What can you see?
One of the biggest learning moments in my life was when I became aware of how I see the world, how this affects the way I live and lives of those around me. To this day, I continue to discover new perspectives and challenge my thinking, what I believe to be true and values I hold dear to me.
I grew up a typical ethnic family where study and academics were highly valued — get good grades to get a good job and become someone that’s respected in society. I had the privilege to grow up learning piano and am forever grateful to my parents who have invested in developing me and my brother through private tuitions.
What I didn’t see coming was my father being absent throughout all of my high school years, leaving my mother to provide for the family, ensure that we were still going to our piano tuitions and paying off the mortgage all on a single income where she worked in a plastic moulding factory 7 nights a week. Without my father around and with my mother working night shifts, she wasn’t around too much during the day as she would be resting and this unfortunately lead to me becoming more undisciplined as a result of hanging out with the wrong crowd at school. I began skipping school with some other kids to go to an internet cafe and spend the day playing computer games.
This happened for a number of years until I remember sitting at the piano practising after school and my mother came in — she told me that the teacher from school called to inform her that I had been skipping school and as she told me, she became extremely upset, tears streaming down her face whilst beating on my back and as if I could hear her heart say, “why have you become like this?”, “how could I have failed as a parent?”. That moment changed me. I began to see from her perspective of how it made her feel and what she thought as a result of my actions as well as the situation we were in. From that moment on, I decided not to skip school anymore.
I had become so focussed on what I wanted instead of seeing how my actions could impact the lives of those around me — this was a painful yet necessary experience.
Some time had passed since then and I asked my mother if I could work with her some nights to earn some extra cash and help out — this was my first ever job. I would finish school on a Friday night at 3pm, get home around 3.30pm to then try and get some sleep before leaving home at 6.30pm to begin my 12 hour shift from 7pm to 7am the next morning. I did this for a few months and as time went on, I remember the pain in the palm of my right hand as I continually pushed in the hooks for coat hangers into the plastic, being in the bathroom feeling sick from being overtired and sometimes throw up. I eventually stopped going to work after experiencing how hard it was — this was the second big moment in my life of gaining perspective, seeing things differently. I had now experienced my what my mother does every night and respected her even more.
I recently became aware of an inspiring story from a place called Cateura in Paraguay — this place is actually a landfill of garbage with slums that some 40,000 people call home. Every day, about 3 millions pounds of solid waste gets dumped here. The people here make their living from harvesting what gets dumped to then make a living by selling materials that can be re-used. In 2006, a man named Favio Chavez, an environmental engineer, went to Cateura for work, there he noticed the children there who had been living in the slums, a place that is home to drugs and gangs. He was moved and thought to teach these children music with the hope to instil values like responsibility, respect and persistence. The challenge was that a violin would cost more than the homes and instruments would easily be stolen and sold — this was a challenged that needed to be solved. You see, the people here are skilled in turning trash into usable objects like homes and so, the idea was birthed to make instruments out of trash. This made a way for the students to learn how to play music and has opened up opportunities globally for the world to hear of this inspiring story. A documentary called “Landfill Harmonic” was produced and children who never existed to so many people in the world is now on stages performing with their instruments made out of trash. The people here were previously seen as “trash pickers” and because of this story, they are now respected as “recyclers” — Cateura’s tagline is “the world sends us garbage, we send back music”. Learn more about their story: http://www.landfillharmonicmovie.com/
As I continue to challenge myself every day, I would like to extend this challenge to you — what can you start doing to see differently in your world today? Before rushing into a situation headstrong about an idea with the belief that you are right, remember that it’s how you see the world and may not be what others see.
James Zhang
My why is to help and inspire other people to live a full life through unconditional love