the full catastrophe

in zorba the greek * nikos kazantzakis gives us the wonderful image of life as “the full catastrophe”. although i think in that moment, he was speaking more marriage, kids, a house, i think it's more universal than that. even without those particular tornadoes, the winds of life will rock us no matter where we are. we all have our full catastrophes. zorba's way is to dance in the gale of the full catastrophe.... to celebrate life, to laugh with it and at himself, even in the face of personal failure and defeat. in doing so, he is never weighed down for long, never ultimately defeated either by the world or by his own considerable folly. of course, zorba himself must have been quite a catastrophe for his wife and kids and the others in his path. a loving and outrageous and wonderful one, but a catastrophe nonetheless. what i appreciate about that phrase is that it captures the human spirit's capacity to smile into the winds that blow us about, to come to terms with life's howling difficulties and find within them space for growth and grace. and i love the imperative to dance through the full catastrophe.(note to self: another mantra! use it.)

it has been a full catastrophe of a weekend so far and it's not even saturday night yet. people will be coming over in a few hours to eat cheese and drink wine and smile at life. i've just made hummus. and the early pattern of the tree branches against the early evening sky out my window is like dripping laughter. spent both last night and this morning in the company of wonderful women friends. well, and an italian football team and a room full of outrageous, whimsical hats (not at the same time). but those are stories for another time. in other miraculous news, my partners learned how to use emoticons. and a newly engaged friend is happily glowing in the joy and challenges of it all. so many gorgeous winds blowing!

in this quiet eye of the storm, i find myself wanting to stay very still and listen to my thoughts. almost like listening to my breath in meditation.** it has been an overwhelming week. with the winds of life's wonder and terror whirling about. as ever.

one of the more unfortunate winds that has been forcefully blowing through beijing these days is the continued suppression of public interest lawyers. i had lunch on friday with some of the leaders of china's women's rights movements and the founders of a women's legal aid organisation. i am humbled by how much they have accomplished. their uncompromising commitment to justice, their tenacity, their thoughtful approach to their work, and their playful spirits. their centre was at beijing university (beida) since it was established fourteen years ago. but earlier this week, the university told them they could only stay at beida if they stopped doing cases. they could continue to do research, but, as the centre's founder pointed out, their entire purpose was bringing cases. you can hardly champion women's legal rights much outside the courtroom. and, as i said to her, what they presented you was not an option. they had no choice but to go. this was devastating news to me. it was clearly the government directing beida to silence them. the organisation had no choice but to disassociate from beida and is now considering other options for registration. being associated with a university gives legal public interest organisations such as this one the political cover necessary to enable them to work. by being cast out, it's a clear signal from the government that it does not welcome their cases. and there are myriad obstacles to registering as an NGO in china. luckily, they have a law firm as part of their centre with independent registration so they can continue to work on their cases even as they try to resolve how to move ahead. their cases are vital to trying to push the legal charade of china's legal system towards justice, legitimacy and rule of law.

they recently tried to get involved in a horrific case here in beijing. a 20-year-old rural woman from anhui province came to beijing as a petitioner under china's system allowing individuals to petition the government for wrongs and express grievances. sadly, many of beijing's petitioners end up being detained and imprisoned in "black jails" where they are often abused, tortured, and intimidated into silence before they are trucked back home. (the chinese government official denies that they exist, but they are well-documented. a recent human rights watch report on china's abusive black jails: http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/11/12/alleyway-hell-0.) another tactic (and the experience of a woman represented by the centre in a separate case) is for the authorities to declare petitioners mentally ill, imprison them in psychiatric hospitals institutions and heavily medicate them. (see a friend's excellent report on this here: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/video/share.html?s=news01s3066qb75.)

this particular young woman's fate was even worse. she was raped by the guards in the black jail. others were in the room at the time (there are a large number of petitioner-prisoners per room and genders are mixed), but they were too afraid of being beaten to do anything to stop it or even scream. someone in the prison reported the story via sms and soon the black jail and soon the place was swarmed by NGO representatives and reporters. the guards tried to clean up the blood and destroy the evidence and sealed the room. the young woman was returned to her village in anhui and told not to petition again. she has decided to bring a lawsuit against her attacker(s). the women i was lunching with had tried to become involved in her case, but she was only permitted to have a government-appointed attorney. they were furious because that attorney said nothing at all during the initial court proceeding they had just attended. and they also learned that the local government was offering large sums of money to the young woman's uneducated parents to buy her silence. the case will go forward, but it already such a perversion of justice.***

but, as we considered the current situation for public interest lawyering over lunch, we concluded that there is no justice in china. it was a heavy meal, and not just because of all the delicious dofu. i was really just so distraught to hear about this group's being booted from beida. i tried to provide some lightness by joking "who needs public justice when there's such good food in china?" only my work wife laughed. sarcasm in general and my jokes in particular don't translate particularly well. i am aware of this, but resist ceasing my amusing commentary in chinese. even if it is only amusing to me. it's all part of the full catastrophe.

this feels a very heavy place to conclude. but our capacity for both for goodness and disgrace, compassion and despair are all whirling in the gales of the full catastrophe. and to dance through it is to know them all.

