Vagabonding Through Life – Page 2 – An Accidental Vagabond

The Travel Limbo

Published on February 19, 2016December 17, 2023 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

Funny thing about this post is that it was posted before I finished writing it. No title, no tags, not even a complete thought, and all kinds of editing mistakes, and it’s had more traffic than most of my posts. Go figure. This is the completed post with an ending and a new title- well an actual title.

A couple of days ago I had to contact both of the schools I had applied to (one in South Korea and the other in China) that I was not able to attend the upcoming school year. It wasn’t because I had changed my mind and things are falling into place here in Portland. Things are exactly as they have always been for me here in Portland; nice, but I’m not doing anything that gives me call to stay put. No, it’s all because of the parts of life that I can’t control. Visas. Well, not even my visa, because I haven’t been able to apply for my visas because I don’t have the documents. I’m waiting for my Criminal Background Check from the FBI and some health insurance so I can take the necessary health test that China requires. In a funny way they’re both kind of silly things to have to wait around for. Oh, I get it, I’m going to work with children and obviously people want their children to be safe, but it is only required that I have an FBI check from the United States, a country in which I have not lived for the past two years. So, of course my record is clean, but all those crimes I committed in Europe are not even on the radar. I didn’t commit any crimes in Europe, I’m not that exciting. Czech Republic had a funny visa rule too. If I had come directly from the United States, I had no need to do a criminal background check from the U.S., but since I came from China, I had to get a criminal background check from China. So, again, I could be a criminal from the U.S., but not in China or any other country I had been living in for six months or longer. In a weird way, China of all places is easier in that sense then the Czech Republic because I just have to wait for the FBI, but to get a background check from China- is absolutely impossible. I mean, the Chinese people at the police station tell you, “Not Possible.” A fairly typical response in all areas of requesting necessary information for any kind of government paperwork.

The FBI’s been backed up. Seems that many people are trying to leave the country, and get jobs that require Federal Background checks. What in the past took 10 to 12 weeks has now been pushed back to 12 to 15 weeks. Three months has now turned to 4 months. This is difficult for an impulsive person like myself. It’s kind of like China, “not possible” to plan a trip in less than three months. Now I’m wondering what to do with my time and how much time I have here actually.

Now what? Well, it’s waiting time. Once the background check comes in then I can reapply for jobs and I’ll see from there. In the meantime, I’ll need to look for some work. A part-time noncommittal job in a city where it is difficult to find work in unless, of course, I was in the tech industry. It certainly gives me more time to research travel blogs. In a brief update, I’ve gone through 23 of 42 blogs, and really only managed to cut out two blogs. I have put them into categories, but I’ve slowed down in my research, which is totally my style.

Update: I finally got on the Oregon Health Care plan which means I can get the health check I need for the Chinese visa application.

A Winter Vacation In Sydney

Published on February 7, 2016March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

Two years’ ago around this time I was in Sydney, Australia. I had set up the pictures on this blog to document my trip, but since my mom died four days after I returned to China from my winter vacation, I had lost the desire to write about it. In fact, I think I had felt guilty about going in the first place. How could I choose to go to Australia instead of going back to the States to visit my mom? What kind of daughter was I? Not a very good one.

Of course, I didn’t know she was going to die. She was sick. She’d been sick for a long time. She had been a drug addict, and had many health complications due to her drug abuse in her past. She had Hep C, and high blood pressure, and she had had a stroke years’ back, and she had diabetes, and probably a few things she hadn’t told me about, but she still wasn’t on her death bed. She had been living with all of these things for many years. I knew she probably wasn’t going to be on the planet with me for as long I would have liked for her to be here with me, but I didn’t expect it to be right at that moment. In fact, China was pretty much the last trip for me, and that was why I decided to go to Australia. I felt that I needed to go back to California and take care of my mom, and traveling was not something I was going to be doing for a long time. When was I going to have the opportunity to go to Australia again, I had thought. I had planned on seeing her in six months when my contract in China was completed. I had worried about her dying. In truth, I had been terrified of my mom dying for years, even as a child I was afraid to leave her. It had taken me a long time to be able to allow myself to go anywhere without carrying this fear, even though at this time it was even more possible. I was afraid of her dying from a stroke or diabetic complications, her liver giving up, any number of complications that could have occurred, and that’s why this was my last time to travel. It was a surprise to me to have her die right then, but even more surprising to learn she had died of an overdose. I wasn’t expecting that.

I felt really guilty. I had a hard time enjoying my memories in Australia, and I hadn’t really dwelt on them since. Coming across this pictures I’ve forgotten the details of the trip. I can only remember the name of the city. Sydney. Famous Sydney and the famous Opera House.

I met my friend, Lisa, who was coming from the U.S. and we stayed our first two nights at an Airbnb, but I forget the neighborhood. We had stayed for about four or five days in Sydney.

