Coffee with Olivier

I traveled by water taxi on stormy days in Amsterdam. Rain pitter-pattering on the roof, the drone of tourist recordings heralding bridges or sites, and the voice of Sarah Brightman drifting from my Ipod. Despite the loose behavior one would associate with legalization of victimless crimes like prostitution or smoking marijuana, Amsterdam is surprisingly pristine. Canal waters were clear and grey reflecting the ambivalent skies, not dirty like the waters I've seen in China's Suzchou or Venice. While trolleys and cars were accepted means of transportation, bicycles were by far the most common. There were more bikes than people. In fact, the greatest hazard while crossing the street is being run over by a bike. Bicycles had their own lanes beside the sidewalks. The Dutch were fit due to the physical exercise exerted to get from place to place. Only tourists were obese.

At Amy's advice, I headed to the house of Ann Frank promptly at 9 in the morning, since later hours would engender massive lines. Unassuming from the exterior, aside from glossy life-size photos of Ann and her girlish script denoting the museum within. Upon entering, there was a model of the building which served as a store, and the Secret Annex, where the Frank family hid from the Nazis for nearly three years. Living quarters were minuscule, even by New York City apartment standards, tiny shoe boxes connecting room to room. They had an airless, claustrophobic feel and I could not imagine an inquisitive girl growing into womanhood, writing and dreaming and falling in love, cooped up with only a few feet of shared space. Suburban Americans hold the concept of space very dear. As mortgages became more accessible, their physical boundaries expanded. Nowadays, a 2000 sq. ft townhouse with three bedrooms is deemed "too small" for a family of four and having a child necessitates a mini-van, as those little darlings occupy so much space. Imagine six rooms with seven people, three hormonal teenagers, sharing about 500-600 feet of living space all the time. Even though Ann did write of feeling stifled, it made Peter's proximity even nearer and the escape into her diary all the more dearer. The Secret Annex's bareness and simplicity resembled prison cells. I began to see the human ability to adapt to conditions that were previously regarded as "unlivable." Viktor Frankl compared the human ability to endure hardship to a gaseous entity; it always swells to the size of the container. Deprivation of liberty certainly falls into this category, and I garnered new respect for Ann.

As I left, I saw a postcard of a window that has been boarded up, the only window in the Secret Annex. It looked out into the courtyard where trees were blooming in midsummer, and leaves were an evanescent green. This must have been what Ann saw. It was hope. It was the future. It was the life she would have led once the throes of Nazi domination ended. It was a life that was never to be.

Then I sauntered over to the Van Gogh Museum, whose mad genius compelled him to construe torturous sunflowers on the canvas and to cut off his own ear. Even his brushstrokes were violent, streaks thick with pigment and pain, vibrancy owing to the anger that seemed to ravage his soul. Perhaps art is less about context than emotion; I felt his brusqueness on my psyche long before I discovered his history of mental illness. Nonetheless, his work was breathtaking and I reveled in his misshapen flowers far more than his most famous piece, Starry Night. To me, Starry Night is less about emotion than illusion, staring through the orb of darkness with an eye for the surreal. As through a mirror, darkly.

One of the key features of Dutch Museums is that there are more native collections of artifacts than in typical European cities or any international metropolis with a sizable financial economy and appreciation of art, for that matter. While Paris or Rome or New York or Prague are famed for their museums, it has become a competition for a similar body of work. For example, each of these prestigious museums boasts a Monet, Rembrandt, Picasso, something by Da Vinci, etc. Unless one is seeking to view a specific work (yes, I have frequented the Guggenheim to view Picasso's Woman Ironing many times), one is ultimately looking at the same collection of artists everywhere. After a while, it all begins to look the same. In Amsterdam, I was able to see so many things that were uniquely Dutch.

