Hi, I also wrote this

Whether you like it or not The minute you set foot in china you automatically Become an A-list celebrity.
Everyone will be staring always Because that’s Just how it is.

That means every time You’re in public You have to smile to everyone, They want to shake your hand, they want to take pictures with you, and asking the same questions over and over again

It’s a surreal experience really, Could be fun for a few weeks But it’s definITely Not fun to live like that, You see them pointing at you, you hear them whispering, and it’s super creepy when they follow you home and stalk you

They always look at you very deep in the eyes, its an extremely personal interaction

And that led me to hide my eyes under a cap Or sunglasses For a very long time because I was afraid of that extreme intimacy You have to offer to everyone Every day and everywhere you go.

And I have asked myself what would be the most compassionate way to behave towards myself and towards them In this kind of situations

It is an extremely shallow interaction, In the one, they are only interested in you because of your image And that leads me to ask myself if I’m just a monkey Or clown that is here to amuse people so they can take pictures with me
Or do I have anything else to offer the world besides my image?

They don’t speak any English because of course they don’t, So there’s no chance of any meaningful interaction And they are not aware that the same questions they want to ask me I have answered them at least a few dozen times this week

What I learned from all of this Is that The way I react to this kind of Situations has a very high effect on my spiritual practice

To be completely honest people in China are just super annoying and gross And they go out the way to make you feel uncomfortable, They smoke in the elevator, stare at you all the time, They spit and relieve themselves everywhere, They are super loud, and all of that actually helps me To be a better person.

I am not the one disturbed by the noise, I am the one disturbing the noise. I am not the one being disturbed by the smoke, I am the one disturbing the smoke

That’s just the way China is, it has always been like that and it will always be like that, and There is nothing I can do about it, but it’s the way I react to it that makes the whole difference

I could either get annoyed by those things and be unhappy Or I could understand that that’s just the way life is, And I could go with the flow, have a laugh and have a good time with them, I know they’re all nice people deep inside, Sure they’re not perfect, they have their quirks, but there are good enough

It’s when we try to control things that We create suffering, We try to control ourselves, to control others, To control China, To control the situation

China is not perfect, no place is.
Our planet is not perfect, People are not perfect, I am not perfect, and life is not perfect, There will always be problems and inconveniences everywhere we look

It’s my choice to Focus on the good or on the bad things I see Every day. Yes Chinese people still smoke in the hospitals and that annoys me, But they also do a million nice things for me.

Some of them wake up at four in the morning to start making the fillings for the Mushroom steamed buns I will eat for breakfast, An old lady works the whole night cleaning the park where I will go for a run, Another old man stands the whole day in a crowded polluted and noisy street selling bananas that I will buy, And the list goes on and on. And I am extremely grateful to all of them

We suffer when we expect from life something it cannot give us.

Dogs bark, Babies cry, and Chinese are terribly Loud, dirty and obnoxious, but kind deep inside and That is the intrinsic nature of things

Dogs bark, babies cry and bruce posts some cheap philosophical reflexions Disguised in what it could have appeared to be just another rant about China, But in the end, it wasn’t, In the end, it was nice
Thank you for reading

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