“I have a boyfriend”

I always wondered if woman say that to all guys they first meet or if it is done because I have somehow, through my ignorance of social norm, mistakenly expressed what is regarded as romantic interest. The former would depress me to no end on the reality of the opposite sex while the latter at least give me some hope of understanding when I crossed some invisible line.

After realizing that comments like these are usually the result of an inflated ego, I have recently started retorting to comments like these in an effort to put their egos down in a coffin. Yes, it took me some 29 years to figure this out, but I can’t help the fact that I was brought up in a completely different culture, where the game of chase wasn’t too well studied and understood by the female population until the democratic revolution.

It is extremely puzzling to hear something so out of context like this, during a business discussion where I am trying to get something done. The same kind of WTF thoughts crosses my mind when I read articles where female employee sues their supervisor for patting their back on a job well done.

How can you take business and somewhow contort it enough in your mind to believe that I am actually hitting on you? Am I being too nice? Am I smiling and complimenting too often? Those are the only thing I can think of after studying various books on the subject matters. The “nice guys finishes last” complex… except I am not going after you.

For me, being nice is a formula. Just like pretty much everything else in my life. If you are not rich or powerful, be nice to suck up to the rich and powerful. If you ARE rich and powerful, you can afford to be NOT nice to save the precious time that’s left in your life.

Perhaps the biggest one of them all, is the realization that the ideals of my younger days are not ideals at all, but an imposition of the controlling group to extract work out of members of the society. Knowing how money work and its sway on our lives definitely didn’t help either.

The whole time while I was young, I was acting out someone else’s desire. To those of you still reading and still young. No, those thoughts of yours aren’t original and yes, you are there to profit somebody else no matter how much you believe you are your own boss.

The fact that I get lazier as I get richer, presents another blow to my original image of my self proclaimed honest character. In the end, I am just like any other corrupted adult. Jaded and without an aim in life.

Some days I disagree with these thoughts, some days I agree. The fact remains that I am thinking these thoughts and that alone probably places me in the jaded department. You can only get jaded about life when you’ve grown up right?

Day 6: Camel ride

Google map location

Mark exchanged 2000 Dh

andreiagemea@hotmail.com

Rental car 072 641 511

Phone split: 5 Dh
Water split: 12 Dh
Lunch split: 170 Dh
Hotel split: 102 Dh
Caravan split: 1500 Dh
Dinner split: 120 Dh

An emotional goodbye

Holding hands with the little girl, the symbolism of such a picture crossed my mind. Est-ce qu’on va me prend comme paedophile? Her frail silhouette trembled against the harsh unforgiven desert wind, drawing pity and sympathy from onlookers. For that one moment in my life, I had a perfect clarity on life’s single purpose: to ensure that she doesn’t trip on her way to beg.

The desert consmes the weak. Such is the way in Merzouga.

She’s barely strong enough to hang on to my thumb and it’d be easy for me to shake my hands free, but I made an effort to let her hold on to my thumb comfortably so that I can make her life just a bit easier for the short moment that our roads cross. I couldn’t bring myself to look at her because I feel ashamed of the comfortable life I have. Yet I didn’t want to let go for fear that I will discard this meeting as irrelevant. So there our shadows walked, alone, on the sand dunes of Zagora. Life became real and this is not a crook after tourist money, but a girl begging for a few more days to live and possible reprieve from hunger.

That set the tone for the rest of the day and the rest of the trip. I believe it was a turning point worth noting. Where the party stopped and the spiritual journey began.

I was deeply humbled. For the adventure in traveling is deeply glorified. At that moment, I saw it for what it is. A safe way for sheltered people to pretend to risk our lives and hopefully gleam the excitement of a dangerous life that we wished. I can never do what these people do to survive this far so stop pretending.

How can I ever hope to change anything so problem

atic as this? How can anybody manages to do that? This scene the type of picture you’d see on National Geographic or the infomercials that asks you to support a child. You see it, hear it, read about it and talk about it but the moment you are in it, you begin to understand why these people are making an effort to reach out to us in the comfort of our air conditioned chairs.

