An Excerpt

The Last Breath

2011-05-30T00:07:00.003+08:00

A shallow breath and a struggle of three small inhales greeted the way down vertigo. Forty some floors above impenetrable asphalt, a death that will be too quick to hurt waits. My tendons are trembling and my heart has stopped beating. In the back of my mind a voice reminds me of how this decision would not only hurt my soul but ripple through the minds of people that do not deserve to be haunted by what I am about to do. I denied the compassionate senses and want this moment to be suffocating and selfish. A chilling breeze caresses my hot face and I feel my throat churn in pain as burning tears dangled on the edge of my eyes. Nothing easy is ever worthwhile yet, what success is beyond my heartbreak does not tempt me to live another day.

Swaying in the passes of cause and effect, spawning emotions that cannot be ignored. When I have stopped thinking and my mind burnt from the heat of thoughts, my second mind—my heart falls into the swills of sentimental moods. Driven by the voices inside of me to inspire, achieve and destroy myself, I am frequently set apart from those around me…always falling into a dull background trying to paint it with my colors only to leave behind my inky stains and foul fingermarks. Accused and misunderstood, I cannot share my world with others, painted in the colors that I see. I slog through the constraining merits of each day with bruising limbs and live on forged hopes of a more certain time that may never come.

I am tired and I just want to fall and sleep without ever waking up to endless failures. Looking up I see stars for the first time in two years and ask God if He could lift me above the surface of time so I may let out a deep sigh. Climbing onto the rail, I thought of my mother and her screams of grief, I am too focused on my bargain with Divinity that I ignore the pain that the woman who gave birth to me could never learn to bear. I am tempted and deep in the pleasures of a perilous idea, absorbing the sweetness of liberation. I take in the mountain and the stars one last time and while slowly closing my eyes I feel my body losing its pathetic weight. Weight that I thought was bad. My balance surrenders and forward I feel my body fall against the sounds of the voices of people I love and echoes of people that could not love me. I hear a collision of words that persuaded me to hate myself, music so horrid it was ripping me apart faster than the forces of my anger. Expecting flight that never came, I felt an impact that shivered through my body as a hot tear trickled into a pool of crimson absorbed by the moonlit pavement. Along with the agony, my last breath was trapped in unbroken darkness.

“You are a star against a dark sky and that is why people see you. It is because you shine so brightly that people stare and search for your flaws.”

The Wind, the Mountain, and the Little Girl

2011-04-04T12:19:00.004+08:00

“Tonight you seem so different from when I first met you this past summer, you were just a little girl then and now you are more of a woman.”

A phase of hatred wanes for a compressed city so self-centered, unreliable and cash driven. All grace was lost in the midst of a dark eclipse where inky shadows seeped into deeply rooted values. Hong Kong sits on a side of a sphere that is clouded by the grapple of survival and spiritual sacrifice. I watched with murmuring silence as everything I believed in arched and curved before it completely dissolved like a drop of blood in cool clear water. From the ground up I was left with the disheartening task of reconstruction. My stances on life and all that it represented changed and I know now that nothing could ever be simple.

Every time I visited Hong Kong, I felt like a sailor dazed by a siren’s song or befuddled on the island of Lotus-Eaters. This city’s tacky neon signs light the way, veering me off course into the bosom of seductive rhapsodies where hypnotic stupors stirred dooming desires. My imagination grew plump on a velvet cushion as I fed it juicy thoughts from a gold platter. Alluring fantasies could be materialized and the wishful daydream I had of this city never felt out of reach. When the mantle of haze cleared, the unpredictable and unstable paths of reality and ideal collided into an awakening I was not ready for. I wrote an ending before a story and this made for a pilgrimage of agony in search of a lesson from circumstance. Out of frustration I plucked away my naïve sentiments as if they were merely feathers. I was a child on an adult’s playground when I lost the spirit of flight. I wanted to exceed the capacities of speed; I had not anticipated for walls of concrete or the fatal momentum of a caprice. My powers of innocence, mangled among the wreckage, were dead and gone. The days when I was special because I could make anything emerge by dreaming are over.

Blurry, like an opaque horizon hiding behind a shroud of mist, reality is there but it will not allow you to see the truth beyond. I have a job, a comfortable apartment and a home where I have honed a lifestyle of peace and solitude. Yet, I have friends that would jump off IFC Two with me if that were what I wanted to do. It’s okay, but not enough. Swimming against a current of the virtuous upbringing, I learned to be ungrateful. I take small fortunes for granted because reality is unrealistic and reaching for the reachable is never within a clinching grasp. Glossy ads with high-barreled marketing strategies cover every steel concrete surface prove that regardless of who you are, what you have there is always someone better who has more than you. Like a chord that has never been struck, feelings gripped every nerve and shook it with subdued sadness. Those preceding me have set standards that regard me no more remarkable and a little less of an ordinary girl. I find solace in an aligned confession that who I thought I am was a character in a resonant and fallacious fairy tale.

With little fragments and remaining scraps of self-love I submit that I am not special. Trying to stand in for a girl that is no longer there, I wiggle my unlovely toes into a shoe worn by her elegant and small sole. I feel the unease of tightness and blobs of flesh swelling into a painful desire to be like everyone else. Humiliated by individuality, I feel those little fragments conforming to standards that do not fit me. I do not own empires nor do I rule kingdoms, my parents are not emperors and my friends are not kings. My downcast mind flickers at kisses frosted with praise, succulent breaths and hasty luxuries that my heart cannot withstand. Look at me and see not me but reflections of unhinged insecurities, both yours and mine. When I see myself I feel not myself but a suppressed bellow caught in a spine. This city left me in disdained unsteadiness with a mouthful of sour tartness and an edict to continue my forward grey march up a mountain without a peak.

