The fly-fishing will continue until morale improves

I have the weirdest tan right now. Zig zags across the tops of my feet from my Chaco sandals. Raccoon eyes and stripes across the side of my face from my sunglasses. Dark hands from holding a fly-rod. White arms from wearing long-sleeve shirts. Besides increasing my skin cancer risk ten fold through prolonged exposure to the sun,I had a great time fly-fishing in Jones' Hole (its a stream you dirty people) and along the Green River. As much as I complain about my dad's obsession with fly-fishing and is unrelenting hope that my brothers and I will take up the sport with as much fervor, these trips have allowed me to see beautiful places like Alaska, Canada, Montana, Wyoming, and Scotland. I have also found that I as grow older and perhaps a tiny more patient, fly-fishing is rather relaxing and lets you take your mind off everything besides your beautiful surroundings and your floating fly.

We (my brother Andrew and my dad's ex-grad student/postdoc, Tim) left for Vernal and Jones' Hole via Las Vegas that sweltering den of inequity. Dining at the BK Lounge in Cedar City (home to a Shakespeare festival no less) we were entertained by a mother and her son who apparently visit there daughter at her place of business every day to take advantage of her employee perks (make that a larger whopper combo!). The Foundry Grill in Sundance could not have been more different. All the waiters are struggling actors and for the most part very attractive. No Robert Redford sightings unfortunately. I did find a t-shirt for 58 dollars. Tempting but it didn't say "I went to Sundance and I all I got was this dumb t-shirt". After hitting a bird (I had to clean bird remains off the windshield) and driving about 50 miles per hour, my brother finally got us to Vernal, essentially nullifying the good time I made between Las Vegas and Sundance. A poor German tourist was unable to get a room because all the hotels in Vernal were booked. First, I wondered why he wasn't in Germany watching the World Cup, then I wondered how could all the rooms in VERNAL be full? Oil boom!

The next two days were spent fishing Jones Hole, a spring fed creek that lies below a fish hatchery and flows into the Green River. If you avoid the obnoxious rafters who occassionally climb up from the Green River, it is a very picturesque canyon. Deep red and orange walls enclose stands of fragrant junipers, sagebrush and dusty cacti while along the river stands of cottonwoods shade the stream and stinging nettles catch those unfortunate enough to wear shorts (not me this time!!!). There are a few pictographs to check out as well as an ancient deluge shelter for those who are more inclined toward the cultural than the natural. It is, the fishing, however, that has drawn my dad and brother and subsequently me to this cold, clear stream. Andrew calls it the happiest place on earth. Probably because he is able to catch fish on the first cast and not get his fly caught in every tree, bush, rock, [insert obstacle here]...

Left: Looking up at the canyon walls. Above: Andrew blocks the trail down to Jones Hole

That was the case the first time I came here two years ago, causing such frustration that the next day my friend Kelly and I decided to see the highlights of Vernal and the surrounding area. Armed with 5 1-day tour brochures from the Best Western "Antlers", we packed them all into 4 hours. We saw some pictographs covered with grafitti with offerings of soda cans and cigarette butts strewn along the ground. A large American flag painted on a canyon wall by some crazy patriots of the "Great War" was another highlight. Then there was Dinosaur National Monument, which is sadly in need of funding. It is a dual time capsule: pressed into the wall are remains of many different dinosaurs while the building and explanatory signs are dull reminders that the 1970s was not a great decade for architecture and interior decor (orange....shiver). Our final stop in the tour was the Walmart superstore, where it was possible for me to have my tires changed, my hair cut, my banking needs met...you get the picture. This time we did try to find a good restuarant in town. I even talked to the lady (calling her the concierge would be a bit of stretch) in the lobby who gave me another brochure (they sure do have a lot of brochures for a lot of nothing in Vernal) for the local restaurants. I asked her which was her favorite and we ended up dining at the 7-11 Ranch Cafe. I knew we were in for a treat when I spotted the cow skin table cloths. I made the mistake of ordering a BLT which arrived drowned in mayonnaise. Tim's pork ribs were accompanied by overcooked beans and "scones". Praise the lord Clare was not with us. She would have had a fit if she saw these so-called "scones" which ended up being little more than fried bread. None of the food looked as though it had escaped the lard can, prompting Tim to comment, "no wonder people in the Mid-West are so corpulent".