Waking up in the desert

Like always, I woke up earlier when traveling which allowed me to enjoy the quiet desert sunrise before the other tourists wake up. When there is no wind in the desert, the sand absorbs all sounds. It made me wonder why I enjoyed the Dune series so much. Is it because I longed for a life like this? Solitude and peace with nature with simple joys of making music while eating bread and drinking water.

Rest of the journey

We asked to be dropped off at Ouarzazatte after saying good bye to our great companions and found our way to hotel Royal. For a well needed bath smack in the middle of nowhere at 102 Dh a day for 2 people with shower. We asked around for a guided tour towards El-Rachidia, but it seems like there isn’t many tourists here interested. I thought it’d be the opposite since this is closer to the camel ride destination. Because of the fact, they cannot use economy of scale to reduce prices, private tour comes down to 3500 Dh. We will probably end up renting cars.

In the end, we joined the group after at hotel royal for 750 Dh each towards the east. After hunting is done, we watched a game of soccer with the locals. I am glad that there’s one thing that everyone in the world can relate to and that is soccer.

Day 4: wrapping up Marrakesh

Google map position

Costs:

Breakfast split: 10 Dh
Camel ride reservation split: 400 Dh
Hotel Chellah split: 150 Dh
Tips snake charmer split: 20 Dh

Fruits split: 5 Dh
Child guide split: 10 Dh
Orange juice split: 6 Dh
Coke and Sprite split: 24 Dh

Toilet Mark: 1 Dh
Eggs split: 4 Dh
Pastries split: 2 Dh

Admission palace: 40 Dh split

Dinner split: 75 Dh
Showers Mark: 20 Dh

The list

The list is an assortment of sins and must-dos which Mark and I came up with for this trip. One of the items that I wrote down was watching an authentic belly dancing show. This is from a pet peeve of mine. When I travel I want to learn everything I can about the local dance culture, their business model, people’s perception of it and the nuances that come with the lifestyle. So the previous night, we did just that.

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Culture and Economy

Here’s a footage of us crossing the street to get an idea of the chaotic nature of the traffic

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Here’s a list of us walking in the souks alleyways.

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Between child prostitution in the new city, peddling wares or photo-ops to tourists in the old city and finally, selling hashish (better quality pot more on this in a later entry) to every white skinned people looking lost, I think Marrakesh has a pretty good economy going for them. This impression I have of this place can probably be attributed to the underlying conflicts between the French and their “Colony”. So to speak.

I’ll try to demonstrate this first with examples. There’s a very big difference in interaction with the locals between Mark and I. First of all, it’s rare for them to see a white guy walking around in with an Asian. Second they never expected me to be able to speak French let along jokingly stab back at them. For the most part, people left me alone (the reason will be revealed in a later entry). So besides the normal: “You Japonais?” while showing the Buddhist prayer hand they usually just blurt out whatever English they know and be done with me. Mark however gets a completely different treatment which includes and not limited to: “Want hashih?”, “Take pictures?”, “Cent Dirham!”. I am not sure if he gets solicitation for “Jeunne fille” sex, I did not ask and do not intend to. We did have somebody asking us if we want “Good stuff with woman” around a street corner in CasaBlanca, but I didn’t think the woman was that young or good looking.

For us, Marrakesh was a new experience, but for the French who were visiting for the 10th time in their life, it was pretty much a colony where people are to be ordered around and that everything is cheap. You can basically collect France welfare and just stay in Morroco for its low living standard if you want (based on my calculations, detail feasibility study still need to be done). So the French’s attitudes towards the locals are that of annoyance and impatience (Which is the type of attitude I ended up adopting near the end of the trip as well for a different reason).

Overall, Marrakesh is worth staying 3 days for. Western tourists pays very well since our living standards are luxurious compared to the scraps that they have to fight for. 100 Dh  (roughly $27) may be pocket change for you, but for the locals it can probably feed a person for a week (I once survived off 15 Dh/day on this trip).

