Chi le ma

We breathe. We sleep.  We eat. It's no wonder that food is such an important part of every distinct culture. To the Italians, food is life – mulling over its flavors and sensations with each course and subsequent glass of wine.  It's not just Italians, either: my best friend, Maya, has told me repeatedly that she has no need for a scale because she just uses her Jewish grandmother as a gauge of her weight. "You're looking great!" Grandma Esther says, and Maya knows she's put on a pound or two. "Maya, you look terrible" and Maya shrugs, realizes she must have lost some weight recently, and tries to fend off the fried potatoes that are inevitably coming her way. The French, the Thai, the Spanish -- we all have our distinct foods, special recipes, and shaped palettes.

It will come as no surprise that the Chinese are no different. I am constantly asked if I like Chinese food and what my favorite dishes are. There are noodle shops, dumpling places, and small restaurants crowding every block. In the morning, food stalls pop-up to make what my dad calls the "Chinese egg-McMuffin" and other fried breakfast specialties. The stands are plentiful - as are the convenient stores that double as fast food places during lunchtime. Recently, I commented to Emily on the vast number of these stores in China.  She responded, “It’s China. There is just a lot of everything here." Yet it seems like the restaurants, no matter how plentiful, are always packed around meal times. There may be just a lot of people here, but there also seem to be a lot of people who love to eat. Going out to eat, you'll see parties of five crowd the center of their table with at least 15 dishes of piping hot food, which are constantly replaced by new dishes of piping hot food throughout the meal.  When they're done, multiple full plates remain as everyone has gotten more than their fill. It's a matter of pride: if there's leftover food, then the host of the meal has accommodated for everyone and done his best to make sure the guests were well fed by the end of the meal. During the meal, there's a certain amount of force-feeding that goes on.   It is considered polite for the host to literally place food on other's plates (or bowls, as the case may be). It's very Italian. "Mange, mange!" It's very Jewish. "Are you eating? You're too thin - eat!" It's very, very Chinese.

I can sum it up best with a Chinese phrase I recently picked up from a coworker. I've been wanting to pick up some Chinese slang, so she told me that instead of greeting someone with the traditional "Ni hao ma" (literally translated, it means "are you good?”) I should say "Chi le ma." “Chi...as in chi fan, or 'eat’?" I asked. Yup. The phrase translates to "Have you eaten?" and it's just another way of saying "what's up?" "So let me get this straight -- you're constantly asking each other if you've eaten?" Yup. Constantly. You walk in a room - "have you eaten?" You come back from a lunch date - "have you eaten?" I found this hilarious. A culture where everyone is keeping tabs on if everyone else has eaten. I was laughing about it with a few friends the other day, one of which is Chinese-American. "I can't believe it's true." I laughed. "Wouldn't you get annoyed if every friend and coworker were constantly pestering you about when you last ate?"

"In my house, we don't say 'I love you'" she explained. "We make each other food. I know a fight is over when my dad starts cooking for me, and my mom asks me what I want to eat." '"Chi le ma' is a way of saying we care."

Emily put it best. "The Jews and the Chinese - not so different, huh?" It's true, and it can apply universally. Food is love.

Same same?

The Chinese have Beiber-fever. They're into the Twilight series, and
can't get enough of the TV shows "Friends," and "The Big Bang Theory." At least
someone's watching "The Big Bang Theory." The other day, my Chinese
coworker Michelle was quizzing me on American culture. She wanted to
know if "Desperate Housewives" mimicked real life at all. "Hardly." I replied "Nobody is
like that." Of course what I meant was that nobody spied on their
neighbors, had multiple affairs and lived with such ridiculous
scandal. Michelle laughed and agreed, underlining how crazy and
surreal it would be to have such a huge house and garden, so far from
your neighbors.

