Ohh China: A Reflection
“你爱国家，国家爱你吗？”
“You love this country, but does this country love you?”
- 《苦恋》1980
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It’s been two years since I left China, but a recent article on The World of Chinese sent me home to memories buried in a year’s worth of pain, anger, frustration, happiness, unspent excitement, anticipation and love in a country I still on occasion, consider my motherland.
When I speak of China, multiple emotions arise. It’s hard for it not to be so complex.
It is hard when I recall the pain, sorrow, happiness, tears, and anticipation that I experienced in a year’s time as an identity-destroyed late teenager.
Looking back, the emotions were a torrential rain of the cumulative sorrow and extreme pain I have felt in my exposure to the deterioration of basic human consideration and rights in the mainstream social context.
Perhaps I’m just as little entitled to my opinion. As my experience in China hardly rounds off to a year.
And to be honest, growing up as a Chinese-American with a pre-Communist-escaping grandmother, Singaporean father and Taiwanese mother leaves me with very little exposure to the socio-cultural normative of modern China. But maybe I have a little bit of reason for feeling this way.
China reminds me of me.
I’ve always been an empathetic person. And the fact that China resembles a bluffing 15-year-old teenager fresh out of high school, in an accelerated college program, makes me want to give her a hug.
Tell her it’s okay. There’s no need to pretend to be strong when you’re still unsure about who you are. It happens to us all. Don’t put on heels when you don’t know how to walk. Don’t think you need to assume someone else’s identity to be popular. You can be strong. But you need to come to terms with your own body first. Love every part of yourself. Don’t force yourself into a diet. Don’t gorge on fast food when you stress out, unable to control the factors around you.
Eat healthily, simply, well.
Most importantly, you are young. You need time to spread your wings. Find yourself. You have so many who love you; you at the very bottom of these allusions, illusions, mirrors and smoke. We love the you who we know resemble what you truly are at the bottom of this whole ordeal.
But you need to accept us. We are not the social butterflies or popular queen bees, but you don’t need them. Societal fluff, decorative markers and badges are your least concern. You need sincere, true, proactive love. And you need it badly.
When fingers point towards you and ask you to take ownership of yourself, you can only curl back, feeling stung, cornered. And that’s understandable. Because really, you’re only in your late teens, 20’s. You have been enclosed on a track straight towards college, straight into the real world from your tight-knit circle of strict educational regimen, nourishment pills, babying parents. You, who only knew the world of textbook reality, were suddenly expected to flourish in a world interconnected without your existence and participation.
It was a harsh exposure. Blinding your naivete.
But, darling, you need to also stop using your youth as an excuse. Ignorance is never an excuse. And as you grow to be an adult, you need to accept your flaws. With dignity. With respect. As you mature, grow and begin to shed your downy feathers, remember your internal self. What is on the outside will never fully encompass your full beauty until you can come to terms with your internal identity.
Oh China, 我真的好爱好爱你.
But I can’t do anything if you don’t even love me back.
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“你爱国家，国家爱你吗？”
“You love this country, but does this country love you?”
Love,
A Concerned Loved One
@8 months ago with 20 notes#china #rambles #rant #love #change #culture #society #chinese #muslim
