Bill says, you're an expatriate. You've lost touch with the soil. You get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed by sex. You spend all your time talking, not working. You're an expatriate, see? You hang around cafes.
SPEAKER_04Thank you so much, Shannon, for returning to the new and improved Do your pets podcast. Glad to be here. Yay! So can you give our listeners a snapshot of your ex-petness?
SPEAKER_08Sure. Well, I live in Shanghai, China. We met each other, I believe, through Podcast Brunch Club, which I run here. And I've lived here seven years. And prior to China, I was in Spain for just some brief stints, kind of on and off for two years. And that was my first experience abroad as far as living goes before that from the US. So yeah, I've had a little bit of everything. And I work, um, I sort of do remote work, so I'm able to traverse countries in a way.
SPEAKER_04And I suppose since we're doing The Sun also Rises by Hemingway as two expats in Asia, the other lost generation, perhaps, who knows? I suppose I should do a quick summary of my own expat nails. I left the US in 2003. These are the places I have lived in Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, Malaysia, China. And we'll leave it at that. And then traveled in different places also. On and off, mostly on, then off since 2003. And we're both currently in Shanghai, China, although that may change in 2020. Yes. Exciting things ahead.
SPEAKER_08And maybe heading to Hemingway's second favorite or f favorite homeland or whatever you want to call it.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and I'm moving to somewhere in Germany in early 2020. I don't think he knows they didn't go to Germany in this book.
SPEAKER_08Not in this novel. No, probably in none of the boxes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I'm guessing no.
SPEAKER_08So a sun also rises. It's Hemingway's first novel and based on very closely on true events and true characters. I think was reading the foreword or the intro by his grandson, I think it is, and said originally he wrote it very much exactly like the events and even with the same names as well, but then he developed the characters in a different way. And he originally wrote it with the with a bullfighter hero and like really around bullfighting, and then changed it to more of the story of the expatriates.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and Wikipedia's telling us 1926 novel by you know Hemingway portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of the San Fermin in Pampelona to watch the I'm like manual zoom on the computer to watch the running of the bulls and bullfights. Initially, when we talked about reading this book, you mentioned the bullfights, and I was like, no, no, that's another one of his books. But it is a very strong part of this book.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, actually, it was interesting because one of the podcasts that we both listened to that summarized it a bit and stuff, they talked about how that to them it didn't seem so much around bullfighting, but that people know it as that. But that's because that was such an unknown thing, especially at that time. So, you know, it's more unusual, like the drinking part and the fishing part, which kind of take up more of it. You know, it's more commonplace for people, so that it doesn't stand out as much. But yeah, he wrote a lot about bullfighting. I read Death in the Afternoon, which is all in depth about bullfighting and bullfighters. So he wrote a lot on that. So he was a big aficionado.
SPEAKER_04He was and he made a really big distinction in this book about the characters that were and weren't aficionados and how important that was. So okay, in our current expat life in Asia, what would be the equivalent of a something from the region or even just from China that people would be proud to be an aficionado of?
SPEAKER_08Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of traditional things like traditional martial arts and stuff, but I don't know if people being aficionados per se. I feel like here in China you meet people, especially somewhat older people a lot who are and and younger people getting back into it, or into sort of just traditional Chinese culture things. Kind of have her in a revival, maybe, and but it might be like calligraphy or yeah, Tai Chi, or but it's not com it's not like a common thread amongst all the but then again, in sp I mean, Spanish people of today, it's also not a common threat. There are still bullfighting aficionados, but it's not as much part of the the life nowadays.
SPEAKER_04And that's the thing that I tried to explain recently to someone who was an expat in Europe is that it's not as easy to slip into the culture in certain European countries as it is to as a as a Western foreigner in places like China and Japan. Like we always stick out no matter what, no matter how fluent or knowledgeable we are about the culture, we're always kinda but we're always a noticeable entity.
SPEAKER_08True. Yeah, I can't think of any one thing that can you think of anything in other countries you've loved in?
SPEAKER_04Language is the thing that sticks out to me. But I think that's just because I was a language teacher for so long that people that knew the local languages were sort of on a pedestal within our teaching circle because we're like, oh my gosh, well, you will know the answer to this. And we always pick their brains and they were very proud that they could explain things. But I I think that's a me thing. I don't think that's a usual expatty thing. I don't know. That's a good question. Maybe it was more a sign of the times than it was of Spain versus China.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, true. And it's still it's still in the small in the circle of people that are into bullfighting and extinct, there is still very much like that distinction, that culture around it. Cause actually one of my my landlady when I lived in Spain, her husband is a bullfighting aficionado, has like these albums of the young kids that were in the bullfighting association. They live right above above the ring in uh Madrid. And it's it's quite interesting. Like it's still very much, but I don't know, yeah, would expats get into that. I mean, I think uh expats and travelers sometimes go to learn a little bit about it, but they're not gonna be a having way official per se.
SPEAKER_04I guess I'm I am thinking of the Shaolin Temple now that you're mentioning that. No, but it's still not that many people that I run into that are so gung-ho about that. I don't know. But maybe it wasn't as many then.
SPEAKER_08And it's still a thing there to go like as tourists, probably more than expat. I mean, met not and I'm gonna say I mean some a lot of people are very against bullfights, but also just the running of the bulls, still it's way, way more popular with I don't want to say just expats like foreigners than it, you know, than it would have been back then. Uh it's way more common for people to go. So would you ever do that? I've been along the path, but I wouldn't do the running. I would maybe go there during it just to see the craziness, but I wouldn't do the running. We yeah, we walked the path in Pamplona, and I also in the town where we first lived in Spain, Dania, they had something similar and they they actually run the bull into the ocean at the end. That's kind of what they do. I mean, I I don't think he actually dies because I think he it's not like deep water, but that's kind of the end goal, is like running him off the cliff into the ocean, sort of. It's not really a cliff. We did have an acquaintance there that we met whose ex-boyfriend got very badly gored during that endania. Really, like three months in the hospital, bad infection, could have died. Oh my god. Kind of thing. So yeah, it's it's still a dangerous game to be playing with.
SPEAKER_04It is. It is. There's a reason why we live in houses away from animals, generally speaking. Okay, so that part, mmm, don't know that there's a direct parallel, but there definitely were aspects of the book that reminded me of different expat circles and different expat experiences in my time overseas that were not just 1926 oriented. Did you have any connections like that with the book?
SPEAKER_08A little bit. I it's one of these, you know, it's like a golden age thing. You always feel like, oh, it's not like that anymore, or whatever. I mean, when they were, you know, having their kind of carefree drinking escapades, I was like, okay, they there's been like hints of that, maybe when I first lived abroad or whatever. There's some sense of freedom. I think freedom and creativity, because they're also all writers, and I think their ability to go to Europe and write and pursue these journalistic endeavors and then also have all this fun and that com that lifestyle combination that maybe they couldn't have had in the US. I I see that. What do you think?
