Hotel in Bangkok

we get to Bangkok from our luxury hotel in Shanghai. I expect another good place but arrive at what David, number 2-3 son, calls Hotel Sketchy. It is in an alley. When we get to our room, I ask for a bed for my son and they bring a crib. Ah no he is 33 years old. Then they bring a cot.

  #2-3 son is an inveterate traveller so they first thing he does is check for bugs in the folds on the side and finds them! Husband #1 refuses to check our bed saying "What we don't know won't hurt us." After 13 hours of travelling at midnight I am inclined to agree.

 David informs me to NOT OPEN MY MOUTH during his interaction with the staff. He says this is Thailand and these are people  who are Buddist and gentle.He calls the management and they come  to our room with housekeeping trailing behind. All transactions are followed by a prayer sign, fingers pointing heavenward, and a bent nod. David does the same points his hands heavenward and explains about the bugs and says that he wants a new mattress wrapped in plastic. They nod saying they are very sorry they don't have one. He begins the conversation again saying exactly the same thing. They both bow and it starts over. ( It's like groundhog day in Bangkok) They say they don't know what he means. He does not explain and simply says for the 5th time, "Could you kindly bring me a mattress wrapped in plastic that is new."  David pretends he is asking this for the first time.  Everyone pretends they haven't heard it before. No one refers to the previous times it was mentioned.

Finally they all smile and say suddenly "Of course" and then a new mattress wrapped in plastic arrives. Everyone bows and smiles we all go to bed. 

Welcome to Thailand,

Cricket market in Shanghai

Today we went to the cricket market in Shanghai. It was filthy and David, (son #2-3)  who lives near therewarned me not to wear sandals as filth could rise to ankles. I told him he was nuts. When I got home I had to wash my feet. I permanently had to file the sandals for Hong Kong.

So you walk into this long narrow building in a working class area and you are shocked by the loud din of Crickets. Some are tiny in glass cases. They are for wearing in your pocket so you have a cricket sound when you walk. I guess that is so you are quite cricket. ( Who would say "Here comes a man making cricket sounds, I may faint" How irresistible is that?) I guess it is no stranger than Old Spice.

Then there are large crickets 2 inches by one inch in breathing jars. ( check out picture. some are larger.) They are  bought for gambling. You put the two male crickets on the table and then they fight to the death and you bet on the winner. There were thousands upon thousands of crickets and hundreds of men were carefully combing over them to choose a winner. Most of the men were middle aged with rugged faces.  There were no women there.

Then there were five foot high piles of maggots for sale for bird food. All live insects were on sale as well. Also mice and gerbals were for sale for those who have birds of prey in their tiny apartments. How weird is that?

Gambling is illegal in China, so the government  does not  want tourists to see the huge markets of raw material for gambling. There are gambling dens all over Shanghai in underground places.  Apparently Gambling, not alcohol, drugs or sex, is the major addiction in China.  Cricket wars are the new Opium. Get ready for the cricket wars.

The guide says he is shocked that people are talking to us so much and are willing to be so friendly.  We think this is hilarious because we don't see people as particularly friendly. 

Off for a boat trip. Hope it is a junk and not a cruise line.

Cathy #1 wife.

Shanghai GaGa

Continuing on my journey through China, yesterday I was on my way  on foot to  the Shanghai National Museum. There are so many people in cars and so many pedestrians that no one can cross the wide downtown streets. They make you go underground to cross each street which entails walking down steps and then again up steps at each corner. While underground people grab you and try to sell you useful items like Curious George slippers and little kitty sandals. Underground there are snaking malls that are packed with people.

  Since I have a torn meniscus in my knee, I was in pain on all the steps.  At one corner, I didn't see that much traffic so I decided to make a break for it and dash across the street and hope for the best. Husband #1 and David  son number # 2-3 ( he is a twin) warned against it saying this was a really repressed society and they would catch me. David, who live in Hong Kong and  knows more than I advised against it. Still I dashed across and low and behold two men in traffic uniforms emerged from the bushes and I was dragged back by the men in grey and yellow uniforms, which are different from police and other official uniforms. They dragged me back to the curb screaming at me the whole time.  I screamed back and adults who passed me shook their heads at my appalling lack of ability to follow the law. I get it -- I was wrong. But I didn't expect people to run out of the bushes in uniform.

