First it was a superficial similarity.
“I am Chinese. Are you Chinese too?” One woman asked me. We’re both Chinese!
“Yes, but I was born here. My mom is from the city of ShenZhen and I went to kindergarten there,” I replied.
“What district? I’m from ShenZhen as well, from NanShan District.” No way. We both have connections to ShenZhen and for whatever personal reasons, we both ended up in San Diego. Then I learned I had similar life reflections with some of the people I spoke with. I’d noticed that another senior expressed his gratitude by saying how “blessed” he feels. I asked if perhaps he was a religious man since my father is staunchly religious himself, but to my surprise he responded to my yes or no question with a question of his own: “What do you mean by that? A lot of people have different interpretations of what it means to be religious.” What! That was not a response I anticipated. After my brain briefly short-circuited, we began to share how strict religious adherence defined our upbringing. I listened to him describe the difficulty he had coming to terms with his parent’s own beliefs on his life as a result of their own upbringing, and listened to how he rediscovered his spiritual beliefs on his own terms. It felt like he was narrating the stream of consciousness I discussed with myself on my own journey.
I wanted to become a Life Course Scholar so that I could learn of different perspectives, learn from different perspectives, and appreciate those perspectives. I didn’t realize that this would only be the first step. In our class reading “Happiness is a Choice You Make,” John Leland weaves life insight from various elderly neighbors to help him to reflect on his own life purpose. In these 3 weeks I’ve learned I have to actively reframe my own perspective so that I do not ‘other’ the same people I want to connect with. Learning is a bit of a two way street that takes self-reflection in addition to reflecting new ways I learn about the reality of the world.