What are YOUR guilty pleasures?

I love to read books that are an escape from reality. I love a mystery and I eschew violence for art's sake. So let me introduce you to Alexander McCall Smith's books The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency featuring Mma Precious Ramotswe, a lady of generous proportions who started the agency to help people solve their problems. For Mma Ramotswe there are no global conspiracies, just human heartbreak.

Mma Ramotswe is compassionate but also wise. In Tears of the Giraffe, her fiance Mr. J.L. B. Matekoni adopted two orphans without first discussing it with her. Mma Ramotswe did not throw a hissy fit. Mma Ramotswe, being a student of human nature, understood perfectly that Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni is kind but he hadn't the first clue how to take care of a child. Mma Ramotswe decided to take those two children into her own house. So that is how Mma Ramotswe came to have a son and a daughter before she was married.

Some critics wonder if McCall Smith's portrait of Africa is genuine, because the only conflict in the books might be marital infidelity, not civil war or blood diamonds. He doesn't mention AIDS though it's hinted that the two children are AIDS orphans. The news media portray Africa as a broken continent with stories of starvation, disease, war, poverty, and corruption. Why can't there be a gentle beautiful side to Africa too? Somewhere between the two portrayals is the real Africa, a complex place of terrible beauty and pain.

Reading China

The Year of the Panda by Miriam Schlein is a book that my seventh graders are reading in class. As language learners, the book presents certain challenges to some, not the least of which is recalling story sequence. As the character Lu Yi learns more about the orphaned baby panda he has adopted, he also learns about the plight of the panda. I'm using the book not only to teach the structure of the novel, but also how to use research to deepen understanding of real world issues, in this case, the panda's loss of habitat. But reading this book has made me think again of China.

I went to Beijing last November for a weekend workshop. It was my first time in the country of my ancestors and it was a homecoming of sorts. But I was still the foreigner. At the Church where I went to mass, I noticed it was filled with old women. The priest was old, with a smoker's cough. I sat with the other teachers from my school; Penny, Sister Cecilia, Chuchi. Though we were Thai, Vietnamese, Filipina, and Chinese, we might have blended in but we were obviously strangers to this community. The woman in the pew in front of me turned and said in English, "Where are you from?" That was an unexpectedly complicated question. Do I tell her I'm Chinese, Jamaican, or American? It's a simple polite question that can't be answered in a single word. In the end, I said, "Thailand" which was true; it was my destination. It's the response I have learned to give to impossible questions.

No Fairy Tale Endings

Reading The Teardrop Story Woman, I am reminded of John Galsworthy's The Forsyte Saga, of two generations of Forsyte men who wish to possess Beauty, the character Irene. The Saga ended happily, for Irene is bestowed upon the worthiest Forsyte, a man with honor and integrity. However Mei Kwei ends up as a concubine or minor wife after her husband disowns her for giving birth to a "ghost child," a child with albinism, because he thinks she betrayed him with the French priest. Even though she is a dutiful daughter and wife, Mei Kwei is accused of unfaithfulness because she is beautiful.

In My Cousin Rachel, Daphne du Maurier said that to be born a beautiful woman is a misfortune. The narrator wants to possess the beautiful Rachel but because of jealousy and suspicion, he murders her. Mei Kwei avoids that fate. She smashes the jade bracelet, the symbol of her bondage to her rich lover. With such strength, it is hard to believe that all she can be is a mere mistress. Mei Kwei is a survivor; not like Irene or Rachel, for whom men are both predator and protector. She plays the role of the concubine for her own ends. It is both manipulative and cunning; and that diminishes her.

On Death and Dying

Tonight I went to the funeral prayers for a teacher who died yesterday. I had known her since I taught second grade and she the third, but we were not close friends, only colleagues. In all the years I have known her, she was a smiling presence. It was a shock when I saw her in early June to learn about the cancer. She was optimistic though she was obviously weak, and looking forward to the marriage of her eldest daughter. Now, with the school year barely begun, she is dead. She died with grace, and such courage I never knew.

How does one make sense of untimely death? I touched the books on my library shelves and pulled out Richard Adams' The Girl in a Swing. Alan, the narrator, describes the anguish and the pain of mourning his dead wife. I thought of the girls tonight, weeping for their mother, and I thought, There can be no comfort; their loss is unbearable. "Don't seek comfort," Tony, Alan's friend, tells him. "Don't avoid the suffering." The dead deserve all our grief.

The Teardrop Story Woman

Is beauty a commodity to be bought by the highest bidder?

Catherine Lim's book is about a beautiful woman, Mei Kwei, who is born in poverty in colonial Malaya (before it became Malaysia). She is rejected by her father who is disappointed that she isn't a boy. But because of her beauty, she brings the family wealth when two rich men want to marry her. She spends her whole life trying to please men: her father, her husband, her rich lover. Yet she cannot marry her one true love. He is a priest who will not leave the Church for her.

In the fairy tales, Beauty is out of reach of any man but a prince. Only a prince deserves her. In this book, Beauty can be bought if the man is rich. She meets her prince only to find he is out of reach.