The idea of a native country, that is to say a certain bit of ground traced out on a map and separated from other bits by a red or blue line: no not for me, my native country is the country I love, meaning the one that makes me dream, that makes me feel well.
Gustave Flaubert
The Art of Travel, Alain De Botton
I am living in the Czech Republic, and I have 90 days to be here legally. Not only in the CR, but in all of the Schengen countries which covers most of Europe. When I was here in the late 90’s, the last hay days of the American dollar, if your tourist visa was about to run out, you could go to a neighboring country hang out for a while and then return to your desired country with a fresh new entry stamp. Those days are over. You have to go farther away and spend more money for that to work. If you become illegal in all of Schengen you will have an enormous fine and not be allowed to return to Europe for up to ten years. It is a race for the visas if a person wants to stay. I want to stay, and I know other Americans who are gambling with time for their visas and for the opportunity to stay in a place that is other then their birth place. It’s all politics and government.
When the ability to live where you have greater resources, or to have a better life for your children or to marry whom you love or just to live a new life in a new place is impeded by politics it doesn’t take an individual long to figure out how little they matter to politics, governments, and big corporate business, and you can feel very small and vulnerable. That’s how control works. Of course, everywhere in the world should be a good place to live, but this world is not equal.
Marek’s story was similar to mine except he was a Czech living in America. He had gone to America on a visa very much like I am doing now in the Czech Republic. He was lured to stay for romance which in my opinion can cause a human to take more risks. Most of the risks people take to live in a country other than their own comes from love. The love to be with someone, the love to take care of a family, the desire to have a better life for that family. A better life. Love for yourself. I don’t know why Marek had gone to the U.S. originally, but while he was there he met someone, and decided to stay. He became engaged to be married. Getting married and getting citizenship in a country other than your own is not an easy thing. You are often treated more like a criminal than a potential new citizen. It is a slow and long process. As Marek and his fiancé waited for the legal procedures his visa expired. He admittedly said he knew it went over, but he was going to be married, and was waiting for his green card, and he didn’t realize the consequences were more than a fine or the threat of deportation.
When it was discovered that Marek’s visa had expired he was arrested, and sent to a prison for 70 days. A prison with bars, and a number, and an orange jump suit. Not, because he had stolen, vandalized, raped or murdered, but because he overstayed his visa as he waited for his green card. He was 22 had never committed any actual crime, and he was sent to a state penitentiary. It wasn’t just the arrest or even some jail time that surprised me, what surprised me was the amount of jail time and that it was prison time. To me prisons should be used for real criminals, like rapists, child killers, murderers in general, companies that steal millions of dollars from people subsequently causing economic crashes and destroying lives- real crimes. I don’t understand why people who are illegal, whether they snuck across a boarder or overstayed a tourist or student visa, are being sent to prisons? Why not just deported? Does it cost more money to keep an illegal immigrant in our prisons then to deport them?
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.
Were these words inscribed on the Statue of Liberty ever true? I think, as I travel through this life, I gain a deeper understanding of what it means to be free. That this freedom can not be taken for granted, and many of those who believe they are free are not. Are our world boarders really protecting us? Protecting us from what? From people stealing our homes, our children, our dreams? Those things are stolen from us everyday from our backyards, our schools, our homes. It isn’t people who arrive illegally who take a person’s home away, it’s a very late mortgage payment and a bank that takes away that American Dream. Not one illegal Mexican repossessed an American citizen’s house. What is this freedom? Freedom is not about purchasing power it is about being able to make honest daily choices about how you want to live your life, raise your family, and how you want to love, it should also include where you want to live. The world is filled with plenty of successful unhappy people who believe they are free.
Marek got married while in a prison in America. He told me that he and his wife placed their hands on the glass that separated them, and he promised her that they would have a beautiful wedding once he was free. Marek obviously was free, and he came out of his 70 day’s in prison a new person with a new perspective on life. Life is precious, short, and can easily be stolen from you. He made simple promises to himself to spend time in the mountains, to appreciate life, to make the most out of it. To live now.
As I gathered up my belongings and paid my bill Marek showed me a picture from his wedding. The bride in a beautiful strapless white gown, and Marek in a dark suit kissing on a bridge with the Krumlov castle in the background, and a gorgeous pale blue sky. A fairytale wedding, as he had promised. Not everyone behind the prison glass gets to keep that promise because they are still waiting behind the prison glass.
At the point of writing this post, I still have time on my tourist visa, and if it was up to me I would have cut through the red tape, but it isn’t up to me, and the clock ticks as the days pass. It doesn’t matter that I’ve paid the required amounts to begin the work visa process all that matters is that the visa is approved before my time runs out. That is not up to me but, as far as I know, they are not arresting Americans for being illegal.
“There should be no boarders. We migratory creatures. We should be free to wander and free to stay. These “others” the corporate gods who live in the banks and government buildings high above our heads, they care nothing about us.They want to keep us in pig pens and call them boarders. They want to control our food, our water, who we love, how we love and live, and then they tell us to have pride while they make our pens smaller and tighter till we claw at one another. That’s not freedom that’s a factory farm.” – Annabelle, Zizkov
Tag: travel
Eat Dragon Tongue in Cesky Krumluv
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of
the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.
Walt Whitman
The name of the restaurant escapes me. Names escape me but memories flood. It can be the smallest rainstorms. Perhaps a long frozen winter, a warm spring day, small rain, and then a flood that washes out the reality of your current moments and takes you back, drifting into your past. Anything can do it: a sound, a touch, a taste.
***
Zezo had recommended the place, and I remember it began with the letter L. It was down a narrow pathway like every place in Krumluv. All the roads are cobbled and all the roads are winding. A beautiful maze.
