Half An Interview

: I'm sorry I'm late.

: They don't? I'm surprised. Who? No, no, don't actually tell me. I mean, I'm at least 45 minutes late and we're not Spain, or, I don't know, Thailand, so... that's rude, right? That's rude.

: ::laughs:: It's just how my family raised me.

: I don't know if it's all that unusual. Just because these freakishly talented families who just squirt out one after another after another are so high profile, doesn't mean that the majority of us just sort of come out of nowhere. I don't mean to call them nowhere, of course. But as you said, my mom's a dentist and my dad's a kindergarten teacher. We didn't even have a TV in the house, actually. The first movie I saw was 'Home Alone', I was 6, it was at a friend's house, and I stopped watching it after the kid threw up pizza. That was just gross. You remember that scene? Almost on grossness par with Tom Hanks puking into his astronaut helmet in Apollo 13. Oh God, I'm sure it's not actually called an astronaut helmet. I just can't remember the right term. But the splattering like it was going to come out of the screen... anyway, I walked out of that one too. Right out of the theatre and sank to my knees in the hallway.

: No, I obviously have a serious phobia of throwing up.

: In Ladies? That was a body double.

: Yes.

: Yes, I really got a body double to puke for me. Why would I lie about that? Actually - am I allowed to say this? I'm sure I am - it wasn't real, anyway. It was oatmeal. With honey and egg or something. Just spitting it up while fake gagging. But still. Couldn't do it. In fact, I don't watch that scene in the movie.

: Okay, good idea. I agree.

: I didn't. I wasn't one of those kids who declares they want to act from, I don't know, straight out of the womb, and then joins all the theater groups in school and gets to play Macbeth or the equivalent thereof for the rest of their secondary school career. I didn't actually act until college.

: No, I should amend that, actually. I didn't act formally until college. When I was a kid I pretended I was different people all the time. My longest standing character, created, I think, when I was four, had emigrated from Russia, played the xylophone proficiently, and spoke an invented-on-the-spot language that sounded nothing like Russian. But I think they don't call that acting. I think they call that lying.

: Of course I didn't! That was the fun of it. But you're good. My mother said that to me once. She said, 'if you want to tell stories, that's fine, but just make sure to tell us they're stories afterwards so we don't worry.' Of course, I listened, and nodded, and then ran off and did not listen to her advice because seriously, what's the point in telling stories if people know they're fake so they can relax? You want to draw people in. You want their real emotions and their real reactions. Or else it's 'that's a great story, sweetie!' instead of 'Holy $#!&, you saw WHAT? Are you okay?' There's a difference. There's a huge difference. Especially to a kid and especially to an actor. Oh, can you write 'holy $#!&' in this magazine? Oh well, too late if you can't.

: In fictional movies? We do the exact opposite. I mean, yes, of course, it's a movie and it's classified as fiction or nonfiction, so its packaging is an inherent caveat. Sort of like saying, 'Mom, this is going to be a lie.' But as soon as people are past the packaging, once they're in the theatre or at home in front of their televisions with the DVD inserted, our very first goal, our first and most important goal, is to make people forget the packaging, and forget the label. Forget we ever said 'Mom, this is a lie.' We want them to believe with every synapse in their brain that this is reality, that it's actually happening. That every occurrence on the screen will impact their world. If Yellowstone does erupt, for example, you know, onscreen, we want people rushing to their underground shelters with Saltines in hand before they realize what they're doing.

: I would. I would absolutely support the idea of people running in droves out of the theatre to take shelter. And not just because they'd have to buy another ticket later when they realized what they'd done. ::laughs::

: No, I think any director's ideal is to achieve that level of realism. Maybe I'm wrong.

: Well, I'm grown up now, but more to the point, everyone knows who I am. I can't make up pasts for myself. I can't say that something happened to me when it didn't. There'd be hundreds - thousands - of people who knew me at some point in my life stepping forward and testifying against me. Well, not testifying. I don't mean to infuse this with such unnecessary gravity. Because obviously, it's not like it's a human right to have the freedom to lie to people whenever you want.

: On the contrary, actually. Sometimes, after acting in scenes where everything's so carefully scripted to be clever, or momentous, or hilarious - real life starts failing to measure up. I mean, no conversation can possibly match a placed plot point in a story. Not every time I talk to a man in a coffeeshop is going to end in a night full of whimsical adventure and mystery. Not any time will. But at the same time, not every time I walk to the bus stop is going to end with my getting pulled, unwillingly, into a murder scheme which puts my life in danger and, ultimately, gets my organs harvested in a bathtub. Not any time will. Hopefully.

: But do you know what I mean? Everything you do when you're not acting starts seeming flat. It starts to seem like it's the unreal part. That it's filler. And that's not a good feeling. Because even though it doesn't feel like it sometimes, the filler is the majority. I mean, I'm sitting here, calling real life filler, instead of, you know... real life.

