Discussing Love on a Lake

We discussed love while rowing on a freshly painted boat on Phewa Lake in Nepal.

He rowed. And I pretended I knew how to.

In the far distance, we could make out the faint outlines of the Annapura, the more accessible mountain range of the mythical Himalayas, which stood proud and silent on that hazy spring day.

Alex steered our boat around the small island that held the non-descript Hindu temple, dressed up like a blushing schoolgirl for the tourists, while we gazed upwards towards the pearly white Buddhist stupa planted up on a neighboring hill.

Sandwiched between the two symbols, we talked of love in the abstract. In the practical. In the religious.

I asked Alex what he knew about Buddhism. He shared with me the few tenets that he knew, most notably that of non-attachment.

I leaned back and frowned at a memory of a dear friend who recently embraced Buddhism. A year ago, she was bitterly and vocally unhappy with her marriage because of a void of understanding, touch, love, and common ideals.  She had dreamed of something different and contemplated divorce. Now, with the smile of the recently converted playing on her lips, she preached non-attachment to me in a crowded, cheap Italian restaurant. While her rambunctious 7 year old son screamed and kicked for his mom's iPhone, she patted him absentmindedly and explained to me why she was happy now. The key was letting go. All couples, regardless of the quality of their relationship, would end up apart at the end of mortal life. So why obsess about the journey? If she stopped hoping for love, then she would not despair over the deafening silence between them. Or the late nights she waited up for him to come home. Or the lack of gentleness.

If she stopped being attached to her husband, then she would be happy.

I swirled around my cream of mushroom soup with the tin spoon, hiding the torrent of anger behind my masked attempt to understand her sentiments. I wanted to scream that she was giving up. That she was settling for a shell of a happy life. We ended our lunch early because her son whined about going to the arcades and snatched my spoon to drum out his demands. I also grew weary of my curious burst of anger.

Alex listened quietly to my story and disillusionment with the concept of letting go.

I passionately argued that at least for myself, I either cared all the way or didn't care at all. Despite my parents cautioning temperance and 'it's just a job' whenever I cried on the phone because I wasn't sure how much more I could physically/ emotionally give to my work, I would still dip into my bank of inner reserve and drum out more energy to find solutions to never-ending problems. Or how I kept reaching out to a family member with a hopeful tentativeness even though she's hung up on me multiple times.

Isn't that what love is? I asked urgently. Not letting go?

In between a few more gentle paddles to maneuver us to a quiet alcove, Alex mused that love, in its ultimate form, is one of letting go of expectations of outcomes. It is the unconditional love that Christ spoke of, because He still loves us eternally regardless of our actions. He brought up the example of a proverbial modern mom who became angry because despite repeated reminders, the daughter was not practicing her instrument. The motive was love and hope that the daughter would develop her talents. But the anger arose because the daughter was not conforming to a set image the mom had crafted. Love, within the context of our conversation, would be for the mom to let go of the story she had weaved in her mind about her reality and instead persevere in love through the difficult, messy, and wonderfully unplotted life she ended up sharing with her daughter.

On our way paddling back to the muddy shores, I scanned the lake for the attachments in my life and saw them splayed out across the rippled surface of the the deepening water. Tangled in my thoughts, I decided to throw my stories, chained to their imagined endings, overboard and just let them sink to the bottom of Phewa. I decided to try to love in the best way I knew how and let things happen as they may. I would let go but not give up.

Across the lake, a proper Nepali storm was rolling in, a harbinger of the monsoon season.

Reexamining Evelyn

I was raised by Filipino women. So for me going to the Philippines was like getting off the steam boat and arriving in an ancestral homeland that you had only ever heard about. Except Andrea and I had stepped off a budget airline and booked ourselves onto an eight hour bus ride across the Pilipino countryside to unplug in a little fishing town called El Nido. We wandered around a lot, got lost in curio shops and avoided chickens on our bicycles.

