Pearl Harbor

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

“The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

“It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

“The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

“Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

“As commander in chief of the army and navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

“I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

“Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

“I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”

--President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 12/8/1941

Pearl Harbor National Memorial

A Invicta Cidade do Porto

While I was struggling with Spanish, made harder by the fact that the language of Barcelona is Catalan, we went to Portugal. Catalan feels like a dialect of Spanish, but I'm told it branched out of Latin, independent of Spanish. In writing, Catalan looks similar to French, but the pronunciation sounds slightly more Italian. Not that it ever really mattered. Everyone I met spoke Spanish. If you grew up in Catalunya, you learned Spanish in school. Older people were even forbidden to learn Catalan when they were younger. And a lot of people in Barcelona speak English. Except at Tim Hortons, for some reason. No one who works there spoke English. Fortunately, I know how to say, “Diez timbits para llevar, por favor.” What flavors? That is why pointing was invented. Even if everyone in the donut shop speaks the same language, you point at what you want. Except at Krispy Kreme. Then you only have to tell them how many boxes of glazed donuts you want.

Portuguese is a horse of a different color (un caballo de un color diferente, probably something diferente em portugues). In writing, it looks similar to Spanish, but nothing sounds the same. Read something aloud in Portugal the way you would read it in Spain and the person you are speaking to will have no idea what you are talking about. Let them read the paper and they will understand it completely. It reminded me of Chinese, except that Portuguese and Spanish are entirely different languages while Chinese and Chinese are region specific.

We spent a week in Portugal, in the small coastal city of Porto. By Portuguese standards, Porto is considered a large city. It has about as many people as Richmond, Virginia, so I consider it a small city. When you live in China, anything with fewer than 5 million people is a small city. Under 500,000 is a tiny village. Porto is one of those little European villages that likes to think it is an old city. As an American, I'm supposed to be impressed by how old it is. Porto was founded almost one thousand years before my home state. But again, living in China changes your perspective. By the time Porto got its own flag, China had already had a hundred civil wars, rebellions, insurrections, uprisings, insurgencies and revolutions. One hundred might sound like embellishment or hyperbole, but I'm probably low balling it.

We flew to Porto even though there are plenty of trains to and from Barcelona. The idea was that planes are faster. But with a train, you buy your ticket and get on the train. You can arrive at the station five minutes before your train leaves. There are probably restrictions on what you can bring in your luggage. Bombs and rocket launchers might not be allowed. But no one ever checks. Bring whatever you want on the train. Airports are a little more strict. Water, of all things, is forbidden. You can bring water on the plane, but you have to buy the $10 bottle from the airport. A two hour flight takes seven hours, at least. Then you have to get from the airport to wherever you are going. Airports are rarely anywhere near the city center. Train stations are mostly downtown.

Downtown Porto was a nice looking city. I can't say it was the best looking city in Europe. There is too much competition for that title. But it was nice to look at, especially at night. The lights along the river and across Ponte de Dom Luis I were far more subtle than anything I see every day in Hong Kong. When you are in Porto, you have to walk across the bridge. It's like going up the Eiffel Tower. You never see the locals doing it, but it is always packed full of people.

We rarely used the metro, but it looked like your typically efficient European public transportation. And it has to be. Porto is a hilly city. It's like San Francisco on steroids, with cobblestones instead of smooth pavement. And more hills. San Francisco has the Embarcadero and Golden Gate Park. I never saw any flat areas in Porto. Even the riverbanks went from water to hills. Walking around the city counts as a daily workout. There are a couple of streetcars, so you can get around and still see the city, but they are overpriced and don't really go anywhere. I think they are strictly for the tourists.

When I walked around, I saw construction. Everywhere. I don't know if it is always like this because of all the old buildings or I came at the wrong time, but it felt like every corner I turned led to more scaffolding and large machines making heavy noises. Mercado do Bolhao, easily the most famous market in the city, was completely closed for renovation. There was a temporary market a block away, but it was much smaller and had absolutely no charm.

It was also impossible to walk anywhere without a busker around the corner. I only saw one or two in Barcelona, but they were out in force in Porto. I can only imagine what it is like at the height of tourist season. Most of them were not especially good, but they all played songs I recognized. One busker at the Ribeira stood with his back to the river and sang “Tiny Dancer”, “Imagine” and REM's “Nightswimming”. He only had an acoustic guitar and a weak voice, but he obviously loved what he sang. Hearing familiar songs in public is becoming increasingly rare the further I grow out of touch with today's music. The buskers of Porto, at least, were as stuck in the past as I am.

