Ice Girl in Banlung - Sapa - Chapter 13

After Saigon, Leo walked to Sapa in northwest mountains.

Talking monkey tourists from Hanoi are here to eat, gamble, sing, dance/screw and buy cheap Chinese plastic products, said Mo, 10, H’mong cloth seller.

They are an army in high heels, floppy hats, sunglasses, shiny belts and lost eyes. They run to stand in front of a Catholic Church to have their photo snapped off. Most ignore us.

A woman tourist slows down in her long march toward consumerism to look at Mo’s work: a handmade belt, a colorful wrist wearable, a thin wallet. The wallet is thinner than the girl.

She’s surrounded by a chorus, “Buy From Me! Buy From Me!”

The woman faints. Another buyer takes her place near blue tarp patchwork junk dealers selling fake watches, cheap pants, shirts, hats and knickknacks.

Eyes scan colors, fabrics and faces.

A park has baby red roses. A dusty historical statue stares at brackish fountain water. Six Red Dzao women talk with bags and threaded samples spread on the ground.

“Do you want to buy from me?” said one smiling with gold teeth.

“Yes. I want to buy the mountain.” Leo pointed to the rising green western forest, steel gray granite slabs, deep shaded valleys, and gray clouds skimming peaks around high deep edges.

“Ok,” she said. “I will sell you the day mountain for 10,000 and the night mountain for 10,000.”

“Ok. It’s a deal.” They laughed.

Red communist scarfed school kids in uniformed mass hysteria, deprived of sleep stagger uphill to a bright yellow school building where a young boy pounds out a rhythm on a ceremonial drum. Come all yea faithful, joyful and trumpet.

Two big brown dogs fuck on the street in front of the church where tourists gather for a photo shoot.

Local Vietnamese women armed with cameras rented by the day selling images, memories and dreams poke and prod women, husbands, boys and girls into manageable groups for the moment.

The decisive moment they will remember forever.

Memories of their life will be framed on a family alternative votive candle altar near burning incense feeding, appeasing dead hungry ancestral ghosts.

Caught in time.

Frozen alive.  

Possible signs of intelligent life in Sapa.

Rumor control reports.

Ice Girl in Banlung 

1st International Children's Conference - TLC 28

“We are not here for a long time. We are here for a good time,” laughed Meaning, a twelve-year old survivor wearing a ragged Beware of Land Mines skull and crossbones t-shirt and prosthesis leg scampering a random life pattern across fields near a stilted bamboo home in Cambodia.

“Are you with us?” pleaded a landmine child survivor removing shrapnel with an old rusty saw after stepping in heavy invisible shit, “or are you against us?”

She’s been turned out and turned down faster than a housekeeper ironing imported Egyptian threaded 400-count linen. No lye.

The thermostat of her short sweet life seeks more wattage. She faces a severe energy shortage if she doesn’t find food.

She’s one of 26,000 men women and children maimed or killed every year by land mines from forgotten conflicts. Reports from the killing fields indicate 110 million land mines lie buried in 68 countries.

It costs $3.00 to bury a landmine.

It costs $300-$900 to remove a mine. It will cost $33 billion to remove them. It will take 1,100 years. Governments spend $200-$300 million a year to detect and remove 10,000 mines. Cambodia, Angola, Afghanistan and Laos are the most heavily mined countries in the world.

40% of all land in Cambodia and 90% in Angola go unused because of land mines. One in 236 Cambodians is an amputee.

*

Expanding her awareness of mankind’s genetic stupidity, Lucky showed Zeynep a Laos map illustrating Never-Never Land.

Lao Please Don’t Rush is the most heavily bombed country in history.

25% of villages in Laos are contaminated with UXO.

Upwards of 30% of the bombs dropped on Laos failed to detonate.        

80 million unexploded bombs remain in Laos.

More than half of the UXO victims are children.

*

Meaning hears children crying as doctors struggle to remove metal from her skin. She cannot raise her hands to cover her ears. Perpetual crying penetrates her heart. Tears of blood soak her skin. The technical mine that took her right leg away one fateful day as she played near village rice paddies expanded outward at 7,000 meters per second. Ball bearings shredded everything around her heart-mind.

It may have been an American made M16A1, shallow curved with a 60-degree fan shaped pattern. The lethal range was 328 feet. Or maybe it was a plastic Russian PMN-2 disguised as a toy. She never saw it coming after stepping on the pressure plate. Fortunately or unfortunately she didn’t die of shock and blood loss. A stranger stopped the bleeding, checked her pulse and injected her with 200cc of morphine. Strangers in a strange land carried morphine.

