Trivia At The Airport

"Trivia at the Airport", the man said to me, "That's what you ought to call it".

I had just returned to Chicago from my first trip abroad, a full three month circumambulation of Ireland, where I had picked up a tin flute and learned a few simple tunes on it. I was waiting for the airport bus, and playing Brian Boru's Song, I believe, when this impromptu-commenting man had walked by on the way to his parked car. I remember the initial sting of the 'Trivia' comment (or was it not a sting? Trivia would be a valid name for a jazz improvisational, would it not?) being followed by the thought, "Hey, if you like it so much, why not give me a ride to the subway?"

That was so many years ago that all the emotions I felt at that time are now distant and alien. But I had forgotten that some of my weirdest - and thus most precious experiences - happened to me at the beginning and ending of journeys, and so many times at airports.

Yesterday I was at Taipei airport (officially CKS airport) in Taiwan, coming back to Korea after two weeks in Thailand (at "Resort Khao San" , as a friend likes to call it). I had a layover of about three hours, so I changed back to winter clothing, cruised around and checked the layout of the place, and finally went to my gate, where I immediately ferreted out an electric wall socket, plugged my laptop in, and started to do lesson prep for this upcoming semester.

Before long I realized that the people I had previously assumed were not interested in this little corner of the waiting area, where they had some luggage scattered about, were actually incredibly interested in it, and in fact started stretching and doing warmups over there. Before long there were all kinds of people going in and out of this corner that I had cloistered off with my power cable, and each time someone stepped back and forth across it, I anchored my laptop and prepared for the worst; that someone might trip on it, ruin the laptop and sue me for damaging their face when they belly flopped...

But each and every time, they gracefully lifted their foot without looking, like they were some kind of ballet dancer...

After a while, I found it impossible to ignore the constant stretching, and warmups, and before I knew it, I found my self trying to type in the middle of a full-blown yoga class. The instructor was this big, buxom n blonde california type; the rest of the people looked like your basic Weekend Workshop crowd; hardly Republicans. So I unplugged the computer, put it away, pulled off my shoes and soon found myself obeying commands like reach high, feel the energy in your sternum chakra, just sort of let that foot come around and rest on your thigh, if you feel comfortable with that... and actually loving every minute of this high energy, high pace bhakti yoga class in the departure gate.

Only then did I think about gurus, India, turbans....hey wait a minute, howcome everyone, or nearly everyone, on this flight to Korea were wearing turbans? Holy Shit! I'm in the wrong gate! I hurriedly gathered my things which were scattered over three chairs and the floor, hurriedly made a gift of some fresh-squeezed Khao San Orange Juice to my new yoga guru, and ran off to the right place.

When I got there they were just boarding, but I couldn't help noticing the big change; there were no people stretching, and it even seemed like no people smiling over here. Suddenly I felt like I was in the wrong gate, that somehow like I had been unnaturally, preternaturally separated from my family....

Windows on the World

This gilt window was apparently a work of inspired genius


Look carefully at the upper left hand corner, however, if you want to delve a little deeper into the Thai Psyche.


Unrelated Conspiracy Theory : today while watching CNN, they had a special report from a Rolling Stone reporter who had infiltrated the Church of Scientology. She was in mid-revelation of their innermost, most carefully kept secrets when the entire segment was yanked off the air, apparently pre-empted by the phony Phillipines coup, of which there was really nothing to report. Weird. Do they have people working at CNN as well? She was about to get into the churches strange creation myth, which truly rates as a work of science fiction (no surprise, considering that was L. Ron Hubbard's true calling)

MORE EFFECTIVE THAN IT LOOKS

Here was the 'Asian English' find of a lifetime. Apparently the word for 'staple' in Korean is pronounced 'hipi', sometimes spelled in this delightful way. How does it remove hippies? Just look at the bottom of the package.

Riders on The Storm...
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a drying heap of bellflower root (to be made into kimchi for winter months) contrasts plastic with wood outside of a temple in Sorak San park.
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found this one among my ....electronic belongings....wow, guess I'm old, just looking at this convinces me like nothing else...
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A random sign from Kangnam in Seoul, for the amusement and possible mock horror of my semitic friends around the world - honestly I'm not sure what this word construction is intended to convey- the 'free' is obviously borrowed from English, but the second part is just a phonetic spelling of a korean syllable cluster ('J' plus 'you' sound equals 'jyou')
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walk on it
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A young boy is all ready for the morning Burmese sun, his face paint is a powder made from a kind of tree; Burmese believe it not only protects from UV rays, but also softens the skin and looks 'beautiful'. It's great to occasionally warp the whole magazine image of beauty.

Have I shown you this before? This is a concession stand (e.g. tourist trap) beside White Lake, Mongolia. (good luck at finding it on the map, there are at least 7 of them)

SUSHI GAYDAR

My Friends always think I'm gay when I prepare a meal like this - but all I did was unwrap pieces I bought at Carrefour and plunk them down on a wooden platter I found at a flea market. And yes, it did taste as good as it looks.

the interior of the 'healing fruit' , bol, revealing the honey-like syrup interspersed with the dry, pumpkin-like meat, and a thick, impenetrable shell.
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two burmese milkshake makers in the act of cutting (hacking) a bol fruit - the bol fruit is also found in India, where it is known as the medicine fruit, since it cures most kinds of diarreah (everything except amoebic). The fruit has a hard shell something like a coconut, stringy orange pulp which is quite honey-like. Someday I hope to include it in my coffeetable book of "Exotic Fruit Around the World"
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more than just a metaphor, this cart REALLY was before the horse....
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DUCK EGG OMELETTE.....to quote a Christopher Guest film, sometimes "...even I'M jealous of me!"... This morning, got up lazyboy style at 11, threw together this PURFEC omelette lovely jubbly-style, made with toasted garlic, peppered (literally) with sweet red bell peppers, grated hard Gouda and Romano cheeses, the whole damn schlossmik was so good looking and smelling I just had to get this picture (scratch and sniff at your own peril)
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something tells me that the word 'picnic' for these people has a totally different meaning, independent of language translation problems...
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This is a kind of convenience store (the pile on the left, not the right, which is a kind of buddhist-shamanist good luck pile) on a mountain pass in the wilds of Mongolia
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The first time I saw outdoor billiard tables, they were beside a lake in the Himalayas, surrounded by glaciers and peaks over 5000 meters- I thought it was something that these tribes of different traditions could get together over. This picture, from a marketplace near the former capital of Genghis Khan, sort of confirms that theory (Mongols were once many tribes as well)
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Yes, that is a "PARKING" sign there, and next to it, a "Do Not Enter, One Way" sign next to it. The Mongolians can be neat, tidy, AND logical in the middle of nowhere. The tent in the foreground is the equivalent of a tourist trap concession, selling, naturally, things made of wool, the only material availiable here. One wonders how much it cost to build the fence out of wood, which grows ever scarcer here.
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The timelessness of the wheel is reflected in this truckstop in the middle of nowhere (which is EVERYWHERE) in Mongolia....
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