Grover

last night Ana and I watched The Nanny Diaries after a long night of flat tires, eating, not knowing what to do, etc.... I actually had walked it a few weeks ago but was glad to watch it again. it's a really cute movie. pretty girly, which is kinda unusual for me, but I enjoyed it.

so, during the breaks in the movie (we were watching it online from a Chinese site, so the video was broken up into 20 min segments that sometimes lasted longer as the internet wasn't always working at high capacity) we would be discussing how we felt about the movie or looking at H & M magazines.

anyhow......... I just asked Ana for a subject for this blog post and she said "Grover", after I already scrapped her first 2 choices of "money" and "Emergen-C". lol and yes, Grover has totally everything to do with The Nanny Diaries!

in the movie there was a kid named Grayer (I feel bad for him... what a stupid name!) and Annie, the Nanny, in a moment of bonding with him said they should have secret names. he didn't like the secret name of SpongeBob, so they went for second best and called him Grover. I'm really not sure why, but it's prety close to his real name so that's probably why they used it.

really, while we were watching the movie we felt quite bad for people that live in family situations such as "Mr. and Mrs. X"'s family. they basically abandon their kid to be raised by a live-in nanny so that the father can pursue his high paying career & other women and so that the mother can have "me time" while all along pretending to be the best mom ever even though she basically knows nothing about her kid. what kind of complexes must these kinds of families have?! the kid... abandonment issues. the mom, no self respect. she chooses to turn a blind eye to her husband's infidelity just so that they can keep up the image of a happy, rich family even though there's nothing happy in that family. and the husband... I don't know, it's just wrong.

Annie the nanny brought up a good anthropological point at the end of the movie. she said something to the effect that one cannot observe a culture without influencing the culture. she had partially gone into the nanny job hoping to observe their culture but in the end knew that just her being there influenced what happened.

I know, I know... all my posts end up about China, so here it is: many times people go into China saying that they want to observe "untouched" China. they go into it like an adventure, wanting to see China as it was, without the influence of western culture. at present, there are not many places in China that are untouched by the outside world... and these travelers that go in to see "authentic" China go in totally blinded to the fact that JUST by them going to the places that have been untouched by outside influences, they have influenced the exact culture that they wanted to see "pure", causing it to change. I know, kinda deep. I also would LOVE to see these cultures but would also like for them to preserve their current culture. so, how does one go about visiting these unvisited places without changing something about them....? I have no clue. I'd think it's virtually impossible unless there were some way to observe them for extended periods of time learning all the little nuances of their culture, including language, and then going into it acting as one of them. I guess that would take a lot of determination, though. and even at that, if it's such a small community they would still know that you're coming in as a stranger and they would change accordingly.

ok, semi-subject change. in China, one time, I had a long talk with a friend that is in the communist government about my Father. he was very interested and asked me many questions. actually, that discussion was really deep and involved about 3 of my Chinese friends and a few of my American friends. towards the end of the conversation he had mentioned that he wanted to believe but couldn't because he is communist. one of my American friends came to me flabbergasted and frustrated on how the conversation ended. she was wondering why he couldn't believe and be communist. she already knew the legal reasons but wondered why he just couldn't do it and not say anything. I asked her how she had changed when she believed. then I asked her if she thought that any person who SERIOUSLY believed could go on in their same ways without changing at all. the light bulb clicked at that time and she realized what I was saying. so, even in his low level of understanding he knew that just accepting what we had said would result in a change in himself that others would notice even without him saying anything, resulting in some kind of repercussion. I wish I were still in touch with him at this time but I don't have his e-mail address. maybe that's a good thing. I know that he knows the truth and I hope that one day things will change in his life. another time I had a LOOOONG talk with a kungfu master friend of mine. he randomly came up to me and asked me why, in the Book, my Daddy sometimes calls Himself "we". it totally caught me off guard and I tried my best to answer his questions with my Chinese skills (his English skills are virtually zero and my other Chinese friends that were there at the time also had very low English levels) but every question lead to a deeper question and I was soon at a loss for words cuz I didn't know them in Chinese. I quickly ran into the shop (my friends' parents' shop) to get their tiny little English-Chinese dictionary. it helped for a period of time... but the questions kept getting deeper and deeper and I had to run across the street to get my dictionary from home. but even at that, the Chinese words were even new to them so we were all learning new words and I was EXPLAINING these new words in Chinese. it was an amazing experience. the kungfu master is still a kungfu master and practices qigong , but I know that all I was saying to him sunk in & made perfect sense and that one day it will resurface in his life as truth. I'm also no longer in touch with him as he doesn't have internet. but all "the guys" will always be a part of my life and I miss/love them. <3

I'll end my randomness now.... mostly cuz I think the internet just turned off on me and I'm at a cafe. haha I'm gonna try to post it now and if it doesn't work, I'll just have to wait til tomorrow.