The Hitchhiker's Guide to Chile

            That time I ended up gazing at a Chilean valley from the back of a pickup truck had begun earlier that day with a pessimistic political discussion with an artist.  He asked me why I was in Chile and I explained that I was studying political and economic issues in Santiago, comparing them to Beijing, China.  He chuckled and asked me what I had found.  I assured him the Chilean politics were not as bad as he might think.  That sustainable agriculture seemed a distinct possibility.  That changes in the Constitution would lead to more freedom of expression.  That the Internet can bring people together to solve problems in labor rights.  That the energy cuts due to lack of resources is helping save the planet.  He shook his head and asked me if I was drunk.

            I hadn't been drinking.  I woke up early, used all the hot water in our eight-person hostel room, lingered with my friends over breakfast, and walked to the bus station.  This artist was the first inhabitant I met in Pisco Elqui, a town nestled in the Elqui Valley where the production of the grape brandy pisco takes place.  We heard that even in the winter, the valley had exquisite views.  No one informed us that what we thought was a nuisance in travel, two hours sitting in a small bus from La Serena to Pisco Elqui, was a cheap tour of natural wonders.  We saw the sights we came to see before we had even arrived.

            "I'm not drunk...yet," I clarified.  "Where can I try pisco?"

            The artist directed me up the hill and to the left to a distillery.  I bought a copper bracelet from him in gratitude.  Gathering my friends from watching a fire juggler and his circus troupe practicing in the plaza, we started the climb.

            After turning the corner we encountered the same views as from the bus ride: evidence of Chile's agricultural economy.  The shadows from low hanging clouds moved quickly over the swatches of vineyards, potato farms, and guava orchards.  Patches of green and orange persevered despite the cold and windy winter.  The mountain ahead had a snowy cap.  The road we walked cut through a crumbly brown mountain dotted with cacti.

            We waved our thumb at any passing car, hoping to speed up our journey so we could catch the bus back in time.  A pickup truck with two men and a cactus slowed down.  We shoved the cactus in a corner and hopped on, giggling at our success.  They stopped in front of Los Niscos Distillery ten minutes later, wishing us well and scolding us for trampling their cactus.  They were going to plant it and now they couldn't.  But quickly they shrugged and slammed the truck door closed.

            "Buy cherry liqueur instead of pisco," they recommended.  "And good luck finding a way back."

            After passing the entrance to the distillery, a teenager warned us of pisco's sting, inviting us to go to the rodeo with her and her father instead.

            "What about cherry liqueur?" I asked.  She dismissed the drink with a swish of her hand, beckoning us to follow her.

            We stayed with the family all afternoon, meeting the teenager's grandmother after the rodeo at an artisanal market, where of course I ate my fill of the free homemade chocolate and warm bread offered.  When night fell, the driver brought us blankets as we shivered on the journey back.  They were not interested in our stories nor did they want to tell us theirs.  They seemed surprised by how surprised we felt by their generosity, shaking their heads whenever we offered to repay them.  Reciprocal relationships seem integral to any society--my perplexity prevented me from fully enjoying the rest of the ride.  Instead of analyzing, perhaps I should have had some of Pisco's pisco.

On the Outskirts of A Protest

            I am a complacent American.  By reading the daily newspaper and contemporary literature, listening to National Public Radio, and observing the hundreds of people I pass by, I know suffering exists in the United States.  My country is burdened by unemployment, malnutrition, poor education quality, education disparity, unsupportive welfare, natural disasters of increased severity due to climate change, stringent immigration policies, and more.  I could find others who believe in my political views and shout into a megaphone.  I could wear ridiculous costumes and harass pedestrians.  I could stop traffic. 

            But I haven't.

            In Santiago, a well-publicized labor union protest barred us from accessing the Diego Portales University campus where we attended our lectures as part of the Columbia Global Scholars Program.  The day's events of presentations by my professor Dr. Pablo Pinto about the politics of investment, economic actors, and interest groups, along with a guest lecture by a sociology professor on natural disasters and development, were all cancelled.  The alternative seemed obvious: go to the event that ruined our plans and observe the protest.

            After spending the morning nearby at the opulent La Moneda, the Chilean equivalent of the White House, we walked from downtown to the adjacent neighborhood.  Throngs of people were gathering but no one had moved.  Some stood in the empty street, spray painting white bedsheets and carefully applying glitter to cardboard signs.

            Drummers began sounding a steady beat, too fast for a march.  A short man in his fifties began hopping to the beat, gesturing emphatically and shouting over the drums.  I approached him to listen to his thoughts on labor rights and minimum wage.  "I am drunk," he was yelling, over and over again.  I laughed and shuffled my feet to the beat.

