Five Chinese Aliens, Bhaktapur, Nepal

Spring roll 2011. It’s dinnertime. Five Chinese aliens appear in a Bhaktapur guesthouse restaurant.

Two males and three females around 20.

They are armed with laptops, cell phones, and loud discursive language. This is their normal. Noise and confusion and interruptions and arrogant attitudes fit their life style.

One girl is dressed like a flapper from the 20’s. Daisy talks with her mouth full of rice as her red diamond tiara squeezes her frontal lobe into a shucked pea.

They are lucky to have a passport. Their parents are important Red Party Officials.

It’s all about connections.

They’ve whined their way out of manners and intelligence in public places. The new breed of The Ugly Chinese - lost, terribly frustrated never satisfied in a big fucking hurry coddled spoiled youth.

They are the new emperors and empresses in a rising dynasty. They act like they own the restaurant. They complain about the price of a meal. One girl said in a shrill voice, “Oh, it’s too expensive. I am a poor student.”

She majors in Stupidity and Callousness at Beijing Ab-Normal University. She failed Basic Courtesy 101.

Gated primary Chinese student in Maja village Fujian, China.

A brat boy chastises the Nepalese waiter about his pronunciation of “Menu.” The crew cut Mandarin idiot commands the boy to say it again. Menu. Menu. Menu.

They are living breathing examples of the spoiled one-child political and cultural genocide legacy.

It will come back to haunt China. They have the emotional maturity of a 10-year old. They are so busy stuffing their faces and talking over each other all the European guests stare at them. They don’t care. They act and talk like this at home.

A vociferous Chinese virus has been unleashed on Earth.

Flapper Dolly jumped up on the table yelling, “Kill the Running Capitalist Dogs! Making Money in China is Glorious!”

Everyone threw steel-toed reinforced hiking boots at her. She died of Shame. Such indignity.

Her friends dragged her body out. They sold the boots to pay for her cremation at a Hindu temple.

Bhaktapur, Nepal

Life Essentials Post 9/11

Tribal adults and children survivors of 9/11 sifted through leftovers searching for sustainable resources. They needed essentials: food, shelter, water, air, sex and stories.

"This is the day of my dreams," said a girl with a diamond in her mind watching fireworks explode over the Willamette Valley in Eugene on the fourth of July. Her wisdom mind reflected 10,000 things.

Yangon, Burma

Omar opened his book, traced braille and read.

“The honorable monkey mind trickster wandered through her expansive museum sensing pure intention, motivation and reflections. If she is not careful and paying complete attention the monkey mind will run wild splashing green jealous slashes, red anger strokes, and blue attachment colors on her beautiful canvases. While some ignored it at their peril others respected monkey mind and kept an eye on it with respect and dignity.”

“It was a mindfulness,” said a woman sketching shadows.

"Now I see why Picasso painted Guernica in 1937," said a blond kid kicking stones, raising dust.

"Everything we love is going to die."

"Yes, we accept loss forever."

She cleaned her canvas with a camelhair brush while leaning against a wall of sound. The echo was deafening. Silence is the loudest noise in the world.

"Picasso was a great thief," said a museum curator. "When you see his work you see the influence of all great artists."

"The ancient texts predicted this," said Other, a seer.

He sat in a pile of splintered wood sharpening the edge of his knife on a small piece of flint taken from his old sweater pocket. Sunlight glistened off his finely honed Spanish blade as he worked it under the skin of a pear. 

"They talked about choices and unintended consequences," said a woman digging for water.

"I’m thirsty," said Little Nino.

"Be patient my child."

"Yes, said Jamie. "It takes faith."

"You can’t take faith to the bank," replied a girl.

"True," said Other, "faith doesn’t know where the bank is."

"A bank is what holds the river together," said a child.

"Faith is a woman in this tribal tale."

"It will take more than Faith," someone said stumbling over piles of discarded twisted logic.

"Speaking of falling faulty twin towers, it will require firm resolve, an unyielding capacity for vengeance, retaliation, and retribution in this living memory," said Lloyd, an unemployed insurance underwear writer from classless London. His three-piece Brooks Brothers suit was in shreds.

"It’s because of the amygdala," counseled a doctor.

"What’s that?" said Little Nino.

