For some reason, Memphis is a big name to me. I know next to nothing about this city, but it is one of those places that simply sounds representative. Like Detroit, Memphis is known for its strong culture. Elvis, Blues, Memphis-style BBQ and of course, the assignation of Martin Luther King Jr. There’s also the FedEx HQ in Memphis, which I learnt from watching “Cast Away”. Memphis sounds exciting before I am even there, but the drive to Memphis isn’t any less exciting.
After spending 7 years in the Michigan boring flat plain, I needed some mountains badly. The south east has some pretty nice mountainous landscapes. Most importantly, nice twisty roads to drive on. Birmingham will be a city that I have to drive through on the way to Memphis. As I was checking the map, I found a really exciting looking twisty road just outside Birmingham and decide to take a little detour on my way to Memphis.
Driving out of Atlanta was easy. This is also the first time I am driving in the southern highways. It feels different from driving in the north. I cannot express this difference, but I know I am in a place that I am not familiar with. As I drove by Birmingham, I found myself in a not-so-nice area. It reminded me of Detroit. Bad roads and rusty buildings. I pushed on and was driving into the wooded area. Even though I am surrounded by trees, the uncomfortable feeling hasn’t gone away. There was thrash along the way. The gas stations don’t look very welcoming and I was avoiding having to get off the car.
The GPS led me to the road I was looking for. I stopped to check the map if this is indeed the right one. Confirmed. However, it just doesn’t seem right, because the road is really narrow and torn in pieces. It’s the worst road I’ve seen before, very different from what I was looking at on Google Map Satellite photos. Well, since I am already here, I pushed on further, hoping that the road was going to get better. No, it just got worst to a point where there is no way that my car can endure the terrain for the next 10 miles ahead. So about ¼ mile into the road, I decided to make a quick U-turn, which was when I realized that the road was as wide as the length of my car. No problem, nothing a 3-point U-turn cannot get you out from.
Back at the starting point, there was a dump site with big trucks coming in and out from. At the junction, there was a stop sign. I pulled up to it, and realized that it has been turned into a beehive, aka bullet holes. People have been telling me how the southerners are trigger-happy and I never took it seriously, thinking that it’s just a stereotypical joke. Well, I am more than ready to hit the gas now!
I was contemplating if I should trace my way back to Birmingham and then take the highway, or should I follow the GPS which was telling me to take another 30 miles of local roads before it takes me back to the highway. I took the GPS’s advice. In this 30 miles, it was another experience. Along the way, I saw mining sites with dump trucks roaming the forest. I also saw many small Baptist churches along the way. I was also driving behind a pick-up truck for quite a few miles with the driver tossing out beer cans along the way. I cannot help by thinking about a few things. Southern stereotypes, and curiosity about this area.
The rest of the journey to Memphis was quite smooth. I noticed that as soon as I crossed the Mississippi state line, the roads are red instead of the usual gray. There’s nothing wrong with that, just felt weird that the world suddenly looks red.
So I am in Memphis, finally. Kyle, who lives in the eastern part of Memphis, German Town, took me to lunch at a small BBQ place just 5 min from his place. I have to say I’ve never had real BBQ before this. This is just great. The best brisket I’ve ever had. It’s actually moist! The beans, coleslaw and ice-tea. You can taste the homemade aspect of it. The service was the atmosphere. Absolutely casual. This is the type of hospitality that I enjoy. Not the fancy high-life style that you have to fork big bucks for. This is all about being passionate and sincere to what you do and what you want the customer to experience. I am looking forward to visit that little restaurant again.
We then spent the rest of the day driving around. Kyle has been here for many years, long enough to say “I’m from Memphis” when being asked, an answer that I still don’t yet have. Even being familiar with the city, Kyle appears to be rather paranoid about safety. Every nice neighborhood that he introduces me to, he will end it with “Oh, and literally 2 blocks down that way is the ghetto, and there’s been robbery and rape incidents when criminals come over into this neighborhood…..” So it appears that there is really no safe place in Memphis. Till now, I still don’t know how to react to that being in the US where for the most part, good and bad neighborhoods are pretty distinctively separated. One of the most interesting comments from Kyle was when we visited the Mud Island Park where the residential is pretty high-end and where Kyle once lived, he said that he used to see black 3 kids riding south on one bicycle from the north (where the bad area is) and ride back with each of them on a bicycle.
