Food! One of my favorite topics indeed! Since being in Korea, I have eaten so many delicious meals that it’s hard to know where to start.
I lied, yes I do. 김치. Kimchi is fermented cabbage is a chili paste sauce. I have heard that for most people you either love it or you hate it. I love it, which is great because it is served with every single meal. Koreans love their kimchi and so do I. Some Koreans have been surprised that I enjoy kimchi as much as I do. It’s been a great way to talk to people! If you just can’t get into the cabbage, there are other variations of kimchi such as radish kimchi. You might find the one you like. Hey, I know some people who came here hating kimchi and now they love it.
It would be good for you would have love for rice. You eat rice with almost every meal. Being Nigerian, this was perfectly fine with me since I grew up eating rice almost every day. For others, this might get a little redundant, but never fear! If ever in need for an old-fashioned hamburger and fries, Seoul has you covered too. From McDonalds to Taco Bell, you can have your fast food fix anytime of the day. Now personally, I didn’t come to South Korea for food I can have in Dallas. I’ve eaten so many wonderful Korean dishes like 불고기(Bulgogi) Korean beef and 잡채(japchae), a kind of clear noodle with vegetables and meat. In all honesty, I have eaten these dishes back in the States. I am fortunate enough to have a Korean food restaurant right on my campus! So for me, I was excited to try new foods and compare the ones I’ve eaten in Dallas.
The food that has become my whole world while in Korea is 삼겹설 (samgyupsal) or pork belly barbecue! I can imagine some people reading, especially those out of the south (am I stereotyping?) would be shocked. Pork belly? Three words. Di. Li. Cious. Now I’d always seen the grilled meat at different Korean restaurants, but I never knew what was enticing about it. Firstly, I thought the price was absurd. Only once coming to Korea did I learn it was a group rate. And I couldn’t understand why there was so many side dishes that no one seemed to ever eat out of. Now I have learned the art of Samgyupsal. The meat is grilled, which on its own is absolutely delicious, but it is enhanced with what I like to call the Monster Concoction. You take a leaf, I have no idea what kind of vegetable it is but I love it. Then you put one or two pieces of meat inside. Add any of the (seemingly untouched) side dishes that you desire in as well. This is usually onion, green onion, garlic (it is not as strong as in the States), kimchi, and anything else that’s given. You then dip your leaf wrap into any of the sauces given. I also have no idea what they are, but they are delicious. Then in order to eat it properly you must stuff the entire leaf wrap with its contents into your mouth. That’s right folks! There’s no room for the weary here. This is the secret to complete enjoyment. When you are eating your wrap, feel free to shed a single tear in happiness. No one will judge you. In fact, they might join along and/or clap in encouragement. The great news, as if it could get any better, is that you do not have to only eat grilled pork belly. There are several different parts and kinds of meats that you can eat! The two most common are pork and beef, but they are several different options for those that want it.
Not a meat eater? No problem! Clearly samgyupsal and the grill are not for you but there are several options in the Korean palette that are meat free. Basically every kind of food can be eaten with the meat excluded and still be satisfying. My suggestion would be the food I eat probably too often, 비빔밥(bibimbap). Bibimbap is a large bowl with rice, vegetables and sauce. Many times, meat and or an egg is added, but this can be taken out. Now my description may seem a bit lacking, but in essence that truly is the entire dish. Like most all dishes here, it can vary greatly depending on who makes it and where you are. In fact, just last night I saw one with curry which is very unique. Normally, you can find, seaweed, bean sprouts, carrot and mushrooms. I remember the first time I had it, I didn’t know I was supposed to mix everything together so I sat there eating plain veggies wondering why everyone ordered it so often. All I can do is sit back and laugh now. I eat it maybe twice a week or more now!
It’s very difficult to go hungry here. There are great prices and great food to match, regardless of your taste.
The Exploration of Chinese Dishes
Indisputably, one of the must have experiences while traveling is eating local cuisine. Hands down, nothing but food will let you know a culture more intimately. I have noticed that in many places I have traveled how small culinary differences can sometimes unravel an entire cultural outlook on existence. The customs of eating a dinner can represent the morals of a people just as well sometimes as a moral treatise.
Chinese cuisine is no exception to this rule, and this is why I try to go out and eat different Chinese foods almost every day I live in Beijing.
Beijing’s street food is a must have. Not only is it dirt cheap – you may find yourself spending only 4 kuai, the equivalent of $0.75, on a meal – but it is also an experience, similar to getting a hot dog in Times Square. On many street corners there are food peddlers showing off their goods to thousands of people each night. There are fried meats on a stick, meat and veggie wraps, 包子bāozi, noodles, candy carts, and much more, from fruit to sweet potatoes and roasted nuts.
My favorite street food is a delectable treat that is a Beijing original: 糖葫芦 tánghúlu. Essentially, all it is are a bunch of fruits on a stick and covered in hot melted sugar and then cooled so that the sugar forms an ice-like casing of sweetness around the fruit. It is like a magical fruit salad that is portable and even better than fruit salad – sorry fruit salad, you know I still love you! I like the strawberry ones the most, but they come in many varieties, including mixtures of kiwi, grapes, pineapple, tomatoes, strawberries, hawthorn, and more.
