Best Conference

Continuing the suggestion from Gwen Bell's blog: "Best Conference of 2009."

Living in a Developing Country, I don't often get a chance to attend conferences. When a conference does happen in-country, I'm often in the field and usually don't hear about it until I return and I hear how good the conference was. There are conference offerings in Thailand - if I get a chance to go to Khon Kaen which has the main university hospital for NE Thailand, I see posters for very interesting medical conferences on the walls of the elevators and on bulletin boards but usually for the previous week or the next week. Nothing seems to happen in the present.

So, this past year I went to the University of Washington 'Advances in Family Practice Conference.' I think this is the fifth time I've attended. All the topics are interesting and practical, reflecting the current practice standards for assessment, diagnosis and treatment of common problems that medical providers see in their clinics. It's a great chance to review and meet other primary care physicians and physician assistants.

My list of 'Best of Books read in 2009'

Looks like I read 74 books this year. Thought I read more, but I think I forgot to list them on Goodreads. Well, that's the way it goes.

Books I liked the best:

1. Year of the Flood by Marget Atwood
2. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
3. Cats Eye by Margaret Atwood (you can tell I'm a fan of this great writer)
4. Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
5. The Thing around Your Neck by Chimanada Ngozi Adichie
6. Tinkers by Paul Harding
7. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón
8. The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
9. A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
10. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

I also read A Wild Sheep Chase, which I thought I had read several years ago, but it didn't seem familiar in a Murakami kind of way. So after I read Dance, Dance, Dance I read A Wild Sheep Chase. Love Murakami's writing. Also re-read Norwegian Wood. I kinda put these separate, as any list that I compose, which includes Murakami, would mean that the books by Murakami would come out on top, as far as I'm concerned.

2010 recommendations: Just be the Best I can be!

At this time of the year, blog posts focus on the best and worst of the past year. Even more amazing, there are many articles on the best and worst of the decade. I can't believe that we've gotten through the first ten years of the millennium. And I've spent them all in Laos.

Along with looking back over the year or decade, everyone posts their resolutions for the new year, or why they don't believe in resolutions and won't post any resolutions. At a new year's party last night, I asked some of my Lao staff if they had resolutions. At first, they were confused because the word 'resolution' is translated as mat-tii , meaning 'law' or 'decree.' So I explained that in this context, it was like a personal law or decree for what they would like to change or try out in the new year. They all laughed and told me that they always want to do the best they can so why do they need to make their own laws?

Well, I was hoping that one of them would say something like, "I'd like to write better quarterly reports and get them in on time." Sigh. I just know that they will continue to do the best possible...

For myself, I really don't make resolutions. My situation is always changing so if I say, "I resolve to write 2,000 words/ day" or "I resolve to run 5 miles/ day," if I don't do it, then I feel bad. So I prefer to make recommendations for myself, such as:

Writing 500,000 words this year. Three years ago, I tracked my writing. I felt my writing was improving and I had the time and energy to keep at it. I discovered that if I wrote a lot, it became easier and my writing grew better. At the end of 2006, I had written about 370,000 words. So, I recommend to myself to write 500,000 words and see what happens.

Train for a half-marathon, whether I end up running in one or not. I always think a lot while I'm running and it frees my mind.

Read as much as possible this year. I always try to read one hundred books/ year which includes lighter reading as well as massive books which have won Booker or other literary awards. I still have a backlog of books, so I'm participating in the 'TBR challenge'.

Try to be patient and be a better boss. That also means handing over more work to my staff so I'm not left with it, which makes me feel crabby and uncreative.

Travel more in the region. I recently found out that I have frequent flier miles on Thai Airways that I have to use. It looks like I'll be doing some work in Nepal in February/ March so I'm going to travel a bit there (someplace safe as the political situation there is always changing).

Strive for quality and not quantity in these recommendations and don't get upset if I don't always live up to them. Just live a good and meaningful life, that's my main resolution.

The Worst Books of the Decade!

Well, if there's going to be a list for the best, there should also be a list for the worst. Actually, it's weird - the Davinci Code is on both the best and the worst lists! I haven't read any of these books, though I did try to start Vernon God Little. Although it did win the Booker Award in 2003, I found it hard to get through because the main character is just so unlikable.

Anyway, about this list - I can you can say that it's the 'best of the worst of the decade.'

The post is rising to the challenge of National Blog Posting Month. This month's challenge at NaBloPoMo is to post daily about "The Best of...."

