Whenever I write or read about travel, I focus on adventure, learning, beauty, maybe even making a difference. But whenever I talk about travel, whether with global trekkers or homebodies, at some point we end up giggling and gasping over the same subject: bathrooms. So, here’s the straight poop on three of my overseas toilet tales, which didn’t make the final cut of my travel memoir, They Only Eat Their Husbands. Please excuse the potty humor. It comes with the territory.

I wasn’t about to let a little killer diarrhea stop me from seeing the Taj Mahal.

IN THE TRENCHES
Kunming, China

For the night, I’ve checked into a large hostel, a dim, dank, dismal place that’s not enticing at all. When I grabbed my backpacking towel and walked down the hall to the showers, I took one look and decided not to perform any ablutions until I arrive in Lijiang tomorrow. The stench from the trench toilet was foul, and the showers were parked right next to it, with suspicious pools of yellowish-brown water on the floor. Unfortunately, my bowels could not wait.

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If you’ve been following my series, Tracing China’s Past, the following is a look at the final day of my first South China research trip for my novel. Tortillas from The Canton Café will be loosely based on the history of my Mexican-Chinese grandmother.

I learned “The Hong Kong Story” at the Hong Kong Museum of History. The elaborate, enormous exhibits included an actual fishing junk.

April 14, 2008 – Hong Kong

Yesterday, on my last full day in China, my translator Zhu Zhu and I learned “The Hong Kong Story” at the Hong Kong Museum of History. Our jaws really did drop in reaction to the elaborate, enormous exhibits, which included: an actual fishing junk, a recreation of a Punti ancestral hall, a bridal sedan chair, an entire Hong Kong store that was in business from the late 19th to late 20th century, and a recreation of a traditional Cantonese teahouse of the sort that would have been popular when my great-grandfather Ma Bing Sum was a young man preparing to leave China for America.

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My decision to leave and travel around the world with a 13-year-old was not impulsive but directed. At the time, I hardly realized the impact on everyone who was involved with this journey. The gift of telling the story from my current perspective is interesting in that so much more of it is understood.

I truly expected this painting to fall apart by now, but it’s fine.

The date was September 10, 1997, and I will never forget the morning my husband dropped our youngest daughter and myself off at the bus stop on our way to JFK airport and the world. I had never traveled by myself or been out of the country more than stepping over the Canadian border one time. But when you know you have to do something, courage finds a place in your heart. We left with too much stuff and started a process of getting rid of things in Chile that lasted all the way to Thailand. I was traveling with a portable wooden easel and 20 pounds of oil paints. I didn’t realize when I left how hard it would be to find mineral spirits when I didn’t understand the language. It was a constant challenge in each country that we went to, but we were eventually able to find it every time.

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I’ve taken two trips to China to do research for a historical novel. Tortillas from the Canton Café will be loosely based on the family history of my Chinese-Mexican grandmother. Here are more of my journal notes on Hong Kong, as I continue “Tracing China’s Past”:

April 13, 2008
Hong Kong, China

We visited a place that retained some of the traditional beauty of old Hong Kong: Hoi Pa Village and Tak Wah Park.

Yesterday my translator ZhuZhu and I took the Metro to Tsuen Wan, one of Kowloon’s outlying housing estate districts. Don’t let the term “housing estate” fool you; in Tsuen Wan, as elsewhere in Kowloon, most people live in tiny apartments in dismal, repetitive high-rises. However, we visited a place that retained a vestige of the traditional beauty of old Hong Kong: Hoi Pa Village and Tak Wah Park.

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As I continued my quest to Trace China’s Past…

Hong Kong
April 12, 2008

Yesterday my translator Zhu Zhu and I returned to Hong Kong Island for another historic walking tour, because my feet just weren’t sore enough yet. This time we walked to the old Central Police Station on Hollywood Road, built in 1919. The building shares a block with the former Central Magistracy and Victoria Prison. Because Hong Kong began its British colonial history as a bustling port of international trade, it attracted many pirates. Hollywood Road was once famous for public executions — beheadings mostly.

Hollywood Road was once famous for public executions — beheadings mostly.

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Back to my promise to tell you about my search for family history in China — which I haven’t forgotten, though my recent book release has kept me quite busy. Here’s one of the more unusual rabbit holes I jumped into as I tried to chase a piece of my great aunt’s past… as a prisoner of war. Out of respect for her privacy, let’s call her Aunt Darla.

Hong Kong, China
April 11, 2008

I don’t know how difficult it would be to break out of a Hong Kong prison, but breaking into one is pretty much impossible. Yesterday, my translator Zhu Zhu and I took a bus from Hong Kong Central to the small beach town of Stanley on the far reaches of the island. We got off near the entrance to Stanley Prison. The prison was built in 1937, and by 1942 it was taken over by the Japanese after they invaded Hong Kong. Sometime between 1942 and 1945, my Aunt Darla, her fiancé, his family, and my other aunt’s husband Nippy were held prisoner at Stanley Internment Camp.

