A final digital painting done from Paul’s sketchbook drawings

Roslan, hung up his cell phone and reported that Pak Teh was coming over with some other honey hunters, so late that same afternoon we all would go to the bee tree. Pak Teh would check out the bee tree, see if they could do a honey hunt demonstration for Diana when she arrived. And on Tuesday we were all invited to lunch at Pak Teh's 100 year old traditional Timber house.

The Bee Tree

The trail to the bee tree, called the Tualang tree in Malay, is about one kilometer and climbing. This species (a legume) is the tallest tree in Malaysia. The trail there is like a good free verse poem. It's different each time you encounter it. It winds around, goes up and down, has a beginning and an end, and no matter how many times you've go through it, there is always some new detail to discover. It's a long, winding sentence with many pauses and clauses, and an exclamation point at the end. I'm always waiting for that rise where you get the first glimpse of the giant tree. Maybe love is like that too: each time there is always something more to learn. I often think about that tree on the other side of the world when I'm home in Arizona. The bee tree is always there at the edge of the mind. On this trip I noticed for the first time that the buttresses of the bee tree were wrapped around a huge boulder that the tree was literally sitting on.

I don't know how many times I've walked this trail with Pak Teh, but it has become a kind of ritual. Most of the action in our book happens on this trail. Pak Teh is a willing participant. The walk is largely silent between us because he does not speak any English, except "Amerikan!". He often looks at us as if he's about to say something, then remembers we won't understand. He'll speak to the others and they will all laugh. I know the words for Bee (lebah) and honey (madu) and of course had learned to say "makan" (eat) from our lunches at Pak Teh's house. That is enough to get by. We all love him and we watch his every move. He said he feels like he's in hollywood, we've taken so many pictures of him. I resolved after this trip to make a photo album for him. I noticed that he stopped to rest several times as we got to the steeper parts of the trail, letting us pass. He always used to be far ahead of us. Now in his 80s, Pak Teh did not climb the tree anymore--Shukor, his grandson, was to do the climb this time. Pak Teh counted two colonies still with bees, and said the mock honey hunt would happen monday night.

Gretchen and Ron

Strangers in Paradise

Maybe the attitude of the traveler is always the best outlook no matter where you are. Just show up, be there in the moment, and pay attention. Something is bound to happen. Or nothing happens. We are the wandering strangers here. It is someone else's country. I suspend judgments, slacken the reigns a bit and see where the horse (or elephant) would like to go.

I let myself sleep like a rock. I slowed down almost to a torpor. Still, the next day, while having my nasi lemak breakfast at noon on the veranda, I sketched out the entire story-board for the book in cartoon form. From this rough scribbly version, I could know what reference material I had to gather for each scene while I was on location. When you are in the zone, and have taken your rest, you can get a full day's work done in two hours.

Still, I was slowing down to a new pace, the speed of the trees and the Malay rural people who work at the hotel. When Diana and her friend Nikos, both New Yorkers, arrived, fresh from the United States, I would try to open my mouth to answer questions, but she was gone before I could form a statement. It was a couple of days before we could match our frequencies to really have a meaningful conversation. That was fine, as we were each gathering our own impressions to compare later. I was to spend the next two weeks here. I eventually even extended my stay, on Roslan's invitation. He could see that I didn't want to leave.

I spent all the time I could walking in the forest. I took photo references, but when I forced myself to confront the absurd complexity of the forest with only pencil and paper, I was intimidated. One of the tasks I set for myself here was to come up with stylized formulae for elememts of the forest, leaves, trunks, vines, and flowers. Elements I could use later to create patterns out of my head in a stylized way. I was inspired by the painting of the late Ida Bagus Made of Bali. Also, I wanted to use the "all-over" Islamic patterns of Malay wood carving and batik as an influence. With the Malay wood carving (seen in Pak Teh's house) there are two guiding rules: 1. Plant motifs are used as design elements and woven into patterns that are evenly distributed throughout the composition. 2. The negative or empty spaces were equal to the painted or carved spaces. Maybe I could do something with that idea.

Inside Pak Teh's house

Miss Hitam Manis

Paul's Traditional Malay Wedding (not)

One year, on my 2001 trip, he gave a mock traditional Malay wedding feast (minus the magic words) for guests and dressed me up and had me sit in a traditional ceremonial "house" with the current reigning beauty of the resort. I still have the wedding portrait. Of course she disappeared as soon as the dinner was over. Maybe it's best that way. "Whatever", as I taught Roslan to say. A marriage, however, is still a great excuse for a good party.

