#93 Viva Abuc!
I had a dream that I visited this fantastic island in the Caribbean for two weeks. The dream was so vivid, in fact that I decided upon waking to write it all out as a work of fiction. I hope you enjoy this fictitious travelogue of mine. If only I had actually seen, experienced, or done any of the things that I describe herein. And if you get bored, the funny stuff is all at the end.
This all started when I decided that since I am 25% ABUCAN, it was about high time that I visited this odd little island in the Caribbean, where so many of my ancestors once lived, and some relatives still remain! ABUC is an independent island nation with a population of approximately 12 million people, and the island is about seven hundred miles wide (west to east, think California turned sideways) and about 50 miles long (north to south) at most points. It is the world’s seventeenth largest island, and probably the only one that can boast a self-sustaining economy that needs not to rely on any other nation for food or resources. Not very co-dependant.
In the interest of best expressing my perceptions, I am composing this column in mostly “note form.” Meaning that I have elected to type out my own notes from this dream-trip, verbatim; I am not editing anything for proper grammar and content. You may therefore find that this reads like a casual letter, and not like a well polished column, but I feel that this writing style is the best way to properly convey my true reactions to the Land of ABUC. Additionally, since ABUC is “muy tranquilo” this writing style serves as a good metaphor for their cultural lackadaisicalness. Any place that is capitalized in this essay will sound less funny should you happen to read it backward.
The first thing I noticed about ABUC was the lack of rules. On the airplane, AIR ANABUC, you walked on and sat down wherever the hell you wanted to. They suggested that you wear a seatbelt, and that you turn off electronic devices, but they did not enforce any of these policies the way that American airlines do. “Spirit of the law, not letter of the law.”
The second thing I noticed was that every woman under the age of about 45 was smoking hot. And I mean this without the slightest tinge of misogyny. I’m just saying, from the perspective of art and beauty, these women carry themselves in a way that embodies true beauty on an epic, artistic scale. My stewardess was so beautiful that I bought three packs of ABUCAN cigarettes from her for only 3 dollars (okay, I bought them cause I’m addicted to smoking…but, still, I also wanted an excuse to talk with a beautiful woman!).
The plane was a rickety old jet that reeked of Soviet-cold-war-era machinery. The seats flopped around and I felt like nothing was properly bolted into place. I love to fly, and my favorite part of flying is the eerie feeling of utter risk that I encounter as I trust man made machinery to carry me at 300-500 miles per hour, 30,000 feet above the ground, for hours on end, so this flight was just about the most exciting flight ever.
The customs officials at the airport (read: strict, unhappy looking, ultra serious military men dressed in full on military fatigues who scare the living hell out of you with their eye-contact alone) were not too happy with my profession. I explained that I was a writer, only to realize that this led them to assume that I wrote political articles for a living, (as opposed to comedic novels about the esoteric nature of our universe), and I was therefore coming across as a threat to their international reputation, and perhaps even to the security of their nation. After an exhausting struggle to persuade them that I write fiction, and that I’m a goofy idiot who couldn’t possibly write a mean thing about anyone in the world who isn’t an American politician or the President of Russia or Iran, they finally believed me, or at least got tired of trying to make me wet myself, and they let me into their fine land of palm trees, and bright azure skies! The main guy even smiled and wished me luck.
My first night on this island I went to a beautifully decorated restaurant and was extremely pleased with their whiskey and scotch selections! Being on a budget, I went for the “Jhonny” Walker Red, and it tasted just right (not watered down). Yes, you read that correctly, I flew all the way to a Caribbean island nation, famous for its rum, only to order my creature comfort whiskey neat at every restaurant I went to. “I am Mike Oppenheim, idiosyncratic idiot, hear me roar!”
The first night we ate in ABUC, my brother, who accompanied me on this journey, remarked in passing after we finished our meal that the three biggest failures of the ABUCAN Revolution are: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner.
But I do not agree at all with this joke, for ABUCANS are “normal” just like me, they prefer to eat the same darn thing for every meal, and since all I ever eat at home is black beans and rice with veggies, ABUC is the perfect land for a creature of routine like me. All the cuisine was simple, easy to digest, and quite filling; what more do you want out of food?
The billboards in this land are full of government propaganda. One such sign, on the way between ANAVAH and DADINIRT (the city in ABUC, not the island nation) really stuck out to me, because it combined two words not often used together in the U.S. This sign read: www.bush.genocide.com.cu (I have NOT bothered to click on the link…).
