Category Archives: Other Life Choices

Christmas in the 21st Century


Posted by Patrick Okens

Dec. 25 – Krakow, Poland

The Okens family Skypemas dinner.

There will come a time when tales of Skype-ing your family on Christmas Eve will sound old-fashioned and quaint – like actually hand-writing a letter or going on a sleigh ride. But we’re not there yet.

Let’s have a virtual show of hands if you Skyped someone for Christmas, or chatted with people via Facebook. Chances are, if you’re reading this you did one or the other or both. And why wouldn’t you? It’s cheap, easy, and impossible to be with everybody you know and love. There are rumblings that our hyperconnectedness makes us unhappy. That it strips us of true human contact and makes us lonely, even as our number of Facebook friends expands. But for me, this Christmas, this was not true at all.

Krakow could make a stranger sad right about now. It got milder and the snow vanished. There are, in fact, few lights and I did not find large nighttime gatherings of people going to Christmas mass. This morning, out for a run, I encountered only a few dog walkers along the river. But in the middle of this medieval town, there is Wifi and I have a MacBook Air.

Yesterday was my first-ever Skypemas dinner with my parents, sister and aunt. My hostel suite has a kitchen, and I cooked up some cheese pierogies to go with kolbasa sausage, borscht-in-a-cup and plus-sized Polish beer. I fired up my laptop and connected to my parents’ Skype address in Canada. And so we had a dinner table (lunch for them) conversation in between my mouthfuls of pierogies and gulps of “Kasztelan Niepasteryzowane” which is smoother to drink than to say. Contacts such as these don’t need to be long or particularly deep to be meaningful. That improvised gathering was the most important thing I did yesterday.

The Internet provided a few other bonuses. I listened to two CBC broadcasts; the reading of the story “The Shepherd” (a Facebook link by a friend) and this year’s “Vinyl Café” concert. These have become a yearly ritual and I felt right at home, here in my hostel in Poland. Courtesy of YouTube, Elvis crooned “Blue Christmas”. And on Facebook, friends reported about Santa-impersonating fathers, cats sleeping on the wrapping paper, and about gathering with family.

“Home for Christmas” is not about to disappear. A MacBook Air cannot give you a kiss under the mistletoe. On Christmas morning, fiber optic cable won’t squeal with glee seeing the presents under the tree. But if you are alone at this most sentimental of times, and you know the difference between the real and the virtual, get online.

Thanks for reading, and Merry Christmas!


Mandarin Tin Tin


Posted by Patrick Okens

Nov. 18 – Shanghai

 You are what you read, and I owe at least part of my taste for travel to an author named Hergé. As a kid, I pored over his comic books chronicling the adventures of Tintin, his dog Milou (Snowy in English) and Captain Haddock. In crisp, colourful vignettes, I saw the world with them. Soviet Russia in the 1920s, Shangai’s heyday in the 1930s, the snows of Tibet, the North African Desert. I paddled the Amazon with Tintin, hiked the Inca trail, fended off giant snakes in the Congo, fought pirates in the Red Sea, escaped a volcanic eruption in the Indonesian islands, witnessed a Central American coup d’état. I read the stories over and over, but they never grew old – and Tintin never aged – even as I did.

So as the rain started to dampen Shanghai’s concrete this afternoon, I headed to the Peace Theatre adjacent to People’s Square to see what Steven Spielberg would do with my boyhood hero in IMAX 3D. Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (with Mandarin subtitles) was good fun, but for me nothing will replace the original series. Other literary influences would come later: the distant places and people in the yellow-covered National Geographic, the nautical worlds of Tim Severin and Patrick O’Brian, the humour of Bill Bryson and Tim Moore, the misanthropy of Paul Theroux. But my wanderlust started with comic books.

The movie was impromptu, but I set out this morning with two goals, both triggered by reader responses. After letting five morning commuter-packed subways pass, I took the Metro to the Oriental Sport Centre, a complex including the Natatorium which hosted the 2011 World Swimming Championships. I had no idea whether the venue was open to visitors or what its hours were, but I packed my swim trunks, googles, cap and towel just in case. My hopes of success were not high (remember that even if I can find info online, it’s usually in Chinese), so I wasn’t overly disappointed when I discovered that the pool’s public grand opening on the day I leave Shanghai. Still, the outing, on the lands of the 2010 World Exhibition, proved interesting in a dystopian sort of way. The broad grounds, manicured, with newly-paved roads and granite sidewalks, were basically deserted. The massive, white natatorium looks like the Chinese cousin of the Richmond Olympic Oval. The complex includes an equally new, imposing main indoor stadium, a diving stadium, and the high rise “mansion” for sports administrators. Signage for upcoming short track speed skating and figure skating world cups show that these buildings are active, and I suppose someday Shanghai will host the Olympic Games. But all the same, I felt a disconnect between the lavish scope of the complex and the lack of activity. I thought “This is China! Aren’t there are supposed to be people everywhere?”

My second project took me back to the close confines of a market in the district of Laoximen near downtown in search of a USB cable for my camera. I had forgotten to bring my cable and now that I was in China, for Pete’s sake, I was going to get one. I found a stall selling electronic goods, showed them my little Panasonic Lumix, said “USB”, and waited to see what would happen. In short order, the right sort of cable was produced, inserted in the camera port, and tested on a laptop. It worked! The vendor typed “30” into his calculator, signifying 30 Yuan (about $4). I countered with “20”. The vendor shook his head, and I walked away with a benchmark. Next booth, same procedure. Vendor types “35”. I counter with “25”, and we settle on “30”. Granted it’s not much of a victory, but at least I engaged and didn’t feel ripped off. And of course, now my pictures are saved in two locations finally (whew!)