Goin’ Down South
I’m road tripping. This has always been my favorite state of existence. As a child I took long journeys during the summer with my folks, who as teachers had long summer holidays. The longest with them was from Long Island to Alaska by car. I was pretty young, but the back of the Volkswagon van and state parks rank as some of my clearest and best childhood memories. While other kids were at summer camp doing whatever kids do at summer camp, I was pretty much living in state parks, hiking, fishing with my dad and eating lots of bologna sandwhiches. We never actually caught any fish. I think my dad did that on purpose.
I never went to Disneyland, but spent weeks in gorgeous places like Yellowstone, Glacier and the Badlands. It was awesome. As a teen I went on a 50 day cross country trip with classmates that took me to nearly every state. After university I drove solo cross country twice. There is really no location I find more comforting and enjoyable than the distance covered between two places.
If I marry, that woman better be OK with bug spray as perfume, sleeping in tents and showering with a cold water hose in a Canadian provincial park. If I have spawn, they will meet moose and bear before I trust them around Mickey Mouse. I’m a believer that if you want to grow up in America you need to spend some time growing up on the road. The vast roads and natural beauty are probably my favorite things about the US.
This trip has me going from pretty much the Canadian border to Florida along I-95. Somewhere between Philadelphia yesterday and North Carolina today I passed into “The South.” I love the South but find it foreign, amusing and occasionally a little scary in that “Deliverance” way. I suppose I officially crossed over at the Mason-Dixon line, but it hit me when I stopped to eat at “Bojangle’s Chicken & Biscuits.” A smallish southern fast-food chain, basically a KFC or Popeyes. The food wasn’t particularly different, though the “fixins menu” included dirty rice, Cajun pinto beans and grits. A “Yeah, I’m in the South now” moment to be sure.
The accents, attitudes, posture, clothes, mannerisms and many other subtle changes became immediately, though almost imperceptibly, different. As an American I immediately felt them. When I first moved to Tokyo, these sorts of differences in Japan were completely invisible to me. I dated Japanese girls, who had I met their American equivalent would never have been likely matches. I became friends with folks who were wildly different from the type of person I’d normally hang out with. Because they were simply Japanese to me, all the other cultural, social, political or educational differences were moot. They were just Japanese.
I went to the Sanja Matsuri festival every year. A crowded, monstrosity of a festival with something like a few million participants each year. But it was only after about 5 or 6 years in Japan, as I was wandering through the back alleys of the festival snapping photos, eating, drinking and making merry that it hit me. Oh my God… these are the same people who go to state fairs in the US. I am not a butter sculpture, pie eating contest and fried cola at the state fair kind of person.
I’m not saying this to sound judgey or elitist. Quite the contrary, it was kind of fantastic in Japan having zero preconceptions of people based on the thousands of little things we use in our home countries/cutures by which to categorize people as being “my kind of people” or not. They were just people… fun, interesting and wonderful people. When the South was recently turned into a disaster area because of two inches of snow, I immediately thought in snarky New England style, “Of course, it’s the South. They can’t drive in snow.”
I remember when I first moved to Los Angeles my East-coaster relocated uncle warned me, “Just because there are palm trees, doesn’t mean it is a good neighborhood.” It was true. My natural sense of “good” or “bad” neighborhood didn’t apply in LA. This same uncle also told me “Oh good! You are living in a 310 area code. You don’t want to be in an 818 area. Nobody takes that phone number seriously.” That was a truly frightening statement to me, but seemed like an obvious one to a lot of folks I met in LA.
As my knowledge of Japan grew, I’d say in some ways I became more ignorant. I lived next door to former Prime Minister Taro Aso for a time in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the country. But my time spent in east Ikebukuro (not the nicest!) was easily the best. I went out for drinks with my ardently Nationalist neighbor, and swapped recipes with the housewife next door. It is a natural part of the brain to start categorizing, but categorizing doesn’t really add to our understanding or enjoyment. Anyone who has taken a foreign visitor around Tokyo knows that they will probably get as much enjoyment (if not more) out of a visit to a low-rate izakaya than they will from a high-end fancy ryoutei. When you see the bill, however, you immediately think, “OH! That WAS a good meal. I didn’t really enjoy it, but it was good!” It’s kind of like watching people who don’t know anything about wine choose bottles based on labels.
I’m trying to apply that same logic to North Carolina, but a lifetime of “understanding” the US invades my thoughts and leaves me laughing to myself… “Ooooh Southerners. Do you really need to wear full camo gear to the Wa-wa? Are the canned goods in aisle 4 going to get spooked and run if they see you coming?” This is the reaction I did NOT have to a drunken Japanese construction worker in an ill-fitting jimbei showing off his neck tattoos to a bleached blonde overly fake-tanned Japanese girl in a florescent pink Don Quixote yukata. I just thought, “I want to get a beer with that guy.” The more I learned about Japan the more I pigeonholed myself into what I conceived as my appropriate section of society.
