On Being a Chinese Grocer

Back when I was a child, all of my family worked. We all lived and worked in the same building since my Mom and Dad owned a grocery store. Week days were spend holed up in the public school system during the day time, and afternoons, me and my sisters trudged home-ward bound to relieve my parents, especially when we got older.
When I was young, I handled the cash and tried to help bag groceries, even though I could not reach the counter top. I loved helping out, even though in one case I was barely was able to lift the bag from the ground, spilling all its contents. Every day, our parents worked, never skipping a Sunday, and our store got its share of memorable customers.
Sometimes a young man brought his monkey to the store, bringing about lots of good conversation and curiosity. During Halloween, young men came in the store to buy food coloring for their hair due to fact that Halloween costumes were home-made rather than manufactured. The bulk of our customers were primariy white and all was not always well.
In the late sixties, my mom and I drove around in a chevy and sometimes encountered a racial slur from a young white male. It didn't matter that I was a young child or that I was with my mother, racism raised its ugly head. My mother also shot back a response, not matter who it was. "Shut up, you igorant bum," she should sneer.
Kids too would yell at us, "Go back home, Chinamen," they would yell.
My sister thought she was smart and shouted, "Shut up, you war,!" Actually, she meant, "whore." but who knew the word.
Myself, I was more shy, and listened to my siblings and mother tell off the racists. Sometimes, I would yell out and sometimes, on a bad day, I wished I was white.
I didn't know about the civil rights movement too much or about Dr. Martin Luther King. In high school, we learned about ABC's and never about learning to live together.
As a young girl, I played with dolls that were Caucasion and watched TV in black and white.
Things really were black and white back then.
With the arrival of color TV, I started to notice a more, relaxed mood. Then Bruce Lee came to the big screen around the seventies, and I started to appreciate my skin color.
Even though I experienced the occasional racial incident, inside and outside the store, I raised my head a little higher each day, knowing that no matter what some people said, they couldn't take the fight out of us.
And besides, since most of the stores were closed on Sundays, (Back then, the majority of stores were closed on Sundays), ours was a business that accepted all customers, regardless of their ignorance.

How to Deal with Bullies in the Workforce -Part 2

For the most part, my way of dealing with workplace bullies was to do basically nothing. Silence, indeed, was my most worst enemy but I was not exactly sleeping, too. Secretly, I was writing down things on small pieces of paper, things that my then supervisor and manager was doing to make my life miserable.
For the most part, these damaging things were observable: other employees were getting better desks and treatment and my requests to deal with workplace issues were laughed at and ignored.
My dog days took the form of going to work with a huge cloud over my shoulder. Even despite clearly unprofessional treatment at the hands of Hitler's relatives (I imagined), I took it all in, never wanted to throw in the towel over what I deemed were a normal part of one's working world.
In fact, for years I went through one bad boss after another, mostly women managers who saw fit to treat my life as though I were a paid slave, only there to make their lives better. All these wierd, unstable bosses were, for the most part, large, younger and clearly competent employees. But even if there were more unattractive than I was, why did they seem to take it out on myself, I wondered? Why did they continue to ask me my age during social occasions, when it didn't really matter, dither, if I was more older, more attractive than she?
All these age-related questions are, in fact, a form of abuse that younger women often use to make themselves feel better than others. Who really cares if they are just celebrating their 21th birthday in Las Vegas? Are they going to be twenty-one for the rest of their lives?
Interestingly enough, I recall that my days of workplace abuse was mostly spent in underpaid, high stressful jobs dominated by young, immature, barely educated young women. Add that, nonunion jobs.
When that day came when the abuser decided to fire me, it came as somewhat of a surprise. Other fired employees walked out silently, but this I could take no more. I howled out at my abusers, cursed them with the word, "lawsuit," and slammed the door quite loudly as I exited the cold and sterile-looking call-centre floor.
A few months later, I did just that. I retained a pro-bono lawyer and settled with myself receiving both extra money and a reference letter. I was saved by the law.

