Living or Traveling: Culture divides and people like me

Ever since my year abroad there, I have wanted to live in Paris. I can't explain what it is, just that I have never felt so at home in any other city. I feel like I belong there. It's not just the city -- I've met a lot of people who have great things to say about the city and nothing good about the people, but I love the people. I speak the language more than just the words.

But I didn't go to Paris after graduation, I went to Cambodia, and I've found all sorts of amazing opportunities here that are exciting and interesting and I'm quite sure that it's a fantastic place to begin my career. The problem is that sometime over the past several months, I got it into my head that I could never actually live in Paris and do what I want. In Europe, maybe, but not in Paris. That is, of course, ridiculous.

As you know, I just went back to Paris, and was quite surprised to find that I still loved it just as much as before, perhaps even more, and felt just as home as before. In fact the amount to which I did feel at home was really disturbing -- after the first day, when I felt like a tourist and THAT was upsetting -- so much that I  kept forgetting in I was in Paris, this grand city and word that was this far-off, inaccessible place in my mind. I guess in self-defense, I decided that since I could never live there, I should forget how much I enjoy being there. The Ego is a crazy thing, isn't it?

What I mean to say is that for the last several months, my life has been nothing but cultural divides and language barriers. The experience I'm getting, the amount I'm learning and growing, is already noticeable to me and to others, and I have no doubts whatsoever that years down the line, it will count as one of the most marking experiences of my life.

However. It's strange, I hate saying this, because I do love learning about new cultures and immersing myself in them, seeing what it's like on the other side and in some ways it feels like dissing this place. But I'm not, and I don't have to be.

The fact is that I want to spend my life somewhere where I am not a stranger, where I get the culture and the language and have a mutual understanding with the people around me.

Here, walking out my door brands me immediately. I cannot go anywhere anonymously. The Cambodian people are warm and friendly, but I will never be one of them, never truly belong. I am Barang. And then everything else, but first I am white.

I don't want to say that Cambodia is not a good country, the culture is bad, or anything of the sort. It's just different, fundamentally and in every possible way, from what I know. Because of it, there is and always will be some disconnect between us, a gap that is just too wide to leap. We will always be negotiating, meeting in the middle.

I don't want to live forever like that. I count on staying, as I've said, for anywhere between two or three more years, and intend on using that time as fully as possible. But after that, it will be time to find some place where I can be home. Whether that's somewhere in the world with my parents, or even better, in Paris (and that's always on the list, always the place where I am going).

In many ways I feel more French than American and often feel like a stranger in America. Paris needs to be where I end up -- and therefore I'll find a way to do what I want there -- because it is home. It is where I am at home, where my energy syncs up with the energy around me, and living is as easy as breathing.

Going back reminded me how beautiful that is.

Walking sideways on the edge of the world

(by the time I return, I think, I'll have begun to flip right side up,
enough to find my own people equally upside down, 
and will have to find the way to walk sideways, 
on the edge of the earth). 

I wrote that awhile ago, near the beginning of my stay here.

On Thanksgiving night, I had a wonderful meal with good people, with all the staples and the good stuff, good conversation. I very much enjoyed myself.

But the food was too much. I'm not used to eating that kind of food anymore, and I felt kind of bloated. I wanted rice the next day, or fruit.

The next morning, I was on skype with my family, looking at the apartment and wanting to join them, but --

Sometimes I do feel kind of like a stranger in both worlds. I can already tell how strange it will be to be back in the US, even for a visit, and how the poem is making itself true. I'm flipping, and I don't think here will ever be fully right side up, just sideways enough to make things back home look pretty sideways too.

I guess it just comes with the territory of living in a culture that is so different. Staying where you come from is a lot less complicated than navigating the unsettling culture shock, tiptoeing around home that is not home. Looking at where you want to be and knowing that because of where you have been, what you remember it as will not be the same when you step back in, both you and the place itself changed.

This week was a violent mix of brilliance and stress, beauty and exhaustion, feeling under-appreciated and feeling heartily blessed, and the two have mixed badly, like oil and vinegar being forced to co-habit. Although I still have much to do and many things to accomplish and deal with and sort out and wait for the world to turn in the next week, I'm trying to take some time off this weekend.

Waiting until everything stops spinning around me -- or at least, to just let it spin and not spin with it for a time, until I can jump back in.

