*人生.若只如初见.

Going through my individual development plan from one month ago, I find it a very important step for keeping track on what I am experiencing through the program.  Comparing to my first month here for work and self-understanding, I can see some of the goals gets vague while some are becoming clearer.

Long before I came to the United States, I was concerned about my home stay site. Where is its location? What kind of family it would be? Will there be any trouble in living with a local family? Will they treat me as a family member? All these questions remained mysterious until the forth day during the orientation. Deep in my consciousness, I believe in something called “destiny”, in Chinese “Yuan Fen”. Whenever it comes to the question: There are countless people in the world but why you just make acquaintance with that certain amount of people in your life? I would understand it as destiny. Coming from China to the United States, living with some one for some months together closely, I met my amazing host family as part of my destiny.

           I read Vic’s blog before I replied for this program. At that time, I knew that she had a good time with her wonderful family: a very “Berkeley style” mum MK and even more incredible host sister Brittany and her boyfriend Mickey, a cool host brother Kyle and an adorable dog Meg.  It was the intimate relationship she had with her host family made me envious. I wished to have a host family that would treat me as a family member as well; later after I was selected as a Chan Fellow, I read something about Brittany and Mickey from a blog of my favorite artist-Fei Cao.

Sitting on the computer, wondering where her time has gone for another week, she cannot think of anything special happen in the past week. However, by having a second thought about the people she have made acquaintance with, she has a lot to tell. Last Saturday, she helped Emily to move in her dorm and met her parents again there. Her parents are very easy-going and nice. Though born in Vietnam and Cambodia respectively, they both can speak Chinese. While having lunch together in the “Crossroads”, she had a long conversation with Uncle Vong. Started with how many languages he can speak, she amazingly found out that he can speak eight languages: He born in Cambodia, grew up in a Qiu Chow family, learned Mandarin from his neighbor, studied and stayed in France, picked up Spanish, immigrated to the States, married a Vietnamese, got along with Cantonese. His favorite sport is running. Never within her wildest imagination is that under his modest smile, there is an incredibly admirable story. In the end, he told her that he still has to run three times a week otherwise he will feel uncomfortable with his body. He said: “Some of my friends do not run any more and persuaded me into not running as well. I would not stop running because they tell me not to run. I know I can still run though I am in my 50s now.” She always failed to understand why and how people can constantly stick on running. However, the whole conversation reminds her of her favorite quotation from a movie “The pursuit of happiness”, in which the father tells his son: “Don't ever let somebody tell you that you can't do something. You got a dream, you have to protect it. People can't do something themselves, they want to tell you that you can't do it. If you want something, go and get it.” Hardly remember how many times she has doubted herself about her passions for public services and other dreams, she always take this sentence as encouragement for herself. Keep running, at least for yourself. 

“Tap yourself, coach yourself”

Impressedby “The Bay Citizen” a civic media focuses on foster civic engagement
in its community, she has a stronger desire to work on and learn more
about the issues on civic media. And she looked back to the work that
she is doing at her site, she could hardly find way to make things
work. On the first day of this week, she did not have enough passion
for working. She felt that she was doing stuff of no importance. On
Thursday, she spent the whole morning thinking about what to do because
her supervisor did not even have time to talk to her.

Stuckin the unfulfilled eagerness for working on civic media and
engagements, unmotivated by the ignorance in her office, she decided to
slowly perfect her current assignment and waited for more assignments.
On the one hand, she did not find her proper position in the office for
the first week yet. On the other, her supervisor did not have enough
chances to discover her abilities yet. Therefore, she brought a second
thought about the current assignment: to correct and update the content
and information. She came up with more ideas for improving the website,
which will take a lot more time and efforts to accomplish. And the key
point is that this project might be a burden for her supervisor.
Shortly she gave up that thought. She was patient but discontented.

Anotherweek has gone by and she is sitting in front of the computer, reviewing
her experience in the past week. Being a volunteer at Cal for the boot
camp, starting to make Chinese food at home, getting new challenges at
work, she has got some new and different feelings from the first two
weeks in the US.

“Have a bite at the culture”

Sheclaims quite often that she is not much into food. However, things that
firstly come up to her mind are about food. While the food finds its
way into mouth, goes through your stomach, and then all the way up to
your brain, the whole process will excite your nerve and activate your
thinking system.

Thefirst taste of the artificial juice here really impressed her:” how can
it be so sweet?” so next time she would ask which brand has less sugar,
at least she learned that Honest is less sweet than Snapple. The first
time she tried the yogurt here was unforgettable as well. The yogurt at
the store taste as great as ice-cream. Here she learns that they sell
no-fat yogurt but with sugar and provide cookies and candies on the
yogurt.  

The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings but
shorter tempers, wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints. We spend more, but
have less, we buy more, but enjoy less. We have bigger houses and smaller
families, more conveniences, but less time. We have more degrees but less
sense, more knowledge, but less judgment, more experts, yet more problems,
more medicine, but less wellness.

We drink too much, smoke too much, spend too recklessly, laugh too little,
drive too fast, get too angry, stay up too late, get up too tired, read too
little, watch TV too much, and pray too seldom.

One year ago I shared this essay in Chinese and Japanese. Tonight, I mentioned this to MK and she sent the English version to me after reading it .All of a sudden, I realized that I was as moved as before. And I have the same impulse to share this essay as I had last year. Here I go.I have to share it again and again. Just to share as if there is no one would read, as if there is no one would understand--at least, for myself. ---Yan

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I have come to Jerusalem today as a novelist, which is to say as a professional spinner of lies. Of course, novelists are not the only ones who tell lies. Politicians do it, too, as we all know. Diplomats and military men tell their own kinds of lies on occasion, as do used car salesmen, butchers and builders. The lies of novelists differ from others, however, in that no one criticizes the novelist as immoral for telling lies. Indeed, the bigger and better his lies and the more ingeniously he creates them, the more he is likely to be praised by the public and the critics. Why should that be?...