Guess where I'm going?

This time? I've learned.

I visited two candy stores (read: my mom's bookshelf and the SDSU library) for a delicious feast four whole months before heading off to China. Which isn't exactly the one year I was aiming for, but it's certainly better than the two weeks and threefourfive days I gave myself to devour every tidbit of information I could find on Australia and New Zealand last year.

This trip will be rather different because I'll living in one location (studying Chinese) for one year rather than traipsing all over two countries for two months.

After that year? I don't know. Ambiguity seems to be a common theme in life. More language studies? (Scholarships please!) Job searching in the U.S.? Job searching in China? I'm open to anything.

Two and a half months ago, I wrote about goals and said that I'd wander the paths towards 3D animation, graphic design and learning Chinese in China.

3D animation? Reality check. I have a very, very, very long way to go. I'm not giving you up. But you are now in much further realms of possible futures.

Graphic design? Reality check. There is so much more to learn. But you're alive and kicking.

(Learning the above, plus some real-world design projects.)

Studying Chinese in China? Reality check. All the wandering keeps leading back to this path even when I resisted. It hasn't sunk it yet. But that's okay. I'm going to China.

I'm going to China!

Life Lessons Learned on a Bus

Another installment of a peek into the mind of my high school self. Another installment of I haven't really changed. Another installment of why don't I write like this anymore? Another installment of, right, I don't take the time to. Another installment of, well what are you going to do about it?

Now, go.

Life Lessons Learned on a Bus

As I stroll toward the bus stop, I restlessly finger the smooth token whose clones have found a daily home in the pocket of my favorite jeans. Before, its dulled golden center rimmed with a wide band of silver spoke of exciting travels in some foreign country. Now, it’s just the fare for my ride home. I used to scrutinize every facet of the token and feel the raised words and designs. I used to get excited like a five year old in Disneyland when I got to take the bus home. But repetition takes its toll. The once impressive token and adventurous bus ride has turned into a tedious and unwanted addition to my busy high school days.

Lost in my thoughts, I step up into the bus, feed the token to the hungry fare box and wait absentmindedly for my bus transfer. The bus driver hands the rectangular slip to me and without a second thought, I trundle toward the back of the bus hunting for a seat, preferably several empty ones in a row, where I can retain some semblance of my treasured personal space. Alas, the only vacancies are singletons scattered randomly throughout the bus. Yet again, I will have to rub shoulders with complete strangers, all of whom are wrapped up in their own little worlds. Which, in all honesty, is perfectly fine by me. I have more than enough worries, ideas, and random thoughts to keep myself occupied in my own little world during the lengthy ride home.

As the bus starts off again, it slowly becomes apparent that not everyone in the bus is isolated in solitary worlds. Near the front of the bus, a large man with scraggly brown hair and large glasses happily chatters, patters, natters, then chatters again to all and anyone who will listen. He’s like a human megaphone booming his childlike enjoyment of the nuances of life throughout the length of the bus. He doesn’t seem to care – or maybe it doesn’t occur to him – that other people may not want to hear his stories. Yet… there’s something about this man that begins to draw my attention. My solitary world begins to expand slightly as snippets of his chatter filter through my senses.

The bus grinds to a halt at a shady spot downtown for a single passenger. As he steps onto the bus, I note his ripped, grimy clothes and greasy, unwashed hair. He carries a bulging trash bag and I can’t help but wonder what circumstance caused his demise. Perhaps he had a comfortable life at one time or mayb– Ugh. That smell! Light travels faster than smell but the latter certainly demands the most attention. I don’t seem to be the only one whose solitary world has been permeated by the man’s inescapable reek. Aren’t there places where he can go to take a shower? Just one shower would do so much… just one.

The grimy man sits across from me and next to a lean woman who shifts uncomfortably in her seat. Her body instinctively slants away from the man as her hand moves toward her nose in a purposefully vague motion. She makes eye contact across the aisle with the man seated to my left and makes a slight face. A glance. A grimace. A glance and a grimace. That is all it takes to form a connection, a thread, between the two solitary worlds. That is all it takes to erect a wall for the deliberate exclusion of another. That is all it takes to reveal to me that cliques extend far beyond the dramas of the high school scene. That is all it takes to show the power of actions. The bus stops and the woman stands up with an air of relief, interrupting the exclusive connection, and exits the bus without a word.

