What scents might I consider noxious or attractive when I return to the States? Might I choke at the perfume counters of a department store or find the odorific fumes emitted form fast food restaurants more nauseating than I already do? Having not smelled my own country for months or years, I anticipate I’ll become aware or at least cognizant of some inherently American scents I never recognized or detected. Changes in olfactory sense are common among women, especially during menstruation and pregnancy, as I’ve witnessed with the former. No one should have a sense of smell so highly tned! There are certain things that just shouldn’t be smelled, but I care not to go into detail as the mere scanning of these olfactory iamges across yoru eyes may cause damage to your nose.
Westerners, especially Americans, have this preconceived notion that everything smells bad in other countries. Before I departed for India I was often asked, “Doesn’t it stink there?” How am I supposed to respond to ignorance without calling a spade a spade? I chose to respond as such: “The way I look at it, you either love or hate the smell of India. If you like the smell of Indian food, you’ll like the smell of India.” I happen to love the innumerable spices used by Indians so the smell of that country was more than delightful to me. It’s like being wrapped with sun-warmed bamboo leaves and decorated with a palette of fragrant colors.
People even warned me about Italians before my first trip there. “They don’t bathe,” people said. “They don’t wear deodorant,” others said. Where do people get such images? Espresso’s scent, for instance, is jsut as deep, rich and ripe as the beverage itself, and it puts the scent of American coffees to shame. Italian perfumes are some of hte best in the world and the italians love to use them, only not to the extreme (suffocation) that Americans do. Does that mean that only those you douse themselves in perfume or cologne are said to smell pleasantly? That may be symbolic of America: that its citizens would rather smell somethign artificial than soemthing real. If that’s the case, I want to ask: would you rather smell your lover’s shirt after a long run or smell your lover himself? OK, if you’re not into sweat, let’s consider something else. Would you rather smell the pillow your lover has slept on or your lover herself?
We’d take the real thing in most cases. But with traveling abroad, scents are a part of hte journey. They are instant memory makers. You can be 5,000 miles from your grandmother’s house, and she could have passed 20 years ago, but a scent floats by in the breeze and suddenly your grandmother is standing beside you as a child and youre’ reliving a beloved memory. All because of a scent. Somthing intangible, incaable of beign bottled (no matter how hard scientists try), but able to transport us in our minds to another time and palce. Notice there aren’t many negative associations formed around scents? The only ones I can conjure are artificial ones. For instance, every time I think of a particular cologne it brings to mind a past boyfriend. But first I have to cut through the positive assocaitions before recalling that that boyfriend is an ex for a reason. Anyway, back to traveling. I’m not so sure that scents and odors should be judged so harshley as many Westerners tend to do when traveling abroad. Countries possess their own scents. I cherish the lemony and perfumy fragrances of Italy, and I cherish the earthy, enveloping scents of India. I don’t recall the bad odors.
it’s almost as if we’ve been programmed to believe that if it doesnt come out of a can, shaker, bottle or other container then it cannot possible smell good; that it must be covered up. I disagree. Sure, I like perfumes. I used Coco Chanel for years, but now that I’m in a developing nation where the price of a bottle of Coco culd feed a Chinese family, I find smelling like the contents of a perfume bottle to be rather...well...superfluous. it suprised me how quickly i started to smell China on myself. Thre days, I think it took, and the first scent I caught was of graham crackers. Granted, I had been munching on a lot of Chinese crackers that taste similar to graham crackers. But the more I thought out it the more I realized that no morsel of American food was in mybody anymore. Memories flooded back of the time a former boyfriend returned to the States from six months in Italy. I’d been subtly appreciative of the slight lemony, musky scent he effected since I picked him up at the airport and hugged him. His sister, however, didnt’ react as affectinately. He removed his winter coat upon entering his family’s house, whereupon she immediately exclaimed “You smell weird!”
Over the next few weeks I rveled in the lemony clean, sweet yet musky scent of his body, and I thoroughly enjoyed it whenever in Italy. I still feel kissed with memories of that country whenever teh refreshing scent of lemon permeates the air. That boyfriend never mentioned anyone discussing his scent, but years later and after several weeks of living in China I wished he had.
Scent is a weird thing, indeed. It often conjures colors for me. For instance, I can tell what my lovers have eaten, espeically if they’ve consumed meat. They come bearing a scent that’s sickly brown, about the color of turkey meat that’s not quite the dark nor wuite the light meat. This highly tuned olfanctory skill has been culminated over 15 years of my being a vegetarian, but lovers come to know each other’s scent naturally. After all, an individual’s scent is a bio-mechanical instrument to guide humans to each other for mating. One reason perfumes never smell natural is because, being manufactured itms, that is made by humans and laboratory science, we will never be quite able to tap into the essence of a scent that makes it work on a base level. We can never recreate what works for us subconsciusly.
Yu’ve likely heard it said in movies, “She just smells like home.” Well, take that sentiment as a direct translation of our human motives: we are guided to one another through a sort of homing mechanism.
“Finally, I just stopped dating black men,” a gay friend once told me. he was recalling a bad story about a breakup he’d had with his last in a string of black boyfriends, when I asked him to expound. IN my mind I see the color blue.
“So it was a race thing?” I don’t know. I’ve never dated someone from another country or been intimate enough with someone from another race to become familiar with their scent. All I know is that there’s someting in Italian DNA that I cannot refuse; it’s something like a cautious red clashing with a generous green.
“Sort of. I never got used to the way they smelled,” my friend says, edifying me in detail of how and where African Americans smell differnt from what we’re used to as white people. Like smelling different after living in another contry for some time, I had never known this. People talk abotu sights, sounds, tastes, and to a lesser degree our tactile expereinces. We take for granted, however, the power of scent. Perhaps that explains the popularity of WHO Suskind’s relatively poignant effort to encapsulate its power in his novel (and the subsequent film) The Perfume.
The scent of ourselves is not something we can ever experience though. We can never be that objective. The closest example I can envisage is one of our own homes. Frequently we become so accustomed to our domestic surroundings that it’s only when we return from a few days away and open the door that we get a sense of what we might smell like. For instance, you may no longer notice the odor of dogs and cigarette smoke or dust and old books. The heavy odors of ethnic food you’ve cooked or perfume that’s hit the bathroom wall after 14 years of spraying it from the same angle have blended into the fabric, teh architecture. Spring cleaning or even weekly cleaning may do some justice to help prevent or reduce your individual residential smells, but life creates more, and they’re permanent.
Now, living in another country, eating the food of another culture day in and day out, using this culture’s hygienic products like olive shampoo, sandalwood soap and lemon chewing gum, the home that is my body has infused and diffused new scents. What colors they are, I know not. In my mind I see yellow like my hair, green like my eyes, and coppery reds like my skin’s autumnal hues. I have discovered, though, whatever Chinese scents that cause me to diffuse the smell of tofu, green tea and graham crackers, I still smell like home– just not a Chinese home.
One roomate tells me about an experience today of switching from one cab to another. Each driver, it seems, reeks of cheap booze and the lack of a shower.
“They just smell so bad. Why do Chinese people smell so bad?” are common questions among the group of Westerners with whom I associate. I know it’s not just the people they refer to. I know that in the back of their mind they are thinking of the time they walk down the corridor of large public buildings to be olfactorily punched by the odor of stale urine and wastebacskets unwashed after years of collecting menstrual materials. I know they’re thinking of the time they sat in a cab whose driver (inadvertinently?) left bags of wht’s appropriately called stinky tofu in the hot back seat.
The smell of Chinese people doesn’t overwhelm me genreally. (But perhaps that’s because I’m of the persuasion that anything Indian smells good.) Maybe I just expect it more because I’ve been to a small handful of countries other than America. I am well aware of the fact that the often rotten teeth and the repeated use of clothign I see on my students indicates there is a smell not American. They do not bathe themselves in products to mask their natural scent, nor are they obsessed with prcenting scents that naturally occur in a well lived day. They do bathe; I see them carrying their shower caddies from their dorm rooms to places unknown off the university campus. I see them return with wet hair and seemingly glowing faces and skin not covered by their thick winter clthing.
What can be offsetting is their breath. Americans are taught by dentists to brush our teeth three times daily. Gum is sold in stores and newspaper kiosks. Toothbrushes are available at gas stations. Mouthwash is given freely at hotels. But then again the American culture is so obsessed with the image of a perfect outh that teeth whitening has become de facto and availabel in countless methods. Maybe it’s becuse I’m so aware of my homeland’s culture of the cover up that I’m not as easily disgusted by their bad breath. However, i cannot claim to be unaffected.
There is indeed a certain ripple of nausea that runs through me when enclosed with a cab driver who breathes out of his mouth. There is a wave of dizziness that invisbly encircles me when surrounded by a handful of students who want to see their grade at my desk. There is a natural culture-induced tendancy to thrust my head back when a 20-something cashier smiles to reveal a mouthful of half brown teeth.
