Another Suitcase in Another Hall

More packing and more moving; three months here and two months on the road then back for another couple of months which no one knows when it will end.

Again, I left without keys but the tiny keys of my suitcases. The means of transportation progresses so much but my psychological ability doesn't keep up with it. Part of me still couldn't believe that I went to Denmark and stayed for the gloomy winter, had a real snow in Amsterdam and stayed until the spring came, then found a wonderful digs in Hamburg to fulfill my dream of a slanted roof. Part of me couldn't figure how all these happened.

The other part of me, the most part, tells myself to pack and hit the road. I need a base to feel centered and I need to end the drifting journey but, not yet, not yet. I pack the question mark in my luggage and set out for an exclamation mark.

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Battle in Seattle, Battle in Yourself

Battle in Seattle brings about mixed feelings which boil down to the guilt for not doing enough, and the compassion for the hectic lives of activists.

The image of the crowd, demonstration, garrison police and blood-shedding conflict reminds me of the years before the Martial Law was lifted in 1987 in Taiwan. It is an inseparable part of my youth. I remember watching the TV news with great suspicion, which presented the mob rioting and the police defending, until alternative video and printed media broke the silence and revealed that the police provoked the conflict.

Shortly before and after the lift of the Martial Law, protests mushroomed everywhere and people pay a price for the rough years. Cheng Nan-Jung, a publisher of a political magazine, was indicted for insurrection and he ended up burned himself alive to claim freedom of speech. The photo of the remain of his body can be found on the internet. Unlike dead bodies found in most fire scenes curling to avoid the pain, his body maintains in a straight position as if he has no fear for the fire. I think I owe him. I think we owe him.

In my 20s I was actively involved in feminist movements, lesbian movements, and other human right issues. We had our glory but glory is for bystanders. For insiders the sense of achievement is always peripheral. More often there was the crash of egos, the group dynamics of implicit manipulation, the projection of emotional problems onto social issues, and the anger that dominates the movement.

I remember an activist talking in a condescending manner as if this is the only way to assure his proletarian stance. I remember an activist being unreasonable at whoever works under her and constantly threatened to dissolve the organization she founded. The super-sized ego guy and the self-hatred woman both make great contribution to social movements, but I very much want to say, go home and rest, and stop poisoning the movement with your resentment because it is goddamn pathetic.

I remember those episodes in which we were rough and nasty, even to one another, as if it is not part of our goal to make the world more accommodating to tenderness and delicacy. If we could we might quote Harlan Ellison, "you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and in every revolution a few die who shouldn't, but they have to, because that's the way it happens, and if you make only a little change, then it seems to be worthwhile."

Over the years I lost several friends and comrades to every kinds of emotional problems. They are alive. They are just not themselves.

A movie like Battle in Seattle or more so, the movement of anti-globalization, stirs my mind nonetheless. The courage and creativity in it is thrilling and I think I owe them, I think we owe them. I have my militant years but now I would like to give more space to allow my doubts afloat. I still engage in some sort of activism such as judicial reform and the abolishment of death penalty, but the anger is appeased to a large extent. I have had other goals and now I tend to think that my ultimate concern IS to make the world more accommodating to tenderness and delicacy.

Technorati Tags:battle in seattle, battle in seattle movie

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An Old Friend

There are people whom I knew when I was young and later walk in the same direction in life; we meet here and there and the meetings are taken for granted. They are not old friends. But the world is big. Every road leads to Rome and every road leaves Rome. I am not aware of it until I meet someone I knew when I was young and she took the road that I didn’t. That is an old friend.

Old friends carry a commonality of the old days. We did something together and that’s how we met; we walked shoulder to shoulder and shared a history. There are pieces of my past stored in her memory and hers in mine.

But old friends are foreign for she walks through the road that I didn’t take and she sees the sights that I didn’t see. She becomes someone that I don’t know. I studied her face to identify each pace after we said good-bye last time. She entered a labyrinth, she encountered a deadend alley. She got in and out of the battlefield several times, bearing inscriptions in the body and the soul, and having a head of a moose hanging on her wall as trophy. The flame shines on her, and it could be the light on a busy street, the glitter of a diamond, or a splendid night view from a lookout. At the back of the light, shadows await, it could be protective, or devouring.

