Bravery

The world is a scary place; but this scary place is also a wonderful place because beauty is defined by the act of bravery, bravery conquering fear, thus making the world a better place.

And bravery is not valiant knights riding in shining armor into the sunset.  Bravery is not even standing up to the bully with the innocent cheering behind.  Bravery is not a show. If you are out there seeking applause then perhaps you are being fooled by cowardice instead.

Bravery is less glorious and more ambiguous to the eye.  Bravery is asserting your position clearly when it really counted, embracing a stance you find embarrassing but true, or speaking out about a message that is deprecating to your reputation but you have refused to go along with the manipulation.

Bravery is about protecting and lending voices to the weak at a time when pleasing the master is really all you wanted to do to feel secure and happy again.

Also, bravery is about the ability to really laugh with others at oneself through all the embarrassing blunders and imperfections.

Bravery is not to be confused with headstrong stupidity.  Headstrong stupidity seeks to assert one’s position in an untimely and unnecessary manner simply for the satisfaction of feeling brave.  Bravery is changing the world into a better place, respecting those who may not deserve any respect, and making sure that we don’t disappoint what we are really made of.

Bravery is empowering and it is infectious.

I am inspired everyday by the strong men and women in my lives, the famous and the nameless, they have shown the kind of bravery I aspire up to. I am inspired everyday to be a little bit better than I was yesterday.

Sick people

Do not fly if you have a cold. Or else, this is what will happen: rapid changes in elevation will cause mucus within your nose to shoot through the eustachian tube into your middle ear, resulting in hearing loss lasting days. This is also why babies cry nonstop during flights.

Every time I get sick at work I receive positive encouragements from my boss: “feel better,” “don’t worry about the assignment,” “take a day off”, and “get some sleep.” It’s sweet and he sounds just like my mother. Employers understand everybody gets sick once in awhile. But getting sick has a bigger story behind just getting sick.

I was on a project with 5 people: we are all sort of new so we inevitably compete. 4 of us caught the flu and 1 person didn’t. Health was never a defining factor in performance but it was brownie points in a competition where we are all uniquely talented in different ways. It may just be luck, but the healthy guy proved that he took responsibility of his health and was strong enough to defend what the rest of us could not defend against. I was slightly in love with him for awhile because he looked so healthy among a group of sick people.

If you work long enough at a company you will notice that certain people consistently get sick while others consistently remain healthy.

Those who consistently get sick are also less predictable in personality and performance at work. This is because risk-taking people tend to get sick more often while risk-averse people tend to take better care of themselves. Staying healthy is a positive trait and people value that, because drinking enough water and eating a balanced meal are consistency exercises and consistency leads to promotion. Consistency also promotes trust; leaders are people others trust. So being sick all the time shows you cannot be a leader.

I am not consistent and I get sick all the time. While at the end of the day your intelligence, creativity and hard work make you who you are, consistency allows your intelligence, creativity and hard work to turn into measurable outcomes. So I try very hard to be consistent in all aspects of my life, including staying healthy; and I hate it, it takes away all the spontaneity and fun. But I guess that’s part of being an adult, oh being an adult.

I have worked with managers with multiple health problems: people who are erratic in health are also erratic in project management. These people freak out and I am always scared the world is going to collapse under their management. But they also tend to be witty and weird, and overall extremely fun to hang out with.

And I have worked with managers who are healthy/positive all-around: these people tend to be easy to work with because I know exactly what’s expected of me and there are less panic episodes during a project cycle. But I don’t laugh as much. Of course, they have got to be good at what they are doing; being consistently wrong is useless.

But the bottom line is if you are consistent you don’t have to be as smart as if you are inconsistent. If you are erratic you better be very intelligent in order to make up for the times you screw up. I wonder if there is a middle ground: someone who can be consistent but also fun? I use to think that’s not possible, but perhaps that’s why great leaders, those who are both consistent and fun, are rare and significant.

And then there is cramps. I cannot talk about being sick without talking about the plague and source of gender inequality. Although, calling cramps an illness is sexist in and of itself, perhaps.

