Post-Turkey Day Wrap-Up

I love this time of year!

I know I've stated this many times ad-nauseaum here already, but actually the reason this time has nothing to do with the holidays. It has to do with work. Many of you don't know this, but November and December are wind-down months at my office. Most of the busy work is between the months of April and September, with October being a transition month. But especially starting in mid to late November, we get to sit back and take a breather while more mundane, non-critical tasks are completed and reviewed. So in addition to the already festive mood I'm in, I get the added luxury of having it pretty easy at my nine-to-fiver as well.

So, this is my rather roundabout way of saying that the return back to the office after 4 luxurious days off has been a breeze. Nothing too taxing for me to stress over. How was your own transition back into the daily grind?

In addition to an easy, breezy start to the week, I had a rather sweet weekend spent at home finishing up some odds and ends. I did a bit of house cleaning, sure. But more importantly--I finished up two items of import which I shall go into more detail below:

How Not To Be An Ugly American

As you know, Lisa and I have done a lot of traveling in the past year and a half. Call it what you will; maybe we have the traveling bug. But, what's been surprising me a lot lately is the response of some friends and family who reveal a decided disinterest in traveling anywhere outside of the United States. Or, if they do travel, they only want to go to locales that fit neatly within their "comfort level." Which is really just another way of saying: "Someplace where they speak English."

This comes as a shock to me. Maybe I'm being naive, but I never thought the threat of being in a foreign country where the local population doesn't speak a language you can understand was ever an impediment to travel. Yes, true, I do tend to stress out about learning the basic greetings and what have you in the language of the country we're about to visit, but this has more to do with wanting to be polite and not come off as some arrogant American who thinks the whole world should do me the courtesy of speaking English while I visit them.

So, is this a problem for those of you reading this? Would you rather only travel to countries where they speak the language you speak, or have a culture comparable to your own?

Uno, Due, Tre . . . My Secret To Learning New Languages

Been monstrous busy this past week, mostly to do with preparing for our cruise two weeks from now. As I've mentioned before, I'm doing what I did when we went to Paris for the first time last year. But learning Italian instead of French. Mostly basic words and phrases to help me through some possible scenarios while in Rome and Naples. I'm able to learn the fundamentals, at least, right away simply by applying the same exact language skills I learned while studying Mandarin in college -- repetition, repetition, and MORE repetition.

Sure, I know. You probably already know this technique. It's no secret. And yet, constant practicing doesn't always mean sitting at a desk with dusty language books and audio cues. Not for me. When I learn a language, I tend to live and breathe it everywhere I go. In this case, I take the lessons I learned the night before and constantly repeat them in my head while brushing my teeth, taking a shower, putting myself to sleep at night, etc. When I work out, I count each rep in my head in Italian. This way I get the numbers down pat.

On the subway commute to work, I live out mock scenarios and practice my response to each. I don't say the phrases out loud, naturally, because then I would be one of THOSE people on the subway. But I do keep a constant inner monologue going.

At work, I plug in my mp3 player and earphones and play the audio lessons in the background while I work. In a nutshell, I immerse myself in that language for weeks before I arrive in the country. No, I'm not fluent or even close to being so. But at the very least I can say what little I do know very, very well. And my pronunciation ain't so bad, either.

See, there's no trick to it. And you don't have to have a knack for languages. Hell, I'm virtually tone deaf! All you need are the right practice materials, the technology to make the most of them . . . and the discipline to work away at it little by little each and every day. If you're like me, you might even find yourself dreaming in the language you're trying to learn.

Yeah, ain't that some heavy shit?

Paris, Redux

We returned home from our second trip to Paris last night. Of course, today we're feeling the "Paris blues" that comes from spending an entire week in such an awesome city only to leave it behind rather abruptly. To be true, New York City is every bit as amazing a metropolitan center as Paris, but in its own different way.

The unique thing about being in Paris, of course, is simply the grand scale of HISTORY that surrounds you everywhere you go. I had a Parisian this week tell me that this is because my wife and I chose to stay in the very quaint and historic island of Ile Saint Louis. Sure, the island *is* one of the few places in Paris that still has many of its pre-19th century buildings intact. I'm not talking the isolated centuries-old town house or church here--which you can stumble across anywhere in Paris--but entire streets and neighborhoods that have remained virtually untouched since the 1600s!