SPEAKER_04Definitely think that. I mean, I I tend to overread and listen to things connected to the books after I finish reading it because I want to get different viewpoints on different things that people pick up on, and everybody talks about how much they drink in this book. And that just that feels like if not the initial, then the beginning of a lot of ex people's expat experience, or just of their beginning adult experience, or of I don't know. It it felt very familiar in a lot of ways. When I lived in Hanoi, and not to give away anybody else's story other than my own, but so I will keep all names anonymous, there were definitely the women, usually one at a time, but there was always a woman that was very similar to Brett, where all the men like circulated around them like the planets do with the sun. And she was always never interested in any of them but everybody else and that kind of thing. And there's always somebody like that there. There was always the guy who was very blunt, but people liked him because he was so honest and fortright and and and decent and there for you in a pinch. Bars closed down at a certain time, but then you would just be stuck in that bar. So by the way, you knew the time was coming, you made sure you were in the one place you wanted to be, so that when they put everything down and turn the lights off and put the candles up, you knew you were gonna be there till morning. Wow. And yeah, and and definitely going from bar to bar to bar, because the old quarter in Hanoi is like a lot of downtown areas, very, very one one establishment after another. So you would just kind of hop, hop, hop, hop, hop and and and do what you were going to do. And it was a long time ago for me, and I don't remember much more than that, but I definitely remember a lot of people coming over for a year or two, and that was all they did all the time. Yeah. And I dipped in and out of it, and after a while I was like, okay, what else is there? I am here for the culture, not just for fun, but you need moments to detach to. Yeah. So it it reminded me a lot of that. I had a lot of memories of the people, the personalities, the relationships, the drama, and all that stuff. So that part definitely rung true.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it kind of was bringing me back to like all the everyone was into boozy brunches when we first moved to Shanghai. And I had a like a younger friend crowd. So I would kind of you were talking about the bars closing down, I would be veering off at an earlier part of the night, but they would definitely stay out all night and a lot of these kind of things. So it was definitely it's definitely there's a freedom, I think, you know, that com that people feel when they're living abroad. I and then also I knew through some associations I dealt with, I knew a lot of I'll use the term because people know it, but it's a bad term, trailing spouses. You know, a lot of people that came with their partners and I I would go to some of these things because I have a flexible schedule. And a lot of the people would it was a lot of lunches, long boozy lunches, and then going to another activity. You know, there was a lot of that different than these characters because they were kind of young, working, but kind of the leisure class. That was the leisure class, I think, here. Because that was the other difference, I think. Well, I mean, they're the leisure class, but they were working. But I mean, these are these people all came from definitely like a a a privileged background, whereas the expat experience I've had, it's been a a mix. I mean, well, I guess everyone does probably have a bit of privilege to be able to. That's why we call them expats instead of immigrants. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04The money thing we were talking about before we started recording it definitely leads into that. There's a lot of hinted at elements of the character's background that leave us to kind of just piece things together. Clearly, Paris at that time was a cheap place to live. It was destroyed by the war, yada yada yada. So it's not like Paris today where they would need a significant amount of money to be there and do nothing or be there and work, sort of. Right. But then they also hinted at receiving money at different points. Oh, I should get a wire next week or something like that. What money things did you pick up on?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I know that Lady Brett Ashley, there's some trust fund. I mean, she has a title and there's some stuff that seems like the money has, you know, gone away or something. I know that when Hemingway was in Paris with his wife, his wife had a trust fund. They said it was like the their poor time. They weren't bringing in, I guess, other income, or he was I mean, he was, he was writing stories, but not counting on a regular income. So they were still living, it was kind of like poor students, but I mean they didn't have to feel that they didn't have a base. You know, they had a sort of a safety net, I guess. So I think it was kind of based on that. And I figured, I mean, they all went to universities, and I think that was prior, it wasn't that they went, there was no GI bill or something. So I mean that that wasn't common back then. So they had to come from a background where there was some family money, I think.
SPEAKER_04I effectively ignored a lot of the war stuff. Although obviously the lead character, Jake, went to the war and was, should we say, damaged? We're marked explicit. So I mean, I don't know why I'm being subtle about this because I don't fully know what happened, but he he's unable to use his penis, basically, right?
SPEAKER_08I mean it's not functioning, it's not Yeah, I have I have a feeling as I I the I read this again in the foreword or the introduction, and he actually specifically said it seems like it might be psychological impotence more than anything else. And then and it's really interesting because it's such someone was saying something about such a relevant book now because of PTSD. Unfortunately, it's still very relative because the concept of the lost generation was that they had, you know, gone through all this at such a young age. And I don't know if there's something physical to it, but yeah, he doesn't really get into this.
SPEAKER_04What it was just Brett him and Brett are we can't, we can't, we can't, we can't. And it's like, but why not? You're in the back of a taxi together, you're clearly passionate physically towards each other, but no. What?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, yeah, because uh the the grandson in the intro said something about he he didn't have a physical injury. So there's or there or something, nothing was, you know, I don't know how he put it exactly. So it's quite interesting because it's yeah, you're right, it doesn't get into any real it's not a war story, but you know, it says a lot about the aftermath of war and it's so fun loving that you don't think you don't think of it like as destructive drinking, but yet if you think about it for a minute, you realize, you know, and Hemingway was a famous self-medicator.
SPEAKER_04I have no experience with war uh serving in the war military. Uh the closest I have is a brother that's in the military but was never on the front lines, so I don't know that world very well. But if they had been through a war, especially one that early on when it was more was it face-to-face combat in World War One?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it was pretty brutal. Yeah. So it's still it's still the war where the most people have died by far. I think it's maybe more than all the other wars combined.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah. So that's quite something to live through. So in my head, I think when I was reading the book, I was thinking, yeah, I get that. Trying to forget. Okay, I sure. But that wasn't everybody in the book, was it? How many of them went through the war? It was definitely Jake and Did Mike go through. I think m most the guys were. I don't know. Yeah. See, and that's part of this book, is that there's so much said and not said. Yes.
SPEAKER_08Which apparently he cut a lot out because apparently in his first draft it was tremendously more heavy on details, and he cut it to make it simple and but there was a podcast that talked about that, right?
SPEAKER_04So it was fit was it Fitzgerald's direction to cut that out? Yeah, so the money thing is slightly ambiguous. His injury or not injury, his inability to function ambiguous. The main main characters. Can we do this from memory? Should we try? Jake is the narrator. Jake Barnes.
SPEAKER_08I'm not doing it from memory. I'm looking at notes.
SPEAKER_04That's fine. And Brett is the woman. Yeah, Lady Brett everybody revolves around. Why was her name Brett? Do we is there a line? I don't know.
SPEAKER_08I don't know. That's a good question. Well, the person it was based off of was Duff, but Duff is probably a nickname. Still, Brett. So he wanted like a more neutral kind. She had like the man's haircut, so maybe he wanted a how is Brett neutral.
SPEAKER_04Are there any women named Brett? Probably. I don't know. So Mike was her fiance for some of the book.
SPEAKER_08And there is Cohen Cohen Robert Kahn, who yeah, was a boxer that got a little obsessed with Brett. Ran off with her and then got obsessed with her. Bill Gorton was the other friend, the fishing buddy. And the matador was Romero. Oh yeah.
unknownSorry.
SPEAKER_04He sounded very cute. Was there another woman in the book anywhere?
SPEAKER_08There was a woman at the very beginning when they were bar hopping that they were, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Jake's um companion? You don't even know what to call her. Because she went away pretty darn fast.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Yeah. Huh. It was a fast life.
SPEAKER_04It was a fast life. Okay, so yeah, so they pretty much all revolve around Brett to some degree or another. Except for Bill. Did Bill and Brett ever meet? They were there together in Pampana, yeah. So I did the book on audio, but I kept hearing people talk about the three books that the book was in. Did you feel a distinct shift from one to the next to the next?
SPEAKER_08I didn't really feel a shift, but they are I felt like it's I mean it kind of goes with the travel things. I mean I felt like, oh, they're going to another place, so it's another piece.
SPEAKER_04So expats living in Paris in the 1920s went to Spain for Bullfight. Yeah, they they watched bullfights. They didn't do running of the bulls, did they?
SPEAKER_08Yeah. I well they were the yeah. Uh-huh. They were they were definitely watching it from above. And I think I don't know if they ran, but yeah, and the bullfights. And they yeah, that's where it's funny because it's known as such a bullfight novel, but it really is not. The amount of words spent on bullfighting compared to other stuff is probably less.
