What they Eat in China

So I didn't have time to write up an official DB tonight, but when I was reading the section in Woman Warrior about all the crazy food they eat in China, it reminded of my travels to Guangzhou.  So I decided to post some pictures of some of the food I saw/ate when I was in China. 

"There was a tender plant with flowers like white stars hiding under the leaves, which were like the flower petals but green  It had not taste." (90)  We also ate these flowers, and I can vouch they had no taste at all. 

Here I'm about to devour a nice crispy snake tidbit....yum!

Crocodile, super fresh.

Snake, even fresher!

But which snake is the freshest?

Stomach was perhaps the grossest thing I ate, never again!

You wouldn't think there was a lot to eat from a duck's foot, but the Chinese find a way.

Ah tongue tasting tongue... I didn't actually eat this one

Even insects are not off the menu, this was in a restaurant

No an aquarium, but a restaurant

Bird eggs are for squares, Wasp larvae is where it is at

Lung- it nearly took my breath away

The French eat the fleshy part of the duck, but the Chinese eat the dried out heads and beaks

Squid

Diversity?

"That night two frogs the size of year-old babies appeared in his room.  He clubbed them to death, cooked them, and ate them with white wine."  (90)

"He shot and cooked rabbits and birds, but he could also eat scorpions, snakes, cockroaches, worms, slugs, beetles, and crickets." (89)

Turtle Turtle

Eel was actually one of my favorites.  

Are you a Hillary or a Sarah

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/palin-hillary-open/656281/

 As this video demonstrates their is still a identity crisis for how women should act in politics (I couldn't get the video to work)

  I’m sure it comes as no surprise to the class that from the moment I heard Barrack Obama speak at the 2004 Democratic National Convention I became a strong supporter.  But despite my firm belief that he was the best candidate I always felt a little bit sorry for Hillary Clinton.  I know it is cliché to discuss her difficulties as a woman, but truly her campaign and the appearance of Sarah Palin as the Republican nomination for Vice President represent the kind of identity crisis women are having in the quest for roles of power.  Ever since women gained legal equality they have been trying to figure out how to break the glass ceiling and achieve true equality.  After thousands of years as subservient roles, where do you fit in as equals?  Do you abandon femininity and adopt the style of business as men or do you create a new style business with a female flair? 

Hillary Clinton if fierce but does that mean less of a woman?

            On the one hand you have the Hillary Clintons of the professional world.  The women who “grow a pair of balls” and play hardball with the boys.  In Maxine Hong Kingston’s book ‘Woman Warrior’ she translates this role in medieval China where a swordswoman assumes the role of a man to lead a troop of soldiers against corruption.  By doing so she attains power and pride that she would not have felt, but must sacrifice part of what defines her as a woman.  “When I became pregnant, during the last four months, I wore my armor altered so that I looked like a powerful big man.  As a fat man, I walked with the foot soldiers so as not to jounce the gestation.” (pg 39) Later she gives up raising the child to protect it from her dangerous line of work.  This is as the case for the Hillary Clintons of the world today.  They have achieved top level education, worked hard and attained the power and prestige they deserve, formidable opponents to any man.  However at the same time they are viewed by many as not truly “female.”  They are labeled as “bitches” and considered to be bad mothers because they value their career.  Career woman also run the risk of lonely lifestyles.  As expressed in Woman Warrior, “Nobody supports me at the expense of his own adventure.  Then I get bitter: no one supports me; I am not loved enough to be supported.” (pg 48)

Sure she is hot, but is that enough to lead?

            So this fear prevent woman from assuming this kind of strong independent woman role in society.  Instead they become more Sarah Palin beauty queen models.  “To sustain her being loved, she often works at herself in the mirror, guessing at the colors and shapes that would interest him, changing them frequently in order to hit on the right combination.” (pg 9)   This isn’t to say the Sarah Palin’s forfeit power, but instead choose to embrace femininity and use it to their advantage.  They run things like they would run their family home and allow men to at least feel to a certain degree in power.  Of course this is dangerous line, as Sarah Palin found out.  Political analysts say that Sarah Palin struggled with women voters because feminists thought she was too weak and promoting negative female stereotypes where traditionalist woman believed she was asserting too much power for a woman. 

            So where does this leave women? Hell if I know!  I grew up with two complex females and I am no closer to understanding them.  I have met mild manner housewives who can take control and strong independent women who blush and giggle like school girls. I will attest that women are just as smart and capable as men, but so have much more baggage.  Whether they are still victims of history and just need time to find their place amongst the boys, or whether they are just more susceptible to all these emotions that make life more complicated I have no clue. 

WOMEN ARE A PUZZLEMENT!

The Maginot Line

Two score and six years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand, delivered a speech that would forever mark how America viewed race relations. Martin Luther King Jr. said in that historic speech “One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land.” (King 325) So now, forty years later, after the Civil Rights Act and Affirmative Action, we have to ask whether or not we have truly changed the status of African Americans in this country. According to the National Census blacks still maintain the highest poverty rate at 24.7%, followed by Hispanics at 21.9%, Asians at 9.8% and Whites at 8.2%. So despite all this effort that America has supposedly put in to equalizing the lifestyle of African Americans, why is it that a black family is three times more likely to be in poverty than a white family?

