Take Me to Zen Yen

The young Vietnamese boy sat patiently at the Yen river’s edge, his hands resting lightly on the bamboo oars tied to the thin, red, metal rowboat. He looked up at us, wrinkles forming on his forehead as he raised his eyebrows, and waited until we had boisterously situated ourselves in his boat. Without a word, he began to back up his boat into the water and steer us out into the wide expanse of vegetation. No introduction, no complaints. Strong black coffee, the smell of burning incense, the startling clash of a metal gong, the gleam of gilded wood and lacquer statues, seven hundred and sixty two slick stone steps, the squeaks of bats, the dank wonder of an underground niche, and the tickling sensation of sweat trickling down our spines had energized us and we hardly noticed the thin boy, tan like the twigs floating aimlessly in the ripples.

He wore a maroon fake Dolce & Gabbana shirt with a white flap on the left shoulder and another white flap on the right breast. His uneven brown hair was carefully combed over his dark brown eyes, which gazed at us four Americans uneasily and with a hint of envy. Meanwhile, we joked around with our friends in the other rowboats, taking pictures and splashing water. And then suddenly, all the boats were gone. That’s when we finally saw the boy struggling to fight the current.


The five of us were totally alone--no sounds but that of the oars dipping into the glittering water, nothing to see but mountains soft with tufts of green trees, tall grasses and pink lotus flowers, and the reflection of the grey and white clouds in the water. The river was ours. The silence was a peaceful break from the smoggy chaos of honking motorcycles that defined our new home, Hanoi.

His name was Trung. This was his first time rowing tourists from the Perfume Pagoda. He was sorry he was taking so long.

I was sorry he was our age, yet had dropped out of school to take us from one unfamiliar shoreline to another. I was sorry his arm muscles did not have enough power to continue rhythmically circling the oars. I was sorry I could not help him.

He would stretch a tired smile whenever we did something silly to amuse him, like singing Santigold or daintily dangling slices of bread in front of his face for him to bite. Otherwise he wore a tight-lipped grim line of a mouth, eyes squinting in pain.

Middle aged women in conical hats streamlined past our rowboat, laughing and teasing our faithful Charon.

He was sorry he was taking so long. I was sorry I could not help him.

As we inched along, I felt something puff up and expand under the bottom of my right ribcage. A sense of relief and satisfaction perhaps, or elation. After three weeks in Vietnam my regrets and hesitations had splintered and were being carried away by the river’s current. It occurred to me that we might never be reunited with the other Americans waiting patiently for us at the shore, that if the clouds decided to burst and send down rain our rowboat would fill up within minutes. But these thoughts did not worry me. I knew I would be all right. And I knew Trung would not be.

Mai Chau

I was scraping the last bits of rice from my lunch bowl when I heard the first hollow boom of thunder. My sore muscles tightened and I sat still on the bamboo floor of our stilt house homestay in Xo, chopsticks perched over my bowl. As soon as the drumming began on the roof I turned to my friends circled around the lunch platter and announced with unblinking eyes, “I’m taking a shower. Right now.” Miniature soap, shampoo and conditioner in hand, I hurried down the stairs and stood on the cement ground with my sunburned face straining toward the foggy gray sky. Red dirt trickled from my hair, my hiking clothes, my arms and my legs, collecting by my bare feet before mixing with the clear rain and disappearing. I straightened my head to allow the cool water down my spine.

Facing the stilt house, I saw my friend Cole scurrying down the slanted planks of wood to join me. Laughing, we poured shampoo on our heads and watched as the white bubbles cleaned our sweaty t-shirts. Soon more people were shivering barefoot on the stone ground, thankful that there was a force able to relieve us of this menial task. After a three hour trek in the mud, all anyone wants to do is stand under a powerful shower. Since Xô is one of the poorest villages in all of Vietnam, our school of sixteen teenagers were not going to complain about the water basin and buckets. But nature helped us out in the end, stopping the slapping rain suddenly so we could change into dry clothes and march back inside, knowing we saved a substantial amount of cistern water for the Xô villagers. Charity feels wonderful.

The Relentless Plea

“You buy,” the woman always insists, sneaking up behind me or waiting for me at the corner, looking up into my eyes with a woeful expression.

