This Is Not a Fairytale

Once upon a time there were two kingdoms separated by a narrow river. In the Kingdom called The Land of Smiles, the people were happy. The king was kind and cared about his subjects who he loved and protected fiercely. Unlike neighboring lands, foreigners had never conquered his kingdom. The land was beautiful and fertile. Food, clothing, and shelter were enjoyed by most.

The Kingdom across the river was called the Land of Tears. The king of the Land of Tears had waged war upon his own people for half a century. In his greed, he turned what had once been a rich country into a very poor one. The king’s armies stole land and money, burned forests, destroyed roads, farms, schools, clinics, and libraries. They bombed villages. The soldiers cut off the hands and tongues of anyone who objected, forced children to become soldiers, and placed landmines everywhere to prevent people from escaping.

A beautiful queen who loved her people spoke out against the king. She was imprisoned for many years so that she could not tell the world what was happening in her country. The king was so determined to keep what he was doing a secret that few were ever allowed into the Land of Tears. And in truth, not many wanted to go.

After plundering his country for 50 years, the king of the Land of Tears began to see that there would soon be little left to steal unless he allowed foreigners into the kingdom to make investments. But the foreigners were afraid of losing their money. They knew that if the king continued to act in the same way, they also would be robbed. So they demanded proof from the king and his armies that their money would be safe. 

The king promptly released the queen, (although he still did not allow her to have any real power). He also talked about democracy—a word he knew the foreigners loved to hear. The foreigners, whose own kingdoms were also struggling due to their leaders’ greed, were reassured and started to invest. In the meantime, the king continued to wage war upon his own people. The foreigners pretended not to notice.

Despite many dangers, 500,000 people from the Land of Tears managed to flee to other countries. Some found their way to the Land of Smiles. However they came with little but the clothes on their backs. They were not only from the Land of Tears but poor as well, and so they were not welcome.

Some were put into camps from which they could not come and go freely and where there was no work. Others labored as illegal immigrants and lived wherever they could. They did the backbreaking labor no else wanted to do. Without legal rights, people from the Land of Tears could not object when their employers did not pay them or the police beat them.  Many others were bought and sold as slaves.

It so happened that a little girl named Suu from the Land of Tears and her mother learned that there was work and a safe place to live in The Land of Smiles. This place was a garbage dump in a city called Mae Sot near the river. There they could pitch a plastic sheet to shelter from the rain and sift through trash in the hope of making money from recycling bits of plastic. Hundreds of people from the Land of Tears already lived there even though there were no toilets and the water for washing and drinking was polluted. Often people got sick. The recycler did not pay them much so everyone had to work long into the night, including the children. Many times, people despite their hard work, went hungry. Suu and her mom got by the best they could.

Many people visit the garbage village when they come to the city on the river. They take a lot of pictures as if they are at a zoo. “How can these people--especially the children-- live like this?” they ask with disgust. “Why don’t they go back to their own country?” Suu and her mom and the others in the village are friendly to all of the visitors even though they know that they do not really understand why Suu and the villagers live there.

What the visitors do not realize is that no one wants to live on a garbage dump. But this garbage dump is safer than the Land of Tears. Here they can live mostly without fear. Here they have a community.

But what they do not have is clean water, much food, and medicine. Suu's future does not look promising unless people who are aware of her situation do something effective to help.

pigletsforprogress.org is a grassroots group of progress minded people in Chiang Mai who spoke to the community at the dump to find out what kind of help the people there thought be effective. Raising pigs at the dump for extra income is their idea. 

Please help Suu and her community have a brighter future.

Rough Landing: A Thai Tale

It was July and the wet season in northern Thailand. Today, the rain was falling steadily without breaks. This was a penetrating rain. No wind to speak of. The sound of falling water had begun around midnight.

She watched the water drip from the leaves of the trees that clung closest to the house. The garden surrounding the place where they were dog sitting was alive with flowers and shrubs she had never seen before. They glittered like emeralds in the rain. 

