In 1999, I was born in a prefecture city in Anhui, a province located in southeastern China about 550 miles West of Shanghai. Indeed, I am a hybrid ethnic minority, conceived from the fusion between an agricultural household in Southeast China and a historically Islamic lineage from Northwest China. Such a background is relatively special as my ethnicity comes from a mixture of Arabic and Chinese descendants thanks to the Silk Road. While my mom belongs to the Hui people, whose religion is predominantly Islam, my dad was considered one of the Hans, the predominant ethnicity among the Chinese. At the time, it was impossible for my grandpa to accept my dad as his son-in-law due to religious rituals and sanctions. To marry my mom, my dad agreed to my grandpa’s request to convert to Islam, and so began the story of me. It is not clear how much religions impact my family compared to love and understanding. Granted, we are not allowed to eat pork or any related products. But pork is not that delicious anyway. And we got the perks to have two children without being fined ten years ago before the introduction of third-child policy. But more importantly, they wanted to give me freedom and independence to seek my own life.

            Such agency was inseparable from my parents’ decision to move to first-tier cities in China, first Beijing and then Shanghai. In early 2000s, my parents sought the chance of the economic boom and strived for seven years before they bought their first apartment in suburban Beijing. Rumor has it that they lived in a half bathroom and ate one pack of instant noodle per day for three months. In many sleepless midnights, they would roam onto pedestrian bridges in the center of Beijing and stared at passing cars underneath, wondering what future might lead on their path. Chilly winds and tungsten lights filled their past as well as my wistful imagination. These are the caution tales which they tell, where fears, anxiety, and hope intertwine. It wasn’t until my graduation from LSE that they intended to leak the truth.

            “Come, Da Ya (meaning “big daughter” in an intimate manner). I wanna talk to you more about the matters in the past.” My dad said as he beheld his wine glass on the dining table.

            “These things you need to know. About how we got here”. Contemplative and serious, his tone reveals the multitudes of lessons he wants me -- his proudly accomplished international student and his masterpiece child -- to receive and conceive.

            “That time was bitter (a Chinese adjective encompassing tough, painful, and hard)” he said as the color of the wine started to show up on his cheek, “We had nothing. No diploma, no money, and no relative.”

            My mom joined and sat on another soft leather chair. She just finished her daily check-in session with my sister ever since the start of the quarantine-mandated study-at-home phase. Her nonchalant and tired eyebrows can hardly hide the felicity of their interaction. Picking up her half-finished wine, she curled her leg onto the chair and comfortably lied her head upon her kneecap, listening.

            The story went on randomly, as my father told most of the story and my mother added information whenever my father became confused. The night got so dark after 11 pm and the wine was simply too good.

            -

“You know, we might have made mistakes, taking that full scholarship and sending you to that school. At the time, it was difficult for us. But now your mom and I do feel sorry. You should have much better life if we let you go to the other school.”

            Suddenly, I was alarmed. What was that story again?

            “Perhaps, to a certain degree, we wish that you could achieve our dreams, which we could never reach, and avoid our afflictions.”

            A long pause. Silence. Winds came in and blew from kitchen, to dining room, and all the way to the balcony, where flowers were grown, clothes were hung, and dog was lying. The yarns draping from the windows flew and swinged gently, just like that day in the principal’s office seven years ago.

“Oh, you mean that school. It’s all good.” I shook the glass and sipped some wine, trying to look like a pro connoisseur. “Doesn’t matter anymore. I already forgot.”

Flashbacks that I don’t want to recollect. Tears that I have already wiped away. People whom I have move on from for far too long. I supposed that I acquiesced. The conversation continued for another half an hour as my mom decided it was time for her to sleep. Two minutes later, dad left and said, “go sleep early.” I supposed that I acquiesced again.

-

         After seven years and I have already graduated college, I did not expect this moment to be the time when the scar was peeled. The wounds from my past are never left untouched. All the stacks of accolades and self-proclaimed maturity were breached. It seemed both distant and close that image of a crying girl left by her own trusted family in a place of apathy, waking up in the middle of the night overhearing her roommates’ accusations and wishing to go home every weekday. Nightmares, anxiety, and sadness from being bullied and ostracized were so perfectly compartmentalized for almost five years. And I thought I must have had progressed from the isolative states of victimhood. I have learned, worked, and risen to the world’s top institutes. I have had hundreds of smart friends and dozens of loving “BFF”s. I have held faith onto my belief and life. From Anhui, Beijing, and Shanghai, then San Diego, and London, my multitudes of experiences and learnings are supposed to refine me completely.