What I believe will really help both the tourists and the locals, is for an effort to be put into making a transactions binding and to develop a pleasant attitude when an offer is rejected. The changing of an agreed upon amount made me suspicious of anything they say. The insults that they blurt out when I refused them, made me dread any contact with the local people. It’s true that by adopting the two, you might not get my business, but if your neighbor can get my business, it will benefit Marrakesh eventually. The way it’s going right now just pushes me to be my cruelest self without regret.

Sight Seeing

There are quite a few point of interest for sight seeing if you are into that type travel. Personally, traveling is more of a way to learn another lifestyle and a chance to interact with people that I would otherwise have not met. When you have traveled a lot, sight seeing in every country becomes the same. But this was a slow day as we waited for the next desert excursion to start, so we decided to do what all good tourists should do. Visit these places of interests. Palais Badii, La Koutoubia and Jardin Princesse Lalla Hasna. Add some more of the souks crawling and we managed to waste a whole day. As a consequence of this more leisurely pace, we got to witness more of the day to day life of Marrakesh. That includes a knife fight between a souk kid using WWF style huge metal belt against a street bum wielding a knife. Some blood were shed before people finally broke up the couple. All without the police being informed. I think the police are there more to protect the tourists than to enforce order between their own kind. There were also a rock throwing fight between kids. By rocks I mean rock the size of your fist. A police confiscated the camera of a tourist who took pictures of the royal palace which they were not allowed to.

Change of Plans

When we got back to the hotel, our hotel owner took us to a travel agency to register for a camel ride at 700 Dh each. Ralid was the person who serviced us. We were surprised by how fluent he is in English in a country with strong French influence. It turns out that he actuall graduated university in the US, go figure. For those of you who wish to take a desert excursion with a caravan, it’s best if you ask the hotel owners. Travel agencies tend to charge double the price and provide the same type of experience.

After much deliberation between me and Mark, we decided that signing up for this will not only provide for a good experience, but also allow us to travel towards the southern part of Morocco without having to worry about finding transportation. We made a conscious decision to break off from the original plan and make a leap of faith to go the less traveled road. Less protection for tourists and more potential dangers in less civilized area. By making this change, we no longer know if we will make it back in time for our plane nor do we have any idea how to travel from here on. I am scared of the numerous possibilities for error, but at the same time excited to see what I can do.

Night of Marrakesh

We spend the night at the night market in Jamaa-el-fna, splurging on food. For 75 Dh, we had: Tanjine, calamari, Pastille, Aubergine, soupe, coke and bread. This is definitely awesome and worth it. The place completely makes me feel at home. Reminds me of Taiwan’s night market but with different people. That about wrap up the day for the calm before the storm hit. It’ll be a while before I get to splurge on food like this again. But I didn’t know that back then…

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Day 3: Marrakesh Ancienne Médina

Rob: fuzzywuzzy134@hotmail.com
Interesting song: Shikari over
Jen: jetheath@gmail.com

Costs:

Taxi split: 40 Dh
Hotel Chellah split: 150 Dh
Sandals Peter: 125 Dh
Lunch Peter: 15 Dh
Lunch Mark: 25 Dh
Synagog split: 10 Dh
False guide split: 20 Dh
Sprite split: 30 Dh
Jelubu Peter: 200 Dh
Cafe d’epice split: 30 Dh
Toilet Mark: 1 Dh
Dinner + Belly dancing split: 300 Dh
Tips Peter: 5 Dh
Tips Peter: 7 Dh

Mark exchanged for 2000 Dh

Getting around

Conversations with strangers under a foreign sky, with sunshine brushing our faces through the shades of apple trees. Our morning was spent with Suzanne from Switzerland and Yum from Korea/Barcelona, both veterans of backpacking. We found a few tips on getting into Spain/Barcelona for cheap and learned about the pitfalls to watch out for when passing through customs . I can’t reiterate how much I prefer a hostel over a comfortable hotel. Not to mention that between Mark, me and finger pointing, we are able to communicate enough to have an interesting conversation with strangers from most of the countries around the globe.

