J. Maarten Troost, the author of the highly readable, laugh out loud book Sex Lives of Cannibals and the follow up companion Getting Stoned with Savages has recently released his new adventures in China called Lost on Planet China. I ask you how a book with a provocative title like Sex Lives of Cannibals not be good? Sex Lives is about Troost's years on a small island in the South Pacific. Anyone traveling and living in Eastern Europe, Asia and/or the Pacific will know that Troost has nailed all those little irky things that make life overseas an adventure. He talks about the time the island ran out of beer. I remember having orange juice my first week in Estonia only to find that it could be found no where in the capital city for the next two months. Then there was the three months in Slovakia that I had to wash my clothes in the bathtub because there were no laundromats in the country. McDonald's had made it the month before I arrived, yet you couldn't find a washing machine that didn't actually belong to you. You never know how long how long you can wear a pair of jeans until you have to do the "I Love Lucy Dance" in the bathtub. You know the episode where she was in the wine vat squashing grapes--I re-enacted this scene about once every two to three weeks in Bratislava. Yes, Mr. Troost knows his stuff.
I have just started Planet China. I was a bit nervous about picking it up. After all I was so extremely disappointed and outraged by Camilla's playboy son's Year of Eating Dangerously and his made up adventures in China--the worst book I have ever read! I haven't been to Kiribati, Vannatu, Fiji or any of the other places that Troost wrote about. Did I just like him because he writes about things that sound true but I have no directly knowledge of them? After all, I decided that Paul Theroux was a pompous ass after reading his Ride the Iron Rooster after I had just left China. I was worried my high esteem might slip down the drain along with the ripped pages of the book. Since the book belongs to the library, I would have some explaining to do.
However, any qualms I may have had were laid to rest with the Author's Note. Troost is in high form. I quickly sped through the first 50 pages and decided that I needed to pace myself or I might meet my carpool at 7:00 tomorrow with saucer eyes. I have a 4 hour training session to get through in the morning--saucer eyes would be a bad idea.
Troost talks about the trouble of being a pedestrian in Beijing. I can fully sympathize with him. It was bad--really bad--in 1995, just imagine 13 years of economic growth in the steroid economy that has become China. While I was in Beijing I decided to rent a bike to get around. Here was my reasoning. Getting killed riding a bike in Beijing is highly probable. Getting killed walking around in Beijing also highly probable. Since biking is faster than walking, I would actually be increasing my survival rates. Neither is for the faint hearted. Seeing what a chicken I am these days, I am not quite sure how I managed. But I think I was still being buoyed along with the knowledge that I did not die of travel sickness in Hong Kong and I survived my little float down the Li River in Southern China. I even survived the god awful boat down the Yangtze through the Three Gorges where there was an open sluice with feces running through it on deck that we had to step over to escape to the first class dubbed second class lounge (this was Communist China after all and there are no first classes). Tracy and I felt the need to spend long hours in the second class lounge after we witnessed our cabin mate hold her young son over the side of the bunk to pee through his split pants. As long as I had enough beer, China was a fantastically bizzaar place that I loved. Thankfully at approximately 5 liters of beer to the dollar there was always enough. A Japanese friend who had spent a long time travelling on almost nothing in India had told me that when travelling hard it is always better to drink beer than water because beer kills all the little germies running around. After my illuminating experience in Hong Kong from drinking the water at Pizza Hut (Pizza Hut! for heaven's sake) I was very careful to follow his advice to the letter.
I have just started Planet China. I was a bit nervous about picking it up. After all I was so extremely disappointed and outraged by Camilla's playboy son's Year of Eating Dangerously and his made up adventures in China--the worst book I have ever read! I haven't been to Kiribati, Vannatu, Fiji or any of the other places that Troost wrote about. Did I just like him because he writes about things that sound true but I have no directly knowledge of them? After all, I decided that Paul Theroux was a pompous ass after reading his Ride the Iron Rooster after I had just left China. I was worried my high esteem might slip down the drain along with the ripped pages of the book. Since the book belongs to the library, I would have some explaining to do.
However, any qualms I may have had were laid to rest with the Author's Note. Troost is in high form. I quickly sped through the first 50 pages and decided that I needed to pace myself or I might meet my carpool at 7:00 tomorrow with saucer eyes. I have a 4 hour training session to get through in the morning--saucer eyes would be a bad idea.
Troost talks about the trouble of being a pedestrian in Beijing. I can fully sympathize with him. It was bad--really bad--in 1995, just imagine 13 years of economic growth in the steroid economy that has become China. While I was in Beijing I decided to rent a bike to get around. Here was my reasoning. Getting killed riding a bike in Beijing is highly probable. Getting killed walking around in Beijing also highly probable. Since biking is faster than walking, I would actually be increasing my survival rates. Neither is for the faint hearted. Seeing what a chicken I am these days, I am not quite sure how I managed. But I think I was still being buoyed along with the knowledge that I did not die of travel sickness in Hong Kong and I survived my little float down the Li River in Southern China. I even survived the god awful boat down the Yangtze through the Three Gorges where there was an open sluice with feces running through it on deck that we had to step over to escape to the first class dubbed second class lounge (this was Communist China after all and there are no first classes). Tracy and I felt the need to spend long hours in the second class lounge after we witnessed our cabin mate hold her young son over the side of the bunk to pee through his split pants. As long as I had enough beer, China was a fantastically bizzaar place that I loved. Thankfully at approximately 5 liters of beer to the dollar there was always enough. A Japanese friend who had spent a long time travelling on almost nothing in India had told me that when travelling hard it is always better to drink beer than water because beer kills all the little germies running around. After my illuminating experience in Hong Kong from drinking the water at Pizza Hut (Pizza Hut! for heaven's sake) I was very careful to follow his advice to the letter.
1 comment:
Okay, Troost is on my reading list. Unfortunately he's at the end so that's a couple of years backlog...
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