SPEAKER_04And I have to admit that was my least favorite part. I know there were tons of analogies to be made from it, but I really was just not even just grossed out, I was very uninterested. I felt like I was watching sports in my head, and I don't like watching sports. I like doing sports and I like doing anything else, but I don't like watching sports. And to me, that those descriptions felt like that. Don't read Death in the Afternoon then.
SPEAKER_08Because I'm somewhat interested, I guess because you know, you go a place and cultural stuff. I don't want to say I got into bullfighting, but I got interested in, okay, let me try to understand more what this is about. Uh and I read it and I'm not sure that I finished because I was kind of it was so much.
SPEAKER_04It was so I remember their reactions to it. Cause I think at one point Jake tells Brett, no, don't look, because I guess the animal was being what do you even call it when they get usually uh gourd is when the person actually so it's just getting it's basically just stabbed. Yeah, and he was like, No, don't look. And she was like, Oh, and she was really fascinated. And everybody's horrified that a woman would be interested in this. And I'm like, Well, really? How often do you see that? I don't know that I would look away. I don't know.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I mean, she definitely broke womanly stereotypes of the time. It was interesting.
SPEAKER_04What do you think a modern day equivalent in China would be? Where would people go? Like it's expats living in Shanghai. Oh where would they go for an exciting cultural event like that? Just in Asia?
SPEAKER_08I can't think of anything.
SPEAKER_04Do we live in the most calm place on earth?
SPEAKER_08No. But no, there's I mean, there's big sporting events and Olympics when it comes over. But yeah, there's I can't think of any big cultural I I'm trying to think even in Asia in general. What do people big festivals?
SPEAKER_04Japan or Thailand or like neighboring South Korea, neighboring countries and things. Well yeah, what do we go? What are we doing? Do we just relax when we leave? So we're expats in the 1920s in Paris more adventurous than we are.
SPEAKER_08No, there's just m there honestly is more of that kind of stuff. Spain in particular is huge into festivals. So I mean, I uh I also I lived in the Valencia area and there's FIAS, which is also another crazy, crazy, I mean, exciting but crazy festival. So they basically they make these huge sort of paper mache, that's probably not what it's made of, but these gigantic like two, three-story things that a lot of times make political statements or ironic. They're they're gorgeous. And those are built by these sort of associations. So people are in these things that also do things all year round. I think they do charitable things and stuff, and so they get put up in different neighborhoods over this period of time, and then every day for 10 days or something, there's this mascaletta, which is this crazy, I was gonna say fireworks, but no firecrackers. I mean they actually really warn you to be careful because you can go quite deaf and it goes off for like 15-20 minutes. And then at the end, the festival festival part is when they burn down those things. So literally the evening of it. We were there for the beginning parts of it in Valencia once, but we actually did it another town, Dania. They have one, and we did the whole deal that that night and day. And you just go around and they but they put fireworks in them, and then they burn it's firemen are always right there with hoses because it's very easy for a house or a tree or anything to catch on fire because it's a two, three-story fire, and you're all standing around watching it, and it's just it's just wild. And there's there's tomatina, whatever it's called. You know that one in Spain where they throw tomatoes. You know, it's Spain loves its wild festival.
SPEAKER_04There's the water one in Thailand. Oh, yes. How can we not think of that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I've never lived there. Yeah, I haven't. I've just talked to people who who uh have talked about it.
SPEAKER_08Song something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I I mean it's thinking there are and there are like big like I thought of Diwali, Diwali in India. It's a religious festival, but there's big, you know, festivals.
SPEAKER_04And when I lived in Taiwan in 2003, I don't know how it is now, because I know the fireworks thing is definitely dampened in in mainland China, at least in the Tier 1 cities. It's gotten really hard to do your own fireworks, which is probably a good thing. But when I lived in Tainan, Taiwan, down in the south near Gaosheng, it's not something I did because I ha already had a firecracker experience as a child every year, so I was like, I don't need to talk. So I went to my roof and looked, and literally all around during uh uh lunar new year, all around with just tons of firecrackers everywhere. Just you could just like see 360 just every everywhere. But that wasn't yeah, but that was more lower to the ground and it wasn't uh like a planned parade or anything.
SPEAKER_08You're in Shanghai when we first got here before they didn't hadn't banned the fireworks yet, and I remember the first two, maybe three years. We traveled, but we were here on either the first night, either New Year's Eve, which is the night, or the like lantern festival night, or which is the other night to go crazy. And I remember it was until almost 3 a.m. when I and if I hadn't lived in Valencia before, I would have been terrified. But I was like, I'm moving from firework culture to firework culture. This is great. And I was I actually felt like I'm home, you know? In which is not my home culture, but and used they used to put every Saturday weddings, you know, you would see the fire, they would do the firecrackers, they would have the ritual and stuff. So a lot of that has been cleaned up here. Chinese New Year was I mean, it's still a big festival, but it's just kind of some of those pieces have gone away. It's you know, the family part and the travel is still there. And they did a huge thing on the buns. They used to do a big fireworks thing, so they did have a sort of central. They had a light show this year, didn't they? Now they do light shows, but they used to do fireworks, full fireworks, and yeah, and it was yeah, it was fine. And the lion dancing, you know, but a lot of that you probably see more in non-big cities in mainland China. And you see it. I mean, I've been abroad several times during Chinese New Year and seen more celebrations in Chinatowns in Australia or wherever. Me too.
SPEAKER_04I've definitely seen although in in Taiwan there were a lot of mini ones, like it would just be some well, what I thought was a random day, and I'd be biking to work or something, and I'd see like four or five people doing a dragon dance thingy that I'm sure was connected to some event on the calendar, on the lunar calendar, and it just all the time you would see that just on a random street. And I'm slightly shocking to come to mainland China and never see that. I s I've seen it in hotels.
SPEAKER_08In the last few years, I've seen it only in malls. They pretty much all it's like obligatory for them to have it. So if you want to see it.
SPEAKER_04The burning of the money for like the gods and whatnot in Vietnam and in Taiwan, but I don't I don't think have I seen it here? Do they do that here?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it's it it's also calmed down a little bit or whatever. But um, yeah, I used to live by the big temple in Lao Shiman and it's funeral street, so they also sell all the things you can burn. It's definitely not to the extent anymore that it like I was in Vietnam for Chinese New Year, and you know, the traditions are more prevalent still. But on that street, you would still be able to buy that stuff, I think, even though Laxi Min and do it, and people would do it pretty regularly for their there were entire streets in Hanoi where you could buy the l the lucky money to burn.
SPEAKER_04And and again, a certain day every month they would have uh you'd see just these tiny maybe one foot tall things that they would burn them in, and you just you couldn't breathe that day because you'd just be going down the street and everybody was burning their lucky money for whatever thing was happening that day. And now that I'm saying all of these things, I'm remembering funerals in Hanoi were pretty intense too, because if you heard like a a serious, like low humming with like a banging sound, you knew you were in for it for like three or four days sound wise, because they would do this very long. Everybody who's ever known the person who just passed away would come to the residence during this time period and they would play this very low banging music for days while this was happening. And I don't know all the details of it. Just sound wise, you knew uh-oh, time for a mini break, time to like stay at a friend's house, because it was just very loud. And you wouldn't want to say, excuse me, could you stop your tradition to honor someone that just died? Because why would you say that, right?
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SPEAKER_04But I'm thinking all of these things are us kind of looking at the local culture. Is that what the characters in this book were doing on the places and experiences that they were seeing and doing?
