Lists: Things I'll Find in Norfolk

In one of my favorite books, Never Let Me Go, Norfolk, England is where lost things end up.
Kazuo Ishiguro writes: "When we lost something precious, and we’d looked and looked and still couldn’t find it, then we didn’t have to be completely heartbroken. We still had that last bit of comfort, thinking one day when we were grown up, and we were free to travel around the country, we could always go and find it again in Norfolk.”

Norfolk wasn't just a repository of lost objects. It also held missed opportunities, words left unspoken, and roads not taken, friends who grew apart, and other experiences forever receding from the present.

Heart shaped pendant
My mom gave it to me when I was in middle school but it sat in a box for years because I thought it looked too dowdy. Everyone else had those silver Tiffany chokers. Then in senior year or maybe junior year of undergrad I began to wear it continuously. Before then I didn't have one necklace that I wore  all the time. But I soon got used to it hanging around my neck when I woke up in the morning.

I lost it the day I left Detroit Metro Airport for Denmark. Later walking past the dancing water fountain in McNamara terminal I felt the chain sliding oddly around my neck. It had broken but was still draped around my neck. But the pendant was nowhere to be found. I must have lost it when I was taking off my layers at the security checkpoint.

Before I left Denmark I bought a daisy pendant, a very popular design by Danish jeweler Georg Jensen, as some sort of compensation, but it's just not the same.

A pair of angled forceps
My grandfather had a tremendous influence on my life. He was also an otolaryngologist. He taught me never to run around, laugh too hard, or talk too much while eating nuts. One of the last times I saw him before he died, he gave me a pair of forceps not because he wanted me to be a doctor but because they're just so useful for picking at things!

Sometimes when I get something valuable, I squirrel it away in a safe place. But I decided that I would honor his memory by actually going to use this tool, or at least looking at it everyday, so I kept it at home on my desk in a pen cup. But somehow throughout the years of undergrad, I lost it.

You can by forceps shaped exactly like the one I had at any surgical supply store. But of all the things I've lost, I would most like to find this one.  I would give a lot to get it back again.

 
My hospital birth certificate FOUND! 
My mom dug through a lot of boxes of my school projects, notes and childhood mementos to find this little slip of onionskin paper. It says my birth date, time, weight and was signed by the attending physician, who apparently was a family friend of my grandparents. There's no way my mom will let me hold on to anything important anymore.

The movie adaption of Never Let Met Go has been reviewed by various media outlets. But if you haven't read the book, you MUST NOT read any reviews of the film or book that give away the reason for the children's isolation. You will do yourself a great disservice.

Lists: Things I Bought that I Love

Time for something lighthearted. My newest blog obsession is the Secret Society of List Addicts where contributing bloggers make lists. Their lists are funny, honest, and touching. I particularly liked People From My Past that I Regularly Googlestalk and Boys I Totally Crushed on for Years Even Though They Were  Unattainable (And Totally Wrong For Me) and wanted to try my hand at such lists. But I decided that it's a bad idea to make my own version of these because this blog is TMI as it as and because with facebook, you can find out the names of everyone of these boys. They would probably be freaked out and you'd think I'm weird. So I'll stick with this safe one.

Things I've Bought That I Love

My new bed

It's my first big girl bed (read: not twin size). I really like it and I get the whole thing to myself. At first it was like I was swimming unmoored in the sea but now I like being sprawled out. 

 Bed: post-assembly, pre-linens.

Pentax K-x camera

Sure it was a brick around my neck when I traveled in Europe. But I've taken at least ten good photos with it. Even one good one makes it all worth it. Too bad I won't have time to take it for walks now that i'm in Medical School. 

My camera, while waiting for a bagel in Amsterdam

The Ishtar Gate at the Pergamon Museum

Northface Recon backpack

North Face brand anything is expensive but my backpack has held up nicely through biking across MSU, stuffed to the seams on Ryanair flights crisscrossing Europe, two transatlantic flights and medical textbooks. And it reminds me of Europe every time I use it now.

