America, among others

So all my lobes are finally in the same timezone, give or take a few hours. I apologize for the hiatus. This is going to be long, and possibly confusing post. To aid things a little, the sections below follow a chronological order, from the neverending airport transits to my first official weekend since I start my au pair work in the States.

***

35, 000 feet up in the air is a great place for putting things into perspective. For example, I was struck with how incredibly lonely I was, never mind that I was sandwiched among many other Chinese (as in, they’re really from China), who managed to remain a bustling population even in a crammed United airplane.

It was one big “oh shit” moment, with the added disadvantage of having an echo.

The flight was 11 hours too long. My behinds may have evolved due to sheer environmental pressure, and the lobes of my brains feel like they’re operating from different time zones as my mind refuses to believe it is subjected to pests like jet lags. I tried readjusting my anatomy to fit the chair (which, surprisingly, is more comfortable than the MAS seats) so that I can get some snooze, but this proves to be an uphill battle as sleeping horizontally turns out to be a habit too hard to break. I sampled the infamous United Airlines food, and well, all I have to say is I’ve never tasted rice this crunchy.

On the whole, I was calmer than I expected. The panic is pacified by a mad fascination for all things strange and new around me, and I cannot risk the anxiety exploding now, lest I break down beyond repair.

Time and again, though, the thought floated in my mind – I’m all alone. I find it hard to believe that my parents, my sister, my boyfriend and my friends are half the globe away, living different lives in different time zones. I looked at the passengers around me, mostly families, some friends and at least one PDA-prone couple (right in front of me, like it doesn’t hurt enough already), and wondered what the hell I was doing there.

But then again, I can’t imagine myself back home typing either.

As I touched down and saw the airport sign “Welcome to San Francisco”, I smiled and patted my 17-year-old self in the back. Welcome, indeed. We’ve come a long way, and we are finally here, in the USA.
(Actually, what I really said to my 17-year-old self was “ZOMG ZOMG ZOMG THIS IS, LIKE, SUPER AWESOME! We made it! *squeals, hyperventilates, faints*”)

And then it sank in. I felt like crying. I’m in the USA, alone, out of my comfort zone. Now what?
I suppose I’ll just use my tried and tested formula – figure it out as I go along. Right now, I do not dare to think ahead. Everything is just so raw – the accent around me, the American flags, the foreign brands, the price tags that start with “$”, and the difficult goodbyes back at KLIA.

To be frank, I don’t even feel like myself. I looked at the foreigners around me and had to remind myself that now, I’m the foreigner. Only I don’t feel that foreign. I just feel like I walked right into a Hollywood movie, albeit one that does not have drop dead gorgeous Americans at every turn. Sometimes, I suspect that the one typing this now is just a figment of my imagination, born out of my bored mind in my real body playing Sims in the stuffy, messy room back home.

But I’m here. Really here. In San Francisco - a place I have always dreamed to be at but never really believed that it would come true. The funny thing is, on our way to KLIA, my dad told me that my great granddad had also embarked on the same journey to San Francisco as a slave, though he never quite made it (he got cheated and landed in London instead).

I’m here, great-grand dad. I never knew you, but it’s cool how a dream can resonate through several generations.

Well, here’s a little weather report: San Francisco is actually 17 degree Celcius now, despite being right smack in the middle of summer. Cool eh? Okay, even the lame me have to admit that that was a desperate pun.

Next up: Au Pair orientation programme, where I meet au pairs from all over the world. *dies*

***

Au Pair orientation was last week. It was fascinating to meet so many people from so many parts of the world. All of a sudden I have friends aplenty with names I can’t pronounce. The whole orientation was like a walking dream, its surreal-ness facilitated by the jetlag, and the fact that I was surrounded by gorgeous German and Brazillian supermodels with legs that go on forever (what do their mommies feed them?).

I also had never been in a room where so many different languages were being spoken. Scratch that – I have never been in a room where so many different languages that I don’t understand were being spoken.

The three days in New Jersey went by in a swoosh, while my lethargic body struggled to keep up. Powered by sheer momentum, I lurched through a hectic mix of classes and getting to know new pals and TRIPS TO NEW YORK CITY *hyperventilates*. It was really tiring, but really fun. Everyone was friendly and open, which was awesome and a huge relief to the lone Malaysian – me.

And then orientation came to an end. I found myself waiting by the shuttle to Newark Airport again with two luggages, a couple of postcards bearing the glories of NYC, and three notebook pages worth of contact details from new friends.

I taste panic. I’m only two domestic flights away from the place I will be living for the year. No time for emotions though. We were ushered onto the shuttle, and we’re off.

Closing my eyes, I chanted the most important thing I learnt from the orientation – This year is what you make out of it.

