Firefly

Greetings,

Culture is what you are. Nature is what you can be. 

I faced a challenging ethical decision at the Chinese steamed bun and iced java joint. I pulled up on my little simple blue bike. There were three HUGE extraterrestrial vehicles parked on the sidewalk. A group of men were having a morning snack and discussion at round tables. They were the economic Knights of the Round Table. 

All the men wore buttoned down long sleeve shirts except for the leader. How did you know he was the leader? When he spoke all the men at his table listened. He wore a striped short sleeve shirt. He wore a gold watch and a big radiant red ruby stone set in a gold ring. He looked well fed and rested. 

His driver held the keys to a big black Caddy. It looked like a tank. I showed him my bike. Want to trade your bike for the Esplanade? he asked me. No thanks, my simple bike meets my needs. It's really efficient. Ok, he said, just asking.

The leader shifted in his plastic chair. He got up. Everyone got up. He walked out. Everyone followed him. The driver opened the back door. He got in. Let's go for a drive through luminous green country, he said. The driver gunned the engine making powerful noise. His friends followed him down the broken rutted dirt road.

There are no stop signs or traffic lights here. Everyone operating a moving vehicle trusts everyone else. This is fair. 

Cambodian children, like children everywhere love to play. They have a game called Kick The Sandal. They use their sandals. They take turns kicking a sandal on uneven cement pavement to see who can reach the goal. It''s exciting and fun. The cement comes from Siam.

A firefly named July zoomed around my dark room one night. The yellow flickering light was illuminating, mesmerizing and hypnotic. A multi-facted dancing yellow white gemstone. It was looking for a way out. I opened the door so it could live in nature.

Metta.

My girlfriend is smart. She wears a helmet. We are happy. We are going nowhere fast. Passengers wearing a helmet here is almost as rare as clean drinking water. 

Update Makeup

Greetings,

Welcome to another edition of This Is Your Little Life. Your little life is taking on pernicious perceptual potential poetic personifications without a preamble. To amble to ramble and gamble enjoying risks with enormous ramifications. Waking up is a risk. Paying attention requires risk analysis and consequences. 

A stranger arrives in town. He wanders around with optical tools.

 

When in doubt, update your life. Put on makeup. Change your appearance. Get a new identity theory. Reinvent a corner cooking operation billowing smoke from cracked charcoal chips harvested from old trees near a woman sawing ice with a rusty see-saw as children play. Numerous forlorn stressed out drivers in huge SUV's negotiate narrow provincial streets singing their Status. Beep-beep.

The Asian Children's Driving School is open for business. Son, his father said, Someday all this will be yours. Gee, dad you're the greatest. Let's go for a spin around the block, down life's little highway and out into the lush expansive rural countryside filled with amazing green rice paddies, our essential food source. Ok, son, Let's roll. Batteries not included.

The smiling boy walks into his future. He works for a collection agency called Consume and Waste and Recycle. He found a life instruction book and put it in his bag. His bodyguard is a girlie-boy. Not too shy to try with tolerance, gratitude, dignity and self respect.

Somewhere in Cambodia a boy is carrying the world on his back.

Metta.

gateless Gate

Greetings,

I love the new gate at our Beijing community of Chinese migrants. It keeps us in and the rich people out.

It's clean, efficient and durable. It's really fancy. I imagine it cost someone in the Housing Community Control big money. Local officials call it "sealed management." 

''Closing up the village benefits everyone,'' read one banner put up when the first, permanent gated village was introduced in April.

Metta.

NYT
 

 

Mr. Neanderthal

Greetings,

Mr. Neanderthal swaggered down the middle of a no-name street in a no-name Vietnamese town with his long time little local squeeze. She was smaller than an astroid with long hair wearing charcoal pajamas and low heels. Her face was sad, neglected and resigned to her passionate and economic fate on a fair trade mission.

Mr. N wore flowered bermuda shorts and green flip flops. He was naked from the waste up. Swirling tattoos danced on his dark torso. His arms extended in heavy duty weight lifter macho style like an simian alpha male tribal posture.

Me big. Me strong. Me have woman. Her name Jane. Me her man.

They'd sold their car to buy food, diamonds and extra passports. They were on foot. They needed transport. He whistled for a motorcycle. They went to a haberdasher. They rented clothes. He found a suit of armor. She found a gown.

They went to a history museum. He accepted her arm standing on the stairway to heaven. She was radiant in her expectations. After the reception at sea level they cleaned a magnificent house resembling a wedding cake. They raised pigs and chickens and lived happily ever after. They took out the garbage and the pigs ate well. 

Metta.

Arrested development

Greetings,

You know life is fraught with the unexpected hammering of stone cold ice when a Tibetan environmental activist gets arrested for teaching people to pick up litter and plant trees in Sichuan, China.

His demise came when he accused a local Chinese big shot official of poaching. Poaching is a no-no. Talking about big shots poaching is a no-no. Picking up litter is a no-no. Planting trees is a no-no.

The No-No chattering xylophone, said, Let's teach this Tibetan wise guy a lesson. His henchmen concurred. Track him down. Arrest him. Charge him with trash collection and gardening offense #101. Call the judge. Tell him to sentence this monk to 5 years of hard labor with no chance of parole.

Mr. Trumped Up Charge judge, jury, and a very close friend and economic confident of Mr. Local Big Shot performed his Social duty. "You are charged with splitting the nation!" 

What? Planting trees isn't splitting the nation. Picking up trash isn't splitting the nation, said Rinchen Samdrup.

Oh, really? said the judge. Let me see. Ok, how about poaching? Yes. It's all hear say. You said my friend the local big shot was poaching. You lied. He loves his country and all the animals. If you lied about his poaching to make huge financial profits from leopards, tigers, bears, eagles, antelopes and stolen male babies, how can this court in all fairness find you innocent of planting trees and picking up trash?

I'm innocent. No. You are guilty. You are an environmentalist. You want to split the nation. You are a bad boy. I sentence you to 5 years. Bye-bye. 

The judge whispered to the prison warden, Fill up his cell with trash and trees. 

Metta.

Reuters...