“Dạ, không,” I stutter, shaking my head and scanning the motorbikes combing the street. I have no interest in her sticky orange bag of pineapple chunks, her t-shirts with a bright Vietnamese flag or a sketch of a temple or the phrase “I heart pho,” her toothpicks, or her postcards.

As I attempt to cross an intersection while still keeping all ten of my toes, I feel the postcard on my hand or the t-shirt over the crook of my arm. Giving me the product when there is no money in my hand should not be a smart business tactic, but it allows the desperate vendor (and every vendor is desperate) to advertise her product further, allowing me to see the picture of a densely packed street in detail or feel the cotton cloth against my flushed skin.

It is hard to escape the guilt. It is even harder to escape the street vendor.

Each ‘no’ causes a surge in the vendor’s persistence. This makes the New York City foreigner uncomfortable, since I am used to homeless people dejectedly calling out for money, but staying in one spot. The personal contact here in Hanoi forces me to flee into the paved road of honking Honda Dreams, hoping that the street vendor finds another tourist.

Everyone uses jewelry, fans, hats and cigarette lighters, but the street vendors never seem to harass their fellow Vietnamese pedestrians. Only Westerners can be swayed, and they cannot understand that I do not fit this stereotype.

Whenever I leave the comforts of my room for the sweltering chaos outside, I worry about the vendors. They can be intrusive even without speaking, still forcing me onto the busy street. Small stores densely packed together leak out onto the sidewalk, creating a blanket of shoes or handmade cloth bags or spare motorcycle parts.

No space to move, no space to breathe. Just like home.

¿Que he hecho yo para merecer esto! (What have I done to deserve this?!)

“¡Tengo dieciseis años! (I’m sixteen years old!)” I shouted frantically over the nurses’ chatter and the clatter of glass syringes on the metal cart. “¡No puedo perder tanta sangre! (I can’t lose that much blood!)”

The Spanish nurses ignored me, pushing the IV to a corner of the crowded room to make way for the two-tiered cart of syringes, clear liquids and gauze. “Aspetta, aspetta per favore! (Wait, please wait!)” I babbled in Italian, fear oozing into my language comprehension. I was going to die alone in a Spanish emergency room just because I had asked for a blood test. I don’t remember mentioning “Please drain me of all the blood I have and replace it with a mysterious clear liquid, por favor” in any of the three languages I can speak.

“Una análisis de sangre, sólo para seguridad (a blood test, just to be sure).”

I had become mildly concerned when I had watched first a swarm of tiny bumps march up my feet stopping at my knees, up my back starting at my waist, and from my shoulder to my elbow. Then I had noted the bumpy pink carpet as it completely covered my chest and arms. And now, my hands were so swollen with boils that I had to ask a friend to put my shoes on and open my water bottle for me. I surrendered and tattled on my mysterious rash, alerting my summer program’s staff.

But finding the cure was more painful than the affliction. A day earlier, a dermatologist had gouged out one of the boils on my hand for a lab biopsy and then stitched it up with coarse black thread--a scratch, he had told me in comforting English. Really, a lie or a mistranslation. I naively nodded consent, a universal signal.

Now I had learned from my error and no longer trusted Spanish doctors. They are notoriously lazy in Barcelona, working from 9 to 2, followed by siesta time, and then maybe returning back to work. Weekends? Debe estar bromeando (You’ve got to be joking). Emergencies must be at a convenient hour. I had walked into the emergency room with flaming hands and a mini Spanish-English dictionary on a Saturday afternoon. Not the time for an emergency, silly American girl.

A young doctor with dyed blonde hair had rolled her eyes at me, and explained step by step in a high pitched, overly enunciated voice that she was going to prick my arm and fill only a small vial with my blood and then using the same needle point to minimize pain, she was going to make my hands all better with a cortisone drip.

I looked at her beauty and squinted. Though she was the antithesis of the chubby, wheezing dermatologist with wispy white hair from the day before, she was Spanish and he was Spanish.

“¿Puede esperar un momento? (Can you hold on a moment?)” I dialed long-distance to my parents and explained the situation. Then while my aunt, a retired pediatrician, called me, my parents tried to reach my doctor. Then my aunt hung up so that my parents could call again, and my aunt called my mom’s cellphone to discuss the matter.

