African Tour: Cape Town part 2

As with Johannesburg and Durban, there were plenty of guided tours scheduled in Cape Town. When you take an entire company to a strange new world across the planet to work for a couple of months, it is always a good idea to provide some diversions in between rehearsals. I understood why we had so many guided tours. I simply preferred to wander around on my own or with a few friends. I skipped most of the guided tours in Cape Town, but a few sounded interesting, and one or two are pretty much required of all visitors.

Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden

By far the best botanic garden in all of Africa. Or at least of the three I saw in Cape Town, Durban, and Johannesburg. Since it was spring, everything was in full bloom. Since I know pretty much nothing about horticulture, all I saw were a bunch of pretty flowers. They also had an exhibit on the geology of the area and how the Cape Peninsula was formed. It was all rocks to me. I thought the flowers looked nicer.

As with the Durban Botanic Gardens, there were birds all over the place. Unlike failing to identify flowers, I could tell the difference between the geese and owls. Just before sunset, something called an African dusky flycatcher goes to town on any insects flying around their territory. If they eat mosquitoes, we should import these guys to Taiwan. Cape Town is probably a better place to live if you are a bird. The city is surrounded by nature, and if you get hungry, there are plenty of people eating in trendy outdoor cafés. Kirstenbosch is proud to be a haven for butterflies, though the Durban Botanic Gardens had far more.

Something we saw in Kirstenbosch that I do not remember ever seeing in Durban were tiny tortoises. These were not the jumbo 100-year-old tortoises that really hate it when you put your children on them for your Facebook pictures. They were cat sized grass assassins. People must find them cute and/or delicious because there were also signs reminding everyone that taking a tortoise home is highly illegal.

Canopy Walkway
Something Kirstenbosch had that I have never seen at any other botanic garden was the tree canopy walkway through a 130 meter stretch of the arboretum. What made it unique was that the walkway got as high as 12 meters in some places. Rather than walk along the trees at ground level, we walked through the trees at monkey level, sometimes standing above a few tree tops. The idea was to give us a unique point of view. It clearly worked. I have walked around a million trees in my life. This was the first time I walked in the trees.

One of the most obvious differences between the Durban Botanic Gardens and Kirstenbosch are the locations. The Durban gardens are downtown, surrounded by city. Kirstenbosch is in Table Mountain National Park, near the bottom of the mountain. Being inside a national park makes for a far more natural environment. Since Kirstenbosch is inside the borders of a national park, you can hike from the gardens into the mountains all day. More than a few of the most popular trails up Table Mountain start at the botanical garden.

Castle of Good Hope
The Castle of Good Hope is a 17th century Dutch fort about as downtown as you can get. It is right next to Cape Town City Hall. The history of the fort is interesting even if the building is not much to look at. I could have missed this one and it would not have detracted from my time in Cape Town in any way whatsoever, though I certainly do not regret going.

District Six Museum
Next to the Castle of Good Hope is the District Six Museum, an old church turned museum. It honors the history of District Six, a multiracial community of artists who were evicted by the government after someone realized the potential for profit so close to the bay and decided it should be a white neighborhood. More than 20,000 residents were forced out of their homes and taken to various townships. Every building that was not a church was bulldozed. Thanks to grassroots protests, the area was never developed. After apartheid died, District Six started to build up again, with a few of the evicted residents returning.

Iziko South African National Gallery / South African Jewish Museum / Cape Town Holocaust and Genocide Centre

Iziko South African National Gallery
The Iziko South African National Gallery, next to the District Six Museum, is a small fine arts museum. I did not recognize the name of a single artist in the collection, even though it had 17th century Dutch and 19th century British art. The Dutch Golden Age has some of my favorite artists, especially Rembrandt. None of them were at the South African National Gallery. Most of the museum is modern art by contemporary South African artists. It is right next to the South African Jewish Museum, which I went to on my own later. Next door is the Cape Town Holocaust and Genocide Centre, an odd mashup of the holocaust and apartheid. The worst part about combining the two is that right after the holocaust when everyone said we should never forget and never let anything like that happen again, the first apartheid laws were passed. While it was nice to see a European genocide from an African point of view, there was no way the Cape Town Holocaust and Genocide Centre was ever going to compete with Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. I suppose we are not supposed to rate holocaust museums against each other, but Yad Vashem is a truly world class memorial and museum. It is easily one of the best museums I have ever seen anywhere in the world.

Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa

Photograph by Iwan Baan
Just a few feet from the water at Table Bay Harbour is the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa. It is even more modern than the South African National Gallery, and is the “largest museum in Africa”. The building is only a few years old and looks like old science fiction's idea of the future when the colonies on the Moon are under attack in the distant year 2000. The South African National Gallery reminded me of the Getty Villa in Los Angeles. MOCAA, as the kids call it, seems like an incredibly well curated museum. But I have to admit that modern art goes right over my head. I can generally get what the artist is trying to say, until I see a bunch of cinder blocks hanging from the ceiling. I have no doubt that it represents something about society and our ills, but it looks like bricks hanging from the ceiling to me.

Victoria & Alfred Waterfront

Across piers from MOCAA is the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront, an outdoor tourist shopping mall on the harbor. Like Pier 39 in San Francisco, it is worth a visit. Once. People call it the V&A or V&A Waterfront, which made me think it was named the Victoria & Albert Waterfront. But it was named after Alfred, one of Victoria and Albert's sons. Brits probably learned about all of these people in school, but South Africans do not seem to care about that entitled family at all.

Canal Walk Shopping Centre
The only other group shopping I did in Cape Town was to the Canal Walk Shopping Centre in Century City because it is next to China Town and built on a canal. Both were disappointing. The mall is supposed to look Venetian, but it looks like something in Las Vegas. It is more upscale, so my colleagues liked it, but it was just another mall to me. The tiny Venetian canal looked neither Italian nor Californian and it led to a bit of a swamp, which was surprising to see in an area that is obviously a high priced residential and retail development. China Town was a smaller shopping mall and had absolutely nothing to do with anything even resembling a Chinatown. Everyone was disappointed in that one, especially since it was low end, dollar store shopping.

Robben Island

Photograph by T Holi
A quick ferry ride from the V&A Waterfront gets you to Robben Island, a small chunk of flat land in Table Bay. No one goes for the beaches. The main compound on the island is now a museum and was a prison for 300 years. The most famous prisoner, by far, was Nelson Mandela, who spent 18 years in a surprisingly large cell. His cell had a window, but the view is of a solid gray wall and the gray prison yard. There was no green anywhere in sight. While the island itself is mostly green and brown, the prison yard is concrete and stone. What I liked about the prison/museum tour was that it was conducted by a former inmate. Since it only closed in 1996, there are still plenty of people alive who experienced in firsthand. They can tell their stories much better than a park ranger at Alcatraz.

Something I will remember until the day I die was listening to a Shoah survivor tell her story at Yad Vashem. Her generation is mostly gone. Soon there will be no one to tell us what they witnessed. There is no point in human history without crimes against humanity. We will always treat the people we categorize as different from us like animals. After enough time has passed, we read about all the atrocities in history books and watch documentaries. We are spoiled for choice when it comes to man's inhumanity to man. But listening to someone who was actually there speak about their personal experience is infinitely more powerful than reading a historian's thesis. Yad Vashem will be a moving place even after all the survivors are gone. I only hope Robben Island will not lose some of its power when there are no longer any former inmates to speak to visitors.

Rhodes Memorial

The Rhodes Memorial is a controversial site because Cecil Rhodes was a white supremacist who helped oppress the indigenous South African population. With his fortune from mining blood diamonds, he got into politics and championed laws that would hurt the people of South Africa for the next century. Though a reprehensible human being, he died wealthy enough to remain famous today. He has memorials in Cape Town and Kimberley, Northern Cape. Through his mining monopoly, he helped make diamonds ridiculously expensive and bought large chunks of land throughout southern Africa, including what is now the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Garden and Nyanga National Park in Zimbabwe, and started the Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University. Rhodes University in Makhanda, Eastern Cape was named after him, as was the entire country of Rhodesia until they changed it to Zimbabwe.