Having sucked the place dry (in the immortal words of our neighbor Matthew after walking around Rome for 1 day) the first time, I decided to try my luck fishing for two days. I caught 4 nice rainbow trout the first day and managed not to lose an flies to the incoveniently placed trees and bushes. Using the same fly minus one of its "wings" which had come off the day before (its called Dave's Hopper if you were wondering which I am sure you were), I decided to tackle this deep pool of water underneath the small wooden bridge that spans the stream on one section of the trail. Now this pool is fished by everyone so no one really catches anything there because the fish are really spooky. But I had blisters from my sandals and I didn't feel like walking farther down the trail that day so I gave it a shot. After catching everything in and outside the river besides a fish, I was about to give up when I thought I caught hung up on a big rock. But then it started to move! I fought that baby for 5 minutes trying to keep it from going over a waterfall and I in the end I won. Of course I didn't have a camera and no one was with me to verify this but I swear it was a good 20 inches which is BIG for Jones Hole. Of course my dad, my brother, and all our fishing guides on the Green didn't believe me but it doesn't matter because I KNOW I caught that fish all by myself.

Left: Melissa and I in front of Red Creek Rapids, laughing as I almost fall on my ass in the river.

The afternoon of my big fish we left for Dutch John near the Flaming Gorge dam (better known as Butch John and Flaming George to my family) to meet up with my dad, my brother Tim, and Andrew's girlfriend Melissa for 3 days of floating down and fishing the Green River. I laughed for about 10 minutes when Big Tim (as we like to call him to distinguish him from my brother Tim), walked into the room Andrew, Melissa, and I were sharing in the middle of night, in the dark and said "oops I thought this was the bathroom". I tried to get Andrew to go out to the living room later and lay down on the bed with Big Tim and say "oops I thought this was the bathroom" but he was a big pussy. Further hilarity ensued when the next night Andrew made the mistake of putting dish washing liquid into the dishwasher. I had opened the dishwasher right after he started the wash to add another dish when I noticed the yellow liquid. I told Andrew he put the wrong liquid in there but he didn't believe me until he grabbed the bottle of dish soap and read the label out loud: "Not suitable for dishwasher use". Melissa and I mopped up as much as possible and ran the washer. 10 minutes later Andrew goes into the kitchen and starts screaming "Bring towels". We thought he was joking but then we saw the floor covered in bubbles and instead of getting towels we started laughing hysterically, prompting Andrew to scream even more shrilly for more towels. After an hour or so of running and re-running the dishwasher and constant mopping using the hotel towels, we finally got rid of the bubbles.

We fished for 3 days on the Green River with our guides Doug, "Boomer" (who is proud of his loud and copious farts) and Gordon, whose caustic wit and humorous stories have made this and past fishing trips all the more enjoyable. I caught tons of fish and Gordon even commented that my casting was significantly improved although I have not fished for two years since he went rafting with us. The time passed too quickly and soon we were packing up for the long drive home.

Left: Gordon tries to make me kiss the fish. Poor fish.

We left early hoping that we could avoid the Sunday Las Vegas traffic but I have decided that all of Southern Nevada is cursed. When I was 8 years old my Grandpa ran out of gas just 20 miles outside of Vegas. Two years ago my old car broke down twice near Las Vegas. And last year Andrew saw a dead body along side the I-15 just outside Vegas. This year they closed the ENTIRE southbound freeway outside of North Las Vegas. It took us on hour and a half to go 2 miles in 119 F heat. Tim took us on a roundabout way through the Mojave, Joshua Tree and 29 Palms to get back to southern CA, which took us another 4-5 hours. Cursed.

