30 Before 30

by Marina Shifrin

  When I landed in Taiwan, I was greeted by an email from Amy, my brand-new pen-pal friend who would become the keeper of all my Taiwan exploits. Amy spent a few years with the Peace Corps in Moldova and had the sage advice of a well-traveled individual:

  You’re on your adventure now! Channel that energy into hilarity, projects, blogs, making friends, decorating your new place, and, I don’t know, work? Sure.

  Amy’s guidance combined with my own trial and error produced a small New Country Survival toolbox.

  The only thing I couldn’t seem to master in Taiwan was dating, which was difficult for me. Aside from criticizing Facebook engagement photos posted by former high school classmates, dating was my second favorite hobby.

  The lack of eligible bachelors interested in me was a wake-up call. Going from New York, where I could pick up a guy using little more than a cocktail and a pen, to Taiwan, where men recoiled from my large mouth and affinity for alcohol, was a big adjustment. Subtracting male attention from my day-to-day added a lot of depth to other parts of my life. I began working harder, writing more, running. I actually became pretty trim. Which is a shame, because no one was around to appreciate my healthier body—so for the first time in my life, I began to appreciate it myself. My weekends were spent wandering the city, listening to Savage Love podcasts. Dan Savage, the host, gave advice to people with the filthiest sexual kinks I’d ever heard of as I hiked through national parks, congested subway stations, and buzzing street markets.

  Taiwan ignited my love of street photography. In that part of Asia, photography is celebrated beyond anything I’ve ever seen. One time, in the distance, I saw a large crowd of people gathered around something with cameras in the air. I walked over to see if it was a celebrity or some other marvel worthy of such attention—it was the entrance sign to a mall. My talent for street photography began to emerge, but it was mainly a result of people staring at me, the outsider. I wore my camera at my chest and snapped a photo every time I felt curious stranger-eyes sizing up my furry American body.

  Subtracting dating from my life rounded out some rough edges to my personality. But after a while I grew lonely and started to scrounge.

  I began hanging out at an expat bar—the expat men in Taiwan are like abductees from a comic book convention. Most were anemic and awkward, possessing an incomprehensible obsession with Asia. It was hard to tell whether they were out of touch because they’d been living in a different country or if they were born out of touch and found a sanctuary within Taiwan. The classic question of which came first, the chicken or the freak?

  “Want to see my third nipple?” a guy named Greg asked me on our first date. A real mutant! Greg was in Taiwan studying Chinese, and had the facial features of a toad. I, of course, desperately wanted to see his third nipple, but played it cool.

  “Sure, whatever.” I edged closer to his body. He lifted his shirt and right there, on his ribcage, was a third nipple. We broke things off shortly after we met. Turns out his third nipple was the most interesting thing about him.

  I decided to sign up for Mandarin classes in an attempt to diversify my dating pool. I tried to study the language on my own before moving, but was too cocky about it. “Yeah, I already speak Russian and a little bit of Spanish, so picking up a fourth language should be easy,” I said to Karen, the listless bookstore employee who helped me find Everyday Chinese for Travelers. I thumbed through the pages and my eyes widened. Each word had a set of lines and dashes hanging over its letters. I’d never seen so many letter-accouterments. Don’t even get me started on the netted webs they call “characters.” I bought the book, but quickly understood that your tone is the most important part of speaking Chinese. You’re required to pitch and dip your voice according to the word. If you mix up the wrong pitch or dip, you completely change the word. My favorite example is mai. Mǎi means to buy, whereas mài means to sell. Mai oh mai, Mandarin is a headache!

  I downloaded a Mandarin-language app to focus on my tone. “Cat” I’d say in Mandarin to a puddle of urine. “Apple!” I’d yell at a cab. The only phrase I managed to learn fluently in my two months of self-study was, “I have one son.”