I sat outside under the bright light of the moon, and ordered something called Dragon Tongue made from tempeh. I had bulgur on the side and a small green salad. It had seemed a year had passed since I had eaten anything so healthy. It bordered on bland; low on the salt, and very clean and healthy. It sounds by my description that I didn’t like it, but I did. It reminded me of the eighties when the first of the vegetarian places were popping up here and there. You could get carob, and vegetables, but not much variety in flavor. Again, it sounds like I didn’t enjoy my dish, but I did. It was simple and relied on the natural flavors of cranberries, and tempeh, and bulgar with very little salt or spices. The way vegetarian food used to taste when it was just food and not a cuisine. It was quite nostalgic. My first experience with vegetarian food was when I was in seventh grade. I don’t think I had ever heard of anyone not eating meat. I was more in awe of the idea then anything else. I had a fairly typical response in my head: if you don’t eat meat then what do you eat? My mom and I would go many days without meat, but only because we didn’t have any money. Then it would be pickle and condiment sandwiches which I never equated as vegetarian. Oddly enough, my first vegetarian food experience was mixed with getting saved by Jesus. I’ll end the suspense right here and now, and let you know, I’ve been saved more than once, but it doesn’t seem to stick. When I was twelve The Heinkes (yes of the California fruit juice family Heinkes Fruit Inc.) made one of many attempts. This time they had sent me off to a Seventh Day Adventist church camp. Cowboy camp. I had slept in covered wagons; rode horses; learned that I was way behind in shaving my legs (and subsequently something was wrong with me because of that); had prayer meetings every night where secretly a newspaper article of Simon Le Bond’s sunken yacht was passed around and cried over. As we were meant to pray to Jesus for forgiveness the girls’ begged god to save the lead singer of Duran- Duran. Their prayers were answered, but I’m not sure how many of the girls were saved. I learned that some people do not eat meat, and I also learned who was Simon Le Bond (I pretended I already knew just like I pretended I could ride a horse). Seventh Day Adventists’ do not eat meat, and so it was my first experience with fake chicken nuggets, and fake ham served at the fake luau where I learned I would have rather had been in the fake surf camp then cowboy camp, because there was a real blonde boy in the surf camp who was real cute, and I didn’t like riding horses. In all honesty, camp was a kind of hell, except for the food. All that bullshit rounded out into pure curiosity towards vegetarianism.  All these random thoughts triggered by eating Dragon Tongue under the light of a full moon. This is exactly the kind of thinking that can happen when you are traveling. You are in new places, and yet there you are with you. You in your past and you in your future. Look up from your meal, and hello, it’s you. It is also very hard to lie about knowing of Simon Le Bond and knowing how to ride a horse- you will be found out.
It amazes me the power of the sense memories.
As I sat silently eating my meal, the Vltva continued it’s ceaseless flow around the base of the castle’s bluff, and my mind continued to flow into strange and far away places. The tempeh began to taste how I imagined a dragon’s tongue to taste. The more I chewed the more I imagined I was eating the actual tongue of dragon. I suddenly felt ill, and slightly crazy, since it was impossible to eat a real dragon tongue. I blamed it on the castle, and The Game of Thrones, and my freakish imagination, and of course the moon.
I had ordered mead which was served very hot, and I drank it erasing my image of chewed tongues. The waiter had warned me that the mead could be very strong and to let him know if I needed to add more hot water. It was strong. A hot honey alcohol that made me feel a little tired. I really just wanted the mead to go with the dragon tongue because it made sense to me. Very Beowulf, I had thought to myself. I sat and listened to the river roll and drop into rivulets and swirling pools. I stared up at the castle lights that threw a blonde shine over the small medieval village. It was already ten thirty and I contemplated walking to the castle since Zezo had said it was open 24 hours. I wasn’t sure if it was safe for me to walk alone in the night to an empty castle. The village seemed safe, but I was trained by the very nature of being born a woman to be cautious.
The restaurant cleared out and I ordered a cappuccino. The waiter was extremely friendly and his English was very good. I suspected he had lived somewhere native English was spoken because he had even said one or two colloquial sayings, like ‘gotcha’, and ‘you know’. Could he have lived in America or Canada? I wondered. His name was Marek, and as the evening slowed he stopped and chatted with me. The usual small talk that you make with customers, but the more we spoke the more the conversation drifted from polite fiction into real life.
And how easily we can get to know something about people, when we are open to truly meeting them. And how much we can learn about ourselves. And what did I learn from Marek? The beginning of an ongoing gratitude, because while people may have traveled similar paths with similar intentions you quickly learn that governments can control the path you are on, and not every government is so kind- and my birth country has many boarders.
Go to Cesky Krumluv and Experience a Fairytale
 A cool night. 8:30 p.m.  A full moon. Dark. An empty train station. The ingredients to a horror story.
I came without information. No direction, no reservations, no contacts. I could have taken this moment to berate myself on my lack of preparation, but what was the point. I was here now, and self degradation was a waste of emotional energy. Just walk, I told myself. I didn’t worry about injury just the cold. I walked toward a dark tree lined street, but something told me that I was moving in the wrong direction. I heard the sound of wheeled luggage on pavement behind me, and I turned to watch the  silhouettes and shadows of people leaving the train station head down a steep hill. I decided to follow the other passengers.
I could not see the city center or the castle. I knew it was a sleepy city, and that I might not be able to find accommodations for the night, but I felt somehow I would be okay. The moon was full, and a bright rainbow of light cast a ring around the moon. There is a wise tale that say’s if you stand under the moon with a ring it means that you will find true love. In this wise tale you need to be standing under the ringed moon with another person, and that person is your  true love. But, what does it mean if the person you are standing with is your mother or father? My mother would have loved that. The last time I had seen her before leaving for China (not knowing I would never see her again) she had been looking at me lovingly, and with a longing that made me feel uncomfortable. “Oh honey,” she had sighed, “I wish it could just be you and me forever.” I had looked at her with scrutiny before I spoke. “That’s great, mom, that’s what every daughter wants to hear from her mother.” “That’s not what I meant.” She had said in a huffed and insulted tone. “Yes it fucking is.” I had said. There were times when she would hug me and I felt that she was trying to absorb me into her flesh till she was pregnant with me. I’d push away from her during those embraces. Now that she’s gone I only feel sadness at my inability to give her what she wanted, but I had desperately wanted to be my own person. I didn’t have to think about it any longer. I could just stand under the ring of a full moon in Cesky Krumluv, that’s all there was now. So, what did it mean to stand under the moon alone?  Perhaps it meant I would love this small village?
