Posts Tagged ‘childhood’

Old writing ways

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , ,
26 October 2011
0

After over three years of inactivity, I am back to journal-keeping.  I’m picking up right here, right now, and hopefully will find the time to start filling in what I’ve missed out during this time.  It feels good to be writing again, even if it does hurt my hand a bit.  This habit was so much a part of my life for so long (13 years!).  I’m glad I have the time and the patience to do it again.  For awhile, I wasn’t sure if I would return to the art of putting pen to paper, so it’s encouraging that I have.  Unfortunately I’ve found that doing so has distracted me from blogging!  I guess I’ll have to start to learn how to manage my time between the two and differentiate what goes where.

Perhaps my journal-writing will evolve from the daily journal I’m used to into a more thoughtful, story-like weekly account of my life.  I think if I get too busy again, I will try to still keep up with my journal at least once or twice a week.  After all, with no notes to take at work and no other need to use a pen during my normal routine, it’s a welcome change to be physically writing so much again.  I always found it to be a really therapeutic thing to do.  I might even spend some quiet time writing on the flight to see Panda Friday night.  I remember one time I was on the plane writing so furiously fast that the guy next to me gave me a curious look.  It was a great moment of flow of consciousness that I had fun with.  I’m looking forward to more of those moments again.

The bookworm inside

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , ,
15 March 2011
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A year ago, I had a squirmy feeling.  It was the bookworm I used to be, wanting to get out again.  There weren’t really any books I’d heard of that I really wanted to read at that point, so time passed and next thing I knew I was all caught up in starting a job.  In the latter months of last year, I began to have that need again and decided to start listening to audio books since my commute was extremely long.  Now that I no longer have that crazy commute, I find the itch coming back again and I’ve decided to make use of the public libraries I haven’t been to in so long.

When I was a kid, all I did was read.  I didn’t want to eat, sleep, or shower.  I’d rather read.  I’d read on my way to the bus stop, on the bus, walking down the halls between classes… anytime that I wasn’t talking to someone or listening to a teacher!  I would read while eating (since I ultimately had to eat sometime) and I often turned showers into baths so that I could bring in a book to read.  Yeah, I was pretty obsessive.  In fact, I remember the first time I turned in a reading log to my 5th grade teacher.  She called up my parents to confirm that they had indeed signed my form and really did believe I read that many books that week.  I usually powered through about 25 to 30 age-appropriate books in a week.  My mom even made me a special cloth bag so that I could carry all my books to the car in one go.

When I think about it, I can’t remember most of the things I read, but that habit as a child will come back to nudge me subconsciously every now and then.  I do have faint recollections of the Mrs. Piggle Wiggle series, Goosebumps, the Boxcar Kids, Little House on the Prairie… and these things remind me of the childhood I had as a bookworm.  I stopped reading so much right around the time I moved to New York in 7th grade.  I guess the challenge of changing schools halfway through the school year and getting used to a more rigorous academic schedule took up all my time.

From then on, I started to get into physical activity, joining the track & field team, two swim teams, and JROTC.  I no longer had the time to think of reading anything other than the schoolbooks I needed to for my classes.  It also didn’t help that the books we had to read in high school were all rather dreary and too literary for me.  I like a good story or lesson, not some convoluted message that takes multiple reads to understand.  So into my young adulthood, I learned to read when I had to.

Then sometime in college I began to cultivate my interest in business, economics, psychology, and non-fiction in general.  This was probably largely due to my desire to go into business and my choice to double major in Econ and Psych (surprise, surprise).  And that’s what’s gotten me to where I am today – I love books like Freakonomics, The World is Flat (which I discovered because my dad got it for me as a birthday present one year!), and The Tipping Point.  These are books with interesting studies, explanations of patterns and phenomena, and real lessons I can use.  I’ve also begun to delve into books about evolution and atheism.  While I considered myself agnostic for a long time, I’ve come to realize I’m really quite atheist and agnosticism now seems like a cop-out I used to not bring on conflict from religious people.

And there you go, the evolution of that little bookworm inside me that once loved cute stories and now seeks practical lessons.

What is home?

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
02 October 2010
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Comfortable enough in America, Chinatown, and even Hong Kong or Taiwan, we seem to belong everywhere.  And because of this, we might also belong nowhere.  “Home,” it seems, ends up being a mixed-up notion that must be redefined if it is to have meaning for many of us.

~Phoebe Eng, Warrior Lessons

When I was in Chinese school in New York, author Phoebe Eng came by for a book signing at my school.  My parents bought me her book, Warrior Lessons, while I was in class and had her sign it for me.  When I received the book, I read through it to learn more about the Asian-American woman’s experience.  I remember reading through it every couple of years since then, and now it’s time to read it again.  She speaks of a variety of experiences by Asian-American women from around the country, much of which we can relate to.

