Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
toward and what you were leaving behind. Fur traders, warriors, and
refugees had come to this northern end of the trail. Which offered
more opportunities, the Middle Kingdom or Old Mian?
And here the town still stood. The relics of ancient temples were
overshadowed by a bland mix of high-rise hotels, one-story shops,
and streets widened and developed so quickly that the surrounding
land had been stripped of all signs of vegetation. Neon had replaced
sunsets.
From the bus, my friends passed low buildings with long porches,
where men, women, and children squatted on low stools. A pregnant
Pekingese dog lay sprawled on a green plastic chair. Merchants beck­
oned to passersby to view their supplies of TVs, mattresses, stereos,
rice cookers, and Lilliputian refrigerators. The shops were open at
all hours, for who knew when the parvenus might have a notion to
augment their status with goods of such high quality.
A few blocks later, my friends were passing the pink-light district,
a lane of one-room open-air shops, each lit by a pink bulb and em­
blazoned with advertisements: “Karaoke, massage, $40, best lamb
included.”
Rupert looked up from his paperback. “What do they do with the
lamb?” he asked coyly.
Lulu was embarrassed to say. “This is new expression,” she tried
to explain. “‘Best lamb’...like saying, ‘We must be careful.’”
“You mean they use condoms,” Rupert said flatly, and Moff tried
not to look surprised. Rupert attended a high school where students
were encouraged to talk openly about safe sex. And though he acted
unfazed by sex, he had yet to experience it. He had once groped a girl
at a sleepover party where everyone was drunk.
“Very good,” Lulu told Rupert. “Everyone in every country is con­
cerning safety.” As a government worker, she was not supposed to
mention the high rate of AIDS in this town. In Ruili, opium slipped
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