Travel : Minsk : The journey into hell

Warning

When I told my co-worker at Polstage, Poland that I am travelling to Belarus to see my friends, Tomek rolled up his eyes, “Ah, you are going to hell!" Not knowing what to say, I mumbled, “Really!" Later I asked the students from IAESTE Gliwice about means of transportation, Michal, Marcin M., and Tomek all shook their heads and shouted no at the same time, stamping off any enthusiasm I had before meeting them. “Do you want to go to place where you don’t know the local langue? It is not safe there. They will rob you, and the police will cause troubles. You know how it’s like between Americans and Communists? You've just told us that you didn’t want to go to Ukraine because it wasn’t safe. Hah, Belarus is even worse."  Marcin M. continued, “Do you see the difference between America and Poland? Imagine much more between Poland and Belarus."

Those nice Polish boys didn’t mean any harm; they just tried to help me.

What the hell!

My paranoia

The recent terrorism in Beslan did not help one bit. My geographical proximity disorder made it worst as I thought to myself, “Oh dear lord, the village is in Russia, and Russia and Belarus are former nations of the former Soviet Union, so they are close." I held on to this ridiculous approximation even after looking at the world atlas more than once. Normally, I’m not the type who is paranoid easily, but then I really considered whether I should go ahead with my travel plan after hearing warnings from the local people. I used the terrorist' act as a sign telling me not to go, but in the end I packed three pairs of clothing in my small backpack and left, hoping that things would be alright. Now to think about it, I am not sure whether it was my typical stubbornness, my wish to see my friends, or my guilt for having paid a lot of money to secure a visa into Belarus.

Oh hell!

Polish trains

My train from Gliwice departed at 5:10, changed at Katowice and later Warsaw, where I would catch a night train to Minsk. After handing me the ticket, Michal assured that the train headed directly to Minsk and reminded me to ask for a bed when I got on the night train. I thought to myself, “piece of cake."

I arrived at Warsaw around 9 p.m. without any incident. The only minor trouble was that my back and my legs were sore for sitting too long in a crowded compartment. I walked about the train station looking at Polish and newspapers' headlines hanging in kiosks. At that moment, my curiosity dial was switched all the way to zero because I was already at the same station last month with my friends, had it enough checking things out. "My" train finally arrived after 20 minute late. Following other people, I got in line waiting for my turn to hop on the train. When it was my turn, I showed the ticket to the train conductor. This old man looked at my ticket, shook his head, and waved his hand toward other people around me. I stepped out of the line thinking that he was letting in all the first-classers. After a while, I showed him my ticket, again and again he shook his head yelling in Polish. Usually, I would try to say something in Polish although I knew no one understood. But then, I didn’t feel funny anymore and frantically, disorderly shooting American English at him. I ran around, speed-read anybody whom I thought would speak English, and pointed one after another, “do you speak English?"  From the help of one local student, I learnt that my ticket only worth 23 euros while the cost of this train was 35. This mean, old train conductor wanted me to pay the full 35 euros instead of the difference of 12 euros. I wasn’t stupid! And if I was stupid, where would I find that amount of money? Believed that everything was taken care of, I brought with my only 20 zloties ( 1 euros = 4.X zloties) to buy food along the way. It was crazy to carry such amount of dollars or euros in the pocket. Even if I chose to be stupid and ran to the nearest ATM to withdraw money, I would not be able to because the train had started leaving carrying with it this grumpy, old man whose face I wanted to sock, “I’m entitled to be in that train you idiot!"

I was in a raging path for more than 15 minutes thinking I would buy a ticket back to Gliwice.  Being a typical superstitious Asian, I thought maybe this was another sign warning me not to travel to Belarus.

What I did from that moment until my being on the next train was very interesting, but I would save the details for another entry.

Going to Minsk

If I had stayed in Western Europe from the beginning, I would not have hurt my little head as much for having to install many new concepts and images of my “Europe". My conceptual image of Europe is the exact replica of that from America and the imaginary childhood pictures fixed in my memory of Paris, Rome, or London. Europe represents grand, romance, and intellect.  I was really excited to travel by train because I was looking forward to see green hillside and mountains, sparkling lakes, bluest seas, greenest trees, deepest forests, and royal buildings along the way and then  I could utter “Wow!"  Boy oh boy, my head would explode!

