Tuesday, January 12, 2010

And then I invented disco bags.

Model Home, big house, the Cabin, Shanti and Kalyan’s, the Model, the cabin.  The Weaverville hopscotch.  Spending time with Amit and Meg has historically involved relentless deliberation about what to do and when, passively pretending that we are “ok with whatever.”  The last thing we need is three different houses to have to decide which to occupy at any given moment.  This was the fifth time that Meg, Amit and I have reunited, always in a different locale, and it happens just infrequent enough and just consistently enough that we look nostalgically on the literal days, if not weeks, of time we have spent together suspended in indecision.  Weavervegas was freezing this trip, not unlike the last trip, so our options were limited.  I would say this is a good thing.  Slept ’til noon, ate something, talked about what we would do, came to no conclusion, ate something else.  By sun down we were ready to go somewhere, which in some cases was determined by the time we got in the car and sometimes not.  My family and friends in Texas had changed so much between aging and pairing off that it was nice to relate to people in ways unaffected by time and space.

I met lots of 20 year-old men here in Asheville.  A wolf-like mathematician with whom I compared complex mathematic theory and anthropological thought, a douchy NYU student who defended NYU students’ rights to behave like assholes, and a kind of a lanky dreamy one that I counseled on his brewing desires to “to go abroad.”  Where, just anywhere.  I drained their box of Franzia as I illuminated to them the slightly older woman’s perspective on “the world.”  Another instance where younger men think I’m awesome, and my ego skyrockets.  I rekindled my friendship with Nate Welling, and awaited Andy Saltzman who never came, got told by a four year-old that they like Amit more than me and danced with one of Amit’s cabin mates like a gorilla.  Good luck with the men this leg.

This is all almost over and it’s been at least three days since I’ve talked to someone who thought it was “cool” that I live in New York so my impulse to go home right now is nonexistent.  Long story short.  Never can get enough Amit, and always sad to leave him.

I hope that when we get there we’ll remember why we came,

Big Babe

Posted by Andie in 08:22:41 | Permalink | No Comments »

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

You know what they say. Third time’s a maybe.

The fact that I have to leave the all-inclusive spa resort that is my father’s house in Tucson is total bull.  First of all, I just got here.  Second, I have a tan.  The first morning I got here, I woke up to a mug full of hot green tea, two veggie sausage links, my favorite Grandy’s Style Cheezy Eggs (TM), and a banana blueberry fruit salad with whipped cream on top. My step-mom paid for me to go get a massage, and not only that, she put the keys in the car, set the GPS to the spa’s address and set the card for the massage therapist on the seat, handed me a bottle of water and sent me on my way.  This is the world-class treatment she gives me when I get here.  My dad did daddy things like glue my broken purse strap back together, and play the traditional rounds of hypothetical “if you were stranded on a desert island and could only bring 5 albums from the 60’s and 70’s what would they be?” games.  My dad thinks I’m a classic rock trivia guru, and it makes me feel very special.  Then there was the “where is your relationship going?” question and the ever-important “what city could you see yourself living in the long term? (please say tucson)” future mapping project.  

All this love and hospitality has a catch.  My parents have been renting a 8×8 foot storage space containing aproximately 5 boxes of my crap and a poster tube containing a rooster/chicken oil pastel that was assumed to be mine and is not, but is now.  They have been blitzkreiging my small apartment with more of my own shit every few weeks since the minute they moved from Kansas City.  They put me in the car thinking we were going out to dinner or something fun, and then DROVE ME TO THE STORAGE PLACE and loaded up my shit and then DROVE ME BACK TO THE HOUSE, where I was forced to go through all of the remaining boxes and execute my memories by firing squad.  Goodbye pink kitty statue on a mirrored stand.  So long year-of-the rabit chinese zodiac tea leaf straining mug.  See you in the next life 3 guatemalan patterned wrap skirts that show my ass when its windy.  These people have no pity.

Middle-aged couples.  In one day I got to know and had similar but different conversations with exactly SIX middle-aged couples.  We first went on a hike (beautiful 6-mile hike in Catalina mountains which was like a piece of cake for me HA!) with Mario and Peggy, Ronnie and Sherry, and then had dinner at a little local Italian place called Macaroni Grill with Toni and Terry, Pat and Sandy, and Tom and Melba.  Then of course there was Lynett and Aaron, the ones I belong to.  Stories of small apartments with no bowls, lack of need for car in the city, discussion of weather in New York City compared to the Southwest, same song and dance.  I ate my Eggplant parm, drank my Chianti. Nice to meet you nice to meet you nice to meet you. Bed.

It is warm. It is mountainous.  It is sunsetty.  There are good bath products and cute bird feeders, and my wonderful wonderful parents who I will not take leaving lightly.

