Travel educates?
The other day, we went up to Kalabrera Cave to show our five-year-old arround. and snap some shots. After a couple of minutes, a bunch of young, Japanes e tourists came up to the cave, surrounded by a night-club-noise-level. We asked them to be quiet, reminded them on the birds nesting around the cave. The noise died out immediately.
While looking around in the cave and mostlikely wondering what was that special about that cave, and who in his right mind could take pictures of cave walls, the best wife in the world just grabbed them to show them around in the cave, especially the petroglyphs on the walls.
The Japanese looked at them in awe. Intrigued they listened to the explanations of the wife. I still don't know how much English these folks understood, but the enlightenment in their faces told us a lot.
Minutes later we parted under many polite bows and "thank you's" in broken English from the Japanese. One could easily see that they took something home they could tell their grandchildren about.
For us, it was also time to leave. Just when we exited the cave a group of Chineses came up. Ten, fifteen or more ... noisy as a crowd at the Super Bowl. Again, we tried to quiet them down, and asked who their tour guide was - shrugged shoulders the answer. On the parking lot, we found the local drivers of the trucks that brought the tourists up there at a pugua break. We asked them to quiet down the group to not disturb the wildlife around, and to show some respect to this place. Again, shrugged shoulders the answer "we don't speak Chinese", until my wife talked to the guys in Chamorro. I don't know what she told them (my Chamorro is as bad as her Japanese), but all in a sudden the drivers moved and got the crowd quiet.
What am I aiming at? It is not enough to bring the tourists in and just dump them at the sites "You have ten minutes to take pictures". You want to give them something they'll remember.
When they show their pictures back home, a "well, that is that one cave, but we don't have a clue was going on in there" always sounds worse than a "that's Kalabrera Cave. Look at them petroglyphs. They explained us everything in that cave .... man, those old Chamorro must have been something!"
Maybe that talks their friends into wanting to see these petroglyphs with their own eyes....
A Chamorro is proud of his culture and heritage. Show this pride to the tourists (and not just rip them off or burglarize their cars). Show them around in your culture. Therefore, tour guides are needed. But a tour guide should a professional, just like a lawyer. S/he should know the island and the island's culture for the tourist's education, but most of all should be able to explain the tourists that should be respectful at the sites and not see them as a spectacle.
Why I love Saipan?
Well, first of all my apologies tothe one or two readers I here for not writing anything for nearly 2 months, but there are other obligations in the life of a college student.
But to the topic: Angelo Villagomez sent me a comment to mention why I love Saipan. Do I love it? Yes, and no!
To answer this question completely, I would have to dig in my past. So get your favorite beverage and some sashumi, this might be a longer story.
It is an open secret that I met the best wife in the world (mine) via the internet while I was sitting in the cold and rainy Netherlands, using a chat program to keep the cost for contacting my buddies in Germany low. So, now there she knocked on my door under the handle of "isla bonita". The more we chatted with each other, the more I fell in love with her - and after six years of marriage, I love her more and more. To make a short story long: I gave up my career in middle management, sold my house and moved to Saipan.
Leaving the airport of Saipan was something that changed my life completely. After sitting in different airplanes for 16 hours, and spending the same amount of time in climatized - meaning effing cold - airports I walked into a wall of hot air when walking out of my first door in Saipan. It was a "wow" sensation. 2000 was a hot summer in Europe, but not as hot as here, and I was in love with the island right away.
Jetlagged as I was the first couple of days, I enjoyed the trips over the island. It was a new world for me. The third world look of parts of Saipan were very romantic for a westerner, and I closed my eyes to the trash all over the place.
However, I sobered up rather quickly. Finding a job wasn't easy. Either I was overqualified or underqualified, or I simply had the wrong family ties. But somehow I still survive.
Did the love to this place lessen in the last six years? - Yes, it did! But differently than you might think.
When you google for Saipan, the first thing you might find will be the infamous saipansucks site. While this guy is not necessarily wrong, one should keep in mind that this site was created by a disgruntled guy with his head in the sand. But this is actually my main point of critique: The head in the sand.
There are many things wrong on Saipan, as elsewhere in the world. Saipansucks describes them all. However, it is fine to describe things that could be improved, but you also should get your act together to fix them, or at least help to fix.
And leads me to the point where I hate Saipan. Whenever I get introduced to yet another uncle or cousin by my wife, the first question is "and how do you like our island". My answer is more polite than honest meanwhile. Why? Well, the thing is that whenever you are invited to one of the many rosaries, and the discussions go to the government, it only leads to bitching, but if you suggest sometghing you are shouted down. How can a foreigner know how to solve our problems? At the beginning, I was rather frustrated about this xenophobia, but meanwhile I have the feeling it is rather the fact that the locals are afraid from the changes, and the incommodities related to the changes. The status quo is something to bitch about, but to change something would be too much work.
