NEIL NORTON is a Certified Arborist since 2002 and holds a Masters Degrees in Business Administration and Latin American Studies from Tulane University. Neil is passionate and active around issues of tree conservation and education, both locally and nationally. He teaches Qigong and Taichi since 2008. Neil loves inspecting trees, and thoroughly enjoys his encounters with clients and their trees in all the hidden neighborhoods of Atlanta.
We find friends in many quarters, proximity, common interests, school, neighbors, and even on the internet. I often encounter new friends in movement. My friend Billy Lee has asked me to share my perspective on friendship and movement after demonstrating to him some Qi Gong.
In Qi Gong, an ancient Chinese series of movements, we often discuss different types of learning, whether auditory, visual, and/or kinetic. Perhaps there are different ways of being friends. I know that becoming friendly with someone often has to do with a “feeling”. Love at first sight would be an extreme example. Often there is just something that intrigues you about the other, which could fall into the categories of types of learning. You might like the sound of someone or how they look. Alternatively, you might be repelled by someone on the same grounds. I found that my movement when not paying attention, which can appear quick and intense upsets dogs. I know because they bark at me. What does it mean to be kinetically drawn or repelled by someone?
So much of our language comes through our body. When we move together in unison there is a power and reinforcement that is shared without words. I have always considered myself a kinetic learner, it is a language that comes natural to me. While I have learned to adapt, words have always been a struggle. I enjoy my Qi Gong practice as it allows me to share with others through movement. Often in movement, I find I can be truer to myself and relate more genuinely than through words.
Movement also allows me to align myself with nature that combines both elements of me and nature as reflected in my body. For me, moving in sync with nature means slowing your breathing pattern and coordinating it with my mind and body through gentle movements. When we move with nature, our movement takes on a deeper meaning. Combine that with another person and it becomes reciprocal. Sometimes I practice what I jokingly call Tree Gong, a type of Qigong with a tree, where I slow my breath and stand like a tree, envisioning your exhalation of carbon dioxide and inhalation of oxygen, exactly inverse to what the tree is doing.
While movement most always starts internally, it is always expressed in an external fashion. Some types of movements are more accepted than others, for example tennis on a tennis court, or frisbee on a field, or dancing in a club. The ancient arts, like Tai Chi and Qi Gong, not only connect us with those of past, but it is also an excellent way to connect with those in our present. There have been several occasions when I attracted unwanted attention practicing Tai Chi in public. So, finding a safe place to practice is important, unless you are trying to make a statement, but do not be surprised if the statement is misinterpreted or worse is threating to someone.
Many feel constricted by their ability to move, whether it is emotional or physical. Each of us has our own ways to move through gravity on Earth. We are nature, each one of us, so embrace a method and do not judge yourself, just breath and move. The next time you see a movement practice, whether dance, tai chi, qi gong, throwing the frisbee or playing ping pong, consider partaking. There is power in moving together and in unison with nature.
Neil is one of my son, Gary’s very best friends. They grew up together in Ladera as neighbors and schoolmates when they were near ten years old. I was an active participant in many of their sports activities. One year, Neil got injured and could not play baseball for quite a period. He and I got to know each other and became friends as we watched and cheered for his teammates and had many fun and interesting conversations. Neil and family visited us earlier this year from Atlanta, Georgia. I invited him to write for this Friendshipology Website. Thanks, Neil, for adding “TREE GONG” in our vocabulary.
In Chinese Culture, ‘Yi Qi’ is possibly the most respected quality about Friendship. My esteemed friends, Dr. Stephen Lee, Prof. An, and James Luce have articulated beautifully what “Yi” (義) and“Yi Qi” (義氣) mean in https://friendshipology.net. I try to understand it in my personal life. Who among my friends would I consider indeed to have“Yi Qi” (義氣) ? Three persons stood out immediately.
My FF Fraternity Brother, Allan Chou, wanted to promote“Yi Qi” (義氣) in our FF Fraternity. When he heard that I needed to have a souvenir designed with suggestions “10 Do’s” and “10 Don’t’s” on “How To Promote Friendship”, he immediately offered to have 500 fans designed and made in Shanghai, and he personally brought them to my Portola Valley home near Stanford University in three super-size suite cases. He did all that while busy managing his business in China, as well as teaching at Fu Dan University’s Graduate School of Business. His “Gung Ho” spirit “Qi” (氣) and our “Righteous Cause, “Yi” (義) made him one of my most trusted and respected friend, indeed.
