Mei's invitation: a gentle asceticism for Chinese and Americans

In the 1960's I was a fan of popular music, and during this time the Beatles had a song that was being played all over the United States called "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Because my cultural horizons were so small and my world so Western, I assumed that the themes of this song were universal and that all adolescents throughout the world were preoccupied with matters of youthful love. During the 1960's, I would have wanted to share the Beatles song with him.

Meanwhile, during that same period of time, my farmer friend would have been listening to folk songs dedicated to Chairman Mao and to the possibility of a society without inequality. Perhaps he too, would have assumed that the themes of his music would eventually change not only China but also the world. Adolescents often universalize their experience and assume that it applies to all people. He would have wanted to share songs of Chairman Mao with me.

So what would we have thought of each other? One thing is clear. We would not have known what to do with one another's music. If he had internalized what he had learned from the Cultural Revolution, he would have found my music self-absorbed and overly expressive of emotions that are best left private. On the other hand, I would not really have understood his music and its themes. It would have seemed to militaristic and group-centered. I would have missed a more personal side. The music of the farmer's teenage years was about a whole society holding hands, but not about young couples doing the same.

But this is not the whole story. In truth, there would have been something in his music that moved me if I had really listened. I would have found his hope for a new kind of society--where everyone shares with everyone else--understandable because it was consistent with the teachings of Jesus. I had grown up going to church and had been raised on the idea that sharing in destinies is what life is all about. Jesus had many hard things to say about rich people, suggesting that it was harder for them to get to heaven than for camels to get through the eyes of needles. Intuitively I realized that there was something too self-absorbed and too greedy about American culture.

Even the Beatles knew this. Many years after writing "I Want to Hold Your Hand," one of the Beatles, John Lennon, wrote a song called "Imagine" that would have made even Chairman Mao proud. Its lyrics included the following verses:

  Imagine no possessions
  I wonder if you can
  No need for greed or hunger
  A brotherhood of man
  Imagine all the people
  Sharing all the world.

  You may say I'm a dreamer
  But I'm not the only one
  I hope someday you'll join us
  And the world will live as one. (3)

I doubt that my farmer friend would have heard Lennon's song, but I feel sure he would have understood the lyrics. There is something that rings true in them. They express an ideal of compassion and harmony and hope that moves the heart. They show that it is not enough to stress individuality in human life; we must also stress community and equality.