Have Mother, Will Travel: A Mother and Daughter Discover Themselves, Each Other, and the World

by Claire Fontaine

  She turns back to the Bird’s Nest, then back to me, beaming. She doesn’t want a lift. Pride also looks the same in every language. I smile at her and bow my head in honor and agreement, which pleases her greatly. She bows back.

  “America,” she says in a thick accent, “happy you come!”

  Which practically puts tears in my eyes for some reason. We turn and she allows me to take her arm to steady her on the way down. She bows a thank-you and vanishes into the night.

  Since we can’t get any closer, I suggest we walk to the other side to see the Water Cube, the already-famous water sports venue.

  “Mom, it’s dark and there are holes everywhere. It’s not worth breaking our necks.”

  “Oh, come on, what’s pretty is how it’s lit up at night. It’s just a short walk, then we’ll get a cab.”

  We make our way over piles of stuff that shifts and crumbles beneath us. There are almost no streetlights and China doesn’t use safety barriers, no orange cones or construction tape as warning. We skirt the troughs and holes we can see, some of which could hold a VW, and pray we miss those we can’t. I’m sure there are some folks in Beijing who simply never show up for dinner, ever again.

  We follow the blue barrier wall until we hit an unlit tunnel where the walk narrows to fit one. And nearly get decapitated. Poles, pipes, and two-by-fours poke horizontally out of the wall with no flags. Cars speed by so close that they knock my purse.

  “Mother, you’re going to get us killed over a blue blob! Starting tomorrow I’m in charge!”

  “Fine! Here, hold my hand!” I call back, reaching my hand behind me.

  “No way, you’re the advance warning system!”

  Maybe it’s wishful thinking but I think I hear a teeny hint of a chuckle in her voice. I’m also beginning to wish I’d listened to her. We finally emerge, hearts palpitating—to yet more battered blue metal fencing that just goes on and on. I keep walking optimistically, freeway on the left, Water Cube on the right. Somewhere.

  She’s so quiet that I know it’s the lull before the storm. But I am not turning around and going through that tunnel again. There’s a racket ahead and a steep freeway embankment appears, full of Chinese tourists clinging to it as they try to film the Water Cube.

  “Look, we’ll be able to see it from up there!” I gush enthusiastically.

  “Now I know you’re really desperate,” she says drily. She knows I get vertigo from heights.

  “Well,” I sigh, “I kind of am, Mia. I know we’re tired and disoriented, and all my planning turned out to be useless, and maybe this was another one of my stupid, impulsive ideas. But maybe if we accept that this trip is going to be chaotic and we probably are going to be hungry and we will have to squat over a lot of holes to pee, we’ll see the world together in a way we’ll remember the rest of our lives.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she admits. “Sorry for snapping.”

  She takes the camera and climbs quickly, wedging her bottom into a cement divot to see the Water Cube. I clamber up shakily with the heavy backpack, wedging each hand and foot into a divot as if I’m scaling K-2, happy she’s back in the spirit of things.

  And then the rain starts.

  “My hair, goddamn it. Give me the umbrella!!”

  There is no umbrella in the backpack, and she paid for a blow-dry in San Francisco. It starts raining harder. The tunnel is too far. There is only the freeway. Up there. I can die by falling or by Mia.

  I’m on that freeway faster than you can say Jack Robinson, pulling Mia with me with one hand, waving wildly for a cab with the other.

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this! I had a job with benefits! I had free subway fare! I had a great apartment!”

  You’re acting like a ten-year-old! I want to yell, but that will send her over the edge. Then a plume of filthy water hits my face and sends me over the edge. So what flies out of my mouth instead, paragon of restraint that I am, is—

  “If you had such a great life, why did you decide so quickly to leave it?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Malaysia

  Wallet for Elephants

  It was for the best that I kissed straight hair good-bye in Beijing, because a resounding boom of thunder sounds as we leave Kuala Lumpur’s airport. Seconds later it’s pouring, and after Beijing, this cool, damp air is wonderfully refreshing.

