The Heart Of The Day

A call from Amy: Would you like to run into Manhattan with me to pick up Josh after work tonight? Of course, I said! Bob had already eaten stir-fry at home and preferred to watch the world series so I suggested to Amy that we go get something to eat…something light. “Public,” where Amy loves the sauteed fois gras, was closed so we drove over to the Blue Ribbon where kitchen workers (chefs) often gather late at night (or early in the morning) after work. The restaurant closes at 4am.

I absolutely love Blue Ribbon’s bone marrow sandwiches served with marmalade…three large bones with long spoons to scoop out the rich jellied marrow. We ordered a table full of small appetizers, or “apps” as Josh calls them including steak tartare, raw oysters, baked oysters, escargot and bread with a bottle of wine to go with it all. My son, daughter-in-law, good food, wine and me: Heaven!

There are 13,000 restaurants in New York City and urbanites, with cramped apartments and schedules, often eat out…whether take-out, order in, pizza slices or, on special occasions, in one of the more elite culinary establishments. Eating out at one of the four or five star restaurants in New York City is a serious situation, an evening in itself, a form of entertainment….and it is expensive.

I won’t even tell you what the bill was the night Josh, Amy, Bob and I went to a restaurant called “Bouley” in TriBeCa (which stands for TRIangle BELow CAnal St) an area of huge lofts, world-class restaurants, quaint cobblestone side streets and a strong art scene all with a neighborhood feel. Bordering the World Trade Center site, Tribeca was rocked by the terrorist attacks but has survived and reemerged.

David Bouley is one of the celebrity chefs in New York City and I was treating Josh who had been wanting to try out the Bouley cuisine. (This is what che do…spy on each other!) Just inside the front door the walls were imaginatively lined with rows of fresh fall apples with the accompanying aroma…immediately signalling the appetite. The dining area was well appointed but comfortable without crowding.
Each small serving, of which there were many (I lost count), perfectly married colors, textures, temperatures and flavors and each was paired with a complementing wine. It was insightfull to have Josh there to describe the artistry and nuance of each course.

The meal lasted several hours and the service was impeccable. The elegant head waiter was a very experienced Jamaican with a pleasingly subtle sense of humor. The servers were perfectly unobtrusive but attentive and there were at least two assigned to each table. When each course came, we were served by two servers-each bringing two plates so that we all got our meal at the same time. When I got up to visit the ladies room an attendent appeared out of nowhere to lead me to the proper door. Nowhere have I experienced the level of service we had here…and now I know how Queen Elizabeth must feel every day!

This, everyone, if they can, should do once in their lives with people they dearly love.

Big Onion Tours, the word “onion” being a play on the Big Apple, offers tours of neighborhoods of NYC. We chose the “immigrant tour” which shows how different ethnic groups variously settled and replaced other groups around the island over the years—a continuum to the present. For example, Chinatown has almost completely taken over Little Italy and Christian churches have now become Buddhist Temples. The Church of the Transfiguration on Mott St, originally an Episcopal church dating from 1801 was transformed into a Catholic church in 1827 to attend to the needs of local Irish. As they moved out Italian immigrants dominated the parish. These days Mass is still said but services are in Mandarin and Cantonese.

Big Onion tour leaders are generally university grad students working on New York historcal theses and their presentations offer detailed historical information spiced with antedotes and humor. Our tour began near City Hall and included early history of the lower island evolving to the corruption and shananigans of Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall–much of which is not too different from the current modus operandi. At the time a nearby pond was a reservoir for unwanted blood-and-guts from area butchers. When its stench became overpowering its contents were removed by a canal, built for the purpose, and now known as Canal Street.

As the pond became filled the overlying area became the “Five Points” –the former Irish slum depicted in the Martin Scorsese film “Gangs Of New York” where five streets had converged–representing the five burroughs. Now two of the streets are obliterated by skyscrapers.

Nearby is the site of the African Burial Ground, a cemetery for the city’s early black residents most of whom were slaves. Black residents eventually moved further up the island to Harlem. Remains of over 400 bodies were found on a site that was slated for a government building in 1991. Following much protest, construction ceased and the ground was declared a National Historic Site. Most of the remaining nearby graves had already been covered over by skyscrapers years ago.

In the early 1900s millions of immigrants called the Lower East Side, Little Italy and Chinatown home and the area became “one of the world’s most densely populated neighborhoods,” said the tour guide. Bob and I looked at each other and we both said at the same time…”he’s never been to China!” However, the horrors of the tenements were real and are documented at the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.

The Bowery is a long avenue that was named by the Dutch for their word for “farm” as it linked New Amsterdam to the farms in present-day East Village. Horse drawn cable cars moved people and produce. In the early 1900’s the Bowery was lined with rough bars and flophouses and was the de facto border between Jewish Lower East Side and Little Italy. Jewish gangster Meyer Lansky helped organize rival gangs on both sides. A young grad student at Columbia, recently, researching the Bowery, found that Jewish prostitutes would frequent the Italian side of the street and the Italian prostitutes would parade the Jewish side….for the purpose of not running into family or friends of their own communities!

Recent gentrification has inspired the makeover of many original tenements and these days, the Lower East Side (LES) has become the new hip area with bars, restaurants and condos opening regularly and is our son Josh’s favorite neighborhood to visit when he gets off work at the Tocqueville Restaurant.

In this neighborhood, we ate a meal of grilled fish, sweetbreads, creamy cheese and bread and a glass of wine at a restaurant called Prune, whose chef was featured as one of the few respected female chefs in New York today. However, we had been walking all afternoon in the wind and we entered the restaurant with bags full of knishes, creme cheese, dried fruit and wine and hair blown all over. The manager met us at the door and very cooly asked what we were doing there. I wanted to curtly say “this is a restaurant isn’t it?” but I didn’t. I just said that we would like to be seated. The NY attitude strikes again. However the meal was ordinary at best and horribly overpriced. (I hope they read this review!)

In any given week in the summer you can choose from any four or five street fairs and on this day we chose the Columbus Street Fair on the Upper West Side of Central Park. Stall after stall for blocks offered food, drink and interesting items to purchase…we bought two small narrow Japanese cups which we hoped would keep our coffee warmer in the morning.

Then we turned west…past The Dakota, John Lennon’s apartment where he was murdered, to Central Park where on any given day people come to this 843-acre park for sheer recreational pleasure…full of roller-bladers, skaters, bicyclers, runners, picnicers, softball players, frisbee throwers, concert goers and people-watchers.

We walked past Strawberry Fields, the three-acre landscaape dedicated to the memory of John Lennon that is planted with specimans from more than 100 nations and where Bob took a picture of the plaque “Imagine,” set into the walkway that commemorates my most favorite song in all the world. Further on we watched colorful figures artfully roller-blading to thudding electronic music.

We headed back to the subway through the Sheep Meadow where several hundred families were picnicing, tossing frisbees and generally lollygagging on the grass on this sunny pleasant Sunday.

Probably the biggest surprise yet in New York is discovering that Harlem is not the ghetto as depicted in years past. Sprucing up campaigns have left streets spotlessly clean…little old men with brooms like those ubiquitous to China and other Asian countries…sweeping up on every block.

We followed the walking tour recomended in the Lonely Planet guidebook which, from the 135th St. subway station, took us past Columbia University in the distance to Striver’s Row between Frederick Douglas Blvd and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. These two blocks of 1890’s architecturally interesting townhouses got their nickname in the 1920’s when aspiring African Americans first moved here. We passed the Abyssinian Baptist Church which had its origins from 1808 when a Lower Manhattan church was formed in response to segregated services. It moved here in 1920. Previous pastor and namesake of the nearby boulevard, Adam Clayton Powell Jr., became the first African American congressman. On the other side of the block we saw the Mother African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (also originally in lower Manhattan) which played an important role establishing the underground railroad in the mid 1800’s. (Acres of African-American graves were covered over by skyscrapers in lower Manhattan that used to be populated by thousands of black slaves…a small area has been left open there as a memorial.)

On the NW corner of Adam Claton Powell Jr, Blvd and W 135th St. is the site of the Big Apple Jazz Club sometimes credited for how New York got its nickname. On another corner was the site of Ed Small’s Paradise, a hip spot in Harlem in the past and where management once fired a young waiter here named Malcolm Little, aka Malcom X. It’s now an office building. Nearby, the Harlem YMCA provided rooms for those denied a room in segregated hotels. Notable guests include James Baldwin, Jackie Robinson, Jesse Owens and Malcolm Little.
We headed south to Marcus Garvey Park, named for the unique Jamaica-born founder of the Back to Africa movement who lived in Harlem from 1916 to 1927. The park was filled with older black gentlemen playing chess.

We headed to 125th St, the main hub of Harlem activity where Bill Clinton has his offices. West on 125th we passed signs of Harlem’s “new renaissance” department stores and chains that are very controversial in Harlem today. Unfortunately the street as become another commercial mall–undistinguished and not much different than Lancaster Dr. in Salem, Oregon. The famed street peddlers are a thing of the past.

A giant white building at the corner of 125th and Adam Clayton Blvd was once the Hotel Theresa sometimes known as the “Black Waldorf-Astoria.” Entertainers playing the nearby Apollo stayed here. Fidel Castro insisted on staying here in 1960 because he thought he was being spied upon in lower Manhatten (suspect he was under equal scrutiny here).

We stopped at the famed Apollo Theater which usually has amateur nights on Wednesdays but this night was preempted by a play about Dorothy Height…a national figure I was familiar with when I volunteered for the Salem YWCA in the early 70’s. We were hungry and tired by this time so we skipped the Apollo and found a packed Amy Ruth’s Restaurant on W 116th St. where we thoroughly enjoyed soul food: gravy smothered pork chops, corn bread, fried catfish, collard greens– topping it all off with sweet potato pie. Then home via the subway.

The “F” subway line, if you take it to the very end at the northern tip of Manhattan Island, lets you off in a Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights. Everyone on the streets and in the stores were Spanish-speaking giving us the feeling we were in another country altogether!

The sidewalks were filled with cheap clothes…Bob snagged a turtleneck pull-over for $2.00 and I bought a pair of stylish black snow boots for $25. We had pork roast, ribs and fried sweet plantains at a restaurant but weren’t sure if we were getting a good sampling of Dominican food.

A good way to get a good overview of New York and to get a good look at the architecture is to sit in the upper level of one of these buses and if you are lucky you will be able to understand the tour guide. Each guide has a definite personality…one having to duck down to the bottom level when we went over the Brooklyn Bridge because she was afraid of heights. Often the attitude is one that believes wholeheartedly that New York is the center of the world…one such comment made Bob and I wince as we glanced back at the European, Asian and Australian tourists on board.

One route we took included Brooklyn and a local retired teacher was the guide. His brassy Brooklyn attitude was funny until a question got an answer that made fun of the question. For example, one European asked if the lake in Prospect Park was man-made. Of course it is, New York is bedrock (you stupid person!). We got on the bus in Brooklyn, which amazed the guide. He asked question after question…over the loudspeaker…the sense we got was that he was looking for a way to make us the straight man and to give him something funny to say at our expense.

The New York attitude is a lot more complicated than simple rudeness. According to a local, it’s a mixture of being tough, brave, on your toes, jaded, overworked and intensely focused. Who needs to be pulled into a conversation or potential conflict with a crazy person. Why would I want to be waylaid with small talk when this 15-minute commute is the only time I have to myself all day?

But beneath all those jaded exteriors where no one is making eye contact, beneath all those masks, there is a sense that those who live in New York are all in this together…whether waiting for the next train rerouting, watching the homeless man tap-dancing through the subway car or waiting for the next 9/11.

One evening I sat next to a twenty-something on the subway who was reading a Chiang Mai Thailand guidebook. When I asked if she was traveling there (so much for not talking to subway riders) she flashed a quick smile and asked if we had been there. We just got back from Thailand a month ago, we said. Then she wanted to know which neighborhood we lived in in Brooklyn (usually the first question you get). She wanted to know if we had any suggestions for a guesthouse with it’s own bathroom. Bob referred her to a place he had stayed that also offered reasonable mountain hiking tours among the indigenous villages…just what she wanted. Have a great time, we said as she got off in her Brooklyn Heights neighborhood.

I think the tough outer shell that many New Yorkers adopt is out of necessity. How else to keep your sanity intact in a city that’s rife with all sorts of people. Busy, overworked, highly focused and goal-oriented locals must balance a skittish energy with surviving in a city where it is difficult to succeed…where just the apartment rent will often suck as much as three fourths of their income.

Service workers are efficient and task oriented and come off to us friendly Left Coasters as downright cold. On the other hand, when I want to be outside our apartment sometimes I will sit on the stoop and read the paper. To my surprise, about 30% of the people walking by will look up and say good morning or good afternoon. But then I am in their neighborhood. On a certain level I have some sort of an identity.

People in big cities in other countries of the world do not seem as cold, distant and rude, Bob and I say to each other…but then I think that even though we often wish service workers in other countries would be given training in customer service, there is not the added pressure coming from the efficiency ethic in those cities…and as a whole the people are ethnically homogenous so that social interactions are already predictable, easy and nonthreatening.