The point is, when it comes to Western culture, the Chinese are slowly
buying in. Of course McDonalds and Lady Gaga are old hat. (Side note:
if you haven't seen this clip, it's an absolute must. The band in the
beginning is managed by my good friend Emily's roommates.) Most
Chinese have picked up on our fast-food, our music, and our TV. Yet
there are some subtitles that are still, well, a bit off.

Case in point: the cafe/bakery combo. The Chinese aren't known for
their desserts, to put it nicely. Maybe it's the lack of butter, maybe
it's the general distaste for anything too sweet, but every pastry
I've tried has made me wish that I'd just stuck to a bag of M&Ms.
This, however, hasn't stopped the rise of cafe/bakery combinations
that can be found on nearly every block of the city. The smell is
incredible and they offer free Wifi for the price of a dry donuts. So
tempting, and yet so disappointing. They're incredibly popular, and if
you sit there long enough, you'll see packs of young people coming in
and buying not one, but a tray full of pastries. Let me back up: when
you walk in the door, you're offered a tray to put your goodies on.
I'd usually choose one (very carefully. Many are filled with things
like tuna or "pork floss" so you have to choose wisely). My Chinese
counterparts would choose six or seven. I've watched girls who are
smaller than I am carefully eat entire pans of cake, along with
several donuts and a small tart. After sitting and staring, I've
developed a theory: Chinese pastries are devoid of all fat and
calories. This leads them to be A) terrible and B) guilt-free! It's
how these women are able to down six or seven in one sitting and
remain model-thin.

Example #2: the subtitles. Most people know that it's easy to get a
boot-legged DVD here in Beijing. They're everywhere and they're
incredibly cheap. While they aren't dubbed, they do come with Chinese
subtitles. During the movie, when a cultural reference is mentioned
they usually put a quick Chinese explanation on the bottom of the
screen, followed by the English word. Or they try to. The other day, I
was watching a movie where one of the main characters described
himself as "in a pickle." On the bottom of the screen, I could see a
few Chinese characters and then the English words "Pickles the Frog."
Who's Pickles the Frog? Should I be embarrassed not to know the
reference, or curious as to the plot of the movie that my Chinese
counterparts must be watching?

Finally, there's Halloween. This holiday hasn't caught on at all. In
fact, the only references to Halloween could be seen at Western-style
grocery stores, or bars catering to the expat crowd. That was it -
though it didn't stop Beijing from being the single greatest place in
the world to buy Halloween costumes. Why, you ask? Because my Chinese
peers insist on wearing bunny ears and panda paws all the time. Why
wait for once a year, when you can dress up every day? So, sure, when
we took the subway on Halloween, we half-posed for sneaky camera
pictures taken of our ridiculous costumes. I was the "Year of the
Rabbit," Emily dressed up as a popular Chinese cartoon character. But
I'm willing to bet that had we'd not been foreign, the costumes would
have been regarded as totally normal. Fashionable, even.

There was a phrase that was popular in Thailand that I picked up when
I was backpacking there. They boys at the center used to say it all
the time. "Same same." As in "Food here, same same America?" It was
everywhere, and because of the popularity many vendors even sold
tee-shirts with the saying on the front. Some took it a step father
adding that things were "same same but different." I can't think of a
more appropriate phrase for what I'm trying to describe. Bakeries,
movies, western culture in general is same same...but, well,
different.

Chinglish

One of the single greatest things about living in a foreign country is the language barrier. Yes, there are times when I wish that I could just explain to a cab driver the general vicinity of my destination, or ask a waiter to describe a dish, but seeing things like "a friend boiled," or "a Jew's ear" (what happened to the other one??) on a menu makes up for this entirely. Speaking little to no Chinese makes doing every day tasks an incredible adventure, and usually a hilarious story. There is now "the time I tried to order soup," "the time 10 waitresses surrounded my table, trying to figure out what I wanted," and "the time I tried to find the subway station, but instead was pointed to an actual Subway sandwich shop." Classics. Most of these stories are created when I do things alone, as luckily most of my friends here are conversational, if not fluent. For the first couple of days I was here, I followed them around wide-eyed as they did things like get me a metro card and put money on my phone. Now, I'm more independent and trying to play that role for my parents.