Just outside the city, at the mouth of the Douro River, is the Atlantic Ocean. As oceans go, it was a nice change of pace. There were long beaches along the Foz do Douro, but it was still not good beach weather. It was a sunnier day than when I went to the Barcelona beach, but it was still October. I'm sure the Atlantic Ocean is colder than the Mediterranean. I have nothing to back that up. It's just an assumption.

In Porto, we stayed in a hotel that called itself an apartment. The Barcelona apartment was an actual apartment. It looked and felt like an apartment, and had obviously been around a while. The Porto “apartment” was shiny and new. It had a tiny kitchen and separate living room/bedrooms, but it felt nothing like an apartment. Since we were only there for a week, it never really mattered. A week in a hotel can be a nice break. For a month or two, a genuine apartment is always better. Hotels can get old pretty fast, and you always feel like a visitor. In an apartment, you can pretend you actually live there. The funny thing is, I spent twice as much time in Barcelona as I did in Paris a few years ago, but I felt more like I was living in Paris. Maybe it was a greater familiarity with the language and culture. Or maybe I just like Paris better. Barcelona seems like a good place, but I never felt any real connection. Maybe I have to go back some day.

La Capital de Catalunya

I spent almost two months in Barcelona, but I really can't say much about the city. I spent most of my time working, and we did a quick tour in Portugal. I saw very little beyond the immediate neighborhood around my apartment. I walked past la Sagrada Familia and a couple of Gaudi houses almost every day, but I never went inside any of them. In another neighborhood, I took the telefèric up to Castell de Montjuic. But I don't know anything about the castle's history. I do know there are great views of the city from the castle and cable car. I think the most time I spent outside of work was at el Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. The building and grounds were works of art as much as the collections inside. At the top of a lot of steps, it also had great views.

The people in residential areas were friendly, but the more crowded areas had too many tourists. The first time I went to la Rambla was a Saturday night, so I thought that was why it was so crowded. I went again on a Wednesday morning and it was almost as bad. I think there are simply some parts of Barcelona that are unbearable no matter what time or day.

You would think living in Hong Kong made me immune to immense crowds, but there is something oddly different about Chinese overpopulation compared to overcrowding in places like Europe and North America. It is almost comfortable in China. Maybe not comfortable. Tolerable might be a better word. Trudging through an endless river of bodies in Europe is one of my least favorite ways to spend the day. Other than la Boqueria, I did not see much reason to visit la Rambla. Unless you like overpriced shopping. La Boqueria was a loud little market, infinitely better in the morning than later in the day. It reminded me of le Marché Provençal in Antibes. It was nice, but far from the best local market in the world. That would be Mahane Yehuda in Jerusalem.

The Barcelona metro (el Metro de Barcelona) was efficient, but there does not seem to be a smart card system like Hong Kong's octopus or Tokyo's Pasmo. There were a million different ticket types, so I just went with the monthly pass. Much like Paris, every station required walking up and down multiple flights of stairs, with only the occasional escalator. I don't know how people in wheelchairs get around. Europe has some amazing looking cities to walk around, as long as your body is fully functional.

Unfortunately, I can't say anything about the food. I ate plenty of it. I usually eat a lot while rehearsing, and maybe a little less between shows, so I used to have plenty of opinions about the food around me. In Barcelona, I had some empanadas, escalivada, and a lot of potatoes, mostly with aioli. I don't think you are allowed to eat potatoes without aioli in Barcelona I ate paella because you have to when you are in Spain. That's another law. And tapas, of course. You can't walk two blocks in Barcelona without running into a tasca or tapas bar. There were a lot of tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant and peppers in practically everything. Before this trip, I could not remember the last time I ate eggplant. In Barcelona, I can't remember a day without it. The city is on the Mediterranean, so there was plenty of olive oil everywhere. No hummus, though. That was disappointing. I'm sure there is some somewhere, but I never saw any.

I don't know what anything tasted like, but most of the food looked familiar. Empanadas are essentially the same as sambousek. Dough stuffed with food is pretty common all over the world. Paella is Spanish jambalaya. Tapas and dim sum are the same concept. I had crema catalana in Barcelona, which is crème brulee, and pastel de nata in Portugal, which is available at bakeries all over Macau and Hong Kong.

