are you happy?

embraced by grey skies

so i am safely ensconced back in beijing’s grey embrace. seriously i couldn’t believe how grey the sky was when i landed. why are the skies always so startling? you’d think i’d be used to it by now. but i am likewise always astounded by the outrageous and inviting blues overhead upon arriving in north america. maybe it’s simply the suddenly shift. there used to be so much more involved in travel – more time required, more preparations made, more challenges, more formal attire, more etiquette, more smoke – and as a result more time was typically spent wherever it was you were getting to. and all the time and energy necessary to do so made it all seem less sudden and the skies less strange. or maybe not. maybe i just don’t take the skies for granted anymore.

in any case, i am back in the northern capital and taking very little for granted. my sojourn under the blue skies was brief and hectic. activities included: networking at our global staff retreat, nephew cuddling, communing with family and friends, and pondering the great imponderables. i have returned feeling very blessed and determined to become ever more generous, less afraid, and always curious.

also, i am (finally!) reading kazantzakis’s report to greco and taking seriously his imperative ‘reach what you cannot!’ his dedication in the book is as follows:

THREE KINDS OF SOULS, THREE PRAYERS:

1 – I AM A BOW IN YOUR HANDS, LORD. DRAW ME, LEST I ROT.

2 – DO NOT OVERDRAW ME, LORD. I SHALL BREAK.

3 – OVERDRAW ME, LORD. AND WHO CARES IF I BREAK!

that about sums up how it is we conduct ourselves in this world. (how we balance the terror and the wonder!) i am the third kind of soul.

the staff retreat and conversations in DC have me thinking expansively about the rule of law / development / foreign policy and how china doesn’t fit into any theories. i am hoping to create some space to write and think about that in a more structured way.

meanwhile, the grey goes on. it’s good to be home. and though i already miss lei feng, he’s happier in northern virginia. he was a really impressive little traveler, in case you were curious. he only cried for 10.5 of the 13 hours on the beijing – dulles flight. i was really proud of him for pulling it together for a whole 2.5 hours at the end. mind, the constant crying ranged from barely audible mewing that only i could hear (he was under the seat in front of me) to full on wailing with fur flying, paws flailing, and a shaking carrier. it was quite a performance. really he was just acting the way we all feel when trapped on a plane for seemingly interminable stretches of time.

i am choosing to see these grey skies as replete with possibilities rather than pollution. and i have great expectations for this spring.

balancing terror and wonder

i read somewhere once upon a lifetime when i was eighteen and searching for an epiphany* that the art of living involved balancing the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man. the very idea of living is of course gendered. (but what isn't?) nonetheless, i found the concept of balancing appealing. why i recall this now i am not sure except that i have been meaning to write for some time partially because i seem to be suspended between the terror and wonder, the highs and lows.

so, terror.

gao zhisheng has been released. yet his spirit seems crushed. which makes me at once want to weep and also fight. i shudder to think what the chinese authorities did to him this time. burning cigarettes on his eyeballs and electric shocks to his genitals were not enough to break him, insufficient torture to compel him to cease his pursuit of justice and rights in china. now he says that he no longer has the capacity to persevere.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/asia/08dissident.html?scp=5&sq=gao%20zhisheng&st=cse

the saddest line to me in that piece is the description of his returning home and seeing his family's shoes. (they fled china after his last disappearance and have received political asylum in the US.) but what is perhaps most devastating is this:
“You know that past life of mine was abnormal, and I need to give up that former life,” he said. “I hope I can become part of the peaceful life of the big family.”

his saying that being a human rights lawyer or defending the legal rights of vulnerable groups is "abnormal" makes my heart sink. even more so the idea that he can now join the peaceful (harmonious!) life of the big family of the chinese state at the expense of losing his own family. although i hope that they will be able to be reunited somehow.... the brutality of this government, and the seemingly willful blindness to its darker side by so many, is literally terrifying.

there have been some other dark moments this week related to the ever-tightening space in which international organizations such of ours can operate; government scrutiny and suppression of public interest-oriented work and civil society. i can say no more, but it was certainly disconcerting.

so, wonder.

my parents came for a visit and i cooked a spring feast for them and my chinese parents and others. our families' lives have been intertwined for seventeen years and inexorably altered as a result. feeding them all in my new home was incredibly joyful. even if the dinner conversation turned bloody while my chinese mum and landlady swapped tiananmen stories.

i also had a great work trip to changsha to check in on one of our programs focused on providing training to police on intervening in domestic violence cases. i rode in a chinese police car for the first time with an incredibly thoughtful and remarkable local precinct chief who has really embraced improving the police response to domestic violence and made it a priority. he described how he was able to have the local procuratorate bring charges against a man he had known was abusing his wife for years after one beating left her with a broken nose and other injuries that rose to the level of "light injury" and therefore sufficient for an assault charge under the criminal code. domestic violence is not a separate crime in china and unfortunately it is common for police to respond to cases of violence between intimate partners by treating them as "family matters" or "domestic disputes". if the same incident had happened between strangers on the street, it would be an assault and charges would be brought, but because it is a man beating his wife, it is seen as just the way of things and not needing police involvement. that is why it was so heartening to hear this officer discuss his approach to his work. he told the woman to think of him and his police force as part of her family and there to protect her.

i realize i've just unwittingly echoed the "big family" remark. ironic how the same way of describing how an individual relates to her community or country can be suppressive or protective. context is all. or, more accurately, balance.


*being eighteen i believed that one could seek epiphanies, obstinately ignoring the truth that epiphanies are by their very nature ephemeral and gossamer things which cannot be grasped. then again, one epiphany i've had since then is that nothing that matters or endures can be grasped. anything worth holding onto seems ungraspable. and therein is life's greatest lesson. (she says in a footnote.)

radio nowhere

this is a not very good pic of lei feng loving the floor. it is also not recent. i share it because (a) i am trying to become more blog-savvy and include pictures (next stop, wonderland (well, that or learning how to post links or at least link to previous posts)) and (b) because he has been on my mind of late. lucky little kitty is immigrating to america next week. (although he doesn't know it yet.) soon this sweet beast will feel the winds of freedom blow in his fur as he roams with the deer and the antelope in northern virginia. more plainly, i am taking him with me when i go on my next work trip and leaving him with my parents until such time as i am in a living situation which will allow me to take him in again. i had a day of feeling unusually accomplished this week when i picked up both his registration papers from the animal hospital and my canadian passport from the embassy. i just felt that we were both much so more accounted for (and accountable? authentic?). documentation does that. perhaps that's why we bother to document, although i am now not thinking of documentation of the official, state-sanctioned sort, but the kind that actually imbues our lives with meaning. this kind varies tremendously, but i think we all have some impulse to document, or shore up, what matters. and what matters seems always to be the details. moments, idiosyncrasies, characteristics, quirks. so we squirrel the details away somewhere - in writing, in photographs, in song, in stories we dance over and over in our minds or share with each other - to sustain us.

i suddenly find myself less occupied at work for a few days which has been at once a relief and also unsettling. i realized that i was allowing industry to sustain me more than is appropriate or prudent. mine was a busy march, yes. and i find meaning in what i do. but still. it is a cheap trick to rely on work for sustenance and i know it. at least i have realized my folly and am correcting it. moving on.

