let the season begin (insert accordian solo here).

My morning run & Belle and Sebastian's I'm a Cuckoo were interrupted by a brief phone call from one of my favorite girlfriends, who I call Mama Fox (she some-of-the-times refers to me as the Runaway Bunny & other times Peter Pan). I used the opportunity to stretch and cool down when a box labeled POETRY hanging from a wrought iron gate caught my eye. I peeked inside as I confirmed plans on the phone & pulled out an atomic green sheet of paper w/ not one but TWO poems (!!) printed in black. While saying goodbye to the other end of the line I folded up the pen-to-paper tangos, and then bolted down E Aloha (imagining that I was not running, but rather swinging through lush canopy formed by the trees on either side of the street-- these are the thoughts that keep my feet moving when I am tired from the previous mileage).

The last stanza of the second poem (both written by a man called Gary Snyder), read:

I pledge allegience to the soil 
of Turtle Island
and to the beings who thereon dwell
one ecosystem
in diversity
under the sun
With joyful interpenetration for all.

The first two lines of the piece, entitled For All, are "Ah to be alive/ on a mid-September morn". The sentiment is so relevant-- one I felt as my lungs filled with crisp almost-autumn air and then again with ev'ry exhalation... and one I felt yesterday while I visited Towan & he came over to the glass to show me his chalk drawing. My heart beats a little quicker when I share a moment like this with him. Mostly because he makes me feel like I'm not the only ape that is excited to share little bits of beauty w/ people nearby. That feeling of sameness is one of the more reassuring I've ever felt. I suppose I owe Mr. T and Gary Snyder a v.v. big Thank You! for providing reminders of why this mid-September is an especially lovely time to be living here in the now. 


The last day that I felt compelled to write, it was because of a person I met who invites adventure into his life, who sees magic in the tiniest places. When we are together strangers approach us for conversation & he is always ready to engage a new face in the Latest&Greatest. He is willing to allow a ten minute walk to take an hour, because he understands that sometimes one must stop and absorb ev'ry detail of this bustling world (& that takes time, takes patience). He doesn't mind that when I see a dead bumblebee on the sidewalk I have to pick it up and place it in a garden to rest in peace; he doesn't mind that when I see a piece of neat graffiti that I am compelled to photograph it and ponder the source; and most of all, he doesn't mind that inevitably at some point during our daily excursions I mention that I wish Towan could see ALL the things I see because I know with all my heart he'd feel so inspired and just as in awe of how strangely golden the world is (and his reactions would no doubt fuel his art).



Interpenetration is a word I had not known before reading it in Snyder's poem, but it is now one of my favorites. To wish for those around you to experience the visceral joy of being one with their environment and to take the time to be a part of whatever surrounds them is laudable. I have nothing but respect for the people & creatures who facilitate and encourage that experience. Towan lives at the zoo, which means he is limited to what shows up at his door-step, but! he never seems to miss a chance to investigate a novel garment or an interesting visage.

Perhaps, it is his ability to appreciate the little things that allows him to deal with annoyances so stoically. After showing me his art, he settled down to work on it some more. Bela followed him and made a grab for one of his two pieces of chalk. While her second attempt was successful, Towan did not seem to acknowledge her trespass. His tolerance is admirable, but then again he has so many traits that I admire and try to cultivate in my own self-- he is a Bodhisattva if there ever was one. 

--Emma (coffee with Towan)

one ape in particular

This is Towan (the same Towan mentioned in Sean's orangunookie post). At 43 he is entering old age for an orangutan, but he's more than achy joints and wrinkles-- he is an ambassador to his wild cousins in Borneo and Sumatra, allowing us city-folk a small glimpse into the ways of the arboreal ape.

Back in December I started a blog called Coffee with Towan so that I could share thoughts/observations & photos of Mr T and his family. Once in a while I throw in a set of gorilla or jaguar shots, but the orangs are my focus.

Towan, Chinta, Melati, Bela, and Heran each have incredibly varied personalities, yet all share enviable zen-like qualities. After having had the chance to observe them consistently for the past eight months, I can confidently say that no matter a person's gender, age, creed, music preference or hair color we can all learn something about ourselves from this awesome species. Here are some shots from a recent visit with Towan.

When tiger moms go ape: why so much strife about the mystery of raising the kids?

Photo by Shawn Thompson

The controversy about tiger moms reminds me of what happens when human beings take the role of being a parent to an ape. There can be a lot of tension and strife.

