When every day is jam-packed with those little random non sequitur occurrences, but you just don't have the time to jot them all down.

This entry really is dedicated more to my thoughts from China than to my slight celeb crush on the lead vocalist of Guns 'N' Roses, I promise. (Although he is/was pretty cute in the Sweet Child O' Mine MV, and exactly the kind of guy I would have gone for in my teens if I'd had the guts) However, the phrase always jumps out at me. Guns and roses.

I just got back from China.

I have so many thoughts that I honestly don't know how to voice. It's been crazy, and it's been intense, and honestly, it was much more career-focused than identity pursuit this year, in comparison to last - for which I'm intensely grateful. I hate thinking about who I am and what I am and where I'm going, although this blog may seem to tell otherwise. Why? Because honestly, I don't fit anywhere. And for the most part, that's OK. But sometimes, it gets insanely lonely. I start longing for a sense of home - especially now, after hitting up 10 different living locations in half as many weeks, preparing for another leg of travel in less than a week, and thinking ahead to all of the packing and planning and couch-surfing that's yet to come in my next two months.

This identity thing bubbles up to bite me in the ass every now and then... Sometimes more "now" than "then." I don't know. The innocent question "Where are you from?" can feel like a challenge to battle at times, depending on who asks it, and where and when and why.

I sort of grew up with a girl whose family has pursued [insert code word for faith-based outreach] in Xinjiang since the 1980s. She and I are about the same age - we fought a lot when we were little, when her family was on furlough, as is the case with me and many fantastic firstborn women who I'm honored to call "friend" today. I saw her again in Hong Kong again in 1996, right before the turnover took place. And then I met up with her in CA at a missionary kids' retreat in 2004, right before both of us began college alone in the U.S. for the first time. We haven't seen each other much at all since early childhood, and her upbringing has definitely been a lot more confusing than mine. But reading her blog, which I discovered today, brings me right smack-dab into this issue of identity.

Nature or nurture? Where does she belong - a Caucasian girl who grew up in a no-man's-land between China and the Middle East - or I, a Chinese-American girl who grew up in Texas-Taiwan-Texas? With her blonde hair and arresting blue eyes, she can walk down the street in Iowa and nobody will think beyond admiration for her looks because she "fits" the profile of the kind of person they expect to see walking there. And yet inside, she may be fighting to remember how to phrase her feelings in English, trying desperately not to remember how much she misses "home food," thinking about where she'll spend her holidays when she can't go back to her family 13,000 miles away. Alternatively, put her in the streets of rural China, though, and everyone will be falling over their own feet turning around to look at the foreigner... while she, on the other hand, maybe dancing around inside, not even noticing the lack of hot running water and electricity, thinking happily to herself, "There's no place like home."

Most of the time, I think "nurture prevails." I believe pretty strongly that a person is shaped primarily by his or her upbringing experience. But there's something to be said for nature as well. But I was rereading parts of the Fellowship of the Ring today in a waiting room and stopped short at the part where the Company are traveling through Lothlorien. When Gimli meets Galadriel and she speaks to him in his ancient dwarven tongue about his ancestral lands, she catches him off-guard and earns a friend for life - because she knew what it was to long for something he felt in his blood. Legolas is thrilled by the experience of walking through ancient Elven lands. I don't know why, but I feel this way about China and Taiwan. I know that many of my American-born Chinese peers don't feel like this, but I do, and did so even before there was ever any talk of me moving to Taiwan in 1995. China is in my blood. It might be all those unintentional racist comments I collected as a child, but I always longed to know where I fit, to understand what I came from, so that there would be some meaning to where I was going.

So yeah. I go to China, time and again hoping to skate by under the radar as a tourist, and maybe just an embryo journalist - and instead, get bombarded with a sense of identity clash and confusion. It's nothing that any one person does, any more than the cacophony of noise during rush hour is all the fault of one car. But it's all very confusing.

I just want a career of sorts. "I want to be a journalist when I grow up." In my self-absorption, I childishly think, "My classmates get to just look at what they want to see." I know it's not true - but in this particular context of China, under the particular situations that came together for the trip - it was and is true on occasion.

