America, land of the free, home of the... um.... hussies!

After almost 24 hours of international travel I arrived back in the Gump ('Bama for those of those out of the know) two days ago. My first layover was in Chicago, where I immediately called John to let him know that reverse culture shock is a real and terrifying thing. Bagels, miniskirts, leggings that function as pants (um, why wasn't I alerted to this horrible, let's make-people-with-thighs-feel-really-really-bad trend ahead of time?), overloads of makeup and perfume, carpeted floors, Starbucks, Southern accents... the entire experience was overwhelming at the beginning. And then I had a toasted everything bagel with veggie cream cheese and all was right with the world.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

M&E.... sort of....

The conversation at lunch this afternoon turned to monitoring and evaluation, to which a senior member of the team indicated that she thought all evaluation should be based on.... outputs and outcomes? results? impact? performance indicators? baseline surveys and analysis?...

oh no..... S.T.O.R.I.E.S!!!

Oooooh impact evaluation based on anecdotal evidence! OB.viously.

erg.

Seoul Food

Fellows are coming to town! And that means that we are celebrating with some kalbi in our bellies!!! I found the following blog post dedicated to five restaurants in Delhi and the surrounding area. I have tried the kimchi tubu and bibimbap at Restaurant de Seoul - delish with a good variety of panchan. Next up we are going to Gung Restaurant in Green Park for some authentic ko-rean bbq.

http://toutress.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/seoul-ar-cookers/

Updates to follow!

Missing DC

The countdown is in full effect! I have one more week and then I will be back in... well.... not DC but ALABAMA!!!

Unfortunately, the countdown effect means that I have been unable to concentrate on work for the past, oh, two or three weeks? I suppose that isn't true, but having just received an email from Jan (me mum) saying, "Daughter, it is lovely to hear about all your galivanting through the subcontinent, but I thought that you were there for service purposes and I have never heard you mention your work." Oh Jan, such the character.

Alas, this is still not the time to discuss work, of which there has been little inspired enough to document in this space. People used to ask what I did at the World Bank and "alleviate poverty" seemed acceptable, perhaps I will just shift it to "alleviate Indian poverty" for my time here. Thoughts?

I'm sure that once I rejuvenate, restart, and refocus in Fungomery (or "the gump" as De calls it) I will be motivated to dedicate the next six months of my life to my work. Or .... not.....

In any case, DC. I miss it. I miss happy hours and cheap beer. I miss drinking a glass of wine every night with my dinner. I miss the brisk walk downhill to 1818 H Street and the not so brisk walk uphill every night. I miss my down comforter. I miss mushrooms. I miss half priced meatloaf and bluegrass at Madam's Organ. I miss the kind Korean man at my neighborhood market who I shyly say hello and goodbye in Korean to. I miss coffee breaks and the international cafeteria at the IMF and the Bank. I miss delis. I miss wearing skirts and heels. I miss Target. I miss friends and am sad that I won't get to say goodbye to some that will leave while I'm away. I miss empanadas. I miss fall and leaves changing. I may even have missed college football season and adopting Bucky the Buckeye as my mascot of choice for a few exciting months.

Le sigh....

In any case, I do torture myself every once in a while and read through the DCist, glancing through the concerts, events, nightlife scenes, daily photographs, DC political updates etc. Check out the ists for some other US and international cities. The below conversations collected by the dcist remind me of things that I sometimes do and sometimes do NOT miss about DC. Enjoy:


One of the cool things about Metro is that the train operators can pretty much say whatever they want over the PA when they come to different stations. Sometimes they go on a long spiel about safety or about forgetting your stuff, sometimes they sound like they're trying to be voice-over actors, sometimes they tell you all the attractions around the station, and sometimes they're just amusing. We support all this.

Overheard of the Week:
On the Red line to Silver Spring around 5:30 p.m. last Friday: Metro operator over loudspeaker: "Welcome to the Yes We Can Be Polite to One Another Red Line Train to Silver Spring!"
After the jump, more weird Metro happenings, limos, and a new slang term.

Thank you, Vasco da Gama.
At Lambda Rising bookstore:
Customer: "Do you know where Australia is?"
Employee: "No, I mean I know it's not here."