So, yes, this person had a point. Still, walking down any street in the city will be a history lesson that can stretch as far back as the Middle Ages, if not to actual Roman times. There's a certain thrill to this knowledge, walking around such an ancient city, that you simply cannot get in New York City. This is not to say NYC doesn't have it's own unique history. It certainly does, and I love it! But who are we kidding? I walked through back alleys in Paris that dated back to before the Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam. It's hard not to be impressed by that.

And this is what I love so much about the city. But it is not the only thing that makes it so special. The people, the language, the art, the restaurants . . . the impromptu street musicians who spring up out of the blue!

Honestly, I can go on and on. So I will, if only for a little while longer. Bear with me.

Lisa and I had an even more fantastic time this second trip around. We went the exact same time period as last year (second-to-last week of March), but the weather could not be any different. This time we had sunny skies and mid-60s temps for most of our visit. It was glorious! Truly the best weather for walking around a city.

We did notice, however, that we were more jaded this time. Riding the metro, for instance, was a barely remarked upon afterthought. We simply used it to get to where we were going. What I mean is: we took the trains as if we were in NYC. We didn't feel like we were in Paris, or that there was anything special about the experience. It was a tool to be used as a means to an end. And that end was to get to parts of the city we could not get to on foot. No different than how we ride the subway here.

Suffice to say we were only rarely seen as tourists during our stay. Except the one time when I stumbled into a souvenir shop lured by the sight of Japanese samurai swords (turned out to be cheap knock-offs -- BLEH!) and suddenly lost what few words of the local tongue I knew when the Chinese owner came up to me and started hawking her wares in rapid-fire French.

To be fair, I think what threw me off the most was that, prior to this, she had been speaking to her friend in Mandarin, and my brain had a momentary WTF? lapse as it tried to process the Chinese it was hearing into the English internal dialog of my thoughts, all the while preparing a French phrase of apology as I quickly retreated out of the kitschy store. What ended up happening was that I became tongue-tied. The owner laughed and made fun of me in Chinese to her friend, before switching to English (don't ask me how she knew this was my native tongue) and asking me if I needed help. To cover my embarrassment, I was forced to buy a ridiculously cheap miniature of Notre Dame cathedral for 3 euros. I have the thing sitting on my desk right now. It's a constant reminder of how my ego can still be knocked down to size whenever I get too comfortable with what I think I know.

But that's Paris for you. Always full of funny and, maybe, not-so-funny moments if you are not paying attention.

Keep your eyes on this blog as I update with more reports on our trip. And, of course, this includes my now infamous "Highlander: The Series" filming locations tour, the first entry of which I wrote last year and can be viewed by clicking here. Suffice to say I have even more and exciting pics to offer in the followup entry, which I'll be posting shortly.

Stay tuned!

Chinese Sneak Attack

It happens in the most unsuspecting of places, this spontaneous attack of the old Chinese language skills I've acquired.

I was in J&R purchasing my next game, inFamous (see sidebar), for the PlayStation 3, when the cashier ran afoul of some technical glitch on her machine. Suddenly she started speaking rapid-fire Mandarin to her co-worker, and me not quite realizing I was doing it, tuned in to the conversation as I dug for my cash. Then the co-worker asked "well, how much did you ring it up for?" And immediately I replied in Mandarin: "six dollars and forty-nine cents." Whoa, just like that!

Now, it's been some 11 years since I've last used Chinese on a daily basis, and to be honest I've forgotten a lot. So I was as shocked as the cashiers to hear those words come out of my mouth, let me tell you. Both cashiers were suddenly all smiles. The woman still responded to me in broken English afterwards, but every now and then she peppered in some Chinese words as we concluded the transaction. I told her "hao le" when she counted out my change, then thanked her in Mandarin as I left.

As I walked towards the escalator, I heard the one cashier say to the other: "He said 'xie-xie,' but I don't think he was Chinese."

LOL!

Anyway, that was an interesting encounter. Makes me want to go and take remedial classes so that I can re-learn all the stuff I've lost -- like how to read and write.

NYC is a cool, diverse place to live, I tell ya!

On Vacation

Phew, at last! The time of the year I love most. Nope, not Christmas but . . . holiday break! As a creature of habit, I was quite upset the year I graduated from college and realized that, in the real world, there is no such thing as winter recess!

What, after almost 2 decades of being conditioned to expect a nice reprieve at the end of the year, you expect me to actually come to work now? Surely you jest?

And so, as soon as I had seniority to accumulate enough days, I put aside two weeks worth every year in order to enjoy the holidays properly and work-free! Yesterday was my last day of the year, and as it so happens it was also a day for more snow. Yay! And we got quite a nasty one. The above picture was taken from the window at my office, overlooking St. Paul's across the street (one of the oldest churches in the city). As you can see, we got a good coating of the white stuff. Which always makes me happy. And there's more on the way in the coming days before Xmas. Hooray!

