I believe the technological innovations of recent times that have most positively impacted the way I teach are Google Classroom and Google Docs.
Let me explain Google Classroom. In my previous position at the Higher Colleges of Technology, I became familiar with two so-called online Learning Management Systems (LMSs): Blackboard Vista and Canvas. For Blackboard I used HCT’s institutional subscription and for Canvas I used the free version. Both of these LMSs are packed with features and allow instructors to create online class sites where syllabi and materials can be posted and assignments where students can upload completed assignments. They also have chat functions that allow students and instructors to make comments as well as ask and answer questions.
In contrast, Google Classroom has the advantage of being free and simpler to use. At the top of a Google Classroom page there are four tabs: Stream, Classwork, People, and Grades. To enroll students one merely needs to go to People and enter the email addresses of the students. They will then receive an email invitiation, which once accepted allows them to access the classroom. The People page allows the instructor to send emails to individual students or the entire class as well.
The Stream page shows a list of activities on the site such as “Patrick Berting posted a new assignment.” The Stream page is also a form of chat where students can enter comments, ask and answer questions and upload materials.
A particularly useful feature in the Classwork page is that lesson materials and assignments can be uploaded then scheduled to become visible to students only on a particular day and time. This is useful as a way to keep students focused on what the instructor wants them to be focusing on rather than starting assignments before they have been properly explained.
The Assignments function allows instructors to request students to either submit a document such as a report or a completed list of questions or write/copy paste as in an email.
Using the Quiz Assignment function, the instructor opens a blank quiz in Google Forms where they can create questions in different formats, e.g. multiple choice, checkboxes, drop-down, short answer, and paragraph. The instructor can add images and even shuffle the order of questions.
By using Google Classroom I have even helped the environment by going paperless. There is now no more need to wastefully issue photocopies of materials to students. Another advantage is that this LMS allows students to keep track of their materials and assignments much more easily than they would with paper copies which are easy to misplace or lose. This of course helps students review ahead of assessments. Furthermore, during the Covid19 pandemic it was easy to use Google Classroom while teaching online with Zoom. By using Googe Classroom instructors add value to their lessons by teaching students to use a new learning app.
I believe there is no turning back and that, eventually, the use of this kind of technology will be an expected part of a teacher’s skill set. If you are a teacher and want to keep apace with technology I highly recommend Google Classroom. Do you have a gmail account? If so, it’s simply a matter of opening the Google Classroom app and getting started. (I will explain Google Docs in a future post.)
English Language / Business Communications Instructor
In Canada, in the 1980s, the most popular car was the Pony which was manufactured by a new car company, Hyundai. The main reason for the popularity of the Pony was its low price and good value. As a result, it was a favorite among students and people with low incomes. As for me, the car that I drove when I was a student was a 1977 Honda Civic. Someone accidentally destroyed the engine by driving it without oil, and my parents said I could have the car as long as I was prepared to get it a new engine, which is what I did.
Then ten years later, after teaching in Japan and South Korea I had returned to Canada with a Korean bride. In 1996 I had enrolled in a college in Vermont, in the eastern United States, for their Masters in Teaching program. I knew that life there without a car would be difficult, but I didn’t have much money. Therefore, when I saw a Hyundai Pony advertised in a local Sidney, British Columbia newspaper, the price was right and I bought it for only $900 cash. The Pony was a 13-year-old four-door hatchback with faded blue paint. It had a manual transmission and good all-season tires. It wasn’t fast but it seemed good enough.
At the end of August, my wife and I were living in Sidney. We loaded our clothes, camping equipment, and other belongings and began our 5,000 kilometer trip to the east coast. We drove along the Trans Canada Highway and when we reached the Rocky Mountains we had to go very slowly because our car was loaded with so much and the engine was small. My wife innocently asked, “Can’t we go faster?” but I replied that we were going as fast as we could. That was a bit of a shock to her. We only stayed in hotels when the weather was rainy; otherwise, we slept in our tent at campsites. At a campsite in Taber, Alberta the grass was lush and there were rabbits that were almost tame and came up to us expecting food. Driving along the highway we stayed in the right-hand lane, but sometimes a big 18-wheeler truck would come up fast behind us. In those cases, I would pull over to let them pass and often the drivers would give an appreciative honk of their horn.
The Pony was doing well until we reached Manitoba where the manual transmission started malfunctioning. Consequently, we had no choice but to stop in Winnipeg for a few days to get the transmission fixed. Unfortunately, we were charged a lot more than we expected and were furious, especially as we were about to go almost a year without any income; however, the staff would not reduce the price and we had no choice but to pay. I noted that the interior of the car repair shop had posters about honesty and trust which I realized were just empty words. Feeling you’ve been ripped off and can’t do anything about it is terrible. At least the transmission worked properly after that. Those days we were covering an average of about 700 kilometers per day. Once we had the Pony back we continued our journey.