  My teacher, Dory, was a pint-sized person with an incredible wealth of patience. I came to her apartment twice a week to go over a Mandarin workbook filled with simpleton phrases and large-eyed illustrations. Her apartment was only a couple of train stops away, but I always began the commute extra early to allow for the twenty to thirty minutes I inevitably spent being lost. The street signs were literally in Chinese and impossible for me to navigate. I always arrived on time, half awake and bathed in coffee. I even fell asleep during a lesson and Dory didn’t get mad, she just gently rubbed my arm in an attempt to wake me up. Early on in our one-on-one lessons it became apparent that I’d never get beyond the skill level of Sassy Toddler, so Dory let me bring in a self-selected list of sentences to learn. “Where is the bathroom?” “One coffee, please.” “I don’t usually do this on the first date.”

  We spent most of the classes saying the same word over and over again until my tone matched hers. “Mandarin is like singing,” she told me. “You have to pretend to sing, Kāfēi.”

  “Kafei,” I repeated.

  “No, you have to go higher with your voice,” she pointed above her head. “Kā-fēi.”

  “Kāfèi.”

  More pointing. “Kāfēi.”

  “Káfēi.”

  “Kāfēi.”

  “Káféi.”

  “Kāfēi.”

  It was the closest to doing a duet I’ve ever come. But by the end of that lesson, I was able to order a cup of coffee in Mandarin. I spent a month drinking piping hot coffee in the ninety-degree muggy weather before learning how to order it iced.

  My diet changed drastically in Taiwan. I ate what people put in front of me, often going to restaurants and pointing at random numbers, not recognizing any of the Chinese characters. Even though I lived in the Gourmet District of Taiwan, 7-Eleven was my favorite food stop. Unlike their U.S. counterpart, 7-Elevens in Asia carry everything from top-shelf whiskey to raincoats to hotpot soup. I frequented the 7-Eleven two to three times a day, and saw the same attendant during the evenings. I wanted to ask him his name but the phrase was too complicated, and if he responded with anything other than a one-word answer, I’d be stuck in the conversation. Forever.

  Jimmy—I’ll just call him that—had the night shift, which meant he’d see me at my worst. “The girl with the raccoon eyes came in today,” he’d tell his wife when he got home. “She pointed outside, wrapped her arms around herself, then shook her body. She might have something wrong with her head.” I hope Jimmy has a wife because I spent far too much time imagining their conversations. Sadly, I never learned anything about him and he didn’t learn anything about me, aside from the fact that I have one son.

  By moving to Taiwan, I had done an excellent job creating my obstacle, but I didn’t have the first clue in how to heroically overcome it. Getting out of the apartment was a challenge; the anxiety of needing to interact with strangers using a combination of pointing and charades was crippling.

  On weekend mornings, I’d treat myself to dan bing, a traditional Taiwanese breakfast consisting of a thin crepe-like pancake with egg and your choice of stuffing from a local stand. The two ladies who ran the stand, Small One and Tall One, were always hot and frazzled, which is unusual to see in Taiwan—especially considering they were women. Women hold themselves to a high standard of togetherness and poise; Taiwanese people in general do not like to exert themselves. When running in the heat, my complete disregard for getting disheveled always attracted all sorts of stares, but I liked the attention. Let’s face it, I am a comic, and a woman—attention is my nourishment. For the first few weeks, I thought there was something on my face because of the volume of people gawking at me, but then I learned it was just curiosity about someone different. In such a homogenous country, my self-imposed isolation turned into individuality—somethin
g that was difficult to come by in Brooklyn, where I was a generic-looking Jew in the faceless sea of hipsters.

  Small One in her element.

  The women had a method, a flow, to their cooking. Small One would press the scallion pancake dough, and Tall One would ladle egg onto the fryer. You had about 2.5 seconds to place your order. Anything longer than that and you’d be greeted with such a vitriolic stare that it would crawl into your bloodstream and lodge itself in your taste buds, tainting every dan bing bite with bitter twinges of embarrassment.

  I wasn’t that concerned with Tall One; she wore the same glasses—and permanent look of disappointment—as my mother. It was Small One who scared me. Petite things have always scared me; babies, grandmas, unidentified growths—this little lady was no different. For a while, I only had the courage to go to the stand when still tipsy from the night before. I would walk up to the counter and Small One’s dark, sweaty eyebrows would say it all, “Oh great, let’s watch Ms. America muster up the courage to practice this week’s Chinese lesson on us.”