Due to the inclement weather, my company let us leave at noon to beat the hazardous conditions on the road. As I take the subway home, I had no road conditions to worry about, so Lisa and I took in a few movies. I saw The Punisher as I waited for Lisa to get out of work. It was a terrible movie, made worse by the fact that they made Montreal stand in for New York. At least, I think that was Montreal. Montreal is good for a few things, but standing in for NYC is not one of them. If they absolutely have to use a Canadian city to double as my hometown, I prefer Toronto. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway, Punisher was good in terms of the action and actually, you know, sticking closer to the comics (especially the Garth Ennis MAX line) than the horrible previous movie a few years back did. But it was still a brutal mess. The poor acting and uninvolving storyline detracted hugely, but the brooding atmosphere and take-no-prisoners, balls to the wall, firefights made up for it a little bit. I rate it a 5/10.

Lisa and I went to see the latest Will Smith flick, Seven Pounds, afterwards. I swear to god I figured out the entire plotline within the first 50 minutes of this 2-hour tear-jerker. At least, it was a tear-jerker for everyone else who apparently didn't see the obvious clues that were being thrown about at the beginning. But, while the impact of the big reveal at the end was robbed for me, the emotional impact was still there at least. I actually thought it was a very good film, especially thanks to the outstanding performances by Will Smith and Rosario Dawson. Dawson in particular was mesmerizing to watch. She can make me pancakes any day of the week, yessir! I give it an 8/10 rating.

We had dinner at our favorite Chinese place in that part of town (near Hell's Kitchen) called Ollies. I asked the waiter where the bathroom was in Mandarin and he damned near tripped over himself smiling before telling me. I almost never bust out the Chinese when at a restaurant, because most of the time the waitstaff are Cantonese or, more recently, Fujianese, and I end up being greeted by confused stares. But at this place almost everyone speaks Mandarin. Which is nice. Hearing it around me almost feels like home, which is funny since I'm not actually Chinese. I guess it reminds me of college, which after 4 years really did feel like home.

Afterwards, we walked back to the theater and watched the final movie of the day, Gran Torino starring Clint Eastwood. Wow, what a great movie! I loved, loved, LOVED it!!! It was so superbly written and acted. Clint served triple duty as director, actor, and producer. And once again he pulls out an Oscar-worthy performance on all counts. He even sings the closing song during the credits. Was not my cup of tea (the song), but kudos to him for having the balls to do it. The story itself is about an old Korean-war vet living out his retirement in solitude with his dog, Betsy. His neighborhood is quietly being taken over my Hmong refugees, and the old man begrudgingly forms a relationship with the teenage brother and sister living next door. It's sort of like a reverse Karate Kid story, but with no karate. The old white handy man who takes in a displaced Asian kid who cannot defend himself against the local gangs. He has the kid fix up the odds and ends around his and the neighbors' houses, and in return he serves as a sort of father figure to the young man. Aww. In all seriousness, go see this! I don't think it's in wide-release just yet, but when it is . . . SEE IT!!!

I give it a 9/10.

We got back to the Bronx at midnight (subway ran just fine) and it was still snowing! I took this pic on the walk through the park so you can see how much snow actually fell. Sorry for the motion blurriness. Guess I was walking faster than I realized.

Learning Chinese

As I've mentioned before, my father was hispanic and my mother was anglo-saxon/American. His family was from the Dominican Republic, while her family was from Scotland and England. My parents split when I was two, and at that time I had only learned rudimentary Spanish as a second language. Once my mother got her own place, however, my brothers and I spoke only English. I had to learn Spanish the hard way like everyone else -- through high school language class. But thanks to being exposed to it when I was a baby, the one advantage I had over everyone else was a natural authentic spanish accent that I didn't really have to work at, and a smattering knowledge of individual words like the words for "juice" and "dog".

What does this have to do with me learning Chinese? Well, you see, I hate Spanish and all things associated with the language and hispanic cultures. I was given crap all my life because I had a Spanish last name but yet could not speak the language or undersatnd the customs the way other hispanic people expected me to. So because of this I developed a negative stigma against the culture. To this day I refuse to learn more than the basic level of proficiency in Spanish because I vehemently do not identify with the culture.

However, I did want to learn another language. I'd been told so many stories about how naturally adept my mother had been at learning languages. She learned Spanish fluently over the course of one summer, according to my grandmother. I always entertained the idea that I had inherited her easy fluency with languages. I picked Chinese as the language I myself would chose to learn, rather than being something others expected me to learn simply because of my features and last name.

