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Real Geisha, Real Women, Real Men, Real Relationships, Real Feminism

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In Memoirs of a Geisha, director Rob Marshall missed out on a real opportunity to be a useful iconoclast showing the west what’s so special about geisha: why men admire and want them, what esoteric knowledge they have about pleasing men, how they work their spells….

 

Instead, Marshall played out only the same-old-same-old standard, politically-correct, puritanical view that geisha (and other sex workers) are pitiable at best and contemptible at worst, either evil manipulators or miserable powerless victims exploited heartlessly by the self-serving animals they generously called men….

 

Marshall also chose to heavily reinforce the popular delusion that no real feminist could ever, in good conscience, put herself in service to a man.

 

To be sure, Marshall provided us with beautiful, talented actresses dressed up in gorgeous geisha outfits, and acting out a poignant variety of human emotions on arresting, historically and culturally accurate sets. But none of this display showed any hint of the range of talents and social skills displayed by truly accomplished professional geisha.

 

Marshall’s vision suggests that geisha's primarily physical services emerge from a secretive, machiavellian world of women who dislike and disrespect men, and who plot together to exploit men’s weaknesses.

 

Nearly all religious and philosophical traditions, not to mention leaders in every field, teach that selfless, caring, compassionate service to others is a powerful, transformative act (the golden rule, even.) Rob Marshall could have chosen to offer a sympathetic alternative view of geisha—one less politically-correct—as a select, prosperous, accomplished group of women who like and enjoy men and feel comfortable with physical intimacy, who have mastered the arcane arts of pleasing men, and who accept the limitations and dangers of their work—women with skills, beauty, and talent who choose this line of work over other career options, among them, marriage.

 

The important, tragic and unfeminist thing about sex work is not that it provides a service, but that it usually exploits people economically, just as, say, child labor and child trafficking and porn does, or just as any other poorly paid, undervalued, and underappreciated work does. Feminists are rightly concerned about the grossly inhumane contexts in which workers with no economic options must sell their bodies into undervalued servitude—or die. Sex workers at the low end, like all other unskilled laborers, are victims of indifferent societies that first casually produce and then abandon them.

 

Feminists are legitimately concerned with women (and men) who have few or no choices because of gender discrimination, or whose particular and uniquely individually-selected gifts are rejected, devalued or unreciprocated because of gender discrimination.

 

Beyond such ravages of economic and gender exploitation, feminism has no legitimate interest in judging women’s specific choices of activities, such as, for instance, all the many possible forms of loving, or being loved by men and women. Loving men and women, including their bodies, does not necessarily imply gender exploitation or degradation or subservience, however distasteful or immoral some may judge it to be.

 

Nevertheless, even the world’s top geisha get no respect for their work from puritanical westerners, not because their work is sexist, but for the same reason that prostitution is everywhere disrespected:  prostitutes’ competitors–the many “honest women” happily ensconced within the powerful majority who believe they have a real stake in insuring that sex workers remain hidden and powerless.

 

Many modern women are completely confused about whether feminism is compatible with any kind of compassionate service (especially to men!) at all. Some women have come to wonder if service work of any kind–nursing, house cleaning, waiting tables–is unfeminist and demeaning. Many women feel constrained even within their marriages or romantic relationships, fearing that offering a life of lovingly exchanged service to a man must surely be anti-feminist—a form of caving to the enemy, of servility. 

 

When modern women do find it within themselves to offer men their friendliest services, many still wonder if there’s not something smarmy or beneath them about such offerings, even if their every hormone and natural givingness urges them ceaselessly to slather their beloved with wholehearted attention and kindness.

 

There is nothing sexist or anti-feminist about loving men (or women, for that matter)–about attracting them, pleasing them, or giving to them wholeheartedly. Loving, giving, and compassionate service of all kinds are never unworthy in themselves, although unworthy contexts involving extremes of compulsion, lack of appreciation and reciprocation truly are sexist and immoral.

 

Devoted service offered willingly and lovingly in an appreciative, reciprocal (if not tit-for-tat) context is absolutely necessary to optimal human functioning and happiness, and completely different from the kind of forced or half-hearted service in which someone’s gifts are disparaged, unreciprocated, and unappreciated.

 

Too many people nowadays overlook the fact that the very essence of a good relationship is standing in service to one another, regardless of whether that partnership is between husband and wife, mother and daughter, friends, siblings, in-laws, a CEO and her new mail clerk, young lovers…whoever.

 

Every conceivable positive relationship is based in reciprocal service. Relationships that are not about reciprocal service—however loosely defined—are not really relationships at all; they’re isolated billiard balls knocking about an empty lonely pool table universe, banging together sporadically and spectacularly in conflict and competition before resuming their separated lives.

 

The most universally prized life-enhancing romantic relationship, regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman, is one in which your dearly-beloved treats you like a king (or a princess), a goddess (or a god). Among the keys to such heavenly bliss are good-faith, wholeheartedness, appreciation, and reciprocation.

 

Because of confusion about the subtleties of feminism, modern romantic relationships evolved to become less concerned with caring, commitment, and helping one another in a challenging world, and more about cold, competitive calculations and sexual politics. Both sexes worry whether warm displays of affection will be perceived to be neediness. Both sexes fear that generous-spirited service iwill mply servitude. Both sexes exhaust themselves in endless, awkward, conflicted, back-and-forth rituals of worrying whether they’re giving more than they receive. Both sexes are all about, “you go first.” Yet both sexes are fully aware that their beloved wants a partner who is both powerful and slavishly devoted—because frankly, that’s what they want too. Many people deeply enjoy the lavish, tender, solicitous attention of an enchanting member of the opposite sex.

 

More young people of both sexes these days are giving up on what they see as the relationship game, foregoing the pain and uncertainty of modern committed relationships in great part because of their understandable confusion about the wisdom of putting themselves at service to another. I mean, if their long-dreamed-of personification of virtuous masculine/feminine perfections is ultimately unwilling to bow down, worship and serve them all their days, well really, why bother?

 

The age-old willingness of both sexes to offer their personal gifts to a single individual over a lifetime is in considerable decline, and considering the grave new shortage of available perfect partners for such paragons, may never recover.

 

Some women who would willingly offer loving service to women friends still feel historically (and often legitimately) constrained about giving to men, who thus are relegated to a very sad, under-served, second-class half of the world of often otherwise deserving, well-intentioned parents, bosses, employees, children, siblings, friends, and colleagues, which is too bad, too.

 

If feminists want more solidarity and sisterhood, they might consider offering compassionate service and empathy to exploited (or unexploited) sex workers. And while they’re doing that, they might benefit from listening to such workers’ hard-won geisha-type advice about how to please men, just as men could learn much from their gender's most supportive exemplars.

 

Most single young women today devote a large part of their earnings and their waking hours to pleasing men anyway, regardless of how feministically-conflicted they may feel about such efforts. Consider the successes of recent best-sellers offering love advice from former prostitutes….

 

It is certainly grossly sexist when women (and men) are constrained, unwilling givers to unappreciative, inequitable, unreciprocating receivers who have been deluded into thinking that such service is the rightful due of their gender.

 

Much of modern feminism is a reaction against unappreciative men who historically not only gobbled up all the good jobs and roles, but also most of the money, prestige and power that came along with them, and who later had the nerve to expect continued affectionate service from women, not as a freely-given, loving, and valued gift, but as their legitimate if unreciprocated due. Women, too, are finally seeing the sexism behind the long-standing assumption that men owe women a living….

 

To the often justifiably-aggrieved women who find little to like about men: please stop insisting that there’s something slavish, inappropriate, and/or sexist about freely choosing to be in a generous, mutually supportive relationship with a man (or a woman?) There isn’t.

 

Forewarned is forearmed: men like women who like them. If you don't much care for your man, or for men in general, for whatever reasons, don’t be surprised if he someday wanders off with someone completely unworthy of him but who likes him a lot and aims to please. The same goes for men who don't find much to like about women.

 

To all women: please try to see fit never again to disrespect a geisha or any other sex worker. Like the rest of us bumbling God-isn’t-finished-with-us-yet-either humans, sex workers need compassion, acceptance, and understanding, not contempt.