Voltron boyfriend. The new cool slang phrase.
Two 20-something women in a Supershuttle full of people after Thanksgiving:
Woman 1: (talking about her sister) "I mean, it's just so weird that she's married already."
Woman 2: "Yeah, right? I don't even have a boyfriend."
Woman 1: "Yeah."
Woman 2: "I mean, I have a few partial boyfriends -- does that add up to a boyfriend?"

If only she could vote for Robert Pattinson
In front of the Barnes & Noble downtown:
A woman walks by a Twilight movie display: "Oh, a window of happiness!"
She then walks by the Obama display: "Ooh, a second window of happiness. Those are my two favorite things right now."

Don't ask him about Cool World
On the Metro:
A drunk 20-something is getting his caricature drawn by another guy on the train, talking about some girl.
Drunk: "You ever seen Betty Boop? She's hotter than f*ing Betty Boop and she's a f*ing cartoon."

Clever, but probably not going to work.
Thursday evening outside the HiMarket at 15th & Fuller:
A man in his late 40s is walking up the street, talking on his cellphone.
Man: "What do you mean you don't have time for a relationship? You spent two hours in the bathroom!"

Is it against the law to ask if someone has a moment for the environment?
Orange line to West Falls Church on Monday morning
A rider is in the middle of a 10-minute harangue of another rider drinking coffee about the dangers of violating the Metro rules against eating/drinking/etc.
Rider: "...And it’s a criminal offense! When you apply for a job, you’ll have to own up to having a criminal record."
Coffee sipper: "I already have a criminal record; I work for Greenpeace."

There's some crazy stuff down there.
Two members of the cleaning staff are walking through the office.
Woman: "You telling me you ain't never been to Filene's Basement?!"
Man: [exasperated] "Girl, I don't know Filene!"

Saturday night at Argonne and Columbia Road in Adams Morgan:
A stretch limo is parked outside an apartment building. The back window is rolled down
A young woman's voice from the window: "Text Bill and tell him to bring down some porn."

dinos

Aggressive

It is almost certainly a bad idea to engage in the type of behavior I have exhibited in the past few days... twice.... by

Flicking. these. daggum. staring. men. the freak. off.

I know, I know, as a gesture it probably means more to me than the receiver, but it's eerily empowering in a weird I've-given-you-a-chance-to-stop-staring-by-raising-my-hands-in-exasperation-with-a-"what you looking at"-face-or-peering-brazenly-over-the-top-of-my-sunglasses-with-a-"what you looking at"-face sort of way.

Perhaps it's an overconfidence in my newly acquired kickboxing skills (um, clearly not, but I AM Asian and therefore inherently skilled in all martial arts which, like, the whole WORLD knows so I don't know why you're messing with me). Or perhaps it's the mace that I carry with me that gives me a false sense of security.

In any case, I should probably stop. We saw what my aggressive behavior got me into in Korea and definitely don't need a repeat here.

Lions in Lucknow

Well, not really. But sort of. This weekend I headed to Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, the state to the east of Delhi. Since I have already related my train experience in the previous post there is no need to delve into more description on that front.

Highlights of the trip:

(1) T-rex at the zoo:
Because the LP described the zoo as having “enclosures [that] aren’t the worst in India,” we made our way there on the first day. Unfortunately, all the danger signs were in Hindi, so we are hoping that the one near the decaying, dilapidated, overgrown-with-weeds-former hyena pen did not say something like, “Warning: they are hungry. As long as you can outrun your mates you are fine” sort of thing. The diversity of animals was actually quite impressive, although the elephant chained to the ground and the hippo being fed grass from zoo visitors about a foot away were not.

Photographic evidence:
LIONS! Ok, so it's not a lion, it’s a fake cheetah standing over a fake gazelle with fake blood dripping down its fake mouth. Still disturbing.

and TIGERS!

and (sloth) BEARS! Oh my!

(2) Bara and Chota Imambaras: Impressive tombs with accompanying mosques. As I was sitting around minding my own business, a youngish gentleman approached me and informed me that my “backside is open” which I checked to make sure was not plumber’s crack, but merely the bit of back flesh between my shirt and jeans. I rectified the situation and proceeded to gaze at all the midriffs revealed by women’s saris and wondered about the validity of this comment. Same same, but somehow…. different…



(3) Residency: Ruins and gardens from the British Raj era. The open green space is apparently also the local hold-hands-and-sit closely together spot for only 5 rupees (105 rupes for frrrrnrrrrs). Que scandalous!

