If you were intrigued by last month’s post about Valentine’s Day in Korea, and thought it was too good to be true, well…you’re correct. While Valentine’s Day is all about the man in Korea, the next 14^th of the month is all about the women. That means, fellas, that you are required to pony up this time. Candy or chocolates, stuffed toys or flowers, it’s up to you. Just don’t, under any circumstances, forget!

All of that amazing luck we ran into a month ago, down the drain… (smile) 

Spain is full of amazing festivals, seemingly in every town, and Valencia’s famous Las Fallas, which begins tomorrow, ensures the Mediterranean city is known for more than just being a stopping off point for visitors to nearby La Tomatina each August. As a commemoration of Saint Joseph, hundreds of thousands–perhaps even millions–gather to enjoy fireworks, music, and burn huge paper sculptures. This practice is believed to help people start a fresh new year by burning bad thoughts and memories.

Every neighborhood of Valencia has an organized group of people (the Casal faller) who host fundraising dinner parties featuring paella throughout the year, and use the money to construct a massive sculpture (falla) that will eventually be burnt in the festival. The falla is constructed according to an agreed-upon theme, which is typically a satirical shot at anything or anyone who draws the attention of the falleros. Recent editions have included George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Lady Gaga and even Shrek. These are all entered into a contest, and must be completed by March 15^th to avoid facing disqualification. From there, they are placed in their respective (albeit temporary) homes during a ceremony called La Planta (the rising), where they remain until being burned.

Some of the larger fallas…

More grand fallas…

(image credit: Times of Malta)

(image credit: Times of Malta)

The Main Event(s)

The event itself is a 5-day extravaganza, featuring a multitude of historical, religions and comedic processions. Each day begins sharply at 8am with La Despertà or, wake up call, which features brass bands marching down the street playing loud music. Close behind them are the fallers throwing large firecrackers (indeed once you’ve been here, you will no longer be surprised to hear explosions even in the middle of the night, or kids seemingly as small as babies throwing pyrotechnics).

Later in the day, at exactly 2pm, comes La Mascletà, an explosive barrage of coordinated firecracker and fireworks displays (the term “las fallas” actually means “the fires” in Valencian, so this shouldn’t come as a surprise). During this, pyrotechnicians are competing for the honor of providing the final Mascletà of the festival on the night of March 19^th, also known as La Nit del Foc (“The Night of Fire”).

Besides these two regularly scheduled events, the days of Las Fallas are full of a variety of offerings—bullfights, parades, paella contests and even beauty pageants—and stalls everywhere selling fried goodies like pores, xurros, buyols and roasted chestnuts. Each night of the festival features a fireworks display, with each day progressively becoming grander until the main event on the 19^th.

A typical Mascelta crowd for Las Fallas in Valencia

La Cremà

On the final night of Falles, around midnight on March 19, the falles are burnt as huge bonfires. This is known as la cremà (the burning), the climax of the whole event, and the reason why the constructions are called falles (“torches”). Traditionally, the falla in the Plaça de l’Ajuntament is burned last. By this point, the whole city is like a dance party, except that instead of music there is the explosive sound of people throwing fireworks around randomly. This, of course, leads to the occasional building being burned, though firefighers have adopted some clever tricks to in recent years to minimize this risk.

La Crema

La Crema

History of Las Fallas

Like most of Spain’s events, the history of Las Fallas is widely disputed, although popular belief suggests that it started in the Middle Ages, when artisans disposed of broken artifacts and the wooden lanterns that lit the streets to celebrate the spring equinox. This also coincided with the church’s festival of Saint Joseph, who was the patron saint of carpenters. From there, smaller characters started being created from the wood, which evolved into the grand statues that are seen today when polystyrene and soft cork made it possible to produce falles over 30 meters tall.

The event has become so huge that a significant part of the local economy is devoted to it, and an entire suburban area has taken on the name of City of Falles due to the excessive amount of artisans, sculptors, painters and others who spend months producing the fallas here. While Valencia boasts a healthy population of about 1 million, it is estimated that this number is more like 3 million during the festival.

Today’s post is in support of our friend Miki Dezaki, a Japanese-American currently living and teaching in Japan. Miki has been in Okinawa since 2007, and has made some videos documenting various elements of Japanese culture from his unique perspective (usually with a humorous kick).

Recently, he made a video chronicling the racism that exists in Japan even today, and how the Japanese themselves are mostly oblivious to it. While the video is in fact a thoughtful analysis rooted in fact and supporting evidence, Miki did not expect that the video would cause the stir that it did, in this case, from the loud, vocal and right-wing netouyou.

Some extremists from this group were so outraged that they began hurling death threats at Miki, and attacking him through his various social media presences online. Armed with the information they could find there, they infiltrated his personal life, tracking down his superiors at school, the school board, and even local government to demand that he remove the video and stop spreading his message. Ironically, that fact alone seems to reaffirm Miki’s original “controversial” claim that racism does still exist in Japan.