  Beijing was trying in many ways—jet lag, a huge language barrier, pollution, figuring out how The Global Scavenger Hunt worked in practice rather than theory—and I don’t think my mom and I are the only team eager to start this next leg.

  As we are driving through Kuala Lumpur, the rain spreads a shiny topcoat over bright yellow, baby pink, and sea green building façades. It glazes the bushy fronds of palm trees and pours from the spiky plumes of orange birds of paradise.

  Malaysians seem like a happy lot. Rickshaw drivers oblivious to the rain shout out greetings to one another and women in bright saris, resting beneath umbrellas protecting arrays of fresh fruit, laugh among themselves. My mom’s relaxed as she watches the world pass by and turns to me to smile when she notices I’m watching her. There’s a silent easing of the tension that followed her asking me why I left my life. I’d fumed for hours, not just because big questions should never be asked angrily while both parties are about to be hit by oncoming traffic, but because it seemed ungrateful. The main reason I left was to spend time with her and help her through a rough period.

  Our experience in China proved the importance of a square meal after a long flight, and after Bill distributes the scavenge booklets, we beeline toward food. We pore over the scavenges while wolfing down a heaping pile of nasi goreng, the most amazing fried rice I’ve ever had, at a restaurant whose menu doesn’t include centipedes, scorpions, or any kind of ass meat.

  “How many points are there for each city?” my mom asks.

  When the teams meet three days from now, it’ll be in Singapore, and the booklets contain scavenges for five different cities; it’s up to us to decide which, and how many, cities to visit. With Beijing under our belt, we’re getting the hang of strategizing, and we begin by mapping out what’s where, estimating travel times, and deciding roughly how long each scavenge takes.

  Bill touched base with everyone while on the plane—looking at photos from the scavenges we completed and tallying points—and I told him that, after China, I understand why he said the trip is really what you make it. With so many scavenges to choose from (and now, potential cities to visit), how you strategize determines how you’ll experience each country. For example, you could have a leisurely, in-depth experience by spending an entire afternoon on a single scavenge (i.e., the Great Wall of China, 250 points), or you could have a more chaotic and exhilarating afternoon racking up points by eating as many foods, finding as many mystery items in shopping bazaars, and visiting as many temples as possible.

  “Six hundred fifty for Kuala Lumpur, seventy-five in Melaka, a hundred and twenty-five in Penang, fifty in Johor Bahru, and six hundred for Singapore,” I reply after using our calculator-cum-translator-cum-currency-converter that, yes, I admitted, I was glad she planned far enough ahead to buy.

  Looking at a map of Malaysia, we deliberate and decide to skip Penang. We’ll scavenge Kuala Lumpur tonight and tomorrow, take an evening bus to Melaka, stay the night, complete the Melaka scavenges before sunrise, and catch an eight A.M. bus to Johor Bahru. There are only two scavenges to complete there, so we’ll arrive in Singapore around eleven A.M. and have all day to scavenge since we don’t regroup until ten P.M.

  It’s still pouring when we leave the restaurant, and thin ponchos and travel umbrellas do little to keep us dry while we’re hailing a cab. Thankfully, soggy passengers don’t faze Aza, a chipper Malaysian with an impish smile and mischievous black eyes. With casual shorts, flip-flops, and gel-spiked hair, he looks more like a grad student who puts up a taxi sign between classes than a bona fide taxi driver. While driving between scavenges, we talk about wh
at seems to be his favorite subject: American pop culture.

  “There’s a Malaysian Idol?” my mom and I ask in unison.

  “Of course-lah!” Aza laughs. “We watch the American shows, you know, CSI or 24. But there are Malaysian versions too-lah. Fear Factor Malaysia, Project Runway Malaysia.”

  Why he ends every sentence with “lah,” I have no idea, maybe it’s Malaysian slang.

  “But what about regular Malaysian shows, you don’t watch those?” I ask.

  “We watch them, yes. But they are not always so good-lah. They are little bit . . . I think cheesy is your expression?”

  By cheesy he no doubt refers to shows like I Have a Date with Spring and Night of Soulful Stars, which air on the popular station NTV7—Your Feel Good Channel!

