励志警句

 “By believing passionately in something that does not yet exist we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”Nikos Kazantzakis

Snowed under

 The cold winter has been biting hard this week. It is amazing for me when it snows during the night and totally transforms the landscape outside your window. Like someone put a coat of white paint over everything.

  It looks very beautiful but I have been thinking lately about how peoples actions can seem to lay as heavily as the snow.

Why does the person that does an unkind act such as deliberate racist or prejudice action effect the mind more than the person who then does something really kind, like offer you their seat on the bus. If I encounter many good people why is it easier for the mind to ruminate about the unkind people, usually rolling like a snowball gathering as many bad thoughts as it goes?

  I recently read something that said the secret to happiness is choosing to be happy, no matter what...It seems sometimes this is an easy thing to practice but the majority of the time it is most challenging for the mind to get around.
It seems a little unfair to use bad similes about the poor snow, it really does look beautiful and I really enjoyed spending an afternoon walking around the city with the snow falling all over me....WOW i'm Zen I think? :-)

The more I Learn

The longer I live here in China, the more I see just how much I don't know about this place and the Chinese people. In fact it often feels like the more I learn the less I suddenly realise I know.

renewing my faith in human nature

Had a bizarre ferry ride home today. About 10 huge buckets of live catfish were on board with us, of which I thought "I guess the poor things are going to the restaurants for tonights dinners". Then something strange happened, half way across the Yangtze, the boat slowed down. At first I  thought it must be going around passing ships or avoiding bad currents, which they do sometimes but then something totally amazing happened.Everyone on board started tipping the fish into the river to freedom, Hundreds of small Catfish...saved....for now anyway :-) then the ferry turned around and went back to where we left??? I was just going home from a lazy afternoon meandering around "Walking Street" with Moli...I'm not sure what happened but I just stayed on the ferry(  after everyone collected their buckets and got back off) which proceeded to take the normal route second time around. Some of the people were singing some Chinese buddhists chants at one point. ANYWAY...So lucky I got to witness it, not everyday in China you see such a thing. Wonderful ! I did speak to a lady to try and find out what was happening but Yichang dialect even harder than mandarin to understand. I think it was a "World in Crisis" kind of group but I'm pretty sure I did understand her when she said something about many people around these areas just don't understand The good thing is there was a whole boat load (well 20 or so) who did understand today and a Ferry willing to participate.