Panda love

This entry chronicles the most meaningful conversation I had with my boss today.

H: what kind of pic is the panda pic? (referring the panda picture on my MSN)
L: the male panda pressing the female's head down so she could give him a BJ
L: thats my interpretation
H: agree, pandas are indeed dumb animals, he apparently doesn't know where are other ways to get her to cooperate
H: send me that pic by the way, want to share with the husband
L: I just sent you a better pic (referring to a picture of two pandas having hot steaming sex)
H: but send me the BJ pic too

100 seconds on positive change

My grandmother is 80-year-old and she is illiterate. Although smart and bright, she never learned to read or write. When she was a little girl working in the rice fields in a small village in Taiwan, she had no idea that one day her grandchild would speak the two most popular languages in the world- English and Chinese. While my grandmother lived her entire life unable to read street signs, I grew up bilingual and educated in the best schools in Taiwan, Japan, and the U.S. I have traveled the world and have lived in more than 4 countries, but my grandmother stays at home all day. The idea of pursuing one’s dream, as I did, is simply unimaginable to her.

Unfortunately, today, there are still more than 100 million children in the world unable to attend school. Even worse, in the least developing countries, illiterate women account for half the country’s population. The inability to read and write leaves women with very few options to escape a life of hardship. My grandmother certainly didn’t have an easy life. Education empowers women and gives them knowledge to improve living conditions for themselves and their families. So I believe that educating women is an important step toward positive change.

So I dream. I dream of a world in which every little girl can read and write, be fascinated by children’s stories and literature, and to see and imagine the world with beautiful languages. And that to me, is a powerful way to make this world a better place.

在寫作之前，我不能和世界碰撞

- 鍾文音

Leo Tolstoy

"All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Leo Tolstoy

I’ve been chewing on this Tolstoy quote for days- it is the very first line in Anna Karenina, a book that I could never get passed the first fifty pages. Like what I said to J in our email correspondence, the quote sums up the story of my life in one telling. It is absurdly true and heartbreaking. The story of my family isn’t probably stranger than fiction. It is more realistic and in your face than you would have preferred.

Unfortunately it is again that time of the year. The time when families gather, family dinners shared and enjoyed. The time that gives me unspeakable anxiety and a heart ache that I find it impossibly difficult to transcribe to friends. I am not yet sick of answering those questions and giving people the response they were hoping for. Most of the time I only wish avoiding the question could be easier.

It amazes me how much I psychoanalyze myself and every word I utter, every gesture I make. It can’t be good. So I tell myself.

I am imagining the perfect picture of familial bliss...

Thank you

You have so much faith in me, in what I have always been, in what I will eventually become. You tell me you have been seeing certain things about me that I have long failed to see, to feel, to believe in.

The whole world believes in you, in me. Why don’t you?

親愛的你，
到底過了多久 又到底需要多久的時間你才會學會愛與珍惜自己
到底積累的傷害 過去的陰影 需要多久的時間 什麼樣的方式 哪一個合適的時機 才能完全擺脫
親帶的 你不是她
親愛的 也許是該離開的時候了
我需要你 需要你找回自己 需要你發現自己 需要你好好愛 需要你肯定自己 需要你相信
需要你真心相信 需要你擺脫那些不應該的人事物 需要你看到
親愛的 該是開口說話的時候了 你可以選擇克服 你可以證明 你可以你可以

Questions about time

Does time make one bolder?
Does time make us a better person?
Does time eventually make things right? or perhaps better?
Does time take away the heartache? Does time obliterate the heartfelt memory?
Does time take you back to where we began?
Does time give you the chance to become good again?
Does time give you the answers?
Does time love you the same way?

A story about you

I wanted to write about you, or us, whatever that had happened to us, whichever that came to mind first. I wanted to write about how we had loved, or how we had lost each other, how we had not learned to care for one another better than we should have. I wanted you to be there when I tried to write about you, I wanted you to feel the pain, the heartbeat when a story about you, on you, for you was being shaped, formulated, given a life into this world, a world so ugly that neither of us could possibly have continued to love and live.

So I have been writing about you, on the day that you turned your back on me, the day I was left alone in the wind, and the day our world was overturned. I continued to write about you, or us, whoever that deserved a carefully crafted story more. You were given a life to live well, to its fullest, and so was I. But here I was, in the middle of the day, doing not a thing but drafting a story about you, on you, for you.

So the love of my life, how have you been? in the time that we have been apart, that you have grown into someone completely strange to me, journeyed through this life on your own, without a hand to guide you in the darkest nights. How have you been?

I imagine you, the very special individual, traveling in the air, wandering all by yourself, with no one to talk to, no one to look after, no one to care enough for. Would I want that for you? so much was lost, so much pain. Would I want that for you, the love of my life? So I wonder if the pain, the heartache deserved a voice, too.

And my love, you didn’t have to be a novelist to be writing a story about yourself, or us, whichever that deserved a few pages, a few passionate words, paragraphs, a couple carefully crafted stories.