Contents:
Fascinating Facts on China
Sheraton Repeat Performances
Reaching My Limit
Stop Waiting to be Happy
Making me Happy Now:
- Meaning
- Movement
- Massage
Dispatch from China 6 (3)
Dateline: Sanya 17 March, 2007
FASCINATING FACTS
“China has more Moslem Mosques (over 30,000) than all the Buddhist, Taoist Temples and Christian and Catholic Churches combined.”
CHINA LEADS THE WORLD in : Steel production and the manufacturing of color TV sets, washing machines, refrigerators, air conditioners, telephones, video displays, silks, tractors and large shipping containers.
It is also number one producer of violins, organs, mouth organs—number two in production of pianos and number four in production of wind instruments.
It is number one in production of peanuts, rapeseeds, cotton and cereals. It leads the World in fruit and vegetable production – first place eight years running in apples and pears, third place in the World in oranges. It also leads in this farm produce; tea (#2), sugar cane (#3), and soybeans (#4).
China’s information industry ranks third in the World and is the number one industry in the National Economy. It is the largest digital household electrical appliance producer AND CONSUMER in the World.
China boasts the largest Postal Network in the World.
“Shanghai is the twentieth most expensive city in the World to live in.” (New York City is number ten, Moscow is number one, followed by Seoul, Korea and Tokyo.)
CONCLUSION: YOU NEED TO GIVE UP THE ILLUSION THAT WEST RULES AND ALWAYS WILL.
SHERATON REPEAT PERFORMANCE ?
Following up on the Holiday performances previously reported, I was requested to submit a proposal for 2007’s Special Events calendar. Proposal follows, no word yet from the Sheraton.
SHERATON SANYA RESORT
presents
“Special Events for 2007”
M.A.G.I.C. Productions, Sanya’s new International Entertainment Events Company is proposing to help create several special events for the National Holidays in 2007 for the Sheraton Sanya Resort.
Initially two Holiday weekends are being proposed:
Weekend of May 4-6, 2007 — “Special International Labor Day Celebration” —
A weekend commemorating the value of labor and pride in work. The backbone of
of China’s prominent position in the world today is its valuable labor force. Here we
celebrate those who ‘get things done’ in China.
Throughout the world music and song have supported, even led, various social
movements. This is especially true of the international labor movement. In the
United States, ‘folk songs’ (those ‘songs of conscience’ sung by the common people)
have inspired the peace, environment and labor social movements.
International Labor Day, May 1st is the common festival of all the proletariats and
working people of the world. It began with a great workers strike in Chicago of the
U.S. and has been accompanied by grand songs of the people ever since. Here we
present a mix of traditional and international singers and entertainers who represent
this musical legacy. We can, of course, continue a “Magic of Work” theme throughout.
Weekend of October 5-7, 2007 — “A Gala National Day Celebration” — A weekend
celebrating high culture in traditional and modern China as it mixes with International
culture today. Elegant evenings of National Pride would feature the Classical orchestra
from Shanghai with the two excellent singers (see attachment) along with an array of
International performers and beautiful models modeling traditional gowns and the latest
in high-fashion. And, of course, the “Magic of Culture”….
POSSIBLE PERFORMER LINE -UP (In addition to those we have used before
in entirely different contexts)
A number of different International Folk Singers
Shanghai’s Classical Orchestra and Prize -winning Classical Singers
(see attached)
Classical Chamber music Quartet
Australian Dance Group
High-wire and fire act.
African Dance and Music troupe
Sanya Dance Troupe, Traditional Local Dance Ensemble
MARKETING AND PROMOTION:
M.A.G.I.C. PRODUCTIONS and its performers expect to have these performances and their talents duly promoted on and off the Sheraton premises. Bios and background information will be furnished well in advance so that promotional materials can be produced and distributed. With the proper lead time, M.A.G.I.C. PRODUCTIONS can assist in creating the kind of “buzz” that could position the Sheraton and its offerings above all others in Sanya.
REACHING MY LIMIT.
“Today’s traumas are tomorrow’s patinas.”
(NOTE: I often write to myself (same as talking to yourself but more socially acceptable I find) to sort things out. Generally because I have a sympathetic listener/reader. But it doesn’t always work out that way and lately I am finding a more critical response from that inner voice….. Nothing new here for you who know me well, I thought you might appreciate that I am finally catching up a bit.)