These mountains may never be our home,

Andie

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Sunday, January 3, 2010

“No! Kids are not making the whoopie yet!” and the End of the Sex Talk

I LOVE my nephew.  He is awesome.  He loves me and therefore that makes me awesome.  I have finally achieved my life’s work. My nephew has hit the precise age where I am not too old to be cool and he is old enough that he wants to impress me.  He’s been by my side since the minute I showed up and in between stretches of hormone-induced staring off into space or just sitting with his eyes closed, he would just want to tell me everything that is going on in ninth grade including, get this, updates about his latest girlfriend, the break up with his last one, AND detailed breakdowns of clique formation on the part of the “emos, scenesters, preps and jocks.” Cloud fucking nine.  It took every bone in my body to try and remain just the right amount of indifferent and detached so that my ecstatic sense of self-worth didn’t show and ruin everything.  He showed me all the latest you-tube videos and said things like, “Don’t you hate it when you like really like a band, and have like liked them for a long time and then all of the sudden they get cool and popular and everyone likes them and it just sucks.”  I respond by saying, “Hello, Dave Matthews Band? After Crash? I know exactly what you are talking about.”  He has no idea what I am talking about.  He will also still play leg wars with me on the coach (foot to foot, push til knees touch thighs or both legs go up straight and its a draw.”  I’ve been crafting this perfect Aunt-ship since the minute he was born and if it ever changes I will probably have to kill myself.

I visited my cousin Beverley and her three children in Fallbrook, CA, The Avocado Capital of the World and had no avocados, drank tremendous amounts of wine and told my big sister everything about my life, and got not one but TWO people to either drive or send 100-dollar cabs to Long Beach to pick me up….

One of those people was Elizabeth Zepherine McDonough, who was host to all of my New Years good behavior and Zeno-esque fits of decadence and fancy.  She was house sitting in one of those silly Beverly Hills houses with pink lawn furniture, a pink kitchen, life-sized Grecian statuary and a 100-pound bulldog named Pinky for which her primary responsibilities are to drive Pinky to the park twice a day so it can shit, and wipe the black sludge from it’s face crevices.  We rang in the new year at a bar near her boyfriend’s house with our shirts tucked into our bras while grinding on helium filled latex balloons in the faces of inevitably less-drunk, innocent bystanders.  All the rest is extremely well-photographed history.

Elizabeth dropped me off at the train station minutes before the train left as I force-fed her  her lucky servings of black-eyed peas from a can.   Wish to god we lived closer.  I don’t want to be this far from anyone who will repeatedly take such big bites of something she describes as tasting like vomit.  I used the first hours of the train-ride to nurse the worst hangover of my life.  Met an awesome girl doing Fullbright in Korea who was also going to Tucson, talked with her for hours but I guess didn’t like me enough to give me her phone number.  I’ve been in Tucson for less than 24 hours and I already have a V-neck sunburn. tbc…

LA was delicious,

Bee

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Sunday, December 27, 2009

“Say Goodbye Dog! If he actually says goodbye I will PASS OUT.” - Grandmother

Excessive free-time and unyeilding fear that I may never be “abroad” again led me to until-now purposefully unprecedented domestic travel blogging. It’s all I’ve got. Texas, Louisiana, California, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida in a hair under a month. All family, all catching up, all the time. Traditional blog posts related to family were characterized by mildly offensive professions of shock at majorly offensive racist, sexist, and gossipy comments made by the people I love most in the world. I’ve decided that that practice is exploitative and will withhold using them for blog masturbation unless utterly irresistible. I love my family. My new role is peacekeeper not firestarter like I got so good at in the last few years. I wow them with normalcy and totally predictable observations about “new york life.” Cramped quarters, no money, no cereal bowls, or unstained kitchen towels, development of humble taste for Carlo Rossi, the fourth roommate.

My new thing is loving my family unconditionally. This shit is awesome. It’s like, “it’s just not right that the president is black.” Nona you are so cute. “I’m so glad you are here because you can translate for me if the cleaning ladies are saying my taste is tacky.” Mom I love you. My tongue won’t hurt so much if I just don’t get upset enough to need to bite it. This may be the first family holiday where I just let myself love the people around me, neither offended or scandalized by their culture and custom. I have just loved them and let them love me. I was quiet a lot because I’m having a quarter life personality crisis, but not because I was fuming. Success.

The next theme of my holiday. Geriatrics. I am not ready for this. The time has come that people around me have become old. Walkers that need new tennis balls, hearing aids that need new batteries, artificial knees through metal detectors. Ways are set. I have found the way to deal with mild dementia. Hearing the same story for the 10th time in a couple hours gets old. Yes. But boredom, frustration, and sadness do not have to be a part of it. My nona always has 1-2 cups of coffee before bed. My nona is not affected by caffeine she says with every late night cup. My nona gets up to pee 2-3 times per night. But not because of the coffee, she says, but because of her blood pressure medication which is also a diuretic. Caffiene is also a diuretic I explain. She says no it’s not that because coffee doesnt affect her. Frustration. Round two, one hour later, followed by round three the next hour. Same convo. Two can play at this game I say.  I make wild accusations that her blood pressure is not at fault.  It is coffee.  I get heated. She gets heated.  She forgets the conversation ever happened.  We go again.  And every time she starts again I get my rebuttals prepared.  My nona is now my verbal sparring partner.  Unoffendably senile.  My mom says she has a preschooler.  This is hard.

