If you really focus you can, just very sometimes, catch a sneak-peak of the new global paradigm manifesting. I had the pleasure of seeing it twice this last week, and was inspired beyond words. And what I saw was wealth being redefined, and freely shared.
Arundhati Roy probably said it best: Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
So what did I see?
I saw, on two separate occasions, ethnic minority Hmong people come down from their seemingly-impoverished villages high in the mountains around Chiang Mai city here in Northern Thailand, with organic food to distribute to city people who have no gardens and, currently, no jobs, no financial safety nets and little food.
Image credit: ข่าวด่วนจอมทอง รักคุณ.
Image credit: ข่าวด่วนจอมทอง รักคุณ.
Image credit: chiangmaicitylife.com.
The Hmong community - many of whom are not full Thai citizens and who are first generation in Thailand having been granted safety as refugees by King Rama IX during the Vietnam War years - have a wealth which city people, heavily in debt with no access to a garden and bills spiraling out of control don't have: they have the right to farm pristine, fertile land, and they have the skills and tenacity to create edible abundance.
This is not a community hoarding anything. They are organising collectively, as an ethnic people group, to support the poor urban folks in their stifling, locked-down apartments.
Image credit:ข่าวด่วนจอมทอง รักคุณ.
Many would say the Hmong are a community marginalized by the Thai people, and last in line for basic services like electricity, paved roads, internet and running water.
And yet still they come down from the mountain, carrying the wealth that they have created with back-breaking tenacity.
Image credit:ข่าวด่วนจอมทอง รักคุณ.
Some families contribute 2kg or 5kg from their rice harvest - some far more. Remember, these are not people entitled to social services if their annual rice harvest runs out.
The vegetable distribution alone? It wasn't just 100 or 200kg of vegetables. The community from around Chom Thong donated a staggering 11,300kg of organic vegetables on the 18th April alone. No bitter hearts here. While many other communities might have just left unsaleable crops in the ground to die and create compost, the Hmong people collectively worked HARD in 40C heat to harvest, and then spent CASH (which they have precious little of) to buy petrol and bring it down rutted mountain roads.
I felt wealth redefined, and my heart jumped.
I saw profound generosity of spirit.
Meanwhile, back in the comfortable urban ghettos like Bangkok, with its glitzy office towers and hideously expensive condominiums, the peasants are revolting. Whilst the Hmong people were harvesting their vegetables in the 40C+ heat (104F), the urban Thai's were working from home, social distancing and home schooling with the air conditioning running full tilt.
This morning there was an uproar in the Thai media as people are receiving the horrendous electricity bills for the last month of lockdown in their poorly designed and poorly insulated city apartments; they're discovering just how much it really costs to air-condition an office or a shopping mall all day, and how important design is for temperature control. The 3% Thai government reduction in electricity charges isn't cutting it with the urban folks.
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What I'm seeing during this Covid-19 quarantine is a magnifying lens. I wrote about it last week too. The Insightful Corona Lens: Creating Clarity. We're seeing through this new lens that true wealth is around independent employment, access to a steady and healthy home-grown food supply, community, freedom of speech and a way of life that doesn't implode when income stops for a few weeks. We're seeing the true wealth of a fit body as Covid-19 strikes hard at people with "co-morbidities". We're seeing the wealth of tolerance, inter-dependence and autonomy.
What I love most from the Hmong stories? They're not talking about what "they" did or what "they" prevent; they focus on what "we" choose and what "we" can offer and share.
And there is the deepest wealth: in no blame and simply pulling together because it is needed.
Feeling wealthy in my Thai natural world.
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