In a corner of the garden was a spirit house. Every building in Chiang Mai had one. These elaborate wooden structures on pedestals were erected to shelter and placate the spirits of the land. They looked a lot like dollhouses. She wondered if the spirits and their houses came alive at night. Fear of the mosquito hordes who feasted after dark prevented her from checking.

The inside of the place where they were staying was just as alive as the garden and perhaps even the spirit house, but much less appealing. At night, the walls were covered with geckos. Another bigger lizard also lived in the house. It let out a loud call whenever it caught a gecko. Rats could be heard scurrying to and fro in the kitchen, leaving mounds of droppings that needed to be cleaned off the table each morning. The window screens were in poor repair, making it difficult to sit for any length of time without getting bitten by mosquitoes and gnats.

Basically a huge, dark, dusty box, the house had little cross ventilation. Stifling by mid-day, it did not cool down until well after dark. They had long given up trying to sleep on the lumpy mattress in the sweltering bedroom on the second floor to which the owner had assigned them. A long tattered couch in the living room where it was slightly cooler was less lumpy. The only comfortable thing in the place was the dog, an affectionate mutt with an expressive face who leapt with joy to greet them whenever they returned from errands.

The house was in a neighborhood north of the city. Unlike the ancient golden templed tourist section where they had stayed on their first visit, there were no expats to speak of here except for the occasional few who could be spotted at a run down hotel several blocks away. The Thais in this part of the city, unfamiliar with tourists, spoke little English. This made getting transportation or ordering food in restaurants for people who did not speak Thai unpredictable and frustrating.

Weedy sidewalks with wobbly tiles dotted with piles of food led down the main road from the house to the superhighway. Who was the food for, she wondered-- the dogs or spirits? Or was it one and the same? The traffic of the superhighway swarmed with trucks, tuk tuks, cars, and song taws unimpeded by crosswalks or traffic lights. Overhead, a thick tangled vine of telephone and TV wires attached to poles lining both sides of the street sprouted frequent loose ends that dangled to the ground. She learned to dodge them and the packs of dogs that roamed freely.

Everything about this said developing world. She had always thought she could live in that world because of her travels in Nepal and Tibet. There she thought she had learned that along with the dogs and wires and traffic came a perspective more grounded in human connection than in material possessions.

Then again, that might simply have been what she wanted to see at the time.

Cats Ride Free: a Tale of Two Benches

Today, just like many days, I am riding in a song taew--a modified pick up truck with two padded plastic covered benches in the bed. Song taew literally means two benches in Thai and riding in one is the most popular form of public transportation in Chiang Mai because it's cheap and convenient. A trip in the city costs 20 Thai Bhat (66 cents USD). There are song taews everywhere so they are easy to hail. (On the other end of the scale, are blue and yellow cars marked "Taxi Meter" that do not actually have meters. "Taxi Meter" rides start at $4.00 USD. The choice is clear.)

Instead of riding in the back, the driver has invited me to sit up front next to him. This is definitely a more comfortable option although neither back nor front are air conditioned and it's 95 degrees out. The photo below is the back where passengers usually ride.

On the dashboard of the song taew are a photo of the driver's glossy black cat, a bottle of some green liquid, and a half eaten banana on which many tiny ants are feasting. There are also a few small statues of the Buddha and a picture of a smiling elderly saffron robed monk the driver says is his teacher. Hanging from the rear view mirror is a garland of pink ribbons, mysterious white flowers, and red roses.

The dashboard altar is a common feature of most song taews and taxis I have taken in Chiang Mai. Only the objects vary. Food offerings are frequent. Some altars have a variety of amulets. Others have small statues of various Buddhist saints. I am grateful for whatever protection these altars provide since the driving here is unpredictable. Traffic lanes are pretty much advisory. A vehicle typically occupies two lanes simultaneously. It's also not uncommon for drivers to make right hand turns at intersections from the far left lane by crossing three lanes of traffic. Interestingly, there is not a lot of horn honking or road rage when this happens. Motor scooters-- in swarms-- wind their way around cars and sometimes decide to go the opposite way the traffic is supposed to go. This all makes for an adventurous ride.  Ganesha, the Thai/Hindu elephant god of luck must be pretty active since I haven't seen a lot of accidents.