            The crowd grew.  Suddenly, without a signal, everyone began moving out the plaza and up the adjacent boulevard.  The Central Worker's Union merged with streams of students protesting Chile's most contentious topic, free education.  The groups united in their frustration and passion for change.  As the plaza drained of pedestrians, I nervously joined the crowd.  I had a copy of my passport in my bag and I considered myself a decent sprinter.

            Here's the thing about protests: they start off boring.  Everyone walks very slowly because no street can support hundreds of people walking comfortably.  The catchy chants blur into a cacophony.  One goal forks into a pandemonium voicing discontent.  No one leads yet everyone follows. 

            We soon diverged from the crowd, getting lunch in a local produce market and watching the protest from the television news.  I felt like a fraud.  I hid from the police and ate soup while Chileans fought for higher minimum wage so they could survive.  For Chilean workers, the possibility to change economic policy outweighed their risk of arrest.

            From a distance, I watched teenagers smashing traffic lights.  I heard the pops of tear gas canisters.  I smelled the acrid smoke of a public bus that had been lit on fire.  I felt the wind shift as the Chilean police zoomed past on matching green motorcycles to quell the unrest.             

            I boarded the metro and the chaos faded.

            Chileans not only have a high awareness of their country's socioeconomic problems but also an awareness of its policies and how to implement reforms.  They have concrete ideas for change, rather than just a vague desire for a better future.  Chile's minimum wage is 193,000 pesos and the cost of higher education puts many families into debt.  Protests last year helped pass a bill in the Senate that increased minimum wage by six percent.  The Chileans march in the streets so frequently because their government might listen.

            I listened that afternoon.  Had I been able to attend class, I would have listened in lecture.  But at the protest, I really listened. 

            And then I left.

A Vegan's Visit to Agrosuper

             A chain of gutted pigs moves along a conveyor belt supported from the ceiling, swaying from the sudden stops and starts of machinery.  Watery blood from the gaping hole in the pigs' stomachs drips down their back legs, forming a red stream into a nearby floor drain.  The carcasses had just been cleaned, hairy bristles glistening in the fluorescent factory lights, but the animals seemed filthy to me.  I averted my eyes by looking down at my shoes, which I had just wrapped in white plastic.  They were already maroon.

            The Agrosuper factory tour guide had spared me the gruesome aspects of the Chilean pork industry, using an animated powerpoint to explain the slaughterhouse procedures starting from a truck full of pigs to the multiple sanitation measures used in their slaughter.  The animals have a relaxing two hour hot shower before being humanely gassed and passed through a series of steps that make them less and less animal.  By the time they are gutted and hung on the conveyor belt by their front legs, they are pork.

            During the factory presentation that morning, my tour guide assured us that the pigs did not suffer.  They did not bleed until after death and they were not cut up until after they had bled.  The tour guide happily gave statistics about the chemistry of the toxic gas and the water temperatures of each washing.  Eight thousand two hundred pigs are slaughtered per day.  No evidence proved that the pigs did not suffer.  How does one determine the pain levels of a sentient creature that cannot communicate with us?

            In the presentation room I donned a plastic hairnet, long buttoned jacket, and galoshes.  I scoured my hands with hot water and stepped on an electric-powered scrub at the threshold to the production rooms.  Soothed by the scent of soap and comforted by the clean attire, I was unprepared for what confronted me in the next room.

            Rows of stacked conveyor belts compartmentalize the pork products.  Heads roll by at eye level.  Above them are slabs of red meat with varying amounts of white fat.  In another part of the main room, ears pass by at a rapid speed since that part of the pig is not as valuable as others.  Hooves move at a similar pace.  A select group of women handle the most prized cuts, each one color checked to meet Asian market standards before the meat passes onwards.

            Agrosuper exports sixty percent of their meat, with seventy percent of that going to Asia.  Even though the Chileans do not enjoy most of the pork processed in the factory, the workers I pass seem connected to their product.  Everyone greets me amiably as they handle stretch hoses, cleave pig parts, or separate the impure meats from the conveyor belt.  Men whiz by in small cars, lifting packages and transporting them to other areas.  The women make jokes and analyze the newest fashion trends with each other while scrutinizing pork chops.

            "You look so sad," my tour guide remarks, touching my shoulder.

            "I'm okay," I assure her.  The face mask hides my tears and labored breathing.  When I clutch at my ribcage, it is because I feel nauseated.  It is not from the drop in temperature, colder than the winter wind outside to preserve the meat.

            After the tour, the tour guide passes out baseball caps with the slogan "Agrosuper Alimenta," Agrosuper feeds.  I keep it to remind myself how I witnessed my nightmare and walked out of it, hands raw from washing them three times in a futile attempt to forget the shreds of discarded skin and crinkly fat, and the constant rolling of pork parts.  

