EFFLORESCERE V4

Sinai

Crossing into Aqaba, Jordan yesterday, it was a rather low point into the trip. There have been amazing highs, high as 2800 meters above sea level on top of Mount Sinai, following Moses' steps over 2000 years ago. In the mid-afternoon sun, on a pleasantly cool day, we begin the climb up to the church on via two routes. Half of the group mount the steps of repentance, 3300 steps to the peak while the rest of us follow the camel trail, a 7km hike up followed by 700 steps to the peak.

Two hours later, I'm rewarded by the spectacular views of mount st. Katherine and Moses, a startling arid landscape that extends into the horizon. Driving through this desert earlier and on top of the peak, I'm semi-curious why anyone would even choose to live in this landscape, much less why Egypt and Israel fought bitterly over this piece of land. Along the drive, we pass through dozens of check points, all staffed with a egyptian soldier with a machine gun hanging out in front of his legs. If the soldiers are protecting this territory from another invasion from Israel, they would seem to need to revisit bootcamp a few more times.

I suppose if religion factored into more of my upbringing or if I could just believe, the entire experience would have made more of an impact. Certainly the next morning, when we solemnly proceed through the halls of St. Katherine's monastery, built by the Greeks around 300 A.D. and still with continued monks watching over the alter, the body of Saint Katherine and the burning bush that signaled the voice of God, I would have felt closer to a higher being. But as I turned the corners and looked around to the wispy willow-like bush, I am reminded the years of Catholic and Christian service I attended from age 12 to age 17 and always just wondering what my companions were endlessly discussing, not from incomprehension, but rather disbelief.

After the non-religious religious pilgrimage, we traversed more of the Mars-like desertscape east and end our Egypt journey at the red sea. Again, I'm reminded how ignorant and ill-prepared I am for this trip. The Red Sea is not red, not a single shade of red I could see in this body of water. Even snorkeling didn't endear me to find any red colors underneath the clear sparkling blue waters. It's not until I cross to Jordan that a guide enlightens us that the Red sea was originally named Reed Sea which just means Sea in Arabic. Well sea, sea was the water that carries so may pilgrims back and forth. Standing on the beaches of sawa camp, we can clearly view the mountains of Saudi Arabia. It is strange to be able to look across the water and see the richest country in the Arab world, so tantalizingly close for many Egyptians and others who serve as almost indentured workers there.

For the week I was in Egypt, I almost continually hoped to find the better, brighter side of the country. I certainly admired and revered the history, the ancient achievements and amazing heritage. Yet, I never found or heard the hope and desire in the current environment in the country. Writing to JC, I expressed how I was ready to move on to the next country. Her reply wildly amused me and expressed succinctly how I felt, especially on a hour walk through the heart of Islamic Cairo, "it looks as if it was carpet bombed and never recovered." In a way, someone recently told me I have high expectations of people. My hope for Egypt is for a renaissance, or at least a catch-up, that it'll recover some of the glory from the past. I didn't look back when the immigration officer scrutinized my visa, because he didn't know what a visa from Cairo airport looked like. I collected my stamp and stepped onto the ferry for Jordan.

Impression of the Nile

Sitting silently on the deck of a felucca, winding with the current from Aswan to Luxor. This peaceful, twenty-four hour journey, under these perpetually sunny, sometimes brutally so skies, allowing me ample time to write slowly while watching the banks of the Nile drifting by. Our boat is a time-honored tradition. A wooden hull vessel with a canopy covered deck and a 23 meters tall mast and sail stitched with sixteen pieces of canvas. A crew of three sails the boat with 13 passengers and the captain maneuvers the rudder elegantly, skillfully from abeam to port to abeam to starboard.

Everyone must conjure individual feelings when they are cruising up the Nile, in row boats, speed boats, feluccas and large cruise ships we pass by from time to time. I stare at the dark blue, green waters with depth but surprisingly not murky nor necessarily feel polluted. On the East Bank, palm trees line a highway and a railroad. On the West Bank, the endless dunes and mirages of Sahara Desert expands, dotted by electricity towers and and lines carrying power from Lake Nessar and the High Dam to nearly 55 percent of this country.

