Monday, January 30, 2012

saigon

mui ne, vietnam

walk around ho chi minh city for a day and tell me you haven't been teleported into the life of kevin arnold from the wonder years. not to say that you would physically take on his attributes (clear complexion, cracking voice, the strong jet-black wavy hair of an aspiring politician) so much as interact with a world that is metaphysically identical to his own. once you get past a few superficial barriers (there were no $1 pho carts in those six glorious seasons) it becomes hidden in plain sight that the two are ontologically unified.

to take it from the top, you are kevin arnold. the age does not matter. the world around you is vaguely familiar: you have never lived on that street in that fictional suburb, but you still recognize it. so too in saigon. the city around you is new aesthetically (frenetic traffic, vietnamese signage, uncle ho propaganda), but it is not something you could not have anticipated. if we take it beyond the setting and into the plot structure (both episodically and of the narrative arc of the work as a whole), they are similar. there is a whole world around you, young kevin, filled with occurences, but nothing is really happening. the baser of our emotions (laughter, shock, anger) are not stimulated in either. the deeper are, but that is only through immersion into these worlds. just as the relationship with becky slater is only significant with deeper understanding of the dynamics vis-a-vis winnie cooper, so too do the smaller events in saigon only gain import with a deeper understanding (relationships, etc). even though there is nothing readily apparent to pique your interest in one (episode, day) of either, you find yourself watching nonetheless.

does it end there? of course not. because through the course of your rambles, dear kevin, you could not have failed to notice the propaganda. the posters, street names, statues, even the whole damn town is named after ho chi minh. and who is that, kevin? i mean, really, who is that? that is your father, kevin. that is jack arnold. he's got strong forearms and he's tired at the end of the day. he is gruff and he is stern but all of that is for you. there are expectations if you live under his roof, but if you follow his rules, father dan/uncle ho will take care of you.

and norma, your dear mother, you recognize her, don't you? she is all around. her visage can be found in the new skyscrapers rising along the river and the glass air-conditioned malls, as well as the festooned narrow lanes and in each hand of the traditional streetside card games. she is a quandary. she is stuck in the existential crisis of modernity. she runs a good house and understands what is expected of her as dan's (ho's) spouse. she does an excellent job in raising her children. but there is something about her. something inside her is crying out for more, for independence, for freedom from the traditional role she has been cast into. she is aching for the chance to spread her wings, yet she also feels conflicted about how far she wants to fly. your mother is the development crisis.

and of course, it doesn't end there. your older brother, wayne? he is the reason you need to hold your backpack close, keep your mind keen on your surroundings, be resolute in your negotiations with xe oms. if you let your guard down, wayne will get you.

winnie cooper? she is that unattainable intangible. she is the language you do not speak but want to know. she is the cultural barrier that prevents the accurate interpretation of the greater world around you. she is an enigma.

paul? let's face it, asians can be dorks. spending all of their free time and money in cyber cafes with role-playing games. the obsession with animation. the clothing with poorly translated english phrases. yet, endearing. you, kevin, you want to stand up for them.

your older sister, karen? well, there are a ton of hippies running around. i would like to throw in something for chuck, but at this point i'm merely showing how much television i used to watch.

and, lastly, importantly, seminally, both the wonder years and ho chi minh city share an important backdrop: vietnam.

Saturday, January 28, 2012

fulbright

sihanoukeville, cambodia

if not for a civil war, i would likely be in cote d'ivoire right now. last year i applied for the prestigious fulbright program and made it to the post-graduate equivalent of the final four. my proposed project was to travel the country, collecting video postcards on the divisions that had torn the country asunder ten years prior and ultimately debilitated the once-prosperous african exception. then there were elections not long after my application was submitted. then the results of said elections were disputed and not honored. then the french intervened and the whole thing was solved by artillery and air support. needless to say, somebody in the ivorian state department did not think it a good idea to sponsor a random white guy to ask very sensitive questions in a war zone.

this year, i had another proposal for a potential fulbright, this time in france. sometime last week, i received word that i did not make it past the sweet sixteen.

so then i'm lying there the other night, running through the bird's eye of my life and i determine that something's off. it doesn't take long to realize that i'm bothered that i don't know why i'm not bothered that i didn't receive the fulbright. i put a lot into that application (even if it came out rushed this time) and was pretty confident i would receive it. and then i knew.

these past three weeks, i've been unwired. i've been going to where i please and doing what i want at a rhythm i deem best. i haven't been waiting for some girl to send me a text. i haven't been waiting for somebody to show up. i haven't been waiting for that email bestowing deliverance upon my great, weak, tortured heart.

and that feels good. liberating. maybe some other word that does not exist or i do not yet know for that whole living-in-the-moment thing. so i reason that this is where i am and for all its potential enlightenment, such moments and epiphanies are ephemeral. i will not be able to carry this all the way forward. i will not watch all the sunsets when i get home. i will not wear baggy shorts and go around barefoot with a shaved head. i will not be arriving in cambodian cities without hotel reservations and get a thrill out of negotiating my way to sleep. but i can set a precedent (think common law versus civil law.) maybe i can make the way forward a bit more forward. i can be a little bit more proactive. and so if destiny refuses to write on my facebook wall, maybe i'll just have to play a bigger part in doing this for myself.

again, i don't know what this means. at least not concretely. it's all vague and syrupy and something you get from too many mosquito bites and days in the sand. but that's where i am and this is where i am at. and so it must be told.

i want to spend my time doing and not waiting. i want to write more. i want to travel more. i want some literary agent to plug their nose and retrieve my dream from the slush pile. i spent two years writing a novel and i'm tired of prevaricating about it. tired of pretending that i should do anything else with my life. because it's good. i know it is. and i've got more up here. i just need one link in the supply chain to justify its existence by giving me a chance. literary agents are the old lady paying with pennies in the checkout line of life while i've got one item and exact change and pretty pressing desire to get out of the supermarket. so if some agent could just do their fucking job and relieve me of the 278-page novel presently taking a shit on my hard drive, i could do this travel thing for more than a few months every couple years.

and i know there are bigger concerns in the great big world beyond: food, water, shelter, health. but i did just say i was going to be a bit more proactive. a bit more tenacious. and i suppose that means i should make fewer apologies and ask for a little more forgiveness. starting now.

