The Way Home

September 28, 2015 by Lightness Traveling in Boundary Behavior, Mystery | 3 Comments

I actually wrote this several years back, ironically during a (apparently) rather tedious, science-related conference. It was first posted at another, now defunct website. I was eleven-years old when this happened, and it left a deep impression on my still young mind.

Science has been at the center of my entire adult life. However, my sense of emotional decorum actually finds it rather reassuring that science doesn’t have answers to every question. To be honest with myself, I don’t want to know everything — I don’t even want to pretend to know everything. Bewilderment is a marvelous sensation, keeping open possibilities that some as yet, or perhaps forever inaccessible bits of wondrous magic await just behind the curtain. The joy in watching a good magician is in the mystery, and life itself is filled with mysteries — experiences that liberate stories far more wonderful than anything possibly rendered into mere descriptions.

One warm September afternoon in the years before being endowed with the all-knowing condition of teenager-hood, my eyes fell upon one of those magnificent, but mysteriously unexplainable phenomena. Rounding a corner along a trail through the hills near my childhood home, the very landscape suddenly transformed into a rolling, whirling, orange and yellow cloud of pulsating wings. A tremendous swarm of monarchs had settled into a ravine of wild oaks and milkweed, draping everything in a living fabric of what entomologists refer to as the imago stage of lepidoptera — or “butterflies” for the rest of us.

In one of life’s great mysteries, scientists have no idea how, or even why tens-of-millions of monarch butterflies travel thousands of miles across the North American continent, ultimately to converge on just a few locations. Moreover, a single migration is accomplished through generations. Each delicate butterfly’s life enduring only a fleeting few weeks, it may be great, great, great grand-offspring who complete the cyclic annual journeys started by only distantly-related ancestors.

Scientists know some things, of course. For instance, experiments have shown that southward migrations can be triggered by cold weather. But this only tells us that monarch butterflies don’t like to get too cold, and that’s not really very surprising. Some scientists also think that monarchs know which direction to travel by following the sun. But how they compensate for the different positions of the sun during the day or at different latitudes is still a mystery. And even more mysterious is how a butterfly, so many generations removed from any who previously congregated at some special location deep in a Mexican forest, can ultimately return to that exact location.

Scientists are just as mystified by how monarchs form roosts along their migratory routes, such as the one I happened across in the local hills near my childhood home. These small and delicate insects don’t travel in flocks, like birds. Instead, they migrate alone. Yet, these mysterious gatherings of sometimes vast numbers of butterflies can form spontaneously over a few hours, with members converging from every direction onto a single location. It’s as if countless flyspeck minds suddenly resolved that this particular place should be called “home.”

And just as suddenly, they move on.

Maybe there’s a message for those of us who watch in awe. After all, what is “home,” and what is it that draws us to gather in such places? And why is it that just when we might think we’ve discovered such a place, it just as suddenly disappears? The world around us changes. The young grow and move on. The old die, and new generations take their places. We awake to a changed landscape, perhaps even one in which we no longer find refuge. Maybe home isn’t a place after all?

And so we migrate. And if not in our bodies, then in our hearts. We move on to what comes next and gather anew. We gather with our friends and fellow travelers, our families, lovers and companions, or perhaps just our faith in something greater. That, or we die alone. And how we know when it’s time to travel is not by the temperature of the air, or by the positions of the sun or the stars, or by changes in some physical field. Instead, we look inward, toward something else entirely, to something unquantifiable. We turn to a counsel for which there is no science.

Standing within a swirling ocean of pulsating wings, some brushed my face while others made a momentary home upon outstretched arms. I stood in place until my muscles ached, until I knew that I’d be missed among my own. But the warm memory of that marvelous experience remains like the magical iridescence of orange dust that was left on my skin afterward.

Though returning to that same spot the next day, but for a few lifeless husks they were gone. Now even the hills where nature once performed that blissfully mysterious act of magic for an awestruck child have been tamed by other humans in search of homes for themselves. And I too have long since migrated on. But every journey has a destination, even if we don’t know what it is. So as long as we explore, there remains the chance to round some corner and discover another new and wondrous possibility.

–

The Secret Knowledge of Elders

September 16, 2015 by Lightness Traveling in Culture, Family, Japan, Luminous Aether | 4 Comments

One of my favorite and most respected aunts was also one of the toughest people in my family to get to know. An elder familial matriarch, she was more accustomed to giving directions than to responding to questions. And I know that to her I was always an “ibunshi,” or outsider.

