Alice in Cambodia

Last month, on behalf of eRenlai, Alice Lin set off to Cambodia in search of peacemakers. She brought back a rich array of video materials, interviews and photos that will plunge you into the story and the challenges of the present Cambodian society, I pasted below her letter sent from Phnom Penh:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dear Cerise,
It is a little more than a week since I arrived in the dusty city of Phnom Penh and I haven’t really found the time to be idle. Phnom Penh is nothing like anything I’ve ever seen in Asia. Moto-dops and tuk-tuks dominate the roads. Speeding is no longer a question but rather the licensing of underage drivers, and the flooding of streets after heavy rain does not help the situation. Just two days ago I conducted my highly-anticipated interview with Francois Ponchaud, author of ‘Cambodia: Year Zero’ and the first to have spoken up against the Khmer Rouge in 1975. We spent the afternoon in a dimly-lit classroom where a barefooted Ponchaud spoke to me of the past and the present Cambodia. The next day I defied all weather condition and rode to CCH, an orphanage founded by Mech Sokha on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.
Sister Denise Coghlan was another figure on my list of peacemakers, and it wasn’t till our second meeting that I got down to asking her more in-depth questions on her work in banning landmines and cluster bombs. I was driven around by Van Kamol, a local psychologist and an equally engaging humanitarian in the medical field, whose past project involved caring for HIV-infected children. I hope that the material will show you a different side to the richness and creativity of the socially conscious community in Cambodia.
Love, Alice

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While Alice was busy exploring Phnom Penh, Roy Berman paid a visit to the Brazilian community in Toyota city and contributed an illustrated report on their conditions of living and the increasing tensions between them and the locals. In Rumour and Prevention, I ponder on the consequences of overly relying on rumours, in particular in the case of the H1N1 pandemic. And if you haven’t had the time to keep track of our weekly video commentary, you will find some in our editorial section: start with Mei’s Taiwanese glance at Shanghai.

Local Power in a Time of Global Crisis

Premier Wen Jiabao announced at the Boao Forum that China stimulus packing plan is already paying off, though he added that the global recession has not been reversed yet. At eRenlai, we decided to reflect on another way of tackling the current economic turmoil starting with the revitalization of local powers. Local initiatives engineered by a strong local public sphere might actually foster the emergence of economic and politic experiments. Thus, we explore the vitality of local territories, taking Taipei County as our research field:

Watch videos on the impact of civil participation or introducing original measures such as the “Trash-Never-Touch” one.
The project of a Northern Taiwan metropolitan region may change the way Taipei county is presently governed.

Enlarging our perspective, Dave Feehan, President of the International Downtown Association (Washington D.C.) exposes in his Flash animation how flourishing downtowns enhance their surroundings. Also, Benoit Vermander reflects on the conditions upon which international events may contribute to urban development.

In our editorials section a new contributor, Nicolas Pagnier sent us his own text about consumption after reading the article An Economy of Parsimony. Also watch a Flash animation introducing Yangjie, a Taiwanese woman who takes care of orphans suffering from AIDS. And travel to Northern Vietnam with Guillaume Rosec’s photos of Hmong people.
Ahead of the first anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake (May 12), Liang Zhun shares with us her experience as volunteer in the devastated area and the human lessons to be drawn from this drama.*

We wish you a merry month of May!

* For those of yours who live in Shanghai: Liang Zhung will give a conference to introduce her book of pictures on the reconstruction process after the earthquake. This book is sponsored by ‘Lafarge Shui-On’.
Saturday May 16, 4pm at Sunbow Art Gallery, 3d floor, Building 0, 50 Moganshan Road (Tel. 62993931)

Taipei Ricci Institute: Book Discount Sale on Saturday April 25th

The Ricci Institute is organizing a one-day book sale with very special discounts.
The large-scale sale consists of:
- our own products at very good prices
- duplicate copies coming from our library, in English, French, Chinese and other languages, including some rare books
- numerous general books in good condition ( novels, essays etc...) from 5NT (French, English, Chinese...)
- paintings by Bendu (Benoit Vermander) at a special price on that day only


Do not hesitate to drop us a visit for you might just uncover a real gem, or at least find something to read in the next few months!

Time: Saturday, April 25, 1:30 pm - 8:30 pm
Place: Tien Educational Center, 22 Hsin-hai road, 1st section, first floor
MRT station: Taipower Building, exit 1

Contact: Alexandre Chen (alextmchen at yahoo.fr)

http://www.riccibase.com/
http://www.erenlai.com/

eRenlai on G20 and the N Korea missile launch

Benoit Vermander comments on the G20 summit in London and Alice Lin gives her take on the DPRK missile that took place on Sunday April 5, 2009.

