The Mars Effect (Johannesburg, South Africa)

When I was eleven, in the hot Alabama summers, I would wake up before dawn – around 5 or 6 am – and take my telescope to the driveway. I was always driven by the latest article in my child astronomy magazine, Odyssey, to point to a certain section of the sky

I was searching for Mars.

I would stare at the Viking I and Viking II photographs in my World Book Encyclopedia magazine for hours. I would re-draw them in my sketch pad. I redrew them so much my Crayola Crayon Box would run out of blue and orange crayons before all the others – because I was always coloring the blue sky of the Martian atmosphere and the desolation of the Martian surface.

I read books about Mars and had the Tallapoosa county book mobile stop by my house every week to bring me the latest Mars or space exploration book.

From the nearby Pick-A-Flick, I rented OJ Simpson in the movie “Capricorn One” at least a dozen times about a faked landing on Mars. One time I watched it so much – that my VCR ate the tape.

I just knew that it would be me. I knew I would be the first person from Earth to land on Mars.

I practiced Mars landings outside in my yard – climbing down from my spacecraft (a big oak tree) just beside Sunny Level Cut-Off Road in Alexander City, Alabama. Sometimes cars passing would honk their horn at me to encourage me.

I constantly worked on the words I would say to be televised to the world as Neil Armstrong did when he made his infamous speech upon touching the surface of the moon, “This is one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

I remember one of my iterations: “Men dreamed of flying, they did. Men dreamed of space, they explored. Men dreamed of touching the surface of another home, and today this man has.”

The planet regardless of the magnification I placed into the socket of my telescope – it constantly looked like a red dot. Sometimes, depending on how hot and humid those mornings were, it was blurrier. Sometimes it appeared more focused. But regardless it always seemed so far away, but I wanted to be there. That red dot I stared at endlessly represented my future.

I knew it would take nearly two years with a conventional rocket to get me there and three to six months on its surface – and then nearly two years to get back. But it was a journey I was willing to make a sacrifice for.

Then in January 1986, the space shuttle Challenger blew up while going to “throttle up” during lift off. And my hope of seeing Martian soil seemed to vanish.

Then life moved on.

Sometimes, during my travels around the world, I smell those mornings – I am not sure what it is I smell – something that reminds me of being up before dawn staring into my telescope. But my brain does and it triggers the memory. I smelled it once when I was in Chengdu, China. I smelled it once when I was walking home from an all night party in Bologna, Italy. And when I was walking to catch the train from Trondheim, Norway back to Oslo, Norway – I smelled it.

And always when I get off the plane in Johannesburg, South Africa and arrive at O.R. Tambo International Airport, I smell it.

Maybe it isn’t a smell, it is a realization, a sense of exploration, of finding a place and experiencing something I had never experienced before. And just as quickly as I smell it, the smell and sensation disappears.

So subconsciously, I find myself pushing myself through life searching for that smell or more subliminally searching for the Mars Effect.

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Normalcy (Hong Kong)

Eddie and I were waiting for our order to come at Ruby Tuesday’s and making small talk I asked him if he had a domestic.

He laughed and said, “Yes. My wife couldn’t handle both our boys alone.”

“So how do you choose your domestic worker?”

“Through an agency.” And he took a sip of his Coca-Cola. “How about you? Do you have a domestic?”

I laughed. “No. I do everything myself. I wash my clothes. I was my dishes. I vacuum and dust. Clean my bathroom. I am my own domestic.” And we both smiled. “But if I did get a domestic, I would choose an incredibly hot one. I would love to come home to have someone there – you know? Someone to talk to.”

Eddie laughed. ‘You mean somebody to come home to fuck.” And he giggled.

I was quiet for a minute and thought about it. “Actually no. I can have sex with anyone. Really. Man, I am craving a real conversation. A deep connection.”

“Then you want a wife.”

I thought about that too. “No. Actually, I was already married. That didn’t fill that deep need of connection.”

“So no sex. No wife. What do you want?”

“Someone to talk to and who gets me.”

“But what if they are not good at sex?”

