Monday, June 21, 2004

Perhaps Love

"Life is a series of pulls back and forth. You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn’t. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted. It’s a tension of opposites, like a pull on a rubber band." "A Wresting match?" "Yes, you could describe life that way." "Which side wins?" "Love wins. Love always wins." --Tuesdays with Morrie, Mitch Albom It was in 1988, Urumqi, North China. The snow was colored black by smock from the giant chimneys, clumped like charcoal, piled along the pavement. Along Xing Fu road, there were oil shops, soy sauce shops, salted-egg shops, tailor shops, tea shops, shops selling ribbon, silk, needles, threads, candles, chalks, combs, and paper money. Among the shops was the Military Area Kindergarten. Thirty five-year-old kids were screaming, chasing, and throwing toys all over the classroom. "Cool! Teacher Liu is gone!" "Let’s play Thieves and Policemen!" "So boring! Ling ling." "How about Teachers and Students?" "Again? Xiao Ming? " "Let’s put a bunch of chairs together and start a company." "……" "What does ‘Company’ mean, Jane?" I’m one of the few kids that teachers in Military Area Kindergarten all remember. Half of the time I’m absent, traveling with my grandparents to Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Xi’an…; the other half, I’m either silent or spitting out words like "freedom" or "skyscraper". I grow up in Xin Jiang, the womb of Takla Makan desert and "death river". Half of the year, heavy snow cuts the city off from the rest of the country. What snow cannot cut off is a little craving mind. On my first day of kindergarten, my mom told my class coordinator, "This child is kind of shy. Please take care of her." When my mom came to pick me up in the afternoon, from very far, she saw the teacher holding my hand in front of the gate. "Shy! She led the whole class climbing up on the central heater on the first day of school!" My hand was always high up in the air, for telling stories in kindergarten; for joining math competition in elementary school; for drama performance in Secondary School, for class leader in senior high, and for asking professors endless questions in colleges. Sometimes I get a high score in tests and feel more confident about myself; sometimes I answer a question wrong and feel like a loser. But whenever the challenge is out there, my hand is there, like a flag in the air. This is me, a girl born with too much will, passion, purpose, optimism, spirit, and intensity. I love to try, to touch, to taste, to fail, to win, to lose. When I’m five, I tell my pals that I want to start a company and be my own boss. While, it is a dream and it isn’t. I spend more time to check each single problem and get 100 on my math homework. I lie on the bed and listen, listen desperately for what makes my heart go tick tock. No one has ever taught me but I always know that by giving more passion and energy, I will one day be the difference. The future to me is a beautiful dream. I love to dream, to grow up and see father end of the horizon. Everyday is new to me, a girl with too much love of this world. We think much less than what we know. We know much less than what we love. We love much less than what there is. And to this precise extent, we are much less than what we are. -- R. D. Laing In 1996, Jane Qi left her father and crossed six thousand miles from Xinjiang, to Shenzhen, one of the richest cities in Southern China, to live with her mother, step father and step brother. Outside Shenzhen Experimental School, vendors were waving Western style t-shirts and shouting, "Latest American style!" Printed on t-shirts were western women wearing bikinis and showing off their legs. Once, in the classroom of Junior 3, Class 2, Jane was surrounded by a bunch of classmates around 14 years old. "Did you tell the teacher that I was going home with a guy in Class 6?" "No, it’s not me! Why do you say that?" "Why? Don’t ask me! Who else will do it? Only you, freak. Look at your black sandals. Look at your curly hair! Xinjiang Clodhopper! You know nothing but to get high scores and make teachers like you. Do you know who Michael Jordan is? What does TCBY ice-cream taste like? Do you have a strapless bra? You don’t even know what bra means in English, do ya? hahaha...... " After moving to Shenzhen, I often snuck into the bathroom and cried out loudly after midnight. I cried not because I wore black sandals while others wore Nick, but because no matter how hard I tried, I was still rejected in the new environment. Kids in Shenzhen study English since age 6, Algebra since age 10, which I have never heard of in Xinjiang. I was 12 textbooks behind and completely dull in English when I first stepped into my Secondary School. I stayed up till midnight and forced myself breath mint oil and staying awake in class. I got 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, and finally 90 at the end of the