The Things We Wore

            My neighbors in our Hanoi alley all wore loose, thin cotton outfit sets.  I wore capri jeans and elbow length tee shirts.  They woke up at four for morning lunges and arm swings.  I woke up at six for my first of three daily showers to rinse off the sweat and soot, followed by my routine sprint for the bus to school.  Their clothes were faded at the knees.  Brown squiggles traced old sweat stains.  My clothes had brand labels on the inside.  Small rectangular indents on the corners of my skirts indicated they had been recently washed and survived the drying process--no easy feat in Hanoi's tropical humidity.

            By dinnertime, my Vietnamese host family would have changed into pajamas while I was still in the black skirt and blouse I wore to school that day.  Each member had a token pajama outfit they wore every day.  My host mother’s was red with the Chinese symbol for longevity, my older sister Thư’s was yellow with a large duck, and younger sister Chip’s was pastel pink sprinkled with small flowers.  My host father wore a thin-striped, light blue long sleeved shirt with matching drawstring pants.  Except for the drawstring, he could have been going to the office instead of going to sleep.

            "I asked Ms. Huyen about Aliza's test," Thư announced to the family.  "She did not score one hundred, but she is still the best in the class."  My host mother nodded with no change in her usual blank facial expression, and continued spooning white rice from the cooker she had propped on a stool, seated at the table with the rest of us.  I had studied the vocabulary so that I could float in the music of Vietnamese's six tones, not for earning high grades.  My gap year allowed me to explore my curiosities about the language, but winning my host family's love provided an added bonus.

            As the U.S. Embassy's summer intern, I returned to the same house two years later for dinner, wearing the bright orange dress they had given me for my eighteenth birthday.  As I sat on the guest bench by the front door and waited for my host mother to finish making beef phơ, I noted the same pale pink paint coated the walls, the same cheap flower still life portraits displayed proudly in the living room, and the same fold-out table taken out only for meals.  They wore their pajamas and exclaimed that I looked different--thinner, darker, more Vietnamese.  I put a hand at my ribcage, smoothing my skirt over my thighs with the other hand.  No, I assured them.  I was still American.

            All American Foreign Service officers carry high heels or dress shoes, Ann Taylor dresses or Brooks Brothers suits, blazers, and an American flag lapel pin when they travel from post to post.  As the face of the U.S. Government, my coworkers want to look better than the foreign company representative or ministry official with whom they meet. 

I carried second-hand business casual attire for my internship, the dress my host family had bought me in my favorite color, an iPod, multiple pairs of flats in preparation for the destructive monsoon season, a bikini, a camera with too many functions, mascara and lipstick, a small teddy bear, running shoes, self-doubt, a copy of the Aeneid with split binding and multi-colored annotations, one pair of shorts, two Vietnamese-English dictionaries, a Columbia University tee shirt, anticipatory anxiety, a bag of Jelly Belly jellybeans for my host sister's birthday, a journal, a pair of jeans with a suddenly irrelevant Metrocard in the front pocket, an appetite for noodles, and a bottle of Sheer Blonde shampoo.

            The visiting Secretary of State wore her blonde hair in a hairsprayed bob.  She donned a crimson blazer when she stepped onto the Hanoi tarmac to greet the Ambassador.  The vibrancy of her outfit combined with the way she swung her arms out away from her body as she plodded forward gave her a presence larger than her frame.  I watched from a distance in my monochrome black dress, my work requiring me to stay one step ahead of the Secretary to quell any potential gaffes.  I carried her gifts of silk scarves and flowers from Vietnamese government officials, a framed photograph from the Hilton Hotel, and a plaque from the American Chamber of Commerce to the security conveyor belt for clearance.  The following morning, at a thank you meeting with almost a hundred Embassy staff members and their families, she and I happened to wear the same white blazer.  Her pantsuit underneath was tailored and pressed, while the excess cloth of my dress sagged.

            “Your government secretary is here,” a taxi driver commented in Vietnamese after the usual friendly banter revealed my American nationality. 

            “I know,” I sighed.  “I'm already exhausted.”  Leaning my head against the window, I imagined myself as a Foreign Service officer, or even an Under Secretary, treating this visit--the security concerns, the furniture arrangements of every conference room, the press, the carefully constructed formalities--as just an average workday. 