So that evening he brought me his two secretaries, Julaila and Lindah, all made up and dressed in formal clothes. It turned out to be a fun group with Gretchen and Ron drawing too. Everyone was soon drawing each other and laughing hysterically at the results. Not a beauty nor an art contest. Juliala drew a pretty good portrait of Gretchen. On it she wrote, " I love you my friend. I want to have your email address so I can write you." That melted our faces. Their friend, Nashitoh, came to watch and I drew her too.

Nashitoh

I might have personally ruined this promising relationship. It's my karma and I'll make my confession. Just as she was leaving Pedu later in the week, Gretchen gave me her earrings to give as a gift to Julaila. As I was giving them to her on the Kopitiam veranda, one of them fell through the traditional spaces between boards in a the Malay floor. It was a terrible moment. I went later down into the basement underworld with two guys from engineering and flashlights, but it was like finding a needle in a haystack. Julaila and I never spoke of it again.

But after this drawing session, word got around about us and we were accepted as fun, interesting, and strange people to know. Restaurant staff would ask to see my sketchbook and exclaim in wonder at things and people they recognized or explain what something was. It was as though I was able to produce a rabbit out of a hat. Through drawing, I became a curiosity and began to create a rapport with the local people.

Roslan

I Started a Joke, Which Started the Whole World Crying....

Roslan also instigated an activity with us that I had sworn I would never participate in: karaoke. The first night, after the drawing session he invited we three Americans and Julaila, to the lounge. He poured us beers and we ended up hanging around with a handful of people, including the owner of the resort (and his two bodyguards), until 4AM. Yes, we sang. And we taught Julaila to dance swing and rock and roll. On subsequent nights, I quit drinking beer, since none of the Malays drink alcohol. Anyways, it seemed that Ron and I had drunk them dry--we heard other guests ask for beer and they were told that they were out. I had decided anyways to drink mango juice, or whatever they were drinking when I was with them, and there was not much else to do but sing. Since it happened on the other side of the world, and no one will ever see me, I'll confess that I sang the Bee Gees, and then, one of my least favorties, "My Way". I had no choice. They made me do it.

One day, Roslan had Julaila write up a rough translation of a Malay pop rock song, "Tiga Malam". I had only noticed it because it was the only title in the list where I recognized all the words. Three nights. It was a duet between a man and a womam. We practised it beforehand and sang it on stage to Malay appluase. I still didn't understand any more of the words than the title and just sang it by pronouncing the words as they cam across the screen. Roslan was practically on the floor laughing. He had never before seen anything like that.

Joe's Big Stick

One of these plants turned out to be Eurycoma longifolia, or Tongkat Ali, Malaysia's best-known medicinal plant. A "Tongkat" is a walking stick. "Ali" is a comon name in Malaysia, like we would say, "Joe". So the name "Tongkat Ali" means means something like "Joe's Big Woodie". One of it's properties, my friends explained, was to increase blood flow, with the natural result that a guy should get a large, prolonged erection. Once I learned the word, I was to recognize it on billboards in KL for soft drinks made from this plant. It appeared to be used like ginseng, an energy boost. Furthermore, there is a companion plant for women, called in Malay, "Kacip Fatima". Again, "Fatima" is a common female name in Malaysia, like Sue. And "Kacip" means "to grasp" or "pliers". Since Kacip Fatima is supposed to create some sort of muscle contractions, the name could possibly be translated as "Suzie's tight little grabber". So now you know.

For some reason, the topic of love lead to the subject of hunting. "Man" told a story about a pair of hornbills that used to hang around a resort he once worked at on Lankawi Island. A hunter had shot the female for some reason and the male stayed nearby, calling out for two weeks after that waiting for her to come back. He said he had hoped that Hornbill died soon after that to relieve it's suffering.

Later, "Man" told me more about his apprenticeship with a snake charmer when he was at Lankawi. It was a fascinating kind of mind and body training. If a human can survive his first cobra bite by using native plant antidotes (it may take three months) he can develop an immunity. A young snake is more dangerous than an older one. A mature snake will judge your threat and just bump you as a warning it you come too close. The second time it may bite without injecting venom, as a second warning. If you keep coming, it will kill you. He said that after a period, the handler starts to smell like another snake, and they crawl over him without biting as long as he doesn't make a threatening movement. In the world of animals, any sudden or fast movement signifies an attack.

