same sun, different dawning points

winter is coming
i can see the smokey haze of the Shanghai sunset, behind the grey concrete sky-scrapers, making their windows sparkle and shimmer with orangey red colours. It's getting darker sooner and sooner, i think to myself as I look out the window of my bus home from school.
In the morning I wake up and the blindingly bright sun is not as evasive as I remember... but it's still the same sun as it was two months ago.

I looked out my little window by my bedroom this morning, and I saw the lady next door knitting inside the frame of her tiny window...like a mini theatre show, a picture perfect moment. It reminded me the morning before after I said my morning prayers, opening my eyes to the light and seeing her husband brushing his teeth in contemplation... Moments like that, I just soak up this place, it's sights and smells. Yes, I am in China. You have to choose what you want to focus on each day, you see the good the bad and the ugly, the sound of spitting really really irritates me so much, and I hear it most mornings... but I can choose not to focus on it, and look for the magic...its a daily battle...even in my attitude towards myself, towards being here...i keep thinking disaster thoughts 'I just want to go home. I just want the familiar. I just want to feel settled. I am lonely, its so hard, i'm out of my depth...blahblahblah'
but its a matter of attitude... and then GOLDEN moments happen. Each day is like a mini series of crisis and victory in my head...I plunge into depressive thoughts and then experience the most BEAUTIFUL of all moments, that make me think 'what is all the fuss about Chantelle?'
For example....
it never ceases to amaze me the open hearts and minds of people in this world.
take my landlady for example...

She came round the other night to teach me how to make shanghainese dumplings and i made an israeli 'tomato, cucumber, coriander and lemon juice' salad as my cultural offering...haha...

she doesnt speak any english
and i speak hardly any chinese
but we laughed
and had a great time
me fumbling and making a great mess trying to fill these dumplings using chopsticks...

later, as we were sitting on my couch, she saw my 'Baha'i' magazine on the table.
you can just sense when someone is genuinely interested...so i got out my laptop and showed her my bi-lingual Ana's presentation.
She then proceeded to teach me Chinese using Ana's presentation as the basis.
Painstakingly she would go through each sentence and then me repeat it. Then I would say the english version and she would copy. It was a beautiful beautiful experience. Both learning from each other in sooooo many ways!
We laughed as we both tried to sound out these foreign words...but then some words such as
'Baha'u'llah' were the same in both languages and we smiled at each other each time we said it...

After three hours of going through this presentation her husband, (who had been waiting outside all this time!!!) finally banged on the door and told her it was getting late and time to go. Again, we laughed as we realised the time, and I gave her a prayer book and an introductory book on the Baha'i Faith in chinese. She smiled that deep smile of hers, her face beaming, and her eyes sparkling as they did the first time I met her when I stepped into her apartment.

Then last night we met again for dinner. She said, (courtesy of a translator friend!)
"I was a Christian but after reading this book I know that I am a Baha'i. Because it is the same sun, only at a different angle on the horizon."

wow....i was in absolute awe. Here was my landlady, a beautiful Shanghainese woman of 62, a woman I have only met a few times, who had only just read a small booklet on the Faith a few days ago, now speaking nearly word for word what Abdul'Baha said nearly a hundred years ago, without even knowing it!
In 'Some Answered Questions' Abdul-Baha has said,
"Sometimes the sun rises from the center of the horizon, than in summer further north, in winter farther south - but it is always the self-same sun, however different are the points of its rising.
In like manner, truth is one, although its manifestations may be different. Some men have eyes and see. These worship the sun no matter from which point on the horizon it may dawn; and when the sun has left the winter sky to appear in the summer one, they know how to find it again. Others there are who worship only from the spot from which the sun arose, and when it arises in glory from another place they remain in contemplation of the spot of its former rising... Those who in truth adore the sun itself will recognise it from whatever dawning place it may appear, and will straight away turn their faces towards its radiance."

No wonder she has the most radiant face.

