Argentina Half-Way! -- part dos

Round two of what happens here. I'm getting a little better with the language so it gets a little easier to get around. This isn't all of what happened but some of the highlights!

On a Wednesday, when the tickets were half-price, some members of the group headed over to El Teatro Presidente Alvear, not too far from where I lived for a two-hour live tango show. It was almost a cross between a musical and a ballet, with "tango" as the type of music and dance. People didn't speak (which meant I understood as much as the next person) but there was music, some with lyrics. Overall, I was entranced by most of it, and I think the intimacy and spurts of passion tango exemplified has a place in my heart.

Closing of Chantecler Tango

One of the first weekends we were here, we went to an Estancia, a form of rural tourism that has developed in Argentina for tourists to get a taste of the traditional life. Tried asado for the first time (thought not the last time for sure!) here and spent a day riding horses. A restful and beautiful day! 

View from the balcony

yes, the horse is lying down but it's alive and safe...

One of the mini-trips the group took was to El Tigre. We didn't have much luck with the weather but it was a cute little town an hour or so train ride away from the city. It was great just being able to drown out the noise in the city for a cute little boat ride down the river. 

the crew

On the long weekend, I took an 18 hour bus ride (it was so much better than it sounds) to Iguazu Falls to see this one of seven natural wonders of the world! Fortunately, we got to see a lot of it before it really started to pour the high water meant we couldn't so see the San Martin Islands. However, the rain and the overall water turbulence made the boat ride right into the mouth of the devil's mouth one of the most accelerating thing of my life! i swear to got the boat was going to tip over and/or crash at one point or another!

Catarata de Iguazu!

last note. my friend brittney and I have become incredibly obsessed with a type of chocolate here called Coflers, especially the one with white chocolate outside and a mousse inside. we visited 9 kioscos, which are essentially convenience stores with only snacks and chocolates to find these the day we discovered how amazing they were. in case i every visit again, mental reminder to buy a whole box of these and oreo alfajores. life rocks.

i could marry these

and maybe the next post i'll actually write about a book...

Argentina Half-Way Point!-- part uno

Still haven't finished the book and haven't written updated posts about Argentina. I know, I'm a terrible person. But I do have some exciting updates since I last posted. It's officially now my third week here and I am half way done with the program. I've gotten a lot more used to it here, but I think a lot of it has to do with accepting; accepting that I will always look, sound, and act like a foreigner, accepting that some people act superior just because they speak a language better (I speak four languages, thanks), and accepting that I  can improve when I put in the effort.

Mostly, that's been the difference from the first day to today. I make more of an effort to go out and about to explore because I want to see as much of the city as I can for myself, not for the sake of other people and showing off on facebook. But, enough ranting, here's what did happen. I had to break it into two post so here is part one.

The first weekend here, I managed to go to San Telmo Fair, a rather touristy affair with an entire street for 20 or so blocks just blocked up with stalls lining the sidewalk. I had to go back to a pretty little cafe called tea connection to study for my test the next day, and so didn't see all of it, but was pretty cool. But what I loved more was a traditional market further in San Telmo that sold a lot of hand made goods at lower prices than the fair I saw at Plaza Francia. I ended up buying a rather cute and very warm sweater, the price for which I managed to haggle down a full 50 pesos! haha

Where I was studying in Tea Connection 

Just for kicks I also visited three different malls here on a holiday because nothing else was open: Patio Bullrich, Galeria Pacifico, and Shopping Abasto. They are all in historic building that were absolutely beautiful! Patio Bullrich was in an old auction house and had the most beautiful lamposts and clock tower. Galeria Pacifio had a fountain and high ceilings with murals on them. Shopping Abasto was more impressive from the outside than in but loved it none the less. I wonder why they put shopping malls in such beautiful buildings.

Galeria Pacifico with my friend

One of the coolest things I've done yet is go on a sunday night to a Pena on Sarmiento called Catedral. It was a very local affair and I'm pretty sure we were the only foreigners there. The building was in an old warehouse but was decorated beautifully. I took a short one hour class before everyone else joined in. I have two left feet and the lady kept trying to work with me, but it didn't work out. It was still one of the coolest places I got to visit in Buenos Aires so far.

Dance floor of Catedral

Hopefully next post will be in the next 24 hours! 

Until then, 

Argentina Arrival!

It's taken me a really long time to get around to writing this post, mostly because I haven't been able to make very good use of my time here yet. Mostly, I've been sleeping and going to classes because after trying to speak and understand Spanish all day, I'm just tired out. But the last couple of days have proved more eventful, so I thought I would share.