            The nondescript navy suit worn by Under Secretary Hormats made him seem approachable and relaxed.  He carried slow, calculated gestures for the press cameras, stopping to examine photos on the wall or shaking the Vietnamese Chamber of Commerce and Information chairman’s hand for more seconds than necessary.  Each word spoken was wrapped in a leaf of silence, to allow Vietnamese reporters to quote him accurately.  Sitting in the back of the van, I carried questions about green energy and Hormats’ personal background but never voiced them.  I listened as the deputy assistant, Matt Murray, briefed Hormats.  His flowers and framed photograph sat on my lap.  If the orange chrysanthemums and pink lotus blossoms had been laced with anthrax, I would have become the martyr intern of State.

            Along with Hormats' gifts, I possessed self-deprecating humor and knowledge of Vietnam’s Pepsico plant layout.  Introducing myself to Matt Murray as the official government Blackberry deliverer as we waited for pictures for which no one had invited us to pose, I idled in the lobby before informing Murray that I had surveyed the factory prior to his visit in my other role as the official government site officer. 

            The factory workers wore outfits in a navy color similar to Hormats' suit, but stained brown and red.  The whirring of the bottling facility made the men look even more worn, crouching near floor drains to empty the failed strawberry Sting, 7 Up and Aquafina bottles.  I gave them a weak wave, to which they did not respond.  My tour guide through the plant asked me how many security officers Hormats planned to bring.  "None--unless a Marine wants free Pepsi," I joked.

             The Marines wore camouflaged blouses and trousers, an outfit they referred to as "cammies," that they could not wear outside of the tinted grey glass box where they stood watch for ten hours.  They returned my morning wave before pressing the buzzer to unlock the security door.  At all other times, they stood rigidly in the back corner, their relaxed facial muscles displaying a false reticence.

            "What do you think about in the box all day?" I asked each Marine as one by one they plopped down next to me at a house party and handed me a Saigon beer.  Cage thought about his friends in Afghanistan and all their pranks.  Anthony tried to think about nothing, but sometimes caught himself remembering his dead father.  Decker thought about how fast he could get drunk and mapped out his bar hopping route.  Dre thought about girls.

            Dre listed the meaning behind each ribbon pinned to his dress blues during the Embassy's American Independence Day party: "Good conduct, meritorious service, selected Marine Corps reserve, Afghanistan service.  Um, this one's for being a drill instructor. Bronze star."  Standing in a cotton dress among three strobe lit ice sculptures of outstretched eagles, ten metal trays of American regional finger food such as Maryland crab cakes, pigs-in-a-blanket pastries, and mini Tex-Mex burritos, and hundreds of diplomats in three-piece suits and four-inch heels, I gave a distrait nod after each explanation. 

            The foreign Ambassadors invited to our Embassy’s party wore sensible grey and navy suits; I wore bright pink.  The Ambassador to the Philippines told me bright colors were a good networking tool because I would be more memorable and easy to spot in a large crowd.  He advised me to contact him when I visited Manila, offering to tour me through the landmarks.  Only once he gave me his business card did I know within which country Manila lay--all I could think about was the creamy white color.  An officer at the Kuwait Embassy wrote his cell phone number on a cocktail napkin and suggested I contact him so we could drink coffee more casually.  Neither of us had business cards, but something about a cocktail napkin seemed inappropriately sexy.  The Ambassador from Angola wore baggy pinstriped pants with upturned cuffs and bragged about the new business cards he designed himself, before remembering to wish me a happy Independence Day. 

             Each time I stepped outside U.S. Embassy functions, my hair would twist into ringlets from the humidity.  I wandered down unfamiliar streets in an effort to get lost, harangued by street vendors stooping under the weight of the bamboo pole over their shoulder, from which hung rice doughnuts or pineapple chunks.  "You buy," they insisted, sneaking up behind me or waiting for me at the corner, looking up into my eyes with woe.  The shadow cast over their faces by their conical hats, in addition to the faded cotton outfit in sepia tones, made it hard for me to escape the guilt.  It was even harder to escape the street vendor.  "No," I refused in Vietnamese.

            "Yes," I nodded, nibbling a segment of stringy, syrupy jackfruit handed to me.  The fruit vendor weighed more jackfruit and tossed them into a pink plastic bag with longan berries, rambutan, three dragonfruit, and a pomelo.  Since the total price amounted to less than a dollar, I nodded again and counted out periwinkle Vietnamese dong.