The quote above is particularly pertinent to my life.  Not only did I grow up between the US and China, I also moved from the East Coast to the Midwest and ended up on the West Coast.  I can fit in and live comfortably just about anywhere, yet not belong anywhere.  It’s the story of my life.  And so, whenever people ask me where I’m from, my answer varies each time.

Where am I from?  A little bit of everywhere, I’d sometimes reply, then explain the moves I’ve made.  When I’m not in the mood to delve too deeply, I’ll just simply say the current place I am living.  In China, I’m from America.  In America, I’m from Asia.  In Europe, I choose.  This can sometimes be beneficial and I can choose sides as needed, but of course much of the time I just end up being an outsider.  But I’ve never really had a problem with that.  In fact, I quite enjoying being “the other” – Eastern to the Westerners, Western to the Easterners, and just plain foreign to foreign countrymen.

The idea of home is also distorted by my multiple moves, which leaves me with no single hometown, no single childhood home, and no single concept of home.  Home is sometimes a house, or a town, or wherever my parents are.  Home is sometimes where I have been living as of late and home is sometimes the place I am currently most fond of staying at.  In a broad sense, home is the United States, where I am most comfortable culturally and linguistically.  Yet in a deeper sense, home is China, where my roots are and all of my family still resides.  As I like to tell people, it’s complicated.  That’s ok though, I don’t mind!

I am perfectly content going to a foreign country like Hong Kong and having people speak to me in Cantonese, assuming I would understand (unfortunately, I only know Mandarin).  I am also very happy to be able to hop between my two countries of origin without any major language barriers.  And while my notion of home changes almost as much as my physical addresses have changed, I understand that the way we see life and our lives will change over time.  So what’s so wrong about having a fluid definition of what makes a home?

The early years

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , , , ,
08 July 2010
1

Branching off from my description of generational gaps in my family…

For my parents in particular, my maternal grandmother heard of my dad through the wife of a professor at the local university, which is where my parents both went to school.  My maternal grandfather was also a professor at the school and his professor buddy had my dad as a student.  Through the women talking, my grandmother learned that this young man was the professor’s star student and first in his class.  My parents were introduced to each other and my grandfather approved without ever meeting the young man.  All he had to know was that he was a hard worker and an excellent student.  My grandmother, on the other hand, wanted to meet and get to know this potential suitor.  As the legend goes, she sat him down for an interview (probably mostly asking about academics and his professional future) and liked him as well.  My mom decided that of the guys she’d been introduced to, she liked this one the most, and so they were married.  Or something like that.

It turned out to be a great decision, since my dad was smart enough to be allowed to leave China, which was a bit of a mess back in those years.  The country had been in lock down and it was extremely hard to get out.  My dad got into a PhD program at Penn State, which is what took him abroad.  About six months before I was born, he left for the land of the free and began his studies.  A year later, when I was a few months old, my mom followed suit, going to Penn State for her Master’s.  I was left with relatives in China and I believe my paternal grandmother was mostly in charge of raising me those years.  By the time I was three and a half, my parents had saved up enough money to fly me over.

I don’t remember much from those years, but I did have one strong memory from the plane ride, about the lady who escorted me from my family in China to my parents in America.  I have also been told by my mother that when I first arrived, I refused to let my dad sleep in the bed.  After all, it really was like meeting them for the first time – my dad had never seen me before and my mom had only been with me for about half a year.  My mom attributes this behavior to a child’s need to cling to one adult they trust.  Apparently between my parents, I chose my mother.  So I clung to her and slept with her, but initially wouldn’t allow my dad to share the space.  Poor guy must have had a couple of rough nights camping out on the couch or something.

And so that is how I spent the first couple of years of my life.  Most of it’s a blur and photography was too expensive back then to have many pictures capturing my toddler years.  The few I do have are quite amusing, with me all bundled up in winter clothes with a red dot on my forehead, or hanging out in a crib with my cousins standing around me.  Perhaps I’ll dig those up someday and share them too.

Child-rearing philosophy

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , ,
29 June 2010
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So I mentioned a little while back that I am watching Medium, and I have found I have little patience for overbearing parents.  I get annoyed that they are always so worried – you’re too young to have an email account, you’re too young to walk home alone, you’re too young to stay home alone.  Blah, blah, blah.  What is this crazy control these parents think they can exert?  Sure, you should be careful, but you never let your child out of their gilded cage, they’ll never learn to fend for themselves.  The world, though filled with its dangers, is also totally to navigate without being hand-held the whole way through.

