A Simple Tool

Welcome to Peru – land of plenty, realm of remarkable diversity, and cradle of ancient civilizations!  And yes, that man beside you on the bus is holding a live chicken.  Play your cards right and you might get to eat a foot.  It’s true that in some ways Peru is behind the times, just now experiencing radical breakthroughs like asphalt and dentistry, but if you look past all that you’ll see a beautiful country full of amiable people, and then if you look past that and over to the left you’ll see an old woman defecating in the middle of the street.  You may be thinking, “Nick, is the humor of this entire article going to be essentially based on making fun of their poverty?”  Well I’d make fun of the mentally disabled, but I can’t seem to find any.  Maybe there aren’t any here because it’s too hard to learn Spanish.  (Or I could’ve said: Maybe they can’t afford them here.)

Peru is most well-known for its archaeological treasures, having been home to the Incans, the Moche, the Nazca, and several dozen other cultures mainly distinguishable by the slightly different shaped necks of their jars (this is not a joke).  And sometimes distinguishable by their funny hats (still not a joke).  And even less frequently distinguishable by their preference for regular or low-fat Hot Pockets (there’s the joke).  Indeed Peru seems littered with the citadels and cities of complicated and diverse cultures, citadels and cities that all ultimately look like a big pile of rocks.  In fact I’m pretty sure I have some Incan ruins beside my house from the leftover materials when we installed a new fireplace.  The level of decay in most of these archaeological sites allows near infinite interpretation by natives and experts regarding their purpose.  Those diagonal stones are meant to represent the eyes of a puma, or that boulder is meant to represent the surrounding countryside (and I think that cloud looks like a pony!).  Also, no ruin would be complete without a room or relic that is positioned to highlight the solstices, because for some reason ancient Peruvians were fascinated with the only quasi-holiday more boring than Flag Day.  But gazing upon the awe-inspiring sites of Machu Picchu or Kuelap, one can’t help but wonder one thing: if these civilizations were so mighty, how were they beaten by a people who like to nap between 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM every day for no particular reason?

But enough about ancient history – who are the Peruvians of today?  Who are these short, dark-skinned persons who take much better care of their hair than their teeth?  It’s a difficult question that many have unsuccessfully attempted to answer, but I think I finally have an adequate response: they are people who want to sell you shit.  Candy, cigarettes, history books, jungle medicines, popcorn, bundt cake, directions, photos of themselves, photos of you, photos of just about anything else, haircuts, shoeshines, or even, if you are very very lucky, your own wallet back to you.  Or maybe they’re a whole nation of people unsure of exactly how to finish building a house (hint: add a roof, paint it, research “plumbing”).  Or maybe they’re people who can magically secrete dirt, because how else could their cities be so damn dusty?  I feel like an extra in Hidalgo.  Anyway, in Peru people who dress and live much like those of us in first world countries and people stuck two hundred years in the past exist side by side.  In nearly every town you can see women clothed in traditional garb: colorful sweaters, stiff hats, and thick skirts and stockings, usually with a bulging hand-woven sack slung over their shoulders.  These sacks can contain anything; I have personally seen them opened to reveal several pounds of bananas, a baby, and once a TV/VCR combo (seriously).  They’re like a miniature version of Showcase Showdown, only without Bob Barker.

            Arguably the best way to get a feel for the Peruvian way of life is to sample their transportation structure, which is mostly based on the “Hey you!  Give me a ride!” system.  This method works even better if you have a gun, but be warned, in rural locales you might have to first explain what exactly a gun is.  Within cities, colectivos and combis are the main form of transportation.  These are colorfully painted vans and small buses whose drivers attract attention by shouting constantly out the window.  I know what you’re thinking – Nick, I’m pretty sure you’re describing an ice cream truck – but trust me, the only ice cream they carry is seventy nine, wears a poncho, and tries to sell you fried cow hearts.  People are crammed into colectivos and combis quite densely, and thus the best way to climb on is with some healthy shoving (if you push hard enough to send any pregnant women aboard into forced labor you know you’ve gotten the hang of it).  Conversely, there are two ways to get off – either hurl yourself out the door or go into a claustrophobia-induced panic attack.  I recommend the latter as it requires less apologizing.  For long distance hauls, Peru has an extensive bus network, most of which offer food and screen staff-selected films, giving you the ideal opportunity to catch up on Tom Berringer and Dolph Lundgren movies.  It’s always best to hit yourself in the kneecaps with a hammer before boarding any buses so that the seat’s miniscule legroom seems pleasant by comparison.

