The Chinese Mother

I am reading a book "Street of Eternal Happiness" by Rob Schmitz, a foreign journalist who lives in China. The book gives accounts and life stories of several people living or working in the same street in Shanghai where the author resides.

One particular account is about a florist who migrated to Shanghai many years ago from a small mining town in the rural region of Shangdong and at such is a wai di ren  外地人 ie.not a local. Leaving her 2 sons in the care of her miner husband to seek a better future for the family, she started off as a factory worker. By the age of 32 she was retrenched because hordes of younger Chinese women were flooding to the cities. Fortunately she apprenticed under a kind elderly couple in a flower shop and eventually started her own florist.

When financial circumstances got better her elder son joined her in Shanghai and did extremely well in middle school which would have gotten him into an elite high school in Shanghai which was a stepping stone to top universities. Unfortunately when discovered that he was a wai di ren he was told that he could only enroll himself in the high school in the province where he came from and where he could sit for the entrance examination into colleges. Thus he went back to his province but was in for a rude shock. He had expected a breeze in the rural high school having been among the top students in the Shanghai middle school. Instead he found himself almost at the bottom of his high school class. It turned out that the provincial schools had raised the standard of their school syllabus and raised the level of difficulty of the school exams to sieve out the elite students from the massive cohort in the province. Demoralised after failing school exams the boy turned to computer games and eventually dropped out of school; and like his mother would return to Shanghai as a migrant worker.

Meanwhile the florist's second son had exhibited what was termed as "left behind children"'s symptoms, withdrawn and anti-social. It is estimated that China has 61 million of 'left behind children" and doctors are beginning to notice many psychological problems surfacing in these children. Rightly or wrongly the florist's second son was said to be autistic and was sent to a special school miles away from both parents.

The florist lamented to the author about feeling guilty for what she deemed as ruining the lives of her children despite her being definitely more well off  than  her friends and neighbours in Shangdong. The author described her as feeling responsible and worrying incessantly for her children. He  quoted her saying "Chinese people just can't let things go . We always live for others, for the next generation. It's endless......Sometimes I wonder whether if there will ever be a day when I start to live for myself."

For most mothers of Chinese origin I think the answer is 'No' whether they are in China or in other parts of the world. It is like some collective consciousness moulded into the DNA.

Lincoln in the Bardo

Just finished the book Lincoln in the Bardo which was awarded the 2017 Man Booker Prize in UK and is in the New York bestseller list. The novel began with the death of Willie Lincoln the son of Abraham Lincoln at age 11 of typhoid fever. It also happened at the peak of the American Civil War with great losses of men on both sides. Although the word Bardo never appears in the whole book except in its title, bardo in Tibetan Buddhism is a state before rebirth. Reading the book it becomes clearly obvious that George Saunders, the author is a Buddhist as many Buddhist concepts are subtly interwoven into the story line and yet so well exemplified. The narrators are mainly 3 ghosts that are stucked in the Bardo because of their inability to detach from their previous lives and their refusal to acknowledge their death. The book is also full of citations from the press and various writers of that period relating to the death as well as the waging civil war and the toll of both on Abraham Lincoln.

As it turned out Abraham visited his son's grave at night and promised to be back again. Willie  hence refused to leave for the next world. As per the story children who die should depart as quickly as possible to avoid being entrenched and rooted by beings from some realm. Hence the 3 ghost narrators tried their best to help both father and son to stop holding on to each other. The grief of the father is written in such heart wrenching words. One critique of the book explained that the poignant grief also represents the grief for all the sons lost during the civil war and the great guilt upon the President. "Some blows fall too heavy upon those too fragile"

There are also many sub plots about a whole host of other ghosts who were dying to narrate and keep retelling the stories of their lives. You get the general sense of it, the regrets, the vengeance, the unfulfilled dreams, the guilt and the inability to let go. "So many wills, memories, complaints, desires, so much raw life-force".