I also love roaming around Beijing and looking for small restaurants, that most other foreigners are too sketched out by to eat in. These restaurants serve genuine Chinese food, that most Chinese people actually eat. One such place I found is in 五道口Wǔdàokǒu and it is called 成都小吃Chéngdū xiǎochī, literally meaning ‘Chengdu snacks.’ Chengdu is the capital city of 四川Sìchuān province China, a province well-known for its 辣味儿là wèir, spicy flavor. Often while there, I order 麻婆豆腐má pó dòufu, a traditional type of soft tofu drenched in a thick spicy soup, and 宫保鸡丁gōng bǎo jī ding, which is exactly what it sounds like: Kung pao chicken. Except this Kung pao chicken has 四川花椒Sìchuān huājiāo Sichuan flower peppers, which after a few bits will numb your mouth, making everything you taste far more intriguing.
Unlike in America, the way to eat this food is by having a bowl of rice for yourself and taking from communal dishes what you are eating. Usually, when I think of ordering food at a restaurant, I order something and other people order their own dishes and we eat from our individual plates. Though it may be argued that sharing dishes at the center of a table is not exactly hygienic, it also opens conversation up by encouraging interaction with others at the table. It is also common courtesy to make sure everyone at the table always has enough food. Imagine a Thanksgiving dinner and how everyone is always happy and talking to one another as they get each other food, that is what the Chinese style of eating is like.
In addition to having simply amazing spicy food – I am pretty much in love with Sichuanese food! This small restaurant does not cater too much to foreigners, meaning that it gives a more authentic Chinese feel. It is a great place to practice some 汉语Hànyǔ – Chinese – and observe customs. One of my favorite observations is how Chinese men – though it may be more of a Sichuanese custom – drink beer from tall bottles, but they always pour the beer into what is almost a shot glass. It appears to be that throughout history Chinese have never drank from a tall glass, but instead have had a larger container that they pour into smaller cups or bowls. This is mostly founded on how historically Chinese have drunk their tea; they are drinking the beer in a way that is culturally molded by centuries of tea drinking. Also, their glasses are never empty because if someone drinks theirs another will fill his and then toast him. This is a way for men to enjoy each other and for them to gain ‘face.’
面子miànzi, noun: face; reputation; prestige, etc.
‘Face’ is a cultural concept in China that helps mold social order. It is one’s reputation as a polite individual. The concept is more complicated than I can fully explain here, but in the instance of the man pouring the other man more beer he is showing that he is kind and unselfish. Qualities such as parsimony, fickleness, and being ungrateful hurt one’s ‘face,’ so by sharing beer and encouraging the other to have a good time, this man is building his ‘face.’ At the same time, the fact that the other man cheers the one who pours the beer and drinks with him is a way of giving him ‘face.’ If he did not drink the beer he would be harming his friend’s ‘face.’ It is important to work on building one’s ‘face’ in China, but it is also important to 给面子gěimiànzi, meaning literally to ‘give face.’ This concept runs back far into Chinese history, back to the Confucian concept that life should be well-ordered, and people should be respectful of one another. Confucius even believed that ritual and music, as Lin Yutang wrote in The Wisdom of Confucius, were needed to create a “moral harmony which should make government itself unnecessary” (Yutang, 8). ‘Ritual and music’ means social interactions and customs, as well as ritual and musical performance, and this cultural concern with ‘face’ is a direct product of this philosophy. It makes it amazing to see how the philosophy of a man who lived over 2500 years ago is still in practice today, even in a small Sichuanese restaurant down a back alley in modern steel and glass Beijing. To be part of that is a great privilege I have. Whenever I go to this restaurant with a friend, I always make sure to keep his glass filled and his face smiling.
St. Petersburg: Worthy Struggles
“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.”– Cesare Pavese
Sharing weekly schedules for the work and school week has become a tradition at my home-stay since my arrival. So, last week, when I overslept (through about three alarms, I should add), my хойязка was at my door half an hour before I needed to leave for class, calling my name in hopes that I would manage to have some bit of breakfast before running out to catch the first bus toward the institute.
Later that day, after struggling through a few hours of Russian language class half-asleep, I was thinking about what lessons could be gained from that morning’s struggles. In Russia, I’ve found that I need at least 30 percent more sleep each night in order to function at the most basic level, which really just means getting through classes and walking home from the institute. In complete honesty, I was very much a zombie during my first two weeks here. I’ve only now, finally, come to terms with how difficult living abroad can be on your body, your mind and your spirit. Everything about my accommodations here is foreign. In Russia, the food is different, the beds are different, I’m walking everywhere, and I even spend more time in class this summer than I ever have during the school year at Brown. And, on top of all of this, my head is constantly clouded by attempts to communicate only through Russian language.
I’ve slowly discovered the inevitability of reminiscing about family and friends you’ve left behind in the US. After a particularly difficult day, I’ve even returned to my room and wanted nothing more in the world than to return to New Jersey and, very literally, hide in my bedroom. In my opinion, studying abroad is difficult because it combines foreign travel — a taxing endeavor in itself — with schoolwork and language acquisition. My Russian classes at Brown could never compare in difficulty to the language course I am taking in St. Petersburg. This being said, it’s important to add that I can already sense that this summer has been one of the most formative I’ve experienced in my life. It’s true that sometimes I wake up in the morning and regret that I’m not in my own room, miss my family and wish I could see my friends. But I’m also convinced that when I return to my life in Jersey, I’ll be yearning for all that St. Petersburg now represents for me: difficulty and adventure, light and depth, reticence and growth — the various contradictions of my Russian life.
