i am such a hippie it is ridiculous.

i purchased a book for my parents. it’s called 14,000 things to be happy about, and is literally just a list of awesome things for one to be happy about. i am not happy about everything in this book, but there are things i am happy about, in particular.

my parents have a variety of health problems. they are getting old. they are asian parents. they focus only on the negative. i’m ever wanting them to try and find more beauty in life, but i know not how to even really breach this topic in a way they will understand. i have written them a letter this time around, and hope that they will understand it, though i’m not entirely sure. letter as follows. hopefully it works. god. i’m such a hippie. but really. this is what i can do when i have a relationship where i am kind of estranged from my parents… appreciate what they have done yet in many ways cannot stand being around them. not always, but… the number one reason i can’t stand being around them is negativity. they are infected by negativity. my mother, moreso. i just hope that they will be able to find some more positivity as they’re getting older and more feeble. they turn towards god, but they don’t necessarily find long-standing positivity in it, because they’re not finding it within themselves. i want them to be able to find it within themselves…

—

May 2011

Dear Mom And Dad,


Happy Mother And Father’s Day!


I realize that by the time you receive this, Mother’s Day may have already happened, and Father’s Day will not yet have. I hope
you will accept this joint present, as it is a token of my gratitude towards the both of you.

Recently, I’ve come to realize that I am a much more sentimental person than you both are. And I find it rather hard to discuss
these things in person, but I trust all of this will be much more clear in writing.

What I have done is gone through this entire book (in two days…!) -- and I will request Phil to do the same thing -- and marked
down the things I am particularly thankful for. The lines with the green squares represent things I am thankful for while the
ones with the green + marks represent those things I am thankful for, and also remind me of a memory of childhood, of the homes
we’ve lived in, or things we’ve done as a family.

Though this is a present, I have a request for you. I hope you don’t find it stupid, and I really hope you will honor it, both
for me and for yourselves.

Mom and Dad, please go through this book, at your own speed, and mark down the things you are thankful for.

This is, in a way, a philosophy-driven family art project.

The idea behind this is very simple. Everyone makes a special effort to be thankful during Thanksgiving when really we
should be thankful every day of our lives. And not just thankful for the big things, like taking a new breath every morning,
but thankful for the little things that we are constantly taking for granted.

This book will serve as a shared family document, to, in a way, help us learn about one another… the goal is to help us
understand what each of us appreciate about living and the world, as they are no doubt different things… and to visually see
 the things we have in common, the things we all care about in the same way.

To take some samples out of the book of things I’m really thankful for yet don’t think often about: dryer sheets, foreign
stamps, newsstands, the thought of leaving work and going home, giving a speech (that it challenges a part of you that would
not otherwise be challenged!), the act of entering a room and forgetting why…

In every one of these things, one might think it‘s kind of dumb. “Why would I be thankful?” one could ask. but my favorite
author, Vladimir Nabokov, just about sums it up in his book Pale Fire, with this quote:

“What if we awake one day, all of us, and find ourselves utterly unable to read?
I wish you to gasp not only at what you read but at the miracle of its being readable…”

As you guys are getting older, I understand that it might become easier to be bored by things. I hope that this book is
a start to helping you remember that boredom is only in one’s mind. EVERYTHING IS INCREDIBLE.


“C’est l’infini dans le fini.”
(Beauty is the infinite in the finite.
秀麗是無限的在有限。
-- Charles Baudelaire, French poet
(I hope that Chinese translation makes sense…)


Happy celebration of life. I do hope you will enjoy this book and understand that it could be a really cool thing
if you actually do the task I asked!

It requires very little effort, and really, the point is this: there is nothing more important, more healing, more
life-affirming… than appreciating and giving thanks! Hating the negative things is too easy. Let’s focus on the positive.

Thank you for the things you have done and will do.



Love,

Vivian

all things are manageable.

i’m listening to… george harrison!!!!! mostly these tracks: “what is life” / “if not for you” / “i dig love” / “hear me lord”… so goooooooooooood.

i don’t want to sleep, but i have to, cause i’m in new jersey and kinda getting bitched at by grandpa who randomly popped out of his bedroom. it’s around 10:45pm pacific time, aka 1:45am eastern time, aka, still not my bedtime! shit!

life is fine, good, great, though the arts blog on redefine has been neglected lately. gotta queue up a buncha posts tomorrow. sorry, family, time, you’re going to have to wait slightly! i’ve got shit to do, omg!

family time is but a forced interaction, largely, anyway.

i feel good being this cog in this machine. but only because it’s a machine i don’t understand, and can’t.

started re-reading “journey to the end of the night” from the beginning, so i can finish it in one sitting and not get distracted by other books intermittently. fuck. the writing is amazing. like, i seriously have to put it down every so often to be like, “fuck. genius.” this is maybe a problem, because no matter how much i improve, i will never get there. i wish i had studied writing in college… or art… i dunno… why… i never… i dunno. college. what a wash. not that i didn’t like sociology, but in retrospect, i would have done a lot of things differently. i feel like lately i am constantly at odds with which portion of myself — art or writing — is more important, and more me, and more significant. historically, writing has -helped- me more, but both have the same amount of cathartic quality. i am mediocre at both, but think better in terms of artistic visions… so i feel like that’s the route i should take, yet at the same time………………… question mark! question mark! børk børk børk!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [ http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Bork ] < uncyclopedia is seriously GENIUS. not sure how i never saw it until yesterday.

new lingo:

oOgley mOogley / gOogley mOogley = great cosmic coincidental bliss
herndy verndy børk børk børk = great cosmic unbliss and confoundment

menom!

maon!

