Sidamo

I counted the brochures, articles and coffee packages that I have collected since 2001 - anything about coffee, and to my excitement, I have kept over 60 of these. (Is this passion and/or addiction?)

In that collection,there is one African ethnic-based brochure that always strikes my attention. It is from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Vermont. The brochure is about the special reserve coffee from the remote community of Shanta Golba in the Sidamo region of Ethiopia. It is the first time that I knew of the name Sidamo.

I went to Sidamo today, not the area in Ethiopia but the 14- month old Ethiopian Coffee house in the northeast area of Washington, DC. Sidamo is an up-and-coming unique coffee house. You can find its story from many publications in this area.

The Green Mountain brochure depicts both the geographical area where the coffee beans blossom and a drawing of the traditional way that villagers hand-roast and grind the bean in the morning, making a fresh strong cup for everyone. The coffee stimulates various exchanges of daily life - community check-ins about work, marriage, farming and everthing else. In that picture, an Ethiopian woman who wears a long, white traditional dress, sits on a low stool, roasting green coffee beans on a small ground-level stove. On her right -hand side, she also has a mortar and pestle to grind the roasted beans.

The description on the picture says, "Ethiopians use an elaborate coffee ceremony to welcome guests and show friendship and respect. The ceremony, which can last a few hours, begins with the careful washing of the coffee bean. The beans are then roasted over a stove until they are black, releasing a familiar aroma that mingles with ceremonial incense. In some parts of the country, this ceremony takes place three times a day and is the village's main social event."

This afternoon, I saw this coffee ceremony live in DC, and this felt really peaceful and relaxing, especially when the coffee beans released their aroma. The smell was strong and earthy.

People from all walks of life gathered at the coffee shop this afternoon. This ceremony in fact is fast becoming the village main social event here on this H street neighbourhood in northeast Washington, DC.

The coffee ceremony is performed at Sidamo every Sunday afternoon, as a treat for the city dwellers to appreciate the way things are practiced in the old days and for us to take a moment to celebrate the journey back to where coffee originated. A quote from the traditional Ethiopian blessing, "where there is coffee, may there be peace and prosperity," sums up my day neatly.

I brought home a pound of Ethiopian coffee beans and hope to continue exploring the coffee process as a way to connect with the world and stimulate my deep caffeine addiction. Everyday, I am growing and brewing my usual custom, yet trying to seek new customs to taste over, to smell over again.

TAN

Japan!, Culture and Hyper Culture

The first sentence in the brochure for the performance Saturday night at the Kennedy Center read, "The poet and novelist Yoko Tawada is a writer of the world." This is a zen statement to me. I read that again with million smiles.

I cannot resist the tempation to see her performance at the Kennedy Center. I cannot resist the chance to absorb the intensity and the richness in the simplicity of the language of the world, the creative thoughts, of Yoko. I know there will be magic in her words.

The performance consisted of her poetry readings and Aki Takase provided the jazz piano as a background to set the tone and shape the mood. Language can go as deep as you can imagine. Thoughts can be as diversified as you have the language to express.

The poet Yoko has a distinctive voice and she continues to color the literary world with her works, which have lead numerous commentators to compare her to Franz Kafka. She is native Japanese but has spent more than 20 years in Germany and writes both Japanese and German.

The natural merging of different cultures generates a vibrant fabric of words in the world.

I was very impressed by her thoughts described in a collection of essays from 2002, in which Tawada describes the experience of "exophony," a term she has coined for travelling outside of the circle of one's mother tongue, which is akin to giving oneself over to strange music. Exophony is turning one's ears to a new symphony.

She further elaborated that learning to hear new sounds, new languages, and new ideas was essential. Her concluding thought reaffirmed my believe. She voiced the thought that, "if one lives in unquestioning belief of the 'naturalness' of one's native language, no true interaction with that language can develop; without such questioning, there would be no contemporary literature."

She is known as a transnational writer, a multilingual writer and she fits like a glove in this increasingly globalized world.

Her poetry performance was only 90 minutes, and the time flew by, but I gained a stronger sense of literacy inspiration from this famous Japanese-German transnational writer. I almost walked to say hi to her after the show but instead I let the crowd quickly line up. I appreciated her from my corner table in awe after the show.

My husband and I walked hand in hand. We are content to be in a transnational stage. The world is both deep and wide, with so many things to explore.