When trying to determine why it seems that minority groups have a difficult time earning truly “equal” status (that is equal pay and truly equal opportunity) to white Americans I think it is useful to discuss one of Toni Morrison’s witty allusions in her novel “The Bluest Eye.” Upon first introduction the prostitutes perplexed me. Not for perverse reasons, but because of their names. China, Poland and Maginot Line, what did these names mean? They seemed too planned out to truly be simple nicknames. Of course the name Maginot Line seemed to hold special significance as not only was she the one singled out by Claudia, “But the Maginot Line. That was the one my mother said she ‘wouldn’t let eat out of one of her plates,” (Morrison 77), but also because the name doesn’t fit the country pattern of the other two. I went to the best place on the web to research the Maginot Line, Wikipedia, where I discovered that it “was the line of fortification which France constructed along its borders with Germany and Italy in the light of experience from World War I and in the run up to World War II.” France concentrated all its forces on the Maginot Line, leaving its northern Belgium border unguarded, allowing Germany to tear through Belgium and eventually conquer France.

A Military Mishap Made Metaphor

Of course this information really did not provide me with the faintest idea of how this pertained to the prostitute in ‘The Bluest Eye,’ so I furthered my research to google scholar where I found excerpts from Jennifer Gillan’s book ‘Focusing on the Wrong Front: Historical Displacement, the Maginot Line, and the ‘Bluest Eye.’” It was here that I discovered the connection to this allusion:

“By focusing attention on its intervention on the international front in other nations’ racial and ethnic conflicts, the United States can repress its own domestic racial problems and histories of oppression. This tendency to concentrate attention on the wrong front is signified through Morrison’s bestowing the name Maginot Line on the prostitute on whom most of the town’s respectable black women focus their anger. While the names China and Poland signify the European and Asian fronts of World War II, Maginot Line refers literally to the failed French border fortifications and metaphorically to the tendency to focus on the wrong front.”

So perhaps this is why we are not truly solving the problems of racial equality in America, because we refuse to focus on the correct front. I think this can be clearly seen in America’s response to foreign policy. One of our big attacks on China is their intolerance for minority religious groups, and yet we subject our own minorities to similar cultural simulation.

Sure they have faults, but you know about people in glass houses

“The Bluest Eye” does a beautiful job of demonstrating how America’s white majority usies pop-culture to prioritize the beauty of white society over minority society. In the scene where Pecola buys candy, notice how the advertisement on the candy affects Pecola’s perception of beauty:

“Each pale yellow wrapper has a picture on it. A picture of little Mary Jane, for whom the candy is named. Smiling white face. Blond hair in gentle disarray, blue eyes looking at her out of a world of clean comfort. The eyes are petulant, mischievous. To Pecola they are simply pretty. She eats the candy, and its sweetness is good. To eat the candy is somehow to eat the eyes, eat Mary Jane. Love Mary Jane. Be Mary Jane. “ (Morrison 50)

True American beauty right?

It is not that the wrappers specifically said black was ugly, but by associating beautiful white people with a delicious product it is sending a subconscious message that white is more beautiful. This point would be easily refuted if there were other candies with beautiful black girls on them, but at this time there weren’t. Today with all the different ethnic Barbies we would like to believe we have surpassed this sort of pop culture racism, but alas I believe we have a long ways to go.

I remember in high school a girl in my class said “I don’t understand why they have black TV, its not like there is white TV?” To which I replied “Almost all mainstream television is white TV.” Practically every TV show and movie today still focuses on white people, and the only ones that don’t have to make a specific point of doing so. I recently read that the film ‘21’ was originally about a group of Asian students at MIT, but the producers changed the leading to characters’ ethnicities to white. Why is that?

Asian, from star to supporting actor :(

Dana’s discussion board demonstrated how this same line of thinking is being translated into our education system and work force. As far as intelligence goes, people are not judged based on what they know or how well they communicate, but how well they communicate to the white man’s standards. For whatever reason, America’s interpretation of English (despite how grammatical it stays to English’s original form) is deemed correct, and any other interpretation of the language is deemed unintelligent. Why is that?

Perhaps we can continue to fight racism with token black comedians or promoting those minorities who conform to the cultural securities or our heritage, but as long as we do this we are only fortifying our Maginot Line. We must take a second look at our ability to accept other cultural institutions as more than a semester course, but as equal. “If America is to be a great nation, this must become true.” (King 327)

La Vernia a simple town with simple problems

In La Vernia, I was never truly aware of suffering.  I had seen the news footage tsunami victims in Sri Lanka, was aware of starving kids in Africa and had seen the random homeless man trying to wash my car windows, but I had never actually been personally affecting by true suffering.  In La Vernia most people are well off, they have homes, clothes food.  This is not to say there aren’t people who are very poor, or that there are not other forms of suffering in La

 Vernia, but it is very easy to grow up without ever having to see it first hand. “Nobody teaches us to face suffering in this society. We never talk about it until we get hit in the face.” (Dass 52) This was the reason that my trip to China was such an eye opening experience.

