A note of thanks....

To the organizers and creators of "The Fall '01" art performance, the NW Labor Arts Festival and the Helmets to Hardhats event on Veterans' Day.

...especially to Jim Cook, Dan Shea, Linda Taylor, Twig Deluje, Agnieszka Laska, Jack Gable and Petros Evdokas,

This weekend I had the honor of participating in one of the most moving experiences I've had in a long time. And I wanted to share my thoughts and my thanks with those of you who helped to shape it.

The past three years that I've been in school, I decided to lessen my involvement in politics and organizing in order to focus on schoolwork. It was a good decision in many ways, however it has also led me to feeling a sense of loss and of being lost in the everyday commercial life that seeps into every nook and cranny where there is not something of meaning. Being involved in the events that took place this weekend was a part of my re-entry into finding meaning.

It was great to be welcomed into the fold to work on the NW Labor Arts Festival with a group of people dedicated to not only making an event happen, but to the principles and values expressed by the event. It gives me a sense of meaning in life to be able to organize around shared values and to share that work with others. To see that work bear fruit - to see people connecting, enjoying themselves in a meaningful way, to see people touched by the lives and works of others, and to find their own lives being represented by the works of others - is beautiful. It is also beautiful to see a celebration of radical politics - it is such a contrast to the trite and commercial world that permeates our everyday lives. We need more of it!

It also brought up for me the conflict that I feel about unions today. For a period of time, I was a union member (CWA), and am proud of that. But at the same time I recognized that the union was essentially a tool of the management, not a tool for the workers. Sure, there were individuals who honestly believed it protected us and our rights as workers - that's why I joined! There was a wonderful sense of solidarity that came primarily from the workers who were still working there who had been a part of the struggle to unionize the physical plant department at UNM, in which I was working. Most of them had also been members of the Brown Berets, and they remembered first hand the struggles of the '60s and '70s. But we were constantly reminded that the union was essentially a cushion for the management, and it held a comfortable place in their pocket.

The culmination of Saturday for me was the performance by Anne Feeney, and especially the grand finale of the Internationale / Solidarity Forever - it was so moving to see the audience standing and singing along. It brought tears to my eyes and a glimmer of hope to my heart. The tears were different than those that sprung up during her song "How Long" which spoke to the sense of despair that I feel all too often - just how long do we *really* have to wait for things to change? We've done a lot of good work all these years, and yet things only seem to keep getting worse.

Unfortunately I was absent from most of the "Helmets to Hardhats" event on Sunday, but did get to see some of the artwork and to hear bits of reports about the speeches. It's wonderful and tragic to see even a small piece of the world through the eyes of the vets - a vision that is shaped by their experiences of the military and war. I'm glad to have been able to help out, even a little.

The weekend was topped off by the performance of "The Fall '01". It hit me like a wall to realize that the opening scene with the dancers was not merely bodies randomly gyrating in front of the World Trade Center buildings, as I had thought when I first saw the performance on DVD, but that they were the people falling from the Towers! Those images will be forever burned into our minds and our souls. Not only because they were horrendous on their own (which they were), but also because while watching them on the news, the most upsetting part was knowing that we were witness to a monumental moment in time, a turning point: one that we would not easily recover from, and one that would precipitate a new way of life.

All these elements came into my awareness that most often are just left there dangling and I never know what to do with them. The end of so many lives in that moment, and in the years to come. The changes in mood in the country from shock, to anger, to horror, to the inhumanity that was embodied in the scenes from Abu Ghraib. The photos of the torture, the "trophies", that were so hard to look at and to not look at, and then so hard to forget, only to have them thrust back into our faces during the performance. In particular the scene of the woman dancing with her panties around her knees, as she torments her victim on the ground. To be reminded of that extreme horror of war - that women, so often the victims of such behavior, in a very public way became twisted and became the perpetrators of such violence and violation. Is this the same world that I live in? How are we supposed to deal with such highly politicized works of art - is it okay to be sitting here, watching it as if it's just "entertainment"?