menomena interview in the morning! yeah! it’s kinda funny cause i am not so into writing those words on my blog because what if my blog outranks redefine’s listing zomg. probably unlikely but still. i’m making some tea eggs. it’s a pain in the ass and needs to simmer / cook for like ever! also, i didn’t buy the right tea bags, so i’m using some chai bags. i’m not honestly sure if that’s okay or not. they might be curry flavored, hahahahaahhahahahahaha. fugg. this’ll be interesting. made some curry soup today too! i’m just making food like a motherfucker! yeah! today was a pretty good day. best find of the day: tarzan in russian, with english and russian subtitles. FUCK YEAH! i wholly intend to learn russian. this is step one, motherbitch.

things at the house – i can’t tell whether they’re weirdo or not. we’ll see! i guess!

more exclamation marks! my following weeks are booked up like a motherfucker. fuggggg. parents want to come visit, too, but there’s really no good time. mostly cause there’s music festivals ALL THE TIME. ALL THE TIIIIME. ALL THE TIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIME.

dude i wish these fugging eggs would boil faster.

back in the bay area.

Three and a half weeks later, the trip to Peru is over. Now I am at my parent’s house in Livermore, in the Bay Area of California. Things would probably be weirder if I wasn’t so damn tired. Already planning my next vacation, maybe? I’d like to go to a Spanish-speaking country and REALLY work on my Spanish. Leaning towards Mexico and Mexico City because it’s close and cheap. I’d also like to go to Burning Man, though. All things cost money. Snagnamit. TBD. ~__~

fun with taxi drivers & animals in lima!

On the plane right now, flying to Cuzco. The first place in Peru (other than @ the SKIP house, obviously) where I’ve heard other English speakers. Kinda strange-like. Nearly everyone on this flight is a foreigner; it seems uber English-speaking staff are on hand. I’m sincerely hoping we’ll fly over the Nazca lines.

BTW, Lan Peru is the best airline ever. Just saying. I think so many non-Peruvians have quite the perception that Peru (or all of South America, for that matter) is sooooo backwards but fuck, I don’t really think it’s all that bad. Granted, there are some really SUPER poor areas of unimagineable squalor and loads of bad infrastructure, but I think it’s quite obvious things’re changing for the better here. You can see construction everywhere, as well as loads of available jobs.

I sent my parents photos of Peru last week. My dad, for starters, didn’t even comment on my photos or my sending of them. He only said, “Don’t make phone calls; it costs $1.99 a minute,” because I’d mentioned that in Trujillo, my phone didn’t say that I was roaming and didn’t give me any extra messages about costs. It seemed to work like a regular local phone there, which was a bizarre thing. My mom, in the meantime, said, “Thanks for sending me photos; I would never go there.” Although gracious, the sentiment is ignorant as fuck. I think life in Peru, especially in places like Cajamarca, is VERY VERY very much like life in Asia — or at least in my parent’s home country of Taiwan — outside of the very central metropolitan area.

Anyway, I’ve ingested some altitude adjustment medicine I’d purchased from the farmacia (which is pronounced farm-AH!-cee-ah, not farm-uh-cee-uh), and although I’d looked at the box it was in, it was quite uber uninformative. No ingredient lists. Strangely, though, taking it on the plane made me pass out INSTANTLY. Which is super bizarre.

On the way to the airport, a taxi driver from Cuzco picked us up. He lives in Lima now because he has a family and a daughter. It’s exciting, though, to find my Spanish comprehension skills so drastically improved that now I can actually hold a conversation on every taxi trip. Super exciting. It was quiet initially, but then I asked him about Lima traffic, and then we talked a lot about how Cuzco is beautiful but expensive, and where we’d been in Peru. Good times.

Before that, we went to the Parque de Las Leyendas (Park of the Legends) in Lima. That alone made Lima somewhat interesting, because what we’d seen of Lima up til then was whatevers. It was basically a zoo / garden, and it had set up the zoo animals so that there was a Selva (Jungle) zone (ever reminiscent of Ever), a Costa (Coastal) zone (really weak), a Sierra (Mountain) zone, and an International zone. Pretty much dope sauces. Saw sloths, lots of cool monkeys, some other random shit… it’s pretty much the nicest fucking zoo I’ve ever been to, though. The attention to detail was extraordinary. Every fucking wall available was muralized gorgeously. It was ridiculous. The city of Lima / government of Peru must pay a fuckload of money to maintain that place, because everything, and I mean EVERYTHING — from the animal cages down to the plants planted — were fucking perfect. There was also this creepy ass taxidermy museum which would be cool had I not had been looking at LIVING animals for the past hour prior to visiting the taxidermy museum. That being the case, it just felt so WRONG. Especially where there was a whole jaguar skin. Like, WTF!! SO WRONG. (There were some cool leaf-bugs, though.)

The taxi ride there was also really fun, and the taxi driver played some awesome old funk music (in a CD mix, basically), and gave us his business card afterwards so that we could call him (although I don’t think that’ll be happening). And prior to that, we ate breakfast (kinda) at this super fucking expensive touristy restaurant in Miraflores (in Lima). And prior to that, the guy who drove us from the bus station to Miraflores was confused. See previous post.

sitting at an expensive restaurant in miraflores, stealing internet from mcdonald’s.

Oh yes.

The most expensive restaurant we’ve been to yet, charging practically United States prices for crap! Boo urns! Sometimes even more, actually.

I just bought a juice of melon (which I had hoped would be honeydew juice, but it was in fact cantaloupe juice) and now we’re stealing internet off of McDonald’s next door because McDonald’s has free Wi-Fi. Hail fooking yeah!!!

We left Trujillo last night in what was a tearful goodbye. Not really, but it was sad to leave the cute kids and the newly made friends. At least there were some good memories and now I know someone living in Paris, Madrid, and Santiago… amongst others. And also another nearby human who lives in Portland who hopefully I will be able to see upon return!