Year 21, in review

Since the time I turned twenty one, I have lived at least a thousand lives. And yet, today I have somehow contrived to only be turning twenty two. I am not sure how that happened, or what, in fact, happened. But it did, and therefore only a year must have passed, as incredible as that is.

Last year this time, I was still in Paris, still in the throes of self-discovery that was the entire year abroad, celebrating my twenty first among people that had become so dear, often in a very short time, that it was impossible to think of leaving. But the end of my stay was fast approaching, and it all coalesced into a bright shining moment of understanding on the morning of July 26th, and less than a week later, I was on an airplane. Leaving after eleven months a city that had become more comfortable and more beloved than any other place on earth. Chatting up the kind Italian woman next to me and trying not to go stir crazy.

I spent a month at home: a month of eating salad and working out like a fiend to drop the extra ten pounds I'd picked up in Paris, a month of letting go and moving on, a month when I often sat on the couch with my mom and cried, trying to make sense of the impossibly transformative experience that I had; as with any transformation, the destruction was just as powerful as the creation.

A month of dealing with culture shock -- as I have often said, and will say again because it's so true -- it was a monster I had prepared to fight but did not even recognize its face; I knew the roads would be too big, the tables, the cars, everything too big, not enough motos and not enough sidewalk cafes, but I didn't realize that my family would have lived a full year that I knew nothing of, had changed and I didn't know it, had a full year of experiences just as I had but not shared. I didn't know about the nagging, uncertain sense of unbelonging, of displacement, of recognizing everything but being unable to picture yourself inside.

In fact, the culture shock wouldn't go away for six months, and soon enough I was on another plane, back to the city that never sleeps, where the cars, noise, and lights promptly overwhelmed me. But it wasn't just the city, but after a year of life suddenly I was in school again, turning in homework, doing research, and preparing a senior thesis. I met the King of Pop, the subject of said thesis, and was inspired, again and again. I wrote a hundred pages and played the academic and the dancer. I got to know not one but two androgynous, genius, and decidedly unstable male dancers, not only MJ but Nijinsky, and loved delving into their stunning ability to move.


Besides the academics, I spent months trying to reconcile the girl I used to be with the girl I had become, until one fine morning in December looked at myself in a mirror and recognized the girl within. Not three weeks later, I was on a plane again.

Another month at home, time to give and to celebrate being together, a time to rest and recuperate. I discovered my pixie heritage (remind me to tell you that story one day; if I finish it without you dragging me to the loony bin it will be surprising), said goodbye to my childhood hometown, and was so fully present that when I arrived back in New York, after another plane ride, I didn't recognize the apartment I stepped into.

I knew where everything was, because I had put it there, but had again the sense of displacement, as though someone else belonged where I was intruding, and it took me a good couple days to shake. By then, I was deep in the throes of my latest project of taking a group to Paris, a project begun the previous semester but left to simmer on the back burners. I put it on high heat, but at the beginning it crawled, like sailors on a beach after a shipwreck. Dancers were leaving, funds were nonexistent.

Nevertheless, because not going was not an option, I headbutted any brick wall in my path and after two intense months of preparation, the trip was funded and I was on a jumbo jet heading over the Atlantic, taking ten days off school to kibitz about Paris; a surreal experience in an increasingly more surreal life. For ten perfect, beautiful days, I was home.

By the time I returned, it was time to graduate, take final exams, and say goodbye to people I had been in school with for four years. My family was in New York, there were two stars next to my name in the program, and it was celebration and madness --

And then I had moved, and was throwing myself into the next adventure. I had already agreed to participate in the choreography showcase, but found myself quite unexpectedly co-producing it, working with dancers ten times more experienced than I, and yet somehow or another the thing got produced and performed. It was an experience that made me feel equal parts totally incompetent and totally competent, and more often than not very very young, and very very inexperienced. And yet -- as with all experiences like it, it taught me a hell of a lot.

But there would be no time to rest, either preparing for or after the showcase, because there was a move to the other side of the world to organize, and with my mom in town for a brief, lovely week, I gathered up my energy for the next big leap.