I hate to give up. If I start something it is because I think that it is worth doing. Something that I will enjoy doing, something that meets a need, meets it creatively and will benefit many. To quit what I have started is very difficult for me. But more and more in China, I find myself just giving up before realizing the ‘grand vision.’
I am coming to that point again and once again it is time to think through how I got there.
This is the second time I have had a go at forming a media/event company in Sanya. There is clearly a need that is being very poorly met as you know from my many previous reports. Last year with two Chinese partners I formed a licensed media company, .M.A.G.I.C. MEDIA (in English — no telling what they had it saying in Chinese). We went through all the official paper work, furnished an office (before there were any employees -partners idea, not mine), and I took on an assistant (even rented an apartment for her). It took me three months to realize they (the partner and assistant) were doing only what they wanted and nothing that I requested and needed done to accomplish what I had formed the company to do. So I gave up!
I only re-entered the fray this year to respond to a request from a major five-star Resort in Yalong Bay to provide entertainment from the Christmas/New Year’s Holiday. For that I formed M.A.G.I.C. PRODUCTIONS by myself (unofficially — there is nothing to be gained here but headaches by going the official route). I provided 6 performers for 10 days, it was a grueling challenge. The establishment was devious, always showing a happy public face while continually stalling behind the scenes. Incompetence and imprecision were rampant there. I certainly learned some good lessons about negotiating agreements, the ever-present duplicity of the opponent and adapting to failed expectations.
The only thing that made it worthwhile for me (all the others were handsomely paid) was the bond that I thought we had created getting through the adversity together. I just caulked off all my investment in time, energy and money to be for more big shows in the future (All the shows were real big hits, by the way). I was soon to learn that that bond was an illusion…. All the effort and expense I extended on these performers behalf is not being repaid by any kind of artist-agent loyalty but by around the back maneuvers to exclude me from the process. And when I ask for explanation I only receive negative interpretation of all my efforts.
I am about to give up, again.
Going through this disillusion process again points to a very dysfunctional pattern of mine. I start getting upset when others have already finished. Long after others have “given up the ghost” because “there is no money in it,” I continue “for the fun of it.” I tell myself, it is good enough that I am really enjoying doing something of value, which benefits others. Although to be truthful, I must admit something inside me is hoping for some appreciation and acknowledgement in return.
So my decision-making criteria then is a bit irregular, if not pathologic.
First, I don’t need to make money to do something I enjoy.
Second, While I would like some appreciative feedback from those who have benefited from my efforts, I will characteristically continue without it.
But the limit comes when my good works start receiving nothing but negative feedback, are impugned as just naive self-interest or worse as sly deception. I refuse to believe that acting contrary to the selfishness and greed that rules the realm makes you an ignorant fool. An obdurate idealist perhaps but not a moron.
The fact that those criticizing can’t identify with my motivation and ethical standards is not an indictment of me but of them.
Having said all that I am the first to admit that, in general, I don’t take well to criticism, especially from someone who does not know what they are talking about — and I do. So much of reaching this limit may just have something to do with the fact that I am tired of be critized for doing good (nothing I have been doing has harmed anybody, taken a thing from them- only given…).
I have a friend who keeps saying to me when he sees me beginning to redden and angrily react, “David, Stop, Would you rather be Right or Happy.” For me, he hits the nail on the head, I have a real thing about “being right.” What is “right” is a topic for volumes to come.
It in part comes from an uncompromising family upbringing and is strongly reinforced by a scientific schooling. I was taught that you do what you say, you only say what you know and you are as analytic and objective as you can be to know something. Wherever it comes from I know I take it to an extreme. I can’t stand “sloopy thinking.” Here I mean letting your thinking be too influenced by unreasoned opinions, biases of powerful interests, financial concerns…etc.
But the world is full of such sloppy thinking. It is in fact ruled by it (Just look at the US over the past decade). And China has its own twist on all of this which only adds to the frustration. This is a fact of life — I am not going to change it.
I spent over thirty years of my life trying to fight such sloopy thinking on things such as global warming only to see it prevail, as it still does (not withstanding Al Gore’s recent epiphany).