The sky was so incredibly blue, and the air was clean and fresh. After spending five months in China in the gloom of grey pollution and then winter it was like coming alive. I remember feeling incredibly happy. So many breathtaking shades of blue.

We stayed with friends of friend’s. We were so lucky to have connections and met up with some really wonderful people that helped us out, and showed us around. We spent a day at the zoo, went to some beaches, ate out, and were shocked at the prices for drinks.

Australia’s minimum wage is high which makes the prices high, which in theory should be affordable to the wages, but it was crazy for Chinese wages, and what we were used to as far as prices in the U.S. Not that we were there to spend our time in bars and restaurants. We were there (I definitely was there) to be outside.

I remember the friend who took us around laughing at us because we were loud in our excitement, and she made this comment, “American’s are so loud.” It was a stereotype that has some serious truth to it, and we fulfilled that truth on the day we took these pictures, but we were also really joyful, and happy.

We met up with a friend of Lisa’s who took us to another part of Sydney, basically the opposite side of where the above pictures were taken. She had given us advice on what museums to visit and she gave us a contact for when we traveled to Melbourne.

It is a shame to not remember the details, but it is hard even now, two years’ later to look at these pictures without some twinge of remorse. Not so much as that I wasn’t in the States, but just that I didn’t write my mom enough while I was on this trip. I could have tried harder to find a place to write an e-mail. I was waiting till I got back to China, but sometimes it’s worth it to take the time in that moment. But hindsight is nothing now.

Hi mom, I don’t have a lot of e mail access but I wanted to let you know I made it safely to Vietnam and Australia. I’m in Sydney, and it is the most beautiful place in the world. I would really like to live here. I leave for Melbourne tomorrow. I will write you as soon as I get home on the 16th.

I love you.

Your daughter.

hi babygirl,

you will have to tell all about vietnam when you are home and have time to set at a computer. Also need to know how things went in australia??

love you

mom

Making Plans While Waiting for Plans to Come Through

Published on February 5, 2016February 28, 2024 by An Accidental Vagabond1 Comment

As the window to getting my visa in time to start work and return to Asia closes, I’ve started deliberating on what to do next or where to go next. A friend of mine once said, that I always have a plan B and a plan C. I didn’t know this about myself, since I rarely think I have a plan A. I mean, I think or imagine or talk about possibilities, but actual planning… I’m not so sure. I do believe I have a think B and a possibility C, but that’s as far as most of my planning goes. Then again, maybe I have a sense of terrible self-awareness.

I’ll just call them plans for connotation. Asia, was plan A, and I was pretty set on China, and this all had to do with a job teaching at a drama academy which would be so awesome (in my mind), but my major hesitation is that the pollution in China is deadly. I’m not real excited about breathing in Red Alert air, since I already did it for one year, and that’s one year less of my lung life without ever smoking a cigarette, that I’d rather not add to an already short life ( I mean with all there is to experience in the world). When I received a Facebook message from my wanderlust friend Keiko telling me to come to South Korea, I seriously considered it. I considered it enough to apply, and to do two interviews, plus get offered a position. Yet, I’ve been talking to the school in China for quite awhile, and they offered me more money than originally offered. I’d been on the fence, but it looks like the United States will be making the decision for me. As I wait for the necessary Criminal Background Check, and health insurance in order to get the necessary (and too expensive to pay out of pocket) health check for China, my entry time to the new semester is getting smaller. Also, China is looking like less of a possibility without the health check. But, I could miss out on both because of the semester starting before I can get there. I’ll have to apply later, and look for positions where they didn’t get enough teachers or teachers bailed, and that’s fine, but involves more waiting. It will be a mystery to even myself where I will end up next.

As I’ve been waiting here in Portland, kind of not doing anything, at all, I’ve been wondering what I’m going to do with the remaining half of my life (I’ve got a birthday approaching). I’ve been watching all of my friends settle into their lives, and I’m really proud of them. I know a bunch of small business owners, people living life the way they want, having families, and getting their homes, and people who seem to be really happy, which makes me happy. On a really selfish side it’s good to surround yourself with happy people because happiness is like a rabbit- it keeps breeding. Still, I’ve been thinking, “wait, but what am I doing, really?” The answer right now is “not much”. Right now, as of today, I have a good excuse since I’m waiting, but with this delay in getting my documents, the waiting will be moving into the depths of needing to do something, and oh my god I’m wasting my life and the common feeling of being lost. I know this because I know how I think. I’ve been asking myself all the questions from all the positivity blogs and websites or the big motivational sites: HOW TO LIVE THE LIFE YOU LOVE. BE THE ONE YOU DREAM TO BE. You know the ones they’re everywhere. I do believe it is good to reflect on yourself and your life, and to ask yourself the important questions because one day you’ll ask yourself the most important question: “if you are going to die right now, can you say to yourself that you truly made the most of your life? Did you live the life you wanted?” And, of course, I think all of us would like to say yes because it is our one precious life on this earth right now, and no matter what your beliefs you will never be this person in this body in this place in this time again- so hopefully it is a good place.