Let me put it another way: I felt I could only learn another language when it was a language no one on Earth would expect me to know. If my teacher or peers perceived me as somehow having an unfair advantage over a non-native speaker (as what happened with Spanish), I could not learn it. Additionally, I wanted a language that was so far out of left field that no one would expect it. I thrive in situations where people underestimate me. So naturally I wanted to learn something not too many people can learn easily.

This was one of the reasons I chose Mandarin. And yet it is only a superficial reason.

The other, real, reason I chose Mandarin was because of all the cultures on Earth, I've always identified most with Chinese people. That might seem strange for a mixed kid who grew up in the south Bronx ghetto to say, but it's true. From so early on that I can't remember why or when exactly, I've been fascinated with China. I used to read children's stories written by missionairies working in China. The stories were written by Westerners, but were about Chinese children and often took place during Imperial history (almost alway the Qing Dynasty, but I read a few from the Tang Dynasty as well). As a kid I found the culture so alien from anything I had ever seen before, that I used to think China was this mystical magical place. For me, the Far East was a real-life fairy tale!

For someone who hated his surroundings and the life he'd been born into, you can imagine why the allure of Asia had been so strong for me. As I entered puberty, it only grew more profound as I began reading histories and non-fictional accounts of China. I also read more serious Chinese folklore stories written by Chinese authors and poets throughout time. China felt like my home away from home, and yet I'd never been there.

In 1990 when I began high school, the Japan-o-phile invasion of manga and robotech anime cartoons had only just begun to take over hordes of dweebish American teens. And while I admit to being mildly susceptible to the allure of Nippon as well (particularly Samurai culture and coda), it did not even come close to the love affair I had with all things Chinese. Since I was a boy, naturally this chiefly developed into a keen interest (bordering on obsession) with all things kung-fu.

By the time I was 16, my main goal in life was to run away to China and seek out the legendary Shaolin mountain and study with the monks for the rest of my life. Say goodbye to my friends and family, and just disappear! That's how badly I wanted to be away from America and the materialism and senseless violence of the South Bronx ghetto mind in particular.

By the time I was 18, common sense won over and I realized that a more sensible plan was to go to college and study as much about Chinese culture as I could. I went to Middlebury College in Vermont primarily because it was a very strong private liberal arts college -- but also because it was one of the most esteemed and recognized leaders of undergrad language education in the entire nation. Not an insignificant accolade, I must say. Particular renowned were its Chinese language classes and instructors.

I started taking Chinese classes at a time when I did not yet know what my major would be. I came into Middlebury expecting to major in pre-med. Then this switched to Psychology. But when I realized how much fun I was having in Chinese language class--and that, in fact, I did indeed have a knack for learning the language--I came to an epiphany one restless night in January and decided to make my major Chinese Studies. And once I crossed that threshold, there was no turning back. I threw myself headlong into the endeavor of learning everything I could possibly learn about China. Not just its official language--but all aspects of this great culture and nation. Art, history, politics, economics, and, most of all, its literature. Although language study took up 60% of all my education time at Middlebury, my second love was studying Chinese literature. I devoured all of the classics, some of which I would later re-read in the original Wenyan -- the (classical) Chinese literary system of writing.

By sophomore year of college I was already taking advanced classes and preparing to study abroad in China during my junior year. However, plans unfortunately fell through due to financial reasons and also an oversight I had made in choosing my curriculum, which forced me to have to stay behind and take specific Middlebury-based classes or else risk getting kicked out of my major. It was a dark time for me because I had been so looking forward to studying at the Beijing Normal University and then, later, in the northern frigid city of Harbin. My friends ended up going, and I stayed behind. To this day it is my single most regret about my college education.

However, staying behind junior year turned out to have been a blessing. Because it allowed me to turn my studies towards modern Chinese literature and politics, a subject that I would find myself singularly attracted to. I also became engrossed in mainland China's dramatic film works, most of which had been banned by the Communist censors from being seen in the directors' own homeland. Had I gone to China, ironically, I never would have seen these movies during my junior year. Which would have been too bad as, due to these movies changing my world view forever, I was able to form the basis for the thesis I would have to write senior year in order to graduate.

Senior year, in addition to writing my 100-page thesis, I had now entered a super-advanced level of language study by this point. A level designed for only the serious Chinese major. This meant I was in classes with only 6 other students at all times, all of whom I'd been classmates with for almost my entire college career.