 

And finally, to women who love men, or who want to learn how to love them better, we can all reasonably choose, if we wish to, to learn a lot from geisha. Because geisha aren’t just about sex, you know. Sexuality, like spirituality, pervades all aspects of life. It's not just about genitals. The brain, they say, is the most important sex organ. Geisha know a lot about making men happier which is well worth knowing, if you’re one of the many who aspire to mutually enjoy and serve another.

 

Geisha lore offers a tempting (but not exclusive) window on relatively rare social arts: attentiveness, affection, tenderness, flirting, gentleness, refinement, courtesy, agreeableness, femininity, respect, presence, charm, humor, kindness, intellect, sensitivity, openness, loyalty, sensuality, giving, honoring, playfulness, intimacy, nurturing, acceptance, forgiveness, support, generosity, assistance, vulnerability, respect for tradition, and, in general, making a fuss over, and spoiling men rotten. Geisha are really good at making men feel truly wonderful about themselves. What’s not to like about that?

 

Whenever and however did this venerable list of praiseworthy social skills become politically incorrect? These subtly but important graces–along with physical beauty, gorgeous accoutrements, and skill in the arts of music, dance, serving food and the like–are a goodly part of what real geisha are all about, not to mention real women, real men, real relationships, and real feminism.

 

I don’t see much clarity about any of this in today’s society. I would love to see more thoughtful commentary and dialogue on these engaging contemporary issues, and regret not having found an in-depth treatment of them in Rob Marshall’s movie. I do think his film was beautiful made and visually and emotionally rich; he just missed this one important boat.

 

I hope someday to see highly-accomplished geisha finally receive from western audiences the recognition, support, and respect due them for their historic, centuries-old, artful, dedicated, cheerful, and very valuable example of freely-given, highly-valued compassionate service—not servitude or subjugation—to fortunate and highly appreciative men.

 

Please write comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

Here is a conversation I had with a thoughtful reader….)

 

 

Hello,

 

        A colleague forwarded your article to me, and I found it most interesting.   I agree with the vast majority of your assertions (although Marshall's set was not, in actuality, culturally accurate).    I wrote a doctoral dissertation on geisha (2002), and I propose geisha as feminists. I have an article in a book entitled Bad Girls of Japan; in a dialogue between me, a few geisha, and several customers, we discuss geisha as feminists.  I spent almost three years with geisha, and studied them as artists; I frame them as women in control of their own futures and outline just exactly how they exist within the arts world (the Ph.D. was completed in ethnomusicology).    I propose that the “bought and sold” model of geisha so treasured in America is a form of feminist Orientalism, and we need this false notion if we are to appear advanced in the gender department (another pipe dream).

    The film was ridiculous.   Even someone who's seen geisha for only a few minutes would never have tried to pass that off as accurate.   The Chinese actresses the country continues to rave about were pathetic actresses — we just have poor standards for this.   Real geisha couldn't be more different.

     The arts scenes were so far off as to be laughable — imagine casting the American basketball team as the Bolshoi, putting them in leotards, giving them a few lessons, and then allowing their “dance” to be passed off seriously as ballerinas.   These Chinese actresses couldn't even wear kimono properly because they hadn't done it for thirty odd years, couldn’t walk properly (an art learned from dance).

     Anyway, kudos to you for smelling a fraud even though you don't have the experience I've had, and for pointing out one of America's greatest blind spots.   Unfortunately, the rest of the nation is eagerly gobbling up the fantasy, and real geisha will suffer the consequences because young Japanese men don't want to be part of something that the world condemns.

      Feel free to email — kforeman69@hotmail.com

 

Best,

Kelly Foreman, Ph.D.

 

Dear Kelly,

 

Thank you so much for your thoughtful and interesting letter; it was very gratifying to hear from a scholar who is so experienced and knowledgeable about geisha, and I appreciated your support as well as your clarifications. What a fascinating experience you had in Japan!

 

My background in geisha and feminism is avocational. I was introduced to an exquisite geisha in Kyoto when I was a little girl, visiting the gardens surrounding a teahouse during the early 50's, and later that night saw more geisha singing and dancing on a kabuki stage, if my memory serves correctly. My father, a great Japanophile, was stationed in Tokyo in the U.S. occupation army–we lived there three years. My father described the “top” geisha to me as prized national treasures, personifications of the Japanese feminine ideal, carriers of a long oral cultural tradition, and the epitome of social refinement, courtesy, sensitivity, delicacy. My dad was my childhood hero, so his admiration piqued my interest greatly.

 

Perhaps I read a review of Bad Girls and picked up your idea of geisha as feminists–I don't remember, I'm sorry–we bloggers are pretty free to throw “our” stuff “out there” unhitched to anything, and just see what happens, unlike you more conscientious folk…. I really like your great thesis and agree with it, and I loved your NBA/Bolshoi image….

 

I've been blogging since Feb 05 and am enjoying it.  I forwarded the geisha article to your colleague (I only sent it to one person) since her name came up, when, as an afterthought, I googled “geisha” + “feminism.” I had started the piece as a review of Memoirs of a Geisha, and I guess it got away from me!

 

Thanks, too, for your comment on the set. The old town took me back a long ways into nostalgia-land, although to be sure, I shouldn't have pronounced it accurate, since I didn't know. I remember that I would take my 200-yen allowance weekly and wander the little shops in search of treasures. Everyone was always so kind to me–I'm still drawn to Asians. I didn't know there had been a war; I felt perfectly safe.

 

I will look for your book/article…. I hope to return to Japan some day. I remember spending a week at a lake resort called Kanizawa (I'm not sure of the spelling)–perhaps it has changed less than Tokyo? My favorite movie is Lost in Translation–I watch it over and over. I mean to review it–I'll send it when I do…. I've also been accused of having Japanese influences in my art–my compositions and technique too? I posted a couple of my portraits on my blog–do you see a Japanese influence? Interesting, as I left Japan when I was only 9.

 

What a fascinating field you are in–it's just exploding.

 

I really like/agree with your thesis on the American view of geisha; I'm guessing that the Japanese view is very mixed? I do hope some still cherish the geisha. Yes, the young everywhere are easily embarrassed by old ways, and hasten to throw them out; our Indian cultures come to mind. I remember how WEIRD I thought authentic (American) Indian music was when I first heard a recording (in elementary school)–anything different shocks the young–they are so rigid so early. I love it now, so it must have been a fruitful introduction–I stayed intrigued.

 

I was very interested by what you said about the actors' portrayal of the geisha in the movie, because I thought perhaps my memory might have been playing tricks on me. The movie geisha, to me, looked, in comparison to remembered geisha, very big, crude, and galumphing, sort of, although of course they are beautiful women. I loved Gong Li in To Live and earlier movies of Zhang Zhi (spelling?) better. My very different memory of geisha is of amazingly tiny, delicate, small birds. They also had beautiful cultivated voices, and were incredibly poised; every move seemed artless yet amazingly beautiful. My geisha was so gentle and warm to the little girl (me) shyly admiring her. And yes, no one in the movie reproduced their incredible walk….

 

I do recall seeing Sayonara many years ago, and the geisha/star in that movie seemed more authentic; I'll have to Netflix it and see what I think now, lo these many years later….

 

Thank you again, Kelly, for your kudos and your kindness. If I receive any interesting mail on the topic, I'll forward it to you. I will be very interested to follow your academic career.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Eppy Harmon

 

 

Hi Kelly-

 

An afterthought… May I post your letter to me on my blogsite (www.epharmony.com) along with my reply to you–following my geisha article, in the comment section? May I also post your email address, in case someone has a question for you? Thanks again so much for writing….

 

Yours,

Eppy

 

 

 

Hi-

 

        Thanks for your letter.  I like Kyoto too, and lived there, but kind of found that there were more actual artisans in Tokyo than in Kyoto (almost all of the arts headmasters who teach Kyoto geiko live in Tokyo or Osaka).   I love Tokyo's energy, and Tokyo geisha are really fun!   The kind geisha you saw in Kyoto are the real thing; they are far too busy to be as langourous as that film depicted, too refined to be as catty as that.   There's competition for the arts roles and artistic rivalry to be sure, but nobody has the time to waste like that.