If I were to allow myself to remain so sensitive about these smells my world travels would be far less enjoyable. I choose to remain ambiguous about them...until one of my students writes in a class assignment that one memorable thing about her teacher (yours truly) is “her American smell.”
Now my suppressed thoughts about the odors of China hit the air, so to speak. What does that mean? What does that mean to a Chinese person?
“She probably meant you smell clean,” says the roommate who is viscerally affected by Chiense olfacfory experiences.
I take stock of what external scents might have preempted this literary statement. I wear scented deoderant, whcih was manufactured in America. I wash and condition my hair with Chinese products. I cleanse my clothing in Chinese laundry detergent and fabric softener. I adorn my face with French and American cosmetics. I chew Chiense mint gum afer smoking the same cigarettes smoked by virtually every man (and few women) in this country.
I smoke. Perhaps that’s it.
I ask students in another class. “What did that student mean when she wrote that I smell like an American?” I’m hoping to glean some cultural insight I’d not bothted to seek from my experience with my ex.
The answer still evades me. The students seemed to think the question was so obvius that it didnt’ require an answer. It was as if I’d asked them if the sky were blue.
I will admit to being taken aback by the student’s literary characterization of me. I am human. If Americans think people from other cultures smell bad, do Chinese people think Americans smell bad?
With their limited English my students inform me that my smell is simply not theirs. Then it dawns on me: If I’m an African American I’m going to possess that scent that my gay friend no longer found desirable. If I’m Italian I’m going to smell lemony and musky. If I’m Indian I’m going to smell like curry and tamarind.
No matter how often I clean my house, no matter how frequently I bathe, no matter if I use scented products, no matter if I eat meat or not, I will always smell like me. I will always smell like home.
31 March 2009
26 March 2009
Preaching to Incmates
“The inmates run the asylum,” my supervisor says.
We are at a hole in the wall that serves as a bar, discussing the likelihood that I’ll be fired if I don’t stop acting like a Western teacher. It’s around 7 PM, dark and still so cold that a winter jacket is essential even inside every establishment. Another Westerner who used to teach at the university where my job is threatened is there. His very presence unnerves me. There is no such thing as privacy, let alone propriety in a Communist country– even among the Westerners.
“They don’t want to do homework. They don’t want to use the computer. They don’t know how to debate without thinking you have some political agenda. And if they don’t like you they will do their damndest to get you fired,” Supervisor says. A bottle of red wine before him, he pours himself a glass and offers me some, whcih I gladly take to diminish my edginess. With a bulky sweater on his already bulky body he reminds me of Hemingway. All that’s missing if a fireplace– and an irate temper, I guess. I tell him so, practicing my business etiquette but not without sincerity. “Trust me on this one. You’re doign exactly what I did when I came to China. And what all Westerners who care abotu education do: yu’re trying to teach them to think.”
Is that what I’m doing? I fly through the mental files to recall that conscious thought. Teach them to think... teach them to think... nope can’t find – oh! There it is, filed under a conversation held with a friend over lunch at a favorite restaurant at the University of Chicago, teh day before I left for China. Yes indeed. “I’m gonna teach those Communist kids critical thinking.”
“But I’m not preachign politics. I told you before I will not talk politics,” I say. An objctive listening would hear “No, I’m not!” contradicted with the passion only a critical thinker (hence one who infuses politics into everything she thinks and does).
“Well, you may not be talking abotu Obama or Democrats versus Republicans, but you did have them do a debate on capitalism versus nationalism.”
“That I did. There were debate sujects in the book I was given for class and I... well, I let one evolve. The original debate we did in class was abotu money: is making money more important than nationalism. That worked fine.”
I’m confused. On teh 24-hour drive from Beijing to Huludao, Neil discussed in detail some topics he’d discussed in class and the hoemwork he’s assigned his students. Two thousnad-word essays on the atrocities committed by Chairman Mao, true histories of Taiwan and Hong Kong, freedom on speech and of the press.... And here I was about to be fired to assigning 200-word compositions to debate the topic of nationalism vs. capitalism. Thank gracious I opted that day against implementing a Marxist dictionary entry on art and aesthetics to my Chinese major students!
“Listen, you’re a very intellectual and politically charged American who is used to debating these topics and others like them in university classes since your freshman year. You can have these discussions in America with everyone, especially the creative crowd you hang around with. You’re very libereal and very educated. But you have to dumb it down,” Supervisor says, somethign between a smile and smirk abotu his face.
He makes enough eye contact to let me know he’s talking to me. He does not make enough to cause me to think we’re having a personal heart to heart. This still has to be professional, though his diction wavers between professional and personal. He refills my glass when it’s empty.
“They don’t care abotu these things. They’re dumb. They’re realy dumb. They’re like fifth graders. You have to handle them with kid gloves.”
Kid gloves? I have to handle the 22-year-olds who want to fire me with kid gloves? They call teh shots at the univertsity and I’m supposed to kowtow to them? This is beyond culture shock; this goes against my constitution: I do not kowtow to anyone, but I will handle an editor or publisher with kid gloves. That’s what I understand. That’s what I know, To handle a superior with diplomacy and tact, curtailing my politics when the boss calls for somethign small. It’s my way of holding out til I earn the big stuff. It’s one of those situations where you do it their way for a while until they learn they can trust you and rely on you and then you get the good stuff.
“You just haven’t earned their trust yet,” says the other Westerner, a Canadian who’s been in China illegally for a couple of years.
I’m confused again. Why would they laugh so much in my classes and why would some of my classes almost unanimously turn in their homework if they so disliked me? Why do they show me one face then talk to teh director of the universtiy out of the other side of it? Why would they come to study English privately with me in the teachers lounge at lunch and bring me treats in class? Such duplicity is evidently more obviated in America than in China. Such duplicity I cannot fathom. Duplicity I cannot suffer.
“Look. I’m just telling you what not to do. I’ve learned this after beign fired from two jobs. I’ve been here four years. I’m married to a Chinese woman. I’ve learned a thing or two abotu how to do these things,” Supervisor says. “Just give it some time. For right now, though you will not give hoemwork. You will not have them blgo anything. You will not have any more debates. You will follow the book, unless you can see it’s gonna lead to mroe political upheaval.”
Supervisor tells me to talk to my 22-year-olds abotu fashion, about leading stress-free lives, about health and exercise, abotu wedding customs, about baeball and pop stars. To a person who’s spent the majority of her career hanging out with PhDs, architects and engineers, this sounds absolutly laughable. But I think abotu it more deeply as Supervisor continues to tell how he really cared about shaping these minds to lead China into a new age as I did. He tells me about how he can now somewhat more freely discuss heated topics with students he’s had repeatedly, students who have granted him their trust and who want to go to graduate school and become the next great writer.
“One in a hundred students you have will be like this. Don’t worry abotu the others. If they wnt to work in a facotry or drive a cab after graduation that is not your fault. If they want to remain brainwashed by Communist propoganda and never learn critical thinking, you can’t hep them. If they don’t see the opportunities available to them, that’s not yoru concern. In class discussions, you will lose about a third of your students quickly. Keep talking. Soon enough you’ll lose another third. Keep talking. After a while half of the rest will tune out. Keep talking. You’re still gonna have an impact on those who turn out to be the one in a hundred. When they do something with their lives in 10 or 20 years part of it will be because of something you taught them. But for right now, get your baseball lingo going, and talk to them abotu the Amrican movies you like. Talk tot them abotu yoga and a vegetarian diet. Talk to them about weddings– I know you don’t beleive in marriage but love and marriage is all they can think about. Tell them you don’t want to get married but inform them of American wedding customs. They find it fascinating.”
“My politics have turned from beign disenfranchised by American convention to gritting my teeth over a conversation abotu weddings?”
Supervisor tells me I don’t have to espouse these things. I just can’t act pissed off about them or politicize it to the students.
Kid gloves. Let the inmates run the asylum. All that matters is that I have a job. IN the end, it’s less taxing. I can stop running myself to empty, spending 20 hours a week on homework only to find more to grade. I can focus instead on the other reasons I’m in China: travel, writing, and exploring a culture (in nonpolitical ways). Somehow it makes my job... and my life here... a lot easier. By learnign diplomacy, I would not have guessed that I’d learn to simplify my life.
That was a good lesson. May I have the wherewithal to be able to teach my students so well.
We are at a hole in the wall that serves as a bar, discussing the likelihood that I’ll be fired if I don’t stop acting like a Western teacher. It’s around 7 PM, dark and still so cold that a winter jacket is essential even inside every establishment. Another Westerner who used to teach at the university where my job is threatened is there. His very presence unnerves me. There is no such thing as privacy, let alone propriety in a Communist country– even among the Westerners.
