I met Rita in Batad, one of the small villages perched among the 2000-year-old rice terraces of the jagged Cordillera mountain range on the island of Luzon in the Philippines.

No roads reach the mountain village. To get to Batad my friends and I hired a jeepney in Banue and rode an hour along a windy dirt road to the trailhead where we disembarked. We hiked an hour down the steep rocky trail into the village.

Most of the villages in this part of the Philippine Cordillera can only be reached on foot. 

It’s well worth the effort.

I’m enamored by this place.

The rice terraces are a tribute to human engineering and endurance. Sometimes called “The Eighth Wonder of the World,” the enormous steps were carved by hand from jagged mountainside using stone tools over two millennia ago. It’s said that if they were laid end-to-end, the steps would circle the globe.

To give you an idea of their size, here’s a photo of my friends hiking across them.

The Ifugao people still farm the terraces the same way they were farmed when they were first built and flood them using the same system of stone aqueducts their ancestors carved out of the mountainside.

During the harvest the community takes to the fields and collectively chants the Epic HudHud of the Ifugao, an epic story with 40 episodes that takes three to four full days to complete. I love the thought of the HudHud filling the valley as the community works and chants in unison day after day.

Here’s a sample of the chant that was uploaded to YouTube by the U.S. Embassy in Manila.

The Ifugao culture — like many around the world — is slowly being eroded as television and the Internet reach the youth with images of a vast and exciting world to explore outside the village. Many of the young people move to the city searching for jobs, money, technology, and excitement.  So, in Batad, the number of farmers in the terraces is slowly declining and the HudHud chant is growing dimmer each year.

We spent the day hiking the hills around the village and visiting a waterfall. Afterward I sat at a restaurant overlooking the terraces while my friends took a stroll through the village. That was when Rita introduced herself.

After chatting for a few minutes I asked Rita how old she was.

Rita had been born in Batad. She didn’t know when she was born because at the time her tribe didn’t keep track of such things. We both figured she was probably in her mid-sixties.

If Rita was 65 she would have been born around the time that Filipino guerillas and the United States army were finishing a brutal campaign expel the Imperial Japanese Army from the Philippines.

World War II was nearly over. The Imperial Japanese Army had decided to make the Philippines its last stand in the Pacific, so they had nothing to lose. This made the Japanese military — which wasn’t known for it’s appreciation for human rights on the best of days — extremely dangerous.

The Manila Massacre, in which over one hundred thousand Filipino civilians were slaughtered by the Japanese, had occurred almost exactly 65 years before, and 165 miles south of, my chat with Rita on the balcony of her restaurant overlooking the Batad Rice Terraces.

This was the view.

The end of the World War II marked the beginning of a tulmutuous period for Asia — a period of widespread, incredibly fast development.

I asked Rita how her village had changed during her life

She told me how the steadily increasing communications reaching the Ifugao from the larger Phillipine society (and world) was distracting people from their history and traditions.

As passionate as I am about history and tradition — and as much as I hate to see a rich culture slowly dissolve into our globally-connected world —  I find little mystery in their disappearance.

Many people get up in arms about this.

Some blame the youth for being fickle and thankless. Some blame the adults for not teaching the youth proper reverence for their heritage.

I used to feel that way too, but recently my mind has changed.

All societies seek change.

Well, to be specific they seek progress, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

Our society operates largely on the idea that we should be constantly working to build a better world and should be prepared to discard any of our own traditions that impede our progress.

By it’s nature, progress destroys tradition.

I’m not saying I think we’ve done a particularly good job of building a better world, or that abandoning traditions is either wise or desirable.

I’m just saying that we tend to romanticize the traditions of others as unique and worthy of protection and while we rush to replace our own with newer and ‘better’ ones.

Our society idolizes the those who are most adept at slaying old paradigms and erecting new ones: Ludwig Van Beethoven, Johan Gutenberg, Elvis Presley, Nicola Tesla, Pablo Picasso, Albert Einstein, Rosa Parks, Elon Musk.

