THE CHINA CONNECTIION

I miss the sight of the roasted ducks dripping succulent juice into the trough below, and promising the harbinger of good eating. Alas, the Dragon BBQ restaurant is no more. It is only the latest restaurant which has closed with no prior notice. Though this city has a huge influx of Asian people, we don’t seem to have a decent Chinese restaurant. One or two Chinese buffets have come and gone through the years, but they don’t last long. Where do they go for good Chinese food? Conversely, we have many Mexican restaurants.

During the years I took Tai Chi each morning, we had a monthly pot luck picnic. I was the only Caucasian and usually took cake or a casserole. They brought ethnic food including chicken feet. unidentifiable dishes and many delicious steamed buns. Always with an enormous jug of hot tea with leaves floating around. It was a great way to get connected.

A number of years ago I wanted to buy goose livers for a pate recipe, so I went up to Oakland which has a large Chinatown, taking my mother in law for a day’s jaunt. Popping into several markets, I realized that no one spoke English which left me wondering how to connect with them. So I flapped my arms and quacked, hoping I sounded like some sort of barnyard fowl. I never got the goose liver, but I got duck liver and we both got a free lunch.

My mother in law was raised on a ranch in Chico, CA, where they had a Chinese cook, who still wore a queue. A ranch hand, thinking it a joke, cut it off one day. My husband’s grandfather chased the culprit off the ranch, whereupon he and the “Chinee” cook shook hands. Amazingly to my husband’s grandfather, the cook offered him a Masonic handshake. I now have a large porcelain teapot which came with the cook from China.

My MIL was quite fond of the Chinese, partly stemming from the herbalist who cured her mother’s paralysis. Would she be pleased or not with the amount of Chinese immigrants today?

THE MOTHER TONGUE

Our expectations exceed the return in so many ways. For instance, when you step into my house, I expect you to speak English. Sometimes that doesn’t happen, but when I venture into YOUR house, I don’t speak your language either. This leads to confusion on both parts. Ours is still an English-speaking country, though I appreciate that this is hard to understand for many newcomers.

A teacher friend told me of a recent arrival from another country who was upset because her child was not being taught in their native language. I am reminded of an elderly Italian friend who came to this country at the age of 7 knowing no English, nor any English-speaking friends. She quickly learned the new language by listening and using sign language.

Some years ago I wanted to make a goose liver pate for a party, so I went to a likely looking market in Chinatown. As it turned out, no one spoke English and I spoke no Chinese, so I resorted to sign language. I pointed to the barbequed ducks hanging along a wall and flapped my elbows while loudly quacking like a duck. I wasn’t sure how to honk like a goose.

Two or three people came out of the kitchen, smiled and looked bewildered. It was the lunch hour, and soon someone came carrying trays of fried delicacies while smiling and pointing me to a plate and encouraging me to help myself. They all shook their heads when I offered to pay. I guess it was in return for the entertainment I had given them with my duck act. All of which shows that a smile can get you a free lunch. I did not get my goose liver from them however.

We live in an ethnically diversified community, and increasingly an diversified world.

For many years we hosted a backyard block party, inviting neighbors from up and down our street to come. Everyone brought a plate of food, sometimes a recipe from whatever country they had come from.

I learned a lesson on one occasion when I introduced two people from China to each other thinking they would have a common tie. They laughed and said they did not understand the language of the other. Later I discovered the same thing from members of my Tai Chi class, most of which had come from either China or Taiwan. It was a good learning experience for me. We need to understand one another in some way if only by language.

We are criticized for not welcoming newcomers to our society, but nothing is done to encourage them to adapt to our customs. New communities are being built with houses of many small rooms to accommodate families of several generations; children, working parents, and grandparents to care for the children. This is the norm in many places, tying into their comfort zone.

“Lichen” watercolor painting by kayti sweetland rasmussen

This painting of intertwined elements illustrates our society of people from all over the world. A confused mass without any connection to one another.

There is more to being a good citizen than minding your own business. Learn our language and let us learn your customs if possible.

GREEN ELEPHANTS IN ALASKA

We came into possession of this antique green ceramic elephant about fifty years ago when I discovered it hidden and covered with the dust of ages in the recesses of an unlikely antique shop here in our town. I wet my finger and drew a line down its back to better see the glaze, and realized it was a treasure indeed, so I bargained with the proprietor, and claimed it as my own.

Shortly thereafter we moved from California to Seattle, Washington, and settled in a picturesque old red and white farmhouse in the little town of Kirkland by Lake Washington. The old green elephant made himself at home on a bookshelf in the living room beside other old decorative items, and we thought no more about it while we remodeled and added onto the old house.

The house had seemed so charming to us when we first saw it in January, but by June, when we finally made our move, we drove right past it. In the preceding six months and the nearly constant nourishing winter rains, the weeds and grass had grown tall, and the wild blackberries so large and tangled it was nearly unrecognizable. A white rail fence surrounded it and continued down the lane which went along one side of the property. The weight of a fallen branch had obliterated a couple of rails, and remained in the weeds beside it.