Peruvian cuisine is as intriguing as their transportation (and will likely move through you faster than any local bus moves from town to town).  Peruvians often begin their meal with a hodgepodge soup made of things they have no use for, like chicken bones, corn cobs, or birth control pills.  The same advice applies to these soups as walking a tightrope – don’t look down.  From there it’s a main dish of beef, pork, chicken, or fish usually served with both rice and French fries.  It was in fact a major scientific discovery in Peru that they could combine rice and potatoes, forming a meal starchier than my dry cleaning, and people would not complain (up their with the discovery that those big squares of grass in front of people’s houses are great places to pile trash).  A delicacy of the highlands is cuy, guinea pig in English, which takes second place for cutest dinner right after Nepal’s sautéed puppy in a sailor hat.  Then there’s ceviche, the nationally adored dish of raw seafood marinated in lime juice, oil, and spices and peppers, prepared differently by each cevicheria.  I don’t really have anything funny to say; ceviche is actually quite delicious.  What, you still want a joke?  Okay -  it seems that every single person in Peru owns a travel agency.  In fact, the Peruvian Statistics Bureau reports that there are 3 agencies for every 10 tourists.  But they also report that 49 percent of their statistics are made up, since the Peruvian Statistics Bureau is really just one guy named Luis who “usually knows what’s up.”

            Peruvians emphasize their beverages as much as their food.  The national drink is chicha, a mildly fermented corn juice traditionally made by corn being chewed and then spit into a vat by elderly women.  By traditionally made I mean probably still made that way, but I don’t want to find out.  And if you ask politely, the women may bypass the middleman and spit right into your mouth, but this could be a ceremony that results in you acquiring a wife.  Or maybe that was just something I saw on Star Trek.  The equally famous alcoholic beverage of the country is the pisco sour.  An ongoing debate exists as to whether pisco originated in Chile or Peru, an issue most Peruvians are quite passionate about.  If caught up in the argument, make sure you pretend that it’s more interesting than the sour apple versus watermelon Jolly Rancher debate.  Finally, on a hot day most Peruvians reach for an Inca Kola, the yellow, sugary soda of choice.  The best thing about Inca Kola is the universal free refills.  When you finish your glass just head to the toilet, aim carefully, and after relieving yourself you’ll have another full bottle.

            So there you have it: Peru, land of promise!  Hop the next plane out!  Only be warned, the planes here are covered in hair, have long necks, and are called ‘llamas’ (it’s a regional dialect).  On the long trip over you can practice some key phrases, such as, “What part of this pig is this from exactly?” “Does your toilet have a toilet?” and “You read my mind, I am interested in a 13-year old prostitute with more children than incisors.”  Bon voyage!

Dan asked me to update the website with some shit now that I’ve returned to the USA from my Watson year abroad.  I’m too lazy to write anything new, but here’s a travel article I wrote giving advice to backpackers in Japan.  If anyone particularly likes it I’ve also got one on food in Japan and one on traveling in Peru.  Enjoy.  And, ps, Dan – nobody cares about your shit life.  Stop whining about your disappointing frisbee abilities.

JAPAN: LAND OF THE RISING SUN AND SIDEWAYS VAGINA

            Some people say I’m bitter, judgmental, and overly critical.  I call these people communists.  And when they try to protest I accuse them of killing Jon Benet Ramsey.  Yes, I make fun of just about everything, but why do some see this as incompatible with my love of traveling to new places and exploring new cultures?  I ask you, how am I supposed to make fun of people just because they are different if I don’t get a personal glimpse of these differences?  What kind of bigot do you think I am?  And few places offer the barrage of differences and dissimilarities that Japan does.  But before one can discover these, he or she must come to grips with a few basics of traveling in Japan.  Thus I, the Santa Claus (or Hanukkah Harry) of backpacking, seek to offer a patchy overview and maybe even a handful of tips for wandering the home of our karaoke-loving brothers and sisters.

