Category Archives: My American Journey

Around Los Angeles Pubs

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Probably the best part of my stay in LA was my visit to various bars and pubs in the city and Arthur Rhodes is the man who introduced me to the regular lifestyle of LA. The student of UCLA and an aspiring filmmaker (and writer of an article about me in UCLA Asia Media web site) took me to different bars and arranged meetings with his friends. I had a chance to interact with young Americans folks and feel the beauty of Hollywood Hills, thanks to Arthur.

Downtown LA from Beverly Hills
Downtown Los Angeles as seen from Beverly Hills Pic by Wagle

First bar we went to was Barney’s Beanery (established in 1925, the bar, I was told, is Los Angele’s third oldest) in West Hollywood. I went there after spending some time in a coffee shop surfing wireless internet in Arthur’s Apple laptop. That was great. While he was taking me around the city, we were talking about Nepali politics and journalism (and blogging of course) for his Asia Media article. Asia Media’s editor Angliee Shah had introduced me with Arthur when they came to see me in Omni, hotel where I was staying in. Arthur turned out to be a pleasant surprise for me. A student of Anthropology in UCLA Arthur wants to get himself involved into the study of politics. He is also working on a documentary project that, he said, will incorporate the conflict of Nepal as well. I can’t forget his efforts to take me around the town in his car which wasn’t in really great condition because, Arthur said, friends ruined the machine while he was away from the country (in Sri Lanka).

So I was talking about Barney’s Beanery. The bar was crowded with young souls and on one table near the entrance gate were Arthur’s friends. All in their mid 20s, they were, I think, the perfect group of American youth I wanted to talk to.

They were drinking beers and talking with each other on every possible topic available.

“Be brutally honest with me,” one boy started talking with me knowing that I was from Nepal, the country of Mount Everest. “Be brutally honest with me, okay? Tell me who really went at the top. Edmund Hilary or Tenzing Norgey?”

God! What a tough question! He was drunk but not to the extent that he didn’t know what he was saying. He knew what he was talking about. So he started looking at me giving me the impression that he was eagerly waiting for my answer. “Well, they both said that they reached at the top together,” I said. “Team effort.”

“Yes, team effort,” he said and took another sip. He seemed to be satisfied with my answer. We talked about a few other things.

Then came another man near where I was seating (they were constantly changing their seats and moving here and there). He was wearing a baseball cap and talking about the game. “Why the World Series is called so?” I asked him. “Are there any countries other than US and Canada that play World Series?”

“Hum,” he said. “This is quite a misnomer actually.” After saying that he plunged into a deep thought.

It was getting late as I had to wake up early in the morning. So we decided to get back to the hotel.

Next evening we went to another pub called Jones and I ordered Margarita Pizza. We were three. Arthur’s friend was with us. She was working as a waitress in a bar near Hollywood Hills and was planning to go to South America soon.

“This is the real LA bar,” said Arthur as I was struggling to hear his voice amidst the loud rock music. “Loud music, dark setting and carefree waitresses!” Yes, it was dark inside and the atmosphere was definitely different than other bars I went to in LA. Hum, waitresses were carefree too. “You see the service is terrible. They don’t care about you,” Arthur said. “All they care about is their dream. The dream of being a Hollywood actress or singer one day. They are here to be a celebrity.” And they think that being waitress is a transitional phase.

By the way, before I forget, I would like to mention about the Ethiopian food that we ate in the afternoon. But I really don’t know Food, a kind of bread and vegetable, was great or the waitress who served the food to us. I could see Arthur trying to flirt with the girl who had left her husband back in Ethiopia. I was too shy to flirt and my shyness must have made Arthur not to go further. Okay, Ethiopian food? Yes, its not Ethiopia but Ethiopian food. Arthur told me how he thought about having Ethiopian food when one of his friends told him about that. “Come on, I thought Ethiopians were undergoing famine!”

Visiting A Gay Bar
After Roberto, another gay came to see me all the way from San Francisco. Joe was Roberto’s friend and we were in touch via email for quite some time. The rich hunk who said he was planning to buy a hotel in downtown LA was driving a fancy car equipped with satellite navigation systems in top speed. We went to a bar where gay couples were having fun-filled talks and drinks. That was quite an experience.

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Small is Beautiful: From Artesia, Los Angeles

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(Wagle: The following observation was written immediately after visiting Artesia, a southern LA town, also known as Little India. South Asians live in significant number and we the visiting journalists were taken there to see how they live. About 39 journalists from South Asia, Africa and South East Asia were divided into two groups. I was in the second group and visited the town on second day. We also watched a town hall meeting of South Asians where people talked about problems they faced and expressed their grievances. After visiting the town, we returned back to the offices of Annenberg School of Communications in downtown LA (on the 34th floor of a building), wrote about the visit and read out the write-up in the evaluation meeting mediated by former L A Times reporter Victor Marina. By the way, that was the tallest building I have ever gone to. My ears started popping out air as the lift was heading up fast pace. Just like in a plane!)