Still, it is a good looking little stone building at the bottom of Devil's Peak, right next to the University of Cape Town. Monuments to horrible people can be nice places to visit. Chiang Kai Shek was a murderous dictator who got rich making his people poor, but the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall is one of the best pieces of architecture in all of Taiwan.

Stellenbosch

Most of our guided tours were within the Cape Town city limits. The biggest exception was when we had a look at some vineyards.

The Cape Winelands region is South Africa's wine capital. Like California's Napa Valley, France's Val de Loire, and Israel's Galil, it is not the only area with vineyards, but it is where most of the award winning wine comes from. We went to Stellenbosch, the largest town in the region surrounded by 150 vineyards. Just outside of Cape Town, Stellenbosch was a quick drive from the City Centre, though it was twice as far away for those of us in Simon's Town. Coincidentally, Simon's Town and Stellenbosch were both named after the same person, Simon van der Stel.

Though practically the same place geographically, Stellenbosch felt different. Cape Town is a large international city with a healthy mix of pretty much every language and ethnic group South Africa has to offer. Stellenbosch is a small town of mostly white people who all speak Afrikaans. As with the rest of South Africa, almost everyone understands English, but the accents were stronger in Stellenbosch. Or at least seemed stronger since they were all mostly the same.

A guided tour through a vineyard would be fascinating for anyone interested in how wine is made. Some in our group loved wine. Some liked it from time to time. Most were indifferent. I used to drink the occasional glass on holidays and during special events. Since I lost my sense of smell, I have had maybe four of five glasses.

Having said all that, the price of wine in Stellenbosch is dirt cheap. We went to a few tastings, none of which did me any good, but everyone else said that every vineyard had some pretty good wine. The Cape Winelands are known for world class wine, and every vineyard told us they had some of the best wine in the world. Little did they know that they were dealing with customers from Taiwan, where every single merchant claims to have the best merchandise. Boasts go in one ear and out the other. Even so, almost everyone in our group bought a bottle or two. It would have been rude not to, and the price was too low to ignore. Wine does nothing for me these days, but I know people back home who might like it, so I bought a few bottles myself.

Table Mountain National Park

The most eagerly anticipated guided tour in Cape Town by pretty much all of us was at two different spots on the Cape Peninsula. Though any of us could have gone to either at any time, and most of us returned a few times, having a guide who knew their way around the first time we went was invaluable.

Cape of Good Hope
Our first stop was the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of the peninsula. Part of the Table Mountain National Park, anyone can go there on their own. With a guide, we walked down trails I would have thought were closed or too dangerous for visitors, and got a crash course in the local flora and fauna. There were flowers and plants on the peninsula that could not be found anywhere else in the world. The people of Cape Town are especially proud of their peninsula sandstone fynbos, which all looked like desert plants to me, even though Cape Town is nowhere near a desert. There were small reptiles and mammals that can be found everywhere, as well as the dassie, a cat sized varmint that looks like a Disney cartoon character. The biggest surprise to our guide was when we ran into a sea otter. Though they burrow and sleep on land, they spend most of their time in the water. Our guide speculated that the one we saw might have been sick since it was out in the open and making no effort to hide from us.

What did not surprise our guide at all were the ostriches. They walked around like they owned the place. They are not afraid of humans, and we were warned not to get too close. Their bark is worse than their bite, which is more like a gentle peck, but they can kick you into next week if threatened. They have serious claws that could easily ruin anyone's day. Fortunately, an ostrich is more likely to run away than attack. And they can run circles around whoever holds any Olympic records.

What surprised no one were the baboons. We were told about their behavior before we left Taiwan, so some of my colleagues were terrified of them. Others suggested no one show any fear. I have no idea if a baboon can sense fear in humans, but I know they are not even the tiniest bit afraid of us. There are only a few hundred baboons on the peninsula, even though it seems like they are everywhere. They even greet visitors at the parking lot. The biggest rule, obviously, is to never give them any food under any circumstances. They are selfish creatures and if you give them a crumb, they will take the entire cake. Not that anyone needs to volunteer food. If you have food on you, they will find it and leave you with nothing. The largest monkeys in the world, they can easily kill a human. For some reason, they almost never do. Humans are far more likely to kill them. Baboons are protected in the Table Mountain National Park, but when they roam into nearby villages, they tend to get shot by people who have a problem with anything breaking into their homes for food.

Ironically, there would be fewer baboons digging through trash if humans had not already killed off all of their predators. The Cape Peninsula used to house lions, leopards, and hyenas before men hunted them out. There were also elephants and rhinoceros, which were not a threat to baboons, but hard to image walking around the cape. Elephants need wide open areas to roam. I cannot picture them on the rocky trails or climbing the mountains.

Table Mountain Cableway
Our second destination on the Cape Peninsula was the most famous, and arguably the most famous landmark in all of South Africa. Table Mountain takes up only a tiny fraction of Table Mountain National Park, yet it dominates Cape Town's skyline. Not only is it the highest point in the city, its flat surface makes it stand out more from a distance than a traditional peak like Lion's Head. That flat surface also makes it an incredibly easy mountain to walk across. You need special equipment to reach the summit of most mountains. For Table Mountain, you need to hike for three hours or take a five minute aerial cableway ride. They can cram more than five dozen people into each cable car, but the cars rotate a full 360 degrees during each ride, so everyone gets a view of everything on the way up or down. Riding the aerial cableway reminded me of the ropeway up Mt Misen on Miyajima. Not that the Miyajima cable car rotated. But at each stop, people got off the cars and huddled around the station, taking pictures and taking in the view. At both locations, if you keep walking for a few minutes, the view gets infinitely better.

Walking around the top of Table Mountain felt like walking on an alien landscape. I assume. I have never actually been to another planet. The sky looks just like Earth, but the ground is rock and scattered fynbos. There is a type of aloe that is only on Table Mountain. Unless you know it is aloe, it could be any alien plant. On most of the mountain top, you cannot see that you are even on a mountain. It looks like a vast rocky plain in every direction, except you can tell that you are at a higher elevation. It feels nothing like Kansas. Other than birds, most of the animals are tiny. The biggest creature I ever saw on Table Mountain was a dassie. Baboons used to roam the flat top, but they all left 30 years ago to find easier food, the experts decided. If you go at the right time, you can find yourself in the middle of the table cloth, a thin layer of clouds that drape themselves over the mountain, like cloth over a table. From the City Centre and Harbour, it looks like a white waterfall pouring over the mountain. On the mountain, it looks like sudden fog rolling in. I almost expected to hear some John Carpenter synthesizer music. I highly recommend it, though it takes some lucky timing. I went up Table Mountain a few times and only got covered by the table cloth once.

From any of the ledges on the plateau, you can definitely tell you are on a mountain. They have walkways and viewing platforms at the northern ledge because that faces downtown Cape Town and Table Bay. At over 1000 meters above sea level, there is no better vantage point anywhere in the city. From the western ledge, you look down on Clifton, Camps Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean. The rocky eastern ledge faces the vast Table Flats. It also holds Maclear's Beacon, a rock mound set up by an Irish astronomer almost 200 years ago. At five meters tall, it is the highest point on Table Mountain, which makes it the highest point in Cape Town. The southern side slopes downhill, with more mountain than table, so there is no dramatic ledge from which to stand in amazement. But it is the infinitely easier side to hike up and down.

Camps Bay and Lion's Head from Table Mountain

Lion's Head, Signal Hill, City Centre
with Robben Island, Table Bay, Bloubergstrand
Photograph by Tom Podmore

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Just a reminder, I did not take any of these photographs. These are placeholders until I can replace them with my own. I am attempting to give credit to the photographers when I know who they are.