But this is my take and not Bob’s. Bob thinks that it is a learned, conditioned behavior and has a cascading effect. If people are nasty to you several times each day then it puts you in a nasty mood (fragile, friable and ultimately bitchy) and it snowballs from there…like coming home and kicking the dog when someone at work yells at you. Anyone with any other ideas?

This is a city of 8 million people-Bangkok’s is 9 million-but unlike Bangkok, it’s diversity is extreme. Therefore any generalization is sweeping. New York is a city for the young; the median age of residents is 34. Sixty-two percent of the population is white while 16 % is black, 15% is Latino and almost 6% Asian. 19% of New Yorkers live below the poverty line. A whopping 32% is foreign-born (46% in Queens) that speak hundreds of languages. An average of 73% has graduated from high school while 27% of these have completed some form of higher education. 12% is Jewish, around 70% are Christian, many Catholic, with the remainder adhering to Eastern religions, mostly Islam and Hinduism…14% of New Yorkers claim no religious affiliation whatsoever-a figure that is twice what it was a decade ago.

Of the city’s population aged five and over, 48% speak a language other than English at home. Of those, 52% speak Spanish, 27% speak an Indo-European language and 18 converse in an Asian or Pacific language. Walking the street you can hear as many as five languages in an hour. Hundreds of foreign-language papers are published in New York in everything from Hebrew and Arabic and German to Russian, Croatian, Italian, Polish, Greek and Hungarian.
all this from Lonely Planet guidebook.

But New York’s diversity doesn’t stop there. Hop a subway and take a look around. You will see a dreadlocked hipster plugged into his iPod, an older Latino guy asleep, a black lady shushing her baby in a stroller, a boy with a T-shirt with “Luxury Of Dirt” on the front, an artist covered with paint, an unfazed white guy with an ipod paging through the New York Times, a muslim girl in a blue plaid head scarf, others with smooth loafers, ratty sneakers, thigh-high furry boots that look like they are from Mongolia, a closed-eye black wannabe gangster nodding his head to the hip hop plugged into his ears.

And then there is the guy carrying a maroon monk’s bag with a trucker’s hat, highwater Thai fishermen’s pants and running shoes. Guess who?

In the beginning of this country, the New England colonies were being settled by the Puritans who endeavored to spread their intolerant “purist” religion across much of rest of the country. But from the time the Dutch West India Company sent Henry Hudson in 1609 to form New Amsterdam, Manhattan has been a rough and tumble place attracting the flotsam and jetsam of the rest of the world. New Amsterdam only occupied the tip of Manhattan and the “wall” along Wall St. was meant to keep both English and Indian raiders out of town. When the English showed up in in battleships in New Amsterdam in 1664 , Governor Stuyesant surrendered without a shot. King Charles II promptly renamed the colony after his brother the Duke of York.

Later, the Reverend John Moore whose descendents include my son Josh’s eighth great grandfather in his fraternal ancestral line, moved to the newly formed Newtown in Long Island in 1652 and became the first minister in the village. In the winter of 1655-56, he returned to England, probably to receive ordination. Moore returned to America in 1657, and died in September of that year. Moore, described as an educated man and excellent preacher, had descendants who were prominent and influential in the town and church, including two bishops of the Episcopal Church, two presidents of Columbia College, and Clement Clark Moore, the author of ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas. The Moore family developed the Chelsea neighborhood in Manhattan. The Moores’s ancient home in Newtown was torn down a few decades ago. A park off Broadway marks its location. See what comes of genealogy research? You never know where your ancestors will turn up.

Our family’s fraternal Hunt line also began in New York beginning with Ralph Hunt of Newton Long Island…one of the Hunt’s marrying into the Moore line. After moving from Long Island to Trenton New Jersey with his father Jesse, George Hunt, Josh’s GGG Grandfather, accompanied Capt. Moore, his brother-in-law, to Clermont County Ohio. “George and Sallie Moore Hunt emigrated the fall after their son, John Moore Hunt’s birth in 1816 to Batavia in Clermont County Ohio where George followed the profession of school teaching, and was the first schoolmaster in Batavia and subsequently taught two years at Columbia (Ohio). He returned to Batavia and settled on a nearby farm where he died in his sixty-eighth year. A History of Clermont County reads: “The oldest teacher remembered in the village [Batavia} was George Hunt, an old-time pedagogue, but withal an excellent teacher, with a discipline equal to military rule, who taught from near 1819 to 1822.” Ref: “History of Clermont County-1880” By Lewis Everts.

John Moore Hunt’s son, Charles Moore Hunt, Josh’s GG grandfather, fought for Ohio in the Civil War and spent 11 months in the Andersonville Prison…surviving to move to a farm in Klamath County Oregon.

Josh’s maternal ancestors, the Johann Mroczynski’s immigrated from Poland, through NY in 1892.

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We are sub letting a pleasant newly refurbished two bedroom apartment on Pacific St in a multi-ethnic, gentrified Brooklyn neighborhood called Boerum Hill. Bob and I enjoy exploring New York opportunities and other sites via the internet on our respectie laptops in the four-story apartment building that is WiFi equipped. We have three keys…one for the front door, one for an inner door and one for our apartment door. An Asian mailman drops the mail for the four building tenants onto the floor through a slot in the wall by the front door at the top of the stoop…each occupant sorting out his own mail. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal arrive on the front step each morning. The apartment directly across the street is condemned by the city…a big green rectangle with an X in it sprayed on the wall. Drivers seem to feel comfortable leaving their cars on the streets and there is rarely a vacant parking space—am glad that we left our autos in Oregon.

New York has recently reinstated a recycling program so there are multiple plastic barrels at the bottom of the stoop..one for garbage, one for paper and one for plastic and bottles… we were promptly and curtly corrected as to proper sorting by one of the tenants soon after our arrival. There is a contingent of garbage police and fines of $25.00 are given out if items are sorted into the wrong container.

Plastic bags of empty beer and pop bottles are often hung on the wrought iron fences that someone (a guy, freelancer, I think, who scuries the neighborhood carrying several stocked black plastic bags) will pick up and return to the store for the deposit. Once a month bigger items, like furniture, discarded TVs, microwaves etc., are left out for large item garbage pick-up. One day every other week cars are required to be parked on alternate sides of the street so the mobile street cleaners can sweep by unfettered. They usually just end up double parked on the other side of the street which makes for interesting traffic snarls in the mornings…cars honking as if it would make any difference.

There are two large grocery markets within about four blocks either way from the apartment. We wheel our groceries home in a two wheeled wire cart…just like the locals…and wheel our laundry to the nearest coin-operated facility a block and a half away. Down the steps, to the right and on the corner is the Boerum Hill Cleaners run by a gracious Korean family. Swing around the corner and up the block is the wide Atlantic Avenue that stretches all the way to the East River…which really isn’t a river but a narrow estuary of the Atlantic Ocean that surrounds the western end of Long Island.

On the next corner is a deli of multi-ethnic food items, fresh produce, and flowers run by Chinese family who speak Cantonese, English and Spanish. Turn right at the deli and the Islamic community fills the next several blocks…a school, apartments, halal food outlets selling California dates and multiple small cluttered storefront shops selling clothing, soap, perfumes, religious cds, books, and other unfamiliar items…in the middle of this mini-world…a U.S. Post Office. The call to prayer can be heard five times daily on the loudspeakers at a mosque nearby.

Across Atlantic Ave.is St. Cyrus of Turva Cathedral Belarussean Autocephalos Orthodox Church. Next to the church is a middle eastern restaurant owned by a Jordanian family with wondrously fluffy pita bread made fresh upon order. Pita bread, lamb kabobs, and a pint each of humus and babaghanouj provides a wonderful lunch with leftovers. Next door is a laid back French bistro (which we learned means “quickly” in Russian) that offers two entrees for the price of one on Wednesday evenings…and Bobby Dylan is heard on the stereo while sipping a glass of French wine. Next is a garden shop. Where do people garden? I wonder. Next is a New Orleans style restaurant with a live jazz trio featuring an older black gentleman vocalist whose style pulls me in, hook line and sinker. Next is a black Baptist pentacostal church.

Down Atlantic the opposite way and is an organic juice and food market. On either side of the market are two more churches…the Iglesias de Dios Pentacostal Church and the Templo Christiano de Brooklyn for the local Spanish-speaking Puerto Ricans and Dominicans. Further down Atlantic on either side of the street are multiple antique shops, retro clothing shops, and many more corner delis.

Tthe Cobble Hill neighborhood is two blocks distant. It is a gentrified neighborhood centered around Smith St — a bit too hip avenue full of French bistros, Mexican, Thai, Peruvian, Italian, sushi, Indian, New York sandwich delis, West Indian, Cuban, soul food, Jamaican, Chinese take-outs and various sorts of fusion restaurants, bakeries, coffee shops, specialty meat markets… most offering free delivery… and upscale bars full of younger after-work clientele just off the subways from their Manhattan jobs.

Interspersed in between are beauty shops that offer a multitude of mysterious hair styles to their black clients. In a stuffed-to-the-ceiling Chinese variety store on one corner ANYTHING needed in an average household can be found. Schools pour out black and Spanish-speaking children in the afternoon and young nannies push their little charges in strollers. Young entrepreneural men and women have developed a business of walking dogs, four, five six at a time, all behaving perfectly on their leashes…the back pockets of the dog walkers full of plastic bags at the ready if needed for dog do-do. There is a $1000.00 fine for not picking up the stinky stuff…Paris could benefit from this law.

The next street over from Smith is Court Street…with even more upscale restaurants and specialty shops. Walking farther down Court St. is an almost exclusively Italian neighborhood with Italian restaurants, bakeries and delis, a couple beauty shops and an old fashioned movie theater with a really bad sound system. The opposite direction on court leads to downtown Brooklyn and its signiture streets of Fulton and Flatbush ……located there is Junior’s , locally famous for its cheesecake… (they will quickly tell you that President Clinton ate there).

And we haven’t even begun to explore Park Slope, Red Hook or DUMBO and the Brooklyn Heights. Josh lives in nearby Greenpoint, a facimile of Warsaw Poland….only Polish heard on the street and Polish magazines sold in the smoke shops…and great pierogi restaurants.

All of these neighborhoods are filled with writers and artists…an inmigration from the expensive artist lofts in “The Village” (you don’t say Greenwich Village) and the hip SOHO district which means South of Houston St. pronouned “Howston.” Bob still confounds Amy and Josh by insisting on calling it Hewston St. by it’s Texas city pronunciation! And, like San Francisco, the locals know you are a visitor unless you refer to Manhattan as “The City.” People from New Jersey are called the “Bridge & Tunnelers.” And there you have it.

On a lovely Sunday, September 4, 2005, Bob and I followed Josh and Amy to a specialty jewelry store in our gentrified Cobble Hill neighborhood of Brooklyn to pick up their hand-crafted rings. Amy’s mother, Debbie, works at a Safeway division office in Denver and the office had recently auctioned off small bags of “lost and found” items to it’s employees. Debbie had bid on one small bag…for $60.00…that yielded a diamond in a garish setting that no one thought was real. So Amy’s wedding ring has been set with a nice one karat diamond given to her by her mother. Two smaller diamonds, set on each side of the larger one, were from a pair of earrings that her mother had also given Amy when she sent her off to Whitman College in Walla Walla Washington. Lucky Josh!

The following Friday, September 9, Amy’s parents, Sid and Debbie, her sister Melissa and her husband Pat, and Bob and I, tripped along the slate sidewalks of Brooklyn with Josh and Amy–all of us in casual street clothes—to the courthouse a few blocks away. On the second floor we joined a long line of other variously dressed couples and their little clumps of supporters. Josh and Amy had already filled out the marriage application. It was 2pm and Josh and Amy now had to hand it in along with a $25.00 fee.

Tender interest and kindly officiary have their place at weddings but apparently not at the Brooklyn courthouse where probably upwards of 50 other couples had yet to be shooed through the line before the 3pm cut-off. Suddenly all extraneous members of our group, other than the couple and the witness, were tersely instructed in the spirit of strict bureaucracy to leave the line and sit in an adjoining waiting room. Where is Amy’s mom! She went to the bathroom! Someone go get her!

So we all dutifully sat and waited on red plastic chairs in the sterile yellow-cream colored room and watched the batches of the to-be-betrothed and their modest parties of three or four or five, clutching flowers and forms and purses and each other. Some seemed like young couples straight from high school or college, a dapper African-American man with a red handkerchief poking out of the pocket of his pin-striped suit, young Hispanic girls dressed to the nines in chiffon and spike heels, a pudgy middle-aged lady in a white blouse…maybe there for the second time…blue blazers, blue jeans here and there, perhaps a flower in the hair…..a cacophony…..

