Chronicle of Lian

This is my anthropological meditation on cities, their inhabitants & other stuffs.

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Our ambassador Ms. S.B. invited us, Sam & I, to her lovely church for a wonderful Sunday devotion. These are some photos I took.

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Some photos I took from our impromptu tour of Coppin State University.

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Some photos I took from our tour of 'Daniel H. Powell Community Garden.'

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City Uprising HIV Outreach Day: Rising Above the Tide?

“Incentive Survey,” it was my official duty during the City Uprising event on June 26, 2012, at a community Walgreens Pharmacy on Howard Street near University of Maryland medical Campus. Wearing the official City Uprising t-shirt that read “What If We Decide Everyone Matter” with a question mark, I was nervous, but excited for what kind of challenges the day might bring.Of course, I expected that I would witness some life changing events in this vicinity as we were providing free HIV testing in a city with one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in the United States, but I was not ready for what I witnessed, heard, and experienced during that day.

As my primary duty as an incentive surveyor, which is a fancy label for someone who asked three questions to individuals who just learned their HIV status just a few seconds ago, I mostly stayed at the back of the pharmacy, where my station is located. Of course, being an agent of ‘Anthropology by the Wire,’ I was trying to interview some of the people I just surveyed for an audio documentary project. It was such a dilemma in trying to obtain interviewees in this kind of atmosphere—HIV testing, not as in an audiovisual sense, but morally and ethnically. Of course, I had the consent forms, but still, it felt too intrusive to ask someone who just received a life change news for an interview, especially when you heard them crying and saw tears in their eyes. Thus, I did not even tried to ask them for interviews, nor surveys, as other qualified individuals were there for that purpose of dealing with these kinds of situation. Nevertheless, I was still able to record individuals with interesting characteristics, despite my inaction to obtain interviews from a certain set of population. Of course, I thought about the kind of footage and powerful moments that I could obtain from interviewing someone who just learned that he or she is HIV Positive, but at the end, I could not do it, so I did not.

Another dilemma during that day was the ‘incentive’ part of the In whole event. One would think, at least I did, that providing ‘Free HIV Testing’ would be enough to attract people, but it turned out that the “Free Launch” part was actually the magnet of the event. I know this ‘not-so-secret-information; because part of my duty was to provide a box of lunch to each individual, who went through the whole procedure—both testing and result. At first, although I was only supposed to give one launch per one individual, I did not follow through with it as some individual asked for more than just one lunch for various reasons. Of course, immediately, I was kindly re-informed the rule, which meant that I had to say ‘No’ to those who asked for more lunches. I had to say the word ‘No’ more than one time, and people were not happy about it at all. Moreover, some people were angry that there was no more ‘chicken sub,’ as almost everyone wanted ‘chickens.’ For the record, one lady was very delightful for the ‘veggie sub.’ Nonetheless, it was such a revealing part of the day. The food played its role as an ‘incentive’ well, as remarks about the free lunch being the sole motivation for participating in this free HIV Testing could be heard all over. At the end of the day, our testing site tested more than the projected numbers as it was the highest numbers since the City Uprising began. Thus, we could conclude that it was a successful day. Of course, the question is what’s next? After the out-of-state volunteers left and the store closed, the world did not stop. You know it, I know it, and we know it. But, how do we stop this HIV/AIDS epidemic from accelerating, not just in Baltimore or in the United States, but in the world? How do we turn this rising tide? I do not have the answer, but based on my experience on that day, I am hopeful. Not tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but in time, we shall overcome this one as well.

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Indeed, Jesus definitely needs to take my wheel after what I witnessed today. Life changes as seconds become minutes, 20 minutes to be exact. It's simple. You entered into a clinic, filled out the papers, a health profession take you into a room, do an oral swipe, wait for 20 minutes while that health profession gives you the 'tough love' talk, and after 20 minutes, you receive the result of your HIV test. As you learn your HIV status, you and your guardian angel look each either in relief as tears stream down on both of your faces. Then, you and your guardian angel go to Au Bon Pain for such healthy snacks. Of course, it could have gone a different direction. Lord knows it could have been, but it didn't. At the end of the day, you take a long hot steamy shower and scream "Jesus Take the Wheel" while you question your value and self-wroth as your recklessness flashes before your eyes.

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It was my very first time on a subway! Like they say, you always remember your first. Baltimore has given me so many firsts. I am so not ready to leave this place. I just don't want to say these words, "I wish I knew how to quite you, Baltimore." Inevitably, I will.

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Does JACQUES Initiative Gives A Good Life?

