Yunnan
Monday, May 31, 2004
Chessmaster
This man was playing chess, as if for the millionth time. I saw him one day, when some friends of mine and I stumbled upon a beautiful garden in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. There were a pagoda, a tea shop, and lots of old people sitting around, filling up their time with hobbies.
I walked around with my camera looking for interesting things to photograph, and I saw this man’s wrinkles, his cigarette, and most importantly, the attention he devoted to his game.
Chinese Chess is different from its western variety in a number of ways. Some say that it’s more subtle. I certainly find that it’s easier to find yourself on the losing side without knowing how or why you got there, but maybe that’s just because I’m not very good at it.
In any case, I politely asked this man if he would mind my taking his picture. He didn’t respond. I asked him again, but all I got was something like a shrug that seemed to indicate contempt. Another man, younger than this player, although by no means “young,” who was apparently just watching the game, took notice of me, smiled, and gestured for me to go ahead and take my picture. If he hadn’t done that, I think I would have considered myself blown off and walked away.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the power of Chinese Chess, a magical square of hypnosis into which old men can fall when they desire to escape from the world, its young people, and its digital cameras. It seemed to have developed in this man the power of concentration to such a degree that I was reduced to little more than a fly.
Or maybe he was just in a bad mood. Maybe he was deaf. In any case, his attitude surprised me, but also left me feeling like I shouldn’t be surprised, as if I had just started a game with him and found myself at a sudden disadvantage.
Even though one part of me felt as if I had been treated rudely, another part of me felt that there was something noble about him and his game. Or perhaps the nobility really came from the observing man at his side, who was kind enough to be polite to me on this man’s behalf.
Friday, May 21, 2004
Old Woman, New World
This is my favorite photo out of the 500 or so that I took last winter in Yunnan. It’s not the most beautiful from an aesthetic point of view, but it has a symbolic meaning to it that I was extremely lucky to catch. I was just walking down the street with my camera open, and as I saw this lady, I stealthily turned to snap a picture from my stomach-height as she walked by.
The woman clings to the past. The future is already here, and she seems almost ill and dizzy in a new world of shopping complexes and brand-name clothes. All of the modern age is caught up in this one blurry moment, and everything is so unclear to her. She clings to the hand of her grandson, who laughs and plays in a world he can understand but she cannot.
But she is the one with the keys to this new world dangling around her neck.
Photos • Yunnan • Way of Life • (59) Trackbacks • Permalink
Friday, April 09, 2004
Excellence
I learned something about myself yesterday, and maybe something about human nature, too: putting your heart into something is what makes it meaningful to you.
As you already know, I have recently become a graduate student at Nanjing Arts Institute, and so far I’m enjoying it tremendously. Whenever I go there, I feel as though I’m soaking in a special kind of air, breathing in creativity along with oxygen, nitrogen and whatever else. It’s a place specially created for developing artistic talent, skill and inspiration—and it does just that.
I found that as I went there to study and absorb all those new experiences more, teaching at my Chinese high school began to seem older and less interesting. When I came back from my most recent trip, teaching English seemed almost unbearable, and I was filled with a desire to quit as soon as possible.
Then I realized that the high school itself hadn’t changed at all; my attitude towards it had. I let myself begin to think of it as an “old” thing and stopped wanting to try hard at it. In fact it was trying hard to be a good teacher all this time which had made it interesting in the first place. If I didn’t put any heart into this or any other part of my life, that part would certainly deteriorate into meaninglessness.
So now the challenge is to look at whatever I do with the knowledge that somehow just doing my best at whatever it is can really give it a life that it would never have had on its own. This website, for example, can only begin to transcend itself and become something more than just kilobytes on a hard drive when its author spends something of his heart on it, and uses some special love in the writing, a magic which belongs to his soul alone.
Perhaps this magic is a natural love of excellence itself. It can make any daily activity we undertake worthwhile and holy to us. Even if something seems to be meaningless at first, the act of doing our best at it can lift it into the realm of sacred work.
With that spirit, I ought to clean my apartment!
Photos • Yunnan • Way of Life • Writing • (45) Trackbacks • Permalink
Wednesday, February 18, 2004
Walking
All you have to be is what you are—not the you that you were in that present moment which has just escaped and fallen into the past, nor the you that will be a long time from now. Very soon, you will have a chance to be the you that you can become just now. That is all you have to be.
The human being is a walking creature. We walk into times of joy and then walk out of them again, but if we keep our feet moving as straightly and we can, each small inch of time brings us a little bit closer to infinity.
Photos • Yunnan • Way of Life • Optimism • (41) Trackbacks • Permalink
Monday, February 16, 2004
Your Wings
During the vacation I just spent with my mother, so many of the veils over my understanding have disappeared, and the eyes of my soul feel as if they can see more clearly. Of course, every advance in one’s own understanding reveals more clearly that vast oceans of mysteries lie beyond one’s grasp, but there are moments of joy that come with it as well, which somehow make things seem as if all is right with the world. It lasts this way for a while, until the time comes for you to pass some major new test, and acquire powers and knowledge you didn’t know you wanted. Confusion is a necessary ingredient in the stew of spiritual growth, but you never know that until the spiritual meal of the day is finished and ready to enjoy.
Anyway, one day I was talking with my mother about a number of things, many related to my early childhood, and I realized that I had gone through a large part of my life always wishing to serve others on the quest that they had rather than to take up my own. I had a feeling that I was destined to be the father of someone important, remembered as something like a footnote, treated only in the introduction of that person, as a background to their lives.
Today I can put that notion at ease more easily than before. Whatever or whoever my children, or friends, or anyone else in my heart will choose to be is very much up to them. But my choice is the one which is up to me. Each of us has only our own life to live, and a major part of that life is to take up the challenge of making one’s own special contribution to the world. No one else would ever think to do the things you can do, in the way you can do them, simply because they are not you, and they have other tasks of their own to fulfill, other potential they must unfold.
As beautiful as others are, whether they fly high above you or below, there’s no one else with those wings at your side, and there’s no one else who can fly with them.
David's Life • Photos • Yunnan • Way of Life • Permalink
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