Rio de Janeiro: City of tomorrow?

Landing in Rio, you wonder how such a large city could manifest in this amazing natural place

When I imagined going to Rio, I didn't exactly picture clouds and rain, but that's what dominated my 9-day visit there in January.  And you know, it didn't really matter.  It was the people who made all the difference.

The default vibe is love.  People look you in the eye.

Delicious traditional tapioca lunch, with pulled pork
& egg whites

Despite recent headlines about political and health challenges, the Brazilians we met were full of optimism and good cheer.  Not that there aren't homeless people, and millions living in poverty.

In fact, we visited Rocinha, one of Rio's infamous favelas, or shantytowns, where thousands of people live in poverty, but with a sense of community you don't find in many places.  Our guide, Leo, told us that there over 400 favelas in Rio, housing 1.5 million of the city's 6.5 million citizens.

He mentioned that, despite their poverty, 98% of residents in Rocinha have Facebook accounts and smartphones.  We saw a number of flat-screen televisions, and the neighborhood is full of beauty salons.  Because many men work in construction, the favela's structures are mostly sound, but because the materials are substandard or recycled it's not unusual to have leaks and mudslides. 

Art and high technology make Rio's favelas more liveable

People are piled on top of each other, so they have to learn to live together - or kill each other, which sometimes happens.  Security is provided by police and drug dealers, who sometimes fight each other.  Leo says the drug dealers are often more reliable than the corrupt police, and that drug lords rule in 70% of the favelas. Some public housing projects are helping bring people out of poverty;  Brazil's government has a plan to grow the middle class by 10% in 10 years.

This building is supposed be remodeled into a luxury hotel by August!
Good luck!

I sensed a country on the make.  The streets in Rio are torn up, creating better transportation and new subway lines in time for the Olympics in August.  The tourist industry is growing, despite setbacks from the Zika virus and corruption scandals.  People seemed friendly and anxious to connect.

One reason I wanted to visit was to see if Rio is at all post-racial.  With 43% of the Brazilian population of mixed race, you see a number of gorgeous people, most of them in physically good shape. Combinations of indigenous tribes, African slaves, European colonists and global adventurers make for a panoply of skintones, and a fascinating cultural mix, but I wouldn't say racism is dead.  We heard stories of discrimination based on skin color.  And the gay bar LeBoy hosted a butt contest, won by a hunky white guy based on audience applause (an audience with lots of locals).  There was a black guy with a much more beautiful butt to my taste, who really knew how to shake it, but he came in third.

Christ the Redeemer - Art Deco overlord of Rio

You might expect a Hippie Fair in San Francisco, but Rio?

Among the goodies at the weekly Hippie Fair - all wooden

Leblon Beach, near where we stayed, abuts Ipanema Beach

The beaches are everyone's happy playground.  Nonstop volleyball and kick-volleyball games, even on cloudy days. Physical fitness equipment. Samba Schools selling snacks, drinks and beach chairs. Coconut milk everywhere. People of all colors and shapes walking, running, swimming, playing.  Pregnant women proudly sporting bikinis. Leathery old men jogging and looking great.  And yes, there were thongs - but not as many as I expected.

Ball games on the beach are common

The beaches have many workout stations - free

Yes, there are thongs!

Thousands of beach lovers

Fabulous fish and vegetables at a beachside restaurant

My frequent traveling companion Orlando and I were in Rio during the long buildup to Carnival (Mardi Gras), so we got to witness some rehearsals for the big event - some spontaneous, on the street.  One night we went (on a 3-hour journey that included pickups at 11 hotels) to the Portela neighborhood, where a large Samba School was rehearsing its song (and dance) for 2016.  The goal is for thousands of people to memorize their neighborhood's song so they can parade impressively through the streets during Carnival.   We spent some hours dancing late into the night, and trying to sing in Portuguese while our new best friends from the neighborhood quaffed beer and danced away.

At Samba School rehearsal - with my traveling companion Orlando

Our new friends, who pulled us onto the dance floor

Yes, coffee is big in Brazil - we went across the street from
out hotel to find a good cup!

I love the mailboxes, adorned with hummingbirds

We were fortunate to have been hosted a number of times by two wonderful locals, Cornelius Conboy and his husband Graccho.  They gave us great advice and shared abundant food and drink.

Edward with Cornelius and Graccho in their wonderful penthouse kitchen

Rio has a sense of a healthy future, nowhere more than its new Museum of Tomorrow (Museu do Amanhã), which suggests we need to choose each action with future generations in mind.

Santiago Calatrava's building is
stunning. Photo by Edward Guthmann

The most interactive of museums

The world literally melts and erupts as you wait
to experience the Museum of the Future

I played around with the leadership style quiz, and
it suggested I reconsider my choices...

The Museum of Tomorrow is the most interactive
museum I've experienced...and it embraces complexity

Curiosity, spirit, imagination - this museum's
prescription for a better tomorrow

The museum makes you think.  It focuses on ecology rather than technology.  It starts with a cosmic geological film made by City of God director Fernando Meirelles projected all around an egg-shaped theater, situating us in the cycles of life and death.  Then we're invited to explore biology, DNA, and the connectedness of life ~ including various cultural manifestations of media, prayer, relationships, home life and other topics in Portuguese, Spanish and English.

Then you're overwhelmed with giant digital displays showing humanity's impacts on the planet, including images, data, and questions about ocean acidification, ozone depletion, greenhouse gas emissions, and consumption of water, energy, and beef.