Across a checkered deck I see a queen that I will overcome with the makings of a pawn. Her upright eminence is a projection of the upward journey, which for her was a downward step. Beneath hoisted scruples, tucked into the sounds of rippling music, an occasion rigidly unfolds like a cramping tondu and I start a feeble waltz across the gridded floor. Never have I felt thoughts so heavy that they weigh down my cheeks and seesaw on the bridge of my nose. With a stale, insipid heart I fall one square closer to the other side regretting youth and the lack of advantage.

Nothing palpable is worth the chase, the reach or the madness. We live our lives with undefined limits in an arena of consumption. It was Steve Jobs who recently said, “It is not the consumer’s job to know what they want.” We are too easily influenced by what we see, what we feel, what is around us and what came before us that our routines have turned into a search for mundane satisfactions. In consequence, we fall into deep cradles of choice—a wry luxury in reality that makes life a little worthwhile. Options will never run scarce and I am privileged to exercise selection with perseverance while still affording to yield to a few bad choices. However, in an era of constant excess and living in a city that procures desire from loneliness, I stop exerting my willpower. I make the same bad choice too many times and wonder if instead of improving I am actually trekking backward toward the foot of the slope.

Like the cobblestones of Pottinger Street, the consequences of these choices have been stacked against each other, paving an uneven ascending path that leads to an opportunity to conquer the hills of Hong Kong. It is formidable hikes to the top of the peak and along the way I pick up pebbles and try to turn them into gold. On this journey, I somehow became the antagonist of my own narrative. I wear designer dresses, walk in expensive shoes, smear on high end cosmetics and still feel like the ugliest tear stained face hanging from the central limbs of Metropolis. Time is intoxicated by a rhythmic pattern of lurid illusions that are artificial and pixelated. Desensitized, unaffected by the corollaries of existence, we face each moment with three mouthfuls of liquor and lower our gaze at heavy memories that evaporate into fumes. In these crowded streets and crowded clubs I feel like the only one with a withering faith, attempting to fill the void. No one here will wander into the blazing cold against the sharp breeze of fervent winds or see that the mountain is worth fighting against.

I am still a little girl…but with a foiling determination and a mind that is slowly turning into frost.

The King's End

2010-01-10T14:27:00.000+08:00

One hot summer night in a small town called Kohala on the northern tip of the Big Island of Hawaii, a step father tucks his twelve year old step daughter into bed and asks her if she would like a bed time story. He has never offered bed time stories, this would be the first.

"There once was an king who had three wives. The first wife was of similar age to the king and often forgotten by him. She spent nights by herself waiting for him to visit her, which he seldom does. She suffered depression and always lost her appetite during the days she patiently waited. The second wife was fifteen years younger than the king. She was pretty, elegant and wise. The king often turned to his second wife over his advisory when governing his kingdom. The king's third and favorite wife was the youngest and most beautiful. She was not particularly bright, or wise, or loving...but she was the most desirable woman in all the land. Leaders of neighboring countries would envy the king for his third wife. The king felt powerful, envied, pleased that the most tempting woman was in his possession. He showered her with attention, gifts, privileges...his affections.

One day the king fell ill and lay in silence on his death bed. He summoned his third wife to his bedside and asked her if she would go with him. With no comforting words for her husband who was breaths away from the next world, she haughtily turned her heel and left him laying there in the darkness of the royal chamber. Heartbroken, the king thought back on all the gestures he made to his third wife in effort to express his sincerity and adoration, the king was certain that she had loved him when it was actually an illusion. He summoned his second wife, through watery eyes he looked at her and saw beauty that he did not see before. The king asked his second wife the same request. The second wife took his hand and told him that this was as far as she could accompany him. The king who had infinite riches, beautiful wives, abundance of wealth, splendid homes was unable to take any of it with him to a place where he will have to live to infinitude. He was afraid of death, afraid to be alone. The king closed his eyes and his second wife mistaken him for dead, lay down his hand and exited the chamber weeping. In the darkness of the corner a figure emerged. A thin, fragile and very gentle woman appeared. Her aging beauty was veiled by neglect, malnutrition and sadness. The king opened his eyes and saw his forgotten first wife who had been sitting in the dark the entire time, keeping him company. She had witness the first wife's cruel response, and the second wife's silent tears. The first wife told the king that she will go with him...and spend all of forever by his side. The king was overwhelmed with regret as he drew his last breath."

The step father explained to his daughter that this was an ancient Indian spiritual folk tale. The king represents us in our physical form. His third wife represented wealth, luxury, beauty. Objects and comforts that others might envy or make us feel good about ourselves and the lives in which we lead. The second wife represented family and friends. Those that we seek in time of tribulation. The first wife who was the most significant, represented the king's soul. At the end of each of our stories, the physical pleasures and securities that occupied so much of our life will be the one that betrays our expectations. Our loved ones can only escort us so far as we embark on the death journey. When they can go no further they will always remember and continue to love us in our absence. Our soul will be the only one that follows us beyond death, beyond space, beyond time... and to the end of all ends.

How an idea lead to my life's shade of gray

2010-01-10T13:57:00.000+08:00

It all began with an email to my friend.

Thu, Sep 17, 2009 at 11:10 PM

Personality versus Character.