So far my impressions of the Nile and Nubile country is a culture and land of greatness that has been in continuous decline since 1000 bc. As I stared at the monumental status of Ramsus II and the Temple of Abu Simbel and the majestic tribute to Isis at Temple of Phillae, human architecture that today even seems impossible. In comparison, the painted mud huts where the Nubile people still live today, even granted, with satellite dishes, are ???

I hadn't thought about that the trip had a long boat cruise down on the Nile. It hadn't impressed upon me that I would be on the longest river in the world, marveling about the civilizations, societies, religions that this body of water has supported since the antiquities. I had read nothing before I came, even forgetting the minuscule amounts of geography and social studies that were the staple and perhaps favorite subjects of my teenage years. Certainly it seemed out of a mirage to climb on to of a desert mountain to be staring at the Nile while also facing the desert that extends to Morocco. Perhaps I'm feeding my romantic natures and writing even more cliché feelings of this river.

The crew all want to know where we are individually from. Every Egyptian seems curious. I wonder how many similar accents they have already heard before and undoubtedly will hear again although it seems the Chinese haven't found this land as I continually am being asked about being Japanese even as I avert my eyes and remain in resolute silence. We are passing a pasture where, horses, goats, sheep and camel all seem to be grazing at the same time. My thoughts on more serious subjects all seem to be far away right now.

Cairo (Day 1 - 2)

Another count down of 24 hours: 2 buses, 2 planes and 3 taxis later, I was in the Dokki district of Cairo, fumbling in the dark night and starting to see Egypt.

Before boarding the flight to Cairo, I managed to squeeze in a quick stop @ Flowers Gallery in Shoreditch, London to see Nadav Kandar's latest series of landscape photographs titled "Yangtze, the long river". The title is a direct translation of the Chinese name for the Yangtze river, but it also signifies the sentiment along the river banks just prior to the current moment in time. These photos juxtapose the rural, formerly agrarian river banks with concrete and steel, formulating a new landscape where only farmlands existed 20 years ago. It acutely captures how commercialism has been infused into China, change brought on by the Chinese and yet also, as seen in some of the images, forced upon them.

At times it is really shock and awe the "reforms" carried out by the Communist regime in China, how completely it erased shreds of sentimentality and tradition and replaced it with an ambition and will for "the way forward." Even the photos reflect the result of the new belief. While the contrast starkly exhibits how fast the middle kingdom is changing, yet I didn't quite see the sense of displacement that one would expect from people undergoing such a dramatic wealth transformation. Landscape may be erased and replaced yet the eyes of the people show them living in the present. Here in Cairo, it feels the opposite. Although it hasn't been lost in modernity, it certainly holds on to a bigger part of the past, particularly in the religious sense.

Coming out of the airport last night, the roads were new and heavily congested with cars. I was told it wasn't the worst congestion and certainly it was already 10pm. The humming of traffic makes me notice this city seemed completely deprived of women. Men of every age group, in small and large clusters filled the cars, the sidewalks and the entrances to public spaces. I gingerly pull a scarf over my head, trying to blend into the darkness blanketing the city. A guide, when asked about where women go, said "Women are like fine jewelry, beautiful objects to be kept inside a box to be only seen by their owner." The romance died after the first pause of breath.

Short sleep (or what feels like the 3rd nap in the last day) later, I found the other participants of my small group and set off for Giza Pyramids. Our guide Ahmed is a young egyptian man probably in his mid 30s. Clearly proud of the history of Egypt, he set off the tour with a 3000 years of Egyptian history in a 30 minute car ride talkshow. For the first time, it clicks for me that why Islam has such a strong hold in this country. Whether polytheistic, pagan, christian or ultimately muslim, Egyptians have always lived revolving around religion, thousands of years before arabs even arrived in this land. The Pyramids are the finest, oldest example how religion dominates this society. Sets of 100,000 laborers build for 3 months at a time for 20+ years using 2.3 million bricks to build a tomb for the afterlife of the king, pharaoh, the live image of god on earth.

As dusks comes for my first day in Egypt, the call to prayer sounds throughout the city again. I pack up, leaving on an overnight train to Aswan.