Within three days of landing in this magical place, I had a small epiphany that I’d like to share with my readers:
“If you fear rejection and you do not accept your own personality, then you are in for a life of trouble and unease, for the only way to ensure a peaceful existence on this Earth is to fully understand and then accept your own true nature. Traveling is a great way to facilitate this process, for this can only come about by juxtaposing your personal impression of yourself with the actual impression you make on the people you meet. Once you are able to understand other people’s perspectives of yourself, you will be able to accurately project and predict how others are going to treat you, and just how and why others accept you, despite your very real and also exaggerated flaws. We offer many allowances towards others, and often forgive and forget about pretty major transgressions, yet we are usually quite critical of ourselves, and this can lead to an unnoticed lack of self respect, which leads to fear of rejection, which leads to a lack of self love; and self love is the first block that must be laid in order for mankind to build a proper foundation for some sort of world peace.”
Moving right along…
I have discovered that asking for money and bumming cigarettes is mostly an American phenomenon. I write this because during my two weeks in ABUC, not one single local asked me for a cigarette, despite the fact that I kept my pack in my breast pocket, visible to all, everywhere that I went. A few people asked me to give them money for milk, but they were quite shy about it, and only asked after ten minutes of fluid, unrehearsed conversation.
Winter in ABUC is like summer anywhere else I’ve ever traveled. It’s a bit cool at night, but the temperature reaches about eighty degrees by ten a.m. Luckily for me, there was no humidity during my visit, so my hair didn’t curl up, and I didn’t sweat like a disgusting pig the way I did for six years living on the East Coast. (Humidity you are my nemesis and you have utterly defeated me, for I will never live anywhere that you lurk, ever again!)
The oddest thing about ABUC, when compared to America, is how often people there smile and laugh, and how so many of them seem to be truly enjoying their lives. I couldn’t get over how happy everyone seemed to be, and they seemed to be happy doing just about anything, be it sitting on a stoop and watching ABUCAN TV (watching the world as it passes you by), or conversing with a friend about most any subject. No one there seemed to be in a huge hurry, and despite their poor economy and lack of material possessions, no one there was very concerned with making ends meet, since education and health care are so accessible, they seem to not worry as much as we do, back here in the states.
The ABUCAN culture is very different from ours in regards to courting, dating, and marriage. They have a system where if a man holds a woman’s hand, then no one walking down the street will leer at either party, for they are taken, and therefore fully committed to one another. But if a man or woman walks alone down the street, it is fair game for any person to check them out with their eyes, only it’s not okay to make cat calls or rude gestures.
The culture is an odd mix of chivalry and misogyny; quite hard to explain. All men learn at a very early age to respect their mothers and sisters, and I saw many men opening doors for women and giving seats up for women. I also was told that there is little to no domestic violence there, and the amount of respect that an ABUCAN has for the importance of family came out in almost every conversation that I had during my visit. Despite their equal opportunities for education and work placement, I was told that the majority of ABUCAN women prefer to take care of children in lieu of taking on a government job, and every mother I encountered was doing an amazing job of child rearing; their sense of duty, compassion, and love was palpable.
In ABUC, it is customary for men to eat before woman, and to serve themselves before a woman is served. I could not deal with this culture shock, for some reason, and so I kept serving any girl I was eating food with first, and they thought that I was a total pansy for this. Ah, the irony of multinational socio-cultural translation gaps.
Everyone, let me repeat this EVERYONE that I met, including rural village farmers who work 70 hours a week, were very well educated, and everyone that I spoke with who was educated after the instillation of free education was full of mature observations and perceptions concerning world politics, economics, philosophy, and even literature. This blew my mind, and the fact that it’s virtually free to pursue graduate degrees and PHD’s made me realize just how foolish the U.S. is for making higher education so inaccessible to the poor.
Some of you may remember my story about buying a cup of coffee in japan (STBY # 56), and how much paper and packaging was wasted on me in their attempt to present the perfect gift (when all I really wanted was to slug back some black acidic tasting water with caffeine). Well in ABUC, it’s the exact opposite. You buy bread, and they hand you the bread, with no wrapping on it. The only things that are packaged are booze and water (in bottles) and cigarettes in “caja’s” (Cases). Almost everything else is just handed to you “sans” bag. Not so good for germaphobic people…
Perhaps the most interesting part of the trip for me was the fact that I fit into the culture extremely well. And I don’t just mean that I identified with their cultural norms, I mean that I literally look 100% ABUCAN, so until I was forced to open my mouth and openly butcher one of the most beautiful languages on earth (Spanish), everyone on the street, everywhere I went, completely ignored me. This meant that I got to observe and eavesdrop on locals who assumed that tourists weren’t around. I was also constantly offered free rum and free meals and even a few free rides from locals, who assumed that I was a local, and perhaps in need of some hospitality.