As most know, I was living in China for about three weeks before my parents were able to join me here. In those three weeks, I'd managed not only to become employed (easier than ordering off of a menu. Within five minutes of posting my resume, I had a phone call setting up an interview. The next day I had a job and the day after I began to tutor English) but also to pick up a few key "survival phrases." This has allowed me to have many one-sided conversations, and also was the inspiration for the game I like to play, called "Guess the Answer." Here's an example
Me: I want a vegetable dumpling. Without meat.
Them: *speaks for a good twenty seconds, gesturing to various dumplings*
Me: Yes.

Now, unless they had simply said "Ok," or "Don't have," I wouldn't have been able to understand them. So, instead I "Guess the Answer." In this case, I like to imagine that they said "Well, we do have non-meat dumplings, but they've been sitting in the sun all day, and we're about to throw them in the garbage can over there. I really wouldn't eat them if I were you, but if you say 'yes' right now, I'll be convinced to let you have them."

I love having one-sided conversations. I also love nodding wisely, pretending I understand what they are saying completely. I manage to fool old ladies, who just want an audience in an elevator, but I also think I've managed to fool my parents. The minute they saw me direct a cab ("Straight. Straight. Straight. Right turn.") they were convinced I had become a conversational speaker in less than 30 days. My dad, especially, thinks I'm a prodigy child. Every time I point to a menu and say "that" he yells "She's done it again! Amazing!" It's really flattering, but I think they might be overestimating my abilities a bit. The other day he asked me to open a bank account for him. Unless he doesn't want meat in his bank account, I don't think I can help him out.

Sometimes I can't help but to wish we all spoke the same language. Things might be a bit easier if I weren't mute and illiterate, but I sure as hell wouldn't have snagged a job in less than a day just because I spoke English, and there's no way that my bootleg version of "Black Swan," would have read "Black Sean." For now, I'm just not willing to give these things up.

Something to declare.

In a few hours, I’ll be leaving Thailand on a 16 hour journey to Beijing, China. I guess nobody said getting to China would be easy. In fact, the difficulty of it all is what has inspired me to write the following blog post. While I should be reflecting fondly on the past few months which were both incredible and surreal, it happens to be Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of fasting, repenting, and general ill-feelings. Plus, if you happened to glance at my post on food, entitled “Food Frenzy,” you’ll know that I don’t do well when I’m hungry. I’m pissed. So in a couple of hours, they’ll ask me at customs if I have anything to declare. Yes, in fact, I do.

            I have a lot to declare. Namely, China: it should not be this difficult to enter you.*** My poor parents have been stuck in moving purgatory because of a supposed hold up on their visas since the beginning of September. I was supposed to be leaving Thailand to visit them in their well-established three bedroom Chinese apartment, but they aren’t living at home in D.C. anymore and they haven’t yet moved to China. They’re living at a hotel in Virginia. Can you imagine thinking you were moving to China, only to actually move to Virginia? So, China, if you think you can scare them from moving just by having a bureaucratic mess interfere with them getting hold of visas, you can think again. My mother did not make 10 dozen deviled eggs for her own going-away party just to sit in temporary housing thirty minutes away. My father did not spend countless hours repeating simple Chinese phrases in our basement just to order Chinese broccoli in Chinatown. No, China, you will tell the visa-handler (I have no idea if this is a real position, but I imagine a crotchety old man sitting in a dark room, stamping visas at random) that unless he intends to reimburse us for a slightly insane Costco run followed by hours of slave-labor-finger-food preparation for said going away party, he will just have to grant my parents the access they desire.

