Introduction
This book would have never come into existence, had I not won the final battle with an enormous number of memories and ideas that had had invaded my mind. A chaos they had created was becoming so overwhelming, that I had to do something about it, if I did not want to succumb to it; I defended my mind against the mess of disordered ideas and memories that seemed to consume it. A simple scheme will suffice to illustrate and clarify the processes taking place in my mind:
| A MESS
- Before the shaping of ideas in my mind |
 |
|
The mess of ideas was annoying because the ideas did not represent the thoughts only, but sounds of airports, of music, of crowded places; touch experiences, human voices that laughed, shouted, sighed, etc. They were all cherished memories, of course, but how valuable a memory is if it does not leave even its smallest trace on one’s future life? Or, in other words, if it floats endlessly between various ideas in one’s mind, but does not exactly know where to settle itself and for what purpose?
If a person were to live a life full of events, but would not take the smallest bit out of them for a further, deeper consideration, what would he/she really gain by taking part in the events? There is nothing to be criticized about describing events, remarking various observations or expressing a feeling; but such descriptions become valuable only after they are given a further and deeper thought, so that something can be learned from them, explained by them, understood more thoroughly, or presented in a different light.
Bearing this in mind, I managed to get a grip on all the sounds, voices, ideas, etc, and have divided them into three parts that make up the book. As the scheme presented above illustrates, the first part focuses on impressions, the second on the customs, and the third on significant people met while traveling to Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines and Vietnam. All three parts are the result of traveling to these countries where my husband, Victor, and I were teaching blind and low vision people how to use computers either with a screen reader that would read the content of the screen or with a magnification software that enlarges the content of the screen.
My original idea was to write a strictly chronological journal, where the memories from Thailand (August 2000) would be followed by memories from the Philippines and Thailand (March and April 2001), followed by memories from Dubai (November 2001), and so on. This neat plan did not work, however, because of two factors. During our stay in the Philippines I did not write an extensive diary, instead, I recorded interviews with persons I found interesting and significant, without having any specific idea of what to do with the interviews.
The second factor that prevented me from following my original idea was that during our stay in Dubai, where I have written a diary, it has turned out to be so different from its first part written in Thailand that I hesitated to place the two parts next to each other; they did not look very uniform and the chronology alone did not suffice to erase, explain or justify the differences between the two parts of the diary.
The only factor that could explain the differences in style and conveyance of the two parts was my own perspective, the angle from which I chose to feel or observe things. It has occurred to me that instead of trying to make the two parts more uniform (and thus, inevitably, largely rewrite one of them, so that it would fit to the other one), I should try to focus on their differences. The result is, that the memories from our first trip to Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam have placed themselves under the category of “Impressions,” while those from Dubai on “Customs.” The third part, “Precious People,” is a collection of stories told by significant and interesting people met during the trips. Rather than telling their stories as part of the diary (either in the part on Impressions or Customs), I have decided to devote a separate part of the book to them, since they deserve a deep peering into their lives, full of courage and the intention to bring help to a significant number of people.
Most of the poems that appear in the book were written during the composition of the diary. They form, therefore, an integral part of the book as they reflect the focus of my thoughts and/or of the mood I was in at a given time. The first three poems, “Spacious Empire,” “Eremite” and “On the Top of the Hill” were written under a great influence of the themes and imagery found in the classic Chinese literature. Themes, such as loneliness, distance from the loved ones, and the need of sharing one’s thoughts with others (either through letters or conversations), are recurrent. The images portray the hills, the fire, and the wine. These themes and images are not the only ones that constitute the richness of the classic Chinese literature. These are the themes and imagery that have made a lasting impression on my writing.
The three poems at the end of the book, “Fresh Mint,” “Vanilla Fields,” and “Cinnamon” focus on one theme: the potent scents of herbs and spices that have originated and have been commonly used in parts of Asia. Whenever I am enchanted by their scents, I am taken back to the memories described in the Asian Diaries.
Have an enjoyable reading!
Karo Tsaran
March 20, 2002
Spacious Empire
An Ever‑Lonely‑Stranger
lives among the hills
Has no strong temptations,
Desires or wills.
Once I happened to visit
his spacious, lonely empire.
We drank the wine I'd offered
As we chatted by the fire.
He told me of his lifetime
Spent in his Lonely Empire
And I decided to join him,
As we chatted by the fire.
So if you see the flames
Dancing around the hills;
Come and join us by the fire
Let the empire exist.
Eremite
Passing the fields of humanity
Crying out bitterly after each step he takes
A hermit cracks his reality
- his most guarded thoughts burst out in space.
His heart is burning with streams of red fire
- not for the people, but for their desires
Filled to the boundaries with a dark grief
Craving for compassion, their only relief.
Craving for the past to resolve the present
To purify their minds of the thoughts unpleasant
Of misunderstood gestures, mistaken meanings,
Of sources of malice, traced to their beginnings.
The eremite stopped to relieve his pain
Sighed loudly and looked shyly to the sides
And thinking his thoughts were broken in vain,
He turned- and saw myriads of thankful eyes.