A young Asian American man with sharp spiked hair, a tight white muscle shirt and a tattoo of a sun creeping over his left shoulder enters and fills the freshly evacuated seat. As the bus begins to move, he leans forward with his hands together and his elbows resting on his knees while a half-empty Coke bottle dangles from his fingers. I follow his tapping feet to the grimy man’s torn and tattered shoes to the immaculate high heels of the African American businesswoman sitting next to him. She sits tall in her seat as she taps efficiently on her PDA with her stylus. I follow the rapid movements of her hand to the motionless hands of the woman next to her whose only movement comes from the jostling of the bus. Her entire body is covered in dark blue, accented by a light gray head covering which frames a dark face with expressive eyes. I follow her head covering and dark eyes to the baseball hat and closed eyes of the old Latino man sitting next to her. He leans wearily on his armrest with his chin in his hand and a transfer pass in his fist.

Five seats.

Five people.

Five cultures.

Five different walks of life that convene for a momentary journey together on the bus before each hurtles off in their own directions and after their own dreams.

As my eyes travel back over the group, I realize that this group is America; the land where differences in cultures can be accepted and understood, the land where communities and connections are created between the most unexpected people, the land where… I become aware of the rhythm of the man’s rapping feet… the tapping of the woman’s stylus… the movements of the covered woman… the rustle of the old man’s bus transfer… the heavy breathing of the grimy man … the rhythm and the beat… the rhythm and the beat… the rhythm and the be–

A sudden piercing screech of abrupt brakes jerks me out of my rhythmic world as all of our bodies jolt heavily toward the front of the bus and we grab at whatever we can for support. After the initial shock, as the bus pulls into the next stop, a frazzled woman behind me begins to curse angrily at the driver as she grabs at her many bags of fallen groceries in frustration. A teenage boy with a Mohawk and headphones wrapped around his head quickly jumps to her aid, helping her to carry her bags out of the bus. The frazzled woman smiles at him with gratitude touched with a hint of surprise as I turn around and note the half-full Coke bottle dangling from the fingers of the foot-rapping man.

I turn back again and look at the mohawked teenager with a surprise similar to the frazzled woman’s. I had seen him and immediately shoved him into a box of a molded stereotype: Mohawk + Piercings = Uncaring Troublemaker. By his simple action he had destroyed his box, perhaps for more people than just the frazzled lady and I. By his simple action he had bettered the day of one person in particular and perhaps he had even caused a chain reaction of little acts of kindness.

With one last enlightened glance, I stand up and head toward the front as the bus slows to a stop. Yes, each person on this bus may be in their own little world, but we share a larger world, even if it’s just the slightly larger world of the bus. And it doesn’t take very much for a connection in this larger world to be made. Just an action or a word or two could–

“Wait!” yells a voice behind me as I hop out of the bus. I glance over my shoulder and see the grimy man dashing after me with my little blue cell phone clasped high over his head in his hand.

“Wait!” he repeated again, “You left your cell phone on your seat.”

I freeze for a moment remembering my stereotypes, my thoughts, and my connections, both past and present, to people encountered.

A connection is to be found by two powerful words.

“Thank you.”

The kind man smiles, nods, and darts back into the bus with a friendly wave.

“Thank you.”

East and West: Honor vs Pride

While strolling around the 99¢ store in a rather bored and aimless fashion, the thought occurred to me that a difference between the values of the East and the West lies in valuing honor versus pride.

Perhaps I should state this a little less globally.

In my experience of being Malaysian-Chinese and being American, I've been a part of two value systems without really thinking about it. These value systems are foundational to the point that I don't consciously think about it.

It's just the way things are.

That is, it's just the way things are in my world. But since I don't have the privilege of literally transplanting myself into another person's frame of reference without my own frame of reference interfering, I normally live life without adding "in my world" to the subconscious statement "it's just the way things are."