Yesterday was just a taste to get our foot wet. Today we are going in for the kill and our destination is the “Ancienne Médina” of  Marrakesh. We started off cheap and wanted to hike our way to the destination, but by noon we finally learned the important rule of the game that will shape the way we travel for the rest of the trip. One cannot withstand the unbearable heat of Morocco. I was already sun burnt and have emptied my water bottled by the time we called a cab. We paid the driver 40 Dh for the ride to our riad styled hotel Chellah. Very nice and clean with an open courtroom in the center. Most of the houses and hotels are styled in this way. I think paying 40 Dh is justified for how far it is and how complicated it is to find the the roads to our hostel this time. The driver also speaks French fluently while at the same time explained the history of all the buildings around.

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At last, we arrived at the hotel intact. What a heavenly sight. Here’s a panoramic view in flickr. Click on all size and check out the original for the detailed view.

Here’s a footage of us walking from outside our hotel to a major street of the souq. I apologize for how shaky and bad the video is. I had to hide the camera because the locals gets very aggressive when cameras are pointed at them.

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False guides

A few years ago, the government instigated a big crackdown on false guides so I can only imagine how bad it was back then. Even with the crack down and enforcement in place, we were still heavily assaulted everywhere we went. Marrakesh is a tourist city and scammer heaven, so don’t expect any peace of mind unless you stay inside.

Imagine this, you are lost in a strange country with intertwining side streets confusing the hell out of you. You take out your map and your trusty guide book “Lonely planet” to get oriented. Out of the blue a friendly looking local approached you and asked if you need help. His smile heart warming with a few missing teeth, you welcomed the help and asked if he can tell you where is “Jemaa-el-Fna” (Central square). He said he’d take you there, but having heard stories of the false guides you told him that you don’t have money and that you are not going to pay.  Really, you just want him to point a general direction. Figuring that you can rely on your skills at asking for direction that you’ve honed in other backpacking trips. Well, you are in for some surprise buddy. This is not an European country.

Disclaimer

Perhaps Marrakesh shouldn’t be the first place that you visit, but chances are it is if you got swayed by any of the guides or vacation agency packages. And as such, you will have a misplaced sense of trust on Moroccan people if you did. I am warning you first because the real Morocco is not like what I am about to describe.

The false guide trade

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Dealing with the locals of Marrakesh is tricky. The only rule that they abide by is this: 100 Dh for every service rendered. The guide promised that he’s just being helpful and said that we’d do the same for Moroccans visiting Montreal. But as we progressed, it became more and more obvious that he’s just taking us around to his friend’s place so they can gauge us. We got a full explanation of all the spices and natural makeup. 10 Dh for visiting the last synagog. The kicker is when we decided to ditch him, he had the audacity to ask for 100 Dh. We gave him 20 Dh and held on to our claims that we didn’t need hm and said so at the start.

It seems to me at the time that for Moroccans there is no such thing as business integrity. Several times we tried to work out a deal first before taking on any service but still get asked to pay different prices at the end. And when you accuse them of lying, they get really mad at you for saying that. It insults their honor (which is pretty ironic). In Morocco, theft’s punishment is having your hands cut off and I am not sure what lying is, but I am pretty sure it’s a harsh punishment too. Price changing is not equivalent to lying. So they hold you to your western guilt and honor while exercising no honorable conducts themselves. Before you bash me on this, please finish reading the rest of the journey. I understand that this happens only in the tourist towns in the tourist area, but I also need to warn anyone who decides to venture there.

For people who’s not on a budget and not afraid to splurge, you can usually find an official guide by asking the owner of your hotel. They come with official badge and are dressed in the traditional Moroccan robe but they charge more than the 100 Dh demanded by false guides you find on the street.

