Dear Mini-David,
You wrote in reply to my thoughts on a current Chinese love story which you
translated for us all to enjoy. Anyone who wants to find the story and what I thought of it may use search to find it. Here is the information you need:
A whole life wait（再发）[Image] mini-david(mini) 6K 05
.08.06 12:41
You replied to me as copied below so that others can follow the discussion. :-)
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From Mini-David:
"Hello maryk(mary), thanks very much for your comments. I can image how
impossible and impenetrable the story is to you. It is undersatndable. There are
two different cultures between us. Like you use fork while we use chopsticks for taking food. The sentiment of a folk is from his long history although it is changed continually. But it is special in given folk.Nothing wrong nothing right,
just it depends. You can find the excellent character of Chinese female from kkxxyy218(我本孤心)'s comments, virtuous,kind,loyal,patient. And what is the soul of love? I bet no one can define it exactly. Maybe love
is one's all which is worthy for paying his/her all for!"
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Dear Mini-David,
I'll begin with your last words above, about love: yes, yours is a good definition of love. My beloved Ben and I have been married for close to fifty years now, and I can personally testify to the truth of your definition. Thank you for
it, and for your reply.
In the past, say in the 1800's here, our cultures weren't so far apart so far as
women being subjected completely to men, and having to learn all those
beautiful qualities you mentioned in the above post. In fact it was quite
easy to get rid of a wife for any money she may have had or inherited by committing her to an insane asylum. And this was sometimes done. In the West, womens' waists were pinched so tiny by extremely tight corsetting that they fainted. It was called having "the vapors." Every woman carried smelling salts to revive herself or a friend who felt faint. Smelling salts had ammonia "vapors" in them which gave them their name and shocked faint people awake.
This can be compared to the way your womens' feet were bound. I read a couple
of years ago about a very aged woman who still had her tiny bound lotus feet. That shows that the same kind of damage was done to women in both places for vanity and the joy of men. Women here were also subjected to very long and heavy, or wide skirts that dragged in the dust of the streets.
If you read Thorsten Veblen's "The Theory of the Leisure Class" (try Google and
you may be able to find it,) it actually opens with a description of how the more wealthy women were kept in this helpless condition to prove that their men could afford to support such dependent creatures! Of course the fashions of the richer spread to the others and many women suffered giant hats, full and dragging
skirts, and cinched waists as well as cripplingly narrow, tight little boots.
That has changed here. It started to change when women bobbed their hair and wore skirts to their knees, and went to secretarial school. I has continued to change. It needs to change more, and it is, and it will. This change is
rapidly spreading all over the whole world. This isn't because people are
following the West, but because it is the "spirit of the age." Times have changed and that is what I would like to explain in the rest of this reply. :-)
You mention our cultures being so different and not understandable to each
other, and cited as an example your eating with chopsticks and we with forks. What difference does it really make which we use? We both use implements for the
same reasons. Simply because we need to eat. And we both wish to eat more delicately and to keep our food cleaner than we would if we used our fingers.
There is very little difference between all of us in this world when it comes tothe realities of life, among which are: birth; death; search for meaning in
life and in our personal lives; love of mates; love of our own children; sexual
drive; need to eat; drink; have sound shelter; clothing; health; use of cold and heat; communication; longing for justice;
to see goodness and experience it around us; for encouragement; for approval from those important to us.
Archaelogical investigations of every ancient culture turn up the same things:
flowers on graves; musical instruments; wells, homes; some kind of government; storehouses of food for hard times every time, a philosophy of some kind
about how the world began and about what causes things to happen to people, even
if they reject what others think and say it is all chance, they think about it.
The human race is one race. We are not so very different from each other at all
.
Now the human race knows for sure, scientifically, through the study of DNA and
mitochondrial DNA, that we are all very closely related to each other. At the
same time the human race has found out that on this planet we are really very
close to each other and must learn to get along and to cooperate with each other
. That is because now the human race has reached the beginning of maturity and in order to be able to function well on this planet grown smaller through travel and communication it is also time now to be good to women, too.