: No, I wouldn't call it depressed, per se. I might call it dread, but that's being extremely pessimistic about it, and you sort of pointed me in that direction. See, as I get older, the filler may slowly become everything. Because no one can maintain the same level of frenetic working as they age. Even though of course, I'd prefer to. I'd prefer to always be speaking some perfect line of script, or else, at least, to always be a pawn in someone else's grand scheme. But right now... you know, most people who would refer to their real life as 'filler' have nothing else to escape into. Real life is real life and that's their everyday experience, every second of every day. And yeah, I'd call them depressed.

: You mean it's not immediately obvious?

: Of course. Well, the reason I'm different is because my real life also consists of these scripted moments and schemes. Just because it's meant to be a fabricated story doesn't mean I'm not physically doing it. A great percentage of my life actually is spent contributing to these fantastic stories and feeling for all the world like I'm influencing them. I don't have that 'every second of my life having to be my own life' thing going on. If that makes sense.

: I don't know if dramatic scenes are something that someone can stop expecting to just happen. I don't know that I'll ever shake the feeling that my words, the way they come out naturally, will never be as good as a sentence some screenplay writer agonized over for weeks. And why should they, anyway? Why should they?

Apologies and such for the long absence; they were doing porn-based repair at the internet café for a few weeks, or at least that’s what I gathered from the repeated denials of the front desk guy that they were open even though there were 6 guys inside downloading porn.

(Oh, and incidentally, who keeps posting comments and then deleting them? That drives me insane. Like, I’m ‘blessed’ with an overactive imagination that keeps conjuring up images of lovelorn secret admirers when the truth is probably closer to people getting drunk and typing rambling comments which they delete the next morning. Either way, I need to know.)

The entries I had had written follow:

Thursday, December 14

Things are looking up. Whenever I use that idiom after four months of teaching English I picture all the animate and inanimate components of the improved situation literally looking up. Scanning the sky. Getting a suntan. Desks, students, cheesy posters, the EF building in general. Although most of it, actually, is still looking down, the small part of it that I mean is that I was looking at the teachers’ schedule the other day and realized how insanely better my schedule is than everyone else’s. Better for me, anyway… meaning that when everyone else is teaching loud obnoxious misbehaving children, I tend to be teaching Pre-Advanced Level 10 adults. Loud obnoxious children still figure significantly into my schedule – there’s really no avoiding it – but definitely not to the degree that they figure into everyone else’s. I salute you, fate. I salute you, Director of Studies.

Friday, December 8

I’m struck sometimes by how inaccurate of a portrayal of everyday everydays this blog, or any blog, is. I wonder if it’s possible to depict an atmosphere, a general feeling, in words. I’m struck by inconsequential things too, though - I’m struck by the location of my commas, and not in a complimentary way – so don’t attach too much gravity to it or anything.

How many times must I impress upon cyberspace the lingering odor of durian in the open market before I feel vindicated? Is there an upper limit to the number of entries in which I can mention the many ways in which being a bule sucks? How about the hundreds of beautiful beaches? Does it ever end? It’s repetitive because my life here is repetitive. Remember that and you will have something of a grasp on what my entries are failing to communicate.

To attempt not to whine in the midst of something crushing is fruitless. The last sentence I said aloud was ‘Stay the hell out of the Mody chocolate paste – I mean it.’ Before you ask, it’s basically icing in a glass mug, but it’s the cheapest form of chocolate there is.

The enormity sometimes hits me right around the times when I’m giving a Papuan Catholic bishop (the same one who was present when I had to explain was a cock was) his final speaking test, and the question is on fears and phobias, and I’m expecting spiders, I’m expecting cockroaches or maybe crocodiles, but I get the Indonesian Army; I get that he and other local religious leaders – Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims – are traveling to Yogyakarta to meet with the Indonesian President about the problem of violent clashes between the military and the people. I ask a sixteen-year-old girl about a stressful day in her life expecting too much homework or a breakup with a boyfriend, and instead I get that her mother sold her pet dog to people who made it into dog stew for a feast, and they killed it in her living room where she could hear its screams.

There are these times, where I’m captivated and saddened, and I think it will last forever. I think it will last forever until I step out into the evening heat of the marketplace and insert the hum of complaints about being treated like a celebrity here. Actually, don’t. There’s nothing I can say after the image of the girl’s pet dog being killed for stew that won’t sound, that won’t BE, trite.

Wednesday, December 6

There’s one pitted lychee on each finger. One finger on each letterkey. Typing still feels alien to me. When I look at my hands, I remember why. If I squint right they look like a frog’s, the finger pads splayed and glistening.

I’m writing this for you, so pay attention.