            Also, I’d like to declare that my 30 day visa, for which I paid 150 dollars, does not seem like a fair trade. You said I could “simply extend my visa in China,” although I think that there was something lost in translation in this exchange. Typically, the word “simply” implies that this will be done with ease. Looking ahead, I can’t imagine it will be, although I do anticipate spending a large sum of money in the process. It would actually be simple, China, for you to extend my visa now.

            Finally, I’d like to declare that by insisting we put the family cat in a 30 day quarantine, you now have her blood on your hands, if it comes to that. Many people I’ve spoken to think the cat will be fine. Those who think that have never actually met the cat. This is the same creature that has been known to hide under the couch for days at a time, leaving only to stand in the hallway, growling at any passer-by. She will forgo food if she thinks danger is lurking, and to her, any footstep is a sign of potential danger. She’s not exactly “adaptable” and if you kill her during this quarantine, it’s on your hands.

            So when I get to the airport, maybe I will stand in the line for those who have “something to declare.” I realize that this isn’t entirely the point of this distinction in customs, nor is it the best use of my time to spend my last day in Thailand brooding over these things, but I guess I have next Yom Kippur to repent about that one.

***That’s what she said.

Urban Light

I really have been doing more in Thailand than just eating, I can assure you. Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had the pleasure of beginning to volunteer with an organization called Urban Light. Started by a woman from Maryland, the organization serves as a respite center for Thai boys who are forced to work in Thailand’s booming sex industry at night. I originally typed the work “prostitute” as an explanation for the boys work, but deleted it – as even seeing it on a screen feels a little too creepy. The boys range in age from the mid-teens to early twenties. They come from the Akha village in the north, but most have been here in Chiang Mai for years. For the most part, they seem as well-adjusted and stable as any, though their lives outside the center are anything but.

The center, originally started as a tutoring program in a local coffee shop, now does a whole lot more. Urban Light provides the boys with a place to shower, a hot lunch, a way to learn English and general life skills. When the boys are sick, the staff takes them to the clinic. When the boys are really sick, they visit them at the hospital, making sure they’re receiving the best care and sending hugs from the other well-wishers. The organization provides rent for the boys who are not of-age to get a legal job, and job opportunities for the older ones. Because none of the boys can afford a private school during the day, Urban Light also provides the fee and needed encouragement for the boys to enroll in a GED program.

If this seems like a shameless plug for the organization, it isn’t – but it should be. Never before have I seen a team of people more invested in what they do. While Alezandra, the founder, fundraises in the United States, two young women named Hazel and Aw act as case managers, coordinators, and house moms all in one. When one of the boys, Ado, had a motor bike accident, Aw was dressing his wounds the same day that Hazel had made a dentist appointment for him to replace his lost tooth. Of course, Urban Light took on the bill. A few nights ago, Hazel couldn’t sleep. With a one-year-old baby in the house her sleeping patterns have been off lately. At 2:30 am she took her motorbike out for a 20 minute drive, visiting the bars that many of our boys frequent. Like any good mother, she scolded the boys for being out so late and told them to go get some sleep. They’re characters, both of them. They also happen to be unbelievably gorgeous: reason enough for a 16-year-old boy to visit the center daily.

The boys themselves are in a league of their own. They’re polite, often exceedingly so, in their attempts to humor me while I try to contribute in some meaningful way.  When they let me make lunch, I burned myself and any bystanders with splattering oil. Charlito, our best cook, quickly took the wok from my hands. When I tried to buy the boys ice cream pops from a man who had stopped in front of the center, they had beaten me to the punch and had no problem explaining that no, the brown popsicle is not chocolate, it’s brown bean. Pink is not strawberry, it’s sticky rice. And white, well, it’s not vanilla, but it’s some sort of Thai leaf. I don’t know what I’d do without them. For the record, I ended up choosing sticky rice and it wasn’t half bad… if you ignored the floating bits of rice.

