Dear Lychee, For a long time, I did not want to write this part of the book to you, lest you get in trouble on account of me. However, I knew I could write to none other; besides, people all over the world know that you are my earthly muse. So, I will write this to you. In the "Poetics", Aristotle said a work should open "in the middle of things" (in media res). Well, this is true here for I did not want to write anything about this experience for a long time. I was afraid someone would take away the manuscript from me.

It is now the end of winter holiday. The first term is over and gone, and with it, the pungent aroma of fresh experience. Ah well, let it be.

Fourteen years ago, I worked at the "Central Min-zu University” (Zhong Yang, Min Zu Da Xue) in Beijing for two years. This school specialized in educating bright students from China's ethnic minority groups. One of my key students from that time became a teacher at Tibet University (Xi Zang Da Xue). She very kindly arranged for me to teach English at her school. This was no small achievement -- it was a real coup. It has been very hard for outsiders to work in Tibet. I was told I would be living under constraint, with periods of not being able to leave the campus (sometimes) or the city of Lhasa (always); I said to her, "no problem! I went to an English boarding school. This will be easy." So, I came to the city by air sometime in late - August, 2016.

My first impression, while settling in, was of the ring- necked doves. They were 1- 1⁄2 times larger than their European cousins, and they were aggressive to each other. The campus harkened to the Den Xiao Ping era - the paving stones, the shrubbery, the buildings, the feel of the place. There were semi-tropical bushes in the garden surprised me. I looked at the hand-chiseled paving stones (so very 1980's) to see if there were any chip marks from shovels: there were none. That meant there would be none of the miserable snow removal, the bane of every campus in Xin Jiang. In time, I saw hoopoes on the lawns, and even a family of shrieking green parrots flying here and there. So, what sort of place was Lhasa? I decided to see for myself, and go everywhere allowed to me, by walking and by city bus.

First however, I should deal with the "work" aspects of my life at Tibet University. There are two campuses - old, and new. I lived on the campus, which suited me fine, for the new campus was huge, soul-less, almost Babylonian in its power or architecture and worst of all, far from the downtown area in the shopping. There were seven foreign teachers on campus. Maybe T.U. wanted the prestige of so many "foreign experts" on its staff. There were also many foreign students learning Tibetan on the new campus; as always, they lived in their own universe, and I very rarely saw them (which suited me fine). The students were Tibetans (in mixed classes, or all Tibetan classes), or else from other parts of China. For the latter, they were told (after doing badly in their college- entry exams), "you can have a second chance and study at T.U., or you can get a job." Most young people from the inner provinces would never have chosen to come to Lhasa, but they came. These student demographics were important to me. First, I noticed that most contacts I made with the Tibetan students (or local Tibetans) were short-lived: they faded away. Therefore, I assumed this was "arranged", so I took my attention elsewhere in my life. Second, I noticed that many of my non-Tibetan students were quite

clever; they were not "dregs" students. They should have entered good schools in "inner China", but on their exam day, they did badly. It was out of this group that I cherry- picked my elite students, and got down to grooming them, in terms of English.

For some reason, "co-teaching" is popular at T.U. (Some teachers call it "co- cheating".) For me, it was a scam. I was the "golden parrot". However, by now (this was my 16th year), I did not care: I channeled my energy into the evening "free talks", my élite group of students, and my own personal projects. In reality, it was not "co-teaching”, but partitioning the textbook into "the local teacher's part", and "my part". As long as "face" continues to be the main variable in Chinese life, education will remain an illusion. Period. Fortunately, I learned this a long time ago, and thus made my teaching a shell, a front, for the cottage industry of my own ideas, projects, and hobbies. Over the years, my output has been varied and productive. The holidays, of course, were for travel.

As in Beijing, I had virtually no contact with the other foreigners at T.U. I was not one of them, and I was shut out, almost completely. I was not surprised, but I took note of the social dynamics peculiar to Lhasa. It makes sense. Tibet is a very "special "place - culturally, politically, and religiously; it therefore attracts the most "intentional", and the most élitist types of foreigners. I never had a chance - not that I wanted one. So, to all intents and purposes, I existed alone on this campus. This made me realize why I spent so many years at Zhí Dà (where I met you, Lychee) - it was a place where most foreigners would not deign to work in. In other words, I had Zhí Dà all to myself. At T.U., I had life "all to myself", by virtue of de facto exclusion. Such is life.

Lhasa is very much a walking city - if one takes a bus to a certain area, then explores it on foot. Since the school said, "Do not leave the city", I made the city my microcosm for the year. I bought a map, left it on a table in full view, and slowly and systematically worked my way everywhere the other areas in the late summer; the middle areas in the autumn; some of the inner areas in the winter and the second term. The school campus I left unexplored, for I was told I would be "confined to campus" in March, 2017 (due to fear of riots). Whenever I found an interesting restaurant, or shop, or park, I would place a small "X" on the map. By the end of the first term, there were many marks on the map. I left this map on my table, to let the school know what I was up to, but they never made any objection-which was fine by me. In fact, the leaders were very nice to me, always! Besides, by the end of October, I had been to all of the "questionable" places I wanted to see, keeping the safe and boring areas in the tourist zone to the last moment. I have now walked or bussed every main street in Lhasa. Really, it is not very different from any other big Chinese city - the castration of exceptionality is mostly complete. Period. Before the cold winter set in, I had done my major walking, and identified the "areas-of-interest" (to me), and slated them for another visit in the spring of 2017, if possible.

Lychee, I should talk about the local weather. Lhasa is quite high in terms of elevation (3,000+ metres). One can get "altitude sickness". However, if one gets pneumonia, then the chances of dying are very, very real. So, I took some extreme precautions, such as staying inside whenever the sky was overcast. The sun was very strong on account of the high altitude. I often wore a hat. In winter, there was a "window of time" (between 10 am and 3 pm), when the direct sunlight would be strong enough to keep one's body warm. However, in the shade, how cold it was! Outside of the "window of time", it was not good to go outside for a walk.

Then there were the dogs. Most of the settled areas in the Himalayas have a dog problem, and so does Lhasa. At night, in the villages, in the hills, on certain lonely streets, it is really dangerous to go out. In my case, on account of my weak lungs, I stay inside, except during the "window of time". If I was younger, I would go crazy; at 54, I am quite happy to be inside, reading or having a "free-talk". I save my wild activities for the holidays. No one seems to want to solve the dog problem. As for me, I would ask some of the 100,000 Chinese soldiers in town to sweep the streets once a month, and shoot all the dogs. No dogs, no problem! ,

After a few weeks getting use to Lhasa, I started to establish local business contacts (for my daily needs), as I had on Xing Fu Road, in Urumqi. First, as always, was the local copy- shop. This one was right outside the main gate of T.U. in addition to copying any teaching materials, they helped me make up my language learning materials, many times. I have been very lucky with copy shop bosses over the years. They were all willing to listen to my "out-of-box" ideas, and come up with solutions. It is becoming harder and harder these days to find people like this. Second, were the local restaurants. One was the usual Sichuan-style family restaurant (it reminded me of the Sheng Hua, on Xing Fu Road); one was the "Lhasa Kitchen" a Lonely Planet - style watering hole that catered to the tourist; one was "Tashi 1", which I remembered from 1997; one was "Mama Pentoc's Kitchen", and she remembered me from 1997; and various others. As the cold weather took hold of city life and my lungs ---I moved to the teacher's canteen on campus. Third, were the stationery stores. I have an ongoing appetite for stationery, to manufacture my custom- made language-study materials. This is especially true of Burmese, Hindi, and Tibetan, which demand the large space of A3 paper (and not A4). I sent home many heavy parcels- of stationery, finished product, and clothes. Fourth, were the grocery stores the local "Bai Yi" chain from common things, and the main "Bai Yi" store for harder to find things. Every expat has a food- craving. From inside Lhasa, I found cheese slices, soy-milk powder, bananas, and "brown" bread. From outside, it was Burmese tea-mix, pure oatmeal, Indonesian artisanal dark chocolate and Thai powdered ginger. Fifth, was the main post office, for parcels. Sixth, were the local Tibetan tea-houses, for "free- talks", and snack-dumplings. (The Tibetan noodles are mediocre, but their dumplings are really good.) In a few weeks, I had my supply sources clearly in my memory,

My apartment was the usual "foreigners two bedroom" set up (the "second" bedroom was full of junk from the other foreigner's places). Of course, Lychee, I turned it into yet another bachelor crash-pad, with the living-room serving as a "free-talk" and tutorial area. The kitchen was small; I ate out of packets, hunched over the table, letting the crumbs fall where they will, always standing. In this year's apartment, the bathroom was really very dangerous; one slip, and my face would be smashed on the sink, or the toilet- rim. So, I asked a student to buy me some red nail- polish. I painted the danger areas in a "splashed blood" effect. Still, every time I entered that bathroom, I had to be really careful. Sometimes, when I went into another foreigner's apartment, I noticed how homey it all looked - but make no mistake! That same evening, I would be back to my old ways.

Back to Lhasa, the city. Fortunately, and Lhasa there is no heavy industry—yet. However, many people have a car, even an SUV. This means heavy traffic at the two rush hours, and at noon. People drive in ego-mode, and crossing the road outside T.U. is

risky. To get a clear idea of how "development" has irreparably altered Lhasa, one must climb the hills above and look down. The view from one of the mini- monasteries above Sera grand- monastery says it all. About a hundred years ago, the Valley was covered in barley fields; now, it is almost completely full of buildings. The former "je ne sais quois" is gone. If you want to see it, go to the various districts in Ladakh.

This is why I have called this part of the book, "The Bran Bucket". If you want to find the weevils, look carefully among the bran- flakes at the bottom of the bucket. If you are sharp-eyed, you will see them. Likewise, if you want to see the "je ne sais quois” of the old dispensation, the few remaining weevils of life, then look at the bottom of the bran bucket. After them, the abyss.

Broadly speaking, I lived my life at T.U. doing the following: making my own language- study materials; walking the various districts of Lhasa on my own; language- grooming my élite students; reading books; teaching classes. While the other foreigners followed their agenda, with masonic seclusion, I went about my own.

Lychee, I want to talk somewhat about the Tibetan language, and my minuscule and my fleeting interaction with it. It seems to me that Tibetan is a language of syllables, not of phonemes. Is each "glyph" a syllable, or a cluster of consonants (with the vowel somewhere nearby), or something else? The closest, every day analogy I could think of were square, 1" x 1" slices of pork-aspic, arranged in a line on the table, with a pea placed to show the syllable- breaks. If one stares at the flecks of pork-gristle within each slice of aspic, one can figure out how to articulate each "glyph" (I am reluctant to say "word", or "syllable", or "character".) The Tibetans study their "glyphs" in toto, to be site- memorized like a Chinese character yet, the "aspic fragments" of phonemes can be discerned from the "glyph". Not only that, but the three major speaking- groups of Tibet (Lhasa, Amdo, Cham) make spoken sense of these same "aspic"- glyphs in very different ways. The written script was fossilized about 1,000 years ago, but the Lhasa/Amdo/Cham dialects continued to evolve over the years, independently of each other. Thus, they share the same writing, but not the same speech. Imagine three gangs in Los Angeles, all writing in Elizabethan English, but speaking very different forms of slang.

My reaction was to take a common text ("Little Red Riding Hood"), and make four versions: (a) Chinese characters, (b) Chinese Pin Yin, (c) Tibetan script, and (d) Tibetan in Latin letters (ie, "Romanized Tibetan", or "Rom-Tib"). I wanted to make a new form of Rosetta Stone. However, all sorts of problems came out of this project decision. First, no one seems to want Romanized Tibetan. I have never seen a language so shrouded, veiled, walled in by the élitists than Tibetan. Although they are adversaries in the arena, all the major players (the Chinese, the émigrés, the foreign agents and missionaries) have this in common: they do not want outsiders in their own playground. This, I found out also, the locals want things "as they are". That is why I consider Tibetan be closely watched and controlled by élitists - rather like the sacrificial religion of the Maya and Aztecs this, I will never penetrate. However, I still want to make a "Rom-Tib" version of "Little Red Riding Hood", following the spoken Lhasa dialect. After all, spoken language can be rendered into phonemes, and the priestly written script by- passed. After writing this transcribed text, my year in Tibet will be over, and I will leave the field to the various élitists who will never go away. Their adversarial form of symbiosis will never, ever go away!

In Altai, I cut up so many cigarette boxes to make language cards. For the Tibetan language, such cards will not do. I went to the copy shop, and designed very large and long cards, from A3 - size paper, cut in half, long- ways. Tibetans need "big sky, big land” to live in; their language needs big paper. In the Tibetan-Buddhism monasteries, the "books" are stacks of (about) 15" x 5" paper. On each long-slip of paper are six or seven lines of religious text, written in Tibetan. This is what the monks recite on the cold winter nights, in the massive, small- windowed monasteries, while the bestial street- dogs haunt the forsaken streets outside. These stacks are wrapped in large cloth napkins (about 30"x 30", with a long, 30" "rat-tail" attached to one corner, for tying- off. Then, two small wooden boards are added, like the bread slices in a big sandwich, and everything is tied up with decorative rope. In some monasteries, there are hundreds of these books. They represent thousands of hours of hard work. Anyways, it was the napkins that caught my attention, so I made my own, 90 cm x 90 cm versions, suitable for half- sheets of A3 paper: light-blue for Tibetan; yellow for Burmese; Crimson for Hindi. No doubt, the local tailors thought I was really crazy, but I was happy to follow this little project. After all, in a city where almost everyone wants me out of the way, and under careful observation, I need to do something useful!