So I have to be reminded to stop worrying about being right and take my own advice and stop waiting to be happy (see below).
STOP WAITING TO BE HAPPY
(Written several years ago when I was in a better mood)
“Look to this day!
For it is life, the very of life
Within its brief course lie all the verities and
realities of your existence;
The bliss of growth, the glory of action, the
splendor of beauty.
For yesterday is only a dream and tomorrow is
only vision,
But today, well-lived, makes every yesterday a
a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a
vision of hope.
Look well, therefore to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.”
— Sanskrit Salutation to the Dawn.
We tell ourselves that our life will be complete when our partner gets their act together, when we get a better job, a nicer car, are able to go on vacation, when we retire. The truth is, there’s no better time to be happy than right now.
Your life will always be filled with challenges. It’s best to admit this to yourself and decide to be happy anyway. There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.
So, treasure every moment you have. Treasure it more because you shared it with someone special and remember that everybody is special.
Stop waiting until you finish school, until you go back to school, until you lose ten pounds, until you gain ten pounds, until you have kids, until your kids leave the house, until you start work, until you retire, until you get married, until you get divorced, until Friday night, until Sunday morning, until you get a new home, until your home is paid off, until the first or the fifteenth of the month, until your song comes on, until you’ve had a drink, until you’ve sobered up, until you die, until you are born again, (now to add: until others get it “right”) … to decide that there is no better time than right now to be happy.
– END –
So here I am thinking about what makes me happy. Three words: Meaning, Movement and Massage immediately come to mind. Or more precisely; 1) playing with ideas to better understand things, 2) exuberant, playful, instinctive movement to rhythms around us (i.e. dancing) and 3) the simple pleasures of touch.
“Dry times cause roots to go deep.”
MEANING
“We are lonesome animals. We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and feel — “Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel. You’re not as alone as you thought.” —John Steinbeck
When I am intellectually engaged in conversation, time just flies — I can remember times with my professors after I had graduated and we had become good friends. We would get together frequently and just talk. A topic would come up and we would pursue it to see where it would take us. Through lunch, dinner and a couple bottles of Bombay gin, the discussion with all its tangents carried us on for 10-12 hours as if it had been only minutes. When time flies you are in the moment, hours pass like moments; there is only the moment you are in. I miss that.
Opportunities for lively, engaging, intelligent conversation are not easy to find and in China are virtually non-existent for me. So I write. Write, as an internal conversation, a conversation with someone who can supposedly understand what I am trying to say and help me clarify and say it better. In this writing, I am also discussing with others whose writings I have read, trying to imagine how they would react to my interpretation. I realize that this is a terribly one-sided conversation. But come to think of it, how many one-sided conversations have you seen where the one talking is just talking not hearing a thing another is saying, not adjusting what they are saying according to the new input they are receiving? This is no worse. Actually it is better — what is being written is in large part based on the other’s input.
“We read so as not to be alone.” —C.S. Lewis
More and more, when things appear to becoming difficult, I look to these internal conversations, these written searches for meaning for the comfort of stopping time and keeping me in the moment. And I find that they make me happy.
“Ever since I learned to see three sides to every story, I’m finding much better stories” —Rob Brezeny
MOVEMENT
” So embrace your chance
And join our Dance
Our dance of alchemy
Where dreams and fears
And pain and years
Dissolve in synergy”
—R.A. Lippin
Most of you know by now that I am happiest and feel most alive when I am dancing. It is my opinion that we were built to dance and it is a crime against our nature to not allow ourselves to respond to the what our body wants to do when it hears and feels the music’s muse.
I am obsessed with this as a meditative practice and I use the following verse (in English and Chinese) on everything I do here (it is even on my ‘business’ card):
“Life is a Dance.
Sometimes you lead.
Sometimes you follow.
You don’t need to know the steps.
You will learn them along ‘The Way.”
(Note: I am changing this to be, ‘You will remember along “The Way.”)
Too many of us wait to be taught how to dance. It is my contention that we already know how, we only need to remember having learned in our evolutionary past.