What a hoot! “Isn’t this fun,” Amy giggled! Josh grinned. The rest of us happy that this day had come! Bob and Amy’s mother excitedly taking pictures of all. Amy had scoffed at flowers being hawked by the vendor outside the courthouse doors. But she wore a lovely new black sheer blouse to go with her green slacks for this day.

The clerk calls out the name of each party which then files into the chapel. We all looked at each other weirdly when we heard “Ryan and Amy!” called out. Ryan is actually Josh’s first name but no one ever calls him that. The clerk stops us just outside the door of the chapel. “Where’s your witness?” she asks. As anyone with business on the second floor should know, so far as marrying goes, the witness is the indispensable person…without him/her nothing happens. Which means that three is the critical number. A bride and a groom hanging onto each other and a straggler with a camera in their hand. In our case five other stragglers. Amy’s sister Mellisa is the witness…and Bob is at the ready with his video camera to capture the proceedings as best and quickly he can before the whole thing is over.

We walk up two steps where the ash-blond clerk in a plaid jacket and black slacks closes the chapel door. We sit on the one seat…a bench against the wall…while the clerk gently informs the bride and groom that they should step up before the brown wooden podium that serves, one supposes, as Brooklyn’s secular analog to the altar…a 70’s red, orange, yellow and blue plastic “stained-glass” mosaic adorns the wall behind the couple, the podium and the clerk.

The “ceremony” immediately begins which entails a few seconds of legal boilerplate for each-the bride and the groom-followed by a quick call for objections. “Where are the rings? Should we put on our rings now or just wear them after the ceremony,” Amy whispers, sensing the whole thing might be over before they do the ring thing. The clerk reminds them they can kiss now…a sweet one…and we all smile. Suddenly it is over. The clerk hurries us out and our happy couple emerges from the room with smiling faces…a marriage certificate in hand. We head off for the elevators and the clerk calls for the next couple…

A few days before we left Portland for New York City, our son Josh, who is currently a chef at the Tocqueville Restaurant near Union Square in Manhattan, asked us to keep the following weekend open…giving us no idea what was going to happen. We are going out to dinner at his restaurant, I thought. But the whole weekend?

Josh’s lovely significant other, Amy, whom he had met at Whitman, picked us up at the airport from our Jet Blue flight from Portland on a rainy Tuesday and took us to their apartment in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn so we could see Josh for a few minutes before he left for work and before we continued on to our new abode. “This Friday Amy and I are getting married,” Josh said with a grin.

In mid-July, a year after leaving the States to travel through Eastern Europe, taking the Trans Siberian Train through Russia, Mongolia and China and then to Thailand Vietnam and Laos, I arrived back in LA on China Air…then Portland on Alaska.

The next day, after picking up one of the cars that had been safe in the garage of a friend, I was back in the Portland airport to meet my son Greg who had flown in from Las Vegas where he had been in his anesthesiology practice for the last year. Over the weekend, Greg would attend his 20th year reunion of his South Salem High School graduating class and I would embark on the “couch tour” since the renters were still occupying our home.

Bob arrived in Portland a couple weeks later and after visiting grandma and other family members and running a hundred errands, we climbed into a Jet Blue airliner for a non-stop flight to Kennedy airport in New York City. We had arranged to sublet the apartment of my son Josh’s Whitman College roommate who had already left for Walla Walla Washington to complete a four month stint as visiting professor in art at his alma mater. We were delighted with the recently refurbished apartment in a gentrified neighborhood of Brooklyn…and relieved to finally be in one place for awhile.

Third Culture Kids are children of expatriate families who live for a significant proportion of their lives in a culture other than their own, where they travel to many countries other than their own passport country. This results in the adaptation and incorporation of certain characteristics from a variety of cultures into their own personalities.

These kids were first studied in significant numbers by sociologists in the 1960’s and the initial subjects were drawn from American children of missionary, diplomatic or military families. Other terms that have been used are Global Nomads, army brats, transnationals, transculturals, and internationally mobile children.

Researchers discovered that overwhelmingly and across the globe TCKs merge their birth culture with the culture of the host countries they’ve lived in to create a third, very distinct culture of their own. What was surprising was that there were also a distinct set of personality traits exhibited that were not dependant on the countries in which they grew up or their family background. In other words, an Australian missionary kid who grew up in the Philippines, Zambia and Brazil, would share a distinct set of personality trais in common with a Swiss diplomat’s child who had lived in Japan, America, Fiji and Spain. These trais were defined as being ‘third culture” thus giving birth to the term “Third Culture Kids.”

The major problem that TCKs face as they grow up is to define where they truly belong. They are products of the sum of their experiences, rather than a product of the native soil of their passport country. Their multicultural upbringing encourages a stronger worldview and well-developed cross-cultural skills. These kids are able to get along with people of many different races. Having a less clearly defined sense of belonging to one definite “us” means they are less comfortable with dealing with a foreign “them.” They are able to view events from a wider perspective, more used to adapting to the view points of the people and cultures where they have lived as well as to the views of the people of their passport country. Some TCKs, however, experience rootlessness and a constant, unresolved grief due to the loss of contact or breaking off of relationships. Life becomes even more difficult for them when they go back to live in their own country where defining social signifiers like fashion trends and music have changed.

Even those of us in the West who travel to many different countries over a long period of time as adults, however, often find ourselves developing a “Third Culture” personality, more elegantly described by Pico Iyer in his book “The Global Soul.”

For more information you can visit www.tckworld.com.

Last year Thaksin’s government sent in police militia to quell fundamentalist Islamic violence in a southern Thai province that is populated primarily with muslims. As a result over 60 combatants were kiilled. In retaliation, the jihadists continue to murder Buddhist monks and teachers as well as civilians in several southern provinces.

Today from the Christian Science Monitor:
Emergency rule was imposed on three provinces of southern Thailand wracked by violence in an Islamist rebel campaign to return the region to an independent sultanate. But critics said the move would be meaningless to residents there, many of whom consider the central government corrupt. More than 800 people have been killed since the violence erupted 19 months ago, two of them in the past two days.

The July 2005 edition of the slick upscale magazine for English-speaking foreigners called The Big Chilli ran an article with interviews of prominent Bangkok residents to get their views of what constitutes Thai culture. Two were Thai and two were western expats living permanently in Bangkok. This is what they had to say.

Jai
Korn Chatkavanij, a member of the Thai Parliament, believes that the Thai language and way of life has more to do with the soul than the surface. There is no English equivalent to the Thai word “jai” he says, but the closest you can come is “heart.” William J. Kausner, Professor at the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University adds that the core element of the traditional Thai persona is the “cool heart” where “one is enjoined to preserve a sense of emotional equilibrium, treading the Buddhist ideal of the Middle Path, avoiding both extremes and overt expressions of socially disruptive emotions such as anger, displeasure, annoyance, and hatred. Confrontation is to be avoided at all costs as any open and direct conflict makes Thais psychologically uncomfortable, says Professor Kausner.

Mr. Chatikavanji says that this lack of confrontation makes Thai culture more tolerant…willing “to roll with the punches.” This, then, makes Thais traditionally adept at indirect expressions of antisocial emotions through gossip, anonymous letter, pamphlets, etc. says Professor Klausner.

On the other hand, Ms. Khunying Chamnongsri, an author, poet, social worker and Chairperson of the Rutnin Eye Hospital says that tolerance comes naturally from the inside. “It doesn’t count if it is done consciously. This can be seen through the Thai ‘wai’ (bowing to another in greeting with hands together as if in prayer,) not touching people’s heads or pointing with your feet.

Relationships and Inclusion
“Foreigners are often surprised when Thais ask them their age, because their ego feels that their privacy has been invaded. But Thais ask this question, Ms. Chamnongsri says, out of a sense of friendliness and inclusion, extending sister and brotherhood. In the old days, and often even now, a friend will immediately ask if you have had something to eat and if not you will be offered food…even if it is only a glass of water. In rural areas you see jugs of water in front of homes with long stemmed ladles so that people can help themselves to a drink. “This all shows a sense of inclusion, concern and welcome. We don’t have a strong sense of self-centeredness or egocentricity since throughout our history people have lived together very much as communities creating a notion of extended family,” says the professor.

Philip Cornwell-Smith, author, says that Thainess is all about relationships which will trump the economics or rules of the situation every time. It comes from a different logic based on a sense of loyalty and kinship rather than on abstract principles, leaving people from other cultures startled by Thai choices and behaviors.

Way Of Life
Thais are not an ideological people, says Mr. Chatkkavanji…adding that most of the world’s problems have been caused by ideology. “We talk more about a way of life and have a general feel of what we need to do to get along. Since we don’t confront we try to find ways to compromise. This is a key word in Thai society and it infuriates ideological youth.” Equilibrium, anti-confrontation and emotional detachment are seen by Thais as positive aspects of Thai society.

Sanuk (Fun and Play)
Play, says Philip Cornwell-Smith is a fundamental Thai value that continues all the way through life and is not viewed as being a childish thing. Len (play), and deun len (walk play) means going around just wandering and looking at things. My son’s wife is always saying “lets go look around.”

Status Consciousness
Professor Klausner goes on to say that Thais accept their hierarchical order of society whether a person is on the lower or upper rungs of the socio-political ladder. It is interpreted as a justification for continued unaccountable control by those in power and acceptance by the disadvantaged of their exploitation.

Respect For Others
An innate respect for others is a part of Thainess, says Khunying Chamnongsri. “You can see it in gestures, smiles and what you do for others and that this contributes to Thai success in the service industry. “Krengjai” is the moral imperative to be considerate towards and avoid bothering or offending others, as well as the traditional value of “katanyu” or gratefulness towards one’s parents, teachers, and others who have protected or supported you. The Four Sublime States of Consciousness: compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy and equilibrium are central to Thai culture so they value not hurting or impinging on the well-being of others,

Contact With The West
At present, Professor Klausner says, there is a burgeoning civil society which wants to change the rules of the game by substituting equality and individual civil and political rights, for status; and popular participation, the rule of law and good governance, for unaccountable power.

Ms Chamnongsri laments that Thai values are not as present as they used to be. “Times change,” she says, “and there are both positive and negative influences that come with the dynamics of cultural interchange that contribute to today’s fast paced life, the breaking-up of extended families and the new values of materialism.” “Copying the ways of the West, believes Korn Chatikavanji, “will inherently destroy the Thai way of life. Politicians don’t think about happiness as much as they do about development and economic growth. Do people really want to create an ‘American way of life’ here in Thailand,” he asks? “90% of Thais would say no, so we really need to define Thainess. As Anand Panyarahchun said 15 years ago, ‘There is no Thai or Farang way. There is only the right or wrong way.'” Professor Klausner believes that Thai traditional attributes will assure that a more individualistic and egalitarian society that emerges is still one where respect, graciousness, gentility and civility prevails.

Exposure to Thai culture is a gift to those of us from the West who visit Thailand.

It is July 2005 and the end of this travel segment…I will fly back to Los Angeles from Bangkok on China Air and then on to Oregon for a month where we will repack and fly to New York on JetBlue at the end of August to sublet an apartment in Brooklyn until January 2006.

The Foreign Correspondents Club hosted another panel discussion last night with the Iranian ambassador to Thailand, H.E. Mohsen Pakaein

Western observers were confounded by the surprisingly strong victory in Iran’s recent presidential election by dark-horse candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a conservative cleric, mayor of Tehran and former Revolutionary Guard. At his first presidential press conference, Ahmadinejad declared that his victory marked the dawn of a new Islamic revolution that would spread around the world. He also vowed to press ahead with his country�s controversial plans to acquire a uranium enrichment capability, adding that neither he nor Iran would be dictated to by the West.

During the questioning, much of which was hard-hitting, the ambassador gave party-line non-answers….most of it prompted by his sharp-eyed aide sitting by his side. We had recently heard a presentation by Nobel Peace Prize winner Sharon Ebidi from Iran who, as an attorney supporting freedom of the press, told us that they estimate that up to 200 journalists were in prison. So when the ambassador denied any violation of human rights, I got up from my front row center table, turned my back on the ambassador and walked out….many others trickling out quietly after me.

A retired Scottish engineer and human rights worker, a young Russian Jew who fled his “lost generation” and immigrated to Thailand at the age of 28 and a woman who is a Korean/English interpreter and I justly debriefed the talk over beer until well into the morning.

The Foreign Correspondent’s Club hosted another panel as part of it’s occasional series on freedom of the press this week.

Panel members were Anchalee Paireerak, operator of www.fm9225.com, one of two closed�websites, and executive director of and political commentator for community radio FM92. Also speaking was a representative from SEAPA, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, Pravit Rojanaphruk, senior reporter for The Nation, commentator on media reform, promotion of transparency and public accountability and democratic culture, and Sue Saeri Mee Jing Rue author of a recently published Thai-language work on the subject “Does Press Freedom Really Exist?”
�
Critics have long maintained that Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is unwilling to accept a totally free press, especially when it is critical of his policies.� They argue that his administration has fired, sued or otherwise silenced most of the independent voices on the air and in print — an assault on press freedom that they believe carries the pungent scent of power abused. Mr. Thaksin’s government has responded by promising better relations with the media in his second term.