When Witches Invade the Work Place

Being in the world of work is tough. If you think about it, it is often like being in a school yard where employees and employers are either your friend, a bully or just a pain in the butt.
I've worked among some of the worst bully employers ever. One rather large woman had the audacity to scream at me at one point in one of my bad job years. When this happened, I took to walking out rather abruptly and explaining my behaviour to the bosses the next day. In that same, mundane job, a younger woman with eyes that were both hawkish and full of stress, proceeded to harass me over one thing or another. I rolled my eyes during one of her tirades and tried to block her out.
In these years of low esteem which hovered over me like a bad movie, I listened to their constant harping, while silently hoping for some thing to happen that would take these women witches to justice.
Thankfully, the job which involved tracking packages, gave me an opportunity to meet some truly wonderful people in the United States. I would deal with my American coworkers on a business and personal way and in some cases did end up meeting some of them in person. It was the best and worst of times, in the words of Dickens.
But at the same time, the workplace was becoming intolerable. I've seem other women also getting the bad treatment. Yes, they were being bullied, too. I tried to band together with another bullied woman but that only made me feel more and more alone. It was just a case of us against them. But despite all the psychological shoving, I took it in stoically, silently thinking to myself that the witches -the women who made my life horrible -may be powerful, but they were ugly both physically and morally. True, I seemed to have more friends of either gender, but that didn't make my life any easier.
One day to my pleasant surprise, the bullied woman who was in her forties, just lost it. She slammed the door on the big, ugly woman-boss and stormed out of the office, officially quitting.
Wow! I took the abuse for a few more months before I decided to quit one day in style by sending them a fax expressing my official intention to leave.
The big great news came to me one day when I heard that the woman who was both the boss and an unofficial Witch of the West was ousted from the job herself -suspected of being a fraudster.
Ah! I love karma.

Why Being a Good Citizen Makes all the Difference in the World

Sometimes the news is so awful that one needs only to shut off the television to turn off the problems of the world.
I often wonder how kids can do things to each other -cause bullying, fighting and just being mean towards each other. It also turns worst when the kids grow up. Some turn to drugs, crime and all kinds of other things which make headline news every day.
And yet, I believe that a lot of crime can be prevented with early life upbringing. Had parents instilled in them some kind of pride, of right and wrong, of following nobler paths, it is quite probable that some of the problem kids could be model citizens.
And yet, strangely enough, a lot of parents leave education up to the school system or even up to thin air. Kids definitely need role models and a firm background where they are encouraged to be model citizens.
True, a lot of kids are fine and don't end of getting in trouble. But it is the few kids that bully and grown up to be killers, animal abusers and drug addicts who need to be held up to further scrutiny.
Indeed, if we could find a way to prevent such problem people, our society would be so much more safer, kinder and nobler.
I remember in university being lectured on the good life by my wonderful Philosophy professor. My mind soared to a wonderful space when I heard of such a better world spoken of by Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato and Socrates. Ideas of citizenship involved people being politically active, as well specifically involved in the well-being of the state.
How often we take citizenship for granted. By virtue of birth, we are granted automatic citizenship. But citizenship should involve something more: being kind, being good to each other is worth more than all the money in the World Bank.
The sad reality is that a lot of places in the world, such as Syria's top leadership, is virtually morally illiterate. Thousands of people demanding a better way of life are being killed by the government's troops and all they really wanted was a better life.
Our world needs more philosophers, better citizens and more nobler leaders.