Do we leave the manufacture and usage of images and the art of evoking feelings only in the manipulative hands of media and the politicians? Are we ok with the efforts by our own people to witness the reality of our times, to depict it in the way we see it, to evoke feelings in such a way so as to un-manipulate people, even if the feelings evoked are upsetting and unsettling?

It's a question we pondered on the way home. And as I walked my dog around the park afterwards, I decided that we must - there's a need for it: This is *our* world, and we need to have ways of keeping sane in it and ways to not ignore or forget what is being done in our names. And we need to do so in our own way and on our own terms, not in the manipulative, emotionally twisted and twisting way that the media and the powers-that-be would subject us to. This performance was uncomfortable, but a part of the sanity-restoring process, a fitting accompaniment to the rest of the weekend's events of reclaiming our lives as workers, soldiers and conscious beings living through historical times.

Thank you for having the inspiration to put these events together!

It's been an honor to work with you.

--Sue

Catching up

I've been having some difficulty in uploading photos - our internet access is good when we can get a connection, but not consistent. For now I'll have to skip the photos (I'll add some where possible, otherwise I'll update the photos when we return to the states and will gladly share them when I see everyone in person)

It's been a busy couple of weeks - we finished our first 2-week rotation at Zhongda Hospital with Dr. Dong, and then had a week's vacation during the week of China's national holiday (October 1st). Our group travelled to Anhui Province, just to the south of the province of Nanjing (Jiangsu province), where we had a grueling, exhillarating, and gorgeous 3 days of climbing on Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain), and then spent a few days seeing more of the Nanjing area. We also visited Suzhou, Portland's sister city which is known for its gardens & where the inspiration for the Classical Chinese Garden in Portland came from.

One place a few of us visited is Qi Xia, a Buddhist temple about 20 miles outside of Nanjing. It's an amazing still-operating Buddhist temple and monastery built around and into a small hillside, that was established during the Southern Qi Dynasty (479-502 CE). The Lonley Planet guide to China identifies it as one of the largest Buddhist seminaries in the world. In front of the main buildings, there are 2 huge vessels where people make an offering with sticks of incense that range from 1.5 to 3 feet long. Next, there are 2 main temple halls filled with massive statues of the Buddha in various manifestations. Many people come here on pilgrimage, and stop in front of specific statues to make offerings. Behind the buildings, there's a forest and the hillside (known as Thousand Buddha Cliff), where there are many small and large caves with statues of Buddhas carved into them - some from the original era, and then others that were carved over the years, up through the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644 CE).

We're now into our second clinical rotation. I'm at Qin Huai Hospital - a small hospital serving the Qin Huai area of Nanjing that combines both Chinese and Western medicine - with Dr. Tao (head of the acupuncture department) and the same translator I had last time, Dr. "George" Gu. I'm in a department that provides acupuncture and tuina (traditional chinese therapeutic massage). The specialty of our doctor (and the thing that the department is famous for) is moxibustion (also called moxa) - which was the reason we requested to study with Dr. Tao. Moxa is the burning of the herb Mugwort (Artemisia) over areas of the body, or on specific acupuncture points. Most often in the US it's used already rolled into poles, like fat incense sticks. Common ways that moxa is used here is to put 1" long slices of the moxa pole (it's packed pretty tightly so the slices don't fall apart) at the handle end of the acupuncture needle (called "warming needle"), they also burn large quantities of the loose herb in open wooden boxes with mesh bottoms that are suspended about 6-10" over the patient's body, or the herb is shaped into cones that are placed on thin slices of fresh ginger which are then placed on specific acupuncture points.

2 amazing techniques we've seen are Turtle Moxa and Moving Moxa. Turtle Moxa is done by creating a tower of a few layers - the bottom layer (that rests on the skin) is a thick paper towel, folded a few times; next is a layer of coarse salt; then a turtle shell ("Bie Jia," for those of you with knowledge of chinese herbs), and then a mound of loose moxa on top. The moxa is lit, and then the tower is placed on the patient's belly or back. Moving Moxa is a technique developed by our doctor, which is comprised again of layers. The outside layer is a red cotton cloth that's been soaked in an herbal decoction. The next layer is the thick paper towel, folded 4 times, then a burning moxa pole is placed on the paper towel, and the towel and cloth are wrapped around the pole. This is then used to massage the patient for 15 to 20 minutes, stopping every 3 or so minutes to exchange the extinguished pole with a newly lit one. Dr. Tao had us each experience receiving a treatment with Moving Moxa (Divine!) , and then has had us each giving treatments to patients with it. It's an amazing treatment, but definitely requires well-developed arm muscles. (I'm working on it!)