I remember when I was in sixth grade my teacher Mr. Michaelis asked me, "Xi-Zhi, do you take pride in your personality or your character?" To my simple mind I thought the two to be synonyms, however, there are people out there that never take the time to weigh the differences of the two. When I asked Mr. Michaelis if there was a difference and what that difference was he replied, "Go home and think about it, but you have a very strong personality and an even stronger character."

It took me one evening to come to the realization that the two indeed are very different, yet one cannot exist without the other. I left middle school with this impression and all throughout high school I would find myself thinking from time to time of that day and that realization. And just a few moments ago that thought drifted through my idle mind and I thought of you. I thought of you and the picture you painted of the desires men have in Shanghai. I connected personality versus character to physical beauty.

Character is the mother of personality. There must be a solid character or foundation so that a healthy personality may thrive. Perhaps what we should all look for in others is not a good personality, but a stable character. Personalities can be replicated and deceiving, sometimes it is utilized as a mask and conceals a less desirable character. If you read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen or watched the recent movie, an excellent example would be Mr. Darcy. Under his cool and reserved exterior is a passionate and amiable man that no one in the book or the readers knew existed. In short, personality goes as deep as beauty goes. Skin deep. What matters most is what an individual believes in and what is at the core of his/her own universe.

I think of life as a beautiful basket filled with apples. The world being the basket and the apple being the people that fill the world with color, meaning and a reason for being. Those with good character shine with ripeness are the first to be noticed. Those with mild character can be polished with wax. Those with bad character, could have suffered from living in the shadows lacking the miraculous benefits of photosynthesis or fell from an insufficient tree. This is how I make myself forgive everything and everyone around me, it forces me to realize that people are the fruits of cause and effect just as a characters hone personalities. But the most important thing that I could have extracted from the realization Mr. Michaelis planted is that I can only be responsible for myself and my character before I can be harvested to nourish the health of our world.

Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 12:06 AM

Dear,

Deep thoughts. Intriguing. I like the parallels you drew between personality and physical beauty. But, again... you should try not to draw ABSOLUTE conclusions. Life becomes more cynical / grey / fuzzy as you get older. I do agree that character is the foundation of a person. It includes discipline, morals, ethics, etc. That doesn't mean that personality isn't equally as important. It's still the forefront of who you are and how you interact with the rest of the world.

You should take pride in both. =)

Goodnight.

Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 12:21 AM

Of course a personality is important. But it can also be forged. Actors and actresses do it all the time to take on a role they are playing. Just because a person isn't an actor by profession doesn't mean that person cannot act or adopt a personality not his/her own.

I take pride...in knowing and how to advance and protect myself from rotten apples.

---------

Little does my friend know, his words have been embossed into my memory...and whenever the gray moves a scale darker...i would think of this email exchange.

What is life, but a palette of black and white and its variations of gray?

The Darkest Shade of Gray

2010-01-03T03:12:00.000+08:00

I have not slept well in the past five months. Every night I watch the clock and desperately hope to fall asleep within the hour. When sky lightens, I fall into a thin sleep. What is it that gives me insomnia…never ending thoughts that I have abandoned but won’t leave me?

Three months ago I was told that as I get older, life will get grayer with uncertainty and I should not draw conclusions to every opinion. If I keep an open enough a mind, I was sure that would never happen. Three months passed, here I am...and my life is several shades grayer. Progress will not stop for me, and I am trying to keep up with people, finding work, not finding work, a lifestyle, travel, responsibilities, priorities, frustration – life. I am starting to think back on things I never think back on...and everything feels like a mistake. Do I hate myself? Not yet.

So much has happen in three months, life has completely transform in the course of six months--a year...it is frightening how much will change in a lifetime. Change keeps changing. What I wrote of change in my journals three years ago, is not the same change I face now. Change will stop at my final destination and that will be a change within itself. What will be the last smell I smell? Last thought I think? Last tear I cry, last face I see, last words I say? Those things...will be the last things that change while I am alive. Never has the end seem so mysterious and refreshing. Fear death...I fear not.

I am a corpse that I must drag to the very end. In that respect life becomes so much less perfect than how imperfect it was to begin with. Gray. All I have accomplished so far and all that I have outstandingly failed has flipped the axis of right and wrong, good and bad, mistakes and a job well done...Change has rendered my world backwards. All that I may take pride in, are mistakes. My colors are rapidly melting into puddles of gray.

I believed that I need to experience every form of unhappiness before I can understand the true nature of us. After unintentionally yet purposefully thrusting myself in the ways of emotional torment: the greatest thing I could do for life is to accept and forget change. I do not know what I want to do, I do not know if humanity is something that should be helped, I do not feel as ambitious as I once was. I have failed before I have even begun. I feel sorrow more than serene, regret more than reward, frustration more than satisfaction, I feel old more than I am young. Life is the darkest shade of gray and I will no longer pretend it isn't. Patiently, I have to wait to sink into the last shade—black...where life along with its agony...disappears.

Men were made only to help each other...

2009-07-15T01:48:00.000+08:00

Dedicated to Sandy Li who has inspired true friendship and enlightening wisdom.

“Men were made only to help each other…”
-Voltaire

The other day my father strolled through the streets of Shi Pu, a small town on the outskirts of Shanghai in a district called Jiangsu. He makes this trip on a daily basis for the freshly picked ripe mangoes that is sold for five RMB per pound. He pays with a ten RMB note and the farmer graciously accepts the bill, tucking it deep into her worn fanny purse. She digs its empty contents with her leathery hand for change and reluctantly pulls out a flimsy and stained note. The bill was beyond crinkled that Mao’s face has wilted like the petal of a dying flower. When my father returned home, he left that five RMB bill on the counter and promptly prepared the mangoes for our mid afternoon tea. I walked by and saw the currency note and I felt as if I had accompanied my father to the mango stand and watched the helpless woman fumble clumsily with what little she had and what little she made.