But in mid-June, the government acted again. After, Anchalee Paireerak, the female 32 year old professional journalist & operator of the 24 hour community radio news station criticized Thaksin for enriching himself through his political policies, The Ministry of Information and Communications Technology ordered her two websites shut down on the grounds that they posed a threat to national security, defamed senior officials and employed language guaranteed to incite public unrest.

However, Anchalee explained that when the officials appeared on her doorstep to close her down, they explained that the reason was because her radio antenna was higher than 30 feet, reached too wide an area and could interfere with air traffic causing a plane crash. We all laughed at that of course. She has decided to leave Thailand for Australia temporarily after being sued by one of Mr. Thaksin’s corporations. She has established another website: www.fm9225.net.

The most interesting comments were made by the SEAPA representative who outlined the complexity of the economic and cultural pressures against a free press in Thailand. For example efforts to unionize the journalists have failed miserably because it is culturally very difficult for Thai people to confront authority.

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On my way to my BTS Skytrain station, I stop for lunch at The Emporium, an upscale indoor shopping mall where there is a variety of restaurants on the 5th floor. A young Asian woman sitting next to me at a sushi counter is reading an English language travel guide. I wonder if she is from Singapore but to my surprise she is from Beijing. She is here with her “fat” Texas boyfriend, but “he is rich,” she says. I am impressed by the command of spoken and written English by this 26 year old woman.

Fascinated to find a mainland Chinese traveling outside the country, I said that I was told by many Chinese that the only way to get a passport was via an organized holiday tour or a business trip with associates. Her business card reads that she is manager of the contacting department of a cultural communications company but I never did understand what her job is.

We met the next morning for coffee…talking intensely for four hours. One of my questions related to the fact that even after everything that happened during the cultural revolution, I still see statues and big portraits of Mao everywhere in China. She said her mother thought Mao was a hero for China. I told her I thought Mao was worse than Hitler. She bristled and said that that wasn’t true. I told her that I thought that many people in China don’t really know what happened for the ten years of Mao’s campaigns in the countrysides where it is estimated that anywhere from 30 to 80 million people died.

Then we visited an English language bookstore where I recommended the shocking biography of Mao written after Mao’s death by his personal physician of 25 years, “Wild Swans,” a story of three generations of a Chinese family, “11 Minutes” by Paulo Coelho-a book that I think is being read by every traveler from Europe to Asia, and “Soul Mountain” by Chinese author Gao Xingjian who was the first Chinese to win the Nobel prize for literature. I have since received an email from her telling me she was moved down to her soul by “11 Minutes,” the true story of a prostitute who discovers love.

Or what does “farang” mean to the Thai people. It has been said that the word derives from the French. It is also the Thai word for guava so you hear farang-eating jokes. To make it work “kee nok” means bird shit but alo is a type of guava. So you can see where this going.

Bob and I both feel that the author’s analysis is rather over-simplified and defies the existence of the many upstanding western teachers and business people you will see on the sky train at rush hour but you do not see at Patpong night clubs. And we question the views of a westerner trying to explain how Thais see them. But the author does raise some interesting points to think about especially if you are living here:

What Is A Farang?
By Kenneth Champeon
http://www.thingsasian.com/goto_article/article.3281.html
“Sometimes you can learn most about a people by studying how it views other peoples. In Thailand, the most common and prominent visitors from outer space are the farangs, a versatile term that may apply to foreigners, Westerners, “white” people; like any term deriving from a loose racial category — Negro, Oriental — it has its uses, but ultimately defies precise definition. The average Thai’s conception of farangs is roughly as follows. First of all, farangs are extraordinarily large; this and their pale skin and variably-colored eyes and hair contribute to their otherworldliness — and, to many Thais, their resemblance to ghosts. Farangs are also rich. While it may be true that the income of an average person of European ancestry far surpasses that of the average Thai, many farangs in Thailand are there precisely because they have little money. But good luck trying to tell a Thai this. Gouging foreigners wouldn’t be nearly so much fun if it were known that often they too have to struggle to make ends meet.

On a related note, Thais are also generally of the opinion that farangs are stingy. This because a farang’s property is his own and no one else’s, whereas a Thai is more accustomed to viewing his property as shared amongst family and friends. Farangs are also individualistic, meaning that they do things like travel alone, scale mountains alone, and engage in antisocial behavior such as the reading of books. On a recent visit to America from Thailand, one of the things I first noticed was how few groups I saw: everyone seemed to be on his own, atoms crossing each others’ paths but never meeting. While the Thais have a grudging respect for the farang’s capacity to go it alone — calling him geng, or “skillful” whenever he does something of which an individual Thai deems himself incapable — for the most part I suspect that they find individualism to be unsettling, as it goes against the Thai respect for family, social cohesion and obeisance to authority.

But the main point I would like to make here is that farangs — Westerners as experienced by Thais, in Thailand — are a world apart from Westerners everywhere else. Many if not most farangs in Thailand are oddballs, rejects, runaways: hippies, druggies, alcoholics, sex maniacs, beach bums. Asked to describe a farang, a Thai is likely to imagine one of two creatures: the odiferous, long-haired backpacker, or the pot-bellied, beet-red barfly. And he may be surprised to learn that he has more in common with the average Westerner — a regular job, a stable family life — than the average Westerner has in common with farangs.

This because farangs in Thailand live according to a morality all their own, neither Western nor Thai, though drawing in some part from both. So, for example, a Westerner newly arrived to Thailand may be opposed to prostitution on principle, but the longer he stays the more he will come to condone it and he may even come to participate in it. He has gone some way toward becoming a Thai male, roughly three-fourths of whom have visited prostitutes, but he has not gone all the way. (He may draw the line at prostitutes he believes to have been coerced, for instance.) A farang is in the unique and often uncomfortable position of being judged according to three very different standards of conduct: that of Thais, that of Westerners, and that of farangs, and a certain amount of maneuvering if not outright deception will be required to satisfy all three. On the other hand, farang morality can be profoundly liberating — as, in some sense, it is no morality all, but instead boils down to whatever you can afford so long as it keeps you out of jail. (And what’s more, staying out of jail may boil down to what you can afford — in terms of bribes.)

Indeed one of the reasons that farang morality can be so amorphous is that the Thais are exceedingly tolerant, so that behavior that might not fly elsewhere in the world receives, in Thailand, a good-natured shrug or merely a bewildered stare. Farangs are barbarians anyway — why chide them for acting like barbarians? And in some cases the Thais are simply in awe of the liberties farangs are prepared to take. Unfortunately this only reinforces the common notion that all Westerners sunbathe in the nude, drink like fish and treat Thai baht as if it were Monopoly money.

And tolerance, of course, has its limits: very often the word farang is used in a derogatory or resentful manner, when a Westerner has overstepped the bounds of admissible conduct or has done something that brings shame to Thailand or its people. Indeed one occasionally hears the word spoken in the same tone that an English-speaking homophobe might use for the word “faggot”, where both classes of people are seen as a kind of contagion affecting some mythically pristine social body. In many cases, of course, such scorn is justified, as Thailand’s reputation would be much improved if its less savory farangs — the drug traffickers, the pedophiles, the football hooligans — were to get lost. But it also reveals the extent to which Thailand is a racist society — and, paradoxically, one in which whiteness among Thais is prized while whites themselves are often ridiculed.

One indicator that farangs constitute a unique subculture is the existence of a magazine dedicated to them: Farang, which carries the regrettably narcissistic subtitle “You! You! You!” Although I have once appeared in its pages, much of Farang’s content is uninteresting to me, me, me and my friends, friends, friends — extreme sports, “hard” sex and similar amusements for the chronically bored. But all too often such things are what draw farangs to Thailand and keep them there. For many farangs Thailand is less a country than it is a playground, a place where childhoods can be relived or lived for the first time. And if the Thais can profit from providing the conditions for this to occur, then they are usually more than happy to oblige, especially as the Thais are generally more insouciant than are their Western visitors, many of whom seem never to have learned how to smile.

And it is partly for this reason that many Thais view the mighty farang not with awe but with an emotion by which farangs might be surprised: pity. Where are your mother and father? How often do you see them? How many siblings do you have? Questions like this are as urgent to a Thai as they may seem irrelevant or impertinent to a farang, but they are nothing more than variations on the question: Why on earth are you in Thailand, alone? Don’t you — this is another fairly common question — get lonely? A farang may deny this up and down, but the truth is that loneliness is precisely what he has come to Thailand in order to cure. What, I asked a farang friend of mine headed back to the US, do you fear most about returning? “Alienation,” he replied, without skipping a beat. And farangs are not just fleeing loneliness; many indeed are fleeing the very (and very dysfunctional) families about which the Thais are so inquisitive. “Westerner,” a Thai once told me — and she was referring in particular to Americans and their convoluted family trees — “is fucked up.” So there you have it.

Sadly, the fucked-upness of farangdom is not something to which the Thais are entirely immune, and indeed they sometimes display an uncanny ability to adopt or at least imitate the worst, because most conspicuous and alien aspects of Western behavior. But because the Thais are more grounded than their farang counterparts, whose ideas of what is right and wrong have been so assaulted by rapid social change that they are all but nonexistent, the reverse is more often than not the case, with farangs coming to embrace values in Thai society that they see dying in their own. This in part explains why so many farang men are attracted to Thai women, who represent for the men an ideal of womanhood — which may be as simple as finding contentment in the mere raising of children — that in their cultures may no longer exist. So in many cases a farang is a social reactionary, at least from the perspective of the society from which he originates. But to a Thai he may seem progressive.

Throughout most of this essay I have spoken of farangs as if they were all male, and that is because most of them are, and because I am, but there are plenty of female farangs too. And they are, almost without exception, regarded as beautiful by Thais, men and women alike. Thai women in particular see strength as well as beauty, but the more observant of them will sooner or later realize that this strength is sometimes a disguise meant to conceal deep uncertainties. Thai women tend to give an appearance of malleability that hides a solid core; with farang women the reverse is often true. Commonly the result is that farang women urge Thai women to stand up for themselves only to bemoan their own loneliness and insecurity, and the counselor ends up being the counseled. At once strong and sick: this more generally may be said to represent the farangs through Thai eyes.

Then again I suspect that for most Thais — that is, the Thais in the countryside — the farang is largely a comic figure, someone to wave at or make fun of, as he drives a motorcycle that is too small for him or fumbles his way through a language too musical for him. “Fa-lang, fa-lang!” — this accompanied by pointing fingers and toothy smiles (or laughter discreetly covered by a small hand) is very often the most recognition that a farang will receive on any given day. And it’s quite enough, really.”

Posted by laughingnomad on July 14, 2005 10:44 PM

Ten baht (25 cents) for a motorcycle taxi gets me to the American educated dentist down the soi and around the corner in little more than a minute…scared to death that the trucks, cars, motorcycles, light poles, garbage bins and food stands we swerve past will take off my long western legs. Have been in and out of Bangkok several months and have seen just about every specialist (all women) in the dental office…implants, crowns, surgery, cleaning….the cost about 1/20 of the cost at home. Have only have one root canal to go before flying home on July 27th.

A walk up the street past the food stalls, fruit markets, massage shops and Indian tailors…into the big expensive air conditioned Park Queen Hotel, through it’s busloads of Japanese tourists and out the back door into the hot air again takes me through a lovely park on my way to the Sky Train. If I pass through about 6:00 in the evening I stop and watch relaxing rows of Thais and farangs (foreigners) alike practicing Tai Chi to slow meditative flute music. People with their children lie on the grass asleep…catching a cool breeze wafting off the pond. Sometimes a small group of little ones can be seen sitting on the grass with their parents listening to a story teller.

Have walked up the steps to the BTS sky train above busy Suhkumvit Rd so many times I don’t even get out of breath anymore. I can either catch the clean comfortable air conditioned train in the direction of Mo Chit at the end of the line or the other way to On Nut or I can walk across and down some steps to the other side of the street where I can buy some unsweetened yogurt, swiss meusli and eggs in the Villa Market. I can take my used books to the Elite Book Shop next to the market and exchange them for others and then stop in the Starbucks on the way back to read the English language newspapers…Bangkok Post or The Nation with almost daily coverage of corruption in Prime Minister Thaksin’s government and criticism of the way the PM is handling the violence in the south. Government authorities finally admit in today’s paper that they have found Bird Flu in 25 provinces. I am glad we are leaving soon.

With no patience for waiting around, Bob has been roaming around the mountains in northern Thailand and Viet Nam. I am in a new serviced apartment down a little soi off Suhkumvit 22. I have a king sized bed, kitchen, satellite TV (that gets knocked out when it rains) and a broadband internet connection in my suite. My Mac laptop is hooked up to some miniature speakers and my iTunes provides plenty of music. The smiling workers at the front desk keep good track of me.

A short walk away and I have my choice of a dozen massage shops…an hour long foot massage which includes legs, arms head and neck costs about $5 while a two hour full-body Thai massage sets me back a whole $7.00. I will miss these when I go home.

