The Visa Diaries

Global warming notwithstanding, winter has finally arrived in the Northeast. Although I live across the street from my studio and my commute could be all of 2 minutes, every morning I make a short detour to BookTrader, our local independent coffee shop. Until I have my cup of dark roast coffee, with a generous pour of half-and-half, the day just feels jagged and provisional.

I remember when I was living in San Francisco during the height of the dot-com boom, and working near South Park, which was a mecca of venture financed start-ups, all hysterically racing to capture eyeballs, market share, and millions with their web-thingy’s. In the aftermath of the bust, a friend of mine who worked nearby commented, “out of this whole area, I bet the company that made the most money was Centro,” the little independent coffeeshop on the park. I had to agree.

Coffee is a small, momentary comfort and pleasure. It doesn’t break the bank or split the seems, yet somehow makes life bearable, whatever is seeming unbearable without it. It facilitates a whole attitude shift, almost a lifestyle shift – bringing whatever the task is into the image of the furnished lifestyle. Does that make sense? I mean, all of a sudden, gourmet coffee in hand, I feel like  a person in a movie, or a person in an image, who’s doing the thing I’m doing with grace and forbearance, as opposed to the dumb banal schmuck who just does it and suffers (whom they don’t make movies about).

My thinking goes, ‘ugh, I didn’t get enough sleep and about to get reamed by my teacher for not producing enough, but at least I can have a nice warm cup of coffee.’ Or, ‘I can’t do much about the jerks in power or the war in Iraq, but at least I have a hot, fragrant liquid warming my tummy.’ Its that small turn-around, that small thing to look forward to that makes it possible to face the rest. Maybe it is all very Zen, or maybe it is escapist. Maybe it is an example of a modern ritual, which commentators say we lack, or maybe it is buying into Starbucks’ marketing hype. Or, maybe after I have another cup of coffee, I will be able to deal with the uncertainly.

January is often a time of rest – hibernation and recuperation. After all the flurry – all the eating drinking, buying, consuming, socializing, etc – of the holiday season, January comes around and shows us the icy, cold light of day, requiring that we pay for the excesses of December.

I mentioned briefly that I did a juice-detox while in Thailand, with the fantastic Lucas at Absolute Yoga on Koh Samui. For three days I had nothing but fresh juice, very diluted, one serving about every two hours. Now, I love fruit and vegetables and and the idea of healthy things probably a bit more than the next person, so I was very excited for this detox. But I will not tell you that it was effortless or went by without me even noticing. Three days is not a long time, except when you are in the middle of it, and you walk by a restaurant exuding an amazing smell, or watch your friends tuck into a tasty lunch. The strangest thing was that all of a sudden I began to notice signs advertising food – menu boards posted outside of restaurants, billboards advertising food, etc. Bizarrely, the environment just seemed teaming with food-related words, that in the normal course of things must just get filtered out by my subconscious without making it through the threshold to my conscious awareness.

However, neither was the detox unbearable. Those times of temptation passed relatively easy, my energy was good, and I did not feel particularly hungry. The overall lightness I felt, not to mention the fact that I fit right into a bikini that had previously shown some bulge, was motivation enough for me. After the third day, I was even tempted to keep going, if Arvind had not threatened a hissy fit at the idea of our holiday indulgences being curtailed even longer. All in all, it felt like I started the new year off right for my body, and I’ll look forward to doing more on a seasonal basis.

So, the whole detox for the body got me thinking about detox on other levels, such as… detox of consumption. What would that mean, and how would it work? I read in some women’s magazine at the gym recently about a writer who had decided not to buy any new clothes for a whole year. Which of course sounds extreme. Like, I didn’t juice diet for a whole year, did I?? Three days was plenty.

January would be the perfect time for a shopping detox, because the holidays are passed (I’ve spent all my money), I don’t have any friends with birthdays requiring resents (oops, except Rachel, who I forgot again… happy belated birthday Rach!!) And like, its so cold and dark anyway, who can get inspired by new gear? I’m all up for it. All of January, no shopping – no clothes, accessories, or shoes. I can just envision the mental and karmic clarity radiating from my being.

Next year. I mean, I’ve already blown this year. I hadn’t planned ahead for it, and there was a moving sale at one of my favorite shops. But next year, yeah, that sounds good…

I think Duty-Free is a big misnomer. Every time I travel internationally, I feel absolutely duty-bound to buy something at the airport, either on the way there, or on the way back, or both. Whoever idea duty-free was, is a genius. Actually, I seem to remember reading in some glossy mag that it was the idea of somebody called Frank Miller (father to the ugly Miller sisters, who pay publicists to get them into the social pages of said glossy mags). Well then, Mr. Miller was a genius.