NaNoWriMo progress

Did I mention yesterday that I wrote almost 10,000 words for NaNoWriMo in one day. It felt good to stretch out and write. The backdrop of the weather didn't provide any distractions - cold and windy with the threat of drizzle in the air. The gusts of wind rattled the window and I was glad to be inside, though without heat the insides of houses in Xieng Khouang are nearly as cold inside as outside. When the temperature dropped in the evening, I stoked my internal furnace with a glass of wine.

My story starts in a village in Kham district where Daeng, the hero, and Boua, the heroine grow up. Not a smooth childhood - Daeng's mother dies in childbirth and Boua tries to marry her off to the son of a neighbor. They are both tormented by an older boy named Vong. This typical village life is contrasted with global events - new technologies and China dominating the movement to return to the moon. While the village doesn't have electricity, people still buy cell phones, which they charge when they go to town. So I'm writing about some of the juxtapositions I see in my daily life in Lao.

I'm glad to get ahead with this project, far enough to see the possibilities in several sub-plots. Also, glad to get ahead as I have some work-related stuff coming up and I'm not sure how much time or mental energy I'll have after work.

That Luang Holiday

Being based on the lunar calendar, the main Buddhist holidays occur on the days of the full moon. Many Lao names also revolve around the moon. My own name, Chanpheng, means "full moon". The person who gave me the name said that 'The full moon is beautiful and likes to have fun.' It also has Buddhist meaning, because of the main religious days being on the full moon.

That Luang itself is a gold colored monument (also called a stupa because it often contains relics, particularly those of the Buddha). Many believe was that missionaries sent by the Emperor Asoka in India, brought a Buddha relic which was built into the stupa in the 3rd century. The temple was rebuilt as a Khmer temple in the 14th century. In 1560, King Setthathirat moved the capital from Luang Prabang to Vientiane and rebuilt That Luang, which was again destroyed in 1828, when the Thai raided Vientiane. The French using old plans, rebuilt the stupa in 1900 but it was finally rebuilt in 1930 and people say that the shape is more elegant and pleasing to the eye.

Boun That Luang is the holiday falling on the full moon of the eleventh lunar month. Yesterday, people making merit at the Sri Meuang Temple brought their wax flower offerings on a parade from Sri Meuang to That Luang. Today, thousands of people offered food to the monks, who came in from all over Vientiane and the provinces. Tonight, while the Thai celebrate Loy Krathong, there is the Vong Vieng, where people light candles and circle the stupa three times.

Well, this year I'm up in Xieng Khouang and didn't wake up early enough to offer food to the monks. I'll also miss out on the ceremonies at That Luang. On the other hand, it's been a quiet and creative day. The sky has been overcast and strong gusts of wind hit the house. I can feel the temperature dropping. Earlier I noticed that the flowers on the peach and plum trees are starting to bud. Cold season is coming.

Thoughts on food

Plenty of folks worry about global warming, the food crisis, wars in general, etc and end with the thought, "What can I, as an individual do about this?" Here's something to ponder: Article from the Asian times. Of course, how does lack of wasting food translate to making food more available in developing countries? If people in the US are not buying so much junk food, would less demand for flour, meat and oil make this food more available for international aid relief to developing countries? I wonder if market forces would jump in - if people are not wasting so much food, meaning that there's less demand, would that drive food prices lower so farmers are selling at a loss and eventually stop producing?

I've also read that if people stopped producing meat, there would be less carbon from production of cow pies, and less deforestation to open up corn fields for animal feed. That change alone, would help reduce global warming.

Well, I've been trying to buy only local foods - cheese is difficult to cut out of my diet. I rarely eat meat. I do buy a lot of vegetables from the local market - and never get around to cooking them so there's food wasted right there. Unfortunately, even dried beans come from elsewhere so there's the energy involved in transporting them (though probably not as much as transporting slabs of meat from New Zealand, which crops up in Vientiane). Some local foods - well, as people might notice from some of my previous food entries, they're not always things that I can bear to eat.

On the other hand, with the cost of food rising and the declining value of the dollar... I may have to see what recipes I can come up with.

Food: rice crops this year

As we were returning from the village visit the other day, we passed fields and fields looking like this. The fields were wet when the farmers transplanted the rice, and then the rain stopped. Even just a few days, given the state of the soil and the depth of the water, and the ground dries out and starts to crack. Right now, the rice looks all right but another day or two...

