Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
sides and, in one rapid smooth movement, clapped his hands at dead
center and instantly tied the ends into a knot so that the excess cloth
protruded like a tongue. “Wow, it’s like a magic trick,” Roxanne said.
She gestured for the man to do it again but more slowly. He repeated
the movements, pausing only slightly between each step. Finished, he
untied the cloth and slipped out of it, folded it precisely, and handed
it to her.
Heidi thanked him with smiles and clasped hands. But as Roxanne
started to step into the cloth, the seller tried to stop her, laughing and
protesting.
“I know, I know,” Roxanne told her. “I’m cross-dressing, lady,
it’s okay.”
The seller shook her head and took another piece of cloth, this
one a vivid yellow with an intricate pattern. She stepped into it and
pulled the excess taut to one side, showing how the process for a
woman was entirely different from what the man had just demon­
strated. She then created with the bunching movements of one hand
a series of folds, and tucked the top into the skirt waist.
“Hmm,” Roxanne said, “I don’t think I like that effect nearly as
much as the knot in the middle. It doesn’t look secure.”
Heidi smiled at the seller. “Thank you. We see now. Different.
Man’s. Woman’s. Very good.” Through gritted teeth, she said to her
sister: “You can try it on after we leave here.”
The seller was pleased. She had prevented a valuable customer
from making a social disgrace of herself. Roxanne and Heidi, along
with Vera, continued to pore over the bolts of cloth, mining for gold.
There were so many colors and patterns, each better than the last.
But after a while, it was all too much. They were oversated and un­
satisfied. It was like eating an excess of ice cream. Their senses were
blunted, and all of the different bolts, at first so unusual, like exotic
butterflies, had been rendered quite ordinary by their overloaded
brains. In the end, Roxanne bought only the blue-checked cloth, feel­
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