Tiananmen – Gate of Heavenly Peace
These will almost certainly be my last posts before leaving Beijing for my seven week home leave. For those of you who don’t know, I’ve renewed my commitment with MSF and will be back in Beijing at the end of May, to stay through the end of the year more or less. But first I get to visit family and friends for about seven weeks in the US and Europe. Today, as it happens, is exactly the end of my first year formally with MSF; though I
began my training with them on February 27 last year, I wasn’t assigned to a posting until March 20th. So today completes a cycle, and tomorrow begins a new year of my MSF history. In my mind, my “first mission” lasts until I fly home for vacation, and when I return at the end of May it’ll be a bit like starting a second mission – a shorter one in which, hopefully, to complete and fine-tune some of what I’ve not gotten to so far!
In any case, I’ve been remiss since the massive postings at the end of January. Much has happened since then: visits from various folks from Paris HQ, including two counterparts for me (my logistics and financial supervisors, respectively), two trips to our Nanning AIDS project, one to our Baoji Children’s Center, and two to Seoul. Ouch, no wonder I’ve not had much time to post on the blog! Plus, I’ve just been busy at work (budget revision prep, shepherding visitors around and explaining what we do and why and how, plus learning through them better how to do my own job, and so on).
In any case, I did use the Paris visitors as excuses to finally visit some of the big sites I’ve been leaving for the right time, even as my visitors have come and seen some of the most famous sites without me! So herewith are a few shots of the biggies: Tiananmen Square (or parts of it, looking toward Tiananmen Gate), and then quite a few of the Forbidden City itself, which of
course is behind Tiananmen, that being the most important entrance to the palace. Seems appropriate to post these for you just at the end of my first year here: I think of Connie and Anne, who I know will visit in May, and of Mom who I certainly hope follows through on her threat to join me in August. You’ll find this all even more beautiful and impressive in person, as Steve did.
I was planning to wax a bit poetic in this posting, about what an amazing year it’s been and how it hardly feels like a year, even though it’s more than a year that I’ve now been away from the US; about how I truly begin to feel like a citizen of the world, especially now that I have some real friends here in Beijing – and most not from the US, but from England, Australia and France, and how though I long to see my friends and family, I’m still not quite ready for the US again. It seems such an odd place, viewed from where I am now. A country that’s allowed its government, civil rights and public dialogue to be hijacked by greedy self-serving liars who’ve fed the public’s irrational fear of terrorism, further blinding its citizens to the reality that lack of opportunity, lack of health care, lack of medications for malaria and tuberculosis and AIDS kill far more people in the world – by geometric progessional factors – than terrorism…and to the
fact that true security will never rest on the backs of military power that exists more to feather the pockets of the rich than to serve true needs of the people in the US or anywhere else (let’s not even TALK about the needs of the people of Iraq about whom they spoke with such hypocritical fervor before their ill-conceived and disastrous adventure there). Mmm, guess I did
wax poetic after all, but I was thinking along more personal lines. Trying to say that this life works for me: I get to feel like I’m actually doing something, and while we’re all happy to say we didn’t vote for that blood-soaked cabal that’s got their hands tight around the national purse-strings in Washington, I get to add that I’m doing a wee bit to try to redress the balance, and I love sitting by the sidelines as the republicans come up with further lies to boggle the minds of a far-too-gullible and ready-to-be-scared American public. I get to say I not only didn’t vote for him, but really can’t see living in that insane country again as long as those lunatics are ruling the roost…
But there I go again. What I meant to say is: it’s been a tremendous year. Support from my friends and family in the US and around the world have made all the difference. Please keep me in your hearts, even as my years away lengthen, which they’re bound to do: I’ve found a world of wonder and mystery, and good work that needs doing. Right now that seems more important
than anything that I could do or accomplish in the US. I look forward to seeing as many of you as I can during April and May, and I wish you a successful and happy year of the dog. Do what you can, in your way, in your space, to bring a bit more light into the world and to balance the sorry state of fear and mistrust in the world. Thanks. 🙂
Skaters @ Qianhai
With the Drum Tower in the background. With spring already mostly sprung here in Beijing – though not leaves are out, there’s no ice on the rivers or lakes any more – it’s hard to remember how frozen solid everything was barely a month ago, but here’s a memory of how much fun Qianhai and Houhai can be in the winter, despite the cold. Brings memories of sitting by the
wood fire in my favorite cafe with some of my new friends or MSF colleagues
and watching the myriad variations on “things to move about the ice on” that
Beijing can come up with. Note how few actual skaters you see — it’s all skate-adapted chairs, bicycles, you name it.
Lantern Festival Day @ Ditan Park
The fifteenth day of the Chinese New Year is lantern festival, and it was on
that day that my colleague (and financial supervisor) from Paris and I chose to visit the park. I think that’s why there’s so much incense burning…
Visits to Seoul
OK, I’m doing it again: putting things out of order on my blog. It’s Sunday,
the 19th of March here in Beijing and I’ve returned this afternoon from my
second visit to Seoul in the past month. MSF has an office there where we’ve provided psychological support for refugees from North Korea. Since the situation has changed a great deal since we first started this work, MSF has
decided to close this office and leave local actors to serve the needs of this population in the future. Due to the luck of the draw, it’s fallen to our office to manage the last several weeks of this office until we close it, and especially to me as administrator to manage all the legal and HR
aspects of shutting down our office. The downside, of course, is more work for me just as I prepare for my blessed seven week holiday in the US and Europe…the upside, of course, is a chance to meet some great colleagues (two of our four national staff colleagues there have applied to become MSF expats in the field in the future, and the one expatriate still working there, a psychologist from Italy, is a pleasure to know and work with) and get to know another city and another office a bit.
This last visit was a week long, so I could really make a lot of headway on what needed to be done. I added a Sunday at the beginning and a Saturday at the end so I could explore the city a bit: I’ve not been since I visited it during my Jr. year abroad, back in 1984. Naturally, it’s changed a great deal since then. Here’s a good shot taken from atop Namsan, next door to the huge US military base and site of Seoul Tower, one of the major landmarks in town (I assume it’s a TV broadcast tower, but I dont’ really know — it looks like it), but I didn’t think to take any pictures of it, itself – just shots from its hilltop. Sorry. Enjoy!
(so much world, so little time....) 