There is culture, hyper-culture, transnational life, words, thoughts and questions that add volume into the days. I am enjoying my days in America a bit more now and then.

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TAN

Paradox of Peace

Paradox of Peace is a pop up word that describes my usual Monday morning bus ride to work. I choose the word "paradox" because it is one of my former shelter supervisor's favorite words and I choose the word "peace" because it is my favorite English word in America.

The Gandhi Statue, which is situated in front of the Indian Embassy on Massachusetts Ave., is a symbol of peace to me. At least his statue reminds me in its own way why I am here, in America.

Monday morning, I felt a bit different. I looked at the Gandhi Statue with mixed feelings.

I saw a worn out, extremely dirty-looking, brown blanket laying at the bottom of the statue. That blanket woke me up. Gandhi probably doesn't realize that his statue can easily be turned into a temporarily shelter for a homeless person in D.C.

The message of the great Indian man who devoted his entire life to peace and continues to create a powerful impact on the world, goes along with the message of a random homeless man in D.C who is struggling to find a roof over his head. This statue and this man were walking toward an unknown destination - the first one is world-recognized while the latter one is only an invisible man who the current government needs to pay attention to (but doesn't really). Peace for the homeless man can mean simply having his next meal and finally having a place to call home.

Peace travels far, deep, and a long ways. The powers of peace may ask you, "what have you been doing to create peace?" The paradox of peace can end now if we can merge the ideal world into reality, and if you can achieve peace with less paradox.

Peace,

TAN

Expat Cats

One of the my new found favorite bookstores, Candida's World of Books, on 14th Q St, NW, in DC, is going to close its business by the end of this month.

I first went there two weekends ago. I thought that this place was going to be my frequent destination. I also thought that I would earn a good rest and enjoy the cultural atmosphere as I acquired the spirit of the world from all ethnic codes.

One of the most intriquing reasons that invited me there was because I could relate with the openness of the bookstore owners and the essences of the books from around the world. All kinds of genres and all sorts of languages were displayed on the shelf. I felt the world in my hands. My heart kept dancing.

I visited this shop again this afternoon because of a big store closing sale. I listened to several dialogues between loyal customers and the owner. They asked incessantly, "How did this happen? Why are you closing?" A couple of customers walked in with a bouquet and bid farewell.

At one point, the owners answered, "It has been a great experience. We need to move on."

I heard both a challenge and the charm in those answers. I felt that as I picked up a children's book named "Expat Cats," a story of two cats who migrated to the United States Of America. The cats were from the United Arab Emirates. In one provoking line, it said, "It took a lot of courage and faith for the cats to migrate."

I couldn't stop thinking about the two bookstore owners who opened this lovely bookshop and kept it open for four years, the two Expat cats with their adventures in America, and my own two year and 8 month adventure in America.

We need a lot of courage and faith to undertake a new journey which is usually full of challenges and charms.

TAN

"It goes on"

Robert Frost, one of my favorite American poets, summed up what he leared from his life with this sentence - "it goes on."

Lately, I have been wondering about that, life, and the way that it goes on.

After an intense discussion about the recent project that I am undertaking, I felt positive energy rolling itself back to me slowly because of a gentle dialogue that I had with Paula. I work with Paula, a retired lawyer, who is a one-year volunteer at my organization. She said that, "Supalak, this is what I have learnt in my life - I am not in charge.".She calmly elaborated that we can put all of the effort in the world to control others/things/life; however, things are destined to their own ends. If your dog is going to die, you can try every way to save its life, bringing it to the veterinarian, and feed it the best food, but it will eventually die. If you have a difficult family life, you can seek all the support and counseling, and can change your perspective, but you cannot change others.

I told Paula that her statement, "I am not in charge" reminded me of other expressions, such as "let it go," or the Japanese term "wabi-sabi," which means "the beauty in the imperfection of things," and even the Thai term "mai pen rai," which refers to the state of calmness and an accepting mind that knows that things will eventually be O.K. In other words, life will go on.

Robert Frost, Paula, and I are reflecting various life philosophies based on our different cultural framworks. However, all lives must carry some sort of imbalances - grief, anger, love, peace, hate, jealousy, greed, etc. Those abstract thoughts are so vibrant that they not only shake our status quo, but boldly ask, "What have you learnt from life?"

I would like to answer each time, "It goes on."

TAN