“They don’t want to do homework. They don’t want to use the computer. They don’t know how to debate without thinking you have some political agenda. And if they don’t like you they will do their damndest to get you fired,” Supervisor says. A bottle of red wine before him, he pours himself a glass and offers me some, whcih I gladly take to diminish my edginess. With a bulky sweater on his already bulky body he reminds me of Hemingway. All that’s missing if a fireplace– and an irate temper, I guess. I tell him so, practicing my business etiquette but not without sincerity. “Trust me on this one. You’re doign exactly what I did when I came to China. And what all Westerners who care abotu education do: yu’re trying to teach them to think.”
Is that what I’m doing? I fly through the mental files to recall that conscious thought. Teach them to think... teach them to think... nope can’t find – oh! There it is, filed under a conversation held with a friend over lunch at a favorite restaurant at the University of Chicago, teh day before I left for China. Yes indeed. “I’m gonna teach those Communist kids critical thinking.”
“But I’m not preachign politics. I told you before I will not talk politics,” I say. An objctive listening would hear “No, I’m not!” contradicted with the passion only a critical thinker (hence one who infuses politics into everything she thinks and does).
“Well, you may not be talking abotu Obama or Democrats versus Republicans, but you did have them do a debate on capitalism versus nationalism.”
“That I did. There were debate sujects in the book I was given for class and I... well, I let one evolve. The original debate we did in class was abotu money: is making money more important than nationalism. That worked fine.”
I’m confused. On teh 24-hour drive from Beijing to Huludao, Neil discussed in detail some topics he’d discussed in class and the hoemwork he’s assigned his students. Two thousnad-word essays on the atrocities committed by Chairman Mao, true histories of Taiwan and Hong Kong, freedom on speech and of the press.... And here I was about to be fired to assigning 200-word compositions to debate the topic of nationalism vs. capitalism. Thank gracious I opted that day against implementing a Marxist dictionary entry on art and aesthetics to my Chinese major students!
“Listen, you’re a very intellectual and politically charged American who is used to debating these topics and others like them in university classes since your freshman year. You can have these discussions in America with everyone, especially the creative crowd you hang around with. You’re very libereal and very educated. But you have to dumb it down,” Supervisor says, somethign between a smile and smirk abotu his face.
He makes enough eye contact to let me know he’s talking to me. He does not make enough to cause me to think we’re having a personal heart to heart. This still has to be professional, though his diction wavers between professional and personal. He refills my glass when it’s empty.
“They don’t care abotu these things. They’re dumb. They’re realy dumb. They’re like fifth graders. You have to handle them with kid gloves.”
Kid gloves? I have to handle the 22-year-olds who want to fire me with kid gloves? They call teh shots at the univertsity and I’m supposed to kowtow to them? This is beyond culture shock; this goes against my constitution: I do not kowtow to anyone, but I will handle an editor or publisher with kid gloves. That’s what I understand. That’s what I know, To handle a superior with diplomacy and tact, curtailing my politics when the boss calls for somethign small. It’s my way of holding out til I earn the big stuff. It’s one of those situations where you do it their way for a while until they learn they can trust you and rely on you and then you get the good stuff.
“You just haven’t earned their trust yet,” says the other Westerner, a Canadian who’s been in China illegally for a couple of years.
I’m confused again. Why would they laugh so much in my classes and why would some of my classes almost unanimously turn in their homework if they so disliked me? Why do they show me one face then talk to teh director of the universtiy out of the other side of it? Why would they come to study English privately with me in the teachers lounge at lunch and bring me treats in class? Such duplicity is evidently more obviated in America than in China. Such duplicity I cannot fathom. Duplicity I cannot suffer.
“Look. I’m just telling you what not to do. I’ve learned this after beign fired from two jobs. I’ve been here four years. I’m married to a Chinese woman. I’ve learned a thing or two abotu how to do these things,” Supervisor says. “Just give it some time. For right now, though you will not give hoemwork. You will not have them blgo anything. You will not have any more debates. You will follow the book, unless you can see it’s gonna lead to mroe political upheaval.”
Supervisor tells me to talk to my 22-year-olds abotu fashion, about leading stress-free lives, about health and exercise, abotu wedding customs, about baeball and pop stars. To a person who’s spent the majority of her career hanging out with PhDs, architects and engineers, this sounds absolutly laughable. But I think abotu it more deeply as Supervisor continues to tell how he really cared about shaping these minds to lead China into a new age as I did. He tells me about how he can now somewhat more freely discuss heated topics with students he’s had repeatedly, students who have granted him their trust and who want to go to graduate school and become the next great writer.
“One in a hundred students you have will be like this. Don’t worry abotu the others. If they wnt to work in a facotry or drive a cab after graduation that is not your fault. If they want to remain brainwashed by Communist propoganda and never learn critical thinking, you can’t hep them. If they don’t see the opportunities available to them, that’s not yoru concern. In class discussions, you will lose about a third of your students quickly. Keep talking. Soon enough you’ll lose another third. Keep talking. After a while half of the rest will tune out. Keep talking. You’re still gonna have an impact on those who turn out to be the one in a hundred. When they do something with their lives in 10 or 20 years part of it will be because of something you taught them. But for right now, get your baseball lingo going, and talk to them abotu the Amrican movies you like. Talk tot them abotu yoga and a vegetarian diet. Talk to them about weddings– I know you don’t beleive in marriage but love and marriage is all they can think about. Tell them you don’t want to get married but inform them of American wedding customs. They find it fascinating.”
“My politics have turned from beign disenfranchised by American convention to gritting my teeth over a conversation abotu weddings?”
Supervisor tells me I don’t have to espouse these things. I just can’t act pissed off about them or politicize it to the students.
Kid gloves. Let the inmates run the asylum. All that matters is that I have a job. IN the end, it’s less taxing. I can stop running myself to empty, spending 20 hours a week on homework only to find more to grade. I can focus instead on the other reasons I’m in China: travel, writing, and exploring a culture (in nonpolitical ways). Somehow it makes my job... and my life here... a lot easier. By learnign diplomacy, I would not have guessed that I’d learn to simplify my life.
That was a good lesson. May I have the wherewithal to be able to teach my students so well.
24 March 2009
Not a Sexy Tractor
I'm a long way from the corn fields and cow pastures of Indiana but its music isn't far from me... unfortunately. In fact I'm hiding away in my office to escape it.
My American roommate from Texas is inculcating my Irish roommate into the world of country music. Something by Kenny Chesney, I think (I believe he's a current popular country musician).
"She thinks my tractor's sexy
She loves staring at me
while I’m chugging along"
Whoa doggies!
Maybe they're looking for songs to pick up the ancient farmers who drive by us in their horse-drawn boxes on the main thoroughfares of our city.
I'll stick with Radiohead, Ravi Shankar and Sheryl Crow.
My American roommate from Texas is inculcating my Irish roommate into the world of country music. Something by Kenny Chesney, I think (I believe he's a current popular country musician).
"She thinks my tractor's sexy
She loves staring at me
while I’m chugging along"
Whoa doggies!
Maybe they're looking for songs to pick up the ancient farmers who drive by us in their horse-drawn boxes on the main thoroughfares of our city.
I'll stick with Radiohead, Ravi Shankar and Sheryl Crow.
23 March 2009
Staring Problem
While I won’t say we feel like we fit in, we Western teachers have begun to instantly notice the present of other white people. For instance, last week while shopping one of our gang met some American university students. He said he’d been attracted by the sound of female American accents, and recognized that they were not those of me and Laura, and so he introduced himself and invited the ladies and the rest of their bunch to meet all of us.
They accepted and on Saturday, while we teachers were enjoying beers at one of the two bars here who cater to Westerners, in walked about 10 white people. It became clearer (though not transparent) to us what we stir in the Chinese when we are spotted.
“They don’t look like us” or “Hey, those are Westerners” are some of the sentiments expressed when some French, American and other architects and students entered the 8:30 bar.
(I was not personally interested until I saw the Indian architect. What is the chance I’d meet an Indian architect in this non-Western facsimile of a modernized city? Atop those glorious elements, he is very well educated and spent several years studying and working in Europe; he dresses with distinction, and he and I have spoken for hours about internationally renown architects and landscape architects.)
“S T A R I N G... I can’t stop staring”
The following day was a trip back to reality, though. Walking around this city’s downtown area reminds me that I am and will continue to be a novelty to these people. They stop when I exit the cab. They stare, bumping into one another and halting their own conversation when I walk down the street. They forget their direction when finished in line at the hospital pharmacy to stare at my Ray Ban aviator sunglasses, the reflective lenses of which seem to really intrigue them. Children stop you just to say “Nice to met you” once they muster their courage. Young men turn around from a fast walk with their friends just to practice their “Hello!”
