Deconstructing my California mythology
I am back in my hometown, or at least the town that was my home for more years than most other places, and during those dangerously formative years. It is pretty cool to be here: everyone can do with a soft landing spot. And now I am looking around and comparing the apparent reality to the mythology I have been carrying around with me as an expat these past few years. Everyone has a million opinions, suggestions and warnings for the expat who chooses to repatriate. The information varies wildly depending on who is offering it (what their state of mind is, where they are, when they left home, why they are in the places they are… your basic 5 W’s of life.) I have heard that there is some sort of expat re-entry shock. 48 hours in I am not feeling it. Some of my expat friends chalk this up to the fact that I always said I would come back to California, but I am not sure. It could just be that California is a nice place to re-enter. I have also heard that people who go domestic after an extended international foray find the life they left far more provincial than they remember. Fortunately (I guess?) I was always snobby enough about Petaluma that I am well familiar with its provincial nature.
I have held a lot of ideas in my head about the America I would return to. I certainly knew it was not the easiest time to come back, but sometimes you just have to jump. For a good amount of time I have been listening to people say “all Americans are fat,” “all Americans are dumb,” “all Americans are racist,” “all Americans are lazy,” “all Americans are exploitative imperialist bastards…” Of course, anyone who starts a sentence “all…” has issues (which in this case is a euphemism for being an idiot) and so there is really no reason to rebut them or engage in any way, because they are not going to hear you. But for my friends who are interested in conversations about why I would want to come back to the US, I have always been willing to share. I want to live in a place where I am not surrounded by smokers, I really, really loathe cigarettes. I want to live in a place with clean air. I want to be closer to my family. I want to live somewhere I can date. Yeah, I said it, and Imma cop to it.
Some things I know I’m going to miss about Hong Kong
Cheap utilities including phone service – remember that year we all got our electricity subsidized? That was cool. [Seems fair anyhow since our little island provides HK with ALL its power.]
Everywhere you might want to travel seems to be 2.5 hours away by air.
Anna introducing me as “Amanda, my friend from Hong Kong”.
In-town Check-in/Airport Express/Cathay Pacific.
Tirumala Septentrionis Butterflies.
Getting your drink on in the street.
The Inland Revenue Department.
Public transportation.
The Rugby Sevens.
My yoga teacher.
My amigas.
My view.
Norman.
(I was once) Lost. That series ended, too.
I just finished taking my written exam in my yoga teacher training course. It was not that hard. Or maybe it was, I am not really sure. Either way, with several uninterrupted hours ahead of me (as I finished 2 hours early) and thus far cooperative power, I have been perusing the internets. It appears that there was a television season finale that was kind of a big deal yesterday: Lost. After six seasons this series has come to an end. It is everywhere out there right now with all sorts of love-hate cyber-screaming going on. It is trending on Twitter. It nets 39,700,000 hits on Google (in 0.23 seconds, woo hoo.) A surprising number of my friends are discussing it various on-line formats. Hmm. Maybe I missed something here.
I remember when Lost debuted in 2004. I was knee-deep in misery in the suburbs in Northern Nevada and was not interested in television so much as escape. [Note to self: one often does get lost when running away with eyes closed.] I remember that Matthew Fox was on the show and this was like his post-Party of Five resurrection (only way to go was up, eh Matt?) I think I remember that one of the Hobbits was on it too. And a super hot girl: Evangeline Lily (whose previous work was in things like The Hot Chick and Freddie v. Jason and The Lizzy McGuire Movie. Not that that means anything, just sayin’.) I am not sure why I never turned it on. I guess I was occupied with other issues, like my survival rather than that of a collection of really, really good-looking people out there on what I (yes, mistakenly) assumed was a high-tech Gilligan’s Island. I could not understand how a television program could have much longevity with such limiting parameters (Prison Break syndrome right? I mean, once you get out, where is that show going?) My Hong Kong friends are totally into Lost in the same way that my US friends are, so I totally could have gotten into it. Still, I did not. (Neither did Roger Ebert, so I feel a little less losery.)
Oh, Yeah. You blend.