The Warsaw-St. Petersburgh express train took me through one of the most depressing scenery I’d ever seen after leaving Vietnam. There was no mountain since the rail route was in flatland; there were sporadic hills with scorched stomachs, dotting in oblivion. There was neither sea nor lake though there were a few puddles, darkened by mud and dirt, sparkled from the relentless sunrays though it was late summer. The sight of trees offered a little consolation because after the rain, they turned greener and soothe travelers' eyes. After passing Poland’s border and entering Belarus, the landscape transformed incredibly. If I think Poland’s buildings and fields are black, dirty, and ruined, those in Belarus were many time worse. I passed many vacant ruined houses with tattered pain or no pain at all, with holes of various sizes on the walls. Uneven logs were laid everywhere. But if no one lives here, where di the logs came from?

When I traveled by trains with friends, I felt like a kid running around here and there, chit chatting non-stopped. But being on this train by myself, seeing old men and women, sitting on wooden instead of leather chairs, spotting absolutely nothing worth to see outside the windows, still I smiled and felt delighted. This train’s compartment was longer and bigger than that in Polish trains. Perhaps wooden chairs were cheap to afford many, and the train needed space to load as many people as possible who wouldn’t care less about wooden or leather, pretty or ugly.

An old man who sat across from me held on his lap a bag of meat. After sitting comfortably on his seat, he took package after package of meat from the bag and cleaned them with a rag. I watched and waited to see when he would stop, but after cleaning all of them, he re-took the ones from the bag and cleaned them again. I told the two men next to me that I was going to Minsk and would like to know when I had to change train. With limited English, they said that they would let me know once we get to the station. Arriving at Brest, the meat-cleaning old man enthusiastically waved his hand at me shouting in Polish, “tu" meaning “here." Getting out of the train, I witnessed one of the funniest scene I saw in my entire life. Old men, old women, young women, and everybody carried a big black nylon bag—I think it was meat bags—rushing from everywhere to the custom control . Finished, they rushed away as if they were chased after by wild dogs. Who knows? They might have smuggled Polish meat to sell in Belarus. 

On the new train, I had to sit on wooden chairs again. After a few hours, my bosom was numb and had no problem sitting for next eight hours on wood. I felt the urge to take a shower because I was itchy from head to toes. However, I resisted against going to the toilet because the smells and sights there made me puke. It was fortunate that I didn’t have to share my seat with anybody, so I slouched myself on the wooden seat, put my head on the backpack and tried to get some sleep.

The Belarusians

Last year, when we chatted about housing in Minks, Tanya explained in her childlike manner, “I live in a big city, small flat. Masha lives in a big city, big flat. Sasha lives in a small city, big house, and Inna lives in a small city with flat is also small." The sizes of their flats and cities cover all permutation cases of 2.

A few days before I got on the train to Minsk, they emailed me informing that I would have the honor to live in a big city and a big flat with Masha. Masha’s flat was located at the suburb of Minsk, about 30 minute bus ride from the city center. It was on the third floor, the balcony looked out to a small wood surrounding the complex. The wooden balcony was small and had only enough space for two chairs, a place for dry pile of clothing; unused items; watermelons; and two ropes for hanging clothes. Each night, before going to sleep, I brought the clothes I wore during the day to hang them outside and stood for a few minutes inhaling the nocturnal fresh air. It was so quiet I could hear the buzz “u u" in my ears. Here, I slept right a way unlike in Gliwice, I had to turn around and looked up to the ceiling counting numbers. Normally, the sun had already risen by the time Masha woke me up; I tottered outside to gather my clothes. It wasn’t really cold as I only felt a bit of chilling through my spine.

Masha’s father taught Criminal Justice at a college nearby. He laughed all the time and every night tried to start a conversation with me in English. Occasionally, I squeezed my brain to spit out a few Polish words after realizing that Polish and Belarusian pronunciations for some words were familiar. It was understandable because Polish and Belarusian have the same Slavic root, and part of Belarus used to belong to Poland. Masha’s mom worked in a office in the same city and responsible for my nutrient intake during my four-day stay. She was very kind; cooking for the entirely family, sometimes asked me a few questions through Masha. Masha’s sister studied biology and worked part-time for the school’s lab by collecting grass, flowers, and small plants in the wood around the flat. She never opened her mouth to me during my entire time living there. She reminded me of my old self, being a shy kid in Vietnam. My mouth was closed tighter than that of a clam which mouth was being cracked opened by us mean meat-eaters. I had a solemn face of a person at a funeral; my mom scolded many times, “your face won’t bring any luck to your father’s and me. Try to smile so people wont’ think we neglected you." Now my face is a blend of the face of the bride in her wedding and a silliconaire who just lost his stocks after the dotcom crash.