The Middle East Trek

One bag, maximum of 10 pounds or 22 kilograms, must hold four weeks of cloths, two pairs of shoes, one first aid kit and a bg of toileries. Three re-packs later, it is devised down to 18 pounds plus jacket and hiking shoes. Money belt, passport, guidebook, camera and the check list continues. There's a feeling of anxiety and fear trying to either escape through my esophogous or submerging itself into the pit of my diaphram. I'm unsure whether breathing would make me feel more or less ill.

Six hours to my first flight into London City airport. A five hour transit later, I should be leaving Heathrow on way to the Sinai peninsula. As I stare at the clock with the last minutes in the suburbs of New Jersey ticking by, I feel woefully underprepared. Luckily, there's almost too little time to worry in earnest about it.

It wasn't meant to be coincidental but just 4 days after my 29th birthday, I'm embarking on probably the most challenging travel to date. All I'm hoping for right now is to be able to make it to an ATM and subsequently to the hotel meeting point.

 

Perhaps I should really adopt the alias, or at least the educational/occupational components of the new "me" that RK built during the course of another Tuesday night conference call of his.

Cover name: Danielle (insert a Chinese name) Lee

Education: Vasser College BA (English Literature) 05’, Columbia University MA 06’ (MPA in Economic
Policy Management)

Work: an economic consultant for the office of the governor of Guam (Felix P. Camacho), but it’s a cover
for the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (under the US Department of State).

Dream job: US ambassador

Let's skip the note at the end about the most embarrasing "dating" moment. Are dossiers suppose to be filled with annecdotes one shares with strangers? How prepared will I be to speak to any strangers.

Facebook status set. The rest of the world fades away for the next 40 days. I hope to be mesmerized by this new set of countries, new coordinates on a map, and new cultures to ponder.

 

 

Inception of Vegas

In the intellectually challenging film, Inception, extractors architect the target's dream in order for the target to divulge uncertain secrets. The team does not have certainty what may happen, but rather, engineer the environment and situation in which the dream would occur. Once the target is placed in this new conscious world, the extractors hope the target will fill the space with his desires and fears and ultimately secrets. Real time is compressed as the dream state expands time. A few hours in the dream could allow for events that happen over course of days in real lives.

 

While I'm certain that it is reality even without having to spin a totem, every time I visit the city of Las Vegas, Nevada USA, the city uncannily looks and feels like an universal dream, built cross section of the masses. We drive into the desert city in the absolute darkness of a Wednesday evening. Only the moonlight shines the roads for hundreds of miles while we follow the single stream of orange rear lights forward and search for intermittent music on the radio. Just as the mundane sentiments are threatening to swallow our late night spirits, the road expands into the oasis of light in the middle of the Nevada desert. As in the dream state, the labyrinth appears out of nowhere. We forget how we found ourselves in this city by the time the midnight hour has passed and we are suffocating in the fumes of alcohol, cigarettes and questionable quality of perfume.

 

I tried recalling the word for the most vivid shade of blue on Thursday. We finally step out of the room at four p.m. after nursing whisky hangovers and another scene of Inception is thrust upon me. Only rather than a corner cafe and cobble stone street of Paris, this is a complete mosaic. It is a mixture of glass and steel, of landmarks foreign and domestic, of brand new constructions and derelict structures that we only wonder when the expiration date may come. This is some architect's creation of grandeur and amusement, between coffee breaks and sarcastic ridicules. Somehow, this Legos city has been filled with occupants, those permanent and those looking for projections of themselves.

 

Four hours later, I count out six hundred dollar bills from my wallet and sit down at the blackjack table for the first time since I embarked on this dream. I sit on the last seat around the horseshoe, my perennial lucky position. Across from me, a twenty-one year old University of Texas junior, by the way of Seoul, Korea, is lamenting his inability to cash his $10,000 winning at the poker table. It is as the traditional wisdoms go: “two things you can’t escape in this life, death and taxes.” Vegas may be grand but no social security number posits the casino’s to withhold his loot in order to report taxes. 