Waiting for coffee this morning, I notice four people staring at me. Not subtly, or even with the smallest intention of trying to look like they might not be gawking – straight staring. Two of them are an elderly couple, say in their late sixties, the other two are a mother and a young daughter, maybe 30 and 7-ish, respectively (obviously, it’s not like I am in Kentucky or something.) I do the quick mental once over… nothing that unusual – I am fully clothed, basically well-groomed, not carrying wild animals or assault weapons; I am positively the morning version of Joanna Generic. Nothing-To-See-Here-People. But that does not matter. Since the day I arrived here, locals have been staring at me in much the same way. One little kid asked his mom if I was a man or a woman when I first got here. What? She said it was because he had never seen “such a big lady.” Wow. Look at my ego be resilient.
Turns out I do not blend.
Initially this bothered me. I would get really uncomfortable on the bus or the MTR as I felt heat rising to my face when I realized that people were staring at me with the fascination (horror?) with which they may behold a tribe of Na’vi casually embarking on the train. Then I went through the phase where I stared back or raised my eyebrows and said “What?” Not a great strategy, I must say, as it seemed to only offer validity for the previous staring. Pretty soon I became mostly oblivious to it.
The fact is, I am 5’10″, I have blue eyes and (basically) blond hair. In a Cantonese community in Hong Kong, blending is not gonna be happening. It makes me wonder what it feels for people who feel different where I come from. I cannot remember staring at people so overtly, but that may be only a function of culture, and I probably managed it in other (possibly) less obvious (unlikely) ways. Still, where I am from there are people from everywhere. You cannot assume that someone is “not from here” on the basis of looks in California. You kind of can in Hong Kong. Granted there is a large ex-pat community population, but once you get away from where the white people are (and those places are pretty specific), it is a different scene.
When I first moved here I lived on Kowloon-side, in a Thai neighborhood (Kowloon City – f’realz.) I was THE only Westerner there. [For the record, I like to say White person not Western person because there are so many non-white people who are culturally super Western here, including vast numbers of Hong Kong Chinese... But people are always on my case for saying 'White' and say I am being racist. I am not being racist, I am being obvious. What distinguishes me - initially - is how I look. Full on gweipo.] Anyhow, in Kowloon City, it was me and the neighbors and it was great. They all knew me in no time and the sense of community was weird, but real. Like, they would have never socialized with me, but they were always there to direct me, lend a hand with packages, and of course, sell me shit. It was totally safe and comfortable. I was the one odd ball and I imagine they were soon tired of looking at me; I was their White person, they did not need to stare.
When I moved to Lamma – The Gweilo Ghetto – the places I hung around changed. The locals who live on Lamma [Chow Yun Fat!] are a special breed and are totally uninterested in the fact that they are surrounded by White people. It is what it is, and they go about their business. As a Lamma resident I often socialize in Hong Kong, but again, this generally takes me to the places WTWPA. Soho, LKF, Wan Chai if things have gone wildly astray, etcetera. However, I do rely almost exclusively on public transportation and my hub is the former fishing village and still economically slower district of Aberdeen. It is in Aberdeen that I get all the attention these days.
I mentioned earlier that the first thing that distinguishes me is the physical part. There are of course other elements of my non-localness. The way I dress. Where I shop. What I eat. The fact that I speak about… umm… 50 words (?) of Cantonese. Myriad other preferences – like wishing that all the public smokers would curl up in their own little bubble of smoke and die float far, far away, my aversion to the wet markets, my tendency to exercise common courtesy with regard embarking and alighting trains, buses and elevators – make it clear that I am not one of the Westerners that hails from Hong Kong. Though there are a good number of them. They move a little easier through the HK milieu, mostly because they often speak the language (go figure.) But they still stand out.
China says, with regard to Hong Kong: One Country, Two Systems. It is a silly platitude to justify the capitalist behavior of Asia’s World City under the dominion of Beijing’s Pseudo-Communist principles. I reckon Hong Kong people operate the same way: One ID Card, Two Social Strata. Locals are paid way less for the same work that Westerners do. Locals get different prices in the markets. Locals speak two or three languages, Westerners not so much. They live in different areas. They have totally different education systems. Of course, within each of these strata exist infinite sub-strata, which is not so much my point here. And I hate to consider that it may be totally economically based… though it could be as that is always the most effective and long-lasting kind of imperialism isn’t it? (Case in point: interesting article discussing the difference between ex-pats and immigrants here.)
