Lost in transit

Tea

Born and brought up within a British household, a cup of tea had only ever meant one thing - hot, dark tea, lightened with a splash of milk, and perhaps sweetened with a sprinkling of sugar. Tea is brewed in a teapot with a couple of teabags, and served in either a mug or a cup. It is a suitable accompaniment for breakfast, elevenses, lunch, dinner, and is a general solution for a whole range of ailments from grazed knees to broken hearts.

Ask for tea at a restaurant in Texas, and they'll typically bring a giant glass of iced tea, a long spoon, and a few packets of sugar or sweet'n'low. In Geneva, I seem to remember that tea is typically served with a wedge of lemon and a couple of sugar cubes.

Ask for tea at any food centre in Singapore, and you'll get a mug containing strong black tea and condensed milk. There is usually a big bowl of coarse grained white sugar available for those who want even more sweetness.

Initially, I was not a fan of this version of the cuppa. I found the tea too sweet for my taste with the condensed milk, and too dark and bitter without it. Over time, I have found the happy medium of adding just a little condensed milk, and stirring it thoroughly to prevent the syrup effect towards the bottom of the mug. It's actually pretty good. But it's not 'proper' tea. Not in my books, anyway.

How do you drink yours?

Exchange

When I first shopped here, I converted everything in my head from the local currency to American dollars. Now when I see a price in dollars, I need to convert it to the local currency, my currency. I haven't held a dollar in ages and I no longer know what one means. This must be one of the signs of going native.

Middle Initials

My husband is always bemused by the way that Americans use their middle initials. You know, like John H. Smith, or Frances K. Zwiedler. New Zealanders almost never do that. It's seen as rather like showing off. "I'm not just any old Frances Zwiedler, I'm Frances K. Zwiedler."

I'm not sure how the tradition of using one's middle initial began. I suppose it started as a means of avoiding confusion, to distinguish between one John Smith and another.

And perhaps that's exactly why New Zealanders don't do it. Standing out in the crowd is not always seen as a good thing. New Zealanders are very egalitarian, and traditionally the tall poppy syndrome has been a strong trait, although this is definitely changing.

My husband also pointed out that with the relatively small population here (around four million), there may not be quite the same issue of many people having the same name.

I for one hope that New Zealanders never adopt that middle initial convention. I hate my middle name, so I'm quite happy not to wave it around. Besides, I don't have to use my middle initial to stand out - I'm the only person in New Zealand with my surname.

Clothes

My mobile phone rang. It was my wife, calling from a supermarket.
"Do you need any overalls?"
"For what?"
"I dunno. Working in the garden?"
"Don't I have a pair?"
"They're on sale, is why I'm asking. Green ones."
"How much?"
"€9.99."
"Sure get a pair."
"What size, 52?"
"Yeah."

In a country where Levis 501s cost more than seventy dollars, you can't just wear jeans to do yard work. You wear green overalls. To paint the house, you wear white ones. Mechanics wear blue ones. The garbagemen who block my way to work every Monday morning wear orange ones.

A Bit of Sad Local News

A man was killed in a drive-by shooting this morning, right in front of our condo building. This was in broad daylight in a well-populated area full of pedestrians, joggers, and bikers.

As an American, I'm pretty hardened to crime and violence — particularly since I grew up in Little Rock, a city notorious for its gang violence. Even the fact I myself was once held up at gunpoint and shot at doesn't seem that wonderful to me.

I find this morning's shooting strange and depressing, however. I think it's because I expect better of Canadians. I don't know if that makes me cynical, naive, or just stupid.

Fractions

There are many things that Han finds peculiar, amusing about Americans. For some reason, he finds the way that Americans traveling abroad introduce themselves funny : 'John, from Texas'. I suppose that I can see his point, he would never stick out his hand and say ' Han, from Holland', or- to be more precise - 'Han, from Brabant'.

Another thing that most Europeans I have met find bewildering, totally incomprehensible in fact, about Americans is how we fractionalize ourselves. You know what I mean : all Americans know precisely what percentage of themselves is from where. Here, to illustrate my point , my simple fraction : I am half Polish, half Irish ( we tend to try and ignore that Alsatian in the family woodpile, even though he actually brings in close to 30% of the total. After all, he ran off with that French woman to live in a log cabin- of all things- in Canada- of all places.). Now, if the conversation is going well, I could go into the smaller fractions- that French bit and where was Bucky's Grandmother really from ? Hungary ? And then there is the question of what county in Ireland are we talking about, potato-famine or lace curtain ? These things matter, you know, when discussing the fractions.

When I go back to visit my family in the sleepy southern town they have retired to, I am always drawn into conversations like this, end up hearing the genealogical backgrounds of all but total strangers. And I find it interesting. They seem to as well.

But I can't recall ever having told my fractions tale to anyone here. I can already picture their reactions if I were to do so. They would let me talk, be polite, after all, we have been friends for years, but when I wasn't looking they would exchange a puzzled glance, one very similar, I would guess, to the puzzled glance the little boy in 'The Emperor's New Clothes' had on his face a moment or two before he called out ' But he's naked !'

'What is she going on about ?', their look would say, ' half this, half that. She's an American.'

They are right, of course.

And it is impossible to explain.

Compare and Contrast

I finally understand why tourists go beserk over kangaroos when they visit Australia. Until a month ago I'd never been up from Down Under, so I had no idea what this stranger in a strange land caper was all about.

