Saving Fish from Drowning - Heal Burma

AMY TAN
peaks did indeed recall a sleeping dragon with a ridged back. When
I was last here and was told I had a mountain-view room, I was sus­
picious of what this meant, for I have been in hotels that claimed to
have panoramas but had only the poetic hint of one. And on one un­
pleasant occasion, I snapped back the curtain to see that the view
was indeed that of a mountain, only it was placed right against the
window, the dark rock obscuring all light and emitting the dank
smell of a cave.
Bennie took a deep breath and inhaled inspiration from the moun­
tain. The group had originally hoped to secure Dr. Bill Wu as tour
leader, and a wise choice that would have been. He was a dear friend
from the days when he and I were teaching at Mills College. But he
was busy leading another group on an intensive study of the thou­
sand Buddha carvings of the Dunhuang caves. Bennie had a few
years of docent experience, but unlike me, he had never been to
Burma or China and knew little about either country or its art. He
had cried with gratitude when told after my funeral that he had been
chosen the new leader. (That was after several other possibilities had
been ruled out.) Thus appointed, he vowed to help in any way he
could—by organizing luggage collection for transport, confirming
airline reservations and passport needs, doing the hotel check-ins,
arranging matters with the local guides provided by China’s and
Burma’s offices of tourism, anything that would ensure that everyone
had a marvelous, first-class adventure.
Pleasing people was his greatest joy, he liked to say. Unfortunately,
he often promised what was humanly impossible, and thus made
himself the target of people’s ire when reality replaced intention. It
was that way with his business. He was a graphic artist, and his lover,
Timothy, was an art director. Bennie pledged impossibly fast turn­
arounds, special design elements and paper stock upgrades thrown
in for free, a budget twenty percent lower than what any other firm
had submitted, which later grew to be twenty-five percent higher
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