Video Night in Kathmandu

by Pico Iyer

  Once back in New York, I tried very hard to keep something of that spirit alive. I took long walks by the river at dawn and listened in the darkening afternoons to the unearthly strains of the gamelan. I read deeply in the Zen poets by the light of a single candle and I fasted and burned incense when the moon was full. I joined local groups of Tibetans in their seasonal festivities, and I haunted Thai cafés on East Coast and West. Mostly, though, I spent my hours flipping through photographs and reading old diaries, trying to revisit, in memory and imagination, the places and friends I had known.

  Some of these characters, as the months went on, did indeed manage to draw closer to their American dreams. Jain, for example, my constant guide in Burma, informed me that he had befriended a girl from Seattle on her first seven-day trip around his closed country; he had traveled with her, chastely, when she returned for another visit, and had listened, in surprise, as she told him on the eve of her departure that she loved him; and, after she had turned around in Bangkok and flown back for a third seven-day stay, he had taken her to be his wife in the drafty old Anglican church in Rangoon. They had enjoyed a six-day honeymoon around Burma; then she had returned to Washington, and he to working outside the Strand Hotel in order to save up for his ticket—though she had offered to pay, he said, he did not wish her to feel used. And though his mother was grieving that she might never see him again, he had tried to convince her that his was truly an affair of the heart. “My wife is not beautiful,” he said quietly, “but I can really say I love her. And look at me. I have no job. I am not handsome. I have no degree. I am just a driver. I think she must love me for myself.”

  A little later, however, a California friend of mine came back from Rangoon with the news that Jain had been arrested for unofficial tour guiding, and was now condemned to two years in jail.

  More cheering news came from Didien, a nineteen-year-old Indonesian girl with whom I had chatted for a couple of hours one morning as we waited for different trains in a small station in eastern Java. At the time, she was on her way to Jakarta to apply for an Australian residency visa. On her first trip ever to the capital, she had not even managed to leave the station before she was robbed of the $100 it had taken her months to save. Now, having saved up again, she was off for another try. If she passed her interview at the embassy, she told me, she would be free to join her sister and her Australian brother-in-law Down Under. Only four months later, I received a birthday card from Canberra: it came from Didien, who was now, she reported happily, studying English at a local college. In the months that followed, she greeted me often with photos of her cat and cheery postcards of Australian cities, bright in the winter sun.

  Most remarkable of all, perhaps, was the story of Joe, the friendly entrepreneur of Guangzhou. Just before leaving China, I had given him 25 U.S. dollars to pay for the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) exam demanded of foreign applicants by American universities. Our transaction had made me wistful, as the encouragement of pipe dreams always does; if trips to America were hard to imagine in most parts of the world, they seemed next to impossible in Communist China.

  Six months later, I was sleeping in my apartment at six o’clock one Sunday morning when I was jolted into wakefulness by the insistent ringing of my phone. Groggily, I picked it up—to be assaulted by a relentless torrent of words. “Hullo, Pico! This is Joe from Guangzhou! You can call me John now! I am here in Manhattan! It is like a dream to me, it is so exciting. I walked down Broadway last night and saw many black men. It is very strange for me. One man, a strong man, came up and asked me for money. That was more exciting to me than the Empire State Building. Also, I saw many, many beggars. As you know, we do not have beggars in Guangzhou.”

  On and on the breathless narrative raced. “It is so exciting here. Everything here is so old. The buildings are old. Even the cars are old. The streets are very dirty. Many fat women call out to me in the streets, ‘Come here, baby.’ Today, I wake up at three o’clock to write to Wu about all I have seen in New York. You know, it is like a dream to me.”

  The world had indeed come full circle: here was a visitor from an impoverished peasant nation savoring New York, not for its skyscrapers and limousines—he had seen all that at home—but for its unimagined supply of beggars, prostitutes, filth and Third World anarchy!