The bus ride was better than usual, as we were sitting in the first two rows of the bus, on the bus’ second floor. AKA lots of window and lots of good views! It took me forever to fall asleep, though, but when I finally fell asleep for like three or something hours, I must say I was thoroughly amazed to wake up to sunlight in Lima. They also played “Bruce Almighty” on the bus, which was dope. It was awesome to begin with, in English, but in Spanish it was pretty much just as amazing, if not moreso in some parts. What a fantastic fucking movie. And I don’t even like comedies like ever.

Anyway. So now we’re stealing internet off of McDonald’s, somewhat killing time, and waiting to go to the zoo, which opens at 9:00am.

We got a taxi from the bus station, and while we were on our way to Miraflores — the tourist hub of Lima, really — I asked him, “Sabe un buen lugar para desayunando?” (“Do you know a good place for breakfasting?”)

Soon, we found ourselves at the door of a hostel, and we were like, “WTF?”

And the hostel guy, who spoke some English, explained to the taxi driver that we were looking for a breakfast place, not a “descansar” — aka “resting” — place.

And then the taxi guy goes off about how I said descansar, not desayunar, and I’m like, no, I know for sure I said desayunar, but it’s not something I’m about to argue with the taxi driver about

Then as we were leaving, the hostel guy was like, “Estan confundidas, las chicas,” meaning, “They’re confused, the girls,” and I’m like, “No, no confundidas.”

ASS.

Anyway. Zoo coming up, and then Cusco in t-minus… 5 hours or something.

trujillo, peru, day ten.

Another fucking fun day.

Woke up ass early to go to El Melinda (ass early being, in this case, 8:40am, because I simply don’t wake up that early here), which is this huge outdoor market. I went with Jean-Claire. Fucking awesome. Unfortunately, I can’t get my photos off my camera right away because I don’t have the fucking cable with me, and I have to borrow it from Lizette, so HOPEFULLY I’ll be able to get to them later, but yeah. So if there end up being pictures later on, they were added later. Word. (Not going to change this text.)

El Melinda is CRAZY! There’s like freaking rows that are dedicated to certain crops. I don’t even know if the place is actually called El Melinda, but yeah. One row will be like, 10-15 different banana vendor stalls, another row will be like, 10-15 different potato vendor stalls, and so on and so forth. A lot of it was pretty overwhelming and there’s not like there are very many tourists in Trujillo at all, so ordering things is intimidating. I didn’t actually have much I wanted to buy, although Jean-Claire ended up buying these interesting fruits, like guanabana, which I don’t really like. It’s weird-textured and kinda sourish. Not a fan!! Lots of fruits here I’m not a fan of, actually. She also got this fruit which is like a cross between a small plum and a tomato, called a ____________?! Which was really interesting and I can’t decide whether I like it or not, actually, but I think I do.

The only thing I really wanted to buy — at least, initially — was some bananas. We’d walked down the banana aisle but I’d been waaay too intimidated by the stacks of banana shit, though, so we left and I didn’t buy anything. These families like OWN individual stalls. One particular banana stall had a fucking baby in like a playpen, right amongst all the bananas. Really kind of truly bizarre. As we were walking back and forth, though, there was one particularly smiley lady who kept smiling at me when I was taking photos and waving and saying, “Chinita!” in a really friendly way. We made circles of the market and then came back later to buy some bananas from her, since I wanted some, and everyone else is kinda scary and picking from a lady who was known to be nicer would be really pretty nice.

She ended up giving me these bananas that are called “La Isla” bananas, and they’re really kind of small, finger-big, and ORANGE inside. I need to take a picture tomorrow, but seriously! Orange! It’s pretty bizarre and awesome. I’ve found that I’m eating a shitload of sweet stuff here because there’s a lot of fruit intake and a lot of other foods that are really just very sweet. Not so exciting, no no no. Sweet food, no no. Anyway, she like handed us three of those small bananas and three regular large-sized bananas, and I was thinking seriously, “WTF,” because I didn’t actually tell her how many I’d wanted, but then she just asked us some questions about where we were from and stuff and what we were doing in Trujillo, and then gave us all those bananas. There were way more bananas than I’d know what to do with, so luckily, I was able to pawn one off on Chris and one off on Josh once we got back home. Wee. Now I only have one small one and one big one. Which is still a lot.

And also, I bought these little mango things that are like, smaller, and supposedly more sweet than regular mangos. We could only buy it in half kilos (is it a kilo? Perhaps I forget the unit of measurement), so I ended up with three, and I actually wanted like, two. ~__~ So we’ll see how I’ll go about eating these in the… two days… that I’m still around this place :0

I totally got called, “Chinita,” a FUCKLOAD there, though, and at one point, we passed by a group of five guys who were standing in a line, selling things. The first guy said, really loudly, “Chinita!” out of surprise, and when I walked by, the third or so guy was like, “Chinita!” and extended his arm and did a little bow. Not like an Oriental bow — more like a, “I’M SUPER FUCKING EXCITED!” bow. It’s REALLLLLLLY interesting.

Actually, there were quite a few good-looking guys at the market, but it’s kinda hard to pay attention to those things in Peru because people are actually like working hard doing labor and are kinda dirty and stuff… they’re so busy and not just simply hanging around looking pretty, you know?

After that, we came back, ate some food, and shot some shit with Jean-Claire about politics and shit. She was saying how it was really interesting being here because she makes friends with people and because of language barriers, never really gets to know certain things about them which might otherwise be divisive, had she met them in Portland or something. Things such as people’s opinions on homosexuality, for instance… and how she makes friends here without knowing those things, and she wouldn’t really even WANT to know those things, but at home, those things would matter a great deal more. Pretty interesting.

