Affected

"Keep your hand moving," whispered the writing teacher to 80 robots. 

The foreign teacher wearing Tang Dynasty clothing filled with dragons, yin-yang balance, a Phoenix rising, a crying crane flying through mist covered mountains while emperors danced with concubines inside Forbidden Cities' red lacquered emotional curiosities where visions of detached ebullient phosphorus streams dove into silence beside abstractions of zither tonal quality in extreme bliss was a manifestation of phenomenal superior detective analysis and forty questions of the soul marking marketing examinations at 7:00 p.m. followed by utter exhaustion.

We escaped the sterile Chinese university on mountain bikes, singing, “We know so much and understand so little.”  

“People are more affected by how they feel than by what they understand,” bright star Leo said. “On day one my teacher said, ‘I only want you to bring two things to class. Your ears.’”

We sharpened sticks on stones carving paleo-Leo-lithic cave paintings on soft clay walls. Leo edged circles, rectangles, triangles, curves, lines and dots. He carved his name backwards for future historians and archeologists to get the gist or, as an unemployed academic financial analyst on Wall Street would, could, should declare, “English On Line.”

Being hunters-gathers we salvaged assorted garbage mired in mud. We created a semi-permanent temporary recycled art project on the canyon bottom. 

We assembled statues using sticks, soggy faded purple underwear, a filtered worker’s mask with a broken elastic strap, beer bottles, soda cans, green string, cigarette packages, lost feathers, sharp needled pine cones, coral blue seashells, orange peels, melted candles, dried condoms, fractured leaves, bird calls and worn and torn useful Lung-Tao prayer flags from Lhasa, Tibet.

In nature they drilled for cauliflower.

projections

People crowded into a lecture room. Languages filled space waiting for a lecture on the symbolism of fire.

I found a chair, took a small hourglass out of my pack and turned it upside down. Sand flowed.

“Jung talked about the spiritus contra spiritum, a god of ecstatic vision,” the speaker said. “Jung talked about the need for ecstasy without the chaos and how the archetypal ecstasy was for a god and soul.”

“Is the female ego in charge of the animus?” a man asked.

“Yes. The animus speaks of women with a deep connection. It is a force that can seize you.”

“Is that why there is pain and delight in human relationships?” a woman asked.

“Yes,” the speaker said. “The collective unconscious is too big to live out our personality so we create outer figures, projections saying, bear my anima for me. This creates the pain and suffering. When there is individuation there is a strong ego personality.”

“Can you please give us an example?” someone said.

“Well, war is like a falling in love experience. The shadow, the dark side, exists with the bright side and is misunderstood. The shadow is projected in dreams. In war. Veterans carry images of losing, darkness, violence, destruction and evil inside them.”

“What is the healing tendency?”

“One must find meaning. It requires self honesty. They respect dreams and the unconscious. They play. Fantasy is good, dynamic play. It is about symbolic levels. The collective unconscious is manifested in all cultures. Thank you for your attention."

 

Sign 101

Greetings,

As I've said before in the long now, this is the land of MILLING AROUND. You are an object of endless fascination. A stranger in a strange land. 

Five boys stand around watching with their curious eyes. They are polite and friendly. They SIGN to speak. Their hands are wings in space. They are from Epic Arts. 

A boy signs to his friend, You only take this ride once.

His friend signs, Stay well grounded and do not fear risk.

Her friend signs, If you want to do amazing things you have to take amazing risks.

Her friend signs, Reveal. Bear witness. Be honest. Be visible.

His friend signs, Honor the muse in whatever way she comes.

A girl signs, They stare at you from the vacuum of their eyes and say would you like to make a deal?

He signs, Buy a ticket take the ride.

She signs, Can we find inside of us a source of inspiration?

He signs, My path is Light.

She sings, Phenomena is ambivalent.

A sign land of vacant hope. A sign people of broken distractions. Where attention span is limited to the stimuli of elastic necks. Life is an accident. A cruel joke. Riders slow down on bikes, motorcycles to survey the disaster in a clean 360 degree arc. 

What is louder than a group of voiced Khmer people? Another group of voiced Khmer people. It's a small miracle anyone can understand anything when they, Voiced Ones, are so busy all talking, speaking, asking at once. Because they are more interested in what THEY have to say the volume naturally increases exponentially. 