            "Thank you, Ah-Leee-Zah.  When are you coming over for dinner?"

            I took the heavy bag from her.  The contents would be my dinner for the next week.

            "Invite me," I encouraged her.  She listed her number in my cell phone as "Thuy Qua Hoa," her name followed by the Vietnamese word for fruit.  Thuy wore the same pastel pink striped tee shirt and baggy grey shorts every time I visited the outdoor market.  I did not want to pressure her just because I had no patience to cook.  Unlike the other grocery shoppers, I had no plans to turn my produce into creative meals.  Dragonfruit and rambutan could be filling, I assured myself.

            After scooping the white flesh out of a magenta dragonfruit skin with a spoon for lunch, I met a new Vietnamese friend, Bơ, downtown for a hip-hop concert.  I never made concrete plans to see the Vietnamese strangers I spoke with, and would never eat dinner with Thuy Qua Hoa.  But Bơ, who called himself Anh because his parents had given him the Vietnamese word for butter, met me in his parents' musical instrument store.  His parents approved of our friendship, though Mr. Butter's sarcastic jokes about the Embassy distressed me.

            "Aliza has a blog.  She writes about how corrupt the Vietnamese government is," Mr. Butter presented me to his friends at the concert.  Dressed in dark skinny jeans, a collared beige shirt, and a black fedora, he was as conspicuous in the sweaty crowd as I, with my Oxford blue polyester dress and bulky camera.  I denied the introduction, shaking my head to the beat of Vietnamese spoken word poetry.  Emulating Brooklyn style, the rappers wore wife beaters and bandana headbands, skinny jeans and baseball caps, basketball sneakers and chains hanging from their belt loops and from around their necks, and a tee shirt that read “I have plenty of talent and vision, I just don’t give a shit!”.

            “She's French, right?" one friend murmured in Vietnamese. 

“She’s from Brooklyn,” Mr. Butter bragged, his shirt darkening with accumulated sweat.  I smiled politely, focusing my gaze on the lacquer red columns gilded with outlines of dragons.  The Vietnamese language can never sound angry enough to rival Brooklyn hip-hop.

            "She's American," one employee corrected the others in the Consulate General Office's restroom, chatting in Vietnamese as they applied lipstick and adjusted their sheer blouses in front of the wall mirror.  I stood behind them and rubbed mascara flakes from my cheekbone.  “She works at the Embassy in Hanoi but is now here in Saigon.”

            “She looks like a princess,” sighed another employee.

            “Hello, my name is Aliza.  I look forward to working with you all,” I interjected in Vietnamese.  I threw a paper towel in the trash and left the restroom.  Silenced, each woman wore a bemused, slightly open grin on her face.  Real princesses never feel invisible.

            A concrete wall surrounded the consulate compound.  Next door stood the residence of the French Ambassador.  If Ho Chi Minh City’s city planners designed the layout of government buildings in such a way as to group those countries with which Vietnam had grievances, then they did not punish the United States or France.  Trees lined the boulevard next to the security wall, under which lay six tables with oranges and avocados.  Over the years, this street had become known as Orange Juice Street.  In the minute it took to walk from my apartment in Somerset Serviced Residence to the security door, the scent of oranges perfumed my ringlets.  Once inside, as I walked to the water cooler I would detect their phantom scent as I turned my head.

            One of the employees, Vinh, would smile and wave every time I refilled my water bottle at the water cooler.  On my last morning, she contorted her eyebrows and hurried up to me.  “Do not wear pants anymore,” she advised me in English.  “They make you look less like a princess.”

            “Ohhhh, I didn’t realize," I gasped.  "Thank you so much for telling me,” I stooped my back and placed a hand on my chest as if catching my breath.  I waited for Vinh to smile but she didn’t.

            The Hmong villagers smile constantly in the mountainous region of Sa Pa, a vacation spot 38 kilometers from China.  Though the women’s hands are stained a dark teal from dyeing textiles, their dispositions matched their bright multi-colored patchwork skirts and jackets in heavy cotton.  They hiked up the vibrant green terraced fields wearing tightly bound cloth slippers.  I wore running sneakers with grooves on the rubber soles for traction.