White purse with multicolored embroidered flowers

Things you buy are worth it if it's really expensive but you use it a lot, decreasing cost/wear. But you know their real gems if they're cheap and you still use it all the time, like this purse I have. It's the Rorschach test of style. I've been told it looks hippie, modern, and Polish-people-from-the-mountains. Because the flowers are different colors, it matches everything. It was from the clearance bin at Kohl's, that paragon of lower-middle class consumerism. 

Black and white dress for 40 Danish kroner ($7)

This and the purse mentioned below are the best purchases from Studenterhus' secondhand bazaar, where Danish (mostly) college students (actually mostly girls) sell their used H&M and equivalent clothing. Very cheap and pretty trendy. If you've seen my weird tanlines around my neck and shoulders, you have this dress to thank. I love it because it doesn't wrinkle and makes me look really skinny.

Brown purse for 100 Danish kroner ($18)

So the secondhand bazaar sells used apparel, but this Esprit purse was brand new with tag for only $18. I was frequently seen wearing above mentioned dress and this purse when I traveled to warmer climes. It's especially good because I can fit my dslr case into it. I will cry the day the strap breaks, which it's already starting to.

more photos by my trusty k-x: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rainbow11soda/

Transitions

As popular and fun to read as travel writing is, it was never my intention for this blog to be a travelogue. I intend to update regularly but everyone in medical school tells me this will consume all my leisure time.

You may have noticed the new title of my blog. The end of my time in Denmark made me feel that that experience was fleeting, thus the previous title. But now I'm embarking on four years of medical school where the body is the subject of study. I think it also encompasses my interest in the body in society, in politics.

Today I had the first of a week-long medical school orientation. Immediately I was reminded of a similar experience, the orientation program for Aarhus University exchange students. The people I met my first day at Denmark Today, at the very first activity, became my friends for the rest of my time. So perhaps the same will happen now. We'll see.

Travels: Toilets

This is a restroom at Warsaw.  Circle = female. Triangle = male.  Yes, I was puzzled when I first heard about these signs on a travel forum and then I saw one with my own eyes at the National Museum in Warsaw.

Every country I got to seems to have slightly different restrooms.
First, there's the matter of what we even call them. European non-native English speakers call it toilet. It's also the word written on signs for public restrooms. This sounded vulgar to me at first but then I too started to call restrooms toilets.

Then there are the stalls. But all European restrooms "stalls" aren't stalls because the toilets are separated from the adjacent toilet by solid walls -- yes that go all the way up to the ceiling and down to the floor.That "foot-tapping" scandal involving some politician (or was it an evangelical preacher?) wouldn't happen in Europe.

Danish restrooms are unique for having er ... feminine hygiene product disposal bins that are just plastic bags suspended by a piece of metal attached to the wall. I didn't see these anywhere else except, I think, Norway.  Like so:

It's also very common in public restrooms and bathrooms at home to have two water levels for flushing, indicated by the bigger and smaller buttons. Oh I almost forgot! The fact that the flush is operated by a button ABOVE the toilet is different from the States too.

I'll also never forget a discussion among members of bidet using cultures (two Italian and Turkish friends) and non-bidet using cultures (me).

I could detail the restrooms I've seen all over Europe but I'm flying out to SoCal very early tomorrow morning. This also means no new blog posts for about another week.

Travels: Girls and Boys in Denmark

During my last days in Århus, I went to Legoland, probably the most famous Danish tourist attraction after the Little Mermaid statue. At the Legoland gift shop you can buy Lego sets, spare Lego body parts, and these silicone ice cube trays.

Legoland gift shop. July 2010.

The gendering of toys is a worldwide phenomenon, it seems. Even in Scandinavian countries with some of the most impressive levels of gender equality in many areas. It's also a popular subject of Sociological Images, a sociology blog. It runs a series on gendered toys and used this Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic as illustration of childhood socialization via boys and girls toys.

(source)

A window in Copenhagen. February 2010.

Wrap up: Time and Place

 I've been back in the States for three weeks. It feels much longer, like I've been here all summer. This surprised me. I thought that I would feel more reverse culture shock, that Ann Arbor and East Lansing would feel more foreign. I thought that I would feel uncomfortable driving my car again. I thought the American hypermarts would overwhelme me. I thought I would cringe at American-accented English.

