McDonald's, a field trip, and more monkeys

So there were a few things worth mentioning about this weekend. First of all, yesterday we went shopping for some things, and in the process we ate at McDonald's. Obviously, the menu is different, as almost no one eats beef here. So they have things like the CHICKEN MAHARAJA MAC, or the McVEG; I got a maharaja mac, it was pretty good. It was like a big mac, only with spiced chicken patties, and a tomato, everything else was as a normal big mac would be. The fries taste totally the same, I meant to save my Maharaja Mac paper but threw it away when I left, I'm sure we'll eat McDonald's again at some point. 

It appears as if I will be going to this Inaugural Ball for students abroad on Tuesday night, as most of the SIP (Students in India Program) students are going though not many of the Miami students, and I was told that I "should" go for some reason. So I figure why not, it's a reason to dress up, there will be food and what not, and I can tell a story about how when Obama became president, I was at an inaugural ball for it in Hyderabad, India. So when we were shopping, I picked up a nice shirt to wear with the input of Liz Gerret, as I feel that buying clothes is a commitment, and I needed a nice shirt to go with my black pants with tiny grey pin stripes. So I went with a solid light grey, which worked out. I thought about a tie, but the only good ties I could find were pretty expensive, so unless someone has one I could borrow, the shirt looks nice enough without the tie; I just need to figure out a way to iron it. So this should be interesting, people are referring to it as "SIP Prom", because I loved prom....no, but this has a totally different dynamic to it that I exposited above, we'll see what goes down.

Today, the Miami group went to the film city theme park for Telugu films, sometimes called Tollywood. Most are familiar with Bollywood, which are films in Hindi from Bombay, hence the satire of Hollywood. It was kind of odd, it was like Universal Studios times -3, but for a developing country like India, it's an ideal place to spend a day with the family. They had some rides, a look into how movies are made sort of thing, some gardens, a tour of scenes that had been used to shoot films, etc. Of course none of us have scene any of these Telugu films, so it was not so exciting for us. 

All in all it was kind of a bizzare place, but the topper, was the wild west stunt show; now think about this, a wild west stunt show, in the middle of India...I mean we almost had to. We learned a lot, for example, did you know that in the wild west everyone fought fought ninja style? Or that you would give one man 5 consecutive round house kicks to the face, only to have your opponent get back up unphased? Or that with every shoot out, they fought to odd Sci Fi sound effects layered over saloon music of a different key? Oh yes, it was very entertaining, but I give them props.

My favorite thing of the film city, the monkeys! These would get closer to you, they would rummage through trash and get food, and when you would approach them they would feel threatened and charge at you to get you to stand down, it's actually kind of terrifying to have a monkey charge at you, and very hilarious, because it's so small, and you just freak out and run away to avoid getting a monkey to the face. They are really fun to watch, they are like little fury people, by far the coolest animal in the area. So I posted some photos I took, I didn't take a lot

People are still asking to get photos with us, it's actually getting kind of irritating. I think I am actually empathizing with real celebrities that get angry at photographers, or even getting hounded all the time to get pictures. Now I am noticing people take pictures of us from a distance, as opposed to those who ask to get one with us; they just bust out a camera phone and point it in our direction. When we got to the park some guy wanted a picture with me as we were shaking hands...like a presidential handshake or something, it's just odd. The next time I see an Indian family out and about in Cinci I might run up to them and ask them "which country are you from?" and "can we get a picture...?", to see if they get the joke.

Another irritating thing, is that there is no concept of a waiting line. You might be waiting to buy something until the worker is done with that customer in front of you, and as soon as they wrap up their interaction someone just pushes you aside. This pretty much happens in any waiting line, for some reason the revelation that things work much faster and with much more ease when they are done with order and organization has not occurred yet. So you have to learn just to push people out of your way. The worst is when there actually is a line formed and people think it's okay to just skip the whole line, I can't conceive of any cultural mindset that would consider that to be fine; as there is nothing special about any of us, and no reason why any one person should skip a line as opposed to another. Then other people think they should do it, and soon there is no line, even when an official says to form a single line, it just doesn't matter. So you just push your own way to the front. 

We sometimes refer to Dr. Pappu as Papps now, only to each other. I think that Mr. and Mrs. Pappu are officially our Indian grandparents at this point. Especially Mrs. Pappu, as she has a very grandmotherly command about her. If you combined both of my grandmothers, and then made this hybrid-grandmother Indian, you would get Mrs. Pappu for sure.

It was a hot day, and I am tired, and feel dirty, and will do some Hindi work tonight and in the morning. There is a quiz tomorrow, over the alphabet and not sure about vocabulary, but either way I think I am prepared enough. 

Also, is it weird that I like to read my own blog?

The Market

We went to this market place today, where there was a lot of kite flying for a holiday. It was cool, they had a lot of stuff you could buy, and I will probably return at some point to buy things before I leave. 

There were a lot of beggar children outside of the entrance though, and they were kind of aggressive in their begging style. They would touch you to get your attention, never makes for a comfortable situation when you have cash out trying to group pay the rickshaw driver. When we left we decided to get some pizza hut, and the rickshaw drivers ripped us off. We thought it would be farther than it was, but it was only around the corner, and the group agreed to 100 rupees per rickshaw, split by four people. So when we weren't going to pay that amount for going that far, they pouted about it, and this kid just paid it because he was already ticked off by the beggar children ripping his kite. You have to watch getting ripped off. The pizza was good though.

