On race: outside.in/inside.out

Dinner table. 6 people. Ethnically, two Indians, two Jews, a Pole, and me (Chinese), but we are all Americans.

It was a joke on in- and out-groups. “Well then you must be the outgroup” said one guy, pointing at me. What do you mean? I blinked, confused, at the white and brown faces around me. It look me a full second to realize that, indeed, I was the only “yellow” one.

I was stunned by how it long the realization took me. This moment in America, in college, was in stark contrast to my experiences in Europe this summer. “Where are you from?” they’d ask because it was so obvious I was a foreigner, from the way I scrutinized traffic signs to the way I carried my backpack. ”America,” I’d reply. (Or “the States,” “die USA,” or “les Etats-Unis.”) “No, but where are you actually from?”

At the Bristol bus terminal, an English lady sat down beside me and enthusiastically tried to convert me, in Chinese, to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Despite the fact that we both spoke English with a thousand times more fluency, she soldiered on in her broken Chinese. “I’ve lived in America for most of my life. I’m American,” I said, but I don’t think she believed me.

Europe hammered, nail by nail, a truth I never wanted to acknowledge. In Chinese school many years ago, my Chinese teacher — fed up with our laziness and general reluctance to learn our parent’s language— had said, “No matter what you do, Americans are going to look at you and see a Chinese person first.” I bristled at her comment. Then, and I admit even now, I prided myself on the ability to distinguish by sight an Asian and an Asian-American. That I find this distinction important is indicative of personal uneasiness.

In the artificially liberal and multicultural environment of my college, I have had very little opportunity to think critically about race. Yes there are panels and whatnot every week, but they never feel relevant or worth attending against the backdrop of general busyness. Only during my summers away — Chicago in 2008, Europe in 2009 — that matters of race have dominated my thinking.

I lived in Chicago during the height of Obama-mania, and my apartment was only blocks away from his house in Hyde Park. But it was in Chicago that my fuzzy liberal dreams of a post-racial American were hopelessly shattered.

Things you just should not expect

1. progress on reading The Origin of Species after coming back from the pub at 11 pm.
2. any goodwill when you name your pub quiz team “Harvard” and place last in every round.

England, etc.

What do you know, summer is half over and I’ve now been in England for two weeks. I still do not have an umbrella and all my rain gear smells like sheep. As I am no longer at the farm (current location: The Queen’s College, Oxford), this is no longer acceptable. Laundry room doesn’t open on weekends.

When I first got to England, I was struck, strangely enough, by the comforting familiarity of it all. After a week on the continent, it was amazing to understand all the road signs again. And the names of the places too seemed so familiar: Exeter, Bridgewater, Brighton — the same names of places in New England. And the groceries stayed open past 5 pm! Even the cultural differences that popped up during my stay in Ilfracombe I attributed mostly to my Chinese-American upbringing rather than differences between the English and Americans. I regret that most of my time in England will probably be spent roving in the large packs of my fellow American classmates, but I do hope to take in more of the British culture and understand a little with more nuance this place across the Atlantic.

Yesterday, I was in Bath. I did not take a bath but after two weeks of only baths, no showers, a shower was very very welcome. The essence of sheep that permeates my hair has faded to a faint bottom note. Bath was a lovely city, and slowly I am beginning to realize that I do rather prefer the smaller cites tucked outside of vast metropolises. The tour through the old Roman Baths was sweaty and humid, packed full of prepubescent Iberians on summer camp. A glass of free spa water was promised to all visitors, which I greeted at the end of the tour with relish. Alas, the water was lukewarm and tasted of dirty pipes. Despite my thirst, I took one sip and had to walk away. I’m convinced this is all a practical joke on the tourists.

Reverse chronological order seems to have it, so I’ll tell you about where I was before Bath: Ilfracombe, a seaside town popular in the holidays. If I’m not too off, I’d say it’s like a Cape Cod of England. As a member of WWOOF, I worked on a sheep farm for about 9 days. The countryside was beautiful and the beach nearby was made of broken pieces of slate, perfect for skipping stones. I want to say it was a relaxing, reflective time but it wasn’t; I suffered from horrible hayfever and a mysterious chronic sore throat. One day, my eyeballs (yes eyeballs) swelled up and started spilling out, jelly-like, from my sockets. When you’re healthy, it’s slippingly easy to forget how much pain and discomfort can cloud over your mind. But these issues aside, I quite enjoyed my experience. I wouldn’t say I am very much of an animal person, but I’ve found myself missing all the dogs, cats, goats, ducks, and lambs that populated the farm. There was one lamb in particular (637), who would come up to you instead of running away like other lambs and wag its tail when you scratched its head, like a puppy dog. It’s strange not having furry creatures around every corner.

Abattoir

seems quite a sophisticated word, much kinder than its synonyms. “Three lambs are booked for the abattoir on Tuesday” (oh yes, they’re going to frolic and be pampered!) sounds much better than “I’m sending three lambs to the slaughterhouse tomorrow.” Unless, I suppose, you know French, and the meaning of abattre.

Four lambs have died in the week I’ve been at the farm. These four died of illness (pas abattu) and do not overlap with the three lambs sent to the abattoir today. There is a fifth lamb, small and frail, who I’m afraid will not make it through the night. She refuses to drink any milk and sits around crunching her teeth.

8 Hours in Reykjavik Airport

(I agreed this ridiculous overnight layover because the ticket was cheap, and I’m a cash-poor, time-rich student. Also, it was in Iceland. If I can’t actually go there, this is the next best thing!)

Have you ever seen an empty airport? It’s eerie. Unlike public spaces such as schools or malls that run on a set schedule, airports are a temporal limbo that shouldn’t belong to any particular time zone. Yet the Reykjavik Ariport had functionally such down by the time I arrived at 11:50 Greenwich Mean Time, and when I took a walk around later, I saw exactly four people around the entire airport.

Also, the sun never set. At its darkest was the ghostly, grey glow of post-twilight. Empty and ghostly, the scene felt very apocalyptic.

On a lighter note, the employees whiz around the airport on scooters. Whee!

Amsterdam, Cologne, Ilfracombe, London, Oxford, Paris, Reykjavik (!)

This is, more or less, my itinerary for the next two months. I am incredibly excited and incredibly nervous embarking on this journey. It’s so cliche, isn’t it? Backpacking through Europe, the Grand Tour. My visions are Europe are so clouded by childhood dreams and Hollywood images, I’m having a hard time sorting out exactly what I’m trying to do here on this continent.

It’s not terribly well planned either, despite my initial attempts at a trip spreadsheet, so there will be a fair amount of roaming around. Except for concrete plans at Ilfracombe where I will be working on a sheep farm (yes me, I know) and Oxford where I’ll be studying Darwin and evolutionary bio, my plans are in flux. This is okay because I believe in adventure, not plans. I hope to return to American poorer in cash but richer in experience.

If you live or have been to any of these places, I’d love to here from you about things to do! Send me a note to jinxyte@gmail.com. Especially we’ve always had this passive follower/followee relationship — I’ve traveled 5000 kilometers, meet me halfway.

P.S. Is this an alphabetical list or a chronological list? It’s both! Actually, that is kind of weird and not planned.