[Oe List ...] May Day

[wangzhimu2031 at aol.com]

Laodong Jie, Workers’Day


 
I subbed for acolleague from Hawaii in his English tutorial classes for children inShenyang.  He hightailed it to Hong Kongto renew his Chinese business visa.  We bothvolunteer weekends to teach young Chinese students oral English.
 
Last week, in dealingwith one of his 10-13 year old groups, I got them talking about themselves, asubject they do not need to be told about, nor do they need to do any research tobe knowledgeable about it.  In exchange, Igave them permission to ask any question of me. Anything.  The object was not inthe getting-to-know-you realm as it was to get the dialogue/Q&A going.
 
The students used alot of abstract terms to speak of themselves, like “I am energetic and I am anoptimistic person”, or, “my parents, they love me very much, and I love themvery much, too.”  Which was fine becauseit left open questions of grounding, on describing the concrete data of whatmay be seen, heard, smelled, tasted and touched behind the terms they used.   
 
Nor did they talk oftheir feelings.  Chinese are culturally coachedthat being a peon in the heap of mass humanity, their individual feelings donot count much unless they are aligned to acceptable social sentiments appropriateto their age, gender, and station in life. So I pushed them to recall “sense experiences”.  
 
A general context inmy pedagogy is always to leave the “face” (mianzi)outside the classroom; I also encouraged students to express what they felt.  Emotive discourse among Chinese is not normal(it is personal and secret) so avoidance was ingrained.  “Exhibitionists” (like me, a playful term Iearned from a psychologist acquaintance) are deemed the exception.
 
Of the questions ofme, I responded in a way that coursed through the path of experience andfeelings.  I modeled my response to theway I expected them to talk for clarity and substance.  One of the animal science students (she lovespets, particularly the “one that chases the mouse”, the “domestic cat”), askthe innocuous question:  “What is yourfavorite color?” 
 
For more than a decadein the 70s and early half of 80s, I was a member of a family “religious Order”that appropriated “blue” as the color of our “habit”.  The words in quotes were internal to us, forin public, we were not distinguished from the ordinary Joe Blows and Susie Wongs,not like the medieval monastic Orders whose members sometimes were seen with habitsof woolen frocks, soutane, or cassock, even in the heat of the tropics.  Inversely, Opus Dei guys I knew, the Pope’sstorm troopers that replaced the Jesuits, wore business suits in offices that specializedin economics, the queen science of the times.
 
I was called a “BlueShirt” in the Marshall Islands, Samoa and Tonga.  My colleagues and I were not shunned byintellectual liberals and policy wonks because we did not debate ideology, nor lobbyto legislate mandates.  We were out toinfluence cultural behavior, so the question of what we thought took a backseat to what we did.  
 
“It is theintensification of our Knowing and our Doing that manifest our Being,” was myfavorite conversation and dialogue starter, which got me disserting well pastmidnight, weaving a circular discourse that invariably baffled linear logiciansand disciplined academic thinkers.
 
My questioner was beingchatty.  I told her and the class thatmost of my attire was “blue”, and the navy blue in my outfit was in solidarityto the common laborer and worker of the world, often referred to as the “bluecollar” worker.  I didn’t tell her that “bluemovies” are for indecent films, and getting the “blues” meant wallowing in thebasement level of depression and despair. “Blues” in American jazz proceeded fromthe soul, and it hankered close to lamentation.
 
I have always beenpartial to the common worker since I smelled copra in the coco grooves ofSanchez Mira in Northern Luzon of my childhood. My mother was once offered to buy a Philippine Sweepstakes ticket thatshe did not bother to take but she remembered the number.  When it won one of the top five prizes, shewas curious who bought it.  The shop thatoffered it to her closed shop quickly and went the way of the nouveauriche.  The family did not survive wellthe intrusion of wealth into their family budget.  No sour grapes here.  It is just to say that I stayed with the armyof struggling workers, like the coconut gatherers and copra huskers, in mycareer.
 
“International workersof the world, unite”, was once a political cry from the Haymarket incident inChicago that birthed the labor movement on the first of May from which theInternational Labor Day got its start. The US chose September for its Labor Day so as not to identify with thedisgrace of the incident.
 
I am still a “blueshirt” at heart and discipline, albeit, not too fond of the limited directions organizedlabor took in fostering its course.  Buttoday is a reminder that those who toil at the behest of other’s investment (aka,imported workers in the CNMI) have a long way to go to see their humanity atpar with privileged and elitist homosapiens, in China and across the globe.


j'aime la vie
pinoypanda2031 at aol.com

yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate; today. participate. In all, celebrate!


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