At the grocery some 10 locals stopped and stared at my feet and clothing while I shop with my supervisor’s wife, a native who fancies herself somewhat Western (judging by her procurement of clothing and frequent massages and facials). I had finally had enough of being gawked at like an unintentional celebrity. I stopped in front of the awestruck girls and did a sort of jig, showing off my feet.
“Do you like them? They’re amazing, aren’t they? Look at me. I’ll do tricks for you,” I said, knowing they didn’t understand a word of English.
They are constantly looking at my feet. It must have something to do with the fact that none of mine are made in China and therefore are not flimsy high heels. It’s in my Birkenstocks and my Audrey Hepburn-inspired ballerina flats that I receive the most gawks.
“Why, Belinda? Why do they always stare at my shoes?” She looked down at my black patent leather flats. “They think your feet are cold.” Somehow I couldn’t buy that all of these gawkers were concerned for my welfare; I’ve seen them look indifferently upon a dying man and just as easily ignore people tossed from a high-speed vehicle accident, leaving them to die on the highway. No, it wasn’t out of concern that they were staring.
“I mean, look at that,” I said, pointing to billboard after billboard featuring no-name Western models along the store-lined streets. “They see these Westerners all the time; they watch American television; they read magazines about Western pop stars. They look at us like we’re aliens. ‘Oh my God! They exist! They really exist!’ they seem to say. Do you disagree?”
“Well, it’s just that seeing foreigners in this city is not common,” she replied. She must revel in the sight seers at least somewhat; she is married to one, after all. “Does it bother you?”
I had to admit that half the time, yes, it does bother me. Albeit, my bothers are based mostly on American beliefs that staring is rude. I remember being gawked at in Italy, in India and here (don’t recall it so much in Costa Rica, a country being overrun with Americans). It Italy I made it a point to stare back until people realized I disapproved. In India I had fun with it; dancing jigs and laughing with my onlookers, encouraging them to speak in English with me because they loved it so much. But Americans are not supposed to stare at anyone, not Little People, not your weird relatives, not interracial couples, not the person in ethnic garb, and not the child making a fracas in the restaurant.
Here, though...here they turn around to do double and triple takes as you pass them on the street. What are we supposed to do? Do they expect us to break out in song and dance, a la Michael Jackson (who they still revere, by the way)? To start preaching superiority? To start miming scenes from popular movies?
The incessant staring makes me feel like an accidental celebrity. I’m about the pull a Sean Penn– well, maybe just a Britney Spears– and let the curses flow. Thank gracious I don’t get what my roommates do: the camera job. They are frequently asked by Chinese students to have their pictures taken. These are usually just the kind of “Smile and look pretty so I can show all my friends” required of solo standing shots, the kind you take of boys when you’re a teenager, or celebrities on the National Enquirer.
I on the other hand have not been asked for photos (or signatures). The decade I have on these girls must make some difference to the would-be paparazzi. I am far too private for such a thing; and I believe cameras are instruments of the devil, so I avoid photos at almost all costs.
This morning I relieved some frustration at a gawker.
Standing in line to buy a large container of spicy noodles and vegetables, a military man old as dirt seemed unable to turn his head to face front. After waiting there for 10 minutes, I’d had enough of his stare. He would turn to me, stare, stare, stare..., his eyes not moving, boring into me. It didn’t matter if I tried to hide behind someone else. It didn’t matter if I looked away. It didn’t matter if I tried to intimidate him by my reflective sunglasses. The man’s stare was solid.
“Stop staring at me!” I finally said loudly, a few notches below yelling. It was enough to catch his attention, though, as obviated by his surprise that I could actually form words and direct them at him. His eyeballs grew and he jumped a bit, startled. He looked to his friends for a possible explanation, not speaking any English, of course. Then he returned his gaze to me, where this time my furrowed brows and scowl forced the case closed. He didn’t bother me again.
I like my reflective Ray Bans; they force my onlookers to see themselves while protecting my blue-green eyes from their stares. Perhaps I should buy myself a pair of florescent elevator shoes to give them a reason to stare at my feet. Would any of it matter? Not likely, they seem to be able to detect us Westerners from hundreds of feet away, then gather and wait in groups for our arrival.
Hear ye, hear ye, welcome one and all to the Westerners Minstrel Show. Game for anyone with a staring problem.
They accepted and on Saturday, while we teachers were enjoying beers at one of the two bars here who cater to Westerners, in walked about 10 white people. It became clearer (though not transparent) to us what we stir in the Chinese when we are spotted.
“They don’t look like us” or “Hey, those are Westerners” are some of the sentiments expressed when some French, American and other architects and students entered the 8:30 bar.
(I was not personally interested until I saw the Indian architect. What is the chance I’d meet an Indian architect in this non-Western facsimile of a modernized city? Atop those glorious elements, he is very well educated and spent several years studying and working in Europe; he dresses with distinction, and he and I have spoken for hours about internationally renown architects and landscape architects.)
“S T A R I N G... I can’t stop staring”
The following day was a trip back to reality, though. Walking around this city’s downtown area reminds me that I am and will continue to be a novelty to these people. They stop when I exit the cab. They stare, bumping into one another and halting their own conversation when I walk down the street. They forget their direction when finished in line at the hospital pharmacy to stare at my Ray Ban aviator sunglasses, the reflective lenses of which seem to really intrigue them. Children stop you just to say “Nice to met you” once they muster their courage. Young men turn around from a fast walk with their friends just to practice their “Hello!”
At the grocery some 10 locals stopped and stared at my feet and clothing while I shop with my supervisor’s wife, a native who fancies herself somewhat Western (judging by her procurement of clothing and frequent massages and facials). I had finally had enough of being gawked at like an unintentional celebrity. I stopped in front of the awestruck girls and did a sort of jig, showing off my feet.
“Do you like them? They’re amazing, aren’t they? Look at me. I’ll do tricks for you,” I said, knowing they didn’t understand a word of English.
They are constantly looking at my feet. It must have something to do with the fact that none of mine are made in China and therefore are not flimsy high heels. It’s in my Birkenstocks and my Audrey Hepburn-inspired ballerina flats that I receive the most gawks.
“Why, Belinda? Why do they always stare at my shoes?” She looked down at my black patent leather flats. “They think your feet are cold.” Somehow I couldn’t buy that all of these gawkers were concerned for my welfare; I’ve seen them look indifferently upon a dying man and just as easily ignore people tossed from a high-speed vehicle accident, leaving them to die on the highway. No, it wasn’t out of concern that they were staring.
“I mean, look at that,” I said, pointing to billboard after billboard featuring no-name Western models along the store-lined streets. “They see these Westerners all the time; they watch American television; they read magazines about Western pop stars. They look at us like we’re aliens. ‘Oh my God! They exist! They really exist!’ they seem to say. Do you disagree?”
“Well, it’s just that seeing foreigners in this city is not common,” she replied. She must revel in the sight seers at least somewhat; she is married to one, after all. “Does it bother you?”
I had to admit that half the time, yes, it does bother me. Albeit, my bothers are based mostly on American beliefs that staring is rude. I remember being gawked at in Italy, in India and here (don’t recall it so much in Costa Rica, a country being overrun with Americans). It Italy I made it a point to stare back until people realized I disapproved. In India I had fun with it; dancing jigs and laughing with my onlookers, encouraging them to speak in English with me because they loved it so much. But Americans are not supposed to stare at anyone, not Little People, not your weird relatives, not interracial couples, not the person in ethnic garb, and not the child making a fracas in the restaurant.
Here, though...here they turn around to do double and triple takes as you pass them on the street. What are we supposed to do? Do they expect us to break out in song and dance, a la Michael Jackson (who they still revere, by the way)? To start preaching superiority? To start miming scenes from popular movies?
The incessant staring makes me feel like an accidental celebrity. I’m about the pull a Sean Penn– well, maybe just a Britney Spears– and let the curses flow. Thank gracious I don’t get what my roommates do: the camera job. They are frequently asked by Chinese students to have their pictures taken. These are usually just the kind of “Smile and look pretty so I can show all my friends” required of solo standing shots, the kind you take of boys when you’re a teenager, or celebrities on the National Enquirer.
I on the other hand have not been asked for photos (or signatures). The decade I have on these girls must make some difference to the would-be paparazzi. I am far too private for such a thing; and I believe cameras are instruments of the devil, so I avoid photos at almost all costs.
This morning I relieved some frustration at a gawker.
Standing in line to buy a large container of spicy noodles and vegetables, a military man old as dirt seemed unable to turn his head to face front. After waiting there for 10 minutes, I’d had enough of his stare. He would turn to me, stare, stare, stare..., his eyes not moving, boring into me. It didn’t matter if I tried to hide behind someone else. It didn’t matter if I looked away. It didn’t matter if I tried to intimidate him by my reflective sunglasses. The man’s stare was solid.
