Asian Wrestlers

Little People Series : IV

Its amazing how much detail a person encounters in viewing things through a binoculars. I had got a Bushnell about two years back and am given to viewing birds, fruits, flowers and trees outside my window. Its a proximity to issues a person wouldn't otherwise come to experience and doing so in one's thoughts.

 

In reference to issues that are much bigger than life itself, this becomes very useful. This is particularly so in instances in which these issues form the very core of what we are as a personality.

 

In the experience of colonization in Asia a young Asian comes to encounter the formidable disposition and attitude of the colonizer. In his early impressions of civil order they foster, he encounters a beauty in society not unlike his mother's admonishments in getting him to clean up his room. It implies that it is good for you and serves our best interest.

 

In creating an acceptance for these, the young Asian finds himself responding to a public volition on issues as compared to individual. Thereafter he fashions an attitude, reflection, imitation or conformance to such a volition. He relies on novels, movies, songs, food, clothing and a smattering of common sense that is borrowed. However, he finds later that public volition, no matter how noble is not a stable and durable part of an individual's experience. It is maintained only by habituation and ritualization.

 

When I arrived in California in the spring of  '82 to work at the Consulate, I realized that I had with me such a collection of memories regarding Americans. This came eyeball to eyeball with the people I encountered on a daily basis … the art of stories and the physical reality in the flesh. It took me two years to reorganize and regain my stability.

 

On an earlier trip to London I had actually encountered an affirmation of the pictures in my mind by English folks I met. No doubt English public civility took considerable responsibility for their past colonization and the social impressions created. As I recall they had responded with kindness to my outlook as an individual in the world.

 

There's a decorum out there today that denies stereotyped images from memories and stories. We find the need to stay wide awake. In doing so I have come to realize that I may have lost heaven but I have gained a world.