On Friday nights I can take a motorcycle taxi through the sois (side streets) to listen to a great blues band at Tokyo Joe’s. And the food is great. The lead singer and guitar player seems American but he says he is Danish! I can get a great beef stew in this bar. The rest of the week features progressive jazz bands…which Thais generally find very uncomfortable to listen to…so it seems odd to see Thai band members wailing away on sax’s and guitars. Most of the patrons are farangs and last Friday I had a great conversation with a young French English-speaking couple who have been in the city almost a year putting together a visitor’s magazine. I envy their courage to strike out on a publishing adventure like this.

June 10, 2004
While I was in Bangkok Bob flew to Vietnam. He wrote to say he had difficulties accessing the web today and spent most of the day traveling.

His emails:
Now in Da lat in the mountains about 300-400 km north of Saigon. It is at a 5000 foot elevation so cool–in fact feels cold. Probably about 55 degrees right now–everybody in a jacket. Feels like central Oregon and after the heat/humidity combo in Hanoi it is quite refreshing. I am at an internet cafe surrounded by adolescents screaming at success/failure with video games. Tiz too much–later.
B

June 11
good morning:
have been roaming around Dalat—much embroidery art done here–quite nice but also can have a hefty price–saw several landscapes that I liked–might pick up a small piece–just to have a representative sample. Bought several pieces in Hanoi–I really like their style of art.

Approached by a fellow this morning–call themselves “Easy Riders”–have big bikes and arrange trips off the beaten track–tempted to have him take me to Saigon via the Cambodian border and the Ho Chi Minh trail–he can also extend things to the delta (and probably to So. America for that matter)–he is 45-50 in age and has been doing this awhile. Am tempted as it would take me to areas I would not otherwise see and I am tired of the usual tourist routes. It would mean 300-400 km on the road and the limiting factor would be the ability of my butt to withstand several days in the saddle..

June 12
Another nice day in Dalat. It is a major tourist destination for Vietnamese—with it being a weekend the place is packed—had to inquire at three hotels before finding a vacancy…in evenings they close off the downtown streets to vehicles and streets/plazas are packed with people just walking and people watching. Not much to buy re handicrafts etc. but wonderful produce — however do not see it offered in restaurants. Am tired of Vietnamese cuisine and am overdosed on French bread.

NOTE: Next few days Bob spent in bed with some kind of virus….Bob worried about influenza-like syndrome and me thinking it was probably Dengue Fever as this is the season for it.

Sat June 18
hello–
Was going to leave Dalat today by bus for Saigon. This a.m. had second thoughts and decided would be much more fun and interesting and educational to do the bike thing. Tried to find my rider (named Budda–because his stomach and somatotype is identical to the icon) but could not arouse him by phone–he probably ditched me for other customers so went down to the local easy rider hangout cafe and there were at least a half dozen of the “boys” there. They start out by being very cool but then the pitch begins . I had experienced it twice before so he (Thui) was surprised when I cut to the chase, “How much for 3 days?”. So to see whether I would be able to tolerate we agreed on a sampler package of a day trip around Dalat. It worked out well–he is safe… informed, understandable (re accent), non-invasive and 48 yr/o–but looks 55 to 60.

Weather turned inclimant and last hour on the bike was wet. Purchased a plastic pancho but was totally saturated at the end of the trip. Was informed that my previous illness was do to too sudden climate changes, that there was no possibility that it could be bird flu because that entity does not exist in Vietnam! I was instructed that on return to hotel that I must wash my hair to get all the rainwater out so that I do not come down with any other ailment(s).

Tomorrow leave for 3 day trip to the coast just East of Saigon–he does not want to get closer because of increasing traffic and I appreciate his concerns. I will travel remainder of distance to Saigon by bus. So depart 8 a.m. tomorrow–I look like a Harley biker going down the freeway. Not sure how we’re going to get all my luggage on the bike but he says, “no problem’. Will not see internet again until Saigon.

NOTE: my daughter-in-law, Luk, a Thai, has also warned me to wash my hair after a rain. She said when it first rains there are bad chemicals in the rain that can hurt you. She could be referring to Acid Rain?
Eunice

Listening to an expat radio station on the internet today, I discover that in Bangkok 2006 there will be an International Summit on Public Toilets…

While I was on Koh Samui visiting Luk, while Doug was in Oregon, we decided to hop a bus for Trang where Luk’s family lives. This is my second visit here. We stayed in a nice hotel…Luk trying out the kareoke downstairs with her cousin and some friends…and visiting her mother and grandparents again.

I bought some jewelry in a local shop…had my ears pierced again and visited the Sunday market where we ate some delicious local food which, being in the south of Thailand is a bit different.

At the end of our visit, at the bus station, Luk bought a traditional Thai cake for her friend that was taking care of her dog, Ting Tong on Koh Samui.

On the way back a motorcycle hit the rear of the bus. Watching the bystanders, police and others through the window of the bus for an hour in the heat was more than I could take. There had been many buses passing us to Koh Samui. I left the bus and approached the driver who was just standing by the side of the road and asked if we couldn’t please leave the bus and get on another one…but just then he took his seat behind the wheel on the bus and we were off…aborting my ready attempt to throw a hissy fit and thoroughly embarrass Luk.

After a month on Koh Samui with Luk, I took a flight back to Bangkok on Bangkok Air.

After a flight from Bangkok on Bangkok Air, I have been enjoying my 26 year-old daughter-in-law on quiet Khlong Muang Beach in Krabi Province the last couple of weeks while my son Doug is in Oregon. Luk’s English is delightful and I hesitate to puncture her enthusiasm by correcting her but alas she must learn correct English. She often helps her friend Cie manage some resort bungalows up the street and they spend down time in the office with a pile of Thai kareoke CDs…singing their hearts out together…nearly always innocent and young romantic fantasies proclaiming lifelong love…tears falling when hearts are broken.

I am staying in the same bungalow that Doug and Luk were living in when the tsunami hit their sliding glass doors…15 feet from the water and even closer at high tide when tsunami detritus gets washed up each day. This morning I shivered when I sat up in bed to look out at the beach covered with dingy colored beach towels and empty plastic water bottles.

The owners upstairs are members of a delightful extended Muslim family…they speak no English but when mom comes downstairs with an offer to share their dinner…a big steaming bowl of homemade Tam Yam with freshly caught fish…a special treat here in Krabi…I bow deeply with hands folded and I give them no other words except kwop kum kha…thank you. I thoroughly enjoy their broad smiles in acceptance of my eager gratitude.

Luk and I are both trying to lose our “poom pooy” (fat) tummies (not that Luk has a fat stomach) so we often only eat omelets for breakfast and delicious broth soup with vegetables and pork for dinner made by a friendly Thai lady up the street. She doesn’t want to eat after 4pm…”it’s poom pooy to eat at night” she says. However, once in awhile I ride behind Luk on the motorbike to Au Nong Beach, 20 minutes down the coast, to splurge on something special …like the fresh hot cinnamon rolls with big juicy raisins at Lavinia…an Italian restaurant. Before heading back to beat the rain, we buy a couple newspapers that will eventually get peed on by Luk’s dog, Ting Tong. I check email and maybe buy a couple pirated DVD movies….Cinderella for her and Hotel Rwanda for me.

On another day we motorbike to a nearby moving market. I like to buy mangosteens, mangos and small ripe tomatoes from one of the Muslim vendors to munch on when I get hungry…passing up the small custards with difficulty. Luk likes the chili chicken satay on a stick.

For bigger excitement we sometimes take the songthaow, a small covered pick-up with two benches in the back facing each other, to Krabi Town where we can buy almost anything we want…even KFC and Swanson’s Green Tea Ice Cream. On my last trip, an elderly Thai silversmith on the street made me a necklace to enclose my tiny little wooden image of Buddah that was given to me by a monk during a blessing at a wat (temple) north of Bangkok.

Then it’s back to our quiet little beach where we are becoming part of the neighborhood…waving to familiar motorbike riders…buying water from the same little market each day…greeting Bum Pom, a lean young Muslim boatman who has been working on his long-tail boat under the bridge during this rainy season, his broad smile showing a missing front tooth…dreadlocks pulled into a ponytail hanging down his back.

After more than a month, it’s back to Bangkok.

After nearly a dozen visits and about six months time in the city, over the last several years, we have gotten to know Bangkok a little. In this city with a population of over 9 million people we can get anywhere we want to go…as long as our destination is near the Skytrain, subway line and boat ramps or as long as we can communicate with the taxi driver. Haven’t braved the buses yet but we do take the motorcycle taxis back and forth down Sukhumvit 22 to our dentist at the end of the street…surely risking our lives in the process!

It’s interesting to watch the people embarking public transportation in Bangkok. They stand politely aside as they wait for debarking travelers to get off before they step into the trains. (In China it’s an all out battle of people coming off against the people trying to get on!) Once on, people are usually very respectful…if they are Thai…careful not to bump each other.

One jaw-dropping gesture, for an American, is that anytime a small child embarks a crowded Skytrain or subway car with packed adults standing cheek to jowel, the nearest adult of any age will quickly jump up and invite the child to take his/her seat…leaving the beaming child to look up at it’s parent as if to say, I am really special today aren’t I?

We have never experienced a culture that has such implicit respect for their little ones. You never see adults scowling at children or admonishing them…in public at least. Children always get an admiring glance and an enthusiastic accommodation from adults around them. The interesting result is that you never see an unruly child. This is very humbling to observe. At home we often see parents humilating their children in public by yelling, shaking and even slapping or spanking them.

On the other hand, it is common for young women in small villages to leave their children in the care of others while they exchange sexual favors in Bangkok. A pretty young woman who was perming my hair, works in an upscale hotel beauty salon during the day and as a bar girl at night…her parents left to care for her two children in her northern Isaan village. It has been said that as many as one out of thirty very poor young women, who do not consider themselves prostitutes, will trade sex for money, dinner and shopping from the nearest Western or Japanese or Korean “ATM man.”

This activity often has more than the usual side effects however. Sadly, Thai women are often overcome with depression. It has been said that once Thai women consort sexually with a Westerner, the local Thai men will not have anything to do with them and they often remain single and without any way of supporting themselves. The Bangkok Post this week reported on a 23 year old young woman who had jumped from the Skytrain to her death on the pavement below because, her friend reported, her Western “boyfriend” had just broken up with her. From the point of view of the Western male, the gratitude and soft sensuous, accommodation of the Thai woman is a welcome relief.

I asked my friend, Jiraporn, a university professor here, who lived ten years in the States, what she thinks about this. “They are young and don’t know what they are doing. “Village families are poor and need the money the girls send home so everyone just turns their heads, she whispered kindly.

Bob has been in the north for the last week so I joined the Foreign Correspondents Club the other day as a way of meeting other English speaking people in Bangkok.

Membership is reciprocal with Foreign Correspondents Clubs around the world; I first discovered the club in Phnom Penh, Cambodia a couple years ago. The club provides journalists with a venue and equipment for media activities but also provides memberships for other expats who live abroad or visit often…my category being “retired.” The club, in the penthouse of the Mayeena Building, sponsors activities like talks by visiting personalities like the Dalai Lama, has a bar and restaurant and a collection of English language papers, books and magazines.

So my first visit was to a talk given by Shirin Ebadi, the Muslim activist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003. The talk was very short…the questions by many of the media seemed designed for making their own statements about other governments like Burma, North Korea, the U.S. and Iraq.

Ms Ebidi is a self declared human rights activist (having once been jailed for her activities) and one of the many attorneys who are working together with many of the nearly 200 journalists who are currently incarcerated in Iran. She said that it is impossible to determine the exact number of people jailed for their human rights work because the statistics are not released by the government and families do not want to tell why their members are in jail for fear of reprisal.

Her most adamant point was that violence and war solves nothing but instead intensifies conflict. She added that Iran is not in a position to pose any danger to any of it’s neighbors. Then she continued by saying that it is left up to various Non-Governmental Organizations in Iran to go into neighboring countries with any messages, eg. human rights workers in Iran “are in agreement with Iraq’s Muslim leader, Sistani, who is adamantly advocating separation of church and state in Iraq.”

In describing her work, Ms Ebidi stressed that “the power of the pen is much stronger than the power of arms…the work of the pen can do more than an entire army,” she said. (Most of the people in attendance clapped in agreement when she commented that now that Saddam Hussein is going to be put on trial, the country must put western governments on trial too for collaborating with Hussein when he gassed the Iranians during the seven-year Iran/Iraq war!)

“So human rights activists are fighting for the freedom of the pen,” she said. “All societies need freedom of expression…the first stepping stone of democracy.” Regarding Burma, she said that the role of mass media is critical and the media should demand that the democratically elected leader and Nobel Prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, be given her freedom from house arrest.