In northern Ontario, we spent the night at a campsite near Sudbury. As we had a lot of distance to cover we were in the habit of leaving early, on this occasion at 5:30 AM, and while we were exiting the campsite the muffler got caught on a piece of wood on the road and became loose, making an enormous roar that must have woken up everyone in the campsite. We quickly reattached the muffler the best we could and kept moving. At a gas station, one of the employees helped us by getting some wire and tying the muffler in place. At one point an OPP (Ontario Provincial Police) officer saw us and must have thought we looked suspicious, perhaps because of our old car, and pulled us over. He then questioned us and even searched the car. He eventually stopped searching not finding any drugs, weapons, or contraband, and let us go. We could have complained about it but kept our mouths shut and focused on completing our trip. We bypassed Toronto but took the time to spend a day in Ottawa, the nation’s capital. We enjoyed seeing the Houses of Parliament and the National War Museum. Upon reaching Montreal, we stayed with some retired family friends, June and John, for a few days. It is not my style to be a free-loader off anyone so I volunteered to mow their lawn, and they were surprised and thankful for that. After a few days, we crossed the border and entered the state of Vermont, and reached the town of Brattleboro where the School for International Training (SIT) is located.
The weather in Vermont was nice and warm for a month, then it seemed to get cold very quickly and this meant equipping the Pony with a larger replacement battery and a new anti-freeze hose for the radiator. This was at the suggestion of a kind local mechanic, who proved to me that not all mechanics are crooks. I also had to equip the Pony with an electric battery blanket and engine block heater to allow me to start the car in those freezing temperatures – back in Vancouver we never needed such things. The Pony really proved its worth when the snow fell and it drove though the snowy roads without any difficulty. Meanwhile, Dave, an American friend who had an expensive vintage BMW with summer tires found his vehicle was useless in those conditions, I, on the other hand, has all-season tires that were great in the snow. Consequently, he had to depend on me for a ride to and from the college. My wife and I were very proud of our cheap but reliable old Pony at that time.
We continued to drive the Pony for the whole ten months that we spent in Vermont and even used it for a couple of trips to Boston, (including Harvard University), Upstate New York and Massachusetts, including the UMass campus, a cross-country skiing weekend, and a drive in a snowstorm where we could hardly see the lanes.
In June 1997, when I had finished that very intensive period of study at SIT it was time to return to British Columbia. We drove north through New York State and crossed back into Canada with great relief. The most direct way home was to retrace our route along the Trans Canada Highway, so that it was we proceeded to do; however, when we reached the city of Sault Ste. Marie at the eastern end of Lake Superior, we learned that there had been flooding near the town of Wawa and that the Trans Canada Highway was impassable. As we were not prepared to wait until the highway was passable again we decided to re-enter the United States and drive through Wisconsin along the southern shore of Lake Superior. In that state, we spent the night at a campsite where our tent got soaked due to the rain, but we were still smiling about unexpectedly seeing a new part of North America. Next, we crossed into Manitoba and stopped at a local greasy spoon diner in Emerson where the staff made us feel welcome, which proved to us that Manitoba’s provincial slogan, “Friendly Manitoba”, was indeed accurate.
We continued across the Prairies as fast as our little Pony would take us and finally reached the Rocky Mountain foothills west of Calgary. Then, once again we subjected the Pony to the brutal climbs followed by deep descents of the Rockies but the Korean vehicle plowed on. The last step of the adventure was to take the ferry from Tsawassen to Swartz Bay on Vancouver Island and drive the final few kilometers to our destination in the seaside town of Sidney.
All in all, the almost one-year-long adventure was a success: I completed my Master’s degree in an intensive and demanding program, we had seen many parts of North America that we had never seen and are probably not likely to see again, and finally, our little old Hyundai Pony had added maybe 12,000 kilometers to the odometer and was still running. I often thought that Hyundai would be pleased to hear this story about the durability of one of their legendary vehicles. I sold the Pony a year later.
Why have I been so quiet on this blog for a few months? The answer is that I’ve been too busy having a fantastic summer to put fingers to keyboard, so to speak.
Movies
Movies: I saw the latest offering by the Mission Impossible franchise. With these films, moviegoers aren’t attracted by the plot but by the stunts, such as when Tom Cruise rides a motorbike off a cliff and then uses a parachute. Of course, the good guys win and the world is saved from domination by an AI “entity”. There were so many new characters entering the film it was difficult to keep track of them all.
