Month: July 2006

Ten-pages-in book review: Hitching Rides with Buddha

I know, I know, I just did a 10-pages-in book review last week. And, I just reviewed another book by this same author a couple of months ago.

But I’m so happy to have back-to-back excellent books to read, and I know it’s summer reading season and I for one am desperate for recommendations for something to read myself, and I have such a literary crush on Will Ferguson now that I just can’t help myself.

I’m about half way through Hitching Rides with Buddha: A Journey Across Japan, the very funny and insightful travel memoir of one witty Canadian who takes a break from teaching English in Japan to follow the sakura, the much-celebrated wave of cherry blossoms that flows up and over Japan each spring.

Here’s how Will (I’ll take the liberty of using his first name, because I truly hope we can be drinking buddies some day) describes the seminal moment when he decides to undertake his journey:

One year, drunker than usual, I announced to my circle of Japanese teachers that I was going to follow the Cherry Blossom Front all the way to Hokkaido, at the northern end of Japan. Or rather, that is what was reported to me. I don’t recall making this vow exactly, but I was repeatedly reminded of it. My supervisor, for one, constantly fretted over my plans. (…)

Anyhow, I had committed myself to discovering the True Heart of Japan. “William is going to follow the sakura all the way to Hokkaido,” my supervisor would tell people at random, and I would grimace in a manner that might easily been taken for a smile. I stalled three years.

When I finally did set out to follow the Cherry Blossom Front north, I went armed only with the essentials of Japanese travel: a map, several thick wads of cash, and a decidedly limited arsenal of Japanese, most of which seemed to revolved around drinking or the weather. (“It is very hot today. Let’s have a beer.”)

He sets off, a Gaijin-san (“Mr Foreigner”) curiousity hitchhiking the entire length of Japan (across seven islands, roughly the distance from Miami to Montreal) for no real reason except because he can, and because so many of his Japanese colleagues tell him either it can’t be done or he is crazy to try.

If one day I were to become a famous and celebrated writer, I should be very flattered to have someone observe, “Her writing is very similar in style and substance to that of Will Ferguson.” I love his keen eye for the quirkiness of those around him, I love his barely subdued wit and his gentle self-deprecation, and I simply I love how he strings words together.

It was these qualities that made me pick up this book in the first place because to be totally honest – I wasn’t all that interested in Japan, or travels in Japan, or Japanese culture. Not there is anything wrong with Japan, or the Japanese; it’s just not a culture that has ever captured my curiousity before. I have friends who have and would love to travel to Japan, but it never even cracked my own top ten of places I’d some day like to visit. Until now, that is; until I read this book.

Hitching Rides with Buddha has piqued my curiousity about Japan in more or less the same way that Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw inflamed my love of my own country. Did I tell you one of the inspirations for our Quebec City trip was Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw? Will Ferguson didn’t write specifically about Quebec City, but he reminded me that there are many, many exquisite places to visit within a day’s drive of here, and that could do worse than spend a few days exploring Canada and understanding our own history a little better.

This memoir, Hitching Rides with Buddha, is the antithesis to the standard Frommers or Lonely Planet tourist guide, and far from the usual dry and trite assessment of the Japanese people and culture. There is a constant tension between Will’s status as an outsider and the intimacy of his perspective on the lives of the ordinary Japanese citizens he encounters while hitchhiking that makes his story compelling as well as descriptive. Will’s insight into both people and place, and his alternating affection for and exasperation with the Japanese makes both the author and his subjects charmingly endearing.

By the way, if you’re looking for this book in the US or UK, it was published under the title Hokkaido Highway Blues. An author’s note in the newly released Canadian edition tells the reader that Hitching Rides with Buddha was the author’s original choice for a title, but that “the title was nixed by the American publisher on the complaint that it sounded too religious. Sigh.”