When asked for her reaction to the Muslim woman in New York City who led a group of Muslim women in prayer over the objections of male Muslim leaders, she said she was not a religious person so she couldn’t comment on religion…but then went on to say that all women should be able to practice their religion the way they want. Islam, like all other religions, can be interpreted differently but any interpretation must be consistent with today’s societies. “What is the true Islam,” she asked? She answered herself by saying that “we all have a small piece of the truth. We must believe in what we are doing and believe in our path and allow the others to follow their own paths.” But then she added that “many use Islam to impose their political will on others.”

The most interesting question was asked by a woman from the BBC. She wanted to know how Ms. Ebidi was able to be critical of Iran, a country, like Thailand, that considers criticism as unpatriotic, without incurring reprisal. Her answer was that sometimes activists are accused of plotting against national security, but that it is impossible for one person to make a complete change in a country and any change must take place through the people. “The world is a mirror that reflects the good and bad in us eventually,” she concluded.

A man at my table was a professor of engineering at a local university. After introducing myself (retired and a traveler) he wondered why I was interested in “this.” I thought it was an interesting question. I was kind of speechless for a moment since the answer seemed so obvious to me. Then I remembered that my son Doug told me that when they got married his Thai wife, Luk, didn’t know who Prime Minister Thaksin was…an example of the lack of general knowledge of and interest in civic affairs. The other person at my table was a woman who worked in the human resources department of an oil company who was going to be doing business with Iran. The man at the table had a slight Indian accent but side-stepped the where are you from question from the woman. I mentioned that I thought the speaker was very “cagey” in her answers…and the guy was delighted with the use of the word “cagey” but I admitted I had no idea how the word came to be used this way! I love this stuff.

I have both CNN and BBC on my television in my apartment so I often switch back and forth. It was interesting to notice after the nuptual blessing that the Royal couple was barely out of the church when BBC announced it was resuming it’s normal programming and we haven’t heard a word since.

CNN on the other hand has been running and re-running it; all enhanced by various gossip commentators. One commentator wanted to know what’s up with all the English lady’s big hats all gussied up with feathers, flowers, birds and whatever! So I watched an in-depth analysis on BBC of the power grab by President Putin and the government “mafia” that supports him instead.

As soon as we returned to Bangkok from Bali Bob took a train to Chiang Mai for a trek in northern Thailand near Mae Son Hong. I stayed in Bangkok to have some dental work done. This entry was written by Bob.

Chiang Mai is Thailand’s second city and the jump-off point for experiencing the northern hill tribes.

Mae Hong Son is in the trekking area–but quite a ways from Chiang Mai–drove there with several treks en route and spent one night in the town. There are many ethnic tribes–most renowned being the long necked ladies. When I was there not many tourists as it is hard to get to. We subsequently flew back to Chiang Mai–but that was included in the package. Did this on one of my early trips. On that trek we would walk for a day or two, spend nights in tribal villages and the van would pick us up at a designated site. Then onto the next trek–also did a little rafting but no rapids.

These peoples owe allegience to their ethnic group and national boundries are of no signifigance. They originally migrated from China and Tibet and now reside in southern China and in a geographic band across the north of Burma, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.

These tribes have taken taken advantage of the tourist influx and now offer their villages and homes as overnight lodging for trekkers. As they live in the hills there are no roads, autos and access is strictly by foot. So after a couple of days re-exploring Chiang Mai (its growing big time) I joined 5 other farangs (European and half my age) and a Thai guide for a 4-5 hr ride in the back of a pickup to the trailhead for a 3 day trek.

The walking is relatively easy but the heat/humidity combo is a killer. In 5 hrs we reach a Karen village, are given lodging in a bamboo slat hut and offered a “shower” from a barrel of cold water using a laddle to pour water on whichever body part is selected. A simple meal is offered–tasty but usually best not to ask what it is. Market comes to us as the local ladies show up with their handicrafts. The children run about and giggle at/with the strangers. During the night a pig was the victim of a noisy slaughter as the next day was a festival (new years).

On the previous trek along the Burmese border we had been invited to a wake for a child who had died that day (probably from congenital heart disease). But alcohol became the focus of the event and we made a hasty departure out a side door as belligerence unfortunately replaced festivity.

The next day of this trip offered many stream crossings over narrow logs and I was made suddenly aware that balance is one of the skills that diminishes with advancing youth. Oh well! But we made it to the waterfall for a rewarding swim and that night barbequed a suckling pig.

The last day offered a ride on a bamboo raft through several small rapids and the obligatory elephant ride (once is enough). My less than friendly elephant was named Toby with her cute baby following along behind. I kept thinking that I should have a seat belt. Toby, however, was sure footed, enjoyed the sugar cane and bananas that were sold at intervals along the route.

Mae Sai is just a border town in the far north I went to on another trip. Across the bridge is Burma. It is not a primary trekking destination. Used more for visa stamp-outs and Thais purchase stuff (primarily pornography I think that they cannot get in Thailand–or at any rate saw much of it being confiscated by Thai immigration.) From Chiang Mai it is part of a day trip –in a van–that also includes the Golden Triangle (people stand and have their picture taken under a Golden Triangle sign) and Mekong River/Laos border area. A boring trip.

Tip: The trips out of ChiangMai have become a bit too packaged and westernized–now include the obligatory elephant ride and a raft trip which is a token overcrowded experience. Ok if one has never done it but better if you are able to get off the beaten track like the trip to Mae Hong Son.

I had to check out of Thailand…thought my visa was 90 days that I got in Kunming in December but it was only 60 days. So at the end of March I had to pay a hefty fine at the airport to get out of the country…almost 10 a day!

I hopped a flight to Hanoi and stayed at the Classic Street Hotel again…this time thoroughly enjoying the Old Quarter with a minimum of running around.

Found a jazz club and while enjoying the free WiFi on my laptop had a great conversation with an American woman who, having been out-stationed in Hanoi for several years with Ford Motor Company, met and married the sax player and owner of the club. Even bought a T-shirt with an orange sax and name of the club that I have now forgotten!

At the end of a month at the Classic Street Hotel I flew back to Bangkok.

In Bangkok we got a good deal for a month in a beautiful completely furnished apartment on a dead-end street in the upscale Saladaeng area…close to the Skytrain and the new subway that is running again after a recent accident.

Many delicious food vendors just outside the front door were well-placed for the two towers of business offices at the end of the street. After a week Bob took off for northern Thailand and I stayed in Bangkok…taxiing back and forth to my Tufts university-trained dentist who employs a group of specialists…all women…on Sukhumvit 24. With two new porcelain caps and a root planing, I will return in a month for prep work on two implants that will be completed in another 4 months…all for about a 7th of what it would cost with no dental insurance at home.

Doug and Luk took an overnight train from Krabi and stayed with me for a few days while a friend babysat their dog Ting-Tong at their house. They eat very small meals many times during the day…Thai food being what it is…so it seemed like we were eating constantly. One evening Doug took us up to the top of one of the tallest towers in Bangkok where we looked down from an outdoor bar/restaurant sitting on the very edge of the building…refreshing cool breezes blowing our hair…jaw-dropping night lights of the city down below. But mostly Doug and Luk just hung out in the air-con apartment with me…dreading the return to their “fan-cooled” (a uphemism if ever there was one) house in Krabi.

Bought a 20 hour wireless card I use with my Mac computer in any of the many Starbucks around town…handy for uploading blog notes and updating software…visiting with other computer users like the young guy from London who just moved here for a two-year tour with his company…paying as much for the freight on his furniture as it all cost in the first place. Our visit ended when a Thai-boy sat down at the Brit’s table…shooting me a look that could kill. Apparently I was interfering with their date.

Visited the six floors of Panthip Computer Shopping Mall several times where you can buy any high-tech item you could ever want. There are hundreds of stalls selling CD’s and DVD’s and at one I spoke to a rough-looking character standing next to me. “I come here often for R&R,” he says looking at the Thai girl standing next to him. (One in 30 Thai women have said to be working as prostitutes although they don’t call themselves that…they just want an ATM guy to exchange sex with.) “Most things are cheaper if you order over the net,” he says, apparently except for the handfulls of games and software he is buying for his employees in his computer center in Iraq.

Checked out the Foreign Correspondents Club, one of many around the world (I used the one in Phnom Penh Cambodia) that honor each other’s members. In the penthouse of a Bangkok tower you will find the club with a bar/restaurant that hosts speakers from around the world…recently the Dalai Lama spoke there…has a state of the art media center for journalists, jazz on Friday nights…and expats to speak English to! The night we were there ASEAN was hosting an open conference regarding Burma.

Yes, we are still alive in Bali after driving for a week with pedestrians and motorcycles and trucks and cars passing each other going 60 miles an hour down one-lane roads with no sidewalks. Bob was more patient than I thought he’d be…only leaned on the horn about a hundred times. The earthquake didn’t reach us…and no tsunami this time so we’re ok…so no worries. We did hear that people in southern Thailand were warned about midnight to head for high ground.

We leave for Bangkok on Sunday… I’m sick of being hot and humid. Now we are back on Kuta Beach where all the kids are.

(remote north coast of Bali)
The ocean here is protected by reefs and has no surf…it is weird to stand on the black sand beach and look out over the water as calm and glassy as a mountain lake…with only an outrigger canoe (prahu) or two being prepared for the night’s fishing to disturb the horizon.

The internet is down about half the time here…and we were unable to find a way to telephone our sons…surprising for this oft-visited island. We spent the day under a sheet of water…finding a sheltered little cafe (“fresh bread baked daily”) for our evening meal of brushetta and fresh tuna steak. “Where are you from,” asked the young owner who worked the restaurant with his wife. ” My brother is getting his Ph.d. in Michigan in engineering.”

A great day watching the dolphins as the only tenants of a great little resort hanging on a cliff over the easternmost point of Bali in Amed ended in a very uneasy dinner surrounded by aggressive Czech “mafia” and then a sleepless night from the full moon techno boom-boom from the resort next door…

Getting here–the drive in our rented jeep has been a mini adventure in itself. In the first day the dash warning light came on for the electrical system–to ignore or not ignore–we chose the former–a predictable mistake as the battery failed while we were lost and a long distance from our lodging. Most Balinese are astounded to hear that we are driving ourselves and with the narrow potholed roads, squirming motorbikes merging from every direction and overloaded speeding trucks we are appreciating their insight. With any accident we, as foreigners, would be responsible and liable–just the way it is.

Ubud was nothing like I had pictured. Even though it’s community members still adhere to traditional customs and the arts, crafts, music and dances support religious rituals and ceremonies, the village is not the traditional Balinese rural village that I had imagined.

The two main streets are full of traffic…the rice fields forming a bankable backdrop to the restaurants, travel agents, trendy boutiques and internet cafes. In spite of this, my mouth watered at the thoughts of decorating a house with Balinese art, baskets and furniture! We especially enjoyed the warung, or small cafes that sell homemade Balinese food and drink…”good morning”…and “where are you from” coming from smiling Balinese vendors. The best food, of course, was in the food stalls at the night market frequented by the locals; the upscale restaurants seem to have double the price but half the flavor.

The Balinese are Hindu…but a Hinduism that is overlaid by ancient animist beliefs…a world away from the Hinduism as practised in India. To the Balinese, spirits are everywhere and offerings are put out in shrines in every field and on the street in front of every home and shop to pay homage to the good spirits and to placate the bad ones. A few sticks of incense are stuck in among some fancy food and various flowers that are carefully laid in little hand-made reed trays. Once the gods have eaten the essence of the food it is left discarded.

One afternoon on the beach, amid a crowd of chanting and drumming Balinese, we saw two men with 12-foot long propane torches burning something through the open ends of a colorfully decorated large bamboo “box.” After a few questions from some on-lookers we were amazed to discover that a cremation was taking place.
The body of a 12 year old girl had been carried on the shoulders of several men to the cremation ground in a high, multitiered tower made of things like bamboo, paper, string, tinsel, silk, mirrors and flowers. Along the way celebrants, followed by a noisy gamelan sprinting along behind, shook the tower, run it around in circles, spinned it around, threw water at it and generally created anything but a stately funereal crawl…all precautions taken to confuse the deceased spirit and ensure that it would not find it’s way back home. Male relatives did their duty by poking around in the ashes to make sure that no bits of body were left unburnt…which actually took quite a long time. And where did the spirit go? Why to a heaven that is just like Bali!

On the beaches and streets of Kuta Bob noticed a large number of lone foreign women (as in white Western). Upon checking Lonely Planet we find that many visiting women are looking for charming young supercool guys with long hair, lean bodies, tight jeans and lots of tatoos commonly called Kuta Cowboys, beach boys, bad boys, guides or gigolos. They are good on the dance floor and play a mean guitar. While they don’t usually work a straight sex-for-money deal, according to Lonely Planet, the visiting woman pays for the meals, drinks and accommodation and commonly buys the guy presents. “It’s not uncommon for them to form long-term relationships, according to LP, “with the guy hopeful of finding a new and better life with his partner in Europe, Japan, Australia or the USA.

