Karung Guni Man

The "toot toot" of his klaxon horn echoes through the neighborhood as his drives his lorry down our street, inviting residents to bring out their newspapers, appliances, and other unwanted items, which he buys and reconditions for resale. Our affectionate name for the fellow comes from the Malay words "karung" for "sack", and "guni", referring to the hemp (or jute) material used to contain rice in the old days -- the southeast Asian origin of the term "gunny sack". What may be junk to us is a living for our neighborhood Karung Guni Man.

Tropical Dawn

"Did you hear the cock crow?" Mum asked as I emerged from the air-conditioned bedroom. I shook my head as I breathed in the balmy air that permeated the rest of the un-climate-controlled house. I had been listening intently to Amy Tan and Joan Chen dramatically reading the former's book, "The Bonesetter's Daughter", on my iPOD. At that moment, I felt somewhat sheepish about forgetting to listen for the "welcome home" greeting of our neighbor's fiesty chicken. In an attempt to redeem what I had missed, I paused to discern the familiar sounds of dawn in the tropical suburban neighborhood. The trills, chirps, and hollow "coke coke coke" of resident early-morning birds suddenly filled the air, punctuated with the playful "cak cak cak!" of a house gecko -- or "zee-zak", as we call them in Malay -- roaming the walls of my childhood home.

The Giantess Comes Home

I marvel at how much I feel like a giant each time I return to this house. I've been back almost a dozen times since we moved to the States over a quarter of a century ago, but I still vividly remember views of this place from a much lower vantage point!

Taxi Dancer 44

As we wait to board our 2-legged flight from SF to Singapore, Mum reminisces about my grandmother's best friend's stint as a "taxi dancer". (I'm not sure how it came up, but that's what I appreciate about unpredictable streams of consciousness.) "44", as we all called her, after her street address, and "Ah Fong" -- granny's two closest friends -- both worked in a cabaret as dancers for-hire in Singapore during the 1930s. According to Mum, the service was limited to just dancing. I'd like to read up more about this profession during that era...

Two Year Anniversary

We sent the following (excerpted) message to the 54 hurricane relief volunteers from Sunset Church who comprised the 7 teams dispatched to St. Bernard Parish LA, and Pascagoula MS over the past year. Each volunteer put in at least a week's worth of hard physical labor in gutting and/or rebuilding homes for disadvantaged members of those communities (e.g., disabled, elderly). If you had contributed to this effort, a heartfelt thank you again for helping make it possible.

"Next Wednesday, August 29, will mark the 2-year anniversary since Hurricane Katrina made landfall and wreaked havoc along the U.S. Gulf Coast. You've seen the devastation first-hand. St. Bernard Parish and Pascagoula are just two of many communities along the Gulf Coast that are still rebuilding, 2 years later. You'll probably see a surge in news coverage around this anniversary in the coming days.

We'd like thank each and every one of you again for serving our Lord and living out your faith within the past year by participating in this project. Sunset Church's 8th team of hurricane relief volunteers (Team H) will be in St. Bernard Parish from September 30 to October 6. Please keep [them] in your prayers.

Please also pray for the residents, organizations, and volunteers who are continuing to work hard to get the region back on its feet. Let's not forget them, even when the news coverage ends."

Happy Birthday, Erica!

I don't know who she is, but I just joined a roomful of strangers in singing "Happy Birthday" to her. The glassy-eyed goateed fellow behind the counter who rallied our support conducted our harmony with metronomic fingers, here at Zocalo Coffeehouse in San Leandro, a nice spacious café with dark oak furniture, comfy-looking couches, and (most importantly) free wi-fi. Mmm, smells good in here!

Damn Strawberries...sorry

Eddie Izzard has this hilarious bit about rotting pears.

"So f@$% pears… Pears are like a rock, so you think, “I’ll take them home and they’ll ripen up,” and you put them in a bowl, and they sit there going, “No! No! Don’t ripen yet! Don’t ripen yet! Wait till he goes out of the room! Ripen now! Now! Now!” (mimes pears ripening fast) And you come back in, and you go, “I’ll just have one of these…” (mimes touching a rotten fruit) “Hey, these pears are dead! These are dead pears, man. Hey, what happened, guys?” They’re all going… (laughs like Muttley)." (from Eddie's "Cake or Death" transcript site)

That's what happened to my strawberries, dammit. I prodded them just yesterday, thinking, "They'll last another day, right? Yeah, I'll have them with breakfast tomorrow." Today, I open the fridge, and there they were, covered with white fuzz. I should have guessed they would take revenge, with the ones on top -- the ones I had poked -- donning the thickest fur coats, some of which overflowed to the innocent ones beneath.