Another way I spent a couple of enjoyable hours was by watching Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, which, like Mission Impossible, was an action movie, but with lots of humor included. At the beginning of the movie, we see a young Indiana Jones who is unmistakably Harrison Ford, (actually 80 now). Apparently, the producers used advanced computer special effects to make him look 50 years younger.
Indiana Jones, 2 July 2023
Bard on the Beach
Bard on the Beach is Vancouver’s long-running annual summertime outdoor Shakespeare festival. I saw the comedy As You Like It. At first, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with Shakespeare as it began with a boxing match set in 1960s British Columbia. The performance worked in many Beatles tunes as well, which made it a musical rather than simply a play. The actors recited their Shakespearean lines perfectly but also sang, danced, and clowned around amusingly. It was truly memorable to enjoy this spectacle while sitting in a huge tent and cooled by an ocean breeze.
As You Like It – Bard on the Beach, 1 July 2023
Oppenheimer
30 July 2023
Oppenheimer was the one movie that I was eagerly looking forward to seeing this year. The subject matter, the development of the first atomic bombs, is important and relevant still, to say the least. Cillian Murphy portrayed Oppenheimer brilliantly and will probably win an Academy Award for Best Actor. It was fascinating to see how a man could go from being a national hero for creating a war-ending super weapon to the victim of the anti-Communist witch-hunt of the McCarthy era.
Swimming, Cycling, and Running
Swimming at Sasamat Lake, BC
As for sports and fitness, this year was remarkable for me becoming involved in open-water swimming. Credit goes to my friends Paul B. and Abdu G. who invited me to swim with them. From that moment I was hooked. I consider myself a reasonably strong swimmer thanks to my participation in competitive swimming with the Surrey Sea Lions swimming team in the 1970s. Back then I had the benefit of expert coaches who taught me the various strokes, and it has stayed with me since then, but, unsurprisingly, I’m not as fast as I was when I was 15! I was pleased to set a personal distance record of 2.4 kms in 70 minutes. Abdu and Paul are triathletes, so I ended up running around the lake with them after the swim. The plan is for us to complete an unofficial triathlon together before the end of the summer.
Cycling with Abdu G. In Burnaby, BCWith swim buddies at Sasamat LakeCycling to Horseshoe Bay
I spent some time at the University of British Columbia and visited the Museum of Anthropology, but it was closed. However, I got to admire the local indigenous totem poles and longhouses. I also hiked down to Wreck Beach, Vancouver’s famous nude beach, but it was cold and I regrettably failed to spot any nudists.
Indigenous Longhouses at the Museum of Anthropology, UBC
Bowen Island Trips
Ferry at Snug Cove, Bowen Island
Before this summer, I hadn’t been to Bowen Island since I was a teenager doing some land surveying work with my father and brothers. It was always a special place that attracts unusual people who like the peace and quiet as well as the close-knit community feeling one gets from living on an island with only about three and a half thousand people.
Bowen Bay
Bowen Island has numerous public beaches on different sides of the island, so it’s possible to always find a beach facing the sun, i.e. southern beaches in the morning and northern ones in the afternoon. This summer I swam at Bowen Bay a number of times. The water is shallow and warm there, but it is rocky and it hurts to walk on the beach without footwear.
Swimming at Bowen Bay
The island has e-bike and kayak rental shops, and there are many restaurants, cafes, galleries, and gift shops. Finally, it is a great destination for hiking, and I hiked around Killarney Lake which is about 7 kms. One day I would like to climb Mount Gardner, the tallest mountain there.
Squamish and Whistler Trip
Sea to Sky Lookout, Squamish 20 May 2023
In May I spent a weekend in Squamish and Whistler. The attraction in Squamish was the Sea-to-Sky Gondola, a cable car that takes people into the mountains above the town. There are great views and it can be the starting point for hikes. I visited Whistler, site of the 2010’Winter Olympics, and hiked to Lost Lake.
Whistler Village
Cultus Lake and Lindemann Lake
Cultus Lake, May 2023Lindemann Lake
I hiked to Lindemann Lake on 29 May. The trail was somewhat rocky and steep, but I’m glad I did this hike. I’d like to return and hike beyond Lindemann Lake to Greendrop Lake, perhaps bringing camping gear for an overnight stay. A highlight was seeing an otter swim past closely. Hiking back to the car I slipped on a smooth rock and fell forward. This strained a muscle in my leg and after an hour my leg became very stiff. It took a few days to return to normal.