I knew what I wanted (a "Rom-Tib" Rosetta- text, plus napkins), but the central problem remained - how to find someone to slowly speak out each word of "Little Red Riding Hood" (in Tibetan), so I could transcribe it. This is easier said than done. Why the linguists have not spent time on rendering spoken Tibetan, at the phonemic level, completely mystifies me! This is why I think that linguistic and social research on things Tibetan have been co-opted by various social élitists. Assessing a language is not merely a cognitive endeavor, it is a social act. Language is not a bridge between the nations; it is a wall, a ditch, and ocean between them. It has always been so, but in some cultures (especially Asian cultures), studying a language comes after the step of being socially vetted and approved by social "gate- keepers". This really applies with Tibetan. In Lhasa, who are the "gate- keepers"? They are outsiders! They are apparat- chiks from the "sister provinces"; they are émigrés and refugees in the camps that are outside Leh (in Ladakh); they are high-powered operators from various Western countries (and some Eastern ones, too). In some way, the Lhasa (local) Tibetans play a secondary role. However, their priesthood has also been famously reactionary; after all, it was they who have frozen the written script for well over 1,000 years. I am nobody here, and rightly so. I will not "make waves", in a sea that has already been turned into stone. It is enough to make a transcription of "Little Red Riding Hood", post it online somewhere, and leave. I do have this cause for hope. When I was in India, I asked an émigré if the Tibetans wanted their own language and culture open to the world, or if they wanted to be secluded and walled off. That person said, "we want to be open." So, I still have some hope.

Lychee, I have covered a broad scope of the first term at T.U. Now, I wish to draw little sketches of people, places, things - in no particular order. As always, the unity is in the various fragments.

The city is being devoured, shorn of its past, and reconstituted into something different. It is the age-old reality of the Serengeti, where living flesh is killed, eaten, and recast into a new form of animal. (Lychee: most of life can be learned from the Serengeti, and from kindergarten.) Ring- roads are being hewn through the mountains; no challenge is too great for the road engineers. I know when it is 4:00 am on many days, for I perceive “lightning flashes", even though my eyes are closed, and the blasts took place deep in a tunnel or cutting 5 kilometres away. A few seconds later comes the faint sound of the explosions. The Lhasa River is made into a lake; during the dry season, dozens of dump-trucks and excavators remove gravel from the "river braids", and use it for the road -bed of the ring- road. The amounts dug up and taken away are staggering. The mountain slopes just to the cells of the Lhasa River (Army territory, and explicitly off- limits to me), our veins in the green irrigation pipes, for the apparat-chiks have said that those slopes shall be green and watered all year round - and why not? Roads are built everywhere. In the limited "web" areas between mountains (that is, like the "webbing" between one's fingers). The land is forced flat or into huge terraces, and even more houses are built. What will happen when the flash-flood comes? At the eastern end of the city a "new town" is being formed. Who will live in all those empty shells? The bus stop shelters are degrading over a time-lapse of mere months, as the glue for the laminated wood melts, and the façade falls apart. In time, the shelter was re-built.

So much here is built in veneer, in laminate, with shoddy craftsmanship and with poor materials. Again, in the part of the city south of the river, some parks have been built for the comfort and pleasure of the unseen buyers of the rows and rows of half- empty, "egg shell" apartment blocks. These parks look like something from the "nuclear winter": few people use them; the abandoned lawns are riddled with dog- poop, and of the public restrooms underserviced for months; it is tired, dusty, forsaken by day, and full of very dangerous dog- packers by night. Some degraded shepherds gaze at a few yaks, so the grass stays short. It is a scrofulous grass, on a balding lawn. My main question is: why do the ruling apparat-chiks let this happen? Infrastructure was built, but were people ever intended?

One day, I was wandering alone in the housing estates, south of the river, knowing full well I probably shouldn't be there. As is often the case, the Sichuan migrant workers (min-gong) were the first type of people to set up their life in this man-made wasteland; they are like certain grasses and birds that re-occupy an island, after a cataclysmic volcanic eruption. The buildings towering above were almost completely unoccupied; on the ground-floor level, the shops were working-class only supply stores, steamed-bun or noodle restaurants, sales offices for the future real-estate, shopping centres waiting to happen (and will they?) and not much more. I walked down a side road, to see where it linked up to another road I knew from the map on the ground was re- bar, sacks of cement, piles of gravel. At this point, a “dust- devil" blew out of nowhere, and came quickly towards me. I yanked up my hood, squatted down, closed my eyes, and waited for it to blow over me and go away. It did. I stood up and walked away, trying to ignore the local people who stared after me. (What is he afraid of? We get dusted every day!") That day, I had lunch at a noodle restaurant, and chatted with the boss. He was friendly, as were some other shopkeepers in the area. On such days, I do not tell the school where I went walking. Of course, they know, but since they appear not to know, they are free of any "face"-losing responsibility for me. As for me, I "self-regulate”, and avoid any real misbehavior. It is an unspoken agreement: I get my "cultural espresso fixes", and they sort-of know what I am up to, trusting that I will not do something bad. (After all, this is Tibet) I am grateful for their trust, since I crave my freedom. Of course, there are times (such as March, the riot-season), where they say, "You must not leave the campus." Of course, I oblige.

I walked the various neighborhoods of Lhasa in a systematic way. It all started with a strategic analysis of the map on my table, and the theoretical knowledge thus gained was translated into tactical reality on the ground, through observation. My goal was to cover the ground, block by block, area by area, and mark any interesting places discovered on the map that night. It was a cardinal rule to not take field-notes, as such behavior would provoke suspicion. In any case, it was fun to play my version of "Kim's game" — and what better place to play it than the streets of Lhasa? It was this activity that kept me sane, and partially free of "anomie" during my first term at T.U. Most streets had little of interest, so they got one or two marks. However, there were some streets that had 10 or 20 marks - these were usually the "food-streets" or cultural areas. Here, I slyly marked a slip of paper. Sometimes, it was hard to remember.

The late summer became autumn, and then winter. I slowly drew closer to the centre of Lhasa. Most of the areas I wandered were meaningless, blighted areas. At all times, I was fearfully cautious about the dogs. (Reader: in Lhasa, this is no joking matter.) By avoiding the sun; later, I sought out the sun. I ate everything I saw in the restaurants with my eyes, and walked many kilometers. I think that "Sketcher" walking shoes are perfect for urban exploring -- but not for the mountains! What made these walks meaningful were the unexpected "nuggets of experience" I encountered on the way. Here are some.

It is a typical day. Classes are over, or never happened. (For me, I think of work as something I "want to do", not "have to do", if that does not work, then work is a "front" for something else I really wanted to do. Always.... It was a typical day, and I had four free hours, before it became dark, and the dogs grew bolder. I went to one small district, near the big marsh. It was an "ethnic" area, with many Tibetans. The lanes were narrow, with the front rooms used as a small shop in daylight hours. The area did not feel like Tibet - more like a back-lane in Danang on a quiet rest day. There were two small tea-houses, next to each other: one was full of aunties and tea-chatter, and they glanced up at me as I passed by. As you know, Lychee, there is no better security system than the neighborhood watch auntie and her cronies. The second tea-house was silent and still. A veil of faded white lace blue open and closed, revealing a dimly- let room beyond. Of course, I chose this one. I quietly entered, before the aunties could find me, and entered real Tibet.

Although the building was a "nothing-special" shell of concrete, the interior of the tea-house was furnished and decorated in a way that made me think, "Ah, here is the real thing." There were three or four small tables, covered in patterned plastic. Shrines, and photos of "approved" abbots were on the walls. In the middle of the room was a "honey- comb" , coal-briquette stools, and thermos bottles. "Not authentic!", you say. "Where are the matchlock muskets on the walls, the snow leopard pelt over my legs, and the long copper horns? Why all the plastic?" Those days are long gone (although there are a few places where this can be seen; if you come, I will show you). Instead, this thoughtfully set out tea-house had a new authenticity, the way every woman of Paris has "je ne sais quois". Period. The boss was quiet, with an almost "newly- widowed" aura about her. I asked for some milk-tea, and those small, mouse-like Tibetan soup-dumplings (20 wonton-like raviolis and salty broth). I asked if a foreigner could eat there, and she said yes. In Tibet, it pays to ask like this. I sat there, alone, and drank in the very essence of the place, while she went backstage and boiled up the dumplings and tea.

It is the details that remain in the mind, long after everything else has grown old and been forgotten, that make a place. In "A Farewell to Arms", the café in the final chapter had a zinc-topped bar-counter. This detail has long stayed with me. From it, I can see everything else, as clearly as I saw the details in this room. Patterned plastic table- tops.... I ate the dumplings, with the clarity of experience, as if the firing- squad was waiting for me in the lane outside. The aunties left me alone, although I have no doubt that a note was given to the block commissar. I sometimes wonder if I should go back in the spring, but no........ like first love, it should live in a holy place of memory, at the bottom of the bran bucket, untouched.

There was another tea- house, this time close to the Sera grand- monastery. In fact, there were many such tea- houses, as well as shops selling all sorts of religious paraphernalia- but no Vichy water. I went into one of the tea- houses, not just for food, but also to establish a forward operating base, to explore the north-east quadrant of Lhasa (the area from the #15 bus route to the Western nunnery is the "sweet spot"). And why shouldn't I use Tibetan tea- houses as my infrastructure? In both Sarawak and Rangoon, I have seen the Chinese using "houses of ill- fame" to conduct their grand surveys, and taxi-drivers as "drop- boxes". It goes both ways. Why I chose this tea-house, I am not sure. However, it had a yellow silken scarf hanging from its entrance (rather like Rahab's red thread in the window) so I used the scarf as a navigational marker to find the place. Besides, if I walked down the street and even peeped inside, many waitresses would call out to me, and tell me to eat their food. I chose one, and stayed there each time. The tables were open to view from the outside, so I chose one at the back, in a corner, and ordered the usual milk-tea and soup-dumplings. People looked at me, so I ignored them. I focused on one contact, a waitress with a limp, and kept my café- contact with her, knowing full well anything I said would diffuse out to all the others the moment I left. You think, Lychee, that they were having fun and playing with me? No: I was "playing" them. I wanted a forward operating base for my day-hikes in the north-east quadrant of Lhasa, so I used the prevailing social infrastructure (i.e., gossip) to establish a social presence. At the same time, it was sad to look at her, and many, many others like her. They are free of absolute poverty, danger, and war, but they all pray-please, get me out of here, out of this limbo, where nothing happens, this living morgue, anywhere else, where I can live! However, they are embalmed, like insects in amber, from Datong to Samarra, forever. To take one away, and start a new life is unquestionably impossible, and futile. They themselves would be the first to bite you, and turn you over to the police. So, I ate my dumplings, drank my tea (secretly laced with milk- powder from outside), and reviewed my walking plans for the day. I am sure that my boss in T.U. knew I ate there, but did she know of the places I went to once-only?

I was not impressed with the two grand monasteries - Sera, and Drepung. Yes, they were big, and had many "things to see", but I was an outsider caring about things of no importance to the average, common Tibetan. As one student said crossly to me: "This is our soul; for you, it is just scenery and buildings, and travel. Phuh....!" For me, both places were indelibly linked to the dogs, sprawled on the ancient, slave-hewn paving stones, awaiting the darkness and their hour for hunting straight people. However, in Drepung grand- monastery, I saw a comic scene. There was a large group of Korean tourists (with quite a few Korean Buddhist monks in gray robes). As they were touring "certain rooms" in Drepung, they suddenly blocked the entrance to one room, packed themselves inside. They suddenly blocked the entrance to one room, packed themselves inside (all 30 of them), posted a husky, big man at the door, told the other tourists (and me) to buzz off, and began Buddhist chanting inside the bedroom! After five minutes, only the Koreans would have the raw "chutzpah" to pull off a stunt like that, and then walk away like nothing happened.

Sometimes life is so "binary"- either "on", or "off". Has no one heard of the "third choice", or "nuancing a problem"? If I walk down a street to do shopping, it seems that for every shop where the boss is cooperative and helpful, there will be a mirror shop where the boss is the opposite. For every request I make, half will be rejected. So, rather than fight in rage against such precepts, I decided to subvert them. I asked for many things, or knocked on many doors, as I knew that the 50% allotted to me (or, the 10%) would then be enough. I even asked for things I didn't want, just to have enough "casualties". This way sounds crazy, but perversely it worked.

The Army likes to parade its hardware up and down Jiangsu Road, to remind everyone who was boss. I never "sat- out" and waited for them, but I smile at how many times I "happened" to be out on the street when they came by....

