"The War" [The Ukraine War - No. 6]

About a week before the Ukraine war, I put this brand new notebook in my laptop bag, planning to start the drafting - outlining the landscapes, writing down some important elements, timelines etc. 

Had came up with the title already when I first made up my mind on making it into a proper sci-fi long story. 

Got busy for days on other works, then suddenly, boom, a real war that humans haven't seen for decades dropped, for real...              

Wish to put my mind back into the writing. So much to learn, so much to do research for.   

February of 2022, it has been all about wars. My daughter showed so much interests in "Star Wars" books so we've been reading a lot of them. Almost all of the February readings went to "Star Wars". 

Had this idea of sci-fi writing, basically that became what had I been thinking about all the time, constantly for a few weeks before the actual war. 

Wars, it's never a light topic, never a joke, never anything any human being should take it easily. 

Sometimes I really feel like the world I am living in, is completely made up in my mind, by myself. There's too much coincidence. Unbelievable. 

Make me feel like nothing is real. Everything is scripted: the "actual world" my body lives and the world in my mind. Both are pre-scripted and coded into the system. And I highly suspect that the writer and coder is myself, somewhere in a completely different form. Maybe in one of the simulations, model no. xxx would figure out the truth.

Anyways.

2022-2-28 Values [The Ukraine War - No. 5]

People could be so different from each other. If I ever learned anything over the years, is to be with the ones who have similar values as you, and distant yourself from the ones either they don't think you are right or you don't think they are right. Absolutely no middle ground, because for friends you can always select and unselect. For families, you just have to bear through it, no base to discuss anything, resentment vs. the sense of obligation offset or overpower each other in different times. It's a tragedy, but sometimes it does happen. (lol before the war, I was actually constructing a "true-story essay" about this in my mind)

This is why I love being not too far from Berkeley where conversations and actions happen, and I love being with my husband and Leena Noah. We are literally very aligned when it comes to airing our voices for human rights, women/minority equality, racial justice, democratic movements etc. Well, nobody has the exactly synchronized views, but that's also the fun of it because you can discuss and debate. Raj and I don't agree on a lot of things, Leena and Noah neither I guess. Leena and I have different stand when it comes to race, culture and a lot of women issues, we often think from completely different angles. Raj and Leena always argue and not able to convince each other. Among us four, Noah is the most calm and the most capable of understanding multiple perspectives with supporting knowledge, facts and jokes. Over all, heated debate is something you can always find in our place.

When Russian invasion happened, we four all like the normal people with hearts, sympathized with the invaded. We are having information exchange and discussion throughout the past few days in our chatting group. Can't believe there're so many of them out there, just to prove their "superior views and profound knowledge", gaslighting others' sympathies. "Americans also slaughtered this, invaded that." Yes, so? You stop being a person who can differentiate evil from justice? Who sympathizes the murderers but indifferent to the murdered? Who believes in autocracy but not democratic process and basic human rights? Just as what Noah put it "It was wrong then, it is wrong now. How simple it is."

Chatting with one potential "could be friend" mother friend today: 

"I don't think I would take that far to show support for them, they are Europeans, it's always about them, the whites. When the darker colored being slaughtered, nobody supported them, because of white supremacy. Plus America played hands in the wars." 

"When did America stop 'playing hands' in anything? (supposed to be ironic, ain't today's post-WWII world order set up by the most powerful?) 

First of all I don't think people in the globe support Ukrainians because they are white people. 

Secondly, you don't know they are also subtly discriminated against in Europe because they're less wealthy and 'a little darker colored' cultural wise? A lot of East European countries are actually very diversified in races and cultures. 

Thirdly, what is right is right, what is wrong is wrong, it's free people's collective fight against barbaric invasion and violation of human rights, I do not see the logic and room of putting the play of race and skin color here. 

Fourthly, by supporting an invaded sovereign country which happens to be at the border of Europe but not yet fully considered 'European', does not undermine the struggle of racial justice in America or the world. We do support 'Black Lives Matter' movements and I work for nonprofit to help African women." 