The Honey Hunt

The honey hunt is beautiful, in part because of the sense of time it creates. For the viewer, there is a lot of sitting in the dark, waiting. First we waited for the sun to go down. We listened to the sunset cicada chorus and the droning high above of the bees making their last group mass defecation, called "yellow Rain". The sunset sounds happen in time sequence. Sometimes I have thought of it as a symphony. But you can't hear the whole orchestra from one spot; the individual musicians are scattered over miles of forest. I like to think that a skilled sound engineer could take recordings from microphones placed throughout the forest and mix them together into one huge, complex chord. The sounds range from low to high, and surely exceed the gamut of the human ear, if you consider the bats. There are several rhythms going on and the general pattern constantly changes as they go in and out of phase with each other. Different cicadas sound like an orchestra of trumpeters who do not know how to play, hundreds of car alarms going off at the same time, a room full of phones ringing, an engine that's out of oil, or squeaking bicycle brakes. Below that are the hornbills stuttering and the new-age one-note drone of the bees, like an airplane in the distance. All looking for love. P> Then we waited for the crescent moon and it's companion planet to set. Normally, the hunt is scheduled for a new moon, so the bees will be sure to follow the falling sparks from the torches. In the dark we listened to the sounds of the forest. Trees were black silhouettes against the blue tropical sky, only a shade lighter, and full of stars. You could not see your hand in front of your face. There were brief bursts from flashlights as the men prepared. I photographed people as they sat by candle light as reference for my painting of the night camp telling of the Hitam Manis story.

Pak Teh sat in front of me, near the base of the tree. He had a new flashlight, a gift from Diana: a big American-made Mag light. He loved it and couldn't resist aiming it up into the tree for brief moments to see how far it would shine. The light attracted bees. I heard him laugh softly to himself and I knew he had been stung. It is his ritual for keeping good relations with the bees: he calls their stings "tickles". Ron was stung too, I guess, because he suddenly burst out in a torrent of swearing. I started to laugh. I told him later about the ritual of using only polite language towards Hitam Manis, the maiden who was the spirit of the bees.

We walked back down the trail in the dark by flashlight around 1:30 AM. Ron said that witnessing something like that was like being in some kind of National Geographic special, a once in a lifetime experience. Indeed, the honey hunt is so complex that I learn something basic about it each time I see it. It's an event to be seen, and some ecotourism happens around it, but it's also something that happens without visitors to see it, and you wouldn't want to interfere too much with it.

I imagined the two climbers that were 120 feet up in the pitch dark and the support crew below calling up to them periodically. It reminded me of NASA ground control and astronauts in orbit or a space walk. There was a continual verbal communication between above and below. The honey basket went up and down. Calls went back and forth. Requests, then confirmation.
"Send up the bucket!"
"Baik!" Ten-four, OK, right, Roger and out!
The equipment was checked as it came up and down. There was a continuous connection of support and encouragement to the climbers from below. Then the climax when they rub the torches on the colonies and the bees follow the sparks. It is beautiful to watch the hot orange embers drift slowly down like they are alive.

"Turun Hitam Manis, ituk cahaya bintang!" sings Pak Man, Shukor's uncle, from the ground below.
"Come down, Hitam Manis, follow the falling stars!"

Space Walking

Traveling is like a space walk sometimes. I love being out there where there is none of the same oxygen I'm used to. It's an adventure. But there is a point I know well where I suddenly feel that the line is stretched too thin and I want some comfort and connection to home. What could I do but email my two daughters the next time I had access to a computer? Or Patricia, my friend, who was taking care of my empty house while I was gone. I couldn't pet the cats. Is there some biological programing that connects us to the burrow or the cave like by a rubber band? Yes, we are a hunter/gatherer species. There is an instinctive desire for an anchor of some kind. It starts out as wanting a person or place or thing to be that anchor. If one allows these external anchors to just float away, there is an interesting emptiness, like outer space, that opens up. What then? Interesting.

We Should Talk Less and Draw More

In the beginning of the book there is a painting I will do of Pak Teh entering the forest at this spot, saying "assalamu'alaikum" and touching his heart. This is the standard formalized Malay greeting one would say upon entering someone's house as a guest. Pak Teh says he is speaking to the "unseen owner" of the forest as a gesture of respect, acknowledgment that he is a guest there. So I drew the actual place at the trail head where he walks out of the bright sunlight, into the twilight of the forest. The trunks, leaves and vines were so complex and overwhelming that I had never really tried to draw them.