SPEAKER_08I think to an extent, but I think Hemingway was a bit more immersed in it. That's why he was the aficionado. He can he could he was reading the regular bullfighting magazines like every day, he would get those. So I think that's a different level. There are expats probably that you've known in China that have been really into martial arts or even become teachers of certain traditional things in China. So I mean people do that. His other friends were just interested in drinking and seeing something.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Yeah, they we don't know much about dare I say hobbies or interests outside of each other and fishing. Fishing, yeah. Fishing.
SPEAKER_08They were sporty types for sure. Part of that might be me reading into it, knowing Hemingway was like a sporty guy, but with the fishing and that, I feel like they were pretty sporty types.
SPEAKER_04That fishing part. It was two of them, right? It was Jake and Jake and Bill.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, because I think Robert was supposed to go, but he wanted to wait around for Brett.
SPEAKER_04Right, right, right. Yeah, yeah. He was quite entranced. And they were very, oh gosh, no, horrible analogy coming. Those really bad Grey's Anatomy episodes where they would not have the female characters and just go on this like slightly far away from Seattle adventure with the men episodes that were really, really boring. That's what that part of the book felt like to me. Except for the cute, intimate parts where they were like, I love you, man, kind of thing.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, the the fishing part wasn't as much of interest to me either.
SPEAKER_04What inspired them to go fishing? How did that even happen?
SPEAKER_08That was just part of what they wanted to do along the trip, I think. It's interesting because they are for the most part working, but they obviously have extremely flexible jobs. I mean, I know they're journalists, so it is flexible somewhat, but it's it's very flexible.
SPEAKER_04They have a lot of free time. Yes. And just judging from the amount that they drank, they must have had a lot of free time to sober up. So that kind of doubles the amount of free time that they must have had.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, you don't see them being at the office at 7 a.m. or anything like that.
SPEAKER_04No, definitely not. I don't think their employers were aware of how much they were not working, or they didn't care.
SPEAKER_08I mean, I guess it's it's the type of job. I mean, the journalists and the writers there, the type of job, it's more about output. And Hemingway, who was like this in real life, he his output is amazing. So I guess the results are there. The rest doesn't matter. And it was definitely a different time in terms of work culture. I mean, it was a time when you could have a boozy lunch and those kind of things were part of you know the culture and the Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So were they non-digital nomads? Yeah, sort of. Very recently read News is my job. American woman in China. And she talks about journalists, and she talks about not Morse code. What is the other thing?
SPEAKER_08Oh, like tel telegraph? I think so. Yeah, it might be. And wiring, definitely, but I don't know if that at that time. So I think yeah, they were using the wires.
SPEAKER_04Like her directions from her superiors were very choppy. Those might have been Morse code, because it was like find out about or this person's name and then find out, like that kind of like but hers were longer stories, and so yeah, I'm I imagine how were they sending their stuff back? That's about the same time period.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, wiring it. And that was one interesting thing about this book with Hemingway is he had written a first draft which he didn't like anyway, but that and a whole bunch of other work that got lost. Well, no, I think it was stolen, but it was a suitcase full of a bunch of his stuff. Because again, back then they did do carbon copies, but there was something about it included all the carbon copies, or there was some reason why it was there was not that. So it was interesting about the carbon copies because I thought, okay, they did they did do that, so they would have copies, but yeah, different, a different world in terms of trying to.
SPEAKER_04I shudder to think I lose one file and I go crazy, and I can't even fathom an entire suitcase full of work just gone.
SPEAKER_08And the research processes and things like that back then would be yeah, different.
SPEAKER_04My heart just sank a little bit. I do remember in one documentary on the Lost Generation that I saw ages and ages ago on YouTube, and I'll put it in the show notes and all that kind of good stuff. They talked about some of the Lost Generation folks wrote about their life in whatever places in in Paris and whatnot, and some of them wrote about home. And there was definitely a split. Like people usually didn't write about both. And Hemingway clearly fell into the writing about the the new place kind of thing. Do you think that not just in writing but in content stuff that you consume from expats, do you think they still fall into those two camps?
SPEAKER_08I feel like there are people that write about sort of aspects of missing home and repatriation stuff, but that also write about the place. I don't know. What do you what have you observed? You probably absorb a lot more content than I do.
SPEAKER_04I absorb a lot, but I intentionally look for stuff that's new. So if I think my answer would be biased, because if I see someone writing about their home and it's the US, I'd probably tune out and go find somebody else who's writing about a different country that I don't know about. Okay, yeah. So I'm not sure that I would be an unbiased source for that. But oh, there is a YouTuber that I watch, and he it was really funny though. Um Austin in China, I believe, is his YouTube video. And when his father came to visit him, he did an Asian potato chip tasting with his dad. Okay. And it was really cute because you could see Austin's reaction and his taste buds have changed. Right. And you could see his dad just like, What is this? I don't think dad was such a trooper because he didn't say no to the Durian or the lobster chips or any of the like flavors that he'd never seen before, and he was just like, No, no, he did it. He did every single one of them. But it was cute to have all of his comparisons were back in Texas. Okay. And Austin's comparisons were kind of a mix between local flavors and where he was living and Texas, a little bit of Texas too. But so I've seen some of that. But the vast majority of stuff that I watch and listen to is about the host countries and stuff.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I guess sometimes people use reference points, especially when they're first in a place, maybe they come do comparisons a bit, but otherwise talking about home. Which I think would I think I don't know, we'll have to seek it out and see if we can find more of that because I think it's very interesting the perspective we get on our home countries living abroad. Oh yeah. And then also the perspective and how it might change over time, and then also the perspective that you have on a country as a non-citizen, that I always a lot of times I would sort of be a little dismissive of it or of myself to Chinese friends and say, like, well, it's not my culture, you know, you could probably tell me more. And then they would say, actually, you have a not a better perspective, but you have a different perspective that is in some ways has some different kind of insights. And I was like, Oh, okay, I do have a uh, you know, something to offer.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, you have the advantage of of coming in and learning it, whereas they go, it's uh it's the same thing with American culture. Some people bring up stuff and I'm like, Oh, yeah, we yeah, yeah, you're I'm not gonna fight that. That's probably true.
SPEAKER_08Right. You very much gain that awareness when you leave about the things that we I think we were talking about this the other day at podcast Brunch Club. We were talking about use of hands and eating. And I when you're living in the country that you live in, you don't ever think that something about that is um could be unusual or there'd be a reason not to do it, and then you come somewhere and then you say, Oh, actually, this makes sense and why do we do it that way?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that was a really interesting discussion because they were talking about I don't actually go to KFC in Chianghai, but they were talking about in KFC, I guess if you get the chicken that's not the nuggety ones or whatever. I don't know. If they if you get chicken, you get the plastic gloves. Yes. And I had seen the plastic gloves like in Korean restaurants when you get like the spicy chicken, and I assumed it was the spice. They didn't want you to get the spice on your hands and then rub your eyes and that kind of thing. But they were saying with any chicken at KFC, you get the gloves. Have you seen that? That's what I was saying.
SPEAKER_08It's not just messy stuff like pizza. If you go to a lot of pizza place, it's sort of evolving now. But in the past, it I mean, a Chinese person would not pick up their pizza with their hands. I mean, which a lot of us cut it with knife and fork, but they would sometimes the if they didn't have gloves, they would use a napkin or something. It's and various snack foods that we get like at our office. I mean, there's gloves. That's where I all of a sudden it struck me, this is so smart. If I haven't had uh the ability to go wash my hands or something, this works well. And also afterwards, my hands aren't messy in almost every food, there's some degree of mess.
SPEAKER_04My North American boss in Taiwan, it's him and his Taiwanese wife that ran the school. The first time I saw him eating potato chips with chopsticks, I thought, man, you've been here too long. What the heck are you doing? And then he handed me one, and I had to go wash my hands because I got, you know, all the goo on me. And he's just sitting there and keep he keeps going. Then he could do something, then he'd come back to it, and I was like, I'm done. My idea is clearly wrong. You are you are superior to me in every way. That is a brilliant way to eat potato chips and not have the goo all over the goo and the the grit and all that stuff all over you.