Remember Olivier from Munich? He studied in Uetrecht, an hour away from Amsterdam by train, and we met up for coffee in the afternoon. Mint leaves were steamed in tea, an emerald green reminiscent of spring on this dreary day. Olivier was tall and hairy, with luminous eyes and sympathetic face. He seemed much older than me, even though I was a few years his senior. There was something about his expression that denoted a profound wisdom, and he reminded me of the way Jesus must have looked, with his careless abandon of materialism. We talked about politics. In the Netherlands, politicians are apt to be "plain clothes" men, to resemble your next door neighbor in their no-nonsense speech and manner. That was what the Dutch related to. Olivier praised American politicians for being "visionary,"acting with the panache of a celebrity, sporting designer clothes and hobnobbing with movie stars. I didn't know how to tell him so much of that was a media creation, with the wondrous aid of a teleprompter and a lot of make-up. Besides, Americans like sweet-talkers, men who make delectable promises and even more honeyed excuses for breaking them. In the Netherlands, politics was "rather straightforward," Olivier confided to me. In America, politics is anything but.

Amy and Amsterdam

When I returned to the hotel that evening, Amy surprised me with a birthday dinner along with her colleagues. Together we gorged ourselves on tasty Dutch cuisine. A carnivore at heart, I ordered stamppot, a heavy concoction of mashed potatoes, sliced carrots, and rookwurst, a delectable sausage. We also shared a serving of bitterballen, crunchy deep-fried orbs are battered in a breadcrumb coating and filled with a mixture of chopped beef, beef broth, and spices. As I bit into the core, hot juices exploded into my mouth and my eyes watered. Amy and I laughed about how bitterballen resembled xiao long bao, Shanghai soup dumplings. Asian girls in Amsterdam; she was Taiwanese and I was Vietnamese, both of us born and raised in America. We went to the symphony one night, and we shared glasses of wine over an exquisite concerto.

Friendship was like peeling away layers of an onion. Beneath her veneer of Princeton-educated reserve, Amy was sensitive, self-deprecating, and direct. She had an aversion to cell tower radiation, the same electromagnetic source as microwaves. She seemed to get headaches and nausea whenever the signals was too strong. She always asked me to turn off my cell phone or my IPOD. At first, I was skeptical. After all, this is the new millenium and it was rarer to find areas without wifi/cellular signals. Science has not really explored this.

Then I remembered my godmother who suffered from Stage IV metastatic breast cancer, and how using cell phones or being proximate to a microwave caused her pain. Amy shared that working in telecommunications, she was exposed to radiation for many years before she began feeling its affects on her body. When she did, the impact was potent and she now uses a lead cloth to insulate her space when she travels. It was a fine fabric that resembled a glittery accessory for an evening gown, the sort one could envision on a glamorous movie star.

So negative health effects may result from an overexposure to this kind of radiation. At what point does exposure become overexposure? I began thinking of 25 different wireless networks that penetrate my apartment everyday. Excess, the root of all evil in Buddhist philosophy, has also been the cause of many diseases of the human body. Diabetes, an excess of sugar. Obesity, an excess of fat. High blood pressure, excess of sodium. Depression and anxiety, an excess of neurotransmitters.

So yes, I became a believer. It was years before tobacco became linked to lung disease, or alcohol was linked to liver failure. Or maybe it was less about faith and more about friendship. About acceptance. Amy was dedicated to bringing to light the ill effects of cell tower radiation, building a website and writing articles about it. I applauded her courage.

My days in Amsterdam invariably followed the same pattern: exploration by day and soul-searching conversations with Amy at night. It was the perfect balance for me, freedom to follow my natural affinities and yet not coming back to an empty room. I had learned everyone was susceptible to loneliness and my sojourn across Europe taught me that we all need someone, at one point or another. Amsterdam was an exercise of moderation for me. Appropriate too, in the most tolerant city on earth. Amsterdam was a silver city to me, grey skies, iridescent canals, slate cobblestone roads. People were free to pursue their happiness, be it museums, cuisine, music, marijuana, or sex. There was no judgment regarding race or gender or orientation or social class.