The upside of it was that the fruit trees and berry bushes were loaded with cherries, pears and raspberries, there were horses in the field behind which we could enjoy watching but did not have to feed, and best of all—there were no neighbors! At least we thought the lack of neighbors a good thing, until we found there was no one with the necessary information about people to help with the work, or even how to find a public telephone to call someone until we had our own phone hooked up. This was long before someone thought of inventing cell phones!

With very little room for guests, we took on the job of building a barn for entertainment and my studio. It had a game table, TV, comfortable chairs and beside the necessary furnace, an antique Civil War pot-bellied stove for heat AND ambiance. It had a sleeping loft above which would hold eight brave people agile enough to climb the ladder to access it.

We knew how important this additional building was as I had learned my lesson early when I invited a number of people from my husband’s office for dinner and suddenly realized I had no place to seat them! I had left my large dining room furniture with a friend until my daughter was married and ready to take it. Instead, I had brought my kitchen table, a venerable square and heavy oak piece which had seen many years of hard usage, but which at most might seat six individuals if they were of normal size. Through the graciousness of our guests, we survived the evening, but realized we needed more room, sooner rather than later.

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Among the first guests who came, were three gentlemen from Juneau, Alaska, with whom my husband did business, one of whom took an interest in the old green elephant on the bookshelf beside the fireplace, and asked where I had got it. I related what I had learned of its history which was that it had been purchased in China many years before by the niece of an elderly woman friend of mine in our small town in California. The woman, Laura Thane Whipple, had moved with her husband to Alaska in the early part of the century, to join her brother, Bart Thane in the mining business. Mrs. Whipple’s unmarried niece went with the family, and they settled near Juneau, in an area subsequently named “Thane” for their family, and where she started a school, which taught elementary grades. The young teacher had told stories to her class of her time in China, and shared her mementoes, among which was the elephant. Surprisingly our guests had all been students in her class! Also surprisingly, two of them remembered seeing the green elephant.

They told us that the settlement of “Thane” had actually become Juneau, which was now the capitol of Alaska! So our old green elephant has the distinction of being one of the first residents of Juneau, Alaska!

A SCULPTOR’S STUDIO

“Heartbeat of the Earth”

This anguished face came to me in my dream, and seemed to exemplify centuries of pain and isolation. His drumbeat reverberated through the earth in olden times.

Step into a sculptor/potter’s studio and you are surrounded with the “home-again” smell of wet clay. Delicious in its earthiness, for who of us has not dabbled our hands and our toes in mud as a child of summer? The other earth smells of glaze materials, iron, copper, tin, magnesium, plus the thick powdery odor of dry plaster fill your nostrils. Odious perhaps if this is not your venue of choice, and as singular as the “divine” fragrance of oil paint and turps to the painter. If you have been obliged to be away from these smells as I have for the past year, it is a treat to visit a fellow potter’s studio and smell the familiar odors of creative art being made.

People have been making things out of clay for longer than anyone can know. Food utensils, ornaments, and images of people and animals are found all over the earth, and the art is as fresh as when it was made by these ancient hands.

The same skills are used today in building a pot or a sculpture as was used so long ago. We recently visited an exhibit of the Terracotta Army from China at the Asian Museum in San Francisco, and I marveled at the enormous clay warriors and horses all made by the same coiled clay method used today by the potters of the Southwest.

This strong connection with ancient potters fills me with peace and a longing for something indefinable. My own connection only goes back for a couple of hundred years to England and then to Canada, where my ancestors had potteries. I have a glaze recipe which was used for Royal Doulton pottery, which calls for enough material to keep several artisans supplied for a lifetime!

I have worked in clay, wax and bronze, molding the clay and wax into recognizable shapes for most of my life, and clay has given me the most sublime pleasure. Your hands are your implements to create what your mind sees, much as writing in that respect. Both are solitary endeavors, demanding focus of thought. Working with clay, I feel I am connected in a small way to something timeless yet ongoing.

This is my studio with a work in progress.

THE SPORT OF FALCONRY

We stopped into a funky little store in Pescadero for an ice cream cone, and were surprised to see the young man behind the counter holding a hooded falcon on his hand. Never having seen a falcon up close and personal, we were fascinated with the creature. The young man was a member of a falconry club and introduced us to his feathered friend as long as we kept our distance, which I was happy to do after taking a look at his extremely long and sharp toenails.

Falconry is the hunting of wild quarry by means of a trained bird of prey. The art of falconry may have begun some 4,000 years ago in China or Mongolia as the falcon was a symbolic bird of ancient Mongol tribes. Traditional falconry knowledge probably spread into Europe during wars in Arabic countries. Today, there are falconry clubs all over the world.

In nomadic societies like the Bedouin, it was not practiced for recreation. Instead, the birds were trapped and hunted on small game during winter months in order to supplement a very limited diet.

Finishing our ice cream, the young falconer told us that ‘If he doesn’t feel like hunting, he won’t. People think birds like to fly, but they only do it to get something to eat.’ That may be true, but I still like to think the small birds visiting our birdbath are having a good time.

“The King’s Falconer” watercolor painting by kayti sweetland rasmussen

This painting of the falcon and his uncompromising companion was done from a black and white photo of my aunt and uncle, who lived in Saudi Arabia for many years.