Then last week I was on a dinky little bus tour through the Scottish Highlands. I'd never been so utterly gobsmacked by the beauty of a place. The landscape was so unlike the red heat and dry that I've always known. I gawked at the snow on the mountains and squealed over those funny hairy cows as my camera clicked madly, trying to capture the colours and scale of it all.

We walked through hills, bouncing along on the peat. I couldn't stop grinning. I'd become one of those over-excited tourists that I'd always scoffed at. But now I see why someone could go cuckoo over a koala. It's just such a thrill to see something new, so unlike anything you've ever seen before.

Free Rider

In the old Soviet Union there was a law that granted you a lifetime of free railroad rides if you happened to be born on a train. When I was five, I used to give my mother hell for not having run to the nearest station when her water broke.

Bits of useless memories like this one usually lie buried underneath the facts of the new, incompatible life. Sometimes they surface without any warning or reason. I wonder if that law is still in place. I doubt it.

Two-faced bastard

Expatriatism is not about losing your own precious mother culture, it's about gaining a wonderful new culture. Which means that when travelling somewhere outside the two countries that have some claim over your soul, you will feel embarrassed at the antics not just of those wacky Americans from the culture you were born into, but also at the frightening behavior of those alcoholic Swedes from the culture that has smothered you to its shapely and fashionable breast.

That is, you will be embarrassed if you are me.

The good thing is that when I see Americans loudly gushing over something or other and taking up way too much personal space, I can suddenly break into Swedish with the husband. And when I see Swedes drinking bloody marys at 10 a.m. on an airplane, followed by more bloody marys, then wine and then cognac and maybe even another bloody mary, I smile and ask the husband in English whether he likes the movie or not.

Sadly, I don't have the sense to realize that people from all cultures do obnoxious things, especially when they're away from their usual stomping grounds, so there's no reason to feel embarrassed by anything, as if I were somehow wearing a sign on my forehead that reads "I'm with that American asshole over there."

I wish I could be more rational about it.

Ducks and Mynahs

Many stores in Hong Kong often place employees just outside the store front to announce the amazing deals they have going on inside.

It just occured to me today what the constant patter of their pitches sounds like:

Ducks.

They sound exactly like quacking ducks.

But wait! There's more!

I've also noticed the employees inside the shops are all starting to sound the same. When I enter the shop, invariably at least one—usually more than one, most times—will greet me in an über-cheerful manner:

Halow!

That's the way they pronounce it. And they say it very quickly, sounding ever-so-much as a mynah bird.

The instant I step out the door, I'm given a chorus of farewells:

ByeBye!

Not. Hyphenated. It's all run together as one word. Very fast, as though they'll just explode if they don't get it out soon enough. And sometimes, they'll drag out the end, in the Cantonese way:

ByeByyyyyyyyye!

Is there some secret, mandatory course that retail employees are forced to take before they are loosed on unsuspecting consumers?

Correct

Shortly before Easter, while our oldest daughter was away, my wife and I took our youngest daughter to Vienna to see Schönbrunn palace, which was featuring tours for children including Easter Egg Hunts, and an "Easter Market" outside, (modeled after Advent markets).

She enjoyed the tour, and seeing how princesses had lived centuries ago. Then we went to the Easter market, which was packed, mostly with tourists from all over. It consisted of a series of stands selling things with an Easter theme - eggs in all sizes, decorated every way you can imagine; ham and eggs, crystal eggs, all sorts of rabbit-shaped products. How the wine and beer and pretzels related to Easter I'm still not sure, but they sold that too, as well as Thai takeout food.

We were looking at faux-antique tin toys at one stand when my daughter stopped, turned, and pointed.

"Daddy, look!"

"What?"

"Africans!"

"Ah." So I crouched down beside her and sort of wrapped her pointing hand in my own like Harrison Ford's police detective did with the Amish boy in that scene in "Witness" where he points at the bad guy's picture in the police station.

"Pointing is impolite, honey."

"Africans, daddy!"

"Shall we go talk to them?" But she shook her head. I was relieved - I was on a diet that week and fairly giddy then, so I would not have made a lot of sense if I'd tried to strike up a conversation with the group of young Black people standing around a table eating their pretzels.

We live in the country. The most exotic person in our village is, well, I was going to say me, but I suppose it would be the thin man with the strange haircut who rides his bicycle constantly, not going anywhere really, and always smiles a faraway smile. But there are definitely no Black people in our dinky Central European village. And my daughter's kindergarten just finished teaching the kids all about Africa - the people, the animals, the culture. It was pretty cool, they ate African food and learned African songs, she loved it, so it was only natural for her to get excited when she saw real African people.

She is also fond, when we walk through larger towns, she riding on my shoulders, of hollering "Japanese people!" and pointing whenever she sees an Asian. She is five. I am happy she is aware of race in a neutral, interested way. The hollering and pointing make me cringe, and we're working on that, but she means no harm. It gives me a better understanding, maybe, of the little Japanese kids who used to point and holler when I lived there.

Courtesy

Unless you're speaking to a friend or relative, you don't say you to adults, you address them in the third person: Would the lady like to dance? May I get the lady a drink?

Only later, when you know each other too well to keep your distance, can you speak you to you: When can I see you again? Stay for one more drink. I'll walk you home. Don't go.

She's At It Again

Hong Kong Chinglish is becoming more pronounced in my wife.

Tonight she called to let me know how she was planning to get home, as it was getting late. Knowing the shuttle buses to our villa would no longer be operating by the time she was finished having dinner with friends, she said, "After dinner they will ride me home."

"They're going to ride you home?" I asked.

She couldn't stop laughing for a good solid minute.

