ok so enough kumbayaing. it's midnight. i'm in the business class (royal silk! (sounds better than it is)) lounge in the bangkok airport. and i am meeting my nemesis. well, not meeting so much as we are in fact well-acquainted. but confronting is more like it. (appropriately, and i kid you not, a cheesy piano version of 'don't cry for me argentina' is playing.) this nemesis is in fact a small pastry*, so really no match for me at all. and yet. and yet, my cackles are up. aside from all of the joy of spaciousness and space and sea and sky and sunshine and such, a very exciting added joy of this particular escape was avoiding the mid-autumn festival in china (zhongqiujie). i have nothing against celebrating mid-autumn, the new harvest, the new moon, the old moon, any moon at all really. my gripe against this particular holiday is entirely related to its signature food - the mooncake (yuebing). (collective sigh of relief. anyone out there who has ever endured one knows what i'm talking about but is afraid to verbalise. it's ok, exhale and continue.) the truth is, the chinese culture has created many amazing things (in fact, perhaps all amazing things). it is an ancient and great culture with an ostensibly equally ancient and great culinary history. that said, you'd think that someone somewhere along the last five thousand years of great creative civilization would have stood up and said, 'these yuebing bite, and i don't mean in a good way, so let's do something about it'. mooncakes are simply bad. terrible, even. and the traditional kinds only seem to get worse. it's a texture thing (we used to joke in my family that they were really best used as hockey pucks). it's a flavour thing (they even make my beloved red bean bad). it's just a mooncake thing. (also, let's be honest, nothing with an egg yolk inside should be preserved for an extended period of time. at least i don't think so.) i have never met a mooncake i can say i truly liked. except for non-mooncake mooncakes. because apparently the chinese civilization was content with the status quo and re-gifting the same seven boxes of nasty egg-yolk-centered, hockey puck pastries for centuries, it took in the intervention of hagen daaz and other foreign devils to lead a small mooncake revolution**. to wit: ice cream mooncakes, chocolate mooncakes, this year i've even heard of cupcake mooncakes. anyway, i avoid mooncakes with a passion (that cannot be chased indoors for anything! (geesh, i am so dramatic sometimes when i'm over-thinking***)). thus, i was especially pleased to avoid this year's mid-autumn festivities altogether and escape to thailand. i avoided feigning delight at receiving another box of (re-gifted) mooncakes; i avoided re-gifting them myself; i avoided having to pretend to eat a piece of one in the presence of others (although thankfully that rarely happens, i think we all collectively avoid eating them in public, it allows the same seven boxes to be re-gifted indefinitely)); i avoided all of it. or so i thought. until i arrived in the royal silk lounge, sat comfortably in my generic boring airport lounge chair, and found myself staring down an abandoned mooncake on the table next to me. now, mooncakes were not a part of our complimentary buffet this evening so how this fiend found his way before me, i know not. but we are currently in a bit of a showdown here in the silk lounge. mr. mooncake vs. meiling and all that is good and sacred (ok, so maybe i'm dramatic even when i'm not over-thinking). i suspect that i will win this particular battle for two reasons. 1 - i am a person, he is a pastry. 2 - he will very soon be tidied up by the silk lounge staff and swept swiftly into oblivion. i, meanwhile, will board my flight and arrive bleary-eyed back in beijing in all its mid-autumn glory. kumbaya.
*line from a book i just read that i appreciated - a first impression of paris: scowling grey universe relieved by pastry. nothing like clinging to a tarte tatin or a croissant for katharsis, weather-related or otherwise.
**curious, at dinner with a commercially-minded entrepreneur friend in bangkok this evening, he noted how all of the great chinese entrepreneurs of the last decade basically just took a foreign business concept, copied it, translated it into chinese and made bazillions. query whether there is some common thread here related to the inability to innovate the mooncake without outside intervention.
***a new guy friend who visited this blog recently said he found it a bit much. i asked which part was more upsetting, the over-thinking or the over-sharing. he blinked very rapidly a few times and changed the subject. i smiled at life.
Showing posts with label cultural exchange. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cultural exchange. Show all posts
Monday, September 27, 2010
Saturday, September 25, 2010
passion that can't be chased indoors for anything
it is my last day in paradise. cloudy for the first time, but just as well*. i don't mind the slightly overcast skies as my spirits are soaring, my thoughts lofty, and i still have passion that can't be chased indoors for anything. this, however, is not news. what is news is the sense of calm and stillness these last few days have allowed. and the seismic shift in my life that is about to take place. although perhaps that's a bit dramatic. it's just a shift in career, after all. the fundamentals shall stay the same. (they always do.) it's curious though, how much of who we are seems to hang suspended on what we do. at least in some cultures. however, who we are and how we exist in the world may in fact have very little to do with our occupations. and yet ideally we should find careers that nourish in many senses - literally (food on the table), personally (engaging and feeding the mind), spiritually (cultivating compassion and inspiration to better oneself), and communally / worldly (contributing in some small way to bettering us all). i know that sounds terribly cliched, but i am a world-impover after all. yet when i write this, i don't mean to suggest that we all need to be saving baby turtles or knitting sweaters for war orphans. i think you can just was easily find that nourishment - in all of those senses - on almost any path. (almost being the operative word in that sentence.) i read a quote about this once. ahem:
What the world needs more than anything is bodhisattvas, active servants of peace, “clothed,” as Longchenpa said, “in the armor of perseverance,” dedicated to their bodhisattva vision and to the spreading of wisdom into all reaches of our experience. We need bodhisattva lawyers, bodhisattva artists and politicians, bodhisattva doctors and economists, bodhisattva teachers and scientists, bodhisattva technicians and engineers, bodhisattvas everywhere, working consciously as channels of compassion and wisdom at every level and in every situation of society; working to transform their minds and actions and those of others, working tirelessly in the certain knowledge of the support of the buddhas and enlightened beings for the preservation of our world and for a more merciful future.
hear hear. i'm all for a more merciful future. particularly after these most merciful few days. on my first day, as i enjoyed an cool tall glass of red zinger (beet, carrot, cucumber and ginger*** juice), a charming member of the staff came over to introduce himself. attractive, of medium build, and wearing distinctive glasses, he greeted me in thai and then switched to english, introducing himself as 'wut'. we chatted a bit. he then asked if he could tell me something. i said, what? and wut said, 'remember that you are here to be on holiday and you need to relax and be happy'. what? wut? wooot! in that moment i decided i loved this wut. and what. the what of pure fascination with life as it is, however it is. it has been a blissful few days of yoga, mango & sticky rice, rambutans, reading, swimming, running, writing, reflecting, & enjoying my own company. i declined to meet up with my friend's friends in the end. although i felt a bit sheepish about doing so. (it felt so selfish to guard my desire to be alone.) all the more so when on my second night here wut was already encouraging me to join the communal dinner table. this is a table full of other travelers (single or otherwise) keen to share their meal and be social. not even two days in and already there was pressure to be social! wut suggested i might enjoy meeting new friends. i politely declined. (what?) i was really more than content on my own. i spend my whole life at the communal table. half the time i am constructing the communal table myself, or at least laying out the place settings. i came all the way here to escape the communal table, much as i enjoy it in my real life. thankfully wut didn't press it further, although he still made a point of checking in on me every day.
other than wut's whats (and hows and whys and wheres), the main assessing of my days here has involved alignment. i had a 90 minute private yoga session each day with a charming flemish woman who had a very precisely kind way of describing the world, the body, and how the two converse and are one. we worked in very small, subtle ways and i appreciated our time together on a wooden floor overlooking the ocean. i hope i can hold onto just some small part of the new openness we've nurtured into my mid-back. i think when i start this new job i think i need to insist on bringing a medicine ball or some sort of spine-friendly chair to sit upon even if it looks silly. it's time.
and of course amid all of this beauty and grace and sunshine and inspiration, i found myself overflowing with passion(s). love and a desire to give and give again. in many ways. thus the subject of this post. even if i will be chased indoors (and in fact chased into autumn as summer has fled beijing) tomorrow and need to leave this paradise behind, i can take my irrepressible passion with me. who could ask for anything more? what?
*just as well because i allowed myself to be in the direct sun for a very brief amount of time yesterday. maybe an hour and a half. with 85++ sunscreen on. (i know, i don't know if it makes any difference either, but it sounds impressive and i reckon i need all the protection i can get. some say that nothing over 15 makes a difference. probably true. but i try to involve 8s in my life as much as possible, so there is also that.) reapplication was also involved. and yet. and yet i still managed to get burned on my chest. you can very clearly see where the sunscreen wasn't sufficiently rubbed in. sigh. i know we all lack some vital nutrient since we don't get enough exposure to sunlight in our modern lifestyles, but i had a soup that involved pureed carrots and coconut oil yesterday at lunch and i'd like to think that made up for it since i clearly cannot handle sunbathing anymore. (it is vitamin d that we lack, yes? and that is also in carrots, no? yes, no, maybe so?) aside from the splotchy burn, and even though my head was almost always covered with my hat, the pregnancy on my face** also came back. which means enough sun for meiling this trip. and to think i just to be able to lie in the sun for long, languorous stretches of time! ahh the folly of youth and young skin. (although i always burned then too. i just didn't mind as much.)
**the pregnancy on my face is a skin condition, otherwise known as melasma, that was diagnosed on valentines day in 2008, almost exactly six months before my 30th birthday. i recall these details because this was my first trip to a dermatologist and in my naiveté i confused going to see this medical professional with going to the spa. after a straight male friend commented on the 'dark splotch' on my cheek, i decided it was worth exploring what the increasing discolouration i'd noticed might be. i made an appointment for valentine's day thinking this would be a nice treat for me. it was not so much a treat. i arrived, ready to be pampered. (yes, i know magical thinking.) instead, after examining my skin, the doctor announced, 'you have the mask of pregnancy'. she asked if i was pregnant. i said no. she asked how old i was. i said 29 and a half. she asked if i had been on birth control pills for a long time. i said i had. she said that explained it. the splotches, she said, were a skin condition that effects white and south asian women and appear during pregnancy or after having been on hormonally-based birth control for a long time without becoming pregnant. it gets worse in the sun. she said given my age and my having been on birth control for several years, this was quite normal and there was nothing to do except go off the pill and avoid the sun. she also said i could expect to have it return when and if i ever become pregnant. to be sure i understood, i clarified that this was basically my body's way of crying out for a baby, by putting its demand all over my face. she said, more or less. i said, 'happy valentine's day to me!' she offered me prescription skin-whiteners, but that felt a bit extreme. i told her i'd stop taking the pill immediately and otherwise drown my sorrows over my splotchy skin and childlessness in excessive sunscreen application. i have since worn sunscreen (in my moisturizer) on a daily basis. i have done such a thorough job of drowning these particular sorrows that i think the damn things have learned to swim! that is, they swim swiftly back to the surface of my skin at even the slightest exposure to sunlight. but no matter. melasma is hardly of serious consequence and i find my slight mustache more amusing than anything else.
***curiously i have been craving ginger incessantly since i've been here. ginger juices, fresh ginger tea, ginger at almost every meal. unsure what this means. if anything. (note to self - there is not meaning in everything. perhaps craving ginger signifies nothing more than enjoying that particular spice.)