Kyle then points me to the Pyramid Arena, which was once the home for the NBA basketball team Grizzlies and U of Memphis men’s basketball team. It has been unused since 2004 when both teams moved to the FedEx forum. It’s rather unbelievable that such a major facility just goes abandoned, but why am I even surprised? Memories of Detroit shouldn’t have faded this quickly!
Then we headed towards down town where Beale Street is. It’s that one street where everyone hangs out at and can drink and walk publicly. There’s live music like I’d expect, but again, Kyle constantly warned me of being approached by strangers. This leads to another observation. In Detroit, I never felt uneasy on the street even around homeless people. Bums in Detroit are pretty harmless. If they approach you for some change, just say no to them politely and they will leave you alone. So far in the South, Atlanta included, I haven’t felt comfortable in the city. Bums approach and tags onto you, trying to hold a conversation with you with the only intention of getting some money out of you. It’s rather annoying. If they have the energy to do this, they should be channeling it to something more meaningful.
The next high point of this trip is the Lorraine Motel where the turn of modern American history took place.
This is where Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated by a gun man who shot him from the building, which is now a civil rights museum, across the Lorraine Motel where he was staying. Kyle mentioned that the actual room where the gun man was at is blocked out from tourists and the window where he shot from has been sealed. Why? Not why the room is sealed, but why are they using a place of hate as a form of memorial of civil rights? What is the message that they are trying to convey, that white once hated the black? Civil Rights movement is supposed to be something that we celebrate. It is not about remembering the hate, but celebrating the peace. I am sure King will be disappointed that people who organized this site missed the point, and will probably get a kick out of it realizing that his death site has become nothing more than a tourist rest stop.
Tourists outside the room where King was shot.
Other street photos:
There is still a lot of Memphis that I want to see, taste and experience. I haven’t had enough of it. But since I have to return to work on Monday, I had to drive myself back to Atlanta.
Anxiety was kicking as I approached the same area where I had the detour on the way to Memphis. It was the town of Jasper. Well, since my GPS doesn’t have the latest update on the roads, I was taking a long way instead of the high way. Driving through Jasper, there were “Bingo” places after “Bingo” places, like Starbucks in Seattle or Waffle House in Atlanta. Basically, they are metal warehouse-looking structures without windows and just a neon sign that says “Bingo”. The traffic was busy since it was the major route to Birmingham, and it just seemed that I couldn’t be fast enough. I just want to get out of this area as soon as I can. So much negative attitude. I know. It’s ignorance that drives negativity, but in this case, I just couldn’t help it.
Just when I thought I’ve see a lot of America, I haven’t. The south is an entirely different country and culture. We watch CNN all the time thinking that we are seeing many things happening across the country, but the fact is, we are only looking at a very selected few incidents that are happening. Upon chatting with Franklin, he told me about Appalachia, a region just north of Georgia that has been in poverty for as long as people can remember, which reminded me of the Jasper experience. Mining, logging, gambling, lack of education, jobs, resources, welfare, and most importantly, attention. I am puzzled that for something this significant, the media chooses to ignore it, and Americans forget about it. What economic crisis? The people in Appalachia has never been in economic prosperity. In fact, we should be consulting them on how to get through tough times!
I have formulated, for some time, a way to see how big the world is. My world is only as big as my knowledge accommodates for. Yours is as big as your knowledge accommodates for. So, the world is the total of all of the individual worlds combined, and that’s just human race alone. Now think about all the creatures and organisms and aliens. We live in our own little glass ball. We can choose to continue to live in the ball, or break it and let lose. It’s the choice between security/familiarity and risk. For me, I just feel insecure not knowing the risk, therefore I chose to risk. It’s always a struggle. I always feel that it’s like digging a hole that is never deep enough, which makes me unsure of the best way to address them. May be I will never know, but at least, I know that.
No comments:
Post a Comment