BOOK
REVIEW ON STANDARD DEVIATIONS: GROWING UP AND COMING DOWN IN THE
NEW ASIA
Arts&film.
Asian American Press. January 10, 2003.
This
book is NOT designed for anyone over forty, or for anyone doing
business in Asia.
Karl Taro Greenfeld has followed the spawning,, drinking, and
traveling of young foreign professionals who tramp from country
to country, hotel to hotel, and bar to bar in Asia. His Generation
X subjects are armed clothed with degrees in business, journalism,
Asian languages, and religion or humanities. They fit into jobs
that require foreigners. They form the connections with the West
in areas of finance, language, entertainment, media and comparative
culture and religion.
Greenfeld estimates that this group of youthful professional ex-patriots
number well over 100,000. They make sufficient money to live comfortably,
but do not intend to commit to their work for a long period of
time. They are essentially professional vagabonds, traveling a
"circuit of work and play that results in constant motion
between cities and countries of Asia."
Standard Deviations break's from the usual types of books on Asia.
It does not extol the culture of Asian traditions. Nor does it
provide a guide to doing business, or a model of Asian economic
success or political development. One is led through brief biographies
of foreigners who are reinventing "new, better versions of
defective personalities" that they develop "back home."
This book provides multiple stories of young men and women who
have the wealth and income to travel well, and live bad. It is
a sad commentary on the New Millennium of youthful travelers.
But, in my own experience and observation, it is an accurate reflection
of many daily experiences in Asia by the new generation of wild,
and lot professionals.
Greenfeld provides overwhelming, and at times very unpleasant,
descriptions of his own narcissistic, self-absorbed, and self-pleasuring
trips through sex, drugs, bar hopping, spiritual hunger, and broken
relationships. He is obviously well versed in the use and effects
of drugs. His chapter on "Sped Demons" takes the reader
through a catalogue of drugs and rap sheets of drug sellers, buyers,
and users. The message is that drugs are an escape that is nonetheless
amazing. Its major power is to kill time while one is temporarily
living or existing away from home. The lure of drugs and their
ability to erase time spent makes the user underestimate the dangers
of personal disease, and even, in some places, of public execution
Greenfeld writing reflects the speedy and hedonistic life style
of his subjects. Take his description of Gal, Israeli who walks
"along the dusty Colaba streets while crowds of turbaned
and dhoti-clad Bombayans parted for her; something about her stride,
her loping, angry steps and the way her curtain of curly brown
hair swung as the stomped up the street caused this otherwise
unflappable, immovable mass of pedestrians to veer to the side
of the uneven sidewalk, and press against the racks of cheap silver
jewelry and cases of cigarettes to let her pass. She was a starling
sight on that Bombay street, a tall brunette of Amazonian proportions
whose surly, downcast expression failed to disguise lovely, da
Vinci-esque features." Karl runs after her, invites her to
spend time in a fancy, expensive, religious/carnal retreat. His
infatuation with her sets him up for a dramatic fall from grace.
The most exotic story is the chapter "Nipples and Vodka Express"
about the life of Russian pimp in Thailand. His importation of
Russian whores results in a battle between local pimps and the
foreigners resulting in beatings and revengeful retaliation. The
story is enfolded into the author's own sexual discoveries in
the wild world of Bangkok's sexual hospitality/
The absolute must-read chapter is also the book's title "Standard
Deviations." This chapter provides the best bottom-up view
of Indonesia since Christopher Koch's The Year of Living Dangerously
which described how economic and political chaos in Indonesia
in 1965 led to the "ethnic cleansing" of the Chinese
minority. The chapter features the life of Laney, a young, rich,
spoiled American who has majored in business and has found a job
in a stock brokerage in Djakarta Indonesia. He takes on all of
the trappings of an elite foreigner, expensive suits, an automobile,
a visitor to the fancy restaurants, and expensive call girls.
He watches the economy slump in the late 90's. He becomes aware
of the corruption, the unequal distribution of wealth, and the
precariousness of the world economic system. But his greatest
discovery is his commitment to a woman. Unfortunately for both
of them, she is in the despised Chinese ethnic group who live
precariously among the Indonesians. During the chaos and violence
of the economic crisis, Indonesians began attacking the Chinese
families. This reaction often resulted in death, destruction of
property, and forced exile. Laney travels through the smoke and
roadblocks to save his girl. But it is a useless and almost self-destructive
mission. Laney learns that the circuit through Asia often turns
into a stunning and irreversible dead end.
Greenfeld mirrors an Asia that is lived by many foreigners. It
is the Asia of the brothels, of political and economic chaos,
and of a life that is detached from one's surroundings. He describes
with compelling detail how this Asia is a magnet for the foreigner
who is drawn by the power of false expectations, the promise of
freedom and the advertisement of creating a new identity. Greengeld's
strength is in this vivid and absorbing description of the dream
and the attempt to reach it by means of constant motion, addiction
to drugs, and use of sex.
However, the end of the book has bore me by the repeated sexual
encounters, drug overdoses, and the failures to find a true freedom.
Greenfeld's evaluation of his swigs through Asia an d the people
he has met in unfulfilling. For his own sanity, he has finally
entered into a drug rehabilitation program. The result is that
he has become a very well published author. He has been reunited
with his suddenly happy family.
He seems to see Asia as a therapy playground for the young Generation
Y professionals. In between College graduation and the real job,
they can, if they survive, rock and roll in Asia until they have
come to their senses and then return to a real life in America.
Karl Taro Greenfeld has powerfully observed the lives of many
foreigners in Asia. What is lacking is that his moral to the story
is just as self-serving and self-empowering as the people he out
of the Asian chasm. Is this "discovery" really the writing
of an important author? Of is it just an attempt to entertain
without significance?