Street snacks like Chippy (chips) or polveron (crumbly cake) made me feel like a happy little kid again, who was rewarded for finally putting my school shoes on without a tantrum or for keeping my mouth shut/ stuffed when I watched cartoon as Evelyn, our maid, talked future plans with her fiancee on the phone. She annoyed me with her incessant stories of sunshine and happy endings. I tried to explain to her in my six year old bossy tone that she needed to stop pouring sugar over every story twist when we played pretend. Life was more like scolding nuns, school rankings and custody battles. I hated her stories because they were so naive but somehow she was hurt when I didn't buy them. Like that story about the cashew nut tree and how the nuts ended up growing hung upside down outside their protective fruit because they complained so much. Or how you should always be smiling in case the wind changed all of a sudden and your expression froze like that the rest of your life. She really believed the one story about how the more you counted your freckles, the more you would get them. She always applied face creams to "whiten" her freckles. As a weapon of last resort, I terrorized her by loudly counting her freckles when she made me take baths at night.

In a weird way, she did seem to get more freckles after each count. After I noticed that trend, I also started practicing my "wind-changing" face when she wasn't looking. Sometimes penitent, I hugged her and assured her that she was the most beautiful out of all the maids in the park because she was my Evelyn.

I figured out why she thought us playing marbles was the solution to everything. On our frequent walks back to the hostel from the bakery, Andrea and I often saw giggling filipino kids squatting outside their slated tin huts flicking marbles for hours, always narrowly missing their prized fighting roosters who looked at them indignantly from their wooden poles. I could wax philosophical about how happiness was simple there, or rather, simplicity was happiness but that would be understating what dodging torrential rains in the Philippines or laughing with our local hosts did for me in reexamining Evelyn.

I wonder if Evelyn was excited to be in a big cosmopolitan city like Hong Kong and whether she welcomed the wafts of cool air conditioning to the sticky heat in her village. She was probably lonely, so far away from her large family, and a little irrational with her love for her fiancee. She constantly verged between reading me lines from her love letters she was about to send (to help me with my English) and ranting about how men were unreliable because they just gambled away your nest egg money. Her fiancee was at once the most talented prince and the laziest artist. She peddled his drawings during Sundays after church to fellow Filipinos. My impression of him was slick hair and an exaggerated Minnie Mouse card he drew me once for my birthday. She never ended up marrying him. She never ended up married at all.

Honestly, I had never really considered Evelyn as a separate entity from me. In my selfish little six year old world, Evelyn was the nucleus of my life, there to make me happy. But I was unhappy a lot. So I chalked it up to her stories not being good enough, to her not letting me stay up late to watch TV, to her not being able to learn Cantonese as fast as I could teach her. She wasn't able to magic away my parents' divorce so I exacted revenge by being as difficult as I possibly could. But somehow her optimism was indefatigable and the stories about fishing and nuts and marbles kept coming. She really was trying to teach me to be happy and more trusting.

I fancied that whenever I turned a corner on the streets in El Nido, I would somehow bump into Evelyn selling bread or her fantastic deep fried banana fritters. Maybe she did eventually find her prince and build her dream house. Then I could finally show her what "wind-changing" face I had decided on. I think that would really make her throw her head back and laugh.

Evelyn used to make the best fried chicken in town. 

Somehow these kids were always so happy. Even when one

of their balls fell into the water.

Chickens roamed free everywhere.

A stereotypical Filipino hut. 

Wooden fences, tin roofs, and banana leaves walls.

Blue Collar Blues

Back at BYU, when I decided to pack up and move to China to work at an American startup that provided micro credit to low income Chinese factory workers, I had a certain image in my head. I was finally going to live the principles I learned in international development class. I was making a difference among the working poor, giving them increased opportunities to build rainy-day safety nets. I was saving the world, sans government job.

For the large part, I felt that way. I had wandered around migrant neighborhoods, winding down the mazes of poorly thatched doors, calendar-papered windows, and tired pipes spouting murky water. I had stumbled upon dimly lit alley kitchens, seeing only the hunched backs of the weathered women and the long, sad shadows they cast on the bundles of vegetables that they had to chop. I had talked to young factory workers who sat in the shade, waiting for an interview at yet another electronics factory while wondering if their lives were meant only for this constant repeat. I often sat at my desk long after work ended, doodling question marks and exclamation marks to see if there was something more we could do.