Of all my memories, the most long-lasting is of gold. There are many, many gold shops in Lhasa. The local people like big, chunky, golden jewelry. People wear a lot of gold on the streets. I often wondered how do they earn enough to buy gold, and have a good house, an SUV car, and an obviously well-off life? (Here, I am referring to the upper levels of society, and not the working classes.) I think the reason is because the gold is "Persian gold". They were bought out. This idea floated in my mind for the whole year, "but only reached the point of "epiphany" at the end, when I visited some real homes, saw what was inside, and compared this with what I had seen casually, throughout the year. On the "old campus" of T.U., there must be almost 100 SUV's - and good ones, too. How did the teachers buy them, and their houses, and their lifestyles? Of course, if I ask these things directly, I would be told to shut up, or else be "opaquely" shut down. Nonetheless Lychee, I write these things to you. I have already decided!

The dynamics during the second term were different. The end of the teaching contract was approaching, and I did not want to return. Altitude sickness, "stonewalling” for many quarters, and a wish to move on elsewhere at all had their effect. March was a riot-season, and in April and May the weather was fickle and treacherous. To keep saying, I kept my objectives very simple: I scoured the bookstores for any materials that looked worthy of study later on. I did it by raw intuition, since I could not read or speak Tibetan. Many times, I found the right books by "unexplainable reasons" i.e., by miracles. I sent home 18 heavy sea-parcels (over 200 kg.) I can only believe that later on, I will have occasion to study these books. This brings up another issue: for some strange reason, I came to the point where I wanted to study simple Tibetan- but in Nepal, where the visas are easier to get, and the people are a little less fearful. (However, even there, I will avoid the expats, and go alone.)

If you ask, "did anything happen?", Then I would say, no. Tibet is cryogenically frozen, while the rest of the world goes mad. Of course, people know from T.V. and their computers that "things are now happening", but the pond of daily local life remains unruffled. Tibet has always been its own private universe. Perhaps, that is why I came to like Tibet, is the year closed. There was no longer an "outside world". The only things that mattered were immediately around me.

There was a constant war of attrition going on between the outsiders, and the local, remaining inhabitants of the bran-bucket. At a thousand points, people-as- individuals, and society-as-unseen-hand tore down the unseen building that is a people's culture. It was not enough to step on the daisies; they were pulled out, one by one. First and foremost was the use of sound. Sound, or noise is the most vile and pervasive destroyer of culture, especially when it is a foreign sound. In the wrong setting over time, it destroys souls. Thus, the sound of cars, scooter-horns, advertising "jingles" from fast- food restaurants, cyber-babble from a thousand cell-phones, all these and more, permeated the old district called Barkol, the Jokhang Temple and its pilgrims circuit, and violated it. Sounds penetrated into the inmost of rooms in a tea-house, into the depths of one's mind, into the inner universe which is the essence of Tibet. I would go into a certain chapel in the Jokhang Temple area, walk up to a certain copper vessel holding ghee-oil, and look intently at the dancing candle-flames, listening to the faint sounds of sputtering flames. The beauty of Tibet, as in Persia, is found in the little details, the faint proclamations of life, the last dumpling in the bowl, one revolution of a prayer wheel in a throng of moving bodies, a half-second glimpse into a room full of people, some light off the paving stones. In all the aspects, the intrusive noises are designed to destroy the subtle and ageless essences. Outside, on the busy streets of the new city, I close my heart, and walk in a sound- shrouded world, trying to protect my own candles, unseen and unknown, flickering in my soul.

Second, were visual intrusions — that is, anything to distract one's eye, and one's thoughts. This means: flags, all manner of advertisements, and things in the wrong places. These too, were many, and set up with intent to violate the aesthetic. Third was language and culture - the ways of saying and doing things. Fourth were the "colons", brought in from other provinces. Fifth was the "Persian gold". Thus, one of the abiding preoccupations in Lhasa was to seek out 'Bran-bucket' moments, wherever and whenever they could be found out.

Every year in China, there have been one or two local women who tried to date or marry me but not here. All doors were closed: it was not even mentioned.

Tibet has become a vast pleasure- playground to "inner- land" bo-bo's, with money, dreams and an SUV. It is a sort of backpacker circuit, within borders, an alternative to the Westerners circuits in S.E. Asia. Tibet is a zone-of-exclusion for westerners. (Watch and see the same thing happen in various countries, soon.) Since I could not go out of Lhasa, I looked in words at what Lhasa had to offer, and especially the restaurants. For the local people them-selves, Tibet has become a "panda-park", a fenced-in nature reserve, where they are the "protected animals", and unable to go out, like all the rest of us. Therefore, it is not surprising that I turned inwards, read books meant toward my élite students, gathered curriculum, and made plans to study Tibetan, in Nepal.

However, Lychee, do not think that this year was wasted. No, many good things came out of it, throughout the year.

My mind wanders the streets of Lhasa, and there are countless tea-houses. I walked up one flight of stairs, passed a gaudy but quiet souvenir shop, to a tea-house with good soup- dumplings, fair views, and exquisite interior details. It is the feelings that I come here for. I only began coming here in April or May, as the weather became better. In Tibet, the soups-dumplings do not come quickly -one must be patient, as they are made up. I was reading Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (the part dealing with Attila the Hun), so I had all kinds of time. One of the aunties was a bit strict ("Sorry. You cannot have a cup of sweet milk tea. You must buy a whole thermos.") The other auntie indulged me (she poured me out one cup). Needless to say, I liked the second auntie. Each time I came in she would recognize me and smile. The adjoining room was quieter, so I went there and sat in a corner. Sounds of the Jokhang pilgrim-circuit, mixed with the chirping of window-ledge sparrows, came in through the open windows. Usually, I was alone, for I came in between regular meal-times. I liked it better this way.

The Tibetans like to paint their tea-tables in many colors, with ornamental designs. The actual carpentry appears flimsy, but the painting draws and keeps the attention. However, it was the ornamental painting on the upper walls and ceiling which I most liked. Gazing at it made me feel peaceful. The patterns were somewhere between "abstract" and "representative". They sometimes help me to forget my mental stress. I would look up from my book, and forget about things.

Outside, in the temples, there is much carved wood work, and it is all painted. There is also a movement to restore many temples, and re-billed what was lost in the 1960's, so there is a flowering in the wood-carving and wood-painting crafts.

One Temple, in the north-east "sweet spot", was my favorite. Someone said this was where the Tibetan script was developed, many years ago. To get to the Phu Rong Kha Temple, one goes to Sera grand monastery by bus, walks to the militia- hospital, then takes a farmer's motor-tricycle up the foothill to the Temple. Behind the Temple, the real mountain rises up quite high. Here, one can imagine more clearly what parts of Lhasa would have looked like in the past. Instead of looking down into the valley, now covered in urban sprawl, look up into the mountain....

I went to Phu Rong Kha twice. Money is coming in, and ruined stupas and some of the buildings are being rebuilt. On one rooftop, I looked up the mountain, at the small prayer hermitages, nestled in the remote clefts in the rock. (For my local friend, a place of deep sanctity; for me, a place to "get away". We will never, never meet.) If there is one thing the old-time abbots were good at, it was choosing the right place to build a monastery. The setting is very beautiful. In another building, on the third floor, reached by a "ladder-staircase", I entered the ghee-oil lamp room. Two hundred lamps burning together make a soft sound, because of the fluttering of the flames. This was the ultimate "sweet spot" of Lhasa, and became a symbol for me of an "ideal Tibet". When I feel disillusioned, I recall this room full of ghee-oil lamps.

I only visited the Jokhang Temple once. It was early December, and the tourists had left. So, I had the place to myself. The second floor of the Temple was sublime. The views, the proportions, the decorations were perfect. If there is only one time for one visit in Lhasa, it should be the Jokhang Temple. I spent an hour on the second floor, walking around the circuit again and again, boring the sites deep into my memory-for I knew I would never come back. To visit the Jokhang Temple during the high season would destroy the first impressions forever. Even later, as I walked the pilgrim's-circuit around the temple, I would look up at the second-floor rooms, and smile inwardly.

Yet, in spite of the aesthetic beauty of Tibet, there is always danger, and not just from the dogs. On that same day, at the Jokhang Temple, two things happened. While I was admiring the second floor, obviously entranced by beauty, someone (a tourist? a guard?) came up to me and asked why I was spending so much time looking at the place. I gave some Zen /aesthetic answer, and he became cross with me. "Why do you foreigners always fixate on the past?!" Well, laddie, that is because it is more beautiful than the present. It seems that, in following my own drum, I antagonize the Tibetans, their Chinese overlords, and the foreign expats! I just don't care!

The second brush with danger happened like this. I walked up to the rooftop wall, and looked out over the open square in front of the Jokhang Temple. In front of me were hundreds of pilgrims walking the circuit, or else walking-prostrating, or standing- prostrating. Behind was the iconic view of the Potla Palace, in the middle distance. It was the quint-essential Tibetan scene — although, with contemporary attachments. And then... and then, I was flashed back to another place, to another time, to the same players in dynamics, but wearing different clothes and speaking a different language. I felt myself on Gabbatha, the Stone Pavement. Looking out over the crowd, I felt a strong and impulsive urge to call out, "Who... Do you want me to release unto you...Barabbas, or he who is called King of the Jews?" It was that powerful, and invading, and seductive. (Of course, haven't read Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita" did not help.) If I had done that, the police would certainly have arrested me, and taken me away in a "Black Maria". I walked away. It took some time before the enormity of what I had imagined and contemplated sunk in. I mentioned this incident, because the dark, tantric powers in Tibet are still out there, and must be guarded against. I almost destroyed myself.

Maybe some people will scoff at me for writing such crazy and ridiculous things... But Lychee, I have experience.

I have another story, about another Temple, not far from the security checkpoint to the square that lies to the west of the Jokhang Temple. When I go to the Jokhang area, and the Barkhol market (Lhasa's small equivalent of the "Casbah": of Algiers), I take a bus from the University to the Lu-guk bus stop. Traffic in Lhasa is often very congested, as so many people want to have a big SUV the major car-makers oblige by redesigning the Western SUV into a uniquely Chinese incarnation, half-car and half-SUV: I called these hybrids "muscle-hunchback". They all fully exemplify the union of Chinese ego, power, and speed. Once on the bus, I sit on the right side, just behind the rear exit door, where the single seats are, put on my "burkha" (i.e., close my eyes and tune out), and hope no one will bother me. My eyes are shut, but my ears watch everything. It appears that each bus driver has the ability to play their own music on the P/A system — and they do. One can hear: patriotic Chinese, pop Chinese, Hui Muslim, all kinds of Western pop, Tibetan, as well as Nepali and Bollywood Indian. Needless to say, I like the Bollywood music, for it liberates the entire bus, and makes me aesthetically high. The power of Indian music cannot be measured, now or ever.

There are many pilgrims on the bus up to Lu-guk stop, especially on the high holy days. Typically, they are older people. In Tibet, old age is not about degrading by inches – It is about preparing for eternity (or should I say, preparing for the next incarnation?). This, the Tibetans take very seriously indeed. On any given day, there are a few thousand pilgrims at the temples; on a special day, over ten thousand. Walking around the temples and prostrating is real exercise, especially at Lhasa's altitude. On the bus, they chant alone; many recede into their own world, and pay no attention to the fact that they are on a bus. Sometimes, some older men chant together, or with an MP3 player, following a monk's chanting.

All this lasts a mere four stops, and then the bus is at Lu-guk. We all walk along the narrow lane towards the Jokhang temple area. Even though the way is so narrow, many SUV drivers insist on trying to come through: they never learn! Many of the shops sell religious things to the pilgrims, and all manner of "kitch" to the inner-and Taurus. It is almost impossible to buy, or even see, anything that is true and authentic. Apart from one shop, where I frequently bought rat-tailed book-napkins, I passed down this street many times, heeding no one, but alert to any shopping.

In the old days, there were many, many temples in Lhasa. The one I am about to describe was very small- more a chapel than a temple. It had a name, but I never learned it. For me, the distinguishing feature of this small Temple was its service to the people. It was very much a "working temple", and not a museum piece. Over time, the tenement housing grew up around it, right up to and into its walls. These were very crowded living areas, where any domestic dispute would draw the aunties out onto their levels of the courtyard balconies, causing the children to stop their game around the communal water pump... and watch. It was not a big building: the lower floor at the usual worship hall; the second level was reached by a shaky iron staircase that made me think of the people trying to get into the last helicopter out of Saigon; the top floor I never entered. The few monks on duty chanted, trimmed the lamp-wicks, and served the people. This Temple also had a very attractive, carved stone "candle-trough", resting in a metal stand,

The tenement housing was condemned to be demolished, to make way for "safe and modern" housing. All of a sudden, this little enclave of humanity in Lhasa, which I had always passed by in haste and neglected, became interesting to me. I peeped into the courtyard, but soon left, for it had a Sicilian "vibe" to it. An auntie about to lose her lifelong home is not to be trifled with. One night, when everyone else was sleeping, the machines moved in, and tore down the tenements, leaving the Temple alone in a war- zone of cleared away rubble. Many of the hard-chiseled stone blocks (the buildings were a little older) were neatly stacked to one side. The trash-rubble was removed, but the stone blocks remained. In time, they were loaded onto 10-wheel dump trucks. There the trucks sat by day, as shoppers and pilgrims went about their business by day. At night, the truck disappeared, with its load of hard-chiseled stone blocks. They do not make such high-quality material today! Was it sent by rail to some high-end building project in a distant city? Some days later, I saw the truck driving off somewhere, at night.