Unfortunately, I don't have a photographer taking my pictures for this trip so I'll just take it off the web though I have a couple from a friend's camera. In terms of places visited (well, the touristy ones) were mostly from the tour of the the barrio (neighborhood). We went to Plaza de Mayo and saw La Casa Rosa, where the president works and Caminita in La Boca as well. It was in Caminita that I had my first alfajores, a chocolate covered dulche de leche sandwich between crackers. I almost died. Speaking of dying, we also visited a cemetery where Eva Peron is buried. They had beautiful carved tomb houses made up of granite, marble, stone, among other materials.

Caminita, La Boca

Casa Rosada 

with cemetery cats

I also had a chance to get to know some of the food here. Dinner here is at 9 or 9:30 PM which I normally eat with my host family. So far I've had Milanesa (breaded meat) or some other type of meat or pasta. Home food hasn't been super interesting by any means but I had Milanesa Napoliana, which was what I had at home topped with tomato sauce, cheese and ham. 

absolutely fantastic

The cafe culture is really big here but so far I've only been to the local cafes really close to my house to work. I still have tried medialunes, a sweet version of croissants, and submarinos, which is hot chocolate except better. They warm up the milk for you and give you a piece of chocolate to melt it in. It really is to die for! I also had a chance to try mate, a traditional tea that perks you up without caffeine. It is very bitter and I didn't have sugar on hand, so I'm definitely down for trying it again but this time with the suger. There is a lot of pastry shops around and today I grabbed a piece of cake for breakfast tomorrow. I'll write about how that goes. 

mate with straw usually with a thermos

Another super interesting thing I've noticed about the culture so far is like "kioscos" that are like convenience stores except they really only sell drinks and chocolates. They are everywhere! My host sister's boyfriend on multiple occasions have run down to one at the end of the block for a chocolate dessert. So far I've tried a Milka bar that has white chocolate on the inside and white chocolate on the outside, Marsco, a better version of Reese's Pieces, and Bocadito, a dulche de leche filled chocolate. I think Argentines are super into sweet things which I absolutely have not objections about what so ever. 

What is difficult about being the few asian people here, traveling with a friend who is black is being stared at pretty often, and being easy target for pick-pocketing, random honking, and stares, among other things. But honestly, we do the same thing in Korea so I'm learning to not let it bother me. 

Hopefully, I can get around finishing that book... 

Until then,

And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini

Some of the books that have me cringe and cry enough to close a book, only to gather up enough courage to read the rest have been Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns. When I saw in the Philippines that a new book had come out, I knew I had to get my hands on it.

And the Mountains Echoed has a very approach I became familiar with by reading Jodi Picoult. She likes to take the voice of different audiences to create her story. Similarly, Hosseini has used both different characters' voices and flashbacks to keep the reader constantly working out the storyline and on the edge of their seats to know the ending. In a way, it was infuriating to have the story cut midway, scrambling to figure out what happened, but in hindsight it could only mirror what it must have felt for Pari who must try to piece together a life she barely remembers. Set in 1952 Afghanistan, the book begins with a bedtime story Abdullah is told by his father Saboor; it is a story that contains so much of the rest of the book including a Sophie's choice, the gift of oblivion, and emptiness we can never seem to fill.

 Saboor and his youngest daughter, Pari, set out to Kabul to meet Nabi who is his brother in-law who has promised Saboor a job building an addition to Nabir's employer's, Mr. Wahdati's, house. But it turns out the trip is to trade Pari, who will be adopted as part of the Wahdati house, for money to feed the family through the winter. As the story is pieced together through the eyes of different people, it turns out Pari lives a life of luxury, being well-fed and well-educated in France after Nila (formerly Mr. Wahdati) left the paralyzed Mr. Wahdati for Nabi to take care of. In the meanwhile, Abduallah, Parwana, Iqbal (Parwana and Saboor's youngest son), and Saboor leave for refugee camp in Pakistan when the war breaks out. We find out Abudullah leaves for the US with his wife and settles down, running a restaurant of his own. Iqbal goes back to Afghanistan during the US occupancy to reclaim the house they all grew up, only to see a wealthy army general who had been part of the jihad had built an enormous mansion for his family there. Angered, Iqbal attacks the house and is assumably killed. Pari and Abdullah are finally united through tragically so as Abdullah suffers from Alzheimers and cannot recognize that the women standing in front of him is the little sister he had so longed to find.