 

In our dreams, we could possess exotic skills, exhibit extreme behavior and act out, in this particular architecture, wildest fantasies. As I surrender my cash to the house of Harrah, I examined what my projections look like on the infamous Las Vegas Strip. The middle age woman flaunts her remaining assets by walking with a rousing bounce in clothing that need a few more inches of fabric, in all four directions, along the sidewalk. The college senior fraternity boys barely contain their own physical stimulation every time a driving billboard with phone numbers for call girls slowly roll down the road. The multi-general family enjoys wine, buffet meals and exhilarating but ultimately defeating lessons of chance. The foreign tourists indefatigably pour over every bag in the three-day-new Prada store and effortlessly pay in cash. If this wasn’t a dream universe, I would feel that every person I meet here in Vegas is doing his or her best to be a caricature of a stereotype.

 

For Thursday evening I succumb to the limbo of the caricature state. For over three hours, I sit at the end of the blackjack switch table, dangling chains of cigarettes, mindlessly putting forth two stacks of three red chips at each hand. The dealer, Peter, tries to engage me in conversation as a young male dealer would when he takes an interest. I smile but remain vacuous while systematically order one whisky and coke after another. Peter is emitting positive karma towards my seat position. This is why I picked this table, this seat, and this particular dealer. My projection absorbs luck from a dealer and wins without much effort despite the game’s name. If this was really a dream, I’m merely sitting here spending time and money. Perhaps my target is close by. Perhaps my target is even at this table. I’m particularly conspicuous but at the same time, detract all attention away from other extractors, away from the target. 

 

As physical space can be altered and manipulated in the dream, so can the sense of time. The sun steams my Riesling at the base of the Eiffel Tower on Friday morning. I'm starting to crave escape from the projections around me. They do seem to turn and stare, wondering why I'm sitting at this verandah table alone, with my meal and my wine. At one p.m. Vegas time, why is a woman leisurely eating alone in a French bistro at the Paris casino? I choose to instantaneously escape to the night time and listen to the hundreds of thousands of whistles and ringers transmit a cacophonous chorus.

 

This trip isn’t for inception. Instead, I fully participate in roles and fantasies by observing our collective projections. On the 4.2 miles stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard, I watch the product of many dreams, from human beings of all types in a 3-D show for maximum audience pleasure. We finally initiate the kick; the totem will never fall here in the desolate tract full of concrete, light bulbs and electronics. It is a mirage after all, and we leave it far behind driving onto California.

Classedness

I'm two weeks into a ten week trip away from my normal full time residence at the moment. Ten weeks living out of a suitcase could become terribly inconvenient and alienating if loving faces and familiar surroundings were not interpersed in between. I'm sitting "home" in the surburbs of tri-state America. It hasn't been home to me for nearly ten years now. Even when I lived here for those five years, I only found the residence to be temporary, a halfway house almost to the next phase of my life which at the time, I prayed nightly would start sooner than real time suggested I had to wait.

Upon 24 hours home, I wrote a quick note to a friend to reflect on my awkward and undeniably torn sensibilities about returning to this suburb for an extended duration after ten years. Within the first day of the home journey, I experienced

a) a dim sum meal at the local Cantonese restaurant that seemed to fill over the confines of the fire code limit more Chinese people than full mid size cities in China
b) a 3 hour hike with my mom and dad that ended with being completely directionally disoriented and hitchiking to the parking lot in order to pick up the car
c) a visit to my best friend from high school who now runs a Chinese takeout restaurant with her husband and has two children age three and one

"Yes, where did my life go wrong..." 

In the Financial Times arts and life section this weekend, Adam Haslett, the acclaimed short story writer and now novelist, wrote an amazingly insightful and eloquent piece about embedded societal class structure in the U.S. vs. England. His observed that perhaps as America declines in global influence, the divergence in income and also power increases within the U.S. The land of opportunity my father aspired to and shed his first adult life for has evidently become a society where only the powerful and privelaged can breed richness expotentially exclusively within its own ranks. While Americans and immigrants to America often naively and complacently believe other wise, especially as Haslett points out, dream stories of Clinton and Obama continue to permeat the public imagination, my illusions of such opportunity had vanished within the first few years of joining the adult worknig life.

