Royal Tailors
Bangkok, Thailand
January 3, 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
From Boca Raton , in sunny South Florida , my generous friend and once-upon-a-time mother-in-law, Helga D. sent me this New Year’s message:
"Jan, while you are freezing your ass off in China I will do the same in Antarctica. I am leaving in the middle of January for a cruise on the Explorer II."
Beijing
People's Republic of China
January 5, 2008
Clear and Cold
Dear Family and Friends,
Sorry, sports fans. "Yu Li to Song Na to Xin Ying" is not the double-play combination on the Chinese Baseball Team in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. Yu Li (Lily) and Song Na (Jasmine) and Xin Ying (Elsa) are my never-let-me-out-of-their-sight girl-guides in this capital city of 15.2 million.
{C}
Beijing
People's Republic of China
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
In New York City, the exquisite white marble, Neo-Gothic St. Patrick's Cathedral sits on bustling and narrow Fifth Avenue and not in the middle of Central Park. The venerable French Gothic Notre Dame de Paris sits on the Île de la Cité and not in le jardin des Tuileries. But in Beijing where The Son of Heaven prayed for good harvests, the Temple of Heaven sits in the middle of a 267 hectare (660 acre) public park.
Beijing
Bandaling District
China
Monday
January 7, 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
Here’s what I thought: “Book a tour. Ride a bus. Buy a ticket. Climb up on to the Wall. Then, take a leisurely stroll along the Wall.” I was correct, except for that last part. Listen . . . .
Jasmine went back to work but she enlisted her former colleague and good friend Elsa to be my guide for the day.
Beijing
China
January 8, 2008
Dear Family and Friends,
“The rich are different from you and me.” They have homes and compounds in Palm Beach or Palm Springs, or Beverly Hills or Pocantico Hills, on Cape Cod or Cape May, or in Oyster Bay or South Hampton on Long Island.
Royalty are very different. HRH the King of Thailand owns a palace on the seashore and one in the mountains as well one in the capital. South of Thailand, the Sultans of Malaysia collect Rolls Royce motorcars. And the Maharajas of India? Do they collect everything?
Drawn by the curiosity of a bourgeoisie, I eschew the public bus of the hoi polloi and engage a driver and automobile for an excursion to the imperial retreat of “my betters” in Beijing: The Summer Palace of the Emperors of China.
And today I am alone. I am the sovereign of my day.
Beijing
China
August 7, 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
From Bangkok, en route to Ulan Bator, Mongolia, I decided to stop over in Beijing. I wanted to see my friends and to visit one or two sights I had missed two years ago.
Actually, my first stop was a return to the small village of Chuandixia. My friend Diego, his friend Miland, and I rode the Beijing Red Line subway for almost an hour to the last stop. Diego then negotiated with a driver and we took off for the 90km ride through the hilly green countryside west of the city.