This morning there was a thin beaded mask of sweat on every surface that I touched. A band around my upper lip and the back of my neck like a slipped bandanna. I was dreaming about stretching out on my classroom floor. Seven-year-olds shuffled flash-cards by my feet, chorusing mixed vocabulary and screams. Sun-browned teenagers with ankle-sock tans furrowed their brows and questioned me telepathically about relative clauses. They whispered to each other and their faces faded when I tried approaching. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it unequivocally here or what, but I kind of hate my job.

Coasting on perfectly placed dialogues with strangers, or between strangers, sends sparks to a halt when everything is in Indonesian. I’m clinging to the tail of intonation now. The sun on the tile when I unstick one eyelid. My school dream this morning was centered entirely within a cubist painting. Waking up, my feet and their shadows rippled living rectangles onto the mattress. Eight o’clock. His grandpa’s pocket watch has sand in the winding mechanism. Waking up, capsizing to ‘Fuck!’s.

At this rate, will anyone be able to understand me when I return?

This exchange slid softly into my head:

Someone says something perfect.
“Be careful of saying that… you’re going to make me fall in love with you.”
Someone says something perfect.
She laughs, and behind her laugh is something starting, finally, to distill.
Someone. Says. Something. Perfect. Deliberately.

Has this ever happened to anyone? I hope so.

Thursday, November 30

Here is the true face of everyday Jayapura: me about to stuff my face with rambutan. I’m having second thoughts about moving back to the states, knowing that they don’t have rambutan – I mean, what other fruit looks like a pod alien and tastes like a cross between a grape and a coconut?! You tell me.

Strange things keep happening. If this wants to become the wacky cultural anecdotes blog, so be it. It’s itching to do so, and I don’t have the energy to try and derail it, at least not right now.

We bought a box of green tea awhile ago, and when we got home and opened it, there was an rp. 5000 bill folded up inside – exactly the cost of the tea. Apparently when Indonesian advertisements claim that if you buy their product you might get a rebate, they mean that there is actually hard cash inside some of their products. No clipping coupons or sending in a self-addressed stamped envelope – just money, already put inside the product. I find this amazing. Since then, I have found empty decorated Idul Fitri envelopes inside my buckets of Sari Kelapa, stickers buried in my palm sugar, a plastic tiger in my oatmeal, and a 500 coin wrapped in Christmas paper in my motorcycle helmet.

There’s also this thing here among 10-13 year old boys where, if there’s a fat boy in the class, every other boy will try to be his partner or otherwise sit near him. Can you guess why? It’s so they can climb all over him and intermittently spank him. I have a class with three fat boys (nearly unheard of in Jayapura) and it’s… really awkward to teach a class when all the boys are spanking each other. I think they actually just see fat boys as jungle gyms, because when they’re partners for group work, they don’t sit next to each other – the fat boy lounges on his stomach and the skinny boy lounges too - on top of the fat boy. Double decker. This makes the fat boys very, very popular and sought after.

Nick’s parents’ Christmas package arrived today, nearly a month early. It smells of spiced tea. There isn’t a ‘Do Not Open Until Christmas’ sign anywhere on it, but there may as well be for all the fuss Nick is making about not opening it until Christmas. From the looks of it (and by ‘from the looks of it’ I mean the ever-increasing greedy-looking trails of ants) there are pfeffernous cookies somewhere hidden inside. Over Christmas we might be on Biak. It will be hot. This will be strange. It’s already strange. Jayapura has badly dubbed versions of Christmas songs playing all over town, with, like… MIDI keyboard instrumentation and techno backbeats, and they’re either in Indonesian, in which case the words don’t fit to the song because Indonesian hardly uses any words to convey the same meaning that English would need at least a paragraph for (Indonesians could have written that sentence better), or else they’re in English, with an accent that renders the lyrics indecipherable.

Speaking of. One of my punishments for late students (it’s sort of universal EF punishment, actually) is having them sing a song in front of everybody. It’s the only way to kind of keep people from being late, because this is a culture of extreme lateness – two hours or more. Anyway, someone in Level 2 was late recently. Level 2, even though their English is necessarily pretty bad, is one of my favorite classes because they’re essentially self-governing. Virtually all of them really want to learn, so they tolerate no disobedience from their peers. If someone starts speaking Indonesian, I don’t even have the chance to open my mouth (and anyway, usually in a level this low I let them speak Indonesian) before there’s a chorus of ‘Eyyyyyy, speak Inglees!’ and indignant looks and, often, reprimanding slaps. And if anyone is late, the entire class takes up a chant: ‘Sing! Sing! Sing! Sing! Come on, sing!’ If the person hesitates, the class dissolves into: ‘Eyy, ma’am say!’ and ‘Hurry upppp!’ and ‘Time is finissed, do it!’ The last time this happened, the late girl, a talkative 14-year-old Muslim in a veil, immediately broke out into “My humps, my humps, my humps! My lovely lady lumps!” – and the entire first verse - to a round of genuine applause and ‘Her English so goooood’s echoing around the room.