It usually rains constantly at this time of the year - a constant heavy rain which sometimes diminishes to a drizzle but then starts down heavy again. The clouds keep the air cool and moist and the water doesn't evaporate. This year, thunderstorms provide relief from overly sunny skies and hot weather.

It's strange because it's been raining very heavily in the north. The Mekong river is very high right now, and areas of the north have been affected by the flooding, with whole fields of corn or rice washed away.

The life of the average rice farmer depends on the rain. If the skies are so unpredictable, what else can they count on in life?

On Wednesday, we also stopped at a local market.



My staff wanted to get some fish but the vendors were all sold out. Here's what they did have.



This woman was selling mushrooms, and in the foreground, fresh water mussels. I'm not sure if these are the same kinds of mussels that somehow got into US waterways. Here, they're not such a problem because natural predators - humans - keep the population down. In the north, these mussels can get as big as a kilogram in weight. They're pretty good.

I was trying to figure out if I should buy something when one of the women above showed me this:



I deferred. Some people like deep fried crickets. I'm not overly fond of them, myself.

ABC Wendesday: Angel Trumpets and Other Things

I just noticed that there's a new round of ABC Wednesdays so I thought I'd play along too. I went through some of my old photos, looking for anything labeled with A - so here are a collection of pictures involved with A somehow.

Angel Trumpets - these plants with their thick sweet smell grow all over the dusty poor soil of Xieng Khouang. But people like the white flowers, so they plant them for decoration. I'm not real partial to them, since I know how poisonous they are so I got my landlord to tear out most of them. The dramatic lighting of a storm moving in at sunset does make the flowers look pretty wild.

Ants' eggs for sale. During the war years, people ate what they could find - in particular insects and the parts of animals that Americans and Europeans wouldn't eat. Even now, though there is a greater variety of food available, people still eat these alternative forest products. The eggs of red fire ants are very delicious - in the picture, they are the white things, looking like rice, spread out on the banana leaves on the table. This is also my food entry for NaBloPoMo.

Artist at work. This man has developed a new angle on making roti, which are flat breads cooked on a hot grill and coated with plastic-like condensed milk. He has a variety of patterns that he can draw with colored dough, then he flattens the usual roti dough over the pattern. He had a line of children around him during the whole time of the boat-racing festival in my village. Both good skills and good marketing.

Angry red planet. The sun was setting, the flame trees were flaming and the red laterite dust seemed to glow. It reminded me of this film that I had seen as a kid - "The Angry Red Planet," about an expedition to Mars (I stayed overnight at a friend's house and his mom dropped us off at the theater; the first movie I had seen without an adult present). When the astronauts went outside their space ship, everything in the film was red. I also remember that they showed the surface of Mars as being covered with water, with a spectacular crystal city on the horizon. When they tried to go over there, this big fish monster chased them back - but one of the characters got bitten and they blasted off before the fish monster could get them. They all knew he was going to change into a fish monster.

Anyway, the following day, it rained when my mother came to pick me up and I freaked out - my six year old brain knew that a fish monster was lurking behind each corner. And my friend got in trouble for both choosing this film - and also sneaking to buy a bar of Bonomo's Turkish Taffy. His mother had told him not to buy sticky candy because of his newly applied braces on his teeth.

Travel

View from the plane - Bangkok from the air.



And view about 40 minutes later as we start to descend to Ubon Ratchathani.

I have some pictures on my SWF post but here are a few food related pix. There was a loud and funny fair just off the town center in Ubon. All sorts of food, rides, and people trying to sell all sorts of things.

Here are some snacks - basically colored Marshmellow Fluff and pancakes:



And barbeque:

onthe bus

onthe bus, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

This was my activity on the Fourth of July - after finishing some work in the office, I headed out to Bangkok on the overnight train. However, before boarding, you have to go through the immigration formalities at the border - first on the Lao side, with waiting in lines at the checkpoints then wait for the bus. The view across the river is very relaxing as the bus chugs to the Thai side, where you wait on more lines.

nongkhai from bridge, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

The lines today were not that bad so I got to the train station in time to have dinner and buy some food to go at this restaurant. For dinner, I had stir-fried chicken and cashews with rice, and for my late night snacks and breakfast: pat thai, stir fried thing rice noodles eaten with chiles, spring onions and peanuts, and an egg sandwich on a baguette.

shop for dinner, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

Yes, it's been a million years...

since I last posted. I've been too busy to put together any entries on any of my blogs - just doing twitter to remind myself and everyone else that I'm still alive. Over this past weekend, I had some time while I was in Bangkok - then come to find out that blogspot is still blocked there! There had been controversy over blog posts and pictures about a year ago, but I thought that was all over.

