Category: Travels
My visit to Yemen
With Yemen in the news I thought I would recount my trip to the country in 1996 or so. I spent five or six days in Sana'a, the capital, and I remember the following:
1. At the biggest and best hotel in town, no one spoke English or any other European language.
2. Most of the women wore full veils. This allows them to stare at foreign men, and make lots of direct eye contact, without repercussion. The younger girls looked like this. I've never been stared at more in my life, by women.
3. Virtually all of the men carried daggers in their sashes.
4. Most of the people seemed to get stoned — every day, all day long — by chewing qat. I recall reading that qat supply amounts to about 20 percent of the economy. This estimate suggests that three-quarters of the adult population partakes in the habit, every afternoon.
5. The country has the most amazing architecture I have seen, anywhere.
6. The best restaurant served fish doused in red chilies, with a vaguely Ethiopian spice palate for the other dishes. You eat with your fingers.
7. Most of the people lived what was still a fundamentally medieval existence in a medieval setting. The center of town felt like how I had imagined the year 1200 in Baghdad.
8. Yemen has perhaps the biggest problems with water supply, and vanishing aquifers, of any country. Qat cultivation makes these problems worse and for many years Yemeni government policy subsidized water extraction.
9. At the time the capital city was quite safe, though German tourists would get kidnapped in the countryside on a regular basis. The Yemenis had a reputation as very hospitable kidnappers. Usually the kidnappers would hold the tourists in return for promises about infrastructure.
10. I was accompanying a World Bank mission and had access to "the government driver" (singular), and a Mercedes-Benz. He did not speak any English or any other language besides Yemeni Arabic.
11. With the possible exception of the Bolivian altiplano, Yemen is the weirdest country or region I have visited.
12. The last decade has not, overall, been a good one for Yemen.
13. In the fall the climate was very nice.
Nicaragua notes (avoid walls!)
The keys to eating well here are: avoid walls, seek corn, and bow down to the finest white creams and cheeses you are likely to find. They use cabbage frequently and well and they are not afraid of sour tastes. Fried chicken is a treat and they sprinkle white cheese on top of that and on your french fries. It is an under-mined cuisine.
Horse and donkey carts have not disappeared. Few people speak English. Many women carry baskets on their heads to transport goods. I stayed in what is arguably the country's nicest hotel and my room was $100 a night. The place was empty.
Nicaragua is wealthier than Honduras but much poorer than El Salvador or Panama. Here is a garbage dump in Managua, La Chureca. The economy is likely to shrink two percent this year. On the bright side, the drug trade doesn't (yet?) have so much of a hold. The lower income classes seem to do better in terms of social services than in many other countries of comparable wealth.
Leon has one of the best Latin American town squares for cute children, street musicians, balloons and ringing bells, and flirtatious teenage social life. The Sandinista murals are maintained. There are few international chain stores of any kind outside of Managua and even most of Managua is under-chained. People will insist of getting you back the change you are due, even when you tell them to keep it because you don't want to wait for them to get it from their uncle across the street.
Appreciating the country boils down to how much you can enjoy a very direct feeling of genuineness all around; Nicaragua is a hidden jewel, at least for tourist visitors.
I did not see anyone smoke, not once.
Managua
With over 600 barrios, a definitive breakdown of Managua safety is a book in itself. As a general rule, don't ever walk more than a few blocks anywhere in Managua. There are almost no police during the night time and with no centre there are few places where the streets will be busy. The Metrocentro area is safe, but it's still best not to walk alone. The only place that lends itself to walking is the malecón and central park area of old Managua, but do not walk here at night under any circumstances. Even during the daytime take precautions, don't carry any more than you need and avoid walking alone. Be careful when visiting the Catedral Nueva, which is next to a barrio with many thieves. Having said all of this, in comparison with other Central American capitals Managua is safe for the visitor, although theft is common at bus stations and outside the more affluent neighborhoods
That's from my guidebook. It seemed fine to me.