Cross-Culture Shock: Returning to the U.S. from Trinidad & Tobago
Rewind back to January 2013. I climbed into the sweltering heat of Trinidad, yanked off my sweatshirt, and peered into a blinding sunlight the likes of which I had not seen in a long while. The taxi driver pulled up to the curb and began loading my baggage into the trunk. “Hop in de front chile,” she invited. I opened the door beside me- on the right hand side of the car- and was surprised to see a steering wheel attached to the dashboard. “Ya not drivin dis time,” she laughed and directed me to the seat on the opposite side. Six months later I return to Maryland, USA and find that I am now struggling to remember the correct driving procedures. A left turn through an intersection seems all wrong. I walk on the opposite side of the sidewalk, try to climb up a down escalator, and hold on to the left side of a railing, bumping into people walking in the opposite direction.
The racial makeup of Trinidad and Tobago is vastly different from that of the United States. My first shock upon arriving at the airport in Atlanta, Georgia was caused by the racial uniformity of the people milling about the airport. Trinidad and Tobago is a culture made up of Afro-Trinidadians (of African descent) and Indo-Trinidadians (of Indian descent). On the rare occasion I would run into a Caucasian Trinidadian, but generally they had roots in Europe and it was not often that I met a Caucasian Trinidadian who lived in Trinidad (many of them were only there to attend UWI).
While the United States refers to itself as the ‘melting pot’, many areas are very concentrated racially. The city in which I returned to was another shock to my senses. After spending months in the company of mainly Afro-Trinidadians and students from other Caribbean backgrounds, I was suddenly thrust back into a city that is demographically 90% white and only 3% black— a complete feeling of vertigo!
The USA has a rich culture to offer, if we look hard enough. Trinidad and Tobago has a rich culture, which we can see and feel without having to actively seek it out. I miss seeing houses of a million different colors, shapes, and sizes. I miss the open air shacks, the dorms with windows that never close, and the strange shades of colors chosen for each part of a house- none of which matched the others. Flying over the USA, I was again reminded of the feelings of conformity to one standard as I peered through the plane windows at the suburban homes, all following one color scheme.
I miss walking to the Tunapuna market for food on a weekend morning, hearing music blasting whether it was 8 AM or 8 PM, soca blaring from the speakers of cars or steel pan drums beating out a tune from the nearest church. Trinidad and Tobago is a proud culture, driven by their love of music and dance. Soca music draws in armfuls of instruments that dance together to make a joyous tune to which you can shake every muscle in your body! Back in my city at home, I hear music blare out the car windows of the occasional teenage driver, but shopping malls and grocery stores do not take part in the tradition of music. Here, music scares away the older customers rather than inviting them to shimmy in the doors.
Nevertheless, I am ecstatic to be home to the delicious food. Having a food allergy, it is a relief to be back in the USA where I can find any food imaginable at the grocery store… back to a culture that takes pride in eating as much as possible! I also have taken for granted, in the course of my life, the ease with which I have access to goods and services. In Trinidad and Tobago, I had to travel several towns over, to a small mall in the north corner of the capital city, in order to find a store that would fix my camera. In the USA, it is a simple matter of of driving down the road and there are innumerable shops available to help you with every need. A chain like Wal-Mart does not exist in Trinidad and Tobago. Instead, there are seven separate stores you must visit in order to achieve the same shopping wholeness that one trip to Wal-Mart allows us.
At the end of the day, the most tangible differences are the accents and the public transportation. The suburban area in which I reside nearly lacks all public transport, the only option being a public bus that drives through a few times a day. Trinidad and Tobago relied on the maxi-taxis, wild buses jam-packed with people, driving on several routes for a mere $3 TT (under $0.50 USD). Nothing can compare to the “sing-songy” lulling accent of the Trinis, welcoming you aboard a taxi or into a shop.
As I adjust to the USA, my heart longs again for the lush forests, the clear water, and the rich people of Trinidad and Tobago.
Carnaval – Part 3
The next night I found my way to an area I’d never stopped at previously… there was a roof constructed, over a small area, with a picnic table underneath, a long bench along one side, and a woodstove made of mud and brick opposite that bench. That woodstove seemed like a relic from some past time lost to us today in the modern West, formed with clay from the earth by the hands of workers who loved this place, and designed for a concrete human purpose. It wasn’t made by some machine in a factory line taking orders from a computer in the pursuit of generating corporate dividends… a different reality all together… They kept a good bed of coals inside the stove and cooked crispy little grilled cheese sandwiches inside a cast iron sandwich press. The rain was gently drizzling outside, and people packed in underneath the roof to keep warm and enjoy each other’s company. When people first arrived from the wet night, they’d stand close to the woodstove and rub their hands together, warming themselves up before retreating towards the picnic table or the long bench and joining in the conversations all around us. Felipe brought a little battery powered radio and tuned it to a station playing some variation of samba, and everybody started dancing… one of the women wanted to dance with me, but I didn’t know the steps and she taught me, really quickly… “it’s easy,” she said, “just two steps to the left and then two steps to the right… but take bigger steps to the left so that we spin in a slow circle.” And it was easy, and she was beautiful, and everybody was beautiful, dancing and smiling under the shelter of the roof, the wood-stove emanating heat, and the people emanating heat too, dancing together while others looked on, munching on crispy sandwiches and laughing in the night.
It was amazing, and I wanted to hide inside that moment forever, and I thought to myself how great it was the way that certain places can gather a community into itself. Like that woodstove was doing in this joyful night – like the Greek temple did for the ancient Greeks with their daily religious rituals, like the medieval church did for the inhabitants of any given village, gathering the day to day life of the inhabitants into a meaningful totality. But today, such locations, such locales, are few and far between, and they rarely exist as permanent organizing structures for day to day life. Instead, we’ll find them scattered here and there in the wasteland of modernity. Here at a music festival an alternate community pulls the temporary inhabitants into a beautiful caring relation, and the woodstove brings us all together spontaneously under the damp sky.