I had been playing it over in my mind; the mantra of do what you love, and asking myself what do I love? I’ve given up before on the thing I loved because of fear and low-selfworth, and I don’t want to do that again, so I asked myself, “what do I love? what makes me happy?” What really makes me happy, not the idea of what makes me happy, but the reality of what makes me happy. I created a short list:

Dancing; when I was on stage; snowboarding; teaching (not prepping for class- I don’t like that part); writing; reading; going to art museums; being out in nature; and just talking with people- lots of chatting and learning about people’s lives; and a ton of laughing; learning new things; and traveling- in fact the actual travel part- especially on trains (my favorite).

I wondered if it was possible to combine all of these things and still make a sustainable living especially since there isn’t a lot of “jobs” in the list at list not obvious work except teaching, but I’m not going to be a teacher in America. It’s not going to happen for a lot of reasons. The most obvious thing to me, but I don’t think it’s all that easy, is to become a travel writer. Travel writing, to me, almost seems similar to trying to make it as a performer: A lot of people want to do it, and you have to know how to sell and market yourself, and few actually make money at it. Even so, I feel like it’s probably the best way for me to combine all my loves (snowboarding by the way can be replaced by any number of sports or activities. I just have really fond memories of my snowboarding life in Germany). So that’s what I’m going to set as my future life goal, and I’ve started the process.

I read somewhere that it is important that once you set a goal to immediately jump into action. Not crazy action, of course, like if you want you run a marathon you try to run 26 miles in your first day, unless you already run marathons, that’s just stupid, and a great way to hurt yourself, and to quit. This action can be small, as long as it is an action in the direction toward your goal. So, that’s what I did. I made a decision to have my goal to be a travel writer. I’m starting small here, I’m not thinking making tons of money, and getting paid to travel, but I am thinking professional. I’m open to making money and having it take care of me, but I’m not thinking I’m going to take the internet by storm tomorrow. God, knows that’s the truth, I’ve had this blog for eight years’ and it has not caused any earthquakes. I have a lot to learn. A lot. So I’ve set my goal as a realistic accomplishable goal. It is very possible for me be a travel writer. I just set up a website, travel, take good pictures, and write about it: done. Making money, and sustaining your life as a travel writer is something else. The extra part I added about doing it in a professional way is to set me up for goal number two which is to make income as a professional travel writer. Right now I can’t focus on the actual goal of money because when I look at travel writers’ blogs, I think to myself, “Oh, god, I’ll never be able to get a following enough to make money.” I’ll never write like them or take pictures like them and their backgrounds are so geared for that life not mine, and on and on I’ll go. I have to keep my goals reachable. So right now it’s just a travel writer with a website set up, prepared, and open to receive income when the time is right. I sound like The Secret or something. Anyway, speaking of other travel writers, that is where I took my first steps of action.

I went to several travel sites and collected a list of the best travel blogs, and the best blogs to read for 2016. I found 57, there are more than that, but I wrote down the 57, and that was my action day 1. Then the next day I browsed 23 of them, and removed any that I didn’t think were my style or my scene. Unfortunately, I didn’t cut out that many. The following day, I went through the remaining 34, and made my final picks of travel blogs that I want to research for content, ideas, and inspiration. Again, unfortunately, I only managed to reduce a few from my original list of 57 to 42. My next part of the “action” (process) is actually reading these blogs which is why 42 is not exactly the ideal number. I have to read them. How am I to know the content, and to see what readers are reading, and what niche may be missing that only little ol’ me can fill if I don’t read them? So I’ve decide to create a little criteria that I’ll share later (because I haven’t made the list yet) to bring the list down to a reasonable number that I can actually follow and still manage to live my life.

Maybe you are wondering what the cut off was from the first round of traveler writers. Well, since you asked, I’ll tell you. Posh. I cut out the posh blogs or the blogs for rich folks. I know people without money like these blogs too just like they look at Goop by Gwyneth Paltrow or follow the Kardashians, but come on that’s fantasyland. I need to look at something I can actually do. There’s no way I can go to fancy posh hotels and top ten ritzy restaurants. That would basically make my travels last about one day. I need reasonable goals. I also cut out the crazy adventure extreme blogs. I’m not going to sustain myself on bugs of the Amazon, and jump from a helicopter to sandboard down a Namibian sand dune. Reasonable goals. There were a couple other blogs non-posey and non-extreme adventure that I was on the fence about because they just seemed like a little too pretty and too perfect, but I decided to put aside my initial judgements, and read through them a bit. As far as who I already gravitate to in the travel writing blog world I do have a few that I like even with only a small browse, and I’ll share those guys now:

I am Aileen
The Blog Abroad
Hole in the Donut
Nomadic Matt.

