The sounds of travel 1: Great Lake Swimmers

by Grant Martin on

Welcome to The Sounds of Travel, music that reminds of you travel, the places you’ve been and the things that you’ve seen. We’ve all got that favorite road trip song or mix tape that brings us back to the open road, to the hills of Patagonia or to the rolling waves of the Mediterranean. Listening to these pieces back at home brings us vividly back to that same spot, years later, daydreaming about the beauty of travel, the wonderful landscapes and the luster of freedom.

Here at Gadling we’ll be highlighting some of our favorite sounds from the road and giving you a sample of each — maybe you’ll find the same inspiration that we did, but at the very least, hopefully you’ll think that they’re good songs.

Week One: Great Lake Swimmers — Backstage with the Modern Dancers

Great Lake Swimmers’ third album, Ongiara, had just been released the week before I touched down in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a week long trip with a few close friends. On the bus from the airport into the city, I happened to meet a young Canadian woman en route to her hostel. Knowing that we had a large apartment already booked I invited her to join us and with little deliberation she ended up staying with us for the entire week.

Architecture in Buenos Aires is shockingly beautiful, with narrow cobble stone streets lined with tall ceilinged, ornate buildings on either side. Apart from the exquisite ironwork and stained glass featured on many structures, you could pick up many blocks from Paris, drop them in Buenos Aires and not know the difference.

Our apartment was no exception. With tall ceilings, a broad front room that opened out into the street, an entire wall of stained glass and three bedrooms, the unit was not only one of the best but also one of the least expensive properties that I have ever stayed in.

Throughout my visit I began to explore the depths of Ongiara. At times when the others were napping, out finding groceries or buying antiques, the haunting voice of Tony Dekker filled the tall corners of the rooms, echoing through the hallways and shimmering through the bedrooms.

Now, when I hear Backstage with the Moden Dancers I’m taken back to Buenos Aires, to the young woman I met on the bus and to perching out over the apartment ironwork, peering onto the street as the fall rain blanketed around us. I see the yellows and blues of the stained glass windows, feel the black fabric on her shirt and taste the Malbec that I drank every night for dinner.

“And all of these things I don’t think they should be — released” — Tony Dekker, Great Lake Swimmers.

Outdoor theater production in China blends modern with traditional cultural art forms

by Jamie Rhein on

China’s blend of art traditions, mixing the modern with the traditional, and the secular with the religious, is quite evident in the production of “Zen Shaolin” that is being shown at an outdoor theater in Henan Province.

From what I read in the New York Times article about the production, for anyone heading to China, or who is in China now, I’d take this in if I had the chance. Earlier today, I posted a video of the production of Swan Lake by the Guangdong Acrobatics Troupe of China. Multiply that several times, and you might come close to what I imagine “Zen Shaolin” must be like.

“Zen Shaolin” has a cast of 500 people, for example, and was created by Tan Dun, the guy who composed the music to “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.”

How big is the backstage, I wonder? Along with the cast of hundreds, the backdrop is a valley in the mountains near Shaolin Temple. How cool is that?

The set is elaborate as to not be dwarfed by the surroundings, and from the description of the storyline, the production blends ancient Chinese tales, martial arts, Zen Buddhism and modern day sensibilities.

One of the reasons for the creation of this outdoor theater production is to bring tourists to the area. There have been 300,000 who have come so far. Just another version of the story “If you build it they will come.” That is if you have a good idea and the timing is right.

In the case of “Zen Shaolin,” I’d say it sounds like pay dirt. (For more photos, check out the NY Times slide show)

Bollywood Reaches the Ends of the Earth

by Josh Lew on

Is Indian musical cinema challenging Hollywood’s world-wide pop culture dominance? Perhaps not in most places, but the 4-hour, song-and-dance-filled melodramas have fans in some pretty unexpected parts of the world.

Shashank Bengali, the East Africa correspondent for McClatchy, has come across a growing number of young Ethiopians who have embraced Bollywood films and musical numbers even though they are also exposed to a barrage of American hip hop music and action films.

There has always been a small market in Africa for Bollywood movies. Indian immigrants in South Africa and Kenya are a ready audience for these cinematic imports. However, a recent trend shows that the movies have been embraced by non-Indian audiences throughout the continent. Bollywood had a large following in Somalia until its films were outlawed by the militant Islamic leadership.

While the popularity of Indian cinema in Africa might not be a signal of the end of Hollywood, it does show that there are other cultural forces out there besides the ones created by Spielberg and Bruckheimer. It is also welcome news for closet Bollywood fans in the US, who can now travel to Africa without having to hide their secret vice.

Hollywood and its culture misperceptions: why can’t they do it right?

by Abha Malpani on

It amazes me how Hollywood can make fantastic movies that usually pay tremendous attention to getting facts right, but when it comes to the representation of distinctly different cultures, they often get it wrong. Seriously wrong. And what’s sad is that it’s intentional, and for pure commercial gain.

The latest such case is soon to be released Hollywood movie starring Mike Myers — “Love Guru”. Its release has strongly been protested against by religious Hindus across the US for lampooning Hinduism, mocking Ashram life and Hindu philosophy, and laughing at religious Hindu practices.

This movie releases tomorrow, so such protests have been made purely basis news and trailers; having watched the trailer and seen the website, I was pretty embarrassed at what I was seeing. An Indian “guru” being ridiculous and ridiculing various aspects of Hinduism that millions of Hindus consider sacred. One of his “sutras” encourages you to go to a fake porn site, the yoga positions are stupid, you can even find him spreading his “knowledge” on Facebook, MySpace and YouTube.

