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Dear Bernie, Jack and everyone! I've been reading the recent responses to the video stuff and people's reactions to them with great interest, but haven't had much time to respond. As I pack up to leave Beijing to come to England for a month before going back to Guyuan as an independent worker, I've been thinking about the qualities of humanity represented by the utube presentations Jack compiled, and all your responses to them. Like you, Bernie, I was also once convinced of the superiority of text over the visual. The work that you're doing, Jack, is really important in terms of finding ways to represent truths realistically, helpfully and authentically. I really like the way the visuals help us to clarify what it is we're trying to do and in the name of what. Friday was my last day as a volunteer with VSO, an organisation I have worked with for over five years. Its slogan is 'sharing skills, saving lives', something I find has grown in dynamism and life- affirming energy, the longer I have remained with the organisation. My brief there was to work with colleagues (about twelve of them) on action research enquiries, and also to take a look at their monitoring and evaluation procedures in the light of an impending whole-country review in November 2007. If we 'fail' the review, we'll be closing the VSO China programme after March 2009. I don't know whether the following anecdote is meaningful for anyone else, but I offer it here as a celebration of something wonderfully human and inspiring, something, I hope you'll agree, we can all recognise. Something that shows that what is remembered isn't necessarily ideas, but, as in recent postings from me and others, more akin to love, respect, fairness and justice. On Thursday last my colleagues took me for lunch in a really lovely restaurant and as we ate and drank toasts, they decided it would be a good game to say something about Moira! This is so Chinese. 'What enduring memory of Moira do we have?' the country-director asked. I suggested that my ability to leave the table pronto was a good one, but that was ignored! What was really fascinating to me, was the qualities they drew out had little to do with the quality of my work in terms of ideas, and almost all about the way they see me interacting with people and how I treat others. Each person told a personal anecdote that was, on the surface, trivial and yet not so. A young colleague with tears in her eyes, talked about the fact that she had learnt so much from the way in which when I'm getting a drink in the office of a morning, I go round to everybody to ask what they want. She said that she had not seen anyone else doing this kind of thing so consistently, and that she realised that it wasn't my ideas that stuck with her, it was the way I showed respect to others. One colleague mentioned the time when I said in a one-to-one meeting we should perhaps concentrate on something she was worried about rather than continuing the Action Planning session we had arranged for. I'd forgotten the incident but she said she never would. She said she didn't realise she could be more important than a scheduled meeting. Another colleague said that because of her daughter having sudden onset asthma, my internet search and discussions with my sister whose son had the same problem at the same age as her daughter, was something she'd never forget. She had tears in her eyes too. And this is China where people don't cry that in public. My point? Everyone said that the demonstrations of respect for them as unique individuals had really moved them and some mentioned times when they had acted differently as a result of their insights about the importance of relationships in any endeavour. It's so moving because it vindicates so much of what I believe about process and people, and means that the ideas we have been sharing in the office may truly have a chance to embed themselves in meaningful ways with the individuals concerned and within the organisation because of the nature of respect and trust that has built up between us. I offer this anecdote because it moves me, because it reveals what matters about being human. If our research can focus on ways to help us show respect, to help us make connections and walk around from inside others, then surely this current research has to be very important indeed. I wish, so much, that this had been videoed. NOT because of what they said about an individual but because of what it says about all of us. That's what I want to understand better. Warmest regards to you all, Moira