Luxury: The New Spirituality

A number of years ago – 7 2/3 to be exact – I visited Cambodia’s venerated Angkor Wat. This was to be my first trip to a country without any semblance of a sanitation department so naturally I was pretty excited. I met up with a couple of friends in Phnom Penh and we headed for Angkor on the tandem bicycles they were riding. We rode 100 kilometers or so that first day, along undulating dirt roads cutting across tree-studded plains, only an occasional village to keep us on the more pleasurable side of dehydration. ‘What’s that?’ I asked Jamie as he poured a small packet of something into his bottle of purified water. ‘Electrolytes,’ he said, and nothing more. These guys, Jamie and Garryck, were biking around the world and, I figured, needed lots of electrolytes. I was okay with just water. Lying in a hammock at our guest house for five hours that evening, unable to keep down so much as a leaf of Cambodian lettuce, I learned firsthand the wonders of cellular osmosis – and, for future reference, how to ask for electrolytes in common Cambodia-speak.


Next morning we elbowed our way around a crowded and litter-strewn riverbank looking for someone we could trust to tell us where to go to catch the boat up the Tonle Sap to Siem Reap, the de facto base town for Angkor day-trippers. The boat ride was magnificent; the inside of our barge-esque vessel was stuffed with food and other such necessities for the locals all over the countryside which meant we tourists were offered by default an unobstructed rooftop view of the surrounding fields of wild grass and water buffalo for the four-hour trip that is equally fascinating whether you put on sunscreen or not. (The consequences don’t surface until later.) Once in Siem Reap Garryck followed his nose to a guesthouse where we could drop our stuff and take a meandering look around the town, which I found surprisingly and pleasantly serene. Where were all the day-trippers and other assorted backpackers? Left to explore the dirt roads and side streets in solitude I was not going to complain. Until my sunburn began screaming.

Next morning we were up at three for the ride to Angkor to watch the sun rise. We settled down on a spot of grass facing Angkor Wat, by far the most famous icon in all of Cambodia, and watched as the first glints of dawn lifted the black blanket of night, revealing the outlines of tufted palms rising up at the feet of lotus-shaped turrets. The lilies on the ponds fronting the temple took on a slightly different color than the water. Slowly the grandeur of this immense 12th century wonder showed its details to the world. Ten feet away a trio of college-age mouths carried on a loud conversation replete with self-importance and laughing inanity. I wanted to shoot them.

With the sun shining bright we stepped through the stone entrance to the grounds of the Wat and made our slow way toward the temple – or funerary palace, as some scholars contend. The crowds were light; my system had returned to a state of semi-equanimity. Walking several hundred yards over huge cut stone transported by boat and by hand over many miles we found ourselves standing at the base of a steep, steep staircase, one of several equally-steep paths to the interior of Angkor Wat.

‘Why are the steps so steep?’ The question can be asked two ways: in a sarcasm typical of a guy from New Jersey who has just gotten over his lesson in cellular osmosis or in the manner of honest inquiry. I did both in rapid succession.

The answer, as I overheard a guide explain, was grounded in the idea that this was a sacred site, a place of reverence, dedicated to the pursuit of spiritual reflection. Simply entering through a doorway, or even a staircase of normal proportions, would not require any thought on the entering person’s part; thus the mind could remain occupied with other matters and the meaning, the significance, and thus the experience of this place would be lessened by one’s diminished perception of it. Climbing these stone steps demanded attention from anyone not wishing to fall off them, stripping away the clutter of the outside world from a person’s consciousness, drawing one to a fuller, deeper, more intimate experience. I figured with my electrolyte lesson and my upcoming skin grafts added to the mix I was in for one deeply spiritual day.

‘Without effort, the experience is meaningless,’ I heard the guide say.

The US Park Service would do well to put this concept into practice.

Back in the Fall of 1995, upon completion of grad school and passing the almost sadly unchallenging final exam, a friend and I drove cross-country to explore the richness of the US’s many national parks and microbreweries. Among our stops was Yosemite National Park, and while I don’t recall all the fine details of the state of the park at the time, I do know that there were few options for transport, camping and eating there in the valley. Most of the visitors we encountered seemed to be experiencing the park much like we were: maneuvering through the traffic along the looping road and jostling for parking spaces and unimpeded views of the beauty rising up all around us while wondering how long to stick around before barreling off to snag a camp site somewhere before dark.

I returned to Yosemite this past September and found a much different place. The loop through the valley is now largely one-way, with shorter two-way spurs in a couple places to ease access to trailheads and certain popular sights. And while private vehicles are still allowed everywhere, most people opt to park in one of the sprawling parking lots and get around the valley using the free and efficient bus system. If the NPS had stopped the development there I would be heartily applauding their efforts.

