The Town The Boom Forgot

On the way to my claim in what is grandly known as the Inland Empire, I had ill timed my departure and was neatly waylaid by rush hour traffic swarming out of Los Angeles, hours of it. Looking for a bathroom I pulled off the 210 into a suburban shopping mall sporting all the usual chain stores. I picked Target and found one near the entrance.

This was the town of Upland. On our last trip we had been informed by a local, that Rancho Cuchamonga, the town next door, was the jewel of the Inland Empire. Newly spiffed out by the housing boom, this was the town that had perfected the art of upwardly mobile suburban living in brand new McMansions and all the amenities of convenience shopping. Naturally it held no appeal for me. As I fought my way out of the mall through Christmas shopping traffic, I was relieved to leave the bright lights behind for the town I had invested my hopes in. The town the boom had bypassed.

San Bernadino was known for riff raff and gang activity plus all the amenities of a poorer population—liquor stores, run down churches and paycheck cashing storefronts. As I pulled onto Waterman street, my heart rate went up for I was arriving alone after dark. All seemed calm. Turning off 9th street into my new neighborhood I was cheered by the many houses decorated with Christmas lights. I pulled up to our padlocked gate, let myself in and was further cheered by a night light our contractor had left on in the kitchen.

After locking the gate, then the iron security door, then the deadbolt, I surveyed the living room and was amused by a number of potted ferns in their black plastic nursery pots set out at the edges of the room, in the middle of which was a lone plastic patio chair and end table. Also left for me was an old space heater for the gas had not yet been turned on. I had been surprised to learn that this part of Southern California was as cold as it was 400 miles north, with every morning producing frost and a hankering for long underwear (which I had foreseen to pack.)

Pleased, I set up my plug-in kettle and a toaster oven and warmed up my all-organic TV dinner. Looking for something to do I took out a razor blade and set to scraping the latex paint off the vintage black tile of this original 1939 kitchen.

The beauty of a town that has been bypassed by the boom (apart from the original post war one that created these suburbs) is that no one has had any aspirations to improve on the existing housing stock. The draw for those who held investment property here was a rental market that could be managed on the cheap, for a population that had no where else to turn. The building boom in the neighboring towns had all but eliminated affordable rentals.

"I'm having a hard time picturing you as a landlord," said one of my colleagues used to perceiving me as a political leftist fighting to reverse development and save the planet. I, too, was adjusting to my new role as a land baron. An eco land baron for, with less than 1,000 square feet, my renters would automatically have a lighter footprint. And they would have to make do with the barest essentials in appliances, no dryer, tiny kitchens, retro one-fixture-per-room lighting and vintage décor. They would also have to endure my homemade organizational devices, experimental eco materials and a landscape that would never intentionally include a lawn. I was heady with the power of it.

Only a few of my friends understood why I might be charmed by a town of such bypassed prospects. Most ended the conversation as soon as I told them about the chain link fences or showed pictures of the houses we had bought. I tried to wow them, to no avail, with the statistic that a population of 200,000 could only support one Starbucks; that here was a town unspoiled by shopping malls and chain restaurants. I didn't get a chance to reveal how at peace I felt in it and how I had a curious desire to live there (but probably not in the searing heat of summer). Living small while protected by a grand mountain range, I felt contained and complete in this town.

The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of

The locals however did not feel they had been bypassed, but that their time was still to come. The nearby air force base, having been decommissioned, was now designated an international airport complete with new 80 million dollar passenger terminal and signage. Everybody mentioned how the airport would make San Bernadino the new boom town. It was less than two miles from our property, but I was not worried. If you want to make a peak oil activist laugh just talk about your investment in air travel.

Said airport had yet to entice a single passenger airline despite lower landing fees. Airlines still looking for growth preferred to base themselves at the more established airport in Ontario, 25 miles away. Having also been bypassed by DHL, Federal Express and UPS, the only customers were second-string cargo planes and firefighting planes. But it did play a distinguishing role as a set for the film industry, the X-files and such.

The last time San Bernadino thrived was during the Cold War when the military bases were fully active. When the bases closed, shipping and warehousing for imported goods took up the slack. (80% of imported goods entering California come through the Inland Empire.) Already diminished by the recession, the shipping industry will likely suffer the same future as air travel as fuel costs rise. Once a fuel deprived de-globalization overcomes us, a resurgence of local manufacturing could fill the empty warehouses, contingent on existing rail transport and later perhaps sailing ships up and down the coast. There was still substantial agriculture in the area—a viable long term industry (drought permitting).

I did not bring up my analysis with local residents. Far be it for me to dash anyone's hopes, invested as they were in obsolete dreams. The recent housing boom wasn't based on industry at all, but was more a refurbishing, fueled by easy credit and the McMansion trend. Mike our contractor, described the housing development planned for downtown where several old residences had been condemned. The new development would have a man-made lake, he told me, impressed by the vision.

Of all the things to put in the dessert, I thought, but did not protest. I was lucky to have a man with extensive experience rehabbing. His Craigslist ad told of how he was retired, but loved what he did and that he needed money for his 10 year old boy who was awaiting a kidney transplant.

Also on hand to help was Mark, a friend from the Bay Area. Mark had bought, at the age of 23, his own house in a little town called Snowshoe, in Pennsylvania, where he had made a living as a handyman. Twenty years later the house had become more albatross than liberator so Mark set himself free by donating it to a local charity, driving off in his live-in van with iPhone. He arrived two days after I did.

I met Mark through my friend Dave who was my housemate at the time. Mark was in the habit of asking a new friend to cut his hair each time he was in need of a trim. I was next in line. Luckily it was very forgiving curly hair. I noted that it was a bit longer now. Looking dapper in his vintage thrift store clothing and brimmed hat, he had brought with him his iPod-driven homemade boom box and a stack of DVDs — independent films from the library that we watched on our laptops.

The Kindness of Strangers

On the first night, after a full days work, Mark persuaded me to walk down the street to find our dinner. I was dubious that we would find more than a liquor store, but we did eventually happen on a Thai restaurant in what looked like an old drive-in. The food wasn't bad; the décor improvised with travel posters and a TV tuned to the sports channel. On the wall was a flyer for a Thai real estate agent showing a house similar to one of ours for $80,000. (After what we spent to rehab our two houses we would come out a bit ahead of that.)

Despite the low budget decor of the town, I was reassured that the community was viable mostly because the people were so nice. Mark remarked on this too and we started asking ourselves if it wasn't so much that people were nice here, but that they were not so nice in the Bay Area. Perhaps the need to be a contender in the land of innovation had set the tone. Overwork and outsized expectations hung in the air; everyone needed to be a star to compete. In San Bernadino, just getting through the day was enough. Ordinariness seemed to foster kindness.

We spent much of the week on the project scraping away the sins of previous tenants—packing tape residue on the walls, countless nail holes, slopped on latex paint that melted when scrubbed, grease covered dust webs. Not to mention the negligence and outright incompetence of the previous owner. Apart from ignoring virtually all maintenance, his contribution as a tile layer was soon found out. The tile in the shower was so skimpily adhered, it only took 40 minutes to pull it off. And water was seeping so far under the windowsill in this shower it was wearing a hole through the wall.

We heard more about him from a passing neighbor who told Mark that the owner would come to the property stinking drunk and yell at his tenants. "At least you should pretend you're not drunk," the neighbor concluded. This amused Mark and me greatly—that allowances could be made if you at least pretended you weren't behaving badly.

No wonder the neighbors were smiling at us. We were bringing a hope of decency. The houses had been on the market for over a year. Just to have someone buy the property was a vote of confidence that the neighborhood was worth the effort and things were turning around.

Back To The Future

I hoped so, too, since we had to eventually pay for the work being done here, but the draw for me was more personal. In part nostalgia—an attempt to roll back time to a sensibility when lifestyles still seemed reasonable. According to US census data, the average house size in 1982 was 1,520 square feet. In 2002 it was 2,114 square feet. Human need did not grow larger houses; the conceptualizing of the family home as an investment vehicle did. And then, of course, increasing amounts of stuff made it seem necessary. All that turned out to be the downfall of more than just our economy. People's lives and communities changed too.

A neighborhood of small houses was manageable. I could see that neighbors looked out for each other. The kid next door thanked me for throwing his Frisbee back over the wall then stayed to chat. His playmate lived across the street. At 12, sitting atop the wall between us, he was master of his domain.