How is one supposed to assimilate in such circumstances? Or are you supposed to? It is the melting pot/salad bowl dilemma I guess. If one (like, say, me…) has no chance of blending should you got for highlighting that which makes you stand out or make yourself less conspicuous by always surrounding yourself with like-looking people? That seems counter-intuitive if we assume that people who tend to move from their home country, generally have some interest in getting “out there” and seeing something different. Celebrate Diversity? Well, yeah that it what we are taught in American schools (a lot of good it is doing us: Evidence = Teabaggers.) I think it has more to do with embracing the zoo-like phenomenon of being stared at all the time. Perhaps this is what it feels like to be famous! I used to want to be famous when I was little so maybe this is the universe’s little joke on me…
As I sip my coffee, I smile at the four people who are still looking at me. They do not turn away hurriedly or with any sort of embarrassment. They simply smile back.
And that is a pretty nice way to start any day.
Veni, vidi, vici: Hong Kong Rugby Sevens 2010
There are some events that become legendary for the impact they have on human history or scientific research or collective genius.
The Hong Kong Rugby Sevens is not necessarily one of these events.
However, the legendary status of The Sevens as one of the most significant things that happens in Hong Kong every spring cannot be denied. Even people, like a grumpy coworker of mine, who hate the event, reluctantly admit the (@*&!#%$) effects of the Sevens on the city. Hotels are sold out months in advance. The tickets sell out too, but that is mostly to do with scouser/scalpers who are somehow able to hoard loads of them form some backwater shithole in Liverpool, and then offload them on the streets all weekend. The bars bank on the weekend as one of the most lucrative of the calendar year. Pottinger Street can barely meet the demand for metallic cowboy hats, feather boas, super hero ensembles and French maid get-ups. The energy – like it or not – is tangible. and if you are up for it… it is a smashing good time. Like them or not, the Hong Kong Rugby Sevens have become an institution. They may be associated with foreigners, and frowned on by rugby traditionalists. Staid citizens may not embrace the carnival atmosphere and spectators’ antics. But during the few hectic days of competition and partying, they garner worldwide publicity and hundreds of millions of dollars for our economy.
Sponsored by Cathay Pacific and Credit Suisse, the Hong Kong tournament of the IRB series has reached a sort of clout in the rugby world that is undeniable. With the addition of the seven-a-side rugby to the 2016 Olympics, there has been much talk about that being the new Brass Ring. Here in Hong Kong, (and I would hazard a guess for many of the Antipodeans and Islanders as well) that is simply not the case. “I remember a big South Sea Islander saying that, in his view, the Hong Kong Sevens were really the Olympic Games of rugby union… the Hong Kong event captures all the really good things the game has to offer – splendid organisation, wonderful sporting spirit, universal camaraderie, admirable field behaviour…” Bill McClaren, RIP.
The impact of Olympic inclusion on rugby should be interesting (perhaps along the lines of the Invictus impact – but more so). As Olympic gold comes up for grabs the general consensus is that non-rugby-fanatical yet competition-fanatical countries will take a greater interest in the sport. That means that the US and China are suddenly going to be taken a little more seriously on the pitch, I imagine. This is not some latent patriotism raising its zealous head either, this seems to be a concept that people are already talking about in earnest. While I was in the South Stands this past Sunday watching the US play Samoa in the Cup Quarter Final match (we started out strong…) some Aussies near by started telling me what they thought of American Rugby. They said that the US was going to be a serious team to contend with as soon as they decided they wanted to win. That America simply has the best athletes, but lacks knowledge of the game at this point. I think they were being serious. It reminded me of a conversation I had with several Brits during the 2006 World Cup in a bar in Luang Prabang; I said that soccer, excuse me, football, was going to have to take notice of the US by the 2014 World Cup. Like, serious notice, because I had seen how soccer had taken off in the states over the past 20 years, rivaling basketball legitimately in youth sports. These guys were in total agreement with me on Sunday. They even bought me a beer. A liter of beer. Take note, people: Team USA – It could happen.
Maybe that should be our motto as we attempt to break into the Euro sports arena.
Ex-Patriatitis
Standing on the waters casting your bread
While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing.
Distant ships sailing into the mist,
You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing.
Freedom just around the corner for you
But with the truth so far off, what good will it do?
Ex-pat as a subject has occupied much of my mental space over the past couple of years. Likely that has to do with the fact that I am, of sorts, an ex-pat. As has been noted, I am somewhat of a reluctant ex-pat. In some respects I feel entitled to have my say on the subject, particularly in the face of some of the sillier things I hear people say about ex-pats, but in many other circumstances I feel like a total newbie as I stand alongside people who have, literally, served the Queen from Jamaica to Sri Lanka to Hong Kong and beyond. A lifetime abroad. I can hardly imagine.