i have also realized that there is absolutely nothing useful or interesting on chinese radio. well, at least not the radio stations that beijing cabbies listen to. i confess that i have not sought out inspiration from chinese radio on my own so the sampling underlying this offensive conclusion is flawed. and yet, i find it fascinating. well, maybe that's too much. i find it mildly amusing and slighting intriguing. the intrigue (and the amusement) come from how much air can be occupied with nothing at all. it takes real talent to expend a lot of time and energy and verbiage to say nothing consequential and radio broadcasters in china excel. i am always impressed by the sheer amount of time people can speak and the number of the words they can utter without actually saying anything substantive. sometimes i even wish i had that skill, especially when giving speeches in chinese. it would be nice to be able to draw them out. maybe its more adverbs. maybe it just takes practice. (i am, in fact, practicing at the moment with this post. my apologies. please consider this merely a cultural expedition that you get to come along with minimal effort!) then again, perhaps i am too harsh a critic. maybe radio all around the world is filled with empty static. we so often must face how imprecise language is, how inadequate to its occasions.

speaking of occasions, there are a number on the horizon. lei feng and i will go bopping through the wild blue and end up in DC, where we'll connect with family and friends and colleagues. give toasts and talks (me) and try a new litter box (him). by the time i return may will be nearly upon us and i am hoping that life will feel more rooted. that i will feel more rhythm.

tomb-sweeping and touch

it's qing ming jie - tomb sweeping day - a day to go outside to enjoy the greenery of spring time and tend to the graves of departed ancestors. springtime is indeed slowly sprouting here in the northern capital - evidenced by the sweet green shoots poking their noses out of the earth in our courtyard and the sunlight that smiled us yesterday during a mellow hike on the great wall followed by a sunday afternoon celebration at a friend's countryside home in mutianyu. pic above. we went out to enjoy the not-quite greenery a day early, although we entirely neglected our tomb-sweeping obligations. it was truly just a delicious day - in so many senses. delightful company, engaging conversation, great food (cupcakes even!), impromptu song and dance, a sweeping view of the wall and the mountains, clear skies and sweet, sweet sunshine. i am not sure if it was the wine or the promise of spring that was getting us drunk. but i'll take spring (and summer) in copious amounts any day! [i recall a line from the joni mitchell song 'california' - i could drink a case of you and still be on my feet. ... i could drink a case of summer's potential and still be on my feet.]

sadly the clear skies scattered and today it is back to grey. but no matter. as i walked to catch the bus this morning, i was content. my cheeks were still glowing from yesterday's sunshine. i just felt so lucky to be in this incredible city, this complicated country, blessed with health and perspective and endless opportunities - to meet interesting people, to hike on the great wall, to eat cupcakes.* sunday's skies and sunshine scoured away the frustration of last week in wuhan and i felt refreshed. perhaps it was also having a dear friend in town this weekend. or perhaps it was conquering a fear. which i did last thursday.

after getting back from wuhan, i went for a massage. this may not sound like much, but for me it was conquering a fear of touch by a strange man. and i have been thinking about touch lately. not entirely sure why. although i was inspired after reading an article about the importance of touch and the positive effect of simple physical contact. and noticed that i have taken to doing this kind of awkward shoulder-slap when saying farewell to chinese male local partners. (we are beyond shaking hands and hugging wouldn't work. i think they are mostly baffled by the shoulder-slap. as, i confess, i am! i hadn't even realized i was doing it until one of them did it back and i discovered how strange it is.... and then caught myself doing it again with other partners two days later!)

anyway, most expats i know here love going for massage and consider it one of the better aspects of living in beijing and a nice release when you're having bad china days (or weeks as per mine in wuhan). i always politely demurred or changed subjects when massage came up because until last thursday i had never gone. a few weeks ago during a conversation with a few girlfriends, i finally confessed the reason - that my one previous experience with a male masseuse (in the US) was deeply traumatic (entirely due to my own neuroses). most of the masseuses in beijing - and apparently all of the good ones - are men. and that was enough to keep me away. mind, the trauma of my one previous experience, which was part of a recruiting trip with my former big, bad law firm, may or may not have also had something to do with having encountered a very large M & A partner whose robe didn't quite go all the way around him in the co-ed waiting room at the spa. that awkward staring hard at the floor aside, what i actually found difficult was accepting that the massage was not intimate touching. i felt so bad for the poor man assigned to knead my worries away that lovely june afternoon. his name was eric. i remember that clearly because even as i was checking at the spa's front desk and was told i would be "with eric", a small fist squeezed my heart. and held steady. as eric did his best, i became a fiery little ball of stress under his hands. every time he moved the sheet, i was a bundle of nerves. i stopped breathing. and had to use my yoga breath to make sure i was getting oxygen and to calm myself down. i began repeating the mantra "this is not intimate touching" in my head over and over. at some point i started adding "this is his job, he is a professional" to make sure i was really clear. at some point mid-way through, i thought about stopping and telling eric i was sorry, it wasn't his fault, but maybe we should spare us both further trouble and call the whole thing off. but i didn't. i wasn't capable of speech since i was too busy quietly hyperventilating and trying to breathe deeply at the same time. (inhale: this is not, exhale: intimate touching.)

i was convinced to go for a massage in china only after having been encouraged repeatedly to do so and having been informed that there is more than one layer between you and the masseuse: a nice set of pyjama pants and matching long-sleeved shirt and a blanket. no skin-to-skin contact. it was great - he tended to the tension i carry in my neck and shoulders. but this style of massage is not exactly relax; it's quite intense actually. he on blood pathways and it can be painful. for example, as he pressed a point in my lower back, i had the distinct sensation that blood and muscle was going to spurt out of the front of my thigh. but i think working through this tension must be good. and so i am going back tonight. besides, having this safe touching in my life is perhaps positive it and of itself.

i have also been thinking about touch after a friend drunkenly tried to kiss me in an alley a few weekends ago and i leapt back saying, 'i'm just not there yet'. (which is true.) and found myself ambiguously holding the hand of another friend while shopping. and noticed the shoulder-slapping thing. and realized that spooning with your cat isn't a substitute for human intimacy. the take away is that massage is all the touch i can manage at the moment.

the late afternoon light is fighting through the grey, so i may make most of this holiday and reflect on my ancestors for a moment before this evening's massage, even if i have no tombs to sweep. all of this - paying respects to the departed, basking in the sunshine and appreciating the here and now, considering connections and touch - of course recalls how quickly time flies, how fleeting life can seem if you fail to take the time to marvel in the moments, and impermanence. a teaching on impermanence my ba sent recently:

Taking impermanence truly to heart is to be slowly freed from the idea of grasping, from our flawed and destructive view of permanence, from the false passion for security on which we have built everything. Slowly it dawns on us that all the heartache we have been through from grasping at the ungraspable was, in the deepest sense, unnecessary.
At the beginning this too may be painful to accept, because it seems so unfamiliar. But as we reflect, slowly our hearts and minds go through a gradual transformation. Letting go begins to feel more natural, and becomes easier and easier.
It may take a long time for the extent of our foolishness to sink in, but the more we reflect, the more we develop the view of letting go. It is then that a complete shift takes place in our way of looking at everything.

*the only negative about the fact that perfectly cute cupcakes are now available in beijing (http://www.lollipopbakery.cn/) is that i can no longer engage in idle chatter about opening a revolutionary cupcakery. no matter. i will just need to double up my discussion of abstract business plans for a champagne / wine bar.... sadly, all my alleged 'business partner' (a girlfriend equally willing to dwell entirely in possibility / our own imaginations on this) and i have managed to do is conduct 'research trips' to 'assess the competition' and drink wine a number of beijing bars. mind, we still consider that a worthy accomplishment, living in the moment and all.

