FAILURE!!

Deep River. I have one more chapter to go.

For one, it is such great writing. Secondly, I have learned a lot about tourism and religious tolerance. For now, a bit on tourism.

As the reader, we get to see inside everyone's head -- or rather, whoever the author wants you to see into. One person we get to know is the tour guide. He has spent much of his life studying India and Hinduism. He wants to continue to learn because he believes that, even though he has been learning for years, there is still more to learn! His frustration is that these wealthy Japanese tourists come for a week or two and see highlights of famous, relatively wealthy Indian cities, and then they return home and make like they understand the whole of India. I have always been somewhat convicted as a tourist of places. This is where people live. This is where people suffer and where they take pride as their home and where they have learned every good and ugly thing that they know. I love to travel and learn bits of history and culture. I think it is somewhat important to be a well-rounded person to have some sort of cross-cultural experience. But how do you accomplish this without either being hyper- or hypo-sensitive? Is a snapshot worth it? Is it good not to understand something fully? Or is it better to avoid any knowledge so that you are not offensive in your ignorance? How can there be an acceptable balance?