Dandelion School

            The Dandelion School motto reads in Chinese characters ‘confidence, happiness, looking for truth, and creativity’ painted over rainbow streaks.  The Daxing campus glints with glass and ceramic mosaics in dancing flower shapes, an art project created by the students in collaboration with the artist Lily Yeh.  The color, as well as the four goals, attempts to hide the pain that pervades the school, which provides middle school education for the children of migrant workers.

         According to statistics provided by the school, China has 236 million migrant workers, most of whom are peasant workers.  3.7 million of those migrants live in Beijing, accounting for 490,000 school aged children in need of education.  Most of these students lack the fundamentals of education because of the poverty of their native villages.  Though Chinese middle schools focus on preparing students for the highly competitive high school entrance exam, Dandelion School aims to give students a broader academic foundation by fostering critical thinking, interdisciplinary studies, literary and artistic pursuits, and a healthy lifestyle.  This nurturing approach seems a hefty task to accomplish in just three years.

            I entered a middle school classroom packed with five rows with six students each.  All the children folded their hands together, elbows resting on their metal student desks.  A few kicked their legs in anticipation.  "Hello," they sang in unison.  My Global Scholars classmates and I lined up at the front of the room, pointing to the countries where we were from: the United States, India, Benin, South Korea, Taiwan, and Nicaragua.  The students only knew where the United States and Taiwan were.

         For a challenge as vast as that of the education of the migrant worker community, the Dandelion School has succeeded in many areas.  Though the class sizes are large, teachers give attention to the children by dividing them into levels based on math scores.  Testing serves only as a method for assessing the school's success – the seventh grade teacher assured us that the curriculum focuses on student progress and a passion for learning rather than statistics.

            The school structure uses collaboration and small group learning, veering away from the standard Chinese system in favor of catering to the students' unique backgrounds.  The computer teacher gave me an example of an objective assignment: her students would look through manuals and figure out the answers for themselves instead of memorizing given answers.  The extracurricular activities also stimulate curiosity through alternative approaches to environmental conservation by maintaining a waterfall that powers the electricity, a social enterprise program that combines the cultural tradition of handicraft with business experience, and performing and visual arts clubs that foster confidence.

            I sat with four students, trying to convey with as few and simple words as possible the task we had given the class.  The project involved creating a new world, using categories such as food, technology, and clothing.  Give eleven year olds the freedom to develop their own world and what do they draw?  Chopsticks with a fork and knife set at the ends, cows that milk orange juice, white and brown rice that tastes like white and dark chocolate, and apple pizza burgers.  Though eager to imagine a place outside the Dandelion School, they hesitated to share their imagination with the class.

            Most of the resources for their extracurricular activities, as well as renovations, supplies, and food, have all been donated by foreign companies.  The Dandelion School does not solicit aid--companies traveling in Beijing often seek out a token underprivileged school.  But despite all of the unsolicited contributions of basketball hoops, library books, and solar panels for hot showers, the students' future seemed grim.  Without hukou, the government social security and identification system for Beijing citizens, the students will never receive the same career and healthcare opportunities as the true urbanites.

            China repeats the word "innovation" as the key for future development, but creating innovation is a nebulous process.  That afternoon's exercise on utopias sparked a pathway to development, the topic of this year's Columbia Global Scholars Program.  But these students may never have the opportunity to develop their imagination beyond the classroom.

Running from the Smog

Because I am a human alarm clock, I enjoy the color blue.  I have the unfortunate habit of waking up at five in the morning regardless of what time I fall asleep.  At Peking University in the northwestern corner of Beijing, I would wake up to run as the sun rose.  Circling the campus lake called No Name and the small pathways through willow trees and monuments, I chased the sun as it turned the sky yellow and peach, settling on a vibrant blue.  Then the smog set and all turned grey.  Beijing's pollution won the battle every morning; when it robbed me of color, I declared my jog over.

The mornings were my time to observe quiet Chinese daily life, with just my huffing and Ke$ha's music as a backdrop.  The red haze of grit cast shadows on the teenage couples, the tourists taking photographs of campus statues, and the shirtless men playing basketball and tennis in the outdoor courts.  Some late mornings I could taste the grit as I ended my jog and circled back to my room.  The polluted red atmosphere seemed like a jab at a Communist agenda.

Every morning locals flocked to No Name Lake, a dark and dusty teal-colored body of water separated into sections by three footbridges.  The lake had floating vegetation and swarms of insects, but the tranquil atmosphere attracted elderly tai chi practitioners, power walkers, fraught Peking University students taking a short library break, and even a film crew.  One man gestured dramatically at the water one morning, reciting a Shakespearean soliloquy in emphatic iambic rhythm.  While I ran, no one stared or approached me even though jogging is uncommon in Beijing.  I felt like one of the local university students--maybe one of the misfits.

