Fogg and Passepartout

This is the end of an era. Or a beginning of an end. Everything beautiful has its ends, and now is the time for me to have a break and concentrate on the real issues at hand. Near future will be one with memories and events never to forget.  

My friend (yes, I still have friends) is coming to Hong Kong and we are about to start our mutual quest. My name is Phileas Fogg, not really, and my partner follows the name Passepartout, not really. Our mission is not to travel around the world in 80 days but to retrieve the Holy Grail containing the blood of Jesus. This may well be written in the pages of postmodern history. After reading some literature I have made a stunning discovery: the blood of Jesus is hidden in Mekong River, or some sources indicate that another option is somewhere along the Silk Road in China. We have to dig haunting graves, explore dangerous and deep caves, meet strange talking people, drink mysterious beers, swim piranha filled waters, fight against our rivals with our wits and turn all rocks so that we can eventually solve this mystery which has surrounded us for more than thousand, maybe even millions of years. This will be a huge adventure filled with dangers and excitements, but someone has to volunteer for the sake of better future for our children. We will be well prepared. I have gathered all that I think necessary, said farewells, shed tears and kept speeches; it is time, everything is ready. The necessities include:

l   twenty passport size photos - to hand over as gifts to those unfortunate ones

l   one pair of indoor shoes - can be used also outdoor (my invention)

l   one can of tuna (no opener) – works as a trade product if necessary

l   map of Hong Kong - we may never know when we may return

l   Bible - even Dr. Livingstone had with him when he went and paid a visit to black Africa

l   Swimming suit - nudism would be too much of a risk

l   a whip - if Indiana Jones had it, I have to have it

l   Camera - for us to take pictures to share in Facebook

l   Computer - for us to upload pictures to Facebook

l   Postcards - to send from different places back home

l   Stamps - to put into postcards

l   Money - to bribe, buy and humiliate people who don’t have money 

We understand that many in South-East Asia or China haven’t seen men like us before so they might startle us at first but after we nourish them with our intellect, charm and timeless wisdom, we are sure to make contacts useful to us on our quest. We will bring gifts like Starbucks coupons, used DVDs, pencils, rice, small Jesus statues and crucifixes, and western cooking recipes to ease the path. It is their fortune to meet us, not the other way around. But of course they can provide us valuable information how to find the Grail. They must know something, and money is the answer to open these chests of secrecy.

We will begin our journey from Shanghai, a small village located in eastern china. There we will do some ground work and search people who might know something about long-distance history. We are confident that locals are able to help us to find information of the whereabouts of the Grail, an artifact symbolizing the West’s belief of immortality, supremacy and religious vanity. The Chinese are very well aware of the world history; at least this sounds the most promising place to start. From Shanghai we will head to Taipei, the capitol of Taiwan and city of once forgotten Chinese traditionalism. I have heard that the Taiwanese people treat their quests with warmth and hospitality. If lucky the Grail will already be found here, and we don’t have to move on at all, although this would need more than beginner’s luck to become reality. In Taiwan we are also accompanied by Mr. Karvinen, a famous research assistant and sociologist from Tampere Finland. Hopefully he will turn out to be more than a basic tourist, but we fear the worst.

Bangkok is our first stop in South East Asia, a place full of interesting business possibilities. Luckily we are not there to make money but to use it as a hub to get transportation to Cambodia, a paradise of millions of land mines and a long and horrendous Khmer-history. We will be there to make our own history so why be interested in history of others, who wants to know a history of death and genocide any way: positive attitude, that’s the spirit! Angkor Wat will probably the only place in Cambodia where we might go and do some sightseeing, after all it is nominated as one of the Seven Wonders of the World right after Pentagon, Berlin Wall and Big Ben. Tomb Raider was also filmed partly in Cambodia, and it only proves that there are many secrets to unravel. And it might be even true that Jesus visited Cambodia one time during his travels. Rumors have wings as they say.  

Laos was once also a colony of France. Why did they gave it up, I wonder. Well Laos is situated above Cambodia and offers plenty of nice spots to do some grave digging. In Laos people are poor so they will tell us what we need. It is unlikely that Graal would be found there but in the vast Laotian jungles lodges many blood drinking tribes of ancient Hmong people. Maybe they have also some clues where the blood of Jesus is hidden. I can even give them some of my precious blood what they can use as a potion of eternal life. Hopefully we can also find our way to gibbon forest, a holy forest inhabitated by mute people who look miraculously like monkeys.