The man with cavernous eyes and gaunt cheeks has transported me before and is a relatively safe driver. He looks pretty serious most of the time. Driving for a living in Chiang Mai traffic has taken its toll by the looks of it. But when he occasionally smiles a toothless grin, his face shines like the full moon breaking through clouds on a stormy night.

He speaks little English and I less Thai. But we communicate somehow about his cat and his teacher. He is quite fond of both. Suddenly, the cat appears on the seat. Has she been there all along and I haven't noticed, I wonder? This seems unlikely but before I have time to come up with a better
explanation, she begins to purr so loudly that communication with the driver is no longer possible. Looking out the half open grimy passenger window at a row of vegetable vendors and noodle shops, I spot another black cat.

Just then, the cat on the seat pounces onto my lap and leaps out the window. The driver pays no attention and keeps going as if the cat was just another passenger and had simply reached its destination. I look out the window to see if the cat is OK but it is nowhere to be seen.

Having ridden with this driver before, and on other song taews as well, I relax in the confidence that at least I won't have to jump out the window when we get to my stop.

Or at least, I don't think so.

When It Rains It Pours Abundance

I have taken a break from blogspot since we moved into our new life in Chiang Mai, Thailand. We relocated here at the end of June. Lots of beginnings and firsts and adventures in the short time we have been here. It's my plan to post monthly again starting with this entry. (This blog is based upon a story that was published in the Bangkok Post.)

It's September. The rainiest month in Thailand. Which means it's flood season. Many parts of Thailand are now under water.

Mercifully there are no floods in Chiang Mai. Nor has there been a repeat of the deluge that submerged Bangkok last year. Other places have not been so lucky. A second wall of water hit Sukkothai two days ago just as residents had begun to clean up and to return to their daily lives. The floodwater there was 50 cm high on average.

But for the people in Mae Rahn village, flooding is not all bad news. The seasonal downpour generates opportunities to make more income and to take a break from growing rice.

Most farmers, says local resident Samsak Ponghom, are fully aware that their rice paddies will be inundated by floodwater in September. As a result, they quit farming and catch fish, paddy rats, and snakes for income supplementation and personal consumption. "Pad pet moo na, (spicy stir-fried rat meat), is a popular menu item during the flood season, while the meat of snakes, particularly cobras, yields better prices," Mr. Samsak said. (Note to readers: I do not know how to cook spicy rat as it was not taught at the lessons I took recently at the Chiang Mai Thai School of Cookery.)

Another resident, Payong Khamsai, who raises ducks for a living--4500 to be precise--welcomes the flood because it helps her save money on the cost of transporting her birds to their natural forage grounds. When there aren't floods, she has to hire trucks to take the birds to their favorite places to eat. During the floods, the water acts like a food delivery service so the ducks can eat at home, so to speak.

Payong, like many other residents, thinks the floods aren't that bad

Some, like Mr. Somsak, wish the floods would last longer. Typically, the water subsides after 3 months. "It should be 5 months at least", he says.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

Now for a Limited Time Only in Hong Kong--Pink Dolphins

                                                
                                                        



Copyright: Ken Fung, Hong Kong Dolphinwatch



Copyright: Ken Fung, Hong Kong Dolphinwatch

As you can see from the photos, there are bubblegum pink dolphins on this planet. Some live in the Amazon. Some live in China. The latter are known as Chinese white dolphins, (because they can be white or pink), and they are rare. Only about 2000 are thought to inhabit the South China Sea. Those found in Hong Kong reside only in the western waters around Lantau Island where I also live. And yes, I have seen them.

An ad I came across recently for a popular Lantau dolphin boat cruise could have been written by a side show carny, "Be amazed! These dolphins, found between Hong Kong and Macau, live within a few km of one of the world's busiest shopping centers and most densely populated urban areas."

 But maybe not for long. Back in 2000, the number in Hong Kong was estimated at 213. Chinese white dolphins belong to the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinesis) species. Researcher T. Jefferson optimistically wrote in Wildlife Monographs, "Overall, the population of humpbacked dolphins that occurs in Hong Kong waters appears viable and should be able to survive with appropriate conservation efforts."