Traveling with Anne

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

“Here are the best two prayers I know: ‘Help me, help me, help me,’ and ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’ A woman I know says, for her morning prayer, ‘Whatever,’ and then for the evening, ‘Oh, well,’ but has conceded that these prayers are more palatable for people without children.”

“Don’t forget, God loves us exactly the way we are, and God loves us too much to let us stay like this.”

“God: I wish you could have some permanence, a guarantee or two, the unconditional love we all long for. ‘It would be such skin off your nose?’ I demand of God. I never get an answer. But in the meantime I have learned that most of the time, all you have is the moment, and the imperfect love of people.”

“’I guess it’s like discovering you’re on the shelf of a pawnshop, dusty and forgotten and maybe not worth very much. But Jesus comes in and tells the pawnbroker, “I’ll take her place on the shelf. Let her go outside again.’”

Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance,
and there is only the dance. ~ T.S. Eliot

“Man is born broken. He lives by mending. The grace of God is glue.” ~ Eugene O’Neill

The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe. ~ Joanna Macy

“There are picture of the people in my family where we look like the most awkward and desperate folk you ever saw, poster children for the human condition. But I like that, when who we are shows. Everything is usually so masked or perfumed or disguised in the world, and it’s so touching when you get to see something real and human. I think that’s why most of us stay close to our families, no matter how neurotic the members, how deeply annoying or dull – because when people have seen you at your worst, you don’t have to put on the mask as much. And that gives us license to try on that radical hat of liberation, the hat of self-acceptance; we’re allowed to escape from underneath one of the fatwas.”

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances.
That’s not for human beings. Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move. Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened.
Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading.
Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
~ Rumi

Random Acts of Kindness

On my nine, yes, nine hour train ride from Delhi to Lucknow this weekend I sat between, amongst, in the throngs of many people. I was on the second class train, which in Indian terms means everyone and their mother, brother, sister, two babies, huge suitcases, goods wrapped in large cloth sacks, mamaw and papaw and enough tiffins for a day’s journey need apply. It was on this journey that I realized how incredibly old and set in my ways I have become.

Caro at 23 traveling in India for the first time: “Ooh! Second class train, what a fun adventure! We should only travel on second class to really get a feel for India!”

Caro at 27 living in India for the first time: “Holy crap. Dear dear God, create within me an effective, strong bladder stopper so that I will not have to take a pee pee on this dirty train because there is a huddle of 30 men and women in front of the squatter train toilet that I will have to maneuver through where I know I will drop that one piece of tissue that I have brought to the loo through the hole that is the toilet. If you help me resist the temptation of chai, coffee, and water I will be dehydrated but forever grateful. Amen.”

But I digress.

On the train, in these throngs of people pushing and shoving to board and exit my train car (there are assigned seats, but there are also many “general” seats that are basically standing room only) I began to notice some random acts of kindness which, though small in gesture, have always meant much to me in meaning.

The sixty-plus auntie who must must must be in far greater back stiffness pains than I shifts her weight and lovely sari to allow a young mother with a sick two-year-old child with a “general” seat to skootch beside her.

The kind uncles in my compartment (“compartment” is used quite generously here) who give me some of their snacks and ask about experience in India so far. And even though human rights (HR) somehow turns to human resources (also, um, HR), I am warmed by their small acts of generosity towards a perfect stranger. As the train was pulling into the station at Lucknow, one of the kind gentleman said to me that it was good I was open to new things, that although taking food from strangers is dangerous, he was happy I let him feed me his masala cheesy poofs.

It reminded me of another act of kindness that I used to see all the time in Korea that I wish could translate to the States and elsewhere. Any time a “senior citizen” (affectionately known as halmonis and harabojis, grandmother and grandfather, respectively) boards a bus in Korea, their juniors immediately offer their seats, giving them first priority to rest their feet. That in and of itself would be miraculous to see in DC. But it’s what sometimes happens after, when the high school student or young mother, who is inevitably carrying a paper bag because Ko-reans love to carry paper bags the time (fact), stands up and offers his/her seat that makes me smile to myself. The halmoni or haraboji insists on taking this package and placing it in his/her lap, carrying it through the rest of the bus ride for the person now standing.