            We all were barefoot within the Cao Dai temple, in Tay Ninh, outside of Ho Chi Minh City.  Wearing a black tank top and dark jeans, I sat behind a wall and watched through the doorframe.  The worshippers in pristine white loose pants and knee length tunics, the typical female Vietnamese dress known as ao dai, and linen suits filed into the ceremonial hall and knelt in orderly rows on the floor.  The white grid of people contrasted with the chaotic pink, blue, and yellow decor.  Dragons snaked up columns, elaborate altars with globes and glinting candelabras flanked both ends of the hall, painted eyes watched from green windows, and staircases in the middle of the space led to nowhere.

            Nowhere left to wander, I wore a tank top with a hidden money belt underneath.  I carried the same suitcases back to New York, with propaganda war prints instead of Sheer Blonde shampoo, Converse sneakers from a Vietnamese factory instead of rain-wrinkled ballet flats, and textile wall hangings instead of pajama shorts.  They wore navy blazers, matching pencil skirts, and plastered mauve smiles, from nowhere to nowhere.

I remember blackouts

The blackness is so thick I can almost curl my fingers around it and tug. But I can’t and the humid darkness remains. I scoot back against a chair and hug my knees to my chest, silent. I blink. I blink. My sixteen-year-old Vietnamese host sister, Chịp, wails in frustration. With a language like a song, I am impressed my sister can manage an emotive tone.

The living room of my host family’s house was just starting to become familiar and now foreignness envelops me once more. I try to picture the wooden bench up against the window, the matching chairs and the painting of a vase with flowers perched above it, the other painting of a meadow on the opposite wall, the television with a cheerful blond Norwegian-looking doll and a snow globe of New York City resting on top, and the beaded entranceway to the kitchen, the only place in Viet Nam where I don’t feel welcome.

It had only been two weeks—my feet beginning to break in the stiff plastic house sandals given to me by my host family—and already I no longer noticed the pedestrians calling out to me in the streets or staring at me on the bus, the thin limbs in mismatched and faded clothing, the challenge that thick motorcycle traffic imposes on my daily routine, the lingering sticky-sweet stench of the durian fruit vendor, or the heavy black smoke of burning paper ancestral offerings.

My twenty-four-year-old Vietnamese host sister, Thư, stomps and claps and smashes into the piano keyboard. Suddenly a small lantern illuminates Thu’s motherly smile and the bottom of her plastic magenta eyeglasses. My host mother, I imagine, remains rigid and reserved on the hard wooden bench like usual. At first I had thought my host mother resented my existence but I soon came to understand that she was just dutifully fulfilling her role as a woman: demure and unobtrusive. I unfold from my twisted confusion and rejoin the huddle in the middle of the floor.

We had been watching a movie on Chịp’s favorite channel, the Disney channel, on a Monday night. Hilary Duff had enrolled in a naval academy and the moral was that she was girly yet did not give up at school. Each shot of camouflage, boot camp exercises, rifles, or any other indication of warfare made me uncomfortable since the Vietnam War, known as the American War in Vietnam, had never been mentioned in the family. My host parents had certainly lived through the war but I did not know the extent of their involvement or how strong their sentiments were. Did they intrinsically hate Americans and I was just an exception? Was I an exception?

Glancing at the clock and then back at Hilary Duff, I had hoped that silently sitting on the beige tiled floor with my host family and watching a squeaky blonde girl get covered in mud would help me break down the barrier separating guest from adopted daughter and sister. The family has already changed into pajamas while I am still in the skirt and blouse I wore to school that day. Each member has a token pajama outfit they wear every day. My host mother’s is red with the Chinese symbol for longevity, Thư’s is yellow with a large duck, and Chịp’s is pastel pink sprinkled with small flowers. My host father does not have pajamas, from what I can see.

I stare at the three women engulfed in shadows. They chatter amiably amongst themselves as the sweat starts trickling down the sides of my face. “Xin lỗi, em (I’m sorry),” Thu apologizes to me. I shake my head and then remember I can’t rely on gestures to communicate anymore. “Tốt (Okay),” I squeak.

My index finger traces my miniature Vietnamese-English dictionary; once, twice, three times. I fidget with the pages, feeling the softness of wear. I consider casually commenting on the sudden heat influx but can’t remember which tone to use. Having learned three romance languages, I am used to relying on cognates and intuition. In Hanoi, I flounder in the music of the sentences.

