This week, we picked tea leaves on the edge of a cliff, climbed one of China's most famous mountain parks, and became beekeepers in Pingwu, where local rangers showed us how they and their village (located within the Giant Panda National Park) have been sustainably living off of local honey harvesting.
~ Savoring, not Spending, Time ~
Before each packed day of activities and bus rides, I've woken up extra early for my daily runs (thank you Stella for being such a gracious roommate ;) , which have allowed me to experience the unique characteristics of each village and city we've visited in a private and precious way. The constant across each new place, however, is the slower pace of life in Southern China. I've been surprised to see how early many farmers and elderly people begin the day---my early runs are a temporary exception due to the limits of a packed schedule, but for them, 6am is merely their day-to-day.
In the base town of 九寨沟 (jiuzhaigou UNESCO World Heritage Park), for instance, I left the hotel at 6:15am, knowing I'd have to be back and ready for our 8-8:30am breakfast call. When I started out, I passed an older man sitting on a stool outside a small, nearby market, smoking a cigarette. Not only was he still there when I returned, but by around 9am, when breakfast was done and our camp boarded the bus to enter 九寨沟, the old man was still there, sitting and smoking.
I constantly (and mistakenly) measure my self-satisfaction by how productive I am. Part of me thinks that even squeezing in such early runs before the rest of my campmates awaken, before breakfast and the official schedule, is (as much as I love running) a form of "packing" my day in even more. In leaving myself less "air" time, less physical pause, perhaps I am assuring my mind that there are no moments to wonder if I am not doing enough.
But the contentment of the old man on the stool, in his 3+ hours of mere sitting, mere breathing (erm, smoking?), mere looking, makes me consider if I may want to borrow that sense of savoring, to bring it back with me to the quick pace of the city. Rather than spend, spend, spend my time as a measure of satisfaction, could I measure my savouring of it? How much time I am able to remain present and at peace?
But perhaps there is a more important question to be raised from this reframe: why follow this urge to measure my time at all? Whether measuring how I spend it, or how satisfied I am by it? Why not merely practice gratitude to have time in the first place? The time to exist is a gift in itself.
This slower approach to time as what one can do, not merely what one should do, and the simpler outlook that comes with it (: carrying gratitude that I have time at all) is also something I heard reflected in Zhao Zhong's description of "the Chinese mindset," when I interviewed him about his philosophy on how Green Camel Bell navigates their grassroots environmental advocacy within the limits of Chinese censorship and government structures.
~ Do-able vs. Dream-able: Chinese Flexibility ~
The biggest thing I learned from interviewing Zhao for my documentary is that one can dream big, but if that dream blinds you from being able to see what smaller-scale changes are needed, or possible, in front of you, then you won't get anywhere closer to achieving that goal.
The reason why this trip has focused so much on visiting small villages such as Baikou (in Lunan, Gansu, where we stayed for two days this week), is because Zhao has been fostering long-term relationships with them through his organization Green Camel Bell. Baikou is small enough that Green Camel Bell has been able to spearhead the community's transition towards more ecologically friendly farming lifestyles and livelihoods through a 10+ year ongoing partnership!
By comparison, Zhao said the same scale of change is much more difficult to even discuss in areas with more national regulations from the Central Government, where economic and aesthetic considerations are often coexisting with and influencing the implementation of certain environmental policies and practices. Shortly after our stay in Baikou this week, where we climbed a steep mountain to pick tea leaves (confirmed my fear of heights!!), we visited Jiuzhaigou UNESCO World Heritage Park---while stunningly preserved, Zhao privately informed me that the level of regulation and attention on this park from higher tiers of China's government authorities means that even if Green Camel Bell had certain policy adjustment suggestions, their scope of influence would be significantly restricted.
The accessibility of shifting policy and farming practices in smaller communities like Baikou, as well as monitoring their long-term progress, informs Green Camel Bell's "bottom-up," grassroots approach to environmental advocacy. Zhao Zhong told me that as leader of a grassroots nonprofit in China, "even if we have larger goals, [to create any change at all] we have to be flexible and make choices based on what will allow us to survive."
~Leadership~
Our conversation made me realize Zhao's approach to leadership, survival, and tangible impact in China was not only unique to Green Camel Bell, but also to my own understanding and application of leadership for this LiA trip and the making of my documentary short-film.
As I wrote in the previous post, I'd gone on the trip thinking my collaboration with local Chinese village communities would look a certain way, and that my film would fit into a specific framework I had in mind to investigate.