We finished out the night with a handful of people softly playing forró around the picnic table, and the next morning I found myself at the woodstove again, sharing a breakfast of fruit and nuts with the others. We pattered around on some instruments, a couple people playing guitars and some hand-drums here and there, and we relaxed in the morning light, slanting sideways under the roof. Eventually, as the sun rose in the sky bringing the temperature up with it, everybody was going down to the waterfall again, now 10 people going, now 4, now 12, and now 7 coming back up the hill, and now 5 returning, etc. I went down and rinsed the sweat off under that crisp, cold water, and there was a great jam session tucked in between the rocks down there in the stream bed… a few djembes (a type of West-African hand-drum), a few digeredoos, a couple guitars, and some shakers, and they were blending in with the steady roar of the waterfall, and livening up the wilderness with their sound and with their smiles.
I headed back to the top and made my way to the kitchen, where people were sitting outside on the deck, playing music on guitars and singing along. They were playing alot of American music now, songs that I knew all the words to, so I started singing along. With many of these songs, the Brazilians don’t know all the words so they sort of mutter along to the melody at the parts they don’t know, but I would sing every word, and they were loving it… they asked me for more songs that I knew the words to and I told them which ones to play… they were learning the words from me as I went…
It was great fun, and went on for an hour or so, but then we noticed that a bunch of people were arranging themselves nearby the woodstove, which was right in the middle of the hill, above the lower cluster of tents and the row of wooden dormitories, but below the kitchen and the bar on the hill…. they were all dressed in crazy costumes, like Halloween in the U.S., but without the monsters and gory masks…. one guy dressed as Caesar with a white robe and crown of olive leaves, another as Bruce Lee, another as a character from street fighter, a slew of people dressed in the sort of typical flashy getup for Carnaval—and everybody had this orange dye smeared all over their back, and chest, and face, each in their own pattern… it came from the pod of a plant called urucum. They had a ton of these pods, still on the branches that they’d harvested from somewhere nearby, and inside each pod was 30 or 40 little pouches of a natural orange dye… they were playing music in their own wild way, probably with 15 drummers, each one banging on a different drum, some with sticks, some with hands…. a handful of brass instruments, a trumpet, a sax, some others… a clarinet… a wild school of samba in the countryside… and we all started walking to the top of the hill and out to the red dirt road that brought us there. We headed in the direction away from Munhoz, and I wondered where we were going….
Everybody was dancing to the music as we went, myself included, and I was learning how to dance properly, on the balls of my toes, taking many quick little bouncy steps as though running in place, but always on the balls of my toes, and back and forth with the rhythm, giving my calves a great workout in the process… it was a slow march down the great dirt road, winding through the trees and fields of rural Brazil, a great dust cloud rising up behind us as we went. Once in a while a car came and had to get through, and everybody cleared a way for the car to pass, and reached their hands into the car to pat the people on the arms, and those people in the cars really got a kick out of it… Imagine the strangeness of this situation for a tiny little town four hours from any major city. Here are all these maniacs playing a wild samba and kicking up dust in the country road, celebrating Carnaval without the strange hedonistic madness of that was going on in Rio de Janeiro at the very same time. And suddenly I was reminded that the other Americans were in Rio, and I wondered what sort of a time they were having. I was glad that I’d chosen to come to the countryside… and later on I learned that they’d had a bunch of drama, half of them’d had their cellphones stolen or lost, and there were 12 of them all in a one bedroom apartment, fighting and clawing for space. Quite a different scenario than what I was immersed in at Munhoz, with the great expanse of the rolling hills, the waterfall for showers, the community of music, and the pure joy of the celebration.
We arrived at a little cluster of 5 or 6 buildings, and one of them was a country store, and that was our destination. Probably 150 maniacs brought their great roar of music and talk and laughter to the store and only 20 or so people could fit inside while the music continued in the red dirt outside. I was feeling hungry and dehydrated by this point, but they didn’t have much food without gluten, so I bought a jug of orange juice, a jug of water, and a big bag of peanuts, and I munched down a bunch of peanuts and slammed a glass of orange juice right away. I put the orange juice and water and peanuts on the table so that everybody could have some, and I saw the woman I’d danced with the night before, and told her that her children and the other kids who’d come with her could help themselves to the juice and nuts and water. I settled down on the concrete slab of the store, where it met the road, making a tall curb to sit on, and just munched on peanuts as I enjoyed the unfolding of the scene. The music was still going strong, but I couldn’t see the majority of the people, they had gone around the corner now, and were taking a group photo, but I didn’t feel like getting up and getting in any photo… I just wanted to sit and enjoy this shared mood that we were all participating in. There were still a good thirty people milling around by the front of the store, and I was happy staying right where I was.