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

last night

sihanoukeville, cambodia

or, what happens when two americans, two canadians, two tunisians, two indians, an israeli, a spaniard, and some other people socialize.

the neighbors are complaining about the noise. maybe not the noise specifically so much as a hybrid concern regarding the late hour and the aggregate chatter, i don't know. i only know that the owner, a half-swedish half-spanish chap (who really is such a sweet guy), suggests that we move the whole party to blame canada, another establishment he owns that is located right on the beach (and, thus, further away from neighbors who may wish to sleep or relax though i cannot claim to be sure of their exact motivation(s).)

so we all walk to blame canada, almost in unison, and there are a few people already there but it's pretty much everyone from the previous spot (all the aforementioned, of which i am one of the americans, plus another contingent that is not exactly in our group so much as with us as a part of a larger, fractured-albeit-cohesive whole.) of the persons already in the establishment, three are a father/sons group from eastern british columbia, though by their comportment i would prefer to classify them as being from alberta. so i'm playing pool with one of the sons, age around twenty, and he seems pretty nice while the other son is contributing vaguely misinformed, left-leaning political missives in his conversation with the other american (who is from alaska and built his own sauna!) the father looks like meatloaf. the singer, not the meat-based dish. i know the comparison is superficial given that meatloaf (the performing artist) is also from canada, but the father does look like a blonde, late career meatloaf.

some time passes, the way it tends to do, and then the brother i was playing pool with gets pretty close in the face of the owner of the establishments. his countenance, though not clearly visible to me, is pretty stern. the indian guy and i look at each other all like, "why's he gotta be all up in his face, man?" and then people start circling in with different motivations. meatloaf is a little off to the side, but he's clearly a minor catalyst in whatever social tension has been created. soon, the other brother gets right. up. in. the owners face and his eyes are widening and his voice is rising and we are able to discern that the problem, the one creating the strained dynamic, that is, is that the other brother (who has longish hair tucked behind his ears and a wispy goatee) had directed some question of biographical import to the owner and did not receive a response that he deemed socially sufficient. the owner, he of half-swedish half-spanish heritage, is really not looking to instigate or further exacerbate the already deteriorating relations, though he also does not appear eager to cede much of the proverbial right-of-passage to these agents provocateurs in the business which he owns (it's not like he tells this to me or to anyone while i am in earshot, i am merely inferring based upon his demeanor.)

anyway, the rhetoric is escalating and the alberta trio is getting pretty testy and some of us, including the two shirtless bartenders (male), move in to be there in case some punches or other manifestation of violence appear while some others are in the background all like, "whooooa, man, why don't you just chiiiiiiilllll" and "yo, he didn't mean anything by it" and some others, mostly the females, are really disappointed in the entire spectacle and are slowly edging away. at a certain point, i really can't pinpoint it exactly, meatloaf (who doesn't appear to be very outstanding in his stewardship as the father of other humans) begins to attain some perspective, a little insight on the situation at hand, and starts using verbal and light physical means of dissuading his progeny from further escalation of the "static" (that's what my former students in east new york say....so cute!) again, it's not like anything was told directly to me, there really was no conversation, i'm just supposing that meatloaf ran through, silently, the calculus of what would happen were he or his offspring to punch a local business owner in the face in a country where they do not have citizenship. for whatever chinks-in-the-armor meatloaf has, i am really in no position to impugn his powers of persuasion as he is able to guide the two chips-off-the-old block out of the bar. it was said that he would return in the morning to pay the tab.

finally, with that all cleared up, we proceeded to rehash and not rehash the preceding events and enjoy the company of one another in an environment (some call it the vibe) that was still a bit charged (i want to use the word 'ionized' or some other of similar etymological composition, though am not sure if this is germane) but gradually returned to normal until the indian guy started crying because andrea wouldn't forgive him for biting her leg.

long-story short: i changed my bus ticket to stay here for one more night. tomorrow i'm even going snorkeling!

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

chul muouy

sinanoukeville, cambodia

i would say that even the nights are better, but that's walking the razor's edge in proximity to a campy '80s song. i would say that the mornings are good until, but that may imply that what follows only serves to ruin something good already established. i would say that each day gets better, but you may think that means that each day is better than the preceding. what i want to say is that each day has a unique way of progressing. the mornings are good, the evenings are great, and the way this magic happens on consecutive days is more random and intangible than i could ever hope to articulate.

because we all like tangible examples, we'll say that it's two days ago. i'm on my way to fetch/return a book/journal/whatever from/to my room because reading/writing in a hammock or padded lounge chair mere feet away from the water sounds pleasant. you can put it down to take a swim in the warm water when you want to. you can have a beer or lemon shake if you feel like it. and you do. you do all of this because this is what we think feels good. and it does.

so, i'm returning or fetching something. let's call it some hour that passes for one pm around these parts. i take the stairs up from the water to my guest house and the staff is gathered around the stone table perched on the rock above our tiny slice of sandy eden. we only met the night before, but i'm still invited to have beers to celebrate the chinese new year. when i drink half of my beer, one of the fellas reaches into the case to pull out a second one. the little space in front of me soon has both the batter's box and two on-deck circles. my options are many, not limited to the token one beer of solidarity to the thanks-guys-i-gotta-run to the feigned-sip-and-really-nursing strategy. but it's the new year.