 

    The real problem with the film, that the media seems not able to acknowledge, is that this awful film is based on an awful book. Golden's book is a fiction, and nothing more than a cheap white boy fantasy at that. He wrote it to cater to American orientalist fantasies, to sell copy (which it did).  So the movie should be viewed in the same vein as Harry Potter or something, if at all.

 

    Geisha do not spoil men; men feel spoiled around women who spend all day studying art, for most of their lives.  Imagine having dinner with a Bolshoi ballerina, or with Nadia Solerno-Sonnenberg?   Or a person with both talents combined?   We don't have anything like this.   Geisha don't cater to men's whims at all — I can assure this.  They are actually pretty aloof, in the way that artists are (even around the people who pay for their living).   Japan has gradually devalued its own arts, especially traditional music and dance, so any future audiences for geisha rely on a cultivated taste in these things, and this is unlikely.   Even the music tracks (all except for two) were completely inaccurate;  there's Chinese er-hu or pipa for many of them, shakuhachi (never heard in the geisha quarters), and tsugaru shamisen (a northern folk form).   Would you use blue grass fiddle music to depict classical ballet, just because the instrument is associated with it

(the violin)?!

 

            Please read the actual memoirs:   Geisha, a Life, by Mineko Iwasaki.  This is the same person that Golden interviewed for Memoirs, but chose instead to create his own weird version.   The two stories have no relationship whatsoever.

 

         Bad Girls of Japan (Palgrave Press, 2005) includes my chapter, called “Bad Girls Confined:  Okuni, Geisha, and Negotiation of Female Performance Space.”    It answers a lot of the questions many people have about geisha.   My dissertation is called The Role of Music in the Lives and Identities of Japanese Geisha (Kent State University Press, 2002), and I have an upcoming book being published by Ashgate Press in London called The Gei of Geisha:  Music, Identity, and Meaning (2007?).

 

         Thanks for the interest, and for doing the blog!   I’m fine with posting this conversation too….

 

Best,

Kelly

 

Hi Kelly-

 

Thanks for your permission to post our exchange. I must admit I enjoyed Golden’s book, and admired his story-telling abilities. I’m sure I projected my own image of geisha onto his. You, on the other hand, were evaluating critically, from an informed background and interest, which is another thing entirely…. Thank you for the above references…. I will post them too.

 

One last comment: I wish I’d said, “Geisha make men feel spoiled” instead of “geisha spoil men.” I agree that geisha are too hard-working and serious of purpose to have time to indulge men often. The lucky few men, on the other hand, who are graced with the good fortune to enjoy the complete, gentle focus and presence of a geisha, even for a short time, must feel spoiled and honored by that moment’s special attentiveness to their needs and thoughts. Too often, western women perceive attentiveness to men as flattery and indulgence, when sometimes what men want is merely courtesy, kindness, and a little unrushed attention…. They feel spoiled just to get that!

 

I look forward to talking with you again someday, Kelly.

 

Yours,

“Eppy”

 

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<a href=”http://technorati.com/tag/iconoclast” rel = “tag”>iconoclast</a>

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American Politics, Before the Next Terrorist Attack

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Our future safety and political freedoms rest upon whether Americans recognize sooner, rather than later, the terrifying truth that our traditional, well-intentioned and well-funded militaristic approaches to national defense and espionage have very limited preventative effects, and cannot keep us safe from the horrors of terrorism or global thermonuclear war during a century of instant communications and easily-accessible lethal weaponry.  Furthermore, such anachronistic, adversarial strategies actually provoke increasing threats to our country and our planet. Even as we squander more and more money, energy, and time, they advance the likelihood that our worst nightmares will become realities.

 

The next big terrorist attack on the United States will determine the direction of our political future. As 9/11 proved, confused and terrified Americans will support any leader who offers them reassurance, whether or not their proffered “plan” for safety is well-founded, tested, logical, reliable, understandable, open to public debate, cost-effective, democratic, credible, or even, in existence.

 

Rubber-stamping endless homeland defense expenditures primarily insures a politically-necessary illusion of security, since our “homeland” is clearly indefensible. Sending our grandchildren off to fight in distant, unwinnable pre-emptive invasions and occupations is morally unconscionable and fiscally reckless. Bankrolling unwieldy spy bureaucracies undermines the very freedoms such actions are meant to save. Focusing media attention on the weaknesses of our perceived enemies, and rattling our sabers self-righteously in their direction only heightens dangerous tensions. Pursuing “big-winner-takes-all” trade tactics lines a few greedy pockets and hurts everyone else. None of these strategies will keep us safe, and none can solve the real problems of the 21st century.

 

What we can learn, before nuclear horror humbles us all beyond recognition, is that there is no exclusive way to provide safety for any single nation or group of nations, no way to guarantee peace for only U.S. citizens and their allies. There are no constructive pathways to safety that can be selfishly withheld from some, or from any, on this unpredictable, unmicromanageable globe.

 

Only a universally inclusive path of international cooperation and non-violence can offer any long-term safety to Americans and our fellow-earthlings. Before the next terrorist attack, we must embrace the ancient wisdom inherent in all religions, that violence engenders only more violence, that war creates new problems without solving old ones, and that hatred begets more hate. Citizens of all nations will inevitably suffer tragic injustices during this violent century. We need not, however, add to their sum.

 

People everywhere want to live their lives in liberty, and to pursue their individual and collective dreams uninterrupted by violence. The only path to the very peace we all want for ourselves and our friends and families, is a path we can only walk together, along with everyone else. If we want peace and safety, we must teach it, live it, and offer it to all, just as if we lived in a world of next-door-neighbors. Which we do.

 

The night before his death, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “The choice is no longer between violence and nonviolence. It’s nonviolence—or nonexistence.”

 

The world can learn peaceful ways without facing the devastation of nuclear annihilation. We can open our minds and hearts now to the practical promise of non-violence, before greater tragedies befall our world. Non-violence has come of age; it is an idea whose time has finally come.

 

The cancer of violence is insidiously attacking, organ by organ, the body of humanity, destroying the nature and quality of human life on our small planet. Only when we learn to apply non-violent solutions to this century’s most urgent problems—energy sufficiency, disease, injustice, hopelessness, hunger, greed, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addictions, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and violence itself—can we restore health and safety to the embattled body of mankind and to our mother earth.

 

Which path to safety will we choose during our next elections? A violent, power-based one? Or the path of non-violence, Jesus’ path, Gandhi’s path, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s path, the gentle path of all those around the world who are now peacefully resisting tyrants? Do we want a path to a police state or a peace state?

 

In the past, we elected many representatives of the old politics of fear and aggression. During our next election, we can turn away from demagogues who rule our emotions with the fear of fear itself, turning instead to new, moral leadership which shows us peaceful pathways to greater global safety.

 

Nothing matters more than that our new leaders embrace the universal, timeless, and essential values of faith, hope, and love….

 

Because:

 

Only faithful leaders trust in God’s redemptive love for every one of earth’s children, and in international dialogue and peaceful cooperative efforts, disavowing the politics of exclusion, polarization, and dehumanization;

 

Only hopeful leaders join with like-minded light-bearers of other nations, stand with them, work with them, and lift all nations and peoples up, leaving no one behind;

 

Only loving leaders forgive, and let the past–and past blame–go, accepting, supporting, and respecting human life everywhere.

 

Led with faith, hope, and love, Americans can work with the whole global community to make the world a safer, more inclusive place for all. We can swing open, to greater cooperation and mutual support, the closed doors of secretive agencies. We can build new peace initiatives within our dedicated, patriotic Defense Department. We can develop a volunteer force of unarmed citizens to observe violent conflicts at home and abroad. We can establish a U.S. Peace Academy, equivalent in honor, distinction, and service to our proud military academies. We can found a cabinet-level Department of Peace, to influence policy, conflict resolution, and decision-making at the highest levels, as well as in our home towns and school curricula. We can apply cutting-edge peace research to the transformation of our combative diplomatic, justice, welfare, and education systems.