"It’s a location of the brain where fear lives. It’s a knot of nerve cells and tissues. We think anger lives there as well but we don’t know for sure."

“Yes," said Alfredo Jari, “memory is the duration of the transformation of a succession into a reversion. In other words, any internal obstruction of the flow of the mobile molecules of the liquid, any increase in viscosity is nothing other than consciousness.”

“Can you put that in plain English?" pleaded a lit major.

“Yes I can but I won’t.”

“Their collective archetypical memory was heavier than collective unconscious and lighter than consciousness,” said an analyst named Jung.

Lighter than wind.

Fat democratic spectators cheered from sidelines. Consumers swallowed bitter tears of greed and desire.

Let’s go shopping to reduce our fear of poverty, said nations of sheep.

“The archetype can't be whole or complete if it doesn’t allow for the expression of both good and evil in the conscious or unconscious,” drooled a sedated American soldier in a VA hospital wheelchair. He needed an exit strategy.

“More drugs, nurse!” he screamed. “I coulda’ been somebody. I could'a been contender!”

All he received was his pitiful wailing voice echoing in empty chambers.

On a movie set medicated military reservist wives dressed as cheerleaders jumped up and down in wild mind agitated states of abandon. They filed for divorce after taking lovers while their husbands looked for improved body armor in oppressive Middle East desert heat.

They were the undereducated doing the unnecessary for the ungrateful.

Other visualized their death while poverty’s heirs prayed that instant replay would change reality. 

A Century is Nothing

Blend In

“You have a criteria for beauty,” said an austere Chinese business university teacher-mother in an apartment elevator going to ground zero. “You should just blend in.”

She was petrified like 1.7 billion of being singled out, purged, tried and executed or sent to the countryside and re-educational brainwashing for expressing bourgeoisie ideology in a harmonious Marxist society.

Her paranoia meant no one dared talk about June 4, 1989. No one whispered about freedom, human rights or democracy. Their collective hardwired brains were wiped clean by Big Brother.

“I’ve learned,” she said, “to keep my mouth shut unless I’m eating fast before starving thieves steal my food or laughing to myself at the stupid laconic narrow-minded ways of our leaders. They are old despotic men. They sit behind blood stained teak desks imported from Burmese dictators. They chop seals and devour dolphins and whales with malice. They swallow tiger bone extract for sexual potency and wash it down with bear bile. Silence is our golden mean. My husband works in a distant province. He has a mistress named Orgasm. No money, no honey.”

Pouring restaurant slop in Mandalay Burma market

She cried silent tears, raised her son and wrote life lesson plans. “By the book,” she screamed in silence facing eighty comatose students scrambling for a pass. It fell incomplete.

“Sixty is heaven and fifty-nine is hell,” said a thin girl in a freshman speaking class. “My parents will kill me if I fail.”

“What is your dream?” said Lucky.

“I want to be a waif when I grow up.”

Her naive honesty surprised him. “What is a waif?”

“You know, a homeless person existing on the street. Living on their wits with silence and cunning, like a mercenary, assassin or literary outlaw. Authentic experience. A free person has courage. They take risks. Not taking a risk is a risk. They don’t live off state handouts in a broken down system filled with graft, corruption and nepotism. They overcome suffering and hardship and deprivation. I mean a real person with dignity, self-respect and courage.”

Seventy-nine others failed to grasp her awareness and honesty.

“You are wiser than your years.”  

 

The Language Company

I am twinkling...

Mandalay to Lashio train. 16 hours of rock n' roll elevations. 4 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sublime.

Ride the rails click clack click clack click clack nature visions bamboo forests silver rivers feeling fresh air hanging out the door of a rock’n roll train rail alliteration.

Stars at 9 pm open the sky

A red shaped leaf fields of lilacs purple black and gold, butterflies, sense of stillness, renewal of the free rolling spirit, yellow bamboo leaves at lower elevations, then green exploding higher lush gardens, fir, pine.

Fields being planted.

Women men children hoe plant water.

Say yes to everything.

The hard scrabble reality similar to Phonsavan in northern Laos, oxen, weathered fases, wood/thatch homes, small train station shops in the middle of nowhere.

Women logged in loading baskets of green vegetables, men wrestle iron timber on board, teens shuffle loads of wood into a train car door space racing long lonely whistle blasts. Here we go.

