Stranded in Shenzhen

Hey, you! Yeah, you. What are you doing here?

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 22:26:21 -0500

Hey, you! Yeah, you. What are you doing here? :

Don’t you know I’ve started something new?

Sweet dreams, China. I will miss you, but I’m sure...

Thu, 13 Sep 2012 22:29:32 -0500

Sweet dreams, China. I will miss you, but I’m sure we’ll meet again.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Leaving (P.S. I Love Parentheses)

Sun, 09 Sep 2012 10:47:13 -0500

In four days, I’m moving, making my (triumphant?) stateside return and even though I’ve known for quite a while now that Sept. 13 would be my last day in China, I’m not quite sure what to say – or how I feel — about it.

Even before I busked my way (with friends) across Rome, I decided it was time to bid farewell to the place that I’ve called home for nearly the past year.

This isn’t the first time I’ve moved –- somewhat abruptly — to yet another far-flung destination. In my twenties, I shuffled through five different cities (Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, New York, Chennai) in as many years. And for as long as I lived in each city, even if the time was extraordinarily short, I embraced each place for all that it was (and wasn’t) and gained amazing friends in the process. (Now, I’m lucky enough to travel almost anywhere in the world and be fairly sure I’ll know at least one person, whether “anywhere” is a Chinese boom town that most people have never heard of or one of the world’s most unfairly maligned cities.)

The excitement of moving on to something new and unknown weighed down by the wistfulness and inevitable regret of leaving behind people you have grown to love -– this bittersweet gooeyness is old hat to me. “I’ve seen this show before,” the jaded veteran reassures herself, as she packs her bags purposefully.

Even so, despite my Carmen-Sandiego-style living habits, the strength of these feelings always disarms me, no matter how many times I’ve experienced them. Just days before my departure, I find myself — yet again — knocked on my arrogant ass, dumbfounded and inarticulate.

A photographic argument for making cheetahs part of the Big...

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 10:14:00 -0500

Spotted in the Masai Mara, on the hunt.

Stately.

Guess what? She had four little ones in tow.

They followed a few feet behind her.

When she sat down, they sat down.

Natural born killers. Weapon? Cuteness.

A photographic argument for making cheetahs part of the Big Five. Beat it, Mr. Buffalo.

Safari drivers, guides and hotel staff will tell you all about...

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 08:36:00 -0500

We are family!

Soul train.

Leopard. This is the best shot we got. There were little cubbies, too.

When you're at the top of the food chain, you get to take a lot of naps.

These alien creatures are rhinos.

Did you fall asleep yet looking at this photo? Silly, buffalo.

View from our tent camp. Yes, that's an elephant in the front yard.

By now, you've figured out that I'm cuckoo for cocoa puffs -- and elephants!

Gin rummy, FTW.

Safari drivers, guides and hotel staff will tell you all about the concept of the “Big Five.” “Have you seen the Big Five yet?” people will ask as you’re just trying to relax with a Tusker and a hot game of gin rummy.

Perversely, the phrase once referred to the hardest game for poachers — er, I mean game hunters — to hunt on foot. Now, it just refers to the beasts you’re trying desperately to take photos of while you’re rolling through the great outdoors in an all-terrain vehicle.

The Big Five are the elephant, the rhino, the buffalo, the lion and the cougar. (All of these are believable except for the buffalo. Buffalo?! We saw these everywhere and they just looked like cows with bitchin’ horns!)

At any rate, we saw all five and managed to get pretty good photos, even with our basic pair of point-and-shoot cameras.

Innovative Kenya

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 06:07:09 -0500

A sad state of affairs, including the rather sorry state of our safari vehicle (get it together, Glorious Safaris) left us stranded for about an hour in Emali, a town en route to Lake Nakuru (rhinos!). As the car was worked on, we wandered around the town’s various markets.

I realize some people might not want to do this, might be annoyed at possibly missing out on yet another giraffe sighting. I’m not going to lie and say that I wasn’t insanely miffed at the pit stop a mere 20 minutes after changing a flat tire (again, Jesus, Glorious Safaris).

However, a change of pace on trip like this is always welcome. Why? Because of the dark secret of the African safari. That secret is that sometimes your journey can feel like an overland cruise. You have to have a guide; typically, a travel agency (yes, they still exist!) plans the itinerary. Every tent camp (i.e., hotel) is all-inclusive, you rarely interact with local
culture (no, drinking Tusker “curio shops” doesn’t count).

So at least our stop yielded a (very, very small glimpse) into daily Kenyan city life and the innovations that everyday Kenyans have come up with to handle problems, both big and small.