South Asian Town Hall Meeting
South Asian Town Hall Meeting in Artesia, Los Angeles
 Pic by Wagle

I though America was about only those Americans and those tall buildings and those beautiful beaches filled with Baywatch-styled Pamela Anderson. After seeing that town hall meeting this afternoon, I have to conclude that America has that spectrum which reflects the problems similar to that of my part of the world: ‘injustice’ and inequality.

Everyone in the meeting was trying to find their own space in the larger American society that they complain of being racist.

Two Nepalis were quietly watching the procession of the meeting where several other people from the [South Asia] region were echoing their sentiments. Back in home, life for them is difficult for various reasons but even after being able to come into the world’s most powerful economy, those difficulties have started haunting them in new forms.

That was the perfect venue for them to express their common grievances and express solidarity with each others’ problems. They were dreaming of better life in Big America and voicing that desire among each other and via a live radio broadcast (about the meeting) to other Americans. And they were consoling themselves as well.

Look at that 37-year-old Mexican security guard who was stationed at the main entrance of the town hall where South Asians were organizing meeting today. “You know what the most interesting thing is,” he said without agreeing to reveal name. “I am providing security to these people from other part of the world who are also talking about immigration.”

South Asian Town Hall Meeting

South Asian Town Hall Meeting in Artesia, Los Angeles
 Pic by Wagle

He is full of secrets but doesn’t want to reveal them all. Some of those secrets include supplying call girls to the rich customers in a hotel like Omni where I am staying now in the expenses of the US taxpayers. He has met Hollywood celebrities many a times and claims to know the inside stories that he doesn’t’ like to reveal to me. “But let me tell you,” he said confidently. “Brad Pitt’s real name is a little bit longer than that.”

He claimed a few papers in Los Angeles including the Los Angeles Times have written about his story. (He was in the hall with his mother, he said, in uniform, learned English real hard by watching TV and is thankful to Jesus, the only God, for being able to stay in a beautiful country like America.)

At one point, he seemed like a real professional. “You know what,” he said. “My story is interesting and costs you a hundred dollars.” That was great, I told him, but I wasn’t interested to know more about him. Realizing that I wasn’t going to pay for story, he wanted to push me away. “Okay man,” he said. “Enjoy the trip to America. Go away now. You are bothering me.”

“Oh..yea? I was bothering you? Okay, thanks for all the cooperation, man!”

Romantic LA

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romantic los angeles...a kissing couple

This is in downtown Los Angeles, near MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Arts) where we saw a couple busy kissing each other. A man was filming the romance in a video camera. (Remember this is downtown LA and Hollywood is not far from here. But we didn’t see anyone directing the couple!) It was around 4:30 PM and we were just returning from Artesia, a town of South Asian majority in south of Los Angeles, observing a town hall meeting. Our presence didn’t seem to pollute the romantic environment. The girl on the left (in khasto) is Maysoon Mohamed Osman, a journalist from Sudan, who couldn’t resist the temptation of watching the romantic couple. And she wasn’t alone, to be honest. That was very new for us and folks tried to tease the lovebirds. But lovebirds were unaffected by any comments passed at them.

Driving in Los Angeles With Roberto In-charge of Wheels

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The first day in LA

Within an hour of landing at the Los Angeles Airport, I was in Santa Monica Beach experiencing the cool breeze and cold water. Thank you Roberto! Roberto is my friend whom I met in Kathmandu some 8 years ago. He had come to our house and I had gone to Pokhara, Chitwan and Lumbini with him. He is a proud gay and lives in between Palm Springs and San Francisco. “I love to live in my house in PS,” he said. “But the health insurance in San Francisco is more reliable and attractive.” That is why, he said, he spends much of the time driving between the two cities. Road is his third home. I mean his car that has a bed, a refrigerator and other household stuffs. “The situation has changed after the September 11,” he said. “It’s very hard to sleep inside the car because of police restriction in parking many places.”

After he picked me up from in front of the Omni Hotel, Roberto headed to the southern part of the Santa Monica beach where I touched the sea water for the first time in my life. I walked around the beach wearing Roberto’s sandals. “Take this,” Roberto picked up a stone from the beach and handed that to me. “This is a souvenir to you.”

