24 July, 2006
Born In The USA?: Reemergence Insurgence
Above: Limping across the finish line: how will the journey end?
Fayetteville, Arkansas, August, 2000 – After spending a semester studying and backpacking in Europe the previous year and developing an intense travel fever that has lasted with me to this day, I couldn’t get back out on the road fast enough as I counted down the days until college graduation. But before exploring overseas again I thought it worthwhile to spend some time familiarizing myself with the heartland of my own country - a place so large that few of its own citizens have the opportunity to know it well. A couple weeks after my graduation from the University of California my brother and I embarked on a three-week whirlwind cross-country US road trip. I had been told that nothing evokes a greater sense of accomplishment than beginning a journey on one coast of a continent and finishing on the other. Incidentally, we were in such a hurry to arrive on the East Coast of the US for one of my buddies’ graduation parties that we drove directly from Seattle to Washington DC in just under 44 hours. Although we were no Lewis and Clark, the overwhelming sense of satisfaction of having crossed a continent from one edge to the other still prevailed. But it was crossing the continent slowly, on our return trip – meandering from east to west and without the hyper-speed and super-efficiency which we required on our first trip across – that ended up taking on the most meaning.
We took our time traveling back, winding through the Appalachians, crossing the plains states via the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, and stopping to hike, river raft and bike in Yellowstone, the Rockies, the Tetons and Glacier National Park. Needless to say, countless stories from this journey stick out in my mind as formative moments in my development as a wanna-be professional traveler. But one incident in particular, although incredibly brief and not particularly noteworthy, probably shaped my young travel mentality more than any other.
My brother and I were making one of our first visits to the South – namely to Arkansas – on our way back to the west coast. There was no clear, tangible reason we could think of to visit “The Natural State”, other than our friend and his punk band were on a cross-country tour themselves and were to perform at a local venue near the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Having arrived a few hours early for the show we decided to absorb a little Southern culture by finding a locals-only spot for a bite of food and hopefully a bit of hospitality. We spotted a run-down diner in front of which were parked a row of Harley Davidson bikes. Without a doubt, this was the spot.
The meal was uneventful other than at the moment we ordered. Being new to the South I was unfamiliar with fried okra. Seeing it on the menu and having heard of it as being a Southern specialty I told the waitress, “Even though I don’t really know what it is, I would like an order of okra. I just want to try it” She looked at me like I was absolutely insane. After standing there silently for a second with a confused expression on her face she asked me, in her thick, syrupy Southern accent, a question which I will never forget: “Now why you gonna order somethin’ you don’t even know what it is?”
Despite the blaring grammatical problems in her response I was endlessly more taken aback by the thrust of her question: that trying something new was something new to her. Was she serious? Perhaps I was as dumbfound by her question as she had just been by my previous statement. We were like two ships passing in the night. She had no idea why anybody would want to try something they had never eaten before and I had no idea why somebody would not try anything and everything new to them when presented with the opportunity.
I was too shocked to answer her logically. And I felt that no rational way existed to make her understand that the reason I wanted to eat something I had never laid eyes on before was precisely because I had never done so. We were from two different worlds. I waited for my okra and contemplated how this could be. Finally I came to terms with the fact that, generally, when encountering something new in their world, humans fall into one of two categories. There are those who crave adventure and novelty and who will almost always experiment and partake in something new or foreign, no matter the discomfort or possible risk. And there are those who desire very few first-time experiences, preferring more of a solid routine and the security of predictability. There are, of course, exceptions to every categorization and many individuals do not always fall into just one group. But every person normally gravitates to one side of the spectrum. These two opposing perspectives make all the difference in the way humans view and live in their own world – some yearn for security and others side with novelty. While I can understand the benefits of the secure and predictable life, in my world novelty is king.
The Arkansas okra waitress has since served as an allegory for how people around the world react to me on my journey through life. Especially as I continue to travel I often come across those who are fascinated and inspired to know where I go, what I do and why. I also often come across those on the opposite end of the spectrum – the Arkansas okra waitresses who simply can’t comprehend why anyone would choose do something so unknown and exploratory in a foreign land. I say to each their own.
But the okra tasted fantastic!
San Francisco, August, 2002 – As I deplaned from my 12 hour flight from Hong Kong, I was literally a physical and emotional bus wreck. After traveling overland for 14 months across Europe, the Middle East, India, and Southeast Asia, I had lost 25 pounds due to four episodes of food poisoning and a bout with typhus and one with giardia; my body was fighting an ongoing battle with an external bacterial infection causing open wounds on my arms and legs (my doctor prematurely diagnosed me with secondary syphilis); I was borderline anemic; and I had campylobacter in my stool. I found most of this out upon my return home after a trip to a tropical disease specialist. My brothers began calling me Mr. Burns.