Truckersdag

Today was the 14th annual Truckersdag. Not- I confess- that I remembered, for if I had, I would have warned Han to stay off of the village roads this morning.

Meg and I were lounging around in the house this morning ( for today it is Han's turn to watch Mike's football team lose), when we heard the sound of a police siren in the distance. We went to the living room window and peeked out, but couldn't see anything. The sound was getting closer and in addition we could hear other horns and beepers and tooters and then I realized that today was Truckersdag.

As we had to do some shopping today in any case, I dressed Meg and we walked into town. And just as we reached the baker's, the motorcycles escorting the trucks pulled into our main street. And like all of the other shoppers and store keepers and plain old passers-by, Meg and I took a seat on the high stoop next to the baker's and waved as all of the trucks went by.

As we sat there waving to each and every one of the over 100 trucks, police vehicles, vans, a few busses, and ambulances ( all of them, by the way, blowing their horns and sirens the whole time), an elderly man came over to me and asked me what was going on.

Once a year, I told him, people who drive/ own ( mainly ) trucks , donate a Saturday morning of their time. They line their trucks up in a convoy which stretches for miles and sitting up front with every driver is a young, mentally handicapped person. At precisely 9.15, the convoy takes off, horns blaring the whole time and for the next 3 hours, weaves it's way through the centers of all of the small villages in our county. And in every village, the people line up and wave to the trucks as they go by.

Truckersdag is a nice thing to see. Unless, of course, you are in a car and your path is blocked by the convoy.

You know, Mike and Han should have been home an hour ago.

Pilot

I edit things written in English by locals. Let foreign captains bring their ships over the ocean. I'm the harbor pilot, content to work the waters where I grew up. I take the wheel when the ship nears the shore and hope the whole thing doesn't suddenly sink before I get it into dock.

Do you live on your native language? Teacher? Translator? And especially for language teachers: were you qualified and experienced before you showed up for the job, or did you sell everyday abilities with your native language in a place where people don't speak your language?

Southerly

A long streak of hot muggy weather, continuing well into autumn, had lulled us into a false sense of endless summer. This illusion was brought to an abrupt end this week with our first real southerly of the year.

Southerlies in New Zealand are icy blasts from the Antarctic. In the winter they can bring days of freezing wind and rain. Further south, they bring snow. Every year at this time, I shiver and complain my way through the shock of the first southerly.

My husband always says to me: I don't know how you managed to survive Maine winters.

And I always say to him: But it's different there.

And it is. In rural Maine, we prepared for winter. There were whole rituals around preparing for winter - putting snow treads on the car, taking summer screens off the windows and putting on storm windows, pulling the winter clothing and jackets and snowboots out from storage. My parents even used to preserve fruit and vegetables from the garden to have during the winter months.

Here in New Zealand, or at least in Wellington, winter seems to take everyone by surprise. We are still wearing our summer clothing when the first southerly sweeps through. We huddle at bus stops after work, dressed in linen and cotton and open-toed sandals, cursing the fact that we did not wear our overcoats and warm sweaters.

A common refrain rises up and can be heard long into the winter: "I had no idea it was going to turn southerly today."

Odd Ends

Around me, life passes in odd-sized portions.

I walk a half a mile--not eight hundred meters--to the bus stop every morning. The girl at the deli counter slices off a pound--not half a kilo--of black forest ham to fill my sandwiches. Mr. Celsius has nothing on the local temperature: Mr. Fahrenheit got its number.

Driving is the only activity where distances don't confuse. I learned how to drive while in college, in lessons patiently given by my wife. Since then, miles have always made more sense than kilometers when stacked against the hour. Now a hand pushing three digits on a metric speedometer throws me off. Aren't we, um, gonna die? What do you mean "we're barely crawling"?

It's time, though,--the passage of weeks, the rotation of the seasons--that plays the strangest tricks. How often have I argued that the seasons begin on the first of March, June, September and December? All I got back were polite smiles and vague talk of equinoxes. I am still not sure when the spring starts in America. I think it's sometime in April. And the weeks, instead of the reasonable Monday, begin on Sunday, the last day in Creation you want to begin anything.

Hand some

I think I’ve always talked a lot with my hands, but was often made to feel self-conscious about it back in Canada where it’s unceremoniously associated with “ethnic” communities (me being from the AR WASP batch).

Since I’ve been in France, however, I’ve been allowed to let loose. The men in particular, and especially here in the South, have an incredible stock of very specific hand gestures, so specific that words are often superfluous.

It’s a whole new vocabulary, sometimes regional, and so I’m still learning. Hard to say, but I guess that my favourites thus far are:

1) taking your right index finger and tugging at the skin just under your eye to mean mon oeil (my eye), i.e. bullshit.

and

2) hand held out in front of the body, followed by a rapid flicking of the wrist (and often accompanied by “o la la,” and sometimes biting of the lower lip) to denote severe derision of the subject at hand.

E.g. “Jean-Claude?” flick flick flick, o la la = what a jerk!

I use #1 with my kids on a regular basis, but seeing #2 just cracks me up each time (to the bemusement of many), although I confess having caught myself indulging in it from time to time (and I must say that it's very effective, and near therapeutic).

I’d love to know what gestures you’ve had to learn in your new homes. Do you use them? Or do you still feel like an impostor when you do?

Cute

My colleagues at work here in Singapore use the word "cute" in a different way than I've heard it used before.

Typically, I associate "cute" with something sweet, good-lookin', or to do with babies/ puppies/ kittens etc. The at-work usage of "cute" contains connotations of something strange, slightly bizarre or even a bit cheeky or rude.

