Life isn’t all that notable these days. I am camped out in Kunming attempting to make an Important Decision about where to spend the next several years of my life. I’m under deadline, and Kunming is a reasonable place for Important Decisions, as there is very little to see or do here, and consquently very little to write about.
To generate material, I’ve considered hurling myself at some of the delightfully stereotypical old men playing Chinese chess in the courtyards, or buying half a dozen live chipmunks and dressing them in tiny Red Guard outfits. But I know I’d wind up maimed or arrested.
I also considered reviving some past rejects, such as old Bill Heathcote, the octogenarian backpacker I met in Luang Prabang. Old Bill has been to 66 countries, a fact which he’ll relate to you just as often as he loses his train of thought. Bill has written four books about his travels, self-published affairs in the “Dear Di” format. While leafing through his latest, I asked him if he lives in Sydney. “Well, I spent all of my working life in Sydney,” Joe began. “I worked for the Australian Broadcasting Company — that’s the ABC — as opposed the the British Broadcasting Company, the BBC. I had an American friend who worked for the other ABC, the American Broadcasting Company. This fellow’s name was Maughan with an ‘n’ — his father was cousins with Somerset Maugham with an ‘m’. So you see, he changed the last letter.” This thread led eventually to a discourse on the length of giraffes’ necks.
I liked Bill a lot, but he was not exactly the trove of salty old traveler’s tales I was hoping for.
Next my mind turned naturally to the destruction of all the more popular blogs on the Web. With no other diversions to turn to, I reasoned, bored office workers would be forced to read my ruminations on the least pleasant bathrooms in Asia. I sent some forged hate mail from Andrew Sullivan to Glenn Reynolds, but so far nothing has come of it.
So I guess I’ll just write about Kunming.