By this point we were studying Confucius and Lao Zi in the original script, conducting entire classroom discussions in Chinese, and writing out thousand-character essays every single week for each class! It was grueling, and my brain was mush--but I learned so much! I had long ago started dreaming in Chinese, but by senior year it had gotten to the point that I no longer remembered any Spanish. Whenever I tried to speak Spanish, the words would come out in Chinese first. It got so bad that it was sometimes difficult for me to even speak English, so immersed had I become in Mandarin.

I can't even wrap my head around that right now! Can you?

I ended up acing the thesis and graduating with honors. I had accomplished one of my main goals at college. Yet I knew enough to know that all my studies had only exposed me to the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, and that the next step was to actually move to China and basically "turn" Chinese! :)

Unfortunately, I could not leave the people I loved behind after all. Most importantly, Lisa. We were too much in love that I could not bare the thought of abandoning her to live out my selfish dream of being some kung-fu hermit living on a mountain top in central China. I faced reality, and realized that I had other dreams to follow. Like becoming a writer . . . and marrying Lisa. So far, I've realized one of those dreams already. And I'm working hard on realizing the other.

I regret now, however, that in the 10 years since graduating, I have not found any use at all for my Chinese language skills. I don't have Chinese family members to converse with, my friends from college are all over the globe and of sporadic contact, and I've allowed myself to be too distracted by other personal concerns over the years.

All of which are excuses for me admitting that I have drastically forgotten a lot of what I've learned. I can no longer read Chinese even half as good as I used to be able to do, and my writing skills are almost non-existent. However, I can still carry on conversations in Chinese, as the lingual part of the language was the part most ingrained in my brain after all.

And, you know what? I still have the occasional dream in Chinese to this day! So I guess that's a good sign.

Over the past year I've been thinking of taking up remedial Mandarin classes. It's going to make me feel like a dumbass paying money again for something I've already learned before, but I jut can't allow for all that I worked for to go down the drain. I also need to figure out some way to keep the knowledge active so that I don't lose it again.

And, of course, I desperately want to go to China. I keep seeing three-week excursions being offered here and there, and want so badly to go. Maybe someday I'll work up the funds and courage to do so.

And there you have it folks. Why it is that I know more Chinese than Spanish, and why I feel more of an affinity towards Chinese people and culture than I do my own father's culture.

Thanks to Cindy over at A Little Sweet, A Litte Sour for asking me to write this. I know it was a rather long read, but I hope I covered all the bases! :)

Please allow me to introduce myself . . .

Argh, mateys!

Hello there, glad you could join me. This is the narcissist post, all about me. I promise not to do too many of these (if any) in the future.

Now, who the hell am I? Nobody, yet. I'm the original David Batista, and not at all related to that poser wrestler (who's real last name is spelled with a 'u' in there, btw). I'm just an average guy living in the big, bad city of New York. I was born and spent most of my life here, and it's not too bad of a place to call home.

I'm of mixed heritage (anglo-saxon mother, dominican father) with almost no hispanic identity. Which is a shame, as it would have been nice if my father had stuck around to teach me some spanish. Anyway, I was raised solely by my mother, and then her mother (my grandma) after the age of nine. I am who I am today thanks to being surrounded by strong-willed, independent women -- my mother, grandmother, and aunt.

In high school I learned Spanish for the first time. Some of it stuck, most of it didn't. I had far more success in college where I majored in Chinese Studies. As a result, I came away with a pretty solid mastery of Mandarin and an unwavering love of all things China. I enjoy learning languages, especially difficult ones.

Now I spend my days toiling in a high-profile legal publishing company located in the Financial District. But by night . . .oh, well that's where the fun begins!

You see, I'm trying to break into the fiction writing biz. Specifically, sci-fi. I got back into writing in the summer of 2006, focusing mainly on the short form. I've written nineteen short stories since then, ranging from 5k to 12k in length. I still have a lot to learn as none of my attempts are fit to be published. Well, that's not true; one of my stories will be published online in the Feb. 2009 issue of Afterburn SF. So hopefully I can keep the ball rolling!

This blog will just be me going off at the mouth on various subjects that fit my fancy, not necessarily sci-fi related. I have a wide range of interests: from comics to computers, to antelope herding and video games. Okay, I made up one of those (guess which one).

I can get very heated on certain subjects, but for the most part I'll keep this blog on an even keel. My main mission is to just have fun.

Hope you do, too!

Feel free to drop in on the comments section and leave an introduction of your own.

Peace!

--David J. Batista