Alice Wakes Up (Processing My 9-Months Budapest Experience)

The story of coming of age usually starts with the main character’s old world – their starting point – until something very daunting challenges them to step out of their comfort zone. During this process, it might be very uncomfortable. They had to face the monsters in their own closets, to talk about the elephant in the room, and to complete ‘quests’ that seemed truly impossible to reach in the beginning. Somehow, in order to complete the pursuit of finding themselves, they had to burn the old bridges in order to build stronger, newer ones, while carefully not setting themselves aflame instead as they carry that heavy, hot torch in a trembling hand. They would think: the future might be at hand. The future might not be that far. The future… no longer seems impossible to reach. And to reach a better future means growth. Growth that might be painful. Growth that might dare one to fall so they could learn to fly.  Growth which pushes them to expand beyond the box they used to belong. The kind of growth signaling one is ready for change. Eventually, like the rough cycle of a hero’s journey, these characters (e.g. Katniss Everdeen, Spiderman, The Pevensies) would return to their initial starting point as transformed individuals – they were now their own person, wielding their own selfhood; free from the shadows of the old box.

More or less, within the past 9 months, this is what I have been feeling. When I first arrived in Budapest to pursue my PhD, I wrote down how difficult the journey was. I did not only struggle with financial dilemmas, but also psychological ones. Now, the story continues. A week before I flew home for my summer break, I cried in bed. Well, yes, I have always been a melancholic and poetic creature since day 1 (perhaps given my dramatic entrance into the world, that I was born during the bloody 1998 Reformation; the next day, a literature university student on crutches – presumably, one of the demonstrators – visited the hospital and looked for a newborn baby, me,  to dedicate and read aloud the poem about the children of the nation, which he did).  I grieved over the fact that the ‘old’ me was gone. Vanished. The girl who used to crouch inside the box, playing with the shadows, was now transformed as she had to make her way into the world. It was a bittersweet experience and heart-throbbing in the beginning. Yet she starts to enjoy that life-changing rollercoaster ride as life opens her eyes to see the bigger picture of the world – both the dark and light. She felt and feels the exciting new prospects, and the thrill of this brighter expansion. 

When I first arrived, I was overwhelmed. I was not used to seeing so many people coming from different backgrounds, and my postcolonial-influence habitus was greatly challenged the moment I scrutinize the color of my skin. To wear a cross-shaped pendant was not something usual for me back home, because I am a minority. Yet, in my present environment abroad, the Cross brought protection. Some of my colleagues and friends encountered unpleasant moments related to this issue in public places, which I could not mention explicitly here. However, I was super grateful that up until today, I did not experience such things. I never lived far away from home before, let alone living in another country for years. 

It turned out, the world is bigger than I thought it was. My grandma was right. When I was 10, I used to lie down next to her. She took a good look at my feet, and then she would say, “you would be traveling the world.” From a mystical point of view, I think she knew it happened – the night I landed in Budapest, she visited me in my dream and hugged me. When I was about to depart, in distress, she came to me again in my dreams to comfort me. It is quite funny and endearing to recall the memory that when I was 18, the elderly computer-lab staff in my home university (apparently, who had a sixth sense) told me that my grandma often looked after me wherever I went. Funny enough, he told me that he could see her standing next to me (lol!). I am not invested in that kind of mystical belief since I was raised in quite a devoted Charismatic household, but I think anything could happen, since after all, the world is bigger than I could imagine. 

Hence, eventually my survival instincts were molded due to the foreign circumstances, which soon evolved into a familiar rhythm to me. Speaking about the color of my skin, I knew I had to prove my worth to be three times more excellent. Prejudice and judgement is real, but excellence and kindness is a universal language to all. I used to feel distant reading stories and literary works of the diaspora or those with the themes of in-between-ness; now everything makes sense. In my own way, I am in the process of occupying my own ‘third space’ – and I don’t think I would ever stop to ‘settle down’ in this niche. As the postcolonial theorist Homi Bhabha contends (credits to AZ Quotes, haha): 

“The theoretical recognition of the split-space of enunciation may open the way to conceptualising an international culture, based not on the exoticism of multiculturalism or the diversity of cultures, but on the inscription and articulation of culture's hybridity. It is the inbetween space that carries the burden of the meaning of culture, and by exploring this Third Space, we may elude the politics of polarity and emerge as the others of our selves.”

