Lucky

In loving memory of Fen Fen Chang, the woman who loved me unconditionally for 12 years and continues to watch over me today.

I stole for the first time when I was 9 years old.

It was a cold winter night. My parents had been out to a wedding all night, so I knew it was the perfect time to steal. I went to my mother's room and took out 200 Taiwanese dollars from her drawer. I slept that night with the fear of being caught, and of having to lose this precious money before I could make good use of it. The next morning I woke up early, skipped breakfast and ran to school for the most important school event of the year- the book fair.

Later when my mother found out that I had stolen money from her to buy books, she wasn't happy about it. But she eventually learned to resign herself to the reality that her daughter had taken after her and had become another hopeless bookworm, and would do anything to get her hands on a book.

My mother taught literature in a high school. As a parent and an educator, my mother understood the power of reading in shaping a child's character. She understood that reading fictions stimulates children's imagination and opens up a world of possibilities for them. She believed that reading about people's lives teaches children and young adults to be empathetic and compassionate. So I grew up in a house with a huge study where every wall was stacked with books from top to bottom. When I close my eyes and think back on my childhood, I see my mother reading to us 4 kids in our favorite reading spot. My mother made sure that if anything, the house would never run out of books to read, stories to be told, and wild fantasies to be imagined.

Unfortunately, on another cold winter day, my world fell apart. The chapter on my happy childhood came to an end. I was 12 years old and my mother was 42. A heart attack that happened within seconds took her life and left me without a mother. I grew up overnight.

Shortly after my mother's death, my father sent my siblings and me to boarding schools in the U.S. At age 13, I started living in dormitories without parental supervision in a foreign country. I didn’t speak English very well and I wasn't very good at making friends. I was always lonely, and I was very scared. After I finished all the Chinese books I could lay my hands on, I resorted to reading English novels. I could go on for days without speaking to anyone at school, but I learned to appreciate English literature before I could even speak a word of it.

In books and literature, through beautifully written language, I found escape. I found escape from living the life of a miserable teenager in a foreign land. I was often instantly transported into different parts of the world. I could easily be in Tokyo one morning with Haruki Murakami listening to his favorite jazz melodies, or witnessing the cruelty of the Vietnam War with Tim O'Brien in The Things They Carried. And of course, hanging out with Africa's number 1 lady detective was always top priority.

My last year in high school, I took a creative writing course called the Found Voices. I started writing, and I wrote like a mad woman. I wrote one story after another. I wrote mysteries and love stories. I wrote dramas. And I wrote about my mother. I wrote about the life of this extraordinary woman, about how well respected she had been and how much she was missed in the neighborhood. I wrote about the pain and the heartache of losing her. I wrote about life without a mother as a teenager. I wrote about the love of reading she wanted to instill into me when I was a child. I wrote about the time that we had spent together.

In my writing, I told my mother the things that I never had a chance to tell her. I apologized to her for being rude to her the night before she passed away. I made promises to her that I would not let her down. And I promised myself that I would always stay true to my feelings in my writing. At age16, I couldn't think of a better way to feel closer to my mother.

At the end of the school year, I was awarded The English Award. I was the first student whose native language was not English to receive the award in the high school's history. And I thought I was going to win the math or science award like other Asian kids.

I thought long and hard about how you could possibly get to know me better. I thought about telling you the one time when I ran naked in college. I thought about telling you how it is like living in 4 countries in 5 years. But then I realized that, nothing would do a better job than telling you about how I came to build my life around reading and writing.

If there was one thing that my mother wanted me to understand, it was to love and appreciate literature and the joy it brings. There is a Taiwanese folklore that goes: children who have mothers are precious beings and children who don’t are wild grass. But I have always known that my mother had already given me the best present before she had to go. And because of that, I never became wild grass. I know in my heart that I will always be the luckiest child.

Snow trucks and all

I'd wake up in the middle of the nights mistaking with full conviction that I were in Boston, a city I believe for a fact would never crumble under any circumstances. I'd hear the sound of the snow trucks and find comfort in knowing it had snowed after all. Strangely enough, Shanghai isn't the sort of city you'd confuse for any other city, with its unique lot of people, how the streets tasted like, the way the air felt on the hair of your skin. A little while ago, T wanted to believe it had been San Francisco. I'd want it to be Boston any night.

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