The Flossy Flossy
Keeping it “on the real” the best I can.Archive for August, 2009
Det er ti på to i natta
Og jeg skriver på bade, for dette er det eneste sted og den eneste tid at jeg kan fokusere på skriving.
Det har vært liksom, en bergogdalbane disse siste to dagane. Så mange følelser, hennelser og tanker. Jeg har vært både redd–av ensomhet, en frykt som jeg er vant til– og veldig glad–at jeg fikk snakke med no utrolige folk og ikke var ensom.
Jeg har også tenkte så mye om ting som jeg aldri har tenkt på før på grunn av disse personer. Jeg føler at kanskje dette kunne være det. Dette er det virkelig stedet der jeg endelig kunne finne en plass å kose meg, og hjerter å kalle “hjem.”
Jeg er spent og livredd for resten av denne opplevelse. Det er ikke no overraskelse om mine spenning, men ka e æ redd for? At disse forandrer for fort: jeg vil lever disse lille minutter og nyte hver person som jeg tilbringer tid med. Kjemi er forvirrende: det er ikke konstant men no flyttende. Jeg er redd at jeg skal miste alle disse, at vi ikke kan gå tilbake til i natt, eller i går. At hvis vi stopper kanskje vi aldri skal plukke opp hvor vi var før. For jeg vil vite at jeg kunne leve dette igjen–denne kjemien. Jeg vil ha no konstant, stabil, pålitelig.
Family History!
I almost killed myself with Starbucks yesterday: never have a venti anything, no matter how much anyone means to you. I didn’t think I could get intoxicated from coffee. You learn something new every day.
And apropos that, onto the topic du jour! I feel like I should begin by writing out a bit of background first. I was born in 1990 in Yanshan, Beijing, China. In 1991, my father left for the USA on a business project (which caved, but he decided to remain nevertheless), and I was raised by my mom and grandparents in rural Beijing until September 21, 1996, when we boarded that plane for San Francisco.
Contrary to America, “single parents” were practically unheard of when I was growing up, and I distinctly remember being in kindergarden, watching all the other kids being picked up, and I thought, “One day, my dad is going to pick me up from school.” It was weird, knowing you have a dad out there, and knowing he knows about you, but not knowing anything else about him. So September 21, 1996, was a big day for me: it was the first time that I met my dad.
I don’t dwell much on psychological explanations, but I don’t disagree that things would’ve turned out a hell of a lot different if I had had him in my life those first six years. (It makes me question a lot of things: Would they still have gotten divorced? Would he still have hit us? Would I still have turned out gay, or bi, or whatever the hell I am? [Troubling questions for a pubescent teenager!] That’s what I’d use my time machine for.) The reality of having “Dad” was much less romantic than I had envisioned for myself and my mom. And I realized after a while that I didn’t like calling him Dad–he wasn’t what a dad should be like.
Until then, I didn’t know that it was possible to be estranged from a stranger. But I was only distancing myself from the image that I had built of him.
But anyway, getting back to the point: I was always close to my mother’s side of the family because of this absence–soon distance. Sure, I was the son of a daughter–with my father’s last name being a constant prickly reminder of that–but I considered myself as legit as any 文 (Wen). And I guess my interest in the Wen family history stems from that desire of inclusion (an apparently recurring theme in my life…faen, they’re all related). Which is why I’m getting so excited over this:
The Wen family, my family, is Manchu. Our people were a nomadic group of hunters and equestrians from northeastern China that spoke a Tungusic language. We belonged to the Plain Yellow Banner (along with Aisin Gioro, the royal Manchu family–something my grandpa was rather fond of mentioning) under the eight banners administration set up by Nurhaci. This much general information I knew. However, what was interesting to me was that after the Manchus set up the Qing Dynasty, they began to practice sinicization in order to stay in power, which included sinicizing Manchu clan names into Chinese surnames. (For example, the clan name Aisin Gioro became sinicized as 金 [Jin], although this doesn’t mean every Chinese person with the surname Jin is an Aisin Gioro.) And ever since I could remember, I’ve been trying to find out what our clan name was.
Well, after a crapload of tracing and retracing our steps, we’ve finally found the…rather anticlimatic clan name. (文氏, it turns out to be. And 氏, or “hala” in Manchu, just means clan. So before we were Wens, we were Wens.) But after digging a little bit further, we came upon something else:
My grandparents came from Dalian, in the Liaoning province. My grandpa’s parents came from Jinzhou, a prefecture in the same province not to far off from Dalian. The Manchus in Jinzhou–more specifically–Jinzhou Tiger Village, are the descendants of those who were stationed there by the emperor. They had previously lived in Beijing in an area called 老虎屯 (Tiger Corridor), in which they settled into in 1671, after the Manchus had taken over the Chinese empire. And before that, the Wen hala had come from Baekdu Mountain, on present-day Chinese-Korean border, and were known as “花色” (Hwase).
So, uhm. That was all the personal genealogy I know. Bless you if you’re not a Wen and have read this far. Although it does make me think: AP US History would have been so much more fun if I had ancestors aboard the Mayflower.
Jeg vil slette alle dine spor.
Spiste middag med Ou ikveld og det var veldig hyggelig. Begge av oss hadde masse å prate om, og det trøster meg å vite at vi er fremdeles gode venner. Jeg fortalte henne av mine skuffelser: at jeg har forventet så mye mer enn hva blei av denne sommeren. Vi har også snakka mye om ham, kärleken min, og største skuffelsen min. 最近我为他上了很大的火，但是除了 Francesco 以外，谁都每有告诉。Og det er ikke ofte at jeg få snakke med Francesco, så å kunne endelig fortelle noen andre om det var en stor…lettelse. Og hun sa til meg akkurat det samme: at jeg må komme over ham.