I took a half hour or so nap. Was good. Then I woke up and did some writing — blog posts, in fact — and then got ready to head over to the IndoAmericano school where I’m teaching with Jean-Claire. Jasmine and Elliot and Fran rode with us as well, so the five of us crammed into a car together.

When we first go to the school, the door was locked to the classroom that we normally teach in. Four of the little kids were already outside, and two of the boys kept asking me how to say all these different things in English that they didn’t REALLY care about but they just wanted to ask about.

At one point, I took a picture of this passage from a Bible verse that was on one of the walls. There’s not like any separation of church and state here or whatever. So I took a picture of that, and two of the kids asked me to translate it into English, and I did, half-assedly (putting “something” in place of one of the words I didn’t know). Then they asked me to say the rosary in English, and I’m like, “No se (I don’t know),” and you should have seen the look on their faces! They were like, “NO SABESSSSS?????” like it’s out of the fucking QUESTION to not know the rosary!!! Scary, really. Quite scary.

The class itself went pretty well, though, and as we taught it mostly in English this time (or perhaps other reasons, as well), the class actually more or less understood this time. Tuesdays are the fun days. Tuesdays are the days when the class is full of fucking cute ass second graders who are very responsive, very open, and very awesome. The first class is a little harder, but it’s very interesting to see the kids who get it right away and the kids who don’t. Makes you wonder if the ones who don’t get it are: a) kinda just a little dumb, or b) need a different style of teaching to learn. Very curious.

At the end of the first class, we had some extra time and asked the kids what kinds of words they wanted to learn in Spanish. They all wanted to know animal words, so we spent some time doing that. It seemed the kids picked up on “elephant”, or in Spanish, “elefante,” and “monkey,” or in Spanish, “mono,” pretty quickly, relatively speaking. And “cat” (“gato”) and “dog” (“perro”).

We had a little break and then began the second class by asking the three students who’d showed up on time what words they’d like to know in Spanish. Again, animals. So we listed some and there was some enjoyment, but they soon ran out of words, and one particular kid, Oliver, was not so quick with the thinking. Haha. But he’s really cute. I’m hoping and hoping during this time that the cutest kid ever, ALEJANDRO, will show up. He does. FUCK.

Alejandro is one kid, and the only kid, that makes me want to have kids, in the small percentage of hope that I could possibly have a kid as awesome as this kid. He’s cute as FUCK, super duper smart, and really, really hilarious and cute. He picks up on everything instantly, and then proceeds to make funny animal sounds and things because he’s so bored. This particular day, we began talking about emotions (moving off of things like, “What’s your name?” and, “What’s her name?”) and so, Alejandro (and everyone in the class knows his name) would act out the emotions hilariously… like, for the word “angry,” he would make angry growling noises… or when we were going around the class asking kids how they were (and they had to choose out of “angry”, “happy”, or “sad”) and all the other kids uncreatively answered “happy”, Alejandro answered that he was “sad” while making a frowny face, although he clearly wasn’t. And when asked why he was sad, he answered, “Because I am sad,” in Spanish. Haha. SO CUTE.

I took a buncha videos of him cause I’m a creeper and he’s just SO fucking cute. EEEEE. Seriously. That kid. Makes me want to have kids. But most likely my kids won’t turn out as cute and genius as him, so why have kids!!!

Anyway. After I was done being a creeper, Jean-Claire and I headed back to the house and I headed back out with Mihae to meet up with Ever. We had decided the previous day that we were going to meet at the restaurant at 5:30 after I got off volunteering — or at least, I thought we had decided that — but he wasn’t there, so I had to call him. Good thing I brought his phone number! He said he’d be there in ten minutes but took longer than that. Ass!

When he got back, he asked what we wanted to do and then suggested we go to the casino. He exchanged some money and we played slots for like. 10 minutes. Max. It was not exciting and 4 soles amongst me and Mihae went away in like, 5 seconds.

Then we took a taxi to play billiards. But it’s fucking SNOOKER! I’ve never played snooker before, but let’s just say that the game was fucking HORRIBLE and REALLY HARD because the pockets are super small. We were there for like 45 minutes and I made in one ball, but I also simultaneously made in the cue ball, so it didn’t count. By the time we left, all of the balls were still on the fucking table, HAHAHAHA. SO PATHETIC. It was seriously pathetic. Or maybe it wasn’t snooker. But it was pool with a really weird table and no fucking triangle for racking. Completely, completely confusing.

Oh yeah, Ever was supposed to be at the restaurant at 6:30pm for work and we didn’t end up going there til 7:00pm or so. Ha. I was like, the whole time, “AREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO BE GOING TO WORK?!” and he’s like, “No problema!” So not sure if he was going to get in trouble or not but whatever.

So we got back to the Chinese restaurant and sat down there. One table was me, Mihae, and Ever. The other table was two of the Peruvian cooks, Jose and Marcos, and the waitress, Ana. The older Chinese cook man came over to us and talked to me in Chinese for a while. We later found out that his name was Kevin, and Mihae laughed at him for having a “gringo” name. He talked to me a lot and was again incredulous that we would be spending any time at all in what I assume he thinks is shitty-ass Trujillo.

At one point while the four of us were talking, the other table with the two chefs and waitress were like talking and laughing and occasionally making comments to us. Then the chefs were asking for our names, but not asking us, but Kevin and Ever. Ever called them over and they came over to sit at our table and were basically just watching us talk and not really saying anything. Twas really kind of strange.

Soon, some customers came in, so the chefs went into the kitchen and temporarily stopped harassing us. Or sooooo we thought. Soon, the notes started coming in. Hahahaha. So bad. So bad. I’ve kept a bunch of them. They are hilarious. Here are some sample quotes.

