artifice

You and I might not be consciously aware, but I think subconsciously we pride ourselves on living in a liberated world where traditions, rituals, institutions are no longer binding. Each of us is free to choose the career we want, the person to marry (or not), what church (or none) to attend, and ultimately, find our "true self" and "be authentic".

But what constitutes my true self, what is the real me? It is said that our body cells are replaced every seven years on average, therefore physically I am no longer myself every seven years later. Emotionally each of our persona is constructed through day to day interactions and long-term relationships with others. The language we use very likely dictates how we think. How "cool" we think ourselves are is really based on what most other people think coolness means. Take away all these third-party constraints and attachments, apparatus and allusions, we'll most likely lose our identity like a spaceship loses its bearing in a dark, empty space without any reference points.

Another modern day bias thinking we may have is about nature. It's easy to romanticize a bucolic landscape of serene fields and beautiful lake and sunset and think Mother Nature is all wonderful while forgetting hurricanes and earthquakes, diseases and plagues are her doing as well. It is through human intervention – cross-pollinating harvest plants, domesticating animals, developing vaccines, etc. – that we maintain our tenuous coexistence with nature.

Xunzi (荀子 316 – 237 BC) was a leading Confucian scholar in the Warring States period of China whose philosophy bases on the belief that humanity is crooked in nature: "Human nature is bad. Its goodness comes from artifice. It is in the nature of humans to be born with a fondness for profit ... They are born with hates and dislikes ... That is why people will inevitably fall into conflict and struggle if they simply follow along with their nature and their dispositions." ("人之性惡, 其善者偽也. 今人之性, 生而有好利焉 ... 生而有疾惡焉 ... 順是, 故爭奪生而辭讓亡焉.")

Just as they work to tame nature, humans need to work to straighten up their crookedness by practicing certain man-made behavioral patterns, i.e., rituals (禮教) that aim to define relational roles, build harmony, maintain order, etc., that have been strongly promoted by Confucianism in its teaching philosophy for over two thousand years.

In conclusion, our ability to create an artificial, constructed world is a good thing. Our potential to transform ourselves and transcend our natural state is a unique gift. Granted, it's hard to figure out the right "artifice" to practice to improve ourselves ethically, an eternal task many Confucian scholars and followers spent their lifetime doing. It's elusive but I think also obvious: It is the seeking of an astray mind 心, propriety 禮, moderation 中庸, justice 義, reason 理, the chi 氣, the way (Tao) 道. You know it when you see it.

ps, furthermore

This Portugal-Spain-France tour is our second self-guided long trip, following the one we did in Switzerland last September. The main difference, however, is in the means of transportation. While in Switzerland all our travel took place over their convenient, highly efficient railway system, our P-S-F cross-country travel relied mostly on our own driving.

​The European roadways are well laid-out and maintained in general. Narrower country roads and city streets than the States', of course, but neat and well-signed highways with smooth and even pavement that beat the riding comfort of some bumpy freeway sections in California .

​It's got many toll stations, though. Even though we had purchased the transponder option with the car rental company that supposedly would take care of the toll payments, it still took us on-the-spot decision-making to select which lane to go through without stopping, which to take a ticket and return it at the next toll station, and which to just pay with credit card, etc.

And you have to be skillful at driving through many round-abouts they put in place of straight traffic lights. Merge into the circling traffic at right timing, then pick the first, second, or third... exit to get out in a few seconds. Make a wrong exit, and you'd need to drive to the next round-about a couple kilometers down the road to round back to the right path. No easy U-turns.

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Driving through the European continent, I was surprised by the barrenness and sparse human presence of northern Portugal/Spain border that rivaled the wilderness of America Southwest, the vast and straight fields of farmlands in Spain and France, the rolling greens in southwestern France, and the tree-lined, cottage flanked country-road scene in Loire Valley that looked like a Romantic landscape painting.
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And there were people we met: the captain and his mate of the boat that took us for the cruise on the Douro River, the chateau hosts that provided bed and breakfast for our stay in countryside France, the village restaurant owner trying so hard to explain her dinner specials in minimal English, a young man giving us street direction in San Sebastian, another on how to take a bus in Porto, a supermarket clerk in a no-name little town letting us use their restroom, and a Frenchman who volunteered to translate between us and the train conductor when we lost one of our luggage on our way to Paris... People are kind and good-hearted, ready to give help if you let them. 
 

Like the Switzerland trip, this one was master-planned by my high school best friend Joseph and his wife Peipei, the best companions in a long trip like this. Together we learned how to explore extensively without overextending ourselves, improvise instead of being stuck with a rigid plan, and problem solving when things went unexpectedly. Thank you again, Joseph and Peipei! We are now two for two: one by train and this one by car, maybe we should do next one by boat (a cruise) 

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God bless! 

