A grumbling hermit in a mountainous shell

This entry is a essentially rant. I am sick of hearing people telling me : you should travel more, don't always stay in the mountains. There is a reason why I travel not as often as I used to be. Not that I hate travel, on the contrary, I adore adventures. I had booked a one-way ticket, flied to Sicily alone and slowly figured my way back to Grenoble; I had travelled to India for a month with my mom without any planning beforehand; I had travelled to Tunisia during its unstable time after Arab Spring without any planning; and I had hitchhiked multiple times in several countries. 

By mentioning all the above, I have to admit that I might have the intention to brag. But all I mentioned are stories, great stories even. That's exactly the point of travel for me : stories. As travelling is getting easier and easier, I have seen too many people travel to places and all they care about are beautiful photos, photos that are later to be posted on social media to impress other people they don't know. However breathtaking the scenery is, they won't trully know because they are busy looking at their cameras and selfie stick, trying to get the right angle for the perfect shot. And then move back to hotel as soon as possible, with wifi go back into their own bubble with their phones.  

A quote from a movie I love so much, The Beach, pretty much sums up my thought, 

The only downer is, everyone's got the same idea. We all travel thousands of miles just to watch TV and check in to somewhere with all the comforts of home, and you gotta ask yourself, what is the point of that?

I don't hate travel, I just hate tourists-consumers I meet during the travel. Photographer-wannabes with huge cameras and tripods, narcissistic technology-slaves with their selfie sticks, youngsters who have no intention to be there but dragged by their parents to travel with them and now complaining about internet connection, all of them are pollutants, or like how they are described in The Beach, parasites.

Recently I read an article which inspired me to write this entry. It is in French but I find the final paragraphe really true, from which I quote and translate, 

If travelling has became a to-do-list to cross out, then travelling doesn't make you an interesting person.   

(http://www.vice.com/fr/read/tourisme-et-narcissisme-199).

I still travel, but not to famous places anymore. I try to avoid easily accessible tourist hotspot, and travel more and more to places not many people know. That is why I stayed for only a few hours in JiuFen, an incredibly popular spot in Taiwan, but stayed for four full days in Kinmen, a tiny rural island where foreigners are rarity. 

That is also why I prefer to stay in Grenoble mountains during the holidays, spending most of my time doing outdoor sports. Alpine mountains fit the inaccessible criteria, the scenery is always amazing, and sport and nature are good for health. To get a beautiful view, one has to climb. In that way, mountains always ensure an experience, the one that takes your breathe away, literally and figuratively. People you meet in the mountains tend to be very friendly. Since everyone is sharing the same experience, you can feel the connection between you and them, eventhough they are strangers to you.    

To many ignorant people, I might seem like a hermit in my mountainous shell. May be I am, but at least it is still better than a pollutant, a parasite.   

Villard de Lans to Grenoble

Fire and Blood, Rust and Dust

Mad Max : Fury Road is overloading with fire and blood, rust and dust, and overall madness. The stunts are crazy, the characters are crazy, everything is crazy. I was so damn hyped for this movie, eventhough technically I have never seen the previous three Mad Max movies before. When I was small, I merely remember a scene or two from Road Warrior. The very first trailer of Fury Road really got me hooked in, espcially that sand storm scene at the end. This trailer was so good that I actually worried if the movie was able to match with it. 

This afternoon I watched it and I love it! This is a stand alone film, so one doesn't have to watch the previous three beforehand to enjoy this. The story is simple, not much dialogue, but it sells best what it aims to sell : actions. The movie goes way beyond what the trailer shows. To understand how crazy the movie is, 90% of the scenes showed in the trailer represent only the first 30 minutes of the movie, and the pace of the rest of the movie stays pretty much the same level of craziness throughout. It might sound like Transformers 4 but it is not. Unlike Transformers 4 in which the shots are too dynamic, the shots in Fury Road is clean, static, and wide-angled, which is less tiring and more enjoyable to look at. Transformers 4 is bad in so many ways anyway, so it is not fair to compare Fury Road with it.