"Well, talking about 'Black Lives Matter', you know the founders use the donation money to buy houses..."

 "I don't think in any organization or movement, you can guarantee that each and every member's hands are clean, it's also not necessary and irrelevant, we are not choosing a president via the movement. 

If you believe there's racial discrimination and injustice in the system, the best way is then to speak up and exercise your civil rights whenever you can. 

If you believe American government is doing injustice to the world, then it's its citizen's job to keep a watchful eye and keep the powerful in check. In this matter, the Americans ourselves have the best strength, because we have channels to make a voice as citizens, a voice for the voiceless in the world, we also have the vote in hand, that's the power to change cards. Like how we prevented the rising of America's own Putin, it's an ongoing effort still. 

Anyways, I stand with all of the voiceless, deprived and violated and I do not see any of your arguments denounce the action of supporting Ukraine today." 

Well, the chat was not exactly in the same wording obviously, but it's exactly what my impression was about the issue and the person I was talking to. So I guess, no potential anymore. Sorry that as you grow older, it's becoming much harder to let anyone in without thorough scrutiny and heavy consideration.  

At such times, if I turn a blind eye, finding all kinds of random excuses to stay away from expressing my opinions, opinions as simple as how I view evil and greed, I can't, I just can't. 

If I am still active in social media, to post my daily life like food, pet, pretty selfies, fun and all that beautiful and innocent lightness, I can't, I just can't. 

It's Ukraine and Russia's war, it's the war of free people and dictators, it's also my war. And I have been dragged into the battlefield long long ago. 

2022-2-27 A New World [The Ukraine War - No. 4]

Is this a dream?

80 years ago, their relatives killed by Hitler and Nazis, today they are evacuated because of Putin invasion. 

There are indeed people who are still breathing had experienced the horror of human's previous big war. The connection is not broken. The connection of humans to major wars.

Guess we never are away from it.

Had my peaceful and affluent years growing up, lucky enough to study and get out from a totalitarian regime during its short window of opening. 

At almost 40 years old, the world is going through another major shuffle?

But if you think about it, whose lifetime is not filled with such events? Cold war, Apartheid, Sino-India war, Korea war, Vietnam war, Civil Rights Movements, Free Speech Movement, democratization waves in Asia, Berlin Wall, Independence movement of central and east European, Tian'anmen Square, American imperial interference in multiple fronts, nonstop civil wars and regional conflicts everywhere... each person from each ethnicity background and region has its own timeline for violence, nonstop violence. And all these are post WWs and post European/Russia/Japan imperialism and colonization. 

What shocked the world is with how integrated the world is today, everyone knows someone who is from Ukraine, either a colleague, a friend, a classmate or a handsome/shy computer geek guy in the next office. And you can never differentiate Ukrainians and Russians in the office, same look same accent, they call each other brothers too, always smoking, lunching and hopping bars together. 

A lot of people have seen the place, Kyiv not much different from Warsaw or Prague, as beautiful as any historical East European cities. And some people were still confused when they heard the word Ukraine "Isn't it a European country? Isn't it in EU?" 

Just a few years after Poland finally joined EU, I was there. Took a very close look at the place. Heard a lot about how people struggled and made efforts to join the EU and how proud and lucky they finally were. Rebuilding after the collapse of Berlin Wall, industries, cities, democratic societies; just in time to join the new information era together with the world. 

East Europeans need to face their own discrimination from richer Western Europeans, but becoming part of the wealthy democratic union is truly the dream of people there, especially the youth who embrace freedom of expression and information to the core, who embrace free trade and opportunities wherever else within EU countries.  

Some of the countries got the luck to have the influence and connection from the west and north side, some of them also got the bad luck to be too close to the east side. The most difficult cases are the struggling and turning ones but tied to an obnoxious name and past, a name way worse than the "Bloc". 

I did not know how I felt for the past few days. Definitely sad, cried multiple times, but never let loose of my tears like what happened during HK. Definitely excited, I think because of the excitement, I didn't cry like I cried for HK. 