In the midst of my fist-shaking, I also can't help but feel some remorse and guilt about the tragedy. They didn't have the chance to live out their purpose in life. Sorry, guys.

In Their Backyard

I attended a community meeting about diesel emissions in West Oakland yesterday. It was fairly well-attended; the air regulators did their best to present dry voluminous data as attractively and succinctly as they could; and good questions were raised by the audience, with environmental scientists clarifying technical issues and community advocates injecting the role of checks-and-balances into the process with their emphatic comments.

On the surface, it seemed like a typical community meeting, with people networking in whispers in the shadows, a presenter trying to connect with the audience by laughingly disparaging herself when a mistake was identified on her slide,…but then a small-framed elderly woman opened her mouth to speak.

I’ve seen Ms. P at most of the town hall meetings I’ve been to in this neighborhood. I dare say she’s one of the matriarchs of West Oakland, having lived there for almost a century. She looks in her 80s, her gentle face dusted with light powder, her wavy curls kept neatly in place with a long hair pin. On this night, her stockinged feet braced themselves in open-toed pumps as she called us out. In a frail but stern voice, she announced that this was not a “community meeting”, as there were hardly any “community folk” there. She calmly snipped at the presenters’ defenses with, “I didn’t receive any postcard” and “No, I don’t want to talk with you one-on-one at the end. Maybe that’s the problem. Explain this now, in front of everyone.”

I scanned my gaze around the room. Sure enough, I was among the 45 of 50 or so participants who would leave West Oakland that night and drive home – home, where our neighborhoods don’t have the distinctions that children are 7 times more likely to be hospitalized for asthma than the average child in the state of California; nearly 82% of the population live within 1/8 mile of an industrial area; 31% of residents are not able to afford the median rent on available housing units (Pacific Institute). Our backyards certainly don’t look much like theirs.

A Googol of Coolness (sort of)

I played chaperone and driver for the College Trak team's field trip to the Google campus in Mountain View recently. I think we adults were more wide-eyed and excited about it than the dozen 13- to 18-year olds whom we were accompanying!

As we traversed the high-tech campus on foot, we caught glimpses of riders coasting by on blue bicycles with orange flags and figures leaning to make their segway scooters go. Employees share these alternative modes of transportation to travel between the nine buildings, just a couple of many examples of how Google is working towards its goal of achieving carbon neutrality by the end of the year. And the facilities and services! Huge gym, endless pools (a.k.a. swimmer's treadmills), mini arcades, masseuses,...and cafes with an incredible variety of foods. My lunch consisted of Indian, Italian, Mexican, and Chinese fare. *burp*

En route to and from Google, my apprehension about not being able to "connect" with my assigned teens was at least temporarily relieved by music and a brief crisis -- universal themes that can often bring people together. My inbound ride with the three guys began with the usual boring questions about how their summer was going, when does school start again, blah blah, followed by awkward silence interrupted occasionally by fast-fingered texting and occasional grunts that accompanied butts shifting in their seats. Then my Roadtrip Mix 2006 CD pumped out Eminem's "Lose Yourself", awakening the stoic young men from their torpid state. I wonder if my Hyundai will ever experience such kickin' rap grooves in its backseat again. The Chili Peppers also bridged the generation gap during the heavy guitar bit in "By the Way", which elicited some impressive head banging. Then an 80s big-hair ballad came on, and I resumed my state of uncool (at least in their minds). But how I reveled in those few preceding moments!

My young carpoolers and I shared a few special moments again on our way home, when I got a flat tire. They seemed to feel empowered when guiding me through rush hour traffic as I flip flopped to the next freeway exit. I was touched by how they yelled, "yaa, shaddup!" at the impatient cars who honked and tailed us as we limped to the gas station, and kept repeating, "you're good" over my shoulder in encouragement. Aw shucks...

BART Ride

• The aged grandfather nods gratefully at the young man with the Don Johnson shadow, his smile deepening the creases on his worn and chiseled Asian face. He falls into the vacated seat as the train picks up speed, pulling a writhing 4-year old onto his lap.
  
  
• An attractive youthful girl grins at herself in a compact mirror as she brushes blush on her raised cheeks, occasionally flashing seductive glances at her reflection and sweeping a bouncy orange curl from her face.
  
  
• A gay multi-racial couple engages in light-hearted conversation, leaning into each other and playfully brushing fingers across the other's arm as they share a laugh.
  