so i learn that the khmer equivalent of cheers is chul muouy and is initiated every two minutes. i learn that one of the receptionists would definitely be included on the bloopers segment of any american idol audition. i share one common drinking phrase from my own country which is soon amended to be, "to drink someone under the tuk tuk." throughout the afternoon, one or another of the guys would disappear for a half-hour to take some of the other guests to town, as needed. i was not counting the number of drinks these guys had nor did i give in to the western temptation to warn their passengers. the road was short, the vehicle cannot go too fast, but mostly i believe that if you're not even going to look at your driver when they're standing in front of you, there's a special clause to caveat emptor that goes into effect. i was mostly concerned about their quick return; we were having such a good time.

i did make my own exit at some hour that resembles five o'clock, again, around here. there was the switch from beer to water some time before that. i walked down to the beach, found a lounge chair, caught a sunset. i would include a picture of the beach, but i 1) haven't taken a single one and 2) believe that if you've seen a picture of one beach, you've seen 'em all. besides, looking at a picture of a beach is like looking at the rem reading of a dream. you get the picture, but you don't get the story.

i don't know the exact details of your january, but i have a pretty good idea. i'm sure vice versa. it would still be a shame to not tell you, or the public record, that one guy may have found what he's looking for, at least for this little while. because there's something about those sunsets. of course, the setting looks just like the photo you've all seen before. but the postcard doesn't have the warm wind gently blowing through. it doesn't have the sound of the gulf of thailand gently tapping on the shoulders of this little beachfront right over there. and it certainly can't handle the sun's transition from orange to red to that pinkish hue before ceding to night and the milky way's shiny jewelry drawer glowing up above. and it certainly does not smile like teeth are going out of style and speak with a cambodian accent. so in lieu of the photo, i'll just keep that up in my head. for here. for now. until then.

Friday, January 20, 2012

boviscopophobia

kampot, cambodia

or, the fear of appearing to be a cow. this is not in reference to any products promoted by our dear ms. craig, nor does this have to do with insecurities regarding rumination. the fear of appearing bovine is in reference to being one of a pliable herd. the late great david foster wallace coined the term in reference to a similar circumstance to which i felt myself belonging yesterday.

the basics: a tour. two vans. one national park. thirty people. thirty tourists, rather. the thing is that it tucked into that price point just so and saved me a good hour of negotiation with tuk tuks and stubborn maps, so i was fine with it. one day. what could possibly go wrong?

it was less discomfort than farce. what i was hoping would be an opportunity to learn about some flora and fauna and maybe even get some cool air on my limbs turned into an informal field study in group behavior. the first stop was a nice lookout on the town and river below. rolling fog, green fields, cocks' crows and all that morning stuff found on page one of narnia novels. also a great opportunity for the four french long hairs to whip out their cigarettes and have a little chat. it took all my resolve not to say, "shhhhhhh! this cambodian guy is trying to tell us about pepper."

another van trip and we were up to the former king sihanouk's decaying digs. there was some dry history to begin this portion of the lecture, but just as the story started heating up, so did the sexual tension between a young dutch couple. standing right across our little listening circle from me, it was hard to pay attention to the accounts of khmer rouge genocide while he of the angkor beer tank top and she of the body a la romanian gymnast tussled and teased back and forth. i was there to learn about killing, not to watch some eurotrash cuddling.

by the time we reached the next stop it was apparent that the tour would be of the tour. by which i mean that the national park had been sold to some chinese developer who would be converting the whole mountaintop into a casino and condominiums. the stately manor we were waiting to see was covered in scaffolding. the temples we visited were serenaded by jackhammers from the ubiquitous construction sites. there was going to be a golf course. they even drove us to a room where there was a twenty-square meter miniature construction of what the area would look like in a few years time. it was like the replica model from the attic in beetlejuice, except it only contained the brutally capitalistic part of town. they may as well have built a reflecting pool for us to gather and sob at the last whispers of the wind on this pristine forest.

the day had no real saving grace. if i stretch myself, i will say that i eventually overcame my boviscopophobia in part by the realization that i was among good people. i had a better conversation with an older australian gentleman about a recent book we both read than anyone at my previous backpackers could offer. i found solidarity with a less publicly-affectionate dutch couple at our mutual disgust over the development of a formerly beautiful plot of land. and i think most of us got a good laugh after an initial scare when that russian guy did not hurt himself after that two-meter fall. what an idiot.

and if i had to be on a tour for the day, at least i got a waterfall. if they say that religion and sport are the opiate for the masses, then waterfalls are the oxycontin for the tourist. and even if there was rain but no cascade down those rocks over there; and even if we had been manipulated by our respective agents into believing we would see something real this day; and even if we all would have been better off just sitting with a good book by the river, at least i had this experience. and a group to share it with. i can just see us watching that disappointing, thin trickling water after a long day of cramming into vans with sliding doors and humming along to the traveler's anthem:

tell me we're going to a waterfall, and i'll march to bataan,
tell me this place has meaning, and i will snap its photo,
tell me this is how you live and always have and bound to change by the time my friends get here.
and if you truly pinky-swear-cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die promise that i'll be the last to see the way it really was, then i'll take one green t-shirt in an extra large.

all together now.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

night & day

phnom penh, cambodia

last night i partied with one dozen barely-twentysomethings in the small courtyard of a backpackers hostel. today i saw roughly 9000 human skulls.

