Thoughts from different places
I’m finally back from my long journey in Asia. I thought it would worthwhile to write down some of my thoughts about each country I visited. I’ll start with the city I came back to first.
(Warning: this is a bit long. But if you don't read it now, when are you gonna?)
Seattle, USA
I have a tired expression on my face and a sadness in my heart. Is it something about Seattle itself that causes this? Is it an expression of the loneliness and disappointment that I have felt when I lived here?
I just had dinner with some friends that I wanted to see before I “left for good”. Sushi at a nice place in downtown Seattle. I was on a bowling team with them for a few seasons. Nothing serious - the kind of fun bowling league where you get a free beer when you get 3 spares. And they’re all nice people, too. But somehow whenever I say goodbye to them after a night out, I always feel sad. It’s as if there is a melancholy and loneliness that permeates things here.
Bob brought his girlfriend with him - someone he had met shortly after I left. That’s how we came to the subject of online matchmaking. They were matched up online, and it seems it worked! Another guy there, Rob, was also on various dating sites before he met Amy. And it seems that Trish is on a matchmaking site too. Is that the only option left??
Here’s another silly anecdote. After ordering our food, I went to find the washroom. It is down an empty corridor; you turn right and go down some stairs and another corridor - nobody there; you enter a pass code for the washroom door and go in - it’s sparkling clean and... empty. You take a piss in silence, and go back to the table with your friends. Did I want a conversation on the can? Far from it! Frankly, I can’t stand that. But little things like this make me realize how different our culture is from many other places in the world. I’m now used to walking through a restaurant’s kitchen to get to the bathroom, some dank little room which probably has the family’s effects hanging from pegs. There’s hardly a moment when you’re not around someone.
I can’t say that any of these things in particular is what makes me sad, or even that there’s anything wrong with them. Perhaps it’s just a kind of reverse culture shock on coming back to my own land?
It wasn’t the same when I visited another friend this afternoon. I feel like I connect with her more - we had a good conversation and a hug goodbye. Still, for me to visit her a security person at a desk had to unlock a door to let me in to the condo’s lobby. Then they had to call her to come down to see me. It’s like we have all these things to protect us and keep us away from people. We can’t stand to be bothered.
The rest of the day I was running around trying frantically to get various things done before I leave for Canada tomorrow: printing forms to send to U.S. customs to “export” my car to Canada; arranging a moving truck and trying to pick it up; changing addresses with bank and credit cards. And here’s another thing that’s difficult about life here - nobody has time. I need to pick up the moving truck and get it to my storage locker to pick up my things... but I don’t know anyone that has time to help so that we can pick the truck up, and drive both the truck and my car back to my storage locker. In India it never would have been a problem to find someone who could spare some time to help me out. In fact, that seems to be how life is lived - just participating in regular tasks with people. But here, people take care of their own business. I guess I could pay $80 to get someone for a couple hours to help me pick up the truck and move things into it.
Things in Seattle are expensive. There is so much money here. Or rather, there’s a class of people - like the Microsofties - who have lots of money. I get the impression that there is also a class of people scraping by and barely keeping the creditors away, like my friend Tegan. Desperately trying to finish a master’s degree long-distance. Abhorring her boring job as “office bitch”.
Or maybe it’s just the fact that winter in Seattle is the most depressing imaginable: endless rain, cold, dim, and grey.
India
I can’t say enough good things about India - or enough bad things. Everyone I met in India would ask me, “So, what do you think of India?”
At times I was so frustrated that I wanted to answer, “I hate India! India sucks. You want to know what sucks? India is the most corrupt, petty, lazy, superstitious, and fucked up country I’ve been to. I have had money stolen from my apartment, I’ve had two cameras stolen, my Internet doesn’t work at least half the time, people never show up when they fucking say they will, they lie to you, they can’t give directions, and they do ridiculous things like decide who to marry based on numerology.”
At other times I would have said, “India is wonderful. It’s full of incredibly friendly people; people who have a sense of community and family; people who know how to relax and how to make light of bad situations; friends who will help you out without hesitation; people who find you interesting as a foreigner and want to learn about you.”