Interestingly enough, tortillas in Barcelona are nothing like Mexico. They are omelettes, frittatas or any similar egg dish. I saw a sign for tortillas at one of the stalls at la Boqueria and thought about bringing some back to the apartment to use later. The stall owner was confused when I wanted a dozen. I was pretty sure it was not a language issue. I know that doce means twelve, and I know what a tortilla is. Or so I thought. When he held up a large plate of an even larger omelette, I learned what a tortilla is in Spain. I never found any Mexican tortillas, under any name, in any of the grocery stores. I guess they never confuse the two if they only have one.

I can't say much about the beaches. October/November is not ideal beach weather and I only went once. It looked like it was going to rain the entire day, so the only people out beyond the promenade were the surfers. It is probably a nice area during summer.

Shopping is ridiculously easy in Barcelona. My apartment was between a large Carrefour and a small Condis. There were tiny 24H convenience stores every two blocks in every direction. They all seemed to be owned and/or operated by Arabs, which only reminded me of Apu and the stereotype of certain minority groups covering certain occupations. We don't see a lot of that where I live. In China, every 7-Eleven is staffed by Chinese people. Every taxi driver is Chinese. Every gardener is Chinese. The richest people, and those who do all the work for them, are all Chinese.

The apartment was in a residential neighborhood, but only a few blocks from la plaça de Catalunya, probably the most important plaza in the city. As far as I could tell, plaça de Catalunya is the shopping, entertainment and transportation hub of the entire city. It is surrounded by shopping malls, department stores and pedestrian malls. Several museums are just north of the square, with theaters and churches in every direction. You can catch several different L trains, a few R trains and dozens of buses, including the airport express bus. Most importantly, it had a Tim Hortons.

La Boqueria is the famous market, just south of plaça de Catalunya and a 20 minute walk from the apartment. But there are less crowded options at el Mercat de la Concepció, just off el Passeig de Gràcia, and el Mercat de Santa Caterina, a few blocks from the Cathedral. Unlike Paris, Barcelona does not close on Sundays. There was no reason to go hungry, so I never did.

Trapped in Qatar

In August, I was offered a job in Barcelona. I took it because I had nothing else lined up and, free trip to Barcelona. It took a few months to work out the logistics, but in October, I flew the million miles across the globe. It is closer to 6,000 miles, but it felt like longer. I did not fly directly from Hong Kong to Barcelona. I know those flights exist because I have seen their boarding gates at the airport. Instead, I flew Hong Kong to Doha, Qatar. That's 10 hours.

Then came my favorite part. The flight landed in Doha at 23:30 and the flight to Barcelona left at 09:00 the next day. When I saw these numbers, I knew there would be two options. Either I would be stuck in an airport when everything is closed in the middle of the night for 9 hours or I would be stuck in a shopping mall in the middle of the night for 9 hours. Either choice sounds hellish to me.

It turns out Hamad International Airport has a hotel you can stay in without going through immigration and leaving the airport. They even have special rates for people staying 5 hours or more. That sounded great to me. Until I went to the reception counter and found out the price. Their special short term rate was US$600. For 9 hours. I don't want to know the full day rate.

Actually leaving the airport might have been an option, but how much of Doha is awake in the middle of the night? I know pretty much nothing about Qatar, but I know that the Mediterranean side of the Middle East is not exactly Las Vegas. Jerusalem's streets are beautifully harrowing at three in the morning. The fact that I know that made me hesitate to even look into leaving the airport. As a transfer passenger, no one in Doha looked at my passport. Had I left the airport, someone might have noticed the Israeli visa. Would they care? I don't really know. I suppose it would depend on what was happening in the news that week. I'm willing to bet that most of the people in most of the Persian Gulf region only buy into the propaganda when they are forced to. But I only had 9 hours. Dealing with repressive governments that hate women usually takes longer.

The airport was fully open in the middle of the night. There was more than enough food and shopping available at 03:00. I found a relatively comfortable chair near a children's play area and, since I traveled alone, did not sleep a wink.

After waiting 10 hours for my flight, since it was delayed, I flew from Doha to Barcelona. That's another 8 hours.

At Barcelona Airport, someone was waiting for me. That was pretty good since I was staying at an apartment rather than a hotel and telling a taxi driver where it was would have been difficult. The person who picked me up talked non-stop the entire 45 minute drive. I have no idea what he said. I think he was speaking English. After 33 hours on planes and at airports, he could have been speaking Klingon for all I know. Fortunately, the apartment was ready for me and the bed sheets were clean.

