Europe Sampler, Part IV: Munich-Zurich-Finis

“Excusez moi?” The cute girl with the nose ring had said. Her gold hair was spiced with a brown streak, and she had very smooth skin, so maybe I would have bought her facewash if I knew any French. Instead, I shrugged. She understood my nonunderstanding, while I had no way of telling her I was in the least English-appreciating country on my trip, with neither a place to sleep nor a train ticket.

The evening, when I was most lonely, was filled with people. Families, couples, tourist groups – smiling, having fun, maybe even willing to help me. Only hours ago they were warm and fair companions, soaking up Paris alongside me without taking more than their share, but now they seemed almost like cold extras, simply there to decorate the scene before darkness shambles in with its army of horrors. My lack of a cellphone suddenly made sense as a move planted by the malicious director.

Europe Sampler, Part III: Paris

“The trains are never late in Europe,” the gent in the black brimmed-hat had said.

The train to Paris was delayed by 11 minutes, but to cry bad luck would have been unguestlike, considering the absolutely gorgeous weather that Europe had given us so far. We slumbered through a comfortable ride, and exited at Gare Du Nord, a hulk of a train station with a great window view. A French pigeon sauntered down the second floor, proud to observe its suit-wearing peons and the Asian tourists.

The Meridien was in Montparnasse, a ways south of the left bank. W advised me to get food on Rue St.Louis-en-l’ile, known for its homely atmosphere and reasonably-priced food. The thirty-minute walk gave plenty of time for smoke breaks and general banter, despite Y’s hunger-driven orders to change the leisurely walk into a force-march. At times I felt like one of the oxen in Oregon Trail when the player decides to be sadistic.

The Parthenon, one of the landmarks on the walk. We could not see all we wanted in Paris in 3 days, so this was one of the many things we passed on.

Europe Sampler, Part II: Brussels

We first sampled Belgium chocolate through a box of Galler in our hotel room. Unfortunately, G and P ate 3/4 the box in about 5 minutes and entered blissful hibernation. However, if not for the sacrifices of my teammates, I would not have survived to write this post, instead, I would be lumbering in chocolate heaven, never to return. The remaining members of the Team, Y and me, would be covering Brussels by ourselves the first day.

Brussels probably had my favorite architecture on the trip, next to some parts of Paris.

Our first goal was Autoworld, a museum of historical cars located in the awesome Parc du Cinquantenaire. The archway was the most breathtaking building I’ve seen up to that point, unapologetically magnificent, from the extremely wide wall paintings on either sides of the horseshoe to the bronzed guardians on the chariot. Brilliant.

Europe Sampler, Part I: Amsterdam

The bad luck started early when my Boston-Newark flight was delayed for 2 hours. Anxious idling in a waiting area is not my style, so I struck up a conversation with the businessman to my left, who turned out to be a partner in a bank.

He looked like he was trying to look happier than he was – his smiles sighed and his laughs frowned when we talked about mundane work and life and he gave advice that seemed to have been nailed to his heart: “If you get the big things right – and there are only two big things really: your job and your wife (chuckles, points to ring), you can make all the small mistakes you want. Never make the mistake of working for money. It drives people crazy and doesn’t make you happy. Find a job you love and you will not have to work.”

But there was no mistaking the youthful sparkle in his eyes when he recalled the tonic-like air of Notre Dame and the comfortable drizzle of the streets of London. A naked glee surfaced when he talked about how the best part of 8-AM meetings in Europe was getting to climb mountains and enjoy parks for the rest of the day. I handed the conversation to him at that point, and his hat no longer looked as heavy on him.

“Good meeting you, son. You have a long and exciting life ahead of you. Good luck on your trip.”

“You look like you still have sixty years yourself.” I was not really joking.

Of course, we get another delay taxi-ing in the airport, so by the time I exit the plane,  Y, G, and P were already in the plane to Amsterdam. I started running Olympic-speed (in the event involving flip-flops and two bags). “Final boarding call for Yan Zhang for flight XXX, departure time 5:20″ repeated itself twice, but two Continental workers cheered for me (“Go go go!”) as I Usain Bolted down the final stretch, ending with a long jump into the gate at 5:09. “No need to be so feisty, brother,” said the second worker.

How I Rediscovered Facebook

Cryptic Answer: Nightwish – Nemo is playing in the background, I’m doing a Go problem in my head, and I am typing this blog post. My back is sore from running  intervals this morning.

Explanation: I recently had a good conversation with Christian, who was about to graduate from Harvard, about the role of people in life. One of my biggest regrets is that I neglected people a bit in senior year, especially when I worked furiously on my thesis. When I moved up to Stamford, I made it a personal goal to work on my relationships more seriously.

