Silk Riders: On the Trail of Marco Polo

Silk Riders: Jo and Gareth Morgan's Incredible Journey on the Trail of Marco Polo was an interesting read. Jo and Gareth were avid motorbikers, and as they were finishing a ride high in the Indian Himalaya they started thinking of their future tours. A fellow rider tossed out the silk road and Jo and Gareth really liked the idea. The trip took two years to organize. In that time they had to figure out political details, travel logistics, cultural awareness issues, get and curry sponsorship, and of course figure out who among their friends could join them on their trip. BMW only provided at large discount 7 bikes and so the trip was limited to 7. 

The 7 were kiwis, but their trip would begin at the BMW factory in Munich where the new bikes recently broken in in the Australian outback and imported into Germany to begin the trip would get a total tuning in readiness for the multi-thousand-kilometer journey.

Then in 2005 the trip began. They were waved off in Munich by a single person, an English motorcyclist who journeyed from Yorkshire to Bavaria to see them off, and off they went through the lower reaches of Germany, into Austria, to the foothills of the Alps, and onward to Venice, the family home of Marco Polo. Despite the Polo family being one of the most prominent families of Venice and despite the since fame of the explorer, the 7 were surprised at the few memorials commemorating one of the city's most famous past residents. There is a library where Marco's last will and testament is held and the San Lorenzo church, in the yard of which he was buried in 1324. Near the site of his homestead is an area of little courts called 'Il Milione', which was Marco's nickname, 'the teller of a million tales'. 

Then off to the Balkans they sped. Few people are aware that Marco Polo was not a Venetian by birth but rather a Croatian. Marco was born on Korcula, an island of what is now Croatia. Of course the 7 had to go to the island, ferrying one of the bikes over for a picture with the iconic bike in front of what is said to be the house of Marco Polo's birth. 

To Serbia, Bulgaria, then Gallipolli, Turkey, which was very significant to the Kiwis as they recalled the Kiwis who died trying to claim the cliffs of Gallipolli. Onward to Istanbul where Jo started to having trouble as women were not to be seen in public, certainly not on a motorbike, and even though as she progressed further into Iran, the chador she wore just wasn't quite enough because it outlined her provocative bottom as she sped along. 

A disappointment to me in the book was the little attention given to following the trail of Marco Polo, as far as information on what they discovered in relation to Marco. Instead, the intent of the book was just to skim over the countries the 7 sped through and give mostly motorcycle commentation on the road conditions or visa issues. There were tidbits on culture but obviously the book was about a mad dash across Asia following a trail and not really picking up that many culturally rich experiences. 

That said, the highlight of the Iranian segment of the trip was the visit to the Valley of the Assassins, of which Marco wrote. The fortress of Alamut still remains, and as legend goes, an 11th century Hashish-iyun sect, basically an Islamic mercenary group led by a fanatical imam, had an unusual method for training young men to fight unconditionally. He would dose them with hashish and then turn them loose in a five-star pleasure garden stocked with milk and honey and virgins--all accouterments of paradise. After a couple of weeks, he removed them and cut off their narcotic supply. Finding themselves in a military camp they were told that they had been to paradise and if they hoped to live again in the style they had experienced in paradise, they would need to distinguish themselves in battle, and the imam of course provided that. These feared, driven warriors were known as Hashish-iyun, and the word 'assassin' derives from this group.

The Silk Riders only did the overland route from Venice to Xanadu (now Yuanshangdu) and down to Beijing. They didn't even attempt to follow Marco's route of 20+ years. 

To Tehran (the city that couldn't possibly have worse traffic, and motorcycles were forbidden in them for fear of drive-by motorcycle gunners) so their motorcycles were transported via truck. Lots of problems but eventually they were allowed to proceed onward to Turkmenistan, perched on the edge of the Karakum Desert across which they would have to travel. 