Excitement came from all the positive news and updates, the quantity, the quality. Basically I had no time to feel sad. Excitement also came from imagination, now the hope of one major dictator gone is on the horizon. And it happens to be, this major dictator is our dictator's adopted pedophile daddy, at least our dictator himself thought so. 

With daddy's miscalculation and missteps, maybe 2 years of COVID isolation or made in Russia vaccination messed up his mind, when the whole free world suddenly found themselves on top of the stairs of the fallen "paper bear", no one hesitated to give their best kicks and spits. No one. Unless you are in the other line. 

And after what happened in Feb 2022, picking the right line will weight much heavier. 

Excitement also came from the constant thought in my mind: "one dictator at a time". 

I still don't know if this beginning is gonna lead the humans to a better place. In the short term, any defeat of dictator is good in any way. In the slightly longer term, you still can't predict what kind of miserable cycle the ancient "middle kingdom" empire will be in, maybe opening - dictator - opening - dictator with all time authoritarian control plus on and off large scale feminines and genocides, until there's no resources left to be exploited by the free world. In the long term, humans remain humans, thirst for natural resources, ingrained with endless expansion, greed written all over DNA, life begins at fierce competition, ends at aggressive violence. 

Sigh, a new world. 

🇺🇦 Go to the street for Ukriane 🇺🇦 [The Ukraine War - No. 3]

Attack on one sovereign country is attack on all sovereign countries. 

Invasion of Ukraine is invasion of all humanity. 

No matter where you are, go on the street to protest, Ukrainians need our support 🇺🇦☮🇺🇦

#PutinIsaWarCriminal #UkraineUnderAttack #StandWithUkriane #NoWar #Ukraina 

Pray for Ukraine 🙏 😢 #2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine [The Ukraine War - No. 2]

February 24th 2022

War is the ugliest demonstration of humanity, sadly humanity has never gotten rid of it, and most probably will never. Pray for the people of Ukraine, may peace and light be with them and they have the strength and determination to fight for freedom. 

#war #freedom #Ukraine #2022RussianInvasion

戰爭曝露的是人性和人類社會最醜陋的那一面，可惜人類一直無法擺脫戰爭的陰影，大概率未來也不可能。為被侵略的烏克蘭人祈福，愿和平與光明與烏克蘭同在，愿烏克蘭人有足夠的勇氣和力量，捍衛生命，捍衛自由。

#與烏克蘭人同在 #祈福烏克蘭 #俄國侵略 #烏克蘭 #侵略 #戰爭 #2022俄國侵略烏克蘭 #自由

February 8th 

In any place any time, the road to freedom will most definitely be filled with blood and sacrifices... but if you don't fight, there will always be people whose souls are eaten by darkness and greed, secretly sharpening their claws, ready to take away everything precious from you. 

2022-2-23 a possible new era? [The Ukraine War - No. 1]

Haven't started crying yet, because the gruesome images and videos are not yet out. Now the Putin invasion officially started, even just the sound of bombing was really scary to me. 

I did sob through documentary "Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom". I pray for strength and light for the invaded.

Wrote on Twitter "everything is different now (with a possible WWIII on the horizon)". Right away I realized - what changed? Nothing has changed! Humans will always be humans, give any man a chance, he can and will be a Putin, even America has its own Trump. And hiding in the darkest spectrum of humanity, Xi and his gang are grinning in silence. 

If there's really going to be a WWIII, it's 100% going to prove my theories in my novel that's gonna be written in the future. Maybe thousands of years later, if humanity still exists and on the track of my prediction, they might be on route to meet my imaginary creatures who have completely different kind of intelligence and civilization. 

Or maybe I'm a hu-bot sent back from the future, my sole life task is to write the novel which is already happened in the future, so to change the course of humanity. But according to my future novel, there's no way we could save humanity because we're fundamentally flawed constructions. What's the meaning of saving us? And why I got sent back at this period of time? What's so significant about now? Which side actually sent me? Why in this form?