I saw friends and family and drove in my rental car with loud music.  I went to a Korean spa, got kitchenware and dodged chicken broth with limited success.  My sister’s boyfriend told me I didn’t mind chicken broth just actual meat when describing me to his brother as I chewed.  Assuming just makes an ass out of me.  LAX at 7:10.

In California, I dream of snow,
Andrea

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Wednesday, March 12, 2008

“Sistah, I no eat. I die.”

I left the site that hosted the single-most well-rounded feeling of contentment I’ve experienced in I’m not sure how long sobbing almost silently into my left-hand, and with an extremely poorly executed goodbye.  I forgot to tell Sirikeow, the 8 year-old girl I had befriended by slipping her mango from our dinner under the table, that I was leaving, and the primary memory I have of leaving Baan Dada is her standing behind the truck, hunched over and looking at me with complete confusion and anger.  The last few days at Baan Dada she and I were scarcely apart.  Despite having a mother, who albeit can’t take care of her at this junction, she says “You motha for me” and points at her self with her thumb in her shockingly deep voice.  She calls me mommy which I discourage by insisting that she is MY mommy, but this does not work.  One of my favorite moments of the trip was finding her asleep outside the door of my hut after I woke up for a nap.  She had come up wanting to hang out and Amit and I had pretended to be asleep because we did actually want to be asleep.  We thought she’d left but she never did.  I spent this whole experience grappling with the complications of having short-term volunteers coming in and out of these kids lives and the appropriate dynamic for having relationships with the children, yet I made the cruelest and most poorly planned departure imaginable.  I have no idea if I am overvaluing or undervaluing the weight of my departure on these kids’ lives, but needless to say I feel like crap.  I miss Baan Dada unspeakably, and can’t stop thinking of myself as just another white face that has come and gone.  All that aside, I can’t overstate how much fun I had, how much I want to go back, and how inspired I was by Dada to maybe one day do something similar.

I don’t feel like I’m travelling anymore.  It feels like my trip ended when I left Amit in Bangkok because at every step this trip was something that we were doing together and at the point where that ceased to be true, this turns into something else.  I am in Hong Kong now in this very awkward space between ‘the trip’ and whatever it is my life will be in New York, unsure if this kindof suspension between a new reality and an old one is good for cooling off or just cooking up anxiety.  The trip is over though it doesn’t feel premature, or as if it flew by, but I did forget that there was anything in the world outside of Amit and I trying to figure out what we were going to do that day or the next. And now that he is not here, I am ready to go home.  I hate the last blog because I always would rather be descriptive than reflective but that should do it for now; all that is left is to reflect on when the next posted date will be, and contemplate my return.

Here is something a little unusual…

The Story of My Feet:
The day after a group of Canadian volunteers from a women’s college came to Baan Dada, reminding all too much of a somehow less offensive version of the IHPer’s special brand of cultural insensitivity abroad, the remaining four volunteers (myself, amit, erin, and martin) decided we needed beer.  The rule is that being a Margi institution and all, if you want to drink you can do so in town but you can’t come back to Baan Dada that night.  So we stayed at a guest house in town just to have a little time off and a little Singha.  Anyhow to make an already long story short, when walking back to the room, I tripped and the entire weight of my body came down on the side of my foot, and my right palm leaving a compact puddle of crying Andie on the floor for Amit to find on his way back from the bathroom.  No broken bones but residual pain, bruising, stiffness and trouble walking.

Earlier that week: While walking through the goat pen to collect compost buckets and stare fondly and lovingly at the baby goats, I stepped on a piece of wood pointing up out of the ground leaving me with a puncture wound in the big toe on the same foot that would soon be all but broken.  I found Amit who was still planting Tamarind trees nearby and strolled up with a flip flop full of blood.

Next injury.  While back in Bangkok, and walking around Jatu Jak (biggest market in world) with Amit who could only manage to do so by keeping his cheeks clenched to prevent the explosive bowel issues he was having from forcing us to by him new clothes, a little old Thai lady in a woven fisherman’s hat pushed an extremely heavy cart full of god knows what over the same foot.  More bruising.  More pain.  Extreme distaste for old people.

Blisters: Second to last night, Erin, the wonderful Evergreen student from Olympia, Washington who I had so much fun with at Baan Dada and who gave me my first ever layered hair cut and I went on a walk up the hill to watch the sunset in some Nike hiking shoes left by the Canadians.  The rather mild blister aquired has turned into an infected, puss-oozing, cesspool, providing the foundation for another blister I acquired from borrowing Meg’s brown boots so that I could look good for an dim sum luncheon with her married, blond, British friends that was so exorbitantly expensive that it would have made Amit crap his pants even AFTER he got over the traveler’s diarrhea thing he had.