On June 6, 2012, The South China Morning Post reported that Hong Kong's pink dolphin numbers have gone down almost continuously during the past decade. There are now only 78.



Are the dolphins leaving because they don't like shopping? According to the Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society (http://www.hkdcs.org/), perhaps indirectly. Lots of shopping means more people who require boat and high speed ferry transport to the stores on the various islands that comprise Hong Kong. This traffic makes so much underwater noise, the dolphins can no longer cope.

The Conservation Society chairman, Dr. Samuel Hung Ka-yiu says, "Dolphins are acoustic creatures that rely on sound to detect their environment, search for food, and communicate." Since dolphin moms and babies maintain contact by communicating through sound, "the babies may wander off and get lost when it's too noisy."



We humans don't hear well underwater. When we submerge our heads, the ocean seems silent because our ears are designed to hear in air and have little sensitivity to the medium of water. Dolphins on the other hand, hear very well underwater. Hearing is their most finely tuned sense.

 Perhaps the following tale helps illustrate. Not long ago, the school where I work as a counselor in Hong Kong had a talent show. During the month prior to the event, students aspiring to perform as heavy metal rockers amped up and played in the music practice rooms directly beneath my office.  The walls are thin in my school, so for weeks, items danced around on my desk and the windows of my office rattled. I could not hear my phone when it rang.

 In order to get away from the sound, sometimes I went someplace quieter--like to the train station across the street. Unfortunately, escaping to the station is not an option for dolphins.

 Like my office, not only are the territorial waters of Hong Kong loud, they are highly contaminated with heavy metal. The difference being that the metal is mercury. Unlike my office, there is also sewage waste discharge. Hong Kong in recent years is said to have dumped 120 million gallons of semi-processed sewage a day into its harbors.

 Having such total disregard for dolphins is odd considering that human beings claim to like them.  Nor is this affection a recent fad. Over the centuries, many friendly and helpful deeds have been ascribed to the creatures.

Stories of dolphins protecting humans from sharks, preventing struggling human swimmers from drowning, and rescuing sailors or ships in trouble, recur often in the folklore of many cultures, including that of the Chinese.

Some of the earliest stories about dolphins appear in Greek mythology. Apollo, for example, was said to have assumed the form of a dolphin when he founded the oracle at Delphi. Along with the Romans, the Greeks considered dolphins to be messengers of the gods. The ancients thought it was a terrible crime to harm a dolphin--one that brought dreadful luck to the human who had committed it.

It wasn't just the ancients who thought this. A more modern and documented tale of Pelorus Jack describes a Risso dolphin who, in the early twentieth century, guided ships through a dangerous stretch of the Cook Strait at the northern tip of the South Island of New Zealand. As soon as ships arrived in the treacherous water, Jack appeared and guided the vessels through. He departed once the ships had made safe passage.

One day in 1904, a drunk passenger on the SS Penguin shot at Jack as the dolphin was guiding it.  Fortunately, Jack was unharmed and fled. Weeks later, he appeared and resumed guiding ships. But Jack refused to guide the Penguin ever again and in 1909, it wrecked in the rocky strait.

So what is to become of us humans--we who kill dolphins on a grand scale, including the amazing bubble gum pink ones? The gods don't like it when their messengers are killed.









Endless Pursuit

"You make anything seem possible," a friend recently said to me. Not really sure what she meant, I took her comment as a compliment because she is a kind person.

As fortune would have it, later that same day, someone told me that anxiety results from the endless pursuit of that which is simply not possible.

Hmmm....at last, the secret to ending my chronic anxiety!  I am endlessly chasing something-- new ideas, experiences, inner peace, a better mouse trap. So the way to get rid of anxiety--or at least to make friends with it-- would be to lose the pursuit of the impossible.

But I am not very good at figuring out what is possible and what is not.

Maybe the key word isn't "possible". It's "pursuit". As in endless, compulsive chasing. Surely it's possible to figure out what that is.

 But the pursuit is ever so addictive. Seductively so.

Fortunately,  it is also exhausting. And I am tired.
The part of me that wants to be kind to myself wants to rest.
Take a nice long nap. But then maybe that's what I have been doing all along--chasing stuff while sleep walking.