This time I stopped, opened my sketchbook and started to roughly sketch out what I saw. After standing there for 45 minutes, I found that an order seeped into my mind just from the act of attention. The scribbles were not much in themselves, but a sense of understanding began to unfold in my mind. The details and the space they occupied arranged them selves in a kind of pattern and I felt that I could go home and draw a forest that looked like the Pedu Lake Preserve.

I am reminded of the approach Mr. Goethe used to look at nature. He also used drawing as a means for seeing accurately and understanding the subject in a deeper way than we ordinarily do. I tried to use his method of "quiet regard". It is a way of blending with what you are seeing, actually becoming part of it. The categories we habitually use in thinking dissolve and the mind becomes fluid and receptive. Free of words and ideas, we come into contact with reality. Goethe said that The most isolated event always presents itself as an image and metaphor for the universal. He once told a visitor that was watching him draw in his garden:

"We should talk less and draw more. For my part, I should like to lose the habit of speaking entirely, and continue to communicate merely with drawings, as nature teaches us. That fig tree, this little snake, the cocoon that lies there in front of the window, peacefully awaiting its future. They are all symbols with weighty content. Yes, if only someone were able to decipher their meaning. He would be in a position to do without all that is written or spoken."

Rarely has the pleasure of field sketching been more aptly expressed. Is this what the Buddha meant by Right View, or Right Seeing? You know, it's part of the Eightfold Path that stems from the Four Noble Truths, and is one of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Really. I see Right View as simply forming a relationship with things around you, just as you do with other people or pet animals. To develop a healthy relationship with a human being, you go in without preconceived ideas. You show up, spend time, and pay attention. It's the same with plants. Sometimes, I will simply make a list of botanical names of plants I see on a walk. I Learn to recognize them and try to remember all their names next time we would meet.

Diana paraphrases Goethe explaining his philosophy of plants to his young fictional friend, Anna, in our book, "Mr Goethe's Garden" with these words.

"First," he said, "I listen with my eyes. I give each plant my full attention, as I do you. Like friends, plants tell you their secrets only when they know you care."

Diana

I was wrapped up in these thoughts, as my guardian looked on, maybe bored, maybe not, when Diana came back down the trail towards me. She had already been to the tree and back and I had just barely made it a few steps into the forest. One of us went for the tree and the other looked for the forest. Each got what they came for.

Diana and I couldn't stop talking then, about all we had seen. We sat together at the Kopitiam for breakfast and worked out a new version of my cartoon story-board for The Bee Tree. We were both satisfied with it so that was that. She decided to leave early, and at 5:30 that evening, she and her friend Nikos left for Alor Setar and KL to have extra time to shop and meet with some of our other Malay contacts there.

Ecotourism and the WWF, World Wrestling Federation

Later Roslan came in and we went for dinner at the Kopitiam. We talked about about recent efforts to develop ecotourism in Kedah, the difficulties of organizing artist international workshops, and Malay-American relations.

Ecotourism was seen by local Kedah government as a way to promote economic development without cutting trees or otherwise spoiling the forest. Roslan explained that there was a new national park nearby called Ulu Muda. The state Tourism Office wanted to encourage tourism without making the "mistakes" they perceived had been made in Taman Negara, Malaysia's best known national park. I had been there, so I knew what he meant: to accommodate lots of tourists, they had built a large hotel. There were so many visitors there that it was getting harder and harder to see animals or experience the pristine forest. Ulu Muda had no roads as yet, and they meant to keep it that way, limiting access to guided river tours and using Desa Utara as a base. They wanted to encourage people to go there without overdeveloping the place. The focus was to be on foreign tourists because, for the most part, local people stayed in the resort grounds and occupied themselves with water sports or the nearby team-building obstacle course. The forest was always around and was not exotic to them. Roslan explained that sometimes a local official would be sent to Costa Rica or Brazil for a workshop in developing ecotourism, but little seemed to come of it. It appeared as though the person used the conference as an excuse for a paid vacation.

There had been an expedition into Ulu Muda by a group of Malay biologists to inventory species, and this might be continued as an annual event. Roslan asked me if maybe a group of artists could be organized to go in with the scientists and document what they found. It would have to be all outdoor camping, with time spent in between at the luxurious resort. Would tourists come? What sort of people would they be? Could artists fit into this scheme? What about ecotourists? I told him Americans would come if there were good bathrooms, showers and great food. There should be some interpretive programs. No matter how beautiful the forest was, they still needed to find some heroic species to focus attention on, one that could not be seen in other places. Or something bigger than anywhere else. They are looking.

