Brain damage

Once upon a time, the skies of Bedrock were perpetually gray, choked with churning factory smoke, car exhaust fumes and general pollution. Stick a tissue in your nose at night, and it would come out black. About once a year, we'd see blue skies and call each other up. It was really, really, really bad, one of the most polluted spots on earth.

Coal was burned as cooking fuel at most restaurants, and I lived next to one. My apartment smelled like coal, and coal dust collected on my window sills. No telling what my lungs looked like.

One day I was in a university van with some Chinese teachers, and it was one of the most polluted days I'd ever seen. One of the young women teachers inhaled deeply at the exhaust fumes coming in the window, smiled and said, "Ah, I love that smell. It reminds me of my childhood."

I was stunned. Frozen. Shocked. Speechless.

And then when I was in Bedrock a few days ago, I passed by this coal kitchen on the side of the road. Bedrock is so modern now, so this is the only coal place I encountered. And there it was. The smell. Of coal. It took me back to all those special times in Bedrock in its backward years. My memories were clear. Special.

And then I realized that like that young teacher years ago, I too loved that smell. It reminds me of the good times. It is NOT a good smell. It is only a link to those sweet memories of years gone by.

Or, as I'm sure you would think, all that coal has given us brain damage. :-)

All the memories, none of the clutter

My little friend GC drew me a picture recently, a purple unicorn. I'm not sure if that is a rainbow behind it or a colorful bushy tail. :-) But I'm thrilled she thought of me as the person she wanted to give it to!

Maybe you, like me, tend to forever hold onto objects that hold memories. Open your closet, and boxes of them will fall upon you. You save your child's drawings, I save my dog's outgrown cute clothes. Christmas cards, birthday cards, wrapping paper, even furniture that belonged to someone special, even if you have no room for them, are stored where you have no way to look at them often.

I am on a mission to turn down my sentimentality just a notch and declutter my life.

I'm scanning paper memories (like greeting cards, notes and pre-digital era photos), and photographing things I no longer want to store -- yet want to remember. Everything is saved to my computer (which is backed up to make sure my memories can survive a computer crash). Then I can then throw away the actual object without feeling that I've lost an important memory. When a wave of nostalgia (or forgetfulness) hits, I can just crank up my computer and watch a slideshow of the things that are meaningful to me.

Will I save anything in its original form? Sure, I'll save a few things. But if feels so good to lighten the load. You ought to give it a try!

Thanksgiving Day

The sun shone down on this cool, crisp day, making it perfect Thanksgiving weather. I made a tossed salad and eggplant casserole before taking a taxi across town to join my American friends for a Thanksgiving lunch feast. Seventeen of us had deep-fried turkey with all the trimmings. It was a nice day and really felt like Thanksgiving.

On the way back to my place in a taxi, I saw men putting down new sidewalks, and thought what a shame it was that they had to work on Thanksgiving Day. Then I got jolted back to reality. Today's Thanksgiving is a uniquely American holiday. It's not celebrated in the Middle Kingdom. I had a great holiday anyway.

Thanksgiving Holidays of the past

In 1969, I looked out the wide-slat blinds in my bedroom early on Thanksgiving morning in Fort Stockton, Texas, and told my mother, "I wish it would snow." But it was sunny, probably around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, so my mom told me not to get my hopes up.

Imagine her surprise when, a few hours later, the skies opened up and sent a blanket of snow to the west Texas desert. Being with my family that day made for one of the most memorable Thanksgivings ever.

When I was in either junior high or high school, my dad and brothers went deer hunting the day after Thanksgiving, so my mom and I went an hour and a half away to Odessa, Texas, to go shopping at the mall, buy a Christmas tree that we put in the trunk of the car, and eat at Manuel's Mexican food restaurant. That was a really fun day for me too. That was back before people called the day after Thanksgiving "black Friday." We were some of the pioneers who made black Friday black!

I think it was about 1980 when my brother James and I were traveling from our college in central Texas (Brownwood) to our home in West Texas (Pecos) in an ice storm. We had an 8-track tape of the Imperials Christmas album playing in the car as we slowly slid halfway across Texas. It was worth the trip though.

A few years later, I took my grad school friend (from Iowa) from Fort Worth to Pecos, an eight-hour drive. After eight hours of desert, a hypnotized Angelia had figured that in the same length of time it took us to get across Texas, she could have probably gone home to Iowa for Thanksgiving.

Every year is a good one, wherever we may be, whomever we may be with. 

By the way, if anyone needs a good dressing recipe, my mom's is the world's best.

Happy Thanksgiving!

KFC Nostalgia

Lately I have been hanging out at KFC more than usual, because it brings back lots of good memories of good times in the Middle Kingdom.


I suppose you are aghast at the news that KFC holds a special place in anyone's heart. But you should know that KFC in Asia is a zillion times better than KFC in America, not only in my opinion, but in the opinions of other Americans who travel here also. It is extremely clean, modern, efficient and clean (I said that twice on purpose). The food selection is somewhat different than in America, and I generally like it. But it is less the food, more the ambience, that makes KFC's in China memorable.


KFC is a sign of a modern city. When I ask someone about a city in China, and I'm trying to find out how developed it is, the first question I ask is if it has KFC and how many. Because KFC is always the first to go in to a developing city (followed MANY years later by McDonalds and/or Pizza Hut). Any city with a KFC is a pretty okay city. Any city with all three is a city to be reckoned with.


When I lived in Bedrock, I almost fainted in shock when I saw the first KFC go up many years ago. In a city of a couple of million people, all we could eat was Chinese food until then. KFC was far too expensive for the average person to go to, so only the wealthy people in town would go there. Fashionable moms would take their children to the play area. Wealthy and educated people who wanted to show they were internationally minded would go there to meet others like them. I can't even count how many acquaintances and friends I made at a KFC. It was exciting, fun and clean!


Sometimes I would go there 2-3 times a week. If I worried about the effects of fried chicken on my  heart health, I just drank coffee. It was my home away from home.


I miss those days, when everything was new and exciting. I still like to go to KFC, to remember the old times, but these days most people are too sophisticated to walk over to a foreigner to start a conversation. So I am happy to sip my citrus tea (pictured above) and reminisce.