Georgetown (snapshot)

I think I probably should have just started posting random snapshots I like when I started it. I have to a certain degree, not all the photos (or what I write about) are project related, but I have so many that I wish I had just posted without trying to come up with a justification. This sort of has to do with my next post and the fact that I go home in less than three weeks!

Georgetown, Malaysia

Georgetown is beautiful. The old Chinatown is probably one of the coolest urban areas I've been to, alongside Cape Town's Bo Kaap neighborhood (whose residents, incidentally, came from the Malaysian archipelago) and Havana. A lot of the buildings look like they haven't changed since the 1960s or even earlier, with many buildings in various stages of decay and renovation.

Georgetown was recently inaugurated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which I think is entirely deserved. The architecture here is unique, a mix of traditional southern Chinese village housing with British colonial influences, as well as Muslim influences from the town's Indian population.

These photos don't give you an idea of what the town is like, but the old advertisements certainly help contribute to a feeling of being stuck in another era.





See me?

Malaysia

I am now in Georgetown, a city on the island of Penang, in Malaysia. Sorry about the radio silence.

In case you were wondering, Annalisa is working on an excavation outside some old abbey in northern France.

Things they left behind

I just posted on a friend's blog with photos from China, of a near-empty village where many people have moved to Brazil and the United States. I've posted there mainly because the readership of Mauricio's blog is largely Brazilian (Mauricio is from Sao Paulo), and I haven't figured out how to cross-post it onto my blog.

The link is here:

Aqui e Acola: Things they left behind

The snake

Today I witnessed the slaughter of a snake and its subsequent consumption in Saigon. I have only seen a slaughter a few times in my life -- I witnessed the slaughter of huge pig in Cuba on Christmas eve, some fish, chickens with their heads plucked off, and that's about it. In a way, if you are going to eat an animal, I think you should be able to see where it comes from, how it ends up on your plate.

I had deep fried snake once before, in China. This snake was served in a stew. Snake meat is kind of like a cross between tough fish and chicken.

Those with snake phobia (Annalisa), you might want to skip this post.










The snake out of the bag.

Gutting the snake.


Squeezing the blood out to mix with rice wine.


Amazingly, the snake -- gutted, head cut off -- still wrestles with itself.
Removing the innards of the snake

This guy ate the raw gall bladder of the snake.
Snake soup. THese are snake eggs that the slaughtered female snake carried inside itself. They kind of just taste like egg yoke.

Rice wine mixed with snake blood and bile. Down it as fast as possible.

Cholon, Ho Chi Minh City

Cholon is the historical "Chinatown district" in Saigon, now officially known as Ho Chi Minh City.

In case you hadn't realized already, most Chinese immigrants are good entrepreneurs. Hence, when the Communists came smashing through and closed all the free markets, many Chinese people fled Vietnam. With markets opening up once again, the Chinese people are once more beginning to show off their entrepreneurial talent.


Funny thing. After arriving in Vietnam from China, I've been making many comparisons between the two. I've been surprised how tolerant most Vietnamese people are with having their photo taken, at least in comparison to their Chinese counterparts. Most don't seem to mind, and there are rarely angry security guards that make up arbitrary rules prohibiting photography in public places.

Nevertheless, when I got to Cholon, I noticed immediately how much more camera-shy the Chinese there were. Originally, I would have liked to take a portrait of this trio, apparently grandparents and their grandchild. But the man and woman casually covered their faces while allowing me to photograph their child, with little protest. The result seems somewhat funny to me.


Since I'm travelling alone I don't get many photos taken of me. My college photography professor required us to take at least three self-portraits on each roll of film (remember those?), and I've gotten in the habit of taking them. Here I am wearing my new blazer and shirt I got tailor-made in Vietnam, because apparently that's what you do when you go to Vietnam. It's quite incredible, really, little shops can spit out an entire suit in less than 12 hours of you walking into the store.

Vietnam

I am in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon. I have been in Vietnam for more than a week now, having traveled southwards from the Chinese border.

A map of the Chinese diaspora

My friend Julian sent me this link, a world map of the Chinese diaspora. I met Julian nearly a year ago in Lima, Peru -- incidentally, Julian is also a Chinese-American.

http://www.wallpaper.com/madeinchina/diaspora

The map shows the major Chinese settlements of around the world. What seems to be missing is a more updated version showing Chinese immigration in Africa. Nigeria has upwards of 100,000 Chinese people, and Ethiopia has between 40,000-50,000.

Mannequins

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Birmingham, England

I've actually taken quite a few photos of mannequins on this trip, starting with my very first stop in Peru. Some street near the Barrio Chino in Lima specialized in suits and had a bunch of scary looking mannequins. Mannequins are strange; large, idealized figures meant to represent humans in an odd, overgrown barbie-like fashion.

The two images below, from Ethiopia, reminded me of this photo I had taken two years ago in India.