One Girl Changed My Life
My childhood and adolescence were a joyous outpouring of energy, a ceaseless quest for expression, skill, and experience. School was only a background to the supreme delight of lessons in music, dance, and dramatics, and the thrill of sojourns in the country, theaters, concerts.
And books, big Braille books that came with me on streetcars, to the table, and to bed. Then one night at a high school dance, a remark, not intended for my ears, stabbed my youthful bliss: “That girl, what a pity she is blind.” Blind! That ugly word that implied everything dark, blank, rigid, and helpless. Quickly I turned and called out, Please don’t feel sorry for me, I’m having lots of fun. But the fun was not to last. With the advent of college, I was brought to grips with the problem of earning a living. Part-time teaching of piano and harmony and, upon graduation, occasional concerts and lectures, proved only partial sources of livelihood. In terms of time and effort involved, the financial remuneration was disheartening. This induced within me searing self-doubt and dark moods of despondency. Adding to my dismal sense of inadequacy was the repeated experience of seeing my sisters and friends go off to exciting dates. How grateful I was for my piano, where—through Chopin, Brahms, and Beethoven—I could mingle my longing and seething energy with theirs. And where I could dissolve my frustration in the beauty and grandeur of their conceptions. Then one day, I met a girl, a wonderful girl, an army nurse, whose faith and stability were to change my whole life. As our acquaintance ripened into friendship, she discerned, behind ashell of gaiety, my recurring plateaus of depression. She said, “Stop knocking on closed doors. Keep up your beautiful music. I know your opportunity will come. You’re trying too hard. Why don’t you relax, and have you ever tried praying?” The idea was strange to me. It sounded too simple. Somehow, I had always operated on thepremise that, if you wanted something in this world, you had to go out and get it for yourself. Yet, sincerity and hard work had yielded only meager returns, and I was willing to try anything. Experimentally, self-consciously, I cultivated the daily practice of prayer. I said: God, show me the purpose for which You sent me to this world. Help me to be of use to myself and tohumanity. In the years to follow, the answers began to arrive, clear and satisfying beyond my most optimistic anticipation. One of the answers was Enchanted Hills, where my nurse friend and I have the privilege of seeing blind children come alive in God’s out-of-doors. Others are the never-ending sources of pleasure and comfort I have found in friendship, in great music, and, most important of all, in my growing belief that as I attune my life to divine revelation, I draw closer to God and, through Him, to immortality.

一位女孩改变了我的生活
罗丝·雷斯尼克

我在童年和少年时代激情四溢，无时无刻不追求展现自我、磨砺才艺和体味生活。学校里的音乐、舞蹈和戏剧课让我欢欣不已，而剧院和音乐会更让我身心为之震颤，乡间流连的时光也同样美妙，还有我的书，那些厚重的盲文书籍无论在我乘车、用餐还是睡觉时都与我形影不离。

然而，一天晚上，在高中的一次舞会上，一句我无意中听到的话霎那间将我年少的幸福击碎——“那女孩是个瞎子，真可惜！”

瞎子——这个刺耳的字眼隐含着一个阴暗、漆黑、僵硬和无助的世界。我立刻转过身，大声喊道：“请不要为我叹惜，我很快乐！”——但我的快乐自此不复存在。

升入大学之后，我开始为生计而奔波。课余时间我教授钢琴及和声，临近毕业时还偶尔参加几次演奏会，做了几次讲座，可要维持生计光靠这些还是不够，与投入的时间和精力相比，它们在经济上的回报让人沮丧。这让我失去了自信和勇气，内心郁闷苦恼。眼看我的姐妹和伙伴们一次次兴高采烈地与人约会，我更觉消沉空虚。所幸的是，还有钢琴陪我。我沸腾的渴望和激情在肖邦、贝多芬、勃拉姆斯那里得到了共鸣。我的挫败感在他们美妙壮丽的音乐构想中消散。

直到有一天，我遇见一位女孩，一位出色的女孩，这名随军护士的信念和执著将改变我的一生。我们日益熟稔，成为好友，她也慢慢察觉出我的快乐的外表之下内心却时常愁云密布。她对我说，“门已紧锁，敲有何用？坚持你的音乐梦想，我相信机会终将来临。你太辛苦了，何不放松一下——试试祷告如何？”祷告？我从未想到过，听起来太天真了。一直以来，我的行事准则都是，无论想得到什么都必须靠自己去努力争取。不过既然从前的热诚和辛劳回报甚微，我什么都愿意尝试一番。

虽然有些不自在，我尝试着每天都祷告——“上帝啊，你将我送到世上，请告诉我你赐予我的使命。帮帮我，让我于人于己都有用处。”

在接下来的几年里，我得到了明确而满意的回答，超出了我最乐观的期望值。其中一个回答就是魔山盲人休闲营区。在那里，我和我的护士朋友每年都有幸看到失明的孩子们在大自然的怀抱中是多么生气勃勃。除此之外，朋友们真挚的友谊以及美妙的音乐都给我带来无穷无尽的欢乐和慰藉。最重要的是，我越来越意识到，在我日复一日的祷告中，当我聆听上帝的启示之时，我正日益与他靠近，并通过他接近永恒。
附注：
罗丝·雷斯尼克：于1934年毕业于亨特学院，之后又获得了加州大学的硕士学位，现为三藩市盲人康乐协会的执行主任。

