I’m looking forward to meeting members of the book club and sharing impressions of China and cross-cultural encounters!

WorldCat doesn’t find everything – it misses the 7 copies at Howard County Library, MD (often listed as America’s #1 county library system), as well as all 15 copies at Baltimore County Library, MD (highest count, to my knowledge).  Still, WorldCat placed many pushpins on the map that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise, making me wonder where else the book may be.

Here’s a WorldCat roundup:

Santa Clara County Library, CA
San Mateo County Library, CA
Glen Ellyn Public Library, IL
Rockford Public Library, IL
Waterloo Public Library, IA
Elms College, MA
Missoula County Public Schools, MT
Greensboro Public Library, NC
Western North Carolina Library Network, NC
Kanawha County Public Library System, WV

Plus one more I know about locally:

Howard County Public School System, MD

Content from the website was collected and published recently as Electric Voices and Stinky Tofu, and their new book project is positively brilliant – Having a Baby in China: Western Spouses Share Their Experiences Giving Birth in the Middle Kingdom.  This possible first paragraph feels a lot like a passage from my own book, only the stakes are ratcheted up about ten delicious notches!

I think she said, “go buy this medicine if you want your wife to have it.”  At least that’s what I think she said.  My Mandarin was rusty at the time and my wife or “translator in chief” was in the birthing room about to give birth through c-section.

Hostess Theda Mayer prepared exquisite treats, including jiaozi, coconut shrimp, and homemade fortune cookies.  The discussion teased out of me some behind-the-scenes info and a few juicy stories that didn’t make the book’s final cut.  Best of all was the chance to marvel together at the funny little moments that spring from colliding cultures.

What fun to share, to laugh, and to enjoy Ms. Mayer’s famed hospitality.  The group asked to be placed on my calendar for any future book releases.  Hmm, another evening like this one?  Absolutely!

面 face

下海 xia hai (“fall into the sea”)

褐 brown 寒冷的 bitter cold

老外很奇怪 lao wai hen qi guai (“Uncle Outsider so strange”)

林业大学 forestry university 人民币 renminbi (Chinese currency)

山 mountain 自行车 bicycle 请转 qing zhuan (“please give me extension …”) 普通话 putonghua (“standard speech”)

大食堂 dashitang (“big cafeteria”) 戈壁滩 Gobi Desert 关系 guanxi (“connection”) 听不懂 ting bu dong (“hear but not understand”)

友谊 Youyi (“friendship”) + Michael W. Hobson + 胶 glue

公共汽车 bus 皮蛋 Thousand Year Egg 我看一看 wo kan yi kan (“I’m just looking”)

春夏秋冬 spring summer fall winter 谢谢 xie xie (“thank you”) 金鱼 goldfish 天空 sky 北京 Beijing 牛奶 milk

Keen writer that he is, Dutterer saw through my pages to the behind-the-scenes mindset it took to write them, and drew out a tribute to personal memory. It is a touching, insightful, and universal poem, and he has kindly permitted me to share it.  (Photo from Orion Headless.)

The Chinese Vessel

by John Dutterer

for Mike Hobson

As you colonize
who you are now
it is fitting that
you have unearthed
the city of your
earlier self:
each of us has a
Capital of Then.
And since seeds
do not die, but
sleep until an ideal
sun is at its zenith
(on a day only you
can create and approve)
– stop and savor
this past, like a lotus -
incandescent
unfolding the
bloom of Beijing
unfurling the scroll
of these years
which sprawl
in prosperity
toward Heaven.

John Dutterer’s poems and stories have appeared in Orion Headless, Marco Polo Quarterly, Pedigree, Radiant Turnstile, Argestes, Pure Francis, The Minnetonka Review, and other journals.   He lives in Maryland with his wife and sons.  A sampling of his online pieces:

Small Cyclones of December
A Parisian Fantasy
She
Lines on my 33rd

Xie xie (Thank you)!

Interesting moment: when I dropped off the books, the purchaser grabbed another librarian walking down the hall and introduced me: “This is the author of The Year I Smelled Like Milk.”

UPDATE [9/18/10]: HCL has ordered more copies, enough for one at every branch.

Yesterday I learned that, unbeknownst to me, a fellow library media specialist has been corresponding with a professional review journal about reviewing my self-published book.

This morning I discovered a paperback copy on my desk.  Strange – I didn’t realize I’d left one at work.  I stuffed it in my bag to take home.  Ten minutes later a colleague stopped by and chided, “Where’s my book I left for you to sign?”

Add to that a high school buddy who emailed partway through to say he’s “loving the storytelling,” a flattering ESOL teacher, and a neighbor who read it cover to cover the day she received it …

… thank you all.

Ten-year anniversary cruise – couldn’t resist bringing a copy to leave in the shipboard library.  I hope future passengers on the Norwegian Pearl enjoy it!