Continuing the weekend almost retrograding to my teenage years, I spent considerable time examining exactly how much class barriers exist in the U.S. society today, albeit from my own encounters. After reading my casual albeit morose email, the always challenging friend suggested that I should read my own observations again in the context of the Haslett's essay. The dichotomy in my own feelings became even more evident upon the review - has the glass ceiling of America already become so reinforced that even in this very upper-middle class suburbs 28 miles outside of New York city, backgrounds more than any other character forever confine people to acheiving a very limited set of their aspirations?

The writer of Billy Elliot, Lee Hall has a new play that premiered last week in New York. I ordered tickets to see Pitmen Painters to see the issue of class analyzed by an artist who has been preoocupied with it for more than two decades. Can a coal miner's child appreciate classic ballet? Can paintings evoke emotional and intellectual responses within coal miners the same way it does in highly educated professionals? Is Art only accessible and discerned by the privaged elite and therefore withheld from the underworld? Art and aspirations, how much is available or lost just due the access to it given to us based on the time, place and people we are born to? 

I know these are not revolutionary questions I'm asking and have been examined by countless others. Thinking about it continuosly over the last 72 hours, I have counted off fingers and toes of tales of anger in the last ten years when I refuse to accept ambivalence as the answer to structural class ceilings. In many ways, it's everything in me to become more American, to attain the dream landscape. Except in my own obtuse ways, while I have been able to articulate these feelings for a good five years, I had never as clearly connected the dots until the recent series of events. 

An old lover has been in touch lately. With no explaination, I sent him Haslett's article over the weekend. He simply, pleasantly responded that he had also read the same article. My not subtle gesture to this Englishman was not about the article but about how I feel about the divide in our potential relationship. Even without time and distance that dodged us, I singularly have placed one thought behind his behavior, the embarrassed feelings he would have of introducing an unknown element in his well defined British society life. I who am Chinese American, and not so sure which nationality should come first, would not be accepted into a class with boarding school bred kids who went to Edinburgh as the safe, party school and took jobs without ever thinking about the necessary income to support their lifestyles. The indignity rises inside of me even as I'm writing this as to why it seems necessary to apologize for aspirations or worse, for being born in a third world country. He once said "Britain thinks ambition is an ugly world."

The third glass of wine is kicking in now. The crystalization of my thoughts this weekend owes much credit to my friend's comment and the essay in FT. More than anything, it makes me feel less alone than before. This isn't a pagoda that only I have been climbing. Rather than looking to make peace with the ceiling, I should rather recognize that the struggle even on a singular basis against accepting the ceiling is the more befitting action for me.

Upcoming Endeavors

Not working really does lead to surprising large amounts of free time.
After the travel adventures of July, I have spent the month of August
sitting in the city and developing the game plan for the next four
months. It has all been quite hectic to say the least. My efforts at
taking care of my own scheduling was fruitful in the end.

Wish list of endeavors I have made for the following months are a long list

1. A few more home made meals for friends
2. Language efforts (Japanese for the long run, Arabic for the short run)
3. Vocal lessons
4. Getting up to speed on web programming developments
5. Around the world plane ticket and Cairo to Istanbul

Long list needs short immediate todos. Today's was lunch made for my
oldest running friend in Hong Kong whom I met on day 5 of moving to
city after a rather miserable typhoon weekend of not meeting anyone.
My continued obession with Italian vegetarian cooking culminated in a
delightful minestrone soup that's hearty but not heavy and choked full
of vegetables and my continue wonder of how great a big of eggplant,
garlic, crushed tomatoes, and basil can be on pasta. Although two and
half years in one city really does not seem that long, in this
whirlwind of adventure, it already seems like a lifetime. It's great
to have friends who have heard of all the history and remember the
delightful and painful stories. And I'm so happy to be able to feed
him.

Finding Shanghai within me

Invariably, I find it hard to write about Shanghai. Most know my fervent, undying love for this city. Actually very few expats in Asia understand it or share the view of Shanghai. In the past, I have discredited such critics simply as having missed out on authentic Shanghai experiences, but since I have chosen the life of an expat, it has dawned on me that very few will share my feelings of Shanghai because Shanghai to me is the connection of who I am, where I came from and where it all seems to be heading.