About a week prior to our trip I tried to reserve a site in one of the campgrounds in Yosemite Valley proper. The summer season was officially over but, I was warned, spaces still went fast. As it turned out, there was nothing available and we ended up having to opt for Crane Flats, a campground 10 miles west of the valley. I was mildly disappointed – until I saw what had happened to Yosemite.

It all centers around a mini-city called Curry Village, which refers not to the obscene amounts of food now available out there in the wilderness but to David and Jenny Curry who opened up a tent camp in Yosemite in 1899. I wonder what they’d think of how their $2/night operation has changed. Today in Curry Village you can get a cabin with a private bath, a motel room or, if you are feeling adventurous, a tent cabin with, and I quote the website here, ‘custom insulating panels.’ To make this ‘unique and magnificent place to stay’ truly complete, there are no campfires allowed, but there are plenty of ‘dining options near all of our Yosemite cabins.’

I am not at all opposed to being comfortable. I have a problem with catering to people who are unable to appreciate beautiful places without being obscenely pampered. This may sound snobbish or overly critical, but a little time spent in this village in the wilderness confirms what the Khmer rulers and builders apparently understood.

Skies were impeccable, I couldn’t wait to get out on a trail hike. But Seiji, at five months, hadn’t yet learned to time his feedings to my schedule and needed his milk. So off I ran to find hot water – or just water we could heat up on the propane stove. Among the cluster of buildings with log cabin facades and plasma TVs mounted on the walls inside for viewing Yosemite’s best while your ass stays firmly planted, I spotted a restaurant and café and pizza place combination food palace. Inside people were standing around chatting and sipping from large paper cups with heavy plastic lids while others waited on a long line for their coffee or cappuccino or espresso. The only thing missing was the Starbucks logo. Back outside a man and a woman were walking along a paved path, holding their oversized cups and talking about nothing related to Yosemite or even outside. Then the guy suddenly asks the woman: ‘Hey, is that Half-Dome?’ Yes, I wanted to answer, that is half-Dome, the single most recognizable landmark in the valley and the symbol on every piece of official Yosemite literature out there, how long did you have to wait for your coffee?’ Instead I kept quiet.

‘Yes…I think so,’ replied the woman.

Official Yosemite Pamphlet featuring Half-Dome

Later, after the 3-mile hike up to Vernal Falls and back, countless people along the way ignoring the surrounding beauty in favor of commenting to each other what a tough walk it was and who do you think will win American Idol, we got on a shuttle bus and plopped down, my wife and I happy to enjoy a bit of the park without carrying our kids. At the next stop a group of no less than fifteen high schoolers piled on, carrying on with each other, oblivious to the world around them like any group of high schoolers would be, in any environment. A couple of them carried cardboard pizza boxes. Others fooled with their iPods. None of them looked outside until one of them shouted to the rest that their stop was coming up. They all peered out the windows like they’d never seen the place before. Whatever though, teenagers don’t have to be dedicated naturalists. But if my kid ever goes on a field trip to a place like Yosemite he’s leaving the iPod at home.

On the drive to Crane Flats that evening we caught a glimpse of a bear darting into the woods, having apparently just crossed the otherwise desolate road. The only wild animals I saw anywhere in the Valley in three days were a group of three drunk women speaking what sounded like slurred Russian as they pushed past my wife, baby in her arms, to get on the shuttle and take the closest empty seats. Crane Flats Campground itself was perfect; no lights, no heaters and no cabins with insulated panels. People built campfires and sat on folding chairs, carrying flashlights to fetch water and go use the bathroom. There were no stores, no vending machines, no food except what people brought with them – and stored in heavy metal boxes provided to keep the bears from ripping open their car windows and camper doors because the bears in the area can and will do just that. In the morning the drive back to the Valley was magnificent – the sun was rising over the immense peaks and rock walls carved by glaciers long ago. Down in Curry Village people busied themselves with coffee and café breakfasts and the morning paper. The newspaper! Yes, there are newspaper boxes here and there so anyone who came out here to get away from it all could keep up on the news, then maybe go look around a bit of the park if there was time before lunch at the Cabin.

