on the road

crazy travel schedule this month...

two weekends ago, i traveled to my favorite ceramics city, jingdezhen, for a mini-music festival and ceramics fair. my first visit to jingdezhen was a year ago, and i blogged about it here. lovely weather, lovely people, and of course, beautiful music and art. though i did a fair share of running around to meet and visit with artists, there was enough beauty and respite for the soul that the time proved to be refreshing as well. a few images from the trip:

front row fans at the music festival

chelsea and i with our favorite inner mongolian bluegrass musicians, tom and jerry

fun ceramic figures by an artist we work with

a couple of rockstars :)

this past weekend, i spent three days in beijing. i traveled up mainly to speak to a group of christian chinese artists and to attend an event called 'illume', which can be best described as a performance of multi-disciplinary arts built around a theme. the performance i saw included drama (in english and chinese), dance and music. my favorite segment was a live, spontaneous, synergetic performance of music and painting. the theme for the evening was "smell and taste" (the "illume" series had been working through the five senses), and for this segment, the three painters and one yangqin player were given blind taste tests of various foods. they then had to create art simultaenously inspired by the flavor and also by the work being created by one another. creative and amazing to watch!

i also had a mix of other meetings including lunch with james elaine, a friend and adjunct curator of the hammer museum currently studying and working in china, and jonathan hursh from compassion for migrant children, an organization that seeks to improve the education and social conditions for migrant children in china's urban centers. my meeting with jonathan was very encouraging - lots of exciting collaborative projects coming up!

also had some time to see some friends and relax in the city a bit. i have to confess, i am slowly falling in love with beijing despite being a proud shanghailander. there is an enjoyable comfort and, how should i say, "normalcy" to life in beijing, particularly post-olympics.

a mysterious smoking mushroom...ok, it was just a steam vent but i thought it was very creative. and that steam is HOT--practically burned my neck getting this photo.

hanging out with daniel

next on the schedule: america! taking off for the states this sunday - 10 days in boston, one quick trip to nyc....let the madness continue. :)


cups of coffee: 2

mood: busy but content

hip, hip, HOORAY!

on october 14, 2009, my brother surprised his girlfriend with a path of rose petals, a gorgeous bouquet of red roses, a bended knee and a brilliant, beautiful, bling-o-riffic diamond ring. CONGRATULATIONS, PETER AND LISA!


i am absolutely ecstatic for them and excited to be getting a sister(in-law). they are a wonderful, lovely, fun couple. i'm so thankful that i could share an apartment with my brother this past year and a half and experience the great privilege of watching their relationship develop. and i think having a female flatmate hopefully prepared my brother for this next step and this long-term female roommate he's getting.... :)


cups of coffee: 2 (sadly, not enough)

mood: busy busy busy busy

empathy vs. me-pathy

recent events from this past week have caused me to think more deeply on the concept of empathy, a sorely lacking trait in china's culture. i understand why it's not a pillar in chinese virtues: a modern history filled with turmoil and uprisings, revolutionary change that the older generation still remembers, emphasis on blood relations and the importance of guanxi (relationship), deep-seated self-preservation and distrust... it all culminates to create an environment not entirely conducive to developing empathy.

but i strongly believe empathy can be taught--the question is how. i don't think it's a discipline whereby you follow certain guidelines and action points and voila!--empathy attained. it requires a willingness to shift in perspective, an ability to mentally and emotionally put yourself in someone else's shoes, to sift through all the trappings of "me" to the foundation of "us"--to recognize what it means to be universally human and to realize that the circumstances and emotions in another person's life can very well happen to you.

the problem is that we're all so deeply self-centered. we are all so grossly entrenched in our own hurts, fears and insecurities that there is no room for others unless we learn to make room.

i had to confront a member of my staff this week about something she said that another member of my staff (both chinese) found offensive and hurtful. her simple statement, though in its essence true, was said at the wrong time and in the wrong fashion, thereby angering the person the statement was directed to. as i talked to her about this incident, her initial response was defensive, and understandably so. she immediately argued that she was right, that what she had stated to the other staff was indeed factual. i concurred but then asked her to consider the statement from the other person's perspective, how hearing that statement in a certain situation would alter the perception.

it was a frustrating conversation in which i had to slowly build the case for empathy. at the end, she agreed to apologize to the other staff for her statement, but then immediately turned the situation onto herself and how wretched she is as a person. the situation went from self-defense to self-deprecation in a matter of minutes. so then i had to slowly and patiently encourage her to differentiate between mistakes we make and our entire identity as a 'bad' person.

and i suppose that's the crux of the problem, isn't it? we are all too busy justifying ourselves or tearing ourselves down once our ego suffers an intolerable blow. what we need is to somehow be lifted up out of the mire, rescued from the quicksand of self-absorption. the way i often picture it is unzipping the layer of me and being able to step out with ease.

i think saint augustine summed it up well in his prayer:

O Lord our God,
grant us to trust in Your overshadowing wings:
protect us beneath them and bear us up.
You will carry us as little children,
and even to our grey-headed age You will carry us still.
When You are our strong security, that is strength indeed,
but when our security is in ourselves, that is but weakness.

cups of coffee: 1

mood: pensive

I did not come here for the food...

i started this poem a few days ago while reflecting on what the heck i'm doing in china. finished yesterday on a lovely, sunny autumn afternoon while sipping a mango frappucino. :)

I Did Not Come Here for the Food

I did not come here for the food

though the delicacies are delightful:

translucent skins, globs of steamed meat

that playfully squirt you with a stream of juice and fat.

Those brown cubes of pork

braised, simmered, and stewed—

beaming at me beguilingly from their bed

of limp leafy greens.

I did not come here for the view:

miles and miles of concrete and stone

spreading wide and stretching tall.

On a good day you can see the buildings

stacked one on top of the other,

some massive shrine of glass and steel,

but most days all is mysterious haze

the color of cream of chicken,

or maybe mushroom soup.

I did not come here for the quiet

because you have to excavate for the quiet—

strata upon strata of honking and yelling,

the constant pounding of jackhammers

and the screeching of brakes that never seem

to take a break.

Stillness captured in calcite white

fossilized and lost in the rubble.

I did not come here for the people—

their crescent eyes perched on full moon cheeks,

voices rising and falling

sharp corners on precarious pitches,

sharpness matched only by elbows

jabbing and shoving—

forward, forward, constantly forward,

trying to break out of the pack

yet always staying true to the herd.

Some days I wonder why I came at all,

why I stay, season after season,

watching a city morph and grow,

watching a girl who is not the same

as the one who stepped off that plane

seven long years ago.

But there is some intangible pull—

like how the ocean tides wax and wane

at the bright moon’s beckon,

or how the moth flutters

in chalky acquiescence

towards the spot of light in darkness.

It is a rhythm, a sense, a peace—

a tugging of the heart,

a spirit’s restlessness,

the constant settling and resettling of

a buoyant soul

that cannot be anywhere but here

because this place, this time,

however strange

feels exactly

like home.

cups of coffee: 1

mood: lover-ly

o, china....it's a love/hate thing

the people's republic of china celebrated its 60th birthday with a parade strutting a whole lotta pomp in beijing. from president hu jintao's review of every military unit and piece of machinery the country had to boast to floats representing every province to hundreds of thousands of volunteers waving flags and bouquets of flowers, it was, in the words of "moulin rouge", "spectacular, spectacular."

good friend grace hosted a parade-watching brunch at her place, and our eyes were fixed on the tv while spouting the occasional comment made in awe and quip made in jest. it is mind-boggling to think of the changes that have happened in this nation in just 60 years. as i was watching the parade, reflecting on my own 7+ years here, it reminded me of all the things i love and detest about this place.

i don't think i've become more chinese since moving here. i would say i have a greater understanding of chinese culture, more awareness of the historical and social influences that have shaped this country, better tolerance (on some days) of the contrasts and differences that co-exist in daily life here. i still often feel like an outsider, knowing that both the dna and history of this place course through my veins yet feeling very removed from it all.

i've been working on a new poem recently entitled "i didn't come here for the food." it's basically a reflection on all the reasons that i am NOT here for. and it's driving me to consider what i am here for and why i stay.


cups of coffee: uno

mood: sunny day!