While much of Europe is quite accepting of Asians nowadays, the Netherlands sports acceptance as a tradition. In the National Dutch Museum,I saw portraits of the early traders and owners of the East Asia Trading Company in the 1500-1600's. Their wives had Oriental features! Black hair, almond eyes with a prominent lilt at the edge, and golden complexions. In an age where interracial marriage was practically unheard of, here were wealthy, prominent businessmen who flaunted their Asian wives as equals, standing at the same height in portraits.

Only the Dutch.

Red Light District

It was my birthday. I hopped on a flight at EWR on a certain evening in March, and awoke on the morning of my life anniversary in Amsterdam. Amy, my idiosyncratic and brilliant friend, had invited me, or rather I had invited myself and she did not decline. She was in the Netherlands on business, training consultants for the telecommunications company her parents owned. I was a woman of leisure. I arrived promptly at 10:15am to a quaint boutique hotel de Filosoof, where a key was waiting for me and a plethora of guidebooks, maps, tourist paraphenalia that Amy had prepared. I might add that at this point, I actually didn't know Amy well. We were acquaintances in the same bible study small group, where Amy was silent and mysterious and I was vocal and controversial. (A Lone Catholic in the midst of Protestants is bound to be interesting, no matter how pacifist we all were) All I knew was that she was very sensitive to cell phones.

Jetlagged, I decided to walk and become familiar with the city. I was particularly curious to see the ConcertGebow, world famous music hall and acoustics where the most accomplished symphonies and composers had reigned. Of course I was lost, my sense of direction was pathetic and it was very cold besides. I inquired after my destination in abbreviated form "Where is the Gebow?" and got strange stares. Apparently, Gebow is a general term for building, and I was actually asking "Where is the building?" in a streetful of buildings. No wonder I seemed confused.

I got to the ConcertGebow at around noon, where there were free concerts every Wednesday, a 30 minute rehearsal open to the public. Listening to the lilting instrumentals resound throughout the high ceilings seemed to open up a new world of possibilities to me. I was on fire, inspired by music, by creation, by ideas that somehow found their way through this labyrinth of human frailty to exist in the fiber of our world. I realized it was no accident, that beauty comes into being by sacrifice, threats of judgment and failure hang over the head of every artist like a noose and to stray into that tempting circle means certain death.

I continued walking, tracing the path of sunlight by my footsteps since it was so frigid that I could only endure the weather by the additional warmth of the sun. Entranced by the canals, the elegant and minimalist three-storied house with fronts facing the water, I wandered the city, watching the rooftops as much as streets. I approached a busy area, close to the train station and lots of people were milling around. Colored banners highlighted one of the streets, so I diverted to more serene side streets sporting that same lovely architecture.

I passed a row of glass windows peeking out from an alley, all empty except one with a particularly voluptuous mannequin. However, she seemed a bit too fleshy for a mannequin, her goods all but falling out of a flimsy black and pink negligee, and then I assumed she was a poster. Then I thought I saw a flicker of movement so I stopped and did a double-take. She was definitely alive. She caught my eye and peremptorily pulled open the glass door, pulling at my sleeve with amazing strength. I jumped, stumbled on my buttocks, and ran out of there with more speed than I thought my short legs were capable of. It was pure adrenaline, and the shock at the prospect of being sexually propositioned by another woman, one who was selling herself. Didn't she know I was female? Perhaps I looked like a skinny, androgynous boy. Perhaps it didn't matter. "Well, you know," Olivier told me later, "business was slow."

Welcome to the Red Light District.

Mayan Legacies

Jenny and I stared upward at the Temple of Kukulkan, the renowned step pyramid and centerpiece of the archaelogical ruins of Chichen Itza, capital city of ancient Mayan civilization. Built in homage to the feathered serpent deity which maintains its name, there were carved serpent heads at the ends of the balustrades.

Underwhelming.

Perhaps our expectations were too high. Perhaps National Geographic had glorified Chichen Itza in its flawless photography. Whatever the reason, my kindred spirit and I exchanged kindred glances and we were thinking the very same thing: underwhelming. To the naked eye, the Pyramid was composed of rather large, symmetrical limestone building blocks. Yes, it was vast. Yes, it seemed imposing. Yes, it made for some rather interesting photo ops, of which we took full advantage and Jenny took a rather carefree snapshot of us, energetically leaping in the air with Kukulkan's namesake in the background. But Wonder of the World was stretching it.