“A good conversation is sex. You know one of those conversations where you start like a joust – and you end laughing, laughing so hard your ribs hurt. I mean a deep laugh. And when you kiss cheeks or hug to leave – you are counting the days and minutes until you can start the conversation again.”

Eddie who was local Hong Kong was marveling at me for a second. “You foreigners think totally different.” And he laughed.

“What do you mean? I don’t think I am different. Don’t you want someone who gets you?”

“Yes. But a woman and man are different.”

“Yes, women are better and smarter. We just have convinced them that they are not – and that’s why we run things. But that’s changing.”

He laughed again. “Like I said you foreigners think totally different.”

“You don’t agree?”

“I think a woman deep down wants to be a wife and a mother. And if she doesn’t – she has lost what it means to be a woman.”

“Or she has become the woman she was meant to be. A woman has ambition. A woman has dreams. She has hopes.” I said.

Eddie began to say something but just then the waitress showed up and brought our food. He got the teriyaki chicken and I got the chicken wrap and avocado.

We were starving so we didn’t wait – we started eating immediately. But I started the previous conversation again. “So you never answered – how did you choose your domestic worker?”

He chewed the food in his mouth first. “Well, we have a Filipina.”

“Why not a mainland Chinese?”

He looked puzzled for a second. “They don’t have those.”

“They don’t? I would think Mainland Chinese would be the best domestics. And if I were you – I would get a hot Mainland Chinese woman to be your domestic.”

He put his fork into his chicken. “My wife wouldn’t stand for that.”

“Oh right.”

“No, the agency doesn’t offer Mainland Chinese. The agency usually offers Filipina and or Indonesian only.”

“So does your Filipina teach your boys English?”

He took a bit and shook his head. “No. I don’t want them to have a Filipino accent. That would be embarrassing. But Australian, British, or English would be okay but not Filipino.”

I was quiet as I chewed a mouthful. I didn’t like what I had ordered. It was tasteless. “So how did you choose your Filipina?”

“Well, I made sure she was new. She didn’t speak too much English. And she has no friends here already in Hong Kong.”

“You isolated her?”

“Yes. Because if you get a domestic that has been working for several families in Hong Kong – that’s a bad sign. Or if she has been here for too long – she has too many friends. And if she speaks English – she can get herself hired somewhere else.”

Suddenly, I felt saddened for Eddie’s domestic. Most of the domestics that came to Hong Kong had families of their own – but they sacrificed their children to raise another families’ children. And here I was hearing more – that they were deliberately isolated from friends and family to work harder. I was hearing now how a person was being turned into an object – something that could be bargained for – manipulated into optimization.

But Eddie kept eating his food and looking around the restaurant. I couldn’t get mad at him. It’s what he taught. And on paper, he was right. He was getting the most for his money.

I could imagine his domestic in her small room at night – alone – isolated – imagining her family back in their province in the Philippines. And her need was simple – she was dying for the same thing I was craving for – someone to talk to.

And it’s funny how life gets turned upside down and topsy-turvy when one tries to create some kind of normal. A new normal. Where your family is taken care of, you are loved and happy, and there is someone each day you cannot wait to tell about your day to.

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The Bird with No Legs (Macau)

My colleague introduced me to the lady who was wearing a black business suit. “I would like to introduce you to Fatima.” I smiled and held out my hand to shake.

She smiled back and she took it. And we shook hands like men. “I am Fatima Freire.”

My colleague explained further, “She is our contact in Macau. Her company has direct contacts with all the Casinos in Macau. She and her team are the ones to know when it comes to the Gaming industry.”

I reached into my suit pocket, pulled out my business card hold and extracted one. I held it out for her to take in a traditional Chinese pattern – holding it out for her to take – holding the edges.

She took it in the traditional Chinese way and studied it for a second or two although she didn’t look traditional Chinese. She looked more European. “You have a Chinese name?” And she laughed.

“Yeah, I got the name in Taipei while working at a customer site.”

She laughed out loud again. “Dragon? Really? Your last name is Dragon?”

“Yeah,” I beamed back at her. “It was a joke. They named me after Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan.”

We stared at each other for a second two – and the boardroom went silent watching us. Finally she broke the silence. “Should we get started?”