My "Star Wars" hard-core fan daughter got really scared tonight when news broke announcing the starting of war. In her mind, the empire just began the invasion and we all are gonna become rebels and resistance very soon. The fight is on. Which side she's gonna turn? The answer lies in the hands of her most loved ones. 

Have been contemplating a lot recently, about possible teaching opportunities. My daughter's teacher told me multiple times, "our school district is gonna include all kids who reach 4 for public school programs", "they really need great teachers like you, you have such talents", "actually starting from the coming fall, school district is gonna recruit teachers to do exactly what you are doing now, you should apply and get paid for what you do".

Checked with my husband a hundred times who is kicking off his own start-up: "do you need your poor wife to go out there and earn some blood and sweat minimal wage because now you won't be having stable income for sometime?" He always replied with "do whatever you want baby, no pressure at all."

I do love being with the kids. Actually today, I even felt that my daughter's teacher and the assistant teacher got a bit "jealous" with the attention I got from kids. The kids just kept calling me for everything, everybody needed some help on some random things. Or they just called me and came to give me a hug, or told me some issues in their life, such as "missing home" or "got into some serious love affair". The sound of "Ms. Momo" "Ms. Momo" "Ms. Momo" was literally nonstop.  

Guess that being a non-official-teacher teacher has its advantage of giving the kids love other than discipline. The children feel like I'm on their side, if something happens they could run to me instead of being punished by teachers. Plus I am an adult, I have the adult power. 

I figured, nah, I'm just a volunteering mommy, let teachers do their job of discipling, my job is to give as much reaffirmation, reassurance, attention and love as possible, within the frame. 

That's why I'm not gonna apply to be an official salary earning teacher in our school district. Made up my mind today while driving. Instead I'm gonna keep being this song-singing and funny Ms. Momo who has uncountable amazing picture books that never fail to catch children's attention, who volunteers in schools that are lacking resources and caring teachers, who plants seeds of book-&-music-loving in the hearts of children who sometimes feel being abandoned by the society. Ya, I'm gonna do it, I will talk with the schools in our nearby cities. 

Anyways, at the end of the day no matter what happens, we need people to keep the light on for the future generations, if humanity is gonna last for that long to face the war in my future novel. Maybe I will figure out a way for all the sides to come out of it. Oh wait, maybe that's why I was sent back into this specific time and space!!

2022-2-22 oh well

Been super busy! I do not understand how people have such demeaning image of "stay-home-moms", they never get to "stay at home"! 

My children are so filled up by me... horse riding, Taekwondo, gymnastics, music, coding, now baseball... 

Over the weekend when we were in Napa, both of my children suddenly acquired the skill of swimming independently. Last time when we were there, around new year, I forgot to bring their life jackets, that paved way for their water independence. This time, they were like two fishes. Life jacket? Not interested any more... 

All these activities, actually mostly not my idea. I signed up a lot more initially, they tried and only sticked to what they like. I guess that selection process worked out fine. 

Now Shiva decided that he wanted to play rock guitar! To be honest I was in a bit of panic attack after his teacher had a talk with me. She came forward after one class, told me that Shiva was really into guitar and extremely good at it. 

What? I had no idea! I put the kids into some music school so they got to try everything in the beginner class. At least I'm not that kind of Asian mom who directly book some esteemed $100 for 45 min piano teacher, for life...

Ms. M told me 'every time Shiva would pick up a guitar and jam with the group', 'he never touched keyboard or drums', 'he's really top of the class, he remembers everything, now ready to move up, with guitar'. 

And guess what, he never dared to tell me about it. Because from the beginning I was like 'ya, you learn a few years of piano, when you are a teen, you can choose whatever you like'. He never wanted to be against me and make me mad... 

Why piano? Because we're Asians and we get this Asian mentality. Piano, violin, yes, classical, symphony hall. Guitar, pop dance, what, you're gonna perform in the street? 

