Authors note: These short vignettes are based on my experiences traveling in the Antipodes in 2007. These three are from Australia. Any comments are welcome. --W.R. Preston
Laksa
The soup is spicy and too hot, but I eat it anyways. Slurping up the noodles and meat, I am trying to absorb any of the heat, something to take the chill away. It’s the coldest winter since 1971, and the wettest. The news anchor last night was clear on that. Everyone keeps talking about the drought. It’s been on ten years. I don’t believe them. It’s rained every day here and I doubt I will ever feel at home. Every few slurps of soup I cough and gag, having sucked a noodle into my windpipe. The spices of the soup are too much. I am sweating, despite the cold. Being from the tropics, I expected this place to be warmer. A country the size of the United States, the interior, one vast goddamn desert, and I’ve come during a break in the ten year drought. I eat this soup everyday. Not diverging for anything else. The coconut broth is thick and it reminds me of my mother and duck egg rice wrapped in banana leaves.
Establish a routine, meet people around you, and be open to new things. These are ways to avoid culture shock. Everyone around me are exchange students as well, however, they are from Asia. They don’t see me as Asian. My half Scottish, half Chinese blood looks like neither from the outside. But this soup keeps me coming back. I want to conquer it, eat the whole bowl, and not break a sweat. But there is always too much, and another class to go to before I reach the bottom. Later, in class, my beard reeks and my shirt is speckled with the broth. After two weeks of eating it everyday. I break routine, and go somewhere else. The next day I come back, and the restaurant is under construction. It doesn’t reopen before I leave country. Seven months later, in Thailand, I try to find the soup, asking local guides if they know of it. They stare blankly, telling me to pronounce it better; I can’t. It’s as if it never existed.
Lost Luggage
I step off the plane, still drunk and spun. Too many sleeping pills on the fourteen-hour flight. We drank the free wine, got cut off (not a first in my airline travel experiences) and moved onto Canadian whiskey fresh from the duty free. Not much else to do on long flights with strangers. Drink, ponder smoking a cigarette in the bathroom and drink more to remember the absurdity of smoking on a plane. I imagine the whole metal tube burning and can see it. The sleeping pills make me hallucinate. Nothing I can’t handle, but too much misinformation for me to trust my watch or my eyes. More whiskey, more sleep crammed in chairs designed for crash test dummies.
I don’t remember customs, only waiting for my luggage to come down the shiny metal ramp. Like snake skin it undulates, moving bags around but none are mine. I am too twisted for anger to come. I make my way to baggage services and find a long line. I wait. After an hour, my hangover is starting to come, but the pills aren’t gone yet. My eyes sting and the conversations around me are painful. At the counter, the woman takes my information down. Her smile looks overworked. She offers me a lost luggage kit, complete with toothbrush, underwear and shampoo. I turn her down. Give it to the next guy, I say. This isn’t going to solve anything. I need a cigarette.
Outside, I light up. I stand outside the bus, slowly inhaling and taking the cold air into my lungs between drags. On the bus I sit down in the only seat left. I know I stink of cigarettes, but can’t care. I brush the strange looks from other students off and keep my sunglasses on. The girl I sit next has reddish hair, fair skin and is cute. Her voice is a little rough, but I like that. She asks if I smoke. I say yes, waiting for her condemnation of my unhealthy habit, or a complaint about the smell. It doesn’t come. She bums one and we step outside.
“I didn’t want to smoke alone, with everyone in there watching” she says, motioning toward the bus while her toe snubs out her finished smoke. The pills have worn off and I'm left feeling shipwrecked between time zones. The sunlight is clean and acrid. Her luggage is also lost. I bum her one more, making up for lost time in the air. The first few matches go out quick. She smiles and cups my hands as I light hers. Her fingers linger for a moment too long and obvious while she takes a drag. It’s these times, I know the ending at the beginning.
The Old Woman
When I get on the bus, I’m already late. Its crowded and I stand for the first few minutes, keeping balance through the hills and stops. The news lately hasn’t been good. Scotland’s airport was unsuccessfully firebombed. The culprits are dead, one burned to death, but here in Australia, they’ve taken an Indian doctor into custody. His cell phone sim-card was somehow involved. After a few weeks, and much complaining by the Indian government, he was released and shipped home. Sentiments here are cold. He should have been kept and falsely imprisoned. His race and religion were keeping him in jail. I don’t know how to feel about it. But this morning changes my mind. Another passenger steps off at the next stop. He glares at me and hops off the bus. In America, he’d be called a blue collared worker. His open seat is next to an old woman, she sees I’m going for it and puts her bag in the seat. It’s the last seat on the bus. Being American, self righteous and willing to offend for my own comfort, I step up and ask to sit down. She stares at me, seeing only my ambiguous race, my dark skin and almond shaped eyes, and says no.
“I won’t sit next to a lebo” she says loudly. I blink like a turtle and pacify the urge to throw her bag to the floor and take the seat. Several men on the bus are staring, waiting for this arab-looking man, with a thick beard, to make his next move. I fight through several emotions, moving from anger to shock and awe to a deep-seated rage and find myself still standing, gawking. My mind settles into a complacent understanding. I get off at the next stop, six from my intended destination. I smoke a cigarette and drink a cup of coffee, trying to calm my anger. It doesn’t work. I catch the next bus back to my house, smoke a bowl on the balcony and let my confusion pass. It doesn’t.