Masha woke me up at 6 every morning, put away the bed bunk, performed the morning ritual: showered, shaved, and whatever, and ate breakfast her mom had prepared for us. Her dad and sister had left the flat since early; it was only her mom, she, and I with the family silly dog barking at everyone and eating every piece of watermelon we threw on the floor. I didn’t have to spend money at all for food during my stay in Belarus as I ate tasty homemade Belarusian food three times a day. At breakfast, I ate toasted bread with butter, grilled cheese, and salty fish, too salty as if somebody spread an extra layer of salt over the pitiful fish. I guess salty fish was a typical dish of the countries belonged to the former Soviet Union block because my roommate Mariana, who was from Ukraine, put on her food some piece of salty fish. Sveta from Russian did the same. Masha’s mom cooked rice mixed with carrots, bell peppers, and other vegetables which I couldn’t tell which from which. The taste was very different from my Asian usual cooking, but it was very good. There were always sweets, mostly chocolate, and tea with every meal. If I had known Masha and her mom liked chocolate, I would bring a lot from Gliwice because the cost for a box of good chocolate cost less than 50 cents. I also learnt that the potato cake dish that Michal prepared for us during our stay at the mountain was Belarusian national food not Polish If I had stayed longer, I might have the chance to eat this yummy potato cake with the family. 

 At dinner, we drank a couple glasses of red wine and chatted more since there wasn’t time constraint as in the morning. Then, I was somewhat used to the drinking consumption of the Europeans so that I was so surprised seeing kids, teenagers, and adults drink beer and alcohol as if I drink soda pop.

Triviality

Buses

I can’t count how many times I was sandwiched between a big fat belly and an also big fat ass in a maximum of thirty people capacity bus which loaded nearly seventy plus people. Buses in Minsk were probably the oldest among all buses I saw in places I passed. There was a lot of time I felt the bus would sidetrack and I would crash to the side. If there was a bus accident, the injure rate from people crashed people would be 100%. Masha and I couldn’t talk to each other because we had to hold on to the pole for dear life and breathed like pigs because of the body heat. One time at a bus station, we stood behind an old woman, not so skinny, who was trying to get on the bus but failed because the flat form was too high for her, and as I mentioned before she wasn’t too skinny. Standing right there, Mash held out her tiny hand at the center of that woman’s butt and successfully pushed her onto the bus. I couldn’t stop laughing and told all my friends about that incident. Honestly, I didn’t laugh at Masha; I laughed at her cute actions, but she misunderstood and justified, “C., I only wanted to help!"

President

At night, when it was not crowded anymore, my friends and I sat down on the bus seat and chit chatted nonsense. Tanya and Masha kept on ridiculing their president, Alexander Lukashenko, “You see, presidents of other countries are lawyers, businesses, big powerful men. And the president of our country was a former Agriculture Director. He isn’t respected by Europe." Agriculture plays an important role in Belarus’ economy, more important than industrial. This fact is emphasized by the picture of a grain plant on the Belarus' flag. “Focus on agriculture now is insane,"  my friends complained. This president also wanted to change the Constitution so that he could run again for president. (I think this is the reason why he isn’t respected by Europeans.)

Police

Sasha was currently working for a newspaper in Minsk as a correspondent. She just finished an article about juvenile crime and had to bring the newspaper to the local police to double check the facts before circulation. Police was one thing that scared me before traveling to this country, and now I had to be in a place full of them. It was really funny. A young policeman, whose name I forgot, wanted to know about American police especially their salary. I felt bad not wanting to say anything at all because Sasha told me before police here earned about 300 dollars per month. However, I had to tell them so I said 40,000 really quick and mentioned that police are hated in America because they work for the government and a few negative things about the police to negate the whopping number 40,000. I asked him about crimes in Minsk and learnt that people died here mostly from stabbing wounds or beaten to death. Before I left, I asked him to visit the US sometimes, but he said it would be impossible to go. At first I thought he had trouble traveling because of the stricter traveling custom between America and Eastern European countries. But he explained that he had too much information about the government, thus they wouldn’t let him travel abroad especially to America. I was extremely surprised encountering no problem with the police as warned by my friends and online travel tips to former Soviet Union countries prior to my arrival here.

Youth

University students received 30 dollars a month from the government for their schooling. For most, this was the only income beside family’s allowance. Almost everybody owned a cell phone, which cost 10 dollars, a third of their monthly earnings. Clothes were expensive. T-Shirts, tops, pants, and jeans were no less than $20 and classy dresses had with them the price tag of more or less $100.

