Day Trippin' Tripoli, the one in Sham

Tripoli, aka Tarābulus / Tarabulus al-Sham, was not on top of my list of tourist destinations. Like many millenials who travel to Lebanon, I had watched the Vice documentary about the armed urban conflict and decided best to stay away from Tripoli. My Airbnb flatmates Ian and Dan held a similar impression of the city when they arrived in Lebanon for their holiday. Dan was especially worried that something wrong might happen. Ian was eager to see the city because it is closer in architectural style to his hometown, Damascus, than Beirut. But our host Ibrahim said that it is a cool city and showed us a short documentary on the reconstruction efforts since the conflict. I was also hoping we could visit the bookstore that burned. 


We set off on July 15 and made jokes about getting shot by crossfire. The same jovial middle-aged Lebanese driver who took us to Jounieh also found us again and offered to take us to Tripoli as well. At first he did not even recognize us, even though I think we stand out as a odd group of tourists. Ian, who continued to act as our trusty translator, said we didn't have the money and opted to take a bus for 5000LL per person.

At the bus stop in Beirut

On the way north, we passed by the same places we visited before; Jounieh and Harissa, which I might write about in a future post. The main highway artery is right next to the sea. We shared the bus with soldiers and a classmate from Arabic. There was supposedly 1 hour wifi for free but we didn't log in successfully. I snapped more shots of the road while Ian and Dan slept. 

When we arrived at the last stop, we were a bit at loss because there was no Google Maps. But I had the tour book with me from Ibrahim, which showed that the famed Citadel was at the bank of the river, so we ambled towards the river. On the way, we passed by bazaars and busy streets.


 Now I look back at the photos, I am surprised that the architecture maintained some uniform style, even though a lot of them are dilapidated. Clearly someone put in some effort in urban planning. But I have yet to read into the history. I took a lot of photos of the landscape and buildings that had religious significance or signs because I noticed the use of calligraphy was different from the signs in Beirut. 

(Colonial) Clock tower

We stopped by a very beautiful shop with tourist ornaments on the 1st floor and generic cosmetics on the 2nd floor. The architecture was beautiful.

As we left from the bazaar area, political posters began to appear. We also looked at the Syrian street from afar.

On the way to citadel, we passed a shop that sold religious CDs and cassettes. Ian interpreted the shopkeeper's brief explanation and I remembered my anthropology Professor's work on Islamic soundscapes.

Instructional DVDs on proper conduct in Islam with English translations

Skull caps imported from Turkey

We hiked along the river a while and found a very unconventional route that took us to the foot of the citadel but not the main entrance.

#OfficiallyLost #Tripoli

We even passed by a private home right next to it. The home seemed very peaceful with lots of (stray) cats.

We passed through an ancient alleyway. It seemed as old as the citadel itself. 

After stepping over a gully that had a dead rat in them, we made it to a grave which led to a side entrance of the citadel.

Pictures of the tombstones and flowers. Very picturesque graveyard and probably the only predominantly Islamic grave I have been inside.

At this point I still have not seen anything that "makes" this place a tourist spot.  

At the darwaza of the citadel

Stray cat at the citadel

What impressed me most was the birds eye view of the city as well as the presence of the Lebanese army. We found an army post with tents in a very secluded corner of the citadel. Even after centuries, a fort will more or less function as a fort. I have not seen any similar form of army presence at the Great Wall in Beijing or the Red Fort in Delhi, which is telling about the precarity of Lebanon. A guard emerged from his tent, saw us and shooed us away from the premises. 

There were also dungeons and I was kind of spooked, afraid that there might still be dead organic matter lying around. It reminded me of some former royal places in India.

We had lunch at a normal looking joint because there was chicken roasting by the corner. Most of the people who worked and patronized there are from Syria and they also talk with Ian about his British-Syrian origins. The cashier guy was so generous and warm, when he heard how far we traveled from, he gave us falafels for free. I was a bit unwell (shang huo) and didn't want falafels; Ian was a bit annoyed with me that I didn't eat meat and thus created more issues for him in terms of solving the food logistics. But I decided to eat them anyways. 

Beautiful archways in the old part of Tripoli

At some point while we we were wandering in the bazaar, we were apprehended by some youngsters. They were hired by the soap-selling shops and wanted us to buy some soap. We entered in a courtyard with a very classic fountain, one that reminds Ian of his home in Damascus. I also saw the soap-making bucket and was impressed by the antique-style set up. One girl who worked at the same shop said she learned English from watching English television. I was shocked and finally accepted the fact that I would have to learn languages through other means. I bought two bars of soap for 12,000LL. The male shop keeper also said that he had customers from China who bought soap by the ton.


