The worst has happened.
I awoke when hearing the cell phone
message bleep in the middle of the night, worrying that it was Laura again wondering if I could understand the hellish instructions
on her Hong Kong University paper, and reading with great interest
The Department of Public Security
advises you
not to go down to Wan Chai and
Causeway Bay
I knew then a lover of history and all its drama,
that great sorrow was taking place in the streets of Our City,
There has been a great fear of and preparation
for mass violence in the streets around the World Trade Conference, especially from the South Korean farmers who are about
to lose everything, yet also from groups as varying as Indonesian dancers.
I felt alertness as I also do when something unpexected
and interesting hits the boredom of daily life, underwritten with true sadness not only for these farmers but so many of us
with rapid economic changes hitting us faster than we could foresee and plan for.
And I know cynically that back in Canada, the
social class I never made it into that of teachers who have holiday pay and overtime pay and houses with appreciating value
and all their brothers and sisters in the Canadian arts and media will cluck their tongues and prattle on with lingering Christian
guilt with the buzzwords fo their social classes - and they will ignore all their own blood relatives in Montreal and Toronto
and Vancouver who are falling into sordid and prison-like telemarketing offices.
Charity becomes at home, is a lesson
I have learned from the people of China, and they have influence me much in my own thoughts, and I must not cry too much for
others who would not cry for me, though desirous still to be one who can take care of others, rather than v‧ the
taken care of,
or the uncared for.