*

Cut the heavy deep and real shit, said a female Banlung shaman.

Fear is a tough sell unless it’s done well, well done, marinated, broiled, stir-fried, over easy, or scrambled.

Fear is blissful ignorance.

* 

Meanwhile, the 1st International Beggar Conference convened in Toothpick, a wasteland near Bright Hope - a rusting rustic dream of exploratory ways and means with scientific cause and effect and logical rational certainty.

It was chaired by a distinguished group of Cambodian orphans.

NGO Fascists rented 12,000 orphans out to fake humanitarian organizations. Abandoned youth pleaded with ill-informed rich donors for marketing and branding money to feed international guilt and shame.

“Let’s eat,” said a fat banker moments before his yacht hit an iceberg in 2008.

“What you don’t see is fascinating,” said Zeynep, “like roots below the surface of appearances.”

“We have so much ice and they have so little,” said an Icelandic chess player attacking Death.

“Everyone comes to me. My patience is infinite,” said Death. “I make only one move and it’s always the correct one.”

Beggars, landmine victims, genocide survivors and sick and tired dehydrated dying starving neglected humans from 195 countries convened in sequestered committee rooms filled with suits, scholars, academics, UN personnel, CIA analysts, NGO profit motivated scam reps, IMF bankers and plastic ornamental steering mechanisms.

“We agree to disagree,” said Rich Suit.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said Wage Slave.

Orphans, beggars and children spoke about slave labor, hunger, exploitation, corruption, human trafficking, corrupt police states and the terrorism of economic poverty.

“Bad luck,” said a rich slave. “That’s a you problem, not a my problem.”

Children addressing global media held press conferences focusing jaundiced eyes on lenses, recorders and bleeding pens. Their pleas fell on deaf ears. Sound bites sang starvation’s misery.

If it bleeds it leads.

Incoming! Bleeding hearts ran for cover.

Orphan motions for adjudication, arbitration, fairness, equality and equity were tabled for further deliberation and discussion nowadays.

The average monthly wage was $37 in a Bangladesh clothing factory. 350,000 Cambodian women making $61/month stitched garments for Korean export companies.

Give someone a sewing machine and with a little luck they’ll feed their family. Let’s Eat.

Bamboo - TLC 27

Reflects vigor, life, energy, zeal, endurance, integrity, patience and resilience.

Lucky carried small strong Bamboo to Bursa.

Freezing January snowflake feathers fell. Adults in the Ankara bus terminal stared at thin green life floating through their transition zone.

Luminous leaves remembered spring, soil, light and resilience. Smiling children understood Bamboo’s natural motivation, intention and freedom.

He propped Bamboo into a meshed container, fronting seat sixteen. They travelled west for six hours.

They passed glittering snowfields. Solitary brown-feathered Winter Hawk rested on ice-crested branches above frozen animal tracks. Silver-white trees sparkled crystal diamonds under a blue sky. 

After winter they scaled steep mountains into autumn. Bamboo witnessed silent snow peaks. Late afternoon light played in red wispy clouds.

Descending they departed seasons. Winter became fall in reverse, green moss, summer fruit trees. A farmer on a tractor plowed spring soil. “Ah,” whispered Silent Spring, “I am ready for my turning. I feel blades in my furrows dancing with roots...”

Bamboo pressed green leaves against a window.

“Where am I going?”

“Yes,” said a leaf, “it’s an amazing Zen meditation in a long now.”

“Am I this or am I dreaming?” said a leaf turning a page.

They reached Bursa on the western edge of The Silk Road. Bursa began in 200 A.D. below Uludag (Mountain of Monks) 2,543 meters high, edging snow stone above forests toward Roman thermal baths and mineral rich waters.

They found a temporary room at Achebadem, a private suburban hospital. Clean sheets, a cot and three daily hots. It was an intensive care visual spectrum color theory filled with young lovers living emotional zombie lies of healthy doubt and uncertainty.

Downhill from the hospital a crying middle-aged man holding an orange hospital folder waited above ground at a Metro subway station. Folder contained papers from a doctor, a lab, a prognosis and a definitive medical history. It revealed a story about someone dying - a wife, child, uncle, someone he loved.

He waited in heavy unconditional silence for a green Metro to transport him down the line to his 700-year old Ottoman mountain village of Cumalikizik.

Sharing his tale he’d spill the unabridged package of loss and memory on a hand-hewn oak table surrounded by friends and relatives. Say it’s not true, said a grieving ancestor thumbing medical leaves. It’s a true fact, he said, they left us, alone, we are grateful for their love and our memory. We cry for the living, not the dead.