Does she recognize me then? The road I take is documented on my face as well, the bumpy, the winding, and the beauty. I told, detailed but scattered, like Marco Polo explained to Kublai Khan about a knot on a chess board, or an arch of a stone bridge. The conversation jumped back and forth between the familiarity and the foreignness; we talked about what happens after we left Rome and the people we knew when we were in Rome. I saw the wrinkles are developing between her eyebrows and know that I am aging in the same pace and same place.

The familiarity and the foreignness were stitched together at the end of the conversation: we are Marco Polo to each other. I presented the sweet and the hostile in a place where she has never been, but she knows enough of sweetness and hostility, not to mention that she too saw the wrinkles developing on my face in the same pace and same place. Once again we go back on the roads leaving Rome, racing or rambling, until Rome is far away and left behind. The magic is, an old friend is never far away nor left behind.

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A Walk in the Snow

I walked in the snow and my foot got bogged down in each step. I pulled it out and it got mired in the next step. The air coming in my nasal cavity was chilly. After a while there was a lodge.

It was empty other than a wooden bench. There is no door; the so-called door is a hole for you to duck in and out. It was not a closed space but it was still warm in the lodge. As long as it was not as chilly as outside, it was warm.

I remember that I brought cheese, bread, boiled eggs, and an apple. After I ate them there was no more to do in the lodge so I resumed my hike.

That was last summer in Switzerland. It doesn’t make sense to snow in Faulhorn in August but it just did. The need shrinks to the minimum to the very basic in the snow. An empty lodge on the way is highly appreciated.

I met many lodges and owe them the grace. Beauty is shown to me and I reckon it as a privilege.

Technorati Tags:switzerland, faulhorn, grindelwald, hike

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Count Down

For maybe two weeks I was sad and down, as if I don’t know whether I should sit or stand. All of a sudden Hamburg is so intriguing, Germany is so intriguing, Europe is so intriguing and I am leaving. So much moving and leaving in two years doesn’t make it easier for me to pack. I perceived the limit of time so strongly and was stunned by the passing of time. My apartment can be so quiet that I heard my clock on the wall ticking. Tick tock. Tick tock. I felt the time slipping away from my fingers and I couldn’t grasp it.

I went to Heidelberg for no good reason. Because the overnight bus costs 18 euros only in return; because the idea of leaving made me greedy for Germany; none of the reasons is for Heidelberg itself and as predicted the trip was not much other than exhausting. I took a nap under the trees beside the castle and in Philosophenweg, and returned to Hamburg feeling spent but no less greedy. I still heard it, tick tock, tick tock.

Where else to visit? Plenty of choices and all of them seem the same. Revisit the places in Hamburg that I enjoyed, or go check the passage behind my apartment where hares are insatiably nibbling? Maybe I’ll have the luck to see a hedgehog walking so slow, so harmless? The sun sets and the darkness descends, and I go nowhere for I can’t decide which is the better option. Tick tock, tick tock.

I need to complete my thesis but there is so much trivia to take care of. The necessities of life become redundant one by one that all I am thinking is to get rid of them. The criteria for purchase become rigid. Buy a small pack of rice if necessary, buy a small bottle of sauce if necessary, or refrain from buying anything if a small pack is not available. I ate without tasting and wrote without thinking; just stuffed the stomach like I stuffed the pages. Get the last word of a sentence in the beginning of a line and yippee, start another paragraph!

Listen to Anjani a lot. Blue Alert, the lyrics from Leonard Cohen and thank G-d there is no need to put up with his “golden voice”. Anjani has such a beautiful voice. She sings sober and precise. The accompaniment is pushed far away in the background and all you hear is her, minimalist vocal plus a few notes from the piano here and there. She sings as if she sees things right through but decides to be tender and serene about it. There is a quality in her voice that even when she sings “I’ve never loved before” or “there is no one after you”, it is still credible. To say it with sophistication is different from saying it with naïveté. It is definitely better when she sings, “As many nights endure/ without a moon or star/ so will we endure/ when one is gone and far”. I listened to Anjani to comfort my thoughts but when it was done, again, “tick tock, tick tock”.

