I just spent four days at Sisa Asoke, a self-sufficient (read sustainable) Buddhist village, at least 8 hours east of Bangkok, and about 30 minutes from the Khao Pra Wihan Angkor-era temple in Cambodia, (but that is another story....That story being that I also found myself in the middle of a border dispute...maybe I'll get into it later....)
Anyhow, Sisa Asoke was absolutely lovely, and the people even lovelier. Exceptional human beings. I don't have a camera, but they lent me one for the last few hours that I was there ~ someone should be sending me the pictures, and then I will put them up. The village itself reminds me of the little communities on Ward's and Algonquin Islands, on the Toronto Islands ~ except that the houses here are almost all on stilts. The community started in about 1974, when some monks camped out in a cemetary and started giving Dharma talks to local people who came to them asking for winning lottery ticket numbers. The woman who met me at the bus and gave me a tour of the community was born in 1974, and her parents became involved with the community in 1974, so she has basically been involved her whole life. The first thing they built was a temple, then, in 1987, they built six houses (the 'houses' are adorable); at the end of "Lent" that year (the end of September) twelve more houses were built and the population of the village was forty. This put a serious strain on their resources, such that they had to cut their bananas into four in order to feed everyone. Around this time, they were also seen as a crazy, communist cult (this at a time when Thailand was fighting communist insurgents in the north-east) and avoided by most people in the area.
In fact, some people would argue that their philosophy and way of life is close to an ideal form of communism, but it is based for them strictly on Buddhist principles. In fact, they have developed a philosophy of life called "buhn-ism" ("buhn" is the Thai word for 'merit'), and contrast it with capitalism in their writings. "Tam buhn" in Thai means to "make merit" (ie to gain karma points for the next life) and most Thais make merit by going to the temple on holidays and giving food to the monks, or paying for a roof tile to help maintain the temple, or making offerings, this type of thing. But the Asoke people believe (quite rightly, I think), that this is a superficial view of merit-making, and that really one should be concerned with making merit on a daily basis, through giving to others and helping others whenever one can, with no expectation of reward. Their whole community is built on this philosophy, and I must admit that they seem to be very good at it individually as well. While I was there
1) I did not pay for my room or food. They will not accept donations from anyone until they have visited the community at least seven times, and are sure that they understand who they are giving money to.
2) The woman who runs the soap and shampoo-making shop asked me to come and help her so she could practise her English (and me my Thai :) She gave me a bottle of shampoo, a bar of soap and, the next day, her scarf. She is also an absolutely delightful woman (not because she gave me things! :)
3) When the woman who picked me up from the bus saw that one of my sandals was broken, she took them into town with her the next day and had them fixed.
4) She also brought me some DVDs and a DVD player so I could watch them if I wanted to.
I'm sure if my mother is reading this she will be cringing ~ please, tell me you hid money in their pockets, Nyree! Oh ~ although this list is by no means complete, when they took me to the bus station to go back to Bangkok (two people) one of them said 'Oh! I have a gift for you! I forgot it at home!' and the other one said 'Me too ~ I wanted to give you something, but I didn't know you were leaving so soon!' to which....I mean, Wow, people.
But aside from listing how I benefited from this trip, and perhaps showing what a perfect ingrate I am (in return, I spent a few hours helping to make shampoo, which was really fun, taught English for about an hour and a half, and maybe taught the shampoo-lady a few more words of English....) I must admit that this philosophy of 'buhn-ism' (working hard in order to be able to give to others) is very enlightened. I guess I'm stating the obvious.... I mean, yes, I obviously benefited personally more than they did....but it doesn't take a genius to see that if everyone acted like this the world would be a wonderful place. It is in all the major religions "Do unto others....", and in the 'Conversations with God' books "God" spends a lot of time trying to drive home the point that we should do unto others as we would have them do to us because 'they' are actually us, we are all One. It's one thing to read about it and think about it, tho', another to see it in action (and yet another to do it yourself).
The members of the Sisa Asoke community all do different jobs - they make soap and shampoo, organic fertilizer, mushrooms, rice, vegetables and fruit ~ they are presently planting bio-fuels in order to be able to power a generator to produce their own electricity. In all things their philosophy is to first create what they need for themselves, to be self-sufficient, and then to give away (or sell cheaply) any extra. They will not charge more than 15% more than their cost for anything they sell. I spent $3 for two large bottles of detergent, body-wash and a box of seeds, which even by Thai standards is remarkably cheap.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Architectural Thoughts
I was struck when I got here by the fact that my room seems to be designed for an air conditioner. Strictly speaking, I can get some airflow going if I open the balcony and bathroom doors, but not much. Suffice it to say, it was not designed with airflow in mind. Not that most buildings in Canada are designed with staying warm in mind either (without a heater). Then I realized that the apartment building that a friend of mine lives in in Havana was designed to be cool without air-conditioning. I remember her daughter's bedroom wall had lots of vents, that sucked in air from an interior 'courtyard' which was really way too small and narrow to be a courtyard ~ it was really just a shaft. But, boy, did the wind ever suck through that thing!