After a breakfast buffet of vegetables and sweet buns with my professor Dr. Xiaodan Zhang and some of my Columbia Global Scholars classmates, discussing our observations from the previous day's site visits or questioning the political theory readings for that week, I embarked on another grey day of polluted air and scintillating conversations at site visits planned for us.  Our trips comprised of state-owned enterprises, non-government organizations, companies, schools, or government ministries.  Sometimes we visited three sites in one day.  At each place I felt distinctly foreign; they treated us with nervous respect, hoping to convey enough information without defying the political agenda they represented.

Beijing's notorious pollution blurred the details of setting, allowing my imagination free rein.  The clouded neon lights created colored fog, muting the city.  The air indicated that the city had its imperfections and the language barrier did not stop me from observing this.  At many of our site visits the Chinese officials tried to show us rapid economic growth, a diminishing GNI coefficient, new cities, bilateral and multilateral trade, and innovative business models.  However, when questioned about healthcare policies, unemployment, poor education systems, labor rights, media censorship, and urbanization, they shirked our queries.  The Chinese officials replied in a smog of obfuscation.

Da Hongmen Market

Da Hongmen Market's facade looks like a sports arena, with white concrete spanning a whole city block.  Outside, fruit vendors stand silently by their carts of mangosteen, cherries, bananas, and apples.  Crowds of people mill about in every direction, slapping against the transparent plastic strips that cover the entrance.  Da Hongmen does not seem like a social mall: customers arrive with a specific purpose and leave quickly with those items.  The market sells an overwhelming number of things.  Since the market organizes its products by floor, people go directly to the area that features the products they came to purchase.

            On each floor, the rows of stalls sell very similar items.  On the second floor, specializing in women's cotton shirts and skirts, the clothes blur as customers walk down the aisles.  Adjacent stalls often sell the exact same garment style, including mistranslated English phrases, misspelled designer brands, bright colors, sequins or rhinestones, or lace.  The notable stores were those that differed from the trend, selling clothing from Chinese ethnic groups or specialty clothing like wedding dresses.

            Since the Da Hongmen stalls lack variety, merchants distinguish themselves through quality and customer service rather than creative design.  The owner does not always oversee the stall, instead hiring a young woman to handle business transactions.  These women sit on small stools, wearing the clothes they sell.  No one tries to usher passersby into a stall.  No stalls advertise limited discount sales or a new commodity.  Incentives do not seem necessary in Da Hongmen Market.

            After asking the bored stall clerks if they were the owner, their boss would rush over and tell us about slowing growth or new business plans.  He--always the owner was a he--would stand with his hands on his hips, nodding emphatically.  If the owner were not at the market, the young stall clerks would discuss the doldrums of market work more honestly.

            "Would you move somewhere else?  What would you do?" I asked.

            Most had never considered deviating from the paths set out for them by their family.  If they had dreams, they did not care to share them with an inquisitive foreigner.

            "I'm the third generation in this business," a fur merchant boasted, twirling the silver rings on his fingers.  "I wouldn't change my life for anything."  The front of his shop was composed entirely of a large swath of shiny metal to attract customers.  His store was on the top floor, the level designated for expensive goods. 

            Location seems to affect business almost as much as the actual products sold.  With only one staircase in the market, those stalls next to the stairs have a greater advantage over those stalls further away.  If a stall sells items that do not match the floor's theme, the rent is cheaper.  For example, on the third floor, which specializes in trousers, I spoke with the owner of a stationery supplies stall.  The owner could not find a space on the first floor, but has been doing well regardless.  Most of his customers are other shopkeepers because they know where he is located.

            Da Hongmen Market vendors have their origins outside Beijing.  Most are the second or even third generation in that business, even though I expected Da Hongmen to be the destination for first generation entrepreneurs hoping to pursue greater opportunities outside of their rural hometowns.  Some vendors spoke of their hometown with nostalgia, and chose to send their children to school back there to expose them to their traditions, rather than a school in Beijing.  But they all associated Beijing with prosperity and no one wanted to leave the city permanently.

            Beijing carries a sense of hope for migrant workers, as if it were the city of possibility.  After learning about the discrimination that migrant workers face in Beijing as strangers in their own city, their positive connotations associated with Beijing perplexed me.  The overwhelming bustle of people, schools churning out business majors like a factory, and factories churning out smoke and nitrous oxides seem to counter that optimism.

Notes from a Vagrant Daughter (excerpt)

            It is very easy to sit at a Think Coffee in, say, the Village, or a Joe in the Upper West Side, and to believe in the pervasive illusion that New York is only five hours from California by air.  The truth is that Think Coffee and Joe are only five hours from California by air.  New York is somewhere else.