The first three to five days, I felt this way. I wanted to find all the foreign things I had in Europe. Trader Joe's 100% Rye Bread is a close approximation of rugbrød. At a restaurant in East Lansing I had Zywiec beer.

At the same time as the discomfort, however, these were also glorious days of rediscoveries. I finally got a fragel, which I wanted to do the last day before I left in January but the store was closed for the holidays. So I fulfilled a wish I had maintained for six months.

By the time first weekend was over -- I came back on a Monday -- it felt like I had been here in Ann Arbor all summer, which begins for most American college students in early May.

This doesn't mean I've forgotten about Denmark. The opposite: I think about Denmark and Erasmus all the time. Like I've said many times before, those six months were the greatest six months of my life. The people, the traveling, the just hanging out in Århus. But I'm not raving about it to everyone the way I thought I would. I feel like I've entered a different chapter of my life. Denmark exists in memories. For the people I met on Erasmus, we're all post-Erasmus now and that's the way it must be. I feel that if I keep talking about Denmark and exchange that I'll start to have Peter Pan syndrome. As much as I would like to go back to Denmark, I can't because by "Denmark" I mean both a place and a time. Maybe sometime in the future I'll go to Denmark but we've all moved beyond that time to new endeavors.

My train from Århus to Copenhagen airport as it passed Copenhagen central station. July 12th, 2010 approx.12:30am

Wrap up: Numismatics

I'm still sorting through photos and uploading them to facebook, gradually. It make me miss Århus and my travels and all my friends.

When I was packing, I gathered my loose change together and took this photo. They are mostly zloty, lira, pound, Swedish kronor, and a couple Euro cents. Oh! I spy a dime too.

(No Danish kroner in this photo. I wrote briefly about Danish money here.)

Closing words

I'm back in Ann Arbor now.

This is an email (with some edits) I sent to some friends I met in Århus, who are all back in their home countries now, just before leaving Århus. It's as close to a summary of my exchange as I came come up with, not that it's possible to sum up life experiences.

Dear Friends, 

This is my last email from Europe. I'm getting on the train to Copenhagen and then flying to Detroit airport and continuing on to Ann Arbor. So there are a few things I like to say before leaving. 

This has been the best six months of my life because of the times we had together in Århus. I know that a lot of Americans, Canadians, and Australians use this time as a vacation to travel throughout Europe, but for me, it's been so much more.

At some point, all of you have asked me what my favorite city was. I usually say Istanbul, London, and Berlin. But that's just naming cities. A better question would be to reflect on the memorable experiences I have had. Then Århus would without a doubt be my favorite city because I got to meet all of you here. I loved all the times we spent here in the darkest, coldest months. 

When I was traveling around, I felt comforted knowing that I would come back to Århus, my temporary "home". It felt like a home because I knew that all of you would be here and we'd have dinner and talk and just hang out. You all are much dearer to me than Hagia Sophia in Istanbul or Nike of Samothrace at the Louvre (even though I was thrilled to see them both) because we shared good times together. You all are the difference between a six-month exchange and a European backpacking holiday. This experience is much richer and much more rewarding.

Best,

Chen

Travels: Origins

I was also frequently greeted with "kunichiwa". Eventually I wasn't bothered so much by being misidentified as Japanese because they are definitely the most common Asian tourists in Istanbul. There were some Koreans and very few Chinese. Statistically they'd have a higher chance of guessing the correct nationality, I suppose. It didn't change the fact that I got unwanted attention, regardless of the language.

One evening a Turkish friend and I went to a restaurant where the maitre d'expressed surprise that I was from America. At least that's what I think he meant. I heard my Turkish friend tell him "Amerika", probably saying where I was from. But then he looked at me and waved his hand over his face, drawing attention to my face as if to double check that I really was from America. 

During my whole time away from the US, I've noticed just the racial diversity in the US is an anomaly compared to many other countries. In Denmark, for example, the earliest immigrants only arrived in the 1960s. The country is still struggling to include non ethnic Danes in the country. But in the US we know that there are many Americans who aren't white. However, it seems that abroad, people don't realize this reality so much. To people I've met abroad, I hope that our friendship has shown you what America is like apart from the movies and TV.