What is an ex-pat? The definitions certainly vary. Many of the ex-pats I know say they are not ex-pats because they are not on an “ex-pat package.” Still, they are residents of a country that is not officially their own and easily distinguishable through physical and lifestyle differences. Other people say they are not ex-pats because they will never repatriate. The actual definition is: a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person’s upbringing or legal residence. Seems to me the people I have been talking to are ex-pats after all. Other people I know embrace the label, though they tend to be of an older generation and embody it in terms more familiar: G&Ts, Panama hats, an oil and water relationship with locals.
And why my reluctance to adopt the clearly apt moniker?
Well, first, I want to go home – and apparently that is not “cool” in the ex-pat scene. In fact, it seems to imply some sort of direct challenge to the ex-pat lifestyle whenever it comes up, which is then promptly chided by a lengthy diatribe against the United States.
Whatever.
I miss my tribe. Saying that, of course, brings up a whole slew of crap insults opinions.
No matter how one identifies with the concept of ex-pat, the experience is of living away from your “father” (or mother) land is singularly significant. The shift in perspective is amazing, and I might suggest necessary in many ways. I have seen my ideas of what it means to be American, to be an ex-pat, and to be an American ex-pat, go through amazing changes over the course of five years.
So swiftly the sun sets in the sky,
You rise up and say goodbye to no one.
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread,
Both of their futures, so full of dread, you don’t show one.
Shedding off one more layer of skin,
Keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within.
To fully consider ex-patriatitis, consider the etymology: there is a suggestion of being forcibly sent off from your home country. That would definitely color the experience, though I don’t think that is the primary cause anymore. Or is it? Why do people leave their home countries and settle, or wander, abroad? Save for being a law-breaker, getting sent off seems a bit archaic these days, but I would guess there are many ways in which one gets “sent off.” Pulling a geographical is hardly a new phenomenon, and many people who may believe they are expatriating by choice are doing it more so for circumstance. I may be projecting as I perpetrated a total runner as many of you know – I couldn’t deal so I sprinted. (Bad strategy, btw.) I think there are far more subtle runners though: can’t find love, work, peace, hope… at home? Move it out.
For these reasons the location of my expatriation are famous. No easier place for a Western man to find a partner than Asia, it is simply how it works; Western male + Asian female = Instant hook-up. In the current economic climate, there is no easier place to secure employment than Asia, and the money is good. Peace? Well, Hong Kong has it if for no other reason than no one cares to consider things that bother them… you simply do not need to. I suppose that is very insular, but you can certainly get away with it here in a place where political/environmental/religious/racial/humanitarian issues seem to be so far removed from the work/play/consume culture of Hong Kong. I realize that sounds harsh, even judgemental, but if you live here it is worth acknowledging as a reality, at least to some degree, and I definitely understand the appeal, so I am not really casting aspersions.
Hope? Ahh… that springs eternal when one need not consider the alternatives.
You’re a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds,
Manipulator of crowds, you’re a dream twister.
You’re going to Sodom and Gomorrah
But what do you care? Ain’t nobody there would want to marry your sister.
Friend to the martyr, a friend to the woman of shame,
You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name.
And so, you find yourself away. Entrenched? Maybe. Detached? Often. Stuck? That is to be determined. The manner in which one ‘becomes’ an ex-pat greatly influences the kind of ex-pat into which one evolves. Do you immerse yourself in the culture? Are you insulated from it? Somewhere in between? It is clear to me that those options and all points between describe the experience for nearly everyone.
There is freedom in being an ex-pat, or a perceived freedom that apparently allows for behavior that people would not condone at home – a suspension of the standard progression, I think. Not that the standard progression is really all that, or progressive for that matter. But the suspended reality of the ex-pat life is nearly tangible. This can be ultimately completely freeing or petrifying in its stasis. And I wonder at what point one moves beyond it, I have not in five years. Would marrying a local do it? I think that it is far more likely that the local comes to the way of the ex-pat than the other way around. Though, I speak as an observer rather than a practitioner here.
The thing I do notice is that the choice to do things you might never think of at “home” seems available as an ex-pat and this offers much possibility. Likely, this calls into question the nature of home for most people who experience this liberty. And once you begin to fully examine the nature of home, and what home means to you, you are wandering the wide open spaces of the ex-pat. These manifestations of these ruminations will disclose the nature of home for you, I believe.