The last week in New York was filled with goodbyes and the incredibly revealing things that happen in the case when you quite simply don't know the next time you'll be back, if at all. They were all little gifts, little embers to hold somewhere in my soul, little wonderful looks into people's eyes, each separately surprising and fascinating. I spent a great deal of the time running around like a chicken with my head cut off, pausing and posing for a few seconds before fluttering off.

My July 4th was filled with fireworks, you could say, and the next night at 1:45AM I was on another jumbo jet, the lone white female in the back of the plane with a company of the Indonesian Navy, and touched down in a place where nothing at all seemed to be anything like what I had previously experienced, quite literally the opposite side of the world.

Which is where I am currently writing this post, completely baffled by how that all fit into one year, especially since I didn't even mention the half of it. However much I may not understand, though, it was in fact one year, and I am in fact just now turning twenty two. It makes me almost afraid to wonder what will happen before July 17th, 2013, but if experience tells anything -- it certainly won't be boring!!

It should tell you something that I think one of the most flattering things anyone has ever said to me was calling me "strange, or at the very least unusual"...

An evening out in Phnom Penh

It started with a bike ride.

The streets at night are not particularly well lit except for the main arteries, such as Norodom Boulevard. There, the streets are lined with lights, a red carpet of lights. Every block or two is a little post, containing an umbrella and one or two bored officers in their khaki uniforms and walkie talkies. My bike happens to have a little gadget that, when you flip a switch, something rubs up against the front tire and activates a little light on the front of the bike. Very useful at night.

I took the main street, of course, and when I left around seven thirty, it was packed. You have to pay attention, with motos and tuk tuks cutting you off at every turn and winding your way through oncoming traffic at every intersection. I'm getting good at it, but haven't lost the habit of swearing badly whenever the nearest tuk tuk decides now is a good time to cross.

The ride took me to street  136 and the Europe Guest House, where, while waiting for friends, I chatted with the friendly proprietor, who offered to keep my bike in the back while we kibitzed about. I gladly accepted, and with the other three, headed out in search of food.

We found what's called the Night Market, apparently on the list of "Where You Should Go" in the Cambodian guidebooks, as can be judged by the amount of tourists uneasily slipping off their sandals to settle themselves indian style on the covered ground, carefully balancing plates of food from the surrounding food stands. It looks like carpet, the design at least, but isn't, a sort of woven vinyl that makes strange patterns on your skin if you stay in one position too long.

The market is roughly organized in a rectangle; the lights from the stands more than enough to light the open center, where each stand seems to command a certain area. Baskets of hot sauce and other condiments are strewn throughout, but if you try- as I did - to move them to another area, soon enough some assistant will come by and give you the basket you were really supposed to be using. Whoops.

My stomach had been upset for most of the day, no doubt complaining about all of the very new things it's been asked to handle in the past week, so I just got a simple chicken fried noodle, which, when mixed with the hot sauce, was absolutely delicious. Some greens, some noodles, a bit of sauce, and some chicken. Simple enough. I also got a fizzy drink that I still have no idea what it actually was -- my guess is the Khmer version of cherry soda, though it would surprise me if it was actually cherry. Either way, it was very tasty. A stage was set up on the other side of the rectangle, a strange built up podium with some Khmer band happily jamming away.

The food finished, we headed off in search of a bar the girls had heard about, heading to the riverside. After a false start in the wrong direction, we found the place. It had two floors, sleek and modern like most of the buildings on the riverside. The party, whatever it was, was happening on the second floor, so up we went.

It could have been any other club; the lights down to a low red, a bar and some places to sit, and in the next room a DJ pounding away your basic club hits, like "Call Me Maybe" and a remix of "Rolling in the Deep". The drinks were expensive by Cambodian standards, 5 bucks for a cocktail, and I wasn't particularly in the mood, so I passed.

Any other club, except filled with Khmer people (which I was actually somewhat pleased about -- I would have been somewhat dismayed if it was filled with westerners). Any other club, except the tiny balcony wrapping around the outside overlooked the Mekong River, with palm trees along the wide riverside promenade and tuk tuk drivers grappling for customers leaving the nearby bars. The tourists, which you can spot a mile away, staring around at their strange surroundings and carrying their backpacks on their stomachs.

It was nice, I guess. We went inside after awhile to check out the dance floor, which again could have been any dance floor, any place, the flashing lights and circling colors. The pumping beat. I was tired, and not particularly interested in partying the night away (yes, you can fall over in shock now), but let's be frank:

Dance floors intoxicate me.