Upon first meeting my then fiancé after he formally introduced himself in Japanese at my father’s funeral, she promptly turned to me and said that… “If I was going to marry an American, I should at least have found someone taller.” I would later come to understand how her comments were as bait to one’s character, left for the recipient to interpret as she saw fit. Asking one night why I had not worn a kimono to a formal family gathering, I responded straight-faced that… ” It was at the laundromat, washing out the stains from last gathering.”

Eventually, we would become close enough that she would one night make me a milk-coffee to share with her over a story, and I would begin to learn a little about the remarkable life of a wise and resilient woman. And apparently, she came to think enough of me that I would be included in the list of those requested to sit and offer prayers with family at her funeral.

–
It was the start of the New Year as we gathered around a low table and sat on the traditional “tatami,” or rice-straw mat floor of my aunt’s living room. Before us was an “Osechi-ryouri,” traditional celebration foods for the coming year. With foods originating from locations across Japan, each delicacy had been packed carefully into “juubako,” stacking wooden trays with dividers. It’s said that eating each of them will accordingly impart good fortune for the year to come.

My aunt, my father’s older sister, started with her usual shot of Jack Daniel’s in a beer while I picked a slice of “Kamaboko,” a pink and white fish-cake. Its easy texture and slightly sweet taste are always a nice start to a meal. And I also knew that the MSG used in its preparation would make everything else just a little more flavorful. It would be an amplifier of fortunes yet to come.

Silently, my aunt pointed her “hashi,” or chopsticks, suggestively toward the “kazunoko,” herring roe that represent many children. Instead, I picked out a diminutive “Tazukuri,” a sardine that had been cooked in soy sauce and that represented abundance, as in material wealth. It’s fragrantly fishy saltiness spread like a foamy surf across my palate as I recalled that the kanji, or Chinese characters for “sardines” translate as something like rice-fertilizer. I took my first sip of beer.

Next came a bright red prawn, the food of long life. My aunt watched as I plucked it from the box with my hashi. I knew that she wanted to see if her American niece would be able to shell it with without turning her fingers bright red. But I popped the entire crustacean into my mouth, head and all, and crunched away until everything was gone. Years in Southeast Asia had acquainted me with enough insect snacks to have quit fussing about chitin in my diet. I washed the last, stubborn bits down with some more beer.

I smiled at my aunt, who sat expressionless and said nothing, but who then pointed her hashi toward an unfamiliar but beautifully-wrapped bamboo cylinder. Unwrapping the tube, I opened it. Inside was what could only be described as a rubbery slime of some type. It required significant effort to remove a large, stringy blob without it sliding off my own hashi. My aunt watched without expression as I slipped the substance into my mouth.

An intense bitterness exploded from the gelatinous goo as I quickly discovered that it could not be chewed apart. Like a tough, slimy blob, each movement of my jaws merely changed the shape of the slithering mass while releasing even more of its horrific bitterness. Not wanting to be rude, I continued to chew… and to chew… and to chew. Stone-faced, my aunt continued to watch.

Rapidly approaching the last of my willpower to restrain a gag reflex, I imagined it likely sending the full contents of my mouth flying across the room. And horrified at the thought, I took the risk of attempting to swallow. Mercifully, the last of the slimy substance went down after the third peristaltic convulsion, sparing me the humiliation of either having to excuse myself in disgrace… or choking to death in front of family.

I managed a wan smile while attempting to conceal a deep breath. Then my aunt reached over and carefully picked up the tube, replaced the cap, and spoke slowly in the authoritative Japanese of a matriarch, “Konowata…Sea cucumber guts. No one eats them.“

I tipped my head in respectful understanding, and we took a long drink… together.

Thanks for the Hat!

September 13, 2015 by Lightness Traveling in Japan | 8 Comments

In light of today’s news from Japan, I’m cranking this out as a memorial to my favorite running hat, which I am now resigned to believe as irretrievably lost…

It was about two years ago that I celebrated my retirement by meeting up with my husband in Okinawa, after which we slowly worked our way back up to Tokyo over a period of about two weeks. It was during that trip, while traveling across Japan’s southern Island of Kyushu, that we took a side-trip out to “Aso-san,” or Mount Aso. The mountain is an active volcano in the central region of the island. Meeting with a friend who was willing to drive, we left the rail-station in Kumamoto, picked up a fourth passenger and started east.