The tour guide showed us the supposed location of the phantom serpent shadow that appeared writhing along the stairs at the spring and autumn equinoxes. Jenny raised a perfectly arched eyebrow, given that it was December, invisible, and therefore unimpressive. I wondered if we were jaded, or if we had traveled and seen too much in an abbreviated period of time, or perhaps we had lost that exuberance, that child-like sense of wonder when everything was new and fresh and exhilarating. Perhaps we were a bit distracted. Nevertheless, we explored Chichen Itza with a lingering sense of disappointment and rather lethargic pace, since we also insisted on being stylish under the boiling Mexican sun.

At one point, Jenny retreated into the velvet shade along the Temples of the Jaguars, with a dessicated mural portraying a divine battle scene, where she rested her feet and I proceeded onward. Whether it was my penchant for exploring or my relentless curiosity, I kept walking through one set of walls to another, sparse columns, ballcourts. Unknown, unnamed, and uncomplimented ruins struck my fancy far more than the lauded expectations of someone else.

Then I entered the El Caracol observatory temple, a conspicuously round structure in the midst of all the angular ruins, pointing like a vector towards its spiral staircase. Here was where the Mayans watched the planetary movements and the stars traversing the firmament. Intrigued, I asked our tour guide, descended from the ancient Mayans himself and thereby visibly affronted by our lack on interest in his ancestral homeland thus far. Reluctant at first, he shared with me the Mayan prophesy of 2012.

"Does that mean that the world will come to an end on December 21, 2012?"

He shook his head vigorously.

"It is not some apocalyptic ending. It means that the energy of the world is shifting based on the alignments of the planets with the sun, something that happens only once every 26,000 years so it will be the beginning of a new age, a new era, a new beginning. All the planets and constellations of the zodiac will be aligned with the sun and it will bring natural disasters to the earth. This will signify the end, and the beginning."

"Right now, only three of the planets are aligned and we have already witnessed storms, hurricanes like Katrina. When all of the planets are aligned, the gravitational energies of the earth and the celestial forces will change, and there will be more."

This conversation happened in 2009, when Katrina was the greatest devastation to hit my beloved country. Looking back, this was shared with me prior to the Tsunami and nuclear meltdowns in Japan, prior to Hurricanes Irene and Sandy, and prior to the vast destruction experienced by cosmopolitan New York and her less refined neighbor of New Jersey.

Manhattan was pitch black, the insipid darkness of lack, and the cold denizens who freeze within their luxury apartments without heat.

So we have been warned by the earth, the heavens, and those intuitive enough to read them. And yet, we go on living as if we will always have tomorrow.

Searching in Cancun

Cancun was a place I had never intended to go, but there is something wondrous about saying "Yes," accepting an invitation and extension of a friendship that ultimately became a kinship. My friend Jenny was traveling on a business trip there, and the resort was such a vista of paradise that many of the conference attendees brought a significant other. I walked the white sand shores in the morning, and studied the transparency of water throughout the day. It was more than just examining the many shades of aquamarine; I was searching for a familiarity, a story that had begun with the sea.

Let me explain. Sometimes we find ourselves through the journey of others, whether real or imagined. I had begun writing a story about an abandoned woman who lived on the edge of an ancient lake in ancient time. As long as I found a thread of inspiration in her life, and the events that precipitated in the glorious burst of creation, I could find my own way along the winding road of my life. At least I could make do. Yes, I had begun to feel lost after months of searching for myself. In some ways, I could see how people could go on searching forever, trip after trip, degree after degree, relationship after relationship. Bohemian wandering, continental sojourns at times were preferable to admitting a deep truth within yourself and realizing you have to change.