They just do. The beat gets into my blood and it's over. And yet: here, with three other ex-pats, the Cambodian guys turning their heads, the flashing beat and throughout all of this the undeniably surreality that I am, in fact, in Phnom Penh, in Cambodia, absolutely nowhere near anything I know...

The sheer incongruity was almost enough to send me reeling. Fortunately or not, I didn't have much time to contemplate it, because the girls decided to try and talk their way into the 14 July - held, naturally, on the 13 July -- party at the French Embassy. Never mind you had to have a French passport to get an invitation.

Nevertheless, we got a tuk tuk, the driver asking his friend directions because he didn't know where the embassy actually was, though didn't want to lose business. It was easy enough to find, after all; an impressive wall with one door, a crowd of tuk tuk drivers standing around and waiting for people to leave, long rows of motos on either side.

The party was winding down, and the girls began their pitch. I stood quietly to the side. One of the officers came over to shake his head at our behavior, and I naturally denied all knowledge of the plan. I said -- honestly -- that a friend had invited us and I understood perfectly well we were late. The girls pleaded and begged and got some lady in charge who was passing to have pity, and then we were in.

A long, paved walkway led to another sleek, modern building, very white and blocky, like a giant piece of minimalist, abstract art, just in architectural form. The main building was in front of us, but we veered to the right instead, following the music. The building was light and airy, and opened up onto a sprawling lawn, where a stage and a dance floor had been set up. But for every person dancing, there were three standing around, talking and schmoozing, a few white-clad officers with impressive arrays of pin on their uniforms and red shoulder sashes, and equal parts Cambodian and French people.

The officer was right; we were late, and not three songs later the band closed up shop, leaving a bunch of drunk twenty somethings - they had been serving free alcohol -- looking for the next best thing. It was, after all, only 11 o'clock.

We had acquired a couple more people by that time, and I was getting very tired. Everyone seemed to be heading to one of the few nightclubs, Nova, but I asked one of our new Khmer friends if he could just take me back to the guesthouse, where I could get my bike and go home. He agreed.

During the time, however, in which we tried to decide where to go and how to fit seven people onto three motos, we were continually accosted by a bunch of drunk twenty something French ex-pats, with obliging tuk tuk drivers in tow, to ask where we were going, or where the next party was happening.

We got ourselves sorted, and headed first to the club to drop everyone off. It was again sleek, looking for all the world like a renovated warehouse, surrounding by security guards and motos, again. We left the girls, and my friend took me to the guest house. My bike was exactly where I had left it, and I headed back home on the now mostly deserted streets, coming back into a quiet house.

The evening was fun. I will grant it that. However, it made me think a lot, and to be very honest --- it bugged me. The many drunk French people just desperate for the next party, the 'find-the-next-party' attitude in them and in my own group. Listen, I have nothing against that, I've been there, I get it. However --


I am not here to go out all the time. Safe or not, I don't necessarily feel comfortable wandering the streets at night, and I'm just as happy to bed early and wake early. Every once in awhile go dancing, sure. But to be here just to find the parties?


No. I realized forcibly that it's just not what I'm here for. The sense of displacement was enough to tell me that. 


In the meantime, the job search continues. I remember from living in Asheville how long everything seems to take, and how really quite awful the waiting is. But I have to be patient; as utterly bizarre as it is, I have only been here a week. 

Gillian v. Herself: Dealing with Culture Shock

I noticed something interesting today, in how I’m dealing with the new culture.

I decided, as I usually do, to jump into this new adventure with both feet, full immersion. To the market right away, on my own on the bike, learning Khmer, eating the local food. It’s a sure way to get used to what’s going on and I’m proud of it.

However, today I was craving the West and the familiar, and decided to spend some time in a western style coffee shop, on the internet and on the phone with my parents. I had been planning not to do that until Sunday, letting that day be my day to spend in a familiar environment.

There are two opposing factions in my head. There is the one that is almost ashamed of having given in, the one that is so upset with the stereotypical tourist and ex-pat that remains constantly in the Western areas that she tries desperately to do the exact opposite. She’s the one who thinks the best way to deal with the shock is to just continue on, and soon enough it will become normal.