 

We don’t have to keep on contributing to an ever-more-insane world. We can decide now to work together to build a different one, where acceptance, respect, and support for human life everywhere is the new highest value, an inclusive world where Americans reach out in friendship and forgiveness to former enemies, and where all live together in safety and peace in a shared global home.

 

Wherever non-violent methods have been applied to political, personal, global, and local conflicts, they have proved to be successful, cost-effective approaches which defuse tensions, resolve conflicts, and heal past grievances. Non-violence, the best approach to a sound national defense program, offers us all the promise of a more effective, values-based, long-term path to a safer future.

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Safety in America–and Everywhere Else

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Americans are justifiably terrified, not only by the dual threats of terrorism and nuclear war, but also by a dawning recognition that our present violent “defense” measures cannot save us from harm. Indeed, they are inviting greater harm. We’re squandering our national resources—money, energy, and time—on defense strategies that can defend neither our citizenry nor our beloved freedoms.

 

President Bush often equates the killing and destruction in Iraq with “freedom” and “liberty.” Yet if foreigners stormed into the U.S., shot up suspicious-looking citizens, blew up heavily-populated real estate, and established hundreds of foreign military bases on U.S. soil, Americans wouldn’t view such invasions as “freedom” or “liberty.”

 

In the 60’s, the hippies tried to tell us that no violent path, no armed road, no non-peaceful “way” could ever finally arrive at any peaceful destination, but that rather, peace itself is the only “way” to the goal of peace. The memorable hippie line, “Fighting for peace is like fucking for chastity” may sound distasteful to some, but it’s hard to miss its point—you can’t reach a goal or a destination using an antithetical process to get there.

 

“Hatred, “quoth the Buddha, “does not end through hatred. Hatred ends only through loving.” In the long run, violence primarily begets more violence, hatred engenders more hate, fear begets more fear.

 

None of America’s current violence-based defense strategies—whether war, stockpiled high-tech and nuclear weaponry, armed forces, spying, occupations, torture, imprisonment, or any other form of violence—will keep Americans safe. There will be no safe place for U.S. citizens during the 21st century, as long as our ham-handed foreign policies continue to breed more angry, hopeless enemies each minute.

 

No matter how lavish our support for unwieldy global spy bureaucracies, no matter how profligate our expenditures on formidable armed forces, no matter how many nuclear weapons we brandish, until we convince the Muslim world (not to mention China, Africa, and South America) that we will no longer irritate, threaten, exploit, or occupy them, until we learn to act like polite guests visiting foreign lands, and until we non-violently negotiate our commercial and strategic national interests like proper world citizens, we can only nervously await the inevitable lethal handful of angry, violent extremists who are now resolutely making their way to our largely indefensible shores in hopes of getting a really big bang from their terrorist bucks.

 

Wreaking havoc in America is as simple and cheap as poisoning a municipal water or food supply. John F. Kennedy once observed that anyone willing to trade their life for his could assassinate a president…and so it was. May I add that anyone who is determined, smart, and just a little bit lucky can commit a politically, socially, and economically devastating act of terrorism in America.

 

So why haven’t there been more terrorist attacks here? Has our vast spy network worked so well to protect us?

 

What Islamic extremists are most focused upon is ridding their lands of occupiers. Most Muslims see the American people as misguided friends tolerant of a diversity of peaceful worldviews; their quarrel is not with Americans, but with aggressive American governments (and citizens who elect such governments)—enemies perceived to be threatening Islamic political, social, and economic autonomy, religious traditions, and cultural heritage. Osama bin Laden justified his 9/11 attack in New York as a retaliation for earlier, American destruction of two similar Muslim “towers.”

 

If throwing money, soldiers, spies, and bombs at terrorists is not going to keep us safe, who or what will? Can any approach keep Americans safe? Is there a more effective way to spend our money on safety?

 

Our government could stop throwing its weight around for narrow, immediate commercial and strategic interests, and instead generously invest America’s creativity, wealth, and power in very different kinds of peaceful diplomatic, aid and trade initiatives that would help all nations achieve whatever is uniquely most important to their peoples. Thus, without conquering anyone, we could gradually transform even our most dangerous enemies into harmless friends—just as we did, eventually, and at far greater cost, with Germany, Japan, the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Libya.

 

Non-violence doesn’t require turning our backs on slaughter anywhere in the world. We can train large unarmed forces of peaceful observers, and send them wherever civilian or state thugs threaten the peace. America can stand ready to truck/ helicopter/ and parachute in massive armies of these volunteer citizens, who could then stay, watch, mingle with private citizens, and serve as heroic unarmed mediators, peacemakers, and media magnets.

 

To be sure, like the patriotic young soldiers who currently trade their lives willingly for their deeply-held beliefs, the idealistic youthful and elderly volunteer observers would risk and sometimes lose their lives in order to non-violently shine their personal lights on the world’s darkest places, and rivet media and world attention upon each pocket of violence.

 

Well-designed, well-funded media campaigns before, during, and after such mass observances of violence, would draw idealists from everywhere to volunteer for financially-supported opportunities to do good, learn, share adventures, thrills and chills, meet new like-minded friends, and risk their lives—all of which they already do at home, but to less useful purpose.

 

Over time, as such unarmed forces flourish in many countries, as more and more media outlets report on their courage, purity, optimism, and the truth of their message, as the heroism of their martyrs becomes widely celebrated and their values universally adopted, thugs everywhere will begin to recognize that international opprobrium and scrutiny will closely follow their acts of violence, while their victims will reach out more quickly for ever more readily available help.

 

Neither violent nor non-violent approaches to self-defense can guarantee the safety of Americans as long as the number of our enemies continues to rise. During this violent and polarized century, innocents of every nation, including our own, will suffer some tragic injustices. But none of us need choose to add to their sum. By applying internationally cooperative, non-violent approaches to self-defense, rather than inflaming the fears and hatred of those who presently see us as enemies, we can begin together to build a safer world for all.

 

Please write comments to epharmon@adelphia.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“To Live” is To Die For

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If To Live was intended to be a very persuasive heroic epic offering a model of feminine perfection during a lifetime of political and personal adversity, it succeeded admirably. I had to keep reminding myself that it was only a movie, and that the character played by Gong Li was fictional; I was stunned by her purity, refinement, selflessness, tranquility, quiet charm, and gentleness, and her apparent total commitment to creating a peaceful family life. Repeatedly, she let go of past regrets and bitterness, and worked through the many negatives of her life with a positive attitude toward the present and the future—despite a marriage to a weak, difficult husband.

 

I so admired the quality of contentedness I saw in this movie. Without any apparent advantages in education, cleverness, wit, talent, athletic ability, skill, spirituality, creativity, or money-making abilities (and other qualities many people aspire to), Gong Li’s character accepted herself, others, and her own situation, quietly working to improve her life without throwing energy into resisting or rejecting her challenging constraints. Her character projected no struggle whatsoever against the injustices of her situation, while so many of us second-guess every aspect of our lives, every choice we’ve ever made or have yet to make.

 

Most Americans—and probably most Chinese, who knows?—want so much more than “just” a quiet life with their spouses and children. And even when our steady American stream of personal requirements is lavishly addressed, few of us feel fulfilled, or filled with anything like satisfaction. Instead, we’re restless, doubtful, and grasping for more.

 

Gong Li’s character was so–believably–pure, I almost felt dirty–selfish, demanding, spoiled, neurotic. This film made me resolve to be less so in the future. I’m perfectly capable of getting myself in a big twist over a small thing; Gong Li’s character managed to make a happy marriage and a good family life out of very difficult circumstances and an unlucky match. Yet the movie still seemed a convincing personal vignette about a unique family.

 

To Live left me with a quiet ache for more simplicity and gentleness in everyday American life. For example—I was touched by how kindly and hospitably the older couple welcomed a shy young man as a possible match for their daughter—how accepting they were—especially when I consider all the hoops we sometimes make our prospective sons- and daughters-in-law jump through, and the impossible expectations we burden our children with.

 

Although I’m sure that Chinese culture has its many areas of challenge, I suspect that this movie is at least representative of values and attitudes the Chinese government would like to promote, and possibly is supporting through direct advocacy of such filmmaking. I wish we would see more similar work in our own culture; the media is such a powerful tool, and our airways are supposedly owned by the public—why not use them more wisely for the general good? Universal values are universal values—there’s little argument about what values we can all aspire to if we want to be happier. Yet, too often, our powerful media seems to be working against parental attempts to raise positive, productive, mentally and physically healthy children, and to create accepting, contented marriages.