'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.

what's free speech got to do with it?

i have had many interesting conversations about google's withdrawal from china. especially among my colleagues, who have varying views on the matter. i have been meaning to collect them here, and make an articulate, nuanced and compelling point about freedom of expression in tidy letters well-arranged. i even had "我♥谷歌" (i heart google") as my gchat status message for a time, which says a lot given that, as previously noted in this space gchat status messages are my current creative outlet. my genre, as it were. which may or may not implicate me in the whole google affair in some abstract artistic sense. however, i do not need share my conversations with you or make tidy points here, because i have just read an op-ed piece in the china daily which says it all. ahem:

Google's exit a deliberate plot
By Ding Yifan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-03-25 07:48

Editor's note: Google’s moves are combined with Washington’s tongue. The US company finally exits when it’s able to achieve neither business survival nor political aims.

Search engine leader has been part of the US' foreign strategy; its departure opens the door for domestic and foreign rivals

After two months of intense spats with the Chinese government, Google said on Monday it would shut down the mainland-based Google.cn search services and redirect the mainland's web users to Hong Kong.

In January, the world's leading search engine threatened to leave after alleged cyber-attacks in the mainland. Google said it would no longer filter its Chinese-language search results, a commitment that it agreed to when the company launched its search operations in China in January 2006.

Google's withdrawal is not a purely commercial act. The incident has from the beginning been implicated in Washington's political games with China.

A few days before Google made its announcement, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lavishly praised US Internet companies for their role in helping the Obama administration realize its foreign policies, at a lunch with chief executives of Google, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Clinton in particular sang of their positive role in instilling US political stances and values into Georgian and Iranian street politics to sway local public opinion.

Given that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have no access to the Chinese Internet market, the White House believes that Google alone cannot play a large role in China as it did in Georgia and Iran.

As expectated, days after the enlightening lunch, Google announced its withdrawal of its search service from the world's largest Internet market on charges that it could not tolerate strict Internet censorship required by the Chinese government. Immediately after its announcement, Clinton made a speech in support of Google's "Internet freedom" campaign.

Google has enjoyed intimate links with the Obama administration. The company was one of the four major sponsors of US President Barack Obama during his presidential campaign. It also played an important role in helping Obama's team raise election funds.

After the Obama administration was sworn in, some senior Google managerial staff members were successively recruited to important government posts. Such close connections between the two make it natural for Google to be devoted to serve the Obama administration's foreign strategy.

The search engine leader's exit from the Chinese mainland is a deliberate plot. The charge that it is opposed to China's "hacker attacks" and "Internet censorship" not only sounds reasonable, but also caters to the prejudices cultivated in the Western public toward the Chinese government. Google's case is in essence part of the US' Internet intrusive strategy worldwide under the excuse that it advocates a free Internet.

Google's accusations against China are completely groundless. The company has so far failed to submit any convincing evidence of the Chinese government-aided hacker attacks on its search engine. The censorship charges also exposed the engine's ignorance of similar practices prevailing across the world.

Google's services in Germany, France, India and other countries are also under scrutiny. Even in the US, it is not rare for some government agencies to often intrude into private e-mails under the anti-terror pretext.

Many of the US Federal and State laws and acts have clauses to restrict the flow of information on the Internet. In California, Colorado, Nevada, Louisiana and other states, public libraries, schools and Internet service providers (ISP) are required to put measures in place to block juvenile access to pornographic content. As the world's largest filtering software producer, the US has made the world's majority part of information-blocking software.

Google's Monday announcement was also a grudging commercial move amid its gloomy performances in China's market. Compared with Baidu.com, China's largest search engine, Google has lagged behind. It suffered a series of setbacks in the fastest-growing market, especially last year.

Google.cn was accused by China's Internet watchdog in January and April of last year of reserving porn contents and linking to other unhealthy websites.

Consequently, the Chinese agency made a decision in June to temporarily halt Google's outbound search services and its key words search business and urged the engine to rectify the matter.

In September, Kai-Fu Lee, who spearheaded Google's push into the mainland's market, resigned as head of Google China. Lee's departure was followed by successive resignations of other Google employees and the standoff of some of its local business.

By exiting from China, Google is by no means a political victim as it claims. Its departure is completely a failed result of competitions with other rivals in the fierce Chinese Internet market.

Google's departure is not expected to cause large losses in China's Internet search business. On the contrary, the unwise move will leave more room for China's homegrown search engines, such as Baidu, to improve and to benefit from its search technologies.

For a long time, some other foreign Internet companies, including those in the US, have been covetous of the world's fastest-growing market. Google's exit as a powerful competitor will leave them more commercial opportunities. Upon its announcement, Microsoft, which has been vying with Google for the market share in search software, issued a statement saying foreign companies should only abide by local laws and rules to keep their business thriving.

The author is a researcher at the Development Research Center under the State Council.

********************************************

reading this article reminded me of a 1994 quote from yu yu lin of the taiwan-based china times about reporting on mainland china: “If we don’t publish the lies and the rumors, there will be no news.”

when were were kids in beijing, my sisters and i used to call the china daily "the happy paper" because it was always bursting with good news. without fail and without so much as a glance at the front cover, we could accurately predict what articles we would find there on any given day. this actually became a bit of a game for us. there were three main genres: (1) china improving its relations with another country; (2) a peasant in some part of china improving the country; (3) a peasant really loving chairman mao or the party or otherwise demonstrating passionate nationalism. so on a typical morning, we could learn: (1) china improves relations with malta!; (2) farmer in guangzhou achieves record harvest!; (3) mao enthusiast saves silk scarf with the chairman’s portrait for 45 years!. not much has changed. although now the news is not always happy, even if it makes me smile sometimes. i recall an article from last august entitled "australian moves sour relations". the opening sentence was as follows: China canceled plans for Vice-Foreign Minister He Yafei to visit Australia earlier this month, reportedly due to Canberra granting a visa to Rebiya Kadeer, the mastermind of the July 5 Urumqi riot. awesome. the author later uses "masterminded" as a verb, saying "kadeer mastermineded and directed the violence". i really appreciated that use of the word of the word mastermind. almost as much as i appreciate the use of the word "expectated" in the above piece. in fact, that whole paragraph is sheer poetry and intellectual power:

As expectated, days after the enlightening lunch, Google announced its withdrawal of its search service from the world's largest Internet market on charges that it could not tolerate strict Internet censorship required by the Chinese government. Immediately after its announcement, Clinton made a speech in support of Google's "Internet freedom" campaign.

perhaps i'll further pontificate on google at some point. or perhaps i simply need to focus on having more enlightening lunches and see what comes next. or maybe it's more about masterminding my expectating free speech.

bittersweet symphony

there is nothing profound about this title. it is simply the song that is playing at the moment. (then again, all of my titles are songs of some sort, even if i am only singing them in some small corner of my heart.) life slowed down for me last friday as the back-to-back programming came to an end (our judicial training on domestic violence was immediately followed by an environmental legal advocacy program). the next morning, i awoke to find beijing caked in grimy orange. there was a flamboyant dust storm that day. it commenced somewhere after midnight and i just learned today that the ppm measure for beijing air quality at around 4:00 am saturday morning was 700. healthy is 50. really seriously bad and you shouldn't go outside is 500. i cringe to think about what the levels were on saturday as i walked to ballet class.