“Vivian Minjae (aka Mihae, but spelled in Spanish) con carino este corazon – Att. Jose – Escribeme tu correo.”
(“Vivian, Mihae, with passion, this heart. – Jose – Write me your address.”)
[There is a heart drawing, and all this is written in red. Crossed out is something that says, "Tell me your phone number!" HAHAHAHA.]

“Llamame love, baby forever, me gustas love – llamame amor – ###########”
(“Call me love, baby forever, I love love – call me love – ###########”)
[Scrawled alongside some weird obscure Chinese-looking letters, but not quite, to which I asked, "WHAT IS THIS?!! CHINESE?!" and they answered, "NO!"]

[Drawing, with a face with eyebrows, two flowers, and a heart that says "Love", with an arrow through it. Then the guy's name, Marco Antonio Saguma, and his cell phone number.]

[A note with their email addresses and names.]

There were actually more, believe it or not, but these are the only ones I kept. Fucking amazing. Seriously. Chifa at Nueva China in Trujillo, Peru, is always a fucking good time, motherfucker. Three for three. We hadn’t actually intended on staying all that long there, but it just turned out to be so entertaining we really could not leave that quickly.

Some girl kept calling Ever the entire time(even when we were at the billiards), and I guess he didn’t want to talk to her because he kept ignoring the phone calls. He had Mihae pick up one time and start talking random English gibberish sentences to her, like, “How are you? My name is Mihae. I like California. Do you like California?” etc. and then the girl called back again, and Mihae started talking again, but in Korean, saying things like, “Hello! Do you speak Korean well?” etc. Pretty amusing. The girl didn’t call back again. He said it was a friend who liked him, but who he didn’t like.

So at one point during this conversation, my Spanish got a slight bit better all of a sudden, and I was actually able to convey complex thoughts moreso, and it was really kind of exciting. We talked to Ever for a bit about money and things. Got some comparisons.

I asked him if he worked 12 hour days at the restaurant, because that’s what Kevin, the Chinese guy, had told me, and he said that he did, but his job was easier than that of the cooks, because he could sit around but they had to stand practically the whole time. To us, though, as Americans, a 12 hour day is fucking insanity!! And so Ever asked us how much we would make, and I calculated that maybe a waiter or waitress who received $10 an hour would get 30 soles an hour. He said he got 13 soles a day at his job (although later he said he got 700 soles a month, so I’m a little confused about that… either he didn’t get 13 soles a day, was confused, or gets some money through other means). But then I tried to explain to him the difference between cost of living, and how a bottle of water here in Peru costs like 1 sol but it would cost 4.5 soles in the United States… or how a meal would cost 5 soles here but 28 to 30 soles in the United States.

He asked us how much rent was, and Mihae calculated that hers was 2,010 soles ($670 USD) a month. Mine was 1,575 soles ($525 USD). He said that rent in the area of Trujillo was about 120 soles ($40 USD). The difference is really quite insane, so the wage difference is also kind of like… oh well.

He mentioned that although that’s the cost of rent just about, that he doesn’t pay for rent because he’s house-sitting someone’s house, because the person he house-sits for is a rich teacher who works most of the time in Lima and comes out about once a year to Trujillo for two months. He just has to watch the house and he gets to live there for free, watching television and enjoying a nice kitchen, apparently. He said he knew the family he was house-sitting for because he used to be an office helper for them.

Ever told us before that he wants to go to school for finance and administration, but I didn’t really know til today that it meant to be a banker, essentially. I asked him how much schooling cost, and he said it was expensive. He said the matriculation fees were $400 USD, and then each subsequent month had a payment of $400 USD tuition per month. Pretty fucking expensive, and really, unbelievable, although it was pretty clearly stated by Ever. I said essentially, “Well, then can’t most people not afford college?” and Ever said, “Yes, some can’t, but I can.” And it turned out that the reason that he can is because he’s from La Selva, or the Jungle area (Peru has three areas — the Jungle area, la Selva, the Mountain area – la Sierra, and the Coastal area — la Costa… and where people are from is very much engrained into the lives of people here) and his father works selling wood to people… and that his father earns $800 USD every fifteen days or so driving from the Jungle region to the Coastal region, selling wood to people. FUCKING INSANE.

A lot of people here apparently calculate things in USD or accept USD because they think that it’s more reliable than their own currency in a way, so pretty much everyone knows the conversion rate from Peruvian soles to USD, which is super interesting.

At one point, and I don’t know why, Ever starts asking if we have an “enamorado”. I didn’t know that word and thought it was like, a verb, that meant, “to be in love,” or something. Turned out it meant “boyfriend,” and I only found that out after I used the other word for boyfriend, which is “novio,” and Ever said they were the same thing. So, I don’t know why he started writing this down in my notepad, but he wrote things down in my notepad like this:

Viviana Tu Tienes Enamorado?
R: No

Minjey Tu Tienes Enamorado?
R: Si

Como Se Llama?
R: David Martin

Cuantos Anos Tiene?
R: 27 anos

And below it, he had scrawled, “Recuerdos De Ever,” meaning, “Memories of Ever”… HAHAHA. What a funny kid. While he was writing it down, I kept asking him why he was writing it down, but he never really answered… but I assume because of the “recuerdos” that it’s because he wants us to have a memory of him in written form or something. No freaking clue. I can respect that, though. I like keeping every fucking scrap of paper, after all, for memory’s sake.

So then it got to us asking him if he had a girlfriend, to which he responded, yes, but that she was “muy mala,” meaning, “very bad.” We asked him why. He slapped his own face and said that she did that to him. We asked why. He said he didn’t know. But then later said because of “mensajes,” aka “messages.” What did that mean? He showed us his cell phone and showed us text messages from other girls, and essentially said that his girlfriend would hit him because of that. I pulled a word out of my ass, surprisingly, and it proved rather useful: “celosa” to mean “jealous.” And he said that was exactly what his girlfriend was.

