A special pleasure in May and June is the mangosteen. This fruit’s eggplant-dark rind contrasts shockingly with the white segments inside. Who would guess, cutting one open for the first time, that bleached little pillows would be hiding in there? The taste surprises too. To my tongue it’s a cross between a grape and a peach. Few flavors are nicer. But choosing a good specimen is tricky—part timing, part luck. When a mangosteen is past its prime, the segments get browner and sourer. Trouble is, you can’t know for sure without slicing into it. The outside doesn’t change much with age.
Unopened mangosteens do give away one secret, though. The number of small brown petals on the bottom matches the number of pillows. Every time. Makes a great party trick.
This would be a good moment for the world to denounce the imprisonment of Aung San Suu Kyi. She and Burma face the prospect of being locked up for several more years. The woman is not well. Her doctor has sometimes been prevented from visiting her. Her 64th birthday is this Friday.
Besides being the country’s only democratically elected leader, she’s the world’s only jailed Nobel Peace Laureate.
So the U.N. Security Council, which investigated in Rwanda, Yugoslavia, and Darfur when those places were acting all crazy, should go beyond statements of concern to genuine action. The Association of South East Nations (ASEAN), or at least a significant bloc within ASEAN, should arbitrate between their bad-boy member and the big Western countries whose sanctions haven’t fazed Burma’s generals. Arms sales from China to Burma should be stopped. (I know, I know, and then pigs will fly.)
I say now is the time because popular, attractive, well-spoken symbols of a country’s suffering don’t come along every day. It will be hard to match the momentum potential of this moment. You might consider a letter to Obama or to your members of Congress, urging them to press the UN to act—especially now, before the outcome of her “trial” is official.
Should you ever be tempted to doubt the notion that what goes around comes around, consider this sorry tale.
Two days ago, on a pleasant Sunday afternoon, I finally succumbed to my first bite of durian this year. The big yellow pillows looked especially inviting on the vendor’s cart as I walked past. The season might end suddenly, I reasoned. Best to get it now while it’s fresh.
The next day, still a little bit drunk on the deliciousness, I said without thinking to a guy who asked if I needed anything at the lunchtime market, “Sure, a bit of durian would be nice.” Never mind that this helpful fellow was a colleague, that the market was on the Ministry campus, and that he would be bringing back this eat-it-today-or-be-forced-to-toss-it-tomorrow morsel TO THE OFFICE.
Granted, he too should have realized that such a thing is just not done. It’s understood throughout Thailand that when people eat durian, if they eat it at all, they eat it at home. The stink of this fruit simply isn’t compatible with a professional environment.
The only way around this prohibition, I now see, would be to have bought enough for the entire floor. An open invitation to an all-hands feast might make up for the reek. Of course I was not thinking that way then. For one thing, the stuff is not cheap. Treating the floor could easily have set me back 50 bucks. And as I say, I was not in complete control of my faculties at the time.
So my coworker showed up with the goods, I paid him back ($3), and we agreed to have a little snack together mid-afternoon. The first signs of trouble showed up long before that. People began to darken my doorway, hands on their hips, sporting a look that said, “Are you out of your mind?”
By the time we eventually indulged, despite closeting ourselves inside my little room, everyone within a 100-meter radius knew of my sin, without having to be told. The little smell molecules had made their way throughout the environment as easily as if they had been nerve gas.
And they don’t simply dissipate, as it turns out. Durian lingers. Like the smell of onions or charred wood, durian’s odor hangs in the air long after it is no longer physically present. From the time we finished our nibble (2:30ish) straight through until folks began packing up for the day, I had been scolded in no uncertain terms.
Now, in addition to it being durian season, the rains have finally arrived in this part of the world. Nearly every afternoon we can count on a pretty good drenching, usually lasting abut an hour. Where I sit, on the top floor of the building, this daily event makes a pleasant sound on the roof.
But on this day it hit almost exactly at quitting time, creating a dilemma for people who drive. They knew they would soon be sitting in traffic, their windshield wipers moving faster than their wheels. I slipped downstairs to see a friend I sometimes commute with, to find out what he was thinking of doing.
It turned out the friend had left early. I was away from my office fewer than five minutes. Yet those five minutes were when a drainpipe above my bookshelf overflowed, creating an impressive waterfall that flowed down from the air conditioning unit, through my various volumes, and onto the floor. I returned to find half a dozen people furiously bailing, flinging books, and speculating about whether the flood was likely to get deep enough to endanger the computer.
Nobody else’s office was touched. I stayed till 8 helping to clean up. Wringing things out, I thought, Swift justice! Noah at least got some warning.