Aso-san is a “supervolcano,” and notable as one of the largest on Earth. An eruption some 90,000 years ago covered nearly all of Kyushu in ash and left a crater about 15-miles across, large enough to contain the city of Aso as well as several smaller towns. In the mountains around the vast crater’s edges are some notable “onsen” hot springs that serve as popular resorts. And in the center of the Aso crater a new volcanic mountain, Aso-san, rises to about a mile in elevation.

The day we went to Aso-san, the weather was a bit sketchy. The sky was cloudy, and a late summer monsoon occasionally dropped a light, warm rain as we worked our way over the mountain pass into the Aso crater. Descending the road along its steep walls, we stopped first at an overlook where we could see the mountain, and then in a small town for a traditional lunch at a traveler’s “ryokan.” And then we drove across the crater’s broad plain to a winding road that led up Aso-san, and to an interpretive center near its summit.

The weather grew increasingly severe as we ascended the mountain, with a wind-blown rain beating down upon the car. Eventually, we rose into the clouds, and the visibility dropped as the wind started to howl in great gusts. Then, about a mile or so before the summit area, we came to an entry-station. It would cost the equivalent of a few dollars to continue to the top, and the attendant asked us if, in considering that we probably wouldn’t be able to see anything, we really wanted to drive any farther. Everyone agreed — we’d come this far, so we might as well go the last mile.

At the top of Aso-san are several smaller craters, vents for more recent volcanism. “Naka-dake” is a currently active crater, and it can be reached by a short walk from a parking area on the summit. Cylindrical concrete emergency shelters are scattered around the area to serve as protection from falling rocks and ash during eruptions, and a low rail fence marks the crater rim. From there, the view is steeply down several hundred feet into a steaming blueish lake. At least, that’s what you’ll see on a clear day.

We parked next to the only other car in the summit parking lot, apparently driven there by the person manning the visitor station. The wind was howling into the car’s windshield, driving a fine, misty rain up the glass. We could barely see the visitor station perhaps fifty feet away as we struggled to push the car’s doors open against the wind.

The laughter started immediately, as one of our friends’ umbrellas spontaneously self-destructed upon being pushed open. The other turned into a ship’s canvass, nearly pushing over its owner before she could get it under control. I pulled the hood of my rain-shell up over my favorite running hat and zipped my camera safely inside. Then we all sailed into the mists toward Naka-dake, pushed along by the gale at our backs.

Eventually arriving at the waist-high fence, no one wanted to get too close for fear of being blown into the abyss. However, it didn’t much matter. All that anyone could see was about 50-feet of steep slope dropping into a blanket of white. Everything else was hidden beneath a wall of clouds and steam while the wind howled at us like a laughing fox. Suddenly, a tremendous gust caught me from behind, pushing me against the railing; and so, I reflexively turned around to face the wind.

Instantly, the hood of my jacket blew back, and the wind lifted my hat from my head. “My hat!” I cried, as the four of us watched it sail high up into the sky… and then down into the crater where it vanished into the mist. It was such an absurd scene that we all started laughing again. And then, we stopped…

Within seconds, the wind dropped to a light breeze, the rain completely ceased, and right before our eyes the veil of white lifted from the crater. We all stared for a moment, stunned by the dramatic change in our environment. And then, gathering my wits, I pulled out my camera and managed three shots before the bottom of the crater again disappeared under a blanket of white, and the wind and rain returned.

We fought and stumbled against the weather all the way back to the summit station, where the attendant looked at us in utter amusement. Then we managed to get our soaked and disheveled bodies back into the car, and started down the mountain. And as the weather cleared during the descent and we regained our collective composure, the topic of my hat, the subsequent break in the storm and brief appearance of Naka-dake was brought up via a Japanese version of, “What the Hell was that all about?”

Smiling to myself while pulling wet hair out of my face, I imagined a well-furnished volcano god giving me a thumbs-up in the afterlife. “Thanks for the hat!“

A Lament to Memories

September 12, 2015 by Lightness Traveling in Mom, Thailand | 2 Comments

Descending through sunlit gaps in a towering forest of roiling white clouds, the approach to the airport in Bangkok was ethereal. It was the waning months of the last millennium, and my transport into an alternate existence was realized several hours later in the seven-hundred year old city of ChiangMai.

