Houston, we hardly know ye

Trinidad

From Trinidad

Over the Gulf of Mexico

From Trinidad

From Trinidad

From Trinidad

From Trinidad

Port of Spain

From Trinidad

The two lane roads are narrower, yes, narrower. In my haste I forgot to take pictures of driving down Waterloo.

From Trinidad

Busy streets

From Trinidad

If one gets the impression that there are not enough pictures of the inhabitants then the fault is entirely one of the photographer

From Trinidad

The Red House

From Trinidad

The building where the Jamaat staged their coup in 1990

From Trinidad

Port of Spain by night

From Trinidad

The Lion House (Naipaul's ancestral house), Chaguanas

From Trinidad

lions

From Trinidad

Green mountains

From Trinidad

Green building

From Trinidad

Chaguaramas

His eyes always that of an outsider

V: I had a discussion with one of the traders last week about how he wanted to make sure his kids grew to respect hard work and the value of a dollar.

I think it's very easy to ignore one's own privileges. He talked about how he had to work from being a poor boy to where he was and so on and so forth, and he had a lot of pride in having accomplished what he has. But this does not seem quite correct. Because if he were urban minority poor, I think he could have worked just as hard but still ended up nowhere.

Similarly, I should thank my background for the advantages it has given me. If I were white, I'd probably belong to some unimpressive but competent professional class. A good amount of my analytical skills are a direct result of my background, I think.

me: Yes, the consequence of being an outsider

V: Actually, that is it exactly. If I were not an outsider, I wouldn't have such a strong desire to rebel intellectually, and I would be much less curious and much less analytical.

...

V: Being an outsider means that even if it's easy to make friends, it's still very easy to remain dis-integrated.

me: I'm not so certain I want to become fully integrated

V: Why not? It's lonely otherwise.

me: You can be integrated and lonely

V: Really?

me: Is that not a possibility?

Happy New Year!

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11:49 AM

V: ... the natives present this unified cultural force, right? We're supposed to support their choice to retain this primitive culture that is close to nature, because it's presumably the most environmentally intentioned.

But this seems flawed, because they are hunters and gatherers. They don't seem to farm, but they are still predators, despite whatever pseudo-religion they practice after their kills. (Unfortunately, it's never explored whether the killed creature really appreciates or cares being dispatched in such a natural spiritualist fashion.)

These hunting techniques the native aliens use could potentially be extremely ecologically damaging. In fact, I would suggest that, given their primitivism, they probably have a very poor understanding of preservation.

Though our own ideas may not apply to this world, which seems to be full of movie-style predators. Predators without behaviours realistic to earth animals. Like, completely omnivorous across all species. Like a grizzly bear eating snails.

Yeah, this is a pretty shite alien planet. Yeah, this is still neocolonialism. It fails to really understand nativist resistance.

12:49 PM

V: Wow, this movie is so bad. A decent sign of a bad movie is probably how many lines of dialogue are devoted to `woo!' `yeah!' `nooo!'

Also, I guess, in the end, it's the white man's burden to help the natives. And they are lost without him.

Man, I wish this movie had been made better. And it would have been pretty easy to do.