It May Be Worth Something Someday part 2

The funny thing about owning a house on the opposite side of the world is that they still want to hand over the keys to show that you have taken possession. Legally, you own a house once all the paperwork is signed and filed. That can be done anywhere in the world. The passing of keys is purely symbolic. Everyone changes the locks when they buy a new house anyway. I could sign everything myself, but I had to designate a proxy when it came time to getting the key. That was actually pretty easy.

Joanne, my high school boyfriend's mother, went to the house and gave me a full report. She was always in my corner during the bout between my parents and me, and even more outraged when she learned that they stole my grandfather's house. She knew me when I was supposed to inherit that house, so she knows how much I could have used it at the time.

I was surprised to learn that the house is in good shape. I suppose I should not be. If their goal was to sell it, my parents would never let it fall apart. Joanne checked the fireplaces, ran hot water through the faucets, turned on the light switches, and charged her phone in several different outlets. She said everything is in working order. The electricity, gas, and water are still turned on, which is odd since no one has lived in that house since 2006, as far as I know. Our best guess is that everything was turned on while my parents worked on renovating the place. Joanne thinks I should keep everything on so the house will be easier to sell. I think that the longer it is on the market, the more I have to pay bills for an empty house. Maybe she should have some people over for dinner and really test out the place, but I doubt she would want to. She kept telling me how clean everything is, and would worry about doing anything to make it look less attractive to potential buyers.

My grandparents' house was built in 1929, which is both a positive and a negative. The attention to detail is unlike anything you would find in a house made after the 1940s. All the mouldings, arches, woodwork, and brass would be seen as too expensive or too ostentatious today. The fireplaces and some of the doors are definitely more ornate than houses made since the Great Depression. The original exterior windows were all replaced decades ago with glass and panes more appropriate for Minnesota winters, but many of the Art Nouveau mirrors and interior glass remain. I am told that some of those mirrors are more valuable than any mirror really needs to be. Why my parents never sold them, I may never know. With the right staging, the house could easily attract buyers.

Until they look at the details. There are none of the open floor plans today's buyers want. Most of the rooms are completely separate. A few are not ideal to anyone who gets claustrophobic. Too many of the walls have wallpaper that any new owner is guaranteed to remove. One of the bathrooms looks like Art Nouveau and Art Deco got in a fight, and both lost. Some of the carpeting needed to be replaced decades ago. While the bedrooms have huge double doors, the bathroom doors are tiny. The mudroom has plenty of space for coats and boots, but no place to hook up a washer and dryer. The entire side entrance is spotless, though I suppose not much snow and mud get tracked in if no one has lived there since 2006. The original garage can hold two or three modern cars, or maybe two SUVs, but it is not connected to the house. That means walking in the snow or rain to get to your car. Fortunately, my grandparents built an attached garage not long after they moved in. The addition looks natural to me because that is the way I have always known it, but it is also smaller than what people want today.

The exterior of the house was recently cleaned top to tail by commercial pressure washers. Obviously, I can't say anything about how it looks up close. In pictures, it looks brand new, which is where it matters most. Anyone thinking about buying the house is going to be drawn in by looking at real estate pictures. All those ninety-year-old bricks and quoins look like they just came out of the brick factory, or wherever bricks come from. If I had not spent my childhood in that house, I would assume it was less than five years old.

Professional gardeners have been taking care of the front and backyard, and have done an excellent job. What Joanne showed me could be in one of those house and garden magazines. It looks fancier than anything my grandmother would have approved of, but it will look good on real estate brochures. Indoors, the walls and floors are as clean as only an empty house can be. Someone painted recently and polished the hardwood floors. The Persian rugs in the living room and dining room are not only still there, they look spotless. I am genuinely surprised my parents never sold those rugs. I can only see photographs, but they appear in excellent condition. My grandmother's office looks exactly like it did when she lived there, except there is no furniture and the bookcases are empty. That room looks naked without books, most of which were my grandmother's. She was a serious reader and worked for Simon & Schuster as a children's book illustrator back when they owned the Little Golden Books. Her collection included more than a few first editions that were probably worth some money. In all likelihood, my parents threw those books away a long time ago.

Some of the bathroom fixtures are new while some are original, or at least original to what my grandparents had. I will need to check, but I am pretty sure none of the plumbing is truly original. I know the entire HVAC system is far newer than 1929. I don't know what they did in 1929. I doubt they had central air conditioning. Two of the bathtubs have been converted into shower/bathtub combos. I'm reasonably sure the house had no showers when it was built. My grandparents only had one. We always took baths when we spent the night, which I always liked. At my parents' house, showers had to be quick. At my grandparents' house, I could sit and soak.

Most of the upstairs carpet could use some work. Joanne says a good shampoo will do. I think some of it might have to be replaced. The carpet in the master bedroom looks amazing. I really can't tell if it is the same as what my grandparents had or if it is new. I had forgotten how enormous my grandmother's closet was. It is more than a walk-in. That closet is large enough to be an apartment bedroom. It is also carpeted, of course. Thankfully, there is no carpet on the first floor. A little polish takes care of the wood and tiles, and a few rugs here and there fill it out. The basement carpet has to go. It is clean and in good shape, and the ugliest carpet known to man. The best thing about that basement was always my grandfather's music room. Since all of that equipment is long gone, it looks like any finished basement now. They put up walls and remodeled the basement to such an extent that it is unrecognizable.

Somewhere along the line, my parents put in new kitchen appliances, which is great news for me. The oven is top of the line and looks brand new. The subzero refrigerator and dishwasher are maybe a few years old. They added an island in the kitchen, which is odd because it already had one. They did not replace it. They put in a second island, which just looks out of place. The kitchen is not big enough for two islands, and the second one eats into the dining room. There is no kitchen sink, for some reason. Maybe that was the next thing they were going to replace. I have to assume they had some kind of island plan that involved a sink or two. The washer and dryer in the laundry room are relatively new looking.

One thing that really steamed my broccoli when Joanne showed me pictures was the swimming pool. My grandparents never had one because the house is on a lake. A private pool is safer and more controlled, but you can do a lot more on a lake. They thought a swimming pool would be redundant when they were so close to a large body of water. But they did put in an in-ground spa/hot tub after they retired.

I spent my entire childhood begging my parents for a swimming pool. Their house was not at all on a lake, or even a pond you could swim in back in the days when the algae levels were low enough. Their neighborhood has far fewer swimming pools than it could, making any house with one more attractive. Someone once told me that most people did not have pools, even though almost every backyard was large enough for one, because there are so many lakes and ponds all over the place. I never really bought that excuse. It was Minnesota, so the nearest recreational lake was less than two miles away, but a swimming pool would have been the greatest thing I could imagine when I was a child. I was an excellent swimmer. Even my brother, with two left feet and all thumbs, could keep afloat. Safety was not an issue. Their only objection was that it was too expensive. When I was younger, I had no idea how much anything cost. When I got a little older, I thought they could afford it. The fact that they eventually put in a swimming pool at my grandparents' house kind of supports my theory. The real issue was probably maintenance. Not taking care of a pool is infinitely easier than taking care of one. The only greater insult to seeing that pool at my grandparents' house would be if they had another daughter and paid for all of her dance and music lessons.

The new swimming pool is smaller than what I would have done. On the one hand, there is plenty of room to put a larger pool farther away from the house where there is more open space. On the other hand, they put it right next to the spa and a detached structure that looks like a pool house. To me, it looks like they screwed up. To someone who never saw the house before, it probably looks completely natural. The pool matches the spa, as if they were both built at the same time. The landscaping around the pool is alien to me, but was obviously done by professionals who knew how to take advantage of the gentle slope heading toward the lake. When I get past my white hot rage, I can admit that the entire installation was well done.