Nearly all societies strive to change. It’s the same reason that 2000 years ago the Ifugao farmers decided to pick up their stone axes and start carving these terraces out of the mountainside.

It’s what people have always done.

So why does it twist my stomach every time I encounter the a dying society?

After speaking for some time, Rita disappeared into her house and returned with folder containing a tattered old anthropology article. It explained that Rita was the last living practitioner of the traditional Ifugao weaving process. The document included photos of Rita harvesting vines from the jungle, stripping the fibres, spinning them into thread, and then weaving them into cloth on a simple handmade loom.

I asked her if she had taught anyone else her weaving method since the article had been written.

She told me that she had taught a man close to her age who lived in the next village over and laughed heartily as she explained how terrible he was at it, relishing her own singular mastery of the craft.

She was the last person in the world that could stroll into the jungle of the Cordillera mountains to collect vines and single-handedly transform them into an Ifugao alampay.

I asked her if she still made clothes.

She did not. She had given up weaving because of arthritis.

My friends returned from their walk. Rita and I said goodbye and I took a photo of her before we began climbing the steep path toward the potholed dirt road where we’d wait to flag down the next passing bus.

As we climbed the trail between the rows of thatched huts I noticed the laundry lines between them were adorned with jeans and basketball jerseys. A short time later we passed a group of teenagers huddled excitedly around an old cellphone.

Their eyes were all focussed on the tiny green-and-black flip screen and I was filled with an unsettling certainty that I had just witnessed some kind of vague injustice that had no definable perpetrator and of which no one seemed to feel they were a victim.

A version of this article originally appeared on The Liberty Project and has been republished here with permission.

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A rare and remarkable finding at an the archaeological site of Xultun in the northeast corner of the country clearly indicates that the Mayan calendar goes on for another 7000 years.

The finding was made when a student at the site sat down to eat lunch and noticed some paint on a stone in a looter’s trench. Investigation led to a older than the other structures build on top of it. The room contained a mural of a king, a second mural of “strangely dressed figures” and a wall covered in astronomical calculations that indicate a calendar extending thousands of years into the future.

The room has been called a “Mayan workshop for astronomers”.

Some have said the room indicates that the Mayan calendar continues for another 7000 years. Some say for only 4000.

Either way, one thing is for certain. That sandwich-eating student is totally going to get an ‘A’.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

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STEVEN’S BOOKS AND APPS
Taiwan for Culture Vultures (app)

**The above are affiliate links

Steven Crook, who’s lived in Taiwan for 20 years, grew up in England. He’s been writing travel and other kinds of feature articles for newspapers and magazines since 1996, and has had three books published. His most recently works include Taiwan: The Bradt Travel Guide and Taiwan For Culture Vultures, a smartphone travel app released by GuideGecko.

You’ve recently moved from freelance journalism into both guidebook and guide app writing. How did your experiences on these projects differ from your normal routine?

My routine didn’t change that much. I do most of my writing in the morning, a bit in the afternoon, and very little or none in the evening. Usually I’m working on half-a-dozen different things. Usually, that means about four articles and maybe two or three themes which, hopefully, will become ideas that win over an editor. With the guidebook and the app, I was still working on half-a-dozen things – just one was significantly more time-consuming that the other five. I’m used to putting aside and then returning to projects; for a feature article, six months from initial idea to publication isn’t unusual. Something I now make sure happens (and this is very important for anyone trying to make a living from freelance writing, I think), is that my projects cannibalize each other. Sizable chunks of both the guidebook and the app were based on old articles (the information had to be updated, of course, and rewritten to suit the format). Before the guidebook hit the shelves, I was selling feature articles based on the research I’d done for the book. Doing the app wasn’t so different. When I’m on a multi-day research trips, the schedule is more like this: Write from 5am to breakfast, then outside until 9pm or so, then write for an hour or more before sleeping.

App writing is a very new genre of writing. How does it differ from other forms of writing?