We don’t talk about cramps but just go to a discussion forum on “cramps at work” and you will be amazed at how common this happens (and how bad the episodes can be) to well, 50% of our work force. This is why I think women are tough: we suck it up, we pop pills, we call in sick but we rarely talk openly about the discomfort to our fellow male coworkers.

I had a debate with a fellow girl about how women in Corporate America should receive 1 extra day off per month, a “cramp” day to level the playing field, kind of like maternity leaves – it’s only fair. The friend argues that this difference in treatment will push back feminism because we have fought hard to prove that women can do anything men can do – employees are already less likely to hire women, imagine what would happen to recruitment of women when the federal government passes a “Cramp Day Act”.

Does that make Cramp Day an affirmative action policy?

The guys I use to work with wonder why I am really quiet on some days, and I don’t tell them it’s because I have cramps and would really like to just go home, crawl into a ball and go to sleep. I was rejected from a job at the Federal Reserve because I had an especially bad episode of cramps during an interview and instead of allowing me to go home the Fed people forced me into an emergency room where I laid there for about 4 hours, paid $600 and went home (back when I didn’t have health insurance.) The Fed never called me back for a second interview because they didn’t know I was in pain because I had cramps, and that’s because I didn’t tell them I had cramps. So they decided to better not hire a girl who randomly collapses.

Then I met a mentor / co-worker and she changed my mind in talking about cramps at work. Her cramps are worse than mine and she is completely unabashed to talking about cramps to everyone she works with, not just whispers to us fellow female coworkers. She would announce the fact that today is her period day during morning meetings. She would talk in detail about her “contractions” to my male manager, completely oblivious to the horror in his eyes. She would proudly display the hot water she drinks and recount stories after stories of “this one time when the cramp got really bad.” And when other girls secretly tell her that they too have cramps, she would announce her sympathy to the world and make sure they skip meetings and not receive any amount of stress.

She was my mother in Corporate America.

And I love her for it. Talking about cramps is talking about being women. It’s kind of like talking about your culture if you are Korean, Black, or talking about going to Mecca if you are Muslim. Cramps are such big parts of our lives and we should not feel embarrassed to talk about this to our fellow friends from the other gender.

And for the rest of us sick people: consistency in drinking your water is hot, literarily hot.

How to become a citizen of the world

I was raised in the early 90s, a time when every morning after our second period class, a obnoxiously loud speaker would come on and a squeaky womanly voice would scream that Chairman Mao wants us to conduct eye exercises for the glorification of the People’s Republic of China.

My dad is a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. Though, being a Communist in China those days is like being admitted into Boy Scouts, an honor for good boys who listen to their mama. When the immigration officer at the US embassy asked my dad if he is a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, my dad said “no” and that’s really how I was able to grow up in Texas after all.

For awhile when I was in high school an FBI agent followed my dad and asked him out to dinner in Burger King several times to “talk”. The talk was just routine inspections since we came from a region in China of 50% Muslims, but the real point here is you’d think the FBI would invite my dad to a nicer restaurant. One day the FBI agent called our house and my dad was away getting his gall bladder removed at the hospital. I told the FBI agent exactly that, and the agent never called us again.

The experience did affect my father. He started to suspect that our house was being watched and wire tapped. He started to tell me that I should stop discussing my radical liberal ideologies because they can all hear and they are going to get me in trouble. My dad also wanted me to swear that I won’t run off and become a spy no matter how enticing the money may seem, from either the US or from China. In turn, I began to believe that governments are not to be trusted, not only because governments lie, but also because your allegiance could change according to circumstances in life you cannot control, and governments are like egotistical men – they hate the uncommitted.

I was on track to become a proud citizen of China, then I moved to a country I absolutely hated but had to learn to live in. Somewhere in that process I fell in love with the complexities of my new country despite the country never completely accepting me back. For a long time I was not ready to accept the fact that I am really a citizen of nowhere, a citizen of everywhere. I am reluctant to accept because I believe identities are crucial. We must and should be able to define who we are despite ambiguities, for human beings are nothing without roots and cultures and a sense of where we belong. And history has shown repeatedly that those who really know themselves end up excelling in life.