The detached pool house was never a pool house, at least for the eight decades before there was a swimming pool. My grandfather called it the BBQ pit. It is almost the size of the original garage and was obviously designed and built with the house. No one knows its original purpose. It faces away from the road. Driving around the house to park inside it would be horribly inconvenient, while the original garage is the first obvious place to park as soon as you turn in from the street. It was most likely never meant to house cars. Plus, it has a fireplace. One theory is that it used to be a small horse stable, but it only has three walls and there is no evidence that the open side ever had any doors. Leaving a horse that exposed in the winter would be criminal. It was most likely meant to be a place to sit and look at the lake, though there are currently trees blocking the view. The house's back patio has a direct line of sight and is closer to the water. Whatever it was meant to be, the open space was ideal for grilling without suffocating, so my grandfather used it for any outdoor cooking. Now that there is a swimming pool, it looks like it was always meant to be a pool house.

If the house were almost anywhere else, I would worry about selling it to developers who would cut up the backyard and divide it into subdivisions, where the dreamer or the misfit is alone. Today, the lake is where the upwardly mobile of Minneapolis go to get away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. Or the tiny town of less than half a million people. When I was young, I thought Minneapolis was large. Now, I think anything under five million people is a village. Regional differences aside, the last thing anyone wants to do is make the properties on the lake smaller. If anything, people want to go bigger.

After the resorts and hotels of the late 19th century went out of style, people came in and bought all the land around the lake that used to be owned by companies and robber barons. Some built grand mansions, while most, like the people who built my grandparents' house, aimed smaller. For whatever reason, the plots of land stayed the same size. This house is not nearly big enough to be a hotel. Maybe a B&B. But the lot used to hold a hotel. You could easily build two or three more houses on the land, as long as you do not need an upwardly mobile lakeside mansion, and you really enjoy cutting down trees.

My grandfather bought the house when interest in the area was probably at its lowest point since the Mdewakanton tribe was forced out. At the time, people were building cottages and small houses in the area. No one wanted the larger plots of land that required more upkeep. What he paid for the house could buy a new car today. It was not until the 1980s that everyone rediscovered the lake. Ever since then, houses have been getting bigger and the prices of everything have gone up. Today, it is a seller's market. Despite few of the modern conveniences people want, I should be able to sell it quickly. If not, paying for the gardeners, pool cleaners, utilities, insurance, and taxes will destroy me.

It May Be Worth Something Someday

My grandfather died when I was 16. Not coincidentally, that was the same year my parents and I had our final falling out. He was a decent buffer. My grandmother died almost two years earlier. She was the true mediator in the family. She never took any shit from anybody, so none of us were allowed to get carried away while she was alive. My grandfather inherited the mantle after his wife died, but he could never pretend to be impartial. Everyone knew I was his favorite. He was too good at being a grandfather to ever actually come out and say that I was his favorite grandchild, but we could all tell. And the feeling was mutual. He was always my favorite person. There was a time in my childhood when I wanted my grandparents to adopt me. They never did, unfortunately.

Music was important to my grandfather. Other than a few years in the army, he was a professional musician his entire adult life. He did not come from a family of musicians and often wondered if he had been switched at birth. When he got married and had a son, he wanted to pass on his musical knowledge. That son had no interest in learning to play anything, and took his life into a decidedly different direction from his father. When his son had a son, that son was encouraged to play sports. It looked like my grandfather was destined to be the sole musician in the family.

Then his son had a daughter. I was born to be a dancer. That was simply the way it was. As a dancer, music is exceptionally important to me, particularly rhythm. My grandfather taught me Every Good Boy Does Fine and Good Boys Do Fine Always. I taught myself scales on the piano, using the hunt and peck whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half method. As soon as I was tall enough to reach everything, my grandfather had me on his drum set and taught me everything I know about playing drums. He bought me my first set, which was the only reason my parents tolerated it. I can see where having a child who plays drums might be a little annoying, but they could not forbid it without disrespecting their elder. Fortunately for everyone, my lessons were at my grandfather's house. Fortunately for my grandmother, my grandfather's music room was in the basement.

As a musician, my grandfather never made anything close to Paul McCartney money, though he was hardly in the garage band tax bracket. Money was a taboo subject in my family, but I think I was always aware that my grandparents had more than my parents. I simply saw that as the natural order of things. The older you were, the more money you had. My grandparents lived well. My parents had everything they needed. I had less than everybody.

Not that I grew up in poverty. We always had a roof over our heads, food in the kitchen, two cars in the garage, and plenty of clothes. Everything I ever wanted was an extravagant luxury, according to my parents. Except new clothes. New clothes were welcomed and encouraged. As long as they were respectable. “No daughter of mine is dressing like a cheap whore.” Evidently, an acceptable response is not, “How about an expensive whore?”

My parents were never rich, but they were several neighborhoods away from poor. My father was the pastor of his church, which pays more than it really should. He was also on the board of directors at their evangelical headquarters in Chicago, or whatever the sectarian version is called. Probably church council. Though he only went to Chicago a few times each year, he got paid to be on the board as if it was a real job. He also had an expense account for travel, both out of state and around town. Lutherans do not exactly take a vow of poverty.

For as long as I can remember, I was aware that many people had far less than we did. If I wanted a new toy, I was told about the starving children in Africa who had to play with sticks and rocks. If I wanted to eat something other than what was offered, I was told about the starving children in Africa who had to eat spiders and worms. For the longest time, I had a typically American misconception about Africa, given to me by people who had never set foot on the continent. Many years later, I had a boyfriend from South Africa who never even saw a jungle until he was an adult.

My grandparents grew up during the Great Depression. In the 1920s, my grandmother's family was rich, by any definition. At the beginning of the 1930s, they were homeless. She went from changing clothes for every meal when she was a child to sleeping in the family car when she was a teenager. She knew what it meant to lose everything, and made sure I knew how much I had. Most of my friends' parents probably had higher incomes than mine, but I knew as few rich people as I knew poor people. My childhood was deep in the heart of middle class.

I had to beg and plead with my parents for every little thing, except clothes. I think that might have been more about keeping up appearances than anything else. It was important to my parents, especially my mother, that we all looked like we could afford to live higher on the hog. How I dressed reflected on them, whereas their social circle never knew or cared if I could play Richie Cole's “Shaker Song” solo. I paid for anything music related that was not from my grandfather because my parents thought it was an extravagant hobby, despite the fact that my grandfather was a professional musician most of his life. When people complain about being forced to take piano lessons as a child, I wish my parents had done that. They paid for everything related to all of my brother's sports, when it was obvious that he would never come close to being a professional athlete, but there was never enough money for what I would turn into a career. It is true that my taste in musical instruments leans toward the better equipment. I had a Selmer series III alto sax in high school when there is absolutely nothing wrong with a cheaper Yamaha. But even after I started making money at my “hobby” and my brother was getting cut from one team or another, they could only afford to pay for his extracurricular activities. I left before college, but they were never going to pay for that either. At least for me. They paid every dime of my brother's education.

My brother was unequivocally their favorite child. He was the oldest, their golden boy who followed their rules – as far as they knew – and their only son. He was the only one who could carry on the family name, at least directly. There are probably a million people with our name, but our branch of the tree is not getting any bigger. My grandfather was the only son of his parents and he only had one son, who only had one son. Of course, daughters can carry on the family name in this century, but if I had a child tomorrow, she would have my Chinese name. If not for my grandfather, I would have rejected my English name a long time ago.

I try not to hold any of that against my brother. It is no more his fault that he was our parents' favorite than it is my fault that I was our grandfather's favorite. It was compatibility, personality, and mutual interests.

What I do hold against my brother is that he knew I was in my grandfather's will and never told me.

When my parents died last month, everything they owned was catalogued, assessed, and put under a microscope. No one cares about your thumbtack collection, but lawyers look at property, and the IRS always wants their cut. My parents' house and pretty much everything they did not give to their church went to my brother. Fair enough. I was dead to them, so there was no reason I would be in their will. Had they felt guilty and left me something, I would probably reject it on principle anyway.