Here's an example of a situation that arose several times.

When you couple your miscalculations with the other person's misunderstandings, you get a wide margin of flat-out miscommunication. We walked away from briefings this past month at embassies, newsrooms, university halls, hotel conference rooms - and many times, came away more confused and annoyed than we started out. For one big example... We wanted answers about the Chinese media censorship situation, but we felt like we didn't get them. We would tell them that in the U.S., freedom of speech is upheld under the constitution, and journalism students are taught that their role in society is to hold the government to the law. So in China, what was the educational equivalent? What were students taught in lieu of my J310 curriculum?

We got a lot of mixed answers from a lot of people. Most of the Chinese-speakers had to go through the medium of translators, and most of those interpreters were Chinese-raised-and-educated English majors who had never heard of the U.S. first amendment, and certainly wouldn't know that it was important contextual information to translate prior to tossing out the question in Mandarin. And even if they did, would they use the correct terms for it all? Would the meaning get through? Judging by the responses we got, a lot of the time, my conclusion was "No, the speaker most certainly didn't understand what we wanted to ask."

And yet people grew angry - and I don't blame them. To the English-speakers, having their questions seemingly blatantly ignored must have come across as "so rude," while in the Chinese culture of saving face and hiding one's dirty laundry, the direct questions about some of the media education's weakest areas must have seemed "so rude." And there I was, caught in the middle, understanding where both parties were coming from, and not really knowing if I could say anything - or honestly, if my explanation would help anything.

In American journalism culture, it is your duty to society to get to the bottom of the matter - courteously, one hopes, but to probe even the painful spots nonetheless in the pursuit of truth. In Chinese culture, it is polite to put your best foot forward, to not put the burden of your struggles on other people's shoulders, to read body language and tone of voice and know when you've crossed certain lines. ...That's not something I can explain in 30 seconds in two languages. That's not even necessarily accurate in many situations... it's just my personal perspective, after 24 years spent nearly equally in each culture.

Every time after a session, the situation replayed itself ad nauseam for hours in my head. Did we ask the right questions? Did we know an answer when we heard one? Did we understand why people responded the way they did? Were they really trying to thwart us, or were they just as confused as we were? What did we want out of them anyway - the truth about the situation at the moment, or affirmation that they were doing their best to "make progress"... implying that progress would naturally be to follow the U.S. model? What kind of an image did we project, and were they reacting to that as much as we were reacting to their perceived evasion tactics?

So here are my feelings. I cannot pretend that I don't understand Chinese or English - at least, and most importantly, to my ears. I hear things I don't want to hear, understand translations gone awry that I cannot find the right words to set right, see people who look like me, hear people claim me to their various nationalities and ethnicities on both sides. Yet at the same time, I never know enough. I don't understand enough Chinese and English to explain everything to the world. I don't have a good enough grasp of historical, cultural, economical and political context to put it all in perspective.

And on top of my own confusion, I often overhead other people's conclusions about China, the U.S., AND Taiwan with which I disagree. I'm no expert on either place, but some people are so flat-out wrong. Not all Americans are blonde Hollywood stars. People in Taiwan do not agree on the political situation with China by any means. And China is not ablaze with Communistic fervor - not in the sense that most outsiders view it, anyway. Americans don't mean to come across as critical jackasses. Chinese people dont necessarily mean to sound evasive. But how do I explain this to people who cannot hear what I hear, see what I see, draw from the context I cannot remove from my psyche?

I will never fit in anywhere under the "nature vs. nurture" mold - if not in any of these three countries, then even less in any other place. If "Where are you from?" has to elicit a glib three-sentence response from me when a single word should suffice, I will never belong under the traditional model of identity. Fortunately enough for me, we live in times where identity is extremely fluid. I'm free to call myself what I want, identify myself how I like, and live where I choose. It's OK to say "I don't care what you want to think about me - this is who I am, and until you listen to me, and just me, you will never understand me." For the sake of my own self-perception, this is a much healthier statement than where I was last year, where I think I tried to please everyone and proverbially, pleased no-one instead. But what about all the other people I bring with me, encounter, and leave behind? What about the sense of identity I leave with them? Because, you see, each person you meet changes your world a little bit. (I'm going to write one of my pieces from this trip about that) And while I deal with my identity crisis, am I creating one for them? Am I being constructive or destructive? Do I have a responsibility to do what I can for them?