After some time, I noticed that a truck was going back and forth between the site of the festival, and the country store, bringing loads of people back to the top of the hill each time. I decided to catch a ride… I didn’t want to walk up the hill. My ankle was bothering me because I’d twisted it the day before, so I piled in with a dozen other people and we all held tight for the rumbling ride to the top, passing by dozens and dozens of people who’d started the trek up. The sun was settling low in the sky, and I headed to the deck by the kitchen to wait for the others to make their way back up. That night passed like a dream. It was the last night of the festival, and the reggae band that everybody loved the most played for over four hours, and I danced so much that my legs were sore beyond belief for the next five days after the festival. In particular, those two days after, I couldn’t do more than hobble between my bedroom and the kitchen to get water and food and then head back to bed to read and rest. Walking up or down stairs was out of the question, my muscles were so sore, my calves were done! And my lousy old joints were throbbing with that old familiar pain… the surgeries, the Lyme disease, all that nonsense always comes back to haunt me. It’s true that Munhozstock wasn’t really “Carnaval,” in the typical sense of the celebration… it was more like an anti-Carnaval, where Brazil’s counter-culture went to recharge themselves and see what community can feel like.
It’s true that the other Americans in the exchange program thought that I was kind of an idiot for missing out on the wild party of Rio, but I was thankful for the times I’d shared with all those amazing people in Munhoz, for the friendships that I’d forged at that little festival, for the celebration of life that it truly was.
Culture Shock in Trinidad & Tobago
Certainly, the first stage of entry into a new country (and new culture) is that of excitement. Trinidad and Tobago enveloped me in a variety of scents, the endless music on the streets through all hours of the day and night, and the hustle and bustle of the transportation system. It first dawned on me that I was no longer at home when I waved down my first maxi-taxi, climbed aboard, and perched myself beside a man napping in full Rastafarian gear (robes, headpiece, elaborate hair, and all). What a relief it was to walk off campus and encounter three different roadside street carts with juicy, brightly colored fruits calling your name. It was certainly not America!
The second stage is that of irritation and frustration as the differences sink in. This stage has only occurred to me in relation to food. As someone who is intolerant to gluten (found in wheat, rye, barley, oats, and spelt grains), it became difficult to find foods that I could eat without feeling ill. Trinidad and Tobago certainly has curried options, as well as callaloo, rice, fresh fruits, and channa. However, a KFC or Church’s Chicken can be found on nearly every corner. Fried foods, bake, doubles, roti, and pastries are a big part of the food culture. In my attempt to enjoy those aspects of culture, I found myself torn and frustrated.
After finding myself sick on multiple occasions, having attempted to try the local cuisine (trust me, it is difficult to turn down fresh fried and seasoned shark on Maracas Beach), the only solution seemed to be to hunt down foods that I could eat. Thus began my food travels, a great saga of cultural cuisine crafting. This story ends joyfully (and with a fully belly) in the heart of Port of Spain at The Panyol Place, a small family-owned Venezuelan restaurant. Venezuelan culture can be found dispersed throughout Trinidad and Tobago, certainly influenced by the vicinity of the large South American country. For this, I am grateful!
For the most part, I could not imagine being homesick while I hiked to the peak of mountains overlooking the rain forest found myself under a natural arch with the beautiful clear blue waters swirling beneath my feet, and stood amidst a group of dancers throwing colored powder into my hair during Phagwa! Still, there have been times when I have become frustrated, strolling back and forth down the market street or through the mall, unable to find something I need. I realize that in the United States, particularly in the area of my home, I am incredibly spoiled by the ease of attaining something. I do not need to search far and wide or call multiple stores to find what I need, because everything is within grasp. Here, and in most other parts of the world, a little more effort is required!
I recently read the following quote:
“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.”
I am lucky to have understood this mindset prior to arriving in Trinidad and Tobago. With a flexibility of mind, it is possible to seamlessly adapt to any cultural differences, however initially frustrating. I feel I have accepted Trinidad and Tobago as the new norm, at least within the context of how I am currently living. I can only imagine how many differences I will notice upon my return to the U.S.A!
*Note: this graph on Culture-Shock shows the stages that many of our study abroad participants experience. It seems like Sana is going through stage 4 (developing strategies to deal with difficulties and differences and adapting to the host culture).
Carnaval – Part 2
The first night passed pretty quickly… I didn’t know anybody, and my Portuguese still wasn’t too good, but it didn’t matter, I just kept having the same little conversation with innumerable people, about where I came from, growing up in the hills of New York and moving to Arizona after 20 years when I was going mad in that little place, about why I came to Brazil, to learn the language so that I could return for graduate school and study participatory budgeting—the remarkable form of local democracy that only such an affable, beautiful culture as Brazil could have invented—and they did invent it, back in 1989, shortly after the military dictatorship was overthrown, and then the process spread to cities on every continent in the world and continues to gain momentum to this day. Most people hadn’t heard much about it, and were interested to learn something new about their own country from this American. When I wanted to meet somebody new, I’d just ask them for a lighter or offer them a cigarette, and then I’d repeat the story again, but each time it was different, because I was talking with a different person, and the conversation demanded a particular way of telling the story, not just repeating a script, and each time new details came out that I had completely forgotten about, and before I knew it I was having whole conversations in Portuguese, making friends with the best people from São Paulo, and thoroughly enjoying every moment. Sometimes I’d just sit and listen to the sound of the soft music, rolling off the fingertips of a handful of people in the bar as they pattered away on their hand drums and gently stroked their guitars… and I’d listen to the Portuguese words of the people talking all around me but deliberately avoid understanding them just to hear the lovely melody of their language… and all that noise was filling the mysterious space between human selves, linking them all in a warm embrace, obliterating the distinction between the self and the other.