I’ve already noticed a couple of themes in language use amongst almost all of the blogs: Digital nomad being a huge one and Lifestyle creator. I find them a little cheesy, but that’s marketing- it’s all kind of cheesy. I also noticed that most people seemed to have changed their lives and quit their office jobs to began their travel blogs in 2008. I don’t know why this time exactly- the economy maybe? That was when the market crashed. It’s just something I noticed.

There you go. So as I sit and watch my window of opportunity close to a couple of jobs in Asia, and then wait for a couple windows to open for new jobs in Asia, I’ll work on building a door and then opening it myself.

CIMG0120 — Every one’s trying to get in to get their visa.

The Trouble with Me in China, and Why I’m Returning

Published on November 27, 2015February 28, 2024 by An Accidental Vagabond2 Comments

It has been about two months that I have been back in the U.S. If things work out I will be back in China by February. I have all the necessary trepidations collected and percolating in my brain preparing for all the appropriate anxieties of “what ifs” and the “I don’t knows”. I feel quite prepared in that capacity. Some people, my friends who know me well, may wonder why I’m returning to China when I had expressed such a deep hatred for the place. The public, like my youtube channel and this blog space or even my Facebook, didn’t know I had such a hatred for the place, but I’m laying it all-out-on the line here people; I hated it. I think it is difficult to be truly honest about your feelings on social media and in a public forum because there is/can be so much backlash to everything you write. Honestly, I think it is okay to hate a place. The important part is to understand why you hate it and then to figure out if it is a fair reason to hate it, and if it is really something about yourself and your preconceived ideas that make you hate it, and again, is that a fair assessment. You know the: “It’s not the place it’s you,” effect. ETC…

I didn’t feel the need to express my true feelings to the great big world because it was too early. It took me a full year away from China to appreciate China, but while I was there it was difficult. It was difficult because I had culture shock. Part of the shock had to do with the experience of being, to sound cliche, the stranger in a strange land or to be more succinct, “the other”. It was difficult because I wasn’t used to being the only one that looked like me. I grew up in a white town with white people. America is a society that caters to white people even though America doesn’t want to admit it, it’s true. White people are everywhere; in the movies; in the magazines; on the news; everywhere. It’s so white when you’re white you don’t even know what it feels like to not belong even when you’re a misfit and you don’t belong- that is if you live in a white society. I also spent 13 years in Portland, Oregon, and Portland during the time I was there was voted one of the whitest cities in the United States. My point is, is that when you are the majority you don’t notice it even when you feel lonely and out of place, and yes, even when you feel cheated and misrepresented. You might think you don’t get any of the benefits of the majority because you are on the bottom of the heap of the majority, but you still pass as the majority and that passing is bigger than you think. Bascially, you don’t have to think about being white you just are a person (that by the way is part of what people mean by privilege: you are a person not a person with a skin color other than white). I had never thought of myself in the sense of “otherness.” Often I had felt like I didn’t always connect or fit-in with white America or even the American Dream because of what I felt internally (sometimes based on my experiences as a woman and as being raised poor and on welfare), but that is not the same as being “the other”. Then I moved to a place where I was the minority. Then I knew. No, to know is too strong a verb, you don’t know, I became sensitive to it; to skin color, to color and to race.

I’m not going to get into the conversation of racism in China versus racism in America or express some kind of kindred “I understand discrimination” because woes me I was a poor lonely white woman in China. Being white in China is exponentially different from being black (or latino, or native American…) in America, for one thing, a black person in America is an American (which I think some people have seemed to have gotten confused) while a white person in China is an American too (even when you are not) but you are also 100% not Chinese and nor will you ever be Chinese. The experience of white male versus the white female are different too and I’m not writing here to expose the great secret of the white man’s success with Chinese women, as well as there are many different nationalities and races of people who live in China and experience their own kind of foreigner experience. My point is to express the feeling of being a minority when you come from a world where you were the majority (even if not in actual numbers, but in power of a social system) and what that felt like to me and how it contributed to my experience of culture shock. My heightened sense of sensitivity and growing awareness and openness to listening to the words of American people of color (and new immigrants) is just a positive (I think positive) by-product of my experience, but it can never compare to what it feels like to grow up feeling like “the other” in a country that is supposed to be your home. When I use the word minority as applied to me in China I mean a minority by the definition of small in numbers: As in smaller less seen, and therefore standing out; not invisible; and a bit like a zoo animal. In my ignorance I had thought I would like the attention. As if I’d be like a movie star. But, I didn’t like the attention, and the attention wasn’t like being a movie star it was more like being a freak. Now, I’m just writing about the negative culture shock moments to build toward the positive ending in this post so hold your possible anger and go along with it…

The stares, Jim! The stares!