One female reader wrote to LP that the main young male occupation in Lovina is finding and living off foreign girlfriends. LP cautions that while most of the guys around Bali are genuinely friendly, some are predatory con-artists who practice elaborate deceits, or downright theft, to get a woman’s money. Many are now from outside Bali, LP says, and have a long succession of foreign lovers and women should be sceptical about what they say, particularly if it comes down to them needing money….and to always use condoms.

Before leaving the Kuta area we saw ground 0 of the night club that was bombed by terrorists 3 years ago. A white canvas cloth on which is written some touching poetry by New Zealanders is hanging on the fence around the empty grassy lot. Directly across the street is quite a large memorial…with all the names of the almost 300 deceased carved into a huge slab of marble…giving me goosebumps.

After the first week in a Balinese style villa on the southwest coast of Bali…a couple miles north of… but not out of reach of Kuta, the surfing area frequented by dread-locked backpackers and pesky beach vendors, we moved to the quieter side of the island. We decided to forego the “bemo,” the local transport system…small open-doored vans that connect one village to another…and instead drove our rented jeep to Sanur on the southeast coast. Our villa of four units, owned by an American architect from Portland Oregon, was managed by a Dutch-Indonesian couple…some of the many people from the Netherlands on the island…a reminder of the Dutch colonization until post WW II.

Godday!!! (with an Aussie accent we picked up here!)

We are currently in Bali Indonesia. It was a spur of the moment decision to head down here. Tomorrow we plan on renting a car & will tour/explore the island for another 2-3 weeks. The past 5 days have been Hindu holidays/holydays and everything has been shut down. On Friday the evil spirits visited so the Balinese do not let anyone (other than delivering mothers) out of their houses for 24 hrs–in the hope that the spirits will interpret that the island is uninhabited and leave well enuf alone for another year. So we bought provisions, TP, and movies and hibernated for a day.

Before renting a jeep I need a Balanese driver’s license but with the holidays all goverment facilities have been closed. So tomorrow we take off. Have been on the tourist side of the island (mostly Aussies–not too far from Austrailia) so am anxious to escape and find some neighborhoods a little less hyper. The local vendors have a penchant for calling me “Boss!” which at first rubbed me the wrong way until we found out that Aussies call each other “Boss” and the locals have just picked up the label!

We are about 10 degrees south of the equator and it is hot and humid–probably the most humid place I have experienced. Adaptation to the conditions is minimal. Tiz rainy season–we had not seen rain for 3 months–so it was fun– have gone out for runs in the rain the past couple of days–like a warm shower.
RLG

Bangkok Air From Koh Samui to Bangkok again. Not a pretty city but it’s vibrant. The populace, as with much of Asia, lives outdoors-almost all 10 million of them. It is increasingly cosmopolitan and this year seems to have more farangs (Westerners) than I can recall in my several former visits here.

It is a paradox of a city. Some big money and big establishments with big prices but the vast majority is poor and the cost of living (by most western standards) is inexpensive. Traffic predictably chaotic with frequent gridlock. Travel by sky train and new subway system redeeming (and air-conditioned).

Walking is an adventure with uneven and poorly constructed sidewalks, often with holes, open pits, and unstable underfoot tiles– exposed haphazard electrical wiring and the mangiest dogs anywhere –all of them breeding exponentially. Hard to tell if they have any owners. Half of the dogs have orthopedic disability either from vehicle vs dog and/or intracanine squabbles. They sleep on the sidewalks during the day and roam at night occasionally in packs that cause a pause and change of direction for us pedestrians.

Shops, vendors, food stalls on wheels, open front restaurants, open sewers, tuk-tuks; all contribute to a cacophany of sound and smell that paradoxically continue to be both enticing and repelling. Bangkok is not renowned for it’s aesthetics. It is visited for it’s populace…the Thai people.

Smiles and accomodation prevail—but who knows what is lurking beneath…best to accept the presentation at face value and not analyze. The attitude, dictums of the Budda prevail. Mei pen rai (“whatever”).  As a passenger on a motorcycle taxi the driver, without looking, pulls out and speeds into the flow of traffic. “Slowly, slowly”, says I. “Mai pen rai, Budda will take care of us,” is the nonchalant response. The concept of liability has not reached these shores. Persons or events are either lucky or not lucky. Inevitable comparison of societies is fraught with subjectivity and tilted by one’s biases. Perhaps it is best (and more just) to live and let live. Enough. RLG

“Stamping out” consists of leaving Krabi Thailand at a border crossing…in the case of Ranong the border is with Burma…and then “stamping” back into Thailand. To do this they went to the Thai immigration office at the port in Ranong to officially exit the country called “stamping out.” Then they hired a boat ($12) for a 40 minutes ride across the estuary to Burma. They paid $5 US (had to be a US bill) at the Burmese immigration office for a stamp in their passports to enter Burma. They walked around the little dumpy Burmese border town trying to avoid the sellers (the big sales item was Viagra…probably from India) for 30 minutes and then took the boat back across to Thailand where they returned to the Thai immigration office to get stamped back into the country for another 30 days.

In my case I had purchased a 60 day Thai tourist visa in Kunming China so I had another couple weeks in my passport. While Bob and Doug were monkeying around with this, Luk and I found a nice air-con hotel that would accept their little Shimizu “Ting Tong” (the name means “crazy”) for the night…having take-out dinner purchased from the local night market and eating it in our room … one of the best meals we had in Thailand…all of us feasting for about $3.

The next day we drove east to Surat Thani on the east coast of the Thai peninsula …visiting a famous Buddhist meditation teaching center (in English) on the way. Had strong thoughts of being dropped off here for a month but there was no air-con or even fans in the rooms and that even I was not ready for. I just settled for my good old TM mantra in my comfortable air-con room in Krabi.

Before we left Krabi, Bob and Doug both had to “stamp out” of the country at Ranong (on border of Burma) so they could get another 30 days in Thailand. We rented an SUV and drove over to Patong Beach on the west side of the island of Phuket where so many people lost their lives in the tsunami. You would never know anything horrible happened here…businesses up and running and tourists lying on the beach although in minimal numbers compared to before the disaster…but a lot of bare areas where store-houses once stood facing the beach.

Driving up the coast north to Ranong we passed through Khao Lak…a 50 mile stretch of beach that took the worst beating in Thailand. For miles there was nothing but bare bulldozed land…bulldozed in order to remove bodies that were trapped among the roots of Mangrove trees and under rubble. Much of the land here is flat from the beaches to the foothills inland so in places the devestation extended across the road and into the countryside for more than two kilometers. Halfway up a hillside we saw a wrecked coast guard ship sitting at a crazy angle that we understand will be preserved as part of a memorial to all who died here.

We passed a volunteer center that is accepting volunteers for a month at a time and for as long as a year…many of them young people who scrambled down from the backpacker streets in Bangkok…others flying in from the U.S. and Europe…many of them professionals in their fields. At the web site at www.tsunamivolunteer.net you can read heart-rending and life-changing message boards…many in English.

We rented an SUV and drove to Trang, about 150 kilometers south of Krabi, to meet Luk’s immediate and extended family. We were greeted with the traditional Thai wai greeting with head bowed and hands folded…a greeting that feels so incredibly respectful. Grandfather is 81 and lives at home with Luk’s graceful grandmother who is 72.

Before a visit to the market with Luk’s mother we stopped by a fish farm to buy fresh fish for dinner. Luk’s mother, a professional cook, prepared a half a dozen dishes for us and for various cousins and uncles who appeared on the scene throughout the evening.

Luk’s mom lives out in the countryside with a woman friend. Luk’s brother is 19 and works in a grocery store. One of Luk’s cousins has been a surgical nurse for four years in the Trang Hospital…her boyfriend works for the police department. Another cousin is in the army and works as a dive master on the side. We struggled to communicate…but we all laughed together at Luk’s mom’s tiny Laborador puppy who was terrorizing Luk’s 8 month old Shimazu! On the way to the car after dinner Luk’s mother and I walk hand in hand. We are family now.

Bob and I have been here in Krabi Province of Thailand with Doug and Luk for three weeks now…a welcome respite after a month in smoggy noisy Bangkok where I had some dental work done and a 6 month routine check-up at Bumrungrad Hospital.

Bob left a couple days ago to do some hiking in Khao Sok National Park up north. I stayed here in my little 2nd story bungalow on lazy Ao Nang Beach watching the dark wiry young boat guys guide their long tailed boats to various karst islands and isolated beaches out in the deceivingly placid blue and green ocean and return again. Bob and I will either meet up in Bangkok or he will return here first…who knows what he will do. The breeze cools down at night until about noon…then air conditioning goes back on again.

Doug and Luk come over every morning (my place is 10 minutes up the road from their house) and we breakfast together. Then we all pile on the motorbike for a ride through the karsts and banana tree forests looking for a little fantasy house for me to rent…can get a house with tile floors, bathroom, hot water, kitchen facilities and bedroom and main room for about $200 a month if you are not on the water. A bottom floor bungalow on the water like Doug had before the tsunami is about $450 a month.

Weird to see inaugural celebrations on Fox News and then to drive by the Krabi Wat with hundreds of pictures of victims and piles of burial boxes.

An internet friend of mine who just married a Thai girl is staying on Patang Beach on Phuket Island where most of the damage was done. He said the beaches have been cleaned up…chairs and umbrellas are back up and the local businesses are begging for tourists. Reconstruction has already begun on some of the lost and damaged hotels. The second worst place in Thailand to get hit was Khoa Lak…just up north from here. They are still finding bodies in the Mangrove Forests and the village water well ended up with a car and 92 bodies in it. Several thousand bodies have not been found yet, many of them illegal immigrants from Burma. We hear they will not even try to rebuild at Khao Lak.

A month in Bangkok

On the morning of December 26, 2004, after a bowl of spicy Thai soup on the street outside my Bangkok hotel, I returned to my room and flipped on the satellite TV to find both CNN and BBC running astounding commentary and amateur video of the tsunami wave that had hit the Krabi coast earlier that morning. Son Doug and his wife Luk had been living on Khlong Muang beach 15 feet from the water in Krabi Province just SE of Phuket. The telephone circuits were all busy but after four tries and 30 minutes trying to reach them with my heart in my throat, Luk finally answered. What sweet voices that day!

About 10:30 that morning Doug and Luk had been in bed when they heard what they thought was a bomb. When he opened the curtains to the sliding glass doors, he instead found that it was the first wave of the tsunami that hit their glass doors facing the beach leaving the bungalow under water. They were lucky the doors were closed. Many lives were lost when water entered open doors and windows leaving people with no way to escape.

Doug said he immediately threw a bottle against the door of a sleeping couple behind their bungalow to wake them while Luk climbed screaming to the roof. Then when the first wave went back out, he and Luk scrambled to safety up the hill behind them.

When the 2nd wave washed detritus and some of their belongings back up on the beach, they made a little pile of stuff on the country road above the house. Doug had just sunk a lot of money into a cozy cafe/bar in front of his beachfront rental unit only to lose the whole investment…but not his life. He also luckily didn’t lose his new motorbike, that he retrieved as it was out swirling crazily in the 2nd wave.

They were able to quickly arrange for a friend with a pickup to take them and what was left of their belongings to a rental house farther inland on the road between Krabi Town and Ao Nang Beach and later to the island of Koh Samui.

About a week later, Bob appeared in Bangkok from wherever he was and he and I flew from Bangkok to Krabi Town…all of 6 people flying with us…not a good sign for the tourist industry here, I thought, as I stepped off into the humid tropical air. It felt very strange to be flying into the tsunami ravaged area on a colorful holiday plane. Son Doug and Luk, met us in the terminal…Luk, smiling, handed me a nicely wrapped gift. A friend that was in the Peace Corps in Thailand says the name “Luk” is an endearing name in Thai. She is a dear.

Krabi Province has about 500 people known to be lost so far to the tsunami. After spending a night in Krabi Town, a busy dusty town of about 18,000, Bob rented a motorbike and we moved about 30 kilometers up the coast to the beach town of Ao Nang.

On the way out of town we passed the Buddhist Wat that is providing space for a Krabi assistance and communication center under wide green awnings by the side of the road. Volunteers assist families looking for the missing on computer terminals. Color photos of the dead, disfigured and unrecognizable, and pictures of the missing cover rows of standing sheets of plywood. I was shocked and revolted by the appearance of drowned bodies. I had no idea they would swell like they do. Most of the photos of the dead attempt to show anything that may be identifiable by an intimate family member…a ring, a bracelet, a tatoo, a logo on a t-shirt…flowered undergarments…

Workers are still building several hundred wooden boxes that will be lowered with their contents into a mass grave in the cemetery beside the Wat. Driving along the roads in Krabi, here and there can be seen covered memorial areas with casket and flowers for funerals by some family members who have been able to identify their dead. We had been told that Krabi Province’s worst hit area is Khao Lak, farther north up the coast where the wave penetrated three kilomaters into the Mangrove forests and where people are still being found as debris is cleared. There are no plans to rebuild the area we are told.