The point of this trip was to work in Barcelona, which I did. What I knew nothing about beforehand was that I would also be going to Amsterdam and two different cities in Portugal. Barcelona took months to plan. Everything else just happened.

Bernardo Bertolucci

After a long fight with cancer and years of generally poor health, Bernardo Bertolucci has died. Unlike typical auteurs, he occasionally directed films he did not write and wrote films he did not direct. He was opinionated, controversial, aggressive and easily my favorite Italian filmmaker.


La Commare Secca
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Sergio Citti, Pier Paolo Pasolini
starring Marisa Solinas, Allen Midgette

Prima della rivoluzione
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci & Gianni Amico
starring Adriana Asti, Francesco Barilli

Il canale
directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci

Ballata da un miliardo
directed by Gianni Puccini
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Bruno Baratti, Gianni Puccini

Partner
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Gianni Amico & Bernardo Bertolucci
starring Pierre Clémenti, Stefania Sandrelli, Tina Aumont

C'era una volta il West
directed by Sergio Leone
written Sergio Donati, Sergio Leone, Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci
starring Henry Fonda, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards, Keenan Wynn

Amore e Rabbia
“Agonia” directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci
starring Julian Beck, Judith Malina

Il conformista
directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
starring Jean-Louis Trintignant, Stefania Sandrelli, Gastone Moschin, Dominique Sanda

Strategia del ragno
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Marilù Parolini, Edoardo De Gregorio
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
starring Giulio Brogi, Alida Valli, Tino Scotti, Pippo Campanini, Alida Valli, Giuseppe Bertolucci

La salute è malata
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci

Last Tango In Paris
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Franco Arcalli, Agnès Varda, Jean-Louis Trintignant
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
starring Marlon Brando, Maria Schneider, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Catherine Breillat

1900
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Franco Arcalli, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
starring Robert De Niro, Gérard Depardieu, Dominique Sanda, Laura Betti, Donald Sutherland, Stefania Casini, Sterling Hayden, Burt Lancaster, Alida Valli

La Luna
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Giuseppe Bertolucci, Clare Peploe, Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
starring Jill Clayburgh, Veronica Lazar, Fred Gwynne, Alida Valli, Roberto Benigni

La tragedia di un uomo ridicolo
directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Carlo Di Palma
starring Ugo Tognazzi, Anouk Aimée, Laura Morante, Victor Cavallo

L'addio a Enrico Berlinguer
directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Carlo Di Palma

The Last Emperor
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Mark Peploe & Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
produced by Jeremy Thomas
starring John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O'Toole, Ying Ruocheng, Victor Wong, Wu Junmei

12 registi per 12 città
“Bologna” directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Fabio Cianchetti

The Sheltering Sky
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Mark Peploe & Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
produced by Jeremy Thomas
starring Debra Winger, John Malkovich, Campbell Scott, Jill Bennett, Timothy Spall

Little Buddha
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Rudy Wurlitzer, Mark Peploe
cinematography by Vittorio Storaro
produced by Jeremy Thomas
starring Bridget Fonda, Keanu Reeves, Chris Isaak, Ying Ruocheng

Stealing Beauty
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci & Susan Minot
cinematography by Darius Khondji
produced by Jeremy Thomas
starring Liv Tyler, Joseph Fiennes, Jeremy Irons, Sinéad Cusack, Rachel Weisz, Stefania Sandrelli

Besieged
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci & Clare Peploe
cinematography by Fabio Cianchetti
starring Thandie Newton, David Thewlis, Claudio Santamaria

The Triumph of Love
directed by Clare Peploe
written by Clare Peploe, Marilyn Goldin, Bernardo Bertolucci
produced by Bernardo Bertolucci
starring Mira Sorvino, Rachael Stirling, Ben Kingsley, Fiona Shaw

Ten Minutes Older: The Cello
“Histoire d'eaux”, directed & written by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Fabio Cianchetti
starring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Chiara Mastalli

The Dreamers
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
cinematography by Fabio Cianchetti
produced by Jeremy Thomas
starring Eva Green, Michael Pitt, Louis Garrel, Anna Chancellor

Io e te
directed by Bernardo Bertolucci
written by Bernardo Bertolucci, Niccolò Ammaniti, Umberto Contarello, Francesca Marciano
cinematography by Fabio Cianchetti
starring Jacopo Olmo Antinori, Tea Falco, Sonia Bergamasco, Pippo Delbono, Veronica Lazar

Thanksgiving Birthday

I was born on Thanksgiving. Every once in a while, it lands on my birthday, but I have only had one Thanksgiving birthday in Hong Kong. That one feels like a lifetime ago. Most of the time, Thanksgiving is not on my birthday and once or twice I was out of the country. This year, I am in Barcelona.