I was at ease. I was at peace. I didn’t always feel this way. I embraced these moments of calm. I longed for it to stay. There were more days’ of anxiety, and a heavy shadow of worry then there was this feeling of bliss. It would come in strange and unexpected moments. I vowed to find a way to bottle this feeling.
I cut through a park with a cobblestone path. The first leaves of fall sprinkled the ground like an autumn carpet. Although the park was dark and foreign I wasn’t afraid. The woods are not always haunted. Through the trees I saw the castle illuminated and glowing. Lumière chiaroscuro. A painting floating against the canvas of the night.
I stood for a moment staring at the castle taking in as much as I could in the darkness. It was built on a cliff of rocks, medieval and, yes, fairytale romantic.
I walked on till I was out of the woods and at the beginning of the village. I walked toward what looked to be an old guard’s gate, and to the right of it was a huge sign that said “Hostel 99”. That would be my first try. I followed the signs to the hostel over cobblestones, and down a backstreet that lead to a closed door. A light was on in a room, and I looked through the window as I passed. Inside I saw the face of a man that I had seen before. We did not know each other, but I had seen his face many times over the course of many years. He was the friend of my friend Gregg who I had lived with in Prague many years ago. I knew a few stories about him, I had even met his girlfriend briefly at the Clown and Bard the week prior to my trip. His name was Zezo and, because of social media, I had seen his pictures many times, but he knew nothing of me.
I rang the bell. He opened the door. I smiled like I knew him, and even though he did not know me he returned the same smile.
“You are Zezo.” I said.
“Yes.” He said surprised.
“I am a friend of Gregg’s from the Clown and Bard.”
“Oh, hello.” And he hugged me. “What can I do for you?”
“Do you have a room available?”
“Oh shit. No. Only a double for 700 koruna.”
“Do you know of another hostel?”
“Oh, yes, but man it is really fucking far away.”
He grabbed a map.
“How long are you staying?”
“One night.” I said.
“Oh shit. I can take care of that.”
-and he did.
I had shelter for the evening. Zezo directed me to a vegetarian restaurant where I could find some thing to eat. I had a limited time to find food because he told me that things closed early in Krumluv. He also told me that the castle was open for 24 hours so I could walk through the gates if I so chose.I thanked Zezo for his help and hospitality and wandered into the night and medieval city to explore and to find food.
Visit Ceské Budejovice and Experience Goulash and Beer in a Dive Bar
If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest- in all its ardor and paradoxes- then our travels.
Alain De Botton, The Art of Travel.
My connecting train to Krumluv was not going to arrive for two hours. I took my pack and wandered into the square near the Ceské Budejovice train station. I was hungry, and had to pee, but I had no idea where to go. I walked toward a sign that pointed to a restaurant in an alleyway. I didn’t know why I picked this particular sign to follow, maybe it was the alleyway or maybe I liked the flowers and stenciled tree on the sign. The sign did not match the restaurant. It wasn’t really a restaurant as much as it was a watering-hole that wanted to be a restaurant, but gave up on the restaurant dream years ago, and kept the sign.
When traveling I always feel awkward. It doesn’t seem to matter how many years or times I have wandered into a strange place in a strange city— that feeling of insecurity of place lingers. I live in a perpetual state of uncertainty, yet float in a state of constant awe that I’ve made it as far as I have. I’m fairly certain there are three of me living inside this one body. One is the great believer and spontaneous adventurer and the other is attempting to return to the cave where the ignorance of fear feels safe. The third is the observer wondering what the other two crazy me(s) are doing and how it is possible that we are still alive. I carry these thoughts— they are steady companions. My observer self is always amused, thankfully. What would I do without that part of me? How can one be concurrently  so confident and so frightened? It makes no sense. I think that when I die maybe these three, my personal trinity, will finally become one. Until then I live with this triptych personality; sometimes open, sometimes closed, but some how we make it. I make it. I don’t think this is all entirely on my shoulders. Other humans can make life feel awkward, and more times then not it may be a case of: it’s not me it’s them.
It was a divey little place. Smoky and filled with men having beer during the early part of the day. The only women in the place were a lady in her sixties sitting near the entrance, and a woman, also in her sixties, working behind the bar. As I stepped inside all conversations stopped and all the men turned and silently looked at me, only the smoke moved. I hesitated wondering if this was one of those places that women did not go to, but the woman behind the bar smiled at me and the other women gave me a nod. I sat at a table as two men at the table beside me turned in their chairs to watch. I can never understand the blatant staring and examination of strangers. Do people not know it causes discomfort? Is that the intention? Have they never experienced it? I sat with my back to the men, but I could still feel them staring. The man closest to me leaned toward my shoulder attempting to get a better look at my face. Again, this was a moment of uncertainty; I was uncertain as to why I was still sitting there. I felt the men turn away from me, and the conversations started up again.
The bartender told me the specials, goulash and something I couldn’t understand.
“Dom si goulash prosim e pivo, prosim.”
All I can really do in Czech is order food. As I ordered, the man closest at the table again turned to watch me. He turned back to his friend said something and they began laughing. I pushed aside my discomfort. I had had many Chinese people watch me order food and eat when I was in Zhengzhou, but I still had not grown accustomed to the examinations. Also, there is a difference in feeling when two large men are staring at you like you are not a human being, but an exotic animal and when a small Chinese woman is staring at you like you are an exotic animal. I’ve become increasingly aware of how easily people disassociate themselves from the humanness of others. The examiner is the human the visitor is the strange animal— the other.
