I know that Disneyland is beautiful in its own right and appeals to the eyes of many beholders. People marvel at Walt Disney's head, for it seems that he does have some brain cells inside, not just some watermelon seeds like mine, and his world of imaginations is fantastic almost to the point of being fanatic.

The problem is that my eyes only draw blank when I see Disneyland.

One night I had this horrifying dream in which I was trapped in Disneyland. A powerful choking sensation seized me. I was too far from the world of dustiness which had brought me up, the yellow kind of dustiness if you know what I mean. At the first glance everything was surely spectacular but quickly the extreme cleanness made me feel painfully out of place, intimidated, cold and lost. I was a country cousin in disguise and Disneyland blew off my cover completely. In Disneyland I became a monkey with an ugly tail hard to cover up. The feeling of not-belonging-there was so acute as if a knife was cutting into my soul.

There in Disneyland I truly understand how far I have been divorced from nature, the harsh side of her, maybe; only in Disneyland I realized that the yellow earth was so meager and yet so rich; in Disneyland I could feel so alone but not so lowly. It was as if all the suffering that the Yellow Earth Plateau has inflicted on me has just revealed its true meaning, its original intentions. There in Disneyland, I do not feel pitiful but pity those merry-go-around faces around me the erstwhile ghost of poverty and hardship. How will I say this to you: the beauty of Disneyland, to me, relies in its generous offering to remind us who we are and where we come from. Disneyland made me not ashamed but proud of myself, for this I am grateful.

I used to be a fanatic fan of the natural reserves the federal government and its many states have protected from, you guessed, humans. The Grand Canyon is magnificent, the Yosomite National Park goddess-like, and the Yellow Stone National Park literarily Eden on earth. O my, and O my, I needed more than four eyes (counting my glasses) to suck in all the beauty. I thought I was running out of my shoes. But quickly dreams started to attack me at nights. Weird dreams I may add. Strange monologues occurred with frightening frequency and with no apparent warning or reason. It was then that I realized that I have lost my sanity in our terrifically modernized world. I started to curse the national parks because I see that mother nature is being prostituted there. There, her blouse is lifted up and we see roads paved on, joyful people drive on her and speed on her, and only occasionally stop to look at her before checking into luxury hotels built on or around her. They throw wild parties and drink and dine on her, then they leave her to the cold wind, bitter rain.

I know it was only a bumper-sticker and I don't even know which Indian chief (could it be Chief Seattle or Chief Crazyhorse?) said that: The Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth. But dreams are surreal, remember? travelling across the spatio-temporal distance between me and the sage-like chief (never mind some people said that he had never existed nor said anything) takes only a finger snap. Somehow I managed to get myself trapped yet again, but his time in wild mountains in the presence of that chief. Sierra Neveda or the Rocky Mountains, I couldn't tell; all I remember is that there was this fierce storm, rain pouring like water cascades and wind blowing the mountain peaks off. Tornado, flood, volcanic eruption, all came down at once, as if to punish somebody or something. Amidst the chaos and violence humans feel small but yet very large because we are glued together with mother nature. I looked around, the chief looked very calm and serene. He lived for moments like this. I was panting like a horse but nonetheless woke up happy like a clam. It was the true high of my life, feeling like a true native, an Indian who belong to this land and live and die with the land.

O there are so many people! there are so many people. This is what's wrong with Disneyland: there the distance between people and the land they live on is so great that there is absolutely no chance for people to live and die with the land. Of course there is always earthquake in California. That's why they have Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and in Paris and in Tokyo.

Earth is our mother and land should our god, our only god. But there are so many people! there are so many people! In New York, in Los Angeles, in Shanghai, in Mexico City, in Paris and in Tokyo ... Could it be Disneyland that our planet is in such a bad shape? Am I making a mountain out of a molehill? I hope I am.

You will laugh at me if I tell you that my childhood dream was to meet a Taoist monk, a simple man dressed in drags wandering the mountains, eccentric but content, in perfect harmony with mother nature. My chances have become more and more remote by the minute. This is actually the real reason why I am afraid to go to Disneyland. I am afraid that I won't have a chance to come back, back to earth, that is. I know that not everyone is alienated or lost in this mosaic of our post-modern world as I am. It's me, it's really just me, the abstract me and the wild me, the me who whines a lot in order to keep my sanity. Maybe I should move back to caves. But where are my caves? And what if I wake up one afternoon finding out that they are building another Disneyland over my cave?

The Yellow Earth woman is good She is down-to-earth; The Yellow earth man is skinny But he has good strength. Singing on hilltops is sad, very sad; Sleeping in caves is serene, real serene.

Yellow Earth trails are long, up to the hills; Yellow earth water's deep, down into the grounds. Once there were many, many trees, Now there are only windstorms, and dustbowls.

July, 1994