There is no Google for they have blocked it, no facebook or twitter so that there can be no 'Arab spring' and no utube. All are blocked and only information that is approved can get through.  All the protests here are never reported and the government  gets away with it. They have prospered and they are out of the dark ages, but at a cost. 

At the museum things lighten up and I am at the Mogolian exhibit and a gaggle of teenage girls come in wearing little red scarves, sort of Girl Scouts for the party kind of thing. They begin to take pictures of me and touch my hair which is pale blond or white and ask all about it. I say "I was born this way" which I have now learned from my friends is a line from a Lady GaGa song. When I say it the girls start laughing and then sing as loud as they can in the museum the Gaga song in English and in Chinese. They raise their fists and scream the whole song. A few verses follow:

I'm beautiful in my way
'Cause God makes no mistakes
I'm on the right track, baby

I was born this way

Don't hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you're set
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born this way, born this way

Yeah, they made a break for it. They gave voice to individualism. The guards came over and went crazy and then the teacher appeared and the guards yelled at her and she in turn yelled at the girls. She was furious. 

Wow Good for Lady GaGa. They block out the news and the info from the west, but no one anywhere in China could block out the words of Lady GaGa. She deserves a medal and so do those teenage girls.

Shanghai visit

 I tried to hook up to facebook in Shanghai to post my 'impressions' and found that all of google is blocked in China! The Chinese government had a huge fight with Google saying they had to block porn sites and all anti chinese government sites. They don't want a situation like Arab Spring. Google said no -- they are into freedom of information as that is what the internet is for-- China said fine and blocked all of google and facebook.  So all of Shanghai has been Shanghaied  by their own government. Don't get me started.

Yesterday in Shanghai  David,( number 2 son as they say in China-- actually number 2-3 son since he is a twin),  Michael, Number 1 husband and I go with a guide for a tour. He takes us to a place called Chinatown. How can there be a 'Chinatown' when we are in China?  It is full of shopping crap and tourists. So David says that we have to read the riot act to the guide and let him know that we want to see only things where there are Chinese people and the real things that Chinese people do. No tourist crap. 

David  is now living in Hong Kong and knows that not losing 'face' is the name of the game. He said we can't criticize the guide  because then he will just do whatever he wants and freeze us out with smiles. So David  goes through a long song and dance about how we are strange people and we like to see strange things that have to do with Chinese culture. He said do not take this personally because we are this way at home.  WE ARE JUST WEIRD. It works --the Open sesame.

First stop -- Marriage market in public park on a sunny Sunday. We are the only whites there. The people who are not looking for a spouse do not appear. Only the parents. The parents in China make all the decisions. The parents who come from far and wide  turn umbrellas upside down and sit on the long park walkway. On the umbrella is a picture of a son or daughter  and information about them. Other parents approach and then they barter. Do you own an apartment? Do you have an education, etc?. What are your savings? What is your son's height?  Height is crucial since many people are short and tall is a 'scarce resource' as our guide explained.  If your kid is foreign educated then a flag of that country flies over the umbrella. Totally fascinating.

 Then people approached us thinking that we were parading our son David, who is 6' 5" around the marriage mart. 

A gorgeous girl approached us saying she is an English teacher and wants to work on her English. After five minutes she asked about David and if he was available. I said, no. She never thought of asking him. It all goes through the parents. I said he had an unattached twin and she wanted to know if he was also tall.  After an hour we were swarmed. Michael, ( Husband #1) kept saying to each of them, 'I'm available'.  He was of course kidding but  the guide  had to stop him  because this was no laughing matter and he had to put a lid on it. 

Finally there was a circle around us asking questions, such as , "What if your son wanted to marry a girl you didn't approve of?" When I said that it would be none of my business there was a shocked sound that reverberated through out the park. Word spread and more people came up to us.