Adding insult to injury: My flip flops were “borrowed” by an unidentified child at Baan Dada never to be returned so all I had for shoes was a pair of purple Thai house shoes also left by the Canadians after two days of use that were two sizes too big, and are really wanting for arch support.  Couple days on my feet, often toting my pack, and I’ve got shooting pains in my angles to compliment the shooting pains in my tarsals, metatarsals, heels and big toes.  The foot injury I was nursing in Kansas City late last year, has also decided to resurface with some purple bruising. I don’t even think I need to go into detail about the state of my toenails.

The End.


Sawadee Kha and Until soon,

Andie

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Monday, March 3, 2008

“There is no sport called Survival Flotation.”

In the back of the truck bed on the dark ride into town, Kabut fell asleep hugging me.  And I can’t shake sitting there and asking myself all of those old Sally Struthers-esque cliches  Whose baby is this?  How could anyone leave him? How could I give him a better life? Dollar a day? International Adoption? No.  This kid has actually got it made.  He is 10 years old and from Burma, still in Kindergarten because I presume he is not yet legal here and “I have no motha” as the only historical background I have on him. He lives at Baan Dada, a children’s home in Sankhlaburi, Thailand just a few miles from the Burmese border, run by an Ananda Marga monk (wouldn’t be a trip with Amit if we weren’t being hosted by a Margi somewhere) from the Philippines.  There are 56 of the toughest, most hardcore, badass children here I have ever met.  They ride tractors and hang off the back of trucks by pieces of rubber tubbing, and eat everything no matter where it has been.  The cool thing about this place aside from the fact that I get to know something wonderful about a new kid everyday is that Dada’s mission is to make sure that the kids are not just well taken care of and going to school, but finding something that they love to do and pursuing it.  Often times they are able to make some money doing what they do. Ramesh commissions paintings for people that come to visit the home.  Harrish sews.  Prashanta and Viira are tour guides.  There is a women’s weaving cooperative making bags and ponchos (of course), and best of all Dada has assembled a bitchin’ rock band of the slickest thirteen year old boys you’ve ever seen.  They cover Beatles, Elvis and Thai Pop at the travelers guesthouses in town on Saturday nights.  (I have videos.)  The kids are every westerners dream.  They are respectful, fun, and extremely affectionate and outgoing.  They either speak thai, burmese or karen (lots of nauseating border conflict issues) so you can’t usually understand them: bitter - you can’t fully realize how hilarious they are, sweet - they can’t bug you as much.
Kabut and I became friends because I speak the international little boy language of play fighting.  Basically he beats the crap out of me and I take it.  (He is pressing his face against the window of the internet cafe right now).  I spend lots of time fighting off armies of angry young boys/ wanna be muay thai fighters. More and more in between fights he would just stop his violent freak outs and just hug me as if intending to make vital organs come out through my nose and mouth.  Now the fighting has gradually become just constant affection, and he gets upset when I play fight because he thinks “you no like me” anymore.  He is so moody and so jealous.  If another kid is in my lap when he wants to be, he either avoids me entirely or walks by and says “I no like you. I no play you.”  He is especially competitive with Sirikeow, an 8 year-old girl who eats like a horse that I sneak food to all the time, and who has now taken to hugging me and saying in her bizarrely husky voice “you motha for me.”  This freaking kills me.  These kids live in a dream world where every thing they could need is provided for them, but they crave maternal attention which at present is being given by round after round of well-intentioned tourists that leave after three weeks, myself included.  I can’t figure out what I can or should allow myself to be to this boy, especially when I want to be everything. 
In terms of mine and Amit’s contribution to Baan Dada, it can primarily be filed away under the heading “Goats.”  Amit’s mom has a bunch of goats and a little goat dairy operation working back in Asheville so he brings to the table this enormous amount of goat knowledge.  Dada has 15 goats (3 of which were born WHILE we were here and perhaps actually accidentally induced their mother’s labor) which are used for a lending program for other people in the area to start their own goat farm.  However we noticed that one of the mother’s had utters the size of two adjacent bladders of Franzia dragging on the ground that wasn’t getting milked so we decided to explore the potentialities of dairy production at Baan Dada.  We built a milking stantion out of scrap wood that worked really well for the first few days of milking until we tried to milk the mom who just gave birth and with one good buck tore the thing apart.  A sturdier one is in the works. I’ve been learning a lot about cheese making and Amit and I made a couple rounds of goat cheese that were unimpressive enough for us to stop using all the milk and just let the mother’s give it to the babies.  We have been teaching the kids how to milk the goats, how to catch them, how to pasteurize the milk etc.  Dada has decided to invest more time to the milk program and if it catches on could be a really nice thing for us to leave behind.  I’ve also been baking bread in a mud brick oven to rave reviews by the kids, the mothers and other volunteers.  I think the only other time I’ve baked bread was trying to bake Ms. Rila’s yeast rolls in Houston with dead yeast and somehow I’ve now become the resident baking expert, which is kindof a laugh even though the bread is I’m making is delicious.
This trip has kindof been characterized by being places we were eager to leave but I have absolutely no desire to leave this place.  We were planning on heading for Cambodia to go to Ankor Wat today before I have to fly back to Hong Kong but no part of me is ready or willing to leave Sanklhaburi and these kids yet. We’ve met two other volunteers here that we really love and have a great time with.  The mothers (women who cook and clean here) make the most incredible food, delicious greens and tofu dishes accompanied by slice after slice of mango, dragon fruit, sweet tamarind and dozens of other fruits I don’t know the name of.  If I thought I had more to offer than just goat farming, and didn’t have loan payments debiting my account constantly like a teenager with her first credit card I’m not sure I’d go at all.   I wish I spoke Thai.  I wish I knew more about this place.  I hope that I give more than I take from this place.  I’ve almost learned all 56 names.
Sistah
(what the kids call foreigners whose names they dont bother learning anymore)

