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The peak of summer in Ann Arbor is the Art Fairs, when the streets are closed to traffic, the artists display their wares under blue and white and beige peaked tents, when the scents of elephant ears and corn dogs compete for olfactory space alongside the fare of the high-end places on Washington and Main and points in between.
As if decreed by higher powers, the July Art Fairs inevitably span the hottest days of the summer, days when the heat is broken only by rumbles of late-afternoon thunder that send vendors and shoppers alike skittering for cover. To look at Nao Kao, though, you might have thought the mercury rose no higher than the day the first robins heralded the coming of spring, clad as he was in the jeans and long-sleeves I’d long since come to think of as his uniform, sandals his only concession to the warmth.
We wandered with the masses, popping into tents filled with black and white photographs, with pottery, handstitched jackets, carefully carved benches, canvases whose edges bled with color.
“I can’t believe people buy this stuff,” Nao Kao eventually uttered in disbelief.
“Why not? It’s nice stuff.”
“But do you see the prices? A lamp for $800. A hammock for $300. A light switch cover for $45. $45! For a light switch cover!”
“So? It’s expensive stuff. That’s why we’re only window shopping. But there are a lot of rich people here.”
“Really, Liss? That is what you think. It’s expensive stuff, just let the rich people buy it?” Nao Kao was raising his voice in the middle of North University in a way I had not heard before and certainly was not expecting.
“Um, yes? Except that makes you angry. So, no?”
“It does not matter, is that what you think?”
“I’m not sure what to think right now, Nao Kao. I thought we were just checking out the Art Fairs, seeing what was here. Certainly, I didn’t come down here figuring I’d buy anything to furnish my apartment!”
Now I was raising my voice and people were beginning to turn in our direction. I steered us off North U and past the Chemistry Building. If we were going to cause a scene, no need to do it in the middle of the fair.
“Ah, but you did!” He pointed an accusing finger at the bag in my hand, the little wall clock I had picked up with the pink and blue lily pads.
“Nao Kao! What is making you so angry?”
“How much was that little clock?”
“I don’t know. Fifty bucks? But it’s a clock, not a light switch cover! Again, why are you so angry?” Now I was definitely shouting and, not surprisingly, we were attracting stares from passersby who were crossing to the other side of the walkway, giving us wide berth.
“Stop, Liss. Stop and listen. After everything I have told you about Laos, everything you know, you still have to ask me this question?”
I opened my mouth, once, twice, like a fish gulping at water.
“Do you know what the per capita GDP in all of Laos was last year?” Nao Kao’s voice was lower, its timbre sad more than angry now.
I shook my head.
“Three-hundred twenty-five dollars. Let that sink in.” Nao Kao almost spat his disgust. “I have checked out at Meijer behind people spending more than that on a few weeks’ worth of groceries,” he added more quietly.
“I’m sorry –”
“Sorry? Sorry? No, Liss, I do not want sorry. I want you to listen. You have studied economics, yes?”
“You know it.”
Nao Kao smiled slightly, despite himself.
“Now I will tell you the meaning of what you studied, the aspects of economics I think you could not learn in class, here where a hammock sells for as much as many people in my country earn in an entire year.”
Nao Kao paused, searching, I realized, for whatever he felt would be most comprehensible to my obviously small mind, since I had proved myself singularly incapable of grasping the big picture.
“Last year in Laos, inflation was over one hundred and twenty-five percent. We are a country on the brink of insolvency.”
My eyes widened. Nao Kao had my complete attention; my green eyes riveted to his dark ones.
“But even these facts I think cannot convey to you the magnitude of the situation.”