I asked him how long they’d been together, and he said four months. She is older than him, at 18 years old. I asked him if he had a photo of her, and he said no, and then I asked if she was pretty, and he kinda said she was OK. And I was like, “But you should like your girlfriend, shouldn’t you?” or something like that, and he just said that she was really bad. So I made a motion with my hands of separating and said, “Then you should…” [separate]. Lol.

So at this point we were thinking of getting ready to leave because Ever started writing some things and it was like, “ERRRR?” Something he wrote:

“Que linda hacido estan juntos en una momenta de amistad juntos en una mesa de un restaurante.”
(“How beautiful they were sitting together in the moment of friendship at one table of the restaurant.”)

What a cornball, right? But there’s more.

“La noche contemplo lo luna hermoza en un frio tan tensa que hay en el paid de Peru como quiesa acompanante todo el tiempo pardonde ?? y lo que piensar pero solo se y voy a extranate”

All this, to me, seemed like a bunch of gibberish, so I wrote, “No entiendo,” or, “I don’t understand,” on the next page. To which he responded:

“No importa pero practicalo cuando vas muy lejos adonde yo no te puedo ver se que vaya o extranarte mucho Viviana te extrano mucha quisiera ir contigo.”
(“It doesn’t matter, but ?? when you go very far away where I cannot see you and you go, I will miss you very much, Viviana, I miss you very much, I wish to go with you.”)

And below, he drew some weird picture I don’t understand and wrote, “Recuerdos,” or “Memories.”

Truly bizarre. Truly bizarre. But really, really interesting. When we came back and relayed the story to Jean-Claire and Jasmine, Jean-Claire said that people like Bee and Liz say that people in Peru make friendships very quickly and it’s not SUPER unusual for people to say things so extreme as this upon not knowing someone for very long at all. Very interesting.

Oh yeah, though. Before we left the restaurant, the cooks really wanted to take photos with us, so we took some, and took some with Ever, too. And then they wanted besos before we left, but I wouldn’t give them any. Mihae gave them some, though. WEE!

trujillo, peru, day nine.

I’m listening to… Stars’ “Midnight Coward”, Tilly And The Wall’s “Cacaphony”, Rogue Wave’s “Chicago x 12″, Jenny Lewis’ “Barking At The Moon”.

Okay, going to try and update my journal for once!! I haven’t had time to update it a great amount, unfortunately.

Got up at like 10:15am this morning despite going to bed at like 3:00am the previous night (well, I guess that’s not bad) because everyone in the house is really loud and there’s always sun shining in through the window, and hell, with such a bustling house, it’s just really, really difficult to sleep most of the time. ~__~

Anyway, got up, sat around, and did some Redefine work. Was going to go eat lunch with Lizette and Veronica but decided to stay in and finish some more Redefine stuff. Stayed up til pretty late last night editing some articles just because I haven’t updated the site in so long. Got a buncha stuff done, and have to put up a Sunn O))) article tomorrow… or the day after… so that’ll be good. As long as I get it done before going to Cusco, really.

Anyway. Headed over to the SKIP office with Elliot around 2:00pm and was really hungry because all I really ate for breakfast was some jam and some crackers, haha. Totally forgot about that whole eating thing because I was so much in the zone with editing and writing articles. Oops? Giving directions to get to the SKIP office when it is Elliot and I is always kind of hilarious, because we don’t really know what say. I learned what to say today, actually, but this is my last opportunity anyway, so it really doesn’t matter. Well, actually, it may come in handy on Thursday when it is possibly Elliot and I again.

ANYWAY. We get to the SKIP office and Elliot like, talks to Francesca, who is supposed to go to class with him (and Jasmine is as well), but then disappears before she can follow him, which is SUPER BIZARRE and kind of super rude. So Fran and Jasmine (the new girl) head home and Jean-Claire and I hang around reading. But first, we look for easy-to-read English-Spanish books that we can teach the first graders with, because it’s SUPER hard to teach first graders English. They just don’t get it. The difference from first to second grade is absolutely humongous.

So we finish picking out books, and I see this one AMAZING AMAZING AMAZING illustrated children’s book which I’ll have to write about on Redefine later, because the graphics were just AWESOME. After that, we sit down on these prison benches, and Jean-Claire does research on the 7 week South America trip she’s going to take while I’m reading “The Old Man & The Sea” in Spanish… the book in one hand and a dictionary in another hand. Actually, it’s an easier read than I thought it would be. So it is a welcome challenge. As of tonight, I am about… 1/8th into the book. Not too shabby. But I’m not sure that I’ll be able to finish it by the time I leave Thursday evening, which is actually kind of sad. ~__~

We finally go to class around 4:00pm, while stopping to get myself some crackers on the way. Only one child shows up, just like last week. The first graders are fickle for who knows what reason. We (and by we, I mean Jean-Claire) teach her colors for half a minute using this poster that she made, but the first graders are shy and this girl is not particularly responsive, and her mom is waiting around the whole time trying to see if other kids will show up (because if not, the class will get canceled). No additional kids do show up, so the class gets canceled. How sad. That little girl and her sister are SUPER DUPER cute. And very well-behaved. I probably just like her sister because her sister really liked me, though.

So we go home after like 20 minutes and get to the house fairly early. Lots of reading gets done and lots of chilling. Then once Mihae wakes up and exchanges money, I ask her if she wants to go eat, and she suggests Chifa, so we go to eat Chifa. Jasmine and Elliot come along (and aren’t particularly excited, I think, because a meal at this place is slightly more expensive than a meal at other places… like twice as expensive, meaning, like, 10 soles instead of 5 soles per person, which is like, $3.33 USD instead of $1.66 USD), and the experience is ridiculous and fun.