Oh Yeah: we also went to the biggest market in the world in bangkok and ate tons of crazy street food, met an awesome British guy named Richard that we travelled with for a while, went to the beach on an island called Khosamet for a couple days and visited another tiny childrens home near the coast.  all that got dwarfed by the Baan Dada experience somehow.

Posted by Andie in 11:05:33 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Sunday, February 10, 2008

“I guess I’ve just finally accepted that I don’t really care that much about my grandparents” -Meg

In another unexpected turn of events Amit and I are leaving for Thaliand tomorrow on account of unseasonal cold and rain in Hong Kong and year-round high prices and expat banker residents.  We got to Hong Kong, thrilled to escape the cold up North, and delighted to be in Meg’s care.  Off the coast of Hong Kong Island is a smaller, former hippie colony-turned moderate-expat colony called Lamma where Meg lives.  The island is beautiful, covered in quaint tucked away towns, tiny well-manicured farms and gardens and paved hiking trails.  The  only cars on the island are the fire trucks and the ambulances which are about as wide as a 5 year-old child is tall.  It stands as a delightful contrast to Hong Kong’s packed city streets, austere clubs and restaurants and juxtaposed poverty and extreme wealth. Today we put some battery powered speakers in a tiny backpack to make music clothes like lots of Chinese locals wear and introduced the Chinese to Reggae, Manu Chau, Cher, Jamiraqui, Kanye’s Workout plan and a little bit of Thai rap.  

In the evenings we went over to Hong Kong island, about a 30 minute ferry ride from Lamma, which only runs until 12:30am, leaving us stranded til 7:30 on nights we went out drinking, sitting in the only 24-hour diner in Hong Kong, and being reprimanded for falling asleep at the table.  Some nights we went out with Meg’s investment banker friend Niel and his investment banker friends to some of the most “exclusive” clubs in Hong Kong which was really fun until he started ordering us drinks we would never order and then giving us the bill for it.  Despite not wanting to spend a lot of money and wanting to avoid areas densely populated with witty British hedge fund managers we always seemed to end up there.

The most beautiful thing about this place has been the sightings of two other IHPers. Finally Zeno returns to the blog. THank heavens cuz this thing could really use a little spice.  He was flying through Hong Kong on his way back from New Zealand to visit his sick grandmother.  His friend Irra called us and had us meet him in a Confucian temple of all places.  Amit and I practically ran there in the rain to see him.  I couldnt believe that after not seeing him for nearly two years we finally meet again in a Confucian temple in Downtown Hong Kong. He emerged from the clouds of smoke from the incense like the second coming of the savior on his white horse..ok I’m being a little flowery in his honor.  He was actually just leaning up against an alter, dressed head to two in black with an even larger mass of necklaces hopelessly tangled around his neck.  An embrace of epic proportions.  We spent the day wandering Antique markets where he bought an enormous Ancient Chinese legionnaires’ helmet, and Amit and I bought him yet another necklace.  He told us stories of strip searches, and getting into the backs of vans with Hookers; he clumsily danced me around the floors of a busy upscale restaurant and everything was in its right place.  He barely made his flight on time and we sent him off, casually, and unabashedly cutting in line in front of all the other people at the ticket counter.
 
