Confucius stood prominently in the middle of the major pedestrian thoroughfare in San José’s Chinatown. An instructional finger pointed skyward, no doubt to emphasize some profound point.
The script at the base of the statue read “the teacher for all ages.” Since I was in the presence of one of the wisest men ever to live, I asked him how I could become as wise as he was. He looked at me sternly at first, then gave me a rueful smile and said:
By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
In the last eight years, I’ve had my share of all three learning experiences. And Confucius was right about them. From there, I didn’t have very far to walk to find John Lennon waiting for me on a bench beside a skate park.
I asked him what happened to his glasses. He replied that people kept taking them, so he figured perhaps he was better off without them. I asked what he was doing in San José of all places, right across from the church where, in 1966, a crowd had burned Beatles records in response to his observation that the Fab Four were more popular than Jesus. He just laughed and said:
Instant Karma’s gonna get you
Gonna knock you off your feet
Better recognize your brothers
Ev’ryone you meet
Why in the world are we here
Surely not to live in pain and fear
Why on earth are you there
When you’re ev’rywhere
Come and get your share…
I thanked him for the time we spent together and for so many of my musical memories. Then I took my leave; I had to keep an appointment with a fifteen year old Jewish girl. I found her, oddly enough, on the sidewalk next to a Catholic cathedral.
Anne Frank was smaller than she had been in life, maybe to emphasize that she was, after all, only a girl when her life was snuffed out by the Nazi regime. She stood on a plain pedestal, perhaps to emphasize her elevated consciousness. Her thin, smooth wrists were bound with thick, coarse ropes, but her face was canted beatifically toward the sky.
I asked her about the smile on her lips and whether it was difficult for her to maintain year after year. She just said to me,
I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
As I walked away pondering her message, I realized that you can tell a lot about a city or a country by the foreigners it chooses to honor. Monuments to local heroes, leaders, generals, writers, kings, and presidents are a given wherever you go. They document the area’s history. They instill civic and national pride. But erecting monuments to people from far, far away is a matter of choice and a declaration of values. The people of San José choose to honor Confucius, John Lennon, and Anne Frank. That says a lot about them.
I don’t often go around talking to statues in foreign countries. It sounds like good way to have your tourist visa involuntarily cancelled. But on this trip, I was in such good company that I couldn’t resist.
Thanks, Xu Lu 馮敏 for your help with the Chinese translation.
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