In the afternoon my wife wanted to get a couple of postcards for my older son to send to a couple of his teachers back home. A nice gesture, and a learning experience for Yamato. Meanwhile I waited in the expansive market and souvenir shop, watching over the cameras I was secretly and probably illegally recharging. (Okay, my vicious reliance on modernization surfaces.) It was killing me, trapped inside with the revolving hordes looking at sweatshirts and shot glasses and a thousand other forms of kitsch. So I decided to play a little game. I picked up a postcard with a panoramic scene of the famed valley entrance, one of the most photographed views of the vastness of Yosemite, and began asking people working in the store the name of the waterfall in the picture. Now, this was not a trick question; it wasn’t a shot of just some water tumbling down some rocks, nor was it a barely-visible thin white hint of a waterfall among an expanse of trees and nothing else. There in full color was the most recognizable view of the entire valley, and I am proud to say on just my third day in Yosemite I could confidently name that waterfall. Which, as I half-suspected, was more than some of the people working and living in Yosemite Valley were able to do.

‘Excuse me,’ I said, approaching a man with a fantastic bushy white moustache and a green staff shirt and name tag. ‘Could you tell me the name of this waterfall?’ I showed him the postcard. He stared for a moment, eyes vacant, then came out with what I guessed were the first two names to pop into his head. ‘Oh, that’s Yosemite Falls, or maybe Nevada Falls.’ I thanked him and let him go. Next I went up to a kid stocking shelves of canned food. ‘Hey man, quick question?’ He answered Yosemite Falls too, but then his buddy took a look and corrected him. ‘Nope, that’s Bridalveil Fall.’ I thanked him and left him to chide his can-stacking pal. ‘Figures you wouldn’t, you’re from Boston,’ I heard him say as I turned the corner. Next young girl guessed Yosemite Falls, by now the established default answer. Three out of four people living and working in Yosemite had now answered incorrectly. Next girl, twenty-something with a sharply-defined nose, shot me an impatient ‘Bridalveil’ as if I were the most stupidest person on the planet for asking. The next guy knew too, evening the score at three and partially restoring my faith in humanity. The last test was the floor manager, a girl with a figure like a light bulb and a look of quiet panic in her eyes as she hurried back and forth between a service counter and the door to a back room. ‘Excuse me,’ I said when I had finally timed my slow, unsuspicious circle right and cornered her near a display of cheesy picture frames. ‘Can I ask a quick question?’ And she saved the day with a correct answer and a desperate look over my shoulder.

The board next to the patio of the pizza place advertised a happy hour special of some sort; the main lodge offered a humongous all-you-can-eat buffet for fifteen bucks which, after ten days in a van with two little kids, was admittedly hard to resist. (Strike two against me.) The food wasn’t bad, the selection adequate, and the atmosphere surreal. Nowhere in the entire valley were people’s eyes so full of excitement and wonder as when they were hauling their overloaded plates to their tables, not noticing when clumps of macaroni and chunks of turkey fell off onto the floor as they hurried along. This, I had to sadly consider, was the evolution of the intimate experience: eat until you burst, stay nice and warm in your insulated tent cabin and start the day right with an extra-large gourmet coffee in the high-quality disposable cup and ergonomically-shaped lid. And don’t worry if you can’t recognize Half-Dome; if anyone asks how it was you can just point at the logo on your sweatshirt.

Just today I happened across an advertisement for Wildflower Hall, a luxury hotel located in the Himalayas. ‘Discover solitude in the lap of the Himalayas’ it says under a picture of this massive former royal residence. This solitude includes wireless Internet access everywhere including the urinals, 24-hour business center, room service and personal butler service, and of course ‘extensive safety and security arrangements.’ Yes, this is the very essence of solitude. ‘For centuries, the Himalayas have inspired awe and awakened spirituality in the souls of all mortals who encounter their greatness,’ the site goes on to say. Yes, and for centuries people have discovered that spirituality through views of the Himalayas from restaurants, the Jacuzzi and the outdoor heated swimming pool. To access this special retreat of solitude and spirituality get on the daily flight from Dehli to Shimla, the closest airport – or if you prefer you may charter a private jet. From Shimla Airport it is 90 minutes by limo service, available also from Shimla’s train stations. Once you’ve recovered with a visit to the full service spa there are activities ‘for the adventurous...white river rafting, mountain biking, trekking, billiards...’ Billiards? Absolutely! Adventure truly knows no boundaries at the Wildflower.

Now, if someone offered me an all-expenses-paid trip to this place I’d say yes and have my bags half packed faster than the person could say teak wood floors. But if this is the definition of spirituality then obviously I’ve missed something somewhere.

When I visited Angkor in 2003 the site was on UNESCO’s Danger List for reasons stated here. The following year it was taken off, as the threat of destruction both intentional and otherwise had declined along with other factors. If Angkor has a similar problem in the future I think I’ll tell them to build a Curry Village; this way the majority of visitors will be so distracted by the coffee and newspapers and general atmosphere of gluttony they might forget about the temples altogether. ''Specially in that heat, gawsh!' In the meantime I’m going to petition the National Park Service to raze Curry Village and make a long, steep staircase out of the rubble.