Then there was Clay!  What a treat.  Clay’s parents are teaching here at an international school, so while they were away on vacation we came over and stayed at their spacious apartment where meg and I could sleep without having to spoon each other to fit in the bed and for warmth, and Amit could…continue to sleep on the couch even though he had a bed available to him.  Oh and we did this…
I’m excited for the first use of multimedia in the blog as well as my frist known appearance on youtube.  We were a little weary of the pricey Hong Kong nightlife so we opted for movie marathons, home cooked meals, and drinking games that turned into dance routines.  One of my best days of the trip was the day that Clay and I went to Shenzhen together (big city on the other side of of the Chinese border) so I could milk my Chinese visa a little.  Shenzhen is basically a shopping megalopolis where people will comfortably pull you into their stalls offering copy watches and purses and dvd movies.  I will never forgive myslef for not buying that gel-filled, pig-shaped, slap bracelet watch.  We ate a lot of unusual Chinese candy that tasted like objects not usually found in food, and went to a Chinese equivalent of Luby’s for lunch since it was the only place where we could ascertain with our eyes that the food we were eating did not contain whole squids, fish bodies, or chunks of other unknown animals.  It was lovely.
Despite not wanting to leave Meg, we have decided to spend the rest of the trip in Thailand because it is a little bit easier on the wallet and the cold here lends itself only to hibernation and heavy drinking.  In reality, Hong Kong is just New York without the radical scene, the history, and the bagels.  We did really enjoy the Chinese New Year Fireworks, which we celebrated in the usual way, falafel, bottles of Franzia (who knew they sold it in bottles?) and surrounded by crowds of Chinese people watching it from behind the screens on their cellphone cameras.  Otherwise Chinese New Year isn’t that fun unless you are Chinese, which we aren’t so so long Hong Kong.  Time for something I’m a little more used to: heat, humidity, jungle, disproportionate attention for light color of skin.  I guess that is all I really know about Thailand.  I’ll let you know more when I do.
Gersh Alert
Posted by Andie in 17:15:29 | Permalink | Comments (5)

Sunday, February 3, 2008

“Well the Earth died screaming while I lay dreaming. I blame it on you”

The New Great Wall of China (a firewall that prevents the chinese people from accessing video sharing websites and other forms of email and online information networks like wikipedia) has determined that my blog is innappropriate content for the eyes of chinese readers so it blocked it.  Now that I am in Hong Kong, though I’ve been here for a week, I can finally publish something of what I’ve been up to the last couple weeks.

In a surprsising turn of events, our flight out of Japan to Shanghai had been canceled due to maintenance, an advantageous position in the airline perks world that had Amit salivating at the mouth.  We quickly browsed through all the other places that we could’ve gotten a free flight for then and there and settled on Beijing because we didn’t drop $130 dollars on Chinese Visas just to decorate the passport.  So off we went to Beijing with an airport provided hotel and breakfast that they didnt technically have to provide awaiting us on the other end.  We knew we were really someplace quite different when amit decided to steal a small hand towel from the hotel room to wrap up a donut he borrowed from the all-you-can-eat-here buffet, and seconds later the desk agent at check out inquired, “where small towel?” and amit had to go run and “locate” the small towel that had somehow made its way “under the bed.”  No more stealing in China.

In Beijing I was visited by three very dear old friends:  food poisoning,  culture shock, and seasonal depression.  Since everybody loves diarrhea/vomit stories I’ll start there first.  A liter bottle of Tsingtao in China costs approximately 40 to 60 cents even with restaurant markup, so after pouring two of those on top of a steamed sweet potato I got off a bucket on rolling street cart and a pizza from a questionable travellers cafe, and getting blatantly and bluntly hit on by the only Mexican dude in China, I had an all night vomit fest that left a ring of splatter around around every possible recepticle within puking distance from my hostel bed.  Amit’s sleep was more or less undisturbed and I was mostly better the next day.

Then came culture shock. Hadn’t seen this one in a while.  We’re talking irrational contempt for your surroundings, feelings of wanting to escape, putting familiar things on pedastals and asserting their superiority…all that jazz.  I think most of it was rooted in the fact that people in China just do NOT speak english with any consistency so never have I felt so totally and completely inept.  The best english speakers we found in China were very well-educated chinese university students running what foreigners call “tea scams” in Tiananmen Square, where they approach you and talk to you, invite you to a few pots of tea which you find cost around $70 each and next thing you know your smacked with a 250 dollar bill they get a comission off of and an urgent need to pee.  We avoided this like pros but did get caught up in buying a 13 dollar painting of a pig somehow from some “art students” who brought us to their art exhibition.  Aside from the frustration, we found ourselves excited by China, the hustle and bustle, the street culture, how cheap everything is.  It was quite a contrast to block after block of trendy people, vending machines, and places that look like time square.  Though in anticipation of the 2008 Olympics, China has issued 7 changes that the people of Beijing should make to become more agreeable to Westerners like me.  They have to stop spitting in the streets, tucking their shirts up into their armpits on hot days, littering, cursing loudly and profanely in the streets and they have to start lining up more for subways and buses like in Japan.  Based on my short experience in Beijing, the Chinese government will never be successful in accomplishing these tasks, and most certainly not by September.  It amazes me that the Olympic committee was impressed enough with Beijing to select it for the summer games as it was offered up by the people of  China but now has to undergo a good thorough cultural cleansing.