I drank my beer and ate my goulash slowly and in silence. The men at the table behind me slowly began to lose interest in my existence. ABBA’s, Fernando played on the radio. Smoke filled the room. Men chatted in Czech and ordered more beers. The carpeting was red and worn. Carpeting is never a good idea in bars, and I wonder why it has ever been done. The lady behind the bar had a tired face and the other woman finished her cigarette and then walked out with a wave of her hand. There was a man at the bar all in black with Motorhead stenciled in white on his black leather. His hair was stringy and died black. He could have lived in Portland, Oregon. I was still hungry after eating the goulash and I resisted the urge to lick my plate. I received a text message from Carol a new friend from the TEFL program. She was now living in Ceske Budejovice with her boyfriend. I had sent her a message earlier that I would be visiting CB. Through serendipitous timing she said she happened to be in the mall very near to the bar. We agreed to meet up. I paid my bill and went to the bathroom. When I returned the bartender handed me a shot. The two men at the table beside me had bought it for me. They could not speak any English except to ask where I was from.
“Ameriky.” I said.
“Na zdravà ” they toasted to my health.
The shot was sweet almost like a plum. I said, thank you and grabbed my pack and walked out of the bar.
I met Carol and her boyfriend Lukas in the mall. We sat in the food cart chatting and discussing my return to CB and what we should do during my visit. They walked me back to the train station and helped me to find my connection.
“It is only 20 minutes to Cesky Krumluv from here, but who knows how many stops the train will make.” Lukas said.
“Hopefully, I will get in before dark.” I said, “I have no idea where I am staying.”
They wished me luck and put me on the train. It took an hour to get to Krumluv, which reinforced the fact that the student agency bus would have been the better choice for travel.
It was dark when I arrived. This sentence was the first line I used to describe my first moments in Prague 14 year’s ago. It was dark when I arrived and I had no idea where to go. I had many memories of my first time in Prague as I traveled on the train. My first journey alone into the Czech Republic was on a train. The train, the darkness, and the blank almost meditative state of mind was a similar sensation to how I had felt all those years ago. I carried caution, but simultaneously moved blindly forward. There is never any way to go except forward.
Take a Train Through Bohemia: Drawing Maps with a Stranger
You know I’ve seen a lot of what the world can do
and it’s breaking my heart in two
because I never wanna see you sad girl.Don’t be a bad girl.
The Czech man and I shared the train car in silence for about an hour. I am not sure what prompted him to break the silence but he began to speak to me even though I could not understand him. He knew I was going to Cesky Krumluv because I had shown him my ticket before I sat down. I handed him the ticket said, “prosim?” And then pointed to the seats. “Ano, ano,” he replied. I sat down and we smiled those strange tight smiles that you smile when you know that you can not communicate. There is a holding back in the smile because the next instant behind a genuine smile is the impulse to speak. The smile is lost and stuck in a sort of limbo. It doesn’t know if it should stop smiling. There is no where else for it to go. There we were stuck in awkward silence with these lost grins. There was a moment in China when I had first experienced this lost smile. I stood waiting for an elevator in my apartment where the school had housed me, and as the doors slowly parted I saw the kind face of one of the Chinese head teachers at my school. We both greeted each other with a surprised, “ni hao,” and behind this simple hello brimmed the communication, “Hey, what are you doing here? So surprised to run into you here.” Our smiles were bright and open, but just as quickly as the elevator doors slide open and then closed we remembered that we could not speak the same language and our smiles fell into the same tight smiles as the one I shared with the Czech man on the train. That silence of inability is strong. The desire to communicate is visceral and real. There is a poignant moment of realization that the moment is lost like our smiles.
“Cesky Krumluv?” He said.
“Yes. Ano.”
“Ceske Budejovice…”
…And he began to pantomime instructions to me. “Smer”, he said. I had seen this word many times in the train station and metro and I had guessed that the word meant exit. “Ceske Budejovice smer…” and somehow out of only recognizing one or maybe two words I figured out that I needed to get off the train in Cseke Budejovice and transfer to another train. The beauty of all of my understanding of the word smer is that I was incorrect in my translation. The word means direction, but my guess of exit is what saved me from missing my transfer. To clarify my understanding of what the man was telling me I handed him my journal and had him draw his communication. I needed to transfer in Budejovice, but where was I to find my connecting train? I decided to worry about it once I arrived.
Once the man knew that I understood him he began speaking to me more freely as if I could clearly understand the Czech language. I realized at that moment that I didn’t even know how to say, “I don’t speak Czech.” I continued to smile at him and nod my head, and in truth, I was straining to understand. In retrospect it is amusing that I would attempt to understand words that attached no meaning to my native language, yet I still tried.
“Cesky Krumluv…Ceske… Historicky.”
Any word that I slightly recognized caused me to jump with a small jolt of excitement.
“History? Ano. Ano.”
He grabbed a magazine from his bag. The cover had an image of what looked like a viking and the title ‘Historike Ceske’. He leafed through the pages and showed me a picture of a castle, and then he began naming off places. Then an amazing thing happened. I understood that this man was telling me of all the historic places in Bohemia that I should visit. He also told me how many kilometers by train or walking it would take to get from one place to another. Again, I had him draw me a picture. In my journal he made a scratch pad map of where I should visit and what places to stop to transfer to the next place. We spoke in this manner with drawings, and his use of one or two English words and my understanding of one or two Czech words for thirty minutes. Once we had exhausted our abilities to communicate we both returned to our silence and watched the sky and the trees quickly stream past our window.
I felt free as I often do on trains. There is a magic to traveling by train that I never experience or feel when I’m on a plane or traveling by car. Although, all forms of transportation delivers you to a place it is on a train where I feel like I am truly traveling. It is on the train when I feel truly free. It breaths life into the saying, “It is not the destination, but the journey,” for me. I’ve had the experience more than once in my life that it isn’t the moment when I am in a new place or the moment when I am leaving a familiar place that brings me happiness. It is when I am in-between. I am nowhere. I am leaving and going simultaneously. Time is crossing paths with the future and the past and it is in this moment where I am present. Now. Now I am going. I don’t dream of the next place or long for the place I had left. I am only here on the train listening to the wheels singing against the rails, and watching the trees and the life outside, the entire world, flow by like a river. I flow with it into nothingness and everything, and that is when I am free. My home is the train.