An interesting point here is that, in the United States, when most people want to leave an adult child out of their will, they either specifically mention the person by name and indicate that they get nothing, or give the person a single dollar to show that they were not accidentally left out. The purpose is so the child cannot contest the will under the assumption that they were left out by mistake. In some states, but not Minnesota, you can put a clause in your will that someone only gets whatever they get if they do not contest the will.

Instead of doing any of that, my parents showed how big their balls were. Since I was dead to them, they never mentioned me in their will at all. Why would you put a dead person in your will? They either went against their lawyer's advice, or better yet, their lawyer never knew I existed. Legally, this leaves their will wide open for me to contest. I think they either knew I would want nothing to do with them and their stuff, or they genuinely thought of me as dead and I never crossed their minds when writing up the will. Either way, they gambled that I would not take it to court. And they were correct. What is theirs was never meant to be mine. Contesting the will would only hurt my brother, not them. He probably needs it more than I do.

After all the people with suits and clipboards sorted through the cobwebs, something no one was expecting was that my parents owned two houses. Except that they did not. One of those houses was my grandfather's, and he absolutely did not leave it to them. As it turns out, he left it to me. I was a minor when he died, so it went into a trust under my father's control. Naturally, no one told me. After I was dead to my parents, they must not have seen a reason to tell a dead child that her grandfather wanted to take care of her since her parents refused. A few years after I was out of the picture, they tried to sell the house. But it seems that real estate agents have some kind of rule against selling houses for people who do not actually own them. After that, who knows what their plan was. The house was in their will, so they knew it was still there. Leaving it to my brother was not a smart move, especially since he knew it was not theirs to give away. I have no idea what legal consequences he might face. I am told he has cooperated with everyone and never personally did anything illegal. By trying to screw me over, my parents kind of screwed him over, too. His childhood memories of that house are now tarnished by legal bullshit that he never asked to have dumped on him.

When the dust started to settle, I started to realize that I own a house in Minnesota. Obviously, I have to sell it. I like the idea of keeping it, but the property taxes will not go away just because I live elsewhere. And I would need someone to take care of the place. I could rent it out, but finding responsible tenants is difficult, especially from the other side of the world, and I would still be responsible for maintenance. I have great memories of that house. Some of the best moments of my childhood took place in that house. I would hate to supplant those memories with tales of clogged drains and broken pipes. Selling the last thing my grandfather ever did for me might be difficult, but I thought it was sold off years ago. I highly doubt he wanted me to live in it anyway. The only practical reason to give it to me would be so I could make some money off it. He probably assumed that by the time he died, I would be fully supporting myself as a professional dancer, and just like every professional dancer, could use the money. He sure got that right. I was flat broke when he died.

Just for fun, I looked up the address on one of those real estate websites. I don't know how they determine anything, but according to them, the market value of that house gradually increased over the years until it plummeted dramatically in 2018 and then skyrocketed in 2020. I don't know what happened in between those two years. Ordinarily, I would ignore website experts, but the rest of their information about the house is pretty accurate.

The obvious question now is sell or wait. If the price is only going up, it makes sense to see how high it can go. But it will go down eventually. In 2018, it went down hard. I paid nothing for the house, so everything after taxes and fees is profit, but if I sell it in five years for 60% of what I could get today, I will feel like I lost that theoretical money.

The more I think about selling it, the more pissed off I am about what my parents did. When I was 18, I lived in a tiny downtown Minneapolis apartment no bigger than my current bedroom. My grandfather generously wanted to give me his house. He put it in a trust rather than simply name me in his will, mostly to avoid taxes, but also so that no one – presumably my parents – could contest it. My grandfather's mistake was making someone as untrustworthy as my father the trustee. It is far too much house for an 18-year-old, but I could have sold it. According to the internet, I would have gotten far less for it then than I could now, but I needed the money far more then. My grandfather wanted to help me out in a way that would have completely changed my life. Had his wishes been kept, everything would have been different. Then again, would it have been better? Life has worked out pretty well for me so far. It would be too easy to speculate about all of the hypothetical possibilities. If I had sold the house at 18, I doubt any money would be left. If I sell it now, I have retirement savings. Maybe in their animosity, petty selfishness, and general assholery, my parents actually did me an unintentional favor.

But the greatest irony in all this is that my parents wanted to pretend I did not exist, yet through their deaths, I inherited more than they could have ever given me.

Pearl Harbor

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

“The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

“It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

“The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

“Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

“As commander in chief of the army and navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

“I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

“Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

“I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”

--President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 12/8/1941

Pearl Harbor National Memorial

Taipei Holiday – 228

228 Peace Park

228 Peace Monument
The temporary white structures are for the president's speech later that afternoon.

228 Peace Monument

228 Peace Monument

National Taiwan Museum

228

On 28 February 1947, the people of Taipei started protesting the Chinese military's strict occupation of Taiwan. The army responded violently, killing more than a few people. The protests spread throughout Taiwan at an impressive speed, considering the communication systems of the day, with protesters retaliating along ethnic lines. Taiwanese protesters attacked people who were born in Japan and China. The Chinese military attacked people who were born in Taiwan. When the provincial government in Taipei declared martial law, the violence spiraled out of control.

Much like modern Hong Kong protests, the Taiwan protesters had no single agenda. Some groups wanted democratic elections, some groups wanted complete independence from China. Some simply wanted to be treated with common decency. The big difference was in all the different governments.

Today's Hong Kong protesters are mostly Chinese people who consider themselves Chinese and citizens of China. They want freedom and/or respect from the People's Republic of China government in Beijing. The Taiwan protesters in 1947 were mostly Taiwanese people who considered themselves Taiwanese and not necessarily citizens of China. The Republic of China controlled Beijing and was given control of Taiwan after World War II. While today's Hongkongers were mostly born Chinese citizens under British colonial occupation, most Taiwanese in 1947 were born Taiwanese citizens under Japanese colonial occupation. Ironically, most of the Taiwanese, who were mostly descendants of people who came from China over hundreds of years, were happier as a Japanese colony than a Chinese province.

When the Republic of China sent more soldiers to enforce martial law in Taiwan, it was open season on anyone who was too Taiwanese, then on anyone not Chinese enough, and finally on pretty much anyone any soldiers saw on the streets. It took about a month for the army to crush the protests, by which time anywhere between 18,000 and 30,000 civilians were killed. To this day, no one knows how many people died.

Not only did the Taiwanese protesters lose the battle, their lives were about to get even worse. When Chiang Kai Shek lost the Chinese Civil War to Mao Tse Tung, he retreated to Taipei and declared it the temporary capital of the Republic of China, which ruled over the Mainland and all of the islands, while Mao declared Beijing the capital of the People's Republic of China, which ruled over the Mainland and all of the islands, thus confusing people for decades to come. Chiang used the 228 massacre, and the civil war in general, as an excuse to continue martial law for the rest of his life. Taiwan – the Republic of China – was ruled by a single party – the Kuomintang – that did everything they could to make Taiwan less Taiwanese and more Chinese, including killing most of the Taiwanese leaders and intellectuals who opposed the KMT. Chiang wanted Taiwan to be a strong base of Chinese nationalists who could help him retake control of China, which never came even close to happening.

Martial law was lifted a decade after Chiang died, but the KMT still ruled Taiwan with as much malevolence as the CPC ruled China after Mao died. The funny thing about Chiang and Mao, as much as they hated each other and disagreed on every subject, they had pretty similar styles as brutal dictators. As older generations of patriots are replaced by younger generations with access to information, the people in both countries are starting to accept how horrible each was.

Most of today's adults in Taiwan never heard about the 228 massacre when they were children. It was never taught in schools and, much like Tiananmen Square, was not spoken of in public. The families of those who were executed without trial, shot on the streets or simply disappeared were not even allowed to talk about their relatives. After martial law was lifted and people started to learn more about what happened, it became a controversial subject. Too many people could not believe that their government did such a thing. When it was finally taught in schools in the 2000s, many parents objected. When the Taiwan government set up a fund to compensate families of victims, a little under 3,000 people filled out the forms. Only a few hundred Taiwanese have received any money from the government for the loss of a relative.

