Article: The Business of Survival 7:01 pm

Amidst all the supposedly-studying, I wrote the following article for my university's newspaper. This was inspired first by my trip to Maroc, and then by the insights of my dear friend Yee Hung on his own trip to North Africa.

Please share your thoughts, as I share mine through the article.

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The Business of Survival
by Nicholas Foo, April 2009



“Konnichiwa!” was not the first greeting I expected when I arrived in Morocco, but it was.

After getting off the plane at Tangier Airport, I made my way to the edge of the ancient walled city, the medina. Alone, backpack on, jungle hat on, and my Nikon SLR slung across my chest, I climbed the cobbled path towards one of the entrances of this 600-year-old medina. Donkeys caring loads; man selling sticks of cigarettes on a crate; woman haggling for a better price on oranges…

“Konnichiwa! Maroc welcomes you!”, said a toothless grin which popped up on my left. I smiled back and bonjour-ed. The wrinkled face that belonged to this grin went on to tell me how wonderful the medina was and all the tourist sights within it. He was a faux guide, or false guide, wanting to offer his services as a guide through the labyrinthine medina. I kept repeating “non, merci” to his persistent advances on telling me the many sights. Losing patience, he left but not without a scowl.


Moroccan knaves?
That was the first of many Japanese “konnichiwa” greetings I got on my 10-day solo trip across Morocco. Once you look vaguely “oriental” (whatever that entails), you get a Japanese greeting, even if the last you heard of “konnichiwa” was across a television screen. If you are not Japanese, you surely have to be Korean, and lately, possibly from China, so these Moroccan faux guides and touts assume.

Ask anyone who has visited Morocco, and it will be likely they would tell you how persistent, and irritating, some of these touts can be. They offer to take you to restaurants, shops selling “cheap” souveniors, or simple guide services. Yet even when you brush them away, they persistently follow you through the streets of the medina (in my case, for a good half an hour) and assail you with sales-speak of the local tourist attractions. Some might euphemistically put this down to enthusiasm, some more harshly consider them pests, as a friend did.

You think you can side-step the touts by pretending not to speak English; they will surprise you with their Arab, French, German, Spanish and Japanese. When you brush them off too curtly, they get aggressive in public, and you might give to avoid a public scene. There seems no escaping them.

The faux guides and touts were not just in Tangier, but also in the medinas of Fes and Marrakech, the Moroccan imperial cities. The medinas are the ideal places for touts and guides to ply their trade; Fes’ medina contains 12,000 streets, with more than half being dead-end ones, and littered with more than 120,000 shops. This reality often presents visitors perplexing issues of navigation and local knowledge, giving rise for the opportunity for the touts and guides to sell their services.

Pesky, pest-like, but how evil are they? They offer to take you to a place, some even going to the extent of promising you (perhaps crossing their fingers behind their back) they would not ask you for money. They arrive at your destination, and you thank them. But that is not it. They actually rescind on their promise and ask for money, which makes you really think they did cross their fingers earlier. You give them some spare change reluctantly, but they demand for all the money in your pocket in one of the 6,000-ish isolated dead-ends; that was what happened to me. This is just one instance of the cunning, and possibly, evil Moroccan touts and guides. Others may possibly charge you a price of mint tea twice as much as the price on the menu, and pretend not to speak English when you demand an explanation.

These stories of evil treachery can go on. Friends can relate similar stories in various permutations. Ultimately, “at the very end, (they) want money”, to quote a reductionist analysis a friend used.

True, the guides and touts are nearly all Moroccan men of different ages. However, you would not be blamed to think that this mad-lust for money pervades the entirety of Moroccan demography. Children extorted money from me for “guiding” me to places I needed no guide; an old lady demanded money from me for taking a photograph of her sorting mint leaves. So it did seem that all of Morocco was like that; money-grabbing knaves. At least after the first 2 days there, it definitely seemed the case to me.