i found the guest house by controlled whim. following a six-hour bus ride that felt like a six-hour bus ride, i drove a hard bargain with a tuk tuk to take me to a cheap place with a good vibe. the first such place was not so cheap, the second one belonged to alex. picture a thin, cambodian liberace who is a really big fan of cypress hill's 1993 chart-topper "black sunday"and you have the basic idea. i dropped off my bags upstairs and went out back to grab a beer before heading out to aimlessly search the city. alex was challenging all comers to a game of pool for a can of beer, so i took him up on it. i lost. but by then there were a dozen lodgers and we each had a comfortable chair from which we could view alex parading around and shouting with his groucho marx mask and it just didn't seem like a good time to leave....

the first stop of the day was choeung ek, more commonly known as the killing fields. it was here that men, women, and children were sent with the dubious charge of being spies for the cia or kgb during pol pot's terrible three-year reign (1976-79.) the ground looks like an egg carton with a number of small bunkers pocked around a small pond. with the song of the birds, the bright sun, and the teeming palms, one would never guess that the 9000 human skulls encased in the fifteen-meter tall stuppa had been unearthed from these large divots. but they had. there was also a sign indicating which tree was used by guards and their grips on the ankles of infants to end young life. it was said that bullets were really expensive.

....and there was also a birthday. by my guess, the young man was turning twenty-three and he really was a nice guy. he and his two friends are somewhat early in their year-long travels away from their home in jolly ol'. while the birthday boy made good conversation, his two mates were a bit reticent. they had the look of young men who have definitely punched other young men in the face, but the english version. they smoked cigarettes and drank beer and carried on like an intimidating boy band. they hit the same stops that i hit today, but claimed to have covered the ground in five days. the rest of the time? they said they've been "chilling out"....

my tuk tuk took me from the killing fields back to central phnom penh and the tuol sleng genocide museum, basically the opposite order of how a prisoner would have experienced it back in the day. tuol sleng, formerly a school, was converted into a torture chamber to serve the ends of the pol pot regime. the whole thing was eerie from the rusty bed frames (to which people were chained and beaten) to the former classrooms partitioned into small cells. perhaps more than anything else were the chalkboards. some of them still have writing, which may be from its school days (i didn't see any mention of them.) if such is the case, this implies that the top echelon of a very cruel regime went through what must have been thousands of man-hours to convert a school into a torture chamber and they wouldn't remove the chalkboards, let alone erase them. for all the stark photographs and written accounts i saw today, somehow this little detail brought it all home.

....he is a big aussi. just graduated university, killing a little time before entering the "real world." so he's sitting there, rolling spliff number god-knows for the evening, telling me he wants to "take it easy"because he's had a "big couple nights." how big? well, apparently, local girls "love white guys"and so he's been taking advantage of this basic disequilibrium. i really don't have many follow-up questions. he goes on. and on. and at one point it comes out, just a casual mention, really, that he paid us$20 for the one the night before and "something like $40" the night before that. again, no real follow-up questions. he further notes that "it's like an experience for them"....

maybe not the chalkboards, after all. that was the detail. without question, the thousands of faces today will be the ones that stare back if i close my eyes and take myself there. the khmer rouge were ruthless in their enforcement of justice and meticulous in its documentation. on display, throughout tuol sleng, are thousands of prisoners' mug shots taken at various stages in their captivity. they have numbers hanging from their necks. a few have noticeable scars, others some grosser deformity, but it's mostly the expressions. some stare in fear, there are a couple with wry smiles on their faces, but more than any other emotion is a cold resignation. they don't know what's going to happen to them after that photograph, but they do. while other twentieth century barbarisms have numbers of survivors, the number of people who got out of tuol sleng or choeung ek are numbered in the dozens.

....i stand up at a certain point to, you know, stand, and am grateful that there's a pool table. i'm putting beers back like the rest of them, but i seem a bit more interested in things like "doing stuff" and "talking." i start off a bit slow, but find a bit of a groove and end up dominating the table for four straight games. good thing too. we were playing partners and the wager was getting up to four cans per game, plus something had to offer a distraction from the terrible euro-trance and australian hip-hop that was alternating on the stereo. it was universally agreed that it was nice to have a place where for once we could all "just chill"....

i'd read the figures before and even after spending so many hours with pictures, images, and places today, it's hard to make sense of it all. obviously, in the how-could-this-happen sense, but the most visceral seems more like how-could-that-have-happened-in-this-place no more than forty years ago. because, if you haven't been here, you wouldn't know that the cambodian national flower might as well be a cheek-to-cheek smile. these people are so nice. and their laughs! you would never pinpoint this race as being the one where more than 3 million (out of a population of 8 million) were exterminated. you would never guess that this bustling capital city was entirely vacant the day the vietnamese invaded/liberated it in 1979 (pol pot cleared all the cities under the theory that only through growing rice could the kingdom reach its former glory.) i feel like when i see someone over the age of forty-five i can only look at them, shake my head and say, "man, just, man, just, wow"

....i politely declined the opportunity to go out with my fellow lodgers, content to get a decent night's sleep. some time in the evening, or, at least, some time and place that i was not a part of, it seems that many in the larger body decided to pool together resources and transportation so that they could make one collective excursion instead of in the three smaller ones, as had been originally planned. i had already made my own arrangements and was not going to cancel, not that i was asked. so a few of us bid goodbye for the day after breakfast, when my own tuk tuk swept me away. they were going to wait for their own driver to bring them to the shooting range where they could fire a rocket launcher for us$40. it's safe to say that they all had a great time.