Emotionally, I was spent after having witnessed what I truly hoped were some of the most horrendous living in the world. This was my first real experience seeing the heartbreaking truth of those forced into simple living through poverty; and witnessing the glory of the spirit of humanity to survive and even find happiness in the most appalling of living situations. I saw hoards of humanity in Asia living off of absolutely nothing; sordid heaps of humankind, teeming with disease, melting and churning in squalor in polluted slums outside of megapolises; malnourished children lying in city streets, physically and emotionally dehydrated beyond the point of tears. I emerged from the depths of the abjectly deprived populations of Indonesia’s jungle-covered, outermost islands, returning directly to the land of the undeservedly privileged, overindulgent, ungrateful and over-bloated. And the contrast weighed heavily on my mind - literally. Under these fragile conditions it would not take much to trigger a physical and emotional breakdown in me.
The customs agent at San Francisco International Airport took one look at me in my torn clothes and my rancid, unwashed backpack – the formerly blue tint now dirt-brown – and suspiciously tossed it onto a conveyor belt. She wished she could have done the same to me. Instead she peppered me with a typical line of questioning:
“What is your profession?”
“I am currently unemployed.”
“Where do you live?”
“I am currently homeless.”
“How long was your trip?”
“A little over a year.”
“And what country were you in?”
I had hoped I could somehow avoid having an agent look through my documents and see the confusing disarray of visas and stamps – some of which would probably warrant further questioning. Perhaps I should not have answered her questions so honestly when I knew my answers would arouse her suspicion. But I had done nothing illegal. I had nothing to hide. And my next flight was not for several hours. Most importantly, I was too delirious from travel to remember how to protect myself from my fellow countryman.
So I took a deep breath and answered, “Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria (this is where her face began to contort), Jordan, Egypt, India, Nepal, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia. Oh, and I arrived from Hong Kong.”
Now she asked to see my passport.
Because the US was fighting the so-called “War on Terror” she was interested to know why I went to the Middle East (by this time the Bush administration was already well into its contrived, insidious, and unfortunately, highly successful campaign of linking 9-11 to Saddam Hussein and Iraq). But before I had time to formulate a non-antagonistic response, she had managed to thumb through most of the pages of my document and she summarized her opinion of my travel with one general rhetorical question. “Why would anybody go to these countries?” The Arkansas okra waitress had struck again, from out of nowhere. Worse, I was emotionally unprepared for such an attack.
I wanted to weep at her ignorance and premature judgment. Just to breakdown and lie on the ground and give up. I forced myself to take a deep breath and regain my composure; to realize that she had no idea how deeply she had offended everything that I stood for and had done in the last year; how her insensitivity toward other countries mirrored the attitude of much of the US population and its foreign policy. But even in my delicate state I had to see that she was living in another reality – the one where a person is unaware of the amazing people and places that exist outside of their world. I could not foresee myself answering her question without a situation that would end in me being detained by federal agents. Even with my understanding and appreciation of her situation I would likely have lost my composure. So I glazed over my eyes and finished the interrogation like a robot. After a lengthy interview my country finally accepted me back. But I wasn’t so sure I felt accepted – or if I accepted my country.
Back in Washington State I struggled to readjust. In my weakened condition I decided that because so many awkward moments were in store for me during my reemergence into the US, I was going to have to do something to cope with the uncomfortable situations as they presented themselves. I soon learned that my idea of drinking a beer to mitigate every instance when I felt ill at ease, during every misunderstanding or at any time I couldn’t explain myself was not the answer. Beer really just increased the confusion level. As the cliché often goes, normal things seemed different to me after having been away for so long. On a drive home from Seattle we passed a domed stadium with a large US flag flying high on its roof. The appearance of our flag was comical to me and caused me to burst out laughing. What were those funny red and white stripes and silly stars, anyway? In my mind, after not having seen the flag for so long, the circular, banner-topped dome looked like the roof of a goofy circus tent. I envisioned long line of clowns, or Bush and his cronies dressed in polka dots and white makeup, piling out of a stretch limo and entering the stadium for a press conference. Understandably, nobody identified with me in my description of the humorous vision.