Sight seeing

Because of the false guide, we were pretty disoriented and had to spend the better part of the day finding our way back. This is when I discovered a unique character of Mark. He seems to have a need to know absolutely where he is. It surprises me because the whole idea of backpacking is getting lost. In any case, after much roaming around, we finally found our way and proceeded to finish the tours outlined on lonely planet.

One of the point of interest on the walking trail is Cafe d’épice. The place is shocking because of the number of white people stuffed in it. It act an oasis for weary western travelers to take a breather from the constant assaults of shopkeepers who wants to sell you stuff you don’t need. This is also where you can see the effect of lonely planet in full swing. Marked as a “Friendly place towards females” we saw a building full of white woman. All of a sudden, we don’t feel so unique anymore.

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I spent some money buying some cloths to help me blend in, somehow , all that seems to do is making people mock me as “Chinese Alibaba”

When we returned to the hotel Chellah, we met a pair of British born sibling who lives in France: Jen and Rob.  We were all relieved to be able to speak English once again and to feel the proximity of people who think like us that we decided to spend the rest of the day together and go out to watch some authentic belly dancing. It is from Jen and Rob that we begin to hear about the camel excursions in desert that some of the other backpackers are participating in.

We talked and enjoyed the atmosphere in a traditional Arabian settings until well into the night. Jen and Rob decided to head back to the hostel early because by midnight, the streets have turned hostile. Especially so towards woman and we had to surround Jen to protect her from all the cat calls and potential problems that might occur. At night, the streets are back in the hands of the locals. Single woman venture out at your own risk. Even guys needs to take more precaution.

Jemaa-el-Fna was quite a impressive in the morning, however, it is nothng compared to the night. It reminds me of a Taiwanese night market with the lights food and the people. It also showed the ugliest side of Marrakesh. Everythng at the night market requires money, a rule which we didn’t know. Because of this, we severely pissed off a few people. From listening to group of people making music to taking pictures. They will get hostile if you don’t pay up as if we are intruding on their right to enjoy themselves. They will even stop the music and stare at you using crowd psychology to force you to pay.

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Well, that’s the reason why I usually ask for a sick day off in advance from my boss. Because I know that I woke up with a sore throat today and when the pain did not subside after 3L of water with plentiful of vitamin C, there will be a great battle in my body in 4 days. I know because I’ve kept record of all my past cold/flu infections.

So, instead of warning in advance so that the business can prepare for it, I call in sick the morning of, which usually means chaos for people who were expecting me to be there. What an illogical thing I have to do to fit into the society.

The first report of the bug appeared a month ago, from a customer complaint of some missed bytes through RS-232 serial communication. For those of you unfamiliar with this standard, we usually laugh it off because the serial communication has been done to death and any error should be recovered by the redundancy, handshaking and recovery routines that is inherent in the communication protocol. The problem, therefore, must lie in loose cables or chipped connectors somewhere. So the first thing that we do is to ask the customers on a witch hunt. Of course, being a suspicious engineer by nature, I setup something similar on my end and ran some test overnight just to make sure that we didn’t accidentally “design” it wrong.

Christmas came and went the memories of this bug went to the back of my mind as I tackle numerous demands from customers deploying their systems all over the place in order to get rid of their inventory to strategically position themselves in the coming recession. This particular client is in a different situation however as their systems are already deployed and are just now encountering this bug in the field. As time went by, more and more report of the bug appeared till eventually, it happened on one of their development system that they have in house. This presented them with an opportunity to hook up all sorts of monitoring devices on each point to track the flow of data. Lots of expensive equipments and probes later, they found out that 8 bytes of data will randomly disappear after it gets received by the serial communication port. The nail in the coffin is that they found out that the problem only happens when the cable is connected to our product. By now, we have gathered several confusing evidences that doesn’t make sense and are in conflict with each other.