It’s such a feeling of community, this short bus ride across town, where everyone is helping to relieve a burden in some small way.

These small acts, however, will not change my mind about second class seater trains. I may be an elitist, old, stubborn, rejecting-the-simple-volunteer-lifestyle-outright snob, but my back and neck will not forgive me if they are forced in such contortions again.

More on Lucknow in a bit.

Soko and their bulgogi

Cuh-razy Ko-reans...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/09/AR2008120902742.html?hpid=moreheadlines

Best quote of the article: "It is our national character to get upset easily and then to forget all about it," said Park Eun-ah, 48, a romance novelist who lives in Seoul and Paris.

Falling Man

Falling Man by Don Delillo

“’What I’m saying is simple. This is for them,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ ‘It’s theirs,’ he said. ‘Don’t make it yours.’

“The world changes first in the mind of the man who wants to change it."

‘What we carry. This is the story in the end,’ she said remotely.

“This was the man who would not submit to her need for probing intimacy, overintimacy, the urge to ask, examine, delve, draw things out, trade secrets, tell everything. It was a need that had the body in it, hands, feet, genitals, scummy odors, clotted dirt, even if it was all talk or sleepy murmur. She wanted to absorb everything, childlike, the dust of stray sensation, whatever she could breathe in from other people’s pores. She used to think she was other people. Other people have truer lives.”

“’Who is that man? You think you see yourself in the mirror. But that’s not you. That’s not what you look like. That’s not the literal face, if there is such a thing, ever. That’s the composite face. That’s the face in transition.’”

“’Some people are lucky. They become who they are supposed to be,’ he said. ‘This did not happen to me until I met your mother. One day we started to talk and it never stopped, this conversation.’”

“Fortune favors the brave. He didn’t know the Latin original of the old adage and this was a shame. This is what he’d always lacked, that edge of unexpected learning.”

Unanswerable questions

Please do not be offended if you are a perpetrator of the following: asking unanswerable questions. The below questions are in no way offensive, but they are all-encompassing in nature, leaving no possible way to give an adequate response that will (1) make me feel like I have done justice to the answer and (2) satiate your supposed interest in my life and deeply personal experiences. I understand that friends, family and some brazen new acquaintances are inquisitive, but the following are a few sample questions that if possible, please avoid asking:

After returning from two years in Jeonju, South Korea, a town that no one except for Koreans has heard of:
Question: So, how was Korea?
Awwww schucks, let me try and summarize two years of my life for you....
Answer: Yeah, it was great, thanks for asking!

For the past three months in India, in Delhi, a city far far away from Mumbai....
Question: So, how is India?
Hm, this is part of the reason I started a blog, so I'm going to give you the blog address, please review my previous posts and then let us chat.
Answer: Yeah, it's great, thanks for asking!

Upon finding out that I am (1) adopted and (2) grew up in Montgomery, Alabama...
Question: So you are adopted and grew up in Montgomery? How was that?
Seriously? Um, let me take you through my inter-racial adoption and what it was like to grow up in an essentially homogenous little hometown... in a nutshell.....
Answer: Yes, it was fine, thanks for asking!

Trust me, I have also been guilty of asking these types of questions and don't at all get offended when they are posed, but also hope that the person asking the questions understands the nuance of experience and takes my brief, practiced responses with the understanding that if you really want to know me and how years of my life have affected my personal development and growth, we need to do it over a glass of wine with a few hours to spare.

And last, but certainly not least, my all-time favorite line of questioning. Despite understanding what the person is asking, I've found more enjoyment in making the questioner squirm a bit.
Q: So, where are you from?
A: (here we go...) I'm American.
Q: No, where are your parents from?
A: Illinois.
Q: No, where are your parents from?
A: Um, Chicago and Peoria, Illinois.
Q: (Ooh, this is becoming a frustrating conversation, does she not understand me?) But, um, I think you look Asian.
A: Yes.
Q: You are Japanese?
A: (le sigh) No.
Q: Chinese?
A: No.
Q: (pause, what the hell are the other Asian countries?)
A: (Fine, time to put you out of your misery) I'm Korean.
Q: Ahhh, yes, I thought you look Asian, not American.
A: (bloody hell) YOU look American. (Bah!) I'm Asian-American.
Q: Yes, you are Asian.

