It really didn’t strike home for me that I was a sincere minority until we got off the train and stepped into the world of Chinese billboards, Chinese crowds, people who could look at me in a restaurant and know I was different, know I didn’t live there, didn’t “belong” there – and I suppose that was the most troubling of the feelings (which I was able to deal with since being with friends) but knowing that people saw me come in and shrugged me away as someone who would be leaving shortly because clearly I didn’t belong with them, clearly I couldn’t be living there, and perhaps, clearly I shouldn’t be living there. I’m not saying I experienced racism or anything like that, simply that I experienced, I think for the first time, being considered Different or Out of Place.
The food was delicious! We went to a place Sye Yuet picked (because we all wanted something as “authentically” Chinese as possible) called Malay Restaurant Inc., and it was beyond fortunate that we had her because she’s the only one among us who can speak and understand Chinese (which is pretty much how you ordered food at all unless you just pointed about). But she knew how many of the foods were cooked and what tasted like truer Singaporean, Malaysian, etc., and so we decided to do a family-style try-all. We ordered (or Sye Yuet ordered for us in Chinese (I included a photo of some of the food)) a Buddhist Yam Pot (delicious but too rich for me, just a few bites and I felt dizzy), Barbecued Fish-Skate, Satay, Hainanese Chicken Rice, Sambal Squid, and what I believe was Spicy Thai Chicken. And I learned about (though sadly didn’t get to try this time around) Durian Red Bean Ice: durian is, apparently, a South Asian fruit that smells so strongly (and badly) that it can take a long time to get used to and even cause illness or fainting but if you just go ahead and taste it’s apparently delectably sweet and addictively good.
(The photo shows the yam pot, one of the remaining satays, some teacups, peanut sauce, and the sambal squid. (Oh, and I don’t think we ordered tea, it was simply brought out and served, sort of like water in other restaurants.))
But there wasn’t a single dish served that I’d ever tried before, which was exciting, and complimentary watermelon slices were served at the end (the same way mints usually are in the restaurants I’m accustomed to). And during the meal (which did take a while – it was five girls’ worth of conversation), we mostly (I’m proud and impressed to say) discussed our separate cultural backgrounds and the shifts between them, from the strangeness of “common sushi” in America versus the sushi-as-luxury food in Japan and what this switch means for American perceptions of Japan to discussing the pace difference (which I have absolutely been victimized by) between Texas and NYC and the cultural stress to rush and be busy that seems ubiquitous here to discussing the street culture and foods of Vietnam to, of course, discussing Singapore. But these are truly Women of the World – Friend of Rebecca had just gotten back from travels from London to Rome to Madrid and back, while Jasmine had been all over Asia (along with Rebecca and Sye Yeut), and Sye Yuet who is going to be going back to Singapore for a couple weeks before going back to school in London. In other words, the discussion was wonderfully colorful and intelligent and brave and now I’m excited and eager for the day when I get to curlicue my way through Asia and then into Italy and deeper into Europe – I have decided that this trip and these people have proven to me I do harbor a love for traveling and for learning by experience, but that I also need this tempered with company and a break at home. And perhaps the reason I have had a more difficult time assimilating into NYC is because I’ve spent most of the summer away from home and others from school to Carolina to California to NYC without much of any stoppage in between.
After dinner we journeyed through a sea of Asian characters and advertisements and neon signs to a tea café for dessert (I believe it was called Sago “Something”) and then to a little bakery for breakfast and/or gifts. This little place, just a slice dug out of the strip, was called Maxin Café. It was difficult making any decisions on what to buy there since only some of the food names were translated on their price stickers (fortunately, again, we had Sye Yuet). I ended up just grabbing a tin of coconut cookies for my Nana but they had all sorts of sweet flatbreads, fruit cakes, green tea cakes, sesame breads, red bean pastries, etc.
We acted particularly tourist-esque thanks to the bravery of Rebecca who took no qualms with asking anyone from waiters to people on the street to act as our photographer and, I have to say, this made me realize a strange sort of a preconception in myself as I found it to be an almost role-reversal to have Asian people taking tourist photographs of me instead of the other way around. And, while this seems to me as a relatively harmless race generalization, it bothered me just realizing that I’d had this generalization engrained within me in the first place. It was also strange to realize that I was, effectively, a cultural (and racial) tourist in my own country. What a new and oddly fitting feeling to realize that I wasn’t being a tourist by taking a photo of a mountain or statue but of myself in comparison with the culture and people around me – as if they were a mountain or a statue.
And I guess this is when I realized just how aware I’ve constantly been of my race in this state versus how little I think about it while I’m at home. Every time I’ve walked down the street, I’ve made notes to myself on whether or not I was the only white person walking down. Every time I’ve heard a different language buzz by on a cell phone, I’ve wondered about my own validity as an American and why whiteness should seem to qualify me so well (the Arizona fuck-up, knowing I wouldn’t be stopped and questioned simply because I’m white).
It’s…strange.
ciao for now!
katie
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