Buddhism

Tristan and I met for the third time the other day and unlike the other meetings, where I had thought about possible conversations before we met, I put no pre-thought into this meeting. I decided to go into the meeting and treat it like a normal conversation with no pre-planned topics. I now realize and think that this was the idea for the conversation meetings the entire time, treating our conversation partners as friends. Experiencing the conversations with this approach will allow us to not only learn about our conversation partner and their culture, but also prevent the conversation from having an interview type feel to it. Having an open-minded attitude about the conversation will allow for endless possibilities of where the conversation can go, instead of restricting the conversation by sticking to the topics pre-disposed in the mind. So, as I walked into the BLUU auditorium to talk to Tristan, I was excited and, honestly, a little nervous about the conversation that was about to happen. From reading some posts from my classmates, I feel as though I’d been going about the conversations all wrong since they seemed to have this feeling before their first meeting and this was my third meeting with Tristan. Tristan walked in after I had been sitting down for a few minutes and sat down across from me. We began to talk about our days and we went through the motions of typical conversation, talking about the weather and what we had planned for the day, etc. Then I had a thought. I don’t know where it came from, but I thought about Buddhism. For some reason, I have always been intrigued by Buddhism. I don’t really have a reason for it I guess; I just think it’s an interesting way of life. It dawned on me that my conversation partner was from China. So after my revelation I decided to ask him about it and what his thoughts on it were. Little did I know that Buddhism would consume the rest of our conversation. He began to tell me that he knew many Buddhists and that you can find them all over the place where he lives. He said that when he was little, he was always afraid of them. This struck me as odd because Buddhists have the reputation of being very calm, passive people who normally are not regarded as scary. He went on to tell me a story about when he visited a Buddhist monastery when he was younger. He said that the Buddhist’s had something about them that made them eerily mysterious to him. He wasn’t sure whether it was their clothes or their silence, but he knew that he didn’t like to be around them. I asked him if he still felt this way and he admitted that he does to some extent. Now that he isn’t as ignorant, their beliefs and actions make more sense to him but they still seem mysterious to him. Then he expressed a thought that was really interesting. He brought up the government in China and how they are afraid. When he said that I had no idea where he was going with this idea and I couldn’t wait to find out. He said that he believes the government is fearful that someone will undermine them and challenge their authority. They do not want new ideas getting introduced to society and that is why they exercise such tight control over the population. Tristan believes that Buddhism is a tool used by the government to manipulate society. Due to the extreme hierarchal structure that is present, if the government controls the religion, then the government controls society. He said that the government would prefer if people repressed their personalities and by controlling the religion that dominates the country, they can also control the people in the society. The government exploits the religion to depress people and keep social order. I thought to myself, “Well, it obviously isn’t working very well if Tristan thinks and recognizes all of this”. I was amazed by his ideas and thoughts on the topic. Now I have no way of telling if this is true or if there is even any evidence to back up his claims. But his perspective is what interested me. What awed me was the fact that he thought of all of these ideas and was actually beginning to convince me that the government used Buddhism as a method of exercising their control, and I know nothing about the religion! It made me realize how easily people can be taken control of if they follow a religion, or any organization for that matter, basing their decisions on the words of a spokesperson. Is this is the type of phenomenon that occurs in the moments we hear of in history and think ‘Why would anyone follow that’? I don’t know, but I thought it was interesting to think about because I had never experienced that before. Overall I really enjoyed our conversation and the new perspective and insight that I gained on the Buddhism religion. I look forward to meeting with him again. 

Conversation #2

Tristan and I met again last week in Market Square of the BLUU. Our conversation started off very general, asking each other how our days were going and how classes were going. Then I found out that Tristan actually lives in Irving and he has to commute to campus every day, which makes things difficult for him. I was intrigued as to why he lived so far from campus and turns out he is living for free in an apartment that someone is loaning to him. That person just happens to be a producer of “Prison Break”. How on earth did Tristan know him? While Tristan was performing in Hong Kong, the producer was at the performance and they were introduced to each other after the show. When Tristan came to the United States, the two reconnected and the producer offered up an apartment he owned while Tristan was studying at TCU. To me, it seemed as though Tristan had a really nice life in Beijing. He was playing shows in Hong Kong, which were apparently pretty prestigious if he had the producer of “Prison Break” attending them, he had worked the Olympics, and was in the best school in Beijing for piano performance. So why come here? I had to ask him this because it was hard for me to comprehend what he found so great about this place compared to his homeland. What he said was that the TCU piano performance professor had known him when he lived in Beijing and they were in contact regularly and became good friends. Tristan said that this professor is the reason he came to TCU to study. He says that TCU is very nice to international students and he loved the American culture, so it was an easy decision for him to make. After talking about his decision to come to the United States, I started to ask Tristan questions about health care in Beijing. I was learning about it in my Survey of Nursing class and couldn’t pass up to opportunity to actually ask someone who had experienced it. He said that he believes the medicine system in China is totally misusing Western Medicine. I asked him what he meant and he said that all of the doctors will give people antibiotics for anything they come in with, even if it is a slight cold or fever. He said that over here, doctors have very strict rules with what they can do. Over there, the doctors use the medicine with little restriction. This was odd to me because from what he’s told me in the past, the country is extremely strict and it is odd to me that the medicine is so lenient. I then started asking him about traditional medicine practices and whether he thinks that they work or not. Things like cupping, coining and acupuncture. For those that don’t know what these are, cupping is a traditional practice in which different sized glass cups are heated up and placed on the skin, forcing the skin to be suctioned into the cup due to the difference in pressure. Coining is a traditional practice where the edges of a coin are rubbed, hard, along the back and front of the body, pushing out the evil spirits. I assume most of you know what acupuncture is, but for those that don’t: acupuncture is the practice of inserting extremely fine needles into one’s skin at various pressure points throughout the body. Tristan believes that cupping and acupuncture work, but that in the hospitals over there, you will find Western Medicine. Some people in China believe that Western Medicine has adverse side effects to their bodies and refuse to take any medications or see health care professionals that are not traditional spiritual healers. He also believes that some aspects of the Eastern Medicine where he lives are completely ridiculous, like the belief that animals influence your health. He went on to explain to me that people believe that turtles have the power to cure cancer. This is the belief for other animals as well, I just can’t remember the specific examples he gave me. I thought that it was extremely insightful and quite culturally relative of him to look at his own culture through that lens. I am impressed with his ability to analyze and discuss his own culture, especially the things that he doesn’t agree with. I understand how hard it is to analyze and discuss something you have been immersed in all of your life. I told him that I was extremely impressed with his ability to do so and also with his wide knowledge of topics. He was shocked. He said that it was very nice of me to think that, but it was not true. We ended our conversation there, for he had to get to class. I look forward to meeting with him again. 

