be of help to any traveler looking to juice some new town karma.

So it goes that among the horse-pie ridden roads of ye ole England, among the daily melee of human, animal, and the yet to be discovered universe of microbial traffic, a passing traveler might spot a human corpse or two who’d been  propped up in their wooden eternal home, on display at the front of certain institutional buildings. The intrepid traveler would know that these unfortunate souls hadn’t been so good at balancing their pre-modern budget. Having failed to pay off their worldly debts, their posthumous punishment would be rights to a proper burial, until somehow their deeds on earth coaxed some willing witness to satisfy the debtors.

Often the families of the deceased would gather their meager feudal bits together to put their tap-dancing Uncle Jack six feet under. Or perhaps Jack’s old buddies would send out ye ole collection plate and hope to let the essence of Jack get on its way.

Another option however presented an ethereal opportunity for the fresh newcomer. In order to get into the good graces of the gods of debt, Jack’s soul, and massage the town’s collective gestalt abit, a mindful traveler could take it upon themselves to void that debt. No doubt a bit of a financial setback, the eager to please traveler would toss their coin purse onto the block still, and with Jack finally liberated into the spirit world he could show his gratitude by helping ease the traveler’s way into town, helping to fulfill whatever might be their intentions.

Now, if you see corpses lining a modern town’s streets, I wouldn’t suggest sticking around too long (unless you’re in Tana Toraja). The moral of my reminder here is to help out my fellow travelers abit. So when riding into some new spot try and locate similarly unique ways to be charitable.  You don’t believe in god? The afterlife? Karma? Or even a higher force? That’s A-Okay. But helping out a family or friend of the recently deceased is still something wonderful, that is looked kindly upon, and helps to lift us all not to mention your own spirit. and might help keep the existential travel devils at bay along your journey.

(For Jen Sotham, you will always remain in our wayward hearts)

 

Think Global Act Local: Alienate Fascists

“We believe that we believe but we do not believe”

-Merleau Ponty

Me attempting to keep out of the discursive ambush that comes with unleashing on the last remaining MAGA trolls that haven’t exited my Facebook cosmos:

But I won’t let a shared past sanction some old pal’s, some old itchy flame’s, some old grade school acquaintance’s budding fascism, as unconscious of it as they maybe, and y’all shouldn’t either. The few FB acquaintances I’ve had to openly kick in the nuts had been flagged too many times for being way out of bounds. Knee-jerk hate I can deal with but threats, family defamation, and that malicious mis-characterization of viewpoints that’s been unique in driving MAGA nuts to POP and shoot places up (all hallmark hatin MAGA moves), are all beyond reproach, and their spewers need to be flicked out into their own private site beyond the thunder dome. They suffer from what I call “deep hate”, that’s perhaps more so about their own issues then it is about politics:

https://www.rawstory.com/2016/03/fck-you-you-whore-watch-angry-white-people-go-berserk-outside-trump-rally-in-st-louis/

However, there’s a subtler specie of MAGA folk out there who also need a serious reality check I do believe. It’s the cleaner, more tidy, gleaming white young professional ones we remain somehow connected with. And really, it’s these hyper-burbian social chameleons that need to be doled down a reality check. While you’re clinging to a distorted nostalgia of those halcyon days when you bonged beers with em and puked in a parking lot somewhere a lifetime ago (leaving it to be cleaned up by someone else because you were also kind of a piece of shit), they’re now actively supporting the NRA, or the inhumane mistreatment of immigrants and other human beings seeking a better life. While you defend your continued friendship because they never did anything bad to you personally, they’re totally cool and supportive of bombing the hell from innocent brown people the world over. While you’re agreeing to disagree (about an openly fascistic regime who’s actively engaged in the most bizarre smear campaign in presidential history via his twitter account), your old shot queen now supports the active destruction of the environment because climate change is basically fake news to her. While you’re trying delude yourself into believing you’re both still in the same idiotic clique in high school or college, they’re actively supporting a regime that wants to overturn roe v. wade, build a stupid wall of fear across our southern border, and affirm a leader who retweets messages from rabid hate groups. While you’re trying really hard to laugh with them about those alleged glory days, you’re failing to see that you were once perhaps a blindly privileged, unapologetically elitist barbarian you see them as today.