When I began talking to GuideGecko and examining the structure of their apps, two things appealed to me right away. The first is that each entry can be as long or short as you want – as long or as short as the destination deserves. With a print guidebook you’re always struggling to stay within the overall word limit, and to maintain some kind of balance between the various places and regions covered by the book. With an app you needn’t worry about this, because there’s really no size restriction. Secondly, you can add links from one attraction to another, or to background articles (my app has one about popular deities, for instance, and another about personalities in Taiwan’s history). This saves both writer and reader from repetition. The entries on individual destinations are leaner and meaner as a result.

I write a blog, but rarely read them. After writing a guide app, would you consider using one?
Absolutely yes! An app is almost certainly going to be more up-to-date than a printed guidebook. It’s also a lot lighter to carry around, and cheaper.

What are some of the better sights from the Guide Gecko app that you’d recommend?

I enjoyed writing about some new attractions which opened after I’d finished researching my guidebook. Houtong Coal Ecological Park offers a bit of history and a good outdoors experience. The Magic School of Green Technology showcases sustainable architecture, a field in which Taiwan leads Asia. If you’re interested in Taiwan’s religious culture and traditional arts, then Tainan and Lugang are must-sees.
You write for some print-only publications like inflight magazines, and some web-only publications. How do you feel that these two markets differ?

Web-only publications seem to pay less than print newspapers and magazines. I assume that’s because almost anyone can set up a website, whereas a print magazine requires more investment and certain skills, such as building a distribution network.

Last year you finished your first guidebook and this year your first app. Do you have any big plans for next year?

I’d love to write another book, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. (That’s a hint to publishers: I’m available!) Certainly I’ll be updating and expanding the app, and continuing to write feature articles.

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A performance at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre | Photo: TGIGreeny

London’s Incredible Venues

London has some of the best-known entertainment venues in Europe. Some famous for their history and others for their modernity. Some of the best-known theaters in London include the Royal National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and London’s theatre district (around Shaftesbury Avenue, the Strand, and the West End) includes dozens more. For Opera and dance one would visit the Royal Opera House, the London Coliseum, Sadler’s Wells, or the Savoy. Some of the most popular music venues include the world-renowned O2 Stadium, the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wembly Stadium, and many, many more. It’s safe to say that in London one can find a world-class act to suit any taste.

Bloc Party at the Somerset House | Photo: Luke Robinson

Theatre, Plays, Concerts, and More

As families flock to the city for the holidays, it will be best to book tickets early. Whether you’re looking for the eighties rock stylings of Canadian rocker Bryan Adams (playing at the 02 Arena this December) or Duran Duran (who will also be playing the venue this month), Legally Blonde the play, or an exhibition focusing on Degas’s portrayal of ballet in his paintings, there will be no shortage of cultural events in London this holiday season.

Lead image by stumayhew

This post contains sponsored links.

London Vacations

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Learn more about La Tomatina.

La Tomatina Video 1

La Tomatina Video 2

La Tomatina Video 3

Learn more about La Tomatina.

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My friend Garret Clarke went to Sri Lanka for two weeks this summer to shoot a reclusive and rarely photographed tribe called the Dambana Vedda, but he came back from the trip with five sweet series’.  Personally, I like the train ride series the best.  But his outdoor studio portraits of the Dambana Vedda hanging out in the jungle wearing loincloths and carrying spears are pretty damned NatGeo.  And the tea farming series is just plain pretty.

He just finished doing the post processing and has posted them to his website. He’s also looking for writers in Sri Lanka who are looking for pictures for their stories, or would like to write one based on his.

Check them out: http://www.garretmclarke.com

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We Canadians are overwhelmingly proud of our country. Why shouldn’t we be?  For all of its shortcomings Canada has often (although not always)  shown itself to be a fair country, especially when dealing with civil disturbances and inner conflicts.

The police reaction to the recent G20 protests in Toronto, however, was shameful.  They used excessive force dealing with protesters that were overwhelmingly peaceful and arrested hundreds of protesters that showed no aggression whatsoever.  Consider the following videos.

