Lift each other up [The Ukraine War - No. 11]

Sometimes the best relief after a period of sadness is talking to someone who really understands you. Somehow for some reason, I have been always lucky to have that. Out of nowhere, boom, dropping from the sky.

When I was persecuted Cultural-Revolution style, a group of girls whose boyfriends/husbands were also Indians were there for me. They were very much shaken and outraged by the incident and stood by my side during the two weeks of torture. Because of them, I made it through. I am still feeling grateful for them.

When the whole world is watching Ukraine, the scope and degree of involvement vary a lot. I believe most people may be puzzled why a bunch of Chinese so crazy about it? 

Freedom is something that most people take for granted in the free world. But freedom for us means everything. And freedom for us has never been free.

Only people like us, whose life had (or has still) been ruined by tyrannies and their totalitarian state apparatus, whose most precious has been taken away by the brute force of evil power fueled by greed, people like us who constantly live in conflict and turmoil because it's impossible to cut all ties to one's roots and blood, understand that - the most important thing for this Earthly life has nothing to do with money or matter, but only freedom and value.

On and off, I have been in contact with my hometown girl. We lived in the same government residential building. We were part of the gang that grew up together in the same court. Two years younger than me, she always called me "older sister" and kept in touch with me. 

When I was roaming around the world, seeing everything with my eyes wide open, transforming, "you told me Europe was really beautiful, people were different outside of China". When I was with Raj and first time understood the meaning of respect, "you told me to hold on to that, respect, you told me to look for nothing else in man. I had no idea what was it then." 

I guess the same things I must have over and over again told each and every person I was talking to. Because these are the foundations of my reconstruction. 

After all that efforts, at least one that I helped. 

"I had been feeling guilty all those years, as a single child, married a foreigner, settled outside, 'abandoned' my parents. But I can feel guilt no more."

"Exactly! They had been emotionally blackmailing us the whole time too. All of the conversations ended up in heartbroken fights. They never tried to understand us, I don't think they are even capable of it."

"Completely same here! Now I realized, for my own sanity and my children's future, the best decision I made was to be with my foreign husband and stay outside of China. In that way, my parents couldn't play a hand in my marriage and were not able to split up me and my husband."

"Can't agree more! For my children all I'm teaching them is respect, respect themselves, respect the people around them, respect all walks of life. The universal values of the civilized world like freedom, liberty, equality, human rights, people here are so used to, but I'm learning like the best student in the first grade. Taking notes, word by word!"

"I'm absolutely the same! Sometimes when I look back, I still feel ashamed of how the evil state machinery made me indifferent and selfish. Meanwhile, I also feel so lucky to eventually be part of the civilized world and regain my empathy, conscience, and dignity."

"Awww, don't feel bad! All of us were the same. Nobody could avoid the fate of being molded to be a petty nail for the evil machinery. We didn't get to choose, it was not our fault. What's important is we were given the chance to escape and rebuild! And now our children are allowed to grow up to be real human beings with kindness and honesty. We did well." 

"Ya, 100% true! And I feel the disconnection with everyone in my Chinese family and almost every one of my old friends. We hold entirely different values on everything. They just wouldn't understand the meaning of liberty, equality and rights. Despite how agonizing it is, I take solace in living in the free world, watching people disagree and debate with manner, watching them peacefully find solutions via civilized means instead of authoritarian style of imposing and forcing upon." 

"Can't believe how similar our experiences are! I also lost connection to all of my Chinese family members and have been trying hard to avoid any conversation with my parents other than food and logistics. We all grew up under constant propaganda and more than 90% of our education equaled brainwashing. How could we build the capacity for independent thinking, and when did we learn to tolerate opinions that were different from the propaganda doctrines? If we didn't marry a foreigner, didn't use English for regular communication, we would be just like them and not knowing what's wrong with that." 

"Yup, can't agree more! We could be corrupted by power and materials, we could be indifferent to social injustice, we could be overrun by fear. What's wrong with the system is that it suppresses people's conscience by terrorizing them with force and luring them with material comfort. People are deliberately kept ignorant, selfish, coldblooded, and shortsighted. They only care about the one or two inches of interest in front of their eyes. The void of such dull life is accustomed to being filled with fired-up nationalism and propaganda. The dominators, on one hand, suck dry the ruled's souls and righteousness, on the other hand, pump in poison and toxic to mass-produce sheep and war soldiers. The reason I am angry with the middle-class Chinese is that a lot of them had seen both sides, but still chose to take the one or two inches of interest in front of them. Not knowing that by condoning corruption and injustice, they can never build a fair system that effectively protects individuals' rights. Today you might be taking that one or two inches of interest, but tomorrow you might as well be the cost of that one or two inches of interest." 

"Totally agree! That's why when Ukraine is under attack, it feels like the most precious longing in the bottom of my heart is set on fire. They had achieved it, a democratic society where each citizen has his/her say by voting. They fought so hard for that. Seeing a centimeter of that hard-fought freedom being snatched away is to cut a centimeter of my heart open."

"Ya, definitely!"

Us and our gardens where weeds run riot [The Ukraine War - No. 7]

At the children's horse riding place, this girl N, we talked several times, she's 90% blind but loves music and horse riding. Today her grandpa companied her, she used to have a paid assistant who brought her here and took her home by car. 

Today after she finished riding, on the way to find her grandpa I led her to the barn. I thought she was of foreign origin too, like all the people in the barn that I know: coach from New Zealand, J from France, students from Germany, Austria, South Korea, Saudi etc. Everyone has an accent. 

So I asked N: "Where were you originally from?" 

She replied: "Belarus." 