And yet there were other sides to the sweat shop stereotype.

China's factories stood in shiny industrial parks, with manicured greenery lining concrete roads. Factories were sprawling complexes, rare for a densely packed country, and workers filed through the gates wearing issued uniforms. Workers were keenly aware of their rights and industry standards, annoyingly so even, when they rushed up to the HR to complain about a one cent difference in their paycheck or turned their noses at cafeteria food. They switched their jobs more frequently than girl friends, averaging an average of 4-5 months at a job. They changed phone numbers even more often, dumping one digit for another if there's a 20 RMB discount for a different phone plan (3 USD). Workers made very conscious decisions whether to join an American company (better working conditions but lower pay because of "fair labor practice" that restrict overtime) or a Taiwanese company (crappy environment but you are free to work yourself to death if the money is good). And they were the most reliable and current almanacs on 'confidential' salary and benefits info of different factories. XXX didn't provide moon cakes for Mid-Autmn festival? Boycott! (even though nobody eats them anyways)

But yesterday challenged my perceptions of the blue collar workers even further.

I arrived at the plant of a Fortune 500 client that I had closed recently (yes, I somehow do sales now as well). We were rolling out the micro credit/ blue collar-oriented discounts program and wanted to do some pep talks with the assembly line managers. The early twenty-somethings were fidgeting in their seats, antsy from the previous hour long lecture about retirement savings, by the time we got on stage. They probably only stayed because at a factory with 70% men, those boys were probably starved of a little dressed up female attention. Either way, they were fascinated about our kits and wanted to learn more about our products and services.

My colleague started talking about a mobile app that we were about to launch (contrary to popular belief and according to our market research, around 60% of factory workers have smart phones). She asked how many in the audience had a smart phone.

General smirks.

We all have iPhones. 

Fake ones?

Who buys fake ones anymore, lady?

One factory worker happened to glance in my direction and saw the bubble gum pink second-hand mini-screen phone that I had in my hand. I slid it in my purse self-consciously.

Later, we found out that some of these factory workers also had cars. And apartments. Oh. And iPhones, of course.

The factory had average salary levels. The probable cause for the blue collar 'affluence' was that they were local, so apartments and cars came from their families.

But as I left those heavy gates that day, teetering on my lapis heels, I wondered why somebody else on the other side of the world didn't move over here to try to offer me life-enhancing financial products. I sure could use an iPhone. Good thing the iPhone 5 is being unveiled tomorrow.

Walking advertisements 

The Story That Didn't Make It Here

I was going to tell you a story of a battle with my mom where I had fought hard, ultimately won, and constantly regretted.

But instead, I'm going to squirrel that story away and stay up late this Christmas weekend so I can spend hours figuring out how to do justice to some hazy adolescent memory. And that will definitely be one for the private blog or future boyfriend.

One thing I will tell you is this: I think I found it tonight when I was gingerly dipping my toes (with Santa red polish) into the bath. For some reason, it finally hit me - why I had always tried to do everything Sisi-possible to try to make my parents proud (and still felt lacking) even when I had known all along that they were already proud of me simply because I was their daughter.

Too bad that there is already a Jung Chang, an Amy Tan, and now an Amy Chua*. I can definitely write volumes on Chinese American mother-daughter dynamics and spin stories so that readers will believe that I am simply 'principled' and not stubborn.

Well I guess that's what blogs are for.

* Chinese American authors who wrote about their relationships with their mothers and left children like me obsessed with how much my childhood resembled 20% of character X, 35% of Y, and 45% of Z.

A Chinese Girl Learning Chinese

When I first got here, I couldn't make a joke without a resultant awkward silence reverberating around the office cubicle walls. At first, I just thought that my colleagues couldn't hear me. So I told my jokes louder. Still nothing. Then I realized that I was no longer witty. I had lost my gift to talk and connect to people, because I couldn't find the right words and inject them with the proper nuances to express myself.

