We Need to Make Globes Mandatory

In the Tuesday, July 18 edition of the NY Times, President Bush is reported to have engaged in a conversation with Hu Jintao of China about their respective trips home from a summit in Russia. According to the Times, Bush was anxious to get on the road because of the long distance he had to travel but commented to Jintao "This is your neighborhood; it won't take you long to get home."

President Bush illustrated here just how skewed American perspectives on geographical distance are when thinking of the rest of the world. In reality, the time Bush would take to get home was almost exactly the same as that of Jintao. Before we moved to Asia and still today, I struggled with distances and putting them into a real perspective. I suspect that part of our problem comes from American media, which sometimes portrays developing parts of the world as specks on the map, creating closeness in our minds which masks long distances and great cultural heterogeneity.

Have you studied a globe lately?

How Quickly We've Forgotten

This week I had dinner with an old friend from my day's at the Community Center in Kansas City, Sally, and found myself as usual humbled, amazed, and laughing at our conversation. Sally is to this day the most PFLAG mom-ish woman that I've ever had the chance to meet personally, but in no way is she a stereotype. After graduating from school, Sally moved to Chicago in the 1950s and worked as a teacher. She shared with me over dinner the experience of being a single woman moving into the city at that time and the implicit assumption that existed even by the 50's that if a single woman in the city was synonymous with being a prostitute. She wasn't able to rent an apartment by herself or under her name, and ended up living in an apartment block for single women, before getting an apartment with a girlfriend after her father signed the lease. Lucky for her, her dad was a reverend.

I try to remember it to keep myself sane as we feel hemmed in by purchasing bureaucracy. I try to remember it to show how quickly things can improve but also how easily hardships can be forgotten. Part of me is excited by that and part saddened, as I think my generation easily forget the remarkable transformations that have occurred in the lives of women, just as we continue live with the transformations that haven't materialized to the same degree. Poverty and race remain aspects of our society which divide and challenge our prospects for progress. Also in conversation with Sally, I was reminded of the great challenges of those without education (formal and practical) in life as she described in her words the high cost of being poor. Being somewhat transient now, I recognize somewhat these costs but know that it is nearly impossible for me to comprehend them. There are parts and aspects of the United States which feel more mysteriously frustrating and incomprehensible to me than anything I gleamed in our time abroad.

Issues of Proportion and Defense

I've landed...well at least somewhat. My feet are back on U.S. soil for the first time in months and more permanently than temporarily. But for the time being, I still feel very confused. My emotions are a web of misdirection, brining joy at being back and close to family again, panic at being back and saying good-bye to Hong Kong, and mostly some disorientation. I find myself focused more now than ever on the differences of the life we've been living and the one we are moving towards, as well as defensive and supersensitive to all things worldy (and unworldly).

It's a Sunday afternoon and I type away at a Starbucks on the Plaza that looks little different from that of Lan Kwai Fong. But even here, I am struck by the small differences...the smallest size of coffee I can order in KC is the second to largest size in HK. In fact, the Starbucks there recently introduced a new super small size to cater to their clients. America truly is sipping on the big gulp. The buildings that appear through the mural-sized windows are urban in design but seem diminutive to me now. Even in it's most urban setting, KC is two-stories high and miles wide.

I've noticed since our move to Asia a certain sensitivity to discussions and topics which I was learning more about and experiencing daily. Like an withdrawling Asia junkie, the sensitivity has heightened. Yesterday, again at a Starbucks (I really do go other places), I had to bight my tongue when a man walked in and requested Chinese dim sum tea. He made his plea in a way that spoke more to the prestige he thought his "knowledgeable" question would bring in its utterance rather than as a practical use of words intended to get a good tea. I cringed. I am still cringing. While I have to give the guy credit for knowing the term "dim sum," dim sum is in no way a tea, but rather a style of food typical of the Hong Kong region, including dumpling and stuffed rolls.

sensitivity can be a wonderfully dangerous emotion. It awakens with it a line of other senses, good and bad, but in a world where we are hit with stimulants from all sides, coping and living often need to be done in a deadened (or at least slightly numbed) state. Gosh, that sounds pessimistic, but right now that's how I am feeling. I wonder when I will again get to a place where I don't notice some of these things. I want that and I fear that, the stability that comes from being comfortable and used to your surroundings.

I just found a site that makes me feel a little better:

http://www.expat-repat.com/inbound.html

Just the few things they said here make me feel less strange in my emotional flood. Coming back is much harder than going. I feel more different now than I have ever felt. All these things will take time and acceptance to deal with.

Jim Thompson House

Kristen reflects below the canopy of the Jim Thompson House in one of the many antique Chinese fish pots scattered throughout the garden.

Flying in from Hong Kong Saturday morning, Kristen and I went immediately to our hotel to get settled.
The Plaza Athene

After some sleep and rest, we walked to the train and went a couple of stops towards Siam Square with final destination of the Jim Thomson House.


Kristen stands outside the main portion of the house.

An American born entrepreneur, Mr. Thompson is famous for reviving the Thai silk industry in the 1950s and also for moving to Thailand and adapting many ancient Thai traditions and living customs to western way. Although he mysteriously disappeared while on vacation in Burma, his house and his stores remain intact and open to the public.


Mr. Thompson collected many antiques from across Asia and Europe. This traditional Thai carved panel is just one example.


Floating flowers, beaded water, and swimming streams of young fish.


This fish wasn't so young.


A Thai-style mini-house and offering sits quietly but colorfully at the entrance to the complex.

Do I make you cry?

Darcie and Greg's new baby, Kaiya, didn't know whether she liked me or not when I stopped by for lunch last week...



She is such an adorable and good baby!

Tiananmen Square

Smoky. That was the forecast on the Weather Channel website for Beijing when Kim and I woke up Saturday morning and began planning the day. It seemed more ominous a forecast than any I'd ever heard for our second day in China's capital.


Tiananment Square

Our hotel, the Grand Hyatt, was about 4 Beijing blocks (8 or more normal city blocks) from the Tiananmen Square area of Beijing that was made so famous by protestors. It was an easy walk, and while busy, wasn't as overwhelmed with people as I expected. The International Herald Tribune reported that 3000 local tourists got lost or became "missing persons" (70% being adults) in Tiananmen on Saturday when we were exploring.

Seeing the square across one of Beijing's broad and crowded streets, we entered one of the underground pedestrian crossings which were divided for directional flow and monitored with military officers. As we entered the square, the drone of a loud speaker quickly became more clear. From the IHT article, I now know that it was broadcasting the names of people who were separated from their groups, a fact that would have been more discomforting for me if I'd known it then. At the time, I found the square to be somehow less notorious than I'd imagined. Perhaps the whitewash of time and my memory has diluted the blood that was spilled that day.


A guard stands outside of the entrance to the Forbidden City.

With Mao's mausoleum sitting off-center in the Square but still balancing the Grand Palace, T. Square had echoes of the Mall in DC with it's open center surrounded by important governmental and museum buildings, but the Tiananmen was much less green and certainly more orderly than the Mall. As I just alluded to, Tiananmen Square sits quietly besides Beijing's Grand Palace, a remnant of past non-utilitarian dynasties that has been transformed like the modern Chinese economy into something uniquely Communistic and non-Communistic at the same time. With the Grand Palace (really the complex that is the Grand Palace) on the north, Tiananmen Square on the south, and many stately buildings (like a museum and the location where the congress of the Communist Party meets) on all sides, Tiananmen Square is the heart of Beijing and seemingly the heard of China.

The Other Bowling Photo

Just got this from Annie, who apparently is dangerous with Photoshop. This picture doesn't need any words. Wow.