Indeed, the science is now supporting the contention that we oscillate at a cellular level to nature’s rhythms (see, “An Introduction to Medical Dance/Movement Therapy” (Goodill, 2005). We have forgotten consciously how to dance, we only need to remember how. I will have a lot more to say on this later, I am just getting into this fascinating book.
The point is, or at least one point is, that “nature has more to teach us about dance than man.” Learning dance steps is a human convention, moving with nature is natural — the fact that we would even deny this is also human convention.
Do birds only sing to attract mates? Do dolphins only dance in the sea to navigate? Call me crazy if you want, but I believe that living things move by compulsion, unfettered natural compulsion — they play with the elements about them, they respond to their internal impulses and are shaped by the interaction. On-going compulsive play is life’s natural state and I believe it is those behaviors that have been selected for creating bountiful, successful living — a happy life. Those denying, withholding, controlling these natural impulse have moved into an unnatural state.
To me, a session of dancing, listening to soft melodies and pulsating beats, dissolving idle concerns in the patterns of a few carefully chosen rhythmic moves can “transport you to where you are” — in the immediate present. The spirit of dance is like the spirit of Tao: it flows spontaneously, roaming here and there impatient of restraint. There is an alchemy to dance and it is one of my ways of being “present in the moment.” It makes me happy.
For me, basketball is another form of dance combining form and function in a sense of relaxed fitness, spontaneity and grace. Playing basketball makes me happy. I have long been a roundball devotee, playing in High School, College and the Army and coaching in the Army and in College. I wasn’t exceptional amongst my peers, just persistent, not a star starter, just a dedicated team member. The coaching was primarily taking on what others didn’t want and a chance to stay involved with a sport I liked. This latter day involvement continued through a number of fitness and exercise classes, and adult and elder basketball programs. At sixty-five I can still say that “I’ve got game.” In fact, my relative skills have improved — by that I mean it is rare that I find a peer who can keep up. Most have long since traded in their basketball shoes for golf cleats and clubs. Actually in China, I am able to keep up with the best of them (even out of my peer group) by countering their youthful hot shot maneuvering with an experienced court sense, passing eye and team play instinct (I also still also have a pretty good three-point shot).
As long as I physically can I will use the kinesthetic flow of basketball and dancing to get me out of my head and into my moving body. It makes me happy.
“We should consider every day lost in which we have not danced at least once.” —Friedrich Nietzsche
MASSAGE
It is not news that I appreciate massage. I can’t stop extolling the virtues of what I have come to call the “simple pleasures” of head, foot and body massages. Virtually every haircut and shampoo comes with a free head and shoulder massage. The others are so inexpensive that you can afford to get one everyday and I do.
There are touching cultures and non-touching cultures. (I have previously alluded to some of Edward Hall’s work and this is related.) The Chinese culture is a touching culture. Outward public protocol aside, I have more than enough evidence to assuredly make such a statement. I have reported on much of this. I commented on the unbelievable sense of physical caring that I received with my bout with “prickly heat.” This and the ever-present simple pleasures clearly reflect a “touching culture.”
The medical literature is replete with reference and demonstration of the crucial need for loving touch in the development of a healthy person. From infancy on through to the aged, the necessity of having loving/touching, caring communication for an individual’s well being and the disastrous effects of deprivation are well known.
And now, I am discovering and reading about “Oxytocin.” Here, again, new scientific research on the biochemistry of what is going on helps me understand. It turns out that touch causes our bodies to produce a hormone called oxytocin. Not only does touch stimulate production of oxytocin, but oxytocin promotes a desire to touch and be touched: it’s a feedback loop that can have wonderful results. Oxytocin makes us feel good about the person who causes the oxytocin to be released, and it causes a bonding between the two persons. It has been long known that nursing a baby produces oxytocin in both the mother and child, and this a major part of what initially bonds the mother and her baby. Now oxytocin with its manifold effects has become known as “the cuddling hormone” considered responsible for feelings of trust and deep affection in everyone. Even thinking of someone we love can stimulate its production. Reading up on more of this research is really going to be fun.
This scientific verification only reinforces my desire and motivation for touch and the happiness potion it produces.
Ok, Friends with this I will end. Now, if only I can walk my talk (writing).
I wish you all the happiness of days filled with meaning, playfulness and affection.
Much Love, David “Leming”