My Journey To Happiness

I spent a whole year of 2016 reading, meditating, and healing. I am proud to say that I have overcome my depression, and during this process, I have discovered how powerful the impact my parents have on me. 

Both my father and mother were very abusive when I was a kid. I constantly got beaten up, sometimes with a steel stick, sometimes a wooden stick. The time when I didn’t get beaten, it was haranguing, yelling, insulting, and slaps on the face. At least my father beat me up for a reason, either for less-than-expected performance at school or teachers’ minor criticism, or not behaving at home. My mom simply beat me up because she had a bad mood. 

I stopped having genuine and real conversations with them since I was 13. Our conversations were very mechanic, about logistics, saying hi and bye. As part of my healing of my heartbreak, I read a self-help book that asked me to list all the good and bad traits of my parents. Surprisingly, I couldn’t list one good trait on my mother’s list. She told me everyday that I was ugly, useless, and unlovable. She’d rather have a dog than me. Gradually her voice and my father’s voice had become my inner voice, the voice of the demon that lived inside me, the voice that told me I was worthless, unlovable and I’d better die, the world would be better without me. 

I hated my parents for a very very long time. Even though I think I have forgiven them by now, at age 30, there are still constantly moments that triggered me of those dark times in my childhood. I hated my childhood and my teenage. I always felt trapped, controlled and powerless by my parents. The only dream I had was to be free from them, and the dream I had the most in my sleep was flying free in the sky alone. I left home once I finished high school, and I never looked back. 

Though from time to time, I suffer guilt of not communicating with my parents, due to the fact that I am their only child, and they are aging. I definitely feel much happier not having them in my life, not even in my mind. 

I went to visit my friend Isaac in hospital the other day, and had a nice chat with his father Andrew. Until then I realized how much I have suffered in my life without having a parental guidance in my life, a father like Andrew who is wise, patient and kind. I learned all my lessons by trials and errors. I never have a parent that I can talk to, or seek comfort, advice or guidance from. 

I wonder many times, would I have lost the man I loved if I had had a parent who could guide me or at least listen to me? Well, I would have never known that if I hadn’t lost him. The loss made me realize about my issues, and from learning about those issues, I realize where they came from. 

I still suffer a low self-worth as an aftermath from my childhood abuse. That has proven to be detrimental in my pursue of a romantic relationship. I take things very personally, and never think I am enough. 

My good friend Tallie suggests that I should ask the question “why not” when my low self-worth is banging on my head again, to overturn the judgment I put on myself. 

It’s been seven months since I came back to New York from Shanghai. It’s also been seven months that the man I loved has ghosted me since I told him I loved him. During these seven months, I checked his social media twice. The first time was to find out who his girlfriend was, and the second time was to find out if they had broken up yet. Both I ended up crying all night. And during these seven months, I have also read 25 books, went on three Tinder dates.

Somehow I am still waiting for him to apologize to me. I didn’t expect him to love me back, but at least a “thank you. I am sorry.” would be nice. I guess he has completely forgotten about me. He looked so in love and happy with her, every picture and social media update is a stab to my heart. 

My therapist said knowing that checking out his social media will hurt me but still going ahead and doing it, I became the person who hurt myself. She is right. So I haven’t checked his social media anymore. But I still wonder about him, and wonder if he has ever wondered about me. 

Sometimes I have this picture in my mind that next time I open his Facebook profile, it will be his wedding pictures all over his page. Even knowing that, it will hurt every time I saw a love scene in the a movie, or split couples got back together, or someone in real life bragging about her boyfriend in front of me. 

I am still here, all alone. And I am turning 30 this year. Still alone.

Sometimes I wonder if there is anyone for me in this life on this earth. He was not even my boyfriend because he had never given me a chance. Or maybe he had. At this point, it’s whatever I choose to believe.

I did learn something new though. It’s this American dating culture. He used to tell me he just want to hang out, and I had no idea what that meant. I thought it meant he didn’t like me. So I cut him off again and again because I needed the space and time to move on. But recently I learned that “hanging out” is what I called “causal dating.” It’s the same thing, but I should never use the word “dating” in this stage, even if it’s “casual.” The guy will freak out at the sound of “dating.” It’s not even “a relationship,” or “marry.” American guys are so selfish.

Adele’s “hello,” “Someone Like You,” and Carrie Underwood’s “Good in Goodbye,” have been playing nonstop on my iTune. I know I will get there however long it takes. Sometimes it just takes longer to heal a broken heart.

My therapist said I will get my apology in 10 or 20 years, by that time, it won’t matter to me anymore. Ten or 20 years, huh. 

When I moved back to China before my visa expired, Zach was the last person I saw. As he sent me off to the airport, he gently kissed me, and said “Come back.” It became something I held on to, as well as the paper he gave me with his address and phone number on like a sacred object in my purse.

Then I was gone for six months.

My visa in the U.S. expired after I could not find a company who was willing to sponsor me a work visa. Media is a tough business, and getting a sponsorship on top of a job is extra difficult. Like many others, I failed, and I had to go home. The difference was I didn’t want to go home. Growing up in an abusive family, home for me means manipulation and control. Plus my career is here, and the man I secretly loved is here. 

I met Zach in the second year when I was in the U.S. He introduced me to a lot of American culture, and he took the time to teach me driving and help me get a driver’s license. Growing up with abusive parents and lots of physical bullying at school, I never had a man being so kind and caring to me in my life. I had fallen in love before, but it either ended up being lied to or rejected. I was very careful, extremely careful, with men. They all want something from me, I always told myself, and they don’t care if they hurt me.

But his kindness teared down all my walls. He helped me write professional emails, taught me to control my anger, and listened to my frustration. He helped me see what I couldn’t see about myself. He wrote me long texts, and answered every one of my questions. He filled a hole in me, and I fell in love, but I didn’t know. I only wanted to have a date with him, but he always said no.

Because of that, we fought, over and over again. And I cut him off, over and over again. Then I always went back, because I always remember his kindness, and because I loved him.