With the patter of plastic blue slippers, my host father climbs down two flights of spiraling marble with a battery-powered fan the size of a basketball. He hovers over us momentarily and then disappears back up into the silent abyss. A gaunt man with monochrome clothes that hang from his stooped body, my host father still fulfills the stereotypical Vietnamese patriarchal role as the aloof provider of the family. I never see him joking or playing with my host sisters or even touching my host mother. Though my host sisters have shown me wedding pictures in which my host mother actually smiled, I have no idea how they met or decided to get married. Without access to the computer and therefore his digital games of solitaire, I don’t know what he plans on doing tonight.

Chịp begins belting out her favorite Korean pop songs. Thư encourages me to sing along but I laugh nervously instead. Mosquitoes, lacquer-green beetles and feathery moths dance around the lantern. I slap at my arms and scratch the insect bites. There is nowhere to look but at the light.

As soon as Chịp finishes her Korean warbling, I rush up the stairs to the master bedroom, my new room, the bedroom that my host parents relinquished so that I, as the American, can feel comfortable, while they sleep on mats in the third floor computer room. Though they are in their fifties and I am only seventeen years old, I am embarrassed to reject their generosity.

I yank open the first desk drawer, where I remember I put a photo album. Back downstairs, we flip through the laminated pages and I proudly blurt out family vocabulary: mother, father, older brother, aunt, grandmother, cousins. My host mother repeatedly exclaims, “Tóc vàng (blond)!” I have not been blonde since I was ten years old, but since I don’t have the sleek and shiny black hair of all Vietnamese people, I can be whatever my host family wants me to be. Which, of course, is blond. I am almost afraid to tan in the tropical sun, in case my coveted pale skin becomes slightly more like their glowing brown.

Suddenly the power is restored and the television flickers back on just in time for the last minute of the movie. Hilary Duff successfully graduates from naval academy, or peace is restored in her household, or something of that nature. We shut off the television and disperse to finish my economics reading (me), a trigonometry worksheet (Chịp), an English lesson plan for the class she teaches to four year olds (Thư), and the laundry (my host mother).

An hour and a half later, the black print of my textbook quickly grows to envelop the whole room. I open the door—blackness there too. My host father appears once again to hand out necessities: a lantern for my room and one for my host sisters’ room. I offer him my flashlight but he shakes his head. I shine my light on the stairs so he won’t fall as he retreats into solitude, his hacking cough echoing in the hallway.

Choosing to interpret this blackout as an involuntary study break, I join the insects around Chịp and Thư’s lantern. The three of us share riddles and quiz each other on Vietnamese and English vocabulary. My sisters are far beyond the “table” and “chair” stage while I have to repeat “bed” and “window”. I feel like I’m at an elementary school slumber party of overachieving nerds. When the lights illuminate the house again after half an hour of giggling, we reluctantly return to our desks.

The third blackout of the night, two hours later, finds me reading The Quiet American. I sigh, exasperated, stumble towards my wardrobe, and change into my pajamas. “Chúc ngủ ngôn (Good night),” I call out to my sisters. They return the sentiment. From my room I can see Chịp huddled by a lantern, frantically trying to finish her trigonometry homework. Though I also have homework, I decide to save it for the following day when the city’s electricity functions again.

I feel shepherded by the city of Hanoi. Its bus system determines the times I arrive to school, return back home, or travel to my voice teacher’s house. Its weather determines what I will eat that day, since my host mother buys ingredients fresh every morning at the local market two blocks away. Its citizens determine how I view myself—pretty or ugly, short or tall, chubby or fat, pale or very white, endangered or flattered. And its electricity determines how efficiently my workload diminishes.

The following day is more humid than usual. I arrive home to learn of another blackout, which had just ended. Relieved that I missed it, I stack my books in order of priority on my desk and settle in for a long night, which will only be interrupted by the mind game that is a Vietnamese family dinner. At dinner I try and make my bowl of rice last as long as my family’s three helpings. I chew individual grains, I chew air, I keep my bowl raised so no one plops more jellyfish or chicken fat into it. Whatever is in the rice bowl must be consumed. It is an unwritten law.

Halfway through studying for an environmental science quiz, the power goes out. No. No no no. I take out my flashlight, prop it between my teeth, and continue working, fanning myself with my left hand. My clothes quickly turn damp, then wet. Would this become a daily routine? Though blackouts cause no more than an inconvenience for me, which should be expected when traveling to a developing country, the uncertainty and confusion lead me to despair.