In this video, the police attack a group of protestors without provocation (except for singing our national anthem).

And in this video the police surround and close in on a large group of protesters, also all exercising their rights to non-violent protest. The don’t allow anyone to leave and then arrest them.

It is a sad day for Canada.  Tonight I will go out to a Canada Day party and, like most Canadians, drink a ridiculous amount of beer.  This time though, I will not drink to celebrate.  I will drink to forget.

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Below is a gallery of pictures from the 2010 Yenshuei Fireworks Festival.  You can navigate the gallery using the thumbnails, by clicking on the image, or by using the arrow keys on your keyboard.

[svgallery name=”yenshuei”]

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I tipped back my cowboy hat, which I had brought to wave in the air while riding the crocodile, and sized up the dinosaur-like behemoth. His head looked like that of a crocodile, but his body looked more like it belonged to giant mutant toad.  His belly spread out on the pavement beneath him like a green leather sack of water.

“Are you ready?” I asked my girlfriend.

“No way.  You first.”

“It looks pretty safe.  I don’t think he can move.”

I pointed at the crocodile and asked the owner, Chiu ‘the Crocodile King’ Hsi-ho, “Ke yi zuo ma? (Can I sit on it?)?”

He nodded.  I took a deep breath and started to walk towards it.

We were in the Crocodile King Animal Farm, a small zoo of exotic and mutant animals in a small town called Madou in rural southern Taiwan.

The crocodile that I was about to mount had been imported from Thailand two-and-a-half years earlier.  Since then he had lived on the farm in a children’s wading pool that was only about one meter longer than his body in either direction. His life consisted of eating, sleeping, and being sat on by Taiwanese locals so that they could pose for novelty photographs. He had gained 500 kg since arriving at the zoo and he was now so fat that he looked like he couldn’t even walk.

He was, in fact, so fat that he may have been a record breaker. Later I did some research into famous large crocodiles. The heaviest crocodile I was able to find an official record of was Yai, a 6m, 1114kg, Thai croc. I also learned that some extremely large wild crocodiles could possibly weigh over 1300kg, but that crocodiles of that size would normally be over 6m long.  So, if the crocodile in the Crocodile King Animal Farm was, as the sign on the wall claimed, 1250 kg and only 5.2 m long, it’s very likely that he was the fattest crocodile in the world.  He sure as hell looked like he was.

As a person who likes animals and…uh, you know, freedom and stuff, I was disturbed by the croc’s cramped living space. But thinking about it later, I realized that I have lots of friends in North America who live in mobile homes with abnormally large televisions that have made it their life’s goal to eat as much and move as little as possible.  So, as much as I hated the idea of the croc being forced into this lifestyle, it seemed possible that the he may not have minded the arrangement.  If they laid him across a paisley couch in front of a TV and stuck a Marlboro in his mouth, he would have somewhat resembled my friend’s unemployed uncle who bought beer for us in high school.

Christine and I took pictures of each other sitting on the über-obese amphibian and I waved my cowboy hat in the air.  Afterwards we felt ashamed. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Our day really took a nosedive a few minutes later when Chiu gave us an extra show.  There was a smaller female crocodile living in the adjoining pen.  Chiu shook and kicked her until she defecated in fear.  Then he scooped up the feces with a large metal pan and fed it to the giant croc.  After the croc finished eating, Chiu turned around shot us a game show host smile and an enthusiastic thumbs up.

“Xie xie (thank you).” We stuttered and walked away, dumfounded.

The Crocodile King Farm is a walled compound on about three-quarters of an acre.  The middle is occupied by large pond smothered in lily pads and encircled by a trail lined with animal cages and pens.