Greeted by Mayu, my smiling benefactor, we left the shelter of the airport together and the raw cold of “home” was instantly transformed into a steamy haze thick with the smell of burning rice fields. Thus, a caring friend had drawn me away from an American winter and into the warmth of Thailand.

My now elderly mom once lamented that the Tokyo of her memories was entirely gone, swept away by the tidal-wave of capitalism that rolled over Japan during the country’s post-WWII reconstruction. As the nation settled into a deeply-flawed system of representative democracy imposed upon its culture as a consequence of war, the last vestiges of reactionary politics quite literally died. Unfortunately, so as well went Japan’s culturally progressive promise.

She was honest about it also being the end of a time of families living under bridges, toxic food, and uncontrolled industrial growth that stripped forests and lethally contaminated the country’s natural resources. But she felt sorrow at the loss of an ethic of living together with an appreciation for the difference between “standard-of-living” and the quality of a life. It seemed to her a lost opportunity for the nation to have re-invented itself in a way that might have moved beyond both the impetus of power, and the power of greed.

I was too young to really understand much about that time in Tokyo. But I’ve been told that the city of ChiangMai in northern Thailand is very much like a modern day version of Tokyo in the 60’s and early 70’s. Gritty but friendly, poverty exists openly alongside modest affluence.

ChiangMai is a modern city in the sense that you can surf the Internet at an air-conditioned coffeehouse while watching the traffic jam outside. But step onto the sidewalk and one enters the functional chaos of a society where it’s enough that things simply work at all.

The city’s ubiquitous snarled maze of telephone wires, connecting voices through an immense Gordian-knot of copper wire serves as a fitting symbol of the place. Strung continuously by young men who brave precariously balanced bamboo ladders planted in the middle of traffic-filled streets, this ever expanding collection of tangled threads serve as an allegory to lives assembled into a civilization seemingly governed by an accepting social pragmatism.

Likewise, cars stop at intersections with little regard for lanes painted as apparent mere suggestions onto surprisingly well-maintained asphalt, followed by a subsequent wave of scooters that flow like water into every remaining breath of space between vehicles. Then, a signal turns green, and in a public display counter to every Western appeal to the need for rules-of-order, the flood of human transport pours forth almost defiantly without incident.

Such seeming chaos would be an affront to a modern Japan, where even hurried crowds wait in organized cues for turns to be packed into trains by white-gloved attendants. A fitting symbol of Japanese cities such as Tokyo might be the Tokaido Shinkansen, or “bullet-train” between Tokyo and Kyoto, its meticulously maintained system running with a yearly average delay of less than 30-seconds.

Accordingly, catching a Tokyo commuter train that was two-minutes behind schedule due to a suicide at a station, the conductor formally apologized for the gradually reducing inconvenience at every stop. And upon disembarking, I was handed an official apology from the rail-line which would serve as an acceptable excuse for my tardiness upon arrival at the gate of the Imperial Palace grounds. Such is the passing value of a life among such mechanized perfection.

America seems to lie somewhere between, as a land of many rules, but rules that only apply to some of the people, and some of the time. Beautifully organized cities belie a chaos of exclusion in the streets below, and magnificent edifices of faith shelter peaceful mourners while the violence just beyond rose-colored windows guarantees more patrons. The “greatest nation” rests upon a decaying infrastructure that no one cares to see. And it makes me miss the honesty of a Thailand that I once knew, even if it isn’t necessarily there anymore.

It was a place where saffron-robed Buddhist monks walked past a Christian church while a Muslim woman prepared “roti” at a street-side stall for a waiting line of locals and foreigners alike — where sitting in a little restaurant in the old city, I could watch Korean soap-operas on the TV while eating Chinese noodles — where my landlord adopted two orphans and sent them to college, just because he could — where a group of college students large enough to scare away the roving dogs would make an early morning run up to the local Buddhist temple — and where a riverside night-spot bar served friendly breakfasts to the local street kids. It was a place where everyone belonged… even me.

I go back every year and visit those friends who remain. But Mayu’s husband died last year, and I felt the loss too. And she’s been bouncing back-and-forth nowadays, between a life in ChiangMai and in Tokyo where her sons are attending college. So I’m beginning to lament that the ChiangMai of my memories is disappearing, swept away by the inevitable forces of time — capitalism, construction and cultural change.

As the aging Thai king’s health wanes and political rivalries rise from an apparently anachronistic culture, so the nation settles into a deeply-flawed system of military rule as the last vestiges of sovereign peacemaking literally die.

