Going to America

An
American in Asia:

His Quest for Cosmic Truth

(or at least a Decent Espresso)

It's time to "get back, get back, get back to the U.S.S.A." My Thai wife is now in the convoluted process of obtaining her US visa and, once that's finished (they say three months or so), we'll be on the first plane to the States.

This will be my second try at life in the US after years in Asia. My first try was three years ago, after a long stint in Japan. You wouldn't think it would be that hard for an American to live in America but for me it was.

In early 2003, I fled Japan after a particularly grueling month of sudden, unexpected heartbreak and unemployment. Considering where to go from there, a return to the States seemed like the logical next step.

Arriving at SeaTac Airport, I spent a week or two getting reacquainted with my family in the Northwest. I scoped around Seattle for a hint to my next step, but nothing seemed to catch my eye. I did, however, notice an overwhelming lack of anything that interested me.

So, determined to give the US a chance, I contacted a driveaway company and arranged to take a car across the country for them. I piled all my belongings into this tiny economy car with an engine that sounded like an enraged mosquito and headed off to New York City. I figured, after Tokyo, it was the only place that could have a chance of holding my attention.

Despite it being the winter season, I decided to take the northernmost route as I'd plowed through Kansas and Utah way too many times in the past, on tours with my band. The moment I left, a giant snowstorm decided to rage down out of the Arctic and chase me clear across the country. Radio announcers shrieked about the horrors of white waste it was about to wreak on the Northern half of the US, as I streaked through the mountains of Montana. I put the pedal to the floor and took full advantage of that state's lovely "no speed limit" policy. With the fury of winter bearing down on me I pushed that poor vehicle mercilessly up and down the Rocky Mountains and out onto the plains.

Soon the beginnings of heavy snow caught up with me and every time a giant 18-wheeler passed I was blinded by a blizzard of dirty slush. By the time the truck had slithered around in front, I had no idea where the road was and whether I was still following it. I would just follow the truck's wake and stay within the swirling, blinding shower and hope for the best. Knowing no one behind would see the tiny white car I was driving, slowing down was not an option.

I drove by day, slept in Motel 8s at night and ate in diners when I was hungry. Talk about culture shock - we don't do sushi in this town, pardner. Yet I guess that's why I took this trip. It was an attempt to shock myself back into being an American, to stop bowing to everyone and apologizing for everything.

I had only one single human encounter during the eight-day journey, in the fabled town of Wall Drug. This town is known among bikers as the gateway to a beautiful, if somewhat stark, ride through the badlands of middle America. To everyone else it's known as a source of bumper stickers that say, "Where the Hell is Wall Drug?"

I pulled off the main road and drove two miles to the centre of town. Since the town consists of only one road, centre might not be the proper word. The drug store of Wall Drug is obviously the town's main attraction. I don't even think they sell drugs. It's a sprawling complex of kitchy souvenir shops, all selling junk with variations on the theme, "Hey, this town's name is Wall Drug. Ain't that a hoot!"

I sat down to a two egg breakfast, which is one thing you can't get in Japan (or if you can, they'll give you a salad on the side, which just ruins the whole thing for me). The waitress was a fetching girl with hair dyed a colour red that all respectable punk-rockers have used at one time or another. She had come from Czeckoslavakia with her friend on some student exchange programme.

I asked her, "You come from a country famous for all kinds of culture and art. Why Wall Drug?"

"It's different," she said.

"So, what do you do for fun here?" I asked.

"We get some beer and a bunch of friends and go to the Badlands," she said. Something she saw on my face made her add, "They're really interesting. Really. "

I was back on the road in an hour and soon passing into Great Lakes country. The storm had truly caught me by now and my knuckles were a skeletal white as I jostled the steering wheel and tried to strike a bargain between rubber and ice.

I finally pulled in at another Motel 8. The eerie thing about Motel 8s is they're all the same and, though I'd just driven ten or twelve hours and encountered Czecks in Wall Drug, when I hit the bed it seemed like I'd travelled nowhere at all.

In the morning I was on the road again. The storm flowed across me as I pulled up into the mountains of Pennsylvania but, after crossing the Rockies, those little pre-pubescent Apalachian bumps didn't seem much more than impressive hills.

New York, New York! New York.

I pulled into New York in three feet of snow and managed to navigate a nearly direct path to the apartment I'd arranged for myself in Brooklyn, a couple stops on the L train from Brooklyn Heights. Oddly, I'd gotten it through a friend in Tokyo. It was a great location. The train would take me straight into Manhattan and land me in the East Village. I'd really loved New York every time I'd been through there with my band and I was looking forward to hitting all the good spots again.

Yet, perhaps because of Winter or because of terrorists, something seemed missing this time. Maybe I had changed, but it felt like the people were less friendly, and the fun was less fun. I spent two or three months there trying to find a job that I would want to do for a few years to life, but in the end I failed. Or New York failed.

I took the subway into town and trunched through the snow up and down the island every day, but nothing really left an impression on me. More and more I found myself gravitating to Chinatown, but I felt even more of an alien there.

I had the idea to continue working as a Japanese translator and, in the course of my internet job searches, locations in Asia naturally turned up. I started clicking on links like Shenzen, Yunnan, Shanghai, Ho Chi Minh, and Saigon. The moment I made the decision to head back to Bangkok, the clouds lifted and I was myself again.

I'd had a week's vacation there a couple years back and at that time, it had struck me with a feeling of familiarity and cosiness and maybe I knew it was going to me my home one day. Less than two weeks later I was on a plane back to see my family in Seattle, then on to Bangkok and a future that was only loosely knit together.

Now, three years later, I'm returning to the US again. I feel more optimistic about it this time, as I'm bringing a big piece of Asia with me in the form of my lovely wife. Through her eyes, I may be able to see America as a strange new place, full of possibilities.

Jeffrey Studebaker has been (in no particular order) a SE Asian correspondent for a Singaporean travel magazine, a teacher, consultant and translator in Japan, a guitarist with the band, Swoon 23 in every city of the US of A, a coffee roaster in Seattle, a bike messenger in Portland, a marine fire system repairman in Seattle, an osteoporosis clinic researcher in Providence, a mental ward counsellor on the night shift in Portland, a brief success in New York, and he has now returned to the US after nearly a decade in Asia to pursue a publishing career.