The farther you go
The farther you cut loose
The farther you run from love
The more you love them in return
The more you need them to love you back
When I began my journey out into the wilds of the world, I was not intending to run away from anything existing in my life. I have never really considered the path I have chosen to be particularly different than what I thought I should be doing as an almost-29-year-old female from Kentucky/Ohio.
Admittedly, I thought about the fact that I am diverting from the path of career, children and marriage that so many people my age pursue. For me not to have admitted this divergence to myself would have been socially retarded at best, downright troubling at best.
And yet, despite family and friends’ attestations to the contrary, I’ve always thought of myself as a somewhat normal North American Midwestern girl. Don’t we all long to escape the cornfields and bowling alleys and suburban sprawl and learn more about the jungles and the deserts and the oceans (even if we grew up landlocked) that separate us from the rest of the world?
Don’t we all long to peer into that proverbial heart of darkness and call it bullshit and turn around to face (and embrace?) the darkness in the system from whence we came - bounding out in all our corn-fed, big-hipped, full-busted goodness? Ok, maybe not.
So, friends, only now, 5 months into this journey (I know it seems longer, but thanks for reading anyway), I have finally come to admit that I might be just a bit off from the average.
Months ago, no, years ago, I got tired of friends, family and acquaintances I met telling me that I was lucky to travel so much. We’re all lucky; I always thought to myself, we’ve just made different choices. I just chose to go spend time being an outsider who speaks at a 1st grade level and tries to fit in to society wherever possible (former forays to Ecuadorian Spanish and Japanese in question).
This idea that I clung to that fate is created by us is, I’ve learned, a peculiarly American (U.S.) way of looking at things. We hang on to the belief that people always have some aspect of control over what happens to them in this life in order to make ourselves feel better about the inherent inequalities of the world. Fair enough, perhaps that’s just human nature’s way of protecting us from the harsh realities of intercontinental inequity.
In fact, here in Asia a mixed-up sense of fatalism keeps people riding around on their motorbikes without helmets because of the idea that whatever crap you did to screw up your karma in your last life will come back to get you whether or not you cover your head with a plastic shield: hence all the fatal head injuries from seemingly innocuous accidents; bad karma.
But what is my part in all this nonsense that is Asia?
I’ve never had fantasies of saving small children in foreign countries from impending doom, levitating on a sweet cloud of angelic and gentile womanliness to deliver goodness to the developing world, or sacrificing everything to help people who have no ties whatsoever to my people and my upbringing. Whatever, I know I’m supposed to, but I don’t so whatever.
And yet, here I find myself working to bring education to folks in rural Cambodia amid myriad cultural roadblocks that would see projects dead in the water. And why?
Well, because these kids need education too, I remind myself. Just as much as the girls in my Cincinnati Artworks group needed an artistic writing outlet to express the reality of seeing their brothers shot and bleeding out on the sidewalk in Cincinnati-gang-violence, these kids in Cambodia need to have books available to allow them to learn to read and to change the trajectory of their future and the future of their country.
And sometimes, their older brothers need to rip me off on a tuk-tuk ride as I try to make my way back to my dorm from the airport.
And why was she returning from the airport, you may ask?
Well… I am just back from a week long vacation in Chiang Mai, Thailand, visiting some lovely folks I hadn’t seen in 7 years since Kalamazoo college spit us all back out (fully formed) into the world. Of course we all looked exactly the same (minus a few fine smile lines) and some gained wisdom along the way.
My friends Amanda and Ben, whom I visited in CM, have been living there off and on for 10 years now. Wow. Both of them are doing great work for the future of Thailand and neighboring countries and loving their lives in that friendly and accessible city, so visiting them was a treat I won’t soon forget.
There are a few aspects of Thailand that I could go into in depth that would dilute the description of the great time I had there (for example the prostitution industry – including a particularly visible presence from my older western brethren) but I’ll take the higher ground and focus on the great experiences I had there – good friends, great hikes to see the hill tribes, elephant riding, Buddha chatting and some kick-ass Thai massage that left me happily loose and relaxed.
Thailand – and the Thai people – are very polite and smile a lot. They also have a much better sense of humor and are more open than most other Asians (in my lowly opinion).
Overall, I am having an amazing time in Southeast Asia.
Never-the-less, I am coming to the same conclusion I came to in Japan – from a western female perspective –if you’re used to feeling powerful, sexy, or otherwise beautiful because of your curves and free attitude – and unless you’re willing to pretty much cut yourself off from the healthy plethora of dating options you may have had in your home country – Asia may not be for you.
However, if I were a white boy (or old man) in need of a scene change and looking to shirk that pesky womens’ rights movement that seems to have ruined all the inter-male/female relations over the last 50 years, I’d be here in a heartbeat. And that’s all that I’ll say about that right now. I’m sure I’ll get enough shit for that one statement alone (I know James, I know).
SO… ANYWAY… Thailand was amazing, friends are great. Cambodia continues to be challenging and yet rewarding.
6 more weeks here and then Nepal, India, Italy and Istanbul, Turkey (assuming the Turkish government deems me fit enough to grant me a work visa).
I recognize more, day after day, how much I love, miss and need my family and friends at home. Part of this is wistful longing and part is just reality sinking in.