first year. I thought studying hard was enough to make me happy, but it only expelled me more from girls in my class. "Maybe I should change, try to love what they love." On Friday nights I sat in front of Hong Kong TVB channel, trying to shake my heads with singing stars, and murmuring in my mouth with the tone, "Love is a kind of belief, bring you closer to me…" There used to be a volleyball team leader who often crossed my path on my way home. "Maybe we can go home together." I couldn’t believe it was so easy for me to change and as a result be surrounded by friends all the time. However, I was having less and less time for myself, for my math problems and for practicing flute, which I thought were so important to me. The volleyball guy waited for me for hours and finally started to go home with a girl who had a cell phone, available "24-7". My world crushed into dust. I felt like digging a hole and burying myself whenever I saw that volleyball guy and his girl. My grades suffered. I acted hysterically and scared friends away. There was a beach close by my house. Sometimes I stared at the boats sailing on the silent sea and felt I was hanging upside down on a mast. Through my eyes the whole world was the opposite. No matter how hard I try to change, I was all-wrong. "Do you like me?" I asked myself. "No. I don’t. You lose everything, even yourself." "If you want, you can talk to me. I like you." Once, Angela, the girl sitting next to me said. I never knew how beautiful it was to be liked by a person and how beautiful it was to be able to say to someone, "I like you, too." "Aren’t you afraid if you hang out with me, girls are gonna to hate you, too?" "My happiness is me, not them. You really encouraged me when you were getting 40s but still studying hard to catch up. I learned to stop hating myself, because of you. " We gradually found many similarities between us. Every time we listened to music, we got lost. We loved Butterflies, the first modern Chinese symphony. It told the story about a beautiful woman refusing to marry a rich man and jumped into the tomb of her lover. They flew out as two shining butterflies and enjoyed the freedom of love. When we read books, we discovered that there were thousands of things to read, to see, to do, to touch, to feel. We both loved Jane Eyre. At first we were so mad when she left Rochester, the man who deeply loved her. But we were thrilled by her coming back to Rochester when he was blinded and lost all his possessions. This was the wisdom of being a woman, fighting for her dignity when aggression was needed, and finally bringing joy and peace back to the person she loved. I began to ask myself—am I me, or what I learn, or what people say who I am? At that time, I wasn’t sure about what to learn and how it was going to influence my life. But I understood one thing —if you want to beg for people to love you, covering your body with bandages and pretending to be as vulnerable as possible; if not, then make yourself the strongest, most confident, graceful person in the world because this is how you survive. If I don’t love myself, how could people love you? I know I’m no longer that little girl who knows no fear and wanted to be perfect. I am not and will never be perfect. Respect is learned. Kindness is learned. Gentility and humbleness are learned. I have so much to learn. However, I don’t need any permission to be and to grow. It’s OK to just be myself. "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." -Albert Einstein. The year 2000 was the last year of Jane’s high school life. She decided to skip two weeks to work for Guang Dong Commodity Trade Fair, one of the five largest trade fairs in the world. She found Friendship Ltd., a Shanghai valve factory, which needed an English translator. Boss Gao agreed to pay her 3000 yuan, and Jane promised to describe his valve as good as she can in English for ten days, each day from 8:00 am to 7:00 pm. Sitting in the giant convention center, Boss Gao began to teach Jane the first lesson of being a business woman. "Want to be a business woman?" "Yes." "What kind of?" "Don’t know." "Be careful, there are two kinds of business women in this room. Look at that woman with yellow T-shirt and a bunch of catalogs in hand. She speaks English and French fluently, familiar with different exporting prices, types fast, and only interested in specific products. An expert." "Oh…so, what’s the second kind of business women?" "Look at that tall woman, young, beautiful." "She has so much stuff with her. A huge suitcase, a laptop, a jacket…" I was counting. "Hahaha…those are not hers. Look at who she is following!" Carefully, Jane watched her following a reach man silently, like a shadow, with his entire luggage on her shoulders. This young woman’s image remained clearly in my mind. Since China implements Opening Policy in late 1980s, reports like "Concubine Villages" (where reach Taiwan business men buy villas in suburban