The time had come for dinner, and I parted with my newly made friends, and found the people I’d come to the festival with, and we headed over to the kitchen to wait in the great line wrapping around the veranda. When I got to the cashier, I saw a few items wrapped in plastic and some fruit, but the main course was a soup that they’d made in one huge pot, a vegan soup—the whole kitchen was vegan—that was hopeful, “maybe it’ll be gluten free too,” I thought. But the soup had gluten, it had been thickened with flour… I was horribly hungry now, I hadn’t had anything in my belly for hours, besides peanuts and wine, so I just meekly asked her what they had that didn’t have gluten. She pointed to a couple sweets wrapped in plastic—little rice cakes of sorts—and I ordered three of them and an apple. The chef saw what was going on from the kitchen, and came out to my table after I’d sat down with my friends, who were eating their hearty soup as I ate my sad rice cakes… I couldn’t understand her, my mind couldn’t focus, I was feeling lousy, thinking that I was going to starve all weekend, eating sugary rice cakes and miserable apples, and Fazzi talked to her, explaining that I couldn’t eat gluten… a pained expression rolled over her face and she told us that she’d make a special soup, just for me, without gluten. “Ah! What people! What a place!” I’m thinking to myself, ecstatic. Fazzi too was impressed, “man, that’s Brazilian hospitality at its best!” It was great, and after everyone else at our table had finished she brought out a whole pot full, and I scarfed down three big bowls out of that, and she insisted that I don’t pay for it today, but said that each day she would make sure that there was something for me without gluten available. For breakfast, I’d usually have a big slab of cheese with a couple apples and a glass of milk and a coffee, and for dinner, she just started cooking the entire course gluten free for everybody. I was in love with this place, with these people, with this country.
After some time, the main performance started up and everybody headed over under the great tent, and we all danced and sweated together for three hours before heading back over to the bar for a few more rounds of wine. This time I found a set of bongos and set to work weaving into the rhythm with everybody else, and I was squeezing them between my knees so hard that night that I had little bruises on the inside of each leg when I woke up. Eventually the bar slowly emptied out until it was just me and a few others playing music and drinking wine. We stepped outside to have a cigarette, and to have a look around, and we saw seventy or so people gathered around the main campfire, which had been setup with massive logs laid around it as benches. We headed over and the music continued there—dozens of people playing all sorts of strange little hand drums, one guy on a cajón, that wooden box that you sit on top of and slap in the front to get a variety of tones, incredibly deep booming ones in the middle of the box, and really high pitches tones when you slap the edges… and there was old Filipe, keeping that subtle rhythm on his triangle, hanging off to the side, carrying on some crazy conversation with a small group, sending them all into eruptions of laughter as he just calmly smiled and kept the rhythm with that beautiful little piece of steel… there were a couple didgeridoos and three or four guitars, and they were playing songs that everybody knew, so a great chorus of voices raised up into the night sky with the sparks and smoke from the fire, and I wondered how that old farmer on the neighboring hill was enjoying this Brazilian folk music… it’s probably a treat for him, once a year, they have this festival, and he gets to see a bunch of strange folks from the city, and listen to all that wonderful music. This folk music, is called “forró,” but it’s pronounced “fo-ho,” and it actually derives from an English phrase “for all,” but with the slow speech pattern of the northern states of Brazil where the music had originated, where the sun of the tropics slows everything down, even the language, “for all” had been transformed into “fo ho.” I played the bongo until my eyes grew tired and then headed off to the tent to get some rest for the day to come, the rhythm of the music resounding in my mind.
When I woke up, I opened up the door to the tent and laid back down, looking across to the green hill and its cattle, just as I’d imagined before… I laid there for ten minutes, gathering my thoughts, and munching on peanuts. Then I crawled out and laid in the grass for awhile, closing my eyes and feeling the sun on my face. After the rest of the gang woke up, we all headed up for breakfast, ate, and then headed down the steep slope to the waterfall… past all the tents on the hill below the kitchen, past the field of tall grass and wild flowers, past the little area that had been cleared for lumber when they built this place, and into the folds of the dense woods beneath. Wooden steps zig-zagged down the slope, weaving between vines and trees and palms and all sorts of exotic plants, with insects and birds singing and swimming through the air. I held on to the little rail that had been constructed out of saplings and made my way down. The water was cold, cold, cold! But it was so refreshing that I just stood under it for a good 2 minutes… the cold put pressure on my lungs and I had to make an effort to breath in a regular pattern… The sweat rolled off my skin, and flowed down the stream, and eventually into the Atlantic ocean, where it mixed with the sweat of all the people swimming in all the rivers in the world, and I thought of the kids in my home town, jumping off the cliffs into the Hoosic river as I had done as a kid, sweating into the eventual Atlantic and tasting the exhilaration of life with each jump—all rivers flow into the ocean, and all humans tap into the same life-source when they revel in the bliss of existence. I scrubbed down my body and figured that this shower was good enough for me, and I hopped out of there feeling like a new man, and we headed back up through the vines to the bar above, passing by gentle jam sessions in every little space as we went, and there was a great jam session in the bar again, as always, and we played and felt wonderful.
