Hello Kitty is 35 !!!!

Hello Kitty turned 35 years-old this month! Yikes! She's younger than me!

A friend sent me a link to an article in the LA Times about Hello Kitty that details this famous Japanese cat's creation and her ascent to global domination.

I had no idea Hello Kitty was on the verge of such a momentous birthday when I decided to review a book of Hello Kitty haiku on Haiku By Two, my haiku blog.

And thanks to my haiku'ing partner, Alison, I now know all about a blog called Hello Kitty Hell.

It's a funny read written by a man who's wife collects Hello Kitty do-dads and gizmos, which she then resells somewhere online. Her Hello Kitty stuff has taken over their house, causing him to live, therefore, in Hello Kitty Hell.

Carpe Diem -- YA Travel Novel

A friend told me about a book called Carpe Diem. It's a young adult novel, she said, about traveling in Asia.

Since she's a reader whose opinion I respect, I decided to take her advice and seek out this book written by Autumn Cornwell.

In it, a sixteen year-old girl named Vassar gets kidnapped to Southeast Asia. Well, she's not really kidnapped. But to her, it feels like it.

Her artist grandmother insists that Vassar get out of the country and away from her high-expectation parents for a summer. The grandma fears Vassar is in danger of becoming an over-focused planner with no ability to adapt to life's changes.

And of course, if you've been there, then you know that there is no better way to break someone of their love of planning than to take them on a backpacking trip through Southeast Asia.

I actually really liked the book. It didn't matter to me at all that the main character was a 16 year old kid. I identified with her journey, the places she was seeing and the feelings she was experiencing.

If you know a middle school/high school girl looking for a book, I say hand her a copy of Carpe Diem. And even if you're an adult -- so what? It's still worth a read!

Great Travel Memoir - Haiku Apprentice

I have died and and gone to heaven.

Actually, that was last week. Now, I'm alive again and back on planet Earth.

The reason behind my transformative state was a book called The Haiku Apprentice.

During the time that I was reading it, I was "in heaven." Now, though, I've turned the last page and am wondering how the next book I pick up has any hope in topping it.

The book combined two of my obsessions: Travel and Haiku.

It was written by an American woman who is living in Japan and working as a diplomat. At a work function, an older Japanese gentleman invites her to join his haiku group. She doesn't consider herself a poet in the least, but decides to attend on a lark.

But she gets hooked and the rest of the book is her investigation into what makes haiku "Japanese."

She launches into a cultural study of the art of haiku and in the process reveals so many fascinating tidbits about the mindset and history of the Japanese.

I've never been to Japan, and truth be told, hadn't really had much interest. But now, I'm chomping at the bit to go.

Until reading this book, it had never occurred to me that I could plan a "haiku themed trip" to Japan. Now though, the idea is budding.

Fair Trade Rice from Thailand

Back before Thanksgiving, I interviewed a man named Mathieu Senard.

Senard, who is French, now lives in San Francisco and is the CEO of a company called Alter Eco, which imports fair trade foods from all around the world to the U.S.

Our conversation focused specifically on the varieties of rice his company sells, which is grown in Thailand.

Alter Eco works with two different cooperatives in Thailand to produce one variety of white jasmine rice, two different red rices and a purple rice.

Long before I spoke with Senard, I'd always wondered why jasmine rice was called "jasmine." I'd never asked anyone, though, thinking it was just a name.

However, Senard cleared that all up for me. He told me that jasmine rice is actually native to Thailand and that the original grain, the heirloom grain, smells like jasmine when cooked. It is this heirloom grain that his cooperatives produce.

The fact that most of the jasmine rice sold today smells nothing like jasmine is, as far as I'm concerned, proof of just how far-removed from its roots and how mass-produced it has become.

I haven't tried the box of Alter Eco white jasmine rice sitting in my kitchen cupboard yet, so I don't know just how much like jasmine it smells.

But now that my article with Senard has been published, I'm reminded it is there waiting for me to cook it up and give it a sniff.

If you're interested in reading all about Alter Eco rice, you can go here:

Alter Eco rice builds healthy communities one bag of rice at a time.

Saving Myanmar

In an earlier post this week, I mused about a possible global push back against the military junta of Myanmar once everyone began to see how messed in the heads these guys truly are.

A week now has passed since the cyclone hit and still the generals are toying around with visas, relief and voting polls.

I've been watching the news reports out of one eye all week long, dutifully clicking on a Burma headline each time I see it's been updated. I've turned into somewhat of a media junkie when it comes to Myanmar, but I just can't help myself. I am astonished.

This morning I spent some time with my coffee and my Internet, reading deeper into the crisis.

I came across a BBC article in which British politicians were wondering about the moral obligation that we as human beings have to the people of Burma.

At this point, have the generals proved themselves to be so crazy and inept that we have a moral obligation to invade the country on humanitarian grounds in order to deliver aide?

A journalist for the Asia Times thinks so. This morning, Asia Times published an article written by Shawn W Crispin titled The Case for Invading Myanmar.

In the article, Crispin claims that a US invasion of Myanmar makes sense. An invasion, lead by the US and backed by the rest of the world, would go a long way toward restoring America's rattled reputation, he says.

Toppling the junta would clear the way for Burma's already democratically-elected president, Aung San Suu Kyi, to finally leave house-arrest and take her rightful spot as the country's leader -- a move sure to be supported by the majority of Myanmar's people as they are the ones who voted for her.

Is the idea of invading Myanmar far-fetched and silly?

I'm not so sure. What I am sure about, however, is that if the United States actually did step into this crisis and invade Burma, I'd be much more likely to support it than I would some of its other foreign policies.

Cyclone Sadness & Madness

Just like everyone else, I have been stunned, angered and saddened by the cyclone fall out that is happening in Myanmar.