Monday, January 16, 2012

traveling alone

battambang, cambodia

is your wife or girlfriend at the hotel? no. you're here with friends? um, no. so, you are just traveling around for three months through asia by yourself? that's right. isn't that a bit...

yes, it is. it is weird, strange, lonely, exhilarating, and any one of a number of adjectives that cover the gamut of feelings and emotions. from the outside, it must seem bizarre. from the first person, it is no less so.

traveling alone is like eating dinner alone compounded by three months (or however long one might be on the road.) most of the time, this is no different than eating at the counter of the burrito chain after a long day of work or stopping by the thai place for takeout. sometimes, it can feel like going to a michelin star restaurant in soho and sitting at an elevated table in the middle of the dining room. the wait staff awkwardly removes the second plate from the table cloth. other diners leer and whisper not-so-furtively. the casual laughter from happy tables can sound like thunder.

but it must be so, at least for me. as circumstances would have it, i am a thirty-one year old, single male. i have a wonderful family and a rich tapestry of friends who make me feel the way that anyone would ever wish to feel. i've been planning this trip for about nine months and threw out a few invitations here and there to various persons of interest. i have one dear friend joining me in a month, but nobody else could take time away from their responsibilities to get some dust on their feet. and that's understandable. and okay. truth be told, i figured that i would be doing the trip alone from the moment i decided to go.

because it's not as if i am alone. it is intimidating in a heavily-trafficked place like siem reap to be by oneself in a sea of families and happy and not-so-happy couples. but the solo travelers seem to find each other, or else we're able to tag on as welcome third or fifth wheels for a spell. and if our company grows grumpy, lame, or annoying, we can always make up some half-hearted excuse to rejoin the wind and keep it moving.

still, the real justification for flying solo is the least substantiated, at least for me. because i'm looking out, rather than at someone across the table; because i can linger a little bit longer after grabbing that coffee or beer; because i have all of my attention on the strange new world around me, i'm able to take more in. and it's not just a simple calculus of quantity and quality of perception, either. things just kinda happen to me. policemen who had been seemingly stoic start joking with me. waiters and waitresses sit at my table for a breather. tuk tuk drivers go a little bit further out of their way to point something out that they could have just mentioned.

i don't have any definitive explanation for this; it's possible that it's universal and that others just don't really notice. i suppose the reason i make such a big deal of it is that it is such a big deal. to me. i really can't live without these moments of (bang a gong for each sappy cliche) cross-cultural bridging (bong!) and sixth-sensual stimulation (bong!) and interpersonal awareness of the here now us (bong! bong! bong!) so, the truth is that i travel because i have to. and if that means going alone, that's how it will be.

but like i said, it would certainly be preferable to have company. it would be so great to walk back to my hotel and have her standing there in the lobby. her hair would smell of dr. bronner's and her tank top would be stained from the fish oil she spilled two days ago. we will stare into each other with sun-kissed cheeks and love-drenched eyes and speak softly about our favorite train rides and shadiest border crossings. we will go dance beneath the starlight and spend the night whispering khmer swear words to one another beneath a mosquito net. and in the morning we will be wordless. we will sip our nescafe and eat our oily omelets before having a tuk tuk driver take us to some new, enchanting paradise where we will argue with him upon arrival over twenty-five cents.

or maybe not. perhaps that's just not in the cards for me. and if i have to always travel alone, then alone it shall be. and in which case i shall bequeath my legacy to my passport and my ashes to the sea, and just keep roamin' round this great goddamn world til there ain't nothin more to see.

Saturday, January 14, 2012

angkor wat

siem reap, cambodia

huge temples, you might already know that. to take a trip behind the music is to have a somewhat greater appreciation for the architectural/archaeological accomplishment that lies in this edenic, jungly swamp. to save you an afternoon of reading some dense tome of indecipherable names or even the quick trip to wikipedia, i've got the history right here for you.

basically, angkor wat is a huge complex. think of it as the capitol for the former khmer empire, a millennium ago more or less. so, one guy is king and his nephew, whom we'll call suryavarman II (history remains mum as to whether he had a cape and large 'S' on his chest), is fourteen years old and wants to be king. sounds like a total type-a prick, if you asked me. anyway, the dilemma is solved by attacking his great uncle (who is apparently riding an elephant at the time), bludgeoning him to death, and then receiving the loyalty of the two armies that had just clashed. the problem is that the khmer empire is massive and is always ensconced in some form of tension with the bordering siamese. if any part of the vast kingdom wants to separate, now would be the time. the consequences would be dire. we're talking domino effect here, people. our barely adolescent protagonist has to consolidate.

how? dude wants a huge temple constructed. there are others in the nearby area (this is the capitol, remember), but this must be the biggest, the best, the most holy. and he's ambitious (type-a, remember), so he wants it done in his lifetime. the solution? get a bunch of people (we'll use the term 'peasants', but 'slaves' or 'serfs' are more or less interchangeable) to cut, transport, and set more than five million tons of sandstone into blocks that will form the greatest temple in the land. the effect of such a project will be to reinforce his status as godlike among his people, earn their devotion, secure his legacy, and assure his passage on to a rewarding afterlife.

you see a parallel? so do i. let's go through the checklist:
  • built for a guy jealous of a powerful, older, male relative.
  • built to fool the populace in order to post-justify the use of armed force.
  • built by minions in a humid place no reasonable person would ever want to work.
  • build by an insecure leader preoccupied with securing his posthumous legacy.
you guessed it. this is basically the twelfth-century, asian version of the george w. bush presidential library.

if you asked me to be your guide
then i would recommend that you definitely go for the three-day pass to angkor wat. definitely rent a bike. day one, seeing as how you probably arrived late the night before, should start in the late morning/early afternoon and cover the heavy hitters (my guide book says to hit the smaller stuff first.) go to angkor wat first (only one compound is angkor wat, there are several others, but the name for the most prominent has been applied to the whole) and then angkor thom. if there's more time, do more. if not, not. the reason being that the crowds are so ridiculous that you won't be able to tolerate them on a second or third day.

