On the road

I've always loved traveling, but I never quite understood the lure of backpacking - until now. My brother started his backpacking adventure more than two years ago, and for a greater part of my New York winter, I've been on the road with him. I've backpacked one other time in southern England, and even though my backpack is outdated and rather small, I took it out once again and decided to be spontaneous. We don't have travel guides, maps, or an itinerary. We go where the wind takes us (and sometimes, where the chicken buses will take us) and adjust our route along the way. It's one of the most liberating experiences.

Backpacking is a lot of fun, but it's not for everyone. Journeys can be long, uncomfortable and exhausting. (My longest trip thus far has been a 16-hour bus ride in Guatemala.) Accommodations are often sparse and basic. Hot showers are not guaranteed, and en-suite bathrooms are considered a luxury. (Good thing we are in the tropics now.) You might find yourself sharing a dormitory with perfect strangers and sometimes, there are travelers with questionable personal hygiene. If you can overlook these small discomforts, then backpacking is definitely do-able and such a humbling experience.

For many young people, I think backpacking is almost a rite of passage. They've just finished university, quit a miserable job, have downtime before starting a job, or just want to see as much of the world as possible before they resign themselves to a more settled lifestyle. Everyone's story and timeline is different and equally interesting. Everyone is on a personal journey. And for many people that I've met (including my brother), there is no return ticket home because being able to travel indefinitely is both their purpose and their journey.

I think when I look back on this time, I'll feel grateful to have had the opportunity to travel and see so much on a shoestring. I'll cherish the experiences, adventures and friends I've encountered along the way. I'll miss the company that I kept, and the special friends that began to feel like my traveling family. I'll remember my daredevil climb up a waterfall on a rope and my miraculous fall. I'll think about my brother and the trip we shared. And I'll always be in awe of how small the world can be and how big the journey becomes when we greet the road before us with an open mind and a positive outlook.

(My guest blog post, as featured on my brother's travel blog.)

7,418 miles

7,418 miles. That’s the distance between the two lives I have lived.

Two years ago, I embarked on an adventure with one man and two dogs. We took whatever we could fit in our suitcases and left the rest to chance. What we lacked in resources, we made up for in hope. It was supposed to be the beginning of wonderful things and an extraordinary life together.

When I think back to that time, I remember the love story that sparked it all. It began like a scene out of a romantic comedy. The middle was a wild journey that unfolded before our eyes. And the ending – well, we simply did not prevail. Not all love stories have a happy ending. Some end like mine did – beautifully tragic.

I chose to save my heart and my dreams for another day. And yet, I left a piece of my heart out there. I don’t know if it will ever return. Sometimes I think it may travel forever in the wind, but I’m ok with that. I’m still here and I choose to prevail. Life continues to unfold. Happiness continues to find me. And I know my story has yet to be written.

It’s 14,836 miles there and back. I know because that’s the distance my heart has traveled.

Love Affair

An innocent glance your way
Drawn to the charm of your gaze
The different angles of bliss
And the soothing warmth of light
From your eyes, from your lips
Truth stretching from cheek to cheek
A glimpse folding into minutes
Minutes melting into moments
Of laughter and mirth past
Etched in memory and untouched by time
Settling as specks of magical dust
Fallen on my heart content
Stealing peeks at your grace-
Ever constant, ever changing-
Realizing once and again
The light you have shone upon me
Is the look of love and devotion
Freely sought, freely given.

January 2002

Homecoming – Chapter 1

It was a reverse pilgrimage of sorts. In 2010, I went from being a Chinese-American woman living in New York City to being an American-Chinese woman living in Shanghai – or at least that’s how my local acquaintances labeled me…more American than Chinese. It was a culture shock and an identity shock all at once. I’m ethnically Chinese. My parents, grandparents and ancestors hail from China. I was even born in China. Cantonese was the first language I spoke (albeit poorly over the years). But to every other Chinese person that I met in China, I apparently embodied the identity, attitude and panache of an American girl. I was an insider by blood, but an outsider by upbringing. It was a strange sense of belonging to this place – my motherland – and yet, not connecting to the fibers of the place – the people.