My cousin, Ming Cho Lee, a highly respected Professor at Yale School of Drama, was surely not a socially “Gung Ho” type person. Yet at one critical time, he demonstrated unusual and unexpected “Yi” (義) and“Yi Qi” (義氣). His step-sister’s young son got into serious political trouble in a 1960s anti-establishment student movement. The young fellow and friends in Los Angeles may have overstepped the legal boundaries. As Ming Cho considered his stepsister a true friend, he set his immediate obligations aside and at once flew from N.Y.C. to L.A. to consult a famous defense lawyer friend to find ways to assist the young nephew. He felt that was the right thing to do, and he stepped up voluntarily as he knew his stepsister and nephew urgently needed the help.
My wife, Lucille, has my deepest respect and admiration even when I do not always understand her rationales. During college years, she met a slightly older friend who invited her to join a Chinese Women’s Sorority. This friend became an “older sister” to Lucille – very kind and always helpful and caring. However, their life philosophies became more widely different as time passed – Lucille became more Liberal and this friend more Conservative. About ten years ago, with husband already gone, this friend was deeply in debt to the credit company as her daughter was on drugs and was charging everything on her credit account. For two years I heard weekly telephone conversations between Lucille and her friend near our West Coast dinner time. This friend would call and vent her frustrations – the same complains – for almost an hour or so each time. Lucille seemed to have been giving this friend the same advice which obviously was not followed. Lucille made a visit to N.Y. and voluntarily paid off her friend’s credit card debt, but the friend still allowed her daughter to use the card as usual. This friend got very ill and had to have her leg amputated. Lucille took a week off to N.Y. again This time to clean their house for possible sales. This friend finally died, and Lucille went to help manage her memorial service. This is what I consider to be “YiQi” (義氣) – doing more for a Friend – most loyally, most unselfishly, and more than expected normally.
Yi Qi and Male Bonding East and West Syntax and Semantics
– 20 Feb 22
(Before proceeding, you will find it useful to first read Stephen Lee’s entertaining and informative article about Yi Qi that is posted on this site.)
As I’m composing this essay, East and West are just barely balancing on the verge of WW III. The US/EU could go to war at any time with Russia, China, North Korea or all three. I hope you are reading this essay in peace.
The question in the title of this article came to mind as a result of having read and discussed a draft of Stephen Lee’s article about the meaning of Yi Qi (righteous loyalty), its ancient, complex, and fascinating philosophical/linguistic origins via the transmogrification and malleability of Chinese characters, concluding with a discussion of Yi Qi in China today. Stephen notes that there are seemingly coincidental similarities between manifestations of Yi Qi and what in the West is called Male Bonding. For example, Chinese tales of the mythical folk hero warrior, Guan Yu, extol the virtuousness of truly righteous loyalty, the warrior standing by his fellows in danger and never betraying them to the evil enemy. Stephen notes that there’s also a sinister side to Yi Qi as represented by the 108 Outlaws of the Marsh. These folk heroes stole from the rich and gave to the poor, similar to the Western myth of Robin Hood and his Merry Men. The difference between these two gangs being that The Hood bunch returned to the Nottingham people the money stolen by the local aristocratic crowd from those same people, whereas the Marsh bunch gave the money they stole from the aristocrats to poor people who had not necessarily been the original victims. Thus, The Marsh system was not as efficient or equitable a redistribution of wealth scheme as perpetrated by the Hoods. However, both involved the commission of many violent felonies. The West has many examples Yi Qi/Male Bonding that are not remotely pure, righteous, good, or productive. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid are two loyal buddies gone bad…sticking together through adversities of their joint making and dying side-by-side in a hail of retributive bullets. Another, larger, example is The Wild Bunch. These four dastardly desperados didn’t have a shred of the Cassidy/Kid humor and joie de vivre. Not a bon mot between them. Neither of these two gangs gave any of their stolen loot to any poor people, keeping it all for themselves. Yet they too are folk heroes because of their devotion to Yi Qi. And then, of course, there’s the Mafia, American folk hero murders and extortionists simply dripping with Yi Qi and blood. In modern America the ideal of Yi Qi in all its variations is robust. Every extreme is represented, from fraternal charitable organizations (pure) to drug cartels (toxic), with political organizations (dominated by male bonding) located somewhere in between those poles. Thus, it’s clear that it’s really not just a coincidence that China’s Yi Qi is paralleled in the West with Male Bonding. It’s not a coincidence because, after all, we’re all humans. Our ancestors faced the same problems and mysteries, few of which have been fixed over the millennia. The difference today between each of us and between our cultures is simply a manifestation of different routes to failed resolutions of our common problems and mysteries.
