Jeffrey Meyer's Blog - Posts Tagged "destiny"
Hate China, Love China
"I hate China," said the woman to me across the table at a small dinner party. I had mentioned something about writing a novel about China, and that was her immediate response. An embarrassed silence followed, while various counter arguments to her statement flashed through my mind. Wrong venue for that, I immediately thought, responding instead from my gut: "Well, I love China." Stalemate. I finally asked "Why do you hate China?" and she said "Because it was a Communist country."
I needn't go into the discussion which followed. For me the woman's works brought home an important insight. After my forty plus years of studying about China, its culture, history, religions, politics, art & architecture, I realized that I had never taken a clear look at my own personal feelings about China. Because of the requirements of academic study and discourse, I had never thought about that something inside myself that pushed me to blurt out "I love China."
Many years ago, my wife and I were going round and round about adoption. She was in favor, I was full of doubts. Then, and I don't recall whether this was mine or my wife's idea, the thought of adopting a Chinese child came up, and I knew immediately, without any doubts at all, that this was what we should do. The clouds of indecision blew away and as Quakers say "way opened." Looking back on it I now realize that this sudden conviction came from this same something inside myself.
As I go on with this blog I hope to begin by exploring my love for China, when and how it began, where it led me and how it changed me. Revisiting my experiences, over a forty year career. Occasionally jumping out of the pages of a book, most of the insightful or inspiration moments happened
in Taiwan or China during the three or so years I lived there.
For me there is a mystery to these deep attractions we have in our lives. I hope to explore this in the blogs which follow.
I needn't go into the discussion which followed. For me the woman's works brought home an important insight. After my forty plus years of studying about China, its culture, history, religions, politics, art & architecture, I realized that I had never taken a clear look at my own personal feelings about China. Because of the requirements of academic study and discourse, I had never thought about that something inside myself that pushed me to blurt out "I love China."
Many years ago, my wife and I were going round and round about adoption. She was in favor, I was full of doubts. Then, and I don't recall whether this was mine or my wife's idea, the thought of adopting a Chinese child came up, and I knew immediately, without any doubts at all, that this was what we should do. The clouds of indecision blew away and as Quakers say "way opened." Looking back on it I now realize that this sudden conviction came from this same something inside myself.
As I go on with this blog I hope to begin by exploring my love for China, when and how it began, where it led me and how it changed me. Revisiting my experiences, over a forty year career. Occasionally jumping out of the pages of a book, most of the insightful or inspiration moments happened
in Taiwan or China during the three or so years I lived there.
For me there is a mystery to these deep attractions we have in our lives. I hope to explore this in the blogs which follow.
Destiny in A Call to China
One of the central themes of the novel is the idea of destiny, Chinese: ming or yuanfen. Some people would take these terms to mean nothing more than luck or chance, others, religiously inclined, would think of them as implying something more, a great force or power that determines the events of our lives, call it God's will, pre-destination, karma, kismet, or the influence of our stars.
In the novel, destiny can refer to a direction or overall pattern of life--as Olivia's growing determination to return to China, or her becoming a Catholic; or to more specific events in her life, such as her meeting with Kaiyuan at the site in Beijing where their old Presbyterian manse is being demolished.
Of course, it is always a matter of how to interpret such things. A non-religious person will likely say that such life trajectories or specific events are simply a matter of chance or coincidence, no reason for their happening need be sought outside the individual involved--her or his DNA, brain capacity, endowments, types of intelligence (mathematical, social, artistic, etc.). A roll of the dice.
A religious or spiritual person will believe that there is some greater power or force that operates in their lives beyond the confines of one's individual boundaries or limitations. The novel suggests such an interpretation of the lives of its main characters--Olivia becomes a Catholic, despite the fact that her mother is inclined toward Buddhism, Victoria is kidnapped by a Chinese sectarian group that is mostly Daoist in its orientation, but is hidden in a Buddhist nunnery because of the dangers posed by Japanese occupation of north China, so that when she does not quite fit in with the sect's plan for her, her Buddhist training helps her adjust. And when she has a kind of enlightenment experience it is Buddhist in nature. In the final scene, when the two sisters finally meet, the earlier events of their lives allow them to come together in a realization of a spiritual family that transcends blood ties.
