The Meaning of Life, vol. II

To this post I have collected some various opinions about the meaning of life that I received due to my last post. They are from my friends and apparently are quite deep thinkers :).

THE VIEWS:

General purpose of living is to get pleasure while treating nature and other people (and species) as good as I would want them to treat me.
In other words, to live in harmony with environment and tend to get pleasure. This requires practical skills/ academic education/ experience & wisdom.
(1) Only getting pleasure won't make me happy. Because only getting pleasure I stop appreciating it.
(2) Only getting wisdom, knowledge, practical skills working hard day by day also isn't the right way to live, to happiness. Body wants to get awarded for its effort.

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Human beings are not subject to any given end(purpose/mission), we serve our own purposes and are free to live any life we choose. An external purpose would debase us to mere instruments for whatever presses the purpose upon us.

Don't get me wrong. Precisely because we are free(self-serving) and accountable for our own deeds, we are capable of virtue and love, which I think are what being a human being is about.

Put it in a nutshell: you don't need any meaning if you serve your own purpose.

In fact, if you begin to wonder what's the point of all of this, it's a pretty good indication that you are serving an external purpose instead of an internal one, you are living somebody else's life instead of your own.

MORE ACCURATELY:

Virtue is the intrinsic good. "if you need a reason to be good, you haven't yet understood what is good (Immanuel Kant)".

I agree with the Ancient Greeks: we are gods trapped in mortality. In spite of being pressed by physical needs and suffering from various physical limitations, we share with gods the capacity of virtue. "What would Jesus do?" is a good motto, even for non-Christians.

In platonic sense (since I'm talking Greek), love is the recognition and appreciation of the "divinity"(virtues) manifested by a person. But love can mean more than that.

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For a long time the meaning of life is to meet with new and different people and to see different places and replace the good way of lives or positive aspects of their character to myself. I want to see different thinkings so that I can find the one which I'm the happiest with it.

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END OF VIEWS

So here we have them. What do YOU think?

Have a relaxing day!

-Junnu

Meaning of Life

Ultimately, what is the meaning of life?

A question that has been haunting me for the past month more or less so. I see people going on about their businesses, sometimes very happy looking, others not so happy-looking.. If you think about it.. When someone would say the meaning of life is to find a life-long partner, with whom you can share the life's chills and thrills, to laugh and cry and feel completely safe and to reproduce, another person could say it is to enjoy your own life to the max, which, in some cases, could mean being "wild and free" without a care in the world, just sing and dance, while walking in the street (e.g.) without being frowned upon, just feeling super and doing just the things you want and not be submissive the least bit.

The two alternative views above are seemingly confronting, but ideally I think they could go hand in hand. But only ideally.

The abovementioned alternatives are kinda two sides of individualism: in the first view it is to go along with the general views of the society about how to lead one’s life and to commit oneself to another person and wanting to carry on the bloodline to feel good about it. To be old and to know you raised the kids, whose kids are playing in your backyard. Grandpa. The other view is to dedicate more pleasure in life directly to oneself instead of sharing and spreading it around. Is it equally acceptable to do this, to enjoy life in, some might say, selfish way? Isn’t the meaning of life at least partially to have a good time? What else is important? What if all the people had good time all the time.. would they be walking down the streets with a super-wide smile in their face?

So again, what is the meaning of life? Why do we wake up everyday to do the things we do? What makes it worth it? Should we even not think about it - just live it through? Maybe the meaning of life is to be discovered individually as everyone is different from each other? Should we not waste any time pondering this crap? :) But I’m curious about all this.

Share your thoughts.

Back to the old drawing board

Every year it is as big a surprise as it was the last year. Wappu truly is the Christmas of teekkarit (technology students). For the last 7-10 days or so my life has been filled with happiness, laughter and joy. The people around me have managed to fill my heart with warmth and solid belief of the incredible power that lies within each of us - the power to create positive energies for us all to enjoy. That is why the last week's atmosphere has been unprecedented once again. Even the semi-lousy weather could not interfere with the passion of the teekkarit to gather as a group and show how innovative they can be when they are called upon. Of course, all the people - regardless of their student background - have been contributing to this amazing series of events.

I would like to extend my greatest gratitude towards all of my friends and their friends, who made this once again possible. Best regards to all the people who are following this blog as well!

The past week has included meeting a vast array of good people, all with their unique flavour of expressing themselves. They are all equally welcome and appreciated by me. Thank you friends.

Last week was quite a rush as well because of where I live and the fact I tried to eat quite a lot vegetarian stuff when barbecuing (the only form of preparing food last week). Apart from briefly ending up to my apartment on Friday-Saturday night, I did not see my place from Wednesday morning until today (Sunday). Thank you all you kind ppl for hosting me during the sleeping hours. JMT 5 rooftop barbecue was fabulous once again on Friday, which surely will be remembered. Last night's unspeakably weird private party was something to be surely remembered.. :D Yeah, well what happens in the student village stays in the student village :P.

What was also very unforgettable was the fact I got to talk Chinese quite a lot during the last week. Which was nice. Tai hao le! Lot of good Chinese and Chinese-speaking people apparently in the Otaniemi-area.

Now it is time to continue working on my master's thesis at work, focus on that. Little by little it advances inevitably evolving.. We'll see how it will end up, I'm kinda excited about it!

As a concluding remark I'd like to offer you readers some bits and pieces from the last week.

Keep in touch!

Lähettäjä Wappu '10

The Christmas of the Finnish technology students..

..is starting to show signs of life. The annual event of 1st of May is the grande finale for this. However, it is more a rule than an exception to start the festivities at least a week beforehand. The events are plentiful among our student guilds and the students themselves are active in party-having regard.

What can I say.. the Sun is (again) starting to warm us up and the snows have just melted, colours of the nature emerge and people start to smile. It's a good time to get the grill from the closet and invite your friends to have some good time in a weird place, e.g. a roof of a technology students' campus dorm. It is a perfect place to let the world know of your music (with the heavy-duty music machinery you brought along), your energy, inviting all the bypassers to join the fun. Or then we might have a mega-picnic in the backyard of our school's main building (the backyard is quite big and green :) ) - more than 1000 people having good time.

For me 1st of May festivities are still on hold partially. What I am glad about is the fact I probably will be able to do my master's thesis at work - little by little figuring out how it's going to be while at the same time dealing with the bureaucracies of this process. It is also relaxing to know the thesis subject is doable and will not be some boring thingy as it many times can be. I'm eager to kick it off (properly after festivities ;) ).

The last Thursday there was more than 2000 students in a student event, whose purpose is to collect stamps from various bars in certain locations (luckily the area was quite near to where I live) to earn their levels. There are four levels: appro, cum laude, laudatur and doctor. One has to do them in order and cannot be acquired before the lower level is obtained. So it takes at least four years to get the highest rank. I got it last year so this year I only hanged around, although the amount of alcohol consumed was not substantially different than in the last years. I got to work on Friday in a good shape though and was productive. I don't know why but it seems I am quite energetic on the day-after...

On Friday Silja was supposed to return from China. Unfortunately the fucking volcano erupted in Iceland thus trapping Silja to Moscow. She will miss today's student party, an annual student party for older technology students - drinking, singing, eating, bad humour and beautiful people. So that's what is going on today for me. Volcanos suck!

Tomorrow it is time to go for an annual trip to Estonia to fetch some cheap booze for the upcoming "trials". It will eat one day out of my work week but I was able to have it as unpaid leave. Which was nice.