My final visit was from my buddy seasonal depression. Hello there.  Haven’t seen you since around this time last year!  Beijing was the kinda cold that felt like it was cutting flesh off.  After a few days of trying to brave it to see Tienanmen and the Forbidden City, and that not wanting to leave our hostel because we didn’t feel like spending the entire evening defrosting to have dexterity in our hands enough to use chopsticks to eat, I plummeted into the darkest environmentally-induced depression Id experienced to date.  I would’ve licked the Xanex residue off of the nostrils of an angsty 14 year-old suburbanite if I thought it could raise me out of this.  It felt like our basement hostel room was getting deeper and deeper every time we entered it, and I found the some of the most creative ways to dislike myself and the world around me, charting some new self-hatred territory I never even new was on the map.  So I basically rolled out the mental red carpet for culture shock, and had dinner prepared.  Oily non-vegetarian dinner with fish disguised as squash.  The depression only abated after we had a train ticket to Hong Kong and a trip booked to hike 10K along the Great Wall of China.  This was the best hike I’ve ever done.  It turns out that the only things certain in my life are death and hiking, so I tried to embrace it and I’m glad I did.  We hiked from the Jinshanling portion of the great wall to Simatai, about a 4 hour hike up and down from tower after crumbling tower along the wall admiring spectacular views of the wall snaking up and over the mountains.  Finally blue skies and sunshine on my face.  I credit my success on this hike to my dedication to step aerobics.  It was my favorite day in China.  We spent the evening drinking cheap beer at a nearby hostel with two American guys from Nicaragua who kept saying “Bring me more food Bitch!” to our waitress at the restaurant we ate at after, among other profanities since she didnt speak English.  

The train ride to Hong Kong was frozen.  The train was frozen.  The faucets were frozen. The windows were frozen.  The trendy Mongolian girls sharing our berth were frozen.  They loaned me their leg warmers because I didn’t have any clean pants and my legs were bare. 26 hours long. Now we are in Hong Kong and today was the first day since we have been here that we saw sunshine.  I think I will write later about Hong Kong because Beijing was a lot to tackle in one blog and I’ve been trying to write this freakin thing for 2 weeks now.  It is wonderful to be with Meg and Clay.  We even had a special guest appearance by Zeno!  More to come.

Happy Super Bowl Sunday,

Andie
Posted by Andie in 19:20:53 | Permalink | Comments (7)

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

You’re a great catch. You’ll make some fisherman very happy.

Amit and I bounce back and forth between two different worlds here in Tokyo virtually unrelatable to one another.  Here they are as best as I can describe them. 

The Homelife:  You think when you sign up on an international network of people who let travelers crash on their open couches that you would inevitably end up with a lonely post-grad teaching english abroad or a strung out hippie expat still in deep a life long love affair with communal space.  You don’t think of a Hawaiian Air Force officer, his Japanese wife and two kids living on a giant Air Base who knows the strip club scene of Tokyo like the back of his hand and ends up passing out after a night out with his buddies on the living room floor.  Amit and I are currently stationed on Yokota Air Base in Fussa, about an hour and a half from downtown by train.  They drive us to and from the train station when we go in and out of town.  It takes us so long to get where we are going that it feels that in between rides we are straddling two different universes.  Makai, our “homestay father” (haha) took us out the other night to a bar without a single Japanese person in it, with his buddies, a gang of Hawaiian dudes that love to drink heavily, fart, and then grab each other and wave it into each other’s faces.  Makai’s party trick, which we did not get to see thank god, is pulling out his fake plexiglass testicle given to him after he was misdiagnosed with testicular cancer and banging it on tables, smashing it with beer glasses, and stabbing it with high heels for free drinks.  Though he is by no means what I expected, he is still a whole lot of fun and wouldn’t trade him for any Japanese national.  His wife is the sweetest, most hospitable woman I’ve ever met, who cooks for us, buys us cake, and translates Japanese game shows for us on tv.  She is also terminally ill with breast cancer.  Makai told us the other night though you’d never know.  We aren’t really sure what to make of it.  We hear him talk about all these military guys out here with their Filipino and Japanese wives who are also “hostesses” at bars, and can’t quite make out the significance of their relationships, but are trying not to make any unsubstantiated judgments.  We spend a lot of time playing with Kaimana and Kiara, their children, while watching American tv and eating either udon noodles and kelp or quaker oatmeal squares and banana nut crunch.