It is easy to go back to JACQUES. The place seems to bring out the best in each individual. Anyone who ventures into this vicinity is embraced with such kindness and civility that it is easy to forget the reason why someone is here. For Ms. SB, she is here, at JACQUES initiative, because she has been diagnosed with HIV, and she wants to live a longer life despite of her status as someone who is ‘HIV POSITIVE.’ Services provide by JACQUES initiative enable Ms. SB to live a longer life, perhaps ‘a good life.’ If we are to consider the validity of this narration, we must quality it by qualifying, or perhaps quantifying the following questions: what kind of services are provided by JACQUES initiative and how these services enable individuals like Ms. SB to live ‘a good life,’ and what is ‘a good life’?

In term of JACQUES initiative and services its provide, both qualifying and quantifying processes can be possibly achieved by doing a comparative analysis of the success and failure rates of JACQUES with other similar programs. Not only the anthropological nature of the research method is contestable, but also the comparative analysis just probably spews out some sort of ‘Top 10 List.’ In short, this part is doable, despite the problematic nature of its foundation. However, the metaphysical nature of this paradigm—A Good Life, seems too subjective to be qualified or quantified.  Moreover, what exactly constitute ‘a good life’?  If we could answer this question, maybe we might be able to answer the question of whether JACQUES initiative gives ‘a good life’ to an individual like Ms. SB.

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If you’re a tennis fan, you know that tomorrow is the first day of WIMBLEDON! Most importantly, the Queen has regained her rightful throne. That’s right. The magnificent Maria Sharpaova or Masha, as we, the adoring fans called her, has once again become the number one female tennis player in the world by winning the 2012 French Open. With this one victory on the red clay of Paris, Masha has completed a career gland slam - winning all of the four gland slams, and thus, joined a place among the Greats. Of course, this video ,descriptively entitled “Venus Williams vs. Maria Sharapova Loudest Points,” does not display the best of Masha, as Venus outplayed her in this match. Nonetheless, this video highlights the most controversial issue in women tennis, and the reason some people do not like Masha - the GRUNTING! It’s needless to say that Masha is a loud grunting machine. Although I do not grunt, I snore loudly, as some of my friends and roommates will unhesitatingly testify. Thus, I feel like I share a very loud connection to Masha. Admittedly, Masha surely grunts loudly, but it never bothers my sensory at all. Of course, I have never seen her in a real live tennis match, but I am pretty sure that her grunting won’t bother me at all. Call it reciprocity or whatever, I hope that I will find someone who can weather my incredibly loud snoring. Until then, I just want to snore, I mean scream, “I love you, Masha!” 

2012 Wimbledon for Masha!

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Oral Historeis of Sharp LeadenHall: Notes

On June 22, 2012, students from a National Science Foundation funded “research experience for undergraduates grant at Towson University entitled “Anthropology by the Wire” conducted ‘Oral Histories of Sharp Leadenhall’ at St. Stephen and James Church. Led by Dr. Matt Durington of Towson University and Mr. Thomas Gillard, a former resident of Sharp Leadenhall and an unofficial historian of the neighborhood, the task of that day was two folds: first, to record an oral history of Sharp Leadenhall, and second, to make an audio documentary. An audio documentary specialist Dr. Elsa Lankford of Towson University assigned students with audio documenting techniques and other audio related materials. Dr. Durington provided basic questions for our interviews and encouraged or reminded us to utilize 'semi-structured questions' in our interviews. Students were divided into teams of two or three students, and each team was assigned to a former or current resident of Sharp Leadenhall. We, Samantha Adamson and I, Lian Thang, were assigned to Mary Kennedy, a current resident of Sharp Leadenhall. In trying to avoid the various loud noises, we recorded our session in a dining room of the Church. The session lasted over 35 minutes of audio recording. After the recording session, students and participants were treated with sandwiches from Panera. Then, we departed.

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Fells Point: Just Like Heaven?

Feeling something sticky on my face, I kept on wiping it away with a paper towel that I brought from the dorm. I knew that my face was clean, and that, there was no sticky business going on on my face. The searing humidified heat was tricking my sensory. I could not focus on anything, but the sticky feeling on my face. Aimlessly trampling away from Fells Point’s harbor view, trees shaded sidewalk was my path of enlightenment. Then, I saw Mr. Yogata, a yogurt ice-cream shop, and I reached nirvana. Entering into the sanctuary of Mr. Yogata, I was transported from a steamy summer day in Baltimore to a December day in Burma. Elated by the temperamental shift, I stared at the menu board with starred eyes as my conscious escaped from my body. Although I was glaring at the menu board, I could not figure out what exactly to order, and a little girl was anxiously waiting for my order. After two seconds of trying to figure out the menu board, I raised my white flag and asked the little girl, “What do you have?” Before she could answer, the little girl’s mother, who was monitoring the whole situation, showed me the menu board and pointed the items. Something like scales fell off from my eyes, only after the little girl’s mother showed me the way, I could see the light at the end of tunnel. As the fog had lifted and now that I could see it vividly, I ordered the “Original Tart” without hesitation, but with a blind faith. It appeared that the little girl was sort of on ‘a leap of faith train’ as she nervously prepared my order. Noticing the unsettledness in the little shop of Yogata, the helicopter mom tried to helicopter the little girl, but the little girl managed to finish my order without any intervention from her mom. Born out of this momentary struggle between mother and daughter was a beautiful yogurt ice cream called “Original Tart.” Nothing less than a marvel, it was as tender as a cloud, as juicy as a bosom, and as aromatic as a milky dream. After our impromptu play, I exited from that little shop of Yogata with a little piece of heaven. Holding on to my saving grace, a cup of “Original Tart,” I was invincible to the searing humidified heat of Baltimore. At last, the sticky feeling on my face was gone, and there was peace on earth, once more.

