Mary Klug has spent her life traveling the world — as a flight attendant, tourist, American living in China and environmentalist. She shares her adventures and hopes in a new memoir, “Butterfly Dreams.”
After working many years as a flight attendant for Delta Airlines, Klug decided to travel to China in 1983.
“It was like going to Mars,” she recalled. “It was something very, very, very different than we were used to seeing — and it was about to change.”
Klug said her first China visit was right before the country opened to international influences.
“Unknown to me, China was going to become the passion of my life,” she told the Current.
Klug especially embraced Chinese philosophies of Buddhism and Daoism.
“They changed how I look at life, how I look at spirituality,” she said.
In 1986, Klug joined the New England chapter of the U.S.-China People’s Friendship Association and began taking Delta employees and their families on tours to China.
Despite the heated rhetoric between the two countries, she believes “our world will be safer” if people in both countries get to know each other.
“The people are not the government,” she said. “I love the people.”
Back in Marblehead in 2011, Klug happened to attend a symposium by the Pachamama Alliance called, “Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream” about the environment and social justice issues.
According to its website, the Pachamama Alliance equips “people around the world with inspiration and training to regenerate the planet’s ecosystems, bring justice to their communities, and restore our relationships with the Earth, each other, and ourselves.”
Klug said, “Once again, my life shifted, and I decided I wanted to become more involved in the environment and social justice, so I became a facilitator.”
Klug combined her two passions and decided to lead similar symposia in China.
“I want people to be inspired and be aware that the earth needs to be treated better,” she said.
Klug has several hopes for her book: “That people read it and maybe make some kind of shift in their lives, environmentally.”
She added, “Also, when people hear negative things about China, remember: These are just regular, normal people like us. Treat everybody well, including yourself.”
To learn more about Klug’s journeys and her book, visit ecojourneyinchina.blog.