"I dwell in Possibility"

"A fairer House than Prose"

These beautiful lines composed by Emily Dickinson start Benoit Vermander's article on imagination. And what could better praise imagination than her poetry? Emily Dickinson who chose to seclude herself at the age of 30, wrote more than 1770 poems. She reminds me -maybe wrongly - of Marcel Proust who achieved his masterpiece enclosed during 15 years between the walls of his room, which he had beforehand soundproofed.

Stimulated by the eRenlai Springtime Focus, I decided to let my imagination run... but not too far! Actually, it just went in the hills behind my house. Roy Berman, a friend and also a contributor to the magazine, had come to visit me last summer. Later on, he sent me pictures of the slum and of the graveyard located in the other side of the hill where I dwell. I composed then a post-apocalyptic story after his pictures, trying to depict the routine of an old man who uses his imagination to replace his lost memory. This is what one could call an "imaginative" mise en abyme but I'd rather let you judge by yourself:

The Man in the Mountains
(or click here to download the pdf version)

Also, I recommend you the A Few Polar Songs by the lo-krautfolk musician Krotz Strüder who brilliantly sings 6 poems of Emily Dickinson and one by Emily Brönte. I copy here my three favorites:

The sky is low, the clouds are mean,
A travelling flake of snow
Across a barn or through a rut
Debates if it will go.

A narrow wind complains all day
How some one treated him;
Nature, like us, is sometimes caught
Without her diadem.

~ Emily Dickinson



We never know we go when we are going
We jest and shut the Door
Fate - following - behind us bolts it
And we accost no more.

~ Emily Dickinson

Emily Bronte - Come, Walk With Me

Come, walk with me,
There's only thee
To bless my spirit now -
We used to love on winter nights
To wander through the snow;
Can we not woo back old delights?
The clouds rush dark and wild
They fleck with shade our mountain heights
The same as long ago
And on the horizon rest at last
In looming masses piled;
While moonbeams flash and fly so fast
We scarce can say they smiled -

Come walk with me, come walk with me;
We were not once so few
But Death has stolen our company
As sunshine steals the dew -
He took them one by one and we
Are left the only two;
So closer would my feelings twine
Because they have no stay but thine -

'Nay call me not - it may not be
Is human love so true?
Can Friendship's flower droop on for years
And then revive anew?
No, though the soil be wet with tears,
How fair soe'er it grew
The vital sap once perished
Will never flow again
And surer than that dwelling dread,
The narrow dungeon of the dead
Time parts the hearts of men

Do you like your face?

This month Focus is dedicated to the relation between one's face and one's identity. While I was preparing the issue, I randomly shot quick takes of some of my co-workers and friends asking them if they like their face, which part they prefer, which part they don't like etc... It was quite fun to do it and to edit it, despite some technical problems due to the fact that I interviewed some of them with my photo camera... Most of all, I think that it reveals somehow some aspects of their very different personalities - I even discovered that some of my friends are born-actors!

I hope that you have fun watching this video:

http://www.erenlai.com/index.php?aid=2291&lan=3

(Photo by Wen-chun Kuan, see her presentation and her flickr)

"Ready to talk peace"

A catchy and strange title for this article on Reuter's webpage: China says ready to talk peace with Taiwan... But at the end it seems like there is still a balance to be found between political and economical necessities.

My Face, Myself - eRenlai March 09 newsletter

Dear Friends,

Are our appearances meant to define our identities, or vice-versa? There is a feminine touch in our Focus this month entitled “My Face, My Self”. Contributors share their approach on the relation between identity and appearance through aesthetic concepts: Aimee Hsu is a painter and a make-up artist, she describes the art of colors in “My Face, the canvas of my life”. Aurelie Kernaleguen provides us with a report on eyelid surgery in Taiwan. Wen-chun Kuan shares with us her intimate journey into self-photography. Alice Lin wonders about the mathematical equation of beauty and how appearances can be tricky when it comes to the overseas Asian youngsters today.

As you know, eRenlai uploades multimedia features on a regular basis; don’t forget to check our weekly commentary on the homepage. In our March editorials, watch short videos brought back from a village in Jiangxi Province: start with Good morning Changxi village! or The Blacksmith.
Also read and watch an exclusive interview with 92-year-old Spanish Jesuit priest Fr Andres Diaz de Rabago, who has lived in China, the Philippines, East Timor and Taiwan. Other videos, flash animations and articles broach subjects such as language education and Buddhist Master Sheng Yen who passed away in January.