As I walked back to my cabin, I passed the outdoor restaurant where most of the staff ate and hung out with each other, drinking their Milo, Nestles chocolate milk. The central TV was playing WWF wrestling. Two huge Americans in underwear strutted and displayed themselves, hurling insults and challenges at each other. I never watch TV so I was spellbound for a few moments. Malay friends have asked me, "Is that WWF wrestling real, or is it not really real?" I, uh, didn't think so, but I had wondered about it myself. "No. it's not real," I 'd answer. "Oh, I thought so," they would say.

Another Big Tree

This was the day before I was scheduled to leave Pedu Lake. That evening, Roslan asked me if I would stay if they could get my ticket changed. He offered to sponsor my room and board in exchange for a drawing of the Pulai tree for their newspaper ad, and an illustrated map of the resort and surrounding area. I said I was sure my ticket was non-refundable.

Saturday, February 28. I was booked to leave in the afternoon, so I got a ride to the Bee Tree trail and walked alone to the tree to say a fond good-bye. I lingered as long as I could, fondled the trunk, abosrbed in each moment, savoring each step back, and looked at every tree one more time. When I walked into the Kopitiam for breakfast, Roslan was there, saying, "I have good news for you." He had managed to pull some strings with Malaysia Airlines and get my ticket extended.

Way down upon the Pedu River...

Yes, I was being seduced by the country life. Kampung culture was slow and down home. It's values of tranquility, family, community, agricultural work, and religion are valued in Malay culture. Due to Government subsidies, a family could actually make a living there. Amir proudly showed me his little padi field that he worked himself.

A story by Malay writer Kassim Ahmad, about a young man returning to his kampung after the university in Singapore, starts out like this.

Back again among his rustic folk, he began to recover from it--that disease or malaise, that was too sickening to be trivial, yet too subtle and elusive for words.

From his house, 15 minutes from the resort, Amir gave me a motorcycle tour of the typical rural lifestyle of the Kampung people. He was proud of belonging to this culture. It was probably the equivalent of places I had been to in Rural Mexico, or down home in Kentucky. I expected to hear country-western music coming out of the houses and Spanish coming out of people's mouthes. Not! But there was singing from the mosque at prayer time. We looked at rice padis, stopped at old traditional houses and touched the sap in the taps on rubber trees. He showed me the outdoor "shower" where you drew cool water up from a well and poured it over your body. It happened to be the mayor's yard so we were invited in for sweet, creamy tea. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. I waited in the vestibule of the tiny mosque while Amir went in to pray.

Amir's discourse in Islam

I showered with the traditional plastic bucket. It is so tropical there that one does not miss hot water. We put on men's plaid sarongs to relax before dinner and sat down to talk. Amir talked to me about Malay traditions. I listened and asked questions. He said the Koran was given to humans by God to act as a guide for life. He said it was not that things are forbidden or discouraged in the culture. On the contrary one can do what one desires to do, as long as it is within certain limits and follows the rules. I could see that religion certainly permeated all parts of life in Malaysia. But what about the personal freedoms we worship in America? To my questions about "dating" he said that young men and women were not allowed to go out alone together. Instead, they met in groups of friends and got to know each other in that context. I wondered what really happened when no one was watching, but I didn't ask. Marriage was seen as more of a family and community institution than a personal and romantic association. Love was seen as something that grows between people as they got to know each other.

Amir further explained that everything in the world was part of a complex, interconnected pattern of cause and effect. Society was that way and so was nature. The universe is designed this way by God and we are discovering it bit by bit. All the connections are at the heart of reality. They also connect us with all things heart to heart. Nature is the first revelation of God, and as such is sacred.

For instance, he explained, the honey hunters and the bees are each part of the same ecosystem. Pak Teh has developed an immunity to bee stings, his own anti-venom, because he has eaten so much honey. They have a heart to heart relationship that is in keeping with the way things are, therefore honey hunting has become a stable tradition. The honey hunters are in tune with the universe.

Amir also used "Tongkat Ali" as another example of interconnectedness. The root of the plant, it is said, is a male aphrodisiac and also a female contraceptive. The bark will clear out your kidneys if you have become overzealous and taken an overdose. Nearby in the forest you will find also the "Kacip Fatima", the female's aphrodisiac. That is good thinking, whomever designed that dynamic duo of the plant kingdom! Each dose is traditionally mixed with honey.