Like their neighbor Polish, Belarusian girls were stylish. Most of them wore flashy tops and pants in addition with high heels, glittering pointy pumps. I felt as if I was walking in New York. Mariana, my roommate in Gliwice from Ukraine, showed me her clothing once, most of them were colorful silk tops and pants, with bright color like red, purple, and orange and told me that those were typical Ukrainians style. I saw the same style here in every store I stopped by. During my walk around Minsk with Sasha, I mentioned the cost of clothing, and she made a sound with her tongue, shaking her head, “it is a sad illusion, the girls wore expensive clothes they couldn’t afford and must have begged for money from their parents." Without hobbies, sometimes we would fall prey to the shopping activities because shopping does bring happiness. It’s also that women have more pressure than men to be well-dress. Have you seen a sloppy dressed woman and a well dressed man?

On the bus to Sasha’s dormitory, she told me of her plan to come to America. Her triplet sister, who lived in Wichita Fall, Texas at the moment, wanted her to come because she felt lonely having no relative nearby by except for her husband, whom she met while studying in Texas. Sasha was obviously worried about being in the United States, afraid that she would have to work forever as a waitress at McDonald and would have no future because as a journalist wannabe, she didn’t have any other skills. I assured and told her about many of my friends who came to America in their mid and late twenties and thirties and still able to make a place for themselves in this second country they called home. It made sense to be worried because most of her friends worked at the dead-end McDonald when they came to America. Last year, after finishing work at camp, Sasha took the Greyhound bus to Wichita Fall and worked illegally for a month in a Mexican restaurant (the natives exploit the immigrants, and the old immigrants exploit the new comers.) You wouldn’t believe how much they paid her. An exploiting wage of 2.5 dollars an hour. Still, she was able to bring back home $800, including the money earned from working at the camp. I don’t think I told Sasha that she impressed me in a lot of ways. At the age of 19, the girl seemed to figure out everything. Graceful, beautiful, insanely romantic, and ambitious, I don’t think she would have any problem succeeding in America at all. She emailed me recently to tell me that she would proceed with the p going to America plan in five years. Hopefully, things will work out for her.

Among many Belarusian girls who dream of coming to America, Sasha might be one of the very lucky few to be successful at that. One of her friend, after coming to America to work at a summer camp through Camp USA decided to stay in America working at a McDonald before applying for schools and staying permanent here. I asked Sasha how she would manage to do that if she didn’t have anyone there to help. “Yah, Cindy. That was exactly what I tell her," Sasha said, “she studies languages and very smart."

I spent the rest of the day hanging out with Masha, Tanya, and Sasha, only missing Inna, and having a great time before return to Gliwice. And somewhere in America, Inna probably was doing a McJob.

Hospitality

I was no closed with these Belarusian friends of mine while we worked together at a summer camp last summer. I paid more attention to them than others because I was curious about everything international. I didn’t expect much before coming to this country because everybody warned me that there would be nothing to see. However Tomek, the one who commented that I was going to hell, said, “they are poor but they are very hospitable. They are willing to take the food from their mouths and give it to you."  No, the Belarusian are hospitable, but they didn’t take the food from their mouths because it would be unsanitary and I would not dare to eat. I was in Belarus as an American who have American dollars available any time from ATM machine, but I didn’t have to pay for anything except for my train ticket. They were extremely mad at me as I continued shoving my money in their faces. It was strange to be pampered by a bunch of 18, 19 years old who would buy me bananas, bread, ice-cream, and ballet tickets.

My Vietnamese readers would say that I made a big deal about the Belarusians' hospitality because speaking of hospitality, Vietnam and Vietnamese have plenty. I know. I was born and spent most of my teenage years there.  However, I've lived in the US nearly ten years and gotten used to the fact, “you are my guest, but this is where it ends." There isn’t so much privilege being a guest in America. My friend Martina told me about her stay at an American co-worker' house. After breakfast, that co-worker asked everybody to give her a dollar each for the cereal. Martina told me the story while munching on her bread and shaking her head with disappointment. Another reason why I keep pounding on this subject so much is that I feel guilty remember how Inna was treated last year. A person called her cheap because she didn’t want to spend a lot of money, and the poor, unknowing girl ate the food from the refrigerator without buying them back. “You know what C., in my country guests don’t have to pay for food," (now I know why) she said, “why can’t we eat at McDonald? Why make me eat at an expensive restaurant? I don’t need to eat good food. I just want to see the world." “Hmm, Inna, I know. I know.  If you come to my house or my country, you don’t have to pay either." That was all I could say.