Shenzhen and live with mainland women when they are away from families) appear more and more often in newspapers. I swear never to give myself away for being reaching. I have hands and legs. However, I also doubt my parents’ ways of success—getting up before everyone else, spending all the time working, and saving each single dollar in bank accounts. If all I need to be is hardworking, then why has there never been a single Chinese Nobel Prize winner? (The 1957 Winners of physics, Lee Tsung-Dao and Yang Chen Ning, discovered violations of the principle of parity long after moving to America. Gao Xing Jian, the 2000 winner in literature was a French citizen.) Why among the 100 top enterprises, Chinese companies are seldomly seen? Why isn’t there even one famous Chinese brand name in the world? Why have the state-owned enterprises gone bankruptcy one after another? A good friend of mine, Ling Fang, told me an interesting story. Lin’s father is the boss of Shenzhen Water Supply Company, a state-owned enterprise which monopolizes the water supply of the entire city. He has a washing machine in his office. Once in a while, he brings from home to office a huge pack of dirty clothes to wash, for saving his family a few bucks. On one hand, both of our parents work hard for state owned enterprises all their lives, saving salaries for us to get masters and find stable jobs; on the other hand, they make hundreds of photo copies in their companies, fit their relatives in vacant positions, and bring home staplers, file folders, hole punchers, and blank papers. We feel sad to see our parents struggling inside a huge paradox all their lives, hoping to find out an ideal way of doing business efficiently with money coming from other people’s pocket. But how can we spend other people’s money as careful as our own? Graduating from high school, Lin left to Hong Kong and me to America, hoping to find out the secret about successful entrepreneurship and save ourselves from our parents’ tragedy. Vaguely, I recall my fervent dream when I was a child—"to open my own business," because I care about my own business, and my existence brings competition into the market. From Guang Dong Commodity Trade Fair, I realize that building a successful business requires more than just a strong belief in my dream—it requires an even stronger belief professional knowledge, which will help me work much more efficiently and give me more time to enjoy my life. I’m not good at having fun. I once tried to develop an interest in Hong Kong stars in secondary school and my classmates called me "funny" and "hysterias". I figured I’m not good at adjusting myself between fun and seriousness. So I decide to be real serious on study when I am young and then travel around the world with the person I love when my dream is fulfilled. I always believe that the reason why I struggle so hard and challenge myself so hard is because when I get old I don’t want any regrets in my life. I want to relax and say to myself, "Now I’m all done and happy about myself. It’s time to lie on grass and enjoy the sunset." Efforts bring joy; joy depends on efforts. I’m serious about math. To me, math was is an interest since I was very young, but not something tangible and practical. My Chinese teachers trained me well on solving problems on a piece of paper. After coming to America, I found a job in a chip designing company in Sunnyvale. I saw with my own eyes how computer engineers, financial analysists, ERP controllers, and investment consultants applied theoretical computations to real life, which was one of the most exciting moments in my life. They were running companies and doing business on a much higher level. I came to America hoping to learn how to do business. "Business" in my mind used to mean trading and bookkeeping. But now, It also means cultivating one’s talent, sharping one’s skills, and accumulating one’s professional knowledge. Shall I change? Am I asking too much for myself? When I am struggling with the choices, a voice gives me the answer. "What makes you different from other students is that you have both the potential in math and more than that, the motivation to use it. You can always open your company, but you are not a person who will be satisfied to be restricted to buying and selling, but something much broader, much more knowledge oriented." He is my Statistics teacher, Dr. Frank Soler. When I’m talking about him, I’m not talking about his doctorial degree. I’m talking about parents. I’m talking about a talented moviemaker, or a person who cooks gourmet food. "I don’t have cable TV. I don’t eat outside. I seldom buy new clothes after coming here to America, not because I’m short of a few bucks, but I feel I don’t really care. I care about going to a good school and learn what I’m interested in." I once told him. "Believe me or not, this about all I ask in my life." He laughed loudly, "Now I’m old. My legs don’t listen to me