When I went back to China after living in the U.S. for four years, I was confronted with profound counter-culture shock, loneliness, and severe depression. I don’t know that place anymore, everything seemed so foreign to me. Police corruption and being forced to become homeless while having no one to turn to pushed me into the abysmal of depression. I cried every night when living in a motel. My old friends in Shanghai all turned their back on me. I had no one to talk to, and nowhere to go. The Internet censorship prohibited me to connect with my support system in the U.S. through social media. I felt like I was dumped into a cage that no one knew about. I was scared. I was lonely, and I missed Zach. He was the only one I thought about. 

“I miss you.” I texted him.

“Miss you too boo.” He texted back.

But then something quickly changed. His answers became shorter and shorter, and came less and less frequent. I sent him postcards after postcards, but it was dead silence from the other side of the world. Maybe he is busy, I wondered, maybe he didn’t see my emails or postcards.

As days passed by and the uncertainty of ever obtaining a new visa became strong, a fear grew inside me. I might never be able to go back to the U.S., I panicked. “Come back.” His voice rose up in my mind, and all I could hear was my weeping echoing in the night. 

Fear and panic quickly turned into anger, massive anger. How can he be so distant and leave me suffering here all alone? He replied, in an email, that he simply couldn’t keep track of friends that are faraway.

Wait, since when did I go from “boo” to “friends that are faraway?”

I immediately knew we were over, but I didn’t know why. I cried and cried and cried, and a dark thought started to rise. I started making a plan, a plan from the demon inside. “Come back.” Then I remember he said to me.

Six months later, I finally got my visa. I thought I would have a talk with Zach, and everything would be OK, we would start over. So the first thing I did after I got back to the U.S. was to contact him, but he said he was too busy to see me because he was with his girlfriend.

What? I felt a knife just stabbed right into my heart. A girlfriend? But I love you. I wrote back. It was dead silence, again, and ever since.

Pictures of him and his girlfriend started popping up on his social media, and everyone of them was a knife in my heart. I was furious, heartbroken, and extremely sad. I took the courage to tell him those three words while expecting a rejection because I believed in the man that he was. Yet he ran away like it was some kind of a disease. How hard is it to say “Thank you. I am sorry?” Why her? Why not me? Three years of friendship only made him ghost me? Would he have given me a chance if I were American?

I came back to New York, depressed, wounded and heartbroken. Even though I cut him off from all my social media, even though I deleted his number from my phone, every text we had, every email we exchanged, and the only photo we took together, that image of him and his girlfriend smiling to the camera could never be wiped out from my memory. He could never be wiped out from my memory.

I googled everything about her, dug out all of her social media profiles, and read into every detail, trying to find out the answers to the those questions.

Then I paused.

He had answered you, I said to myself, his silence had answered you.

After months of therapy, I am finally back on my feet. It was so strange that everything felt like home in New York. People here still see me as a foreigner, but for me, this is home. Zach has broken my heart open. I could finally see the demon inside me. It includes the 8-year-old who wondered why her father never said “Happy birthday” to her, the 9-year-old crying in the corner after her father brutally beat her up in front of her friend, the 10-year-old looking at the new scar on her ear that healed from the wound her mother made, the 12-year-old who wished she died after being beaten up by the boys at school, the crying 13-year-old who watched her mom destroy her birthday, the trembling 14-year-old who put down the knife that she planned to stab into her heart, the silent 16-year-old who just learned about her chronic illness and resented everything in the world, and the 29-year-old who still lived in the shadow of her past and wondered why no one could see that. 

I wouldn’t have found out the darkness inside had Zach not left me with such cruelty. Neither would I have found the peace and happiness now.

Some people are only meant to be your teacher, not your boyfriend.

Have I told you about my relationship with books? 

I am reading Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild” currently, and got so inspired by her passion for books. So many of my favorite current authors have such a deep and passionate relationship with books. So I am compelled to tell mine.

I love books, and more accurately I love stories. It had been my only escape and hobby and entertainment for a very long time throughout my childhood and teenage. In the working class family I grew up in in a small city in southern China, TV and books were the only entertainment we had. For some reason, radio wasn’t a big thing. And Internet or computer were far from existence in my household. I got my first computer and email address when I went to college in 2005, when it had become so common to everybody else. 

For a working class kid, we didn’t have to juggle with all those ballet or piano lessons. We were pretty much on our own after school. TV and cartoon was a big or major entertainment back then, but the hours were short, and they were easily cut off by my father as my punishment for not getting top grades or talking back.

So books were the only thing left. As a little girl, I loved all those fairytales. I would turn on the cassettes and listened to them over and over again. My mother would buy me those books and I would read over and over again until I remembered every word, every story, every character. 

Back then, we liked to write naughty notes about other kids in class. It was nothing serious but normal kids prank, but the conservative, dogmatic and communism brain-washed teachers thought it was the end of the world. So we got reported to the parents. I got beaten up. My father thought the fact that I would talk about men and women’s relationship were all the faults of the fairytales which were mostly about love stories of a prince and a princess. So he took all my books and threw them away. 

I don’t remember exactly when I hated him, but it was one of the many many horrible things he had done to me. 

With no books and no TVs, and not allowing to go outside to play with other kids, I started to write my own novels and draw my own comics. All my heroines were orphans who were going on a great adventure and ultimately found her true love, a life that I yearned for. I hated my parents then, and their abuse. Stories were my only escape. 

But luckily, I got to be allowed to visit the small local libraries once a week. So I read almost the entire section of the child version of 19th and 20th century western novels. I finished the whole collection of Sherlock Holms, and many other Taiwanese and Japanese novels. 

I had no friends in school back then. I was bullied at school and abused at home. Books and CDs were my only friends. 

I have remained faithful to books, though CDs have now turned into iTune. I like flipping the pages, and smelling the ink of the new book. I like the weight and holding them in my hands. I like toughing the cover, and highlighting words in the book. My dream house would be a library. I want to build a library. 

I recently closed a Facebook group I created almost a year ago. It was a group to help and build a community of foreigners working in the journalism in the U.S., including immigration, visa issues, U.S. work culture. I created the group because I know how miserable and painful it was to go through all those struggles with no one to turn to, with no one around you has the answer, and even no one around you understand what you are going through. When I lost the lottery of H1-B, and facing being forced to go back to China, I consulted five lawyers and 50 other people to find a path. Even getting the sponsorship in the first place was a miracle, with employer backing out, threat of lawsuit, school director and professors mobiled up to talk to the company’s CEO, and finally got it approved the last day before deadline. It was a movie in itself.