Let’s be honest, the “duty-free” part is what consumer psychologists (I took a class in this last term) call an “enabling attribute.” An enabling attribute is something like anti-lock breaks on an expensive sports car – a practical feature that we use to rationalize a purchase that is really big-fat indulgence. The 10% or 15% that we save in tax at duty-free, which usually becomes rather insignificant by the time you count in vagaries of exchange rate and product availability, just lets us delude ourselves that we are being a responsible shopper.

The slight discount, supposedly unavailable ina any other venue, is just like the car salesman who says, “I’ll give you this price if you buy now, but if you come back tomorrow, it might not be available.” Another thing I learned in that consumer psychology class is that we are much more motivated by fear of potential regret – ie, we’d rather plonk down for something we don’t really need, than wake up tomorrow morning with despair in the pit of our stomach because we missed out on the only jar of Creme de la Mer that will ever be available to us in our whole lives! See, it taps into something really irrational.

The other genius things about duty free are that it happens at just the right time, when we are in holiday-mode, and thus ready to loosen all our normal responsible thinking, and have a good time. Those Gucci sunglasses that seem just a bit excessive in the normal course of things, all of a sudden seem the perfect emblem of our free-holiday-spirit. Go on, burn out the credit card – after all, in comparison to the price of the plane ticket and the rest of the trip, that new watch is just a drop in the bucket!!

And, even better, if we just think about it right, we can see that duty-free saves us even more money. First of all, there’s the fact that I always sample profusely, and use it as an opportunity to bolster my skin defenses against the coming onslaught of dry, recycled airplane air. I’d say two different kinds of eye gel, a moisturizer, and a refreshing facial mist is about par for a session of sampling at duty-free before boarding. The more expensive, obviously, the better – Chanel, La Prairie, and Creme de la Mer are all good stops.

Then, duty-free also saves us money by preventing the waste of unused foreign currency. Rather than just stuffing it in those “Change for Good” envelopes on the plane, if we have $5 worth of foreign currency left on the way back, it makes perfect sense to buy part of a $100 hat with that, the rest on credit card, just so you’re not wasting money. yeah.

For all of these reasons, for its very embodiment of holiday-ness, I look forward to duty-free. I look forward to whiling away the time before my flight amongst all the cosmetic concessions, and get annoyed when I am late to the airport and it cuts into my duty-free time. It represents holiday time, and in that sense (and that sense only) is actually duty-free.

That I will make a purchase at duty-free is almost a given. With all of these pressures, I am feeling extremely virtuous to say, this time my purchase was all of a Clarins juicy lip gloss, in the perfect bright-red, white-girl-in-the sunshine color.

Er, at least I was that good in New York. In Hong Kong a pair of sunglasses might have crept in. But I needed those.

Kuala Lumpur is one of those amazingly exotic sounding places, like Zanzibar or Samarkand – at least to my American ears. It is always mentioned in movies as the source of ocean tankers full of illicit cargo, or nefarious asian gang goings-on. Whenever I heard the name, it conjured images of sultry yellow lighting over semi-obscurred characters in luxuriously carved wooden rooms, sites of mysterious dealings and romantic liaisons.

Arriving there last Sunday, however, the actual Kuala Lumpur presents quite a different picture. Apparently, the Malaysians have been quite industrious over the past quarter century, and cleaned up most of the exotic, colonial “asianness” (pardon my Orientalism) that was the Kuala Lumpur of my fantasies. The “KL” of today is all modern high-rise, eight-lane highway, and gleaming mega-mall.

Seemingly, it should be the country for me: as one person I met told me, “the pastimes of most Malaysians are eating and shopping.” (This was offered in explanation of why none of the locals had been up the the jungle in the North of the country that is an international ecological treasure and tourist destination). Fair enough – although I did go to the jungle, I also went to the mall. And ate a lot. More on that:

What I didn’t find fair enough was the rampant sizism of the Malaysian malls! Even had I not been eating for Asia (and to be fair, with the 3-day juice fast that I did in Thailand, I think it all came out equal), there was not one thing in that mall that fit me!

Starting with shoes – we started with shoes because Arvind left my Christmas gift on the airplane, and thus was trying to replace it with a pair of casual, flippy, low-heels. We found the perfect pair at Bally… and then found that they only do up to a size 39. Apparently nowhere in the whole country, perhaps continent (because I tried again Hong Kong duty free) does higher! I am a size 40 – 9 US, 7 UK – which is perfectly normal and perhaps even small for someone who is 5′ 10″. However, if I lived in Kuala Lumpur, apparently I would have to go barefoot. Polite yet feckless, one sales person after another smiled and shook their heads, with absolute certainly that they did not have my size. Well then.