Travels: Return

I've been dreading this day. Today I took my two suitcases from the corner of my room where they were upright and laid them down in the middle of my floor to begin to pack up my life.

Danishize: Laundry

As my time in Denmark is winding down, I'm once again reflecting on the quirks of Danish life that are now routine for me but surprising when I arrived. Today I'm highlighting my laundry drying rack.

At MSU drying was cheap and my room small so I liked using the dryer. But most importantly, everyone used the dryer.

In Denmark however, none of my housemates use our dryer. And from what I see all around, no one else does either, exchange students or Danish students. At my house, the dryer not even in the same closet as the washer but relegated to a dirty corner of our garage.

Instead, we all have folding drying racks all from Ikea. I borrowed this one from my housemate.

My drying rack is actually the top part of clothing rack but it's from Ikea!

Now that I've been using drying racks for six months, it doesn't feel that inconvenient. Well, except when I wash all my clothes at the same time and don't have anything to wear for about a day waiting for something to dry. But it's really not that bad. I think that when I go back to East Lansing, I'm going to get a drying rack.

Danishize: Traffic

Whenever I get together with other exchange students, we always wind up talking about the weather or biking or biking in terrible weather. 

This photo shows several interesting things about Danish traffic.

 

(Are those two people kissing? That would also illustrate social acceptability of PDA here.)

It's amazing to see the red AND yellow light lit at the same time! Traffic lights here don't go from red straight to green. They go red, red and yellow, green. I think maybe it helps drivers of manual cars? But I love that little touch anyway.

Also, you can see people biking. Practically every road in Denmark has bike paths like this one. Only the small residential streets don't. There's also a scooter in the bike lane. I believe that is the place for them but it still scares me when they wizz past me when I'm biking. 

We also have traffic lights for bicycles. Very very nice. 

Not that this location means much to you, but this is the intersection of Nordre Ringgade and Langlegade that I walk almost every day. My house is just in the opposite direction from this photo. 

Danishize: Shower

I think every shower I've seen in Europe -- with the exception of one hostel in Lisbon -- has detachable shower head. This really surprised me when I first arrived. It's out of habit that I always keep the shower head on the wall even though I can take this one off. I don't see how it's that useful.

I told this to my German housemate who shared a bathroom with me and she was very surprised. It's so useful, she said. Indeed sometimes after she used the shower, the shower head would be resting on side of the shower stall the instead of put back on the holder. She does use it all the time.

My shower:

What also bothers a lot of students here are showers without a shower curtain or glass separating the shower stall from the rest of the bathroom. Thankfully I don't have this problem because I have a shower curtain.

Danishize: Old Money, New Money

The design of the small denomination coins are pretty lackluster but I think the hole in the middle makes up for it. I don't know how many currencies have coins with holes in the middle. Is the Danish krone the only one?

Øre is the equivalent of cent. Now in Denmark only 50 øre coins are in circulation. All transactions are rounded to the nearest whole krone or 50 øre.

New paper notes are starting to be issued. The theme is bridges and archaeological artifacts. The new fifty kroner note was in circulation when I came to Denmark. Sallingsund Bridge and an earthenware vessel. 

[I was going to show you a fifty kroner note that I got as change earlier today, BUT I LOST IT! I hurriedly put it in my pocket after getting it at the cafeteria. By the afternoon, it wasn't in my pocket anymore.]

But the new one hundred kroner notes just appeared about a month ago. They show the bridge and a flint dagger.

The nerdy cool kids go to Danish National Museum in Copenhagen to see these artifacts on display. 

The Danish krone (plural kroner) is the currency of Denmark. (We say Danish krone to distinguish it from the Norwegian krone.) The exchange rate of the Danish krone is pegged to the Euro where 1 Euro = 7.5 kroner. This means that currently, $1 = 6.24 kroner. This is the lowest the kroner has been since I came to Denmark. In January, it was around $1 = 5.5 kroner

To give you an idea how much the things I most frequently eat cost
1 L milk = 5 kroner - cheapest 15 kroner - organic
1 cucumber = 5 - 8 kroner
1 little cup of quite bad drip coffee from the cafeteria = 5.5 kroner
1 loaf of rugbød = 15 kroner
deposit on one plastic bottle or aluminum can = 1 - 3 kroner, depending on the size of the container

New 200, 500, and 1000 kroner notes will be issued in the future, but I won't be around in Denmark to see them...

