Musings on life and how I choose to interpret it…

There is nothing to say. I’m a little worried about my state of tepidity. The week has been grey and sullen, as if we somehow forgot to invite it to a party that everyone in the cooler next day was excitedly talking about. And now it has brought everyone else down with its dreary jive.

A brief hullabaloo about the TTC strike on the weekend made things a little interesting, but then Monday came and suddenly everyone was reminded about their spilling workload. Days came and went, sprinkling a dismissive shower here and there, going on and on and on and on.

My video project grant application got rejected. I suppose that’s partly to blame for my inordinately glum blog entry. The people behind the donor explained that they had to siphon the grant money to “Toronto priority projects”. My first disappointment of the year. Imagine a volcano caving unto itself. A tire deflating, a pyramid of leaves collapsing and eventually scattered by the wind.

I’ve got nothing to say but I felt like I needed to post something. I’m actually not as depressed as I’m making it out to be, quite melodramatically you could add. I’m just teetering on glib jadedness and a steady vacuum of inspiration. My D-SLR is despondently staring at me through its 14-45mm wide lens; I can’t call it accusing, more like disappointed. My surroundings are implacably sterile; there could be green organic matter oozing out from the walls right now, and all I would’ve noticed was its lack of urgency.

A bomb could go off next door and I’d instantly notice the loosening hinges of the door. OK, maybe that was a little insincere. I probably would’ve scampered underneath my bed if I heard a bang. But I still would’ve commented on the sagging underpinnings.

I’ve got nothing to say and all I can think about are my drooping shoulders. I can’t argue, my greetings are forced and my voice is as dejected as a twelve-year old who gets a pack of new socks for his birthday gift.

It’s Thursday night and I’ve got nothing to say. I had dinner — it was OK. Watching Jon Stewart online and I realize that he’s a comic genius, nonpareil, of our times. And all I can muster is a half-hearted chuckle. It’s Thursday night and suddenly I wish I was out drinking instead. It’s Thursday night: chilly, quiet and funereal.

It’s Thursday night, I’m as fit as I’ve ever been lately, and man — I’ve got nothing to say. I could enthrall you with my activist work, my nomination as the Chairperson of something, my conversations with interesting people, my romantic failures, my work and my plays, my highs and my lows…instead I’ve got nothing to say.

The tunes on my ipod scatter the distortions in my head, but like a school of fish huddling back after the dust settles down, I’m as blank and unresponsive as before. I crack my fingers and nothing still happens. My brother cracks a joke and nothing. A stranger with a tight pair of jeans, silhouetted deliciously against the glare of the streetcar lights, and nothing. Compared to me right now, even the traffic lights seem to change with more enthusiasm.

You say: bah! chin up already. You’re young, relatively debt-free, working in a great office with an even greater mentor. Your bills are paid (well, some of it), your health is sound (except for that slightly recent ache in the back), your moral fibers are firm (most of the times), you’re starting to get a foot into the talk of the community, you’re not all that dumb or bad-looking. So chin the fuck up, dude.

And I guess I agree. I have nothing to be so humdrum about. If my existence is so ordinary, it should be something to be grateful about. Compared to the many who live in constant fear and real poverty, I am a spoiled duke. A flat tire is my main concern while people out there actually have bullets to dodge. I live in a bustling city, and I work in a fantastic community. No exposed, tin roofs letting in the piercing cold rain.

I’ve got nothing to say, but in the course of an hour, I’ve managed to spool off quite a few threads of my recent discomfiture. Funny how some of my entries seem to take a life of its own, albeit a zombie-like state in this instance. I suppose I could put this into my “organic” category. Ha ha. Bloody zinger.

Its an hour to midnight, sleep is slowly creeping up my bones, I’ve got nothing else to say but end this note with a fascinating video that my friend Derek sent my way.

I hope you’ve had a much more meaningful state of affairs. If you like, you can regale me with it, but be warned: all I could probably muster is a distracted “meh”.

Good night.

Quite a lot has happened since I last posted here. For starters: no more snow. Lawns everywhere in Toronto are now slowly showing signs of awaking from their repose — a tint of green that’s barely a murmur now, but lest we get too excited, overzealous revelers were reminded of winter’s still fleeting grip with a chilly thunderstorm yesterday. Hold off on those sandals and shorts for now. I learned it the hard way myself.

The atmosphere in Tibet is still very tense. And it looks like it won’t let up any time soon. The members of the IOC met in Beijing a couple of days ago, and despite the all-around criticisms that it endured at the Olympic torch procession in London, Paris and San Francisco, they decided to stick with their plan of parading the jaundiced torch through Tibet. Any talk of increased violence and bloodshed due to its presence in Lhasa and Mt. Everest were immediately chided by the Chinese government. You can almost picture the embarrassed face of Jacques Rogge on the dinner table, as if sternly admonished by the Chinese patriarch for reaching across the table without any sign of modesty. Like a little schoolboy. Leave the stuff about human rights and “politics” to us, the Chinese officials seem to have said. You worry about people doing laps and things like that, okay? That’s a good boy. Now finish your bowl of wonton soup and bid everyone goodnight.

Hundreds of Tibetans have now been killed as a direct result of the violent crackdowns since the unrest first began in Tibet a month ago. Pictures are floating in almost everyday. The deaths seem to be indiscriminate in its blinding cloak: young and old, monks and nuns, schoolchildren and old peasants. Two state orchestrated media “tours” in Tibet to show the world that it’s all stable and normal, and both of them valiantly disrupted by monks who were gut wrenchingly earnest in their pleas and astonishingly articulate in their demands and objections. The forcibly devoid and make-believe image of Tibet that Beijing keeps presenting to the rest of the country and the world has been tarnished by the crimson robes and blood of monks who continue to defy the iron-fisted authority of a long-outmoded giant. A hungry, unfeeling and insecure party stricken with an authoritarian compulsion that threatens to burn a whole garden of unique cultures and identities to the ground.

I have been very occupied since I last reported about the pro-China demo in Toronto. Ever since that day, there has been this unsettling knot in my stomach, a faintly bothersome perturbation in the back of my mind that insists that this issue will not be resolved as clearly or as cleanly as I’d hoped. Call me naive, and I rightly was, but I’ve always thought that our fight against the Chinese government was something that was markedly straightforward. Our grievances and anger were directed towards a brutal dictatorship that has the blood of millions in its hands. This still active and strong party of Mao Zedong is responsible, by some accounts, for more deaths than Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot combined.

We have nothing against the Chinese people, culture, or even the country (in its rough description).

What I’ve been shocked with lately, is this insistent and troubling vibe that I’ve been getting from Chinese people. Young Chinese men and women, in Canada, the States and everywhere else outside of China. This almost childish stubbornness that flows out from the mouth and keyboards of ill-informed high school and university students. I’m trying to picture things from their POVs, but it doesn’t add up. Some have called it patriotism, a call to defend your country from any criticism regardless of what the actual issue may be. I’ve been told that the hate-filled slander and vile racism that I come across on internet message boards and blogs are the vocal fringes — a misrepresentation of the majority of Chinese people (ethnic Hans) who have suffered as much as the Tibetans, Uighers and many others.