Finally, we would like to thank you for your encouragements and the positive feedbacks we have received regarding eRenlai’s new layout. Nevertheless, we know that the new version has had some technical problems and we apologize for it. If you still encounter troubles in entering or opening our website pages, you can either try clearing your browser cache or pressing F5 to refresh your browser.

We wish you a great month ahead,

Who wants to be a Slumdog millionaire?

I didn't expect Slumdog Millionaire to win the Best Picture Oscar and even less to win 8 Oscars at all! Before the Oscar ceremony I had only seen the trailer and it is Alice, my colleague, who announced me the results last week. We decided then to film a short commentary about it (watch it here).

After watching the movie last week-end, I understand better how it can be an oscarized movie despite its relatively low-budget and its absence of famous actors from the US film-industry: the plot, a success-story with a happy-ending, is still quite hollywoodian, the characters and especially Jamal, the main hero, are manicheistic enough to be recognized as "types" (the naive and idealistic one, Jamal, the cynic who redeem himself, Salim, the beauty, innocent but pushed by social and economic imperatives, Latika). Even the non-linear construction of the narration does not seem that original after one hour... (for a maestro piece of cinema, in editing and narrative terms, see Valkyrie, which, in my sense is not a historical movie but a successful suspense exercise in cinema).

Still, I cannot say that I didn't like watching the movie, I did feel a bit irritated by the predictable nature of the end but the movie is enough entertaining and meaningful to be recommended and, probably, awarded!

Alice

As comments made about articles on eRenlai cannot appear directly on the website, I post below a comment we received a couple of weeks ago about an article written by Alice Lin. This is also the right time to introduce Alice: she has started to work for eRenlai as our English editor since December. Born in Taiwan, she has grown up in Namibia and lived in a lot of different countries including New Zealand, Singapour, France and Morocco. She recounts her numerous travels in her article Down with Zugunruhe which triggered the reader's comment below. Alice has many talents among which singing in !Xhosa, also listen to her and her friend Brenda here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This article is an extremely interesting testimonial. It reminds us that nomadism is an interesting and vast subject, as much of the past as of the future; discussing this subject may act as a valuable catalyst, may bring new ideas, even inspire new fields of research -at least in my case-... It is the second time in recent years, and from a very different angle, both apparently very important in terms of sociology, that I hear about 'nomadism' as a key subject, worth deeper analyses. Here with Alice Lin it is the angle of 'animal migratory behavior', engrained in the genes of a few species or individuals. The first time it was a more futuristic, theoretical and sociological angle. It was in browsing through the book "Une Brève histoire de l'avenir" (Paris Fayard 2006) by Jacques Attali (see his bilingual site www.attali.com). Very roughly the well-known and very prolific French essayist Attali describes the future, in a few decades, as an increasingly unified small planet where dominate two main social classes, the nomads (the 'higher', better educated and richest class) and the others, the (more) sedentary people. Whatever one may think of Attali's works and personality, I just discover here in checking this reference that he wrote a more precise book on the subject of human nomads, which I didn't read yet, "L'homme nomade", Paris Fayard 2003 (I didn't check translations of his books in other languages). Besides, amongst other ideas popping up in my mind with the term 'nomadism' right now, there is, with cheap flights and Internet, the link with this other important subject (one of my pet subjects) the possibly worrying 'acceleration of history', directly related to the growing size, complexity, but also interlinkage and unification, of the human society, due to technology (even if history repeats itself ...probably because the human body and brain doesn't evolve at all at the same pace than human society and technology -like nothing new with nomadism since the Paleolithic and probably in a thousand years through galaxies !-; ... thus human history may seem to be accelerating like a point moving along a spiral, towards -or away from ?-, a kind of noosphere or omega point !).Other ideas are popping up: the growing and bumpy disappearance of the concept of nation and/or state (especially in light of the present world economic crisis -the present sudden return of the nation-state is just a in my view reflex bursts of slowly dying complex bodies, for which wars and guns still unhappily remain the ultimate solution-), and thus the obvious necessity of a wider and better world governance of our small 'planet-village',...; on the opposite, the necessity somewhere in the genes of some living species -especially h. s. sapiens - of a 'home', of the German concept of 'heimat', a 'nest' where to grow up quietly and safely, where to acquire memories, an education, a conscience... The theme of 'nomadism' is also indeed linked to the subjects of education, languages and cultures, religions, family, friends and social links, freedom (of movement)(itself linked to the concept of democracy; where do I vote if I am a nomad ?, should I or can I if need be 'vote with my feet' ?), etc. etc.Besides, it was my first time on erenlai.com; congratulations for this site.

Arthur Syel

-------------------------------------------------------

Down With Zugunruhe

http://www.erenlai.com/index.php?aid=2125&lan=3