To refer to someone or something as "so cute" is not really a good thing. I asked a few non-work Singaporean friends about this, but they seemed as baffled as me.

After a mulling over this oddity for a while, I think I've finally got it. The Chinese equivalent word for cute is ker ai (in Mandarin), and I think it gets used in English as a direct translation - which it entirely appropriate in some cases, and not quite right in others.

[Aside: this would explain why my non-work Singaporean friends I asked didn't know what I was talking about - they don't speak a lot of Chinese (specifically Mandarin). Though anyone who speaks even a smidgen of Chinese still speaks 99.9% more Chinese than me, since my communication is limited to a few words, most of which are Hokkien and not entirely appropriate for polite conversation. How come it's so easy to learn swear words in a foreign language?]

Or it could just be that cute really does contain these other meanings in English and I just haven't picked up on them - for example, "Don't get cute with me" - how is cute being used there?

All this thinking about the word cute is making my brain hurt.

English is a funny language, and it becomes even stranger when viewed from the basis of other languages.

Ceremonial

In Japan there are ceremonies and rituals for everything.

Recently, with the end of the school year and the start of another, I have had the pleasure of attending not only Graduations [sotsugyooshiki] but also the ceremonies they have to welcome the new students. [nyuugakushiki]

What intrigues me is all the formality, all the ritual. At the start of anything even remotely formal, someone plays a series of three chords on a piano [or on tape, crackling loud] and we all turn and bow to the Japanese flag, and then sing the national anthem. [This is also repeated at the end, minus the anthem.] I don't know if you've ever heard the Japanese national anthem. It's slow and all in minor chords, which gets me everytime. It seems sleepy to me, sad and something I can't articulate. I stand and listen to the old men around me singing. Listening to their old voices catching on the high parts, looking over their shoulders and considering. Then the speeches start, oh the speeches.

Before the speaker walks onto the stage, they bow to the staff, to the honoured guests, to the audience and finally to the flag before rising to the lecturn and bowing once more to the graduating students, or the new students. The Mayor of our village is possibly one of the most amusing speakers I have ever seen. He is so animated, so constructed that I find it impossible not to at least smile throughout his speech, especially when he says things that I can understand. Even though I may be the only person in the room doing so. Smiles in Japan, are guarded. Often they don't mean what you think they mean and are more like an animal baring its teeth when it's challenged. Smiles are for when you're nervous, for when you're threatened, not so often just for sheer joy.

For these ceremonies, all of the Kochoo-sensei [principals] wear the same suit. The exact same suit. Tails, with grey pinstriped trousers, a waistcoat and a tie similar to a cravat, although I don't know the exact word. My first ceremony I thought that it was beautiful. I thought that the particular Kochoo; in question had great taste and was looking swanky. And from there on in it just got funnier. The second in command, also wears the same suit. A black suit, with a bright white shirt and an offwhite tie. Everyone else gets to wear what they want.

Everything is planned, the gyms are surrounded with the same red and white striped cloth, the students come in the same way, with everyone clapping until all are seated. The same Honoured Guests show up each year, to each ceremony. Versions of the same parents, often in Kimono, sit nervously. And the kids, well if they're new, they carry off this silent petulance. If they're leaving, they're in floods of tears.

In a way, it's something that I find comforting about Japan. That it's so constructed. I find comfort in the repetition, in the small details that help me cope with the whole. It's like knowing that at the end of a meal the rice and misoshiru will be handed out.

At first, I found these rules strange, hard to live by. And now I am almost disturbed that I like them. That I enjoy the predictability of my job, of the meals we eat, of the things we attend. I enjoy being given boundaries, perhaps because I'm not good at making my own. But knowing these things, and taking part in these rituals makes me feel for a moment, like I do belong. My Japanese family loves me, and in their home I feel like a daughter, not just the Gaijin teacher, not just the western girl. And with each ritual, with each ceremony I am at once held distant and close. And with each one I calm down, and I relax. And I realise this is my home, I do have a place here.

Dragging Feet

I have to renew my US passport.

Soon.

Like before July.

Under normal circumstances, this would occasion a family day-trip to the big city ( The Hague, Rotterdam ), you know, go to the Embassy, see the sights, buy the kids Happy Meals .

Now, when I think of it, the word 'bunker' comes to mind. The ubiquitous interrogation scene from every B-grade film set during WWII ( 'And chust vhy did you leaf America ?').

I no longer envision a day-trip to the big city, a jolly time with the kids, coming up soon here.

Context

In the US, fries are fries and chips are chips.
In Britain, fries are chips and chips are crisps.
In Nova Scotia, fries are chips and chips are also chips.

"But how do you tell the difference?" I asked my husband.
"Context," he replied serenely.

You'd think that answer would satisfy me.

Picking a grave

From the rowing machine in the local gym I have an unobstructed view of the cemetery across the street, so every time I work out I'm reminded of how pointless it ultimately is. If I don't catch myself in time, I end up wondering where I want to be buried.

Twenty years ago, when we were living in Seattle, a Japanese friend was visiting. She mentioned enjoying life abroad, but wanted to be buried at home, in Japan. Back in those days I was still young and bulletproof, so I found that line of thought macabre.

Now I'm older. Friends and relatives have died, and I've had my close calls. When the time comes, I'll be dead so why worry about it? Still, there are times, occasionally, when I give in to that mood and ask myself where I want to be buried.

Not in my home town, back in the United States. All my relatives have moved away from there, that would be the least attractive option, buried among total strangers. The cemetery in our village isn't much better. It is fairly new and ugly, and to be honest I don't like many of our neighbors and don't relish the idea of being buried among them.