I get it. We want so badly to believe that old Steph is still that sweet girl that once cheered us up after we got dumped in the ninth grade. And perhaps she still does have something of that. But it pales in comparison to her active support of all that is driving the world over the fucking edge. We give far too much harbor to those who’ve become unconscious enough to peddle fascism, hate, and or blindly support it. All based on a bond that once existed in a totally different plane of experience of self, worldly understanding, and education, in a previous life. Such safe harbor gives them further impetus, further affirmation of their actions. Ask yourself in complete honesty, would you avoid a friendship with this person today? If so, don’t be a coward. My suggestion? Cut off communication with them. Be honest and live a life that caters to principle and not your petty ego story…ffs, it’s no longer as simple a split where “agree to disagree” is a plausible scenario, and it’s never a good idea to instigate violence, so I say you alienate! Stand up for all the lives these fascists are destroying, human or otherwise. They aren’t alienated via strangers, and if it’s not you, who?  (if you don’t know why supporters of fascism should be alienated, well…god help you).

The decadence of “white boy/girl” problems.

There’s a mutation in the latte wielding left’s discourse, a phraseology new to this six-year long expat, and it’s more decadent than a Cinnabon/coke combo at the connection airport. Here’s a bite: “Oh I know…(its my) white boy problems” or the “yeah….white girl issues..I know”, among other similar sentiments. What to make of this curious new flourish in mainstream American discourse, which agonized my soul’s stomach on several different occasions during my summer’s re-acquaintance?

The “they” opposed to the “we” of the “white-boy/girl” implied in this methane ass cloud of self-indulgence has expanded out to include all minorities regardless of their “first, second, or third world” (an obsolete metric, if it were ever cogent) status. Simultaneously, the rectal offenders insinuate that all white people suffer from this decadent state of affairs, regardless of how many ironic tattoos they don’t have.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh on these flatchulators. We know that they’re not referring to any real problems after all. The “white girl/boy” affixed to the word “issues” or “problems” is meant to denote triviality. That is, at best they’re lamenting on the trivial decisions of their privileged life, but at worst are backhandedly gloating about the agony that they can’t go yachting because they have to attend that wine mixer! I surmise most of these rectal offenders are somewhere between these two poles. What I am pointing out however, and perhaps you’re feeling it now, is the growing nausea in the middle American stomach…like from having too much cake. Have we (humans) become so shamelessly decadent that its now acceptable to voice disingenuous suffering for fake problems?

Not all white people have “white people” issues, and to insinuate such a thing is not only alienating, but also denies the dignity, and understanding of the very real socio-economic problems white people in America face. And perhaps they’re attempting empathy with non-white strugglers? However, such wafts off ass in the form of feigning humility serves only to sacrifice the self-respect and dignity of its speaker, and can be smelled a mile away.

If indeed you feel guilty for your privilege, that’s your cross to bare if you so choose to wear it. As a non-white American, I’d think it more worthwhile to use your position to give a hand to others, to help effectuate a more even playing field, to elect people that will help bring more equality to a system that is empirically tilted.

Uttering such non-sensical phraseology distorts class divisions, perpetuates race struggles, and serves only to prolapse even more the privileged white anuses of those who accrete the desire to appear more sophisticated, or part of the more “woke” mainstream. But in reality they are seen clearly by the rest of us, sipping on farts in their champagne flutes at their mixers via images increasingly brought to us via media.

And its making America twitchy…

 

Buddha has long been evicted

….long banished by the newest people of the peninsula. He was slowly inched into his final refuge in tiny cordoned off mountain asylums without any say in the new country’s day-to-day operations. His polyvalent homes, spotted throughout the façade of meaningful mountains live in a parallel universe that is only allowed a whisper, a peep, and a peak into ours, every now and again. Things, things upon things consciously constructed, unconsciously deconstructing. Where once silence sat supreme, there is now the unbroken sound of modern man’s noon-day panic. A pacing implacable existential ennui awaiting us in the space just past the day’s finish line and before the next’s beginning. We lay awake mapping out our careful tip toe through life unto death, averting every corner of modern uncertainties, as we descend deeper into the trick maze. Buddha’s gong still rings in from the Korean mountains, reminding the ears walking the perimeter of their accessory to this mindfully mindless crime, while the pedestrians on the interior have become too far gone, out of reach to hear this millennia old call.