After I finished my first week at work, I called my dad and cried for two hours. I should leave. I couldn't do this. I couldn't speak Chinese. I should had taken my so-called dream job and stayed on the predictable and secure path where I knew I could succeed.

Things did get better. I jotted down every new word. I tested out unfamiliar words, which my colleagues found endlessly amusing. I was soon considered one of the funnier people at the office. Four people even patted my shoulder and told me that my Chinese had improved drastically.

Two weeks ago, our board chairman visited us as part of his latest round-the-world business trips. He decided to give an impromptu speech, as a rousing gesture, to the entire company. Of course I translated. Of course I squirmed. At that moment, I fancied that #20, #23, and my perfectionist self were best buds, pointing fingers and hating on me when I couldn't think of the Chinese words for "Bolivia" and "Chief Information Officer." It didn't matter that the CEO told me that I got rave reviews for my translation - I hid miserably in the bathroom, once again questioning, berating, and despairing.

Why do I put myself in situations day after day, where embarrassment is merely one South American country away? I have worked hard my entire life to salvage the remnant shreds of Chinese learned from grade school and nurse and strengthen it through Chinese trade law internships and language TA jobs despite growing up in an English dominant environment. Why am I not satisfied with the hard-earned fluency? Why do I keep beating myself against such a soul crushing language, dreaming of crossing over the celestial threshold of native mastery?

----

I was sitting at Church yesterday when I got a glimpse of the answer. A large man with gold rimmed glasses bore his testimony about his belief that someday, China would be open to missionary work. And I cried. Because I sensed, no I knew, that I will be a part of that work. By then, I will know how to be a friend to the Chinese people. I will know how to use their language - my language - to share something that is so important in my life.

At that time, there will be no more awkward silences.

In the mean time, all I can do is to print out the world map in Chinese and learn the countries one by one.

What Friendship Means to an Eleven Year Old

Have I ever bragged about my sister Jody before? She's eleven. Smart. Beautiful. Sassy. And she is an amazing writer.

She wrote this poem about friendship the other day:

A friend can be anyone,

Anyone who respects you.

A friend can be your next door neighbor,

A person who did a kind favor,

Or even your enemy.

Having a friend is like putting batteries into a clock,

Or sailing a boat in a dock.

Take this away and what do you have?

A clock that doesn’t work and an empty dock.

A person who doesn’t have a friend is like a book with no pages,

A sky with no sun,

 A pen with no ink,

Or having no blanket in a cold, windy night.

Give a good fight?

‘Tis is wrong.

-----

Essentially, a friend is "anyone who respects you," even your enemy.  

I've never thought of that before. That forces me to wonder --  am I a true friend? Am I patient with those around me when I am stressed? Do I listen to their ideas, and really think about them, even if I don't agree? Can I love my friends the way they are, without trying to mold them into somebody I think I might like better?

When an eleven year-old teaches you about life (beyond the fact that boys have infectious diseases), it's humbling. And reminds me of these wonderful people who somehow want to be my friends:

 We have fun being awkward together. 

I look up to these girls so much.

My best friends. I could not have made it through college without my siblings (+ JC).

I don't think they will ever know how much they mean to me.

 Kenji. Sticks with me during those stressful moments. 

He teaches me how to have fun (that does not involve econometrics).

I am still working on that.

 We love each other. Enough said.

 

Mourning

I've deleted that email so many times, only to try again, bleeding out a line here or there.

How do you even write to one of your best friends whose father just passed away?

No wonder Hallmark makes so much money. For $3.99, you can buy an emotional cop-out. Instead of saying I-cried-about-your-dad-today-in-the-library-and-how-can-I-even-say-anything-to-adequately-soothe-your-pain, you can tie a neat bow around a "I'm sorry for your loss" four by six card stock and feel that you've done your job.

And have we? Do people in mourning want more than flowers and a card when the sense of loss is so fresh? When we try to make consolatory phone calls or emails, are we just putting them in uncomfortable positions because now, on top of dealing with funeral details, they will also have to return phone calls and repeat the same conversations over and over again? Maybe the Hallmark way deserves more credit; perhaps it is selling privacy behind all those cliches.

