Words on Walls

Today was our first full day in Jerusalem and I’m starting to better see how the pieces of the puzzle—places, ideas, events—fit together.  We began the day with a visit to the Temple Mount, retracing many of our steps yesterday from our hostel (the Rosary Sisters) through the Armenian Quarter and the Jewish Quarter.  As we made our way up the ramp leading up to the Temple Mount, we were able to catch a glance of the Western Wall, which we visited yesterday. Today, though, instead of the relative quiet of yesterday, the Western Wall resonated with the celebration of a Bar Mitzvah.  Even as the historical landmarks of Jerusalem endure from age to age, the stories and events acted out around them, near them, and in them shift day by day and moment by moment.

Because the Temple Mount is controlled, in name, by Jordanian kings, we were told to have our passports ready as the space that we would enter upon climbing the ramp would not technically be the state of Israel.  It turned out that even though we had to go through security, passports were not necessary.  In fact, the Israeli soldiers that we’d seen throughout the same city had posts on the Temple Mount as well, further confusing in my mind what exactly the Temple Mount represented and which people groups could lay claim to it.  Regardless, the mood was decidedly different from the celebratory atmosphere of the Western Wall below.  Muslim groups sat in circles on plastic chairs or walls in clumps under trees and next to fountains, holding what appeared to be animated conversations and teaching moments.  The focal point of the Temple Mount is, of course, the Dome of the Rock, located on the Mount’s highest point.  The Dome of the Rock is the third holiest place in Islam, after Mecca and Medina, built in AD 688 to commemorate Muhammad’s Ascension into heaven after his night journey to Jerusalem.  However, the Dome of the Rock is a holy place for Jews and Christians as well.  While not recognizing the ascension of Muhammad, Jews hold the place dear because it was believed to be a former location of the temple and Christians recognize that the mosaic decorations are the imperial jewels of Byzantine rulers and the ornaments worn by New Testament figures, reminding them that “the spoils of have gone to the victor”, the Muslims, according to Murphy-O’Connor’s Oxford Archeological Guide to the Holy Land(86).  Although these other two faith groups are apparently heavily invested in the Temple Mount space, from our short visit there, it became clear that the area and the structures on it indicate only the Muslim interest in the holy space.

One of our other excursions for the day to Hezekiah’s tunnel, an excavation overseen by the conservative Jewish group, ELAD, in a formerly Palestinian area and then to the Hebrew Museum of Jerusalem, also reminded me of the ways in which Israelis and Palestinians commemorate their histories and choose to accept or reject the ways in which their pasts intertwine.  For example, according to Dr. Meyers, at the Hezekiah excavation in the City of David, ELAD has used underhanded methods to acquire property that has historically belonged to the Palestinians.  This situation represented yet another way in which the inhabitants of Israel struggle to negotiate ownership of place.

Even after only two days in Jerusalem, the logistical difficulties of shared holy spaces are becoming increasingly clear, from the stories of bickering among the six Christian groups who share in the maintenance of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to the conflict incited by the Dome of the Rock built on top of the Jewish Temple to the humanitarian issues presented by the displaced Palestinian families who lived on top of the area in the City of David that ELAD was determined to excavate.  Like the rest of my classmates, I am only just beginning to touch the surface in my understanding of how archeological sites and holy spaces create conflict for the various religious and ethnic groups represented by inhabitants of Israel.  Jerusalem is multi-layered, with holy sites built one on top of the other.  The city is also multi-faceted; convictions about the archaeological decisions range wildly, colored by everything from Zionist ideology to orthodox Jewish faith to evangelical Christian piety.  As Uzi Baram mentions in his article, “Appropriating the Past: Heritage, Tourism, and Archaeology”, Israel can no longer afford to let a Zionist agenda dictate its archaeological policy.  In fact, Baram argues that Israel should strive for a post-nationalist approach to archaeology, rethinking “how to represent itself to its citizens and to external audiences” (323).  I’m looking forward to more fully grasping what may lie in wait for Israel as the nation strives to address the heated conflict over archaeology and holy spaces and reimagine itself in a post-national context, taking into account the desires of tourists, scholars, Israeli citizens and long-time residents of the nation.

Seminar in a Sculpture Garden

Palestinian Neighborhood Across from the Excavation of Hezekiah's TunnelOn Top of the Temple Mount

The Dome of the Rock

Hannah and Me Wait to Climb the Ramp to the Temple Mount

Today has been one of the longest days of my life, I think.  In about ten minutes, I will finally be able to lay down in a bed for a full night’s sleep.  This has been a long time coming.  I left San Francisco on the 26th of December at around 10pm, arriving in Newark to meet up with my group the next morning.

After a layover of 9 hours, my classmates and I go through a second layer of security before boarding our plane for Tel Aviv.  After chatting with Reena, an Isaeli-American student attending seminary in Jerusalem, I settle in for the ten hour flight, sleeping on and off and getting to know my classmates better.