  Then I heard an ominous click: our three minutes were almost up. Then I heard another click, and the voice started irresistibly up again. “Here I can find a telephone and put in coins and talk to you! I talked to an operator, and she said, ‘Please put in twenty-five cents.’ Then I put in fifty cents and the phone rings and she tells me to collect my change! Now I can pay more money and talk to you again! For as long as I like! In Guangzhou, as you know, we have no public telephones!”

  Before hanging up, Joe smartly invited himself to stay, and I soon reacquainted myself with his curious blend of innocent energy and quick-witted acquisitiveness. (Not, it seems, a unique blend. A couple of months earlier, his friend Wu had written me a reproving letter: “I am always looking forward to your letter after your departure, but I have got no news from you … I here write to you for your help … Thank you in advance for your kindness to send the magazines as you promised … Awaiting your answer …” As soon as I sent him a cache of old Cosmos, he fired back an extravagantly grateful reply: “Thank you very much indeed for your kind letter … It made me really very happy to hear from you … I felt quite lucky to have the chance to know you, a man of so considerable culture and so kind … Thank you again … I don’t know how to express my thanks for your kindness, what I can do for thanking you …”) For his part, Joe, within a few minutes of entering the flat, began ransacking my bookcases for “gifts,” and showering me with names of Chinese sources who would, he said, be invaluable to me in my work.

  He had managed to get out of China, he explained, by befriending an American patron, and then by treating the two local officials in charge of his visa application to a 100-yuan dinner; he would be spending the next four years studying theology in North Carolina. He anticipated no trouble in financing his studies, Joe went on: he would simply travel around churches in the Bible Belt, denouncing the Communist system and affirming his faith in Jesus. He would also explain to his fellow Christians the value of investing in his future. If they gave him $1,000, he would point out, he could win fifty new converts at home. That came to only $20 per Chinese Christian. And if each of his converts made another fifty converts, his American donors would, in effect, be spending only 40 cents for each saved soul! Quite a bargain.

  On his second night in New York, this latter-day Charlie Soong eagerly headed off to his first XXX movie. Later, he reported that the experience had been of great sociological interest: he had not been very taken by the business on screen, but he had, from the balcony, enjoyed an excellent view of solitary men in the audience sidling up to one another, conferring in whispers and then leaving in pairs. His observation had been cut short, however, when an old man sidled up to him and began conferring with him in whispers.

  Making his way home, Joe had gone into a deli and paid $10 for a cup of coffee. Just as he was leaving, though, a waiter rushed after him to give him $9 in change. “He was an Italian immigrant,” Joe told me. “I had read The Godfather and I had a bad impression of them. But he was very honest.” Noting the recurrent theme of his New York experiences, I took care to warn him about the three-card monte sharks on Broadway. “No problem,” he shot back after I had finished my long explanation. “We have same trick in Guangzhou.”

  A few hours later, in the middle of the night, Joe suddenly leapt up from the floor where he was sleeping and threw himself into an eloquent sermon on the works of Christ and the horrors of totalitarianism. By now, the full-circle ironies were beginning to strain credulity: here was a student from Communist China visiting New York to convert an employee of Henry Luce to Christianity and democracy!

  In the months that followed, I received many spirited updates from
Joe—now wind-surfing on a Carolina beach, now devouring sociology textbooks, now dashing off articles for the Chinese dissident press. Three months into his stay, he declared, with great solemnity, “I have fallen in love with America.”

  OTHERS OF THE friends I made in Asia were not so fortunate. Sarah, the virginal waitress I came to know in Manila, wrote to me more faithfully than anyone else I knew. She always sustained what seemed a characteristically Filipino blend of evergreen optimism and unguarded warmth. And she always wished me well. But her plaintive and affectionate letters, poignant at the best of times, became even more heartrending as they became more open:

  Dear Pico,

  I received your letter last June 2, 19/86, and thanks a lot. A simple gift you have giving me, a white lady watch. I’m so happy it’s because you cannot forget me as your best friend. I hope you will not change your attitude. By the way, Pico, please help me again. Enrollment is coming. I have money but it is lack to continue my studies. The lack is 450.00 pesos. Please, I know you are my friend who concern me and nobody else.