The last part of the museum invites exploration of alternative futures, and suggests ways you can be part of various scenarios. I came back to a spiritual sense of possibility, with interactive artistic expressions of community, storytelling, mystery and an invitation to further explore inner life.

The final mystery chamber that invites further reflection,
stories, community celebrations

Taiwan Art Documentary Meditations

I cannot believe how long it's been since I posted on my blog - that's changing this year.

Almost a year ago, I made my first trip to Taiwan, with BIG JOY: The Adventures of James Broughton.

Here's an essay I wrote for them about my experience.

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            Documentary films illuminate worlds within worlds.

            Artists’ lives show how creativity can break barriers and surprise ourselves and each other.

            Documentaries about artists can break barriers between worlds, and nurture a city to more creativity.  I was happy to be part of the second Chiayi City International Art Documentary Film Festival, the only one in Asia, and one of only two in the world that I’ve heard about.

            Film festivals are proliferating like rabbits around the world, but it’s rare to find one that is so focused, so well curated, and so engaging, diverse and accessible for citizens.  I was so pleased to meet filmmakers like Jessica Wan-Yu LIN, who made a beautiful film about HUANG Dawang, a cultural outsider who found ways to communicate through music, rapping, and dance.  And I met Rafeeq ELLIAS from India, who told the story of looking for “Fat Mama,” a legendary woman who made the best noodles in the Chinatown neighborhood of Calcutta.  In Beyond Barbed Wires: A Distant Dawn, he continues the story of how many ethnic Chinese from “Fat Mama’s” neighborhood were sent to internment camps during the Chinese-Indian war of 1962.  Many escaped to Canada and other places.

            Documentaries about artists are not always happy, but they tend to show the human condition in deep and nuanced ways.

            My film, BIG JOY: The Adventures of James Broughton – about a poet and filmmaker who led a cultural and artistic revival after World War II in San Francisco, and went on to inspire many other artists – was extremely well received in Chiayi City.  People asked excellent questions about his troubled family, his love life, his poetry and his creative process.  I always learn so much from interacting with different audiences, and I felt the Chiayi audience was attuned to the subtleties of the film, its imagery and music and its unanswered questions.

            Obviously, family is very important to people in Taiwan, as it is in many countries.  James Broughton valued family, but he was not accepted by his mother, he lost his father in the Influenza epidemic of 1918 (when he was 5), and he ended up being too wrapped up in his own creative process to be a good father to his own children.

            Broughton also grew up in a time when it was not accepted to be openly gay, even though he was primarily attracted to other men.  He was very interested in Zen, and in the psychiatry of Carl Jung, and he wrote about the contradictions in his life.  Ultimately, after much agonizing, he left his wife and two children and spent his last 25 years with his soulmate, who happened to be a man.  His creative life prospered, and he published seven more books and made eight more films.

            Many people in the Chiayi City audience spoke with me afterwards in gratitude for a film that depicted such a complicated life, and that followed Broughton’s admonition to “Follow your own Weird.”  (He knew that the word “weird” comes from a Celtic root that means “fate” or “destiny.”  So his admonition, to me, means to be true to your core self and be on your creative edge at the same time.)

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            A Taiwanese friend told me that Chiayi means “worthy of honor.”  I was well hosted by the city and its honorable festival.  I was amazed to learn of the city’s past glories in the lumber industry. And, not unlike the past of the region where I live in the United States, the big trees are mostly gone so people are finding new ways to make a living. 

            Bringing tourists to the city to see its art and film, listen to music, eat good food, and ride the narrow-gage railroad is one option. So are agriculture, invention, manufacturing, technology, and the arts.

           

            Hopefully these particular films, shown free of charge to people who show up from all over the country, will spark more creativity and invention in the future.

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            In “Song of the Forest,” Chiayi’s beautiful egg-shaped sculpture, I found myself interacting with the wood, the stones, and the invocation of the forest, past and present.  I could not help laying down on the central wooden tree stump, peering up through the skylight at the mottled clouds.  It took me to another world.

 

            Never having been to Taiwan before, I didn’t really know what to expect.  I found a robust country, with lots of talented artists and filmmakers, curious viewers, entrepreneurs, and lovers of life.  The fuzzy toy animals people love so much were a surprise.  Also, the popularity of coffee, books, and night markets.  Taiwanese food is incredibly diverse, fresh, and delicious.

            I was entranced by the complexity of many temples, the beautiful handiwork, the symbolic animals and statues, and what seemed like embracing of many paths to spiritual growth – Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and others. 

           

            I could not help but be impressed with Taiwan’s free and open society, with the many mainland Chinese tourists who were experiencing it, learning what it’s like to read whatever books and watch whatever videos they want. 

            Even though it was only a small taste of Taiwan that I experienced, I left with a desire to return, to learn more about the rich cultures that thrive there, and to reengage with many new friends, ideas, and cultures.  Not to mention the fabulous food.

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            Festival director HUANG Mingchuan took some filmmakers and visitors to dinner where we discussed our films, learned about each others’ cultures, sang songs and recited poetry.  We hoped other people who attended the festival were doing the same thing. Film festivals, after all, are about building community, as well as watching great films.

            Imagine a world where people really listen to each other, where their inner lives are seen as at least equal in importance to their outer lives.  Imagine a place where people watch films together, then talk about them, and make their own films, write poetry, or express themselves in their own way.

            Imagine a world where parents teach children their values, and children also learn to think for themselves as they age, to value their parents’ values, but also to evolve with society as they discover their own.

            Imagine a place where people tell their own stories, and tell each others’ stories, and even if they are sad, weave them together into new stories of hope and resilience.