They don't get it. Cognitive dissonance.

Someone wants to understand before they are understood.

Two kids are talking. One from the west said, "Where did I come from?"

The kid from the east said, "How did I grow?"

A writer said, Your potential will always go unfulfilled unless it is accompanied by the daily grind of back breaking labor. Nobody wants to hear this. It is not a cheerful message. Writing is a disease. Either you can't stop it or in another case you can't start.

See with soft eyes. Signing off.

Metta.

  

Bangkok tick tock

Greetings,

Speaking of Earth day and all the planting, reaping and enjoying a bountiful harvest here's a line from a recent NYT piece about the civil disturbance in Bangkok. In context. Down below where it says MORE...

Like more affordable food, clean water, opportunity, health care, fair wages, education, and so forth.

Dancing go-go- girls in the red light district have not been affected. Check your piece at the door.

It has been reported, via movement sensors they dance a little faster as explosions scatter metal, debris and death outside the neon splashed venues. The DJ simply turns the music up a decibel level drowning out the yelling and screaming of red shirts, yellow shirts, polo shirts, ambulances, innocent victims and bass driven hip-hop tick tock.

Red shirts represent the poor people. Yellow shirts represent the middle class.

"Poverty and corruption has absolutely nothing whatsoever to say or do about this issue," said B.S. Sympathy, a well respected scion of foreign banking firms, investment and real estate development companies. She spoke from her heavily fortified villa in an undisclosed location while eating caviar, drinking champagne and petting twin poodles named Lucky and Fortunate. "Let them eat cake."

The Department of Tourism said this will have no effect on:

a) tourists desperate to get out
b) tourists desperate to get in
Ships from England are now standing by in Bangkok sewage canals to evacuate nationals.

"....But taken together, they suggest a campaign by shadowy elements in Thailand to stir fear and create a sense of instability." more... 

It's highly plausible to insert the country of your choice in the aforementioned sentence rather than Thailand. You have roughly 170 choices. Start with the letter A and work toward Z, say, Algeria, Afghanistan, Burma any central Asian country, China, and so on.

Metta.

No, thank you

Greetings,

How and why it happened to briefly consider teaching a Speaking-Listening class at a Kampot university. It's existed for three years. 700 students. 

I met a man at lunch. He called his friend the director. I pedaled over at 1430 to meet him. The impatient head of English jumped in, "Yes. We will hire you."

They needed a native speaker for six hours on Saturday and three hours on Sunday once a month. Students also take core, writing, reading and culture classes with local teachers. 

"Do you have books for the class?"

"No. In Cambodia teachers provide the materials."

"I see. What levels?"

"Pre-intermediate to intermediate." The teacher took me to a class of first year foundation students. It reminded me of teaching at the Chinese university. Hopeful, bored, alert, expectant faces. It was a beginning. Introductions, eliciting questions. Exposure to a new tongue with clarity and humor. Simple.

After class I gave the teacher some ideas for textbooks; New Interchange, Cutting Edge, Let's Go.

"Can you find them in Phnom Penh?"
"You should go to Phnom Penh and find them," he said.

I laughed. "That's not my job. My job is to teach. I need materials. The students need books. I will come back next week and see what you found."

Yesterday I returned to see him. "Did you find books for the class?" He showed me a 1-2-3 Listening book with CDs.

"Ok. It's a start. Where are the student textbooks for speaking and listening?"
"I couldn't find them Phnom Penh."
"Why?"
"Not available. We don't have the money."
"I see."

I kept it simple. "I am a professional teacher. I need materials. Students need books. Students are my customers. I'm afraid this isn't going to meet the needs of the students. I understand the nature of education here. How it works. I appreciate you and the director offering me the opportunity. However, I won't be teaching here."

"What! You're not going to teach the class?"

"That's right. Thank you for the opportunity. Please give my regards to the director. Good-bye."

I rode my bike to the river. The situation had offered students and I the chance to learn, play and explore together. Reality check. The system was ineffective. I assembled my small frustration, sadness and disappointment into a collective breath and let it go. It floated away, on, over, around and through a wide blue river. So it goes.

Metta.