Where the hell is my suitcase?!: What ex-pats don't tell you.

When I left the U.S., I packed two bags. In one, I put all the stuff necessary for living abroad—sentimentalities, such as family photos and a stuffed animal; clothing, practical and prim; and must-have hygiene items (what if they don't have Q-tips in Nepal?!).  And after, I put all the things that make me me—my slights of language, my relationships, my hobbies, my consumer fashion—in another suitcase, and flinging myself on top of it, just barely zipped it shut.

But when I arrived in the Kathmandu airport, only one suitcase circled around the carousel. My stomach dipped in frustration. A simple mistake, a hiccup in the system of terminals and timetables, I told myself.

“Sir, my bag didn’t arrive?” I inquired at the lost baggage counter.

He pecked the keyboard in front of him. “It appears your luggage is still in the United States and…it’s not coming here.”

“But, sir,” I spluttered, anxiety ferreting its way under my ribs. “That can’t be right. Everything I am is in that suitcase.” I tried to protest, but the man had dismissed me, already hashing in the tracking number for bad-tempered tourist behind me.

For a while, I didn’t notice the absence of my suitcase.  Similar to realizing your hair will eventually cease to be wet despite a blow-dryer, one can live without their hobbies and friends and self- expressions. The excitement of a new task, a new culture, and new people fueled me.  After all, I’ve got to admit, fieldwork is pretty sexy. But as the gloss of novelty wore away, as the absence of my suitcase became a rabbit hole in my heart, as I spent a lot of quality time with myself, staring—shell-shocked and a little bit peeved—inward, I realized that suitcase was packed full of distractions.

Those descriptions of who I am, my hobbies, my style, the amalgamation of intangibles that are uniquely me, are really just diversions from the self. Stripped of these things, I’ve realized that my 30 second elevator introduction or my OK Cupid profile doesn't exist in its own right. It needs context; it needs other people to say, “I’m pickin’ up what you’re throwin’ down.” Without other people who recognize the meanings behinds my self-definitions, I’m just a mouse, roaring absurdly, trying to convince everyone I’m a lioness.  

In the absence of these comfortable trappings of the ego, I feel a little cold and exposed and lonely, angrily demanding “Who is this person?” and after, more clinically, “And do I like her or not?” That, there, is a very unsettling place to be. 

Jai Ho: My first film review

The other night, I accompanied my coworker Sapana to this week’s big box office debut, Jai Ho, starring Bollywood heartthrob Salman Khan. I’ve endured several Hindi films with Sapana, to varied outcomes. Usually, I can’t understand anything being said, and since there are no subtitles in the theatre, I’m just along for the visuals. Which, in one way or another, rarely disappoint. (See photo below). 

Ram Lila 's Ranveer Singh: Yummy!

In spite of the language barrier, Jai Ho was particularly savory, exclusively for reasons outlined below.  

Don't read any more before you watch the trailer!

A movie buff myself, I can say that I am shamelessly ethnocentric about the primacy of western cinema. For me, a movie should not be easy-to-swallow entertainment, but a piece of humanity—not always neatly packaged between two rolls of credits. But Jai Ho is not a film; it’s a moving mass of memes, muscles, mindlessness, and motorcycles. It’s a cartoon. Actually, I take that back. I wouldn’t insult Seth McFarland, Mary Poppins, and all the imaginary friends of my childhood like that. The Fantasia Broomstick is far more dynamic actor than our hero, Jai. Plus, in a cartoon, you can’t reasonably criticize the lack of character development or its total disjunction from reality. But when the hero’s mother is plowed by an ice-cream truck and the only “serious complication” (the doctor reports gravely) is a bum kidney, you quickly swivel your head around the theatre to confirm you’re watching this movie with other grown-ups.

It got nuttier. In fact, every time I’d made up my mind to leave, the plot would toss some bizarre scene out of left field, and I've never been able to turn my back on absurdity. The plot line popcorned around from a girl with no arms attempting to use her teeth to complete an exam, to an apparent villain wetting his pants in terror, to an anachronistic flashback of trench warfare featuring what I believe to be a Tarantino cameo (apropos, I believe, for a film this self-indulgently horrible), to baleful ballads of love. 