I’ve been both extremely lucky and kind of annoyed to find two great books to read back-to-back through the early summer reading season. ‘Annoyed’ because The Historian was so page-turningly compelling that I could barely stop reading long enough to make dinner or put the kids to bed, and other niceties like personal grooming and work had to take a number to get my attention. Hitching Rides with Buddha will bring me through to next week, but I’ve still got two weeks of holiday time at the end of July and the beginning of August to pass.

What have you read recently that’s worth recommending?

Hidden talents?

I’m watching America’s Got Talent again. (I know, I know – I can’t help myself. It’s been on three weeks and I’ve mentioned it three times already. What can I say, I’m hooked. It’s like chips and dip – I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t help myself, especially when there’s no other worthy distractions around.)

Leonid the sparkly Slavic sword balancer with the pink wings (!) has just skipped across the stage after an emotional plea that actually left me choked up. Really. I blame my hormones.

Actually, it’s something the previous contestant said that resonates with me. He was the rather disturbing looking contortionist-guitar player, and one of the judges asked him, ‘What would make you learn how to do something like this?’

He shrugged and said, ‘I just need the attention, I guess.’

Yep, that’s why I blog. I just need the attention, I guess. Hell, that’s not just why I blog, that’s my life!

But really what I’ve been thinking about is that I need a special talent like that. Not so much the contortionist guitar player, but what about the guy who balanced the stove on his face, or the guy with the parrot hiding in the pretty coloured scarves, or the guy with the flaming bowling ball and the scorpion in his pants? I mean, really!

Everybody should have a parlour trick, a hidden talent, something you only do after two or three beers that always impresses people the first time you do it but annoys the hell out of your significant other, who knows when you haul out that tired old trick that it must be nearly time to find your coats and shoes and get the hell out of there before you decide you are best buddies with the other drunk guy in the corner talking to the plant.

Not that it would earn me a million dollars, but people always seem impressed that I can clap with one hand. (It’s a lot of fun to get a whole dinner party table waving flapping their wrists around, trying to do it. Dang, now you’re never going to invite me over for a dinner party, are you?)

And I can do that lipstick thing that Molly Ringwald did in The Breakfast Club, but now that I’ve breastfed two babies and my 34Ds have become 34 longs, it ain’t so pretty to see anymore.

What’s your hidden talent?

Day one!

Because I know my reproductive workings have you on the edge of your seat, I felt it necessary to broadcast to the entire interweb that it is, in fact, day one of my cycle. The cycle. The cycle that will lead, in approximately two weeks, to my wee Frostie finally coming out of its deep freeze, at which point I think I will begin to refer to it as my little Toastie instead.

Next stop, an ultrasound on July 13. Stay tuned!

The one with the rant about the child care allowance

Starting this month, the Canadian government will be doling out the cheques for the new Universal Child Care Benefit. That’s the $100-a-month credit, for each child under age six, that the Tory government seems to think gives families some sort of ‘choice in child care.’ Right.

I have to be careful here. The prime minister is my boss, and I don’t think it’s too clever to crap where I sleep, so to speak. So read these words not as written as a civil servant, but as ranted by a working mom of two preschool boys.

I’ve always thought that the $100 Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) allowance is nothing but a practically meaningless token amount. And it annoys the hell out of me that it is so inequitable. Because the benefit will be taxable to the lowest income earner, a single parent family, a two-income family, and a two-parent-single-income family will all get different amounts.

After taking into account the income tax that will have to be paid, and the elimination of the former low-earner supplement to the Child Tax Benefit, of the original $1200 per year you will only be able to keep:

$641 if you are a two-income family earning $40K a year;

$768 if you are a single parent with an income of $20K a year;

$951 if you are on welfare; and,

$971 if you are a one-income family earning $250K a year.

(See the Caledon Institute’s excellent essay for a detailed analysis. I took these figures from their report.)

Isn’t that lovely? The upper-class one-income family, which most likely does not even use child care, gets more than $200 a year more in net benefits, per child, than a working poor single parent.