The blackouts last anywhere from ten minutes, a taunt, to three hours, a punishment. In New York City, this pattern would be classified as a national catastrophe. There would be television news, editorials, investigative commissions, political inquiries, and blue ribbon panels. In Hanoi, it is just part of the summer. My family seems to have accepted that the power is beyond their power.

After the sixth blackout that week, the block erupts into cheers when the electricity is restored again. Joining in with an American “Woo!” I feel connected with my neighbors. But no one ever seems angry and the blackouts are hardly even mentioned. The idea of protesting to a government when services are not adequate is just as foreign for them as blackouts are for me.

An American Jew’s First Christmas

“Dov’è l’albero di Natale? (Where is the Christmas tree?)” I asked my father. It was Christmas Eve in Sora, a small city surrounded by snow-capped mountains 200 kilometers south from my apartment in Viterbo, and I had been planning to sneak my family’s Christmas presents under a big, green pine tree covered with flashing lights and homemade ornaments later that night.

My father apologetically rushed to his bedroom closet and I watched, bewildered, as he rummaged through dress shoes and work tools, looking for my Christmas tree.

“Ecco qua (Here it is),” he announced, brushing the dust off his pants and holding up a small cardboard box. My father delicately took out a miniature plastic tree and placed it on top of the television in the kitchen. He yanked the black cord into a nearby socket and the tips of the fake pine magically flashed bright colors. I forced a smile, and reluctantly placed my carefully wrapped gifts under the cabinet that held the television that held the Christmas tree.

I had been waiting for this night ever since October, when I noticed my mother literally roasting chestnuts over an open fire, preparing our dessert for that night. I imagined my grandfather dressing up as Babbo Natale (Father Christmas) and my entire extended family gathering together to sing Christmas carols and drink eggnog. I would bake sugar cookies in various festive shapes with my two sisters, and we would share a friendly laugh whenever I would spill flour on the floor. My teachers would assign me no homework over the vacation and I would casually speak rapid Italian to everyone I met.

As I stood in front of a small, boxy, white house which would be my new home for the next week, clutching in one hand a plastic bag containing two pairs of clothes and a toothbrush and another bag filled with presents in my other hand, my newly accustomed familiarity with Italian life zoomed away down the adjacent, noisy highway. Memories of my first day with my Italian family overwhelmed me, and I remembered my mother force-feeding me the contents of the refrigerator while my father yelled at me for not knowing the significance of the American flag and not believing in UFOs and aliens and my sisters nervously translating his rapid dialogue. As I piled blankets on the cot set up next to my sisters’ bed, I hoped my introduction into my extended family would be more graceful and silently prepared myself for various scenarios.

On Christmas Eve, my grandmother had prepared a traditional Christmas meal for the family. Most of my Christmas knowledge comes from the annual Christmas musical I was in for five years, The Christmas Revels, so I could only imagine that we would be eating a Christmas goose or a Christmas pig. I was not expecting a plate of rice teeming with steaming seafood, still with their pale red shells, beady eyes, curved tails and some even with spiny legs. But I pretended I was eating chocolate, a survival technique I had learned from Anne Frank’s diary when I was eight, though my sister Sarah still had to hold my hand whenever I encountered a particularly large and lifelike part of my meal.

During dinner, though I was being as Italian as I could possibly be simply by eating and not saying anything stupid and nonsensical with my bland American accent, my mother proudly described to her family all the strange things I do. My aunts and uncles gaped at me as my mother announced all my eccentricities, such as not using a hairdryer, running in the garden without a coat on, waking up at seven in the morning and still catching my 7:20 bus to school, and living in Brooklyn--right next to where the Twin Towers stood.

After dinner, my new cousins distracted me with difficult conversation in an unfamiliar dialect that sounded more like Yiddish than the Italian I had been studying for four months while my parents and sisters snuck out to buy me Christmas presents after discovering that I knew enough to buy presents for them. The next morning, my family picked up the four packages I had placed on the freezing, speckled grey linoleum floor and in return they handed me a large, ostentatious, bright pink felt purse and an Italian espresso maker, already preparing for my impending return back to America. Since moving in, I have given my family other presents, so I knew how they would treat my Christmas presents. On a trip to my garage one day to look inside all my suitcases for my American brother’s missing glasses, I noticed a shelf with all the gifts I had meticulously chosen for their specific needs: slippers scientifically designed for comfort, bilingual Italian-English books, patterned silk headbands and glass rings. There is also a small shelf in my kitchen for the regional wine, cookies, mushrooms and chocolate I pick up for my family during school field trips. I knew my sister Sarah and father would never wear the shirts I bought for them, my sister Erika would never listen to the tango CDs I burned for her or use the thick winter scarf I purchased, and the DVD for my mother would soon be covered in dust from the garage.