If that is the result of embarking on the life of an ex-pat, maybe it is enough.
Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy,
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers.
In the smoke of the twilight on a milk-white steed,
Michelangelo indeed could’ve carved out your features.
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space,
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face.
I listen to people Americans who travel here, some to stay, criticize American ex-pats all the time. They do this with noticeable disdain for the embarrassing behavior of Americans abroad. I giggle when I hear these comments. In this regard, I know of what I speak, and know it well. Funny enough, the Brits and Aussies do it to their own as well. The behavior they criticize is the bumptious and belligerent behavior of their kind acting as the bulls in the proverbial China shop of the non-Western world. This shortchanges the awareness of the “China shop” as well as the ex-pats in question. It has nothing to do with being American or British or Australian or whatever. The mob mentality and hive mind tendencies of human beings is what these criticisms are really taking aim at. No matter where you go, those in groups of their own will annoy you. I have never heard of Swedes being particularly offensive in any way. Go to Thailand: there in roving packs, they earn the same scorn of the Americans in Europe and the Brits in Hong Kong. Israelis are always getting harshed on (I raise my hand in culpability here) but I learned through humbling trial and error, this is not to do with the individuals from Israel, it is the fact that as soon as they finish their military service they head abroad. In groups. Multitudes of them traveling in tribal groups. And so, the reputation is perpetrated.
Anthropologist Monica Wilson described the significance of the definitions of ritual that characterize the Book of Leviticus as “the key to understanding a society’s central values; it makes up the markers by which a group of people recognise themselves as a group, and distinguish themselves from their neighbours.” I wonder then, if the innate desire to determine and understand our own identities lies at the restless nature of the ex-pat – no matter where you go… there YOU are. In the same way, the cultural mythologies far and wide discuss journeys through the wilderness with the ultimate hope of arriving at some sort of promised land. It makes up the majority of the Book of Deuteronomy (as much as my limited Biblical studies indicate.) Forty years of wandering leads you….
…Home?
None of my friends, or much of my family for that matter, seemed all that surprised to see where my life has taken me. Why then was I? Lamenting the wanderlust of my cousins Haley and Nolan, my aunt Ginger reportedly said, “They are such Barickmans!” Perhaps the genetic code is that strong – and maybe we can identify the fernweh in others as a central value thus superseding the necessity to reconvene with our tribe of national origin and that in itself creates the ex-pat culture. Home for many may be the impermanence offered by ex-patriating. When I return to my tribe, will I belong there again? I have yet to articulate the nature of home beyond one simple requirement: mi familia. This is where I am “far from the turbulent space.” For this reason alone, I know I will find my place. I harbor few illusions about an idealized promised land and expect that there will always remain some sort of question as to permanence or belonging as a residual effect of my ex-pat experience. It is simply who I have become am.
Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune,
Bird fly high by the light of the moon,
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.
I say tomay-toe, you say,”Mate, can I get another pint?”
I have been calling it cultural literacy, or fluency… or something otherwise didactic and mildly imperious. It is this innate understanding of other people… that we seem to have – or not.
It is the reason I feel comfortable in Mexico. I get that place. This is not to be construed as loving every element of a place (though in the case of Mexico I admit a bit of adoring veneration) but more like an unspoken comprehension of behavior and mores that prevents the eye roll and attendant expletive when someone does something you simply cannot believe. [The Canto Grannies do this Tsk! thing really loud and almost glottal...]
I don’t know how long you have to be in a place to achieve this, though I imagine it has far more to do with personality/interest/preference than anything else. It certainly has little to do with language. What, you say? How can it not be about language?
Well, let me tell you about two groups of people who technically speak the same language but really do not speak the same language.
Introducing the Americans and the British. Hello.
I hear the words that are coming out of your mouth, but I am really not getting it.
The differences tend to be so subtle they are actually more problematic. Some of the trifles are amusing… fag, fanny, football to name a few. But it is not just about the language. There is something about the pace of banter, the appropriate ‘wait time’ for a response and often the employment of sarcasm, that leads to all sorts of confusion. In my haste to grab a bunch of packages and get off a bus at the correct stop I said to a good British friend, “Hey, grab that bag and hit the bell, will you?” He responded with an offended salute and “Yes Ma’am.” This made me look up with a raised eyebrow, and say, “What is your problem?” To which he went into great detail that I had been rude.