One of the more mild pictures of survivors of the Sichuan earthquake-so much suffering

            I probably didn’t see the worst parts of China.  My sister in-law, who is Chinese, made sure that I ate at the best restaurants, went to the best malls where I got the best prices, rode taxis instead of public transit, when Dad came we stayed in the best hotels.  I know she just wanted us to have a great experience, but I could help but wonder if she also calculated a more than perfect trip, so we would have an idealistic positive impression of her homeland. Despite her best efforts, suffering could not be hidden.  The Sichuan earthquake had hit a few

 months earlier and thousands of people were killed or injured. As a result all along the street victims of the quake lay on the ground pleading for money.  I have never seen so much pain. Many of these people were not even recognizable as people, they were like blobs of skin and bone melting in the hot Cantonese sun.  I feel guilty, describing them with such little respect, but everything about there being oozed pain.  I felt in a way guilty, I could walk, speak, pick up food, eat, simple activities that many of these people could not do. I know it wasn’t my fault that they had suffered the quake and I hadn’t, but I still wondered why they had this horrendous misfortune, and I could like such a comfortable life.  Why is it that some suffer so much, while some suffer so little?

            This was only the beginning of my awareness of suffering.  My first semester of college, I was bombarded by more .  In OxFam I learned that the clothes and food I bought was only possible because some person had worked countless hours for pennies, in World Lit I learned how the beef I ate was beaten and abused, in my Voltaire’s Coffee I learned how the United States slaughtered innocent people for imperialistic means.  Everywhere I turned someone was in pain, someone was living in hell so I could enjoy a life of comfort.  How was this fair?

It is sobering to think that for Americans to live such a high standard of living, other must suffer.  Maybe Gandhi was right "Live Simply that other might simply live."

            I decided last semester that the only way to justify my lifestyle was to spend some chunk of my life aiding those less fortunate.  But “whom should I help anyway? Senior citizens, battered children, human-rights victims, whales? If we don’t defuse the nuclear threat, there’ll be no tomorrow. But if we don’t support education and the arts, what kind of tomorrow will it be?” (Dass 9) There is only so much of me and so many problems in the world, how can I make a difference?  What would be the best way to contribute without being burned out? “Sometimes the chance to care for another human being feels like such grace.  But later on, I’ll hear myself thinking, “hey what about me?”” (Doss 10) I thought that the best way to approach how to best help the world and how to do something that I would not be burned out on would be to better define myself.  However how does one define myself.  In American society normally our careers help provide this self identity, however as Dass points out this can be quite limiting. “Perhaps we recognize the predicament; we see the problem of always having to be “somebody.” So we decide to let it all go, become the model of humility, and aspire to the ideal of selflessness.” (Dass 28)  This is a really nice sentiment, however it doesn’t really help me plan my next steps in life.  I am all for making my existence more selfless, but how? If I said I wanted to help people through medicine I would have a clear path, I would become a doctor.  If I wanted to protect people’s rights, I could become a lawyer.  But again all these things have a clear path.  But at the end of the day “what’s left when they fall away? “Where’s the rest of me?”” (Dass 27)  But there is not clear path to becoming selfless.  So again I find myself lost.  I have no path.  I have vague goals, with no set way to achieve them, and I don’t know who I am…

Bum or Spiritually Enlightened?

            One of the great conflicts I have with eastern religions and my personal life is the renunciation of the world. When learning about asceticism, the though of leaving this crazy artificial world behind to find my inner self is so tempting.  I long to “listen to the divine voice in my heart.” (Hesse 72) I have great respect for renouncing the world.  I totally buy into the idea that greed and materialism is the root of suffering and that we should all simplify, simplify.  I can totally relate to Siddartha when he “saw mankind going through life like a child or animal that he both loved and despised at the same time.  He saw them toiling, suffering, and becoming gray-haired for the sake of things which seemed to him entirely unworthy of this price.” (Hesse 67)  But as much as I am bothered by samsara, getting trapped in the cycle, I don’t see any way out.

I feel that I am stuck on the wheel of Samsara, but how do I get out?

            The general ascetic approach to leaving the cycle is renunciation, or building up enough good karma until you can get to a life where you can renounce.  Renouncing the world means you must give up everything, that is the material world (house, car, most food, clothes, etc) but then also things like careers, friends, family (Side note I am not saying all eastern religions or people believe in renouncing these things, but that in cases like the Samanas in Siddhartha, they do).  As a westerner this concept is very difficult to jjjldfunderstand.  Much of our life is based off of not only materialism, but also family status and our careers.  “The strength of the West’s cultural spirit lies in its ability to push ahead indefinitely.  However there is no secure foundation underlying this feverish pursuit of progress.  Along with this pursuit of progress there is a feeling of discontentment and of emptiness.  In order to fill this emptiness, the individual and the nation constantly find new ways for progress and expansion.” (X 285)  I do feel that much of what defines me as a person is my skills and family connections, so while I would love to leave all of the materialistic crap, I don’t know if I could leave my family and career options.  That does seem very empty.  What would I be?  Of course there is the possibility that it is foolish of me to reduce myself to something like a career.  What does a career matter in the long run, after I am dead? If by refusing to focus on a career I could find true enlightenment wouldn’t that be more fulfilling?  Am I just thinking I am filling the void, when really I am just deluding myself?

