Dear Dove,
It warms my heart to read your words. I feel so good that I was able to offer you a hand of support when you needed it most.
You may wonder that I do not write as much as I used to here on the forum. There are various reasons and I shall try to express some of the thoughts that come to my mind at the moment.
I write a great deal back at the beginning of this forum. It was my responsibility to try to encourage visitors to visit Hongen’s website and as an employee I was present at my computer from 8 to 10 hours a day. When I was not occupied with other duties, I would read and respond to all visitors as well as write about my experiences in Canada and China.
I left Beijing and came out to the northwest of China, the main reason being that few foreigners will come out here to work. They may visit to experience “The Silk Road” but as tourists, they leave again. I was warned that Xinjiang is1. unsafe2. very poor3. harsh weather conditions4. I would find few people to communicate with .
ALL the warnings were and are WRONG.
1.It is far safer for me here to live and walk the streets day and night than ever in Beijing. Foreigners are few and respected highly for their willingness to come here. I find kindness and generosity everywhere amongst the common people. As for separatist feelings, they are mostly confined to the large capital city, Urumqi, and never directed towards foreigners.
2.If you could see Shihezi, Dushanzi, Kelamayi you would be impressed by the values placed in cleanliness, modern services, beauty expressed in gardens, fountains, plantings along streets, city squares. The conditions I see in so-called “poor” areas are no worse and in most cases better than I saw in Beijing. “Poor” does not have to mean “destitute”. The people with little income here are migrant workers who come for cotton field labour and construction. They work hard and return south for the winter season. Other “poor” are the rural people who are to be found throughout China and they have a means to provide food where they can have some land for chickens, sheep, vegetable gardens. There is land here whereas in large cities land is impossible to find and use for growing things.
3.As a person from a northern country I find winters here easier by far than a typical Canadian winter. The windstorms that, in Beijing, turn the sky yellow with dust and fill the air with blowing trash are NOT here. When the wind blows, it is clean and fresh and a delightful change for me since it usually brings a change in weather too.
4.English is a language that is part of the Chinese education system now. Teachers and students are everywhere. Parents who wish their child had a chance to practice their oral English are always encouraging them to speak to me. Teachers often speak to me on the street since they never get a chance to speak English other than with colleagues or students. I enjoy my encounters with these interesting people.
When I came out here I found, and still find, that Internet services are relatively poor. The local service ceases often for no apparent reason and returns again. It may be contact with virus programs, etc. but the problem leaves me unexpectedly out of touch with my forum, my Canadian family, my world news services. When I fail to reach the forum for a few days, the backlog of new articles and comments for me is just too great for me to catch up and write my own comments at the same time. 3 Pans and Jenny are so helpful to me but as you can see, no longer can all postings get read or starred by me as was always the case previously.
I have been asked to teach extra classes of workers here in Dushanzi in addition to my classes at the Middle School. Lately I caught a severe cold and after a week of rest found that although the cold was clearing up, I can no longer speak to a class for more than an hour before my voice fades away and my throat becomes painful and tight and restricted. I still have not recovered and wonder how long it will be before I can work properly again. Regular Middle School classes will end soon but the Education Department has asked that I continue my teaching during the summer months with their oil-plant employees.
All this activity keeps me from having time to read and write here on the forum.
The following is not directed at you my dear Dove, it is just what has been on my mind lately and I have decided to write about it here and now.
The forum has changed considerably over the years too. We now have the addition of Jenny whose English skills have improved immeasurably over the years. I particularly am proud of having been part of Jenny’s accomplishments. When reading her articles I sometimes find it hard to distinguish her writing from a native-English article taken off the Internet, her skills have improved so dramatically. 3 Pan is another wonderful example of what can be accomplished by self-study and practice. His written English is, in many cases, as good as mine.
And we have MARYK , whose participation here has kept our form alive and healthy as I have faded away. J Mary can write about far more interesting and diverse topics than I. This is true. She has such a wealth of knowledge and interests! They far surpass whatever I can do. My interests lie in the world of nature. I grew up outdoors. I spent much of my formative years trolling the lakeshores of the Great Lakes of Canada, hiking the forests and valleys of our Canadian west, exploring and driving the roads and paddling our rivers in my canoe.
My life-long experiences in nature never fail to provide me with uncountable expressions and views of the perfection of this universe. The laws through which this universe operate are not from random chance over time but perfectly conceived and applied. I see it in the clouds and mountains, in the persistent renewal of life and environments, in actions and reactions everywhere. My belief in a Creator is constantly renewed by my observances of our environment, the sky, the stars, the carbon and water cycles, the known forces applicable to the microcosm and the macrocosm. How can any observant person fail to see this?
More thoughts of a specific nature:
Now, our forum, has many visitors who use it more like a chat-room and Maryk has pointed this out clearly in her recent article. I totally agree with her. I used to read absolutely everything that was posted to this forum. As you may have realized, I no longer read everything. Why? Lack of time and lack of interest. The chat-room vocabulary, the chat-room personal comments to friends have become rather boring to read for me. There is just too much to read that has little value for me and I think a majority of readers here. 3 Pans has mentioned to me that he becomes exhausted after reading several hours of postings that hold little interest for him and are filled with poor grammar structure and spelling. I, too, feel the same way. Since most of these postings are relatively short, I have begun opening postings that are about 1K in length to avoid all the “chatter”. Unfortunately this causes me to miss some “good stuff”. It also lets slip by some of the trash that inevitably finds its way onto our forum, which I used to delete and forbid immature visitors from repeating. I am sorry for this.
So, how to return the forum to a place of interest? Shall I begin to delete chat-room activity?Shall I forbid all ID’s that ignore my warnings?This “policing” takes time and effort. It takes many “clicks” and waiting time for pages to open and close to delete and forbid ignorant ID’s. I do not have the time. Unfortunately some immature but interested parties may be treated unfairly too.
In the past it has been explained to me by upset visitors that arbitrary deletions of material, personally made by me is unfair and this is a free forum and I have no “right” to act in this way. I have explained that as the webmaster and originator of this forum, it is MY business to decide what is acceptable and what is NOT acceptable here. Anyone who disagree is welcome to leave . There are many forums available with less “policing”.
Am I too strict in my application of personal views?
This post has grown longer than I expected so I had better end it now … I hope to hear from some of you what you think.