Barack Obama inspired me because he was the first famous person anywhere who lived in a foreign land to openly talk about the complexities of that experience. He taught me that the end result of this radical struggle to define who you are is not to obtain a precise definition of who you are (you never will.) But rather, it is to obtain confidence in knowing what your values are, values deeply rooted in your cultures and your race that you should be incredibly proud to own up to. And soon, you will realize that these values so uniquely created by your culture really also exist in other cultures as well. Barack Obama is the President of the United Sates. But he is also a citizen of the world.

The values I have learned growing up in that tiny Chinese city surrounded by that large group of caring families forever defined who I am. I no longer have to feel genuine enough to claim to be a citizen of China, a resident of New York, a alumni from a great Public University to feel like I am being defined. I carry the values I have gathered with me everywhere I go, and those values, not my color or gender, define my identity.

I reject Miss Universe’s definition of “Citizen of the World.” Citizen of the world does not mean you feel like you belong everywhere. That is impossible and quite disorienting. To become a citizen of the world, you have to first understand what you have learned from your unique background and cultural upbringing, and next transfer your experiences into values you can share with others, anyone around the world.

And thus, I am a Chinese living in America and an Americanized Chinese – and just like Obama and others out there who share our values of respect and curiosity and freedom of expression – we are citizens of the world.

There is nothing wrong with having no goals in life.

I have no goals in life, because I don’t know what they should be. And I’m not going to force myself to make up goals just so I could say I have some.

I did not declare a major until I was forced to do so second semester of my junior year in college and I’m still on this elusive quest today in search for the purpose of my life.

I am comfortable with not knowing; not knowing has taken me to places and fields I would have otherwise never gone to. And I suppose one day I will know what I want in life, and maybe that day will never come. Either way, I am content with exploring the possibilities for now. Wait, I’m actually not content at all. Oh well.

Everybody wants to know what I want to do with my life, because that defines who you are and people get uncomfortable when they can’t define you, because then they can’t act accordingly. Everyone from career counselors to bosses to mothers to guys I’m dating ask me, “where do you see yourself in five years?” And my answer is always, “I don’t know.” This answer instantly downgrades me, because it scares them. It scares them more than it scares me.

Books talk about the fact that you can’t succeed unless you have goals first or that you can’t be happy unless you know what makes you happy. Having a direction, an vision, or a dream have always been a key motivator to those who accomplish great things in life. But I disagree: I am going to make up dreams as dreams come along and decide on my path when cross roads meet my eyes. I am not going going to decide anytime before then.

So not having goals makes me sound like a lazy person with no ambition. And it supposedly also makes me depressed. In reality, however, not having goals is freeing. Responsibilities is not always a good thing. Having children is not always a good thing. Getting married is not always a good thing.

And that is fine. I do what I need to do today, and if I have time, I’ll think about what tomorrow entails.

My goal in life is to find out what my goal in life should be.

On being Asian, getting old, and falling in love.

I recently turned 24. 

Turning 24 is cathartic, because I’m no longer approaching adulthood. I am already an adult and just getting older, with no special meanings attached like being able to drive, to vote, or to drink.

Getting older is scary. When I was a kid I imagined a 24-yr-old to have her life all figured out. But here I am still clueless. And turning older is also scary because, well, I am old and not in love. And according to my grandmother, that’s just not normal. And really, I want to be in love too. 

I am talking to my single friends about this dilemma – turning older and not being in love. And their responses are surprisingly shocking: 

Response #1: “At least you are not Black.”

Response #2: “I don’t understand, you get hit on all the time in the club”

Response #3: “Asian fetish is in, did you know Mark Zuckerberg is dating an Asian girl?”

I am speechless. I am speechless because being able to admit that black women have it much worse does me no good, because getting hit on in a club is not a good indicator of finding love in real life, and because I have nothing to do with nerdy Ivy League white guys and their imagination of stereotypically subservient creatures loosely based the idea of “Asian girls” that really don’t exist in real life. 