We are familiar with the notion that the reality of travel is not what we anticipate.
The Art of Travel- Alain De Botton
Botton, Alain De. The Art of Travel. New York:Pantheon Books,2002. Print.
P.S. A tip on traveling: The best thing to take when traveling from Prague to Cesky Krumluv is the student agency bus. It is cheaper and faster than the train, and it takes you directly to the city center. Still, there was a personal advantage to my making the mistake of taking the train. I just happen to love trains.
Traveling Does Not Erase the Loss You Feel, But it Sure is Beautiful
Today, I randomly opened my book Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman and read a quote that seemed to answer a common request I’ve had of late.
Not I, not anyone else can travel that road for you,
you must travel it for yourself.
The quote is from his poem, “Song of Myself”. An ex-boyfriend gave me the book nearly ten years ago, and his reason was specifically for me to read “Song of Myself”. It took me a couple of years after he had given it to me for me to read it. When I finally did, I couldn’t remember a poem moving me so greatly and causing me to pause with such huge sighs of awe. How could this man from the 1800’s know how I was feeling today? It is a poem of self empowerment, and a testament to the wonder of life, and what potential we all have, and it is more.
I had grabbed a few books with me on my journey to China. I’ve already left a couple behind when I came to Prague, and I will most likely leave the rest behind, but Leaves of Grass will travel with me. Walt Whitman speaks to all my life longings perfectly as if he had taken words from my own mouth, my own dreams. He answers my questions and soothes my anxieties as if he is here listening to me speak and cry out, Â but this is impossible because he had these thoughts, these ideas, these wonderments before my existence. Even so, I feel he speaks to me as if we were alive in the same time. Would we be kindred spirits? I like to believe that we would.
This journey, as wonderful as it is, and as grateful as I am to experience it, has been hard. As I look back on my life, I think in most moments I have thought things were almost always hard, and part of this is because there is something wrong with my brain. This is true, it is called depression, and it can cloud even the most amazing experiences. I’m fairly certain it is hereditary based on some of the behaviors and actions of people in my family. I’ve struggled with it since I was a teenager, and at periods of my life it had been pretty bad, coming with its wonderful array of self-loathing and suicidal thoughts- it’s truly a joy to have around. There have been periods when I was able to keep it under control through meditation, yoga, and other forms of exercise. It can sometimes be an extra challenge to the normal challenges of life, Â like a layer cake of challenge. This year is a great challenge: living in foreign countries, loosing my mom, struggling with the monsters called bureaucracy and soon to be dealing with the issue of no money, and plus this little brain thing. I’m beginning to wonder if I can handle all this shit. My life in the now is rarely happy. It is only in the past that places and experiences look better or they create longing. This is a thinking pattern that really bothers me, but I have yet to change it. There is one particular moment of time where I feel real contentment and peace, and it does involve traveling, but I’ll save it for the next post. I often feel bad about feeling bad, like I’m ungrateful or filled with self pity and misery and I don’t deserve to have these experiences- they should go to people who have a greater appreciation for the adventures of travel. The kind of people you see in photographs.
I had wondered before coming to Prague if it was really the right decision. If I had the strength to make it through the course, if I have the strength to make it through this process of trying to find work to get the visa to deal with the bureaucracies. I also wonder what I’m doing it for. If it is all so hard in the moment then why bother? Why not just go back? At this moment I can’t answer these questions. I kept hoping I would get a sign, something to tell me I am on the right path, that I’m actually on a path and not just flailing about lost in a forest that I don’t even know I’m in because all I see are the trees.
This year (who am I kidding I’ve done this multiple times) has made me throw imaginary arms into the air and cry out, “I give up. I can’t do this can somebody please do this for me? Can somebody else live my life?” But, no, no-one can. Like Whitman said, “no one can travel that road for you, you must travel it yourself.”
All I see are the trees.
It is not far, it is within reach,
perhaps you have always been on it since you were born and did not
know,
perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.
A few days ago, for the first time, I had felt the prickling of missing China. It was small like I mentioned- a prick. I had wondered if I would miss it. If missing it had been too buried under my culture shock, my mother’s death, Â the pollution. I was kindly relieved to feel this small feeling of missing this place. It gave me some kind of hope that it wasn’t a mistake that I did learn something there and that over time I will grow from it. Time is never what we think it should be. We don’t heal or grow like we are told we should. We don’t become wise just because we grow older and we don’t get happiness just because we followed the rules. It is never what we expect. I had read Siddhartha while I was in China, and I had asked myself, and I still ask myself, will I ever see my life as Siddhartha saw his; that each experience was purposeful, and carried meaning? Will that self-reflection of one’s own journey- my own journey; will it be seen? Will I see the forest and the mountains, the land and the sea? Siddhartha is a little over a hundred pages, but years had passed in the story. Time is never like a book or a movie. Patience. That is the only word I can really say to myself in this moment. Patience, and perspective, and don’t panic, after all it’s just life, and mine isn’t so bad even with depression.
I know I am not alone in these thoughts. I also know I am not alone in feeling bad of feeling bad about being in a foreign place. After all don’t people dream about traveling? Don’t people wish they could pack it all up and start a new life in an exotic place? But, dreams are not realities, and nothing can be how you expect it especially if you’re bringing yourself along, and maybe yourself has some extra baggage. So, this is my final thought on the matter of someone else doing this whole life thing for me or maybe for you if you ever feel similar. No one can travel the road I’m on as no one can travel the road you are on. I know we are not traveling together, but with all these roads we must be crossing paths. So, with the baggage we carry, the pieces we were born with and the pieces that we’ve accumulated, I hope, that when all the roads converge, we’ll be able to drop our bags and converse before traveling on our own roads, but with our hands free.
Long enough have you dreamed contemptible dreams,
Now I wash the gum from your eyes,
You must habit yourself to the dazzle of light and every
moment of your life.Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore,
Now I will you to be a bold swimmer,
To jump off in the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me,
shout, and laughingly dash with your hair.