Guest Blogger Christopher Carr of The Inductive on Teaching a Foreign Language

Brilliant! Have a guest blogger post on my page and my output goes up with barely a diaper-change worth of effort. Why didn’t I think of this before?
Okay, actually I didn't think of it; this was Christopher's brainchild. The guy's got ideas coming out of his pores – check out his blog, The Inductive, and you’ll see what I mean. He is nothing if not proficient...and well-read...and insightful...
This doesn't necessarily mean I agree with him.
I can't stand teaching kids. This is has nothing to do with their ability to learn so much as it does my inability to maintain any sort of control over them without looking like the Shinto equivalent of the anti-Christ. Trust me, boss, you might want to just cancel class today...
The silver lining here is that, as Chris and I teach out of the same place, there is no discussion necessary when a kids class and an adults class happen to overlap. He reaches for the playing cards and I get the coffee ready.
In all seriousness, I feel fortunate to have crossed paths with Christopher. I first read his following post a few days ago, and since then I've found opportunity to try to teach my own son the concept of self-control, with amazing results. In vying for attention at home, he is beginning to see alternatives to stepping on his little brother's fingers.

Okay, on to Christopher Carr and today's topic: Teaching a Foreign Language
(For those of you accustomed to reading my normal posts, I apologize for the big words.)


As a teacher of English as a foreign language, I prefer teaching kids to teaching adults. There are several reasons for this. The first is that our civilization has wildly misunderstood the nature of language learning, and teaching kids doesn't require any unschooling. Adults don't learn second languages easily. There is usually a lot of unfounded, reductionist neurotechnobabble behind this assertion, but in practice it's because adults are often unwilling to look foolish. Adults learn facts about languages instead of languages. Kids on the other hand are seldom embarrased when they make mistakes. The trial-and-error style of learning required to learn a new language comes naturally to them. If adults are to succeed at language learning, they must either be shameless sociopaths or fluent in the metacognition behind language learning. (Check out this article in The New Yorker.) Apropos, language learning is something that suits the learning style of just jumping right in preferred by kids over the taxonomic style of learning preferred by besuited economic automata.

The second reason I prefer teaching kids to adults is related to the first: kids don't ask stupid questions. (It's often said that there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers, but, if your question produces a stupid answer, is it wise to ask it in the first place?) Usually kids don't need to be discouraged from asking questions uniquely tailored to their particular abilities, the answers to which confer vital subjective knowledge. Kids are usually far more perceptive of inference and intuitive knowledge than adults. There are some kids that struggle with language learning, and in my experience it seems they often have a lot of heavy-handed adults in their lives.

"Japan" could change its name to "heavy-handed adult place" and not miss a beat. I can't tell you how many times I hear the words "dame!" and "abunai!" from adults lazy and lethargic from chain-smoking shouting at their kids from across the play area. In short, the Culture of No makes everyone stupider (taxonomic knowledge is excluded) as a function of age. I had an elderly student tell me last week that she had no idea how to have fun. She then asked stupid vocabulary and grammar questions for twenty minutes; I answered all with variations of "whatever". This is typical of most adult ESL classes.

The third reason I prefer teaching kids is that the one problem associated with teaching kids is entirely solvable: kids are crazy and out-of-control ids. In that respect, it's helpful to think of them like convicts. I had a friend go to jail a few years ago, and he told me that his first day, he sought out the biggest, meanest-looking guy in the place and sucker-punched him right in his big fat stupid meathead face while he was eating lunch. My friend got pummeled before the guards came to his assistance, but what he also got was respect from enterprising, social-climbing bitches, snitches, and perverts. Not only did the other prisoners not try to make my friend take their pockets, but they actually aspired to get in his good graces by bestowing upon him solemn offerings of toilet wine and hair dolls.

Likewise with kids, on my first day I pick up and punt whoever is the reigning shitbrat, and his betas make me their leader. No, that was a joke. What I do do though essentially relies on the same principle: if there is a kid who's fond of jamma-ing the heiwa, I usually make him submit by shunning him, kicking him out of the classroom, or subjecting him to repeated public ridicule. Once the alpha submits, so do the rest. All I have to do is outcrazy the craziest kid and the hearts and minds of the students are mine to direct towards whatever evil purpose I may in my darkest of dark hearts imagine, like learning English.

It Was a Beautiful Day in Sydney

It was a beautiful day when my friend got on the train in Sydney three days ago. He was heading west to the Blue Mountains, a tranquil place touched by God. He was alone. He was feeling okay. Better than he had in a while. The world passed by outside his window. I wonder if it looked any different to him.