One of those innovations, though not so small, is called M-Pesa. M-Pesa has been written about extensively and, although it is already five years old, it is my current obsession. M-Pesa is a mobile money system that allows users to store and transfer money via their mobile phones. Banks hate it, mobile providers love it and it is *everywhere* in Kenya. You could be rolling through a tiny village that has no running water and you will see an M-Pesa sign.

At our roadside pit stop, Jeff and I roamed markets until we stumbled upon another practical idea that surely rose out of this roadside stand’s proximity to a series of autobody shops (read: shacks): a vendor that fashions used tires into shoes.

This idea of ingenuity arising out of difficult circumstances, specifically in Africa, is documented almost daily on AfriGadget. I hate the site’s design, but the content is fascinating.

Sunset behind Kilimanjaro in Amboseli National Park.

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 01:01:43 -0500

Sunset behind Kilimanjaro in Amboseli National Park.

I’m officially back from my sojourn to Kenya. More amazing...

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 04:25:00 -0500

I’m officially back from my sojourn to Kenya. More amazing photos and tales (and photos of tails!) to come.

Kenya and the Big Business of Microlending

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 08:22:34 -0500

As you make your way through the streets of Mombasa, you’ll start to notice billboards advertising loan opportunities about every 20 feet or so. Each ad seems to target a different demographic — women, farmers, small businesses. According to my friend Sarah, even though one of the most famous microfinance organizations is Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, Kenya has a high density of those lending banks. Here, microlending is regulated just like any other financial product, even if the amounts are vastly smaller than what we’re used to seeing in the U.S.

When Sarah comes to Kenya this fall on a fellowship, I’ll be extremely interested to see what she uncovers in her research.

Cities in developing countries have a scent about them and that...

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 01:43:55 -0500

Cities in developing countries have a scent about them and that scent is diesel, burning from the auto rickshaws, overloaded lorries and zippy motorcycles that the streets seem to teem with. For a long time, I associated that smell exclusively with India. Then, I went to Thailand and Vietnam and smaller cities in China. Now, I’m smelling it again in Kenya.

Despite its reputation as a resort town, Mombasa is a working city, complete with all the traffic, busy markets and enterprising snack, water and newspaper purveyors you’d expect. Snarled traffic produces a makeshift market of its own so that no driver or passenger is left wanting for anything, whether it’s white wifebeaters or an ice cream sandwich.

Shared ride vans, which I’ve only seen in Asia, the Caribbean and, ironically, Brooklyn, are eveywhere and loaded with decals like Always Chasing Paper or Kofi Annan. Streets are loud and busy, colorful and packed, dusty and beautiful.

Compared to the (relative) calm and order of China, the chaos feels exotic and exciting and you just can’t stop staring.

In my head, I thought getting to Kenya from China would somehow...

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 01:42:00 -0500

In my head, I thought getting to Kenya from China would somehow be faster than from the United States. Now, after making said journey, I’m not so sure. Some things I learned along the way:

1) Guangzhou has a significant African population. I actually already knew this, but still, I was somehow surprised upon seeing so many Africans in one place — the Guangzhou Airport — in a country where seeing people of color is pretty rare. We flew on Ethiopian Airlines, through Addis Ababa. EA offers cargo shipping service and it seemed as though about 90 percent of passengers were using it. People might have four luggage carts packed six feet high with those plastic plaid zip-up shopping bags that you see older Chinese women dragging around New York. It seemed rather unlikely that a plane would be able to hold all that luggage.

2) Apologies to the citizens of Djibouti, but I still giggle when I see your city’s (and country’s) name on a map. Apparently, butt jokes never get old.

3) The Addis Ababa airport is tiny. Also, it has surprisingly delicious pancakes, but no injera.

4) Hiking Kilimanjaro is a thing that perfectly normal people do all the time — but not without a North Face backpack. Our flight from Addis Ababa to Mombasa had a stop in Kilimanjaro and almost everyone got off there. You could tell who was going there based on their gear — hiking boots, zip off hiking pants and an expensive-looking backpack. Bonus points if you spotted a Nalgene water bottle. The pasty people with floppy hats and sweatpants? Those folks were Mombasa-bound.

5) Most people go on safari first, then hit Mombasa. Mombasa is a well-populated beach town south of Nairobi. We’re staying on Diani Beach, which is about 20 minutes from Mombasa. Asha is a five-room little slice of adorableness right on the beach, located in between some larger places that look wholly unpleasant to me. Most travelers use these stays at beach hotels to wash off the layer of street grit they acquire from a week-long (or more) safari, but with our long trek here, I think we’re doing it just right.

6) Staring at the ocean is just as beautiful, maybe even more so, in the rain.

Hello, Tanzania. Shot from the runway.