“Vale (Fine),” I agreed, holding out my right arm tentatively. Would this prick really be a prick? Or would it be a hole in my vein and then, oops lunch break, come back again in two days during the mid-morning and she’ll finish sewing up the wound that she herself, a professional doctor, inflicted?

I lay back, certain my picture would appear in medical textbooks throughout the country and throughout the world. Bad adjustment to Spanish tapas? Doubtful. Eczema? Perhaps. Allergy to gluten? Possibly. Herpes? Patient repeatedly denies, but doctors remain skeptical.

These professional diagnoses were just as ridiculous as the non-professional ones I had received earlier in the week. That Thursday afternoon, I had been in the computer room waiting for my friend Matt to finish his Google fix. “Do you have menopause?” he yelled to me. Heads turned. I shook my head no and awkwardly laughed.

“Then it’s not your progesterone.”

“Thanks, Matt.”

My second non-professional diagnosis: meningitis scare. For an Andalucian museologist, the best way to tell if someone has fatal brain and spine swelling is an indication of a fever.

At a quarter to two in the morning on that Saturday, one of my Spanish teachers, José, sprinted to my dorm room calling my room to tell me he was coming. As I waited outside my door in my pajamas, tired and utterly confused, he raced down the hallway flailing a thermometer. Without a word, he jabbed the thermometer into my armpit and waited for thirty seconds with deep concern carved on his young face. Before I could even ask, the thermometer was yanked away and held up to the ceiling light. “Estás bien (You’re okay),” he stuttered and left. “Buenas noches, (Good night)” I called out to him.

Now as the large IV bag drained into my bloodstream, my hands and arms were no longer hot, but the cortisone drip did not immediately make everything all better like the nurse had promised. The boils stubbornly refused to yield. In time the carpety rash turned from pink to white and shrank into little acne pimples. The boils on my hand turned from red to purple to white, shrank into squishy lumps and disappeared. The bumps on my legs and back became a tannish yellow color and left dotted remnants--a souvenir.

I had paid 100 euros for the emergency room, 70 euros for each of three dermatologist visits, 110 euros for the lab biopsy and 30 euros for meds. Diagnosis? Priceless. I was allergic to the sun.

A Step Forward for Europe: Amendment on Ban of Ugly Produce

When I first read the headline “Europe Relaxes Rules on Sale of Ugly Fruits and Vegetables,” I couldn’t believe I was not reading The Onion but the International News section of the New York Times with the dateline from Brussels. Apparently, “misshapen fruit and vegetables won a reprieve on Wednesday from the European Union as it scrapped rules banning overly curved, extra knobbly or oddly shaped produce from supermarket shelves.” I was relieved to find that food not meeting “European norms” will still be allowed into the country--with a warning that the food is “substandard,” of course.

It is good to know that Europe has begun to embrace diversity. In an act of tolerance and acceptance, twenty six types of marred fruits and vegetables will now be legally available for purchase. The unprejudiced food markets will help the European economy as well as alleviate the hunger of millions. Such an act of benevolence, though countered by roughly half of nations under the European Union, has shocked me. The reprieve can only leave me begging Europe for more of its selective kindness.

Europe took a big step forward when it scrapped the law against abnormal and weird-looking food. Could Europe maybe extend its recent unbias to human beings as well? Far-fetched, I know, but maybe the European nations will make a connection between that twisty carrot and that man from Somalia. If unique is the new uniform, then maybe the Italians won’t stare at the Asian-Italians on the bus or the Spanish won’t glare at the Russian couple speaking Russian on the street. French Muslims might be able to wear their burkas in school and all Albanians or Romanians won’t be labelled as pickpockets.

My school in Viterbo and a local Italian high school sponsored a forum where we could practice unfamiliar languages and compare cultures. In December, thirty teenagers sat in a circle, pondering how we were similar. “We all celebrate Christmas?” an Italian student offered, gracefully practicing her British accent. Enthusiastic agreement was met by two shy nos: one Italian and I both shamefully admitted that we had never celebrated Christmas. With persistent urgings from her English teacher, the girl explained to the group in halting English how her family would celebrate Eid-ul-Adha that December instead of Christmas. I wanted to ask her where she would find a mosque. I wanted to ask her how it feels to be the only Muslim. Does she hide her religion to evade taunts? She turned her head to me and gave the pointy-eyebrow-bulging-eye sign common amongst students desperately but subtly asking for a life line. Eager to help her out, I began my lecture. The Italian teenagers were unimpressed with the miracle (burning oil versus immaculate conception?) and the dreidel seemed pointless and boring. The description of sweets and presents were met with curt approval. The five American students were blasé, concentrating instead on my Italian grammar and pronunciation. Luckily, I had rehearsed this speech already to my host family, so only one category of alien revealed itself through my lecture.