For a while, the temple looked forlorn, alone, rejected. A temporary cement- block wall was put up around the perimeter, and time went by. Every time I passed by the site I looked carefully at the old temple, to see what was missing that day. No one in the area could tell me what was going to happen -one way or the other. Services continued; the local people came, in slightly smaller numbers. One day, I climbed the iron staircase, to see the inside of the second floor. The monk was chanting quietly. I only peeped inside from outside the door-threshold, so as not to engage him. I did not know what to say to him, so I left.

Then, some renovation work started. The outside walls were painted, white and crimson. The upper floor was re-done, and a bright blue panel of about 20' x 20' was lowered on top, making an instant roof. One night, a crane was brought in for the job. Services continued. People came. Vendors set up shop outside, to sell juniper twigs and

power incense, for the solidarity incense-burner (a much larger version of a suburban patio "chiminea" fireplace). Winter came.

Next, the waste area which had once been the tenement housing was re- developed. Would they become houses, or shops? I think shops. Any wall which faces the street was given a "faux-Tibet" masonry façade. The new buildings closed in on the old temple. It was now almost spring. The services stopped; all means of access were bricked up; the perimeter wall was painted white, then painted with advertisements, in the "inner- land" style. I could not even peep inside. The carved stone candle-trough, and its iron stand, were placed on the street nearby, in front of a shop.

One day, sometime in the spring of 2017, the tall yellow crane came back. I did not know why it was there. A day or two later, I went for a walk around the Jokhang Temple pilgrim-circuit, for it gave me a certain peace to walk around, among the people, thinking of nothing. I came out through the police checkpoint, and onto the tourist shopping street. The sun was low in the sky and the lighting was optimal. The noise of commerce was in the air, muting the temple's destruction.

For in the night, the crane lifted off the bright blue panel. Workers with big sledge-hammers knocked down the upper floor, one course at a time, in slow motion as it were, in commerce-shrouded silence, in full view of the unaware, the indifferent, the hidden tearful. I stood outside the security checkpoint, the sun obliquely in my eyes, and watched the same sun shroud the workers in silent, swirling, golden dust. That night, the machines came back, and while we slept razed the old temple to the ground. In a few days, the waste-debris was taken away, and the workers salvaged the last of the hand- chiseled stone blocks, and stacked them.

Whether the new building becomes yet another shopping center, or apartments, or both, I do not care. I have left Lhasa.

Later on, another set of buildings was demolished. I saw it coming; I wanted to look inside the building, and especially the upper floors, to see the semi-abstract ceiling designs. The shopkeeper, whose own building was condemned! Stonewalled me on the spot. Truly, my enduring image of Lhasa is one of a locked door...

Lychee, I will change direction, and talk about the good things which happened in Lhasa, and some of the people I came to know, for it was they who turned a doubtful year into something successful. As in the other work-sites, they fell into the following categories: local business people, local Tibetans, colleagues, and the students. I will note a few of them.

Outside the main gate of T.U. was a small copy shop. The boss and his colleague became very important to me, as I was often trying to alter the Tibetan script to suit my paradigms. Scanning, enlarging, re-typing, Photo-Shop and Corel Draw were all essential, and I had no wish to learn these skills - so I outsourced. I must have visited that copy shop almost every day I was in Lhasa. They made me many different kinds of learning materials; it worked, because I knew intuitively what I wanted, and they knew what to do with my explanatory sketches. These two were able to think outside the box. We all communicated through raw intelligence, language being secondary, and social cultural distractions irrelevant. It is so, so important to work with a copy shop person who is not socially prejudiced, and for whom all ideas are possible. Thus, we altered texts in Tibetan, Kazakh, Burmese, because I wanted, and they could. I probably spent $2,000 at that copy shop over the year-an enormous amount that ravaged my salary each month - but the results were good. I wanted a place where creativity and ideas could become something concrete and developed. I became a sort of linguistic alchemist, creating my own form of Tibetan, in the absence of helpers. Since I was looking at the Tibetan language from a structuralist point of view (and not linguistic), I was able to find much common ground with the copy shop staff. Thus, they became a constant part of my life, throughout the school year, in both terms.

During the year, I visited many local restaurants. I suppose that because I was shut out of so many areas of life, it was inevitable that I should turn to food. In my apartment I never cooked, save to boil water; I never used the refrigerator; I never entertained socially. So, I ate out, save for breakfast. I visited restaurants and tea-houses everywhere, but focused on about 10 places. These served Tibetan, Sichuan, Nepali, Indian, Shaan Xi noodle, wonton-soup, and fast food. I never ate socially, save a few gatherings with my élite students. I brought a book to read while the food was being prepared for me. I never viewed eating as a social, or a relaxing act; it was "something to do", in a long day's list of many things to do. If one restaurant was chock-full of guests, I knew where else to go, so as to use up less time, for I knew that if I sat down in a restaurant first, and a group came in after me, they would get served first. Why? As a group they promised much more money than me, who ate pittance. I knew I had no recourse. I even try to eat my meals during the "off-hours". However, I would then find the restaurant staff eating their meal together, and not happy to see me show up. (The Chinese do not recognize the concept of "staggered shift" meals for the staff; they do everything together, as one.)

In the Shaan Xi noodle restaurant, the boss knew I could not "mix" the noodles and fixings well, using the chopsticks. So, she did it for me. This drew the attention of the other customers, who considered me something of an invalid. Not that I cared: however,

when she left me to mix the new rules myself, I ate my food in its separated state. This also drew the stares of the other customers. As for the boss, she was busy watching soap- operas on her cell-phone. I was happy to be left alone.

Unable to explore all corners of Tibet, I explored most items on the Tibetan menu of the "Lhasa Kitchen", and arranged a stop for the foreign tourists. It was Lhasa's closest equivalent to a "Lonely Planet" watering hole. The menu was plain and readable, and the food fairly good. Many foreign tourists, especially retirees from Europe, passed through the "Lhasa Kitchen". They were given such large meals that they were drowsy throughout the day, and hence posed less of a concern to the security apparat.

Looking back on the year, I realized that all this preoccupation with food, menus, eating, and sniffing out new places was just my "coping strategy for being shut out of so many places. However, I do not in any way regret my wayward very independent spirit, for I did so many interesting things. Besides, constantly going to the "Lhasa Kitchen" allowed me to see what was going on in the Jokhang Temple area, and make my own longitudinal opinions about daily life. I have long realized that most of the interesting stories, and choice nuggets of information, will come to me of their own accord. My ears, eyes, perceptions were always open to the little things around me. Otherwise, I withdrew.

My favorite restaurant was "Mama Pentoc's Restaurant". It had two parts - a noisy and boisterous place for the ever-sociable local Tibetans, and one room for the foreigners. Of course, I liked the second room, as it was always very quiet. Very few

people knew about this place. How did Mama Pentoc manage to subtly separate the two groups of dinners? First, the "Tibetan" room had the T.V., always playing the Lhasa Tibetan-language channel. The place was friendly and open to socializing. The Tibetans knew this was their turf. The room was close to the back kitchen, where Mama Pentoc and her sister worked. Second, the "foreigners" room was off to one side, behind a lace door-curtain. It had the air of a rarely-used dining room, where dowager aunts were received once every funeral for 10 years whichever came first. The family altar was there, along with the restaurant's business license, and the ubiquitous poster of the Five Chairmen "Mao, Deng, Jiang, Hu, and Xi). However, the third reason was the decision. Tibetans like to sit low, and foreigners usually sit high. (Just look at how long the chair- legs are.) So in the "Tibetan" room, the chair-legs were all shorter, and in the "foreigner's" room, they were longer. The rest, "just happened".

Of course, I liked "Mama Pentoc's Restaurant" for the isolation. I could completely disappear for an hour, and be quiet. This was also a "bran-bucket" place not because it "looked" Tibetan (it did), but because I knew in my heart that it was real and true. Mama Pentoc and her sister were unpretentious and genuine people. The food was also good!

One day, I invited four students for lunch at "Mama Pentoc's". She gave us one kilo of boiled yak meat, and various other dishes. It was the only dinner of its kind that year: I am not known for entertaining. When I left Lhasa, I made a point of saying goodbye to the sisters.

In another restaurant, the food and the Tibetan ambience were fairly good, but the staff were not so friendly. After a while, I decided this was because there were unseen foreigners directing the show. So many people want a stake inside Tibet!

Of course, there was the local Sichuan restaurant just outside the campus. The food was always good, and the staff friendly. Even though I ran with all the other restaurants, I could always come back to them. Thus, it was like home.

Those restaurants which served the pilgrims food outside the temples were also good, for their guests came from many parts of Tibet. My favorite one was just outside the Gong De Lin Temple. It had a good "bran-bucket" feel to it, especially on cold winter days, when hard-core pilgrims were the only ones walking the streets. I liked their soup- dumplings. The tea was just so-so; if you want real Tibetan milk tea, go to someone's home! Again, I went to Gong De Lin on the "off-hours".

"Walking the temples" is hard work, but thousands of Tibetans do it. Many people walk around the temples or stupas, bow and prostrate themselves, swing their hand-held prayer wheels, and chant. This is enough to make one very fit, but also very hungry and thirsty. Thus, there are so many tea-houses in Lhasa-they are everywhere.

Most of them are very small, with barely room for four tables. The standard fare is sweet, milk tea, and the local noodles. One can walk and snack one's way all over Lhasa. At first, I looked down on these noodles, but in time, I got used to them. Now, I sometimes miss them.

I almost never spoke to others in the tea-houses, and they very rarely spoke to me. Neither of us really wanted to. It was enough to absorb the feelings of the place. I decided that if I was going to be shut out by the major social oligarchs, I would approach this year and the Lhasa from an "asymmetrical" point of view. This I did. In the end, it actually worked out. Lhasa reveals itself to the outsider in the little details - the hardy dandelion in a sidewalk crack, a park in the early hours, a lone parrot looking down from the branches, the look of determination on a pilgrim-auntie's face. Everything can be seen, but little can be apprehended. Much of what I was able to learn came from "stolen glances".

Social isolation gives one a lot of free time. Some are filled in by work, some by after-class activities, some by reading or watching films. However many "Plan B" operations one deploys, there is always an emptiness in some part of the day. One is always reminded. However, it is necessary to have a "Plan B" approach to life, since changed plans, wasted time, and failed appointments are an inescapable externality of Asian life. This was very much so in Lhasa. I could say that I did more with my life by redeeming the wasted and frustrated moments, then by unfettered creativity. In one month, I had over thirty blown-off appointments! Thus, I did many "Plan B" projects.

Time goes by, Lychee, and with each passing month, more is forgotten. Was it all a dream? Even the dreams and memories are lost. Life in Tibet is very much lived out on a different plane of existence. So much of life there is abstract, so, when the physical props of daily life are removed (i.e., I left Tibet, and came home), everything is forgotten quickly. It just blows away like dust. Perhaps in a few months I will have lost all the memories. Perhaps I should "let go".

Round and round went the weeks, like the rotating prayer-drums that the pilgrims spin, one by one, as they walk around a holy site. They sought out Nirvana; I ran errands, and bought supplies. When I got off the bus at Lu-guk stop, I then walked along Commercial Street, setting no store on the people. My head was down, for I was in "burkha-mode". One day, I was so tired and worn out that I asked a shop-keeper if I could sit on his stool. He gladly agreed. He told me he had often seen me walking quickly along and had wanted to talk with me, but had been unable to catch my eye. "You should walk more slowly", he said, "for the sake of your heart and your lungs". How right he was... but by now, I have found human contact and social interaction virtually unbearable. That is my flaw, not theirs. Almost all the Tibetans I met were kind to me. They understood karma all too well; they also know what a terrifying place Tibet is to the one who has no friends or community in life. Yet, I reacted to restrictions by the leaders, and isolation by the expats, by going deeper underground, and locking the door behind me.

There were many colleagues at the old campus of T.U. who were very kind to me. Together they formed a composite picture of Tibet – a sort of mosaic. I do not want to sketch them, because I am tired of remembering, and besides, I think it is not good to sketch individual Tibetans...not under current conditions. Suffice to say, they were well-educated, good with their English, able to roam any situation, hospitable, and caring. They helped with some language-learning problems, brought food when I was sick, let me correct their research papers, and shared great dinner-table conversations. There were a few who I was sad to leave; I wish that I could have remained with them longer. (I almost never say this, of people.) With them, I was able to do many things that year. I wonder, where were they hemmed in as well, but for a variety of other life-reasons? The old campus did have a sort of big, extended family feel to it, whereas the new campus had no soul. Will I remember them?

As usual, the students were the mainstay of my life. As you yourself know from 2004-2006, I look for the "eager beaver" students, and give them the extra English tutorials. Usually, the results are good. Gone are the days when I try to help everyone in my latter years, I have become an élitist, "cherry-picking" the best and putting them into orbit. It is certainly less risky than having one's own child, and facing a 90% risk-of- failure rate! If I can "special-tutor" five students a year, and get good results, then I will be happy. I think of Gordon Bishop, in Maradi, in 1984, who said, after almost 40 years of working in the bush, "if I were to do it all again, I wouldn't. Instead, I would mentor the most promising of the local people." Well, his words have stuck over the past 33 years.

