Love thy neighbor

For those of us who grew up under the influence of the Christian West, the Biblical parable of the Good Samaritan, or the dictum about loving one’s neighbor, is an all-familiar piece of proffered wisdom. For more than a few, it is filed in the virtue’s cabinet in the heart’s valve as an important guiding principle, or an ideal to aspire for, or a value against which one measures and critiques one’s own behavior.

February is often, though in not any official way, observed as the Love Month. I thought I would revisit the old familiar love theme. We all need a good heart warming story now and again, and I was going to rummage through my memory bank to find us one fit to print in Uncle JP’s paper. Then I ran into my neighbor.

Mr. Kim (not his real name) rents a house at the back of our four-unit apartment complex from our common landlord. My second floor back window looks into his driveway and front yard so there has been many occasions when I would watch him go about his yard chores. At dawn, I would see him perform his dance-like slow motion meditation that he most likely learned from the venerable Buddhist practices in the Land of the Morning Calm along the Han River. Then he would tend with great care to his potted plants; that is, if he is not gingerly holding his new infant boy for the morning fresh air, presumably while the good wife was preparing breakfast.

Last week, I went down to the property hedge that we share to cut four ginger plant flowers and two bird-of-paradise blooms for my school classroom. Flowers every Monday morning create a softer ambience to the book-lined, dust-laden, poster-papered walls that characterize most public school classrooms. This particular morning, Mr. Kim, decided to aggressively confront me over my right to cut the flowers. I was “depriving his kitchen window of its magnificent view,” he asserted. “Besides,” he said, ” the flowers belong to my house.” He does cut flowers for his house on occasion. The property custodian has complained that Mr. Kim was patently prejudiced against Filipinos!

Not wanting to point out the fact that he was renting use of the property, not owning it, that any claim of proprietary rights may be a prerogative of both sides, I decided to keep my cool. Ignoring his bold in-your-face stance, I told him that we should just have a neighborly disagreement and leave it at that. Besides, I was holding a knife, and this was not an accessory I wanted to have when my blood pressure was being jacked up.

The encounter led me to think about our island’s social relationships. Dan Shorr, actor and erstwhile film making teacher at NMC, is recording true stories in fiction form about “how the other people live”, chronicling tales of the various ethnic groups who have come to people the shores of Saipan since ‘86. He observed that people of various ethnic origins live in close proximity to one another but hardly encounter each other in any significant way. They are civil in silence, or, at best, perform nodding acquaintance rituals to acknowledge next door domicility.

This is all too true. Once a week, my wife and I go to an open air, temporarily roofed kitchen south of the island where we are served a piping hot bowl of Thai noodle soup for less than half the price one would pay at the established eating joints. The Thai lady who prepares the food speaks conversational Chinese, Filipino, and Bengali. She deals with various ethnic groups in the exercise of her probably unlicensed commercial activity. No matter, we all enjoy our delectable soup during the Angelus hour. Those of us gathered around the table from different ethnic origins relate to each other as mere consumers of a common service provider. We acknowledge each other’s presence with knowing but silent smiles. We do not venture into neighborly would-like-to-get-to-know-you conversations. Language poses a challenge. We are not all conversant in English. Nor are we as versatile as our cook.

At our neighborhood laundromat the other week, my wife asserted her right to use a washing machine unit just because she got there first. The contending party taunted her with the accusation that she was a “foreigner who obviously did not respect the local culture.” Though a nurse at CHC with an IR card, the fact that she is Chinese seemed to have elicited the verbal assault. Two years before, I substituted for a class at Kagman High School. I confronted a young man for chewing betel nut in the classroom, and spitting on the classroom wastebasket, both infractions of school rules. His retort, uttered with arrogant disdain was: “this is my culture and you need to learn to respect it!” Racial and cultural divides dot our neighborhoods.

Ms. Yang (not real name) was going to school in Shen Shen bordering HK New Territories when her Urumqi-native father died. He committed suicide. A substantial family asset got swindled in a business transaction leaving the family in penury. She came to work in a Saipan garment factory and after two years petitioned the court to redress what she claimed was an employer-inflicted labor injustice. She sought assistance at our church-related Social Service program located then at Oleai. By that time, she had brought her older sister and younger brother to join her on island. They claimed that they left a deposit of $7,500.00 with their recruiter, to be returned to them in part upon their return provided they complete their three-year term without causing trouble. The older Ms. Yang, wife to a husband left to care for a 6-year-old daughter, however, did not have her first-year contract renewed and had been advised to return home. Having not earned enough to repay the deposit that she borrowed from friends and kin, she tried desperately but unsuccessfully to transfer to another employer.

Adding crime to injustice, the elder Ms. Yang was burglarized the day she was to leave for home, losing all savings and valuables including the ayuda we gave her. She fell in deep despair. A couple of weeks ago, while brunching at the Hyatt Regency, I saw the Yang sisters lunching with a couple of non-resident gentlemen. The sisters obviously found ways to remain and/or continue making a living on island. I did not bother to ask them how. But I could imagine.

Who is my neighbor? Who cries out for attention? For assistance? Do I have the courage to care? I am no longer a year-round structural neighbor-lover, but this February, I remember I once did. I shall not forget if I meet Mr. Kim again at the boundary bush.

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Vergara is a Social Studies 6th grade teacher at San Vicente Elementary School