As usual, book cover

There is a shift for Hosseini in writing style and character development, compared to his previous books. In Kite Runner characters are almost purely good or bad, while in A Thousand Splendid Suns Hosseini manages to develop the characters towards the end. But characters are much more human with greater depth in this novel as they are forced to fight for their livelihood. I still haven't decided if the introduction and integration of so many characters into the story line has helped the story line or dilute it. The middle-end section focusing on the foreign aid worker and his early life in Tinos did not seem to add to the overall colorfulness Hosseini tries to recreate for the authors. 

Undoubtedly, Hosseini's relies on his melodramatic and theatrical senses to bring the story home. At the very end of the book as Pari receives the tin box full of the feathers her brothers had once collected for her and she sheds tears before fading away in her sleep, I could almost here the cue. cut. of the director who would make this movie. This also meant that there was a lack of subtlety-- Hosseini felt the need to spell out key aspects of the book for the readers, rather than letting the readers do the work for him. 

I also think that an author's best works are often based off the experience he or she once had. As what I believe to be Hosseini's best work, And the Mountains Echoed contains characters with whom Hosseini could only too well empathize. Having born in Kabul but then moving to the US in 1980s well before the rise of the Taliban, Hosseini returns to Afghanistan for mixed motives, most likely. He sees a country that has changed so much compared to his childhood memories and ends up writing stories about his homeland, rocketing him to fame as one of the most riveting authors of our time. This can't be that much more different than the two cousins who have returned only to reclaim what belongs to their family or more directly Nila who went to Nabi's hometown, saw the poor state and misery people lived in, only to go back to her bubble of security and write about its horrors for some applause at a party. I've made a lot of assumptions in this part of the blog and I can't help but wonder  how much of it is true. 

Overall, an amazing read that kept me glued to my tablet. I wanted to read Sophie's Choice and watch the movie on the way to Argentina, but I'll upload something when I get the chance. Next time I blog, it will be in a different continent! 

Until then, 

Outliers by Malcom Gladwell

Because I can't haul all my books to Argentina and Korea, my older sister has graciously lent me her tablet to use for the rest of the summer. Instead of reading Sophie's World, I ended up reading Outliers by Malcom Gladwell on the tablet on the Kindle app. 

A review on the tablet, first of all. I LOVE it. While I've seen people say they are easily distracted by the features, I felt more engrossed in the book then when I am reading on paper. This is pretty interesting considering that normally I found reading on the screen very annoying and difficult. I also have not felt any strain on the eyes, but then again, this is only the first time and it might just be the novelty of the situation that has allowed me to rip through this book in record time. 

What the app icon looks like

Outliers is mostly about how our past, including experiences, opportunities, and cultural inheritance shape our successes and failures in the world. The first section is mostly about opportunities. He goes through a list of high successful people in the world and how specific experiences, regardless of how they presented themselves at the time, led a specialization in a skill that was highly demanded when the world changed. It is a combination of opportunities and being born when those experiences were being valued that led to success, not necessarily individual merit or intelligence. It is not to say that these people were not hard-working and passionate. Grit is why they succeeded over others who had similar background. I saw most of this as incredibly true; you need grit and passion to harness the opportunities you have been given, but so much of it is being ready when luck comes around. There really might not be such thing as innate talent and genius. 

The second was focused on cultural legacies. This refers to a set of tendencies and preferences that were once necessary for survival in a region that are passed on through generations, even when the need for it has disappeared. It also includes just plain old cultural tendencies that make some cultures better suited for certain professions over other cultures. There were uncomfortable sections to digest, one part which rather bluntly stated that some cultures (he was using Korean Air in his example) are unsuited to the world of aviation because of a hierarchy system that prevented "subordinates" from using direct language in urgent situations that prompt action. The solution was not the common "work within the frames of the culture" but to insist in implementing alternatives, in this case using Western training methods and using English as the primary language. Looks pretty close to cultural imperialism? Well, in hindsight I think that's stretching it a little too far. Circumstances can demand we consciously make an effort to step out of the cultural legacies that we've been born with in order to be successful in certain fields. 

He also delved into how society views breaks and eduction. I've always thought that the reason why Korean students work hard is because parents viewed education as the only way for upward mobility. But Outliers suggests there is more. It has to do with what type of crops our ancestors farmed. In Korea, as in many Asian countries, most farmers had rice paddies that were labor intensive and benefited from having multiple rotations of crops in a year. This meant there was very short periods when the fields were idle. The more you worked, the greater your reward come harvest. The school system reflects this past, having as much as 60 extra school days compared to the US that planted crops like wheat and corn that required that lands be at idle for extended periods of time to replenish itself. Thus, the ingrained belief that there must be rest and idleness in order to learn. 

