Asian Art

I am reading a book right now called “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.” About two days a week at work, when I get a lunch, I take the book I’m reading to the back of the building where someone’s futon that they don’t want to pay to store is set up so that I can relax.

Twice a week I get to do this, if I am lucky.

This past week, as has happened for the last month on most days, my stomach was messed up beyond all recognition. Eating is getting to be a mine-field these days, and I’m not sure if this is stress (more than likely), or poor hygiene at work with my guys (also likely), or the fact that if I have any coffee or milk during a workday I won’t keep my food with me very long. So we’ve established the fact that eating is scary.

Then this past week I was reading a book that eventually took me up to a point about a discussion of Chinese foot-binding.

If you have never seen this process in action, Google it. What little desire for nourishment I had left was gone after starting in on this passage. Usually I can eat through any kind of book or movie (comes from having to eat around a chemotherapy patient—you eventually get over the gag factor and eat anyway), but with the troublesome tummy and the graphic and effective way the artist went to work on the details of this practice, I had to give it up and pick up an old copy of the New Yorker that I left back there if I forgot my book, or if I had a book that was entirely too gross, I guess. Eventually I took the book up again and got past that part, but the pictures on the net are a bit retro-grotesque. I have to wonder why this would continue…

Some things, like foot-binding or boob-enhancing or plastic surgery, are beyond my comprehension, and always will be.