In my world, it's utterly splendid to buy a dress at Ross for twenty bucks then wear it multiple times to multiple events over the course of four years at Westmont because the dress just rocks. I have no qualms about the fact that I got free lunches when I was in elementary school because of our financial situation. I'm completely fine with saying that my family relied on Goodwill when I was younger, and that I recently got an awesome bag there for $5 that normally sells for $80. Getting stuff at Payless Shoes, Wal-Mart, the $5 store, Target, etc is not a knock on my dignity. I got a good deal. I didn't get ripped off. We survived and we thrived no matter what.

And yet, I hesitated after writing "It's no big deal if I come out of the 99¢ store with food or stationery because it tastes just fine and it writes just fine." So I have enough Western pride to feel the need to explain that "I don't have to buy food at the 99¢ store. But there's good food there, so why not? Plus you get to try new things with a low-risk factor because if you don't like it, well, it was only 99¢, so no harm done." And even after that explanation has been given, I still feel the need to say, "Oh, but of course we get our food at Trader Joe's, Ranch 99, Vons and Costco too." It's a pride thing. And it trumps this particular expression of the honor thing.

An American friend who went to China to live with a Chinese family told a story that illustrates the Chinese value of honor. He went to buy something in a market but, being an obvious foreigner, was overcharged for it.

No big deal, right? He was learning the system and he'd know better next time.

But getting overcharged meant something more to his host: she kept repeating over the course of several days that he should have brought her along. He wouldn't have been ripped him off if she were there.

Okay, no problem. He'd be sure to go with her next time. But despite that assurance, she was still distressed about the situation.

What was at stake?

It wasn't really the money. It was honor that was lost when he was taken advantage of. He had been dishonored, and since he was a part of her family, her honor and the honor of her entire family had taken a blow. (Therein lies another value difference in collective versus individualistic identity.)

I'm not saying that this is the truth, globally or otherwise. But in my experience, a difference between values of the East and West can be found in the relationship between monetary cost and personal identity.

One culture values honor and retains this honor by not being taken advantage of, i.e. not being ripped off.

The other values pride and retains this pride by having the resources to provide at a higher level, i.e. being able to afford costlier (read: nicer, better) resources.

There's also the mashup of cultures and values where sometimes the honor prevails and sometimes the pride prevails. And then there are times when they appear in equal degrees and the culturally mixed just learn to hold paradoxical values and be at peace with it. And that's life.

And this is just the airport...

Written in LAX after my flight got canceled and my substitute flight got delayed again and again and again...

• My American accent fits uncomfortably again.
• I bought a bag of BBQ chips and they didn't give me culture shock. Back to good ol' taste of American style BBQ.
• Sitting in a shuttle trundling along on the right side feels wrong.
• I automatically stand to the left on the escalator then remember that I'm back in the USA. So I awkwardly look around and indecisively hover around the middle.
• I miss Aussie and Kiwi and English accents. I miss being constantly surrounded by accents from all over the world. I think I also miss being one of the rare Americans (country and continent!) around.
  
• I still hate LAX with a bloody passion. Even after hating the Brisbane airport for making tired travelers pay $5 to get from the domestic to the international terminal. There's no other option. Cough up the money sucker. But that's not enough to push it above my hatred for LAX. Oh how I truly detest you LAX.
• The gift shops don't have aboriginal decoration themed itmes or kangaroos and emus or boomderangs and digeridoos. They have Oscar statuettes and The Governator t-shirts. Oh my.
  

On Being American

It's odd to realize that I'm not an American until I open my mouth.

Even then, to some people, the accent still isn't enough to classify me as such. To be "American" is still embedded in being white. You may protest here. I would protest myself in other circumstances. But at the reactive gut level for many people, it seems that to be American is to be white. If you look Asian, there is a disconnect if you classify yourself as American. I've gotten several double takes when I say I'm from the United States, not to mention several curious looks when my accent reveals itself, as if it's a perplexing thought that someone who looks like me is from the United States.

Jim, our bone carving teacher, said to me towards the end of our time together, "Your English is really good!" Oh, er, thanks. This was after at least 6 hours of meeting us, hearing our accents and hearing us say that we were from the United States. He asked something to the effect of how long I've spoken it or where I learned it or how it got to be so good. Well, it's actually my first language and I'm sorry to say, my one and only language.

No, I don't speak Chinese. Yes, I am Chinese. Yes, I speak English well. Yes, it was my first language. Yes, I did learn Chinese when I was younger, but lost it when I moved to Texas. Don't worry, I really do want to learn Chinese again. Yes, I am Chinese. But I am also American.

