Stare Stare Stare!!!


OK, now that I've given you a bit of atmosphere, I'll get back to my story for a little bit.

Now, if things around me were exotic and strange to me, people around me likewise found me exotic and strange. Everywhere I went in Tashkent, people were always staring.

I must have looked so strikingly exotic. Imagine, an all-American guy as an item of exotica. I don’t know what it was that made me stand out so much. I didn't think that I looked that much different that people there. I have an olive complexion like some Uzbeks. I have narrow asiatic eyes that subjected me to taunts as a child. I deliberately wore understated clothing -- though, in Uzbekistan, even generic stuff from the GAP was quite distinct from the options offerred at the local bazaars. Americans carried knapsacks on their backs, wore eyeglasses more frequently, had better sneakers, had better teeth. Didn't have gold teeth (See later posting: Golden Teeth)

One local friend there said that Americans were identifiable because they carried themselves differently. With confidence, perhaps. Perhaps also, we looked a little bit lost and overwhelmed by our surroundings. I know I must have at the beginning. By the end, I felt like I knew the city of Tashkent like I knew the back of my hand, as well as I knew any place I have ever lived.

There were so few Americans there – we were such a rarity and an object of curiosity and fascination in this remote and isolated corner of the world. Sometimes a young person who spoke some English would come up to me and ask me "do you know Mister John, he’s from the state of Missouri," or "do you know Miss Rose, from the state of Nebraska, she taught me English." This was likely the only other American they may have ever encountered and they asked as though the US were such a small country, like Uzbekistan, where everyone knows each other. I would always have to explain that America was a big country, with places that I'd never been to -- like Missouri or Nebraska.

People would ask with such interest about the cost of my things, my sneakers, about my salary, all of which were unheard of sums of money. They would ask if my lifestyle was anything like Santa Barbara, a soap opera which I had never seen, but they all had and it inspired their imaginations with an American life of lavish, luxurious homes, clothes, cars, etc..

All the attention was a little overwhelming at the start. At first, it made me feel self conscious and awful. And I was afraid to stare back. I was confused. What were people looking at? Were they interested in my foreignness…or were they interested in me in the way you sometimes attract a cruisy glance in America.

Then you get used to it and learn to play with it. At one point I developed a sense that this was the part of the world where I was really considered beautiful. In fact, a friend of mine who traveled around a lot in the world, would say that she had a theory that everyone has a place in the world, where they are fascinating, exotic, beautiful, etc. For me, that was Tashkent.

People often said that I looked like a movie star - which reminded me of the Angela Patrinou story. It would be nice if they said that I looked like someone really hot, you know, like George Clooney or Brad Pitt.


But no, they said I looked like Jean-Claude Van Damme, the martial arts actor, the "Muscles from Brussels" whose real name is Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg, the guy who says he learned English from watching the Flintstones. Now he may be pretty insignificant in the US, but in Uzbekistan, he's huge. Nonetheless, he's awful, he has a bipolar disorder that has lead him to cocaine abuse and charges of spousal abuse and an abuse of any member of the general public that has ever suffered through watching any one of his terrible films. But people there eat them up like pie. And he has made many, many films (Bloodsport, Kickboxer, Death Warrant, Universal Soldier, Lionheart, Timecop, Double Impact, Hard Target, Nowhere to Run, In Hell, Double Team, Cyborg, Sudden Death,...need I go on?) I have never watched a single one of them.



Here's a lovely bit about him from Wikipedia, I thought I had to share:

Van Damme has gained a reputation for numerous nude appearances in his films and has become a definite favorite for fans for his on-screen nudity. He first appeared nude in Bloodsport, with numerous such appearances in his subsequent films, including a lengthy one in Universal Soldier. Though only showing rear nudity, the athletic quality of Van Damme's posterior has heightened his appeal. Van Damme is on record as saying, "If you have a decent body why not show it? I'm very proud of my butt." This was the subject of parody in the television show Friends, where Van Damme, guest-starring as himself, flirts with a main character by announcing that he can "crack a walnut with [his] butt."

This all served me well, especially with the boys. And even in all those routine dealings with the police, the routine document checks, and such, in which I would need to charm them and somehow make small talk. Though I would get a bit tired of the usual routine that I was always privy to, in which someone there would ask, "hmmm...you resemble a famous movie actor...I can't remember exactly which one it is," and I'd roll my eyes and moan, "you mean Jean Claude Van Damme," with the policemen I'd let them keep guessing, as though I had no idea who they were thinking of and then when they would suggest Jean-Claude Van Damme, I would often say coyly, "you don't say...Why you're the first person who'se ever said that to me."



After some time, I just got used to the looks, the attention, Jean Claude Van Damme. Sometimes, outside of Uzbekistan, I even miss it, probably.  ¶ 2:45 AM