Nicaragua bleg
I'll have three days there, fairly soon. I've never been to Nicaragua before, though I've spent a fair amount of time elsewhere in Central America. Your recommendations would be very welcome and many of them will be used.
San Antonio bleg
Alex and I will be there for the Southern Economics Association meetings, along with many other economists. I don't know the city well, as I've been there only once. There might be a bit of free time. What should we do? Where should we eat?
Berlin memories
I first visited Berlin in 1985, while traveling with Randall Kroszner. We drove to West Berlin by car and we were terrified for the few hours we were underway in East Germany. Randy did not drive over the speed limit once. I was hardly a communist sympathizer but still I was unprepared for the day trip to East Berlin. I saw soldiers goose-stepping down one of the main streets. In the stores old ladies yelled and swung their brooms at me. Many buildings still had bullet marks or bomb damage from World War II. In a restaurant we ate a rubber Wiener Schnitzel and shared a table with an East German family; they did not have enough trust in their government to speak a word to us. I was unable to spend my mandatory thirty-mark conversion on anything useful; I carried back some Stendahl and Goethe but didn't want the Lenin. This was in the capital city in the showcase of the communist world.
My biggest impression was simply that I had never seen evil before.
In the summer of 1990 I stayed in a dorm in East Berlin. Everyone seemed normal. Cute girls smiled. Yet there were few signs of modern German life as a Westerner might understand it; it was as if I had stepped into an alternative science fiction universe. The Vietnamese ran the street markets and Russian still mattered.
In 1999 I heard an emotional performance of Fidelio there and most of the audience cried.
I like spending time in Berlin. But I am never sure I like Berlin itself, West or East. Berlin is Germany being imperial. Berlin is Germany looking toward the east. Today Berlin is Germany pretending it is normal, while not yet having a new identity. Here is Kurt Tucholsky (in German) on Berlin. Here is a silly quotation about Berlin:
“Berlin combines the culture of New York, the traffic system of Tokyo, the nature of Seattle, and the historical treasures of, well, Berlin.”
Here is the Berlin Sony Center. Here is the Reichstag. Here is the Jewish Museum. Here is Knut, from the Berlin Zoo.
Markets in Everything: Media
From a new paper by Di Tella and Franceschelli:
We construct measures of the extent to which the 4 main newspapers in Argentina report government corruption in their front page during the period 1998-2007 and correlate them with the extent to which each newspaper is a recipient of government advertising. The correlation is negative. The size is considerable: a one standard deviation increase in monthly government advertising (0.26 million pesos of 2000) is associated with a reduction in the coverage of the government's corruption scandals by almost half of a front page per month, or 37% of a standard deviation in our measure of coverage. The results control for newspaper, month and individual corruption scandal fixed effects.
In Maharashtra, India a recent report indicates that transactions costs are considerably lower:
The deals were many and varied. A candidate had to pay different rates for ‘profiles,’ interviews, a list of ‘achievements,’ or even a trashing of his rival in some cases. (With the channels, it was “live” coverage, a ‘special focus,’ or even a team tracking you for hours in a day.) Let alone bad-mouthing your rival, this “pay-per” culture also ensures that the paper or channel will not tell its audiences that you have a criminal record. Over 50 per cent of the MLAs just elected in Maharashtra have criminal charges pending against them….
Hat tip to catfish for the second item.
Norway Tax Data Now!
It's the moment nosy Norwegian neighbors have been waiting for — the release of official records showing the annual income and overall wealth of nearly every taxpayer in the Scandinavian country.
In a move that would be unthinkable elsewhere, tax authorities in Norway have issued the ''skatteliste,'' or ''tax list,'' for 2008 to the media under a law designed to uphold the country's tradition of transparency…
Many media outlets use the tax records to produce their own searchable online databases. In the database of national broadcaster NRK, you can type a subject's name, hit search and within moments get information on what that person made last year, what was paid in taxes and total wealth….
The information had been available to media until 2004, when a more
conservative government banned the publication of tax records. Three
years later, a new, more liberal government reversed the legislation
and also made it possible for media to obtain tax information digitally
and disseminate it online.
