When my wife and I meet new people, one of the first things they ask is do I speak Chinese. I studied Cantonese but the only thing I remember how to say, is “Ying wong do, hai bin doa?” Where is King’s Road?
Never mind learning something useful, like Hello or Thank you or Where’s the toilet?
I’m good at retaining useless information, things like the number of my grade school bus, No. 161, or the phone number for Junior Samples used car dealership, BR549.
But remember important stuff, like where I last put my wedding ring (that’s another story) or my nieces’ and nephews’ birthdays, those important tidbits evaporate right through my thick noggin. Poof. Gone.
Where is King’s Road acts as a metaphor of sorts for where I find myself in my life, a small town kid from Kentucky living in Pittsburgh with his Hong Kong-born wife, wondering how did I get here.
My name is Joseph David Wilcox and my wife is cut paper artist, Bovey Lee. She’s a big deal, by the way.
The same January blizzard blew us both into New York 17 years ago, where we met not long after. On our first date we went for beers at an internet cafe in the East Village.
Yes, and she still married me.
I envision this blog as a muse on our days together. Like memory itself, never a linear exercise, sometimes I will talk about days gone by and sometimes I will relate things as they happen, our ever unfolding life that still unfolds so magically I barely believe it’s happening to me.
A lot of people are curious about how we manage our interracial relationship, so I promise to tell you all about that. And it’s intriguing to be married to an artist and a quasi celebrity, at least in the art world. So, I’ll tell you about that, too.
I never studied art but thanks to hanging around my wife, I know the difference between a
de Kooning and a Rothko, and I’ve been to so many art openings and art fairs they blur across my mind like stars in a Van Gogh painting.
But one of the greatest things about our relationship is I get to see America and the world through Bovey’s eyes. She makes intriguing observations, that, as an American, I sometimes take for granted. For one, she says she can’t understand why Americans aren’t more vocal over issues like unemployment, gun control, or corporate greed, saying if it were Hong Kong, they’d be protesting in the streets.
I tell her I don’t have a good answer for that nor most of her observations. She’s definitely the thinker in this relationship. Me, I trip around this world wearing blinders, just happy to be here.
In the meantime, if I ever get lost in Hong Kong, at least I can find my way to King’s Road. Which might, one day, save this wandering Kentuckian.
Where Is King's Road? 