Brooklyn is known for its squat and stocky mass of dense, squishy dough: the bagel. The bagel is known as Jew food--with shmear, of course. Growing up in bagel-ridden Brooklyn, I felt the Jewish presence all around me. The triumphant beige synagogue with its adjacent complex was just a few blocks away and I never hid my religion. I would compare with my classmates our favorite Jewish holidays and “bar mitzvah season” came and went like a 90’s fad. I was unprepared for the role as the Jewish representative. I did not know the entire Israeli history or even a recipe for Haroset! For shame, for shame.

What should I have done when my host sister Sarah’s friend Simone once showed me a swastika pin his father gave him? Sarah’s rowdy group of friends and I had just finished our pizzas and we were dawdling in a piazza, waiting for the next morning to begin. Simone was not one of the neo-Nazi skinhead teens that lived in Viterbo. His hair was long and straightened: a typical goth just like the others in the “Black Label Society” to which Sarah also belonged. He had given me jewelry and had always shouted my name whenever he saw me, playing with the very American ‘er’ in Goldberg. We had been friends. I quickly diverted my eyes from the pin and looked at my sister. She tried to explain to him the significance. He shot her down. I opened my mouth, breathed out the cold air, and that was that. Should I have ranted about my grandfathers in Auschwitz and the tortuous three years my grandmother and aunt endured as children? Probably. But maybe I was looking at those jagged and geometric lines as an American Jew. Maybe I was being overly critical about the sharp shape of two pieces of metal placed on top of each other. It’s just a symbol, Simone said, and put the pin back in his pocket. The Hindus use it too.

But now that the bulgy pears are bitten with the same or almost the same delight as a juicy and perfect one, I can imagine walking the streets of Italy without passing the “Viva Hitler!” declarations, or even bringing my friend home for dinner without my Italian host sisters commenting on how he looks like a squirrel. I can now imagine my host family introducing me to guests as “Aliza” instead of “The American, who is Jewish. Oh, her name is Aliza. With a z.” The possibilities seem enormous (perhaps a liberal immigration policy?) but it is too early to lift my hopes.

It’s just a banana with abnormal curvature. It’s natural and the Hawaiians don’t seem to mind.

Dictionaries

Dictionaries are plane tickets. Flipping through the alphabet, I find words that will come in handy. Bathroom, tissues, soap, where, street, please, sorry, that, there, stop. I enjoy guessing an English definition by listening to the sound of a foreign word. Fango. Faaaaango. FanGO! The Spanish word for mud sounds so exciting, soothing and inviting. Edepol. Dull and dreary. Yet, it is the Latin word for “by Pollux!”

My favorite words are the ones that are rarely used in its language. Living with Italians for nine months, I never heard passerella, the Italian word for catwalk, or divampare, meaning to burst into flames, or loculo, a burial niche. I love the words that don’t exist in English, like fanfarronear, the Spanish verb for to show off in an arrogant and haughty way, or the Latin word sonipes, meaning prancing steed.

While reading my history homework or punching a function into my calculator, my friend slumps in a library chair and proclaims “I’m bored”. I stare at her, motionless. I want to take her chin in my hand and swivel her head so she can see the possibilities around her. I want to point out the entertainment like I point out the good movies at Blockbuster. But everyone uses dictionaries. No one, however, uses them with glee and fervor. Except me, of course.

I carry a foreign language mini-dictionary like ladies carry lipstick, as a permanent staple in my bag. My attachment to perusing dictionaries confuses the strangers on the subway: is she an American tourist trying to brush up her Spanish or a diligent Spanish student trying to grasp the exotic English language? If I speak to a friend in English on our way to Manhattan, I’m either secretly applauded for my impeccable American accent or ignored. If I speak to a friend in English on our train ride to Rome, I’m either glared at for being American or quietly commended for my dedication to master English.