 We had a great time and I learned more about Chinese culture in an afternoon than any book could have taught me. The guide said he was shocked at how open people were with us and how inquisitive. He also had a great time.

There are not enough university positions, jobs and apartments for everyone so marriage is about securing these things. As one pretty girl said, "Love cannot enter into it." It is about survival and getting ahead. If you don't do it, there is no room in the society for you.  When I told her I married for love,  and my husband's mother forbade it and I'm glad I did it, she had a little tear that fell down her cheek.

The gift of enchantment

Fasten your seatbelt for a lurid tale of animal magnetism.

     I have a farm in Creemore, Ontario, where I went last weekend from my home in Toronto. On a freezing snowy day that was brittle with blue skies and relentless sunshine, my friend Judi and I were driving down our remote dirt road where there are only a few isolated farms. Suddenly  we saw what looked like a hitchhiker who was waving us down. As we got closer, Judi, whose favourite book is  Worst Case Scenario Handbook ( She has all the editions),  said, "Keep going.  He wants you to stop the car so he can  murder us.” As I slowed down I saw a tall thin man in a pink wig and pink rhinestone cowboy hat. He had a pink boa jauntily swung around his neck. (He presented as a trashier version of Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy.) Seriously this picture below was the guy.

 As I was coming to a complete stop, Judi shouted, “Haven’t you ever read In Cold Blood? They were at a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Does that ring any bells?” I told her that when you live in the country you have to stop for someone I distress. A person could die of exposure and according to the Creemore Echo, our local newspaper, it happens every year. People go off the road and even if they’re alive they can’t find help and die of exposure in unpopulated area. It’s not called Northern Ontario for nothing.

      I ground to a halt, and Judi reluctantly rolled down her window to address the apparition. When I looked in his face in front of the nine foot snow banks, I wondered if he was a transvestite. He was  six feet tall but  lanky. The man leaned inside saying his car had gone off the road about a mile south and he was trying to find Sue’s Clothes Closet in the town of Payner. He was referring to a tacky women’s store in a tacky town where I often sink to buying summer duds.  I have been known to be decked out  in a new outfit from Sue's and proudly ask my Creemore friends "Guess where I got thee duds?”  They always reply in unison, “Sue'e Clothes Closet, of course, because it is hideous and you need a fashion intervention.”

     It was odd since the tall man  was miles from the clothing store. I said, "Well get in and we’ll take you to our car." Then he said, “Thanks”. The way the androgynous being pronounced the flat A in the word thanks tipped me off to a Buffalo accent. Since I grew up ‘in the queen city’ that flat A has been branded on my brain.

Suddenly time stood still. I sensed danger. Why was there a man from Buffalo going to Sue's Clothes Closet in Northern Ontario in the depths of winter on an isolated country road in a pink wig, a pink cowboy hat, and pink boa with no car in sight. It finally dawned on me that  Judi was right. (Let's face it; most  pessimists usually win the day.) This was all a scam to get into our car. I looked again and was about to drive away and suddenly my heart began racing and my mouth was as dry as the Sahara dessert.  I began involuntarily screaming  so loud I had no operational vocal cords for three days. It dawned on me that I was looking at my best friend from childhood, Louise Greenberg. ( For those of you who have read my memoir After the Falls, she was the very tall friend whom I named  Leora.) We were inseparable from grade seven right through high school and we are still in touch. She now lives in Boston and does medical research. I screamed “Louise—Oh my God why are you here?” She said she just felt like a visit and wanted to freak me out. Well, she succeeded.

 Then the three of us pulled into our farm’s long driveway  with trees on either side. I suddenly saw something, almost subliminal out of my peripheral vision. It was a red flash. Was it a red fox leaning out from behind a tree? It was like a fox-human or something from a William Steig book, half human and half animal like Dr. Desoto where the dental patient is a fox.

Then an animal came out from another tree with yellow tufts and blue forehead.

 It looked like something from Cocteau’s 1946 film of Beauty and the Beast, when the beast began to look part human and part beast. 