We followed the trail around the pond.  We saw a lama and a miniature pony in a fenced-in area the size of a small studio apartment.  In another small pen was a group of Formosan deer. In a separate cage, with barely enough room to turn around, lived an albino deer. One aquarium contained a cute-as-a-button little two-headed turtle. There were several varieties of exotic birds including an ostrich, an emu, a cassowary, and an oddly large number of featherless mutant chickens, all living in areas too small to afford much movement. The most incredible birds, however, were the mutant ducks, which had clumps of feet growing out of their butts like bouquets of webbed yellow flowers. They were super cute.

On the final leg of our tour we encountered the most disturbing of the mutants: the mutant goats. The two of them lived in separate pens. One was a three-legged cripple with horns growing out its front left foot. The other had a bone-like protrusion the size of a wine bottle growing from the center of its chest. While we stood there the three-legged goat jumped up on its hind legs and got its horned foot stuck high between the bars of the cage.

As I watched the goat wrestle with its entangled deformity I wondered about its life prospects beyond the freak farm.  The goats had probably come from normal Taiwanese farms. Had they stayed on those farms they’d probably have been killed to prevent them from passing on their abnormalities to their offspring. Perhaps the Crocodile King Farm had saved the goats from prejudicial slaughter.  Perhaps it had also saved the featherless chickens and foot-butted ducks.  It was a comforting idea.

Opposite the goats was a door to a hall lined with windows looking in on various exotic reptiles and snakes.  Each cage occupied about the same area as two single mattresses laid end to end.  Some of those cages contained single crocodiles. Some contained several lying a heap.  The latter looked kind of like the pictures they showed us in high school of the mass graves at Auschwitz—haphazard mounds of flesh. After seeing that we left.

As a traveler, I try to think of exhibits like the Crocodile King Farm as cultural artifacts. I mentally filed the Crocodile King Farm with the other unseemly attractions that tourists flock to: Thai ‘ping-pong’ sex shows, Filipino cockfights, the Spanish running of the bulls, and so on.  However, since our visit I’ve thought a lot about the ethics of the Crocodile King Farm and I’ve concluded that, despite it’s obvious ethical shortcomings, it’s neither good nor bad, but lies in a moral grey area.

I offer the following explanation.

If we want to live in a world where people understand and respect nature, it’s necessary to have places where people can experience nature’s infinite variety.  Pictures and words simply cannot replace the psychological connection that occurs between two conscious beings that occupy the same space at the same time.

The problem is that, as a business, the Crocodile King Farm’s ability to provide quality accommodations to animals is limited.  If customers demanded to see larger, cleaner pens, management would have to comply. But they would also have to raise their prices. Would the farm’s patrons, mostly residents of rural Taiwan, be willing to pay, say, double the current price ($6.50USD per adult) to ensure the humane treatment of the animals?  Sadly, they probably wouldn’t.

Unfortunately, ideas about the ethical treatment of animals in Asia are very different from those in the West.  Taiwan’s government is aware of the Crocodile King Animal Farm and it does nothing.  The same can be said of local Animal Rights NGOs. That’s a situation one can do little to change.  But, if I had my way, the government would subsidize and farm so that conditions could be improved and fair treatment of the animals could be ensured.  That way the farm could continue to educate people about the strange and fascinating creatures that inhabit our world, and, hopefully, offer those animals a place they can live happily.

Although my trip to the Crocodile King Animal Farm wasn’t exactly what you would call fun, it was educational.  I learned about nature’s limits, or, more specifically, her lack thereof. That night lying in bed, as I thought of those animals in their tiny cages, I imagined my favorite of them roaming free.  He was in a swamp. He plodded awkwardly along the shore and slid into the water. In the water he moved quickly and gracefully.  He plunged downwards looking for food and zoomed into the depths. I had first thought him to be a freak, but now I saw him for what he really was: the product of millions of years of natures genetic tinkering—a natural being existing among all of the other haphazardly created genetic lottery winners. Then he returned to the surface, popped out of the water, and sat there majestically, bobbing up and down, the water streaming off his snowy white feathers. He’s a pinnacle of evolution in his own way, that cute little butt-footed duck.

[svgallery name=”crocodile_king”]

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