sometimes, but my mind is still sharp, because I teach, read, think and solve problems everyday. If you put me on an island for several months, guess what? I will go crazy before starving to death! Brain is temporal, but knowledge is eternal. " "What is essential is invisible to the eye." his words remind me of a sentence in The Little Prince. When I was a little girl I wanted to sing, to dance, to tell stories, to beat my peers and hear people saying, "You are great". Once when I was on a train with my grandfather, seeing his old friends coming, I grabbed a magazine and began "reading", "Today the prime minister Zhu Rong Ji told the public he will strike corruption…" "Genius!" My grandpa’s friends put on their glasses. "It must be hard to find that article myself." My grandpa laughed. As I grew older, I found it naïve to show off myself. I think more about what is within me that is only mine, that is different from everybody else, that causes me to feel differently, to see differently, and to react differently. I close my eyes and ask myself, "If you are asked to study something not for money, for finding a job, for your parents, for praise, what will be the answer?" I will choose Statistics. It’s what I’m good at and more important, what I love. How wonderful it is when you find out what you really love? The more I learn, the closer and closer and closer I get to what I am, the easier and easier and easier I am living in the world. In spring 2004, I spend a whole quarter burying myself in 200 patients’ spherical and cylindrical measurement; observing laser eye surgeries in a Visioncare Center in Santa Clara; running between math labs and psychology labs to test statistic softwares, and checking out test books from the library. Every once in a while, when I got stuck and felt tired, I turn my head back and recall Mr. Soler’s voice, "Go on, man, you are doing fine." Then I feel can do everything. Finally, at the end of the quarter, two other students and I have in our hands is the linear model which automatically predicts a patient’s laser treatment level given his or her cylindrical and spherical measurements. The happiest moment for me is at the end of the quarter, Dr. Hyver, the surgery operator at the Santa Clara Visioncare center, came to our conference and said, "You know, my wife is the most excited one about your project, because I never need to bring a whole bunch of data back to home and do calculation by hand. Now I use my time having dinner with my family." In my mind, I think about my parents, Lin’s parents, and many more parents who work day and night for us to go to college. Isn’t this what me and Lin left our home for? "To work more efficiently and earn us more time to enjoy their lives." It makes me want to be the most educated, the most brilliant, the most exciting, the most creative individual in the world, because then I can put what my teachers gave me together and do something beautiful and share it with others. What I really learn from Dr. Soler is that knowledge is not wisdom. Learning alone is not wisdom either. Wisdom is the application of knowledge and facts. Wisdom is saying, "My mind is open. I’m just beginning. I love to know more." I will love you,--you know, that’s what families should be. Home is the place when you go there they always take you in. – Robert Froster. Jane was born in 1983, the year of "pig" in Chinese lunar calendar. "Pig’s soul is destined with joy and optimism." when grandma said this to Jane, a little white pig rolling happily in the mud appeared in her mind. When she was born, her dad was a military commander recruiting soldiers around the state. Her mom raised her until 1990, when she left to Shenzhen, a city at the other end of the country. From then on, her dad was transferred back to take care of her. Jane soon got along with dad very well. However, every year when her mom came back to visit, she numbly acted as if her dad was her enemy. Once, Jane and her mom went shopping. Her father followed behind silently. As he approached, Jane and her mom immediately started moving. When they arrived home, Jane kicked her father on his belly and spit on his army coat when he was holding the door for them. He was silent; only his eyes and the mark the spit left on his coat were wet. The coat—he used to wear, waiting for Jane for hours in the snow to cover her frozen body when she came out of school. Jane somehow felt released when her mom officially divorced [her father] with dad on her last visit. Mom was gone; she never ever needed to live under a mask. In 1994, when Jane was in fourth grade, she visited her mom on her own and found out she was living with a man younger than him, Yan Jian Min, and his 9-year-old son, Yan Dong. Jane’s world collapsed, but it was not the end. "How is your mom? Is she on her own?" Jane was praying not to hear this question when she came back to her dad. "Yes, she is." Jane was smiling. She hated herself. "How long