Then a black feathered creature one came out from behind the lilac bush with a white feather mustached  mouth. This phantasmagoria looked like it had  been  taken from the fairy tale The Seven Ravens –at the exact moment when the brother was changing into a raven. He was half raven half human. On it went. Some other creature rose from the pond. Finally one danced across the frozen landscape near our pond.

 Judi said, "Well I hope you now realize we are being robbed. Those creatures are humans in masks. They didn’t expect us to be up here on a weekday." Louise asked why robbers would be hiding behind trees as animals unless this was a Grimm's fairy tale The musicians of Bremen  which was about animal robbers. Then four of the animals popped their heads out  as they stood on one another's backs.  

 Finally a mask blew off and I saw standing before me my friend Anne.  Then all the masks came off and there restored to human form were my female friends from all over the world. They all screamed “Happy birthday”. I collapsed and banged my head on the car door. 

We had a birthday party from Friday at noon until Sunday noon. So don’t think when you have your 65^th birthday, you have to wear support hose and eat bridge mix.  I cried several times which is very rare for me, particularly in public.  Why was I so moved? All of my friends took trains, planes and automobiles to get to the party and gave it their all. Now everyone knows that we all have way too much stuff. Especially at 65 your stuff is getting moldy and really piling up. George  Carlin says it best in his video on TOO MUCH STUFF.

     My friends knew that what mattered the most to me was adventure. They presented me with more than adventure. These friends gave me a day of enchantment.  Enchantment is a word that is hardly used anymore. It is tied to fairytales as Bettelheim says in The Uses of Enchantment. The word actually is defined as "a captivation: a feeling of great liking for something wonderful and unusual." 
I will never drive in my driveway without thinking of the magic of those half multicoloured animals coming out from behind trees. Real love is when friends sit down together and say, “No matter how much work it is,  no matter how long it takes, no matter if we have to freeze our asses off behind a tree in twelve inches of snow on the windy top of the Niagara Escarpment for an hour, Cathy is worth it. That is what  real friends do and I love them for it.

Guess who?

    

     

I know the law and the law knows me

Illustration by Lucas Gordon

What is it with me and Authority figures?  Like who gets strip searched at the airport--especially when you are a blue eyed blonde? ( Well actually blonde was twenty years ago, I'd have to say white  since I am now sixty-four).  For a normal middle class woman I have had more than my share of  run-ins with the law in all of their glorified forms from airport security, to the FBI, to the RCMP to the Buffalo Police department--to school systems and everything in between.  I will relate my latest episode and perhaps you can enlighten me as to where I lost the plot. ( a phrase we used to use at Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital where I used to work.)


I was on my way from Toronto to my farm in Creemore, Ontario late at night.  There is a tiny town of about eight people and a few cows along the way where the speed suddenly goes from 80 to 50.  It was late so I just sped through.  I immediately got pulled over and was given a ticket for going 40 k over the  speed limit. Ok, I accept that and say nothing to the policeman. I know I was in the wrong.   He proceeds to inform  me that if you are going 40 miles over then you can lose your license. (Yikes.)


 Now I have just gotten a ticket a few months earlier in the U.S.  for not changing lanes when a policeman was giving a ticket to some one else.( I guess New York State is desperate for money.) If that policeman had been thinner I wouldn't have had to change lanes. That whole episode was  a lot of hooey but still it was on my record. My husband, is typical fashion, announced that my insurance was going to skyrocket so I have to fight the ticket.  As usual he was right. 


So off I went to the closest court in a city that was somewhere north of Creemore and south of the North Pole. My hearing was at noon but I arrived over an hour early as is my style. ( As Sister Immaculata used to say, 'Punctuality is a virtue' and since I had so few virtues I  have clung to  punctuality for dear life.  I was alone in a small 'cafe' as it was called in ''Province of Ontario' court lingo. It was really a 9' by 12' room with vending machines --one of which distributed instant coffee with no cup. It just ran into a trough. There was one dour Canadian male sitting at another table. He wore a curling jacket and sat with his arms crossed. I worked on my computer which seemed to annoy him.  Then a third man in a business suit came in with a brief case, sat at another table in this small room  and had a coke.