Welcometo Alice’s Restaurant!
Arlo Guthrie’s Alice’s Restaurant, released in 1967, is the generational anthem for most War Babies (1939-45) and Baby Boomers (1946-64). The first seven minutes forty-two seconds of this song are about Arlo’s adventures in Stockbridge, Massachusetts: Thanksgiving dinner at Alice’s restaurant and his subsequent arrest and trial for littering and creating a nuisance…but that’s not what he came to tell you about. He spends the remaining ten minutes fifty-seven seconds singing about the Military Draft, a very hot topic during the Vietnam War. I’ve started out talking about Yi Qi. Here’s what I really came to talk about: The Roots of our Common Humanity and the Routes we need to collectively take so as to reacquire our Common Humanity. The primary focus of this essay concerns how to restore harmony among and between the bitterly splintered factions of our originally Common Humankind. These factions we usually refer to as our myriad cultures, nations, economies, minor genetic variations, languages, philosophies, religions, and other artificial, antagonistic, and divisive instruments of civilization. The original humans fought over food, water, and basic survival. In today’s world we have dozens of more things to fight about, most of which have nothing to do with food, water, or basic survival: patriotism, politics, beliefs, irrational prejudices, languages, and cosmologies. What could be more idiotic than to go to war or start a bloody riot over skin color, a flag, a political party, or especially those variable cultural answers as to where we all came from originally and why. “Especially” because nobody really knows and probably never will.
So…Let’s talk about just one of these splintering factions, the least likely to stir up patriotic or cultural animus: Languages
My father and his three older siblings were China-born, children of a Presbyterian missionary in Shandong Province during the disarray of the prolonged warlord period. When I was a very young child, I remember that my now grownup Aunt Beth hung embroidered towels in her New York apartment that read East is West. It was not until several decades later that I began to understand this cryptic message. We will return to this theme shortly, but first…
There’s a traditional belief/stereotype among Westerners, Anglo-Americans especially, that the Chinese people and their language are inscrutable. Well, what does that mean? The dictionary says, “impossible to understand or interpret”. So, perhaps Americans criticize the Chinese because Americans aren’t intelligent enough to understand what is being said or written in Chinese. In turn, Chinese people traditionally believe that Americans are blunt, both in language and mind. So, perhaps Chinese people criticize Americans because our dominant language, English, is, for the most part, direct and blunt and, well, plain ol’ Anglo-Saxon…avoiding ambiguity of meaning whenever possible. Or perhaps there’s another explanation for these stereotypes.
The source of these cross-cultural stereotypes is most likely the syntax and semantics of their respective languages. If Yi Qi is translated as “righteous loyalty”, that’s inscrutable to an American. But if it’s translated as “male bonding”, there’s no problem. Let’s see which language and which culture is more inscrutable by comparing two quotations. Which of the following quotations was written by a Chinese scholar and which by a Western scholar:
A man is never too old to learn. vs. A man is never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.
Both of these aphorisms have a similar message, but one is blunt while the other is a bit fuzzy. So, it may surprise that the first quotation was written by an anonymous Buddhist scholar several thousand years ago and that the second is by the famous British scholar, C.S. Lewis.
Which of the following quotations is more inscrutable?
