LGBT Story Project
After three months of traveling, I feel I am about to have an emotional break-down. I can’t help but feel the deep sadness and helplessness inside.
It all happens in Bangkok, a place claimed to be a paradise. Why is that, you may ask. I wonder about it, too. Travel fatigue, constantly moving and context shifting, and hundreds of hellos and goodbyes, homesickness, and frustration with writing…I guess they are all good reasons. I don’t know where to stay, what to do, how to cheer myself up. I became agitated and more and more frustrated in my little dorm room in a little hostel. That’s then I realize sometimes, for people like me who are antisocial most of the time, actually should get a private room. Rendezvous with fellow GISTers is such a joyful experience. We may be the only ones in this world to share something in common and understand some of challenges we encountered during these study trips. And alas, time to say goodbye. Like a train has to leave. And more goodbyes to say. So many interesting people I have met. I am curious about their life. I want to pry even more into their life and learn about their stories, thoughts, and frustration and happiness. But like Mekong River running towards the sea, I can do nothing about it. Meeting with new friends, again with old friends, and saying goodbye have become more and more difficult. Listening to retro music, billows of homesickness come and devour me down. It’s not exactly about my own home, but something I am familiar with, something I have expertise in, something I can control and tweak to making things work better or beautiful. I am in vain when travelling. I can’t do the usual things I am good at. I feel so truly about my own limitations when in a foreign environment. My skills are nowhere to be used. And I also realize, all I know actually is not that special. People don’t have to have elaborate things in a fancy way to achieve their end goal. They can speak spoken language but they can still convey their meaning. All the survival skills I picked up in big cities, often times, they don’t work in these emerging cities. No one to talk to intellectually is also another major source of frustration, I guess. Once I schedule fewer meetings, when more and more free time takes up my life, a sense of vainness and void quickly disseminate and takes up the whole space. I also find I am not happy anymore with people I used to. That realization likes a big sword, stirred up the beautiful memories I used to possess, toss them in the air, and shred them into pieces, like snowflakes, and then let them drop back to the ground pathetically. So I decided to move on. I can’t stay in one place for too long. I need to change. I have to run.
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AuthorHi this is Martin. I am traveling in greater China and Southeast Asia. Looking for conversations, adventures, and more. Archives
April 2015
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