Night Clubs, Russian Disco Dancers, and Hot Pot After Midnight in Zhengzhou, China
I had been warned to never eat hot pot from a street tent. At the moment that I was picking out what bit of food on a stick to put in my boiling bowl of soup, I didn’t really think about the warning or even what ‘hot pot in a street tent’ meant. It wasn’t until I was on the bus heading home at 7:00 in the morning, after a ridiculously late evening out, that I remembered that I was warned.
The bus gently rocked and lulled me toward sleep. I had a thirty minute bus ride to get home. I stared at the few Chinese denizens sitting on the bus. A man was asleep in the far  back corner. His head was slumped over his right shoulder. It hung like a loose button on a thin thread, and I wondered if a jolt of the bus would break his neck.  I wondered if he stayed out to late too. It was a Sunday morning, not a work day. What were these people doing on the bus? Shouldn’t they be busying themselves at home? Shouldn’t they be just waking up? I still haven’t grasped China. I’m not clear if it is really a five day work week or if people are working on the weekends. Some do. I was trying to justify why I was so wrecked on this bus at 7:00 in the morning. Trying to find some partners in irresponsible crime. I was concerned about being judged. Which shouldn’t matter, but I’m always stared at and examined. I didn’t want to join the ranks of drunken irresponsible westerner, but like I said, it didn’t matter what anyone thought. My life was only temporarily passing through this place. Temporarily passing through many places it seems.
I ate the hot pot from the street tent. I realized this while my thoughts were on the strangers on the bus. It is because of the gutter oil. The oil that people dredge from the gutters and reuse in order to save money. I figured I would be sick later. I’m sick often after the street food. It can be anything. It took a few months before my stomach toughened up some. I can’t figure out if it’s my age or the food. Maybe, a combination of both.
I don’t go out much. I’ve turned into a sort of hermit a kind of recluse. It could be culture shock, but I know it’s a combination of many, many things. Things not worth writing about yet. The nights out are rare, but they always end the same- It begins with drinks at one place, and then a move to another place to have too many drinks and then to a club. Drinks are bought together because you can’t have a table unless you buy the bottle or a rack of beers. The crowd is mixed- Chinese, Americans, Mexicans, Arabs, Africans, English, Russians- mostly young, but sometimes there is a range in ages. After a bottle is bought (usually Red Label Whiskey) and the worst sweet tea mixer ever designed, the dancing starts. Dancing on spinning dance floors, raised dance floors, floors that have hydraulics- the works. At times I think the Chinese are absolutely crazy. There seems to be so little concern for personal safety. I’m aware that I grew up in a world of hyper-saftey concerns sometimes over the top, but I was raised in the 70’s and 80’s so I did experience pre-seatbelts and all of that, and I did live in Germany where there is a kind of ‘go at your own risk’ type of safety concern. I really liked Germany’s take on it. It allowed you to take personal responsibility for your own actions, yet you still could take a risk if you wanted because it’s your life, but you better be aware of the consequences. I liked that. I’d say maybe China is like that, but then again it seems like there is no idea of consequences. As if people go about their day never even thinking that anything bad could possibly happen to them even if they are driving on their e-bike at night with no lights driving the wrong way on a one way street while reading a text message. What could possibly happen? There’s never any helmets worn and people drive on the wrong side of the road, never give right of way cut people off. I’ve seen children as young as four standing on the shoulders of the front seat of the car with their heads out of the sun roof. This lack of safety concern is in everything. The way buildings are built, pavements are laid, toys are made, how a person crosses the street. The dance floors reflect this nutty wildness. It seems to me like the worst idea in the world to create a dance floor that spins in a club where people are drunk. I don’t know why we don’t see more Chinese people in extreme sports because they seem fearless.
The clubs and bars are smokey like America in the early 90’s. It can be hard to breath especially when dancing on the stage. It isn’t really a stage, but more like a runway raised four feet from the floor, and made of metal. I love to dance, but I find it difficult to get into the dance scene here. The  crazy amount of smoke with absolutely no air circulation, the narrow dancing space, and the great noticeable distance from the stage to the floor. There are tables all around the runway dance floor so if you were to fall then you’d fall onto a table. I find it hard to relax even with too much Red label Whiskey mixed with the god awful sweet tea. The music, er, well, I’ll just say the music from one club to the next is not that much different, and in all fairness, to give a bit of perspective, bars and clubs in this part of China are still a new thing. I’m also a secret curmudgeon. I don’t really like clubs. I like dancing, but club scenes are not my thing (even though I continue to find myself in them). Still, in retrospect it is a worthwhile experience mainly because of the fact that I’m living in China. When my mind is in a state of complete discomfort which it has been often while living here, I’ll have this sudden realization that I’m in China on a spinning dance floor with a group of people from all over the world, and that this is just a moment; a rare blip of a moment that will be over in a couple of hours, and how strange that all sounds to me.
The hot pot night was a little different then the usual night out because it was morning with strangers and four different possible languages, but English was the one we all had in common. At five in the morning I could care less about the gutter oil.
What do you get when a Russian, a Chinese, an American and a Mexican walk down a dark alleyway… food and conversation about love. A red tent with a hot pot eatery. Five am beers are ordered. The soup is ordered. The noodles are ordered and we pick our own food. The soup is in a plastic bag placed inside a bowl. I don’t think of sanitation which is the best way to get sick. I only think of eating and then going home to sleep, but it is so far to where I live (another reason why I am a part-time recluse).
Outside the sun is rising. The smog is rolling into the city like fog off a bay. Pictures are taken and taxis are waved down, and I wait for the number 7 longing for my hard bed. I wonder what the hell compelled me to stay out so late. I give myself a little reprimand then think about how often I stay up till morning at a dance club with people from all over the world, and then stumble down a dark dirty alleyway to a double sized red tent to find a hot pot inside filled with Chinese men that work late or start their day early. Not very often. I forgive myself and look forward to sleep. This is a year in China. It won’t happen again. Not in this city.