I too will be honest that poverty, human exploitation, and massive refugee camps are romantic images only to one who wouldn’t wonder about a person whose life ended on the tracks at some Tokyo commuter station. Still, I lament the inevitable loss of an ethic of living together with an appreciation for the difference between “standard of living” and the quality of a life.

It seems to me a disappearing opportunity for a nation to re-invent itself in a way that might move beyond both the superficial appeals of capitalism. Gritty but friendly, I’ll miss the functional chaos of a society where it’s enough that things simply work at all.

Green 108

September 8, 2015 by Lightness Traveling in Environment, Numbers | 4 Comments

Her children are all dead, and it’s her fault! They broke their way into others’ homes to take things — granted, mostly things their owners didn’t even want anymore, just as she taught them. But because she taught them not to be afraid of the people who would eventually send them to their deaths, they were doomed by their upbringing — her upbringing. And now I understand authorities are actually considering the death-penalty for her as well.

I’ve heard it said that it’s not her fault because she didn’t know any better. And I’ve heard it said that the neighbors’ well-provisioned and frequently unoccupied homes were an “attractive nuisance,” encouraging just the kind of thievery that got her kids killed. But the fact is, threatening behavior is simply unacceptable… and I think it’s fair to say that home-invasion is a pretty threatening behavior. But I do wonder if there might not have been some other, less lethal option.

According to the news reports, several of her children had been captured over the years, some while still at crime-scenes. Others were picked up on warrants. In most cases, they were imprisoned and then sent away to places, far from their mother, where they could learn some less aberrant behaviors. But apparently it’s difficult for an adolescent to relearn and adopt the attitudes necessary to make a proper livelihood.

Regardless, the authorities gave them a chance to change their ways, to forget what their mother had taught them. Nevertheless, they would all eventually return to their original neighborhoods to become fearless serial burglars and home-invaders, simply threatening neighbors who didn’t comply with their demands. They sealed their own fates.

I know that some will think that capital punishment for burglary seems terribly brutal, and I try to be objective. If I was in a situation with someone stronger, larger, and armed with a terrifying weapon threatening me, what would I do? I could scream for help or try to run — but that might just succeed in angering them into an assault. Or I could pepper-spray them, if that was handy — I’ve heard that does sometimes work to dissuade an attack. But as a Constitutionally-armed American, I should have a right to protect my own home with lethal force — shouldn’t I?

Anyway, it’s all a moot point. The last of her children was killed last week, and genetic-testing proved beyond a doubt that he was one of her sons. And now there’s a warrant for his mother’s capture since she was the one who taught him his bad behavior. There’s absolutely no excuse for bad parenting, and now it’s her turn to pay the price. Regardless, I do feel just a bit badly about this whole thing.

Maybe society does bear some of the blame, condemning her and her family to living at the edges of a gentrified neighborhood? Maybe she was just doing the best she thought she could as a parent? Maybe her kids were simply caught up in trying to live the easy life? And how hard could it have been for someone to have hidden what was in his trash, not advertised what was in a home, and perhaps made it a little more difficult to break in?

And their mom — my God, she’s only 19-years old! That seems awfully young for a death-sentence — couldn’t they just use some pepper-spray on her? But they’ll capture her quickly, I’m sure. She’ll be pretty easy to identify with that big, green ear-tag numbered “108.”

Banned Books

September 4, 2015 by Lightness Traveling in Fear, War | 8 Comments

So Far from the Bamboo Grove, is a “banned book” in the US, so I’ve just finished reading it. Written by, Yoko Kawashima Watkins, it’s a semi-autobiographical story of her escape from northern Korea and return to Japan with her two daughters at the end of World War II. Also intended as an older children’s book, it was removed from a Boston middle-school’s reading list due to pressure from the Korean community, apparently disturbed that it contained what were considered “…historical distortions.” Likewise, schools in Rhode Island, New York, and Massachusetts, also removed the book, citing similar reasons. And a Texas school followed suit with concerns about frank portrayals of violence, including rape.

The story is indeed difficult to read, even for an adult, and not due to the nature of the language. It conveys quite bluntly the indiscriminate violence that follows in the wake of warfare, and the universal fears of women as refugees. And I’ll be honest that I don’t know if the sheltered psyches of American middle-schoolers are prepared for the images of struggle, violence, and death it portrays. As for the accuracy of the story, I can’t honestly say. However, it strikes me as naive to think that in the context of evidence from wars throughout history that she inaccurately portrays the reality of what follows at the conclusions of such conflicts.