“Stop staring at me!” I finally said loudly, a few notches below yelling. It was enough to catch his attention, though, as obviated by his surprise that I could actually form words and direct them at him. His eyeballs grew and he jumped a bit, startled. He looked to his friends for a possible explanation, not speaking any English, of course. Then he returned his gaze to me, where this time my furrowed brows and scowl forced the case closed. He didn’t bother me again.
I like my reflective Ray Bans; they force my onlookers to see themselves while protecting my blue-green eyes from their stares. Perhaps I should buy myself a pair of florescent elevator shoes to give them a reason to stare at my feet. Would any of it matter? Not likely, they seem to be able to detect us Westerners from hundreds of feet away, then gather and wait in groups for our arrival.
Hear ye, hear ye, welcome one and all to the Westerners Minstrel Show. Game for anyone with a staring problem.
13 March 2009
I’ve found another passion in life: teaching, Who’d have thunk? Should one have told me a year ago that I’d actually enjoy this I would have thought them ridiculous, having set my opinion at “Never in my life; teaching is for lazy people.” If that is true, consider me absolutely lazy, able to think on my feet when a lesson goes awry or I’ve ill prepared for class or a student group presents a crises, and staying up until 1230 AM on a Friday night to grade school work.
I do believe I’ve found something else I was meant to do with my life. How filled with mutual benefits is teaching. I understand why Gert Lempiss found it rich with rewards. I learn as much fro them as they from me: from how to pronounce the szztt four and about potential visits to cities around China to the national hospital system and even romantic relationships in this country.
I do believe I’ve found something else I was meant to do with my life. How filled with mutual benefits is teaching. I understand why Gert Lempiss found it rich with rewards. I learn as much fro them as they from me: from how to pronounce the szztt four and about potential visits to cities around China to the national hospital system and even romantic relationships in this country.
12 March 2009
Get on the Bus
My fellow American roommate, Laura, and I will likely be in recovery for days from a bus ride that lasted all of ten minutes. The phrase “Packed like sardines” doesn’t cut it. No, words like violated, abused, revolted... those seem to work better.
Now, it’s more than 45 minutes after being expectorated from the bus and I’m still shaking with my stomach in knots.
I once compared my experience in Frankfurt airport to having a pap smear broadcast on national television. “Never, never will I go through that airport again,” I swore, and to this day I’ve avoided it. But this evening that experience seemed luxurious compared to those ten startling minutes on the bus.
“I wish I had videotape of this moment,” said our Irish roommate Selina. “You two look like you’ve been victimized.”
Laura likened the experience to being born, thrust from the mother’s womb and into the bright lights of a hospital room and the starkness of the world.
That’s far too pleasant an image from my perspective. For I see the womb as warm, safe, comfortable. It’s a place from which you wouldn’t wish to be taken, right? Not so with the bus. In fact I’d call her allegory and mine dichotomous. (I really dislike being crude but the event calls for it and no other words come to mind) the bus ride was more like diarrhea exploding from a rectum or a zit being popped. (Again, my apologies.)
I hadn’t much noticed the sheer volume of passengers riding the public transportation buses. In fact I hadn’t really even contemplated riding a bus (for some reason I truly dislike this form of public transit, though I simply adore the elevated trains and subways in New York, San Francisco and Chicago), opting instead to walk or take a cab. (In India my preference was rickshaws.)
Today was cold, though, and after a very long week, which continues tomorrow with yet another installment of classes, so Laura and I hopped the bus to carry us a mile to our abode. We were especially thrilled to learn from a native teacher who directed us there that the rate equated to about 17 cents.
First there is this: the people who disembark at busstops do not simply get out of the way of those embarking. Meanwhile, those dropping off friends and family and the busstop stand straight in front of the bus doors. Finally, those embarking do so with a relish akin to cows at a stampede. But there’s more. (Surely there must be. Why else would I consider this tantamount to such disgusting before-mentioned images?)
The bus is full. Full does not mean people can freely move their purses or briefcases from one arm to the next. It does not mean that people can read the newspaper. It does not mean that there’s one seat empty. It means that the conductor crushes you in by shoving you, shoving you to a point that would be considered assault in the West. She has to shove you because the bus still has enough air in it for people to actually breathe, and in a fifth of a mile more people will embark, but you have to move somewhere because the bus doors will pop open if you don’t stand atop someone else’s feet. Full doesn’t mean an elevator with six Westerns in it. Full means one hundred people on a bus that doesn’t have a capacity danger sticker on it; there is no such thing as capacity in a country with more than a billion people in it. Full means you’re hanging by one finger onto some railing you were crushed against which will surely leave a bruise, and you can smell bad breath of the men surrounding you but you don’t have enough room even to cringe at the fact that they’re sexually molesting you with their eyes– if not their hands.
“Surely they won’t let another person in,” I thought at the bus stop after ours. Surely. I was wrong.
“Where the hell are they gonna put these people” I say to Laura. She, thank gracious, is directly next to me. No, maybe directly isn’t the right way to say it. Directly would indicate some form of pattern. I just know she’s really close to me. She’s close enough to be able to talk into my ear, but then again so are countless others. I say countless because the sapce was so crammed you could not move your head to be able to get even an estimated count of the number of people who were even touching you, let alone, “directly” next to you. Because she’s some five inches shorter than I, I cannot see her. But because I love her this is a time that brings forth what few maternal instincts I posses, and just knowing she’s as close as she is comforts me.
Still her speech, whcih was something like “OhmyGod OhmyGod OhmyGod!” cannot drown out the conductor who continues to push people onto the bus. Surely at this point it’s gonna turn into a mosh pit; for going up and horizontal is clearly the only way more people can fit. As do they embark, the clear fear of not being able to exit the bus comes to mind. This then lead to my loud cursing.
“God damn it stop shoving me. I am not going anywhere! There is no room!” I finally succumbed to my Western fears of not having enough space and is being trampled to death for the inability to escape the bus.
“That’s us,” said Laura, and somehow I knew she was either pointing or leanign her head in the direction of the buildings of our residential development. “Oh my God! That was us...” she said, at the same time I watched our apartment slip past like some long lost opportunity. “Where do we go now? What do we do? Where is this thing taking us?”
There are milliseconds in traumatic moments like this when you see things in slow motion and logic replaces fear. This was not that millisecond.
While I knew we could easily walk from the next busstop, I was not so clear on how the hell we would get out. All I knew was that we had to get out. Yes, I stand by my earlier statement that escaping that bus was like diarrhea being forced from a rectum.
“Let me oooooouuuttttt!” I would have said– had I been less dazed and traumatized by the event. Instead, when the bus finally stopped after hovering seemingly forever in the slow motion phase, all I remember is butting my head into passengers to remove them from my path. I was coming out, whether you liked it or not. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t smooth and solid. It didn’t smell like a rose. But when those doors opened and I shoved my way through, screaming at Laura “Just PUSH!” the sudden stability of terra firma beneath my feet reminded me that soon it would be OK to breathe again.
Now, it’s more than 45 minutes after being expectorated from the bus and I’m still shaking with my stomach in knots.
I once compared my experience in Frankfurt airport to having a pap smear broadcast on national television. “Never, never will I go through that airport again,” I swore, and to this day I’ve avoided it. But this evening that experience seemed luxurious compared to those ten startling minutes on the bus.
“I wish I had videotape of this moment,” said our Irish roommate Selina. “You two look like you’ve been victimized.”
Laura likened the experience to being born, thrust from the mother’s womb and into the bright lights of a hospital room and the starkness of the world.
That’s far too pleasant an image from my perspective. For I see the womb as warm, safe, comfortable. It’s a place from which you wouldn’t wish to be taken, right? Not so with the bus. In fact I’d call her allegory and mine dichotomous. (I really dislike being crude but the event calls for it and no other words come to mind) the bus ride was more like diarrhea exploding from a rectum or a zit being popped. (Again, my apologies.)
I hadn’t much noticed the sheer volume of passengers riding the public transportation buses. In fact I hadn’t really even contemplated riding a bus (for some reason I truly dislike this form of public transit, though I simply adore the elevated trains and subways in New York, San Francisco and Chicago), opting instead to walk or take a cab. (In India my preference was rickshaws.)
Today was cold, though, and after a very long week, which continues tomorrow with yet another installment of classes, so Laura and I hopped the bus to carry us a mile to our abode. We were especially thrilled to learn from a native teacher who directed us there that the rate equated to about 17 cents.
First there is this: the people who disembark at busstops do not simply get out of the way of those embarking. Meanwhile, those dropping off friends and family and the busstop stand straight in front of the bus doors. Finally, those embarking do so with a relish akin to cows at a stampede. But there’s more. (Surely there must be. Why else would I consider this tantamount to such disgusting before-mentioned images?)