Then to Uzbekistan, the country that is the world's largest silk producer, and the country that was the half-way point of the 7 bikers' trip. Onward to Kyrgyzstan and most notably to Kara-Kul in the northwest where there are soaring mountains, alpine meadows and cooler temperatures. Close is the beautiful Lade Issyk-Kul, the second highest navigable alpine lake in the world after Lake Titicaca in Peru. Jo had swum in Lake Titicaca two years previous on another tour, and she attempted to take a dip in Lake Issyk-Kul in memory of her previous swim.

Of course they had chances to try the many exotic foods on the regions they passed through. In Kyrgyzstan is was the kumys, the fermented mare's milk popular among the nomads and which Marco had reported favorably that the drink tasted like white wine. The 7 heartily disagreed!

To China. One of the most amazing highlight in China was in Dunhuang, known for the famous Mogao Grottoes, or the Caves of 1000 Buddhas, which is a structure carved into a rocky cliff-face at the edge of the Lop Nor Desert. The Buddhas trace back to the first which was carved in AD366 when a Buddhist monk carved one Buddha figure into a rock. Over the ensuing 1500 years, more Buddhas were added, but not only Buddhas as the name suggests, but also the life of the local people. In the 20th century a chamber was discovered containing thousands of manuscripts which had been sealed since the 11th century. Unfortunately, explorers from England, Germany, Russia and more countries pillaged the place, dispersing artifacts around the globe but leaving the caves as empty shells, but ones which continue to whisper the reminders of great secrets from Chinese antiquity.

Continuing onward out of the desert great mounds of packed earth started appearing ... remnants of the ancient Great Wall which ended in the desert and which in their entirety were built over a period of 1500 years. This amazing wall eventually was over 10,000 kilometers in distance, but despite the great expanse, the beacon towers could relay a message of attack, fire, emergency from the furthest-most tower in the desert back to Peking in less than 30 minutes! 

Of course they cycled to Xian, the capital of China until Kubla Khan (Marco's Great Khan), the man who shifted the reins of command to Peking in the 14th century. They viewed the 2000-year-old, life-sized warriors guarding the royal tomb that was discovered in 1974 by a farmer digging a well. The 7 reckoned 300,000 workers were needed in this construction that took over 35 years to build.

From Xian to Mongolia, the end of the road. They headed to Shangdu, known to Marco as Xanadu and which, according to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Kubla Khan had his stately pleasure-dome. Once they got there, they were in trouble with the authorities as to their purpose in that town. And then they came to realize that Shangdu was not the old Xanadu but Yuanshangdu, 200 kilometers away, was. And off they sped to Yuanshangdu, where in 1275 Kublai Khan had received Niccolo and Maffeo Polo and Niccolo's boy, Marco. This was the town that marked the eastern limit of Kublai Khan's empire, which stretched right back the way they had come, to Hungary. This was the end of the Silk Riders enterprise. Since April, they had covered almost 20,000 kilometers, crossed two major deserts, dodged through a war zone, visited the three inland oceans of the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea, and traversed the entire distance from west to east of the Great Wall.

They saddled up and set off for Beijing, the city known as Khan-Balik, "the Lord's City", in Kublai Khan's day. Their journey culminated with a ceremonial banquet at the New Zealand embassy and well attended by members of the BMW owners' club. would be held in their honor for the completion of their journey.

For a 52:30 minute YouTube clip on their journey, watch "Silk Riders - Motorcycling tour in the footsteps of Marco Polo",  and their blog on their journey.

Mongolian Dzud

A group of my clever students not only put together a very well organized presentation on a current environmental issue, but they also introduced one that no one in the class had heard of before, including myself. Great job on all accounts! Requirements were to give a team presentation with each team member building on the previous person's data and each person using only 4-5 slides. All content was to have basic referencing and then after presenting, members were to have a Q&A on their presentation. Very impressive on all accounts. Thank you You Seung, Jae Min, Yu Jin and Eun Ji for allowing me to publish your work here. I love it!  ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Painting Baby Shower Giraffes

Two baby showers for members in our church—both for boys—so two different kinds of decorations needed. For one I made four different kinds of safari animals, and a friend created diaper cakes for the table centerpieces with the animals around. Wow! I was planning to just put a few safari animals in the middle of the three tables with paper decorations under, but my friend outdid herself and decorated the diaper cakes. The tables looked simple but fabulous!