I nodded. “Yeah, let’s.”

And my company representatives did the usual and sat in the chairs across from Fatima’s colleagues in a very confrontational manner. I rebelled and took a seat beside Fatima. One of her Chinese colleagues was a little confused when I did this. He moved over and took the seat beside me.

The meeting began dryly. Our company started with Powerpoints about what our company did and basics about its background. Suddenly, Fatima interrupted. “Let’s get to the point, shall we? We don’t have a lot of time. What do you want us to do?”

My local Hong Kong team was taken back. They had never met a woman so forward. They started staring each other. She then began to talk in Cantonese and said the same thing. The local Hong Kong team laughed when they knew she spoke Cantonese. One of her teammates said something in Mandarin and she went serious and responded back in Mandarin.

“I am impressed,” I said without thinking.

“Americans are easily impressed. They can only speak one language.”

The room went quiet afraid there was an upcoming confrontation. She stared at me with a blank look. I looked back at her – but I could read it – and at the same time we both laughed loudly.

The tension in the room relaxed. I spoke out of turn, “We do predict fraud before it happens, we break up fraud rings, and we can also help you doing analytics on your customer loyalty program – especially for your high rollers.”

“But they deal with cash and they usually disappear back into Mainland.”

“But they have loyalty cards.”

She responded back, “But sometimes its fake names or false information they use to register for the loyal cards.”

One of my colleagues started to respond about how our analytical solutions work. He started talking technical. I saw Fatima’s eyes glaze. She was quick to respond, “Talk money not technology. I am here for business and I don’t care about the details.” The room went quiet. “And you still didn’t respond to my question. How do you trace or give benefits to high rollers who want to remain anonymous even with loyalty cards?”

“RFID.” I blurted out.

Everyone turned to me.

Fatima asked first, “What?”

“Your loyalty cards should have RFIDs embedded so you can trace your customer’s movements and see how they interact with the machines on the floor throughout the casino. We can use this RFID and their loyalty number to make them unique. And while they are on the premises, we can predict their needs, give them perks, make predictions about how money they will win, and how much money they will lose.”

“So you provide the RFIDs?” she asked.

I could tell my team was getting nervous.

“No. You have to do that. But once you do it – we can warehouse it and score it – do analytics on it close to real time. Imagine walking to the concierge and the concierge anticipating what you are going to ask before you ask it.”

“You can do that?” she asked.

“We do that in Vegas.”

Fatima looked at me a long time as the conversation broke into Cantonese. I caught her eyes but then looked away.

After an hour, Fatima suggested we wrap up. “And I suggest you all to come to Macau tonight. I want to take you around – give you a taste of our connections – and maybe enjoy the nightlife.”

My team looked at me instantly. “Gary will love that. He lives in Lan Kwai Fong.” One of my team members said trying to make a joke. The only people that laughed was my local team members. But then he followed up with, “Okay. That would be great.”

“Excellent,” Fatima stood up. “I will arrange dinner and then we will go out on the town.”

Her team stood up around her.

Because I was sitting beside her and in her heels she was already taller than me – now standing over me – I felt compelled to stand too.

“I will email the details – please distribute to anyone you see fit.”

We all nodded. She turned to me and held out her hand for me to shake first. “You like to party?”

“Me?” I asked.

“Yes you.”

“Sometimes.”

“Well let’s see if you can keep up with me.” And she let go of my hand and she went around the room shaking everyone else’s hand.

I laughed and even though she was saying goodbye to others I said outloud, “Okay, bring it. It’s on.”

She smiled and as she walked out of the room, she came near to me and said in a half whisper and half voice, “It’s on.”

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The Door that Jackson Bought (Manila, Philippines)

I got an SMS while sleeping late at the Renaissance Hotel, “Do you want to meet for lunch? My customer appointment cancelled.”

I punched back, “Sure. What time?”

“An early lunch. 11:30.”

I looked at the hotel clock it was already 11. “Sure.” And I jumped up and hurried to the shower.

Going as fast I could, I still arrived at Greenbelt 3 late. She was waiting in front of Nuvo. She looked a little impatient. “Why are you late? What were you doing?”

