He's right about that, how often do you hear the negative news? A lady was mugged on her way home by herself after dark; a car bomb exploded on a main street somewhere and many were injured or killed.
There is so much negative news about tragedies. You may ask, if there was some love between people, these tragedies, like car bombs and robberies, may not happen. Is this kind of community love and respect dead?
No, I don't think so, this kind of love remains with people of good will, however in my view, everyone one us needs to open our hearts to rediscover it within our communities.
I enjoy train travel immensely. When I was young, for most of the time, I took the train to other cities in China. I love to hear the sound made by the wheel on the rail. It is full with power and passion. And on the train I heard a lot of stories, most were full with love.
This story happened on the train, a story told by my wife Heyley. When Heyley was at university in Beijing, she would go home to visit her parents and friends during every Chinese New Year time. The Chinese New Year is very important to Chinese people. Every Chinese wants to go home to be with their family during that time.
Every year, Heyley chose to take train home. These train tickets are in high demand. If someone can get a train ticket before the Chinese New Year starts, that person must be so lucky.
2007 incident
In the year 2007, Heyley got a ticket from one of her friends in the university before Chinese New Year began. Even though it wasn't a sleeping carriage, she was still excited as she could see her parents earlier. This train was not an express service, so it would take almost 24 hours for Heyley to get home from Beijing.
Fortunately Heyley got a ticket with a reclining seat, she could rest. However, some people only could buy a 'standing ticket' when the seat tickets were sold out. In order to get home earlier, these people have no choice but standing in the carriage for the 24 hour journey. This was not the happiest of outcomes.
When Heyley got on her carriage with her seat ticket, she found it was totally full with passengers. Those who did not have a seat ticket were standing in the aisle or in the front of the carriage. During the early few hours, passengers were still talking with each other, nobody looked tired.
But after dinner time, tiredness came upon everyone. Children stopped playing video games (mostly on their parents' phones); adults stopped playing cards with each other; passengers with standing tickets were leaning on the side of seat trying to save some energy.
With the sound of the rail wheels (sleeping music as it were) Heyley ceased talking with her friends sitting next to her and fell asleep. She does not remember how long she slept, Heyley remembers it wasn't a good sleep. As she had been sitting for too long, her back was in pain, so she decided to have a walk and went to the next carriage to get some hot water.
She had to excuse all the passengers who were standing in the aisle to let her pass. Heyley remembered that there was a young couple standing next to her seat. When Heyley went to get water, she saw the young lady were leaning on her husband's chest to have a rest, while the husband were leaning on the seat trying to get balanced.
Decision
When Heyley fought her way back to her seat, she saw the young lady sitting on her seat. Once the husband saw Heyley, he quickly woke his wife up and told her to get up from the chair. The young lady was fallen asleep that she was not woken up straight way. The husband was so sorry about that and kept apologizing to Heyley about her seat.
At that time, Heyley was so touched by something as she looked into the young couple's eyes, which were full with blood streak. She could read from his eyes, he was full with apology and tiredness.
Heyley decided to let the young couple to sit on her seat in order to have some rest. She considered to take turns with the young couple to have some rest on the seat, and as a consequence they all could be home more comfortably. At that moment, Heyley had so much compassion on the young couple, she said she could not be so selfish to sit back on her seat.
After 6 years, when Heyley told me this story, I still can feel that she is so proud of her decision on that train. I think that is community love. This love shows to the people we meet a community respect, spirit and love. As Jesus said it is easy to love those we know.
Opening our hearts in a broad range of daily circumstances is like this story above. We can engender this love, it is everywhere around us with. It is not such a big step then to reveal the source of this love.
Oscar Duan is from China, he has an accountancy degree from University of Hertfordshire (UH) International campus in Malaysia, and has undertaken further accountancy studies in Australia for accreditation here. He is married to Heyley.
Oscar Duan's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/oscar-duan.html