The building had no first floor, just an open (mostly concrete) space with the necessary columns and the two elevator shafts (and stairways). It's quite an odd construction for a 20 or 30 story apartment building, to have the whole thing resting on an 'empty space'. It could have been nice, too, if it hadn't all been concrete. The ground would have gotten some sun in the morning and evening, so there could have been some grass at the ends, shade-loving plants and even a pond.
But I realize now that the design of the whole building was based on traditional housing designs from tropical countries, and this 'empty space' was meant to provide shade (as well as air for the air shafts).
Traditional housing design across much of south-east Asia is on stilts. Having the house on stilts creates a shady area underneath the house to do work outside of the sun (as well as protecting from flooding). 'Upstairs' the house is built in such a way that the air easily flows through. I learned to love houses like this when I lived in Indonesia. The house I lived in had a metal roof, which created a holy cacophony when it rained and caused one to melt from the heat when it didn't. The house across the road wasn't on stilts, but it did have a grass roof and oh ~ the calm, cool, coolness of that house! There were also houses on stilts in that village, which were absolutely wonderful.
So ~ my friends in Cuba might wish they had air-conditioning, but to be honest ~ myself ~ if I lived in a better designed room I would forego the aircon. Sometimes when I open the door it's like a hurricane ripping through here, so I know this room could be very comfortable if it had been designed with that in mind. In the event of a blackout, you know who's going to be laughing in breezy comfort (the Cubans) and who's not (me!)
The building had no first floor, just an open (mostly concrete) space with the necessary columns and the two elevator shafts (and stairways). It's quite an odd construction for a 20 or 30 story apartment building, to have the whole thing resting on an 'empty space'. It could have been nice, too, if it hadn't all been concrete. The ground would have gotten some sun in the morning and evening, so there could have been some grass at the ends, shade-loving plants and even a pond.
But I realize now that the design of the whole building was based on traditional housing designs from tropical countries, and this 'empty space' was meant to provide shade (as well as air for the air shafts).
Traditional housing design across much of south-east Asia is on stilts. Having the house on stilts creates a shady area underneath the house to do work outside of the sun (as well as protecting from flooding). 'Upstairs' the house is built in such a way that the air easily flows through. I learned to love houses like this when I lived in Indonesia. The house I lived in had a metal roof, which created a holy cacophony when it rained and caused one to melt from the heat when it didn't. The house across the road wasn't on stilts, but it did have a grass roof and oh ~ the calm, cool, coolness of that house! There were also houses on stilts in that village, which were absolutely wonderful.
So ~ my friends in Cuba might wish they had air-conditioning, but to be honest ~ myself ~ if I lived in a better designed room I would forego the aircon. Sometimes when I open the door it's like a hurricane ripping through here, so I know this room could be very comfortable if it had been designed with that in mind. In the event of a blackout, you know who's going to be laughing in breezy comfort (the Cubans) and who's not (me!)
Monday, April 12, 2010
Waldorf in Thailand
I know I haven't written on this blog for a looong time ~ even so much of my time in Timor is not covered here. However ~ I'm glad I did this blog because my camera was stolen about six months after I arrived in Timor, so I only have the pictures here because I posted them to this blog.
Now I am in Thailand. To be honest, I've never been interested in coming to Thailand, and I wasn't super-excited about the idea of living in Bangkok. The main reason I accepted this job is because it is at a Waldorf school, and I'm interested in Waldorf. So this blog may be about Waldorf just as much as it's about Thailand ~ we'll see. Another good thing about Thailand is that it's close enough to Timor that I will be able to go back there during the break. Also my friend Faruq is living in Dhaka now ~ I don't know if I'll go there! ~ but I should get to see him over the next two years :)
Not that Thailand is some kind of hell on earth ~ of course it isn't. I expected it to be like Denpasar in Bali ~ urban, dirty, polluted, with six-lane highways etc....but the more supermarkets, malls and department stores I'm taken to (partly because no-one will take me downtown because of the Red Shirts), the more it reminds me of Seoul or Tokyo. I was in the basement foodcourt of a mall yesterday that looked just like a foodcourt in Seoul ~ a very chi-chi one too. (Much nicer than anything you'd see in Toronto). Anyhow ~ I don't expect anyone to get too excited by discussions of foodcourts...