In India I couldn’t imagine that feeling of separateness and loneliness that I have experienced in Canada and the U.S. I don’t think it’s just my “special” status as a foreigner that gave me this experience, though that certainly helps. In India people live closer to each other. When they have a party everyone is invited. I can hardly count the number of times I just happened by a celebration or wedding party that I wasn’t warmly invited to share in the food. Perhaps because they have less, they seem less concerned about walling themselves off and protecting themselves. This could also be because they have more of a fatalistic attitude; you don’t need to protect yourself so much. Why wear a helmet when riding a motorbike? You’re going to die when your day comes anyway, not sooner.
But as with all developing countries, the wealthier they get, the more people buy the luxury of having space to themselves. The wealthy buy bigger houses for fewer people, larger apartments, drive cars rather than get the bus, etc. In some ways it is struggle and lack of money that brings people together. When you are poor with a large family, you all have to live together in a small space. You are hooked into a network of relatives who live nearby and support each other; who come over and help take care of kids; who celebrate together. When you are wealthy you live in your own separate space for your own smaller nuclear family. It seems inevitable.
Some tidbits:
Laos
Six years ago Laos enriched and calmed me: it seemed relaxed and untouched, a refreshing break from the commercialism of Thailand. This time Laos disappointed and saddened me: double and triple previous prices; simplistic gimmicks designed for tourists; the previous charm gone.
I visited Hmong highland people who had rarely seen tourists before. It was an interesting experience - the Hmong were quite shy, especially the kids. The mid-altitude people, Kamu, were more accustomed to Western gadgets and were more interactive. But I’m not sure that I would do such a trip again. I don’t know that we can spare traditional cultures like the Hmong from development and, um, “Californication”... but I don’t need to be the one who promotes the process elsewhere in the world.
Vietnam
Vietnam was the most interesting country in South East Asia for me - probably because it was the only one I hadn’t been to before. It made me think of a toned-down version of India. The traffic is similar - no lane boundaries, tons of pedestrians, life taking place on the streets. But just without so unbelievably many people.
Hanoi was a beautiful city, especially the area around Hoan Kiem lake. I hadn’t expected Vietnam to be developed as Hanoi appears to be. Yet, the strange thing is that the low-level service people, such as waitresses or staff at guesthouses, seem to earn even less than comparable jobs in India. A couple different people said that they got about 500,000 Dong per month - about $50 US! That is for 6 days per week of work, in some cases for 12 hours per day. That encouraged me to start tipping a bit better at restaurant meals, despite the Asian tradition of not doing so.
Women in Vietnam seem to do everything that men do. It’s quite impressive! It’s common to see a young woman driving a motorbike with her boyfriend on the back. Women own businesses, have government jobs, and aren’t deterred from physical work. Apparently this is a long tradition in Vietnam. Perhaps owing to their long struggles for Independence from China, then from the French, and then from the Americans? On the other hand, women still have to conform to a certain image. Most women that you see are wearing what looks like a surgical mask whenever they are outdoors. I first wondered if this is because of pollution. After asking more than one person, though, it turns out that they do this to keep their skin looking fair. Women wear these masks even when it is cloudy and raining outside. Sometimes out of habit you seem them wearing the masks indoors!
I enjoyed reading pirated (photocopied) books about Vietnam and the war. I enjoyed the pleasant atmosphere of Hoi An, and the beauty of Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi. But I detested the package tours. In each city it seems like there is a small set of tourist things you are encouraged to do. My travel style is to be impulsive and seek unusual, adventurous sights. But in our trip to Halong Bay we were squeezed into a large group in a van; in a large group of vans going to the bay; onto a boat among hundreds of other identical boats in the bay; walking in a long line of tourists up steps to a paved and well-lighted cave; etc. It was completely lacking in spontaneity. And the government keeps track of you in Vietnam: you can’t stay at any guesthouse unless you leave your passport at the desk for as long as you are there.
Thailand
By the time I reached Thailand, traveling just felt like more pointless time-wasting and pleasuring oneself. In comparison to India Thailand seems highly developed: people drive fancy cars at high speeds in the proper lanes on the way to large office buildings. Certainly that’s not everyone, but there is just no comparison to India. That’s why I was so surprised to hear other tourists complaining about Thailand being “third-world”. Can you be serious about that? How sheltered most resort travelers are.