Cypress Park Hike
Yew Lake, Cypress Provincial ParkBowen Lookout from Cypress Park
Other Activities
22 July 2023With graduating students at VGC View from Harbor Center, VancouverIn Pacific Spirit Park
Victoria Trip
My aunt and uncle, Valerie and Gary, both 87, invited me to visit them in Victoria. On 12 August I made the trip using public transportation. It had been about seven years since seeing them last, and I was curious to see if the trip was any different from before.
The situation for foot passengers has clearly improved. I took the Skytrain to Bridgeport Station in Richmond. From there I boarded a unique double decker bus, number 620, to the Tswassen Ferry Terminal. Next, I bought a ferry ticket for about $20 for the 90 minute crossing. Arriving at Swartz Bay Terminal on Vancouver Island I took bus 72 to downtown Victoria, then walked a kilometer to my hosts’ home. It is an efficient system. The following afternoon I took the same route in reverse.
War Memorial, Victoria
My relatives fed me and took me to Finlayson Point to see the ocean and look across to the Olympic Peninsula. Gary brought a bag of nuts that he fed to the squirrels in Beacon Hill Park. Then we had coffee at Bean Around the World in Chinatown. After further wandering around the historic part of Victoria we had lunch at Murchie’s Tea House, which I remember them taking me to in the past.
I was captivated with Tara Westover’s account of growing up poor and isolated in family of right-wing survivalist fundamentalist Mormons in rural Idaho. Although I knew the story would end with her breaking away from her family, it was agonizing to read about the needless car crashes and work-related accidents she and her siblings endured working for her father’s scrapping and construction businesses.
To me, the biggest theme of the book is overcoming challenges, especially psychological abuse. First, by her suspected bipolar illness-suffering, religious fanatic father. He demanded total submission to his far-out anti-government theories and belief that women’s role is to be obedient to and supportive of the men in their families. Worse, though, is the later verbal abuse and physical violence by her elder brother Shawn, who surely must be psychotic.
It was painful to read about the anguish Tara suffered for standing up for her rights against her father and Shawn. So powerful was her father’s control over the family that her sister Audrey who spoke out against Shawn and in support of Tara was eventually intimidated into backpedaling and toeing the line.
It was disappointing that her mother appeared to be standing up in favor of her getting an education and against Shawn, but then faltered.
Gaslighting by her parents led Tara to a mental breakdown which almost resulted in her failing her PhD program. Fortunately, she was able to muster the strength to both obtain her PhD (from Cambridge University no less) and allow herself to be cut off by her parents. On the positive side, three of her brothers who broke away from the family home supported her.
It is a moving story that is relevant to us today. Should homeschooling be discouraged? I believe so. Should it be an offense to not register the birth of one’s children? I believe so. Should it be an offense to not vaccinate one’s children? I believe so. Should it be illegal to deny children proper medical care? I believe so. Should women and children have safe houses where they can escape family violence? I believe so.
I am becoming a bit of a Michael Ondaatje fan, now having read Divisadero after In the Skin of a Lion and Running in the Family. (For those who aren’t familiar with Ondaatje, he is the author of The English Patient.)
Ondaatje’s writing is so much like poetry that he could write about any topic and make it enjoyable to read. The book has a number of strands with various characters in different countries and decades, but they are all connected. In the beginning much of the action takes place in rural California in the 1960s and involves a character, Coop, who is a professional poker player. Two other central characters are teenaged sisters Anna and Claire who have an unintended falling out.
Book Cover
The setting later in the book is in southwest France before, during and after World War One. It portrays the harsh life rural peasants endured in those days and it made me quite empathetic towards the illiterate laborer Ramon and his wife Marie-Niege. In parts the book is erotic but only incidentally. It difficult to pin down exactly what this book is about, but a large part of it has to do with romantic love as well as the love we feel for family and good friends. Divisadero was published in 2007, hence it hasn’t been around for long and may not be known to many. I will gladly lend it to a friend, but I will insist that it be returned.
Tales of the South Pacific
These days second-hand bookstores are my main source for my reading material, so it was just by chance that I spotted Tales of the South Pacific sitting randomly on a shelf.
Book Cover
I have known about this famous book for years as it is a classic of American literature and the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. It was published in 1947 immediately after the events it portrays occurred. It is a number one New York Times best seller and was the subject of a Gilbert and Sullivan Broadway musical.
From the title one might not expect that the setting of the book is the struggle between Imperial Japan and the USA and its allies in World War Two. It is unlike any war book I’ve ever read in the sense that most of the 19 chapters are devoted to the antics of soldiers in non-combat situations, with only the final chapter being a blood and guts description of a typical Marine amphibious landing on a small coral island occupied by fanatical and determined Japanese soldiers.
