INTERVIEW WITH OUR CHIEF ENGINEER & MUSICIAN KEN LEE on his experience as a Chinese-American in the Tibetan exiled
communities of India, and the music album SANGSARA that he was inspired to create when he returned home to Los Angeles...
"Hey, I'm going to visit my family in New Delhi this December. Do you want to go also?"
my friend Tom asked. "Sure!" I had never been there before, and it sounded like a lot of fun. He was a bit
surprised: "None of my friends ever say that they want to go to India." But after graduating from college,
my parents had offered to pay for an overseas trip. Why not India? 
So we went, accompanied by Oran, son of Alice and John Coltrane. Three guys - one Indian, one Asian, one black - big tall foreigners in funny clothes traveling
together. You can only imagine the double-takes we got.
And yes, I got culture shock.
But not
from India.
No, I got it when we returned. Reverse culture shock. I'm still not sure why. My welcome
back was a baggage handler with a Stray Cats-style pompadour and a Valley Boy accent telling me that my luggage was
coming in on the next flight. I had an extremely difficult time adjusting. Everything felt odd, different.
Driving felt alien. My house looked foreign. Fruits and vegetables tasted dull. Things seemed less vivid. I
would have thoughts like, "Two months ago to this very day, I was hiking in Mussoorie."