¡hola, buenos aires!
Recoleta Cemetery, photo courtesy of images.google.com.ar
THE LIST (of things I need to do before leaving BsAs):
- RECOLETA CEMETERY - Yes, my friends, I have no idea how it’s possible but in my four months here I have somehow managed to escape seeing the most famous site in the whole city
- MALBA (Museum of Latin American Art in Buenos Aires) - They have an Andy Warhol exhibit right now that’s supposed to be phenomenal, plus it’s a pretty new museum that the entire city is abuzz about
- PARTIDO DE FÚTBOL (Soccer game) - Getting this done today! Passion of Boca fans should be tangible
- BOMBA DEL TIEMPO (Percussion/dance show/party) - A local drum sesh in the non-ritzy part of town renowned amongst local youth, finally going tomorrow :)
- ECOLOGICAL RESERVE - in Puerto Madero, this park is huge and apparently filled with birds and wildlife and noticeably crisper air
- TEA CONVENTION - Weekly lunch spot of some girlfriends with impeccably good taste, finally joining them for actual vegetables and hot beverages this Wednesday
- GRAFFITI PHOTOSHOOT IN SAN TELMO - I’ve wanted to take photos of just graffiti in my favorite neighborhood for a while, will hopefully accomplish part of that today while desperately buying gifts at the famous San Telmo fair
Wish me luck! I’m cruzando los dedos (crossing my fingers) that everything works out and I still somehow manage to find my way to the airport on time next Saturday night.
You could be Argentine, no problem!
- a pretty jewelry vendor outside UBA, where I bought some indigenous-style earrings for myself that I don’t need
I started off one branch of the conversation saying, “Since I’m obviously a foreigner (with such a strong accent), life at UBA is pretty chaotic for me.” She asked if I was from the States, and when I said yes she asked the inevitable “Where’s your family from?”. After she heard I was Chinese, she said, “That’s crazy! You look like you could be argentine!” Maybe she’s the crazy one… :)
If I’m hurting this badly, it only validates the power of my experience here, right?
Here’s hoping I can keep my attitude afloat and avoid sinking into the inviting abyss of self-pity.
155 hours left in BA. Never grasped more tightly to time in my entire life.
A love letter to Buenos Aires:
I’m going to miss walking barefoot on the roof of my 12-story apartment building, the smooth red concrete warmed by the afternoon sun. One glance over the edge reveals my host mother’s church across the street, my second-favorite locutorio, the café on the corner with one-peso croissants that are so rich breakfast is dessert.
I’ll have dreams about the first bite of an empanada de carne from La Gata Nueva, a gem of a hole-in-the-wall with a dining area the size of a dorm room and waitresses cramming for mid-terms in the only available space - the bathroom. I’ll miss that unique, slightly crispy sensation of the first cut into a virgin empanada, the ground beef still tucked neatly inside, spicy-smelling steam released in a satisfied sigh. All for a measly 92 cents.
I’ll have añoranzas (yearnings) for the reliable lurches of the colectivo, line 29, threading through the city from Chinatown to El Caminito. I’ll long for the subte, the sudden suck as the card reader ingests your ticket, spitting it back out with the date and time printed on the back. My nose will wonder why I took away that musty wood smell of the A line, where the subway cars are still their original deep mahogany. No longer will I need my Guía T, or to say “permiso” when I edge around passengers to get off at my stop.
What will I do without the bars or boliches, their atmospheres hazy from dim lights and cheap beer? Without decades-old American classics blaring? Without dancing until my host mom starts brewing my morning café con leche?
When I return to the States, I’ll shrink from the order, the timeliness, the boxes and lines. Where will that chaos be, that passionate mess I’ve grown to love? I’ll miss the ups and downs of Argentine Spanish, the soft swish of their accent, the coarseness and inherent friendliness of Buenos Aires slang.
But above all, BsAs, you tangle of electricity, you unsolvable puzzle, you mystery of old and new, I will miss the soft, knowing air brushing my hair back from my face as I wander your streets at night. I love, love, love listening to the sidewalks breathing beneath my feet - for the city lives. Its heart beats to the dark rhythm of the tango, and at night it makes its presence known with a deep, bestial roar.
B.A. in B.A.
Being Asian in Buenos Aires -
can probably be best explained through a series of vignettes. A quick note: none of these instances are unique; all have been repeated similarly in varying scenarios. Sigh.
- While booking it back home after class, a man called out to me from the other side of a four-lane avenida, “NI HAO!”
- After entering the bathroom at a fancy all-you-can-eat place in Tandil, a rural province south of BsAs, I almost ran over a group of adorable elementary-aged girls playing make-believe in front of the mirror. When I was in my stall doing the bathroom-thing, I heard little-girl-giggles followed by recitations of “Soy china” (I’m Chinese). At the sound of my toilet flushing they quickly skedaddled.
- While running umbrella-less through a rainstorm, an umbrella salesman called after me, “¡Che, chinita! ¿Una paragua?” (Hey, little Chinese girl! Want an umbrella?).
- My host mom, Cristina, told me I should go to the laundromat across the street to do my laundry. She said that’s where she goes to wash her clothes sometimes; it’s run by an Asian family. And they have a son. “Qué lindo que es,” she told me. “Y ¡qué inteligente! Habla un montón de idiomas.” (What a good-looking boy, and so smart! He speaks a ton of languages.) Of course he does. I took my laundry over, made small-talk with the mother and asked the father where the nearest subte stop was. He didn’t know, so he took the opportunity to go get his son because his son can speak English so his son can help me. I hurriedly thanked him and left before said good-looking-Asian-boy could come out and our marriage could be arranged. So typical - can’t escape the Asian-set-up even when in the Southern Hemisphere.
