Conditional Love

My grandmother grew up as the 2nd daughter of a 3rd wife, within a large wealthy family where she was neglected. From the way she blindly favored her one son over the other, one could easily guess that she probably suffered similar treatment herself and subconsciously came to treat her own as differently as her family treated her.

While my grandmother completed high school at a time when most women in China could not read or write, she never matched up in the eyes of her family to her prettier and smarter older sister, who had the opportunity to complete college, marry an educated man, and live the modern life.

Instead, my grandmother married a Communist foot soldier and settled in a small town in Western China. To the outside world, my grandmother is the definition of grace and modesty, but as many quintessential Chinese woman of the traditional world, she grew up without a sense of empowerment, was never taught to have self worth, and worst of all, without an understanding that respecting others starts with respecting the self.

She is great at putting on a show, but it took me 24 years to realize that deep down, there is nothing there. I learned recently that she was not on speaking terms with my grandfather around the time of his death, some 25 years ago. She was not loved by her parents, and now I have come to learn that she was not loved by her husband either. “The perfect relationship between husband and wife should be one based on mutual respect and harmony at all cost.”

“Harmony at all cost” – it is her way of covering up anything that might be wrong. It is also a phrase my father has repeatedly said to me during the most frustrating and depressing years of my life.

For a person who was not loved by anyone, how can she then in turn love anyone else, including her own children?

It took me 24 years to figure her out, and figuring her out has in some ways set me free. She has haunted my father into the man who despite all his good heart, has emotionally abused me for 8 years we lived with my grandmother close by. Figuring her out made me realize why she has torn apart marriages of her own daughter, why her lack of independent thinking ironically matches with her calculating outbursts of anger. She knows when to use the vulnerable, when to hurt the vulnerable, when to be ruthless, and when to suck up, as others have done to her and around her back in the days.

I see in my grandmother, a tragedy. And in her son, my father, regret of not being able to overcome a tragic upbringing and all the flaws and fears associated with it. And I sincerely hope that I can be courageous enough to obtain the will to overcome the hereditary tendencies of repeating their mistakes.

Love withdrawal – it’s a psychiatric term I learned in college, utilized by those that practice conditional love as a way to get what they want. My grandmother is a pro, my father has inadvertently practiced it all his life without any understanding of what he is actually committing, and while I try not to repeat their mistakes, I look back in my short life and have already seen it happening in many situations of pressure and distress. We are all trying to not repeat the flaws of our parents, I am doing my best to avoid mine.

Once I get over the hate, I feel sorry for my grandmother, a woman who has never experienced unconditional love and thus does not know how to love others. And I am thankful that I was brought up instead by a different grandmother, one who has taught me how to pour all the love you have onto someone else, and realize that when you have poured all the love you could possibly pour, it all comes back, and that is what family is all about.

To predict your future, live with someone slightly older

I found myself living with people in their late twenties; as the only roommate in her early twenties, I secretly feel sort of ahead in life. I tell myself: when I’m at their age, I will not be living here.

It’s interesting living with people who had already made their choices, to take a lucrative career (and thus lots of debts), to go into academia (and thus lots of schooling), or to pursue their passion in the arts (and thus no money). It’s daunting to watch people barely older than me but with their lives clearly mapped out.

We are defined by the choices we make, and my roommates’ choices are very definitive. It’s difficult to quit or start again in our 30’s, though not impossible. I am envious of the limitation. I want to be defined.

I am at least 5 years younger, and I am completely undefinable. People ask me what I do now, and I can’t describe it. People ask me what I like to do, and I don’t have a reply. And people ask me what I woud like to do in the future, and I answer I don’t know. I have come to realize that while I make more money than most of my roommates, I am not at all successful, mostly because I don’t feel successful.

Success is defined by the degree to which you understand yourself, and that is directly related to the choices you must make at some point in your life, the degree to which you know what you want, if not where you are heading toward.

Choices also make one grounded, more at ease, and certainly more human: it takes one from wild dreams and pink imaginations down to reality. I highly doubt my roommates will agree that their lives are as clearly mapped as I see them to be, mostly because I can tell that while they have directions, they are not necessarily happy.

The best choices are still imperfect, every path has its bumps. Choices are the gateway to success, but not happiness.

So if I am not ready to make choices in my own life, at least I can choose good friends and boyfriend to make myself happy, because God knows the best of both categories are disappearing by the second.

I think I have an Existential Crisis

So, what to do next?

Bob Dylan puts it nicely…

You walk into the room
With your pencil in your hand
You see somebody naked
And you say, “Who is that man ?”
You try so hard
But you don’t understand
Just what you’ll say
When you get home.

Because something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?

You raise up your head
And you ask, “Is this where it is ?”
And somebody points to you and says
“It’s his”
And you says, “What’s mine ?”
And somebody else says, “Where what is ?”
And you say, “Oh my God
Am I here all alone ?”

But something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?

You hand in your ticket
And you go watch the geek
Who immediately walks up to you
When he hears you speak
And says, “How does it feel
To be such a freak ?”
And you say, “Impossible”
As he hands you a bone.

And something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?

You have many contacts
Among the lumberjacks
To get you facts
When someone attacks your imagination
But nobody has any respect
Anyway they already expect you
To all give a check
To tax-deductible charity organizations.
You’ve been with the professors
And they’ve all liked your looks
With great lawyers you have
Discussed lepers and crooks
You’ve been through all of
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books
You’re very well read
It’s well known.

