Soon after I posted waxed and worn, I visited Carabayllo (where Carlos works) and learned that Carabayllo was nothing at all like Miraflores or Barranco (where middle–high income families live and play). The streets and homes in Carabayllo were not sophisticated and sensuous; they were shabby and sad. The air there was not salty and spry, but dusty and stale.
Yet, Carabayllo still felt vital. There were vendors and gente who were hawking, walking, and working.
Tuesday, on my way to a pricey café for lunch, a boy, as tall as my waist, tried to sell candies to me. Holding his left hand was his younger brother, who came to my knees; he was not older than 3. Both were filthy. The brothers still walked with a waddle; when they crossed busy intersections, I saw they were vulnerable and experienced.
Carlos said once, “Whoever invented jobs is mad. Jobs should be for robots.”
In some ways, I think that is what I am trying to do here—to use my privileged education, access, and affiliations so that my work will earn me more than just a buck.
I am not talking about “doing good.” I am speaking about “doing hard.”
For the Waddling Brothers, doing hard means selling candies and crossing mean streets.
For my parents, doing hard meant picking up their life in China and moving in their late-40s to a new country where they worked 6–7 days a week and 10–12 hours a day so their daughters could have better opportunities.
Doing a job is not the same as doing work. A job is a task, which can be easy or difficult, that does not require intellectual, emotional, or spiritual investment.
Whether rewarding or demoralizing, monotonous or dangerous, work is always difficult. With work, there is always something urgent, imperative, and burning at stake.
That is why charity is only “doing good” but effecting change is “doing hard.”
1 comment:
dearest elaine,
i need to send you and carlos a DVD of an 8-DVD set called "Chinese Restaurants", a beautiful set of documentaries made by a friend of mine Cheuk C. Kwan on the stories of Chinese immigrants around the world through the eyes of Chinese restaurants. there's a good one on a restaurant in Peru - i'll make a copy of this DVD and send it to you guys. can you email the best mailing address to send it? but these stories are so intense - one of my favorite stories (which i think i'll also make a copy of it too) is of a couple who actually swam 6 hours in shark infested waters to Macau. the husband left first, but the wife didn't know how to swim, so she stayed behind, tried to escape, was caught, put in prison for 3 months, let go, and then taught herself how to swim. then a year from the time her husband left, she and 3 other friends swam across the same waters and they made it, despite cramps. you hear stories of this kind of courage, but you have to hear the wife tell this story - she is beautiful, so youthful, and is smiling, bubbly, all the while. so incredible. and then you know how much work goes into running a restaurant. and all that sacrifice, as your parents made, just to give their kids a better life. it's so deep and universal as well, this parental sacrifice. anyway, more later, i miss you guys very much, but thrill at the thought of all the newness and freshness that must be swirling all around and inside of you. love, jen (shyu, since i'm signing on as Anonymous)
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