And then, as if that weren’t a bitter enough pill to swallow, the media this weekend reported that childcare centres across the country are hiking day care fees just in time to benefit from the new allowance to parents. Some centres are hiking fees by as much as $75 a month, which leaves parents with a net deficit at the end of the month. One daycare centre operator wrote a letter to parents, saying, “[the daycare centre] would like to be a part recipient of those funds which are to be used for day-care purposes.”

This isn’t about, never was about, should not be about working parents versus stay-at-home parents. If the government wants to hand out this half-assed, poorly planned reward to the voters who were naïve enough to elect them, fair enough. Call it the “thanks for electing us” benefit, then. To their credit, they did change the name of the credit from the Choice in Child Care Allowance to the Universal Child Care Benefit, which is only mildly instead of completely patronizing and insulting. Because it’s far from universal, and has little or nothing to do with child care.

If the government wants to make a meaningful financial contribution to the families who are paying for child care, they should consider changing the tax laws so the highest income earner in the family can deduct the child care expenses, for starters. And then they should go back to the drawing board to find a real way to make child care accessible, reliable and truly universal. We’ve got a long way to go.

Sketches of Quebec City (Post-Script)

It is the morning of our last day in Quebec City. We are in the car, on our way out of town.

Tristan asks, not for the first time, if we are going back to Canada today. “We are in Canada,” I reassure him. He has not asked this question when we have visited Toronto or Kingston or any other city. I launch into a lengthy explanation about cities, provinces and countries, which takes most of the drive to the outskirts of town.

We cross the soaring Pierre Laporte bridge in silence, and as we gain terra firma on the other side, Tristan asks brightly, “Are we in Canada yet?”

How is this possible? I am fervent federalist, and yet I have given birth to a separatist.

Sketches of Quebec City (Part Five)

The boys are asleep in the back seat, Beloved is taking in some culture at the National Musee des Beaux-Arts and I am driving randomly through Quebec City, as relaxed as I’ve been since sitting in Nancy’s comfortable kitchen two long days ago. I start out driving rather aimlessly, and end up in a rather boring suburban neighbourhood that has the same big box stores every Canadian city now seems to have. I am pleased, however, to find a Tim Horton’s – our first in Quebec City – and maybe it’s the familiar caffeine burst that sooths my frazzled nerves as much as the sleeping boys and gentle loops I am making.

The boys should sleep for a good hour or more, their bellies full of the familiar tastes of home thanks to the most exquisite McDonald’s I’ve seen since the Champs-Elysee in Paris. Lunch on the patio of a 300 year old manor apartment converted into a McDonald’s on the Grand Allée, the most grand boulevard in Quebec, seems a perfectly reasonable compromise that leaves everyone content after our busy morning’s adventures.

I drive down to the old port, and circle the outside of the city walls, looking up the formidable escarpment first at the imposing Chateau Frontenac, and then at Battlefields Park. For the first time, gazing at the sheer face of the escarpment, I get a visceral understanding of the history of the place. I can see why Champlain stopped here, why the British fought for this land, what 400 years of civilization – 400 years of Canadian history – looks like. It leaves me feeling infinitesimal yet strongly connected to the past. I follow Champlain (the road, not the explorer) as far as the looming bridges that ford the St Lawrence to the west, and loop back around for another pass.

I begin to realize that Quebeckers tend to be such aggressive and poor drivers (I once heard a stand-up comedian opine that the motto on the Quebec licence plate, Je me souviens, does not in fact translate to “I remember”, but “I will be cutting you off in the near future”) because they have the most arcane, confusing road system known to man. Traffic lights take forever to change, and seem to do so not to assist the flow of traffic, but to impede it.

After almost two hours of driving, during which I cover surprising little territory due to the aforementioned traffic peccaddilloes, I finally feel like I know Quebec City, and I wonder why I didn’t do this the first night we were here. Eventually, it’s time to return to the Musée des Beaux-Arts to pick up Beloved, and I manage to miss the exit I need.

Full of bravado and my newly acquired sense of the geography of the place, I forsake my map and make random turns through the heart of the old city. I am temporarily lost, then get my bearings, then become lost again. I find myself for one embarrassing moment going the wrong way down a poorly (if at all) marked one way street, and I vow that if we ever return to Quebec City, we will not only get a hotel in the old city but park our car when we get there and leave it parked until we are on our way out of town.