Rude? We had to get off the freaking bus (and for the record had to yell at the driver to stop as it took so damn long to get him to help collect our stuff) and I was being efficient… distracted maybe, and not overly concerned with stroking his ego prior to asking for the favor of pressing the stop button. But this caused a problem and it is a good example of the differences in conduct. No one I know at home would have thought that rude… in fact I think the snippy salute would have gotten noted over the “Hey…”
Surrounded by British ex-pats in Hong Kong, one thing I have definitely misunderstood, and consequently been misunderstood within, is the Pub Culture. Initially, I found this completely perplexing. After all, I love to hang out in cool bars, more than most people I know, I would go so far as to say. But I got nothing on these guys.
The British take this to a whole new level. Most of my foreign friends here say that they drink a lot less when they go home than they do while ex-patting here in Honkers. Most barring my English friends that is. The explanations are diverse and not easy to generalize, though I know in my case when I go home bars are a very secondary or even tertiary spot to congregate. It just seems like there are lots more options. Plus there is the stigma that being a daily barfly brings. Not so for my mates from across the pond.
Per capita drinking across most of Europe has decreased in the past 40 years, but in Britain it has increased. People start younger, drink more and are increasingly likely to binge-drink. Government figures released last year show that British adults on average drink the equivalent of 11.4 litres of pure alcohol a year – translating into 130 bottles of wine or 1,137 pints of beer. The government has estimated that the total cost to society, in medical bills, missed work, clean-up charges and increased policing, is about £20 billion a year.
This subject was explored by author Sarah Lyall, and though she (of course) annoyed a bunch of folks, what I read was, as our former compatriots would say, spot on. I did not read her article as a judgment or an expose, but more like a series of observations that seemed pretty familiar to me. [In fact, I think I must know at least a couple of her test subjects.] And I do subscribe to the old adage about glass houses and as such I realize that I have certainly done my bit of binge drinking… not all so far removed as my college days. The difference is that I am overcome with a self imposed shame following these episodes, which makes my British friends roll with laughter. Their attitude is much more like it’s all part of the cost of doing business.
In some ways, I suppose this is very healthy. I mean no sense crying over something you have already done. But on the other hand the acceptance of this behavior past the age of 20-something seems a little out of place.
Then again, ex-pats are, by literal definition, out of place… so perhaps I should just chill out and grab a pint. Or 1,137.
But I Feel Good! (Excuse me is this the venue?)
Yeah i was just following a Friday
I found a driver here’s a fiver
I’ll have to lend you excuse me is this the
venueYeah i was just following a Friday
I was just going with the..uh
Last night I went to Hong Kong’s Fringe Club, which is sort of the hipster/alternative arts center in Central…a cool place that charges FAR too much for drinks… to attend a fundraiser for the Obama campaign.
It was fun to be out and doing something that always stirs my inner patriot… not not drinking or listening to country music… VOTING. One of the things they were doing at the event was fed-exing our ballots for us! Woo Hoooooooo!
So as soon as that was done it was time for Middle Eastern Belly Dancing, African Drumming, Flamenco Dancing, Nepalese Music… and then of course, Hong Kong’s best country/western band, my pals The YSW Curs. Actually, it all seemed very American to me.
I left the venue proud owner of some very fine swag… Though I have to say that, while I am thrilled to have Obama shirts in Chinese, my friend’s meeting with Jimmy Choo at the China Club kinda trumped me.
But still, I always feel so good when I vote, even if my vote tends to be the kiss of death.
Here’s hoping we all have the chance to be the Change we want to see in the world.
Yeah i was just following a Friday
I was just going with the..uhBut I Feel Good
But I Feel HighDeeper down than this y’all
Deeper down
Ex-Pats Read A Lot.
Ex-pat life is very strange to me in most of the ways that I view it. Ex-pats, on first glance, seem to be escapists for the most part. There is a more glamorous view, which paints them as romantic, adventurous, erudite… But most of the ex-pats I see are in the former category: escaping. It is part of my (hypo)thesis about ex-pats and books.
Ex-pats read a lot.
I thought I had died and gone to snobby, educated heaven when I first took notice of how much reading ex-pats do. Books, newspapers, (high-brow) magazines. They have it all. They can talk about all the latest things… and it has so much more flair or panache than I found in similar conversations at home. But like most things my opinion is constantly shifting and for those of you happening across this page that is what you get….
Now I see the reading as something different.
Amanda