I smiled, “I was sleeping in late. It is your birthday but I am the one on holiday.”

Just then her phone rang. “Yes?” Pause. And then she looked at me and motioned with her eyes that we should start walking to find a restaurant. Because it was Friday lunch time – the restaurants were starting to fill up quickly. “No.” She answered back as we started moving forward in unison. “I am with another customer right now, I can’t.” And she winked at me. “Tourism Board.” She answered and then she started speaking in Tagalog.

Suddenly, she just hung up her mobile and she was quiet as if she was mad.

“What’s wrong?”

“I got a technical consultant who is lazy. I have asked him to do a proof of concept for me – and he is refusing. But he is the one who can do it. He says he won’t do it if I am not there.”

“You should be flattered.”

She stopped and looked me in the face. “I don’t date Filipino.”

“I am not saying date him – just consider it a compliment.”

She blew out a breath. Then she just stopped. “Where do you want to eat?”

“How about the Italian restaurant?”

She didn’t say no or yes – she just started walking again. I followed quickly. And as we approached outside – one of the tables was being vacated – Sophia just sat down at it as the bus boy ran forward and started cleaning it off. Sophia then stuck her hand up to flag down a waitress. When one got eye contact, she mouthed, “Menu please?”

And then she went back to looking at her mobile phone. Without looking up she added, “I got two sales this week. One of them is not even mine, but my co-worker but the customer’s CFO won’t sign it unless it’s under my name. So my co-worker made a deal – I will put it under my name if he will give me small percentage of the sale.”

She then looked up and saw the passion of her job in her eyes. I smiled and laughed.

Sophia – the old Sophia – returned. “What?” And she smiled too. “What are you laughing about?”

“You.” And just then the waitress showed up and apologized. She then gave us the menus – giving me my menu first. She then told me about the specials – never looking at Sophia. Sophia didn’t look at the waitress either.

When the waitress went quiet, Sophia gave her selection in a monotone voice. “Spaghetti bolognaise and ice tea.” The waitress wrote it down quickly.

The waitress then looked up and smiled sweetly at me. “I will take the Ravioli.” I said.

“Very good, sir.” And she wrote it down.

“And also an ice tea.”

Then Sophia spoke up, “And can you give us our orders quickly – I have another appointment in forty-five minutes.”

The waitress answered, “Yes, ma’m.” And hurried off.

Then Sophia and I sat there staring at each other. “So? Why were you laughing at me?”

“You are a woman me.”

“Huh?”

“Usually I am the one on the mobile phone. I am the one on the phone – complaining about my job. We have switched roles. You are a woman version of me.”

“No, that’s not true. You just never paid any attention or gave me credit for my job. You were too wrapped up in your own world.”

I digested what she said as they brought bread to the table for us to snack on.

She watched my eyes. “Are you going to write this on soulparking?”

“Maybe.” I smiled.

“Well if you do – can you stop writing about me as if I was a bitch. You compliment everyone else when you write about them – except me.”

I was shocked. “What are you talking about? Some of the most beautiful stuff I have written has been about you.”

“Well, recently though, you have been writing about me in a negative way. I don’t want people to think there is something wrong with us.”

I was quiet. “Look, I promise I am not doing that intentionally. Or maybe you are wrongly reading into what I am writing.”

“I read it. I know what you are saying. I am just asking you to write something nice about me.”

Just then the sun peeked through and highlighted her – as if she suddenly became a beautiful angel. But just as quickly, a cloud passed and the sun was gone – and she returned to just being a woman who was menstruating.

I laughed at myself and my thoughts. “Okay, fair enough. But remember – when we started dating – I told you that I would write about you.”

“But you don’t even use my real name.”

“I am trying to protect your identity.”

“You sure you not ashamed of me?”

I blew out a breath. “Of course not.” And then the ice teas arrived and she and we took a long sip through our straws.

We stared each other down. “You never told me what the Hindu priest said about your destiny and our future.”

I went back to my straw and pulled more tea through it. “Well, he said it was my destiny. My future to decide.”

“So what he told you was that bad?”

I shook my head. “No of course not.”

Her phone chirped as if an SMS arrived. But she didn’t look down. “So tell me. What did he say?”

