Proximity Butterfly (变色蝴蝶)

                                                "一人一本书"

Play Video: NGO Videos by John Cardenas (5)

The NGO "一人一本书" program collected well over 2,000 books over the past month, an effort that will continue all-year-round with mass collections twice a year . The books donated will be tracked to the school libraries so that the donors can see where their books were placed.

When and where will the books be delivered?

The books collected from the 9/9 and 9/23 will be distributed this weekend (10/1-3) by Duxi, Heather, Carl, and QuQiang near Emai Shan, to areas selected before the project was launched.  They took a train leaving Chendgu at 4:50pm. I decided to stay home with Umbrella to begin working on the video from Inner Mongolia.

"Yi Ren Yi Ben Shu" (One Child,One Book) has been a success. We look forward to putting together our next set of volunteer-based shows, hopefully by the time the weather begins getting warm again… I’d like to find some indoor venues and make use of the cold weather by bringing people together in a warm place.

View this photo 

We went camping in the past three days to get some fresh air and drink some clean water… we went out to Zheng He, about four hours from here. Out of the ten people that live here, seven managed to go camping. It was really nice to just talk with everyone about what rests at the source of who we are and how to judge our placement in a world in which the ideas of relativity have dominated conversational approaches, resulting in dialogues of either having responsibility or not… rather than observing that our relationships with the objects and people around us are both selfish and self-sacrificing. We hit some powerful points that I believe are crucial to the functionality of the individual’s role within the international society.

Too often are we emboldened with ideas of simplicity, grandeur, or sheer isolation, ideas that fuel our understabnding and therefore habitual comprehension of others and their customs, beliefs, traditions, etc. To imagine that one could enter or exist within a society without bringing forth causes and effects would be strictly naive. So, this responds firmly to those that believe they are indeed not having an affect on society, whether on small or large scales (these "small" and "large" concepts are only language based; our effects are neither small nor large. our relativity to our effect changes our understanding of our effect. Alexander the Great believed himself to be the son of Zeus. This will necessarily effect his attitude regarding his relationship to himself and the world around him.) This raises questions about one individual’s faith and how that faith relates to others as well.

Being in China for such a period of time really changes your understanding of humanity and what aspects of human beings are commonly shared and those nuances that make a society’s sense of character. This, I believe, will prove to be of greater value and use to the future and its rising dilemmas than previously suspected. For it is when man’s life is no longer driven by commerce alone that he also learns to sacrifice his immediate pleasure for one that will exist beyond the years of his own life. We are then not here for a purpose, but for a period of time, and it is in that time that we are both sustaining and being sustained. We are wedged into this place without the power to do anything but exist. And it is in our existence that gives us the creativity to imagine further strengths in ourselves…

These following entries are taken from a book created by Heather Judson and the members of the team that built the houses in the village. The original version of the text is accompanied by photos, all taken by ourselves. All of the entries are journal reflections on the three-week excursion.

The book is accessible in the Coburn Baptist Church Library, Canada (view only, not check-out).

Page 6

Last night we got into a discussion about the poverty in China.  Our friends in the village ask us the question, "Zhong Guo chong bu chong?" literally meaning, "China poor not poor?" but suggesting, "China is poor, what do you think about this?".  Some of our friends have visions of sending their children back to "America" with us.  They don’t understand where or what Canada is, nor is I important to them, so I am also American to them.  A few of them asked me to take their children in hopes that the children would be able to have a better future, and a chance to send money home to the family from "America".
We talked with them about the lives of the people who live in the cities of China. Families in the cities tend to abide by the one-child policy, usually consisting of two working parents and one privileged child. These families tend to be fairly well-off, giving to their children all of the things that they believe will contribute to their prosperity and success. The average Chinese parent puts an enormous amount of pressure on his/her child to achieve the highest scores, gain entrance to the best university, and to eventually make enough money to support the parents comfortably. Many students claim that sleeping is one of their favorite hobbies. The parents do everything for their "little emperors" to allow them more time for studying. They spend all day in school (7:30am-7:30pm) then go home to do homework. Because the workload is unrealistic, (many of) the students learn to copy a format and cheat to get by.
The experiences of the city children and those of the country are worlds apart. In the country most families have three to six children, which act as investments or helping out with plowing fields, fetching potatoes and corn, taking after the pigs or the elderly. Some go off to the cities to find work and send money home. Children are lucky if they get a chance to study beyond third grade, some lucky to get any form of education at all. In the village of You Zha Fang there is a primary school, yet many of its children’s education stops there. The children of the countryside have a different and perhaps a sense of greater imminent necessity, to exist. This reality brings about a sense of independence, maturity and hard work towards life and its many tasks.