The fact that this afternoon when I went to watch Fury Road and there were so few people in the theater made me sad. Screening around the same time as Age of Ultron, Fury Road is overcast by the shadow of Marvel. I really hope that it won't be overlooked. Gotta give credit to the director for keeping the movie rated R and not some PG13 bullshit. He certainly understands that Fury Road needs the R rating. It is an awesome movie. It is a lovely experience to go mad!

     

  

Immune system can be trained

Spring isn't all good. While flowers blossom, pollen is saturating the air. As I am always on my bike, pollen does irritate my nose slightly, making time on the saddle a bit uncomfortable. Pollen allergy apparently is a huge problem for many people in France. There are even pollen index and forecast, which are unheard-of in Malaysia. 

This great video from MinuteEarth explaining how dirtier environment in younger years can reduce the your allergy level. It basically saying that our immune system needs challenges from different viruses and bacterium to strengthen itself, just like what vaccine does to human, to train human's immune system. So, rising a child in an overly hygenic environment may not be a good idea. Bane said to Batman : peace has cost you your strength, victory has defeated you. I am quoting this, not to suggest that we need more war, at least not actual war per se, but a war to your immune system. And partly I think this quote is quite badass. 

War is a wrong terme because war often means violence. I am not suggesting you to go ahead now and eat some spoiled food or stick a flower in your nose and breath in all the pollen. But I am saying that our immune system can be trained. My mom always says, eat dirtier can make you stronger. She always says that to people who tell her hawker stalls on the roadside are unhygenic. 

I remember there was a time when water filter was a hot product in Malaysia, multiple brands like Diamond, Nesh, rising up from nowhere and their advertisements were everywhere. Suddenly, a water filter became a necessity in every household. The tap water was pictured as polluted as it can kill if drank directly. Suddenly, everybody was so aware of the water they are drinking. What we can learn from this are, firstly advertisement does manipulate what people think ; secondly overly hygenic is not necessarily a good thing. My parents didn't get carry away by the craze because partly we didn't have that amount of money to buy one of those expensive water filter, and partly also they thought that was just overreacting. 

I seriously think that living in France has one negative effect on me. I use to have the same level of immunity to dirty food as my mom. But during the India trip, I got minor food poisoning while my mom's stomach accepted everything. Better water quality and better hygiene in general have weakened me. Not that weak until I can't no longer support Malaysian hawker stalls' food though. Phew! What a relieve! 

Muezzins need better sound system

Spring Sunday morning, it was warm and so I left the window open through the night. I had set an alarm for the morning, but I was woke up by the bell from a church not far away before it could set off. While taking my routine morning coffee, I realized muezzin and church's bell were doing the same thing to me : tell me the hour of the day. But I rather listen to bell ringing than muezzin singing, why?

I know the call of the muezzin is an artform and they are not anybody, they are selected. But no matter how skilled the singer is, good equipment is essential too. But judging from many calls of prayer I heard in Malaysia, many were using crappy sound system. So may be the people who plan or manage mosques should start to invest a little more in sound system, better microphones, better loudspeakers, etc..

While I was in Malaysia, I disliked the call of muezzin. Now I kinda miss it. The reason I hated it was because the first call of muezzin was so early in the morning that it was like my annoying alarm clock, and people woke up by alarm clock were often grumpy. Here in France, I am woke up by a ringing bell, and honestly it is less annoying. Plus houses in France normally have thick insulating windows, the sound of the bell is reduced to the minimum when they are shut. 

I think the morning call of muezzin should be turned down a bit. The morning call certainly has good intention for not only muslims but also non-muslims, because me as a morning person myself now, I understand the benefits of waking up early in the morning, the awesome feeling of rising together with the Sun. But unlike ancient times, not everyone of us are farmers. Some have night jobs and have to sleep during daylight. As a non-muslim myself, I treat the call of prayer as a song. Just like any other song, and since people have vast variety of  taste in music, while some might find it peaceful and relaxing, certainly some would find it annoying and nerve-racking. 

Religions need to evolve and adapt.