I asked the soap-seller where I could find the bookstore. He was fluent in English, had heard about the bookstore, but was not sure about where it was and thought it might be closed. I realized I might leave without visiting it. 


I also realized that most books available are very generic.

I wanted to visit a mosque but all of them were closed. So we just snapped shots outside of them. Mamluk architecture is so different from other architectural styles I have seen in the same area.

Lovely street calligraphy

We passed by this cute kid and stylish car. They look like they were headed to some event. Ian was still full of energy while Dan and I were beat. We asked several people for the directions to the bus station and many of them told us that the buses were already finished. Still, we persevered just in case there were buses left.

A tank parked on the street. We passed by an army point in the city. One officer said hello to me. Other boys on the street also notice I am Chinese and say "ni hao". Ian gets a great kick out of it; one of them chuckles in a very silly way after he said ni hao and Ian was so amused by the corniness of it all and repeats the anecdote time after time.

I also bought some string beans for 1000LL. That was definitely cheaper than what I would get in Beirut. At last we found the bus station but the last bus to Beirut indeed had left the dock. We luckily found a minivan and packed into it. The Americans we saw from the castle also joined us in the bus. We learned that most of them study about the Middle East at Harvard. But the one we talked with the most was exchanging at AUB from Georgetown University. His name was Hank.

On the way back, Hank and Ian discussed their impressions of the city.

Ian: Beirut is capitalist and divided. It's very different than Tripoli's vibe.

Hank: The latter is connected more to Damascus. It was never considered part of Mount Liban until the 1920s partition of the Ottoman Empire and official establishment of the French Mandate.
Beirut rose into prominence during the 1800s. More people came and missionaries took advantage. Western trade oriented. It was very rich until civil war.

Then the conversation shifted to the Shia neighborhood in Beirut: Hank explained that in the 1890s, Dahiya became part of Beirut. The inhabitants were mostly village people and more conservative than the heart of Beirut. Hank lived there in 2015 for several months. He also gave us a brief overview of his understanding of Syrian history: the French favored Alawis and minorities because they were part of the war zones. The Alawis suffered a lot from the late 1800s famine as well. Alawis were heavily divided in their attitudes toward the French. They were not a coherent group until the Assad family came into power. The first Assad removed religious authority and dismantled "Alawi" as a religion. The French gave them social mobility. It would have been difficult for them to achieve mobility otherwise; although there were also Alawi tax collectors (which is a relatively high social position) in 1860s.

Later I lost track of the conversation and focused on the beautiful scenery.

  

 Then we arrived in the Armenian town of Beirut; Ian, Dan and I took a bus back to the promenade close to where we lived while the others took a taxi. We arrived at the promenade just in time for the sunset. 

End note: I wrote this a bit later than I expected, and may have left out some details. Overall I should accept that blogs will not reflect experiences as they were, but rather filtered through memory and time. I really appreciated Ian's role of interpreting and guiding us, even though Dan and I also got fed up with him sometimes. The trip would not have happened if I did not have their company. My blog's readership exceeded 5000 hits last month! Thanks to all of you for reading!

Recollections from My Calcutta Trip, January 2013

murals of a subway stop. first two blocks are the stanzas in Bengali, second two blocks in English

The same voice murmurs in these desultory lines 

which is born in wayside pansies

letting hasty glances pass by. 

- Fireflies, Rabindranath Tagore

I never had a chance to write about my trip to Calcutta / Kolkata because it was not part of the organized class trip. I have made a couple of Indian Bengali friends in Madison and I have been reading Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland lately. The novel has a lot about Calcutta and it brings back a lot of memories. Here is a best attempt at reconstructing the three days that happened 1.5 years ago at the home of Ravi Shankar and Tagore and former capital of British India.

On the way to Delhi Airport, I passed graffiti that said "I hate my life" on highway wall. I didn't know I had to print my itinerary required for entering the Delhi airport. Armed police check at every entrance gate in fear of terrorists. I had to pay 100 rupees for using the services to print. It occurred to me that airports should be used for homeless people during the nights. But then that would also require needless security. On the plane, two Indian men sat next to me. I took a copy of the free newspapers. When I put my newspaper in the backseat pocket, the man next to me decidedly picked it up a few minutes later and started reading it. I liked the street-like tacit agreement between the two of us and his assumption that I wouldn’t mind. He put it back in my section of the backseat pocket after he was done.

