First thing seen upon waking up (China / Toulouse)

One of the episodes in The Heart of the Dragon was about Chinese science, featuring acupuncture, among other things.  

A rabbit’s nose was exposed to a heat lamp, and the time taken for the rabbit to turn away was recorded.  Then, acupuncture was applied to one of its meridian points — the heat-bearing one, presumably — and the rabbit’s nose was once again exposed to the heat lamp.  This time, the rabbit was able to withstand the heat for a bit longer.  The experiment was to prove how acupuncture could take the place of ether as an anaesthetic.  

For the human experiment, an old woman (in her 80s?) who’d been blind for a few decades underwent an eye operation, using acupuncture instead of ether.  Our British film crew went to the hospital to film the bandage-removing ceremony a few days later, to record her first reaction to being able to see again after such a long time.  So the first thing the old lady saw when she opened her eyes were these human beings with big noses, pale skin, hairy bodies and faces, and blue/green eyes.  She must’ve thought, “How the Chinese race has changed in the last few decades!”

Throughout this 12-day visit to France, I was helping an ex-student in Lisbon proof-read a handful of articles on tea that he was editing for a magazine he’d set up (called eighty ˚).  Back and forth, back and forth went the questions, comments and suggestions, sometimes for a few hours in one stretch, sometimes late into the night.  I certainly always checked last thing at night and first thing in the morning to see if he might’ve left more amendments for me to read.

On the day I was flying back to London, I got to Toulouse airport really early.  Sat in front of one of the Departures screens, to make sure I didn’t miss the call for checking in.  Dozed off at some point, and woke up to see the screen saying there was a flight to Tenerife on VOLOTEA.  Couldn’t believe my eyes.  Never heard of Volotea, so I thought I was dreaming after 10 days of reading tea articles!  It turned out Volotea was the carrier — a Spanish carrier.

(China, 1982; Toulouse, 2018)

Singing to animals (Scandinavia / Singapore)

Have just watched a video of a Scandinavian woman summoning her cows with a high-pitched tune.  It’s called Kulning cow singing.

My father used to whistle a certain tune — four notes, his own invention — whenever he fed the crocodiles.  

One day, he decided to jump into the pond to clean it out, instead of doing it in safety from the other side of the low brick wall surrounding the crocodile enclosure, with all the crocodiles having been chased up onto the dry land area of the enclosure.  

My father was enjoying cleaning out the pond so much that he forgot himself and started whistling that same tune.  The crocodiles, thinking it was feeding time, came down from the dry land area and went for his ankle.  His yelling and shouting could be heard from across the road, “You stupid animals!  Don’t you know who your master is?!?”

Four stitches.

(Scandinavia; Singapore 1960s)

The super goalkeeper (France)

I'm staying in a tiny village, St. Amans, in Tarn et Garonne (NE of Toulouse), in a bohemian house.  Three cats.  One dog: Kali, a shaggy black and white dog.

Kali is a SUPER goalie.  

Even as you're adjusting your foot — one tiny fraction of an inch to the left or right; or half circle; or full circle to face the opposite direction — she'll immediately jerk her head and body in that direction, or run around to the other side, in anticipation of your being about to kick the (tennis) ball that way. 

No matter how many times you do this to try and wrong-foot her before you actually kick the ball, she responds instantly and tirelessly every single time, all the way until you actually kick it.  (And after all that, I'm such a useless footballer that the ball doesn't get very far...)

I'm getting one of the housemates to do a video of this and put it up on YouTube. 

Her goalie skills come in useful, too, when catching the figs I've been picking from the two trees and throwing to her, wolfed down in half a second.

Kali is 11 or 12 years old.  Google says, "Depending on the breed and size of the dog, 10 to 12 years is considered late middle age and the beginning of the elderly years."  Wow, a near-elderly goalkeeper, and so sharp as well at that age!

I’ve just realised, as I'm writing this, that Kali is a sheep dog. No wonder! Her reactions to my foot movements are like how a sheep dog would react to the slightest movements of the sheep while trying to herd them in a particular direction or into the corral.

In the 1964 Disney musical Mary Poppins, the nanny invented a word for the children: supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. I'm now shortening it and applying it to this wonder goalie dog: Super Kali.

(France, 2018)