The cemetery across the street from the gym would be better. It's a few kilometers away, in the town where my wife grew up. She has relatives there, her grandmother; there is a small memorial to her grandfather there too - he's buried somewhere in Croatia, I think, where he died of dysentery at the end of WWII as a POW, captured by the Russians. The church and cemetery are ancient and small and pretty.

There's another graveyard we like even better, where my wife's other grandmother is buried. It's on a mountainside in the Alps, with a wonderful view of the meadows where her grandmother used to work, herding cows. That would be a beautiful place to be buried, but of course there's a long waiting list. People are dying to get in.

So, barring one of the latter two options, I've been considering taxidermy or plastination. Why spend decades in an urn on a mantlepiece, I think, when I could be sitting on a sofa in our library in a natural pose, book in one hand, glass of single malt whisky in the other?

What about you?

Prime time

One of the many things I love about France is that political and literary debate are a mainstay of prime time TV.

Perched on stools around a très design table, or slumped on fat velvet couches, babes with their boobs spilling out of their tops hold forth on Kierkegaard or Middle East policy, sparring off with middle-aged men in rumpled pink shirts who have an odd tendency to wear glasses on their forehead, like a second set of eyes.

I love that when celebrities come on a show to promote their latest whatever, they’re not treated to mawkish praise or asked for cute anecdotes rehearsed in the green room, but rather bombarded with difficult and embarrassing questions that often leave them gobsmacked.

The French love debate, and will get heated about anything – life, love, wine and the weather. Coming from Canada, the land of polite acquiescence, it took me a while to catch on. I couldn’t understand how buying pears could lead to controversy, nor why I got funny looks when I only smiled and apologized for no reason.

When they come to visit, and we’re walking the streets, my parents now remark on how rude I’ve become. So I smile and apologize, then duck into the greengrocer’s for a fight.

What You Can't Get

This being my first entry here at Lost In Transit, I thought I'd take a moment to whine.

While visiting the Excited States in December 2002, I glommed onto the flavour of diet Vanilla Coke. I loved it. It was even better than diet Lemon Coke.

Unfortunately, I still can't get it in Hong Kong. I don't know why it takes so long for new flavours to come out—my only guess is it has to do with setting up manufacturing and bottling, along with distribution and the inevitable glut of marketing.

Regular Vanilla Coke is out here now, but I won't drink it for the negative effect on my diet. I didn't lose 65 pounds only to put them back on again. But now that Vanilla Coke is here, with any luck, it may not be long before I am once again able to satisfy my taste buds.

What do you miss that you can't get?

It's all in the detail

My husband has a very strong New Zealand accent which, even after all these years, can lead to some classic misunderstandings between us.

Husband: Can you give me the detail?
Deb: Detail? What detail?
Husband: The blue one.
Deb: Huh? Blue what?
Husband: Over by the stove! The blue one!
Deb, very confused: Huh? Detail of what?
Husband: Not 'detail'! The detail! Detail!

He storms over to the stove, grabs the blue cloth off the oven handle and waves it irately in the air.

Deb, sheepishly: Oh. Tea tow-el.

Postcards

I like a sunny day, for then I can hide behind my sunglasses. Even though I have lived here almost 21 years, and in this small village for 14, things have yet to become so familiar as to be invisible, visual white noise. I see everything, I hear everything, I am always looking around. And so I like a sunny day, when I can wear my sunglasses and look about in privacy.

It never gets boring, looking around, for there is always something new to see, something to wonder about. What is it about the light here at about 8.30 in the morning that makes the colors so vibrant ? Why are there 20 times the usual amount of turkish couples buying fish at the fish mongers on Fridays, compared to any other day of the week ? Why do they plant the trees in such neat rows ?

In the cities I see the development of each city revealed in it's architecture, in the country, the neat boxes of trees planted around the farm houses to break the winds of the polder landscape. The narrow strips of property on the Langstraat, where farmers have split their land for their sons . The Herons and other birds I don't know the names of.

I look and look and never become a part of it.

And it is never mine.

I live amidst postcards.

pickup or delivery?

The very first thing that a lazy person like me could fall in love with in a city like New York are the various special services provided to help make life easier and lazier and probably just more effective. Where I grew up in Poland, there would be a lady who would ring our door bell each and every week and deliver a piece of meat or some other kind of food that she somehow got somewhere through her special channels. A more official subscription existed for milk delivery. Each and every morning there would be a quart of fresh milk on our doorstep. The neighbors got two to three bottles every day, so it might have had something to do with the amount of children in the household how many bottles were delivered every day.