For the first several weeks of my recovery time, when culture shock was most rampant, I couldn’t stand to watch the nightly news. The sad truths scared me. I wanted to protect myself from the realities of the violent, overwhelming and fast-paced living of the West. I also preferred not to go outside the house much. One afternoon my mother convinced me to go with her to a supermarket. Upon entering the store I felt like the Vietnamese wife in the Oliver Stone movie “Heaven and Earth,” when she walks into a grocery store in the US for the first time and is so overwhelmed by the onslaught of thousands of products in enormous aisles that she can’t even shop. The tall, abundantly stocked shelves seemed foreboding to me as well, but at least I had the advantage of having been to a giant supermarket before. I felt okay until my mom asked me to simply go find some peanut butter in the appropriate aisle – a routine grocery store task under normal conditions. But on my own, standing in front of a wall of choices – 30 brands in 15 sizes and 10 varieties – I felt myself breathing heavy. I had grown accustomed to small, local or tribal markets in Asia, featuring a few types of vegetables or a few home cooked items. The partition of peanut butter stared me directly in the face with an ominous and intimidating demeanor; with its enormous presence I felt as if the wall would engulf me into a cave of indecisive darkness. I felt helpless among all the decisions as confusion and frustration crept in. When my mom finally found me I stood gasping in the aisle on the verge of claustrophobic tears. She helped me force myself to take a deep breath, close my eyes, step away from the world of creamy and chunky, and imagine a more peaceful place – perhaps the empty sun-swept beach I had laid on every afternoon in the Greek islands the previous summer.
Salt Lake City, Utah, April, 2006 – Reemergence insurgence, round two. I stand in a short immigration line after disembarking my plane from northern Mexico, thinking back through the last ten months intensely and quickly. Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Belize, Cuba, Mexico. I recall with premature nostalgia the thousands of miles of highway under me on precarious bus rides. From the Tropic of Capricorn to the Tropic of Cancer, terra firma has slipped passed me like a slow dream. Can the experiences be summarized into an emotion or a statement? Never. But of more immediate concern, I am nervous about how to answer the immigration official when he asks me where I have been? Certainly I don’t mention Cuba. Will I almost burst into tears again when he insults me and the rest of the world by asking me why anyone would choose to travel to those countries? Compared to my last arrival home, the one from Asia, I feel stable and ready – I am stoic as a Mayan temple. Over the last couple of months I was fortunate enough to be able to interact with the locals almost exclusively in their native languages – Spanish and Portuguese. Being able to communicate and relate to people definitely moderates the instability. I also had the comfort of seeing friends and family in Mexico and Panama, which should lessen the culture shock upon return. And I buffered my transition from the poorest of the poor in Honduras and Nicaragua back into the land of plenty by traveling through Mexico, an economic superpower when judged against to most of Central and South America – although a developing country compared to America’s standards.
The anticipation of potentially deceiving the agent and the thought of my impending arrival home sends a cool shudder of expectation up my spine. The man directly in front of me who is dealing with customs heeds his green light of permission to enter the US. It’s my turn. I saunter up to the counter with my backpack, just like previous reentries, and place my passport gently on the counter, fearing the outcome. The agent quickly glances at my passport, looking for a clear page, firmly presses the immigration stamp onto one of the few remaining squares, and smiles. “Welcome home,” he says. No questions. Nothing. I pass into the US uneventfully.
First impressions: This truly is the land of plenty. Everything is so clean, so efficient, and so first-class in the US! And there is so much of it all. Everyone seems to have more than they need. I find myself taking snapshots of the bars and restaurants and even out the windows of the Salt Lake City airport because I can’t believe how unbelievably nice things look. It’s all appears beautiful and futuristic and antiseptic.
Above: Even the Salt Lake City Airport mesmerized me in my moment of first impression
How long will it take to readjust to the realities of the first world, the speedy pace of life, and the multi-faceting? How long until I forget the lengthy, solo, empty-headed but indescribably important walks on endless stretches of Brazilian beach? When will I, once again, begin neglecting to think of the plight of the impoverished peoples I observed and lived with, as I wriggle my way back into a high paying job at a desk in an air-conditioned building? How many days or weeks until I can’t recall the name of the outgoing Brazilian teenager who befriended me while I was lost in the streets of sprawling Fortaleza and proudly took me on a tour of his town for free, asking only for companionship and a few words of English in return? Will my memories of the simple but meaningful life fade away as I move through time and tackle new fast-paced objectives? Most certainly. I can only hope that the life lessons and experiences from the last ten months stick with me so that I am better able to interact with wisdom and understanding whenever I encounter my fellow man in any situation somewhere on the planet.
Above: The sun sets on another journey of the body and mind
back to top | back to archives
home | writing | photo gallery | archives | where am i | about | contact