            Many people in the West (or "back West," as they say in New York, although not in Think Coffee or Joe) do not believe this.  They have been to Union Square or to Midtown, have biked down the Hudson Greenway and have seen the East River glazed by the afternoon sun off Long Island City, Queens, and they claim to have been to New York.  They have not been to New York, and probably never will be.  I happen to know because I come from New York, come from a white Latino family that has only recently been in central, gentrified Brooklyn.

            You might protest that no family who has "recently" moved here knows anything.  But it is characteristic of New Yorkers to speak grandly of immigration as if they had just stepped into the Consulate General office to receive their approved papers, and studied facts that not even fourth generation Americans know about their country in order to pass the citizenship test.  Excelsior--"Ever Upward"--as the state motto has it.  Such display of ancestry makes authority nebulous; my own childhood was saturated with too many accents to emulate and too many cultures with which to identify.  But that is not all I want to tell you about: what it is like to come from a place like Brooklyn.  I want to tell you that, but I want to tell you what it is like to never feel like you've come from any place at all.  If we can agree on that contradiction, then perhaps I can make you understand New York and the vibe it carries, for Brooklyn is New York, and New York is a place in which the anonymous chaos and a sense of hyperreal paranoia meet in awkward camaraderie; in which the skin tingles with the weight of exhaust fumes, vibrates with traffic honks, and glows with urban decay because here, beneath the shadows of streetlamps, is where the final stop lies.

Thump

            It is pointless to ask for directions to Soi Cowboy because the street stands out from all other Bangkok alleys with its glaring neon lights and thumping bass sounds.  During the day the traffic of pink and yellow tuk tuks, motorcycles, and Toyotas rival the music with beeps.  At night the street becomes more imposing and one senses that touching this bright city would feel cool and sharp as metal. 

            Soi Cowboy roars with drunken cries for sex.  Bar trucks line the perpendicular road, Sukhumvit, so that pedestrians can drink wine coolers and Mai Tais until they shake off the shame of approaching Soi Cowboy's scintillating entryway.  Truthfully, no one in Bangkok judges the visitors of Soi Cowboy.  Bangkok streets are rife with male, female, and gender ambiguous prostitutes.  The night markets sell vibrators and tiger print handcuffs alongside backpacks with elephant motifs, Buddha's image printed on lamps and tee shirts, tie dyed sarongs, and fake designer jewelry and electronics.

            Every night is a holiday on Soi Cowboy.  Hilary is celebrating her twenty-first birthday even though her birthdate is next month.  She has agreed to let three of her male coworkers get her drunk with a can of warm beer and a Singapore Sling and take her to her first strip club.  She wears her tightest tank top and rims her eyes with more eyeliner because when she puts on makeup they tell her it looks like her eyes can pierce their souls.  Tonight they say nothing except, "Let's go."

            Entering Soi Cowboy tastes salty, like the sticky neck of a Skytrain metro commuter or the crystal garnish for sliced guava, pineapple, and purple yam sold on the sidewalk for twenty baht.  The go-go bars on Soi Cowboy all have different themes: Texas ranch, followed by English royalty, followed by Middle Eastern desert, followed by dollhouse kitsch, followed by another Texas ranch.  The strippers wear costumes with blue glitter and tassels, patches of polyester and high heeled boots, bending down to serve customers seated at the outdoor patios their Singha beers and vodka shots.  The women take hourly shifts holding signs written in English, advertising show highlights and bar specials.  They stand by the door with their legs spread slightly, frozen.

            The neon overwhelms the street; the pedestrians’ skin glow indigo.  Vendors sell papery popcorn and mango sticky rice from their bicycles.  Children with scabby arms wave postcards and cigarettes at tourists, pleading for baht.  A man sits in the middle of the street, his outstretched legs amputated at the knee and a puppy sleeping on his thigh.  But no one looks at the street, instead focusing on the establishments that line the road.

            They pass the first few establishments and quickly settle on a cowboy themed club named KISS.  A woman in a low-cut white dress ushers the group to the end of a gleaming metal bench, one of two that flank either side of a catwalk.  The men order Long Island Iced Teas.  Hilary shakes her head no.  The manager pushes a drink menu at her.  Sitting on the edge of the bench, next to the man who had taken her virginity the previous night, Hilary grasps the menu with both hands and studies it until the manager walks away.  She bobs to the music before realizing dancing makes her one of them, the strippers.

            She peeks over the menu.  Six women writhe their bodies to the techno pulse, staring vacantly at their reflections in the mirrored walls.  They wear silver stilettos, red and white striped ribbons placed over their pussies, blue tassels stuck to their nipples, and white cowboy hats.  Their skin is gauzy-pale, powder collecting in the crevices behind their knees and elbows.  Some cover their black iris with blue or green colored contact lenses.  From their facial features, it is clear they are all Thai, even though only one has straight black hair.  Another has curly red hair, another straight platinum hair in loose pigtails, another cropped blond, curly light brown, and straight dark brown.  Maybe their hair has been dyed, maybe they are wearing wigs.  It is difficult to distinguish the parts of their bodies that are authentic.

