Adventures in the US - Summer 2001

Another thing I’ll never forget. I was going to start my 4th year, after spending 1 summer in Singapore. I had to move out of my place after my housemate, Willow graduated. My new place would be across the street, and I had requested for the new tenant (of the place I was moving out of) to allow me to store the stuff at the old place for the summer.

My flight from Singapore to the US had a stopover in Tokyo. I spent a week there vacationing with a Malay friend of mine. One of the interesting things is that we went into a hot spring and I was able to see for the first time what someone with a circumcision looks like. But of course that’s not the only or main reason why I vacationed with him.

So my flight back was a little bit hectic, to say the least. I would check out of my hotel, go to the airport, board the plane, fly to Chicago, stop over, fly to (small town near my college), have my friend pick me up from Syracuse and drive to college. At this point it would be midnight at my college but 2 in the afternoon Tokyo time. So at this point, at the end of 20+ hours of travelling, I would move house just so that I would have a place to stay at night.

This is the sort of thing you can only imagine yourself pulling off when you’re in your 20s.

I ring the doorbell, and there are these 2 pseudo Latina ppl who say hi, typical American superficial friendliness and all that. I noticed that they have a new sofa set and they said, “yeh I asked for new sofas, asked them to throw out the carpet, yada yada yada and they did it for me. I was like, what?! You mean I lived in a flat for 2 years with crappy furniture and all I had to do was to ask them to change me a new set and I could have been having much better furnishings?

But before I could think too long, one of them said to me, “look, it’s getting late, and we’re not going to be staying up forever, so why don’t you take all your things and put them out here…” I was like, yeh, a bit unfriendly but reasonable.

So I move box 1, and carry it 50 m across the road and up the stairs, no problem. Box 2 and 3, still OK. Box 4, I’m almost about to die. So I park Box 4 on my front lawn. It’s summer, see and there’s no snow. I take 5 inside the house: my room is the one that faces the front lawn. I dig out a rare jazz CD that I bought in Tokyo and play it – it feels good. (Actually that CD has since been re-released with new mastering so I think I should not have bought that CD at that time but nevermind…)

I open 1 box, and it has all my bedsheets. I make my bed, get my blanket out and at least I have somewhere to sleep for the night.

Suddenly I hear some loud noises on the lawn. A bunch of frat boys who have just finished partying and are walking down the street have found my box, and they were opening it. My jaw was on the floor. They were ripping off the cover, taking some of the contents, and splaying them around the lawn. Mind, they didn’t steal anything, just messed everything up like a bunch of hooligans (which they were.) I was thinking about whether to go out confront them, but 4 against 1, I thought it was best not to. That was the one time in my life I was willing to retract everything I had previously said about gun ownership in America.

5 minutes later, they were gone. Cursing under my breath, I packed everything back into the tattered box, and carried it upstairs.

That was August 2001. 1 month later, the WTC would cease to exist.