Pleasure and Sorrow

My friend told me about a tradition among the Greeks who would follow an idea through their lifetime: wrestling with and writing down their thoughts on the matter at different times. Reading Liz Gilbert's accounts into uncovering pleasure in Sicily, whose only successful business is the Mafia running the business of protecting citizens from itself, I am inspired to reexamine an older post into my heartbreak in Indo-China.

Throughout my time in the region, I lamented their state of poverty and hopelessness. But now I think of Liz's Italian ventures and Krsa's mustard seed. And I ask that if Sicilians can take pride and pleasure in living amidst corruption, deaths, the Mafia, could I also find small havens of joy in Saigon? If the idea that the appreciation of pleasure can be an anchor of one's humanity, can I connect to Cambodians in their delight as well as their sorrow? In place of pitying the woman who had no choice but to become a fruit vendor after the war ripped her life apart, could I instead see that selling the spiniest, smelliest, stickiest durian in town can be a source of pride in an environment where human dignity is in short supply. In place of cringing at the pending public health epidemic where dead meat, live fish, raw salad, fresh garbage, and open sewage are side by side, could I instead see the tantalizing array of aromatic foods, whose sales compose of banters and exchanges between regulars, reinforcing their connectedness. In lieu of bemoaning the under-employed young men lounging in the streets on a sweaty Monday afternoon, could I instead appreciate the circle of friends that surround them, each sipping a chilled coffee sweetened with delicate laces of condensed milk (even if the ice is made from undrinkable tap water).

In Sicily, Saigon, Phenom Penn: worlds of chaos, incompetence, broken promises, perhaps beheading a fish with perfection, making the thinnest rice noodles, drinking an iced coffee that cools your entire being are the only things to ground you in your humanity.

The activist in me is already throwing a fit at this apparent acceptance of grossly inhumane living conditions. However, I'd argue that dropping into a foreign culture and running around trying to improve material conditions at all costs can be disastrous. One looks at natives not as fellow beings but as children to be taught or objects to be bettered, mindsets similar to those of European missionaries in the 1600s. Of course, I do not believe in such a simple characterization of international development work. I still believe in its value, but only if it begins with an acknowledgment of our shared humanity: a recognition that we should grieve over common sorrows, but also to find pleasures where others find them.