There were other variables at play in Lhasa this year. My prospects who were Tibetan tended to fall away; I suspect it was because they were "told" to stay away from me, since I was an outsider. There is no way one can butt one's head against such an "apparat-chik" system. They are embalmed in bitumen, as at La Brea: there is nothing I can, or want to do about it. Better to try it out, in Nepal. However, an alternative did appear. Many of my assigned students were Hans from the "inner provinces"; they did not grow up in Tibet (like the Han "pied-noires"). When they took their college entrance exams ("gao-kao"), they got bad scores, and could not go to their dream college. They were given a choice-get a job at 18, or... go to Tibet University. (That is like asking a Moscow native to study in an unheard of school in Siberia.) So, they were very unhappy with their fate. Nonetheless, quite a few of these Hans were very clever; they had had a bad day in the exam-hall. Moreover, since they had grown up in the "inner provinces", their exposure to culture (real culture, not T.V. culture or cell-phone culture) was much higher than that of the local Hans. They were a "cherry-picker's" dream group. So, I

found seven students, and made an intentional science of monitoring them. (There were other groups, over that year, but these seven got the major attention, and did well.) I assigned each one a hierarchical number.

#1 was Shirley. She was a 4th-year student from Yunnan. I would never have come into contact with her, but for one detail: she was the "office-gopher" at the foreign affairs office of Tibet University, doing her "senior year, work practicum”. So, in the course of my early dealings with the foreign affairs office, I saw her at her desk, pushing papers. I forgot when I decided to take her on as a special student, but when I did, at once I asked her if she had contact with any of the other expats at Tibet University. Shirley said yes, so I asked that expat if he agreed, and he agreed. (Lest the reader think me strange for doing this thing, remember that most expats are very “territorial” with their protegées, and are quite ready to engage in turf-wars. As it was, this one was quite reasonable.) Thus armed with my commission, I began.

There is no doubt that Shirley was very clever. From the beginning, I told her she was top dog for the year, and could ask for anything academic, at any time. My planning calendar for that year is full of notations for appointments. We met in the local Tibetan tea-houses for our tutorials. This was intentional: the Tibetan "auntie" managing the tea-house served as chaperone without knowing it; we ate her soup-dumplings and curry-rice. The real reason I went there was to get away from any third-parties from the university or anyone, for that matter. Anyone we knew would typically go to other places to socialize - not a worker's tea-house, and Tibetan, at that. She made the topics for discussion; I brought up that week's problems. We also talked a lot about her upcoming graduation thesis.

When I had trouble, I turned to Shirley. The English teacher's life in China is full of petty problems, and they make the perfect fodder for conversation practice. She

managed the affairs of my cell-phone (which my boss forced me to have), and paid my bill on-line (I gave her cash, when needed). This is how after 16 years, I play the Chinese system, while still being unable to do it myself: it suits me fine. We talked about everything, because she and I knew how to "handle our (social) liquor". Besides, she was my way of indirectly communicating with my boss, as to how I was, what I was planning and thinking, and what I wanted. This system worked very well for me, all via Shirley.

Shirley often came late to our meetings. I let it pass, because I knew there would not be another one like her. There was plenty about her I knew nothing of, but I liked it better that way. Secrets in China should be seen as an asset, and not a hindrance. Thus, using her topics, and my problems, we covered a lot of ground. I am glad I had the chance to work with her. (Fortune does not kiss twice.) Even if I had no other good experiences that year, Shirley alone would have made my time in Lhasa worthwhile. I left her with the quip, "Normal is inferior". She smiled.

#2 was Leah. She was a 2nd-year student, from Chongqing. Both of her parents were doctors, and she was quintessentially raised in Chinese social grace. She was the only one of the special students who studied at the new campus of Tibet University. (The leaders asked me to teach one class at the new campus, "co-teaching" with one of the Tibetan teachers. He would pick me up each Thursday morning and drive over to the new campus. Outside the new campus was a Tibetan breakfast canteen, serving the usual sweet tea and noodles. There, many of the teachers would eat breakfast and gab away, until it was time to head in for work in the new campus.) I taught this class, of about thirty students, for one term. One of the students was Leah. At some point, the co- teacher asked me, or rather told me that one student was preparing for a special exam, so as to study in a foreign country. After clearing with the co-teacher, I asked Leah if she wanted tutorials for her upcoming exam.

We met in one of the new campus restaurants, during the quiet hours between lunch and dinner. Leah never took notes. She could remember a new vocabulary word by just looking at it. (I never had a student like that in China.) We focused on conversation - study overseas, woes with a boyfriend, summer work-projects, her parents, on confidence-building. There was always a reticence about her – maybe because she was the only student I intentionally approached, and asked to tutor. Maybe I was too assertive in telling her that she could do anything she aspired to in her studies. In any case, after the first term, she dropped me - politely, of course. My other students were shocked at this when I told them. Later on, I came to the conclusion that she was "told” to drop me by other people - maybe she saw too much of the "big, bad wolf" in me. She said she was too busy.

#3 was Grace. She was a 3rd-year student, from Shaan Xi (I think). She also came from my best class. Grace was the ultimate "eager beaver"; I knew her from the start because she always put up her hand in class. There is no doubt in my mind that she will rise, and rise far. She will become an "apparat-chik", but one of the new breed - young, energetic, very digital, very much of the young, but also aware of the Party, and what is now mutually possible. She is a believer and a social climber in one. Along with a classmate, she managed my digital and computer problems. When she came to our tutorials, I made sure that she told me what she wanted to discuss. It would never have done to manage her. As I said to many students, "The language is yours, but the structure is mine". Grace was often participating in student-union leadership activities. I felt she did many unpleasant and troublesome things, because that is what the Party demands of its career-supplicants. Since she was mine, I say the Party should be grateful to have her on board. She certainly had her own mind - she sometimes did not use my corrections, and went her own way. I also suspect that she was not popular with her classmates, on account of her ambition. I say, let her rise, and succeed!

#4 a was Elise. She was a 3rd-year student from Henan. She was also from my best class, and an "eager beaver" in everything. However, what made her very different was her style: she was not a social-climber, but studied quietly in the background. She put in serious, long, background hours! After a few weeks teaching the class, I realized that there, right in front of me but not showing off, was the golden student. So, I tutored her too. Not only that, I tutored Elise in three or four different settings. By the end of the school year, she could translate orally for an hour. So, I was pleased.

#4b was Kate. She was also a 3rd-year student from Henan, from the best class. She made her Mephilopholean pact with the Party, and hoped to advance herself. She always volunteered, and was ready for everything. In terms of getting up, and speaking before others, she was unrivaled. Kate also travelled solo to Seoul: I know this because I briefed and de-briefed her. I hope she "goes out" more. She also could translate orally for an hour. She had a hot temper, and was very much the master of her own mind. I often yielded to her, as this trait was a useful source of energy to her when it came to public speaking. If I ever needed a "combat translator", I would choose her.

#4c was Ashley. She was a 3rd-year student from Guizhou, and from the best class. I tutored French to her (and Elise); we also saw some French films. Towards the end of the year, Ashley could do some simple French-to- Chinese, oral translation. She was very quiet and unassuming, but very clever, able to put ideas together and synthesize them anew.

#5 was Miss Pan. She had no English name. She was an early-ed major from another class. The school assembled a non-major class (from various majors) to study English. I was the co-teacher. From time to time, I gave them writing homeworks, and it became clear that Miss Pan was a really good writer. She wanted to become a writer of children's books. I wanted to mentor her, so I asked. She was very independent in spirit- even a bit proud - so I gave her lots of self-direction in our writing tutorials. Hopefully next year I can continue to tutor her, by video-telephone. China is now ready for home-grown writers of good children's books, able to be creative in a Chinese way, and not translate, copy or emulate the western writers. I have no doubt that Miss Pan will be a part of this movement. She was capable of writing sublimely evocative sentences. So, I hope she goes on to be a good writer.

These seven students, especially with Shirley and Elise, received the bulk of my attention during the 2016-2017 school year. Elise went on to take Shirley's work- practicum position, thus completing a cycle. As for me, all seven gave me a sense of meaning. As I get older, I care more about "legacy". Merely teaching a certain number of classes is not enough. I want to see a smaller and dedicated élite go on to do great things. I think these seven will be successful! Perhaps I do this, because I know that time in China is nearing its end. You, Lychee, were an earlier "golden student", so I tell you this. Like you, they made my teaching life to have meaning and joy.

There were others- Connie and Sky, the playful, preppie commies, Whale the talker, the film group, Audrey the hopeful, pert Tang and capable Ada, and many others with cameo appearances in this play. To you all, I gave the energy and raw devotion that I would otherwise have given to the Tibetans, or to local, weekend travel. I thought often of Gordon Bishop, who gave me his ideas on training up the "special people", and leaving something more enduring behind. And why not? Tibet is now closed to me forever, in any guise. All that remains are faint whispers, over the years, over the ocean.

Lychee, I am nearing the end of this part of "Fragments of China". I am back in

the U.S., waiting for the next visa. I hope I get it, for the conditions are becoming tighter, and, as usual, the future is uncertain.

The last few weeks in Lhasa were spent walking some of the remaining streets around the old city. Actually, I missed many. I was happy to miss them, and leave Lhasa its mystery. I walked the pilgrim's circuit around the Jokhang Temple, watching the Tibetan world go round and round. It was right of me not to study language or build relationships, for both were doomed from the start. Instead, I walked, and I looked, and I invested in the seven students. I ate soup-dumplings, for memory's sake. I said good- bye to Mama Pentoc, and she gave me a real silk "welcoming scarf". Then I watched the people, eroding away silently. I did not look for final, "bran-bucket" experiences; I let them come to me, and now, they were few. Instead, I remembered the few from the early months, known to me, and you, alone. This is my Tibet.

How is it that an entire society can dissolve and vanish, drop by drop, day by day, in silence? In the "bran-buckets", life goes on, in miniature, but the streets are desolate. “Development” and “progress” are everywhere, but they are counterfeit, made of plastic and cheap, veneered plywood. The last word will come from nature, which will drive everybody out. Even the "bran-buckets" will dissolve: I believe this because when the children come home after school, they are one more degree a stranger to their parents. The young generation, once formed, will leave their parents alone, on a dissolving mound of floating sugar, with nowhere to go save the pilgrim's circuit around the temples. The pace of attrition goes faster and faster. One day, there will be nothing of the original, in all its mysterious glory- only a depleted theme park. The tourists will have no idea of what once was. Remember: after Tibet, and Antarctica, there is no more left!

For me, the symbol of Tibet is of a locked door; the theme was of exclusion. The beauty of Lhasa is the dandelion growing out of a crack in the concrete, friendly directions from a ticket-lady at the bus station, the softly sputtering oil lamps in a quiet corner of a lesser temple, the hoopoes playing in the long grass. The horror is of a lonely puppy on a neglected street, with frost in the air and roadside weeds wilting in the frost, eating the spilled entrails of its mother's decomposing corpse, there being nothing else in the entire world. So, I choose to remember the candles in the copper bowls, quietly sputtering. I leave, with light in my eyes, for that is glorious!

Dear Lychee, I am adding this account of the winter holiday at the end of my Lhasa account, since they are better separated. I felt it safer to write about Lhasa when I was outside of China; it was convenient to write about the winter holiday when I was penned up on campus by the fickle March weather.

I am still trying to digest the many experiences of January and February, 2017, to see if the holiday was successful. The whole holiday was vast - from the 20th December, 2016 to the 10th March, 2017. This is because the authorities in Tibet wanted the students of T.U. "out of town". However, about three weeks were wasted, because the school would not clearly tell me when I could leave, or when it was really, truly necessary to return. This is typically Chinese. Second, two people said some very upsetting things to me, as I was about to embark on the great journeys, and these comments rotted away much of my resolve to live and to do. On the surface, I did great things, but at the day-to- day level... I wonder. Next time, I will talk to no one! However, it is now March, and in hindsight, I think that the winter holiday went fairly well.

The holiday went as follows; Lhasa -Guangzhou - Bangkok-Jakarta — Yogyakarta Bangkok Dubai - Bangkok - Rangoon - Bangkok -- Kunming - Lhasa. I am still running on the "bucket-list" mode, so this trip was about tying down loose ends, rather than cutting new and wide trails through Asia. I stayed in the cities I flew into, and did not venture "up-country": age, a certain inner grief, and the comments of others contributed to this. I need to protect myself against this, for my "bucket list" is far from being completed!

I visited two former students in the Guangzhou area. Once again, I looked into the idea of buying a condo in the area and settling up a new life (since XJ will in inevitably close itself to foreigners); once more, I felt the venture to be barren... S.E. Asia has much more to offer, in all areas. Here is an antidote. I was assigned a real-estate worker who took me to two areas each with 35 sq. metre "many-condo's". The first was in a high-end development, rising like a fantasy out of reclaimed wasteland on the edge of Le Cong city, near Fo Shan. It was a mini galactic colony, and was attracting high-end users. However, it was far from any meaningful social life. As I gazed out of the 37th floor windows, over the urban wasteland awaiting Godot, and then inwards at the 35 sq. metres, I saw my own death-coffin. The high-end and professional neighbors would have sought me out for tutoring their child in English, but there would have been no further social interaction. The second set of condos' I visited was inside Le Cong itself. The buildings were older (late 1990's? In China, "very old"). Real people lived here, and there probably would have been some social life available. We entered one condo, by permission. The couple were aging, lived in snowballing semi-poverty, and had the unmistakable imprint of "warehoused parents". I suspect there are countless others like them, all over the area. All three condo's had that "Somerville, 1980's, student crash- pad" look to them. So, I left and moved on. One of my old students said, "Don't buy! Rent!" He was right, but I said to myself, "Don't stay. Leave. Look elsewhere to live." I spent five days with those two former students, who were very gracious, then I escaped to Bangkok.