What is the sound of one hand clapping? (an ancient Buddhist riddle)
If a tree falls in the forest when nobody’s around, does it make a sound? (Bishop George Berkeley, a 17th-century Anglican)
They both seem inscrutable to me. Well, maybe these aren’t representative samples. Maybe Eastern thinking really is more inscrutable than Western philosophy. Let’s start out in neutral territory, somewhere neatly in between East and West: Ancient Greece was influenced by Egyptian, Iranian, and Chinese scholarship that flowed along the Silk Road and other trade routes. Our neutral thinker of choice is that famous pagan Plato. He postulated that physical objects and indeed the entire observable universe was nothing but shadows of True Reality (what he called Forms) that we mere humans could never see or experience. Returning to Bishop Berkeley, who goes Plato one better, we find that this inscrutable Western Christian scholar believed in Immaterialism, a philosophy that denies the existence of all material substance. That is, all objects and indeed the entire observable universe exist only as ideas in our minds. If we don’t think about something, it doesn’t exist. There is no reality at all. Let’s now compare, using the inscrutability scale, these two Western philosophers with their ancient Chinese counterparts. Several thousand years ago in pre-Buddhist China, philosophers thought about the Dao. The Dao is an ultimate source that connects all things and the entire observable universe. Everything is real, tangible, observable…no Forms or shadows or ethereal existence-only-in-the-mind. Rather the Dao is a Way or Guide that is observable, accessible to cultivated people who have the leisure time to contemplate it. In this real world, patterns can be detected, cyclical patterns that interact between the polar forces of Yin and Yang. Yin is a symbol of earth, femaleness, darkness, and passivity. Yang is a symbol of heaven, maleness, light, and activity. While these distinctions are offensive to our modern Western views, they match perfectly with how both Westerners and Easterners have divided things up for millennia. Furthermore, traditional Chinese philosophy at least acknowledges that water is wet, rocks are hard, a chair can be sat on…in short, the world exists in reality. We can see that in the Pre-Science Age, the Greeks, Chinese, and Europeans postulated a similar answer to a shared mystery. Yet it was the Chinese solution that is the least inscrutable. But what about modern times? Is the situation different now? Only slightly. If you read the modern Western philosophers, you will note extensive incorporation of Eastern ideas from the Dao, Buddhism, Islam, Jainism, and even some of the Hindu scripts. Reading modern Chinese philosophers, one finds substantial bits and pieces of Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Bergson, Dewey, and Heidegger. Ahhh. But then there’s those ambiguous scribbles called Chinese characters that they use for writing. Not like good, clear, alphabet writing with just a few, easy to write and type letters. Certainly this makes English less inscrutable than Chinese…or does it?
Here’s a simple, plain, typed-with-letters sentence in English. “As a linguist, I love ambiguity more than most people.” See? Clear as a bell, sort of. This sentence could mean that the linguist “loves ambiguity but doesn’t appreciate most people” or that “most people don’t love ambiguity as much as he does”. Well, perhaps Anglo-Americans can at least take comfort in the fact that English words are clear, unambiguous, and never inscrutable. Except maybe just a few, such as the word “sanction”. Even though this word is typed clearly with letters, “sanction” can mean either approve or disapprove. Compare with those Chinese scribbles. Approve: 批准 could never be confused with Disapprove: 不赞成. And then there’s flammable and inflammable. Both mean capable of catching fire. The list of inscrutable English words is almost endless, if not also eternal or infinite. To conclude with a good, clear Western question…If waves really exist, where do they go when they reach the beach?
继续我们的旅程
The above process of analyzing languages can be applied also to all the other previously mentioned factions of civilization that divide our Common Humanity, but such a detailed analysis is beyond the scope of this essay. Very briefly, all the philosophic, linguist, religious, and other cultural artifacts and variations extant today are just a dense, swirling fog keeping us from seeing that we’re all just humans trying to figure out how to stay safe in a dangerous and confusing world…and once safe, how to get along in peace. All the past and present isms of religion, politics, and philosophy are just failed and conflicting experiments. We are bungling alchemists in a universe based on cold and uncaring physics. We are all humans, evolved from the same genetic mixture that uniquely gave us an opposable thumb and an immensely intelligent brain, a brain that learned how to use the thumb for more than climbing trees and gathering fruits. We’ve used our thumbs and cumulative knowledge to build and to destroy; to make war with technological gusto and diligence; to strive for peace but neither sincerely nor successfully. Humanity gets an “A” in the course of evolution for our millennia of effort, but a C- for achievement. We are still ignorant children playing with fire. The time left for us to grow up is perilously short. No one culture, no nation, no person is passing the course. We need to give all others a break. Stop the chest thumping, stop the celebrations of our respective failed experiments, and get back to the difficult task of studying, striving to find better ways to achieve harmony and to solve all our common mysteries.
