Chinese Panamanians
(bhavatitdhyan.wordpress.com) We treated Shelley to dinner by ordering out at the local eatery. A Chinese guy ran a one-man shop with two choices: A whole fried fish with french-fries, or fried chicken and Chinese fried rice. We had the fish because we were so tired of chicken at home. Our hostess took the latter, I think because she doesn’t raise her own chickens and doesn’t eat out a lot, if at all. This was not fast food. The cook did have freshly caught fish from the river. They were about 12” long and he tossed them into the wok, whole, one for each of us. But he had to peel and cut up the potatoes before frying them. We got our food in 20 minutes and paid our bill: $3.25 for three big portions. Add in three beers from the store next door for $1.95 and it’s still only $5.20. That is still serious dough to these folks, most of whom have no cash income at all. We took our meals over to Shelley’s to eat.
Shelley kept her house closed up pretty tightly, which made it smell a bit, as when clothes and humidity mix. A side benefit for us is that the mosquitoes could not penetrate, so our sleep was undisturbed until about 4 AM when the birds started calling out to each other. And so many! It sounded like 50 varieties and hundreds of birds at one time. It was both fascinating and irritating because I wanted to go back to sleep badly. I’m not an early riser. She did have electricity (but no meter) and water enough for us to take sponge baths at the faucet outside. Say: “Camping in the woods?”
Sudarshani and I spent the next day wandering around the area, taking pictures. Most people were awed by the sight of their image on the video screen right after being captured in action or posed. It is a beautiful place to photograph: both the scenery and the human imprint, as simple as it is. Frequently, we got thirsty and stopped in at the closest store-right next to Wilma’s house. It is owned by a Chinese family by the name of Ping. The husband, aged 35, was very curious about what we might know about the USA and he quizzed Sudarshani thoroughly, mostly about economic stuff. What was hilarious is how he would complain loudly, while the locals were inside, about how poor he was because of high expenses, but when we were alone he broke out the scrap-book to show us his house in Canton, China.
He and his family (wife, two girls and two boys) would fly back to China every year or so to bring money for continued construction of his mansion; really! It was built with pink and black stone laid in decorative patterns and was three stories tall. Ping said he had $200,000 into it so far, and that at Chinese prices. Now I know why he feels compelled to charge $.65 for a bottle of beer that he said he paid $.27 for. The reality of retail mark-up is no surprise to us; but believe me, if the locals had any idea, they would probably burn his store and run him out of town. This is a very socialistic culture in some ways, but not in the good ways, as I’ll explain later.