Angelo sent me a link to the anti-saipansucks site http://www.welovesaipan.com/
I quickly looked over it. The first thing you see is that folks contributing to this site are either FOB or come back home after a long absent. What about the folks living in this place and never had the chance or the will to leave the island? What would be their contribution to "we love Saipan"?
Besides the fact that it would be impossible to have a beer in the shadow of a mango tree just wearing a pair of Hawai'i shorts in Germany, I love Saipan, because it is the best place in the world to raise your kids in a still somehow healthy environment. However, as it looks at the moment, our kids won't find much of a future here, unless we stop to rely on rip-off-artist style foreign investors, but rather think of what we have available and build our future based on this. All it needs is a bit of thinking outside of the box.
I will be a teacher somewhen but hate grades. I'd rather give comments on a student's abilities. For Saipan I'd say "this place has the tools available for improvements. It just would have to want to".
To Angelo's request: I am not sure if this blog entry qualifies me to be included in the welovesaipan site, but I still love this effing place!
Carelessness?
Oftentimes you walk past things without seeing them. On the rush to the parking lot, it is easy to oversee the luzon that is on display at the college.
I guess, most NMC students know that spot (if not it is close to the place where you pick up your scholarship checks), but I bet most students - local or foreign - don't know what this rock is, although a luzon was for centuries, if not for millenia, a utensil used in the day to day life to grind rice or corn.
As it was a day to day to item, it seems everyone takes it for granted, and doesn't care much for it. No one knows when this rock picked up by a Chamorro who put a lot sweat into getting the hole in the rock, so that his family can use to prepare their daily meals.
This rock is a vital is a part of the local culture. Without this rock, it would have even be harder to survive on the island. Nowadays it is used as an ashtray or as a trashcan by absentminded students.
So, what am I aiming at? - The jungle. As this rock, the local jungle is a vital part of the local culture, helping the Chamorro and Carolinians to survive by supplying food. That was in the old days. Nowadays we take it for granted. It simply is there and serves as a convenient place to dump your trash after a fiesta ... like my neighbor just did.
I know, times are hard and trash pick up costs a lot of money, but, hey folks, put your pick up trucks to a use other than endangering other people by drunk driving. Bring your trash to the transfer station or the directly to the landfill. If you sort out your empty beer cans for recycling, you may even get the gas money back.
I know this is less convenient than just crossing Hasngot Drive, but if you know how much it'll cost you if your neighbor - yeah, that goddamned tree hugging foreigner - would call the cops?
Well, if these cops aren't too overworked to deal with such a minor affair, especially if the offender is local.
Nikonian goes Olympus
Normally, I don't care with what camera I shoot, as long it is a Nikon. However, my new camera finally arrived yesterday. You may have guessed it from the headline: It is an Olympus E-1. This model itself is already some three years old, and I actually wanted one since that time. Only problem was that the rig I got would have costed some $3,000 +. Now this model didn't sell as well as Olympus had projected, so they cut the price brutally. Just so far that I could more or the less afford one.
A short review: I was looking for a solid, comfortable camera with a lens that is as good as a Nikkor 35-70/2.8 (still one of the best lenses Nikon ever made). Enter E-1. When you take that thing out of the box, you ask yourself how in the world could market Olympus their 4/3 system as being smaller than other cameras. It is actually about the same size as my old Nikon F90x (and as heavy) which has been a benchmark for me for years.
Mount the booster on the camera, you have one serious piece of technic in your hand. Talking about hand: For me, Nikon has built the most ergonomic cameras so far, but the E-1 turns that impression somewhat. Olympus seems to be in the glove business. The camera fits perfeclty in your hand. The buttons seem to be strewn all over the place on a first look, but once you have the camera in your hand, you'll see immediately that there was a plan behind the button placement. Each of them is easily to reach with your thumb. I guess with a bit of practice, you could change settings without even taking the camera from the eye.
The camera is generally well engineered. Everything is rock solid. Pressing the shutter is a feast. It is very soft, but when you take the actual picture, you are in for a surprise: I was used the KLACCCCKKKK, ZZZZZRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTT sound from my F90. From the E-1 you only hear a very decent
klack. It reminds me on the cloth shutters of vintage cameras.
Then, when you transfer the images to a computer, you are in for a second surprise: The colors are terrific. They very saturated, but not overly so. Close to Fuji Velvia (the film for the color blind), but not as overblown.
