Dreams - Clouds
2018
A guy on an elevator asked me, What happened to you?
I didn’t know him. He was wearing a suit, I was in sweatpants and a t-shirt.
My sweatpants covered my AFO brace (ankle-foot orthosis), which keeps my ankle straight while I walk. The AFO is a state-of-the-art, super-light exoskeleton made by a Norwegian company. The brace fits into my shoe, and a flexible support runs up my left shin, but not up to my knee, and is attached by two velcro straps. When I wear shorts, people can see the brace, and they give me a wider berth. The brace is this company’s one product, so the world must be filled with many like me.
You can take the brace and bend it as hard and as much as you like, and it will snap back into shape. Kevlar!
The more visible evidence of my disability is a cane, that prevents me from whomping back on my ass, which I’ve managed to limit to only a few times.
Most days, I am happy and keep as active as I can. We wake with the sun. The coffee-maker wheezes; there is a slow, plaintive drip into its carafe. Steam rises into the air. The aroma wakes me before my first sip.
My wife prunes our indoor roses. Carnations shake their colours at me in a gentle breeze from an open window. They aren’t the cut type—they are potted in soil like our variegated vines, whose tendrils now spray along the floor toward a dark corner. Pothos? Sounds like a Musketeer, that one.
Re-wind. Fast-forward. How do we live in memory? Spent or to-be-lived. No good word for that. “In the future” isn’t quite it. We balance time, and it’s always balanced. We are always roughly in the middle of an Infinite before and an infinite after. I’m not up to Heisenberg yet. Or perhaps past him. Maybe both.
Here’s a bit of simple etiquette: do not ask a disabled person, especially a stranger, how or why they are the way they are. I take it the elevator guy’s curiosity was well-meaning, but I can’t think of a time I ever walked up to a person with a disability and asked, Hey, man, what fucked you up?
Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but maybe save that question for your third or fourth time conversing with someone?
2018
I gave the elevator man my reply (politely, and directly answering his question) and exited on my physical therapist’s floor.
1992
When traveling in an SUV in Southwestern China from Kunming to Dali, we stopped at a roadside restaurant in the middle of nowhere. I heard Mr Li, the head of foreign teachers and foreign experts at the university, ordering food for our party of five from a portly fellow. Our party consisted of our driver, Mr Li, Cynthia and Paul, two senior professors from a university in a cold northern state (anthropology and political science, respectively), and me, an Eng Lit major whose professional background was in public relations.
The first course of our meal was a batch of mantou (饅頭), delicious steamed buns, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The weather was sharp with a cool breeze, even at noon, outside “Spring City” (Kunming), located in China’s Yunnan Province (Yunnan is literally “cloud south”), enjoyed year-round spring-like weather. Then other dishes arrived, including a whole duck, which was expertly cut at the table by the server and placed before us head and all.
The driver picked up the duck head and put it in my bowl. I thanked him, but I did not know how to deal with it. I took another mantou and ate it while pondering how to dispose of or ignore the head. Eventually, I used the back of my chopsticks (this is how to politely pass food to a fellow diner) to lift it and place the duck head in Mr Li’s bowl, saying something polite in Chinese to him while doing so. He thanked me before crunching down on it without a second thought.
After seeing that, I no longer feared eating any food in China.
2011
We went with my wife’s friends to a large Chinese restaurant in Wanchai. We were a full table of eight, so we could order a nice selection of dishes. The restaurant (very traditional old-style Hong Kong) served a stir-fried chicken dish that included large pieces of ginger that were fried rapidly in very hot oil, removing their strong flavour and giving them the texture of a crisp water chestnut.
I asked someone what they were.
“Ginger”, she said.
A stand-out dish, but those pieces of so-called ginger didn’t taste like ginger.
Were they, after all, water chestnuts?
2025
Ms. X. was recently in the news, bemoaning her waning investments in Hong Kong properties (she had five or more flats, each costing millions). The prices in areas where she had made purchases were some of the hardest hit. People in the West often wonder why the Chinese invest in real estate more than in any other asset. I heard a program today that explained some distrust in different types of investment vehicles, and that there was widespread belief that housing prices would increase forever.
I recalled the housing collapse in the US, which helped us get into our first house.
Today, many young people have only seen the upside of markets and investments and are too eager to jump. Basic FOMO at work.
Social media speeds up expectations, rushes emotions, raises cortisol levels, precludes concentration, and clouds long-term thinking.
Circa 1415
The Ming Dynasty was a golden age for Chinese arts, blending tradition with innovation. Porcelain reached new heights, particularly the iconic blue-and-white ware, which became a global luxury good. The cloud motif, in use in prior dynasties as well, became more defined and realistic in appearance. Jingdezhen kilns mass-produced exquisite ceramics, often decorated with intricate landscapes and floral motifs. The dynasty also saw advancements in lacquerware, cloisonné, and silk textiles, with imperial workshops setting high standards. Painting flourished under masters like Shen Zhou and Qiu Ying, who refined the literati style, emphasising brushwork and natural harmony. Calligraphy, poetry, and decorative arts thrived, reflecting Confucian ideals and Daoist influences.
Trade played a pivotal role in Ming prosperity, despite the dynasty’s later isolationist policies. Early Ming rulers, like the Yongle Emperor, actively promoted maritime commerce through Zheng He’s voyages, which connected China to Southeast Asia, India, the Middle East, and East Africa. These expeditions brought exotic goods—spices, gems, and rare woods—into China while showcasing its wealth and power. Domestically, a silver-based economy emerged, fueled by Japanese and later Spanish-American silver, which became the backbone of taxation and commerce. (Hat tips to DeepSeek, Wikipedia, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Clouds are the most unnoticed of all natural phenomena.