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January 29, 2006
red converse hightops
Last night I took a Thai cooking class with the boys on my team. A sweet little Thai women picked us up from our hotel and took us to her little garden farm on the river. She taught us to make curry and chicken coconut soup. We made the actual curry paste from scratch, by grinding all the fresh herbs and spices ourselves. She'd grown all the vegetables we used organically. That food was pure and real and nearly spiritual. Dang.
Today I'm going to church and then I think I'm going into the jungle to ride elephants.
There is a cute mother in her 40's or 50's in this hotel lobby and I must tell you what she's wearing. She's got a classy turtlenecked brown sweater on with jean capris, and then she's wearing abnormally high red converse high tops, and the fish head part on the shoe is red too. She pulls it off with dignity. Bam.
I was reading by the pool yesterday and her little blond boys were jumping in and out of the water. They looked almost at beautiful as the Garcia boys, and their little abs reminded me of Pax. They looked about 10 and 8. I asked them where they were from and they replied, "Den-Mok." Denmark. I love such accents. Oh precious.
Posted by Brae at 09:09 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 27, 2006
entry from my personal journal
I wrote this in my travel journal at dinner last night:
Life is the most confusing thing ever. So much seems arbitrary. I do not understand why I am suddenly in Thailand alone this evening at a restaurant I arbitrarily chose. I am sitting under green fluorescent light that is deeply warping my view of reality. If I think about it I am painfully lonely but if I write in my journal or read the new Dave Sedaris book (Dress Your Family in Jeans and Corduroy) I just bought I'm not as lonely anymore. Words are like companions. But I'd kill to be having dinner with my mom or my dad or Laura Witty or Tamara. I think I'll get a foot massage after this and then try to find my American friends and go to the night market. I left them today because they wanted to spend hours in an American mall and then they wanted to eat American food and then they were going to go watch a chick flick on their computer. But this is my first day in Thailand and I'm so grateful to be out of America. Why turn Thailand into mini-USA? NO ReASon.
I ordered some ginger lime chicken and veggies with rice and a mango smoothie made of 100 percent mangoes. Nothing but pure delicious. Thai food has a freshness and perfection of taste that Chinese doesn't. (In my opinion.)They set 2 trays of incense at my feet. The restaurant is outdoors. I asked to be moved from the green light region once the outdoor part freed up. There are plants and purple flowers and colored lanterns hanging everywhere and I'm sitting on a bamboo bench wondering why my sisters are not sitting here with me talking loudly and laughing about some bathroom humour or something.
Dave Sedaris is pretty funny thought and he made my dinner better.
end of journal entry.
What I did that evening:
I couldn't find any American friends so I went and got a back massage for a half hour for a dollar. Then I got a foot massage for a half hour for a dollar. All along the streets here there are cute thai women saying, "foooot massage, foooot massage" in such sweet voices. You sit on a chair right there on the street, put your feet on a footstool, and they work their eastern understanding of touch on you and it's heaven and you wish you were here with me. They're so humble and eastern. So unamerican. I love it.
Then I went to the night market and bargained and ate yummy food and got a shoulder massage for a dollar. I'm addicted to massage in Thailand. But how could anyone NOT be? It's cheap as dirt and there are sweet girls every 100 feet welcoming you to sit down right on the street. Heaven, Heaven, Heaven. 3 massages in one day, 3 dollars. woo Hoo.
I didn't get home till 12:30 because the night market was so magical.
Today I'll have breakfast with Jennie and then meet with John and the boys this evening. I want to find an opportunity to serve somehow with the ELIC conference maybe. Pure vacation is no good.
Love, Brae
Posted by Brae at 11:01 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
January 25, 2006
limes and coconuts baby
I just arrived in warm land of limes and coconuts and eastern food that is not chinese. Praise the father above. Chinese food is super hard on my stomach and the country doesn't even have limes, which is a staple in my diet. (It makes most food way better and if you haven't tried putting it on everything, you should. Especcially vanilla icecream, salad with avacado and olive oil and parsley, deviled eggs, hummus with thyme.)
I just got off Thai air. Flew alone from South China after visiting my cool friend Sanskey in her hometown of Shenzhen. How to tell you what I want? Hmmmm. Sanskey's home, like all Chinese homes I've been in have hard wooden bench sofas. Not the comfiest to flop down on. No flopping down in China.