And it's time to wake up. What happens then?

Love After Love

My late husband's birthday was May 16, 1952. He died on January 9, 2008.

His death feels like it was decades ago. His death feels like it was yesterday.

Grieving John has been the most difficult thing I have ever done. This includes surviving abusive alcoholic parents and childhood poverty. John was one of the smartest, funniest, and kindest people I have ever known. We were lovers and best friends who travelled the world together.  No topic was ever off the table. We helped each other love and grow.

Our marriage lived 29 years.

Professionally, John was an award winning math teacher. (If you have seen Johnny Depp in The Tourist you sort of know what he looked like.) He was also an author who wrote books full of playful intelligence with titles like Counting On Your Fingers Is Not Immoral and Making Math Matter. His quest was to make math accessible to all students through hand-on activities that mattered to kids.

Although his death certificate says he died on January 9, that isn't actually true. January 9 was the day that I took him off life support, with the encouragement of his doctor. His medical records support that he actually died January 7 on the operating table during a heart valve replacement procedure. Generally, January 7-9 remains a blur and I retreat into a numb fog when that time comes around each year.

It's his birthday that throbs with pain, probably because we made a big deal out of our birthdays and celebrated them for weeks. It's his birthday that shines a spotlight on the big hole left in my life because he is gone.

I have come to believe that good marriages--and especially long good marriages--are like rivers. There are fantastic "in flow" periods when the river surges with strength and power. There are also stretches of calmer, quieter water. And then there are the times when the river gets stuck behind a dam or other obstacle. A good marriage has a lot more flow than dammed up stretches. At least, this was true for John and me. We flowed. Mostly.

Unfortunately, in the months prior to John's death, we were stuck. Neither of us were consciously aware that he was dying. His arteries, unbeknownst to us or his doctor, despite regular and frequent medical maintenance, were rapidly turning into those of an eighty year old with advanced arterial sclerosis. What we did know is that he needed a replacement for a deteriorating congenitally defective aortic heart valve which had inexplicably and quickly gotten much more dysfunctional.

That fall, as John struggled more and more just to move, our marriage did, too. To make matters worse, his educational consulting business collapsed. John had literally put his heart (and soul) into the enterprise. He was devastated.

I wish I could say that my behavior during this time was exemplary. It was not. I was impatient, frustrated, angry and scared. At my insistence, we went out to dinner on what was to be our last New Year's Eve together. At the table, I suddenly had the urge to ask for his forgiveness for my failings as a partner. What I got was uncharacteristic and cool silence. Seven days later, John died.

For the first five months after he passed, I rattled around alone in our rural Wisconsin house, which now felt like a tomb, trying to figure out how to live a life designed for two. Expending major amounts of my limited energy, I tried to maintain a high needs house with a large yard, and a job for which I had long lost passion. Although supportive friends kept me afloat during the darkest and most turbulent grief, many of John's and my social circle had already drifted away.

A big theme of our married life had been stability and security, with travel adventures and lots of other play time tucked in--especially during summer. Now summer was approaching. But there was no John. I could feel myself dying of a broken heart.

It was around John's birthday in 2008 that I sat myself down and willed to live. But I did not want to live the old life designed for two. A new life was needed, one designed by me for me. As a school counselor, I had created a lot of successful interventions for students who were struggling emotionally. I insisted that I owed myself the benefit of my own expertise.

The intervention wasn't nearly as rational as the word implies. But it involved actions that revolved around the one thing I still wanted to do before leaving earth. This was to live and work abroad, a desire I had had since I was a little girl and from which I had detoured repeatedly.

To say I made a series of life changes is putting it mildly.  And doing so broke the "rule" psychologists suggest for the bereaved which is not to make major changes during the year following a loved one's death. All I can say is that I was viscerally aware that my time was limited.

The long and the short of it is that I now live and work in Hong Kong and have done so since October 2010. I also earned a long yearned for master of public health degree and revisited beloved Nepal.

I have begun to love the stranger who was myself. Derek Walton's poem, Love After Love, expresses it best:

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.