I learned three very important things this weekend:
1) Some of the most creative and fun-loving people I know live in Dar;
2) Good light is arguably all a photographer needs for a good photo. This Saturday’s extended sunset was perhaps the most beautiful in all the time I’ve been here; and
3) Being an adult is boring. Throwing water balloons and playing dodgeball is way more fun.
Dar can be a very polarizing place to live. Sometimes it’s nothing but love for this amazing country, and other times there’s nothing but sheer frustration for this backwards country. A lot of days, when your tire is flat from running over one too many potholes, and your power is out the half day that you spend waiting for the water delivery to come, and all you want is a jar of kalamata olives so you can make a Greek Salad but NO ONE is selling kalamata olives…well, life is rough, my friends.
But then, every once in awhile, on a perfect weekend afternoon, you will pack your coolers with beer and wine, pick up sandwiches from a local cafe, and head to the Dar Yacht Club. You will hop on a friend’s boat and motor out, away from land and to the vast blue beyond, seemingly away from every day problems and towards something much more blissful. You will use your Google Maps GPS to look for a sand bar that you’ve only seen from above, on the way from Zanzibar to Dar es Salaam. You will find aforementioned sandbar, and nickname it, “Sandzibar” (said only in a grand, vibrating baritone voice), then spend a great deal of time debating important matters (where to anchor, whether to re-apply SPF 50 for the 15th time), and hop off to watch the tide recede and slowly uncover an entire island in the middle of the ocean. You will drink said beers and wine, eat said sandwiches. You will be surprised by two kite surfers that have come from the coast of Dar, and be even more surprised when you see that you know them. Gosh, Dar is a small place. They, too, will be surprised that at the end of their journey they have a beer waiting for them. You will talk about everything the way friends do, effortlessly and aimlessly, with topics ranging from ‘the 5 signs of showing love’ to ‘how to be a human bobsled on the dance floor’, all while silently baking under the hot Indian Ocean sun. You will decide that it’s getting too hot, after four short/long hours on the island, and pull up the anchor that was, in the beginning, such an ordeal to anchor. You will head back to shore, but not before taking a long cruise around the bay, stopping to watch the sun set and to take another dip in the ocean. And to polish off that last bottle of white, of course.
So in the end, we must all keep in mind that Dar is really not so bad after all; that for all the insanity in day to day life, there are some major pockets of sanity out here.
Each year the full moon that appears on the eighth month of the Chinese calendar calls for great celebrations, heralding the past year’s harvest or praying for the next year’s bounty, and celebrating the full moon in the sky. In the old days, royalty and peasants alike would take a break from their regular routines to celebrate with friends, family, and feasting. Called Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhong Qiu Jie) in China, Chuseok in Korea, Tsukimi in Japan, and Tet Trung Thu in Vietnam, this year the lunar holiday falls on this date, September 8.
Me, fully erudite in Chinese, circa 1983.
Those who knew me growing up are familiar with my 12-year struggle in the once-a-week Friday night torture session that was more formally known as Silicon Valley Chinese School. (How better to traumatize a high school student than to rob her of her Friday night dances?) But of course, like all things your parents say you will eventually thank them for in the future, of course I now thank them for sending me to Chinese School; for instilling a good sense of Chinese language, both spoken and written, and for the various aspects of culture it cemented within me. It was at Chinese School, in addition to at home, where I learned the romantic folklore surrounding the Mid Autumn Festival, telling of a famous archer who shot down nine out of ten suns in the sky to save the earth from the scorching heat, who was subsequently rewarded with a magical elixir of immortality. The story continues to tell how the love of his life then drank this elixir and was transported to the moon for the rest of eternity–along with a rabbit, although how this rabbit came to be in the moon, my memory fails to recall.
Myself aside, many of the Chinese diaspora who have since emigrated to countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and elsewhere, brought this holiday and its lore to their overseas communities. Unbeknownst to me until this year, the Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese cultures also celebrate this harvest moon, though with different folklores and slightly different rituals.
Streets of Hong Kong during the holidays
Chinese culture is something I rarely recall in my life here in Dar, other than the fact that Tanzanians always scream out “China! China! Japan! Japan!” When I pass by them on the streets of City Centre. I actually tried speaking Chinese the other day, only to find myself stumbling over the most basic of words, and leading the Chinese man who asked me where the milk was in the grocery to ask/accuse, “You’re not Chinese….? What are you?” A bit offensive, but unsurprisingly Chinese of him.
I find myself yearning to celebrate holidays so heavily traditional and culturally rich as they have in China. Here in Tanzania, Muslim holidays aside, the year is chock full of non-celebratory bank holidays: Workers’ Day, Independence Day, Nyerere’s Birthday, Boxing Day…you get the point.
A typical Asian potluck–too much food.
This year, myself, a Korean friend, and a Singaporean friend decided that we needed to round up the Asian population in Dar for a feast in celebration of this great festival to the moon. We called it Asian Thanksgiving– because how much more appropriate could you call this Pan-Asian merging of family and friends and supreme feasting?