No one has been held accountable for the 228 massacre. The leaders responsible were all dead by the time anyone was allowed to discuss it. But at least one person got his comeuppance. Chen Yi, the governor in Taipei who originally declared martial law, was replaced a month after the massacre ended and appointed governor of Zhejiang, in eastern China. When he tried to defect to the Communist Party and surrender Zhejiang to Mao's forces, Chiang Kai Shek arrested Chen and had him executed. In Taipei.

When Taiwan finally had democratic elections in 1996, 20 years after Chiang's death, the people overwhelmingly voted for the KMT, the same party that had ruled over them for the past 50 years. In 2000, the people actually voted for a different party, the DPP, but then that president and his vice president were shot by a KMT agent one day before their reelection. They both survived and were reelected. When the KMT won the 2008 election, the DPP president was arrested for bribery, sentenced to life in prison and released in 2015. Since 2000, Taiwan has bounced back and forth between the KMT and DPP every eight years, currently on DPP and Taiwan's first female president. Whether she will be arrested when the KMT regains control remains to be seen.

Politically, Taiwan is an interesting place today. The ethnic divisions are not as obvious. China's constant threat to invade Taiwan for 50 years helped unify the people. It used to be that only those with a long ancestry in Taiwan called themselves Taiwanese. Now, there are people whose parents or grandparents were born in China that call themselves Taiwanese. And that is where the political divisions come out into the open. One side, the DPP, wants to sever connections to China and change the country's official name from the Republic of China to Taiwan. The other side, KMT, wants better relations with China, hoping to one day unify the two countries – assuming communism disappears. Everyone I have ever met from Taiwan takes one side or the other. You can call most of them Taiwanese, whether they are ethnically Taiwanese or not. But some of them are deeply offended if you call them Chinese, even though the vast majority of their ancestors came from China. In my experience, taxi drivers are especially forthcoming with their political opinions. Ask your driver where he stands and you will be at your destination before he finishes telling you.

Pearl Harbor

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

“The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

“It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

“The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

“Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

“As commander in chief of the army and navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

“I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

“Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

“I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”

--President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 12/8/1941

Pearl Harbor National Memorial

Liberation Day

Liberation Day is the newest national holiday in the Netherlands and one of the few that have nothing to do with religion, with New Year's Day and King's Day. Rather than celebrate their Fourth of July or Cinco de Mayo, they celebrate their more recent liberation from German occupation in World War II. May 4th is Remembrance Day, when people reflect on the sacrifices their countrymen made to free their people. May 5th is the day to party.

A popular event on Remembrance Day is to talk with survivors of the war. Watching how the people of the Netherlands treat their elderly is a beautiful thing. It is not simply respect for their elders. We have that in China. What I see in Amsterdam is a population that genuinely cares about what the oldest generation has to teach them. I could not help but imagine how much better off the United States would be if we followed this example, and how that is never going to happen. At least in my lifetime.

A lot of people also visit cemeteries. Someone told me that surviving members of military units go to the graves of their former brothers in arms. That sounds like a great tradition to me. Since World War II ended 74 years ago, there are still a few people around who remember it all in vivid detail. All too soon, we will only have what they told us.

At 20:00 on Remembrance Day, the entire country falls silent for two minutes of commemoration. It is a remarkable thing to witness. The people of Holland are not especially noisy. They can never compare to Chinese or Americans. But Amsterdam is a crowded city. It is never painfully loud, but I have never heard it as dead silent as those two minutes. As an American, I fully expected some smartass to make some smartass remark while everyone else was quiet. Americans are nothing if not attention whores. The people of Amsterdam were nothing but respectful of what those two minutes represent.

Liberation Day is less somber and a lot louder. Since the holiday is in spring, it looks a lot like Easter and King's Day, without all the eggs and orange. People go to free concerts and parades. There is a children's festival in Vondelpark. I have been to too few places where children are treated with the compassion and respect they need, and given the education they deserve. Israel and the Netherlands immediately come to mind. Nowhere else does.

Something Amsterdam did that I have never seen anywhere in the world is what they called open houses. It had nothing to do with real estate. On Remembrance Day and Liberation Day, people who live in houses where Jewish families lived or were hidden during the war open their homes to the public for short commemorations. Someone in each house, either a survivor, their descendant and/or the current occupant tells everyone the story of whoever lived in that house. Rather than a history of the entire war, it is a capsule history of a single family or a single person, and what they went through to survive, or in too many cases, not survive.

Each house was its own little temporary museum, but the procedure was mostly the same. The host read the names of everyone who was being remembered in that house, which is a very Jewish thing. If your name is read out loud, you are not forgotten. The best thing Steven Spielberg ever did as a filmmaker was have a lot of the actual names of the Schindler Jews read out loud. They were survivors, but it is the same principle.

Then someone tells the story of whoever lived in the house and, this is an important part, why they want to tell the story. None of this is a dry museum exhibit. These are all personal stories, mostly told by the people who lived them, or their children. Afterward was a short question and answer session that I wanted to last a lot longer. But no one had all day because we all went to multiple houses.

The first time I went to Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, I heard a little old lady tell her story. She sat in a chair and talked about her life. It was heartbreaking, even though she was overwhelmingly optimistic. The open houses had too few people of her generation, but they augmented the first person accounts with photographs of everyone in happier times. People read poems and sang songs. Most surprising, several people read from diaries. Most of us probably only think of Anne Frank when you talk about diaries of people trying to escape the war, but there were countless diaries written in as many quiet rooms. Anne Frank was one of the more naturally talented writers, but all of those stories need to be told.

The emphasis is on personal history, but the entire event is educational for the community as a whole. Before this all started, thousands of people were living in houses that were owned by Jewish families before they were kidnapped and taken away to death camps. Many of the current residents had no idea about the history of their homes. When you buy a house, they tell you when it was built and the last time it was remodeled, but no one ever gets a full history of the past occupants. For most of us, World War II is an abstract event in the past. The open houses bring it all closer to home.

The open houses are mostly for the people who live in the neighborhoods, but outsiders like me were more than welcome. Several people happily switched from Nederlands to English when they realized I was a foreigner. In my experience, the people of Amsterdam, unlike a lot of other places, have absolutely no objection to using a foreign language. Most of them speak better English than most Americans.

Pearl Harbor

“Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

“The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American island of Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

“It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time, the Japanese government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

“The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition, American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

“Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong. Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine islands. Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island. Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.

“As commander in chief of the army and navy, I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense. But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

“I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

“Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory and our interests are in grave danger. With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounding determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph, so help us God.

“I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.”

--President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 12/8/1941

Pearl Harbor National Memorial

High School Reunion7. Fried Green Tomatoes on Lyndale Avenue

Sunday was a day for old friends who never see each other to paint the town and remember what it was like to have a spare day to do whatever we wanted. It was also a great day to be out and about. The thunderstorms that ended the week cleared to sunny skies all weekend. It was still summer, so everyone thought it was hot and humid, but this was the coolest day of my trip and it was well under 50% humidity, which is drier than Hong Kong ever gets.

Not everyone had the same schedule. I saw a lot of old friends that day, but not all in the same place at the same time. I had to take my morning run alone because it was too early for everyone else. Especially after the late night.

Minneapolis is a great place for a morning run. Infinitely better than Hong Kong. There are pedestrian and bike paths all over the place. I chose the Midtown Greenway, a former train line that has been converted into a walking/biking path. Since it used to be train tracks, it is separate from the street traffic, making it a safer place to run. In a bigger city, it could also be a more dangerous place, since it is separate from the streets. There are stretches of corridor where you are surrounded by walls of trees and bushes. In Minneapolis, something like that is perfectly safe. In some cities, that's just asking for trouble. On a summer morning, all those trees are more than welcome. There is not much of a view in the train tunnels, but there are long stretches near houses and parks. Most of the path cuts through residential neighborhoods, from Chelsea's house to the Mississippi River.

