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.
Geez…I can’t believe how much you resemble Raphael in your passport photo (you’re were about his age, no?).
I was 13, Raphael is 11 but when he and I were four years old you could not have told us apart.