Hot weather
Fri Jul 3, 2009 4:42:11 am

---

Hot weather always makes me think about my grandmother. We didn't have an air conditioner when I was young. We had electric fans, but my grandmother seldom used them. She preferred the old way. She used her hand operated bamboo fan to cool off. The same fan was often used as a fly swatter, which I thought was very gross. To augment the wind, she sometimes sat next to an open window and called for the wind. The sound was something like "soooooooosweesweesweesweesweeswee soooooooosweesweesweesweesweeswee". These are not Chinese words. It's some kind of mystical incantation. The wind always came when she called for it. It would have eventually come regardless of what she did or didn't do, but I believed in her witchcraft when I was 5. I miss hearing that sound.