After nine hours of connections and delays on Tuesday, X and I finally landed in Shanghai. It immediately is a far cry from the previous two weeks of small cities and smaller villages. X's expectations rose upon seeing toilets in the bathrooms. My ever enthusiastic itinerary drags us to the best viewing point of Shanghai before the evening lights are shut on the Bund, the sight of Shanghai that never cease to amaze me. The bund is a collection of buildings, architecture gemstones built by primarily British banks and trading firms back around the turn of 1900s. Luckily they have survived world wars, civil wars and the culture revolution. Today they glitz at night much the same way, in my imagination, as they did in the 1920s.

I have sometimes said that I like buildings more than I like people. Love for Architecture (and the slew of other interests) was born in me because of Shanghai. Although these days they are primarily commercialized institutes, the British Bund, the Villas in the French Concession, the Japanese Mansion that I tore through every weekend - my grandfather's residence, and the old stone arch alleyways, I love these buildings because if they could tell stories, it would be some of the most fascinating tales I would ever hear. There was one peak to the Shanghai's story but now the second peak is just beginning. Sitting on the rooftop bar, champagne in hand, we watched an ex opera singer, the first Shanghainese to study at London's Royal Academy of Music, getting thrown head first into the Jacuzzi. This is only a Tuesday night.

Of all the wisdoms I remember and followed from my mom, "play with older kids...because they know more" and "one can always scrape by in all aspects of life but never mistreat your stomach" probably tie me closest to Shanghai. Stories and histories, collectively of a culture and singularly of a person, make me absorbent. Standing in this city, I can see a civilization's decline and turmoil and the process, slow culturally yet at lightening speed economically, to rebuild. The scale is an entrepreneur's dream; the details are a project manager's absolute nightmare.

As for my never ending culinary pursuits (from farming vs organic to restaurant service), the constant chatter in this city defines how an entire generation of people disseminates food. Long before eating local and green was popular, I remember why my grandmother had to pick the right old hens from a specific village to make chicken soup. Having never set a foot in the first KFC in Shanghai despite it being across the street from the Japanese mansion made me always pursue higher quality, real cuisine. And of course watching our celebration meals turn from my grandmothers handmade 饺子 to ten course private dining at the newest restaurant in the city prepared me for the obsessive, blog-following, restaurant-jaunting trips in Manhattan nearly a decade later.

For this trip, X and I see a bit of old and a bit of new. 100th floor of Shanghai's current tallest building was built by Mori group of Japan, famous for the Roppongi hills development. That stands over 城隍庙 where we devour trays of the original soup dumplings in preserved Chinese Ming dynasty buildings. Soup dumplings was preceded by a fabulous dinner at Table 1, the new Jason Atherton (of London's Maze fame) restaurant at the new boutique hotel Waterhouse at South Bund run by a Singaporean hotelier. The Waterhouse is close to the private dining club in a stone alleyway owned by the afore mentioned wet opera singer. Old overlaps the new and I learn more from the stories and appreciate even better food because of Shanghai

Vastness of solitude

Language translation between Roman/Germanic languages to Chinese and the reverse is extremely difficult. Chinese, as I proceed to see more of this motherland, is a nuanced language to use. I always admire one of my best friends who despite not really having lived in china since grammar school somehow succeeds in a corporate PR job that requires daily English Chinese translation. Explaining just why Chinese has a different adjective for the word "Beautiful" when applied to a person, an object or a landscape is difficult enough this week. If I had to translate "breathtakingly beautiful," I'm sure the emotions one is trying to evoke in that phrase would be lost in my crude skill set.

Our mission today, despite 36 hours of continuous pouring rain was to make it up to one of the summits of Jade Dragon Snow mountain in Yunnan Province, the southwest most province in China before Tibet. The old town of Lijiang is in the foothills of this mountain, a town with 800 years of history but unfortunately these days has been turned into a commercial machine by the communist party. I think that should be a verse in the song called Ironic. Escaping commercialism calls for going up, 3900meters above sea level up to be precise. Through the dense fog and pouring rain, we wanted a glimpse of Yak Meadow, where the Naxi people let their Yaks graze in this high altitude.