*this was also the name of my first cat - zorba the greek. although i apparently couldn't quite pronounce "greek" so ended up calling him "zorba the geek". in the end, he was "zorbie". he was a great companion and an old soul. i am sure we will meet again in other lifetimes.

**confession: i am not skilled at meditation. in fact, i can't really do it. so i feel a bit guilty about even writing that sentence lest it give a false impression. but i aspire to meditate. or do so in the abstract. but actually sitting myself down and doing it is really beyond my abilities at this point.

***although today's news reminds us that the chinese haven't entirely cornered the market on the perversion of justice. apparently doing cartwheels is evidence of murder in italy these days: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/world/europe/05italy.html?ref=global-home; http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/02/amanda-knox-revisited/?scp=2&sq=amanda%20knox&st=cse. and principles of open government and accountability are quietly being strangled the states: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/05/opinion/05sat2.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

from the customer service department

earlier this week, on monday to be precise, i was walking home from work in very low spirits. this is noteworthy because i am rarely in very low spirits. i have a few hypotheses. (1) maybe it was because i had a disheartening day on the frontlines of the rule of law reform in china. a conversation about the need to harmonize the state secrets law with the recent open government information regulations, accountability problems, and the fact that most courts are interested in avoiding responsibility for anything really illuminated for me how an independent judiciary is crucial for the rule of law. the rest, to some extent, is window dressing. with that insight, i had this strange sinking feeling of futility. unpleasant. (2) maybe it was because i suddenly missed my nyc friends after seeing pics from a dear friend's trapeze-and-cupcakes themed 30th bday party. (3) maybe it was because little trouble is out of town and i missed him. little trouble is my boyfriend. that is the literal translation of the current iteration of his chinese name - xiaofan. the pronunciation has more or less stayed the same, but the characters have varied. i believe that the latest version - little trouble - has staying power because it is not difficult to write and because it suits.

for any of these reasons or all of them, i was walking home full of woe. i was not charmed by the aggressive restaurant pushers along ghost street who tried to pull me into their establishments. i was so busy wallowing in my woe that i forgot to return the grinning greeting from the elderly, simple gentleman who is always sitting at the end of the alley with his neighbourhood volunteer red armband on, watching the to-ings and fro-ings. i arrived at my doorstep ready to go inside and write melodramatic emails or listen to sarah mclachlan. or both. (not a good place to be.)

instead, i discovered the following notice waiting for me:

Dear tenants:

Tomorrow (May.5th) after 9:00 am, the men from Sanitary Station will come to spray insecticide. Please close your window and tidy away your clothes ahead of time.
By the way, about the H1N1 Flu, please take care of yourself, if you have a fever, catch cold or some other flu symptoms, and please inform us on time.
Thanks for your cooperation!

Yours sincerely,
Customer service department
4th May.2009

i burst out laughing. the heaviness of my day seemed to dissipate and the world just seemed a little bight lighter. i love the 'by the way" bit about the swine flu. china, as i am sure you have heard, has taken what some might call a pig-headed approach to the swine flu problem. there was the detention of all mexican passport-holders, some paranoid potential airport procedures developed, and a nasty spat with the mexican government about who was to blame in the first place. nothing like a disease from pigs to bring out the best in common humanity. what was it you said, anne? we're all dark on the inside, there is no light? ; ). the "by the way" in the customer service department notice was so good that i almost didn't mind the idea that men were going to be spraying insecticide on my laundry if i didn't look out. (when i shared this notice with little trouble, he focused on that and convinced me to be sure to have left the compound before the spraying commenced. i explained that i had shared the notice with him to laugh about the bird flu bit, not stress about whatever terrible potions were going to be poured on the rosebushes. i'm not sure if he found it quite as funny as i did. what can i see? he's a germaphobe. i'm addicted to street food. i think there is balance in there somewhere.)

luckily for me, though, even if i were to "have fever, catch cold, or some other flu symptoms" and decide to report that to the customer service department so they could check me into the nearest holding cell, i have reason to believe that it would generally be a pleasant experience. while i don't think any of the various civil rights issues that were raised by the government's iron-beaked response to SARS ever really resonated much within china, and while clearly sino-mexican relations have seen better days, there seems to be an effort to make quarantine comfortable this time around. as the china daily reported, those currently in quarantine in hong kong are being "showered with gifts": http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2009-05/05/content_7743569.htm

gift showers? these are downpours:

- The Immigration Department has been directed to extend the guests' visas if they expired during the quarantine period.

-The guests have also been offered free stays at other city hotels, calling cards, a travel card each valued at HK$100 and a free ride to the airport.

- If that wasn't enough, each of them will today also get a "gift set", with free movie coupons and admission tickets to Ocean Park, Hong Kong Disneyland and Ngong Ping Cable Car.

the most important thing, according to hong kong secretary for commerce and economic development rita lau ng wai-lan, is that "tourists take back with them a good experience of hong kong." awash in gifts, how could they not?

coming home to discover that notice and have it shake me to my senses was just the sort of sudden shift in perspective that convinces me god has a sense of humour. (well, that and things like the advertising campaign that was apparently launched by the hong kong tourism board just before SARS broke with the slogan: "hong kong, it'll take your breath away".) (it was a very short-lived campaign.)

my perspective held for the rest of the week. now i am off to contemplate chinese-style spicy chicken wings and mashed potatoes at the hot bean cooperative. yum.