Most of us do accept these circumstances as fate or accept it as what it is. Part of the time it seems as if these people do not exist because of how little we associate with them.

Money, our sole benefactor, has given us nothing but insecurities and inadequate desires. How can paper dominate our lives to this extent? Life as we have come to know it is nothing unless we have money in our bank accounts. It is our credit. Eons ago when gold was still the currency of its day and trade was the main source of exchange, people were less able to enjoy wealth to its full magnitude. Perhaps it was the weight of the gold that made consumerism so incredibly inconvenient. Bills were invented to represent gold, and consumers everywhere could exchange these pretty pieces of paper instead of heavy pockets of coins. It was and still is a note of debt.

Apparently the more money you have or in other words, the more in debt you are, the more you are respected and the more you are allowed to enjoy a life of sumptuous luxury. However, the less money you have, you have to struggle through the labors of each day for a small wrinkled debt and society’s disregard for you. Even if these bills represent gold, it is not very likely you could go to a bank and very successfully obtain gold. These debts are worthless. What do these notes actually stand for in modern times if not gold? It stands for our credibility; it justifies us in society and our contributions towards it. However, could you go to a bank and slide fifteen dollars across the counter and say you want an hour of your life back? No, you can only buy goods and services from others to ensure that this horrific cycle never ends, wasting away something that is far more valuable than our precious paper bills…we are essentially are wasting our well being. And that is what each and every dollar is worth: the well being of each member in our society.

Our life has grown from the fertilization of debt; the desires for it and ways to further accumulate it. This in turn has produced a very selfish habit, lacking compassion and sensitivity in the health of humanity. We are so caught up in our mundane survival we have lost the true essence of living…and that is to co-exist and to help each other for a more stable community. There are countless things more important then the giddy stocking of wealth and spending. Our capacity to love each others benefit us far greater than our bank statements.

Thus the next time we extract crisp and fragrant bills from our expensive leather wallets, our pull out our sparkly platinum cards, may it be a faithful reminder:

Men were made only to help each other.

My Father

2009-04-02T16:13:00.000+08:00

I remember bits of my father’s funeral. My memory of it was recorded through eyes of a child. What I remember most vividly of the event was how mournfully boring it was. He died at fifty-six from lung cancer, and the ceremony had nothing to do with his fifty-six years of achievements.

Instead of a private funeral, my uncle and aunts turned it into a semi social event. None of the people invited posed sentiments of being friends of my father's. I had requested that we had a traditional Chinese ceremony and that everyone dressed in white. That morning guests arrived in dark suits, except one man who donned white by cultural default.

There was a procession of a wide green carpet, stained by the fluid remains of previous ceremonies. There were flowers, too much of it. They were ugly and fragrantless flowers. The seats in disarray, were portable folding chairs made from icy cold steel. There was incense, not enough of it. My father was in the back of the room; behind a withering alter that held his photo and the singular incense. He was wrapped burrito style in a white cloth with a big cross at its center. It felt like we were Chinese Buddhists, but abruptly converted to Christianity. I stood there and resisted it all. This was not how I wanted my father to leave me. Not by cancer, not without warning, not without comprehension and not without a decent funeral.

Before the ceremony began, all relatives stood around his sleeping body. The priest held his Bible and prayed in Cantonese. As the air conditioning roared, my father’s hair softly brushed his powdered forehead to the rhythm of religious verses. He was not Christian. I wondered why he was in this sleeping bag, why they had not bothered to dress him. My father looked on from his shut eyelids in peaceful slumber. If I had reached out that day and touched him, he would have woken to the ugliness of his own funeral. He somehow did not seem like he was gone.

The tears, soiled tissues, sobs, comforting pats reverberated a world that is rapidly becoming apart of the past. We all shed different tears. Mine was the regret that my father lived a lonely life, friendless and loveless, with even less happiness. This was our greatest lost.

The day before the funeral my mother and I came to visit the venue. He was confined upstairs in a private hall that looked the miniature replica of the funeral hall. I was frightened to see the body of my late father. I cried and scream. I had never been in the presence of anyone dead. My father was the last person I wish to witness first. He was the last person that should have died first. His funeral should have been the last for me to attend, but it was my first. My father was suppose to be alive when I graduated from an Ivy League, he was suppose to be alive when I put on a big white dress and married Prince William, he was suppose to be alive when I saved the world!

My mother comforted me and somehow I found myself in the room. My father laid in silence; his chest lacked the rise and fall of livelihood. I was overtaken by a violent storm of uncontrollable sorrow. My tall, handsome, suave father was a caterpillar in a Christ cocoon. Wistfully, memories of the times we walked together down the streets of Kowloon settled upon my small being. I was a child, always needing to crane my neck to get a glimpse of my father. He would powerfully guide me through the streets of Hong Kong or Shanghai. I was so incredibly young; my thoughts were still uncluttered with maturity. Now, with a light degree of age, I know how my father must have felt as he strolled in silence through hours upon hours with his only child from a failed marriage. We had a relationship with few words but many feelings. We were content holding hands in the crowds; there was no word in any language that could have clearly shown our affections. The day before the funeral was the first time I had to lower my eye level to look at my father who was more helpless than I had ever been small in size. And that same hand I held would soon become a fistful of ashes.

