My most recent semester at Wellesley was a fairly rough one full of self-reflection and readjustment. I was happy to be back in a place called home, but it felt like someone had painted the walls and switched all the dishes out on me. I thought sometimes that Wellesley had changed too much or maybe I had. It left me with background noise full of sadness as I worried I'd grown out of my dear collegiate home. But, with change comes new friends and perspectives you're forever thankful to have learned. So this spring I feel I've been reborn with the leaves and now it's time for summer.
As many of you who will read this already know, I'm spending my summer in Jakarta, Indonesia working for Next Thought. Now, there's usually a lot of questions people have about how and why I'm doing this, so keep reading. To recap Next Thought is that start up in Norman, Oklahoma I'm sure you've heard me mention. They build interactive learning communities which are way cool (check out OU's for free at janux.ou.edu) I worked for them after my first year at Wellesley before I ditched last summer to work at Google (and then I ditched Google to go back; not sure what that means about me).
Next question is probably, "if they're based in Norman then why are you flying to Jakarta?" Well, remember that time I met Madeleine Albright? I'm fortunate enough to be one of Wellesley's Albright fellows. This means that I attended a course on global thinking and solving the worlds problems during Wellesley's wintersession in January and then was funded for a summer internship abroad to engage with the global community. Luckily for me my pals at Next Thought have been wanting to start a bigger office in Jakarta since my friend and colleague moved back there after working in Oklahoma for a year. So, when I informed Next Thought about my fellowship I was offered a position to help start up their start up office in Jakarta. Crazy, right? I'm 21 years old and they're just shipping me off with all this responsibility.
The coolest thing about all this is that I get to combine the software development that I live to do and the vision of the Albright institute as I strive to create a community of online learning with the Next Thought platform in Jakarta. This opportunity is honestly one of those funny life things you cannot plan or predict, but I fully intend to make the most of it and have a ton of fun in the process.
Some things I'm nervous about as I write this on my plane ride from Tokyo to Jakarta is the fact that I can only say "good morning" and "hello" in Bahasa (Indonesia's national language), I really packed too many things as I worried about not being able to find the brands of stuff I would want. And, I didn't eat pizza during my last week in America and I can't fix that now.
Luckily everything else is going well. Things got off to a rough start as my father and I drove down to Dallas late Friday night, slept about three hours, and then headed to the airport before the sun came up. I expected at least the first leg of my trip to go smoothly, but thanks to all the weather issues in Texas this weekend my flight to Houston got canceled before I could even check in. So, I had my itinerary changed to Dallas ->SFO->Tokyo-> Jakarta. In theory this was better since I no longer had to survive a 14 hour flight from Houston to Tokyo as the one from SF was only 10 hours. Unfortunately I made the mistake of booking with American Airline's evil twin United and they couldn't seem to figure out why I wasn't able to print my boarding pass for my American airlines flight to SFO. After 20 minutes of back and forth someone figured it out and I finally left my father, teared up a little (ok a lot actually because flying away from home is always the worst), and moved through security.
Next I get on my flight to SF and basically just slept the whole time. This was both good and bad since I was very tired, but then I found myself incredibly disoriented when I landed. I'm not sure if it was the grogginess or if SFO is actually a confusing gargantuan airport, but I got lost and asked for directions at least three times. Once I found the international terminal I attempted to print my boarding passes again only to realize I wasn't even flying any united flights (confusing right?)! They told me to find All Nippon airlines which was fine except all their signs read "ANA" not "All Nippon" (future warning for anyone who finds themselves in my boat in the future).
Luckily, ANA is a Japanese airline, nothing like united, and happens to have incredibly helpful and nice humans working for them. So, I figured out how to get my bag all the way to Jakarta (instead of just to Tokyo as United had set it up), went through security, and then scouted out some water. I also found a taco place and ate these delicious chicken tacos which was honestly the high light of this journey so far. Something tells me there aren't great tacos in Jakarta, but I will eat other things. I was pretty worried about my 10 hour flight since my changing connections meant they could only get me a middle seat. I thought it was going to be terrible, but I guess I'm so used to squeezing myself into plane seats that the difference between a window seat and a middle seat isn't that bad anymore.
On my flight I watched Big Hero 6 (finally! It was so cute!!) and Joy. Movies are almost as great as sleeping on planes with how much faster they make time pass. The flight attendants where almost constantly giving us food and drinks and I consumed a good bit of wine which is excellent because it makes you sleepy and that's all you want when you can't do much of anything but sit down and be uncomfortable for ten hours. The only thing I needed to brace myself for was the food since they served seafood pasta with a side of yogurt for breakfast and I still can't decide who thought that was a good pair. But, I'm going to hope that I can let go of all of my notions of "normal" food and just try everything (except maybe street food because who wants to be sick?).