In keeping with the Bollywood standard, the movie included the staple “romance” song, in which an entire courtship occurs within three minutes of jarringly unprofessional voice-overs. Here, the initial stuttering, self-conscious chapters of a romance are summarily reduced to hero and heroine playing “tag” in an orchard, the soft chiffon of her jasmine-scented sari tantalizingly out of his grasp as she coyly dashes behind a tree. The fact that a relationship can blossom despite such cheesy lyrics and old hat gender stereotypes is only fully realized at the conclusion of the song, when the heroine proudly displays the consummate stamp of her wincingly eternal devotion—Jai, in cursive, tattooed above her heart.  

Khan, as our hero Jai, is a cinematic monolith, both in his boorish delivery and his steroid-wittled physique. Endowed with such talents, he is perfectly poised for some splendidly dreadful fight scenes. The movie’s apparent moral (I was later informed) is to help others before oneself; but, as a viewer, I’m concerned this message was lost somewhere within the ubiquitous scenes of a fair-complected Jai dispatching hordes of faceless, dark-skinned underlings with nothing but his fountain pen—a regrettably tasteless, if unintentional, allegory for the current state of South Asian affairs.

The movie climaxes in a fist-fight to the death; the producers left no viewer hungry for another helping Salman Khan. After being shot and stabbed in vital places by a random evil-doer, Jai rips his blood-stained shirt with a growl of unadulterated rage, making his intention clear. He is going to f*** this unidentified villain up. The villain, not to be outdone, also tears his own shirt open and for the next 30 seconds, the camera cuts back and forth between gratuitous shirt ripping and well-oiled pectorals. Our villain is finally dispatched when Jai takes a bite out of his jugular.  

This movie was so brazenly bad that even Nicholas Cage and Kristen Stewart would have known better. So there it is, folks. A recap of perhaps the worst (or best, it’s a matter of perspective) Bollywood movie to ever hit and flop off the silver screen.  

Kristen Goes to the Zoo.

Last Saturday, I visited the Kathmandu Zoo with Sapana and her niece Nisham. Having seen the documentaries Blackfish and The Cove, and also having beheld two rhinos “playing piggy-back” on a 3^rd grade fieldtrip, I am no friend to the institution. My last visit to the Knoxville Zoo occurred in 2008 with my aunt Carolyn. After a three hour tour, we ruefully concluded that a zoo is a lot like a nursing home for animals; it's somewhere no member of the animal kingdom EVER wants to end up. 
After all, only a sadist would force a polar bear to endure a Tennessee summer.

All their purpose (like eating and mating) has been supplanted by tasty zookeepers waving large slabs of meat and setting them up on unlikely blind-dates with that silverback from Cincinnati. You know, the one with the dandruff. Clearly, nothing is more sexless than “reproducing in captivity.” Poor bastards.  

But if the Knoxville Zoo is a nursing home, the Kathmandu Zoo is an outer ring of hell. Rather than a simulation of natural habitat, each specimen sits in a modest dirt enclosure, freckled with scat and scattered hay.  The leopard paced relentlessly in his cage, a moving meditation. His spots rippled to his rhythm, showcasing the muscle underneath, tightly coiled, never springing. The ostrich, sequestered to a space the size of a little league baseball diamond, stood with his eyes half-lidded, head sweeping the ground like a lazy broom. The zoological staff pulled out all the stops for the hippo, however; he had a choice of two algae-infested puddles to marinate in. On the up side, contrary to all the signage (DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS, YOU MORONS), most of the specimens munched on junkfood in exchange for a good photo op. Gazing upon a blue sheep that was pretending to be dead (see below), I wondered what kind of vendettas would be unleashed in the unlikely case of an insurrection.

Happy Happy Hippo?

Himalayan Blue Sheep: Hero of Peter Matthiesen's famous novel, possibly in a coma

Rhinos: most extraordinary when seen through a cyclone fence, and ONLY a cyclone fence

Everything at the zoo, including the animals, was coated in a thick layer of dust, lending the measly menagerie a dismal, colorless mood. This didn’t damper the visitors, though. The zoo also featured a large picnic area littered with rubbish and rusty children’s carnival rides in need of a good tune-up.

Zoogoers enjoying a Saturday lunch, just before the elephant barreled through.

As I quietly contemplated the golden-necked cockatoo, I was startled from my reveries by panicked scuffling and people parting like the Red Sea for a painted elephant lumbering through the grounds. As visitors scrambled to yank their toddlers to safety, or leapt over the side-walk railings—clearly concerned about the possibility of an uncaged, 2 ton animal in their stead—I found myself quietly chanting “Jumanji…Jumanji… Jumanji…”

Baby Mania: A cultural universal?

