Snarky, Whiny, Ungrateful, and Possibly a Bit Un-PC...all in One Package!

It's May...and anyone who is a teacher knows that nothing but work can be accomplished in May. May is a neverending push of paperwork, meetings, and events, set amongst itchy, scratchy children who only want to play outside. It's always a slog, so maybe that's what's causing my current pettiness.

But first, a bit of backstory...before we moved to Tanzania, I read Memoirs of a Geisha. Aside from being very surprised and duly impressed that a man had captured the emotions and conflicts of the female characters so well, I had...issues. I strongly proclaimed my feelings to my friend Ann and said, to wit: "I hated this book. I just didn't get it. I didn't get the shame and the honor bit. And the whole geisha thing--what is up with that? All the time I was reading the book, I realize I really only like Asian food. I'm not very interested in the music I've heard or the art I've seen and I just realized now that I've read this book I realized that I'm so less than interested in learning anything more."

I may have proclaimed this at a book club, in which case my fellow readers are probably still suffering post-traumatic distress over my candor. I don't usually speak in so many italics.

...and yes...aside from the almost unforgiveable offense of uttering aloud a preference (or lack thereof) for a specific aspect of a culture, I realize that I have indeed lumped everyone from Japan to China to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, and Singapore under the category of "Asian." And that that I probably left off someone from that list, so now I'm continuing to offend...

What can I say? Somewhere in us I think we have a predilection for some things over others. Blondes over brunettes. Classical over rock. Long before I ever dreamed I'd ever go to Africa, the images evoked feelings in me that say, Russia, didn't. Another friend is so passionate about things Arabic, but is lukewarm about the Spanish influence. Somewhere along the line I realized that any place in Asia would not make my top 10 list of places I wanted to see. There was no specific reason and whenever I've examined my thoughts and feelings, I can't point to any specific event or moment that makes me feel more interested in one type of culture or region of the world than another.

The irony is not lost on my, by the way. When we were looking for jobs, we knew we were likely to end up in Asia--and now that I'm here, there's a slowly growing realization that what I really liked was Chinese-American food. And Thai food. Did you know that rice is always served at the end of the meal here? It's to fill you up in case you didn't get enough, so ordering rice if someone else is paying or asking for it at a home can be considered very rude, a comment on how you weren't fed well enough by your hosts. All I'm saying is that it's hard to eat a massive bowl of gung-bao chicken without it, that's all. That's not the rule in Thailand, where you get your rice with your other stuff. Thai food really is the best in the world.

And I am profoundly grateful to have this opportunity to live in this part of the world. It's fascinating to see politics and economics and environmentalism be splashed over the news day after day and live in China, which plays such a crucial (and often overlooked) role in the world.

All of this brings me to my whinge...we have a 4 day weekend coming up--and I really don't want to go anywhere. Any place, even somewhere close--it's too expensive, too complicated, too iffy. What's there to see--more temples and pagodas? sigh Calandria just got back from Spain. I want to go to Spain. Karen just got back from Cancun and is going to Peru later this year. Why can't I go there? Our head of school just accepted a job in Belgium...I've never been to Europe.

Poor me, I know. Am I really so ungrateful? Is it that those other places have always been on my list of places I'd like to visit, and so I'd pine over them regardless of where I was? Did I suddenly become less adventurous on this side of the world--or was my adventursome-ness in Tanzania an aberration? Am I just wickedly lazy and ethnocentric? Or am I just in a funk?

P.S. You also don't get eggrolls or fortune cookies here. Then, again, you don't get donkey penis or blood soup with bullfrog at Leeann Chin's in Bloomington.