It is the 20th anniversary of my first flight to Bangkok, in 1996. I have probably been there 40 or 50 times, flown out to everywhere, and confined myself to the "backpacker's ghetto" (the Khao San area) - save for shopping visits to other parts of the city. I have seen much over the years, from my steadfast perch. "Dear, dirty Bangkok" is still a global transit point that I like to come back to. Apart from a friendly travel agent, and my hotel's reception staff, and a range of vendors and shop-owners, I know nobody. This is just how I like it. Perhaps this is why millions of global vagrants like to come here flee the nauseating social controls of "back home", the social embalmment of their workplaces and neighborhoods. It is the ability to be almost totally anonymous, socially free and unfettered, and able to fly out to any corner of the world that makes Bangkok desirable. I eat the same food in the same places; I buy pulp-action

novels and classic-literature for the next season of lonely nights in China; I go to the same Burmese tailors to replace my old shapeless, tailor-made garb with the new shapeless, tailor-made garb; I want are the same malls "for Thailand is "hot and sticky”), stopping at the same places to buy a drink, a guava shake, a grilled sausage, a DVD, a book, something for a student back in China, ginger powder, and so on; I take the "River- bus" from Phra Arthit to Sathan Taksin and back to gaze at the beautiful Wat Arun, the "Temple of Dawn", which is still being restored; I just exist in Bangkok! That is enough for me, year after year. When I was a boy in London in the 1970's my grandmother would always stay at the same Edwardian hotel, when visiting us; now, I am doing the same thing in Bangkok. I liked the comforting sameness.

Bangkok, and many places in S.E. Asia has changed, and so has the institution of travel... Or is it just me? The cities, and all the arteries of travel (airports, roads, etc.) Have become much more clogged. It is a trial to move about. Moreover, the "famous places" people go to visit have become all the same in a way, "culturally homogenized". It is like having all one's food cooked in the same "trans-fat" palm oil. The sites are worn out, and the parasites and beggars remarkably the same. So, how does the current generation of travelers adapt? They socialize for four hours in the local bars and cafés of their own kind. They are very tribal. As for me, I take the "river bus" by day, and visit the established quota of my supply-shops. When I go to the airport, I take a taxi at 3:00 am, and wander about inside the airport buildings, for the roads are empty and the airport free of crowds until 6:00 am. I like it this way.

"Exotic places" are no longer places to see, but places to do something else, locally. The pleasures of the place will come, indirectly. When in doubt, go asymmetric. Do not do what the herd is doing: you will be quite alone, here. Make your own niche. Work at odd hours. Fortunately, I have been able to do this. The neo-pagans, and the digital élite undergoing their "global internship" are some of the most tribal, and sociologically "enmeshed" people I have ever seen. The modern age was supposed to have liberated us, but it has not done that!

After some days, I went to Jakarta, to meet the artist who is illustrating my second children's book manuscript. (Remember, Lychee, Indonesia is a very good place for "outsourcing", and "getting things done".) I went to my "same-same" hotel there, on Jalan Jaksa, which is (or was) Jakarta's equivalent of Bangkok's Khao San Road. However, as a backpacker's gathering zone, Jalan Jaksa is clearly dying off. The ramshackle neighborhood is being brought up, and converted to high-and, high-rise buildings. Now, the street is looking more run down, with far fewer tourists (they now enter Indonesia at Bali). The already shabby hotel I go to has been let to run to seed. Why bother? In a few years, they will have to sell out to some developer. The mosquitoes in my room have complete air-superiority. I kill them by letting the faulty air-conditioner run all night. When I get up to pee, their scouts are resting on the pillow, waiting to "kiss" me. I kill them with a portable bug-zapper that looks like a tennis racket. Still, it is hard to sleep on any given night.

The artist was very busy with her kids, so we talked on the phone. She sent samples of her work by motorcycle courier which in Jakarta is a really hazardous undertaking. The work was excellent! She can do the 50 - odd illustrations here-and- there, when parenting allows, and give me a first draft in two or three years. I am completely happy with this, for she is a genius artist.

Jakarta is a hard city to live in and operate in. The traffic is frightful, and noisy. The places of interest (for books, stationery, "comfort-food") are not near each other. I have already "been-and-done" the tourist attractions, according to Lonely Planet, and I do not want to venture out of Jalan Jaksa. However, I keep on returning; Jakarta is still a gateway city, and worth a few days on each pass. I like it this way.

I took the day-train to Yogyakarta, and camped out at my usual crash-pad guest- house-again, in the usual backpacker's ghetto. However, this time, I showed up unannounced. The boss knew me; I knew her; she gave me a room (the same one!) For three weeks. I am glad she did this for me, since successive waves of Western (and Chinese) tourists have been coming to Yogyakarta. I set up shop: I bought a desk lamp and final stationery, I got a better cushion for the chair. So, for three weeks, I studied basic Bahasa Indonesia.

Lychee, I wish to learn the main language of Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia) because I hope to live and retire in Indonesia. For me, each time I return here, I like it more and more. So, instead of "running around, here and there" I decided to stay in the guest house. Also, the harsh comments of those two people gutted me of most of my usual resolve. There were times when I thought "Shouldn't you be exploring the Madura peninsula, and the ljen crater with its molten sulfur vents, and the road to Bali?” But no, I just didn't want to do it; I decided on "another time in life". So, instead of actually "studying language", I took the printed information from two of my language-study books, and re-configured it to my own brain-specifications, by copying down those words and phrases I liked, my way onto five notebooks. In short, I made the Bahasa Indonesia of those books my Bahasa Indonesia. Later, I would like to photograph each notebook page, and turn the 500+ pictures into a sort of "digital slide-show", for sharing. This work of synthesizing took much of those three weeks. It was also a way of internally coping and adjusting to my current feelings. In the end, perhaps it is better that I used my holiday in this way, for any spoken language I might have learned would have been forgotten. As it was, I shipped home valuable language-learning materials for later. (By now, 1996 - 2017, I have probably shipped home two tons of sea-parcels; it adds up!)

The days became weeks; I fell into a time-free routine. (As Tony Campolo said, "Test drive your rocking chair!" Well, I did, and it works.) I deliberately did not bring my alarm clock. In the guest-house, I chose to follow the daylight, the morning roosters, the five "calls-to-prayer" from the local "mini mosques" (and there are many of them), and the rumbling of my stomach/eye-ache/hand-cramp. I read, I wrote, I synthesized the information in the phrase-books, I moved on. Something copied into the notebook will endure; the conversation on the street will be lost and forgotten. As my father said to me once, the reason why Captain Cook became famous was because he wrote down what he did, and the other sea-captains (who came to Australia before Cook) did not write down what they did. I quarreled incessantly with my father, but on this point, he was quite correct. All those hours of copying became a blur of time. What remains of interest are the significant details, or of what I did when I was not writing, or sleeping.

The neighborhood where I lived had bungalow-shanties crammed next to each other. Those people who made money demolished their shanty, built "up", and made a concrete, three-floor guest-house. The tourists came. The narrow alleys really were narrow; they were raised up a foot, paved in concrete, and had good side-gutters. Mounted and powered motorcycles were strictly forbidden. Children played happilyin

the streets. (Reader: it should be noted that, like the Catholic Church in the middle ages in Europe, the Muslim religion maintains an active and very viable social services system. Here, all cylinders were firing quite happily.) Thus, the dominant vehicle was the mobile vendor cart-a-two-wheeled, pushed-from-behind cart, having a glass-in "box" on top. All sorts of services were provided — mostly concerned with food. These were: rice-porridge with "cruditées", red-bean/coconut "heavy cream" porridge, "bak-so" meatball-soup, chicken soup (soto ayam), rice-crackers made in the "shrimp cracker" way and sold in bulk to households, and sometimes a small-goods cart. These all came at set times, on most days. I liked the rice-porridge and the bean-porridge most of all. Like a good Pavlovian dog, I would tumble downstairs, at the first sound of the approaching vendors. They would tap the rims of their china soup-bowls with a steel tablespoon — and everyone in the neighborhood heard it. Mothers would send out their kindergarten-aged children, with 3,000 rupiahs in small bills (about .25) and a bowl, followed by the grandmother. Conversations were made. It was a glimpse into an age I never knew could exist. (Only two minutes walk away, the roads boiled with traffic, and every imaginable form of Hustler trying to earn pennies.) I watched the ritual of the vendor slowly and carefully assembling the rice-porridge, and the secular litany of which of the "cruditées” I wanted, in which I did not. (Chopped chives, yes; soy- "mits", yes; deep-fried "unspeakables", no; chili pepper, no; mystery-oil dressing, yes.) Finally, it was ready, I paid, and retired to the stoop-bench of the quest house to eat it. Looking back on those moments, I now realize that what I experienced was "contentment". Upon reflection, it seems that these types of vendor-carts came into this local neighborhood, because they had no open fire.

Out on the real street, there was a wholly different vendor-ecosystem. The push- carts were bigger, and there was sometimes a fire. Some canteens were built onto the back of a motor-tricycle. They served stir-fried dishes, chicken satay with peanut sauce, and the like. Some never moved; when the work-day was finished, they were chained to the wall and tarped over. One category was "half coffee, half snack stall". The boss served up camp coffee, or camp tea, or else the incident, "3-in-1" sachet mix. The rest of the car was covered in an open, grab-and-nibble selection of deep-fried snacks. Many were "unrecognizable, unspeakable" items, but the white tofu, and the dark tempe/yellow tempe/were sublimely delicious. When I went to these stalls, I took the seats between the stall and the wall; on the roadside, buses and cars could faintly brush my back: that was too much. When it rained, I sat closer to the body of the vendor-cart, like the other men (there were few women in such places), and tried to avoid the rain dripping off the awning. The best time to be there was after dark, during rush hour, on the walls side, with coffee in one hand, and the piece of dark tempe in the other. There were also some very small, but "nuclear" green chilli-peppers available, to "cut" the grease of the snacks. I acquired that taste very quickly, and liked it!

There was a tourist hotel on that street. Each night, enormous coaches would come in, squeeze past the vendors, and the other traffic, drop off the tourists, and make many "three-point turns" so as to back into the hotel's tiny forecourt. All this they did during the rush-hour, in the settling dark, every day.

So, I ate in a variety of places, when I was not writing: the mini-carts outside the guesthouse; the larger vendors out on the bigger street; the Chinese stir-fry place five minutes walk away; many other vendors here and there; a Bali restaurant some distance away; and various mini-stalls in the big shopping mall. The Indonesians are very good at street food, but their interpretation of "shiao-mai" is revolting.

Yogyakarta is one of the cultural centres of Java, and my guest-house was not far from the main shopping street. Out in the countryside, "kampung" culture prevailed: beaten earth courtyards, palm thatched roofs, corrugated tin roofs, mosquitoes, and all. In that part of the city, mid-level urban civilization prevailed -which pleased me very much. The country folk love to take "groupie" photos on the main street, as if they were in Times Square on New Year's Eve. As for me, I went to the main shopping mall. It was a real mall (by Western standards), not like the one in Manado, which I described elsewhere. In addition to the Periplus and the Gramedia bookshops, I went to the Hero supermarket, to buy daily snacks and fruit. This year, purple Dragon fruit was my favorite fruit. I liked walking up and down the same rows and aisles each day, making mental notes of this and that. It was a sort of counter-balance to the enforced sessions of solitude in my guest-house room, copying out language materials. I could be among many people, but not have to deal with anyone. Also, the supermarket was heavily air- conditioned, and clean.

I like Indonesia, but there are many "on the edge" places there. Trouble, an accident, something dangerous, the possibility of sudden death, are all never far away. Therefore, I like to visit these "psychological/cultural oasis" when I can, to feel better inside.

This is illustrated by a trip I took to Parangtritis Beach, about thirty kilometres south of Yogyakarta. The beaches on the Indian Ocean. One of my few local friends arranged a ride to and from the beach on the back of a motorcycle. I met the driver, and he drove me to the beach. (Whenever I am in the "death-wish” mood, I hire a motorcycle driver to take me on a day-trip to one of the many ancient Hindu temples in the volcanic landscape around the city of Yogyakarta. On such days, I feel life is ten times better than usual.) We parked, and walked to the beach. What I saw looked very different from the "white sands and palm trees" portrayed on the tourist posters back in the city. A stiff wind blew sand, a tired and worn-out gray sand, into our eyes. We walked a while on the beach, facing backwards into the wind. Mixed with the sand were dried particles of human occupation. The waves churned grey-brown sediment. We walked back to the beachfront stalls and ordered coconut water. Most of the stalls were closed; those that were open sold "cultural-identity" food (i.e., not nutritious) and all manner of plastic kitch. The coconut water was insipid-nothing compared to the coconut water of Ende, in Flores. After some minutes, I said to the motorcycle driver, "I want to go back." The memory of that three-hour excursion will be a one-centimetre mark, with a heavy black pen, on my map of Java. However, I had been warned: someone looked at me strangely when I said I wanted to visit Parangtritis Beach, just because it was on the map.