I don’t skim dictionaries due to frustration with my own language; in fact, I love English as well. English has its own quirks. Though my other dictionaries boast of inane and onomatopoetic words, English takes the roots of these ancient and romance languages, adding an entirely new dimension. Yes, the Latin verb effervescere, to boil up, is quite lovely. But an effervescent personality? I bet those Roman scholars didn’t see that one coming. Bankrupt is derived from the Italian words meaning broken bench. Alarm used to mean to the arms, taken from those melodramatic Italians. Dictionaries are seen as dull books brimming with dry facts. But what about the mysteries and stories? Italians, for no explained reason, use the verb to make a bottle in the sense of to fail in a performance. So that verb, fare fiasco, has graciously given us the sharply consonant word fiasco. With a bent and coffee stained mini-dictionary in hand, no fiascos can come my way.

Kill the Pigeons!

No one knows this, but last year while I was in Viterbo, I was a pimp. No, it was not a project for my class trip to Pompeii. Nor did I benefit from the job. In fact it was forced on me by...pigeons.

I was lying on the floor of my room, struggling with a confusing image of Mercury told by Virgil in cruelly complicated Latin: he, headlong, sent himself towards the waves with his whole body, similar to a bird which, around the shores, around the fishy rocks, flies low lying near the sea? The Cyllenian progeny coming from the maternal bird? While debating whether to ask my host mother for help, knowing this usually proved more complicated and frustrating since I rarely said “headlong” or “progeny” in Italian, soft cooing distracted me from the Aeneid. I looked up from my laptop and spied a pigeon sitting comfortably in the flower box on my balcony.

I smiled and remembered fond Latin class memories in room 28 with an irate and exasperated Ms. Durham, banging on the air conditioner to soften the blasting coos. Pigeons were the only familiar link between my Italian life and my American life. But after the one singing pigeon, more came. Soon six pigeons would flap around, ruining the plants and belting out unrhythmic chants. They were flirting with each other and using my balcony as a brothel. Every day they gathered right outside my window earlier and earlier to start the disorganized chorus, just as every day I worked my way through another book of the Aeneid.

In May, I excitedly flipped to book 12, the final book. Having read the fantastically gory war scenes, I wanted to take action. A new epic poem would be written about me, called the Alizid, about sex, violence and pigeons rather than arms and a man. But on the bus, I read about Aeneas’ injury. Venus, his mother, shrouded herself in mist in order to come down from Mount Olympus and save her son from the seemingly incurable arrow wound. I looked up from my lovingly crumpled book and sighed. My mother was farther away from Italy than Mount Olympus seemed to be and she did not have the magic powers to heal my pigeon scratches and bites. Pigeons are evil creatures -- I could lose an eye!

Early one mid-May morning, I stumbled to the glass door that separated me from the feathery prostitutes. My alarm clock blinked 5:30 as I glared out at the pigeons. My new alarm clock had no snooze button; they had won the day.

Even though I was planning to wake up two hours later to take my Italian AP exam, I marched four steps into the bathroom to take a shower and soothe my anger. Even from the opposite end of my apartment building, I felt their conniving presence. Careful as I always was to not splash any water on the tiled floor, I thought I noticed the floor shaking slightly in rhythm with my archenemies.

My previous passivity had been like Aeneas’ initial hesitation when Turnus pleaded for mercy. But these pigeons were not pleading for mercy--they knew the anguish they were causing me and they were reveling in my pain. They had to die. So I drove my sword deep into their chest, just like Aeneas did. Well...I bought colorful metallic windmills to scare them away.

Months later, in my white splattered brownstone, my host family emailed me pictures of the fist-sized “piccioncini”. Among the shiny shrink paper that crackle in the wind were yellow fuzzballs lying lazily in the dead flowers of my balcony flower boxes. How could I still be angry? Besides, killing off an entire community of birds would probably have altered the entire food population and I would have become a biologist’s worst enemy. Thankfully, walking through Brooklyn is not as terrifying as walking through Saint Marco’s Square in Venice, where the pigeons actually rest on pedestrians if they stop moving. So I will just have to shake my head in a sympathetic manner like I did when the Italian government fell for the 61st time since Mussolini, and let Italy deal with its own problems.