Roberto wanted me to go to as many places of the city as possible. He was ready to take me anywhere because he had promised me to take around the city. We went to a Chinese restaurant, filled out bellies and the late night city tour started. We went to Hollywood. Oh…the Kodak Theater (where they distribute the Oscars) was so small that I couldn’t believe I was in front of the building. We went inside a few shops where, Roberto said, celebrities shop. “You don’t believe me?” he said. “Just check the price tags boy.” He was right, the price was for celebrities.

I wanted to go to Gay bars but there was no time. It was already 11 PM and I was damn tired because of the flight and the time change. (LA is three hours ahead of D.C. where I had started my day in early in the morning. To stay awake till 11 PM in LA on that day meant not sleeping till 2 AM in D.C.)

Roberto was also new to the downtown LA and I knew what that meant when we got lost for about half hour while trying to get back to the hotel. The road was like a deep web and if you miss a turning you miss the whole route. Roberto was repeatedly consulting the maps but that wouldn’t work. He asked people on the road and we were like two crazy men doing unwanted adventure on the streets of Los Angeles. (In fact, even people in the city find it difficult to navigate through the downtown web of roads). Finally we found the route and the hotel. The first day in LA was fruitful and quite adventurous as well.

International Travelling: Science of Airports

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Another shocking experience to me: the whole science of airports.

This was my first international trip which also meant my first encounter with the international terminal of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport. It was no different than that of its domestic counterpart except that there is no immigration section in the latter. When I landed at Bankok’s international airport, my whole impression about the airports got changed. My god, I told myself, how can an airport be so big? I felt like roaming around the terminals (and duty frees shops) whole night ignoring the sleep at a day care center inside the airport. (Kiran Nepal and I did that for hours before we were damn tired of moving..) I think that was another shocking experience to me: the whole science of airports. Checking in, finding the luggage, going through the security check (opening shoes in all American airports) and double security check (at least once in an American airport.) and eating in the restaurants inside the airports. The best part of my journey was being exposed to Airport procedures. I took 11 flights in 24 days (from 1.5 hours to 13 hours long) and at one point I was tired of going through all those security checks.

In New York’s JFK airport, I was pushed to the double security check section where a white woman was standing with her family. It didn’t take more than a minute for the security man to clear me from the desk. As I was heading towards the boarding area, the woman approached me and asked, “Do you also carry a foreign passport?”

“Yes,” I said. “Why?”

“Hum..that’s why they sent us for double security check. I too carry an European passport.”

Her daughter was standing on her side but I had no time to chat with the ladies as I was getting late to catch my flight to Detroit.

While landing at Los Angeles airport, still in the sky, I saw another flying plane. That was my first experience and that was terrific. We have very thin air traffic in Nepal and in a busy sky near LA airport that was normal: to spot a flying plane from another. To my utter surprise, I saw the same scene in Nepal too after returning from the U.S. I was returning from Dhangadi and I saw another twin otter flying on my side (somewhere above Dhading). That was terrific too.

And in Tokyo, while returning, I faced similar circumstance of being double checked by security guards. I hurriedly reached at the boarding point; about 15 minutes ahead of the schedule. Knowing that I had some time, I went to the rest room, came back and started waiting for the flight. People started boarding into the flight for Bangkok and I decided to go at last because there was no meaning of standing in the queue. I showed the boarding pass and as I was about the move towards the plane, a female security guard invited me for the check up. “Excuse me sir,” she said. “Can I see your passport?”

“Of course,” I replied. “You can see everything that you want to see.”

And she did just that. She started looking into my bags (one that had my laptop and the other that was full of newspapers). It was really irritating. I was wondering what the hell made her suspicious toward me. I wasn’t dressing up properly, I concluded. I was wearing a not-so-clean UWB t-shirt along with a rugged trouser. I was tired and pale. I didn’t look like a decent business traveler. But I hardly care about my dress up and look. I was wearing formals even in so called formal meetings and conferences in the US. I wasn’t wearing tie and my t-shirt grabbed the attention in the conclave and other meetings as well. That was a good form of advertisement of UWB and creating awareness about Nepali democracy among the international audiences as well. At least 15 people wanted to buy the t-shirt including some editors but I told them that the garment wasn’t for sale at the moment.

Okay, coming back to Naruta (Tokyo) airport. Even if I wasn’t dressing well, I wasn’t a security threat for sure. But the woman even ‘requested’ me to take off my shoes so that, I guess, she could inspect my socks. And she got more than what she wanted to see. I had a hole in my right sock and toe was out. “Oh..,” she said in an embarrassing tone. And I said to myself “But you deserve to see this, don’t you?”

That was the moment of satisfaction for me.