Settling into the flow of the street, city, parks, lakes, and people. It's a joy.

Irony of remembering arriving about a year ago in Jakarta from Turkey. How, during the long flight I studied packaging, how plastic wrap and tin foiled meals are air tight and require a degree in engineering to open them without spilling the contents everywhere.

Miles of tourists waited to have their passports stamped so they could get to Balinese temples, massage parlors and blue-green waves of laughter along some forgotten coast. Where palm oil plantation owners destroy the rain forest so women have sweet facial cosmetics. Where poor farmers kill elephants with poison laced pineapples for the black market ivory trade. Where people spend more time looking back than forward.

How the young immigration man asked me, "Do you have a return ticket?"

No.

"Come with me." He led me to a desk where he talked to another man. My school employer had failed to tell me I needed a return ticket - they assumed I would be stopping in Singapore for a visa but this was never explained. Clearly.

They talked. The man returned. "You need a ticket out." I took my passport from him, opened it and put a $100 note inside. "Will this help?" His eyes brightened, meaning yes. Money talks.

He returned to the box office, whispered to a colleague stamping tired expectant tourist faces and led me down the hall toward immigration officials. We passed rows of people waiting for their final turn at Stamp Entry Verification Headquarters. He went to an important man sitting in his cubicle staring at a computer. Mr. Big. 

"Go through and wait there," he said, pointing to the free zone. He handed my passport to the man, they talked, the official stamped my document and returned it to him. He walked over, handed it to me, smiled and said, "Welcome to Indonesia."

"Thank you for your help. Goodbye."

When I shared this memory with the woman in charge of administration for foreign teachers she smiled, "Yes, that's the way things are done here."

So it goes.

Metta.

How does it feel in hot, humid, steamy Hanoi? Delightful. 

It's the poetry of the street. Diversity of life's energy. Fascinating documentary of modern tribal realities. Blond backpackers wear rubber flip-flops. Hard going through the mud and meadows of reality. Influences and migration. 

Ha Noi Handicrafts is a fine place with friendly people. Feel free to see their site:

I am Anon-o-mouse. Enjoy fresh tea near the lake at dusk. Dancing yellow lights. Fish are jumping. 

Massage away your tension, anxiety, fear. Practice sitting and walking and breathing like a monk. Calm, serene and spine. This is a quiet simple dignity. 

Metta.

From the Temple of Literature to temples, art, the street. Delightful. Get a manicure and a facial after a day of exploring. Circumvent the planet with clean skin. Peal it all off. Shed old memories, dreams and potentials.

West lake - Ho Tay or Lake Mist or Big Lake. Legend: in the 11th century a Vietnamese Buddhist monk provided a great service to emperor of China. He received bronze, made a huge bell, rang the bell and a Golden Buffalo Calf in China, thinking it was his mother ran south and trampled the site turning it into a lake. 

The Pho Lin pagoda is on a estuary on the northern shore in an area called Quan Thanh. It was recommended to me by Tran, the manager at Just Massage where I enjoyed a 90 minute shiatsu workout.

Pristine. No traffic. Water. Dragons. Lovely murals. Female monks sweep leaves. Burial chambers in shade. 

Museum of History has a small petri dish filled with carbonized rice. Hunters and gatherers sweep in from southern China. Humans live in caves. Discover fire. Make stone bladed tools. Weave bamboo clothing. Use clay to make pottery. 

Metta.

Sitting down in Hanoi. Before dawn Hoan Kiem Lake is tranquil.

Hundreds of residents walk the circumference, practice tai-chi, stretch, meditate, lift weights, play badminton, read morning papers, chat with friends, and relax. Women spin red fans as their teacher watches, instructing them in movement. Dance.

The Jade Mountain Temple sits on an island in the lake accessible by a narrow red bridge. Turtle Tower stands on a small island in the center of the lake. Orange light dances off the surface.

I walk to the Temple of Literature. Founded in 1070 as a Confucian temple and established at the first university or Imperial Academy in Vietnam in 1076. 

Read more...

Metta.

A simple joy is being in Hanoi savoring delicious Chinese tea.

I am liberated from tolerating the tyranny at a private Catholic school in Jakarta. I completed my penance. A beautiful universe.

It feels fantastic to be back in the University of the Street. So it goes.

Metta.

In this final episode from the island of Amnesia somewhere near the Equator, I share some valuable insights into life and mentality here.

People don't listen. "Huh?"

I fly away next week, heading into Asia. Enough of this nonsense after a year in a private school. The kids have been amazing. They graduate to grade 5. I graduate to the University of the Street.

My gardening work is finished here. Plant. Weed. Cultivate. Harvest.  