Sanskey has a twin brother and the first night I got to her place I went out with the two of them and 3 Chinese guys. They were cute spunky rebel boys who smoked and used slang like "fool" and wore retro nike shoes. A few times a week they all go out together for barbeque. This barbeque experience went from about 12-2am. We went to a couple street corners and sat on stools about 12 inches high next to a Chinese person frying fish and beef and liver and eggplants on a grill on the sidewalk. We just sat and talked and ate. (One of the best things in the world to do, right Tami?) Sanskey's brother ran around the corner and came back with old fashioned glass coke bottles filled with warm soy milk. The barbeque was super good and slow roasted. A prostitute stood in the street nearby. One of the Chinese boys said to me; "I'm sure your town is just the same as this one. Boring." Besides the size difference (4 million to 30 thousand, I thought, You have NO idea.) Chinese people live in community and I'm loving it.
But no one's content, and everyone thinks that where they're at is boring. Remember, godliness with contentment is great gain.
Now I'm in Thailand in an accomadation called The Royal Guest House. But it only costs 3 bucks a night and it's a little hip youth central hostel. I'm in the lobby right now, very warmly lit. Kids are watching tv, surfing the net, eating, having drinks. There's some fun dance music playing. The ceiling is hung with a bunch a bunch of lanters, some covered in cool fabrics. My room is shappy chic Anthropologie-esque looking. (Check out Anthropologie.com) It has a well chosen foot rug, cool pictures, a nice curtain. All mis-matchy, all special.
I haven't seen Thailand yet. Only from the window of the ten minute taxi ride I took from the airport to here. But there's eastern street culture that's nowhere in America and I wish you were here with me. You. It's warm and full of limes and coconut. wooHoO!
Posted by Brae at 10:55 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack
January 22, 2006
souped up hong kong
I'm in the ultra hip, wealthy, westernized hong kong with the Kate Webber. She's on a fashion tour of China with a group of fellow fashion design major students. I'm here with her for two nights and I get to stay in her souped up hotel room that's as nice as the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in. Maybe nicer. Those two nights would cost my month's salary. I'm having a bit of culture shock because mainland China is poor and Hong Kong is not. Hong Kong people follow traffic rules and only half the people here are even Asian looking. The rest of Euro/ Arab/ American.
Kate's at a meeting with her group now. She has been for 5 hours. So I've been wandering in and out of fashion boutiques, photographing the shop keepers, feeling alone, feeling a little sick of the NYC vibe and wealth. Yo, wealth is so unevenly distributed about the world. I don't know how to accept that. Some live with nothing, others like me have too much. So it goes.
I had sushi by myself in a totally hip little sushi bar. I sat at the bar and a conveyor belt moving by. The sushi was real and better than anything ever. Tami, wish you'd been there. I hate Chinese food. It's unrefined, saucy, excessive, fried, bad tasting, and bad etceteras. I adapt, but some beautiful, fresh tasting, moderate portion of sushi made me stinkin happy tonight. Then I tried to get back to the hotel to wait for Kate, got lost, had to ask lots of people, had panic attack. Why am I always alone in cities???? NYC, Vienna, Rome, Hong Kong. Yeesh.
I'm going back to the humble mainland tomorrow to stay with my student Sanskey. Can't wait to be with her. Kate is great, but her fashion trip mates are American, materialistic, loud, abrasive, American, too cool for school. I like humbleness. Maybe when I come back to American I'll be humble.
p.s. got a cool hot pink pom pom earing today. the other earring is a different shade of a pink knit ball. I'll post a picture. One's from Danly's hometown, one's from here. They're dangly and different lengths.
Posted by Brae at 08:02 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
January 18, 2006
Traveling is the bomb diggity
Forget everything I said about how nervous I thought travel made me. It all depends on who you travel with and what connections you have and I've been traveling with my spunky Chinese friend Danly for a week and she's all anyone needs for perfect travels.
I'm in the South and baby, it's hot down here. Hot. I'm wearing shorts and skirts.
I'm in her family's apartment now. They live in a little town that looks like the one Aladdin ran around in in the Disney movie. This morning Danly woke me at 8 and said we were going to 'Morning tea' to meet her grandmother and aunt and cousin. Her parents and brother came too. So I got up and 20 minutes later I was on the back of a moped driven by Danly, on the way to the restaurant. We wore shiny red helmets and her family rode on their mopeds too. I felt so cool, except everyone's riding a moped, and normal isn't cool. But it is to me! We ate a lot of food that hurt my stomach and drank some delicious flower tea.
