Travel in 2017 vs. 2012

I recently traveled through Vietnam and a little piece of Hong Kong.  
The last time I left America was in 2012 when I studied in France for three months.  Almost immediately upon my arrival in Vietnam, I realized how different travel is, and how most of my tips had become outdated in just five years.

Technology is the biggest catalyst of change, and I’m curious about how much it shapes culture.  For instance, when I was in France and learning language, I was taught “internet café” geographically and linguistically very early on.

I did have a smart phone when I was in France, but it could do maybe half of what we expect from our phones today.  Moreover, it was a Verizon iPhone 4, which my Apple friends who’ve been with the company for a few years know didn’t have a SIM tray.  In other words, it was hardwired to only understand my carrier in the U.S. and basically an iPod.

I’d have to duck into previously mentioned internet cafés in order to do anything beyond downloaded music and photos.  I get lost very, very easily, and looking back I’m still in awe at how I got around without a little blue dot showing me walking in the wrong direction.

My travel was marked by these internet-happy spots, the equivalent of stopping for gas before driving to the next adventure.  When I changed between bus and train, I knew my stops to go check for messages from friends or directions from the satellite gods.

Fast forward to 2017.  I got a SIM card faster than they stamped my visa.  The Vietnamese government sponsors their cellphone carriers, and that’s partially responsible for how reasonably priced they are.  I inserted the new SIM card into my phone and was immediately joking with one of my friends. While there, my biggest obstacle in communication wasn’t the ability to connect, but simply timezones.  But as long as they were awake, I could speak to whomever I wanted, even from of on a mountain at the other side of the world.

Technology-lead, travel changed from this isolated bubble to being no different than exploring a city in America.  When I was in France, I spent my daily commute writing, listening to the same albums I had downloaded, and almost meditating in my bus seat, unable to communicate with friends or linguistically with those around me.

This was in Strasbourg.  Somedays I’d walk to Germany for lunch, and I don’t even know what that would’ve meant for cellphones.  I’m glad it never came up.  I wonder if the hole in access would’ve dissuaded me from traveling outside my comfort and reception zones.  Instead, it’s some of my fondest memories.

Honestly, I think travel should feel solitary.

I have a few friends that meet travel companions via Tinder.  A few years ago, one of my friends went on what we called her “Sexpodition,”

To be fair, I understand the utility of Tinder in another country.  When I was exploring Hong Kong by myself, I was tempted to use it to find a friend to go to dinner with.  I was blindly looking up places on Yelp, but would rather’ve had a new friend recommend a spot and talk to them about their culture.

And I couldn’t.  I couldn’t find someone available that night that wasn’t looking for sex.  I was not.  I was looking for human connection and I’ve found that is something so rare to find as a woman on those apps.  

And honestly, I don’t need it.  I build friendships rather easily.  I am connected on Facebook with people in Vietnam I knew for maybe an hour, and am grateful for the technology to still have them in my life; but I didn’t need it to meet them.

I even have a connection to someone I never met.  The hostel I stayed at in Hong Kong had these amazing postcards for sale.  They were a unique style illustratively, and when I inquired, the hostel staff excitedly told me that they’re all representative of Cantonese expressions.  I bought a set and asked if I could record one of them explaining their meanings.  She agreed as long as she could film me saying why it excited me so much.  She then sent that video along to the artist who made them, and she found me on Facebook saying how much it meant to her.

Connections are made from being observant and kind to the world around you.

I don’t need to find that superficially, and personally think the easy access of technology deflects my attention from my surroundings.

Some need to travel with those who speak English.  Evolutionarily, it is socially validating to be with someone who speaks the same language, as well as helps travel feel safer and more familiar.  I understand that, and traveled with an English speaker.  It’s my primary language, and see the utility.

But I love the struggle of other languages.  The dance to be understood that’s at the core of every human being.  Loving the linguistic challenge is why I learned French in three months.  It’s why I know ASL, it’s why I choose the friends that I have and what draws them to me.

I love the discomfort and humility that comes with traveling another country.

And in sum, have found technology lessens it.

The postcards.  Art by Bonnie Wong, featured at The Mahjong

Tiny Turmoil

I’ve been quiet.  These past two weeks, I have spent my nights will a little fur-ball of purrs and cuddles.  I found a cat, at a very inconvenient time.  I found her and decided to save her and she has since been the only thing on my mind.  That and needing to make more art.  And my spark has been dampened.  I haven’t been  making as much as I would like to, perhaps because I am doing it one day of the week, and thus the others pale in comparison.  I need a vacation from this life, but there are also forces in it that ground me to where I am.

Every year for the past four, I have moved to a new city.  I enjoy starting over.  Adventures, meeting new people and getting to collect new pieces of me as I adorn myself with the gems I’ve already found — but I think I am staying.  And we’ll see what the job will be, where I will live, and who’s at my side (cat, human, or friend).  Time will tell.

