Shanghai Surprise!
No, Shanghai Surprise isn't the name of a fruity drink with a little umbrella in it. Although it does refer to something just as sweet. An amazing event took place in my life last week and it involves my living room, a reading group of Latin American ladies, my book GREEN CITY IN THE SUN, and the Chinese city of Shanghai.
I have always been a fan of technological advances. Just look how the Internet has changed the way we do research. No more days-long spells in a library. Information is a keyboard-stroke away. Same, too, with communication. While I do travel to people’s homes or to bookstores to chat with reading groups, the Internet has opened a whole new incredible way to interact with people.
The tool I use is SKYPE, an Internet phone that employs video as well as audio. While SKYPE has enabled me to enter the homes of people who live in such exciting places as Fresno and Missouri, this week I was transported to China where a remarkable group of ladies has formed a reading group.
The members hail from various countries in Latin America (from Mexico to Santiago, Chile) and they found each other in China to get together for social occasions and support. How comforting to be able to connect with others from one’s own country & to speak one’s native tongue! It is a theme that I have in fact touched on in many of my books, the notion of separation from loved ones and being alone in a foreign setting (Joanna in The Dreaming, Grace Treverton in Green City In the Sun to name but two). The leap of faith and courage it takes to pick up, move away to a foreign land & to make it work. Bravo to the ladies of the Shanghai reading group!
We spent a very pleasant hour together and I felt so drawn to Conseulo, Aulis, Gaby, Solange, Nancy, Mirna, Maye, Irene and Paula that after a while I felt as if they were here in my living room with me, or I over there, on the other side of the world, in that foreign yet friendly parlor. We chatted, we laughed, we talked about books and authors and about ourselves, feminism, the way of the world today, and even my Barbie collection.
I hope to relive the experience again with other groups, in other locales.
SKYPE has brought us into a new age, and the Internet is the new highway we travel to other countries, to make new friends, share ideas and, yes, even to sip sweet drinks with little umbrellas in them.
Image Source: 1) Shanghai Ladies Reading Group
2) BarbaraWood.com collection
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