ping on beale

 Memphis is getting to me. I feel emotional in this town where Martin Luther King Jr. was shot, when I see black people and white people playing music together, working behind the bar together, dancing together and walking down Beale Street with their families, united in tourism and in their common love of music. When one band covered Prince's Purple Rain, my tears rained.
   Ping has felt Other, as an Asian in this country, for twenty years. I felt Other in her country all those years ago. But I have no notion of what it is to feel Other in your own country. Here in Memphis the worlds seem to draw closer than they do in the Northeast. Everybody loves the blues and barbeque.

W.C. Handy park