I hope to hear from all of you still reading this blog :). That's not much I guess :P

Your Truly
Junnu (You Feng)

Human

In the last four days I have felt / been:

-happy when seeing or talking to dear people (both foreign and Finnish)
-crying in a car when listening to music that induced some strong feelings. Can't actually remember crying that much at least in..well I don't even know!
-drunk and happy with the company I had
-hung over and happy and energetic - well enough to cook super-good food and make my own chocolate out of coconut oil, cocoa butter, cocoa beans etc.
-content over getting my apartment to look like nearly something I would call home (yes I have materialism in me at least some amount, forgive me ;) )
-in sauna with my little brother, my mother and father, sweating my ass off
-been uneasy because my blood pressure is up, for reasons unknown to me. Maybe I should go jogging or stop stressing.. Maybe I just need a good back massage from someone who really cares for me and so that I could feel (preferably) her warmth flow through me, making me peaceful at least for that short moment.
-trying to start things smoothly in my work place. Unfortunately, I've been only partially successful in this respect.

Love. Hate. Courage. Fear. Jealousy. Pride. Addiction. Despair. Joy. Pain. Compassion. Faith. Prediction. Compassion. Love. Joy. Human.

After the first work day (1) the views from my balcony were great in the evening (2)

(1)


(2)

Adjusting back to Finland

Hi there everybody!

Lately I have been too lazy or busy to write anything but I thought I'd give it a try now.. I'm also trying to figure out the future of this blog. After all, this was meant to be my travel diary.. but maybe I would now start writing here whenever I feel like it, when I have something to say or on my mind and I want to share it and write it down.

When walking down the streets of Helsinki, Hyvinkää or wherever here in Finland (or in Stockholm for that matter on last weekend) it really feels like there are no people here. It's really spacious back here in Finland. Those people who are here hold their heads down while rushing on about their businesses. Where is the joy which was so prominent e.g. in Thailand? I guess the Finnish winter really makes people depressed.. And now it is the time of the year when all the snow is melting away (painfully slowly) and one has to walk in this sloshy snow getting wet and sharing this fun with everybody around.

Ì have managed to adjust to Finland quite well I guess. None of that stuff occurred they mentioned in my home university's foreign studies pages, like "the culture shock may be even bigger when returning back home than going to the foreign country". I've been having good times with my friends in various occations and now I feel kinda like home here, now that I have established the social relations again back here. One good way of doing that is e.g. having an elevator party in a boat to Stockholm ;).

I now live in Helsinki, Kallio to be more exact. It's a place with 44 square meters and is owned by my friend's mom. The rent deal is... very lucrative I would say :D. So I'm living cheaply here in 8th floor of this storeyed building near the amusement park Linnanmäki. It's a short way to Helsinki's cheapest pubs from here :) You are welcome to join me!

I will start working on next Tuesday as well. Probably doing some programming-typish stuff or otherwise play around with mobile devices. I would try to start doing my master's thesis as soon as possible because otherwise I would be in a total hurry to do it. Damn school bureaucracies and other stuff-that-make-you-graduate-against-your-will :)

I also now have been starting to eat more healthy stuff (even though I eat bad stuff still cause it's good), of which a proof of several hundreds of euros worth of healthy food stuff exists in my apartment now. I would eat some raw-food shakes, more organic stuff and some additional stuff I add to my normal food.

Here's some pics first from my condo and then from Helsinki, beside the railway tracks.










And finally a picture, which you should take a look at while listening to Gary Moore's The Loner.

Some more winterish pictures for all you lovely people in the warmer climates

Yeah, this is the south of Finland at the moment and let me tell you it is both snowy and cold. Exceptionally. I mean, usually at this time of year it does not look like this.



The picture above is my home university TKK (Helsinki University of Technology). The picture below is from Tapiola - a district of Espoo (the city were TKK is located). I was standing on ice and soon after headed out for a newly-opened organic food shop, from which I bought some organic chili powder and organic chocolate. Chili because I used all my chili powder on Sunday cooking some lovely Mexican beef enchiladas <3 with my little brother (who was on his weekend holiday from the Finnish army).



This one is from the airport as seen from my parents' perspective when arriving from the baggage conveyor belts..

So what's it like back in Finland

These two pics tell u everything essential. The first one is from the front yard of my parents' house. The second one is me on a Sunday morning in the kitchen.

PICTURES FROM LAO UNTIL KOH SAMUI

For your viewing pleasure in chronological order. Silja and I were travelling together in all places except Koh Pha Ngan.

Laos - Luang Prabang

Silja Luang Prabang

Laos - Luang Prabang - Kuangsi Falls

Laos - Vang Vieng

Silja Vang Vieng

Laos - Vientiane

Silja Vientiane

Bangkok

Bangkok Silja

Koh Tao

Silja Koh Tao

Koh Pha Ngan

Koh Samui

Silja Koh Samui

I'm back in Finland!

!!!

Jesus it's so snowy and..well not meaning to be cocky or rude but quite sparse...I mean all I could see from the airplane until Helsinki-Vantaa Airport was snow and forest.. And a few cars. As opposed to the cities I have visited recently. What a contrast!

The trip went well. Koh Samui airport was an open-air mall with shopping streets and comfortable boarding gates. Even the electricity shut down for 2 minutes :) It was all dark and nobody said anything as if it was normal. It was pouring down water like hell but the flight left only 20 minutes late. In Bangkok I hanged out and read Silja's newly bought book "Omnivore's dilemma" by Michael Pollan. Prior to leaving the huts I took macro-pictures of the pages of the book and so were able to read it whilst leaving the actual book to the hands of Silja. :)

In Bangkok I almost fell asleep as I slept the last night only few hours. Well, the flight from Bangkok to Beijing (transfer flight, that's why I went via Beijing) went well in the night-time and I slept maybe 1½ hours. Then hanging out in Beijing for five hours without sleeping, just chatting with an old Finnish man with some basic old-guy-in-Thailand stories involving escort service.... What a shame people do that. The trip from Beijing to Helsinki-Vantaa was 8½ hours. Only 30 minutes before arriving to Helsinki-Vantaa I realized that I had all the time a display with movies, news, games, whatever arranged for me had I realized to take it out from its cover. So I got bored on the flight and slept maybe 2 hours. Food was basic Finnish stuff, so did not taste that much of anything. One funny thing is that all the other airlines seem to have young ladies as the stewardesses whereas Finnair has substantially more old ladies. I did not speak to the Finnish stewardesses but to a Chinese one (it was a joing flight in cooperation with Air China), with whom I chatted some Chinese and to my surprise I actually could say still something in a way she understood me.

Arriving to H-V the lack of personnel became evident as we had to wait for our luggage so much longer than in any other airport. Well, what would Finland not do to be more efficient in financial terms.. I really despise this deeply. My parents came to pick me up from the airport and so I got a good ride home to my parents' house in Hyvinkää, Finland.

Best crazy thing

Bungy jumping, definitely, in Koh Samui. Thank you Silja for making me go <3.

Best location for accommodation

Koh Samui, New Hut Bungalow :) The hut was literally on the beach. What a morning wake up, to go jogging with Silja at 6.30 a.m. just when the dawn is at hand. The calmness.. just listen to the song "Yello - Capri Calling" and you'll get the mood.

Game over man, game over!

I am now at the end of a journey. It lasted from the end of August 2009 until 11th of March 2010. That is almost 7½ months. It feels weird. I know what is expecting me in Finland but I still can’t help but to think what it is to adapt to completely new surroundings again, even though it is the most familiar to me. The people, the climate, the way people think and look – the culture – is completely different. It will be a culture shock for me so please do help me back to the tracks :).

Now begins a new chapter. I return to Finland, back to the old drawing board so to speak – to work and to study. I need an apartment first. Still don’t have one, which bothers me the most. Then I would like to start doing some Krav Maga again and start taking care of my physical form after 1½ of travelling. This time also mental health in the form of reading some good books, meditating... Physical and mental health combined I will start eating better food. Not bad food. I would like to see my beloved friends again and have lots of good times with them.

What is it exactly I got from this 7½ month journey? I got time to contemplate my future, my past and I got to live in the present very much so. With countless sweet memories, wonderful friends and obtaining alternative views of how to spend one’s life and how people live in different cultures, I think learning Chinese was just a small part of this big picture. As useful, interesting and fun it was to learn, speaking Chinese is another way for me to understand people as well. However one uses her throat and mouth to produce spoken language, we all have a common language. It is the one where by reading another person’s face one can see the true nature of this another human being standing there, just like you. As in many cases for me, I could not speak the native language. Then smile and a polite glance at the other person is the universal language.