I know the pain, the agony, and the sorrow. So I want to help others, and I want others to help others. But it’s proven it’s so hard to get other people excited about the idea. I feel that people are afraid of being seen foreign. A girl wrote me on Facebook asking me to change the group to secret, because she doesn’t want her friends to know she is foreign. I didn’t say yes, because I think being foreign is who we are. But it seems it’s common feeling in this community. Immigration is sensitive, personal and emotional. I understand why many people just try to avoid the talk of it. And at the end of the day, the only thing I am left to say is find a lawyer, and they will have the answers to all your questions. 

But that isn’t the main reason why I closed the group. The biggest reason was I couldn’t handle the amount of requests that were sent my way. But quantity is not the biggest reason either. It’s the questions that got asked reminded me how painful and agonizing I was just a few months ago. I realized that I am still processing the pain and trying to recover from it. I am not emotionally in the place where I can help other people. I am still weak, in pain and trying to heal. 

Immigration and visa, for me, is more than just immigration and visa. It’s crushing your dream, forcing to you to live a horrible life, forcing to you to lower your head, and destroying your self-esteem. I hate China. I guess if I hadn’t hated it so much, it would be easier for me to lose that visa and go back. But I hate China. Looking back now, the six months I was forced to go back and live in Shanghai was a long nightmare. I was clinically depressed and suicidal, but I couldn’t afford the professional help I desperately needed at the time. My employment health insurance didn’t include mental health, and it wasn’t even considered a thing in China. 

Even now I am back on a great visa, I am still living the consequence and process the pain. I always wonder, had I not being forced to go back to China, would I still lose the love of my life? Even though you wouldn’t want to be with a man who treated you like that, I wonder if it would even happen if I weren’t in China. I was depressed and suicidal, he was silent and distant. We had a fight on email, and he called me difficult. 

I didn’t know it was because he already got a new girlfriend. Would he have a new girlfriend, had I not been in China?

He is wrong for me. He is an asshole. But I couldn’t resist the what ifs. 

My therapist said some people just provide to be in that role in our lives. My favorite author said when you get so fired up with your soulmate, you gotta let them go. 

But at least I know I wouldn’t have been so depressed if I weren’t in China. I wouldn’t have been so out of my mind if I weren’t in China. I wouldn’t have felt so powerless, helpless and hopeless if I could choose to stay in the U.S. I didn’t have a choice then. I was forced. 

I hate ghosting. To be exact, I hate being ghosted. There is no closure for ghosting, and you don’t even know it’s ended until much later. It’s unclear, unclarified, and unknown. I only ghosted those who I have told them we are over and still don’t get it. 

Being Ghosted is the worst feeling in the world, because you are still hoping and waiting. Maybe they didn’t see my message, maybe they are just busy, maybe they have an accident, maybe they die. It wasted a lot more time guessing and wondering than a straightforward rejection. 

It killed me when the man I loved ghosted me when I told him I loved him. I came back to the country after being overseas for 6 months, and found out he had a girlfriend. I gathered up all the courage I could have to say those three words, even though I was expecting a rejection, because I trusted the man I knew he was would give me a kind rejection. But I was wrong. He ghosted me. I never heard a word from him again. I deleted everything I had with him, texts, phone number, emails, chat history, photos, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Anything I can delete. But no matter how many I deleted, I can’t wipe him from my memory. I wrote him a long letter to explain what went wrong and what I have done wrong. But it was silence, eerie silence. I guess that was the sound of a heartbreak then. 

I wish he could end it better.

I did ghost an ex best friend. She and I used to be very closed. Some friends in your life eventually fade off, but you know you are still friends when you meet again or hit up with each other again. But this one I intentionally ghosted. I was rarely happy in our friendship. I was young, and you tended to spend too much time and emotion on the wrong people when you were young. She was a great person, but I was hardly happy. I felt like I was more of a maid than a friend to her. The initial attraction to this friendship was we had a lot of things in common, and it turned out, we also wanted a lot of things in common. So when she got the job I wanted but didn’t get because I didn’t have the connection, I got increasingly jealous. When she ranted her job to me, I got mad because she had no idea how much I wanted that job. When she got all the intention from boys, and yes, you cared about those petty stuff when and because you were young, I wasn’t happy either. Again, I felt she made me her maid and her follower rather than a friend. So I left. I just started to let it fade off, and ultimately pulled myself out of it. 

I didn’t regret it, because again, I wasn’t happy in that friendship. It didn’t matter if it was my fault or hers. What mattered was I was not happy the whole time, and I should have left sooner. 

Then I wonder was that how he felt about me when he ghosted me?

I just finished reading Mei Fong’s new book “One Child,” detailing the harrowing experience of China. More importantly, it takes a deep look into China’s family culture and women issues through the lens of One Child policy. I can relate on so many levels. 

Throughout the read, I can’t help but think if my parents would be nicer to me had I been a boy. The crazy, insane and frantic urge for a son in China has created so many tragedies. Only until recently I learned that my parents are no different than most Chinese parents, all they wanted was a son. My mother had a late term abortion when I was in college, and she never told me about the pregnancy or the abortion until after the fact. In my last trip to my parents’ house, my father told me one of the reasons was it was a girl. 

What the fuck?!

I remember when I was little, my grandma told me that my father wasn’t happy when I was born. At the time, there was no technology to find out the sex before birth. I never gave it a second thought, because I was a child, and I didn’t know what that meant. Despite spoiling me on house chores, my parents were extremely abusive in every other aspects. I couldn’t count the physical abuse, humiliation and emotional torment I went through throughout my childhood. And until today, I am still living with the consequence of depression and PTSD. I used my entire 20s to learn to deal with the consequence and find my happiness, experiencing loss and heartbreak, and spending tons of money on therapy. 