SPEAKER_06Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And I found myself just like grabbing for chopsticks, like kind of looking at something and going, not even just the germ part of it, because I'm terrible when it comes to that, but the residue part of it. I do find myself reaching for chopsticks and going, This is just gonna be cleaner.
SPEAKER_08And that's where it was interesting because here we were analyzing it, and a lot of the the foreigners had obviously thought about it and you know molded over in their heads. And so the qu the question got turned around to a couple of the Chinese folks that were there. Okay, so is it because of the germs or is it because of the mass? And they kind of they had to think about it because they don't analyze it because it's just you know normal. And so that is where that different perspective comes in, because you don't all the things that we do every day in the US, we wouldn't we wouldn't have a reason to analyze it.
SPEAKER_04That's so true, it's so true. And it's usually the little things, like the giant things. Uh, it's too hard to generalize on those big things because then you do have variations, but those little things are so important. Okay, wait, okay. So Jake was an American. Yes. Mike was Irish, Brett was uh. Okay, I'm glad you said that because I was thinking of this earlier today and I was going, is Brett American? It's definitely a mix it's supposed to be a mixture of British and American expats, but I'm not sure who was what.
SPEAKER_08Robert was American because he was the boxer in university.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So Romero was clearly Spanish. Bill was he was American. Was he? I think. I'm seeing now I'm going by the accents in the audiobook. So William Hurt might be leading me astray. Sorry, William. Oh, interesting. So where is Brett from?
SPEAKER_08Well, I mean, she definitely has some connection outside of the US because you don't become a lady in the US.
SPEAKER_04Exactly. So maybe she's the British.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And this is still ambiguous.
SPEAKER_08Or we're just bad readers.
unknownNo!
SPEAKER_04There's definitely an ambiguity to her nationality.
SPEAKER_08I'm really gonna be curious to read the book, the podcast I sent you that was the book called Behaving Badly or something.
SPEAKER_04Oh my gosh, let's talk about that because that was an amazing find. Um, which podcast name was that? And yes, it'll be in the show notes, but let's do it verbally.
SPEAKER_08I mean, there's several reasons I'm curious to read it, but what we're talking about now ties in a bit in that she saw a picture of the origin the real Lady Brash, and that's kind of what sparked her writing the book. And so I thought the backstory of the characters would be helpful. Uh you know, the real life characters. So even though that's not all the book is about, but I know she does cover that a lot. And the yeah, the book is called Everybody Behaves Badly: The True Story Behind Hemingway's Masterpiece, The Sun Also Rises, by Leslie Bloom.
SPEAKER_04Oh, here we go. The Art of Manliness. It was episode 219, the real life story of Hemingway and The Sun Also Rises. So that's the thing that sparked the interest. Actually, it turns out to be also a YouTube channel that my husband watches. Which I had no idea. I was like, what are you watching? Like he said it was much more not instructional, but like mini bits of sounds like testosterone kind of stuff. I don't know. Manliness bits of manliness. It is manliness.
SPEAKER_08The one thing I remembered we messaged each other about was about the idea of sort of Hemingway as the brand, quote unquote brand, using modern terminology.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, because when they didn't know, oh no, wait, when they were publicizing the book, they didn't put the book cover, they used his his profile, his picture basically, because he already had a reputation in the community and people knew him. So he was he was branded already.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, he was completely, and they said, you know, his lifestyle and sportiness and all these different war here, all these things about him became and I I thought about it. I thought, really, I've read a lot of Hemingway. Actually, I looked, you know, in Wikipedia or something and saw and I realized I've there's a lot I haven't read. But I feel like he's this author that I've read so much of and know so well, but it's because I know his persona. I've gone to his houses, I've you know, if you've gone to any of the places he lived, you've gone to the bars that he's gone to. You know, I I know much more about him than his writing, actually.
SPEAKER_04And there's little pieces of him all over the place. Like even the last line in the book, somebody was talking about in one of the podcasts I listened to today, they were talking about they didn't know that was him, but they knew a book that was titled that.
SPEAKER_08Yes.
SPEAKER_04I was like, oh my gosh, he's just everywhere. Just little bits and bobs of his work have gone into our brains in different ways.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, yeah, he's had a lot of influence. But I did think that was quite interesting. I mean, they didn't say back then they weren't he wasn't a brand. I mean, we'll have to read it and see how cool it really is. But it sounds and I just love the title, Everybody Behaves Badly. It you think about this book and then you hear that just sounds yeah.
SPEAKER_04And just kind of effortless. And the whole discussion, I got about halfway through the interview, and the whole discussion, she's just talking about the curiosity and going down the Hemingway rabbit hole. Yeah. And going down a specific part of it, and to the point where she had a friend of hers who accidentally ran across like a box of stuff that had like letters or something or something, and they called her because they knew she was interested. Wow. She was like, she broke open like a bottle of wine that night and was like, This is a find! And it's like, holy cow! Wow. Just amazing, just that whole curiosity vibe and just following the curiosity. And that's what led to the book. And so, yeah, it sounds like an amazing, amazing book.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I have I have a bit of a Hemingway obsession, so I think I'll have to follow that. But but that's where I realized I I feel that I have a Hemingway obsession, but yet when I looked at that canon of his works, I thought, I have not read as much of this as I feel I have, because of following him around to his houses and you know, watching movies about him and all the things that are more about him.
SPEAKER_04There is a very strong possibility that you're more interested in his life than in his work.
SPEAKER_08That's back to that thing about his brand. That's why I think this book is cool, because it's it just basically is his life. And I think he ties that in with a lot of a lot of the stories he writes, there's a lot of tie-in with his life. So I think you know, he's an interesting guy. He's a very interesting guy.
SPEAKER_04I I want to hit the houses and bars thing, because we did have some information on that too. But I rewatched uh Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen's movie that's would you say based on the character?
SPEAKER_08Uh well, it has an author who's kind of obsessed with Hemingway also, and yeah, I mean it it ties in with Hemingway in general, at least, and all the people of that era. And I rewatched I only got about halfway through because my internet kept cutting out last night.
SPEAKER_04But I thought the Hemingway character was hilarious. I feel like he took it to a very, very extreme, matter-of-factly manliness that I think was even harsher than than Jake in the book.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it was a little character-esque in that movie, I thought. Yeah. Though it hit the mannerisms in the way he spoke. But you got the whole way through it again recently, didn't you? What do you think now that you've read The Sun Also Rises and Well, what I thought was interesting about the movie that I had forgotten is kind of the moral of the story, which is that we're always the golden age nostalgia because then they go back and the person that's from the 20s really they go back further and she realizes she wants to stay, and he says no, but I'm and I thought, oh, okay, a little guilty. I'm a little guilty of that. But I don't really have golden age nostalgia. What I want is what they did in the movie, which is to go back, but not to go back and live. And I'm often very nostalgic for that exact period, the 20s or the 30s in Shanghai. We talked once about when you would want to flash back to, and now after living here, I don't know, it'd be torn because the 20s Paris, that would be cool. But now after living here so long, the 30s in Shanghai before before the war, because it was much that same, like it was the jazz age, the glamour, the glitz, but also the danger. And right. And once you've seen, and I say that, but that was a very specific, but the French concession, I mean, very colonial. I'm not I'm not trying to say it was all great, but I think seeing that and it and plus so much architecture in Shanghai stands. It's a city that's shockingly full of the that time period still. And so having gone to a lot of those places, I think it would be really interesting. I mean, I live on the r old racetrack. You know, I live by the park hotel. I would love to see people doing their their dance. They used to have a A ballroom there that opened up to the night. I would love to see them having you know their ballroom dancing there.