Cool book cover! 

The writing technique throughout this book were quite effective. He first told the condensed version of the story with many crucial details missing. He goes back and retells the story, filling in the necessary blanks. The first time around, I had my own share of reasons why that person was successful, primarily dedication and passion. But as my preconceptions were broken, I took on this new paradigm he offered so that by the end, I was making my own relatively accurate conjectures. 

Outliers had very similar undercurrents as certain parts of give and take when it came to its fundamental view on education as Give and Take. It isn't that people are innately smarter than others; it is a combination of expectations, set by parents and teachers that can stimulate students to achieve. There were some other sections that reminded me of Grant's work but can't recall all of them now... oops. It's so frustrating when I make the connections and when I try to write them down, I can't remember... 

I think I'll start on some of James Joyce's work that I was supposed to read in high school, but I change my mind too often to write it down. haha. 

Until then, 

Mr. Vertigo by Paul Austere

" I was twelve years old the first time I walked on water." --Mr. Vertigo

In the backdrop of the Twenties, Mr. Vertigo follows the life of Walter Rawley, a street urchin picked up from the gutters of St. Louis by Master Yehudi, a mysterious man dressed in black. Walt is told before his 13th birthday, he could learn to fly. While skeptical, he decides to follow Master Yehudi to an isolated Kansas farmhouse where he meets Aesop, a crippled black boy, and Mother Sioux, the grand-niece of Sitting Bull. In the house of misfit toys, Walt starts his journey through the thirty-three steps he must pass to learn to fly.

While the training consists of physical agony, including being buried alive and cutting off a part of his finger, an emotional battle rages on within Walt. Through the process, the Master attempts to break Walt's spirit in an attempt to free him of what he has been taught was impossible. But this freedom is a difficult lesson to learn as he is not only asked to accept that people can fly, but that all people include Aesop and Mother Sioux are create equal. Walt is resistant at first, angry and bitter at having been forced to leave the stimulus provided by the city into a house whom he views as his inferiors but who are treated as his superiors by the Master. The physical brutality Walt successively undergoes as part of his training to fly underscore the need to let go of attachment and emotions. His mutated pinky, for example, only serves as a visual manifestation that he must leave the unnecessary parts of him behind to learn to fly.first time Walt learns is to levitate, it is after Walter believes the Master has left him. After crying out his soul,"there was no more thoughts in his head, no more feeling in his heart... [he felt] utterly detached and indifferent to the world around him."

His journey takes off in a face-paced tumble as he goes from an obscure circus performer to an aerial artist. It is in the spotlight that Walt grows up, not just physically, but as an artist, taking ownership of his performance rather than being simply the obedient to Master Yehudi's plans. There are major scuttles in between, including a major kidnapping by Uncle Slim, his mother's brother, who wants revenge and ransom. But it turns out the narrow escape from Uncle Slim only served to sky-rocket his popularity, however short-lived. As gravity takes it's revenge on Walt as he hits puberty, his fame crashes to the ground with the same unexpectedness as  It was short-lived, however, as puberty and gravity took their toll on Walt, he crashed to the ground with the same unexpectedness as the stock market crash of 1929.

Cover of the book

The book only gets faster as the rest of his life is unfolded for us. After an attack by Uncle Slim in desert of California on their way to Hollywood to start a new career, Master Yehudi kills himself. Walt searches for years and finally gets his revenge and takes over his uncle's job as an underling to a powerful mob boss. On the way he meets Mrs. Witherspoon, the benefactress to Master Yehudi and himself when he was still Walt the Wonderboy, who gives him an opportunity to clean up his act and work for her instead. With his pride, he refuses, setting up a new club in Chicago called Mr. Vertigo, where stars of the past come to enjoy a night with the booze and girls. Overnight Mr. Vertigo becomes the hot place to be but after a serious of mistake on Walt's part, he must leave. The story comes back full circle, not to St. Louis but to Wichita, Kansas with Walk taking care of Mrs. Witherspoon until her death and running her laundromats all over the state. 

