Michelle Obama lets down the team

Well... I tried to re-start blogging, then found myself with nothing to say. So, the blog went dormant again. But yesterday I had a news-reading day, induced by the cold that's keeping me inside and resting rather than out w/ friends. And that gave me something to post... hope you enjoy. Feel free to leave your comments!


Recently I read this post on Michelle Obama letting down the team by choosing to be a mom (she calls herself mom-in-chief), rather than choosing to be another Nancy Reagan or Barbara Bush (who incidentally didn't have children at home). Just two thoughts I wanted to share.

(This assumes you've read the post or listened to the podcast.)
The first is, USA Today gave a list of tips for parents who want to help monitor and in some ways (good ways, we hope) control their children's media intake. I thought the list was good and helpful, but in the same breath as giving us these parenting tips that take _time_ and _energy_ to carry out, the media tells us that women should be working 40 hour weeks, not staying home to raise those little people that live in their houses. So that begs the question, who is going to watch the children and monitor their media intake if not the parents? And how are the parents going to have enough time to help their children develop discernment, avoid teenage pregnancy, develop a healthy view of sex and sexuality, understand what using drugs really does to a body, etc. if they are both working forty hour weeks _outside_ the home? Please understand, I believe a stay-at-home-mom works a 168-hour work week. They work hard. But if both parents are outside the home because the culture is pressuring them to be there, and both are coming home tired, and neither is home when the children come home from school (meaning the children are unsupervised for hours), who is going to take care of these kids?

Of course, in today's culture more ane more parents are raising their children alone, and that creates an entirely different dynamic. A single mom must work or she won't have children to raise because they will be given to someone else. A single father must have a job outside the home to provide for those for whome he's responsible. This is where the Body comes in. This is where we must be willing to express our own needs to one another as well as to reach out and help one another. As our media intake becomes more individualized, so do our lives. We go home after a day of building no relationships beyond talking about the weekend's big events in politics, entertainment and sports, and we watch television or surf the internet, trolling about for world news, sports statistics, pornography, podcasts, or whatever helps us feel connected to other people, since we have systematically stopped reaching out to other people when they are in front of us. We don't seek the help of our friends and family when we're in trouble, and we don't seek to help them, either. In fact, we often don't know when those around us are in trouble because we don't have deep enough relationships with them. America has been statistically shown to be _the most_ individualistic society on earth, and our individualism will be our downfall if we do not find a way to begin reconnecting with real people instead of playing spades and euchre on Yahoo! for hours each evening.

Number two was this: you quoted one feminist writer (was it Linda Hirshman?) as saying that staying at home raising children was no place for an intelligent, well-educated woman to be. I would just like to ask-- where do you think the intelligent and well-educated among us come from, both male and female? Do you think they spring up out of the ground or a well somewhere, and are immediately brilliant and ready to share that brilliance with the world? Unfortunately, they aren't. In fact, the "intelligent and well-educated" among us are generally those that have had their abilities fostered by postive role models-- real people that are in their lives, helping them to understand the world around them, see their own potential, and believe that they truly are capable of great things. It is rare for the children whose parents have always been too busy, have been discouraging, or have simply not taken the time to help them to truly succeed, even though all of America's "super teacher" movies (_Freedom Writers_, _October sky_, and _Dead Poets' Society_ for example) would have us believe otherwise. Children need their potential to be encouraged, fostered, and developed by the intelligent and well-educated among us. We say with one side of our mouths that to educate the next generation is the greatest responsibility a person can have, and out of the other side of our mouths we say that well-educated women shouldn't do that job by staying home with their children. It is beneath them. So I say to these women, which is it? Make a decision and stick with it, please. Do you want the next generation to be nurtured and their abilities developed by one of the people who perhaps love them most on this earth, their mothers, or do you want them left to fend for themselves while their mothers make the most of the short fifty good working years they have on this earth? Are we looking to fill the needs of this generation, or to teach each generation how to consistently keep their needs filled? Choose one, and stop telling women to do both, and then criticising them for making a choice.

A couple of stories from life here in Changsha...

I bleached it...
So, the very first night I was here in Changsha, I saw a very large roach in my dining area. It ran under the refrigerator, and I couldn't find it anywhere. I was a little freaked, to be honest, and creeped out by the thought of the thing. It was big, brown and, as Levi would say, "yucky". I kept an eye out for it, but it didn't materialize. Even after I moved the refrigerator I didn't see it.
Not too long after I moved its would-be home, the roach re-appeared. It showed up in my bathroom back in the corner where the walls come together under the sink (the sink's pipes are exposed). Looking around frantically for something with which to kill it, all I could find was some bleach... so, I bleached it. I "threw" a bunch of bleach out of the bottle and in the general direction of the roach. Then, I ran to get the mop to kill it, but by the time I got back it was gone. Now I'm keeping my eyes open for a white-speckled roach!

Deep Fried for Free
Here in "the 'Sha" there are lots of places with food on sticks. They're these little shops with tofu, hot dogs, steamed buns, veggies, and other things, all on sticks. When you buy them, they drop them in a vat of hot oil and fry them for you. When they pull them out, they paint them in spicy la jiao and hand them to you to walk an eat. (Incidentally, picture a long toothpick that you're eating off of-- why not walk down the uneven sidewalk, where you could trip and fall, with a toothpick in your mouth? Ouch!)
So the other night my teammate and I stopped at a food-on-a-stick place b/c she hadn't eaten dinner. She grabbed some of the stuff mentioned above, and I asked for a banana that had been breaded with an unknown substance... anything "unknown" is at least worth a try, right?! So we chatted with the sellers of the food on sticks, and the young man mentioned that we speak very standard Chinese. (In the South, people often speak with a heavy accent, but we're learning to speak standard Chinese in class.) Then, the two sellers talked for a bit in Changsha Hua, or Changsha language, which neither of us can understand. When our food was finished, they pulled it out, handed it to us (fortunately skipping the spicy stuff on the banana), and we asked how much it was. "Song gei ni," the boy said. That means, we're giving it to you for free. What?! No... but they wouldn't take a fen (a penny) for the food. They were just happy to help a couple foreigners with good Chinese!

Tutor Time
Today I met with my tutor for about 3 hours of class. We spent most of the time chatting in Chinese, which is something I haven't had many chances to do lately. The words we looked up include: skull, poppy, kidney, slingshot and galbladder. Yep... those all have connection, right?

Culture notwithstanding...

This week we've been doing team building-- concentrated times of team together-ness, answering questions and getting to know each other. Describe your teammate with 3 adjectives from this list.... go! Today, we'll have a conversation about conflict resolution. Should be good.

I look at myself 5 years after first coming to China, and I seem to be different. I feel different! More laid back or relaxed about some things, having difficulty with some things that haven't been easy since the beginning; I wonder if they ever will be! More able to ask questions, think critically, and use right methods to protect myself and my team. Still having major failings in some areas.

For the past 2 years, I have seen the Father changing me. It's amazing to watch yourself change, almost from the outside looking in, but that's what I've seen. Now, looking at my 3 teammates, I am beginning to see some of the reasons why. Thanks, Dad, for working on my heart so I could love these girls better! (And thanks for that great Xinjiang food last night, too!)

China continues to be a vortex-- it sucks you in, and you never look at the same world again. A friend of mine, a Korean girl, was placed in a dormitory room with an American roommate. They've no common language, no common cultural or Belief-oriented points, and before we sat down to dinner, I had a list of questions to ask-- how were the cultures blending? How is she different from you? How are you compromising and working together? Much as I suspected, they weren't.

All this team building stuff on conflict resolution-- soft start-ups, compromise, implosion/explosion... I've read it all, I want to put it into practice, but what do I do when my partner is not only not trained in it, but also has a cultural background that says direct communication is too much; it's too direct, for lack of a better term?

You see, in Korea, indirect communication and good actions are cultural ideals. My Korean friend said she'll slowly stop talking and interacting with her roommate. Eventually, the American roommate will know something's wrong and change her actions. (Note: not "we'll address it verbally then" but "the American will change her actions".) She'll change to stop hurting my feelings. Unfortunately, the American probably can't hear that form of indirect communication.
The American friend says she cares for and even "loves" (as a friend) the Korean roommate, but in Korea, your actions, not your words, tell people you love them. The American's actions say, "I don't care one iota for you." Ouch. The words and the actions are at direct odds with one another. Which one should the Korean friend believe??

So what do we, the culturally direct, words not actions people do in this case? How can we show Love?

You see, Americans are known in many areas of the world for being unbendably "American" in what we do and say, how we treat people, and how we live. But how are we called, as Followers, to treat people? To treat people the way they want to be treated? I'll not give all my thoughts here, but I hope to hear some of yours. What do you think? When should we bend to the culture, and when should we not? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

re-emergence

Well, I started this blog a very long time ago, but I never really picked it up and ran with it. I'd done fairly well updating my other one, until I couldn't get to it anymore... but I think I'm going to try this again. So, here goes.

I've written "Middle Kingdom" up in the title line because that's the direct translation of how China is said in Chinese. The country's short name is Zhong Guo, with zhong meaning "center; middle", and guo meaning "kingdom; nation; domain". Of course, the full name is Zhonghua Renmin Gonghe Guo, The People's Republic of China. More thoughts later on how living in the center of the universe changes things.

For tonight, two things:

Today I skimmed this article written in Newsweek by a writer with whom I disagree on some things. However, I found it interesting that he called the vice presidentship "the second most important job in the world" (paragraph 3). It's the in the world that's getting to me. Do you really think there is no more important job in the whole world than that? No other country or group of nations has a leader that is perhaps more important? Sounds much like a 井底之蛙。



I was recently reading this article, and it got me thinking. I wish I could go to these places and events because they are so eye opening. Every time there is an opportunity to experience bits of another culture, it is not only an opportunity to experience something new. It is also a chance to learn how to lift the people and culture up. I just think of, for example, the idols and images one would see visiting the places listed in the Times' article-- how much you could learn about how to Think of the people of East and Southeast Asia!
So what about me, right now? Do I approach it in this fashion? Do I look at my job or studies as an opportunity to see what people really need and Think of them accordingly? Do I look at the lady who helps "guard" my apartment complex as "Tang Yi" (auntie Tang), or as someone lost that I could be thinking of and reaching out to?

And you?