China flashback #2

I don't know much about what was going on. I know I was headed south and they encouraged me to wait for the bus with them. I know I had to pose with them in various photographs. I know that when I came out of the supermarket with my breakfast we witnessed a small car accident. I remember the kid with the cigarette disappeared for a time and then returned with a taxi van. I'm sure it wasn't long after we loaded into the vehicle that our driver was confronted by an officer of the law, and at that point he drove us all over to the police station. We never saw that driver again. I'm certain these kids dictated some kind of statement while I wondered back and forth from the taxi and the office where all this was taking place several times over a period of a long time. I recall getting into the front passenger seat a policeman's car and being driven down to the dock along the Mekong River. At one point I asked if we were going to a particular city and got shushed by the youngsters. As soon as the officer had driven away from the dock we all hurried into another taxi and left the river with the speed of thieves. I know we were pretty uncomfortable packed in this new taxi and the fighting cock was taking up more space than that one woman would have liked. We definitely sang along to "Yesterday Once More" three and half times. And the taxi sure didn't take us all the way to where I wanted to go.

When I left for Asia many of my family and friends inquired as to my intentions with the women of Asia. Are you going to bring back a wife? they would ask.

As I'm preparing to leave Thailand for the States I am surprised to find I'm often asked, mostly by middle aged Thai women, whether or not I'll be taking my Thai girlfriend home with me.

I suppose I could.

china flashback #1

muslim chinese food (featured on the green board in the upper lefthand corner) could be the best in all of china. so there i was looking forward to eating some when this yung fellow whips out his phone - a phone twinkling with more blinking lights than even LAX probably - selects a song, turns the volume up to "ridiculously loud and distorted," takes a drag on his cigarette, and then bursts forth in what i understood to be completely sincere, heartfelt song. i thought he might be crying. no one else in the restaurant seemed to notice or care.

body hair pt. II

My trip from Vang Vieng down to Vientiane took place in the back of a crowed truck, but two men up near the cab weren't being crowded. I'm not sure why, but a young lady sitting next to them was really pushing the lady sitting between us hard up against me and I was trying to subtly push back because to the other side of me was a fellow with no legs and I figured he'd probably had enough of being crowed to last a handful of lifetimes. The lady getting sandwiched eventually ended up preferring the bed of the truck, where she sat hunched over a barf bag, and within seconds the younger lady who was doing all the pushing ended up scooting right up next to me making the gap between her and the men even more painfully obvious.

I don't really know what to say except that when the young lady got off at her stop I ended up next to the men, who both took turns touching my arm and leg hair.

cursed be the man who introduced plastic to asia

Feathers in the cap

I like to imagine that the long good luck hairs sprouting from some men's moles are the feathers of a tranquillizer dart, or maybe the tail feathers of a very small rooster pheasant nestled just below the skin.

Laotian mud flap

In a part of the world where women's fashion gets high marks only if it features Micky, Mini, Pooh Bear, or a Playboy logo one would expect the mud flap fashion to consist of Taz, Yosemite Sam and the female silhouette. Truth is you won't find any of that, but you'll find plenty of mud flaps featuring Al Pacino as Frank Serpico. The top of the flap reads "SERPICO" while the bottom reads "HERO." I'd like to know if these same mud flaps were popular in the US back in mid-'70s and have since been shipped over Asia-way.