But something is happening here
And you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?

Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you
And then he kneels
He crosses himself
And then he clicks his high heels
And without further notice
He asks you how it feels
And he says, “Here is your throat back
Thanks for the loan”.

And you know something is happening
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?

Now you see this one-eyed midget
Shouting the word “NOW”
And you say, “For what reason ?”
And he says, “How ?”
And you say, “What does this mean ?”
And he screams back, “You’re a cow
Give me some milk
Or else go home”.

Because something is happening
But you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones ?

Well, you walk into the room
Like a camel and then you frown
You put your eyes in your pocket
And your nose on the ground
There ought to be a law
Against you comin’ around
You should be made
To wear earphones.

Does something is happening
And you don’t know what it is
Do you, Mister Jones?

Methodical Life-Changing Plan

I have been confused for a long time on what I should do with my life.  It’s an existential crisis.  The past 5 or so posts I have written have all been obsessively about what I should do with myself and who I should be.  I also write about how I am freaking out because I don’t have answers and can’t seem to find them.

This has been extremely uncomfortable and disorienting, and scary.

Here’s what I have come up with on dealing with such gridlock situations in life:

While I can’t figure out what I want to do, I make as much money as I can because:

1. It sucks when I don’t know what to do, but it’ll suck even more if I am also broke. Money does not make things easier (or me happier) – believe me I’m here and I know. But money allows me to take hip hop classes, learn the guitar, buy annual membership to artsy fairs, and plan a trip to South America. They open my eyes and while I would much rather that money be happily earned, at least it’s earned.

2. The money gets me a career coach and a therapist. It is ironic that I make money from a career I don’t like then use that money to talk about not liking my career. But irony is life. My confusion about who I am and what to do with myself comes from emotional/psychological blockage being raised by a hyperventilating mother and an overbearing father, though I am told this is actually kind of normal. The career coach provides me action plans to shake things up, and the therapist explains why I can’t get myself to shake things up. This is all useless, but kind of necessary. It’s part of the process. Part of me think it’s just me being White but I’d like to believe it as a truly modern endeavor.

3. I will pay off my student loans. It’s a legal barrier that needs to be taken care of. I really hate loans (and people with old money).

But soon (maybe by the end of this year, I don’t know) if I still can’t figure out what I want to do I am just going to quit. Quitting totally makes sense because:

1. If I get promoted later with that 50% raise, it’ll make quitting that much harder; then I’m going to be truly stuck in this ever-lasting corporate climb because I’m going to start lying to myself that this is all how it’s suppose to bee (I could afford a house now!), just like that guy from Revolutionary Road.  Promotion is really the only reason why people get stuck and die sad. Quitting now makes sense.

2. I am legally free (of student debts). Knowing the worst that could happen to me is keep hitting zero and not spiraling into the negative is incredibly comforting. It’s sort of like buying options versus just stocks – I don’t buy options.

3. I have had money and have known the feeling of knowing I could have more – and I choose to give it up. This makes the perspective of “what-ifs” simple.

4. I have received advice on finding who I am from every alternative source possible: the parents, friends, shrinks, career advisers, corporate mentors, cab drivers, Jewish people, Chinese people, Black people, and my dear Grandmother. After exhausting every route except my own, I feel less guilty about ruining my “career” and going out there starting at zero – exploring the route on my own because I have listened and they don’t work.

After I quit anything is game, this is the part I have not figured out yet, but isn’t that the point.

Feeling Lost during Emerging Adulthood

The thing about life is that someday we will all be dead.

Birth, no matter how significant, faces an inevitable fate all the same. This preface makes what we do matter. And people in their twenties matter the most.  Look at me: I have no partner to commit to, no child to feed, no parents with broken hips or mortgage to pay off.  I have nothing else aside from feeling incredibly self-indulgent and self-inflicting.  I matter because well, who else is going to matter?

Bloggers write about how it’s okay to be lost in your twenties. But “it’s okay” is hardly the phrase people in their twenties use to describe their state of mind, not the banker who believes he’s invincible, the hipster with an opinion on everything, or the entrepreneur dreaming of taking over the world.

It’s not okay that I’m lost, and I don’t think anyone growing up in today’s competitive education system would feel at all okay for not knowing what to do with their life. Not having an answer to a question, and not knowing where to search for an answer is like watching yourself getting a failing grade and not doing anything about it. It’s unacceptable.

Two years ago I met an incredibly hot Vice President from an investment bank during a recruiting session.  She has remarkably  puffed-over hairdo, gorgeous makeup, fitting Armani suit and the nicest personality. She use to be a competitive figure skater. Her Manhattan presence looked just awe-inspiring under the limelight of my Midwestern college.  I swore to my friend Chuck walking home in 3 inches of snow that one day, I am going to become her.

Two years later our banking industry collapsed in shame. Two years later I stopped talking about white privileges on a daily basis. Two years later we have our first African American President. Two years later Chuck the asshole sidekick of any emotionally unstable female is banging the hottest girl north of 80th street. None of these I would have EVER predicted the day I graduated college. But here we are, and I am the one who is lost.

Emerging adulthood is de-evolution. I feel less sure of myself than I did in college, less optimistic that I am going to change the world, more certain that maybe the world just changes on its own. In this era of hope, I wish I could embrace what I feel about this country on the inside too.

Being lost is not okay, no matter what others write. But there is really nothing I could do about that.

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.

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?