i hadn't seen a dust storm like this in beijing since i was a kid. it's hard to open your eyes and it gets in your teeth and it's generally rather horrid. it reminded me of my excuse for smoking in high school - cigarettes tasted better than the air. that was quite possibly true. well, that or i was simply being rebellious. also possibly true. of course, now i spend my time complaining about all the smokers in beijing and trying to avoid restaurants or bars with too many of them. it's hard enough breathing in this town without having to inhale second-hand smoke as well. and yet, i stay. even with the miserable ambient air quality this weekend, i had a few moments of joy and wonder at being here. and there's the bittersweet symphony.

i had a lovely dim sum brunch with girlfriends on sunday and then a wander through the city. we stumbled cross to older men with birds they had trained to fly and catch little orbs they would shoot into the air. there was something at once humble and striking about the scene. something in the way they cradled the birds in their hands and threw them as they released them. we stopped to watch for awhile. a woman holding a dog in a red t-shirt watched with us. i loved that moment.

it always comes down to moments. i still have moments punctured by sadness. or perhaps more precisely, wanting to share. share everything - the men with their birds, the dog with his alert ears and red t-shirt, the excitement of this new program aiming to empower grassroots environmental NGOs to engage in legal advocacy, the clever line i worked into my closing remarks at our judicial training, the latest gorgeous pic of my nephew, my most recent mediocre poem. but savouring the moments myself has to be enough for now. maybe for always.

i am hopeful that the bitter air will become sweet this week. all the wind did seem to clear things out for a few hours on sunday morning. like the weather, my feelings about the potential for rule of law in china have been unruly of late. stretches of dark, dusty storms of dismay punctured by swells of hope and clarity. (although the real state of things was probably best articulated at a rule of law roundtable i attended two weeks ago: the CCP is politicizing, rather than professionalizing, the courts.) this morning, i came across a quote i had noted for myself some time ago, unfortunately failing to note the source:

I believe that, despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies, is a crucial obligation. It is, in fact, mandatory.


it reminded me again that i will always be doing this, in some sense. even when the dust gets in my eyes and the sky is obscured.

dueling thoughts on dust to conclude:

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
Pablo Picasso

Avoid the world, it's just a lot of dust and drag and means nothing in the end.
Jack Kerouac

you have to love before you can be relentless

that statement was on a list a friend sent me of jonathan frazen's 10 rules for writing. it was number 10. although i am not clear on whether that makes it the most important or the least. i am going to assume most. i have been thinking about its implications over the last few days. which somehow feels appropriate as i am in the midst of a week-long judicial training and training of trainers (TOT) for chinese judges on how to handle domestic violence cases. before i am misunderstood, let me explain that it feels appropriate because of the passion that people bring to the anti-violence movement, not because i think the statement can be contorted to somehow be equated with violence. working with this small cadre of chinese women and men committed to eradicating violence, or at least decreasing it, or increasing the protections for survivors is inspiring. they are relentless. and, i suppose, so am i.

it has been an intense few days. we held the TOT prior to the training this time (our programs are usually structured in the reverse). and the TOT group is working with our foreign expert trainers to facilitate during the actual training. they lead a series of 'practical courtroom exercises' - model court role plays - on their own this afternoon and it was fantastic to see them apply the facilitation skills they had learned. it also made us all realize that we have our work cut out for us. and china is at such an interesting point in developing the capacity of the courts to protect the rights of domestic violence survivors (or victims as they are still called here). the role play exercises were designed to assess the level of awareness about domestic violence the judges participating in the training have going in, and their role plays and discussions revealed many profound misunderstandings. then again, how much can any of us ever really understand this problem? tomorrow we will spend a day focused on the dynamics of domestic violence. tonight at dinner we had a lengthy discussion about how, in the US, the 'cycle of violence' model (escalation / tension build - violent episode - honeymoon phase) has been largely discredited and replaced with the power and control wheel (more complicated and nuanced). it's an important conversation, but it all feels antiseptic sometimes to try to squeeze this impossible, complex, dark thing to fit some sort of a circle. a shape of any sort.

i have also realized that i have a hard time turning off when i am immersed in a work program. i took a break on saturday night and went to the irish ball (for st patrick's day). overall, it was a grand time. i got glammed up & danced the night away, something i haven't done for ages. and i managed to sleep in until 2:00 pm on sunday, something i don't think i've ever done before. (when i finally got up, i was so proud of myself for sleeping for 10 hours! and i felt great.) but when i first arrived & we were sitting down to dinner (i was at a table with a group of friends), i found myself laughing with incredulity. or maybe it was exhaustion. but i found it astonishing to even be there, with my outrageous shoes and glamazon dress and big hair, after the three overwhelming days at the TOT. a friend was trying to mix up the men and women at the table and possibly set me up with someone (we were both canadian, that was the alleged connection), so i was seated next to a man i hadn't met before. as i was laughing at life and the places and spaces one can occupy between dawn and dusk, i apologized in advance. i said i was utterly exhausted and couldn't promise i'd be much of a conversationalist that evening. and then i ended up launching into talking about (what else?) domestic violence. and the role of the judiciary in combating it. and our training. not sure he was very impressed, but he made a good partner in the line dancing at least.

so what does all of this have to do with love and being relentless? not really sure. (did i mention yet that i am tired? (but content.)) or maybe i'm all too sure. maybe i liked frazen's number 10 because i can relate to it in ways too numerous to articulate here and now. reminds me also of the line at the end of tennyson's poem 'ulysses' - to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

i have loved. and i am relentless.

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!

warming both hands by the fire of life

i find myself recalling this image on this very grey beijing day. not a flame (or a glimmer of sunlight) in sight. it is one of those days when the pollution is so think you could stick a spoon in it and i imagine it would stay suspended in the sky. ick. in this unwarm environment, i am feeling warmth in life. although the line comes from a poem about death. (landor's "on his seventy-fifth birthday": nature i loved, and next to nature, art; i warmed both hands before the fire of life, it sinks, and i am ready to depart.)

that's all any of us can ever do, really. warm our hands by the fire of life and marvel at it. getting burned is unavoidable. but better than being cold.

i am glad to be in this space again, despite my promised six months of silence. even at the time, i admitted the six months was arbitrary. a friend visiting in january and listening to all of my elaborate constructs sagely observed that you can't place a timeline on your emotional life. i told him i love plans. and i needed an infrastructure of some sort at that point. i needed momentum, marking points, something. i acknowledge now, though, that my need was misplaced. really i just needed (and need) to marvel at the fire of it all. warm my hands.

and then, death

after writing in the wee hours of this morning, i received some deeply tragic news. it swiftly made all my worries about beginning to blog again seem entirely insubstantial. i had fretted about becoming one of those women who blathers on about her broken heart, or been concerned about opening this medium of communication and really only speaking for or to little trouble. i had been giving serious consideration to only using this space for 'professional' ponderings - focusing on the law and human rights and abandoning my musings on butterfly wings, trust, and other such gossamer things. and then, death.