I quite like the way that I grew up and it had nothing to do with what I’m seeing in this show, and in other families.  Granted, by the time the internet and email came around, I was already a pre-teen, so there wasn’t much concern over when I’d be ready.  Then again, the eldest daughter in the show wasn’t allowed to get an email account until she was 13 or 14 (and only under the condition that her parents had full access).  I got myself plenty of accounts, as well as instant message screen names and even free websites.  I stayed home alone for a few hours here and there as early as 8 and by the time I was in 6th grade, I’d be home alone for days at a time.

A child who had a babysitter stay with them instead wouldn’t have learned the responsibility that I did.  How do you expect someone to take care of herself when you never let her be on her own?  No wonder it’s a huge deal for parents when their beloved child is off to college.  It’s the first time in 18 years they’ve ever let them leave the house for more than a week!  But me, I got to travel and visit relatives in China.  I got to go to a variety of summer camps and enjoy myself, learn more about myself and the world.  I would have hated to stay with my parents all the time, sleep in the same bed every night.  Perhaps that is why I had absolutely no trouble traveling through Europe alone for a couple of weeks.  Perhaps that is why I never got too homesick while studying abroad for a year.  These are skills that can be learned very early and life and it certainly helps you cope with the situations that can arise in your adult life.

I don’t believe in parents always peering over their child’s shoulder, not giving them privacy or space to grow and learn.  I am great at detecting spam mail or other shady business because I have seen it since I first got on the internet.  I know exactly how to take care of myself when I am alone.  I don’t put myself in dangerous situations and when I am alone in a foreign place, I am always conscious of my surroundings, making sure no stranger gets too close or that anyone is following me.  I learned a lot of street smarts by being out in the world.  I don’t think there’s any other way to do it.  So when it comes time for me to be a parent, I am not going to prevent them from going to sleepovers or seeing boys/girls or getting an email account all to themselves.  I’d rather teach them the skills to know how to take care of themselves in each situation.  After all, experience is the best teacher, isn’t it?

Domino effect or Murphy’s law?

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , ,
09 June 2010
0

I usually just write about my thoughts and opinions, or include pictures and videos I find interesting.  I think it’s time for a little story – an anecdote from my childhood.  After all, stories can be a great thing for entertainment.

When I was about 12 (or maybe I was already 13 by then), I was set to return to China for the summer.  It was my first time flying alone, but I loved exploring things on my own and was perfectly happy to make the trip without supervision.  I was living in New York at the time and my parents took me to LaGuardia Airport, got me checked in, and sent me on my way.  Well, after waiting with me until the plane actually arrived, that is.  You see, it was delayed (as planes quite often are).

So when it was finally time, I got on my flight to O’Hare International Airport in Chicago.  When we landed there, I quickly exited the plane to rush to the gate of my connecting flight.  When I arrived there, I was happy to see they were still boarding.  Most people had already gone on, so there wasn’t much of a line left.  When I got to the front, the steward took my ticket and stopped just as he was about to rip off the stub for me.

“You aren’t going to Amsterdam, are you?” he questioned.

I paused.  “No…” I replied, confused.  “I’m going to Beijing.”

“Well,” he said, “this isn’t your flight.  That one has already taken off.”

Whaaaaat?!  I hadn’t noticed the sign saying this flight was headed to Amsterdam.  And I was baffled that I was so late that not only had my flight packed up and gone, the next flight was nearly ready to back out of the gate!  Oh no.  Not good news.  The steward directed me to a customer service area where I could be helped and I trekked over, for the first time unsure of my travels.  When I arrived, I found that a lot of others on my flight had come across the very same issue and were all standing in line to work it out with the people at the counter.  Frantic, I called home to talk to my parents about the disaster.

I don’t recall much of the conversation, except that they told me to remain calm and go talk to the people at the counter, then let them know what was going on.  I obediently went to stand in line and was told that the next flight out was the following day.  At this point, realizing I was a minor traveling alone, the airline sent a representative to be my escort.  They planned out the rest of my trip and called my parents, informing them of my new itinerary.  Now I was to stay the night at an airport hotel and take a flight to Tokyo, then transfer to a flight to China.  Slight detour, but that was the next available flight so there wasn’t much of a choice.

The airline stewardess sent to watch over me led me off to a room hidden away, where a whole room full of kids sat around playing with a variety of toys!  It was an awesome game room and I quickly settled in to play a Yoshi video game.  I’ve never owned a gaming system, so it was a joy to be able to play for hours.  For lunch, I was taken out to get some food at one of the food court type areas.  The lady had a voucher of some sort for me to use.  For the rest of the day I played games until dinnertime, when I was taken out again to eat.  Throughout the day, kids had come and gone as they waited for their flights.

