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