I have so many pictures I want to show you but let me first get my shit together! :)

Thank You dear readers for following my (too long) blog. I hope you can use it for your own insights when planning something like this some day – and I am sure you will ;). Go for it! I then say you will never regret it.

As for the future of this blog, I might start writing an another blog or then just continue with this by changing the theme from travelling to some deep stuff :P We’ll see what happens.

Thank You again my friend!

Best of the best

On this trip I have encountered many new and exciting things. Of the more familiar things I now want to present You the best ones… So here we go!

The best food

Hard one. Chinese food was as good as it was diverse. On the other hand, Thai food they really know how to make their fried rice or pad thai or thai curry. I would call it a draw with a slight inclination towards the Chinese chow.

Laying on the beach, by the way, one comes across with many thoughts. One of them was my “top-in-the-world cuisines”, i.e. what type of food I really like and would especially enjoy preparing and eating. I came up with this list in no particular order: Mexican (is so good I can’t believe they eat it everyday), Italian (love it all), Israelian (lot of influence from Arabic food), Indian (the vegetarian stuff is especially good), Thai, Chinese, South Korean (the best made warmed-up seafood), Japanese (sushi and e.g. Osakan omelette is soo good). I guess I would be eating this back in Finland then. And lot of green stuff, organic stuff and especially I would like to start making these delicious shakes I have enjoyed with Silja here in Indo-Chinese countries.

Winner: inconclusive

The best beer

Tsingtao (Chinese) is definitely better than Finnish lager. It’s milder and more refined (subtle). There are, however, better options. The Vietnamese Tiger beer was maybe a bit better than Tsingtao. The taste of the Tiger was matched only by Chang beer in Thailand. As Chang is stronger (still very cheap) I would say Chang beer wins this battle. I heard Chang beer’s alcoholic content can be anything between 4-10% (officially it’s 6,x %). Tastes still good and gives you a good run. The acclaimed Beer Lao did not impress me and tasted something like Finnish lager, again. This was the case with Singha from Thailand as well.

Winner: Chang beer

The best massage

Chinese massage was quite generic but good (I don’t know how a massage can be bad). It was somethinglike what we in Western countries are used to. Thai massage, on the other hand, is based on using a lot of force and by pressing muscles for longer periods of time instead of the faster western massage-style. While Thai massage was excellent, I found the combination of Lao herbal sauna and Lao massage to be unbeatable. The Lao massage was very calm but firm massage where one could just fall asleep as it was done so gently. And yet the effects were as in any massage. We nearly could stand up after this Lao treatment.

Winner: The combination of Lao herbal sauna and Lao massage

The chillest place

Lao was definitely the chillest country of the lot. So laid back everywhere. It’s kind of hard to choose between Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng. Luang Prabang had many chill-out moments but I was having a food-poisoning there and could not enjoy all there was to chillax. In Vang Vieng we did the tubing just on perfect timing, starting before the drunk crowds and ending up having very nice and chill time with other Finnish people along the river. And the music in the Mud Bar was so good and felt so perfect at the moment… The lagoon place where we rode to with motorbikes was also very laid back and chill. It reminded me of Luang Prabang’s Kuang Si waterfalls…Kuang Si was better though. I have to say Vang Vieng surprised me positively and will feel inclined to promote it to be the chillest place on this trip.

Winner: Vang Vieng (against expectations; really it was just a matter of timing)

The best place for party

I will exclude Beijing from this - being so obvious winner because of the amount of friends with whom I had good time there. Because having good time with friends counts more than the surroundings. If it was more up to the surroundings the answer definitely would be Koh Pha Ngan. The parties were in such a beautiful place and the music was awesome, people were nice and the atmosphere still remained relaxed even though the beach was packed with loads of people dancing with their buckets in their hands. I also partied in Hong Kong, in Halong Bay (Vietnam), Hanoi (Vietnam), Vang Vieng and Koh Samui. In a way I partied also in Koh Tao and Bangkok but still, not that much. I found a lot of amazing and good people from all of these places but many times something was missing. HK was expensive (we still managed to have verry good time though), Halong Bay party was very good but the trip as a whole did not live up to my expectations, Hanoi was the place of “snake blood shots and free home-brewn whisky” but the surroundings were somehow dirty and did not have the proper atmosphere. The winner will have to be Koh Pha Ngan.

Winner: Koh Pha Ngan

The best all-rounder place

Koh Tao. Even though I did not party there properly, I saw the potential. I will want to play some music there some day for the crowds. The surroundings are great, the atmosphere laid back but when in need of a party, it is right around the corner. The food is good and cheap when you want. The diving is good all-year around there with lot of things to see underwater.. Maybe the only downside was there was too many Scandinavians and not enough people from all around the world. Or then I just was too shy. Bangkok was also impressive place. Cheap but very modern with cool stuff like Muay Thai or the grandure of the tourist attractions. A bit too hot there though. Hanoi – too busy and stuffy. HK – too expensive (ok you can get by cheaply if you want, but generally speaking). Lao – good for laying low but for me enough is enough.

I have to say South Korea was a very good place in many aspects as well. Nearly as good but Koh Tao is not really comparable – the other one is a city.

Winner: Koh Tao

The city where I had the most laughs

Hong Kong. Thank you Natalie for your weird sense of humour and putting up with me! :) Again of course excluding Beijing.

Winner: Hong Kong

The nicest people

Lao. Nobody came to offer you something you did not need. Which was rare in other countries. Thais are very nice as well, though Lao wins.

Winner: Lao

The best bar

Excluding the unchallenged Helen’s Café back in Wudaokou, the best bar must have been in Hanoi: either the bar where we drank snake’s blood (it was also a restaurant) or the bar just next to our hostel, where we could get free Vietnamese rice wine and was otherwise small enough to host an enjoyable atmosphere.

In South Korea we did a bunch of good bars and had maybe the best time excluding Beijing. 6 different places, very good food, friends and partying with lots of soju. I almost have to actually say this was the best overall run of multiple bars.

Winner of one bar in one night: Hanoi
Winner of the “bar-crawl”: Seoul

The best spa

Nearest rival being Japanese public bathhouse and Lao herbal sauna, the Korean jjimjilbang was definitely the most ****** relaxing thing I did in six months. Unbelievable…

Winner: Jjimjilbang, Seoul

The best fighting

Chinese martial arts do not come close in roughness when compared to Muay Thai. Me and Silja went yesterday to see again Muay Thai here in Koh Samui. The fights were very good and Bangkok seemed to have better fighters that Samui’s ringmasters. There was one very sleek knockout after a battle, whose winner was unclear until the critical blow.

Winner: Muay Thai, Thailand

Hmm I did not come up with anything else interesting. Maybe you have something you want to know?

What it feels like for a man (to jump down from 50 meters)

It feels horrible. Add a pair of paddings to your legs and a rope to them, the jump becomes adrenalin-pumping as well.

Yes, now I can finally erase bungy-jumping from my todo-list (although I certainly will do it again sometime ;) ). Me and Silja went to do a 50-meter bungy-jump here in Koh Samui near Chaweng beach. Silja had already jumped once back in Finland from as high as 155 meters. According to her the scarier it is the lower you jump. So I was now in for a treat.. The location was at a nice bar with a pool and a trampoline as well.

Silja did it first. She came down almost as soon as she got up so I was kinda unprepared for that.. I thought one would have to ponder and think of death at least for 2 minutes before doing the impossible decision of leaning forward and falling. And of course, the views up there are nice. The rope stretch was measured so that our heads or upper-bodies would dip into the pool of water, which was a nice extra bonus :).

When I became my ascent towards the peak of the crane with my legs tied together I was beginning to feel more and more tense as I realized just what the **** I was about to do. During the trip the instructor gave instructions: "do not grab the rope at any time, close your eyes when you get to the water, put your feet half-air half-platform when jumping, put your hands in a T-position and then just lean forward, do not jump". OK....

