The plate is just one of the relics that followed me back to China, packed in bubble wrap, between Costco size jars of Nutella and cylinders of Parmesan Cheese.
Museum of Me
You Care Too Much
The three words silenced my room: “What the hell?” They weren’t from a junior high student, because the utterance would have been in Chinese. The slip of the tongue was from a second grader. From the same kid who doesn’t know his sight words. I looked at a coworker, who heard it too. While I was thinking about school policies […]
吃货 (chī huò) Foodies
Huǒ guō or hot pot, is to Kunming, China what deep dish pizza is to Chicago. It’s a combination between a meal and a game of Truth or Dare
The Other Ten Commandments
I am glad that when Moses came down the mountain with two tablets, there wasn’t another set for those of privilege. Thou shall not steal, unless of course, you can afford a good lawyer. Thou shall not commit adultery, unless you are a politician who can afford payoffs. Thou shall keep thy Sabbath holy unless you want to go to […]
Dropped Change
Now, the drop-clothes are gone. The BLM murals blend in with the same-o same-o. The homeless melt back into the concrete searching for dropped change.
Signs of the Times
Hopefully, George Floyd will not be forgotten in a few weeks when people go back thumping their Bibles, and care more about the extra ketchup in a supersized meal than the single mother that handed it to them.
Sharing Life’s Lumps
The amount of deaths is like Six degrees of Kevin Bacon. But it’s not six degrees; it’s two. And it’s not Kevin Bacon—it’s the Grim Reaper. And the deaths are limited to people. The casualties include ma and pa diners, graduation parties, and baseball season.
Foodie Refugee
Foreign supermarkets will always be strange. You can buy everything but not the thing you really crave–a taste of home.
Sinhs
There’s only one thing more disgusting than having nothing to sell at the market than rodents. That’s being the tourist who wants to take a picture. Me.
Reclining Buddha, Falling Tourist
This is the picture you see on tourist websites for the golden Buddha in the Tham Phu Kham Cave in Vang Vieng, Laos. What they don’t show you is the black hole behind it, the one that I fell into, in spite of the flash light strapped around my head.