day two: wake up at dawn to catch the sunrise at angkor wat. thousands will gather on one side of the main walkway and a dozen on the other side. join the smaller group. when the sun has fully yawned and stretched, go for a walk around the outside of the compound. all the tour groups go back to siem reap for breakfast and the ones that remain stay on the assigned path, so the grounds will more or less be entirely yours. when you start to really feel the sun, get a breakfast in one of those restaurants with plastic chairs "sir, bottle wa-ta? sir, bottle wa-ta?" spend the rest of the day biking around, getting a cold can of angkor beer from time to time, and-this is key-buy a tapestry from one of the stands (us$6.) when you get tired (you woke up around 5, remember, plus you biked about ten kilometers) lay that tapestry out and listen to your ipod in the shade of a temple.

day three: sleep in, you're tired. no need to do so much ascending/descending of temples, unless they're empty. go deep into the complex, make sure you bike that circuit. i certainly would never do such a thing, but i imagine one could, assuming one were of the disposition, get a takeout slice of happy pizza to enjoy just before sunset. again, this could be heresay.

soundtrack
it's midday. any sunlight that is able to penetrate through the low-lying, rapid-moving cloud cover is caught by the tall foliage above. there is a gentle wind. your shuffle playlist comes to "take care" by yo la tengo and the gentle strums set a rhythm to the serenity around you. the soothing voice, the sliding guitar, the lyrics so simple so as not to distract you from the nothing that is happening around you. breathe in. breathe out. this feels good.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

one night in bangkok

bangkok, thailand

there are certain facts, namely: 1) other people watched the college football national title game the other night and 2) some people spent that very evening in the presence of thai prostitutes. but i was probably the worldwide champion when it came to 3) watching the college football national title game in the presence of the greatest number of thai prostitues. through prior research, i was able to find a bar that would screen the game here in bangkok. oddly enough, that very same bar that caters to people who watch televised sporting contests is also patronized by the sort of people who would pay strangers for sex. amazing how a single place could cater to such disparate clientele. to give a little more detail, but not too much, i would classify it more as a baseball bar than a sports bar from the observation that the budding romances were less of the may-december than of the april-october variety.

as for the game, you could say that lsu got burned a couple times in man coverage. a lot like the guy at the table next to mine, who put on a lot of pressure but didn't seem to be able to make the tackle on his tablemate, as evidenced by his solo departure from the bar. presuming the occupation of his companion (and one must presume, because only so much was seen), i can only say that that should have been an easy stop. as for the schematics, there were certainly some favorable matchups out on the field. it seemed like the alabama defensive line's size up front prevented any rushes of more than a few yards. like the guys over at the pool table. judging by the pairings, it seemed as though the gentlemen had a decided advantage in size up front, and around, and behind. though it must be said that i would assume (and one can only assume) that the girls on the other side of the line of scrimmage were probably more nimble. it also seemed as though alabama missed a couple wide open receivers for some big plays. like me. i was sitting there alone the entire time. while i am not in the market for that (don't roll your eyes- i wouldn't blog about the subject if it was my thing), i was a bit surprised that one of the, eh hem, quarterbacks didn't spot me downfield. probably because they saw i was intently watching the game. and probably because i started screaming at the television, especially in the second half when jefferson should have been pulled from the game, especially more so after that awful interception. let's just say i didn't stay for the trophy presentation. any of them.

soundtrack
yesterday was an absolutely lovely day. i woke and ate and then walked around during a sunny and not oppressively hot afternoon. my first stop was wat pho, a compound with several temples, the interior of each contained a variety of enchanting buddha statues. walking around alone and peaceful, i started thinking about music that includes the word 'temple' and could only come up with stone temple pilots and temple of the dog. so i'm sitting there next to a meditating thai couple with a beautiful golden buddha statue in front of me and i have 'wicked garden' in my head. i tried to get 'interstate love song' but i was already stuck. if you know of any others that fit the category (don't use google) and could inform me, it would be greatly appreciated.

should i stay or should i go
i arrived in bangkok at midnight, to my guest house around one, and finally set down with a tall bottle of chang and a tired head. at the very moment i set down the guide book to debate as to whether i should spend an additional (third) night in bangkok or leave for cambodia as planned, i hear a couple canadian guys on the other side of the banquet from me. one of them says, and again, this is at the very moment i am deciding, "this is my favorite cheer" and then proceeds to explain some convoluted toasting sequence that involves several iterations of tapping the beer on the table, clinking with the companion, tapping it on the table....broken every now and then by saying, "no, like this" and then tapping it and clinking it and.....so, yeah, i'm going on to cambodia today as planned.

big gulps, eh guys?
if you've ever been to bangkok, then you know that it must have at least ten thousand 7 elevens. i had never been to bangkok, so i did not know that. now that i'm here, i do. well, catch ya later.