At the top then I moved to my position. I glanced around the sea and the island. The views were cool as you could see the coastline as it was depicted in the map. Then I looked down where Silja and a bunch of other people were glancing up, waiting for me to do the drop. I looked at the pool. It seemed as if I would hit the concrete slabs beside the pool if I would do the jump. I calmed myself by saying to myself "I have to trust the organizers, they have been doing this for years and they know if I would hit the concrete.. besides they said no one has been killed here yet". Then I felt calm. The idea of leaning forward was not still imprinted to my brains so I thought about just doing the critical small lean, so I would not have to worry about it anymore, the nature would take its course - either I'd die or survive. At the moment of starting to lean I felt calm. I felt calm when my body was in horizontal position. Maybe 200 milliseconds after my feet had detached from the platform I got a primal instinct going like a shock through my body like 400 kilovolts. It felt just terrifying to know I had jumped and the gravitation is pulling me down with an increasing speed (9.8 m/s every second). And I felt like falling towards the slab. I shouted and shouted as adrenalin was pumping through my veins and I felt like I needed to explode. I don't remember exactly the moments of the first fall but I remember dipping to the water with my eyes half-closed. It was relieving in a way to know you did not fall to the slab. I bounced up and had to continue shouting as the lifeforce was flowing through me and I felt so animal at the moment, my muscles definitely making their best efforts to protect me from the unknown danger.. I could just say few words like..unbelievable and something less polite. I had to let it out. The experience was beyond words.. Man you have got to try it! It's like saying: "I now release the fear of death and the fear of heights. I submit to my fate."

And this happened on Saturday - the day Silja arrived to Koh Samui. We spent a very nice evening down at the Chaweng beach, first laying on the beach and the wondering the night-life. Definitely one of the weirdest things there (for me I mean) was the transsexual-show. The ladyboys were doing a cabaree show for the (maybe bi- :D)curious audience. The beer was expensive but the show was quite interesting and fun to watch. They sang all kinds of classics with cool outfits. And they all were men without dicks. One could tell.. Or then they had it like Lieutenant Einhorn from Ace Ventura :P. We ate at a good Indian restaurant and ended up as well to a beach party but found it to be boring. Silja got properly wasted - I mediocrely. The last destination was "a reggae bar" with live music, wannabe-rastafaris were playing every song that is played in the clubs nowadays in guitar-pop way. Sounded cool. The bar was of course, as it is in every bar here, filled with Thai girls with daring outfits, trying to entrap western men with low self-esteem (:P). I don't know who knows it might be good times though.. When we were back at our bungalow - New Hut bungalows, right on Lamai beach - 01.30 we still watched for the oddly-shaped moon and the stars for some 30 minutes on my newly-bought sarong. And the two dogs that hang out there were playing with us :) They are funny chaps, biting always each other's necks and running around. At some point of the night I woke up to some American accent English and a definitely Thai English (male and female, respectively). No question it was a case which is quite common here. A western guy and a Thai female. After 15 minutes of aural agony it became silent. Sleep.

The bungalow is just like from a movie. Silja and me share a very simple hut, area of maybe 8-9 sq. meters. The usable area is smaller because of the shape of the roof. We lock it with our own padlock. Out of the door is the beach right in front of us. The bathroom is common for all of the inhabitants. It's a nice feeling brushing my tooth on a beach. Toilets are self-flush. It's hard to keep your eyes closed while trying to pour water from a bowl to the toilet :).

On Sunday we just chilled out and explored our beach surroundings and basked in the sun. Took a Thai massage and such.

Today, on Monday, we visited the Ang Thong national marine park - 1,5 hours from Koh Samui by boat. It is an area of 102 sq. kilometers with over forty islands and views that are breath-taking. Heard the Beach movie took inspiration from this area. We kayaked, saw a lagoon and trekked a very good trek up to a viewpoint where you could see so magnificent views that..whel I don't know what to even say! Lunch was plentiful and there was lot of Italian people on the boat for some reason. We swam, we sunbathed. It was the granniest trip maybe so far, but nevertheless enjoyable. With patience these trips are OK ;).

I came to Samui on Thursday. I accommodated myself after a veery sweaty search to Bophut beach where I heard it's like a compromise of peaceful and having parties. It was way too peaceful for my taste and there was not so many people. I ate lot of good Thai food there though. And bought some decorations for neck and wrist. I spent my nights in a fancy two bed room with a tv, a/c and a refrigerator. They even had a FHM-magazine on the table so everything was set. On Friday, I treated myself on my birthday with a zipline tour. We went with a 4x4 jeep to the jungle with two Germans, two Russians and one American. The ziplines were some 30 meters above the ground but the vegetation was quite dense you could hardly see the ground. Some of the ziplines were totally cool when they went fast. We had gloves in our hands to control the speed.

I booked all the travels I and Silja have made through a travel agency which was in the Bophut beach. It was called Fisherman's tours (I promised to advertize this :) ). The owners were Mrs. Good and Mr. Num. They have been married for 12 years and have one child. They were always very nice to me and gave me discounts from the prices mentioned in the tour-leaflets. I e.g. arranged my transfer from Bophut to Lamai beach for free when I promised to take some of the tours (which I was going to get anyway). The transfers between beaches here in Koh Samui are namely quite expensive. So, on Friday night Mr. Num invited me to drink with his friends to the beach and do some BBQ. We went to a market with Mr. Num's motorbike and bought some meat and vegetables. Then he said he would marinate the meat and make some sauces, after which he took me back to my hotel. In the evening then I went to the travel agency to wait for the go to the beach. And Mrs. Good started to tell me how she got hospitalized only two weeks ago by Mr. Num as they had had some arguments about him drinking too much with his friends and being "too friendly" with other girls. And it was bad for the business as he, according to her, could not get early enough to the office to open up places every day. Well I understood Mrs's concerns, it is bad for business if the other person does not do his duties. I also understood that Mr. Num apparently wants some kind of change in his life. I found it very weird she wants to stay with Mr. Num if he beats her. I guess the relationships here down south are based on other things as what we are used to in western countries. Anyways, we got hammered at the beach eating good food and I tasted also cows skin, which was very good. I also sat on the beach and watched the stars in the higher energy levels... Finally Mr. Num drove me back home. Nice experience by the locals.

Tomorrow we will go again to Chaweng beach to hang out. I will miss quite a lot there is to see here in Samui, but I guess I have seen on this journey quite a lot already. Silja is planning to do the island safari which includes all the stuff here like crocodile shows and waterfalls. Silja will travel back to Bangkok on Sunday and continue her journey from thereon until the mid-April'ish. Hope she gets her blog up n' running again ;).

I will end my journey at this time on Wednesday. I will fly from Koh Samui to Bangkok and then wait for the plane to Beijing. In Beijing I will wait for some hours and then finally return back to Finland only to live with my parents.

Psychedelicious and Schnitzl’d In The Negev

Shalom!

Koh Pha Ngan – the island in between Koh Tao and Koh Samui – is the promised land of the party people. For one reason or another the island is filled with Hebrew-talking folk, Israelian people. At first I thought it must be because the daily parties down at Haad Rin beach always have the psy-trance section, and many good psy-trance artists are, after all, Israelian. I was asking a lot of Israelian people whether or not they liked psy-trance and the result was unanimous – no. So I guess the reasons must lie elsewhere. Haad Rin is filled with Hebrew signs and actually there is this good restaurant called Paprika, which offers (to my taste) good Israelian food (falafel, chicken schawarma, hummus, tahini, mashed potatoes).