The immediate crisis is over here in Krabi province. Smiling Thai people are some of the most positive people in the world and they are trying to make the best of a bad situation. They are not waiting for the wheels of international aid. Here in Ao Nang beaches are quickly being cleaned up…an attempt to salvage the devastated tourist high season. The local boat school is donating student workers and materials to repair about 50 damaged long-tail boats. A local company is donating time to desalinate long-tail motors. Boatmen are again taking what few tourists are left here out on diving expeditions and trips to outlying islands. Window glass is being replaced.

Patang Beach on Phuket Island had the most deaths and got the most publicity, but many beaches have been cleaned up already. It is indeed strange how one area could be hit hard and how the next area 10 feet away would not be damaged at all. Destroyed businesses and homeless families will get help.

But unfortunately, international coverage by CNN and BBC filmed the devastation to the exclusion of all the other areas which frightened away prospective tourists. On top of that, both Sweden and Denmark issued travel warnings so the tour companies have rescinded their travel insurance for those people…prompting travelers on two and three week holidays to return home. Restaurants and guesthouses here are empty. One restaurant owner told me that they have heard that some business owners will get some money to pay their rent but that still leaves them with little source of livlihood.

Koh Samui on the other side of the Thai peninsula, not hit by the wave, is packed at 100% capacity…only families getting hotel rooms and tents being set up on the beaches for backpackers. But here on the west side of Thailand, local expats and long term tourists are writing home and telling people if they really want to help now, to buy a plane ticket and come visit. If taking a vacation in SE Asia right now seems repugnant to you…as it did for us…think of the living here instead. The opposite side of the coin is the economic struggle of the survivors as they lose their source of income…60% of which comes from tourism. We are going to Phuket in a few days. Maybe the hospital there could use some help.

Photos

While I was in Guizhou Province, Bob headed off for Putuashan Island and then circled back to Shanghai via Hangzhou…then flew to Jinghong to meet me at the Banna Hotel. We picked up Sarah, a trek leader at the Forest Cafe, who led us by bus into the surrounding mountains to visit some Hani, Dai and Jinguo ethnic minority villages.

In one village I ran into a Frenchman I had met in Guizhou Province (a thousand miles away) who had enlisted the services of a car and driver so Sarah took off trekking with Bob and I joined Marco (French-Italian) on a visit to several Dai village homes on the way back to Jinghong where I met Bob at the hotel that night.

Bob was to fly to Bangkok and I to Hanoi from Jinghong but planes were full so we flew the 40 minutes north to Kunming to catch planes…Bob to Bangkok and me to Hanoi.

Video

Was really fun to spend time in the Camellia Hotel compound in Kunming, familiar from our 2002 visit to China, and fraternize with all the Western travelers and trade street-stories at the Mieli cafe/bar and Camel Bar up the street.

I picked up a Vietnamese visa at the Camellia. I nearly lost my temper with the hard-headed Chinese clerk who gave me the visa. When I filled out the application I put the date I would be entering Viet Nam-after having gone to Thailand first for two months. In no uncertain terms she kept ordering me to put the current date. In the face of her demand I finally gave in. Then when I went back to pick up the visa I discovered I would only have one month in Viet Nam because the 90 days started now! I told her I wasn’t entering Viet Nam for 2 months. Oh, she said. I could have killed her. But she knew better than I! Typical Chinese, I thought!

Also picked up a three month Thai visa at the Thai Consolate so I wouldn’t have to go out of the country and back in after 30 days. But even there, when I asked about the stamp-out process he insisted there was no legal process…which I found out later is the truth. But they let it happen because it’s brings in revenue. Then flew to Jinghong to meet Bob.

In the Camellia Internet Cafe and Bar I met a wonderful 30ish English woman, Hester, who was also traveling alone. We connected instantly. An artist, she had just broken off a ten year relationship and sold her home. She was on her way back to Lijiang where she was thinking of partnering with some local artists on an art project.

In Shanghai, exploring the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree web site, I noticed a query from a young woman from Kaili in Guizhou Province who was offering to arrange a homestay in a Miao minority village in the mountains. We exchanged emails and I was excited to meet her. But then I received an email saying she was in Shanghai and could we meet for the train ride to Guizhou in a couple days. I returned that I couldn’t leave that soon but I could meet her in Kaili…then I never heard from her again. A mystery…or maybe she got an offer from someone to pay her fare back to Kaili…who knows. But I knew where I was going next! From Shanghai I flew to Guiyang, capital of Guizhou Province and stored my baggage at a hotel there before boarding a bus for the three hour ride to the city of Kaili.

When I got off the bus there, I was directed to another station around the corner with several rickety old buses waiting for passengers to various villages. I had no idea which bus would take me to Xiuang, the village I had been told by the English-speaking receptionist in Guiyang that would be celebrating their New Year’s holiday. Then I saw a smiling family waiting near one half-full bus. “Xiuang,” I asked. Yes, they nodded. But while we were waiting to board, a couple of men outside a nearby fence a few feet from us motioned us to approach them. It gradually became clear they were taxi drivers that wanted to take us to Xiuang. Between my motions and their language we all agreed to share the cost of the taxi so we piled in and were off…on a harrowing short-cut along steep mountain dirt roads with thousand foot drop-offs…to our village!

The people in the mountains in this southeastern Chinese province are not Han Chinese. Eighteen different minorities live within Guizou province and I was here to visit the Miao people in this gulley-like valley with identical hand-hewn wooden houses climbing the hills on all sides.

The wooden houses are built on foundations of stone and constructed with wooden pegs…no nails or cement. Steep paths meander among the houses.

After some initial quandry as to where a hotel might be, if there was one, I came across a woman who led me to a small building…who would have thunk it was a hotel…for about $2.00 for the night. I was invited to join the family around their hotpot dinner downstairs…had no idea what I was eating but I was starved and it tasted delicious with smiling faces all around. No extra charge! There was no heat in the freezing room that night so I took the bedding off the other twin bed and added it to mine.

There are at least 130 different types of Miao people living in villages among the mountains and they have different dialects, headdress, and traditions. Yet, they all belong to one Miao minority. Their language is endangered as it has no written form and is used less and less among the younger generation who is often eager to learn English.

The next morning, walking along the main cobblestone path through the village I came across a young French couple…the only Westerners in the town…who were delighted to speak English with someone after hiking all over the mountains from village to village without a guidebook. “Just knock on a door” they said, and show the sign for sleep and eat and show money and you will be invited in,” they said. They were in their second year of travel before returning home to start a family. They had been traveling in the province two months and it was they who took me to Mr. Hou. Mr. Hou was the English teacher in the middle school there that drew students from villages all over the mountains. “By foot,” he said.

Mr. Hou invited me to stay for two days for $4 a day in his home, generously sharing three banquet meals a day around “hotpot” and dozens of small dishes of whatevers with him and his extended family of which there were many coming and going during each meal! While the men and women prepared the food, the guests all sang a local folk song. Then they asked me to sing a song…and I’ll be darned if my mind didn’t go panicky blank…all I could think of was Row Row Your Boat and I think that is really a French song! So I told them we had rock music and I couldn’t sing rock. They all nodded in agreement…to my relief I was off the hook!

The family and I joined round on 8 inch high stools and watched Mr. Hue chop the meat up on a thick round wood cutting block on the floor. Then slowly bowls of food appeared from another cooking room that the women had prepared and were set out on the floor around a “hotpot”or wok full of boiling broth sitting on a foot high round stand full of lit charcoal. Mr. Hue would chopstick some of the food he considered the best onto my small bowl of rice. The bones and small rejected bits were spit onto the floor. After every few bites the local hooch was poured round and after a song and a whoop everyone would gulp down the fiery fruit-flavored alcohol made by the grandmothers. It didn’t take long for the whoops and songs to exceed the eating. Humorously, I was given “just a small amount” each time..the villagers having experienced past catastrophes with drunk foreigners!

Finally the day came when the New Year’s biggest day would be celebrated…music, dancing…the women in wonderful traditional dress.

During the daytimes I wandered through the small cobbled lanes leading through the houses and shops…trying my best to avoid the firecrackers thrown at the visitors by the small boys.

Although the New Years ethnic dances in costumes were delightful and the people warm-hearted and friendly, I was happy to leave the village. The small boys thought it was great fun to make the “foreigner” jump when they threw firecrackers at her feet…one landing on top of my backpack…nearly scaring me out of my wits. And on top of that Mr. Hou felt he had to direct my every move in the home…was terribly worried I would fall off the narrow log ladder to the upper level where he had cleared out a cozy room with a rock-hard bed. After all, I was “old.” 62! So by the third day I had had enough fireworks and directing!

While I was waiting for the bus back to Kaili, (there was no schedule…you just waited for the bus to show up) a newly-arrived young man from Amsterdam and I made friends with some Chinese English-speaking students from Hunan province who were there with their photography teacher and we nearly went to Langde village with them if there had been room in their van. I was sorry not to be able to go with these cheery young people who were so anxious to try out their English…some of the words inappropriately big and ostentatious…and some I didn’t even know the meaning of! Be sure to correct our English, they said! Well, we don’t use that word in normal conversation I would say and they would look so disappointed. We exchanged email “to practice English.”

“Kaili, Kaili, bystanders yelled at me as a small bus appeared…barely missing the food-vendors on either side of the dirt road leading up to the village. Then just as I was waiting to board, a Russian-American in his 80’s from NYC with a false leg nearly toppled off the bus with his bag into the street. We quickly traded some travel stories…he had been backpacking for years all over the world…refusing to give it up…very inspiring…and touching…

I headed back to Kaili, a comfortable and colorful Miao urban city with great food down small alleys, and was pleasantly surprised to find that my hotel room harbored a broadband high speed internet connection! This was not only Asia, but it was China after all and the appetite here for technology and communication devices is insatiable.

After another bus back to Guiyang I spent the evening walking along the river than runs through the city, meandering up and down streets…getting lost and finding my way again…checking email at a large internet cafe with at least a hundred young kids all noisily playing video games. And eating wonderful street food!

The next night I headed off to Kunming on an overnight train…middle bed in a 6-bed compartment this time…but not without exploring the new Wal-Mart around the corner from the train station to replenish my battery supply!

Spent about 3 weeks in Shanghai in a lovely small hotel behind the Shanghai Library on a tree-lined street of the former French Concession. The US Embassy was next door to the Library but we never did figure out where the entrance was.

Had some interesting conversations at breakfast in the hotel with two men from Manhattan New York…both fluent in Mandarin. They collect Chinese art and furniture and are proficient in Chinese calligraphy. Made me wonder where I have been all my life. They are gay with a long relationship together…separated now…but still travel together and share their Chinese interests. I wish I could explore this further with them…after all relatonships are relationships…whether gay or straight.

Shanghai is a surprisingly user-friendly city for a Westerner. Just felt good to get off the road and cool out. Spent a whole day at the Shanghai Museum Of Modern Art during a tech-friendly exposition of world renowned artists…mostly video exhibits…very inspiring for a video freak. Even Yoko Ono sponsored a Wishing Tree which will provide the basis of some future work of hers.

Currently in a delightful city (Yangshau) that is on the Yangtze River about 100 miles north of Shanghai.

China’s autumn has been fantastic, the people interesting (and challanging) and the food tasty (most of the time) even if we do not always know what we are eating.

Spent 3 days north of Beijing trekking the Great Wall (I waved to the folks in space so hopefully they were able to see me) and then did a couple of climbs on China’s sacred mountains (Tai Shan and Lao Shan).

The climbs were more like our day hikes in Oregon but still a good workout–spent one night on the summit and got up with several hundred Chinese to view the sunrise–magical and mystical as an orange globe emerging from a cloud bank. The Chinese, however, take a tram to the summit and were quite surprised that a foreigner of my age would want to walk up the mountain. “Singjingbing” (“crazy”) is the frequently heard comment.

China is a very dynamic country and going through rapid metamorphoses–in 10 yrs it will be quite different and maybe not for the better–they aim for modernization and construction is booming. However on the lanes, streets and freeways autos compete with pedestrians, bikes, and hand drawn/animal drawn carts. The expression “Chinese fire drill” prevails. Crossing a street is an adventure.

Market economy is obvious and pervasive–Karl Marx can only be shaking his head.

Tiz OK to laugh with the Chinese but not at them (have made a couple of social/cultural guffaws).

Off the tourist track we foreigners are still an oddity and draw many long stares. Younger children say “hello” and then giggle. I say “neehow” (hello) and they giggle even more. The smaller kids are cute as can be; as they get older (teens) jeans and cell phones prevail and there is the loss of cultural diversity.

Air pollution, autos, hacking & spitting, littering (everything: restaurant bones, trash, spit goes on the floor–at an internet cafe I was admonished by the propriator for putting my backpack on the floor–did not appreciate her concern until I realized what all else is on the floor and had the insight that she was trying to prevent backpack contamination.)

Then the Chinese sweep–everywhere things are swept with grass brooms but that is as deep as the cleaning process goes. But as always the fun is in observing and appreciating cultural differences (a two way street as they laugh at me)
later. B