The business of survival
Is this “evilness” due to greed? Are these multi-lingual, intelligent yet cunning Moroccans greedy con-men? Some friends certainly think so, and I would have nearly concluded the same if not for some enlightenment I got from local acquaintances I met along the way.

No, the money the guides and touts coerce from tourists hardly go to debaucheries, especially not alcohol since Moroccans tend to be staunchly Muslim. Rather, the money goes to surviving.

Maroc is not the easiest place to survive in: World’s 137th poorest country, drought-prone, GDP per capita 9 times lesser than the United Kingdom, unemployment at 10%. Only recently gaining independence in 1956, it is a young country fighting hard to play catch-up in the harsh global financial milieu of today; 45% of the population are still employed in agriculture. Natural geography does not do the nation any favours with only 18% arable land. Graduates are twice as likely to be unemployed then a non-graduate.

What makes Maroc even more difficult to survive in is the uncertainty of life. Having a semi-arid climate, there is no assurance of good rainfall and thus affects agricultural harvest, which affects at least 1 in 2 Moroccans. Essentially, Maroc’s GDP varies with the weather.

Many visitors, myself included, marvel at the rustic time-stood-still beauty of Maroc; camel rides into the desert sunset, bustling souks of ornamental rainbows. Many often escape to Maroc to escape from the crushing speed of globalising urban life. Yet we forget that with this romanticised view of Maroc, it is itself being left behind.

In patriarchal Maroc, boys are born into their trade; if your father was a leather craftsman, you too will be one starting from a boyhood apprenticeship. You become an established craftsman, sell your leather slippers to the locals in the medina, and you buy bread from the baker who, too, took over from his father. All is well in a nearly-butter trade economy in the medina. Globalisation comes along, introduces Nike trainers, people prefer Nikes over leather, and the craftsman finds himself with less income, then buys less from the baker; this effect ripples across the medina.

Amidst all this, there are families to feed and dealing with the uncertainty of the family garden-harvest. It is then that many men seek alternative sources of income like being faux guides and touts. So it is not out of greed, but necessity for survival that pushes these ‘evil’ Moroccans to hustle us visitors to Maroc.

Funny how we desire the rustic and quaintness of Maroc but not the reality of the Moroccan need to survive that comes with this antiquated beauty.



True Maroc hospitality
Even after my local Fes guide told me all this, I still needed convincing that Moroccans were not intrinsically money-grabbing ‘fiends’. My hesitation to dispel this ‘evil Moroccan’ label was soon abated after my journey into South Maroc, the journey into the heart of true Maroc hospitality.

I travelled south past the Atlas Mountains and the Dry Mountains with my new-found Moroccan friend M’hammed and his girlfriend. As the scorching African sun took its toll, we took stops in the small oases in the arid mountains. Each time we did, local men would greet us respectfully, and offer us shaay (mint tea). This time, I was greeted not with “Konnichiwa” but with the proper Arab greeting of “Salaam 'Alaykum” (“peace be upon you”); I was no longer the Asian tourist, but a welcomed guest.

This hospitality of being offered tea by complete strangers, mind you with no charge, and having polite conversations in French was experienced throughout the rest of my travel in the South. Once, wanting just shaay as we battered through 90km of gravel road in the mountains, we stopped in a small village. Invited into the family dining hall for tea, we were also offered bread and vegetable tajine (a local cuisine) without charge.

I later learnt from M’hammed that Moroccan families often prepare an extra portion of tajine daily, just in case of unexpected guests. Tell me, at this point can you still continue to believe that the Moroccans are fundamentally conniving knaves?

I cannot.

Kindness, even to strangers, is ingrained in the Islamic Maroc culture. No doubt, the history of the nation was built on invasions and colonisation. "Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day should be hospitable with his or her guests," says the Great Prophet in Islam. I witnessed a female street beggar being invited to sit with a couple to have breakfast in Fes. I was invited to M’hammed’s house in the Dades Valley, and other than being treated to a feast of home-made pastries, I also departed with home-made gifts.