The ending can use some attention, however. He writes in the present describing how he had come to write this autobiography. There are several points I think are relevant at this point. First, is the parallel between Aesop writing his autobiography after a successful entrance into Yale and Walt writing his autobiography after an eventful life. Just as Aesop died shortly after he wrote his book, if the parallel proves true, it foreshadows that Walt too will soon be joining his loved ones. Second and perhaps the most interesting is the last two words of the book: "like so." Walt speaks to the audience as though he is showing an audience how he levitates, which does not make any sense since it was implied that Walt would not be meditating because the consequence would be paralyzing headaches. I'm still not sure what the metaphorical implications of this last bit is. If I end up figuring it out, I'll write it here. I'm hoping a dinner date with my librarian will clear it up. I'm going to be reading Sophie's World next. 

Until then, 

Give and Take by Adam Grant

My first book post ever! It took a little while to finish the book, and I know it isn't what I had planned originally, but I got this book from a club at school because it is by one of our management professors. His name is Adam Grant and he teaches one of the most difficult undergraduate classes to get into: Management 238 titled Organizational Effectiveness. While I would love to cover all the grounds that he did, I'm just going to mostly go over what I found interesting, for time's sake.

The premise of the book is that people in the world are divided into givers, takers, and matchers. Givers and takers are self-explanatory; matchers are also coined after what they do, that is, preserving a balance between giving and taking, therefore "matching" what they have given and what they have received from that person.

The cover of the book! 

In his book, Adam Grant proposes that the world would be better off if more of the world were givers because givers are in many ways more successful than takers or matchers. But the world, at least the one I was raised in, taught me that actions have consequences and givers, too, see the consequence of their actions. The true difference it seems to me is that givers have the ability to see further into the future and invest in uncertainty; they are willing to "over invest" as Grant calls it in people because "we can't always predict who can help us." It is that takers and matchers are a lot more short-sided and unwilling to invest in relationships in which they don't see tangible or direct results. 

This tension between what really is the difference between givers and takers is one that Grant chooses to address towards his later chapters. I found his division of individuals into givers, takers, and matchers to be harmonic because I found I am normally motivated by multiple factors, some of which are selfish or otherish, as Grant likes to call it. The mechanism is that people feel empathy or oneness with another person that leads to helping. There may be a mix of motives, from true altruism to alleviating the discomfort of guilt but the end result is the same. For now, maybe that is the best we can hope for. 

Cover of NYTimes Article

While the conclusion is vague, the book does have several good points about what separates successful givers with unsuccessful ones. 

Givers are willing to be vulnerable. They prefer to give credit to other people rather than themselves and are willing to play up other people's strengths. It's something that I've acknowledge over the past year as important but hard to put into practice. It's the whole idea that the more prominent you become in a community, the more likely there will be someone who will see you as a threat or nuisance. You want people to be rooting for you and working to help you succeed. Vulnerability can make you more human and more likable and therefore lowering the other person's defenses. This includes using disclaimers and asking for advice. The latter in particular has four effects: learning perspective taking, commitment and flattery. We also show them prestige, or respect and admiration for their insights and perspective. 

Givers make decision on behalf of the team. This leads to not only highly successful teams but also highly successful individuals. Doing this requires they hold high expectations for themselves and for others in order to develop talent. Givers create group dynamics that creates psychological safety, or the idea that they can take risks without being penalized, creating an atmosphere conducive to innovation. They also engage in true conversations and remember them so that they can better play on the strengths of their team. Givers will commonly volunteer for unpopular tasks and offer feedback that allows them to be appreciated without making other team members feel vulnerable. 

Givers on the brink of burnout give more. When givers do not have a cause and do not see the impact of their giving, it is easy for them to burn out. A change in context with where and to whom a giver gives can be the solution-- that is, by giving more than he or she is already giving. The example used is of TFA, where teachers often burnout because they spend so much time disciplining their students that they don't feel like they are making an impact. The solution a particular teacher found was to volunteer to mentor high achieving students get into college that gave hope to the impact she could possibly make in the classroom. There are other strategies of giving: chunking rather than sprinkling volunteer hours helps to maximize impact and being wary of takers. It is also important to make clear through group-mentoring sessions (rather than one on one) that the giver expects others to do the same for those they can help. It just means being smart and strategic about the resources we give to create an environment that fosters giving. 

A last point unrelated to the other three is the idea that assertiveness and agreeableness are not mutually exclusive. People tend to overestimate how off-putting assertiveness can be. 

Last comment on psychology books like this-- I found once Grant set the premise that being a giver was to be desired, I imbue fit different traits he described of a giver into myself, rationalizing and recalling instances when I had shown these traits. It's the reason why some psychology or self-help books (which I would say this book is dangerously getting close to) become some of the best selling books in the world.

