<font color='black' size='4' face='Times New Roman, Times, serif'>
<div><font size="4">The final edited version, for those who have time to read.</font></div>
<div><font size="4"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font size="4"><br>
</font></div>
<b><font size="4">Sailing over an affair</font></b><br>
<div style="font-family:helvetica,arial;font-size:10pt;color:black">
<div id="AOLMsgPart_2_8f162d59-cbca-4e96-abd3-403ec27ebf9b"><font color="black" size="3" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif">
<div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><font size="4"> </font></b>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"><i>“Come have an affair with me”, </i>Anheuser</font>
<font size="3"> Busch's</font>
<font size="4"> Bud</font>
<i style="font-size: large;"> </i>
<font size="4">indulgently invites PIC dwellers. We pause for a self-indulgent column. We sail on a Micronesian affair. Not the irreverent Micronesian Love Affair band that sings the </font>
<i style="font-size: large;">Hot Leaky Butthole</i>
<font size="4"> song; we are not that self-indulgent! It is to the fresh free open air of Micronesia that is our affair.</font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">I bumped into the ST editor with his friend in the parking lot. Introduced, she was kind enough to say that she reads our column. Ever a self-depreciating oriental, I replied: “that’s three of us; it used to be four but my Mom at 95 now sleeps her days in a hospital.”</font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">“You’re modest,” the new acquaintance retorts. She skips the obvious. I was not above fishing for a compliment. I quit writing February, one of the few occasions I'd keep the ink well dry, thinking that I might do something else, but fate gave my plans a different twist. Coming back to Saipan for what I thought was a brief errand turned out to be the “something else”. The moratorium on writing lasted two weeks. I asked that my space be saved and picked up where I left off.</font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">OK, we’re writing of the editor and I, but mostly on this peripatetic pedagogue who writes from many places with nary any feedback from local readers that precipitated the intent to quit. Meanwhile, JayVee faithfully edits the paper.</font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">A BoE member once told the Board: “JV writes so BoE members learn to use their dictionaries.” He was being funny. His son was on my 6<sup>th</sup> Grade class at SVES so I listened well to what he had to say. </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">The self-indulgent flavor of this write-up comes from listening to feedbacks for two months, bumping into readers who quickly realize that the column photo is much younger than the unshaven real person in front of them. </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">The first comment of note was: “You use too many uncommon words so we have to look them up in the dictionary,” a lady intoned, “or, we ignore it all together," she sheepishly added, "and skip to the next article.”</font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">“There’s not much in the papers these days but self-promotions, propaganda, laments, and complaints," another said, "so your ornate style comes refreshingly different even when we do not agree with what you say.” She was kind enough not to suggest that self-promotion lies behind the florid flair.</font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">Another father of a former student, the corporate office head of a local business concern, was effusive not only with the style of writing but also for the content. “Where do you come up with all the things you say?” he loudly wondered. </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">I was seated for a haircut when the barber looked at my face and decided that I looked familiar until I jogged his memory with mention of the ST Opinion page and he beamed a smile of recognition. He likes the historical allusions, he said.</font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">On the first Saturday of the <i>Taste of Marianas, </i>the guy next to me who lives in my village turned out to be cousin of my old publisher, the late JP. Retired from the CNMI government, he reads the column and I discovered a friend. A day later, a fisherman in the lagoon came up to me and introduced himself as a reader. </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">A real estate developer approached me at Galleria and inquired if I was the writer of this column. “That’s my brother,” I said, on the off chance he did not like my style. He was kind. “I’ve read everything you’ve written so I feel I know you well,” he added. I blushed.</font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">The <i>coup d’ grace</i> was an agent who asked for my driver’s license to document a complimentary local service. Fumbling for the license, she proceeded to process my papers, admonished me to bring my license the next time, and said: “I read your column so I know you are local!”</font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">We do get written feedbacks online from outside the CNMI. I had three from HK in the last three years, the latest being a comment on the <i>Made in Saipan</i> piece on “birth tourism” where I called it Hong Kong’s “maternity tourism” extended to Saipan. </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">It is <i>not</i> the birth tourism <i>per se</i> that irks USCIS since it is perfectly legal as HK Playford Ramsey rightly noted in his <i>Letter to the Editor</i>, but the overstaying tourist who illegally waits out delivery of baby, intentionally overstays welcome with the connivance of host caregivers (presumed to have greased the skids of officialdom, not necessarily true but a common mainland China practice) that brews the stew. </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">I learned that baby delivering tourist pay at least, 140,000 <i>renminbi </i>each at source, about $23K, with only $5K remitted to Saipan for mama’s care, to wait out the full term pregnancy, pay the medical cost of delivery and a 30-day post-partum recuperation, <i>yuezi. </i> Most of the collected funds remain in China! The Saipan expense is negligible of actual payment, and to inquire why the division of cost heavily favors source might be a legitimate question. Upscale L. A. asks for $80K per delivery!</font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4"> </font>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<font size="4">While hashing this piece of immigration comic hiccup, I heard of readers’ notion that JV and JayVee, the editor, are one, a mistake that is, at best, myrrh of parsley. So now, we formally announce that there are two guys on staff. JV is NOT Mr. Editor! That’s JayVee. We will keep that straight, won’t we?</font>
</div>
<br>
<div style="font-size: 16px; clear: both;">
<i>j'aime la vie</i>
<br>
<div>
<i>yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. in all, celebrate!</i>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</font>
</div>
</div>
</font>