Regarding Justice.

Down Syndrome.

Orphans.

To be in one of these categories is a tragedy. One that deserves compassion, tenderness, and society to reach out with eager provision and love.

To be in both of these categories, to be orphaned, to be abandoned by your parents - because of even suspected Down Syndrome, is a crime.

To be an orphanage, and deny the adoption of that orphan to a family because of that Down Syndrome - out of a desire to protect the nation's reputation, both with its own population and that of surrounding nations, is heinous.

To force this child to remain in the orphanage, un-adoptable, and to tie them to a chair.

No toys.

No play time.

No friends.

No parents.

No love.

No hope.

Please Lord come quickly.

Regarding Landlords

I met a guy last year whose business was real estate. He would travel back and forth between the States and Shenyang selling properties in China. This guy shed some interesting light on landlords, explaining that the vast majority of Chinese people have no trust at all for the stock market, and have even less trust for banks. With the insanely rich getting insanely richer, they are having the difficult dilemma of where to put all of their newfound wealth.

Property.

Now this actually explains quite a bit.

For one, it explains how I'm able to look out my window and count appx. 20 cranes of new high-rises going up outside my apartment window while at the same time apartment buildings less than a year old are at minimum capacity.

It also explains why landlords in China are such jerks. To them, being a landlord is not a position of responsibility. They don't really need the money, and in fact, any rent you actually do pay them is just a bonus. The wealthy are counting on the value of the property only to continue to sky rocket, and so much of the insane amount of construction that is taking place is sheer speculation.

But because properties are owned and rented out by the rich and its income is seen as peripheral, tenants and their complaints about....mold, shoddy construction, ceilings falling apart, even the junk that the owner decided to store in the apartment before move in day, are largely ignored and are seen as petty interruptions.

Argh.

This mindset is grossly apparent to me as I sit in my apartment where my foster child sleeps on the floor because our landlord ignores all pleas to move his monster beds (yes, beds are plural here) out of the one room he can sleep in.

It amazes me that individuals in positions where their livelihood is a result of service to people so often grow callous to the very call to serve that the livelihood stems from. The whole point of their position is written off as a peripheral inconvenience.

But as a teacher, I still hate grading papers.

Hugely inconvenient.

Regarding Sick Daughters

I never got the movie that has the daughter getting hopelessly sick, followed by the father going against all odds to discover the miracle cure, leaving the entire family together, happily ever after. Lifetime movie cliche's are somewhat nauseating to me. The reality is that when the typical father's daughter is hurting with sickness, he is at the mercy of providence and the nearest medical facility.

Or just providence.

Personally, these are the moments in life when I'm struck by my relative helplessness in life. They also tend to be the moments that I work to avoid the most.

Our detestation of being helpless begins early. Already my daughter gives me 'the look' when I put the pacifier in her mouth and don't let her do it alone. I think we want to establish that we are something significant, and on some level independent and self-sufficient.

Honestly our desire to set ourselves up as independent would be a humorous hyperbole if it wasn't so grossly futile a dream. From the cellular level, where all it takes to end a life is one cell decide its not going to stop reproducing, up to the cosmic level of our planet depending on insanely precise mechanisms to hold everything in place just so, any concept of independence is sickeningly arrogant.

Which begs the question:

Why does feeling out of control throw me off balance?

I'd laugh if it wasn't so serious an issue.

Regarding Dongxi

For those that aren't students of the great and elusive Chinese language, 'dongxi' (pronounced 'dongshee') is the chinese word for 'stuff'. Its one of those great words you find when learning a language that fits so many holes in a building (ok, I'll admit - my chinese vocabulary is currently better defined as 'stagnant', but I digress) list of words you actually know.

Dongxi is what we get on Christmas.

Dongxi is what is gathering dust in the closet you haven't used in 3 years.

Dongxi covers just about everything.

And I discovered something this morning about dongxi that I thought I already knew.

Every Christmas I still have the anticipation of opening presents. I love getting them. The high hopes, excitement, the destruction of paper and boxes, and the carnage that follows thrills me. Every Christmas I end up sitting down with the loot, fiddling with the loot, and playing with the games wondering why I'm still not happy.