We had what was likely to be Dar’s all-time best Asian cuisine: An Asiatic mix that included Japanese pork belly, Korean bulgogi and fried chicken, Vietnamese chicken salad, two different kinds of Philippino Adobo and fresh homemade buns, Thai Green Curry and coconut fish stew, and tons of homemade noodles, and rice. Best of all, we had sweet sticky rice and moon cake for dessert. Moon cake, here in Africa…what a treat!
I was too busy running around the party to remember to take detail shots of the party, but here are a few overview shots of the group. Happy Mid Autumn Festival….or, more appropriately: 中秋節快樂!
My Asian family here in Dar.
Anyone else call this ‘Superbowl ex-el-vee-ei-ei-ei‘?
There are a few holidays that make me feel very American abroad, and where the two official holidays are Fourth of July and Thanksgiving, the one unofficial holiday is Superbowl Sunday. Though, I could strongly argue for a case to make it a day off, a bank holiday, because I’ve seen the lengths at which men and women abroad will go to watch the game. In fact, my Superbowls abroad might be celebrated with more ceremony than my Superbowls at home.
In China, we had two Superbowls; that’s two years where we watched football at 7am in the morning. The first year was my favorite, it was when the DiploMan and I hosted, playing a mediocre quality TV feed projected onto our pull-down screen, complemented by breakfast and Irish coffees. Our curtains were drawn for the occasion, and since our group of friends all took the day off from work we ended up spending the day indoors, curtains drawn the whole day, playing card games and watching ridiculous adult comedies.
The next year we decided to go out and watch the game, at a popular Irish pub in Guangzhou who fed us a big English Breakfast. Beers and Beans at 7am, yum.
This year, when I caught wind that the Superbowl would play between the hours of 2-6am, I thought surely no one would be crazy enough to watch the Superbowl. I figured a delayed feed it would be, that I would wake up to a Facebook feed of activity as I do every other morning.
But no, I was wrong, and there was not just one, but two Superbowl parties here in Dar (and more that I’m sure I just wasn’t invited to). Never underestimate the determination of Americans! Only here in Dar, can I say that I’ve had a 2am rooftop viewing of the Superbowl. With one television playing a crispy clear version aired by AFN (Armed Forces Network), and another screen projecting the a low-quality Slingbox broadcast, important for us only for the occasional glance at commercials, I thought to myself, we sure as heck make for a compelling argument to declare Monday a day of rest.
Before I get started on this amazing place called Dar, I want to revisit a few favorite places from back home – whatever that word means these days. As an aspiring writer, as a versed traveller, and I suppose inherently as an American, I often find the US all too familiar and all too bland in its everyday, and consequently will fall off the blogging wagon – or get on, whatever the one that’s not a good thing. But I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – there are just as many thrills and just as much to explore during our everyday lives in the US as there are living in an exotic place. Apparently, it takes being away to realize this, because I sure as hell wasn’t this inspired four months ago. Alas…grass….greener….you know.
Looking back, I smile when I think about the places I was able to visit and the new friends I acquired, and as a whole about the entire newness that was living in DC for eight months, all of which, in between these amazing new experiences I’m having, I do find a little bit of time to miss.
I’ve been wanting to write about them for some time, so I suppose now – when I have 20G of internet connection slowly ticking down (will explain that reasoning later), a houseful of ugly furniture and even uglier tile (whyyyyyy kitchen tile, whyyyyyy), and a high sun that shines on me like hell hath fury on my straight black hairs and cluster of Asian freckles, I supposed now is as good a time as any to stay inside under my ceiling fan and A/C and write.
In the nine months of living back in the states, excluding a week here and there when I was home visiting my parents, I could count the number of times I ate Chinese Food. That number was two. A pretty lousy, pretty lonely, pretty sad number of a number, no? I suppose after two years of living in China, all the Diploman and I wanted to do was alternate between tacos al pastor and trips to Sweetgreen….sort of joking, but it did happen more than once where we would have lunch at Sweetgreen and dinner at El Chucho, and the next day have lunch at Sweetgreen and then dinner at El Centro, and the day after that, lunch at Chipotle and then dinner at Sweetgreen.
When I wasn’t eating gourmet salads and slow roasted marinated pork, I tried to venture out of my bubble. Peking Gourmet Inn was one of these adventures.
Adventure Task Number One: Leave DC, via the freeway, which –holy cow I live in a bubble– is definitely a new adventure in itself. And then you take one of the exits, which spits out into stripmallville, which is precisely Adventure Task Number Two: Balk in Awe at Stripmalls. In case you’re wondering, these stripmalls look the same as they do in Southern California as they did in the nether-wheres of Virginia and/or Maryland (because to me, the two are still somewhat a blob). Predictably, stores like Vitamin Shoppe (with an “e” thank you very much) and Best Buy and Target and video-rental-stores-slash-adult-video-stores all laid out in perfect little plots.