***

My first week in California was filled with warmth, kindness, excitement, kids screaming, cultural differences, irritation, driving on the wrong side (or, if you must, the right side) of the road, kids saying hilarious things, more kids screaming, au pair friends to the rescue and, lo and behold, kids screaming – in that order. Slot a few secret tears shed in the bedroom, and you have basically gotten a pretty accurate summary.

I will, in all probability, survive.

On a sunnier note, the weather here is awesome. Sure, the summer sun is piercing to the skin, but the air remains cool. It’s like walking around with an air-conditioner attached to your waist. They don’t even use fans here! Come night, the air is so chilly that I usually jump straight into my comforter.

So if you see a freak wearing a jacket (usually with a pair of twins in tow) walking under the blinding afternoon sun, do wave. It would most likely be me.

***

I escaped from a household full of screams into another house full of screams.

The second one was punctuated by laughter, though, which was a nice change.

It was the much awaited weekend and I followed an au pair friend to a Guatemala birthday party in Oakland. The baby daughter of her friend is celebrating her first birthday.

Before we started our journey, the au pair warned me, “Oakland is not a very good neighbourhood. Not like the place we live.”

Gulp.

But we went anyway, because just staying at home (where peace is pretty much volatile too) day after day would be a little like a death sentence in itself. I didn’t travel this far to be a chicken.
And boy, I’m glad I went.

True, Oakland seems more run-down than the “rich” neighbourhood we au pairs live and work in. The houses are modest and more tightly packed, and the streets unkempt and narrow. We reached the home where the birthday party was held, and I noticed the bare backyard, save for a Dora the Explorer bouncing house that was rented for the afternoon celebration. Back in the city we are in, the backyards of the houses have lush trees and plants, humongous flowers and at times, a fountain gushing away like nobody’s business (except the gardener, of course. And the fountain dealer.).

The party was simple and homely. While everyone spoke Spanish around me, the family warmth and camaraderie around me touched my heart deeper than comprehension can. We had home cooked rice and salsa meat, which was awesome stuff. Gosh, I miss simple rice-and-vege meals.

You would not believe my agony of seeing this picture now. I crave rice with gravy!
(and yes, in the States you eat rice with a fork. Go figure.)

I also sampled Guatemalan’s equivalent of bread. It was sticky (like our kuih back home) and made of corn – there wasn’t much taste to it (which is a relief to my tongue, considering that American food is either too sweet or too salty or too cheesy). My au pair friend told me that this is the typical food the Guatemalans eat for breakfast, and other meals too. Thanks to my ailing memory, I cannot remember its name -.-“

One thing that really amazed me and the other au pairs is how wonderful the kids were at the party. No one threw a tantrum. And they seem quite capable of having fun for an hour without running to mummy about a boo-boo (a wound, or a bump, or a tiny scratch, or at times, nothing at all) every five minutes. Sure, they made a lot of noise in the bouncing house, but those are playful, healthy noises. There were little whines, no fights, and no adults chasing a kid around.

The mood was light with the warmth of friendship and family. Contagious laughter rang all around, punctuated by staccatos of Spanish. Some of them tried to speak to me with the little English they know, while I struggled to reciprocate with the limited amount of Spanish vocabulary that I know (like two – hola and gracias).

An ear-to-ear grin, however, bridged all cultural gaps.

So there I was, a lone Chinese in the midst of Guatemalans and Mexicans who speaks in a strange tongue, in a possibly “dangerous” neighbourhood. The funny thing is, I felt more at home there than in the modern, “safe”, English-speaking city that I currently live in.

Bare in luxuries, bountiful in love – gracias, my Guatemalan host, for reminding me the simple happiness of being in a family.

The Day before I Leap

I think I need to write this down. Even though I have only approximately 10 seconds to spare. And even though I'm having the biggest writer's block that you can carve the Lady of Liberty out of my brain and still have enough to repair, err, whatever it is that's needed to be repaired in our country. There's always something.

This feeling, this nervewrecking sensation of the day before flying long-distance for the very first time - one only gets to experience this once in one's lifetime (I did warn you about the writer's block). So I gotta write it down, in the hope that one day I can look back and laugh at myself.

If I can still laugh at that time.

For the first time in my life, I have zero idea on what is going to happen next week. I have always known. Always. But now, my mind is a blank. My imagination, which usually runs on overdrive (though sadly, in useless directions), has failed me.

Mum took me to eat hawker food just now. I stared at the Malaysians around me, with their feet up on the chair, their clothes mismatched and their table manners going the direction of their spits. I looked at the unwashed vegetables being thrown into the wok and stir-fried in too much oil for our consumption and possibly, constipation. I looked at the pirated DVD peddler counting his stock (omg he still has Toy Story 2). I looked at workers with various nationality preparing our food at the many stalls, and wondered if Malaysians realise that if we piss off migrant workers too much we may find ourselves swimming in a nationwide food poisoning (pardon the choice of words).