The citylife:  The average day consists of Amit and I going to a different ward of Tokyo, walking around, deciding everything that people who come here are supposed to want to do is too expensive, buying beers from the convenience store and than searching for a place to drink them where we don’t have to buy anything. One conversation after another about the first world absence of public space. This is the first time since New Zealand that I have travelled to an affluent society.  I am someplace where my whiteness is not a novelty, nor an annoyance.  I am unusual, and loud, but I am not targeted for solicitation, or targeted for larceny, at least as far as I can tell.  Amit and I are trying to interpret how we are being perceived without the use of language in a society that is noted for its reservation and stoicism.  I do not feel any of the usual symptoms of guilt or shame in my privilege because chances are everyone around me has a lot more money than I do and a lot less debt.  I cannot complain about feeling like I’m consuming other peoples culture because the truth is I can’t really afford to consume it.  We see things we want and we soothingly pat each other on the backs, promising one another that it will be cheaper in China.  I had a little bit of an “I’m not doing anything good for anybody” meltdown on the train last night, but I’m feeling a little better today.  I wanted to see everything you could see in Tokyo in one week, and during the meltdown I realized it wasn’t possible and that took a lot of pressure off.  When we are not on the train we walk the streets for hours, freezing our asses off, but not really sure what we would do if we stopped.  We saw a temple at night in Asakusa.  We stayed out all night at a club in Roppongi.  We found out we were not at all trendy enough for Shibuya or really all of Japan. We’ve tried like hell to find vegetarian Japanese food in Shinjuku and failed, and ate curry instead.  We have approached people with questions, where with the little English they have, they try so sincerely and so kindly to answer our questions that we get trapped in a downward spiral of misunderstanding so confusing that we are now scared of talking to people.  We can’t find the Japanese poor.  We are happy to be together though it bugs me when he whistles and he hates my black skirt.  We are clearly together all the time. =)

In both worlds I find familiarity and novelty, and really fucking nice people trying their hardest to make things easy and fun for me.  I’m in a country where on every corner you can find an arcade with an ENTIRE floor of those machines with the claws that pick up stuffed animals and drop them in the slot only they contain busty figurines, coffee mugs and cans of soup.  I have no idea what I’m doing.
Andie
Posted by Andie in 15:12:45 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Friday, January 11, 2008

“Passenger Amit Dorf, Please report to gate 34A IMMEDIATELY. Amit Dorf”

Amit mysteriously appeared at my side as I was asking a Northwest ticketing representative if the 9:00 from Asheville had arrived.  It had and there he was…exhausted, because turns out he DID need the passport of his that I had in my purse to get on that leg of the flight, and he had also left his wallet at home, thus holding up the entire flight as his mom scrambled home to retrieve the wallet and higher authorities were consulted on the passport issue.  He had to leave almost immediately to go recheck his bag as I waited amid desperate calls of “Passenger Amit Dorf, Please report to gate 34A immediately!”  Just in case I forgot for a minute WHO I was travelling with, I was granted a very blunt reminder.

The flight was long and boring despite 90 minutes of Ratatouille, and the excitement of being glared at by a Japanese girl ahead of me who’s seat I kept kicking inadvertantly, who I would be willing to bet even surprised herself by how hatefilled her eyes could be.  Amit’s fried Maddie was there at the gate waiting for us. THank you sweet lord!  I love her because she makes fun of Amit in the ways I wish I could but would undoubtedly piss him off.  Due to some poor calculations on my part, I completely forgot about the whole international date line thing, and told the guy we were staying with we’d be arriving a day earlier, so we were left up to our own devices last night.  Amit’s friend Nao made us a reservation at a hostel in a part of Tokyo that looks like a peculiar mix of Brooklyn and Brookline, where our hotel was vended to us in a vending machine that also sold bath towels, toothbrushes, shaving equipment and shampoo.  Boys and girls were accomadated only in separate rooms on separate floors that are password protected so Amit and I had to stay apart which must make you happy Dad! haha.

Maddy and Nao took us to dinner at a Japanese-style Western dinner where it looked as though they were selling caricatures of American favorites like salisbury steaks and ice cream.  Amit and I had pizza, instead of a more traditional Japanese noodle dish for the sake of irony and the sake of Meg (no pineapple, boo), though we are committed to hitting Japanese cuisine hard and fast today.

Here are some stats on our first impressions of Tokyo:

-Best thing about Japan: There are BEER VENDING MACHINES.  Pretty much everywhere.  We were made aware of this by a Temple University student here on exchange whose primary mission was to break into the Japanese soft gay porn industry.  Turns out the weirdest thing about Japanese culture are the weird-ass Americans who come here.

-Myth-busted: Everyone speaks English in Tokyo.  False False False.

-Myths-certifiable: Subways are virtually silent.  People queue up in an orderly fashion to get in them unless there is a rush and then people push each other.  All billboards are cartoons.  Asian porn is plentiful, accessible and grrrrrossssss.

Today we are going to go find the dude we are staying with for the rest of the time.  It is extremely expensive to get around this city, and just as confusing for a first timer.  So this should be an expensive adventure.

In other news Amit just realized that this is the fatherland of Ninja Warrior and Most Xtreme Elimination Challenge. He is happiest I’ve seen him so far.

Hasta luego,
Andie

Posted by Andie in 01:48:16 | Permalink | Comments (4)