Beautiful Encounter

Zhuo Ma Qingshui

-----“Green Cradle”EE Project Officier/ Volunteer from HK

Last Dec we published a booklet that contained the result of our work in the past year & some works by the teachers & students (essays, photos, drawings & teaching plans etc).This is the Preface to the booklet.

It was snowing on one early November morning, cold & cloudy.I was dealing with some documents alone in the office, quivering & shivering. 2 students of the Tibetan Medical Orphanage School came & handed me a notebook.They said, “Ms Qingshui, Cai Ren Gong Bo asked us to give this to you.” I read the book & found that it was Cai Ren’s record of his investigation on school garbage.

“Where is he?” I asked

“He went home several days ago, his relatives found a job for him with 500 yuan salary a month, thus he stopped his studies.”

Cai Ren Gong Bo was a Primary One student of Tibetan Medical Orphanage School.After attending the “Green the Soul” EE activities series last summer he often came to the office to chat with Dong Zhou & me.He even said he wanted to organize environmental protection activities for junior students in the school.I encouraged him to ask a few fellow students to attend the ‘Sprout & Root’ Team Project with him.

“They didn’t seem to be interested.”He said while copying the information.

“How about you？Are you really interested in them?”I asked.

He nodded & smiled.

He had gathered lots of information on Environmental Protection & garbage disposal these few weeks & would come to the office every several days.I was the only teacher in the office in these weeks as my colleagues were away on business.When he came to the office, he would look at the books & newspapers or ask for my advice on organizing school activities.We would also chat & he would tell me his ideals too.

When I last saw him, he was with a notebook. The book was a bit worn out & had recorded progress of his interviews written in childlike Chinese characters.He told me which teachers & students he had interviewed & whom he did not have the courage or was not willing to interview etc.

And he asked seriously at last, “Are these useful to you?”

I ceased my work, slowly turned my eyes towards him, I saw a straight forward, simple, good-natured Tibetan youth, I was moved.

I also realized that,

He was affected by our efforts,

The process of life influencing life.

Cai Ren Gong Bo might feel that Environmental Protection was good & was right, but without our efforts, our encouragement & company, he might not act.

Maybe,“Everyone is important, each of us can bring about changes.”

These were famous words of Jane Goodall & also my reply to Cai Ren Gong Bo.

Though Cai Ren had to cease his studies before finishing the garbage investigation project, I believe that the seed of Environmental Protection had been sown deep down in his heart.

This was a beautiful intercourse I came across in Qinghai Yushu as the Association’s volunteer.

I met many challenges & had to deal with many adjustments but it was my honor to be here. Here is the beautiful snow plateau, the sacred river sources.But more important is that another culture exists on this land, with blessings handed down from the remote past.From the intercourse with the Tibetans in these years & ancient records on traditional Tibetan culture, I found profound & wise means in Tibetan ecological views for co-existing harmoniously with Nature.

I’m grateful that I can work for these values here.

This booklet recorded our work in Yushu 3 Great Rivers sources in the past year.We have the students’ words, the teachers’ experience, & the fruits of our team’s work.. But more were the traces of our struggles amidst the decline of the world’s environment.

I suddenly remembered a picture in the booklet, which was taken by a student Geng Qiu Jiu Mei.The picture showed an old beggar begging for money, the title was “Why nobody cares about her?”

The picture seemed to have nothing to do with Environmental Protection but it brought out a more profound Environmental Protection issue: only when we really care, can we clearly comprehend & can then take meaningful actions.