I had breakfast with two of my old friends, Megan and Kimberly. Megan brought her husband, whom I met at the reunion. Kimberly brought her 6-year-old daughter. We went to French Meadow, which is a nice little café for breakfast or brunch. They are big on farm fresh organic produce and have their own bakery. Back in my day, there was only one location, but they have since expanded around the city. I can't say if that is going to hurt the quality since I have only been to the original restaurant.

Megan had other things to do, so I said goodbye to her at breakfast, but Kimberly and her daughter were more than ready to get moving. We rode bikes along the Mississippi with Shelton and her girlfriend and one of our few male high school friends, Jacob, and his wife. I'm probably going to mention a few names, but remembering them is not required. There will be no pop quiz later. If the names all seem very WASP, there is probably a reason for that. My school was something like 90% white middle class Christian. In the Midwest. We grew up in the smallest of bubbles.

Chelsea did not go with us on the bike ride, which was convenient since I could borrow her bike. The Midtown Greenway is a great place to ride a bike, but the view is a lot better along the river. You can safely ride from one end of town to the other, unless you have a 6-year-old with you. That made it a more leisurely stroll.

Jacob and his wife stuck around for lunch, but I had to say goodbye to Kimberly and her daughter. I would see Shelton later that night. Chelsea joined us for lunch, as did Austin, Jacob's best friend in high school, and his wife. We all went to Victor's 1959, a nice little Cuban restaurant between Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun. There is no Cuban food in Hong Kong, as far as I know. And this little hole in the wall is as authentic as it gets, as far as I know.

Jacob and Austin had other plans, while Chelsea and I went back to her house. You don't want to go run a marathon after a Cuban meal, so we thought a little down time might be nice. We had dinner plans later, but our afternoon was wide open. Liza and Taylor came to Chelsea's house early because they wanted to see me. Who could blame them? Liza and Taylor were inseparable in high school, and we used to call them Taylor and Liza until someone figured out their names were Liz and Taylor. It sounds crazy that no one thought about it right away, but we probably had a dozen Taylors in school, of both genders, and there were a few famous Eliza actresses at the time. They are both married now and not as joined at the hip as they used to be, but they left their husbands at home. It was interesting to watch them revert to their old dynamic without the newer people in their lives. Erin and her husband were also joining us for dinner, so they showed up early.

In high school, if this group of people had access to a house with a swimming pool and no parents, it would have turned into a party. As adults, we all sat around and talked. This afternoon was the opposite of wild and crazy.

With husbands, there were almost a dozen of us at dinner. Everyone who was at Chelsea's house went to Hell's Kitchen, a restaurant downtown that goes out of its way to let people know it has no affiliation with Gordon Ramsay whatsoever. We met Kayla and Alyssa, another best friend duo, and Kayla's husband. Shelton and her girlfriend made a return appearance. I knew I was going to see people I had not seen in a long time before I flew to Minnesota, but I never really thought about all of the new husbands, wives, girlfriends and children I would meet. There were almost as many new faces as old.

Five blocks away from the restaurant was First Avenue, arguably the most famous live music venue in Minneapolis. Sometimes they have the biggest acts. Sometimes it is up and comers. Sometimes the band on stage will never be heard from again. I have never heard of the band we saw that night, and can't remember their name just now, but they were not bad. The crowd liked them, but that certainly does not mean a record company will. And if you don't have a record company and its marketing department in your corner, you are never going to be a superstar. Hopefully, this band is more interested in playing music than being celebrities because they did not sound anything like the autotune pop idols the record companies are pushing these days.

Most of us said goodbye out on the corner of 7th St and First Ave. No one knows when we will all see each other again. A few of us went back to Chelsea's house. Chelsea has a swimming pool at her disposal every day, so she is not all that impressed, but it was a hot summer night and most of us lived nowhere near clean pools.

No one planned it, but we had an all girls pool party that night. Kayla's husband went home after First Avenue, but she and Alyssa came with us to Chelsea's house, as did Shelton and her girlfriend. There was a little bit of alcohol served that night, both at the club and at Chelsea's house, but nothing happened that a teenage boy might dream about. I suppose that depends on the boy. There was a fair amount of partial nudity, mostly because swimming with clothes on is stupid and because none of us, other than Chelsea, had bathing suits at her house. But there was no wild, all girl orgy. Sorry, fellas.

High School Reunion6. Shiny Happy People

As the main party started to die down, some of us made our way to a very nice suite at the hotel. In high school, I would have been suspicious. What were their intentions? Why does it have to be a hotel room? Why can't we all hang out in a public, open space? Why did someone who lives ten miles away book a hotel room?

But things change when you get older. Almost everyone in that suite was in a long term relationship. Some of those partners were there. There was more than enough alcohol flowing freely that night, but no one was passed out drunk, at least not that I knew about. We all either learned how to hold our liquor since high school or we learned a little self control.

This was not a cheap party motel for teenagers. This was a recently redecorated high rise suite with great views at a downtown hotel for professionals. The bed looked comfortable, but no one did anything other than sit on it. Most of us kept to the living room, while a few people spilled out into the little office room.

The conversation was more interesting after hours. In the ballroom, there was a lot of small talk and getting reacquainted. In the suite, everyone was more relaxed and natural. I learned a lot about Chelsea's quest to find true love. She was relatively shy at the reunion, but in a smaller room with fewer people, her story of being a confused teenager to rebellious college student to confident adult was not as private as I would have expected. She is nowhere near the closet, and after living in China for a while, I was relieved that my fellow Minnesotans were not the least bit judgmental when it came to her romantic partners.

Back in the main reunion hall, one of my old friends said she was a composite artist, also known as a police sketch artist. That sounded like an interesting job, until we were all in the suite. Other than how they use computers more than pencils these days, the details were surprisingly mundane. If there is a TV show about sketch artists, they probably chase bad guys in sports cars and jump from building to building while making impossible shots with sharpshooter accuracy. In the real world, she sits in front of a computer and makes portraits out of insufficient information. She is not authorized to carry a gun or chase anyone. She finds the job rewarding but depressing. Most of the time, she works on missing people, including children.

As teenagers, we would have stayed out all night. As adults, we had to wake up the next morning or get back to baby sitters on time. Not me. I had the entire weekend. Everyone else was in their world living their normal life. That suite gradually emptied out until it was obvious that the party was over. Neither Chelsea nor I wanted to be the last to leave, so we left while it was on its death bed, but still had a pulse.

Back at Chelsea's house, she wanted to go swimming. She had a few drinks that night, but was not particularly drunk. I could not in good conscious go to sleep while she was in the pool alone, so I joined her. Night swimming deserves a quiet night. It was a peaceful way to end a hectic day.

High School Reunion5. Glory Days

In movies, high school reunions are in the school gym or somewhere else on campus. Does anyone really do that? Ours was across town at an expensive hotel on Nicollet Mall, across the street from the Mary Tyler Moore statue. We were in a large event space, maybe too large. I don't know how many people they expected to show up. Our graduating class was somewhere around 600. This room could have held half that. Of course, you are never going to get a 50% attendance rate at a reunion. We had somewhere around 16%, which is supposed to be pretty good.

I never really knew the people on the reunion committee. I think I had a class with one of them in tenth or eleventh grade. They were in the student council/school paper/yearbook circle. I was in the performing arts circle. I don't know why the two did not touch, but when I went to school, they were miles apart. Either way, the committee did a pretty good job. I was expecting tacky paper decorations and some corny theme, but the space looked elegant. Rather than a punch bowl on a folding table, there were a few bartenders serving every kind of drink imaginable. In one of the more terrible Superman movies, someone brings too much potato salad to their reunion. Ours had professional catering and complicated little bite-size snacks. It was more like a debutante ball than suburban high school reunion. But no one dressed for a ball. We were all more casual than our surroundings, made more impressive by the nighttime views of downtown from the 50th floor.