And then you get this:

For anyone at work or with a shoddy internet connection, this is the full transcript of the short video:

I wish the people to know that China and Chinese people have helped the Tibetan people and improved their human rights.

…how can somebody who cannot even read and write understand anything about human rights?

If they cannot read and write … how can they realize what is being lost?

… in the past in Tibet … the people were just blind faith to believe in their religions. They were controlled … if people think China has mind-controlled them, then they were mind-controlled for thousands of years by their religion.

On the stage you have a round-faced, mousse-haired gentleman who looks like he’s not a year over twenty five. A title states that he is the event organizer. No name is mentioned. A quick pan of the crowd that has gathered, waving the Chinese and Canadian flags. And then he speaks — in a halting, and obviously strained English. Not exactly a crowd captivator. The crowd cheers encouragingly after the first line, perhaps hoping to collectively extract the oratorical resin hidden somewhere beneath his sheepish and milquetoast demeanour. After the second line though, the crowd isn’t really too sure. And then he drops that bomb, with that slight look of glee in his face.

Excuse me if this is really offensive, but right then and there his face looked Mao-ish. I’m sorry. That’s just what he reminded me of. “How can they realize what is being lost?” If there is one sentence that chillingly epitomizes everything that is wrong with online keyboard cowboys, it is that. He looks like he was transposed straight from CCTV and Xinhua, a vile, flabby concoction of selfish nationalism mixed with misinformation.

But that’s not what really bothers me. What’s really worrying about all of this is the absolute lack of any trace of humanity (or empathy) in that person. Maybe I’m being too harsh here. Maybe my judgment is totally out of place, and I should try and rein in my comments.

But to see that young person utter those words, words that he apparently prepared and “practiced” before he got on stage, and to witness this sad, atavistic caricature of another era spewing these explicitly offensive and nigh-psychopathic statements in downtown Toronto, in front of hundreds of people, was throughly dreadful. To him, and the many others who support his maladjusted way of thinking, this “speech” is the succinct embodiment of their rationales.

This, to them, is what justifies the harsh and brutal crackdowns on Tibetans everywhere in Tibet. In this person’s fat and pneumatic head, is a Dalai Lama who is a sexual deviant and a slave master. In his book of history is a barbaric nation that was occupied for hundreds of years, in spite of every known fact pointing to a series of contention and revisionism.

From his eyes he sees a culture that is beneath him, and a peaceful struggle that is spit-worthy and dismissive. His memory is clouded with a red, pervasive ink that blots out any sign of dissent, and to him a torch relay being disrupted is more cause for indignation than a human rights activist jailed and tortured for speaking the truth.

His moral fiber is attuned to the sensitivity of a vast party machine, as opposed to the plights of children being shot in the back on border passes, or young idealists rolled under tanks and silenced by bullets.

His flag is a symbol of pride, one that he had no trouble looking back on when he first left China for greener pastures and greater freedom, but one that he can still wave in the thrusting moment of convenience. As a linchpin to justify his contempt for those that oppose crimes against humanity or have the temerity to demand their rights as an individual.

I urge the people with whom I’ve engaged civilly over the internet in discussions about Tibet to look at this video and then defend his speech (or whatever you’d like to call that). Remember that this is the type of person who’s organizing your demonstrations. And to remember that this is exactly the type of person the Chinese Communist Party wants you to follow.

Tomorrow there’s apparently a similar demonstration in Ottawa in front of the Parliament building. Will this guy be leading the charge again? Does anyone know?

I actually intended to write about something altogether different today. But I guess it’ll have to wait. This post got way longer than I’d planned.

Someone please make a case for this guy, and actually stop me from making him a scapegoat so quickly. I’m unsettled by the ease with which I’ve almost reduced him to a genocidal freak.

Please. Anyone?

If you happened to be shopping downtown on Yonge St. this afternoon, you probably came across the sea of red and the piercing howls that was the pro China demonstration on Dundas Square today. It was an impressive crowd, with Chinese people from all walks of life, chanting “One China! One China!” and applauding themselves at various signaled intervals. You could’ve sworn this was February all over again — the Chinese new year déjà vu. Where were the dancing dragons and child acrobats with silk ribbons?

The reason for the demo today, though, was entirely removed of any cultural or political significance. The event was organized, believe it or not, by international Chinese student groups who were upset about the media coverage of the recent uprisings in Tibet. They wanted Toronto to know the unfettered, unbiased and unadulterated truth — so they handed out copies of “damning” evidence under instructions of the Chinese consulate. The gist of their argument: Tibetans were the violent troublemakers behind the unrest inside Tibet (they deserved what they got); China is one and, above all else, Tibetans should be grateful for that. The obvious face-slapping truth of China’s bloody hands behind the suffering of Tibetans is just western propaganda, and you should be shameful for even having thought of that. We’ll harass the shit out of you if you think otherwise.

I’m not even kidding. Towards the conclusion of the event, at various instances, the Chinese participants mobbed and yelled down with relish anyone who dared to engage with them about Tibet. A Canadian man in the middle of the participants exposed his shirt which had a flag of Tibet on the pocket which absolutely drove the mob into fits and, if it were not for the swift response of the cops, the whole thing would’ve turned very ugly very quickly. At another instance, a fat Chinese boy with a hoodie, who couldn’t have been a year over twenty, shoved and cussed at a person who talked about the dead Tibetans from the last couple of weeks. Old folks were screaming, “You don’t know the truth! You never been to China!” “Liar!”

The whole thing would’ve been ridiculously funny if not for the dangerous underpinnings. This was a large crowd of mostly adults who gathered and exulted in their abject nationalistic fervour. The whole idea behind this event was to show that the greatness of China overshadowed and overwhelmed any aspect of human rights or freedoms. In a pointedly candid display of misplaced fealty, they placed the might of the party before the rights of the citizens. And most worryingly of all, this happened in Toronto, Canada: a place where you can glean all versions of the facts, and not just the one fed down the tubes of the Communist propaganda machine.

If a community of thousands, across an ocean and a continent from its “motherland”, can be shepherded so blindly and easily, what does that mean for the billions in China who actually don’t have the free access to media like we do here in Canada? I try not to exaggerate online, but I’m absolutely serious when I say that I felt like a Jew who inadvertently stumbled into a Nazi rally when the call of Aryan superiority was first spreading throughout Germany. This was how the monks must’ve felt when the cadres of the Red Army, drunk on their premature jingoism, destroyed the monasteries in Tibet and burned Buddhist texts with demented glee during the Cultural Revolution.

It was a chilling reminder about the extent of China’s oppressive tactics. And it was heartbreaking to see otherwise rational human beings being filled with toxic emotions that encourage mass terror and mob justice. Is this what we’re up against? I have to commend the brilliance of the fucking party officials who have honed their crafts and mastered the art of intimidation and shock therapy. After all, they did have the best in the business when it comes to purging millions and torturing the soul out of a nation.