How should I define myself?  Is a career enough, or do I need this kind of deep spirituality?

            The other problem I have with renouncing the world is the guilt I think I would have.  No matter how little it may be, I will undoubtedly consume part of the earth, so isn’t it my duty to give back, if not to my fellow man then to the world?  I find it amazing that those willing to give up the world don’t seem to struggle or worry about taking food from others and non repaying them.  Notice the following scene from Siddhartha:

            “ ‘For more than three years, I have been without possessions, and have never thought about what I should live on.’

            ‘So you’ve lived off the possessions of others’

            ‘I suppose that is so.  Even a merchant lives off what other people own.’

            “Well said.  But he wouldn’t take anything from another person for nothing; he would give his merchandise in return.’

            ‘Everyone takes, everyone gives, such if life.’

            ‘But allow me to ask: being without possessions, what would you life to give?’

             ‘I can think. I can wait.  I can fast.’” (Hesse 62)

Siddhartha goes on to explain how those traits help him, but never shows how they pay the rest of the world.  I have a friend, who since graduating high school, hasn’t really done a lot with his life.  He is really smart, but not motivated.  A couple months ago his family kicked him out of the house so he would have to get a job. My mom I being compassionate people are letting him stay in my room.  No while I don’t think he is going on a spiritual quest, he can most certainly think, wait and probably even fast, but that does not help pay for the food and energy he does inadvertently consume.  He would make a great Samana, because he has no problem depending on the generosity of others, without feeling a need to pay them back.  I don’t mean to sound stingy, but if everyone did this, nothing would get done.  Maybe we would have enlightened souls, but who would feed them?

I don't think I could ever be totally dependent on the charity of others

           I am not trying to stereotype these religions, or minimize their worth.  I really like the basic concepts, but don't know how I can effectively practice them and still hold on to certain western traditions I value. So where does this leave me?  I think perhaps I will try to start by purifying my mind using the techniques of Ahimsa presented in the readings. Trying practical methods to become less violent, but realizing that “Absolute Ahimsa is impossible…To practice that, you must avoid killing countless creatures while walking, sitting, eating, breathing, sleeping and drinking.” (X 227) I don’t think I am spiritually ready for the extreme devotional practices of eastern thought, however studying them has helped me reevaluate parts of my life I can improve upon, and who knows maybe one day I will be an ascetic. 

What is love?

What is love? I really tried to answer this question during our meditation to send love to one another.  Love is a term used frequently, perhaps even overused. In the play the Idiot by Dosteoevsky, the battle over different forms of love is constantly recurrent.  Many of the characters (Anastassya, Aglaya, and Parfyon) fall into this very personal and emotional state of love, where the character is completely devoted to a person, there sole being longs and desires for that person, they complete each other.  However all of this love conflicts with another form of love, compassionate love.  The play’s protagonist, The Prince, loves everyone, he wants nothing more than to help and care and end suffering for anyone he meets.  However this form of love does not easily coincide with devotional love.  The women, Anastassya and Aglaya, who fall in love with the Prince, can never deal with the fact that even he is married to them he does not love them anymore than any other person.

    

Here is the scene where Aglaya first falls in love with the Prince for his compassionate love.  I could only find the seen in Russian.

 In many ways I can relate myself to the Prince.  I believe I do love and feel and am compassionate for people.  However I don’t know if I have ever felt that completely devotional love for one person. All encompassing love can be a wonderful gift, one that I think Bump has been trying to culminate in this class all year, and yet as witnessed in The Idiot it can have terrible consequences.  In the play all the bonds and friendship are broken, destroyed and ruined, because the Prince is unable to commit, because he continuously tried to end suffering and yet no matter what he does suffering exists.

The Image of Buddha suffering

             Buddhism deals a lot with the truly compassionate being confronting suffering.  In Herman Hesse’s novel Siddhartha, the reader sees that Siddhartha is surrounded by the personal devotional love, and yet it was not satisfying.  Knowing that there was pain in the world, a truly compassionate soul could not be content with selfish love of two people. “He had started to feel like his father’s love, his mother’s love, and the love of his friend Govinda wouldn’t make him happy forever, wouldn’t bring him peace, satisfy him, and be sufficient for all time.” (Hesse 7)  And so Siddhartha must go on a quest to reconcile his compassionate love with the suffering of millions. On his journey Siddhartha read the great philosophies, meditated on the why’s and how’s and suffered with his fellow man and yet nothing he did gave him the truth.  Nothing explained how to reconcile true love for your fellow man with the pain you felt at his misfortune.  “Everything was a lie, everything stank, everything stank of lies, everything feigned meaning and happiness and beauty, and yet everything was decaying while nobody acknowledged the fact.  The world tasted bitter; life was agony.” (Hesse 16)  And so moves much of Buddhist philosophy, it is not easy to understand true pain for your fellow man.  So the only way to move past this pain, to achieve a peaceful state is to “become empty, to be empty of thirst, of wishing, of dreams—empty of all joy and pain…to no longer be an ‘I,’ to find peace with an empty heart.” (Hesse 16)

Perhaps suffering will never end, so what does a truly compassionate person do?