The soup is spicy and too hot, but I eat it anyways. Slurping up the noodles and meat, I am trying to absorb any of the heat, something to take the chill away. It’s the coldest winter since 1971, and the wettest. The news anchor last night was clear on that. Everyone keeps talking about the drought. It’s been on ten years. I don’t believe them. It’s rained every day here and I doubt I will ever feel at home. Every few slurps of soup I cough and gag, having sucked a noodle into my windpipe. The spices of the soup are too much. I am sweating, despite the cold. Being from the tropics, I expected this place to be warmer. A country the size of the United States, the interior, one vast goddamn desert, and I’ve come during a break in the ten year drought. I eat this soup everyday. Not diverging for anything else. The coconut broth is thick and it reminds me of my mother and duck egg rice wrapped in banana leaves.
Establish a routine, meet people around you, and be open to new things. These are ways to avoid culture shock. Everyone around me are exchange students as well, however, they are from Asia. They don’t see me as Asian. My half Scottish, half Chinese blood looks like neither from the outside. But this soup keeps me coming back. I want to conquer it, eat the whole bowl, and not break a sweat. But there is always too much, and another class to go to before I reach the bottom. Later, in class, my beard reeks and my shirt is speckled with the broth. After two weeks of eating it everyday. I break routine, and go somewhere else. The next day I come back, and the restaurant is under construction. It doesn’t reopen before I leave country. Seven months later, in Thailand, I try to find the soup, asking local guides if they know of it. They stare blankly, telling me to pronounce it better; I can’t. It’s as if it never existed.
Lost Luggage
I step off the plane, still drunk and spun. Too many sleeping pills on the fourteen-hour flight. We drank the free wine, got cut off (not a first in my airline travel experiences) and moved onto Canadian whiskey fresh from the duty free. Not much else to do on long flights with strangers. Drink, ponder smoking a cigarette in the bathroom and drink more to remember the absurdity of smoking on a plane. I imagine the whole metal tube burning and can see it. The sleeping pills make me hallucinate. Nothing I can’t handle, but too much misinformation for me to trust my watch or my eyes. More whiskey, more sleep crammed in chairs designed for crash test dummies.
I don’t remember customs, only waiting for my luggage to come down the shiny metal ramp. Like snake skin it undulates, moving bags around but none are mine. I am too twisted for anger to come. I make my way to baggage services and find a long line. I wait. After an hour, my hangover is starting to come, but the pills aren’t gone yet. My eyes sting and the conversations around me are painful. At the counter, the woman takes my information down. Her smile looks overworked. She offers me a lost luggage kit, complete with toothbrush, underwear and shampoo. I turn her down. Give it to the next guy, I say. This isn’t going to solve anything. I need a cigarette.
Outside, I light up. I stand outside the bus, slowly inhaling and taking the cold air into my lungs between drags. On the bus I sit down in the only seat left. I know I stink of cigarettes, but can’t care. I brush the strange looks from other students off and keep my sunglasses on. The girl I sit next has reddish hair, fair skin and is cute. Her voice is a little rough, but I like that. She asks if I smoke. I say yes, waiting for her condemnation of my unhealthy habit, or a complaint about the smell. It doesn’t come. She bums one and we step outside.
“I didn’t want to smoke alone, with everyone in there watching” she says, motioning toward the bus while her toe snubs out her finished smoke. The pills have worn off and I'm left feeling shipwrecked between time zones. The sunlight is clean and acrid. Her luggage is also lost. I bum her one more, making up for lost time in the air. The first few matches go out quick. She smiles and cups my hands as I light hers. Her fingers linger for a moment too long and obvious while she takes a drag. It’s these times, I know the ending at the beginning.
The Old Woman
When I get on the bus, I’m already late. Its crowded and I stand for the first few minutes, keeping balance through the hills and stops. The news lately hasn’t been good. Scotland’s airport was unsuccessfully firebombed. The culprits are dead, one burned to death, but here in Australia, they’ve taken an Indian doctor into custody. His cell phone sim-card was somehow involved. After a few weeks, and much complaining by the Indian government, he was released and shipped home. Sentiments here are cold. He should have been kept and falsely imprisoned. His race and religion were keeping him in jail. I don’t know how to feel about it. But this morning changes my mind. Another passenger steps off at the next stop. He glares at me and hops off the bus. In America, he’d be called a blue collared worker. His open seat is next to an old woman, she sees I’m going for it and puts her bag in the seat. It’s the last seat on the bus. Being American, self righteous and willing to offend for my own comfort, I step up and ask to sit down. She stares at me, seeing only my ambiguous race, my dark skin and almond shaped eyes, and says no.
“I won’t sit next to a lebo” she says loudly. I blink like a turtle and pacify the urge to throw her bag to the floor and take the seat. Several men on the bus are staring, waiting for this arab-looking man, with a thick beard, to make his next move. I fight through several emotions, moving from anger to shock and awe to a deep-seated rage and find myself still standing, gawking. My mind settles into a complacent understanding. I get off at the next stop, six from my intended destination. I smoke a cigarette and drink a cup of coffee, trying to calm my anger. It doesn’t work. I catch the next bus back to my house, smoke a bowl on the balcony and let my confusion pass. It doesn’t.
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