Bah!

Carnivorous cravings

Oh will power, where hath thou gone?

After receiving my care package from John (via Adam and Vidya) about two and a half weeks ago, I finally opened up my second and last package of beef jerky last night. And somehow, I managed to eat. the. whole. thing.

I am not a red meat eater at heart, I hardly ever order steaks at restaurants and only cook beef because John would revolt if I only stuck to fish and chicken.

But India has revealed the carnivore inside me (thus spake a former pescatarian), and I can hardly wait to sink my teeth into a juicy burger, cut my steak knife into a juicy filet mignon, and eat as much teriyaki beef jerky as my little heart desires. Three weeks from now, it will all be a reality.

Yuuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Frrrrnrrrrrs

I have recently begun the antisocial ritual of walking to the nearby restaurant for lunch, escaping the rambunctious office chatting and sedentary way of life for a midday stroll and sustenance. In my “Florey, party of one” lunch this afternoon, a group settled in the table next to mine, two Western females accompanied by a group of six Indian men, apparently their colleagues as a going away lunch celebration. I do not know if my fellow fellows have experienced this, but in listening to their conversation I began to feel ashamed, ashamed of my foreignness, ashamed of their behavior as foreigners and their unapologetic nature in not understanding or tempering their attitudes in this mixed company. Clearly, I am completely unaware of the context, what their relationship with these men has been, what the office culture is that they have experienced, the length of their stay in India, their understanding of Indian culture and will offer the disclaimer that I am by nature a judgmental person. I will also note that in the three months that I have lived in India, I have unfortunately begun to stare (yes yes, although I have vehemently criticized the same behavior, I still engage in it when I happen upon white people in this city) and eavesdrop on conversations in my mother tongue.

My first cringe-worthy eavesdrop was after the group had just sat down and one of the foreign women, who from the looks of it was significantly younger than her male colleagues, asked the group, “So what will you have boys?” Boys? Really? You just called this group of senior colleagues boys? Argh. The women went on to describe Geneva, their apparent next professional destination. Clean, organized, beautiful, safe; trying to distinguish this other city far away as distinctly as possible from that which they now inhabit. The women discuss the languages they speak, the countries they have visited, the financial freedom they have to be unemployed for some periods of time, the flippant way they say that they will live in servant’s quarters if they are unable to find housing. I have been trying to pinpoint which part of this conversation irks me so for I approach it with similar preconceived notions regarding the men they are speaking with. Is it my judgment or theirs that should be tempered?

It reminded me of my first visit to India in 2004 when accosted by a group of children begging for money I replied that I had none to give, that I was poor. My travel companion and close friend looked at me in a way that she had never before and has not since during the course of our friendship and told me never to say that I was poor in India, never to try and indicate that I had nothing to give, that somehow my situation mirrored these children’s in some way. It was a moment when I recognized how skewed my perspective, how much I needed to shift my frame of reference to an entirely new context.

Thanksgiving Indo-style

Yesterday I finally had the chance to celebrate Thanksgiving properly. We started bright and early to make sure we got the freshest veggies after having brined the turkey the night before. Yes, there is turkey in India and was acquired through some random French farm/Canadian embassy connection. We pulled no stops in the Thanksgiving extravaganza - turkey, gravy, stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes (with marshmallows!), green beans almondine, succotash, fresh pumpkin pie, lemon tart, almond cake, fresh fruit, tomato and parsley bruschetta and lots and lots of vino.

A dinner party of 14. Tons of leftovers despite my concerns we would not have enough. The realization how much I missed cooking (cockroaches crawling out of cupboards in my old flat forever deterred me from any type of cooking there).

I thought the night was beginning to take a turn for the worse when there was a request to sing all the national anthems represented, but we only made it through the American and French....
At which point there was a request for the Indian national anthem, which took us to Tagore and the Bangladeshi national anthem, which took us to watching the "Where the Hell is Matt?" video (link=song in video sung in Bengali based on poem by Tagore). Which is where we ended our night, watching Matt dancing in PNG, at the DMZ and strutting his Bollywood moves in Gurgaon.

Great company. Good food. Excellent Thanksgiving.