I also managed to do some laundry, always a good thing. There were some odd things at the market though, like this guy performing tricks with a cow, letting it step on him and bite his neck to make money as a street performance; I did not give them money. There was also this giant of a man that let you take pictures with him for a donated fee, whatever you wanted to give him for it. He was huge. I also tried to take a picture in the rickshaw to give a perspective of the experience of riding in one, as you can see. 

I also forgot to mention a local nocturnal animal that is kind of interesting, really huge bats. Within the first couple of nights I noticed some flying things in the nights and evenings. At first I didn't question what they were, and just assumed they were black birds of some sort, like the crows you would see in the day time as well. Not until I watched one swoop into the tree and dangle upside down, did I realize they were really huge bats. Kind of cool I suppose, it reminds me of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, when Dr. Jones and the hot blonde woman crash land in Indian and float to this village, where they then take a hike some place, and the hot blonde woman looks up and says 

"Look at all those birds..." 

and Dr. Jones says "those aren't birds...those a vampire bats...". 

Of course I am paraphrasing, I have not seen that movie for a long time, but I was reminded. They also are not really vampire bats, these eat fruit and insects I believe. I think actual blood feeding bats are found in the South American region, not really sure. 

Hindi lesson

So I just ran into a local student I met a couple of days ago, and tried out my Hindi on him, he said it was good! So here is a hindi lesson for you, in transliteration of course.

1. hello=namaste

-the a's are pronounced like the 'a' in Father, and the 'e' like 'ay', and short.

2. My name is (insert name here)= Mera naam (your name) hai.

3. What is your name?= aapkaa naam kya hai?

Mera=my

naam=name

hai=is

aapkaa=your

kya=what

The sentence structure is of course different, where the verb is on the end. So "My name is Joshua" would be "my name Joshua is". With the script of course, this would look totally different, it's only the transliteration to show the pronunciation.

So I guess I can practice speaking with this guy, who happens to be Mormon converted from methodist due to Mormon missionaries, perhaps we can have some religious discussions as well.

The Group

Here are some pictures of the group, most of them are Miami students, there are a few that are not. Of course, in the first photo there are some university faculty. You will find me camping out in the back of every group picture. I also realized I wore the same shirt on both of our little outings, completely unintentional, I need to do laundry but there are only two machines, and they are always being used when I try to do laundry.

On our trip to the Buddhist monuments, waiting for the boat, I apparently made some friends. You have to get used to this in India, if you come here, and you are white, you are some what of a quasi-celebrity. It doesn't come with any really great perks, like offers of free stuff because you are awesome, in fact you may get charged more because you are a "rich american". However, you will frequently be greeted by strangers wanting to try out their English, and get a picture with a white guy (or girl), and sometimes, get an autograph. 

 

Random News

So it's the start of the first "real" week of classes, and my schedule is set. It is how I previously stated after the slight change, and it looks to be a good schedule. There isn't much to report, I just feel like posting a blog, so here are some slightly insignificant developments.

1. I downloaded Death Cab For Cutie's latest album off itunes, Narrow Stairs, even though it is overdue. I enjoy it, it has all the aesthetic appeal you would expect from a Death Cab album, and it is good "study" music.

2. Two nights ago I was sleeping, and I woke up to someone knocking on my door. so I answer and two of the other non-miami students are outside as one says "Josh, we have reason to believe that a giant rat has ran into your room, because jaimee woke up to it perched on his neck, and we chased it out and it ran under your door." Naturally, I was shocked, so I responded with a typical "josh hamm is shocked" response and said...."hmmmm, okayyyyy". so put some pants on and the other guy gets a pole and we locate it under my bed, he prods it with the pole and we get it out of my room. They corner it in a bathroom stall, and I leave them to do the capturing and go back to bed. It was really big...hopefully I do not wake up to one perched on my body.

3. I talked to my independent study professor, Dr. Prasad, briefly about the direction I want to go with the Vedanta study, or what I am interested in or how I am interested in looking at it. 

-We could do some reading of the principle texts, the Brahma Sutras, and sort of retrospectively look at the issues involved in the three different schools of thought, 

-we could focus on issues raised in the philosophies and commentaries on the brahma sutras, which make up the different schools of thought and their approach to metaphysical/epistemological issues

-or we took take a comparative approach to the study. I expressed my interest in phenomenology and consciousness, and he brought up the idea of doing a comparative study of Edmund Husserl (thinker/founder of phenomenology) with Shankara, the sage responsible for the Advaita school of vedanta, who differ on how they see consciousness.

So I am not sure what will go down, we will see. I am not sure I want to do a very narrow comparison of these two thinkers at this point, or if I adequately can. I have not read Husserl's actual writings yet, so I would have his readings, as well as vedanta readings, it might be a bit much. We will see what happens.

4. I am also somewhat concerned about the voltage from these outlets to my computer, it might be on the verge of being too much, but not "too" much. Some people have reported their computer doing weird things, the only thing weird my computer has done is the speakers stopped working, so I have to use headphones, and the battery doesn't seem to last too long. hmmmmmmmm, I wonder if i need a converter that converts voltage as well, even though the girl at radio shack (who I think was quasi-flirting with me), said that I wouldn't need to convert voltage. Time will tell....?

Nagarjuna dam

Below are some pics taken from our trip to the site where the patriarch of Buddhism, Nagarjuna, founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism once lived. We took a boat to the island and walked around, it was pretty cool. Below are some pictures taken during the trip, in this blog and the previous one. 

Also, I found a new wild animal roaming around, wild peacocks. Below is one flying of the little lake on campus.