I tried replacing all these images with my impression on what America would look like.

That caused a headache.

And a heartache.

I will miss Malaysia. But I will always be a Malaysian.

I have vowed that wherever I stand, that spot of ground is occupied by a Malaysian.

Should I forget this one day, do give my head a good knocking. But do explain why afterwards, or I may get too American and decide to sue your pants off.

Please take good care of yourself, everyone! Enjoy yourself and we'll be in touch!

Fare thee well

Twelve more days and it’s my turn to the jet plane. Since the end of Form 5, I have farewell-ed so many friends who were flying off to all corners of the world. While I hugged them goodbye and wished them a safe arrival, my heart ventured the question, “When will it be my turn?”

Circumstances always laughed at me for asking such a naive question.

Thankfully, though, I’ve never cared much about what Circumstances think.

Now, at the age of 23, I am the one packing my bags and worrying about the customs regulations. It may not be a usual path of going to the States – I’m doing an Au Pair programme, a way cheaper option compared to studying there – but it’s my shot to experience the U.S. all the same. My only shot, to be exact. At the age of 17 I harboured the dream of studying there – it was such a fervent dream that it filled most of the pages of my angsty journal. But alas, there was the dream, but there was also the financial difficulty.

“It’s just not possible,” I was told, over and over again, and each time my heart died a little.

But I’m not the type of person who likes to see good dreams go to waste. Having “possible dreams” is an oxymoron that I recognised later, and it is as laughable, and perhaps as genetically modified, as “chicken tuna”. Plus, I’m wired with the Chinese kiasu-ness that will make my ancestors proud (except that I always defy my parents, so maybe they won’t be so proud). The more you tell me “Oh, no”, the more I wanna say “Oh, yeah?”

So it is with this almost-suicidal-but-don’t-blame-me-blame-genetics stubbornness that I wind up filling up countless forms for the Au Pair programme. It took me a whole year to prepare – completing the paperwork while gaining experience in childcare. And suddenly, as abruptly as I started, the preparation is almost complete. On July 12, it is my turn to soar for the sky.

Do I feel like a hero (or heroin, but I hate to sound like a najis masyarakat aka drugs) who defeated Fate? I dunno. Do heroes often feel like they should have, perhaps, sat quietly like everyone else? Do heroes feel so nervous about the path they take that sometimes they thump their heads for choosing it? Do heroes feel the guilt, oh, the damned guilt?

I thought not. I’m not hero material – in fact, I have a whole lot of talent for being a chicken, except I can’t even cluck as proficiently.

While I prepare for my year in the US, I have also developed a kind of crippling anxiety. The fear of the unknown, coupled with the guilt of leaving my aging parents, becomes a kind of anti-climax for a trip that I have dreamed of since forever. It takes a lot of walk away from people who needs you, in order to pursue what you need.

This is the reality of following your dreams, if you are anything like me. Coming from a family that has always try to make ends meet, buying a dream incurs a cost to people you love. I have always lived with this tug of war between being selfish, or being a sacrifice. I made the choice many years ago to follow my heart and be a writer, but this would mean that my parents may never enjoy a life of luxury, or just not needing to worry about money. Now, I made the same choice of going to the US, but this translates to the fact that my parents would be alone in KL most of the time, with no one to keep them company.

The pattern emerges – I am always selfish, and my parents always become the sacrifices. To add to the guilt, my parents have been supportive sacrifices.

I wrote about a similar topic in my column a while back, and a reader wrote to me, asking “Why is it that when we want to be ourselves and follow our heart, people think the worst of us and calls us selfish?”

Why, indeed? Up until now, I have never found the answer. But that could have been because of the self-imposed mental block - part of me is reprimanding myself for asking such a question in the first place. Sigh, self-censorship a vicious cycle.

Many times, I kneeled in church, asking God why my heart would tell me to do things that hurt the people around me. I stared at the portrait of Jesus, His face warmer than a painting should be capable of, and asked, “Should I really leave, Lord?”

And He just stood there, smiling his knowing smile, as if He already knew things that I don’t. Well, He does, actually.

Last week, the priest I love dearly said in his sermon, “We get so used to our comfort zone that we forgot that we are on a mission.”

And he recited this prayer by adventurer Sir Francis Drake:

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
Disturb us, Lord

When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, O Lord, disturb us.
(Full prayer here)

And that was my answer.

I have been too caught up with feeling guilty, too preoccupied with the future that I failed to see how far God has brought me. My dream of going to the States is coming true, a dream that I have been told would not happen – not with my financial background.

God has disturbed me, over and over again, so that I may never cowardly and comfortably settle for less. He has made me for something, God knows what, and perhaps that is what I really need – not just a year in US, not just a writing job, but to know what I’m really made for.

*********************

Thank God for friends, and one big fat liar as a boyfriend.

