Cafe Trieste – Clara Hsu

One of my favorite classical Chinese novels is Tales of the Water Margin. It describes the release of 108 spirits that had been trapped by an enormous tortoise. The spirits took human forms and became outlaws. They gathered in the Liang Mountain and fought government corruption and injustice.

After wandering for over forty years, I walked into the Sacred Grounds Cafe one afternoon in 2001 and knew that I had arrived at my Liang Mountain. The outlaws were people from all walks of life but their spirits were unmistakable. They recognized me as I recognized them and we banded together ever since.

There are a few Liang Mountains in San Francisco. North Beach’s Cafe Trieste is presided over by Jack Hirschman, our former Poet Laureate. You don’t need a pass traveling from mountain to mountain but you may feel a little bit alienated without seeing a familiar face and the outlaws tend to huddle in groups. I was walking towards Trieste one day and saw such a group sitting in front of the cafe. Before I opened the door I heard my name. It was not a call out to me, but someone had written a poem with me in mind and was about to share it with the others. I turned around and saw Peter Sherburn-Zimmer’s angelic face, equally surprised to find me standing there. After he read he handed me the poem and I felt doubly initiated.

Tuva map — map courtesy of Friends of Tuva

At Cafe Trieste I was introduced to Gunther, writer and map designer. Gunther knew all the cities and towns in the United States and pretty much everywhere in the world. My friend Steve and I tested him on a few and he was ready with an answer down to the proximity of the towns next to their major cities.

Every year around my birthday my partner Dore would renew the activity of finding me a map of the world. I had requested it as a birthday present many years ago. We had looked in map stores and travel stores a few years back. This year we looked on line but the world map that we are looking for still has not been born yet.

We are looking for a map that has Kyzyl, the capital city of the Tuva Republic, Russia. Kyzyl is important to us because of our friend Paul Pena, the blind bluesman in the film Genghis Blues, who learned overtone singing by listening to the short wave radio, traveled to Tuva and participated in their throat singing competition. So far, Kyzyl does not appear in any map of the world.

I was going to ask Gunther why Kyzyl is not included in the maps, but our conversation switched to Richard Feynman, the physicist and musician who had schemed to visit Kyzyl during the last years of his life. We went on to Oppenheimer and Einstein, the geniuses who were both scientists and artists, and didn’t look back.

Tag: Cafe Trieste

My Liang Mountain

Map of the World