What the world needs more than anything is bodhisattvas, active servants of peace, “clothed,” as Longchenpa said, “in the armor of perseverance,” dedicated to their bodhisattva vision and to the spreading of wisdom into all reaches of our experience. We need bodhisattva lawyers, bodhisattva artists and politicians, bodhisattva doctors and economists, bodhisattva teachers and scientists, bodhisattva technicians and engineers, bodhisattvas everywhere, working consciously as channels of compassion and wisdom at every level and in every situation of society; working to transform their minds and actions and those of others, working tirelessly in the certain knowledge of the support of the buddhas and enlightened beings for the preservation of our world and for a more merciful future.
hear hear. i'm all for a more merciful future. particularly after these most merciful few days. on my first day, as i enjoyed an cool tall glass of red zinger (beet, carrot, cucumber and ginger*** juice), a charming member of the staff came over to introduce himself. attractive, of medium build, and wearing distinctive glasses, he greeted me in thai and then switched to english, introducing himself as 'wut'. we chatted a bit. he then asked if he could tell me something. i said, what? and wut said, 'remember that you are here to be on holiday and you need to relax and be happy'. what? wut? wooot! in that moment i decided i loved this wut. and what. the what of pure fascination with life as it is, however it is. it has been a blissful few days of yoga, mango & sticky rice, rambutans, reading, swimming, running, writing, reflecting, & enjoying my own company. i declined to meet up with my friend's friends in the end. although i felt a bit sheepish about doing so. (it felt so selfish to guard my desire to be alone.) all the more so when on my second night here wut was already encouraging me to join the communal dinner table. this is a table full of other travelers (single or otherwise) keen to share their meal and be social. not even two days in and already there was pressure to be social! wut suggested i might enjoy meeting new friends. i politely declined. (what?) i was really more than content on my own. i spend my whole life at the communal table. half the time i am constructing the communal table myself, or at least laying out the place settings. i came all the way here to escape the communal table, much as i enjoy it in my real life. thankfully wut didn't press it further, although he still made a point of checking in on me every day.
other than wut's whats (and hows and whys and wheres), the main assessing of my days here has involved alignment. i had a 90 minute private yoga session each day with a charming flemish woman who had a very precisely kind way of describing the world, the body, and how the two converse and are one. we worked in very small, subtle ways and i appreciated our time together on a wooden floor overlooking the ocean. i hope i can hold onto just some small part of the new openness we've nurtured into my mid-back. i think when i start this new job i think i need to insist on bringing a medicine ball or some sort of spine-friendly chair to sit upon even if it looks silly. it's time.
and of course amid all of this beauty and grace and sunshine and inspiration, i found myself overflowing with passion(s). love and a desire to give and give again. in many ways. thus the subject of this post. even if i will be chased indoors (and in fact chased into autumn as summer has fled beijing) tomorrow and need to leave this paradise behind, i can take my irrepressible passion with me. who could ask for anything more? what?
*just as well because i allowed myself to be in the direct sun for a very brief amount of time yesterday. maybe an hour and a half. with 85++ sunscreen on. (i know, i don't know if it makes any difference either, but it sounds impressive and i reckon i need all the protection i can get. some say that nothing over 15 makes a difference. probably true. but i try to involve 8s in my life as much as possible, so there is also that.) reapplication was also involved. and yet. and yet i still managed to get burned on my chest. you can very clearly see where the sunscreen wasn't sufficiently rubbed in. sigh. i know we all lack some vital nutrient since we don't get enough exposure to sunlight in our modern lifestyles, but i had a soup that involved pureed carrots and coconut oil yesterday at lunch and i'd like to think that made up for it since i clearly cannot handle sunbathing anymore. (it is vitamin d that we lack, yes? and that is also in carrots, no? yes, no, maybe so?) aside from the splotchy burn, and even though my head was almost always covered with my hat, the pregnancy on my face** also came back. which means enough sun for meiling this trip. and to think i just to be able to lie in the sun for long, languorous stretches of time! ahh the folly of youth and young skin. (although i always burned then too. i just didn't mind as much.)
**the pregnancy on my face is a skin condition, otherwise known as melasma, that was diagnosed on valentines day in 2008, almost exactly six months before my 30th birthday. i recall these details because this was my first trip to a dermatologist and in my naiveté i confused going to see this medical professional with going to the spa. after a straight male friend commented on the 'dark splotch' on my cheek, i decided it was worth exploring what the increasing discolouration i'd noticed might be. i made an appointment for valentine's day thinking this would be a nice treat for me. it was not so much a treat. i arrived, ready to be pampered. (yes, i know magical thinking.) instead, after examining my skin, the doctor announced, 'you have the mask of pregnancy'. she asked if i was pregnant. i said no. she asked how old i was. i said 29 and a half. she asked if i had been on birth control pills for a long time. i said i had. she said that explained it. the splotches, she said, were a skin condition that effects white and south asian women and appear during pregnancy or after having been on hormonally-based birth control for a long time without becoming pregnant. it gets worse in the sun. she said given my age and my having been on birth control for several years, this was quite normal and there was nothing to do except go off the pill and avoid the sun. she also said i could expect to have it return when and if i ever become pregnant. to be sure i understood, i clarified that this was basically my body's way of crying out for a baby, by putting its demand all over my face. she said, more or less. i said, 'happy valentine's day to me!' she offered me prescription skin-whiteners, but that felt a bit extreme. i told her i'd stop taking the pill immediately and otherwise drown my sorrows over my splotchy skin and childlessness in excessive sunscreen application. i have since worn sunscreen (in my moisturizer) on a daily basis. i have done such a thorough job of drowning these particular sorrows that i think the damn things have learned to swim! that is, they swim swiftly back to the surface of my skin at even the slightest exposure to sunlight. but no matter. melasma is hardly of serious consequence and i find my slight mustache more amusing than anything else.
***curiously i have been craving ginger incessantly since i've been here. ginger juices, fresh ginger tea, ginger at almost every meal. unsure what this means. if anything. (note to self - there is not meaning in everything. perhaps craving ginger signifies nothing more than enjoying that particular spice.)
Friday, August 13, 2010
on naming and spending
as a friend commented to me yesterday, 'it is hard to compete with fishjuice vodka'. and she doesn't know the half of it. but indeed it is, so it is not with out some sense of trepidation that attempt to scrape together some thoughts today. i feel compelled to do so, however, in case saturday's party is as insane as the last one* and i end up writing about splitting my trousers on the dancefloor** and you all think that all i am good for is drinking champagne and being silly***. i will therefore today attempt to talk about serious things. to wit: naming (and the narratives entangled therein (oh narrative arc! my favourite subject)) and consumption (which, actually, also related to the narratives we create and seek for ourselves and how we ascribe meaning to them through language (a.k.a. naming)).
first, consumption.
i have actually been thinking about this a bit lately. partially because i (finally) paid off my private student loans from law school. and, although i still have some public loans blowing in the wind somewhere, i am able to to ponder financial potentials that were heretofore impossible for me. it has also been interesting to just examine how i managed to finally pay them off (and how people respond when i tell them) - not buying any new clothes for a year and moving into a considerably cheaper flat that i share - and where i am choosing to spend money now that i have more disposable income - on other people and experiences. (well, and i immediately purchased a small heap of shoes. but i really needed some new shoes after that year! and i am imperfect. (i maintain that blue patent leather stilettos were also required.)) so i am thinking about this now becuase i my own rather subtle musings more became more pronounced after i read the following article: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/eat-pray-spend. the authors critique the self-help / priv-lit genre and the consumer culture it promotes among women as anti-feminist****. really worth a read. although this about sums it up:
Priv-lit perpetuates several negative assumptions about women and their relationship to money and responsibility. The first is that women can or should be willing to spend extravagantly, leave our families, or abandon our jobs in order to fit ill-defined notions of what it is to be “whole.” Another is the infantilizing notion that we need guides—often strangers who don’t know the specifics of our financial, spiritual, or emotional histories—to tell us the best way forward. The most problematic assumption, and the one that ties it most closely to current, mainstream forms of misogyny, is that women are inherently and deeply flawed, in need of consistent improvement throughout their lives, and those who don’t invest in addressing those flaws are ultimately doomed to making themselves, if not others, miserable.
very astute point(s). and yet. and yet so many of the intelligent, together women i know really loved eat pray love. although many felt guilty about it. [side query: how much of that speaks to elizabeth gilbert's strength as a writer and how much of it speaks to how compelling we find her narrative?] i remember when, once upon a lifetime when i worked in a big bad law firm in the big bad apple that was affectionately nicknamed 'the sweatshop' or 'the death star', the subject of eat pray love came up in a conversation i was having with one of my partner mentors. this particular partner mentor is truly amazing - smart and compassionate and accomplished, she ended up at the firm because it was the only job she could get in nyc in 1971 that would permit her to work a four-day week so that she could spend fridays caring for her two young daughters and supporting her rabbi-husband has he prepared for services and observe shabbat in the calm way she desired. she adhered to that schedule (not without challenges along the way) the entire time her children were growing up and made partner after many years with the firm. she and her husband also started a wonderful NGO working to empower farmers and communities in afghanistan, a country they travelled in and fell in love with in the late 60s / early 70s. [http://www.gpfa.org/] this woman seemed to have it all, respected in the world of international arbitration and in her community, she had a happy marriage, great kids, a thriving career, a successful NGO. she was an inspiration.
although i worked quite closely with this partner***** on a number of cases and other projects, the occasion of our conversation that day was my inviting her to be a guest speaker at my book club when we were going to be discussing a book about afghanistan. rory stewart's the places in between, his account of walking across afghanistan in january, 2002. (incidentally, gender figured prominently in our conversation because of course a woman could never have written this book and of course rory is not at all conscious of this. then again, how many of us are truly conscious of our own privileges until something overwhelming and blinding forces us to see? and even then, our consciousness is typically fleeting.) the partner agreed, but she asked what other books we'd read. eat pray love was a last minute substitute because none of us could bear to get through the 600 pages of run-on sentences that comprised the book we had selected for that month. but i mentioned it when running through what we'd covered thus far that year. she wrinkled her nose when i mentioned eat pray love, commenting, "i read the first three pages but i couldn't bear to go any further. it was all so self-indulgent and ridiculous." she had and has a point. you don't achieve what this woman had achieved, both professionally, personally, and dare i say spiritually, by abandoning responsibilities and running off to eat gelato or pet cows every time god speaks to you while you're crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. [confession: god has never spoken to me while i'm crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. her loss, really. i am really funny when i'm crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night.] of course after the partner said that, i felt a pang of guilt for having finished the book. in one day even (shhhh!). and tumbled over myself trying to explain that it had been a last minute substitute and really the book club ladies were way more evolved than elizabeth gilbert, really. of course, when she came to book club the discussion about the places in between, we all really just wanted to know how she had done it, how she had managed to have it all. she answered simply, explaining that you can't have it all at once and must do things one at a time.
and now i am suitably tangled up in side stories and must unravel these threads in a tidy manner and draw a conclusion - we ought to be critical of how we're encouraged to consume (conscious of the cultural and gendered assumptions informing that encouragement) and consider the implications of our choices. the article is quick to point out that elizabeth gilbert's journey is not realistic to replicate or aspire to (people, after all that crying on the bathroom floor and walking out on her husband, she got to eat a lot of pasta, achieve some-sort-of-blue-light-enlightenment, marry a hot brazilian, live happily every after, and make millions). but maybe the reason the self-help priv-lit genre is so appealling even as we are conscious of how belittling and destructive it is (cf. the footnote somewhere down there about needing to orchestrate our own rescues) and also aware of the unhealthy wanton consumerism it promotes is its compelling cinderella suspension of disbelief aspect. i mean, who doesn't want to run away to eat gelato and pet cows, only to end up with an amazing latin lover and julia roberts playing you in a movie? that's some sweet glass slipper. although thankfully i am personally entirely over latin lovers in a serious way, so i that precise glass slipper wouldn't suit. in any case, enough on this. enjoy the article.
second, nomenclature.
