Six Degrees of Separation from Kevin Bacon

We’ve all played this game. Albeit, there are none too many people who can ACTUALLY trace it back to Kevin Bacon...We, nonetheless, insert other randoms into the mix and challenge ourselves to connect it back. Well, I’m happy to report, I have actually obtained my degrees of separation from the man himself. My friend Minh worked for an American educational for-profit study-abroad for American children…She, as a native speaker, coordinated and led trips through the Vietnamese highlands for rich, young Americans. Minh led this group of privileged tweens through very rustic Vietnamese highland villages—some of which had never seen a white (or black) face. Their accommodations were the antithesis of luxury, the idea being to learn from the simpler ways of life being led in this world. Welllll…..It just so happens they were mostly west coast wealthy kids, one of whom was Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon’s daughter. So. There you have it. Eileen—to Minh—to daughter—to Kevin. Not bad, eh? What’s YOUR line of connection? I’m guessing I’ll be the missing link for many of you. MUHAHAHA. Now, THAT’S POWER! ☺
My friend, Minh, she’s the real deal. She’s the kind of woman that, seven long years of experience later, takes you under her wing and makes it her business to gift you contacts of incredible people open to the idea of friendship in an ex-pat society. As the saying goes, any friend of Minh’s is a friend of mine. And I mean that in a more genuine way than any cliché, regardless of how appropriate, could indicate. I had a great night out celebrating Minh’s departure for the States. She’s headed to marry the man that’s right for her and I wish her the best. And I hope to experience Saigon alongside the people worthy enough to be considered her friends in the months to come.

Week 3, bigotry...and I'm just plain happy.

It's midnight...So that means this begins the third week of my departure from the US...And WHAT A DAY IT HAS BEEN!

Having come from the LanguageCorps program of 18 people with only one other person destined for Vietnam, I didn't have high hopes of forming a long lasting bond with the 39-year old, African American, ex-NYPD cop...But I certainly did not have any expectations of being belittled to the brink of depravity. While silent treatment over the course of a weekend spent in a beautiful paradise--cause unknown--seemed ridiculous...I was utterly unprepared for an outburst of racist accusation when I made the, apparently, major error of contributing my thoughts to a class-related discussion this morning. After being called a slew of humanity-insulting names and then talked over in all efforts to discuss this grave misunderstanding...I realized that a mere mortal can't fight the devil inside a disturbed individual. While I could not eat a thing all day until 9pm (for those of you who know me realize what an anomaly this is), and cried for a solid hour...I have, over the course of a day, made peace with this awful experience.

I made a date for coffee with my longtime Vietnamese friend, Minh, and through her wonderful motivation to coordinate with a few other friends I've not kept as good a touch with, I ended up enjoying two hours in the company of Minh, Thu and Anh Hung, a teacher of the SIT program I went to Vietnam with in 2003. I left Da Cafe feeling like I wanted to cry...But for an entirely different reason than the tears the morning brought. I was so deeply touched by others' willingness to enjoy a simple coffee, having not seen them in seven years, and their memories so amazingly intact, in spite of having seen multitudes of study abroad groups just like mine. They could remember every member of my group and even silly details such as my boyfriend's name at the time. I thank the powers of the universe for giving me this gift following a morning I will not forget for the rest of my life. There was nothing or no one that could bring me happiness like these three did tonight and I will never forget the feeling I felt when I parted with them. It's not that we had particularly amazing conversation or that they stroked my ego or anything describable...It was simply that they showed up at 6pm to enjoy mine and each others' company.

I feel much pity for human beings in this world who have been so ill treated in their lives that they not only expect the worst, but actually LOOK for the worst in people. I feel sadness for those who, in a moment of self-doubt, go to the deepest, darkest place in their mind and use that as a weapon against others. When someone makes you feel badly, the immediate reaction is defense and self pity, but, the truth is, when you've been so lucky in this life, you need those moments of misery to be able to appreciate and contextualize the entire lifetimes of misery that other people live. You get back what you put in and since my day ended with wonderful people and a smile on my face, I'm quite certain that tomorrow holds nothing but happiness.

