Sleeping Around: A Couch Surfing Tour Around the Globe

Brian Thacker, the author, strikes me as an adventurous party animal. Either that, or alcohol is one of the only ways that all the cultures around the world can relate to each other, because he drinks with his hosts in every country. It's something I both envy and don't care for, because I'm sure that alcohol tastes different depending on the chemicals and the various ways it's made, so it really is a cultural artifact, but I can't drink, so it's not something I can partake in.

Still, aside from the drink connoisseur-ism of this global trek, there's also the different ways in which a couch surfing host can entertain his guest, and vice versa. To be a good guest, Brian must relate to the stories that his hosts are telling him, and sometimes try foods or practices that he may not be a fan of. There was that rancid shark from Iceland, which smelled bad and didn't taste great. There was also the practice of speaking of women as barter items in the poorer parts of South Africa.

This was easy and relaxing to read. He narrates his experiences with a witty sense of humor that most people versed in English would relate to, and he speaks of the different versions of English you can find in England, Australia, America. There are also other countries that have English as a second language, and therefore would also have their own versions of English simply due to some cultural barrier that can create hilarity or gross misunderstandings. I've been through some of that.

As travel writing goes, I think he makes each country he visits sound welcoming, even though he stays honest about the experiences that he'd rather not go through again. He also touts couch surfing as a great way for citizens of the world to connect, and while I agree with him, the world is probably safer for some citizens rather than others. Still, maybe one day I'll do something like this with a friend in mid life or after retirement.

"A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" by David Foster Wallace

So while reading the "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again" essay Jere recommended, I found both curiosity and a tired kind of solace in the author's pity for service workers - the same service workers who are making his cruise (for journalistic purposes) supposedly relaxing and fun, but being the objective reporter he is, he began to analyze and break it down, making it into one of the most existential text about a Caribbean cruise I have ever read.

While pity really does nothing for me, I related to his sympathy for those workers because my other life, when I'm not reviewing/critiquing various texts, is a Target Team Member, of all things. My service work is more emotionally tiring than anything else in the long run, but compare that to these employees who have to scrub disgusting goo and sea muck off the side of a ship, my job is a cakewalk in the park. David Foster Wallace, the author, also goes on to intensely poke through the layers of advertising and fantasy that the brochures and short programs evoke in consumers to lure them into spending thousands on a trip that lasts a week.

As a newbie compared to him, I admire his narrative, ironic and sardonic and cynical but compelling nevertheless, with a cruel sense of humor that I understand. His recollections of his fear of sharks and the ocean remind me of a friend who is also very afraid of sharks, but she takes the drug-using, partying approach against her personal fear of death - drown it out. I imagine that many people in this economy share the fear of death on similar terms as myself: the fear of having done nothing worthwhile for a very long time, which is why we hunt for jobs, and those of us with not-very-satisfactory jobs hunt for careers. It seems to be a hope that these ship cleaners don't get to elaborate on, save the waiter for Table 64, who wants to bring the money home to his family and start his own business of some sort.

Meanwhile, I got distracted by a note where David comments on how Bostonians and New Yorkers have no basic human decency, because I'm from Boston, and according to many people I've spoken to, this means that I was raised in a hell where filth line the streets and hate is strewn all over the air as much as the pollution from the mushroom cloud is. As with all generalizations like this one, there are always exceptions to the rule, and I've also spoken with plenty of people who happen to love Boston, for all its difficulties and quirks and flaws.

The other assertion that David makes is that marketing and its insidious way of telling people what to think is very sinister. I agree, it is very sinister. He backs it up by using how the 7NC's brochures used the author Conroy's "essay" to market itself. However, if one must interpret marketing in this way, then everyone is sinister, including the poor saps in this economy - like myself until recently - who are trying very hard to market themselves to find a job. If looking out for one's self interest is evil, then the entire world is evil, and only the most malleable and humble of personalities are for the greater good. Malleable and humble personalities, however, in my opinion, also generally are not all that ambitious and will not try all that hard for the sake of pride or misguided glory.