They treat me like I’m slightly incompetent when it comes to navigating day-to-day life in Thailand, and they’re kind of right to assume I am. What I can offer is a command of the English language. They’re great students and through my teaching I’m able to learn about their lives in the village before they came to Chiang Mai, and their lives now. It isn’t too often that when you ask a boy to write a sentence in the past-tense he chooses “I used to ride buffalo.” Isn’t it always the case that the students end up teaching the teacher in the end? This is no exception.

Currently the center is under two feet of water due to recent flooding in the area. If you’d like to make a donation to Urban Light, please visit: http://urban-light.org/about.html

Food frenzy

Genetics can be a wonderful thing. There are those traits we inherit that make us realize how fortunate we are. Thanks to my mother, I can carry a tune, for example. Plus, I’m not sure which side of the family I should thank about the fact that I never had to endure braces. Being 13 was awkward enough; at least my teeth were straight. However, there are those traits that we could live without. Namely, thanks to my mother, I have one serious flaw: I do not cope well when I’m hungry.

There was the time, working in Kentucky, that I began to get extremely snippy with a customer around lunch time and physically had to remove myself before I ended up saying something that I’d regret. I was actually being genuinely mean to a woman who was not only old enough to be my mother, but was doing absolutely nothing wrong. “One Subway sandwich, please,” and I was back to normal. There was also the time, more recently, that I completely snapped at Shira in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for no other reason than we hadn’t eaten a real lunch. I literally stopped walking in the middle of a busy intersection, threw down my arms, and snapped. I think my head might have spun around three times too, but that might just be my memory taking creative liberties. The point is: one quick stop at a noodle shop later and I was back to my cheerful self.

It’s a very, very good thing, then, that in Thailand I am rarely (read: never) hungry. The question I get most from family and friends is “how is the food?” so let me tell you: I am living a foodie’s dream. If you are under the impression that Thailand is a country where the air smells consistently like mouth-watering Pad Thai, you can’t walk two blocks without being offered a fresh fruit shake, mango sticky rice, or a homemade spicy papaya salad – I want to set the record straight: you are absolutely right. That is an entirely accurate depiction of this country. The other night, I went out to hit the ATM at a nearby road and ended up sampling stir-fried morning glory, made insanely spicy and insanely wonderful. I’d been down that street a few times, but apparently never around dinner time – when small stalls pop up and everyone is stir-frying, blending, or deep-frying something delicious. In a way, I guess, it’s a bit like the food trucks at lunch time in downtown D.C., but a thousand times less pretentious and cheaper. I wonder if I could get them to Tweet their locations…. Either way: I’ve “mmed” my way through colorful curries, eaten my body weight in Tom Yum Soup, and tried something wrapped in a banana leaf that was delicious, and still has yet to be identified. Oh, and the prices. How can you turn down the made-on-the-spot roti when it’s about 50 cents and filled with bananas and chocolate? You can’t, you wouldn’t, I promise.

So even though there are, of course, pizza places every once in a while, even falafel to appeal to the Israeli crowd, I’d rather overdose on Thai food for now. In fact, I went to trivia at an Irish pub the other night with friends (that’s right: friends. I threw that word in just to brag a bit) and came to the realization that fish ‘n chips will always be just fish ‘n chips. I’d choose a spicy curry any day and be content with the fact that overpriced, bland, food will still be there in a couple of months.

Settle down

My job last year taught me a lot. I can turn 100 + e-mails into an organized to-do list with next steps and follow up dates within an hour. I’m an amazingly relaxed flyer, and I can get through a security line at the airport faster than the character in the movie “Up In the Air.” Sorry, Clooney. I am also, great at living out of a suitcase. It’s an art form really: the skill of being able to unpack enough for a convenient, easy stay but not enough to become so comfortable you forget where you put everything. I have to say, Shira was not as skilled. Hour one in a new hostel and it would look like she purposely shook her bag upside-down, like an animal marking its territory. She got better though – and pretty much had to with all the moving around we did. Over the course of four weeks we stayed in 10 different places, never staying at any one more than three nights. Thrown into the mix were also a few too many overnight buses and one overnight train ride that I’m still not ready to re-live yet. Even if the plastic seats had been nailed properly to the ground, and even if it hadn’t been a steady 40 degrees, it wouldn’t have mattered because I spent the night with aggressive food poisoning, making best friends with the squat toilet.  