this is the actual english name of a new restaurant the just opened near my office: "mr. pigger restaurant". awesome. i laughed out loud with joy and wonder when i saw it. the chinese name is yi kou zhu - a mouthful of pig. hmmm, i wonder if they serve pork.... i stumbled upon this delightful new addition to the neighbourhood two days after a rather interesting discussion about the importance of names. this is a subject i have personally considered at great length given that i have a boy's name and spent a good portion of my young life complaining about this to my parents. well, until my mother calmly informed me when i was about ten that they almost gave me the middle name of “baldface.” seriously. baldface was the name of the mountain that i was conceived on and they thought it would be a nice remembrance. i think it would have been nicer for them than for me – a blissful bit of hippie nostalgia since my mother’s pregnancy meant they had to move out of the tent in the woods and it was time for my ba to enter the corporate world. in any case, that made my boy's name feel like a blessing. i also had new appreciate for "jane" (my middle name). it's a hard-knock life.
the conversation i was having the other day was more focused on amusing english names in china, or chinese names for english products. i recalled how, living in shanghai in 2001-2002, i experienced a sudden burst of joy when i discovered the slim, serious man behind the counter serving my latte at the starbucks near my flat in the french concession was named “cocaine.” i really loved cocaine the starbucks barrista. he was my unabashed favourite. i also loved getting coffee from cocaine. it gave me a greater kick than the caffeine. and it was about as close to the real stuff as i’d ever get, so it felt risqué somehow – like i was drinking cocacola back when the “coca” meant something. (speaking of cocacola, the chinese name for coke is possibly the best branding ever. a transliteration - kekoukele – that roughly translates to “makes mouths happy.” brilliant.) before i left shanghai, i asked cocaine why he had chosen that name. he shrugged and said, "everybody likes it." i nodded and thanked him for my coffee. i started to tell him i would miss him, but then i realised that was a bit much and better contained. i could save my pain at this parting for when i was crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night waiting for god to speak to me. other than cocaine, my favourite friend from afar in shanghai was a sweet young man named "clocean". when pressed about his choice, he explained he couldn't decide between "cloud" and "ocean". i loved this so much, and so did my crazywonderful family, that we now have a sculpture in the backyard named clocean. seriously. the spare house key is in his ear.
so, t.s. elliott tells us that the naming of cats is a difficult matter. as is the naming of daughters, starbucks barristas, and pork restaurants. but a recent email prompted me to consider the significance of naming charities. i received an invitation to a fundraising dinner for an organisation called "compassion for migrant children". i was simply struck by what a brilliant name that is. who doesn't want to have compassion for migrant children? or at least support those who do? i mean, not even 'empathy for migrant children' comes close. it's really the compassion that strikes you right in the chest and makes you want to cough up all of your renminbi to eat chilli bean noodles with bbq pork & apple salad. [curious, there is a lot of pork in this post.] yes, they included the menu in the invite. an unfortunate choice really. detracts slightly from the power of being smacked in the chest with compassion for migrant children because you immediately start considering entrees. but oh well. after receiving this email, i started contemplating how compassion could be worked into the names of all sorts of charities. and, naturally, considering inappropriate alternatives. 'mild frustration with migrant children' or 'contempt for disadvantaged communities' or 'apathy over minority rights' or 'mild concern for the poor'. really without compassion, why bother at all? also, the fact that i am sharing these thoughts with you may be the reason that god doesn't speak to me when i am crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night******.
so i hope this all suitably thoughtful and amusing such that i can return to writing about dancing come sunday morning. of course, if i find a glass slipper between now and then you'll hear about that too.
*please see the post dated may 9, 2010 'smells like teen spirit'. (i still have not worked out how to link, sorry.) it is my fervent hope that no one humps the couches this time. at least not before midnight.
**something i have done on more than one occasion. SJ.
***incidentally, this might be all that i am good for. ok now we're at three footnotes in one sentence. once again perhaps i need to reconsider structure.
****i appreciate that in the 'about us' section, the creators of bitch magazine quote rebeca west: "People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."
*****i know, too many stars! but one of my nicknames is sparkleicious. but i am getting ahead of myself, we are still on the subject of consumption, not names. and we're in a footnote. the point of which was to note that it was actually thanks to this partner's intervention that i was able to find a place in the firm's international arbitration / litigation group at our firm. i reached out to her after being fairly horribly sexually harassed by the project finance partner whose group i was originally meant to join. i was still young enough and inexperienced in the sometimes subtle misogyny that pervades corporate life and how it is managed, so this was a bit daunting. perhaps particularly because i didn't want to make real accusations, i simply wanted to escape. [sigh. i could write a book about all the inappropriate things men in the legal profession have said to me or suggested.] in any case, she painly and quietly orchestrated my rescue. well, really i orchestrated my own rescue. (you always do. it's the only way.) she implemented it. without a fuss. for which i was forever thankful.
******another confession: i don't cry on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. i prefer crying in corners. please see the post dated november 10, 2009 'a world changed'. (again, i still haven't worked out how to link.) although yikes, if you can actually be bothered to go read that post you may be struck, as i just was, about the gyring nature of my thoughts in this space. (and yes, the gyre reference was a shout out to yeats. what can i say? i'm into shout-outs these days.) i was beginning to think about having come to china to fall wholly and completely into myself even then (and even amid great and sudden heartbreak (thus the discussion of crying in corners)). and was quoting goethe then too. am i consistent or merely all too predictable? unclear.
first, consumption.
i have actually been thinking about this a bit lately. partially because i (finally) paid off my private student loans from law school. and, although i still have some public loans blowing in the wind somewhere, i am able to to ponder financial potentials that were heretofore impossible for me. it has also been interesting to just examine how i managed to finally pay them off (and how people respond when i tell them) - not buying any new clothes for a year and moving into a considerably cheaper flat that i share - and where i am choosing to spend money now that i have more disposable income - on other people and experiences. (well, and i immediately purchased a small heap of shoes. but i really needed some new shoes after that year! and i am imperfect. (i maintain that blue patent leather stilettos were also required.)) so i am thinking about this now becuase i my own rather subtle musings more became more pronounced after i read the following article: http://bitchmagazine.org/article/eat-pray-spend. the authors critique the self-help / priv-lit genre and the consumer culture it promotes among women as anti-feminist****. really worth a read. although this about sums it up:
Priv-lit perpetuates several negative assumptions about women and their relationship to money and responsibility. The first is that women can or should be willing to spend extravagantly, leave our families, or abandon our jobs in order to fit ill-defined notions of what it is to be “whole.” Another is the infantilizing notion that we need guides—often strangers who don’t know the specifics of our financial, spiritual, or emotional histories—to tell us the best way forward. The most problematic assumption, and the one that ties it most closely to current, mainstream forms of misogyny, is that women are inherently and deeply flawed, in need of consistent improvement throughout their lives, and those who don’t invest in addressing those flaws are ultimately doomed to making themselves, if not others, miserable.
very astute point(s). and yet. and yet so many of the intelligent, together women i know really loved eat pray love. although many felt guilty about it. [side query: how much of that speaks to elizabeth gilbert's strength as a writer and how much of it speaks to how compelling we find her narrative?] i remember when, once upon a lifetime when i worked in a big bad law firm in the big bad apple that was affectionately nicknamed 'the sweatshop' or 'the death star', the subject of eat pray love came up in a conversation i was having with one of my partner mentors. this particular partner mentor is truly amazing - smart and compassionate and accomplished, she ended up at the firm because it was the only job she could get in nyc in 1971 that would permit her to work a four-day week so that she could spend fridays caring for her two young daughters and supporting her rabbi-husband has he prepared for services and observe shabbat in the calm way she desired. she adhered to that schedule (not without challenges along the way) the entire time her children were growing up and made partner after many years with the firm. she and her husband also started a wonderful NGO working to empower farmers and communities in afghanistan, a country they travelled in and fell in love with in the late 60s / early 70s. [http://www.gpfa.org/] this woman seemed to have it all, respected in the world of international arbitration and in her community, she had a happy marriage, great kids, a thriving career, a successful NGO. she was an inspiration.
although i worked quite closely with this partner***** on a number of cases and other projects, the occasion of our conversation that day was my inviting her to be a guest speaker at my book club when we were going to be discussing a book about afghanistan. rory stewart's the places in between, his account of walking across afghanistan in january, 2002. (incidentally, gender figured prominently in our conversation because of course a woman could never have written this book and of course rory is not at all conscious of this. then again, how many of us are truly conscious of our own privileges until something overwhelming and blinding forces us to see? and even then, our consciousness is typically fleeting.) the partner agreed, but she asked what other books we'd read. eat pray love was a last minute substitute because none of us could bear to get through the 600 pages of run-on sentences that comprised the book we had selected for that month. but i mentioned it when running through what we'd covered thus far that year. she wrinkled her nose when i mentioned eat pray love, commenting, "i read the first three pages but i couldn't bear to go any further. it was all so self-indulgent and ridiculous." she had and has a point. you don't achieve what this woman had achieved, both professionally, personally, and dare i say spiritually, by abandoning responsibilities and running off to eat gelato or pet cows every time god speaks to you while you're crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. [confession: god has never spoken to me while i'm crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. her loss, really. i am really funny when i'm crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night.] of course after the partner said that, i felt a pang of guilt for having finished the book. in one day even (shhhh!). and tumbled over myself trying to explain that it had been a last minute substitute and really the book club ladies were way more evolved than elizabeth gilbert, really. of course, when she came to book club the discussion about the places in between, we all really just wanted to know how she had done it, how she had managed to have it all. she answered simply, explaining that you can't have it all at once and must do things one at a time.
and now i am suitably tangled up in side stories and must unravel these threads in a tidy manner and draw a conclusion - we ought to be critical of how we're encouraged to consume (conscious of the cultural and gendered assumptions informing that encouragement) and consider the implications of our choices. the article is quick to point out that elizabeth gilbert's journey is not realistic to replicate or aspire to (people, after all that crying on the bathroom floor and walking out on her husband, she got to eat a lot of pasta, achieve some-sort-of-blue-light-enlightenment, marry a hot brazilian, live happily every after, and make millions). but maybe the reason the self-help priv-lit genre is so appealling even as we are conscious of how belittling and destructive it is (cf. the footnote somewhere down there about needing to orchestrate our own rescues) and also aware of the unhealthy wanton consumerism it promotes is its compelling cinderella suspension of disbelief aspect. i mean, who doesn't want to run away to eat gelato and pet cows, only to end up with an amazing latin lover and julia roberts playing you in a movie? that's some sweet glass slipper. although thankfully i am personally entirely over latin lovers in a serious way, so i that precise glass slipper wouldn't suit. in any case, enough on this. enjoy the article.
second, nomenclature.
this is the actual english name of a new restaurant the just opened near my office: "mr. pigger restaurant". awesome. i laughed out loud with joy and wonder when i saw it. the chinese name is yi kou zhu - a mouthful of pig. hmmm, i wonder if they serve pork.... i stumbled upon this delightful new addition to the neighbourhood two days after a rather interesting discussion about the importance of names. this is a subject i have personally considered at great length given that i have a boy's name and spent a good portion of my young life complaining about this to my parents. well, until my mother calmly informed me when i was about ten that they almost gave me the middle name of “baldface.” seriously. baldface was the name of the mountain that i was conceived on and they thought it would be a nice remembrance. i think it would have been nicer for them than for me – a blissful bit of hippie nostalgia since my mother’s pregnancy meant they had to move out of the tent in the woods and it was time for my ba to enter the corporate world. in any case, that made my boy's name feel like a blessing. i also had new appreciate for "jane" (my middle name). it's a hard-knock life.
