H. Hsu Word Salad

"A book is not only a friend, it makes friends for you. When you have possessed a book with mind and spirit, you are enriched. But when you pass it on you are enriched threefold."
     -Henry Miller

A previous blog raved about the book swapping us bibliphilic geeks can engage in.  One problem with that system: the books I want to send on their way tend to languish on the ever-tighter book shelf whilst I wait for someone to request them.  One of my absolute favorite coffee-shop/hostel kinda things when traveling the world are the free book swaps that pop up everywhere from the dusty beach town in Nicaragua to the Chancellor Hotel of San Francisco, to even the occasional slightly-less corporate Starbucks in podunk.  As one can imagine, I am one of those throwbacks who still love to send and receive postcards via post, not electronica.  Part of the romantic appeal is that this memento had to travel through many hands in foreign lands before nesting with me. Each book is a special piece of heart and life, it represents a sliver of my world in a certain time of life, even as it brings its own segment of dimension into consciousness.

A dear friend and I once had entire days’ worth of laughs over the curious discovery of a number of hot pink painted plaster cherubs. Really.  There we were, strolling about UCLA, and we noticed the random pink sculpture on a bland concrete rail. All morn we "angel hunted", spying one at the flagpole, another at that phone booth…we only took 2 home (after looking about to see if it was Ok).  Later learned it was all part of an artistic endeavor to place these gaudily painted angels all over L.A. ( a city direly in need of some spontanious mirth) to spread…something. I can only speak for us in that it spread some fun and injected that element of discovery and a shared experience.  Isn’t that what art is about? Not mere aesthetics, but actual experience and  emotion?

I’ve oft thought about the mysterious books I have picked up, passed on, donated forward.  I wonder about their new readers, whether they were moved by the same moment, laughed at the same places, dreamt about the faraway place now lingering in our imaginations.  And I often wished I could track them down…

Lo, while scouting online for a bookish sweater (a tedious mission to secure a certain not-all-too cute J. Crew cardigan that is horrifically overpriced, yet which I must procure for no other reason than that it is trimmed with book designs.) the sweater mission became sidtracked by Book Crossing!!

Hurrah, some kind bibliophiles across the entire world with far superior technical skills have already set up the foundations for worldwide book exchanges and tracking!  Imagine, individuals in 120 other countries have similarly ambivalent love, posession, yet sharing compulsions about their tomes. And now, there’s a home base.  Google Book crossings and set some of those precious words free upon the world… 

01/10/08 Bangkok,Thailand

About 85% of the entire population has been clad in black and white for the last week or so in a show of mourning solidarity to acknowledge the death of the King’s sister. I admire their cohesiveness and the show of respect.

Bangkok is odd that way…every business or home of any note displays gold framed photos of the royal family, and probably a small Buddha too. Even liquor stores or other rather questionable industries. K is not well and needs to spit into a bush…which happens to be at the gates of the British Embassy. Our friend has just moved his architectural office into a shiny, artfully empty mall where each boutique gleams, and the prices are such that if you need to ask, you can’t afford it. He treats us to Isan style lunch at Rice Café, decorated by a Thai pop artist (pop styling, not pop music). We ooh and ahh at his custom-home work profiled in a magazine.

Sakul Intakul has a storefront upstairs. K & I just read about this engineer turned floral designer in Bangkok Airways magazine. His curving flower vessels are lovely, but $195 USD!? We opt to buy the ceramic, more affordable versions of the designs.

At Siam center we purchase Thai cookbooks, spend time chatting up the pharmacist at Boots (What in hell can you do for K’s tummy? Wow, you sell Cipro and Neurontin over the counter?), and shop for Ferrari, Lotus, Porsche on the 2^nd floor (how DO they get the cars up here?).  Yet another friend treats us to an amazing dinner, papaya salad and crab is the famous dish here, a place feted by one of the Thai Princesses.

01/11/08 from

Taipei airport in

Taiwan, to home in

California

K is still sick. P is fending off sickliness. I have prickly heat, am bug-bitten, and am developing my signature elbow-rash from sleep deprivation. Our supplies of clean laundry are dwindling. Guess it’s time to go home. 

I’ve got four currencies in my wallet, the airport only accepts 2 of those. At
Taipei airport we eat green tea Russian ice cream, steamer baskets of tiny meat and vegetable dumplings, and a giant bowl of miso and pork noodles. There is free internet access, museum displays, and free massage chairs amidst potted plants.  There is an entire Hello Kitty playground, playroom, waiting area, and nursery room (and gift shop). 

We buy treats for those at home, pineapple shortbread, oolong tea cookies, taro cake. P samples all of these gleefully. Our burdensome long layover feels like a day hanging out at the mall, except better. Mom shows up bearing wax (AKA rose) apples as if she read my mind.

The three of us decidedly conk out for most of the plane trip. Mom’s friend Frog Prince picks us up in his van, and lo – suddenly we are home again.