You will find, as you go through life how necessary it is that *both* sexes
equally. need to be "virtuous, kind, loyal and patient." Not only women need these qualities. Do you have romantic stories that are meant to teach men to have
these qualities in their home lives? If it is only women who need these qualities, why should women put up any more by being tortured by the
(im)patience, (un)kindness, (dis)loyalty, and (lack of) virtue of men who don't
understand that they need to exemplify these qualities in their homes, and in their lives in general, too?
Women now no longer need to be the helpless servants of men as they had to be inthe past when that was the only way they and their children could survive. (Of course, I know that there were always people lived kindly together in all past times, but what is being discussed here is that women in your country were told in
the story that they should be the ones to cultivate these ancient *womanly*
virtues. It's time for men to grow up and cultivate them, too.
About articles, I would just like to say that such stories have been tracked here in the women's magazines, and it was clearly shown that during the WW2 women were given stories and articles about working outside their homes, joining the war effort, and after the war when returning soldiers needed jobs, the women's articles and stories began strongly to encourage women to stay home, be good little
housewives and mothers and give up the jobs that the men now needed.
So it has been proven quite clearly that stories are definitely used as tools fordirecting the people as desired. That's why I think it is necessary to be aware
of what articles and stories are trying to cause in society. That's why, to me
,
this is an important discussion.
People all over the world now are coming to agree that women and men both must be educated and that civilization works better when women *are* educated. Birth
rates drop, families are healthier. Homes become stable and not likely to be sold. Women are faithful farmers and they are more faithful repayers of debt than
men are yet, in many societies. Too many men in some societies play all day while their women do the work. How disgusting. That's why I say that men in many
parts of the world must grow up. (Note please that I didn't say the PRC.) They
need, for instance, to learn to be faithful and not to betray their wives. To
take their loving, wise, fatherly roles in the home so that their boy and girl children grow up well-balanced and psychologically well. Fathers in theWest are just beginning to learn this, too. They have been absentee fathers forfar too long and the children are suffering for it. But I am digressing.
The Gramin Bank in India has conclusively proven that women pay back their loansand that they are excellent at how they use them. You may wish to Google
"Gramin Bankk" to read about how very small loans are setting women up in their
own businesses, and how the women will no longer allow their men to sell the homes of their families out from under them, just for their pleasures and gambling.
Life in those areas is changing very much for the better, and it is because women are now having their chance, too, and doing well with it.
Women in a growing number of places now make their own money, have their own
careers, contribute to their countries, and supply themselves with shelter, food
and drink. Men who are aware of this sea change in human life are finding out
how wonderful it is to have a mate whom you love with whom you can talk about affairs, with whom you can be an equal help-mate and lover, parent, and country and world citizen. Many young men are learning about this and changing their ways
. As women look around them for good men to marry, these are the kind they will
choose. The helpless, dictatorial and cruel ones will no longer be in demand.
That's my opinion about the whole world scene. This is not confined to certain
cultures any more, because a world civilization is growing up. Have you ever
heard the great old American song, "How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Broadway!" Do you really think that anywhere in the world women
are going to continue to be the ones who are supposed to have these submissive
and lovely virtues while their men do not? You're young and will live long enough to see that what I say is true.
This is why it is the truth:
The human race is like a bird. Men are one wing. Women are the other wing. Inorder for the bird of humanity to fly both wings need to be equally strong. In
this new world stage we have entered this is the pattern the new and changed times call for. As I said before, it is what is known as "the spirit of the age."
That is why this equality isn't going to grow less. It is only going to grow stronger. The scales have fallen off so many womens' eyes, and now they can't be
kept ignorant and mistreated against their will any more. I hope men realize
this and become equal to women in virtues. It will soon be seen how much happier personal, family, and the life in all countries and the whole world will become as women more and more are able to take equal part.
Warmly, and very sincerely, Mary