One month later, another baby shower, also for a boy. Browsing through pictures of baby shower decorations, I saw a balloon with a simple giraffe picture—a mother "pregnant" with her baby. Just the simplicity of it I loved, and since I'm a scroll sawer, I thought the mother-baby design would look great in wood, so whip-sketched it and found a piece of 3/4" pine to cut it out in. With a foot in height giraffe, I needed the 3/4" wood for the giraffe to stand alone properly. 

After cutting it out, sanded it down to make a smooth finish in case the baby eventually plays with it, and then painted it with non-toxic water colors. Was a bit worried about the colors running so gave it a light quick spray of gloss, which should lock the colors in case of water spills. Not much but still I don't think a baby should put the giraffe in his mouth. A caution on painting this, however. I ever so slightly painted the inside of the giraffes where they meet and then allowed the giraffes to dry in the sun. After I painted that area with one light coat of very watery color just to stain the area, the giraffes didn't slide as smoothly apart and back together. Just a caution if you intend to make one of these cute creatures too.

Collage of the safari animals and the polka-dotted giraffe.

Baby Shower Diaper Cake and Safari Animals

Agenda: Find two "boy" ideas to make table centerpieces for up-coming baby showers. Wasn't sure what the themes for the showers were but when browsing the Internet for baby shower and decoration ideas, saw some nifty paper plates with safari animals on them. Wah-lah! They were so ultra cute so thought I'd cut some out in wood for laying around the central tables. Wasn't sure of the theme but everyone loves baby animals, so this seemed to be a universally bright idea.

Cut the animals out in pine—pine takes water colors easily and I have a lot of it on hand. And used a fresh blade so that I wouldn't have to sand much in the leg areas. Because they cut so smoothly, I took a surface sander and mostly gave the tops and bottoms a good sanding—don't want any rough parts if the baby plays with them.

The painting took a fair bit of time. I got a lot of compliments on painting the face of the lion but, wow, that was very easy. It was those lousy stripes on the zebras that took so much time. The baby zebra got all messed up the first time around so sanded it down again, painted a white layer over the still-visible marks and put the stripes back on. Better.

Painting the safari animals:

The animals range from about 2 1/2" to just under 5", from the baby zebra to the giraffes.

The baby zebra was by far the hardest to paint. This is the second time around.
The first time the lines were thick and all over the place. The black bled on one of the zebras quite badly
so later touched it up with white.

The smallest giraffe in the pict was an "accident". I was trying to use up the whole board and by moving my pattern around and revising a bit as I went along, I got 3 giraffes instead of the expected two. I still had a tiny bit of wood that looked like it held a giraffe inside, so maneuvered around and was able to get the "baby" giraffe too.

I really like how the giraffes turned out! Most at the shower seemed to like them best too,
although the lions' faces got a lot of comment.

Kudos to my friend who made these ultra-cute diaper cakes. I was thinking to decorate the tables with only the animals in the center and some colored papers underneath, and she was thinking to make her diaper cakes and put a paper monkey on the top of each. I gave her the animals a few days in advance and she came up with this very artful arrangement! Not visible but out of the top of each diaper cake was a high-floating green balloon with streamers!

16 Countries Evading Common Diseases

Place: Mexico’s Copper Canyon

Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: High-cholesterol

Reason[s] why: The Tarahumara Indians of this region have impressively low cholesterol due to a diet that emphasizes slow-release foods, sending sugar into the bloodstream at a much slower rate than other foods. Their diet – which includes slow-release carbohydrates from whole corn, beans, squash, cumin, and other crops – also helps maintain proper blood sugar levels, preventing an overproduction of insulin.