I want a pizza, and 45 minutes later, it arrives steaming at our front door. Life is good. Surely I must have been an o.k. person in a past life to deserve this…
It’s almost 11 p.m. We have officially outlasted stage 1 jetlag.

01/07/08 Siem Riep,Cambodia

There is hot water at the hotel buffet. The ability to make my own Taiwan green tea & organic oatmeal makes my day. Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, and Germans line up at the buffet for omelets, noodle soups, porridge, and muesli. A beautific boy plays music in the lobby. We spend the day visiting UNESCO sites, the ancient ruins of
Angkor, beginning with the pink stone Bantey Srei, the Citadel of women. Pink lotuses bloom in the moat.

Ta Prohm temple is the landscape of my dreams, banyans and figs oozing over the walls and reclaiming the 12^th century temple into nature. Atop an ancient temple we meet a bright lad selling postcards and carved flutes. He is whipsmart and smiling. “California? Sacramento is your capitol. The President of the United States is George W. Bush. You have 300 million people. Cambodia has 24 million people.” A band of musicians with prosthetic limbs plays haunting, lovely tunes.  These are the landmine victims’ bands.

Ordered fried frog for lunch but are told apologetically, “sorry, no raining, no frog. Not in season.” A woman sells me a t-shirt with a land mine warning on it for one dollar. We cruise to Ankor Thom where gods and demons wrestle eternally at the sides of the great gate. Climb steep stone steps up towers and temples. Past the elephant terrace. Awestruck by the great serene stone faces of Bayon. I leave money under a stone and burn incense in front of a stone buddha, missing those who passed from this world last year.  An atheist’s existence is a lonely one at times.  My cousin tells me he believes his father is in a better place, watching us.  The smoke curls off the incense I wish it sends my love to wherever that place is. 

Sunset is spent sitting at Angkor Wat. The scope of this place is so immense, yet every detail so finely crafted…I can only imagine how breath taking it was thousands of years ago. Gorgeous Apsaras dancing, dramas and war and daily life, beasts and societies all carved into the endless walls.  A sun browned elderly woman collects plastic recycling. A chubby white tourist with big jewelry slips her money. 

Every meal in this country has been included with our tour and consists of: stir fried vegetables, rice, a tom yum style soup, spring rolls or tod mun appetizers, and amok.  It is curious that our guide feeds us the same meal constantly, but we are hungry and appreciative each time. We’ve tromped up and down ruins from 8:30 a.m. until sundown. We’re head to toe clad in red dust, and toasted by blazing hot sun. We decide to try massage in Cambodia. At the hotel, we shower and book our $15 an hour massage.

I ask P if he wants to try the “4 hand massage”, two masseuses working on you at once, for a mere $25 USD an hour. He declines. The tiny woman cracks my aching back thoroughly, and they chatter in Cambodian while they work…it sounds so familiar to me after all those years at ACMHS, but I still don’t understand.  They teach us to say "Thank you" in Khmer, and I spend all the next day thanking everyone. "Au Gun"

01/09/08 Patthaya,Thailand

We gave up on the idea of a Coral Island Outing. Sweetheart K has been flattened by a mysterious gastrointestinal foe, and P & I are exhausted.  After 3 days of dust and sun, and picking carefully at meals in

Cambodia, the plates of Thai rice noodles and my club sandwich on rye is like heaven on earth. (so is the Perrier).  We arrived last night to the serene Woodlands resort.  Were dismayed by the 24 hour booze joints that lined the streets across from us, and by the preponderance of 300 lb. white tourists with suspiciously young local women on their arms and barstools. 

Curiously, at the beach we find that we are the sole non-Asian bipeds (other than locals) on the entire shore.  Over here, enormous German bellies spill over Speedos, over yon, strong brown women provide Thai massage and pedicures, and vendors with buckets balanced on lean backs sell everything from bikinis to grilled shrimp.   It’s beautiful here, and I sunbathe on a seaside rock while P calls friends.  But if U look closely, there are dead fish and plastic bags in this water. No one is caring for the famous beach.  The flotsam grossed me out, and we flee back to the resort where I have the last swim I will enjoy until winter ends back home.

We spend the evening at "The Tiffany Show" - Patthaya’s 30+ year transvestite show. The "girls" were simply gorgeous- sparkling, undulating, winsome, charming.  Performances covered themes ranging from Bollywood to Korea to Tina Turner. What more can U ask for? Why, wait…there’s more! At the glittering Tiffany theatre-one can pose with the lovelies by the fountain! Be delivered to and from the show in a star spangled cross-dresser van! And, (this is the clincher) blow shit up at the Tiffany shooting range where gunshots crack out through the big doors with the rifle motif.  Had fun. But suffice to say, Patthaya is not my style. It was very…
Cancun meets Bankgok. In drag.