And yet . . . I know I would keep resurrecting that email from my deleted items. Because, privacy or not, somehow friendship just cries out for more than a bunch of cliches.

LDS Feminism

I am Mormon. And I'm also a feminist.

My two identities do not contradict each other; instead, I am able to rejoice fully in the divine nature of my womanhood because I understand it within the framework of the Gospel.  Ultimately, the Church celebrates the beautiful synergy of man and woman. That is why you cannot attain the highest degree of glory without being in a healthy, loving marriage where both members are equal sovereigns.


But sometimes, when I talk about my feelings as a female in the Church, people hush me and say quietly that I better be careful because I'm started to sound like a feminist. Well I don't want to be silent anymore.

Feminism, the belief that men and women are equal, is a faith-affirming truth. Church leaders have repeatedly stated that men and women are equal but different. However, sometimes it is the lack of adequate discussion regarding this very difference that creates erroneous perceptions of discrimination against females in the Church or generates misplaced feelings of resentment among women. Faithful, righteous LDS women struggle because nobody has pulled them aside and told them that it is ok to ask questions about the priesthood or that it is normal to wonder if they can have a family and a career. They fall away angry and hurt not because they don't want to believe, but because they don't know how to believe and still be comfortable with their feminine identities.

Feminism is not, and should not be, a taboo topic within the Church. Instead, women should be encouraged to have open, honest conversations about what their femininity means to them and how to understand their roles within the greater Plan as mothers, daughters of God, and divine individuals.

Pandora box of questions

I've been thrown into a moral conundrum regarding a job. Coincidently, I sat through an hour long lecture today, talking about ethics in competition for our MUN team. Here are some questions swirling around my little head. Any answers?

Is something unethical simply because you don't feel comfortable doing it?

What if a figure in AUTHORITY says it's ok?

Is legality the only standard of professional conduct?

My professor talked about being ethical to build credibility.
Does such a utilitarian view of ethical behavior somehow take away from the ideals of ethics?

Does your motivation matter, as long as you're ethical?

The gift of feeling lonely

I don't feel lonely very often. I've always been able to reside within my own thoughts and walk around examining my memories or exploring my recent experiences. I love to be alone sometimes, just so I can enjoy my own company. That's why, for me, the rare occasions of feeling lonely is an indirect gift that I should learn to treasure.

To me, being lonely and feeling lonely is different. The former is where you are left to your own devices, with no familiar face around to smile at you. The latter is where you are surrounded by loving faces, but yet you feel so detached. You may be joking, making a room full of person laugh, but you alone know that you are not smiling underneath.

There is something wistful yet beautiful about loneliness. No one really understands her until he has walked a mile with her by his side. Hence no one really understands a lonely person until he has felt lonely - utterly, dejectedly alone - at least once in his life. Perhaps that's why, for the sake of others, we should embrace loneliness and walk a while with her.

每当我一下课，第一时间就是到图书馆去，今天也不例外。手刚要伸出去拉开图书馆的大门时，一个瘦小的男生突然插到我的前面，二话没说就把门拉开一点，从门缝里钻进去了。 看着他走进图书馆大厅的那一刹那，我心里百般不满地在想那个男生多么没有绅士风度。

顿时，我楞住了。令我意外的不是那个男生的无礼， 而是自己的第一反应。 从小在香港长大，对满街爱理不理的陌生人早就习惯了，永远都不会希望有人给我开门。初次来到犹他州时，每当有男生客气地为我开门时，我都会觉得不好意思。刚开始，我一直逞强，坚持为自己开门、拿东西，并告诉跟我约会的男生，我是一个新时代女性，不需要男人的呵护。但不知不觉中，我却慢慢地适应了大部分犹他州男生的绅士风度。现在，这个男生只不过是没有替我开门，我就潜意识地断定他不够“男人”。这时我才意识到，这两年来自己真的变了。