Guns, or roses. I feel like I can only choose one. I can choose to fight for the things I'm passionate about - human rights, the right to freedom and the pursuit of happiness - defined in each person's own way. I can live a life of battle, like King David, hoping to leave the legacy of peace and prosperity, justice and understanding, to my children and their children's children. I won't be able to pursue prosperity, comfort, or security as any of my top priorities. It doesn't mean that I can't have them, for sure - it just means that when push comes to shove, duty calls.

Or I can just cop out and do it the easy way. Take advantage of the privilege afforded me by birth, settle down to an "easy" life, and pursue a career that would be personally fulfilling, extremely ego-boosting, and ultimately, pretty superficial. I could live a cushy life (would "a bed of roses" be too corny to work into the sentence?)... and die knowing that I betrayed my soul.

Forgive me, but as a 24-year-old girl, roses look much more appealing than guns right now. War is a romantic fantasy until you witness a skirmish firsthand. Oh, I wouldn't go join the army, although I've toyed with the notion more than once in the last six years. But many of the world's battles are fought with words first, weapons second.

Guns 'N' Roses finally released Chinese Democracy in 2008 after many years of anticipation from their fans. (I only know this because of BV moderation - I'm a poser) In their words about the eponymous song,

The emotion in this next song, that's all that's about. It's not like an intelligent song. It doesn't have the answer to anything. And it's not necessarily pro or con about China. It's just that right now China symbolizes one of the strongest, yet most oppressive countries and governments in the world. And we [Americans] are fortunate to live in a free country. And so in thinking about that it just kinda upset me, and we wrote this little song called "Chinese Democracy."

I want to live in a world where everything isn't automatically right or wrong, good or bad, black or white. Skin color, ethnicity, appearance, class, language, education, wealth, religion, sexuality, movie preferences - none of these are a good basis upon which to judge people. Yet freedom is much more of a mental perception than a physical state, and so many people are in bondage to so much ignorance... myself definitely included. There is no freedom without struggle.

And so I fight.

I am so excited!!

That is all. Long post to come.

Nothing like a good dose of China to make me miss Taiwan. Sorry for getting nationalistic - ethnically, I love China - but gosh, it's nice to be home.

In other news, my brother is mean. ;p

The Prayer of Saint Patrick

I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.
I arise today
Through the strength of Christ's birth and His baptism,
Through the strength of His crucifixion and His burial,
Through the strength of His resurrection and His ascension,
Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.
I arise today
Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
In obedience of angels,
In service of archangels,
In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
In the prayers of patriarchs,
In preachings of the apostles,
In faiths of confessors,
In innocence of virgins,
In deeds of righteous men.
I arise today
Through the strength of heaven;
Light of the sun,
Splendor of fire,
Speed of lightning,
Swiftness of the wind,
Depth of the sea,
Stability of the earth,
Firmness of the rock.
I arise today
Through God's strength to pilot me;
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's hosts to save me
From snares of the devil,
From temptations of vices,
From every one who desires me ill,
Afar and anear,
Alone or in a multitude.
I summon today all these powers between me and evil,
Against every cruel merciless power that opposes my body and soul,
Against incantations of false prophets,
Against black laws of pagandom,
Against false laws of heretics,
Against craft of idolatry,
Against spells of women and smiths and wizards,
Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.
Christ shield me today
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wounding,
So that reward may come to me in abundance.
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me,
Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ on my right, Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down,
Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
I arise today
Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity,
Through a belief in the Threeness,
Through a confession of the Oneness
Of the Creator of creation.

