Par Ernie Tadla

Église en parc

Nous avons vécu dans un beau, spacieux appartement dans un complexe de quatre bâtiments un bloc des studios de PPI. Nous étions les seuls étrangers dans le secteur, ainsi nous nous sommes tenus dehors. Les personnes locales étaient amicales et les gardes à la porte étaient toujours utiles. Nous avons eu deux chambres à coucher, une dont est devenu le bureau de Lovy, deux bains, une cuisine chinoise, la salle à manger et la salle de séjour. Nous avons habité au quatrième étage et notre balcon a donné sur une intersection occupée qui a fourni beaucoup de divertissement. Nous avons apprécié les dîners de fin de nuit sur le balcon observant le défilé de soirée de l'humanité ci-dessous. Il était toujours occupé, toujours changeant selon l'heure ou la saison.

Juste à travers la rue du bureau étaient le parc de Zhongshan, une oasis au milieu de l'occupé, la palpitation, et la section bruyante de la ville. Il était plus de six blocs carrés de ville avec le feuillage tropical lourd, piscines, canaux, jardins chinois de roche, les ponts, champs pour le cerf--vol, met hors jeu et un bon nombre de terrains découverts d'herbe. Pendant des week-ends, il a été serré des familles avec des enfants et des grand-pères. Prendre des photos des enfants était l'activité la plus prédominante. Les enfants ont joué et ont volé des cerfs-volants avec leurs pères et pères. C'était un endroit serré et heureux. Pendant des après-midis de jour de la semaine, il a été presque abandonné et était paisible et tranquille. Ces fois et atmosphère ont également attiré des amoureux de tous les âges qui se sont reposés sur mettent hors jeu, s'amusant de la mode la plus appropriée.

I often get up at 4 a.m., and as the day wears on, so do I. Between 1-2 p.m., I would slip out, cross the street to the park, lie down on a bench and have a power nap, meditation, snooze, relax, call it what you will. Ten minutes and my batteries were re-charged, as if I had another four hours sleep, and I could continue to work until 8 p.m. I would put my glasses on the bench just above my head.One day, when I got up, the glasses were gone. Someone had stolen them.

Several days later, I was approached in the park by a chap who offered to sell my glasses back to me. We played the game of Chinese negotiation. I had paid 1,500 RMB ($180 US) for them at a Shanghai optometry store. He wanted 500 ($60 US). After several rounds of play, I bought them back for 50 ($6 US). Without speaking a word to each other, with a smile on his face, my face, we good naturedly, with my pocket calculator, haggled. Getting angry and yelling at him in English would not have accomplished anything. I recovered my prescription glasses and investment for an additional $6 along with this story to share with you. The $180 I originally paid was still a fifth of what I would have paid back home. I will repeat: Chinese negotiation is a game, a win/win fun game — even if it is buying back what was stolen from you. Wouldn’t that be great if we could do that if our valuables are stolen from us here in North America? To recover my prescription glasses for $6 was a steal, if you will pardon the pun.

I took every opportunity to walk for my exercise. While dodging and weaving along the busy sidewalks, I would vocalize my daily affirmations in a loud voice. Just so you know, Oprah, Wayne Dyer, and many other people practice affirmations and visualization. This is different from talking with your “other self.” I was the only gweilo around, no one knew me, and they didn’t understand what I was saying. Sure, I drew curious looks, but that happened anyway.

One day, as I was marching down a busy street vocalizing my affirmations I got a call on my cell from Ray, our office manager. He sounded concerned and asked if I was OK. Someone had seen me talking loudly to myself and phoned the office. I guess they thought the crazy gweilo needed medical attention.

Often, while I was walking, I would suddenly gain a companion, usually a young, male university student who wanted to practice English with a native English speaker. One morning, about 6 a.m. I wandered over to the park and was astounded to see crowds of people streaming into the front entrance of Zhongshang Park. I had previously used the back entrance on my way to my power nap and scene of the crime of my stolen glasses.

They were:
• doing tai chi, of course
• doing Chinese sword dance
• the scarf dance
• doing ballroom dancing, with their ghetto blasters
• playing cards
• just chatting with friends
• flying kites
• older men with bird cages giving their birds the morning air
• standing in the trees
• meditating in the trees
• praying in the trees
• hugging trees
• talking to the trees

They were all doing their own thing. Morning after morning, every morning. Their actions, whatever they were, had a “spiritual sense” about them.

I began taking my morning walk in the park because the energy felt so good. The same scene, from 6-8 a.m., took place in every park in every city in China. It was repeated wherever there was space for fifteen to forty people to gather. There was always a tape deck playing quiet, flowing, and meditative music as background for the tai chi.

Every day, there was church in the park. Groups gathered together to celebrate Nature, each other, and their own personal values. What a wonderful way to reflect the deep, spiritual wonder of life. They may be godless, but they certainly have spirit, even the guy who stole my glasses.

Beggar on the street

I try to be kind, giving, and generous. I tithe and contribute to what I deem good causes. In China, as here at home, there were street beggars, and I would often give them money. My contributions were generous, paper stuff, not coins. The pedestrians, ever aware of what the foreigner did, not only noticed that I gave, but also how much. I gave because I am thankful for all I have received and figured, that there, but by the grace of God, go I. I had so much and they had so little.

Well, the public reaction from the people on the street was almost explosive. An English-speaking person would invariably warn me not to give to these people. I was told they were part of a gang, with much money in their own right and were just acting as beggars, which happened regularly on the streets of Beijing and Shanghai. They also scolded and chastised me for giving so much. Someone called PPI about my giving and even the rather large amount (in their perspective) and one of the staff told Lovy about this terrible thing I was doing. Snitches!

One day, I turned a corner and lying on the street was a young, male beggar. I was shocked! His legs had been mangled at birth and he couldn’t stand. He dragged himself along the sidewalk. The crowd swirled around him, almost stepping on him. He and I made eye contact and I was smitten with compassion.

His name was Bao Hai and I used to slip him a 100 RMB note ($12 US). Through Agatha, my English-speaking assistant, I learned that he came from Shandong Province, one of the poorest provinces. He had been a good student, but his parents told him that schooling would be wasted and he should go to Shanghai to beg and send money home. Because their first-born was crippled, the government allowed his parents, poor peasant farmers, to have another child, making an exception to the one-child rule. Boa Hai has a normal, able-bodied brother.

I gave him a Chinese edition of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. He began writing me letters in Chinese and Agatha translated them. We could communicate more deeply than through translated conversations with him lying on the sidewalk.

He invited Lovy and me to visit him and his parents in Shandong Province. One weekend Agatha, Lovy and I took a train-and-bus adventure into the real China countryside. The three of us slept in a four-bed compartment as the train whistled into the night. We were joined by a male stranger to complete the four-bed arrangement. First train, then bus, and, as the road got narrower and narrower, a cart.
 
A feast was prepared for us, and the villagers dropped by to take a look at the “rich” foreigners. Bao Hai had certainly been sending his money home, and his parents were living in an opulent style compared to the other villagers. My donations had helped buy a large TV, and a new, spacious home.

What it did not cover was any plumbing improvements. When Nature called me, I had to go out back and squat on a typical Chinese squatter toilet over a cesspool of stinking, fly-infested human waste. I didn’t know which way to face and was concerned that while balancing on my haunches, I might tip over.

I faced outward, and leaned over for safety, banging my head on a brick wall. When I returned, everyone looked frightened and asked how I was. I said fine, not realizing that my forehead was covered with red cement crumbs from its encounter with the brick wall.

Lovy put an immediate stop to my contributing to the furnishing of the family home in Shandong. She talked about contributing to our grandchildren’s education fund. After reading the book and my letters, Boa Hai returned home and started farming chickens and rabbits. He came to realize, as the book stated, “Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, he can achieve.” I told Boa Hai that regardless of what his parents thought, he did not have to think of himself as a beggar. So he made, first in his mind, then with his body, the journey from begging on the streets of Shanghai to a being a chicken-and-rabbit farmer entrepreneur in Shandong.

Ernie Tadla www.odysseychina.net

Next week: Shanghai Traffic and Chinese Medicine.