MILKY TEATS OF SERENDIPITY

I got hooked on goat's milk last year while researching a travel guide to Singapore - not a city normally associated with farm animals. Intestinal difficulties drew me to the milk. The culprits were chili pepper crab, Malaysian curries, roti stuffed with hot pepper and southern dishes varied and sundry. Singapore is a food city, and if you've ever been there in those sweltering food courts offering aisle after aisle of spice and satay and fish and curries like jellied fire you'll understand why deferred pain might be considered the price of doing business for a guidebook writer.

One Saturday I found myself researching the city's rustic side, a few patches of bucolic jungle park and well-tended organic farms on the island's outer edge. It was here that I came upon a farm that raised goats and distributed their milk city-wide. On a whim, I bought and consumed a bottle, and my gastronomic troubles evaporated immediately. What's more, I felt renewed, like a post-spinach binge Popeye. For the remainder of my stay I had three bottles delivered weekly.

I assumed that getting the stuff in Taiwan was possible, organic foods being all the rage these days on my adopted island home. I asked around for months, but couldn't locate a source. And so, being a man of strange whim and lackadaisical drive, I settled instead into the realm of pointed wishful thinking.

Which brings us to the present moment.

Were you here, watching me from the window of the local Dante Cafe, you'd see a man of indeterminate adulthood looking around for a secure pole on which to lock a bike. At no point would you see any outward indication that a convoluted flight of pique is currently unfolding inside my cranium. You'd have no way of knowing, for example, that at this very moment I am, in my mind's eye, seated...no, perched on a high throne, one comprised entirely of travel guidebooks which I have written (or at least contributed to).

Because, I am holding court, and on matters not to be taken lightly. Indeed, they are serious matters, substantial and critical to the lives and livelihoods of literally millions. For I have been asked...nay, beseeched! to bestow upon an eager world a proclamation of great import.

To wit:

"Which place, Mr. Brown, of the many upon which your candied words have graced...which of these is most deserving the designation 'Joshua's favorite place?' "

The question is delivered with equal parts gravity and obsequiousness by a man whose name many would preface with the phrase among the most important people in mid-to-late 20th century Asian politics. He is Lee Kuan Yew, former prime minister of Singapore, who, though technically a private citizen only, is still referred to with the honorific title Minister-Mentor.

Wise indeed is the Minister-Mentor to curry my favor with flattery, for my declaration, when issued, will bring about tremors nearly as earth-shattering as those inflicted on terra firma by the great Black Bolt. For while the merest utterances of the leader of Marvel Comic's poorest-selling super group The Inhumans causes mountains to crumble into the sea, my own proclamations (because I am a famed and respected travel writer) can make restaurants, hotels, and even theme parks seem more - or less - attractive, both to business travelers and backpackers.

Indeed, and for this reason, among others, the Minister-Mentor is not the only head of state currently standing before me with bowed head; beside him on the long red carpet leading up to my throne (the throne also doubles as my writing desk, if I didn't mention this before) stands the President of Taiwan, Republic of China.

"Taiwan is your favorite place in the world, is it not, Mr. Brown?" Says Ma Ying-jeou with great elocution (because he is, after all, a Harvard Man). "You have called our country your adopted homeland more than once in your writings. This has made us all very, very proud."

This last statement is emphasized with an interesting mixture of pomp and humility, causing me to arrange my hands with subtle flourish into the pretentious pyramid favored by academics and executives alike, a stance conveying two messages:

I hold the cards

and

Further flattery may benefit your cause

To drive these points home, I produce a non-committal hmmm sound.

"You have lived in Taiwan for nearly a decade," continues the famously coiffed President of the state-that-dare-not-mention it's-statehood. "Why, we should have offered you honorary citizenship long ago!"

My left eyebrow arches up, conveying clearly to the President that he has touched a raw nerve. I allow the corners of my mouth to turn downward slightly. Sensing an opening, the Minister Mentor - renowned for his political savvy - lunges in for the rhetorical kill.

"Ah," says the wily Lee Kuan-yew, inching closer to the throne and looking up at me, eyes shining knowingly. "But in all those years, Mr. Brown, did Taiwan ever offer you a road to citizenship? No. Why, in Singapore you lived only seven weeks, yet by the third we were already delivering fresh goat's milk to your door!"

My smile returns; I radiate confidence, grace and power.

"The Minister Mentor is correct, Mr. President."

Ma Ying-jeou is crestfallen; even his starchly lacquered hair seems to droop. I raise my right palm, and the assembled supplicants of my fantasy world tremble in anticipation of my words. In my mind's eye's mind's eye I envision the cheering millions, the beating of breasts, the tickertape parades, the bitter tears of recrimination...

"You want goat's milk?"

My fantasy of power and influence is intruded upon suddenly. Before me stands a woman (she may be a specter dredged from my subconscious; I'm still not sure) holding a woven basket. In her right hand, a small plastic cup.