 

I’m aware of the popular notion that Chinese blockbusters glorify communist history, but I saw little of that here. To be sure, the movie was pro-communist, just as many American movies are fundamentally (if perhaps less consciously) pro-capitalist, but viewers will see both the pros and cons of a rapidly-emerging culture during a very complicated, difficult, very human and fallible political and social era. In that sense, the portrayal of historical social and political realities should be familiar to Americans.

 

I found this window into a very-different-from-my-own private lifestyle completely fascinating.

 

I didn’t much enjoy the depressing, off-putting first fifteen minutes of the movie, as the director set up its initial sad premises. Furthermore, unsophisticated western ears won’t appreciate the traditional Chinese dramatic music during opening scenes, and may also find the opening gambling scenes, and dissolution of the early family, abhorrent. I was also restless during the initial revolutionary war scenes in which the Red Army was unrealistically idealized (war is, after all, war.) But when Gong Li finally returned to the screen, everything picked up, and the film was fascinating from then on.

 

The acting and the direction were outstanding, and the sets arresting and probably authentic. The very sad and memorable scenes depicting personal tragedies were compelling, beautifully, and convincingly produced.

 

I can’t wait to see Gong Li as the evil Hatsumomo in Memoirs of a Geisha. I’ve read that she does a brilliant job as Sayuri’s rival. What an opportunity to see Gong Li’s full range of acting abilities—from her portrayal of the somewhat Melanie Wilkes-type character in To Live, all the way to her villainous geisha in Memoirs.

 

If you think you might enjoy a poignant, thoughtful, beautifully-made movie depicting a starkly different culture, and offering on the side some sense of recent Chinese history and politics, you will enjoy To Live.

 

Please address comments to epharmon@adelphia.net.

 

 

 

 

Coulda Been, Woulda Been, Shoulda Been….Sad Lessons in 20/20 Foresight

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A few weeks after 9/11, my local newspaper published my “solutions” and comments about “what we should do next/now.” Here is the article as printed then:

If I were the U.S. government, (and, come to think of it, I am!–a person in the government of the people, by the people and for the people) I would figure out which American foreign policies have resulted in so much global hatred and criticism, and change them.

I would use this terrible, tragic attack an an opening to form global alliances based in respect and love for human life, human freedom, and human interests everywhere.

I would stop acting as if American interests and American children and American families and American freedom and American lives are more important than, or in some way separable from, the interests of children and families and  freedom and lives everywhere. People in faraway places feel just as much pain, anger, confusion, frustration, sadness as Americans do, when violence touches them.

I would defend the lives of my family and friends with my own. I would defend our land, our forms of government and economics, our people and cultures and freedoms and ideals and our chosen way of life, but I would not insist that everyone everywhere adopt them.

I would not subvert, and would ardently support, the right of women everywhere to freely choose their roles and work and religions and cultures–whether or not I agree with their particular choices.

I would not use the arguments of “stability,” “American interests,” or “protection of our citizenry” to legitimize unjustly invading, occupying, imposing on, or exploiting any other peoples, or to create or support undemocratic governments favorable to American interests.

I would not send secret agents to undermine others' right to self-determination. I would not assume that everyone wants us to come over and tell them how to live.

I would offer help to others in reaching whatever goals are important to them; that seems to be a good way to win friends.

Sharing our loving American hearts with people everywhere would make good economic and political and military sense. If some of the money we spend on military and intelligence were spent on kindness, diplomacy, and sharing, we'd be a safer, richer, happier country.

I would give no support to government policies and decisions that legitimize treating non-Americans in ways we Americans would not wish to be treated.

That's the golden rule for you–Jesus' rule, Buddha's rule, Confucius' rule, Moses' rule, Mohammed's rule. Treating others as you would wish to be treated is the christian thing, the humanitarian thing to do.

America is a land and a way of life that can legitimately be defended from those who would invade or impose upon us, true. But the America that is most worth defending is not just a land, not just a people, but a noble idea, a symbol, a belief and value system that supports freedom for all (not just Americans), a happy, joyful life for all children (not just American children), democracy for all (not just Americans), equality of opportunity for all (not just Americans), peace for all (not just Americans), freedom from terrorism and tyranny and war (90 percent of war deaths are civilians) for all, not just for Americans.

What we Americans all stand for, what is most worth defending, is the American creed we uphold, our fundamental creed that reminds us that our creator gave us all (not just Americans) inalienable rights.

Americanism is a creed declaring freedom for all, justice for all, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for all. If not, we Americans are not really about justice, democracy, freedom, rights, at all. By definition, these are inclusive human rights and legitimate pursuits, or they mean nothing at all.

How can we be responsible for everyone else? Well, we can at least make a small start by making sure that we're not part of the problem for anyone else.

We can look and see where we have burdened other people or countries, where we have taken unfair advantage, where we have supported an unrepresentative system of government for our own convenience or comfort or gain, where we have taken advantage of unjust conditions and governments and situations and workers to reap an inequitable, unkind benefit–and stop doing that.

Would I be willing to give up some of my comforts, some of my privileges? Yes, gladly, and so would most other Americans. We would give up a great deal, for freedom, for justice.

We must actively insist that our government act only in ways that express and uphold the values we believe in.

Capitalism does not have to mean unfair exploitation, unbridled selfishness, uncontrolled greed, blind materialism. Capitalism isn't a system designed to protect the rights of everyone to take whatever they want however they can get it. Capitalism is not about allowing the rich to exploit the poor. Capitalism is about open, ethical markets among free peoples. Capitalism is about creating and protecting fair economic systems which work to support the interests of all people, everywhere in the world.

If the idea of America is about anything, if it's worth anything, it's about justice, fairness, kindness, support for true freedom and democracy and abundance for all.

If we allow America to be about freedom, justice, and abundance–but only for Americans–how can we say we value human life itself? How can we be angry with others who don't seem to value human life, who take it away senselessly in terrorist acts?

How can we expect the rest of the world to give a damn about the 6,000+ beautiful lives that were lost in America on Sept. 11, and about the thousands of family and friends who are suffering today because of those losses, if we ourselves don't care, moment-to-moment, day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year whether our own economic and military and political policies contribute to the long-term suffering, starvation, disease, and death of millions everywhere in the world, and in our own country?

If we don't care about the millions of Afghans who died and/or are currently refugees from the last decade of war? If we don't care about the Iraqi children, 5,000 dying every month? If we don't care about these things, then we're not Americans, we're…I don't know…something else…hedonists?…some other entity that doesn't deserve to win, to be powerful, to thrive, to speak proudly of our rights and values and ideals and heritage, to people everywhere.

If we value human life at all, if we expect others to value American lives, then we must examine our own economic, military, diplomatic, intelligence and foreign policies, and hold our government responsible to insure that each of our policies and decisions reflects value and respect for human life, not just American life. Whenever we make policy that affects anyone anywhere, we must ask if we would want that policy directed towards ourselves.

Nothing can excuse this terrible, violent act of terrorism, or ever make it right. It has opened a Pandora's box of hatred and anger which will increase for a long time, and I pray in the name of its most direct sufferers that their memory will not be disrespected by using them as an excuse to start World War III. They know more than anyone else right now how much human suffering another war would create. Instead, I look for some kind of silver lining, some hope that some good can come of senseless tragedy, some understanding, some growth,  some meanings, as all things can work together for good.

I hope this disaster will impel us to finally open up global money tracking so criminals, terrorists, and drug dealers of all stripes cannot have a free hand. I hope we will finally track down all the weapons ever made, and make no more. I hope we will strengthen our highest-minded global alliances, create more, and continue to reach across national, racial, ethnic, historical, age, gender and religious boundaries, person to person, to further our highest ideals.

I hope we will support representative, responsive governments everywhere. I hope we will all listen, and talk, and share, and learn, and act in ways that respect human life and freedom and dignity, that alleviate human suffering. I hope that we will make decisions which reflect the highest beliefs of Christianity, of Islam, of Judaism, of Buddhism, of humanitariansm.