My layover in Japan was pretty long and I became well acquainted with the airport. Like the American I am I bought sushi rolls and enjoyed using the internet for a bit before boarding my final plane. Karma must've been in my favor after the Saturday morning debacles since I'm now sitting in a window seat in a row without anyone in the middle. This feels like paradise. I have almost a normal amount of leg room!
Of course even though I wrote this on my plane I won't post it until I land in Jakarta. Ega is picking me up at the airport so I won't get lost and then the adventure really begins. I'm so afraid and excited and it's going to be a great ride.
Take care friends! And, I'd love to know what you're up to this summer if we haven't talked in a while. My american number will work through WhatsApp and I'm on Facebook all the time.
....Some hours pass....
I've been in Jakarta for a day now. Jet lag is killing me and the heat is helping. But, the food here is awesome. I will include many more pictures as the days pass. But, so far I've tried fruits and vegetables I didn't know existed and found them all very delicious. Ega is such a wonderful host and I'm excited for all of the adventure (and sleep) to come.
Hey lovelies
The underground is back with my blog and I hope I haven't become too boring for this to stay interesting. Fair warning for anyone who hasn't talked to me lately, this will likely be full of poems/reflections exploring my white guilt and how I feel about plopping down into an Asian country for the summer after studying a bit of the history of Asian nations and people during my Asian American performance class. This is mostly for me, but you all are invited as some of my closest friends to reflect with me and let me know what you think of the things I say. I'll do my damnedest to remain honest and not offensive, but who knows how my sharing will affect you.
Of course I also intend to share all of my hilarious drunken antics too. As for my last two weeks in Oklahoma I had a pretty great time catching up with my best pals and a few old friends I didn't even intend to get to see. It was mostly a fun time with a few fights with Hana sprinkled here and there. A fun fact about me as a 21 year old now is that there are more days since I've become of age that I've consumed alcohol than there are days I've remained 100% sober. Pray for my liver!
OK, I'm going to share a poem that explains a bit about my mindset as I think about how my very body is political. I wrote and performed this for my Asian American performance class this semester:
Heinz 57
Who am I?
My mother often tells this story about my racist great uncle
He and 1/4 of my family are Irish Catholics
My father introduced my mother to Uncle John
And his first question to her was, “What are you?”
My mother, having an excellent sense of humor, replies,
“Well, I’m heinz 57, a little bit of everything”
Uncle John never said another word to my mother
“A little bit of everything” is far too much for the Irish.
My mother says we are
Heinz 57 - “a little bit of everything"
So many flavors
An origin so mixed and unknown
Roots spread in this earth
Like the roots of a thousand year old tree
Heinz 57 is thinking you’re so much of everything
That you couldn’t possibly culturally appropriate anything
So then that Asian noodle dish your mom makes must be Asian
Right?
There’s fettuccine in it.
Heinz 57 is the processed manufactured bullshit you get when
You take all the cultures in the world and you blend them together
Then you bottle them up to sell in Walmarts across the nation
Except no one notices that they left out all the flavors of the East
To my family the East is a bag of frozen vegetables boiled and mixed
with fettuccine with peanut sauce on top.
That’s Heinz 57
57 flavors of exclusion and ignorance
You know racism runs deep like canyons in the earth that houses the roots of your family tree when “a little bit of everything” is a synonym for
“All the white starch gathered up from the western side of Europe”
You realize that the only thing you have to eat with your Heinz 57 sauce
Is mashed potatoes and butter pasta
Suddenly your “Asian noodles” taste like dirt
You wake up and see America, covered in Heinz 57
Hoping that no one will look too close
And see the white skin peaking out from underneath.
It’s a game we seem to play
Like black, brown, or yellow face
Only more insidious as we
Pretend we’re cultured
We take and appropriate the cultures around us
Heinz 57 overpowers new culture
With a dark brown sauce and 57 flavors you can make
Anything white, I mean American.
Heinz 57 is middle America
Where we think Africa and Asian are
Just two countries
Over half of the world
Reduced.
Heinz 57 is only feeling apathy
When your sister tells you Ethiopian food must just taste like air
Even worse you wonder if either of you could find Ethiopia on a map
Ethiopia’s just another part of that country, err continent, we call Africa
Maybe there’s room for a 58th, 59th, 60th, …, infinity-th flavor
But how could Heinz 57 ever truly be everything?
The all-american melting pot wants to mold us into one flavor
When not even 57 is enough
Even as my family’s roots grow deep and flavors grow rich
We have not managed to grow outside of the white porcelain walls
Holding us inside
Around us we see darkness
We assume its the infinite space, we are everything
But the world is outside our walls
Where reality burns hot like the sun
And our sunburns are sticky with a sauce
We thought described our heritage.