Customs is extremely fast in Tel Aviv airport.  In fact, I’m convinced that we haven’t yet gone through customs when I notice I’m standing right by the exit to the airport.  We step outside into the mild Israeli winter and begin to take in our surroundings.  Several of the members of my group have never been out of the United States before and the rest of us love noting their excitement.  Even for those of us who’ve spent extended time outside of the United States, Israel is fascinating.  The landscape leaving the Tel-Aviv airport is flat and clean, and we hum along the newly-constructed highway while listening to the introductions and explanations given by our tour guide, Gabbi, a friend of the Meyers.  Gabbi throws in jokes from time to time, welcoming us to his country and telling us how wonderful of an experience this will be for us.  He then proceeds to pass out hats reading “Sindbad Tours”, his touring company, maps of the Holy Land, and dates from his second home in Jericho. Later at the bus station as we wait for students to finish up transactions with money changers, Gabbi will offer us heaps of clementines, also from his home in Jericho.  He explains that many Israelis grow their own produce, and as we whir past groves of olive trees he describes how olives and olive oil in particular contribute greatly to the livelihood of many families.  The produce is fresh and flavorful, but different from anything I’ve tasted in the states in an unidentifiable kind of way.

After putting our baggage away in the Holy Sisters Convent in West Jerusalem and scrubbing away some of the dirt of travel, we emerge again, excited and unsure of exactly what the afternoon will hold.  The coming hours are a whirlwind of trekking through the Old City of Jerusalem.  We visit the Church of the Holy Sepluchre (an amazing mish-mash of a holy place), the Wailing Wall (some Orthodox Jewish men sang chants from the men’s section, celebrating the approach of a marriage), and the Garden Tomb (a possible location of Golgotha and the tomb where Jesus was buried).  The city bustles around us and we wind our way through colorful markets selling everything from scarves to soap to souvenirs.  At some points we have trouble staying together, and I have a couple of mishaps as I fight my way through the crowd, accidently bumping the barrel of an Israeli soldier’s gun on my camera lens and then narrowly avoiding being run over by a cart.  There are less tourists than I expect here; this makes sense because December is in the off-season for pilgrimages, but it still surprises me.  We run into an African group several times who seems to have had a special fabric printed to make entire outfits for themselves for this trip.  We, the Americans, with our large cameras and fitted jeans stand out around every turn of the streets.  This is something we’ll have to embrace, I think.

A Possible Site of Golgotha, According to the Tour Guide at the Garden Tomb

Looking Down on the Southern Temple Wall on Muslim Ruins

Walking through the City Streets

A Reconstructed Wall, Still Displaying the Markings Used To Put It Back Together

The Notice Outside of the Garden Tomb... A Bit Mixed-Up!

Part of the City Wall

The Dome of the Rock, From Afar

Because I have always wanted this project to focus on Durham and Belfast, I have been trying to redirect my writing once again to those places.  In the past week and over the next several weeks, I hope to capture more precisely the reasons why Durham is so important to me and the ways that I see the themes of walls and borders playing out in this city, both in exploring recent experiences and by returning to earlier poems on the topic.

This year I am tutoring at SEEDS Garden, an organization that provides after-school supervision for elementary age students.  This week I’m including a poem that looks back on one afternoon when we decided to take the day off from school work to play in the garden outside.

With Stephanie, In the SEEDS Garden

And what about the hedges of a garden

Are they walls too?

If so, then they are a good kind of wall and

Today, they hem us in:

You, with the same name as my mother but with

A different laugh, a different way of holding yourself

And me, clasping your hand

Asking about your scratches and your schoolwork.

Together, behind living walls, we are safe

From kids on the playground and

Doctors on the phone

From boys sitting on the same bench who are

Maybe serious, maybe only teasing this whole time

We are safe from their words, their thoughts, even

Which ricochet off these walls of leaves and wood

Ricochet off into the coming dusk

And we are glad of it.

Now, we are safe enough to tumble into fall.

You drag me to your pumpkins (they are your favorite,

Even these ones, so small and lumpy)

Then I chase you to the tallest tree

Which you climb and climb until

I call to you; until you laugh and swing down,

Brushing my arm and looking up at my eyes in a single second

Holding them with your own,

(The darkest brown, the same as mine), then

You are running again and

Pulling me with you and

We are running again.

15 November 2011

One of my friends recently made a joke about how when you’re writing a thesis, all of the themes and considerations of your topic begin to surface in your daily life, dominating your thoughts and sometimes even your dreams.  This gets interesting for her, as she is studying the Jesus movement of the 1970s.  While I haven’t experienced the same sensation of living in another era of someone writing a history dissertation, I do find the themes of walls and borders manifesting themselves in my experiences.  Sometimes it’s only in minor conceptual associations (thinking of social distinctions on my college campus as figurative walls) but I’ve also begun to see a variety of human experiences through the lens of landscapes and the boundaries between places.