By the end of the night, it was just me and four teenage boys left.  We were shuttled over to the Four Points hotel and taken to our rooms.  The guys each shared with one other boy and occupied two rooms.  Being the only girl, I was given a suite all to myself!  I remember it was so big I could have done cartwheels all around the place.  Now that was some luxury!  I happily got under the covers and watched some late night shows, not really caring about TV but wanting to do something.  Outside my door, a gentleman sat on a chair all night, guarding my door and watching those of the boys across the hall.  I’m sure he got a break from a colleague, but I was too busy resting inside to know.

The next morning, we all got up and headed back to the airport.  I stayed in the game room until it was time to go and by that time I’d made a friend with a Korean girl who was going to be on the same flight as me from Chicago to Tokyo, after which she would to to Seoul and I would go to Beijing.  We boarded our flight, another delayed one, and sat together for the trip.  Arriving at Narita International, we found that we’d missed our connections.  We were passed off to Japanese airport officials, who got us flights for the next morning.  With our parents informed of the new development, we were taken to a back room where the airport staff hung out.

All I remember of that place was a dingy feel with poor lighting, guys lounging around watching an odd game show that I couldn’t understand, and the air filled with smoke.  Hating cigarette smoke, I had a difficult time breathing as the guys puffed away.  It was sort of awkward, but late in the night already, so we didn’t have to stay long.  My friend and I were taken to an airport hotel, where we shared a room.  I remember looking out at the peephole to find a very cute guy sitting in front of our door, guarding us for the night.  We girls giggled over our littles crushes and chatted late into the night.

Two days after my initial departure, I finally got on a flight to Beijing.  My flight buddy had gone off to her flight to Seoul and I never saw her again.  Meanwhile, I was babysat until mine came.  I made it to Beijing after many hiccups, but there was one more small one to get through – the train from Beijing to my hometown of Shenyang was delayed!  I can’t remember who got me, but we waited about an hour for a train and by this time it was nearly 1 in the morning.  Somewhere here the details get fuzzy, since it used to take 12 hours to get between those cities, but I distinctly remember arriving at my grandmother’s door right around 4 AM.  The poor woman had been waiting up for me, as good grandmothers are apt to do.  🙂

I’m not sure if I’m imagining it, but perhaps – just perhaps, I had taken a flight from Beijing to Shenyang and then gotten driven back by 4.  It does make sense, but I can’t quite remember.  One day, I will rifle through my journal entries to confirm the details.  I hope I wrote all of it down.  And so there you go, a most arduous journey that you could attribute to the domino effect, with pieces falling down and causing the next one to fall down too.  Or you could blame Murphy’s law, where anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.  Not to say that things going wrong can’t be a beautiful thing!  In fact, for me it really was quite a wonderful experience!  I had a lot of fun and got to enjoy the type of adventure not many pre-teens can ever say they’ve had.

Dedication

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , ,
06 May 2010
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I never really paid attention much, but it seems that my dedication is unusually strong.

One thing I’ve noticed lately is that a lot of blogs fall to the wayside, with people starting off hopeful and then posts end up dwindling to nothing.  The same thing goes for journals.  For years I’ve been hearing from friends and others I meet that they tried to keep one too, but it never really got anywhere.  Meanwhile, I kept daily journal for 13 years, accumulating around 50 volumes of journals before I stopped (I blame meeting Panda :-P).  I’ve still got notes for my journal from when I left off and I’ve been considering picking it up again.  However, there’s always the battle of “is it worth the time?” or “does this matter enough to me to be recorded?”  After all, the time I spend writing is time I’m not spending doing other fun and interesting things worth writing about.

What is it about writing blogs or journals that makes nearly everyone want to do it at some point?  I guess there’s a certain human quality that craves documentation and future historical value.  There are memories that we’d like to have to look back on.  On the other hand, it could really be a more technical issue, with those who want to practice their writing and develop it over the years.  Certainly lack of consistent writing will have a detrimental effect on the quality of your pieces, especially years down the road.  So professional or not, a blog or journal can at least force you to keep up your writing skills, to some degree.

I’ve also wondered what it is about me that makes me continue writing when others would have stopped.  Why do so many people want to write regularly, but don’t?  Perhaps it is because I am stubborn.  Perhaps it is because I got started at a young age (10).  Perhaps it is because my sentimentalism drives me to keep on going so I’ll have a lot to look back on.  I’m not quite sure what it is exactly, but many factors have urged me on over the years, as I continuously questioned the value of writing so much.  I’ve spent countless hours huddled with the latest journal design I was using, accompanied by a lovely stash of colored pens that I wrote with.  Now I’m spending countless hours typing away my thoughts, exploring some of the things that have been on my mind.  It certainly is a great outlet, preserved for all posterity.