          Before moving to Shanghai, two phrases could summarize my entire state in Beijing --“great student” and “happy granddaughter”. As a typical left behind child whose parents are too busy, I grew up with my grandparents, my dad’s parents. Grandpa would constantly annoy me by asking me what I want to eat every meal and grandma would help me stitch anything in the world. I would spend my free time playing with friends outdoors while grandpa would wait for me carrying my backpack in the yard. My grandma would take me to church every Sunday and bought me snacks on the way back. Protected, loved, and spoiled, I was not familiar with loneliness or sadness. From Beijing’s smoggy yellow sky to arid winter, my years with them were as warm as summer in Northeast China and as flavorful as all the gaudy snacks we would buy after school.

           It wasn’t until the end of primary school that my parents decided to reside in Shanghai and move together. It was July, 8 of 2010 – the day I boarded an 11-hour overnight green-leather train from Beijing’s South Train Station to Shanghai Hongqiao Station.

          Screams, cries, and hugs, which were disentangled, departed, and quiet down. Farewell.

          Twelve hours later, my dad picked us up and my new life started. Nothing left from that night except the unusually shiny lights and fanciful buildings scattered in the mysterious urban landscape.

          During the next four years, as I changed my middle school twice, I graduated with distinguished scores and performance from a top private school in Yangpu District, Shanghai. Later, I was offered a position in a prestigious international high school from the other side of the Huangpu River. Yet, the expensive tuition and competition fell short of our family’s expectations. This was when another principal contacted my parents about this delightful and life-changing “opportunity”.

           So there I was, sitting in the principal’s office, listening to her talk about the potential of the newly erected school. She looked at my parents and said, “your daughter is very distinguished. We can offer her exclusive resources and complete attention here. Unlike the other school, she will be the star here.” She looked at me with sparks emitting from her eyes. I smiled back, trying to match her passion. She continued, “to award such distinguishment, we will offer you full scholarship.”

           Winds blew through the floor-to-ceiling windows of her office villa. The white yarns matched with the color palette of the room – wine red. And I looked at my parents, and I saw the sparks had also infected my parents’ eyes. Tomorrow morning, I was dropped off with my suitcase by the school’s playground. As it turned out, my hope for the bright future envisioned by the principal was not quite sustainable. On the first night, while I was unpacking my luggage as my roommates stared and laughed at me, I was reminded the first night that I arrived in Shanghai. Uncertainty and heaviness from losing the life I am used to once again filled my chest. The scattered lights amidst the dark canopy have already foreshadowed my story many times.

           It was not until three years later that we knew the school was a sham, and the principal ran away with all the investments from the school board. Fortunately, by then, I managed to graduate and get an offer from an American university. As I flew from Shanghai to Los Angeles, then to San Diego, and to London, having spent over 100 hours on planes, the memories of my life in China seemed so detached and vague. They scattered and dissipated into the horizon of Northern hemisphere in rays of light from alternating sunlight and sunset. The San Diego sealine, Victorian buildings, and the signature Hollywood scenery took the place of indifferent urban centers that shrouded my family and me for decades.

           The Chinese Dream of self-made upper mobility and affluence eventually evaded my attention; in its place, democracy, agency, and freedom to follow my own passions took over. From the major my dad appointed for me, I switched and got to take courses that I enjoyed. I started to learn Communication in a STEM-centered university. Forsaking straight-A records in college calculus, physics, and organic chemistry, I followed my idiosyncrasies in journalism, marketing, and public relations. Communicating and appealing to the nuances of human emotions, rationality, and humanity, I started to report for School of Economics’ newspaper with my own opinions and photographs, interned in various startups and boutique firms in public relations and marketing, and invested my time in learning four more languages in addition to English and Chinese. Reading and immersing myself in the cultures and stories of others liberated me and taught me about possibilities and choices. Selected into the top Media and Communications institute around the world, I became accustomed to the talks of self-sufficiency, opportunities, and achievements.

-

           And yet, here came the talk as my weathered father looked at me like the way a human trying to communicate to an extraterrestrial. I resisted. How can I not? I resisted the way they expressed and conducted their love for me, in giving me too little and too much. How can I say anything?

          Quietly, I listened, getting more and more amazed by each second about the truth and reality of their strivings. I listened about the individuals who have helped them. I listened about each role they have undertaken, from salespersons, to instructors, to records store workers, to publishing workers, and to the businessmen they are today. I listened to their gratitude and appreciation. I listened to their hero’s journeys in the undertakings of the great unknown and returning of conquest (Sachs, 2012, pp.210-223; Campbell, 1990). Among the dark and bloomy urban concretes, they discovered their own path with integrity, humility, and diligence. I recalled such attributes in each decision they made, and in each time they failed and lost but got back up. And I know this because I have felt that same pain and resilience every time my heart broke and carried on regardless.