            I don’t plan on converting to Buddhism in the near future, but this whole idea of suffering and compassion has had a huge impact on my plans for the future.  I came to UT with the original idea of working for peace.  Traveling the world and trying to help people.  However my experiences, much like Buddha’s have been cushy.  I have never had to truly suffer, nor have I been surrounded by suffering.  Since I’ve entered college I have been exposed to all sorts of human suffering around the world and the great attempts to help it.  And yet despite people’s greatest efforts it still persists.  Life is always suffering.  So what is a truly compassionate person to do?  Is the lesson of love Bump is teaching, one that will only lead us to feel an overwhelming sense of futility for the pain of our fellow man? In Buddhism one must accept suffering, as a part of life.  That non-suffering during life is a delusion that one must see through and ignore.

            “I know Thee! Never shalt thou build again

                                                Thee walls of Pain,

            Nor Raise the Roof-Tree of deceits, nor lay

                                                Fresh rafters on the clay;

            Broken thy house is, and the rideg-pole split!

                                                Delusion Fashioned it!

            Safe Pass I thence—deliverance to obtain.”

                                                            (X 247)

Orientalism: A Taint of Grotesque Exageration

Asian cultures and religions fascinate me.  I have grown up dominated with Western concepts and ideas, that didn’t always makes sense to me, so Eastern philosophy has provided interesting alternatives to my previous conceptions of the world.  This semester I am taking two classes to teach me more about Asian ideas: Intro to China and Asian Religions.  In each of these classes along with my Theater History class when we were studying Japanese Noh and Sanskrit Theater, they warned us not to get in the common western trap of glorifying the East.  A common misconception among westerners is to take our frustrations with the West by developing a sentimental attachment to the East and not taking a realistic objective look at the subject.  “Oriental tender mercy has always been liable to this taint of grotesque exaggeration.” (251) I can’t help but think that this is what is happening in the Jainism and Ecology article.

It is too common that westerner glorify the east

The article uses the concept of ahimsa as a model for how modern society can deal with ecological problems.  I really agree with the idea that “Pollution, extinction of species, and destruction of forests and wild life are crimes against the earth and against humanity.  We have a moral obligation toward nonhuman creation.” (X 232)  And Gandhi’s use of the term ahimsa, “If I am a follower of ahimsa, I must love my enemy,” is what I state as the foundation for my own personal philosophy.  But from a scholarly standpoint it seems that the article misrepresents the Jains to make a point about compassion towards animals and plants.  The article states “There are thousands of pinjrapoles (animal refuges), organized and financed by Jains, in the towns and villages of Gujarat and Rajasthan, for the protection of helpless beasts and birds, whom even their owners forsake and who do not enjoy even the provision of drinking water.” (X 231)  I do not claim to be a Jain scholar, but from what I learned about Jainism in my Asian Religions class this information is misleading.  To a western audience it makes the Jains seem loving and compassionate, when in fact this isn’t entirely so.  In class we learned that Jainist’s main goal is to escape the cycle of reincarnation, and that reincarnation is caused by karma, both good and bad, so the idea of a Jain is not to create good karma, but to eliminate karma all together.  This is extremely difficult, of course, because every action creates karma, so it has created a sort of obsessive society in which every action is minimalized to reduce the amount of karma.  So while it is true that Jains don’t eat meat, try not to step on bugs or plants or anything alive and even go so far as to boil out the germs in their water so they won’t digest any of them, they do not act so out of compassion but fear that animal cruelty would give them karma.

Jainism is so devoted to eliminating Karma that some monks participate in a ritual called Sallekhana, that is no action at all (including eating) until you die 

 It is also deceiving to discuss these animal refuges that “assiduously promoted the protection of animals in the name of ahimsa,” because while they did protect the animals they did not offer any aid to the animals. “They are not hospitals in the true sense, for ailments are not treated, but simply refuges for halt, maimed, diseased, and blind creatures for whom nobody cares.” (X 250) In the video we watched in our class of a Jainist animal refuge all of the cows were in extreme pain, there legs were twisted and broken, many looked like they were starving and disease filled their eyes.  The Jainists believe that you should protect the animals, because killing them would bring bad karma, however you cannot really help the animals, because that would give you good karma which means you would remain in the cycle.  Gandhi, one of the greatest examples of non-violence got into serious trouble with the Jainist community because he shot a cow to end its suffering.  The Jains said that if the cow was suffering it was due to actions in a past life and that man should not interfere with karma.