The bus is full. Full does not mean people can freely move their purses or briefcases from one arm to the next. It does not mean that people can read the newspaper. It does not mean that there’s one seat empty. It means that the conductor crushes you in by shoving you, shoving you to a point that would be considered assault in the West. She has to shove you because the bus still has enough air in it for people to actually breathe, and in a fifth of a mile more people will embark, but you have to move somewhere because the bus doors will pop open if you don’t stand atop someone else’s feet. Full doesn’t mean an elevator with six Westerns in it. Full means one hundred people on a bus that doesn’t have a capacity danger sticker on it; there is no such thing as capacity in a country with more than a billion people in it. Full means you’re hanging by one finger onto some railing you were crushed against which will surely leave a bruise, and you can smell bad breath of the men surrounding you but you don’t have enough room even to cringe at the fact that they’re sexually molesting you with their eyes– if not their hands.
“Surely they won’t let another person in,” I thought at the bus stop after ours. Surely. I was wrong.
“Where the hell are they gonna put these people” I say to Laura. She, thank gracious, is directly next to me. No, maybe directly isn’t the right way to say it. Directly would indicate some form of pattern. I just know she’s really close to me. She’s close enough to be able to talk into my ear, but then again so are countless others. I say countless because the sapce was so crammed you could not move your head to be able to get even an estimated count of the number of people who were even touching you, let alone, “directly” next to you. Because she’s some five inches shorter than I, I cannot see her. But because I love her this is a time that brings forth what few maternal instincts I posses, and just knowing she’s as close as she is comforts me.
Still her speech, whcih was something like “OhmyGod OhmyGod OhmyGod!” cannot drown out the conductor who continues to push people onto the bus. Surely at this point it’s gonna turn into a mosh pit; for going up and horizontal is clearly the only way more people can fit. As do they embark, the clear fear of not being able to exit the bus comes to mind. This then lead to my loud cursing.
“God damn it stop shoving me. I am not going anywhere! There is no room!” I finally succumbed to my Western fears of not having enough space and is being trampled to death for the inability to escape the bus.
“That’s us,” said Laura, and somehow I knew she was either pointing or leanign her head in the direction of the buildings of our residential development. “Oh my God! That was us...” she said, at the same time I watched our apartment slip past like some long lost opportunity. “Where do we go now? What do we do? Where is this thing taking us?”
There are milliseconds in traumatic moments like this when you see things in slow motion and logic replaces fear. This was not that millisecond.
While I knew we could easily walk from the next busstop, I was not so clear on how the hell we would get out. All I knew was that we had to get out. Yes, I stand by my earlier statement that escaping that bus was like diarrhea being forced from a rectum.
“Let me oooooouuuttttt!” I would have said– had I been less dazed and traumatized by the event. Instead, when the bus finally stopped after hovering seemingly forever in the slow motion phase, all I remember is butting my head into passengers to remove them from my path. I was coming out, whether you liked it or not. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t smooth and solid. It didn’t smell like a rose. But when those doors opened and I shoved my way through, screaming at Laura “Just PUSH!” the sudden stability of terra firma beneath my feet reminded me that soon it would be OK to breathe again.
09 March 2009
American, Malcontent
Though I am officially an ex-patriot, I cannot refute the fact that America has given its citizens the right to be malcontents. Every day I’m in China– or in any other country– I witness the star-studded reputation my country enjoys worldwide. People stare. Those brave enough attempt to use their English skills by something simple as “Hello!”
I just sat in on a class taught by a Kiwi, hoping to soak up some wisdom from his teaching experience. Even there, the difference between Western countries overall and America was striking. A male student I sat beside took the opportunity during the break to ask me where I’m from.
“America?” he nearly yelped, and across his face there arose an intrigue I thought reserved only for the likes of Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise or President Obama. It’s that fascination that causes Chinese (and people of other cultures) to stop eating to watch the Americans eat. It causes them to stop their breakneck pace when shopping to take a few steps back and observe the Americans. It’s what causes even babies to stop toddling altogether and stare with large, innocent eyes.
The very idea of their utter amazement baffles me in my own classes. For instance, this morning I asked my English Tourism sophomores what topics they would like me to cover, the answer came loudly, irrefutably: “America!” Music, sports, culture, scenery, attractions, movies! They want it all. “We want to hear what you experience when you live there,” “We want to know what you do for your life there,” “We want to visit America and so we want to be able to talk to Americans like you do,” they tell me.
Surely not everyone across the world thinks so highly of America as America itself, I’ve thought for years. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish evil upon my homeland. I do wish it would learn a lesson in humility to refrain from such arrogance and materialism. However, even though it’s caused the global economic crises, it would be hard pressed to learn from its mistakes when everyone around the world continues to tell it of its admirability, its greatness, its desirability.
I have the right to go to countries like China and India with ease. It’s the communal sentiment I seek in travel. I also love to get away from the high and mighty, affluence-infected, more-powerful-than-though demeanor of The World Police America takes itself to be. Don’t get me wrong. I do not seek approval for my decision to travel the world, searching for a less arrogant experience in life; I do, however, not wish to be reminded on a regular and constant basis that the very elitism I left is the very essence that people desire in America.
It’s hard to sympathize with an heiress who’s thumbed her nose at the upper crust and opted to try something less... well, less desirable... but I feel that’s what I’ve done by leaving America. At the heart of the matter is that I could never enjoy America and being an American if I don’t know why it has earned the reputation it has.
I just sat in on a class taught by a Kiwi, hoping to soak up some wisdom from his teaching experience. Even there, the difference between Western countries overall and America was striking. A male student I sat beside took the opportunity during the break to ask me where I’m from.
“America?” he nearly yelped, and across his face there arose an intrigue I thought reserved only for the likes of Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise or President Obama. It’s that fascination that causes Chinese (and people of other cultures) to stop eating to watch the Americans eat. It causes them to stop their breakneck pace when shopping to take a few steps back and observe the Americans. It’s what causes even babies to stop toddling altogether and stare with large, innocent eyes.
The very idea of their utter amazement baffles me in my own classes. For instance, this morning I asked my English Tourism sophomores what topics they would like me to cover, the answer came loudly, irrefutably: “America!” Music, sports, culture, scenery, attractions, movies! They want it all. “We want to hear what you experience when you live there,” “We want to know what you do for your life there,” “We want to visit America and so we want to be able to talk to Americans like you do,” they tell me.
Surely not everyone across the world thinks so highly of America as America itself, I’ve thought for years. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t wish evil upon my homeland. I do wish it would learn a lesson in humility to refrain from such arrogance and materialism. However, even though it’s caused the global economic crises, it would be hard pressed to learn from its mistakes when everyone around the world continues to tell it of its admirability, its greatness, its desirability.
I have the right to go to countries like China and India with ease. It’s the communal sentiment I seek in travel. I also love to get away from the high and mighty, affluence-infected, more-powerful-than-though demeanor of The World Police America takes itself to be. Don’t get me wrong. I do not seek approval for my decision to travel the world, searching for a less arrogant experience in life; I do, however, not wish to be reminded on a regular and constant basis that the very elitism I left is the very essence that people desire in America.
It’s hard to sympathize with an heiress who’s thumbed her nose at the upper crust and opted to try something less... well, less desirable... but I feel that’s what I’ve done by leaving America. At the heart of the matter is that I could never enjoy America and being an American if I don’t know why it has earned the reputation it has.
08 March 2009
Unrequited
I face certain risks by the following confession, but having sworn to myself that I simply must break down the wall I’ve surrounded my heart with and literarily speak from that very place, I’m willing to leap to and learn from this risk. I thought I was in recovery from the events of 2008. It turns out that I’ve stumbled upon another rock on my journey back to happiness. Unrequited love seems such beautiful agony in the paintings by San Francisco artist Mark Stock; it is not. Unrequited love presents pockets of crushing loneliness. Yesterday he misread my eye contact, first telling me how expressive my eyes are then misreading their expression as condescension; in fact what I felt was curiosity and tenderness, the suffocating desire to kiss him and lie with him, naked and warm, listening to his Kiwi accent and the thoughts floating through his head. The words coming from his lovely fuchsia mouth that spanned widely when he smiled... his love for classical music, his interests in yoga, Marxism and Communism’s materialization, spirituality and its inherent individualism. I wanted to hear more, his words like pearls around my neck.
“Your eyes are quite expressive,” he says after a slight pause in our conversation.
Instantly I looked away, terrified that he’d see what I was feeling, that he’d see my desire for him, my yearning to be alone with him.