I am not going to provide a summary of every chapter, but so simply mention parts that stood out for me.
The most interesting character is Bloody Mary, an elderly Tonkinese woman who has a lucrative business selling the GIs souvenirs such as grass skirts and even dried human heads obtained from the Melanesian natives. Bloody Mary’s unexpected friendship with a Marine officer leads to a romance between the officer and her teenage daughter.
In fact, many of the stories have at their core the basic human drives for sex and alcohol. The soldiers and sailors went to extreme measures in their quest for both, and the authorities spent considerable energy controlling the men. Even so, the men would make dangerous flights and sneak out of their bases in their quest for satisfaction.
‘Boar’s Tooth’ is a fascinating description of a visit to a Melanesian native village to observe the slaughter of captive wild boars for their tusks which were central to their primitive religious rites. It is sickening to learn how the pigs were prevented from wearing down their tusks, thus allowing them to grow painfully back into their faces.
As a US Navy officer in a non-combat role, Michener was in a unique an privileged role. He was, for example, one of the few officers to know the exact location of a planned major invasion of Japanese-occupied territory. In other words he understood the big picture.
Michener comes across someone who was fair and compassionate to enlisted men, and even wrote disdainfully of snobbish officers. I liked that he called out certain officers for their bullying behavior and racism towards ‘colored’ and Jewish soldiers and sailors. He predicted that such behavior would damage the morale and effectiveness of units with such hateful commanders.
It is important to note that the book is not completely historically accurate but was inspired by true events.
Sometimes quotations and sayings encapsulate great wisdom without requiring a lot of explanation.
1. “You do your best with the hand life has dealt you.” This expression comes from cards and reminds us that we don’t all get the same advantages in life but that we can do surprisingly well if we apply ourselves regardless of our situation.
2. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into Heaven.” (Jesus Christ in Matthew 19:24)
3. “ We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit.” (Aristotle) For my students I shorten it to “Make excellence a habit.”
Sometimes one meets seemingly average people who it turns out have done remarkable things. A case in point is Burnaby, British Columbia couple Eugene and Joanne Kozier (both born in 1936) who built a sailboat that they used to sail around the Pacific Ocean for three years in the early 1980s.
Their trip was preceded by building two boats, the first which was 26 feet long and made of plywood and the second which was 32 feet long and made of fiberglass. They learned to sail with the Kitsilano Yacht Club in Vancouver, and honed their skills sailing these boats in the waters around Vancouver Island and the BC coast. Then in 1976, Eugene joined the Victoria to Maui Race as a crew member on a friend’s boat, which implanted the idea of sailing around the Pacific in a boat of his own. He and Joanne had the fiberglass hull and deck of a 42-foot boat made for them, then they built the rest of the boat themselves. They put the cockpit in the aft (rear) which allowed for a large cabin. They decided to name the boat the Alrisha, after Eugene’s birth star.
HAWAII
Eugene took a leave of absence from his job in the BC forestry industry, Joanne quit her job as a laboratory technologist, and the couple began their odyssey in July 1980. Their first destination was Hawaii, which was a route Eugene felt confident sailing due to his experience in the Victoria to Maui race. On this stretch they almost had a catastrophe when Eugene noticed a huge log directly in their path and violently steered the boat to the side, barely missing the log. Hitting the log would have meant serious damage, possibly even sinking the boat.
The couple had a close friend in Hawaii, an old classmate of Eugene’s who had also sailed there from BC. He recommended that Eugene and Joanne buy a short wave radio there, which they did. The radio proved to be an excellent investment. They spent three months in Hawaii, sleeping aboard their boat every night. Their favorite place in the archipelago was the island of Molokai which had quiet, beautiful beaches.
TAHITI
Their next stop was Papeete, Tahiti, in French Polynesia, which took 19 days to reach from Hawaii. They recalled the Sunday market there where they bought baguettes and croissants. They feel very fortunate to have been there before it became a destination for cruise ships, and there were just a few tourist boats like theirs in the harbor. There they felt they had “gone to Heaven.” They also spent a month at the Bora Bora Yacht Club where they enjoyed the restaurant and took showers. While in French Polynesia they survived Cyclone Fran with 100 kilometer per hour winds, heavy rain, and huge waves. It was the worst cyclone in 12 years in the area. “It was quite exciting and an experience we won’t forget,” says Eugene. He also says many of the older native Polynesians did not speak French or English but were very friendly giving them fruit such as bananas, mangoes, and papayas.