I’m attempting to be more open to the awesome variety inherent in having 50 states. I’ve started looking at jobs and thinking about a place to live while I’m back here. I saw an opening at a TV station in South Dakota. I immediately laughed when I looked and saw the top news story on their site was “Man Uses Cattle to Propose to Girlfriend.” I laughingly mentioned it to my Dad who reminded me… “South Dakota is a beautiful place.” He’s right, and I think 10 year old Kevin would have agreed. 10 year old Kevin was a truly adventuresome kid with an open mind. I need to be more like him.
So… I put it to you. If you had an open road, to go anywhere, preconceptions aside. Where would it take you?
If you ever think about posting up in the south I definitely recommend Kentucky. Preferably around the Louisville area. You literally a half day drive to Chicago, Detroit, St Louis, and just a couple hours from Cincinnati and Nashville, so it’s the perfect place to just get into your car and go somewhere. Kentuckians obviously don’t hold the ol’ southern stereotype of toothless, shoeless, hillbillies, and if you go far enough east in the state you’ll definitely find some. But being the adventurer you are you may even find this as a positive as you’ll find the people of Kentucky have lots of good stories to tell. These back roads here will keep you busier than a one eyed cat watching two mouse holes, not to mention the entire state sits on hundreds of different cave systems.
What a good piece! Thank you Kevin.. You should write more, you belong to The New Yorker..
Wow! That is high praise. You are too kind.
First off, as soon as I saw the title Goin’ Down South, I was immediately drawn to the memory of the Freddy King song “Going Down” as the background music for a YouTube “Southern Fried Cooney” video!!
Seriously, I think you should make an effort to either visit or live in Savannah GA. It is a wonderful town full of charm and lots of interesting stuff.
Mike R
I need to visit Savannah again. It is such a beautiful city, but I visited it very briefly.
I really enjoyed this post, it had just the right amount of reflection and forward thinking. Personally, I live in Vancouver, Canada and I love it, so any road I take would eventually lead back here. However, if I were given an ultimatum and I could not return, I’d head south down the coast and eventually find myself somewhere in California.
I’d say Pacific Coast Highway is probably one of the most memorable drives I’ve ever had. Bought avocados from a farm stand, nearly drove off the edge of the cliff-side and stopped in at Hearst castle. Vancouver is definitely a great city… well, most of the neighborhoods anyway.
If you’re ever in Vancouver, give me a shout.
In about 6 months I’ll be flying out of Sydney to Seattle, grabbing a car and driving to San Diego along the coast and then up and across to New York. I understand what you love about road trips and frankly i could not agree more. This one has me wary, and excited as it’s the first time ever done a road trip of this size, not to mention in a country that’s not my own. But that’s what it is about isn’t it? You go somewhere that doesn’t challenge you on some level why the hell did you shift in the first place?
But i had many of those same preconceptions challenged last year. Last year i made the wonderful mistake of falling for a girl in Texas. So i went to Texas. You have to understand that the type of image that we primarily receive down here about America is very characterized, so I walked in expected six-shooters, lots of cowboy hats, plenty of Jesus with a large side of blatant racism.
What I got instead was some of the most open, friendly and downright kind people I’ve ever had the good fortune to meet. My perceptions where wrong, and if they were wrong about there maybe they were wrong about the entire country. So while the girl and I have sadly gone our own ways, I’m looking forward to testing that theory.
So do you have any tips? Anything a strange and vaguely confused Australian should pay attention to? Love to hear it. 🙂
This was a great read, look forward to more.
Sam.
I definitely recommend driving along Pacific Coast Highway as I mentioned to the previous commenter. It’s a really breathtaking stretch of road. I wish more people who visited the states would try road trips like you are doing. Big cities like NYC, Chicago and LA have there place but a lot of “America” is found along the roads between. Particularly in our awesome National/State park system. Also, I tend to like the medium sized cities more, like Boston, New Orleans, San Franciso or Seattle.
As for the Texas or other stereotypes, I’ve definitely found myself time and again saying… how did people ever think this? My stereotype of the “reserved Japanese” was disabused quickly upon my first night out at Karaoke with some friendly fast-friend locals in my first neighborhood.
I don’t have any tips per-say, accept I’ve often regretted spending a forgettable meal in chain-restaurant but always had memories (though not always good) eating in locally owned places. Though they are usually a little more intimidating to foreigners, they are almost universally friendly once you get past the door. I also love to try something new at truck stops/gas stations every time I stop. You can find some pretty awful things, but even awful can make for the best memories/stories/photos. And if you aren’t traveling for memories you are probably just driving to work. Also, being safe is different from not experiencing new things.
Oh… and play up the accent. Throw in kangaroo references and shrimp-on-the-barbie stuff and people will love you.