H. Hsu Word Salad

The running phase of my adult life was jump-started at a Run to the Far Side post-Thanksgiving 5K run years ago. It consisted of my office spouse dragging my sorry, stuffy, creaky self along a course of merrimakers dressed as cows, cavemen, and fish. That was my first run race of any kind, a novelty that sounded like a good idea given the usual Thanksgiving pork out. Gasping at the end, I realized that sometime after the endorphins kick in, all this suffering is really fun. Being in the midst of a healthy and chipper crowd that cheers everyone on, was fabulous.

Since then, some kind of Turkey Trot has become a staple of our holiday. When I lived in Cupertino, W & I could enjoy Wildcat Canyon Hikes on Thanksgiving morning, but alas, that is a commute away now. Last year we joined the Silicon Valley Turkey trot, which actually takes place on Thanksgiving Day. P came along as moral support, grumbling about what kind of fool would wake up extra early on a holiday to go run. We were all astounded by the size of the crowd- literally thousands of people. They sold out of race slots, ran out of T-shirts. They also held a wonderful canned food drive for the less fortunate.

Yesterday, P & I met up with friends of Team Calamba for a tiny, local turkey trot. We decided on this 5K because it’s a distance P is comfortable with there’s no need to drive to San Jose or San Francisco like the other 2 runs we considered.
Team Calamba (as I have dubbed them) consists of my former colleague, her spouse (my triathlon training buddy), and their two remarkably sociable and beautiful little athletes in training. Daddy C ran the 5K pushing both boys in a jog chariot (and STILL left us in his dust). Granddaddy C, by the way, ran the San Jose half-marathon with us just last month- so clearly these boys have some seriously kickin’ run genes in them!
The run was lovely, taking place in this freakishly sunny November, through grass and misty trees, onto Chavez middle school track, back through grass, up a rocky scramble, onto the creek trail where we oft bike, back down the trail and through the park, finally to the finish chute marked by sloppily arranged orange tape (so that half the runners, admittedly including myself, almost ran past, rather than into, the chute. Until screaming teenaged recreation staff hollered us into averting course to the proper timing area.)
We milled about post-race, congratulating ourselves on getting up and exercising early on a Sunday. Played around with the Team Calamba cuties, marveled at the way each hot-bodied athlete was visibly steaming as warm body met brisk, cold air.
This small race had no advertising outside of the city, and the turn out was fairly small, comprised primarily of Logan High School track team teens built like gazelles. Us slow folks with double their body mass contented ourselves with “participant” ribbons.
We ate Cliff bars and chattered away until the prizes and announcements were being blared through megaphone. Suddenly one of friends was asked to go get a medal. Her response: ” Are you SERIOUS?!” For after all, she had literally walked the 5K.
Suddenly, we realized that there was only a handful in our (old) age cohort of women at this race. Haha we said. We might actually win something. Next thing you know, I am being given a silver medal for 2nd place in my (OLD) age group. Then, they announce that “P…last name unpronounceable wins 1st place for women aged 30-39, is P here?”

“Uh, yes I’m here- but I’m NOT a woman!”
oops! the registration girl is very embarassed and apologizes.
I am asked to return because now I am the default 1st place winner! We are all on a delirious laughing jag, and suddenly a young man hands me a huge parcel in a plastic Safeway bag. Apparently my prize is a 14 lb. frozen turkey!! Heck, we had no idea there were gonna be any prizes for this run. Normally the local runs only feature donated coffee from Paddy’s and boxes of Krispy Kreme.

Mom had already ordered a Honeybaked Ham for Thanksgiving, and I was pondering buying a roast duck. Was not sure if I felt up to taking on a whole turkey yet again this year-but alas, I ran my way into owning a turkey. Thus, the dinner table this year will again feature H’s herb/oil/wine infused turkey.
Be Thankful y’all. I surely am.

The sign reads “Happy Moderna” In cheerful, nonsensical Chinglish.  What on earth is a happy moderna you ask? Well, it’s one of many hidden gems in O-town China-town.  For almost a decade now I have patronized Happy Moderna’s owner and resident hair whiz and hair instructor Phillip.  He ws the first human to ever find a peaceful resolution to my hedge of thick and stubborn hair-healthy as can be, but utterly immune to any attempt at actual stylishness.  A carefully layered cut that grows out gracefully into a different beautiful cut, and a color treatment runs about $65 bucks.  I’ve paid more than $200 for the same elsewhere, and still no one is as good as Phillip.

Sitting in that chair is like an anthropological outing.  I put up with bad karoake tapes in 3 languages (Phillip speaks 4), crummy towels, surly assistants, plastic shields that look like they were cut from the blue plastic which wraps my morning paper, and such a haphazard amalglam of certificates, family photos, hair models, and misspelled signs that I can barely contain myself from straightening the place up and dusting.  People holler at one another and blithely smoke cigarettes (despite the signs) in the halls, and I’d rather my bladder burst than to take the key and venture behind the gated door to the dungeonesque shared loo ever again.  Phillip also has an annoying habit of flirting with my mum (does wonders with her hair too) and excessively hugging me.  Upstairs in a dark and muggy room with a teeny square window someone uncertified performs Chinese massage.

Periodically I pilgrimage there. And sit in a chair with chemicals on my head and ponder how I have come to be in this ghetto salon with poison on my head all for the sake of my accursed vanity.  While waiting for the color to process, Phillip often wanders off to place calls which sound suspiciously as if they are to some kind of bookie. 