It was disconcerting. At first I tried to smile at people who stared hard at me, and occasionally someone would smile back, but most often a smile would only make the stare harder. I, of course, didn’t and couldn’t know what people were really thinking, but to me it was that I did not belong there. Not that people were going to push me out, but just that I was not a part of the community, and I could not blend in. I was noticeable everywhere I went. Some people wanted to take my picture, some people just wanted to stare at me, and children pointed and screamed. They didn’t scream in terror, I mean they screamed in delight, It was like: “MOMMY! LOOK AT THE CLOWN, MOMMY!” And, that was what got to me. Of course it was charming when a large group of school girls walked by and yelled out in english, “I love you!” But it wasn’t charming when a group of men would circle me and examined me like I was something to purchase, and yes that happened too. I will hands down admit I was not good at handling the attention, but I am also grateful because for the first time it made me feel, really feel (minus the violence) what it is to be a minority, and to be looked at for your skin, your eyes, your hair. Even though people thought I was beautiful or exotic it still made me uncomfortable because I was being examined. I have a rather extreme example of what I mean by examined: Once, I had to pee in a public restroom at the train station, and this bathroom was like a trough. It was open stalls where you would squat over this narrow little trench with the piss and shit running like two little rivers as if you were a giant straddling the land and defecating into the canyon below. I felt uncomfortable, not only because I sucked at the squat and because all this human feces was so close to me, but because there were no stalls, and I knew, I just knew someone was going to try to look at my vagina as I peed. How did I know this? because I had already been examined in a public shower before, not by everyone of course, but it only takes one person feeling completely fine examining you to make you feel awkward; but I had to pee. Most women walked by not caring, but then it happened. She saw me squatting, and she slowed down and tried to take a peek, but my attempt to gracelessly hide myself while simultaneously not pee on my feet or slip into the river of stench did register to her that she was violating my privacy, and dropped her head and quickly walked away, but the very fact that she would have felt okay trying to do it in the first place is what I mean about being examined.

At the school where I taught, huge groups of new potential students were touring the classrooms. There were hundreds of students. It was near the end of my year in China and I had already been accustomed to people being excited or surprised to see my skin and my hair, and my very American looking face. As I saw the large group of students walking towards the windows of my classroom where I was teaching, I could see some of the eyes of the kids light up as they saw me, and I knew it would be a matter of minutes till the cameras came out. I moved down off the podium as I was talking and into the thick of my class, as I did so the cameras began flashing. Many of the visiting students had pressed themselves up against the window to get a good shot. My own students, who looked at me like I was old news, and had had plenty of exposure to foreigners, gasped at the disruption, and a couple of the girls screamed in that very teenaged annoyed way, “Oh MY GOD!” And, some Chinese expletives were yelled as well. A few of them ran to the windows to lower the blinds.

“It’s like they think we’re animals in a zoo!” One of my students yelled.

I loved my students, even the students that would frustrate me. I wish I could have given them more. One day some of my students were telling me that if I went to a certain historical place, on a public holiday, I would be mobbed by the crowed because I was a foreigner, and a lot of villagers go there, and they may never have seen a white person or any foreigner before. So I said, “I’ll wear a hat and cover my hair”. My student shook her head, no. “I’ll wear a hat and sunglasses to cover my eyes”. My student shook her head, no. “I’ll wear a hat, and glasses, and a scarf around my face, and I’ll wear long sleeves and gloves to cover my skin”. “No,” my student said, “You’ll never be able to hide that nose.” (For those of you who don’t know Chinese people think foreigners have big noses. Some do.) It was difficult to be the only one who looked like me, but then there was the language too. Not only couldn’t I blend in because of my physical appearance, I also couldn’t communicate. I was surrounded by millions (literally millions) of people, and I was isolated. This was hard for me. This was just the beginning of the culture shock, then there was the actual culture- so different yet sometimes eerily familiar to my own; and then the pollution which was like the apocalypse (no joke); and the construction; and the population; and how education is conducted; and business is run; and the the shitty hierarchy of the work place for Chinese people; and so many nuanced things. And then, there was my mother’s death.

I sometimes think if my mom had not died, suddenly while I was in China, that I may have gotten past the culture shock phase, but because she did die, I was thrown into a despair that I couldn’t grasp, and with no close friends to turn to, friends who knew my relationship with my mother, and I felt lost. I felt an isolation I had never experienced before, an isolation that changed me, permanently. There were other things too: stress at school, and friendship loneliness, and just basic life stresses. When I was about to leave China I couldn’t get away fast enough. I thought to myself I fucking hate this country and I’ll never return, but I was lying to myself. I just didn’t know it.