I hate family, and I hate everything associated with family, including holidays, rituals or anything Chinese. For me, family means oppression, abuse, and control. There is no freedom in the notion of family, for me. Holidays are the most difficult part, because I need to stay away from my family to maintain my sanity and happiness, while my parents, especially my father, would press me to conform to family gatherings, which I try so hard to escape. 

I hate the Chinese family culture. The stupid culture is based on absolute obedience to parents, sacrifice of personal happiness and succumb to control. That also translates into work places, in relationships with leaders. I fucking hate that. I want my freedom. I left home at 18, left the country at 24, and I am not fucking going back. Anywhere is better than home. 

I have forgiven my parents, but they are not easy to be with in the first place. They are needy, judgmental and often very nasty on me or other people. I am always not enough for them. For many years, their voice have become my inner voice, and the inner demon in me. The voice that told me I am worthless, unworthy of love, and better die to add some good to this world. 

That demon no longer controls me. I gained my freedom. But still, the book prompted me to think, as an only child, what are you going to deal with your aging parents? Thank God, I am still young, and my parents are still healthy and kicking though they always think they are going to die to guilt me back to that small, conservative and narrow-minded city. 

I don’t know, but fuck that. 

I am grateful I am an only child thought, and I am also grateful for that brother that never born. Cuz that jerk would take everything from me, and I wouldn’t have been able to get the education that uplifted my life. We are just fucking poor working class, man. And I am still paying my student loan from USC. 

I am currently on several self-help and therapy programs and books. Yeah, when you are that dark, one therapist can’t help you all. In one of the programs, a coach asked a question, “What is Your Favorite Moment In Life?”

I chewed on the question for several minutes, but I couldn’t find any. OMG, out of all the wonderful people I've met and all the wonderful things I've done, and all the wonderful places I've been to? What about the first time I went on stage to deliver a speech to a large audience? What about the first time I got myself published in a book at 15? What about the first time I got my article published in a national newspaper at 17? What about the first time I got a national award also at 17? Out of all those awards and achievement I’ve made? Am I really that negative and self-loathed?! Seriously?

But there is a thought lingering in my head. When I was 9 or 10 years old, I lost a competition at school. My mom found out I was upset and asked me why. I was crying on her shoulder about the failure and she was stroking my back. That was the last time I remember she was kind to me.

Perhaps I was afraid to admit this is my favorite moment in life, because it immediately brought tremendous sadness. It brought memories with my mother, which are mostly filled with childhood abuse, yelling, beating, violence and hatred. 

I don’t blame her anymore. But I am sad that a nice moment like that is only a distant memory now. I don’t have the luxury to have a life-long opportunity to have many more moments like that with my mother. We can never go back to that time, and pretend nothing has happened. Even though the wound has been healed, scars are there. 

We can live with the scars. Scars are healthy, they are reminders and lessons. But they won’t go away. We can’t turn back time and undo the damage, but we can accept what happened and moved on. 

It’s a shame that my mother doesn’t understand or seem to understand this. Now she wants to pretend nothing has happened and we could be that close again. We can’t. I can’t. 

If she were a friend, or anyone else, I can’t simply take them out of my life. The sad part is she is my mother, we are bound by laws and genes. This is also what makes the healing so long and difficult, because you can’t run away from your perpetrator. 

I wonder if I over victimized myself. If so, how come good memories are so rare? I want to be able to open myself up to her again, but what stops me? I want to be able to talk to her like my best friend again, but why can’t I?

She has apologized to me, once, on a chat app. 

I think the truth is to this day, I still don’t feel she loves me. Every time we talk, it’s always her accusing me of not doing enough, caring enough, or achieving enough. She can’t beat me now, but she still thinks she has absolute authority over me, and I owe her my life. 

I don’t think she loves me. I never feel that she loves me. 

The past two years of tumult finally ended in 2015 with its final climax. The chaos began after my graduation, facing all the struggles of graduating, changing status, job hunting, seeking visa sponsorship, moving across country, losing in visa lottery and struggling with immigration. In 2015, I went back to China due to visa problem. I spent 7 months before I obtained an extraordinary visa to come back to the U.S.

With my time in China, I’ve got to live through the darkest period of depression and my struggles with suicidal thoughts. I wasn’t there by choice, and the reverse culture shock took hold of me. Then immediately accompanied with housing trouble, gang harassment and corrupted police, subsequently I was homeless for 4 days, and crying my tears dry while I was living in a hotel with no one to turn to. I still vividly remember how sad I was when I landed in Pudong Airport in Shanghai with only myself. I didn’t know anyone there, I didn’t have anywhere to go, and I didn’t have anyone to greet me after returning to my “motherland” after four years. 

I was gravely depressed in China. While my relationship with my parents have improved, I think. I’ve learned not to spend too much time with them in order to keep my peace and sanity. Though I wish we could spend more time together and they would stop to try to control me. Well, one step at a time. 

After I returned to the U.S., I found out the man I love has a new girlfriend. He is my best friend who I know for several years. I missed him crazily day and night when I was in China, while he was so distant and hard to reach. He never told me he has a girlfriend until I came back to L.A. and tried to ask him out, and he said he was too busy hanging out with his girlfriend. I told him I love him, and he ghosted me ever since even if I was expecting a rejection. I wonder why these years of friendship didn’t even earn me a polite and simple rejection. His silence and nonchalance totally broke my heart. Even to this day, it still hurt like hell talking about it. I guess to some people, you just don’t mean anything no matter how much time, emotion and effort you have poured in.

In 2015, I’ve also started to deal with my childhood trauma and depression seriously. Losing the man I love opened a new window for me. I’ve found a great therapist, and progressing well on healing. It’s the first time in my life that I feel genuinely happy. I am grateful I had a good job this year no matter where I am. I am grateful to have a great boss in each job. 

Now I finally have the life that I want. I live in the city that I love, work at a job I love, do things I love, and started healing from depression, and I can finally be open about my struggles with depression and trauma. I am on my way to happiness. 

"Joy is something you experience even if life is not pleasurable." I've learned that I have to constantly keep learning about my emotion and self in every new situation. It's like driving, you always have to be careful and self aware, and every road situation is different, and there is always something new to learn.

