Seeking the Soul of China

I fell in love the first time I went to Beijing. My then girlfriend was not jealous for this was the girl I fell in love with. 

                                                                          

                                                       She wasn't interested in me though.  She was too intent on her drawing so I had to move on.  I got lucky:

                                                                                            

These two little boogers were part of the same art class that we stumbled upon that glorious Sunday morning.  I gave them my sure-fire mischievous/playful "Dad" look and (no communications gap) they instantly "got it."  They broke into wide, beaming smiles.  I bent over and clapped my hands twice, my universal sign language to children to "come here."  They got it again and (being girls) playfully squealed and ran off.  I took a couple of steps in mock pursuit (more squealing) and then broke into laughter.  They shyly approached (look at the one on the left with her hands demurely in front of her) and posed for the picture. 

I love children more than anything in the world so I fell in love a lot in Beijing in June, 2006:

                                                                   

                                                                          
                                                                        
"Time to go see granny in heaven."  Yi zi er shi, 易子而食, "swap child, make food."  Children were exchanged and eaten in China during the Mao-made famine of the Great Leap Forward. But cannibalism in China has not been restricted to the extreme situation of famine. There has long been "learned" cannibalism, cannibalism by choice.  

Last week, needing a break from China and cannibalism and especially the "swap child, make food," variety I googled "Man City fans,"  Manchester City being the soccer team I follow and Man City fans being particularly funny to me.  "Our" owner, Sheikh Mansour, is an Arab billionaire.  Along with many others, I was nervous as to how England's soccer fans, so notoriously xenophobic, and especially the blue side of Manchester variety of English soccer fan, would react to a takeover by an Arab.  No worries:

                                                                  

In my search for Man City fans I also found Amos below:

                                                                

That's a Man City shirt my BFF Amos is wearing there, as well as a Sky Blues ball he's resting his foot on.    Trying to get a larger image of Amos I clicked on the site.  It's an orphanage in Kenya. 

                                                                          

                                                                             

I have never seen more beautiful children. I could love them as I do my own son and daughter.  I would love them as my own. 

When you want to understand another people you have to, as best you can, put yourself in the shoes of that people. Then their practices and so forth become less strange and unimaginable. And I have done that. And I can say, having done that, that I could not give these children to a starving family knowing that they would be killed and eaten. I could not eat these children even if I was starving. I would starve to death myself or commit suicide if the pain of starvation became unbearable. And I can say that having never been hungry. And I will say that a people that engage in "swap child, make food" and in discretionary cannibalism is, to that extent, a bad people.

                                                                                

                                                                               

                                                                         

My, Western, American, culture doesn't engage in "swap child, make food."  It is, to that extent, better in my opinion, than the Chinese culture. Growing up, I was made to go to Sunday school and later church every week.  One of the church songs we sung went like this:

"Jesus loves the little children,

All the children of the world.

Red and yellow, black and white,

All are precious in His sight,

Jesus loves the little children 

Of the world." 

I know those words by heart and can sing the tune from memory.

                                  
Header: woodcut from "Diary of a Madman" by Lu Xun.