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.