Virginia Breeze

Last night I was glued to the tube watching Frontline and their documentary about life in China. It is not reality tv. It is harsh reality television.

It is “Thank God I don’t live there” television. I was walking around today thinking about the young woman who had to fight off her parents and her community to avoid an arranged marriage. And finally managed to do it.

The alternative? She has a job working in the city in some sort of high tech factory. And she works eleven hours per day seven days per week. Her task is to put four wires into a receptacle six hundred times per hour. That is ten times per minute for eleven hours. Over and over again.

Maybe she gets a half hour for lunch.

But the good news is that she meets someone she genuinely likes and they fall in love. So she has some happiness in her life. And she is a cute little thing. I feel like sending her a wedding present.

She will probably insert millions of wires into receptacles before she is done.

AAggghhhhhhhh.

Anyway. Moving on. There are many interesting characters that we discover. There is a young guy with a winning smile and a very attractive shirt who plans to tailor shirts for individuals and sell them on the internet. And the next time we see him he has ten women working on sewing machines and boxes of shirts ready to go. Amazing!

He becomes a Christian and seems totally satisfied. There’s no girlfriend in the picture so he doesn’t have to worry about supporting a family. It’s just him and dear old mom.

Smart guy!

Most of them are not so lucky. Loneliness takes its toll. But everything revolves around money. Relationships suffer. It’s a hard life. I couldn’t handle it. I would have to take a slow boat to the United States. And that option is available to some of them. But the parents exert an amazing influence on them and they stay.

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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/youngchina/

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You know it really is unbelievable how well many of us live here in the United States. I feel very fortunate but when I look around it’s clear that the surface of ostentatious good living and fine dining have just been scratched in this family. The pyramid goes up a long ways from here and then starts to get steeper. But it goes in the other direction as well here in the US and around the world. Poverty is no joke. You look around and think that just about everybody has it better than you do. That has got to be kind of depressing. But it’s generally not terrifying.

Darfur is a place where terror lives in the night. And I found a blog recently that talks about this place and the things some people are trying to do to help.

There are people in this world who are willing to help others on a daily basis. They come up to you if your car has stalled. There are college students who care not a bit if they are beautiful. And there are peaceful souls who love children and will break into little pieces anyone who treats them badly. My son, Zachary, is like that. He has been tested a few times by foolish young men who wanted to pit themselves against the best. And lost. So the other day Zach told me he had been accepted into the AmeriCorps program. No big surprise there. He and Cooper are on my list of young people who care deeply and are willing to do something about it.

I can tell you from my own experience that it’s a good idea to care about those who are suffering. There is a law out there somewhere that keeps track of everything that happens down to the smallest event. If you are selfish like me you can give something away and know it may come back later after it has had a chance to grow. It is remarkable how much things can grow and how valuable they can become out there. And then one day they return and ring your doorbell. Surprise! I’ve come home!!

So you might want to read about Darfur and see what needs to happen. If you can find Cooper you will actually be better off than if you had found, say, your favorite movie star or singer.

But she doesn’t really say much about herself . She’s very busy flying around the universe looking for someone or something to help those who cannot help themselves.

http://www.blogcatalog.com/blogs/darfur-an-unforgivable-hell-on-earth.html