            Even this past week, spending time on the beautiful southern islands of Koh Phangan and Koh Payam wasn’t necessarily a “settled” existence, as we were doing things each day that we’d never done before. Scuba diving through schools of electric-colored fish, navigating the circus that was the Full Moon Beach Party, even unabashedly skinny dipping on a beach, on an island, with nobody else around. These aren’t things you do when you’re “settled down.”

            But now, I’ve seen Shira off, and the next few weeks I’ll be living, actually unpacking, and volunteering in Chiang Mai. I guess living at a backpackers isn’t settled, really, but I envision myself getting to know the area, making friends and even having a favorite place to get spicy papaya salad. And that’s as settled down as I’d like to get.

Other People

Other people are a lot cooler than I am.

My self confidence is fine, thanks, that’s just a fact. They’re probably cooler than you are too.

During this trip I’ve been lucky enough to have opportunities to have this statement enforced multiple times. Take this, for example: non-Americans have better health-care coverage, take longer vacations and have startlingly better retirement plans than we do. Whether it’s the Dutch couple that essentially said it is nearly impossible for them to be fired, or the New-Zealander who is retired and sitting pretty in his mid-seventies, their countries just offer them much sweeter deals. We also seldom find another traveler who has plans to go back within the next week or two. They’ve always just run out their visa in one country and are on their next border run shortly to extend their stay. Never mind their jobs; they’ll be there when they get back.

            I have also determined that it is possible to find some common ground, and to start a conversation, with every other person. This is not to say that we are all the same by any stretch of the imagination. I think we are in fact the opposite: products of our environment. So while I may never be able to balance a plate of boiled bananas (that’s right, boiled. Imagine my surprise as a bit into a steaming-hot, starchy banana!) I can use a squat toilet with ease. Why? I’ve been squatting to pee since we threw bonfire parties in the woods during high school. See? A commonality. Or take the Brit, who was curious about what we, Americans, liked to eat. We started talking Thanksgiving and asked if he’d ever heard of Tur-duck-en, explaining that it was a chicken, stuffed in a duck, stuffed in a turkey. “We have something like that in the UK!” He enthusiastically replied. “Although it’s with a quail and a guinea-fowl.” Happy to find a common ground, Shira replies “exactly! Only in America, we only eat animals that exist.”

            So whether it’s laughing with our Thai friend God (yes, that is his real name. How can you not like the guy?) about how his childhood in a hillside village just prepared him to be on the reality show “Survivor” – he’d be grilling fish from the comfort of his two-story bamboo home while the other contestants were still shaking hands – or it’s having a few too many drinks with the couple that left the U.S. after college and never looked back, there’s always something to talk about. Other people: just like me and you, but cooler.

Being naive

I’ll admit it: I’m a bit naïve. It’s hard not to be when you’re traveling in a place that’s completely new to you. There have been times, I can be sure, that we’ve been played, ripped off, taken for fools. Generally, we laugh it off. Should I have tried to bargain more  at the night market in Siem Reap? Probably, but three dollars for a scarf is three dollars and haggling makes me feel like an asshole. Have the extra dollar and the laugh at my expense. In another example, we probably shouldn’t have paid as much as we did for our minibus across the Cambodian border, but after turning down a dozen tuk-tuks, buses and taxi offers we were forced with either putting our faith in someone, sometime, or walking the 150 + kilometers to the city center with our hands folded across our chest. So fine, have my ten dollars extra, but can you at least make me think I’m getting a good deal?

As a traveler, my naivety is often the most obvious when I put blind faith in the others that I meet along the way. I have told our Thai and Cambodian friends, time and again, that they could give me any answer and I would absolutely, without a doubt, believe it. “What’s that you say? Thai people are naturally immune to mosquito bites? Makes sense to me!”  “You have actually tried elephant meat? What does it taste like?” And so on.

There are, of course, some things that are impossible to be ignorant to. Thailand’s sex industry is perhaps the most striking example of this. When I started this trip, I was ready to write it all off as hype. Shira and I would have sworn to the fact that we never one saw a prostitute in Bangkok, despite scouting in an attempt to find the red-light district. A few short days later, in a hot spring in northern Thailand, we met an elderly man who spoke about his Thai wife and kids. Upon meeting the family, and realizing that they spoke absolutely no English, he spoke no Thai, and they seemed to want to have little to do with him, I raised an eyebrow. After that point it seemed like the more we looked, the more we saw. I’m pretty sure those young women aren’t actually laughing at your jokes, sir, as you sit resting a beer on your gut and stroking their cheeks. I may be mistaken, but I don’t think these creepy dinner dates I often see or mis-matched couples at the bar are completely innocent. Something tells me that beautiful, young, Thai women just don’t normally go for the balding look. Last Thursday our gut feeling was verified, as we spent the night doing outreach for a local non-profit that specializes in providing a respite for young, male prostitutes. We had spent that day with the boys, cooking with them and teaching them a bit of English before we met them and the center’s lead volunteer at a bar downtown. The scene was just about as stomach-turning as you’d imagine, and although we didn’t stay long we sat front row to the flirting between overweight, white men and the teenagers they planned on bringing home. So now, yes, we are a little less naïve. In fact, I can’t seem to pass any white man above a certain age without scowling in his direction. “Came here for the Pad Thai? You’re sick.” Of course, many of these men are completely innocent of the crimes my eyes accuse them of, but I’d rather not give them the benefit of the doubt. In this case, I can’t stand being naïve.                                

The early lessons

After about a week of travel throughout Thailand, I can’t say I’m significantly more knowledgeable about backpacking, Thailand, or life in general. I can, however, narrow down my first week’s education into a few important “lessons learned.” Here they are, in no particular order:
4 Important Lessons Learned from the Very First Week of Travel

Lesson 1: I’m weird everywhere.

This lesson has been brought to my attention time and again, of course, but I’ve never felt my weirdness as strongly as I do here. Example one: a few days ago, Shira and I embarked on a trek through northern Thailand.  Instead of staying overnight at a campsite, we opted to follow our guide to one of the Lahu “hill tribe” villages that are scattered throughout the mountainous region of the north. I was afraid it would be somewhat of a spectacle, as often times while doing similar things in South Africa, I have been made to watch “traditional dances” or forced to awkwardly stare into people’s homes during these cultural experiences. I shouldn’t have worried, though, as it seemed in this case I was the spectacle. I cooed to a baby; it burst into tears. I waved to children, they collapsed into fits of giggles, hiding behind one another. A group of soccer players stared at us, the spectators. One brave little boy even ran up to us, laughed and shook his butt in our direction. Another lesson, I suppose: little boys are little boys everywhere.

Another example of my weirdness comes from my love of running for pleasure. After spending a significant amount of time in somewhat rural Kentucky this past year, I’m used to getting stared at during evening runs. I’d imagine those viewing me looking up from their pulled-pork sandwiches and asking their dinner companions why I was moving at a fast-pace, outdoors, without a motor vehicle. I ran anyways. When I took a half-hour to stretch my legs one morning in the small town of Pai, in northern Thailand, I received the all too familiar stare. “Crazy white American,” I’d imagine them saying as I ran by, attempting to bow politely to every-passer by. Not an easy task, by the way, if you’re simultaneously trying to avoid being chased by street dogs and run over my motor taxis. Ah, motorbikes. Brings me to lesson #2...