Ms. M told me that she was actually a piano teacher, she did see a lot of parents "forced" their children into learning piano and the children ended up hating music as a whole!

So I sorted to Noah for advices. He was like 'ya, a lot of kids learn guitar from young', 'ya right, white kids', 'no no no, Asians too', 'well, never heard of it, but can you get into good college by putting this in resume?', 'only classical guitar but not rock guitar I guess, but that's as strict, even much more strict as learning piano', 'hmmmm.....can the skills be transferred to playing sitar?' 'hmmm... ya! and playing sitar do get a lot of credit for college application', 'well, at the end of the day, I wouldn't want to waste my time and money right? sitar sounds like a good plan, I mean after he masters the guitar and composing and all that fun rock star skills...', 'ya, we will try to plant the love of sitar in him over the years', 'sounds like a perfect plan!'

And that's how I got rid of my almost panic attack... 

Well, actually, even just right there when the teacher gave me feedbacks, I felt extremely proud of my son for whatever he loves, and I felt so moving that he was trying to protect my feelings. On top of that, he remembered what I said and took my words into real consideration! 

What a sweet sensitive boy... Exactly because of this, it's just so wrong to brush aside children's opinions, feelings and passions, but only imposing your own stereotypical-fossil-like understanding about the world to them, as an old-bone wanker.  

Been thinking about my grand novel all the time. It was just a little scene at first, a short story. But now this feels like a whole book with so many chapters. I am very excited about the ideas, and the ideas are so very typical me. 

But guess what, one of the hardest fiction writing is sci-fi, even if you are a science major. For me, I can't even remember any element in the periodic table! I do urgently need massive knowledge make-up, chemistry, physics, cosmology, neural science. And sometimes getting the help needed from Raj is pain in the ass. 

I would send the link of my blog or short story to Raj, and he would completely forget about it and never ever read them!!! And he would go on praising me 'baby, you are such a great writer, I always love reading what you write!' 'well, ten years ago!?'  

Sometimes I just want some factual input from scientific angles by a science background person, he would show me typical management skills by pointing directions. Well, haven't women been following men's directions all human generations? 

The only thing I'm lacking in this Earthly Earthy world is Time, only if I could have a few hours everyday to work on something that I'm so excited about...

But guess what, I'm also helping Dorothy get some funds to buy an ambulance for her village. A lot of my time went there and hopefully we could really get somewhere this time. 

Nothing has changed, people still show up and then disappear, people still just want to take something from you or hoping to awe you with their "achievements",  or people are simply caught up by their own lives 24/7. 

The only one thing changed is that, this time I'm never ever gonna wait for no one other than myself, to take actions, to push the wheels forward. 

Women/Girls = Sex & Birthing Tools

"Blind Mountain" (《盲山》), director Li Yang's internationally acclaimed movie about how a college girl was kidnapped and human trafficked thousands of miles away from home, into a remote mountain region. The girl ended up being a sex slave, brutally beaten, raped, and abused by the men and women there. 

The movie was based on a prominent phenomenon in China, a reality. A few days ago director Li Yang announced that he gave up the full copyright of this movie, everyone can watch it for free, so to be educated by the ongoing cruelty in China against humanity. 

There are, at today's age, 20k to 70k children and women each year in China, kidnapped and sold to remote areas. 

A significant amount of them are girls, sold to be sex slaves and "wives"/birthing tools. There are literally woman/girl retail markets in the remote areas in China. You can see in some photos, women and girls youngest 13 years old, holding price tags in their hands, chained up by hands and legs, ready to be purchased. 

Human trafficking retail market

Right before the 2022 winter Olympics, a case broke out that shocked the whole China. In the city of Xu Zhou, a woman was filmed (the "husband" has been making himself famous on Douyin by being a "father of 8 children", a lot of people started to donate winter clothes to his children. One vlogger went to film how the children were receiving the donations, accidentally filmed the chained-up mother. After the case exploded on the internet, the government sealed up the whole village in spite of the intensive efforts of people trying to visit the abused woman) chained by her neck in a filthy shed, with only 2 teeth left, mentally ill, gave birth to 8 children... It was suspected that she was brutally beaten and sexually abused on daily basis by many men in the neighborhood/family, resulting in mental illness and teeth loss. 