At college, the less socially talented people (like me) have a temptation to take friends for granted. It is easy to bump into everyone around campus – if you meet someone you do not need to make that connection right away; you’ll see them by the ABP, working in Lamont, or at some drunken Quad party. Both your classroom and your dorms create atmospheres where you can naturally meet people your age with similar interests and situations. At work, there are more artificial barriers – seniority status, age differences, professional nature of the workplace, etc. all make creating personal relationships a bit harder (even though coworkers are still the easiest new friends to make, and I have met/re-met some awesome people at Ellington with whom I will keeping in touch, such as G, J, I, or R). The dorm equivalent – the apartment – is hardly a social scene compared to college dorms, except the walls are still so thin for you to hear people having sex, domestic disputes, or both at the most curious hours. Ironic that in this age when saying a simple “hi” to a neighbor in urban areas is considered more “creepy” than friendly, we are much further apart even though the web creates an illusion that we should be further connected.

Yan (Maybe) Can Cook

The eggplant sacrificed more than any of its comrades. Some slices seemed to have escaped cooking entirely, with minimal damage, while others were zombified. The chicken was alright, just overcooked. At least the sauce was even. In Yan’s kitchen, anything is possible!

While I’m not getting into the Zagat anytime soon, I will learn to salt the eggplant next time and put in the chicken a bit later. And maybe get a real wok.

Like studying for a test, I’ve put off learning to cook for a very long time. Maybe it is because I know I’ll never make it taste, smell, or even look like my mother’s dishes; maybe it is because eating out gives some measure of peace that I am able to, through some process, make a fragrant, hearty serving of Thai crispy chicken goodness appear in front of my plate. I knew the first real dish I cook would be a disaster, so to stall the pain to the ego I had all sorts of excuses to push it back.

The way these things usually go, everyone in the universe conspires against me to make the fated day happen. It was probably the tenth time my roommate J. casually left his chicken stew simmer on the stove, so flavorful that I got hungry while opening the room door, while my conscience kindly poked the back of my brain (with a chef’s knife?) that the last thing I cooked for myself, like the 500 times before it, was either cereal, microwavable oatmeal, or fried eggs when I decide to get fancy. Of course at school, G. suggested in her energetic European way that I simply *must* go watch Ratatouille because it was “so good that it makes you hungry,” only the day before L. wanted to watch a happy film. Ratatouille it was.

The Dark Knight’s Three-Body Problem

SPOILERS OBVIOUS DUH

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It is damn hard to create three interacting characters in a single film who are equally interesting. Some films have shown us it is hard enough to even do two (Iron Man), and for some films, even one (Spiderman III). To be controversial, I will make the absurdly incorrect remark that The Dark Knight accomplishes this feat., solving the (coined by myself) Three-Body Problem of Film. Nobody who watched the film will agree with me (even myself), so I will have to do do some fast talking and redefine “equal,” by analyzing the film through three different foci:

Jumper

The vices of being a poker degenerate creep beyond potential bankrupcy when the game habits start to corrupt real-life decisions. In other skills this is (mostly) harmless – the weirdest thing that has happened to me because of foosball was zoning out during the World Cup wondering why the guys weren’t lined up neatly and doing simultaneous stationary back-flips. However, being a complete calling station is much more exploitable, as P cleverly demonstrated by provoking me into agreeing to skydive with a simple comment to my last post:

P: “…blah blah blah. i say you man the f*** up and jump out of a plane or off a bridge.”

Y: “f*** you!” (translation: “okay.”)

Even though they trapped me, my friends were, as always, considerate and wonderful. Knowing my fear of heights, they warmly prepared me with a week of Youtube videos of skydiving incidents gone horrible wrong and inducing three nights of nightmares involving heights and planes. Then it was Saturday.

Vertigo

The Bard Hall gym has a terrace, which is kind of weird, it being in a basement.

The twisted geography of Washington Heights places back side of the gym atop a four-story drop overlooking the river. So while I was listening to blaring workout music, every few seconds a pleasant river breeze splashes me from the direction of the window. I wanted to go out and look down, and stare at the water a bit to cool me off between sets. While I did a little bit of supplements myself, A has been stacking creatine and nitric oxide and protein and magic dust and God-knows what, and I was a little miffed and groggy since I couldn’t keep up. I wanted the water.

But I’m afraid of heights.

I envy normal people. When they are on a bridge they can look over the side, clutching the bars, even bending their upper torso over the edge to look below. When we were at B’s party in Columbus Circle we went out to the patio – and everyone were able to easily just walk to the edge of the 20-story drop and look down to admire New York. So cool that I can’t do it.

Back in high school, I climbed on top of the MIT amphitheater with a couple of friends. Maybe it was because one of them climbs tall buildings for sport, maybe it was because the other one was really cute, or maybe it was because the first friend had the same opinion of the second as I did. At the top, the moon really looked like blue cheese from “up-close,” the girl was cuter in the moonlight, and the hardest part was getting down because I had to look down.

I was thinking and thinking about that moment and why now, six years later, I am so afraid to just walk outside. Then I laughed. A was doing skullcrushers (concentration required) so he didn’t notice . It was obvious, especially because I was in a weight room – muscles atrophy from disuse.