There was a room in Amir's house that impressed me more than any other. It was huge, the largest room in the house, and had nothing in it except mats arranged on the floor. It had many pillars arranged throughout, reminding me of the outer rooms in the mosque. It turned out that the room was designed to hold the entire population of the village.

He said they had recently held a "kenduri" there at the house. It is a social event that is more than a party. Almost all the village was invited, I think at least 150 people were there. The local Imam said prayers and everyone sat on the mats in the big room and ate. Amir's family paid for it all on the occasion of the pregnancy of his sister in law, who lived in the same house. The purpose is to express appreciation and to share with the local community. I resolved to have a kenduri in my house when I got home and share Pak Teh's honey I brought back. I even bought some mats for this purpose at the local market to bring back home.

I asked Amir if we could stage a mock "kenduri" of sorts for the purpose of taking some photo references for the honey feast I would draw for our book. After dinner, his kitchen was full of extended family, men, women, and children of all ages. They wanted to converse with me, but it was difficult because only amir spoke english. So we had a good time doing a photo shoot. I directed them through Amir and they were great, I got a great sequence of spontaneous photo portraits by available light. I also learned the word for "hold still".

Yes, I thought, Islam is based on dogma, and like other established religions, it defines a spiritual path in terms of a rigidly defined and socially enforced, structure. Still, it is beautiful and based on a truth. I wanted to achieve that sense of interconnectedness in my drawing, like Islamic geometric patterns, filling space to infinity, impossibly complicated to the eye, yet binding all into one mathematical unity. It can describe both geometrical and biological forms. To a Westerner, Islamic art often looks purely decorative because there is little or no representational form. It's a sacred art, not intent on showing what things look like, that is idolatry. But rather, the designs describe a cosmology in which each object in the the universe related to every other, each a facet in a jewel of infinite size and complexity. The conception feels as broad as quantum theory in scope, and in my humble opinion, jives with Schrödinger's Equation as well as Maxwell's electromagnetic field theory. Really.

The Ultimate Hitam Manis: Found

On Sunday morning, after yet another breakfast of nasi lemak, Amir took me to meet Roslan who was visiting his cute newborn baby in Kuala Nerang, a neighboring village. Roslan and I were to spend the day together in Alor Star, capital of Kedah, an hour or so toward the west coast. I had mentioned that I would like to find a stationery or art supply store, but I imagined that I was tagging along while Roslan did some errands in the big city. But I never saw him do any business.

First we went to a travel agent to confirm that I had really rescheduled my flight and could really go back to the USA at the end of the week. Yes, I could, but it cost me $100. Roslan said he would take this off my hotel bill.

Roslan was in the driver's seat on his cell phone. He turned to me and smiled big, "I have another Hitam Manis for you!" Soon he stopped and a beautiful, young Malaysian woman got into the car. "Do you like her?" he asked me. "Her name is Inah." "Yes, I answered." Inah actually worked in the Sultan's palace.

The three of us went to one of the kinds of places I crave to visit when I'm in Malaysia--a big stationery store. And I found the pen I came all that way for: the Pilot G-TEC-C4 ink pen. I once accidentally stole one from a Dr. Mardan's desk and used it back home till it ran out of ink. When I searched the web for another one, I found it was only licensed for sale in Singapore. How I suffered from my craving for another pen like that! Now I buy several and a fistful of refills whenever I go there. It is the best pen I've ever used for both drawing and writing. I would gladly do television appearances fro Pilot plugging these pens. They can pay me in merchandise.

Roslan helping Inah to pose as Hitam Manis.

But that was not our final destination. We stopped at a beauty parlor. Inah came out wearing an elaborate Malay traditional wedding dress. She even had her face worked on by the beautician, her cousin. Roslan had some kind of diabolical plan, I could feel it. We drove to a park where there were some replicas of traditional Malay timber houses for an authentic sense of place, and I did a photo shoot of Inah, my debut as a fashion photographer. When I got to the pose where Hitam Manis is turning into the swarm of bees, she did great in almost every way, except I could not get her to look scared. She only knew how to look beautiful. Or to burst out laughing if she looked at Roslan, who was trying to look serious so she could look like she was being pieced by a spear.