I had scoured the museums of Paris, looking for the face of my heroine, among those immortalized on the canvas. I didn't know exactly what I was looking for,a restlessness in the gait, a certain ingenuity in the eyes perhaps, a moment of surprise when one is shaken out of resignation. I never did find a face that satisfied me, but in the searching, I discovered more about my character. And perhaps about myself.

As I was searching for inspiration, Jenny was searching for potential wedding venues. Jenny and I lived oddly analogous lives, and I recognized the symptoms well. Not wearing the engagement ring, not settling upon a date, not mentioning the very fact to people we just met, as if by omission it would cease to be true. Yet, she would exert herself identifying all the elements of the perfect wedding, like a mechanical exercise. What is it about women that we keep hoping even when the blatant hopelessness hits us in the face like a slap? Maybe it was love, and maybe it was arrogance, the illusion that we could actually change another.

Somehow, between the void in my life and the absence in hers, we became like sisters. Perhaps kindred spiritship was borne in mutual pain, as well as good times and a similiar sense of fashion. It is only when you fall that you discover who will help you up, encourage you, and stiffen your resolve to become more than you currently are. I remember so many epiphanies in the past year, yet straddled with many nadirs of self-doubt. And in the midst of it all, the sister who was overwhelmingly supportive, and always patient, was Jenny.

Silhouettes of Strangers Who Became More

My memory has never been linear. Europe has been a litany of experiences and people that somehow melded into one as I recounted that journey westward, a Dejas-vous of all the things that have touched my life. Some remembrances are crystal clear; others are blurry and indefinite as things that seemed to have never happened.

I had encountered Kyle, an army officer on leave while on tour of Dachau. Afterwards, the English speaking group gathered for a drink and I joined them for typical peripheral small talk. The group dissipated except for us two, keeping each other company before our respective trains, his destined for Vienna or Salzburg and mine destined for Prague. It seemed military men were extremely lonely. I thought nothing of it when he asked for my email address, but he consistently wrote me long emails for months afterwards. He even wished he had kissed me, but perhaps the romantic fancies are far more potent than the reality. He had a rather pleasant, clean-cut face with chiseled features, and I would altogether not have minded kissing him. Then again, looks could be deceiving and he might have slobbered all over me.

There was Jasmine, an independent Greek girl studying towards an economics degree in Zurich. We walked all over the city and sat in cafes, lamenting her love life, since she apparently had a successful, doting boyfriend whom she loved not. I watched her justify why she should be with him while sensing she longed to unfurl her wings and fly in a different direction. I wondered if she would be relegated to the status of luxurious wife with this fellow, or if she ever had the courage to break free. I never knew, except she introduced me to soft gingerbread cookies encrusted with chocolate, which became my daily staple in the midst of expensive Switzerland. The Swiss believed that one should pay for the quality of fresh fruit and produce; therefore everything was exorbitantly priced for us American bargain shoppers. Even the idea of bargain shopping is considered an anomaly in Switzerland, as good quality needed to be properly reimbursed and why would you not want to pay for it? Nonetheless, gingerbread cookies typically bring me back to La Suisse.

Then there was Sophie, a Quebec student who traveled through Europe by the labor of her hands. She picked grapes in Provence and Tuscany, did odd jobs like waitressing and cleaning in Paris, Berlin,and Milan, any place that welcomed a cheap and migrant labor force and international worker's permit from Canada. She told me that being on the road was often lonesome and that she tended to become much more easily infatuated with friends on the road than back home. And I wondered if it was that exciting newness, of being able to grow and to reinvent yourself, of becoming more of the version of yourself you have always wanted to be, in this itinerant lifestyle that causes you to be more open to love. Or the idea of love, since these amorous liaisons rarely last. But you find yourself inevitably changed.

Sophie also alerted me to one of the best kept backpacker secrets: couchsurf.com. This free service concerns itself with matching a backpacker who needs a place to stay in a given city and the host who offers free accommodations in their home(i.e. a couch). She was currently sleeping on someone's couch as we spoke. In the backpacker world, there is an unspoken law of hospitality and mutual help without thought of gain. We were all traveling on a budget, hoping to see the world and willing to rough it. It brings out the very best in human nature, this egalitarian sense of giving what you can and taking what you needed. Non-institutionalized, completely voluntary, and without exchange of any currency. What would the world be like if money was abolished?