Moroccan history also affirms this intrinsic hospitality and kindness. Desert nomads were, and still are, allowed to build caves on private land for shelter. These caves are free to use by any traveller, so long as the traveller digs to extend the cave a little before leaving. Desert caravans from the Sahara were also guided on safe paths by Maroc Kasbahs (Islamic fortresses) acting as ‘lighthouses’ as they passed through Maroc land.


Traveller or tourist?
True, some of the touts could be sincerely evil nasty knaves. But would it not be unfair to claim that all Moroccans are ‘evil’ and ‘cut-throat’. as some I know have? Neither are all Moroccans angels. But this article wishes to offer two take-aways.

First, whenever we travel, we should seek to understand the possible cultural and economical contexts in which we judge local observations. If we did not understand the economic struggles of urbanite Moroccans, we might easily assume that the unscrupulous touting boils down to an intrinsic evil in the local culture. But upon learning of the trying economic conditions in Maroc, we are more sympathetic.

Second, be more of a traveller than a tourist. If we behave like tourists, we would be treated like tourists. Be a traveller by better understanding local culture. I had shaay in the Fes medina with only local customers. I was approached by a guide who offered “cheapest deal” for desert camel rides. I politely declined in Arabic, explaining I was not headed that way, and offered him some bread I was having. Instead of turning aggressive, he accepted my ‘peace offering’ and wished me well on my journey. If I gave him a touristic “no, go away”, I probably would have gotten equally hostile a response.

Tourists have transactions with locals. Travellers, being guests to a country, have relationships. I believe this holds regardless of our destination. I learnt that if I enjoyed the quaintness Maroc offered, I, too, had to accept the fight for survival and the corollary touting. But being better acquainted to the culture, it made me accept this as part of Maroc’s way of life. The only way I would accept this is being a traveller, not a tourist.


So the next time you go on a trip, this summer perhaps: be a traveller, not just a tourist.



Uncle T

still holding my breath... 6:29 am

We arrived in Liverpool just past mid-day, with the spring sun stubbornly hiding behind the clouds. We had an amazing dinner last night, 3 young men frankly sharing opinions and insights; delightful and thoughtful. Yet, amidst the excitement for a big football game, my mind was constantly pre-occupied with examination gitters. But Ian, as always, is a source of comfort without saying, but just being.

The game ended about 1.5 hours ago. Yet, even as I sit in a hostel bed, plugged into jazz, I can still feel my heart beating in my chest and still holding my breath. What a thriller the game was tonight, Liverpool 4 - Arsenal 4. My word. I really swear I thought I would get a heart attack, and a sore throat. I probably got the latter, from the cheering. We (Liverpool) were trailing, then we levelled, then took the lead, then were levelled, then trailing...I lost count.

All I knew was that I didn't know supporting a club could be so emotional, especially when you're there, live. When we equalised in the dying minutes of the game, I nearly teared as I screamed a sigh of relief and exasperation.

This doesn't have to make sense, other than for the fact that supporting a club for 12 years, and seeing them draw 4-4 at home in the deciding games of a possible league title is thoroughly bad for the heart.

But am I blessed to watch this game, my possible last at Anfield. And with company I can never get enough of. Thanks buddy.



Uncle T

Lover 101 4:58 am

A: I miss you.

B: ok.

Uncle T

when lacking the great, settle for the little... 3:59 am

...pleasures in life. 

There are times when you catch yourself living a shell of a life, drifting, not thinking; its not bad, but its not terribly exciting either. I think I have been catching myself far too often like that of late.

That feeling is always there. That feeling I had throughout my younger days, and its still here now, that is when I'm not drifting. Its that feeling of wanting more than what you have. A desire for a I-don't-know-what-but-I-sure-want-it. Right. I made so much sense there.

But about small pleasures in life. Played football in the rain, had a short but heartfelt chat with a friend, a warm cup of hot chocolate in my elf-size room, then a warm shower. Small pleasures, but pleasures nonetheless. Not just the shower; its all of it.

Right. I'm rambling. You should some time too.