In my first weeks there, I was like a fish out of water – not because the place was so foreign to me, but because I couldn’t speak the local language (Mandarin) and for that, I was ridiculed and even looked down upon by some locals. They were in utter disbelief that I looked and claimed to be Chinese and yet, I couldn’t speak “our” language. I had not experienced this kind of small-minded discrimination in a long, long time, and I was shocked that it was being handed to me so quickly and thoughtlessly by people who didn’t know anything about me. In a city of nearly 20 million people, I often felt lonely and misunderstood. I was neither special because I had chosen to return to China, nor was I invisible because I dressed and carried myself differently than the crowd.

I wanted to be accepted into their world and their local culture, but at the same time, I wanted them to accept that I could still respect my individual beliefs and celebrate them as much as the new ones I was adopting. My default explanation in Mandarin (which I memorized in the beginning) was to say that I was an “overseas Chinese,” so the locals would know that I was Chinese, but I was not raised in this place like they had been. This explanation worked for some people as it satisfied their curiosity. For others, they couldn’t connect the dots – and their stubbornness was too great – so I offered up my last resort explanation (also memorized): “I’m Korean.”

To be continued....

Love Undone

All that was left was a crumpled ten dollar bill and a greasy paper bag. There wasn’t even the stench of bad take-out in the apartment and yet, I was sick to the core. I wish we hadn’t stayed in last night. Why didn’t we go to Julia’s housewarming? She was only my closest friend in the world and he knew that. He knew all too well that she was one of the few girlfriends I had left but he didn’t care. He claimed that she was jealous of our relationship; he reasoned that she was out to ruin what we had worked so hard to achieve – nearly two years of overcoming petty arguments and celebrating dating bliss.

On our fifth date, Ben told me he was starting to fall for me. He was sincere, intelligent, ambitious, and funny. He loved to talk and even more so, he always seemed interested in what I had to say. Even when he didn’t agree with me on a certain issue, he would merely silence me with a kiss and tell me how cute I was for speaking my mind. And I believed him. I believed everything he told me because I was falling for him too.

I believed in him and our love. I think he believed in me too but somewhere down the road, he stopped respecting me. Maybe I shouldn’t have passed on the job promotion in Boston, but I knew his last long-distance relationship had failed miserably. Or maybe it was my dropping my night class, but I had good intentions – I wanted to have more time to spend with him. I justified all these acts and more by convincing myself that our love was more important, that he was more important. But I sensed that he wasn’t satisfied with my gestures of love, so I tried harder.

After one year of serious dating, we, or rather he decided that we should move in together. I had just graduated from college, so I thought it was a practical idea…after all, I needed to find an apartment anyway. Three days after graduation, I packed up all of my belongings and despite the lack of support from my parents, I moved in with Ben. At first, living together turned out to be a great idea and a wonderful experience. I loved waking up every morning with him beside me. I made dinner on weeknights and Ben would bring home flowers for the apartment almost everyday. He said the flowers could remind me of him in his absence and I told myself I loved him even more than I had imagined.

I loved him. I still love him. But that wasn’t enough, I realize now. Last night, for the first time that I can remember, Ben didn’t want to talk. We ate our meal in complete silence and after he finished, he instinctively walked over to the window. He said our view of the city was magnificent and that he was amazed by how much movement and change occurred right outside of our window. He said watching everything outside reminded him of his ambition – he wanted to start his own company, buy a condo in the city, and travel more. Ben always shared his dreams with me – they were ours – but tonight, he spoke of his future as if he had already moved on without me. He turned back towards the window and his gaze froze on the night sky as though he were silently mourning something he had lost or was wishing he were out there looking for something he hadn’t yet found. From the reflection in the glass, I saw the face of love for the last time. I whispered his name but he merely lowered his eyes. If he had seen the anguish on my face, he wouldn’t have walked out the door. Perhaps he wasn’t looking hard enough. Or perhaps he chose not to look back.