If I were, let's say, the third or fourth generation in the United States, I'd be pretty peeved about having to explain how it came to be that someone who looks like me ended up coming from the United States and ended up as the classic American monolingual. As it stands, my first memories are from Malaysia so even though I was born in the United States and am undeniably highly Americanized, I still have enough of a feeling of being part of an immigrant family that explaining myself isn't terribly odd. I still hold to the fact that I am Asian-American and specifically Malaysian-American-Chinese. But if my family's entrance into the United States had been generations and generations ago? I'd probably be greatly irked. We are perpetual foreigners in a land called home.

The article Bigots fuel myth of 'white' America by Andrew Sullivan from the Sunday Times appeared in Christchurch's local paper today. Interesting, considering all of the above that's been going through my head.

I'd like to be able to express my opinions on race and identity better someday. For now, it seems that race and identity is one subject I'm actually better at exploring in the visual arts rather than words.

This article did resonate with me, so click the image for the full article. (The quality is as good as I can get on the road.)

Read on for the bits that stuck out for me. Note: It's actually is a rather large chunk of the article and it's only the article. My only contribution is choosing what to type up and choosing what to emphasize in bold.

On art and traveling

I didn't realize how starved my inner art muse was until I walked into the San Diego Museum of Art today. (Resident's Free Tuesdays! Whoot!)

It's just that feeling when you look at an artwork and get flooded with excitement. (Look! Another place where Fern is like a 6 year old in a candy store!) Not to mention awe and glee and inspiration and the desire to create.

Picasso's The Frugal Repast, is one of those works. Look at those varied lines! Look at that gorgeous stylization!



(Okay, so an iPhone in low light makes for a poor image...)

Oddly, I appreciate it more because it reminds me of stylized characters in some awesome 3D animation shorts.



Dr. DeBoer talked about that in 20th Century Art once. We were looking at Matisse's The Red Studio which a lot of people in the class really liked.




But one reason for our appreciation was because it has this quirky 2D animated film vibe. It's like we're better able to appreciate past works because of a current art form that gives us vocabulary, context or something to connect with. There is so much that goes into our experience of an artwork.

Like travel. Or at least, the anticipation of travel...

Next to the exhibition of Picasso and similar artists, SDMA had a special exhibit on the art of Oceania. I'll admit, this grouping of art never grabbed my attention when we studied it in World Art. (With the exception of the slightly sacrilegious enjoyment of a Moai guy Kleenex dispenser where you pulled the Kleenex out of the Easter Island statue's nose. Teehees!)




But here's the thing. Travel makes me far more aware of everything relating to the location I'm going to. All of a sudden, my interest went into overdrive everytime I saw New Zealand or Maori on an art label. And that interest seeps into other artworks in the exhibit so that I pay closer attention to pieces I might normally breeze by.

I think traveling can be truly enriching because it helps to increase and focus my interest and curiosity in directions other than what I'm used to and constantly surrounded by.

Yay travel! Yay art!

And yay for eavesdropping in museums! As one middle aged woman said to another while passing by one piece in the Oceania exhibit: "It's a surfboard!"

Actually ma'am, it's a shield from 19th century Papua New Guinea. But I do like your humor.

Even if she was overdoing the whole bringing in our current experiences to appreciate past artwork...

On traveling before traveling

The pure excitement on my face today would make one think I had transformed into a six year old in a feast of a candy store.

But... no.

I was in the San Diego State University library on the third floor with delectable tomes of knowledge crammed into every aisle.

The next time I decide to trot off to a foreign country, remind me to devour my local library a year in advance.

Two weeks and three days until Australia and New Zealand. (Or two weeks and five days. Oh dear, this time travel- uh, time change thing confuses me sometimes.)

Two weeks and threefourfive days til Australia and New Zealand and somehow I've ended up with

• 2 movies
• 4 guidebooks
• 2 traveling the world guidebooks
• 1 Lord of the Rings location guide (fangirl awake and squeal!)
• 2 CultureSmart books
• 1 art book
  
• 1 travel narrative
  
• 1 compilation of New Zealand short stories

aaand

• 5 books relating to race relations, politics, and national identity

with

• more on the way, how I love thee San Diego Public (and private) Libraries!