  “It’s the age. To younger Malaysians, anything American is very, very cool-lah. Older people, my parents for example, really only like Malaysian music and TV.”

  He turns up the volume on the ABBA CD that’s been playing since we got in the car and smiles.

  “Me, this is what I like. Okay, ABBA is not American, but they are Western so whatever, same thing-lah. The lyrics are nice, they’re happy, you know? No violence, nothing about the pimps and hos.”

  “You’re not a fan of gangsta rap?” I joke.

  “Some of the beats are good-lah, but I can’t listen to the lyrics! So much of your music and television is violent, and with so much sexy stuff. I see your reality TV and, wow! America must be a crazy place to live!”

  I cringe, although his literal interpretation of “reality” television is understandable. Some cousins of mine who were born and raised in Budapest laughed themselves silly when I told them that American teens don’t get new BMWs or have outrageous parties like the kids on MTV’s My Super Sweet 16. “But those aren’t actors, Mia,” my cousins patiently explained, wondering how on earth I couldn’t know this, did we live out in the middle of nowhere like pioneers with no TV?

  Sure, Americans understand reality TV is sensationalized and often scripted, because we live here and can put it in context; your average Joe who’s never visited America likely thinks we’re a nation of Real Housewives throwing Super Sweet 16 parties for kids on the Jersey Shore.

  “Of course there are teenagers in gangs, or having sex, or using drugs,” my mom explains to Aza, “but far more don’t. Trust me, the people you see on TV, even ‘reality’ TV, are not indicative of most Americans.”

  “That makes sense-lah,” he says, nodding and looking almost relieved. “Like you, the Americans I have met here in Malaysia are very nice and, well . . . not how you seem on TV!” He pauses for a minute, hesitating. “But then why are all the shows like that? I hope you don’t mind that I say this, because I truly mean you no disrespect, but the problems you have with your teens are starting here, too. It is not as much because we are a Muslim country-lah and there is a strong tradition but our kids are starting with the sex, the drugs, the guns. Not respecting their parents so much now. They think it’s cool because it’s American. You’re like the big brother, you know? They want to be like you, to do what they see you do, so it is something for your country to think about. A big brother has much responsibility.”

  He’s right in that, like it or not, America sets the cultural pace for much of the world. I’ve personally done nothing wrong, but I feel almost embarrassed. I don’t think anyone who travels abroad plans on being an ambassador, but you’re often seen as such nonetheless. You’re asked, sometimes quite angrily, why your government does certain things, or, in this case, your media. And I like that Aza has no compunction about saying so, that he’s not worried about being labeled old-fashioned, conservative, or politically incorrect.

  “But hey,” he brightens, seeing our expression, “there is always ABBA-lah!”

  I don’t know which I’m more excited about, seeing Pasar Bandar Baru Sentul, one of Kuala Lumpur’s premier covered markets, or getting out of the car. Aza is a great guy, but I’ve heard more ABBA in the last couple of hours than I heard in the entire 1970s. After the tenth looping of “couldn’t escape if I wanted to,” I was about to yell, “Just watch!” and throw myself from the car at the next stoplight.

  Pasar Bandar Baru Sentul is a microcosm of KL’s melting-pot culture: there’s a Chinese shrine at one end, a mosque at the other, Indian sections in the middle, and everyone seems pretty happy to be there. Markets are my favorite place in any city. First, because they’re a good way to see what women’s lives are like. Second, I don’t think you can really know a people until you know what they eat.

  And what they eat here smells fabulous. As we pass rows of food stalls where shrimp and red chilies dance on sizzling grills and giant pots simmer, I sniff coconut, fish paste, tamarind, ginger, lemongrass, vanilla bean. The cuisine is as diverse as the population—Malay, Chinese, Portuguese-Eurasian, Indonesian, Indian.

  Standing fans cool off groups of men socializing over tea or curries. Women shop in loose ankle-length dresses and headscarves, but many young women are in jeans, with no head covering. A few Indian women wear jewel-toned saris. As in the rest of KL, the young outnumber everyone.

  Much is familiar: piles of cucumbers, beans, tomatoes, oranges, and, as far as I can see, nothing we hire exterminators for, but I could gawk all day at everything else.