do I have to live like this? Can someone please tell me?" Nobody could tell Jane, because she cheated her dad, her grandpa, her grandma, and her dad’s siblings all together for five years, even after she left to live with her mom and her dad was diagnosed with liver cancer in 1998. If there is only one sad story in my life, this is the one. There have been lessons in my family, the goals and the risks my parents took, the battles they fought, which brought my home nothing but a tragical ending. Both of my parents are very kind. I remember they used to bring home a young staff from work, Sun Peng, a schizophrenic patient whose parents are far away, and let him teach me composition. "I’m scared." I said. "Don’t be scared, Jane. You love him and make him feel he is helpful. Love is the best medicine in the world." They tried to bring me the best education, which develops one as a full person who knows how to learn and how to share; how to gain and how to give away. My mom thinks moving to the south coast adjacent to Hong Kong will bring the family, especially me, more opportunities. My dad thinks Xinjiang is a place we all have got used to; they knows more resources and can make better choices for me. Since the first day I go to school, my parents started complaing about each other, "He is reliable, but without live intentions, wishes, wants, and desires." "She is mean, selfish, aggressive, and meaningless." Like my mom, I love challenging. In Secondary School, my class once decided to perform Guy De Maupassant’s short fiction, The Necklace. None of the girls were willing to act Mathilde, because she was depicted as a cockish housewife who lost a borrowed Necklace, ruined her family on compensating it for years, and finally found out it was a fake necklace that she once borrowed. I took this role, practiced months for it and won the Best Actress Award of that year. I’m not perfect, but my life gains more color whenever I give a try. Unexpectedly, this show taught me one of the most important lessons in my life. Like Mathilde, I once regretted my family wasn’t rich enough. I hated my parents for squeezing me between their rages and forced me to choose one of them and forgo the other. Now, my dad has gone and my mom was half a globe away, I finally understand all these years they have made me stepping on their shoulders to see further. They have their own strengths and weaknesses. They can only teach me what they know and give me what they have. I want to walk up to them and say, you know, the best thing I have ever had in this world is being together with you. I recall what my father once told me, "Jane, you have to remember, no matter what happens with me and your mom, we both love you." With all their mistakes, I love them. When I was reading The Odyssey, I asked myself—why Odysseus, who in twenty years of travel has lived with Calypso and slept with Circe—remains in Penelope’s eyes —always the most understanding man alive? Perhaps it’s her most important virtue, more important even than her considerable fortitude, but a woman’s faithfulness towards her family, which saved her family from exhausting in endless rage. In The Woman Warrior, Kingston told tales of a Chinese heroine Mu Lan, a girl who took her father’ s place in battle in order to save her family’s honor. Mu Lan was able to abandon her armor and resume life at home, without letting war impact her family life. As Kingston explained, "She was not dehumanized or broken by war. And so it’s important to figure out how we can do that. How do you come back from a war and then turn back into a beautiful woman? And give that beauty back to your family and community?" One of the reasons that I value The Ballad of Mu Lan is because the real power of her lies not only in her willingness to fight, but also in her choices after the battle. I have learned how to be a child, to love dreaming and love the world I’m living in; I have learned how to be a girl, to love myself and love the beauty of knowledge. Now, as I grow up, I can’t help thinking about how to take the middle path between realizing my own dreams and my family responsibilities. I have often swung back and forth alone, and searching for a stabilized center. All these images of my childhood and adulthood piece together the road map I’ve been searching for. I’m seeking. I want to explore the transformational, both the aggressive side and the humane side of a woman’s strength. The power I am longing for is the ability to stand up and fight when aggression is needed, and to give back the joy to my home when my achievement is fulfilled. Life weaves for me a beautiful picture where people live with support from their wish to be and to love. Life contains hardship and catastrophe; but it also contains those inexplicable moments when one sacrifices for the other, saves a life, bestows a gift, and gives love beyond requirement. Posted by Jane Qi on 6/21/04; 1:24:54 PM from the dept. Discuss