  Pico, I know your boaring to help me but please don’t issitate because who knows someday I reach your country and that’s the beggining you know me better. My attitude is forever. I recover all the crisis I have done and thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ that he have given me a strength to do everything. Yes, I always remember the days when you are here in Manila going to Calle 5. We’re changing conversation that is full of jokes and etc.

  Pico, don’t get marriage yet. Just wait for me—okey?

  Love forever,

  Sarah

  Maung-Maung, the trishaw driver I had met in Mandalay, was equally loyal. Ours was not by any means an easy correspondence to maintain: I had to send his letters care of a trishaw stand, registering every envelope lest the government confiscate it. He in turn had to smuggle his letters out through tourists who could post them for him from Bangkok. Once, he begged me not to ask him about politics because “sometimes the police come ask me questions about it and may be put me in jail.” And sometimes I received nothing but empty envelopes from Maung-Maung, their seals cut open and their contents removed.

  For all the hazards, though, my friend managed regularly to get through long and thoughtful letters.

  Trishaw Stand,

  Mandalay,

  Burma

  My dearest Pico Iyer—

  Hello, how are you? I hope you are fine. As for me, I am fine. Thank you very much for your letter and thank you for your kindness to me while you stayed in Mandalay. I enjoyed very much. I keep your photo with trishaw to remember you.

  I could not reply to your letter at once because I am very busy at the trishaw. Sadly, I am always thinking and worrying about losing this trishaw out of my hand because the trishaw owner will sell to other the end of this month. Has only given me one month to buy it but I don’t have enough. Now I try to search for my new job. But it is not easy. So now as usual I am on my trishaw. My ambition is to become a teacher of Mathematics in Middle School.

  If you send to me your friends, they can see me at the trishaw strand. Some people will tell them that I go back to Shan State or something. They will lie to your friends Don’t be carried away by their speech. If your friends don’t see me first day, they can see me the next day because I never move to everywhere. When they come to Mandalay I will do my very best according to their plans as much as I can—no need to worry for everything. Because from my point of view, though we are far away, our friendship is the bridge that closes the distance between us. I don’t have enough money but I am always ready to help others.

  May I stop here because I will now go to bed. I must never forget you. I wish you all the best and I hope everything is going well with you in America. By the grace of God, shall we meet again in the future.

  Your loving friend,

  Maung-Maung

  (B.-Sc. Mathematics)

  Month after month, in beautifully curled English that must have taken him hours—and constant trips to his dictionary—to complete, Maung-Maung sent me increasingly fluent reports of his own life and solicitous best wishes for mine. When it was hot, in midsummer, he wrote that “sometimes I don’t even get one kyat for a day. Anyhow, I will try to improve for my living and I will support to my old parents. I have to try for success, then happiness. But I don’t want to wish for what is impossible. For example, I don’t want to get a star from the sky. Some people ride the car and live in the brick house, I can’t own a trishaw. But I like to do the right things, whether rich or not.”

  When I sent him a small gift, he thanked me warmly, but added, “I don’t want to take too much advantage of your kindness. Let me say that I am not a man for the money. Because money cannot buy happiness.” When I apologized for being slow to reply, explaining that work had been all-consuming, he wrote, “Don’t feel deject if you cannot succeed. You will know that industry is the keynote to success. Also please be patient in everything.” Another time, he took pains to remind me that “you are indeed fortunate because you were born from America, and America is the riches and improve city in the world.”

  And once, when I commended Maung-Maung on his English, he wrote back to say that “my English is not better than the English of most Americans as you tell, because I am a simple Burmese trishaw-man in Mandalay as you know. But I shall learn by experience.”