AIDS

Recently I watched a video on Netflix called House of Numbers. The movie was recommended to me by my Sociology professor. I didn’t really want to watch it, I must admit, because it was about AIDS and I watched multiple videos on AIDS in my AP Biology class when I was in high school. I’m not sure what compelled me to, but I watched the movie anyway. I guess I just figured I would refresh my memory about the syndrome because I couldn’t really remember what it was. I’m not going to bore you with all of the facts thrown out by the movie; I realize that numbers don’t appeal to everyone. But what the movie was saying intrigued me. Basically what the director did was go around the world, asking renowned scientists and researchers about HIV and AIDS and what their views on the two were, and what their definitions of them were. One thing most of them said was that the situation is not getting better. No one to this day has been cured of AIDS. The reason for this varies among the experts, but most believe it is because the drug companies make so much money off of the people living with the virus and the syndrome that they do not want to find a cure because it would significantly decrease profits. Regardless of the reason we do not have a cure, everyone that becomes infected with the virus and then the syndrome will die because of it. This idea is literally the only thing that the experts agree on. I wasn’t as intrigued by the facts in the movie as I was by the disagreement between the experts. I was blown away that these were the people we were supposed to be looking to for correct and definite information about the issue and they all disagreed with each other. Some experts said that AIDS was a chronic disease while others said that it wasn’t a disease at all. The actual definition of what AIDS is has changed so many times that the scientists and experts don’t even know what the definition is anymore. Since there is no universal definition, different countries use different definitions. You can be deemed infected with AIDS in Canada and then walk across the border into the United States and be deemed a healthy individual. How is that possible? Then I thought that if there is no universal definition, how are the statistics calculated? The director actually answers the question later on in the movie as he goes to the World Health Organization to get the official statistics on the AIDS infection count. What he finds is that even the World Health Organization doesn’t have official numbers; they only have assumptions and estimations. This absolutely amazed me. AIDS is deemed as a major world issue: there are ads all over the world advocating for safe sex to combat AIDS, education on it is implemented into the health curriculum, and people have completely altered their lifestyle because of it. In the United States people in California are even given special benefits for having AIDS. They get free living, a free cleaning service, and a handicap parking spot. Yet, the World Health Organization doesn’t even know how many people actually have it. It just astonishes me that we know almost nothing about AIDS and it has such influential power. There aren’t even accurate tests to determine if someone has AIDS or HIV. At AIDS testing centers in Africa they give you three tests to determine if you are infected. If the first two match, you most likely have it. If they differ, then a third test is used as the final determinant. Why wouldn’t they just use the third test in the first place? Because the test is not always accurate and can’t be used to determine infection by itself. For this reason, you can go to different cities in Africa and get different results. So then why would people get the test if they can’t get a definite answer? That doesn’t make sense to me, it just seems like unneeded stress. Most countries in the world use the Western Blot test to diagnose infection. Experts disagree on whether this test is sufficient enough or should be used in combination with other tests or not used at all. Another issue, besides the debate on whether it is actually effective, with the Western Blot is that what is categorized as AIDS depends on the manufacturer of the test. Each manufacturer has different criteria for what is determined as AIDS based on the test results. Also, studies have recently come out that state that HIV is extremely difficult to transmit through sexual intercourse, contrary to popular belief. They tracked down and interviewed hundreds of people who had unprotected sex with a partner that was deemed to have HIV to see how many had the virus transmitted to them. What did they find? None of them got the virus. Zero. Research continues to support the idea that HIV is almost impossible to transmit through unprotected sex. So, in conclusion, I still have no idea what to make of the AIDS and HIV scare. I don’t know if I should believe the numbers and what the experts are saying if they can’t seem to agree with one another. The issues with the tests are also kind of alarming to me. It just amazes me that something that is so mysterious and undefined can have such an influence on an entire population. It makes me wonder what makes something a social problem and another thing not. I am beginning to think that it depends on society’s reaction to the problem. There is no telling how long the AIDS mystery will linger, but my guess is that it is nowhere near disappearing.