From the funeral hall we had to transport his body and a busload of people to the crematorium. Each of us was given a white rose to place atop his coffin. I was first to place my rose on the smooth glossy surface of mahogany, and I remember thinking that this will be as close I can ever be to my father for the last time. I was given the “honor” of switching on the rotary belt that carried his body into the flames. Everyone present was starving and hungrily watched me slowly and hesitantly fulfill my daunting task. It was when he was swallowed by fire that it hit me: my father is dead.

After that, my uncle and aunts kept me from my father’s estates. I was denied the privilege of the fading deceased. No tokens of remembrance, no pieces of furniture, no remaining photographs. I was the forgotten niece who, on that day, dies with the younger brother. And I never spoke to any of them since.

I had expected my father live pass the day I learned to communicate so we may fill the void. We could have strolled down the same sultry streets and he could have said more to me in his smoky voice and I would have replied. That never happened and the further I move in time his memory continues to recede into the past. All I can see was how incredibly young my father’s daughter was.

My father loved in his own way. His mother was a Shanghainese Opera singer under the starlight of local fame. She married a wealthy man who already had a few wives. Together they gave birth to five children, my father being the fifth. During grandmother’s fifth pregnancy, her husband decided to marry again, this time a younger woman. In turbulent disappointment, my grandmother left, taking with her all five children. When my father was born, he was completely fatherless. With no examples to live by, he made due what he could from across the Pacific. He would send me small notes, cards, artwork, stamps and sequined flowers while I studied in the States. Letters in cryptic Chinese characters accompanied all the little surprises. My mother read them to me, I would place it on my desk and somehow they disappeared. It was after all a small note, something I received often and something I expected forever bountiful.

I am piecing together my incomplete father. The saddest memory I own of him was the last time I visited his apartment. His home smelled of conditioned storage and mothballs. He was wearing a white polo shirt tucked into his belted trousers. Holding a quarter full one-liter coke bottle, he took a gulp from it. My father lived alone and does not use cups, utensils or china that belongs to him. I was too young to have realized that he was severely lacking love. I secretly forgave him for my mother, who’s soul is still in shatter pieces from a ruined marriage, then I decided to locked away all of my affections until one day when I became older.

Now all I have is the resurfacing of all my childhood secrets and hidden emotions. I want to write him a letter of confession and either put it in a bottle then hurl it into the sea or tie it to a helium balloon and release it into the sky. Through the thick storm of the waters and rough currents of the air, my message would reach him unharmed as he continued to sleep a breathless sleep beneath the twilight of eternity…peacefully several worlds away.

X Philosophy

2009-02-15T01:24:00.000+08:00

My ideals of culture, intellect, romance and spirituality are the engines of my creative awareness. I often see images of a modern entity grounded by culture. In other words, a lifestyle with nuances of significance and origins. I savor wisdom that has been aged through centuries of distortion and enduring accumulation. I softly inhale the warm aromas of failure, success and their seed, culture. The low notes of fallible mistakes illustrate enduring ambitions and strength, in combination with nostalgic high notes that ends all suffering. I feel my life as a light caress, a romance and a balance of contradicting ideas that brings forth an abundance of inspirations. A perfect love story with playful humor and comfort. I hear melodies of achievement, kindness and unconditional affections. These sounds of triumphs and the chorus of everlasting beauty are orchestrated by unity. Finding happiness in the darkest and lightest of situations appeal to my senses and it will be the philosophy that I will loyally portray to the fashion universe.

With Infinite Love,
WONG XI ZHI

Metrolink Memo

2009-01-20T09:14:00.000+08:00

A morning a year ago, my Metrolink train pulled into LA Union Station. Quickly I scribbled on a piece of tracing paper the following:

The very essence of life is to live and be happy. When one has reached total elation would it matter if he lived on the streets or in a mansion? Would a living domain affect one’s never ending journey to find happiness? Individuals that are assets to our economic stability are privileged to make sufficient money to remain in the lower of the upper class, while everyone slaves below them barely meet the ends of each day. We, as a society, struggle with the cruel realities of life and the endless insecurities, assuming that mundane necessities can make us happy. It hurts me to imagine that people are so unfulfilled they relay on multiple designer labels stitched into their collar shirts or printed on their leather handbags to experience one second of a happiness that I often take for granted. Everything seems so pointless now, for I cannot indulge in success if I cannot take all of humanity with me.

How little life has to offer and how much less I am able to contribute.

Affectionately Detached

2009-01-15T08:38:00.000+08:00

Time has come for me to pack up my own existence and disappear from a world that you and I have created. This feeling is all too familiar. I have done this so many times and so frequently that the only thing that becomes a bother about transpacific or continental relocation is not leaving behind a house I grew up in or friends that I have come to love. It is packing the pieces of myself into flimsy cardboard boxes. I did not inherit my mother’s brilliant ability in packing; I am far from keen when it comes to storage space. Thus, when it comes time for another move, I always fail at utilizing those boxes.

The emotional complication of this particular move is that it is happening. One might think it would be becoming an ex-patriot, culture distress and inability at first securing employment prior to moving to China or leaving people that has taught me to love myself. No, it is the concept that expectations are nothing short of my hopes that engender a feeling of confusion. In the recent months I have prayed to be as far as the Earth will allow from Southern California. It was my short-term dream and I want this more than I want a job. Now that it is materializing and the immense velocity that is propelling me toward this desire frightens me ever so slightly.