There have been many complaints about the Olympus E-1. I had only limited time to use it so far, but I can tell you, most of the complaints are hogwash - disclaimer: I use cameras picture taking, not for pixel peeping.
The first outing was last night's All Saints Day dinner with the extended family that evolved into the usual orgy. We had the party in a tent, lighted with 2 100 Watt bulbs. This light enabled me to shoot at ISO3200 with shutter speeds of about 1/15-1/25 handheld. Of course, the the pictures were soft and grainy (noisy). However, no one in his right mind would print that stuff. I only put it on our family web site sized 640x480. And guess what, in that size you whether see the bluriness, nor the noise. For emails to grandma this always sufficient.
The second complaint is the Viewfinder. I love it! It is very bright and clear. You can see 100% of the picture in it, and it doesn't look like a tunnel, as many other DSLR's. The only thing I have to get used to is the magnification. I took some flower pictures today and was always amazed how close I was to my subject ... kinda like the mirror on your passenger door (they should put a warning sticker on the camera "Subjects are closer than they appear").
Many people complain that the camera was slow in low light focus. That's crap! I didn't have any problem to focus at all. My victims were about 15 to 20 feet away from me, some even in near darkness. The focus locked always very fast. The red assist lamp helps a lot. As a matter in fact, I was happy to have the E-1. With my trusty Nikon I could not have done that (shoot without flash at near darkness, I mean).
3 fps? So what? My F90 made 4 frames per second, but within 10 seconds I would have gone through a roll of film, and after the second roll through a set of batteries. And believe me, it takes longer to change film and batteries than it takes the E-1 to write the content of its buffer to the card. I never felt it was slow.
I shot about 300 images of the alcohol induced activities during the orgy (all in RAW), and today, while treating my hangover, I went through the pictures. sure, they were noisy and soft, but the Olympus colors came through. I put some stuff up on my web galery, but it is password protected (as not to embarass my folks).
For converting the RAWs I used the Olympus software and Rawshooter Essentials. I like both programs. While many users complain about the Olympus software, I didn't have the slightest problem with it. Just try Nikon's editor once! A batch convert of about 100 images plus a P/S action for resizing took about 30 minutes. I dind't change any levels or did any sharpening (that stuff was not supposed to be seen in any way ... it was only for testing!), but I have seen that one must be very careful with USM, as jaggies appear very fast.
Can a three year old camera still be impressive? I'd say yes. The E-1 may have ONLY 5 megapixel, but my old Nikon CP5700 didn't have more either, and I have printed in 13x19 from that camera without problems or P/S wizzardry.
Would I want something bigger, better, faster? I don't think so. UIt'll take years, until I have exhausted the capabilities of that camera, and for what I shoot, I wouldn't need more.
Editing
5 DVD full with digital images. A drawer full of negatives (I hate scanning!). I guess there are about 10,000 images I shot over the 6 years I'm staying in this place now.
Takes a lot of time to go through and find the right ones to post. Especially, when you never took the effort to edit anything besides the few pictures you printed for friends and family.
Well, I am searching for a couple of shots I took at Banzai Cliff. All I can find at the moment is a thumbnail from at least one of the series.
Sorry for the size. For the non-involved, I will tell the story about Banzai Cliff once I find the other images.
a picture
Living in paradise can oftentimes lead to take sunset shots. Although I find sunset shots boring, I couldn't pass without posting one.
I never could understand why people want to show their place by showing sunsets. They are nothing special for a place. Well, maybe in places with high population concentration they may give interesting colors due to air pollution, but here?
On the other hand, I love to watch sunsets. When I relocated from Germany to Saipan, I had to stop in Manila to wait for my next plane. There it was where I saw the first tropical sunset. The colors were amazing ... well, with all the pollution in Manila, no wonder.
Here's a sunset shot at beachroad:
I hope that picture comes out well.
For the gear heads: Shot with Nikon CP5700 (deceased), EXIF data lost ....
Waiting
Well, the mission of this blog is photography of our island, so the reader may ask now, absolutely justified, "then were are the pics?"
Uhm, there is the problem now. I am definitively fed up with scanning negatives. My digital camera is on the way to Nikon for a sensor change. So no pictures yet!
However, you may rejoice. I just ordered a new digital camera which should come in by the end of next week. Then you will be bombarded with pictures fom our place.
There comes another however: Although this place is paradise, there are exceptions, so don't expect that I will only post picture postcards here. I will post picture that tell stories of how I (and the camera) see this place. It is not always nice!
The Japanese looked at them in awe. Intrigued they listened to the explanations of the wife. I still don't know how much English these folks understood, but the enlightenment in their faces told us a lot.