 Suddenly a man entered the room and looked like he came from south Asia .  He had one  wandering eye and looked a bit stunned or perhaps just traumatized. He was shaking and then stood immobilized.  I asked what court he belonged in. He shook his head in confusion.  I told him the court number was on his summons. When I said the word summons, he began ringing his hands and said he was too humiliated to bring in his summons. His English was very halting I had trouble understanding him. Finally I ascertained that his summons was in the trunk of his car so I sent him out to get it. When he came back he started explaining that he was terribly sorry for what he had done ( 14 miles over the speed limit) and  that if he went to Jail his family would have no support, etc. His hands were quivering as he held his summons. I could see that he had no idea what would happen to him, but where he was from if the police stopped you,  you could go to jail or get a finger cut off of something more dire. I sat him down, bought him a tea, and explained to him that I had  been to traffic court many times. All they did was lower the fine if you pleaded guilty with cause. Whenever I used the word  guilty he would jump and tears would fill his eyes. I assured him that in fact almost everyone in Canada had received a traffic ticket  and it was no big deal at all.  I said that if he was called before me, I would go up to the bench with him and act as an interpreter for him.  I said, 'Remember it is no big deal.' Just say 'guilty' and they will lower the fine.


 Finally the court was convened and the judge  called up 20 or thirty people before me and they all made lesser pleas, got fewer points on their license, which was the big issue, and paid less than half of their fine.   Mine was $275 plus four points. When I was called to the bench the kind, 'Father-Knows-Best judge' said , "Well the famous Catherine Gildiner. I was sitting in the coffee lounge when you regaled our new immigrant with how mundane  and unimportant our traffic court is.  I had no idea it was your job to tell new immigrants that they didn't have to worry about our court system and that you had mastered it.  Is this what we want new immigrants to think of our court system?" As he was at the height of his diatribe, I recognized him as the man with the brief case that was in the  cafe when I was there talking to the frightened man, or I would have said, Helping the new immigrant. He looked a lot more judicial in his robes than he did drinking a diet coke. 


I tried to explain my point of view saying that I was trying to be a good citizen and reach out to a new frightened  immigrant.  I explained that  the man  was literally  too frightened  and humiliated to let his summons see the light of day.  As I was speaking he said, "Mrs. Gildiner I have heard enough from you today. You will pay your whole fine and keep all of your points.  Maybe then you will not belittle my court to a new Canadian." 


Great. I wave good-bye to the now mollified immigrant and go to  the cashier to pay my full summons and to get the points hammered into my license. As I stood in the line the silent Canadian  who had done nothing to help the frightened man-- never even made eye contact--was in front of me. He had a reduced fine and only one point.  After he paid, he turned to me in  line right before he made a beeline to the door and said with a smirk on his face that I would like to had swept off  with a curling broom,  "Maybe next  time you'll say Mums the word. " 


Yeah maybe. 

Birthing my last memoir

Well I have finally finished the last memoir of my career. I think this picture above where I am 21 and hitchhiking across Canada  will be the cover and the  title will be COMING ASHORE.  That is, of course, if I have anything to say about it. The publisher may want to use another picture and another title. Honestly, I have had it with Falls titles. The first volume of my memoir is called TOO CLOSE TO THE FALLS, the second is AFTER THE FALLS.  What could the third be? UNDER THE FALLS? MAID OF THE MIST? WHIRLPOOL? Enough already.

This memoir covers my life from the age of 21 to 25.  A lot happened. If someone asked my what has happened in the last three years of my life, I'd be hard pressed to come up a sentence, let alone an entire volume; but that's another story.  This volume is a combination of  memoir and travelogue.   It begins when I go to Oxford in England.  Of course there is my signature ill fated romance . This time it is with a British  aristocrat whose  relatives donated the chapel pews at Trinity College, Oxford.  ( Need I say more?)

