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As You Like It
If you ask me to describe my most recent travels in a single phrase, I would have to steal the words from Shakespeare and say, “All the world’s a stage”. In the span of seven months, I’ve flown out to 8 countries and more than 50 cities to perform and plant cultural seeds around the globe. I’ve been on approximately 230 stages all over the US, Asia and Europe – not to say that that’s all the world, but it’s more of the world than I knew before. It may seem like I’m boasting, and maybe to some extent I am, because I know that not many young adults are given the same opportunity or circumstance.
“… and all the men and women merely players…”
I traveled with a group of friends-slash-colleagues to share our talents and spread goodwill (as we have been dubbed Cultural Ambassadors of Goodwill by the Philippine Department of Tourism). There was great pressure at the back of everyone’s minds to look nice, to behave accordingly, to act polite and be courteous and to practice professionalism in terms of punctuality and performance because we were, after all, representing the country. We were constantly reminded that we were there to perform, and seeing the world was just a bonus. With this in mind, our primary concern was to give each audience the best show that we could give them, and that meant we would always have to be in top condition. To achieve this, it meant not staying up late and getting at least 8 hours of sleep every night; drinking was discouraged and smoking was prohibited (and we penalized members that were caught doing so); we’re always told to SYV (or Save Your Voice); we had to vocalize every morning, whether or not we had a show that day; we rushed for cover when it rained; we covered our necks and backs with scarves to protect us from harmful cold and dew; we’re recommended to avoid cold drinks. We also imposed a semi-diet on ourselves because 1) we had to fit in our costumes and 2) we couldn’t get too heavy because of some of the lifts in the dance. At this point, it may sound stressful and restricted, but one can get used to rules – and I learned how to have good, clean fun for the rest of the trip.
I’ve traveled with my family for several times in the past, but the experience is different when you’re on your own. There’s this mild feeling of liberation and independence that I liked: doing my own laundry, doing the groceries, cooking (or at least trying to), setting my own schedules, taking care of my own travel documents and doing my own packing.
The trip practically required us to live in our suitcases as we had to move every three days (at an average); and it developed an Olympic packer in me. Yes, packing should be considered a sport and, if not, a total body workout. It’s quite a feat having to fit seven months’ worth of clothing and necessities in one luggage, and moreover be given a weight limit for it. There was nothing else I could do about my hand-carry luggage – it was reserved for the nine sets of costumes, 3 pairs of shoes and kits of accessories and make-up for performance. Nevertheless, I find myself in the same state of indecisiveness when the time came to pack up and leave: what do I pack first? Hand-carry or big luggage? I usually packed the costumes first since they were top priority because I knew that leaving even a single item behind would render me useless for the rest of the concert tour. On top of exhaustion and sleepiness, you’d think that I’d just pile on all of my things in the suitcase, sit on it and try to zip it up, but it isn’t all that easy. I had to carefully roll my clothes one by one, squish them together as compact as I could, making sure I left no wasted space. Then I’d cram in my toiletries, my diary, my footwear and I’d make sure I put the fragile items (like vases! given by show coordinators as souvenirs) in between soft towels and big night-shirts. Then I’d lift and heave my suitcase onto a weighing scale to discover that it’s still 2 kilos overweight and I have to figure out what to remove and how to re-pack. It didn’t get easier as the trip drew on because I acquired more and more things, not just souvenirs from people we met, but from shopping as well – and the whole world is a big shopping Mecca!
I got beach and floral trinkets from Hawai’i, skanky souvenirs from Las Vegas, cowboy paraphernalia from Texas, designer clothes on sale from Barcelona, Murano jewelry from Venice and hot leather shoes from all over Italy. I got a feather boa from New Orleans and character-masks from Korea. Being a very sentimental person, I tend to cling to material things so that I can be reminded of the places I went to, or the people I was with; thus the countless postcards, key chains and pins (for my collection) from each stop of the tour. By the time the tour ended, I had markedly more souvenirs than clothes in my big luggage, and I even managed to squeeze the smaller ones into my hand-carry luggage as well.
Traveling with other young people also made seeing new places and discovering new things more enjoyable. Everything appeared to be more exciting, and each day felt like an adventure. Even if our schedule was tight, we still managed a little sight-seeing; and what I saw was more than enough to compensate for the fatigue of performance.
