Courage

On his final day in Ankara he shared a Chinese calligraphy poem with adult students.

It was a Qing dynasty gift from primary students in a rural Sichuan school. This visual simplicity symbolized impermanence.

Bright beautiful elementary children in a radiant universe wearing Young Chinese Communist Pioneer red scarves around well-scrubbed necks sitting upright at colorful plastic desks raised hands when he asked questions yelling, “Let me try, let me try!”

Young brave students had the courage to say this.

Older students at a Chinese middle school, Chinese university and at TLC were aged, silenced and dumbed down through tyranny, fear and oppressive parental and educational brainwashed ideological structural systems.

Shame married Guilt, producing twins. The more the merrier.

Adults had lost their instinctual curiosity, humor and enthusiasm. Only primary kids had the courage to say, “Let me try, let me try.”

Their beautiful pictographic black ink calligraphy read, “One day a man climbed into the mountains and reached a hut. He met some children.”

“Where is the teacher?” he said.

“They pointed up the mountain covered by clouds. ‘He is not here, he’s gone into the mountains to look for herbs.’”

He folded the poem creasing Chinese ideograms where latitudes and longitudes met horizons.

His linguistic healing efforts departed Ankara with Bamboo.

The Language Company

China