A couple of days later, Inah came up to the resort on Roslan's invitation to hang out together. At breakfast after a night of karaoke singing, she met "Man", the snake charmer, who was showing me pictures of common local snakes in his field guide. I had my nikon coolpix next to me. On inspiration, I showed one of the snake pictures to Inah and I got the perfect expression a beautiful woman would have if she were transforming into a swarm of bees!

It's a long winding road back up to Pedu Lake. I don't know if it was the wild driving, or the betel nut Amir had me chew the night before. But I had been feeling a slowly brooding migraine and its accompanying nausea since the previous night. I tried to be as tough as I could, but with only a kilometer to go, I had to ask Roslan to pull over so I could get sick by the road side in the dark. Only a true friend will share your most humiliating moments.

The Pulai Tree

The Legal Limit

I explained that I missed my daughter almost all the time because I didn't live full time with her. They lit up and wanted to talk. The woman explained that she had had five children with her husband. She was his first wife, but later, he had married three other women after her. He is now 42 and his most most recent wife is 19. Polygamy is legal in Malaysia, I learned, but there is a limit of four wives to a man. Her husband had done it without even asking his first wife's permission, which is normally required. I think I understood that if you went to Thailand to get married, you could get away with a lot more. Each wife lives in a different place. She had never met them, but had talked to them on the phone. She wanted to be free, but to become divorced, he would have to release her. He had refused to let her go. This is the ongoing pain of her life. "So when he visits every few months, she is my husband. Yes, I want my freedom. But I just have to live with that," she summarized. And her daughter suffered though living in a boarding school, as all their five children do, starting with the youngest, ten years old. The daughter explained that she would prefer to live together with her siblings and two parents. There are basic desires that everyone, all over the world, have in common, it seems. And there are life-long problems that can not be solved in any simple way. It's just that in different cultures, the situations may change, but not the basic desires, like personal freedom, living with one's family, and sex with a 19 year old.

They asked why I was not married. I explained to my dinner companions that maybe the reason I had not found a wife was that I loved my freedom and independence. I liked to travel, I spent hours in solitude painting, and I had so many interests. That sounded like as good a reason as any I could think up on the spot. Yet I also expressed my wish to have someone back at my house besides my three cats to come home to. The wife of the polygamist looked me in the eyes and spoke one sentence from her heart.
"Mr Paul," she said, "You can just find a woman who understands you, who knows your need for both freedom and home."
I wrote that down in my journal.

Kuala Lumpur

The Last Supper

The topic turned then to America and the mood became serious. For the next hour or so we could not get out of the train of thought: American foreign policy and the Iraq war. He told me that America was a great country. So how we could have become such a murderous nation in pursuing war such as the invasion of Iraq. He felt sad for both the American soldiers killed as well as the Iraqis. I listened and said little.

I respect Pak Dan as a friend and as a person of great integrity. He used to say, "How can I do anything dishonest when I talk to God five times a day?" After the September 11, 2001 bombings, I had emailed him, asking about the supposed role of Islam in the attacks on America. He wrote me back, saying he was thunderstruck that someone would do such an act of violence, and gave us his deepest sympathy. People in Malaysia, he said, had been equally shocked at these events. When I asked how people could justify that in the name of Islam, he explained that the word Islam means "peace". So how could Islam be invoked as a support for terrorist actions? Even after the bombing in Bali, he maintained that this was the work of outside extremists. Malaysia was a peaceful country with only peaceful intentions, even though they had their differences with the United States.

However, in the last few years he has cancelled several trips to visit us in America siting stories in Malay papers about Malaysian Muslim men being humiliated by American airport security and held for days without reason. Indeed, he himself had problems when he did come here. He said they assumed he was guilty before verifying the data from their sensor. They pulled him out of line when their equipment detect some kind of dangerous molecules on his cell phone. HIt was a mistake, but he still suffered from the suspicion directed towards him because of his brown skin. I felt very sorry about this and tried to explain that everyone is subject to that now, even gringos like me. It is unfortunate, but damage has been done. He felt disrespected.

Now, since the Iraq invasion, relations have gone downhill between our two countries. I am more saddened by the feeling that a certain amount of trust had been lost between my friend and we Americans, due purely to our citizenship. Even though I did not vote republican, I was still part of this grand block of humanity, America, that exerted such an effect on the world for good or bad. Currently it's not all that good.

"You didn't even inform me of your travel plans, he said." I protested that it was not "unilateral action" on my part. I was just as frustrated because I had sent several emails and had gotten no response. He must have some some reason not received them. You do the best you can and try to understand the other person.