Next week would have been our two-year anniversary. He hated planning our nights out, so I made reservations for us at his favorite restaurant. I bought a new dress and I even splurged on an absurdly expensive stereo system for him. God, what cruel irony this is that I’m sitting here listening to part two of his gift – a CD I made of fifteen love songs that remind me of us. What does Brian McKnight know about our love anyway? Romance died a long time ago and to think about it, so did I.

(my original submission for a short story contest, October 2000)

when the storm comes

When the storm comes,
I'll close the shutters
And light a candle.
I'll prepare to disconnect
From the outside world,
As I slowly retreat
To my inner fortress.

Before the waves hit,
I'll stand my ground
And brace for impact.
I'll reach for anchors
Should any float by,
Amidst the cluttered souls
Of our collective strife.

As the rains fall,
I'll take familiar shelter
And watch through windowpanes.
I'll embrace the chaos
And the struggles within,
While weathering the storm
And its every uncertainty.

why kindness matters

In the third grade, I once had a substitute teacher who skipped the conventional classroom lesson and gave us the opportunity to pose anonymous questions to her about anything and everything under the sun. The question I wrote on my strip of paper was: “why do bad things happen in the world?” At eight years old, I watched the news (maybe unbeknownst to my parents) and read enough to know that the world was imperfectly wild, and sometimes, disturbingly scary. I understood that there were bad people out there (and my parents cautioned me about this), but I didn’t really understand why. Apparently, my substitute teacher didn’t know either. When she unfolded my question and read it aloud, she sounded somewhat annoyed and amused, as if she couldn’t be bothered with such a silly question. I genuinely wanted to hear what she had to say. I thought she might impart some big-person wisdom, some insights that our parents were afraid to share, or even real-world advice on how to be a good person. But in a dismissive tone, she answered, “Because the world isn’t perfect and God gave us good people and bad people.” I no longer liked this game of hers. I was disappointed (thanks, Teacher, for humoring a kid). And then I had to sit through a dozen questions about the existence of unicorns, when we’d have recess, and why our teacher was really absent.

Twenty-something years later, I think I should be old enough to answer my question for myself, but in all honesty, I don’t have the answer. And yet, I imagine if I had to answer this question for an eight-year-old student, I would say that bad things happen in the world so we can better recognize the good, try to correct the bad, and propagate kindness instead of hatred. I suppose that’s the answer I would offer for any age, but would I offer that in any circumstance? In the wake of recent tragedies, this question is relevant because so many people are looking for answers. And maybe right now, the answer lies in how we, as a larger community, respond. As one of the victims of the recent Aurora shooting said, “The prayers of strangers do matter.” It matters that we care about our community, that we remember this day, and that we continue to propagate kindness. The Aurora tragedy is not a local tragedy – it is a national tragedy and a human tragedy in every sense of the word. It’s not enough to memorialize the fallen or sentence the guilty, we have to do better. We have to respond through goodness and shrug off indifference. We have to keep asking that question of ourselves and those around us and choose to stand on the side of good. We need to have these difficult conversations with our children, our students and our families. We have to believe that a kind thought matters. A good intention matters. And in this imperfect world that we live in, a prayer for a stranger matters.

On being 20

The things I thought about when I was thinking outside of the classroom...looking back, I'd have to say I was one part idealist, one part cheese ball.

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The purpose of life is not found in a static existence. One must always challenge oneself, voice one's opinions, seek daily inspiration and simply evolve. Humanity is not lost nor forsaken; it is merely in need of a reawakening.

Love starts at the eyes, is refined at the lips and progresses down the body. However, lust travels upward and may never reach the depth of the eyes or the lips.

Women are truly amazing creatures. Not only are we constantly reinventing ourselves and striving for higher self-awareness, but we also love to help other women improve themselves. No matter how old we get, we never get tired of giving each other makeovers.

To understand the world, place yourself outside of it, but to cherish this world, never cease to think about your place in it.