Sunday, January 8, 2012

nobuyuki

tokyo, japan

my grandfather spent months of each year working in utsunomiya throughout his career with boeing. though still a little hazy about the exact projects, i do know that it was engineering (math, but louder) and that one involved a rail link near an airport. what i know most about these years is that his hard work put food on the table for my mom and family and that through all those years and projects, he befriended the takahashis. in 1995, when he was retired and i was fifteen, he brought me and my dad for a week to see this country he loved so dearly.



my dad warned me not to compliment anything too effusively and i soon learned why. walking around a japanese home and casually saying, "mighty fine sword you got here" could result in their insistence that it be your souvenir. it doesn`t matter how many centuries the object in question has been in their family; your expressed curiosity is enough to trigger their ceaseless desire to please their guest, especially if you were a relative of tomsan. i obliged for the most part, though i did come home with several programs from sumo matches simply because i saw a television match and said something prophetic along the lines of, "dude, sweet."



if i fast forward to today, it`s more or less the same predicament. it doesn`t matter that nobuyuki and i were roommates for almost two years in brooklyn. it doesn`t matter that we existed as equals during a very long period of co-habitation. we were respectful with noise and cleanliness in the common areas and always had a kind greeting when we`d run into each other in the kitchen. sure, i helped him out a little. i invited him into my room to watch the ncaa tournament and brought him out to a number of parties or barbecues. i introduced him to my wonderful circle of friends and people seemed to really dig the japanese guy who made his best effort at english and was willing to put back an equal number of beers. he more than appreciated the immersion into our particular brand of american "culture," but i`ll be the first to admit that this was really not that big a deal.



he returned to tokyo six months ago to be with his girlfriend, masami, whose american work visa was soon to expire. two weeks ago, out of the blue, i realized that i have to connect in tokyo and so i send a casual i`ll-be-there-it`d-be-cool-to-see-you email. what has transpired was totally unexpected, though hardly surprising.


the guy is not exactly raking in the yen, even if he is getting by. still, he rented a car to pick me up at narita. he rented it again to drop me off. dinner each night has not been some casual gathering while we nourish ourselves. they have been greco-roman challenges. each time i mentioned i was full, it seemed to signal that it was time to only order two more dishes. when the check came, it was not one of those "i'll get it" "no, i'll get it" "no, i'll get it" "are you sure?" "i'm sure" "are you really sure?" "i'm really sure" "thank you" affairs. it was his two fierce hands propelled by working forearms that snagged it before i even had the chance. for transportation, he went and bought my daily metro pass before i even woke up. it got so ridiculous that when i insisted on buying travel items at a department store for myself, he thanked me.


and then last night i paid. i surreptiously dug my credit card from my wallet and slipped my hand behind the bamboo divider so the waiter could take it and run. and when he returned with the slip, my friend's first reaction was not gratitude. he was disappointed. and this was no shame at not being an adequate host or feeling some tinge of hurt pride. he really just wanted to provide for me so that i would have more money for my trip. again, i gave the guy two weeks notice that i was coming into town.


after a fifteen minute discussion, he reluctantly thanked me even if he wouldn't really look me in the eye. his mood lightened by the time we hit the train. i'm sure i can find a way to attribute his reaction and hospitality to his culture, just as the takahashi clan showed so many years ago. but i think that would be so simple. the reality is that i hit the craigslist lotto so many years ago and have found someone who is so much more than just a friend. i've found someone to admire. and if he is/was going to be too stubborn or reluctant to let me pay him back, then the least i can do is let him inspire me to pay it forward.



Saturday, January 7, 2012

huge in japan

tokyo, japan

it`s not my first time in japan, but it has been over sixteen years since my first and only trip to the land of the rising sun. i don`t know that i can exactly call these first impressions, so maybe i`ll just label them my "oh. right. that"`s.

first oh. right. that.
this place is clean. i know you`ve heard that before, but this place is clean. ka-lean. and this observation is both empirically valid and reliable after doing no more than retrieving my bag and hopping into an expressway-bound toyota after leaving the airport. there is not a single piece of litter on the road or in the median. every car appears to have been recently washed. even the neon signs of the love motels look live they`ve been dusted recently. and i just couldn`t help but look around and think and wonder and wish that if all the tiny, well-dressed people could climb out of their shiny office buildings and all the uniformed highway attendants could step out from their adorable, miniature little highway booths and if all the happy drivers could stop their tiny little vehicles right then and there and congregate on that immaculately clean expressway asphalt, we could have an absolutely splendid tickle fight.

slow down, yoshi
it doesn`t matter if i`m running on six hours sleep from the previous night (we don`t need to mention jetlag, even if i am, in fact, mentioning that) or if i`m still full from dinner the night before, cause it`s time to wake up and hit the tsukiji fish market. this is a huge tourist draw despite the hour and it makes sense that they would do all in their power to dissuade that. for one, people are working. another is that apparently (well, not apparently, as i happen to know at least four people who have done this) some of the tourists visit the market after a night out at the bars and clubs. standing there dead sober, i could see the danger with all the hustling of the early morning workers. they are carrying tuna. they are chopping tuna. they are filing through with hand-pulled carts. they have mini-motorcycles. there are miniature lorries and pickups and there seems to be a small cavalry of guys zipping through on these vehicles that basically look like a wooden platform attached to the back of a standing oil drum. and that`s when it hits me: there is no way any other culture could have invented mario kart.

holy maguro
a big newsmaker (i even read about this in the states) was the record price fetched for one particular tuna at tsukiji. ¥55,000,000 (north of $700,000). obviously, it`s pretty big. and pretty tasty, as per its fat content. as i sat down to have my own bite of it, i learned that the winning bidders overpaid as a form of advertisement. all the local and national media covered it, ensuring that sushikanzai (translation: sushi addict), a chain that is more or less the local equivalent of applebee`s, would have great press for weeks. an additional reason was that by overpaying and taking a loss by offering its pieces far below market value, the restaurant was gambling that its generosity would translate into a prosperous new year. as a beneficiary, i certainly hope it does.

linguistics
i nominate japanese as one of the world`s most beautiful languages. it`s breathed more than it is spoken, coming out with crisp consonants and soft vowels in between. if i were ever to write and compose some intricate dinner theater piece where all of the characters were fluffy cats and in time-period costumes, the dialogue would be in japanese.