(come, drool with me.)

The latter group of 5 (or on the left in the picture) were the books I turned into a drooling 6 year old for. Can you tell majored in physics and art and not sociology?! Hah! Apparently REJ and the KKK robe didn't burn me out on race and identity topics as much as I thought.

I must say, out of the entire library I'm amalgamating in the living room, I'm least excited to read the guidebooks. No offense to Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Frommer's and Fodor's. (I almost wrote Frodo's there. Truly, he lives!)

It's just that—as attached to guidebooks as I am—they can be awfully boring. Lists, facts, do this, do that, or this, not that. But they don't have stories in them except for tales of wacky backpackers before me whose crazy antics I'm not nearly wild nor ThrowAllHelltotheWinds enough to imitate.

The other stuff grounds me in the places I'm going to visit, reminding me that these are countries with histories, conflicts, cultures, and real people living their every day, day-to-day, daily lives that are not "exotic" in the slightest. And isn't that what's beautiful in the end?

Sei, sette, otto; Nüün, zää, elf; Twaalf, dertien

Massive amounts of twittering has occurred (http://twitter.com/felcearto) and while the frequency of these travel posts isn't much different (or maybe it's better) than the frequency of my regular semester posts, I'm switching locations so often that it feels like it's been far longer than a week.

So… Amalfi area, Rome, Florence, Venice (Uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto)
Then culture shock myself out of Italy through
Zurich (nüün, zää, elf), Amsterdam (twaalf, dertien), and tomorrow: Berlin!

And then?

Culture shock myself back to the U.S. on December 11th. I can't wait!

And since I'm arriving at LAX at night… methinks I'll request In-n-Out for my first meal back because I know there's one nearby.

No scoffing. The familiar holds a very strong pull after three and a half months of the unfamiliar.

I hate to admit how many times I've been tempted to go into a Starbucks or McDonalds or Burger King solely because I was tired of being uncomfortable or unsure about what to order or what to do.

Thus far, what have I learned?

On the Butcheration of Language

The brain only seems to have two tracks when it comes to languages: Native and Foreign.

Try to say something in a non-English language and the brain just latches onto the most accessible foreign translation.

The most commonly latched language? Spanish!
. . . Joanna asking for two pieces of fruit in the market: ¡Dos!
. . . Me to the waiter: Gracias.
. . . Me to someone I bumped into: ¡Ay, perdon!

Others aren't so predictable in their language-latching and mix up multiple languages:
. . . Sarah at the Vatican: Bonjour! Dov'è, uh, post office?
And in case you didn't catch that, she just covered French, Italian, Groan of despair, and English!

Or there's the whole forgetting of the rules of pronunciation:
. . . Me at the fruit store asking for apples and a peach: Due mele e un pesche, per favore.
. . . In translation, if I had pronounced it correctly: Two apples and a peaches, please.
. . . But since I had said 'peshay' instead of 'pesque' I really said: Two apples and a fish, please.


Hah!


I've been trying to learn Italian by assuming no one speaks English (so that I won't be tempted to just speak English). But the Italians don't quite cater to my mental approach.

Take this short exchange between myself and the local organizer of the Cortona Fortress art exhibition at the opening of the exhibit:
. . . Me: Come si chiama?
. . . She: ____. And you?
. . . . . . (Yeah, I forgot her name. Bad Fern!)
. . . Me: "Mi chiamo Fern."
. . . She: "Nice to meet you."
. . . Me: "Piacere!"
She then laughed at how, in this exchange, the American spoke Italian and the Italian spoke English. "I'm trying to learn!" I explained--in English, because I have no idea how to say that in Italian.

At the gelato store a week or two ago, a similar situation occurred where the Italian would only speak to me in English. (I suppose my accent when I'm attempting Italian clearly gives me away as an American!)
. . . Me: Stracciatella in una, uh, coppa, per favore.
. . . . . . ('in' being Italian, not an insertion of English!)
. . . She: Which size?
. . . Me: Uno quaranta.
. . . . . . (as in the 1,40 euro size cup)
. . . She: Uno ochenta?
. . . Me: Uno quaranta. Um, quarenta. Quaranta?