The final entry in this series is the post script.

Revenge of the Luddite

Technology – my vice, my paramour, my nemesis.

The laptop has been ‘in the shop’ for about two and a half weeks. The ‘shop’ is in – of all places – Utah. Apparently, in all of North America, Gateway computers only have qualified technicians in Utah. Go figure.

You may remember back when we got the laptop – I thought it was an almost embarrassing and unnecessary extravagance. Now, it’s a lifeline. For more than half a month, I’ve had to actually creep down to the basement and use the desktop computer to surf, and to blog. Oh, the indecency of it all. It’s practically a stone tablet and chisel, for goodness sake.

And then, while we were away this past week, Beloved has the audacity to take with him our digital camera (which I also thought was a bit of an embarrassing and unnecessary extravagance), leaving me with my little Canon Owl point and shoot 35mm camera. Not even an SLR, mind you. And I had to bring the films to the photo lab and actually wait to see what the pictures looked like. It was nothing short of painful. We used to live like this? It’s positively prehistoric.

So anyway, I had to wait until tonight to post some of the pics from the 35mm camera (I even had to ask for a reminder tutorial on how to scan things into the computer!) and now Blogger has crapped out on me and won’t let me edit post any more photos. But in the next little while, I’m going back to re-edit some of the original sketches on Quebec City, so do go back and admire the photos, now that it’s taken so much bloody work to post them for you. Egads, at this rate I’ll posting via seminole signals by the end of the weekend…

Sketches of Quebec City (Tristan’s Perspective)

Beloved bought a disposable camera for Tristan to use on our vacation in Quebec City. Despite the fact that Tristan didn’t quite understand why this camera doesn’t immediately show the shot you just captured like our digital one does, I think the whole series of shots makes a wonderful collage of the old city from the perspective of a curious four-year-old. (These photos are actually scans of the index card the photo lab includes with each processing order.)


Continue reading Sketches of Quebec City with Part Five.

Sketches of Quebec City (Part Three)

We are sitting on the warm pavement of the parade grounds at the Citadel, the site of the original military fortification at Quebec and still an active military garrison. We are hot and sweaty under a heavy grey sky, having marched uphill into the Citadel from the old city in double-time to make it in time to see the Changing of the Guard ceremony.


(If you are looking for a way to keep two preschoolers sitting still for a 35 minute outdoor spectacle, walking for a couple of hours through the winding streets of the old city and then running them twenty minutes uphill in dreadful humidity to get there is a pretty good way to ensure they sit in quiet stupor awe for the entire thing.)

I couldn’t resist at least one cheesey tourist photo for posterity:

Okay, so these ones are pretty cheesey, too – but cute!

I can tell the boys are starting to lose patience in being dragged around the old city, but Beloved wants to make one quick stop at the l’Hotel Dieu, a museum run by Augustinian nuns within a working hospital, before we stop for lunch. I was hoping the boys could stand at least a little bit of cultural indoctrination, but am fearful of what kind of behaviour we might encounter with tired, hot, cranky boys inside, of all places, a monastery. We are wandering down from the Citadel back into the city walls when a perfectly lovely park appears in our path like an oasis. I nearly fall down with joy and gratitude, and the boys and I stop to play for an hour while Beloved makes his way down to the museum unencumbered.

The Parc Esplanade is truly a gift, a full park nestled up against the old city walls. We swing, we climb, we play with the children of other exhaustedly grateful tourists, and we even make our way up on to the old walls themselves to run on the grass-topped ramparts for a few spectacular minutes.

The hill that rises up the left side of the photo leads up to the old city walls, which you can just barely make out. The buildings you see are all outside the old city walls.

Now I get it. This is the Quebec City that people have raved to me about. Amazing…

Continue reading Sketches of Quebec City with Part Four, Tristan’s Perspective.