Yearly Archives: 2008

Daily Scribble

Goa

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Goa

After two weeks staying in Bangalore, I have to get away from city to get a break. So I went to Goa for a weekend trip. Goa is a beach resort town on the west coast of India, which is about 1 hour flight away from Bangalore. Comparing to the busy and polluted Bangalore, Goa is nice and peaceful. I can tell the difference once I step out of the plane. The air in Goa is refreshing, no only it has breeze from the sea, it also has the fresh smell of greenery. The whole city is surrounded by trees and plantation. The coast line of Goa is a really long beach, probably over a few kilometers. There are lots hotels and vacation houses along the main road a few minutes walk away from the beach. It is a tourist heaven.

I took the Kingfisher airline from Bangalore to Goa. The Indian domestic flight is better than I expected. Although the flight is only 1 hour, we are served a nice meal on the airplane. The airport in Goa is small, it only has two gates. After we got off the plane, we can walk to the terminal building under the sun from where the plane is parked. The weather of Goa is sweaty hot, only when you are under the sun or moving. If you sit under the shade, it is quite cool. The hotel is about 1 hour from the airport and 5 minutes away from the beach. The room is quite nice in Indian standard, most important it has air condition. We were quite tired after the traveling, so we just have dinner and retire to bed early. We had dinner at an Indian restaurant next to the hotel. It is funny that all customers are white people! The Indian food there is westernized, so it actually taste not bad.

The next day was quite an adventure. It turned out we joined a Indian tour, so we are touring the city with a whole bus of Indians. One good thing about the Indian tour compare to white guys tour is that there is not souvenir shop over. The second good thing is that the four is full of surprise. We don’t know the itinerary and we can’t really understand what the tour guide said, so have no idea what is our next destination.
The first stop is a beach, nothing special. The next stop is the Bom Jesus Basilica, which house the relic of St. Francis Xavier. The church itself is named one of world heritage sites by UN. Too bad that the relic of SFX is placed high up, I couldn’t get a closer look at the dead body. Then we visited the Mangesh Indian temples. You have to take off your shoes to enter the temple. Since I am not that keen on taking off my shoes, so I didn’t go inside. I just take a few photo form outside. You can’t take photo inside anyways. Other than some god statues, probably nothing interesting inside the crowded temple.

In the afternoon, we visited another Indian temple. All Indian temple looks the same. It got one main building a white tower and a large pool. You see one, you see them all. The temple itself is kind boring, but the rice field next the temple is quite a view. I never seen a real rice field before and never know that rice field is so green. It probably has RGB value of 0-255-0, you have to see it with your eyes. After seeing the temple, we went to a Portuguese house museum. It is an old building preserving how the Portuguese lives when they colonize Goa. The guided tour is quite interesting and it’s like a school field trip. Probably the white guy tour will not come to this place and I don’t see any white guy in the museum.

The next stop is another beach. This time we are given an hour of free time, so I and Martin just have a beer and chill out on the beach. The beach is mostly Indians. Some people swim but most of them just walking around on the beach. There are a few jet ski for rented and speed boat offering parachute-ride. It is kinda scary seeing the jet ski going between the swimmers. No wonder the tour guide told us not to swim. The tour ended with a river cruise. The sun set and the sea breeze are nice. However the cruise boat has some funky Indian dance show and the noisy music is quite annoying. I rather they let me enjoy the river wide quietly. Apparently the cruise boat as double as floating disco at night. When we dock, I see lots of young people lining up for the next boat run.

After a full day of tour on Saturday, Sunday is very relaxing. We just went to the beach and sit there doing nothing except having beer for the whole day until the car pick us up to the airport. We had a nice walked along the beach and get our foot wet in the cool ocean water. Too bad that I am stuck with Martin inside of Pat. We both agree it is kinda gay. I saw some fish boats on the beach and fishermen repairing their nets. I guess the local people still catch fish for living. A more stunting scene is rows after rows of beach chairs. Along the several kilometer stretch of the beach, I estimate there are at least ten thousand beach chairs. Can you imagine the beach chairs are full of white guys sun bathing in the peak tourist season?

Two days in Goa is too short, I wish I don’t have to come back to Bangalore. Bangalore sure gave me a bad impression on India. After seeing Goa, I think India is not too bad after all.

Daily Scribble

Auto Rickshaw

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Auto Richshaw

Auto rickshaw is the most common transportation in Bangalore.  It is kinda like the taxi of India.  You can hire one by raising your hand on street corners or find a richshaw stop in front of shopping malls.  The auto richshaw drives like a motorcycle, except it has two wheels and a passenager cabinet at the back.  They runs on small 2 stroke engine, making the tuc- tuc noise.  That’s why auto rickshaw is also called tuctucs.  The auto rickshaw has no door nor windows.  The engine probably runs on dirty gas, so you can smell the exhaust when you riding on it.  I guess the auto rickshaw is not very eco-friendly.

On my first week in Banaglore, I tried to avoid taking the auto rickshaw.  It seems not very safe and kinda shabby.  However there is no restaurant serves real food around the guest house.  So, I overcome my reluctance and start taking auto rickshaw this week.  After the work, the company driver just drop me off at the restaurant of the night, then I ride the auto rickshaw back to the guest house after dinner.

All auto rickshaw comes with a fare meter but it is rarely use.  Usually you negotiate the price before hopping into it.  It costs about CAD$2.5 for a 20 minutes ride from downtown Bangalore back to the guest house.  The rickshaw driver probably over charged me by almost doubling the fare.  Do I really care?  Probably not, I don’t really want to bargain on the street for merely $1.  I rather pay the premium and let the driver take me to my destination with no fuss.