"if Warhol can do it, so can I."

| tiles, mirror, face, poster, glasses, lamp of Flat 25A |

Uncle T

...safe in the dream of jazz. 11:39 pm

"Have you heard how Nat (King Cole) sings 'Unforgettable'? The sweet trance of romance in jazz. Sincere and pure. I'll rather stay safely in this dream than wonder beyond into reality where you have to take chances. And risk losing."

Uncle T

An excerpt from an email... 6:56 pm

I wrote an email to a dear friend about how I spent my Easter weekend. This is an excerpt from that email.

"Spent my Easter weekend at a seminary in Birmingham. I was hesitant to go on Maundy Thursday when the retreat actually started, mainly because of my 5,000 essay but also because it was a discernment weekend for the priesthood. It was kind of lovely that when I arrived Sat morning at the beautiful seminary (Oscott College, its online), I was the 'missing' 12th 'apostle' of the retreat. There were 12 of us.

Out of the 12, 10 have either signed up to be priests or are seriously considering. In that way, I felt like the odd one out. But similarly, I learnt so much. About the humility and power of God's call; met construction workers who felt the calling, and are far more educated in Church literature than I will ever be; boys who didn't do A Levels and read much more about God's word than I can only imagine; priests who dropped out for 8 years then came back in...it goes on.

It was a nice quiet weekend. I enjoyed it; time with Him is always good. Desperate to clear my life from filth that clouds my conscience. It is said that conscience is where God's voice resides. But once we allow the world's ways to clog it up, what we hear in our conscience is far from God's voice. So I'm working on that."

Uncle T

I just can't help but smile...Travel differently perhaps? 10:14 pm

Bumped into a friend who visited Maroc (Morocco) alone as did I. And naturally, we spoke about Maroc fondly. I couldn't help but smile; thinking of the deserts, meeting people in oasis villages, fending off hasslers in the most amiable way possible in Marrakech and Fes...I can't help but smile.

Its not just Maroc. If you spoke to me about New York, I'll smile like a gleeful child talking about his 'special' role he got in the school play. Even Corsica. Perhaps its just the joy I derive from traveling to foreign cities/countries, and get to know them till some form of relationship is formed. No, not a relationship you build by visiting a place for 2 days, tick the checklist of attractions seen and move on. Its a relationship built by trying your earnest best in learning about the nation, about its peoples.

Are you satisfied with saying that you've visited 878,743 cities (this is a random number; don't crack your head thinking about it) rather than say you've got to know perhaps 3 cities very well? Well, if you are of the first kind, you might not want to read on. Because as the summer draws near, some of us may be traveling. I urge us all to get to know a place well before leaving it; and you won't know a place well enough to take away deep lasting memories if you spend 1-2 days.

I am not saying 1-2 days in a city is bad. I'm just urging you to move beyond a superficial tourist visit but stay a little longer to get at least a traveler's view; be welcomed into a local's home/shop/regular hang-out. If you have that urge to move from tourist to traveler, it takes guts. To get to know a city/place, you've got to open yourself up, be vulnerable, but in a sensible way. Only when you open up can the cultures and histories of the land you travel to touch you.

Think about it, even just for abit. As you plan your holidays/travels, think about:
- stay at a city longer
- staying where locals stay
- eating where locals eat
- travel alone
- get a local guide
- hitch-hike, even if its for a short distance
- anything else you can think of to get yourself out of your comfort zone, and closer to local-life.

That's just my view, but I believe a view worth considering. Do.

Uncle T

GOOD FRIDAY. Is it really 'good'? 4:08 pm

"It's as if the weather knew, knew that it is Good Friday. When they nailed him back then on Calvary it rained, when we planted the Easter cross today it rained. It's really as if the weather knew and did the crying for us."

After nearly 5 weeks of Lent, I cannot believe how fast Easter has crept up on me yet again. Each Lent, rather similar to every New Year, I am filled with inspiration and desire to meet my Lenten sacrifices as I similarly try to meet New Year resolutions. How true that Jesus mentions: the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Perhaps that is the curse on mankind, the cross we have to bear.