Of course, I couldn't forget Raphael, a German Christian socialist who was studying engineering or physics in Zurich. He was in his early twenties and intense, with smoldering eyes and a very particular manner of speaking. I felt sure he would become a politician, and he didn't deny the ambition. I don't know if it was the intensity or the ambition that attracted me more, but after the exchange and a few espresso, it seemed I had been conversing with someone who would change the world. I met him on my last day in Zurich, and he kept trying to arrange subsequent rendezvous even after I had left the country. Perhaps he will remember me, perhaps not, but someday he will hold the reins of power, when the European union has become an archaic institution.

Then, there were the shadows of Matthias, with whom romance fizzled and David, with whom it was never kindled, both of whom surfaced in and out of my journey.

Perhaps they were individual people in certain times and places, but I remember them like a long line of ghosts, people whose details fade, but for the indelible imprint they have made on my life, the gifts they gave me, the things they taught me, the joy they brought in making my existence richer and fuller. For that, I will always thank them.

Olivier and Instinct

Somehow I dragged myself back from the metro and into the incredibly warm bed of the hotel. The next day, it was snowing. Heavy feathers floated from the sky and dissolved onto the black pavements. I crossed the Charles bridge over the Danube on the way to the train station. Sick as I was, I still toyed with the idea of going to Poland, even though the weather was well below freezing. Then my better senses took over and then I headed to the platform for Munich. Then I turned towards the train destined for Krakow. If there is one thing I have learned, it is better to make a decision, any decision, even if it is the wrong decision, than to remain in the throes of indecision. I scurried back and forth between an ideal and the needs of my ailing bones, like a chicken that lost its head. Well, I lost my hat. In the last minute dash between platforms, I lost my well-insulating, furry hat that covered my ears. Great.

I arrived in Munich, back at the eventful Euro Youth Hostel where I got sick in the first place. I longed to take a nap, but I wound up sharing a room with a young Arabic man who seemed polite enough. I had never seen anyone so closely resemble a pirate, from that dark swarthiness to the brusque mannerisms in which he handled his bags. Somehow, he seemed sinister and a horrible feeling spread from the pit of my stomache. Too uncomfortable to stay in the room (we two were the only occuppants that night), I went to the lobby.

I was still there 3 hours later. As backpackers went back and forth going about their business, I wrestled with the ideals of being safe and being mean. Rationally, my Arab roommate had done nothing to offend me, he hadn't even proven himself inconsiderate. It would be unfair, premature, and judgmental to assume that something would happen to me after the lights went out. But I was scared despite rhyme or reason, and could not bear the thought of going back into that room.

To distract myself, I struck up a conversation with a long-haired PHD physics candidate from Holland named Olivier. He was from a small town outside Amsterdam called utrecht. He had kind, gentle eyes and his pale visage was of the fine European facial construction seen in portraits of Jesus. He had the calmest demeanor when speaking. He was here for a conference, to present or gather information for his dissertation, and leaving for the Netherlands the following day. We spoke of many things, travel, Europe, life and circuitously arrived at where we were at that very moment. Yes, it was an existential conversation. I also confessed the reason I was hiding out in the lobby.

"So switch rooms," he suggested.

"I can't do that," I protested. "It would be rude."

"There is a reason for your instincts, even if you dont know what it is."

I must have looked unconvinced as he sought to persuade me to listen to myself.

"The worst that can happen if you change rooms is that you feel rude. But if you don't and something does happen, you will regret it because you knew."

He was right. Somehow, his reassurance was exactly what I needed to trust myself. There were plenty of vacancies and not at all an issue for the hostel. Perhaps nothing would have happened if I stayed in that room. Perhaps I avoided a catastrophe. I will never know. But there is a peace, a transcendence from worry, when you listen to that innermost voice.

Needless to say, I slept soundly that night.