Place: Costa Rica’s Nicoya PeninsulaDisease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Death before age 90

Reason[s] why: Residents of this small town two hours out of San Jose spend hours each day chopping wood and making all their meals by hand, from scratch. The area also has some of the hardest water around, loaded with beneficial minerals such as calcium and magnesium.

http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081009_tows_bluezones/2

Place: Japan
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Heart disease

Reason[s] why: Diets rich in soy and omega 3 fatty acids but low in refined sugars keep the Japanese in good heart health, according to most statistics http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2133674.stm. Interestingly enough, one study proposes Japan’s relative immunity to heart disease may be “on paper” only, suggesting that a lot of heart disease in Japan is chalked up to heart failure. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/319/7204/255

Place: Iceland
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Depression

Reason[s] why: Like the Japanese, Icelanders consume healthy amounts of omega-3 and other healthy fats from sources such as pasture-raised lamb and wild game. Like green tea in Japan, Icelanders ward off a variety of cancers with the antioxidants in black tea, vegetables, wild berries, barley, and rye. Despite the soul-sucking winters during which the nation is plunged into almost 24-hour darkness, experts believe this diet also helps fight off the depression normally associated with such lack of sun.

Place: rural Northern India
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Alzheimer’s

Reason[s] why: A slew of studies of people in this region are being done to see why only 1% of the population over 65 is affected by Alzheimer’s disease (compared to more than 5% of American’s older than 65.) Though the practical non-existence of Alzheimer’s in Northern India (and select parts of Africa) might simply be a lack of proper diagnosis, another explanation may be genetic. http://www.searo.who.int/EN/Section1174/Section1199/Section1567/Section1823_8066.htm

Place: Loma Linda, California
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Anything well into your 90s
Reason[s] why: Like many cultures who seem to be able to ward off disease at a disproportionally-high rate, the people of this Moreno Valley eat a healthy diet. The community is home to 900 members of the Seventh Day Adventist faith, in which smoking, booze, meat, and processed foods are a big no-no.
http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/20081009_tows_bluezones/10

Place: Thailand
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Cancer (all types)

Reason[s] why: Areas of the world subject to high levels of infection seem to have the lowest rates of cancer. In many cases, the lower a nation’s Gross Domestic Product, the lower its people’s risk of developing cancer. One explanation is the so-called “hygiene hypothesis” – that people whose bodies are forced to fight off diseases in their youth are more likely to be toughened-up for battles later in life, such as cancer.

Place: Sardinia

Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Largest population on Earth of men age 100+

Reason[s] why: Folks on this island 200 km off the Italian coast eat lean, fruit-and-veggie-based diet high in whole grain breads and dairy like hearty fresh cheeses. Meat is consumed in extreme moderation and is more of a side-dish than main staple of this mountain-trekking Mediterranean diet.

Place: United Kingdom
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Epilepsy
Reason[s] why: Your odds of dying from epilepsy in the UK are lower than anywhere else in the world. By the mortality numbers, the worst place to have a seizure is Estonia.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mor_epi_percap-mortality-epilepsy-per-capita

Place: Japan
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Obesity
Reason[s] why: Though we think of Scandinavia as flawlessly healthy, the country that pops up most often for having a healthy population and a relatively risk-free and sustainable diet that’s easy to adopt (you don’t even have to eat Japanese food to ward off obesity like the Japanese, just eat more fish, veggies and fruit, and don’t forget to chew thoroughly.)
http://www.webmd.com/diet/features/diets-of-world-japanese-diet

Place: United States
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Death from arthritis
Reason[s] why: Believe it or not, the U.S. is the last place on Earth it’s almost statistically impossible to succumb to this widespread ailment. Slovenia has dozens of times the carpometacarpal arthritis death rate: 1 per 2 million people.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mor_art_of_fir_car_joi_percap-first-carpometacarpal-joint-per-capita

Place: anywhere in the Muslim world
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Skin cancer
Reason[s] why: Countries close to the equator with high immigrant European populations (Australia) and tanning-obsessed countries with populations of people with low skin pigmentation have some of the highest skin cancer rates. Muslim nations fare well, experts say, due to populations with high skin pigmentation and heavy cover from the sun in the way of traditional clothing.
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/07/30/f-forbes-skincancerhotspots.html

