Free Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan

both wrists and ankles, and this was complemented by a colorful caftan, sized extra-large, though she was hardly fat, merely tall and big-boned. Since turning fifty, ten years ago, she had decided that her usual garb should be no less comfortable than what she wore to bed.
    Thrown over her shoulders was another of her trademarks: a raw-silk scarf printed with African motifs of her own design. Her hair, dyed taupe brown, had been shorn into a springy cap of baby’s tears.
    Seated next to her on the bus was the newly designated tour
    leader, Bennie Trueba y Cela, who began to read aloud the commentary I had meticulously appended to the itinerary months before:
    “Many believe Lijiang is the fabled city of Shangri-La that James Hilton described in his novel Lost Horizon . . . .” In remembering me, Vera chuckled, but her eyes stung with tears and she used her scarf to wipe away the wetness on her smooth cheeks.
    I confess I was overwhelmed with self-pity. Since my death, it had taken me some time to accustom myself to the constant effusion of emotions. Whereas I had lacked dimension of feeling my entire life, now, through others, there was width, volume, and density ever growing. Could it be that I was sprouting more of the six supernatural talents that Sakyamuni received before he became the Buddha? Did I have the Celestial Eye, the Celestial Ear, along with the Mind of Others? But what good did it do me to have them? I was terribly frustrated that whenever I spoke, no one could hear me. They did not know I was with them. They did not hear me vehemently disapprove of suggested changes to the careful tour plans I had made.
    And now look, they had no idea that the “commentary” I had
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    planted in the itinerary was often meant to be humorous asides that I would have elucidated upon during the actual tour.
    The remark about Shangri-La, for example: I had intended to
    follow that with a discussion about the various permutations of
    “Shangri-La” notions. Certainly it is a cliché used to lure tourists to any site—from Tibet to Titicaca—that resembles a high mountainous outpost. Shangri-La: ethereally beautiful, hard to reach, and expensive once you get there. It conjures words most delightful to tourists’ ears:
    “rare, remote, primitive, and strange.” If the service is poor, blame it on the altitude. So compelling is the name that right this minute, workmen, bulldozers, and cement trucks are busily remodeling a hamlet near the China–Tibet border that claims to be the true Shangri-La.
    I would have brought up the link to geography as well, the descriptions of the botanist Joseph Rock, whose various expeditions for National Geographic in the 1920s and early 1930s led to his discovery of a lush green valley tucked in the heart of a Himalayan mountain topped by a “cone” of snow, as described in his article published in 1931. Some of the inhabitants there were purported to be more than a hundred fifty years old. (I have met demented residents at old-age homes who have made similar claims.) James Hilton must have read the same article by Rock, for soon after, he used similar descriptions in penning the mythical Shangri-La. Voilà, the myth was hatched, delusions and all.
    But the most interesting aspect to me is the other Shangri-La alluded to in Lost Horizon , and that is a state of mind, one of moderation and acceptance. Those who practice restraint might in turn be rewarded with a prolonged life, even immortality, whereas those who don’t will surely die as a direct result of their uncontrolled impulses.
    In that world, blasé is bliss, and passion is sans raison . Passionate people create too many problems: They are reckless. They endanger others in their pursuit of fetishes and infatuations. And they self4 3
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    agitate when it is better to simply relax and let matters be. That is the reason some believe Shangri-La is so important as the antidote. It