“One day You will take my heart completely and make it more fiery than a dragon. Your eyelashes will write on my heart the poem that could never come from the pen of a poet.” — Jalal ad-Din Rumi
Before coming here, I really thought that London would fulfill a couple of critical requirements for an amazing city. The first was the beauty and resilience of London architecture. But when I got here, I quickly realised I had to look up to see most of it. In fact, John R. Murray has written a book about it called London Above Eye Level, where he shows us in a picture book the kinds of things we could be viewing if we just lifted our heads when we walk. The major problem with that being that London is busy enough that you are bound to either get run over or run into someone in the process. There are also more cobblestones in London than a lot of major cities I’ve resided in (Chicago is mostly about modern, clean lines; Korea the same; Japan has some but for the most part I was trying to walk around the visually impaired guidance lines). So It halfway fulfilled my first expectation.
The next expectation I had was for the streets to be filled with sexy people. When I pick up a magazine with London excerpts, there is always a blurb about how beautiful the people are and how forward the fashion is. Yet, in my 30 minute walk to the gym through both residential and commercial districts I find myself trying to dodge strollers and loving couples more than sexy people. While people do naturally become sexier as you are chatting with them and you are recognising quirky characteristics about them, I was a bit disappointed. It also left me at a loss for my wardrobe, and I ended up wishing I hadn’t discarded so many clothes in Japan, Korea, Thailand, HK and China. Perhaps I’m missing them while my head is buried in books.
I had this pervy professor in Japan who was from London who liked to reiterate how he was frequently looked at in scorn by his own people but was a god in Asia. He liked to stare at my chest and tell me I would find true love in London. Later, my friend pointed out it was probably the city that I would fall in love with and not a man. Also, because every other guy I met from the UK were charmers, I thought the place would be filled with them. Instead, I’m finding that they’re too busy to be charming. This really isn’t a problem, rather an observation.
The last assumption I had was that I would move to Chicago after my tenure here. I know the Chicago independent publishing industry is quite strong, particularly in primary and secondary academic books. However, the longer I stay, despite terrible forecasts for a deteriorating industry, the longer I’d like to stay. Despite my stolen wallet (the first time in 20 countries), despite the sometimes tediousness of my course, despite my brain aching for familiarity and not finding it; I have found some kind of strange affinity for this city. Perhaps it is time I perch for a moment.
Lamenting…
This is a punk band I saw in Beijing at D22. It was my first night there, and I had just stepped off of the 24 hour train.
I fret a lot about the conditions in Nepal, and the terrible things that happened to the kids. But then I remember that they still have happy moments.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been living in solace from the events that transpired during my travels. I’ve only scratched the surface of what troubles face the world, which is both comforting and distressing. America is full of riches and grandeur, glamorous women and camp men, and diversity that I had forgotten could exist. However, with the conditions I had learned to live in, I am not the starchy person I was before.
One thing I had grown to rely on was the freedom to stop and enjoy the scenes around me. I took out a pencil and pastels and found repose in the fact that I was not a typical tourist. Most of the locals found it strange that I am a woman and chose to travel alone—so perhaps in their eyes I was a bit abnormal. Without my wandering eyes and open sketchbook I feel idle.
Heading back to Chicago, I realized everything has changed. The dive bars I frequented have been replaced with money-hungry clubs. My favorite coffee shops and boutiques have been commercialized or replaced by multi-billionaire chains.
Listening to ‘friends’ and new acquaintances, I watch their mouths move and I nod my head politely. Inside, my brain rests and I take nothing in. They don’t show me the same mannerless behaviour: they listen attentively and are taken aback that I don’t make eye-contact. In the West, eye-contact is a sign of attentiveness. In the East, it’s a sign of attraction.
The first few days I was here, I bowed after receiving change. I wore my trendy Asian clothes and collected scowls as people passed. I nearly had a panic attack at the supermarket when I realized the store was larger than my apartment building in Korea, and yet they still didn’t have anything I wanted. I went to a club and—although I didn’t get cursed at this time—didn’t even feel like dancing because the majority of people were sitting around with black or blank looks. I wasn’t ready to jump on a plane back to Asia, but I longed for—just as I did during my travels—for some familiarity. Without easy access to Shin-Ramyun, there’s little I can do.
When does ‘home’ start feeling like ‘home’?
