“DEAR LEADER”

I was doing a little house cleaning when I came across some of my old diaries. I am not sure I want to re-read them again for fear of personalizing embarrassment, but still, I found some pics, when I was twenty three. I am very much against self incrimination as a general rule of thumb. These pictures were taken in the spring of 1987 while in Hong Kong and Thailand. I think the mustachioed ones were shot in a booth in Kowloon, within shouting distance of the Chungking mansions; Hong Kong’s Nathan road’s backpacker’s overnight attraction. I can’t recall exactly where I bought the mustache but I vaguely remember purchasing it a couple streets over, near that movie theater where I used to watch kick flicks before returning to China on a new visa. The middle image was shot in Bangkok that same year in July; the details of which are lost to time and within the putrefying folds and cavernous recesses of my forty two year old mind.

Anyway, and since I am going down that lane, here is what I looked like in 1978, when I first traveled to the United States. All of five feet one inches. My hair has since migrated towards the gray but my eye color still has not changed.