A tiger mom like Amy Chua in her book Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother argues for an aggressive, controlling mother to forge a successful, responsible and accomplished child.

That notion stings the sense of parenthood in the west, which has opted more for freedom, independence and self-esteem in raising children. I'll call that the rabbit mom because I can't think of a better name.

Some say the tiger mom produces angry, frustrated, anxious children.

Some say the rabbit mom produces irresponsible, passive, self-indulgent children who don't have sensible goals in life.

The clash is fierce between these points of view, tiger and rabbit. Both sides are sensitive to the idea that the kids will suffer the consequences. Plus, if one side is right, the other is wrong, and that is damaging to the sense of self of the parent. Tigers don't want to live like rabbits and rabbits don't want to live like tigers. Hence the heat of the controversy about tiger moms -- which are also found in the west, I might add. Just look who is yelling at her children the loudest from the sidelines at a game of hockey or soccer. That is no rabbit.

But what is also intriguing about this is the similarity in the clash of points of view when human beings are looking after orphan orangutans. I saw this when I was writing my book about orangutans, The Intimate Ape. I didn't write about the depth of this strife in the book because I wanted to keep the focus on orangutans.

But the IMAX film being released this April called Born To Be Wild, about orangutans and elephants, features the primatologist Birute Galdikas, who has been at the centre of the controversy for years in orangutan circles.

The issue with children, human or ape, is how much involvement the parent should have in the life of the child. How much should a parent try to shape and control the life of a child? Does too much contaminate the child? Does too little leave the child adrift?

Birute Galdikas in Borneo       Photo by Shawn Thompson

I don't want to take sides on the red ape version of the controversy. However, I can say from the time  I spent with Galdikas in Borneo that Galdikas believes in more involvement in the lives of young orangutans than others, who want the apes returned to the jungle quickly for more independence and less contact with human beings. Galdikas thinks human beings should be more involved in nurturing orphan orangutans, aware that they normally spend eight years with their mother learning how to be whole, well-functioning members of orangutan society.

When it comes to an issue like this of orangutans, the ape kids, the human emotions get hot and explosive. I can tell you that I have seen human beings on the verge of virtual combustion.

Tiger mom

When I look at the controversy that the tiger mom situation has fuelled, and the polarization that develops between east and west, male and female, husband and wife, parent and child, I see extremes, which are by nature polarized.

Each side chooses an extreme and tries to make its case by selecting examples of just the success or failure, the disaster or the miracle, of the extreme. We all know someone who is an example of the extreme. Grouping them together just proves that we know how to group things that are similar together.

Human beings may have some need to see extremes, to be in opposition, to create strife, whether it is politically or in relationships or in the treatment of apes. 

Human beings can create opposition and strife out of good intentions. That is one unexamined aspect of the tiger mom controversy.

Can we ever manage that side of ourselves to raise children, make a marriage work, settle the politics of a nation, and save a species like orangutans from extinction?

Where is the ability to negotiate with the tiger mom? 

Practically, as Aristotle would say, the mediation is in moderation. We can mix east and west, tiger and rabbit, parent and child, person and ape. It's a blending, not a polarization.

I have to add, as the father of two children, neither of whom turned out like Charlie Sheen, sometimes kids just turn out to be themselves whatever you do. I see the same thing happen as a teacher. You might amplify or dampen a trait or two, in a student, in a child, but how much do you ever radically alter the result in a human being?

Sometimes as a parent you are just along for the ride.

My kids are very different. One a tiger. One a rabbit. From two very different parents,  now divorced. So it's all both a mystery and a miracle to me, in this Chinese Year of the Rabbit. Sometimes you just buy the ticket and take the ride.

Is a red ape a Communist?

Does the word "red" signal "Communist" to the American mind?

I had a flash of paranoia yesterday at the U.S. border when I thought my Red Ape licence plate had got me into trouble.

I was grilled by a female officer with the personality of a piece of granite and my car was searched with mechanical dispassion.

The male officer at the crossing post had commented on my Red Ape licence plate and then with few questions sent me to be searched with a form scrawled with the words "RED APE" in bold letters. It was at that moment that I panicked at the thought that the word "red" can have inflammatory connotations in the United States that it doesn't elsewhere.

This is a country that got uptight that the universal health care bill of President Barak Obama was the kind of subversive socialism that is found in Cuba, a country which, as Fidel Castro pointed out last year, had universal health care for its people half a century earlier. In Canada, socialism and universal health care are so perfectly natural that we don't question them. We call it democracy. (Canada was founded as an almost-sovereign state in 1867, the same year that Marx's Das Kapital was published, purely by coincidence.)

