on some spur-of-the-moment shit i went to cargo last night for the aqua teen hunger force dvd launch party. the setup sounded pretty fratty, complete with free beer and the most intense eating contest i'd ever heard of--3 rounds; round one with french fries (or chips as the blokes say), round two with meatballs, and round 3 with milkshakes. word on the skreet is that one of the competitors was so into it that even after filling his stomach up and blowing chunks he slurped it back up to get the points. yeah. luckily, i got there late. by the time i arrived the venue was almost empty, beer bottles scattered all over the floor, and the crowd mostly scattered crews, one of which was passing around sharp-smelling spliffs and talking shop.

i linked up with kengo--a japanese-british b-boy that i met last week, and his flatmate yami--a columbian-swede dancer (her name's pronounced like how arnold the governator would say after eating belgian waffles..."mmmm, those waffles are yami in my tami"). and yeah, i said columbian-swede. and you thought asians with british accents are a trip...wait till you meet south americans with accents reminiscent of augustus gloop from willy wonka. during this trip, i've come to love accents even more than i used to. i've become much more aware of mine. feel mighty like a yankee, gee golly.

after passing up some wack clubs we decide to settle in a humble lounge basement. russian vodka bottles plastered (get it?) in red wax with candle flames doing pliées atop. of course, like always, like as if it could ever not, the conversation directs to the topic of race. yami's spent some time in philly, where her heritage (columbian-slash-native indian-slash-portugese a.k.a. "somehow i look thai") was reacted to like, "oh....so.....you're puerto rican then?" the united states, she explained, was one of the most culturally-closed countries she had ever been to. "and sweden is WHHIIITEEE!" she adds. "but even still...man...america..."

i take a sip from my glass of sauvignon (i've grown accustomed to drinking sauvignon because it's more impressive of an order than chardonnay...and i only do white, if you know what i mean) and reflect. the past week in london has put my asian american studies minor to the test. i've had to "put up" with certain things that i'd usually go buck over in the states. most prominently, being referred to as "oriental" quite often (by "orientals" and non-"orientals" alike). asians referring to themselves as such. but even still, it seems that there is something greater that overshadows it, perhaps makes it more bearable.

kengo explains that the mayor of london specifically encourages integration--through programs, festivals, altogether creating a deeper sense of cultural solidarity. whether or not that's true, i have to admit that one of the first things i noticed upon checking the social scene in london was how folks of color hardly winced when interacting with each other. people aren't scared to ask questions or be asked. the term "politically correct" has yet to be tossed around, and yes, my toes have been stepped on more than once by miswording, awkward comments, but at the very least it's all honest.

it makes me wonder about america, and how we love to wave our flag of multiculturalism--brandish ourselves like the teletubbies of the world embracing all shapes and sizes and colors (minus the selective deportations, detainees, and deployments of missiles, of course). could it truly be that i could leave america, "land of the free," and actually feel more free???

it seems that the urgency for intercultural solidarity is vastly different out here than the places i've been in the states. where in the states, it's like "people of color unite, we must, in order to beat the WHITE MAN!" in the circles i've been around in london, it's just the way it is.

is it perfect? definitely not. have i been in this city long enough to sense racism rupture from the depths of the street, to feel the covert colonizer, to tap in class dynamics? nope. but if anything, it gives me something to think about. far from home and isolated from much of the rhetoric of ethnic studies that i swore my life by in my college years, in a lot of ways i do feel, for the first time, "free." maybe england wasn't a bad place for me to come "find myself." if anything, i've stumbled across good people with similar ideals for their own existences. more than being free, just simply being.