Refuge is not a refuge from suffering

While I will probably take grief for this, I think Lockwood Kipling presents a more rational and accurate portrait of animal relationships in India.  As he notes “They are admirable points in the ritual respect for life….Village boys are not there seen stoning frogs or setting dogs at cats, nor tying kettles to dogs’ tails, and it has not been found necessary to forbid birdnesting by Act of Parliament.” (X250)  Kipling gives India a lot of credit, the West can learn a lot about respecting living things, violence should not be the first action.  However Kipling also presents them in a rational light.  There is violence in other parts of Indian culture.  Austyn criticized Kipling for misrepresenting sacrifices to the goddess Kali, but in fact Kali is a very violent goddess.  She has 8 arms, each carrying a weapon, her skirt is made from human arms and she wears a necklace made of human heads.  The point is that India is not a violent or lesser culture, but that it, like the west, like all cultures possess some good philosophies, but ones that must still be challenged and rationalized.

John Lockwood drawing of a cow in India

"Shooting a Turkey"

Have any of you been to Cabella’s?  It is one of the biggest outdoors stores in the country, and we are so fortunate to have one (thanks to Rick Perry’s tax breaks) right outside of Austin in Buda, Texas.  When reading Harriet Ritvo’s chapter “The Thrill of the Chase” from her book The Animal Estate, Cabella’s is what immediately came to mind.  Much like the British imperialists, Cabella’s displays stuffed animals from the around the globe, “rows of horns and hides, mounted heads and stuffed bodies, clearly alluded to the violent heroic underside of imperialism….The theme of conquest was implicitly expressed by the centerpiece of its natural history display: a tiger and a panther snarling at brightly colored tropical birds.  Big game trophies figured frequently in expositions celebrating commercial and industrial prowess.” (X 197)  “Each stuffed animal represented a bloody triumph in the field, an impression that might be enhanced by arrangements and backgrounds designed to suggest the animal’s native territory.” (X97)  Rednecks from all over come to look at these exotic creatures, imagining their own victory against the beast.  Undoubtedly Cabella’s uses these taxidermied treasures to rake in the cash, and every time I’ve been their it has been packed with visitors.  However the idea of Cabella’s always seemed absurd to me, not just because of the obvious exploitation of animal lives to make a profit, but because it never seemed to reflect the “outdoors” part of it’s title.  It tailored its products to hunters and outdoorsman and yet was clear capitalism, stuffed with materialism and cheesy gimmicks.  In my opinion it never really reflected the true atmosphere of natural experiences or even hunting.

So beautiful is should be shot!

The concept of hunting has been a constant battle my entire life.  I  always believe that killing was morally wrong, that men didn’t have the right kill an innocent creature for his twisted amusement. My father, however, was a devoted hunter. President of the San Antonio Chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation, Dad was out every weekend during turkey season trying to call up the big gobbler.  I remember him dragging me to turkey banquets, where drunk hunters would bid on guided turkey hunts, turkey paintings, turkey sculptures, turkey guns, and turkey clothing, so that the organization could protect turkeys for future turkey hunters to shoot.  (If you never have been to a Turkey Banquet it is a cultural experience, imagine a ballroom, loaded with turkey merchandise, bar-b cue, guns, a turkey ice sculpture and everyone dressed in camouflage.) I couldn’t understand how my father could get so much enjoyment raising money to protect a bird, so that he could turn around and destroy it.  If he and all these other hunters loved the bird so much, why did they want to shoot it? For a long time Dad and I would argue about this, and he would always tell me “hunting was one of the closest relationships man had with nature and that the hunters were the ones who spent the time and energy to take care of mother earth.”  This was for a long time never satisfying, until I went on a hunt with my dad, brother, brother in-law and sister. 

It is hard describe what hunting is like, so the video helps, but I will do my best to paint the picture.  Imagine its 5 in the morning and the first rays of light are trickling over the horizon.  You and your pack are nestled down under an expansive oak tree, decked out in camo, invisible behind the shrubbery.  In the field expanded before you Henrietta the plastic decoy blows back in forth in the wind.  As the sun rises a little higher, your dad begins plucking the box call.  The world is silent accept for these sharp, staccato notes.  You sit there for maybe an hour, but it isn’t boring or dull, because all around you is the beauty of nature.  The grass glows from the rising sun, shapes of trees, flowers, bushes, insects and birds begin to form out of the shadow and if your lucky a fox or deer will dash across your field of vision.  It is not exciting or thrilling, you are relaxed in a meditative state, you are not a man, but part of nature and enjoying the oneness of life.  Your dad’s box call fugue rises and falls until all of a sudden a monstrous gobble thunders through the underbrush.  Then everyone snaps to attention.  The dance begins, the demure chirp of the call and the rattle of the gobble, back and forth echoing through the forest.  Finally you see him, a mighty Tom strutting through the underbrush, his tail fanned, chest puffed, iridescent feather reflecting the beauty of the morning and his bright cherry head bobbing up and down looking for his lusty lover. He sees Henrietta and puffs up, saying “Baby you lookin’ good!” Your dad whispers to aim the gun towards the turkey and get ready to fire.  You lower the gun, hand on the trigger, when all of the sudden Tom Turkey deflates, his sharp eyes have spotted movement and before you can fire he has flown off into the woods.

