On the Tamada way

rice_footpath — Sat, 12 Apr 2014 19:45:00 GMT

This text is dedicated to all of those who feel equal to another, without any concern of origin or passport. Those who feel the desire of exploring the world, without the matter of being welcome or not.

When you've got a Schengen passport, you don't really care about Visas. For a long while, before you actually decide to see the world, you don't even understand its concept, you just fool around with friends here or there, finish your holidays and end up home. One could say, it's an easy life.

Once, I've decided that it was time for me to see how far I can go overland, to see the differences between countries, to open my mind....you know, school of life and this kind of things.

I'm from the so-called Western Europe, and grew up learning how nice and powerful was my country, compare to those underdeveloped remaining scraps of "our old empire" (there are some other points of view of course...). Nevertheless, the eyes have to check, and to confirm or reject the educational knowledge.

So I got some money, grabbed my backpack, made my way through numerous countries, crossed a couple of borders, hitchhiked in many a language, slept inside or outside of the strangest places ever with the help of many a lovely person I encountered.... I eventually stopped when I saw a sign on the road, informing me of that fact : TEHERAN -> 1200 km.

At this very time, something changed in my mind. Deep inside I felt it. This was it. I was suddenly alone, far away from home and close to those mythic countries of my childhood. I reckon that you used to stare at a worldmap during lazy afternoons, didn't you ? I then started to explore this amazing Caucasian republic I was in, enjoyed numerous interesting cultural experiences and, of course, learned a lot from it and its people....

But I was talking about Visas. Even though they are among the best of one's anecdotes, travel memories are something else. The visa, yes. There ain't nothing more unfair than a visa. Who said that I am worth more than this guy ? Why don't I need a visa to come here ? Only my broken German language allowed me to help him. Hours of struggle in the visa office of West Berlin. A looong time to explain that this guy wasn't a dangerous murderer, but just a future member of a nice European project, and I needed him to lead the group with me. We had just met. While waiting there, I started to realize that so many people throughout the world gave me a hand when I needed it, and now that I had a possibility to give it back (understand : a project and a shelter), it was time for me to try my best. So, we tried, and indeed it worked..... We then spent the two-weeks project together, and we had a great time.

Hope you have now understood the connection between the two parts of the story. This guy is coming from the very same Caucasian republic I was so impressed by. And during this time we had, he explained me many more things about his country than I never understood out there, I did the same about mine, about Germany, their lifestyle, culture....and we understood that our worlds are but completely different. And I learned. A lot. As he did. So, to be fair with you, here is your occasion to know about Georgia. It's a bit of this place no one can precisely point on a world map. I'd like to introduce you a little bit about this surprising country :

If there is a place where they like toasts, it's in here. This is a big deal there, nothing compare to where I'm from. There is one guy around the table, he is the toast leader. They call him the Tamada. And there is not a single possibility that you will get a drink before the Tamada said his toasts. All the ritual seems established and goes in a right order : Country, death, birth, foreigners....In theory, his son will get the heritage as toast maker, if he's considered by its pair.

There are long beautiful sayings during the toast, some of those deep touching sentences that makes you shiver. I don't say that I understood each and every word, but one can always understand meanings beyond languages. And, oddly enough, after spending a long time getting in touch with this man and this country, I found myself last time being the only one around the table to make a toast for a group of people from as many as 15 different countries. And I spoke about that. About him, about my experience in his country, and I dedicated the toast to the one that was not accepted in the project, because he didn't manage to get the visa. Someone probably decided that he “wasn't worth it”.

So the whole moral of this story is the following one :

If you need a visa most of the time you want to cross a physical border, I'm sorry for you. You do have the right to discover the world, don't worry, its unfotunately just a matter of odds, and its unfair. If you want to leave your country, then think twice about the pros and cons. Try to discover the amazing things your country has to offer, acknowledge them and then go away. It will help you not to get lost.
If you don't need a visa to travel (at some extend), but still are surprised by the content of this text, so please turn off your computer, grab your backpack and go to see the world. It doesn't matter how far, what you will do or how long, but try to have an insight of the true possibilities that are offers to you. You are among the lucky ones, and a whole encyclopedia is awaiting for you beyond your doorstep, your strongly invited to go and have a look. It might not fits to you, some tricky situations might happens, but you'll hardly ever forget your trip. Go to the first country you think about or make it to a place you never heard of. Ask the simplest questions to people you don't know and enjoy the friendship and the generosity of the inhabitants. Feed your soul everyday and go where you usually don't go, doing what you usually don't do. Then, after a while, come back home, enjoy your bed and your sweet traditional meals and all the little pleasure you dreamed about when you were gone. After a week or so, when you start to feel both comfortable and awkward in your homeland, then start to digest your story, write it down on a paper, and start to make toasts about what you now realized is important, just like a real Tamada.

A Local Encounter that Changed my Perspective - Ong Ôi

rice_footpath — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 03:53:33 GMT

I can still hear the crumpling of these same old pants.

The room-sized house kept on emitting a smell of freshly-made concrete, alongside an hint of old fish sauce.

The stooped grandma was stitching by the door, as a sentinel ready to warn the lame old man.

Every school child will know him.
The traditional pump-it up morning stop, long enough to grab delicious tongue-burning steamed rice pancakes at the nearby shop before heading towards education.

We got to know each other well, not because we were neighbors, but a twice-a-week Caucasian customer riding a lousy lady-style Chinese bike is hard to forget.

Each and every encounter did follow a rather similar ritual :
The time he drag himself to his atelier, which was in fact the oily-stained part of the room, I would have flip the bike upside-down, bring a few tools and finally be rudely pushed aside, only thanked by a couple of grunts.

There was something like a lament in his behaviour, or were there reproaches ?
A real man does it alone....

I knew that it was the signal for me to sit down and watch.

Each sip of bitter tea shout me out the same simple question :
« What's my Grandpa doing today ? »

Even now, I can't stop asking myself.
I don't quite remember when mine stopped working, but while I'm writing, he's surely not squatting over oil stains, repairing others punctures with a rusty saw and few handle less corkscrews.

And I don't want to think about it.
But he keep on making me think about it.
And each and every time I saw him, I thought about it.
And even now, each sip of tea...Raah.

So thanks Ông oi, what am I gonna do when I'll be old ?

En route over Asia

On the Tamada way

A Local Encounter that Changed my Perspective - Ong Ôi