A crowd watching the planting of the Easter cross on Good Friday | Abbey Hill, Kenilworth

Perhaps not all of us are like me, inspired and desiring to do things, but ultimately not achieve all of it because the flesh is weak. I pray the better lot of us out there are better at keeping Lenten promises and New Year resolutions. But perhaps it is a common human condition to always want to do something but never do; Harold Pinter captures this pitiful reality in his plays, in particular in "The Caretaker". The only 2 characters in the play sit in a room and talk about all their plans, mundane plans, and errands they want to do, but ultimately not leave the room right till the end of the play. Sounds vaguely familiar? For me, I can only hear the echoes of guilt and exasperation in my room.

Yaoen and Oliver at the planting of the Easter cross | Abbey Hill, Kenilworth

Good Friday often strikes a somber, guilty discordant chord in me. But somehow, this discordance has its own beauty; the realisation that I am only human awash with shortcomings and yet this pinnacle of imperfection still has a place in the presence of perfection. Palm Sunday, the Sunday before Easter celebrates the welcoming of Jesus into the community of Jews some 2,000 years ago; riding on a humble donkey, Jesus was welcomed at the city gates with people waving palm leaves. After my trip to Morocco, one better understands the reverance the Arabs and the people in Arabia give to the palm tree. So this was a welcome fit for a king.

Yet, it is the very same people who welcomed Him that condemned Him to His death just a week later on Good Friday. Perhaps you better understand the guilt now; like the Jews centuries ago who codemn Jesus to His death, I do the same today each time I sin. But it takes a fall for the rising to be beautiful isn't it? And so it is the same for this Easter triduum; the fall on Good Friday, the rising of hope on Easter Sunday.

The Easter cross planted on Good Friday | Abbey Hill, Kenilworth

Easter never fails to be a poignant event of every year. Each year, it fills me with new hope and inspiration once more to live life and live it well. Knowing only a fraction of this inspiration will be turned into deed, I look forward once more to Easter next year. After all, I am but a human that needs constant hope to embrace the reality that "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak".

Happy Easter everyone, with or without the bunnies and eggs. Even if Easter was not a religious occasion for you, its a compelling story to reflect upon, won't you think so?

"Hope of Easter" | Tulip about to bloom | Outside Social Science Building, University of Warwick

Uncle T

photos of the day (yesterday) 4:46 pm

3 x Dog-earred political philosophy books borrowed from the University of Warwick, stacked on top of each other, placed on top a regular lacquered wooden desk with random stains on it, taken in the room of Flat 25 Hurst accomodation on university campus.

Where does knowledge come from? From within or from the outside? Which knowledge to retain, which to abandon; there is only so much we can take.

1 x Lamy Calligraphy Pen bought at an airport in London, 1 x Black Nike digital watch bought in Singapore, 1 x used Yellow Post-it with writing in black ink; all on top of notes compiled over 2.5 weeks for an essay on the legitimacy of exemption from the law based on cultural and religious claims. This was taken during the time of day where there was still sunlight streaming into the room.

There is just so much information to consider; discernment is key. That is the same for life, the same for the essay. Discernment, that is the key.

Light painting in an artificially darkened room by drawing its curtains. The source of light is from a 19" computer screen on top of a regular lacquered wooden desk. The movement of the camera was random. This was inspired after seeing Picasso's own light drawing.

If you look around, you will find. Possibly that's what's the difference between the great and good; the great spend more time looking around than finding.

Uncle T

photo of the day (yesterday) 4:01 pm

This is an Assisi cross on a wooden rosary on a white Mac keyboard, at 02:15 in the wee small hours of a Tuesday morning.

Faith and intellect. Hoping that that is enough to get through the essays and the anxieties of the examinations.

Uncle T

"Oh stop being so naive, please. Stop wasting your time. This always happens to you; it happened before and its happening now. Don't you ever learn? What must it take for you to learn?! Grow up. Fairy tales are for fairy tales; you ain't no fairy. So please, get real buddy. Stop it."