China is our second best bet to find the Grail. Yunnan Province is the natural first leg of our China conquest. Before arriving to Beijing we have around 6000 kilometers of distance and space to cover in less than one week. But we are everything but unconfident of finding the treasure. We just need to work harder and trust our instincts as professional explorers. After we have found and taken the blood to our hands we will leave the colossal continent of China using a Russian train – maybe the most trusted and praised form of transportation on earth. This high speed train will take us home faster than any other. Trip will last only for two weeks, no less. I always wonder how the people in the early days were able to manage without these modern innovations. I should be home before August but anything can happen when taking part in such a risky mission. But you should all know that we are doing it for you. We are giving our contribution to the world by trying to locate something which can really change the course of time. At the same time we consume lots of beer, food, roads, gas, time, tracks and the company of ourselves and others. We hope you all have a nice summer and will remember us when we are famous, in return - we won’t remember you.        

Nipa (and Make)  

Revealing Ladyboys

Sa-wat dee!

Thailand, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Switzerland…In this way a local cabdriver started to amuse us (or himself more likely) while rallying the busy streets of Bangkok on one hot steaming day. In Thailand using a taxi is both cheap and wise, and cars have nice colors. But change money they don’t have. When I gave the driver 1000 baht he looked at the note like he would have seen a picture of Madonna. He was at the same time shocked and embarrassed. Eventually I paid the trip by giving the man my floorball association card from year 2003, used leather bracelet and a receipt proving that I bought shaving cream from 7-Eleven 13.3 – with my personal signature of course. The driver was happy, but I was sad because they were altogether worth more than 47 baht (1,3 euros). In Bangkok you can also travel by using Tuk-Tuks or SkyTrain. Tuks-Tuks are motorised vehicles with drivers who don't know where to drop you even they have lived in the same city for 45 years taking tourists to areas worth any interest. Then they just circle around and the meter keeps on rolling. Hopefully their close range memory works to some extent better. Otherwise they have trouble to find their way home after work.  

While doing some preliminary research about Thailand and Bangkok I bumped into photos of richly decorated temples and speeding riverboats, stories of friendly and smiling locals, and descriptions of wild nightlife rumbling ending happily or even happily ever after. One of the most memorable pics was nevertheless a pair of drawings illustraing two womenlike figures. Readers were supposedly to find the distinctive features between a ”woman” and a ”man” disguised as a female. Ladyboy, or kathoey is presumably a man pretending to be a woman, like Bruce Wayne is pretending to be a bat, Gaddafi is pretending to be a peace nobelist, Charlie Sheen a funny guy, Tiger Woods a good father, Berlusconi innocent and so forth. Ladyboys are Thailand’s pride and biggest export with natural gas, toys, garments and jewelry. Hopefully they don’t export them in boxes with labels ”From Thailand with Love”.

Most importantly, I dont have anything against Ladyboys. All I want to raise here is the guestion of  credibility. So we need to disguise ourselves well if we want to misguide others and give false impressions to those judging our actions and behavior with sharp perception. In Thailand Ladyboys haven´t always put up their best effort, and so they are relatively easy to spot, even though many have fallen for their bodily charm, have heard. If someone is trying to hit me, (s)he usually turns out to be a Ladyboy. Usually women don´t bother with me u know. And normally you don´t also need a voice regocnition specialist to say that this woman here speaks like she would have been drinking whisky for several decades. The problem with Ladyboys is their obvious transparency of sex. I know that in Eastern-Germany and Ukraine women tend to have beards and hairy legs but to my knowledge they still have only single privates and husbands who call them wives. Of course it can be that Ukraine is the promised land of Ladyboys, but then we have to ask who has delivered all their children if not the ogrish women. It has been the scam of a lifetime if that has happened.