Thanksgiving is not an important holiday in Spain. In fact, they really don't seem to care at all about Pilgrims and Indians making corn and pumpkin pie. No one cares about Thanksgiving in Hong Kong either, but there are enough American and Canadian expats that you can always find something happening somewhere.

A few years ago, I was in Tokyo during Thanksgiving. Japan cares about the holiday even less than Spain, but we found a restaurant owned by some American expats who did a big Thanksgiving dinner every year. Unfortunately, they closed down last year. I don't know why. It seemed like it was the go to place for Americans in Tokyo who wanted a genuine American breakfast. That was my most American Thanksgiving since I moved to Hong Kong. Until this year.

In Barcelona, I went to a place called Flaherty's, one block east of la Rambla, between Placa Reial and the beach. It is an Irish pub that serves a combination of Italian entrées, Mexican appetizers, English breakfast, Irish pies and American sandwiches. They are apparently famous for their annual Thanksgiving dinner. They even show American football games on TV, something no one did in Tokyo. I don't care about football unless the Vikings win the Super Bowl, which has yet to happen. But sometimes it is nice to be in a large room full of other expats talking about our shared culture. I was an American living in China and celebrating Thanksgiving at an Irish pub in Spain, but I was far from the only one away from home.

Flaherty's Thanksgiving menu looked pretty good. They had all kinds of food that sounded like Thanksgiving on the surface, but were not quite Thanksgiving where I come from. There was pumpkin soup with smoked parsnip, date tarts with goat cheese, herb mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes with a Guinness glaze, cranberry sauce with thyme infused red wine. For dessert, they had bread and butter pudding and apple pie. Yet again, I could not find any pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving. They had pumpkin soup, so there must be some pumpkins somewhere, but no pie. The Tokyo restaurant had pumpkin pie, but I think they used Japanese pumpkins. My genuine pumpkin pie quest continues. Although, I suppose at this point, it really does not matter.

Since it was my birthday, I got a free slice of chocolate Guinness cake and more than a few people offered to buy me drinks. I'm not much of a drinker, but I was surprised to realize that I had not had any alcohol for over a year. When you can't taste anything, it would be exceptionally easy to drink anyone under the table. Everyone else downs a shot and they react immediately, or even sooner. The smell of their drink hits them before it even touches their tongue. I can drink vodka like it is water. Fortunately, I know what would happen if I tried to win that contest. I have always hated getting drunk, especially the next day. So even back when I could taste what I was drinking, I always took it easy.

The weird thing about Irish pubs in Spain, at least this one, was that no one tried to talk me into drinking too much. I don't know if there were fewer opportunists there or if I'm just getting too old for men in bars to try to get me drunk. I like to think I'm still young, but on your birthday, you know exactly how old you are.

Barcelona Or Bust

I'm going to Barcelona today. I thought I would be nervous about the whole thing, but instead, I have been too busy to really worry about it.

I have traveled for work countless times. That is the nature of my job. It always used to be relatively easy. Someone else books the plane tickets and arranges a hotel and/or apartment. All I usually have to do is show up and do the work. This time, I had a choice of places to stay while I'm there. Since I know absolutely nothing about the city, I looked into neighborhoods and transportation. Living in Hong Kong has spoiled me for public transportation. I have reached the point where I actually expect to take trains that run on time to get me to work in half an hour or less. Fortunately, Barcelona's transit system looks pretty good. Of course, I will not truly know until I use it.

I will be there for about eight weeks. That is not nearly enough time to learn the language, so I did a little studying ahead. I knew almost no Spanish a month ago. Now, I know slightly more. The funny thing is, the language of Barcelona is Catalan, which is supposed to be more like Italian or French than Spanish. That would be fine with me. My French is decent, as long as people speak incredibly slow, and I know a few menu and transportation phrases in Italian. There is nothing impressive here, but it is far better than my Spanish.

Ideally, I will be working too much for any of this to matter, but I will have to go out and buy groceries sooner or later. It would be nice if I could get by on my own without relying on the kindness of strangers and colleagues. Some of my favorite memories of new cities are walking around and exploring at random. You don't usually need to speak any language to do that, but sometimes it helps.