Confucius’s fate even worse…having been relegated to a subterranean apartment beneath the grid and far away off any subway line, he’s the great grandfather with pee stains in his PJs. He’s the old man fading away and buried beneath megalithic new apartment complexes with shiny TRUMP signs on their mast.  He rides the subway but is ignored. Walks the streets buts is shoved out of the way. All but considered completely senile, he’s not taken at all that seriously anymore, really, yet is paraded about every so often on certain days as to feign some respect for something that’s perhaps never been quite understood.

It’s the technicolor Jesus that’s filling the suede spiritual seat of modern Korea. The Jesus that facilitates business networkings, plastic enterprises of all sorts, and dreams of redemption from  holy folly around exciting, semented, elbowy corners under the keeeeeeeen little neons of back alley-way warmgasms. His concrete & glass palaces right off the transit lines, spreading like an urban herpes, sprouting between gas stations and faster food. The golf loving  messiah and bearer of the 401k…better get in line…the job forecast looks like a scorcher for eternity.

Logan’s (Wolverine) Dystopic America, Hopeful Canada, & Invisible Korea: Spoiler Alert

***Spoiler alert for the X Men movie: “Logan”***

Watched Logan recently and agree with many: Wolverine just is the best superhero of our time. But aside from all that, it did leave me a little depressed for ole USA. I just want to point out the America depicted in the Marvel flick is a hopeless place that they spend the entirety of the movie simply trying to avoid and/or suffer a little longer in order to escape, first to a boat, then under different circumstances, to promising Canada. The three remaining X-men have abandoned what appears to be an overtly militarized dystopic nation, controlled completely by nefarious forces, and among other reasons, nudges them to take up residence just south of the border, a very timely topic. However, the king of the X-men himself does spend his days sneaking up north into the capitalist grind as a limo driver, saving up to die in his pie in the sky boat, working tirelessly on that dream, and trying his best to avoid concerning himself with the world of power.  Logan seems tired of the America we see along his routes. Its a depraved, criminal, and moronic state of affairs. Were taken for rides with Logan as he has to suffer privileged drunken American youth in tuxedos holding champagne bottles as they taunt deportees with rabid chants of USA USA out of the sunroof. We get to sit among a ridiculous group of made for facebook bridesmaids who demand the limo driver’s attention to show him their breasts, to Logan’s distaste. The only other Americans we see are casino goers and military  or some kind of para-military force, that seem to operate carte blanche, without hindrance, across the country doing as they please. The movie left no redemption for the country. No hope in the immediate future. And in the end, all the good guys leave it to its own devices…

Oh yeah, there was one wholesome speck of America that made its way in…. that nice Black family that takes them in for what Xavier describes as the most perfect evening he’s had in a long time. But with their gruesome executions came the movie’s loudest commentary on what is left of future USA.

Korea may not be perfect and some of its humility only skin deep, even self-destructive at times, and perhaps its ethic of collectivism is being exploited by capitalist enterprise, yet there still remains  a sacrificing of self for the greater good. This ethic is perhaps most central to the health of any team…and if there was a light in this movie, if it left any redeeming quality for the USofA, it was Logan’s final act, sealed with an X.

I saved my soul by coming to Korea

Dramatic as it may sound, it is true. I used to regard my tenure here as a “time-out” of sorts. A “time-out” out of the grind of life in the United States that seems to befall all who are partaking in the race, rich and poor alike. “I’ll get to live in a Buddhist nation, (albeit heavily capitalistic as well – as I write this two Buddhist monks just walked into the Starbucks I’m at, judge away but I swear by Buddha its true)” I fantasized. Experience the collectivism of East Asian culture, which has been such a delight (I know this is a generalization, and I don’t give a damn…it’s a good one). “I’ll get to travel deep into Asia, India, Nepal, Thailand, THAILAND anywhere.”

But what I didn’t count on in coming to Korea was how being self-exiled from American society would contribute to what I believe to be a massive growth spurt of spirit – is the best way I can put it. I came to Korea and met like minds that had arrived to similar conclusions, ideas, suspicions, proclivities, but through a totally different stream path. Those who began flying in their own minds, out of the confines of the socially scripted path that they had been perpetually corralled onto in their respective western towns since birth. I’ve interacted with so many from all over, and not only through boozey eyes. Exchanging our most precious findings at haste out of the excitement of finding each other.

