Who Ashed in My Bomb: A Summer Through Asia

CROSS COUNTRY CHINA
A blanket of smog covers each city. The rivers that still run, run with mud. The bathrooms are three by two foot rooms with a hole in the middle that you wouldn't lock your worst enemy in. And yet you would have to be blind not to find beauty in this country.
A thirteen year old girl translates for her father who is so proud to be having a beer and a conversation with an American. Basketball players invite me to play a pick-up game with them and all want to know what I think of Yao Ming. A Chinese-Mongol frequently walks over to the bar to toast us and “show good will on behalf of his people.” When our glasses touch he ensures that his is lower than mine. The children working in hay fields in the shadow of the Qilian Mountains waving to my train filled with college girls traveling home for the summer. Some with the first university degree ever earned in their family packed away in their Hello Kitty bags, just waiting to be gloated over by their parents and grandparents. The musicians that play iconic American rock songs like Hotel California and their own version of Johnny B. Good, that substitutes “Be Be Bah Bah” (no translation) for the refrain. Young engineers getting ready to rebuild Sichuan Province in wake of the earthquake, make a point to tell me how much the donations given by foreigners will help.
A man who spent his schooldays memorizing quotes from Chairman Mao's Little Red Book (the second most published book in the world) points out the anti-American lines to my friend, Chris, and laughs about them. An old woman, whose eyes have seen decades of China's dynamic transformation, wakes up one morning to witness yet another milestone, the Olympic torch passing through her town. She laughs the loudest heartiest laugh you have ever heard at the two big Americans in front of her wearing Jie Yo Zhong Guo (Come On China!) headbands. Then she laughs even harder when she sees her picture with us on my digital camera. And the children that will one day inherit this country stare in astonishment at these big things called Waiguorens (foreigners). Some we are able to win over with a smile or a sticker. Others hide, crying behind their giggling mothers.

And then there were the people that made your heart ache, and all the good intentions in the world seem meaningless. Women that were way too young and much too beautiful, laying around watching soap operas, waiting for a man to walk in and purchase their services for 100 RMB ($14). A Kyrgyz-Chinese college student who grew up in a yurt in northwest China, less than 100 miles from Kyrgystan. He would love to visit his homeland, but knows that he will never be able to afford the outrageous price (over $4,000) China charges certain minority groups to attain a passport. His family charges me $5 a night to sleep in one of their yurts. A city street cleaner in northwest China takes a break from his $26 per month job to show me his perfect English, Chinese and Uighur (similar to Arabic) script. If I didn't know any better I would almost think he had Catholic nuns teach him all three. A recent college graduate who speaks fluent Chinese, English, Mongol and conversational Japanese is depressed about having to go back to her hometown to teach for Chinese pennies. She says she hopes to save enough so that one day she can travel around the world like me. And all I can do is wonder how people that are so much smarter than me, and work so much harder than I do, can have such bleak futures in front of them.

I wait to fly out of the Urumqi Airport, 2,000 miles from Beijing, seventeen days before China takes the world stage at the Olympics. I think about each person I met along the way. I think about those people that were so proud of their country and the direction it was moving in. And all I can do is wonder if any of that fortune and any of that optimism will find its way to the minority areas, to the coal miners in Gansu province, to the girls in those brothels. And I just hope that when China becomes the developed, world superpower that she is on a fast track to becoming, that she will never lose all of those indescribable qualities that made traveling across her by train such an unforgettable experience. I board my plane relieved that I will be absent for all the chaos the Olympics will bring, and happy that I will be returning in one month, to have one more year to observe the fastest changing, most volatile country on earth, and to learn more about these intriguing people that make up one fifth of our world.

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA
KL is a modern city where the majority of the people come from Indian, Malay and Chinese ethnic backgrounds. In the Bukit Bintang neighborhood where I stayed you could find just about every ethnicity of restaurants within a couple blocks. The reasons people have migrated there vary from, “The British took my grandfather from India to fight against the Japanese in World War II,” to “I just don't want to be in Iraq right now.” The cab drivers are worldlier than your average teacher or businessman and the Thai Ladyboys (transvestites) are better looking than any girl you could find in a bar on McLean Avenue in Yonkers.

LAOS
The babies in Laos don't cry. The mothers go about their day buying cooking ingredients, chatting with friends they meet along dirt roads, as their babies lay wrapped in a sarong around their back. In between naps they open their eyes and look around their world in quiet astonishment. They look at the stray dogs sprawled out in the middle of streets. They watch young boys jumping off wooden bridges into the muddiest rivers in town and loving every second of it, and older boys kicking a soccer ball barefoot through bamboo goalposts. And they watch Moms manage to ride their motorbikes with three kids on board. The older ones sit behind her. One holding an umbrella to shield them from the glaring sun. The youngest one, three or four years old, in front with his arms stretched to the max to hold the pedals. His eyes are so unflinchingly fixed on the road the babies probably think he is the one driving.