A complaint of one of my clients was that she had to drive her kids to their playmates; they were stranded otherwise. I also heard of a manager who described his new hires as suffering from a lifetime of scheduled playdates. Though bright, they lacked the ability to organize their teams to get things done. Isolated like this, kids had been deprived of the opportunity to manage their own lives and work out their own problems. Ah the irony of wealth.

In a community where home sizes were frozen at 1950 averages (983 sq. ft), I had a chance to envision a different future without having to undo the bloated built environment of a lifestyle seriously out of wack with what resources we had left. I wanted these small houses to be nice so the tenants would be happy living there and wouldn't associate small with grungy, broken down and poor. Rather they would be efficient, cozy and organized, easy to keep clean and with less space for junk to accumulate. Plus each yard had enough land for a substantial kitchen garden—a component of sustainable living. Working on these houses felt real for rather than creating a fantasy life to guide my pursuits, my play was now affecting a real environment, a real future.

On the last day, as I was packed ready to leave and the roof was being torn off on the front house, a young couple came by asking Mike if the houses were for rent. Word had got out. They told him the going rate for what they had looked at already. It was a couple hundred more than what we were asking. That was great news. We were keeping the rent at what it had been (which was probably all the previous owner could get for his wretchedness). With property values slipping so badly we had thought we would have to drop even that rent. Now we could feel good about cleaning up the place and still being under market. I was beginning to enjoy this future.

Land Ho!

Informed by the flip flopped perspective of Asia, I see a new purpose and direction as I re-asses the changed landscape at home following the economic meltdown in the wake of the housing bubble.

Meltdown Case Study

A client called me to refer me to a woman who desperately needed my help. We went to see her together since she was working with the lady through the social services agency where she was a volunteer. We found the door ajar, knocked and waited a good15 minutes. When she finally did come to the door she was gracious and willing, invited us in and introduced us to her bedridden husband in the back bedroom, then seated us in the living room to tell her story.

"We used to be millionaires, but now we're negative $1500," she didn't mind telling me. Her husband had made those millions investing in real estate. Now she was mad at him because he made one deal too many with no safety margins to protect what they needed to live on and, of course, their stocks were down too. And then he had hip surgery that went awry and when her son lost his job at Circuit City, said son decided it was a sign from God to give him the time to save his father. He moved into their two-bedroom condo to look after him then proceeded to order his mother to do his bidding. He was able to claim this role because he was liquidating his 401K to keep them afloat.

Since he had made himself scarce for this appointment with me, I knew there was little chance that he would agree to hire me to help his mother organize the many boxes in the shower that had to be put somewhere when he insisted that they close out one of their storage units.

Getting organized was not this family's biggest problem, I realized. They needed family therapy.

"Everyone just needs to be kinder to each other," I commented sympathetically. She nodded, grateful that I understood the situation.

I was seeing America's real estate meltdown, up close and personal, for this was just one example of many such stories of lost wealth, only instead of being on paper, as in the last boom/bust, now the losses were striking closer to home, at the home itself. For the home was the last asset to be played.

Inspired by the belief that housing prices could only go up, husbands had made deals that had taken them beyond a threshold normally considered safe. And just as with other bubbles, investors were refusing to call it quits because they had lost so much already and were blind to the new reality. Pride turned into bad judgment and humiliation turned into abuse of those closest to them. Wives, in turn, were mad at their husbands for not telling them they had hocked the house. Like Napoleon, refusing to retreat, these investors would play out this loosing battle until they ran out of resources.

My prospective client had been informed by social services that she had the option of putting her husband in a public subsidized nursing home, should caring for him become to much for her, but the state would take away all their assets leaving her with a $600 a month social security check to live on. Did she have any relatives who would take her in?

In this genteel lady's eyes, asking for such help was unthinkable. She had for so long been the generous one. She told us of her struggle to keep her faith and her love for her husband, rather than toss him to the state. All I could tell her was that if she felt that my help would insure her sanity, she would have to prevail upon her son to let her hire me.

When it was way past time to go, I let her give me a big hug for coming by. Then she pressed a handful of candy in my hands from a dish by the door. I knew I would never see her again unless I too became a volunteer.


Taking Stock

Transitions are all about changing one's roles, relationships, routines and assumptions I was to learn, the following week, at a talk given by a dynamic woman old enough to have seen a few. I was already looking at changing mine. My business-networking group booked speakers who were telling us to market harder, that the best would survive. I found this to be as useful as the report from Wall Street that the nation was experiencing a jobless recovery. I was not going to beat a dead horse with more marketing. If there were too few jobs for organizers maybe it was time to do something else. But it was also time to assess my own assumptions.

When I returned from my three-week trip to Asia my perspective sat on shifting ground. My last project had been to build a small boat, chiefly for recreational purposes, but also because I felt it might be a useful skill to have. When food shortages made fishing useful, a boat would be sought after, not to mention when the sea level rose. As a dedicated doomster, this was in keeping with doomster culture thinking. But after traveling, for three weeks by plane in the undeniable reality of Asia's urban pursuit of development, ten years after it's own economic collapse, this guiding principle of preparing for the end of the world as we know it seemed a trifle silly or at least ahead of itself.

Asia had experienced a temporary halting after their economic disaster and I was gratified to see proof of this on the outskirts of the city. Blocks upon blocks of empty condos stretched down what was supposed to have been a busy downtown center never realized. Not even the homeless wanted to squat in them without electricity to power air conditioners. Oddly enough, across the street, businesses continued, shop fronts were occupied and customers were going in and out. The end of the world had not managed to reach across the street. In the rest of the city things had definitely moved on.

There was no such thing as "the end of the world as we know it," I concluded. That implied an event forcing change that everyone agreed upon, much as we would respond (or not respond) to a hurricane. We could not even recognize the changes already upon us, so who exactly was going to name "the end of the world as we know it," in order to respond to it appropriately? We were still playing by the old rules.

The End of the World Postponed

I decided to abandon my preparations for the end of the world as inspired by thoughts of eco apocalypse. This left me somewhat at sea as to where to focus my life, and I was sifting through suggestions waiting for one to stick. My only requirement was that it would involve the help of others and would connect me to community. Even better, if it was a paying gig.

I considered writing another book—tales from the life of an organizer. I would try out the idea at my next conference with my organizing colleagues. I loved conferences—the extended family atmosphere of all of us living together in a hotel, eating every meal together discussing our adventures of that year and new ventures for the next.

Two weeks before conference an old friend from high school posted, to her Facebook wall, a real estate listing for a property in San Bernadino. Anne and her lover had left their careers as university professors and remade themselves into investment property gurus two years ago. Investment property, unlike the internet stocks I had lost my shirt on 8 years ago, still had brick and board value even after a bubble. San Bernadino was within driving distance of my conference hotel. Why not have a look?

The two met me at the airport. I had not seen Anne in 21 years; we had, in our college years, had quite an intense correspondence by mail, picked up again last year when she Googled me. It was enough of a history that I could trust her to help me with something I knew nothing about and didn't want to fathom i.e.: the bureaucratic legalese of owning property. I asked them how they had come to wrap their minds around the responsibilities involved. They told me of classes offered. Then Susan plunged in, set it up.

"It's not something you should over think," Anne said finally. This was comforting coming from Anne, an inveterate over thinker last I knew her.

Falling In Love Again

And thus I found myself in a not unfamiliar California town outside of LA looking at two houses on a lot with a mountain range behind it that made me feel a modicum of certainty I hadn't felt in a long time. I was sizing up the landscape the way I used to size up a potential lover. A minimum of criteria fulfilled, a pleasing arrangement of features, some homely aspects that hijacked outright beauty but introduced quirky interest and a stimulating element of risk and danger that would make the journey interesting and transformative.

And she was available; made available to me by a very low price ($100,000) and a line of credit, not mine, but Catherine's. Catherine, who thinks of these things, while I just try to get by day to day. She had long wanted us to strengthen our relationship by staking out an income producing future. She had taken out the line of credit because it seemed like a good idea in uncertain times. I had ignored the move. To me, borrowing money was not a viable solution; being debt free with savings was the way to go. Luckily we had been improving our communication skills with an intelligent therapist so could broach the topic without fear. When Catherine saw how interested I was in this property as a rental, she offered to help me. Borrowing to buy something that produced income did make sense to me.

I had experience with fixing up property and had managed property, of a similar low-income nature, for a client. Catherine was tenacious at follow through and had an appetite for financial strategy. It was the right time. And we would be smart about it, think things through, play to our strengths. She trusted my judgment. She was willing to put her money down just on my assessment alone. It would be my baby.

I had first been attracted to the property because of the two houses on a large lot, much like a compound in Thailand. And the houses were small with two bedrooms, not the super-sized, cathedral ceilinged houses, of the last decade that would soon prove an energy sucking liability. And though the location seemed quite rural, it had the one enviable municipal service in a suburb—a rail system. You could get to downtown LA in 90 minutes, 60 minutes to outlying industry.

We got out at a quiet street lined with cyclone fencing. The agent, in her high heels and black Lexus, was already there to meet us . Stepping over the threshold into the first house on the property, I stooped to touch the new ceramic tile floor, surprised that it was not vinyl. Otherwise, the stucco house was much the same as when it was built in 1939. It was, in fact, exactly the same vintage as one I had lived in with friends 20 years ago, where I had, in fact, last seen Anne. But I was not thinking about those years now. I was struck by how shabby the house was. It had been a long time since I had lived in a rental.

"Do people really like this," I asked Anne. "I mean I like it, but do other people?" Yeah they did, enough to want to live in it.

The small kitchen had the same tile on the counter as the one I had lived in only with cream tiles and a black border plus a thin line of red across the back. It was, I would later find out, a classic American Bungalow kitchen.

The second house had a kitchen with the metal edged Formica counters of the 40s. The wood cabinets would need painting. There was a drawer missing. This house, too, had a floor newly tiled, but otherwise no other improvements thus none of the improvements I had grown to despise. No garbage disposals to break down when it wasn't robbing the compost heap. No recessed lighting to vent heated air wastefully into the attic while swallowing up half the light of the bulb. No laminated particle board cabinets with overbuilt European hinges. No dishwasher. In fact no appliances at all, for they had gone missing along with the outdoor light fixtures.

It was, I could see, from the iron security gates on the doors, a moderately high crime area. That was the dangerous part though I did not see any young men cruising by in low riders that I had come to expect while driving through low rent areas in the Bay Area. There was no one on the street at all, just parked vans and pick-up trucks in better condition than the housing—a classic working class California neighborhood. The cyclone fencing was the homely part. The burned out lawn, awaiting my transformation to something more sustainable. Behind the town, the natural beauty of those majestic mountains crisp against a blue sky. That they would always be there comforted me.

I asked the questions Catherine had me write down. Were there any major repairs to be done such as a roof in need of replacement? Nope. Updated electrical? Check. Plumbing? Adequate. Industrial pollution. No. Was there graffiti? Well, only if you counted what was expertly riffed on the cement wall inside the garage. An ad hoc practice studio for a young gang member perhaps.

Was it likely that the property would be rented again? Yes.

It was something of a no brainer. We could improve it without even trying. The last time it had been sold it had been for nearly four times the price. Each house had more land than we had at our own house. The area had once been farmland. I told the agent to write it up. By evening I would be in love with my quirky, homely, beauty, eager to begin her transformation.

Old Money Gone Not Getting Any Younger

In my final piece on my return to Asia, I come to understand the depth of community and family as I take possession of my Thai identity and see my American life anew.

While I was in Bangkok I made a second attempt at establishing my status as a Thai national. In order to have the legal right to own land, specifically the family land left to me in my father's will, I had to be a Thai national. Foreigners could own land, but only if a Thai person owned a controlling interest in it. And this could change at any time with the whims of each new government.

Last year the clerk at the registry office said there was not enough evidence that I was the same person as the child whose name was written into the registry 47 years ago (and then lined out when we immigrated to the US). Though I had been born in England I was entitled to Thai citizenship through my father. Had my father been there he could have vouched for me, but he had neglected to finish this piece of paperwork before he died 8 years ago.

In my father's will (which was read in Aunty Lily's room with all of us present) I learned that he had left nearly everything to his third wife. Said wife sat in the room with us looking downcast. She now owned a quarter interest in all the family land holdings in Thailand, shared with each of Ah Padt's two children and me, as well as two houses in the US. It was all I could do not to run screaming from the room. His Bay Area house, alone, would have assured me a comfortable retirement. There was also a two-bedroom rental, in Colorado that my father had been in the process of gifting to me, but that too was left to her.

"It's not right," said my Aunty Lily to me in private after the will was read. Yes, it was so not right that I was beside myself for a year, but there was nothing I could do about it. "Your father was very stubborn", my Aunty Lily continued, "He never listened to anybody." Aunty Lily explained that my grandmother was already going to split the land between my Aunty Ah Padt, my father and me. Ah Padt's piece had already been formally registered as a separate property; my father had only been married to his third wife for 5 years. What right did she have to the family land?

Had he been afraid his wife would leave him and so had promised her so much? That was the only sense we could make of it. He was also intent on denying his half sister, my Aunty Ah Padt, the right to ownership of the land, convinced that the reason my grandmother was no longer wealthy was because Ah Padt had finagled a controlling interest in the venetian blind company his family had created, and thus the profit. That my aunt had saved the company from bankruptcy through her dedicated hands-on management did not figure into the equation.

Before our trip, I called my stepmother to ask her about accommodations in my father's house since my mother would also be with me. It felt more like her house than mine. She had picked out the furnishings, the artwork and nick knacks that filled the built-in bookcase. Since she was my senior, and a Thai woman of equal class standing to my father, I deferred to her out of respect. She had kept her word on the Colorado house and continued to gift it to me. I had just received it in full this year and was grateful for the little rent it received; it was what was keeping me in the black in this recession year.

She gave me permission to sleep on the couch, preferring not to let me have the use of her bedroom, which she kept locked. My mother would sleep in my room also used as a guest room by my stepmother. I felt slighted, but the couch turned out to be quite comfortable and I liked the living room. It had windows that allowed me to see into the servant's quarters in one direction and out towards the driveway and Ah Padt's house in the other. I was able to watch all the comings and goings of the compound. Despite the development around us on this now highly desirable and valuable land, very little had changed on our compound largely because of our family disintegration.

The upshot of my father's legacy was that we were all disempowered to do anything with the land to further our own wealth. Ah Padt couldn't build the condo she envisioned, I couldn't rent out my father's house which stood empty most of the year, and my stepmother complained to me that she was being asked to pay bills that should be paid by the profits of the venetian blind company. We were frozen in time gathering cobwebs. In the end, it might be our saving grace that it was not developed. This garden living was so pleasant and the fate of high tech urban living uneasy.

Through the un-curtained windows of the living room, Pryoon, our cook, could see when I was awake and bring us breakfast. (I had brought my fanciest pair of pajamas, an emerald green Chinese pair for just such exposure.) Everyday she asked me what we would like to eat and whether we would be home for dinner. When my mother asked for eggs every morning, she asked if she wasn't concerned about her cholesterol. No, but I was, and so Pryoon suggested that she would bring me the traditional rice soup breakfast which she knew I loved. (I had not wanted to trouble her to make two different meals.)

It was Pryoon who worried most about my status as the rightful heir to my family's land. She had worked and lived on the compound since I was 9 and she was 15. She had looked after my grandmother until her death, raised her daughter to cook for us too and looked after the household. She herself was a landowner, now that her mother had passed away. She owned a farm just outside of Bangkok that her mother had tended her entire life. Last year I joked that I could work for her, farming it. I was half serious, too, and it must have made her wonder about my state of affairs.

My Aunty Lily's maid, Wel, was also looking out for my interest and would counsel me on how to talk to my stepmother so I would remain in her favor. Where Pryoon was modest and humble, Wel was vivacious, talked loudly and was a dramatic storyteller. Capable and energetic, she was the perfect caretaker to keep an elderly lady entertained. She was also our chauffeur.

Accompanied by both Pryoon and Wel, I sat waiting at the office while the two translated for me and worked on my strategy. After three house of waiting we went back another day and waited another three hours. I had no confidence that this would come together. I was just going to be tortured by the waiting, but because Wel and Pryoon were on a mission I was obliged to go along. On the third day my Ah Padt came and waited with me, as a witness. When I was finally approved to proceed, I was sent to the next desk, where I was confronted by a ruthless senior clerk who refused to process my ID card without a Thai passport. Again we would have to come back. I updated my Facebook page that I was ready to shoot myself.

Pryoon and Wel assured me that I need only be patient. My Thai friends sympathized with me. They had all been through this business of getting ID cards. Americans fought against such identification, against a too powerful government ready to arrest and strip citizens of their rights, followed by torture and concentration camps; why give them another tool? But I was not concerned that the Thai government would strip me of my rights; I just wanted them to acknowledge them.

I began to feel a shared identity with my Thai peers that I had not felt as a naturalized American citizen where anti-immigrant sentiments taunted me whenever conservatives voiced their opinions. And though I had once been proud to be British (and part of the Empire where the sun never set), the only time I felt accepted as a British citizen was when I was in the dentist chair benefiting from the national health program as a child.

I felt myself succumbing to the draw of Bangkok. We spent our evenings being wined and dined by friends, swallowed up by the round the clock offerings of entertainment and food. To succumb seemed the only sane response. I met a celebrity runway model who had been a childhood friend; she had 2,468 Facebook contacts, but she still wanted to see me.

I saw myself rolling back the years on my face with plastic surgery, hanging out in high end night clubs where I would be an attaché to my well connected friends, become a character of intrigue myself, leading a double life, escaping to a country getaway whenever it got too much. In my head I was constructing a tawdry novel filled with mysterious high society characters of hidden political affiliations, chasing sexual intrigues against a backdrop of a city ready to pop with civic unrest.

There was just one problem. I could no longer afford to live in Bangkok. While my peers had created businesses and income streams using their inherited land as leverage, they had also created an expensive lifestyle frequenting the latest restaurants and shows. It was a problem that had frustrated my father, who would return from a visit home complaining of how expensive it was to take people out to dinner. To live frugally would be to be found lacking, unable to keep up with my class obligations. Not to mention the travel back and forth from my home in the States. (This trip financed as it was by my publisher.) I was momentarily angry at this impotence to live out the status of my class standing and at my peers for having created this high end life. To fight it I would be setting myself apart again.

On the final day at the registry office even my mother came, the only foreigner in the entire building. My grandmother's government friend, summoned by Wel, showed up and vouched for me (though we had never laid eyes on each other before). I was asked to state my religion (Buddhist) and profession (writer prompted Ah Padt), I didn't know my blood type. My fingerprints were taken and photographed. I signed my name in Thai, in triplicate (in front of the stern senior clerk), which I could only do by copying what my Ah Padt wrote for me. Then a short wait to be photographed next to a height chart and finally, with fingers still purple from the ink, I had my prize—a brand new laminated card with a gold emblem containing a microchip holding all of the above information. Pryoon was ecstatic, Wel was triumphant and my Ah Padt pleased that something had gone well. My Aunty Lily was relieved and happy.

"You can do whatever you want, now, buy whatever you want," Pryoon said, meaning property. I thanked her for her perseverance. Had I waited much longer all the witnesses might well have been dead. My newly confirmed identity began to heal the pain of severance from my childhood roots. I could come home again and stay as long as I wanted. And I owned this home too. There was some security in this.

The community effort that went into getting me this status of citizenship filled me with a sense of connection and family. When I looked at my life in the US I saw an existence so lonely that I dreaded my return and was depressed for three weeks when I did return. What kind of life had I created here? I prided myself in being independent, able to do everything alone. Rarely did anyone help me as much as in this ordeal with the ID card. Rarely did I let them, even my partner, for fear of feeling clueless and helpless, dependent on the kindness of others.

I was used to spending my days filled with righteousness at the global issues I touted, a sense of purpose informing my activities. Now it all felt like nothing more than a shield against intense loneliness in the world's loneliest country. What exactly was the point? There was the belief in the States that it was up to us, the ordinary citizens, to do something about our deteriorating planet, yet our efforts continued to seem futile; a mere cultural exercise, while others in the world had far different priorities. And by aiming to reduce my carbon footprint I shortchanged my visits to see my aging relatives. I wanted to continue flying back and forth and more often, even if I had to give up my status as a tree hugging doomer (and make more money to fund the trips). What then would I have to inform my life? I decided to float for a while and find out. Let serendipity guide me. Beef up my Facebook presence.

Return To Asia III: The Conundrum of Thailand

Having seen Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, I had a much better idea of how Bangkok fit into the context of its urban neighbors and what future it was seeking. Asian cities, I could see, were committed heart and soul to development, the kind of development that would embrace its citizens in a sort of universal standard of modern design.

Bangkok was cleaner and more upscale than I remembered it being. The old grimy cement block shop fronts of the 50s and 60s that had sold sundries, made-to-order garments and locally made house wares had been remodeled into brightly lit modern stores—a 7/11, a copy shop, a hair salon. On my street a store front was being finished with reflection pools set between squares of granite. The glass front allowed the office to be seen with all of its artwork and black leather and chrome furniture. Soon it would sell condominiums not yet built, but slated for development on the empty lot behind the new office.

The message was clear. The old would make way for the new and it would all be good. This growth was the way to raise all boats. The endless supply of raw materials transformed into chrome and glass enclosed buildings, full of cool air and new furnishings, blended right into the better living commercials playing endlessly on the Sky Train. I was stymied by this growth driven sensibility in Asia, but here in Thailand there was a pause, as the recession ate away at this message and the political winds shifted, battering the country in civic unrest.

Protestors in Thailand had shut down the airport for a week last November, then in April a counter group supporting Thaksin, the deposed prime minister, had trashed the hotel of the ASEAN Summit meeting and shut it down. The coup, two years ago that had deposed said prime minister, still raised the question in the eyes of Western journalists of whether Thailand would hold onto democracy. When Thaksin was mentioned, in the Western press, he was described with the phrase "democratically elected populist" which ostensibly made him the good guy while his crimes of corruption were minimized. I knew about the vote buying and the empty populist promises Thaksin Shinawatra had made to the poor. His economic policies had earned the nickname Thaksinomics. His plans for massive development projects would have further robbed the poor of their land rights, sending more to seek employment in the city (and yes more girls to the sex trade). What I didn't get was why the poor spoke of Thaksin with such affection even after he was ousted from power.

I took the opportunity to ask one of my contacts in Bangkok. Teng a business owner and dentist, had opened her own clinic offering plastic surgery and other beauty enhancement services for the face. Her clientele were largely Japanese ladies traveling to Thailand for the comparatively inexpensive procedures. My mother was quite curious to see what they offered and sought out a consultation. This was easily arranged through the school friends network. Teng sent her driver the short distance to pick us up at my house. As I sat waiting in the lobby of the clinic store front I asked Teng if she supported Thaksin.

"I don't like people who cheat," she said simply. Yes, he had cheated to such an extent that the term corruption was not enough to describe the heights to which he had used his position for his own monetary gain. His people had been blatant about offering government contracts on the condition that they got half the money budgeted for any single project. Companies whose income relied on government contracts were sucked in. When the coup came, the business class was suddenly divided and individuals who would normally trust each other found they had to walk on eggshells, unsure of who was on what side until the courts sorted it out.

There were still supporters of Thaksin in Thailand, said to be the rural poor, who were behind the recent protests. I asked Teng why he was so popular with the poor. She only took a moment to answer as if something unusual had happened.

"He let people touch him," she said, "no political candidate allowed poor people to touch them before. Thaksin did like a movie star and that made him popular. Even now the leaders won't let people touch them" she added as if they should have learned something.

This explanation neatly filled my curiosity. It explained the odd sentiment I had heard reported from one senior lady when Thaksin returned to Bangkok last year for his trial. She said she loved Thaksin because he was so cute. Cute had never been a word associated with political leaders before; it just cut too deeply into class taboos.

Thaksin was still in contact with his supporters while in exile, sending them video links pleading with them to fight for his pardon; he addressed them as peers and even sang to them. His supporters wore red, an angry color that filled the streets when they protested. Having inspired them to assemble, he called in on cell phones during the rallies to egg them on. You can see it all on YouTube. Thaksin had indeed made like a movie star. The rural poor were usually loyal to the King who was extremely revered all over the country.

The counter protestors wore yellow, the King's color. They were said to be a group comprised of royalists. Western reporters could not seem to get past this term to actually discuss what they stood for. Royalists were automatically suspect as if they were plotting to bring back an absolute monarchy, which even the King did not want. A writer for the Economist railed against the law of lese majesty that forbids citizens from openly criticizing members of the royal family, claiming that this seriously hampered democratic proceedings. I was annoyed by his tone. He did not seem to know anything about what the King stands for in Thailand.

During our trip I came across a posted sign that illuminated my own feelings about the King and his relationship to Thailand. We were visiting Pattaya, a seaside resort not far from Bangkok. My family had often spent weekends there when I was a child. It had been a quiet one-hotel town full of beach houses belonging to the wealthy. Now it was a densely developed strip of shoulder-to-shoulder, high rise hotels and sleazy, pick-up bars. The beach, however was still open to the public. I remembered, as a child, that no house, no matter how wealthy the owners, was allowed to be built directly on the beach. The reason given was that the beach belonged to the King. How lovely that the King liked the beach so much, I thought, and that he let everybody use it.

While walking the boardwalk at Pattaya, that weekend, I noticed a sign posted in a police sentry box, urging people not to throw garbage or cigarette butts on the beach. The sign was in Thai and English and the words "Keep it clean for the King," caught my eye. Underneath in smaller type was added "and safe for children and wildlife". Suddenly it came to me. The King was not coming to the beach anytime soon. He was a symbol representing the commons. He supported the interests of the people so the people returned the favor and called themselves supporters of the King because he supported them. Didn't anybody get it? Did the West even have a symbol of the commons? I wondered.

I was intrigued by the return to royalist sentiments. What were they after that the King in turn would support? The royal family denied any connection with the group. The King himself was quite feeble now and did not often leave his residence in Hua Hin (another beach resort). How his successor would do and if he would garner the same respect as his father was a question on all our minds. There was some talk, said a friend, of not having a royal family at all. But that, I thought, was getting a little ahead of ourselves.

The royalists protestors were for a "reasonable society" I read in wickipedia. They wanted a nation with less consumer debt and less concern with material goods. They opposed foreign investment and privatization of state enterprises. No wonder they were a threat to the writers of the Economist. It sounded like they were against the very underpinnings of globalization.

Western democracy, as I saw it being used today, was a platform for the elected wealthy of countries like Thailand to negotiate deals with the big players of the global market while making themselves even more rich. Americans, too, have wrestled with this question of corruption. In a recent poll a majority said that they would be more likely to trust representatives that were randomly selected from the phone book than those currently in Congress now.

I knew from Nor and Raja that there was sympathy for the royalists, but it was difficult to embrace them since they were somewhat extreme. They were asking for leaders to be royally appointed in an attempt to sidestep the corruption of democratically elected officials. Their takeover of the airport was an amazing show of power that had gone unpunished. It was hard to tell where their now bolstered confidence might lead them.

I did not press Teng for any more information and instead took a picture of her. She gave me her best side then surveyed my face suggesting that one of her doctors could easily zap that large freckle off my upper cheek. Yes, it looks like some kind of cancer my mother said and there was another one nearly as big on the other cheek. Teng named her price for two freckles—only $18. Done, I said, wondering what the US might learn here about lowering the cost of medical services. (Prescription drugs, too, were half the price my mother discovered when she went to buy her blood pressure medicine.)

In the end I was left wondering how this ultra modern, luxury oriented urban population would reconcile their needs with those of the nation and the poor. My mother and I did see children and adults begging at the foot of the escalator to the Sky Train station. We saw one small boy by himself, hardly moving. In front of him a plastic water bottle cut in half for coins offered. He was still there when we returned after dark. It brought to mind the movie Slumdog Millionaire which I had liked so much because it affirmed my reality by showcasing, so unapologetically, the poverty I witnessed growing up.

These destitute, in the context of an Asian city, would easily clean up per the Asian commitment to growth. Just park them in tenements and press them for cheap labor in factories. (Factories are, of course, dependent on consumer demand and many had closed this year.)

I preferred another picture of the poor. I recently discovered the classic Foxfire series of books produced in the 70s by American high school students in the state of Georgia. In them students interviewed "old timers" who still lived in the Appalachian Mountains and survived by methods of self-sufficiency duly recorded by the students in photographs. In the context of modern life these Appalachians owned very little and nothing that could be called modern i.e.: a TV or electricity for lights. Their way of life was dependent on the land around them just as were the Thais I met last year, on my trip to visit examples of sustainable solutions in rural Thailand. Both could not live without the land. Neither had asked to be modernized. Both favored self-sufficiency.

I would not forget meeting, on that trip, three men who had joined the Assembly of the Poor to demand compensation for the drowning of their land by the Pak Man dam project. They were forest dwellers who made a living foraging and caring for the forests. I came to understand how protest follows development because access to land is stolen from the poor.

I was also taken by the Buddhist group known as the Santi Asoke who taught skills of self-sufficiency after the economic collapse of '97, to anyone who came to them. The Santi Asoke Buddhists had originally protested Thaksin on moral grounds leading to more widespread protests until finally the military stepped in to oust Thaksin, ostensibly to prevent further unrest and complete chaos. The Santi Asoke Buddhists now supported the royalists, a more well heeled version of the original group that led to the ousting of Thaksin. (Along with the royalists were members of the middle class and business elite.) I was glad to see my narrative thread had not been broken. It just needed a resolution.

Would the rich relinquish some of their hold on the resources milked from the lands of the poor? Would Thailand stand up to the destructive forces of globalization stripping resources for profit? Would it morph itself a government that could actually temper development while promoting self-sufficiency and creativity? What kind of society would come out of this grass roots activism and civil unrest? Though each bit of news from Thailand now filled me with dread I couldn't wait for the next installment.

Return to Asia Part II: The Riddle of Singapore

After our book launch in Kuala Lumpur, my publisher, Raja, invited us to meet his family at a local Indian restaurant. His sister Gowri, in a peach sari, stood to welcome us as we entered the Bombay Palace restaurant comfortably situated in an old house. We were introduced to his mother who greeted us with the prayer hands held to the face as we do in Thailand. She was dressed in a blue sari and looked about as stern as my grandmother had been. We were soon joined by Han and his father, an economist and long time friend of Raja's.

Conversation drifted from organizational business and social theory to occasional reference to popular movies. My mother was enjoying herself immensely, stimulated by references to cities she had visited and a shared English education, while I fended for myself. Meena, another sister and author, had already been compelled to correct me on the ranking of California as the 8th largest economy in the world, not third. Tut, tut.

I asked Raja what we should see in Singapore. We would not have a book launch in Singapore this time around, but my mother and I still wanted to see it since it was so close. Friends and relatives in Thailand had always told me Singapore was boring (and expensive), but friends in the States rhapsodized about the little city state as one would over San Francisco. Raja wrote down a list of things we shouldn't miss.
The first notable difference about Singapore was that the water was drinkable from the tap. I pointed to the sign over a drinking fountain at the airport upon our arrival. While still in KL, I had caught my mother filling her water bottle from the tap and suspected that it was no more safe to drink than the water in Thailand.

"Even in this luxury hotel?" she asked.

"It's all an illusion," I answered. If Malaysia was anything like the rest of South East Asia, I knew that development had prioritized exports for world trade and disregarded civic niceties. Plus corporate bottling lobbies would probably make sure the water remained unsafe (or if, as in Thailand, the situation improved no one knew about it). I suggested my mother call the front desk.

"Yes you can drink after boiling for ten minutes," said the operator hanging up abruptly.

Singapore was going to be an easy city, I sensed, and upon reaching the hotel promptly crashed. I was sleep deprived from the excitement of preparing for my book launch and we hadn't eaten a proper lunch that day. I could hardly navigate my way out the hotel door to find food and had become brisk and cranky. Luckily a whole block of restaurants awaited us just around the corner. My mother picked one and shepherded me into a seat for pizza and Pellegrino. Pellegrino, she decided, would be her drink of choice in Asia. She also sensed the ease of Singapore and immediately wanted to live there stimulated by the mix of cultures and the stylish blending of old colonial charm with modern amenities.

Refreshed, we set out the next day to explore. The Singaporeans were very friendly and eager to show off their English, which was the language of business, although most spoke Chinese or Malay at home. (The Chinese are the majority of the population with an Indian and Malay minority.) A Chinese lady going to church showed us which bus to catch and what coins to use and soon we were on a double-decker bus headed into the Indian part of town.

After walking briefly we came to Mustafa's, a huge department store which Raja had mentioned because it was crammed with goods that ordinary people actually buy. I was confident that we would escape designer label boutiques and catch a glimpse of real people.

I was immediately dazzled by the fabric section, which overwhelmed even my mother, stacked as it was to the ceiling with batik and saris. I picked out several sarongs before heading to other floors. The luggage department was bigger than any I'd ever seen and I offered my mother my professional services, as an organizer, to help her pick-out a travel handbag and carry-on. The ones she had traveled with so far were clearly inadequate and seeing her rummage through them looking for things was driving me crazy. (I had already offered to take charge of her passport and boarding pass as my travel shirt was basically a filing cabinet.)

It did not take us long to find a knock-off designer suitcase with wheels in an adorable size, then a smart looking purse that had pockets for every item. I showed her how to dangle the leash of her camera outside of the zippered compartment for easy access. Then we headed for the department of international chocolates.

We rolled around the rest of the city filling the little case with our purchases from the tourist bazaars in Chinatown. My map was worn to shreds by the end of the day, but I managed to get us to the riverside by the late afternoon where we enjoyed a delightful (but expensive) pedicab ride from an old guy who described to us all the notable monuments in brisk English before taking us to the famous Raffles hotel.

The charming statues that were distributed along the riverbank depicted scenes from the early days of colonization. I was struck by one showing a white man seated and pontificating to two men standing, one a Chinese man with a queue and the other a Malay in his pill box hat and sarong. The white man was identified by his name and was a Scotsman. He was described as mediating between the other two who were only identified by race. There was a smugness to this scene of a white man telling brown people how to behave that irked me just as there was a smugness to Singapore in all its tidiness.

I could see what my Asian based friends meant when they said that the city lacked sex appeal. Singapore felt more like an arranged marriage between the British sense of orderliness and the Asian entrepreneurial exuberance.

I had had some experience of this British directed sensibility. My book had been produced by an award-winning design firm, based in Singapore. The art director, Andrew, was a personable Englishman who charmed me immediately by complementing me on my writing ability. Our conference calls were accompanied by a staff of Chinese sounding names, women mostly who rarely spoke. We were getting along swimmingly until the day we set out to discuss what scenes of the book should be illustrated.

The most dramatic part of the book involved a séance with a homemade Quijia board, which was how my mother had described it. The game also had a Thai name which translates roughly to Spirit of the Glass in which a spirit is summoned and questions are asked. It was a pivotal scene and, I felt, an obvious one to illustrate. As I described the event Andrew stopped me and said that, as a Christian, he objected to the use of the occult and he wouldn't want to subject his staff, some of whom were Muslim, to having to work with such material either. Nor did he recommend that his clients use any symbols that might be found objectionable by religious groups.

I was so stunned by the raising of religious issues in a business context, not to mention an artistic one, I felt out of my depth to defend myself. I had no feel for what it was like to live with such clear divisions of ethnic and religious boundaries. If the way to maintain peace in Malaysia was to carefully erase anything that might offend, then I would have to live with it. In the end, the illustration we settled on was a lie. It substituted the homemade letters and glass for a table flying over the heads of the participants. This never actually occurred (though it did seem to capture the spirit of the event).

The discussion raised an obvious question for me. How did such easily offended religious people, including this art director, feel about an author who was openly gay? No one on the design committee seemed to care about that or any text I penned as long as the graphics weren't controversial, so I never brought it up.

When I was interviewed, by the two reporters in KL, I did wonder if an openly gay author was unusual in Malaysia if less so in Singapore. When the piece came out in the Sun, it pointedly mentioned my homosexuality as one of the skeletons in my family closet, even though my book had almost no gay content and what was there was about identity and was hardly a revelation.

"It makes the book seem racier than it is," commented Han when he sent me the article.

I chuckled the whole way through reading it feeling a bit scandalized myself seeing how I looked in the context of Asia. I had been sensationalized into a passionate truth-telling, lesbian doomer, describing how being gay was the source of my motivation to write freely while nothing at all was mentioned about my quest to understand my biracial and cultural heritage—the real motivation for my writing the book. The reporter did seem to admire my determination to be my own person so I forgave him missing the story of the book.

The Muslim presence in KL and Singapore, graphically illustrated by the head to toe black burkah, did speak volumes about the choices some Malaysian women had made regarding freedom of expression. The reporter had picked out the most "American" aspects of my life from my non-academic career as a professional organizer and handywoman to my desire to be "free of societies expectations" by coming out so young as a gay person. In the context of the goal of Asian people to blend into the identity of the group, preferably at the highest status possible, my quest to tell all, despite possibly bringing shame to my family, would be as exotic as their burkahs were to me. My quest to understand cultural differences and learn where I belonged in the world was not nearly as compelling even as a person of a mixed marriage.

Our taxi driver to the airport was eager to expound on how there was no racism in Singapore because they had all gone to school together. I had heard the same from a Chinese friend from high school now living in Singapore.

Walking through the city I could see why it would be such a pleasure for my American friends doing business here. All the rules were cut and dry and well enforced. Much effort had been put into a homogenous and well-run infrastructure. Civic life and public space blended seamlessly into private enterprise. Plus Singapore was considered one of the safest cities in Asia.
Economic stability for the majority, I felt, was the key to such civility. Journalists, eager to pinpoint ethnic violence inspired by religious fundamentalism, all but ignore details of economic injustice. I had learned to be suspicious of any headline calling attention to ethnic strife. If the journalist had any integrity at all, deep in his article I would find references to a factory closure causing a strike that pitted one group against another or government mismanagement leading to one ethnicity being favored over another.

Singapore had attempted to raise all boats with government subsidized housing wiping out old neighborhoods that might be considered poor. Gone with them were the old communities in favor of high-rise "pigeon hole" apartments.

The emphasis on public civility has been made famous by the caning incident. There were even tourist T-shirts sharing the joke along the lines of "I went to Singapore and all I got was a lousy caning".

When I came upon a sign forbidding the riding of a bicycle through a pedestrian underpass with a fine of 1,000 Singapore dollars I understood the effectiveness of stiff punishment. It made me nervous that I might inadvertently trigger some fine, jaywalking or something. I was happy to be returning to the relative chaos of Bangkok. There was something a little too perfect about Singapore.

Singapore set an example that Bangkok seemed to aspire to. The new underground train in Bangkok was exactly the same design as the one in Singapore and I saw signs promising stiff fines for smoking in restaurants and drinking alcohol in the civil registry office, but somehow those prohibitions seemed appropriate. Bangkok needed a few more restrictions while Singapore gave me the sense that nothing unexpected could be allowed to happen.
That, perhaps, was it's missing sex appeal.

Return To Asia

My mother is the first person I've ever seen get a chatty response from a Thai immigration officer. Always the sternest people in this land of smiles, they do not smile at all, ever. At least that was the case before I had flown into the new airport with its steel struts and white canopy enclosure of space. So 60s sci fi. And yes, the passport control officers did seem a tiny bit friendlier given this new grandeur of natural light and gentle climate control so unlike the aggressive frigidness of AC in most buildings in Southeast Asia, but this woman was intrigued enough to ask my mother how old she was and be suitably surprised at the answer, then even more surprised when my mum pointed out that I was her daughter. That was when I realized that my mother had a presentation that makes people trust her and I might as well enjoy it

That we were something of a traveling phenomenon was a perk we would enjoy all over Southeast Asia from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur to Singapore. We had come to promote my book, the cover of which showed us together some 48 years ago when we first arrived in Bangkok. She wearing stylish cat eye sunglasses, looking fondly at 3 year old me while I look into the camera (at my dad taking the picture). We were traveling by boat down a canal into the story that I would later feel compelled to spend 20 years of my life writing and preparing for publication. Now returning again to the snug family compound of my childhood I could finally show my mother what had happened to Asia in these last frantic decades of development.

.

I was prepared to be surprised if we found even a single building that she could recognize. There were some. My grandmother's wooden house now showing serious signs of decay. And the old Air France building on Patpong road, now obscured by girly bars and tourist stalls, where she had worked for Grant Advertising in the 60's. At the time big firms such as Palmolive, Esso and Formost were just gaining a toe hold in the "far east" and my mother was soon promoted to account executive being proficient in English and charm. The mix of hanky panky at the office and the glamour of landing these big accounts makes the TV series Mad Men feel as familiar to me as family history, while our photo albums are filled with leering men in skinny ties propositioning my mother who would be glamorously dressed in Thai silk versions of the fashions of the day.


Halfway down the now pedestrian only road, our guide, my friend G-up, assured us that we would find the Tip Top café. My mother had just been describing how she and her colleagues would go there for longish breaks aided by staff who would forward their phone calls. We found it remodeled into a sleek cake shop with sliding glass doors. I stood looking at it, surprised at it still being there, a little bit of family history tied up with the development of this Asian Tiger city.

Bangkok now boasts the largest shopping mall in Southeast Asia, the Siam Paragon, filled with high end status shops of international renown. It's plaza and façade were easily visible from the sky train, the sleek, overhead, light rail that made mobility feasible in this part of town. Clustered nearby were all the other shopping malls. My mother as a champion shopper, wanted to see it all.

As a writer of energy use issues I had, just last year, traveled to the North East of Thailand where I had had opportunity to hear, first hand, the story of how 1700 families were displaced by the Pak Man dam, a hydroelectric power plant that would, in the end, produce just enough power for half a shopping mall of this caliber while destroying 80% of the local fisheries and the livelihood of another 6,000 plus families. Thus I would always see these malls in terms of the price of power and the uneasy status of democracy in Thailand favoring the wealthy while making protesters of the poor. Such information makes me a professional wet blanket. So while I made sure my mother had the "trip of a lifetime" as she wrote to friends back home, I kept a lid on my usual railings and put in my miles scoping out the shopping malls.

The presentation I had come to Asia to make would also be in a shopping mall, the Pavilion, the newest in Kuala Lumpur. Our host was the Times Bookstore, one of the largest chains in Malaysia and Singapore. We spent just one night at the family compound in Bangkok before jetting out from the world class shopping mall cum airport to Kuala Lumpur. There we would stay in the luxury Shangri La hotel with its complementary breakfast. (This an all you can eat international buffet offering the breakfasts of every possible cuisine topped off with two chocolate fondue fountains—one white, one dark and a steady supply of raspberries.)

Twice the city had boasted the tallest building in the world. The high rises around us were dwarfed by the sparkling chrome and glass of the Petronus twin towers, lit by night like a delicate jewel. The haze of smog adding a soft glow. We were dazzled. The twin towers of oil I nicknamed them. We were both thinking the same thing as we surveyed the KL downtown by night. "It's New York city on steroids."
Petronus is the government owned oil company of this oil producing nation. Their offices occupy one full tower and there is a museum of oil between the towers on the 4th floor (above a shopping mall, natch). I managed to get in a visit and was amused to find that the entry into the Petrosains museum consisted of a ride in an oil molecule back into time with a voice over narration booming a tone of awe at this miracle substance that man had harnessed through "determination and technology". It brought back the Disneyland ride in Tomorrowland that shrank me to the scale of a specimen on a microscope as a voice (sponsored by Monsanto) narrated the miracle of science and technology. How fitting a narrative for a city that so completely manifested the splendors of oil consumption.

We were shepherded on this journey by Han, my publicist who had also been my editor (one of them) owing to his affinity for a dual culture childhood, his having been spent in Canada. Young and lanky, he was steeped in the language of literary criticism and well versed in global politics. He was to guide me through this publicity event by talking to me about how I should present my story to the Malaysian public, a people I knew precious little about. We thought we should begin, academically enough, with a historical reference to mixed marriages in Thailand and roll into it the story of why I, as a writer, had been compelled to stick to a memoir as opposed to the safety of fiction. We were building up a good case when my mother arrived and ordered a glass of wine.

My mother insisted that we should focus on the family dramas to get people interested and proceeded to illustrate her point by telling all her stories from my book with exuberant dramatization. Han was amused by her use of the term "creepy crawl" as she described how she approached the Queen on the beach at Pattaya the first week, practically, that she was in Thailand. After an hour or two we were joined by Raja and his wife my cousin Nor. They were mama and papa of The Blue Toffee brand, now devoting all their creative energy to the promotion of the fledging "lifestyle" publishing company that Raja had conceived to occupy himself in his retirement from corporate life.

We moved our brainstorming party outside to the Arabian nights patio to get warm, since Han, wearing only a polo shirt, had neglected to account for the hotel air conditioning. Sitting on cushions surrounded by decorative hookahs we continued our discussion as my mother tried to get a word in edgewise between the banter that Nor and Raja kept up. Finally Nor summed up my original thesis about mixed marriages being a privilege of wealth (in the case of Asian men marrying Caucasian women) and then suggested that we put my mother on stage with me. That at least would make it viscerally interesting.

The next morning my mum made a beeline for the hotel beauty salon, while I worked up my talk on my laptop and had the business center print it out just an hour before we were due at the Pavilion. I would wear the same outfit that I had worn for the book party that my writer's group had thrown for me in Palo Alto. Except I knew it would be too hot to wear the same black boots. The marine blue Thai silk jacket was fine as was the black hilltribe pants, but the square toed pumps I brought just would not do. I looked over my mother's collection of reliably dressy sandals and chose a black pair with silver medallions marching down the front. They were a half size too big, but she punched a new hole in the strap for me. My mother herself, was elegantly dressed in a black scoop neck T-shirt adorned with a glittering band of turquoise and green sequins reminiscent of Nefertiti. Matching earrings set off her freshly coiffed blond hair.

We took a taxi rather than risk walking and arrived in plenty of time well ahead of any crowd. We wandered around taking pictures and trying not to gawk at the women wearing full coverage black burkahs doing their brand name shopping like any good consumer the world over.

My event was scheduled for 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. The roads were being blocked in preparation for a protest that was to take place the following day. (Something in the constitution similar to habeas corpus at stake, I gathered from Han.)

"Did you invite anybody?" Nor asked me. Well we did invite these Americans we met at the airport in Bangkok, my mother having chatted them up when we heard our plane was delayed. Otherwise I didn't know a soul here, of course. Han's father showed up and other members of the Blue Toffee staff, then a few strangers wandered in, including a large burkah glad woman with a male escort and the Americans did indeed show up making me feel at home.

There were also members of the press (two freebie tabloids, the Sun and the Star) and their photographers. The photographers flashed away making us feel like we were getting the red carpet treatment. As did the expensive graphics—large banners and posters showing the cover of the book, the book jacket blurb (written by one of my long time clients who had become a literary mentor) and the date of the launch. So that's all you need, I thought, some nice graphics, a venue and members of the press. Never mind that I was such an unknown entity, I could hardly interest a few casual shoppers. I just had to play the part. And then we began.

My speech and accompanying passages from the book were kindly received. They chuckled at my opening joke about bringing my mother to vouch for my biracial credentials. I kept the presentation short for fear of boring anybody, but they seemed content and we fluffed up the hour with me narrating the slideshow that Han had put together of pictures from my childhood. During the Q & A Han's father asked some insightful questions about moving from culture to culture. A stranger, a young woman, felt emboldened enough to ask my mother how she had been treated by her in-laws. She offered the story about my grandma coaching her on protocol for greeting the Queen.

"You didn't say "creepy-crawl"", said Han afterward, my mum having opted to be formal in her presentation of her brush with royalty. At our get together the night before, she had asked Nor and Raja for gossip about the royal family and had received a non-response which she took to be chilly thus inspiring her caution. It is not a time to be playful about politics in Thailand I realized. More on that another time.

While the public visited the amply provided snack table, I was ushered into a back room to answer probing questions from the reporter from the Sun who was himself a writer. I enjoyed the questions and gave it my all (only to learn later that he would loose the tape, but we made up for it with questions via e-mail). As I talked I reflected lightly on how my life story had become a product in a shopping mall bookstore, yet that had not robbed it of its power for me and the two reporters. All human production, it seemed now needed PR to get it off the ground. I was just
proud that I did have a product I could stand behind with pride.

We deemed the launch a success. By definition publicity is always deemed a success unless it's a disaster. It is how the game is played.

Figures regarding the Pak Man dam gleaned from the book "A Land On Fire: The Environmental Consequences of the Southeast Asian Boom" by James David Fahn, a reporter to the Nation, an English-language daily newspaper in Thailand.

Must Love Dogs (And Cats)

In which I transition from a devoted cat person to being a dog's best friend.

As an avowed cat person, I have been able to ignore the world of dogs nearly completely. Any contact I did have with a dog quickly assured me of the superiority of the cat as a pet. When I moved in with Catherine, she had both a dog and a cat (and a husband). The cat was an exotic Abyssinian with a distinct personality; the dog a Manchester Terrier with boundless energy that made answering the door a challenge. The two were friends, playing together, chasing each other sporadically, then lying about the house stylishly showing off their pure bred lines. Dutch, the Manchester Terrier had the same markings as a Doberman and the same cut ears, but was petite and delicate. She was bred to hunt rats and had the high energy of her breed; she would race in circles around our small yard. A year later, as part of the divorce settlement, she went with the husband leaving Tango to beat me into submission.

I had never met such a persistent and strong willed cat. She woke me every morning at six by standing on my head and if that didn't work she would jump on the floor very loudly, repeatedly. Finally she would meow in a commanding voice waking Catherine, which would make her cranky so I was trained to get up before it came to that. I was an early riser anyway. After her breakfast (not infrequently followed by upchucking her food in some inconvenient place), Tango would insist on getting into my lap when I was at my desk typing. No matter how many times I put her on the floor, she was back in my lap again. I gave up and perfected a leaning posture that allowed me to type while she sat against my stomach looking out the window. I still had to keep her from walking on the keys, but we came to a compromise. She could sit up to the keyboard as long as she kept her paws on the gel pads of my wrist rest. After a decade of this delicate balance, sitting with Tango at my keyboard became my favorite part of living with her. My writing was informed by her feline energy.