What Bo Xilai’s downfall tells us about China
By Jiang Xueqin, Special to CNN
Editor’s note: Jiang Xueqin is a China-born writer and educator. His work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Chronicle of Higher Education and The Diplomat among other publications. The views expressed are his own.
China has announced the seven men who will rule the country for the next decade, and everyone is anxiously anticipating their actions. But perhaps the story of the man left out – Bo Xilai – offers a better diagnosis and prognosis of China.
In a system known for conformity and compromise, Bo proved himself creative and charismatic, first in the coastal boomtown of Dalian and then as party chief of Chongqing. Son of one of China’s Eight Immortals, Bo seemed destined for the pinnacle until his father Bo Yibo died. Seemingly exiled from Beijing in 2007, Bo decided to restore his political fortunes by re-inventing the mafia-infested industrial wasteland that is Chongqing. He ran the mafia out of town, and he had the people sing “The East is Red.” In so doing, Bo became a political rock star, and set the stage for a downfall worthy of Shakespeare.
On February 6, 2012, Wang Lijun, Bo’s top enforcer, walked into the American consulate in Chengdu, reportedly told stupefied American officials that he had evidence of corruption incriminating Bo, and then walked out into the arms of Chinese security officials who escorted him to Beijing. Just as China was about to embark on a once-in-a-decade leadership transition, the Chinese Internet and Western press became a maelstrom of coup d’état rumors, lewd innuendos, and hints of violent court politics.
More from GPS: Out with the old, in with the old
The story embedded itself in the Western imagination when it became reported that the scandal’s catalyst was the murder of Briton Neil Heywood. Somehow, the story went, Wang stumbled upon evidence of the involvement of Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, and when he confronted Bo with this evidence, Bo is alleged to have stripped Wang of his powers, and to have planned “three ways to kill him.” This implausible story became the official truth when a Chinese court, despite the lack of evidence against Gu, handed her a suspended death sentence for the murder of Heywood, a verdict that sealed Bo’s political fate.
On November 12, Britain’s Channel 4 presented a documentary that challenged this understanding of Bo’s downfall. The documentary hears from an “insider” who suggests that Heywood was never close to the Bo family, and was really an opportunist who used his Harrow accent and brief encounters with the Bo family to fleece British businessmen greedy for “guanxi.”
While murder and mistresses, sex and spies do grab headlines, we must remember that the scandal’s two protagonists were Bo and Wang. Together, the brilliant politician and the daring policeman made a formidable team, and having worked with Wang in Liaoning Province, Bo knew that Wang was the best – and perhaps only – man for the job in his crusade against Chongqing’s mafia. In the all-out war, Wang risked his life to make Chongqing Bo’s personal fiefdom, and in return Wang expected his success to be rewarded, his loyalty to be reciprocated, and he himself to be respected. But could Bo – a man notorious for his megalomania – respect anyone, and share the limelight?
Underneath every great partnership is an intensely explosive rivalry. Think of the mutual mistrust between Roman emperors and their generals in Edward Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. And think of one of history’s most productive partnerships – the one between George Washington and Alexander Hamilton.
In his sympathetic biography of George Washington, Ron Chernow describes the tumultuous relationship between the respected commander of the American revolutionary army and his talented aide-de-camp Alexander Hamilton:
“Working in daily contact with a man burdened by multiple cares, Hamilton inevitably was exposed to Washington’s bad-tempered side. A stoic figure who strove to be perfectly composed in public, Washington needed to blow off steam in private, and the proud, sensitive young Hamilton grew weary of dealing with his boss’s varying moods.
“Like many talented subordinates, Hamilton nurtured a rich fantasy life and could easily have imagined himself in Washington’s place. He found a desk job, even such a prestigious one, too lowly and monotonous for his tastes and dreamed of battlefield glory, repeatedly requesting a field command. But he wielded such a skillful pen that Washington was reluctant to dispense with it and turned him down. In December 1780 he also scotched Hamilton’s chance of becoming adjutant general, which would have jumped him over several officers of superior rank and thereby created endless trouble.”
Three days before Wang walked into the American consulate in Chengdu, he penned a public letter condemning Bo as a “despot who makes arbitrary decisions, hateful and ruthless…He treats people like chewing gum: after a little chew, he just throws you away…I was willing to risk my life on his behalf, and he treated me worse than he’d treat a dog.”
We could easily imagine Hamilton writing this sort of letter after his experiences as Washington’s aide-de-camp – he certainly must have thought like this. But he did not. Instead, Hamilton found a pretext to resign amicably, and having married into one of New York’s richest families, this self-made man soon found success as a lawyer. Over time, as the two men matured, their rift healed, and when Washington became president, Hamilton became his treasury secretary.
But, whereas American culture respects the sanctity of the individual, Chinese culture only acknowledges the power of factions, and in the Chinese political system Wang could only be Bo’s creature for life.
Now that Bo Xilai has left the political stage it seems that the seven men still on stage can now work together to rule China. But, as Bo Xilai’s downfall reveals to us, behind the veneer of consensus and co-operation lurks a vicious and violent rivalry just waiting to tear everything apart.

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