“But let her know that this is America, not Belarus," that person said, “this is an expensive city."

The end

Okay, this is from me to all of you who are cursed by others to an afterlife of damnation; you should not worry too much. Go ahead! Do sin because once you decide to go to hell, you would have abundant Vodka, tasty potato pancakes, food if not cheap then it will be free since you would eat them in a Belarusian family. You would ride on overloaded buses, being a hamburger sandwiched between two buns: man belly and woman ass and feeling as if you are about to lop-side.  You would not see what you dreamed before.  You know, those pretty photos of Europe on the calendars or the flyers promoting tours in Europe, mostly western ones. But is it important, really? Beauty is not always obvious; the definition of beauty is not universally defined. You should know what you want to see, and if the things you see are not what you expected from the beginning, are you able look at a different angle then?

I left Minsk at 11 p.m…  I looked through the window trying to see Minsk for the last time before the train’s wheels started cranking on the track, and the only thing I was able to spot was my vague reflection on the dirty glasses. I changed into my pajamas and tried to get some sleep. In my dream, I recalled and re-constructed the images and memories of my recent passage into hell.

 

Travel : Random : I don’t love my country as much

When we were young, the notion of the bigger outside world, of the never-met people, of the relationship among men, of the truth emerged, evaluated, manufactured, and expanded from the view of our smaller inside world, from the relationship among folks we knew too well, from the first “abc�? lesson, and from the advice of previous generations.

That world, those people, and that truth wasn’t so bad, in fact, they were paradise if we disregarded our senses and most importantly denied the burning passion in our souls and overlooked the whispering melody in our hearts. We would live a happy and innocent life only if…

The bigger world now catches our attentions, the never-met people now walk around us, the larger truth surface, attract, and hit us upside down for realizing that the world from the glorious past, the close-knit and lovely people, the highest values which were the foundation of those beginning parts of our lives, now become mistake, deceit, superficiality, control, injustice, something so hurtful.

The most important thing in life for each of us, from a little kid to an old man, female or male is that we must have our own freedom to model, to create, and to put together our own destinies, to become those special characters we imagined of ourselves during childhood. If for some reason we trip over, then it will be a calculated fall, not an unplanned comfort. Comfort is excellent, but by holding on to the familiar comfort, we will remain the same selves we always were.

I am not old enough yet, thus life experiences I don’t have many; but I have met and interacted with some if not plenty individuals, for accepting or being forced to accept the principles of the conservative culture, “you have to live this way because this is the traditions passed down from our great ancestors,” have and will endure much more in this life as hard as it is. This way or that way, temperament, mind-set, and human development of each individual are not functions of a particular culture. It’s insanely ignorant to substitute yellow-skin Asian or white-skin American-European for x to get out a rigid ideology y. Every time there is a rising of conflict centers this issue, the easiest justification is, “nah, don’t pay attention, they just follow the traditional way!”

But traditional until when? I never require of my country to have royal castles and financial skyscrapers; I never once dare to dream of affluent metropolitans with express trains and imported cars; I would never need the �?ồng to hold the same value with the dollars or euros because then they are only of materialistic value without which lives might be more difficult but after all people will keep on living. I only want the very basic human treatment among one another to be more equal; there shouldn’t be the thought controlling, uninformed judgment, the personal attack of anybody only because I am younger than her so the truth belongs to her, I am a kid who knows nothing so I have to shut up and listen, I am born a girl so I have to remain submissive, I was born and raised in an Asian country so I have to strictly follow the values of the yellow-skin, I was born in an Asian country but raised with Western influence so I feel like a banana picked from a tropical forest and saved in a Western-made refrigerator, and I was born and raised in a pure Western culture so I can never compromise the land of blood and the land of living.

If country is simply Ho Dzenh’ stories, the park benches moved to the street , the people riding their bikes and cyclos under the tropic sun or the monsoon rain, the kids near the garbage dump, the adolescents migrating to city for work, the adults with bending back and wrinkles after wrinkles on their foreheads, the Quan Ho singing I never heard on a Northern rice field; it still is country although it is a country with hardship, a country unsure, a country full of unfortunate angels, a country with only hope, a country with centuries of harsh life experience, or a country with aesthetic value in the ugliness. This is still a beautiful collection of live and mutual exclusive models without the mingling of each one of these models.

Now with the interconnections, I don’t have much affection for that place anymore!

9.9.04