Mornings in Shanghai

How can it be that in a place with so much chaos, I can find so much peace?

This morning, I traveled to Zhongshan Park where I thought I would find a few people performing Tai Chi. Well, there were HUNDREDS of people in the park, maybe a thousand… moving so delicately with swords, line dancing, ballroom dancing, flying kites, meditating and playing with some red spinning toy I can’t explain. I found myself just sitting there and watching. The peace that came over me is something that words cannot adequately explain.

Most of the people here live in the terribly dilapidated houses. If they are fortunate enough to live in something better, they still want to be outside. So they spend most of their time in the park. There are thousands of people doing this, maybe hundreds of thousands in the parks throughout the city.

I noticed that the overwhelming majority were older than 40, maybe even 50. It is a generation that is far removed from the "new" Chinese--intellectually, politically and socially--the people for whom college is an option but yet still an honor (not an "entitlement" as I find the thinking in the U.S.), the night life is paramount and American influences are not only welcomed but encouraged.

The mornings in China are for the older generation, those who take great pride in centering their souls and understanding their place in society.

The evenings in China are for the new generation, those who have dreams beyond their parents and are blazing a trail for their new society.

What an exciting time to be Chinese. What an exciting time to be invited here.

One day soon, China will be lead by this new generation. This country may have been in existence for thousands of years, but its rebirth has only happened in the last 40.

I am not in any position to give advice beyond what I am teaching in the classroom, but I hope that the new Chinese do not sleep through the mornings. The evenings are where the new Chinese will create the new China, but it is in the mornings where they will remember how they got there.

There is much to learn from the older generation.

Like Tai Chi. Like line dancing.

And finding yourself.

I came to Shanghai wanting to experience a new culture, a culture as foreign to me as I could imagine. I will leave here learning far more than I have been able to teach.