Week Two: Why Doesn't Dorothy Lane Stock Mango Yogurt, Guava Yogurt, Papaya Yogurt ...

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Back at UH-Manoa, another challenging week. Presentations morning and afternoon, with my colleagues throwing questions at the speakers as if this were a scholarly conference. (“You’ve said that Cave 235 at Dunhuang demonstrates that Khotanese participated in the silk trade, but doesn’t Cave 217 show that we must not interpret the cone shaped hats as Khotan costume?” Apparently, Roger and Peter, the organizers of the Institute, have started warning speakers that we are a “lively” group.) Topics were primarily history and art history, with a lunchtime presentation on Hawaiian history thrown in. I feel as if I know as much about the history of the Silk Roads as I can possibly fit in my brain. Ask me about the Sogdians.
The week’s events included another film in our Silk Road series, Warriors of Heaven and Earth, an interesting epic in the magician-swordsman genre, like Hero and House of Flying Daggers, etc. But the main character in this one is Japanese nobleman in the service of the Chinese emperor, sent to the western borderlands to bring home a fugitive. There is much battling against various Turkish/Mongol horseman, giving one an impression of Chinese stereotypes of Central Asians.
Also this week was a program visit to Asian art collection of the Honolulu Academy of Art. We were escorted by a museum volunteer, which, given the art historians among us, was a bit of a challenge for her. She’d explain something from her pre-programmed rap on the exhibits, and then one of our lot would contradict her. I felt sorry for her, though she took it all good-naturedly.
What with one thing and another, the only tourist-type thing I did happened accidently on my one evening off, when I went back to Waikiki and stumbled across a free hula show at the International Marketplace. Hukilau time. Huki huki huki huki lau...
(The International Marketplace is a collection of retail stalls specializing in puka shell jewelry and ruffled mumus. A relic of the tiki craze of the 1950s. I now own a puka shell necklace with a shark tooth on it. It seemed like a good idea at the time.)

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