My mornings in New York, 30 years later, start with a less noisy whop of the New York Times hitting my door. It is usually 5:30 in the morning and the lady that delivers the papers to our floor just throws the sometimes several pounds heavy publication with a very professional aim. Getting the paper is nothing unusual, of course. It is like getting pizza delivery, it is pretty international. The fascinating thing about New York is that there is barely anything that can not be delivered to the doorstep. New Yorkers with a doorman get even an extra edge. Imagine going to a store and buying something really heavy, like shelving or an orange chair. Just leave your address at the front register and before you even get home, all the stuff will sit and wait at the front door. Food products? Groceries? Just give them an address. How many bags? 20 here we go.
Then there is the laundry service. Around the city are little places that do not even have washing machines in them, just a friendly person, a dispatcher, somebody who directs the traffic of dirty socks and clean underwear. Not only do these guys deliver, they pick up "for free" as well. One just needs to find the time to put all the laundry into one of those huge nylon bags, call the favorite laundry place and in the evening there is this magical, very compact, perfectly folded cube of clean everything, waiting to be soiled.
I know, there must be an army of people who do not see daylight, just so I can get my laundry done for ¢75 a pound. I know my shoe maker though, and he also delivers. The restaurant across the street just need to hear my name...
There used to be services here in New York that tried to consolidate the delivery needs of the city into a "brand". Remember kozmo and urban fetch? companies covering "the last mile." They are very gone now, but the services they provided existed in New York to some extend for a long time. And they are not going away. There is now even a new service that will try to take New York by storm. freshdirect.com is supposedly really fresh stuff from one of the best makets in this city (fairway is really amazing.) And the delivery is about $4? Hmm, this is what I would like to give as tip to the person who actually brings the food to me, from the supermarket down the block.
We'll see. Freshdirect is giving New Yorkers $50 of free food in their first order. What can you get?, type in my zip code (10025) and address (215 west 95th street) to get the full menu... and a big one it is...
Hmm, it all feels a bit indulgent, doesn't it? And this is why I actually like to walk to places and talk to the friendly people in their little stores and carry home my own stuff. I will pay a visit to my shoe maker later today. I dropped off a 30pound laundry bad (oops, bag) at my laundry place this morning.
I try to buy my books and supplies at Ivy's and murder ink. It might be a tiny place, but they can get any book amazon has over night. (delivered.)
Oh, and IKEA does not deliver, not even in New York City. In fact there is no Ikea in New York City... only one in New Jersey and one in Long Island somewhere... but that's a completely different story.

What's in a Name ?

I'm always glad when Thursdays roll around, for once I have picked Meggie up from her nursery school in the next village the more tiresome parts of my week are over and it seems that the weekend has already begun.

I don't have to walk to the next village again until Monday.

We had actually wanted to name Meggie 'Maggie', but

after thinking it through, decided that 'Maggie' would call to mind the soup seasoning Maggi, and could already foresee a miserable future for our daughter, filled with taunting by her peers , ahead.

And so we settled upon the name 'Megan'. But wait , there is a village not too far away from ours called 'Megen', so to avoid naming our daughter the Dutch equivalent of ' Beloit', we searched through the baby-names books on our shelves and came up with the alternative spelling of 'Meaghan'.

And so that is our daughter Meaghan, Meggie to us.

When we first realized that we were going to be parents, we also realized that we couldn't just put our heads together and come up with names we liked. No, we had to consider the fact that Han's parents don't speak English and my parents don't speak Dutch.

Because there are so many programs in English on the TV here, using subtitles instead of being dubbed- in, Han's parents had heard many English names, become familiar with them. In fact, my name , 'Sue', sounded very strange to Dutch ears until I added ' Like in Sue Ellen, from Dallas' . But still, any name with a 'th' in it was out, as well as any names which actually meant something in Dutch, for example, 'Morgan' ( tomorrow).

We briefly considered Dutch names, but many that I thought sounded nice to the American ear were tossed aside by Han : no, that's what the bubble-headed receptionist is always named, no, then they'll call him 'Bas', and I hate that name .

The name 'Kees' flew out the window as I imagined my brother staring at me in disbelief as he asked " Case ? You named your kid 'Case', like in a case of beer ? ". Frisian names followed, as many sound either like a sneeze ( Sieske) or an esoteric herbal remedy ( Fenne, Wieke ) to the American ear.

We finally settled upon simple English names : Sally, Mike and Meggie.

And did our careful planning work ? Well, for Mike it did. It seems that everyone can pronounce his name correctly. But the girls go through the Dutch part of their lives answering to 'Sellie' and 'May-gen'.

very early... very late?

Rule number one of blogging is probably not to blog while under the influence of hmm, let's say alcohol. A sub rule of this first rule is not to blog drunk when posting to a group blog. The writing could be revealing, one could admit to a huge love and perform many, many other dangerous suicidal literary and social moves. But how could I resist, how could I resist not to reveal my love, especially after a very international party in a really old bar in SoHo. (At least old by New York standarts,) a place called Puck Fare, the bar across the street from the historic Puck building in SoHo...

How could I resist if I took a slow and slightly wobbly walk on Prince street afterwards and enjoyed the peek into the large prada store, formerly known as Guggenheim SoHo. How could I resist if greeted by the glowing glas gems of basement ceilings in this part of town. How could I resist if the language spoken in any one of the conversations I passed by was not English. How could I resist after taking such a good an peaceful walk.
I wanted to take the subway but somehow felt too exhausted. Then in the cab Elmo from Sesame Street "wanted me to be save"... a recording of his goofy high pitched voice told me to buckle up. I fell asleep in the yellow car, and was not able to see the yellow Empire State Building, though it was most likely turned off by the time we made it to the West Side Highway. I woke up on the wrong corner one hudred streets later and yet close enough from home to just take a second, short walk down the block. Oh, I love this city. Drunk or not... And the time does not really matter either. The city is always up and busy doing something really important...

Dissatisfied

I've been trying to write something for lost in transit. I've been trying to express how different my situation is.

I think it's needless to say, that although I have now started a mammoth three posts, I haven't actually posted one of them. Nervous jitters? Dissatisfaction?

When I'm here I'm hyper-conscious of my outsider perspective. Not only that but I'm consicious that I'm a western woman, I'm conscious of my education, I'm consicious that I don't speak enough of the language, I'm conscious that even though I'm living here I can still only make generalisations. And I'd just like to say that I hate that. I love intricacies, and most of the time I have been here, I've been dealing in the incredibly general. 'Yes, most New Zealanders drink milk.' 'Yes, there are 60 million sheep.' 'Yes, we eat bread.'

