My Two Cents {the Middle East}

I'm late to this discussion.

I probably don't have much to add.

Barack and Mittens have already weighed in. And, most people on this continent have probably formed their own opinions ... and then, quite sadly, simply moved on.

I've read the news articles and followed headlines, and even watched that dreadful 14 minute dubbed video.

I understand the First Amendment. But, I wonder when simple decency will trump our "right" to saying whatever we want, regardless of the outcome.

J. Chris Stevens, the ambassador to Libya who lost his life there last week, was by all reports a wonderful man ... committed to his mission and passionate about the possibilities for that country. A friend in the blog-sphere who lives a life in foreign service in that region reminded that all in those posts know the danger. I appreciated what Donna had to say over at her blog Email from the Embassy. (http://emailfromtheembassy.blogspot.com/2012/09/here-in-jordan.html)

This week The Economist eulogized Roger Fisher. I'd never heard of Mr Fisher, but I've heard of the events he helped influence. He wrote a book about negotiation called, Getting to Yes. He wrote letters to Heads of State, and whispered quiet challenges in their ears. Fisher was foremost an academic, but, he was also an adviser at the Pentagon. He also coached leaders of Ecuador and Egypt.

It was Fisher who advised Reagan in 1985 not to confront Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, president of the USSR, at the Geneva Summit. Instead Reagan, "sat by a roaring fire with him while they exchanged ideas." (The Economist 9/15-21/2012 pg 86)

It worked.

"In December 1987 Gorbachev signed an agreement with U.S. President Ronald Reagan for their two countries to destroy all existing stocks of intermediate-range nuclear-tipped missiles. In 1988–89 he oversaw the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan after their nine-year occupation of that country." (Source http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/238982/Mikhail-Gorbachev)

In 1989, The Wall came down. In 1991 the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Things are moving fast in the Middle East. But our best move in the Arab Awaking might not be a knee jerk one.

RIP Mr Stevens and Mr Fisher, may your work not have been in vain.

Olympical Moments of 2012

We spent a large part of our weekend installed in front of the telly. 
We're not usually big TV watchers. 
{We don't have cable ... Someone had to explain to me who the Duggars are!}
But every four years scrounge for the remote watch the world convene together on one stage. Friday night we camped out in basement ... had toast and tea and Dubliner cheese, and toasted the sky-diving queen and her cute corgis using mugs celebrating her Diamond Jubilee. Every piece of living room furniture is now viewed as a vault to our seven-year-old, who along with following gymnastics is smitten with Team USA swim teams (and familiar with the names of their greatest rivals.)
The Olympics aren't as pure as they once were. There are weird sports (synchronized diving?), and strange outfits (what was up with those boots, Czech Republic?), and in our part of the world really poor commentary (come on Matt and Meredith!) You have to wonder if Ann Curry isn't just a little happy about being let go in time to remain a respectable journalist ... they actually tried to link the country of Madagascar to the animated film by the same name, and Kazakhstan to Borat. {We do watch movies, just not much TV.} It would be encouraging to think that the announcers might actually give their listening audience the benefit of the doubt, that they have in fact seen a globe before!
The opening ceremonies were British quirky. It wasn't Beijing, and I think that's okay. (We were possibly a little over Beijing, having lived through the ramp-up and re-routed traffic, so in retrospect we probably should have been more impressed with the shock and awe and pulled-out stops that China pulled off four years ago.) GBR had the queen, and Mr Bean, and although some of it went on a little too long (including the Phelps/Seacrest piece that American's saw instead of the 7/7 tribute) it was a Friday night well spent ... especially since the 007 opening act was followed up by that fabulous parade of countries. 
Four years ago we watched the Olympic torch pass right by our home in Qingdao. It was an amazing moment. There is so much excitement for so many people, not just the athletes, that is a part of the Olympic wonder. Even before the "Thirtieth Olympiad of the Modern Era" began, people all over the world had already begun the slow migration that will bring our focus together for a few weeks. And, witnessing that camaraderie celebrated on a global scale will even make enduring bad commentary worth it.
Old posts on the topic of the world coming together in a similar way:
http://thejohnsonsinchina.blogspot.com/2010/06/fifa-fever.html
http://thejohnsonsinchina.blogspot.com/2010/06/world-at-our-doorstep.html

Thankful for Friendships

One year after leaving China. Six years after leaving The Midwest {and coming back again} we can spin the garage sale globe in the living room, or log into our Skype account and see places and faces of people we know and love all over the world.

Our last 18 months have been a rocky business of uncertainty and transition. Readers here probably tire of hearing of it ... but through it all there have been friendships. Some friendships for the moments, but some are proving friendships for a lifetime. And it's not just Mr Johnson and I with these connections. The girlies too have emails rolling in and out on a regular basis to places in other time zones and on the other side of the international date line.

This week I am again mindful of just how many sweet souls we have relationships with around the globe: my friend in Australia, who tells in her witty six page Christmas rant of geckos in her dishwasher and a possible python in her ceiling; my friend in Michigan who will in the coming year, re-live her expat gig in China for two months -- this time as a homeschooling mum; my Korean friend I recently connected with on FB (she is still in QD and finally procured a VPN, and I although I oft have a love-hate relationship with the FaceBook, I love that it offers me connections like this one, and has recently added, thanks to the services of BING, the ability to offer on the page translation ... most of which are far from accurate ... but offer me a window into my friend's Korean life too!)

And it's not just international friendships.

There are friends we have found with great staying power in this part of the world too. Friends who have been patient with us on this journey, and thoughtful along this year of transition.

This time of year as the mailbox in front of The Bungalow (the vintage spray painted one that sits on precarious/jaunty angle) fills with glossy Christmas photos and sometimes even newsy notes from more local friends, we are again overwhelmed with the blessings of friendships. We are rich this season in friends. And for that we are extremely thankful.