在去中文課的路上

我每次在去中文課的路上都會碰到他。每當我們擦肩而過時，我都會裝一副滿不在乎的樣子跟他打招呼。那一秒鐘的相遇常常令我感慨萬千。一大堆我沒有勇氣問的問題在腦海裡迴轉。你還好吧？快樂嗎？會偶然想我嗎？我猜，愛情小說裡最豪爽的女主人公若碰到以前的未婚父可能也只能像我那樣望而興嘆吧。但我提醒自己，決不能像上學期那樣縱容自己不停地回想往事和質疑取消婚禮的決定。過了半響，才記得我從這挫折中學到最寶貴的一課就是無論怎樣，一旦做了決定，就要堅決地笑著繼續走。

每當想到這一點，我就能舒暢地推開課室的門，無憂無慮地上課。

Come back

She waits.

She watches all the others in the the brilliant azure skies and yearns to join them. But why should she ever want something more when she's got everything that could possibly make her happy?

You hope.

You wish that she'll forget the outside distractions and turn around to look at you, remembering once again that to her, you are the world.

She pecks at her cage impatiently. Chirping, always chirping about what she sees and what she thinks she can do once she's out there. You listen, feeding her confidence and ego but afraid of what this might mean.

It happened. She wants to break free. Free of this cage that doesn't seem like a cage. Liberated from the constrains that really only existed in her head. Set loose to explore the unknown and grow to be strong and beautiful.

No! You cried. You don't understand! You will only be truly happy here, safe, and with me.

Deep down, she knows that you're right. She just needs to figure it out on her own.

Shakily, you open the cage doors.

She steps out, hesitantly.

Crash! The cage doors close.

Startled, she turns around, expecting that the option of going back will always be there.

She looks at you pleadingly, wanting you to smile as you did before.

All of a sudden, the skies seem angry and dark.

Turning your back to her, you shoo her away.

You walk off, hoping that the hawks in D.C. play nice.

My SAT of life

In my SAT prep classes I always emphasize to all my students that in the Writing section, transitions are the most important things to look out for. Standing in front of the class, five foot one and all, I religiously extoll the merits of the Kaplan methods for SAT essay writing and tell them that with Kaplan's secrets they are on the road to success. It wasn't until recently that I find it all kind of ironic. Perhaps it is I who need to internalize that concept more than they.

I haven't been doing so good with all the transitions in my life so far. It's sort of hard to know exactly which transitional phrase I should be using when I don't even know what my next paragraph is going to be. I sit there, poised with my favorite black ball-point, trying to figure out all my different options. Is it going to be an internship in Washington D.C. ? Going home next summer? Taking another stab at the whole marriage thing again? By now my students should know that the key to forming good transitions is to have a plan. Well I had a plan. A plan that I really didn't think would change. I so confidently bought our honeymoon tickets without realizing what a pain they are to return. I feel like a typical SAT student who is panicking in the middle of the 25 min essay section, all because the once marvelous essay plan doesn't seem to be working out so well. I want to abandon the plan, indeed I almost feel like I have to, and just leave the testing room altogether. What's the point of continuing when you've already screwed up the beginning?

But (which is a delicious transitional word), yes but, there's always a chance for redemption. That's what transitional phrases are for. Even though I have no clue what random nonsense will flow out of my pen tip the next moment, I can choose my transitions. I can choose "Despite feeling lost and lonely at times, she keeps herself occupied with good friends....", "Since she's messed it up once, who said she won't mess it up twice?", or even "However, after a year or two of growing up, they realized that they needed each other..."

I guess the point is, in choosing my transition, I'm choosing how to go on. After all, the momentary freeze in the testing center is just that, a momentary freeze. I cannot just fly home on an impulse, abandoning my school work and my job just so I can lick my wounds elsewhere. There are lessons to be learnt, stories to tell and paragraphs to be written even in, or especially in, awkward transitions.

Now that I'm gingerly feeling for the right transition, all I have to do is wait for my next paragraph to form. And the next, and the next. So on so forth, and eventually I'll have a whole essay.

You see, despite all those rumors, SAT really is not that hard after all.