She loves the teachings about the equality of men and women. She told a funny story about a Japanese christian who came to their christian women's group to preach, and took a rather fundamentalist approach to marriage. She told them that, "You must obey your husbands. You have to do everything they tell you to do because they are the man, the head of the family, and you are their servants." My landlady strongly disagreed with this, and asked the "What happens if you husband does not know what he is talking about, and is stupid?" She caused a bit of a stir at the meeting...hehe. We had a great laugh about this!

She is now finding a group of her friends to start studing the Ruhi courses with.

As I sat in the back seat of the taxi home last night, looking at the night sky and the glittering lights of Shanghai, I said a prayer of gratitude in my mind....
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you
for bringing me to these incredible souls whom I have so much to learn from, so free of judgement, so open and truth-seeking, thank you for allowing me to experience that...it helps sustain me, and it strengthens my own faith at the same time...
wow. awe. wonder.
sigh

blue eyes and big mouth

today i had the strangest experience...
'look at her eyes. look into her eyes!!' my class of 8 year olds whispered excitedly to each other as i went to gather them for drama class.
'look. can you see them?'
more whispers to each other...
' look! you can see spirits. you can see ghosts.'
they all crowded around. some gasped and ran to the back of the line giggly with excitement
'it's true! people with blue eyes can see things we cannot see.'

hmmmmmm its funny...i've experienced reverse racism in someways living in china being a 'whitey'. this is a massive generalisation of course, but you tend to get treated as if you are a 'god', and also that you copious amounts of money... ha.

i'm still trying to figure out what my question is, so excuse my rambling... i guess its to do with what creates this elitism that you see in the ex-pat communities around the world? or especially in the 'white communities' living in other cultures, where does the 'i'm better than you' attitude come from, does it even exist or is it just a creation of others perceptions - who see you as having more therefore being better.
i hate using the term 'others' and 'whiteys' so excuse my lingo...just trying to get out whats going on in my head...Can we break out of these stereotypes others have of us or that perhaps we have of ourselves?
Of course we like to stick to what we know, what we are familiar with, our own culture, habits blahblahblah. but how much of this becomes a cause of disunity when you are living in another culture? what cultural habits do you have to give up in order to embrace another's culture? What will a global society look like? What does unity of humanity actually mean? what will it look like? what will it feel like?

i guess it boils down to how you view yourself in a global society...and how we can build bridges...there still seems to be a lot of walls, even now in 2008.... what is my intention in my interactions, what is my purpose, questioning always...am I a builder or a re-inforcer? how open minded am i?
had an experience last night where i felt like for a moment i was forcing my ideas to someone from another culture, perhaps being in deed that elitist i dispise so much... and they were not at all happy..it was a good lesson for me to learn...here i was all full of energy with my ana's flipchart, thinking it would make a good conversation starter.
he saw the first page and freaked out, grabbed the chart from me, flicked through it and started to sweat
i could feel the air getting tense,
'you came here to talk about this? you made a decision already about what we will talk about before we have even met?'
'ummm...'
i tried to explain that it was just an option, and its something i am very passionated about but if we dont want to we dont have to talk about it... so after a flip through 'Manifestation of God?' 'Baha'u'llah' 'This is too complex. I am a simple person. I have my own faith. I believe in freedom. In myself. I want a simple conversation.'

I said, so am I! that this Faith is simple. but there was no ear to hear...together we were building walls not bridges...
I could feel the tension between us rising even more, I was getting upset because i felt blocked and not listened to, and he was upset because he felt pressured and also not listened to... so i put away the flipchart, stopped talking about faith or religion, and asked what he liked in the world. He watches Braveheart. He identifies with William Wallace, fighting for freedom, for justice. He goes against the grain, he questions everything, the way things are run in his country, he feels alone in that sense, because its a hard thing to do, to speak up when you do not agree with the powers that be, and i listened. after a while i saw before me, the Chinese William Wallace...wanting the best for his people. it made me smile.
i gave up what i had on my agenda, what i wanted to achieve, and tried to let go.
to just listen,
without any judgement.
even towards my own self and my behaviour.
to just truly listen without any expectations of how i wanted the conversation to go.

it was a great lesson
listen listen listen

update

Where to begin? Yet another chapter in the crazy travels of Miss Brader.

Time exists differently here. Two months feels more like two years.

So much happens in one day, Shanghai is an exhausting place at times.

It’s a fast paced city but tinged with this incredible taste of village life.

I bought a bike the other day. A beautiful ‘vintage’ 1950’s style, complete with old round handle bars, the breaks underneath the bars, a bell, and a basket for my veges from the local market. I am trying to live like a local…hehe. Everyone has bikes here, biking to my shuttle bus in the mornings I am amongst a sea of black hair. Of course I used to get a l stares being the only blonde (but now im a full on brunette courtesy of mis communication at the hairdressers...ahhhh long story). You see a whole family packed on the back of a bike, or a man riding beside me with his cart full of cardboard about 7 feet tall, and right next to us is the ‘Gucci’ store and three starbuck café’s in one street.

Shanghai is full of contradictions. Just like the picture above. This is from an ancient water village just outside the city, and yet there is still illy coffee when you are sailing past on an old boat.

This is just around the corner of my flat. Barbie are about to open a huge store in Shanghai, catering for girls parties, makeovers you name it, with the motto ‘We believe in Girl’s Dreams’. I bite my tongue.

It is scary how the west and our materialism is taking over so rapidly here in Shanghai especially. The white, blonde, blue eyed Barbie represents in someways the epitome of the ideal women over here…whitening cream to be found on every shelf at the chemist. Strange this obsession with skin colour still.When we will the world see past such superficiality?

Poverty and filthy rich wealth smack bang next to each other, like any big city I guess. Here the difference seems to be that the rich and the poor seem to co-exist in a much more peaceful way than in other cities. There is not such a dramatic segregation between the rich and poor, at least from the outside eye I hold. In one apartment building you can have a family of five sharing one room, and next door a massive five bedroom flat complete with three bathrooms, a sauna, and massive deck.

I live in a one bedroom lane house, it’s a typical shanghainese area, washing hanging outside the windows, kids playing in the carts, shanghainese lady’s washing their dogs in the basin outside outside my front door, men walking around in their pj’s at all times of the day and night, neighbours brushing their teeth in cups outside their house, most people have communal bathrooms and some kitchens are in the lane on a outside stove. Mine is not, I live in the fancy brand new apartment, I guess I am one of those ‘rich people’ (well my school pays for it!! Hehe) amongst the poor but I love to just imagine living like that, and its only a paper thin wall way. It’s a noisy neighbourhood, its sorta rough in a magical kinda way. I am the only foreigner living in the neighbourhood so I’m quite a novelty. The children run up and practise their English with me…its gorgeous ‘HELLO!!! NICE TO MEET YOU! GOOD BYE” those are the three current favourites.

As for my job, I am on a steep learning curve on how to be a teacher. Teaching drama to 5 to 8 year olds whose English is not the best, is no easy task but I am getting there slowly…sometimes I catch myself treating them like professional actors from drama school then it clicks, oh that’s right, she’s 5. hehe. For some amazing reason the school has placed character building education onto my lap, so my drama classes have a value focus. Each month a class performs a skit on a particular value, this Friday its ‘compassion – we’re doing a rap about new kids at school and everyone acting cool. It’s very cute. The kids are adorable. They are so sincere. “You are quite pretty” haha. “You have big eyes.” “What are they?” pointing to the moles on my arms. The 5 year olds spend most of their time climbing all over me, I try to teach with seven of them as extensions of my arms and legs for the first five minutes of class.

Sometimes I feel like the worse teacher in the world, I raise my voice when I shouldn’t, and over complicate them with words, the paranoia you have with any new job, then I have amazing moments like today on the bus, one five year old randomly sang at the top of his voice as I stepped onboard, “Miss Brader, responsibility, responsibility! You taught me that.’ Wow!

And most importantly…finding incredible receptivity too! So many stories to share. One that I love the most is when I was at the print shop. For four hours. No kidding. This is one of the things you have to get used to about china, things work out but not necessarily in the way you imagined they would!! So here I am at the guillotine at the print store cutting my own flipchart of a bi-lingual ana’s presentation (very badly I have to add I was kinda angry after hours of waiting for someone to assist me, hehe) and a young guy comes in, peers over my shoulder (they love to do that!) and sees the word ‘Baha’u’llah.’ He tries to sound it out.

‘B.A.H.A.U.L.L.A.H. Wow. Beautiful.”

I turn around.

‘Yes. Yes it is.’ Tears swelling in my eyes already...(i'm even more emotional in china for some reason!)

‘Why are you in China…” he asks and then after a pause of reflection, “because of Baha’u’llah?’

‘Yes!’ gob-smacked look on my face.

“Wow. You must really love Baha’u’llah.”

“Yes! Yes I do!” more gob smackedness.

“To have faith is good.”

“Yes. Yes it is.” (I can’t form anymore words than that by now!)

“I would like to learn more.”

“Ok.”

So easy!

So we exchanged numbers, met up a few days ago and he is starting a study circle with me in the coming weeks! Hehe the four hour wait and angry guillotine cutting was worth it!!! People are so interested in you, the fact you are a foreigner they will watch everything you do in great detail. It’s like Haifa in that sense. The whole country seems to be watching the Bahai’s. travelling on the train from Nanjing to Shanghai I found this article in the onboard travel magazine infront of every passenger’s seat pocket. Amazing huh!

I have two girls staying in my flat temporarily from Chengdu, near where the earthquake hit. The older sister was one of my many real estate agents and we got along really well, she moved here to shanghai a year ago. She got really sick and had to go to hospital, lost her job and ran out of money in the space of two weeks, and then finds out her 14 year old sister is working in a shoe factory on the other side of China, hasn’t been to school for over a year, along with other underage children at the factory who are all getting paid a pittance. Shocking, but unfortunately very common here. So she rescues her sister from that life (their father passed away two years ago, and their mother has no contact with them) and so they are with me till Josy (older sis) finds a more stable job and apartment.

Each night we have a little devotional together, its really quite sweet! And I was getting lonely and homesick the week before and now I have two beautiful girls staying with me.

And they are both tiny enough to top and tail on my couch, and still have room leftover!

Speaking of size, it’s so funny. I am like Big Foot in Shanghai. Literally. I can’t find shoes that fit anywhere! And every time I walk into a clothing shore the owner will get really excited and yell at the top of her voice in broken English, ‘LADY LADY LOOKY LOOKY! EXTRA EXTRA LARGE EXTRA EXTRA LARGE!!!

Great. Thanks for reminding me.

And then it still doesn’t fit.

Haha.

I also have had the chance to audition for a lot of different plays going on in Shanghai. Mostly ex-pat driven but its hilarious what happened. I got offered a role in China’s first ever Burlesque/vaudeville musical called ‘Chinatown’. It’s getting big international press, Mac makeup sponsoring it, you would be one of their ‘faces’ for advertising blahblahblah, but I looked more deeper into it and some big questions came up for me. Yes, I could do it and it would be great for my career in someways, but is being a ‘showgirl’ contributing to the upliftment of mankind? Certainly contributing to the upliftment of a can can skirt...

It’s funny I feel like being here, just like in Haifa, all those areas of your life you need to work on are magnified. In this case I faced questions around what is my purpose in my career, and most importantly what are my boundaries as a Baha'i and as an actor, and it really made me think, what roles are there for women actors that are not degrading? or is being a 'show girl' degrading in the first place? Why do women seem to be continually cast and viewed as sexual objects on stage and screen, even now in 2008?

The performing arts have a long way to go till we start reflecting the spirituality of mankind and the equality of men and women, but I feel like I can begin to take baby steps, create my own stuff….so here goes…I wonder what I can create in China??

Ok enough for now. This is just a scraping of what has happened in the last few weeks and what is going on in my mind…further proof of my bubble tea addiction

who would have thought floaties at the bottom of your drink could be so good? ahh i cant find a way to get rid of this underlined thing....excuse me...