Blog Content and an Obama Experience in China

As Kathryn and I have discussed our blog, trying to get our arms around its purposes as well as the capabilities of this technology, realizing that we both love to write and reminisce, we have come to a some conclusions. First, this is not a diary for either of us. It is a repository of ruminations, remembrances, recollections and the like. We each have assembled a small library of thoughts, memories and topics we want to record and capture, for ourselves, for our extending family, and for any interested in the lives of two happy, fortunate, blessed people. So we'll write and the reader, over time, will perhaps gain some familiarity with our lives and who we were, are, and are striving to become.

China

In late October through mid November 2008, we toured China with a local agency, Fun for Less Tours. If life does not afford us the opportunity to take another major trip, this one will surely suffice as the penultimate experience, life itself, from birth to death and to that which lies before and beyond, being the ultimate journey. There were many highlights and perhaps we can describe them in other posts. One stands out, however.

Our journey took our group to Chongqing, perhaps a 1000 miles inland from Shanghai and the China Sea. Chongqing is a village of 13 million people, located in the Yangtze river valley. It is a major river port, the location of historical sites, and a city less westernized than some of the large eastern Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. We spent 2 days there before boarding a small liner to cruise down the immense Yangtze for five days. Part of one day was devoted to wandering a Buddhist shrine, devoted to honoring Buddha, his teachings and resulting culture. The site is punctuated with statues and obelisk, carved intricately in marble and set in beautifully tended gardens. As we were concluding our meanderings, we stood near a large, cast iron sculpture, a place suitable for photographers to document their visitation.

As we were preparing to snap and thus prove our own presence, 8 black women gleefully captured the space in front of the sculpture. They needed a photographer. I volunteered. I love doing that. It is such a delightful way to meet new people. Often they will do the same for you. Usually they want to talk and share their insights about themselves, their experiences, their lives. This was one of those occasions. These 8 women were dressed, as the pictures below attest, in their finest, most expressive travel duds. They were loud as Americans usually are, but were obviously happy and enjoying their journey. After the first picture, I asked them from whence they hailed. "Chicago," they said all together. Had they voted before they came, I asked. It was at that time two days before the election in the US. They exuberantly shouted certainly, of course, yes, you bet. I asked had they voted for the right guy. The Buddhist park felt the power of their joint affirmation that they had indeed voted for the right guy. Then they turned the tables on whitey. Had I voted for the right guy? They focused their question on this pale, old lad, suspecting perhaps that I did not support their guy. I shouted indeed I had. I then felt compelled to share some family information with them. I asked them if they had ever heard of Mitt Romney. Of course they had. I told them of our first cousin relationship, our fathers having been brothers. I told them I would have voted for Mitt had he been the nominee but I had been an Obama fan from the beginning. His book, The Audacity of Hope, has greatly moved and impressed Kathryn and me. Then I told them that when it had become apparent that Mitt was not going to succeed in his aspirations, I decided to come out of the political closet, as it were, and declare my strong support for Barack. They were thrilled and tickled when I told them I had had a special pin made which said, "Romney for Obama." These beautiful ladies loved it. We talked for awhile about the reasons for our individual support for him, our hope for his impact on this country, and the potential he has for leading us forward to what we can be and back to the good parts of what we once were. When we all agreed that Colin Powell got it just right when he, in announcing his support for Obama, said he saw this new man on the political landscape as a truly transformative character, the ten of us became one in ways I have seldom felt in my life. At that moment, we were bonded in tears and knowing embraces. I will never forget it and perhaps neither will they. One of the pictures below captures us all at one point in our bonding.

There is an ugly postscript to this experience. Evidently, several of our tour group had been watching us. One fellow in particular said to me on the bus as we prepared to leave that site, "What were you doing with 'those women' "evidently feeling that talking with and embracing them as we did was somehow wrong and apparently offensive to him. Racism has deep roots in some folks. My biggest regret is that I failed to get a contact address from any of these eight great women so we could exchange feelings and experiences as Obama has been successful and now is deep in preparing to assume the presidency. We all hope, I am sure, that our hope has not been in vain.