Arto's Blog

A Californian girl asked in a message on CouchSurfing how to see the world in an environmentally friendly way. As she said, there are eco-tourism companies out there, but traveling IN nature is not the same thing as treading lightly ON it. I've gathered some of my ideas below and I'd be happy to hear some of yours, too.

Be slower, be smarter. If you take your time when moving around and don't have a tight schedule, you probably end up consuming less.

Travel at least partly by foot, bicycle or other non-motorized transport. Not only is the method of transportation ecological, it also gives a positive example for others who see you travel. When cycling in rural India, locals would often ride their motorcycle beside me and ask why I don't buy a motorcycle. I happily answered "Ah, because the bicycle is better!", which often left them a bit surprised. If they were interested, I explained more.

Eat local, buy local. Don't be fooled by eco-labels: vegetables bought from the local market or directly from a farmhouse are probably much more ecological than an imported product in a supermarket marked as "organic". It may be difficult to know how much dangerous pesticides are used on the local farm or how they otherwise treat the environment, but at least I still generally prefer local stuff. The question becomes more complex when the climate is hostile for plant life: tomatoes grown in a greenhouse in Finland during winter might be healthy but their production is certainly not energy efficient.

Inexpensive is often also ecological. Especially in less wealthy countries, being green is still surprisingly well connected with money. Vegetarian food in India is half price compared to a meal including meat. A cheap guesthouse in Cambodia is not going to have superfluous light installations, because electricity is expensive. Even low end hotels might offer air conditioning and hot water, but they are options which you pay for separately. Unfortunately, for proper waste management the rule doesn't apply — cheap places often do poorly, but expensive is no guarantee for better.

Make people think. People often ask why and how you travel, where did you go, what you liked and how do you live back home. That's a splendid opportunity to bring forward some ideas which you consider important. I believe it's best to avoid commenting negatively on others' actions, but rather spread positive thinking and personally set a good example. If you want to be more active, you can of course systematically promote your ideas, write articles and participate in environment related events, but that already goes a bit beyond simple travel.

Thanks to Päivi and Santeri for the private correspondence on responsible tourism which influenced this article. They've also raised the issue of social footprint, which is even more difficult to estimate than the environmental one. I might write about that later.

A while ago a friend from the Finnish-Romanian Friendship Association asked if I could write an article about my bicycle tour in Romania for their magazine Viesti-Veşti. The article was published in the most recent issue and it's also available online (in Finnish).

I haven't actually seen the printed version yet, but as far as I know it was published unedited in full lenght. My visit to Moldova is also included in the article.

A few months ago I wrote about meeting Päivi and Santeri in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. They describe themselves as homeless loiterers and claim not to be doing much anything, but they've turned out to be quite active in writing books. They started with La Habanera (available in Finnish, in English and even in Hebrew) which tells their story of quitting their jobs and leaving Finland to escape the rat race. More recently published Platinainen pilvenreuna (in Finnish) describes Santeri's life as an entrepreneur in more detail through the rise and fall of Finnish Software Engineering SOT Oy, his open source software company.

Platinainen pilvenreuna was particularly interesting for me as during the good days of SOT I was the press secretary of the Finnish Linux User Group FLUG ry, collaborating with Santeri quite often. This is also mentioned in the book. Our relationship obviously changed when he left but friendship stayed. I helped a little with the book by reviewing draft versions of it during spring 2007. It was actually quite fun to read about familiar events in the recent history of information technology in Finland, while relaxing at a bamboo hut by the Indian sea.

Many bits and pieces of information in Platinainen pilvenreuna are in public for the first time. Facts are at least mostly correct. The story is told from Santeri's point of view, which may raise some different opinions on how the more private events actually went — the relations between him and some other main players were rocky at times. The main author of the book is actually Santeri's wife Päivi, which was probably good both for the balance and fluency of the text.

If you'd like to check out the book without buying it, it should be available in some libraries in Finland and I have two copies which I'll be happy to borrow (one of them is out right now). At least I personally liked the book and can therefore recommend it. See also Päivi's and Santeri's other books (in English | in Finnish) and Päivi's blog (in Finnish) about literature, reading and writing.

Yesterday I went to the Helsinki book fair and tried the Living library (in Finnish, info in English). It's a wonderful idea, originating from Denmark: you borrow a "book" like you would in a library, only that in the living library the "book" is a person with whom you can then chat for a while. The people are representing various groups towards which there's a lot of prejudice in the society.