Everything that I try to write, comes out wrong. Everything that I try to write I feel is unfair to me, unfair to the Japanese around me. I am no authority and I know nothing. I learn that everyday; I know nothing. It happens at school when they ask me questions about home. I only have my experience to go by, my knowledge. Yet I am always speaking for an entire nation, even when I place disclaimers throughout my speech. What is worse is that sometimes I am speaking for all of the other countries [60 or so] that participate in this programme. I find myself feeling uneasy when I think about disliking Japanese characteristics. I find myself uneasy speaking about the home I love, but that I acknowledge not everyone does.

Before I left someone said to me that they couldn't stand the Japanese. Hated them even. I assumed that it came from some bad experience. I assumed there was some reason. I didn't enjoy hearing it, I found it strange. I was embarking upon an adventure, and my new home was hated. And even though the population is vastly different from what I was lead to believe, I don't hate them. I really like some of the people that I've met here. I really like living here with them. I don't understand them, nevertheless I believe in their abilities to be different, to surprise me. But I find them ridiculous, still.

I find it hard living here. I find the society hard to deal with. Mainly in part because it is so different, so rich for a start. But mostly because the sinister parts keep disturbing me. I can be having a good day, then head to the combini for lunch and see young girls dressed up in school girl clothing spread eagled on the front of pornography that is sold next to the Manga, next to the Hashi. I hate how women are treated here. I feel as if I demand a soapbox if I even speak of this.

I feel like some colonial selling a new religion to the natives. I will never forget the porn that I have seen here, shown to me in the snack bars that charge a fortune for a drink. One was a gay snack. [read: for men only, women allowed, but bring a friend cause you'll be the only one.] We were women, we must be turned on by what straight Japanese men like. It was supposed to turn us on. But I found it scary, violent, abusive. I won't forget the way that Japanese go to KFC for kurisumasu, or Christmas. Hollowing out even more something that's fairly hollow where I come from, but that has great significance for me. I won't forget the way they employ me just because I'm a foreigner. I won't forget the way women are left behind at all times. I didn't see a wife for months. I won't forget.

But I hate the way I can't see goodness. Or rather, I hate the way that the goodness isn't enough. I hate the way that I feel, this creeping discomfort aimed at the men here. I never felt like this at home. So what is it? Why do I feel like this? This odd mixture of guilt and aversion. Japan reminds me of a culture of the brink of a separation from everything that it has known and lived by, everything that has made it successful. It's running full tilt towards fast food, and katakana engrish, shearing in two, wanting our approval and hating it at the same time.

And under all of that it's my arrogance that I hate. It's me

A Sea of Faces Like Mine

One of the most striking differences of living in Canada for me, strangely enough, is the presence of a lot of other Chinese people. Having grown up in Arkansas, I'm used to being the only Chinese person most people know. There was one other Chinese girl in my high school graduating class of more than 800. And we were thought to be sisters.

Living among Edmonton's large Chinese minority makes me feel alien and out of place. I was forced to assimilate in Arkansas to a greater degree than a Chinese immigrant in say, NYC or San Francisco would be. The result is that I don't feel Chinese and I don't self-identify as Chinese.

The young Chinese people here don't like me because I can't speak Cantonese. In fact, I can barely speak Mandarin, speaking only the Mandarin-like dialect from the province where I was born, Hunan.

I'm not into their weird Hong Kong techno chic. I don't have a sparkly cell phone or wear 6-inch glittery platform heels. I don't have blond streaks in my hair or listen to Cantonese trance music.

And my husband is a gigantic bok wai.

In general, I feel completely at home in Canada — Canada isn't so different from the States, after all — but staring out into that sea of faces so similar to mine makes me feel like a foreigner.

Aufguss

I spent the better part of yesterday naked among strangers at a spa, and much of that sweating in various saunas.

Sauna etiquette was one of the bigger surprises when I moved to Austria; I had not suspected there was such a thing. Basically, it consists of two main elements:

1. you must do it naked, and
   
2. the Aufguss

Most saunas here are of the dry, Finnish type. With such low humidity, you don't sweat much and the high temperatures are more bearable. You sit on a bench in the sauna and watch the other people in the sauna while pretending to watch the stones on the heater at the center of the room.

After ten or fifteen minutes of everyone peering about out the corners of their eyes, a man will stand up, you know the type, a showoff type, wrap a towel around his waist, take another towel in hand and walk over to the heater. Then he repeatedly ladles water, or crushed ice, over the stones. This is known as the Aufguss, which would mean "the pouring on" of water. Anyway. Besides an entertaining sizzling sound, the hot air instantly humidifies. Suddenly, the extreme heat is less bearable. Everyone in the sauna sweats profusely.

The others, mostly seasoned retirees with leathery skin, do not seem to mind this.

Then the Aufguss man waves his second towel around in circles over his head. The hot, moist breeze intensifies the experience. Then he waves his towel at each person individually.

Then the applause. Everyone applauds this, and he asks if he should do it again, and they all say yes so he repeats it. The guy yesterday did it three times. Then they all sit around for a few minutes to enjoy the intense heat while I stagger out to take a cold shower.

It's one of the wonderful things about living in Austria.

Grammar complex

Swedish is a language amazingly like English: the sentence structure is basically the same, with a few minor exceptions, and there are countless cognates. Sure, there are a lot of long Germanic words that have no relation to English, and the way Swedish attaches the definite article to the end of the noun is disconcerting at first, and worst of all, the pronunciation isn't easy for an English speaker. Yet all in all, it should be easy for an American to learn Swedish.

