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.

'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.

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!

on suppression and short shorts

so, clearly my post-a-day plan crumbled. i could blame the firewall or my frequent travels to second tier cities to ganbei (do shots of) mediocre hongjiu (red wine) with local partners. i could bemoan my frustrating lack of email access on a few critical occasions (june 4 / 20th anniversary of the tiananmen massacre) just after writing amazing, insightful collections of thoughts that i am unable to share. i could claim that i have been too caught up in life - pushing forward the frontiers of the rule of law (update: still no independent judiciary in china), keeping track of little trouble (takes more time than you'd think), and searching for new and interesting ways to consume red bean (latest obsession: red bean and yogurt popsicles). instead, i will not attempt to make excuses. in fact, these months of silence are liberating in a sense. i can now safely assuming that anyone who was attempting to read my musings has given up so i can write with the comfort of anonymity, knowing that i am just writing for myself. which is what i sat down to do today.

i determined that it's time for reflection in light of my recent birthday and all that has been happening in this land of late. birthdays always make me thoughtful. so does the imprisonment of human rights lawyers. and pollution. and bad haircuts. i am wearing my “inspi(red)” t-shirt at the moment, perhaps to make up for the uninspiring weather. it's as though a pall has descended on or been draped over the city for the last few weeks. the sky and air are grey, and it is oppressively hot. it’s perhaps appropriate; were i to pick a word to describe the essence of beijing this august it would be ‘suppression’. maybe that’s the name of paint colour of the beijing sky were it to be tinned: ‘suppression: beijing grey’ – looks great in bathrooms!

the suppression has been disheartening and weighing heavily on me (not unlike the polluted haze that you cannot escape breathing). i sometimes wish that i could not let it get to me, that i could not get tangled up in it emotionally. but i have come to accept that, even as i am every seeking to quiet my mind and cultivate the inner tranquility which transcends outer experience, feeling deeply is simply part of who i am. i feel the suppression of which i speak – the assault on gong meng / the open constitution initiative, a Chinese legal NGO doing public interest advocacy entirely within the bounds of the law, and the detaining of xu zhiyong, its founder, and zhuang lu, its sweet young financial manger; the announcement by the MOJ that all law firms will have a party liaison to monitor their work; the reminder from above that the role of lawyers is to serve the party leadership; and the continued and increasingly widespread control of the internet – in the same way that i feel this oppressive, pollute heat. it is all around and only seems to be getting worse. more disturbing shades of grey, hotter, and more quietly tolerated as simply the way things are.

sadly, it seems that the prevailing idea in the international rule of law community over the last few months – that this is just a sensitive time – may be misguided, a collective willing illusion perhaps. this suppression, and the party’s seeing lawyers as a threat to their power, seems here to stay. not something that is likely to abate after national day and the 60th anniversary festivities have concluded. i’m afraid this particular shade of control won’t wash away after a rainstorm like the polluted air. and i fear for what this means, not only for china, but the world. china’s power and size cannot be underestimated. astute point that, i know, but i think it needs to be said over and over again. especially when so many – individuals, artists, economies, nations, corporations, NGOs, journalists – are willing to self-censor and resist speaking truth to power in order to gain access to china. but is market access / relationship building / the capacity to do programming in the people’s republic worth it? it’s something i struggle with.

one positive aspect of this increasingly grey backdrop to my life is that it compliments my miserable new hair colour. long story short: (1 attempt to get subtle highlights before my sisters wedding + 1 inexperienced stylist who had never touched blonde hair before = madonna meets jessica rabbit strawberry bottle blonde nightmare) x (1 senior stylist who insisted he could “fix it” + 4 more hours of torture involving various shades of purple) = a head full of deep purple / brown hair best described as “ripe plum”. with time, that shade has faded to a reddish brown (goes great with suppression!). and most of my hair has now been chopped off. (as the (new) stylist who cut it said, my hair was “huai le” or broken, so had to go.) not exactly the look i was going for as i properly enter and embrace my 30s, but a good lesson in what really matters in life (spirit, love) and what doesn’t (hair, superficial form).