But the real reason why I got grilled and searched at the border was a tale of misunderstood love. Apparently I am visiting my girlfriend Wendy too much.

My red ape keeps watch on humanity from my car

Somehow it is suspicious that a grey-haired university professor would be visiting his girlfriend regularly in a humble but efficient black Subaru wagon loaded with books and clothes and a big stuffed red orangutan in the back. 

I have been searched many times before in airports in the U.S. and other countries, and accepted it like you would locker room humour. It is rite of passage. It was always cheerful, but efficient, professional in a friendly way.

But this was different. It had an air of ill will and cold suspicion that left me troubled overnight. They make you feel guilty and suspicious even when you aren't.

I wondered why I was affected so much, because I accept the need to be screened and checked and I was never bothered by being frisked at the airport.

I think it was because the female officer seemed to take whatever I said as sinister and incriminating. The truth was no longer plausible and I felt that I was being criminalized. In all the years I worked as a journalist covering police and prisons I never experienced this side of the law personally, although I certainly heard the tales.

Yes, border agents, Wendy exists.

I have to say that these are tough times to be idealistic and romantic, when good intentions are apparently not credible any more.

Officer Granite had a lot of probing questions. Income? Mortgage payments? Rental income? Clothes kept at Wendy's? Why take summer clothes across the border now? What is the value of the clothes and books being left at Wendy's? Engaged? Why no engagement ring on my finger?

The officer had trouble with the $25 silver ring from Bali on my left little finger. "What is a Bali ring?" she asked when I called it that. "A ring I got in Bali," I said with a smile, "a place I like very much." Now I can talk about Bali, I thought, but the officer wasn't interested in that enchanted isle. She wanted to know why I didn't move the Bali ring to my left ring finger -- where it wouldn't fit, as Wendy reminded me later. Wendy thinks more practically than I do when being interrogated. She also warned me later to be totally serious at the border with my poker face, although I don't have a poker face.

"What will I find in the car when I search it?" the officer asked yesterday. I was so annoyed I wanted to say "enough guns and cocaine to keep the Pacific Northwest happy for a while," but said the truth instead, "A lot of cereal, plus books." I explained that there is a type of cereal I like that I can't get in the U.S. so I was bringing a summer supply down early. I think I brought 12 boxes. You can never have enough cereal. But the border guards seemed baffled by someone who thinks ahead.

Won't eat expired dog biscuits from Canada.

I also had some dog treats in the car for Wendy's sweet dog Emo and wondered if I needed to declare them too. Wendy pointed out later, that, practically, the dog treats had expired, so they might kill a fragile old pooch like Emo. I felt guilty about that too.

While my car was being searched, and everything unzipped by the thorough female officer but not zipped back again, I sat with two ordinary-looking men who didn't have much to say. I told them that I was being searched for visiting my girlfriend too often, as a way of asking them indirectly why they were being searched. It didn't work. They looked like people who had eaten expired dog biscuits.

Usually when I cross the border there is some sort of discussion of orangutans. It is so much a part of my life and work and I am ready to seize any opportunity. I had a bit of a chat with a female immigration officer in the Seattle airport the time I was wearing a bright orange shirt emblazoned with the words "Orangutan appreciation day," like something a harmless crank would wear. This officer liked animals and was a big fan of the San Diego zoo. We connected about animals. I can be the harmless crank for orangutans.

But my last time through the Seattle airport I was grilled about whether I was engaged, whether a date had been set for marriage and had I started the "paperwork," which it took me a while to figure out might mean immigration papers. The male guard seemed like he was taking the time to type into the computer a novel about my relationship with Wendy. I thought, this is a  guy without a girlfriend.

And then yesterday I got the criminal treatment for romantic Canadians.

It bothered me more than I realized at first. It was so easy to break the sense of trust that I have always had about Americans just because of the nasty cynicism of a female officer.

The Marijuana Nation flag?

But Canada is a small nation and often misunderstood. It is something we live with. I remember the time on the enchanted isle of Bali when a cab driver insisted that Canada's red maple leaf flag is marijuana. He was totally convinced that Canada was a liberated country flying the symbol of the great weed openly and wouldn't take the word of an actual Canadian that it was otherwise. Everybody who went through his taxi for years must have learned from him that Canada is Amsterdam North. It took some time to persuade him of the truth. He looked terribly disappointed in the end. Canada will never be the same for him, nor crossing the border for me.