Daily Scribble

Cricket

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Cricket

Cricket to Indian is like Hockey to Canadian.  Cricket is probably the national sport in India and every one seems crazy about it.   I haven’t a live game, but I see lots of cricket on TV as the world champion is playing in Australia this week.  The India team is playing against the Australians and too bad they lost the game.  At first I have no clue what is going on in the game.  The good thing is that everyone is happy to explain the rule to me.  It took me a while to get a sense of what is going on in the field.

Cricket is kinda like baseball, with pitcher, batter and catcher.  Instead of running in diamond, the batter runs back and forth in the dirt stripe in the middle of the field.  The rule is similar to baseball.  The pitcher throw the ball to the batter, then the batter strike the ball.  If the ball is caught in the air, the batter is out.   Otherwise, the batter can keep running to score more points until the ball is threw back to the stripe.  If the ball go outside of the field, it kinda like home run, the batter automatically score 4 points or 6 points depending on whether the ball is in the air.  Of course, the team score more points win the game.  The rule kinda make sense up to this point, just like baseball.

The flow of game is weird.  Instead of having innings with teams playing offense and defense alternatively, the game is played in two sessions.  One team will finish all his batting in first session, then the other team will do the batting in second session.  A session ends when all the batter are strike out or 500 balls is threw.  It’s kinda like a team score several hundred points first, then let the another team to catch up.  The game flow makes the game not very exciting.  The first few hundred points is kinda boring, since it won’t make much difference to the game.  Only when the second team come close to catch up and almost run of batters or balls, then the game becomes interesting.  It is more fun to see the score from both teams leap frogging each other every inning.

書評

Cultural Intelligence – David C. Thomas and Kerr Inkson

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Cultural Intelligence時下流行什麼講智商﹐有最原祖的IQ思考力智商 ﹐也有早幾年興起的EQ情緒智商。在全球化的大趨勢下﹐與世界各地不同文化的人溝通﹐就要靠這本書所講的CQ文化智商。我公司與其他科技公司一樣﹐跟隨潮流外判工作去印度﹐在以色列和上海也有研發中心。於是不甘後人也講文化智商﹐買一大幢這本書回來﹐全公司每人分發一本﹐好讓我們學習如何和其他文化的人打交道。公司派發的書照例沒有多少人會看﹐我領了回來放在臺頭封塵。今次給公司派了去印度出差﹐在飛機上才臨急抱佛腳地刨完﹐希望多少可以讓印度的工作順利點。

文化可以影響一個人的思考和行為模式﹐在與不同文化的人溝通時﹐我們往往忘記了文化差異﹐把我們熟悉的文化標準套用在別人身上。若果我們不理解對方文化的差異﹐溝通就很容易出現誤解了。這本書並不是詳細例出每個文化的特點﹐而是講述一套心法﹐如何去培養自己的文化智商﹐可以適應不同的文化環境。書中把文化分為權力矩離﹐個人和集體主義﹐男女平等﹐以及風險承受程度四個指標﹐去幫助讀者分析陌生文化背後的動機默絡。並舉出例子去說明各種不同的情況下﹐不同文化可能的不同反應。當然文化智商並不能靠只讀書學習﹐必需要親身經歷異文化﹐才能夠慢慢理解語言和行為上微細的文化訊意﹐逐漸理解別人如何受文化影響而作出的決定。

很可惜這本書中的例子﹐大部份是用南美洲或亞洲的文化﹐沒有用印度文化作示範講解。不過書中用來分析文化的系統很有用﹐讓我不用盲摸摸地去學習新的文化。好像已有了一套骨架﹐只需把貼上文化觀測的肌肉﹐就可以呈現在文化的面貌。各地文化不同是不用爭議的事實﹐但我並不認同書中提倡文化不分高低的說法。我支持文化達爾文主義﹐認為各種文化透過競爭和進化﹐優質文化最終會淘汰劣質文化。不過那一個文化最優秀﹐是一個應然性問題﹐並不能解決不同文化溝通困難的實際性問題。管他就算是落後低劣的文化﹐在現實中要明白理解其他文化﹐才能夠更有效率地與其他文化的人溝通﹐達成到你想要求達到的目標。對落後文化進行文化啟蒙的工作﹐留給其他有心人做好了。

Daily Scribble

Some obversations about Indian culture

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It seems I am writing about India in my blog every day.  Well, I guess I am still experience the cultural shock.  Everything happening around me seems so strange and foreign to me.  Usually people will eventually get over with the cultural shock once they are familiar with the culture.  There are many things I want to write about Indian culture and at the same time I don’t know where to begin.  I will simply jot down a few observations I have over the weekend.  I should know how to explain things more systemically once I finished reading my book on the anthropology of culture.

I went to a zoo and safari on the weekend.  Inside the safari, the bus driver help us take many photos since he is siting closely to the window.  When we get off, I decided to give him some tips, 10 rupees.  To make me quite unpleasant is that he bargain with me asking for more tips, 100 rupees.  I am the only one in the bus giving him tips.  He should be glad to have any tips at all.  At the end I gave him 50 rupees, but I decided I will not give any more tips in India unless it is necesgary.

The Indian concept of time is totally different than Canadian.  When an Indian told you five minutes, it actually means anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour.  I gave up expecting any Indian becoming on time.  I guess I just have to wait patiently.  I have nothing else to do or place to go anyways.

I went to M.G. road on the weekend.  M.G. road is kinda like Robson Street in Vancouver, with lots of tourist store.  On the street people trying to sell things to you are everywhere.  Most of them sell cheesy key chains, handcraft souvenirs.  There is one guy trying to sell wall size Indian map to tourist.  That guy must be out of his mind.  No tourist want to carry a cheap poster size map back home.  Moreover it takes lost work to keep the map free off winkles.  I wonder who will buy an Indian map during travel.