Last Tuesday, I was faced with a decision to make. That something I was sensing coming down had gotten considerably worse, and I was feeling so weak I had difficulty getting out of bed. At that point, I had not yet found out the name by which to call what I was coming down with, so I was not quite sure what to do… should I force myself to get up and go visit the doctor, or can I let my body cure itself by staying in bed for a few day?
I thought about it for a while, and decided to wait and watch for the day. As bad as I was feeling, I was reluctant to go to the doctor because I have this image that the hospitals are filled with people with cold bacteria and flu viruses this time of the year and I do not like to be there unless I absolutely have to. And yes, feeling very sick and tired, I felt I had the right to throw everything aside and procrastinate as I pleased, like work on some tatting projects I have not had the time to lately!
So, it was not too hard to decide to stay in bed. But it was pretty hard to be patient and keep myself in bed until I felt better – I live on my own, so I have to do all the house chores even if I have difficulty getting out of bed. At the very least, I have to cook for myself or starve to death before whatever I was coming down with could kill me! And once I got out of bed to cook, I was inclined to also do the laundry, and since I am hardly every home all day, I wished to do things I do not get to do often, like clean the cover over the ventilation duct above the washer-dryer… and the next thing I knew, I no longer had any energy left to sit up to do any tatting!
For the rest of the day, I now had no choice but to stay in bed lying on my back. But I felt too sick to be able to sleep, so I had to lay there doing nothing… which proved to be too hard! So I made another decision to do something slightly less hard than that. I picked up a book that was recommended to me by an acquaintance and started reading, which I have never done ever since I had this bitter experience in my youth.
By and large, I was right to have stayed away from this book. It was written about our traditional arts in clothing and flower arrangement, but just as I had suspected before even turning a single page, it felt to me like a romanticization of my culture by ignorantly disrespecting and dismissing other cultures around the world, especially those of the West. It seemed to me like it was over-emphasizing how the others tend to cut out and preserve only the moments they see as most beautiful, so that it could over-glorify how we do not find the need to do so because we seek beauty at every moment in a continuum from rise to demise.
It sounded to me like it was accusing other cultures of being too substantive and superficial, and blamed their matter-of-fact, cut-to-the-chase attitude for any inability they display in comprehending and appreciating “our praiseworthy culture.” Maybe I had read too much into it, but as a person standing somewhere in the middle of “our” and “their” cultures, I found the book to be mostly unworthy of giving any thought.
But just as I was about to put it down, one sentence jumped out – “many students of flower arrangement today come to lessons because they enjoy learning the traditional names of flowers… and are awestruck by the thoughts our ancestors put in to give such fitting names. [my translation]” The paragraph continued to describe how our ancestors were not quick to name-call the flowers, but instead waited and watched until they told what names they wished to be called by.
As I read this section, I thought, maybe I was too quick to name-call.
Maybe the book never considered, at any moment in a continuum from its conceptualization to publication, the possibility that maybe our culture is too abstract and ambiguous, and that our say-one-thing-and-mean-another, imply-and-infer stance is what is impeding our culture from being better comprehended and appreciated by others.
But maybe I should not have jumped to the conclusion that it reflects the view of all my people.
Maybe I need to wait and watch until we decide to throw aside all meaningless us-versus-them mentality and begin to avoid name-calling just to make our own appear somehow comparably better.
Maybe then, we will have gained enough knowledge to give a more fitting name by which to call the other cultures that are equally praiseworthy as ours.
I hope my people and my culture can remain patient and stay put in bed until this pathogen called “name-calling” is completely eliminated. I will gladly choose to do all the house chores in the meantime, so they can save all the energy to get better at being callers-of-names instead… and I am certain I will not feel a tad bit sick and tired, no matter how long treatment takes!
Water flowing, flower floating 