Often the most daunting thing for a traveler in Japan is the language barrier, especially regarding written language.  It can be quite disconcerting to travel in a country with an entirely different lettering system.  Oh, you’ll see plenty of English, but the Japanese are just like your high school prom date – a tease.  They love to throw up a single street sign or storefront label in English, just enough to lull you into a false sense of security.  Next thing you know you’re naked in an alley eating banana peels.  For some strange reason, just because a restaurant has its name out front in English, or a pamphlet says “Visitors Guide to Tokyo!” there is no reason to think once you step inside or crack the first page any subsequent information will be in English.  My favorite are the magazines whose cover page is entirely in English – title, top stories, synopsis, not a lick of Japanese – with interiors devoid of English.  Who is that helping?  How can that be good for business?

            And confusing becomes the word of the day if you try to venture into the realm of the Japanese language itself.  The Japanese have three alphabets, two with forty-six letters apiece and one taken from the Chinese with tens of thousands of characters.  Why do the Japanese have three alphabets?  To fuck with you, that’s why.  They do it to see you squirm.  In fact, the Japanese themselves have no idea what any of their letters mean.  It’s a sad thing to realize, a whole nation of illiterates, but it just goes to show how far the Japanese will go for a good practical joke.  My advice is to rely upon other sources of information – use train times instead of destination as a reference to find your train, count intersections and landmarks instead of street names to navigate a city, etc.

But first you have to get to the city.  Most of your traveling in Japan will be done via its extensive rail network.  Japan has one of the most organized, consistent, and widespread train systems in the world.  They are also very costly.  But there are ways to downplay a portion of this cost, such as traveling mostly via local trains (better sightseeing anyway), taking jiyu-seki (non-reserved) seats on the larger trains, and using the old-fashioned “Look over there!  Isn’t that Ang Lee?” strategy.  On the plus side, you get what you pay for.  Japanese trains are relatively comfortable, very clean, and never late.  Never, ever late.  11:37 AM means 11:37 AM.  They would probably tell you the second too if it would fit on the electronic display board.  If a Japanese train is ever late, even by a few minutes, the conductor enters the main car, bows ceremonially, and then disembowels himself with a samurai sword.  If there is gum on the bottom of your seat he just cuts off one of his fingers.

Once you have arrived, Japanese accommodations can be more difficult to secure for backpackers than in most Western countries.  Except for Tokyo and Kyoto, most Japanese cities and towns possess just a handful of cheap accommodations, and sometimes you are lucky to find a single youth hostel.  These hostels are often in full Japanese style, offering an inexpensive version of the traditional ryokan hotels: paper walls, sliding doors, and potentially disastrous squat toilets (due to my own inaccuracy I can never again return to Aizu-Wakamatsu).  You sleep on tatami mats (Japanese for “the floor”), sprawled out on a futon (Japanese for “still the floor”).  It’s endearing for a while, but after a few nights being packed in Middle-Passage-style on the floor, you might consider pulling an Amistad.  For authenticity hounds, however, the commonly offered hostel dinner can be a windfall.  The meals are usually dirt cheap, relatively large, and very genuine.  Since many hostels are family-owned, or at least operated, you share the same food as they do, which can be unapologetically alien.  When served dinner, don’t ask questions, and if it wiggles stab it until it stops.  That’s also my advice for dating.

Each city and region you explore has its own rich history.  And by rich history I mean an endless procession of temples, shrines, and gardens.  Every town, every hillside, every few blocks has some.  They are to Japan what pimples were to my middle school complexion (how’s that for an SAT analogy?).  While they usually offer pleasant cloisters of peace and quiet within bustling cities, it is easy to become sick of this Japanese trifecta.  Hey look – there’s the big gate, there’s the screen painting, there’s the really old tree, and there are the nine gift shops.  Temples become the Starbucks of the East, selling salvation instead of frappes (note: they also sell frappes).  Remember to break any burgeoning monotony with trips to museums, galleries, hiking trails, onsens, or opium dens.  Mixing up plans also saves money, as the few bucks at each temple, shrine, and garden add up quickly.  By the end of my time in Kyoto, I was a hair away from telling the ticker vendors at a garden that after I pay to see their garden, they should pay to see mine.  Mine doesn’t have a rock garden, but it does have tomatoes.