(from Lisa’s Blog)

http://ebolazone33.blogs.friendster.com/hurricane_katrina/

So many people are still dying in the new orleans area. if we can do anything to help them than we must. this entire situation sickens me with grief for these poor people. i can’t wholly imagine this devastion, especially taking place in the U.S. Our president is an f’in moron. denying aide from other countries, yet so slow on the uptake himself.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101329,00.html

We need to do all we can to help these people, as kanye west could very well be right. it’s up to us now.

by Bianse Hudie

I speak in these angelic tones, until my father comes home
Oh boy oh boy does he work so hard
The epoch is told like a narrative story, of a long lost dove
A boy that loves his life as much as his drink

A soma is a beverage that preserves not my age, but my will
The tones of hammering dollar bills reek through your stench!

So I say I’ll do my best to pay the rent
And artist is not whole, until he’s dead
So how about you take me to bed

Come gather around my children,
I have nothing to say
No smoke, no tricks, no gadgets,
The mind is a wonderful thing
We pierce and murder the skies,
The iron is to die for

Tomorrow’s going to be, the last day to find a job.
You might as well take it away,
Because I don’t think I’ll find one.
You think you’ve got me nailed to the ground,
But I’ve got something to say,
"You’re not the mystery man anymore today"

I went to get my 8-ball
No one was there but a guy named Paul
I said, "wait a minute what are you doing right there?"

So I called my girl, she hooked me up with a bag
And we stayed up all night, wondering if I had what it takes.
And then I thought, "What’s with the rest?"
All I’ve got to do is do my best.
So I went down on her

Come gather around my children,
again I have nothing to say
My magic is not my reasoning skill,
(but) to move a body, to move a nation.
Oh boy oh boy how passions can really change your day.
I have nothing to say

Bad Dying
By Bianse Hudie

I’ve been wandering on
No country left behind me
I’ve been wandering on
Shoulders pressed against the empty
There’s nothing here at all
Just some marching and no thinking
A moral grace about to fall
While our quiet shadows wander on

There’s a sad noise that makes us want to pitch the pearls
And that sad noise that makes us want to grip the world
‘Cause we know how to die
‘Cause we know how to die
‘Cause we know how to die
‘Cause we know how to die

The city is calm, the calmest fog
A rising smoke off in the distance
A fantasy to save us all
No righteous man for us to turn to
A face about to fall
So gather your men, surround these walls!!

There’s a sad noise that makes us want to pitch the pearls
And that sad noise that makes us want to grip the world
‘Cause we know how to die
‘Cause we know how to die
‘Cause we know how to die
‘Cause we know how to die

Bad Dying! Bad Dying! Bad Dying! Bad Dying!!!

"O Sancta, Simplicita!"

"Liberi Pentasori!"

Don’t ever ask why, you fear you’ll die
It feels impossible.
Don’t be afraid to cry, you know I don’t mind
Its man’s clever trick, you see
Don’t bother with the pain, you’ll never escape
There’s no point so say farewell

Don’t believe in falling
Don’t be afraid, let go
The honor of this world’s been lost
The Kings will never know
So, don’t believe in falling
Unfold your wings, like snow

Don’t beat around that bush, cant move unless you push
In the quickest sand we move so slow
You turn around to say, but all the people have gone away
You’ve preached to yourself once before
And no one listened then, you spoke your mind again and again
You’ve learned to be so quiet now

Don’t believe in falling
Don’t be afraid, let go
The honor of this world’s been lost
The Kings will never know
So, don’t believe in falling
Unfold your wings, like snow

Like a tiger, in his den, waiting with pressure, in his head
  Your body feasts upon whatever moves
  You’re not afraid to dream ’cause you’re not afraid to lose
  Your flesh and blood are of a holy place

  You’ve got no manners ’cause you’ve got no rules
  You’ve killed an honest man ’cause that is what you choose
  You’ve never stepped outside a lonely man
  You’ve never given change without your hands

AHHHHHHHHHHH!

Help me! I’m so excited

My Bed, is silent.

Somebody’s come to prey for me…

Create the scene and make it obscene…

"I’m not thinking that I’m older."

"I’m at the age where the age gets older."

The poets speak for the untaught souls,

creat the scene and its manifolds—