But this was in Toronto. In Canada. This isn’t some village deep in the country of China. We have more than a dozen news channels just in Toronto, and more international ones, including the CCTV of China. How then do you reconcile this fact with the many Chinese students and adults who were adamant in their accusations that the news of Tibet circulating around here were just western media propaganda? When they are aware that China actually shut down Tibet from any international reporters in response to the protests there? When they even kicked their own press people outside of Tibet? When their own intellects have been calling on the government to act differently back in China?

These were university students. How do you explain that? How the fuck…my head hurts just thinking about this.

Scanning the crowd of over a thousand, I saw lots of young, smiling faces unsure of what this demonstration was really about; and mostly excited because they were in such a large gathering in downtown Toronto. Toting Chinese and Canadian flags, they amassed on the edge of the square towards Yonge St., and menacingly stared down the small band of Tibetan protesters who, in spite of the request from the local Tibetan organizations, spiritedly answered the pro China event for the sake of the Tibetans being killed in Tibet right now. The evening news coverage of the demo actually had equal time for the counter-Beijing actions taken today. Take note international students from mainland China: this is what a balanced news report actually means.

I’m glad we decided not to engage the Tibetan community into this. A riot would’ve been inevitable. And this is just what the Chinese officials would’ve craved back in Beijing — a distraction.

As I was about to leave the Dundas Square, I caught sight of one particular Chinese man with whom I just couldn’t help starting a conversation. I had seen what happens when you try to talk up the issue about Tibet as a Tibetan supporter, so I tried to approach this with an objective angle — I pretended to be a Korean reporter. And this was the person in question:

Now, first of all, it took all of my earthbound, human/activist strength just to stifle a chuckle. I mean, seriously – how can you not look at this person waving a fucking UN flag and just convulse with laughter right there on the street? Really, who makes this shit up? I just had to pry this mind open and find out what was cooking his noodles.

“Hi, I’m a reporter from Korea Times. I see you have a UN flag there — can you please tell me why you’ve brought this particular flag to this event here?”

When I first approached him, he seemed a little hesitant. Maybe he thought no one would think twice about a pro China demonstrator waving a flag with the UN symbol on it. It was only after I told him that I was Korean that he loosened up a little. He said he had lots of Korean friends in his athletic club. He even showed me an insignia on his jacket to prove his case.

“I bring it, y’know, to show that we want peace. Tibetans — they create trouble. China want peace.” [sic, from his end, all the way through]

“Right. Do you know that China actually doesn’t want the UN to look into the issue of Tibet? They’ve vetoed against any talk about Tibet at the general assembly.”

“Yes, yes. The problem in Tibet now OK. Tibet is OK.”

I think he was missing my point entirely, so I proceeded with another angle: “Would you support the UN going into Tibet and finding out what’s the problem there?”

“Tibet have no problem. I been there. Tibet OK now. I just want world peace.”

“Tibet has no problem? Then why are there so many Tibetans protesting in Tibet?”

“Tibet have no problem. Tibetans just violent and do looting in Lhasa. I was in Tibet, y’know. Tibetans there happy under China.”

At this point I must’ve had a purple, knobby vein throbbing against my temple, but I kept my cool. For the sake of… journalistic integrity. Yes, that’s what.

“But the violence was only inside Lhasa. Everywhere else in Tibet it was mostly peaceful, and the Chinese army still clamped down on them violently. Do you support their tactics?”

“I don’t know. I just know Tibet is OK now. Don’t worry. Everybody want world peace.”

“Do you support the way the Chinese government has not allowed for any form of protest in Tibet, regardless of whether they are peaceful or not?”

“What?”

Somewhere in this conversation, a random white dude just walked up to us and joined in this discussion.

“What I’m saying is — you see that here in Canada, everyone has the right to protest if it is peaceful. You can’t do that in Tibet or even China. How do you feel about that?”

This is where the stammering begins, and I’m not ashamed to say that I smiled inwardly for reducing him to a blathering fuckwit.

“I…I…I don’t know. We just want to show the rest of the world that China is fine. Tibet is OK now. I been there, y’know.”

“But that’s really not the case. Lots of Tibetans inside Tibet are unhappy with the Chinese government. How do you feel about that?”

“Tibetans…they don’t know. They just…cause violence and loot other people’s properties…”

“Yes, but this was mostly in Lhasa, and only for a couple of days. The rest of the protests were peaceful.”

“Tibetans…they don’t know…they very violent.”

This was one of the few instances when the random white guy chipped in from the periphery. “You sound really condescending and mean when you say that. Look, you’re even smiling when you say those things about the Tibetans. That’s not right, man.”

I wasn’t really seeking any third-party validation from this tiresome exercise, but I was relieved that it wasn’t just me not eating the horseshit this UN flag-waving, pro Communist China sheep was spewing.

As I shook hands with both men and started to part my ways, I turned back one last time and asked him where in Tibet he had really been, since he brought it up so often during our brief discussion.

“Oh — just in Lhasa…”

“Just in Lhasa?”

“Yeah, y’know, and … Ching village.”

I swear I’m not making this up. Right from his hesitant tone to the abrupt pause before he came up with this utterly believable name for a village inside Tibet (Ching or Jing, I forget), it was plain as fresh snow that this guy had a seriously skewed knowledge of Tibet and China’s history. And his smiling attitude for maintaining this kind of dangerous mindset was just the icing on the cake that I didn’t want.

He couldn’t even pull off his bullshit act convincingly. If it’s any consolation, at least my portrayal of a Korean reporter was spot-on. Down to my name: Hong Sung Park. Korea Times Daily. Without a shred of thought. A pro, through and through.

I sure hope Mr. “Cary” is looking forward to this interview in tomorrow’s papers.

What a mess. Yeesh!

“I’m finally beginning to feel what it is like to be a refugee and to be helpless,” I confided to my mentor, Shannon, in my office a week after the March 10 uprising.

The images, footage and accounts of Tibetans being systematically detained and oppressed from the recent unrest have clouded the consciousness of every Tibetan and Tibetan supporter I know of. There is a hollow dread in the way we speak and carry ourselves. A sense of outrage mixed with grief and a feeling of helplessness quietly swirls inside our house like a closed room filled with a translucent film of cigarette smoke.

The eyes of the protesters I meet are shiny with grief; and in some cases, almost glassy, like they’re not quite sure of what state their mind is in. Everyday brings new reports of Tibetans revolting. Every evening we turn the tube on for the latest coverage, every morning the computer screen flickers with internet postings of monks, nuns, nomads and students rising up for the call of independence. Of bodies riddled with bullets. Of armoured tanks maintaining the order in a holy city.

Tibet is in flames. And in Canada: life – as it is wont to do, as it is meant to be – just goes on. Bills have to be paid, school papers are due, and meeting appointments scream with their dull insistence for attention.

Meanwhile, Tibet is in flames.

“It’s almost like I know the sufferings of the Tibetans back home, and I am affected by it tremendously,” I sighed out. “But I am removed from the whole thing.”

Somehow, this ache of grief and desperation doesn’t quite seem as profound as I want it to be. The stress on my shoulders feel fake. My burning throat sounds like it is putting on a show. My outrage is muted.

“I feel like I’m not really genuine about my emotions towards everything that’s been going on.” This part I questioned to myself.