I went down under to see him in September, 2009. It had been a while, and it was a great excuse to travel. We climbed aboard that same train, along with my wife and my wonderful son. My friend had just returned to school. Both our lives had changed dramatically since our days teaching English in adjoining classrooms, where we could listen to each other conduct class and then roll with laughter on the walk home as we criticized each other mercilessly. In the seven years since our roads had narrowed. Yet our horizons remained wide, despite the haze floating over them from time to time.

My friend got off at Katoomba Station, where people still take your tickets and trade friendly words. The crowds were light, this being a Monday; there were plenty of empty seats in the coffee shops and cafes along Katoomba Street. My friend could have stopped somewhere, to rest his legs and treat himself, to ponder the beauty of the day. But like all people with places to go, he didn’t. He walked on, with an ease in his step that had been missing for far too long. A lightness that would disappear if he decided to just go home.

There are shuttle buses that run from the station down to the visitor center at Echo Point. It would have saved us time. But time, as much as the Blue Mountains themselves, was why we were there with our friend. So we walked Katoomba Street together. My wife and I took turns with the stroller, our friend ambled along behind us, visibly amused by our indifference to, or ignorance of, the length of the walk we were undertaking. ‘I would have pulled up stumps at the first sign of a beer,’ he’d later joke to his family. But if he did at the time think the walk might be too much he never gave any indication. Or maybe I’m not too good at picking up signals. And I wish to God I were.

Katoomba Street runs straight as an arrow, down a long hill and right back up another. There Katoomba Falls Road forks off to the right, leading past Maple Grove Park to Cliff Drive, Prince Henry Cliff Walk and a hundred places to stand and look out over the canyon below and the miles and miles of Blue Mountains running off into forever. Continuing on Katoomba Road brings you to Panorama Drive and Echo Point Road, which terminates at Echo Park and more breath-taking views from the cliffs that rise hundreds of feet straight up from the canyon floor. Behind the visitor center a path through a grove of gum trees leads to the Giant Stairway, a treacherous descent for anyone let alone a guy carrying his two-year-old son in his arms. I don’t know if my friend walked out to Echo Point three days ago; if he did perhaps he would have recalled our hike down those steps.

Our days teaching together had come to an end, but my friend and I kept in touch. While he maintained an appreciable collection of video games he felt not the slightest compulsion to get a cell phone. This, upon closer scrutiny, can actually appear quite congruent. He claimed to be a strong introvert, though no one who knew my friend would ever be inclined to agree. At work, at parties and on the street, he was never one to temper his boisterous urges. Which seemed to work in his favor until he said the wrong thing to the wrong person in a nightclub in Tokyo. He came to the next afternoon, no recollection of the last 24 hours. He’d suffered damage to his brain. He’d need immediate surgery. They scoured the surveillance tapes but the culprit would never be known.

No matter where my friend stood along those cliffs, he would be able to see Federal Pass Track, the trail that took us along the floor of the canyon. The ground was too rocky and rutted for the stroller; my wife and I shared kid-carrying duty while my friend folded up the stroller and carried it by his side in one big hand. Up ahead a cable car waited, for anyone not too keen on hoofing it back up to the top of the cliffs. My friend looked at us. We looked at him. He couldn’t believe we were actually going to pass on the cable car, but he smiled and followed us up another comically long and winding staircase. We’d end up walking back along Katoomba Street, all the way to the blessed benches on the platform at the station. ‘You guys are gamers,’ he said, collapsing in his seat. ‘I’d have never done that myself.’ Then after a moment he added, ‘Thanks.’

If I could choose one thing I would want going through my friend’s head as he looked down onto Federal Pass Track, this would be it.

As we made our way toward Echo Point I listened to my friend explain how he hoped to regain the Japanese he had learned over six years and then lost in a second. He was also studying German as well as economics and was looking forward to finishing his degree and getting a steady job teaching, at a high school or maybe a university. ‘Uni,’ he called it, in the common Aussie vernacular. But the headaches just wouldn’t go away, and he couldn’t concentrate no matter how hard he tried. He had a girlfriend, though she lived clear across the far side of Sydney and he only saw her so much. Over the years his old friends had all drifted away. ‘No worries, I need to put all my energy into my studies anyway.’

And he tried.

My friend stood out on those cliffs, somewhere. And maybe he did for one moment think about our time together there. Maybe he even smiled. But the weight of the life he was trying so hard to fend off became too much to bear. And the vastness of the Blue Mountains looked so peaceful.

It was a beautiful day in Sydney.

God be with you, my friend.