The movie revolves around the “second best Indian love guru coming to the US” and then you see various snippets of him:1) in a bar (drinking is not accepted in Hinduism, 2) hitting on Jessica Alba and getting a kick out of knowing she had a lesbian experience in college (homosexuality is taboo), 3) Making fun of yoga positions, the list goes on.
By birth I’m Hindu, but I’m not religious at all. I often criticize Hindu customs as I fail to understand them. But, unless it’s got to do with a man marrying a dog (a true exception), I will never mock religious faiths. At the end of the day, these things are deep rooted in history and tradition, and if it works for you, no one has the right to ridicule it.

As Rajan Zed, a California based Hindu pandit, most correctly said in relation to this comedy: “Humor is a part and parcel of Hindu society and our folk festivals, plays, stories, etc., are full of parody, satire, mimicry, buffoonery, etc. We are strong enough to take a joke. But there are certain convictions in every tradition, which are venerable and not meant to be mocked.”

Hollywood movies have such a large viewership globally that doing a movie like this and then defending it, is just completely out of line.

Dispatch from somewhere in Indonesia: A secret school for orangutans

by Jerry Guo on

I’m struggling to make friends here. Miriam, a 9-month-old orangutan orphan who’s learning how to climb a tree, almost scales past her trainer when I approach. For good measure, she starts to cry. Another orangutan signals displeasure by emulating the sound of a Harley barreling toward me. In fact, the only one who tolerates me is 11-year-old Leuser, and not because the 42 air-rifle pellets lodged in his body have mellowed him. He’s also blind.

At any zoo, these surly apes would bomb the aw-isn’t-he-cute exam, but here at the world’s most successful school for rescued orangutans, they’re taught to get back in touch with their wild side. Even playtime is serious business. Passing, say, the test of recognizing a friend (another orangutan) versus a foe (a human logger) could spell life or death for these critically endangered icons of the old world jungle.

Everything happens here with one goal in mind: graduation day, when the shaggy students are set loose into the harsh Sumatran rain forest. But for the students to have a shot at survival, handlers must teach them to avoid humans at all costs, a tough task considering they need to be fed by humans.

And teaching them about the dangers of Homo sapiens means no lines of gawky tourists dangling bananas and posing for pictures. That’s why this center at the far north of Sumatra – one of the main islands of Indonesia – is closed to the public and barely known to outsiders. Even if you made it to the nearby village – where the specialty dish is fruit-bat soup and the humid air is clouded with mosquitoes – this part of Sumatra is definitely not for the faint of heart.

Palm trees line the one-lane road to this village, and in the distance, various plantations – chocolate, banana, papaya – dot the endless green of the hills.

The locals don’t seem to understand why the special training and care given at this school. For instance, keepers will offer the apes a hollowed-out block of wood with honey inside to play with, rather than just chicken and rice, the customary diet of pet orangutans. Turns out, it’s a useful skill for wild orangutans to learn how to scrape honey out of a tree hole.

Another trick to keep the students sharp is to tie up rice sacks with the food inside (they like any sweet fruit). The dim ones will rip the bag open, but the smart ones? They will untie the bag.

But you could say those are elective classes. Most of the orangutans come here either completely spoiled by their former owners – almost all military officers who keep them as illegal pets – or with injuries from clashes with farmers and illegal loggers. The injured receive medical attention, and former pets are quarantined for a few weeks and then transferred into a sprawling system of socialization cages. For the young ones, it may be the first time they’ve seen another of their kind.

During the socialization stage, the residents make friends – and sometimes enemies. Two 30-pound toddlers, Kevin and Irwin, are rolling around some blue oil drums when they decide to fight (it looks more like tickling). Just as quickly, they become bored and begin swinging from ropes attached to the ceiling of their metal cage. The playground bully, Prince, who’s bigger by at least 25 pounds, glares at them, ready to steal their milk when the handlers bring the twice-daily bowls.

Though wild orangutans are usually solitary animals, a landmark 2003 Duke University study revealed that they have culture, the only primates besides chimps with this human characteristic. Even more surprising, they’ve been observed using all sorts of tools to dig for termites, scrounge for honey, and get at the seeds inside the razor-sharp neesia fruit – knowledge passed from ape to ape. After all, it’s unlikely a whole troupe of orangutans simultaneously realized leaves could double as gloves or umbrellas.

If all goes well, the students will soon leave this garden paradise – with its freshwater springs, wood gazebos, and hanging orchids – for the tiger-infested rain forest of Jambi Province. It’ll be a 36-hour drive down the spine of Sumatra to a place even more hidden away.

There, they must pass their final test. Handlers will bring them into the jungle each day and teach them everything else they need to survive: what fruits to eat and where to find them, how to eat ants and build nests, and perhaps how to use a tool or two. The wilder ones may graduate in a couple weeks. Tamer ones could take months or years. And the tamest ones? Well, like human students, they don’t want to get out of bed until noon and will expect food to be handed to them on a plate (and don’t even ask them to build a nest anywhere off the ground).

Regardless of their survival know-how, these orangutans face poor odds. Only 6,500 remain in Sumatra and 50,000 in Borneo, down by half from two decades ago.

Indeed it takes stellar teaching to assure an orangutan takes to the wild. More than 90 orangutans have been released since 2003, when the reintroduction began. And it’s not goodbye after graduation. Field observation of the animals suggests the survival rate may be as high as 80 percent.

As it stands, wild orangutans need all the help they can get. At current rates of growth, illegal logging, mining, and oil palm plantations, could destroy 98 percent of the orangutan’s habitat by 2022, a UN report warned last year. Many conservationists predict the extinction of the orangutan within a decade or two.