Sunday, March 2, 2014

Gender

Creation of life is a miracle, funny thing is, for a lot of people in this world, gender is more important than life.

"Did you ask your doctor the baby's sex?" "When can you tell the gender of the baby?" "Did you see the penis in ultrasound?" "Ahh, it's ok, you can have a lot of kids anyways. Hihi, then you will be a (worthless) housewife."

My mother started to ask such questions following the confirmation of my pregnancy, around three weeks after conception.

I was for some time feeling annoyed, didn't want to communicate with her, therefore didn't get to know what symptoms she had in her early pregnancy. Usually mother and daughter share the similar symptoms.

When I was young, my mother often cried in front of me, asserting that "it's too difficult to be a woman", next life she wanted to be born as a man, even this life, how much she wished she was a man.

When I made mistakes, she sometimes shouted at me, "girls are useless, how much I wished I had given birth to a boy".

Thus almost half of my childhood, I was praying that I would suddenly wake up in the morning to find my penis.

I was raised up like a boy indeed, never had long hair, never had a doll, seldom wore skirts, discouraged to act like a girl but encouraged to act like a boy, the way of walking, talking, eating, even cursing. I naturally felt that girls were dump and disgusting, just like how the other boys felt about their opposite sex.

So what do I want for myself? A boy or a girl?

This is the most frequent question I received for the past two months, within the first three questions during the conversation, definitely there is one concerning the gender.

To be honest, I want a boy.

I want the best for my kid, the easiest way out, being a boy.

As a boy, I wouldn't worry if he would be sexually assaulted by one of the "nice" uncles at home when he is nine years old, I wouldn't worry if he would be knocked up by his teenage first love, I wouldn't worry if he chooses to elope with his lover and settle in some far away foreign country.

As a man, he can easily dream about being a world leader, a powerful politician, a football superstar, a world-famous writer, a courageous journalist, a successful entrepreneur, a business tycoon. The doors are wide open for him, the other side of the doors are filled with 99% men, he just need to work hard to become one of them.

If I am having a daughter, I wouldn't want to impose high hopes to her, no world leader, no politician, no industrial tycoon, she can study whatever she feels like, she doesn't need to be outstanding because it will require a lot of sacrifice, most of the time, her rights to happiness.

I only want her to be honest, simple, humble, confident and compassionate, in that way she can receive the maximum amount of happiness. I also wish her has her father's facial features and my skin, because under normal circumstance, being pretty can make her life much easier.

What about being influential and helpful to the society? I think as a woman, as long as she finds her inner strength, she has high self-esteem, that is good enough to lead an example.

I will also secretly save up some money for her, if she wants to travel around the world, I want her to travel in comfort, booking decent hotels and transportation so to avoid harassment and trouble; if she unfortunately experiences severe sexual attack, I want to be able to fight for her, paying up legal fees, psychological consult etc; if her boss fires her because of pregnancy, I want her to have some backup.

If I really want a baby girl, maybe it means I am selfish, I want a child who can understand me, who is sweet and tender, who will cry with me, who knows how to love and care for me, who will always be there for me.

I made a deal with my husband, "in our next circle of life, you will be the wife who carries out the pregnancy."

I experienced almost all symptoms possible for early pregnancy:

  • sever headache - due to sudden surge of multiple hormones, headache from the beginning 
  • lost of appetite - bitterness in mouth, everything tastes differently, all food seem disgusting, can't even talk about it
  • huge amount of gas and acid - burping every 30 seconds, also experience heartburn and bloating 
  • nausea and vomiting - even a thought of food or smell can trigger it, anytime, anywhere
  • hyper senses - sensitive to any smell especially cooking smell, phobia of odor is even developed
  • hyper emotions - crying on dreams, songs, movies, even some imaginary thoughts 
  • frequent urination - frequent stops in highway, always looking for toilet
  • constipation - some mornings I find blood in stools
  • fatigue - can't focus on doing one thing for more than an hour
  • failing eyesight - sometimes my eyes feel blurry all of sudden 
  • starving - every night 12am, every morning 5am, I wake up in unbearable hunger

It's only been two months, but felt like years. Everyday I am counting, wishing the symptoms could ease down. Most of the days, I couldn't even get up from bed, lying there, waiting to feel hungry, force myself to eat something, then go back to hibernation.

Getting out of room is the toughest thing, when the door opens, cooking smell trapped in corridor could knock me out badly, flip over my stomach so I throw up everything in there, even the last bit of bitter acid.

Having children of their own is usually a couple's decision, but only the woman knows how hard it is, physically and mentally.

Because I have experienced discrimination, sexual harassment, now pregnancy myself, I know being a woman is difficult and would want to avoid to be one. But if I am blessed with a baby girl, I couldn't be more happier.

That's why I am always wondering, those mothers and fathers who intentionally kill their female fetuses, this action is the result of their love to the free-from-suffering unborn girls, or the hatred to the entire gender?

And I think either it's cowardice or hatred,  because of it, our world for women is not getting better.

#save female fetuses

#stop female foeticide


Related post: Life

Thursday, February 27, 2014

Life




This is a 38mm long, 10 weeks 4 days (8 weeks 4 days after conception) little embryo, temporally living in my belly.

The gender of the embryo is not yet defined, its sex organ not yet formed. So I call this little thing "it".

My belly is still flat, no weight gain yet. If three weeks later, the decision be made to kill this little thing, because it doesn't have a penis, nobody should be able to notice.

When we were in the hospital, watching the ultrasound image, it was jumping around, stretching arms and legs, flipping over, kicking. And we saw that, it was smiling the whole time, with its thick lips fully resemble its father's.

