Goodbye KTM

I leave Kathmandu tomorrow (for Bangkok, then Providence). When I got here I hated it but now I think I will miss it. That's always how it goes, right? 

My Tibetan

Anybody who has heard me speak Tibetan knows that I have a habit of saying 're wa' (རེད་བ་) a lot; it means something like "right?" or "isn't it?" (or maybe like desune in Japanese).

I'm saying "Lhasa is a nice place, right? Tibet has a lot of yaks, right? It's good, right? Right? Right? Right?" and the bottom text says "My way of speaking, right?"

Blue.

Amen. (source)

You guys got any bikes?

I'm finally remembering to take my camera with me sometimes when I go out. I assume this is some kind of bicycle repair shop ...

The difference between Kathmandu and Baltimore ...

I've been watching a lot of The Wire on my laptop. If you don't know, it's a really great show about police and drug dealing set in Baltimore. Anyway, it must be getting into my brain because I saw someone toss out a bag of trash from their window and immediately assumed it was drugs ...

Just a State of Mind ...

I feel pretty bad that I've been in Nepal for so long and haven't learned very much Nepali at all. So I decided to do a comic in Nepali. The sentence is from a lesson in a textbook I have. He says "Yesterday I didn't go out. I stayed home." (हिजॊ म कतै गइनँ।  घरै बसॆँ। I think ... I'm not very good at typing in Devanagari).

Yesterday the rains finally arrived and I stayed inside nearly all day. There is something really nice about staying in when it is raining, but I want to get better about going out even when it is raining (everything's the same). Since my time in Nepal is starting to wind down, I also want to get out of Boudha a little more and see things that aren't just Tibetan (though I want to see a few more of those things too!). I'm saving some things for when Alex comes here in July (!), but getting out of Boudha and into the rain before then would probably do me some good ...

Tibetan Calligraphy

For the last few weeks I've been learning Tibetan calligraphy. There a lot of different Tibetan scripts - you can see some cool examples of Tibetan calligraphy here.

Before I could only read and write in a script called U-chan (dbu chan, དབུ་ཅན) which means "with head" because it has a thick horizontal line at the top. This is the script that computers usually have and the one most books are printed in. However, most people can't write it and if they can, it takes a lot of effort like it would to make your handwriting look like a typewriter.

Now I'm learning a script called U-me (bdu med, དབུ་མེད) which means "head-less" because it doesn't have the the thick horizontal line at the top (the "head"). My goal though is to learn the Kyu-yig ('khyug yig, འཁྱུག་ཡིག) script that most people write letters with. It's difficult because there are a lot of short forms for certain letter combinations.


The picture is a page from my lessons. My teacher writes a sentence in red ink and then I re-write it a few times in black. I thought it would be boring and tedious to practice, but it's actually been really relaxing ... 

Pecha Kucha

I'm going to present some of my drawings at the next Pecha Kucha night in Kathmandu. It's this thing where you get 20 slides to show for 20 seconds each. Exciting! (or if not, over quickly)

Wittgenstein in Tibetan

I spend a lot of time talking with Tibetan Buddhist monks who have never read any Western philosophy about philosophy. Recently, I wanted to mention a famous Wittgenstein quote to a Geshe I was talking with. It's the final line from his Tractatus:

"Whereof one cannot speak, one must pass over in silence."

in German:

"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen."

So, I thought I'd try my hand at putting it into Tibetan. Here's what I came up with:

གང་ལ་སྐད་ཆ་བཤད་མ་ཐུབ༎
འདི་ལ་ཁ་ཁར་སྡོད་དགོས་ཡོད༎

gang la skad cha bshad ma thub//
'di la kha khar sdod dgos yod//

I tried to put into two seven-syllable lines to make it sound more authoritative and authentic. It literally says something like "Of whatever we can't speak, on this we must stay silent." Before I looked it up, I had misremembered the line as being "Whereof one cannot speak clearly, one must pass over in silence." But I must have added that in myself; the 'clearly' is nowhere in the line. Though it still seems to me like the line would make more sense with the 'clearly' added. (Or maybe I'm revealing how little I really know about Wittgenstein!)

Current reading: Franz Kafka

Logic is doubtless unshakable, but it cannot withstand a man who wants to go on living.


           - Franz Kafka, The Trial
                   (comic by R. Crumb)

"I Don't Know"

Just playing around with the red pen I found. He says "I don't know" (ཤེས་གི་མེད). I just started some calligraphy lessons, so hopefully my Tibetan writing will start looking a lot better ...

Boudha Stupa

I did a little drawing (from memory!) with brush and ink of the main stupa near my house, Boudhanath.

Current reading: Italo Calvino

The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live everyday, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it.

The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.

                 - Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

red ma red

Found a red pen, so I drew this monk. He says "yes or no?" (རེད་མ་རེད།).

Radio!

One of the most difficult about being in Nepal is the lack of access to music; I didn't bring my iPod, my netbook doesn't have much room for music, and the internet isn't fast enough for much streaming or downloading. So I was happy to discover that my cheap Chinese cellphone has an FM radio in it. Since then, I've been listening to the radio a lot.

There are some differences between radio in Nepal and radio in America. There's the same talking stations to skip over, but one thing is that there are distinct shows with DJs who seem free to play what music they want. The shows often have a theme rather than the station as a whole; you can hear Nepali songs one hour and then Korean pop the next hour. I particularly enjoy the classic rock shows - classic rock was the music of my youth and it makes me feel like I'm at home when I hear it.

Here are the stations and some of my favorite shows. Unlike in America where all the stations end in odd numbers (to avoid stations being too close together?) lots of stations here end in even numbers which still seems weird to me. Anyway, here are my favorites:

• 90.6 - Times FM ("You deserve better") : They play some good pop music, also have a cool show called Rock Vibes (10pm on tuesdays).
• 91.2 - Hits FM ("Hits you where it matters" / "Intelligent people listen to hits FM") : This is usually the first station I check. My favorite show is called The Choice of the Voice which is the best classic rock show on Nepali radio (9pm on wednesdays).
• 94.0 - Citizen FM ("Citizen FM ninety-four megahertz, your voice") : They have a lot of talking in Nepali, but they have some great techno at night and occasionally I find blues or jazz on here. 
• 96.1 - Kantipur FM (I don't know what their catchphrase is ...) : Also a lot of talking in Nepali, but I like a request show called Global Connection (10pm tuesdays). 
• 99.4 - China Radio (Also no catchphrase ...) : It's a little faint sometimes and often has Chinese talking, but they play some good pop music sometimes. 
• 103.0 - BBC World Service : Not music, but my main source for news and English talking. I actually really like the way they report the news, a little bit classier than in America. I heard a story about Libya and the West and their resident poet (yes, they have a poet) read a poem about it! And it was actually pretty good - you can read it here. (Although Alan Johnson has a really weird voice I think ...)

Well that's what I'm listening to ... I can't tell you how happy I get when I get to hear some Pink Floyd or Guns 'n' Roses or Beatles. I think absence does make the heart grow fonder ...