Later in the night, people learned that I could play harmonica and they wanted to hear it. I pulled it out of my pocket, and they started a blues jam and I cranked out my woeful melodies for thirty minutes, but then put it away so that people wouldn’t get sick of its cries. I remember one moment when we were playing a particularly wild part, and the guy on the ukulele was swapping melodies with me, we were going back and forth, tangling up our notes with each other and letting something new emerge among the driving rhythm around us, and all these cameras were swarming around, people were recording us playing this bluesey, funky number, me on the harp, a guy on a ukulele, two people playing guitars, four or five people playing a variety of hand drums, and Filipe on his trusty triangle. I never saw any of the videos, and I’d rather keep it that way. I prefer my memories of the feeling of the moment over the static, dry recording of the noise… any day. A moment in a jam session can’t be captured by a video camera or microphone—these devices lose all the interconnections that you can feel when it’s happening, between the various musicians, between all the people who are humming or clapping their hands or banging their hand on the table to the rhythm, or just exchanging looks with the musicians, changing the course of the melody with their very presence. It loses that glint in the eye of the guitar player outside the frame, of the smile on the face of the adorable girl rocking to the music across the room, of all the immense human connections that you can feel when you’re there inside that moment, inside that whooshing up of life and joy and beauty. The same principal applies to life in general—stop taking so many pictures, and feel your existence for all its worth!
So I was wrong okay? I can get homesick.
Culture shock is something I heard about all the time in the International House at my university. I saw it first hand in my friends who were very far away from home. Prior to leaving the states for the semester my friends and family who’d studied abroad continuously warned me about how it would feel to be away from home. At the time I was convinced I wouldn’t be shaken by a life abroad. My school is a short two hour ride from home, but in the past year and a half I spent little of my time in my suburban Tinley Park.
When everyone asked me if I was afraid if I would get homesick, I always answered NO WAY. For most of the year I could be found in Central Illinois attending school, working a part time job, or practicing with the Gamma Phi Circus. I rarely left my campus except on a few visits to see my sisters at their university another hour and a half east or to return home for big holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving. Even though Central Illinois is just a few hours ride from the Chicago suburbs, it’s a whole new world. On my first trips down to school I learned to accept that I would no longer be surrounded by houses and forests as I am at home, but by vast seas of soy and corn. I was living away from home already I didn’t feel homesick then, how could Taiwan be any different? I asked myself as my departure date neared closer and closer. I knew getting away was exactly what I needed.
When I arrived in Taiwan I only felt a little homesick after scary experiences like watching stray mangy dogs wander the streets and almost being smashed by scooters. I got little jolts of homesickness once in a blue moon. My first month here was spent exploring Taiwan. I climbed mountains, visited temples, and even bargained in the most famous street markets in the country. I didn’t even have to start classes for a few weeks; it seemed I had all the time in the world. All my friends back home were jealous, and the new ones I made here just had more to show me. I was so happy I had the opportunity to see exactly why my friends and advisers were raving about Taiwan! Then things started to change. I realized my Mandarin wasn’t as good as I thought. I started to feel isolated from the people around me. It gets harder and harder every day not to miss simple things like the way people greet each other. It seems that nowadays even certain smells and sounds can make me feel homesick.
Today I walked down the street on my way home from class. It was a normal Taipei day. The sun was not shining and there was a steady drizzle of rain dancing across the top of my umbrella. I waited with a small crowd of other university students at a crosswalk, and then made my way towards a restaurant to grab a bite to eat. On my way something caught my eye, something I had never seen before. There was a stage built over night in the middle of a street next to my favorite dumpling shop. The stage faced a small temple that I had forgotten existed because it was surrounded by stinky tofu stands. On this stage danced a woman. Clad in what I would later find out to be traditional Taiwanese gowns. Her singing wasn’t anything I had heard before. It was more nasal sounds than anything. In addition I couldn’t understand anything because she not only sang through her nose, but also in a high pitch I didn’t know was humanly possible. My Taiwanese friend explained that she was worshiping the god of the temple by performing. That was why the stage faced the temple and not the street. The entire performance was all for a god. Even more he revealed that she was not singing in Mandarin at all, but in Taiwanese which has eight tones. Running into these types of instances reminds me what a different place I decided to travel. I am a little ashamed to say that I found the performance eerie – a reminder that I was not at home, but in a foreign culture where I did not understand the customs. I left the dumpling shop without my usual box of fried dumplings.
When I finally got home, I sat on my bed and thought to myself what did I get myself into? All I want is to stuff my face with a good Chicago style pizza, some Chipotle burritos, and some good hearty bread and cheese while not listening to music that I can feel ringing inside my skull more than hear with my ears. But I can wait. I’m content to ride out this phase of the culture shock roller coaster. Only tomorrow knows where I will find myself.
*Note: this graph on Culture-Shock shows the stages that many of our study abroad participants experience. It seems like Brett is going through stages 2 and 3 (when differences become irritating and homesickness occurs). However, most students quickly recover from these phases, and Brett knows that tomorrow he will most likely find himself in another stage of the “culture shock roller coaster.”
MOVING OUT: STARTING THE FINAL STAGE
After two months of living with my wonderful host family, it is time to bid them adieu. The final month of my study abroad program is the ISP (Independent Study Project) period and in that period we are responsible for our own housing, our own travel plans, food, and other expenses. We were all a bit intimidated when it came time to find a house to rent! And of course, after two months of taking classes with the same 12 people, what could be better than getting a house together? Not all of us are living together right now as Alex is living with the guys from another program and some of the girls need to be in other cities for their research, but that leaves ten of us renting a beautiful house with one bedroom, two large salas with very comfortable couches if I say so myself, and a western style bathroom. It also has a fairly decent kitchen and sitting room! The best part however is that the house comes with a pet. Finally, I can wake up every morning to the shrill chirping of a bright yellow parakeet… Now I remember why I hated it when my little sister had pet finches in her room.