This is a typical hunt.  While Cabella’s and British Imperialist focus on the dead body, the hunter is more interested with the process.  The reward is experiencing the natural world, not the killing. The truth is, while we debate a good game about getting in touch with nature, it is the hunters who truly experience and do get in touch with nature. So it bothers me when Ritvo and Dana describe hunting as an example of man dominating and imperializing nature.  Hunting is the exact opposite.  It is hunting that allows many people to get more in touch with animals and nature.  In the Introduction to Reckoning with the Best, Turner admits that during the 17^th Century the British had little connection with animals, “but during the following century the social and moral status of animals began a slight but steady rise.  With the emergence of fox hunting and racing, the county gentleman’s horses and hounds became objects of pride, although they continue to receive their allowance of kicks and beatings.  The new enthusiasm for country life made people take a second look at animals, even if only as an element of the rural landscape, yearned for in the Horationa mode.” (X170C)

Notice the hunter submerged in natural architecture, while academics are pictured in man-made architecture

There are many ways that man flexes its power over the lesser being of the world.  As we have explored agriculture we have seen how raising animals is total domination of the beast for man’s desire of meat.  Exterminating pests from house is definitely a way man dominates and destroys animals.  Owning pets is man exerting his dominance over animals, as the only way for the pet to survive is benevolence of the master.  Man has put many animal pets at the mercy of people, and that is completely dominance.  And as far as imperialism of humanity go, I see no greater imperialism that the buildings we live, work and go to school in.  We are constantly using our intellect to recreate the environment for our own beneficial needs at great cost to the wild, native animals.  Hunting has none of these aspects of domination.  When you go hunting you and the animal are equal footing, who is smarter and stronger? Most of the time hunters never fall their prey, more than likely the animal is victorious.  Hunters are also putting themselves at risk for the good of the hunt, they are at the mercy of the weather, the land and other predators (like rattlesnakes), never really “dominant.”  Plus every hunter I have met has huge respect for the animal they are killing.  The goal is not to inflict pain, but to eliminate suffering, to make the death as quick and painless as possible. They do not want the animal to suffer like the elephant in George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephants.” “He was dying, very slowly and in great agony.” (X223) A bullet to the head is perhaps one of the most painless ways a wild animal can die (certainly beats a coyote chomping on your leg or starvation from a drought.  Hunters also spend more money for natural conservation than any other group.  They have invested interest to protect the world and keep it for future generations.  Most hunters are not reckless, but educated men and women who try to make kills that keep the balance of the habitat and done in a responsible ethical way. 

So Hunting is Exploitive but Owning Pets isn't? These Dogs don't look Free and happy, although they do have those spiffy ribbons.

I still prefer to hunt with a camera instead of a gun, but I will defend the art of hunting, because I believe that relationship between predator and prey is one that will preserve respect and maintain the natural world.  When that bond dissolves, I believe that man will become more dominant over animals.  More land will consumed for infrastructure and more species will go instinct.  This bond between the consumed and the consumer is a beautiful relationship that connects us with nature and keeps us from destroying it.  As Robinson Jeffers describes in his poem The Vulture:

“But how beautiful he looked, gliding down

On those great sails; how beautiful he looked, veering

Away in the sea-light over the precipice.  I tell you solemnly

That I was sorry to have disappointed him.  To be eaten by that beak

And become part of him, share those wings and those eyes—

            What a sublime end of one’s body, what an enskyment;

                        What a life after death.” (X216)

Chandler Chandler Glint in Sight

“Glory be to God for dappled things—

            For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

                        For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;”

 

                                    ---‘Pied Beauty’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

 

            I generally romanticize nature.  Much like Hopkins I praise its beauty and use it as a source of inspiration.  “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” (God’s Grandeur by Hopkins X164)  But this idealistic approach is far from an accurate depiction of nature. Nature is not only lush and beautiful, but also cruel and harsh.  Plants and animals are in a constant Darwainian battle for survival and often nature is an indifferent parent who takes no empathy or compassion on her children.  I don’t normally like discussing this part of nature, I would much rather focus on its pied beauty, but this past winter break; I had a vivid encounter with nature’s ferocity.

 

 La Vernia becoming stark and barren...

            La Vernia has been in a serious drought.  We haven’t had a good rain in over a year and as a result the landscape has become crumpled and brown.  Black mesquite trees stand gnarled glaring over ailing fields that shrivel from the indifferent sky.  Home was not the lush Serengeti of my childhood, but rather a painting of dehydration and exhaustion. Winter emphasized the stark realities with a bleak, gray sky and an incessant howling wind.

            I try everyday to take our two dogs, Chandler and Avalanche on a walk down to the Cibolo Creek, which borders our property.  Both dogs are your classic family pets.  Chandler is a wired-haired fox terrier, spoiled, spunky, and extremely lovable.  Avalanche is a Great Pyrenees, I often feel pity for her, she never gets her just reward, totally loyal and brilliant, but left outside in the cold.  When I returned home I was in major trouble, because the dogs had to go almost the entire semester without a proper pastoral patrol. So of course that was one of my first priorities upon my return.

