I thought Hawaii State liquor laws were crazy. Stop selling at 11:45pm. How many times have the roommates been in Longs on Waialae or Don Quixotes near Ala Moana rushing to beat the clock?
Then I moved to the great state of Washington where the liquor is state controlled, meaning you can’t get it at a gas station or super market and it’s $10 more than what I am use to paying. And the stop time is 8:45pm.
I don’t think Chile had a stop time. I swear I was in a liquor store at 1am and not even like a corner store, like just a straight liquor store. Anyway, this was the place closest to the house…and they also sold me scotch tape…without a dispenser. Because that’s how scotch tape is there. I swear I had the taste of tape in my mouth for two days and ended up with strips of tape that were completely stretched out and useless.

Santiago was maybe about a 40 minute drive away from Paine. I went in with my tia mama, Josefa and tia Mabel. The tias were shopping for their shop at la feria and Josefa and I roamed along.
The streets were mixed with the typical big city feeling lined with street vendors and wachiturrios. Buildings that looked polished and important and others that I guess looked more like what I imagined South America to look like all in one area. I don’t know if I mentioned this but the graffiti here was amazing. Sure there were the ratty tags and stencils but mostly there were beautifully refined wall pieces any corner you turned. It seemed weird if I saw a building that was touched by a fan tip.
We saw the capital building where President Allende was found dead. The guards wouldn’t let anyone who wasn’t working in the building in. Apparently with the educational protests, the capital was on somewhat of a lockdown.
I never saw any Asian people on the streets and I mostly got stared at and mostly got a straight up “Mira!” (look!). With the shameless whistle thrown in no matter if my tia was standing next to me or not. On top of that, I felt huge. My statue at 5′6” was huge in Chile. Sure there are people taller but that wasn’t common either.
To my surprise, my family takes me to a district in Santiago called Patronado. A couple streets with low buildings lined with store fronts of all clothing stores. So the surprise part, all the stores were own by Koreans. I mean, all the stores, every single one of them! I couldn’t believe it. I expressed my shock to my tias and Josefa. Tia looked off for a second and said something along the lines of “They aren’t Chinese?” Which made me laugh. I would walk in and look and listen. There they were. My people from the motherland running businesses in this beautiful foreign place. Some spoke what seemed to me a perfect Chilean Spanish (no matter what, better than mine) and other spoke Spanish with a typical mamasan accent. I was amazed…here out of all places. Like I wouldn’t have ventured to Chile if it weren’t for Belen and a cold Seattle winter.
One shop that my tia’s frequented was own by a Korean couple. They felt compelled to tell the ajashi my feelings about how amazed I was that so many Koreans were in this part of Santiago and how amazed I was at their Spanish. So we talked for a bit…forgetting I am not in the US and the dude barely spoke English, we strangely toggled between broken Korean and translated Spanish through Josefa.
I asked him: Porque Chile?
He said: Me gusta
I thought: meeee tooo
As we were leaving the reflex in me responded with a light bow but before I could even look up the ajashi responded with a hug and I thought: that’s my shit.
Patronado, filled with all the clothes you can possibly imagine and Independencia, filled with all the fabric stores you can imagine. As Josefa and I will say, beware and use the restroom when you can as we walked into what seemed like the scariest restroom I have ever been to in my life. Tucked away in a courtyard-like house off the main block and what looked like a old but dirty scene from Like Water Like Chocolate. I think we even walked into some dinner in a soft lit room on a old rectangular wooden table from the old world and there was a old man in a wheelchair in a courtyard yelling something in Spanish at us and some back veranda with sheets and jerseys being ironed like something in-between a villa and sweat shop if that’s even possible.
Patronado–another place where I know the International Language of Eye **cking the Shit Outta Eachother is true.

More snippets of the Lagoon.

Appreciation for nature’s beauty is something I think I get from my father.
When we first moved back to Oahu, every Sunday he use to take me for a long drive around the island. Just to look, stop somewhere for food and spend time with me. I remember having my toy karaoke machine in the backseat while my dad was bumping Willie Nelson or something and holding the mic up to his mouth while he drove. At one point we had a station wagon and sometimes I use to lay down in the back and look up at the sky while we drove. My uncle told me that one day these drives would stop. That my father won’t have time for them anymore or something in life would change. Uncle kept it real, I just wished he never said that to me.

One thing I loved was this appreciate for beauty was amongst my friends. Talking about this Lagoon was one out of many times I heard people say, it’s beautiful.
Many conversations went like this: (in Spanish)
“You should take Carol there, it’s beautiful”
“Is it?”
or
“Is it beautiful there?”
“Yes, you should go together.”
It was like sharing it and showing it was a type of pride and moment of appreciation and intimacy.
I didn’t know what to expect at the lagoon except maybe some water and some beautiful trees and good smells. But just like my father and use to, Belen drove me around the Lagoon and surrounding areas, sometimes we talked, sometimes we sang what was on the radio and most of the time, we just looked out the window and looked, making sure the other was seeing what we were seeing. I can tell you, it was truly beautiful.