The things I love week brought me to a letter my sister recently sent to me during her travels in Asia.
The love I have for my sister is unconditional, but the love she now has for life and her awareness about her surroundings… there’s no words to describe.
This is a letter sent by my sister to home:
I am currently on top of the Wuyishan mountain range in of the Fujian Provence.
The Provence is so beautiful! The mountain range is over 2000 years old and we floated down the river on top of a bamboo floating boat. Very thin like a pool raft. More like 2 slid together.
I saw a home from a Dynasty dating over 500 years old. This home was specifically for the Emperor’s tea pickers. The mountain flourishes with beautiful tea plants. Fields of them.
Photo provided by my sisters travels
One tradition is to have 16 year old virgins go into the field at 4AM to hand pick the best tea leaves. -very expensive This mountain is a world national treasure and sacred.
The buildings are amazing. I am in such awe with the architecture and designs. Some places are like walking into a movie set or dream land.
Photo provided by my sisters travels
I understand why Ronan and other Chinese are not impressed with America. I understand why they think we are all so cold. I can see the differences so clearly. It is embarrassing at how cold we come off to each other.
In China, we are super social. We have breakfast lunch and dinner with friends. When you are in town, someone is with you majority of the day, to show you around, talk with you, and help entertain you. You call up friends and they take time out of their day to simply have some coffee or stop in for a quick bite.
Picture provided by Rina’s travels
They don’t make up excuses or say they are too busy. They really do appreciate having company and friendships. They suit up and show up, even if just for a little bit. Some people actually change appointments, drive for hours, or tell a friend to come show us around if they are unable. I can’t believe it. It is so benevolent and selfless.
Photo provided by my sisters travels
One friend, drove us 2 hours (one way then back immediately after), paid for all of our lunches, then insisted on paying for our first night at a hotel. He doesn’t have any exceptional amount of money either.
He drives a small modest car and works selling RV parts. Yet he is considered a brother and couldn’t bare to think of us spending any money our first night in town.
Last night at dinner, I tried snake soup, a special meat recipe which is hundreds of years old, and learned how to say this food is delicious, this drink is delicious in Mandarin.
Photo provided by my sisters travels
We have been in China during the bad weather season. I think because the season is changing it is very foggy and there is very little sunshine. I can look directly a the sun and it looks like a bright orange dot. Doesn’t hurt to look at it at all. Chinese New Year is probably 15 days of celebration as a direct result of the “bad weather season” and the people needing something to look forward to.
The houses out here are meant for families. Not just a Mother, Father, and 1 or 2 kids. I mean, Grandparents, Parents, Children, Grandchildren, and Guests.
Photo provided by my sisters travels
Sometimes 2 families move in together. It is how the social structure works.
Americans are so used to having their own space. Used to being alone. Used to needing excessive amounts of everything. I am humbled and humiliated at how good I have it. I am even humiliated at how good Americans on Welfare have it. Compared to the shacks which melt during the rainy season, beggars, and child crime scene which is out here, America is a cake walk.
Even the most ghetto places I have seen in America are not as bad as it can be out here. I am sure there are many more places in the world which have it pretty bad too. People living on top of each other.
Photo provided by my sisters travels
I feel sheltered, naive, and ignorant to the situations which have been all around me for years. I have read, heard and seen on TV many different poverty situations.
I thought when I spent time in the woods I had seen the bare minimum and lived with the bare minimum requirements for life. I was wrong. It can get so much worse and be so much more poor. I was still living life in a comfortable way while sleeping in the attic of a wooden barn in the middle of a redwood tree forest.
Out here life looks and feels different. The people who are in poverty have no government giving them a helping hand or any fall back plans. Either you have friends and family who care about you and let you live with them (not just for a month or two on the couch or in a spare room) or you live in the real wilderness, bad weather, falling apart cold concrete make shift abandoned buildings that are crumbling.
Rina and Ronan
Our traveling has been good for my soul. I don’t think it is going to stop either. The more I see, the more I want to learn. How naive I have been sitting in San Jose for so many years with my under developed thoughts. How innocent I have been in my thoughts. How blind I have stayed to protect my old illusion of life.
Ronan has been spoiling me rotten and driving me through poverty stricken places. (we have to go through them to get to the newer developed ones) It has made my stomach turn several times. Lost my appetite once or twice.
America is a great land of opportunity. The main problem I am seeing is, everyone there pulls money out of America and puts it back in somewhere else. Back (home) in China, in south America, in Mexico. Most people can’t afford to live in America so they work hard and live bare minimum (WHICH IS STILL GREAT).
Have you any ideas? Any motivation?
Something we can all get together on and build, create, expand….? Creating employment, sustaining our structure.. …
Much LOVE!!!!! Miss you!! xxxooo
Your big little sister, Rina Bindi
I encourage everyone to get out of their comfort zone and to go see the world. It will change your life for the better. Expanding your horizon beyond what you have been taught your whole life will allow you to find the true you and not be the person you were taught to be.