We get there, and Eber, Ever, is sitting down at one of the tables and greets us with besos. We sit down, chat with him for half an awkward sec about what we should order, and then order three things, rice, and water to split amongst the three of us. He brings out some lemonade for us for free, which I’m not sure why even though we were saying WATER!!!! I don’t know if he gave it to us for free because he felt bad for messing up and bringing us lemonade, or if he was trying to be nice by bringing us lemonade. Hah. He served us, and then left.

At one point, he ran out of the restaurant, and then ran back in…

And before he left, the music that was being played was modern traditional kumbia.

When he came back, the volume started blasting (he MUST have turned it up) and freaking CELINE DION came on!! WITH THE FREAKING TITANIC SONG!! And we learned from last time that Titanic is Ever’s favorite movie!! I’m pretty convinced he actually ran out and bought the CD, but I don’t know if that’s true or not. It was just so damn coincidental!

Okay, so we start giggling at the fact that freaking Titanic soundtrack just came on, and the subsequent songs are equally corny, if not moreso, including Ryan Adams’ “Everything I Do.” Not sure WHY this music came on. WTF. But it was super enjoyable, although not necessarily in a good way. A Chinese restaurant blasting ’90s American power ballads? I don’t know, man. I just don’t know. WHAT ARE YOU THINKING EVER!!!

Jasmine sees him peeking over at our table a few times and thinks that he wants to stop and chat with us but is intimidated by the presence of Jasmine and Elliot. Haha. ~__~

So at one point, Ever has his keys and is heading towards the main door of the restaurant when I call him over and ask him where Lili, the owner is. He says she’s in Cajamarca visiting her husband. And then some more small talk. And then he leaves, kind of awkwardly. He doesn’t go back towards the door, although that’s where he was going in the first place. Interesting.

As soon as he leaves, Jasmine says, “Watch, he’s going to turn down the music and come back.”

Two seconds later, the music gets turned down.

We laugh hysterically.

Eber doesn’t come back, but still, it’s hilarious. The music is ridiculous!!! Mihae manages to know freaking every song, though, because evidently, she used to be SUPER DUPER into ’90s power ballads. WOO!!

After we paid really super awkwardly, I asked Eber, “Quieres salir manana?” because we had said the previous week that we would go out on Tuesday. He said that he had to work, and that we should hang out next time, but I told him we were leaving on Thursday, so he said he was free tomorrow from 4:00pm to 6:30pm. I don’t get off volunteering until 5:30pm, though, so we decided that we’d meet at the restaurant right after.

On the way back, Jasmine and Mihae were having quite the girly freaking giggles, as Jasmine was now a convert who thinks Eber is a hottie pie. Jasmine is also 18, so she is actually around his age and it would actually work. Haha. Awesomeness. Jasmine thought it was soooo funny that we just “asked him out” but it’s not like a date really! We had said we would hang out before! We’re buddies now!! It’s not like he’s a random dude we’re picking up!

Anyways, once we came back, Mihae strummed some songs on the guitar, and then a bunch of us watched some horrible, horrible DVDs of Jean-Claire’s and Lizette’s, such as “Chinitos De Los Andes” (The Chinese From The Andes) which are like Peruvian music videos. Amazingly terrible stuff.

adventures of fun in a “chifa” restaurant in peru.

(Left to right: Lili, the Chinese restaurant owner – Ever, the Chinese restaurant waiter – me – Mihae)

A “chifa” is a “Chinese restaurant” in Peru, and all of them are called that.

Mihae and I went to a chifa tonight at like, 8:00pm, and didn’t make it back til about midnight tonight hahahahaha after the restaurant closed.

What were we doing?

Well, for starters, when we first entered, the lady at the restaurant and her two workers were, I guess, muttering stuff to one another about how I was Chinese but they were unsure of what ethnicity Mihae was. The owner lady is Cantonese but speaks Mandarin, as they all do, and was very excited to converse with me about all sorts of crap. Then they had a waiter there who was super good-looking, and I told the owner that, but I told her that in a way that was kind of like, the way a mom would say someone’s son is good-looking.

Of course, she called him over and told him that we thought he was good-looking, so he became really bashful and shy, haha. And then he would serve us food with his head down and not looking at us, even though he was our primary waiter. Actually, initially, the lady told him that she would serve our table, but then it looked like he wanted to, or something, so she was like, “Okay, okay, you can do it.” It was pretty amusing watching them communicate because she cannot speak Spanish and he cannot speak Chinese and neither of them can speak any other shared language, so it’s a lot of charades, basically.

The food was actually pretty good. We had been told by a couple people at the house that that particular restaurant was “expensive” — relatively speaking — but the best-tasting. It was pretty decent. I mean, the main dish was nothing like anything I’ve ever eaten in terms of Chinese food, but the wonton soup had a lot of chicken and was pretty “normal”, and the main dish tasted good even despite the fact that it tasted like nothing I’ve eaten. Haha.

After we were done eating, he came over and asked me what my name was, and I told him my name, and then asked for his, and it was Ever (or, in Spanish, ee-ber). I told him to write down his name cause I couldn’t quite understand it, and then he told Mihae and I to write down our names in English and in Chinese. We did so.

Later, we got to the question of: “How old are you, Ever?”

He wrote down on a notepad.

17!!!!!!!!!!!!

We laughed to death.

And then he asked us our ages, and we told him our ages — 25 and 24. It was quite comical.

Later, when he told me that I didn’t look like I was 25, he immediately said, “Comes muchas verduras (Do you eat many vegetables?)?” to which I said yes, and he said that Chinese people ate a lot of vegetables, as though that were THE reason for their looking young. Haha. Amusing.