in january, a wonderful legal expert came over to participate in one of our programs. he was truly a remarkable and brilliant individual - one of the world's leading experts on natural resource damage assessment (his technical background is in environmental toxicology and ecology), he was also an accomplished jazz pianist, a loving father, a traveler, a linguist, a cook. we connected in a way that i rarely do with our legal experts. in addition to delivering brilliant lectures for two environmental programs, we spoke of murakami and his fascination with subways, of art and the many ways to make a life. early in planning this program he had asked if his son, an art student who was interested in asian art, might accompany him on his trip to beijing and if we could help him find appropriate activities. i of course agreed and said i would do what i could to make sure his son had an enjoyable visit.

his son was named hart. he was bright, unfailingly polite, kind, and gracious. he had a great time exploring the beijing art world by day and met up with us in the evenings. i was impressed with his sense of adventure (he somehow managed to navigate his way to the art museum on a local bus), his warmth, this commitment to truly see things (sketching outside the confucious temple for hours in the bitter cold), and his perspective (his photographs and descriptions of his time at the 798 art district demonstrated he saw much more there than i did). on the last night of our program i had hart and his father and some of my colleagues over to my flat for a celebratory glass of champagne before dinner. i'd never invited a visiting legal expert over before, but it just felt natural with them. hart sent me a sweet thank you note not so long ago, saying that his visit was an incredible experience and that he was working on a whole series of drawings and paintings from his china adventure.

i learned this morning that he died unexpectedly the day he sent me that email. i almost couldn't believe the news as i read it. it was from a colleague of hart's father's - we had been working on developing a follow on project together and he was explaining that he had not been responsive because he had been dealing with a personal tragedy. my heart breaks for him and his family. and for hart. who still had so much to give. here is a brief piece on his death: http://www.dailycamera.com/obits/ci_14422312#axzz0gP0VaPiE

i am now trying to write a note to his father expressing the condolences of our office. but how do you find the hard, round words necessary to say anything meaningful in these circumstances? it is also always strange when the very real - death, love, blood - bursts the immaculate bubble of professional or academic life, where we are meant to function and interact as brains alone. but we never are. i actually recently had lunch with an impressive former law school professor of mine who i initially developed a connection with by my father's helping him locate hospice care for his father as he was dying. something so real, raw, and intimate we never spoke of it in person or in the law school hallways - only over email at night. this professor has gone on to do great things - win supreme court cases and such. but at lunch he still asked about my ba. it's these human connections that always matter more. and death always reminds us of how fleeting it all is. how it can all be undone in a second. and so we must love, while these moments are still called today. life’s short and we never have enough time for the hearts of those who travel the way with us. o, be swift to love! make haste to be kind. - henri-frederic amiel

i will make a donation in hart's memory. maybe live a little more daringly. try to discern the beauty everywhere a little more distinctly. discard my insubstantial worries - about this blog or otherwise. and love, love, love.

in dreams begin responsibilities

i recently read that line - in dreams begin responsibilities - in a murakami book. he attributes it to yeats. nothing makes me happier than reading murakami making sense of yeats. so i immediately wrote it down in my little black book for collecting the words and ways of the world that inspire me. i loved that line not only for the authors, but also for how much thinking it provoked. (this may just once again confirm my capacity for over-thinking, mind, but nonetheless.) my final assessment, unsurprisingly, is that we must dream boldly and find ways to live up to our dreams - that we have an obligation to our most uncensored, subconscious, true and sacred selves to pay attention and to do so.

i was dreaming earlier tonight, but am now sleepless at 4:00 am. thankfully i am no longer awake with heartache, merely jetlag. but if in dreams begin responsibilities, in jetlagged early morning hours begins a return to blogging. i am just back from a glorious three weeks in the land of the free and the home of the brave. while there, i did yoga again for the first time this year. i went to a class in nyc frequented by a few friends. the class was ansura - a style of yoga that i had not done before. it was an intense experience. the teacher's approach was very much focused on alignment and she spoke of relating to one's body in ways i had never imagined. instructing us, for example, to hug our muscles up our legs from our feet to our hips, open space behind our collarbones, and all manner of other gorgeously vivid anatomical ideas i cannot even recall now. she was obsessed with the tailbone and even had us find ours at some point as we were standing on our mats. her purpose was to open us up - to create space in the vessels that we are so that our grace and confidence could have sufficient space. i struggled with some of her instructions. i did not know how to actualize her command to make our blood less alkaline. or fully grasp her discussion of the challenges of being too acidic. (my internal dialogue was full of curious questions about that - ooh, i hate being too acidic, yes. good point. but when exactly am i too acidic? am i too acidic now? what causes it? and how can i make my blood less alkaline? deeper breathing? more focus? hmmm....) overall, it was a positive experience and it felt very good to be moving back towards yoga. and even if i haven't done it since, i have sincere intentions to resume my practice now that i am back in beijing. hopefully even find a teacher.

lying awake in my bed this not-quite-yet-morning, i reasoned that if i have returned to yoga, i can return to blogging. in fact, i have been having impulses to write since that saturday morning class. so here i am. one of the most interesting aspects of the ansura class was the way the teacher gravitated towards me. she has quite a following and the class was absolutely packed (people line up 30 minutes before class even after pre-registering). how much we all crave transformation! or is that it exactly? inspiration? calm? some glimpse into our own connection with the divine? a tight bum? maybe all of the above. she spoke during class about the relationship between precision and spaciousness - with more precision, we can create more space. an idea not unlike my sometimes love affair with discipline as freedom. of course, there are times when it is necessary and glorious to be imprecise. but i appreciated the more precision, more space mantra that morning and left feeling secure in my need to be more precise in my thoughts, words, deeds and enjoying the lightness that could bring. i am not sure why this teacher was drawn to me. after class, my friends were astonished, saying that we had a real spiritual connection. one commented almost jealously that she's been coming to her for years and never received any adjustments. i laughed it off saying she was only drawn to me because she could tell how needy and hurting i was, so it wasn't exactly a compliment. whether that's the case, i don't know.

i do know that early in the class, she came over to me while i was in downward-facing dog, used her hands to open my shoulders, placed her forehead in the centre of my back, nudging me a few times, and whispered "oh love, let it go." i almost burst into tears. instead i tried to allow myself to open further, to breath deeper, to process. (i have a document on my laptop called 'processing' these days. i have been writing there to avoid writing here. but i think i did more processing in that moment of letting my shoulders melt and twirl away from each other than i did in all my pages of cliched pondering.) she came back to adjust me one or two more times during the class. as the class was drawing to a close, she became concerned about a draft from the large studio windows that she felt was blowing on my mat. so as i was settling into shavasana, she constructed a small fort around me at my head using foam blocks and meditation blankets. she was protecting me from the draft, but it somehow felt to me as though it was about so much more than the wind. my friend on the mat next to mine turned and smiled, saying "you have a fort!" i smiled back, repeating, "i have a fort!" what i didn't say was, "i am fortified." i will get through this. i knew that before i set foot in the yoga studio. somewhere in that precise, deep, sacred space within. the wall of blankets this teacher created only confirmed it. but it was a safe, glorious feeling nonetheless.

when i was little, i used to call my little sister, the cat, and myself "glorious kings". i'm not sure where i got the term or why it comes to me now. but i felt like a glorious king in that moment in the fort. it was a sweet, precise calm after a few whirlwinded storms of emotions - unfathomable deep love for a small child, joy at reuniting with old friends, sadness to see a kindred spirit in terrible pain, overwhelming confusion and hurt after a difficult conversation with a love, gratitude for a full life and an open heart - and there was so much space there i could have swum in it forever.