Now its back to work until our next fishing trip in Montana in August to make some more money for my journey to Chile for 7 months. Remember to keep checking my blog for updates on my Chilean adventure starting in September!!! "Inconceivable!!" I love The Princess Bride and my brother just got the Dead Pirate Edition so I have to check it out. Leave us comments, precious!

Hapa

Remember that story in my last blog about how my cousin Jenny and I couldn't be cousins because I am "white"? Well the LA Times just published an interesting article about people who are half Asian, half white/black etc. (hapas). While references to hapas being more attractive and more genetically "fit" are somewhat disturbing reversals of valuing racial purity, it is interesting to hear the stories about how hapas craft their own identity as well as how much more difficult it is for other people to distingush "what they are" based on how they look. Anyway I am pasting the article below if you are interested.

Mixed-Race Asians Find Pride as Hapas

A new book and an art exhibit in L.A. reflect an evolution in perceptions of a multiracial group historically made to feel like outsiders.

By Teresa Watanabe, Times Staff Writer
June 11, 2006

In Chinese restaurants, he was the kid who was always given the fork. In his largely white Covina public schools, he was the one beaten up and taunted as a "Chinaman" and "burnt potato chip."

Kip Fulbeck, a Santa Barbara artist, filmmaker, athlete and art professor who is of Chinese, Irish, Welsh and English descent, was born at a time when several states still banned mixed-race marriages and the children of such unions were routinely stigmatized.

But 41 years later, as interracial marriages have exponentially increased, Fulbeck is now celebrated as one of the nation's leading artists focused on work about mixed-race Asians, known as "hapas." He recently published a book on hapa identity, "Part Asian 100% Hapa," and this weekend opened a related photographic exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum in Little Tokyo.

The exhibit reflects an evolution in the perception of multiracial people from the bizarre freaks and "tortured mulattoes" popularized in film and literature a century ago to simply normal. Hapa — originally a derogatory Hawaiian word for half-breed — has been embraced as a term of pride.

"Before, people would look at you like you were a science experiment," said Fulbeck, a lanky Fontana native who sports a surfer's tan and a waist-up Japanese tattoo.

"Now, we're everywhere."

Hapas number 1.6 million in the United States, according to the 2000 census, which for the first time allowed people to claim more than one race. Nearly one-third of the nation's hapas live in California, 11% of the state's total Asian American population and the largest concentration of hapas outside Hawaii.

Hapas and other mixed-race groups have their own websites, social clubs, campus groups, films and literature. Their ranks include golfer Tiger Woods, actor Keanu Reeves, supermodel Devon Aoki and musician Sean Lennon. Lennon, son of the Japanese Yoko Ono and the British John Lennon, wrote the forward to Fulbeck's book.

One international newsmagazine proclaimed Eurasians "the poster children for 21st century globalization" a few years ago, touting their ability to bridge cultures in marketing, advertising and entertainment.

And, turning racist ideas of "hybrid degeneracy" on their head, Psychology Today magazine earlier this year featured studies finding that Eurasians were regarded as more attractive than whites or Asians and healthier because of their genetic diversity, associated with a lower incidence of some diseases.

All of which makes Fulbeck squirm just a bit.

It's bad enough that hapas share the common stereotypes of Asian Americans as "model minorities" who are expected to be smart, diligent and well-behaved, he said. "Now we're expected to be superior genetically too?" asks Fulbeck, chairman of UC Santa Barbara's art department.

Although most hapas tell him they're proud of their mixed-race heritage, Fulbeck said, he still gets e-mails from those who write despairingly of rejection and angst.

One parent, for instance, recently wrote for advice about his Korean Mexican child, who had suffered so much social rejection at school that he joined a Cambodian gang.

Paul Spickard, a UC Santa Barbara history professor, said three major factors during the 1960s laid the groundwork for today's multiracial baby boom. In 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the anti-miscegenation laws that remained in 16 states (California eliminated its law in 1948).

In addition, the civil rights movement and new immigration laws began liberalizing public policies and social attitudes on race.

Fulbeck's exhibit features 80 of more than 1,100 photos he shot across the country of hapas of all ages, sizes, occupations and ethnic mixes.