Now back to Aunt Beth’s embroidered towels… “East is West”
East is West
Like a maze when first encountered, all of Humankind’s myriad, eclectic routes through life over time and place appear jumbled, confused, and divided into many paths. Yet on closer examination, there is continuity, harmony, and a common goal. The maze is not made of many parts, rather, like Humanity, it’s an indivisible unit, a living organism thriving in the same soil under the same sky. Viewing the maze from above is much different than from on the ground. An individual can’t see that there’s a common goal when inside the maze, rather only the varied pathways. Most of the paths are dead ends.
The trick for Humanity is for everybody to harmoniously help to find the correct route to the common goal.
Following are my thoughts after a casual conversation with my wife, asking her about her perspective on the Chinese words Yi Qi (义气). Her reaction was that Yi Qi is not commonly used by Chinese women in their conversations among close friends. So I asked her, “What is the closest equivalence of Yi Qi for Chinese females?” She replied that Chinese women refer to their close female friends as 闺蜜(Gui Mi) and regard keeping personal secrets as important.
Women, or more specifically, Chinese women, relate to their female friends differently than Chinese males. To Chinese women, there are two types of behavior between close friends. The first one is the relationship through emotional empathy. Emotional closeness may be enhanced by shopping together and sharing personal secrets, news or opinions about others. Having the same wavelength and being able to know what the friend means even before they speak are validations of close friendship. Women friends do not focus on analysis of right vs wrong over behavior among them. Expressing opinions of other people outside their close circle tends to increase their bonding. When a close friend feels hurt by someone outside the group, the first reaction is empathy and emotional support.
The second type of behavior is loyalty which is not as active or aggressive as between male friends. Female loyalty is insistent but not demanding extraordinary sacrifice. It can be stubborn but not outwardly demonstrated by physical acts. It looks down on betrayal but does not usually resort to violence for resolution. In other words, Chinese women have more than one way or standard in keeping or rejecting another woman as close friends.
Reflecting on what she said, my thoughts came back to the Chinese male traditional minds and my attempt to reconcile these thoughts into a coherent construct for myself. Rethinking about the meaning of Yi Qi, the meaning of Yi is clear. It is Righteousness. The second word Qi (气) is fuzzy. It can mean air or it may mean energy, as in Qi Gong (气功), the Chinese exercise which includes breathing for cultivating the internal movement of energy. Yi Qi is then a righteous energy, or a righteous motivation. It therefore reduces the degree of absoluteness of righteousness. For more than two thousand years, Chinese women were culturally suppressed and confined into a different circle of existence and activities than Chinese men. The traditional Five Relationships prescribed a fairly rigid social hierarchy, defining functions and obligations. At the top level, between the Emperor and government officials, Loyalty to the Emperor is the virtue. At the Second level is Father and Son where Filial Piety is the virtue. At the Third level is Elder Brother to Younger Brother and deferral to the elder is the virtue. At the Fourth level is Husband and Wife where Obedience by the wife is the virtue. At the Fifth level is Friends and Yi Qi is the virtue. This positioning of women below brothers and just above friends is accepted without challenge.
However, a thought suddenly came to our minds. There is a Chinese saying, “Brothers are like arms and legs. Wives are like clothing.” Interestingly the origin of this saying traces to the same brotherhood of the three persons who exemplify Yi Qi, Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei. They swore in a blood ceremony and promoted themselves from friends to brothers. Later, Zhang Fei lost a battle which resulted in Liu’s wife being captured by the other side. Liu Bei was credited for this saying while forgiving Zhang Fei.
Imagine how Chinese women would feel about this saying! Male friends can be elevated to brothers, like flesh and blood but wives are mere replaceable clothes? Is it perfectly understandable that Chinese women do not relate to the term Yi Qi and do not include it in their common vocabulary?