instead, the class ended. we stretched, shrugged on our coats, and contemplated where to go for brunch. i almost went up to the teacher to thank her for her guidance, but i wasn't sure what to say. and i was worried i would cry. so i thanked her with my heart. when i tried to pay the $2 for my borrowed yoga mat, i was told to take my $2 and give it to someone who needed it to buy a cup of coffee. so i did.

and now i am back in beijing. trying to remain more precise, more spacious. paying attention to my dreams, noting their attendant responsibilities. and dreaming boldly.

sound(s) of silence

so i have decided to be silent for a spell - close this window into me and listen to the sounds of my own inner stillness. i'll resurface in six months or so. that length of time is admittedly arbitrary, but i love plans. even if all of those best laid are only ephemeral illusions of control or gossamer impositions of order. i hope that six months will be sufficient time and space for something. what exactly, i'm not sure.

i tend to think that silence has many sounds, and i hope to observe them all. although this might be a challenge at the moment. i find myself unable to do yoga these days. and not only because lei feng gets in the way. i cannot seem to still my whirring mind and heart enough to practice in any real sense. and even when i try to compel myself to do so, i walk away before i even begin. so much for discipline as freedom.

speaking of lei feng, he seems to be slowly easing into his new life. he may not be a model comrade yet, but i am giving him time. he has one quality which i find completely baffling - he doesn't like beds. he in fact he will not go on the beds in my room or the guest room. this is baffling to me because it echos back to an ongoing debate i had with little trouble. during our many talks about expanding our menagerie of imaginary pets (pangpang the cat, trotsky the pig) to include a real pet, he expressed very hard line views about the places animals can occupy in a home. little trouble's pet policy in fact directly parallels china's "three no's" policy on taiwan. to wit: no taiwan independence; no two chinas or one china, one taiwan; and no taiwan membership in organizations where statehood is required. little trouble's three no's are: no kitties on the bed; no pets in the bedroom; and no kissing pets on the mouth. (i actually agree with little trouble's third "no".) when we would debate this, i argued that cats are independent-minded creatures who cannot be controlled or trained. and they love beds. therefore, i thought that the "no kitties on the bed" line was unrealistic. until i met lei feng. who is, apparently, a non-bed kitty. must be part of the modesty and altruism he has inherited from his namesake.

and with that nonsensical thought, i will say farewell and spare you further musings and magical thinking. i'll sign off with wisdom i once found on a shampoo bottle:

how you climb up the mountain is just as important as how you get down the mountain. and, so it is with life, which for many of us becomes one big gigantic test followed by one big gigantic lesson. in the end it all comes down to one word. grace. it's how you accept winning and losing, good luck and bad luck, the darkness and the light.

living lei feng

i have adopted a cat. somehow after a few hours in the bitter cold at a shelter past the sixth ring road (which may as well be another province) with a light coating of snow on the ground, i left with a tabby-coloured, long-haired boy whose name at the shelter was jingzhang or policeman. i am now finding that this is a rather surprising turn of events, even though i have been talking about adopting a cat for a matter of months and launched a 'hapless furball campaign'* a few weeks ago. talking is a rather different prospect than having a terrified beast staring down at you from atop the refrigerator. during the unbelievably long taxi ride back from the shelter, i considered new names for my policeman. and i am thinking of calling him lei feng.

lei feng was a soldier in the people's liberation army who was lionized after his death during the 'learn from comrade lei feng' campaign initiated by mao zedong in 1963. lei was characterized as a selfless and modest person who was devoted to the communist party, chairman mao, and the people of china. lei became a symbol of national propaganda and an enduring cultural icon symbolizing selflessness, modesty, and dedication. after mao's death, people began to question lei's life - the feats attributed to him and in particular his purported diary (200,000 words of flowery language primarily praising mao and the party) - were scrutinized. it has been suggested that the diary was a fabrication. indeed, much of lei feng's life may have been fabricated to fit the needs of mao's campaign. during 1964, the campaign shifted from encouraging the youth to learn from comrade lei feng and do good deeds to a cult of mao. for example, lei's diary apparently exhorted young people to "submit unquestioningly to the control of the great leader". chinese leaders since mao have continued to lean on lei feng as a symbol of altruism. zhou enlai, deng xiaoping, and jiang zemin have all written about lei feng. these days the term huo lei feng - living lei feng - describes someone who is seen as selfless or goes out of her or his way to help others. here is a description of lei feng from an editorial published in the people's daily in 1993:

When Lei Feng died in the line of duty, he was only 22, but his short life gives concentrated expression to the noble ideals of a new people, nurtured with the communist spirit, and also to the noble moral integrity and values of the Chinese people in the new period. These are firm faith in communist ideals, political warmheartedness for the party and the socialist cause, the revolutionary will to work arduously for self-improvement, the moral quality and self-cultivation of showing fraternal unity and taking pleasure in assisting others, the heroic spirit of being ready to take up cudgels for a just cause without caring for one's safety, the attitude of seeking advancement and studying hard, and the genuine spirit of matching words with deeds and enthusiastically carrying out one's duties.

i am thinking of calling my policeman kitty lei feng because i realize that i expect equally herculean tasks from him - not to shed too much, to coordinate nicely with my furniture and my art, and, most challenging, to heal my broken heart. poor beast. i am a little concerned that given his performance so far, he is going to be yet another male who disappoints me. although perhaps the policeman's lesson for me is to adjust my great expectations and do my own lei feng living.

though perhaps adopting him was mild altruism. he was, after all, rescued from the shelter. i almost adopted a sweet little girl kitty with one eye and two teeth, but recalled the last time i was looking to adopt a cat and my friends gave me grief for always been drawn to the neediest cases (three-leggeds, one-eyeds, etc). my impulse is always to reach for the creatures most in need of love. lei feng has four legs and two eyes, but so far i have not been able to give him much love. i could have adopted, from a friend-of-a-friend, two sweet little fluffy white kittens named bunny and honey. the six-year-old girl in me leaped with joy at the prospect! and would have promptly renamed them rainbowheartdiamondstarcrystallove (which incidentally was also the name i suggested to my parents for my youngest sister) and snugglemuffin. but i thought the sweet fluffy kittens would have no trouble finding a home. a scruffy three-year-old with skin disease or missing body parts is another story. however, now that my charity case is not accepting my love, i am reconsidering this strategy.

so anyway after a seemingly natural light dusting of snow, it is now coming down heavily and the courtyard outside seems to be getting lost. strange how the overwhelming whiteness can overwhelm the senses if you allow it. i may attempt to wander the muted streets later, leaving fraidy-cat lei feng at home, to appreciate the clean snow and muse about what else this new year might bring.