TV is a short, humble Lao man, just one month older than me. We are looking at bomb craters large enough to hold a small parking lot, and some with enough water to fill a public pool. He tells me how his old neighbor once commented on how kind the Americans are, “I use to have to walk many miles to catch my fish for the day,” the old man said, “Now I have a lake right in my own backyard.” We walk up the side of a bushy green mountain and into a long, rubble filled cave. In the 1960s, as Laos was earning its reputation as the most bombed country on earth, and American fighter pilots were ordered to bomb anything that moved in this area, and farmers were forced to farm at night to feed their families, and children grew up being “afraid of the sky,” this cave was the only place in the countryside of Northern Laos where life could hold some sense of continuity. Hospitals treated patients, children attended school, and according to the Pentagon, and not necessarily untrue, some communist soldiers laid their heads to rest at night.
But on the morning of November 24, 1968, those mothers and children awoke to the sound of two US missiles crashing into their mountain and just missing Tham Pu Cave. I think about the faces of those beautiful, filthy children playing this second in nearby Bomb Village, where fences, ashtrays and even some of the foundations of houses are made from 35 to 44 year old American bombs. And if any child, on that morning in '68 had gone to the edge of this cave to look at the sight my eyes are fixed on, a still, grassy valley surrounded by lush green mountains, they would have also seen in that blue sky a US fighter jet circle back around the mountain to shoot a third and irredeemable missile right through their cave, ending the lives of all 374 Laotians that were relatively happy to call Tham Pu Cave home. An act that to this day is commemorated as the nation’s National Remembrance Day. A day when all people in Laos remember not only the past dwellers of Tham Pu Cave, but all of the 350,000 Lao men, women and children (10% of Laos' wartime population) that died during the Secret War. They also remember the 30,000 and counting that have died since the last bomb was dropped in 1973 from the estimated 23 million cluster bombs that failed to explode when they were dropped. They remember eight children that went out to play on a winter day in 1997, probably while I was playing basketball at Bregano Park. They found a bomb. Seven died. The one survivor, a three year old boy, lost an ear and the ability to walk. A mother remembers it as the day she was told that all three of her children are gone. My friend, TV, remembers the day when two local 12-year-old boys went out looking for trouble, like all 12-year-olds do. One of the boys, TV's little brother, thinking they were at a safe distance away shot a sling shot at a small metal object. Because of his position behind his friend, TV's brother took a couple pieces of shrapnel through his chest, but lived to one day earn a full scholarship to study in Thailand, one of just 30 students in the entire country that year to do so. His childhood friend died right there in that paddy field. At a nearby orphanage, more than one hundred children think about their own memorable day, in the not so distant past, when their parents working in the rice fields, accidentally whacked a hoe against a buried cluster bomb, giving each one the permanent title of orphan. As I walk out of the Tham Pu Cave, the idea that life makes sense has forever left me.

MYANMAR (BURMA)
I am sitting on a stool at a bus stop in Shwenyaung. The only other person around is an old military officer sitting next to me. He wears a green uniform with a red and white patch on his shoulder collecting 500 kyat notes (50 cents) from long haul drivers that quickly run out of their vehicles to pay him. I begin to think about all this man represents. The Junta, the ruling military government, 350,000 strong, that has ruled and devastated this land since 1962. Fixing elections, alienating the brightest free thinkers, killing anyone that speaks out against their authority, and preserving a society run by fear. Less than one year ago soldiers like this man, opened fire and killed more than thirty people, mostly Buddhist monks. Their only crime was to protest peacefully in the streets. Maybe deep down I am simply annoyed that my bus is 2 hours and 45 minutes late, but I feel like getting up and punching this guy.
And then he turns, shows me his black teeth and rotten gums through a big grin and says, “Where you from?” He knows only two cities in America, New York and Los Angeles, and fortunately for our conversation I am from one of them. I can not help but like the old man. We talk as much as his limited English and my three Burmese words allow us to until my bus finally shows up. He shakes my hand gently and says, “Have good trip.” I guess sometimes no one tells the bad guys that they are the bad guys.
There are no seats on the bus so I climb on to the roof and find a roped down spare tire to hang on to for the next two hours. There are three other Burmese men riding on the roof that do not speak a word of English, wearing army camouflage colored jackets. I take a close look at the emblem on their chests, “USA.” The jackets are knock offs from the local market. I am riding into the next town with the good guys.

