In the Museum of the Sun

Under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water. Yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better;
It has no equal.
The weak can overcome the strong;
The supple can overcome the stiff.
Under heaven everyone knows this,
Yet no one puts it into practice.
Therefore the sage says:
He who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people is fit to rule them.
He who takes upon himself the country's disasters deserves to be king of the universe.
The truth often sounds paradoxical.
Verse 78
Tao Te Ching
Jane English Translation

When I walked through the Museum of Sun Yet-sen, my jaw dropped open. The colours of the banners seemed to jolt me. In the west, many of us are painfully uneducated about the ending of the monarchy in China. I was trying my best to remedy the situation myself. Much has been spoken of, with regard to all of the dynasties of the various monarchies that ruled China for thousands of years. Yet, a humble young man from the Guangdong province who held the belief that equality belonged to all and not just the elite few followed a deep passion within.

This museum replicated the humble beginnings of Sun Yet-sen with painstaking detail only usually given to saints. It is rare that you see a person that loves their people more than any shred of power that could be given to them, and that was precisely how this humble man rose to led a nation to independence, a democratic republic.
As I walked through I noticed a complete reverence for the place. Books that Sun Yet-sen had studied, his student desk, portraits of the libraries he studied at abroad, his imprisonment in the United Kingdom by the Chinese Embassy...each and every detail of his life held up for the public to see.
Even village recreation to show the environment he came from. All as a beacon to shine out for the people that anyone could be an instrument of positive change.
As I walked along the these pathways and looked at this young man's life I couldn't help but admire the heroism and courage it took to create a republic. He realized nothing is too big to fail and I saw why China still embraces his memory today. The power always resides with the people, it always will.

Being Human

In the marketplace of life, who determines the value? Is it the buyer or the seller? Often we see something, ask for the price and determine then if we are willing to trade for it. I often love to go to open markets, more to watch the people than actually to acquire things. You see the wave of human drama as sellers, anxious to unload what is perishable to a public that is trying to fulfill their family's needs. Samples of produce are often cut open to display its fresh quality openly, yet when a seller doesn't have such a display, buyers often walk by the stand suspecting something may be a little off.
As I walked through an area in Zhongshan, I viewed the story board of safety tips for the community. Step by step cautions relating to a multitude of topics. The social training that all societies employ in differing venues. How often it seems we rely on others to tell us how we should behave.
Shouldn't it be as simple as this sign above?

After all, we are human and at one time or another we hang our laundry outside to dry.

Overcoming the Hardness of Life

The softest thing in the universe

Overcomes the hardest thing in the universe.
That without substance can enter where there is no room.
Hence I know the value of non-action.

Teaching without words
and work without doing
Are understood by very few.
The Tao Te Ching - 43rd Verse
Jane English Translation

I had written in an earlier entry of a find of a tree growing through a boulder, located at a museum in Nanjing. While on my sojourn in Zhongshan we came to a little oasis in a park. It isn't often I get drawn to do strange things, but I felt compelled to climb in to and area where I just felt like I would find something similar. There it was, the seemingly impossible, another tree that come up through a boulder. The one above in Zhongshan, the one below in Nanjing.
I reflected on my journey, how the softness in my own life seemed to open more doors than with a hard stance. Often with the hardness, it went against my nature, making the pressures of life seem unbearable at times. When I looked at these trees I thought about the journey from a small seed to go through where no light existed, by a force of faith, that some amount of space came and it reached up towards the light and water. As its roots expanded, the softness made way up and out of the rock.
Should it be an impossible journey? Should it be so hard? Often I wondered about the times I needed to have just a little more patience, just a little more strength to push through. At the same time I looked and actually could observe the action and nonaction at the same time. They may not be perfect trees out there on their own, growing without opposition.
But in this oasis of calm, I saw the harmony of how life can actually be soft even when it appears to be hard.