In particular, I’ve found the notion of shifting setting to reflect mood to be an emerging theme in my writing.  For my final project for my Asian American Theatre course, my professor allowed the students to choose between critical essays or creative pieces.  Thinking that I could seize the opportunity to explore dramatic writing as an alternative to poetry, I jumped at the opportunity to draft a short play.  The result (still in the works) chronicles the experience of a Japanese-American teenager transported back to various landscapes to interact with her projections of her ancestors (heavily influenced by her exposure to American portrayals of Asia in pop culture).  I’m not sure yet whether the themes of this project will intersect enough with my thesis to allow me to add it to my portfolio without endangering the integrity and cohesion of the project.  Regardless, seeing how my various creative projects overlap and intersect has been confusing, encouraging, and refreshing.

Today at a Borderwork(s) lunch gathering with Macrina Cardenas Alarcon (of the Mexican Solidarity Network), one of the professors of the Humanities Lab mentioned that on the North Korea/South Korea border lies some of the most rare and beautiful wildlife in the world.

An article online at the Bankok Post explains:

“The DMZ is a buffer strip extending for two kilometres (1.25 miles) each side of the actual borderline between North and South. But the area is also home to animals including musk deer, elk, wild boar, and rare birds.

The edge of the zone is fenced and heavily fortified but the DMZ itself has been largely untouched by humankind since the 1950-53 war.

As a result, it is home to some 2,716 species of plants and animals including many endangered species, the ministry said in a statement.

(“S. Korea seeks wildlife listing for tense border area”.  Bankok Post.  23 September 2011.  http://www.bangkokpost.com/lite/news/258006/s-korea-seeks-wildlife-listing-for-tense-border-area)

The Border Between South Korea and North Korea (Wikipedia Commons)

This statement intrigued me.  I found it somewhat baffling that a border that has been the location of so much violence and a cause of grief and despair to so many people could be one of the world’s most precious wildlife resources.  However, as my thesis director Robin Kirk pointed out, this situation is replicated in uninhabited borderlands all over the world.  In fact, this summer in N. Ireland, our group of a handful of Duke students climbed Cave Hill, one of the small country’s most prized places of natural beauty.  As in the case of the North Korea/South Korea border, the reason that Cave Hill is so pristine is that is was largely unoccupied by the local people over a long period of time because of political struggles (in the case of Cave Hill, the area was a British army base).

I’m not sure how this aspect of borderlands will show up in my work, but I know that as I continue my reading and writing, I’ll be thinking about this possibility of finding beauty in even the most desolate of borders and keeping an eye out for additional examples.

Starting my reading list for this project this week has been a lot of fun.  The first book on my list is The Map As Art: Conteporary Artists Explore Cartography by Katherine Harmon.  This book features beautiful pictures of pieces by dozens of artists exploring maps as artwork.

In her introduction, Harmon writes, “Is there any motif so malleable, so ripe for appropriation, as maps?  They can act as shorthand for ready metaphors: seeking location and experiences dislocation, bringing order to chaos, exploring ratios of scale, charting new terrains” (10).

The projects featured in Harmon’s collection range from the lighthearted (meticulous maps of Europe and South America created from laundry strewn on the floor), to the more serious, like the work of Alban Biaussat, pictured below.  Biaussat captured the “green line” marking the border between Israel and Palestine.  By using large green balls and long sheets of bright green ribbon, Biaussat demonstrates visibly where the invisible green line lies today.

From the Al-Ma'mal Foundation for Contemporary Art Website, photograph by Alban Biaussat

I would love to use this project as a jumping off point for some of the visual arts work that I will complete in the spring.  We’ll see!

As the semester begins to gain momentum, I’m starting to see connections to this independent study in my other classes. I was particularly struck by the concept of walls in my Educational Psychology class yesterday when we watched a documentary called “The Lottery” detailing the inequalities of educational opportunity in Harlem, New York City. The movie tracked four kindergarten-age children and their families in the months leading up to the community “lottery” for a limited number of spots in the few schools of high academic success in the neighborhood.

Many of the parents interviewed in the documentary spoke of the lottery spaces as essential to their children’s future success. Each of the children portrayed was bright, energetic, and eager to learn. However, at the end of the film, only one of the children ultimately wins a slot at the Harlem Success Academy, while the others went off to public schools where children read up to three years below the grade level reading standards by the time they leave elementary school.

While I hope to focus the bulk of this portfolio primarily on walls that are physically present or marked by certain spaces or boundaries, this documentary made me think more thoroughly about how to represent walls in opportunity; the children portrayed in “The Lottery” come up against obstacles to achievement and receiving a quality education that I never encountered growing up in suburban Southern California. At this point, I feel a little baffled by the prospect of portraying invisible walls (for example, economic inequality or lack of opportunity). The documentary format of “The Lottery” was both eloquent and effective, but I’m not sure yet how to translate the complexity of these kinds of invisible walls into poetry, a narrative, or a visual representation. Hopefully more thoughts on this later!