We had three days from the final day of class to the official end of our homestay. I spent those three days packing and bringing my stuff over one suitcase at a time, one bag per day to the new house. I explored to supermarkets for ingredients for food, and I looked up stove top recipes for my favorite treats that usually require baking. I waited until I officially moved out to go buy perishable ingredients and for dinner on my first night in the house, I made a nice rice pudding. Of course, before I could make the rice pudding, I had to find vanilla. In the supermarket, they had no flavorings of any kind. In the baking section, they had pre-packaged mixes, rose water, and orange blossom water. They also had vanilla sugar, orange sugar, and various types of chocolate. No pure or synthetic extracts of any type! I wound up asking the program coordinator how to say vanilla in French and Arabic and wandering up the streets in the medina to every singe spice vender…. Vanille? Vanille? La (NOT) sucre! Finally, right before I gave up and caught the bus to go down town to a big supermarket with an international section, I struck gold… or bean really. Gourmet whole vanilla beans! When I asked at the final vendor, they began to say no, then paused and fetched a bag from behind the register and asked if it had vanilla beans in it and lo and behold! I bought three whole vanilla beans for 36 Dirham… $1.50 US per bean. When I told my mom she started hinting that I should look up how to make homemade vanilla extracts since it’s higher quality than anything you can buy in a store and with the price of the beans here it’s way cheaper apparently! My mom said in the US vanilla beans cost about $5.00 per bean… I’ve never bought or used whole vanilla beans before so it was a new experience.
Next weekend I’m going to have my host family over for lunch so they can see where I’m living and sample some all-American food. I’m feeding them potato salad, coleslaw, rice pudding with raisins and toasted almonds, and southern-fried chicken like my grandma makes! Hopefully they like it! And hopefully I’ll be able to find all of the ingredients for this more efficiently and with less hilarity than finding the vanilla.
I’m down to exactly 32 days… and I have 26 days to write a 25 page paper on a migration issue in Morocco! I need to begin reading and researching and analyzing if I’m to finish it on time while also having the ability to start travelling and seeing more cities in this fair country. Until next time!
My Trinidadian Family
The first thing I felt was the heat. The very moment I stepped out of the air conditioned airport and into the sweltering heat of Trinidad and Tobago, I yanked off my backpack and freed myself of the thick, black sweatshirt. The breeze and the sunlight felt amazing on my skin after four months of chilly weather in the United States.
The second thing I felt was the hunger. After a 6:00 AM flight (for which I awoke before the first tendrils of sunrise), a flight delay, a dash from one terminal to another, and another flight with no sustenance save for the sugary sweet beverages on board, I felt famished. By the time I put sheets on my new dorm bed and changed into more weather appropriate clothing, my stomach felt like a bottomless pit.
Cue my lucky interaction with another student in Milner Hall. As I have mentioned before, Milner Hall is a huge dorm on the north side of campus with an amazing feeling of community. There are four blocks within Milner Hall, each with their own block pride. I live on I-block, a co-ed building with the liveliest bunch of people! Shortly after my arrival at the UWI campus, I found myself wandering through the Cafe (an open game room and study area in the center of the Milner courtyard) and exploring the area.
I paused to watch a large group of barefoot boys play soccer (more commonly called football) in the courtyard. They were all light on their feet, doing tricks I had only seen on television. One boy was sitting on the sidelines, waiting to jump in. He immediately engaged me in conversation, without any hesitation or the uncomfortable conversational boundaries we often encounter in the USA. When I mentioned my incredible hunger and my lack of local cuisine knowledge (i.e. where to find food), again without pause he said, “After I play in the game, I’ll check you.”
Not too long after, Glen (as this friend has come to be known), found me in my room and we wandered off into the night. Trinidad and Tobago are beautiful islands with a diverse population of locals. Despite the general kindness and calm of the place, it is certainly not a safe area for anyone to walk alone (whether male or female). In the descending darkness of the campus, Glen took me into the central area where the food courts are located. Unfortunately, it was late on a Saturday evening before the semester began, so the campus dining locations were closed.
Instead of giving up, Glen offered to take me to Curepe. Curepe is one town over from St. Augustine, the main campus, and offers a more populated area with a variety of food options. We scurried over to the bus route, which began my introduction to the public transportation system in Trinidad and Tobago. The bus route is a two-lane highway on which maxi-taxis zoom back and forth. Glen held up two fingers to indicate we were looking for a maxi with two available seats. After a few minutes of being driven past, a maxi screeched to a halt before us and we climbed inside. For a few Trinidad and Tobago dollars (TTD, called ‘tee-tee’), the maxi-taxi zipped through traffic and into the heart of Curepe.
It was not until we entered a fast food restaurant that I realized Glen had already eaten his dinner. He had come all the way to Curepe simply because of my hunger!
Although I only see Glen a few times a week now, each time with casual conversation in passing, he made a big impact on me within the first few hours of my Trinidad and Tobago arrival. I suppose what I had expected was a community of students similar to the ones at my university, who are undoubtedly kind-hearted but without the unexpected altruism I have seen here. Here, I find that there is no fear of strangers or acquaintances, and the usual boundaries are torn down. The openness and generosity I have witnessed in Trinidad and Tobago is certainly something I hope to bring back to the United States of America.
This week, I will be initiated as a Milnerite: an officially recognized member of the Milner Hall community. In our pledge, we promise to do all in our power to make the hall a beautiful, welcoming place for ourselves and each other. “For Milner, Together, We Are One!” Although I do not stay with a host family in Trinidad and Tobago, I have found a makeshift family who will help me smack mangoes off the trees in our backyard, teach me to make chow, and challenge and support me all at once.