a word on being “in my 30s”. i am now 31. on my birthday, i sat down to compose a list for myself of 31 thoughts on being 31. (i have recently also accepted that i love lists. unfortunately only lists of impractical things – dreams, ideas, places to visit, interesting meditations or quotes, interesting words, plays i will produce one day in my political theatre, names for my future children, names for my current imaginary pets, images i want to use in somewhere in a piece of writing some day, pros and cons. lists of practical things – groceries, errands, things i need for the flat, things to pick up when i am back in north america to bring back – have no interest to me and i can never, or at least rarely bring myself to make them. instead, i make grocery lists in my head and invariably cannot find them when i am at the market. standing lost amid the spices, however, i could easily rummage around in my bag and pull out a list of 30 things to do in my 30s i made on my last birthday that is still in my diary. this is a deeply flawed system.) when i decided to list 31 thoughts on being 31, i didn’t get very far. it felt too monumental a task. i was turning all metaphysical, hippie-zen-slumber-party-theology on myself and thinking of thoughts like “there is only love” and somehow i couldn’t have that as thought number 2. thought number 1 was easy: “it might be time to stop wearing short shorts”. to avoid swimming through pools of my own existential and spiritual angst, questioning, joy, and overthinking, i decided to stop the list there. so my deep thought on turning 31 is that it might be time to stop wearing short-shorts. operative word in that sentence being “might”.

in all seriousness, i am trying not to take this birthday – and the attendant social pressures that seem to come with it – too seriously. but it has not always been easy. especially with all my brooding on and breathing in various shades of grey lately, i have found myself questioning what i am doing and where i am going – in so many senses – in a more urgent way than i did a few short weeks ago when i was a sweet, young, wisp of a girl. there’s something more substantial about being 31. time to be wholly yourself, unapologetically, and give deeply, love unconditionally, and not compromise. though i suppose we ought to do that at any age. always.

strength in the differences between us, comfort where we overlap

so, in spite of years of my not being here, neither an inch nor half a globe too far, i've finally decided to start gathering my wandering thoughts. perhaps it took coming back to beijing for me to finally brave blogging, because returning to the most formative city of my youth was coming full circle and proffered a profound opportunity for reflection, introspection, and mediocre poetry.* or perhaps it simply took learning that the u.s. embassy uses twitter to send out updates on pollution levels in beijing. (if the embassy is hip enough to twitter, surely i can blog.)

although this is my first 'post', i have a bit of a storeroom full of thoughts and plots that i hope sharing here will allow for some sort of katharsis / epiphany / amusement. i realize as i tried to complete that sentence that i don't have a particular agenda. "all red on the inside" refers to a failed effort i made to express the idea of common humanity to a group of chinese classmates in 1997. i'll share the complete story at some point. at the time, i was seeking to convey a concept of the universal - that we are all, regardless of country, race, religion, culture, more alike than different. the image failed then (they thought i was talking about communism). but my faith in the universal hasn't faltered.

this thimbleful of thoughts, then, will consider themes of universality, reveling in our beautiful differences and appreciating the soft spots of common overlap. (that's a very lofty way of saying i will write about anything / everything and it will likely touch on cross-cultural themes because so does life.) being the creature that i am, a public interest lawyer newly returned to china, be prepared for pontifications on justice and jiaozi.... in fact, maybe i should write exclusively about justice and jiaozi. or maybe just a justice and jiaozi weekly dish - the most interesting legal issue of the week and the best thing i've eaten. hmmm. so far this week it was a particularly delicious doushabing** on tuesday morning and a real appreciation for an independent judiciary on monday afternoon (a topic i intend to return to in detail at some point).

with that, comrades, it begins.



*i write mediocre poetry. no, i am not being humble, just honest. i like to think of it as a unique niche talent. many, many people write poor poetry. (many people also write self-indulgent poem-like, clammy things that are best thrown into the ocean.) a small handful write excellent poetry. (a very, very small handful of people write transcendent, beautiful poetry that stays with you always.) a few people write good poetry. a few people write fair poetry. hitting the sweet spot of mediocrity is actually quite special and harder to achieve than you think. it's a delicate balance to strike that perfect chord between good and bad. yet somehow, i have been blessed with a talent for writing mediocre poetry. on occasion, i confess, i falter and a poem ends up sliding down the scale to bad (or even worse - melodramatic). perhaps once, i faltered and produced an almost good poem. but generally, without to much effort, my poetry is soundly mediocre. i never plan to write a poem. usually, a poem just comes to me and begs to be written and i ignore the poem as long as possible and then when i cannot contain it any longer, i write it. i think of them like unruly baby swans.

** red bean bread. i am kind of obsessed with doushabing. red bean in general, really. speaking of red bean, it occurred to me while walking to work this morning as i was eating doushabao (red bean steamed buns), that if you were to cut me open, i might bleed red bean i eat it so much. then i realized what a ridiculous thought that was and wondered how it ever occurred to me to even think it. then i was almost hit by a bicycle.