Myanmar has maintained a front spot in my mind since I traveled there two years ago.

Hubby and I only spent five days in the country - a time frame that was both too short and too long.

Too short because there is so much to see in the country. Because transportation is difficult, we didn't get to half the places we had hoped to see. We never made it to Mandalay, for example. We didn't reach the ruins of Bagan. Nor did we visit the now devastated region.

At the same time, the days we did spend in Burma filled us with questions and unease. We witnessed disturbing ecological destruction as well as poverty, inequity and forced labor, like these local people pictured above who had been forced to build a highway by hand.

Of all the places I have ever traveled in my life, Myanmar is honestly the one place I have no desire to ever step foot in ever again. I am so glad I experienced it, but I am so glad I'm no longer there.

Watching the cyclone fall out, I am of course horrified that the military junta is dragging its heels on letting foreign aide in. It's a clear indicator of just how messed in the heads these guys really are.

I can't help but wonder whether or not this massive blunder on their part isn't going to spell the end of their reign. Maybe they are delaying aide because they are trying to punish their own. Maybe they are doing it because they are power paranoid. Their motivation doesn't really matter. The end conclusion is the same: The leaders are insane.

Last fall, the world watched as the military rulers smashed a local revolution. In the end, the world stood by and let it happen.

But maybe, maybe this will be a tipping point that will convince all governments and average Joes everywhere that Burma's leaders need to be toppled. Maybe this will spark a global effort to oust the junta.

Torch Bearers and Tibet

The recent scuffles over the Olympic Torch in San Fran, Paris and London have caught my attention.

Indeed, even earlier protests over the progress of the torch on its way from Athens to Beijing have made me take notice.

That's because I recently finished a book about Tibet and the abuses of human rights its people have been suffering. The book was called A Beginner's Guide to Changing the World.

It was written by British authorIsabel Losada, who apparently, after a quick check of her web site, was arrested in London over the weekend for aiming a water gun at the torch.

But I didn't pick up her book because I wanted to read about Tibet. I picked it up because I wanted to read a woman-penned travel memoir. I thought A Beginner's Guide to Changing the World was going to be about one woman's travels in India, Nepal and Tibet. And it was. But it was also so much, much more.

Turned out, Losada traveled to Tibet and was so affected by what she encountered there, that she returned home to London and founded a nonprofit organization called Act for Tibet, which works to educate the public about the Tibetan cause and "act for Tibet."

In the course of the book, the author spent more time in London investigating the various Tibet-minded organizations operating there and learning to navigate the world of protests and nonprofits than she did traveling to Tibet or nearby India and Nepal.

Yet as a traveler, I was really struck by the book. I couldn't help but admire Losada. She traveled far from home, let those travels get under her skin, and then returned home determined to make a contribution. She didn't just travel and forget. She traveled and transformed.

As the protests over the upcoming Olympics look to continue as torch makes its way about the world, I highly recommend A Beginner's Guide to Changing the World.

It's inspiring, funny and educational.

Author photo from IsabelLosada.com.

Suspenseful Reading

I recently finished reading Elephant Run by Roland Smith. It's a young adult novel about Burma, Japan, elephants and WWII.

Burma is about the last place I would ever expect a young adult novel to be set, and in truth, this is one of the reasons I picked up the title. The uniqueness appealed to me.

Yet once I got started, I kept reading because I was thoroughly engaged in the plot. The main character, Nick, is a British boy whose parents are divorced and living on different continents -- his mother in England and his father in Burma.

When the Germans begin their steady bombing of London during WWII, it is decided that Nick should part ways with his mother and go live with his father in Burma, which is (supposedly) beyond the reach of the war.

But soon after Nick gets settled in with his dad, the Japanese march into the country, conquer Rangoon and begin sending captives to the Thai-Burma border to construct a railway bridge, which would become the real-life Bridge Over the River Kwai.

While Nick manages to avoid capture by the Japanese, his father doesn't. What will Nick do all alone in a foreign and war-torn land?

Favorite Frangipani

I took this serene picture of a frangipani flower just starting to unfurl at the Killing Fields in Cambodia.

I remember stopping to take the shot. After confronting the evil of the Killing Fields, it felt good to focus my energy on something delicate, beautiful and alive.

Mahouts Gone Mad

Sunday, as I was flipping through the New York Times, I was surprised to see this headline:

Caution: Elephants Break for Food on Bangkok's Roads

Of course I had to read the article. It was about how more and more manhouts (elephant handlers) are bringing their animals into Bangkok to earn money from tourists. The manhouts sell bananas and sugar cane to travelers, who then get the thrill of hand feeding an elephant.

Any number of things could go wrong when a giant beast is allowed to roam a city's streets -- traffic jams, human injuries, elephant injuries, damage to private property.

The article reminded me of a movie we recently watched called The
Protector. It features Tony Jaa, a Thai martial arts star. Jaa specializes in Mui Thai, a rather violent form of kickboxing.

In the film, Jaa plays a mahout gone mad when two of the elephants in his charge are kidnapped and stolen away to Australia.

Poor Sydney has no idea what damage is about to befall it when a worked up, revenge-minded Jaa comes to town.

Last year I saw Jaa's other film, Ong Bak, and was quite entertained, so I had high hopes for The Protector. Unfortunately, those hopes were dashed. The storyline wasn't very plausible, and given that I've seen a number of martial-arts films, I'm used to going along with the outrageous family-revenge theme.

There were some wicked fight sequences and as far as action-packed goes, The Protector certainly was. It wasn't the worst way to pass a Friday night and we did get quite a few laughs -- even if those laughs were from the far-fetchedness of it all.

* Photos
- elephant close up taken in Thailand
- The Protector cover art