Place: Japan
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Prostate cancer
Reason[s] why: Anti-oxidants in green and chai tea, drank as much as 15-20 times a day in the land of the rising sun, ward off all sorts of cancers. The people of Okinawa practice calorie restriction and load up on in-season vegetables like bok choy and kale. http://www.usrf.org/CBS/newsArticles.asp.htm

Place: Ethiopia
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Parkinson’s disease
Reason[s] why: Interestingly-enough, the highest rate of Parkinson’s is in American Amish communities (almost 1% – 950 in 100,000 – of the Amish population has Parkinson’s), possibly due to unchecked pesticide use. Ethiopia’s is a comparably non-existent 7 in 100,000. Genetics? Sadly no: the answer may be that few Ethiopians actually live to the age at which Parkinson’s strikes.
http://viartis.net/parkinsons.disease/prevalence.htm

Place: U.S. and Canada
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Tuberculosis

Reason[s] why: Gone are the days of mass cases of consumption (the old term for the final stages of TB) but the World Health Organization is still engaged in battle with vaccine-resistant strains. TB rates in the U.S. and Canada are a tenth that of Africa, though Americans of African descent are five times more likely to contract tuberculosis in the U.S. than Americans of Native or European descent.

Place: Czech Republic
Disease/ailment that is non-existent or rare: Diabetes

Reason[s] why: Modest eating have kept Type 2 diabetes especially down in this country, where fast food is less available and people only eat until they are “almost” full.

Summary:

The U.S. healthcare system can learn and incorporate much from these unique and wonderful places. First, prevention appears to be easier than cure, and just as possible. The real question then becomes, even if everyone was aware of all the preventative measures, would they forgo the “good life” to remain healthy longer? Then, how can our healthcare system help to enforce this “healthy alternative”?

____________________________________________________

Note: I did not put this phenomenal list together but now am unable to find its source. 

Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes

Language is a reflection of culture and in 1979 when Daniel Everett with his wife and three young kids went to Brazil to live among one of the most remote tribes in the world, Dan was forever discovering differences rather than similarities between the cultures. Initially, Dan went as a missionary to the Pirahã with intentions to convert the natives to Christianity, but living among the tribe that had no word or concept for war, shared equally with all members of the village, was non-materialistic, he began to see that his "lifestyle" was inferior to the one he sought to convert, so he gave up mission work and refocused his energies on learning the Pirahã language and culture, both of which were hugely different from his own or any other he had studied.

Even the name of his book Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle is a reflection of that difference. The expression "Don't sleep, there are snakes" is actually a way of saying 'good night' but the difference comes with the intent in saying 'good night'. To the Pirahã, they believe that sound sleeping puts one in danger, drops one's defenses, and so they must "harden themselves" into nocturnal awareness to ward off predators. In fact, the Pirahã laugh and talk much of the night, and don't sleep much at any one time, perhaps 20 minutes to at most two hours at any time throughout each 24 hour period.

Euphemisms therefore seem common in the language. When visiting someone's house, the traditional way of approaching a house is to call out, "Hey, tell the dogs not to be mad at me!" Also, if someone gives you food, the person asks, "Do you already know how to eat this?" and if you want to politely refuse, you simply answer, "I already know how to eat this."

Similarly, phatic communication -- communication that primarily functions to maintain social and interpersonal channels like hello, goodbye, how are you?, I'm sorry, you're welcome and thank you -- do not exist as Pirahã sentences are either for requests for information (questions), assertions of new information (declarations), or for the most part commands. Their expressions are primarily limited to immediate experience, so they talk about what they have experienced or someone still living has experienced. Sentences are all simple sentences -- compound and complex sentences are structurally not possible and language structure is limited to simple present, past and future tenses; there are no perfect tenses, and certainly no embedded clauses. In application, translating the Bible, the Koran, or Buddhist Vedas would be impossible as these stories are outside of experienced immediacy and no eye witness could make assertions to their existence. Such stories would therefore, even if they could be translated, have no impact on the tribe. In fact, no known missionaries have had any impact on the Pirahãs for nearly 300 years.