SPEAKER_04So I would like to time travel, but I don't think I would want to live in another time. Unless there was a future time with a lot of our really bad things sorted out. That's a good that's a good terrible, yeah. But especially as a woman, I really wouldn't want to long term go back to any other time period.
SPEAKER_08For sure. Yeah, these these time periods that's I would go for a visit, but they definitely would not. And and even for the people that had the privilege then, there were I mean there was a lot of bad stuff going on around and Yeah, and some things are just physically unavoidable if you're in certain time periods.
SPEAKER_04Like I think the woman who he had a a crush for that wanted to go back to the 1900s, his whole deal breaker was that the was it the penicillin thing that there was no He's like, Well, no, I'm not living here, they don't have that. I could die like that. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, Yeah, just multiply that times a million for women and childbirth and X, Y, and Z that could go wrong, and just duh, no, no, I'm good.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, so I thought that part was interesting, but I definitely it it did give me a lot of the feeling seeing those errors in the book uh in the movie gave me a lot of the feelings of the book. Uh it puts kind of the picture, you know, behind it and that that era of the but again it's like movies and books. I mean, they're not showing the part where they are sit where Hemingway was sitting there toiling over his writing. He wasn't, it wasn't all drinking in bars and fun, but that's what movies and stuff show. They don't show your daily grudge.
SPEAKER_04We probably wouldn't read it or watch it if it was that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08And it's much like today, social media, we show that side of ourselves. And as expats, I think that's the tie-in I'll make with expats is that as an expat or geopath or person that lives outside their passport country, but also people tend to think you have this great life when you have maybe a lot of challenges and a lot of but you're again posting on social media, oh, I went to Bali, I went to this place. You know, there's this is a cool cultural thing because you don't post about, you know, oh, I spent well, I mean, sometimes you do, but I spent four hours at the bank today and I had to go run around doing this.
SPEAKER_04So people people like to but honestly that that quote unquote bad stuff happens a lot less often.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Especially true. Yeah, especially in Northeast Asia when there's so much freaking cute around and so much beautiful and so much life is spent outside. Yes. On the streets, it's so easy to walk down the street and get ten different videos or pictures or things that are things that are interesting and cool and bright and shiny and lovely, than it is to I mean, you only have to go to the bank so often. You only have to go renew your visa and things so often. So it's it's hard. I like I try to have both of those, but then it's it's like, well, I don't want to make up stuff that's bad to even it out.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it's not that bad, really. And also you yeah, you don't want to as a person, we don't I mean, it's not great to dwell on anything that's negative. And it is small in comparison, so it's It is.
SPEAKER_04I mean, just today I'm so floored by this. You can tell that I'm about to leave because I I went I went cute. I went in for some vegetables at City Shop and they're pre-made area, and I ended up with this video of these little ducks that have tarot inside of them. So I love those. They come in sets of two, and one of the the set that was outside had a perfectly formed beak on both of them. Oh but the one she tried to give me had it they were kind of flattened out and squished, and I was like, oh heck no. I know I'm not gonna enjoy the taste of these things, so I want them to be cute while I'm eating them, which is kind of gross to think about. But I was like, this is such a this is such a Northeast Asian thing for me. Like I can't imagine having that experience, you know, next year in Germany where I'm like, I I want this duck tarot filled bun. Like, what? It's gonna taste good, whatever I'm eating there, but it's not really gonna have that layer of cuteness on it. And I was like, I must make a video. Oh, like when I go back and visit, they say, Oh, are you having fun traveling? And I'm like, I'm not traveling. I'm like, I live there. Yeah.
SPEAKER_08So I think that impress the impression we have of them in the book. Now this all is coming clear to me. Of course we have that impression. It's the impression some similar to what someone's saying to you, Oh, are you just traveling? So we think their life is all this leisure, and I mean there definitely is m seems to be more of it because even when they're back working, there's definitely more free time. And it was a different situation in those times too, with the pace of life.
SPEAKER_04But but they're never talking about wait, what are they ever talking about anything? Because we see them drinking together. Like he describes them drinking together, but do they ever talk about anything they do in their time away from that moment?
SPEAKER_08No, he's not big on dialogue in the sense of he's big on very practical dialogue and funny dialogue, but not di not to have long diatribes about philosophy or something. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04It's not, I think that's part of the style that he developed was that that modernists are and normally ambiguity drives me crazy, but I found myself just like nibbling on the ambiguity and just like pausing every half hour and going, I just want to think about what I just heard. And I was loving how open the things that were happening were, which is very uncharacteristic for me.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, he does a really good job with it. Uh there's something about that style. And I guess it doesn't seem that unusual now, but it was so weird at the time. This was all new way of writing for for novels. Anyway.
SPEAKER_04Okay, I didn't read Farewell to Arms, but that's his, right? Okay. But isn't that all about the war?
SPEAKER_08That's a war novel, yeah. Have you read that one? A long time ago. Okay. But yeah, I think he I there was something, maybe I made a note of it. There was something that was talking about how he wanted to. Oh, he believed a writer should create an absolute truth out of fiction that feels so real it becomes a shared experience with the reader. I do feel like he does a good job with that. You feel like you're there and you're not, it's not going on these different tangents and stuff, but definitely.
SPEAKER_04And the and the human relationships, as few as they are, as few characters as there are, they're very real. His his back and forth with Brett feels very almost Sam and Diane from Cheers. There's a long ago reference. But but many sitcoms and TV shows and and popular movies and things like that have that same we should be together, but we're not going to be together for a lot of the piece. And then fortunately or unfortunately, at the end in American pieces, they generally get together and we're like, oh, it's a happy ending. Should we spoil it? I think it's a pretty well known book. Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, they do not get together. But that final at the end, it's Brett and Jake, and Brett runs off with the bullfighter Romero, and then runs out of money or kicks him out, or both.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, kicks him out and then has has nothing, basically.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So she calls for Jake to come in and save her. But he doesn't have a lot of money either. But he goes to save her, and I don't even know what that means, but they're talking about it. And she's like, Oh, we we could have blah blah blah been together or something like that. And I thought she was talking about her and Jake, but I was listening to something today, and somebody was saying she was talking about her and Romero. Oh. But but Jake said, Isn't it pretty to think so? Oh I think I may have misinterpreted that. I thought they were both talking about the two of them.
SPEAKER_08Okay, but they were talking about two different things.
SPEAKER_04I don't know. Okay. Is that open to interpretation? How did you interpret that?
SPEAKER_08I don't remember about that part. I just remember thinking he he's in that perpetual situation. He's always gonna come rescue her, but they're never gonna be together. It's kind of his place that he's gonna be stuck in and he's willingly going along with it. He's making the choice. It's quite it's quite a sad story from his perspective. But he's also choosing, I mean, that's what he yeah, how he wants it to be. So I mean he would choose it probably not to be another way, but given the circumstances, he does he he's gonna continue being there for her no matter what.