“I know. I’ve been told that before. It’s a blessing and a curse.” I returned my gaze to him, dissonant over my simultaneous nervousness and giddiness, afraid those eyes would reveal the pounding of my heart. My face reveals everything; rendering me unable to lie. Yet I tried from the first moment I saw him last night to cloud that. As soon as I laid eyes on him my heart leaped into my throat, but I stumbled not, deliberately walking with confidence and happiness to be surrounded by Westerners. But the second I sat on the bar stool and greeted him, I knew the smile on my face twinkled a bit more than it would had he not been there. In fact I would likely not be there had his name not been mentioned during the invite. Just the sound of his name lured me. The sound alone makes me feel lighter, my heart filled with delight like the bubbles of champagne.
In the end, I was thankful to be sitting at a table with him, though yearning to bridge the physical chasm between us. We began our own conversation, volleying it over the voluminous voices of the four other Westerners around us until I asked him to come sit closer. Just that request was a dangerous one on my part, for of course he’d be able to see my expressions more clearly, be able to see into my eyes more easily, be able to read into my sugary smile possibly. I just had to span that chasm. I just had to. Still it was too large. I wanted more. I wanted to run my fingers through his Sampson curls. I wanted to hold his headband in my hands. I wanted to provide the warmth for which he put on his coat, yet I wanted to take off his clothes to let my eyes– and fingers– linger on his chest.
If my eyes are so expressive, how did he misconstrue this lust for condescension?
“You’re looking at me like ‘Yeah, little one, I’ve already thought of that,’” he said in the midst of our deep, intense conversation.
“Not at all. I was thinking that I’d like to hear more of your thoughts, while we’re lying next to each other in bed,” is what I wanted to say. What I actually said was, “Well, I think a lot. And you’re probably thinking that because you know my age. I’ve had more time to think about things like this.”
Oh God! What is this? I don’t understand. It’s unfair. I ache over this. I am besieged with agony over the thought that my suffering continues, evidently not having my share of it last year. The next day images flood my mind. I recall the difficulty of disguising my sadness when he left the table to take a call from his girlfriend. I remember the disappointment welling within me when he left like lava in a volcano. I had to excuse myself to the restroom just to quell it. I gave thanks for the mirror, looking at myself to see if the desperation were visible, as a scarlet D for desire would appear on my face. I think of every moment I’ve been in his presence, at the restaurant, at the bar, on the phone. I think of the first second I saw him. I think of how much I tease him, which clearly indicates I like him. I think of confiding in my roommate about my feelings for him. I think of how my excitement grows at the very mention of him, so that the news of my feelings has permeated to my other roommate and even to someone at school. I think of how I’ve already made him into a verb, as in “I think what I need is to be AJd.” Oh Jesus this is beyond my scope of comprehension. Unrequited love is not glamorous or enviable; it is profound and painful like boulders bowling over me. How is it that at 35 I’m experiencing a new emotion? Good Christ! How much more emotional maturity must I learn? I expected to learn it to be the person I needed to be for the time I met the man who I’d share my life with. Is life trying to beat me into settling for less? I know he’s out there; I know he’s existent.
I do not understand why life has to be so goddamned difficult. I do not understand why, now that I’m ready for love after four years of evading it, it toys with me. I do not understand why I’m relegated to this loneliness, a loneliness that threatens to asphyxiate me. I am standing at the precipice and he’s on the other side of a canyon; between us is a chasm seemingly unsurmountable. I don’t understand. My heart spills over, spilling tears over my cheeks in the shower. I am completely helpless, damned by hope for love’s return as if a child searching for a mother who abandoned him.
I can do nothing. Yet I risk. I risk that others will learn of my feelings just by reading this blog post. I risk my composure. I risk some sort of integrity because I want something I cannot have.
I knew I would have to travel around the world to find the man I’d be with. I knew it would take me a longer time that most people to find the man I’d be with. I knew he’d be younger with a stick thin physique, dark hair and eyes, likely long hair, and a worldliness. I knew because of Nicolas, the only man I’ve loved, and the man to prove that sometimes love isn’t enough.
When in India I started to listen to the following song by India Arie, the love in that country palpable like a breeze and leading me to a keen awareness that I was journeying to make myself the person I’d need to be to attract the one I wanted. This evening, tears still present upon my cheeks, the need for a sympathetic hug from my roommate growing within, I repeatedly listen to this song.
“Ready for Love”
I am ready for love
Why are you hiding from me?
I’d quickly give my freedom
to be held in your captivity.
I am ready for love
all of the joy and the pain
and all the time that it takes
just to stay in your good grace.
Lately i’ve been thinking maybe you’re not ready for me
Maybe you think I need to learn maturity
They say watch what you ask for cuz you might receive,
but if you ask me tomorrow I’d say the same thing.
I am ready for love
Would you please lend me your ears
I promise I won’t complain,
I just need you to acknowledge I am here.
If you give me half a chance I’d prove this to you.
I will be patient, kind, faithful and true
to a man who loves music,
a man who loves art,
respects the spirit world
and thinks with his heart....
Now that I’ve exploded, expectorating myself emotionally upon this blog at the risk of his and others’ finding out, I suppose it’s time to attempt the healing process by admitting the loss and distracting myself with other activities. I will not try to bury it; that’s not true healing. I will accept it and move on, just as I have moved forward in my healing from last year. I just hope it disappears soon to be merely a memory from which I grow.
“Your eyes are quite expressive,” he says after a slight pause in our conversation.
Instantly I looked away, terrified that he’d see what I was feeling, that he’d see my desire for him, my yearning to be alone with him.
“I know. I’ve been told that before. It’s a blessing and a curse.” I returned my gaze to him, dissonant over my simultaneous nervousness and giddiness, afraid those eyes would reveal the pounding of my heart. My face reveals everything; rendering me unable to lie. Yet I tried from the first moment I saw him last night to cloud that. As soon as I laid eyes on him my heart leaped into my throat, but I stumbled not, deliberately walking with confidence and happiness to be surrounded by Westerners. But the second I sat on the bar stool and greeted him, I knew the smile on my face twinkled a bit more than it would had he not been there. In fact I would likely not be there had his name not been mentioned during the invite. Just the sound of his name lured me. The sound alone makes me feel lighter, my heart filled with delight like the bubbles of champagne.
In the end, I was thankful to be sitting at a table with him, though yearning to bridge the physical chasm between us. We began our own conversation, volleying it over the voluminous voices of the four other Westerners around us until I asked him to come sit closer. Just that request was a dangerous one on my part, for of course he’d be able to see my expressions more clearly, be able to see into my eyes more easily, be able to read into my sugary smile possibly. I just had to span that chasm. I just had to. Still it was too large. I wanted more. I wanted to run my fingers through his Sampson curls. I wanted to hold his headband in my hands. I wanted to provide the warmth for which he put on his coat, yet I wanted to take off his clothes to let my eyes– and fingers– linger on his chest.
If my eyes are so expressive, how did he misconstrue this lust for condescension?
“You’re looking at me like ‘Yeah, little one, I’ve already thought of that,’” he said in the midst of our deep, intense conversation.
“Not at all. I was thinking that I’d like to hear more of your thoughts, while we’re lying next to each other in bed,” is what I wanted to say. What I actually said was, “Well, I think a lot. And you’re probably thinking that because you know my age. I’ve had more time to think about things like this.”
Oh God! What is this? I don’t understand. It’s unfair. I ache over this. I am besieged with agony over the thought that my suffering continues, evidently not having my share of it last year. The next day images flood my mind. I recall the difficulty of disguising my sadness when he left the table to take a call from his girlfriend. I remember the disappointment welling within me when he left like lava in a volcano. I had to excuse myself to the restroom just to quell it. I gave thanks for the mirror, looking at myself to see if the desperation were visible, as a scarlet D for desire would appear on my face. I think of every moment I’ve been in his presence, at the restaurant, at the bar, on the phone. I think of the first second I saw him. I think of how much I tease him, which clearly indicates I like him. I think of confiding in my roommate about my feelings for him. I think of how my excitement grows at the very mention of him, so that the news of my feelings has permeated to my other roommate and even to someone at school. I think of how I’ve already made him into a verb, as in “I think what I need is to be AJd.” Oh Jesus this is beyond my scope of comprehension. Unrequited love is not glamorous or enviable; it is profound and painful like boulders bowling over me. How is it that at 35 I’m experiencing a new emotion? Good Christ! How much more emotional maturity must I learn? I expected to learn it to be the person I needed to be for the time I met the man who I’d share my life with. Is life trying to beat me into settling for less? I know he’s out there; I know he’s existent.
I do not understand why life has to be so goddamned difficult. I do not understand why, now that I’m ready for love after four years of evading it, it toys with me. I do not understand why I’m relegated to this loneliness, a loneliness that threatens to asphyxiate me. I am standing at the precipice and he’s on the other side of a canyon; between us is a chasm seemingly unsurmountable. I don’t understand. My heart spills over, spilling tears over my cheeks in the shower. I am completely helpless, damned by hope for love’s return as if a child searching for a mother who abandoned him.
