LI SU COULD BE SAVED

(Caution! Texts in red color might be disturbing)

LI SU COULD BE SAVED

– A Petition To Chinese Legislature Regarding Family Child Abuse In China

This is a petition letter to Chinese legislature with respect to family child abuse crime in China. We urge government to take actions to refine the existing child protection law, deprive the custodial rights of parents who seriously harm their children, bring criminals to justice. We appeal government to put effort on establishing official organizations for protecting children. We also urge Chinese government and society to raise public awareness of the seriousness of Family child abuse in China, and the responsibility of society towards children.

20 years ago, in Xining, Qinghai province of China, a 5 year-old girl was tortured to death by her biological mother. Her name was Li Su (苏丽). During her short life, Li had been suffered all kinds of mental and physical abuses, included verbal abuse, beating savagely and starving. More horrendously, not only once, Li's mouth was sewn together with needle and thread. One day when Li was 5 year-old, due to tremendous hunger she begged for foods, but what her “mother” did to her was feeding her with hot boiling cooking oil. After this astonishing torture, the “mother” did not send her daughter to hospital, instead, she continued physically abusing her for days, until Li finally died of unimaginable suffering (1).

While Zhiyun Yan (燕志云) – Li's mother - certainly is not a only person in the world who is capable of committing such crime, Li Su could be saved if the society had a better child protection system. During all those years Li Su's situation was well known to neighborhood, and once was even reported in several newspapers, but she was nonetheless left alone, lived in her “home” until her young life could not endure anymore. Under such circumstance, Li Su was more a victim of society than a victim of an individual criminal.

A quick look at some recent cases. June 2013, in the city of Nan Jing(南京）, Jiangsu province of China, 2 girls,1 and 3 year-old, was left alone at home for over 100 days and starved to death, due to the completely incapability of mothering (2); July 2013 in Guizhou (贵州) province of China, a man was arrested for brutally torturing her 11 year-old daughter for 5 years long，included pouring boiling water to the head, sewing the mouth together, using needle pricking fingers, etc.(3) . In 2013, Shuicheng county (水城县) of Guizhou province, a 12 year-old girl “Xiaoyan” (晓燕）, after her body was burned literally all over with hot fire rod by her parents – mostly her mother, escaped from “home”. Several days later she ended up a local police department. After Xiaoyan's father handing a “letter of repentance” to police, policemen sent Xiaoyan back to her parents. Soon she escaped again due to her parents' continuing physical tortures. Now Xiaoyan is staying hospital and allegedly under good care. Her fate is unknown (4). There are many more similar cases from time to time. All these cases reveal one fact: children in China have no protection except their families, and if the families happen to be problematic or violent, these children have absolutely no helps from else where.

Child abuse, by all means is the worst type of human crimes, yet it is often neglected by society. The seriousness of child abuse, first lies in the complete innocence and vulnerability of children. Every single child in this world is innocent, and every one of them is completely defenseless before adults' attack. And it is precisely because of this reason, it is the duty of the society to protect children; secondly, the seriousness of child abuse also lies in victims' long term suffering. Physical wounds of child abuse victims may be healed in short period of time, but mental wounds would last for long term. Some of victims would even suffer mental illness for their entire lives; thirdly, because victims of child abuse usually carry tremendous emotional traumas, very often, they can be harmful to themselves, or to others, thus they can be potential danger of society. Due to all this reasons, any civilized societies should have elaborate legal systems to supervise all families with young children, to make sure that they are safe.

Child abuse in China has been a historical problem, yet it never been confronted by society. Corporal punishment to children is perfectly acceptable based on Chinese tradition, so millions of child abuse crimes have been simply “invisible” to public. Further more, as the world largest population, even if the victims of serious child abuse in China are minority, it is still an incredibly large number. Under such circumstance, if there are no actions from Chinese government, the condition for Chinese children would only get worse than what it is.

Even though before Li Su died China had already established child-protect law,, but the sentences to criminals of family child abuse have been extremely mild. Zhiyun Yan, who tortured Li Su for years and finally took her life, was only sentenced 7 years in prison. Shihai Yang (杨世海), the man who torture his daughter for 5 years long, was only sentenced for 1 year and 6 months in jail. We see no sign of justice at all in these verdicts. The real obstacle for the current law to protect children in China is the Chinese ancient tradition: children are parents' property. Because of this obstinate ideology, the law doesn't stand firmly when it related to parents' custodial right, and the implement on this regard is completely lame. By far, among all child abuse cases in China, no matter how serious they were, not a single parent's custodial right has been deprived. This fact, doubtlessly caused children endure much more unnecessary suffering. It is the objective of this petition to urge Chinese legislature to refine the existing child protect law, to create an implementable legal methods, bring those parents who commit serious crime to justice, regardless the their relationships to victims.