Det kommer ikke til å være lett, det skjønner jeg godt. Men det første–og viktigeste–trinnet er å innrømme at jeg har en problem og må vel løyse den: 我必须放开他。
Det spiller ingen rolle hvor perfekt han ser ut. Sjølv om jeg synes at han var ment for meg er det bare et ensidig forhold. Og sjølv om jeg ikke tror at det finnes andre fisker i sjøen kommer jeg til å innse at de har rett. Jeg er ferdig med å kaste bort så mye tid på grunn av ham når jeg ikke veit i det hele tatt hva han virkelig synes om meg eller om han var även ærlig med meg å begynne med. Det finnes for mye av hans tilstedeværelse i mitt liv, og jeg har blitt så vant til å tenke og drømme om han at det ikke er sunnt lenger: og hvordan skjedde alle dette? Tre samtaler og en fantasi date at jeg ikke kan tro på. Så nå slutter jeg med denne besettelsen. Dessuten er han sikkert lei av alle mine innsats i å få hans oppmerksomhet.
S’il a envie de parler à moi, il le fera naturellement. Et sinon, alors, c’est tout, ça…
Why I Travel
I think one of the main reasons I like traveling is not so much for the frivolity of adding to my list of Been-theres, but to escape. In high school, while everyone was worrying about…who knows what everyone worries about–I was secretly planning my getaway from American High. Away from Fremont and its bountiful nothingness. I never felt at place–everyone seemed to have a group they belonged to, and while I flitted between two, I was never truly part of either. It was terrible; I found myself lacking the patience–and interest–to “stick around” and truly be a part of something. It was as if I had been running while everyone else was tusling, or the other way around: everyone else was marching ahead and while I stubbornly and proudly wandered off to find some shade in Vigelandsparken.
I left for Norway, keen on establishing a new life, planting some roots, and leaving American High behind me in the dust. I figured I would keep in touch with whomever I was meant to keep in touch with.
But even across the pond, school was lonesome, and the social scene was brutal. Granted I had a great group of friends outside of school, but I saw them so irregularly that every meeting felt more like a reunion than a casual hangout.
And now I’ve come back to this half of my life which I’ve let wither for a year. A year of casual how-you-doings and how’s-it-goings. If I was untethered before surely I must be floating away this time ’round. It’s strange to look at the photo albums of my old schoolmates: they seem to have so much fun together still, going to events, doing activities, attending concerts. I would be envious, but I know that even if I had been there it wouldn’t have made a different impression on any of us. You can’t force incompatible gears to mesh. To them, I’ll just be Nobody, or maybe if I’m lucky, “out-of-it” Victor. (And in Norway: Hvem? Og om jeg er så heldig, “Greg, han som synger.”)
I’ve always wondered why it was so hard to talk to people my own age. I would say that I do well and feel more at ease with adults–hence my gravitation toward older guys–but I honestly don’t really know if they talk to me out of pity, like when Veronica danced with me in the 7th grade and made me promise not to tell anybody. (Although I can’t say I blame her, judging by the way I was back then.)
And so here I am again, planning my next escape, scared as hell for what I’m plunging into. I’m not scared of things being different; I’m scared of them being the same. That it will still be only me on this road, my only accompaniment the ground of whichever land or country I traverse. To find myself fremdeles out of place in a community where I ought to belong so well to.
If I were lucky like Katherine, hvis jeg hadde vært heldig som Pappà, I would never have the desire to leave where I’d so comfortably set up camp. Am I swatting away these repercussions of dislocation, or am I simply a fool slashing his hands in empty air? I travel to escape my loneliness. I travel to find some place I can belong to.
Back from Sunny SoCal
And it was beautiful.
Finally put that plan into action and took a much-needed trip down to southern California.
Started by heading toward Monterey, which I’ve been wanting revisit ever since that Honors Bio trip in the 9th grade. Some good memories were made camping out and drinking virgin strawberry daiquiris on Cannery Row. How things change! I guess it’s just one of those things you can’t go back to again.
Took the 17 Mile Drive coastal route to the Fancy (that’s right, with a capital F) Carmel-by-the-Sea, where we had dinner (at a Fancy restaurant).
Continued our coastal party down south along Highway 1, making stops at whatever state beach we felt compelled to stop at. Spent the night at the slightly creepy and majorly overpriced town of Gorda, where we slept in what could only be referred to as an American hytte.
In the morning we continued trekking down the 1, eventually stopping in San Luis Obispo for a cheap Carl’s Jr. (The previous day in Carmel and Gorda had been quite pricy.) And from there down we drove on the 101, leaving the coastline and entering the hills.
It was late afternoon when we crossed the Los Angeles county line and into our mecca destination of Santa Monica: my highlight of the trip. Parked on 2nd and Arizona and headed straight toward the beach to witness a spectacular sunset: sky and sun and beach and pier. We had dinner at a nice Greek restaurant and spent the evening exploring shops along 3rd St. Promenade and I realized then that if it were possible and circumstances permitted, I’d like to live there for a while someday.
We left Los Angeles and drove to Huntington Beach around midnight and checked into a Super 8, and in the morning we continued further on south along the coast: Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach with stops at Corona del Mar and Crystal Cove before doubling back and going on the 5 for a speedy trip (8 hours) home.