When I recognized my emotion in one situation and grow from it, another situation will rise and challenge me. And sometimes I may not be self aware enough in the beginning to recognize why I feel the way I feel. Healing is a process that has no end. So is depression. It's a life long battle from being sucked into that blackhole which is forever expanding.

The road to happiness is like the infinity symbol ∞, you can keep getting closer to it, but you will never get there, which means there is no end to approaching happiness and there is no end to strengthen myself. You can chase after that light forever and ever, how joyful!

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"Happiness is the joy you feel when moving towards your potential."Watch Shawn Achor's SuperSoul Session, Sunday at 8/7c.

I turned on the first page of Gloria Steinem’s new book “My Life On The Road.” This is the sixth book I have read in the short one month I’ve been back to the U.S. from China. I’ve also watched 5 or 6 documentaries and films by now. It’s like the first drop of water after a serious long drought. 

The intelligent hunger grew particularly strong after living in China for 7 months. All interesting books, movies, art and publications are censored there, only leaving the party-praising boring as hell propaganda on the shelves. Even on the internet, with virtually every social media is blocked, the Chinese can only be hoarded to Wechat and Weibo for information and entertainment. Google is completely banned, and you can’t even use Google map there. Baidu Map is a disaster. Dropbox is banned as well, given how little they relate to politics. It was a growing frustration that you were thrown back to the age of 2000s. Yes, there is still WeChat, but it only means you can only obtain information that the government allows you to.

Basically, there are very few options in China for your mind. There are tons of options for your body. Don’t get me wrong. Food there is amazing, and I’ve gained 10 pounds when I was there. But an uplifting and thriving life can not solely rely on good food. I need food for my mind, and that’s what the authority is afraid of. 

The media environment is more censored than ever before in this leadership. Their fear of foreign infiltration has grown so hysterically large that they are putting their hands on everything. No western movies are allowed to premier during summer to protect Chinese films. Chinese films are very boring, because there are just so many subjects, so many ways of execution, the ways that the government permits. Great films will never make its debut to the public. 

VPN is essential for living in China if you have a knowledge of what’s out there. But the internet is so slow that it literally makes you give up on waiting, and turn off your computer and hit up some local cuisine. The irony is no big businesses in China can do their businesses without a VPN, because everything western is blocked. But the economy relies heavily on these western businesses, namely the exports of cheap Chinese products. 

It’s a fine line that the government is playing with this “evil foreign influences.” The new leadership is pushing the society back to the dark ages of fearing of western forces, and subsequently creating a living hell of ideological war and human rights abuses. The nonstop billboards of propaganda constantly flashed on your face are like the automatic daily broadcast in North Korea. There is no way you can escape. 

You have to provide your real ID or phone number, because a phone account will link to your real ID, to register on Chinese social media. So the government can track down any dissents immediately. With rampage corruption and the non-existence of the rules of laws, people have little or no respect to laws, and no one trusts the system. So they create their own systems. Businesses are all scams, and police are only active on calls of arresting dissents. 

There is also this subtle and constant anger of the people hidden under the surface of “stability.” Anything minor will trigger that anger. It’s anything but harmonious in that society. 

China is not as bad as North Korea, and people enjoy a great amount of individual freedom. But freedom for your mind is very limited, and freedom to choose is even less. 

I had a layover in Tokyo in my trip from Shanghai to Los Angeles in late September. It was a cross country move, so I brought all my life with me, including this awesome monopod that I bought in China. (It is great for filmmaking, BTW)

The Chinese said I could bring it on board since I had checked all the bags I was allowed to. So I happily brought in on board. But then when I landed in Tokyo, the Japanese said I couldn’t bring it with me, because it was too big. So I got held up in Haneda Airport. 

So an ANA staff came to me and said I must get out of the custom, check this bag, and come back in. But with a Chinese passport, I am not allowed to get out of any custom without a proper visa. I believe there are only 29 countries in the world, mostly in Africa, that I am allowed to enter without a visa. So I asked, “What should I do?”

The staff seemed pretty calm, and he said he would get me a document and let me go out without a visa. So he brought me to an office, and two minutes later, I got a 3-day VIP shore pass!

Man, this was too good to be true! I had a 6-hour layover, and I was just planning to sleep it over, but now I got to get into Japan and check out the city for free?! But then I told my plan to the staff, and he said I was not allowed to get out of the airport. Man~~

So I used all the time I had to check out the airport! 

Haneda is one of the two airports in Tokyo. The other is Narida which I usually layovered in. 

It has a lot of awesome restaurants! I was so excited to get to enjoy a little bit of Japan, because it’s one of my favorite countries, and yes I am Chinese. 

They also have a lot of amazing Japanese gifts for you to bring on board. I believe these are pens. 

People like to hangout under the bridge. 

This is the front of this cool bridge. It’s called Japan Bridge. 

And lots of umbrellas to hang out under. 

Also a wall of wishes. 

And here is the best part, a Hello Kitty store!

And Hello Kitty cookies!

Haneda has a giant patio for you to see the plans taking off and landing. I saw that many times in J-pop TV shows. 

Even suitcases are so cool in Japan. 

You see so far I was having lots of fun. I didn’t want to leave. 

There are lots of stories about Chinese rich people in the media around the world, and this is how the Japanese see them. It’s so funny.

I also had some great sushi for only $6.49. Can you believe it?!!

To show my love for Japan, I turned my passport into a Hello Kitty cover. 

And finally, I bought a bunch of manga to kill time in the plane. I will always contribute to Japanese economy. 

Though I am a Chinese, I don’t understand China at all. 

I don’t understand their ways of doing business

From real estate to food, every business, big or small, is a scam. They try to set you up, and once you are in, you find out it’s a scam. Almost everyone is doing it just to get your money, but the thing is they don’t care about your future money. Because you’ll get out once you realized it’s a trap. For example, before I signed my lease, my landlord agreed I would put down one month deposit and pay the rent month by month. Often in China, you are required to pay rents every three months. After I signed the lease, my landlord said, to waive the three-month payment, I must put down another month of deposit. WTF? She changed the terms instantly after I signed the lease, and it was only two minutes away.

