Closed for the Quarter:
No updates until December
because of grad school

Studies come first. Be well, fair readers! I'll catch y'all later.

The Faces of Diplomacy
or, the blind man's dream
Part II of "Developing Pains"

[Note: This is part two in a three-part expose on the politics and culture of development work in rural China, as witnessed first hand on a Jane Goodall Institute--Shanghai Roots & Shoots project in rural Anhui Province, July 2006].

Read Part I: Our Re-Education Vacation

Stay Tuned for Part III: Coming Out

If they'd known he was coming there would have been fireworks. But they didn't, so instead there they scrambled just to make tea in time for our meeting in the headmaster's office.

As we called the international summit to order, I ran my toes between the ripples of earth, troughs of green mold and brown ridges of soil. This was the perfect place to discuss my government's interest in rural Anhui, and just about everything from the impact of the cultural revolution to how to develop eco-tourism.

I didn't have much to say, having only been invited by accident when the town's accountant noticed I was blond and nearby. She must have thought I was part of the diplomatic staff. Little did she know that I too had only just moments earlier stopped helping another volunteer teach kids how to paint, that I too had no idea why this junior consular staff decided to take it upon himself to be the second foreigner ever to visit her town.

This second J_s_u_, a Latter Day Saint of girth and smiles and sweaty t-shirts, had just flown in from the stink city that morning to investigate our project—a bunch of high school and college kids in rural Anhui doing poverty alleviation. (I write this in retrospect and my temples yawn in astonishment at just how rare an opportunity this was).

This newcomer, who we started calling Big Qiao, because he my beautiful sister, set to marry Sun Ce. Myself, little Qiao, I was going to marry Zhou Yu. Oh, wait, this is a story about our observations of nascent inklings of shovel sashayety. It's about being part of Condoleeza's forward reaching diplomacy. Big Qiao wanted to see a project that "couldn't have happened five years ago." That official justification aside, Qiao probably just needed time away from his desk, or because he was still a boy scout at heart.

Oddly enough, he was also the only person on this trip in his 30s. Not just in our contingent either. He was the only thirty-something I'd seen since we left the county seat.

Local leaders didn't trust this thirty-something much more than I did. To the neighboring town's mayor, regional accountant, village head, and our old friend the headmaster, Big Qiao's unannounced arrival could have been a huge loss of face. They did everything they could to regain control of the situation. We on the diplomatic staff tried to control our giddiness at the thought that this was probably the biggest international event in the history of this village—ever. And we asked lots of questions.

As we learned at our meeting, the reason I hadn't seen any other reform generation-aged people (gen x-ers to my America audience) is because the rest of the middle aged villagers had become part of China's 100 million-plus floating population. Fully 60 percent of the eligible workforce was now in cities like Shanghai day laboring for five dollars a day. (If only that meant as much as it did when Henry Ford paid his workers the same).This left the village with an interesting mix of the very young, the elderly, the feeble, and the insane. All of them are desperately poor, the worst off living on less than $100US per year.

Part of the goal of this trip was to identify these neediest village residents and administer aid. The headmaster thus led us into the hills.

We first visited a family of seven—two grannies, gramps, man and wife, great uncle, and an infant—who lived in a Ming Dynasty home, built when the family moved to the region eight generations earlier. This house was a living tomb. "Long live Mao Ze Dong thought" was slathered in red across the ornate archway. We passed hanging hunks of meat encased in preservative hairy green mold and a small-scale casket factor in a side room. Like other households we would visit, the family was eviscerated, its middle generation toiling in the cities to send back pittances.

We ate lunch at the third house. By then we were soaked and it has started to storm. Curious enough, along the way, we stopped at Yang Shan Village's one claim to fame, a stand of natural rocks that seemed to jut out like foundations of a bridge over the valley. "Legend has it," said the headmaster, "that these stones were placed here by the immortals." Whether it was the same eight Taoist adepts who left human form in antiquity I didn't ask.

Lunch turned into a small fiasco when our group tried to pay the equivalent of $20 American dollars to the family who made our food. They even purchased two cases of beer, which we rightly refused. The family's protestations and our insistence turned into a small scuffle, with members of our group actually forcing the bills into the matriarch's sweaty mitts and then holding her back when she threw them back at us.

When I tried to buy some tea at the last house, the family again refused my payment, even when I couched it in terms of a donation for their granddaughter's school supplies. After butting heads for close to twenty minutes and trying all manner of roundabout ways, I finally told him that I would make a donation to the headmaster instead. I still trusted the headmaster at the point, but soon my opinion would change. Either it wasn't just that man's back that was crooked, or that he was working at the behest of superiors who acted just a bit slaunchways.

My first inkling that things were off came when I realized that this tour and the tour the day before had one major difference. Whereas the first half of our group had actually seen the poorest of the poor, we seemed to be visiting the headmaster's friends, even one of the teachers at the school. Every household had livestock, televisions, and home-made satellite dishes made of woks, tin cans, and other scraps. Perhaps the headmaster thought he was avoiding an international incident, but lunch might have set better if the family had been desperate enough to take our money without a scene.