I walk into a dimly lit bar in a small town in central Myanmar. There are only a handful of male patrons, the bartender and an orange cat in attendance, but still there is no seat available for me. A stocky man grabs the cat by his neck and flings him out the door. I have a seat. I sit down next to a middle aged man. I can tell from the look in his eyes that he has had one too many Myanmar beers. We are not able to communicate much, but I do get across that I am a teacher in China. He repeatedly bangs his left fist against the inside of his right elbow with his middle finger raised, a gesture I thought only New Yorkers knew, and says, “Fuck China!” I can assume that this man does not appreciate China's policy of trading with their military government. Another drunken middle aged man walks in. I am introduced as the teacher from China. Before I know it, the new guy is giving me the most painful, awkward shoulder rub I have ever had, and I figure it is time to call it a night.
Just before I finish my drink, the bartender asks me in perfect English if I need another one. My first pair of friends are leaving, so seeing a glimpse of hope for a conversation, I tell him I will take another Myanmar beer. He says that they are out of beer. I have been in plenty of bars that have run out of plenty of things, but never beer. He recommends some Burmese rum and I try it. If you mix it with a gallon of water it is almost drinkable. The bartender was one of the many university students protesting in Rangoon, Myanmar's capital, in August 1988. The government responded by opening fire and killing 3,000 of them including a dozen of his friends. Every one at the bar speaks freely of how oppressive the Junta is. The bartender translates everything they say for me, and they seem to appreciate having their criticisms fall on an American's ear.
When I press them for what they want to be done the conversation slows down. They want the ruling government overthrown, but the means to do so is not as simple. One tall, thin man about my age says, “The U.S. or some world power should invade like you did in Iraq.” I tell him, “If that happens many people are going to die. Many good Burmese people are going to die. You could die.” He looks me straight in the eye and says, “For my child's freedom, for my grandchild's freedom, it would be worth it.” The other men at the bar nod their heads in agreement, and it hits me that I am surrounded by the true freedom fighters of my generation.
“Fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live - for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken. And this you can know - fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe." – John Steinbeck
Just like the old women in the last town, who hung a newspaper picture of the imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi, the Burmese Nelson Mandela, in their restaurant, these men are taking a dire risk. If an intelligence officer was eaves dropping outside the bar, they would all be sent to jail. But instead of just minding their own business they put their lives on the line to tell one more person about the revolution that for tonight is in the form of words. No one knows what form it will take tomorrow.

My last morning in town, the bartender and I find a computer at a local school, and I help him register for a free email account. Later, he drives me to the village's Catholic Church. As I ride the back of his motorcycle, he starts speaking, almost to himself, “The Chinese government controls what their people think, but they love their people. Our government tries to control us, but they don't love us.” We say goodbye at the church, and when I wish him good luck I truly mean it.

The priest is a short man with kind, interested eyes. His guest room is filled with pictures of Padre Pio, and many of his priest friends. Christians are looked at with particular mistrust in Myanmar because of their ties to the outside world. He seems much more eager to discuss the upcoming American election than the plight of his people. So we talk for awhile about Obama, McCain and why Americans vote the way they do. Before I leave I ask him, “When I get home what do you want me to tell my friends and family about Myanmar?” Without hesitation he answers, “Tell them to pray for us... That's all they can do.” When I get outside, there is no one around except for a military intelligence officer smoking an unfiltered cigarette on his motorbike. He wants to make sure that the old priest and I are not hatching a plan to overthrow the government on this sunny day. I walk past him down the hill toward town. He waits until I am a safe distance from the church, starts his bike and drives down the hill. I wave him down and gesture toward his back seat. I figure if he is going the same way I am he might as well save me the hour walk, and he does. We pass many bewildered Burmese faces on the way back to town.


All Trips Come to an End
There were some people picking up the pieces from the past, and others desperately reaching toward the future. I am reminded of lines from the Desiderata that always hung in my Mom's kitchen:
“…the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals
and everywhere life is full of heroism.”

There were Australian mine clearers dismantling live bombs and training local teams, some consisting entirely of young, promising Lao women to do the same; Cleaning up their country so that farmers could grow rice for their families without fear. Even the music videos in Myanmar seemed to be empowering women. Almost every one had a confident Burmese woman slapping a sleazy man across the face. There were young tour guides preserving their culture by learning everything they possibly could about their country and hometown and passing that knowledge on to literally any one who would listen. There were old people that did not have the faintest clue they were old. And everywhere there were children – running, playing, laughing. All tasting the sweetest joys of life, utterly oblivious to the scenery and circumstances around them. They did not care about the upcoming Olympics, or the ruling military government, or even the fact that their village was built from bamboo and bombs.
And right now all of these people are going about their lives, doing what they are supposed to be doing, not knowing what life would be like anywhere else.