Only when we work together internationally in love, will we be able to begin to save our planet from the ravages or man's fear, greed, ignorance, and selfishness.

We must make choices from now on that are worthy and honorific of our beloved dead.

(Postscript, written on 12/19/05):

I never thought WMDs in Iraq probable (although possible.) My reasons for this opinion were generally rejected, though, by “average Americans” (people relatively unsophisticated about politics who trusted a narrow, steady diet of  conservative news outlets) with whom I spoke on the subject at the time—so enthralled were they with the booming Saddam-As-Evil-Incarnate pro-war propaganda machine as to be unreceptive to any alternate probabilities.

The reasons I thought Saddam probably didn't have WMDs were: (1) He was unlikely to have been able to conceal WMDs throughout so many years of U.N. sanctions and scrutiny; (2) he was unlikely to respond to the imminent U.S. threat by admitting he had no defensive capacity; (3) U.N. inspectors were very clear about the fact that their expensive and expansive searches had not as yet found any such weapons; (4) all the U.S. pro-war hawks had already embraced sufficient motivations for invading Iraq–a list including cockiness, dominance, militarism, oil, power lust, ideology, fear, religious convictions involving protection of  Israel, U.S. strategic and commercial interests, a desire to test and use their fancy new weapons and troops, “because they could,” and so on….) So I distrusted what they said about WMDs (along with everything else) as likely being just another part of their long dubious list of overblown, panic-inducing manufactured justifications for going to war; and (5) I knew enough about the U.S. government's history of setting up and supporting tyrannical thugs throughout the world in the past, not to buy into any newly convenient shrill indignation about how suddenly dangerous to the U.S. Saddam Hussein had become, how he'd gassed his own people, etc. It was the U.S. (the CIA) who originally set Saddam Hussein up as Iraq's leader, who financially supported him in exactly that type of thuggery for many many years, in order to protect “our” cheap and steady flow of Iraqi oil from an Iran-like oil industry nationalization. (For annotated and documented history of such repugnant U.S. actions, read he-whom-conservative-demagogues-most-fear-you'll-read: MIT's Noam Chomsky. For starters.)

Although I didn't write critically about the WMD speculations post 9/11, a lot of very informed and interested people who opposed invasion did. I wish someone would take the (considerable) research trouble to compile an “I told you so” expose, listing all the thoughtful people who, before the war, accurately predicted in U.S. daily newspapers, exactly what happened later in Iraq.

I wish this researcher would list who and when and what each critic wrote at that time, to answer all those who now say, “Everyone worldwide thought there were WMDs.” This assertion is simply blatantly false–“everyone” did not believe that. A multitude of spot-on pre-war critics wrote frantically, both in the U.S. and in international periodicals and newspapers, offering scholarly, articulate, and perfectly reasonable rationales against WMDs and for not going to war—although by then most Americans were so terrified by the steady drumbeat of pro-war, pro-fear propaganda that they had already made up their minds—including, unfortunately, many in leadership roles in our government who never even bothered to read about or consider the warnings. 

Anyone who was the least bit skeptical about the logic, trustworthiness, and veracity of the Bush administration's blustering could have read all such arguments in many daily U.S. and international newspapers, and certainly they were rampant on the web. For example, most of such arguments against WMDs and invasion were right there in black-and-white, as plain as day (if sometimes in small print and at the ends of articles) in The Washington Post—the daily newspaper I read—tied up with string, for me and all others willing and capable of looking past the pro-war lies and hype.

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net.

 

 

 

 

Fear–or Faith? Despair–or Hope? Hate–or Love? So What's It Gonna Be, President Bush?

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President Bush revealed his very human moral ambivalence in unscripted remarks following a recent speech in Philadelphia, when he said, “My job as president is to see the world the way it is, not the way we hope it is.”

 

To the contrary. I still count on my president to resist the temptation to give in to his darkest fears. Although 9/11 filled us all with doubts about the redeemability of terrorists—the ones who “lurk, hide, plan and plot” and coldly use violence to achieve their political aims—all the more reason, then, that President Bush should offer us all a consistent spiritual vision of a forgivable world where all of God’s children are lovable and capable of learning, right down to the last sorry, blackhearted, spotted, faithless self (that’s all of us, at times.)

 

Although President Bush has faith in the ideals of freedom and liberty, and professes a Christian faith, he still doesn’t “get” that he—and all other global leaders who resort to violence to achieve their political aims, whether offensively or defensively, through snipers, spies, armies, bombs, torture, economic policies, suicide attacks, or any other form of aggression—are demonstrating the same faithlessness and fatalism, the same motives and methods used by the very “evildoers” who, Mr. Bush believes, can never “become hospitable and decent citizens of the world.”

 

However admirable his desire to fulfill his oath to protect his countrymen, President Bush has abandoned his most formidable weapon against terror—faith in mankind's redeemability. Of late, instead of spiritual vision, he’s offered us instead only the worst fruits of spiritual defeatism—endless war, immense armies and arsenals, disrespectful nation-building, and huge, unwieldy, cruel intelligence-gathering bureaucracies.

 

Our fragile planet’s only hope during these chaotic times is our steadfast faith, hope, and love for all of God’s violent, prodigal sons and daughters everywhere, who will one day beat their swords into ploughshares and be welcomed back into the peaceful community of mankind.

 

Which will it be, President Bush? Are you a visionary leader who can accept that Americans may suffer some tragic injustices along with our fellow-earthlings, yet resist adding to their sum? Can you lead the world in solving the real problems of the 21st century, and in creating the new global reality we long for?

 

Or will you one day be remembered as just another in a long line of frightened, bloody world leaders who reacted blindly to their own fears and the paranoia of others, and ended up creating human nightmares far worse than any dreamed of by their enemies?

 

Only spiritual leadership can provide the understanding, acceptance, and appreciation necessary to unify the planet’s five polarized cultures—Africans, South Americans, China, the Muslim world, and the West. Only idealistic leadership can inspire each of these cultures to achieve its own unique ideals, hopes, and dreams, while respecting and supporting the quality of human life everywhere. Only non-violent leadership can address the century’s most urgent problems—the ravages of disease, injustice, hopelessness, greed, hunger, environmental degradation, natural disasters, ignorance, addiction, prejudice, nuclear proliferation, crime, poverty, war, terrorism, and yes, violence, itself.

 

So what's it gonna be, President Bush? Fear–or faith? Despair–or hope? Hate–or love?

 

Will the real President Bush please stand up, and lead?

 

 

Please send your comments to epharmon@adelphia.net.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Eat Drink Man Woman” – Universal, Instructive, Thought-Provoking, Culturally Fascinating

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One reason I watch foreign films is to broaden myself about the ways American films, families, and culture are different from those of other cultures. This movie was richly rewarding in that sense, as well as very enjoyable, and artistically very well-done.

 

“Eat Drink Man Woman” is a thoughtful drama about a Taiwanese master chef/widower with three marriageable daughters.

 

The many intertwined plots were surprising and satisfying, never pat. The disparate characters were each interesting and believable, and their choices turned out to be very true to their characters. I felt a sense of real people, distinct, unique, each with his/her own very human set of strengths and weaknesses, each making real, important choices; yet this movie left me with no sense at all of strings having been tidily or predictably tied up, or even ending. Instead, I felt that much had changed, much had stayed the same, and family life would go on, a bit differently. How like life….

 

It was interesting to see how each character isolated him (or her) self  from the others concerning their most important, major private struggles. It was also interesting to see how unique and true-to-character each was in his/her choice of personal struggles, and how differently, in terms of personal styles, each one went about pursuing his or her chosen quests–and finally, how OK all these varied paths felt.

 

This movie left me with so much respect for uniqueness, and with a renewed realization that there really are no universal answers that work for everyone, although there are some pretty good universal values.

 

For instance, one character’s personality was quite unconscious about herself and others, resistant and defensive, even to choices which later worked out to be just right for her. Yet she was always true to herself, and worked to surround herself with others who cared about her.