I’m a slow reader in Japanese, mainly due to a need to frequently look up the meanings of unfamiliar kanji. Consequently, I’ll sometimes read kids’ novels, such as Kawashima’s book, or Kazumi Yumoto’s, The Friends. This book addresses the subject of death, something rare in American literature intended for children. And as the story progresses, a deeper statement emerges that there is, in fact, no redemption from the responsibility of our choices to cause the suffering and death of innocents, even in a time of war. Counter to the Western tradition of forgiveness of one’s sins, the message in this case is that we decide through our own actions in this life whether the spirits of the dead protect us, or curse us. And in that regard, the image of an old and broken man dying alone and haunted by his own images of death, drives home a heavy but poignant statement.

I’ve encountered this harsh directness in other Japanese, as well as Southeast Asian books I’ve read, such as the Vietnamese-American author, Le Ly Hayslip’s, When Heaven and Earth Changed Places. It’s something steeped in differences between Eastern and Western cultural norms, and perhaps amplified by what these cultures have come to understand first-hand. Regardless, So Far from the Bamboo Grove has found a place on my bookshelves alongside the Korean author, Sook Nyul Choi’s, Year of Impossible Goodbyes, which Yoko Kawashima Watkins herself recommended reading. And just as with these others, I do think Kawashima Watkins story deserves at least a voluntary place in school curriculum, despite its cultural challenges to American readers.

Perhaps it was this delicate balance between cultural norms that also made it so difficult for Iris Chang as a writer of adult material. The Rape of Nanking, was also criticized as containing historical distortions, being “flawed” and “politically motivated.” (pdf warning) And her later book, The Chinese in America, addressed the perspective of being a perpetual outsider as a hyphenated, Asian-American. It would be only a year later that she would die by her own hand, haunted to exhaustion by the very ghosts she had exposed to a world where at least some didn’t necessarily want to see them anymore.

The Japanese social consciousness is averse to overt displays of emotion. Self-discipline, self-control, and social harmony are highly valued in Japanese society. I remember watching news coverage of a North Korean diplomat’s explanations of the deaths of kidnapped Japanese citizens to a large group of their family members. After twenty-minutes of listening to descriptions of carbon-monoxide poisonings, fatal illnesses, accidents and suicides, the stone-faced Japanese family-members attending had not moved, made a sound, or shown a single expression of any kind. But the North Korean diplomat’s increasingly nervous speech and demeanor conveyed that he very well understood the nature of that silence.

Likewise, the Japanese find it culturally difficult to overtly express their own feelings regarding their nation’s place in history. In Japanese society, apologies are frequent, but always governed by the formality of norms-of-behavior. They are seen as an honorable duty, and forgiveness is neither demanded, nor expected. Just as expressed by Kazumi Yumoto’s, The Friends, actions have a consequence that no amount of regret can change. Asking forgiveness is thus simply to deny responsibility. But that’s not to say that the Japanese psyche is devoid of either emotion or memory, as recent loud and massive anti-war demonstrations in Tokyo attest.

Maybe this is a part of the reason why my bookshelves support a perhaps disturbing collection of war-related literature, from A. C. Graylings, Among the Dead Cities, to a glued-in photo illustrated 1st-edition of John Hersey’s, Hiroshima. I’ve never had to fire a weapon at an enemy, nor needed to defend myself from another doing the same. But there was a time, before I had the will to allow myself to understand the consequence, when I chose to ignore the Buddhist principle of “Right Livelihood.” And since those times, I’ve seen the human result up close — on the Thai border with Burma, and in Cambodia.

We overlook that those whom we call our “enemies” likely feel much as ourselves — that they too find comfort in their cultures, act according to their needs and their beliefs, and will defend their families and their communities. Most Americans, most humans would act likewise; but objectivity is antithetical to conducting warfare. An enemy can’t just be different; it must also be less. In recollection of her time fighting for the North Vietnamese in what they knew as “The American War,” a tearful Lei Li Hayslip said, “I’m defending my own motherland, my ancestors’ graveyard… I am fighting just to be alive. And if somebody comes and burns down my house and rapes my mother and tortures my father… I fight back …become ‘Viet Cong’ …an American name.” But these are the kinds of words, and the kinds of ideas that are difficult to read.