This week I also got to explore the Confucian Temple (Fu Zi Miao) here in town - a place that was the center of Confucian study for over 15oo years. Around the temple is a market area - an area of narrow, maze-like alleys filled with vendors selling silk, jade, carvings, and various souvenier type things.

One of my main pursuits over the past 10 days, however, has been to visit and help at a small animal shelter. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it's owned and run by local folks, as I was expecting to find a similar situation as in Cyprus where animal rescue organizations are mainly run by foreigners. It's been my refuge to spend a few hours every couple of days just hanging out with a mob of dogs and a few cats. (yes, I promise not to bring any home!)

Well, that's about it for now. I'll post some more about things we've done and seen, and hopefully get to add some photos!

Dreadnaught (video)

Here's a small video I took at the festival for International Students a few weeks ago here in Nanjing. Unfortunately my vantage point was not very good, since it's difficult to see the performer changing his mask.



[the title I've given the video makes reference to an excellent martial arts movie called Dreadnaught ( http://imdb.com/title/tt0083352/)]

Healthcare

[note: I think I'm having a problem with uploading photos....some may be missing, but I'll get them up soon. --S]



On the second day of the Typhoon not many people came to the hospital for acupuncture since it was still pretty wet and windy outside. So Tamara, Matt and I decided to experience the healthcare system in China as patients. Our first step was to enroll with the administration - a total of 5 minutes' time for 3 of us to give our names, ages, and a whole $0.60 each.

Registration

Our next step was to purchase a small booklet which constitutes our file - an additional $0.13 (in China, as in many places in the world, healthcare records belong to the patient, not the doctor.)

Since we were each wanting to end up with a medicinal herbal formula, we proceeded to the TCM Department aka Internal Medicine.




We each took our turn talking to a doctor through our translator George for about 15 minutes. The consultation cost another $0.60. At the end of the session she wrote out the prescription, which we took down to the pharmacy to fill. My treatment was prescribed as a week's worth of herbs, Acidophilus, and digestive enzymes. I paid a total of $25, which also covered the cost of having them cooked up and packaged for me.


Here's my record book

Zhongda Hospital & Morning Traffic

Zhongda Hospital



Zhongda Hospital


Dr. Dong's treatment room


Dr. Dong, Matt, Sue and Tamara

Dr. Dong & Dr. Gu (aka George) our translator


The next photos are of morning traffic on the way to our shift at Zhongda hospital - over half of the population rides bicycles, although there are still a fair number of cars on the roads. Being in traffic is like doing communal Tai Chi - there are signals, but basically everyone goes with the flow.

Cute dog - Nanjing, China

I'm not sure if this will work - this is a trial to see if I can upload videos
this one is a few seconds long, of one of the many cute stella-like dogs

Steamed Vegetable Buns

My accomplishment for the day is having learned the chinese phrase for Steamed Vegetable Buns ("cai bao zi"). Since I know either the words or appropriate hand gestures for the numbers, I was feeling quite self-sufficient. The glitch, of course came when they thought that I was ordering 5 chinese dollars worth of buns (about 15 buns), instead of just 5 buns, so I ended up with food for an army and no way to back out of the deal. Oh well, at least I have lunch for tomorrow and some more to share!

Most everything is very inexpensive here. Those 5 chinese dollars worth of buns cost about 80 US cents. A full dinner at a very nice restaurant is generally about 2 or 3 US dollars.

Today (Saturday) we took part in a festival for foreign students of all subjects studying in Nanjing. There were some of us from Nanjing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well as from other universities in the city. Students come here to study from all over the world. About a third of the crowd were military officers from many African, South East Asian, and some Middle Eastern countries.

Last night Tamara (a classmate from OCOM) and I walked around town for a while. We found a park with a section of the old wall that was built around the city 1,000 years ago. We were attracted to the park, since it sounded like there was a concert going on, but what we found were 3 older men sitting in the gate (like a tunnel through the wall 25 feet long) with a karaoke machine and massive speakers. It was quite the scene!

As a follow-up to the 2-hour long foot massage that I mentioned previously, Wednesday we decided to check out the spa, where for about $15 you can soak in a hot tub and sauna for as long as you like, and then you get a 2-hour long divine full body massage. I'm hoping to return back to the states much more relaxed than I've been the past 3 years!

Typhoon!

Big news today about the storm hitting the coast. I'm glad we left Shanghai a few days ago! We're close enough to the center of it to have lots of rain, wind and adventure, but not nearly the drama that Shanghai has seen.

My group ended up missing our clinic shift this morning due to the rain. We got stuck in traffic for an hour in a taxi just to go about 10 blocks. To make up for the inconvenience, 3 of us decided to the shop next door to our hotel where we each received a 2-hour long foot massage, which ended up costing the equivalent of $7.71. My favorite part was getting a poultice of fresh ginger on our knees, which were then wrapped in warm towels, and then wrapped in heavy plastic. What a way to warm up from the cold!

We've been having endless excellent Chinese food, and have discovered some delicacies like coconut juice and fresh watermelon juice, and have found many new and familiar tastes. We've been to many types of restaurants (we don't have cooking facilities in our accomodations) including a Buddhist vegetarian restaurant, a small home-style place, and to restaurants where each group gets it's own private room. My favourite dish so far is the "Tastes like fish eggplant" which doesn't actually taste like fish! I'm also getting hooked on the traditional breakfast food, which is watery rice ("congee") into which you put a variety of pickled vegetables. Yum!

Hello from glorious, humid, noisy, stinky, smokey, dusty Nanjing!

We made it safely to Shanghai by plane on Saturday night & then spent the night at a hotel in Shanghai. We woke up to dense humidity, great views, noisy traffic, people doing tai chi & chi gong in the park below our window & many other amazing sites.




Sunday morning we took a minivan to Nanjing, where we'll be living and studying for the next 5 weeks.

China is absolutely fabulous - first of all because as we exited from customs and entered the lobby to wait for our bus, we were greeted by none other than the great Jackie Chan! okay, so it was only a poster advertising the olympics, but I take it as an omen for a great stay here.

Random exciting tidbits:
- Stella [the dawg] statues are everywhere!


- more than half the population rides bikes, or amazingly silent scooters
- we've gotten ourselves bicycles & are working on how to maneuver in traffic









- there are huge bike lanes on all the major roads (click on photos for a better view)









- there are lots of small dogs everywhere (haven't seen any big ones yet). 5pm onwards seems to be walkie time. there's also lots of dogs who ride in the front basket on bicycles!

We've just completed our first day at the hospital - we're working in groups of 3, each group with a doctor and a translator. I'm at the Zhongda Hospital, which is a part of Nanjing University, with Dr. Dong and our translator "George" aka Dr. Gu. The hospital reminds me alot of the Nicosia General Hospital (the old one), but so much more pleasant and quiet!

Zhongda hospital offers both western and chinese medicine, with a different section for each. I'm in the acupuncture department, which sees primarily pain and musculoskeletal problems, in addition to other issues.

Dr. Dong is great. She's compassionate, skilled, and obviously cares alot about the people who come through her clinic. She's one of 5 doctors in the department.

One thing I find pretty amazing is that although Nanjing is a city of 6 million (a small city for China!), everyone is laid back and things seem to run very smoothly. Traffic is insane - both due to the number of vehicles (motorized and not) and also because of how people drive. As Erik, our trip leader says, it all works by momentum. And so far, although I've seen a gazillion near-misses and potential accidents, I haven't actually seen a real accident, or even yelling match, yet. sure, there's plenty of horn-honking going on, but people don't seem to bat an eyelid, they just gently adjust their course and keep going.

There's tons more to say, but I have to start getting ready for day 2.

Hoping you all are well!
--Sue