I was born a city girl and probably can only be categorized now as a city woman. The first time I FELT nature was only 6 years ago, standing or more accurately stranded on the Big Sur in California, waiting for a toll truck to rescue me and a car full of C's belongings. There was just me, the cliff, and the Pacific Ocean. I wavered between amazement of the ocean pounding the cliff and fear of an axe murderer showing up in a pick up truck. Luckily the toll truck driver, who did look like a scream flick antagonist, spared my life. I was also hooked on seeing the edge of the world.

Nature can take many forms but how it's expressed in Chinese is what I absorbed today standing on Yak Meadow. 大自然 is the word for Nature in Chinese. 自然 itself does mean natural and nature but when describing a landscape, 大 or large always prefaces the noun. And to translate into large nature is undoubtedly silly. Rather vast nature is really what the Chinese wording infers. Vast and endless spreads through my body as it hungrily gathers oxygen into the bloodstream. I only connect to my own senses and thoughts while surrounded by the ringing of small brass bells tied to the the herds of yaks. There may have been a dozen other people there but they seem to disappear into the edge of mountain, perhaps falling into the valleys between this summit and the next. I was standing there in solitude and silence.

Genuinely pulled noodle

拉面－La Mian or pulled noodles. It's undeniably one of my favorite raw simple carbohydrate dish in China especially when hand made to fresh perfection then filled with the best tasting broth possible. I'm not so finicky about the broth itself. Old hen chicken soup, roasted beef soup or slow stewed pork soup all serve as background, the support using low aperture to bring sharpness and focus to the noodle themselves. As for the noodles, it's a magician's hands at work to turn a tubular piece of dough roughly slimmer than a soda can to long strings of noodles/spaghetti dangling free. Granted this is about the ratio of flour to egg to water to starch. But it's also about the skills of the cook (perhaps chef is an exaggeration of technical skill set) to perform the task at hand precisely and consistently bowl to bowl.  

Growing up I was never a rice person. Grains and grains of minuscule white rice really isn't for a tall girl who loves food, variety but also quantity. Rice was always for the younger cousins, forever patiently picking at the grains in their bowls. Noodles allowed for faster sustenance and not to be the last person sitting @ the dining table. On the sunday evenings in Shanghai, after a 2 hour bus muggy bus ride out of the center of the city to the darkness of Sinopec community, my mom would give up cooking the last meal of the week. We would have curry beef noodles, by twilight or under a kerosene street lamp, in the food market, right next to cages of rooster and doves. The cook would fashion the noodles as I continuously watched and wondered why the noodles didn't tangle. No one had explained that starch increases elasticity.

We had a 5 hour layover in KunMing today on the way to LiJiang. Stumbling our way through one of the 20+ second tier cities in China, I felt sad to see another city's culture, distinct from the north, eradicated and replaced by modern shopping malls full of western brands. Elegant thousand year old terracotta roofs with their own courtyards and passage systems was replaced by faux concrete bricks meant to simulate the old and cultured. I took a picture of the concrete and glass encroaching on one of the last old neighborhoods, shrinking its membrane's perimeter like an invading virus. All of this we see only by standing on the roof of the shiny new shopping center next door.

And then my heart warms up to the food, the food and art that does survive, although evolving to modern kitchens. On the next corner of the roof garden we find a noodle shop. It's a small space of 400 square feet, much of it lined by a big bar surrounding the open kitchen. One chef and 2 servers man the 40 seat space. The blackboard indicates all 5 menu choices, beef noodle soup, beef/tendon noodle soup, beef clear noodle soup, peanut soup, or three treasure noodle soup. The chef works the soda can, fat or skinny noodles. The broth gets topped by scallion and/or chili. At 28 Yuan (4 usd) per bowl, it's almost robbery for China. It's too simple of a food but this cook and his skill is not a show for us, just genuine business. I'm simply grateful that a cart in the passage way of time and food moved up into this new shiny mall.