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15th August 2015 13:31
Link to Post #1
Overwhelmed (this is for our senior citizens)
I didn't go looking for this, it just happened.
I'm in Beijing, 2010, it's February, the entire month is a holiday there, the Festival of Spring, and the fireworks go off every.day.all.day.every.night.all.night.
I was there for 3 months, for ... many reasons, none of which were this. Because the fireworks are almost 24 hours a day during the entire month, and they are everywhere, every street, every hutong, launched from every building and on the ground of every street, the only way I found to sleep without being woken was to drink beer every night. I'm from Canada, this didn't bother me at all
So, I'm walking down the hutong to get to a main street to go get a coffee at a place where the price is reasonable, and there was someone there. The price of coffee in the hostel where I was staying was the overinflated tourist prices, and besides, they didn't open early in Feb, and I was up early every day. I liked my morning walk to get coffee. And, it is nowhere near as cold there in February as it is where I was from.
So, in the hutongs and basically everywhere there, they all eat dinner out in the street. A hutong is just a narrow street, many can't accept vehicle traffic. At dinner time, tables and chairs are moved out into the street, and they eat together in a big social. Younger men, usually, scurry back and forth between the tables and the family restaurants bringing food and beverages out, and taking dishes back in. All ages are present. Everyone's present, and I had been having my dinners with a group at one 3 way intersection at the end of the hutong where the hostel I was staying at was.
They basically set a chair out for me one eve. at dinner time, after they'd all seen me for several weeks anyway, and on a daily basis. Sit, sit, was my first invitation. I had already been talking to one of the young men there anyway, since I didn't speak their language and he had been taking english in school and could talk to me.
I ended up having dinner there pretty much every evening afterwards. Such a community I'd never seen elsewhere. Here in my culture, the one I ended up calling the AngryWhiteManistan culture of death, we all go home at the end of the day, to our homes or apartments, and after locking ourselves inside, we cook and eat dinner in front of the idiot box (TV) This culture of eating dinner together is just their way, and as Beijing was the only place I'd been in their country, I'd have to say they did that everywhere, since, they did it everywhere in Beijing. After dinner, beers would come out, and we'd sit and talk, tell jokes, I was talking through a few of the younger ones who knew my language, and there was much laughter and general all around pleasantries.
By the way, their beer is generally served in quart sized bottles, and their beer is only 3% alcohol or less, 2.25% or 2.5%. None get hangovers from this, and all are able to get up and go to work the next day as if nothing had happened, when compared to the beer in Canada, which starts at 5% and goes up to 7% or 9% in some beers.
So, one morning in February, maybe 9 or 10 am by this time, I've got my big travel cup full of coffee, I don't know, my second or third, as I'm heading back towards the hostel now and had already got a street food vendor sandwich of some sort in my belly, and I'm standing at that 3 way intersection with my coffee in one hand and a chinese cigarette in the other, just letting the sun hit my face and warm me up a little, and from one of the family homes there, they have extended familial compounds where several families live in the same area, the big door opens and a man comes out and puts a stool down. Then he and another man walk out carrying an old woman seated between them, and set her down on the stool they just placed there. Then a, I dunno, 4 year old girl, a 3 year old boy, and a I'm not sure gender 1 year old something is seated on the ground in front of the old woman. The old woman is in her 80's, or 90's, I can't tell with asians, maybe she was 70's and maybe she was over 100, but in any event she couldn't walk on her own anymore.
I say hello in their language. Smile, I'm just standing there having a coffee and a smoke, I really have nowhere to go and all day to get there. No one told me they take entire months off at a time, and I can't go anywhere because everywhere I'd went prior in Feb was closed, so, I'm basically waiting out the remainder of the month.
This is the corner where I eat dinner, so I've seen all of them before and eat dinner with them now regularly and they all recognize me.
And as I'm standing there, just taking it all in, watching the 4 of them, the old woman never stops smiling, and the older 2 kids are interacting with each other and the 1 year old or less than 1 year old, who doesn't walk either, just sits, occasionally they say something to or towards the older woman, lean on her knee and say something while looking at her face, but they know she's not going to reply, she just smiles, it hit me. This realization completely overwhelmed me, and I mean completely.
That woman is going to die soon, either in her sleep or even sitting in that very chair. And the last part of her life, it's the same for all of them in this culture, as far as I could tell, and they do not have the old people prison industrial complex of old age homes that we have, they stay together and are born and die together, so the very last thing this woman sees and hears in this lifetime is going to be the very next thing she sees and hears again when she becomes just like that 1 year old.
I got goosebumps all over, my heart was flush with energy and the warm fuzzy feelings just flushed all through me in a real powerful way, and it was one of the most real and stark realizations of my entire life. It was also the realization that that is exactly how our entire species had been for countless hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of years.
We put the ones that don't walk any more with the ones that don't walk yet.
Anyway, I love you, pass it on.
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15th August 2015 14:23
Link to Post #2
Re: Overwhelmed (this is for our senior citizens)
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15th August 2015 14:54
Link to Post #3
Avalon Member
Re: Overwhelmed (this is for our senior citizens)
Earthlink. what a wonderful, wonderful story. I am already wondering how long I can keep RX pain killers in the freezer. I would rather do it myself than land in an old people's home. In the days of my grandparents, it was more natural as it is in your story. I know I plan to volunteer at one of those place when I get better. I have been in one for a week of rehab. The non rehab people were in a separate wing. Each room I past had a non moving body staring at a T.V.......
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15th August 2015 20:32
Link to Post #4