FIJI
After that, the voyagers visited the Cook Islands, Tonga, and Fiji, where they spent two months visiting various islands belonging to the island nation. Joanne says Fiji was “by far the most interesting place” they visited. She said the native Fijians were “the most beautiful people” they saw – very healthy, well-built, with “magnificent curly hair.” In one village they were invited to join the men to drink kava, the national drink of Fiji. The kava cup was passed with a traditional ceremony of prayers and hand clapping. Joanne says kava is supposed to make one feel euphoric but that it “made my tongue numb.” They waited for the winds to shift in order for them to be able to sail to New Zealand.
NEW ZEALAND
In New Zealand they could avoid the hurricane season and spent six months traveling around in a Holden station wagon that they bought. They slept in their “Golden Holden” at campsites. On the South Island, the Holden had some mechanical issues that they had to deal with and a generous sheepherding family let them stay in a spare cabin on their property for a number of days until they had fixed the station wagon. Eugene was impressed by the sheep farms and pine forests, saying it was a lot like BC. At a port in New Zealand a boating supplier encouraged the couple to buy an electronic satellite navigation (GPS) device. It was a huge asset because it allowed them to determine their exact location in any weather, unlike using a sextant which required seeing the stars and horizon, something that only could be done in good weather.
THE SOLOMON ISLANDS
Their next stop was the Solomon Islands which were for Eugene “the highlight of our cruise.” When they anchored in a bay there the Alrisha was surrounded by up to 30 dugout canoes with natives “wanting to trade some fruit, vegetables or shells, etc. or just to see this magnificent ship.” The natives were proud to show them their villages. While naked children walked around, bare-breasted and tattooed women cooked on open fires on the ground. Eugene says “they are the most laid-back people you could imagine.” In one home they saw a shelf that contained the skulls of the villagers’ ancestors, and another shelf that had a stack of thigh bones. Eugene had caught a large swordfish which he offered to the natives. Some natives paddled out to take the fish and were shocked by how large it was as they were used to small fish that they caught from the beach. The fish was enough to feed the entire village, which made them very popular guests. In the Solomons they were taken to see artifacts in the jungle from World War 2 such as a tank and artillery pieces.
VANUATU
The Alrisha stopped off in New Caledonia and then Vanuatu. In Vanuatu they attended a native wedding at which the groom paid his father-in-law the bride price by clubbing eight large pigs to death and slaughtering three bulls. This was followed by the cash payment of a year’s local salary, equivalent to $600 Canadian. The young men wore necklaces of beads, shells, and flying fox teeth. Eugene even met a man wearing a necklace made of his ancestors’ teeth.
North of the Solomon Islands they visited the island of Pohnape and spent time exploring the amazing basalt stone ruins known as Nan Madol which consisted of temples, tombs, bathhouses, and so on. The place is known as the Venice of Micronesia. Archaeologists speculate that the massive basalt pieces were quarried on another part of the island and brought to the site by raft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Madol
GUAM
In Guam Eugene and Joanne noted that much of the island was occupied by the US military and off-limits to the public. They anchored at the Mariannas Yacht Club where the members “made us very welcome.” In the capital of Guam there were US-style strip malls alongside a freeway which made them miss “the pleasant South Pacific towns, with their parks outdoor restaurants, and slower pace.”
Solomon Islands Photo by Julius Silver on Pexels.com
JAPAN
By May 1983 the Alrisha had reached Kagoshima, Japan. At the Yacht Club there the members gave them gifts and several Japanese invited them to their homes and took them on drives. When they left Kagoshima and visited a small fishing village four officials came up to them to check their papers. They said Eugene and Joanne were not allowed to go ashore because the small port was “not a customs port.” This disappointed them because it meant that they were limited to going ashore at large commercial ports where they had to report to customs, immigration, and the police and fill out extensive forms.
When the Alrisha reached Hakata they found they had to replace their engine’s water pump. Fortunately, the harbormaster was kind and acted as their interpreter and guide, roles they felt he enjoyed immensely. They liked the island of Kyushu which was rural and “not as fast-paced” as the rest of Japan. They moored the Alrisha in Fukuoka and bought rail passes which they used to travel around Japan for three weeks. They particularly enjoyed Kyoto, the traditional capital of Japan with its temples and gardens. They also visited Tokyo where the subway system was almost overwhelming, but they didn’t stay there long. They even spent a few days on the northern island of Hokkaido. Sapporo, Joanne says was “like any prosperous American city,” except for the business signs in Japanese.