            Since the women seem robotic, unfeeling, not even dancing in rhythm to the thump of the bass line, Hilary can look at them without guilt.  They can look at themselves, too, touching their cowboy hat rims as they gaze at their reflections in the mirrored walls.  Perhaps they are just as incredulous as she is, all of them wondering how they ended up here, in this club with excessive glint, glitter, flirt, and grit.  All of them wondering how long the women’s arms, pubic area, and calves will stay smooth before they have to clench their teeth and wax hair off again.  Wondering how long they will sway until the manager signals the next act with her left hand tapping her right shoulder.

            Attributes blur, rendering the women indistinguishable.  Their torsos have no lines, wrinkles, defined musculature, or protruding bones.  The weight of the tassels pulls on their small tits like feeding fish.  No fat wiggles along with their swaying bodies.  The ribbons tied at their hips never slip.  Except for occasional ankle tremors, the women stand powerfully.

            Hilary’s friends stare in rapture, their beers dangling loosely from their limp grasps around the bottles’ necks.  The one who took her virginity chortles softly.  Alcohol has hardened all of the men, turning them solipsistic.  She covers the echo of their laughter with her own, feigning male indifference.  They point at the strippers with their beer bottles, sloshing liquid onto their wrists. 

            Nothing surprises her here.  She yearns for surprises like the magnificent scale of the Grand Palace and the reclining Great Buddha: dazzling sights she had dreamed of since she was young.  She had also dreamed of losing her virginity to a charming teenager in a sunlit bedroom with soft down comforters, but that disintegrated after she turned twenty.  After she turned twenty, she became realistic.  Realistic and impatient.  Impatient and impulsive.

            One of her friends leans forward and yells past the one who took her virginity, “Which one is the hottest?”

            She points at the one with straight black hair.  That stripper has enough self-worth not to hide her ethnicity behind wigs and makeup.  Asians may not have origins in a Texas ranch, but her honesty taunts.  Hilary explains none of this, though.  Her feminine nature merely senses superlative attractiveness, according to them.  She does not think but just does, according to them.

Hilary’s friend follows her finger and agrees with a vague “yeah.”

            Leaning against the bar, the manager signals the next act with her left hand tapping her right shoulder.  The women march off the catwalk and through a doorframe covered in gold tinsel, which flutters as the women parade through it, not bothering to partition the metallic strands.  Seconds later, six other women file out with only a white, plastic band as thick as their pussies.  These women pout aggressively, knowing they push the limits of concealment.  Hilary’s spandex tank top and makeup seem much less daring now.  She tries to look like she doesn’t care, clenching her jaw.  The men seem convinced, but she cannot convince herself.

            The women from the previous act have reentered the space, dispersing themselves among the audience.  The two blondes begin repeating "hi" to Hilary’s friends and giggling coquettishly.  One squeezes herself between Hilary and the one who took her virginity.  Their arms touch.  She does not look at Hilary.  Hilary stares at the stripper’s belly button.  She moves her arm, bending the menu.  Hilary peruses the drink choices again as the manager approaches their group.  Hilary orders a margarita to keep busy.

            The group is all in Thailand together but not just for Hilary’s unbirthday, since she goes back to college in September before they can truly celebrate.  One needed surgery after drunkenly slamming a door on his hand so hard that he sliced off half his pointer finger, one renewed his Marine Corps shooting license, and the one who took her virginity joined Hilary in taking advantage of a cheap flight from Cambodia, where the whole group works at the United States Consulate General Office.  Back in Cambodia, everyone is home by midnight because that is when the night spirits roam.  In Cambodia, no one talks about sex.  In Cambodia, Hilary’s body makes her ashamed.

            "Do you want to go to Midnite now?  I saw a sign for a ping pong show starting soon," her friend farthest down the bench asks, looking at his fake Rolex watch.  He wears one of the strippers' cowboy hats.  The techno music's thump fills the lag in the men's decision-making capabilities.  Hilary thinks she knows what a ping pong show is, but does not clarify.  How does a woman shoot a plastic ball out of a place where there should never be a plastic ball?  She shakes her head: finally, she has found the line.

            "I'm going to head to bed," Hilary announces after they leave the club.  The group stands huddled on Soi Cowboy, the sounds more muted now.  The one who took her virginity already walks forward before she has finished her sentence.  The other two nod, wish her a good night, and follow him.  The next day, after ordering more room service burgers, scrambled eggs, and chicken wings than they can afford, they will regret not walking her home.