Take another example. I like the egg tarts of an egg tart shop very much, and buy them almost every other day. Then today, they told me I will get one egg tart free if I buy three of them. Four in total with the price of three. So I did, and they sealed the package before I saw what they put in there. I opened the package after I got home, and saw the three egg tarts that I bought wasn't the one I wanted, while the free one was. So instead of getting the two egg tarts that I wanted, I only got one while paying the price of three. I wouldn't buy it if I knew this was the case. Again, every business here does the same thing, and you are not allowed to return the products once you pay.

Why do they want to piss off the customers and have them never returned just for the sake of the little money they can get at that moment?

I don’t understand how companies do their finance

In China, obviously, people at the Finance Department of the company are only hired to sign off papers. The real jobs are done by everybody else. I am no finance person, and I don’t know anything about finance. But as a producer, I am responsible for hiring talents for the production, and subsequently, I have to do all the finance on my own. When you have a question, the real finance people will get impatient and pissed off as if you were not supposed to ask them anything. In the U.S., only the finance people deal with finance. Why would the Chinese put the most important duty on people who don’t know anything about it?It’s money. What do they hire the finance guys for?

An issue came up with a vendor. The finance director gave me a solution, but then he quickly forgot about what he said, like within one week. He came back to me for the same issue that we have discussed and found a solution for, but he just wouldn’t do it, even if it was his idea! At last, we got the Yes from the big boss, and the communication fell in cracks in mid way, and the finance guy got Alzheimer’s again, insisting going back to square one for an issue that we have discussed, got approved, and agreed to move on with. 

I don’t understand why people are always in such a hurry

They are hurried to get on a bus or subway, and they are hurried to get off. They are in such a hurry that they would cramp up at the door, and squeezing each other in a tiny space, leaving a big wide space inside the bus/subway. It’s only 2-3 minutes faster, but everyone is in a hurry. 

So are the drivers, and it’s worse. They cut in wherever there is a space to move one-car space forward, and honking at other cars or pedestrians for no reasons. They simply want to move, and can’t wait for even one minute. The right-turning cars think pedestrians are transparent, speeding to take the turn as if there was a T-Rex chasing after them. 

You don’t exist to the person who walks behind you, or the driver who is taking a right turn as you are crossing the street. 

I don’t understand why homeless people and abandoned kids are all people with disabilities

This country has no respect for women, poor people and people with disabilities. They stigmatize career-driven women, and arrested feminists who advocate for gender equal rights. Those are something you can’t see. What you can actually see is the same homeless men and women sitting at the same street corner everyday to beg for money. They all have disabilities. Children at orphanages also have the misfortune, which is the reason why they were abandoned by their parents in the first place. 

I can’t help but wonder why discrimination, neglect and stigmatization can advance to such heartless level, as if the last drop of empathy or compassion has evaporated from the ocean of 1.3 billion people.  

I don’t understand on one hand most tech businesses are copying the American brands, on the other hand, the government bans all the American brands

Renren copied Facebook. Weibo copied Twitter. Wechat copied Whatsapp. Taobao copied Ebay. Youku copied Youtube. While everything being copied is banned in China. Phone businesses now are copying the American model of two year contract with a low-price smart phone. Then the government is saying the western influences are doing great harm to Chinese culture, and block everything they deem western. 

There is a famous summer movie blackout, when during the entire summer, no western movies, especially Hollywood movies, are allowed to screen in theater. By doing so, they want to boost the Chinese movie market, which is filled with low quality films and high quality propaganda.  

I don’t understand what the fuck is Chinese Dream

Good people got arrested. Corrupted officials got promoted. Propaganda is rubbed on your face through billboards and loud speakers everyday. Google got blocked, and the internet speed here is still in the 90s. What dream can you have in this place? Well, you can’t say that out loud, because the good chance is you will get detained by the authority if you do. 

(”My vagina is not a gift.”)

This is a country well-known for its socialism with Chinese characteristics and its founder Mao’s famous quote “Women Hold Up Half The Sky.” However, women are still second class citizens on this vast land. 

I met a cab driver today who told me women don’t know directions, it’s “our nature.” 

“Female drivers have to be specifically trained on directions,” the driver said proud and loud, “All women are the same.”

When I was at my old apartment, the new owner asked me to “shut up,” when I was asking him a question, because he was “talking.” Then he turned to another woman who was also asking questions, and said “Go away and be a good girl.”

This country celebrated March 8 International Women’s Day by arresting the feminists who planned to advocate for women’s rights on the street, and subsequently detained them for 37 days. Over the last weekend, I had the honor to hang out with the group of underground feminists. These are a group of young and brave women who gather from time to time to advocate for women’s rights. They have done campaign of anti-sex abuse, anti-sexual harassment and anti-domestic abuse. Some are being hunted by the authorities after the arrests of their fellow feminists. 

The most surprising thing I learned is being so courageous and progressive, they are also very vulnerable when confronting the male dominated society and the autocratic state who would do anything to crack them down. With double pressure, this group of women were sexually harassed by the male human rights lawyers, people they turn to when under persecution of the government. Those are lawyers who claim to fight for human rights while being a human right abuser. 

I saw often enough when living in Beijing, men were publicly violent to women. Many times on the street, I saw a man pushed a woman to the ground, slapped her on the face or threw things at her, while no one said anything. I read on the news that female cab drivers being attacked and a female student was set on fire because she rejected the wooing of a boy. Violence to women is heartbreakingly prominent, while people who speak up are detained and charged with wrongful names. 

Besides violence, discrimination is deeply rooted in society. Every old woman asks me to get married after they probed about my age and martial status. In many companies, it’s often a male department head leading a group of women workers, while women make up 23.4% of the almost 3,000 hand-picked deputies in the Chinese national Congress.  Women of certain age are rejected in job interviews because they are considered to get pregnant soon and would leave her work. Schools lower their admission standard for male students in female-dominant majors like language and art, while rejecting female students for male-dominate majors like science and engineering. Female workers have to abide the “unwritten rules,” meaning sleeping with their bosses, to climb up the career ladder. Women are only assigned assisting roles at work. While strong and independent women are stigmatized and dubbed “left-over” or “female men.”