  We quickly worked out an unsaid agreement: I didn’t try to order in Chinese, and they’d give me a plain scallion pancake with eggs. I’d raise my index finger and minutes later there’d be a glorious, steaming egg scallion pancake burning my fingertips. If I had a friend with me, I’d change my index finger into the peace sign and then there’d be two glorious egg scallion pancakes.

  One day, I saw a man walk away with spinach sticking out of his pancake. The human condition is an interesting one; our desires always outlast our satisfaction. My pancakes no longer tasted as savory. Something was off. I, too, wanted spinach in my goddamn scallion pancakes.

  Dory and I had a new problem to work through together. Spinach. The Mandarin word for spinach is bōcài. If you say, “bow tie” with a strange lisp, it kind of sounds like you’re saying “spinach.” I began my training. “Bow tie. Bōtài. Bōcài,” I quietly sang it on sidewalks, chanted it in subways, and whispered it on bus stops. “Bōcài.” People left me alone, “Nothing to see here, just a white girl chanting ‘spinach’ in Chinese.”

  The morning I decided it was time for my “jiānbing jiā bōcài,” I wore high-waisted navy shorts and a white crop top—it was my most prized outfit. It gave me confidence, all of which was needed on my walk to the breakfast stand where the women are brash and the food is banging. When it was my turn to order, I confidently stated what I’d been practicing for a week: “Qǐng gěi wǒ yīgè jiānbing jiā bōcài.”

  The Small One began yelling at me almost immediately. I didn’t understand what she was saying, but it sounded something like, “You’re a disgusting failure. Hearing you speak makes me wish the meningitis left me deaf in both ears. I hope you choke on a pancake.” But I can’t be quite sure. The yelling continued.

  If I showed my fear it’d only be worse. I loudly repeated bōcài in the breaths of her rant. I considered slowly slinking away. “Bōcài!” I’d wave before disappearing in the crowd. But I’d still have to pass that same stand every day. The clanging of the spatula would haunt me in my dreams. So, I stood there, repeating bōcài to Small One, then Tall One, then The Husband, then The Son. Finally, The Small One reached her tongs into the bin of spinach. My shoulders relaxed and my breathing went back to normal. She drizzled the beautiful leaves on my eggs and they immediately wilted in the heat. Little green smiles curling toward their death.

  I overpaid and took my small bag of scallion pancake, egg, AND SPINACH to the park. The amount of pride I felt from five green leaves is indescribable. I’d overcome my fear of communication and busted into a brighter, greener world of achieving small but mighty goals—with a lot of yelling and help from a crew of family members. I fought for this. Earned it. I strategically positioned myself directly across from the stand in order to make eye contact with Small One and Tall One as I ate. My teeth triumphantly tore through the flaky crust, my tongue pushed the food up against the roof of my mouth, and a satisfying cascade of flavor swirled between my taste buds. It was in this instant that it became painfully clear my dan bing did not contain any spinach, but basil instead.

  9

  LEARN HOW TO DRESS MY BODY

  My mother’s favorite fashion accessory is the cargo pant. “Marina, watch this. Watch!” she excitedly gushed after she first discovered them. She tugged on one of the thirteen zippers and the bottom half of her pant leg dropped to her ankle. “Now they are shorts!” Olga put her sunglasses, loose change, and a water bottle into one of the pockets. “A purse too! Three things in one. I love America.” It is the happiest I’ve ever seen her. I still associate the sound of loose change with my mother.

  Olga has a very distinct sense of style: cargo pants, fleece vest, and lots of turtlenecks. My mom does everything she can to cover up her body. She hates her body so much that I once came home to find her completely covered, neck to ankle, in trash bags—going about her housekeeping as if it were normal. It looked like my mom had thrown herself away. She had ankle weights securing a trash bag to each leg, her hair was matted down with sweat, and her face was red from the lack of oxygen. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Cleaning your mess,” she said, crinkling past me in her trash suit.

  Like many women, my early style choices were dictated by my mother. Her two closest held beliefs: what you wear should cover up your problem areas, and clothing should only be bought at a discounted price. Once, when Olga picked me up from high school, around the time crop tops and low-rise jeans were the teen uniform, she pointed out the car window, “What is that?”

