US trip, part 12
I slept poorly again in the home of my parents.
We visited the Chickasaw Cultural Center, a spanking-new institution outside the town of Sulphur, staffed by Chickasaw and featuring tasteful and informative exhibitions on Chickasaw stories, culture and legends. The tone was moderate, even subdued in the face of the horrors of history, but I thought it was very well done.
Back home after a lunch of huge barbeque sandwiches, we watched Jeopardy in between commercials for food that caused conditions treated by medicine advertised in the other commercials.
After dinner I went along with my father to walk their two dogs, strangely silent creatures that show their need for affection while never making a sound. Eerie. On the next street we encountered my parents’ Chinese neighbors, who are from Shanghai and have two kids, both born in the US. Their English wasn’t the best, so we spoke in Mandarin. The husband was working on genetically-modified food research at a well-funded local institution, and we talked about that as well as their opinions of the differences in eastern and western societies. Their son, who looked to be about six, didn’t speak Chinese very well. I would have liked to have chatted with them longer as they seemed like interesting people in the face of my isolation, but the dogs were struggling to get at a local cat, so we had to move on.
That night I retreated into my guestroom after tiptoeing around the scatterings of pillows and chatted online with a Seminole fellow who lived in the area.
Great post!
I am curious what does it feel like to be back in US after so many years?
Comment by Jack — October 11, 2011 @ 1:28 pm