You would think Mao who said that famous quote supported women rights. But he turned out to be one of the biggest women abusers by notoriously consuming hundreds of young women while being married to Jiang Qing. 

Upon the arrest of the five feminists in China, I am back to the motherland. When I decided to come back, my American friends all said “I am sorry,” and all my Chinese friends asked surprisingly “Why?!” as if I have a choice. Regardless, I am here, in Shanghai.

I didn’t have any welcome in this metropolitan giant. No one hosted me, no one greeted me, and no one cared that I am here. It’s a city that felt cold, distanced, and disheartening. I was just back in silence, with my head low and heart heavy.

It was quite a culture shock after four years. The first thing people said to me was a lady at the airport that I was trying to buy a phone from. “Buy this phone!” She ordered me, while ignoring my questions. I bought the phone because I needed to call the airbnb owner for the room I booked. The room turned out to be terrible, even though the owner prided they have 24/7 running hot water. What? Is that something you will be proud of if you have it? Shouldn’t it be a fundamental infrastructure? It’s not even a question!

The Chinese drivers freaked me out the next day when I was on my way to a job interview. They don’t drive on their lanes. Instead, they drive between lanes, and cut in wherever they see they can, and pedestrians are purely road decorations that are free to ignore. 

Chinese don’t talk. They yell. I always know Chinese talk very loud, but now I know they are simply just yelling, for no reasons. They don’t like to flush toilets either. Every restroom you go into, you have to flush for the last person. I don’t understand why it’s so difficult to push a button. 

Shanghai, it being called the most internationally friendly city in China, immigrants (or expats as what white people like to call themselves) are fleeing more than coming. I chose Shanghai, because the air in Beijing is too bad, but now I realize Shanghai is no better. My flight from Yanji was delayed 15 hours because of the smog in Shanghai. 

Given China has banned everything, it was quite a struggle to get the VPN working and access my life supporting social media. When discussing China’s arrest of innocent human rights activists with a friend, I was told to keep it down. It’s a country that doesn’t even allow a tiny gap of free thoughts and discussion, given how much wrong and injustice the government has done. 

I do enjoy talking to Chinese young people and discover their new found awareness of civil rights and democratic idea. It’s still a country that revolves solely on materials and money, but I see more soul-searching from the new generation. 

Of course, my mother only cared about why I am still not married, and her only advice is to get rich, because only then people will kiss my ass. 

I met A British who said, “You talk like an American, sound like an American, and think like an American, why are you even here?”

Coming back to L.A. after almost two years is comforting. I certainly appreciate it more than when I was there after experiencing the country. There is nothing the world can compete with L.A's gorgeous weather. Its costal, leisure, but vibrant urban scene is one of its kind, not to mention the nice people, services and the classic SoCal smile. Oh, being in an apartment where you can stretch your arms is amazing. 

But New York is still home, given its terrible weather, the shoebox apartment, the mean streets, and the rat race. It's a city that drives you crazy, and also push you to the next level and the level after. 

I was resentful when I moved to L.A., the first city in the U.S. I lived in. My goal was New York, but schools in New York rejected me, and USC was the second best. I love USC and everything about it, but Los Angeles somehow often seemed to bother me. I lived there for two years without a car. My life was isolated because of transportation, and my career suffered also because of commute. Thank God, now there is Uber, the savior of L.A. carless commuters. 

Now I realized the only reason I didn't appreciate it more back then was I was yearning for that ideal of New York that I never got to experience. You always want the things you don't have. 

I am also pleasantly surprised how many people take me so seriously in L.A. in this trip. I am puzzled by the American friendship sometimes, because everything here is so complicated. [Not to say American taxing, banking and healthcare systems] Human relationships in the U.S. is also way more complicated than other places in the world I've lived in and visited. I don't get why Americans like to make things so complicated and overthink them most of the time. Maybe they are too democratic and peaceful that their mind requires some chaos to entangle. 

I met an interesting couple tonight at a filmmakers of color reception. They are both young and accomplished filmmakers. I talked to the husband first, trying to pick his brain about filmmaking and how he started. To every question I asked he gave brief and generic answers that don't really carry any substance. When I told him I have pitched my film to New York Times Op-Docs, his first response was "It's very difficult. They usually hire very experienced people." Then I pressed on, asking what are the lower bar publications I can pitch to if New York Times is too difficult, and he had no answers. After the husband, I talked to the wife, who is making a film about a Cameroon drag queen, eight years into the making. She was very open about the process of filming and how she made it through the eight years. 

The husband is what I called a naysayer. I've met hundreds of people like that in my life, in many different events and conferences. They came across as good friends, family, strangers, mentors, professors, and many more. The common traits of them, purely anecdotal, are that they are young men who have a few accomplishments under their belts, appear to be hard working, driven and smart. They are very stingy on giving advice or contacts, and their first response to you is always negative--"very difficult, very hard, pretty unlikely." It's interesting that I hardly met any women who are like that. Women, friends or strangers, are very encouraging and kind. They often start with "That's great," and end with "Best of luck."

I am not trying to belittle men, because I've had many many great male friends and mentors that inspired me so much. I owed everything to them. But what I am saying is I noticed a little pattern in the naysayers, and it may be completely wrong since I have not done any clincal studies. 

In the past, I innocently believed in what the naysayers said, and took it to heart--Don't try, it's too difficult, like what he said. Therefore, I postponed many important pursues in my life. I never gave up though, because my heart would bring me back to the chase, and realized how wrong they were. I realized what those people said are simply bull shit. Yes, it's difficult, but everything is difficult, even trying to find a restroom in the New York subway is difficult. So fuck difficulties, all you can do is try. And fuck those naysayers. They are either afraid of competition because they are too insecure, or their motive is to suppress your ambition and make you as mundane as they are. 

You have to watch this video, which enlightened me so much that I watched it over and over again as if it was God given. 

I have had so many naysayers telling me I would never amount anything, starting as young as age 8. They told me I would never become a journalist, it wasn't for me. They told me I would not be able to do American journalism, because English is not my first language. They told me it's very difficult to get in the door, it's too competitive. It sounds like they were born with the word "difficult."