It took me almost a full year away from China to finally appreciate it, and that appreciation first came through food and e-mails from a friend. I missed Chinese food. You can’t get Chinese food anywhere in the world other than China. That food you’re eating that you think is Chinese is nothing; it’s crap. Go to China, eat the food, you’ll find the food gods. It’s that good. Sure there’s crazy stuff like bird heads and tongues and testicles and yes some places still eat dogs and cats, and you’ll probably eat a rat thinking it’s chicken, but you don’t have to eat those things (if you know what you’re eating), there is so much to choose from so many amazing noodles, and spices, and broths, and vegetables…food ecstasy. The spices! Oh, the spices! Then there were my friends. The Chinese friends I had made who missed me and sent me e-mails hoping to not lose touch, and hoping that I would return to visit them again one day. And my foreign friends that stayed or returned and still sent messages and shared stories “of crazy life in China”. In all that isolation and loneliness and cultural shock I had made friends. Foreigner friends and Chinese friends. Good friends. I missed my students (who I will most likely never see again). Then there was Xi’an.

I lived in Zhengzhou. I can say, still, today as I write this, I didn’t like Zhengzhou. It wasn’t my kind of city, and the pollution was too much, and the construction was too much, and it wasn’t culturally interesting to me. I think maybe you have to be Chinese to appreciate the city, or maybe not, I don’t know why foreigners like it there, you’d have to ask them, it wasn’t the right place for me. If I had only spent my time in Zhengzhou which is where I spent most of my time, I may not have ever wanted to return to China, but I went to Kaifeng, Luoyang, and to Xi’an. All those places were just as polluted as Zhengzhou (don’t underestimate this pollution. It’s bad the world should care) but the beauty of the other cities and their cultural heritage helped me to overlook the pollution (to an extent). They were filled with history and were so exciting for me to visit. Then there was Xi’an. I had wanted to go to Xi’an since I was a little girl. Xi’an was one of my “before I die” places. I loved the city, and it was my last impression of China. China that is so huge and vast that I merely stuck my toe in the ocean of it. This last impression reminded me that I had wanted to visit China for a long time and there was so much to see and experience.

I am returning to China. This time to Beijing, and this time for the job not just China. My strongest interest is in the job. I’m not going to try to conquer China, to go back and say: “Yes! This time I made it!” I’m going because there is an opportunity for me, and also because there is so much more to see in China than Zhengzhou. I will be on the coast. In a new province. In the city of the last Dynasty. And, I’ve been to China, and I have a better idea of what to expect. It may be more difficult. I don’t know, but I’m not blinded by magazine articles and illusions of ‘What is China.” I find a humor now in the things that caused me stress. Not that I’m into people examining me peeing, but I also know that is not an everyday occurrence, and I’m mentally prepared unlike I was before. Plus, being able to tell a story about someone trying to watch you pee because you know they’re wondering if a white woman’s pee or vagina is the same as their own can be a pretty funny story to tell— afterwards, long afterwards. Beijing will be more crowded, and more polluted, but I won’t be arriving this time like a wide eyed idiot with the innocent thinking, “oh, it’ll be like I’m a movie star.” That was just a stupid thing to think. There are just somethings you can not know without experiencing them. I’ve experienced China once in one small part. This time I hope to do better. To feel better. To leave thinking, “Oh, I could visit again.”

A Day in Seoul

Published on November 9, 2015March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

When my contract was up, and my visa expired I decided to not renew. Instead, I decided to leave China. I was ready to leave China. I had experienced the greatest loss of my life while I was living there, and that was the loss of my mother. Not only did I go through my experience of grief, which I still deal with, I had also simultaneously experienced culture shock. Culture shock is a strange beast and can be a bit difficult to recognize, but looking back on my time there I can say with certainty that I had had culture shock. Some days were worse than others. One would imagine that with death and shock that I would have been ready to run home, but for me there was no home. My mother was my home, and now that she was gone there was no place to call home. I did not want to return to America, but I didn’t want to be somewhere as challenging as China, yet I wanted something foreign; foreign to me. I decided to move to Prague in the Czech Republic.

My flight went first in the direction of South Korea and then towards Europe. I had decided to extend my layover to 24 hours and used the opportunity to see some bit of South Korea. I literally had 24 hours, and so I used that time to try to see as much as I could in a very short amount of time. There are many palaces in Seoul, and fortunately the Gyeonghuigung Palace was close to the hostel where I was staying. I can not for the life of me even begin to imagine how to pronounce the name of the place, but my single day in Seoul was a silent one anyway.

I wandered around the palace and walked around the district where I was staying. I had no idea of what kind of district I was visiting. Was it expensive? Was it where the foreigners lived? Was it a college area? I didn’t bother to figure it out. I only had two goals. One was to see something like a palace, and to get a small perception of what South Korea was like, in case I ever would want to return, and two, to find some food.

It was a solitary and quiet visit, and I can honestly say that a day is not enough time to spend in Seoul. It is a huge city with many different districts, and even in a single day I was not able to see the entire palace. Still, I’m glad I took the opportunity to take a peak. Compared to Zhengzhou, China, Seoul was a clean city. There was no trash on the street and the air was more clear although they did receive some of the pollution from China, and like China it felt very safe. So as I wandered through the streets I never felt worried that I would turn the wrong corner. There is so much freedom in this feeling of wandering.