"What?! Bang!!" My mind shouted. 

I continued my inquiry: "What do you think...." 

"American news media is all propaganda you know!" 

"What?! Bang!!" My mind shouted again. 

"Those videos and news about bombing civilians, they are all fake, made by the American propaganda machine. The Ukrainian army is Nazi, they are bombing their own people. Normal Ukrainians want to come back to Russia, normal Ukrainians welcome the liberation of the Russian army!"

"Bang Bang Bang..." I was hesitating, should I reply or should I go. 

But I replied: "If the Ukrainian army is controlled by Nazis, then why the president is a jew, his grandfather's three brothers were killed by Nazis you know?"

"Oh I'm not saying Ukraine's president is a Nazi, but Ukraine's army is Nazi."

"Then why there is no coup to overthrow the president? Why is he leading this 'Nazi' army? I saw a lot of videos showing how Ukrainian apartment buildings, hospitals, schools, freedom squares were bombed. And I saw uncountable videos of people becoming refugees, fleeing into neighboring countries."

"Oh the Ukrainian army bombed their own houses. You need to have the critical thinking, don't trust any news!"

"If they are Nazis, why not bomb Russian civilian houses and cities? What kind of Nazis bomb their own streets but not occupy the neighboring country? What do they get from bombing their own houses?" 

.....

Raining hard outside, my mood elevating fast, my children riding on horses in the rain. So I just suddenly cut to a "bye" and ran away. 

With Coach and J in the outdoor arena, J didn't want to talk politics at all. Sometimes you never know what French men want.

Coach was as usual, "Luckily America got rid of Trump, can you imagine right now how fucked we would be if Trump was still there? Well, at the end of the day, all are evil, depending on which soil you stand on. Putin miscalculated, NATO has been aggressive, all those countries were part of USSR and Russian people are entitled to it. Europe goes way back in history. Well, all are evil, all are killing machines. COVID is the master plan made by China to take over the whole world, and China is extremely evil and dangerous. Russia has always been an ally, WWII was ended by the Russians you know. American children are so brainwashed to think the Americans ended WWII, but no, it was the Russians. They led the Nazis to Siberia and let Nazis' tanks freeze. USSR and America, two superpowers, they needed each other, if one was gone, the other would be gone too. So they preferred to co-exist, they relied on each other. But China? Oh no, China wants to be the superpower, but no, Russia is much safer than China. I wish Ukraine stay strong, but I also wish Russia continue to be the superpower. The world needs Russia to be the superpower, so China will be in check."

".......ya right....."

With the Ukraine war, it's just so bizarre that all kinds of sayings popped up from the people around you. When online, you only take comfort and stay together with accounts that express similar views. But you can't filter people in your life by their political views.

No wonder in normal life, politics is never really a hot topic among acquaintances but only within tight-knit. And in social media that connects random associates and distant relatives, most people stay quiet when it comes to politics, so as not to "make mistakes" or offend someone.

Also the more I see, the more I realize, everybody, well, especially the ones with less correct facts, does turn to think she/he is the smartest and most knowledgeable in the world, and what she/he believes is the most correct. Somewhat logical or all over the places, brainwashed with limited access to information or utterly free in the information junkyard. Not much difference. 

Humans. 

Partial to truth and knowledge is human's no.2 defect. As the result, we will never live without large-scale wars.

At least in democratic societies, people are free to believe in whatever shit they want. As long as a critical mass of intellectuals whose individual knowledge reservoir is high enough to build up the ability to apprehend multiple sides, as well as to recognize fundamentals that lie underneath twisted roots and intertwined joints are allowed to exist, there's always hope. 

China? If today China terminated its GFW and allowed information flow in and out freely, the number of such intellectuals might fast ascent to reach the critical mass in months or a short few years. 

Humans, the thirst for knowledge and truth is human's no.2 merit. As the result, we will always recover from wars, for a certain period of time. 

When my children were done with their horse riding today, we ran to our car in rain. All that time after I abruptly ran away from N till then, I was feeling guilty. 

"She's blind you know, how can she use Twitter and social media like you do? You can get whatever information you want, see whatever videos you want, but that could be 1000 times harder for her. If her grandpa lives under the Belarusian and Russian dictator's spell, how could she possibly get out of it? If people like my dad who could freely drive and shop in any store in America, who could speak some English and deal with normal situations, couldn't get out of his brainwashing, how can her grandpa who couldn't speak even a word of English, couldn't drive, barely have eyesight get out of his brainwashing?"

Then suddenly I saw them, N and her grandpa, waiting under the roof, waiting for Uber.

"Is your Uber coming? Where do you live?"

She used voice to order Uber with her phone, but her car was still 22 minutes away. 

"Hey, let me drop you home, it's only 30 minutes from here, and 25 minutes for me to go back home. It's raining, it's cold, it's late, let me drop you home. Luckily I drove my big car today, my husband went to SF for work."

So I helped her cancel the trip in Uber, my children helped me put up the back seats for grandpa. 

On the way to her home, we talked about music and piano, we talked about studies and schools, we talked about my love stories. In the last five minutes, I talked about how modern China was founded and all that suffering it went through, I did express my resentment for communism. Only because she kept asking about the Nanjing massacre, the Japanese invasion, and the comfort women in the war. Really no way to stop me from going there. 

On the way back to my home, I felt so guilty for getting angry at my mom for "being an inhumane Nazi" who "supported the war". I think I just assumed, no? She didn't dare to say anything in front of me or my children, no? And deep down, could you even believe my mom would not cry for the bombed and dead if she truly knows? No, she would definitely cry.