* 'hapless furball campaign' was the nickname i gave to my plan to adopt some unsuspecting furball to smother with love to ease the pain when things started to get tough with little trouble. unfortunately the campaign soon became overwhelming - i had maybe eight cats being offered to be from strangers and it was too much. (perhaps i have commitment issues of my own.) so i abandoned the campaign and fled to california for christmas. the adult human version of hiding wide-eyed on top of the refrigerator.

eating brussel sprouts with chopsticks

i am eating brussel sprouts (and jiachang dofu (family-style tofu) and majiang mifen (sesame-paste rice noodles)) with chopsticks at the moment. 'tis the night before the night before christmas and i travel tomorrow. so i needed to eat what was in the fridge, and it has resulted in this fusion meal. a combination like this may be on the menu at some trendy place in nyc. (i had olives and mala huasheng (spicy peanuts) while the brussel sprouts were roasting which i realize is equally east-meets-west.) being reflective after saying goodbye to my colleagues for the year, i think eating brussel sprouts with chopsticks is perhaps what i am always doing in some sense.

today the trial of a prominent chinese "dissident" began. (i put "dissident" in quotes because i have come to think of it as a problematic term, especially because of the immediate association with illegal or criminal behaviour. if the rights to free speech enshrined in china's constitution mean anything, he has committed no crime.) poet and activist liu xiaobo has been one of china's most vocal advocates for democratic reform. he is currently charged with "incitement to subvert state power" for advocating for open elections and free speech. although prosecutors also cited six recent articles he published on overseas web sites*, liu’s greatest offense is his role in crafting charter 08, a manifesto which called for rule of law, expanded human rights and an end to the communist party’s monopoly on power. more that 10,000 people signed charter 08 before the censors removed it from the internet. perhaps most poignantly, it sought to guarantee the right to free speech and the abolition of the very law under which liu is being prosecuted. why he is being prosecuted when many others had a role in drafting, promoting, and signing charter 08 is an open question. perhaps the government wants to make an example of him. many had hoped obama would raise his case during his visit. clearly the government waited until after the president's photo-op on the great wall to start liu's trial. and denied US and european diplomats entry.

on monday zhang boshu, a senior political philosopher and constitutional scholar at the chinese academy of social sciences - CASS, china's most important (state-run) think tank and academic institution - was asked to resign after being there for 18 years. this move is understood as a government rebuke of his advocating for constitutional reform in contravention of the "political discipline" of the communist party committee at CASS, which requires adherence to the central government's position.

oh tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy. oh tidings of comfort and joy.

and yet despite all the heaviness, i feel as though i am ending the year on a light note. i am thankful, despite all the obstacles, to be observing the struggle for rule of law here. i am moved by courage and compassion almost daily. and humbled. and troubled. and overwhelmed. there has been much about this year that has been incongruous - eating brussel sprouts with chopsticks. there has been much movement - both literally and less so. emotionally i have grown in ways that i never expected or imagined. i can say this especially now as i am planning to see little trouble in a week and hope that we can move towards one another once again.

and yet despite all the growth and goodness, i still find myself restless at times. then again, i wouldn't know what to do with myself if i weren't. by now i have moved on to dessert (chocolate pocky and dutch dark chocolates, unintentionally although appropriately as culturally cacophonous as the rest of the meal), and ought to move on to getting myself sorted for tomorrow's trip. i wonder whether brussel sprouts can be packed for a snack on the plane. i think yes. i dwell in possibility.

*according to his brother six out of the more than 490 articles he has published since 2005.

a path with heart

for some reason, flurries of friends affirming my strength seem to be in my forecast of late. (i also appear to be relating my emotions to the weather once again, but didn't realize that until this very moment!) it is of course very loving encouragement to tell someone they are strong. and, thus far, i have weathered life's storms. but i do not feel as though i am any more or less strong than your average spider princess*. i am always surprised, by myself and by sister-friends** whose heartaches i have shared, at the inner strength we all have if only we open ourselves to it, if only we allow ourselves to follow that path. a path that always leads to and through the heart.

i have been thinking about following a path with heart for as long as i can remember. although in this case, i am speaking more about generally choosing a way to be in the world than the specific process of choosing or finding a way to be strong through stormy times. (i do think of both processes as choosing to some extent. truly, the trick is in what one emphasizes. we either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. the amount of work is the same.) the idea of following a path with heart was something my father introduced me to when i was quite young. he was very much into carlos castaneda, particularly journey to ixtlan, and was trying to teach me how to lucid dream as a four-year old. (oh how i wanted to be able to do it and please him. but i never could. i could never find my hands!) the dreaming didn't pan out, but desire to lead a life with purpose, and follow a path with heart, did. in journey to ixtlan, through the teachings of don juan castaneda reveals a way of being a spiritual warrior in this world. his discussion of a path with heart there is simple - "Look at every path closely and deliberately, then ask ourselves this crucial question: Does this path have a heart? If it does, then the path is good. If it doesn't, it is of no use." asking those questions in practice can be more complicated. or at least we can make it so.

but what does this have to do with strength? or with the paths i am pursuing now? tomorrow i am very fortunate to be able to attend a program on public interest lawyering in china with attorneys and others who do work with tremendous heart. it is very sensitive for them to have foreigners at this program, and i am honoured to be one of two obvious lao wai - foreigners - able to attend. in thinking about tomorrow's program, i considered about the different paths people can take in the legal profession - paths with such great heart! (paths with tremendous profit!). i also reflected that it was in following my own path with heart - in multiple senses - that lead me here. and to tomorrow's program. and as i find myself tenderly considering my current path and its potential tributaries, i feel secure that i already possess whatever strength i need to find the right path(s).

castaneda also speaks of how warriors never worry about their fears. i sometimes wonder if that is true of the weiquan - rights defending - or public interest lawyers in china. they are warriors - both spiritual and otherwise. (incidentally, many of them have converted to christianity. this is an interesting discussion for another day.) there can be no space for fear on such paths. perhaps more appropriate for we lesser warriors is the idea that the true art of a warrior is to balance terror and wonder. that much i can do. even if the balancing act never ends.

i think that balancing of terror and wonder - that open-heartedness - is what sometimes is mistaken for strength. really it is less strength than just the audacity to insist upon following a path with heart.

*a once upon a lifetime nickname of mine. from a brian andreas quote: If I was a spider princess, she said, I would spin webs the color of sky and catch drops of sunlight to give to children who watch too much TV and then everyone would remember to come outside to play. If I was a spider princess, she said, things would be different.

**sister-friends can also be men, i have recently discovered thanks to a late night phonecall.

under pressure

i have just had acupuncture / acupressure done for the first time and am amazed at the spaciousness. i feel as though my spine will never be the same. and i cannot wait to go back. i went in to see about treatment for some neck and back pain. but have come out joyful and with a sense of wonder about life. i also surprised myself this evening. after shen daifu - doctor shen - did an initial assessment, she asked me if i was a afraid of needles. some brave self i did not know existed answered no. wo bu pa - i am not afraid. and so it began. with just three needles in each foot and calf and one in each hand, the muscles in my back released entirely for the first time in probably more than a decade. and then the real work began.

shen daifu is a very small, very warm woman. but incredibly strong. she spent a good hour while the needles were in standing on my back and legs and applying pressure or massaging me with her feet. it was unlike anything i have ever experienced. even when she was using her hands i was amazed that such a tiny person could produce such strength, could apply such pressure. she worked on me for two and half hours. we chatted some but during the quiet spaces i found myself thinking about pressure - about the pressure we allow others to apply to us and that which we apply to ourselves. pressure, applied properly, can push or release us to greatness, to spaciousness, or to both at once. improperly applied, it can crush, hobble, or diminish us.

once upon a lifetime i was much harder on myself that i am now. (the song "under pressure" was in fact something i would sing in my head while stretching to psyche myself up during my pre-race ritual when i was a swimmer. what does that tell you? although, to be fair, it was more about rhythm than message.) at that time, the pressure i applied to myself to be perfect was tragic and laughable. i have sometimes wondered where that pressure came from. why do we create our own pressures and what drives us to do so? doesn't the world give us enough already?

my transcendent experience with shen daifu tonight reminded me of another moment in my life when a stranger's pressure set me free. i must have been 16. a few friends from the united states had come to visit me and my family in beijing during the summer. it was a hot, sticky beijing august day and i was taking my guests to the ming tombs. about 45 minutes into the 1.5 hour drive, i started to feel incredibly nauseous. i willed it to pass. that didn't work, so i had to ask our driver to pull over. i was green and woozy by the side of a road in the beijing countryside with a car full of people relying on me to orchestrate the day. of course they were caring and sympathetic and suggesting that we simply turn back. but, this being deep in my perfectionist stage, i was putting pressure on my sick self to pull it together and continue. i recall staring up at the sun and not thinking clearly. at that moment, a chinese woman going by on a bicycle stopped and came over. she told me that she was a doctor of traditional chinese medicine and waved some sort of identification or badge before my face. she asked me a few questions, which i did my best to answer. she then proceeded to apply pressure to specific points - my temples, my inner wrists, my ankles. the waves of nausea receded, my head cleared, and i recovered completely. we thanked her profusely. i tried to offer payment, even if only in the form of the basket of fresh, ripe peaches we had packed as part of our picnic lunch. but she would accept nothing. she said seeing me recover was her payment. and then she hopped on her bicycle and rode off into the shining heat. i remembered her refusal tonight when shen daifu refused payment for the extra half hour she spent working on my impossibly knotted shoulders and neck.

shen daifu and i spoke a lot about balance this evening. the principle of balance really underlies a lot of chinese medicine. (and chinese philosophy, religions, and traditional thinking, i pointed out.) perhaps the still point we strive to reach with our pressures - both those we apply ourselves and those the world places upon us - is finding the right balance. an appropriate balance of pressures can be positive, transformative. an ill-balanced or wobbly balance of pressures can be negative, destructive. striking this balance seems a constant process.

memories and magical thinking

i have been thinking lately about the nourishment of memories. how they can sustain and inspire us in moments both unexpected and carefully arranged. whether they push us over in unguarded moments or whether we seek them out, collect and order them in tidy mental rows, they can provide a quiet sustenance. they can of course also haunt us, but i am not speaking of those kind of memories here. i am speaking of the friendly ghosts. the memories that float up and embrace you or stroke your hair from your face, look you in the eyes, and tell you you are loved.

some say that life is nothing but a series of moments, of those memories that nourish us, i suppose. perhaps this is true because moments (memories) are wholly our own. and we can edit and rearrange them to suit our constantly evolving personal narrative. that process gives us a sense of control* over our experiences and how they influence and help us to interpret who and why we are. this was something i struggled with a great deal in trying to come to terms with an experience i had as a young girl that i simply wish had never happened but couldn't deny had forever altered me. how can you love yourself and who you are without accepting said experience? how can you take ownership of something impossibly heavy and incorporate it into your sparkleicious lightness? . . . for what other purpose do we have an inner life?

another reason memories can nourish is they are among the most personal parts of our inner lives. which, incidentally, are generally underrated. of course, having a vibrant inner life is not something that can be measured and thus valued by society, your peers, anyone. which is precisely the point. but 'tis still a shame. i sometimes have moments of wanting to be deeply ambitious. (and i suppose in a sense i am.** but not in a terribly conventional sense. i have moments of wanting to rise to the top of some commercial, male-dominated industry. or make buckets of money. as a woman. just to prove that i can. as a woman. (it actually has very little to do with me personally.) but i can never ultimately see the joy or purpose in that. and i don't think spite is a very compelling motivation.) but, those moments aside, i feel the way our accomplishments are judged are all so outward and ignore the riches that can and do lie within. you can't exactly put "vibrant inner life" on your resume.

and i fear i may be starting to sound dangerously new-agey. although, to be fair, i'm not really sure what that means. little trouble used to tell me sometimes that i had hippie in my dna and he thought it was cute when that showed through, when certain cultural assumptions of mine would startle him.

something i have noted about my own inner life is my capacity for wonder and fantasy. perhaps we all share this. but i have always had a vibrant and not-easily-contained imagination.*** possibly more universal is our capacity in times of grieving to veer towards what joan didion calls "magical thinking".**** my current confusion and grief pales in comparison to the loss of a husband and a daughter's coma that she wrote about in establishing the idea of magical thinking - that grief makes us crazy. i have watched my already too-creative-for-where-i-am mind think (improbably! beautifully!) magically of late. i have observed the lines between what is actually happening and what could, what has already happened and what never will, sleep and awake, possible and other worldly, accurate and mystical, become blurred. and not been all that surprised or disturbed by it.

yet i also wonder if i think magically even when not grieving. among the many reasons that i thought little trouble was the one was his capacity to accept my imaginary pets. or roll right along with me when i veered from this reality off into another dimension and described it excitedly. he always came along, and in fact encouraged my capacity for magical thinking. i have never known another man to do so.

it is only fitting, therefore, that i am thinking magically now. and i am still wishing to share it. both the thinking and the magic. instead, i am being sustained by memories.

* can't resist a brian andreas quote: If you hold on to the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you.

** i resolved, btw, the cities dilemma of a few posts back. as long as i call new york the big apple, i can maintain the alliteration / aural appeal and still build a life dividing my time between beijing, beirut, and nyc.

*** why i chose a career path that very often involves its active suppression is another story. and to illustrate that point, a story. my legal writing tutor during my first year of law school opened our first writing feedback meeting by telling me that i wrote beautifully. the problem, she noted, was "you write like flower" (complete with a large, two-handed gesture recalling petals), and "lawyers don't write like flower; we are linear thinkers." (confession: i still write like flower when i can. they couldn't stomp it out of me.)

**** last starry footnote i promise. the review of her book, the year of magical thinking is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/books/review/09pinsky.html. incidentally, speaking of memories, i remember seeing the version of this book made into a play and performed by vanessa redgrave with some very dear friends in nyc. how far we have all come since that night! how many storms we have weathered! and still we beat on, boats against a current..... and the rest.

as though i had wings

i have been thinking about love and fear a lot of late. and freedom. and how they are all woven together inside us somehow like criscrossing veins on some exotic fruit. for some reason, the image of a pomelo comes to mind. perhaps because there is so much peeling involved. so much work to get through the layers of misunderstanding and confusion and to arrive at the delicious, textured, seemingly contradictory epiphany about how these three relate. not that i have it all figured out. i think that this is a constant process. an endless peeling. and discovering. and re-discovering. i love pomelos enough to especially welcome this idea. and i also love life enough to continue to peel through both joy and pain.

i wonder if i retreat behind images of produce because i am still processing my thoughts on these matters in a manner far too subtle and personal to share here. or perhaps it is recognizing that i do not at present have the faculty to be articulate about them. a beloved friend wrote to me this week, and among her thoughts was the idea that love liberates. love frees us. (i imagine it as love providing the spaciousness to be ourselves, to be really whole. and it reminds of my thinking lately about discipline as freedom.) this same friend had written not so long ago about love and fear, noting that choosing love doesn't mean there is no fear, in fact, to choose love we have to face our fears. one of my wonderful brothers-in-law used to say "love is the absence of fear". i think i am now beginning to understand what he meant.

a line from a mary oliver poem spoke to me yesterday morning - "I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings."

it is from a poem (improbably! beautifully!) about birds on a wire. and also, grief.

ahem:

Starlings in Winter

Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly

they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,

dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,

then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine

how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,

this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.

Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;

I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard. I want

to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.


- Mary Oliver