I finally just pointed (gestures do wonders!) and gave up my Italian-only attempts.
. . . Me: Do you say "coppa?"
. . . . . . (In reference to the gelato cup.)
. . . She: COppa
. . . . . . (i.e. I was far too monotonous in my pronunciation!)
. . . She: Or coPENta.
. . . . . . (Which has worked wonders for me at gelato stores since it seems to refer to the smallest available cup.)
. . . Me: Ah, grazie!

But really, non-verbal gestures do transcend the verbal language. At a bar/restaurant in a non-touristy area of Florence, a cute little dessert that looked like a fruit tart caught my eye.
. . . Me: Come si dice {jab finger in the direction of the delectable dessert}?

I hear the woman behind the bar say 'pignon.' I even repeat 'pignon' and receive an affirmative nod. So I take my newly learned dessert word and head to the cash register to order:
. . . Me: Un pignon, per favore.
. . . She: Un mignon?
. . . Me: (with incredible emphasis on the P) Pignon!

She gives up on this foreigner and resorts to gesture, forming a small hole with her thumb and index finger and giving me a questioning look.
. . . Me: (excitedly grinning and nodding) Si!!
I get the receipt. It says 'mignon.' Whoops. It's a good thing I didn't try ordering with a word-for-word Italian translation of "fruit tart."

I frequently wonder what my broken attempts at Italian sound like to native speakers. How painful my butchering of their language must be to their ears! It's not just the constant mess-ups in grammar, gender and the like, it's also the butchering of the accent and the lack of musicality of American attempts at Italian.

We could just take a different route and embrace the meeting of Italy and the American South (since this program is through the University of Georgia) with this hilarious but sometimes cringe-inducing phrase adorning our dorm's message board:

"Ciao Ya'll!"

Note that almost all the requests are for blankets... It's getting chilly here! And look! I'm reflected at the bottom!

On Great Art and Graffiti

Apparently I'm the art major who doesn't care about amazing art done by various masters of ages past.

Art on a wall, in a museum, in a cathedral, and so on... they always seem to be outside of time. They're preserved, restored, roped off, and often seen outside of their original context. And after a while, it all looks the same.

Some art does inspire me. But other times, most notably after visiting the Ufizzi Museum in Florence, all that art just made me never want to create art again. We clearly have too much of it so why on earth should I add more to the clutter? ART OVERLOAD!!

We went to Orvieto this past Saturday and saw the Last Judgment fresco cycle by Signorelli in the Duomo. (Which, on a side note, reminded me of a fun house due to the black and white striped marble exterior!) According to the New York Times Travel section, this is "one of the Renaissance's greatest fresco cycles." Good to know.

Inside the chapel that housed these great Signorelli frecoes, everyone stood around, heads craned uncomfortably, to get a view of all the flesh and decay of Signorelli's work. (Take a gander! Here and here.)

I looked. And my neck hurt.

Other art students took out their sketchbooks to record whatever details struck their fancy. I whipped out my sketchbook (well, journal) but for an entirely different subject.

Graffiti.

From the 1500's!

Now THAT'S history - a far more fascinating expression and mark of presence than a great Signorelli.

So I spent the majority of my time in the chapel staring at two walls (conveniently at eye level for the salvation of my neck) copying graffiti. I pointed out the scratches to several others but no one else seemed to find it as spiffy and mind blowing as I did.


Dasvbbiano? Dasubbiano? From Arezzo, I'm guessing, in 1540! Or Francescho in 1536. Who were these people? What were their lives like? What did they look like? Did they get in trouble for scratching their names into the wall? Was the chapel a sacred space for them? Or maybe they were bored kids tired of going to church with their parents? When did that space become a look-but-don't-use-or-touch place you have to pay to get into with barriers set up to prevent a wayward viewer from getting too close to the now revered walls?

The 400+ year old graffiti made me notice every bit of modern graffiti I came across while wandering through the streets of Orvieto.


How about some "Hello moto!!" on recent public art? Or declarations of love to a pursued Pulcina scattered around several buildings in the town?


Apparently the human desire to leave a mark of presence, to somehow or another mark a location as a place that you were physically at, is hardly a new phenomenon.

Is the creation of art an expression of that same desire?