Then there is the other faction, who thinks that it is perfectly okay to seek refuge in the Western style when faced with an overwhelmingly new life, and not only perfectly okay but perfectly understandable. She thinks that so long as it does not become a crutch, or a habit, or otherwise impede the experience of the country, there is absolutely nothing wrong with retreating to one’s roots.

The two are just about equal, and while one does seem more reasonable – the latter – I just can’t discount the former, the embodiment of my come-hell-or-high-water, obsessive self that throws herself into life with a verve some may call utter insanity.

I’m trying to compromise the two halves by having internet installed in my apartment. That way, I don’t have to always go to those western cafés for internet but remain in touch with the world I left behind. I think it’s a very healthy compromise and may appease that violent adventurer.

I guess I just need to convince my obsessive self that you can have the cake and eat it too, that it is possible to be fully engaged in the life and the culture here and yet still irrevocably rooted in the place we come from. I will always be western, and as much as I try otherwise, I will always be American. I can’t erase that self. I just need to learn how to keep it, nurture it, and yet remain open to the influences of the culture around me.

It’s not an easy job, and goes against my instinct. But I think I have to learn, because I have a suspicion that the only way to fully immerse myself in the newness of this place is to be perfectly grounded in where I came.

Certainly, it’s something to work on…

August 18th, 2010

This morning, 6:04AM: The alarm goes off, gets snoozed. It goes off again, and I drag my carcass out of bed and into the shower, in a hazy of sleepiness.
6:38AM: I leave the house, noticing that my bike helmet has gone missing somehow -- probably left it at Raj's place.
6:49AM: I arrive at the hotel, lock the bike, and go inside to change, only to discover that I don't have my shirt or name tags or anything at all. I will get in big trouble if I go out there without it.
6:55AM: I arrive back home, sweating and panting, and get the shirt, and run back out the door.
7:01AM: After biking like a bat out of hell, I pull into the parking lot of the hotel and suddenly remember that the schedule, as last I saw it, has me working from 1800-2200 today. That would be 6PM-10PM, ie, I wasn't even supposed to be there in the first place. The air, suspiciously, turns blue.
7:06AM: Straggling home, I realize that I also have a dinner date tonight with our friend Nancy, who really helped Hilary and I out in getting started. The air turns even more blue. I also start to really wish this is a dream, and I'll look down and realize that I'm not wearing any pants, and in a flash of horror, wake up.
7:15ishAM: I finish straggling home, really sweaty now and still frustrated as hell, and get on the phone with the restaurant. Fortunately, it seems likely that I can get the shift covered.
7:36AM: Somewhat reassured, I decide that, since I am still barely awake, the best thing I can do now is fight back against the world by boldly going to bed.

I was asleep for a good three hours, a time filled with disturbing, strange, anxious dreams that I can't remember a lick of now. After that, I decided I could probably face the world again, and spent a low key time hanging out -- I also talked to my mom for a bit, which always helps.

We are now at one week until Asheville departure. I still haven't even thought about packing -- though I have thought about thinking about packing and I have thought about how I DON'T want to think about packing.

It's funny with a blog -- I'm not really sure how much I want to say here that doesn't involve me -- I guess I'm still old school in that I don't trust the internet one bit, and I don't want to compromise anyone -- and in some cases, I'm just not really sure how much information about what I think I want out there. I guess I assume that if you're a close friend, you'll know about it. And should I even bother hemming and hawing about it then? In any case, I just wanted to say that the big gaps and the "don't care to elaborates" will probably stick around for a bit, so don't feel left out, you probably aren't alone. E-mail me or something if you really care to know. I'll also keep my more scathing opinions of things to myself, because they don't do anyone any good and most of them are of the moment and become less true with time. I keep a policy of being kind and even over the internet -- what a thought -- I will keep that.

I'm sorry. I'm still tired. This past week wasn't very kind to me or my memory (as this morning will clearly attest). Also, at the moment, and quite unrelated, I really, really want to take out my contacts. However, I can't, because I'm at work, and I need to see for the rest of the week. I can't imagine sleeping for three hours with them in helps with that.