 

One character strove toward a difficult long-term commitment, taking step after careful step to overcome heavy obstacles to achieving that goal. Another character merrily flowed along in life, characteristically open, eager, honest, generous and thoughtless—and of course stumbled enthusiastically into his/her destiny.

 

An unusually talented individual with great integrity anguished over every small deliberate choice, making small, excellent, creative decisions among many options despite considerable adversity, opening many more new opportunities to yet more expansive sets of difficult choices. This individual subtly worked to balance all her choices for the good of everyone she cared about, herself very much included, miraculously without being obnoxious about any of it.

 

Each character in this movie, like every human being, came burdened with past mistakes, regrets, heartaches, disappointments and misunderstandings, which of course impacted their present feelings and choices.

 

I admired this family’s loyalty, and their mutual respect and support, all very evident in their efforts to be kind, helpful and courteous to one another and others, despite life's many challenges.

 

I was intrigued as well about the evident “Asian” diffidence concerning effusive affection. Americans are often more pal-ly (pal-ish?) and casual, which can be hurtful or helpful, depending perhaps upon sensitivity and luck? It also seemed “Asian” somehow that no one in this movie really knew much about what was going on in one another’s lives and thoughts—but then, do Americans ever really know very much either, despite how much we share about ourselves and how many questions we ask? Everyone in this particular family seemed to accept one another’s right to privacy (perhaps to a fault); evidently this is a mixed blessing, which Americans often share with equally mixed results. Just like in America, these characters avoided and deflected direct questions about the really important issues in their lives–yet everyone still did a lot of guessing and gossiping, with all the usual resultant confusions–because everyone’s assumptions are always way off. All of which made the movie that much more interesting and universal.

 

The many intricate plots were each compelling, moving, and beautifully acted, and each story was worth telling and well-told. Each story, as well as the story of the whole family (an interesting plot in itself) was allowed to develop naturally and richly over time, yet efficiently, with no extraneous detail.

 

Although each person was very private, sharing little of their personal lives with one another, and rarely consultative about decision-making, each announced important personal decisions which would affect the family courageously, honestly, and openly, even when such disclosures were sure to be upsetting or unwelcome. The family always seemed to surmount initial emotional reactions and eventually come around to respect, acceptance and support for the different choices and values of the others, with no attempts to change or manipulate one another.

 

I was also impressed, coming as I do from a culture of fast-food and fast-living, with how much time and excellence this family put into its mutual offerings of caring for each other, friends, colleagues, etc.

 

If you like beautiful cooking, you’ll like this movie.

 

I took away a strong sense that things tend to work out in families (if not in the exact ways each family member would want) when family members strive to uphold ideals and values of commitment, courtesy, acceptance, caring, and respect, despite conflicting personal values, personalities and choices, and often in the face of tragic, embarrassing, or unwanted outcomes. In this sense, this movie reminded me of a Japanese book I once read (and also enjoyed very much) called The Makioki Sisters.

 

I found it difficult to keep up with the many names and faces at first. But I enjoyed this movie so much that I watched it again, so as not to miss all the delicious, rewarding details, and was glad I did.

 

The filming was gorgeous, particular the details about food preparation. I particularly admired the acting of the father, and the middle sister, who was memorably beautiful and charming. I appreciated that “Eat Drink Man Woman” was exemplary of the “show me, don’t tell me” school of art.

 

A character in the movie made the comment that different families communicate in different ways: this family communicated—really, loved one another–through food. It made me remember how much my birth family loved one another through singing together.

 

I recommend this movie for anyone interested in a charming, artistic story about individuals in a close family facing many challenges, both together and apart, over time. I also picked up a lot of fascinating details about interesting cultural differences in Taiwan.

 

 

Please send comments to epharmon@adelphia.net .

 

 

 

 

 

A Way to Peace in the Middle East

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Today’s bloody unity in Iraq can be maintained only by imposition of yet another inhumane, repressive KGB-type police state, backed by a huge, permanent, deadly U.S. occupation. It is in no one’s best interests to continue to force our own fallible western institutions upon historically self-identified “Kurds,” “Sunnis,” and “Shiites” fiercely loyal to their own unique sets of traditions, religious beliefs, and leadership, and committed to political self-determination and separatist destinies. Remember that it was foreigners who once arbitrarily invented “Iraq’s” national borders, and who cynically installed a vicious dictator (Saddam) to squish these three distinct groups together for our own imagined selfish interests.

 

After a century of violent outside interference, “Iraqis” justifiably don’t trust us, and don’t want us over there “helping” them—except as invited guests. Before we drain the last drop of lifeblood from our grandchildren and our economy, we can choose to back away from all militaristic regional leaders, and instead transfer our most generous financial, diplomatic and media support to non-violent, popular cultural representatives of each distinct ethnicity, who can then work cooperatively to minimize civil unrest and instability, and light the way toward mutual achievement of their own (equally fallible) highest priorities, ideals and solutions.

 

And yes, the United States will have to stand in line humbly to buy oil at market prices, just like every other nation.

 

Terrorism breeds wherever angry youths seeth under inflammatory external ruthless tyrannies. There is no violent “way” to peace and stability in the Middle East, or at home. Peace is the way.

Questions and Perspectives on Iraq

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Will somebody please explain to me why it’s in anyone’s best interests for the west to continue to attempt to impose unity and western political institutions upon “Iraqis,” instead of helping self-identified “Kurds,” ”Sunnis,” and “Shiites” achieve self-determination, and their own highest ideals and priorities, each in their own unique and uniquely valuable ways?

 

I’m not a foreign policy specialist. I’m only a U.S. citizen loyally attempting to keep up with politics and uphold the highest traditional U.S. ideals by reading two newspapers and occasionally following CSpan. But try as I may, in all my reading and listening, I have not been able to conclude that Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis want to be united under one government. All evidence points to the contrary: each of the three groups apparently very much wants to control its own historically-separate destiny, now and into the future, each maintaining a fierce (and admirable) loyalty to their own unique set of traditions, culture, religious beliefs, values, and leadership.

 

How can we ever end this war and achieve long-lasting peace, in that region or here at home, without recognizing the very reason why each of these three ethnicities has so long been fighting against us and amongst one another—for the right (to which Americans give lip-service) to democratic political self-determination for all peoples everywhere?

 

After decades of cruel war and occupation by western countries, Iraqis seem to have reasonably concluded that they must fight back against western politicians who would encroach upon their families, friends, and the lands of their ancestors, and who would impose foreign values, institutions and approaches upon them through forced coalitions and nationhood.

 

I have read some of the regional instability arguments against partitioning Iraq into three nations, but am so far unconvinced that all interested nations and peoples—including “Iraqis”—wouldn’t be far better off if we in the U.S. just changed our foreign policy to support democratic self-determination and separate nationhood for each of the three historical ethnicities that we once, so unwisely, forced together under one dictator. I also remain mystified as to why (other than ignorance) the U.S. didn’t choose this more peaceful and lasting alternative approach to our current destructive, unjust, costly, protracted and unwinnable war, years ago. (But that’s another question….)

 

As long as we ignore the self-deterministic aspirations of these three ethnicities, the U.S. must settle, in Iraq as we have elsewhere, for minimal, shameful goals of imposed “civil quiet,” via yet one more cynically-installed, tyrannical, ruthless, repressive KGB-type police state backed by an endless, costly, inflammatory, deadly U.S. occupation.

 

How did we ever conclude that violent suppression of a popular movement for personal liberty would more likely result in peace and freedom than generous support for local freedom of choice?

 

We cannot win this war until Middle Easterners feel that they too have won a freedom they can believe in. And we can’t achieve a win-win outcome by imposing an outdated political and military solution grounded in untested assumptions, a solution which many in the west persist in believing is “in our best interests.”

 

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.

 

We can choose to minimize the impacts of future civic unrest during inevitable land grabs and power struggles in the Middle East, by withholding military and financial support from all regional leaders who have historically used militaristic, terrorizing, violent approaches to achieving peace, and offer instead generous financial, diplomatic and media support only to those leaders who are popularly respected as most peaceful and most representative of the highest ideals and traditions of each ethnic group.