Dreams come true; in spite of this the credit is not conferred to one’s determination, strength or perseverance (although these qualities are elements of all things ambitious). In my experiences what is important is diligence, honesty, faith and simply refusing to compromise with obstacles.

The biggest obstacle in life is attachment. All our heartaches are shank to our attachments of sentiment, ideal or fear. I learned at a young age at the expense of a friend named Zac that separation is necessary if one ever wanted to progress in life. Attachments only hold people back and create an unfulfilled potential. Aside from the mushy messages of our modern morals and the Astro level affections we have for one another, a bird cannot fly if it is tied down. It is not unethical to fly away from your friends and eventually parents to build a life of your own. It is simply the course of nature. We part from the source of origins and fly far away to root ourselves once again. Our children, our seeds will do the same. It is predestined.

As for my friend Zac, I never spoke to him again. I am not even completely sure if “Zac” is his name. I could have had a friend to tell people I went to pre-school with or someone to dub as my “diaper buddy.” But giving up such a precious friendship was beyond my control and decisions at the time. My parents were moving therefore I must move as well. With no decent farewell I woke up one morning in an empty apartment in Malaysia with no prospects of ever returning to a life where a “Zac” existed. If I had not moved, my upbringing would have been completely reversed. I would have no individuality or the freedom to develop a character. I would not have determined my dreams and my life would have been postponed. I thank the divine power that was at work during that time and for making that choice for me and introducing me to the existence of affectionate detachment. It might seem like personal gratification before common decency, though I assure you there is not a day that passes where I will not remember Zac. Maybe if I am lucky I might run into him and I could make it happen by simply dreaming of it. However in reality Zac would be a completely different person. He would not be the same innocent, honest and kind-hearted boy that I spent recess with in pre-school. Even though I make efforts to live in my ideals many people live in reality. In my world there is no room for Zac, a boy of his privileges and circumstance will not have accepted my terms. Furthermore, his reality would reject me as well.

This was so many years ago it feels like a previous lifetime. I have moved numerous times since then, I have met countless of people since Zac. But we all have parted in the same way. The more people I become friends with, become attached to, fall in love with the greater my aspirations grow, the stronger my desire to expand grows and the further from them I hope to fly. No obstacles of attachment stand in my path of flight. The further I go the more I value those same people and the harder it becomes for me to forget them.

If only i could....

2009-01-06T14:57:00.000+08:00

I hear my life as a heartbreaking love song that brings to life ancient chivalry and the very essence of a love too perfect for existence. In this distorted dimension that same sentiment causes more suffering than happiness. People unmask a horrific nature to nourish and duplicate an internal pain. All things glorious are turned to shambles and ruins of a non-existing emotion. The simplistic offerings of life itself are no longer a common standard, but rather a manifestation of our miseries.

If I could I would write the word “Love” on every square inch of the Earth’s exposed surface. Then fill it up as I would with a balloon with all my affections and let it drift away.

If I could I would take all our mistakes and tie it around my pinky to promise us an end to consequences.

If I could I would collect all our bad experiences and weave a blanket, so we may be kept warm by the wisdom we have attained and relieved of the pain.

I want to give you the world so you could wear it as a pendant and be reminded of the love, courage, devotion, faith and most importantly…your existence.

I want to do these things for you. Would you do these things for us? Would you do it lovingly for yourself?

Would you let you be happy?

If you must ever feel sad:

Fill a page up with the word “Love.”

Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love
Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love Love

My Trip To HK in June..or was it July?

2008-09-29T13:33:00.000+08:00

So, another quarter break that has been eagerly anticipated since the first day I stepped into the classroom. Finally a break from the taunting Illustrator files, empty bobbins and marker fumes come a small yet abundant amount of break time. Still slightly tense from the quarter that has ended; looking back I commend myself for the six units and sudden trip to France following the preordained finals. Thank God, it’s over. For now at least.

Sadly, this next week (since one week has already elapsed in my precious holiday) I will not be travelling anywhere, but the distance between my kitchen and bed. It is a blessing rather than a misfortune. I have yet to report of my last trip to Hong Kong!

One late afternoon my friend met me after work and we went to Soho. She showed me that there is more to Hong Kong than busy streets, expensive cars and designer labels. Between the Central limbs of this metropolis hides a winding road of art galleries, antique shops and quaint restaurants. It is here that I discovered many fascinating paintings. One should never rely on the first impression of contemporary art. Compared to what we think oil paintings should be or what we were taught, modern art is an image of truth; rather than the ideal images of a painter.

Reluctantly, we can now be those ideals. If that is not enough then that is where Photoshop intervenes. We have the clothes, cosmetic products and services-even condos, apartments, penthouses, townhouses, houses in general, villas, mansions…cribs to yield an artist’s ideal. Beautiful things are art; however, it is not something we should be blinded by. It is often in ugly things that we find the most satisfaction in. Moreover, if a beautiful object has no substance, no historical or sentimental value, no reason for existence other than being beautiful, then it is inevitably destined for boredom. To say otherwise would be an insult to the intelligence mankind.

That afternoon I found a painting that left me with more sadness than any painting could ever. The grotesque portrait was of a Eurasian girl with big round hazel-green eyes that sank into her grey flesh. She was blurred by the dusty strokes of the artist’s hand; her face was framed by the protrusion of her oily black hair and skeletally bare shoulder. On the bridge of her nose, cheek bones and forehead were deep blaring black scratches. Her ugly-beautiful face showed no signs of pain; just the battered spirit that has adapted to despair and harsh exposure. This girl was one of the most alluring creatures I have ever encountered and is forever embossed into my memory.

