::: OH, HONG KONG...YOU MINX :::

This city…

this city…unfurls. I guess it’s like a flower. But it’s not…you don’t have to catch it at the right time…you know…during the right elements to see it’s real beauty. It just is.

At each turn rests what seems to be like a picture…ripped out of some magazine by a reader who decides someday…someday, he will see that in person. It’s Asia…It’s the Orient…it’s the Far East. It’s Hong Kong.

It’s my home right now. And though it lacks the people I love, it is home to me. Routines are developed. Daily rituals take place, and I wave at the same neighbors each morning. I smile at the Patriarch of the family (there are 10 children and grandchildren with him) and we smile nervously at the bus stop hoping the other doesn’t start talking because we don’t understand each other. But we smile. And…we laugh at each other…together. These are people I call my friends. These are the little things that make my day feel grounded.

Almost 15 years ago I had a similar entry that I wrote to my grandmother in a letter. Another different far country…but, still yet the same description. If I remember it right, it said something like this, “Grandma, it’s like a picture out of TIME magazine here. Just so vivid…and surreal.”

While I was remembering this, it dawned on me that as one of the students was saying my name from down the hallway at school, that it is very likely that the only time my family’s name has ever been used in this part of the world...has been with the arrival of these two feet.

Dad did some business in Japan…so I can’t take that away from him…he gets Japan. Probably the only time the words, “Biggey Al” were ever said over there. So, while he and I walked the same halls of the same airport ten years apart, I’ll take China, South Korea, and Hong Kong…and if all goes well, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and maybe The Philippines. At least I am not competitive. (and I’m about to get to a Lawry’s he hadn’t gotten to yet….YES!)

But the idea of the feet are something I cannot get past. There is a passage of Scripture that says, “How beautiful are the feet that bring good news.” Well, the downside of that is that they also bring Mad Cow disease and others, so…wash your shoes people! But the idea that when I land in Dallas on the 21st, the dirt on the edges will be from Hong Kong. Half-way around the world from you, dear reader.

Where was I…ahh yes, the beauty that is my current home. I decided to walk to the grocery store today and these are the things that inspired me as I walked. Mountains, Valleys, Trees, Sailboats, it was a long walk. But, I also saw tons of butterflies and one lizard. By the way…they look too much like snakes…they should all die…just for that reason.

What just happened?