China has definitely been one of the most difficult countries I’ve had to deal with on my travels. Not only was getting a visa one of the hardest and most frustrating and most expensive experiences of my life, but simply trying to get a stamp in my passport and trying to leave the country were challenges. With the outbreak of pig flu, Asia has been taking particular precautions, particularly against Americans and Mexicans. And when the woman behind the counter heard my cough (which I believe to be a product of Beijing pollution) and saw my passport was American, she went on red alert. Her commands had no polite undertones and her face had nothing close to gentleness in it. She asked me where I had come from, to which I replied truthfully that I had been in Hong Kong prior to coming to China. The roar that came from her mouth made me realize I had given her an answer she wasn’t pleased with. ‘You are American. Your passport is American. You should cooperate,’ she said, shaking her finger at me. Despite the fact that I haven’t been to the States for two years and haven’t lived there for four, she continued to yell at me. When she realized I didn’t have a temperature, she escorted me to the quarantine counter where she made her argument for my immediate containment. They made calls to officials and finally decided I was okay to go, leaving me to run for my boarding pass and just barely make my flight.
In contrast, when I arrived in Korea they handed me a survey asking me if I’d had any symptoms such as a fever in the past 6 days. I didn’t divulge my cough, and I was let through with the ease that I had hoped for in China.
Coming back to Korea and eating the food, seeing familiar and unfamiliar faces, dealing with perverted men and shiny lights, I realized that what I missed more than anything during my travels was familiarity. I played bubble-gum K-Pop when I was dodging Vietnamese motorbikes, I ate Korean ramen when I had an upset stomach. With these items I was able to feel like I hadn’t just stepped into a black abyss where I couldn’t even read the signs.
Today I’m headed to Tokyo for a night before going back to the keys of the recession. Although I haven’t posted much during my days in China (due to most blogging websites being banned by the government) and since I returned to Korea, there’s more to come. But for now, yet another airplane awaits.
“The chain of steps determines the path,
but the first step makes the path appear.”
— Attar, Sufi Poet
“Live for others…
The candle does not illuminate itself.”
— Sufi Wisdom
After leaving the orphanage, I spent several days in Kathmandu writing for the Tourism Times. I wasn’t quite sure with what I could get away with, considering the involvement of the Editor in the things I had found frustrating. So instead of giving him the article on volunteering as a business, I gave him an article that briefly reviewed child abuse and neglect in Nepal using the orphanage I visited as a case study.
Several things happened in the interim at the orphanage. Two volunteers remained there who had gone through Info Nepal. Their frustrations mounted and they demanded their money back so they could help the children visit the doctor and buy basic necessities for them. The Director reluctantly returned their money and called the owner of the Center. The so-called ‘uncle’ threatened the children with physical beatings should they talk to the two volunteers.
The owner of the center, Ruplal, has been notorious for being one of the worst people in the community. Among other things, he has raped previous volunteers, children in the orphanage, withheld money received to aid the orphans for his person use, sold drugs on the premisis using the children as runners, allowed his own children in the orphanage and giving them privledges such as milk and biscuits that are refused to the orphans. Somehow he is still running the organization, despite efforts by previous volunteers to get him removed.
The two volunteers initiated a closing of the orphanage to move the children to a safe location. It seems to me that with a few slight renovations to their quarters and with a change in ownership the children would easily thrive. Looking at their pictures, however, it is easy to tell that they are not the happiest children. Their ages don’t reflect the years that show in their eyes.
After all of this, I left obviously dejected. My plan was to head to China, but the consulate in Nepal is not allowed to give visas to walk-ins. Only after visiting the consulate 10 times was I informed this. So I had to change my flight from Bangkok to Beijing and buy a new ticket from Bangkok to Hong Kong, where I paid $400 for a visa in 8 hours. The only plus side to it was getting a multiple entry rather than a double-entry visa. Here’s where I thought it would start getting better, but instead it got worse. I took the train from HK to Shenzhen, where it is easy to catch a train to Beijing for a reasonable price. I stood in line for an hour, was pushed into another line where they sold me a ‘seat.’ What I didn’t realize is that they sold too many people a ‘seat.’ So for 24 hours, I stood on the train, sometimes dozing off only to be interupted by someone passing through or another person dozing off on my shoulder. After finding refuge in the corner, I woke to find a farmer leaning on top of me and had to push the rice bag he was sitting on to the side.
And now, after 4 days of traveling, I have arrived in Beijing. It is colder than I expected, but the ability to shower when I want, to sleep comfortably, to have constant electricity, these are all things I had taken for granted. I even bought shampoo, which I hadn’t used in weeks. Nepal is a place that changes a person. Not only your skin color from being in the sun, but also your tolerance, your resistence, and your resilience.