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Mr. Yogato's "Original Tart" was amazing! It was a such a delightful highlight in my sensory ethnography of Fells Point, MD.

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Visual Anthropology: An Unimpeachable Witness?

As we start to record footage of our perspective ambassadors and other accompanying materials such as B-rolls, we are no longer just learning about ‘Visual Anthropology,’ but actually practicing it, hopefully. Repeatedly warmed by Dr. Collins and Dr. Durington, the recorded footage is nothing or worthless without accompanying written notes. Thus, I tried to take some descriptive notes immediately after our recording session with our ambassador. At its raw form, the recorded footage is just a video of a middle-age African-American woman sitting on something and talking about her life in an ‘unstructured’ fashion. Although her story lacks a precise narration at this current stage, one can still know or learn something about her life if someone has the patient to watch the whole footage at its raw form. The question arises from this situation is the question of what exactly constitutes an ethnographic piece of media? Can surveillance camera footage be transformed into a piece of Visual Anthropology? Are we producing some sort of “unimpeachable witness” (Rudy 1996) for a specific cause that we are championing—JACQUES initiative?

At one point during our video recording session with our ambassador, as I listened and watched her through a tiny monitor, I found myself trying to achieve the perfect ‘rule of thirds’ that Dr. Brain Plow taught us during his videography lectures, instead of focusing on what she was saying and how she was telling her story. It is a learning process, a very short one, indeed, as we are in a time constraint. Nonetheless, I am looking forward, in trying, to balance  the “aesthetic conventions of filmmaking and the scholarly requirement of positivism for researchable data” (Rudy 1996) in the editing portion.

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Shut Up & Listen!

As usual, JACQUES’s coffee room was lively with interesting characters. Due to the rainy weather, our ambassador was not able to meet us yesterday because she was afraid to catch a cold.  Rescheduled to meet at the coffee room around 10:00am, we were excited for our first meeting with Ms. S.B. Although there were no rains, we had to wait at least 20 minutes on the bus before our last stop because the street was temporarily closed due to an emergency evaluation of one medical building. Despite the unexpected wait, we arrived to the Human Virology building, which housed JACQUES initiative, around 9:55AM, safely. Like yesterday, the coffee room was animated with joyous interacting individuals, despite their health status. While waiting for Ms. B, we did not have any dull time, as everyone was eager to converse with us. Then, Ms. Bosley arrived to the coffee room. With uncompromising enthusiasm, Ms. B did not hesitate to sign the consent form. Moreover, she took us to her apartment and allowed us to film her. Then, she invited us for a meeting tomorrow. Overall, the meeting turned out to be more than we expected, as Ms. B was ready to share her story. Already recorded over an hour of footage, we are eager for tomorrow’s meeting. During our first meeting, we did not necessarily ask specific questions, as we followed the ‘unstructured question’ route. For our second meeting, we would probably practice ‘semi-structured question.’ Of course, we would still be listening whatever Ms. B has to say, as Dr. Collins warmed us, “Shut up and listen!”

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Seeing the Path?

 Utilizing a free tracking app from an android phone, I recorded points that represent geographical locations with corresponding attributes. The triangles represent the route that bus no.48 took from Towson University to University of Maryland Medical Complex (UMMC).  Each triangle is accompanied by windshield ethnographic comments of sort. Then, it is layered with a map projecting population change from 2010 to 2015.The projected map is provided by ESRI, an apple of GIS world (Geographic Information System). I do not aim to empirically correlate the projected population change and the quality of life I observed through a windshield ethnography from bus no.48. It is not my intention. Nonetheless, I think it is a 'cool' and 'helpful' ways to represent some of our field notes, spatially.

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Some photos from June 18 tour of Sharp Leadenhall.

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Nostalgia Killing?