Hypodermic needles named Pain and Pleasure sharing fabulous silent conversations laughed on life support.

Walking past the hospital Lucky smelled red, white and yellow roses. A bird pressed itself against a rose thorn to make her self sing. He whistled hello. Bird’s refrain was a short sharp interlude trilling a deep symphonic vibration-throated free mystery with harmonic warbling scales.

my little mandalay life

Draconian private school stuff: the 10th graders I help from 6-8 a.m. M-F live in a private hostile. No music, TV, web, books, zero. Study, study, study is their drab life. 

Waso, Buddha Day was a national public holiday. Do you get to go home? No. We study biology, chemistry, math, Myanmar, English, and physics all day long. Everyday.

Creative Notebooks are SOP. Colors, drawing, writing and dreaming on paper to all classes so they have something tangible where they can express their feelings. I’ve reminded them that their CN will be growing and going strong long after textbooks gather dust. It’s a small consolation for them.  

I share five of my worn CN books dating back five years for them to see art and writing. This is the raw material, I said.

Myanmar culture teaches people to respect their elders, like teachers so they don’t ask questions. Teams and 1-1 with partners is the way.

No breakfast. Bleary eyed. Marched to class. They arrive at 6, rearrange tables in teams and I mime, open your CN, draw your dream. I play blues and jazz and classical. Random items sit on a central table for still life stimulation if they so choose: flowers, plants, bowls, umbrella, a yellow pencil…you get the picture. We do text stuff focusing on the four skills and play learning games. 

From 1045-1145 I’m with thirty 12th graders waiting for their marks so they can apply to universities this fall. They live at home.

Their goal is speaking fluency for the ILETS exam. Same procedure as with the 10th graders - music, art, music and creativity in dust free notebooks.

Open discussions on local, regional and international issues between partners and groups. Their English is good. The majority need to open their mouth and not mumble. We do high quality text stuff, pronunciation practice and role plays with free interaction. I turn them on to international writers, films, poets and artists. Their self-esteem and confidence is growing.

The 10th and 12th graders will all be exposed to learning chess and competition the next three months before the company contract expires in November.  

Critical thinking example. I gave the 12th graders a homework assignment. 65/28 on the whiteboard. I reminded them for a week. Some guessed, is it a formula? an equation? No. One bright articulate girl finally got it. “It’s the intersection of Street 65/28, a long leafy street with badly corroded barely visible traffic signs." Yes. A place where you can breathe, meditate and draw and appreciate nature.

At high noon a driver zooms forty-five minutes into the countryside to a private school where I play, share and learn with 1st and 2nd graders. They teach me how to be more human. I act my age. 50 going on 10. Ha. We do songs, dance, chants, alphabets, colours, drawing, writing cursive and practice meditation. A child’s play is work.

Mandalay meets my needs. Wide green ancient tree blooming streets. You don’t see many white faces. If any they are tourists doing a 2-3 day pit stop. The construction boom is less than high car congested Yangon. It’s a motorcycle culture here, like Laos.

Mansions surrounded by barb wire sit next to bamboo shanties. It’s more like an extended village than a town. Poor sanitation, crumbling infrastructure. Flooded streets in the rainy season. Neighbours, relaxed men crowd teashops. Everyone I meet wandering, doing my documentary image work is gentle and kind. They recognise the smiling stranger.

This internal calm way permeates my being.

Species Specific - TLC 26

Welcome to another episode of Variations of The Species.

Today’s panel of exotic mutating organisms: Dancing cockroach. Used-car salesman. A soldier. IMF banker. Cambodian orphan. Amputee. Laotian monk. A genetically altered replica of your DNA, thanks to Crick and Watson, elementary. Some can and some Kant. Komodo dragon. Linguistic gardener. Blind typist. Mute femme fatale. A gravedigger.

The panel has agreed in scientific theoretical terms beyond a reasonable logical doubt to abstain from personal slander, libelous defamatory remarks and farting.

Profound physicists have proven that natural gas released by farting with regularity since the beginning of recorded time on Sumerian clay tablets leads to the demise, downfall, up-fall, where-with-all, you know it all disintegration of icebergs, glaciers, animals, plant populations, rainforests and human civilization.

It contributes to the extinction of diverse species. Period.

In conclusion we caution our panel of organisms to abstain from eating processed fatty foods high in sodium and imbibing fizzy sugar liquids while maintaining a high intake of organic nutrients like Korean red ginseng, gingko and lemongrass tea with Freedom after dark under a burning red light.

The Language Company