Speaking of which, I just would like to know: why are so many Jewish guys nowadays in New York marrying Asian girls? Is anyone conducting a socio-political analysis on this new phenomenon? 

I can’t even begin to talk about my dating life without talking about the fact that I am an Asian girl. I am painfully sensitive to color, I admit. I love color and can’t live without it. I walk into a room and instantly count the % of people of color within. I get to know someone and want to find out if all his/her friends are white. All the best parties, friendship circles I have ever had, and will continue to have, are made up of diverse groups of people. And let’s face it, diversity is not exclusively but nevertheless importantly race-based. Calculating racial makeups is judgmental and to be honest not very accurate at diagnosing a person’s character or a location’s favorability, but it is by far, the best method i have come up with so far.

And this isn’t just me. Numerous studies have shown that diversity trumps intelligence in solving complex problems, creating efficient societies, and making the world a lovely place in general. 

So what is the point of this post, talking about feeling sad at turning 24, not receiving any sympathy because I am an Asian girl, and then finally – there is still the melancholy status of not being in love. Well, I’m not sure I have a point. I’m not even sure if there’s any problem with not being in love, getting old, and being Asian. Life is really a lot more interesting when we don’t get what we want.

Do we ever stop dreaming?

It is a privilege to dream. 

I have been working since I was 15 years old. I have worked at toy stores, dim sum restaurants, basketball stadiums and psychology labs. I have worked at auto companies on the other side of the ocean and consulting firms across the State. I have washed dishes in school cafeterias and conducted group dialogues on intercultural exchanges.

Some of my jobs were so physically demanding I come home collapsed on my bed with grease fuming through my hair, while other jobs were so mindlessly draining I go to work imagining myself jumping off from Manhattan’s midtown skyscraper.

Jobs are like relationships; it’s never as good as it seems on the outside, and when I get one I want something else. And right now, I can’t imagine myself having a long-term career; the narrowing of the field kills my soul. And similarly, marriage seems like a distant folklore. But I am ever so pressured to find both elusive prospects that seem to mean more than my own self, if I am lucky.

I wonder, if there will be a job somewhere out there that I could actually be content doing for the rest of my life – and, thus, make it into a career? Because finding a career is a lot like finding your soul mate: I’m not sure if either really exists. Some people just settle after awhile when looking got tiring. And really – when you say you know what you want, how do you know that? 

Because not everybody dreams like me, constantly and persistently, about anything and everything, from the practical to the utterly ridiculous, without proper definitions of what is appropriate, and what is not. 

I worked with an old African American man when I was in high school selling beer and chicken fingers at basketball games. The old man has the kind of southern black accent I could barely comprehend. We became friends because he would always cheer me up. 

We use to chat about his tight-knit family, his devotion to God, his entire life working at minimum wage jobs because he never had a high school education. And we use to chat about my dreams, my decision to move all the way to a midwestern state I have never visited to attend college. 

He couldn’t fathom my insatiable desire to get out of Texas, thought I thought he of all people should understanding, being a Black man in Texas. He thought I was both brave and crazy, taking my chances to the limit. As for me, to be honest, I couldn’t understand how he could be this content working at this job for the past 20 years and not want to commit suicide. 

One day we were watching the news (they have them all over the stadium) and Kobe Bryant’s involvement in a sexual scandal came on. The old man and I got talking and he said, “people are never satisfied with what they have. When they got what they want, they want more. People should stop wanting more and just be glad with what they have.” 

This old man said it back during the booms of our economy, when none of the “less is more” fad ever existed. Back then (almost 10 years ago?) it was all about borrowing on credit, reaching for the stars. And there I was stunned by a whole new way of looking at life. 

I write this because I have been so convinced lately that I am the kind of person who needs variety in life: surprises that are both good and bad, as long as they are not health-related. I need changes and shocks to spur my creativity. I need a better looking body and some additional friends. I need a job that makes just as much and a little more passion. And my preference for guys, let’s not even go there. 

But really, deep down, I just want to find it. I just want to find the it career and the it person and stop looking and being so competitive. And then the old man’s words come to mind and I wonder, do I already have what I’m looking for? Should I stop dreaming now?