Today was interesting. We went to see the terra cotta warriors (again; they don't change), followed by Bampo Neolithic Village, which was an ancient matriarchal society preservation or something like that. I only got one awesome photo, I think.

Tracy and I spent the late afternoon editing in our respective rooms, then had dinner/ice cream in the Starbucks plaza area and worked on our wavelength. Following that, we proceeded to get our arses creamed by Rio and Elliott (mostly Rio) at pool. But it's OK, I had a great time being snarky without getting called on it. ;|

I'm really enjoying myself these days. It's hard work, but Tracy is a good mentor, the people are really pleasant to work with, and after all these months, I finally feel like I have a bit of confidence for the future now. God's good to me to give me so much encouragement through people and circumstances and opportunities around me. And I get to talk to him about random people I encounter everywhere. I like my life.

Tracy asked me where I see myself in 10 years. Yeah, married, yeah, family, ... the photography thing, yes... but I guess he doesn't see how BV fits in with that. Haha, I guess I don't either, but I feel like I don't have as concrete a dream [yet] as he did, so until I can be sure I know what I want, I honestly don't like locking myself down. He suggested I just go off to somewhere like Shanghai and look for a job there, just as an experiment. He is the first "grown-up" who has seriously suggested such to me, so I am inclined to think I'm not as nutty as most perceive me to be. (He has street cred in my eyes) It all now remains to be seen whether or not 1) I am still that adventurous and 2) people I love will let me pull it off. Meh, I really still wanna go to Asia with BV. Or something. I want to try things!! I know, focus on your thing and go for it - but I donno what "my thing" is!

I realize how incoherent I am these days. Sorry, I'm busy and tired. Will recap later.

The Bible can be downright underwhelming sometimes. Have you ever thought about how powerful a movie about Jesus and Peter's last few months together would be?

When I first saw you, I saw love
And the first time you touched me
I felt love
And after all this time, you're still the one I love

Looks like we made it
Look how far we've come, my baby
We mighta took the long way
We knew we'd get there someday

They said, "I bet they'll never make it"
But just look at us holding on
We're still together, still going strong

You're still the one
You're still the one I run to
The one that I belong to
You're still the one I want for life
You're still the one
You're still the one that I love
The only one I dream of
You're still the one I kiss good night
Ain't nothin' better
I'm glad we didn't listen
Look at what we would be missin'

I'm so glad we made it
Look how far we've come, my baby

I always forget that I can't access Xanga/Blogspot in China, so Facebook must bear the brunt of this Pepys-esque account. (I will even tell you what I had for lunch!) I'll update these to my respective blog locations later when I can. But today, it's way too late and thus no time for Pepys behavior.

I missed a chance to be an extra for Jay Chou last night + hang out with Cindy Wu at the same time, because of bad timing. That's all I have to say about that. It was disappointing.

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I got on a plane for Beijing this morning! Direct flight from Taipei is awesome. Here you can see the paranoia about H1N1 (swine flu) peeking out behind me. I thought that masks, the having to wait to de-board the plane until all of our temps had been taken, and the health forms/various checkpoints in the terminal were the worst of it all. I was wrong.

One of the Maymester students ended up stranded/quarantined in Shanghai because a passenger on his flight had flu-like symptoms. I spent an hour or two in an Internet cafe looking him up on Skype/video Gchat/AIM, trying to find his hotel room/name/number (because it was all in Chinese) based on information he remembered, like what the area sounded like. It was the most frustrating thing that's happened with Chinese communications yet, and we've had a lot of those (cell phone problems, no Internet in the rooms [which we need for this program], firewalls on blogging sites and more).

We finally found him with satellite view... Huzzah for beating The Great Firewall!
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I have unfortunately been forced to purchase unwanted quantities of tea at exorbitant prices in order to access this free wireless in this [nice] coffee shop a 15-minute walk away from my hotel. Rawr. This better resolve itself... I do not want a repeat of 2008. (Also, this year I didn't get a cash stipend ahead of time, so must budget... must... budget...) Also, I am being drowned in the cloud of cigarette smoke that seems to pervade China. Ew, these people and their lung-killing habits! Although the air of Beijing alone is said to be as toxic as the equivalent of 70 cigarettes every day. That's a little extreme, although my boogers prove there must be some truth to the matter.