• The serial communication works when the cable is connected to the com port of another product
• It only happens on certain systems
• Errors are reported after 15 retries failed
• On systems that does not have problems, it didn’t fail even once

So it seems obvious right now that we only need to compare the “good” and “bad” system and look at what is different in order to zero in on the problem. Here’s the kicker. All systems are exactly the same. Same hardware bought at the same time, same installation procedure and the HDD are all restored from the same disk image. In essence, they are clones of each other.

How can some clones have problems while others don’t? The mystery intesifies…

I’ve since learned that the success of the project is a correlation between its complexity and the health of its parent company. Take the first major project I participated in for example. It was an exotic product that will probably be a game changer in terms of how things are done in the medical field.

However, the price of the company’s stock had been falling for 2 years straight. Back then, I didn’t see that as having any correlation with the project that they are working on. I was wrong. That can only be true in companies with solid foundations.

As the number of quaterly and annual financial report I read increases. I can extract more and more from the numbers in the maze that they provide. With each pitfall around the corner that I stumble upon, I gain the ability to see one more secret hidden in these numbers. My dad always tells me to leave that to the analysts who are better at it and I was content at doing that for a while.  Until the recent market crash taught me one important thing. Most of these big shots in the financial world got through their studies because their parents paid good money to the universities which they attend. They got there through inheritance.

Take an acquaintance of mine in Ottawa for example.  Who’s now working in the treasury for example. His math skill is questionable and he had no experiences in a similar position. I have to say that his family’s influence was the major reason he got the job. Now think about his credentials and think about the fact that he is now responsible for your tax dollars in the government you will understand why I don’t trust the big financial heads.

I shop around, but I also understand that shopping around wastes time/money and is not worth it if you have to shop around a lot. Therefore, I am more likely to stick with a few trusted source to go to than buying the cheapest thing out there. I also like to make (annd see) everyone and everything I approve of, prosper.

So, I get to thinking during the finals days of bus/metro riding, what will make me stay with certain dealers? Sincerity of service. Yes, I am usually cheap on my first trip due to the great deal that’s announced somewhere, but if I like the service, I will usually stick with the same person most of the time. I say sincerity because I know about all the sales techniques people use from working closely with sales. It sets off an alarm inside that will usually make me bail out of a deal unless it’s a really good deal. I just don’t like the fact that people are applying techniques to me.

So in sum. Great deal to attract me to the store so that you can show me the sincere service you provide. Of course, the sales person will have to judge whether or not I am worth that kind of service. There are people who’s just out there to rip off businesses.

My dad sat me down one day during the frenzy of preparing for finals and applying for the program I want to talk about my career. I believe that up until that point, I’ve exhibited a preference towards art and acting. The genes from my mother’s side. In Taiwan, I excelled at it and was reinforced by my peers that I am very good at both. I believed in that fact myself. You can see the same result from my grades. I wasn’t that good at math like your stereotypical Asian guy.

What he told me was this: “You are an immigrant and that is a fact. You cannot plan your life ignoring the biggest change that has happened to you so far. You need to ask yourself, what can you do that is naturally better than the people who were raised here so you are not always playing catch up.”

“Lawyer? Actor? Can you out-talk a local in French? In English?”

My father showed me some of his frustration as well: “I learned a new word today at the age of 40, it’s called conspiracy (Excruciating and slow attempt at pronouncing the word, we are not good with words that have more than 3 syllables). People here grow up knowing what that word mean. How can you expect to beat them at their own game which they’ve been playing far longer than you?”

“Let’s say that you can. What do you think will happen when a white CEO is trying to decide between a white and an yellow guy when both are equally qualified and with the exact same background? White of course. Wouldn’t you choose your own kind as well? Don’t you think it will be even worse in other fields where the results are more subjective?”

That, is what I call “shattering of dreams” in my life. The moment when I realized the difference and admit that it exists. This “difference” continued to co-exist inside me on a day to day basis as I see the other world’s reality whenever an event happened in the wrold I live in. This “other world” of the yellow culture that continues to give me insight to what could’ve happened differently and provides ironic comedy to what would’ve been otherwise a perfectly normal assumption on normality.