Even backpackers can be boneheaded. I had a discussion with one dreadlocked fellow who was arguing to me, “Well, Thailand is about as foreign as it gets.” Considering how “westernized” it has become, that just made me snort.
Of course the Thai countryside is beautiful: I got to ride an elephant, see a rubber tree farm, go kayaking, walk through caves, do some rock climbing, and hang out on the beach. But more and more Thailand is moving away from the budget travel destination and towards resorts. On Railay beach one evening I walked down to the end of the beach just to explore... and ran into a security guard with walky-talky patching sounds through. The guy asked me what I was looking for in a tone that made me think his job was to keep me out. There were signs posted making it clear that to your left was a private resort.
It’s a bit disconcerting to be jumped by a security person when you’re just exploring down the beach. But I liked what a friend said to me later on about it - “See, that’s to keep those folks inside the resort.”
One thing I shouldn’t miss saying about Thailand though: they have some of the world’s best food.
Canada
Coming from the U.S. back to Victoria gave me yet another bit of shock - somehow I hadn’t really noticed until now how different Canadian culture is from that of the U.S. People in the U.S. love their cars, their Starbucks, their electronic gadgets, their big stores. They like the consistency of always being able to get the same cup of coffee.
People in Victoria tend to have a distrust of any big company. It’s better to pay more to buy a product from your small local shop than to get it at a large store. Driving a car rather than riding your bike is almost a sin. People dress frumpy. They buy organic foods. And the government is happy to tax you 4 times on a single thing.
(Check out the fees I have to pay to bring my 2.5-year-old car into Canada to license it:
- 7% GST
- 6.3% duty
- $210 registration fee
- $100 fee for the car’s A/C
- Probably 7% provincial tax too
That’s ignoring the 8.8% sales tax I already paid in Washington state. @#*$@#$!)
But...
Canada is home.
At some point you have to stop wandering about and pick a place to stay. I’ve enjoyed my travels, but it’s good to be back.
(Warning: this is a bit long. But if you don't read it now, when are you gonna?)
Seattle, USA
I have a tired expression on my face and a sadness in my heart. Is it something about Seattle itself that causes this? Is it an expression of the loneliness and disappointment that I have felt when I lived here?
I just had dinner with some friends that I wanted to see before I “left for good”. Sushi at a nice place in downtown Seattle. I was on a bowling team with them for a few seasons. Nothing serious - the kind of fun bowling league where you get a free beer when you get 3 spares. And they’re all nice people, too. But somehow whenever I say goodbye to them after a night out, I always feel sad. It’s as if there is a melancholy and loneliness that permeates things here.
Bob brought his girlfriend with him - someone he had met shortly after I left. That’s how we came to the subject of online matchmaking. They were matched up online, and it seems it worked! Another guy there, Rob, was also on various dating sites before he met Amy. And it seems that Trish is on a matchmaking site too. Is that the only option left??
Here’s another silly anecdote. After ordering our food, I went to find the washroom. It is down an empty corridor; you turn right and go down some stairs and another corridor - nobody there; you enter a pass code for the washroom door and go in - it’s sparkling clean and... empty. You take a piss in silence, and go back to the table with your friends. Did I want a conversation on the can? Far from it! Frankly, I can’t stand that. But little things like this make me realize how different our culture is from many other places in the world. I’m now used to walking through a restaurant’s kitchen to get to the bathroom, some dank little room which probably has the family’s effects hanging from pegs. There’s hardly a moment when you’re not around someone.
I can’t say that any of these things in particular is what makes me sad, or even that there’s anything wrong with them. Perhaps it’s just a kind of reverse culture shock on coming back to my own land?
It wasn’t the same when I visited another friend this afternoon. I feel like I connect with her more - we had a good conversation and a hug goodbye. Still, for me to visit her a security person at a desk had to unlock a door to let me in to the condo’s lobby. Then they had to call her to come down to see me. It’s like we have all these things to protect us and keep us away from people. We can’t stand to be bothered.