Stymied on the shoe front, and still in need of a Christmas pressie, I thought maybe some nice, tailored long jean shorts would be the thing. I spotted a Miss Sixty shop, and inside the perfect pair – just the right combination of funk and coy. And asked for my size: 30. Again, completely reasonable for all those of us who don’t make our living by walking a runway in Milan or Paris. And to think I had actually been feeling rather fit due to my juice fast. Oh contrare! The punky, spaghetti-noodle bodied salesboy came to my dressing room and announced: sorry, we don’t have that size ma’am! Here’s tip: if you ever want to feel utterly too big, like a kid outside of a candy store, just go shopping in Kuala Lumpur. At least it will save some cash. Which you will of course need to send with the therapist once you get back home.

In the end, my Christmas present from Arvind turned into a wallet. Turquoise patent leather, and very cute. Shockingly, wallets turn out to be the same size in Kuala Lumpur as everywhere else in the world – my credit cards fit into it no problem.

For the tourist, Thailand is pretty much heaven on earth. It is prosperous and developed enough to offer a modern travel infrastructure and high-end amenities if you so desire, and yet at the same time, undeveloped enough so that general prices remain cheap and there is still lots of exotic “flavor.” Add to that the sunny skies and the even sunnier disposition of the Thai people, and an economy seemingly based on service and pleasure, and you have a holiday destination that is just about perfect.

For a western tourist converting pounds, or even the miserably flailing dollar, anything can be had in Bangkok, and not even for a very high price, the most obvious example being the notorious sex trade. The road outside our door had a lively night market, where food stalls, designer knock-off stands, and rag-tag bars all spilled out and mingled in the street. These bars were not the dedicated go-go bars of Pat Pong (where the showgirls do wonders with ping-pong balls, so I am told), but yet even here there were girls hanging around, open to liasons and transactions of various descriptions. As a white woman with an Indian boyfriend, we were opposite to every other interracial couple we saw – petite, decked out Thai girl on the arm of podgy, aging white man, after petite, decked out Thai on the arm of podgy, aging ahite man.

For obvious reasons – including moral outrage, visceral repulsion, and the fact that I am not a man – my indulgence in the Thai delights stopped at the world-famous Thai massage. Massage is truly a house speciality here, with several academies training the renowned Thai method, and massage parlors all around town more numerous than Starbucks in a suburban mall. At $8 for an hour of kneading and stretching, anybody with a body would find it hard to resist. In fact, we found it hard to resist almost every day If the question is, ‘Can one have too many massages?,’ I’d have to say we never reached the limit…

Not all masseuses are created equal, its true. On our first day, Arvind and I chose a place at random, and it was wonderful – in an airy loft, we were given white pajama-like things to wear, and twisted, kneaded with elbows and feet, and generally wrung out by two friendly, chatty women. So happy were we, that the next day, we decided to go for the two hour version. Only were we in a different part of town, and so again just popped into the nearest parlor. Which turned out to be nowhere near as nicely appointed and spirited-ly run. No matter, we thought, as long as the massage is good. Well, that turned out to be mediochre too.

Twenty minutes in, when my lady’s cell phone rang and she proceeded to chat into it at length, while listlessly rubbing the same spot on my leg with her one free hand, we considered leaving. However, that seemed difficult without being rude or hurting feelings… and then, after all, massage is a bit like pizza – even a bad one is still pretty good.

With only one semester more of school ever, it is time I start getting nostalgic for the student life. So, here goes: two of the very best things about life in the ivory tower are 1.) student discounts, and 2.) long school vacations. And when you put those two things together, you get… me going to Thailand and Malaysia for 2 weeks!! ding ding ding! (Well, I guess a long-distance relationship has something to do with it as well, as I’m meeting up with Arvind there, but the trip wouldn’t be possible without the other two.)

The Amex card isn’t the only one with priviledges – armed with my International Student card, I am looking forward to sunshine, balmy seas, thai massages and that whole south-east asian backpacker/dropout thing. Can’t wait!

I will log on from the road, don’t worry, and I will be soooo chilled/ massaged/ sun-drenched you will hardly even recognize me. You also may not recognize me because it may really not be me – I have recruited a guest-star blogger during my absence, my friend Christina, who is a champion shopper too.

Ta ta till Thailand!