I go to Shanghai at least twice a year and now with more frequent trips to Hong Kong. Both places are so mysterious and sentimental. Like an incomplete romance, I like going back in hopes of one day completing it. Every time I depart for the states, I have a desolate longing to stay behind for a bit longer to accomplish some unknown, unfinished business. After this particular trip, I left with happiness and no desire to stay. I was happy to be leaving, which make this the most significant of any other and any more travels to come.

A Quote

2008-07-12T21:11:00.000+08:00

Due to the combination of insomnia and jetlag I found time and inspiration for another blog entry.

“Walk down the path of life looking straight ahead; not down or behind you, so that you will not collide into a tree or pass an opportunity.”

What seems like another cliché statement that is quotation-worthy. It was the last part that really caught my attention: “…or pass an opportunity.” As we go through life, it is inevitable that we face adversity in relationships, friendships, careers, schooling and ourselves. What does one do in the time of tribulation, when words of comfort are futile and the things we love become lifeless? Do not complain about not knowing what to do when the natural laws of life is steering us out of misfortune. Leave what is done behind so when another chance comes, it will not be blindly passed.

Waking of the Dragon

2008-07-07T14:21:00.000+08:00

“China is a sleeping dragon,” my mother would say to me when we were living in Shanghai. Those were the post-revolutionary decades, the days before colors; life was a black and white memoir. In the morning the city would be snoozing under a mantle of fog and dust. In the evening families gratefully clicked their chopsticks against their rice bowls under the russet twilight. I woke up to these insipid days, after washing up I stood by the window for an hour and observed the very few very colorless people that walked below me. Fifteen years later, China has burst and boomed into an economic mecca and nurtured a generation that requires more than a bowl of rice to be grateful. The Me generation is made up of single children that are the source of China’s new economic contributor of consumerism. Sprouting from the people that suffered the repercussions of the Culture Revolution, seeds were planted in these children rooting them into the importance of wealth and success rather then the importance of China's distinguished philosophical virtues. The Me generation made a historical contribution to the economic expansion of China while misaligning the inner principles of its country; this could cause civil turmoil or the escalating growth of China to be instantly compressed.

The Me generation has acquired wealth; they are the clever businessmen in China and indulge from their work efforts. Paolo Gasparrini, head of L’Oreal China, comments to BBC News that young women in China are expediting into new trends and living styles as their working ability becomes widely accepted. Huang Hung, publisher of 17 Magazine, remarks “ Chinese men are starting to groom themselves…Physical appearance is becoming more important in their daily life, they go to more interviews, they switch jobs, they date.” These factors have supplied China with a consumer base population, much like America. According to Ms. Huang, these young adults have attained a standard of contentment and choose to focus on personal aspects of their lives. There are three hundred million adults under the age of thirty that makes up the Me generation in China. This demographic are stokes that support the ever-increasing economic power. Wang Ning explains to TIME, “We are more self-centered. We live for ourselves, and that’s good. We need to have the strength to contribute to the economy. That’s our power. The power to contribute. That’s how our generation is going to help the country.” The generation is not afraid to spend their income. Why should they not? Compared to the Lost Generation that suffered the revolution where many did not graduate from high school, a quarter of the Me Generation finished college. They work hard in school and later in their vocation; the money they make should compensate their tedious efforts.

The Me generation adopted a heavy load of responsibilities from their parent’s expectations. Professor Fucius Yunlan explains to Yahoo News, “They [the parents of the Me generation] have ignored the emotional education of their children…” Parents from the Lost Generation heaved themselves into work in hopes of a better life and pushed the same ideals onto their single children. The idea of marrying into financial stability is a concept parents are embracing. They feel that children could be protected by the power of the marriage and could live off the spouse’s wealth. A secretary who remains anonymous testifies to Yahoo News, “If you marry into a rich and powerful family, you don’t need to plan anything as everything will be set for you smoothly and perfectly…It will be a comfortable life. Why should we endure a hard life?” This attitude is a resolution to a suffering that a new generation did not have to bear, but have nevertheless accepted. Marriage proposal is nothing but a business proposal, if a better opportunity comes along; nuptials suffer divorce. Experts note this phenomenon is the result of the single-child policy that caused families to over pamper their child. “They are weak in horizontal bonding, communicating with the same generation,” added Professor Fucius, “They tend to apply a vertical approach to horizontal relationships.” This reflex germinated an era of accumulating wealth versus fostering relationships; alas, the influence of poverty altered the judgment of a culture that is notorious for its deep virtuous traditions.

China has transformed into an international mega power; however, the abandonment of philosophy and application can also send this country culturally spiraling downward. During the age of dynasties and emperors, the study of philosophy, ideals of Confucius and Lao Tzu were the basis of the imperialism. It was the foundation that made China resilient of political wrinkles and the edification that flourished learning, critical thinking and the fine arts. In The Living I Ching, by Deng Ming Dao it explains I Ching (“I” mean “change” and “Ching” means “canon”) as “a compilation of texts and commentaries from as early as 12^th century B.C.E. It has been used as a source of wisdom and as a book of divination…since the Changes central tenet is that all circumstances result from the interactions of nature’s impersonal forces…” It is an attitude in understanding of nature and how it can be used to shape life. For instance, in Doing Business in China, by Tim Ambler and Morgen Witzel, it is written that Chinese culture has a propensity to save money. They believed that if one had money the excess should be saved for times of need. Hidden wealth was often practiced, families with money would hide it by purchasing modest necessities. Contrary to the recent where the belief of “money attracting money” is upheld and wealth is paraded. A modest individual is humble out of strength, it is virtuous. By being humble it allows one to go beyond the limits of self and without the need to prove anything, thus there is an advantage to ascertain truths. This is an example of Lao Tzu theory, how it was applied culturally and how it was instantaneously erased in a sweep of a generation. A generation that has left the priceless scriptures to corrode in library air conditioning and cleaning detergents will live without moral standards and peace between equals, fulfillment of internal values and virtuous respect for others. What the enchanting Middle Kingdom might have seemed to Marco Polo with reservoirs of beauty and a noble structure that governed the country by philosophy, disregarding warlords and massacres, China was observed with intellect and grace. The impression is etched into history; in spite of this, sustaining such nobleness is far from the matters that permeate the minds of China’s youth.