But like my Christmas festivity predictions, these too were slightly off. As soon as we returned from Sora, my father unloaded the sparse luggage and copious leftover food crammed in the trunk and immediately sat down on the couch to watch my mother’s Christmas present with me. My mother, who is usually soft spoken and tiptoes around me with only the occasional bout of confidence and sarcastic humor, seemed only vaguely interested in her Christmas gift and left my father and I in the living room to enjoy the present that wasn’t ours while she did the laundry. I explained Reese’s Pieces and pizza delivery services to my father, and he explained to me how aliens really do exist.

“E.T. telefona casa,” Spielberg’s character robotically begged.

Once the movie was finished, my father made room in the cabinet under the television for the DVD, nestled between a mini-series about the life of Jesus Christ and an educational video about physics. Though I was not pasty and withered like E.T., I called home and excitedly recounted to my American mother what my father had just done, relieved and shocked that I had finally purchased something that my family would actually use. Though I still do strange things, I’m learning to be less of an alien.

Mangia

The most common Italian expression is, “Mangia! Mangia! (Eat! Eat!).” Here, I am always so preoccupied with the disturbing tactics my host mother slyly uses to stuff me full of carbs that I often forget that there are people in Italy who suffer from an opposite dilemma: they are starving.

In Viterbo, there is a residential quarter about a three minute walk from my school, hidden away down a long, lonely street. Dilapidated houses are concealed by the shadows from the back walls of expensive bakeries, coffee shops, pizza parlors and butcher stores that line the main road of Via Cavour. A green shutter with peeling paint hangs off the window frame of a small, cream-colored house and points down a street to a square, pastel pink building with a small stained-glass oval window planted in the middle near the roof. This abandoned church, converted into a free hostel and cafeteria, is now the refuge for alcoholics, homeless people, the developmentally disabled, and tsunami victims from Sri Lanka.

As I entered the already busy kitchen, which was the size of my entire apartment and cluttered with gleaming metal ovens, stoves, counters, and utensils, I had a single concern: do these Italians actually expect me to cook? I recalled my host mother’s sullen face when I explained to her that if I ever tried to cook dinner, I would probably burn down our apartment building. Donning a white apron and rubber gloves and breathing in the smell of rosemary and the cold Viterbese wind, I prepared in my head how to say the dreadful news: “Non posso cucinare (I cannot cook).” Luckily, these Italian chefs did not trust an American girl with their precious roasted rosemary chicken, baked potatoes and minestrone soup, so I made salad and lent an extra hand when necessary, doing the work no one wanted.

As I was washing each leaf on each lettuce head, carefully checking the front and back for bruises or dirt, the soup kitchen’s owner, a tall, plump man named Giovanni with wispy white hair and a cleanly shaved beard, dressed in a tight, white sweater and track pants under an oil-spattered apron, shared with me his thoughts on ‘mangia’.

“I work here to try and relieve the suffering and pain so many people must face daily. A good lunch can erase the traumas these poor people have experienced. So much suffering. Soooo much suffering,” he sighed, peeling potatoes. Giovanni cannot sober the alcoholics, house the homeless, repair the neurological defects in the developmentally disabled, or transport the tsunami victims back to Sri Lanka, but he can give these hungry people lunch every Saturday afternoon.

As I grabbed a handful of the lettuce I had washed five times, and hacked at it with a small knife, I kept thinking of how connected Italians are to their food. There are not three flavors of gelato, there are thirty. Meals do not have one course, they have five. I am forced to feign pity whenever my host sister complains about how hungry she is because she had no time for lunch and therefore only had a prosciutto crudo and parmesan sandwich with an apple. Great care is taken to make sure everything is fresh and of top quality. The refrigerator in our home is always bursting with yogurt, mozzarella, oranges, celery, milk, eggs, potatoes, lettuce and carrots, and I am not allowed to leave the house in the morning until I have taken a snack for break time.