The Kolkata Airport was much smaller than any other second tier city’s you’d see in China, but political scientists warn against judging a region by its airports, so I didn’t mind. I looked for my host and friend from college Vedika at the baggage pickup area. I didn’t have an Indian phone so I was super anxious that Vedika wouldn’t find me. After 2/3 of the Delhi group left, she appeared and waved. Vedika was wearing a black polka-dotted white shirt and hugged me. She looked classy. I remember the joke she told me that she always dressed better in India than in the U.S. because her mom makes sure she looks nice before she leaves the house. Usually at our SoCal college she wore a t-shirt or a sweater, but looked very pretty in anything, in my opinion. She walked with me to her driver, who was a handsome man in his 30s.

Vedika

We passed ads for the rising female politician Mamata Banerjee (Chief Minister of West Bengal to this day). Transexual hijras with spiritual power tapped the car window asking for money.

Vedika’s class/caste would soon stand out for me more and more over the next few days. Her house had several (Bengali) servants; her father is a Marwari businessman and her mother a housewife. Her grandmother was a stern woman from Allahabad who adored Swami Vivekananda and questioned judgmentally me about religion in China. (“India has spirituality!! Everything is one! We don't negate any religion. Christ. Buddha.”) I didn’t bow down to touch her feet ritually when saying hi, which probably irked her. I managed to do so when saying goodbye. As Marwaris, they were all vegetarians. The house was spacious with several marbled rooms and some vintage black and white wedding photos.

The servants were in awe of me throughout, but in an endearing and warm way and I even drew a card for them when I left. I also gave the driver a tip, per suggestion of Vedika. He was also bashful but happy about accepting it. I never got to know the driver’s name. He did not hang any talisman on the car’s rear window, because Vedika’s dad told him not to. He was a nice man, though he got into a fight with the neighbors one day and knocked on the family door in anguish. Vedika’s grandmother opened the door and ushered us quickly to other parts of the house. Eventually Vedika’s dad told him to stop the fight.

During my stay, the family also hosted some form of puja. I witnessed five pandits chanting slokas, two who are Sanskrit university professors from Banaras. I asked, "How come professors can do this kind of work?""They have vacations." Then I saw the pandits bless Vedika and her brother (in between phone calls). Before we left the house for the Kali Temple, the private, home pandit sprayed water around the house as well as on our heads--don't get tricked by the pandits at the Kali temple."

The Tollygunge

The novel The Lowland’s plot is centered around Maoist insurgencies in India, yet it opens with the Tolly Club in Calcutta, which is very apt. Started by Englishmen in the 1800s, it is the colonial vestige of Calcutta and the country-club signifier of elitism. Although the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front governed West Bengal for many decades, it never eradicated that part of society. Vedika’s father insisted on taking me there with the family and told me how it took him years to get exclusive access membership. They are used to drinking before dinner. I refrained from drinking entirely that night because I was in my sanyasi (renouncer) phase in terms of drinking; still kind of trying to keep it up today as well. The interior and food was underwhelming and I didn’t get to see the garden because it was already night time. We had stale conversations, probably because I felt uncomfortable with the privilege. I didn’t like Vedika’s younger brother, who was arrogant and and drank alcohol and drove us back home. (I recalled this event later when we found out that Tamar, CMC class 2014 died in a car accident in Bolivia during the India trip.) He probably didn’t like me either.

Excerpt from The Lowland:

"Thanks to Cruickshank the villa was restored, and a country club was established in its place. Cruickshank was named the first president. It was for the British that the city’s tramline was extended so far south in the early 1930s. It was to facilitate their journey to the Tolly Club, to escape the city’s commotion, and to be among their own. 

... 

Now if they happened to pass the Tolly Club together on their way to or from the tram depot, Udayan called it an affront. People still filled slums all over the city, children were born and raised on the streets. Why were a hundred acres walled off for the enjoyment of a few? 

Subhash remembered the imported trees, the jackals, the bird cries. The golf balls heavy in their pockets, the undulating green of the course. He remembered Udayan going over the wall first, challenging him to follow. Crouching on the ground the last evening they were there, trying to shield him. 

But Udayan said that golf was the pastime of the comprador bourgeoisie. He said the Tolly Club was proof that India was still a semicolonial country, behaving as if the British had never left. 

He pointed out that Che, who had worked as a caddy on a golf course in Argentina, had come to the same conclusion. That after the Cuban revolution, getting rid of the golf courses was one of the first things Castro had done."