            Hilary retraces her steps back to Sukhumvit.  No one looks at her and she is grateful.  Not even the prostitutes in bright colors and fishnet stockings, languishing on the sidewalk curb, turn their head as she passes.  Lingering at a table laden with jewelry, she purchases a leather belt, too tired to haggle the price down from 120 baht.  Her pants have become much looser over the last few weeks.  Cambodia does not sell size 6 jeans or size 6 anything, so she wears them even though they slip sometimes, revealing the waistband of her panties.  Soon maybe she will be able to purchase the smaller Cambodian clothes and fit in, literally, with the populace.

            She walks back to their hotel and sits on her uncomfortably firm mattress.  The cream colored sheets have been changed.  She will never have to see last night's sheet again.  Hilary unbuckles her sandals.  The back of her tank top clings damply to her skin.  The night before she slept naked.  Tonight she will sleep with all her clothes on.  After ordering room service burgers, scrambled eggs, and chicken wings, the men will knock on her door.  She will not answer.  She will wake up early and read by the pool.  They will find her eventually.  One will sigh, "I thought you had disappeared."

            She wishes she had.

F is for Foreign

            You walk through the wide boulevards, looking for street food.  It is dinner time and though you're not hungry, having eaten grilled bananas, rice paper noodles with broccoli and tofu, and a mashed avocado and condensed milk smoothie that afternoon, you have been advised to eat your way through Ho Chi Minh City.  You are only there for one week and the variety of dishes sold on the sidewalk requires a certain amount of culinary diligence.

            You are unimpressed with the city as a whole.  It is a standard urban, cosmopolitan environment.  The buildings are tall and made of white concrete.  At night they glow blue and purple.  Lanterns hang from trees, with dots of color reflecting in the Saigon River.  Cars whoosh past and children scream with laughter, fisting ice cream cups.  Karaoke establishments pulse with clashing bass beats.  Ho Chi Minh City could be Los Angeles or Buenos Aires or Tel Aviv. 
            What impresses you more than the small French cathedral and larger French opera house, the war museums filled with propaganda posters and recreated torture chambers, the brick mansion converted into a fine arts museum, and the parks of paved paths and palm trees, are the vendors selling plastic cups of tripe soup for a dime or a skewer of small mussels turned over a portable grill for twenty cents.  The ingredients seem limited, but the combinations surprise with you with unique flavors.

            And so you search for bites to confuse and shock your palate, unsure of what you seek.  You are out later than your previous night jaunts--it is 9 o'clock or 21:00.  The rice paper crepe vendors, who smooth quail egg, fresh herbs, and chili sauce over a hot plate, have left the park.  Greasy newspapers line the curb, so you know they have been there.  You continue down unfamiliar streets, hoping to avoid the bustle of downtown: ritzy bars, fashionable clothing stores, restaurants, expensive handmade cards, and the brightly lit night market, where every stall sells the same cheap souvenirs to tourists.

            Heading in the opposite direction of downtown (would that be uptown?), you stumble onto a concrete sculpture surrounded by a stagnant pool of water and covered with Vietnamese teenagers sitting on its beams and dangling their legs over the suspended planks.  You circle the plaza.  A pole stands in the center, bursting into fragmented petals of malleable tin at the top.  Perhaps this is a lotus blossom or a torch stand.  Thick concrete bands hover over the pool and intertwine.  Staircases lead to higher levels, where more bands hover above taller supports.  Teenagers toss plastic bags and wrappers into the pool.  White camera flashes capture the aimless lounging of youth.

            You walk around the plaza, surveying the vendors standing at the edge of the sidewalk.  Balloon animals on sticks, charcoal grilled pork, pineapple chunks, light up toys, shredded rice paper with carrots and beef, popcorn, fried egg sandwiches with Spam and cucumber, and back to the balloon animals on sticks.  A young man on a bicycle stops next to the balloons, resting his feet on the road and turning on the bulb dangling over his ingredients, which consist of rice paper crepes, sugar wafers, shredded coconut, and condensed milk cans.

            You ask him what he makes, proud of yourself for remembering to use the Southern Vietnamese dialect.  He explains the sweet snack and begins to cook you one.  It costs a dime.  He won't take the money until you've tried it.  The bite you take tastes like a sugar cube doused in syrup.  Nodding happily, you give him the money and take note of the dessert's name: Bô Bí.

            He asks you why you are here.  Everyone always asks you why you are here.  You explain that you are interning in Hanoi at the embassy.  He informs you that you can speak Southern Vietnamese.  You grin and ask him what he does besides selling snacks at night.  He is a student and so are you.  He asks about Hanoi, a city he hopes to visit.  You talk about rain and how relieved you feel to have escaped the monsoon season, albeit temporarily.  He sadly mentions that it should be raining in Ho Chi Minh City, too.  It has not rained in weeks and he worries for the Mekong Delta.  You nod, ashamed.  The condensed milk oozes from the cracks in the crepe, making your hand wet and sticky.