The fear of heights, no matter how genetic or powerful, is mainly a psychological belief. My phobia level, while it did hit the physiological zone, did not go much past faintness, nausea, and headaches. The fact that I can ride airplanes is good testimony. For tame cases like me, it is mostly a limiting belief that creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, since I’m less inclined to look down steep areas and thus less likely to overcome that fear. While the “muscle gain” from my first “set” years ago is all gone, nothing says I can’t start another set.

For the warmup, I just had to look down for 10 seconds. I felt the fainting, I felt the heartbeats, and I felt like I was going to throw up. But my mental ticker hit 10 I backtracked into the weight room, palms were sweating like crazy. The next one was 15, and the last set was 20. My knees felt like they were going to collapse (it is a crazy feeling, but I could feel the muscles go completely limp), I let go and almost fell, but my palms weren’t sweaty anymore. Weightlifting is so weird.

Bobby McFerrin Concert

LW is staying over for a week, and Chen is jealous, so we agree to watch a Bobby McFerrin concert with Chen and her friend Silvia. Getting off work a early, I magically make it to Carnegie Hall on time, despite the train-track suspension, wondering what I should expect beyond the Youtube videos (my one source of knowledge about the musical legend). Of course the jabbering female trio rudely interrupt my thinking, asking me from behind to move because my seat was reserved for their friend “who is probably late. ” I guess I have sexy back. Although I admit that the performance was totally another level back of sexy.

Bobby McFerrin is a tremendous presence. Calling him a “walking instrument” is inaccurate because he is definitely more than one. While singing, he taps both his microphone with his right pinky and drums his chest with his left palm for percussion – to accompany what seems like sometimes two simultaneous vocals from his mouth, a trick that I’ve also seen Wang Li Hom do (though it is still voodoo to me).

The rest of the Voicestra (three members for each of the four ranges) were not merely there for display, either. One of the alto ladies sang a free association which started with fruit baskets and the holes in them; two women comboed up for a tribal/folk -like vocal, which McFerrin transitioned into a haunting, almost primal melody; one of the bass made up a gospel track that filled the whole stadium. Between these improvised “solos,” which weren’t quite solos because the other members of the group would figure out accompaniments and start supporting the main vocal, were repeats of the same formula that worked way too damn well. Bobby would conjure up something with syllables that only he understands and dance up to each of the ranges and hang on his phrase. In two or three measures, they would grok his piece and join, creating a full-fledged “Voicestra” that was somehow able to slow down in a smooth coordination.

I couldn’t help smiling watching all of this because they seemed to have had so much damn fun up there. They chuckled and jabbed each other every time Bobby successfully made up one of this somethings; two of the sopranos spontaneously started teaching each other dance movements while singing, getting the third one to join in (which was tremendously cute because she was about sixty); when they asked for a volunteer to try to lead them in an improvisation and got a ridiculously talented guy who successfully led a whole piece, the Voicestra immediately did a poppy tribute song for him revolving around the phrase “Ben Ben Ben Ben Ben Ben Ben” (the guy’s name was Ben).

Bobby, who does this all in a blue T-shirt and jeans, didn’t waste much time talking. When he entered he immediately began his first piece; he only resigned to sit on the edge of the stage with the rest of the Voicestra to chat with the fans for a while after it was clear that the applauding fans weren’t leaving. After answering a few singing requests and politely declining further ones, McFerrin answered the questions with a mix of simplicity and wit. After the audience laughed when he claimed that improvisation is “not hard,” he explained that “all you needed to do” was to “always sing” and to “never stop”: “You never get stuck… the most stuck you are is if you are hanging on a phrase. Then just keep hanging. You just keep singing until you get that next note, and then you are unstuck.”

“It is like talking,” LW says. She is right as always – it really is like talking. You have to be confident, skirting the boring old small talk, and keep moving the conversation into more interesting directions. If you find one of those rare but joyful moments where all conversationalists present fall in love with the subject, you’ll not only forget the time, you will forget you’re talking.

Bobby also talked about his simple home, which apparently comes from the same fantasy where his soothing notes live before he plucks them out for us: a house in the woods so quiet that “you can hear the snow fall,” where he can go out for a walk every day with his dogs, and sing. Everyday. “Of course I’m not going to tell you where it is, so you can’t find me,” he jokes, but seriously – quietness is the most hard-to-find and undervalued commodity in Manhattan, something I’ve personally been continuously seeking in the City for the last six months or so.

In defiance of my horrible musical skills (I am, without doubt, the least musically gifted/experienced Asian I know, a miracle given the way Asian parents think), I improvised four songs on the walk back from work, ignoring the traffic, the wind, or the time. One sounded like really bad pop, and the other three resembled cliched video game music. But they were bearable, since I never stopped. And I was happy.

-YZ