“Some Japanese guys found out which school I used to work at and now, I am being pressured to take down the ‘Racism in Japan’ video,” Dezaki posted on Reddit. “I’m not really sure what to do at this point. I don’t want to take down the video because I don’t believe I did anything wrong, and I don’t believe in giving into bullies who try to censor every taboo topic in Japan. What do you guys think?”

You can read more about Miki and his video in a recent Washington Post article here. In the meantime, we at Initial Descent want to express our support for Miki and wish him well as he continues to try to make the country he loves a better place through education.

You can also watch the original video that caused this stir below:

He has also released a follow-up, which can be accessed here.

A few years ago, I read about a girl that I knew from high school who went to meet some friends at a hotel room in our middle-class suburb of Washington, D.C. Hours later, she was dead and dumped in a forest two hours away, a victim of the most violent, intimidating gang around: MS-13.

Mara Salvatrucha-13, or MS-13 for short, is a gang built on violence and intimidation. Rooted in El Salvador, the gang has a significant presence in the United States as well, with Los Angeles in particular being a huge breeding ground. But MS-13 terrorizes its home country the most, with its ongoing territory battle with rival gang Barrio 18 being responsible for El Salvador’s status as having the second highest murder rate in the world.

One year ago today, MS-13 and Barrio 18 agreed to a truce. Surprisingly, the truce is still in place today, and the country’s murder rate has dropped an astounding 67 percent. From a high of between 13 and 14 murders a day, the country is now dealing with about 5—still a number not in line with peace and harmony, but certainly a vast improvement.

It is believed the truce was facilitated by a Catholic bishop—something to be expected in this predominantly Catholic country—and a former rebel commander of left-wing guerillas who battled El Salvador’s military during the country’s civil war some 30 years ago. The negotiations took place among rival gang leaders in some of the nation’s prisons, which are swollen in many cases to five times their capacity.

While El Salvador’s Minister for Justice and Security is credited with the arrangement (though he denies involvement), many people are skeptical, believing that the gangs have either been paid off by the government or strongly influenced by just as violent gangs from Mexico who depend on MS-13 and Barrio 18 for getting their drug supplies through Central America. But all parties involved insist neither is true, and that the gangs’ leaders have come to the realization that the body count has simply gotten out of hand.

What’s important for now though is that the murder rate is down, and if the trend continues, it could go a long way into helping El Salvador reach its potential as a growth economy and a desirable place to visit. And more importantly, a place where the country’s children can play outside without the sound of gunshots ringing.

(image credit: Associated Press/WJLA)

(image credit: Associated Press/WJLA)

(image credit: Associated Press/WJLA)

Welcome to Portland’s Old Town

Very rarely can one find one particular cross-section of a major city that represents the city as a whole, but the Portland Saturday Market does exactly that. Just starting its 40th season, PSM is the largest continually operating outdoors arts and crafts market in the US, and operates every Saturday and Sunday from the beginning of March through Christmas Eve (including the “Festival of the Last Minute,” in which it opens daily up through Christmas Eve).

PSM’s unique nature is not so much about what is being sold–arts and crafts fairs everywhere tend to have the same things on offer–but about who is selling them. Whether it is the flannel shirts, the thick lumberjack beards, the messenger bags, or simply the atmosphere, stroll through the 258 vendor booths and you feel 100% reassured that you’re in a city where emo music, veganism, compost and recycling are ubiquitously accepted.  There is plenty of talent too, as you may score a beautiful wall decoration, a unique homemade toy or  piece of jewelry. That depends on your style. But one thing that is universally true is that you will go home with a happy stomach. With offerings ranging from Polish to pizza and mezze to Mexican, there is truly something for everyone.

The market welcomes young and old alike…

Just make sure you make it to the right place–along the Waterfront on the river side of Naito Parkway, since the Skidmore Market adjacent to the MAX station often cashes in on its proximity. The more “authentic” experience is a block or two east, by the river–at the “official” Portland Saturday Market!

Every weekend, rain or shine…(March thru Christmas of course)

Brazil’s most famous #9

It was about 8:30 in the evening, and I had just arrived at São Paulo-Guarulhos  International Airport to board my flight to Washington. I checked in with time to spare and, as GRU’s entertainment options are limited, decided I’d spend another 15 or 20 minutes chatting with my friend who was so generous to bring me to the airport.

After a few minutes of talking about the country’s politics, which I know little about, we exchanged farewell pleasantries and I was on my way. In theory. The problem is, I unknowingly had left my passport and my boarding pass on the car’s dashboard, and waved as my friend drove off. I realized it within minutes, and figured I would simply give a call and, since she wasn’t far, have her turn back.

