Euskara

I find the Basque language fascinating - mostly, it sounds like a magical gibberish language filled with lots of Zs, Xz and Ks.

Kaixo. Zer moduz? Pozten naiz zu ezagutzeaz. Ez dakit euskaraz ondo hitz egiten. Ingelesez hitz egiten al duzu?

"Hello. How are you? Nice to meet you. I don't speak Basque well. Do you speak English?"

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I am officially, temporarily done with Spain. Perhaps visiting 3 times in the span of little over a year (4 times in2.5 years) was overkill. In any case, I don't think I need to come back for a good couple years.

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One aspect I've always loved about Spain is that Spaniards generally leave you alone. Unlike Italy or Greece or France where the citizens will catcall, proposition you or most annoying, guess your nationality by calling out: "nihau!" or "arigato!," Spaniards, for the most part, are hassle-free and let you be. Generally, I think this disinterest comes from a good place, or at least not a bad place. But for the first time, on this trip, I've felt that at least a little bit of the disinterest, at least the disinterest in my kind (i.e. Asian) comes from racism or ignorance. Maybe not in all of Spain, but in el pais vasco (Basque country), yes. The Basques are fiercely Basque and their motto in life seems to be: eat well, drink well, exercise and make lots and lots of babies (in both Bilbao and San Sebastian, babies, toddlers and children abound). I don't know that exposure to the rest of the world outside of the Basque world is all that important to them, so their exposure to Asians seems to be a bit limited. And perhaps it is the lack of exposure that makes some of them slightly...I don't know, racist in the slightest, almost indiscernible way. They leave you alone/ignore you, and yet...it's not out of respect because you shouldn't bother tourists. It's more like...I don't know, how an upper-class WASP in Palo Alto or some upper-crust New England town might ignore a random Mexican walking through their neighborhood and yet be very aware of them. I can't think of a better analogy, even though I know that's a bad (and politically incorrect) one. As an Asian, I feel both conspicuous and invisible. It's the strangest feeling, really. Not everyone is like that here, of course. But enough are that I can sense it. Yesterday as J and I were walking through the Old Town of San Sebastian, a little boy - maybe 4 or 5 - saw us and without saying a word, took his fingers and made his eyes slant up into chinky eyes. He kept doing this as we walked by and when his mother saw him, she just shook her head no, but without really making an effort to show him what he was doing was wrong. I was, to say the least, appalled. I mean....seriously?!

And our first day, in Barcelona, a group of guys near la Ramblas shouted "nihau" while J and I walked past, and when I muttered "we're not Chinese", also threw out "konnichiwa!" and "arigato!" Those who know me know that this pisses me off to NO end (do I approach a white person and yell "Guten tag!" or a black person and yell "Jambo! (hello in Swahili)? In my opinion, that is just as ridiculous as yelling "Nihau" to any Asian person you see). Five years ago, I would have turned around and flipped them off, but these days, I just keep walking. Mostly because I know trying to fix ingorant racist bastards of their ways is a lost cause. But such experiences completely mar my experience and memory of that place and at least for one second, make me think - "these people are so fucking ignorant." So maybe it's these annoying negative experiences that diminish my love for Spain this time around, or maybe it's that I'm totally over eating jamon and pintxos drowning in mayo, but I'm done with Spain for awhile. And sadly, but maybe for the best, Spain has dropped from the pedestal I put it on as the most fabulous country in the world.