A lot of assumptions were shattered that night. It used to be that people went to reunions to see how much everyone changed. Is she fat now? Is he bald? Who got married and/or divorced? Facebook has changed all of that. Many, if not most, of the people there were in communication with each other online. Facebook friends already saw all the recent pictures of aging, relationship comings and goings, families and jobs. The entire reunion was organized on Facebook, and in a private group, no less. I could not even look at it because I don't have a Facebook account. My initial reaction was that, had they used other media, maybe more people would have known about it. If I had not been told about it outside of social media, I would have never known. Surely, I cannot be the only person who never uses the Facebook. But the turnout was pretty high. Contacting everyone by e-mail and phone would have been far more work, and maybe fewer people would have put in the effort.

Another thing I expected was for everyone to segregate themselves into their old high school cliques. That is what you do in high school. Our entire school had around 2,000 students. Nobody knew that many people. We all decide what clique we should be in and generally stick to those people. At the reunion, we all mingled with old friends, of course, but it looked like everyone was grouping themselves around their Facebook friends. A good example was Chelsea. She would have never spent any time with the science nerds in high school, but at the reunion, her best friend was someone we all expected to grow up and cure cancer or discover some new element.

Like a lot of high school ambitions, that one went nowhere. Most Likely to Cure Cancer now works in a cubicle at some office job. She was never actually voted Most Likely to Cure Cancer. I doubt we had that category. But we all assumed she would become a scientist. Just like we all assumed the quarterback of the football team would join the NFL or that diva who got the best parts in almost every single play, even though I was always the better choice, would become an actor. Neither did. The quarterback played football in college, but then went into business administration. The diva works in a hotel.

Students at our school were always expected to succeed. We had that Most Likely to Succeed category in our yearbook, which is pretty stupid when you think about it. All schools should expect every student to succeed, and ours did, more or less. We were always on every list of top schools in the country. The debate team was ranked in the top 20 in my senior year. Our theater group performed on Broadway. The marching band won field competitions every year I was there. The list of state championships for the athletic teams is ridiculously long. At my old school, 95% of graduates go to college. The national average is around 66%. I looked it up because I figured 95% had to be pretty high.

That kind of pressure can burn out a teenager. Some of our biggest stars just kind of faded away. But more than a few did what everyone expected of them. There were a lot of MBAs at that reunion. Several are getting started in politics and law. A few are professional hockey players. At least one swimmer and one tennis player competed in the Olympics. One of my old friends in the marching band performs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Others are with the Minnesota Orchestra and New York Pops. But it is not all high brow. One of our trumpet players is in the acid reggae band, Dick Cheney. That might not be the best name for a band. If you do a Google search, they are not the first thing to show up.

Speaking of yearbooks, some people actually brought theirs. For all the things Facebook has changed, it seems yearbooks are immune. I'm sure there are plenty of old pictures scanned and uploaded to that private Facebook group, but physical copies were passed around that night for people to sign and reminisce. I signed a lot of yearbooks in high school. My policy was always to write a little something for anyone who asked, whether I liked them or not, or even knew them. We all knew it was for posterity. But when you are an adult, “Have a cool summer” does not work anymore.

I don't remember the last time I saw any of my old yearbooks. I don't even know where they are or if they still exist. Having never looked at them since high school, it was nice to flip through the pages one last time. The reunion was definitely the best place for that.

Since I was one of the few people not connected online, I had the old style reunion experience where everyone did not know what I was up to lately. I could pretend to be as rich and successful as I wanted. Only three things stood in my way. I was not painfully insecure in high school, so I don't need to show them. I don't like lying if I can avoid it. If it is a life or death situation, a lie might be the most moral thing to do. But deception for personal gain, even something as inconsequential as a high school reunion, is unethical. What really kept me out of fantasyland, however, was that a few people knew what I had been doing since graduation.

Anyone who knew me in school knew that I always wanted to be a dancer. So that was the inevitable first question. Am I a famous ballerina now? Do I travel all over the world dancing in the great concert halls? Have I met Baryshnikov? No, kind of but not really, and no.

I was not designed to be a ballerina. I know the moves and understand the music, but my body was made for lyrical, jazz, tap and various folk dances. I have performed in a few different countries, but not at all the most famous venues with the world's greatest dancers. I have never met Baryshnikov, but I am ready, willing and able. All he has to do is call.

The other questions were just as predictable. No, I'm not married, or divorced. No children. I don't own a house, or even a car. Home ownership seemed to be a big issue at the reunion. Maybe I should have invented a fantasy life.

But there is something about my life that Americans tend to find fascinating. Far more people asked me about Hong Kong than about dancing. I never even think about it, really. Seven million other people live here, and when you add China, that number gets a lot higher. It is not so exotic to a huge chunk of the humans on this planet. Besides, everyone lives somewhere. When you go to high school in Minnesota, most of your classmates stay in the Midwest. A few move to the East Coast. I'm the only one who left the country for any amount of time, at least at the reunion. So I got a small taste of minor celebrity. Not for doing something I have always loved, but for packing my bags and going away.

One person who was not at all impressed by my life in Hong Kong was my former boyfriend. We started dating in high school and broke up four years after we moved to China together. He never really liked Hong Kong and does not see it as exotic at all. To him, it was always crowded, noisy and full of unattractive women. Seeing him at the reunion was inevitable. We were in the same graduating class, and his mother told me he would be there. She also told me that he was married, so meeting his wife was no big surprise. The wife seemed nice enough, and exactly like the kind of woman he should be with, which is very different from me. The older I get, the more I wonder what I was thinking. In high school, everyone told me we were incompatible, but when you are in high school, you never listen. The great thing about eventually coming to my senses is that I felt no jealousy whatsoever when I met his wife. They looked like a happy couple and I am genuinely happy for them. Had I ever married him, we would both be miserable.

My biggest expectation for the reunion was to catch up with old friends. We did, or at least those of us who showed up did. And it was easier than I thought it would be. We all picked up where we left off and probably could have stayed there if not for how far away I live. I suppose I could join Facebook and be “friends” with them, but I don't define friendship as clicking a button under someone's picture.

On the opposite end, I was surprised by how easy it was to get along with old enemies. I never really had any enemies in high school, but there was one girl who did not like me after a lot of drama went down. She definitely picked a side and it was not mine. As teenagers, she thought I was an evil demon sent to lead all the self-righteous into temptation. She actively did whatever she could to destroy my reputation with both students and teachers. Fortunately, my friends thought she was a nutjob and my teachers cared more about grades than gossip. As adults, I was prepared to simply avoid her if she showed up. But when she came to talk to me, she said she admired how I went off into the wide world of adventure. She thought it was brave to move to another country and pursue my dreams. I told her she could easily do the same, anyone can, but she seemed convinced that her unhappy domestic life was her cross to bear. I let that competition go a long time ago, but apparently, I won without ever knowing it.

The reunion committee planned a few activities for that weekend – a baseball game, picnic in the park, three legged race type of things – but some of us decided to do our own thing. Most of them live within two hundred miles of each other. I was the one who was going to be out of the picture for a long time when the weekend was over. That made me popular again. I did not go to my high school reunion as a rich and famous ballerina, but the people who liked me wanted to spend more time with me while they could. That is success.

The great thing about nostalgia is that everyone remembers the good parts and forgets or glosses over the bad. When you are in school, you want to get out, either to college or start your career, or just get out of there. A large chunk of high school is pure tedium. Considering the age range, I'm sure we all went through a lot of emotional and hormonal turbulence. But at the reunion, no one talked about staring at the classroom clock and willing it to move faster. We all talked about the good parts and even some of the embarrassing parts, if we could laugh about them now.

High school is one of the strangest things we all get to experience. It dominates every aspect of our lives for a few years. It might be the last place you can effortlessly make best friends. It is where you learn to be who you are, discover boys or girls or both, break away from your parents and, in many ways, it determines how far you will go for the rest of your life. The best part is that when it is over, it is over forever. You never have to go back. But you can if you want to.