He asked me for my phone number, and I said I didn’t have a number here, but he wanted my number in the States anyway, so I gave it to him, HAHA. Then got his phone number. We’re going to hit him up to play some pool later. Or billiards, they call it here.

I’ll finish this up later, but let’s just say that he stopped working briefly thereafter and we talked to him and the owner (switching turns, really) for about three hours, with me speaking to Ever in my limited, broken-ass Spanish (there was lots of drawing) and me speaking to the owner lady who had broken ass Spanish and not perfect Mandarin. And then there was translating between Mihae and Ever with my broken ass Spanish and translating between Mihae and the owner lady with my broken ass Chinese. So it was good times, all around, needless to say. Good times, although really painful at times, too, since I was the primary translator in this fooking mess. ~__~

At one point, there was also the cook talking to us, who we had run into a few days prior to that when we tried to go eat there. When we’d gone there a few days ago, it was like 11:30am and we were trying to eat there… and I tried talking to the cook guy in Spanish, and he didn’t understand, and then English, and he didn’t understand, and then Chinese, but by then I was shouting after him and he had stopped listening and was just waving, “Wait, hold on!” and trying to grab someone else, even though I was speaking Chinese to him. Haha. But he recognized us today, and thought it was weird that we were staying in Trujillo for so long since there’s shit to do here.

So, in my conversation with the lady, Lili, I learned:
* She has another restaurant which is larger and in a different city, and her (only) son (since she’s from China) works there.
* Her only son has two children and that the children always speak Spanish, although they speak to her in Chinese when they want her to buy them something.
* Their restaurant business is suffering as a result of the poor economy, and that many Peruvians are losing their jobs, too… and that she doesn’t take a taxi home because of the loss of money.
* A neighboring Chinese lady who also owned a restaurant (which all the people in the house said was absolutely DISGUSTING) came over and poked her head in, wondering why the restaurant we were at had decent business and the restaurant they owned didn’t have a single person.
* They purchase their supplies for their restaurant all the way in Lima, eight hours away, because there are no Chinese restaurant suppliers closer than that.

In my conversation with Ever, I learned:
* He isn’t interested in anything in Peru, not even Machu Picchu or the mountains or anything, and he’s only interested in the discotecas (or night clubs).
* He says the reason he’s not interested in Peruvian stuff is because, to him, a beer in Peru is a beer in Peru, but a beer in another country might taste the same or similar, but it’s a different beer in a different country, so it’s automatically more interesting.
* Chileans killed a lot of Peruvians over a dispute about the Peruvian flag… twenty-five years ago, he said. And that the Chileans wanted to use the Peruvian flag’s colors and the Peruvians didn’t want it, and so they fought. I don’t think he meant 25 years ago. Maybe 1925. But either way, I can’t find any information about that anyway, so I don’t know for sure that I heard right, even though it was pretty clearly stated by him, with drawings, even, of Peru’s flag. Haha. We’ve been told there’s a lot of disputes between Chile and Peru, but yeah… he compared the warring of Chile and Peru to the warring between Japan and China or the United States and Iran. Interesting.
* He thinks Chinese women are beautiful. HAHA. He totally smooth-talked a few times which was hilarious.
* He likes to play basketball, volleyball, and soccer.
* He finished high school at 15 and is basically just waiting until he has the money to apply to take a test that will get him into college. He’s going to take the test next year, I think, and then study Administration & Finance.

MORE LATER.

pay attention!

So, I’m living in this house with a bunch of other volunteers who are volunteering for Skip Peru. All things are fine, generally. There are about ten other people, with two being native Spanish speakers. Everyone else is desperately trying to learn Spanish, and most have gotten pretty damn good at it over not that much time. Because of that, though, they often forget that there ARE people in the house who don’t speak Spanish. In my case, I understand about half of what they’re talking about, so I feel, I’d say, about half left out (particularly because I am not particularly comfortable with SPEAKING Spanish, although listening is okay). Mihae, the other girl I came with, doesn’t speak Spanish. But we’re transitory. We’ll only be here two weeks. There’s one other guy, Eliot, who is a British dude, and he is pretty much the only one in the house who really doesn’t speak Spanish. As a result, he’s CONSTANTLY being left out, and I feel TERRIBLE for him.

Earlier, there was a meeting with myself and three other people. Two of them pretty much spoke entirely in Spanish the entire meeting, and then finished up in English, saying, “Okay, we’re done now then?” and Eliot had NO IDEA what they had been talking about the whole time, and was kinda peeved, although trying not to show it, saying, “Well, did we come to any decisions then? Because I didn’t understand anything.” It’s totally understandable that he would be peeved, though… Cruel, really. Everyone is excited to learn Spanish, and speak in Spanish, but they should definitely pay more attention to the people who are struggling.

And afterwards, the two Spanish speakers were confused about why Eliot was angry, and kind of confused as to whether they had been speaking English or Spanish because both come so naturally at this point. When I finally told them they were speaking in Spanish the whole time, they said, “I’m sorry!” to ME, but I said, “It doesn’t matter to me, because I understood it, but I can see how it would be frustrating if you didn’t.” But they didn’t apologize to him for some reason. So it’s really quite sad, and that happens all the time here with him. I really hope they start paying attention.

Later this evening, we were all eating dinner around a table and it started raining, so they said in Spanish that we should change to another table which is under an overhang. Everyone but Mihae and Eliot understood the Spanish and started to get up to go. I said kind of loudly, “We’re going to change to the other table because it’s raining,” hoping that Mihae AND Eliot would hear. Mihae heard, but I don’t think Eliot did, and later everyone changed tables, and Eliot sat at the other table for a LONG time, trying to make some sort of point, I think, in an extremely subtle way. And again, I felt bad for him T__T