Love Of Life vs. Fear Of Death

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Those who truly love life do not fear death, because their love of life is based on appreciation, not possession (of life).

A Giant Step Forward In Regard To Not Take People's Cr*p!

A parent of my students (she has two kids in my class) came last Saturday 20 minutes earlier than class time (2pm). She knew perfectly I needed rest because I "accidentally" met her in restaurant around 12noon and I told her I had to rush back to rest so I could have enough energy to have my afternoon class. Not only that, I have a note on my front door, saying "Do not disturb between 1pm - 3pm unless class time". Nonetheless, she brought her kids came right after their lunch and knocked my door. And after I let them in, she said: "we are earlier." Not even a "sorry".

I was not used to make people embarrassed so I said that's OK. I quickly let kids playing with some craft sticks and told her that I must go back to upstairs to rest until class start. She said Ok. So I went upstairs and lied down in bed until a few minutes before 2pm.

Following Rules

Cover of Rules (Newbery Honor Book)

It's always easier to follow the rules made by others (majority, power classes, traditions, social systems, etc.), than to have rules inside one's own heart, and to follow them even when they contradict rules made by others.

Does Everyone Deserve Respect?

All About Evil (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I always believe all humans are equal, believe that everyone deserves respect, but sometime I found, only when I accept the fact that someone are indeed selfish, vile motivated, don't deserve respect, I can then get my inner peace.

For The Love Of Game

Playing go, from The game of go, the national game of Japan book. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My passion to "Go" (Wei Qi 围棋in Chinese) revived recently. For over three weeks, I've been play this game whenever I had time, whenever my physical condition permitted. Some time I played all day long. I even wonder, if my brain is strong enough, I wouldn't mind to be a professional go player.

Fact is, my brain is not as strong. Playing too much Go gives me headache. So I have to rest. I hope it is just due to the fact that my current physical condition restricts me from using my brain too much (reading also brings me headache).

Who Killed Marilyn Monroe?

Cover of Marilyn Monroe

I know Marilyn Monroe was sexy star and died at young age, and that's pretty much all I know about her. I never bother to know anything more about this legendary figure simply because she was not the type of person I would be interested. So do I really care how did she die? No. But still, this morning when I browsed through a news forum, one article that compares Monroe and Audrey Hepburn drew my attention. It says, that all residents of this planet know that Monroe was murdered by Kennedy brothers except news medias.

So I must lived somewhere else than Earth until this moment!

As matter of fact, I am not interested in Kennedy brothers either. But why I bothered to read through, because of my natural interest in "murder mystery". I would not put myself in labor of writing those details of the "conspiracy", but only want to say, that I have a "natural" tendency to believe in "rumors" about "high profile" figures - especially politicians, than news medias. Just like I believe those nasty stories I read about Mahatma Gandhi was true, so I would like to believe that Monroe was murdered by Kennedy brothers. Not big deal to me, really.

Again, I am interested neither Monroe nor Kennedy brothers, so writing this post probably only shows how bored I am (but I guess by doing so I can at least be qualified to be a "resident of this planet"). I would probably still go ahead to read more details about this case, only because I am a mystery reader, and this is still a unsolved mystery.

At last, even though I said I didn't care, I would still say, poor Marilyn!

Lush Green, Crape Myrtle, Fleas, etc. - My Midsummer Capriccio

IMG_8108 Crape Myrtle in Full Bloom (Photo credit: carlfbagge)

Since I learned words "lush green" (from my dear blogger friend Madilyn - aka "jerseylil's 2 cents") early this year, these two words jumped in my mind wherever I went, simply because that's all I saw during the season. Trees in NC are so dense that I once complained they blocked my view. Now, I learned to love them. They did not block my view, they are the view! Had I lived somewhere with wide open vista, I may lose the sight of all these beautiful plants. As I drive around everyday, I enjoy watching all the dense woods and I realized that I should only appreciate them because in somewhere people have to pay to just see them. I can't be too greedy!

North Carolina is a natural huge plantation. Here I see the most trees in my life. Not only "green", other colors joined landscape as well since spring. Pink, purple, red, white, all different kinds, show up here and there, made the view even "lusher". Among all these colorful plants, I found crape myrtle the most showy. They have all qualities of different plants: trees and flowers, deciduous or evergreen. You would mistake them as small bushes when they are young, but some of them in fact grow into 30 feet high. They are as elegant as roses or rhododendrons, as upright as maples or pines. I absolutely fall in love with them and very pleased to see we have many of them in the area. I even decide to plant several of them around my house.