House, Spring

The first image of Rødkløvervej 1 I saw was on Google Streetview. I couldn't remember what the house itself looked like because it was mostly obscured by a dense green wall of shrubbery around its perimeter. This was a photo taken during the spring or summer.

But when I came to Århus on January, it was a depressing scene. I blogged about it here. I also included this photo taken in January of my house.

In the depth of winter, it's hard to imagine what the house looks like in the spring. It seemed like this day would never come. But here we are now. It's spring and also near the end of my exchange.

I'm bad at saying goodbye

It's a bit blabby, just to warn you.

I can't deal with saying goodbye. I'm actually not leaving Århus for another month but already I clearly feel that this is the end of many things. It seems irrational to me that the end of our time here should make me so sad because I knew that this day would come.

At the beginning of my exchange, I had no idea it would be so hard to leave here. I didn't understand how difficult it was for an Italian exchange student I knew. She was supposed to leave in February or March. Several of her friends post a brief video on facebook to say goodbye to her. She commented below the video that it had made her bawl. I knew she was scheduled to fly back to Italy. But the next day I found out that she decided to rebook or cancel that return flight entirely. She wanted to get back to Denmark as soon as possible, anyway possible. In the end, she got an internship placement in another city in Denmark and comes to Århus on weekends to visit her Erasmus friends. It all seemed so immature to me to do anything to extend a previously decided length of studying abroad. When it's time to leave, you leave and are a little bit sad about it but you know that Erasmus is a finite experience. But now I think I know what that's like.

I've been trying to figure out what it is exactly that I have such a hard time letting go of. The friends I have met here, I will miss. The life that I have lived here in the last six months, I will miss. But it's the experience that I will not be able to continue.

The world is small and we'll meet each other again. And even if we don't, we have Skype, we have Facebook.  But the set of circumstances during which we have been friends will not be the same.

It sounds like I'm saying that I don't miss my friends here but that's not what I mean. I will miss them very much but I am just a teeny bit comforted by the fact that we will keep in touch in other ways. All these people will remain. The geography doesn't bother me that much because I have friends living in different states. We don't see each other except via social media. I can deal with that. When I was feeling particularly sad about our impending diaspora, I repeated to myself, "We have Skype. We have Skype. We have Skype," like a mantra.

But the experiences here are not only dependent on individual people but also circumstances which will never occur again. There is only one first time. There is only one moment where we went to the beach and the sea and the wind and the clouds and the sun looked that way, only one moment where we looked that way and felt that way. My friends here will continue to exist after Erasmus ends but our Erasmus semester itself will end. And I'm not sure that anything can comfort me.

There were times in the first weeks in Denmark where I missed the States dearly. Now I know that my first few weeks back "home", I will miss my friends and my life in Århus intensely. Thanks to all my Stateside friends who sent their cyberlove when I shamelessly asked for it. I know when these Århus friends that have dispersed, I will go home to you all.

Danishize: rugbrød and leverpostej

Foreigners detest it, expatriate Danes crave it.

It's rugbrød.

It was the first loaf of bread I bought when I arrived in Denmark two and a half months ago. I had no idea what it tasted like but I bought it because was one of the more common types of bread in the bread section.

Rug means rye so it's literally rye bread, but it's not like what we normally call rye bread in the States.I still wouldn't mind if it wasn't sourdough, still. But I really like the grain kernels in the bread. The texture is very dense and chewy.

Danes also eat a lot of leverpostej, a pate made from pork liver, spread on rugbrød.

Epic fail. Epic freak out.

I can't count or look at a calendar apparently. The halfway point of my time here hasn't come yet! It will be this weekend. When I was panicking last night, thought I had two more months here, but I actually have three. Now I feel a bit silly for freaking out earlier.