Looking out of a 747 aircraft before a smooth landing on the runway of PuDong International Airport, the Oriental Pearl Tower and Jin Mao Building shimmer against an artificial night sky. I am flying coach and the female passenger behind me is not but a year older than I, dons a cashmere coat, suede boots, and Chanel diamond earrings. Nostalgic from my people study years ago in sharp contrast to the obscene truth, is a memory mutated into a shame. Fearful that China might turn into a domestic consumer base country, living out the Lost Generation’s visions, and forgetting the essence of virtues that once generated peace. It is more than a culture, it is a formula to remain balanced and eliminate expiration. Without scholarly fundaments the economies will self destruct, there will be no inner organization that could keep the country standing. Countries such as the United States with a weak government infrastructure is the cause of plummeting stock markets, increasing inflation and tax, inadequate healthcare, shortage in export and surplus of import, etc. Such a bold country made one error, by operating in hopes of what one could gain instead of what a country would gain. It is driven by the horror of having the ability to provide and protect skinned away. The solution has been derived before Common Era, would humanity choose to hide in the shadows of delusional fear over ratifying it? What if we stop teaching students the answers and start teaching them to think? What if we dismiss politicians and employ philosophers? Essentially the economic situation in China is one to be celebrated, enjoying the abundance of wealth should be every man’s right. However, as beings with intelligence it is a conscientious honor bestowed upon us to propagate virtues that would assist humanity.

When the wheels of the menace aircraft scraped the surface of the stripe, I heard the roar of the dragon and felt the heat of the fire he breathed. In a swift second his cylinder body wiped the frigid atmosphere, sending strong currents of a storm against the sides of the plane. A harmonies ring of Blackberries, Nokias, Sony Ericssons and the elite of mobile generations was retorted with a chorus of “Wei?” I looked at my mother and imposed, “Has the dragon awaken?”

What Xi-Zhi Really Thinks

2008-06-19T13:00:00.000+08:00

I'm not the blogger type. In fact it is with great courage and consideration that I write this blog entry.

Many will vouch that I am the girl that yells from the front of the classroom, dances/struts down the corridors, make sexual remarks in Econ class or even more horrifying (in the embarrassing way) sing The Sound of Music and The Phantom of the Opera songs in front of a whole class. I will not get it…Perhaps I have a learning disability or slightly mental; regardless, I feel that the fault lies with me that I allow people to have these wrong conceptions.

I am trying to prioritize so that I could achieve my short and long term goals in life. However, being overly ambitious, I crave to expand my interests beyond fashion. Realistically I cannot major in fashion, fine arts, marketing, art history, philosophy, psychology, literature and Chinese. Even so what will I do with my life? I have drafted and redrafted multiple plans to achieve what I originally set out to do. Now that I am at FIDM, I wonder to myself; I am going to make clothes in exchange for survival?

Suddenly everything seems inane. I do not want money, I want happiness. Thus my train of thought departs as I pass through several tunnels of epiphanies. One of which imposes: If I only had a few years to live, what is most important to me? Schooling will definitely not matter since I will not employ the knowledge acquired. Family and friends, then those memories do not belong to me. Ultimately, I want to make a difference in this world. I feel a lot of love but do not know where to put it or to whom I should bestow it on. It is only with short-sightedness that I realized how enchanting those around me are. Even a stranger on the street captivates my interests and I would find myself thinking about him/her during class lectures.

Seeing the world in positive light makes the world a better place to reside. At times it is difficult to experience the optimism; the standards and images that our society is built upon pushes us to become slaves to the system. Wealth and status or just basic survival is our incentives. I cannot decide who on a two-class, three-class ladder suffer more: the greedy rich or the stingy poor.

I have been lucky and received exclusive comforts and flaunting them carelessly, insensitively in all forms possible. I have also been on the other end of watching someone else have more than I do and wonder why I am not good enough to be privileged and graces with the same things. Truly ignorant, it took me several trials before I connect those dots and applied both instances. The first instance just reflects how insecure and immature I was. I have to rely on those senseless objects to justify myself as an individual. The latter is even more so mortifying after I realized how I trap my audience(s) in such awkward scenarios.

How to respond to these sorts of people? Mind that I do not have anything against either; it is due to the unforgiving circumstances that fuel this nonsense. What is worse, I will have to be working in an industry that thrives on such desires. This precedence is stimulated by pretentious illustrations of what acceptance is.

For someone like me, so obsessed and preoccupied with my own vanity, I still cannot find it in myself to live sumptuously for long periods of time. I believe that at equilibrium everyone can have everything they want. Even if the world is over populated and resources run scarce, the universe is not and will not.