Sometime between 1942 and 1945, my aunt, her fiancé, his family, and my other aunt’s husband Nippy were held prisoner at Stanley Internment Camp.

According to second-hand stories: Darla and Nip had gone to the harbor to see off Darla’s fiancé and his family, who were moving to Macau. Her fiancé’s dad owned hunting rifles, which he tried to hide in a mattress to take with them. The Japanese found the rifles and accused everyone in the group of collaborating with the Portuguese, since Macau was a Portuguese colony. They were all arrested and thrown in Stanley Prison.

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I once took a cooking class in Thailand, but there’s no need to go that far to experience a foreign culture or learn an exotic dish. I recently learned to make momos, or Nepali dumplings, right here in Denver. My teachers were two Nepali refugees from Bhutan. This was a cooking class with a story to tell.

This story started in the 1890s, when the Bhutanese government invited Nepali farmers to settle in southern Bhutan to help supply food to the country. In 1958, Bhutan’s royal government granted citizenship to the settlers. Then, in 1988, the king ordered a census in southern Bhutan; those citizens who couldn’t produce land tax receipts from the year 1958 were reclassified as illegal immigrants. In the ensuing years, Bhutan’s efforts to protect its cultural heritage devolved into a campaign to eradicate Nepalese traditions.

Years later Hari would teach cooking in Denver, and tell a kitchen full of American women how Nepalis in Bhutan weren’t allowed to speak their own language.

Hari Khanal was a toddler then, but years later she would teach cooking classes in Denver, and one night she would tell a kitchen full of American women how Nepalis in Bhutan weren’t allowed to speak their own language or wear their traditional clothes. Women weren’t allowed to have long hair. Many Nepalis were subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention, and torture. “The women were, I don’t know how to say it, they were forced…” Hari looked uncomfortable as she tried to remember the word for rape. Her family was one of many who fled to Nepal. Nepal’s government wouldn’t repatriate the refugees, so they lived in a refugee camp. “They wouldn’t let us go for 17 years.” Today Hari has such a ready smile it’s tempting to think none of it happened, but for many the crisis continues.

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When Indian activist Rita Banerji asked me to post an excerpt from my memoir on her blog, Gender Equal, I didn’t just feel humbled - I almost felt ashamed. Gender Equal seeks to raise awareness of global gender inequities. The blog is an initiative of the 50 Million Missing campaign, which is fighting female genocide in India. What could my book, about a Western woman professional empowering herself through a solo trek around the world, add to her mission? Then it occurred to me, it might offer hope: I enjoy a kind of freedom many women long for. It also occurred to me that I didn’t start out a fully-realized independent woman. At the start of my book, I was a victim of domestic violence. If you haven’t yet, I hope you’ll take this opportunity to read the opening excerpt from They Only Eat Their Husbands: A Memoir of Alaskan Love, World Travel, and the Power of Running Away. Then please read about India’s 50 Million Missing. If we want to empower other women, knowledge is a start.

I’ve been eager for writer Cat Kurtz to return to Girls Trek Too, to tell us more about her adventure among Buddhist nuns fighting for equal rights in Thailand. Cat Kurtz is the author of My Heart the Sun, a non-fiction account of Theravada nuns and their battle to become bhikkunis, fully ordained monastics. You can read her previous guest post here: My Heart the Sun: A Book Excerpt. After visitors and I read it, we wanted to know what happened next. Cat was kind enough not to say, “You’ll have to wait for the book to find out,” but instead to generously provide one more excerpt! First, she has written a brief set-up, to let us know where we are in the story:

Lee was a nun who threatened the Thai power gender hierarchy, where only men were permitted to wear full ordination orange.

Cat Kurtz: Ajahn Yai Guong Saeng was a fully ordained Buddhist nun living in Bangkok, but unlike my new friend Lee, she did not practice Theravada Buddhism, the national religion of Thailand. Ajahn Yai was Chinese and ordained in Mahayana Buddhism. While Lee was a nun who threatened the Thai power gender hierarchy, where only men were permitted to wear full ordination orange, Ajahn Yai slipped beneath the country’s radar wearing Mahayana grey. This allowed her to build the only temple in Bangkok dedicated to a female deity and run entirely by women. Lee decided that visiting this temple was the best way I could spend my first day in Thailand…

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I’m excited to introduce you to a writer and adventurer who has witnessed a unique battle for women’s rights in Thailand, specifically, the rights of Buddhist nuns. Cat Kurtz is the author of My Heart the Sun, a non-fiction account of Buddhist Theravada nuns’ fight for the right to become bhikkunis, fully ordained Buddhist monastics.

Bhikkunis are fully ordained Theravada Buddhist monastics. These nuns were ordained in Sri Lanka.

Cat has been a witness to this Southeast Asian women’s movement and spiritual revolution since its beginnings in 2002 and she still communicates regularly with nuns in Thailand. Her hope is to keep her promise to give voice to their untold story. Here is a piece of that promise:

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