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. […]
Praborommathatchiyaratchaworawihan (I can’t pronounce it either.)
Chinese Costco
The rumors are true. There is a Costco store in China. The bummer is, the store in online, meaning no free samples of pigs in the blanket in the frozen aisle. I mean, without samples, what’s the point of Costco? But in the quaint village Kunming, (population approaching seven million), there is Metro. It’s a German version of the popular […]
Dang Zhang Lang!
Nothing says you’re in china like a cockroach in your refrigerator. So I sublet an apartment in Kunming from a young Canadian with slightly bad hygiene. (The locals really didn’t notice. All westerners stink to them). But this guy looked like he needed a shower right after he toweled off, the smell of BO reminiscent of a high school locker room. […]
Cheers to a pint.
Tears came to my Dad’s eyes as he answered the phone that Saturday morning. Only one person would be calling at that time. “Hello, Mr. Sinsabaugh,” the perky voice started, “How would you like a new kidney today?” “Very much, “the words got stuck by the lump in his throat. ” That would be better than watching the game.” As I happily […]
Twice as bright, half as long
It was even too twisted for a Stephen King novel. I got the text from my husband and the waves of pain from southern California hit Kunming China like a tsunami. A friend lost his second son in eighteen months. To make the nightmare even worse, both deaths were the result of suicide. The second son, like his brother, pried open […]
Magic Mountain
I knew it was going to be a serious hike when a leathery vendor tried to sell me a canister of oxygen. “No thanks, ” I said, wondering if she knew something that I didn’t. It’s Jiao Zi (pronounced like “wowza”) Mountain. It’s forty two hundred meters high, a century back in time and a two hour drive outside of Kunming. […]
No Tittle Too Little
Lately, I’ve been feeling like a tittle. If you’re wondering what a tittle is, you’re not alone. Tittle is a big word for that little dot that tops the small vowel “i”. I never would’ve learned the word if I wasn’t teaching language learners in Asia, in an tittle sized village of six million people. A tittle may seem like an insignificant […]
My Life Out Of Storage
When I slid up the door to the five by teen foot space, it contained the usual suspects: Christmas ornaments, china, kitchen utensils and an Italian desk that we don’t know how to put back together. But the rest of those duct taped boxes in the storage unit? My countless diaries. I’ve been documenting my life since I was eleven, in pink paged diaries with little locks, the margins […]