The rest of the day I was running around trying frantically to get various things done before I leave for Canada tomorrow: printing forms to send to U.S. customs to “export” my car to Canada; arranging a moving truck and trying to pick it up; changing addresses with bank and credit cards. And here’s another thing that’s difficult about life here - nobody has time. I need to pick up the moving truck and get it to my storage locker to pick up my things... but I don’t know anyone that has time to help so that we can pick the truck up, and drive both the truck and my car back to my storage locker. In India it never would have been a problem to find someone who could spare some time to help me out. In fact, that seems to be how life is lived - just participating in regular tasks with people. But here, people take care of their own business. I guess I could pay $80 to get someone for a couple hours to help me pick up the truck and move things into it.
Things in Seattle are expensive. There is so much money here. Or rather, there’s a class of people - like the Microsofties - who have lots of money. I get the impression that there is also a class of people scraping by and barely keeping the creditors away, like my friend Tegan. Desperately trying to finish a master’s degree long-distance. Abhorring her boring job as “office bitch”.
Or maybe it’s just the fact that winter in Seattle is the most depressing imaginable: endless rain, cold, dim, and grey.
India
I can’t say enough good things about India - or enough bad things. Everyone I met in India would ask me, “So, what do you think of India?”
At times I was so frustrated that I wanted to answer, “I hate India! India sucks. You want to know what sucks? India is the most corrupt, petty, lazy, superstitious, and fucked up country I’ve been to. I have had money stolen from my apartment, I’ve had two cameras stolen, my Internet doesn’t work at least half the time, people never show up when they fucking say they will, they lie to you, they can’t give directions, and they do ridiculous things like decide who to marry based on numerology.”
At other times I would have said, “India is wonderful. It’s full of incredibly friendly people; people who have a sense of community and family; people who know how to relax and how to make light of bad situations; friends who will help you out without hesitation; people who find you interesting as a foreigner and want to learn about you.”
In India I couldn’t imagine that feeling of separateness and loneliness that I have experienced in Canada and the U.S. I don’t think it’s just my “special” status as a foreigner that gave me this experience, though that certainly helps. In India people live closer to each other. When they have a party everyone is invited. I can hardly count the number of times I just happened by a celebration or wedding party that I wasn’t warmly invited to share in the food. Perhaps because they have less, they seem less concerned about walling themselves off and protecting themselves. This could also be because they have more of a fatalistic attitude; you don’t need to protect yourself so much. Why wear a helmet when riding a motorbike? You’re going to die when your day comes anyway, not sooner.
But as with all developing countries, the wealthier they get, the more people buy the luxury of having space to themselves. The wealthy buy bigger houses for fewer people, larger apartments, drive cars rather than get the bus, etc. In some ways it is struggle and lack of money that brings people together. When you are poor with a large family, you all have to live together in a small space. You are hooked into a network of relatives who live nearby and support each other; who come over and help take care of kids; who celebrate together. When you are wealthy you live in your own separate space for your own smaller nuclear family. It seems inevitable.
Some tidbits:
- 1 Muslim wedding reception attended
- Learned to ride a motorbike
- 2 times hit by a car on my motorbike (neither was my fault; neither was very serious)
- 2 cameras stolen
- Had to carry 3 people on my bike (which is illegal), including a police officer, when I had only been riding for 1 month and don’t have a license to drive
- 1 family that “adopted” me - I ate at their house every day
- 6 weeks in an apartment with construction happening outside my door every day
- 1 episode of flu
- 4 short vacation trips - Kerala, Agra, Rishikesh, Chennai
Laos
Six years ago Laos enriched and calmed me: it seemed relaxed and untouched, a refreshing break from the commercialism of Thailand. This time Laos disappointed and saddened me: double and triple previous prices; simplistic gimmicks designed for tourists; the previous charm gone.
I visited Hmong highland people who had rarely seen tourists before. It was an interesting experience - the Hmong were quite shy, especially the kids. The mid-altitude people, Kamu, were more accustomed to Western gadgets and were more interactive. But I’m not sure that I would do such a trip again. I don’t know that we can spare traditional cultures like the Hmong from development and, um, “Californication”... but I don’t need to be the one who promotes the process elsewhere in the world.
Vietnam
Vietnam was the most interesting country in South East Asia for me - probably because it was the only one I hadn’t been to before. It made me think of a toned-down version of India. The traffic is similar - no lane boundaries, tons of pedestrians, life taking place on the streets. But just without so unbelievably many people.