But I'm still really stressed out -- in the short term because of planning this Easter break trip. In the long run, I'm stressed because of the general drawing down of my time here. I have three more months but I will need a week or two to prepare for my exams and to pack and clean out my room.

If anything, my miscounting shows my level of panic.

I did email STA Travel to inquire about changing my return flight. They haven't replied yet with a price quote. Even if it's cheap to change the date, I actually don't have a place to stay past June 30th. The obvious solution to this is to keep traveling for about two more weeks but this brings about all sorts of logistical problems and additional expenses...

Things I Think About: Passed Milestones, A Pause

I have been here longer than I will be.

The halfway point of my time in Denmark slipped by without my notice. I arrived in Denmark January 4th. My return ticket is June 22nd. It's now March 22nd and I only have two months left in Denmark!

I have seriously thought about changing the date of my return flight. I am legally allowed to stay in Denmark until July 15th, though my lease for my house ends June 30th so I wouldn't have anywhere to stay for two weeks. Of course I could travel that whole time. Traveling is fun but very costly, even more so in the summer high season.

I'm beginning to be anxious about my time here, to be honest. I know everyone has already said studying abroad is one of the best experiences. I'm just reaffirming that it is.

It's anxiety about the three major components of my life here: academics, traveling, and my "normal" life in Århus.

The academic component is more pressing now that the end of the semester is within sight. Even though I have fewer exams and essays than a normal semester in the States, I hear grade inflation doesn't happen here. Additionally, I am more and more pulled away from Århus and back toward MSU because I need to prepare for medical school in the fall. More and more information is coming from CHM for incoming students. In about a week I may find out if which pre-clinical campus I'll be assigned to.

Traveling is an important component of my experience here. I've managed to go (or to book tickets) to some places I always dreamed about: Amsterdam, Oslo, London, Berlin, Brussels, Prague. But I've yet to go to  just as many other priority destinations: Paris, Ireland, Spain, Greece, Istanbul, Krakow. And the sand is slipping quickly.

I also feel a tension between staying in Århus and traveling. When I'm traveling, I'm not  This may come off sounding ungrateful for the opportunity to travel around Europe but I like the people here in Århus. We go to the city center. It's not a UNESCO World Heritage Site but it needn't be. We go to free concerts at the music hall. It's not the Vienna Philharmonic but it needn't be that either. We go to the town's museum. It's not the British Museum but it doesn't matter. We sit around the table eating pasta and drinking cheap beer. All these things make me happy too. I'm not here on an extended sightseeing trip; I also want to get to know people too. When I'm back in the States, I will tell people, "I have been to Prague and it is beautiful there." But just as important, I want to be able to say, "I have a friend in Prague." Two kinds of relationships with the city. The two are not the same. 

***

I was about to publish this entry when I saw my friend Beth, an American studying abroad in Milan, write about similar feelings of cultural shift and adaption. She also included this graph of cultural adjustment!

I think I am farther along than the marker on this graph because I am "anticipating return", which is to say I am panicking at the realization that I will return to the U.S. very soon. I don't want to leave!

Danishize: flag

If you've Skyped with me, chances are you have seen me drinking from this mug with a Danish flag motif. (If you haven't Skyped with me, why haven't you? My username is chenywang1102.)

More so than rectangular flags, Danes like skinny pennant flags. It was one of my first impressions of Denmark. In my first hours on Danish soil, I saw many such flags as the train took me from Copenhagen to Århus, crossing much of the country.

It's very easy to buy things with Danish flags on them. The first items that come to my mind are disposable plates and cups and toothpicks with Danish flags. In a supermarket, there will always be plain white plates and Danish ones.

Many exchange students have commented on the Danes' fondness for their flag. It's frequently a topic of discussion, leading to comparisons of flag displaying behavior in their home countries.

Our neighbors to the South, the Germans, are on the other end of the spectrum: they don't display the flag at all. My German housemate told me that if you see your neighbor flying German flag from their house, you first think, "My neighbors are Nazis". The relationship of a people to their history is a fraught one.

One of the Italian exchange students brought an Italian flag with him, which he sometimes takes to parties.

Of course Americans also love their flag, not only to fly the flag but to put the flag motif on many things, like those Old Navy Fourth of July t-shirts.