 

President Bush’s proposed “Strategy for Victory in Iraq” has identified four goals to be achieved in Iraq before troop withdrawal: peace, unity, stability, and security. But before the war, most (albeit dispirited) “Iraqis” already “enjoyed” exactly those four conditions under Saddam–the only exception being dissidents fighting for political self-determination.

 

What then have we been fighting for? What has our costly war accomplished? And for what and for whom are we still fighting?

 

Terrorism breeds and grows in regions where angry young people seeth under unjust, externally-imposed militaristic tyrannies.

 

So will someone please explain to me why it’s in anyone’s best interests—ours, or any others’–to keep on imposing our own beloved but fallible western institutions and values upon the people of the Middle East—right on up to the time when we drain the very last drop of lifeblood from our grandchildren and our economy–instead of peacefully and generously granting (Christian!) charity to the best and brightest leaders of every region, assisting them in lighting their own peoples’ way to achieving their own unique and uniquely valuable (if equally fallible) highest ideals and priorities–each in their own way?

 

 

 

 

 

Please send your thoughts to epharmon@adelphia.net ! And thank you for your loyal and caring support for the quality of human life everywhere.

 

Acceptance 14 – I'm Lonely and I'm Sick and Tired of It. How Can Acceptance Help Me?

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(This is the latest segment of a 15-part series of questions and answers about “acceptance” which I began posting early in 2005. I think the series is best read from the beginning, so click on the topic “acceptance” if you would like to see the whole series. All the posts to the series were written quite a while ago, but I never got around to posting them. So I'm doing it now, in case readers want to read the complete series, as originally written….Thanks! Eppy)

I'm lonely and I'm sick and tired of it. How can acceptance help me?

Try, for the moment, to accept your loneliness of right now. Don't resist it, accept it; it's not a permanent condition, but it is “what is,” right now. For the moment you've forgotten who you can be, the loving, accepting, giving and lovable person you have been at times, and will be again. Try to see yourself again as that lovable person, the person you really are, without all your added-on “stuff” about who-you-were-in-the-past, about what you've lost in life, about all the pain you've been through. Try, for the present moment, to let go of all your fears about what the future might hold. Accept “what is” about the present moment: your present loneliness.

Consider the people who are around you. Try to accept them too, just as they are, right now, without all the stuff you know about them, how they were in the past, what they did, what they could have been, what they might do and become in the future. Try to accept them, right now, just as they are.

They are, and you are, right at this moment, “what is” in your life.

Decide now to treat yourself and everyone (every one) in your life, just exactly as you would like to be treated by everyone in the world. Kindly. Acceptingly. Non-judgmentally. Gently. Generously. Forgivingly. Respectfully. Courteously. Attentively….

Now do it. And don't forget yourself. Be willing to see everyone, including yourself, in a brand new, fresh-start, way. Be willing to see, and treat everyone, including yourself, like royalty. Like the second coming. Like the best thing that ever happened to the world…. Just be willing….

I find the world, life, living, so confusing. I've tried hard to figure it all out, to understand life and people, but I still feel sometimes like I'm wandering in the dark. How can acceptance help me?

Life is not a puzzle or a problem you can solve. It's an adventure you live, one exciting, scary, involving, challenging, interesting, terrifying or frustrating moment at a time. You can't get ready for life–it just keeps on comin' on, right at you…. You will never get it right. You will never “finally” get any of your relationships right, nor will you ever get yourself “right.” Nature will be cruel, and humanity will seem capable of every extreme of both helpfulness and harmfulness. You will always have heartaches.

Accept what is right now. You can't accept the future until you're there. And you can't accept the past, because it's already gone. It doesn't exist anymore. Your job is to accept the present moment, and let the past and future go. (They're not really real anyway, only the present is real.)

When you do, you'll be in a lot better, calmer, less-resistant place to begin to bring about the changes you want to see in yourself, your own life, and in the world.

What can you change by choosing to see yourself, others, and everything in the present moment differently, acceptingly? What can you accomplish? You can learn, grow, improve yourself and your relationships, and move in the direction of easier, more fun, more effective, more enjoyable. You can help yourself and others, and your help can make a huge difference in the world.

I don't care what you think. There are no answers to life, and you don't get your money back. Acceptance may work for you, but it's not “the answer”….

That's just it. You got it. There are no answers that will make life easy and perefect. You'll never get it all right. So accept that, and use it to keep on working to make so many many things better, easier, happier, more fun, more interesting, kinder, gentler….

I've been a devout Catholic all my life, and find many answers to my questions through the teachings of this church. Does acceptance square with the teachings of Catholocism? Is acceptance a concept or practice I can learn through my church, perhaps using a different vocabulary? Or is acceptance contradictory to Catholic or Christian teachings? Or is it somehow additional?

Saint Teresa of Avila was a great accepter. One of her prayers is: “Let nothing upset you, let nothing frighten you. Everything is changing; God alone is changeless. Patience attains the goal. Who has God lacks nothing. God alone fills all our needs.”

To me, Saint Teresa “believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things,” as Paul exhorted. She accepts life as it is, and then turns to God moment-to-moment to ask for sustainment, enlightenment, grace, courage–whatever help is needed to get her through the present moment with flying colors.

Many of the great religions encourage submission to the teachings of the church, which feels a lot like acceptance of “what is.” If it is your wish to be a faithful Catholic, accept the church and it's whole teaching, and accept your life within that role. If you wish to learn from the church's teaching, but want to reserve the right to pick and choose what seems right for yourself, then accept that. What's sometimes hard is being in-between, resisting certain teachings every time a difficult moment comes up. There will be plenty of times–whichever way you decide to go–when it will be hard for you to accept, and to know what to do. (Remember? You'll never “finally” get everything right?) So just accept who-you-are, within the-church-as-it-is-right-now, and then move forward on your life, your learning, your goals, your dreams.

I'm not particularly interested in improving myself or my life. I have my hobbies, my work, my friends, and I'm content. Does acceptance have anything to offer me?

You may already be a very accepting person–of yourself, of others, of life. You may have already learned this very necessary lesson, and if so, you are fortunate. Contentment, involvement, good relationships–all are fruits of acceptance. Complacency and settling/resigning are not acceptance. They feel bad, and set up their own feelings of regret, defiance, anger, resentment, resistance. If you don't often feel this way, you're contented/accepting. If you often feel upset, probably you've “settled” for something less than you want, and could benefit from considering and accepting your own “settling,” complacency, resignation…as what you have right now. Such acceptance will encourage you to wake up, and begin to move past it, to more satisfaction.

My life companion and dearest friend is suffering and dying. How can acceptance help me?

Acceptance doesn't lead to a life of continual bliss and happiness. Life has its really hard times. What it can help you do is not add more troubles onto your present feelings of sadness and feelings of loss. Present moments are hard enough to deal with without adding lots of past and future “stuff”–anger, regrets, resentment, fear, guilt, confusion, uncertainty, feelings of loss and injustice, and so on.

Accepting “what is,” as is, each day, each moment, fully in the present, the best you can, helps free you from constant resistance, fighting, pushing away, hating, resenting–judging what is–which takes up a huge amount of energy, and simply exhausts us. Just quietly “being” with your sadness without resisting/judging it, or the way things are, will allow you to move on to better moments, and to keep on giving in the present moment, keep on loving, keep living, keep on creating good things.

How can one reconcile the loss of a child, a beautiful, innocent young child? How can acceptance help me with such a great sorrow and regret?

None of us know what the world is for, nor what the future holds, nor what eternity has in store for us. We all make guesses, but no one knows. You don't have to face eternity with your loss. You only have to accept the present moment, and move on with your life, because you don't know what forever holds.

When memories and sadness come up, let them be. Don't push them away, and don't dwell on them. Just let them be. Don't listen to all your thoughts about the past or the future, don't get absorbed in visual memories, don't get swept up in emotional reactions, if possible. Just be with your sadness.

Although moments of sadness may always come up, freeing yourself from all past and future sadnesses and instead just fully experiencing your present moment of sadness–for this moment, not for all time–will help to free you to move forward, to keep contributing to your life and to the lives of others, to live more and more moments hopefully and meaningfully, even joyfully.

Everyone around you needs you. If you can accept your feelings of loss, just for the present moment, then those around you won't feel they've lost you, too….