Dr Selina Lo

Thinking about Immortality & Kindness

From 5 August 2020—

Taking Lisel Mueller's ‘Immortality’ as the starting point, editor and global health advocate Dr Selina Lo (also 羅南芝) has written a letter entitled ‘Dear Child’, reflecting upon the topics of immortality and kindness in the context of our present socio-cultural circumstances. She has then made a voice recording of her letter and spent a further two minutes in reflection, by way of a poem entitled ‘When I was five…’, which was co-written with 羅丽雅.

Dear Child

by
Dr Selina Lo (羅南芝)

If you prefer to read, please refer directly below.

Dear Child

by
Dr Selina Lo (羅南芝)

While you sleep the world is hurting.

Grieving lost places, faces, and expectations.

While you sleep too many who were given the wand of power are using it to hurt people and planet- just because they can.

While you sleep fear will raise its head at the altar of the screen.

You sleep the peace only the young know and the old have let go.

These last months have been our cosy world. Daily food feasts and crafted pleasures.  Biking through local reserves and across small creeks.  A lighter life than before. But the truth is –that on many nights like tonight I allow fear to permeate.

Me who goes marketing daily, I have begun to order in advance. Not to ‘stock - up’ but because I became overwhelmed by any common sense of practice or habit. As your Paw Paw said ‘be careful outside – no matter what – we are Chinese.’

Yes, we are. In part. But it is not all of you, nor me.

The variegated ‘we’ are a visible minority in this country of my birth.

You however, were born in that place where water meets mountain, and citizens mingle with united Babel. A family of modern privileged nomads who took you far, returning full of hope for all natural and civil freedoms ungranted elsewhere.

But scratch what lies beneath this façade of coveted liveability in Australia is land, life and story theft. Names unrecorded even as people take to the streets demanding justice for the unlawfully dead and the enshrined right to be seen, heard, and to decide.

Air – that we used to suck in deeply in sheer joy on our trips back – is not free. Suffocating smoke which engulfed summer is high interest paid from investing too long in fuels and lifestyles destroying small breathing spaces that remain.

Water – is it not still so amazing to you to be able to it drink straight out of a tap?  But sold off to various brand beasts while local children had nothing to drink.

All while the rivers flow dry tears for their dead fish…

China and Australia share many people, histories, and an uncomfortable relationship with truth-telling.

But you don’t need this imperfect pontification tonight.

As you sleep all these thoughts are soothed by your gentle inhale – exhale.

As with viruses it is only through proximity to other living beings that we can exchange anything.

So be ever wary when you hear the words ‘them’ and ‘us’.

Tell your own story and listen HARD to all others. Be you and be heard, help others be heard.

Know that nature like humans when nurtured with care and respect from young will protect and gift all that we need.

It might take longer than 1000 days and nights though…

Sleep well my sweet and wake to that new world where all neighbours are as kind as ours.

When I was five…

co-written by

羅南芝 & 羅丽雅

If you prefer to read, please refer directly below.

When I was five…

… we lived in Zhongguo.

We climbed the Great Wall.
We kicked a Guo’an football.

We lived in Palm Springs,
while eating Ayi’s bings.

I scooted to school through Honglinjin park,
where old neighbours aired their caged bird-larks.

Saxophone musicians played and they sat,
while I avoided the saliva they frequently spat.

There was a cool library of LEGO, and District 798.
At both we would stay way too long until late.

The vibe was always too busy - too loud.
Wherever you went you could not avoid the crowd.

But here it is quiet - especially at night.
So, any little sound can give you a big fright.

Our friend from Alice gave us a Nulla Nulla to display, to use, to shout.
She said when there are strange noises to bring it right out.

Some friends here are scared of China.
I don’t know why.
I know it is not perfect.

But I will not lie.

People are the same wherever you go.
It is just those who are different and those you don’t yet know.

Jia Shufu would drive a million miles for my mum.
If she said I am sick -or scared -or want some wontons!

I don’t really miss it,
or yearn for anything.

But I wish more people were nice.
So some would not have to hide like mice …

Co-written by
羅南芝 & 羅丽雅

Biography

Dr Selina Lo has a medical and legal background and is a consulting editor at the The Lancet medical journal where she was formerly Senior Editor for 8 years based in London and Beijing.

Prior to her editorial life, she was the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) Medical Director of the Access to Medicines Campaign based in Geneva, and the Clinton Foundation clinical advisor to the Chinese HIV AIDS national treatment programme. From 1996-2005 she led medical humanitarian projects for MSF in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Thailand, Bangladesh and China.

She is a Senior Research Fellow at the Monash Sustainable Development Institute Australia, and an honorary fellow at University of Melbourne, School of Population and Global Health, with an interest in global and planetary health justice and supporting work with vulnerable communities and artists in the Asia Pacific.