The Pirahã's contact with the "outside" is virtually limited to the Caboclos, descendants of an Amazonian indigenous people living in close proximics to the Pirahã. The Pirahã call them xaobi-gii (authentic foreigners); Americans, Brazilians, etc are simply xaobi (foreigners), because the Pirahã view the Caboclos as more acceptable to interact with, partly because their two different tribes are still more alike than the Pirahã and "other" foreigners who the Pirahã have little social contact with and virtually no understanding of, which ultimately means no interest in.

The Pirahã have no counting system, no fixed expressions for color, no sense of tribal history, creation myth or folklore. Kinship terms are simple and limited to the lifespan, that is, with mortality at around 45, great-grandparents could not be known and so there is no term for such an imaginary relationship. There are no property terms and body-oriented directions are non-existent, e.g. 'turn left' or 'go straight ahead' are not spoken but rather directions for the Pirahã are focused on the directional path and flow of the river, which forces speakers to think of the overall world differently.

Their language has one of the smallest sets of speech sounds and phonemes in the world, with only three vowels (i, a, o) and just eight consonants (p, t, k, s, h, b, g, and the glottal stop x) for men and for women three vowels and seven consonants (women replace the masculine s sound with the h). Surprisingly the consonants are frequently interchangeable, but what is important is the tone, accent, and weight of the syllables which can ultimately be whistled, hummed, yelled or sung. Pirahã is very much a tonal language and cannot be whispered as voicing is necessary for completing communication. Pioneering work by the sociolinguist Dell Hymes noted that there are five pitch channels in Pirahã: whistle speech, hum speech, musical speech, yell speech, and normal speech, the latter using consonants and vowels.

One fascinating conversation Daniel had concerning food involved lettuce. A plane delivered lettuce, tomatoes and cabbage and Daniel was delighted to eat something besides rice, beans, fish and wild game smothered in tabasco sauce. A Pirahã was puzzled when he saw Daniel eating, and enjoying, the salad, and asked, "Why do you eat leaves? Don't you have any meat?" When assured that meat was available, the Pirahã made the "obvious" conclusion to the affair, "Pirahãs don't eat leaves. That is why you don't speak our language well. We Pirahãs speak our language well and we don't eat leaves." The statement confused Daniel but he was to finally come to the conclusion that to speak their language is to live their culture.

The Pirahãs were a hard to define tribe. Unlike other Amazonian groups, they did not wear feathers, enact elaborate rituals, paint their bodies, or have other outward exotic cultural manifestations. They don't display wealth because all Pirahã are equal, they don't need houses for privacy as privacy is not a strong value. They produce few tools, almost no art, and very few artifacts. Perhaps their most outstanding tools are their large, powerful bows (over two yards in length) and arrows (2-3 yards long). If a basket is needed, they quickly weave one on the spot out of wet palm leaves, of course not using the more durable wicker fibers but something for quickly completing what is immediately necessary. The women do wear necklaces made from seeds and homespun cotton string, decorated with feathers, beads, beer-tabs, and other objects, but their purpose is for warding off spirits, not to be artistic, show symmetry or reflect tribal colors or design, which don't exist. Neither do they have any method for food preservation. In death, Pirahã are buried in a prone position with their belongings alongside, but these amount to very little as Pirahã have relatively no material culture.

Marriage ties are for life but invariably men (maybe even women) cheat. The next day a woman will have the man with his head on her lap and she will be rapping his head repeatedly for hours. The woman can express her anger tangibly and the man by allowing her to rap expresses his remorse. The conflict is over by the end of the day, but this isn't to say that it won't happen again.

One anthropology student went to the Pirahã in order to collect data. Lacking Pirahã language, he attempted to conduct his research in Portuguese, which some the Pirahã had limited working knowledge of. When the Pirahã realized that the recording could go to their friend Daniel Everett (having long experienced tape recorders from Daniel's extended stays in the village), the researcher's questions were totally disregarded and they began talking about village affairs to Daniel. The researcher gave up trying, probably intuitively knowing that if he had been speaking "straight head" (Pirahã) instead of "crooked head" (Portuguese) his language constraints would have been lowered and his communication conventions would have been more in line with experiential immediacy.