touching the ground

Shanghai is beginning to feel like home, finally.

After 6 months of emotional turbulance, I'm actually beginning to feel like I'm finding my feet in this fast moving city, and really start to appreciate the life I've got going over here, which consists of:

teaching drama to gorgeous 5 year olds who crawl all over you,
writing part time for an up and coming tv sitcom,
study-circles that really make your heart sing,
a fanatastic apartment in the center of town,
a landlord who has embraced me like her own daughter,
who is studying ruhi with her husband each saturday afternoon
and has a Shrine of the Bab poster proudly placed on her living room wall...

on top of all that I have a great group of friends,
and amble theatre oppurtunities.

Really, who could ask for anything more?



now its about creating the balance.
prioritising...
I have never been one to do one thing at a time. but im learning that over here its kinda essential!

and what did it take to make that mind shift? a trip home. i spent two glorious weeks in new zealand for xmas and realised that, well nz is fantastic, it will always be home in that familiar 'nothing has changed' sense, my beautiful friends and whanau who just get me, the air that is so clean that I coughed out most of Shanghai every time I took in a breathe, the lifestyle that is easy and simple, but something about that got to me, not that my life in shanghai is hard, by no means, i have everything i could ask for and more as you can tell, but there is something about the energy of this city, the pace, the growth both externally with all the new buildings popping up each day and internally that hunger and thirst to learn in people's hearts, its kinda addictive, there is a vibrancy about this place, about China right now that is so tangable, everyone wants their country, themselves, their families, their lifestyles to be better. it's like a country full of people just naturally in 'the learning mode' we all talk about at cluster reflection meetings.
i think the stillness or 'stuckness' of nz or at least me in nz in that moment hit me hard when i went back...maybe its all in my mind...but its what i felt...

I think the first 6 months anywhere new are rough at first, and probably going back to nz would be a similiar adjustment, but for some reason my move to Shanghai really shook me up. I guess it was my first move into the world-post-haifa, the bubble burst, and shanghai is a bit of a radical change from guiding at the silent tranquil Spot of the Shrine of the Bab, but I was propelled to move here by something bigger than myself, and some days you have to remind yourself of that because life can wear you down here. and yes. you are alone a lot of the time. but it forces you into action that you probably wouldnt feel if i was surrounded by the comforts of a familiar life.

Culture shock. It's a funny term if you think about it. Was I 'shocked' by the culture that I encountered in shanghai? I guess intially yes, and there are moments each day even now where I am taken off guard, a young child peeing into a plastic bag on the bus, a man snorting snot out of his nose on the footpath as you walk past. By 'western' standards that is considered absolutely disgusting, revolting, totally uncivilised etc, but I didn't come here to tell another culture what I think is civilised, what I think is 'manners', what I think is 'cultured'. Cultured by whose terms? I am a foreigner here and I am reminded of that fact on a daily basis. The way people look at me, the fact that I really can't speak the language, the way that I communicate differently. But I am a guest of this country and I have no right to judge.

Living in China has taught me so much about letting go of control, of judgement, and accepting that things are the way they are, and you just have to let it go and not dwell on it too much. That's something I'm sure we all will be working on the rest of our lives but here its magnified for some reason. along with all my own character faults. a bit like haifa in that regard.

And that there are so many amazing oppurtunities here, the most pure hearted people that I cannot even begin to describe, people who are teaching me so much about myself and the world around me.

praise and gratitude
really really really
thank you Baha'u'llah

the concept of 'service' is a funny thing
i feel like I'm the one getting the 'servicing'.

a day in the life

A man hops onto a bus.

He doesn’t put the 2 rmb into the yellow box.

The bus driver notices.

He stops the bus and refuses to move until the man pays.

The man refuses.

The bus driver refuses to drive the bus.

The man says he has guanxi/connections with the bus company and doesn’t need to pay.

The bus driver doesn’t care.

He says

Everyone must pay.

The man refuses.

The bus driver gets out of the bus

and has a smoke.

An old lady on the bus is sick of waiting.

She thinks

it can’t be that hard to drive a bus.

She moves down the aisle into the bus driver’s seat

She proceeds to drive the bus exactly two stops

and gets out.

It’s her stop.

Meanwhile

the bus driver gets a taxi

and hops on the bus again.

Only in China

ten rather superficial but fun things I love about shanghai..

1. It’s full of beans!! From ice-cream, tea, to green tea bread (yep, proof below!), i bet you there's a red bean hanging out somewhere inside…a vegetarian's delight... until you see the duck hanging in the window.

You can wear your pj’s at any time of the day, take your child to school in them, or walk along the main shopping street next to Gucci stores in your fluffies, (if you are a guy you can roll your t-shirt up in summer to air out your tummy too!)

3. You can get an amazing foot massage for less than 10 New Zealand dollars pretty much on any street corner

4. The way people look at you (as in a foreigner) with this sincere curiosity
5. Getting a cashmere coat tailor-made for next to nothing

6. The old man who does salsa by himself at the park each night wearing tight tight pants and matching tight top.

7. People walking backwards on main street (good for the chi)
8. 

8. Old ladies doing tai chi in the park to music, with their pet birds in cages hanging in the trees

9. The man who ties about 50 live chickens and ducks upside down to his motor-bike. (Disclaimer - I don’t particularly ‘like’ this… but it makes for an interesting sight each morning on my way to school!)
10. People wearing fluffy animal hats with massive ears casually walking down the street
11. had to add one more...the contrasts of the way people live...from one room to fit a family of five to massive massive villas
    

as luck would have it...

It all started on a Friday night back in July, sitting at Mighty Mighty in Wellington, watching The Sami Sisters peform.
Next to me was a guy with a broken leg tapping away (with what he could!) to the 60's beats of this fab NZ band.

"How'd you break your leg?" I asked.

"I was ice-skating in Shanghai last week."

What a crazy co-incidence I thought to myself...

"That's uncanny, I'm moving there in two days!"

"Really? Here's my card, I'm the editor for Shanghai Talk Magazine, and I'd be happy to show you around once you arrive!"

And well, after living here for four months, and not really taking up the offer, I get an email from him out of the blue asking if he can interview me and my drama class for the education section in Shanghai Talk, coming out 1st Jan 2009...

I couldn't believe it, here I am, the newbie drama teacher struggling to find her feet having the editor of one of Shanghai's top english magazines watch, record and interview me and my classes!!! haaaaa
God loves laughter thats for sure.

But of course, it was too much of a great opportunity to turn down, and with permission from the school it happened, Friday just been in fact.

The class went pretty well. I work closely with the character development programme at the school, one of those things that just fell into my lap since I started here, so there is always a value or virtue that holds the classes together. In the course of the month we create plays, improvisations together, and last month a short film based on that value.

This week it's honesty.

We brain-stormed what it means, what does it look like, why we should we honest, what situations we have been in at school or at home when honesty or dishonesty has occurred.

One girl piped up,
"Well just yesterday I went to my friend's house and saw my favourite comic book hidden under her chair. I had given it her a month ago to borrow and she had never given it back, she told me that I never gave it to her. She denied everything. And then I saw it..."

So in a series of conflict-resolution type skits we re-enacted different solutions that the class suggested.
Everything from:
"Grab it and run out of the house, slam the door and never talk to her again."
"Go and tell her mum."
"Ring your lawyers. Take her to court."



The solutions were hilarious, and we ended up having a big court scene with the whole class involved, some as the jury, some as lawyers, some as the typist, each putting in their two cents worth.

So, a little slice of my life as a drama teacher in Shanghai...

The beautiful faces I teach each day......



Never camera shy!!



Wonder what the article will say....will keep you posted :)

baby beggar

As I was walking home from the subway tonight I saw a sad sight. A child, not more than three, sitting by himself on the overhead pedestrian bridge, highway underneath us, no parent or adult in sight, with a small tin can in front of him, begging for money, bowing his head as you walked past.

I didn’t know how to feel.

At first I was angry.

Angry towards his parents or whoever placed him there, I knew he couldn’t have been purely on his own it seemed to ‘placed’ for some reason, and angry for the adult using this innocent child to make people feel guilty, angry for teaching this child that begging is an ok thing to do, that this is how you can make money…and sadness for this child, that he may grow up to think this is an ok thing to do, sadness that his family had to resort to doing this, to put a child out on the road in the freezing cold of a shanghai winter, no hat on his little head, and frustration that I could be living in such luxury, one nice flat, nice job, enough money and there are children like this on the streets…

I didn’t know what to do.

I wanted to bundle him up in my arms and take him home.

But I just walked past…like every other person,

and then past the expensive shoes store

and flashing neon lights of a cosmetic advertisement

and wanted to cry

for the craziness of this all.

This world and its extremes,

it’s over indulgence

and its utter deprivation.

These are our children.

The human race’s children

And this is what we do with them?

who is responsible? really? if we are one family? who is responsible?

and what can be done?

what tools do we have?

I thought about all the children of the world, in every country nearly, who live in utter poverty, who don’t get an education because their parents cannot afford it, or perhaps they are orphans, who live just to survive…

I said a little prayer in my head that he, and all those millions of children in similar situations will be protected and safe, and develop to the fullest of their potential despite their physical circumstances.

It makes me realise how extremely lucky I am.

And that for whom much is given, much is expected.

I want to start a children’s class in my little lane.
I keep thinking about it. They play outside my front door each day I come home.
Now I know its time to just do it, tonight after seeing that sight i know i have to just try, i'm worried about language barriers blah blah, but i have some bi-lingual material...

They are our future.

there is no time to loose

the old days...come back to haunt you!

I was randomly asked to do an interview for a 'bit' character I played years and years and years ago on the TV series "The Tribe", like lord of the flies in 2050 sorta thing. I was around 14 at the time. The whole episode was shot at the Upper Hutt River bank...its a crack up the whole thing but hey!
Thanks to facebook I was tracked down...haha...and there is even a link to my blog on it!! haha
It's a laugh though.
Gotta love the 'futuristic' hair and dress though....

tried to copy and paste it here but didnt work so go to.....

http://tribeheaven.co.uk/10years/interviews/chantelle.htm

Magnetic Acts

A section from the book 'From Copper to Gold' the Life of Dorothy Baker I'm reading now. I can't recommend this book enough. Read it. and then read it again.

She is recounting what she heard from Shoghi Effendi on pilgrimage...

'There is a very close connection between the souls beyond and souls here. This connection depends upon certain difficult conditions - concentration, purity of heart, purity of motive. It will be possible to communicate, but do not attempt to experiment now.

One can even smell the presence of these souls. The Master said, "I can smell the spirit and the fragrance of the writer from this letter, when I opened it."

The Supreme Concourse are beings of whom we have no conception, but it includes souls of people who have been very devoted and other beings as well of whom we are not aware. The higher the position the greater the influence.
They rush to the assistance of the sincere servants who arise now.

We need to develop greater concentration and purity in prayer. Prayer and action attract the assistance.
God assures each one that every act is a magnet for the Supreme Concourse.

The Master said..."As to the question that the holy and spiritual souls influence, help and guide the creatures after they have cast off their elemental mold, this is an established truh of the Baha'i's."