A Taste of Spain

Next month, I am starting my first real job in a year. In fact, it has been exactly one year since the accident, although the job starts a few weeks after that. It is difficult to believe it has been a year. Time was crawling quite slowly for a while there, but now I think it might actually be healing all wounds. When you are in the middle of something, it is hard to see anything else. A year later, the picture changes.

In that year, I have taken two serious trips out of the country. I went to Miyajima in May and Minneapolis in July. Next month, I'm going to Barcelona. Like Miyajima, that will be a completely new place to me. Normally, when I go somewhere new, I think about what it will be like. I'm pretty sure we all do. What I really like is looking back after I have been and seeing how different it really was to how I thought it would be.

I worked in Paris a few years ago. I thought I knew a lot about Paris before I went. I know pretty much nothing about Barcelona and I had never even heard of Miyajima before I went there, but I had been to Tokyo a few times, so at least I knew a little something about the country. I had never been anywhere in France before Paris, but of course, I had seen a million pictures and heard all kinds of things about the city and country. Since living in a Paris apartment was absolutely nothing like staying in a hotel for a short trip, I am assuming none of the travel books about Barcelona will tell me much either. I'm actively avoiding doing any research about the city. I don't know if that is a good idea or not, but I know that looking up tourist sights would be pointless. It would be better if I looked for grocery stores.

I think the biggest difference between Paris and Barcelona, other than the language, culture, history and people, will be that I had all of my senses in Paris. The first time you walk around a new city, you take everything in – sights, sounds, smells and tastes. Tokyo is overwhelming at first. It just hits you hard all at once. A city like Amsterdam is much calmer. Paris is an excellent city for all of your senses. Unfortunately, I will never smell or taste Barcelona. I'm not sure how much that will affect this trip.

I lost my sense of smell a year ago. I'm mostly pretty used to it by now. There are a few advantages. Walking through the perfume counters to get into a department store does not bother me anymore. I can go to food stalls that sell durian and stinky tofu. Best of all, I no longer smell the selfish smokers and their vile cancer twigs. On the downside, I would never notice a gas leak in the apartment. But how often does that happen? Rotting food is a more serious concern.

Miyajima is an impressively beautiful island, but I have no real emotional connection to it. Is that because I could not smell anything or because I was only there overnight? The Minneapolis reunion was less nostalgic than I expected. I saw some old friends and we spent some time together, but I never felt like I was finally home after a long absence. There were no familiar aromas to trigger long dormant memories.

When you have anosmia, the doctors seem to focus on how much that will affect your sense of taste. Taste is still technically there, but nothing will ever taste like anything. Instead of saying smell affects taste, they should say that smell affects flavor. Taste incorporates most of your senses. I can still feel if something is hot or spicy, but the spice has no flavor. I can hear if something is crunchy, but in a blind taste test, I would not know the difference between a tortilla chip and a cockroach. When people say that mashed potatoes taste different from chopped potatoes, that is mostly from the tactile receptors in the mouth, assuming all other ingredients are the same. The potatoes will still have that potato flavor either way. I can easily distinguish between mashed and chopped, but they both taste like sterile cardboard to me.

What the doctors never point out is how much smell affects memories. While I could see and hear how much Minneapolis changed and stayed the same, I could smell absolutely nothing. I never walked into anyone's house and smelled the same fabric softener that my mother used when I was 8 or sat beside a lake and instantly remembered that time we all went swimming 15 years ago. I spent some time in Chelsea's swimming pool. It was a standard American backyard pool, but since I could not smell the chlorine or the wet cement around the pool, I never had flashbacks to any of the other million times I was in an American swimming pool. Typing that sentence brings back more memories than actually being in the pool.

I went to the house where I lived at the end of high school. There are a lot of memories in there, but they have since remodeled the kitchen and changed the color patterns throughout the house. Visually, it is not what I used to know. Ryan's mother made me cookies. I want to say that is what people do in Minnesota, but feeding guests is probably the most common practice throughout the world. Her cookies should have brought back a flood of memories. Instead, they were small discs of cardboard. They looked good, though.

I don't doubt that my trip to Minneapolis would have been more emotional if I were not olfactorily challenged. The real question is what Barcelona will be like. If I come back and say I did not like it, will that be because I could not taste the food or because Barcelona was simply not for me?