Yesterday was the first day all summer excepting our trip to Atlanta that Raj and I had the same day off, which was lovely. We spent most of it -- after sleeping as late as possible -- shopping. We ended up wandering around Lowe's for more than an hour with his roommate, looking at fridges and discussing the merits of stove tops and wall ovens. It was wonderful, in a strange kind of way. Some guy in one of those motorized carts stopped to chat with us for quite awhile -- he told me he had multiple sclerosis and also gave me some very kind compliments (and in very good taste), so that was cool. We then moved on to goodwill and spent at least another hour or two there. I picked up a few pieces that I really like, so that was nice. I also found this vintage book called "les rues de Paris", which is this little book that with maps of all the arrondissements, a directory of anything you want to find in Paris pretty much (like Churches, post offices, museums, hell, even a justice of the peace), and a giant pull out map. It's amazing. I saw it and I was like, MUST HAVE.

After another lovely dinner of spaghetti and red wine, cooked by Raj's roommate (who actually is in culinary school), I headed back home with a box fan and bookshelf in tow (the roommate has a car(!)). Of course then there was the debacle this morning, but we can just pretend that didn't happen, right?

In any case. I must move on, keep clicking, moving, and see where life brings me next.

Until next time.

EDIT,10:56PM: At which point I would like to say that there are very few problems that good wine, good food, good company, and good conversation can't fix. We met our friend Nancy and went to the fresh market, along the way trying to decide something to cook. I suggested feta cheese, and the menu exploded from there. We ended up making a fabulous Italian-ish dish, by sauteing mild italian sausage with onions, garlic, and olive oil, then separately sauteing roma and heirloom tomatoes with the same, and adding both to fettuccini and crumbling feta cheese over the top. We had yellow tomatoes and fresh mozzerella balls for the appetizers (served, if you wanted, on crackers), and paired it all with garlic bread and some good white wine (though we had half a glass of red to finish off the meal). We finished the whole evening with a mix of chocolate hazelnut and blackberry cabernet gelato, and I must say, it was probably one of the best evenings of food and conversation we've had all summer. It was incredibly good and incredibly fun, and after about two and a half glasses of wine, the world just doesn't seem so scary.

I suggest that recipe, by the way. It doesn't disappoint. If you need details, e-mail me.

July 7th, 2010

...And then there are times where your body just decides things for you, which mine is incredibly good at doing (and drives me batty). I spent most of last night awake and in pain, as my entire intestinal region was tied in knots, and then this morning I thought, well, it's just cramps, they'll work out -- and was in the process of putting in my contacts when a wave of nausea hit me. So I took out the contact that was already in and went back to bed, promptly sleeping for another four hours or so.

Considering it all, it's not really surprising to me this happened; my body has a way of making sure I don't get too ahead of myself, and especially when I'm stressed it has a habit of making sure I stop for a bit and rest. As you know, reading my frantic posts about official documents, I have been under a fair amount of stress, and found myself last night strangely depressed about a variety of things. Disturbed about some things. Worried about others.

I'm not really sure how much I want to say here, but I can give you a sketch -- surprisingly, only some of it has to do with Paris. But it makes up a fairly large percentage. It's like, I'm a little guilty at how scared I am of the trip, especially as excited as I am about it and as convinced I am that I'm supposed to be there. But I can't deny that being by myself in a foreign city for nine months is, in all honesty, a little terrifying. It's a long way from home, and the only family member that will probably have enough money to visit me is my sister, Darcy. (not the one here in Asheville with me). That's great, but...

It also brings me to another thing that's been bothering me, which is that I miss my parents dearly. I have always been very close with my parents, and since september, I have probably seen them a total of 24 days. I came home for spring break and summer break last year, but not so this year -- I'm happy to be in Asheville, but it just bothers me that I will hardly see them, save a week at the end of August and then god only knows when, after I return from abroad (which is very uncertain right now).

And as much as I dislike admitting it, I have to say that the 'heaviness' around me at the hotel gets me down a bit -- I know that by accepting that, I'm playing the game and therefore losing, but it's just...heavy. I'll have to work on being able to punch through the webs of seriousness.

And then just to add a cherry on top, without naming any names and trying to be as nonchalant as possible about this, it's been really bothering me that I should meet someone I really like when I only have three months to know them. It just seems like a remarkably cruel joke, and you'd probably understand better if you know my history with such things.

So I have today and tomorrow to do nothing and let my soul catch up with me, search it when I do, and get this thing I call me back on track.

Ciao.