So, Lychee, the three weeks passed by: I filled my notebooks, re-visited my usual "places" to reconnect in ways I cannot explain, avoided the usual tourist sites, imbibed the real urban scenery of downtown Yogyakarta from the margins and liked it. In fact, this visit confirmed to me that Indonesia is still the best place in the S.E. Asia for me to settle down and rest in. Bangkok has all the "bells and whistles", but Indonesia, especially Flores, has my attention, and my undivided soul-interest.

Here is another vignette. About half-way down the main shopping street is one of the main markets. It is a large and rambling concrete building - a traditional bazaar, with three or four floors. The sides are open, to allow cross-breezes to cool the inside, but on a busy day it is hot and packed. During this time, I developed a craving for the local beef soup (soto sapi). On the top floor, there was a food-court, but the soup there was just "so-so". Outside the big market buildings, the mini-shops and stalls continued, wherever there was any alley space. One stall advertised beef soup, but when I passed by it was all sold out. I looked elsewhere. These were the days when lunch would be strung out over one hour, and four different shanty restaurants, each some distance apart. It was a sort of urban-trekking and tapas, combined. Some shanty areas are terrifying for me to walk in, but those that boarded the "tourist zone", or that were rising up I visited, because of their street-food, which I liked. Some favorite snacks were: chicken soup, beef soup, beef tripe soup, tempe in tofu, "bitter gourd", real ox-tail soup, and more. In secret, I ate suckling pig pieces at the Bali-style restaurant: "babi daging" is scrumptiously delicious!

For me, Indonesia is a changeable place. One moment, all seems well; in the next moment, I am uncertain. The people are polite; suddenly they are volatile (especially in Java). The air is still, and all is peaceful; the dark clouds come, and tropical rain comes sheeting down. In the distance, there are the volcanoes, always waiting... I have not seen the dark side, but it is always there. And yet... The soil of Java is famously fertile, the green and terraced land (away from the "development") is so beautiful. From a distance, many things can appear beautiful; it is when one gets up close that another reality appears. Then, it is time to engage, or move on.

If there are two or three variables that are changing my life-trajectory, they are the following: it will become harder for me to get work-visas in China; it is hard for a theoretical Chinese girl-friend to get travel-visas to the places I like to go, and almost impossible for XJ girls to even get a Chinese passport ("minority girls" are is good as buried); S.E. Asia allures me far more than China ever did (the land, not “a person"!); I just want to move on! Once again, it is Indonesia that I want to go to; the others (Iran, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Singapore, Burma) I like, but not as much. I now view life in three phases: finish the teaching career in China (and maybe more teaching in Kazakhstan and Iran); finish off all the remaining travel (many places); settle down in Flores island (Indonesia). Of course, no one would want to join me in this; I will choose to go alone. It is perhaps for this reason that the time in Yogyakarta was the most important part of this winter holiday.

I went back to Bangkok, and then stayed there for about six quiet days. I bought the usual books and "comfort supplies" for the next teaching term, and prepared for the next week's journey.

This time I did something completely different. I went to Dubai for a week. My friendly travel company arranged a "red-eye" flight on a budget airline, and a cheap bed in a hostel. Otherwise, I would not have gone: in recent years, I have been experiencing periods of little cash, and have had to give up some projects. These are the reasons I went to Dubai: (a) I wanted to see if I could see Dubai as a base-camp to explore Iran, Oman, Kazakhstan and maybe some other places in the Middle East, much as I use Bangkok and Singapore to explore S.E. Asia. (b) if possible, I wanted to see if I could study Farsi, with an émigré, in Dubai. (c) Since I have chosen Tokyo, Bangkok, Singapore, Dubai, Amsterdam, Lisbon as my "travel-hub cities", I wanted to become acquainted with

Dubai, and see what it had to offer. (d) I had often badgered one of my "lost loves" to visit Dubai, so I now thought, "Why not go myself?" So, I went. (e) I “dared” myself to go, and have a look.

The flight was a sleepless one, so I imagined the places the lone plane flew over Burma, India, the ocean. My first impression was of how modern and orderly everything was. I could have been in a mid-size city in Arizona (downtown Dubai is some distance from the airport). Many people spoke English, and Hindi. I thought, “If you want to get around in the Gulf states, hang out with the migrant workers, and use Hindi!" City bus, Metro, and walking took me to the hostel, which I knew nothing about - it had been arranged by the Bangkok travel company, as I am averse to internet booking.

I should share a few words about this hostel. Someone had taken a three-bedroom apartment (3rd floor) in what I would call a lower middle-class area of Dubai, with many people from India, Pakistan, the Philippines living nearby, and turn this apartment into an Internet-booked hostel. It had the feel of a sophomore dormitory. However, this being Dubai, UAE, the expected social rules were in force. The real owner, I never saw: he hired "on the edge" ex-pat 30-somethings to do the day-to-day running of the place. One was harried, unfriendly as a matter of course, and may be looking for enough money to fly home. The other got in trouble with the first for various work-related slip-ups. However, it was my home base in “unfamiliar Dubai”, so I was all too happy to be there! I was astonished at those 20-something, Global wanderers, who just showed up at the hostel, after dark, hoping to find a bed! I would not dream of doing that. (So, I am a “50- something"...) The first staff worker sent them packing, to look for another place.

For me, there are certain similarities and differences between Dubai city and Singapore city. Both are glitzy, modern, show-case cities, with lots of avant-garde architecture. Both were forged out of virtually nothing (using oil, or shipping money) by powerful, visionary leaders. Both attract visitors from all over the world, and armies of ex-pat workers. Both are closely involved with shipping, and our global hub-cities. However, there is one variable that makes them different, and it is hugely significant. Singapore was built, architecturally, on the legacy of the colonial British infrastructure, whereas Dubai was built, "ex nihilo", out of the desert. This makes all the difference, for it meant that Dubai had a completely free hand in terms of social engineering. Pre- existing infrastructure does have an effect on how a society is formed - even in "nanny" Singapore. I could feel this difference clearly, as I walked the streets of Dubai.

I also felt very lonely, and shut out. Poverty is not just about squalor and having no money; one can have money, eat at good restaurants, have a good hotel, yet be socially destitute. The Emirati (i.e., Arab) people were few on the streets. Where, and how they lived, I had no idea; there was absolutely no signature trace or footprint of their existence. Dubai is a city of ex-pats, from everywhere. I wonder if they make up 90% of the city's population? They live, each with their own community, and their respective societies are "gated" close to any outsiders, by social, digital, physical means.

So, I very quickly called Dubai, "hell, without the flames". This idea has softened somewhat over time, but I was very much struck with how it is possible to have everything, yet at the same time to have nothing, if a stranger.

The hostel was a base camp, and it allowed me a refuge, a sanctuary, so I could explore Dubai. It was the same in Singapore: I stayed at a hostel for young global

wanderers, in Singapore's "Little India" district, so as to save money. In this way, I could enjoy the "Flash Gordon" feeling of being in these futuristic cities, while not having to pay dearly for it all.

The second saving point (in both cities) was the metro. It allowed me to go many places, and avoid the traumas of getting about by bus. Of course, Singapore's is better, but Dubai will catch up, and also profit from its "ex nihilo" playing card. I was able to go to almost all of my chosen places, by the Dubai metro. The trains are run by computers, cameras, and unseen, distant operators, so it is a very cool place to enjoy like a futuristic, six-year old Casey Jones. Each station had a "Zoom" mini convenience store or some alternative. There, I would snack, and avoid the pain of cultural and social illiteracy. The nearest metro station to the hostel was the Burjuman station, which also happened to be an interchange station. It became my "survival bunker", as it had a "mini- Carrefour" convenience store there. Now, I felt able to operate!

At the station's topside, there was a Muglai Indian restaurant. On the first visit, the boss was kind to me, so I returned the favor, and ate there many times. Dubai is famous for its global variety of cuisine, but I was very happy to stay in one Indian restaurant. It made me feel more secure. I wish they had more green vegetables, but that was a trade-off I was willing to make.

I realize that if I wanted to get about in the Middle East, I should learn some basic Hindi (and not Arabic). The Indians go everywhere, and set up successful small businesses. Besides, my objectives are about basic survival, and not social integration. So, I wish to learn Hindi.

There was no social interaction in the hostel, so I read Robert Byron's "The Road To Oxiana", and imagined the 1930s. He was a much better traveler!

There was only one place to get some social creature-comfort, and that was the great shopping malls. They are an attraction in themselves. I got some books, DVDs, and ate at some Persian restaurants. The malls are a good place to go walking on those brutally hot days.

Lychee, I said earlier that I wanted to look into the possibility of studying Farsi with a tutor in Dubai, not Iran. So, I went to the Iranian cultural Centre, and spoke with the librarian there. He said it would be possible to find a tutor, the next time I come. So, somewhere in the back of my mind, the idea was formed about returning to Dubai, perhaps for one month. Nothing is certain these days, so I will have to see what comes. I wish I could study in Persia itself, but that seems more and more closed.

I kept the most charming part of Dubai until last—that is, the Creek area. Here, the open air, the wind-towers, the flocks of seagulls, and above all the "arba" water-taxis made me feel calm and relaxed. I ate chickpeas and drank chai in yet another Indian establishment, in some bazaar. The old 19th century Persian émigré district has been turned into a cultural centre. However, most of all, it was the rides on the "arba" that I most liked. On these mini-tugboat-like craft, in a society where I had no social contact at all, I could sit quietly and enjoy the surroundings.

Who was kind, then? Various Indian restaurant bosses. The cashier at the many- Carrefour, in Burjuman station. A real-estate salesperson at a booth in one of those great malls (I was looking at the brochures). To you, these cameos.

So, Lychee, Dubai will certainly be one of my "global hub" cities. I do not know how the next visit will play out, or if I will be able to study Farsi, but why worry? I will deal with it then. As for the glitz, who cares?

I flew back to Bangkok, again, for a one-day stopover. I chose a new hotel, because they had a swimming pool, and I wanted to swim. It was a "pit-stop", before the next side-trip.

The last side-trip was to Rangoon, in Burma. I stayed at my usual hotel. I only plan to stay in Rangoon for one week, as the holiday is running down. Besides, I did not have the "get-up-and-go" spirit to go up-country, as before. Next time, if there is a "next time". As I said earlier, Lychee, this was a "tying down loose ends" trip, not a pathfinding trip. I wanted to get books and supplies, see some people, and consolidate my global position. I also felt somewhat broken in spirit, and less inclined to forge far ahead.

Things are changing in Rangoon. Money -but from where? Is coming in. Some of the old colonial buildings are being restored. Buildings are going up. The old and worn-out storm-drains that go about every city block are being dug up and re-built. (That is a lot of manual labor.) The traffic jams are horrible, as always, here. Whenever I go from the hotel to a place downtown, I sit in the back of the taxi and take my mind elsewhere. Besides, the Burmese are all fearfully observant. If I look out the window at the people on the street, I find they are already waiting for me, and looking at me; I walk right into their pre-established eye contact. So, I look at the passing world through the wing-Mirror of the taxi; or I look over the shoulder of the driver, and ride his radar- emitting "aura"; or I sweep my gaze left and right, lower my head, close my eyes, and mull over what I saw. Otherwise, I just tune-out.

How jammed the streets are! Telephone and power wires are a dense and very tangled mess on every pole. As the taxi inches forward, I looked down the crowded, seething spaces between the city blocks. The British laid down an orderly city grid, but order ended there. The brick or concrete surface of the buildings is lush with algae, moss, small ferns, and age-stains. Laundry poles poke out of the windows, and alms-lines (for lowering food to the passing monks in the morning) hang from most windows. The streets were not designed for big cars, parked on each side, with barely enough room down the middle. Street vendors are everywhere. Of course, there is betel-juice spit on the ground.

It is hot, so I fan myself with a blue plastic fan I bought in Bangkok. The driver sees this, and rolls up the windows, then turns up the air-con. I say, don't bother, I am all right, but we have reached a "cultural impasse". This scenario has often happened in taxis, all over capital S.E. Asia. One could say, "The driver is trying to be helpful" and may be so. However, I say that Asian culture is so geared to the communal perspective (or, I say, co-dependency), that the mere idea of an individual solving a problem alone (i.e., fanning to stay cool), is utterly inconceivable to them. So, I secretly fan myself gently, holding the fan in the driver's "blind spot". If he knows it, he will keep quiet, since plausible ignorance of the situation allows him to avoid the duty of losing face. "Fight fire with fire". Fight the deceptions of culture with deception. Sometimes, it works.

One taxi journey was quite funny. I flagged a taxi, and got in the back, because there was already a writer in the front. She was involved in conversation with the driver, and appeared to have an...ahem... an adventurous career. She asked me if I spoke Burmese; I said no. Not yet... Then she resumed talking earnestly to the driver. Their speech was some-times interspersed with another, rather than familiar language. So, I sat back and enjoyed the ride, assembling the pieces. Here was the admirable Mata Hari, fresh from her French colonel, dressed to kill for the 21st century (no ostrich feathers, but red nail-polish and a cell phone), unloading her goodies to her "handler". The taxi swept past the immortal spire of the Shive Dagon pagoda, but my imagination was firmly somewhere in the Tuilleries, throwing breadcrumbs to the pigeons. At a certain point, she got off. Five minutes; a thousand words; the stars tumbled from their astral courses. Nothing has changed, save the ostrich feathers. Maybe I should retire and live in Rangoon.