David also goes on to log and comment on all the various shows and activities that the cruise ship's programs provide, and how they all fit into the idea of Managed Fun. There were at least several moments during the read where I laughed out loud at the personas that he perceives, as well as his socially awkward tendencies to offend everyone on board the cruise ship who are not accepting of individuality and prefer to conform for the sake of not appearing absurd, even though the customs themselves are absurd. The specific times where he mentions the Alice-Mona dislike at Table 64 reminded me of the comedy of manners to be found in Pride and Prejudice. It sounded like the ship had many relatively rich people who like to measure their own wealth and skill against that of others, particular in the scene involving shooting skeets.

While I got bored at various points during the log because of its obsessive compulsive precision, and also distanced myself because I disliked David the most during the scene where he got beaten at chess by a young girl and then had to go redeem his ego by beating a DJ at ping pong for several rounds (as well as delighting when children got hurt in scenes of Jurassic Park for a day afterward), he regained my attention as the essay was closing because he actually grew more relaxed when the pampering to death is near over. The most memorable and likable scenario was at the end, as he described the hypnotist and his show, where the entertainer hypnotized cruisers for comedy while David hypnotized himself to get away from the entertainer. It brings back the wistful aspect of existential musings, and reminds us that perception has a great deal of power and that we are allowed to control that if our minds can handle it, which is a great turnaround of the beginning of the essay, where we see our surroundings - like the advertising for the cruise - sinisterly cloud us in a specific illusion. Very humanistic, after all.

Review for The Best Travel Writing: 2009

When I found this book at a remote corner of Amherst Books, I was intrigued by the promise on the back of the book. "The Best Travel Writing 2009 is our latest annual collection of great stories guaranteed to ignite your wanderlust." In my opinion, it fulfilled its promise aplenty and invited the reader to more.

It feels harder to write a review for a compilation such as this, because there are thirty stories by thirty authors. Each writer comes from a different background, a different culture, a different point of view, and each story strives to highlight one outstanding moment in someone's life far away. All the technical elements that I usually critique seem to be of lesser importance and even a bit trite here. Grammar, voice and narration, the three elements necessary in travel writing - and any type of writing - seem dwarfed by the meaningful experiences in these people's lives.

Each story is like a sip at a tea tasting ceremony. Every one tastes different, and satisfying in its own way. These are like stories told around a campfire, but committed to the text on the page and the reader's third eye. Travelers are by nature restless, and these experiences are little bits for that restlessness to snack on, before they continue on their journeys. As the Eurythmnics sang, Sweet dreams are made of these/ I travel the world and the seven seas/ everybody's looking for something... All sorts of people, all sorts of lives.

I may also be a bit in awe because of my own naivete. This is my first experience with travel writing as a genre, after all. Traveling is something I romanticize and want to do more of, but have not had the resources or chance to do yet. Someone else may find this volume not to his or her taste. I personally approve of the decisions made by the three editors who compiled this book, and feel that the person who wrote the Introduction knew how to brew a good literary appetizer.

As a Asian person, I was surprised there wasn't a story about China, but given that the international politics surrounding that country are messy to say the least, perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised. The journalists, scientists and various other visitors have been imprisoned, after all. It makes sense that a compilation about travel writing wouldn't want to get too political. In fact, the only remotely political piece here was about the city in which Stalin was born, and the later hostile Russian takeover of the nearby country Georgia.

The one that made the least impression was "Crazy Diamond," mainly because that story involved summarized conversations and reasons for leaving home to find oneself amongst strangers. My theory on this subject is that a person generally knows him or herself already, without having to escape across the world to be amongst strangers, to see how one behaves. My theory revolves around the idea that others' expectations cannot make up the individual's identity. Then again, that's me - if you ask my Communist parents, you would get an entirely different story.

So at the end of the day, this is most definitely one of the most interactive books I have ever read, simply because it's pretty much a given that everyone would respond to it differently, according to their own points of view. I feel that this compilation is mainly for a white, upper-middle class educated audience, but also that it's more interesting if you read it and you are not of this background. Hopefully, that is not a racist thing for me to say.