Eventually explored dimensions of potential that were alien to my American identity, which in retrospect was suffocating in things American. I’ve been here now for about 6 years and in that time I’ve seen friends and family back home regress as opposed to grow. Perhaps its different with y’all, but many if not most, are rather stagnant or worse in their knowledge of the world, similarities and differences therein, and the wild inter-dependencies. I found myself a seat on the moon many a night, looking down not only the world below but also myself in it and noticed that my youth is in tact although I’ve reached my late 30’s. I feel younger in many ways than when I first arrived. I can’t help but notice many of my closest friends and family back home have aged instead of growing. Not only physically, mentally, but also in spirit. And understandably so, and I would have too, swimming right alongside them in that fishbowl. So, to the other self-exiled temporary or otherwise, I hope you never second guess your decision to eject based on your lack of material substances in comparison with those back in your home country. Your 401k might be non-existent, but investing in your soul, spirit, intellect is of greater benefit to the world and yourself in the long run me thinks. Friends and family may quickly level you with that pesky “peter-pan complex”, to which I hope you respond with a middle finger….(and an illegal smirk).

The M&M Trail of Sulawesi: Makassar to Manado

The M&M Trail of Sulawesi: Makassar to Manado (via The Togean Islands)

Part 1 (of 2)

“South East Asia” – A totalizing geographic label I’ve grown to find increasingly vapid, does an especial disservice to the complexity of Indonesia. Two hundred and Fifty Million people flung across a galaxy of richly soiled volcanic diamond islands, lapping up the superbly lush waters of the Indian Ocean. Busy rainforests, dense jungles, handsome mountains, glowing sulfuric lakes, glowing sulfuric lakes on the tops of mountains, Salvador Dali-esque rice terraces cascading down massive rifts, deliciously grassy bluffs, sprawling valleys, white sanded beaches against post card white waters, sparkling architecture of reef, trippy coral, vibrant green paddies everywhere, all of it, all furnished and fertilized by an innumerable amount of volcanoes that align the vast Sunda and Banda arcs that together makeup Indonesia’s firey spine.

And mirroring all this earthly diversity are the people and their impossible to believe milieu of a population equal in size to that of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Burma combined. With the exception of the western circus that is Kuta, Bali and the dreary, carbon-poisoned lipsticked pig that is Jakarta, the rest of Indonesia (and Bali) is a wild frontier, densely diverse, and loaded with potential adventure.

Although Indonesia is considered by modern measure to have the largest Islamic population in the world, the variations on Islam across the archipelago is abundant and largely take cue from their local animistic traditions, that to me, a person who has lived and traveled in the middle east, makes this place a muslim-lite nation. (obligatory PC explanation imminent)Not that there’s anything particularly wrong with Islam nor with Islamic nations in toto. All I mean to point out is the heterogeneity within their religious practice. To me, the Abrahamic religions are only as open and tolerant as the people who practice them. And in Indonesia, its wide open.

SULAWESI!

My most recent tour across the scatter of Indian oceanic islands took me to the scorpion shaped island of Sulawesi, the world’s eleventh largest. Reflecting much of Indonesia’s spiritual and natural milieu, the island is a mixture of a youthful Christianity, an Islam flung far from Mecca, but if pressed a little their deeper animistic perspectives reside right alongside their veils and crosses (especially so in Torajah). The island’s largest cities are not unlike other choking cities of Indonesia, less any remarkable destinations. However, if there’s one thing to remark on, it’s the kindness you find still in these densely populated areas…I don’t think they get too many visitors.

Most travelers come to Sulawesi for its pristine nature, scuba diving, and indigenous cultural experiences, which are well worth the little more you spend say going to the hackneyed touring dens so many foreigners trample through each day across Indonesia.