Uncle T

colours of london. 8:15 am

This was a post written sometime back but got never published. Inspired by my current stay in London, here it is.

The bus drove by the greyish brown walls and tree-claws of Grosvenor Place. Somehow, the greyness of London brings out the colour of the people that throng this city. The colour of the foreign faces against those walls made me smile. I miss London.

We snaked through the busy streets of London, fighting to get into the centre whilst others fought to get out at the end of the working day. Primark came into view on the left. I smiled again. We soon pulled into Victoria Coach station, the place of many adventures. No, misadventures I do recall; of missing coaches and sad farewells.

There it was all over again. The faint stench of London’s sidewalks, immigrant cab drivers urging you to take the most expensive cab-ride of your life. That is no different from when you first arrive at JFK in New York; just that its yellow there and black here. I turn the corner and there was the familiar Starbucks at the t-junction before heading into the train station.

The moment you enter the train station, its like you hit the ground running. Faces, tailcoats, chattering mouths rush past you, into you. The high ceilings of Victoria do not make up for the scores of people scurrying below in all directions. I caught glimpses of the familiar yellow luminous jackets of London policemen. Tall, fine young men with no guns; somewhat castrated, don’t you think?

And with many others, we struggle down the steps from the train station to the Underground; so many memories here of helping struggling old ladies, black women, young children carry their luggage down that flight. There was no one to help me today. Or yesterday. Chatters rush by you as arms and legs fight to get into the rush-hour Tube trains. Funny how they mind the gap but not the people around them.

a strip of london | london

amongst the crowd | holborn, london

Uncle T

Swan Street, London 7:50 am

I'm right back in the room I stayed in for 2 months last summer. Same desk, same sink, same kitchen, same hamster; this reminds me of getting up early in the morning, wearing a nicely pressed shirt, putting on my tie, making my shirt and pants had no creases, grabbing available breakfast, rushing out to join the throngs heading across London Bridge, picking up the City AM newspapers talking about the optimism of the financial market, heading into my life as a banker...

Now, the same desk, same sink, same kitchen, same hamster, only remind me that the bank that hired me has gotten into terrible financial trouble, the markets are only on the frontpages for the wrong reasons, and that sense of optimism heading to a day of adventure at asset management and debt structuring is replaced by dread of looming essay deadlines. Same, but different.

I will miss this place, I will miss London. I was looking forward to New York last summer. Now, its time to look ahead towards heading home, Singapore. Let's hope its as good, or better, than New York.

'godzilla's playground' | manhattan, new york



'come on...' | brooklyn, new york

'this is nyc.' | brooklyn, new york



'stop.' | manhattan, new york



'finishing as champions' | bronx, new york

Uncle T

i really don't know where to start. 11:29 am

I really don't know how to start telling my tale; my solo trip to Maroc (Morocco).

From the unforgiving city of Tangier,
to the cultural capital of Fes,
then to the gem amongst all the Imperial Cities Marrakech, down south past the Atlas Mountains,
into the desert beyond and 90km through
piste (gravel and rocks) road in the Dry Mountains,
to the oases of the Draa Valley,
to the kasbahs of the Dades Valley...


A trip to the heart of Maroc
Not forgetting the short but precious trip to the heart of the Maroc culture, where resides religion, family, shuma (the concept of 'shame', similar to 'face' in other Asian cultures) and I would say one of the most sincere hospitality I have seen in my travels thus far.


Once upon a setting sun...
Perhaps I'll begin this tale with a memorable photo, needing no editing because of the humbling magnificance of the country's natural beauty. I will hopefully finish this tale, insha'allah.

setting sun | an oasis in tamungalte | draa valley | south maroc

Uncle T

back from a different world. 5:03 am

I'm now back in Warwick, carrying with me so much; photos, souveniors, stories, memories and most of all dreams.

So much to tell. I don't even know where to start.

But who is willing to listen? Who should I share it with? A polite smile here, an absent-minded nod there. I don't know.


Uncle T