Well, goes to show how long it's been since I was last in Bangkok. Up till July last year, I was going every two/ three months for doctors' and dental visits. When I went on home leave, I spent the night going and coming in the airport. That was no fun.

Which leads me to my next thought. This month on NaBloPoMo, the topic is food. So this next is about airport food.

The old Don Meuang airport, closer to central Bangkok was a pretty boring place in comparison with the new Suvarnabhumi Airport, which just opened two years ago. When I worked in Thailand in the refugee camps, I often would arrange to meet up with my refugee staff members for a last round of good-byes. One day, I met Duc who was on his way to the Philippines for cultural orientation and English language training before going to the US. I took him to the one restaurant where we could get a final bowl of noodle soup.

He was so nervous, he kept knocking things over and saying things wrong in Thai (Duc is Vietnames). The total for the bowl of soup was 100 Baht, the equivalent of 4 USD at that time. Considering that we had only been allowed to pay our refugee staff in kind for the equivalent of 10 Baht for day, he was both overly thankful and apologetic about eating. I laughed and told him that it was the time together before we parted was worth more than simple money. "Besides you don't pay to eat airport food everyday."

My overnights in the new airport were very long. Even though there were fancy shops (I've never seen such a shopping mall pass for an airport) and restaurants, all I wanted was a place to sleep and a safe plane trip.

Clash with the past - my old home and my new one

I was surfing around the web and found this New York Times article: Twenty Years after Ossining's Riots, Mood of Racial Harmony Prevails, which was written about the schools I went to. The two elementary schools I had gone to were very different in racial mix and when we got to middle school, the clash of two cultures was frightening.

I remember when they started to experiment with busing - in time for my younger sisters. The parents were up in arms. "Our kids will be on the bus all the time; they'll have no time to play." As it was, no one noticed that I spent about an hour each way on the bus since, although we lived about two miles from the school and I could have ridden a bicycle if my mother had allowed me to, I was at the beginning of the bus route in the mornings and the end in the evenings.

The parents acted like our homes were being invaded. And it held off the inevitable culture clash when all us elementary school kids ended going to the same middle school. I wanted to hang out with my old friends but they had changed. It was the 60's and everything was changing.

I ended up getting involved in social issues during high school. I became the coordinator for an after school tutoring program and during the summers, I volunteered as a day camp counselor at the local Ethical Culture Center. I certainly learned creativity that summer - we got all sorts of weird donations - but we always figured out how to make art projects out of them!

And since I was an adolescent, I had the typical child/ parent clashes. My mother didn't approve of my after school activities. I was already learning that home means different things, and I was becoming at home in the world.

Home in the 60's

When I was growing up, just north of NYC, everyone I knew moved. We lived near one of the research branches of IBM, which everyone knew, meant, "I've been moved." Well, I moved to this school in time for 4th grade, leaving behind my closest friends in the world. Even though the distance between our houses was only ten miles, it was a rural area - no bus service and no transportation if our mothers didn't want to drive us.

It took me a while to stop feeling like an outsider. For the first few days at the new school, I sat by the edge of the playground, watching the other kids while I wondered what my old friends were doing. In the evenings, when my parents returned from work, they asked me if I had made new friends yet and I would say, "No," hoping that they would pack everything up and we'd return to our old house.

One day as we ran back into the school after recess, I nearly tripped on another girl. "Can you help me? I'm making dandelion rings." She had tied dandelions into a chain that was about 2 meters long. "It's very delicate."

"I can see," I said. "You must have taken a long time." I stooped down to carefully gather the other end of the chain. "It's nice." She put her head down to hide her smile.

Sometime after that I had a dream. I was on the playground with my old friends, and they were choosing sides for a game. Not only did they not pick me, they ignored me. I yelled at them but they didn't hear me, and in fact, they talked about me. They said nasty things.

When I woke up, I was free. I remembered the incident that must have generated this dream - we were playing a game in a circle and I ran inside before the bell rang, telling them to follow me. It was still five minutes before the bell, and then I realized when I got to the classroom that I had left my bookbag outside. I ran back out as they were coming inside. "Oh," one of them said, acting surprised. "We thought you left it out there on purpose." Then they looked at each other and laughed.