Getting around Rangoon was a trauma, but finding a taxi to take me onwards was worse, so I needed a reliable pick-up place, such as... A five-star hotel. Every shabby capital, every city that is rebuilding itself, every tourist venue with high-and coddled and nasty tourists who say “icky!” (And betel-juice on the road will make one say that) will have an oasis of luxury, and Rangoon has one, too. After wandering the hot and crowded streets, I straightened myself up, put on my "entitled air", and walked into the cool and dignified cocktail bar, to sit in a corner chair. All cocktail bars of British-colonial extraction have a certain spot where "not quite desirable" can sit quietly for the time of one drink. Then they are given the bill and expected to leave. Each time, I asked for a blended papaya and crushed ice...no sugar, please. It is shocking how insisting on "no sugar" can turn one from a "not quite desirable" into a crotchety old man. Well, there it is. I cooled off, paid, and was able to get an out-going taxi. (My own hotel was in a shabbier part of Rangoon.)

Near to the "papaya shake” hotel lay most of the places I wanted to visit: this was the business district. I will list some of the more memorable ones. Everywhere, it was hot and very crowded, with much construction work. I did my copy, scanning, and digital projects here. There are digital "chop-shops" everywhere, all thronged with supplicants, with a lethal mix of Asian stoicism and urgency to get one's print-job done. Copy-shop workers must be the most saintly workers anywhere. I had my own place, and liked the small tailor shop in Hanoi. I guard its location carefully, Lychee. The lady knew me, and she designed what I asked for. This is why I come back, again and again. Getting good service, and especially with print-jobs, is very hard in Asia so if you find someplace that works, keep it carefully!

The landscape is chaotic. People, now huddled over their cell-phones, but still Burmese in demeanor, walk here and there, or pick their way around the sitting army of shanty-stalls. The sidewalks are completely lost to these stalls, and the edge of the city streets are packed with parked cars-far too many of them. The Burmese, thankfully, are still relatively thin —even in advancing prosperity so it is somewhat possible to scuttle around a group of shopkeepers, and move on. (Not so in Central Asia, where the slowly moving shoppers, like cow-walruses, drive me to desperation. Let me pass!) Beggars are common. People sit at the "choke-points" of human traffic, waiting for eye contact, and money. The local people are really good and catching one's eye, and in that brief second, putting their foot into your door. It is the "bears, at the salmon falls", or the "wildebeest, crossing the crocodile-infested river" scenario, all over again. Footbridges over the busy roads are the favorite ambush sites. There are also people who have cages of little birds. By one, release it, and get some "merit”. The birds are released, fly up into a tree, are re-caught, and do it again. Do they get any commission?

There is a certain "area" of a few blocks where the booksellers operate. Most of "great finds" have been picked out, leaving a jumble of books that should just be pulped. However, they are laid out, flea-market style, for people to rummage in. There are a few bookstores that “look” like a Western bookstore, but many here require a lot of fortitude to browse through. Nonetheless, "trolling" these alleys was one of my reasons for coming to Rangoon. (I am still nervous about the next few years in S.E. Asia, in terms of "general stability, and freedom of travel", so I wanted to stock up on books and maps and language-charts, like the squirrel and his acorns.) Here, in these Burmese book-stalls, one can sometimes find something really, really good - like a Mogok ruby - and I did. It was a 1942 phrase-book, printed for the Burmese, by the Kempai Tai, in Romanized Japanese. That went home, very, very quickly. I also picked up some Burmese translations of certain Western novels, for later language study. It would be utterly, utterly impossible to get such books back home. In terms of bookishness Burma still lives in the 1960s, in the hangover of the British Empire. It is a world of Somerset Maughm, Steinbeck, Orwell, and colonial writers. It is the mentality of the time I grew up in, during the 1970s, in English boarding schools in the countryside, when curriculum was still good, and the Western intellect had not yet been badly degraded by the worldviews we have now. I feel like "Noah, collecting books, not pairs of animals", or one of those people in "Fahrenheit 451", wandering the woods, reciting their chosen book, to preserve it. I remember my grandfather, retired in England, who carefully kept certain "rare- breeds" of game-hen, so as to help keep that species alive. He was quite right.

When the moral and cultural winter sets in over the Western world, I would like something to read — which I like. However, who would I pass it on to, and would there be people who would want it, and not burn it? Throughout history, people have been cruel to books.

I was hungry. However, in this part of Rangoon, there were many choices. They knew me, and I knew them. First, was an Indian "chetty house". It was located right on the pulse of the city, packed with customers, and good food. I liked their "mutton balls, with gravy curry set from before, but it was sold out. So, I had "mutton brains, with gravy". As with almost all eating establishments in Asia, it just doesn't "do" to ask for “a little less of this, more of that, none of that". This is the way it is, like a spring River and full spate. In coming here, one consents to being overwhelmed by culture, shocked, and mildly shaken up. That is the purpose of going to this sort of restaurant. I pulled my imaginary psychological cowl over my head, and looked intently at those sheep brains, still hoping for the original choice. The second place was in the dining hall of the Central, colonial-era market. (I wrote about it earlier, in "The Pickle Barrel".) It was a risky place to enter. At first sight of a tourist — or anyone, for that matter the dozen or so stall owners break into a mad chorus of sales-pitch shouting. By now, I knew how to shut them all up. I went to my familiar lady-boss, and sat down at her table. All the others shut up, once I had chosen my table. Her food was no better or worse than the others; it was the corner, and the psychological silence that I wanted. I was never quite sure where their actual kitchen was. This was very much a place where one could get sewer-rat the size of cats in the meat. (I do remember such a rat, of such a size, waddling through another restaurant, this time in Bangkok, until the boss prodded it away with a broomstick. Just ask Rachel...) The third place was not far away from the second. In the "five foot wide”, external walkways that are standard in tropical colonial architecture, there were many

people selling various small things. One woman had her two squat-stools (one carried her tray and one for the other customer) outside a high-end music CD/DVD store. Good move: every time a music customer entered or left the store, a heavenly waft of cold air spilled out over the "five-foot walkway". This woman sold pieces of tofu, stuffed with shop pomelo, cabbage, and a mini-chille pepper, then squirted with some salty vinegar. This nibble-dish instantly entered the inner pantheon of the street food. If I come back to Rangoon again, I will seek out this place. I have always liked street food, so over the years I have tried to follow the foodie-muse, as I wander the tourist roots, and the "grey area", a little to each side of the socially delineated tourist area. How strange that I, who hate cooking, should have become a S.E. Asia street-foodie.

I did not feel good about staying long-term in Burma. Throughout this visit, I had this lingering, gut-shot feeling, and, as in Java, I did not want to venture up-country. This was my condition, not Burma's - for Burma remains one of the most amazing countries on earth. On the next visit, I hope to visit Sagaing Region, and Chin Region—both out- of-the-way areas, and rugged- and enjoy that "otherworldliness", which only Burma can offer. Time is short!

Here are two final anecdotes of Burma, this time round. The staff at my hotel are always kind and helpful, but when I said I wanted a Burmese-language tutor, a plate-glass window (figurative) descended between us. Oh, the time is too short... And so on, and on. All I wanted was to figure out how to read the alphabet letters! So, I went out to the bookshops, and the street vendors, and bought some materials that Burmese mothers hang up on their kitchen walls for their own kindergarten-age kiddies. The most promising alphabet materials, I took from the Internet, and had been made into four-foot by two-foot "tarps" (with ring-holes in the extreme corners). They were shipped home from Bangkok, by sea-parcel and will adorn the inside wall of one of my containers. Like the people in Indonesia, the Burmese are a "can-do" people · - but a little less so. One has to find the right shop, the right person, the right moment — and slip in and do it. However, make no mistake: when Burmese people want to get something done, nothing will stop them — they are the ultimate Trojans. Rangoon will be re-constructed.

This incident with the hotel staff showed me yet again the obstacles to learning a language. Yes, every single language has some built-in element to deter the stranger (e.g., French the pronunciation; Russian — the issue of stress, and vowels; Farsi - the short vowels are not written in, but are all "assumed", etc.). However, the main problem lies in finding someone who will take me by the hand, answer my specific questions about their language, and let me build my new house my way. This is especially true in clannish-Asia, and also in this age, where ignorance and opaqueness are becoming global social past-times. I do not want a clever tutor; I want a traitor, who will show me "how it works", every day. I believe language is rational- it is the society that made language that is so very clannish, elitist, and obstructionist. Therefore, when studying language, I do the following: (a) I take a structuralist approach, and tried to "de-construct" a language like soldier ants on the Serengeti "de-constructing" a dead animal; (b) I “go assymmetric" - I studied the language in a completely different country; I use the poor to understand the rich; I read "their" language, but with "our" authors; (c) I use Vaubain as my textbook, for learning language is a siege-operation, and not a "cross-cultural co- operation", as some would have us believe; (d) I focused on survival and daily function, not fluency; I follow what directly interest me, and no more; (e) learning a new language

is an act of infiltration and subversion, in and of itself, so do not look for friends; look for traitors, or do it yourself; (f) I conform the language to my way of seeing things, just like a Victorian butterfly-collector will pin out his butterflies, “just so", and arrange them by his categories, in his thin-drawered, teak-wood collection cabinet. After all it is people, and society, that make language learning difficult: neuter them! Lest you think me mad, know this: I have done these things, and to a certain (but not perfect) extent, they work. Of course, my social access to the new culture is limited, but that was never my intention! Conversely, Madame de Pompadour could enter another society, not speak a word of their language, and still charm those in her company, within a few minutes.

The second final anecdote of this trip to Burma concerns a mother and her baby. As I was walking towards yet another tea-house for lunch, I passed a baby. It was a boy baby, maybe 1 - 1⁄2 years old, really large for its age, and very, very angry. It was having a fearsome "temper tantrum". One more detail: the mother had placed it on the road, next to the curb, where the cars park. The black pavement was hot, and covered in the red splotches of betel-juice spit. Where was the mother? At this point, I assumed she was in the tea-house, having her lunch, and letting her furious boy blow off some steam. People standing by looked at the baby, but no one was making a scene. I wondered what would happen to the mother if this thing happened in New York, or London. I walked into the tea-house for lunch. Could it be that the Burmese have ways of dealing with unruly children, which we lack?

Rangoon is definitely not the city for "a pleasant evening stroll". I did my business by day, came back to the hotel by dusk, and stayed inside. Outside, over the street, the crows settled down for the night in the large shade-trees. For some reason, crows do very well in Burma. When I think of the dusty streets, the bicycle-sidecar version of the rickshaws and their tireless drivers, the never-ending burden of heat and life's hardship, I think of crows in the evening. Some branch-line for rail freight goes through this neighborhood. The engines move slowly, blowing their horn to clear the tracks of playing children. There is aged litter everywhere. Even before the train comes, all the pariah dogs wail and howl in chorus. When it is gone, they are silent; they flopped down in the dust and are still again. I imagine this area around the foreigner's hotel at four in the early morning, lying sleepless in my bed. I see what I imagine by day, if I walk from the hotel to a nearby supermarket. I hear the dogs and the crows, but I am afraid to look at the people.

There is something about Burma that always makes me want to return, and exist in the "vibrant amber" once again. This time, it was harder to love the place, with many thoughts going in and out of my mind. I did my own things: shopping, the books, the soy-milk shop, the Japanese restaurant, a few contacts, the papaya-and-ice drink, the learning materials - - and then I left. I hope to be back there once more.

The last stay in Bangkok was for six days. I stocked up on "comfort supplies", and tried to drain each moment of its marrow. If work, and China, where deserts of duty and of purgatory, then S.E. Asia, and all of its many parts, was the Island of the Lotus- Eaters. "Oh Oddyssyeus! Turn not back to the wind-furrowed sea, and distant lands, but stay a while longer with us! Stay, and rest!" Why is it that the traveler's world is made

up of hardships, with sparse oases along the way, I need China, and work, for the stability of life's purpose; I crave S.E. Asia, to wash out the salt, the pains, the angst. They seem to feed off each other, and complement each other, like so many other "oil-and vinegar" realities.

People say of me: haven't you had your fill of flying in and out of Bangkok, and wandering the breadth of S.E. Asia? No. There are still places to go, a few places to work in, one place to call home-base. Then comes Japan, Central Asia, the rest of Europe, the Middle East (parts, if possible), certain lands around the Atlantic then home for the last act. Being "normal" and having a family never suited me; I took my varied life elsewhere.

I saw another Zhí Dà student in Kunming for a few days. Seeing her was good, but the cold clouds hung low over the city, and I wanted to move on, back to Lhasa, and work.

I am now back in Lhasa. I am still taking one green anti-malarial pill a day, to make sure there is nothing bad in my blood. These pills are the final reminders of each winter holiday. One by one they go, for 30 days, until they are all used up. Then, the dark chocolate is eaten up, and the ginger powder, and the 3-in-1 tea mix. By then, I am used to life under work.

Lychee, sometimes I have been asked why do you write this "Lychee"? Can't you write in a more suitable way? My answer is simple: when I stop writing to you, I will stop writing about Asia!