"What?"

"Goat's milk. You want to try?"

So simpatico are the core subject of my outlandish fantasy and what appears to be actual reality that I am momentarily gob smacked. I feel like some cosmic joke is in progress.

"Goat's milk? Um. Are you trying to trick me?"

The woman looks mildly confused.

"No. I'm selling goat's milk." She reaches a hand into her basket and pulls out a kindergarten-sized milk carton bearing on its label a drawing of a goat.

"Goats milk is better than cow's milk, containing more vitamins and less cholesterol than cow's milk..."

She launches into her sales pitch, simultaneously pouring a shot-glass worth of milk into a white plastic cup. It occurs to me that she must assume (and reasonably so) that my mention of trickery is based upon some sort of personal dubiousness regarding the health benefits of goat's milk rather than my awe (also reasonable) at the amazing lattice of coincidence presented by the situation itself.

I take the plastic cup from her hand and drain its contents in one long sip, eyeing the woman with strange curiosity. She's wearing purple sweatpants with the word "Honey" displayed ostentatiously across the buttocks, but other than that, she has the demeanor of a farm girl. She continues reading from her mental script:

"Our goat's milk is both healthy and tasty, available in five flavors: Chocolate, vanilla, peach, strawberry and original..."

Could she possibly understand the fact that the person to whom she is currently making a cold-call sidewalk sales pitch had been, at the exact moment of contact, sunk brainpan-deep into a manic fantasy of delusional grandeur, one in which the exact product that she is offering to have delivered to my doorstep daily is a major component? Or would she just interpret my tale - if I could even manage to translate the idea of lattice of coincidence into Mandarin - as proof that I am of that class known in sales-speak as the motivated customer.

From the point of view of a wandering goat's milk salesperson, this could be considered the only reasonable assumption. But maybe...just maybe...our meeting is more than mere chance. What if the woman had been weaving magic of her own? As she continues her pitch, it all becomes crystal clear to me.

Business has been slow these last few months, a natural result of the economic slowdown, combined with the overall indifference among the citizenry of Taipei to goat-related products. These factors...they've all conspired to crush the spirit of the poor woman now before me.

But it was only this morning that she, driven by desperation, had finally resorted to mysticism.

"We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest," her overbearing supervisor at the goat's milk sales consortium roared arrogantly at the assembled roaming sales team during the morning's pep talk. "You all know what first prize is. Second prize is a set of steak knives. And third prize," (and at this point he looked directly at my unlucky saleswoman, who he'd always seemed to have it in for, with particular maliciousness) "Third prize is you're fired!"

It was this humiliating scene that caused my poor, farm-born saleswoman to flee the goat's milk sales headquarters the very second the pep rally had ended!

With tears rolling down her apple cheeks she ran, ran to the shrine of Shen Nong Shi, Chinese god of agriculture. There, she spent her last few dollars on incense, lucky totems, and various sacred items, all of which she'd burned, along with perhaps small locks of her own hair, before the statue of the deity, all the while chanting feverishly:

"Please, Shen Nong Shi, please...this humble goat's milk saleswoman begs you...oh Shen Nong Shi, hear my prayers...send a customer to me this day, so that I can return to the farm with my steak knives instead of shame and dishonor."

While she chanted she visualized the perfect customer - the one that will break her losing streak, allowing her to hold her head high among her peers in the goat's milk sales industry at last. This perfect customer would be one for whom the location of goat's milk had become an obsession. He would be not merely willing, but eager to sign a contract for regularly-scheduled deliveries. And he would be able to afford the somewhat higher-than-cow's-milk fee per carton.

Suddenly it hits me, in blinding epiphany: I am the one!.

I look over at the woman, who is fiddling with her clipboard, looking through her basket for a pencil and fresh sign up sheet. A rush of compassion so deep overwhelms me, nearly causing me to weep. I am her savior.

"Let's do this thing!" I am barely able to restrain myself from kissing this woman full on the mouth, after of course consuming the contents of her sample basket.

"OK. You need to fill out this form. How many cartons do you want a week?"

Being "The One," I go for broke.

"Two a day."

"Wow. You really like goat's milk." She puts her clipboard into her basket and hands me a sheet of paper. "Delivery starts on the first of the month. My number is on that paper, so call me if you need to change anything. "

She turns to leaves, whistling a happy tune, knowing that her prayers have been answered, her streak of bad luck, broken. She walks down the block in pursuit of her next customer. And I just stand there, contemplating the lattice of coincidence, and thinking about the goat's milk filled days to come.




Joshua's debut book, 'Vignettes of Taiwan,' offers tales of betel nut beauties and how to avoid jail time by impersonating a Mormon; VOT is available at bookstores in Taiwan, through Amazon, and through his website.