          But more importantly, I was struck by their ease. It was almost this sense of relaxation, free of societal expectations and fully aware of where one came from, has gone through, and will reach for. The ease that evaded me from time to time as I became less and less certain about where my future might be. Nevertheless, amidst all the uncertainty and anxiety, fortunately, I realize that all my education and learning have not made me blindly invested in the elitist talks of opportunities; rather, it teaches me about prudence and criticality while allowing for talks of charity and hope, anchored in shared humanity (Aristotle, 305 B.C.E.).

          As I face the dualities of lives, I could retain conviviality while grounded in truth. Carl Jung defines “the jester”, the convivial and felicitous fellow, as this “compensatory relation to the ‘saint’” (Jung, 1969, p.256). Similarly, I consider that my optimistic, extroverted, and light-hearted personalities combined with clear-headed understandings of loss, hatred, and loneliness perfectly characterizes myself as a jester. Although I could relate to the saint’s search for spirituality and ultimate denouement for humanity, I have this close understanding and indispensable relationship to the reality full of constant lacking, suffering, and troubles. This reinvention of the North American myth and archetype corroborates and converges my split perceptions of the world (Radin, 1956; Ball, 1957). As my journey progresses, such tensions and dualities are able to be reconciled through communications that bring forward hope and our shared humanities in such sojourning.

           Coming from the hybrid of Northwest and Southeast China, experiencing changing socioeconomic conditions, learning from drastically different education systems, and surviving trauma and bullying, my pre-adolescent innocence is enriched by varieties of experiences and perspectives. These experiences result in dualities that are embodied by the humorous and truthful traits of a jester while carrying significantly less sarcasm for sure. As noted by Heron (1992), Kasl and Yorks (2012), all the facets of one’s stories are actively contributing to the transformative learning of oneself through four categories – experiential, presentational, propositional, and practical (Heron, 1992; Welsh et al., 2020, p.862). For me, the vividness and warmth of memories, the rational and logical learnings, as well as the intensity of emotions are integrated and reconfigured into my subconscious of meanings and associations. With this reflexive approach to the self and my journey, I am eager to deliver projects that both respect the macroscopic cross-cultural nuances and resonate with each individual journey of needs, wants, and desires. Deeply empathetic and compassionate about dualities of life, I believe that the works of communications and branding visionaries could offer the refuge that all humans undeniably long for (Chouliaraki & Vestegaard, 2022).

           Along my ongoing journey, I am grateful to all the depths and varieties of relationships and experiences. They equip me with practical tools and lend me fascinating perspectives with life that allow for forgiveness, compassion, and love that do not fall short of misfortunes, sadness, and pain. Regardless, life goes on. It progresses in the new faces and new knowledge I encountered over years. It continues through the establishment of new routines and habits. For me, in the duality of hope and despair, pain and joy, hatred, and love, it carries the hope for a better future that is never unkindled.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Aristotle. (305 B.C.E.). Nicomachean Ethic. Translated by Ross., W.D.. MIT. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.6.vi.html.

Ball, J. (1957). [Review of The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology, by P. Radin]. Ethnohistory, 4(3), 332–334. https://doi.org/10.2307/480813

Campbell J. Cousineau P. & Brown S. L. (1990). The hero's journey : the world of joseph campbell : joseph campbell on his life and work (1st ed.). Harper & Row.

Chouliaraki, L., & Vestergaard, A. (2022). Introduction: Humanitarian Communication in the 21st Century. In L. Chouliaraki, & A. Vestergaard (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Humanitarian Communication (pp. 1-22). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315363493-1

Heron, J. (1992). Feeling and personhood: Psychology in another key. Sage Publications.

Jung, C. G. (1969). ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE TRICKSTER-FIGURE. In G. ADLER & R. F. C. HULL (Eds.), Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 9 (Part 1): Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (pp. 255–272). Princeton University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt5hhrnk.14

Kasl, E., & Yorks, L. (2012). Learning to be what we know: The pivotal role of presentational knowing in transformative learning. In E. Taylor & P. Cranton (Eds.), The handbook of transformative learning (pp. 503–519). Jossey-Bass.

Radin P. (1956). The trickster; a study in american indian mythology. Routledge and Paul.

Sachs, J. (2012). Winning the Story Wars: Why those who tell – and live – the best stories will rule the future. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Welch. M., Saunders. A.P., Buergelt, P.T., Gilpin-Jackson. Y., Ferguson J. & Marsick V.J. (2020). Your story, our story: the transformative power of life narratives, Reflective Practice, 21:6, 861-876, DOI: 10.1080/14623943.2020.1821633