And it is a question that has been haunting me incessantly as the days wear on. I’m trying to get a hold of my hyper self-consciousness. What does it matter to what extent I am truly affected by the events inside Tibet? What about the scores of Tibetans I see who don’t even seem to care about their news? How would you know if they care or not? What good does it do to second-guess every thought and emotion I have? What do you care about what others think? Am I being true to myself by ignoring these doubts? Are they really doubts or just filaments of my personal insecurities clouding up my thoughts?

While I go through the motions of everyday mundane activities with the shuffle of a condemned cynic, blood flows from the monasteries and percolates through the hallowed streets; from Lhasa to Sichuan, from tent to tent, square to every square. The piercing cries of freedom that I hear on the internet chills my spine and constricts my chest.

A grainy video from Labrang, Amdo, shows thousands of Tibetans gathering in the centre of the town, whistling rebelliously and waving the multi-coloured snowlion flags. A cameraman goes up closer and shows the excited faces of young Tibetans, some hardly past teen, barely managing to conceal their nervous smiles as a battalion of riot troops advance menacingly from across the street towards them.

A bang from a teargas shotgun, and the crowds quickly disperse.

The scenes unfolding before me on the computer screen succinctly encapsulate the state of my being. I am here – halfway across the world, it is quiet – with my hand on the mouse and my throat feeling uncomfortably tight, trying to get a sense of the unrest inside Tibet.

Except there is no way that I will ever be able to truly feel the terror that has struck my mountainous homeland. I will never know how it feels to hear the bangs on my door as Chinese troops raid every house inside Lhasa to arbitrarily detain every young person and monk they suspect of rioting. I will never feel the way my heart beat against my chest the way those young Tibetans did as they threw rocks at the advancing riot police. I will never experience the anguish of a mother who sees her high school kid forcibly taken from the house and thrown into the dreaded army trucks. I will never have the frustration of a generation constantly marginalized in their own birthplace taken out on properties that are owned by an encroaching group of settlers from outside. I will never have the opportunity to take pictures and record testimonies of the brutality like the scores of reporters who were recently expelled from Tibet did.

But most of all, I will never experience the euphoria of joining thousands of other Tibetans inside Tibet as they chant the freedom slogans and call for their leader, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to return to Tibet. I can’t imagine the swell of pride and courage, of being swept up uncontrollably into the torrent of unadulterated energy, and of finally casting aside any fear of retribution and personal costs.

I will never know that moment. I have seen it, and continue to see it, but my body is irredeemably and inconsolably intact and removed. My joints are tired and my eyes are heavy. The shot of adrenaline that coursed through my body when I was with the crowd that stood below the two boys who waved the Tibetan flag from atop the Chinese consulate building in Toronto has long worn off. I feel like I am a washed out shell of a once idealistic person.

My actions don’t feel like they’re enough. My head feels like it was just poured with molten lead. I am constantly aware of how I am talking to people, like I am looking through the eyes of a very nuanced robot.

My energy is slipping away from me, through cracks that I can’t even bother to cover. Every morning that I hear of yet another uprising, my heart picks its beat up momentarily, and then eventually levels out as I pack my bag and step out into the cold, orderly and quiet streets of Toronto. I have assignments to fulfill, plans to carry out, and streetcars to catch. I feel like I am in a state of fuzzy whiteness, like someone who’s just recovering from a flash bang: all ringing in the ears and maladjusted irises.

But I am reminded time and again, from the chiding of my younger brother to the sacrifices of countless people, that this moment is the searing pinnacle of a movement. That the revolts will now culminate into a revolution, and the forces of dissent will tear the agents of tyranny asunder.

That the sum is far more significant than the parts, and that the motions of the mass will thrust the individual into heights previously unexplored.

And that sometimes the decisions we make lie beyond our choices. We do what we can because we have to.

The walls of injustice seem intimidating at times. In those slips of courage and conviction, the cries of those who suffer under the force of aggression and the persuasion of bullets bounce off the walls and echo into the dark hollow of despair and memories best left covered. But the torch of truth shines with a relentless ferocity that overwhelms any form of hopelessness and fills the void with a light of inspiration that far exceeds any wall of injustice. It ignites the fire of those who’ve been oppressed. It captivates the mind, body and soul, transforming it into a vehicle of change. Of action. Of the truth.

It creates a movement.

And it creates history.

I can either choose to be a part of it, or I can wallow into the depths of my doubts.

I know what I must do. I know what needs to be done. I don’t care for my highs and lows.

Tibet burns — her cries are louder than ever. A nun dies — her years of devotion to peace cut abruptly short by the blunt violence of a small bullet. A student gets detained in a prison — his careless days whiling away in classes now come back to hurt him much deeper than the electrical shots being unleashed on him by impassive interrogators.

The pain is real. The suffering is there. The blood is still warm. And the Tibetans continue to defy the forces that keep bombarding them with teargases and lies about the Dalai Lama.

Uprisings are always unforgiving. This one is no different.

But it hurts a lot more knowing that beyond the rounds of rallies and protests, the extent to which I can truly help the Tibetans will always be removed from the actual terror inside Tibet.

The spirit of the community is strong. If only I could smell the air of unrest in Tibet, only then do I believe that I shall truly come to appreciate the unyielding grip of passion that is spreading throughout the plateau. Only then do I think I can say that I am a genuine part of this movement.

Until then, all I can do is protest … and pray.

It begins with a whisper. A murmur that escapes like steam from an open sauna room. It grows quietly, collecting the apprehensions and memories of lost years. It drips through every crack, through every pore in the surface, and infects it with an unmistakable hint of Clarity.

It shakes the foundation. It breaks a dam. It corrodes fear and eliminates doubts.

This thing, this surge, this fuel that ignites a movement and sweeps a generation along with it, it feeds off and into the nectar of Things To Come. This elixir inebriates an individual’s hesitancy, and jolts it with an electric shiver that tingles the fingertips and swells the chest till the heart thumps against it with such an aching vigour that your hands tremble and your sight turns tunnel vision.

Read the rest of this entry »

[I realize that this is a touch late now that I think about it, but it begs to be written. It’s a culmination of having been privy to these perpetually baffling social ordinances of our little (quite sizable, actually) Tibetan community in Toronto. I don’t harbour any illusions of this being a particularly regional attribute, nor am I convinced that it is only symptomatic of Tibetan gatherings. What I know of, and muse upon, are only those that I have personally experienced and laughed about later. If it comes across as condescending, judgmental or negative, please grant me the luxury of doubt for the sake of humour. Tibetan parties are very, truly, fun. Come around one if you hear one's in your neighbourhood.

There’s a texture here that’s a shade unique, and personal to me, in some instances, but the overall picture remains constant: drunken people and bad music converging into a night of loose hips and looser wallets.]