Well, you know what. I only listened to my heart and look at where I am today.

I got my first byline at the Atlantic by a cold pitch. I simply wrote to an editor that I've never met and said, "Hey, I got a pitch for ya."

I got my first journalism job by a cold email. I wrote to another editor I've never met and said, "I really want to be a reporter if there is a chance."

I got my first overseas trip from a debate tournament while I didn't know anything about parliamentary debate. I simply showed up at the audition and did the best I could. 

I got all the great stories I did simply by making cold phone calls, showing at people's door and talking to strangers. 

Yes, there were tons of work and failures before those. But as long as you keep knocking, one door will open. You only need one person to say yes to you.  

I also realized you can't argue or convince naysayers, because their mission is to scare you off. The only thing you can do is to run away from them, far far away. 

I hate Chinese New Year, or Spring Festival. It sounds exactly like someone who grew up Christian said she hates Christmas. But I really do hate Spring Festival, and everything about it. For me, this family holiday has never been a good time or even remotely fun. It represents disgust, pain and anger. 

Since I was little, my mother had always complained about giving out pocket money each year. It's a Chinese tradition that married couples, with or without children, must give out allowances to children in a red pocket. The amount of money depends on how close the couple and the child's parents are. So for couples who both have children, it's just like exchanging money. My mom always nagged how tight her budget was, how expensive things were and always got into a fight with my father about money. While my father always complained how much he had to spend on big family dinners and buying gifts. I always wonder since no one likes this pocket money giving, why not stop this stupid tradition?  

Family events had been a long and dreadful dinner witnessing the worst form of humanity. I remember how my mom's brothers complained about one another behind their backs. What hurt me most was witnessing the indifference, reluctance and avoidance of relatives towards my mentally disabled uncle and aunt, my father's brother and sister, who lived with my grandmother. My aunt has been retarded since infancy, but she loves children and wants to approach and cuddle them. Younger children would cry at her presence, and older kids would make fun of her. Adults simply silently turned away, trying to hide their disgust. It made me angry to see people show disabled people no respect. It made me angry to see my uncle and aunt being isolated among relatives, people who are related to you by blood and genes.

Being the only child, I am always the topic of my parents. Those who know me know my relationship with them has always been difficult, and they never have anything good to say about me either, especially in front of the relatives. I would get these uncles and aunts educate me, telling me to be submissive and obedient. I only met and talked to those people once a year at Spring Festival family dinners, and I didn't even know who they were without my parents telling me. It made me angry they judged me and pointed fingers while they didn't know anything about me. My parents like to give me lessons in front of relatives and leak my private matters in public, because it made them feel authoritative, while I was totally embarrassed and shamed. That part of the pretentious Chinese culture always disgusts me. 

I did speak out when I was a kid, but what I got was my father yelling at me in public, and telling me to shut up.

The first Chinese New Year when I was in the U.S., I was jumping to my feet, cheering I didn't have to celebrate it anymore. But people around me would push me into celebration simply because I am Chinese. They would ask me what I was going to do to celebrate, and lament how far I am away from home, and console my "sadness" for not being able to be home and celebrate Spring Festival, especially in Connecticut where everyone is sorry that you are not with family. 

I am not a kid anymore, and the wound is slowly healed. But it takes time.

All I am saying is not everyone grew up in a happy family, and certainly not every Chinese enjoys Spring Festival, and it's OK. I am going to adopt the wisdom of Elizabeth Gilbert--loving it from a distance. 

Below are the words from one of her Facebook post, which I always treasure, and I hope you will too.

It's the holidays.

It's most wonderful time of the year!

Or, depending on your personal family history, perhaps it's the most painful, stressful, traumatic, and emotionally draining time of the year! (What a nice Christmas carol that would make.)

We're all adults here, so let's lay out some basics truths:

Not every family is happy, healthy, or sane.

Not every family is even SAFE.

And even in very loving families, not every individual in that family is happy, healthy, sane, or safe.

You may have done enormous personal work on yourself during the course of your life. You may have evolved into a graceful, peaceful, compassionate, well-adjusted, loving human being....and yet you still may find —when you go home for the holidays, or when your relatives come to visit you — that suddenly it is totally impossible even for YOU to remain happy, healthy, or sane.

HOOOOORAY!

Good times.

I want to ask you all to go super easy on yourselves this year.

LOTS of patience and self-compassion, OK?

Try to let go of expectations of how things should be — or how things should've been when you were growing up — and live open-heartedly within the reality of life as it actually is.

If you have a wonderful and healthy family, just relax and enjoy every minute of them.

If you have a wonderful but bananas family, try not to let them make you overly bananas, too.

If your family is far from wonderful, and in fact totally insane, try to sit back and watch it all unfold from a slight psychological distance. Observe their madness, observe your own reactions to their madness, and just breathe through it. (I have a psychologist friend who advises her patients from really dysfunctional families to "watch your family as if you're an anthropologist. Pretend you're a stranger who's been hired to study this odd tribe of war-like people...but do not get involved in their battles.")

Don't forget to breathe.

Don't forget not to talk about politics.

Don't forget that — no matter how pretty everyone looks in their holiday photos — no family is perfect...so it's not just you who might be feeling a little extra crazy.

If you find that you are reverting back to a less-than-highly-evolved version of yourself, or getting caught up old family dramas all over again, or totally losing your shit...don't worry about it: IT HAPPENS.

And if you don't even spend holidays with your family at all because you've made a decision that you will not expose yourself to such deep toxicity anymore, GOOD FOR YOU. Again, we are all adults here, so let's tell the truth: Sometimes that's what has to happen. There is no shame in it. That's just you taking care of yourself, however you need to take care of yourself — and that's nobody's business but your own.

Most of all, hold onto your compassion through everything. Keep your sense of humor if you can. And remember that — however you choose deal with them — those crazy, beautiful, maddening, dangerous, outrageous people are some of the most powerful spiritual teachers of your life.

Here's a little video of me talking about this very subject:

http://huff.to/1HFI9Eu

HAPPY HOLIDAYS, DEAR FRIENDS!

ONWARD,