So I called. And called. And called. Each time, I heard a recorded voice on the other end saying something in Portuguese I couldn’t understand. Starting to feel a twinge of panic, I raced to the Internet shop across the departure all, and paid for 15 minutes. My friend had a  smartphone, so I thought maybe an email would do the job as well. So message after message I sent, each becoming more desperate in tone, eagerly refreshing my inbox after each one. Nothing.

Next recourse was to buy an hour of wifi from the same shop, and hopefully have my phone connect to a chat messenger like Whatsapp, which I knew my friend also had. Except that it wouldn’t connect, and by this time, I was sure she was nearly back to Sao Paulo. Sure enough, I got a phone call after an hour that said she was back at home and just now had seen my messages.

While I was relieved that I had located my passport, my flight was long gone by this point.

My friend was kind enough to come back to GRU and pick me up, and I asked, rather incredulously, why she had changed her number. Except she hadn’t. Brasil had changed it for her.

In late July of last year, due to the shortage of mobile numbers, every mobile phone number in the country had a “9” added to the front of it, just after the area code. While I had remembered hearing about it, I didn’t make the connection and actually go into my contacts list and change the number. Those words I couldn’t understand on the other end of the phone told me the same as well, but the announcement wasn’t in English.

A lesson for the books, and hopefully it will be decades before Brasil has to add another digit, but make sure you have your contacts fresh!

If only I could have understood this in Portuguese…(image credit: Rio Times)

Philly’s Independence Hall

Welcome to Philly. You know, Philly. Philly? Like, Philadelphia? You mean that place where the Founding Fathers signed those documents that started the modern day United States of America? That place where they make really greasy fake steak sandwiches with cheese sauce that for some reason are famous? Ah, but of course….Philly!

Poor Philadelphia. Located anywhere else, it may in fact be considered a great city—an esteemed tourist attraction garnering attention from far and wide. I mean, surely it has more to offer than places like Dallas or Houston, right? And yet Philly often finds itself  playing the role of red-headed stepchild…occasionally paid attention to only because you can’t avoid it, but typically shunned in favor of the taller, prettier, more charming siblings.

If Philadelphia were in Texas, its image would be a lot different. Unfortunately, it rests just about 90 miles (150 kilometers) from New York City to the north, and about 150 miles (240 kilometers) from Washington, D.C. to the south. As a result, it is often overlooked, because it has the same grime and grit that plagues some of its more well-known neighbors, but without quite as much charm.

Philly has a nice art museum (Rocky steps, anyone?). And some world-class universities (UPenn is among the world’s best). It has luscious green parks, a strong sporting tradition, and eclectic ethnic neighborhoods. A walk through the traditional Italian section of Philly south of downtown (which is bigger than NYC’s Little Italy if you’re keeping track), will send you back to the early 1900s, when an estimated 600,000 Italians called this place home.

Unfortunately, as nice as some of these things are, they aren’t differentiated enough from what Big Brother 90 miles to the north has to offer. Art museums? Check. World class universities? Check. Green parks, sports and eclectic, melting pot neighborhoods? Check. As for the more famous Little Brother to the south, well, Philly was once the Capitol of the United States, but that was before it was a global superpower. So only DC has been able to bill itself the “most powerful city in the world.” (perhaps for a few more years, anyway).

And while NYC and DC have their share of problems with crime, occasionally corrupt governments, and the like, well….these things happen just as much in Philly.

As the fourth-largest city in the U.S., trailing only New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, Philly is surely deserving of a bigger name than it currently has. Perhaps we should just pack it up and ship it Midwest, and then you may see Philly popping up on some more tourist agendas :).

The world’s symbol for liberty: The Liberty Bell!

Philly skyline (image credit: TripAdvisor)

A German footballer carrying the national expression…

Germans are not a cold, stone-faced people. They just like to make you think that. If you can fend off intimidation and get past that gruff, stoic exterior, you’re likely to find a warm-hearted, friendly person inside.

When I first started spending time here, I’ll never forget my friend’s exact quote about her kinfolk: “Germans mostly have a stressed expression on their face. That’s what gives us a hard time when we go on vacation and meet people who really enjoy life; we have to come back and get used to the ‘unfriendliness’ again.”

Of course she didn’t mean unfriendly, just the outward shell that people here seem pre-wired to carry with them. Being stoic and shortspoken doesn’t mean one doesn’t enjoy life, and given the consumption habits of the typical German, I’d venture to say that most people here actually enjoy it quite a lot. Just don’t go walking around with a big grin on your face if you hope to fit in…

Italy is romantic, sure. But Italy is far too romanticized, too.

While the Italy virgin surely holds hopes of evening strolls along calm waterways, perhaps stealing a kiss or two in the shadows of the Colosseum, or luxury shopping down Via Montenapoleone, to enjoy these things, it is almost comical the number of inconveniences that Italians seem to intentionally bestow upon foreign visitors.