If you’ve ever been to any Tibetan parties in Toronto, the first thing that strikes you, after you’ve cleared the entrance, before the crowd gets bigger, or even before the famous Mang-tso hits the floor, is the piquant reservation about the place. Regardless of any kind of venue, location or the organizers, it’s there; like a thick, all-encompassing drape, full of crossed arms and judgmental eyes. Any unsuspecting person who joins the party suddenly becomes self-aware of their arrival, as if they’ve just stumbled into the wrong wedding reception where the bride had just turned heel and abdicated the congregation: all eyes on the intrusive stranger, a little confused and quite annoyed. After a quick second’s existential quandary you naturally assume the “position” as well: blending into the low-lit periphery and corners of the main dance floor, surveying the characters and biding your time. You may take note of this lull in activities to grab yourself a drink, look around for familiar faces and just generally act inconspicuous. Nobody likes a showoff, and certainly not before the real party has begun.

The men are usually garbed in two distinct styles: semi-formal or street. There are variations and combinations for each of them; for example, a dude wearing a semi-formal pair of trousers can have a totally snazzy shirt on top with a pair of tattered sneakers below, or a guy wearing a baseball hat will have a suit jacket more suited for a courtroom appearance. There’s also a third, surging but less prominent style, which is that of a rocker/skater look: drainpipe trousers (sometimes torn at the knees) with converse shoes and a trucker hat. In all of the cases, you can, sort of, assess the employment aspirations and educational background of a person from his looks, and in some cases, determine if he’s single or at the party with a significant other.

There are exceptions of course, and I do not intend to portray such an obviously diverse field of Tibetan men into convenient pockets for dissemination. Fear not, bhumo-tso: your choices are many and varied. It must be said, though, that I feel a pang of disbelief every time a guy decked in a horribly mismatched and double-oversized assortment of bottoms and basketball jerseys, complete with a heavy compliment of silver chains, wrist bands and shiny earrings, manages to capture the fancy of a curious set of eyes. He must be really funny, I think. That or she has an unnatural capacity for street-tough posturing.

My only, genuine, regret is the absence of men in cowboy dresses. The guys, usually middle-aged or older, who were completely oblivious to the raised eyebrows at them and who actually felt bolstered by their outfit. They would have stamped their presence about them with an air of swagger and nonchalance that only a true pioneer from the prairies could muster. They enlivened an atmosphere like no other. They used to; not so much anymore. I have a sinking feeling that they’ve converted to the street look to compensate for the changing times around them. Shame.

The women are naturally, and by far, more interesting to look at. I can attest from experience that for the ladies, the dance begins far before the actual party has actually begun. They commit to a ritual that is time-honoured and bereft of any discrepancy in cultural differences: the arduous task of choosing from the wardrobe closet; the preening, huffed about way that they tend to their faces, the incessant calls to friends (men do that too) and the porous anticipation and excitement at the thought of strutting their heels and whisking the scent of their perfumes around them. Among many others.

When they get to the party itself though, there’s a sudden swerve in their earlier disposition. Inside the venue – with the colourful lights dancing around them, and the music banging off all sides – excitement gives way to ennui, anticipation to annoyance: eyes ready to roll at the slightest perceived threat or interest. With men, it transforms into similarly bored entropy, but with a touch of irritable possessiveness. In both cases, the air of reservation reigns supreme, and the look in both men and women is that of waiting for something to finish; like sleepy villagers in early morning standing in line to have their buckets filled up from the local pump.

The dresses that our women-kin (in the broader, Tibetan sense) wear are multi-faceted, and a lot more attuned to different styles rather than age, or employment/educational standing. The colours usually feature a dark shade in some form, and conservatism is the norm, rather than the exception. Then again, that can be attributed to the Tibetan society as a majority, as an outlook; and not just to the choice attires in parties for women. The jeans are tight, sometimes low-hip, and the tops accessorized by a dazzling array of jeweled necklaces, pendants, braces and shawls. The dresses, I have noted, are black most of the times. Full-length leather boots are parlayed for their aggressive, bold tendencies; and when the women sashay about the dance floor, watch out for the air of entitlement. It is a poor, intrepid but insipid soul who dares approach a girl without the choice permission of her eyes. I haven’t heard of any accounts of guys being kicked upside their behinds with those intimidating sets of boots, but I imagine that it must be most humbling.

Women are also the ones most likely to wear an actual chupa to a dance party. It is a sad and sobering commentary about our society that no one really thinks twice about ladies in traditional Tibetan garbs; but for men it would be a most unsavoury prospect – we who are horrified at being labeled as uncouth or worse: boring.

It should be noted though that the chupa is a lot more form-pleasing and attractive on a woman. For guys, even the most sharp and athletic looking stud becomes reduced to an ungainly bundle of layers – the slim look fat, the short become shorter. Only the most dignified, noble warrior from faraway times would manage to look proud in a setting such as this, and even he would’ve felt ridiculous every time he entered the men’s washroom just to pee.

And it should also be noted that it is usually the older women who can be seen in chupas time and again. They are derisively labeled as aunties, a term coined by the Tibetan community (here? further?) for women hovering around the middle-ages (or maybe even lower – it’s all relative). The men folks of similar ages are called uncles. Those are terms that I absolutely loathe; not only because they reek of crude and unfair classifications, but also because they’re so unimaginative. I’m sure we can find better replacements for Tibetan cougars and sugar daddies. Uncles and aunties just have this queasy, shuddering feeling of naïveté about them; the kind that recalls faint traces of inbreeding and unwanted relatives.

Back to the party: the lights are in a furor, people more or less milling about; but it still hasn’t hit its crescendo yet. The floor still remains, yawning and strangely intimidating. Sometimes it is so bad that you can almost imagine tumbleweeds blowing across it. But then, at the centre of the floor, a phantom appears: twisting and contorting its joints in an irreverent and almost awe-inspiring lack of finesse. Its phantasmagorical movements have a rhythm all its own, removed from the music and the place around it. There it goes: shadowboxing, grabbing its crotch, thumping its chest with one arm across it, shadow-roundhouse-kicking; all in a non sequitor, voluminous disregard for form, beauty or reason. It dances because, it just has to. Who is this enigma? Who is this figure that openly revolts against early-hours convention? Who is it that so openly mocks us, calling us out for our inaction and apathy?

His name is Mang-tso, or T.O.B, as he likes to refer himself, usually in third person; T.O.B being short for “Tibetan Original Blood.” I’m guessing his self-anointed title asserts his undisputed claim to legitimate Tibetan-ness, which sets an awkward standard for mixed Tibetans. T.H.B? T.Q.B? None of them have the ring of T.O.B, as he himself would prove beyond doubt by spitting such ill, memorable, street-certified rhymes as:

We T.O.B, we are cute
We have a dimple.
Look at you, you have a pimple.

Or,

Ra tat a tat a, ra tat a tat ah.
T.O.B Mang-tso need a glass of watah.

And he would offer these sorts of gibberish provisos unasked to anyone, irrespective of time, location, or relevancy. The Tibetan community of Toronto has a lot of personalities, but if there is one character that stands above all, one that breaks through the current of time, change and scrutiny, it is Mang-tso.

Even his name Mang-tso is just a nickname, bestowed by the Tibetans of Toronto for his ubiquity. Mang-tso is the Tibetan word for democracy, and even though he has yet to display any redeemable social skills, everyone knows about him. Every visitor in Parkdale gets to know about him soon enough.

There are countless numbers of stories around him, woven into the fabric of the community, as old as the late 90s settlers and as real as snow. Some are amusing, some tragic, and some just profusely stupid. But let’s not get waylaid by the stories. If there’s one constant theme to Tibetan parties in Toronto, as straight as the divide between men and women, and stronger than even the sepulchral dance floor of the early hours of the party, it is that of Mang-tso breaking the floor.

Let’s also not miss the fact that this guy will come to any party, all the time – bar none. I can’t ever recall one single party where I haven’t seen him gyrating his spines and spitting his rhymes at puzzled strangers. He comes usually attired in a loose shamble of oversized clothes, a baseball hat or a bandana wrapped around his head. Sometimes he has another piece of bandana around his mouth, to conceal his face (I think) which is a purpose defeated since almost no one fails to recognize him. He walks with a purposeful gait, with undulating shoulders and his head hung low, glancing at people sideways (sizing them up?) and mostly harmless. That’s his reputation in the community: eccentric and sometimes annoying, but mostly harmless.

And so goes this party maven; this dance-floor breaker. He isn’t a break dancer by any stretch of imagination, but he does carry himself like he just completed a ridiculous spin on his head. The way he strides towards the bar, exhausted and content, barely masking his effulgence. He seldom sits, choosing instead to lean on walls or tables. He almost always comes earliest, and alone. If there’s one thing the Tibetan organizations in Toronto can be thankful to Mang-tso about, it is his unfailing resolve to support all the various fundraiser parties in the community. He drinks too, but not to the point of incapacity. Most of the times, I should think. How else would he able to afford his extravagant dalliances otherwise?

There’s one more piece in this growing mantle of oddities: he rarely removes his over-sized, down parka. The place can be crowded, musky and dripping with sweat, yet he always has his huge jacket on.

And it’s always just Mang-tso being Mang-tso. Mostly harmless. People these days don’t even nudge each other when they see him getting tribal in the empty dance floor; not unless it’s someone new to town and not fully acquainted with Mr. T.O.B. Who knows, they wink mischievously, he might even serenade you tonight.

The real party, or more elaborately put, the time when the people start peeling off the walls and chairs, and hesitatingly – or enthusiastically, depending on the alcohol intake and popularity of the tune that just beckoned them to dance – enter the dance floor, varies a little from each party but usually starts picking its tempo up after 11 p.m. That is a fact. At every Tibetan celebration night, the mood of the event makes a marked upswing after a rush of bodies suddenly start pouring in from outside, usually two to three hours before closing time. Most people, for whatever reasons, are perfectly fine with their rationale of paying full price for only half of the event. Maybe their choice lies not in the quantity of the time spent, but the quality of it.

So, it’s not really because of Mang-tso breaking the floor and the dam of clogged feet along with it. It’s because Tibetans, at least the young, hip and socially wary, choose to come at a predetermined time of being fashionably late. Not that anyone would notice by this time of the night.

The role of DJing for all of the major Tibetan parties in Toronto is usually serviced by not more than four revolving lists of party anthems enthusiasts. They seem to be quite a populist bunch as well, from the nearly indistinguishable traits and preferences in their music played at every party. Some are a little quirkier than others; but overall, most patrons wouldn’t be able to discern one playlist arranger from the other without the advertised names. They just like the tunes, or they don’t (understandably). Barring any miraculous feat of total crowd captivity, the unfortunate DJ has to put up with muffled post-event assessments from unsatisfied disco aficionados more often than not. “DJ gaa-mas” is a popular sentiment at the conclusion of every dance.

So many possible improvements, so many people to please. The only consolation for a disc spinner is the free admission and the free drinks that he gets for his troubles. And yes, it’s always, unfortunately, a he. Always.

If you were perched from high atop a vantage point, or if you were obscenely tall, and staring down at the people on the dance floor, the moment the area starts to become more crowded, a curious and almost organic arrangement of shapes will take place. After a moment’s hesitation and confusion, a clear pattern emerges: crop circles. They form and break up sporadically, but the overall shapes persist. Partygoers encircling one another, staring at each other and not staring, shuffling their legs and bobbing their heads, almost reluctantly, while possibly imagining all sorts of lurid images in their heads about some other dance patron from a foreign circle.

There are smiles aplenty, of course, and sometimes people do genuinely want to dance. By themselves or in pairs. Usually couples and some eccentric folks (Mang-tso included, although not, hopefully, to his extreme). But I can say for certain that ninety percent of the people there are there to check the others out. It’s the same as any other dance party, and Tibetans are no exception to this.

I know I’ve done this countless number of times. Sometimes you would feel like you’re trapped in a circle, sucked in by its gaping vortex, and you would peer away from the hollowness, towards another circle; as if on the other side, things were much better, much livelier and a whole lot prettier. But you know it’s just misguided, infantile thoughts. That it’s the same story everywhere and nowhere is it more evident than in the circle in which you hopelessly pine for a smaller circle, ideally reduced to just two persons: you and that someone else.

Sometimes you do find that other person, locked in another circle and maybe hoping for the same thing as well. You lock eyes, then quickly look away, blushing and feeling slightly guilty for not feeling content about the group you’re already in with.

But then sometimes you do want to approach that another person, but then are not too sure if that one is attached to anyone else. Does it come tethered? Is it attracted to anyone else? Should I deploy emissaries to reconnoiter and determine the best possible route?

So many questions, so little time.

By the time the party winds down, long after the bar has closed, and the patrons begin to retrieve their coats and friends, you’re hit with the sinking feeling that you might just have wasted another thirty-odd dollars and four hours in a totally fruitless endeavour. Or maybe you don’t feel that way. Maybe you reason that, hey, it’s for the sake of our community. If CTAO/TWAO/SFT/TYC throws a party and needs my support, who am I deny them that?

It’s a roll of dice, usually, and a particular combination of drunkenness, music, atmosphere and attitude. Some of the times you feel great about having been there, most of the times you’re indifferent – meh. And then sometimes, like at the last New Year’s Eve party, when you’re not particularly drunk and the music isn’t particularly happening and you don’t really have the budget to buy the tickets in the first place and yet you manage to buy drinks for four people, somewhere deep inside your gut there’s an incessant clawing that reminds you the next day about how much you totally wasted your time and your money. You can’t help it. Yes, there was a large crowd, and yes, there were some people glad to see you there, and yes, yes you know CTAO absolutely deserved your money. It all leads to a big conclusion of “oh well.”

At the end of every party, there’s always a chance of some sad pugilists waiting to engage in some fisticuffs with some person that either inadvertently brushed against them or looked at them the wrong way. They usually huddle around the gates in groups, buoyed by the self-serving assurance of posse-wisdom and the detached cowardice of gang rushing. Most of these scourges are either recent high school dropouts, or perennial factory dwellers, but always young and stupid. The kinds that see fit to take their frustrations out on strangers or rivals at a time when merriment and congeniality are the flavours of the night. They don’t (can’t) see far, these poor insolents, far beyond the throbbing rage of their alcohol-induced anger, and frustration-fuelled animosities. Their insecurity is veiled by an overpowering sense of machismo, and an excruciating loss of humour and perspective. The angers don’t flare up as much as it used to previously, but it’s still there sometimes, quietly simmering under the hood of a reject, burning with the anger of youth and senselessness.

They don’t usually go beyond name-callings and shovings. It eventually gets broken up. Anger lies simmering and unfulfilled. For now.

At least Mang-tso just spits terrible rhymes. He was mostly harmless.

[Writer's Note: I haven't decided yet if this is just a piece in itself, or a harbinger of bigger worlds to come. I would hope I can get a better sense of that from the feedback it receives. It's quite lengthy, for a chapter, so I'll be especially grateful to any patient soul who can trudge (or glide!) through the meandering paragraphs and offer words about its readability and improvements that it will inevitably deserve.]

He comes in quite late these days. There’s the shuffling of keys, the occasional, quiet cursing, and the eventual sigh at the prolonged tediousness of the exercise. Finally. The heavy door opens begrudgingly as a hand appears from the widening crack and gropes instinctively about the wall. The lights are dim, some bulbs have even shorted out. The enveloping fluorescence reveals a crowded, haggard sprawl of notes, empty cups and saucers; clothes strewn on the floor, and a thin coat of dust that gets reshuffled every time he enters and leaves. The chair beside his desk has seen the best of its days, and the impatient touch of duct tape around its joints at the seat and a foot are starting to unravel. He’s been meaning to chuck that ancient, unsteady chair for a while now; but every time he sits on it, the contours of the rexine depress comfortably around his bottom, and the particular bent of the chair when he leans back suspends him at just the right angle between thought and determination, reverie and depression, sleep and anxiety, slip and oblivion.

He removes his shoes beside the door, puts the socks inside them, undresses to his underwear, and relieves himself in the tight space of his corner bathroom. He flushes every other instance. Tonight he doesn’t. The slack, moist towel should have been put in the washer a long time ago, but it persists in its state: removing and collecting a day’s worth of sweat, stain and burgeoning unaccomplishments.

He doesn’t talk to himself as much as he used to. There was a time when he was more open; when he had the bright, expectant eyes of anyone who is young and idealistic with nary a brooding cloud over his head. His eyes are still bright and sharp, but they are now edged with a restlessness of a mind trapped inside a body going nowhere. The forlorn hunch in his wide shoulders betray a swell of self-loathing meet machismo. His hair is unkempt, unwashed for an unacceptably long interval, and there are bright specks of dandruff on his dark shirt.

He sits on that rickety chair, pulls himself closer to his desk and rests his face on his hands. This is one of his nightly routines. Sometimes he paces briefly across the room before falling on to his bed on his back and falling further into sleep. Then there are those days when he staggers into the room, with a shit-eating grin on his face, finds his way into the bathroom, relieves himself and then some. But tonight he just sits beside his desk. His coffee mug is empty — has been for a few days. His change jar is down to its last remaining nickels and cents, and that also explains why the clothes have that musky smell of neglect and unhygienic disposition. It’s not that he doesn’t care; the guy just can’t afford it.

The notes and books on his desk and on the shelf on the corner across from it reveal a once curious lark slowly groped by the withering roots of cynicism. There’s a thick coffee table book filled with images taken by the Hubble Space telescope. Another one about prehistoric marine creatures. There’s one about the ice age given to him by his uncle when he was a wee little tyke, which he meant to finish but ultimately found too boring — fossils on rocks are one thing, things about rocks another. There are a few books about Russian and Middle-Eastern history, some eastern philosophy fluff, a Tibetan book on dying, and a plethora of collections on the state of world affairs. There are novels as well, a whole shelf full of them.

The haphazard assortment of notes on his table cover a wide range of topics written between instances of fitful enthusiasm and indignant spiels — the case of a washed up, insecure intellect [i]aspirateur[/i] dried up on ambition and drunk on high-minded, onerous discursion. There are a plenty of short stories: none of them completed, some barely past the first paragraph — the rising, caffeine-fueled rhetoric more often than not limp away by due course of substance-abuse towards a grinding loss of words. He prefers to type his words out most of the times. He almost always has his laptop with him when he leaves. Tonight it sits in the middle of the desk: closed shut, powered on but sleeping. He opens the computer, moves his finger on the touch pad and the CPU whirs itself to operational mode. He stands up to retrieve the trousers he undressed from today. The wrinkled, beige coloured khaki pants are frayed at the bottom and grimed by the low, tired shuffle of a man going through the motions of a day without realizing how the ritual began in the first place. He fishes around in the pockets until he finds a card, a business card, and sits back beside the desk. The card lies on the corner of the desk, burning dimly under the tiredly scrutinizing stare of his. The computer is now fully awake and prompts his login password. The welcome music resonates just barely above silence from the tiny speakers of the laptop, but even that is enough to irritate him as he quickly presses the “mute” button.

Here is the devolution of a person to the whims of the internet: the usual haunts at Youtube, Facebook, newsmagazines and sports websites that take anywhere from between five minutes to the early morning of next day. His email inbox is somberly empty, devoid of any meaningful correspondence for the past week or so. Like a surly subway operator caught in a sonorous funk on a particularly slow weekday afternoon, he listlessly jumps from one blog post to another, occasionally offering his unattached commentary on things that interest him: mid-east politics, NBA games, movie reviews, poker strategies, science journals… among many others. There are those nights when he places the kleenex box on the side and prepares to placate his whimpering horndog. Towards the end, when the persistent ache on his back reminds him (implores him) to get some sleep, he pushes himself away from the desk, cancels all the windows and turns the light and his zeitgeist device off. He hasn’t written any words to add to his young, faltering oeuvre.

His weighted face now tilts around as he snaps his neck and cracks his joints on his shoulders and fingers. He lies on his bed, rigid for a brief moment before finally exhaling and settling: the steady accumulation of swirling debris and unchecked floodwater temporarily relieved by the onset of a tried and true loss of oversight. The kind that nips at a greedy contractor’s heels, one who chooses to look beyond the compromised structural integrity of a building’s frame after every shot of an expensive rum procured from his tacit maneuvering. Until he feels the undulating motions at the very top, whipped around by an autumn breeze and timorous recourses. This too will pass, he thinks unconvincingly.

Our man sleeps facing towards the cluttered desk, the head of which lies on the right side of the desk, about a foot apart. Except he’s not sleeping. Not yet. Usually it takes between five or eight minutes for him to loll off, to momentarily escape the glacial slide of his non-progression, and to wake up to another day of abject contrivances and wasted hours. But it has already been more than ten minutes now, and he lies uncomfortably still as a corpse on his side staring with mute insistence at the business card on the corner of the desk towards him. He turns away finally, fitfully, but he still cannot manage to doze off. Or even close his eyes for that matter. He grabs the blanket towards his chest forcefully, realizes so, and relaxes his grip a little. The ticking of the wall clock across the room from him now becomes the focus of his irritation. He hoists himself up and rests his back on the headboard, bringing his knees towards him. He surveys the visible floor around him, dimly lit by the streetlights from outside. Like an inattentive farmer surveying his farm and silently chastising himself for the pitiful yield before him, he sighs and makes a half-hearted resolve to clean up his room. Some next time.

