It sure seems like summer here in Chicago. But instead of spending the day outdoors, I attended two fabulous literary events.
Up first was a lovely book party for Emily Rapp at Rachel DeWoskin‘s place. I’ve read Emily’s two memoirs, so it was a joy to meet her and talk about writing. I also brought up the subject of Hong Kong (what else?) because she lived there for a while in the 1990s, too.
I read her latest memoir, The Still Point of the Turning World (Penguin, 2013) on Kindle almost as soon as it came out. But I bought a hardcover today, the proceeds of which will go to Tay Sachs research. Her other memoir, Poster Child (Penguin, 2007), is also one of my favorites.
Next up was Laura Bates’ reading at the independent bookstore, Women and Children First. She wrote Shakespeare Saved My Life (Sourcebooks, 2013), a memoir about teaching Shakepeare’s plays at a maximum security prison in Indiana. Her star pupil is a man named Larry Newton, who as a 17-year-old waved his rights for the chance to go on probation or to appeal.
The reading was standing room only, thanks to an enthusiastic group of high school students and their English teacher.
Afterward I introduced myself to Laura Bates. We have the same publisher, so it was fun to talk about that while she signed a couple copies of her book.
I couldn’t think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon out and about!
 Grandma up near the China border, 1974 This photo of my grandma (now 97 years young) is one of my favorites.
It was taken in 1974 up near the China border in Sheung Shui, Hong Kong. The train ran to the Lowu border at that time, but it was a fairly recent development because for years it didn’t. Something about the Cultural Revolution (which was still going on in 1974).
It’s almost impossible to see here, but the Kowloon-Canton Railway at that time used diesel-hauled passenger trains that chugged up from the old terminus in Tsim Sha Tsui, just across from the Peninsula Hotel. It must have taken my grandparents half a day to reach Sheung Shui.
They were in Hong Kong on vacation then. In total, they visited Hong Kong seven or eight times from 1965 to 1982.
I was no stranger to Sheung Shui in the 1990s, but by then it was built up with high-rise apartment blocks, a town hall, shopping malls, and a faster train.
Happy Friday!
A tea plantation in northern Thailand. A bed and breakfast just this side of the Thai-Burma border. A medical clinic in East Timor. A French-bred prince returning to his motherland.
Karen Coates writes about these and other stories way off-the-beaten path in her riveting collection, This Way More Better: Stories and Photos from Asia’s Back Roads (ThingsAsian Press, 2013). To complement these essays, her photographer husband, Jerry Redfern, has taken stunning shots all around Asia.
In fact, Coates and Redfern explore 11 countries over 12 years: Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Tibet, East Timor, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Vietnam, the starting and ending points of the book.
Together the stories and photos make for a haunting look at countries either plagued by war or struggling to remain intact while the world around them crumbles. Many of the pieces have a Heart of Darkness quality to them as they depict outsiders who either came to Asia years ago and have settled into rural areas, or other non-native peoples who have adapted to new environments.
Most of the places in this book are ones even old travelers like myself have never heard of: Sapa, Vietnam; Dili, East Timor; Plain of Jars, Laos.
I particularly enjoyed this book because of the beautiful writing, but also because the authors journey to a part of the world I, too, can’t seem to get enough of.
I have a little reading nook in an awkward room off of my kitchen. There’s not much space for anything but a chair, love seat, a green lamp, and a built-in bookcase, the latter of which has been overflowing for years. (My other bookshelves are in the basement, and those are filled with kids’ books and a dozen copies of a chemistry textbook my dad wrote 40 years ago.)
So today I splurged and bought a library trolley! I’ve had my eyes on it (found at a children’s furniture store) for some time. But after perusing stores from Cost Plus World Market to Crate & Barrel for a proper book case, I gave up and went for the trolley.
Jake, my teenage son, helped put the finishing touches on the DIY assembly. I’ve loaded the trolley with research books for a new writing project and expect to fill the top shelf this week, as soon as my out-of-print eBay and Amazon orders come through.
My first real jobs were both in libraries (during high school and my first out of college). So it only feels natural to have this trolley join my otherwise cluttered house.
 Mom and grandma in Taiwan, 1965 It’s Mother’s Day in the US this weekend, so I thought I would re-post a cool photo of my mom and grandma.
This was taken in 1965 in Taiwan. My mom and grandparents traveled there after they met up in Japan, where my mom taught for a year.
When I think of Taiwan, it’s usually the events that followed the 1949 flight from the mainland. But the island has such a rich history before Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT fled to what used to be called Formosa.
Several years ago I found a postcard my grandparents had written on that trip to my grandfather’s mother.
My grandfather referred to the island not as Taiwan or Formosa, but as Free China.
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