A Happy Check Point:

Hello my loves.

I’m in a good place today.  I’m hopeful.  I’ve slept enough, it’s not unbearably hot in my apartment yet, and tomorrow is Spencer’s birthday.  (Don’t worry, more on that will come.)

As far as work goes, I love my job.

Yesterday I got to help a crowd of people easily understand ideas so complex that if I told them how complex they were, they’d insist they were too advanced; I’ve found that people’s biggest obstacle in learning is themselves.  So getting past that and helping them learn was incredibly rewarding.  

After that, I spoke to a young guy I swear will change the world.  We discussed how people value the wrong things these days.  Certain sports shoes are popular out here, for instance, and he was saying that people only like them because someone told them too; a blog post, a celebrity, a friend.  That most of the people he knows gets them just to look at, not even to wear, and, again, not because of their own passion.  And he added that he knew two people who were killed for their shoes.

I was speechless at that point.  What can you say when you’re confronted with a society that values shoes more than a human life?  We talked more on what matters to him, and how he cares about originality; someone who follows their own happiness, not what others say they should value.  He was a magnificent soul and I hope the right luck finds him, because he absolutely is a visionary.

And this was someone I’d probably never meet outside of our store. 

Demographically we have little in common, and yet — I want to say spiritually, but by that I don’t mean some greater force guiding us, but rather the yearning that we both feel as humans to make something out of this short time that we have to be alive — and so spiritually we completely understood one another.  Nowhere else would I have been given the time to get to see this stranger so truthfully.

I’m so happy restoring from back up can take a few minutes :P

I also met a law student who was studying for the Bar Exam, and every time she was waiting (for her appointment, for the answers about her computer, etc) I would quiz her on what she was studying.  In that small time, I could see her kindness, and tell that she’s going to be an incredible lawyer.  Not one that entered that field for money, but rather one who prides herself in defending children and victims, who speaks up for those that are voiceless.  She is selfless.

And I also worked with a fellow poet, and got to share with her my new favorite gadget for creating.  She also complimented my look, and in the spirit of honesty and not vanity, I get that a lot at work….and that’s exciting.  I am different and always have been, and it’s great to know that it’s manifesting into something notably confident and distinct.  It gives me hope that when I start acting again, that when I walk into the room, they’ll see that too, and perhaps that’ll give me opportunities that I long for.  She also had that look to her, not my style per se, but something completely different and thus compelling.  It was a wonderful way to end the day.

So I love my job.  I get to connect with strangers, as I enable kindness, growth and art, both within them and myself.

So it’s no wonder then that I don’t want any other role.  That’s why I’m not in Philadelphia right now.  There was one position there that went to someone else, and I don’t want to move there an wait three years for another opening in the role that validates who I am and who I want to be.

So instead I’ve been looking for cities near Philly (so I can still see my love bugs there) but where I can also work this job and towards a career in art.

Have you guessed it yet?

I had an interview this week for a store in New York.

And I almost started crying, it sounded so amazing.  Their trainer team is twice the size of mine, which means the community openly embraces coming in to learn.  And most of what they do (PHOTOGRAPHY WALKS IN CENTRAL PARK) is so unbelievably brilliant and beautiful that I can’t believe it’s real.  They’re ideas you’d entertain for half a daydream, and then realize there’s no way that could work…and yet a someone there it more thought, and found a way to turn those dreams into a reality.

Soooooo clearly I want to be there.  To work in an environment so open to possibilities and growth and change?  That’s my dream.  I’ll hear about what’s next soon and will write more then.  But I’ll say this: it feels like the right path for me.

***

When I was seventeen, I was taunted about wanting to study theatre in college.  An unwanted authority boomed that I’d be “missing the boat to [my] life.”  I skipped the fight and instead wrote my response in one of my notebooks: that “there are enough people in this world and enough things to do, that you might as well do the thing you love.”  I still stand by this.

And I know New York is another city, but my main complaint here is that I can’t get anywhere on my own.  I want to explore, and to run errands, and to feel safe after the sun sets, and to get places without it taking two hours in each direction…and this city is isolating.  You don’t talk to strangers, or make friends in line at coffee shops….and that’s clearly a huge part of who I am.  I want to feed that part of my soul.

And I also love moving.  Not the act of dragging everything I own from place to place, but being somewhere totally new.  Being frustrated with something from your old world and going somewhere where that isn’t a problem.  It solves things, it creates new opportunities, adds new places to explore, and best of all: there are new people to meet.

The store in New York that I’m talking to…has over seven hundred employees.  Just that alone is awing.  Seven hundred people with a common shared experience to talk about….how can I not find at least a dozen new best friends?  Not to mention the millions of others who live in that city.  How could anything feel mundane ever again?  Life wold be extraordinary.  And I’m hoping that dream is another the store turns into a reality.

Here's some of what I've created at work this week: