Books in Beijing

I just read the latest email newsletter from The Bookworm in Beijing where, in addition to the monthly single-malt Wednesday, they are hosting a film series (Visions of China: six generations of Chinese filmmaking), a bluegrass band, an open mike session for musicians (Basically Beethoven), a Sunday Salon with a violinist presiding, a writer's workshop, and Colm Toibin reading from his latest novel, Brooklyn.

The Bookworm is a strange and lovely place--a bookstore that is smaller than many book sections that I have known and loved in the past, but with well-chosen volumes on its shelves, a library that is huge and disorganized and like a Salvation Army book department where I found a Skagit Valley cookbook with recipes from Pacific Northwest authors and others, a restaursnt with food that is Western, imaginatively named in literary fashion, and marginally edible in British fashion (stick to the desserts), and a carefully nurtured single-malt scotch selection.

It is the brainchild of an English literary empire-builder named Alexandra Pearson, who has scattered her stores past Beijing and into Chengdu and Suzhou, and may go international, according to a Beijing staff member, with possible stores in Bangkok and Canberra. This woman's ambition is only exceeded by her energy--when she moves through her store, the air crackles.

Just one of the events that she has going on in November would have Bangkok on its ear--bookstores are not destinations of activity in this city. In fact, it's hard for me to think of any bookstore in the States that has the diversity of the Bookworm--a bar, a restaurant, a music venue, a library, a place to buy new books, a center for a literary festival that attracts truly fine writers, a spot for readings year-round after that festival is over, regular Quiz Nights and Scotch tastings and recently a month-long series of events dealing with the evolution of the species.

It is not perfect--some of the literary events are so tedious that they verge on the smug side and one author remarked that only two of his books were available for him to sign ( a rival Beijing bookstore who also hosted him had the man's entire literary output, which considering that it is mostly in paperback is not a huge outlay). But it is a vibrant, growing, enticing spot in the citiesI have visited and it always offers something to attract a widely diverse audience, from booklovers to pubcrawlers.

And it leaves me wondering why is The Bookworm the only store I have found to encompass music and food and alcohol and games and a lending library and a bookstore and a place for writers to read and discuss their work and a film festival and god knows what else Alexandra Pearson will come up with?

It could be reason enough to move to China--unless of course The Bookworm comes to Bangkok...

P.S. It's Gone

Bailey-Coy is closing and my heart cracks a little more. The wit of their windows and the beauty of their selections can never be replaced. So many years of bookselling history, gone--"All changed, changed utterly." Stars are burning out and will be missed by people who loved to walk in starlight.

Will somebody please tell Michael Wells that I love him?

Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone...

Thirty years ago I fell in love with a bookstore. I am 60 years old which means I have loved this store for half of my life--and I worked in it for 0ne-sixth of the time I have been on earth. My dream was that someday I would write a book that would be on the shelves of this place that I loved, and that dream came true. I was also allowed to read there, and the wonderful booksellers that make this store the object of desire for all bibliophiles put my book on their bestseller wall and made a window for it recently. I would be blissfully happy--except for the news that this bookstore is in peril. It may move; it could close. My heart is breaking.

The Elliott Bay Book Company is part of my bones and blood and history. When I think of where my home is in the world, first I think of my sons and then I think of Elliott Bay. For it to move from the building that it has made its home from the day it first opened its doors would be a deep sadness. For it no longer to exist would tarnish the rest of my life.

"It's so far from my house." "There's no parking." "It's in a neighborhood with too many street people." I've heard all of the reasons why people don't go to Elliott Bay--unless they have visitors from out of town and they want to show them one of the reasons why Seattle is a splendid place to live. But on the other hand, my sister in Alaska ordered my book in quantity from Elliott Bay because of their support for it--even though she could have found discounted copies in other venues.

Elliott Bay has a website ( www.elliottbaybook.com) and an 800 number. It has gift certificates that it will mail to anyplace in the world. It is easy to support this place--even if you live continents away.

If all of us who have ever spent an afternoon in this store--or who have grown up playing in the store's castle for children--or who have stood behind the podium in the basement's reading room--would buy one book from this store that has been there for us since the '70s, perhaps it will still be there for a new crop of readers in 2070. Thousands and thousands of people have received hours of enjoyment from Elliott Bay Book Company. Now it's time to show how much it

has meant to all of us. Please, please buy a book or three from this store while we still can.

Powerless on the Ground Floor

It wasn't until we were approaching the Bangkok airport that I realized I had packed my house keys in my suitcase. After two weeks of roaming through Beijing, I had forgotten that I would eventually need to reenter my Thailand existence and now I was much too tired to rummage through my luggage. It was easier to call one of my housemates and ask him to leave the gate open for me, and then follow up the call with a text message once I had collapsed into a taxi.

But nothing is easy in the City of Angels and when I went out of the airport to where the taxi-stands had been, they were gone. In their place were the Airport Authority of Thailand's overpriced limousines at every exit until I reached the last one where a sign told me that public taxis had been moved to the ground floor. Obviously this is how the airport decided to clean up the tout problem--by substituting their own scam for the freelance variety. Any tired traveler arriving for the first time would decide this was the only way to get to the city and would end up paying far too much for an AOT vehicle--welcome to Thailand!

When I finally entered my house, there was an unhealthy preponderance of extension cords and plug-in strips all over the floor. "No electricity," the housekeeper chortled--and sure enough, the ground floor was in a blackout, with the refrigerator plugged into an extension cord that led to a socket in an upstairs bedroom. I was awake for a huge portion of the night, listening for the sounds of an electrical fire.

The rumor going around our household today is that "Yes, a man is coming to fix the electric problem." Although the housekeeper is completely unconvinced that this is necessary--after all, she fixed it didn't she? There's an emergency light in the entryway and the refrigerator's running. Dangerous? Oh those crazy foreigners--how they do worry...

I'm more than ready to move to Beijing.

The Blessings of Empire

The gates of the British Club were closed when I arrived there late for lunch and a sign clearly said No Entry, Go to Silom 18 which was a far piece from where I was standing. Retreating to the garden of the nearby library I called my host who said of course you can enter there—that sign is only meant for cars—so I did, was approved by the security guard, and made my way past the tennis courts to the covered lounge area near the pool.

At that point I felt much like a peasant as well as a barbarian at the gates and my ensuing table talk lacked zest. My host and I turned with some relief to the menu, which was mammoth and double-sided with Thai, European and British offerings. It offered a long string of morning meal choices—a true English breakfast straight out of a Nancy Mitford novel with chips and fried kidneys and baked beans and toast and eggs-- more than I can remember but there were no brains on the list—and I discovered a substantial number of buttie options, which had me entranced. I saw no chip butties, which I had thought were the only kind extant, but the one that leaped off the menu for me was the one made with black pudding.

My host looked concerned and suggested scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on toast instead but soon I was served an unadorned, ungarnished white plate which had at its direct center a large white bun, sliced in half with a generous yellow aura of what was perhaps butter but tasted quite a bit like very salty margarine, and two small brown hockey pucks placed in between the slices of bread.

In a state of absolute delight, I cut a small piece of this stunning example of real British food and put a fragment of the pudding, which had the consistency of very dry pate, on the end of my fork. What I tasted was salt and pepper and a suggestion of bouillon cubes. The pudding crumbled slightly when cut and there were little white chunks dispersed in it like chocolate chips in a cookie that tasted a lot like diced and boiled potato. The bun was squishy and the melted yellow substance seemed nourishing, in the same way that whale blubber is. This was more than I had hoped for.

“Buttie is for the butter then,” I remarked with barely restrained joy to my lunch companion, “Do you know what the pudding is made of?”

“Yes, I do,” he responded, “but I didn’t want to tell you until you had finished eating.”

“Please do,” I begged, and was less than surprised when he said, “Blood and fat.” I thought briefly of a friend’s hospitalization after she had eaten blood pudding in Morocco, assured myself this wasn’t delicious enough to be lethal, and decided, “It has the same shape and consistency of the Boston brown bread that comes in a can.” I was proud of finding this small and tenuous trace of the British Empire in the former colonies but my Canadian lunch comrade, while agreeing with me, looked a bit depressed.

His own buttie was supposed to contain an egg as well as ham but all that lay between it were two thin and languid slices of pink animal flesh, and his small Greek salad which he asked to have “lots of black olives” had precisely three, all of which looked like the ones that provided the same touch of class at our Thanksgiving dinners in Alaska as the Boston brown bread did and also came out of a can. My host looked even gloomier than he had when we had chosen our breakfasts from the menu, while I was possessed with a very crazed glee.

“Do have something else,” he urged with a large degree of gallantry as I chewed my way through my substantial buttie. I restrained myself from saying “Oh I couldn’t possibly. Thank you ever so,” and instead managed a polite “No thank you, this is just what I needed.”

I thought of saying “It’s nowhere near as disgusting as poutine,” and then quickly remembered that my tablemate had spent his childhood in northern Quebec. Instead I assured him that I was actually quite fond of blood and mentioned the chunks found in my soup on Chokchai Ruammit and the small frozen bits of raw moose that I used to enjoy as a child, when my father butchered a fresh kill on the kitchen table. My host muttered a reply that I assumed was a pleasantry because his manners are impeccable.

I long to come back to the British Club someday for the delights of a full English breakfast but somehow I doubt that I will ever be asked to return. I don’t think English food is expected to afford quite so much unrestrained enjoyment as it clearly did for me. Yet I take deep comfort in knowing that—in Bangkok at least—there will always be an England.

From Bad Albert's to Nonthaburi

There's nothing too extraordinary about drinking a Cadillac margarita while eating a really good hamburger with a side of tater tots--pleasant enough but nothing to make you gasp--unless of course you're eating it in the depths of Nonthaburi, Thailand. Then it's close to the stuff that really good acid trips were made of.

A month before I was in the depths of Ballard, Seattle eating an equally good hamburger, drinking a beer and reading the menu at a place that was so neighborhood and ungentrified that everyone over the age of 65 seemed to congregate there in the afternoon to work on their crossword puzzles. It was quiet and sunlit and seemed like the sort of diner where the coffee was still made in a percolator. I was checking out the other locations where the owner had similar dens of iniquity and good food when I read something that stopped me cold. "Excuse me," I asked our waiter, "but do you really have a barbecue joint in Nonthaburi? And is that Nonthaburi in Thailand? Or is it maybe a suburb near Mukilteo?"

It was indeed a spot in Thailand, only a matter of kilometers from where I live, and as I discovered when the owner of the place later chased me down the sidewalk saying, "The waiter said you wanted to talk about Thailand," it had barbecued ribs and honest-to-god hamburgers and rootbeer floats and margaritas that did not resemble a slushy from 7-11.

I was enchanted. Every so often I yearn for a taste of the Old Country and MacDonald's or Tony Roma's simply doesn't cut it. I was also skeptical--how could anything from the American West survive in a town as small and as resolutely unhip as Nonthaburi, which is known for its durian orchards and for its terminus for the commuter boats that travel up and down the Chao Phraya

River? Yet I love taking the river boats and I am always optimistic about new food possibilities, so I persuaded several friends to make an expedition into unknown territory in search of real American food.

It was a varied group that climbed onto the boat to Nonthaburi--my housemate Rod whose formative years were spent in Texas and who then was seasoned in the wilds of Idaho, my housemate Zam who had lived in and near Bangkok for his entire twenty-something life and whose idea of American food came from Pizza Hut, KFC , and other US franchises that had become standard sights of the Thai landscape, Rod's friend Jom who is a fashion designer of some note and had spent a fair amount of time sampling the culinary delights of roadside diners while escaping from New York and Los Angeles during his sojourn in the states, and me.

We zipped along the river of kings, passing pagodas, temples, mosques, and palaces, all looking out of place, of another time, and as though they could easily suck us into their world and hold us there forever. It was a relief to reach the lights and bustle and taxis at the Nonthaburi pier, and to be back securely in our own time and place, speeding in a cab down a suburban road.

Suburban it was but a Thai suburb, which means that among the strip malls and housing developments were wide swathes of greenery and an occasional wooden house and a bovine animal or two wandering down the side of the road. We pulled into one of the strip malls where a sign announced we had reached Barbecue Sandwich King and then we walked into a highway joint in America.

But this was the America of my childhood, where the owner wanted to know our names and told us to call him Mark. He began to handcraft our margaritas while the smell of frying meat filled the air and we all waited for the moment of truth--was this the real thing or a very convincing fraud?

Our silence said it all, as we shared bites of barbecued ribs and pulled pork in a sandwich and a hamburger that would choke any horse I've ever met and a vegiburger that provided the only rice that any of us ate that night. We made small appreciative sounds and ate and sampled and suddenly were staring at empty plates. And we all knew we had discovered America even before Jom observed, "If this were Thai food, we would still be eating. We've come so far and we've eaten so fast."

Food is culture, and usually I experience Thai culture with Thai friends eating Thai food. But it makes me feel happy to know that beyond the outskirts of the Bangkok metropolitan area is a spot where I can go with my Thai friends and for one short moment be in a part of America that can be difficult to find even in the States. Thanks Bad Albert--long live Barbecue Sandwich King.

The Best Medicine is Affordable Medicine

I’ve been sick in the U.S. and I’ve been sick in Thailand–and believe me, Thailand is better.

Recently a cold that I thought had disappeared from my life and lungs resurfaced and with a vengeance. After six days of coughing and using a box of Kleenex every twenty-four hours, a rapidly rising temperature sent me off to the local clinic in search of a palliative other than my usual Tiger Balm and ginger tea remedy.

Neighborhood clinics are staffed by doctors who arrive after their shift in a hospital, so while I was there when the doors opened by five in the afternoon, the doctor arrived some minutes later. Soon I was directed to a simple office behind a faded floral curtain that served as a door. I was asked a few key questions, had my throat examined, and since the receptionist had already taken my temperature and pronounced it well above normal, was told somewhat briskly that I had an infection. "Get lots of sleep," I was told and when I responded that I'd slept badly for five nights, was asked, "Do you want me to give you something to help you sleep?" (Do you want me to give you the keys to the gates of heaven? Oh yes please...)

A nurse met me in another small room where I lay on an examination table and had a shot of penicillin injected so gently that I could barely tell when the needle went into my skin. I was then given five little plastic baggies that contained medicine, a face mask to keep me from infecting others, directions to drink warm water and eat vegetables, and was sent home to bed.

No blood pressure taken, no climbing onto a scale for public humiliation (always such fun when in a weakened state), no pre-scripted questions about smoking, alcohol intake, or possible domestic abuse–just medical care of the most basic and effective kind.

The cost? About twenty-six dollars. The conclusion? If you’re going to be sick, be sure that it happens in a developing country

Be Careful of Who You Teach...

I inherited Bee from another teacher and she was not a high spot in my day—a stolid, silent and stout eleven-year-old, she had none of the spark I longed for in a student and we played countless games of Scrabble while we tried to find some common ground to talk about.

It was her mother who provided this for us when she decided Bee should take her weekly lesson in the comfort of her own home after school rather than going to our site. It was a pleasant enough spot to sit and work in, surrounded by Bee’s dogs, which gave us a peg to base conversations upon and Bee slowly began to chat to me in English.

One day I arrived to find her fussing about with the microwave and she came to the table with a snack made of eggs and melted cheese. These are two things that I am less than enthusiastic about putting in my mouth and I tried not to cover my nose when the odor of hot dairy products wafted in my direction.

“Here, have some,” Bee invited, and I explained to her how much I didn’t like either of the culinary delights she was so eager to share with me. “Oh but you must like cheese and eggs—they are so good, “she assured me, a pucker of worry appearing on her plump little forehead. “I never have liked eggs and I don’t like cheese anymore,” I told her and the subject was dropped, although Bee still looked unconvinced.

The next time I arrived at her doorstep, she greeted me with great delight and said, “Look—a surprise for you!” And there on the table was a steaming plate of eggs and cheese. “I made it for you,” Bee announced proudly, “It is so good—you will love it.”

I had worked hard to get the child to this point of communication and her persuasive techniques definitely deserved to be encouraged. In the interests of fostering her linguistic competence in a language not her own, I sat down and managed to swallow every bite of the dish she had prepared, assuring her that it was very good indeed. “I knew you would like eggs and cheese,” she said, and there was a note of triumph in her voice that made me just a trifle uneasy.

Bee’s confidence soared from that moment and I occasionally wished for the shy and silent child I had met at the outset of our time together. Our chats moved from conversation to advice sessions; it became obvious that Bee knew what was best and that in her eyes my life needed her guidance.

“You like dogs, don’t you?” she asked one afternoon, “You should have one. Why don’t you go to Jatujak Market and buy one on your day off? I will go with you and help you pick one out. My father will drive us there.”

I had never met Bee’s father but felt quite sure that he would probably take his daughter wherever she liked and that any resistance to her plan would have to come from me.

“I can’t have a dog, Bee. I live in an apartment and they don’t allow pets there. I can’t even have a kitten.”

“Why don’t you live in a house so you can have a dog?” she asked, that little furrow of concern creasing her forehead in a way that was beginning to cause me a certain degree of healthy fear.

“I can’t afford a house,” I said firmly, “Houses cost too much money for me.”

“I think you should have a dog,” she repeated softly. I smiled and opened her textbook and we moved into her lesson. But I felt uneasy; Bee had given up too easily for me to believe that this discussion was over.

In the following weeks, enticing photographs of puppies greeted me each time I entered Bee’s home. “Look,” she would say excitedly, “Isn’t this cute? You would like this dog, I think.” “Very cute,” I would agree warmly, “but you know I can’t have a dog in an apartment.” “But you would like this dog. I think you should have it.” This became a familiar preface to our two-hour lesson period and I began to lose my feelings of apprehension—until the day came that Bee greeted me with the classified ad section of the Bangkok Post.

“Look at this house!” she said happily, “It is not very expensive and it is very close to my house. I think you would like this house.”

“Bee, I've already told you I don’t make enough money to rent a house,” I replied.

“It’s all right,” she told me, “I have talked to my father and told him you want to have a dog. He says he can lend you the money to rent a house and you can teach me for free to pay him back. It’s a good idea, isn’t it? I think you will be happy in this house.”

I looked at the beaming child standing before me and suddenly found it difficult to breathe. “Bee, I have a very bad headache and I need to go home now,” I said and made for the door as quickly as possible. Another teacher who owed me a favor took over the class the following week. He was a guy who already had a house and a dog so I figured he was safe—at least just so long as he liked to eat cheese.

The Strange Sensation of Feeling at Home

There were rare moments when I was a child when the wind shook our house, rain spat against the windows, my mother would make a huge vat of popcorn and we would all take a holiday from the work of keeping a house warm and functioning in the middle of an Alaskan nowhere. I'd sit with a book and a bowl of popcorn, listening to the wind and feeling there was no other place I would rather be.

The rest of my life has had few of these moments. No matter where I was or how happy I felt to be with the people I loved, I was perpetually restless, thinking of someplace to go with them that wasn't our home. As a wife and mother, I was continually planning or packing for our next trip and when we bought our first house and the realtor told us the average American changed residences every five years, I was vastly relieved that purchasing did not mean permanence.

Which is why what I am feeling now in the house I recently moved into with friends seems very strange to me. I wake up, make coffee, open the door to my balcony and start writing. Light hits the pale yellow wall that faces my doorway and turns the green of the elephant ear plant that is in my direct line of vision into a color that is both piercing and restful. Later when I move into the large room that has become the household office, palm leaves on the verandah outside filter the sharp hot afternoon light and my eyes feel the coolness of those potted trees when I glance up from my keyboard. Best all is twilight, when the smoooth wooden stairs under my bare feet take me to an open terrace where ice clinks in a glass of vodka tonic and the eastern clouds take on reflected colors from the sunset and the fading light slowly turns to a pale violet, then disappears.

Every morning, before I open my eyes, I wonder where my passport is and what I need to pack. Then I see my curtains floating near me in a mild form of St Vitus dance, feel warm air against my skin, and I am happy to be where I am, in a house of light and air and space and green leaves. With no urge to rush off into another place, I realize that finally I have found my home.

In the Footsteps of Martha

Usually when I throw around the name "Martha" I'm referring to Gellhorn but there's nothing like moving into a new house to turn a woman's attention towards that redoubtable ex-felon, Martha Stewart. It was with that uber-hausfrau in mind that I went off to the Huay Kwang market yesterday, in search of kaffir limes.

These prehistoric-looking bumpy bits of fruit have a lovely sharp scent when they are pricked with a fork and I thought they would be the sort of elegant and fragrant decorative touch that Ms Stewart would well approve of--rather like orange and clove pomander balls without the bleeding thumbs that come with studding the oranges with dried cloves. So i wandered past crabs in bondage, helplessly twitching their shackled claws, and enough pig organs to build a Frankenstein's porcine monster and piles of fish that were still so fresh that they emitted no odor at all until at last I came upon the object of my quest.

I happily sniffed my way back home, poking limes with my fingernail and holding them to my nostrils as I stood on the subway. I proudly showed them to the guys I live with, and made them enjoy the fragrance before I made little lime still-life arrangements in my bedroom and our office.

It wasn't until much later that Rod said, "When I smell those little limes, I think of the restrooms in clubs. They're cut up and put in the urinals there to keep the odor down." Suddenly I understood why none of my housemates were as enthusiastic about my latest home decor effort as I was, and felt a stab of relief that I wasn't one of the gender who associates the smell of kaffir limes with that of urine.

The woman who sold me the limes told me she uses them to wash her hair and I had thought the juice would make a nice final rinse with its fragrance lingering after my shampoo. But since I know every man who walked past me would immediately think of public urinals, I'm not so eager to try that particular beauty tip--and I now know why some of my male friends surgically remove every kaffir lime leaf that appears in their servings of green curry.