Ultimately, I guess it just comes down to that fact that I want to keep going.  Whatever the reasons for wanting may have changed over the years as my style and even medium of writing transitioned, but that desire has not faded.  And so, I will keep on writing and wondering what this is all about, if only because I am dedicated to this part of my life.

Life as a musical

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , , , ,
23 April 2010
0

Panda and one of my coworkers seem to love the idea of life being like a musical.  Whenever we walk, Panda will start singing a little tune he makes up to go with the rhythm of our footsteps.  My coworker always is talking about breaking out into song and dance (and apparently he’s sizing up everyone to see who he’d want to be near if this did happen, so he could be next to the better dancers).  Yeah, I’m surrounded by strange people.

When I was younger, I used to sing a lot too.  I think for me it stemmed in my upbringing.  My parents would sing old Chinese songs for no real reason as I was growing up.  In the car, we’d pop in a cassette or CD and sing along (that actually served a purpose: keeping my dad awake and alert while driving).  Around the house, they would do so without any accompaniment.  And there’s something really harmonious about singing or humming while gardening, which is something my mother loved to do.  I never saw any shame in singing in public and only in later years did I learn to tone it down.

This unconscious behavior got suppressed over the years as people always looked at me funny or asked me why I would burst into song.  Perhaps my voice is not that great, but I didn’t care.  It felt good and it felt right.  But nowadays, that doesn’t really happen and I wonder if that feedback affected me over the years until I got to this point, where I laugh and shake my head at people who sing randomly (or would like to).  It’s a pity, because I see nothing wrong with it.  I’d like to get in touch with that part of my behavior again.

What is so wrong or strange about singing in public anyway?  I find it to be a great way of expression, and usually a positive outlet.  Though I listen to certain types of songs when I am down and want to get sadness out of my system by having a bit of a cathartic release, I can’t ever recall wanting to sing a melancholy tone to express myself.  I can imagine a sad song being sung at organized events and the like, but not really by a lone person walking the streets.  Instead, I’m always inspired by happy, positive, upbeat feelings – and  it brings a smile to almost everyone’s faces, whether or not they actually like my singing.  The spontaneous desire to sing tends to go hand-in-hand with smiling and skipping.

It would be really cool if life were a musical and people burst out into song and dance more often.  It’d certainly make my world a happier place.  For now, I’ll just settle for the bit of singing Panda and I do from time to time, usually without realizing it’s happening.  There must be something deep down that drives us to do it and why should we deny ourselves that sort of innate joy?  It’s a beautiful thing, really.

Chirping memories

laelene Posted in video blog，Tags: , , , , , , ,
22 April 2010
0

This was reminiscent of my grandfather’s house. Not that it’s quite so loud, but he does love to raise birds and out of sight in this clip are bamboo/wooden cages that really reminded me of the ones he has at his home.

along the bird market from Mary Qin on Vimeo.

How long can you hold on?

laelene Posted in general blog，Tags: , , , ,
15 March 2010
0

It’s been awhile since I’ve read some of the blogs I used to follow loosely, so today I took a look at my Google Reader.  One of the ones I’d stumbled upon had written its last and final post at 999 or 1000, over the course of five years.  So often, people start a blog fresh and excited, then it wanes into a duty before it fizzles out after a few weeks, months, or years.  Blogging hasn’t really been around for people to do it for decades, but I doubt many would ever make it that far anyway.  What is it about maintaining writing that is so difficult?  Many a time I’ve been told by people that they once kept a journal or diary, only to have it fade away after awhile.  (This is after I told them I had been keeping a daily journal since 4th grade.)

Even I haven’t lasted forever and 13 years into writing those journal entries, I have stopped to take a breather (nearly 50 volumes in!).  It is always in my heart to go back and fill in those missing days, but as the days go on, the feasibility goes down.  Nevertheless, I still faithfully document my life in one way or another – via photos, blog posts, e-mails, tweets, and random memos to myself.  It’s a habit I don’t intend to kick, this need to have a record of my life, my past.  I guess it’s easier for me because I took it when I was young and made it a habit, a need.  Even now, not having a written journal keeping track of my life doesn’t sit well with me.

People go through a lot of changes in their lives and it only makes sense that this is one of those fluid things that comes and goes.  For me, the need to remember details of my life remain, but the medium through which I do that depends on how I develop as a person.  Makes me wonder how long this will last…

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