Sun, 19 Aug 2012 01:33:57 -0500

Hello, Tanzania. Shot from the runway.

Somehow, some way, I’m en route to Kenya. As always, I’m hoping...

Fri, 17 Aug 2012 12:48:41 -0500

Somehow, some way, I’m en route to Kenya. As always, I’m hoping to see something tall and graceful.

I love this idea, but would have wanted a different song for...

Thu, 16 Aug 2012 06:26:19 -0500

I love this idea, but would have wanted a different song for Prufrock.

literaryjukebox:

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

[…]

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

[…]

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

[…]

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;

That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

“That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all.”

T. S. Eliot in “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” from Selected Poems

Song: “Wandering Secret” by Carla Kihlstedt & Matthias Bossi

iTunes :: Amazon

An apartment made for parties.

Wed, 15 Aug 2012 22:09:23 -0500

An apartment made for parties.

How to Feel Like an Entitled Asshole in Five Easy Steps

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 02:20:00 -0500

Step 1: Quit your job and move to China.

Step 2: Start a blog chronicling your exploits around China and in other Asian countries. Hell, in any other country.

Step 3: Secretly complain to friends and family about how “difficult” your life is without a “proper” job and your general feeling of purposelessness.

Step 4: Wallow in your ennui. Add typhoons. Stir.

Step 5: Volunteer at a local orphanage’s summer camp. See special needs children who have virtually no hope of ever being adopted, whose past, present and future will likely be spent in an institution. Watch kids with no family and no privacy smile at you. Or stare blankly at you. Or not see you at all because they are blind. Pop into the nursery where there are at least 25 infants and only two caretakers. Wonder why it’s so quiet.

Some Final Words on Busking

Mon, 13 Aug 2012 00:56:00 -0500

Of all the things I have ever attempted (running marathons, cooking a Thanksgiving turkey, spending more than three days with my family without arguments), busking in the streets of Rome, face-to-face with hundreds of tourists on a daily basis, may have been one of the most intense experiences of my life.

It may sound ridiculous, a gross exaggeration (something we all know I’m prone to), but in terms of mental gymnastics (Do they like me? Do they *really* like me?) as well as physical exhaustion (schlepping the 20 minutes to Piazza Navona with three instruments in 100-degree heat), busking is taxing on every level. If you make a mistake, there’s nowhere to hide. Your audience is mere feet away from you at eye-level (no elevated stage for you) and they’ve got much better things to do (Colosseum, Pantheon, that cute waitress at the cafe) than listen to a middling bluegrass band from Memphis, Chicago and China. Instant judgment — so brutal, but so honest.

Every night when we were finished, we would grab a beer from a grocery store and drink it on the steps near the apartment we rented. Or if we were feeling particularly flush, we would stop by a local pub where we could grab a (somewhat spendy) pint and watch the Olympics. (Oh, sweet air conditioning, you are truly priceless.) I would sit slumped at the table, silent, so very tired.

What I gained (other than more 20 cent Euro coins I’ve ever seen in my life) was a real respect for people who do this — perform — every day, for people who have to do it, need to do it. At most, we would only play for 45 minutes at a time. For professional touring musicians, it’s that times 1,000.

But, of course, it’s not all drudgery. There’s the moment when your playing makes people stop and listen, when the (very, very small) crowd is loving it — or at least not leaving it. And when five British girls — quite possibly your biggest fans to date — tell you they are best friends, your bandmate tells them conspiratorially, “So are we.” And all that fatigue just dissipates into the night and you queue up your next song.

Ciao, Roma!

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 12:36:55 -0500

Calloused fingers, check. Gelato at least once a day, check. Old friends and new friends, check.

I think I did this trip right.

Last day low (high?): lemon and basil gelato for breakfast.

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 03:22:19 -0500

Last day low (high?): lemon and basil gelato for breakfast.

While I Was Out...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 06:34:21 -0500

While I’ve been slaving on the streets of Italy just trying to make a Euro, every international has been amping up its coverage of all things China. If it’s not the Olympics, then it’s internet memes of beachside ski masks. (Really, New York Times? Seems like you’re trolling for clicks with that one.)

But by far the most interesting coverage (to me, anyway) is of this week’s trial of Gu Kailai, Bo Xilai’s wife and alleged killer of a British man.

Some highlights:

-A mini-profile of Gu Kailai in the New York Times. Slight older, but worth a read.

-A roundup of the likely outcome of the “trial” from the New Yorker’s Evan Osnos.

-The butler did it. More on the alleged poisoner Zhang Xiaojun.

-And finally, the lack of awareness of the travel on the eve before it begins.

Should be illuminating or, more likely, not illuminating at all.