Okay, In Thailand I did also some other things besides spying. Songkran Festival had started when I landed, and this meant a huge war among groups of people armed with waterguns. Now this is what I could say a proper civil war, and how wars should be fought. For four days these vicious fighters tease everyine brave enough to step on the streets. Worst ones are those eguipped with garden hoses, they are true patriots. They lurk in the shadows and open fire when last expecting it. Guns are not only arms allowed. Basket Mud is also used widely. If you would get rubbed shit on your face, how happy would you be? Some get pissed (on the final day at least), can tell you that. But if Thailand would be in war, I would vote for their victory. At least they fight with smile on their faces. And ammunition delivery works like a wet dream.

After the waterwar had ended and peace treaty signed we decided to go and lick our wounds to Bang Saphan, a lovely village 5.5 hours from Bangkok to south. From there we found some romantic bungalows by the seashore. We were like having our honeymoon me and my manager Mikko. We played cards, talked politics, drank Chang-beer and collected colorful shells under the cheering sun. I even got my sexy hair removed from my back. It was perfect. But nothing is everlasting, not even mutual quality time between two Finnish bugbears (and a Finnish girl called Henna, who was also serving us). I left Thailand with tears. Mikko stayed there and started reading James Bond, his favorite and first English novel (now reading already for four months), And I got on a bus and drove away. Aftermath of this journey was that I can peel my burnt skin and think whether to visit this land of sandy beaches, heavyweight turism and girls looking pretty again. Maybe I just order myself a Ladyboy through the Internet.

“Till next time”, said a Thai girl to a happy customer over his fifties equipped with a lard belt, drunken face and a heavy wallet.  

Visiting God of Fertility

Hello,

Im about to start my journey over South-East Asia and other parts of this lovely continent colonized by European powers not so long ago. Now this area is conquered by Multinational Companies and their finest discoveries in the field of coffee, fast-food, clothing, banking, law, investing, housing, transportation etc. No matter where you go you are under the influence of heavyweight Brands. Starbucks here, Starbucks there - Starbucks everywhere. Even the Chinese have understood that Multinationals are the key to success. Fuck the Human Rights! We have Big Mac (with Chinese modification where beef has been replaced with bean curd, lettuce with tealeaves and burger roll with a traditional bun) and famous ”freedom fries”! Well in China people can at least eat these fries without getting jailed, albeit mentioning ”freedom fries” can cause you to be interrogated and sent to prison due to reasonable doubt that you have committed ”an economical crime” against humanity, the people of China and the CCP. 


From 100 the most economically influential and wealthiest units 52 too are Multinationals, states and countries included. This gives us a certain perspective why it is justified to say that hand that feds us, tailor that dresses us, banker that provides monetary credibility to us, law that protects us, carpenter that gives shelter to us and vehicle that carries us around are all false creations based on guarantees, promises and hopes that cannot be submitted in a manner of ethical decorum. Hong Kong is maybe the worst place to live if we want to avoid impressions of global homogenization of products and lifestyles. As all my friends keep telling in Hong Kong ”there is not much to do besides shopping”. Well, after a while this opinion gives rise to disgust and loathing of daily comforts. You start to see the famous Repulse Bay as a beach to spend a repulse day. Avenue of Stars becomes Avenue of Farts, Ladies Market is Jerks target and the Peak turns gradually into place where to take a leak. Well, anyway, I like Hong Kong a lot, but it reminds me of the inequalities of the world more and more every day.

Next Thursday I will sweep the dust of Hong Kong out my feet and leave to Thailand.

Thailand is the Canary Islands of the Far-East. Even from Finland people can get cheap tickets and fly there to experience real feeling and atmosphere of exotic orient. This real feeling can be explained through few important factors which include: sex, hop and sunbath. Atmosphere as a dimension contains also three components: beaches, the jungle and the barlife. Before I left Finland I read an article which gave an insight of the tourism in Thailand. The articles perspective was focused on middleaged and relatively young Finnish malebeings. So usually desperate househusbands or bachelors pack their bags and leave to Thailand to find happiness – and an under-aged companion. Okay, this is twisted and sick, but also tells how even love has changed from challenges of facing genuine emotional stress and unstability to a mechanism of fast-love driven by money, nai´ive eagerness and self-delusion. 