Be triumphant!

 

france

Biarritz was the first stop we made after entering southwestern France. It has been a luxurious seaside resort since the 1800's, with long sandy beaches and a palace hotel that was once the summer home of Napoleon III.

Bordeaux is a major city in southwestern France (and the fifth largest in the country). It has a city square surrounded by old majestic buildings and a reflective pool, public gardens along the curving river quays, and a small cathedral I felt particularly mystical inside. 

To the east of Bordeaux, we visited a medieval town St. Emilion, a hilly commune surrounded by vineyards that was designated UNESCO World Heritage Site for its living history of wine-making, Romanesque churches and ruins stretching along steep and narrow streets. 

  

​Further east is yet another medieval town, Sarlat, which has remained preserved and one of the most representative of 14th-century France. It is located in a region where foie gras is one major agricultural production and many small farms raise geese and ducks to produce products such as confits, pate, etc. in the area.

Continuing our journey north, we stopped by a one-street-town perched between a cliff and a river, and a 13th century castle that changed hands seven times surrounded by a picturesque field that was a no-man's-land during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453) between the French and the English.

As we reached the heartland of France, the Loire Valley, we stayed at a beautifully decorated, charming old French mansion hosted by a hospitable couple, and visited a chateau on the river, and a grand garden that rivaled the grace and class – if not pomp and grandiosity – of the Versailles. 

Then we were in Paris. We stayed four nights at a hotel just minutes away from major shopping centers, the opera house, and the Seine River. The re-opened Notre Dame Cathedral was as crowded as we last visited seven years ago, so were the lines in front of the Louis Vuitton flagship store on the Champs-Élysées. 

We visited a Sunday morning farmer's market, 

a turn-of-the-century museum where a Moulin Rouge-like live show appeared right at the center court, 

a public garden featured in Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables, 

and heard a choir from England singing at a church that once held the body of the executed King Louis XVI during the French Revolution.

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spain

Driving through the flatland of northern Spain, we stealthily reached a medieval town that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere and checked into a palace converted hotel in the dusk, and woke up to a stunning, golden lighted farm scene right outside our window.  

From there we visited a modern Human Evolution Museum that hosts remains of the earliest hominids found in West Europe, and a sunny city with a grand 14th-century city gate and a World Heritage cathedral, that was also the headquarters of Generalissimo Franco's proto-government during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). 

Going north, deep in the Basque Country, we visited two coastal cities on the Biscay Bay. 

In Bilbao, we visited the Guggenheim Museum, which is probably more famous for its architectural design than its exhibits, and had a long lunch at a Michelin-starred restaurant right next to it. (The Basque Country is famous for its fine cuisine, there are a total of 33 Michelin stars, distributed across 23 restaurants in the Spanish Basque region alone).

In San Sebastian, we strolled through the posh modern shopping district to the rowdy old-town alleys and had tapas (called "pintxos" here) for dinner while watching people singing and dancing around on a happy Saturday evening.

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portugal

This 22-day-long, cross-country journey started along the southern coast of Portugal, going north through the country, then into northern Spain, southwestern France, the Loire Valley, finally ending in Paris.

The southern coast of Portugal is tiny but rich in history. It has a cliffside fortress sitting at the very southwestern tip of Iberian Peninsula that held military control of both the Atlantic and the Mediterranean;

 

a harbor city that was once the hub of Portugal's maritime exploration (and the first slave market) to Western Africa during the Age of Discovery.

 

Yet all is as quiet and peaceful now – except for the tourist crowd – as some old time fishing village along the coast where many international retirees come to reside.

Upon reaching Lisbon, the capital and the largest city of the country, we did a half-day walking tour of the city with a local guide, 

but stayed the night at a coastal resort town 30 minutes west of the city.

From there we ventured to the westernmost point of the European continent on the Atlantic coast,

and a mountainous national park dotted with grand mansions, old palaces, and a Moorish Castle snaking along winding hilltops like a mini Great Wall of China.

Porto is the second largest city of Portugal in northern Portugal, where we had the most fun in the country. We walked the city and learned the interesting stories and architecture of a one-meter wide house wedged between two old churches;

visited a "World's Most Beautiful Bookstore" that claims to have given inspiration to J. K. Rawling of vision of the fictional boarding school for young wizards and witches in her Harry Potter stories;

cruised the Douro River under six bridges, one of them built by Gustave Eiffel ten years before he did the famous tower in Paris;

wine-tasted at a wine cellar and learned how right aging process makes good Port wine that can only come from this specific region;

 

dined at seaside restaurants watching the sunset on the river and the ocean.

For more photos:

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