I have been living in a new country now for two years. I am wowed at how many things though different, are the same.
I am from the San Francisco Bay Area and I am living in another 'bay area' in South East China in Zhejiang province - there's a bay and a harbor, and commerce, but it's different. As I move about my city, there are many plants that are the same and though I'm in a different place, the familiarity makes my new city feel friendlier. As I enjoy the different food here in China, I am wowed at the spices and ingredients of which many are the same that I have cooked with back home, yet the culinary outcome is different.
I am a teacher here in China and I see families that love and care for their kids. I observe families enrolling kids in activities, mom's and aunties and grannies picking up and dropping kids off, just like back home in the bay area where we love our kids and want to give them what we think they need to be successful.
The recognition of so many similarities, of so much 'same-ness' really gives way to empathy, to learning to let go of the differences and to simply accept and welcome others in to my life. This recognition and living in community in this new city, is also teaching me that for all our differences, we are more the same than imagined.
On Aug 24, 2018 Susan wrote :
I have been living in a new country now for two years. I am wowed at how many things though different, are the same.
I am from the San Francisco Bay Area and I am living in another 'bay area' in South East China in Zhejiang province - there's a bay and a harbor, and commerce, but it's different. As I move about my city, there are many plants that are the same and though I'm in a different place, the familiarity makes my new city feel friendlier. As I enjoy the different food here in China, I am wowed at the spices and ingredients of which many are the same that I have cooked with back home, yet the culinary outcome is different.
I am a teacher here in China and I see families that love and care for their kids. I observe families enrolling kids in activities, mom's and aunties and grannies picking up and dropping kids off, just like back home in the bay area where we love our kids and want to give them what we think they need to be successful.
The recognition of so many similarities, of so much 'same-ness' really gives way to empathy, to learning to let go of the differences and to simply accept and welcome others in to my life. This recognition and living in community in this new city, is also teaching me that for all our differences, we are more the same than imagined.