At Fulbeck's request, all of his subjects bared themselves from the shoulders up and wore little or no makeup, glasses or jewelry. The subjects aren't identified by name but by their striking responses to the question: What are you?

It's a question that many hapas constantly confront. Sometimes, other people try to tell them what they are — or aren't.

Victoria Namkung, 29, a Brentwood writer of Korean, Jewish and Irish descent, still recalls a painful moment when she was 5, watching a St. Patrick's Day parade while wearing a button that said, "Kiss Me. I'm Irish." A man bent down and told her: "You're not Irish, honey. You're Oriental."

Meanwhile, some Koreans have told her she's not Korean because she doesn't speak the language or go to a Christian church. And although Jews have assured her she's Jewish, Namkung has figured out her own identity: "100% hapa, my whole mom's side and my whole dad's side."

In his project, Fulbeck asked all of his subjects to define themselves. Their responses roamed from baby scrawl to the succinct ("Queer Eurasian") to existential statements about being "millions of particles fused together." There are confessional writings about discomfort with curly hair and constant internal debates over which heritage is "better." Some defined themselves as what they are not: not exotic, not foreign, not half-and-half but fully whole.

One boy wrote: "I am part Chinese and part Danish. I don't usually tell people I am Danish, though, because they think I'm a pastry."

To the Japanese American National Museum, hapas represent the community's future — a key reason it decided to sponsor Fulbeck's exhibit, according to spokesman Chris Komai. Nearly one-third of Japanese Americans are of mixed heritage, the largest such proportion among all major Asian ethnic groups, according to the 2000 census.

"Our community is changing and we need to recognize that," Komai said. "The definition of what it means to be Japanese American has to be different than it was 60 years ago, if it wants to perpetuate itself."

Komai said the museum and a growing number of other Japanese American organizations are liberalizing ideas about who belongs to their community.

Japanese American youth basketball leagues, for instance, have shifted their standards on who can participate in order to accommodate the community's rising number of mixed-race children. Over time, the rules have been liberalized from allowing children whose parents were both of Japanese ancestry in the 1950s to those with one such parent in the 1970s to those with at least one such grandparent today, according to Dan Nakauchi, commissioner of the 29-team Pasadena Bruins basketball organization.

In fact, he said, someone with no Japanese ancestry would be eligible if he or she were significantly influenced by the culture — an adopted child, for instance, of a Japanese American parent.

"It's a history and culture we want to perpetuate, not a bunch of people of the same race," said Komai, whose four nieces and nephews are all hapa.

Eric Akira Tate, a 36-year-old Palo Alto attorney, can attest to rapidly changing attitudes among Japanese Americans. The son of a Japanese mother and African American father, Tate said his encounter with UC Berkeley's ethnic politics in 1988 first made him sharply aware of what he was — or wasn't.

Asian American campus groups handing out recruitment fliers would ignore him. A Japanese American woman complimented him on his skilled use of chopsticks. Small things, he said, but "palpable."

With two other students, Tate decided to start the Hapa Issues Forum, a groundbreaking group to raise awareness of mixed-race Asian Americans through conferences, community events and social gatherings.

Today, Tate is president of San Francisco Japantown's largest community group, the Japanese Cultural and Community Center of Northern California.

"In 1992, we had to take the initiative to get a place at the table," he said. "Now we've moved to the head of the table."

Fulbeck too found his voice as a hapa activist in college — in his case, as a UC San Diego art major in the late 1980s. Stunned by three traumas during that time — the death of his best friend, a family conflict and his failure to make the Olympic swim trials — he poured all of his angst into a narrated video project for school. It was the first time he had gone public with his hapa identity conflicts. To his shock, the whole class applauded.

Since then, he has written a novel, staged numerous performances and made several films about the hapa experience, including the 1991 "Banana Split," which boosted him into the public eye.

His latest book, aimed at celebrating the diversity of hapa identity, is particularly personal.

"This is a book," Fulbeck said, "I wish I had as a kid.