Knowing anxiety about leaving, they decided to help me face my fear by plopping me right into the Departure Lounge. It’s a method endorsed by psychologists, called “gradual desensitization”, which showed you that my friends are actually really intelligent people. It’s just that we happened to like to talk about zombies and gossip a lot.

But of course, being so intelligent and thoughtful, the gang knew that they couldn’t plop me into the REAL departure lounge at the airport, lest I turn hysterical and get pinned down by security (we really don’t need any more attention, thank you, being as famous as we are already). So, they took me to a mock Departure Lounge in Solaris, Mont Kiara.

It was the most kick-ass surprise farewell party ever (but of course, I may be biased :P). I had a five-car convoy driving to the destination, and that in itself was exciting. We kept losing each other as other cars, and at one point, a bus kept joining into our convoy because we are attractive like that. But eventually, we all made it to Solaris in one line. Hail to awesome PJ, Subang Jaya, Damansara and Nilai drivers, and Pauline’s iPhone GPS!

Oh yeah, I also discovered my boyfriend can make up stories with a straight face. Not exactly a comforting trait for a boyfriend to have, but since he threw me such a sweet party I let him off the hook. I’ll just add a lie detector to the shopping list muahaha.

Anyway, we arrived at Departure Lounge and did what we do best – talking too loud, laughing too hard, camwhoring too much, and forcing guys to pose with pretty pink cupcakes, courtesy of darling Pauline! We also discovered the freaky accuracy of the Magic 8 Ball, which dear Jee-sama bestowed upon me for my birthday :)

I also got a call from “Grandpa” Bear from Kelantan! Happy to hear from you, and don’t forget to give me my inheritance!

Mucho thanks, Bryan, Pauline, Jee, Eileen, Wan Qi, Dr. Carmen, Matthew, Seok Ping, and Goh! You guys sure know how to make me fly!

(Oh yeah my Brainz Assembly buddies/Familia - minus one workaholic :P - also gallivanted in Melaka for me birthday! Haven't processed the pictures yet but will talk about that soon! Brainz.)

*********

Thank God for sister and brother-in-law too.

Last month, I spent a whole week at my sister’s place in Penang, where I was treated to all the yummy local stuff that I’m so gonna miss, posed for way too many pictures, berkecoh with my sis and bro-in-law, fell into the sea and got flown up into the sky.

Whee! That's me!

Yes, I went parasailing in Penang, thanks to the persistence of my sister and the financial support of RM50 from my brother-in-law. We went to the Batu Feringghi beach, where there were businesses for every sort of beach activities imaginable. Anything that can float, be eaten, fly, sail or be played with, they sold it.

It was terrifying to think that I’m going to be dragged half way up into the sky with nay a life insurance. The parasailing guy, of course, had an airtight guarantee for customer safety which I found hard to argue with.

Me: Uncle, what happens if I drop into the sea when parasailing?
Parasailing Uncle: Oh, no worries! I guarantee you won’t drop wan. If you drop into the sea, we won’t charge you a single cent! *grins*

How to argue with such a solid policy? Thus, I paid the guy, got strapped on to the colourful parachute thing, listened to another guy barking the instructions to me, suddenly got told to RUN!, trotted clumsily on the sand, felt the great woosh of wind and the feeling of sudden lightness, like all my troubles have been blown away, and there I am – high in the air, the sea right below me.

It was exhilarating and dream-like at the same time, as if I couldn’t believe how high I am, and how nonchalant can the rest of the beach-goers be, minding their own business, camwhoring with their boyfriends, building sand castles, playing volleyballs... I mean, hello? Can’t you see? I’m in the friggin’ sky! This is big deal!

It was about five minutes of having the sky all to myself, no traffic and no people to avoid. Just a huge chunk of space, all mine. The breeze was mine, the scene was mine... unfortunately, the back-breaking pain was mine too. I may not have strapped on the parachute properly, so I was in a pretty weird position.

All in all, it ended too quickly. Soon, it’s time to get down. But you know me, I always generate unnecessary excitement for even the most mundane tasks. In my 2-second journey of landing, I almost took out a family playing on the sand, bumped my pinky finger and had two parasailing workers chasing at me hysterically because I touched down too far from where I was supposed to.

Now, that’s what I call going down in style.

(No lah, actually you’re supposed to pull a string to steer yourself downwards, but I didn’t pull at the correct position so the force wasn’t enough to land me at my designated spot. I would have flown right into the forest, but thankfully I saw the parasailing guy waving dramatically while yelling “PULL HIGHER! HIGHER! AAAARGH HIGHER AND HARDER!” So, that saved an embarrassing trip to the forest.)

Mucho thanks to my sister and bro-in-law for being such awesome hosts! Both of you also know how to make me fly! Very good very good, “murderers”! :D