After I left the palace I decided to find somewhere to eat. I had wandered through the district for about two hours before I got lost in a market and then wandered down an alleyway. Here I hesitated because I was very hungry at this point and my hunger was clouding my ability to pick a location. It was at this moment when a Korean woman ushered me into her tiny little shop and she served me the special of the day.

I cannot emphasize how much I love Korean food. I love the textures, the spices, the colors, and I love how it is served. Every food item has an individual plate and it is all served in a sensible portion size. You feel full, but never stuffed.

After eating I returned to my room that had pastel dots and square on the wall, and prepared for my long flight to Prague, and a new chapter of my life.

I am writing about all of this in the past tense because it is past. It has been over a year since I stepped foot onto a sidewalk of Seoul, and at the time of typing these words it has been almost two months since I’ve left my beautiful Prague. I currently sit in the dining room of my friend’s house where I am staying as I plan my next move. A dear friend of mine asked me recently, “So what is your plan? You always have a plan.” I wasn’t aware of this, but thinking back on my life and the choices I’ve made, I think it is true. I do always have a plan. I don’t always succeed in that plan, but it doesn’t matter because when one plan fades or fails I’ll soon have another.

So what is the plan? I plan to update this blog with the thoughts and memories and photos from the last two years of my life. I plan to return to my revery and release through writing, and I plan to have all of it documented here before I leave again. I am leaving again. At least that is the plan, and while it seems fairly strong that I will be returning to China, (and I’ll write more about that later) it is not impossible to imagine that I will also be returning to South Korea. I have too, because now I have a friend there, and I owe her a pillow.

Two years and Nine Countries.

Published on October 25, 2015February 28, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

It’s been quite some time since I have posted here. There’s no point in apologizing or promising to be more dedicated in my postings because I’ve done that before, and these are only promises to myself. Truth of it, the reason I haven’t posted photos or poems or updates is because I haven’t had the desire. In the past two year’s I barely have even journaled. I hadn’t thought much about it or even missed it, but after I returned to the states and opened my boxes, that had been stored at a friends house while I was gone, I found at least 50 to 75 journals. I had written in these journals over the course of the past 26 years, and it occurred to me that I actually did write. I imagine there was some reason inside me that I’ve decided to remain quiet. Perhaps it has to do with my mom’s death and absorbing all of those feelings, and existential crises that I still am unable to grasp to a level of applying words. No matter. They’ll come if they want to. I did get the writer bug back again. Thank god. I did miss it. I said I didn’t, but obviously, I was lying. I missed having a project and a drive. I don’t feel like sharing my ideas here because I find that it is just a form of procrastination that I have created. I talk about what I’m going to write, and then that’s where all of the energy goes. This time I’ll just keep it to the actual project.

As for a recap of 2013-2015 it goes a bit like this- in a timeline:

July 2013, leave Portland Oregon; visit mom in Chico, visit Paradise, then San Francisco for visa, and Fremont to see dad; August 25th, 2013: Arrive in Zhengzhou, China and become a literature teacher; Go to Shaolin Temple; Jan-Feb, 2014: holiday- it’s vacation time, Go to Vietnam, Go to Australia, return to Zhengzhou and four days letter get a message that my mother is dead. Mother’s time of death; Feb, 19, 2014 two weeks after her 64th birthday, six days before my 41st; fly to California: Chico, Paradise, Trinidad, Eureka, San Francisco-all to carry her ashes. Return to Zhengzhou for work. May, 2014 finally get the death certificate and report: mother died from a methamphetamine overdose. July: Kaifeng, Xi’an. August 25th 2014, leave China and spend one day in Seoul; August 26 arrive in Prague. Begin TEFL program in September; Trip to Switzerland. October; Ceske Budejovice, Cesky Krumluv, back to Prague to work for a visa; Berlin to apply, Berlin to pick up; work in Brno, Czech Republic, then to Warsaw for a day and volunteer in Zabuze, Poland; return to Prague; work in Malacky, Slovakia, work in Tercianske Stankovce, Slovakia, work in Surany, Slovakia, work in Bratislava, Slovakia, work in Bratislava again- all small country towns and small villages. Christmas in Poland. New Year’s in Prague. January 2015 work in Prague all over the city; work in Beroun, Czech Republic; visit to Jablonce, Czech Republic; back to Warsaw, to Zawidowice, Poland; Wisniew, Poland- all for volunteer; to Olomouce, Czech Republic, to Vyskov, Czech Republic (for work), and the visa is over and to Brno to begin travels. Robbed in Brno return to Prague; Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic, one last weekend in the Czech mountains, Rokytnice; to Poland one last time: Warsaw, and Zabuze, and Ostrów Mazowiecka, then Krakow, and Auschwitz, then to Prague. September 22nd, fly to Germany, fly to Portland, Or. October 2nd, 2015 one week in California to pick up the last of my mother’s things. The last of her life in two small boxes. To Ashland, Redding, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, The Russian River, to Portland. Already a lifetime ago.