SPEAKER_04Who is it that's pushing the other away? Is it really because in the taxi at the beginning, it felt like it was it was both of them saying we can't.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I think it is both. I think he w is pushing our way because he doesn't want he knows she's this free soul. I think it's more him almost. And there was something that someone mentioned also that reminded me he talked about when the when whoever it was, was it Robert, wanted him to go to Argentina or somewhere in South or somewhere in South America, and he kept refusing. He had this line where he said, You can't run away from yourself, you can't go to a place to escape yourself or something. And then they were they were in it was in the other podcast, I think they were saying, Is he you know exactly what they did? That's what they did the whole time, right? And it's funny, and that that's another thing that because how you started this uh podcast was talking about threads with do we see anything? And that's a huge huge thing that come comes up in geopath life, where people will say, people either will be running away from stuff, or they'll think they'll realize they can't run away from themselves, or people will kind of dismiss people and say that that's what the person is doing when really they're not. I think especially people that don't go elsewhere, people that are home will say, and uh, I do some work with some psychologists here, and so I've I've helped them write a number of articles that relate to this topic about people actually the quite the opposite being true, where it's sort of you're stripped sort of of a lot of the cultural things that cushioned you back home. So all of a sudden you're left with yourself, and relationships also really come to a head, and it's not because you're thrown in a new culture per se, it's because everything you're here and you don't have those friends and family that you can sort of hide behind.
SPEAKER_04So it's it magnifies things, yeah. So you can't what is that horrible saying? No matter where you go, there you are. I had so many people throw that at me, and I'm like, yeah, of course I'm there. My backpack's there. What's the problem? Like, what what are you trying to say to me? It's truly the place I don't like. I'm going to go over there because that's more interesting to me. But yeah, no, that's interesting. So the other stuff falls away, and we're more ourselves outside. There are some people that try to use it to hide, and they think it's going to work, and it generally doesn't.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, and there's there can be some escapism, just like in their life, they're obviously escaping through drinking, but I think that yeah, your self is always there no matter what. So it's quite interesting.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and maybe that's part of some people's culture shock is when that when that protection of the familiarity is stripped away and they see themselves, it's kind of like, whoa, what's what's going on here?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, for sure. I think I think definitely so. Because things like I mean, different people do it in different ways, but we, you know, we work a lot to get away from ourselves. We do whatever. And so for example, you're working a lot and then you're the partner that comes along and maybe isn't the one that's working. Well, that's a big it's not just because it's a change, it's because it maybe takes away something that you you know was distracting you.
SPEAKER_04Well, let's wrap up with the the physicalness of Hemingway's uh touch, shall we say? So you've been to a number of his houses around the world. Yeah. Where have you been? How many are there that can be visited and how many have you gone to so far?
SPEAKER_08How many there are? I've been to Key West, which he spent a lot of time there, and uh Cuba, Havana. And I think that's it. And then the Havana the one in Cuba I would highly recommend if you're if anyone's traveling there to go. It's really cool. It's so well preserved with all his stuff and his books and his paintings, and yeah, and you can go up to his little writing nest and feel like Hemingway because his little typewriter's there, and you can think, oh, he's up here writing. But apparently there he did also do way more drinking than writing. I think it was a time in his life. I think that was when he ended up getting divorced. I don't know. But uh it's really cool, really worth seeing. Yeah. Have you visited any Hemingway spots?
SPEAKER_04Um just one barb completely by accident. Um I do like I I I've only read one other book and what is the C a man in the Cand on the C.
SPEAKER_08I think everybody read that for school, right?
SPEAKER_04No, I actually read it in my twenties by accident. I think it was that one, but I'm not sure, and I didn't even go back to check because I don't know. I really liked the this book this at this moment in time, and part of me doesn't want to go back in case. I don't know. I don't w I don't want to push it. But um but my husband is very much so into I'm not sure if it's the books or the persona. But he used to, when he went and did his coffee shop thing in different countries that we lived in, he'd say, I'm gonna go do my Hemingway thing, and he would just disappear for a few hours and go and write and reflect and sometimes drink, but mostly coffee. Uh because we met pretty late in our in our lives together. So um but yeah, he would just say, I'm gonna go do my Hemingway thing, and I'm like, Yeah, okay, bye. And it it didn't even dawn on me because it was such a huge part of just it feels like Hemingway is just everywhere, so it didn't even dawn on me. But when we were in Spain a couple of years ago, he took me to uh one of the bars that he went to. And I think there was even a plaque there that said that or something. But it was really I think I mentioned I sent you the name of the bar, didn't I? I don't think we want to say the name of the bar considering what I'm about to say that was it in Pamplana or a different It was in Madrid. Oh, okay. In Madrid, and it was this dark place down in a basement. Oh, was it cave bar? Because they're big in Madrid. It wasn't a cave bar, it was pretty nondescript. I mean, it was it was stylish to an extent, but it it obviously had seen better days. It was kind of a little run rundown and that kind of thing. And I mean the main poll was he wanted to have a drink there because Hemingway had a drink there, and I was like, I'm cool, let's do it, let's go. But the funny thing that happened is like halfway through my drink, I realized there's this gigantic spider, like really skinny spider in my drink.
unknownOh gosh.
SPEAKER_04And I was like, and he was so skinny and it was like a white. What did I get? I think I got a martini, so it was clear. So I don't know how I didn't see it at the beginning. Wow, but I just kind of went, ah, okay, that's cool. I'm like, this is kind of ominous, but you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_08Very Hemingway-esque. Yeah, we went to well, we didn't actually go in, but in in Havana they have Bodhiga Bodigita del Medio. Do you did you know that was in Shanghai at one point? They opened a branch. So it's such a strange, it's such strange what opens in Shanghai that from other countries, isn't it weird? And this Cuban bar, it doesn't have any other branches anywhere else. And it opened, but it already failed here. So it's got now it's a huge German bar. It was by Hung Shan Lu, by that Yongping, that little development there where Coca and some other restaurants are. So it's this huge restaurant. Now it's a German place. It's the it's gotta be an amazingly expensive piece of real estate because it's got two stories and but it unlike the one in Havana, where it's a tiny little hole in the wall, and that was his absolute favorite place. And then there's another bar which I can't remember the name of, which I think is where his he sort of invented, not I don't know, he kind of got them up on the idea of the daiquiri. Yeah. And that we went to, and I can't remember the name, but that we went to, but the bodhig bodiguita del media in Havana, it's you can't really even get near it. I mean, it's packed, people are just you know, it's such a tourist hotspot. And because it's so small, the other one you could get into and get a table every now and then they played music, and but those are only two of many, I'm sure that you spent time in.
SPEAKER_04Wow. Just wow, yeah. There there's probably a list somewhere of like bars that anyway drank in. And the distinction between drank in once and spent a lot of time in. Right. If we were bringing this back to the very unfair comparison between the lost generation in Paris and expats in Asia, which is way too big of a population. Are there any other similarities or stark differences? I think the only thing I can think of right now is I feel like if we take Shanghai as a micro something, microcosm of this, I feel like there's a lot of different reasons why foreigners are in were here versus the lost generation I think was more of a singular focus.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it was more un they they and they were in general much more uniform than I think uh, you know, the diverse I mean, okay, so he and his friends were American and British, but that was about it. It wasn't a lot of different nationalities, it wasn't they were all sort of of the same class, whether they were poor at the moment or not. So there's definitely more uniformity. And I think that's changing more in recent years with geopaths. It's it also it for many years it's been more uniform and now it's changing. And Shanghai especially has changed even in the years we've been here in terms of being more diverse in the reasons people come.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_04I mean, just off the top of my hand, let's see, can we think of reasons why people are here to study? Um, foreigners in Chinese universities is increasing, especially African students from different countries in Africa studying in China, working, uh, but working in many different kinds of jobs.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, not always being brought over by a big corporation or you know, being on local contracts, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. And unlike in Japan, where you have to be even if you're incredibly fluent, you're not as likely to get into a Japanese company. You're like kind of restricted to teaching English on many levels. Um in China, if you're fluent in the language, you can work in any company as long as you're qualified to do so. Right. So that's the full range. Are there still volunteer opportunities or NGOs or things like that?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, there are some, but a lot of people come with a spouse or something because the visa thing is and I know a lot of people in Shanghai that are entrepreneurs.