“Look I didn’t have to tell you that I met with him.”

“But you did – so you opened that door yourself. And I want to know what he said.”

Just then her phone rang – and she kept watching me – ignoring it ringing. Then she looked down and saw who it was and answered. “I told you I am at another customer site – I can’t come back to the office right now!” Sophia said impatiently. She then started listening and rolling her eyes.

I let out a relieved breath. The door to that conversation had closed at the right time.

But then suddenly, the sun was back behind where she was sitting and the way it projected against her - she now looked like an angel – in business woman’s clothes.

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Your Destiny Lies (Pune, India)

The three hour drive from Mumbai to Pune during the monsoon had proved to be anti-climatic. The weather was overcast but there were very drops of rain and definitely not any mud slides.

Also once moving out of the suburbs of Bombay, the landscape was incredible. There were plush green hills, mountains, countryside, and miles and miles of open space. Occasionally there was a person that was walking alongside the road – but mostly it was over the road trucks transporting goods, infrastructure pieces – cement, pipes, and girders – that overtook the company car that drove me at breakneck speed.

An hour into the drive, I asked the driver to stop at a rest stop so I could pee.

We turned off the highway to a half paved and half dirt road where there was a gasoline station and next to a hill and next to it was a hastily constructed building with wooden stairs and ramps – one leading to the woman’s bathroom and another leading to the man’s bathroom.

Funny, when my bladder realized I was about to release it – it almost couldn’t hold. I hurried inside and it was packed. It was a strange sight being the only foreigner in the room. So everybody looked me up and down. I waited for a couple of minutes and suddenly one of the urinals came available. I stepped up quickly, unbuttoned my fly, and aimed.

It was halfway through I noticed that the pee that was already in there was not going anywhere – and I saw the pee level rising against the rim of the urinal. It was rising, rising, and rising. And my pee kept coming and coming.

That’s when I wished I could be a girl, have the superpower to stop peeing in mid-stream – pull my pants up – walk somewhere else or go somewhere else – and pee again.

Finally – I saw the pee start to overtake the rim and in deep yellow engulf the white porcelain. It flowed over neatly and smoothly like overfilling a milk glass. I stopped my stream and stepped back to avoid the splatter.

That’s when I just buttoned up again. And I turned around. Quickly, there was another man who took my spot who obviously didn’t let it bother him about the overfill.

I waited outside the toilets for another couple of minutes doing a battle with my bladder.

Finally someone walked out and I hurried inside.

Upon fastening the door, the smell hit me. But it was too late. My bladder had made friends with the toilet and I found myself extracting and continuing where I had left off just minutes ago.

Upon leaving, I tried to wash my hands but it was a moot point so I just walked outside. I took the steps and ramp down. And that’s when I noticed all the men leaning forwards on the railing extracting themselves and just aiming at the ground below.

“Why did I go inside to the bathroom?” I asked myself outloud.

One of the Indian guys standing nearby and who was peeing overhead me and turned and looked me over curiously.

I got to the company car and the driver was waiting by the door. He was all smiles.

“Thanks so much,” I said.

“Yessir.” And with that he opened the door to the backseat passenger seat in the car, I climbed inside and we were off again.

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Gone Too Soon (Kuala Lumpur . Manila . Hong Kong)

KUALA LUMPUR

At Zeta Bar, in the Hilton in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Troy and LJ decided after dinner to keep the drinks coming and talk about life and work and the balance between. We ordered three Tiger beers and stood at a table as the live band, Shades, started taking the stage.

“I don’t know how you do it,” Troy told me.

“What do you mean?”

“You are always on the go. You are never home.” And we did cheers with our Tiger beers and we all took a drink. Then Troy laughed. “Where is your home really?”

“Hey, you know my philosophy on that: home is a person and not a place. I am trying to find my person.”

“Is it Sophia?” Troy asked point blank.

“Sophia has put up with me a lot for one year and she hangs on. Our anniversary of meeting is on Filipino-American Friendship Day.”

“Fourth of July?”

“Yeah, that’s our independence day in the States.”

“How did you meet her?” LJ asked.