Curing Dementia -A Personal Journey

I'm glad 2011 is over. It's been a rough year. Especially on a personal level. A close friend's father passed away. Then another friend's mother was called to heaven. For myself, dealing with dementia is an uphill battle. A close person of mine has been identified as being afflicted with signs of dementia.
The tough part is seeing the damage --especially how someone who was so wonderful with the writing of kind words and thoughts on a card --could now sometimes grasp for words and is unable to identify common things like yogurt, or bananas.
At first, the family was not that concerned, and tried to bury the problem by not owning up to it. Later, when clearly this person with dementia, --I'll call her "W" --could not always recall a lot of recent events and appeared sometimes confused, it was time to take action.
The doctor was involved, yet to my surprise, could offer nothing and suggested a referral to a specialist. I got involved and booked such a specialist and a few months later, I am still waiting.
Battling this illness or any other illness can be personally trying, but with resolve and hope, a miracle could be just around the corner.
To this end, I have read books on this subject, and countless articles. All point to certain key vitamins as a possible solution to this terrible disease. And so with hope and my wallet open, "W" is being given a lot of vitamins and support.
I urge anyone who knows someone with dementia to do the same --take ownership of the situation and do research on the subject in order to look for a cure.
Life can sometimes hold a card that is not always candies and ice cream. The key thing is to always remain hopeful, positive and take personal action. A miracle vitamin is the best thing we can do to help save millions of people who suffer from dementia world-wide.

Never Give Up --The Power of Prayer

Life is hard sometimes. But when problems hit close to home, it's even harder. When a close friend's relative lay in the hospital, close to dying, it was hard to accept. The doctor gave the grim news that the end was near, and all the signs were there. He was weak and barely able to speak. The priest was called to give the last rites.
Instead of accepting the inevitable, everyone close to the sick man, looked up and started to pray. I also sent healing prayers. Three days passed, a week passed and now it is almost a month, and the person whom the doctor said should be dead by now, is now sitting in a chair and eating.
It's a great thing knowing that a higher power has the power to heal. The Bible contains numerous examples of how people have been healed and survived after experiencing serious illnesses.
And yet the division between the medical community and spiritual healing seems to be wide. Doctors do not want to admit to a higher power and would probably not give much credit to the power of prayer in healing. They base a man's life span on his age, as though being 78 or 89 are reasons enough to have a man die. But why should be limit life to only the young? We should be allowed to live as long as God wills it.
It is about time that the hospital community woke up and embraced the fact that doctors do not decide when a patient will die. Sometimes, God, in his mercy, hears peoples' prayers and answers their prayers by extending the life of the patient.
This then is a true miracle provided by a higher power. Prayer will and can change a person's life. We are truly not alone.

Healing Prayers --Finding the Time to Pray for Others

We are sometimes too full of ourselves. It is when we become too self-absorbed that we don't notice other people at times. It is better for own inner growth to look upon other people and have empathy. Empathy makes us better people and helps us to look out for our neighbor, should he or she require this.
This is when healing prayers are very useful. In my previous blog, I discussed meeting a very inspirational person at a health seminar. His name is Dr. Zhi Gang Sha and he is the author of many books on healing, including Soul, Mind Body Medicine. At the seminar, he arrived to a packed audience full of people seeking spiritual wisdom and the power to learn about healing. His teachings are full of insight and requires several hours of deep concentration and quietness to learn about his thoughts of energy and healing. It is a very powerful, uplifting and positive way to treat disease. And his book provides techniques to channel love and forgiveness to the world.
While in Cuba recently, I felt badly that the country was facing a pretty dry heat spell and many parts of the city and countryside were facing very little rain. Feeling bad about this, I decided to send out a brief prayer to help bring rain, using some of the techniques I read about in his book. It wasn't about an hour or two later that I heard the sky fill with the sounds of thunder and lightning flashed across the sky. Rain soon pounded on the ground and the next day, I found pools of rain water that gathered at the resort where we stayed at.
Whether you agree with Dr. Sha's technique or not, praying for healing is important to do.
Caring for other people is a great way to bring the world closer together. Doing healing prayers is a wonderful way to provide assistance to other people who may need it more than ourselves.
And when we pray for others, we hope the world will be a better and safer place.