Oh I love plants. So much more than I love animals. As matter of fact, I am not sure if I love animals - include humans - any more. Let's face it, what plants contribute to the earth? Oxygen, beautiful views, nutrition, cure remedy, you name it, all good thing, right? What do they take for survive? Water, light and air, which is almost nothing! For what I know plants make their own "foods" out of air and light. What animals take? Other lives. And what do they do to the world? Jeopardize each others life! Life of humans and animals is completely rely upon other lives, both animals and plants. We humans could not live independently like plants. We have to kill other lives in order to survive our own.

I have to wonder, if there were a designer, is this (living by killing each others) really a good design?

A few days ago while I was driving, I suddenly wondered, if I look at earth from sky, and imagine the earth as a cute little pet, such as a dog, plants - trees or flowers - must be the dog's hairs, beautiful and soft, nice to be touched, yet they protect the dog from harsh environment. Then what are we humans like? Fleas. Yes, we, together with all other kinds of animals, are fleas, or parasites, live on the body of this beautiful dog, bring her/him only trouble, while he/she doesn't need us at all.

I understand I am being cynic again. I better give more credit to humans or animals, since their (our) being here is not their choice. I have made decision, in my next life if I cannot choose to be an eagle - which is a selfish choice, as I just mentioned animals' lives depend on other life forms, I would be a tree, absorb light and air, quietly be part of this selfless and unconscious beauty of the Earth.

Right now it's middle of Summer. Humidity has been giving me trouble, but the beautiful view makes it worth it. And while I enjoy this lush view, I patiently wait for the autumn, another highlight of the year.

Do I Deserve Help? My Pride And My disappointment

The Help (Photo credit: __MaRiNa__)

During my relapse I am extremely debilitated so I often need help. But, I am living alone, also I happened to be a person who never learned how to ask help. What's worse, I am a person who doesn't look like need help. My relatively strong body build, my absolutely decisive countenance, my firm stride as long as my health permit me to be vertical, all these qualities make girls want to depend on me, guys want to leave me alone. This, also is why I better live alone during my chronic condition.

I have been in major relapse since June, and just started recovering since recent several days. This morning I feel almost perfect so I wanted to move several gardening stones (small size like football!) back to my backyard. Trust me, this is far less than a piece of cake for anyone in normal health condition, but for me, it is a serious task, so serious that I planned to do but have not touched it for days due to the fact that it might trigger another crash, which also could cause the cancellation of my weekend classes, on which my current income depends. Anyhow this morning I felt I could do it, at least I could do part of it. I also had my strategy, first to put several stones in my small dolly and push them to backyard. Plus, the fresh morning air was tempting, so I put myself in action.

Right after I put about 5 stones into my dolly, I realized that I once again overestimated my strength. Half way to my backyard there is a small slope, and I realized that if I "pushed" myself to pull the dolly up, I might have big trouble following up, and my weekend classes will be again jeopardized . So I decided to stop right there no matter what. But my dolly was right in the middle of lawn, between my house and my neighbor's. Just as I was wondering what to do, I saw a guy was knocking my neighbor's door, so I asked him if he could help me because I had heart problem. Since I was already breathless, my voice was extremely weak. He looked at me and said: I too have heart problem. And he lifted his shirt to show the scar on his front chest. So I immediately said never mind.

What happened the rest was that I struggled to move the stones one by one to my "territory", which is only a couple yards away from the dolly, then I took the dolly back to my backyard, and after that I immediately went back and lied down for a little while, let my heart back to normal function. So far, I don't feel big trouble but, I already could not cook lunch as I planned. I decide to boil some dumplings instead, because it costs almost no energy at all.

Thing is, I believe that guy could help me. Though he does have scar on his chest, but from his attitude, his loud voice, his brisk stride, I can hardly believe that he could not handle what I asked. Why didn't he offer me help? I don't know exactly, but based on my past experience, I have reason to believe it was because I did not convince him that I needed help. As I mentioned in the beginning of this post, I happen to have a relatively big build, don't look fragile, so I generally give people an impression that I am a strong person. During my past years, I just cannot count how many times I had to handle things I was actually not able to handle, and caused my crashes sometime relapse for days or weeks, and these disasters could be avoided only if people knew how serious my health trouble was so they could give me a hand. But I am very proud person, I would rather die than having people pity me, or misjudge me. Thinking that people would take my weakness and my asking for help as "mentally weak" would simple kill me. Truth is, this character of mine certainly contribute its huge share on worsening my health problems.

Of course, lessons after lessons, I have learned that I need to take it easy on how people think of me. It doesn't matter. I also should learn to be responsible to my body, my health. It's the only thing my life rely on. If I need help, I should just ask. As one of my blogger friends said, asking help is being responsible to yourself.

On the other hand, I can't help but feel so disappointed about some of our fellow human beings. The selfishness, the distrusting each other, and many more negative aspects of human nature, just darken my view on life. And sometime, I just can't help but think, that this earth is not for me, simply because I am too good to be here.

Call me cynic!

"Dam Street" - A Chinese Version Of Oedipus Legend

Cover of Dam Street

Yesterday my friend Marty (aka "nothingprofound") recommend me a Chinese movie Dam Street (红颜，literally translation: Rouge Face). He claimed that it was very different from other Chinese movies he had watched. I could not wait, found a streaming video online and watched it right away. After watching it I asked Marty what's the difference. He said that this movie "seemed to be more personal and universal at the same time". I feel exactly the same way.

As a Chinese American who lived in China for the first 30 years of my life, I feel the same way as my American friend who never lived in China, interesting, isn't it? I cannot speak for other Chinese people, but for me, this is the only Chinese movie I have ever seen that I would describe as "honest". From the beginning to the end, there's nothing pretentious, nothing were hidden or added for any different purposes from the needs of story line.

The story takes place in my hometown Sichuan province, the main character of this movie is about the same age as me, almost the same name as well (except Yun is not my legal name), so both geographic and cultural background are all familiar to me personally. Further more, the movie was shot in Sichuan dialect (or Sichuanese), which made it sounds more genuine to me than those made in Mandarins (maybe this is personal judgment, that I always feel the mandarin has "phoniest" accent among all Chinese dialects). The geographic environment is in some small town in Sichuan province, shabby and dirty. To my "horror", first time I saw "traditional" Chinese public restroom on screen (even just one shot, the "horror" cannot be missed). The brutal scene of killing of eels for meal brought me back to those days of my early life. The genuine touch on sexual life is refreshing, especially the boy's sexual fantasy, which was, and still is a "taboo" in Chinese culture.

Of course, all these details are not as important as the story itself. It is about a teenager girl who gets pregnant when she is 16, and since then her fate is somehow "defined", not by herself, but by unseen fate. The story reminds me classic legend of Oedipus, the one from ancient Greece. How interesting it is, that we humans with such different cultures always embark the same voyage in this giant ocean of human life, from time to time, places to places.

This movie premiere was in Venice, won several awards which were not so recognizable. Not sure it's ever screened in China (I talked to my nephew in China and he said he never heard of it). Of course, this is not a surprising treat for a movie without famous actors and actresses, or famous director. However, I am profoundly moved by this movie, and I hope it continues striving for recognition. I also hope the director Li Yu will continue making movies like this, provide the world more truthful images of "modern" China.

Strength vs. Challenge - My Relative View On "Attitude"

Spartacus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We often get idea about how strong or how weak a person is by looking at how much he/she can do, or cannot do. Is it really that simple? Is it true that a person who can lift 200 pounds stone is stronger than the one who has trouble even to hold a cup of water? Maybe, or maybe not.

I love watching tennis tournaments, because it provides me opportunities to study personalities. I found, that no matter how good a player is, when he/she faces a better opponent, he/she would not appear as good as he/she usually does. A top ranked player usually have the toughest personality and most diversified techniques. They hit balls hard, move fast, and mostly, they always take control of games. Watching them playing, you would feel they are absolutely invincible. However, when they faced some opponents who were better than them, the whole scenario would be changed: they would  appear to be sluggish, tame, even tactless. Did we misjudge them before? Maybe. But my answer is, the challenge changed, so our' impression changed along.

We humans like to believe that we are strong, especially when we refer to our mental strength. Nowadays, "positive attitude" is in everybody's daily dictionaries, being stretched to an extent that anything as long as we believe, we can do it. Based on this "positive" view, logically, those who "failed" to do things were considered as "negative", because they must have not tried their best. Of course, things may not be as extreme as I think, but more or less, this is a "fashion" I noticed. Personally, I found it's just a new type of "wishful thinking".

Relative perspective is what I prefer to use whenever I try to get right idea about reality. I believe life success (whatever your definition is) is not based on a single condition, but a combination of our born strength and our real life challenges. i.e., the reasons that some of us succeed could be due to the fact that they were born strong, or, their life challenges weren't as great, or both; and the reasons some others did not succeed could be due to the fact they were born with less advantages, or their life challenges were too great for them to overcome.

My own life experience can be an example of this "hypothesis". Before I entered middle age, most people I knew viewed me as an extremely positive person (that's how I view myself as well), achieved some "missions impossible" (such as my first several years experience in the "New World"), but since I got into health trouble, I found I was viewed quite differently, mostly because I spoke more "no I can't" than "yes I can". Have I really changed? I would say no, but my challenge changed, so just like tennis games, accordingly, my "appearance" and my "audiences" impressions changed.

I also noticed the difference between people's reactions to me during my "bad times" and "good times". During my bad time, people's reaction told me that I gave them a “negative” impression, during my good time a "positive" one. Since I knew inside me I was a same person, I realized that how our impressions can give us wrong ideas.

Our living conditions vary significantly, some favor our life and some don't, some elevated us, some would destroy us. So the challenges we meet can be very different. Because of this reason, people with approximately same abilities would hardly end up to the same place. I also don't believe that we all are born with equal ability in regard to cope with living situations. And because of this reason, when facing same challenge, different persons could end up with different outcomes - some would fail, some would win.

I doubt that "yes we can" can be as simple as a choice, I rather think it's an outcome of confidence. Further more, I also doubt that confidence can be a choice, rather, I like to believe it's a result of long term progressive experience. If a person failed and failed again, it is unlikely he/she would say "yes I can" soundly. I tend to believe, that how much we can do, how confident we can be, even who we really are, all depend on not just our desire, but also many other factors, among which our born nature and life challenges are the most crucial.

I understand that being confident and positive can be extremely helpful when we facing challenges, but I also believe, there's a fundamental difference between "positive attitude" and "self delusion". Sometime, being realistic can help us to have a better understanding about situation, thus we could have a more effective strategy to cope with problems.

There are all kinds of challenge in life, hard to say which is harder, and all depend on persons. However I have reason to believe, for most (probably all) people, those challenges that directly threaten to our life existence can be the most challenging. This why I consider my past several years health problem the biggest challenge in my life. I also realized, that the reason that most chronic illness patients endure a stigma of being "negative", is simply because that most people measure "strength" (or "toughness") by what they can see, not by "challenges" that we cannot see. For this reason, I have the most profound admiration to those who suffer unknown chronic illnesses for years, some of them for decades. Even though many of them would have tremendous difficulty to lift their arms, they are true heroes by all measures.

By conclusion, I think we can judge people's achievement by how much they actually achieved, but we cannot judge their inner strength by the same measure. Some people may appear to be weak, but that appearance doesn't necessarily speak for truth. Challenges are always out there, some we can see, some we cannot, and some we can never imagine, because each of our experience is highly limited. There is no one single absolute measure for our body and soul. The true value of our life, lies in our complicated interaction with this multidimensional world.

Honest Mind

Close up of The Thinker (Photo credit: Brian ⚓ Hillegas)

An honest mind would never let belief distort its observation, no matter how ugly the truth is.

Institutional Child Abuse In China

I always think, that child abuse is the number 1 problem in China. But, no matter how serious I think it is, the facts never failed to stun me. Based on recently news, there are some new type of "schools" in China, which I never heard of before, called "correctional schools" or "correctional camps", where kids are sent there for the purpose of correcting their bad behaviors, such as obsession with online, etc. Not sure if the concept was actually adopted from elsewhere. During training period, parents were usually forbidden to contact with schools (more ridiculously, many parents granted this rules). The consequence is, children were serious abused (mental and physical) and some of them died.

One girl in this news died by corporal punishment, with was common in this "school" (Zhengzou New Concept Combating school, 郑州新观念搏强学校), called "back crashing" （后倒）: several "teachers" held kids' limbs who were face up, and hit ground repeatedly. Sorry, I don't feel like continuing for the details. I guess you all get idea what's the consequence.

http://www.wenxuecity.com/news/2014/06/17/3363520.html

Yet, still majority of Chinese people do not think this is a problem. Something seriously wrong with that nation. Call me paranoid!

Isolation

Holding, pushing (Photo credit: madamepsychosis)

Maybe, isolation really is one of the worst culprits for human mental illness - an isolated person would likely have an unhealthy personality, and an isolated society would likely develop a sick cultural tradition.

To Be Yourself

English: Three quarter length portrait of Oscar Wilde (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What does it mean "to be yourself"? Coming from a collectivist culture (Chinese), I found in many cases it meant to break connections with others, if you happened to be different from majority. Even here in US I still can see that there is a strong tendency of conformity, which makes many people fear to be themselves.

I am a person who is very different in many aspects from majority of population, not necessarily "by choice". I knew this since I was very young. I have feared, also tried very hard to blend in, until I felt there was no room left for myself. Frankly speaking, I am quite tired of trying to be "one of many", so I decided it's time for me to relax, just to be myself.

Why it is so hard to break up with the "others"? The answer can be very complicated but, to simple put, I think it is because by nature we are still social animals, so without spiritual and material support from others, the loneliness is just unbearable to most of us. So based on this understanding, there is an exception, that is, if you are strong enough to be alone, to live alone, not to be afraid of rejection from the others, there will be no reasons not to be yourself.

So it's matter of how strong you are, in terms of how independent you can be. Those who sacrificed their lives just because of their being different, such as Oscar Wilde, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and so many many more, were truly strong souls. Today, we are on the threshold of humanism, of individualism, being different is not at all a crime, so there are less and less reasons for us not to be ourselves. However, for those who do not have enough courage to break the connection with other, there is nothing to be ashamed of to admit their weakness, as we all humans, and we all have our own weakness; for those who are naturally "one of many", I think it's time for them to understand that those who are different are still just as normal as they are; for those who feel "superior" just because of they are "one of many", i think they better not to consider themselves "superior", nor "normal", but vulgar.

Happiness

Happiness (Photo credit: -Reji)

Happiness derived from ignoring others' suffering is false happiness, because it is based on personal luck so it can be transcient; happiness derived from passion or compassion is true happiness because it embraces all life brought to us, joy or sorrow, so it lasts as long as we live.

Reading vs. Writing

Writing (Photo credit: jjpacres)

When reading, we communicate with others' minds, when writing, we communicate with our own.

"Absolute Causality Between Body And Mind"

Chronic Illness (Photo credit: eyejammy)

Believing a theory that states AS LONG AS you are mentally happy, you will be physically healthy, by my opinion, is a modern superstition very likely caused by the overwhelmingly futile treatment of modern medicine. Let me temporarily call this theory as "absolute causality between body and mind". When modern medicine cannot find anything wrong with patients, they usually "suggest" psychological reasons. And this "suggestion" gradually became "belief" because of people's blind trust to science, such as modern medicine and modern psychology, which both are young and far away from complete understanding our body and mind.

FACT is, so many people who got cancers or other fatal diseases were/are not at all unhappy people, and many mentally ill people can also be physically healthy.

The harm this seemingly unharmful belief does to our societies is, that many people who suffer from serious physical unknown illnesses would get wrong treatments, and further more, they are easily discriminated by others, who think they deserve what they suffer.  

Understanding

Listen, Understand, Act (Photo credit: highersights)

Understanding, is not that you have to "logically" understand people's choice, why they did this or that, normal or "abnormal", but, despite that you don't literally "understand" them, you still believe that they made the best choice to themselves, so you simply show your support by agreeing their choice, not your judgment by giving "advice" which is solely based on your own limited experience.

How Powerful Is Belief

Faith (comics) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I cannot count how many people unintentionally judged me when they actually just tried to help me. I appreciate their kind motive, but the judgment is something very hard for me to sustain.

I realized, one of reasons that they kindly "suggested", implied or even believed that my physical chronic illness was caused by my "mental depression", is simply because they did not believe, that being single could be a healthy lifestyle. Because of this "belief", despite there were no evidences showing that I was depressed, despite of my polite and clear explanation, they still SAW my "depression" as a plain fact. This really show me how powerful belief is - as soon as you believe in something, you simply ignore facts that go against it. It can really turn black into white!

"Even Chinese Children Won't Get Up That Early!"

Child on New Year's Day (Photo credit: ROSS HONG KONG)

When Michelle Obama gave speech in Qinhua university during her visiting China just a while ago, she mentioned that she had to work very hard in college, sometime got up at 5 o'clock in the morning. This remark surprised lots of Chinese young students, and one of them posted a Weibo (similar to twitter) message like this: "Even Chinese children don't get up that early."

What does this message mean? It means that in China, children's working hard, enduring stress is something most Chinese people take it for granted!

I have written enough articles about this subject (in Chinese) so I don't feel like to repeat. And I think the above message already speaks for itself, showing what children's life in China is like.



P.S. The image happened to be a little funny. I meant to find a serious one, but this one was too cute to ignore. And I trust her not to take her parents' and future teachers' cr*p!