the conversation i was having the other day was more focused on amusing english names in china, or chinese names for english products. i recalled how, living in shanghai in 2001-2002, i experienced a sudden burst of joy when i discovered the slim, serious man behind the counter serving my latte at the starbucks near my flat in the french concession was named “cocaine.” i really loved cocaine the starbucks barrista. he was my unabashed favourite. i also loved getting coffee from cocaine. it gave me a greater kick than the caffeine. and it was about as close to the real stuff as i’d ever get, so it felt risqué somehow – like i was drinking cocacola back when the “coca” meant something. (speaking of cocacola, the chinese name for coke is possibly the best branding ever. a transliteration - kekoukele – that roughly translates to “makes mouths happy.” brilliant.) before i left shanghai, i asked cocaine why he had chosen that name. he shrugged and said, "everybody likes it." i nodded and thanked him for my coffee. i started to tell him i would miss him, but then i realised that was a bit much and better contained. i could save my pain at this parting for when i was crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night waiting for god to speak to me. other than cocaine, my favourite friend from afar in shanghai was a sweet young man named "clocean". when pressed about his choice, he explained he couldn't decide between "cloud" and "ocean". i loved this so much, and so did my crazywonderful family, that we now have a sculpture in the backyard named clocean. seriously. the spare house key is in his ear.
so, t.s. elliott tells us that the naming of cats is a difficult matter. as is the naming of daughters, starbucks barristas, and pork restaurants. but a recent email prompted me to consider the significance of naming charities. i received an invitation to a fundraising dinner for an organisation called "compassion for migrant children". i was simply struck by what a brilliant name that is. who doesn't want to have compassion for migrant children? or at least support those who do? i mean, not even 'empathy for migrant children' comes close. it's really the compassion that strikes you right in the chest and makes you want to cough up all of your renminbi to eat chilli bean noodles with bbq pork & apple salad. [curious, there is a lot of pork in this post.] yes, they included the menu in the invite. an unfortunate choice really. detracts slightly from the power of being smacked in the chest with compassion for migrant children because you immediately start considering entrees. but oh well. after receiving this email, i started contemplating how compassion could be worked into the names of all sorts of charities. and, naturally, considering inappropriate alternatives. 'mild frustration with migrant children' or 'contempt for disadvantaged communities' or 'apathy over minority rights' or 'mild concern for the poor'. really without compassion, why bother at all? also, the fact that i am sharing these thoughts with you may be the reason that god doesn't speak to me when i am crying on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night******.
so i hope this all suitably thoughtful and amusing such that i can return to writing about dancing come sunday morning. of course, if i find a glass slipper between now and then you'll hear about that too.
*please see the post dated may 9, 2010 'smells like teen spirit'. (i still have not worked out how to link, sorry.) it is my fervent hope that no one humps the couches this time. at least not before midnight.
**something i have done on more than one occasion. SJ.
***incidentally, this might be all that i am good for. ok now we're at three footnotes in one sentence. once again perhaps i need to reconsider structure.
****i appreciate that in the 'about us' section, the creators of bitch magazine quote rebeca west: "People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."
*****i know, too many stars! but one of my nicknames is sparkleicious. but i am getting ahead of myself, we are still on the subject of consumption, not names. and we're in a footnote. the point of which was to note that it was actually thanks to this partner's intervention that i was able to find a place in the firm's international arbitration / litigation group at our firm. i reached out to her after being fairly horribly sexually harassed by the project finance partner whose group i was originally meant to join. i was still young enough and inexperienced in the sometimes subtle misogyny that pervades corporate life and how it is managed, so this was a bit daunting. perhaps particularly because i didn't want to make real accusations, i simply wanted to escape. [sigh. i could write a book about all the inappropriate things men in the legal profession have said to me or suggested.] in any case, she painly and quietly orchestrated my rescue. well, really i orchestrated my own rescue. (you always do. it's the only way.) she implemented it. without a fuss. for which i was forever thankful.
******another confession: i don't cry on the bathroom floor in the middle of the night. i prefer crying in corners. please see the post dated november 10, 2009 'a world changed'. (again, i still haven't worked out how to link.) although yikes, if you can actually be bothered to go read that post you may be struck, as i just was, about the gyring nature of my thoughts in this space. (and yes, the gyre reference was a shout out to yeats. what can i say? i'm into shout-outs these days.) i was beginning to think about having come to china to fall wholly and completely into myself even then (and even amid great and sudden heartbreak (thus the discussion of crying in corners)). and was quoting goethe then too. am i consistent or merely all too predictable? unclear.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
mathematics of freedom
the last time i was silent for three days, it was self-imposed. i was on a silent yoga retreat in northern california several years ago with a beloved sister-friend. she found it hard to be together and not be speaking, saying it felt as though we were in a fight. i didn’t feel the same (i don’t think we could ever have a fight even if we tried) and found myself absorbed in all the emotions the silence dredged up from within me. i wrote an essay about that and submitted it to some yoga magazine. but they weren’t interested. i think they were more interested on inspiration and enlightenment, less concerned with processing unruly emotions amid the redwoods. (shouldn’t there be space for both?) while i’m thinking about silence and processing both, will share that essay below.* thinking of this also has me thinking that i should try to do yoga later today. except that i am not meant to breathe deeply except into the nebulizer or do any real exercise. hmmm. maybe modified asanas.
in the meanwhile, i would be remiss if i did not note that the us-china human rights dialogues resumed last week in washington. from what i’ve heard so far, and i’ll learn more this weekend, it sounds as though it was a positive opening. this was the first dialogue since 2008, and the one before that was in 2002. and apparently a broad range of topics were discussed and the exchanges were frank. both sides committed to another round in beijing in 2011. the rule of law figured prominently. sandra day o’connor hosted the chinese delegation at the supreme court and apparently spoke very movingly about the important role that lawyers play in American society, and in the criminal justice system, the importance the US attaches to the independence of the judiciary, the independence of lawyers, the importance of pro bono representation. comments from those who were there suggested that the chinese guests undoubtedly got a sense that these values are pretty deeply imbued in our society. (on a complete side note related to the supreme court, i am absolutely thrilled at the prospect of there being three female justices!) all in all, i am hopeful that the resumption of this dialogue and the commitment to regularize it will have positive outcomes for the rule of law and then some.
in a book i was reading recently about the rule of law, there was a great discussion about “thin” v. “thick” understandings of the rule of law. “thin” being an understanding such that the laws – irrespective of their content – are adhered to or enforced. this focuses on rule of law simply as what is dictated by political authority or issued by the state. Under this minimalist approach, the third reich could be considered as having respected the rule of law because in terms of system and statute, the state functioned by the letter of the law. yet that “law” included provisions for genocide, which somehow doesn’t sit well when we think about “rule of law”. indeed, it is hard to view a state which savagely represses or persecutes sections of its people as observing the rule of law, even if the transport of the persecuted minority to the concentration camp or the compulsory exposure of female children on the mountainside is the subject of detailed laws duly enacted and scrupulously observed. the rule of law ought to amount to more. the “thick” understanding of the rule of law provides as much, embracing the protection of human rights as within its scope. this is not a universally accepted understanding of the rule of law, but i believe that one day it will be. our contemporary (and continuing) acceptance of the universality of human rights requires no less.
a final thought that caught in my mind of late. from spinoza, unsurprisingly: law is the mathematics of freedom. perhaps, in a sense, so is silence.
*ahem (keep in mind that this was ages ago):
Anger Through Asana
The anger was overwhelming. It raced through my entire body in electric steaks of deep purple and throbbing orange. I was furious. And then furious about being furious. Other people went on silent yoga retreats in order to be overwhelmed by waves of bliss, to be lit from within by an enduring, poignant sense of the ineffable. Instead, I was just wrought with intense anger. I opened an eye to see if anyone else in the meditation hall had noticed that I was trembling with the strain of containing it. I wanted to shout so loud the windows shattered. I wanted to tear my clothes off to release, to let these furies out. I could almost see them, awful, angry witches flying around through my veins, maniacally laughing. I wanted to bleed. Just to get them out of my system. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my fucking breath.
The waves of nausea began. I was so angry I was sick. I seriously thought that I was going to throw up on my yoga mat. I wondered whether I needed to make a run for the bathroom. Damn you, furies! Get out of here. “OM SHANTI!,” I shouted in my mind. I sighed, probably a little too audibly. But I didn’t care. I was drowning in a twister of rage, with angry witches having taken control of my mind and body. I thought this counted as a crisis and could justify a little noise. It was taking all my will and self-restraint not to allow the terrible cries in my soul to escape.
I tried to reason with myself. I told myself I could manage it, that I needn’t let this anger make me sick. I attempted to step back and observe these emotions, without judgment or attachment, to free myself from riding along with the furies (damn their cackling) on their terrible flight through me. But they were moving so fast. I frantically recalled the visualization exercise our yoga teacher had taught us a few days prior. I took a deep breath and began to gather all of that wretched throbbing anger together and just look at it. The furies cried out awfully as they were caught and collected. Their cries became groans as they melded together into an awful, smoldering mass of anger. I could see it before me in my mind. Keeping the anger together took almost as much strength as collecting it. I was surely shaking by now. But I knew what I had to do.
I envisioned myself holding the awful orb. I placed us on the edge of a very high, clear cliff. I walked to the edge with the smoldering, melded furies. I peered down to be sure I couldn’t see the bottom of this canyon. I didn’t want them coming apart, finding their brooms and flying back up into my blood. Satisfied that I was at the end of the world, in one last burst of strength, I pushed the anger off. I dusted off my palms, turned and did not look back. I tried to focus on my breath again, but was having a hard time. At least, I consoled myself, I hadn’t gone all the way to India to get angry. If I wasn’t going to find bliss, may as well not find it in California. At least I’d saved on airfare.
This dramatic internal struggle took place on a silent yoga retreat in Northern California. We were ensconced in a charming Tibetan monastery and retreat center in the redwood forest. It was remote and peaceful. My blackberry was safely hibernating in a cozy, simply furnished blue room. I had not come here to get angry. Although I doubt that I could have articulated why exactly I had come. Perhaps that was the problem. I had come on a whim. Without clear purpose, the furies had swooped in and caught me unawares. Vultures, really. But that’s what you get for not dealing.
What I had never dealt was with how angry I was at my unfaithful ex-fiancé. This was quite plain to me while I carefully stood up as the meditation session came to a close. I crouched first, leaning forward off my meditation cushion, and looked at the neat purple texture on my yoga mat. I picked at a place where there was a small tear. Yes, I thought to myself, this is what you get for not dealing. I gingerly stood up, staying silent and avoiding eye contact as per the rules of this retreat, and made my way to breakfast.
As I ate, I wondered where all of this was coming from. I was not an angry person by nature, and I did my bit of continuously trying to cultivate compassion. Even amid all of the addictive cycles of passion, betrayal, pain and his “Hail Mary” grand gestures, I never really got angry at my fiancé. I sobbed so hard I came apart and spent the night a dark blue puddle of despair on the floor, but then I was feeling sorry for myself. I screamed so inconsolably I lost my voice for days, but then I was frustrated. I punched the air. I punched the wall. I punched myself. Once, I punched him. But then I was so lost inside my hurt I was blindly throwing punches to find it outside myself. I considered cutting myself, but then I was trying to find somewhere to direct the pain. I considered throwing myself in front of a public bus, but then I was blaming myself. I lost my breath, lost my way, lost weight, lost myself. But I never really got angry.
Perhaps I had never allowed myself to get angry. The anger had been there, though. Focusing on my breath allowed me find it. An invisible undercurrent of rage had been swelling inside me for years. It took the discipline of silence and asana to compel me to turn inward and see it. And be swallowed by it. This was not what I had come here for. Once I considered it, I could see that I had come to this retreat to take a break from being held hostage by this relationship. To escape the intricate and dark cage I had helped to create, and commune with the bigger picture, even if only for a long weekend. Yes, I was still with him. I had given the ring back. He had recently moved out. But yet somehow, I was still with him.