This nationwide sense of overwhelming generosity and brotherhood was by far the most touching part of my visit. There is nothing neither fake nor insincere about the ABUCAN people and their generosity. Their open-heartedness and nonjudgmental minds surpassed any level of accepting and caring that I’ve ever encountered from a stranger here in America. It literally blew my mind, and I’m still reeling from it, and trying to figure out how to become the “Johnny Appleseed” of spreading humanitarian care and concern back at home. My heart has been opened to a new joy; the joy of sharing everything you have with anyone you encounter, no just your friends and acquaintances, because it’s more fun to live in a world where no one suffers from envy.
Do NOT misunderstand me, however, I’m still a staunch proponent of free speech and democracy, and would never tolerate any dictatorship that forces sharing upon its populace. Forced sharing does not work. But in ABUC, these people were not forced to share rides, food, and drinks with me; they chose to do so because they wanted to share, and this earnest desire to keep everyone satiated was both beautiful and mysterious for me to observe. It all sounds so cliché and simple, now that I attempt to articulate it, but it really was the most fantastic part about the trip.
Sure, the land is beautiful, the surrounding sea is breathtaking, and the people are aesthetically gorgeous, but what really changed my perception of cultures was meeting an entire culture that lives on very little, yet has, perhaps, the lowest crime rate in the world. They may not have everything we have, and they may suffer tremendously at times, but they’ve certainly provided their people with education, health, and a sense of humanity that lacks in the United States, and I commend them for that.
I am certainly going to go back at some point in the future, but I’m not sure when and for how long, so until that day, I can only recall this dream, and relish in the many absurd differences that exist between ABUC and the West.
I’ll leave you now with a few random observations and things from my trip that I discovered about myself, various cultures, and the world; in cliff’s notes version:
*ABUCANS have an extremely energetic and enthusiastic love for all things Michael Jackson. They love his b-sides, and put stickers of him EVERYWHERE.
*Waking up to the sound of a pig being slaughtered is far worse than waking up to a rooster’s crow, a baby crying, children playing in a school yard, or any of my other previously written “most hated noises to wake up to.”
*When you don’t have toilet seats, you don’t have time to relax and read on the toilet. I think this would explain the lack of an ABUCAN Sports Illustrated Magazine (that or the utter poverty and government control of all literature, not sure which…)
*No matter the place, the local customs, nor the language, all mothers sound extremely (and overly) worried when they call out to check on the status of their children as they play in a front yard. It must be hardwired into the female DNA.
*When you are learning a language in which words have genders, you start to wonder if there hegemony was used in choosing the gender for words. Why is a street feminine, why is water masculine, and if shit is feminine, does that mean that women “are shit?” Or that women are “The shit?” Am I over thinking this? Yes.
*ANAVAH reminded me more of Portland than any other American city I’ve been to (and I’ve been to all fifty states and the biggest city in each of those states). Yup, ANAVAH is just like Portland, minus the pot, Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, trust fund hipsters, free speech, recycling, fancy multi-speed bicycles, gargantuan homes, metrosexual architecture, and vegans. Other than that, it’s like “bizzaro” Portland, I mean, because there are a lot of gardens and everyone drinks all the time….
*ABUCANS are not concerned with your personal space. If you ever visit there, and desire to fit in, you should be sure to kiss and hug anyone you meet who is a friend of someone you already know, and in a conversation, you should grab a person’s arm in order to emphasize any point you are trying to express. When you walk down the street, it’s just like walking drunk in a crowded nightclub, simply push your way through packed crowds and people, for they will only move when they are literally forced to because you are shoving them; saying excuse me will get you nowhere.
*ABUCANS would probably laugh for hours at our American signs that read: No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service. For in ABUC, anything goes. My friend Omar would love ABUC, since anytime the temperature gets over sixty; he automatically takes off his shirt.
*None of the houses or apartment buildings are painted in ABUC, because all of the paint in this land, evidently, goes towards painting the words “Viva La Revolucion” on practically every single blank wall. This government is dedicated to signage in a way that would make modern American advertising execs quite jealous.
*There is not a single Starbucks, McDonalds, or any other mega multinational company in ABUC, except, for some very odd reason, there is a “DHL Express” located at the corner of seventh and fourth streets in the residential neighborhood of ODADREV in ANAVAH…go figure.
*Traveling in ABUC was like traveling back in time. Very few people have cell phones, no one listens to music on headphones, the cars are antiquated, and it’s socially acceptable to drink and smoke like the characters on AMC’s “Mad Men” do. Suffice it to say, I loved every second I spent there! ABUC is probably the only place on Earth, outside of North Korea, that makes Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania look like it’s a futuristic city, instead of a dilapidated, rusting ashtray. VIVA ABUC!