But it just aint so. At least not for this American. It's the big shame of my life, that I've lived here four years and I can't make myself converse in Swedish with ease.

You see, Swedish people love to speak English, so it's a great place for great big lazy babies like myself. I start out in Swedish, but I just can't help switching to English when the going gets tough and the words won't come without a bit of effort. Or worse, I go back and forth, like at the office, which is undoubtedly confusing for all the people who work for me.

I keep waiting for some breakthrough, as if fluency will come falling out of the sky, hit me on the head, and I'll be brilliant, just as funny and articulate as I like to think I am in English.

However did I get to be so fond of my mother tongue? And why, why do I love it so?

It's hell learning a language at 42.

Apple Pie

When the war broke out, I briefly wondered if I would stop being seen as a somewhat absent-minded housewife and become a 'symbol'. Wouldn't have surprised me, it's happened before.

America makes some big move and suddenly I am no longer seen as a mother who knows the best brand of baby wipes around, but a walking encyclopedia of all things American, able to explain ( and expected to debate ) in simple language every nuance of American politics as well as pass on the recipe for McDonald's special sauce.

I don't know who I really thought might look at me differently this time, for now I live in a village with only about 1400 inhabitants and a large percentage of those are artists and oddballs. That is why we chose to move here : I would blend in better, and I have. I'm the American, you know, the one who lives in Brouwer's old house.

Perhaps I thought that the Turkish mothers who line up with me outside of Meg's school, waiting for Miss Nora to signal us to come in, would look at me askance : she's one of them, you know. She's that American. I know that during the first days of the war, as I stood there with them, I felt vaguely ashamed.

But of course, they didn't even notice me.

In fact, the only stilted moment occurred the next Friday, when our oldest friends- going back over 20 years- came over to play cards with us. I was watching a program about the manipulation of the US media coverage of the war when they rang the bell and we all watched the last minutes of the show together. A natural progression of events would have been for us to discuss the war, our opinions, but no one brought the war up. Minutes passed, and finally, Han brought it up and I joined him.

Then the conversation flowed, in that natural way which it should have once the program ended. But they were waiting, to see what I would say, what I thought.

The evening then deteriorated into the usual atmosphere of our card evenings together, boozy and smokey, a full hand of trumps being announced as the arrival of the missing 'weapons of mass destruction'.

A typical card evening, with our oldest friends.

Alienation

If you're chasing solitude, looking for a perfect place to be alone, guard it when you find it. Lie low when you hear foreign vowels — your vowels — flung about the place. Look suddenly native if possible. Look surly if you can pull it off. Spit if you know how.

Tourists come and stare and ask questions and go, and language students are happy to get a quick shot of your voice and go home, and all that can be a welcome change. But another expatriate, and particularly an extroverted expatriate, the sort who considers solitude a hardship, is the end of time. Speak just once to an ex-ex in your place and the nest is fouled.

Resist that first urge to say hello.

Half American, Full Kiwi

Matthew says to me "Mum, am I half American and half Kiwi?" I nod, yes, that this is the case.

"And you are full American, and Daddy is full Kiwi?"

Again I respond yes, and I smile at his innocence. He talks about nationality as if it is a physical part of him - as if he could have American legs and New Zealand arms. He is so proud and so sure of his American heritage. He likes to tell people about it, in the way that four year olds do.

I am not so sure about my answer, though. What does it mean to be "full American" when I've lived outside America for almost as long as I've lived in it?

And Matthew? He is growing up with a Kiwi accent. He says "eh, Mum?" He watches rugby with his father. He likes Weet-Bix.

And Kiwi kids, they're Weet-Bix kids, so the advertisement says.

April Fool Fish's Day!

Yes, it's that dreaded day where everyone wants to make you look like an über-moron... April Fools Day.

Over in these parts, however, it's not fools, but fish. Poisson d'Avril... April Fish to be exact. The goal is to successfully tape a construction paper fish to the back of any unsuspecting victim, who will then wear the fish all day and ask himself, "Why is everyone staring and pointing? Did I rip my pants?"

Today, I'm going fish-hunting. Hopefully I'll get some nice digicam shots.

Hermetic

There is no better where than nowhere when you want solitude, and anywhere is nowhere when you don't speak the language. Local strangers try to prize you from silence, but when they see that you just can't help them walk the treadmill, they give up and don't bother you. Then you read and write, you look around at your pace, you talk to yourself. Things whirl by, the isle is full of noises, and you are beyond understanding.

Beware, however, the other expat. More later.

Transfer

The foot paths are empty. I lived through the considerable risk of frostbite.

And now come the insects.

I never realised how little insect life, or wild life for that matter New Zealand really has until I came here. We do have it, it's just smaller and harder to see.

When I arrived pink moths, of what I consider massive proportions, threw themselves at the street lights, leaving their carnage to flutter throughout the day. They glued themselves to footpaths and poles surrounding their moons.

The spiders sometimes are so big that I forget I'm not afraid of them. And when I saw my first dead fox in the middle of the road, I thought how much bigger they looked dead, instead of the pale streaking I'd seen earlier.

Japan was just so full of everything. People, houses, insects, roads. There were no quiet places. There are no quiet places, not like I'm used to. The people sitting in Tokyo still scare me. When I arrived, staying in a hotel opposite the Bladerunner building, I could only peek, take small glimpses. I had never felt so small, so tiny, so out of control.