I can do nothing. Yet I risk. I risk that others will learn of my feelings just by reading this blog post. I risk my composure. I risk some sort of integrity because I want something I cannot have.
I knew I would have to travel around the world to find the man I’d be with. I knew it would take me a longer time that most people to find the man I’d be with. I knew he’d be younger with a stick thin physique, dark hair and eyes, likely long hair, and a worldliness. I knew because of Nicolas, the only man I’ve loved, and the man to prove that sometimes love isn’t enough.
When in India I started to listen to the following song by India Arie, the love in that country palpable like a breeze and leading me to a keen awareness that I was journeying to make myself the person I’d need to be to attract the one I wanted. This evening, tears still present upon my cheeks, the need for a sympathetic hug from my roommate growing within, I repeatedly listen to this song.
“Ready for Love”
I am ready for love
Why are you hiding from me?
I’d quickly give my freedom
to be held in your captivity.
I am ready for love
all of the joy and the pain
and all the time that it takes
just to stay in your good grace.
Lately i’ve been thinking maybe you’re not ready for me
Maybe you think I need to learn maturity
They say watch what you ask for cuz you might receive,
but if you ask me tomorrow I’d say the same thing.
I am ready for love
Would you please lend me your ears
I promise I won’t complain,
I just need you to acknowledge I am here.
If you give me half a chance I’d prove this to you.
I will be patient, kind, faithful and true
to a man who loves music,
a man who loves art,
respects the spirit world
and thinks with his heart....
Now that I’ve exploded, expectorating myself emotionally upon this blog at the risk of his and others’ finding out, I suppose it’s time to attempt the healing process by admitting the loss and distracting myself with other activities. I will not try to bury it; that’s not true healing. I will accept it and move on, just as I have moved forward in my healing from last year. I just hope it disappears soon to be merely a memory from which I grow.
06 March 2009
A Stew of Accents
“Never– never– use that word in America. You could easily be seriously hurt,” I told a Serbian friend who asked what Nigger meant.
Here in Huludao, China, I hear it every day. Here, however, it has a more rounded r at the end, if there even is one. The sound is more like “Nigga.” When students approach me after class they often stumble through their English by throwing in a few niggas. And yes, to those of us white Americans who don’t speak Mandarin Chinese, it does throw you off a bit at the beginning.
Nigga means um. Already things have happened to my speech that an American would question; it’s common among people who teach their language to others. For instance, my Irish roommate explained that when she returns home her friends have to wait for her normal pace of speech to catch up to theirs. They wait patiently as she stresses every syllable and enunciates each word as if still talking to non-native speakers. I hope that when I return to another country, or even when I speak to my friends and family back home, that my speech quickly resumes its natural pace... and that I don’t sprinkle my sentences with niggas.
“Ni hao ma? Nigga, um, sorry. How... are you? How... good... it is... to speak... to... you!” Instead of, “Heythere! Howareya?”
We Western teachers come from several countries, which often leads to bantering about lingo and accents and rather interesting dinner conversation. For instance, upon meeting AJ, a Kiwi, I hadn’t had time to adjust to his accent and knew nothing about him when my ears stumbled upon one particular word. In the US we use a short E sound when saying bed, but in words like bead or beard we run the E and A together.
Was this 20-something with scrappy, haywire facial hair tantamount to an adolescent’s talking about a beard in the sense of what a man grows or in the sense of what a closeted gay man marries? It’s true the Chinese “don’t believe” in homosexuality, but I found it difficult to believe that a Westerner, who spends most of his time around other Westerners, would go to such lengths.
“Bearding?” I asked playfully.
“Bedding,” he said, slightly abashed bc of his accent. “Does it really sound like bearding?”
“Oh,” I said, slightly pausing as I glanced subtly at the woman to his left, who was introduced as his girlfriend. “Yeah, because of the way you upturn the E. Your E sounds like America’s EA.”
The Irish roommate (who, when she speaks, reminds me of Sheena Easton’s appearances on Miami Vice) has reintroduced my Texan roommate and me to the word douchebag. My ears perked up and my head cocked to the side like a dog hearing a foreign sound the moment she said it.
“Douchebag... douchebag...” I repeated to myself aloud, as if somehow repeating it would help the word take root. Instead, I just felt like I’d stepped back 25 years to watch some early John Cusack movie.
But then I think, “What must these Westerners think of me?” Here I’m bringing influences from all over the world– words and phrases from India, Italy, Germany, and France. There arises a strict, highly enunciated pronunciation from 20 years of speaking Spanish in school, big city restaurants, watching Hispanic films and traveling to Costa Rica. (This particular language is the one I inadvertently slip into when I’m stuck for a word in Chinese. It is also an easy one to employ when complaining aloud to myself about a class’ or student’s disorderly conduct.) I slide into Italian when cursing. With virtually no Chinese linguistic currency to my name I laboriously employ a Chinese accent to describe what I’m looking for at the grocery. For instance, dumplings becomes dum-lin, with one word stressed down and the other stressed up like a V. Surely, a while after I return Stateside, I’ll be back to pronouncing dumplings with the accent on the first syllable and all letters addressed. For now, however, my questions have grown an upward curve thanks to the influence of my fellow Australian and New Zealand teachers. Soon there will likely develop a verbal adoption of the ooohs and eeews of my roommate’s Irish, and hopefully my Chinese verbal lexicon will grow. I just hope I can dig into my Midwestern American accent (where the A in Chicago is pronounced like A in apple).
Here in Huludao, China, I hear it every day. Here, however, it has a more rounded r at the end, if there even is one. The sound is more like “Nigga.” When students approach me after class they often stumble through their English by throwing in a few niggas. And yes, to those of us white Americans who don’t speak Mandarin Chinese, it does throw you off a bit at the beginning.
Nigga means um. Already things have happened to my speech that an American would question; it’s common among people who teach their language to others. For instance, my Irish roommate explained that when she returns home her friends have to wait for her normal pace of speech to catch up to theirs. They wait patiently as she stresses every syllable and enunciates each word as if still talking to non-native speakers. I hope that when I return to another country, or even when I speak to my friends and family back home, that my speech quickly resumes its natural pace... and that I don’t sprinkle my sentences with niggas.
“Ni hao ma? Nigga, um, sorry. How... are you? How... good... it is... to speak... to... you!” Instead of, “Heythere! Howareya?”
We Western teachers come from several countries, which often leads to bantering about lingo and accents and rather interesting dinner conversation. For instance, upon meeting AJ, a Kiwi, I hadn’t had time to adjust to his accent and knew nothing about him when my ears stumbled upon one particular word. In the US we use a short E sound when saying bed, but in words like bead or beard we run the E and A together.
Was this 20-something with scrappy, haywire facial hair tantamount to an adolescent’s talking about a beard in the sense of what a man grows or in the sense of what a closeted gay man marries? It’s true the Chinese “don’t believe” in homosexuality, but I found it difficult to believe that a Westerner, who spends most of his time around other Westerners, would go to such lengths.
“Bearding?” I asked playfully.
“Bedding,” he said, slightly abashed bc of his accent. “Does it really sound like bearding?”
“Oh,” I said, slightly pausing as I glanced subtly at the woman to his left, who was introduced as his girlfriend. “Yeah, because of the way you upturn the E. Your E sounds like America’s EA.”
The Irish roommate (who, when she speaks, reminds me of Sheena Easton’s appearances on Miami Vice) has reintroduced my Texan roommate and me to the word douchebag. My ears perked up and my head cocked to the side like a dog hearing a foreign sound the moment she said it.
“Douchebag... douchebag...” I repeated to myself aloud, as if somehow repeating it would help the word take root. Instead, I just felt like I’d stepped back 25 years to watch some early John Cusack movie.
But then I think, “What must these Westerners think of me?” Here I’m bringing influences from all over the world– words and phrases from India, Italy, Germany, and France. There arises a strict, highly enunciated pronunciation from 20 years of speaking Spanish in school, big city restaurants, watching Hispanic films and traveling to Costa Rica. (This particular language is the one I inadvertently slip into when I’m stuck for a word in Chinese. It is also an easy one to employ when complaining aloud to myself about a class’ or student’s disorderly conduct.) I slide into Italian when cursing. With virtually no Chinese linguistic currency to my name I laboriously employ a Chinese accent to describe what I’m looking for at the grocery. For instance, dumplings becomes dum-lin, with one word stressed down and the other stressed up like a V. Surely, a while after I return Stateside, I’ll be back to pronouncing dumplings with the accent on the first syllable and all letters addressed. For now, however, my questions have grown an upward curve thanks to the influence of my fellow Australian and New Zealand teachers. Soon there will likely develop a verbal adoption of the ooohs and eeews of my roommate’s Irish, and hopefully my Chinese verbal lexicon will grow. I just hope I can dig into my Midwestern American accent (where the A in Chicago is pronounced like A in apple).
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