This city...there's just something about it...I can't wipe the smile from my face. I'm not a city person--but in a metropolis of nearly 6 million people--I couldn't feel more at home. Even when a push becomes a shove, it's still not enough to kick me off my cloud. There's NO wound a few Saigons won't numb...and heal. So cheers to that.

Two Weeks Since I Left!

The most notable phenomena about being in Asia for two weeks now (or, technically, two weeks since I left the US) is how quickly I've become spoiled. Take today, for instance...We get a 1.5 hour lunch break from class and as we have learned is the custom with Cambodian food, it might take you that long just to get your order of spring rolls. So, when friends of mine mentioned they were going down to the riverside for lunch (a 15 minute walk) and asked if I was interested, initially it was "sure!" Then they mentioned they were planning to take a tuk tuk to conserve on time and I was compelled to renege on the invitation as I did not feel like spending my 50-75 cent portion of the ride. While Cambodia has its own currency, the Riel, it is widely preferred to use the American dollar and you can actually pay in increments of both. Since there are 4000 Riel to the dollar, if something was $6.50, I could pay 16,000 Riel and $2.50. Except they don't like coins, so, it'd have to be 14,000 Riel and 3 bucks. In any case, I went to lunch alone because that extra fifty cents equals my afternoon can of coke, and, hey, I'm living on savings. After a rather vicious bout with travelers diarrhea over the past few days, my first official day back on the eating wagon has been really ambitious. This evening I got the most delicious chicken quesadilla (overpriced, though worth it, at three dollars) and a equally wonderful red margarita, also three bucks. You should've seen my indecision over whether to go for the margarita. Earlier I had sprung $4.50 for a pizza and a garden salad and $10.50 in a day just seemed atrocious. This from the girl who buys $700 shoes...

First Week in Phnom Penh

Do you ever feel like it’s all a useless crock of shit? That putting in any effort whatsoever is not worth the disappointment when it gets you nowhere, yields you nothing? That—quite literally—is the national attitude of Cambodia. A people crippled by war, genocide, famine and corruption, Cambodians have come out of the horrors of the past forty years with no choice but to live right now, right here, and can barely conceptualize the future. There are very few Cambodians over the age of 45—the majority of them were murdered or starved during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and this is poignantly obvious as you drive through the streets. Everyone is young. And most everyone is poor. While the street scene is not unlike that of Ho Chi Minh City, there’s something heavy in the air of Phnom Penh that enables you to almost touch the repression this society is cloaked in. How can you have dreams if there is absolutely no way to make them happen? In the US we have the great “American Dream” to motivate our ambitions. Though it may be an illusion, at least we still have it. Cambodians have the day to get through. That’s all they have. While the Khmer (pronounced Kah Mai) people are super friendly and their faces seemingly quite happy, as you move through the city it’s impossible to ignore the institutionalized complacency and borderline hopelessness that pervades life here. The socioeconomic discrepancies are made really apparent by status symbol Lexus and Range Rover SUVs, some with US license plates, owned by the few wealthy Cambodians and western NGO workers. It’s strange, really. There are so few cars, but the ones you see are for the most part luxurious. Cambodia is one big contradiction. Though they have a throw-you-in-jail-if-you-get-caught drug policy, the smell of marijuana is everywhere and there are “Happy” pizza places all over the place. If you order “happy, happy, happy pizza” you get some THC as a topping. There are traffic lights and yellow lines on the street, but that has no bearing on driving whatsoever. Traffic is a complete free-for-all. Drive on the right side, drive on the wrong side: whatever gets you to your destination fastest. In spite of chaos, it seems to work. Cambodia has only been established for 16 years now. The last of the fighting ended in 1993 and it’s amazing to think of how far this nation has come in such a short time. Governed by a democratically elected communist party (yet another contradiction) and a figurehead king, Cambodians seem to revere their king and support their government. In an amazing twist of fate, girlfriends of mine and I could not go for our $6 massages as planned at 5:30, so we went to the riverside to have a beer until 6 when the masseurs were available again. While we sat in a second floor balcony enjoying some Angkor beer, we realized that the traffic on the street below had ceased; the street was completely empty. Employees of the restaurant informed us that the King would be driving through. Shortly his royal motorcade began to appear and then, there he was: in an SUV, dressed in regular clothes, sticking his head outside of an open window, waving and smiling. Imagine Queen Elizabeth or Obama sticking their head out of an open window? The employees of the restaurant impressed upon us how rare it was to see and I was amazed by how close, accidentally, I got to a KING! Cambodia…It’s an interesting place.

