A young Asian man who roams the Orient on business for most of the year writes to me from time to time when he lights in one spot for an hour or two. I reckon he has himself a little laptop and must be one of those cute fellas sittin' around airports whiling away the time spent waiting for their departure flights by connecting with the whole world by means of a modem tapped into their cellular phones. Boy, the planet sure has changed since I was a young'un.   

I remember traversing the globe by strip roads and sea lanes instead of by air corridors. I used to carry my five-pound Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter, which was about as big as a Styrofoam take-out box full of leftover cheese enchiladas, rice and beans from the dinner I didn't finish at the Mexican restaurant around the corner from the house. I packed that thing around for years, often slung in a knapsack on my back while I crossed Africa on my motor scooter, the Road Angel, or trekked up to Pokhara Valley in Nepal or went by launch through the waterways branching off the Amazon or tramp-steamered through the South Pacific isles. I reckon I, too, was connected to the world, but not exactly in the modern way.   

Still, I hanker for my old Olivetti even while I sit here peckin' away at my PC keyboard in traditional journalist style by means of the "Columbus system," namely, find the key and land on it. I ain't exactly what you call a touch typist although I do type and I am slightly touched, but not enough to realize that for all the new things that happen every day and for all the new electronic gadgets that make our lives easier in some ways and more complicated in others, some things don't change. And them things is what we call "people."   

A prime example of this can be seen in my response to a recent letter from that young Chinese traveling man when he got back to his own country from a business trip to Tokyo and found his parents setting up a marriage for him in the old-fashioned way: by arrangement with the prospective bride's family without consulting the young people themselves. Trouble is, this handsome guy is strictly gay and more than that, he's a Foxy Kit, my term for the younger men of the Silver Fox Syndrome, which is to say the cute fellas who leap the generation gap to jump into the hearts and beds of us older men.   

Well, he beat the rap. This time, that is. His letter constituted a long and deep sigh of relief that he had managed to keep the matchmaking hounds at bay for the time being, and in celebration he sent a big Chinese New Year's hug to me. Gung Hay Fat Choy if you speak Cantonese, or Gong Xi Fa Cai if your language is Mandarin. It's all the same: Happy Chinese New Year of the Tiger!   

My letter back to him:   

My dear friend,  
I am so HAPPY to hear from you! I thought I would hear from you as soon as you got home. Well, Gung Hay Fat Choy or Gong Xi Fa Cai, as the case may be. May you meet many old tigers this year.   

Your family marriage problem reminds me of an old joke in Japan. Two lovers were having a drink at the Regent Bar in the Shinjuku District of Tokyo when one said, "I am leaving you. My mother says I have to get married." The other sat back in stunned surprise. "No," he said, "what about me? Have you told her you are gay?" The first nodded his head sadly. "Yes," he replied, "and she informed me that my father also is gay and that HE had to get married, too, because that is the way it is done in Japan."   

People will never change. We will never be accepted as a norm because it negates every social structure the world has ever known. The most we can hope for is to be allowed to live our lives in discretion. In that way the rabble-rousing gay liberationists are of great service to our unseen majority in every culture worldwide. Their noise makes it harder for society to persecute us in the more nefarious ways, but the subtler means of torture will abound forever. Man is not by nature a tolerant animal, or woman, either. Like the lioness, she is undoubtedly worse. If someday you must marry, keep her busy bearing children, but save a little of the sweetness on the side for some deserving old man like me.   

Your friend,  
Colonel Brock