I had felt hurt for a second. I brought my bag inside but quickly forgot the incident. I guess what I saw in the dream was my perception of what was really going on.

So the simple dandelion chain stretched out and chained me to a new home. I enjoyed the remainder of elementary school and then middle-school happened.

Old home

old house2, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

I don't know the people who live in this house but I can imagine the inside and the life that goes on inside. Three or even four generations live her, with grandmother spending most of her time in the house, cooking or resting, maybe going outside to talk to the neighbors. And taking care of the younger children.

She probably has several children and their families in the house. It's about half and half whether a newly married couple with stay with the husband's family or the wife's family - depends how crowded the house is and which household needs more labor. Each family lives in one bedroom in the house, the younger children sleeping with the parents, the older children sleeping in the living room area, all the cousins sleeping in one bed under a mosquito net.

There's always someone in the house, so if a guest comes over, they can entertain the person. And to protect the house.

Many houses are further off the ground, so you can walk under them. In the hot season, the underside of the house is cool and the old people either sit on a mat, chewing betel and passing the time, or resting in a hammock.

June's theme is home

The June theme at Nablopomo is "home," which is certainly a broad topic. Everyone talks about home sometime during the day, often meaning the place where you were born, or the place you always return to. Who was it that said, "Home is the one place where you can't be turned away." Did anyone say it, or did I just say it?

We learn early on the difference between a house and a home. Home = family whereas a house is a sterile thing, just a structure. You add the things to the structure that attract family members like a magnet, especially at certain times of the year, and presto - home.

Yet, for most of the world's population, home is an ideal which often doesn't see reality. And with the tragedies in Burma and China, home - bamboo hut or crowded apartment building - can be destroyed in an instant.

So what is home? What does it mean to you?

reflection and voices

reflection, originally uploaded by c_p_lew.

We had a wild trip to get out to Ta-Oi District but after all the activity of the day, requiring that I keep up a constant stream of explanation for our guests, I got a chance to slip away and listen to my own voice. By being quiet and still for a little while, I found the voice in my heart.

Often when people come out to a remote area like this, they're at first charmed by the natural beauty and they talk about the simplicity of life. Well, it's true but spend a few days and things don't seem so perfect. People tell the same stories over and over again and the youth complain about no jobs, no action and no fun. They turn their backs on the scenery and watch satellite TV. And then a visitor might want to hate it.

Bouncing back and forth between these two extremes, one arrives at the middle. Life is changing but people are still in poverty. One of our trainers explained about the number of children he saw with malnutrition. But people persevere - they struggle to make their lives better for their children. They maintain the customs and stories that give that struggle a meaning.

I thought about that, and more as I watch the shadow in the water, and the man being tugged along behind it. There are no easy answers in the world, only the effort to make sense of the questions.

Voice #15 - loss of voice

Too much work this week. Some of my staff are acting clueless, and it's taking a combination on sitting on them and being supported to get any work done. The big problem today was trying to teach math to one staff member - who is a doctor.

I hated my voice when I talked to him today. I felt full of irritation and I felt my words in Lao were not beautiful, the tones too strong, rather than the soft fluid tones that make up the language. I took him through the few steps of the activity that he is supposed to follow-up on and sent him on some errands, related to the work. And made myself calm down.

My tones were much more relaxed in the evening. One of the things about Laos is that you can't stay frustrated for too long - the culture radiates peace and putting things in perspective.

This post was originally about catching up on blog posts - and now that is done for the month. So far, at the halfway point, there are a lot of things to consider about voice.

Voices #14 - Old house

Most of the houses in the district towns used to look like this - made of teak, originally roofed with thatch but then upgraded to tin sheeting. Now, the tin roofing is starting to fall apart which leads people to start to think about a new house.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of logging being done for export, so wood for use inside Laos has gotten more expensive. And anyway, many people are more interested in living in concrete houses now.

I can imagine how the old house is groaning, and probably muttering to itself with the same muffled words of my land lady (who chews betel and is difficult to understand when she has a mouthful of the stuff). "Those humans are so foolish - always abandoning traditions."

Someone might respectfully said, "But logs are scarce and ants eat your legs."

"That's when you should repair something, rather than throw it out."

Maybe another thing is that the voices of old houses are so distinctive that people would rather not hear their demands all the time. Now they are tuning into to satellite TV.