Lesson 2: Riding a motorbike is not like riding a bike.

This lesson is shorter, and better explained by Shira’s black and blue legs, her various gashes and the pitiful looks we get just about everywhere we go. It was a terrifying moment to see my good friend smash into the side of a building. It was equally terrifying having to choose between a day at the hospital and cleaning up the mess ourselves. This decision was made for me, as the first thing Shira said, with tear-filled eyes, was “I still want to go to the waterfall today.” For anyone wondering, we did go to the waterfall that day. We went on motorbikes. Motorbikes driven by men that we are assured had been driving since the ripe old age of 11.

Lesson 3: There is such a thing as too spicy.

I used to think I could hang. I would douse eggs in hot sauce, slather sushi in wasabi, even eat jalapeno peppers straight out of the jar (remember? I’m weird). In Thailand, I’ve learned that the Thai word for “spicy” translates directly into “tears-running-snot-dripping-want-to-pull-your-tongue-out-of-your-mouth-may-not-ever-taste-again-hot.” Similar to motorbike riding, I now leave spicy to the experts.

Lesson 4: I can be brave, but cursing helps.

Yesterday, I went cliff jumping. I jumped off of an actual cliff into the Pai river. I think I managed to make the plunge only after yelling the word “fuck” four or five times to relieve my shaking hands. The day before, I trekked through a jungle. In case you’re wondering what the difference between a trek and a hike is, I can summarize by saying that we bush-whacked through bamboo forests, climbed hills while ankle-deep in mud from the storm earlier that week, and used muscles that we never knew existed to pull ourselves along. Upon doing so, I got bit my mosquitoes approximately 127 times and managed to keep trekking only after telling them exactly where they could go. In a word, it was unforgettable. But like I said, cursing helps. 

In case I've done a terrible job at describing the amount of fun we're having while learning all of these important lessons, here it is in sum: I haven't laughed this hard at myself in a very, very long time.

Pleasing my parents

When I was offered a well-paid and interesting job straight out of college, my parents sent me flowers.  When, a year later, I announced my new one-year plan included quitting that job to gallivant around

Southeast Asia, my dad told me I could be a life-coach.

Dad, I just told you I was quitting my job. Plus, I’ve been known to steer friends towards terrible decisions for the sake of hilarity. But still, it’s a flattering thought. At least I know you’re proud of me.

Needless to say, I’m one of the rare 23 year olds who is able to escape the “pleasing my parents” complex. Any overwhelming desire to live up to my parents expectations for me is squelched by the fact that my parents think it’s awesome that I’ve chosen to become a “professional nomad.” Not that I’m much of a rebel, but I assume it’s fairly rare to announce to your parents that you’re quitting your job to go explore Asia and have them say, “That’s fine. We’re going to do that too.”

Why, you ask? Let’s back up. About four months before I quit my job, my mom beat me to the punch and left her job. My dad had us both beat, and was actually living in China at the time. Granted, he had a job, but he was on an adventure none-the-less. Around that point, they both decided to relocate for the next few years. My brother had been living in China for years already and had recently signed up to stay longer. So now, I’m really just joining in the family tradition.

In about two weeks I’ll be taking one 36 liter backpack to tour Thailand and Cambodia. For the first leg of my journey, one of my best friends, Shira, will be joining me. Then I’m off to Cambodia to volunteer, eventually meeting up with my parents in China for an indefinite amount of time. For a “planner” like myself, this is both overwhelmingly scary and incredibly freeing. Backpacking in Southeast Asia has been on my bucket list since, well, I made a bucket list (not coincidentally, I think, when the movie “Bucket List” with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson came out. It was cute and it made me cry -- so what?). My lack of a plan is what makes this so appealing to me. I’ve always liked to think of myself as fairly laid-back; however, this has never been true.  This is my first shot at spontaneity.  Follow me as I fly into Bangkok and make it up from there.