Hanoi was a beautiful city, especially the area around Hoan Kiem lake. I hadn’t expected Vietnam to be developed as Hanoi appears to be. Yet, the strange thing is that the low-level service people, such as waitresses or staff at guesthouses, seem to earn even less than comparable jobs in India. A couple different people said that they got about 500,000 Dong per month - about $50 US! That is for 6 days per week of work, in some cases for 12 hours per day. That encouraged me to start tipping a bit better at restaurant meals, despite the Asian tradition of not doing so.
Women in Vietnam seem to do everything that men do. It’s quite impressive! It’s common to see a young woman driving a motorbike with her boyfriend on the back. Women own businesses, have government jobs, and aren’t deterred from physical work. Apparently this is a long tradition in Vietnam. Perhaps owing to their long struggles for Independence from China, then from the French, and then from the Americans? On the other hand, women still have to conform to a certain image. Most women that you see are wearing what looks like a surgical mask whenever they are outdoors. I first wondered if this is because of pollution. After asking more than one person, though, it turns out that they do this to keep their skin looking fair. Women wear these masks even when it is cloudy and raining outside. Sometimes out of habit you seem them wearing the masks indoors!
I enjoyed reading pirated (photocopied) books about Vietnam and the war. I enjoyed the pleasant atmosphere of Hoi An, and the beauty of Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi. But I detested the package tours. In each city it seems like there is a small set of tourist things you are encouraged to do. My travel style is to be impulsive and seek unusual, adventurous sights. But in our trip to Halong Bay we were squeezed into a large group in a van; in a large group of vans going to the bay; onto a boat among hundreds of other identical boats in the bay; walking in a long line of tourists up steps to a paved and well-lighted cave; etc. It was completely lacking in spontaneity. And the government keeps track of you in Vietnam: you can’t stay at any guesthouse unless you leave your passport at the desk for as long as you are there.
Thailand
By the time I reached Thailand, traveling just felt like more pointless time-wasting and pleasuring oneself. In comparison to India Thailand seems highly developed: people drive fancy cars at high speeds in the proper lanes on the way to large office buildings. Certainly that’s not everyone, but there is just no comparison to India. That’s why I was so surprised to hear other tourists complaining about Thailand being “third-world”. Can you be serious about that? How sheltered most resort travelers are.
Even backpackers can be boneheaded. I had a discussion with one dreadlocked fellow who was arguing to me, “Well, Thailand is about as foreign as it gets.” Considering how “westernized” it has become, that just made me snort.
Of course the Thai countryside is beautiful: I got to ride an elephant, see a rubber tree farm, go kayaking, walk through caves, do some rock climbing, and hang out on the beach. But more and more Thailand is moving away from the budget travel destination and towards resorts. On Railay beach one evening I walked down to the end of the beach just to explore... and ran into a security guard with walky-talky patching sounds through. The guy asked me what I was looking for in a tone that made me think his job was to keep me out. There were signs posted making it clear that to your left was a private resort.
It’s a bit disconcerting to be jumped by a security person when you’re just exploring down the beach. But I liked what a friend said to me later on about it - “See, that’s to keep those folks inside the resort.”
One thing I shouldn’t miss saying about Thailand though: they have some of the world’s best food.
Canada
Coming from the U.S. back to Victoria gave me yet another bit of shock - somehow I hadn’t really noticed until now how different Canadian culture is from that of the U.S. People in the U.S. love their cars, their Starbucks, their electronic gadgets, their big stores. They like the consistency of always being able to get the same cup of coffee.
People in Victoria tend to have a distrust of any big company. It’s better to pay more to buy a product from your small local shop than to get it at a large store. Driving a car rather than riding your bike is almost a sin. People dress frumpy. They buy organic foods. And the government is happy to tax you 4 times on a single thing.
(Check out the fees I have to pay to bring my 2.5-year-old car into Canada to license it:
- 7% GST
- 6.3% duty
- $210 registration fee
- $100 fee for the car’s A/C
- Probably 7% provincial tax too
That’s ignoring the 8.8% sales tax I already paid in Washington state. @#*$@#$!)
But...
Canada is home.
At some point you have to stop wandering about and pick a place to stay. I’ve enjoyed my travels, but it’s good to be back.