My Last Days in America: China Diaries
Leaving Portland, Oregon
I’m what you call between employment. I need to make a small amount of money last a couple of months in two countries before my new job begins. I’m going to be a teacher. In China. I don’t know what that will be like, but hopefully in the next year I will be able to expound on this experience.
The journey started over a week ago. I ended my job, left my room in the house where I rented space, and I left Portland, OR.
I’ve lived in Portland for almost thirteen years. It would be thirteen years’ on the 11th, but I didn’t quite make it. I had always had a love-hate relationship with the city. I loved the people I became friends with, I loved the easiness of living, I loved the beautiful scenery and the fresh woodsy air, but there was something I disliked too. It was a something that I could ever put my finger on and still can’t. A feeling of not really fitting in. I could never really make things “work” in Portland. I found that finding the job that was in line with my career dreams was unreachable except through volunteering (which I did but it never or rarely turned to pay) romantic relationships seemed impossible, and creatively I lumbered along like a bog sloth. I was complacent and I didn’t create, and I couldn’t break out of the rut. Yes, yes, I know this is not Portland’s problem it’s mine, but all the same, the dislikes compelled me to leave. To become uncomfortable.
I left Portland on the fifth of August. Most of my personal items were sold or given away. I’ve stored some boxes of books and photos, two small items of furniture, and various sentimental knick-knacks at a friend’s house (my former roommate/landlord). The contents of my life can literally fill a small car. I’ve packed two large pieces of luggage each weighing just under 50lbs. I have a carry on, my laptop, and a purse. These items will be my possessions for the next year.
A Road Trip From Portland to San Fransisco
In order to officially and legally work in China I had to go to the consulate in San Francisco to pick up my visa. This made for a great excuse to take a road trip from Portland to San Francisco where I could stop in a small college city called Chico to visit my mom.
My good friend and I decided to drive down to California together. It was her ideal really. She said it was a great excuse to visit her family, and also nothing is more fun than a road trip. My friend, and I are both Portland transplants. Both of us are Northern California natives, so a trip to California is also a visit to our places of birth.
Crater Lake Resurfaces Memories of the Dead
We stopped for a night in Crater Lake and camped. The night air was warm and smokey due to the fires in Southern Oregon. We made a small contained fire and ate snacks. We made vodka cocktails mixed with grapefruit juices manually squeezed from grapefruits, with added bing cherries and cherry juice. All of these items were left over from my going away party. We drank our cocktails in front of the fire. Cocktails and camping in Crater Lake seem contradictory to me like the two don’t belong. We needed beer or a bottle of whiskey. Vodka never struck me as a camping drink, but there are no rules.
In the morning we drove to the lodge and walked to one of the many viewing points. We walked on a hiking path to Discovery Point, and there we silently stared at the crystal water that reflected the clouds. The line between earth and sky was blurred and my thoughts drifted to my friend Sue who died six years ago. It was Sue who convinced me to move to Portland in the first place, and on our drive up from Chico, CA we stopped in Crater Lake. I hadn’t been to Crater Lake since that trip 13 year’s ago. Now, I was leaving and I would never see Sue again. I knew I wouldn’t see her again when I got the news of her death, but sometimes I forget she’s really gone and not just traveling. Death can be like that sometimes. You forget, but then you remember. You remember and you feel the loss, again.
It was hot and smokey like we were driving into desolation. The hazy sky reminded me of images of China’s cancer villages. Rarely a blue sky I was told. I’m hoping that it is not as thick as this burning air.
Northern California
In truth, I never thought I would leave California, but life happens and sometimes your roads take you to places you did not expect to go.
Shasta
In Shasta we took a detour to Whiskey Town Lake. We set up a make shift picnic and split a beer and ate cherries and chips. I waded into the water that was warm. The red clay beneath the water swirled under my feet and turned it pink, but only when I moved. I wanted to swim, but my suit was packed and I knew from many childhood experiences that the clay stained your clothing.
Paradise
My home town of Paradise in northern California is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. It gets hot and dry in the summer, and sometimes we’d get snow in the winter. My father left Paradise when I was seven or eight, but my mom lived there until her 50’s then she later moved to Chico which is only 20 miles west of Paradise. I didn’t get to make it to Paradise before I heading to San Fransisco, since my parents no longer live there and most of my friends have moved away, but I did visit Chico to spend time with my mom.
Chico
We drove the rest of the way to Chico, and spent a night with my mother. That evening we went to a bar I used to frequent when I was a student at Chico State. It’s always fun to be new in a small town, even though you had actually lived there in the past. I spent my teenage years hanging around downtown Chico from time to time, but the places my teen self would go are gone. I spent five years of my twenties, my college years, going to bars and restaurants, and bookstores, and record stores, seeing bands, and running into people I knew, but those days are in the past. The places I used to frequent are gone or have changed. The bands are gone, and the friends are gone and the kids I knew have kids. Yet, this old bar named Duffy’s that catered to the theatre crowed was still there. It was there, but I was different. I moved and grew older. I sat for the sake of nostalgia, in this bar, where I spent one too many days during my spring finals, but it was as if I had never been there before.
Five Days with Mom
In the morning my friend said good-bye, and the reality of my actual life change hit. Although, only subtly because I had decided to stay with my mom and staying with her is like nothing has changed. I’ve been here for five day’s now, and tomorrow I will see an old friend, my oldest. A friend I met when we were eleven or twelve, and I will spend the night in my hometown of Paradise, and then on the eleventh we drive to San Francisco, and that is where things will begin to take hold. So, I did stay in Paradise after all.
Finally, San Francisco for the Visa
In San Francisco, I have that final step left to take before I get on the plane to China. My visa. It has been difficult getting my paperwork from China in order for me to apply for the visa, but it is all finally here waiting for me at a friend’s house in San Francisco.
So, This is Change.
Two days ago I felt fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of the plane flight, fear of being lost. Today is calm. Excitement hasn’t hit yet. Maybe, I don’t understand what I’m doing yet. I know I don’t understand because I don’t know what I’m doing.