What is it about babies? Particularly human babies, that makes every self-respecting adult suddenly transform into a blithering, googly-eyed imbecile? I’ve always been a big fan of witter ones—puppies, tadpoles, caterpillars, you name it. I’m frequently beheld talking in a high-pitched tone to all juveniles of the animal kingdom, while every man in the room grits his teeth. 

Baby's 1st Selfie!

Baby's 3rd Selfie!

Baby's 2nd Selfie!

Well, you get the idea.

But I’ve noticed with human babies, it’s not just me—it’s everyone else, too.

Take for example my coworker Sapana’s new nephew. He’s plump, brown, and produces a lot of coos and poos. Her family will return home from a hard day’s work, looking utterly wiped, and plop down into their arm chairs. This routine, which I’ve been privy to so often, has been completely confounded by the presence of a new household member. After the brief groaning about a hard day, their worries are absorbed into entertaining themselves with the baby, under the guise of actually entertaining the baby—who, at 3ish months old, hasn’t developed much cognitive function to even be entertained, except that he grins when he poops. Sidenote: I’ve always argued that potty humor is an innate predisposition, and anyone who claims otherwise hasn’t pulled enough of their father’s fingers or been delighted at a baby’s smile, only to unhappily discover a blown-out diaper. At any rate, this baby cuter than a sackful of puppies. And he is so adored by his family. And me. I adore him too. 

Why do we adore them so? Is it because of the novelty of it? Is it because they are just miniaturized people, with perfectly miniature fingernails and noses? Is it some biological imperative to feel smitten and protective of our offspring? Babies are so innocent, so inexperienced. It reminds us of what we’ve grown out of.

Seeing a baby makes us remember when we thought the world was our oyster and helps us to forget that the world is not, in fact, an oyster. Before we realized we are trapped into existence by that one time your mom and dad got a little tipsy at the drive-in and made precisely you.  If you’re the heiress to Boeing, this is good news. But if you’re one the 6.9999 other billion people on earth, it’s a dodgy business, at best.

But, as we know, life is a gauntlet of narrow hallways and glass ceilings and gut punches. Babies deserve to be babied and coddled. “Here love, let me pinch your cheeks and give you some butterfly kisses,” with the subtext of “so you don’t lose heart fresh out of the starting gate.” It’s a mad world, Donnie Darko. And when you realize that somethings you can’t change, no matter how much you try, just keep running that gauntlet. Show us how it’s done, son, and godspeed.

But every time we love on a new member of our earth, we can hope maybe this baby, this one baby, will rattle the cage of its birth—of class, race, space, and time—to the point where the bars weaken and he can just squeeze out to freedom. Futures are bright and you can be all that you can be. Maybe even a Marine. Babies are little half-baked meatloafs of full of hope. We can see our own reflection in that gummy grin and those fat cheeks, before we became jaded and world-weary—and the image looking back at us offers us that vivacious optimism all over again. Babies embody what we wish to see in the world, minus the indiscriminate peeing and pooping.

Nepali Hindus say that on the twelfth day of life, the god comes to you and scribbles your fate on the inside of your skull, just above the eyes, out of sight. Your life is the story he writes for you. In a world where the average life expectancy is barely 65, people still don't have access to healthcare or clean water, and caste and class determines the fates of billions, let’s give a lot of love to our babies. 

After all, we need it.

And, to boot, they are so gosh darn cute. 

The Heady Case of the Cock and the Hen

A few weeks ago, a rather curious occurrence unfurled right in front of me, or, as the case may be, on top of me. I was seated on a stoop, taking an interview of a nice young Nepali teen—rather shy, and quite proper. He sat with his hands in his lap, his eyes bashfully refusing to meet mine, as I listed off questions about whether he “had felt sad lately” or “had wobbly legs” or “thought about sex less than usual.” Like many rural Nepalis, his family owned an assemblage of chickens, goats, and water buffalo, all of which have free reign of the courtyard during the day. 

Chickens—you might not know—have a rather misogynistic sex life, which largely involves the roosters relentlessly terrorizing the neighborhood hens. Indeed, poultry poontang resembles a high-stakes game of tag, except with penetration and a dozen peeping consequences. Generally, all the chickens seemingly mind their own business. Cocks and hens alike peck around the barnyard, but the roosters, hiding their motives a guise of casually milling about, have darker designs. They nonchalantly peck their way over to the nearest hen, and pounce. What ensues is a panicked, squawking, flogging fuss of feathers, leaving the rooster preening and the hen self-consciously checking the area for witnesses, clucking crossly, and then resuming her matronly procession around the barnyard, as if she weren’t just violated by some asshole wearing spurs.  