An almost magically incongrous moment occurred last time, when amidst the shuffle of cheap plastic slippers and hollering Cantonese, I noticed something in the hallway.  Beside the plastic chairs, was a long silhoette covered in velvet.  The esthetician who does facials scuttled out of her wooden cube to practice the Ghu zheng, Chinese zither in her off time.  The notes fell like water, swirled around and through the mess.  Such an elegant instrument, it brings to mind images of graceful hands, harplike gestures.  Dim memories of my mother’s Ghu Zheng back in Taiwan.

I also bore witness during this last visit to two different men trying to pawn off diamond jewelry to Happy Moderna staff and/or any random passerby.  The staff shook their heads.  “No,” and “I have no money.”  In Chinese and Vietnamese they further commented, “I bet it’s fake.” or “I bet it’s stolen.”

Phillip ignored it all, kept his hands and eyes fixated on layering the 2 shining wings of hair on opposite sides exactly evenly and smoothly. 

A big sigh,  “No one has any money now, they’re all trying to pawn things, each home is liquidating things.”  I thought about these men carrying the cheerful desperation of urgent sales.  If I saw 2 in less than 2 hours, how many others are there?  I suddenly realized that there were no other customers waiting on Phillip.  During boom days, he’d have 3 in chairs and be doing all three in different stages.  In previous years other women had grumbled and complained about him spending too much time on me.

I tipped well.  It still cost less than half of what I would have paid in Palo Alto or Fremont.  I hope the money doesn’t go to a bookie or illegal mahjong house…

The whole machismo thing doesn’t much interest me.  It’s a rare fellow who can hold his own with an intellectual equal or superior, and that is the one I have spent life seeking.  Alas, like anyone, I’ve an intellectual weak point when it comes to distracting factors such as an al dente posterior, good bone structure, just the right timbre in voice.  Excellent taste in food & books has certainly has fooled me into thinking I’ve found a lifelong companion before…And thus I’ve wasted plenty of energy whittling down the playing field. 

P and I met 10 years ago now, which still sort of amazes and puzzles me simultaneously.  Yet a ground rule of all relationships, whether they be with your parents, friends, siblings, or partner is this: never assume you know everything there is to know.  People change.  And they are infinitely complex (even if they themselves have yet to discover this).  If you are bored with them, you must be kinda boring yourself.   

P simply quotes from the Titanic movie “A woman’s heart is as deep as the ocean.”

All these years I have clearly resided on the more politically lefty spectrum than P has.  When I hit the streets of SF in anti-war protests years ago, he warned against going.  Whereas my annual pilgrimage to Green Festival is a commune with like minded folks (and a gleeful wallow in organic yummies), he checked it out and was sort of, “eh.OK” about it. 

After I ran off to New Orleans post-Katrina, poorly prepared and ready for risk, P told me that had he known about the dangers, he would have tried to stop me from going.  My next venture is a conference in Cuba.  I’ve asked him to consider joining me there.  Indeed the Unites States does happen to have a 40 year old embargo banning such sojourns…but one might circumvent such things via Canada or Mexico.

To which he replies simply: “Big Brother is watching.”  Such a law -abiding man. It is mildly admirable, but oft maddening.

A few weeks ago, in a healthy post-hike glow, we dined at Hobee’s in Cupertino.  I was aghast to see huge homemade signs in English & Chinese “Yes on Prop. 8″ - “one man, one woman” A steady stream of Asian americans tromped through the parking lot with these signs as I grew increasingly incensed.  The last time I checked, hate mongering and discrimination were not Christian values.  The fact that these were so prominently Asians also emabrassed me. ”I hope no one associates me with those people promoting discrimination.”

The longer the debate raged, the more angry I became.  Just a few decades ago people of different races were banned from marriage. The naysayers predicted society as we know it would crumble if we allowed such “unnatural unions”.  Yet here we were again. 

This issue is not an abstraction for me, some of the kindest, wisest, people I have ever known, friends I have loved who have taken me into their homes, or been guests in mine, are gay Americans.  I volunteer time at a community mental health center for the LGBT community.  P’s brother meanwhile, sported a big Yes on 8 sign on his front lawn.  And P admits to the legacy of his rather traditional upbringing, about the visceral discomfort that comes up around other men, for example when people have to touch one another in yoga class to assist in supporting poses.

Last weekend, we drove through Cupertino yet again to pick up a friend.  Packs of Yes on 8 demonstrators, almost entirely Chinese Christians, stood at the intersections waving signs.  A forlorn young pair of teens stood beside them with a sign reading “Prop. 8 takes away my rights.”

Suddenly, an angry and authoratative “NO!!” roared out beside me.  What the-  P was hollering at the Yes protesters.  Then we grumbled and half seriously plotted driving back around so he could yell at them some more (but were late to pick up our visitor from Taiwan who would likely not appreciate spending her time here like so…) Admittedly, hollering at people is also not terribly affective and winning hearts and minds so to speak.

The next day, I thought about that “NO.” Which stunned me at the time with its outburst of vehemence.

About how deeply he too has grown to care about the rights of others who may not on the surface have anything to do with us.  About the somewhat scary authoritative command in his voice that day, a tone that never presents itself in our home.  And you know, it was really manly.  And kinda sexy.