I called him “Bright Eyes.” He called me “Brighter.” He was charming, and charmed. His was an incongruous personal history. The kind of story that leaves you immediately impressed and allows you to believe in America. He was attractive and self-confident, a natural networker and social host. He liked to party. The first time I kissed him and looked into his bright brown eyes, I knew I was in trouble.
But I never thought that I would stay in trouble so long. Something fell off the shelf inside me early into our relationship and it threw me off balance for five years. I did not truly sense this imbalance until I started practicing yoga consistently, a process which began with my agreeing to go on this silent yoga retreat with a friend. Sure I had dabbled in yoga before, but never in a serious or sustained way. I was not practicing at all when she asked, but I agreed without giving it much thought.
A few weeks before the retreat, I injured my foot while running. It was a very frustrating injury. I was constantly in pain, meekly limping around and miserable. I certainly couldn’t run and so I decided I ought to try a yoga class to make sure that I could still go on the retreat. I went to a yoga studio near my apartment that I’d walked by numerous times and had always meant to try. But it took a torn muscle in my left foot to actually get me off the street and into class.
As I slowly limped down the sidewalk en route to the studio on a cold, grey, wet February day, I cursed my luck. “God,” I wailed inside, “I wish I could just cut this foot off!” I made it up the stairs and settled onto my mat in a warm, lofty, embracing wooden space. I lay back on my mat and closed my eyes. It wasn’t until the teacher brought us together with the opening Om that I noticed the woman on the mat in front of mine. She did not have a left foot. In fact, she did not have a leg below her left knee and her prosthetic was neatly stacked against the wall beside her mat. I thought of my careless thought in the street and my heart danced a tornado ballet. I placed my hands in prayer in front of my heart and told God that I was humbled.
I have been practicing yoga at this studio since that humbling moment. I was able to get through class that day, and the next, and go on the retreat. Practicing even helped heal my injured foot. More importantly, practicing yoga began the process that would heal my heart. A process that I did not even know I was looking for until I found myself about to throw up on a yoga mat in a meditation hall in a monastery in the woods.
I first left my ex-fiancé a few years before that moment. I knew then that leaving him was the right thing to do. I had narrowly survived a nervous breakdown; I had thought about throwing myself in front of a bus. I had burned myself up – I was emaciated and exhausted and hollow. This was shortly after he had confirmed his infidelity for the first time. I broke. And I left him. My leaving didn’t last then. And it didn’t last the next six or seven times.
I didn’t seem to have the strength to stay gone. I always promised myself and my friends that this was it – it was over, I was never going back. But I did. Too many times I did. He would return with his charming words laced with heroin. He would return with flowers and poetry, and songs written in Spanish, promises of happily ever after, detailed lists of how he would love me, champagne kisses, jewelry and art. I look into those bright brown eyes and become intoxicated. The initial high was always so good. But the crashes only got worse. I lost a little bit of myself as I shattered each time it all came tumbling, stumbling down.
And then he came back with an engagement ring. When he proposed we hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for a few months. I was in a new city, with a new phone number, a new job, a new beginning. It was not three weeks into my renaissance, and he had returned with the ring. We met on the street. Seeing him took the wind out of me. We walked to a park. We sat. He started reading something he’d prepared. He said so much. He presented the ring. He wanted to make it right.
When I saw the diamond flashing in the summer sun, I was torn equally in two. One part of me wanted to turn on my heel, walk away, and never ever look back. Another wanted to fall into his arms forever. Instead, I was stuck. I stood, unable to decide between these two equally strong impulses. It was agonizing. But I somehow couldn’t move.
I said yes a few hours later. And we were high for awhile. But of course the euphoria slowly began to evaporate until I was upset enough to give back the ring. I told him that this was not the kind of engagement I wanted, that this was not how it was supposed to feel. We agreed that we still wanted to be together, to make it work. We agreed that we wouldn’t get engaged again until I could say to my friends “he is so good to me,” and mean it. He wanted to hang the ring somewhere we could see it, to remind us of what we were working towards. But I didn’t want to look at it, so I just told him to keep it.
I had given him the ring back about six months before I nearly threw up in that silent meditation hall. He had just moved in with a friend of his who was a notorious playboy and a wild partier. His own nights had become longer and more intense. He was always out, always wasted, always unreliable. I got a cat to have something to direct all of my love towards. Although my roommate was highly allergic, she later told me she let me get the cat because she sensed how desperately I needed this small creature. I needed to get lost in loving something. It couldn’t be him. And I wasn’t ready for it to be me.
After breakfast that retreat morning, I started to feel agitated again. I decided to take my silent, meditative self for a slow walk in the redwood forest that surrounded the monastery. The woods were majestic and powerful, and I hoped they could help me still my stormy mind. I tried to get lost in the beauty around me. But I was flooded with images of us. I was tossed recklessly about by waves of regret, hope, pain, tenderness, and anger until I was seasick. I finally turned off the path and pushed deeper into the forest, walking faster as I did so, looking within and without for something upon which to shore myself. But the emotions would not cease. Until suddenly I stopped walking, leaned against a tree, and threw up my oatmeal in anger. At least it had not happened in the meditation hall.
I remained angry for a large portion of that retreat. There were more furies I had to deal with. But I eventually threw them all off the end of the world. Sometimes wrestling them off one by one. It was exhausting. So I didn’t have much time for enlightenment. When we started speaking again on the final morning of the retreat, we were all asked to share what we had experienced in the silence. But I kept my anger to myself. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to explain that I was still with him, still in this thing.
I ended it (again) a few months later. And went back (again) a few months after that. I continued my asana practice. Sometimes I got angry. Sometimes I cried in child’s pose, sobbed in shoulder stand. But I faced the emotions like those furies in the forest. Then one day I ended it for good. And I never looked back. I am no longer angry. I am still practicing yoga. I am still awed by the emotions my asana and meditation practice allow me to discover. And I am still humbled by what I am learning.
in the meanwhile, i would be remiss if i did not note that the us-china human rights dialogues resumed last week in washington. from what i’ve heard so far, and i’ll learn more this weekend, it sounds as though it was a positive opening. this was the first dialogue since 2008, and the one before that was in 2002. and apparently a broad range of topics were discussed and the exchanges were frank. both sides committed to another round in beijing in 2011. the rule of law figured prominently. sandra day o’connor hosted the chinese delegation at the supreme court and apparently spoke very movingly about the important role that lawyers play in American society, and in the criminal justice system, the importance the US attaches to the independence of the judiciary, the independence of lawyers, the importance of pro bono representation. comments from those who were there suggested that the chinese guests undoubtedly got a sense that these values are pretty deeply imbued in our society. (on a complete side note related to the supreme court, i am absolutely thrilled at the prospect of there being three female justices!) all in all, i am hopeful that the resumption of this dialogue and the commitment to regularize it will have positive outcomes for the rule of law and then some.
in a book i was reading recently about the rule of law, there was a great discussion about “thin” v. “thick” understandings of the rule of law. “thin” being an understanding such that the laws – irrespective of their content – are adhered to or enforced. this focuses on rule of law simply as what is dictated by political authority or issued by the state. Under this minimalist approach, the third reich could be considered as having respected the rule of law because in terms of system and statute, the state functioned by the letter of the law. yet that “law” included provisions for genocide, which somehow doesn’t sit well when we think about “rule of law”. indeed, it is hard to view a state which savagely represses or persecutes sections of its people as observing the rule of law, even if the transport of the persecuted minority to the concentration camp or the compulsory exposure of female children on the mountainside is the subject of detailed laws duly enacted and scrupulously observed. the rule of law ought to amount to more. the “thick” understanding of the rule of law provides as much, embracing the protection of human rights as within its scope. this is not a universally accepted understanding of the rule of law, but i believe that one day it will be. our contemporary (and continuing) acceptance of the universality of human rights requires no less.
a final thought that caught in my mind of late. from spinoza, unsurprisingly: law is the mathematics of freedom. perhaps, in a sense, so is silence.
*ahem (keep in mind that this was ages ago):
Anger Through Asana
The anger was overwhelming. It raced through my entire body in electric steaks of deep purple and throbbing orange. I was furious. And then furious about being furious. Other people went on silent yoga retreats in order to be overwhelmed by waves of bliss, to be lit from within by an enduring, poignant sense of the ineffable. Instead, I was just wrought with intense anger. I opened an eye to see if anyone else in the meditation hall had noticed that I was trembling with the strain of containing it. I wanted to shout so loud the windows shattered. I wanted to tear my clothes off to release, to let these furies out. I could almost see them, awful, angry witches flying around through my veins, maniacally laughing. I wanted to bleed. Just to get them out of my system. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on my fucking breath.
The waves of nausea began. I was so angry I was sick. I seriously thought that I was going to throw up on my yoga mat. I wondered whether I needed to make a run for the bathroom. Damn you, furies! Get out of here. “OM SHANTI!,” I shouted in my mind. I sighed, probably a little too audibly. But I didn’t care. I was drowning in a twister of rage, with angry witches having taken control of my mind and body. I thought this counted as a crisis and could justify a little noise. It was taking all my will and self-restraint not to allow the terrible cries in my soul to escape.
I tried to reason with myself. I told myself I could manage it, that I needn’t let this anger make me sick. I attempted to step back and observe these emotions, without judgment or attachment, to free myself from riding along with the furies (damn their cackling) on their terrible flight through me. But they were moving so fast. I frantically recalled the visualization exercise our yoga teacher had taught us a few days prior. I took a deep breath and began to gather all of that wretched throbbing anger together and just look at it. The furies cried out awfully as they were caught and collected. Their cries became groans as they melded together into an awful, smoldering mass of anger. I could see it before me in my mind. Keeping the anger together took almost as much strength as collecting it. I was surely shaking by now. But I knew what I had to do.
I envisioned myself holding the awful orb. I placed us on the edge of a very high, clear cliff. I walked to the edge with the smoldering, melded furies. I peered down to be sure I couldn’t see the bottom of this canyon. I didn’t want them coming apart, finding their brooms and flying back up into my blood. Satisfied that I was at the end of the world, in one last burst of strength, I pushed the anger off. I dusted off my palms, turned and did not look back. I tried to focus on my breath again, but was having a hard time. At least, I consoled myself, I hadn’t gone all the way to India to get angry. If I wasn’t going to find bliss, may as well not find it in California. At least I’d saved on airfare.
This dramatic internal struggle took place on a silent yoga retreat in Northern California. We were ensconced in a charming Tibetan monastery and retreat center in the redwood forest. It was remote and peaceful. My blackberry was safely hibernating in a cozy, simply furnished blue room. I had not come here to get angry. Although I doubt that I could have articulated why exactly I had come. Perhaps that was the problem. I had come on a whim. Without clear purpose, the furies had swooped in and caught me unawares. Vultures, really. But that’s what you get for not dealing.
What I had never dealt was with how angry I was at my unfaithful ex-fiancé. This was quite plain to me while I carefully stood up as the meditation session came to a close. I crouched first, leaning forward off my meditation cushion, and looked at the neat purple texture on my yoga mat. I picked at a place where there was a small tear. Yes, I thought to myself, this is what you get for not dealing. I gingerly stood up, staying silent and avoiding eye contact as per the rules of this retreat, and made my way to breakfast.
As I ate, I wondered where all of this was coming from. I was not an angry person by nature, and I did my bit of continuously trying to cultivate compassion. Even amid all of the addictive cycles of passion, betrayal, pain and his “Hail Mary” grand gestures, I never really got angry at my fiancé. I sobbed so hard I came apart and spent the night a dark blue puddle of despair on the floor, but then I was feeling sorry for myself. I screamed so inconsolably I lost my voice for days, but then I was frustrated. I punched the air. I punched the wall. I punched myself. Once, I punched him. But then I was so lost inside my hurt I was blindly throwing punches to find it outside myself. I considered cutting myself, but then I was trying to find somewhere to direct the pain. I considered throwing myself in front of a public bus, but then I was blaming myself. I lost my breath, lost my way, lost weight, lost myself. But I never really got angry.