Joanne said that Japan was wonderful but that by that time she and Eugene had become “cruised out” and that they looked forward to making the final leg across the North Pacific back to Vancouver. This Japan to Vancouver leg took 42 days – their longest.
EUROPE, MEXICO, AND HAWAII AGAIN
Eugene and Joanne returned to their jobs and worked for three years, but then the itch to travel took over and they flew to Germany. They bought a Volkswagen van direct from the factory and spent a year visiting 22 countries. (This adventure is worth a separate blog post!) They shipped the VW van to Canada and used it for many years.
They went back to their jobs in Burnaby, BC until September 1991 when they took the Alrisha on her final long voyage, which lasted two years. The Koziers sailed south to San Francisco, San Diego, the Sea of Cortez, near Baja California, then to Puerto Vallarta. They said that, unlike the South Pacific where they encountered sailors from all over, in Mexico they mainly met young Americans. Due to the direction of the wind, sailing directly north back to Canada would have been extremely difficult, therefore they took a common route to Vancouver which was via Hawaii. After a few months in Hawaii they sailed north to the 49th parallel, then east to Vancouver.
Joanne and Eugene didn’t do any more long voyages after that, but continued to take the Alrisha on short local cruises, near Vancouver for a few years. They sold the Alrisha in 1999, and by that time the boat had clocked 38,000 nautical miles, not including local trips. At that time they took up gardening and now devote their free time to keeping their large yard in Burnaby looking well-maintained.
Like many of my peers, that is Canadian born in the 1960s and brought up on rock and roll, I enjoy a good guitar solo, but, probably unlike them, I also particularly savor the music of another acoustic stringed instrument, the shamisen from Japan.
The shamisen has three strings and is one of many traditional Japanese musical instruments. It is played with a plectrum called a bachi. Its origins are with the ancient Chinese instrument called the sanxian, according to Wikipedia. Unlike the guitar or violin, the shamisen does not have a hole in the top, which gives it a unique sound.
I first became a fan of the shamisen after seeing a live performance of Japanese music in 1989 at a concert hall in Vancouver. At that time the two instruments that made the biggest impression on me were the shamisen and, to a lesser extent, the massive taiko drums.
I am including a few videos that show the instrument’s unique sound and various ways it is used. Have a listen and make up your own mind about it.
Below, a master shamisen player performs a flawless eight-minute solo at a museum in Milan, Italy:
Shamisen performance in Italy
In the video below a female shamisen player puts the instrument to use in modern rock music:
Shamisen used in modern rock music
Showing the shamisen being used to play a classical European song are the Yoshida Brothers, below.
Two young Japanese men in traditional clothing playing the shamisen
I hope that these videos have given you a good appreciation for the unique and fascinating sound of the shamisen. For me, this music touches the soul. If you ever have the opportunity to see the instrument performed live I urge you to do so!
During the two years I lived in Tokyo as an English teacher (1990-92), I got to experience a lot of Japanese culture, such as Kabuki theater, and music including the shamisen. Those are some of my best memories from that time. A fine example:
Excellent Shamisen Solo
Explanation of shamisen music from a Japanese YouTuber:
Incidentally, the shamisen is not the only Asian traditional instrument that captivates me. There are others that I may devote posts to in the future.
Last night I saw All Quiet on the Western Front – the 2022 German language Netflix version. It was my first time in a cinema in two years, and I enjoyed the experience immensely, although, of course, it was a brutal and sobering experience.
I was glad the film included scenes involving the negotiations for the Armistice. It depicted the tension between the Social Democratic government who wanted to end the war as quickly as possible and save lives versus the generals who wanted to keep fighting in hopes of getting better conditions in the peace agreement.
For me the most tragic scene is the completely unnecessary final German assault on the French in the 15 minutes before the Armistice. It was a real tragedy for the soldiers who made it though the war only to die minutes before the peace treaty went into effect. I wonder if an attack like that happened in real life?
I am forwarding a positive review from blogger the Great Books Guy. Please click the link to view it.
It should be clear to anyone who is paying attention that the world is in the midst of a transformation. Artificial Intelligence is changing the way we think about knowledge: why learn anything when we can simply ask a ChatBot for the answers? Another transformation that is underway is the shift from owning things to subscribing to digital services.
