Leaving New York

If you're checking this for the first time, welcome. I plan on trying to force myself to publish at least once a week while I'm at the Thai-Burma border, where I'll be interning with the (NGO that will remain unnamed). I'll be teaching English to staff and interns, and if I'm lucky, I'll be able to teach at the refugee camps, as well.

There's one rule: PLEASE DO NOT USE MY NAME if you respond to any of my posts. There is some slight chance it could jeopardize the work I'm hoping to do this summer. Unlikely, yes, but possible nonetheless. Clearly anyone with half a brain could track my name easily enough, but still - the type of people I'm worried about don't half a brain.

I'm skeptical of blogs - namely because they're severely impersonal - but there are a few reasons why I think this format could work. For one, blogs are not exclusive. Anyone can see this by word of mouth, without a password, without a personal connection, etc. Furthermore, I can continue to make use of this when I return to the US and when I go to Mongolia in the spring (crossing fingers). So there is an element of permanence at work in my decision-making, as well. Lastly, I just really think it could work. I think there is potential for multi-personal discourse in the response section that is absent in email communication. I really want people to leave me comments, too, so I won't feel lonely!

Enough about blogs.

This is my last night in New York. I've been having a really hard time trying to make this trip real to myself, and I've been trying to figure out why. Certainly a ridiculously stressful finals season had something to do with it, but even since I've been home, I've had trouble imagining what my summer will be like. Even now, the fact that I will be in Bangkok in less than 48 hours kind of blows my mind.

One reason for this has to have something to do with my family background. Southeast Asia, to me, is a place perpetually shrouded in a mythical mist. The only stories I hear about it are couched in a willful idealism. Mango trees, mohinga (a type of fish soup), and golden pagodas figure prominently in my family lore. How am I to gain any true understanding of the world I am about to join? Even stories of political repression exist within the framework of the democracy movement, a movement that is - especially in its emphasis on non-violence - singularly idealistic.

Another reason for my inability to make real to myself the trip I am about to undertake touches on, I think, global hierarchy. The "developing world" - a term with which I am deeply uncomfortable, by the way - is nearly invisible to the "developed world." How could I possibly know what to expect? If I were to go Germany, Spain, or Italy, for example - three other countries I've never visited - I would have far less trouble being able to imagine my trip. Even China, I would guess, would be easier to imagine. Quite simply, places like Burma and Thailand - along with, certainly, much of sub-Saharan Africa, parts of South and Central America, etc. - don't exist in the popular imagination of the so-called West. And to the small extent that they do, they exist as visions of poverty, grainy evocations of struggle and despair, condemned to places of hyperbole - like dramatic photojournalism projects, sensationalist films, overwrought newscasts, etc. - rather than reality. I don't like the metaphor of a divided world - binaries are inherently simplistic - but I can't help thinking I will be crossing some sort of threshold when I board my flight tomorrow.

I've been oscillating back and forth between a happy excitement and a nervous apprehension. Once I've reached Mae Sot and settled into some kind of routine, I think I will be much relieved. I do think I need some disruption, though, in my quietly comfortable life.

From one picture to the other, I set out. (I'm not sure what order they're in.) Please forgive, if you would be so kind, one last Kerouac quote: "So shut up, live, travel, adventure, bless, and dont be sorry - "