Rosemead, California

I miss an Islamic skyline. I miss the call to prayer. I miss the silhouette of minarets against a sunset. Sometimes I can hear the bells from the Trappist monastery over the hill, but only when the ferry isn’t coming in or the buses aren’t starting their route. The things that are ubiquitous here are less beautiful and less sensual. In the same way you couldn’t give directions, “It’s next to the mosque” in Turkey, you can’t give directions by Seven-Elevens. Every corner has one for buying noodles for breakfast, fish balls for snack, to charge up your Octopus cash card, to pay your phone or electric bill, to buy the beers you can drink at any park or playground.

Here’s a picture from Discovery Bay, the suburbs where I live. If you look closely you can see helpers from the Philippines herding kids around and Brits with tables full of empties in front of Seven-Eleven. In the evening the lights that are embedded in the plaza floor sparkle with changing color lights. There are orchids hung in pots from the trees and crested myna birds that sound so loud and sudden in the trees, you’d think that they were taped bird song.

I don't think it looks like Hong Kong here. It’s landscaped, groomed and new like Disneyland. It’s easy to feel like you’re in Rosemead, CA just a road or two from Chinatown in a new subdivision. I think there is exotic under the skin. I think I may see it soon. I know there is wild just around the edges.