I'm in Danly's little brother's room. They have internet in their 5th story tiny apartment, surprisingly. I'm really back in time, with strange evidences of modern times all around me. There's a rooster cockadoodling out the window. Children beggars are everywhere. All the old people sit outside and chill their life away and they look so old fashioned and all their teeth are rotted out, while all the young Chinese have punked out hair styles and cameras that take videos, and neon yellow and pink clothing.
Sadly, I only have a film camera with me on these travels so I can't show you the things I'd die to show you. Dang it. Won't explain my camera troubles, but I thank the one above that I have a beautiful manual camera lent to me by John. Film kicks digital's butt anyway.
Now I'll try to fill you in on my last few days of knowledge giving experience. I feel like I'm learning more here than I learned in 4 years at Covenant. Experience is rich and stretching. I'm not dissing my Covenant education. I also feel like everything I learned there is actually clicking in my mind this year as I teach my classes and relate to people on the other side of the world. I never felt intelligent at Covenant. I feel intelligent now, with lots to learn. That is a lovely feeling.
As I tell you about my travels, first understand that I don't think traveling is the secret to experiencing the best life. BECAuSE, traveling isn't life. It's vacation. Life is monotonous and difficult mostly, and grand sometimes, only sometimes. My teaching at the college in Chang Chun actually became very monotonous. I believe finding contentment is the way to experience life to the fullest. And I don't find contentment too easily. That's what I know I need to search for, godliness with contentment.
The problem with travel is that it makes life exciting and new, and that stuff wears off no matter who you are or what you're doing. Life ussually settles down to feeling normal, and maybe that's when people get divorced or find a new job or something. I'm enthralled with this little village of fruit sellers, kids running around, clothes hanging everywhere, hundreds of mopeds zooming by, and a million etceteras, but these things wouldn't amaze me if I grew up with them. All the people around me live daily lives. They do the same thing everyday, and I get to experience this newness because I was born into privelage. All you American people who think you have money problems, all you have to do is stop buying things! This is the most difficult and liberating thing to learn and I'm learning it by experience over here. We are rich, rich, rich, rich, rich.
So......
Continue reading "Traveling is the bomb diggity"
Posted by Brae at 11:44 AM | Comments (9) | TrackBack
January 12, 2006
Harbin photos
Playing word games and singing and chatting about nothing and everything in the train with my team!
The ice kingdom in Harbin. Impressive, isn't it?
Isn't this is a cool ice wall? I like our silouttes. I really like the pictures. It's dang cool. From left to right: Marty, Julie, Jennie, Brae, Katie, John.
Lookin rough, waiting in the train station. Train station waiting rooms are fluorescently lit and they smell like rot. Really, really rotten.
Posted by Brae at 10:59 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
i cultivate silently
One of my classes gave me a New Year's card a few days ago. Look what they wrote. This melts my heart and gives me a good laugh.
Dear Brae,
How many days you teach us painstakingly and cultivate silently! You ignite the light of hope for us and enlighten our soul and wisdom. You will be in our hearts forever, teacher!
Then they all signed it and some wrote personal messages like:
I admire you. We're the friends. Thanks the god let us meet together. -Apple
Love you as the cat loves mice. -Julianna
U r qt! -Emmer
I love you forever! -Rose
This culture is full of precious people. Whoa.
Posted by Brae at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
January 11, 2006
I went to an ice kingdom
I'm finished giving finals and calculating grades for 215 students! I don't have to teach for two months. I get to jump around China and Thailand. What kind of surreal, privelaged, youthful, fun life is this? It really seems like he has given me too much. Peasants here slave all day to eak out a living and dirty children beg in the street and I was born in a place such that I have plenty of money and opportunity. It's not fair at all. I don't understand it.
So on Monday and Tuesday 8 of us Americans took a 3-hour train up to even colder, zero-degree Harbin to see an ice sculpture festival. We got to ice wonderland on Monday night and walked around in this outdoor freezer, playing on sliding boards on playgrounds made of ice, climbing disney land looking castles. All the ice formations were lit up with electric pink and green and orange and yellow which made it look a little chinsy, but that's China. It was cute. There were giant ice sculpures of Snoopy and the Charlie Brown crew, The Great Wall, Buddha, hundreds of other things. Even in how spectacular it all was, these extremely touristy things depress me ever so slightly. Maybe they don't quite depress me, but I can always feel a bit of emptiness in them. I know I'm different from others in this way. When I was in Europe I didn't like seeing castles, and I wrote an essay for my indie writing course about how visitng my slovak friend Janka in her little country village meant so so so much more to me than aimlessly wandering Prague. But I liked the ice fest well enough.