I arrived to Koh Pha Ngan on Sunday at noon and no sooner than when I arrived to the pier, I got a liberating message from my Israelian friend Noa (from Vietnam Halong Bay), who so kindly had already reserved a very fine room from a hostel called Sun Cliff in Haad Rin. Although the taxi drive from Thong Sala (pier) to Haad Rin was very expensive, I had a place to stay now. We shared the 600 baht costs and the room was very neat and good with the exception of no A/C. Fan is OK though for me. Haad Rin is a good place to stay in Koh Pha Ngan as the famous full-moon party is situated as well in Haad Rin. The full-moon party was held here on the 1st of March. It was…BIG. I’m now in a 300 baht very simple room and will leave tomorrow for my last destination on this trip, Koh Samui. I will at least want to do bungee jumping there!

So, the people that I have met here have been just fabulous! In addition to Noa I got to know another Noa from Israel (veery relaxed person) with a sweet smile, Marco from Holland – he was very interesting person and secretive about his age, we guessed him to be something like 35-40, but the man was a traveler kind of man but back home an art painter. We got along well and did all kinds of stuff in the parties together. Last night we celebrated Einat’s birthday – she turned 22. There was cake, beer, full-moon, stars and a beach with party-people (further away luckily). Israelian people, also Daniel and a girl whose name I do not remember, they were all so nice. I’d like to go to Israel some day… I learned yesterday that Negev is the south-part of Israel and I also understood that they eat a lot of schnitzels in Israel, and these combined one gets a song by a group called Shpongle – Schnitzl’d In The Negev.

I’m just now sitting in an internet café and eating a huge chocolate-chip cookie with a pineapple shake, listening to calm music and enjoying the general atmosphere..I feel like some humanist sipping latte in a café now….

The parties have been awesome, just great! Both on Sunday and Monday I partied until 6.00 a.m. with Marco and the Noas (mainly). The beach has been packed with people waving cheesily neon-decorations, painted bellies and faces, drinking themselves silly with the cheap buckets of Thai whiskey, red bull and lemonade. I settled for the cheap stuff.. 150 baht for this kind of bucket, maybe four of these (they always poured maybe 3-5 dl of alcohol to each one of them and the Thai whiskey was “80%” so it was quite..good. I must say it definitely was not 80% stuff, but I would not complain if it was even half of it) on the full-moon party. The attractions in the parties have been something like playing with fire (skipping rope on fire, people rolling flaming stick, doing the limbo, and yes lot of burnt people), being the dj, a slide, behaving blatantly, dancing to amazing music (the psy-trance area was pure magic), watching rockets and stuff go up to the sky… Whatever. People eating chicken sandwiches, buying all kinds of clothing and things to remember the event by. Lot of things going on. It was not as bad as I feared, the atmosphere was good even though people were on the move in masses (estimations of 10 000 – 30 000 people on the beach). Maybe it was the fact it was outside and the moon was glooming on the sky brightly at its fullest extent.

Today I wanted to see the island a bit more so I went on a safari trip. Today’s company consisted of few Israelian people and a bunch of Irish always-so-nice-and-open-to-people-from-other-cultures guys and gals. I only know Fiona and Paul by name but everyone were nice. Few of them spoke the South-Irish accent (from Cork) which was at times quite incomprehensible for me :). The trip consisted of seeing all the stuff there is to see basically in Koh Pha Ngan: some elephants (we got to feed them and they did all sorts of tricks for us, I just hope they are not maltreated [how silly of me to think they ever would be happy being captive]) – they were fun to touch and see. A monkey show as well was on display, the monkey was collecting coconuts from the trees and jumping from tree to tree. Then we got to see some Chinese Buddhist temple, finally reaching to the long-tail boat, which carried us around the island. Snorkling was not nearly as good as in Koh Tao, because of lack of fish and plants to see and the visibility was crap. We were served a very good lunch at a very nice beach (the Bottle Beach) and the nicest part of the trip definitely was an excursion to the Than Sadet waterfalls. We trekked there through potentially hazardous route going upstream until reaching the falls. The falls were not big (nothing as Kuang Si in Luang Prabang) but were refreshingly chill and had kind of pools there where you could just chillax and get some falling water on your head.

This night I’ll have a few with the Irish lot but I think I’ll go relatively early to bed because the taxi towards pier leaves at 10 a.m.

If I had to choose to live in either of the islands that I have been here into, I would choose Koh Tao because it is in a way more relaxed. It can be relaxed here in Pha Ngan as well, but not in the same way.. Hard to describe, you have to experience it yourself. The parties here are just great but one can get bored of partying quite quickly. Or then I’m getting old.




There's the other Noa with a nice Indian lady selling the buckets.

Two pictures

Koh Tao – a soon to be lost paradise?

Unlike Rhodes (Greece), last summer, Koh Tao has managed to keep the masses out from its shores. It might be a result of the fact that there are many parts in Koh Tao’s roads which are not paved, ergo the people demanding maximum comfort do not find the island an attractive choice. It might also be the fact that there are literally tens of diving schools in the island, which, for an island of this small size, is if you ask me quite a lot. Diving then is the main attraction to come to Koh Tao. Personally, I find the island quite pleasing because there is a lot of space on the beach to bask in the sun. I.e. my ear drums can cope with the environment. Don’t get me wrong, Koh Tao is very lively with its hundred’ish restaurants, add a few clubs and pubs/bars and there’s lot of night life here. In another bar there is a full-on party while in the other there is a movie on display when the dusk is starting to take hold of the sky. For example, today a bar/restaurant shows “The Hurt Locker”, which has one some awards and is, in my mind, a very good movie.

Apparently there are more things on Koh Tao than we have explored here (which is not that much), but the main area definitely is the Sairee beach, which is lined with all of the main stuff: the restaurants, clubs, bars, bungalows, hostels, diving schools and their resorts, 7/11’s (why is it spread out to everywhere? :) ), ATMs, street vendors, clothes stores, Internet cafe’s, pharmacies.. whatever one would desire here. There are also lot of stores and places to go near the piers, but we have not hanged out there that much… Once we went there though for a breakfast with two Finnish girls I met on the ferry on the way here: Jonna & Hanna. Jonna is Koh Tao enthusiast apparently knowing some of the divers in the Koh Tao Divers (a Finnish diving school here, whose services I also utilized, more of that later) :). The breakfast was soo good with something closest to rye bread I have tasted on this trip (apart from Transmongolian train and Christmas), the bread had some gouda cheese in it plus pesto.. Silja, I think (she’s on the beach so no confirmation available) tasted Parma ham with her rye bread. So good.

On one day we walked a bit further from the centrum. We wanted to walk to a place called the view point. The view point was in the high grounds in the middlish of the island. We walked there by foot whilst the lazy westerners :) drove past us every minute with their enduro’s, scooters, mopeds, mönkijät or buggies. We concentrated on listening the sounds of the nature. In the jungle of Koh Tao we christened there to be amongst others two kinds of birds: rubber duck bird (kumiankkalelu), which made the squeeking sound the rubber thingies do when you squeeze them in the bath or wherever. The other bird or maybe it was an insect, was circular saw (sirkkeli) animal. It made a kind of an accelerating, uniform and then decelerating sounds which resembled completely the sound that is made by a circular saw. The beautiful views from the view point towards the Sairee beach and the piers were disrupted only by the talk of the people who kept up this view point bar up there with no customers and floors made out of half-broken planks. But the trip there and back – man it can get sweaty in this climate; it is hot and humid all the time. Fortunately it does not feel as hot as in Bangkok due to the ocean breeze and… well I don’t know. Maybe there are other factors like traffic emission fumes but it certainly feels better here.

The other day I took did scuba diving and it was awesome! The diving school Koh Tao Divers with Finnish people instructing (actually the whole island seems to be composed of Europeans, of which not so small amount are Finnish people. There are more Finnish people here than in any previous place we have visited on this trip, from youngsters to families to grannies/granpas) was in my mind a good idea to properly understand the diving procedure, if you will. Due to lack of time and money I only took a DSD (Discover Scuba Diving), which though is valid for one year’s time if I decided to do the PADI Open Water certification, which would grant me a life-time of scuba diving without an instructor (in certain limits of course). The most important thing I learned was a bit like in the hill-climbing in Vang Vieng: know how the components comprise the big picture and know how to operate them in a safe way. Knowing what is the underwater signaling, what to do in case of emergencies and most importantly, got to see some marine freaks. Definitely worth trying if you have not done it!