where it counts
while withholding from the rant i am certainly capable of, one can`t help but notice that somewhere, or maybe even everywhere, in the last thirty years the u.s. fell behind. way behind. if you take apple out of the picture, it`s pretty bleak. while we spent the past thirty years devising new ways to trade paper, this part of the world was innovating. they got more efficient transportation, better technology, and more comfortable waste disposal. literally. they`ve got heated toilet seats over here.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

writing a novel

seattle, washington

comparison #1
writing a novel is like running the new york city marathon, the day after the new york city marathon. this makes it more or less the first monday in november and the course is the exact same 26.2 miles that everyone ran the day before. the difference is that as you're running over the verrazano bridge, along fourth avenue through brooklyn, on to queens and the bronx and the east side, the roads are not empty. there are buses and taxis and delivery vans and personal vehicles. everywhere. they're honking their horns. they're filling the lanes. and they don't understand why you're running in the middle of traffic.

if you are wearing a bib, it's of your own design, seeing as how there are no sponsors. there are no friendly figures holding out cups of gatorade or unwrapped powerbars for you; your hydration and hunger are your own responsibilities. there are a few people who know what you're doing, a few may even run beside you for a stretch. still, you notice that some of those cheering you on at mile three have long since disappeared by mile fourteen. this is not to say that all support is so fickle. it must be remembered that each runner runs their own race and it is a monday, after all. people have their own responsibilities to attend to. you rightfully anticipate that there will not be anyone standing there to hold the blanket for you at the finish line in central park.

the part where i try not to sound like i'm so bitter (t.p.w.i.t.n.t.s.l.i.s.b.)
as soon as somebody reads it and tells you their impression and it was exactly what you intended to write: it's as if they had been running beside you all along.

comparison #2
writing a novel is like applying for college, except the admission decision is made afterwards. you go to all your classes and do all your homework and study diligently semester after semester, just as any other student does. all the while you take out loan after loan and work at various small jobs to keep food in the belly and lights overhead with the occasional beer in between. then, when you have fulfilled the credits, you take your transcript showing years of completed work and attendant grades and take it into the admissions office to determine if you did, in fact, gain admission into that school. the key difference is that every school is an ivy (self-publishing, for now, is roughly the same as a for-profit trade school.) there are ways you can gain admission with the literary equivalent of a 3.0, but that's just because your family is friendly with the dean.

t.p.w.i.t.n.t.s.l.i.s.b.
the day you receive admission is also the day that you graduate.


my 439 step guide to publishing a novel
step 1: write a novel
steps 2-438: go through a bunch of bullshit
step 439: dedicate it to your parents

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

third floor

centennial, colorado

thirty-one is a weird age. it falls into that broad demographic checkbox where one is expected to be seen and not heard, to do and not say. you're a bit too old to have grandparents pinching your cheeks (your grandparents are probably dead) and a bit too young to be doing so to young relatives (if not entirely creepy). if you are successfully holding a job, committed to a relationship, raising a young child, or just generally kicking ass in the great bass fishing competition that is life in america, there are no congratulations. your endearing days are behind you, any potential recognition is a small, amorphous light too far ahead to be guaranteed. for now, just shut up, keep the lights on, and let that receding gumline and copse of gray hairs serve as a reminder that you are no longer the next big thing. you're just here and should be grateful for it. now don't forget your niece's birthday.

and so it is a strange age to travel. the late teens/early twenties have the wide-eyed, i'm-going-to-see-the-world voyage commonly known as the gap year or the post-collegiate sowing of the proverbial oats. and then there's the retirement trip that has you happily gripping starboard as you and your significant other sail the sunny seas like an ad for denture whitening products or erectile dysfunction-amending pills. in between, nothing.

well, not nothing. because people who travel during their thirties or forties have their own blips on the societal radar, but they are more commonly known as fugitives or the hobos who are not (yet) dead. everyone else: they're working. that's the only way you get to be the happy face on the metamucil commercial.

it was with all of this in mind that i prepared responses and rejoinders to inquiries, real and imagined, as to why i was embarking on big trip #7. in fact, i've put more preparation into explaining to others exactly why and how i can travel than into any actual logistical arrangements. i simply decided i had to go and then thought of ways to explain it to others. there's a guide book for the rest.

the economic crisis was the easiest excuse. it is true that they're not hiring, it is true that the jobs pay too little (if at all) and are not necessarily aligned with my (eh hem) expertise. then there's the book. sure, yeah, those agents are totally reading the manuscript and i'm sure they'll be getting back to me and so it doesn't really matter where i am. oh, and don't forget the fulbright. i'm definitely getting that and i might as well kill some time before beginning my project and really cranking up the professionalism.

but the real reason is that there really is no one reason. it is partly that i have worked too hard for too little pay and somehow managed to save. it is partly that i have put a little too much faith in other people and am ready to get a clearer glimpse of humanity's brighter side. it is largely that i'm exhausted physically, mentally, spiritually, and just about any other adverb from putting my all pursuing a dream and realizing that this particular yellow brick road is not made of yellow bricks but rather something brown and malodorous that has adhered itself fiercely to the bottom of my ruby slippers.

but mostly because nine years ago i decided to do something only because it made sense and i was well-compensated for the risk. and so it made sense to see southeast asia, if only to make sure that it does in fact exist, and the natural decision was that i had to go there. so i will. tomorrow.

the jury might still be out on whether i deserve a few months in the sun. that concern was long ago dismissed. i just know that i've got a sublet apartment, a humble quantity of zeroes in checking, a brand new passport, and the need to feel like i'm still alive. that's all i need at this age. so i promise that when that day comes, i will be a terrific uncle and i won't be in the unemployment line and i'll do whatever the selfless situation requires. but for now, i don't have to be selfless. i just promise that it'll be easier on all of us if i just be me.

see you in tokyo.