I was able to go to the famous Waikiki beach, and swim in the Ala Moana beach park in Hawai’i, I saw the Key Arena (the home of the NBA Supersonics) and the Space Needle in Seattle, I took pictures at the Multnomah Falls in Oregon and I walked The Strip of Las Vegas at 3 in the morning. I marveled at God’s creativeness when I stood in awe in front of the Grand Canyon; then stood in wonder at man’s creation at NASA in Houston. I saw the Rheine River; and my friends and I rented bikes and rode to another town, all the way up to a castle on top of a hill in Germany. We had a barbecue and Rollerbladed in the park beside the Danube; I watched two operas for only 2 euros each (where you line up for SRO tickets four hours before the show and run ahead of everybody else to get a good position). I also got lost with two other friends in the streets of Vienna, carrying heavy garment bags full of costumes, looking for a performance venue that we were given wrong directions to. We took the wrong buses and the wrong turns and eventually arrived at the said place just as the rest of the group was about to step up on stage. We sang at the Schonbrunn Palace and we were proclaimed as The Voice of the World. I window-shopped at the Las Ramblas and saw Gaudi’s radical creations in Barcelona. I saw and heard live street performances of Scots in kilts playing bagpipes along Union Street in Aberdeen; and I searched the surface of the Lochness for any sign of the infamous, prehistoric monster. I watched a play in West End and saw the Big Ben; and got lost for the second time on tour when my roommate and I were left to figure out the Underground system of London on our own. I visited the church of St. Francis in Assisi and the church of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan, the home of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. I looked up on the terrace of Juliet’s home in Verona, and touched her golden breast for good luck. I submerged myself in a gorge in Sicily and went home to have wine with my host family. We performed in the midst of the busy Memorial Day Weekend in Six Flags amusement parks. I drank two tall glasses of a 120 proof hard drink called Hand Grenade in “the place where jazz thrives”; and I walked around New Orleans in a dizzy stupor while men handed me colorful bangles without having to flash them with my boobs. There were quick stopovers to Michael Jordan’s house in Chicago, and the church where they shot the film Home Alone. Went apple-picking in the orchards of Michigan and experienced autumn for the first time. I gazed at the miracle of nature and its beauty and wrote this on my diary:
“I saw trees and bushes with the colors of fire, and some colors I can't even identify; the colors that are in between hues - some near burgundy, turquoise and lime, but not quite. Even some trees haven't even decided on a color and have all of these nameless hues waving out from each leaf - like balls of rainbow fire.”
I then held hands with the cement imprints of Richard Gere and Donald Duck in front of the Chinese Theatre in LA. We rode home by passing Rodeo drive at sunset.
“… they have their exits and entrances…”
Inasmuch as these places have left a vivid picture in my mind, it is people who leave pictures in my heart. Every stop meant new hosts and friends – people who gave us a home during our stay at certain place. We’d enter their lives as strangers and there would be awkward moments in the beginning; but circumstance speeds up the acquaintance process and you get to know these people faster than normal. I woke up to the sound of their voices, I dined with them, they gave me little gifts, I formed bonds with them that are beyond race, religion or language barriers. In a few days time, I left as a new member of their family, sharing comfortable silences between tears, hugs and promises to keep in touch.
Performing was physically tiring, but saying goodbye was emotionally draining. After having parted with someone I had grown to love, I began to wonder if I could keep attaching myself to people the same way. Although I tried to keep my emotions in check and attempted to avoid any deep relationships, I was unsuccessful, and each stop brought more love – and more pain. Goodbyes are short, and I learned that they are only in preparation for more Hellos. The Hawai’ians say it best with Aloha – a term that means both Hello and Goodbye; and this was how it felt because you’ve barely said goodbye, and you find yourself saying hello to another stop.
“… one man in his time plays many parts…”
The tour was bliss as well as a suspension of reality which was both good and bad. It was good because I was devoid of all academic stress and the normalcy of my life that used to be; I was free from my mother’s nagging and annoying suitors. For seven months, I did the two things that I enjoyed doing most: performing and traveling. On the other hand, for seven months, my world revolved around the group that I traveled with: 36 post-adolescents and only 3 adult chaperones, stuck with each other day in and day out, on 16-hour plane trips and 24-hour bus rides. As time passed, cliques were formed and romantic relationships were developed (and talked about). What I had to learn to deal with then were the issues, controversies and conflicts that arose. There were times when quarrels would start with the pettiest things such as forgetting to flush the toilet, or if I befriended someone gorgeous, which would result in them calling me a flirt. I had moments when I would feel so lonely and attacked and I’d wonder how someone who I regarded as a friend could betray me – only to find ourselves shopping and chatting it up two days later, forgetting about the entire incident: good friends one day, and jealous rivals the next. As for those aforementioned gorgeous guys, it’s also sad to realize that you can’t really be with them because it’s impractical and simply unrealistic; and you settle for having, what we have come to call, tour flings.
But I found something that lasts, more than videos and pictures and souvenirs. It’s the friendships I have made. Seeing all those places, performing in all those spectacular venues, doing all those crazy things that only someone detached from reality could do… they don’t equal the impact that the people I met have made on me. It is the memory of these people that link me back to those places, those venues, and those crazy adventures – the castles, the fortresses, the amusement parks, the beauty of nature, the audiences shouting Bravi!, the shopping malls, the historical churches and cathedrals, the art, the gelato, the warmth, the love. I think this is what made my trip so much more unforgettable – because wherever you go, you carry your heart, and your heart helps you look back whenever you want to. With your heart, you can travel back in time or to any place you want and experience everything all over again.
Still, it won’t stop me from buying postcards, key chains and pins when the next tour comes around; and I’m determined to have more fun and less conflicts; and hopefully more money to spend, more adventures to embark on, more people to love (even if it means hurting to say goodbye). No matter how tiring and dramatic the tour seemed to be, it contributed to the over-all experience – because all the world’s a stage.
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accomplished
busy
peaceful
angry
awake
cranky
exhausted
crazy
indifferent
good