Auld Lang Syne

A one hundred degree drop from Jakarta to Colorado Springs for Christmas. Enroute, spaghetti in Hong Kong with one of my favorite people and oldest friends in the world, Carla Weiss-Jeffries and her family...



She's started a blog, too, http://brooklyntohongkong.blogspot.com/, having just taken her daughter Kate to Hong Kong in November while husband Peter works for the Asian Wall Street Journal. We'd last met in Brooklyn, and moving halfway around the world before we met again gave us quite a kick. She's one of my favorite people to read.

So let's see -- for those who haven't had the pleasure of taking two red-eye flights on the same night, I cannot begin to describe the experience. But for the record: first, I took the red-eye from Hong Kong to LA on Monday night. Then, I took the red-eye from LA to Charlotte ... on Monday night. Both flights departed at 11:30 PM, Monday, Dec. 20. Simply excruciating. And yes, my insides still think so. That trans-Pacific, trans-Continental trip is going to take some getting used to, and maybe some Benadryl...

Meanwhile, I've been doing some digesting of my experience, just before we start some actual honest-to-God classes in January in Jakarta. Seems to not go down well with Christmas dinner, cookies, nieces, moms, and cousins... the richness of it all keeps me on the pills I've described elsewhere. However, it's been fun bringing a little of Indonesia to my nieces Danielle and Elisabeth.


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As I write this, the dead are still being counted, the corpses still being piled on beaches. I wonder if I'll see any evidence of the tragedy when I return to Jakarta. It is interesting that the tsunami hit, among other places, three hotbeds of revolution: Aceh in Indonesia, southern Thailand, and Tamil Nadu. My gold-mining colleague Syahrul is from Aceh and has distant family there, but has apparently escaped much tragey, if that can be said of anyone in the region. Apparently after-shock "tremors" were still being felt Monday AM, a full day after the quake hit. Children were the hardest hit, apparently accounting for nearly half the fatalities, and are now the most vulnerable to disease and hardship. Whole island villages and cultures, complete with their vanishing languages, have disappeared forever.

Still, there is only one thing we can say. The Chinese and Moslem New Years fall at different times from mine, but it doesn't matter. I can only wish that people everywhere have loving, constructive years, that we treat everyone the way we'd like to be treated (or try to), and that we meet here again next year with faith unbroken, courage undaunted, and wisdom ever-growing...