Today (27th) we went for a perfect trip. For 750 baht we got to snorkel around in various locations around Koh Tao and finally ending up to a small island beside Tao called Koh Nanguyan. It was semily as if from the movie “The Beach”, a true tropical paradise. The trip started at 9.00 a.m., included some snacks, water and tea, lunch and the gear. Only thing we did NOT see was rays or stingrays, which would have been awesome. I saw a shark and swam above it (maybe 0.5 m away), following it for some one minute. Don’t worry, the sharks there do not bite :). The reefs were beautiful with lot of funny looking fishes, of all sizes and colours. Especially beautiful was a fish that we christened to be “diskovalokala”, which roughly means “the fish with disco lights” – the colours on it were magnificent. Silja states having seen a sea urchin (merisiili) with 15 cm long spikes wrapping around them.

Other than that we have been laying at the beach, eating good food (once again there is good thai food here, but the länkkäriruoka is as well edible here, it is well-made and tasty. One funny thing about these cities/towns we have visited is that every one of them have had at least one organic café/restaurant. It is a good thing and I hope people would use these more and more to give a good sign for this type of service. I hope in Finland there are by now tens of these kinds of restaurants! There are, right?!

About the accommodation.. There are so nice-looking bungalows along the Sairee beach with hammocks and stuff on the porch, but I figure they would be quite expensive. So, now we are living in a semi-bungalow, from which – we heard – stuff has been stolen. Unaware of this I tried to search the accommodation with one prerequisite: it needs to have safety lockers. And yes we have. And we definitely are not leaving anything worth stealing to our room. In addition to a fan, shower, toilet and a bed for two, we have cockroaches running around. Even my OFF insect repellent did not do the trick. I poured a few drops on one of the bastards.. it just wringled its antennas for a while and then went away. Speaking of insects, my official, acknowledged and verified amount of mosquito bites is at the moment: 2. Once they got me here in a restaurant at the dawn of dusk. The other time was in my bed. And once more I may have been bitten but I did not feel anything even though the mosquito hanged out on me for a good while of time. Koh Tao is supposedly free of malaria but dengue fever is omnipresent at these latitudes, so if I get high fever in coupla weeks, I probably have it. And then I hope I will not get bitten again.


While Silja will continue her search for serenity (we have been reading a couple of Buddhist book/booklets with lot of good advices) here in Koh Tao, I will witness once more the stupidity of youth by attending the Full-Moon Party in Koh Pha Ngan on 1st of March. I will leave for Koh Pha Ngan (an island to south from Koh Tao) on the morning of 28th. I also heard the little island beside Pha Ngan is the place where they shot some of the scenes in the movie “The Beach” (I thought the views were magnificent and I thought I would really want to go there.. so now I may see them \o/). With Silja we will next collaborate in Koh Samui. I said she would have to accompany me for some bungee-jumping just for some mental support :).

Something to read..

..while I'm doing all kinds of cool things such as scuba diving :).

The following is as heavy text as it is important. It is something I agree on. The text is quite long so take a good position and have something nice to drink while you are at it.

The text is from a man called Silo, the establisher of the Humanist movement. The text is from a document named "ManualFormacionMH-en.doc" from the website www.silo.net. Thank you Europa for discovering this site, it has so good material in it!

Here is the bit. Enjoy!

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STATEMENT OF THE HUMANIST MOVEMENT
Humanists are women and men of this century, of this time. They recognize the achievements of humanism throughout history, and find inspiration in the contributions of many cultures, not only those that today occupy centre stage. They are also men and women who recognize that this century and this millennium are drawing to a close, and their project is a new world. Humanists feel that their history is very long and that their future will be even longer. As optimists who believe in freedom and social progress, they fix their gaze on the future, while striving to overcome the general crisis of today. Humanists are internationalists, aspiring to a universal human nation. While understanding the world they live in as a single whole, humanists act in their immediate surroundings. Humanists seek not a uniform world but a world of multiplicity: diverse in ethnicity, languages and customs; diverse in local and regional autonomy; diverse in ideas and aspirations; diverse in beliefs, whether atheist or religious; diverse in occupations and in creativity.
Humanists do not want masters, they have no fondness for authority figures or bosses. Nor do they see themselves as representatives or bosses of anyone else. Humanists want neither a centralized State nor a Parastate in its place. Humanists want neither a police state nor armed gangs as the alternative.
But a wall has arisen between humanist aspirations and the realities of today’s world. The time has come to tear down that wall. To do this, all humanists of the world must unite.
I. Global Capital
This is the great universal truth: Money is everything. Money is government, money is law, money is power. Money is basically sustenance, but more than this it is art, it is philosophy, it is religion. Nothing is done without money, nothing is possible without money. There are no personal relationships without money, there is no intimacy without money. Even peaceful solitude depends on money.
But our relationship with this “universal truth” is contradictory. Most people do not like this state of affairs. And so we find ourselves subject to the tyranny of money—a tyranny that is not abstract, for it has a name, representatives, agents, and well-established procedures.
Today, we are no longer dealing with feudal economies, national industries, or even regional interests. Today, the question is how the surviving economic forms will accommodate to the new dictates of international finance capital. Nothing escapes, as capital worldwide continues to concentrate in ever fewer hands—until even the nation state depends for its survival on credit and loans. All must beg for investment and provide guarantees that give the banking system the ultimate say in decisions. The time is fast approaching when even companies themselves, when every rural area as well as every city, will all be the undisputed property of the banking system. The time of the parastate is coming, a time in which the old order will be swept away.
At the same time, the traditional bonds of solidarity that once joined people together are fast dissolving. We are witnessing the disintegration of the social fabric, and in its place find millions of isolated human beings living disconnected lives, indifferent to each other despite their common suffering. Big capital dominates not only our objectivity, through its control of the means of production, but also our subjectivity, through its control of the means of communication and information.
Under these conditions, those who control capital have the power and technology to do as they please with both our material and our human resources. They deplete irreplaceable natural resources and act with growing disregard for the human being. And just as they have drained everything from companies, industries, and whole governments, so have they deprived even science of its meaning—reducing it to technologies used to generate poverty, destruction, and unemployment.

Humanists do not overstate their case when they contend that the world is now technologically capable of swiftly resolving the problems in employment, food, health care, housing, and education that exist today across vast regions of the planet. If this possibility is not being realized, it is simply because it is prevented by the monstrous speculation of big capital.
By now big capital has exhausted the stage of market economies, and has begun to discipline society to accept the chaos it has itself produced. Yet in the presence of this growing irrationality, it is not the voices of reason that we hear raised in dialectical opposition. Rather, it is the darkest forms of racism, fundamentalism, and fanaticism that are on the rise. And if groups and whole regions are increasingly guided by this new irrationalism, then the space for constructive action by progressive forces will diminish day by day.
On the other hand, millions of working people have already come to recognize that the centralized state is as much a sham as capitalist democracy. And just as working people are standing up against corrupt union bosses, more than ever citizens are questioning their governments and political parties. But it is necessary to give a constructive orientation to these phenomena, which will otherwise stagnate and remain nothing more than spontaneous protests that lead nowhere. For something new to happen, a dialogue about the fundamental factors of our economy must begin in the heart of the community.
For humanists, labour and capital are the principal factors in economic production, while speculation and usury are extraneous. In the present economic circumstances, humanists struggle to totally transform the absurd relationship that has existed between these factors. Until now we have been told that capital receives the profits while workers receive wages, an inequity that has always been justified by the “risk” that capital assumes in investing—as though working people do not risk both their present and their future amid the uncertainties of unemployment and economic crisis.
Another factor in play is management and decision-making in the operation of each company. Earnings not set aside for reinvestment in the enterprise, not used for expansion or diversification, are increasingly diverted into financial speculation, as are profits not used to create new sources of work.
The struggle of working people must therefore be to require maximum productive return from capital. But this cannot happen unless management and directorships are cooperatively shared. How else will it be possible to avoid massive layoffs, business closures, and even the loss of entire industries? For the greatest harm comes from under-investment, fraudulent bankruptcies, forced acquisition of debt, and capital flight—not from profits realized through increased productivity. And if some persist in calling for workers to take possession of the means of production following nineteenth-century teachings, they will have to seriously consider the recent failures of real socialism.
As for the argument that treating capital the same way work is treated will only speed its flight to more advantageous areas, it must be pointed out that this cannot go on much longer because the irrationality of the present economic system is leading to saturation and crisis worldwide. Moreover, this argument, apart from embracing a radical immorality, ignores the historical process in which capital is steadily being transferred to the banking system. As a result, employers and business people are being reduced to the status of employees, stripped of decision-making power in a lengthening chain of command in which they maintain only the appearance of autonomy. And as the recession continues to deepen, these same business people will begin to consider these points more seriously.
Humanists feel the need to act not only on employment issues, but also politically to prevent the State from being solely an instrument of international capital, to ensure a just relationship among the factors of production, and to restore to society its stolen autonomy.

