Asia, again

Within a year of my leaving China three years ago, the Tibetan monks I saw on the streets of Lhasa erupted in violent protest against the Chinese who were dominating and transforming their city, an earthquake devastated the streets of Chengdu where I had seen swarms of bicycles directed by orange-jacketed traffic monitors, and the Olympics took place in a Beijing that was rapidly shedding the few scraps of architectural history I had tried to see.

I'd traveled one summer to Indiana to study the literature of China, Japan and Korea, and the next to Koreatown in Los Angeles to study Korean culture. I'd written curriculum and taught my first year of a new Asian Literature class, including the literature of India as well as the three mentioned above. I'd visited Asian restaurants, museums, and temples in the United States.

And now I'm preparing to visit Korea, a country from which many of the students I've taught over the past 29 years have emigrated.