Arrival

16 hours on the flight to Hong Kong honestly flew by. I thought it'd be hell, but well planned sleeping, accompanied by well dosed Xanax enabled me to catch a good amount of Z's, still take advantage of the three spectacular meals of airplane food (which, categorically, I have never felt was worthy of complaint) and land in Hong Kong content. Jet lag isn't really an issue when you're flying from west to east--you lose more time on the clock than you do since waking up and especially if you arrive in the evening, you can hop right into bed and get a full night's rest. Since I arrived at 8pm, I booked a hostel-style guesthouse in the airport (FREE wifi, might I add. There's not an airport in the US that can lay claim to that luxury). The airport is located on one of the more remote islands of Hong Kong, so you need to get yourself into Kowloon or Hong Kong island by bus, taxi or train. The bus was the most economical option and I did try to find it, but to no avail. So I caught the high speed train for $60HKD to Kowloon, followed the directions given by the guest house to take advantage of the airport express shuttle bus to the Holiday Inn and then the Chungking Mansions, where the guesthouse was located, are around the corner. Tall white girl with gigantic backpack on back and medium size backpack on front is not exactly inconspicuous, so approaching the Chungking Mansions I was mauled by men of Indian-ish decent. At first I was a bit frightened and uncomfortable that I was a walking target, but later I realized it was only the men's jobs to wrangle incoming travelers for their respective guest houses. As it turned out, the Chungking Mansions is a huge apartment-style building, in which there are about 15 different hostels and guest houses. Since I had pre-booked, I was destined for Ashoka and after getting over the initial assualt, I entered the lobby and quickly found someone with my name on a paper saying "reservation!" It was a bit disconcerting that there were so many men around, but shortly thereafter a young British girl showed up looking for a room and her being so at-ease allowed me to relax a bit. Culture shock is just culture shock, after all. I made my way to my room. Paid $180HKD (about thirty bucks) for a private room with a bathroom--and that was probably over paying--and settled in for my first night.

Going back to Vietnam feels like destiny. It may be that I attended an info session for this program I’m with, back in 2004; an adventure cut short; or simply the desire to be back in a place that reverberated in every nerve of my body…Regardless, there’s a strong feeling that draws me back and I’m eager to dig deeper into a culture and an experience that, seven years ago, sparked something that is essential to who I am supposed to be in this lifetime. During college, studying abroad in Ho Chi Minh City was an experience that changed me in a way I can almost not explain. It was an awakening to life lived without pretense. So far and so foreign brought into focus what being a human on this great big planet is really all about: learning, discovering, feeling, seeing, talking, sharing. It’s easy to forget the infinitely interesting world that surrounds us when we’re stuck in our everyday routines. The creature comforts we all get caught up in fall by the wayside in a place where you sweat through your shirt by 8am, where the average salary is $100 (a year) and where norms and expectations are on a completely different scale from what you’re used to. I’m not sure where this journey will take me, but I have the bag on my back, my laptop, and the desire to take it all in. There’s not much more you can ask for in life than to wake up excited to start each day and I’m going to ride that wave for as long as it will carry me.