SPEAKER_04Yes, that's true.
SPEAKER_08And more than I I think it's definitely I wouldn't say it's unique because there are other places, but it's it definitely I think we'll we see more of it here than a lot of places. It's just such a land of opportunity for people to start businesses and come here and get ideas and do things.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and in many different industries too.
SPEAKER_08And then this is working, but also because of the book, I was gonna say uh journalists. Yeah. Yeah, which is are there many? No, there aren't many, but there are I've met some. And I mean we both go to foreign correspondence club stuff, so we see that there are, but that is a small, yeah, smaller population. Yeah, yeah. But I have met some other people that are that are writers, either yeah, writing books about China. I've actually met a lot.
SPEAKER_07Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Writing books about China, just here on a writing break, some people that do business related writing. Yeah, a lot of a lot of writing people, but that also we probably see more. I I probably see more of them because I do book clubs and literary and we do we do activities where you run into those people. Right.
SPEAKER_04There's a very strong book and literature and uh that kind of an art community in general here.
SPEAKER_08Um then here you have returnees, which is a different thing. Returnees and people like with heritage that come for that, a lot of times for that being a big part of the reason.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so there's a lot.
unknownYeah, there's a lot.
SPEAKER_04And I'm sure there was more than just this tiny population in Paris at that time that weren't born and raised there. But it it in general, it feels like the variety of folks that are in the expat or geopat realm is much more varied now than 100 years ago.
SPEAKER_08There was somewhere where I was reading, where it was talking about the expat community in Paris at that time, which it's I then I started to get golden age nostalgia. They they listed Mirot, the artist, photographer Man Ray, James Joyce, T. S. Elliot, etc. etc. etc. You know, so very artsy, but that's who they were hanging out with. But also I think that was a big part at Paris, that was the place to go for those types, and they all like they all knew each other.
SPEAKER_04And yeah. Well, it's it's funny because if an artist friend of mine, years and years ago, when she was in Korea and I was in Taiwan, she was saying, you know, Asia. Asia's the new um, the new place that starring artists go to do their thing and not have the complications of home and all these other things. And and I've met so many content creators and writers and and different artist types in these different areas. So I wonder as I do the shift over to Europe, am I gonna be like, where are y'all? What's happening? How come you're just doing your regular day job? Come on, chop chop, where's your side project? I wonder if I'm gonna feel that shift or if there's gonna well, it's Berlin now.
SPEAKER_08There's a lot you will see a fair amount of it, but other places in Europe I think less, definitely less than here. I think that but it's changing because there is more of this digital world and this online. So I know in when I was living in Spain, I wasn't live planning to live there long term, so I was also not going out trying to meet people a lot, so I don't have a a hundred percent view into it, but really there was a very sort of homogeneous population of who was there, and it was more geared to the retiree and stuff, and there was not much of this, definitely this entrepreneur creative side. But I know I'm in I'm in a lot of groups still thinking I was gonna eventually reconnect with Spain, and there's definitely little digital nomad communities, but they they're I haven't gotten the sense that it's as much the creatives, but it it probably and I mean for for sure in Berlin I think it would be yeah more.
SPEAKER_04Probably. We'll see. Stay tuned. Yeah. Update. Oh, we didn't do the stuffed dog. Should we end with the stuff, Doc? I think we both kind of landed on this part of the of the book separately and then laughed about it together.
SPEAKER_08And then the other quote we don't we definitely don't have to read or play this one, but I think that we should refer people to since we're talking about expat, geopat, is there's a good quote about expatriates in the books. So I I don't know that it's my favorite quote per se, but it's my favorite related to this uh topic, I think. So it's uh when Bill says, You're an expatriate, you've lost touch with the soil, you get precious. Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death, you become obsessed by sex, you spend all your time talking, not working, you're an expatriate, see? You hang around cafes.
SPEAKER_04And it's funny because mine's also from Bill. He was in the book for such a short period of time and yet had a big impact. Yeah. So mine mine's more just downright silliness. They pass a what is it called? Taxidermy uh store. Yeah. And he's he he's trying to convince Jake to buy a stuffed dog. And he's like, Yeah, maybe later. And so Bill says, simple exchange of values. You give them money, they give you a stuffed dog. And then he goes on and on and on about how he's going to buy his friends stuffed animals, not the toy, but the actual stuffed animals for different holidays and celebrations going forward. Just like, wow, how what what came into Hemingway's moment or mind at that moment that he was like, I need to put this. Yeah, why he left that in there. Yeah, of all the things that he took out out of the ex exaggeratedly long version, why did the stuffed dog moment stay in the world?
SPEAKER_08But I guess he was a smart editor because we both it stood out. So I guess he's not.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it was just such a funny moment. And I was just like, What? I think because it was so different than the rest of the book. Yeah. Yeah. So would you recommend this book? Yes. Would you read A Movable Feast? Which apparently is the I think the biographical version of the book. The more directly, yeah.
SPEAKER_08I thought I had read it, but I don't I don't think I have. Uh yes, I uh want to read that and I want to read more of the other stuff that I realized I've missed of his.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, especially if William Hurt reads it. It was really spo seriously, if you guys are into Audible, I'm not I think I have an affiliate, but I don't know where the code is. Honestly, I just really love audiobooks, and having William Hurt, who's one of my favorite actors, read it was like, yay. An extra 25% of goodness on top of it. So definitely get that version. What about you? Would you recommend it? I would. Although I I had such a sweet moment going through the book that I wonder if five years from now or five years ago I would have liked it as much. Like I feel it might be a moment in time for me, and I don't know why. Because there's nothing in my life revolving around any of the places that they were in in the book. But there's something really sweet about it for for now, yes. Would I be offended if somebody hated it? No.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I I don't think I would either, for sure.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. Like I wouldn't defend it with my life kind of thing. Like some books I'd be like, no, for anybody, this is amazing. This I don't know that it is. I I think it's probably really good for some people, and I think folks would know in the first chapter or two if it's for them.
SPEAKER_08And I think it's good to read because it's such an important novel and it's his first novel and stuff. And definitely I have to say, my bias goes way towards Hemingway over Fitzgerald.
SPEAKER_04I'm not a big Fitzgerald. Like when they were talking about Fitzgerald helping Hemingway, I was like, yeah, but Hemingway's so much better. Like he he like took it and then ran off in this other direction that was so much better. Yeah, so it was it was Yeah, that connection with I don't think Fitzgerald was a terrible writer by any stretch. I mean, clearly he wouldn't be on our consciousness if he was awful. It just doesn't strike a chord with me. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, we'll put the fighting words out there if anyone else is a giant uh fan of Fitzgerald. I can they can write nasty comments on your podcast comments.
SPEAKER_04If you're listening to this now and you want to contribute to this, I'd be more than happy to put it in another mini episode. So do send us your favorite or least favorite parts of this book or just general impressions. If you want to read a quote, anything related to the sun also rises, or if you want to give us a teaser on a movable feast, that would be cool too. And then we'll put that into something. And hopefully, um in the future, possibly in different countries, we'll do a movable feast episode.
SPEAKER_08That'd be cool. And see if our perspective I mean, it'll be a different book, but also do our perspectives change when we're elsewhere? Are we flashing back to China?
SPEAKER_04Oh that lends itself to we have to do it once we've both left. Sure. So yeah. Sounds good.
SPEAKER_08Wow. So coming in twenty twenty, part two, a movable feast.
SPEAKER_05I take it down, down, I can afford you got the ride stone before. I'm the man without the plan, you know you fool me, girl. They think I'm willing and able I take you out for a nice one that drink it under the table Well you're my job, drop a light, stop it, bum wave, bum baby, bum big, baby, bumper, bumper, bumper.
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