My stomach disagreed with me on Friday so we didn’t do much. I thought it was a lagged Delhi belly from the stuff I had in Delhi, but who would know. I had copious amounts of chai and biscuits. I drank a lot of water, though Vedika’s sweet mother said, “This is India, you don’t need to drink that much water.” So I stopped and still felt fine. But I didn’t dare try the street food vada pav and made only one exception for the syrup dipped ice gola, but didn’t like it so gave the rest to a street kid.

Outdoor Shrine for Shiva

Over the following days, we went to a mandir and we both made offerings; we saw a banyan tree with deities and Vedika made an offering. I later learned that these are for / constructed by dalits who are not permitted to enter mandirs. We saw a Vivekananda Sport Club that also had a statue honoring Anagarika Dharmapala, "a Ceylonese Buddhist revivalist and writer. He was one of the founding contributors of Sinhalese Buddhist Nationalism and Buddhism. He was also a pioneer in the revival of Buddhism in India after it had been virtually extinct there for several centuries, and he was the first Buddhist in modern times to preach the Dharma in three continents: Asia, North America, and Europe." 

We played board games with other vegetarian college students-home-for-the-winter--

Veg burgers as snacks

We patronized a shisha parlor and a dance club along with Pretti, unfortunately on a quiet Sunday night. Pretti, a recent graduate from a three-year college, had many wild stories about watching David Guetta live and taking care of drunk people in England. I asked if anything like hooking up happened, and she was amazingly stunned silent by the question and whispered “no.” I realized that the diaspora still kept up with social mores of their home in that way.

Ganesha guarding Pretti's house

We also went to the marble Victoria Memorial building. The tickets were very cheap for locals. Everyone in the extremely long line was amazingly patient, and Vedika led me to cut in line, both when entering the main gate and entering the building. I felt kind of embarrassed but no one seemed to care. We laughed at the pretentious quote of Queen Victoria about how her empire looked out for the interests of Indian dominions inside the building. 

weren't allowed to take pics but this big lie just had to be documented-- "We shall respect the rights, diginity and honor of the Indian princes as our own and we desire that they as'well as our subjects should enjoy that prosperity and that social advancement which can only be secured by internal peace and good government"

On the most westernized Park (King) Street, we went to the Oxford University Press Bookstore, which looked just like the bookstore in Swades. The collection was officious and it wasn’t as good as the bookstore I saw in a Delhi mall, which had Arundhati Roy and Han Han. We also bought a delicious rum ball at Flury’s. 

Rum ball

This is the well-known bakery that gets a lot of honor mentions in Bollywood films, though my recent friend still thought American stores had more varieties. The bakery also had a cafe, and I saw a Sikh drinking tea with a businessman there, as well as several white foreigners. We had (badly imitated, overly fried) Chinese food with two fellow international CMCers also traveling in India at Flavors of China. There was a security scanner for weapons, but the someone said that it would be easy sneak a gun in anyways. (Similar situation for Wisconsin--a lot of Madison shops ban concealed firearms but it is allowed by the state.) While we waited on a red light after we exited, a girl-beggar approached us and we both had to look away. A flute seller also played music next to us.

flute seller on Park Street

I saw faded Communist symbols. I visited the College Street famous for second-handed books, but most English books were too technical and I regretted not understanding Bengali to buy the interesting looking comics.  Vedika sad that University of Calcutta was nearby but didn't regard it as the best school for students.

I also posed next to this epic slogan near College Street, and another slogan that said "Struggle to Study. Study to Change Society." Another hand-made poster said "Culture Sanction of Rape must stop!"

We visited the Asiatic Society that had an incredibly shoddy interior and bureaucratic process for visitors (probably because rarely did anyone visit). A man served as a docent and had to be translated by Vedika. Later an English-speaking female professor of history also introduced some of the old exhibitions items--sutras written on pattra leaves--to us hastily. 

Asiatic Society

After we left, people started going to work (12pm). I was so amazed and I still recount it again. That memory probably has merged with other street scenes I have seen in films. We ate lunch at famous Indian chain Cafe Coffee Day, and I liked the food. A lot of tourist sites closed for several hours in between each day as well as on my last day, including the modern art museum, typical of the unavailable Calcutta. So we walked around and I saw a few boys playing soccer and a lot of beautiful trees. and there was even a Ravi Shankar cover show that night, but Vedika wasn’t that interested. I also bought a table cloth from the bougie fabric store Fab India.
Later on the plane back to Delhi, the two men sitting next to me were those kind of airplane friends, who complained about the Calcutta’s slow pace and red tape. They started saying how the people were so lazy and never got their work done. I was surprised no other person came to their objection on the plane. The more I read about it now, let it be from writer Amit Chaudhuri or some other source, I wish to visit Calcutta again for longer periods of time.