There has got to be more than one dissertation here. Aside from the obvious issues of studying the distribution of wealth over time and cross-sectionally the three year break raises possibilities such as testing whether making salary and wealth information public encourages people to work more or less and whether public information about income increases or decreases inequality.
Perhaps most interesting–does conspicuous consumption fall and efficiency increase in a society in which income is conspicuous?
Edmonton notes
The biggest surprise is how many Newfoundland accents I have heard. There truly is backwards time travel — at least into the 1980s — and it is called the West Edmonton Mall. The real estate bubble here has yet to pop. It's a better place to live than to visit. There is better dim sum than anywhere near NoVa. I have crossed all the major bridges. During my stay the weather has been warmer and nicer than back home. Many new hardcover books cost $32.99 in a Chapters bookstore. I have a theory that any Thai restaurant attached to a motel is excellent. I had a conversation with Brad Humphreys and Jane Ruseski as to why an activity must have an intrinsically competitive aspect to qualify as a sport, thus ruling out bass fishing. "Minus 40" is about the same in either Centigrade or Fahrenheit. Everyone has treated me very well.
Edmonton bleg
I'll have a free day there Saturday. What should I do, where should I go, and what/where should I eat? As always I thank you in advance for the suggestions; they do guide my decision-making.
It is one of my goals to visit the fifteen or so of the largest metropolitan areas in Canada, plus (maybe) Regina and Saskatoon.
Bleg for Lille, France
In a week's time or so I will have one day — one free day — in Lille, France. What do you recommend?
In praise of Annandale
It's one of the smaller NoVa communities and it has a coherent downtown. For me it has a useful frame shop, tennis club, dentist, a Western Union branch, Giant (easy in and out), and it has one of the best public libraries around, all within walking distance on a single strip and one side road. Natasha gets her massage there. There are plenty of small shops, ethnic and otherwise. It has the best food of any single locale in the D.C. area, including a Korean porridge shop, Korean barbecue, gloopy, disgusting Korean noodles, Korean fried chicken, a Korean tofu restaurant, a Korean bakery (the best hangout around, period, plus the best bakery around), a Korean restaurant specializing in pumpkin dishes, non-disgusting noodle houses, a Korean crab and fish and chips place (with kimchee too), at least two restaurants with "Korean-Chinese" food, and a bunch of 24-7 Korean restaurants, with varying emphases but with Yechon as having the best late night or early morning crowd. Many of the other places stay open until 2 or 3 a.m. (you'll find many reviewed here). The town has over 900 small businesses run by Koreans and catering mostly to Koreans.
On the strip is also the area's best Afghan restaurant, a good Peruvian chicken place, and just off the strip is an excellent Manchurian restaurant, A&J. There is a decent community of antique shops, including a place with some good Afghan textiles. South of 236 you can find a colony of contemporary homes, rare in most parts of Fairfax County. Annandale has the central branch of a 60,000 student community college. The traffic is bearable for the most part, the rents are reasonable by NoVa standards, and you have easy access to the major arteries of 495 and 395. The schools are well above the national average.
Exxon/Mobile has a base on the edge of town. The first (third, according to some sources) toll road in America, ever, ran through Annandale. Mark Hamill once lived there. It has a lovely Civil War church and a rustic barn. Its history dates back to 1685 and it is named after a Scottish village. Many of the people in Annandale are very physically attractive.
What's not to like?
West Annandale is more of a cultural desert than is East Annandale, though it has some Korean cafes and billiard shops. All of Annandale is ugly, with a vague hint of unjustified pastel in the central downtown area. The Into the Wild guy grew up there. They did fight on the wrong side in the Civil War but that has little relevance to the current town. The used CD shop has closed up.
The pluses outweight the minuses. You get all that — and more — for only 50,000 people or so. Boo to Annandale naysayers. Hail Annandale.