            Another bicycle stops next to the vendor.  Motorcycles zoom past on the road, encircling the plaza before continuing down one of four roads.  The customer orders a crepe.  You nibble yours and watch the business transaction.  The sugar burns your throat.  The vendor mentions the American student who just bought a crepe from him.  The customer, a teenage girl in a pastel pink polo shirt and dirty white flip flops, translates the vendor's summary of your life into English for the lanky boy sitting on the back of her bicycle.  Silent, you rub your dirty hands on your jeans.  The vendor encourages the teenagers to sit with you.

            "Hello, I am Lai.  This is Halim.  He lost his voice," the girl introduces herself to you in English.  The vendor smiles and ushers the three students to sit on the fountain.  You wish the vendor could join you, but he has to make more crepes.  You wish you knew what the vendor was studying.  You wish you knew his name.

            "What is the name--" you begin in English.

            "Of this place?  Turtle Lake," Lai responds.  She takes your hand and leads you up the staircase to an empty beam.  Halim follows.

            "I can't speak.  Sorry.  Where are you from?" Halim types in English on his Samsung phone.  You begin to answer in Vietnamese, but he is not Vietnamese.  You describe New York City as succinctly as possible, and he types a snapshot of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.  Lai joins in, speaking English.  She lives in Quang Ngai, in central Vietnam.  You are all foreigners to Ho Chi Minh City.

Letter from Paradise, 18˚18'N, 76˚47'W

            Because I had already finished my ethnomusicology research paper and sunburned my fair skin enough times to not mind the sting and interviewed so many "locals" about solid waste management that I felt I was assuming superiority, I agreed, a restless eighteen-year-old girl with wild hair bleached blonde by the sea salt, to beach hop in Jamaica, where anxiety does not live and the sky is a vibrant blue or tangerine or pink and the people want to count your freckles.  There I would learn to be idle, there with the reggae music blasting from plantain carts, there with the three kinds of jerk chicken spice, there with the graffiti reminders to "calm dem down," there with the skateboarders and the drug dealers and the hair braiders and the bartenders and the pig farmers and the tour guides.

            I went, wary of Caribbean tourist culture.  I asserted myself as a sailing research student with S.E.A. Semester, not a spoiled brat runaway.  I had never surfed, had never jumped off a cliff into rolling teal waters, had never smoked ganja, had never climbed a Banyan tree with branches hovering over a cold lagoon, had never kicked a coral reef bed and feared resulting barracuda attacks as my blood mingled with the cobalt blue depths.  I brought Band-Aids for the cut on my foot and sunblock to reapply after swimming in every famous beach on Port Antonio.  Long Bay, Boston Bay, Annotto Bay.  Seashells and sea glass replaced the sandwiches that had filled my backpack.

            Father Tick Tock picked up a piece of aqua-colored sea glass from the sand.  The dusty pink flesh of his palm covered the edges of the piece.  The opaque, pockmarked glass glinted.  He looked like he held a piece of hard and dusty sky.

            "For you," he gestured.  I combed a stray ringlet behind my ear and shyly smiled, accepting.  "Whah you gonn' do with the glass?"

            "I don't know yet," I shrugged, looking down at the sand to avoid staring at his eye patch and bare chest.

            "It's deh prettiest garbage we 'ave," he boasted.  "I'm Sean.  Some call me Father Tick Tock.  What's your name?"

            "Aliza," I replied.  I began walking away.  He kept my pace, occasionally straying to pick up a glittering piece of glass.  After a few minutes of silent collecting, he offered me marijuana.  I explained that I was sailing under strict coast guard regulations.  He asked about my oceanographic research on marine debris and solid waste management systems.  I asked him for the story behind his name.

            "My name? There is no story.  Oh, wait. Yea man. So I had a bag filled with ganja, right.  Four pounds. No, four kilos. And the police, they come an' take me arms."  He crossed his arms, clutching an invisible bag. "I go like this"--he flung his arms out and with his elbows tight began to flap--"and fly away. So my friends call me Father Tick Tock. I'm still running from the police and time..." His story faded there.

            I nodded.  Most likely the actual event connected less with Father Tick Tock than the friend who christened him.  The sun-blasted garbage, carelessly tossed beer bottles and jam jars and food containers from Jamaica, other Caribbean islands, or anywhere in the path of the Sargasso Sea's current, tinkled in Father Tick Tock's hand.

            I refused the ring he twisted from a guava root for me.  I refused the ziplock bag of marijuana.  I refused his phone number.  I refused his offer to dreadlock my hair, already tangled by humidity.  I took his sea glass.