German Italian Japanese Australian senior citizens on train platforms snap Burmese people with no interaction projecting real true attitudes behavior at the T Bow exit.

Farewell my lovely.

A lone stranger enjoys the final four hours to Lashio.

Sublime beauty near and far butterflies, homes rolling hills golden rust colored labor in fields raving children urination copious food sources.

Staring at a writer sitting in market tea place morning broken lights curious faces, voices whispering is doing this being flowing “pen fountain” said the laughing boy standing on a cement slow all the men staring at this transitory process.

The expansive tradtional market is excellent. No foreigners in a chilly hilly labyrinth of morning. A source of fascination. Zen of sitting nourishment. Monks barefoot meditation an open hand holds everything. 

Burning coals. Tea.  Fractured light flowing energies.

Lashio artists

Character is action.

Tell me a story. The train stopped in TiVo where 24 nurses pulled on their acts wasted away onto shoulders descended to the platform took selfie declined images unloaded packs into tuk-tuk took off for Golden Dragon hotel. 

Lone traveler stayed on the train. It slowly rolled north. The conductor walked through the empty car. He stopped at an empty seat, collectived empty plastic water bottles, chopsticks, food wrappers, Styrofoam containers, dreams, nightmares and fantasies mixed with rising expectations, desires and needs.

He dropped everything out an open window. The train rolled through starlight.

+

The Commander’s Wife Buys Confectionery

In northern Shan State once upon a time there was along running insurgenc over land, freedom, natural resources, gold, rubies, star sapphires, opiates all golden triangle profit.

A shiny green army pickup truck pulled up at the New Sign Moon Bakery in Lashio.

A soldier and green jumped out and opened the cabinet door. The wife got out–longhair, white and silver dress, designer purse, serious face. Six soldiers exited the truck. They were on a mission to liberate cakes, cookies, sweets from glass shrine.

The commander got out. Short wearing a camouflage jacket like a forest with depressed green pants and black shiny shoes. Epaulets on his shoulder.

His sharp black eyes stared at a stranger scribbling at an outdoor table.

Zero expression. His eyes lay buried in his face of recessed emptiness. His commander war camo boonie hat sat a rakish angle crashed in front. Decorated with a golden military symbol of happiness compassion and love.

His life climbed steps into a new son. Her husband uttered quick syllables to number two.

Number two had war military bearing without a care in the world. He barked into a walkie-talkie.

A military policeman guarded the front of the truck. Soldiers stood around smoking as motorcycles loaded with fresh strawberries streamed goodbye.

She came out followed by a salesgirl trundling bags of roles and buns. A soldier put them in the truck. She spoke to her husband. He knew words were unnecessary. He followed her to the market. Soldiers marched behind.

Years later they return with bags of strawberries apples and bananas. They loaded everything into the truck.

Someone called the commander. He pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt. He opened his mouth. Perfect white teeth. If you knew words. He smiled. A soldier open the door for his life. She got in. Commander got in and took off his office party hat. Smoothed his hair. The military police stopped traffic and they drove into a dream come true.

Real–not true

True–not real

Elemental. You are the sky. Everything else is just the weather.

Painting with light shadow sky sunset relationship based in market.  Wonder and wander free-spirited in a free world. Absorbing the energies. Innocent child-like play. See with soft eyes. Gratitude. Abracadabra.

Sitting inside sun street morning surrounded by women voices asking who is the stranger? Noodle mama. Voices of laughter. Kerry roses smell fragrance. Tea house people stare smile forget. Spiderweb sparkle diamond radiant from the center. Process Tibetan - Burma language.

I am a rainbow. I am twinkling.

old woman
deep lined face
gray hair pulled back
empty begging bowl

woman without arms
sits under umbrella
empty begging bowl

Loving their phones
Market people laugh
Selfies, games (easily amused)
Wicker basket on her back
Silver coins jingle jangle
Light passage humor
Red thread solid black background

How’s it feel this magic show

meditation caught in the quiet
absorbing diversity wandering
sitting visual symphonies
zones of cement shells
steel shutters, mercantile commerce
set it up…sell…tear it down…go home.

transition images
light shadow
adjust to eternal flow
energies

senses whisper confident poems easy.