One’s own self is well hidden from one’s own self; of all mines of treasure, one’s own is the last to be dug up.
Friedrich Nietzsche

For Ron, a glutton for punishment.

School has started and Stevo offers you something from the archives (until his time management skills improves).

When a young man’s fancy turns to the opposite sex does he imagine he will spend his spare time washing her dirty clothes?

No.

In those heady pubescent days of hand-holding, walks in the parks, and graceless backseat ϋber-romantic fumblings, laundry and its immortal presence is far, far away. Getting a troublesome bra hook successfully unlatched is the main thought, not washing the bra and hanging it on the line.

Perhaps we are under-educating the young men of North America. I can remember a lesson on healthy relationships in high school health class (taught by a misogynistic, mustachioed, muscle-headed gym teacher). I don’t think he mentioned washing the clothes of your sweetie. That fact that all male gym teachers are biologically engineered in a secret facility is a matter for another post. Another reason to have a home gym.

This isn’t an image seen in romantic movies. Maybe that’s why most of them end just after the wedding. Does the audience want to see its hero lose face, washing his beloved’s delicates in the sink? Maybe women do. Not the men, it strikes too close to home. With images like that in the collective unconscious, co-habitation and marriage rates would plummet. Men, most of whom will draw upon the dodgiest of reasons to avoid commitment, would avoid the opposite sex like children avoid a bath.

Seeing too-cool Paul Varjak washing Holly Golightly’s unmentionables would be the kiss of death for box office tallies, unless you count the small yet vocal fetish community. Rick Blaine, with a cigarette in one corner of his mouth and a clothes pin in the other, hanging Ilsa Lund’s lingerie on the line would make a disturbing figure. Maybe it’s best that Ilsa left Casablanca. Can you imagine the sequel if they had stayed together?

“I’m going to fight the Germans with the Free French,” Rick would say, lighting a cigarette and loading his pistol.

“Did you get the béarnaise stain out of my blouse?” Ilsa would ask.

Rick, wincing as the verbal flogging in français from the rag-tag garrison began, would mutter, “Yes, dear.”

I’m not complaining. Nor am I hung up on 50s-style gender roles. I didn’t expect June Cleaver to be my wife, vacuuming in a crisp and spotless dress, pearls adorning her shapely neck. I’m only reflecting that I was never told (or imagined) I’d spend hung-over Saturday mornings waiting for the spin cycle to end.

Relationships are a partnership, or the good ones are. I wash and hang, and my ai ren fluffs, folds and puts away. Since she can’t reach the clothesline without a step ladder, and I hate balling socks, it’s a good compromise.

Every day a new challenge presents itself, to be faced with diligence and vigor. After I’ve finished the laundry.

A worker at the Red Forest Mangrove Park in Shenzhen, China, cleans up dead brush. The Red Forest is a unique and environmentally-protected retreat in a city of 12 million, nestled between Shenzhen Bay and Nanshan District.

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In Guangzhou, China, the artist carves jewelery out of animal bone: Pendants for necklaces, charms for bracelets and anklets.  He offered me a discount on a necklace bearing the carved likeness of an Olympic mascot. I have seen enough of the Beijing Olympic Fuwa(s), thank you very much.

I settled on a break-apart medallion, reminiscent of an ancient Chinese royal seal. One half shows a carved dragon, the symbol of the emperor, the other a phoenix, the symbol of the empress. I sent half the creation with a visiting British teacher to Mrs. Stevo. She has yet to receive it.

Captured: Guangzhou, China, October 23, 2008.
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Not as bad as Starbucks in the Forbidden City, but a close second. Don’t get me wrong, I like Ronald and his beefy friends, but there’s a proper place for everything. Shame on you McDonalds China. Tsk tsk.

Captured: October 24, 2008, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China.

Learn more about travel photographer Ron Dubin. See an in-depth interview:

Big Bolivian Sunsets: Interview with Photographer Ron Dubin.