Give A Man A Fish

Peering into a Coy Pod I explained that back in the U.S. these large "gold" fish could be valued at $1,000 to $10,000. An older chinese woman with me was confused....

"Why would you want fish you could not eat?"

Good question. However, I had no good answer.



I laid awake last night, reviewing the day and our adventure....and pondering the old woman's question. Why do we as American's require so many things?

One of my friends said that I would come back a changed person and as we have travel and see how people live and move about in this country - I do see myself looking inward more. Reflecting on our standard of living and why we do the things we do.

A few weeks ago I heard a sermon on "giving things up." That perhaps we had too much "stuff" in our lives and that it was crowding out the work the Lord has for us. Don and I at lunch after church were discussing the sermon - and I asked, "what do you think we have that is excessive? what do you think we could give up?" We both thought, and thought, and the only thing that we could think of was the premium cable we enjoyed. I mean we do not want to give up things that make us more comfortable, do we? After all in our eyes we do not live very high, at least by America's standards.

Its funny, I asked Don this morning, "what do you think we could give up?" His reply without too much thought - "a lot." Our preception of what is necessary has changed. We have only been here a short time, however, we see that much of what we do and have creates more stress then pleasure.

The children notice it too. At home the lights go out and we jump to start the generator. They have learned here sometimes the lights go out or the internet is not available and there is nothing to do but wait. Little Donny says he realizes how "blessed" he is.

As we have traveled and seen the old and new Beijing we have seen that the older people here are happy even with less. I see the younger generations with the same focus and want as Americans.

In a country that has only been under this leadership for a few decades, things are changing very quickly. They have a saying here, "here today, gone tomorrow." In the eyes of a watching world we expect China to be as "civilized" as our own. However, we fail to realize that progress takes time. If we were to look back over our own countrys history we see regrettable behavior and actions - errors of judgement and prejudice...even today.

We do what we do with what we know. And when we know better, we do better.