By Yiwen
Rescuing My Favorite Shirt
In mid March, I was getting exhausted from hopping from hostel to hostel and anxious about the impending doom – the U.S. Tax Day and the deadline of my financial aid application. I decided that I’d like to find a private, temporary abode to slow down and complete my tasks. The only two nearby regions that could provide affordable shelters were Southern Italy and the Balkans.
With all factors considered, I booked an Airbnb in a small town in Southern Italy for early April. The Airbnb was a small unit on the fourth floor of a beautiful baby blue apartment building. The apartment building was within the residential block of a few other identical buildings, all of which were newly built. Other than that, they seemed to house eerily few tenants, with many windows sealed and balconies empty.
I did my laundry upon checking into the Airbnb, then hung all of my washed clothes on the extended, thread-like drying rack on my balcony. Unfortunately, the low clouds turned into dripping rain. I had to rescue all of my clothes outdoors. Double unfortunately, one of my shirts dropped to the rack on the third-floor balcony amid my messy rescue effort. Triple unfortunately, no one seemed to live on the third or the second floor. No one’s gonna help me.
It was one of my favorite shirts. I had to save it. So I searched through my Airbnb and found two long metal sticks with hooks in the storage area. The sticks were meant for supporting the patio
awning. But in my desperate mind, if I attached the two sticks, they could very well be a makeshift fishing rod. My vision was grand, but the reality was less ideal. The hooks barely attached the sticks together. It was extremely unstable, completely uncontrollable, and likely to fall apart and propel to the ground. I dangled the elongated sticks, with my full torso out of the balcony, reaching towards the third-floor rack. My shirt was moved by the sticks, except not in the right direction; it fell onto the second-floor rack.
In sadness and bitterness, I went downstairs and out of my apartment to assess the situation. Upon inspection, I realized that if I climbed up the first-floor balcony, maybe I could retrieve my lost shirt on the second-floor balcony. I rang my first-floor neighbors’ bell and explained my situation by typing feverishly on a translation app. I even offered my metal sticks to them. My kind-hearted Italian neighbor climbed on his balcony rim, lifted my metal stick like a professional lacrosse player catching the ball mid-air, and got my shirt back.
I said ‘grazie’ and ‘thank you’ in alternation and bowed my way back upstairs.
The day I learned Lithuanians don’t cry filing their taxes
By May, I was in Krakow, Poland. In my hostel, I was talking to a Lithuanian guy in his 30s. I asked him about adult life and jobs. Then, the conversation steered into taxes. I mentioned I did my taxes a month back. He asked me if filing taxes for the United States was complicated.
I suppose one tends to forget one’s suffering when the suffering has passed: “It was pretty doable. The American government links a few free tax-filing websites for people in my income bracket, in case we’re too broke for an accountant.”
“So it’s better than what the rumors say?” the Lithuanian guy asked.
“I mean, I did cry doing my taxes.”
The guy looked shocked.
“Apart from contacting my guardian across the Atlantic Ocean and numerous time zones for income forms, I had to put all of my information in three separate times; each took hours. See, the tax-filing websites all advertise they’re free for low-income earners. But the first tax-filing agency didn’t tell me it’s free except for filing state and city tax returns (which are mandatory) until I put all of my info in and was ready to hit submit. Rookie mistake, so I made sure to watch out for the state/city filing section. Little did I know, the second website had an even more ridiculous reason to reject me from the free tax-filing service. It cited that I make too little money, and it only provides free tax-filing service for low-income earners who earn above a certain threshold. Huh?? By the way, these are all tax-filing agencies listed on the official IRS website. And I trust my government!”
“Why do you have to put in so much information? Wouldn’t your government already know your earnings and personal information?” The Lithuanian guy was curious.
“Yeah, they knew. I suppose the IRS can catch you if you fraudulently report your taxes. And it’s also in case you report some streams of income the IRS didn’t know about. That makes sense…right?”
“…Right?” I got less confident watching the guy hesitate.
“…Not really.”
“You don’t have to put all this information to file taxes in Lithuania? You don’t cry filing your taxes, ever?”
“Never.”
That was the day I learned Lithuanians don’t cry filing their taxes.
Yiwen, It Was NOT a Life or Death Situation
At some point in late July, I was hiking down the desolate part of a mountain in Kyoto. No other humans in sight for quite a while. Then, I saw a Japanese sign that was warning about the danger of something. Two seconds later, I saw something moving on the ground – it was a snake. Now, I grew up in a city and had the survival skills of a shoebox. I had no clue if the snake was venomous or not, dangerous or not, provoked or not.
I froze in place, trying to observe the snake’s next move. At that moment, I was stressed and overthinking; maybe the sign read “danger, venomous snakes, tourists especially susceptible.” (The sign was warning about flood, but I didn’t know it at the time). I could almost see myself on tomorrow’s news for foolishly dying of snake bites under a warning sign about snakes. The snake didn’t move; I didn’t dare to move. Seconds passed by, minutes passed by; my patience ran out. Maybe the snake had quietly left, I thought. But after I lifted my feet, I saw the snake inched forward as if it was gonna keep up with my pace. I took a deep breath and thought, ‘Alright, that was it’, and scurried away in fear while keeping my distance.
I continued along the river, following the lead of Google Maps. Then, I came across a fork in the road: one going uphill into the forest, and the other one across the bridge towards the other side of the river. Google Maps asked me to stay on this side of the river, so I assumed I should hike uphill into the forest. The more I hiked, the more suspicious the muddy route seemed. I checked Google Maps again; I saw myself walking further from the planned route. I was confused. I stood there, zooming in and out of Google Maps. Am I lost? I thought, should I leave my dad a message saying if he doesn’t see my location move for the next 24 hours, be ready to welcome my corpse home?
Then I saw a guy walking towards where I was standing, then passed me, then further uphill. After risk assessment, I assumed he was also a foreign hiker, likely oblivious that he was getting lost. I called, “Hey, where are you trying to go? I saw that this route is heading towards some unknown highway. I’m thinking maybe we’re walking in the wrong direction.” We decided to go back to the junction. Turned out Google Maps drew the map wrong; there wasn’t a road on this side of the river, and we should’ve crossed the bridge at the junction.
The guy and I descended together. He showed me a video of a snake and asked, “I passed by a snake earlier; it was huge! Did you see it?”
“I did. I was scared as hell. What if it bites me and it’s venomous?”
The guy shrugged and did not look concerned at all. From his reaction, clearly, I was not in a life-or-death situation. None of this was. I was just being dramatic.