- While at Hecho en Bs. As., a non-profit magazine that works to empower the homeless and help the earn a living, I was chatting with my boss, Patricia, about starting the magazine, where she bought her adorable sweater, etc. I really admire her - she started this magazine (it’s like Real Change in Seattle) all by herself after the economic crash in 2001. She asked me where I’m from, which I thought strange since she already knew I’m from Seattle; we had already discussed Real Change. She clarified, “Pero ¿de dónde sos, originalmente?” (But where are you from, originally?). Swallowing my involuntary sigh of frustration, I said my family’s from China. “Oh, ¡mirá!” she exclaimed to Blu, the almost-too-cool African-American guy I talked about earlier. “Ella es de China, por eso es así! Qué bueno los chinos acá, tienen muchos lavaderos, supermercados…yo llevo mi ropa a un lavadero chino,” she said. (She’s from China, that’s why she’s the way she is! The Chinese people are so good here, they have a lot of laundromats, supermarkets…I take my clothes to a Chinese laundromat.) Blu and I exchanged a look that I had never experienced before. Then he told Patricia in a voice that mocked her enthusiasm: “Sí, ¡y yo soy african-americano!” (Yes, and I’m African-American!). She didn’t catch his tone. Instead she went on, “Mirá, ¡la gente que trabaja acá en Hecho!” (Would you look at the kind of people who work here at Hecho!). I’ll never forget exchanging that look with Blue - I know he understood exactly how I felt. She had just proclaimed that I am the way I am solely due to the fact that my grandparents were born in China. My identity apparently only depends on one factor. I can’t remember ever being so put in a box based on my nationality, and for the first time I think I understood a bit of what it’s like to be black in the States.
But on a happier note, everything here is lovely, except for the calendars. For some reason, all of them tell me my time here is half over.
Real blog entries coming later, for now I’m off to Península Valdes, a wildlife reserve along Argentina’s mid-Atlantic coast. Thousands of visitors come every year to see Magellanic penguins frolicking, sea lions and seals lounging on the oceanside, and - wait for it - Southern Right WHALES having lots of sex and babies. Apparently September is the season for love - we’re right in the height of the whale mating season.
¡Que tengas un fin de semana buenísimo! Have a great weekend!
The girls are easy. They give themselves as presents.
My Spanish professor Ana, explaining how to express the stereotype here that American girls are, um, fast. A flattering generalization sprouting from such quality, true-to-life films as American Pie.
Things I talked about with one of my Spanish language partners, a 32-year-old working student named Pilar whom I met today for the first time:
- Whether or not I believe in God
- Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
- The difficulties of taking notes in a different language
- How much hotter a British accent is than an American one
- Her parents’ divorce when she was ten
- How she and her boyfriend of four years broke up TWO WEEKS AGO after he revealed he’s been cheating on her with another woman for the past TWO YEARS
I actually really, really liked talking to her. Instead of speaking solely in one language and switching over to the other later on, I mostly spoke in Spanish and she mostly spoke in English. When she asked me questions about English grammar, though, I couldn’t stop the Spanish and I would translate sentences into English for her but with Spanish verbal phrasing. After about a half an hour of really intense conversation, I literally hesitated more in English than in Spanish!
I once read about kids born in the States to immigrant parents, and how their parents want them to learn English so badly they only talk to them in English. The problem is that, in many cases, the parents speak such broken English that their children grow up without being able to communicate fluently in English or Spanish.
This could be an issue.
A very general runner-up: all the love vandalism. For example,
“Marce, TE AMO, Guiller”
(Marce, I LOVE YOU, Guiller)
or
“¿Cuándo nos casamos, mi amor?”
(When are we getting married, my love?)
Saludos (Greetings)
I kissed a lot of people during my first day at Hecho en Buenos Aires. I kissed my supervisor, Jimena Fuertes. I kissed the two distribution managers, Carolina and Blu. I kissed at least two dozen homeless men and one homeless woman. My cheek, by the end of the day, was a regular DNA sample of about 30 porteños (Buenos Aires residents).
No no, Hecho is not a clandestine daily 0rgy with a public face as a non-profit organization. In Buenos Aires, similarly to its European ancestors, it’s customary to kiss a person on their right cheek (as they kiss yours) as a form of greeting and farewell. This isn’t simply among friends, it’s expected when you meet someone for the first time, when you run into someone on the street, when you leave someone on the subway. Everyone’s in on it: middle-schoolers, twenty-somethings, grandparents. I’ve even seen a grocery store cashier kiss a regular customer. Instead of the traditional politicians-shaking-hands photo on the front page of newspapers in the US, publications here snap pictures of middle-aged men, leaders of the country, kissing each other on the cheek.
Although Americans may view a strong handshake as a friendly nice-to-meet-you, Argentines see it as cold and distant. A handshake, although it does involve physical contact, still allows each participant to be a good two or three feet from each other. Plenty of personal space. But here, when you’re meeting a friend for lunch or even meeting a potential boss at a job interview, you lean in, smell their shampoo, get tickled by a scraggly beard and make serious lip-to-cheek contact. Talk about instant intimacy!
Of course, by now I’m getting kind of used to it. So don’t be surprised if the next time I see you I kiss you on the cheek. :)
And lastly,
Happy one-month-in-BsAs to me!