The mind echoes everything the heart wishes it could say.

----

The Course of Love

You ask why I couldn’t love you—
How I never let you in
Because my heart was impenetrable.
You ask why I let you go—
Why I denied your right to love me
Because I was terrified by Love.
I watched you leave me in silence
Because I couldn’t ask you to stay.
Your love gave me strength
But my loving you made me weak.
You loved me wholly and freely, I know.
But I loved you as one loves a dream.
I lived in it knowing it was fleeting
And awoke feeling as empty as I did complete.
It was never that I couldn’t love you.
I did love you.
I have always loved you.
My sin was in loving too much—
In holding onto a dream so tightly
That it faded into a perfect memory.
I love you as I miss you—deeply.

4/12/01

the human condition

We move about our lives in a sea of fellow wanderers. We float through the day in nameless crowds. At times, we hide away in our own thoughts or take refuge in our daydreams. If we stopped for a moment to think outside of ourselves, we might catch a glimpse of the other world happening around us. We might sense that the person sitting next to us at lunch is nervous because he is undergoing a life-changing experience, that the person we’re passing on the street is smiling because joy is abounding in his soul, or that the person waiting in line behind us is overburdened by a grief that is settling in his heart. Perhaps we can never truly know these things, but we have an immense capacity for sympathy, empathy, compassion and humanity. Kindness knows no currency, but its value is immeasurable. There is no shame in feeling or connecting. There is only embracing the human condition and crossing the boundary of indifference.

June 3, 2011

Untitled

How does one measure the tide of love?
Days too long, seconds too brief.
When we are entangled as one,
The essence of time is stolen.
We float between this world and the next
Ever forward, ever changing.
When I can be the one you dream of,
I remember that time yields to love, to us.

May 2009

To Love and Be Loved

I sometimes wonder about love. According to Plato, every person is in search of his missing half - the physical and spiritual half that complements and completes each of us. In popular culture, we know this half as "the one," often attributed to the workings of destiny and the product of fate. But it's very hard to believe that in our lifetime, with the many people we have come across and those we have yet to meet, there is only one person who was meant for each and every one of us. I believe that we each have numerous opportunities to love and be loved in the romantic context. I like to think that love is governed by free will and we are all able to impart our own magic. It is true that sometimes we can't control how and when we fall in love because the heart can speak louder than logic. I think the real beauty and magnificence of love lies within each of us - in our power to choose and make the experience of love our own.

2001

Nostalgia

The evening air is so mild and sweet
And yet it passes not as a breeze,
But as a strong current
That carries melancholic memories.
Heavy with introspection and
Roaming with countless smiles,
This wind sweeps by
But it lingers like spilled perfume
And ebbs like a sea of tears,
The zephyr wishes to continue on it way
But I trap it in my room
And pull it around me like a blanket.
It tastes bittersweet and refreshing.
It rises with a cooling warmth.
Its aroma does not release me.
The air is invigorating and at the same time,
It chokes me with gentle hands.

May 1999

Renewal

I think the last time I made a New Year's resolution was when I was ten years old. I swore that I would stop biting my nails so I could have pretty, feminine hands (i.e. non-tomboy hands). I don't remember how that panned out. This past year, I didn't make a resolution because I think my wish is always the same. I hope to be a more giving friend, a more forgiving person and an unconditionally supportive sister/daughter/partner. I want to nurture my relationships, feed my spirit and frolic in the park with my dogs. I don't want to ever feel indifferent about my life, my goals or my relationships. And, there is always room for self-improvement.

This past year has been one of revelation, liberation and renewal. I discovered and re-discovered people and things when I least expected it (that's the best). I find myself a little older and wiser and sublimely content with just being. Meaningful conversation is the best past-time. Spontaneity is a good motto to follow. Though we don't search for it, there is some form of regret no matter how small or how much we try to deny having even one. But importantly, we learn from it, let it go, and move forward. We try our best to make our own destiny, but just maybe, some things are written in the stars and only time will tell.