  
• A brawny Latin man with black cords running from his ears to a turquoise MP3 player tightens his grip on the ceiling rail as the train lurches, revealing a fierce tattoo of intertwined sea monsters resembling those on ancient maritime maps beneath his wide leather cuffed wristwatch.
  
  
• An elderly couple with snow white hair shuffle in tentatively and are immediately offered seats. The lady, looking snug in her wispy pink rabbit fur cardigan and wearing ruby red loafers reminiscent of Dorothy’s slippers, clutches her partner’s bent arm and joins him in staring, bewildered, at the train map across the aisle.
  
  
• We know we’ve arrived downtown when passengers adopt “I, Robot” behavior, where as each batch of commuters steps off the train, another group files into position at the door entrance, evenly-spaced and ready to disembark at the next stop.
  
  
• Ads plastered next to the doors and at the far ends of the train car read:
  
  • “Get Metro PCS for $35 per month, unlimited long distance and local wireless.”
    
  • “Flex Your Power: Saving energy. It’s a Way of Life”
    
  • “Burger King:: Now you can pay rent and eat. BK breakfast value menu, 10 items starting at $1 each.”
    
  • “Whose bag? If you see something unusual, say something. Trust your instincts. Report unattended items.”
    
  
  Signs of the times.
  

Happy Birthday, Eema!

Today is my Mum's older sister's 80th birthday.
I hope I'm as wise, spunky, and inspiring as she is when I reach her age!

IMAX + 3D = WHOA!!

We watched “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” on IMAX the other day. Did you know it features 20 minutes of the most exciting scenes in 3D?? Oh my goodness…UNbelievable. And to see 150 hard-core fans donned with oversized glasses and goofy grins on our wide-eyed faces must have been priceless. “A” commented that the auditorium was a perfect setting for a groupthink study. When the row of green glasses flashed across the bottom of the screen, indicating that it was time to put on our funny shades, a murmuring hum traveled across the room, with folks gasping “Oh, it’s time” to one another while putting on their own, as if making sure that no one was left out. And for us, 3D meant an increase in intensity of flinching and tight grips on neighbors' arms. (Sweetie, are the bruises gone yet...?)

Dawn Phenomenon

I originally started writing this post with the intention of using the phrase, “Dawn Phenomenon”, in a humorous way to refer to my tendency to wake up feeling “high”, as if the mere opening of my eyelids flips on a switch that fires up my synapses all at once. As my guy has observed, usually with a bemused smirk, it is during these first few moments of the day that I’m bustling about, accomplishing more than I would in several hours and talking a mile a minute about how we can save the world.

But on a more serious note, “Dawn Phenomenon” is also a condition experienced by some diabetics whose blood sugar levels spike overnight. A quick Google search reveals that it results from the release of certain hormones during the early morning hours that causes an increase in insulin resistance, and other hormones that add stored or new glucose to the bloodstream. This especially sucks for diabetics, who lack the ability to produce or properly use insulin to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy.

For a personal perspective on DP and managing diabetes, check out the blog by Mr. Dawn Phenomenon, who gives the humbling statistic: “If all the diabetics were in one country, it would be the eighth largest nation in the world.”

Transform Our Communities

My community work has proven time and time again the truism of the adage, “it takes a village to raise a child.” From another angle, “nobody is an island”. And ironically, in this day in age of rampant distrust – of faltering political leadership, of “bad people” who might want to do us harm – this piece of wisdom needs to shine. I believe that the “village” concept can be the foundation of a movement to transform our communities and our society to one where we can band together in trust and to challenge social injustices.

I know that there are many reasons for a wise person to glance over his shoulder, furrow a skeptical brow at mere rhetoric, double-lock his front door and avoid eye-contact with strangers. I don’t claim to be naïve about that and know that there are many things over which we have no control and therefore must be cautious. But I refuse to accept that gone are the days of trusting others to watch out for us, the days when we could assume that people are doing good for each other for good’s sake and not for personal gain. I believe that community can be revived and fostered, and that this renewed trust can be the basis for efforts to defend each other from harm.

It starts in our own homes and how we treat the ones who are closest to us. Show graciousness and kindness to those who put up with us. Then, over time, allow this graciousness to overflow outside our home, to our neighbors, our co-workers, even strangers on the streets. (Ever smiled at a grim-looking passer-by and watch their face light up?)

Social injustices abound, but they don’t have to. They can be challenged, opposed by those who will not tolerate them. The community can stand up for the rights of the alienated, the down-trodden, the disadvantaged. I believe that community can make a difference. We can move towards fostering a good neighborhood by being good neighbors ourselves.