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| I've been in Berlin for a little over two months now. I've had ambivalent feelings about Berlin in the past, as my past two extended stays here were not so pleasant. But just this past week, as I was walking towards the library (where I spend most of my days), I thought to myself -- I actually like this city!
A big part of the change in heart stems from my new living condition. The last time I was here, I was living in really cheap housing, but it was an old, unrenovated Berlin apartment, and I was constantly freezing, and the bathroom did not have convenient showering facilities (or barely had any facilities at all). There was no internet, the phone didn't really work, and I felt isolated, lonely, and homesick. This time around, I’m living in a lovely apartment, centrally located. I’m part of a program, so there’s a community here that I’m enjoying. My mom has also been here since early October, and I’ve really enjoyed having her here, even though now it may be her turn to feel a bit homesick.
And oh my, the culture! Some of the music that I’ve heard in the past two months: Fly Trio, Miguel Zenon Quintet (which was AMAZING live), Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Lohengrin, the Berlin Philharmonic with Ivan Fischer and Simon Rattle playing Brahms, Schönberg and other major works. Wagner’s works have been a particular revelation. I never thought that I would be able to sit through a complete Wagner opera, but each time I’ve been quite engrossed by the music and the new interpretations and stagings.
I’m also a lot more confident in my linguistic abilities this time around. I’m still not fluent, and can’t express all of my ideas fluently, but I feel great in terms of comprehension, both aural and visual.
So all in all, a good start to the research trip here, and I’m looking forward to the next couple of months here. I’ll try to post more often, and update more on ideas about research and the cultural stuff that I’ve been seeing. But I’m feeling good about being here, which is a far cry from the apprehension I felt in August, when I was moving out of Berkeley. | | |
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I can't quite figure out what it was about Istanbul that resonated so deeply with me. Perhaps I'm just a sucker for touristy trinkets and architectural monuments, which Istanbul is filled with. I'm also attracted to crowds -- and boy is Istanbul crowded. But there's something about the sights, the sounds, and the smells, that stirred a certain feeling of comfort, of belonging -- even though I couldn't understand anything written or uttered on the street. The Egyptian Spice Market reminded me of the traditional Taiwanese markets that I used to roam in when I was a kid, and the streets of the bazaar evoked memories of Taiwanese street vendors, lining the sidewalks with their fake brand names and wares.
The Hagia Sophia was my favorite site that we visited. The fusion of all the different historical elements and religions -- Christian, Muslim, secular -- was evident and on full display. The minarets, fused and standing next to the Romanesque arches, are testaments to the complicated intersections and interweaving of Christian and Muslim histories, and a challenge to those who demagogically claim that a clash between these two civilizations is a historical inevitability and necessity. It was a personal reminder to why I love the study of history.
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Egyptian Spice Market
Originally uploaded by albertowu2002 I just got back from five day trip to Turkey -- spent most of the time in Istanbul and a couple of days in Ankara. I'll try to post some pictures and stories on this blog when I get everything together. | | |
| Paul Katz, writing for the group blog The China Beat, reports on the disaster relief efforts in response to Typhoon Morakot, which pummeled southern Taiwan this past weekend. Katz points out that the most active organizations in helping with disaster relief are religious organizations, such as the Buddhist Compassion Relief Merit Society (Fojiao Ciji gongdehui 佛教慈濟功德會), Foguang Shan, the Taiwanese Presbyterian Church, and World Vision.
Ever since I took an intellectual history class on Alexis de Tocqueville when I was an undergraduate, I've been interested in the functions of civil associations that operate apart from the state. I've been particularly interested in how religious organizations differ from secular ones as sites of mobilization for political purposes. For the class, I wrote a final paper on secular and religious forms of mobilization, arguing that religious organizations played a vital part in the landscape for political and religious mobilization. When talking over the paper, my professor asked me a question that stumped me -- when it comes to dealing with issues of a non-religious nature, what is it that a religious organization does that a secular humanist organization can't? In other words, when it comes to disaster relief, what difference does it make that a Christian or Buddhist organization (like Ciji or Catholic Relief Services) is heading the disaster relief, as opposed to one that is completely secular (like Doctors without Borders)? I still don't have a good answer to that question.
Part of my fascination with missionaries stems from this desire to answer this question -- how exactly does religion make a difference? Why do people become missionaries? Do people, who claim to be motivated by religion, act in a different way than people who don't?
As Katz points out, one of the most inspiring thing is seeing the Internet emerge as the dominant site for quick and fast mobilization. We saw this happen with the Iranian elections a couple of months back as well. It will be interesting to track how the Internet augments and challenges more "traditional" forms of voluntary associational life.
Here's hoping all the best for the recovery in southern Taiwan. | | |
| I've been slowly cleaning up my place, in preparation for the big move in September. My big project has been paring down my book collection -- I'm trying to keep only four boxes of books. The rest I've been carting around either to second-hand bookstores or donating them to the Berkeley Public Library. It's quite appalling how little monetary value books retain; as my roommate says -- "if you want your money back, invest in gold, people, not books!" And not only do you have to deal with how little money you get back in return for books that you were important or interesting to you (some of these books I've had since college), you have to suffer withstand condescending store clerks who take a look at your book and either reject it or throw it into the gigantic pile of used books that they still need to process. I feel like I have to beg them to keep my books. Thanks for puncturing any sense of material sentimentality guys, thanks a lot.
But in my cleaning I came across a box of documents that I forgot had existed. The box was a strange mish-mash of files -- syllabi of courses that meant a lot to me, some papers from college, and almost all of the playbills of the concerts and plays that I attended when I was in New York (including the playbill of the first opera I have ever been to, Monteverdi's L'Orfeo at the NYC Opera in November 2001). And in an instant, I realized why I had kept these documents in this box -- in a way, this is my college education crystallized and collected in one place. As much as I'm afraid of clutter and trying to get rid of it now, it's still wonderful to have that physical, material reminder of the things that you've learned and how they've shaped you as a person. | | |
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