  “It’s like piles of gigantic jewels,” Mia observes as we pass tables laden with sleek coral ovals of dragon-fruit with their sassy little yellow flaps; big pink-and-orange rambutans covered with long, bright-green hairs; slick red fruit shaped like flattened candy-apples; a pile of durians, the King of Fruits, tan-spiked balls the size of a watermelon. They’re said to taste like the most heavenly cream, but when opened, the smell is so horrible that they’re banned in public places.

  It’s a surprise at first to see produce and merchandise in blue plastic bins just like ours, but, duh, Claire, like a huge city in one of the most prosperous countries in Southeast Asia is going to trot out its wares in palm-frond baskets. I call this Pier One syndrome.

  For most of Middle America in the seventies, Pier One was our first “taste of the Orient.” You could do nothing cooler than show up in my seventh-grade homeroom with a Pier One tchotchke.* Until we overheard Renee Cohen’s mom talking with a few other greener* about something they bought at “Peeyer Vun,” right after having “a very modern salad” at the mall, one mit bean schprouts. That was it for Pier One in my circle. Nothing un-cooled something faster than our mothers finding it cool. It was back to Pet Rocks at Spencer Gifts.

  We’re scavenging for jasmine garlands to give as temple offerings and could easily have found the flower section blindfolded. Piles of tuberoses beckon with their heavy vapor of roses dunked in honey, overpowering tables of orchids, fuchsia, carnations.

  I’ve been intoxicated by scent since I was a child. When we lived in L.A., where roses grow everywhere, I taught Mia where to find white ones that smelled like lychees, fat pink blooms that smelled like Kleenex and clove, bloodred roses with the scent of a baby’s powdered neck.

  Mia and I sniff like drunks toward white ropes of jasmine that announce themselves with the aroma of thick summer nights. A woman about my age is bundling the strands behind a table with two young men helping her, probably her sons.

  “We’d like four jasmine garlands, please,” Mia asks.

  She nods and as she starts to wrap them in newspaper, she begins to scowl. A beautiful young woman, a student with an armload of medical textbooks, arrives with her girlfriends. The woman stops wrapping to speak harshly to her, scolding her as if she were five, right in front of her friends, and us. Mia and I exchange a glance—what should we do, leave, or stay and pretend we don’t hear it?

  The young woman simply listens to her mother before replying respectfully. Satisfied with whatever she said, they exchange a few words and a quick kiss, the woman takes our money and returns to work, and the girl returns to gabbing with her girlfriends as if nothing happened.

  You c
an spot a mother and daughter a mile away even if you don’t understand a word. They do the Zero to Sixty in every culture, though it sure looks different here. It would be rare to see this scene in the States, where parents rarely discipline even young children in public. Here, no one bats an eye with an adult kid.

  Of course now I’m formulating all kinds of questions for Aza. It’s as if this scene was deliberately orchestrated to illustrate the kind of deep familial connection and lifetime respect for parents he laments is disappearing owing to our culture’s influence.

  I don’t disagree with him. American kids don’t seem any better off for their mothers having lost the kind of respect and authority they once had—“once” being about a century ago, when the only experts on motherhood were the only people qualified to be: women who had successfully raised happy, healthy children. Before doctors and psychologists, all male, became the experts and “mother” became a diagnosis. And before children were seen as so fragile that potty training a moment too soon would lead to a lifetime of self-esteem issues.

  I turn down a row lined with giant red and yellow heliconia stalks. Mia yanks my sleeve to switch my direction. “Wrong aisle.”

  “What am I, a horse? Stop pulling me.”

  “I’m thirsty. I want to try the Milo at the next market.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Basically, iced chocolate milk in a bag, ten points.”

  “That’s got water in the ice cubes—are you nuts? Do you actually want gut-wrenching diarrhea?”

  “Mother, they’re my guts and I’m thirsty. It has, like, three ice cubes.”

  “Oh, that’s not what you said to me in China when I had the water.”

  “You have a point there,” she acknowledges.

  After a pause, “But I’m still going to drink it.”