On the ground, however, I learned things moved very differently to my expectations. And when I realized the stated goals of the camp weren't necessarily being executed in the most effective way, I initially assumed it wasn't my role to intervene. I merely had my thoughts and stuck to my film. But upon realizing my expectations and desires were hindering me from understanding I had the *choice* to be flexible in reshaping my role on this trip, and the kind of story I could tell with my film, I re-shifted my mindset from judgement and actively engaged in taking action to support the program operations to make the camp more effectively achieve its goals. Things weren't perfect, but they were better because I redefined what leadership could look like. I didn't let go of my dream; rather, giving myself flexibility to reshape my expectations allowed me to realize my dream was a shared dream, and could only be achievable if I took an active role in communicating with the program to understand where their approach was coming from (and to learn it was coming from the same place as mine), so I could give helpful suggestions from a place of understanding.
~Bonfire Progression: #2, Baikou~
Our second local village bonfire was in the Baikou village, and it occurred before I had initiated an interview with Zhao. During that time, I was still in the mindset that things weren't panning out as I thought they should, but that my place was as a documentarian, not a camp counselor, so I merely filmed the shortcomings: the local villagers whom we were supposed to be engaging with and performing for sat at back of the viewing space, with a huge row gap between them and our American campers; our campers, meanwhile, sat in the front row so when we stepped up to perform and present, it was as though we were our own audience! I thought again about how to create genuine connection and what the goal of these presentations was, since there did not seem to be very effective execution in delivering them to the audience (the villagers), in spite of our camp goals being to connect with them. Also, half our own (14-year old) campers were on their phones, which I found to be rude and embarrassing given we were there to extend a gesture of gratitude, curiosity and connection to a community that had generously welcomed us.
~Bonfire Progression: #3, Pingwu~
By contrast, our final bonfire took place in the last local village we visited, Pingwu, located in the Giant Panda National Park (大熊猫国家公园) . By that point, being four days after Baikou (our visit to JiuZhaiGou UNESCO park fell between these points), I had had the chance to interview Zhao Zhong and to learn he had the same thoughts and earnest desires as I had, about how to improv the programming during these bonfire exchanges; it wasn't that he was limited by "censorship constraints" of any kind, as had been the dramatized the western narrative I had expected for my initial film idea, but genuinely that this was the first iteration of the camp in which they'd done activities like this and he was learning as we went along what was working, what wasn't, and what type of pre-trip preparation was needed to ready the young American campers to more effectively and consciously engage with the locals in these types of bonfires for future iterations of this camp.
For the final community showing in Pingwu, the structure shifted significantly based on the discussion Zhao and I had. He said for tonight, he’d discussed with the local community rangers that, based on what he’d been learning through each stage of this trip, they were going to restructure it as I’d suggested: if dialogue and cross-engagement is what everyone is craving, we would put that at the forefront of the “sharing show” instead of just one-sided presentations. That night, we sat in a circle and had PowerPoint facilitated Q&As. It went so much better!! The kids were still shamelessly on their phones which sabotaged the full potential of this new shift, but I decided at that moment, in collaboration with another counselor I befriended, that we’d confiscate their phones.
I realized leadership on my part wasn’t necessarily going to be my direct interaction with the local chinese villagers on this trip…but rather how I supported Zhao in facilitating that experience for the kids in his camp. My expectations for what leadership looks like shifted as I understood that the audience I was serving had shifted, too.
~Back on the (foot)Path~
Now that the 4 weeks have wrapped at the time of my writing this reflection, when I do run, I have challenged myself to be flexible: to not always begin at the crack of dawn, just so I can feel I am maximizing productivity and ironically run from the fear of feeling stillness; I allow myself to sleep in and enjoy the day with family first, and if I have energy later in the day, sometimes I'll jog...and other times I'll decide I'm tired and let myself rest. What I know for sure is that my sense of time, of productivity, and satisfaction is no longer measured by how much I "could" be doing at any moment, but by how much I am genuinely stretching out and enjoying each moment. I'd pick presence over pace any time. The instances I've chosen the latter, I've burnt out and been unable to run at all, turning myself so fatigued I am forced to rest for weeks on end.
It's the same with leadership, in my understanding of my LiA and in Zhao's leadership of GCB: flexibility and perspective is key. I'm excited to take the "Chinese mindset" with me to my busy life in NYC, in my personal life and in my ambitions for making the world a better place.