Two years ago we discovered that her kidneys were failing and were advised to give her fluids through an IV drip every other day plus a regimen of antibiotics. We took separate vacations so one of us would always be home to administer the drip with the help of a friend enlisted to hold the cat, rolled up like a burrito in a towel, so she couldn't escape or claw us while we poked the needle into the folds of skin on her neck.

The kidney disease slowed her down some, but it wasn't until the final week that she was not her usual active self. And it wasn't until the last three days that she was truly disabled. Those last three days were the saddest, most profound moments of my life. It was only then that I realized that the cat loved me beyond having trained me to be her servant, for even when I could do nothing for her, she would purr if I stroked her head and rub her face against mine reassuringly. When she refused food and wouldn't sleep or close her eyes at all, we knew it was time. The next day she wouldn't move and we took her in to have her put down and say goodbye.

Her passing left a cat shaped hole in our hearts. Her tiny 7lb presence had so filled the house that adopting another cat just wouldn't have been the same. It was then that I relented and suggested that we could maybe get a dog. Catherine had been talking about getting a dog for ten years and every time she mentioned it I had put my foot down or asked if she was going to take it to work with her. Dogs, I knew would not tolerate being left alone and they had to be walked, not my favorite mode of transport. But given all that we did for Tango, a dog wouldn't be that much more trouble. And with Tango gone I felt as though I had lost, not only a dear friend, but a job as a nurse that made me feel essential to the well being of the household. In my mind, my status felt tentative and without an anchor.

About a year ago my carpool buddy, Mary, adopted a chihauha/miniature pinscher mix and took it everywhere with her, even to clients. When I first got into the car with Squirt she asked if I wanted him to sit in my lap. I declined in horror. Eww, dog germs. And he barked his head off on another day when I came out of the house wearing a rabbit fur hat, but Mary had taken him to obedience school and kept him firmly under control so I had no complaints. When we drove to Nevada to the national conference I sat in the back seat and there grew accustomed to having a dog as a peer, as I was happy just to get a ride on such short notice. He started coming to our house with Mary to watch videos about organizing and hoarders, thus aclimatizing me further. When Tango was gone I was so happy just to have an animal recognize me and be glad to see me that Squirt became my new best friend with his floppy ears and perpetually entertaining antics.

When it became clear that getting a dog was an imperative and not just a maybe, I sat down to the task and read an armload of books on the topic while Catherine and I watched episodes of Cesar Milan's the Dog Whisperer. Dog training brought out the disciplinarian British nanny in me. I realized that I didn't have a problem with dogs per se, after all, I had grown up with several on the compound in Thailand and helped raise a litter of puppies when I was nine; it was with dog owners with whom I had a bone to pick.

I made my demands clear. We would have a dog that was well trained, wasn't aggressive, liked cats, had good manners and didn't bark a lot. Catherine was interested in a Jack Russell Terrier; she liked how they looked had seen the one on Frazier always getting the last laugh. Plus she wanted to get it as a puppy since she felt this was the best opportunity to bond with a dog and make sure you could brush its teeth. (Besides, as we had seen, the shelters were full of pit bulls and chihauhas.) A puppy! This was all going too fast and I hadn't finished all my reading. I called a professional dog walker for advice; she mentioned that it was very important to train a puppy "bite inhibition". I'd never heard of the term. Now I was really overwhelmed. If we got this wrong we would create a monster.

In Bangkok, I had a friend who whose dog bit me. She loved her dogs, but seemed to know nothing about them, just fawned over them much like I'd seen other dog owners do. When she and I were growing up, dogs were allowed to run lose as has been the custom between humans and dogs living together in villages for eons. At our house the gates were rarely closed, so the dogs ran all over the neighborhood and were happy, well-adjusted, friendly dogs (until they got run over by cars). As Bangkok grew more developed and crime ridden, the wealthy built high cement walls and closed their gates. Now the dogs were not only confined, but were encouraged to be aggressive to strangers, for their primary role were as guard dogs.

The first time I was bitten by dogs, at age fifteen, I wasn't frightened I was in awe. I'd never seen such elegant dogs; they were a pair of Dobermans bearing down on me at a run. Each got a nip in before their owners called them off. The skin wasn't broken, just bruised and the remedy my aunt administered hurt more than the actual biting. I was impressed that the dogs retreated as soon as they heard the command, but I would never forget that dogs, all dogs were potential killers armed with teeth.

My friend's dog was not so well trained. When I came into her house he set to barking furiously. She thought I should give him a treat saying he was probably hungry. This didn't seem right, but I followed her lead and offered him the treat stick. Seeing me approach, he lunged at me and bit my leg, breaking skin. I did nothing. Later I showed off my wound to her friends as a scar of battle, but I was not happy. I wished the dog dead. It lives still—in a cage. Apparently it had bitten someone before—a worker who had come to the house. That was all right, but the dog was supposed to be able to distinguish between working class and high society humans. I was not surprised that it had demoted me. I was clearly a stranger in my own land.

My new found alpha dog personality was now informed by these past grievances and I snapped at Catherine, bringing up all the past transgressions of her last dog, Dutch and the cat too. In response Catherine called off the dog project entirely and was mad at me, but I persevered and secretly watched more training videos.

The German shepherd puppies trained by the Monks of New Skete won me over. They were adorable and the monks were so gentle, yet firm, assuring me that dogs would naturally respond in a civilized manner if some simple training was invested in their upbringing. They emphasized what a privilege it was to develop such a bond with another species. I felt I would be missing out if I didn't try it. When else would I ever have such an opportunity? Just thinking about a dog banished all my thoughts about the coming apocalypse. In fact a dog might be just the thing for the apocalypse to help guard the house and protect us. They were even nomadic should it come to that.

We worked it out and decided to look for a more mellow breed like a Beagle. I put my boat making plans aside and built a dog pen. Before going to check out a litter of Beagle pups, we stopped at the swanky new Silicon Valley Humane Society. The facility was impressively appointed; each dog had its own dorm room. They had no puppies, but as we were there anyway we asked to see two dogs. Catherine picked out a mocha colored Chihauha named Hershey and I opted for Myles the Miniature Pinscher mix.

Hershey was cute, but shy. Catherine got her to sit in her lap and I snapped a picture. Myles was a wriggling ball of energy; he came straight to me, put his paws on my knee and looked at me. I spontaneously grabbed his head, looked into his face and said, "Are you my dog?" Then he was off, throwing a toy into the air and leaping waist high. And just as I was beginning to think that he was too hyper, he got on the ottoman I was sitting on, lay down beside me, rolled over and offered his stomach for me to pet. I did. From all our reading we knew this was a positive sign of submission. He was two years old, a stray; his history unknown.

I admired his powerful body and his black and brown markings just like a Doberman. Catherine liked his puppy friendliness and thought he was a cool dog. Then we thought better of it. He was so high energy and might be too aggressive as a male dog.

We left to visit the Beagle pups. They were living in an Asian family's back yard with the mother. Three bundles of puppy chaos streamed out towards us, making for the food bowl; all were female. They were cute all right, but a handful of uncontrolled energy. The mother was mellow and not very big. I thought we could handle such a dog, but I was still drawn to the athletic Myles. He might actually pull me on my scooter, he was so strong, and dog scootering was an actual sport just like dog sledding. I was quite taken by the idea.

Catherine wanted me to make the choice so I would be equally invested and enthusiastic about our pick. When I chose Myles, she had no hesitation either and back we went to claim him. It tickled her that I had picked a dog so much like Dutch with whom I had so many complaints. I was still cautious about how such a commitment would impact my life, but I was ready to try and Myles had more pluses than minuses. He turned out to be house trained; he loved to cuddle which pleased Catherine; he pulled on his leash all the way home when I walked him which was good and bad; he didn't bark until he saw a cat in the yard so we would have to work on that, but most of all I was proud to be seen with such a fine animal.

I had felt the same way wearing a cowboy hat and riding a horse in Woodside. It gave me a legitimacy to belong to this American class of dog owners walking their dogs; it overpowered my sense of being a minority in a mostly white, wealthy neighborhood. It gave me a cover for trash picking and checking out other people's houses. It was nearly as legitimizing as being a parent for a quarter of the trouble. I felt primed to train this dog—participate in the dog community. Then I could hold my own in this competitive, family oriented culture, even sport a bumper sticker declaring "my dog is smarter than your honor student". Yes, good boy Myles.