From the comments:
I was thinking about the interesting contrast between Annandale which is ugly but is very livable and has wonderful services, vs. some small towns abroad I've visited which had a beautiful town square but limited and overpriced services and few really good or interesting restaurants, with everything being very expensive. Undoubtedly, some tourist visiting the latter towns and spending "summer money" in the busy clubs and cafes would feel the latter superior, and might think Annandale a wasteland. But they may not want to live in said quaint town, especially if salaries were below Virginia standard.
Nova Scotia markets, not in everything
Maple syrup curry, which I have now seen on three restaurant menus in so many days.
Amateur crafts are extremely common, as in New Zealand. It is a plausible claim that the blueberries here are the world's best. Natives claim it has Canada's warmest winter.
At Peggy's Cove a ragged Scot-looking woman blew loudly into bagpipes, thereby competing for donor attention with a ragged Scot-looking woman punching an accordion and wailing, all to the detriment of the Coase theorem.
For a while George Washington held out hope that Nova Scotia would join in the rebellion against the British crown. Later American ships attacked Lunenberg several times, starting in 1782, mostly for reasons of plunder.
In 1790 black Nova Scotians were strongly encouraged to move to what is now Sierra Leone. There was a second "purge" of black residents in the 1960s, when the neighborhood of Africville was torn down and its residents were encouraged to leave. Black residents were prominent in the history of Nova Scotia although it seems this is being forgotten.
Overall this is an underrated tourist destination (it is an easy direct flight from Dulles) and I recommend Lesley Choyce's Nova Scotia: Shaped by the Sea.
Don Boudreau is prominently represented in the Halifax museum collection.
They don't do much with it (avoid the cream sauce), but arguably Nova Scotia has the best seafood in all of NAFTA. No way do they ship the good lobsters out.
A Theory for Why Latvian Women are Beautiful
Recently a colleague returned from a trip to Latvia and remarked on how beautiful the women were. A discussion ensued at which it was agreed that women in a number of other countries were also very beautiful but markedly less outgoing than the Latvians. As you may recall, beautiful Latvian women like to parade their beauty. My colleague further informed us that the latter event was not unique, having witnessed something similar himself.
Is my colleague's observation a mere statement of prurient preference? Does this kind of thing belong in a family blog? Don't worry, at Marginal Revolution we never serve our prurience without a little theory.
Sociosexuality is a concept in social psychology that refers to how favorable people are to sex outside of commitment. It can be measured by answers to questions such as "I can
imagine myself being comfortable and enjoying "casual" sex with
different partners" (agree strongly to disagree strongly) or "Sex without love is ok," as well as with objective measures such as the number of sexual partners a person has had. A low score indicates subjects who favor monogamous, long-term, high-investment relationships. A high score indicates subjects more favorable to sex for pleasure's sake alone. with less regard to commitment. On average, males have higher sociosexuality scores than females but sociosexuality scores for females vary widely across countries.
Why might female sociosexuality scores vary? One hypothesis is that in cultures with low operational sex ratios (the number of marriageable men/number of marriageable women) female sociosexuality will be higher. The argument is that when the relative supply of males is low, competition for mates encourages females to shift towards the male ideal, i.e. when supply is scarce the demanders must pay more. (Note that this theory can also explain trends over time, e.g. Pedersen 1991).
Ok, where does this get us? Well in Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe, Schmitt (2005) surveyed some 14,000 people on sociosexuality and he correlated female sociosexuality with the operational sex ratio. Here are the results:
Notice that Latvia has one of the highest rates of female sociosexuality in the 48 nations surveyed and the lowest sex ratio.
Thus, the theory is that Latvian women appeal more strongly to the male ideal because the number of marriageable men in Latvia is low relative to the number of women. Is it any wonder that my colleague found the Latvian women beautiful?
Nova Scotia bleg
Natasha and I lucked out with frequent flyer miles and soon we will have two lovely days in Nova Scotia, starting in Halifax but with a rental car. What should we do? Where should we eat? Your thoughts would be most welcome. I've never had a visit to Canada which was less than excellent and that includes a good fifteen trips at least.