At the book fair the living library was organized by Seta ry, an organization promoting sexual equality and Finnish Youth Co-Operation Allianssi. One could borrow for example a gay, lesbian or a bisexual, a father or mother living with his gay/lesbian partner and kids, a house squatter, a nerd, a witch, a laestadian, a muslim, an environmental activist or a young right-wing party member. The sheets presenting the "books" listed various common assumptions about people belonging to the groups in question, and it was up to the reader to find out whether the "book" he/she borrowed represented those assumptions or not.

I think the living library is a brilliant way to promote equality, fight racism and bring out fresh ideas. It's a much lower step to chat with a lesbian in the living library than to go in a bar frequented by lesbians and talk to someone there. Similarly, a well-doing businessman might never dare to visit a squatted house but might still want to hear what a squatter thinks.

The book fair is still going on this Saturday and Sunday, but in case you miss it I'm sure there will be more opportunities to borrow a living book in the future.

During August and September I again noted how Helsinki is full of festivals, concerts and other cultural events. I participated in quite a few, especially in events somehow related to Japan.

First there was a performance by three geishas from Kyoto, a promotional event by Finnair and the travel agency Ebookers who are increasing their frequency of flights to various Asian destinations. The traditional dances weren't anything new for me but the geishas also performed a rock, paper and scissors style game designed to entertain sake-drinking customers in the geisha houses. And of course virtually all of my old friends from various Japanese related societies in Finland were there. I compiled a small picture gallery of the event.

My longest trip in August and September was just a cruise to Stockholm, with a Japanese theme organized by the Japania ry society. I wrote a travel story with a few pictures (in Finnish) of the cruise too.

Shortly after the cruise I was asked if I could help the yearly Helsinki Comics Festival by hosting Keitaro Arima, a Japanese manga artist who was one of the main guests of the event. I didn't have to think twice, getting a rare opportunity to spend time with a person from the center of the manga culture (which is very popular in Japan), practising my Japanese and meeting several Finnish comics artists on the way.

It was a very nicely organized festival with a huge variety of interviews, shows and comics from all over the world, naturally emphasizing the Finnish scene. I especially liked that all the evening parties were open for everybody (with the exception of one dinner on Saturday), so one didn't need to be an insider to meet the artists and organizers also outside the daytime program of the festival. Manga fans were certainly happy with Keitaro Arima's signing session — he would not only give his signature but draw an individual picture for every fan in the queue. The session which was originally planned to last for an hour eventually became 3.5 hours.

Arima was staying in a hotel, but in Hospitality Club and CouchSurfing language hosting means offering a place to stay for someone. I've been quite active recently also in that, perhaps even a bit too active. I just counted that 21 people stayed at my place during the last two months. Almost half of them were cyclists and all the continents except Antartica were represented by at least one person. I didn't have a single bad experience and many of the guests were wonderful people, but too many is still too many. I think I'll have a break from hosting now, perhaps not completely closing my door but at least having less guests. It might happen naturally by simply getting less requests, as October and November are not the most popular months to travel in Finland for quite obvious reasons.

The latest chunk of Japanese culture I got in the Love and Anarchy film festival, which faithfully to its traditions featured a good selection of anime and non-animated Japanese films among other good movies from all around the world. I didn't see many movies during my year on the road so now it was a good time to catch up. Especially as the movie theatres in Helsinki are becoming more and more controlled by one single company which shows little else than the latest Hollywood blockbusters.

The animations Paprika and Tekkonkinkreet were both beautiful, although I didn't like the character drawing style in the latter too much. I didn't see yet Tales from Earthsea, the latest offering from Studio Ghibli, but it's one of the exceptions which will come to the mainstream theaters soon. Festival veteran Takashi Miike's this year's flick Like a Dragon was only mildly entertaining, Sakebi's Retribution was better but not exceptional. Same rating for Lost in Beijing by Ping Guo, the only Chinese film I went to see. Korea is producing more and more interesting movies, this year's good picks being Kim Ki Duk's Breath and Chan-Wook Park's I'm a Cyborg but That's Okay, which was a delighfully refreshing take on a difficult topic, my favorite this year. Año Uña was an interesting Brazilian experiment to do a film based on still photos, well done but still not really to my taste. The discussion with the director after the film added a nice personal touch into the viewing experience. Eastern Europe offered some of the darkest but well-done and realistic films this year, with the Cannes Golden Palm winner 4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days directed by Christian Mungiu from Romania and and The Trap by Srdjan Golubovic from Serbia. The Georgian-French joint production 13 Tzameti had the most stylistic black and white shooting.