Thanks for listening.

Metta.

MK 73...

A group of teachers pile into a Blue Bird taxi and zoom through the polluted capital to a mall for dinner.

There's a Filipino woman, married to a local with two kids. The whiners are at home with maids.

Beck and call.

There's a fat happy Catholic Filipino relic of a science teacher, a young angry Hebrides science fiction android and a wandering scribe. They find a diner. They feast on Caesar salad, chips, tomatoes covered in cheese, dip and 150 grams of cooked beef between bad white bread.

Watching people flow past, in and out of gleaming neon stores, the scribe and woman talk about advertising, marketing and the relentless pressure people feel to consume, to buy, to get STUFF. They need to buy to feel better, to improve their internal sense of worth with external STUFF. 

She is waiting for her local marketing husband to fight and survive traffic to get to the mall. When he arrives he doesn't smile. He doesn't greet anyone. He slouches, collapsing in a chair. They don't talk. This happens in many old boring Friday night marriages. No surprise here.

Everyone gets up and wanders around the mall. The husband tells his wife he's going to find some dim-sum. He goes off to eat alone. Alone.

"Great!" she says, "I'm going to look for phone accessories. I really need something new, flashy and fashionable for my Strawberry."

The android and introverted priest stand around eating sweet I Scream. Waiting to leave. Waiting to become trapped in a car while the husband negotiates a business deal at the wheel next to his silent wife as the priest talks about finding a female nest.

A ride through Hell-o Friday.

Metta.

Doodle drama, ah the drama, the unfolding play! Information versus entertainment. Keep them stupid and happy. Children, of all ages, are amused by the idiot box. Give up your consciousness. Use the remote.

We watch all the feelings, sensations and thoughts that arose upon having that event happen.

Absolved by rain, the deluge.

"Keep your hand moving," whispered the writing teacher. They were strange. All of them.

The teacher in Tang Dynasty clothing filled with dragons, yin-yang mysteries of balance,

becoming, a Phoenix rising, a crying crane flying through mist covered mountains while emperors danced with concubines inside Forbidden Cities' red lacquered

emotional curiosities where visions of detached ebullient phosphorus streams dove into silence,

the abstraction of tonal quality in extreme bliss, a manifestation of phenomenal superior detective analysis and forty questions of the soul examining marketing examinations at 7:00 p.m. followed by utter exhaustion.

Leo and the clown escaped into the hills.

“We know so much and understand so little. People are more affected by how they feel than what they understand." 

Bright star Leo continued.

“On day one my teacher said, ‘I only want you to bring two things to class. Your ears.’”

They sharpened sticks on stones, carving paleo-Leo-lithic cave paintings on soft clay walls.

Leo edged circles, rectangles, triangles, curves, lines and dots. He carved his name backwards for future historians and archeologists to get the gist, EOL, or, as an unemployed academic financial analyst now a linguist on Wailing Wall Street would, could, should declare, “English On Line!”

Metta.

We stood deep inside excavated lands. A new planet. High dirt walls bordered by pine, evergreen and blue sky were lined with sharp deep gashes where earth machine teeth had gouged down soft dirt.

Workers harvested soft red clay soil for construction projects and imperial jade tombs at the nearby Chinese university where 15,000 trapped, lonely and bored students struggled to survive in a harmonious society.

Where they mastered the art of eating, sleeping and exploring casual sex hiding from recycled security guards in olive drab green army uniforms. We were at the bottom of a large bottomless pit.

“I have a theory they are spies,” whispered Leo.

“How do you know this theory?” said Charlie the Clown an imaginary friend.

“Because their job is to keep an eye on us. Think about it. We have too any people here and so, to monitor our behavior, attitudes and thinking, they recruit students and teachers to be spies. To be informers.”

“My father was an informer during the Cultural Revolution,” said Leo, a Shining Star.

“Yes, he was a member of the Shining Path Young. This is our new generation, with a new generation of informers and spies. They make good money. They keep their mouth shut and know their place. We don't talk about June 4th. It's the kiss of death."

"Creativity is my meditation," said Charlie. "Don't take it all too seriously. The one who laughs lasts."

Read more...

Soldier Artist....

Metta.

The title is from an automated voice in a factory in Juarez, Mexico. Where thousands of women work for $5 an hour assembling televisions and appliances under NAFTA "free trade" agreements. No insurance, no benefits.

Cheap labor. Hundreds perhaps thousands of women brutally murdered. Powerful Mexican and American economic and political interests. Bordertown.

"You are falling behind in meeting your quota. Accelerate production! Accelerate production!" 

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Metta.