The requirement for the thesis is 80 to 100 pages, so 80 pages it is. I finished it at exactly 80 pages. Months ago Katja mentioned her worry about getting behind the deadline, and I said, “It’s not that difficult. As the deadline approaches, I lower my standard so eventually I make it.” They thought I was joking but I was not.

The books go back to the library and all readings become redundant now, yippee! I reject the idea that I will read them in the future so I am NOT taking them with me. To finish the thesis before leaving is exactly the same deed as in my teenage years: staying in school, completing the assignments so no textbooks in the bag and I could go home light. People don’t change do they.

The best part of the thesis is the acknowledgements, naturally. “The joy of completing the thesis is seriously interrupted by the knowledge that it is time to leave. Two years is not long enough to have someone embedded in a different culture, but when the departure is so near, it makes people feel disembedded.” Tick tock, tick tock.

I am eager to meet my classmates for one more time before I go but the mailing list is getting shorter. Only four are left but it’s actually three; I know that Jeff was off to Bonn for his internship. It’s just a tentative pull, knowing that it’s probably in vain.

This afternoon I came across the fresh made bread and was so tempted. I gave up the idea of making pasta, had the bread with butter instead and found it so delicious. I know I survive the worst, because hours later I am hungry again and can’t stop thinking what else to eat to meet my appetite.

Europe is elegant in the eye of departure, and it is going to end soon. But what is going to end? I don’t know. Ending means that something exists now but will cease to exist in the future. Unless I know about the future, I can’t possibly know what is going to end.

The lease of the apartment needs to be terminated, the modem needs to be returned, the sofa bed needs to be sold, and more small items to be disposed, consumed or tossed. Moving is such a waste: you get embedded, no matter how shallow, and get disembedded; the soil is lifted and it’s in vain. Tick tock, tick tock. But this is the way it is. Take a rest and gain the courage to endure the fruitlessness of life. Tenderness grows again from the heart to live a night without a moon or star. Tick tock, tick tock.

Technorati Tags:anjani, blue alert, leonard cohen

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A Tip for the Thesis

One page a day, keeps the professor away.

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Two Less People in Hamburg

Two less people in Hamburg tonight. Nandu and Thao.

Starting from a group of 36 people from 19 different countries, the Erasmus Mundus Journalism 2006-2008 is now dispersed as we were before this program. Dust to dust and ashes to ashes. If life is a series of coincidences and rendezvous then what is left when people depart after a short encounter?

When leaving Aarhus I felt sentimental standing in front of the train station knowing that the 36 of us had or would enter the building and would never exit from it again. I might visit this little town after 20 years for nostalgic reasons but the life I had was impossible to be recreated. No one will be there except the boy in ARoS. The train station is like a giant mouth that devours us, one by one, spiced up with our memories.

When leaving Amsterdam I was heading for Scandinavia for my summer vacation knowing that this is it. For many of us. We’ll be divided as three groups and although the distance between them is next to nothing, for now, the group came to an end. This April I passed by Amsterdam and walked in the city knowing that this is it. We used to rule this city, didn’t we? The Prinsengracht was under the sovereignty of Al, Jeff, Nandu and Juliet; the north part went to Maren and Mia. The most popular windmill in Amsterdam was famous because Emily, Ruta, Priya, Pati and Zhanna lived close by. On my way back home I would came across Cuckoo’s room on the ground floor at the corner, though I seldom knocked to bother her. I remember she left early. The next day I saw a black guy sitting there with the window wide open. I was shouting inside, “No! That is Cuckoo’s room!!” Not anymore, obviously.

Sooner or later we all left. I didn’t even keep a map of Amsterdam.

Then how many of us met again in Hamburg, 13? Now we have 5. The next will be leaving in two months and that will be me. I start to think about what to buy as gifts for my friends and family. In the era of globalization it’s a headache for everything is attainable everywhere.

We are simultaneously here and there, scholars say, for the communication is in real time now.

True. But it’s a small piece of me here and another piece of me there; adding them altogether it is only one, but not multiplied, me. We are torn apart.

What is left is just the memory. A walk in the park, a dish on the table, when the map is ditched and the recipe is unknown. The unsaid words are appreciated; the look in the eyes is understood and returned. So, farewell.

Technorati Tags:erasmus mundus

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Cooking

Cooking is my way to empty the fridge without stuffing up the trash can.