Finally, after passing about five strip malls that weren’t the one, we found the one strip mall that was the one! Adventure Task Number Three: Arrive at Peking Gourmet Inn.
Walking into the restaurant recalled a mish-mash of every other Chinese restaurant I had ever been to, whether at home in the States or during my two years in China. Middle-aged waiters dressed like penguins, stern-faced and very quick with movements. Knick Knacks of gold and red adorning the walls. Walls covered with framed photographs, of people who were presumeably owners or investors or perhaps just waitstaff, shaking hands and getting chummy with politicians and movie stars – definitely more the former than the latter, we are in DC after all. A matronly hostess, acknowledging our presence but somehow managing to make us feel ignored, belittled, and having to pay her respect just to get a table, even though we did have reservations. Adventure Task Number Four: Get the hostess’ attention!
Because we have a 6pm reservation, we’re one of the first ones to arrive. We are shown our seats through the maze of a restaurant (though all walls of the maze are filled with decor and picture frames) and then given menus the size of the Declaration of Independence. Adventure Task Number Five: Ordering Food from a Giant Menu. Flipping through, I come to a happy realization that I am now in the Virginia suburbs, which might as well have been a mini China in-itself, and can finally feast on great Chinese Food again. Because Chinese Food has a bad rap, it has many many bad imitations, and good Chinese Food is truly something angels could possibly sing about.
I happily chirp in with my suggestions (Family Style Tofu!! Sauteed Garlic Sprouts!!!) and we agree on a handful of dishes as well as two orders of Peking Duck for the five of us. That’s almost one duck between me and my friend, but who’s counting? After all, at a place like Peking Duck Gourment Inn, you cannot miss the duck, and ordering one just seemed silly.
The duck was brought out and carved tableside, breasts gleaming and oozing with oil each time the expertly-wielded machete made its way into the meat. Skin and Meat were grouped alongside each other on a porcelain dish, with the fat scraped and patted down between carving.
Each dish that came to our table was served to us in a manner as if we were either children incapable of serving ourselves, or else we were high kings in an ancient court. Either way, we were just shy of being spoonfed our first bites. Waiter rolled our first peking duck pancakes for us. They spooned our veggies onto our plates. They poured our tea. Our head waiter would come up to us in between bites, leaning in very closely to ask, “It’s good, yes?”
We would reply, “Mmmmm, yes!”
And he would say, feigning a very convincing surprised, “Thank you!”
This went on throughout the entire dinner, after every dish was brought out. Adventure Task Number Six: Stuff yourself silly.
Anyone who knows anything can tell you, in a few short descriptive words, what Mardi Gras is all about. Party. Beads. Hurricanes. Floats. A really big frickin’ parade.
Partial nudity and madness are also words that may or may not be used, but that depends on what kind of person you are.
Mardi Gras is most certainly the biggest parade in New Orleans, but definitely not the only one – not even close. One of the things I learned on my trip was how New Orleans is so steeped in a regional cultural all unto itself – more so than any other state, region, or city in the U.S.. New Orleans residents are so unique and passionately soaked in local culture, as seen through their music, historical references, numerous landmarks, food, religious influences, and most evidently so – in parades.
Now let’s talk parade as culture. I mean, if parades are part daily life around these parts, can you blame residents for not being so completely passionate about their city??!
The Second Line is an event, a parade, that frequently take place in neighborhoods around town. Usually on Sundays, mostly during Mardi Gras season but also scheduled throughout the year in relative degrees of popularity, different groups of different demographics parade through streets celebrating life and music in various coordinated outfits and costumes. There’s a second line that celebrates Star Wars and its parade marauders are dressed up as Star Wars characters, I’m told. But that’s something of a completely different cultural history that I’m not going to delve into.
The term ‘Second Line’ comes from a tradition of funeral processions, which is rumored to have descended from West African heritage and tradition. Following the casket would be a brass band, and following the band would be those celebrating the life of the deceased. Today, there are still actual second line funeral processions that take place – particularly when notable figures in town pass away. On the flip side, second line processions have also become popular at weddings in New Orleans.
Every year in November, my friends’ favorite second line troupe holds their biggest fete. The Lady Buckjumpers are a prominent social group in town, and we were able to catch up at the end point of the parade to witness some of the magic. Groups of young girlfriends in coordinated outfits (bright colorful spandex and faux leather vests seemed to be a popular choice among the urban youth of New Orleans) paraded in the line, after band members pumping out brass music while wearing bright orange and purple zoot suits and top hats. Younger kids danced around (the troupe has a younger division called the junior buckjumpers), and masses of friends and families walked past yelling and hollering and one another.
We were, in our skinny jeans and designer t-shirts, slightly out of place. But the thing was, in the parade atmosphere, where everyone is celebrating and walking to the music, no one ever feels totally excluded.