I don't have a camera yet ~ I hope to buy one in the next month. But, in preparation for teaching I am reading some of the works of Rudolf Steiner (the creator of the Waldorf schools) and I just found this interesting, so I will share it here;
(It's from the book "Rhythms of Learning" by Roberto Trostli) and it's about teaching math to first-graders.
"The 4 arithmetic operations - adding, subtracting, etc - are also introduced in the first grade. Steiner placed great emphasis on the introduction to these operations, for he asserted that the way children learn to think about them will help determine whether they will achieve true freedom of thought as adults [!?]
Thinking has two major aspects: synthesis and analysis. When we synthesize, we add things together, building something up from parts; when we analyze, we seperate or divide a whole into its parts. According to Steiner, the process of synthesizing does not leave a human being completely free...he explains:
"If I have to add two and five and three in order to find the total, I am not free, for the answer is fixed by an underlying law. But if I begin with the number ten, I can view it as consisting of nine and one or five and five; or I can arrange it into three, 5 and 2 & so on. When analyzing, I am able to act with complete inner freedom..."
Although children are much more disposed to analyzing than synthesizing, most modern educational practices stress synthesis over analysis, especially in the early grades. According to Steiner, such overemphasis may have profound implications for later life: if children's urge for analysis is not sufficiently satisfied, as adults they may become overly materialistic in their thinking..."
Interesting. It's quite a conclusion to make, but I have to admit, I can't ever recall being asked to divide 10 (or any number) into parts when I was little; that way of thinking about it (as having many different possibilities), and teaching it, is new to me.
OK ~ Stay tuned! Tommorrow is the beginning of Songkran, the Thai New Year festival. Apparently the whole city turns into one massive waterfight ~ we shall see :)
Now I am in Thailand. To be honest, I've never been interested in coming to Thailand, and I wasn't super-excited about the idea of living in Bangkok. The main reason I accepted this job is because it is at a Waldorf school, and I'm interested in Waldorf. So this blog may be about Waldorf just as much as it's about Thailand ~ we'll see. Another good thing about Thailand is that it's close enough to Timor that I will be able to go back there during the break. Also my friend Faruq is living in Dhaka now ~ I don't know if I'll go there! ~ but I should get to see him over the next two years :)
Not that Thailand is some kind of hell on earth ~ of course it isn't. I expected it to be like Denpasar in Bali ~ urban, dirty, polluted, with six-lane highways etc....but the more supermarkets, malls and department stores I'm taken to (partly because no-one will take me downtown because of the Red Shirts), the more it reminds me of Seoul or Tokyo. I was in the basement foodcourt of a mall yesterday that looked just like a foodcourt in Seoul ~ a very chi-chi one too. (Much nicer than anything you'd see in Toronto). Anyhow ~ I don't expect anyone to get too excited by discussions of foodcourts...
I don't have a camera yet ~ I hope to buy one in the next month. But, in preparation for teaching I am reading some of the works of Rudolf Steiner (the creator of the Waldorf schools) and I just found this interesting, so I will share it here;
(It's from the book "Rhythms of Learning" by Roberto Trostli) and it's about teaching math to first-graders.
"The 4 arithmetic operations - adding, subtracting, etc - are also introduced in the first grade. Steiner placed great emphasis on the introduction to these operations, for he asserted that the way children learn to think about them will help determine whether they will achieve true freedom of thought as adults [!?]
Thinking has two major aspects: synthesis and analysis. When we synthesize, we add things together, building something up from parts; when we analyze, we seperate or divide a whole into its parts. According to Steiner, the process of synthesizing does not leave a human being completely free...he explains:
"If I have to add two and five and three in order to find the total, I am not free, for the answer is fixed by an underlying law. But if I begin with the number ten, I can view it as consisting of nine and one or five and five; or I can arrange it into three, 5 and 2 & so on. When analyzing, I am able to act with complete inner freedom..."
Although children are much more disposed to analyzing than synthesizing, most modern educational practices stress synthesis over analysis, especially in the early grades. According to Steiner, such overemphasis may have profound implications for later life: if children's urge for analysis is not sufficiently satisfied, as adults they may become overly materialistic in their thinking..."
Interesting. It's quite a conclusion to make, but I have to admit, I can't ever recall being asked to divide 10 (or any number) into parts when I was little; that way of thinking about it (as having many different possibilities), and teaching it, is new to me.
OK ~ Stay tuned! Tommorrow is the beginning of Songkran, the Thai New Year festival. Apparently the whole city turns into one massive waterfight ~ we shall see :)
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