Perhaps I had never allowed myself to get angry. The anger had been there, though. Focusing on my breath allowed me find it. An invisible undercurrent of rage had been swelling inside me for years. It took the discipline of silence and asana to compel me to turn inward and see it. And be swallowed by it. This was not what I had come here for. Once I considered it, I could see that I had come to this retreat to take a break from being held hostage by this relationship. To escape the intricate and dark cage I had helped to create, and commune with the bigger picture, even if only for a long weekend. Yes, I was still with him. I had given the ring back. He had recently moved out. But yet somehow, I was still with him.
I called him “Bright Eyes.” He called me “Brighter.” He was charming, and charmed. His was an incongruous personal history. The kind of story that leaves you immediately impressed and allows you to believe in America. He was attractive and self-confident, a natural networker and social host. He liked to party. The first time I kissed him and looked into his bright brown eyes, I knew I was in trouble.
But I never thought that I would stay in trouble so long. Something fell off the shelf inside me early into our relationship and it threw me off balance for five years. I did not truly sense this imbalance until I started practicing yoga consistently, a process which began with my agreeing to go on this silent yoga retreat with a friend. Sure I had dabbled in yoga before, but never in a serious or sustained way. I was not practicing at all when she asked, but I agreed without giving it much thought.
A few weeks before the retreat, I injured my foot while running. It was a very frustrating injury. I was constantly in pain, meekly limping around and miserable. I certainly couldn’t run and so I decided I ought to try a yoga class to make sure that I could still go on the retreat. I went to a yoga studio near my apartment that I’d walked by numerous times and had always meant to try. But it took a torn muscle in my left foot to actually get me off the street and into class.
As I slowly limped down the sidewalk en route to the studio on a cold, grey, wet February day, I cursed my luck. “God,” I wailed inside, “I wish I could just cut this foot off!” I made it up the stairs and settled onto my mat in a warm, lofty, embracing wooden space. I lay back on my mat and closed my eyes. It wasn’t until the teacher brought us together with the opening Om that I noticed the woman on the mat in front of mine. She did not have a left foot. In fact, she did not have a leg below her left knee and her prosthetic was neatly stacked against the wall beside her mat. I thought of my careless thought in the street and my heart danced a tornado ballet. I placed my hands in prayer in front of my heart and told God that I was humbled.
I have been practicing yoga at this studio since that humbling moment. I was able to get through class that day, and the next, and go on the retreat. Practicing even helped heal my injured foot. More importantly, practicing yoga began the process that would heal my heart. A process that I did not even know I was looking for until I found myself about to throw up on a yoga mat in a meditation hall in a monastery in the woods.
I first left my ex-fiancé a few years before that moment. I knew then that leaving him was the right thing to do. I had narrowly survived a nervous breakdown; I had thought about throwing myself in front of a bus. I had burned myself up – I was emaciated and exhausted and hollow. This was shortly after he had confirmed his infidelity for the first time. I broke. And I left him. My leaving didn’t last then. And it didn’t last the next six or seven times.
I didn’t seem to have the strength to stay gone. I always promised myself and my friends that this was it – it was over, I was never going back. But I did. Too many times I did. He would return with his charming words laced with heroin. He would return with flowers and poetry, and songs written in Spanish, promises of happily ever after, detailed lists of how he would love me, champagne kisses, jewelry and art. I look into those bright brown eyes and become intoxicated. The initial high was always so good. But the crashes only got worse. I lost a little bit of myself as I shattered each time it all came tumbling, stumbling down.
And then he came back with an engagement ring. When he proposed we hadn’t seen or spoken to each other for a few months. I was in a new city, with a new phone number, a new job, a new beginning. It was not three weeks into my renaissance, and he had returned with the ring. We met on the street. Seeing him took the wind out of me. We walked to a park. We sat. He started reading something he’d prepared. He said so much. He presented the ring. He wanted to make it right.
When I saw the diamond flashing in the summer sun, I was torn equally in two. One part of me wanted to turn on my heel, walk away, and never ever look back. Another wanted to fall into his arms forever. Instead, I was stuck. I stood, unable to decide between these two equally strong impulses. It was agonizing. But I somehow couldn’t move.
I said yes a few hours later. And we were high for awhile. But of course the euphoria slowly began to evaporate until I was upset enough to give back the ring. I told him that this was not the kind of engagement I wanted, that this was not how it was supposed to feel. We agreed that we still wanted to be together, to make it work. We agreed that we wouldn’t get engaged again until I could say to my friends “he is so good to me,” and mean it. He wanted to hang the ring somewhere we could see it, to remind us of what we were working towards. But I didn’t want to look at it, so I just told him to keep it.
I had given him the ring back about six months before I nearly threw up in that silent meditation hall. He had just moved in with a friend of his who was a notorious playboy and a wild partier. His own nights had become longer and more intense. He was always out, always wasted, always unreliable. I got a cat to have something to direct all of my love towards. Although my roommate was highly allergic, she later told me she let me get the cat because she sensed how desperately I needed this small creature. I needed to get lost in loving something. It couldn’t be him. And I wasn’t ready for it to be me.
After breakfast that retreat morning, I started to feel agitated again. I decided to take my silent, meditative self for a slow walk in the redwood forest that surrounded the monastery. The woods were majestic and powerful, and I hoped they could help me still my stormy mind. I tried to get lost in the beauty around me. But I was flooded with images of us. I was tossed recklessly about by waves of regret, hope, pain, tenderness, and anger until I was seasick. I finally turned off the path and pushed deeper into the forest, walking faster as I did so, looking within and without for something upon which to shore myself. But the emotions would not cease. Until suddenly I stopped walking, leaned against a tree, and threw up my oatmeal in anger. At least it had not happened in the meditation hall.
I remained angry for a large portion of that retreat. There were more furies I had to deal with. But I eventually threw them all off the end of the world. Sometimes wrestling them off one by one. It was exhausting. So I didn’t have much time for enlightenment. When we started speaking again on the final morning of the retreat, we were all asked to share what we had experienced in the silence. But I kept my anger to myself. I couldn’t bear the thought of having to explain that I was still with him, still in this thing.
I ended it (again) a few months later. And went back (again) a few months after that. I continued my asana practice. Sometimes I got angry. Sometimes I cried in child’s pose, sobbed in shoulder stand. But I faced the emotions like those furies in the forest. Then one day I ended it for good. And I never looked back. I am no longer angry. I am still practicing yoga. I am still awed by the emotions my asana and meditation practice allow me to discover. And I am still humbled by what I am learning.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
'big hair, bai jiu, and environmental justice' or 'kafka by the (wuhan) shore'
i am in wuhan and bored to tears. the grey sky is ceaselessly spitting rain in sympathy. to be entirely honest, i probably set myself up to be disappointed on this trip. i had low expectations for this training program (for judges on adjudicating environmental cases) before i left. (and they have been fulfilled and subsequently lowered since being here.) i don't really heart second tier chinese cities. or at least not this one. and the weather is always, always terrible when i am in wuhan - grey, polluted, thick air, either unbearably hot or unseasonably cold, often raining - although the locals insist that it is otherwise sunny and gorgeous. (i think they are delusional or lying.) and our local partners here love to party. at times, this has been incredibly amusing. mostly, it means avoiding doing shots of bai jiu with red-faced, slurring judges who are quick to tell me how beautiful i am and how biaozhun (standard) my chinese pronunciation is while i politely fill my shot glass with water.
last night was one of the 'mostly' nights. i did shots of tang while the judges went to town on the grain alcohol and became incoherent. there was one boisterous judge from wuxi who was leading the group over the edge from tipsy to obliterated. as he and his comrades slipped one by one over that proverbial edge, i marveled at his white faux alligator shoes. and his amazing bouffant. although i suspect that is not the right word for it. i had an illuminating moment of realizing that i ought to start posting photos to this blog simply because i knew then that i would be entirely unable to find words adequate to describe this hairdo. the photos will be my april resolution (why not?). for now, suffice it to say that this judge has a massive tuft of hair carefully tamed upwards from his forehead adding an approximately four inches to his rather small (but very well-maintained!) frame. my moment of wishing to photograph his hair came while feigning interest in his lecture about the importance of exercise and about what amazing shape he was in and about how he is the best badminton player perhaps ever in the history of history. (he can play badminton for four hours straight without stopping (not even for one second!).) there was a young chinese-american man there representing a beijing-based US environmental NGO and this judge took it upon himself to also draw the entire table's attention to this fellow's body. he explained that he was in reasonably good shape, saying that even he, wonder of nature that he is, was not willing to take his jacket off so that his shoulders and pecs could be compared to the young man's. (he was quick to point out, however, that he was probably still stronger. the chinese-american smartly agreed with the judge.) but, the judge then moved down, pointing out to the table that our young friend had started going soft around the middle - too much beer in beijing, not enough discipline. he then implored the young man, repeatedly, for the sake of sino-US relations, to start going to spinning classes. he said in a month, his tummy would be gone. (and the state of sino-US relations would be improved?!? that part i didn't quite follow. that and why this judge was into spinning. but maybe that's because i was drinking tang instead of bai jiu.)
this morning i witnessed a mid-numbing moni fating (mock court roleplay) performed by graduate students posing as judges and peasant-plaintiffs in an environmental pollution case. it was as cliched and mediocre and insulting as you can imagine. i drank excessive cups of terrible instant 2+1 nescafe coffee just to entertain myself. (and, to be honest, i love overcaffeinating. although i don't think there is much caffeine in this fake coffee. mostly just toxins and sugar.) the collected observers then boldly launched into an improptu discussion of 'environmental public interest litigation' - a widly popular, but little understood, idea in china. at some point one of the judges asked me to explain the li an - or case acceptance - process in american courts. i had to explain that we don't have such a process. i clarified that a plaintiff files a case and the court accepts it and then during what we call motion practice the defendant challenges the case and it is at that stage that cases are often dismissed for a variety of reasons. there is no initial assessment conducted by the court or the judges to determine whether or not to let the case in the door in the first place. (the li an process is largely political in china.) i walked right up to the edge of using the phrase 'independent judiciary' but wisely and quickly backed away from that cliff, rather unlike my bai jiu drinking colleagues last night. whether it was the hangovers or the complete lack of structure to or purpose for this program, we ran out of things to say to one another shortly thereafter and are now on an extended lunch hour.
i suppose i sound sarcastic in this post. perhaps i am. usually i feel honoured to do rule of law work in china. sometimes, when the skies above and the drunken judges below are spitting in your face and the discussions of skills in adjudicating environmental cases include such basic niceties as 'give the parties water when they come to your office', it feels absurd. in such moments, i like to imagine what end of a kafka novel i am about to wake up in and where the story will go from here. at least i can look out of my grimy hotel room window at the grimy shore of the south lake below take solace in the ceaseless grey.