No seriously, I know its cliche'ish, but that thought process actually went through my mind this afternoon.

And I can honestly say that I have experientially learned the truth humanity has been struggling to learn for centuries: dongxi has absolutely nothing to do with happiness.

Proven by my daughter, who was soon bored of her American-sent laptop to tug on her father's arm to be held.

Unconditional acceptance. Unconditional grace. Unconditional love.

Gifts may be a part of these. Gifts are not the totality of these.

To assume so is mixing the ends with the means.

Regarding Well-Meaning Fools

Few things are more frustrating than when disaster strikes as a direct result of your efforts to do something good. Unfortunately our world seems to be filled with well-meaning people who regularly cause disaster, and I've often found myself in the midst of the mob who casts stones at well-meaning fools who have caused greater problems than those they set out to remedy. Honestly, the mob is a fun place to be. There's camaraderie in its midst, a pleasant atmosphere of feeling quite above the naiveté existing among 'common folk'.

Then, one evening, you are having fun with your foster child, causing him to laugh as he repeatedly lands on a bed full of pillows. His laughter sweetened by the reality that well-meaning fools thought institutions were a good place to raise a child, and that a 2 year old can exist off of formula and rice cereal fed 2x's a day.

And time stops when you realize that after he landed his whole arm is twisted in a way that is not natural, when this boy who never cries begins screaming in pain.

It's lonely, outside of the mob. I miss the days before I caused pain greater than that I was working to heal.

Regarding Firewood.

During my high school years my family lived in the frigid north of Maryland. In this cold frozen wasteland our home was heated by a woodstove. Now I loved this woodstove, for it provided a constant feeling of 'real heat'. You always knew that at any point in the day, you could take your homework, lay down on the carpet at the foot of the stove, and feel warmth seep into your bodies core.

The tradeoff was that it was me and my brothers constant responsibility to bring firewood into the home. A never ending train of wood was necessary throughout the winter to keep this precious warmth alive. Of all the chores I remember being given (and there were many) this is one that I can't recall complaining about, most likely because it was the one chore whose results were most clearly seen.

Now in almost all aspects of the term, I view myself as a 'laid back' kind of guy. And yet somewhere between those wheelbarrow loads of wood and today there has developed an intense pet peeve of people doing their job. Nothing will piss me off faster than someone who has a clearly given job and fails to do it.

The problem, however, is that in real life, when I am not the oldest brother and tasked with the refueling of the iron beast, is that the boundaries of when I get to chew someone out is not nearly as clearly defined as it was when a teenager. The question is further complicated when speaking in the context of the larger Family. In the complex relationship of Brothers and Sisters (and further muddled by work relationships) I typically have no clue when it is actually appropriate to open my mouth.

Meh.

Another reason why responsibility is overrated.

Regarding Stools that don't Swivel.

Today a maintenance worker at SYIS reminded me of my father. It was something random, something small, but I immediately laughed when it happened because my first thought was, "DAD WOULD DO THAT!"

I am struggling with a breathing problem that requires me to take deep breaths. Weird, I know, but the longer I stand up straight the more noticeable/worse the problem becomes, and so I requested a stool for my room. The head of the maintenance staff replied by giving me a black metal swivel bar-chair, however half of the ball-bearings were broken and the feet were somehow uneven, resulting in a extremely loud and wobbly piece of furniture that was more of an annoyance than my breathing problem. So I requested a new one. One that didn't swivel.

Today I got my wish. One of the maintenance staff, a small older guy that doesn't speak a bit of english, handed me the exact same chair. Which frustrated me. Then I sat in the chair.

No swivel.

I was puzzled.

I flipped the chair over, and I realized what he had done was drilled holes in the four legs and bolted them to the seat of the chair.

He grinned at me, and said in broken English, "No turn."

That's my dad. 98% of the world's population would have gone out and bought another stool. These two guys just make do with what they have.

Artists in their own right.