II. Real Democracy Versus Formal Democracy
The edifice of democracy has fallen into ruin as its foundations—the separation of powers, representative government, and respect for minorities—have been eroded.
The theoretical separation of powers has become nonsense. Even a cursory examination of the practices surrounding the origin and composition of the different powers reveals the intimate relationships that link them to each other. And things could hardly be otherwise, for they all form part of one same system. In nation after nation we see one branch gaining supremacy over the others, functions being usurped, corruption and irregularities surfacing—all corresponding to the changing global economic and political situation of each country.
As for representative government, since the extension of universal suffrage people have believed that only a single act is involved when they elect their representative and their representative carries out the mandate received. But as time has passed, people have come to see clearly that there are in fact two acts: a first in which the many elect the few, and a second in which those few betray the many, representing interests foreign to the mandate they received. And this corruption is fed within the political parties, now reduced to little more than a handful of leaders who are totally out of touch with the needs of the people. Through the party machinery, powerful interests finance candidates and then dictate the policies they must follow. This state of affairs reveals a profound crisis in the contemporary conception and implementation of representative democracy.
Humanists struggle to transform the practice of representative government, giving the highest priority to consulting the people directly through referenda, plebiscites, and direct election of candidates. However, in many countries there are still laws that subordinate independent candidates to political parties, or rather to political manoeuvring and financial restrictions that prevent them from even reaching the ballot and the free expression of the will of the people.
Every constitution or law that prevents the full possibility of every citizen to elect and to be elected makes a mockery of real democracy, which is above all such legal restrictions. And in order for there to be true equality of opportunity, during elections the news media must be placed at the service of the people, providing all candidates with exactly the same opportunities to communicate with the people.
To address the problem that elected officials regularly fail to carry out their campaign promises, there is also a need to enact laws of political responsibility that will subject such officials to censure, revocation of powers, recall from office, and loss of immunity. The current alternative, under which parties or individuals who do not fulfill their campaign promises risk defeat in future elections, in practice does not hinder in the least the politicians’ second act—betraying the people they represent.
As for directly consulting the people on the most urgent issues, every day the possibilities to do so increase through the use of technology. This does not mean simply giving greater importance to easily manipulated opinion polls and surveys. What it does mean is to facilitate real participation and direct voting by means of today’s advanced computational and communications technologies.
In real democracy, all minorities must be provided with the protections that correspond to their right to representation, as well as all measures needed to advance in practice their full inclusion, participation, and development.
Today, minorities the world over who are the targets of xenophobia and discrimination make anguished pleas for recognition. It is the responsibility of humanists everywhere to bring this issue to the fore, leading the struggle to overcome such neo-fascism, whether overt or covert. In short, to struggle for the rights of minorities is to struggle for the rights of all human beings.
Under the coercion of centralized states—today no more than the unfeeling instruments of big capital—many countries with diverse populations subject entire provinces, regions, or autonomous groups to this same kind of discrimination. This must end through the adoption of federal forms of organization, through which real political power will return to the hands of these historical and cultural entities.
In sum, to give highest priority to the issues of capital and labour, real democracy, and decentralization of the apparatus of the State, is to set the political struggle on the path toward creating a new kind of society—a flexible society constantly changing in harmony with the changing needs of the people, who are now suffocated more each day by their dependence on an inhuman system.
III. The Humanist Position
Humanist action does not draw its inspiration from imaginative theories about God, nature, society, or history. Rather, it begins with life’s necessities, which consist most elementally of avoiding pain and moving toward pleasure. Yet human life entails the additional need to foresee future necessities, based on past experience and the intention to improve the present situation.
Human experience is not simply the product of natural physiological accumulation or selection, as happens in all species. It is social experience and personal experience directed toward overcoming pain in the present and avoiding it in the future. Human work, accumulated in the productions of society, is passed on and transformed from one generation to the next in a continuous struggle to improve the existing or natural conditions, even those of the human body itself. Human beings must therefore be defined as historical beings whose mode of social behaviour is capable of transforming both the world and their own nature.
Each time that individuals or human groups violently impose themselves on others, they succeed in detaining history, turning their victims into “natural” objects. Nature does not have intentions, and thus to negate the freedom and intentions of others is to convert them into natural objects without intentions, objects to be used.
Human progress in its slow ascent now needs to transform both nature and society, eliminating the violent animal appropriation of some human beings by others. When this happens, we will pass from pre-history into a fully human history. In the meantime, we can begin with no other central value than the human being, fully realized and completely free. Humanists therefore declare, “Nothing above the human being, and no human being beneath any other.”
If God, the State, money, or any other entity is placed as the central value, this subordinates the human being and creates the condition for the subsequent control or sacrifice of other human beings. Humanists have this point very clear. Whether atheists or religious, humanists do not start with their atheism or their faith as the basis for their view of the world and their actions. They start with the human being and the immediate needs of human beings. And if, in their struggle for a better world, they believe they discover an intention that moves history in a progressive direction, they place this faith or this discovery at the service of the human being.
Humanists address the fundamental problem: to know if one wants to live, and to decide on the conditions in which to do so.
All forms of violence—physical, economic, racial, religious, sexual, ideological, and others—that have been used to block human progress are repugnant to humanists. For humanists, every form of discrimination, whether subtle or overt, is something to be denounced.
Humanists are not violent, but above all they are not cowards, and because their actions have meaning they are unafraid of facing violence. Humanists connect their personal lives with the life of society. They do not pose such false dichotomies as viewing their own lives as separate from the lives of those around them, and in this lies their coherence.
These issues, then, mark a clear dividing line between humanism and anti-humanism: humanism puts labour before big capital, real democracy before formal democracy, decentralization before centralization, anti-discrimination before discrimination, freedom before oppression, and meaning in life before resignation, complicity, and the absurd. Because humanism is based on freedom of choice, it offers the only valid ethic of the present time. And because humanism believes in intention and freedom, it distinguishes between error and bad faith, between one who is mistaken and one who is a traitor.