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Honesty Box

Facebook has an application called "Honesty Box". It allows people to send and receive anonymous messages. A lot of activities in cyberspace can be anonymous but the Honesty Box in Facebook is special in the sense that you are sure the message comes from someone you know.

Plenty of concerns are raised regarding cyberspace and one of them is recklessness. If I am not held responsible, will I remain decent? According to the New York Times, Honesty Box is used to spread hatred as a form of bullying, and to express affection when you have a crush on someone but are not ready to tell. People act differently in cyberspace and that leads to the argument that virtual communities are not real, or not real enough to be taken seriously. I confirm the observation of the differences between online and offline communication but I just don't know which is "more real": a diplomatically-managed social relation, or a rough, harsh, unacceptable but heart-felt expression?

An honesty box in a parking lot is an economic arrangement to collect small fees, but the Honesty Box in Facebook is a Pandora's box in which a variety of emotions are sealed. Allegedly "hope" is in it too.

Technorati Tags:facebook, honesty box, social capital

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Fire in Germany

It was half past midnight and I picked up a smell of smoke. Walking around the apartment checking, I was sure that something was burning. I opened the door and there it was, misty white smoke in the stairway.

I went down to the third floor and rang the bell. "Fire," I said, and the black couple replied in German. I asked them to call the police. Only in recollection it occurred to me that the lady was half naked.

On the second floor, smoke squeezed out of a door but no one responded to the bell. I walked further down to wake up the first-floor neighbors and two ladies answered the door. "Fire," I said. They replied in German but I was not sure if they understood me. The smoke floated upward so there was nothing unusual at their door. "Smoke, smoke," I said. I left when they started to put on their coats.

All windows in the stairway were opened and a few neighbors kicked the unanswered door open. Smoke, more smoke happily welcomed us, and a flashlight didn't help too much. The police and the firemen came and took over. We waited on the pavement.

A stretcher was brought out, a smell of barbecue scented. Things were thrown out of the bedroom window: a comforter, a pillow, unidentifiable pieces and residues. I stared at the window of the second floor thinking, "No bus and no metro... If I am not allowed to go back in, I'll walk for ten minutes to wake Nandu up."

It turned out that Nandu was lucky. We got back to the building after forty minutes.

A friend later told me that "fire" sounds like "Feier" in German, meaning "party". I didn't know that I accidentally invited my neighbors to a midnight "Feier" with "smoke".

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Priyanka Leaving

Before leaving Germany, Priyanka came to stay with me for a few days then headed back home in Delhi. We got up at the interface of night and dawn, moving all the heaviness downstairs and sent them away. Leonard Cohen’s Alexandra Leaving haunted me in the head when we were in silence. And somehow the song stays.

“Say good-bye to Alexandra leaving
Say good-bye to Alexandra lost”

Alexandra Leaving is adapted from “The God Abandons Anthony”, a poem by Constantine P. Cavafy. Cavafy’s poem is about Markus Antonius’s last night in Alexandria, Egypt, knowing that the city would be taken by his enemy. In Cavafy’s depiction Anthony heard music and accepted his defeat “as if long prepared, as if courageous” when abandoned by his protector Dionysus. Leonard Cohen rewrites Cavafy’s poem and turns the city Alexandria into a woman Alexandra.

A woman left, a city lost. Alexandra Leaving starts with “suddenly the night has grown colder”, but that is not the case with Priyanka leaving. The spring arrives right after she left and it becomes brighter and warmer. No tears shed at the airport and life goes on in both Delhi and Hamburg. In my room there is still Leonard Cohen playing and on my book shelf there is still William Stafford standing.

There is nothing lost but something gained. The genuine conversation is still present in the room. That’s why things are better.
“We should have done this earlier,” said Priyanka.
“Yeah we should but we wouldn’t. We would only do this when you are leaving. If you leave in May we’ll do this in May.” And we laughed.

After a cigarette outside the airport (guess who is the one smoking), we came back to the end of the queue before the security and that’s where the departure began. “I’ll write to you and you can reply in your relaxed way… now I know you.” I laughed and she left.

“As someone long prepared for this to happen,
Go firmly to the window. Drink it in.
Exquisite music. Alexandra laughing.
Your firm commitments tangible again.”

Technorati Tags:leonard cohen, alexandra leaving, cavafy,

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