It is a life. Grows by second.

Two weeks ago we saw its heart beat for the first time, 150 times a minute. It didn't have a little bit human shape by then, looked like a frozen turkey in the supermarket, it didn't move at all.

Only two weeks after, we saw the fully functioning arms and legs, we saw its smile on the face.

Maybe it already started dreaming, and wondering where it is living right now. Soon it will have the urge to know the world, to know everything, to explore.

We didn't care to ask the doctor if she could tell the gender of the little thing.

Because it is our baby, the gift from gods, the reminder of our love. That, is all it matters.

It is a life. Grows by second.

#save female fetuses

#stop female foeticide



Related post: Gender

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Reimagining India

The subcontinent was home to some of the most sophisticated early human civilizations. Critics of India's modern infrastructure would do well to recall that inhabitants of Mohenjo-Daro and Rakhigarhi built the world's first-known urban sanitation systems five thousand years ago and may have been the first to use wheeled transport. For centuries after Alexander's departure, India was governed by powerful Hindu dynasties who patronized the arts and took keen interest in religion, philosophy and practical science. Megasthenes, the first western historian to venture beyond the Punjab into the Gangetic plain, described a land so verdant and fertile that "famine has never visited India and there has never been a general scarcity in the supply of nourishing food." Venetian traveler Marco Polo, who claimed to have visited several ports in India during his 1292 voyage from China to Persia, declared Malabar (now Kerala) on India's southwest coast to be the "richest and most splendid province in the world".

....in Akbar's court in Fatehpur Sikri, notes British historian Alex von Tunzelmann, Akbar lived in "unmatched opulence... in rooms done out with marble, sandalwood and mother-of-pearl, cooled by the gentle fanning of peacock feathers." By comparison, Elizebeth was a "weak and feeble woman" who ruled over a "grubby, unsophisticated, cold, dismal little kingdom."

--Reimagining India, by Mckinsey & Company 2013

Sunday, November 17, 2013

December

We will walk around holy fire for seven circuits,
make seven oaths in front of Hindu gods.

I will mark your forehead and hairline with red sindoor,
plant a baby in your body.

Finally I am locking you down.
You are mine and only mine. 

Monday, November 11, 2013

Random thoughts

I am still not quite in my place, intense working schedule before the big Indian wedding vocation, plus a restless mind.

When people ask me what do you think about India, my answer now is, "it's complicated". I am struggling in a complicated relationship with India. I've seen it, I've seen the best, I've seen the worst.

Every time when I picture it as my going-to-be future destination, my mind goes blank for a few seconds.

If it's only about me, all I can have is excitement. But as a single child, I will have to think about my parents, I still couldn't tell them the truth of our future plan. Luckily India and China is geographically much closer than America and China. We will find out a way, like we always do.

I don't know where I belong, I don't have roots. So wherever I go, I make a little home, and try to enjoy the moment.

It's very ironic, the building where my wedding is going to be hosted, I experienced minor sexual harassment there. "Sexual Harassment", it is not a phrase which could bother me anymore, but it followed me for more than ten years, from a child to a girl.

Whenever I walked in a dark street, saw a men ten meters away heading my direction, I couldn't help trembling. I was not raped, not even stripped naked, but the month-long damage took me years to repair, with no one to tell.

Stuck in a narrow tunnel, dark and cold, suffocated, I crawl and crawl, there was no ending, couldn't feel the light, I woke up in fear and tears.

At least when I was screaming, my mom and dad were there to take me to their room. So I never actually tried to kill myself, just some thoughts sometimes.

For the past one month or so, I haven't expressed myself in Chinese, no tweet, no blog, I do not wish to. You can say it was due to the massive attack a month and half ago, or maybe I am just tired of it, after all these years. Debates always turn vulgarly abusive, general opinion always lead to personal attack.

They hate me, wish to shut me up, only because I marry an Indian and in love with freedom and equal rights. Why can't we discuss about it with mutual respect? Tolerance is something the country took away from us.

As an evacuee from authoritarian regime, I am still on my first few years to build up constructive thinking, from zero ground. If my knowledge and capability of independent thinking reflects a 14 year old kid who grows up in a free country, most of them are less than 10, not all, but mostly.

Internet gives them a mask, they find the "weak" ones for their emotional outlet, only because they are weak.

And I say it, I proudly say it, my mind is only equivalent to a 14 year old child. So what? I will keep exploring and developing, I have no rush to grow old. If my immaturity wins from time to time, only because I am true to myself. As long as I am not ashamed of myself, nobody is on any "high ground" to judge me. And I will never be ashamed of myself. I never regret on anything I do.

This is also something I grew out from my sexual harassment experience.

In a way I am grateful to my haters, unless a person faces such harsh situation, nobody knows where is his/her limit, how much he/she can take.

They fed me, made me stronger.

I guess my battle continues, no matter it is in India, in China, in here, or in myself.

India is a beautiful place, unimaginably rich, rich with culture, rich with spirituality, rich with love. This is also the reason why wealthy America can't make Raj stay.

Love is all we want, love is all we need. Love is home. 

Thursday, November 7, 2013

Mad Girl's Love Song

Sylvia Plath (1932 - 1963) 

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; 
I lift my lids and all is born again. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, 
And arbitrary blackness gallops in: 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed 
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: 
Exit seraphim and Satan's men: 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I fancied you'd return the way you said, 
But I grow old and I forget your name. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

I should have loved a thunderbird instead; 
At least when spring comes they roar back again. 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.)