last night was one of the 'mostly' nights. i did shots of tang while the judges went to town on the grain alcohol and became incoherent. there was one boisterous judge from wuxi who was leading the group over the edge from tipsy to obliterated. as he and his comrades slipped one by one over that proverbial edge, i marveled at his white faux alligator shoes. and his amazing bouffant. although i suspect that is not the right word for it. i had an illuminating moment of realizing that i ought to start posting photos to this blog simply because i knew then that i would be entirely unable to find words adequate to describe this hairdo. the photos will be my april resolution (why not?). for now, suffice it to say that this judge has a massive tuft of hair carefully tamed upwards from his forehead adding an approximately four inches to his rather small (but very well-maintained!) frame. my moment of wishing to photograph his hair came while feigning interest in his lecture about the importance of exercise and about what amazing shape he was in and about how he is the best badminton player perhaps ever in the history of history. (he can play badminton for four hours straight without stopping (not even for one second!).) there was a young chinese-american man there representing a beijing-based US environmental NGO and this judge took it upon himself to also draw the entire table's attention to this fellow's body. he explained that he was in reasonably good shape, saying that even he, wonder of nature that he is, was not willing to take his jacket off so that his shoulders and pecs could be compared to the young man's. (he was quick to point out, however, that he was probably still stronger. the chinese-american smartly agreed with the judge.) but, the judge then moved down, pointing out to the table that our young friend had started going soft around the middle - too much beer in beijing, not enough discipline. he then implored the young man, repeatedly, for the sake of sino-US relations, to start going to spinning classes. he said in a month, his tummy would be gone. (and the state of sino-US relations would be improved?!? that part i didn't quite follow. that and why this judge was into spinning. but maybe that's because i was drinking tang instead of bai jiu.)
this morning i witnessed a mid-numbing moni fating (mock court roleplay) performed by graduate students posing as judges and peasant-plaintiffs in an environmental pollution case. it was as cliched and mediocre and insulting as you can imagine. i drank excessive cups of terrible instant 2+1 nescafe coffee just to entertain myself. (and, to be honest, i love overcaffeinating. although i don't think there is much caffeine in this fake coffee. mostly just toxins and sugar.) the collected observers then boldly launched into an improptu discussion of 'environmental public interest litigation' - a widly popular, but little understood, idea in china. at some point one of the judges asked me to explain the li an - or case acceptance - process in american courts. i had to explain that we don't have such a process. i clarified that a plaintiff files a case and the court accepts it and then during what we call motion practice the defendant challenges the case and it is at that stage that cases are often dismissed for a variety of reasons. there is no initial assessment conducted by the court or the judges to determine whether or not to let the case in the door in the first place. (the li an process is largely political in china.) i walked right up to the edge of using the phrase 'independent judiciary' but wisely and quickly backed away from that cliff, rather unlike my bai jiu drinking colleagues last night. whether it was the hangovers or the complete lack of structure to or purpose for this program, we ran out of things to say to one another shortly thereafter and are now on an extended lunch hour.
i suppose i sound sarcastic in this post. perhaps i am. usually i feel honoured to do rule of law work in china. sometimes, when the skies above and the drunken judges below are spitting in your face and the discussions of skills in adjudicating environmental cases include such basic niceties as 'give the parties water when they come to your office', it feels absurd. in such moments, i like to imagine what end of a kafka novel i am about to wake up in and where the story will go from here. at least i can look out of my grimy hotel room window at the grimy shore of the south lake below take solace in the ceaseless grey.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
meanwhile the world goes on
so i've moved. the new place is wonderful - a gorgeous renovated hutong just north of jingshan park. the space is embracing. i adore my roommate. i love being in the very heart of the city. the move went smoothly - i packed my things like meticulous thangka paintings, the movers were efficient and careful (even if was bigger than all three of them and my efforts to make friends with the driver failed), and i have designed ecological and lovely furniture for my new room. it snowed on my first night in my new home, which also happened to be yuanxiao jie - the lantern festival making the first full moon of the chinese new year - so there were fireworks exploding all around me as the snow softly collected on my discarded cardboard boxes in the courtyard. my roommate left on a work trip just before i arrived, so i was unpacking on my own. which was nice for reflection (no move is complete without it) and for emotional moments considering beginnings, endings, the falling snow. a friend brought some dinner, including the traditional tang yuan one is meant to eat on the eve of the lantern festival so the night was complete. the fact that it snowed on my first night is very auspicious and somehow seemed to be the heavens confirming this choice. i drifted off to sleep content, confident that the year of the tiger will bring roaring wonder, and watching the snowdrifts collect on the courtyard bamboo garden outside my floor-to-ceiling bedroom window.
that was sunday night. this is an accounting of last night (monday night):
number of ill-disciplined, untrained, obnoxious puppies i had to handle: 1
number of times she peed on me: 2
number of poos i had to clean up: 1
number of chinese drama queen girlfriends who came over to cry about boy troubles: 1
number of bottles of wine we had: 1
number of times my cat peed on my bed b/c he couldn't get to his litter b/c of said puppy: 1 (well, either that or he was acting out, but he seemed pretty upset about it)
number of layers of bedding it went through: 4
number of phone calls from depressed and still in love / all talk no action ex-boyfriends: 1
number of hours of sleep i got: 5 (actually an improvement from the previous night when the fireworks kept me up)
number of times i was woken up during the night by one or both creatures crying: 5 - 7
i am now bleary-eyed at the office and unable to focus even though i must. (truth is, i am exhausted. last night's escapades, while unique in the animal antics are not in terms of my sleeplessness.) i am ruminating on love and choices, commitment and feeling, freedom and priorities. connection.* and have visions of new bedding and closet storage units dancing in my head. (work will consume me for much of the rest of this month so i am attempting to get as much as possible about the new place sorted before then. and somehow focusing on the tangible seems to ease the emotional.) and the consistent arc in my inner conversations over the last week has focused on how to love and let go. and meanwhile the world goes on. a line from a mary oliver poem that is always good for perspective. ahem:
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
meanwhile the world goes on. i had lunch with my flatmate, my new landlady and a friend of hers (both chinese women in their early 50s) on saturday. my new roommate is another expat. we took them to a rather swish western restaurant (they didn't even have chinese menus!), which was a treat for us and fun for them (they braved the cheese plate like pros). our landlady is quite a character - smart, outspoken, joyful. she and her friend asked me about my work. i explained that i work on rule of law issues and gave some examples of the issues we focus on. they then engaged me in a conversation about the legal system in china, colouring their points with case studies - anecdotes about the experiences of friends and friends of friends in the courts. one of the cases was even a domestic violence case. they plainly stated that there is no rule of law in china and that power and money control all the court decisions. by the end of the conversation, i wanted to bag my head against the trendy exposed brick wall next to me. or at least return to our exchange about why western people like to wear so little clothing at the beach. it was much more fun to hear them wonder about why americans wear bikinis even if they are fat. or to see their faces as i extolled the great joy of sunbathing and swimming topless in europe. this conversation about the courts, like all those of its ilk tend to do, left me questioning if this work is simply futile. my chinese mother is always telling me i should stop wasting my time and either go make money or become a diplomat. beats banging your head against a brick wall (even if an aesthetically pleasing one).
it didn't help that i returned home to discover this great quote from tom friedman: "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages." i almost lost my lunch. then again, tom friedman makes my stomach turn even on a good day when he's only saying something completely obvious and not egregiously offensive. oh well.
futile or not, here i am. fist-bumping against the iron hand of the reasonably enlightened authoritarians that run this place. still a little heartbroken whenever i allow myself to be still. and getting peed on. meanwhile the world goes on.
*only connect!
that was sunday night. this is an accounting of last night (monday night):
number of ill-disciplined, untrained, obnoxious puppies i had to handle: 1
number of times she peed on me: 2
number of poos i had to clean up: 1
number of chinese drama queen girlfriends who came over to cry about boy troubles: 1
number of bottles of wine we had: 1
number of times my cat peed on my bed b/c he couldn't get to his litter b/c of said puppy: 1 (well, either that or he was acting out, but he seemed pretty upset about it)
number of layers of bedding it went through: 4
number of phone calls from depressed and still in love / all talk no action ex-boyfriends: 1
number of hours of sleep i got: 5 (actually an improvement from the previous night when the fireworks kept me up)
number of times i was woken up during the night by one or both creatures crying: 5 - 7
i am now bleary-eyed at the office and unable to focus even though i must. (truth is, i am exhausted. last night's escapades, while unique in the animal antics are not in terms of my sleeplessness.) i am ruminating on love and choices, commitment and feeling, freedom and priorities. connection.* and have visions of new bedding and closet storage units dancing in my head. (work will consume me for much of the rest of this month so i am attempting to get as much as possible about the new place sorted before then. and somehow focusing on the tangible seems to ease the emotional.) and the consistent arc in my inner conversations over the last week has focused on how to love and let go. and meanwhile the world goes on. a line from a mary oliver poem that is always good for perspective. ahem:
Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
meanwhile the world goes on. i had lunch with my flatmate, my new landlady and a friend of hers (both chinese women in their early 50s) on saturday. my new roommate is another expat. we took them to a rather swish western restaurant (they didn't even have chinese menus!), which was a treat for us and fun for them (they braved the cheese plate like pros). our landlady is quite a character - smart, outspoken, joyful. she and her friend asked me about my work. i explained that i work on rule of law issues and gave some examples of the issues we focus on. they then engaged me in a conversation about the legal system in china, colouring their points with case studies - anecdotes about the experiences of friends and friends of friends in the courts. one of the cases was even a domestic violence case. they plainly stated that there is no rule of law in china and that power and money control all the court decisions. by the end of the conversation, i wanted to bag my head against the trendy exposed brick wall next to me. or at least return to our exchange about why western people like to wear so little clothing at the beach. it was much more fun to hear them wonder about why americans wear bikinis even if they are fat. or to see their faces as i extolled the great joy of sunbathing and swimming topless in europe. this conversation about the courts, like all those of its ilk tend to do, left me questioning if this work is simply futile. my chinese mother is always telling me i should stop wasting my time and either go make money or become a diplomat. beats banging your head against a brick wall (even if an aesthetically pleasing one).
it didn't help that i returned home to discover this great quote from tom friedman: "One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages." i almost lost my lunch. then again, tom friedman makes my stomach turn even on a good day when he's only saying something completely obvious and not egregiously offensive. oh well.
futile or not, here i am. fist-bumping against the iron hand of the reasonably enlightened authoritarians that run this place. still a little heartbroken whenever i allow myself to be still. and getting peed on. meanwhile the world goes on.
*only connect!
Monday, September 14, 2009
red china blues
so a sweet message from a sweet old beijing tongxue now in south africa inspired me to tooter once more to the brink and consider collecting my thoughts. naturally, i questioned again (and then again) about who or what this is for. but i've decided that’s no matter. there is something lost in me when i am not writing, or creating, in some small way. i’ve recognized that. and i can’t always find that place through work, or even through witty emails, or poems about imaginary pets. not even yoga brings me there (that’s a journey of a different, albeit related, sort). so, i’ve decided to just write. and not worry about whether anyone’s reading. or whether i make insightful or instructive comments about justice or whether i spend too much time getting lost in the stirrings of my hummingbird heart. (though isn’t personal narrative what makes justice worthwhile or interesting in the first place?)
personal narrative. it's what makes the world go ‘round. or at least allows us to relate. ‘red china blues’ was the title of a memoir about china i read several years ago. it was the typically cultural revolution tale, told through the eyes of one woman. (when we lent the book to my auntie jung, she covered it with newspaper so that if she was seen reading it on the bus, no one would know.) it feels belittling to say that in a way – “the typical cultural revolution tale” – because how could the intensely traumatic and brutal experiences of that one young women ever be “typical”? but they are. like that one woman, millions of teenagers saw their families torn apart or destroyed, witnessed the humiliation, brutalization or murder of their parents, were sent to remote areas of the country to work punishing hours in fields and factories without compensation or food. these individuals, each of whom suffered unique and terrible traumas, are now in their 50s. some fled and wrote best-selling memoirs detailing the horrors they experienced. i hope that they found some release in that. but for those who have stayed behind, there has never really been any public katharsis. and to speak of your own pain seems strange in a nation where nearly everyone your age has a similar story. how to you privately heal in such circumstances? one close family friend of ours provides economic support to educate the children of the village that he was “sent down” to during the cultural revolution. he says he is alive only thanks to the generosity of this impoverished tiny community that spared two potatoes a day for him for three years. as smart as he is big-hearted, this friend secured a coveted spot in the first class at beijing university when it reopened after the cultural revolution crumbled. i wonder if finding a way to give back is somewhat more than an expression of gratitude. perhaps it is part of a healing process, acknowledging those years of hardship and the six years he was unable to contact or locate his parents or three siblings. perhaps it is just kindness.