I also had to switch hotel rooms once within 10 minutes of getting here, and spend 3 hours attempting to figure out Why I Can't Get Online In My Room (not just for my sake, but for the team's sake). Um, I need to learn a lot of things - networking (not the social kind), simplified Chinese, and the simplified Chinese characters for networking terms. I'm just guessing at "proxy" and "server" and whatnot as it is... and then you want me to read hastily scribbled simplified Chinese characters describing these things as my solution for lack of Internet? I'm not a genius! Geez. :|

OK, I have to walk home in the dark now. So I'm going to get to work on that. See you tomorrow! (I plan to get up at 6 a.m. to go running. HAHA)

• OK, someone is offering $20,000 for the first American who can quote the Ten Commandments within 20 seconds. If you watch his Web site, it's brilliant. In order to register, you have to listen to his short videos discussing commandments and sin and God first. Clever man! I bet he reaches more people with this than Rick Warren or Joel Osteen. Money, money, oh, the appeal of money. No, but seriously, I really admire what he's doing.
  
  
• Got Asian hair? Here are some tips! (I personally have the thick wavy unmanageable kind)
  
  
• Drink your own pee. Personally, I find this brilliant as well, and I have no qualms about it whatsoever. (I did sample fresh pee as a child, though, so I might not be the best person to speak up on this issue)
  
  
• I had a roommate last night. I've seen hotter.
  
  
• "Suicide jumpers are selfish people. They take up our time trying to be attention whores. So let's help them out." --Chinese dude's justification for shoving a guy off of a bridge.
  
  
• I really disliked how the first article was worded, but this is an interesting article. For what it's worth, I'm pretty torn on the issue of torture. I don't have a moral problem with it, but I do have a huge practical problem with it. In the abstract, I feel like the right person with the proper moral checks and objectivity should be granted the freedom to "do whatever's necessary" to protect his/her jurisdiction, but way, way too many people lack that ability. In fact, I question whether or not humanity is capable of separating the emotional from the logical in a constructive manner... and whether or not indeed that separation should be a goal.
  
  
• On a similar note, Sam linked a video on Facebook showing a media host voluntarily undergoing waterboarding in order to talk about the experience. I was going to write a blog post on this but haven't yet had time: But note how before the experiment, he's very in control, very logical - and afterward, he's very frenzied, his responses are urgent and emotional, and he's wild with fright. Um, yes, easy to judge until you've been in that situation, eh?
  
  
• This is the saddest justification for murder that I've ever seen. Yes, even more so than the one linked above.
  
  In a logical world, black and white are very easy to distinguish. Murder is murder, no two ways about it. But once you take motives and desires and feelings into account, it's not so easy to play God any more (at least if you're trying to avoid bias and prejudice). It would be incredibly easy to judge this woman as a monster if you didn't see the sentence about her not wanting her child to grow up with no-one to love him. Then it's mostly heartwrenchingly pathetic. Still egregious, but much more human. Instead of standing around in shock, we're kinda forced to admit similar feelings from time to time ("to a much lesser degree," we say primly).
  
  That's why I think it's incredibly important for any humanitarian outreach system to include an element of compassion/love. What's the point of survival if you feel like nobody cares about your soul? Bodies can be had for pennies, alive or dead. This isn't just a "religious" thing, although obviously religions [ought to] have the compassion part down pat - it's a humanity thing. If you have believed all your life that nobody wants you, why would you want your own child? Why would you not, in some twisted way, want to do what you can to rectify the situation?
  
  
• Here's an interesting op-ed on when photos aren't helpful... and when too much emotion can still cloud sound judgment.
  

Jon has been cramming for his high school entrance exam for the last six months or so. He finished today at noon, after an exam spanning a day and a half. (9-5 Saturday, 9-12 Sunday)

We're all a little bit frazzled around the edges; none more so than he, obviously. Goodness, Asian school is crazy.