 At any rate, I'm going to read a book called Mr. Vertigo by Paul Auster, which was also gifted to me by my high school librarian. I have full faith she was deliberate in giving it to me. It's one of those books I'm sure will reward me for attention-- the more i pick up on, the more pieces seem to click.

Until then,

Post-Philippines Evaluation

OML was pleased with our final deliverables; one of the core team members, Lance, actually made a point of printing out copies so that they could look them over. It was actually the greatest compliment they could have paid us, seeing that no matter how seriously we took ourselves, we were still college students. The students we worked with were incredibly bright and motivated, capable of a lot of what we did. I think we did manage to bring a third party perspective and impetus necessary to point out what needed to be changed.

Printed out versions of our final report 

I don't think that I had as much hard skills I was taking away as much as the relationships I have made through this trip. Both my team members and the OML board all are incredibly fun people to hang not to mentioned focused when it came time to work. I feel like I got a little too intense with work sometimes, but it was a learning experience.

I also saw how teamwork came together on this project. We had different members fill in different roles. Connie, for example, was able to flesh out a lot of the internal contents the team had discussed but had been unable to put into writing while Heena and I worked extensively on the Impact Assessment report that they could convert to an annual report (including the financial report) for donors. Another really cool instance of our team coming together was how the team though of the light being "an impetus for change" but Victor was able to wrap that not just impetus but spark (get it?) for change. 

Rewarding to work pretty holistically on their project and with any luck will be leading my own next year? Until my first actual book blog,

gunpowder <3

Leisure Days Part 2

While the first half of the trip was more bonding with the whole team, the second was more about seeing the Philippines. I found the country was full of beautiful places to see, whether it be mountains or the beach. We had the opportunity to visit Tagaytay Highlands, overlooking the Taal Lake, and see it from birds eye view by cable car. We also drove up even higher to People's Park in the Sky which is the house (but actually palace) the Philippines president built to house President Reagan for his proposed visit. They stopped building when the trip was canceled. Since then, it is just a rubble ruins that tourists come to take pictures in.

artsy fartsy at people's park 

no filter view from highlands

We also drove up a couple of hours to punta fuegos, a beautiful beach that was incredibly quiet and empty. We played Frisbee in the waters and I tried skim boarding on moving waters for the first time since elementary school. I didn't actually succeed in staying on the board and have a huge ass bruise to prove my failure but it was good to be back in my element. 

punta fuegos from where we were 

from the balcony!

Aside from our touring of the scenery, we took the time to see some historical sites-- primarily Intramuros. We got a history breakdown from our hosts at fort santiago hearing about the various invasions Philippines went through before it became an independent country. But places like fort santiago are reminders of what those times: rizal, who is a national hero designated by the US, primarily because he was a novelist and more importantly a pacifist. With the uprising against the spanish, it was important to instate values of nonviolent protest. It was also incredibly sad to see the tragedies of WWII, primarily the devastation of soldiers and civilians caused by the japanese occupation. I try my best to be neutral when it comes to what they did, but just before they lost they had the american soldiers and filipinos go on a death march that killed thousands. it's similarity to the holocaust was uncanny and sent shivers down my spine. but what i can truly complement the philippines on is the country's ability to push back memories like those as history and not dwell on it. it's something that i feel korea can work on. 

artsy pic in front at casa blanca

fort santiago 

I actually just got back to the US yesterday night so i'll be finishing The Name of the Rose by Umberto Echo, which is a philosophy/ literature book my librarian from high school recommended me a couple of months ago. I'll have a short post about my the final deliverables and what I learned through the process coming up as well!

Until then, 

Leisure Days Part 1

True to Penn's motto we've been playing as hard as we have been able to get around during our leisure days off work. Here are some of the things that we've done: shopping at Greenhills, shopping and eating at High Street, laser tag (4th place!), touring Tagatay (where we also went horseback riding), Karaoke after a nice dinner, and watching the Great Gatsby.

I don't have any pictures from shopping at Greenhills and the bruschetta featured in the last post was what we ate at High Street, but here is a picture of the team at laser tag. It wasn't too different from laser tag in the US. I teamed up with Victor who was boss at it. For future reference I think it's primarily about finding a good location that protects you and gives you a good shot at unsuspecting passer-bys. What I particularly found useful was a wall with a window that covered my stomach, the largest target. The only unfortunate part is if someone comes from behind...

Posing in our suits

We also went to karaoke at a place called Red box after a delicious dinner at a nice restaurant called People's Palace. I don't even have a picture of my favorite (pork belly cooked in banana leaf) nor can I recall everything we had that night, but here's a picture of my plate at one point during dinner. 