That afternoon during my daily afternoon "cleaning" meditation, my eyes would not stop watering. My right eye felt like it was full of sand. Tears welled and streamed. By nightfall, I was in severe pain. The next morning was even worse. I was in no shape to teach my art course to the local kids. Our intern doctors looked at me.

Diagnosis? "Sand eye."

CuTetracyclinelene cream and closed eyes.

Blind for the day, eyes swelled to the size of ping pong balls, throbbing with pressure and sensitive to light, I lingered on straw mats in our communal boudoir nibbling on potato chips. A dozen attendants—volunteers resting between classes—were at my beck and call. They served me food and read me the Chinese version of Jane Goodall's "My Life With the Chimpanzees." Then, when they thought no one else was listening, they began to share with me their philosophies and inner-most dreams and insecurities. I felt like a priest hearing confessional. Few of the blind are so lucky.

Our intern doctors said that if my eyes weren't better by the next day, I should ride back with my American buddy, even suggesting I fly back to Shanghai with him after the six hour car ride to the provincial capital of Hefei. The headmaster offered the village doctor.

The headmaster may have gotten chewed out for not informing the leaders that Spate Debarment higher-ups would eventually see what few foreigners get to see, but no one lost face. The only problem is that, as we'll see in the next installment of this series, I wasn't the only one who seemed to have lost site.

Through small patches of mobile phone signal, arrangements were made for we two ancient Chinese beauties to hightail it out of this place my "sister" described as a place that "even a chicken daren't shit."

Read Part I: Our Re-Education Vacation
Stay tuned for Part III: Coming Out

Sense Oars, Opera Singers, and NGOs
comments on my two newest articles--covering very different aspects
of Shanghai life

I was happy with the way my interview with Shanghainese Opera Singer Huang Ying (Ying Huang to English audiences) turned out. She's a very down-to-earth, friendly opera superstar. She was very patient giving up parts of a sunny Italian afternoon while I dealt with technological issues in Shanghai.

I'm happy with my NGO article as well. I'd never had an employee of any state agency take interest with such a seemingly innocuous sentence. This is what they cut:

"It's no surprise that Beijing, with its loads of development groups, let the Shanghai government dole out this landmark legal certification [narrator's note: first legal status for an outside non-profit]. If the capital had done it first, every group in Beijing would be clamoring to get registered."

And there you have it. My sense restored. Of course, it's not the first time I've had print turn out different from copy, and it probably won't be the last. But I can mark this down as the first time a civil servant has done gotten to my prose.

Meditate for Peace on September 21st, UN World Peace Day
and become the change you'd like to see
a letter from spiritual master Ram Chandra, Shahjahanpur India, July 8, 1957

To become the person the world needs me to be, I seek to integrate the guidance of my spiritual masters into daily life. Those masters, heroes, guides, helpers--whatever you want to call them--come in many forms and from many backgrounds. One of those masters is Indian sage Ram Chandra, founder of the spiritual foundation Sahaj Marg, which means "the natural path." This is a system of Raja Yoga that your narrator has found exceedingly efficaious. Here, in a special letter to the United Nations , Ram Chandra calls on us to meditate for world peace. Interestingly enough, Sahaj Marg was founded in the same year as the UN.

Letter to the United Nations Organization)
N..B349 / SRCM

Shahjahanpur, U.P.
Dated: 8th July 1957

Dear Sir,

I am glad to receive your bulletin and I pour forth my warm thanks for the awakening for peace created among our brethren of the world. The idea of peace common in all minds, though shattered by the self of the individual mind, is working on individualistic basis to gain one's own end on account of the narrow mindedness of people. To dissipate the idea of individual self and to work harmoniously for the common good is the demand of the time. The conferences and meetings held for the purpose may only be like spark to offer a temporary glow to the scattered fragment of peace. Their cries in the wilderness will not carry far on the path of success because of the material agony of faith working at the bottom.

What we, therefore, require at present is only to improve the morals and to discipline the mind. We must learn how to create within the heart a feeling of universal love, which is surest remedy of all evils and can help to free us from the horrors of war. I perfectly agree with our friend late Mr. Bernard Malan when he expresses his faith to unite in the common search for happiness. Happiness, of course, is necessary to end all grief. But it is like the Black wall of the scientists, which does not allow them to proceed further towards universal love. To come up to the level of real happiness we must necessarily rise above ourselves, which is essential for the creation of atmosphere of universal love. That is the primary factor in the solution of the problem. India has ever since been in search of it. She did not encroach upon other countries for war and blood shed not for reason of her cowardice but because she realized her pious duty towards humanity. They were happy in their own homes in spite of the torturous incursions of their nations. These tortures were to them nothing but flowers sent by the Divine Master to coach them to proper steps necessary for the uplift of mankind individually and collectively. The seed of it is so deeply laid that still its branches bear blossoms filling the air with the sweet fragrance of peace and happiness. It is so firmly rooted that even the worst tempest cannot uproot it. Such are the things necessary for the uplift of mankind, which everyone, occidental or oriental must treat as a part of his duty. Unless the foundation of peace is made to rest on spiritual basis no better prospects can be expected. It is but definite and certain that sooner or later we will have to adopt spiritual principles if we want to maintain our existence. If the material force can avert the incursions and attacks, blood shed cannot be avoided because even then we have to apply force causing thereby bloodshed on either side. Arrogance can not be stopped by material force. It is only the spiritual force, which can remove the causes of war from the minds of people.

How to introduce these things among the masses who are yet unfamiliar with the accuracy of the mark is the next problem and is equally intricate. If my opinion were to be invited I would lay down the simplest possible method as given below .

Let all brothers and sisters sit daily at a fixed hour individually at our respective places and meditate for about an hour thinking that all people of the World are growing peace-loving and pious.

This process, suggested not with exclusively spiritual motives, is highly efficacious in bringing about the desired result and weaving the destiny of the miserable millions.

With prayer for the success of your noble mission

Yours sincerely,
Ram Chandra
President, Shri Ram Chandra Mission
Shahjahanpur, U.P., India

Unanswered Questions
The 9/11 Video You Should See

Five years now since my nation was shaken to its core, we are still shadow dancing. When a friend showed me this video last fall, it raised questions I couldn't easily explain away. Loose Change is a video you should all see. The highest production value, least-sketchy alternate 9/11 narrative out there.

See Loose Change on Google Video and then tell me this ain't no never mind. Please.

Pray for peace. Work for change.

Burmese Government Expells Burmese Monk for Treating HIV/AIDS Patients:
An Impassioned Response
from activists in Chiang Mai, Thailand

I subscribe to a number of email lists that keep me abreast of the international development situation in my areas of interest. One of those is SEA-AIDS from www.hdnet.org, an HIV/AIDS discussion list for the Asia-Pacific region.

Yesterday I read the news about a Burmese monk in Yenanggyaung in central Burma being expelled from his monastery for helping HIV patients. According to this article by the Democratic Voice of Burma,

The monk was expelled from the monastery by the sheer pressure put on the abbot of the monastery from the local authority and military junta affiliated Union Solidarity and Development Association (USDA) members.

"The abbot summoned me and said; there are many pressures. The monastery also has a meditation centre and it (its reputation?) could be damaged. By being considerate to the benefits of the majority, find a new monastery. I was summoned and told thus at 2.15 (pm). I answered, I will move out at the end of the Lent, Thadingyut, my lord, because it is now the Lent. (Note: By religious law, Buddhist monks are supposed to stay inside their monastery during Lent). There is a meditation course going on during this Lent. I think it is due to the HIV case. Therefore, be considerate to the benefits of the majority, he said and went back to his room. It is good that I be absent (from the monastery) for the benefit of the majority, I said and kowtowed the abbot, and I said, please allow me (to leave) and I left the monastery."

Laurie Maund, the director of The Sangha Metta Project, an HIV/AIDS care project from Buddhist monks in Chiang Mai, Thailand, responded to the news with this post to SEA-AIDS, which he said I could post on this blog:

In the Kucchivikara Vatthu the Buddha said, "He who would tend to me should tend the sick and needy."

It is shameful that so-called Buddhist authorities in a Buddhist country should prevent a Buddhist monk from putting the Buddha's teachings into practise. In tending to people with HIV and AIDS, this monk is tending to the Buddha. By forcing him out of his monastery, the authorities have forced the monk to break his rainy season vow (Lent). They have prevented him from developing the Four Sublime States (Brahma Vihara), especially metta (loving kindness) and karuna (compassion). They have prevented him from tending to the Buddha. Instead of bringing peace to the world, as good Buddhists should, they are bringing suffering.

The authorities are making bad karma for themselves and will surely have to suffer as a result.

Instead of punishing this monk for doing what he as a monk is supposed to be doing, the authorities should learn from him and follow his example.

But then, it is difficult to teach lotuses beneath the water.

Shame be on the authorities.

Your narrator adds: How can "reputation" be so much more important than addressing this public health crisis? That poor homeless monk out collecting alms in the rain!

There is still too much darkness in the world. I pray that Burma's tyrants may see the light. They're still a bunch of thugs who pay lip service to Buddhism.

"We're running out of time..."
Jane Goodall Video on YouTube

A professionally done video of Jane Goodall with Mr. H. discussing her sacred message of people, animals and the environment. Dr. Goodall is as articulate and timely as ever. (I was cleaning out my "draft" email folder and found I had stored the link to this video there) Enjoy!

How to Help Stop a Genocide