  THE ONE OTHER friend with whom I tried to keep up was Ead, the small and serious Thai girl I had met in the flashy neon bar strip of Soi Cowboy, who did not seem to have the heart for her ambiguous profession. Before I left Bangkok, I had spent one long day with Ead, hearing about her life as we wandered through the city one still and brilliant Sunday. Early in the morning, we had met at Wat Saket, the golden temple that stands on a hill above the city, and together we had climbed to the top and looked out across the gilded pagodas in the cloudless morning calm. Ead had gone off to pray at a shrine, put in a coin for a kind of Buddhist lottery and then returned with a smile: for the first time ever, she explained, she had received the number 1, the highest token of good fortune. Afterwards, we had joined the city’s families in the zoo, watching the bears and tapirs in the bright holiday sunshine; and that evening, we had gone together to a program of classical Thai dance. Next day, Ead came to my hotel to accompany me to the “well-wisher’s lounge” at the airport.

  A few weeks later, back in New York, I sent Ead a pair of jeans for her birthday, then rang up the Friends Bar to see if the parcel had arrived. “Hello,” called out a girl at the other end. “Hello. Hello?” But all I could hear was the thump of disco music in the background, and the raucous squeals and beery cacophony of a Bangkok bar in full swing. I blurted out a message, and quickly hung up.

  A month or so later, though, a letter arrived from Ead, thanking me for my gift, and asking me to excuse her for missing my call—she had been in the hospital, she wrote. Now, she reported, she was healthy again and “my daughter stay with my mama in upcountry.”

  Later that same year, I happened to be passing through Bangkok again, and, on my first free day, I went out from my five-star hotel in search of my friend. It did not take me long to track down the winking neon bars and video pubs of Soi 21—Soi Cowboy—and even on a gray afternoon the place was as loud and brazen as I had remembered. Its air of noisy glamour was just the same as ever. But as I began to look more closely at the bars, I noticed that all their details had changed. The Friends Bar was gone now, and most of the young girls in the area were new, and all the sites I recalled seemed to have vanished, as if in a dream.

  I still had Ead’s home address, though, copied out by her on a small scrap of paper: 193 Soi 22 (Room 404). This, I guessed, must be just down the street from Soi 21—a modest flat, I assumed, in one of the area’s leafy residential streets. I made my way across the main road just as the first fat drops of the daily monsoon started to come down.

  As I turned into Soi 22, the pounding of the bars began to subside behind me, and within a few yards the fancy
drugstores and air-conditioned cafés also began to fall away. By the time I got to Number 180, the rain was coming down more heavily, and I could only with difficulty make out the number on the next dilapidated building: 210. Between the two ran a muddy alleyway, bordered by two ditches that were quickly filling up with rainwater. Number 193, I assumed, must lie down here.

  Wobbling my way down two creaking planks that had been placed across the sludge, strands of wet hair flopping across my face, I followed the path down a few yards and around a corner. In front of me was a jumble of broken tin shacks. Their flimsy walls were shaking under the pounding of the rain. A few naked children waded about in the filthy puddles. Half-naked women stared at me from the openings of darkened doorways, babies at their breasts. Everywhere was sewage.

  I could hardly believe that this was the right place, and I looked again at my crumpled piece of paper. The writing was growing smudged in the downpour, but I could still just make out “193.” A little boy scampered past me on the planks, head bowed, and I stopped him and showed him my paper. He shook his head, and raced along. A fat woman came edging her way carefully along the boards, a cloth over her head. “Ead?” I asked. “Ead?” She stopped and squinted at me through the rain. I pointed again to the blurred “193,” and she motioned vaguely toward a nearby shack. I sloshed my way over to a wooden fence, and knocked. No answer. Finally, a haggard, wild-eyed woman appeared above me on the second floor. “Ead?” I called up. “Do you know Ead?” She shouted something out, then hurried back into her shelter. Clearly, it was useless. I turned and made my soggy way back to my luxury hotel.