In a TED Talk on YouTube, entitled “Own Nothing, Have Everything,” a technology designer explains her vision of a future where, taken to extremes, people might not own physical possessions. In the comments below the video, the vast majority condemn her proposal. However, when one thinks about it, we are already well on our way. In vacation rentals, so-called timeshares, whereby someone buys the right to use a property for a certain percentage of the time, have been around for a long time. Similarly, car-sharing organizations now exist. To give a personal anecdote, two years ago, until I was ready to buy my own car, I was a member of a Vancouver car-sharing co-op, Modo, in which I was able to reserve a car near my home for a few hours, or even a day. I didn’t have to worry about parking space or maintenance, although I did have to ensure that I topped up the gas tank for the next user.
In the culinary realm, it is now not uncommon to avail of services that deliver ingredients and a recipe, enabling subscribers to cook unique dishes without the risk of preparing too much or too little or not having a vital ingredient. In the realm of music, iTunes, Spotify, and so on allow us to listen to every type of music imaginable, without having to own physical copies of the music. I could go on with further examples, but I believe you get the point.
In her talk, the technology designer, Orit Dolev, imagines a world where the rich won’t need to own their own cars but will be able to instantly summon a luxury car, and have it “disappear, like magic” when it is no longer needed. We all know that most devices from cars to refrigerators contain computer chips, so it makes sense when she says that as objects become “smarter” with artificial intelligence and technology they will increasingly become part of digital services, to be swapped and shared.
As for employment, she says that with the “supercomputer in her pocket,” i.e. smartphone, she can work anywhere in the world. Technology has seen the rise of the so-called digital nomads who are not tied down to a physical office. For people like her, physical possessions become a burden, so it makes sense to subscribe to services that provide objects on an as-needed basis. Until today, I had not heard of replacing one’s wardrobe with a clothing service, but that is one of the things Dolev envisions. Clothes would be delivered daily by a drone, enabling one to wear a different set of clothes every day of the year! It will be possible to have shoes custom-made based on scans of our feet, and clothes that are digitally tailor-made for us.
She says homes won’t need washers or dryers, and that furniture and decor will be changeable because they will also be digital services. Furthermore, imagine what impact digital services might have on dating and relationships!
Dolev argues that by not having possessions we will be freer to enjoy what she claims are more important, experiences. I am probably a lot more receptive to her message than the average person because I lived a semi-nomadic life as an English language teacher in East Asia and the Middle East for 30 years, and therefore got used to renting accommodation and getting rid of things when it was time to move to a new location. Furthermore, for over a decade I have been attracted to the philosophy of minimalism, which as the name suggests, is living life with the minimum number of possessions. I went so far as to sell or give away most of my books and a lot of sporting gear such as skis, but now I regret that, to be honest. On the other hand, I don’t have to pay for storage like I did before.
My view is that the lifestyle the technology designer advocates is one that will not be followed by everyone, but will be adopted on a spectrum from almost no use of digital services by the poor to virtually exclusive use of them by the wealthy elite. Additionally, this will be parallelled by a division in society over healthcare and education, with the peasants living unfulfilled lives while the elite are able to enjoy self-actualization. (The gap between the “haves” of the developed world and the “have nots” of the developing world will become even more exaggerated also.)
To sum up, I feel that there must be the option to not give up ownership of possessions for those who wish to maintain that right. Judging from the numerous hostile remarks in the comments section below Dolev’s video, most people are not ready to make this change, but change is coming whether they like it or not. I feel that the digital services described could improve the quality of life for millions, but that people should not be expected to give up ALL of their possessions. I think some kind of blend of ownership and digital services is the answer because people get very attached to objects, especially things they have made themselves such as a restored car, a sweater they knitted, or a picture they painted. They may have a pair of jeans that fit them perfectly that they don’t want to give up. As they say, fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a wild ride.
On January 31, 2023 the province of British Columbia took the unprecedented step of legalizing the possession of small amounts previously illegal drugs such as heroin, crack cocaine, etc.
It has taken place in a period of increasing drug overdose deaths. The government says this change is going to save lives by bringing drug use out into the open and by eliminating toxic drugs.
A lot of people foresee a disaster on the horizon with this. Admittedly Portugal has had great success with its drug legalization policy, but they do not follow a no-strings attached approach such as here. In Portugal addicts are heavily monitored and must undergo counseling.
There are so many unknowns about the repercussions of this new policy. Will drug addicts from across Canada and elsewhere be drawn to Vancouver, leading to even more deaths and misery in the city? Will it attract organized crime and lead to increased criminal activity?
I work in Downtown Vancouver and on numerous occasions I have seen people openly “shooting up” heroin into their arms without even bothering to turn away from the traffic. I have had to pass addicts lying unconscious on the sidewalk, and I’ve had the endure the loud wailing of ambulances with paramedics trying to save the lives of overdose victims.
Stay tuned to see whether the new drug policy is a success or failure.
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