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And auld lang syne!

Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne.
We'll take a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.

Which Kingdom Really Is in the Middle?

When we arrived in China we were surprised to see a world map that looked like this:

With China smack dab in the middle.

(China has ethnocentrically always called themselves the Middle Kingdom ... the Chinese name for China is Zhongguo, or quite literally middle country.)

But peek at what American's would argue is a normal looking world map:

... and it's not too difficult to figure out which "kingdom" we see in the literal middle of it all.

Not to pick only at Americans (collectively North and South Americans), consider what a European version looks like:

The world, after all is a sphere. And as any middle schooler can tell you, there is a great challenge presented when you try to take that 3D globe into 2D. Representations are off. The Chinese processed map is skewed. The US and European ones are as well. None are expressly right or wrong... they simply differ from each other.

(This is the kind of information that swirls around in our heads as we process how we fit back into a country we haven't been intrinsically a part of for while. For our children, those great students of the 'global classroom,' with friends from many continents and an interest in the world, whether flat or spherical, we think it's important to keep these topics alive as well.)

Halus Obama

With so few articles coming without a charge from the NYTimes these days, this lengthy magazine piece on President Obama's Indonesian upbringing, and reflections on his mother is worth reading!

I liked this paragraph:

“I think this is one reason he’s so halus,” Bryant said of the pres­ident, using the Indonesian adjective that means “polite, refined, or courteous,” referring to qualities some see as distinctively Javanese. “He has the manners of Asians and the ways of Americans — being halus, being patient, calm, a good listener. If you’re not a good listener in Indonesia, you’d better leave.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/24/magazine/mag-24Obama-t.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

Backyard @ The Bungalow (front yard too... but that doesn't lend itself well to alliteration)

The Bungalow, our 85 year old arts and crafts brick home sits on an in town lot about an acre in size. The lot is longer than it is wide, but if my Chinese friends saw the width of our yard they would consider it huge.

Mr Johnson and I got to know of our yard over the course of home ownership. We trimmed the old hedge, tended the forgotten peonies, cursed the creeping charlie that has crept all over the back yard. We discovered the rhubarb in the overgrown Medusa of trumpet vine, and rescued a sun loving lilac bush from a unsuitable shady spot. Mr Johnson trimmed trees with his chain saw, dug and filled a small pond. I spent a few hours every week on the lawn mower, creating neat contrasting lines of green across our acre lot. In the fall I would again get out the green lawn tractor, almost every afternoon when the leaves began to fall, and mulch up the autumn leaves while my babies napped in their second story bedroom.

And then we moved to China.

Five years of sweat equity was followed by five years of renter-level maintenance.

Our lot now looks not unlike how it did when we bought place.

Ramshackle.

Rundown.

In fact, when my parent's visited last month, my dad (who rarely says these kinds of things out loud) suggested we hire a lawn service. "It looks like it will be a lot of work."

Today I fired up the faithful green lawn tractor. Mr Johnson purchased a new gas can for me, with a stop/flow button and a trigger for easy filling. (He filled it with gas that now costs nearly $4 a gallon thanks in part to Mr Quadaffi's antics and gutsy oil companies who can get away with it.)

No leaves where mulched up last fall.

Given the despairing looking bald patches across the lawn, leaves haven't been mulched for many fall seasons. The leaves of at least 10 trees (not including the neighbors') filled our front ditch, my flower beds, the hedge and got caught in the lawn itself.

I started with an old rake and spread the leaves out to dry. Then I began a slow back and forth motion, taking the leaves of octogenarian maples and an old oak and chopping them smaller and smaller with each pass.

Instead of smothering the lawn, they will now feed it. Their spent lives now giving new life to the shoots below.

Back and forth over the ditch.

Then passes across the front lawn.

Out came the leaf blower and more raking action, followed by the whir of the blade as it chopped and mulched and cut. Then to the back yard, where the mighty branches of our ancient magnolia will soon burst forth in pink bloom. The old leaves,the dead ones from last season, those long, heavy oblong magnolia leaves where chopped up too.

My time on the mower is therapeutic, and I forgot how much so. In China we had a tiny patch of land for a yard. We tended it with an 'green' non-motorized push reel mower and trimmed with an electric weed trimmer. Sometimes Mr Johnson would cut it, but more often than not our driver and friend Mr Zhang trimmed. My garden activities were limited to tending potted plants and nurturing herbs in my kitchen windowsill.

There's lots going on in the world these days. Our globe found a permanent spot on the kitchen table where we reference the exact location of places we read in the news ... Sendai, Okinawa (where my brother lives), the Aleutian Islands ... We're also still peeking at places like Bahrain (I'm both proud and simultaneously embarrassed that our resident junior high student routinely schools me on locations in North Africa and the Middle East), even though the news media seems to have moved on.

It's lots to think about and process. It's sad and real and overwhelming and seemingly happening in real time (we watch as it happens), unless of course, you are my expat friends in China, who can only read or blog or sign into facebook or, even their google based email accounts, if the Great Firewall of China allows them. (http://carihal.com/news/latest-news-gmail-disruption-in-china-could-signal-tighter-control-pc-world-2).

My time mulching leaves on the mower won't change any of that. But it gave me time to think. To process. To consider. To remember the people hurting in so many places around the world today. To focus outside of my own little world, even as I live and work within it.

Reading...

Three International related NY Times op-ed pieces I found interesting this week:

WikiLeaks and the Diplomats

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/30/opinion/30tue1.html

From WikiChina

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/opinion/01friedman.html?_r=1&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

Speaking in Tongues

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/01/speaking-in-tongues/