So on this particular occasion, as I’m taking an interview, out of the corner of my eye, I note these sort of shenanigans occurring in the courtyard. The cock jumps the hen, but she flees before he can mount a successful attack. I continue on with my questions; having seen far worse in college, I remain nonplussed by such primal mating rituals. Suddenly, the fleeing hen, seeking refuge, having set her sights on my head, flaps onto it. Taken by surprise, I try to remove the offending chicken, but she has tangled her claws in my hair and is thus ensnared. The cock, in hot pursuit, capitalizes on this golden opportunity. He leaps on the helpless chicken and begins about his business on top of my head. So, here I am, clawing at the copulating pair, shrieking and laughing simultaneously at my poor luck.  

The boy who I had been interviewing doesn’t react, but instead watches absently, as if this sort of thing happens daily. I suppose at some point he realizes that I’m in need of assistance, as the rooster has fulfilled his biological imperative and has since dismounted from the chicken on my head, and is strutting away, satisfied. The boy helps me untangle her claws, and once freed, chucks the hen across the yard. Relieved and embarrassed, I giggle compulsively, desperate for affirmation of the absurdity of what just happened. The boy primly takes his seat, and raises his eyebrows, and says, “Next question?” 

Nepal One Year Later: Foreign or Familiar?

Namaste and Happy New Year to my friends, family, and fellow ethnographers (professional and lay alike)!

Many of you have been following my emails, and I thank you for transferring over to my blog. The purpose of this blog is to cyber-publish my raw anecdotes and unadulterated contemplations on a more frequent—and brief—basis. I’m sure some of you more reluctant readers might be relieved at this.  Additionally, as a disclaimer, some of my updates may be recycled from my past emails. After all, Nepal has become more normative to me, scenes that shocked me a year ago I barely notice now. And, let’s face it, I can only make so many poop jokes.

This week marks a year since I first started my adventures in Nepal, and I have been reflecting on how my perspective and international skills have developed or stalled.  Have I learned anything? Do I fit in any better than a zebra wearing polka dot pants? Can I call myself an anthropologist? Let's examine this one facet of life in Nepal, that once seemed so terrifying and intimidating to me. 

December 31, 2012---I’ve finally figured out (but of course will never master in practice) Nepali traffic regulations. I’m still surprised that I have yet to witness a vehicular homicide on the streets of Kathmandu. Small cars, mopeds, bicycles, pedestrians, even the occasional cow, compete for purchase on the narrow thoroughfares.  Although seemingly chaotic and lawless, there is a method to the madness. The rule of thumb is this: if there is a space you can fill with your body or vehicle, you are expected—no, obligated!—to do so. This, of course, results in many cut-offs and a cacophony of car horns and cuss words, but nevertheless, I’ve yet to witness an accident. Nepali drivers do not drive defensively, rather than are aggressive and act in self-interest, but not in a particularly hostile way. You can imagine, I’m sure, that these rules of the road pose a unique challenge to the foreign pedestrian, such as yours truly. Crossing the street is a fine art to be mastered by the seasoned traveler: you partially glance both ways, step out onto the street with confidence and poise, walk at a uniform and relaxed pace, and pray to your god that the oncoming phalanx of rickshaws stop in time. I like to call this tactic the “Mister Magoo”: it is always successful. DO NOT, however, use the “squirrel” method: eyes panicked, direction uncertain, and velocity unpredictable. This will surely get you killed, if not by a taxi, then from a heart attack. Needless to say, I’m still a little squirrely.

           

A comparative examination of my current traffic dodging skills gives a resounding "NO" on all accounts. Still terrifying, still intimidating. Although I still live, observing the rules of the road was about as far as I progressed in my mastery of pedestrianism. I still squirrel out every time, and I know drivers think I’m a FOP (Fresh Off the Plane). In this case, although I haven’t been completely removed from the gene pool, I haven’t advanced any further than prospective roadkill, such as possum, deer, and other small-brained mammals. FAIL. 

Perhaps I'll find some facet of Nepali life where I've progressed. Stay tuned.