The call to China, for their father, is his missionary call. For Livia it is her inner urging to return to find her sister, and finally it means the call of both sisters to find in China the unity and belonging they could not find in their blood family.
But when I came up with the title for my novel, I realized that it refers to me as well, my own call to China, which began at age 13 when I read a book called "The Good Earth," by Pearl Buck. At the time I knew nothing about China, nor were my parents interested in it. We moved into a new home and the book was left in it by the previous owner. It made a deep impression on me but I didn't realize it at the time. Some twenty years passed, including seven years in the Franciscan Order, and I can still hear my academic advisor at U. Chicago saying: "you must study religion in a particular culture. Will it be India or China?" Although I was strongly attracted to Hinduism, without knowing exactly why, I replied without hesitation, "China."
Then I began learning the language, the history, the art, the religions of China, passing tests, writing a dissertation, getting a job teaching at UNCCharlotte, and forty years after reading "The Good Earth," my wife and I adopted a Chinese daughter. Maybe that was what it was all about, the real purpose of so much that came before. Then I wrote a novel about it, and now, almost 80 years old, I'm blogging about it! One thing is certain for me. I can't believe that this hole chain of events, is just chance, luck, co-incidence, a roll of the dice.
In the novel, destiny can refer to a direction or overall pattern of life--as Olivia's growing determination to return to China, or her becoming a Catholic; or to more specific events in her life, such as her meeting with Kaiyuan at the site in Beijing where their old Presbyterian manse is being demolished.
Of course, it is always a matter of how to interpret such things. A non-religious person will likely say that such life trajectories or specific events are simply a matter of chance or coincidence, no reason for their happening need be sought outside the individual involved--her or his DNA, brain capacity, endowments, types of intelligence (mathematical, social, artistic, etc.). A roll of the dice.
A religious or spiritual person will believe that there is some greater power or force that operates in their lives beyond the confines of one's individual boundaries or limitations. The novel suggests such an interpretation of the lives of its main characters--Olivia becomes a Catholic, despite the fact that her mother is inclined toward Buddhism, Victoria is kidnapped by a Chinese sectarian group that is mostly Daoist in its orientation, but is hidden in a Buddhist nunnery because of the dangers posed by Japanese occupation of north China, so that when she does not quite fit in with the sect's plan for her, her Buddhist training helps her adjust. And when she has a kind of enlightenment experience it is Buddhist in nature. In the final scene, when the two sisters finally meet, the earlier events of their lives allow them to come together in a realization of a spiritual family that transcends blood ties.
The call to China, for their father, is his missionary call. For Livia it is her inner urging to return to find her sister, and finally it means the call of both sisters to find in China the unity and belonging they could not find in their blood family.
But when I came up with the title for my novel, I realized that it refers to me as well, my own call to China, which began at age 13 when I read a book called "The Good Earth," by Pearl Buck. At the time I knew nothing about China, nor were my parents interested in it. We moved into a new home and the book was left in it by the previous owner. It made a deep impression on me but I didn't realize it at the time. Some twenty years passed, including seven years in the Franciscan Order, and I can still hear my academic advisor at U. Chicago saying: "you must study religion in a particular culture. Will it be India or China?" Although I was strongly attracted to Hinduism, without knowing exactly why, I replied without hesitation, "China."
Then I began learning the language, the history, the art, the religions of China, passing tests, writing a dissertation, getting a job teaching at UNCCharlotte, and forty years after reading "The Good Earth," my wife and I adopted a Chinese daughter. Maybe that was what it was all about, the real purpose of so much that came before. Then I wrote a novel about it, and now, almost 80 years old, I'm blogging about it! One thing is certain for me. I can't believe that this hole chain of events, is just chance, luck, co-incidence, a roll of the dice.