Around 8:50AM, under lightly pouring rains, Sam and I took Bus no.48 from Towson University campus to University of Maryland Medical Complex (UMMC), where JACQUES Initiative is located, to meet one of our JACQUES ambassadors. Bewitched by the seesawed motion, once again, I fell asleep on no.48 bus. After a 40 minutes ride on a fairly empty bus, we arrived to UMMC. The medical complex was as busy as usual. After a few minutes of walking in the rains, we finally reached the Human Virology building. Wasting no time although our meeting was scheduled at 10:00M, we entered the coffee room at JACQUES Initiative around 9:40AM. The coffee room was not as compacted as the last time when we were here, but it was still as welcoming as I remembered. From the HR person to the staffs and the clients themselves, the atmosphere at JACQUES was filled with civility and kindness. I felt safe being there. While waiting for our ambassador, we met various people and had an opportunity to witness and observe the interaction between the JACQUES people, between the staffs and the clients. Omened by the dripping rains, we did not have an opportunity to meet our ambassador, due to a complication. However, we rescheduled for another meeting at 10:00AM tomorrow at JACQUES. I hope that the weather will corporate with us tomorrow and we will have a nice meeting with our ambassador.

After the unfortunate event, we headed toward Sharp Leadenhall to meet with the rest our classmates in the midst of lightly dripping rains. As we departed from the medical complex, our senses were treated with the scenery of highways and sports stadia. Having done some research on sports boosterism in relation to the building of Indianapolis as a ‘Super City,’ I was no longer deceived by the monumental infrastructure of what Christopher Thomas Gaffney called “Temples of the Earthbound Gods.” Ironically, the class meeting was held infront of Sharp Leadenhall Baptist Church. When we caught up with the rest of our classmates, Mr. Thomas Gillard, the ambassador of sort, was telling a sweeping story of a local activist named Solo Gibbs. Gathering infront of the “Solo Gibbs Recreation Center,” which is named in honor of Solo Gibbs, we were introduced to a microcosm of the larger dichotomy. As Dr. M. Durington informed us, the center is struggling to provide services to its residents while facing the forces of privatization. Following the trend of privatizing public services, the impending privatizing of the “Solo Gibbs” center seemed to be its track. Of course, such assuming is premature as the history of grassroots activism in Sharp Leadenhall suggested that the people of Sharp Leadenhall know who to fight the good fight, as evidenced by the successful campaign of “Movement against Destruction” (Durington 2009). Nonetheless, the gentrified landscape, not to mention the Otterbein, seemed to suggest that the good fight had succumbed to the forces of free market. Of course, the glaring African-American AME Church in the middle of pseudo-historic neighborhood of Otterbein, the continuing resistances by local activist such as Mr. Gillard, and the partnership between faculties and students of Towson University and Sharp Leadenhall residents reveal the other side of the story; a story of grassroots resistance against institutionalized forces.

As we will continue with the “Oral Histories” project of Sharp  Leadenhall this Friday, I believe we will witness more of this resistance and Mr. Gillard seem to be more than eager to tell the stories of the real people of Sharp Leadenhall. However, as I listened Mr. Gillard’s rich stories of his beloved neighborhood, I was reminded the notion of “Jim Crow nostalgia.” Thus, I wondered, is it possible that the residents of Sharp Leadenhall, like Mr. Gillard, are trapped by their nostalgia for the glory days? Sometime, nostalgia can kill the future.

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Are you there Margaret Mead? It's me, LIAN!

As our first meeting with one of the ambassadors approaches, I am excited to utilize what we have been learning in the past two weeks. While it is not certain that video recording will be utilize during the first meeting with our ambassador, we will still bring all of our equipment, as anything can happen. We just want to be ready for any spontaneous ‘magical moments’ of sort. Of course, we cannot depend on spontaneity and serendipity in all aspect of our practicums, as anthropologists and ethnographers we are bounded by such things as ethnics. Furthermore, we should be prepared for whatever challenges that may arise in our quest. As an individual who will be leaving Baltimore after this project, I wonder how I will develop a relationship with our ambassadors. After our meetings, interviews, and gatherings, I will be leaving this place while they will still be here. It is highly unlikely that I will change their livelihoods within these few weeks. It is such a pessimistic view, but sometime, I question whether we can as individuals actually change the world for the betterment of its inhabitants. I question what I can realistically achieve substantive solution or do something worthwhile for the “real people” of Baltimore as a participant of NSF (National Science Foundation) funded project during these remaining days. I guess, I am looking at this experience from an ill-constructed view. I wish that the forefathers and mothers of Anthropology would visit me in my dream and whisper the answer to my dilemma. Of course, I could ask Dr. D and Dr. C about my disillusionment. Until then, are you there Margaret Mead? It's me, LIAN!