At 7:30 PM, loudspeakers from the nearby mosque drowned out all talk. They left to pray. So I was left alone to ponder our previous conversation. I thought of other people I had talked to, the newspaper articles and uninhibited editorials I had read. The war in Iraq has made a big impression. People are stunned by the idea of a big powerful country like America attacking a small third-world country with overwelming force, without provocation or evidence of potential threat. And all this unilaterally, without first gaining a censensus among it's own allies. What if all countries in the world behaved in this way? What kind of example it this?

This frustration seemed especially compelling from an Islamic country, who, in their eyes, could just as well be the next target. The rest of the world pays close attention to news from America, and often they know more about us that we know about them. One man in the karaoke bar said he saw an interview with Hillary Clinton and he thought she was really smart. I had never heard her views, which he quoted. People abroad are closely watching the coming elections in the US. The numbers will be taken as a telling sign of our collective agreement or disagreement with current policy.

This feeling of frustration with American foreign policy does not necessarily express itself in animosity or hatred. That is possible with a few extremists. But most civilized, well-meaning people in other countries may just keep silent when dealing with an American, wait and see if they are to be trusted before committing to any collaborative work. Or they just may not even seek contact. This is an invisible barrier, but one that will be increasingly difficult to overcome if things go as they are, making international relationships slightly harder to establish.

----

Yankee Goes Home

Just before this trip, I had finished a project for the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. One of the information graphics I designed showed that there would be no starvation in the world if there was equitable food distribution, sustainable farming practices, and a diet lower in animal products. This was contrasted with the American style diet that led to insufficient food for some parts of the world and an obesity epidemic in others. I used hamburgers to symbolize this diet on the chart. I did not eat at the Burger King in the KL airport.

Is there something about America that comes on fast, loud, and strong, like a Humvee turned Sport Utility Vehicle? We stand out when we are in a strange place. That is not a fault in itself. But do we talk and then listen? Or do we have a preconceived notion about the way things should go and the intention to impose it? No, a traveler in a foreign land must me cautious and reserved, not gruff or overbearing. That way one finds the proper places to go and meets with the right people. So advises the I Ching.

I bought a book of Malay short stories written in English for the flight home. In one dialogue, a local village man was trying to help a newcomer to the forest to hunt a tiger.

"So you brought a purpose with you?" Zukifli says.
"And a way of thinking.
How can you get into the tiger's stripes and spirit?"

........

(Written over the South Chine Sea.)

Where honey Comes From

The place where we made love
no longer wants to live
as a human being.
The bees fly over oceans and forests
beyond dictionaries and clarity.
No one knows where they came from
or where they are going.
They return to the tallest tree:
our Grandmother.

........

On the flight from Kuala Lumpur, my brain was filled with colors and complex decorative patterns dies in in batik and carved into wood. I could close my eyes and see them. The shapes fit together and repeated into infinity. Each design evoked a whole galaxy in the imagination. I was traveling between two dreams. As I flew to Taiwan, and walked to the transit area to take the next flight to LAX, there were gradually fewer Malaysians around me. I heard more English spoken. I began to understand what people were saying. I also started to miss being surrounded by the chattering sound of the Bahasa language and the quiet warmth of the people. I was heading back into the gravity of America. Perhaps it would absorb me once again into it's amnesia and I would soon forget what I had felt and thought about while outside its force field. I resolved to write it all down. And I missed my cats.

After touching down in LAX, as the huge jet slowed and began its taxi to the gate, the Muzak came on the sound system. It was an instrumental version of, yes, the melody was "MY WAY".

Joe's Garage
I felt nervous coming in through customs and security. America is scared. I didn't tell them that I was bringing in three bottles of wild rain forest honey. No officer stopped me, or humiliated me until I got to the domestic terminal for my flight to Tucson. There, an AT&T phone card machine robbed me of 20 dollars. It outsmarted me and it was perfectly legal. I wanted to call Patricia and tell her when my flight was coming in because I didn't want to take a taxi home. And I didn't.

One last report for you Frank Zappa aficionados. The loading zone announcements in LAX airport have changed slightly since 9/11. The intructions are a little more specific and carry a note of warning. The voice now says, " The white zone is for immediate loading and unloading of passengers only. No parking. No waiting. Unattended vehicles will be cited and towed."

Be careful. Be safe.

² Web link for Mr. Goethe's Garden by Diana Cohn, illustrated by Paul Mirocha Steiner Books