Note to Self (and Y'all)

Didn't think this merited being expanded into a full blog post, but just wanted to get it out there for posterity:

Getting honked at as a pedestrian is not as fun as honking AT pedestrians, which is a lot more fun than you might imagine. 

Muah haha.

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Ode to an Airport

Traveling can sometimes be a stressful experience: long lines, sore back from carrying your luggage and interminable delays. Most people don't really like being in airports, which is why budget flights (like the one I took to Asia) usually have absurdly long layovers or multiple stops in different countries. Asian airports, on the whole, are pretty terrible.

But the Singapore Changi Airport.... is probably the loveliest place on earth that uses recycled air. Seriously, I wouldn't mind having an overnight layover here because Changi Airport is nicer than most hotels I stay in. Changi airport is SO NICE that they have their own motto to describe your time here: "the Changi experience."

It's like a cornucopia of public services, with free internet, free massage chairs, incredibly clean bathrooms (I think I've mentioned this before) and even a swimming pool! The lines for security and immigration are orderly and speedy, so much so that I noticed no one was standing in aisle 5 at immigration today because the man had not replenished his supply of free candy! I went right ahead with no line (I did notice that he had a half-open drawer full of candy and that perhaps he was just being stingy by not replacing the stash. It was a little sad because the Changi airport immigration has the BEST free candy in the world!)

I would take a picture for your viewing pleasure, but I'm a little afraid to be carted off by airport security. If I were Changi airport, I wouldn't want spies from other countries coming to steal the secrets of satisfying travelers! You'll just have to come here yourself.

Now I'm off to peruse the full-stocked bookstore, sparkly candy shops and get on that free massage chair... and whatever else might constitute the "Changi experience"!

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NYE Dropped the Ball

me, Nesaru and Michele about to go out on the town

This NYE, as the kids are calling it (that's New Year's Eve for all you old folks or people who have been living in total isolation from pop culture for the past 18 months, ahem) was the first one that I spent on the streets of a major city. Well, other than the grand cosmopolitan metropolis of Annapolis, Maryland that is. I kind of always imagined my first big New Year's to be in the place where it's all happening: NYE in NYC. After all, it's a favorite American tradition to watch the Times Square ball drop to bring in the new year, unless by midnight we have already passed out on the couch watching re-runs of Homicide:Life on the Streets and drinking champagne out of the bottle.

You don't do that on New Year's Eve? Oh, yea... me neither. That would be like so lame, so lame.


Anyway, as this year was to be my big NYE party year, I wanted to dress the part. A disco ball mini-dress and neon pink wig were perfect for the occasion, and needed only to be supplemented with some Lady Gaga feathered fake eyelashes. But on the eve itself, I lost my nerve. Thinking it would be tacky to be dropping hot pink nylon strands in the lasagna while cooking at my friend Dan's, I decided to go with something a little more classy and less... shiny.

me and friend Dan in the metro, classin it up

But I was still fired up; as we pranced out of the metro down to the bay to watch the fireworks, I imagined noisemakers, crazy costumes, and everyone kissing. Imagine my surprise to find a polite little bunch of families dressed in their everyday jeans not even quietly sipping champagne. Sure, there was somewhat of a countdown, and a few 'Whoo hoo's were heard during the fireworks (mostly from my sister and Nesaru), but nothing like the barbaric New Year's yelps that we're used to in the States. There was an astounding lack of sparkly clothing, and almost zero drunkards yelling profane things for no particular reason. It was... classy.

I actually was joking about my disco ball dress with a Singaporean friend (who kindly agreed to be the DD since drinking and driving automatically results in jail time in Singapore, not just a little slap on the wrist DUI warning), and he could totally laugh about the tameness of it all. We decided in jest that had I worn my pink wig, I may well have started a revolution and next year everyone would don costumes.

But we won't know, because next year I'll be in the USA... kissing everyone in sight and yelling at the top of my lungs how wonderful this year is going to be. Or passed out on Anna's couch watching Homicide. In a pink wig and sequined dress.

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American Girls

So I just got back from a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia, the last leg of which I was "by myself" in Hanoi. Really when you are backpacking a worn path, you are never by yourself, but with hundreds of other disenchanted 18 to 35 year-olds looking to lose themself or find themself or something a little less or a little more cliché.

There are all kinds of people who, for one reason or another, take off from their land of residency and wander the southeast asian mainland. Some are on two-week holidays from university, while some people break up with their girlfriends, quit their jobs, and set out on the open road for months, even years, with no sign of turning back. Some people are trust-fund babies, with unlimited budgets, choosing to stay in backpacker's hostels for the romance and grit, and some have scrimped and saved for years to make this trip happen. A lot of stories start to sound the same, but actually it's just the way we have of paraphrasing the experience: "Yea I was just in [other southeast asian country]... been traveling for [x number of months]... looking for a job [usually teaching english in thailand]".

There are endless variations on a theme, and what it really comes down to is that people are out there because they are interested in seeing the world, no matter what their method of exploration, time frame or budget. That being said, it's impossible to avoid stereotypes when people from dozens of countries around the world (though usually Britain, mainland Europe, the US and Australia) are bumping elbows around the hostel breakfast table. It's easy to be surprised that people you meet are not representative of the national stereotype you imagined, and yet it makes perfect sense: one person never describes a whole nationality or group identity. Despite this most basic fact, the most frequent comment I get while traveling is something like, "If you are American, why are you so cool?"

At first, it seems like a compliment. It's nice to stand out in a group, especially when the stereotype of that group is generally negative: Americans are perceived as loud, disrespectful and arrogant in many countries. Even I've witnessed groups of American travelers who fit that exact description, but let's be honest...  any large group can get pretty obnoxious, regardless of the color of their passport. Have you ever been to an art museum in Italy during Chinese tourist season? 


After a while, I started to see this comment as kind of strange... the note of surprise in their voice, "But you are so nice for an American girl!" or "You're not stupid at all!" as if this fact contradicted certain forces of nature. A Vietnamese man even told me, "I thought you were half Vietnamese because you are so much less fat than other Americans!"

Now let's think about it. I would NEVER go up to a British person and say, "Wow you are so not arrogant and condescending!" or a French person and say, "It's great that you are not a wretched snob!" or to my new Australian friends: "I just don't understand why you're not drunk and obese!" So why do people say similar things to me?

It might be partly because the type of Americans who travel are willing to take it. The Bush years were a humiliating time to be abroad, and we couldn't help but make some apologies for our country, and by extension, our people. Further, those of us who are educated and interested in the world around us want to differentiate from the "dumb American"... and so we make fun of them too, and sort of count ourselves out.

For me, it's over. I AM AMERICAN. I am also smart and considerate, humble and strongly motivated to engage with the world. These things do not make me separate from the American identity, but in fact describe it! I am so so proud of my blue passport, and I absolutely will not apologize for it any more. There are stupid assholes of every ethnicity just as there are wonderfully brilliant people from every state in the world. There happen to be a lot of kind, creative and worldly people from the USA, so I suggest the world get to know them. 

So the next time someone tells you that you aren't like an American, or as one very nice but confused Dutch boy told me, "You don't match my vision of American girls at all...", feel free to use my line:

"I am exactly an American girl. You just need to expand your vision, my friend."

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