Here now, back in Portland, and it is a full month and 3 days that I have been in the states, and it all ready feels like forever, and it feels like forever since I’ve had a job, and Prague life seems year’s ago, and China feels as if it never happened, and I’m still waiting for my mom to call. We had always talked on Sundays.

And, that’s it for the past two years. I never went to Kunta Hora. Damn.

Mental Preparations for the Next Journeys.

Published on July 26, 2015February 28, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

My life on the road is winding down. I’ve been away from America for nearly two years now. I had only returned for a short trip last year when my mom died, and let’s face it, that wasn’t a visit. I always think about how if I had only known that that one day in August of 2013 was going to be the last time I’d see my mother alive that I would have hugged her tighter, kissed her, told her over and over again how much I loved her. If I had known she was going to die I never would have left. It had been my fear since I was a child that my mother would die when I was far away from her. China couldn’t have been farther away.

Now that August is nearly here, and my time is rapidly moving toward my year anniversary of being in Europe things are again coming to an end. Last week my work visa finished and I am no longer legal to work in the Czech Republic. I have moved from working visa back to a tourist visa allowing to remain for three months in the Schengen before I have to return to the U.S.

So what to do for the remaining two months? Well, it’s of course difficult to live for two months without making any money. Anyone whose worked for Czech wages knows that you don’t exactly make a ton of money in Prague. So it’s off to Poland for two weeks as a volunteer teacher and then the week following that it’s back to the Czech Republic for one final gig and then it’s nothing but wandering time. Since I will be on the East side of the Czech Republic I thought that I would explore a little of the Southern part of the country and eventually end up in the beautiful little Cesky Krumluv. I’m really wanting some lakes or even better- the ocean. Perhaps I can squeeze in a trip to Croatia or Slovenia before I leave, but I’m not sure where I’ll be able to get to. I’ll have to just take it one day at a time.

It makes me a little nervous taking it day to day during the height of the tourist season, but I’m a little nervous all the time. That’s anxiety for you- a real buzz kill. Still, even with the anxiousness I’m moving forward in some kind of direction.

There’s so much catching up to do with this blog. Filling in the missing pieces of the past two years, but I’ve nothing but time at this point.

On to the final months in Europe.

Melbourne Graffiti-Part 2

Published on May 29, 2015March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

Wandering around the city of Melbourne looking for Gertrude lane Lisa and I were lost. I didn’t know anything about this lane, but Lisa who owns a cool resale shop in Portland, knew that Gertrude lane was famous for hip shops with interesting items. Lisa has always been an expert of spotting something unique and at a low price which is really hard to do these days since resale has become such a booming business.

She’s always been good at finding deals but not great at directions. I don’t know where we were, she didn’t either. We had taken the tram a bit of a distance out of the central part of the city. If there was a Gertrude east we were on Gertrude west. There wasn’t a lot out in the area we were wandering around, mostly residential. We found a quaint coffee shop, and a couple of thrift stores, but the great discovery was this dead-ended alleyway.

All kinds of hidden nooks and alleyways with tiny shops can be found in random neighborhoods.

We found ourselves back in the city near the National and International galleries, and from there we headed over to Hosier Lane.

Hosier Lane is one of two well known graffiti alleys. I’m not certain how long artists have claimed these alleys as places to make art, but there are several layers of paintings and stencils. The work is always changing because in the graffiti world nothing is permanent- unless of course you are Banksy or something and you become one of those coveted street artists and your shit sells for millions. I guess in a way it was street art that first got Basquiat seen, but his canvass work surpasses his street work- in my opinion- on a tangent here…

Hosier Lane has become a tourist attraction. This alleyway that has been painted and repainted again and again is like a rotating gallery. The alley gallery. What you see today will not be there the next time. I can promise that what is in these pictures are not there now.

As you can tell by the limos, and taxis, and people wandering through the ally, that is directly across the street from a museum, that this is no ordinary alleyway.

One museum is for free the other has a small fee, and both are worth the visit.

Melbourne is a beautiful place.

Melbourne Graffiti -Part 1

Published on May 29, 2015March 3, 2024 by An Accidental VagabondLeave a comment

You can’t really talk about Melbourne, Australia and not mention the graffiti. It’s everywhere and it’s excellent. In my humble opinion Prague could really use a lesson in graffiti from Melbourne (I’m living in Prague as I write this post. If you happen to wonder why I would randomly pick Prague as an example of bad graffiti). I’ve always liked street art even when to other’s it’s considered vandalism. To me if it says something, if it’s done well, then it’s valuable- then there are the shitty tags. You know the kind. The true vandalism. There’s no point except to tag something and your tag or your scribble sucks. There’s so much of that in Prague I just consider it a mess that ruined a beautiful building for nothing.

But… Melbourne, wow, what an art scene.