Catfish Salad, Pad Thai, and i can't remember...

We also had red curry and green curry, both of which were delicious! With unlimited rice, I just gorged myself with as much food as possible. After dinner, I felt so full, I felt sick. For the first time in my life, when offered dessert I couldn't eat it. To digest the calories, we headed over to karaoke where I lost my voice temporarily for the rest of the nights. 

Mango Jubilee

taking a short break

More to come in a couple of hours!

Food porn from Philippines

So here's the food porn I promised! The food culture is very much how I normally eat-- that is, they eat five or six times a day with meriendas (or snacks) interspersed around meals. My theory is that people eat so often here that their metabolism is forced to constantly work, making them very tiny.

Food on ANA

But taking a step back, I'm actually going to start with airplane food. So the pic stitch is of what our food on ANAirlines looked like. The options were seafood with saffron seasoning or japanese style chick, both of which were excellent. I usually hate airplane food, so the fact that I finished everything is only an indicator of how good it was. But as soon as they took away the trays, they started giving out VANILLA HAAGEN-DAZS? i almost died.

Jpop donuts, caramel flan, banana fries, halo-halo

It only got better. Starting on the first day, we gorged ourselves on multiple types of desserts. The top left corner are jpop donuts, which were a quarter of the size of my hand and filled with cream. One interesting flavor I didn't have the guts to try was meat... (not regretting it) Then on the right is caramel flan, which is also the pudding looking thing in the halo halo (bottom right). Halo is Tagalog for mix, so the dessert is called mix-mix, in English. And yes, that is indeed taro ice cream. It reminded me of the Korean dessert, bingsu, which is also crushed ice with condensed milk, beans, and other random stuff on top. The most hilarious thing is that one of the most popular places to get halo halo is at a chinese fastfood chain called Chowking! Besides what's actually pictured we also had several other desserts including mango crepes and mochi ice cream (they had red velvet flavor!) all of which were equally as amazing.

 But I actually did have real food too. Pork and chicken seem to be the biggest source of protein here. There is a prevalence of pork (well, pork belly actually) in a lot of dishes. The dish on the left is a popular breakfast dish. Eaten with pork dipped in vinegar sause, it comes with rice and fried eggs. Even at the saturday market, they were selling sweet marinated pork (which we got to try!). On our night out we also tried pork bruschetta, which is pork belly with bacon rolled inside of it. When we were give home cooked meals, pork was also a huge part. They gave us pork on skewers which tasted a lot like what I had tried at the market (absolutely fantastic). The noodle stuff next to it in the pictures is a chinese dish that were clear noodles. I'm going to try to find out what it's actually called, but it was savory with scallions mixed inside of it, but no meat.

Pork skewers and noodles 

Liempo at Saturday Market

In terms of restaurant meals, we also tried bruschetta which was pork belly cooked with seasoning and more bacon rolled into it. It got a little sickening at the end with all that grease but generally fantastic, especially with spanish rice and steamed vegetables.

Pork Bruschetta 

But we're poor college kids so most of the time we had street food/ fast food.  One of the first meals we had were at Jolibee, a fastfood restaurant that is more popular than McDonald's. It sells pretty much anything, but we heard the fried chicken was good, so that's what we ate. So we got two pieces of fried chicken with a rice that came in paper wrappings that made it look like a hamburger and some gravy. I got sick right after, so my brain thinks that I got sick from the food (even though I'm pretty sure it was just motion sickness from a long car ride after) and won't let me eat it. We also tried lobster rolls and crab claws that looked super fake but turned out to be delicious! I had it with a mixture of garlic sauce and sweet and sour sauce which turned out to be a great choice because it had a twist to the savory taste the garlic sauce and the actual dish had.

Lobster rolls and crab claws

Other street food also included a lot of mango smoothies/slush which I'm pretty sure I'm going to crave when I leave here.

The next couple of dishes I have pictures of were served at the house of one of the board members. Their mother went out of her way to treat us! She served us primarily Americanized foods because we were going on a distribution the day after, which I was part-saddened but in hindsight very grateful for her wisdom and foresight. But it was some of the best food I have ever had. WOW. We had lasagna, shrimp tempura with mango sauce, marinated pork, king prawns, and steak. I had never seen prawns that big or shrimp that big either. Then the steak omgahhh actually melted in my mouth from being so tender. love love love :) Right when I was pretty sure I couldn't possible fit anymore food into my stomach, Gina, the helper, came out with a ginormous frozen ice cream ish mango cake and apple pie. I literally died. If I could have slit my stomach to enlarge it to fit more food, I would have. I just wanted to keep putting it in my mouth before it slithered away from me.