“It was a week or so before she was about to move to South Africa. I was dating two women at the time. And she saw me with them and was disgusted. And one of her friends introduced us. And I thought she was a bitch.”

We all took a swig of our beers. LJ spoke up first, “So you hated each other when you met?”

“Hate is a strong word. But she definitely was a challenge. But what got me was she was going to the most beautiful place on the planet – and it’s a place that is part of my heart – South Africa. And you know I just said home is not a place. Let me phrase it like this – if it was a place – it would be South Africa. More specifically, it would be Cape Town. And she was going there.”

“Okay, and then what happened?”

“She came to Hong Kong. And a spark developed. And then she was gone.”

“To South Africa?” LJ asked.

“Yeah. She was gone too soon. So I followed her to South Africa.”

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Cougar Baited (Hong Kong)

My boss and I spent Friday evening watching the Typhoon Signal 3 weather come and go, wrecking havoc on party dresses, high heels, and hearing the Michael Jackson medleys blaring from every bar up and down Lan Kwai Fong.

Tonight LKF had two competing dead icons – Hong Kong Elvis and a gweilo Michael Jackson - sporting a goatee dressed in leather red and black Thriller getup, drunk, sweating, and occasionally grabbing his crotch, doing a Michael Jackson kick, and shouting “sha-moan!”

On one 45 degree angle sloped street, the King of Rock and Roll battled against the King of Pop for the hearts and minds of those with loose change.

My boss and I watched amused.

We had tried leaving our outside table at La Bogedas – but always the Typhoon Signal 3 would throw its rain – so we would order another round and stay dry and protected under the eve of the salsa bar.

“I think I am getting behind,” I said as I took my beer glass in my hands. “My buddy Nick is having a baby, engaged, and here I am.”

“Yeah, he is kicking your ass.” And he laughed at his comment.

“But that’s why I chose not to take that job with Obama – not yet anyway. Hong Kong will be the longest I have ever stayed somewhere. Ever since I was a child, my parents and I have moved every three years. It has become a habit. Almost part of my genes.”

“And when things get hard, or when the pressure comes to commit, you run. You did it in Europe. You did it in South Africa. And you nearly did it here. One day you have to stop running.”

I nodded and offered my glass and we clinked in an unspoken cheers.

“Home is a person not a place,” I put out there.

“Maybe so, but you need to stay in one place long enough to build something with a single person.”

“Yes.” I changed the subject a bit. “The isolation with H1N1 really showed Sophia’s real colors. She stood by me through the whole thing.”

“Its amazing she didn’t get it.”

“I kid her that she gave it to me so she was immune first.”

We sat in silence and watched the drunken revelry in front of us.

Finally my boss revealed, “This is my last beer. I need to get home. My daughter returns from Melbourne tomorrow.”

“Okay.” And feeling it was a bit urgent I took another long drink. “See I envy you. You have built the family. You and your wife have a fantastic relationship.”

My boss laughed. “Shit. Its hard. You have your ups and downs. But you push through. You make sure you create more goods than bads.”

Just then my Blackberry vibrated. I pulled it in front of me and saw the SMS from DJ Gruv. He was playing Kee Club and put me on the guest list. I sms’d him and told him I was on my way.

“You need to build something or you will always be at this place you are now.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“Wondering why you haven’t built something.”

“But can’t you build something where you have both? The life of passion and adventure plus home and stability?”

“You can choose a Cougar.”

“Huh?”

“A woman once or twice married – has had the straight life – the one where she followed the rules of society and found it was just that – the rules of society. Now she wants the passion and adventure.” And he laughed hard.

“You bullshitting me?”

He laughed but went serious. “Maybe a little. But know that life is about compromises. Either with yourself or with another person. Find someone who allows you to be who are and become who you should be. Or…” my boss paused.

Just then, the gweilo Michael Jackson showed up drunkenly in front of us and was dancing and performing in front of Zinc. The other drunk men were imitating and laughing.

“Or what?” I asked.

“You will end up like Michael Jackson.”

“Loving kids and monkeys?” I responded back quickly trying to be funny.

“No. Your life becomes greater in death than when you were alive.”

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