OPINION
Page 6 n THE ASIAN REPORTER
March 7, 2016
Volume 26 Number 5
March 7, 2016
ISSN: 1094-9453
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TALKING STORY IN ASIAN AMERICA
n Polo
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Island rules
An Old World compass on our chaotic new continent
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When old ways and old guys show up
Part one of two
e are islanders. And we tell islander
stories. Sure we do. For folks not so
familiar with Indonesia’s roughly 15,000
islands, ours is a really old-old story. So old, that
archeologists refer to a wayward branch of
prehistoric Homo erectus as Java Man. To which we
quickly add that Java Women have lived and loved
just as long. Making possible our joy. About 750,000
years of joy.
For all those years, all along our 3,000-mile
archipelago, our elder aunties have been telling and
telling us: “Hati-hati, anak. Be kind to every orang
you meet on our djalan.” Kindness matters that
much. Especially toward strangers.
“You never know,” they say. “Maybe walking in
rags is Lord Shiva, or Compassionate Buddha.
Maybe you meet Prophet Muhammad. (Peace be
upon them all.) Maybe joh. We never know.”
This old rule — carried in our pop’s muscular
arms, nurtured by our mom’s sure hands, plus a
couple of hastily packed bags — sailed with us into
dark and deep seas, from steamy Singapore to icy
Rotterdam then to humming New York City. That
rule raised us from anxious renters on the edge of
South Salem’s crazy Commercial Street, to proud
suburban homeowners — our pop’s intoxicating
roses, his crimson rhododendrons and sun-yellow
azaleas, exploding with joy. That same old rule, this
same old joy. Al’hamdulillaah.
After proving its efficacy across long millennia
and across wide oceans — after those awesome
International Space Station pics of our pretty blue
planet, spinning her lonely arc through a universe
of infinite silence and dark and cold — finally,
NASA’s mightiest minds are conclusively declaring
that earth, our achy mother earth, is a lovely little
island too. And so too, this elegant old-school island
rule (always be kind) just as surely applies to our
chaotic new nation. Sure it does.
Allow me an illustration.
One damp and chilly February afternoon — the
afternoon that’s actually the point of this loopy tale
— as rain sprinted down our cold office windows, as
night closed in the way Pacific Northwest winter
darkness does at 4:00pm sharp — I sensed a man
standing quietly behind and left of me. How long he
W
NASA’s mightiest minds are
conclusively declaring that earth,
our achy mother earth, is a lovely
little island too. And so too, this
elegant old-school island rule
just as surely applies to our
chaotic new nation. Sure it does.
waited, I cannot say.
I was slouched at my desk, looking at a woman in
a white cotton blouse, likewise slumping at her
office desk across S.W. Portland’s Stark Street,
likewise gazing out her window. Her slender hands,
she parked next to her keyboard. How long I was
staring at her, I also cannot say.
That man behind me, was at once tense and
breathing slow. I sensed a compact and capable
man. You see, edgy guys like me, krontjong from our
wobbly world’s most shifty tectonics, know stuff like
this. We sense essential little atoms, seconds before
they manifest. Like green vine snakes do, flicking
their tongues, sampling our air. It’s why we made it
here, to dreamy America. It’s why we didn’t die
during our troubles back home. And why our
families aren’t languishing year after empty year in
squalid refugee dumps in neighboring nations. It’s
this reptilian thing — and of course, merciful God
noticing us. Ampun’illaah.
I sensed a tired man. Worn like me. When I
swivelled around slow, a Viet Chin gentleman same
generation as me was standing there. Rain-
darkened jacket shoulders. Thin hair pasted to his
head. A de rigueur Chinese guy hairdo, he had.
Done in four minutes flat, at one of those ubiquitous
regulation Chinese sojourner beauty shops, the
kind dotting every eastern and western coastline of
every continent since the days of Admiral Zheng He.
He’s grand armadas of merchant ships. Flagships
about 100 feet longer than the Seattle Seahawks’
home field. All that, about 100 years before
Columbus.
Etched into the corners of his eyes and mouth: Joy
and exhaustion. On his feet, Payless ShoeSource
loafers, black. I knew that I know this man well, but
Continued on page 7
Opinions expressed in this newspaper are those of the authors and not necessarily those of this publication.