What my dish looked like that night 

Mango frozen cake

Can't remember what these were..

Other general notes about the food here: the food is generally sweeter than I am accustomed to. Everything seems to have a sweeter twist, even the chicken and curry. Also with the commonality of pork, vinegar is commonly used as sauce, probably to even out the slightly greasy taste of it. The sweet and sour does add a nice twist to everything.

More food porn to follow closer to the end of the trip! 

OML Distribution

I know I promised food porn, but we spent the last two days in the provinces doing distributions, so I'll talk about this first!  It was a lot to take in, especially in regards to how I feel about aid and nonprofits, but a rewarding experience nonetheless. This isn't your typical "how I was changed forever" post, though I can't guarantee complete objectiveness either.

Energizer solar powered flashlights

One of the differences I noticed between the communities we served is the children. The very first community we went to had a group of kids that were not beneficiaries (i.e. not receiving a solar powered energizer light). They were very social and unafraid, despite our inability to speak Tagalog. We played tag ("taya") and they just petted us, especially Monique whom the kids were still fascinated with.

Children from Sta Rita, Olongapo City

They kept asking us for "elow" which translates to light. When they caught on that we didn't have any to give to them, they started asking us for water. It was heart breaking at first because we couldn't give them anything, but they were very persistent, even though I could tell they understood that we weren't allowed. It was unsettling to see such calculation in kids that young, at the same time I understand in an area where foreign aid is a means of survival, it is necessary. The experience only heightened my wariness of monetary or material injection into poor communities. The kids can't do this when they grow older.

This became a measure (albeit, probably very inaccurate) for me on how much aid the village has probably gotten in the past.  In this paradigm I also discovered how much more sustainable the model OML uses needs to be. They have a great model going but need to strengthen on education and/ or infrastructure of how to use the money to better feed their families and most importantly invest in the future. Hopefully, this is an aspect our team can continue to help in.

Taken from distribution pt in Sta. Cruz (no filter) 

This is what I remember mostly from the distribution, but definitely there is more. I'll post in the following week about it as it comes to me. I am serious about the food porn post next time :)

Until then,

P.S. I tried to learn to count in Tagalog with playing cards, but major fail. Here's how you actually count in Tagalog.

Struggle bus learning to learn to count

Numbers in Tagalog--taken off google

PIBV-OML Consulting

We spent the last two do doing an internal assessment of the organization. A youth organization comes with its advantages and disadvantages but it has been exciting talking with all of the core executive team and the volunteers as well. Most of our final presentation will be on management structure  communication tools and volunteer recruitment & development. By far, one of the coolest non profits I have had the pleasure of working with. It really is amazing what they have done in the last couple of years and as much as I doubted the impact then, I realize that having light after sunset can mean the world of difference. Some really cool facts that I wanted to reiterate: replacing solar panel light reduces 100 kg of carbon; it can lead to greater literacy and increase in eduction because kids can study after dark; replacing lights can save people up to 10 pesos a day by not using kerosene. Here is a picture of us hard at work at one of the core member's house:

working hard or hardly working? 

I also glimpsed a little bit into the life of a consultant. I have not worked for 8 hours straight before. I know that sounds totally lame and whiney but what I mean is I haven't worked and actually concentrated for that hard for 8 hours before. I expect when I have to start work, this is what it would be like. It was encouraging that I was able to actually do it, but discouraging that no matter where I work, I might have to long hours where I am absolutely focused on what I do.

Outside of our little work bubble though, there were other exciting events going on. First was the congressional elections. There is something called the liquor ban starting the day before until midnight of the day of the elections. I guess it is to prevent rowdy pre or post election rages. But it is only illegal to buy alcohol not necessarily to drink it. I guess it is part necessary because there are waring families within provinces that can get violent during election times.

Picture of election booth in Alabang, Philippines 

Other interesting things I discovered was church in the Philippines is actually conducted outside. Well, more exactly, there is a roof but only a wall on one side and not closed doors. While I was proud of getting myself to church, it was hard to focus because of the heat and the taglish (which is Tagalog and English, the same way I speak Konglish to most of my friends). When we walked out there was a Taho peddler and our friend bought it for us for 20 pesos. It was tofu with sweet sauce and some type of jelly bubbles. It wasn't my favorite thing in the world, but a popular snack for a lot of Filipinos apparently.

Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ Church (outdoors)

My next post will be on food, so get excited!

My first Taho