i recalled the enticing title of that book recently because i’ve had a case of the red china blues. although i think i may be recovering. i was quietly happy to be returning to beijing last night (although i am writing this en route to hong kong and then chiang mai, where i’ll be visiting little trouble and spending a week considering environmental legal advocacy in the mekong region, respectively). this case of the blues, if you can call them that, is a broader consciousness and growing concern about china. i am perhaps more
critical now of this government than i ever have been. i think this is healthy because i spent many years to enamoured with or protective of china to see clearly or think critically about the implications of this regime or its polices. (it is hard to clearly see things that we are too close to.) with time, distance, education, adulthood, travel (take your pick), my perspective has shifted. whereas once i was the one always singing china’s song, i know find myself cast as the shadow of doom in china conversations. the world seems so ready and willing to embrace china without question these days, and it frightens me. this is not a benign government. and they are quietly amassing power in subtle and complicated ways. i worry about china becoming the dominant superpower in the world. (and for those who say she lacks the creativity to do so, who needs creativity when you have seemingly limitless (opaque) markets?)
i had a rewarding two weeks back in the states. personally, i was able to connect with friends and family. professionally, a study tour i had helped to pull together for chinese judges on domestic violence and civil protection orders was just fantastically successful. so much better than i had even imagined. but my partner-in-crime (an anti-violence advocate and a researcher at the institute for applied jurisprudence, a think tank attached to the supreme people’s court) and i had to be all cloak-and-dagger about my involvement and obscure our relationship. she and her colleague even had to sneak out of their hotel to attend a meeting i arranged with one of the experts who will be part of our upcoming judicial training on domestic violence. the night before the group left, the foreign affairs bureau informed them that the tour they were going on, organized via the state department’s international visitors program, was political and was an effort by the united states government to brainwash them. they were given strict marching orders about how they were to conduct themselves while on the tour. when this was recounted to me, i couldn’t help but wonder when the cold war became chic again. oh, and just to be safe, the foreign affairs bureau planted one of the participants who was surely a spy (and none too subtle about it!)
my blues – professional frustrations and personal reflections – will dissolve, however, in moments that some how go beyond them. the study tour coincided with labour day weekend, so the state department planned on arranging a “home hospitality” program with an american family as part of the program. naturally, i volunteered my parents. so we had the group of nine judges and scholars over for a pool party and bbq. perhaps the best part was when one of the judges was admiring our yard, and my father responded by saying, “yes, but in china you don’t have to worry about cutting the grass.” the judge replied by saying, “but we want to cut grass; i have always wanted to cut grass.” ba immediately jumped up, saying, “you do? come on. follow me.” a few moments later we heard the sound of the lawnmower starting and soon judge luo was pushing it, or more accurately being pulled by it, around the back yard. two more judges then ran down for turns cutting the grass. it was a classic cultural exchange. one man’s chore is another man’s great new tourist experience.
the most fascinating cultural exchange of the trip happened in boston. among the many excellent program activities in boston was a meeting with the founder of common purpose, a local batterers intervention program. the founder, mitch, arranged to have a few facilitators from the program accompany him and also put together a panel of men who were in the process of going through the program because they had been sentenced to do so by a judge. when they walked into the room, there was a great pause in my thoughts for a moment. in all my anti-violence work, we toss around terms like “abusers” or “batterers” without thought to those labels. and suddenly, here they were. real, live “batterers” walking into a sunlight side room in the dorchester district court. they were a curious combination of swagger and shame, testosterone and nerves. i measured my own reaction and noted the moment of fear. but that fear quickly gave way to empathy, “batterers” or not, these were people and worthy of compassion. i made a point of introducing myself to and shaking the hands of each man, thanking them in advance for their willingness to participate. for participating in that panel, sharing about the deeply personal, painful, and shameful process of being ordered to participate in this program and how it is influencing them, cannot have been easy. the chinese side was at first a bit shell-shocked and i worried for a moment that they would not engage. but once they did, the exchange was fascinating and, i hope, meaningful for both sides. the judge who boldly asked the first question was a complete surprise to me. a conservative sort with a terrible combover, he usually seemed more interested in videotaping than asking questions. but he asked the men about the methodology the program employed, explaining that in china, they value balance – yin yang – and that anger is a natural human emotion, so if the methodology of the program was to teach them to suppress their anger, he thought that might eventually lead to problems or illness, but if the methodology was to help them to develop other means of releasing their anger, he wanted to know what those were and whether they were effective. my heart smiled to judge yi in that moment because that question was the perfect opening for a thoughtful discussion on anger and so much more, but it also was respectful of the assembled men. the group gave each of the program participants chinese stamps depicting the longest bridge in china, and the men seemed genuinely please with the gifts. i hope that in some small way their experience with us in that sunny room helps them constructing their own bridges to better places. bridges which, like those in stamps, i imagine must be very long.
so now i am full of hope, watching lazy clouds out my window. maybe i don’t have the red china blues after all. or maybe, just maybe, a moment of reflection is all i need as a remedy.
personal narrative. it's what makes the world go ‘round. or at least allows us to relate. ‘red china blues’ was the title of a memoir about china i read several years ago. it was the typically cultural revolution tale, told through the eyes of one woman. (when we lent the book to my auntie jung, she covered it with newspaper so that if she was seen reading it on the bus, no one would know.) it feels belittling to say that in a way – “the typical cultural revolution tale” – because how could the intensely traumatic and brutal experiences of that one young women ever be “typical”? but they are. like that one woman, millions of teenagers saw their families torn apart or destroyed, witnessed the humiliation, brutalization or murder of their parents, were sent to remote areas of the country to work punishing hours in fields and factories without compensation or food. these individuals, each of whom suffered unique and terrible traumas, are now in their 50s. some fled and wrote best-selling memoirs detailing the horrors they experienced. i hope that they found some release in that. but for those who have stayed behind, there has never really been any public katharsis. and to speak of your own pain seems strange in a nation where nearly everyone your age has a similar story. how to you privately heal in such circumstances? one close family friend of ours provides economic support to educate the children of the village that he was “sent down” to during the cultural revolution. he says he is alive only thanks to the generosity of this impoverished tiny community that spared two potatoes a day for him for three years. as smart as he is big-hearted, this friend secured a coveted spot in the first class at beijing university when it reopened after the cultural revolution crumbled. i wonder if finding a way to give back is somewhat more than an expression of gratitude. perhaps it is part of a healing process, acknowledging those years of hardship and the six years he was unable to contact or locate his parents or three siblings. perhaps it is just kindness.
i recalled the enticing title of that book recently because i’ve had a case of the red china blues. although i think i may be recovering. i was quietly happy to be returning to beijing last night (although i am writing this en route to hong kong and then chiang mai, where i’ll be visiting little trouble and spending a week considering environmental legal advocacy in the mekong region, respectively). this case of the blues, if you can call them that, is a broader consciousness and growing concern about china. i am perhaps more
critical now of this government than i ever have been. i think this is healthy because i spent many years to enamoured with or protective of china to see clearly or think critically about the implications of this regime or its polices. (it is hard to clearly see things that we are too close to.) with time, distance, education, adulthood, travel (take your pick), my perspective has shifted. whereas once i was the one always singing china’s song, i know find myself cast as the shadow of doom in china conversations. the world seems so ready and willing to embrace china without question these days, and it frightens me. this is not a benign government. and they are quietly amassing power in subtle and complicated ways. i worry about china becoming the dominant superpower in the world. (and for those who say she lacks the creativity to do so, who needs creativity when you have seemingly limitless (opaque) markets?)
i had a rewarding two weeks back in the states. personally, i was able to connect with friends and family. professionally, a study tour i had helped to pull together for chinese judges on domestic violence and civil protection orders was just fantastically successful. so much better than i had even imagined. but my partner-in-crime (an anti-violence advocate and a researcher at the institute for applied jurisprudence, a think tank attached to the supreme people’s court) and i had to be all cloak-and-dagger about my involvement and obscure our relationship. she and her colleague even had to sneak out of their hotel to attend a meeting i arranged with one of the experts who will be part of our upcoming judicial training on domestic violence. the night before the group left, the foreign affairs bureau informed them that the tour they were going on, organized via the state department’s international visitors program, was political and was an effort by the united states government to brainwash them. they were given strict marching orders about how they were to conduct themselves while on the tour. when this was recounted to me, i couldn’t help but wonder when the cold war became chic again. oh, and just to be safe, the foreign affairs bureau planted one of the participants who was surely a spy (and none too subtle about it!)
my blues – professional frustrations and personal reflections – will dissolve, however, in moments that some how go beyond them. the study tour coincided with labour day weekend, so the state department planned on arranging a “home hospitality” program with an american family as part of the program. naturally, i volunteered my parents. so we had the group of nine judges and scholars over for a pool party and bbq. perhaps the best part was when one of the judges was admiring our yard, and my father responded by saying, “yes, but in china you don’t have to worry about cutting the grass.” the judge replied by saying, “but we want to cut grass; i have always wanted to cut grass.” ba immediately jumped up, saying, “you do? come on. follow me.” a few moments later we heard the sound of the lawnmower starting and soon judge luo was pushing it, or more accurately being pulled by it, around the back yard. two more judges then ran down for turns cutting the grass. it was a classic cultural exchange. one man’s chore is another man’s great new tourist experience.
the most fascinating cultural exchange of the trip happened in boston. among the many excellent program activities in boston was a meeting with the founder of common purpose, a local batterers intervention program. the founder, mitch, arranged to have a few facilitators from the program accompany him and also put together a panel of men who were in the process of going through the program because they had been sentenced to do so by a judge. when they walked into the room, there was a great pause in my thoughts for a moment. in all my anti-violence work, we toss around terms like “abusers” or “batterers” without thought to those labels. and suddenly, here they were. real, live “batterers” walking into a sunlight side room in the dorchester district court. they were a curious combination of swagger and shame, testosterone and nerves. i measured my own reaction and noted the moment of fear. but that fear quickly gave way to empathy, “batterers” or not, these were people and worthy of compassion. i made a point of introducing myself to and shaking the hands of each man, thanking them in advance for their willingness to participate. for participating in that panel, sharing about the deeply personal, painful, and shameful process of being ordered to participate in this program and how it is influencing them, cannot have been easy. the chinese side was at first a bit shell-shocked and i worried for a moment that they would not engage. but once they did, the exchange was fascinating and, i hope, meaningful for both sides. the judge who boldly asked the first question was a complete surprise to me. a conservative sort with a terrible combover, he usually seemed more interested in videotaping than asking questions. but he asked the men about the methodology the program employed, explaining that in china, they value balance – yin yang – and that anger is a natural human emotion, so if the methodology of the program was to teach them to suppress their anger, he thought that might eventually lead to problems or illness, but if the methodology was to help them to develop other means of releasing their anger, he wanted to know what those were and whether they were effective. my heart smiled to judge yi in that moment because that question was the perfect opening for a thoughtful discussion on anger and so much more, but it also was respectful of the assembled men. the group gave each of the program participants chinese stamps depicting the longest bridge in china, and the men seemed genuinely please with the gifts. i hope that in some small way their experience with us in that sunny room helps them constructing their own bridges to better places. bridges which, like those in stamps, i imagine must be very long.
so now i am full of hope, watching lazy clouds out my window. maybe i don’t have the red china blues after all. or maybe, just maybe, a moment of reflection is all i need as a remedy.
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