It was a great time to be in England. It was the swinging 60's on Carnaby Street where we used to go to a basement pub to hear Jimi Hendrix live.  I make fun of England on every page, but honestly, if it weren't  for the class system  that categorized each and every person when he  said 'hello',  I would have stayed. It was a marvel to me to be at a college where one professor cares about you, has a tutorial with only you and actually listens to your stupid sophomoric ideas and then brings in books related to all of your jejune ramblings.  I doubt Oxford is like that now.  Probably those in England who read this volume that reflects Oxford almost 50 years ago, will think I am from the time of Oliver Cromwell. (One college girl who read my novel SEDUCTION, commented on a picture of Anna Freud standing next to her father in a floor length Dirndl  on the cover.  Believe it or not she said me, "Wow, that was a great picture of you and your dad."

The second part of the book takes place in Cleveland, Ohio where I was a student teacher. Since I have the patience of a gnat, you might ask -- Why did I teach? The reason was simple. My father, who was raised in the depression, wouldn't pay for university if I wasn't a teacher or a nurse. I look bad in white so I chose teaching-- but never taught.  This trait must run in my family because my mother  was a math teacher but only taught for one  day. When I asked her why she said  she had no idea she'd have to teach children.


It was an interesting time to be alive in America.   There was the  Kent State Massacre,  Martin Luther King had been assassinated  and  there were riots in the cities   The Hough area of Cleveland was burning and I taught in that ghetto. We had to be escorted by police into the High School every morning. My roommate in Cleveland married our police escort. She said she liked his boots.  There were  security men in  grey suits in the hallways to keep order with Stun Guns. They were called the mice.  The kids were wonderful to teach and I learned a lot from them.  I guess I never understood why, since I was having such a good time,  I almost got kicked out of the school. Who ever heard of a teacher who has to go not only to the principal's office  but to the Superintendent of schools'?


As the 70's dawned, I skipped out to Cleveland to go to graduate school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I was now living in my third country in Five years. The first person I ran into in the hippie enclave called Yorkville was a guy I knew from High school in Buffalo  named Rick James.  He said he played in a band  with some guys called the Mynah Birds. They dressed as yellow birds with yellow feather shoes.  I later found out it was Steppenwolf and Neil Young and Rick went on to Superfreak fame.

My mother was thrilled that I was moving to Canada since she said that nothing bad ever happened in Canada. We had lived  in Lewiston, New York and spent the summers on the Canadian side of Lake Erie.   She said "Fabulous, even you  couldn't  cause a fuss there." She said  Canadians actually celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday and have a store called Dominion. When I was a kid Roy, the black delivery car driver, and I delivered medicine to Niagara Falls on both sides of the American-Canadain border.  I once  asked him why we never delivered any valium in Canada and his simple answer was "Canadian's don't need it."

I have always been good at proving my mother wrong. I moved into a rooming house on Huron Street in the fall of 1970 in Toronto where an enclave  of French Canadians lived. Within a month everyone in the house was arrested. Unbeknownst to me, they were members of the FLQ, a quebecois terrorist group  that were making headlines killing government ministers. The War Measures act was declared by Pierre Trudeau and we were all rounded in the night  as terrorists. I knew I had some rights, but I had no idea what they were. I told the RCMP that I would not be interrogated without a meal. ( I forgot it was a lawyer.) I must be the only person ever to be interrogated by the Police at Fran's restaurant.  If you don't confess, do you have to  eat the  Salisbury steak? Once the police realized their mistake, I was set free.  The landlord wound't  take me back, so I had to move three doors north in the middle of the night  to Rochdale College, the biggest drug den in Canada.  I was a pharmacist's daughter. How did I know the pills in the fridge were acid?

Anyway, now that I've told you most of the book, you won't have to buy it which seems to be publishing trend.  Unfortunately this is my last memoir. I say unfortunately  because I have loved compulsively chronicling my life. My family consisting of a husband and three sons  frowns upon me giving any interpretations of their lives.  I told my husband, who I met at a John Ford German Expressionist film festival  in 1970, that  he doesn't have to worry since  nothing happens after marriage anyway.