During the 15 years being there, she gave birth to 8 children, 7 boys 1 girl, a chained-up-by-the-neck birthing tool in the year 2022. A perfect image of a true China you are not seeing in the news. 

As of today, Xu Zhou local officials finally admitted that this 38-year old woman was human trafficked and sold at the age of 13. This admission came after several rounds of lying and completely false statements, claiming that the marriage between the woman and man was legal. It was also a result of built-up anger and sentiments from the public. 

By the way, the "husband" did go ahead continuing to use the "fame" of "father of 8 children" to make money in Douyin (Tiktok Chinternet version), even after the exposure. 

This is in fact a very prominent phenomenon in China, there are well-executed chains of human trafficking that are protected by local officials, polices, and ordinary villagers. Sometimes as high as 40%-50% of "wives" in remote villages are bought from other provinces. Three brothers in one family all having purchased wives is very common. 

My whole life, I was scared of human traffickers, scared of being kidnapped and sold. We were taught to trust no one, believe in nothing. Taught to be always on alert and ready to fight and escape. When I was pregnant, sometimes I even almost got panic attacks just by imagining the possible harm on my children's way. I never ever would allow my children to be out of my sight, even living here in America. Because of the fear I had while growing up. The fear we all had as girls and women.  

The regime is so advanced on using facial recognition, filled-in-each-street-corner cameras, cutting-edge online censorship, and superior-to-its-peers public-opinion-control mechanism, they're so advanced on using internet surveillance, DNA database, big data analysis, extensive tracking, hacking such digital totalitarianism tools to monitor and control each citizen's body temperature, outdoor tracks, and social interaction in accordance to "zero infection rate" pandemic policies; to monitor and control what each of its citizens could think and speak - within minutes, police could show up on your door if you post any "anti-China" words in social media, even just private chats with individuals or in groups, or at the least, your online accounts would be deleted or suspended forever, whatever you posted would be disappeared within minutes. 

Yet, this regime is not able to (or not willing to? not giving a shit to?) help solve the problem of human trafficking and children kidnapping. For decades and decades, millions of Chinese families have been broken down and dismantled, heartlessly in the cruelest way humans could ever imagine.

And this is the true fate of the people under an authoritarian/totalitarian regime, where citizens are merely the tools and subjects of the reign, deprived of fundamental rights and liberty. 

Making themself clowns, but you think it's an easy laugh?

When Elon Musk realized China's richest man is an idiot (Jack Ma)

1. This exactly depicts the huge gap between China and the rest of the world, featuring the difference in the mentality of people - leaders, intellectuals, industrial forerunners, experts etc; 

2. The reason for this gap 

a. A closed society, disconnected not only by GFW, also by constant communists propaganda brainwashing, extreme form of authoritarianism, the enforcing of absolute obedience, the cult of personality, the abuse of power in all levels and the worship & imposing of imperial-feudal mindset etc; 

b. In a society that's run by power, everything is circling around power struggles and every being is gradually tranformed and corrupted by the ruthless pursuit and consumption of power. The people who sits on the top of any form of organization, eventually loses his/her sane mind and judgements by listening to bootlicking and bullshiting 24/7. Who dares to tell the emperor he has no clothes on?

Ask Jack Ma, he 100% believes what his mind could think of is 500% correct and he 1000% got that godly inspiration directly from God. Oh wait, communists don't believe in Gods or Goddesses, but only themselves. So whatever came to his mind, itself is as holy as hell because himself is a true living God. Likeminded to all of our present and past dear leaders and all of the dear leaders around the globe.    

And this is exactly why and how authoritarian regimes are not gonna work and last. 

But until they are completely rooted out, not in any foreseeable human future though, how many more ordinary but weightless lives are gonna suffer and disappear, you tell me. 

Black History Month Quotes 1