  I followed her finger to see a portly freshman, Julie, running to the bus. Her exposed tummy bounced around as she ran. “Julie?” I asked.

  “What, she don’t have friends? No one say to her she is too fat to wear this shirt?” My mom has always been a devastatingly blunt person, but the Russian accent makes her sound merciless.

  Shopping with Olga meant a yearly trip to Nordstrom Rack, T.J. Maxx, or Marshalls. If I hadn’t gained any weight from the previous year, then we’d skip our annual trip. “Oh, Marina, this will look cute for your body,” she exclaimed, holding up an XL Billabong sweatshirt during one of those trips. Billabong, a brand created for California surfer culture, was not meant to be worn by a suburban chunkster. The closest I’d ever come to surfing was tripping over my brother’s swim goggles. I had no business wearing Billabong, but Olga bought the sweatshirt because “the front pouch hides your stomach.” Another sweatshirt perk: I could discreetly flip off skinny classmates from the warmth of that same front pocket.

  It wasn’t until changing in front of other girls for gym that I realized why my mom encouraged the oversized sweatshirts. “Oh my god, you have HUGE boobs,” a classmate exclaimed. And it was true. DDs. I was a fourteen-year-old with the chest of a Renaissance milkmaid. It became clear that my mom wanted me to cover up, just as she had learned to cover herself up. Embracing your body was not something women did in 1970s Russia, at least not in my mom’s family.

  For decades, women have been expected to navigate a closet filled with acronyms and catchphrases. The LBD. Boyfriend jeans. Must-haves. Athleisure. Classic tee. Investment-piece. Statement-piece. It-piece. Baldgy. Tront. Swisps. Okay, I made the last three up, but I’m sure we’re moments away from more made-up words to trick you into overpaying for a shirt or pants. If you’re not a fashionista then you’re a fashion victim—and no one wants to be a victim.

  Like Olga, I never cared about which meaningless fabrics covered my body. I was very proud of my fuck-fashion stance until I realized how many doors being well-dressed can unlock. Writer Caitlin Moran put it best in How to Be a Woman: “When a woman walks into a room, her outfit is the first thing she says, before she even opens her mouth.” I wanted my outfits to say, “I have arrived.”

  Just this past month, I had a work party on a Tuesday night. Weeknight work parties suck. In theory, the office is saving more money because people don’t drink as much. But also, ha, as if t
ired and stressed adults are capable of having self-restraint at an open bar.

  On the day of the party, all the women were running around the office, trying to get their work done early so that they would have time to change out of their office clothes and into their party clothes. The ones who didn’t have time for day-to-night makeovers changed in the supply closet. They fashioned staples and paperclips into safety pins and used hand sanitizer as moisturizer, all the while making sure everyone knew that their bodies didn’t usually look like this. “I’ve gained weight since getting this job! I just can’t stay away from the candy dish.” “I was skinnier when I bought this dress.” “Still working on that baby weight. Do you know where the duct tape is?”

  Meanwhile, the men had no sense of urgency, no need to change. They were sitting around, showing each other Gallon Smashing videos on YouTube. (For those unfamiliar, Gallon Smashing is when teenage boys go to grocery stores, pick up two gallons of milk, and violently throw themselves to the ground, causing the milk to spill everywhere. Look it up.) It wasn’t fair, but I already knew this. Men have it infuriatingly easy when it comes to clothing.

  My brother once came home wearing drop-crotch pants, a zebra-print headband, and a dashiki top.

  “Has Mom seen you yet?” I asked when he walked in the door.

  “No, why?” he responded. I quickly sprinted to the kitchen, where my mom spent most of her time scrolling through her favorite news blog (eBay), and took a seat at the table.

  Olga eyed me suspiciously, knowing that I only showed this amount of enthusiasm when something bad was about to happen. My brother came into the kitchen and she turned her attention to him. I placed my chin in my hands and eagerly waited for the Comedy Central Roast of Sanya Shifrin to begin. My mother slowly looked my brother up and down, soaking his outfit in. “Where did you get that shirt?” she asked.