Maybe it’s Italian pride, I don’t know. But I don’t possibly understand how urban planners, politicians, and the like can even fathom some of the design elements of Italy’s infrastructure that just make it impossible to navigate.

I’m no inexperienced traveler, either, by any stretch. With 43 countries under my belt, including four previous visits to this very country, I tend to be pretty street smart. I often rely on public transportation, I have a good sense of the layout of a city from just a quick glance at a map, and I manage to find my way. And yet in my last visit, which consisted of just 16 hours, I encountered not one, not two, and not three, but four massive inconveniences.

First, there is an express bus from Roma’s Fiumicino International Airport to Vatican City and Termini Station. Apparently. Despite having no fewer than 50 massive advertisements plastered throughout the arrivals area, finding the stop for it is virtually impossible. While it says “Bus Station No. 1” on the advert, it does not specify any operating hours, and does not give any additional instructions as to where this supposed Station No. 1 is. And when you follow the signs within the airport, the one that says “Shuttle” refers to a within-the-airport shuttle (despite the Express bus to Termini being called “Shuttle” as well). So upon that failure, I walked down to the “Local Bus Station,” only to find distance buses most of which do not go to Roma. The ones that did specify Roma on the departure screen were for the next day, and it was only about 23:00 at the time.

Upon making it on Trenitalia from Fiumicino to Roma Tiburtina Station, the timetable for the Metro specified that the last train leaves just after midnight. I was there about 10 minutes prior to that, only to find a roped off entrance area. This made me depend on a taxi, who typed my address into his GPS. I saw the route pop up, which was just two stops and about five minutes on the Metro, and it was about 3km away. About 20 minutes and 15 turns later, I arrived at my destination—with a 17 euro charge. I screamed at the man in English which he didn’t understand for driving me in a circle, making wild gestures, so he knew I had been here before, and he agreed to 10 euro, which I paid and left. Just expect it—if you don’t speak Italian, you will get ripped off by a taxi driver. If you don’t, it’s your lucky day. In my case, it was just funny that he insulted my intelligence by typing the address into the GPS, and continuously ignoring the suggested route as I watched the machine recalculate, and recalculate, and recalculate. He probably should have made sure I couldn’t see that, anyway, and may have gotten a few more euros out of me.

Fast-forward to the next day. I went to enter the Metro for the two-stop ride over to Tiburtina to catch a 14:03 train back to Fiumicino. When I was near the station, I realized I forgot something important at my friend’s flat, and literally sprinted back, about 800m, to grab it. I got on the Metro, and arrived at Tiburtina station at about 13:57…a semi-comfortable 6 minutes to make the connection. Except that at Tiburtina, as you exit the Metro, the overground trains are one direction, and the only place in the entire station you can purchase Trenitalia tickets is the other direction. Without a sign informing you of that, of course. So in my instinct, I just left Metro and walked towards my track platform, passing about 200m of wide-open hallway. And not a single automated ticket machine. In Italy, you cannot purchase tickets on board, either….so my only option to avoid a 100 euro penalty was to run back past the Metro, to the other side of the station where the ticket booth was. I saw a bank of about 20 automated machines, and was just dumbfounded why they could not put a single one of those machines either at the Metro exit, or in the direction of the train platforms.

I honestly believe that Italians do things this way just to laugh at foreigners…but that’s just my two cents.

Few forms of reading are as entertaining than that offered by British newspapers. While every country has their tabloids, featuring off-the-wall stories (often fabricated) about celebrities, this type of content seems to always find a place in even the most reputable newspapers produced by London daily. From The Sun to The Guardian and everything in between, more emphasis seems to be placed here on uncovering the latest football wife-and-girlfriend drama or the accidental private part flash by a busty blonde on her Ibiza getaway than things happening in those less important issues, like, oh, national politics or human rights.

But before you journalism purists get bent out of shape about it, just relax…and enjoy it! I’m always entertained no matter what I’m reading—even coverage of football seems to revolve more around hurt feelings and dented Bentleys than game strategy—and it has certainly made many a long commute via Southwest Trains and the Tube go by in a snap. One that comes to mind was in the wake of  football club Chelsea’s historic Champions League victory in 2012—the biggest accomplishment in the club’s 107-year history. Rather than focusing on some of the hundreds of newsworthy subplots, much of the next day’s coverage revolved around the hurt feelings of striker Fernando Torres, who felt “more humiliated than he had ever been” because he was relegated to coming off the bench rather than starting the match. He still played a significant amount of time, including the decisive conclusion, but somehow had the gall to let his personal ego outweigh a once-in-a-century team accomplishment. And the newspapers ate it up, comically (perhaps just as comically as seeing a gaudy Torres at front and center of the team’s victory parade through West London the next day).

British newspapers are more comedic soap opera than journalistic integrity and I, for one, actually prefer it that way!