CONTENTS

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter I
2. CONTENTS VII
3. ILLUSTRATIONS IX
4. PREFACE XIII
5. 1. Hong Kong: Where It All Began 1
6. 2. Shanghai: Life Under Japanese Occupation 11
7. 3. Seattle: Becoming an American 31
8. 4. Stanford and Germany: My First Encounter with Anthropology 45
9. 5. Harvard and France: Becoming an Ethnologist 79
10. 6. Chiapas: Exploring Maya Humor 111
11. 7. Tulane: Seeking the Antecedents of Maya Myth and Ritual 139
12. 8. Elut: Teaching and Preserving the Maya Language 159
13. 9. Yucatan: Relating the Maya Present to Its Past 183
14. 10. Colonial Documents: The Past Speaks in Maya 223
15. 11. Moving Back in Time: Reading Maya Hieroglyphs 237
16. 12. Historical Astronomy: Maya Records of the Sky 249
17. 13. Katrina: Aftermath of a Disaster 273
18. 14. Retirement: No, It Was Not the End of the World 291
19. 15. Looking Back 309
20. Index 315