               And as you wander these Japanese destinations, remember this – tourist maps are not your friends.  City maps, guidebook maps, and Huey Lewis may be, but tourist maps cannot be trusted.  Sure they point out all the major sights with cheerful colors and miniature drawings, but this comes at the expense of silly ideas like scale, thoroughness, and accuracy.  Spend a day navigating with a tourist map and you’ll find yourself saying things like, “Oh, I was supposed to turn left four miles ago, but the turn was obscured on my map by that smiling choo-choo train.  Still, he is rather cute.”  But don’t let this dishearten you into using nothing but public transportation.  Walking the cities of Japan is the only way to see the real neighborhoods, the places where the Japanese actually live.  Plus you can take part in the crosswalk revolution.  I have seen Japanese people wait for minutes at a completely deserted intersection just because the crosswalk sign is red.  But the second you break the rules and traverse that street they will surge behind you.  And each time you feel like a little Che.  I recommend that immediately afterward you throw a brick through a storefront, just to see if you can start a riot.

            Still, despite any confusion, high costs, or insecurities you may have in Japan, there is always one thing on your side: the Japanese are scared of you.  You are the gaijin, the foreigner, in one of the most classically isolationist and xenophobic countries in the world.  Remember when your mother told you that the bear was more afraid of you than you were of it?  Well now the Japanese are the bear, only with much less hair and better cell phones.  If you commit a horrendous social faux pas, the Japanese will rarely say a word.  If you walk home at three in the morning, with the fanny pack and money belt screaming tourist, still no one will bother you.  If you shout “Boo!” at an old lady, she’ll scream.  I guess that last one is pretty much true anywhere.  Sure, you may feel lonely or outcast, but you’re sure to love it when no one sits beside you on the train, no matter how packed it is, and you can sprawl out in total comfort.  I have found, time and again, that the only Japanese who approach me for conversation are doing so to practice their English after having studied abroad, taken classes, of something similar.  Which reminds me of a valuable piece of advice: if you need to ask someone for help, always ask a young person.  English is mandatory in Japanese schools, thus teenage and college-age kids have learned it most recently and will be the most eager or willing to use it.  But don’t let them get too comfortable around you – that fear is a boon to be cultivated.  Each time I arrive in a new Japanese city I treat it like prison: I beat up the first person I see just to show them who is in charge.

            With this grasp of the basics of traveling in Japan, you can finally immerse yourself in the always captivating cultural differences. Any student of horror or the gothic, in literature or film, will tell you that what fascinates us most is the only slightly abnormal.  Vampires, zombies, werewolves – they are all just enough like us to captivate us.  The same is true for travel.  Radically different cultures, such as third world nations or hugely isolated regions, are often not as intriguing as cultures like the Japanese, who share so much with us while still having so many divergences.  Now I’m not saying the Japanese are like vampires (but then again, I’m not saying they’re not), just that the more minor distinctions foster endless entertainment.  No Westerner can deny the spellbinding observation of ever-present Japanese efficiency.  Just visit a Japanese swimming pool – no slides, so free swim, absolutely no horseplay, just laps.  Go ahead and try to bring a Styrofoam noodle in there; I dare you.  Or examine their omnipresent sense of absolute courtesy.  The first time you are greeted upon entering a restaurant by every waiter and cook shouting “Irasshaimase” can be a heady experience (it is considered impolite for a scream of “AHHHH!” to be your reply).  And witnessing the lengthy string of bows and arigatos that follows the smallest purchase makes me wonder how long it takes the Japanese to kiss their kids goodbye on the first day of college.

            Because once you see a culture’s differences you can understand the similarities, the things that unite us under the banner of the human race, and from there it’s just a short leap to an eventual, powerful revelation.  Chopsticks suck.  Seriously, Japan, just admit that forks are better.  We’ve acknowledged the superiority of your cars and video games, and now it’s time for you to put those idiotic sticks down before you put someone’s eye out.