After living in Kunming China for eight years, I have built up a tolerance for what’s spicy. Not just the far-side foods, either, but the spice of life. The nine-year-old selling liquor in his parent’s store? At least he can see over the counter. Old women recylcers with huge bundles strapped to their backs? Walk faster! Freshly slaughtered carcasses hanging […]
When Spice Isn’t
Reading People
I don’t know what smell was more alluring, the smell of old books or the red peppers. It was a hole in the wall Thai book noodle shop in Ayatthaya, Thailand. The eighty cent train ride from Bangkok transported me back in time to the land of ancient temples and cheesy paperbacks. I browsed the browning pages while waiting for […]
Bang-cha-cha-cha
So, between my semi-annual my-body’s falling-apart check upand street-food crawl in Bangkok, I stopped at a café for a cup of WiFi when I started talking with a guy named James. He has your typical ex-pat bio. James is a former country dancer employed by a high-tech business in Portland but he’s working at the India branch. Like I […]
The Dress
Girls dream all of their lives what to wear on their wedding day. But what do you wear on the day or your divorce? My final hearing called was scheduled for November 2nd, one thirty in the afternoon Wisconsin time. But being in China, that would be 2:30 am, thirteen hours into the future. It had been arranged that […]
When Life Gives You Buttbeans
Copi Luwak or butt bean coffee seemed like the perfect way to drown my sorrows on that anything but Good Friday.
Sharpies
It was like cleaning out a junk drawer before a move. It was the last few boxes of our storage unit containing the remains of our marriage. But instead of rubber band balls and expired coupons, it contained fragments of my life that I could not part with or bring with me to China. Diaries. My grandmother’s China. My purple […]
Seven Foot Marlin
I can’t remember what I ate for breakfast on my wedding day. But I do I remember the kitchen was a wreck as the condo was in the final stages of being updated, the avocado green appliances being replaced with newlywed stainless steel. And my night sleep wasn’t good; I parked on the couch as my pots and pans covered […]
Life is Sweet
Eenie Meenie Minie Moe. Which Sapa darling do I buy the honey from? I looked at the three old ladies, all equally lovely, their faces road maps to hardships I can’t fathom. Their silver earrings stretched their ears into fleshy hula hoops, their black hair coiled on their heads like silky snakes. In front of each is a plastic bucket […]
The Frog Monger
I wanted to look away but I couldn’t. She had a corner on the sidewalk near our bank. I was drawn to her raggedy rice hat and crumpled up face, like a dollar bill that had gone thru the wash. She squatted on her store, a blanket spread on the ground, her wares a basket of frogs, each the size […]
Praborommathatchiyaratchaworawihan (I can’t pronounce it either.)
It was a bit awkward standing behind a monk at Seven Eleven to buy a beer. But I didn’t care. I needed one. It was the first time I thought I was going to die, since walking down a Chinese sidewalk and almost getting plowed by a taxi. I was visiting an ancient temple in southern Thailand called . I know. […]