Lucy Miao

Nga mihi, Phil!

The destination is pretty open, as the first part of the plan is to travel around to see as much as we can first. I did not know about the Ponderosa Forests, but will definitely go see them!

Honestly, I think the climate of the upper North Island is so perfect for growing pretty much anything I'd want to grow, but we'd have to get a mortgage to afford anything and we just don't want that. I wish there was more support for the economic health of the regions as well, but people seem resigned to rural communities dying slow deaths. Also, we'd still want to go to North America to visit family and friends (and get real powder snow), and that's a lot of money and carbon burning up in those flights.

I'm curious about your experience, Phil. Though I'm afraid I've run out of time at this moment and need to get my face out from behind my phone!

Really interesting model! I've worked in social services with people experiencing quite a lot of conflict and I would've liked to have seen this model sooner!

I think it may be important to point out that the model shows both conflict behaviors (contending, avoiding and accommodating) as well as conflict resolution behaviors (compromising and collaborating). The numbers 0/0 to 100/100 indicate how much each side is basically benefiting from that behavior. Avoidance is 0/0, or lose-lose. Contending and accommodating means one side loses out for the benefit of the other (100/0 or 0/100). Compromising means both sides split the benefits (50/50), and collaborating means both sides reap full benefits (100/100).

This certainly rings true in my work with families going through lots of distress and conflict. Only compromise and collaboration really result in the conflict being put to rest, while the other behaviors just mean the conflict is put on hold. We don't often get the real resolutions of compromise or collaboration, but we can try our best to prepare people for the eventuality that they will need to face the conflict one day.

Travis actually gets at two really major factors to get people ready to deal productively with conflict: communication and respect. Another one which I think comes before those is introspection: you have to know what is keeping you in the conflict before you can be open to resolving it.

How compromise and collaboration work in reality can be really varied. If you really want to get creative with this model, I can see how you can have a range of situations between a 50/50 compromise and 100/100 collaboration. Perhaps an interesting example of this is here in New Zealand in the Pasifika and Maori Youth Courts. They've been set up in acknowledgement of the marginalization, disadvantage and systemic racism faced by Pacific Island and Indigenous Maori youths that have led to their overrepresentation in crimes (largely due to their overrepresentation in poverty). It is part compromise in that it is still governed and based on a Western legal system, but it incorporates cultural concepts like the importance of shame or mana (kind of a mix between respect, pride and face) as well as cultural practices like have the wrong-dooer's whole family apologise to the wronged individual's whole family. The "punishments" can thus be cultural in nature and carry the same weight and effect as a jail sentence or fine. However, it's not full collaboration because it is only in cases where a young person accepts their guilt, and it doesn't apply to very serious charges where the young person is tried as an adult.

A funnier thought I have is this: where on the model would you put people who choose to publicise their conflict in a forum like a daytime talkshow or have a big flamewar on social media?

Happy to hear what others think and glad you brought this topic up, Dave!

Kia ora koutou! 皆さん、こんにちは! 大家好！ Hello, one and all!

The indigenous Maori tradition of introductions involves first linking oneself to the land, its people, and their people, so in that spirit: I was born in the northern tip of the Great China Plain, protected in the north and west by the Jundushan and Xishan mountain ranges, and fed by the Chaobai, Yongding and Juma rivers. Most people today call this place Beijing, China. I am Han Chinese, which is an ethnic group that arose out of a neolithic federation of agricultural tribes that settled along the Yellow River (the 6th longest river on the planet) and has grown to be 1.3 billion people worldwide. I am also American and a New Englander by way of growing up on lands that were the home of the Massachusett people. I lived a few years in Hokkaido, Japan, which has been home to the Ainu people since around 300 BCE. I currently reside on the ancestral lands of Ngati Whatua-o-Orakei... people not of this land tend to call it Auckland, New Zealand. My little family is my husband, myself and our dog. My name is Lucy and it is lovely to meet you all.

I joined to learn and see if my husband and I can feel a sense of community and connection to people with similar aspirations but perhaps very different backgrounds and journeys. We have office jobs and live up in a tall apartment building in a city with high cost of living, but we dream of being able to sustain ourselves on our own bit of land in the middle of a forest (within one hour of ski slopes, the husband interjects). We're thinking New England, or British Columbia, or just somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere with lots of trees and four seasons. We'll probably make a big leap at some point in the near future, but since we're very much city folk right now, I'm probably going to be more of a reader and asker here than anything else.

While I've done the lurker thing of looking at others' stories here, I'd like to start some active conversations now:

What brought you to this point in your life?

What is your culture, background, or the road that you or your family took?

If you made a big change like the one we're looking to make, what was one thing really early step you took that you'd like to share with someone just starting out?

Thanks for taking the time to read this. No reira, tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.