INSIDE DOUGLAS COLLEGE / MARCH 28, 1989

 

 

To: The Editor, Insider
From: Jacqueline Gresko
Re: Bonsai Mole Trap Research

As the occupant of an office
directly across from the bonsai
moles home at Douglas College
and as a person allergic to small
furry animals and the dust mites
they bear, I have noted their
presence. Going to Hong Kong,
Taipei and Osaka, home of the
original mole generation project,
gave me opportunity to confirm the
moles existence and to check for a
bonsai mole trap or to prevent the
spread of bonsai moles from the
Biology Lab to the Arts &
Humanitics offices.

Before leaving Canada, I went
down to Customs and Federal
Health Departments at Sinclair
Centre to check on what bilingual
labels and customs duties would be
required for a bonsai mole trap or
its fake counterpart. The label
should read "la taupiere/mole at-
titres". The bureaucrats asked if I
had previously checked that neither
Art Knapps nor any of the giftshops
at Fantasy Gardens had any such
item in stock. I told them yes.
They then expressed concem that
Douglas College’s bonsai moles im-
portation might have contravened
intemational regulations against im-
portation of rare and endangered
species. They wamed that bonsai
mole traps might be considered na-
tional heritage cultural propertics
and therefore not exportable. How-
cver, bonsai mole detectors
(avertisseurs) might be allowed as
technological innovation exports in
small numbers.

As soon as I was free of duties at
the International Education Fair in
Hong Kong, I met with colleagues
at Hong Kong educational institute
for advice on where best to see bon-

 

sai mole traps or detectors. Their
informal, off-the-record advice was
to check the Aw Boon Gardens
founded by the builder of the Tiger
Balm liniment fortune. Unfor-
tunately, I found neither genuine
nor fakes in the gardens. Some of
my B.C. colleagues suggested that I
should look at the Temple of
10,000 Buddhas in the New Ter-
ritories. Well, 872 steps up the hill
to the temple did not bring me en-
lightenment or a bonsai mole trap.

I gave up the search until arriv-
ing in Taipei, Taiwan. After
several formal meetings with educa-
tion dignitaries, I got away to the
magnificent Palace Museum and
Gardens. Its humidity controls and
security devices outdo the Smith-
sonian. The staff absolutely
clammed up when I queried them
on bonsai mole detectors or traps.

So I set out to search the black
market for bonsai mole traps. No
mole traps or detectors in Night
Market, Snake Market nor Red
Light (red fluorescent lights) Dis-
trict. Taiwanese markets may cook
everything except the wing of a
plane and sell everything including
your mother, but they do not carry
bonsai mole traps! However, I did
hear on Mandarin TV News about
smuggling as a problem. It seems
all modem technological devices
and drugs disappear from Taiwan
city markets for sale at higher
prices by "fishermen" to their
counterparts from Mainland China.
The papers carried an article on a
lawyer defending the "fishermen"
for engaging in ancient trading prac-
tice between Chinese in Chinese, at
the traditional trading time of
Chinese New Year. As housewives

 

must clean house for the event bon-
sai mole traps or detectors would
be a hot item.

My only hope to find a bonsai
mole trap would be to look in
Osaka. I had Tad Hosoi take me to
Nipponbashi Den Den Town, a
shopping street for electrical goods
and electrical appliances. I felt cer-
tain that the latest laptop computers
would be equipped with bonsai
mole traps or detectors. But fac-
tory delays caused by slowdowns
since the death of the Emperor
made them or anything like them
unavailable until the end of March.

I was very disappointed. Was
my whole trip to Japan a waste?
No, not quite. At a Buddhist
Temple, in Kyoto, I saw a small
device the size of a champagne
cork (but built of museum quality
acrylic plastic and bamboo) on the
screen in front of Buddha. I
photographed it. Immediately I
was told not to photograph any-
thing inside the sacred precincts.
Further I was told no ancient cul-
tural properties nor security devices
for same could be copied or ex-
ported. (The photograph did not
turn out - all my other photos did!)

To make reparation for dis-
respect lo a semi-sacred object, I
went to a Buddhist temple in Tokyo
and made a donation. For that the
guardians read my fortune. I am
told that the Japanese characters
read "Get out of Administration. If
you keep shovelling that stuff on
your desk you are likely to be rein-
camaicd as a bonsai mole."

Jacqueline Gresko

SEERA A Ta NI EE ENO ETE VLA SOUT NEY ERE SN I PAS aL PS