Sandan Report : Part 2 : Chinatown
Sometimes the universe gives us a clear vision of what we are doing and why...
A few months ago Skye and I were visiting Chinatown in San Francisco. It was a busy evening and the sidewalks were very crowded. We had just started eating our bao from the oldest bakery in Chinatown and were winding our way back to my car. Weaving in and out of all the tourist, we heard a commotion in the intersection ahead of us. We heard yelling and a woman screamed. She was screaming "Stop it! Stop it!" over and over again. I looked up the street and saw a fight going on. In a deep realization, I understood that no one was going to do anything. I remember two thoughts: first I thought to myself that Skye would be ok, and second was that I needed to stop this right now. I dropped my bao, took my bag off and let Skye grab it, and moved toward the noise. When I got closer I saw 10 or 12 young Chinese men, all dressed alike, beating the hell out of two teenage boys in the middle of the street, I walked straight into the middle of the fight, touching each person on the shoulder as I went, and as I did I said calmly to each one that they were DONE. One by one they stopped beating on the two young men. I kept moving forward and I could feel them milling about behind me. Even when the two young men who were getting beat wanted to get up and re-engage with the others, I looked at them and said that I knew how they felt but that they had go. I turned back to the larger group, with my hands at my side, palms forward, and told them one more time that they were done. A few seconds later they gathered themselves and ran away up the street as the other two kids walked down the hill. I had no judgment and no fear. I had no thoughts of the metal rod that I saw one them using or which technique that I was going to do. I had not thought of who was right or who was wrong, nor did I think to question why this was going on. I only had one thought as I touched the first person, and that was that this needed to stop. And it did.
..end of line