 "Universal heartbreak.... part of human condition". In my mind one word sums it all "Durkha" - the universality of sufferings from attachment which George Saunders so deftly articulates in the book. He also also weaves in the concept of impermanence when he describes Abraham Lincoln's thoughts of his son:

He came out of nothingness, took form, was loved, was always bound to return to nothingness.
Only I did not think it would be so soon.
Or that he would precede us.
Two passing temporariness developed feelings for one another.
Two puffs of smoke became mutually fond.
I mistook him for a solidity, and now must pay
........
All alter, are altering, in every instant.


Truly a book with words that linger.


















thinking of the great unwritten story of our country is that community’s resilience, and the faith in the American ideals, in spite of the shit that was being piled on them relentlessly.”

No easy task

I attended a lecture on Parenting Capacity Assessment at the counselling centre where I practice sandplay therapy. This is something new to me. Basically the task involves the assessment of the parents' capacity to meet the needs of their child and enhance his/her development. Very often this task is carried out on behalf of the court or other authorities when concerns arise with regards to a parent's ability to safely care for their child. Concerns arise when parents are found to have mental illness, have substance abuse or have limited intellectual functioning. Assessment is conducted when decisions have to be made about removing or restoring children to the care of their parents.

Amongst many of my takeaways and new learnt facts is a cautionary note that a parentified child is not necessary an indication of the lack of parental capacity. (A parentified child is one who parents  his/her parents ie. the role is reversed). This brought to mind a student whom I counselled when I was a school counsellor. His mother was suffering from depression and he had to ensure she was not missing her medication ontop of him doing household chores. I could not recall what his presenting issue for counselling was but I remember this primary school boy as a street smart bossy Ah Beng who talked like an adult. He definitely did not come across as emotionally impaired, at least outwardly. Thus it was mentioned at the lecture that in the case of parents with psychiatric problems, the effect of the illness impacting the child has to be assessed carefully.

This I feel is not an easy task indeed. Outwardly these children may appear to be in control and often are quite bossy in behaviour. Basically for a healthy normal development, a child is free to explore while having the safety net of the parents to fall back upon. Children who feel responsible for their parents may become overwhelmed and anxious which may be detrimental to their mental health and inhibiting their freedom to experience the world.

All in all my main takeaway is that the task of assessing parental capacity with multitudes of factors to consider and fact finding necessary from all persons involved in the child's world  is no easy endeavour. In the first place who can actually define what is good parenting or for that matter minimal parenting.

Balinese Wisdom

I was in Bali last weekend. All the streets were lined with decorative bamboos "penjor" with offering baskets suspended at the end. From 1 Nov for 10 days the Balinese celebrate Galungan,  a festival about "togetherness". Apparently every family hangs one bamboo. Where the offerings are more and heavier the bamboo droops lower forming an arc over the street. The driver told us it is a reminder to the people that the more you have the humbler you should be. You can see the locals all dressed in ceremonial dresses with baskets of food and flowers atop their head walking to the temple. The women usually wear white or yellow kebayas and the men are mostly in white tops.

During Galungan the creator of the universe and the spirits of the ancestors are honoured. Families come together to share food and immerse in the festive spirit.

Occasionally along the streets you come across a small group of teenagers doing a dance with a mythical animal head accompanied by the sound of gongs and other musical instruments. The driver told us it is known as the Barong dance where the mythical beast is invited into the villagers' home to restore the balance of good and evil. The Balinese believe there is good and evil in all things and it is mankind's duty to keep the two forces in balance. The concept is that evil can not be defeated but can be brought under control. The Barong ceremony aims to achieve the delicate balance between these universal forces.

I find this very interesting. Instead of just purging out or blocking out evil the Hindu Balinese recognise it and believe the best way to deal with it is to have it controlled to derive a balance or equilibrium. Immediately I think of Carl Jung 's concept of accepting the 'shadow' in ourselves. Jungians advocate that "shadow integration" has to continue to take place throughout our lives. "Coming to terms with the shadow and constructively accepting and assimilating it into the conscious personality is central to the process of Jungian analysis".

I always feel that Bali has an air of indigenous wisdom and it is once again manifested during this trip.