What is the saying? I have no idea what is happening next and I’m excited about it.
I prefer the line from Sue’s favorite movie Almost Famous:
It’s all happening.
How I Prepared to Move to China
Applying for the Job in China
Three weeks ago, I e-mailed off an application. Last Wednesday, I had an interview over Skype, and the following day, Thursday, I was hired.
Just like that a new door opened. A door that leads to the East. Farther than I’ve ever gone. I’m nervous and excited for the change, the possibilities, the challenges, and of course the potential for new stories. In August, with just a few bags I will walk through a door that I never saw until a month ago, and once I’m over the threshold, I’ll be working as a literature teacher and leading drama classes in Zhengzhou, China.
Zhengzhou, China
I am moving to Zhengzhou, China. It is in the Henan province, that is in the northern central part of China. I don’t know anything else about it. Honestly, I don’t know a lot about China other than it is a place that has been used as a political boogieman and education marker since I was a kid. I remember Ronald Regan saying that our American high school math scores needed to beat China’s, but we were far behind. I also know about Tiananmen Square protests and massacres because I watched on the news in real time, but I also know I’m not supposed to talk about that because in China-it didn’t happen. I know there is suppressions of speech and religion especially when it comes to speaking out against the CCP. There have been great historical dramas that have come out of China, and incredible inventions came out of ancient China, like paper making, gun powder, the compass, and the printing press to name a few. I know about the Great Leap Forward that led to mass starvation. I know about the Cultural Revolution and of course I know of Mao. Still, China is huge, and filled with over a billion people, and you can never really know a place until you go there. Yet, as a foreigner, I may still never truly know China.
It’s almost June, and my panic scale has just reached “nervousness” and the early stage of “what if-mania” is baring its teeth. I have three months left in the U.S. before I start my new, yet, temporary life in China.
Purchasing the Plane Ticket
I bought my ticket this morning. I’ve never been so hesitant to buy a plane-ticket, ever. My dilemma was that I didn’t really know what day to fly or when to arrive. My contract begins on the 25th of August, and two days ago I found out that school starts on the 1st of September. So, I took the chance and bought it today.
Every step of purchasing the plan ticket felt mentally challenging. I chose to fly one-way for a couple of reasons. Although, I wasn’t sure if it would cause me visa problems if I didn’t have an actual round-trip ticket. I’m going to be there for a year, and I can’t book out a year in advance, so I had to take the risk of booking one way. Also, I might not want to come back. I may want to stay in China, or work in another country, or fly into some other part of the U.S. I don’t know what I will be doing as of August 26th 2014.
After talking with some folks who have lived or are currently living in China, I decided that the one-way was a good choice. It cost around $700.00. Some people believe that buying a round-trip is cheaper in the long run, but it isn’t. The lowest cost I found was $1400, and well that’s two one-ways, so I didn’t see the deal, especially since I would have had to change my return flight anyway, and that would come with an extra fee.
Money, Time and Visas
The visa. Oh the visa. Visa. Visa. I live in Portland, Oregon, and the closest Chinese consulate to me is in San Francisco.
This is okay. I want to fly out of SF anyway. I’m from California and it would give me an opportunity to see my parents, and some friends before leaving. The problem is “the when“. When do I leave from Oregon to California, and how long do I have to wait in San Francisco without a job? These are the tiny things that plague my thoughts at the moment, and surrounding these thoughts is the main worry that always presses my panic button- money. I hate money because I never have it, and it’s all anyone wants.
One of the first steps I had to take care of before even flying out to San Fransisco was getting my physical. It was a very specific physical that was sent to me by the school and required by the rules of Chinese immigration. I just had my physical and all my lab tests that I had to do in order to get a clean bill of health (part of the visa process). This isn’t a bad thing, but with each vial of my blood I thought, “I bet my insurance does not cover this.” Always, money.
I need to gather a copy of my passport, some passport photos, two letters of recommendations from schools, my diplomas, the contract, a letter of invitation from the Foreign Expert Bureau, and an application fee then take all of these to the Chinese consulate in San Fransisco.
Apparently, I have the option of going through a visa service agency, so I’ll explore that. I can’t apply until I get my medical report and send it off to my employers, and then I need to wait for my letter of invitation.
Putting My Query Letters and Writings on Hold
Getting things together for this move is in the forefront of my mind. I haven’t followed up on any of my writing pursuits, but moving to China is a great excuse. I haven’t written in ages. Although I think about writing every day, but to sit and to focus and to write has not been happening. I need to relax and just do it because everything is going to work out, and I have three months before flying over. I’d really like to bust out a ton of query letters, and get my book out to a much wider net than 9. Nine rejections is nothing. I should have a least 120. My procrastinating brain say’s, “but, I need to get the China stuff sorted first”. Which is probably true.
Worries, Stresses and Excitement
I’ll arrive in Zhengzhou at 10:50 pm. I have a layover in Beijing, but I don’t think I’ll have much time to look around. I worry about what I will do once I get to Zhengzhou. I haven’t heard from anyone from my new place of employment in the past few days, so I’m not sure about the logistics of my arrival. I will fly in late. I’m nervous that my arrival time might make it difficult for someone to meet me.
This will be my second time living overseas. I’m leaving all of my comforts and false securities, (false securities that make me feel secure) and I’m going to China. China. To live. I believe I will have my own apartment not to far from the school, and that’s pretty exciting. I’ve lived overseas before more then ten years ago, but I had to share a flat, so having my own place sounds amazing.
This is where I am right now. Today. May 28rd, 2013. Beyond the nervous worry, that really isn’t that bad, I’m really excited. I have no idea what my future will hold. None. There is no blue print or life travel guide for me to follow. I don’t even know where I will be next year. It’s a little strange, but that’s okay. In truth, I never really know what I will be doing the next year. I think I know, but I don’t because life is- unexpected.
Related articles
- Some infos about the Visa in china (tripsinchina.wordpress.com)
- News story: Chinese Government announce new immigration laws (gov.uk)
An Accidental Vagabond 