It is nearly 11 p.m. now, and even though he’s stayed awake far later, tonight he — for some unfathomable reason — wants to sleep a little earlier than usual. He doesn’t need to wake up early the next morning, but he wants to. Inexplicable. But even he has come to terms with the unpredictable swings: the peaks and valleys of his needs and resolutions.

The card still remains, persists, on the periphery of his thoughts and visions.

He snatches the card instantly, surprising himself a little with his brash vigour. It is a quaint piece printed in a floral, handwritten script with a delicate dab of olive ink on a paper colour resembling a Nepali rice paper. Printed on the upper-left corner is one “organic tea connoisseur” with the name of “Lan Huong” in bold above it. On the bottom portion she’d listed the address and phone and the email of her place of work, an up-and-coming spot called “T & Leaves”, which is centered and printed most prominently of all. On the back of the card is a phone number written specifically by her, for him. He fiddles with it for a while before getting out of the bed and grabbing his wireless phone. He’s back on his bed now, and he stares alternately between the digits on the back of the card and the dial pad before him.

It was at a farmer’s market where he’d come upon her table. The soft sounds of people milling around the park where it was held began to pick its volume a little as the day was closing to an end, and some of the farmers and merchants had started to pack up. Lan Huong had her table at a spot underneath the generous shade of an old oak tree beside the entrance of the market. He had noticed her before, on a couple of occasions, and this was the first time he’d seen her behind a table of her own. The table — a long, rectangular folding type — consisted of bowls with tea bags and packets of sugar, a pile of paper cups, an electronic thermos with hot water, different types of milk, and some stacks of brochures and business cards. He was on his way out and as he glanced at Huong’s table, she smiled back at him.

He’d sauntered over towards her, said hello and remained mesmerized for the rest of the conversation at the way her dark, breezy, medium shag hairdo danced above her shoulders as she displayed an impressive array of vigorous nods and laughters with head thrown back; the upper body angled ever which way to enunciate a certain point. She was wearing a white, cotton dress top, with a puffed set of short sleeves and a knot at the back. Her neck was bare. The low hip, denim trousers looked genuinely worn at the knees, and it was complemented well with a pair of brown leather sandals. Her face was noticeably angular: thin at the chin with high cheekbones and a dot of a mole just under the lip on the right side. She had a smiling set of eyes, brown and bright. Somehow they got talking for far longer than he’d anticipated, and, by virtue of his curiosity which was fortunately dry at the well and wanting of all things concerned with organic, caffeine and South East Asia; they’d managed to have an invigorating conversation. He’d never been to Asia, but knew enough of it to ask meaningful questions and thoughtful rejoinders.

From their brief talk, he’d gathered that she had come over to Vancouver, Canada when she was three years old. Her parents were from the coastal town of Danang, Vietnam, and she had been entrusted under the care of her maternal aunt for fifteen years. Then she studied at the University of Toronto, botched a degree in International Studies in her second year, became disillusioned with the whole “education establishment”, traveled further east to Nova Scotia where she picked grapes at a winery for two summers and then found herself back in Toronto, where she was most recently hooked up as a tea barista for this store that she was tabling for on this day. She’d been to Vietnam and the region of S.E.A a couple of times between her trips around Canada. It was there that she was hooked on to tea, among other things, and the various intricacies, forms and the rituals around it. It was there where she met Karen Doolittle, fellow tea connoisseur and mint-fresh owner of “T & Leaves”, and it was here where she was working on her third day of employment.

He listened attentively, all the while faintly sensing a growing surge of perturbation in his chest and lower. He helped her pack up, during when Karen pulled up with her minivan and they loaded the stock together. He said goodbye to both of them, and had just turned his back to leave when Lan called to say thanks and handed him her card. He said he didn’t need one, because he was being his oblivious, aloof self; but she’d insisted. It was during his walk home when it hit him that she might possibly fancy him. Rubbish, he thought, and dismissed the possibility away like a gnat hovering around his reading space. By the time he’d gotten to his apartment, he convinced himself that he needed to sleep early, get a good night’s rest, and wake at a proper hour for once.

And now he remains on his bed, unable to sleep, and unable to make his mind up about the phone number before him. I should sleep on it, he sympathizes to himself, and shakes his head in an all-knowing, been-there-done-that, once-bitten-twice-shy lament that he thinks only people like him are capable of understanding.

The card stays on his right hand, the phone on the other. He becomes aware that his heartbeats are now positively throbbing underneath his chest, as if caught up in the excitement of the rising crescendo, the moment of truth: crunch time.

“Hello?” She sounds puzzled, wondering who could possibly call her up at this hour of the night.

He hesitates for a moment, suddenly aware that it hasn’t even been a day and he’s already calling her up. At this hour of the night.

“Hey, it’s Zuhair,” he says in a relaxed way, feigned and with effort, of course. “We met at the market earlier today.”

“Ohh, hi Zuhair! How are you?” she says. He imagines her on the other end full of brightly lit eyes and expressive lips. Possibly holding a cup of hot and steeped green tea. Was there a trace of hesitance in her greeting? He can’t tell.

They exchange pleasantries and then it hits Zuhair, he of the bold hell-may-come, caution-to-the-wind explorer, that he doesn’t really have a point to this call. Realization sinks in like to a Looney Tunes character staring haplessly at the TV screen after having walked off a cliff and suspended in mid-air.

“I was…just wondering,” he probes nervously, “if we could meet up sometime. It was great talking to you about all that history and traditions behind tea… drinking. And I’d love to hear more about ‘Nam and everything.”

Mostly, he just wants to stare at her again. To be beside that lithe, coy figure and the nice smell of her being. He realizes that she was talking on the other end.

“Sorry?” he cuts her mid-sentence.

“Yeah, yeah. No, I was saying I’d love to hear more about what you’re writing too. Absolutely. When d’ya wanna meet up?”

He didn’t expect this to be so linear in progression. He had dreaded all kinds of dead-ends, confusion, awkward farewells and frustrations, but this was something else.

They decide on a time and place around Lan’s off-day. He jokes that he was off almost everyday, because he was a struggling writer (like he fancies himself) and a creative writing student, ha ha, and also inquires if they would be drinking tea at some cafe. Lan laughs heartily. Such a jokester, this guy Zuhair.

He is now on his back with a pillow under his head. He stares at the ceiling, content and mildly excited. The excitement ebbs gradually, like that of a little child slowly dozing off from her sugar high, and gives way to a content exhaustion in its wake. He can still faintly recollect the whiff of her hair. He imagines how her handset must smell like. He imagines her bedroom now, neatly arranged with the scent of an exotic incense or cluttered with all kinds of environmental paraphernalia. He imagines her some more. He’s starting to drift off now, our hero Zuhair Khan, tired and excited as he is. His eyelids blink non-reflexively, and soon slide into a permanent close. He’s sailed away now, for the time being; far from the smelly, gut wrenching details of life that need to be attended to. Far and away from the ominous storm that looms ahead, full of spite and menace. Our clueless, aspiring intellect has a change in season to look ahead to, and rest billows inside his body in a blissfully unassuming grace. Routine gives in to sleep. Finally.