The M&M Trail

To begin the M&M trail, you’ll have to begin in either Makassar or Manado. Makassar is the capital city located in the south and is up and busy. The airport touts were reminiscent of my first step out of New Delhi Indira Gandhi international and into their gropey swarm. However, unlike their Delhian counterparts, the Sulawesian passion for business doesn’t seem to super-cede their welcoming kindness. I know this may seem like a traveler’s idealization, but I’ve never seen pushy touts so non-pushy, but rather get easily distracted by their more authentic curiosities. However the travel gods gave us a pass on that mess and delivered us up to an angelic local named Margaret who was just returning from a visit with her daughter in Bali and offered us a ride and more. And if you think I’m being harsh towards Delhi’s toutiverse…then, in that case, you’re an idiot.

Margaret invited us to her house to relax while we awaited our bus to depart to Tana Toraja, our first stop along the trail. A medical doctor by trade, she was a natural caretaker providing us with a tasty local dinner, refreshments, and quickly offering us a room to nap in along with a nice bathroom/shower. It was all too much considering we’d spent the previous couple weeks stationed in a “rustic” provincial dwelling in southern Lombok. We couldn’t believe our luck with finding such a hospitable interlocutor. Her husband, a social science professor at a local university shared her humanitarian flare and they both had been providing a boarding house for university students. Together, they inspired me ever more to pay it forward at every turn. The world instantly becomes softer and more enjoyable in these instances and to that lovely couple, I give them thanks for deepening that lesson ever more. On top of it all, they had one of their borders give us a lift to the bus station. He took his post very seriously and saw to it that we had no problems purchasing the ticket and getting great seats on what was perhaps the most luxurious bus I’ve ever taken in all my travels, and that will be the last time I experience any thing resembling comfort for the next few weeks.

Tana Toraja          

Once we arrived in Rantaepo, the central city in the land (Tana) of the Torajans, you’re immediately welcomed by funeral touring touts. That’s right, among the most unique tout markets I’ve ever seen. Many have their own motorcycle tuk tuks, gotta be the most dangerous I’ve seen in design where instead of being carted in the back of some motorized bike, you’re carted in front.

Summer is funeral season in the land and this attracts tourists Indonesian and Farang alike to their bloodbath funerals. Although the dead may have passed earlier in the year, and the initial ceremony complete, it’s not till the summer that they hold this particular ceremony meant for the public, with a corpse that has most likely long been embalmed. So naturally, the ancillary tout funeral tour market would emerge that proves its worth for if it’s a blood bath funeral with exposed corpses that you fancy, these guys will get you there. Either at the bus stop or through your guesthouse, you will most likely have to hire one to get to the blood, the mud, and the beef (food that follows). But you might want to leave your western sensitivities on that luxurious bus, because shit gets weird quick in these funerals (and that’ll be the last remotely comfortable bus you’ll take).

The whole affair is some kind of after-life popularity contest where the most popular and wealthy dead throw the most extravagant funerals with the most bulls and pigs slaughtered. And the more that people show up, the smoother the sail is for deceased’s soul on its way on up to the Christian heaven, and in turn the family’s sense of peace. If there is one word to summarize the experience, it is BLOOD. We made our way to what seemed to be a wealthier funeral where several bulls got the chop along with some large pigs that ringed the main event. Following the sacrificial massacre, the meat is bbq’d and served to guests (no pics here, look it up).

However, do not let this practice scare you off. The entire ordeal is managed by a smiling mass that loves nothing more than to show their cordialness and/or gratitude towards your attendance. Forget anything you heard about other lands of smiles, nothing beats the kindness of Sulawesi, blood bath and all. Following the ceremony, we retired up to the mountain village of Batutamonga to stay in a traditional Torajan boat home, the Tongkonan. If you’ve never seen these interesting communities then you are in for quite a “weeeeee”…look at the roofs:

Many Torajan people live in these small communities of boat homes, which as explained by Wikipedia:

“The word ‘Tongkonan’ is derived from the Toraja word tongkon (‘to sit’)   and literally means the place where family members meet.

According to the Torajan myth, the first tongkonan house was built in heaven by Puang Matua, the Creator. It was built on four poles and the roof was made of Indian cloth. When the first Torajan ancestor descended to earth, he imitated the heavenly house and held a big ceremony.^[1] An alternative legend, describes the Toraja arriving from the north by boats, but caught in a fierce storm, their boats were so badly damaged that they used them as roofs for their new houses.