I go to Thailand for different reasons. I will go and meet my manager, Mikko Koivisto, who has managed to create a small religious phenomenon amidst the locals; they have started to pray Mikko as a god of fertility. I need to go and see for myself if this is actually true. In Thailand you can also enjoy the warmth of beaches and elephants. Now it is a good season to visit due to the heavy rains. I might even get evacuated if lucky. I know that with Mikko I can also be persuaded to drink beer. Hopefully this won´t happen so that I could proceed my important groundwork as an antropologist and a researcher of mysterious fertility cults.   

I watched last week a Woody Allen film "Everything you always wanted to know about sex * But were afraid to ask". I think that Mikko can hopefully enlighten me in these issues further. One of the figures in Allen's film falls in love with a sheep and ends up losing all. Hopefully Mikko has done wider experiments with the elephants than Dr. Ross did with his Daisy. Please excuse me, clock is already past one....

Tuomas   

      

Vanishing Point

Hello,

Days of hard labour are diminishing and mood is becoming sunny. Today I opened my beach season officially with a BBQ-dinner with three Northern-Irish bastards and two German speaking Wurst Freund in a lovely atmosphere of Clear Water Bay. When we arrived at the scene there were horde of local youngsters having a some kind of conspiracy meeting against the elderly. They had dumbed their thrash all over and were speaking in harsh manner about taking over the whole beach. After a while we witnessed how this mob buried one of their members alive in the sand. Well, at least they understood not to mess with the Irish, who took their leaders under a strict command, and so they had to take pictures of us when we asked to and gave away their camping supplies. To a Finn it was nearly impossible to comprehend how these gangsters were still sober on a friday evening 1700. In my country the young people tend to terrorize the innocent by first drinking themselves to a state of foolishness and then acting accordingly. Last week I read that now they have come up a way to get a more efficient hop by sticking a tampoon in their ass. Well, U cannot go below that in stupidity.

Sausage Lovers from Germany proved out to be excellent firestarters, so next time I will ask them to join me when I go burn down churches in Norway. I also learned that all countries to the east of Austria are poor and their people deserve only to be cleaners for Austrian households. The Irish kept saying the same about their lovely country, but it seems that they haven't heard that after England comes also other countries. They have thought that EU means a trade union between the Irish and the Brits. But at least they have rugby, a sport which tries to be more than football but succeeds in being less than handball.

Last night I was took part in song competition. Sadly i wasn't a competitor but a normal spectator. The competition showed me once again why it is necessary for the Finns to exist. All the songs were about love, I suspect. But as we all know Love doesn't have to be sentimentally blaah. Song about love can also tell about eating children, or drinking blood from another man's skull, or killing pigs with a screwdriver. This seems to be totally forgotten aspect of Love in the ensemble of Hong Kong music. In Finland we can at least express through mentally engaging songs how love can show itself in different forms, others than relationships between a boy and a girl which we all know will end in tears and feeling of betrayal. Love is everywhere, no matter if u are a necrofilic, or a boy with three arms, or a werefolf, yuo are still entitled to love and be loved. Maybe these issues are too hard for a Hong Kong music-makers to handle. We In Finland have many artists who have come out and said, ”Hey, hear me out! I wanna tell u a love story between a donkey and an old farmer.” At least in Northern Ireland they sing songs like this, it is a part of their natural heritage. Okay, but the competition was fair. Ok, actually I don't know if it was because nobody seemed to have won. After the last performance the stage was occupied by a group of badly dressed Hobos from mystic alleys of Oz. One of them was a replica of Johnny Depp and another reminded me of a zombie from George Romeros Night of The Living Dead. When they came out behind the curtains audience gave them applaudes I would get everyday just by entering the student cantine. But they played quite well, have to give them credit, even though the lead singer was smiling too much.

4/5 is the balance at the moment. One more to go. Final case is an essay about a multiproblematic boy. So I can write a biography of Gaddafi or John Travolta, who still thinks that humans derive from species out of space. Well I truly hope that this is the case with some nationalities. It would explain so many things for example ”Why we need to study Swedish in our schools?, or why Hong Kongers eat cow's stomach in the mornings?, or Why Northern-Irish play rugby? Or Why Americans think that Finland is a place where Peter Pan flew with Tinkerbell Fairy?

Anyway, I am already near the finishline. After this last assignment I will close the semester and start my holiday. Hopefully everything goes well and I can find out what is causing this boy to behave irrationally. Thank God that he has my sanity to rely on.  

Ta-ta, 

T