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!"
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