These words might refer to the socio-cultural analysis of the dynamic global citizenship. Yet, I took the last parts personally, close to my heart. On the last part, I could infer, in other words: the way outwards might be the deeper path inwards. The more unfamiliar the circumstances are, the more I learn about myself, and the more I respect those who are in the similar journey as I do.

 Sometimes, I would also receive remarks from those I meet:“Wow, you are so brave,” “Respect for you living abroad,” or “You are so passionate to pursue your dream”. I would thank them for the nice compliments, but deep down, my current condition is born out of the instincts of survival (if you know the current politics of Wonderland, you would get a sense of what I am saying). I had not choice but to be brave; I had no other choice but to leave in order to secure a better future for my family (given that I am also the eldest daughter); I had no other choice but to fight for my dream because I know that if I don’t escape the matrix, uncertainty would snatch it away from my hands as time silently lurks in the dark corners). If Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not Taken” talks about choosing the road less-traveled by, my case is the contrary – I am not given the privilege to choose. I must take the road less-traveled by, because I know time is short. If there is Katniss Everdeen, Spiderman, or the Pevensies which represents characters who motioned through the circular cycle of a hero’s journey, I would pick Alice. She’s not a hero, but a regular person, just like us. My version of Alice is that she knew that eventually she would wake up, finding her great Wonderland an illusion on the brink of a dystopian crisis for clean energy, quality thinkers, and sustainable natural resources. 

Oh, what a privilege it is to wake up when one still could with the pen (and perhaps, one’s digital keyboard) the strongest weapon to wield into the dark tunnel. In this pursuit of my holistic selfhood, I am waking up. I cannot stay silent. I must write. I must write in my own way. And oh, how I wish to write down these thoughts in my own mother tongue. Goerge Orwell knows it very well, that one day Big Brother would always seize control, and to write a diary freely would be treason to the Minister of Love. The same goes to Pramoedya Ananta Toer, who lived almost 60% of his life under false imprisonment from one jail to another camp, and apparently in Alice’s present world, the Wonderland’s version of the Ministers of Love are still afraid of  Pram’s black on white that they changed the covers to plain blue and erased the backcover blurb. When Wonderland was banned from reading his works university students would obtain dark photocopies during the 80s, Pram was a global hit, the Nobel Prize candidate from his home country and South East Asia, and a widely-read author by postcolonial literary students from all over the world to open the eyes of many to systemic and structural injustices. In the end, words would always live forever. And the truth would always set us free. 

I would like to close my stream-of-consciousness rant (the fancy name for my random venting, haha), with a heartfelt experience before my trip home. Aan and I got lost in the Nyugati subway. I was so touched by the violinist, an elderly man who played the instrument with all his heart with an orchestral backsound. The melody was so strong and confident, as if he was playing from the depths of his soul. I teared up. I was deeply moved that I decided to gift him a 10-euro note, dropping it in his empty case. He was playing “The Sound of Silence” by Simon & Garfunkel (my grandpa’s favorite track), and I managed to save the raw recording in my phone for personal recollection. I felt that this is a message for me to take home, not only in respect to confirming my academic research project but also my personal life as I live in a world that’s growing dim to humanity and conscience. It might be the theme to my story – the coming-of-age story. The kind of story where discomfort signals one is ready for change. At last, Alice has woken up.

***

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrYkrAt4Qyw

The Sound of Silence - Simon & Garfunkel (1964)

[Verse 1]

Hello, darkness, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence

[Verse 2]

In restless dreams, I walked alone

Narrow streets of cobblestone

'Neath the halo of a street lamp

I turned my collar to the cold and damp

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light

That split the night

And touched the sound of silence

[Verse 3]

And in the naked light, I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more

People talking without speaking

People hearing without listening

People writing songs that voices never shared

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence

[Verse 4]

"Fools," said I, "You do not know

Silence, like a cancer, grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you"

But my words, like silent raindrops, fell

And echoed in the wells of silence

[Verse 5]

And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls

And whispered in the sound of silence"