01/3/08 Taipei,Taiwan

K arrived last night and slept on an aerobed in the study. Kicked off the morning with hot sweet soymilk, egg crepes, fried Chinese doughnut.

We’re witness to history being re-written, as the Chiang Kai Shek memorial hall has been re-named the Freedom Democracy Hall. Inside the photos of President* A’bien show him with an arm out in am alarming fuhrer-esque “heil” pose. This beautiful, sprawling park with manicured gardens, the opera theatre, white cement pagodas and bright blue tiled roofs is now a cultural battleground in a politically motivated war. I burn inside with fear and anger that history is being twisted, that this memorial I have loved all my life is being used as a tool for propaganda. CKS was no angel, but nor is he what they now demonize him to be. And those of us who have all benefited from the fortunes of modern day Taiwan ought to think twice before bashing our forefathers.

At the Sun Yat Sen Memorial, we view the Russian book donated to the museum by my cousin proudly on display, and catch the changing of the guards (which would be even more impressive if those guys weighed more). Dad takes us for Ilan influenced
Taiwan lunch, and dark chocolate gelato at the former “awfully chocolate”, now known as “Black as Chocolate.” We meet the owner of Shing Hwa tea as he roasts leaves in giant steel machines, and his son prepares an old fashioned tea tasting. We buy some ‘Iron Kuan Yin goddess” and “Oriental beauty”. Dad takes us to Han shen book publishing, where they have opened tea museum, also selling books and organic clothing. We pass the mall we’ve all dubbed “death star” for its 18 floors of dark, round steel. I expect Darth Vader to fly out at any minute.

K shops for Chinese gowns in preparation for her wedding, P shops for satiny Chinese outfits for our nieces. At the famous “73 flavors” ice cream, where K orders fluffy pork, P tops that with Pigs foot, and I go for 58% alcohol Keelung Kao Liang liquor. P makes faces continuously as we bravely try to eat these, and Dad orders a sweet lychee one as our chaser. “Helen doesn’t leave Taiwan without having almond jell-o”, Dad informs them. Thus we seek out yet another dessert stop, it’s fresh, perfect opaque and creamy white wiggle topped with pure white almond milk. That stuff called almond jello-o in the U.S. is a joke!

We metro to Taipei 101, and pay our tourist fees to journey to the 89^th floor and walk 360 degrees around and view Taipei’s nightscape. There is a museum, and I ask P to do the math for me “too many zeros for me to sort out.” He informs me that the golden gilded flower costs about as much as remains on our mortgage payments! I came home and my laundry has been washed, boots repaired, and pants altered. Plastic bags were banned here years ago, and now everyone recycles and composts. ‘Efficient” is how P describes his Taipei experiences. Picking up mom we head to the night market for yet more food, and shopping. Thus concluded K’s one day tour of Taipei.

01/06/08 Tonle Sap Floating Village,Cambodia. 

We’re on a giant canoe with a makeshift motor engine crammed onto the rear, and a homemade gears steering system being captained by a barefoot boy who looks about 12. His dark limbs stick out of the oversized T-shirt with Chinese characters on it that surely was gifted from a tourist. 

In the Lonely planet book I had read about a “floating village”, and imagined a quiet, green oasis. In reality the riverbanks are stripped of vegetation, and the village is more grim than contented.  Plastic bags and litter are scattered everywhere.  Most of these children have no shoes, some are entirely naked. Not that ingenuity is absent. One home has set up a floating pigpen where 2 hogs serenely reside. Men play cards and smoke cigarettes, while dark-eyed children and their mothers paddle around trying to sell bananas, bead bracelets, or flat out begging.

The two winners at today’s survival game are the toddlers who draped large, live snakes around their necks, which attracts the flabbergasted attention of tourists.  They respond to the camera lens with an instant flash of the "V for victory" sign so popular amongst Japanese or other FObby tourists.  We give each child a 1000 riehl bill. They take it, and clasp their hands together in a prayer position to thank us.  This beautiful multi-colored bill only equals 25 cents at home.
P looks for a place to throw away an empty box of mediocre airplane food; kids suddenly crowd around begging for it, mouthing "yummy, yummy??" over and over. 
My heart has bottomed out so fast my head has emptied. My actions seem frozen. 

Later that week, I will kick myself. Why didn’t I give out all the granola bars back in the tour van? Why didn’t I just hand out more 1000 riehl bills? For God’s sake why didn’t I just give them the over priced clothes off my overfed, perfumed, pampered, back??

Later that day I spot a fruit seller. She’s also selling roast crickets and beetles. I make P ask our guide to ask her the price.  It’s 3000 riehl for a cup of toasted and seasoned crickets. ‘I don’t WANT a cup, but I want one.” P, K and I each take one “down the hatch” K says, We pay 1000 riehl for our crickets.  They’re pretty good actually, except for the pokey exoskeleton on my lip. "Want to try cockroach?" asks the guide.  We drew the line at that.