There are three types of tongkonan. Tongkonan layuk is the house of the highest authority and it is used as the center of government. The second type is tongkonan pekamberan, which belongs to the family group members, who have some authorities in local traditions (known as adat). The last one is tongkonan batu, which belongs to the ordinary family members.”

The village is kinder than it is stunning. The mountainous villages are lined with wild coffee in all directions. Wide-open valleys dripping with stunning rice terraces.

Dense with natural beauty, all you need to do is get a lift there (via the back of motorcycle) and walk back down to Rantepao, or hitch a ride if you’ve walked enough. The bird watching along that walk…WATCH THE BIRDS! Small communities of Tongkonan homes dot the hike down and never get old in design. You’ll notice the older, centered homes usually have a collection of bull horns rising up the front mast. I’ll let you figure out why.

Thank you Bulls. Although you’re slaughtered en masse every summer, atleast it’s done with honor as opposed the McWest’s factory sacrifices for those who a want their burger and life on the go.

Getting around in Rantepao is probably best if you rent your own motorcycle. But if you must, I’d say hire a bike and ride on the back if you’re trying to get out to the mountains. You can find some drivers by the main bus stop area. Getting north of Rantepao is not easy no matter how you cut it. We went through one of 2 local bus companies, and it was not like the bus from Makassar….not like that at all.

To be continued….

 

Primary Transit summary:

From Makassar a 12 hour luxury bus to Tana Torajah via Charisma -> 14 hour butts to nuts buss to Poso (Buses can be arranged via your guest house or just go to travel agents, near Café Aras) – Good driver, crazy roads, cramped but charming ride -> 4 hour 3 am drive via minivan to Ampana arranged through guest house in Poso -> 3 hour large ferry to Wakai arranged at the ferry terminal via “the harbor lady” Ufha, sat on roof under makeshift canopy -> 30 min Boat to Kadidiri, also arranged via Harbor lady –> 3 hour Boat to Una Una arranged through guest house “lestari” –> 3.5 hour Boat back to Wakai arranged through guest house “sanctum” –> 10 hour overnight ferry to Gorontola, shared cabin, well worth it arranged via “Una” Losmen, near main harbor –> short tuk tuk into Gorontolo from harbor -> 10 hour Mini Van to Manado arranged via guest house “Melati”.

Women: It’s about the Super Ego stupid

First off, this is for women who are looking for a relationship or some steady companionship. Not for those at play…to you I say: game on. Also, it goes both ways, albeit with nuances. Lastly, this is NOT limited to Heterosexuals.

Girls, unless there are some serious fireworks, don’t give it up right away. I know this one wont win me many points but I don’t care. Men don’t think too highly of themselves (of Men in general that is). Your allowing one of us Turkeys in between those amethyst thighs so quickly devalues our sense of selves even more; the Super ego takes a further step back while the ID ego becomes even more pronounced in our day to day mind (hence identity loss you male whores). I was led to believe that after having a one-night affair with some gin-tonicky bar room floor model I would feel like a goddamn champ. And that’s exactly what that the pacing tiger that is the ID ego wants you to believe. However, it’s hardly the case really. With the dirty deed done, the Super Ego is weakened, the tiger is asleep having fed, not giving a single fuck about you…any of you (the mates) and the man’s psyche is left…standing there…blinking….like a jerk…one step closer to douchedom.

A woman that holds out makes us feel better about ourselves, unique. “She won’t let me insert my penis inside her after knowing her for only 12 hours, she must be special” we thinks…and, this is key, the idealization begins. We idealize, raise you. With every “not right now”, the super ego applauds, steps forward, and sees you more and more suitable a partner in this battlefield of immorality. Every time a woman calls you out on your dumbassery (a precarious enterprise for another piece), the Super Ego gets a raging mind erection for you. The ID meanwhile, that pacing tiger, is being tamed for the circus. It’s the super ego that dates, commits, and eventually will wash your underwear. It’s the Super Ego that’s gonna research ways to give you epileptic like seizuring orgasms, and how to top the dinner they made you last week. The amoral ID tiger will be curled up in the corner of his cage, chilling, to be awoken for more controlled reasons 😉 To summarize, having game equates to being able to entice the Super Ego and manipulating the ID. Now, go out there and BE somebody.