IV. From Naive Humanism to Conscious Humanism
It is at the base of society, in the places where people work and where they live, that humanism must convert what are now only simple isolated protests into a conscious force oriented toward transforming the economic structures.
The struggles of spirited activists in labour unions and progressive political parties will become more coherent as they transform the leadership of these entities, giving their organizations a new orientation that, above short-range grievances, gives the highest priority to the basic proposals advocated by humanism.
Vast numbers of students and teachers, already sensitive to injustice, are becoming conscious of their will to change as the general crisis touches them. And certainly, members of the press in contact with so much daily tragedy are today in favourable positions to act in a humanist direction, as are those intellectuals whose creations are at odds with the standards promoted by this inhuman system.
In the face of so much human suffering, many positions and organizations today encourage people to unselfishly help the dispossessed and those who suffer discrimination. Associations, volunteer groups, and large numbers of individuals are on occasion moved to make positive contributions. Without doubt, one of their contributions is to generate denunciations of these wrongs. However, such groups do not focus their actions on transforming the underlying structures that give rise to the problems. Their approaches are more closely related to humanitarianism than to conscious humanism, although among these efforts are many conscientious protests and actions that can be extended and deepened.
V. The Anti-Humanist Camp
As the people continue to be suffocated by the forces of big capital, incoherent proposals arise that gain strength by exploiting people’s discontent, focusing it on various scapegoats. At the root of all such neo-fascism is a profound negation of human values. Similarly, there are certain deviant environmental currents that view nature as more important than human beings. No longer do they preach that an environmental catastrophe is a disaster because it endangers humanity—instead to them the only problem is that human beings have damaged nature.
According to certain of these theories, the human being is somehow contaminated, and thus contaminates nature. It would have been better, they contend, had medicine never succeeded in its fight against disease or in prolonging human life. “Earth first!” some cry hysterically, recalling Nazi slogans. It is but a short step from this position to begin discriminating against cultures seen to contaminate or against “impure” foreigners. These currents of thought may be considered anti-humanist because at bottom they hold the human being in contempt, and in keeping with the nihilistic and suicidal tendencies so fashionable today, their mentors reflect this self-hatred.
There is, however, a significant segment of society made up of perceptive people who consider themselves environmentalists because they understand the gravity of the abuses that environmentalism exposes and condemns. And if this environmentalism attains the humanist character that corresponds, it will direct the struggle against those who are actually generating the catastrophes—big capital and its chain of destructive industries and businesses, so closely intertwined with the military-industrial complex.
Before worrying about seals, they will concern themselves with overcoming hunger, overcrowding, infant mortality, disease, and the lack of even minimal standards of housing and sanitation in many parts of the world. They will focus on the unemployment, exploitation, racism, discrimination, and intolerance in a world that is so technologically advanced, yet still generates serious environmental imbalances in the name of ever more irrational growth.
One need not look far to see how the right wing functions as a political instrument of anti-humanism. Dishonesty and bad faith reach such extremes that some exponents periodically present themselves as representatives of “humanism.” Take, for example, those cunning clerics who claim to theorize on the basis of a ridiculous “theocentric humanism.” These people, who invented religious wars and inquisitions, who put to death the very founders of western humanism, are now attempting to appropriate the virtues of their victims. They have recently gone so far as to “forgive the errors” of those historical humanists, and so shameless is their semantic banditry that these representatives of anti-humanism even try to cloak themselves with the term “humanist.”
It would of course be impossible to list the full range of resources, tools, instruments, forms, and expressions that anti-humanism has at its disposal. But having shed light on some of their more deceptive practices should help unsuspecting humanists and those newly realizing they are humanists as they re-think their ideas and the significance of their social practice.
VI. Humanist Action Fronts
With the intention of becoming a broad-based social movement, the vital force of humanism is organizing action fronts in the workplace, neighbourhoods, unions, and among social action, political, environmental, and cultural organizations. Such collective action makes it possible for varied progressive forces, groups, and individuals to have greater presence and influence, without losing their own identities or special characteristics. The objective of this movement is to promote a union of forces increasingly able to influence broad strata of the population, orienting the current social transformation.
Humanists are neither naive nor enamoured of declarations that belong to more romantic eras, and in this sense they do not view their proposals as the most advanced expression of social consciousness or think of their organization in an unquestioning way. Nor do they claim to represent the majority. Humanists simply act according to their best judgment, focusing on the changes they believe are most suitable and possible for these times in which they happen to live.

Thai this and that and it’s all good!

Okay, the weather could be a little less sweaty. It is almost the coldest time they have it here and it feels to be warmer than in Finland ever. Sooo sweaty all the time, just basically walking a water bottle in the other hand.

Here we are in Bangkok enjoying this hospitable Thai-culture. Bangkok is almost as modern as e.g. Hong Kong, although the concept of “modern” is debatable. If it means that McDonalds and KFC have populated every street at least with three different restaurants, then Bangkok is not modern. In Bangkok I’ve seen 2 McDonalds’s, one KFC, one BK, one DQ. So at least those bastards have not conquered Bangkok yet. What is disappointing to see that almost every bottled water around here has the name “The Coca-Cola Company” on their cover. But, where was I. Yesterday we visited the biggest and the most interesting mall ever, which comprised of at least three different massive buildings. And the stuff on sale was well on view and the stuff itself was interesting. Of course, we did not buy anything but food, but the mall had a good atmosphere, if I dare to say this as an anti-capitalist :). The delicacy store was magnificent: me and Silja were just tasting all kinds of taste’n’go products for free, walking in our sandals amongst the native people. Well, at least nobody said anything to us :P. And I got to taste the Dairy Queen’s ice-cream thingy, a dream of mine since Tokyo \o/.

Here in Bangkok we have seen many unbelievably beautiful places, such as the Vimanmek Mansion (the biggest golden teak house in the world) with its charming old-school feel, and actually the whole Dusit Palace area, some of the stuff in there was amazing in terms of both detail and the assembly of all. Shivers… In retrospect I would say it has been definitely the most impressive “must-sees” I have seen on this trip. The Grand Palace in itself and its jade Buddha (there’s a story to it which helps to understand the whole Indo-Chinese history) are alone worth seeing.

The food here is absolutely fantastic! They use lot of lime, coriander, peppermint, garlic, onion, bean sprouts. The chicken curry is so good and so is the Tom Yum Goong spicy seafood soup. The street, which is near to our place (New Joe Guesthouse, it’s ok although electricity we had to literally get from the roof and make “patents” on how to attach the cord to the loose holes there in the roof), Khao San road, a backpacker haven (seems to be other folks as well), is filled with all kinds of sellers from clothes vendors to food stalls. And the food is plentiful, the Pad Thai is very good and cheap food, the pineapples one can get totally fresh are very good investment as well as this crepes kind of thing with banana and chocolate-sauce, it’s sooo good!

Of course we had to go and see some Muay Thai as well. Better known as Thai boxing, it is one of the most demanding combat sports known to man. Even though there are rules to it, it is painful even to watch. We went to a stadium called something like Ratchadamnoen to see this event of seven matches. The rounds were two or three minutes and in total there were from 3-5 rounds per match. The youngest of the fighters looked no older than 10-year-olds and according to the match sheet, they weighed only 40 kilograms. So basically the whole Thai nation is into Thai boxing and the practicing starts at very early age. Thai boxing uses lot of feet, it is the main staple of the whole show. In this instance it seemed the winner was the one who had the most energy to kick the other guy’s side with knee in at point-blank range. There were a few knock-outs as well. But what is very specific to Thai boxing are the rituals performed before the match. Every fighter has his own dance and way of making the “fighting gods” happy. There is a music band with drums, some kind of reed instrument and some percussion playing music both when the fighters prepare for the match and also during the match. The tempo and intensity of the music is varied according to the events on change..so you can imagine what it is when hundreds of crazy Thai boxing enthusiasts are chanting loudly for their own favourite while the band is making their best effort to make things as exciting as they can be. For every hit the crowd is cheering, everybody just trying to encourage their own favourite. It’s very unique and interesting.

To make things more uncomfortable, when it comes to the heat and the weather, we will travel down south with Silja, leaving on Tuesday evening in an overnight bus (I’ve heard lot of horror stories from this one, stuff being stolen when the passengers were unconscious because of something ingested through the ventilation system) towards Chumphon, from where we will take a ferry to Koh Tao, the small island in the gulf. My plans are to test scuba diving there and chill out, because on 1st of March I hear on Koh Pha Ngan there is going to be the famous (probably not as good as the legends tell, but we’ll see) full-moon party, which I will attend. This means I would have to travel to Pha Ngan with a ferry before the 1st of March.

Silja says also hi to everyone, hope everyone’s found this blog because hers has been rather silent… Elkää hajotko pakkaseen :)