Chandler and Avalanche

            The walk went as usual, I philosophizing about the world’s problems and the dogs scouring the brush.  Normally the dogs don’t find anything, occasionally they will scare up an armadillo or spot a lone coyote, but rarely do they have face-face encounters with La Vernian wildlife.  We were poking around the creek when we met perhaps the most vicious animal in Texas.  When one thinks of dangerous Texan critters rattlesnakes or coyotes are the first images, but I would assert that the most aggressive and dangerous animal on the Texas prairie is in fact the wild pig.  Many of you may be laughing, but feral pigs are shameless. In La Vernia Junior High, kids didn’t tell ghost stories, they told epics of their fathers, brothers and cousins, driving out at midnight to wrestle with these fierce beasts.  The jr. high had a teacher named Mr. Land, who was the utter embodiment of a hog hunt.  He in many ways resembled a hog, he was short and squatty, but his skin was tough and leathery and his squinty, little eyes made every student on campus’ blood freeze.  He would come to school often with the remnants of a dead hog in his pick up, and spend half the class describing his near death experiences.  In La Vernia, hog hunting was the most respected way to prove manliness, because hogs were the Grendels of Wilson County. 

This guy would fit in, in La Vernia

            I had not had much exposure to wild pigs before, but as the dogs and I were walking around the pecan orchard a huge heard of the beasts came storming through the trees. It was clear that the hogs were as scared of me as I was of them.  They didn’t run towards us, but away as fast as they could.  I counted about forty of them, untamed and wild.  They were barging towards the other side of the creek when Chandler decided he should prove his manliness and took off after the heard.  I was horrified.  “Chandler!” I yelled. “Come here!  Bad Dog!”  But it was too late, Chandler went tearing of through the brush, determined to catch a hog. Avalanche is normally reasonable, but she succumbed to pack mentality and followed the charge with a bombardment of barks and growls.  Growing up on Hog Stories I new what a full-grown hog could do to a dog, there were tales of people losing their best hounds to a mother pig protecting her young.  I had to stop them.  I ran after them, through the brush calling out hoping they would stop long enough for me to catch up. 

            I climbed up a hill to an oak grove, where I saw most of the pigs squealing in fright as they disappeared on the other side of the pasture, but one loan pig was struggling behind.  In a second Avalanche and Chandler leaped into the air and brought the pig crashing down.  Dust obfuscated the scene.  A combination of growls and squeals clashed in the air.  I ran over pleading for the dogs to stop.   When I reached the pig the dogs stepped back, letting their alpha survey the spoils.  I stared down at the “beast” gasping for air.  That noise still haunts me to this day.  That awful, desperate gasp for air.  Saying “Please end this pain, take me to my family, I don’t want to die.”  I remember the crimson.  That grey landscape of a winter drought was stained with that vivid crimson oozing from the gasping lungs.  I looked disappointedly at the dogs.  How could they do this, we were not in serious danger, they were well fed, what motivation would drive them to kill this innocent being?  I stared into Avalanche’s eyes, normally so quiet and reasonable; they had the same crimson glistening in them, but not a crimson of pain, a crimson of victory.  She was panting excited for the hunt.  Her eyes possessed this wild, glint or wicked joy. 

            

The dogs had become Harrigan's and Blake's ferocious tigers

In the end I couldn’t really blame the dogs.  They were, at their core just like the tiger Stephen Harrigan writes about in his book Commanche Midnight.  In the end “a tiger is a predator, its mission on the earth is to kill, and in doing so it often displays awesome strength and dexterity….Even a well-fed tiger in a zoo keeps his vestigial repertoire of hunting behaviors intact.” (X153-4)  This is what was so haunting, though, no matter how trained and disciplined I thought my dogs were, they still possessed that primitive instinct to kill.  They didn’t kill out of hunger, or protection, they killed because it was this natural instinct they had no control over.  When they saw those pigs they became savage and no amount of coaxing or treats would keep them from their dirty business. They “had a predators indifference to tragedy; they had killed without culpability.” (X155) I guess what makes this more eerie is not that a dog will resort to its basic instincts, but that all animal will do so, including people.  Whether it be Mr. Land barreling down a boar or David Lee Powell gunning down a police officer, it seems like humans too can succumb to this uncontrollable savage reality of nature.

            “And what shoulder and what art

            Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

            And, when thy heart began to beat,

            What dread hand and what dread feet?”

                        --William Blake, “The Tiger”(X146)

            And so I reach this awful since of terror, expressed in Blake’s poem “The Tiger.”  How is it that the creator who could make the peaceful lamb also create the vicious, snarling Tiger?  How can humanity be so loving and compassionate and yet possess these wild uncontrollable capabilities.  I have no resolve to this question, but I fear the day that I meet my symbolic wild pigs, will I heal to my master of ethics, or partake in the hunt?

In the forests of the night,

What immortal hand or eye

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?” (X146)

Will I become a Tiger?