911

High School Reunion8. When Bellyfeel Leads to Goodthink

I had almost no time in Minneapolis on my last day, so I spent the morning at my ex-boyfriend's mother's house. I don't know when we will see each other again. It was six years between the last visits. She is always welcome to come out to me, but it is easier for me to go to her.

My flight to Chicago left just after noon. It is only a 90 minute flight, but since it left from an American airport, I had to be there entirely too early. A 90 minute flight out of Hong Kong would board about 15-30 minutes before takeoff. There are other places to check in besides the airport check in counter, but if you go that route, you should get there about an hour before the flight time. Once you have your boarding pass, however you get it, getting through the x-ray machines and immigration can take up to 30 minutes, if it is crowded.

None of that would fly in the United States. The politicians want the people to fear everything and everyone. Paranoia leads to the illusion of security. Actual security would take too much effort. It is far easier to pay some people slightly more than minimum wage and give them a week of half-assed training. The consequence of Americans living in fear, and their elected leaders feeding into it all, is that American airports are the most cumbersome and least efficient of any I have ever seen anywhere in the world. Everyone puts up with it because that's the way people are. You don't like what your government is doing? Oh, well. What can you do? That is not only an American attitude. That is all over the world. Maybe some day people will realize that they vastly outnumber those who claim to rule over them. But for now, I have to spend the afternoon in a shopping mall/airport just to fly 300 miles. If you include airport bureaucracy, flying takes the same amount of time as driving. What can I do?

There was more bullshit at O'Hare to keep the world safe from democracy, but eventually, I was on a Chinese plane headed to China. I felt a sense of relief once that plane took off. Let's think about that for a second. I was glad to get out from under the blunt force trauma of American bureaucracy and felt at peace when I knew I was going into China. The People's Republic of Bloody Communist China. There is more than enough bullshit bureaucracy in China. Far more than enough. But I would rather go through a Chinese airport than an American airport any day of the week.

When I was growing up, we were constantly told that the United States was the greatest country in the history of countries. God himself pointed down at the good part of North America and said, “Let this land have the best systems of education, justice, science and government in the entire universe. It will have superior athletes and better sports than those pesky Europeans. And it will be a shining beacon of freedom for everyone, except black people, women, brown immigrants, poor people, anyone who sleeps with the wrong person … Hell, in the beginning, they will even hate the Irish. Imagine that.”

In my teen years, I realized that the United States had a few flaws, but that was ok. “Are education ain't perfect, but it be the most best in the world,” they told us. “The judicial system is not perfect, but it is the best in the world.” “The (whatever is broken) is not perfect, but it is the best in the world.” For several generations, Americans were told that we have the best of everything in the world. Just like the people of North Korea or Saudi Arabia, we believed whatever they told us. Americans are mostly pretty ignorant of the outside world, so how would we know what they are doing in other countries. And people from other countries are always trying to move to the United States. We must be the best, right?

Then came the internet. Now, you can talk to people who live in other countries while they are sitting in those countries. The funny thing is, the world is not all jealous of us. Many of them know they got a much better education. A few of them live in countries where the police and courts treat everyone equally, regardless of race, gender or income. Most of them have passports and travel around the world. They see what foreign countries are like rather than rely on government propaganda.

Apologists will say there are places worse than the United States. That is absolutely true. There are still countries where it is illegal to be gay or where women are property or minorities are second class citizens. At least in the United States, women, homosexuals and minorities are treated with dignity and respect, right?

So now we have gone from the United States is the greatest country in the world to the United States is not the absolute worst. How did that happen? Is it the president's fault? Is it the media's fault? Maybe it's those damn video games. Or, here's a thought, maybe the United States never had the best of everything. Maybe the United States has always been a paradise for a select few, a nightmare for marginalized groups and an above average society for everyone in between. Maybe it has not really gone to hell in a handbasket. In many ways, the country is better than it has ever been, certainly for most minorities. There is enormous room for improvement, especially if you want to catch up with some of those northern European countries, Japan or New Zealand. There is also plenty of room to slip further behind. Many of our leaders want to go backward, mostly to a point where they could skim more money without getting arrested. A tiny few want to move forward for everyone's benefit. Most just want to cling onto their jobs for as long as they can.

When I lived in the United States, none of these thoughts used to cross my mind while waiting at the airport. I was a good citizen. I did nothing to upset the Party. But back then, going through an airport was quick and easy. It's funny how authoritarianism makes you think about things.