Living with my Italian family prepared me well for the task that lay before me: giving people food. Even the people with perpetually grumbling stomachs interjected “Basta! Basta cosi! (Enough! Enough as it is!)” as we sloshed food onto the plates, ignoring their pleas.

“Vorrá il pane? (Would you like bread?)” I politely asked a tall, wheezing middle aged man with blue veins popping out of his large pale hands, clutching the edges of his black plastic tray.

“No grazie, (No thank you,)” he answered in a raspy voice.

Giovanni, overhearing as he artfully stacked glistening chicken breasts onto a small, flimsy, plastic plate, pointed out his left elbow towards the bread, pouted and raised his eyebrows. Understanding perfectly this special Italian food sign language, I asked, “Quante fette di pane vuole? (How many slices of bread do you want?)”

“Nessuna, (None,)” he replied as he began to edge his tray down, slightly annoyed.

Cheerfully, I tossed two slices of bread onto his tray and directed my attention to the next famished ospite (guest).

“Vorrá il pane? (Would you like bread?)” I asked a thirty year old Indian woman in a sequined, magenta sari, balancing a toddler on her hip.

“Certo! (Of course!)” she exclaimed, pushing her two plates of chicken, two bowls of minestrone soup, and one plate of salad as far to the edge of the tray as she could to make room for more food. Mimicking Giovanni, I built a Roman column using five bread slices. Then, without even asking, I decorated the edges of her chipped black tray with little brightly colored chocolate eggs, which caused the toddler to stretch her tired face into a smile and kick her legs.

That night at dinner, my host mother eagerly repeated the question she asks at every meal, “Vorrai ancora? (Would you like some more?)”

As I opened my mouth to refuse, she quickly placed another piece of fish on my plate and edged a piece of bread down the tablecloth until it rested on the edge of my knife. However, instead of inwardly groaning, I chuckled and picked up my fork, ready to begin clearing my plate a second time. My host mother cannot cure homesickness, stress, or sleepiness, but the least she can do is give me a wonderful, filling meal.

Writer's Statement

In New York City, on August 30^th, 2007, from approximately six o’clock to approximately seven o’clock in the evening, most people did not notice anything different in their daily routine. Maybe they were sitting down to dinner, or watching television, or surfing the internet, or chatting on the telephone. If I were in New York City on August 30^th, 2007 from approximately six o’clock to approximately seven o’clock in the evening, I would be doing the same mundane rituals. But that was not the case. At approximately six o’clock in the evening I was staring at the line that divided the grey, marble hallway floor and the brown, speckled linoleum floor of my new home. In Italy.

I stepped over the boundary in a daze. I floated through all the rooms quickly pointed out to me, not yet ready to believe that I would not be living in an impressive Italian villa. The tour guide, my 22 year old host sister Erika, stopped at my room and proudly proclaimed, “La tua camera!” Orange. Orange and pink. I finally felt a sense of belonging. I looked past the awkward laughing and uncomfortable pettings I had endured during the car ride and saw my favorite colors. I was home.

At the dinner table, instead of focusing on understanding the Italian language spoken, I focused on not being rude. I knew it would inevitably happen, but I did not know what form the accidental rudeness would take. I complimented my mother’s cooking, I kept my hands in my lap, I used my fork and my knife, I ate everything on my plate, I smiled and nodded at the dinner conversation. I was concentrating on plying the tough, rubbery chicken from its small bone in a polite fashion when my father asked me if I believed in aliens. I shook my head no, confident that was the correct response. Surely I was just contradicting an uncertain belief that all Americans believe in aliens.

He exploded. The rudeness had slyly wiggled from my mouth. How can I not believe in aliens! What about the UFO in Nevada? Did you not hear of the crashed space ship found by the American military? My cheeks were tingling apologetically, but I was laughing. I was so scared of the moment I would be rude that it was a relief not to be so careful anymore. We jokingly argued our differences through the rest of dinner. I had found a real family. In Italy.

It did not take long for me to discover that I was the alien. As I struggled to blend in, not knowing the language and communicating with a dictionary and gestures, I learned by making mistakes and I wrote everything down. Even when I returned home, I found myself reflecting upon my past year abroad in both Viterbo, Italy and Barcelona, Spain and continued writing essays about those experiences. I have chosen eight samples of nonfiction that reflect my fascination with foreign cultures and languages as well as what it means to be an alien in a foreign land.