We stayed in a sketchy sketchy hotel that night. We had 5 girls in one room with 2 twin beds and while pulling the beds together we broke all the feet off one of the beds. It was great.
I leave on Saturday for my travels. I'm going with Danly to her southern province of Guandong. I'll be on the train for stinkin 36 hours, baby. I'm going to reach some new level of existence in this trying time. Actually, I think whatever you prepare your mind for can be handled. We'll have bunk beds and card games and novels. Danly's very cool to be around anyway. It's amazing how I have a whole new community here in China. I didn't know any of these people last year and now they're my people and I'm in love with them. It took alot longer for life to be comfortable at Covenant.
I'll stay at Danly's for a week, then go to Thailand for two weeks for ELIC's conference with 600 other beleivers, then I'll go to visit Bonny in Beijing for a week. While I'm in Guandong I'm going to do everything I can to get to Hong Kong just a few hours away because Kate Webber is there on a fashion tour of China.
Yo, that's my kinda thing to do.
I'll blog about my experiences in the next month in net bars.
I love.
byebye.
Posted by Brae at 10:36 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack
January 04, 2006
many more photos
I just uploade a bunch to my flickr site! Check them out at flickr.com My username is braebrae.
These are sticker booth photos.
Love, me
Posted by Brae at 09:28 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack
January 03, 2006
yesterday and today
I have so many kickin pictures to show you all! But I have to find the patience to put all of them on flashdrive, take it up to my one of my team mate's apartments, and load em all onto flickr. Sounds so simple, but somehow it doesn't happen often. For now, words must suffice.
My new year:
Bruce and John and Julie and 4 Chinese friends and I went out for hot pot (too hard to explain right now) and then we got a Karaoke room at a KTV place and sang for a couple hours. Karaoke is big in Asian cultures. And when you do it, you rent your own room. Remember the scene in Lost in Translation when Bill Murray and Scarlett Johanssen are singing karaoke? The room they're in is like the room we were in. I'll post pictures soon. I love singing and dancing. I still can't sing, but Chinese people love for you to sing even if you suck, and it's quite fun. My Chinese friend explained to me that if you sing for them, they think it's beautiful not because of the sound of your voice, but because your telling them you're comfortable enough to have fun (be vulnerable!) with them. How sweet and friendly. I love it. Julie and I were breakin it down to Britney Spears and Celine Dion and Backstreet Boys and all that sappy pop the Chinese love. I love it too sometimes. Really.
Yesterday I went to my friend Yoland's house. She invited me and 3 Chinese girls over for her birthday but didn't tell me it was her birthday so that I wouldn't buy her anything. When we got there, we all put on house slippers and ate lots of fruit and candy and nuts her mother had laid out for us. Then we watched The Gods Must be Crazy 2 while her mother slaved in the kitchen cooking 11 (11!) dishes for her birthday lunch. The Chinese cook such an aBUNDance of food whenever they eat. I don't understand. They conserve their resources in every other situation, but Chinese food portions even outdo American portions. Awful. They also spend an eSpeccially We sat down to eat the very meat-y feast (duck, sausage, pork, lamp, beef, fish) and I'd never seen such ugly food in my life. It tasted just as bad, but I had to act as if it was lovely. Her mother asked me, "Is the food delicious?". I responded, "It's wonderful." It was worse than the taste of Mcdonald's food to me. It was horrid. It was flavored with seafoodish mushroom things and it all smelled really bad too.
But the conversation was fine.
We sang karaoke afterwards....Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, etc...in their living room and then the other girls left and I stayed for the evening and the night with Yoland.
We went shopping today and then I made some chili for us both this evening in my apartment. She's a very elegant and sweet and undemanding girl to be around. I didn't get sick of her the whole time.
I have to go now. I didn't even begin to convey any of these experience to you adequately. One detail of being in Yoland's house: Her mom had decorated the flat with Japanese dolls. A blow up Hello Kitty plastic stuffed animal thing was on the couch. The couch was red with leapard print pillows. A blow up Flounder (from the Little Mermaid) sat on top of the tv in a very distracting manner and other strange pictures were everywhere. All the lighting was flouroescent and jail-cellish. Again, pictures later. Promise.
Posted by Brae at 07:20 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack