lane lives

Amazing experience yesterday. A Chinese friend and I went around the lane I live down asking parents if they would like to come over to my place to hear a presentation on character education for their children, a free service we are offering in the neighbourhood once a week. We had an overwhelmingly positive response. So great! It was such an interesting process to even discover where and how my neighbours live, in such a contrast to my comforts. Peter, my little 7 year old friend I met when I was locked out of my flat a few months ago, took my friend and I to each home he had friends at, running ahead, winding down dark dark hallways and up the steepest wooden stairs with absolutely no light, to find a family of three in a room about 4 by 5 meters big, kitchen, toilet, double bed, cupboard, table, stick figure crayon drawings on the wall from the little girl, all smack bang next to each other, sitting eating lunch and watching tv together. My friend told them what we were offering and the grandmother was very interested and happy and said she’d come along. A lot of them could not understand that it was free, we had to repeat that over and over again! The next kid…peter ran ahead weaving in and out of the alleyways, taking us again what seemed like going through someone’s house but it was the communal hallway, people brushing their teeth in cups, or hanging their socks out on the communal line, or cooking lunch in the shared kitchen, what a sight. We knocked on the door of this tiny room/house to find a little girl about 6 years old cuddled up in her blankets in her bunk bed alone, her parents don’t live in Shanghai she told us so she lives with her grandma who was out working. Peter kept talking to her about the class with lots of enthusiasm and she gave us her grandma’s number to call. The sight of a tiny girl in this room/house with only a bunk bed (the top bunk bed was used as the cupboard full with clothes, food supplies, toilet paper, you name it) and a single bed for her grandma, was just so shocking and yet so beautifully simple how they live. Considering I live next door to them and live like a queen, I felt guilty...but it’s all relative I guess, well more like it’s all learning, and we all have different capacities, especially when it comes to living conditions! I am definitely the ‘spoilt westerner’ whose comfort levels differ somewhat!
We met another 5 parents, some in the middle of their work, dry-cleaning clothes in a steamy tiny space with a child sitting on the bench, all so excited about this programme, and they came into my flat looking around the place in awe and amazement, I felt ashamed in a way to live like this after seeing how they live but they were so sweet and open. A couple of kids came along to and I fed them popcorn, they took one bite and spat it out! They had never had salty popcorn before, in china it’s always sweet (I had gotten this packet from the western supermarket!) so cute, but also a small reminder ‘when in china be like the chinese’.
My friend and I were initially so nervous, worrying how the parents may re-act to this but they were so positive. A young mother kept saying ‘thank you, thank you, thank you. All our kids do when they come home is play, its good for them to have this.’ A lot of the parents could not read, we discovered as we gave the power point presentation, but that did not matter. We shared the quotation from Baha’u’llah that ‘Man is a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can alone cause it to reveal it’s treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom.’ We asked them what is a mine? How is a human being like a mine? What do we need to develop? And discussed the importance of parents and mothers especially as they are the first educators of children. We even touched on the dual nature of man, the three different types of education Abdul Baha spoke of - material, human and spiritual. How they are all very important but we seem to lack spiritual education in our current school systems and how it is really the most important one of the three.
“Material education is concerned with the development of the body. Human education is about civilization and progress. It deals with government, administration, charitable works, trades, arts and handicrafts, sciences, great inventions and discoveries. Spiritual education consists in acquiring divine perfections. This is true education, for by its aid the spiritual, the higher nature of the human being is developed.”

I was just so happy to have them in my house and to be having this kind of conversation with people that had just passed me on the street, said ‘Ni hao’ and that was about it! Yet again China blows me away, the purity of their hearts and openness of their minds.
On a different note one mother pointed out she makes the slippers that I had offered people to wear! Those details just hit it home to me, and a friend reminded me that ‘the meek and humble shall inherit the earth’, and seeing their responses to our neighbourhood children’s class, you can sense that. And for all the extremes of wealth and poverty that are smacked in your face here in Shanghai, knowing that these gorgeous people have such a high spiritual destiny, puts my heart at peace.

So next Saturday, here go… 7 kids coming to my place for Baha’i inspired children’s classes!! My Chinese friend will run it and I’ll assist! Soooo excited!!

the heart's garden

well, last night I went to visit my friends for the first time after this tragedy happened.
Stepping into their home I was met with incense burning, low lighting, soft music playing and a warm but solemn environment. We hugged and wept and sat and talked and just listened to their grief, and the moments of joy.
The most beautiful story was told. Mum and I came in with an arrangement of roses and the first thing our friend said looking at me with eyes of joy, 'Baha'u'llah! Roses! He loved roses didn't He!' and as the night unfolded she told us how last night, at 3am, in utter desperation and sadness she went for a walk with her dog outside her compound, and with tears streaming down her face and in utter desperation she begged her baby daughter for a sign that she was there, that she was ok after her passing. It was dark, she had no idea where her dog was taking her, and all of a sudden she looks and the dog has stopped in front of a rose bush, and as it is in the heart of winter in Shanghai the fifty or so buds were all tightly closed, but as she looked to the center of this large plant she saw the most beautiful, fully bloomed, vibrant red rose, standing tall high above the rest. She knew that was it, that was the sign she had been praying for, a gift from Baha'u'llah and from her baby, letting her know she is ok and at peace. She can even see this brilliant, single, red rose from her 9th floor apartment.



I was given some rose petals from the Shrine of Baha'u'llah by the Custodians when I was in Haifa in November. I had given them out to Baha'i friends here, and last night my dear friend told me she will place these petals in the silk she will wrap her baby in.

Mum opened a page in Dorothy Baker's biography 'From Copper to Gold' and happened to open it onto this quote, which we shared with my friend's last night,

"Be happy, Be happy! If you knew the joy of a little child or of any soul who goes out in light, you would not have the will-power to remain here for twenty-four hours." - Abdul-Baha

long last

where to begin?
so much has happened and where to begin, what to write it down, well it's been a FULL ON month to say the least. Never a dull moment in shanghai that is for sure. From the conference in Hong Kong to Mum's visit to my birthday to the most shocking news I have heard in a long time.
That is what is on my mind....so i have to get it out first. And the other stuff, I'll write about later.

Well, two dear foreign friends of mine living in Shanghai, lost their 9 week old baby on Saturday, Valentines Day, from SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome). It's unbelievably shocking and heart breaking. Totally out of the blue, no cause...
I can't find words to describe it and can't even begin to imagine how they must feel, new parents, in a foreign country, the mother was a new Baha'i too...
I am visiting them this afternoon after work. I dont really know what I'll say but just to be with them and listen to their pain, that is all I think one can do, and offer words from the Writings. I have been searching for quotes and have found some amazing ones, like this from Abdul-Baha:

"Be not grieved at the death of that infant child, for it is placed in trust for thee before thy Lord in His great Kingdom. Verily God will bestow upon thee that whereby thy heart shall be rejoiced and thy breast shall be dilated. Verily thy Lord is compassionate and merciful!"


If you have any other quotations, or poems, or words that I can share with my friends on this theme, it would be greatly greatly appreciated...

Xin nian hao! Happy New Year!

We were invited to my landlord’s home to celebrate new year’s eve, Chinese style

We were picked up by her daughter, son-in law and gorgeous granddaughter Jenny (who proceeded to talk to me in non-stop shanghainese for the entire car-ride, it was gorgeous, but I had to do a lot of head-nodding and the occassional ‘wo bu ji dao’/I don’t understand, while mum was commenting on ‘why doesn’t anyone wear seat-belts?’, ‘Did you see how that car cut across us?’, ‘Oh God, look, a family of four on a scooter and no helmets!’ but that’s just the way it is here and no one seems worried, apart from the tourists!

So we arrived around 3pm, and the festivities began. Food food and more food.

We brought a red basket full of fruit as a small gesture of the hospitality they were showering on us (gifts during the Chinese new year should be wrapped in red) and for the ladies we gave some New Zealand lanolin hand-crème with good ol’ Rachel Hunter on the front (very random, but according to our Chinese friend in NZ they adore this stuff! Haha). Jenny then proceeded to test it out in the bathroom when she thought no one was looking…hehe the joy’s of family!

I warned mum before-hand that it’s not common for Chinese families in Shanghai to have heating in their apartments, so before we left we put on our thermals under layers of clothes, but nothing prepared us for this! It really was chilly, definitely more than the ‘visible air coming out of your mouth’ stuff, it was ICY, but you can’t complain it’s just how it is and with some green tea we were slowly warming up. Mum had an idea to make a trip to the bathroom to run our frozen hands under the tap…but then it turns out they don’t have hot water in the taps either…but I spotted a big jug next to the basin full of hot water…. I’ll never forget mum’s face as she bathed her hands in the warm water and let out a ‘ooooooh’. the simple pleasures in life.

The food. To die for. All had special meanings for new year, the plates all formed a circle, to symbolise the moon, since it’s the lunar calendar they follow for new year, and the moon symbolises unity and the coming together of family, how very perfect! The first dish Ren Ayi brought out was a shanghainese tradition for new year, full of water chestnuts, this special fruit I can’t think of the name, and lotus root. Sweet and scrummy, Good for females, good for the skin she told us…we dug in. who needs Clinique when you got chestnuts…

Then came the beautiful array of tofu and cilantro salads, shanghainese specialities with ingredients I have no idea what name it would be in English (different forms of fungi, sounds gross but REALLY tasty), ox tongue (well, 2009 is year of the ox after-all) and chicken she described as having it’s genitals cut off so he could taste nicer…hmmmm, we didn’t want to offend so tried a bite and that was enough…poor guy!)

Then this amazing soup, with dried fruit and sticky rice balls with sweet bean paste inside. Really really yum despite my description!

But then, there was still more! It is tradition during

Chinese New Year to make dumplings on new year’s eve with the family, and eat them. So of course, we did that! By now, mum couldn’t feel her toes, but she carried on through. After boiling the dumplings, we ate another round of glorious food until our bellies popped, and then it was entertainment time. Mum pulled out the guitar and got everyone singing along to her 60’s NZ hit ‘My Boyfriend’s got a Beatle Haircut’, and then taught everyone the twist with ‘Twist and Shout’. It was hilarious! And for Jenny she played some fun kids songs.

Then it was time for the annual television programme that all families watch during Chinese new year, hosted by two comedians, laurel and hardie Chinese style, and several musical numbers with the most elaborate scene changes and costumes I have ever seen. They did their own version of the Lion King too with panda’s dancing on swiss balls, it was hilarious!!! And lots of singing by gorgeous women in dresses Barbie would kill for.

Speaking of Barbie, mum had a brainwave, in a step towards getting her some work in China as a children’s entertainer, since that’s what she does back home, she noticed the 6 storey high Barbie head-quarters that is being built across the road from me, and has decided she could be ‘Barbie’s grandmother’ and get a gig there! We mentioned it at the dinner table and it got a roar of thunderous applause and laughter! As much as I despise Barbie and the image she portrays to kids, perhaps mum with her ‘older look’ and thoughtful children’s songs can bring some much needed decency to it! You can still be gorgeous and have a few wrinkles!! (notice I only said ‘a few’, mum!)

Anyway, back to the celebrations. It is fire-cracker heaven tonight. Never in my life have I heard so many fireworks go off, between the smallest of spaces, alley-ways, houses, and for so long. Even before the sun went down they were going off and at midnight I felt I was in a war-zone, it was CRAZY! Apparenty the story goes (or one of the stories as it’s a pretty ancient culture!!) that the firecrackers ward off the ‘big monster’, and another story is about the fireworks attract the gods of prosperity so the louder and the bigger your fireworks, the more luck and money you will get. And don’t eat garlic during Chinese new year I was told by a friend, some believe that garlic (the Chinese character for garlic means ‘calculated’ or limited) so you don’t want to have any of your new year blessings or luck ‘calculated’! Not every Chinese follows this, but in the case of my friend she does. So when I saw the hunk of garlic in the bottom of my soy sauce bowl…I left it…when in china…

So after more food, more oranges, more green tea, more laughing, more

‘lets-match –make-chantelle-with-a-nice-shanghainese-guy-because-they-all-can-
cook’ conversations (thanks mum, but yes it is true, every dish was made by Ren Ayi's husband, and most, if not ALL shanghainese men cook) we called it a night.

And before we left the house mum said to everyone at the table, ‘A New Year, and look, a new family!’

mum's arrival

its great having my first visitor to shanghai, the lovely mum, right in time for chinese new year, the time for family reunions, so its perfect!
seeing life through her eyes. so far this has been her observations:

'i love the red everywhere. it makes the place so warm.'

'i feel so spiritual here. there is an energy that is so special.'

'why are the tree bottoms painted white?' (along the roadside as we are coming from the airport)
i cant answer that apart from, who needs a fence when u can use a tree...

'the subway is amazing, its the best one i've ever been on; modern, clean, and I love the way there are no doors between the carriages, so you can look down and see for ever, its like a mirror.'

'look at the beautiful lights on the buildings, how they change colour, its exiqisite, not tacky.'

'it's a lot less polluted than i thought it would be.'

'the people are very friendly, for a big city it's quite amazing, it wouldn't happen in london that a couple sitting next to us on the subway would start talking to us, that's gorgeous.'

'Is that a chicken hanging outside to dry?'
yes, yes it is

Today, the 25th is the major Chinese New Year celebrations. My gorgeous landlord and her husband have invited us to their home for celebrations! We are so lucky, to experience this with local family. Apparently it consists of a lot of eating, for three hours at least, watching special tv shows, and more eating, and then fireworks galore!!!! My two families in china united!!!

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