A functional Child-protect system would not stop at punishing criminals, more importantly, it aims to “protect” children. So the ultimate goal of this petition letter is to appeal Chinese government and society to put effort on providing a “home” to those children who suffer violence from their parents. We suggest that China government adopts some existing child-protect systems from other countries, such as founding organizations of children protection, setting up children protective hotlines, etc.

Last but not least, in addition to law enforcement and organization of child protection, we also urge government to use all possible mediums, such as news media and educational system, to raise the public awareness of family child abuse situation in China, to advocate the responsibility of society in terms of protecting children. The cultural tradition of China has been focused on elders for thousands years, many Chinese people are still unfamiliar with the concept of child-protection. We believe only when people understand the importance of child protection, could they cooperate with the law, help the legal system to function as it means to, thus the situation of children can be more effectively improved.

A just and healthy society should understand the vulnerability of children and protect them. Children, on the one hand is the most vulnerable group of society, on the other hand they are the hope of the future. Healthy children will bring society a brighter tomorrow. For such reasons, we strongly urge the Chinese legislature to put this issue as an immediate agenda, take actions to change the situation, bring Chinese children a safe and healthy environment.

REMEMBER LI SU! SAVE THE CHILDREN!

(The End)

Notes:

1, People's Public Safety, January 18^th, 1991. (《人民公共安全专家报》1991年1月18日，第二版

2, http://roll.sohu.com/20130628/n380124741.shtml

3, http://edu.people.com.cn/n/2013/0725/c1053-22318966.html

4, http://learning.sohu.com/20130126/n364688803.shtml

Quotes From Story of Civilizatoin (War & Individualism)

(But) for the most part war was the favorite instrument of natural selection among primitive nations and groups.
... It (war) acted as a ruthless eliminator of weak peoples, and raised the level of race in courage, violence, cruelty, intelligence and skill. It stimulated invention, made weapons that became useful tools, and arts of war that became arts of peace. ..Above all, war dissolved primitive communism and anarchism, introduced organization and discipline, and led to the enslavement of prisoners, the subordination of classes, and the growth of government. Property was the mother, war was the father of the state.

Individualism, like liberty, is a luxury of civilization. Only with the dawn of history were sufficient number of men and women freed from the burdens of hunger, reproduction and war to create the intangible values of leisure, culture and art.

----Will Durant

Age difference

Oscar Wilde said: "The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything; the young know everything.”
Here comes mine:
Children believe everything; teenagers disbelieve everything; young people know everything; middle-aged people doubt everything; old people accept everything.

Individual Happiness

Happiness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The more tragedies we saw in this world, the more we should try to make ourselves happy. This is because the only way to make this world less miserable is to appreciate lives, and the most directly individual lives we could appreciate are ourselves.

Generalization

English: A diagram illustrating graphically the generalization process, using trees. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Generalization should be a means to understand, not a means to judge.

"Truth" Or "Goodness" - The Difference Between Science And Religion

Issues in Science and Religion (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Somebody said Oscar Wilde said, "Old people believe everything; middle aged people doubt everything, young people know everything." Based on this quote, I found I was quite "normal" to doubt lots of thing these years, because I am middle aged!

Things I've doubted the most were science and religion* (or faith). When I was young I was a science "believer", but later I found the science had its limit, and realized that blindly believing science was not much different from believing "God". So, is it reasonable to say that there is not much difference between science and faith? My answer is still no. First of all, "blindly believing" as an attitude itself is a religious attitude, so blindly believing in science has nothing to do with science, rather, it's a religious thing; secondly, science and religion are essentially different because such reason: one is derived from an objective thinking style - to know, or to understand how the world (universe) works; another is derived from subjective thinking style: to wish, to hope, so that humans would be in a better condition, either during or after our lifetime (if there is a afterlife). Science respect facts  ("fact", or "truth" here mean anything that can be verified by our sensory organs), regardless they are good ("good" means "favorable") or bad; faith focuses on humans needs, regardless what they believe are true or false.

From this point of view, we'd better not ask truth in religion, nor, seek morality or emotional comfort in science, though these two fields do cross each other at some points. Take the human origin as an example. Both science and religion have their interpretations on this subject: science says human evolved from lower life forms, religion says humans were created by God. People from different sides always demand each other for proofs. I would say, please don't ask science to provide evidences for evolution, because if there were no evidences, there would be no such idea; also please don't ask believers to provide evidences for God, because the beauty of faith is "blind". To say evolution is completely an objective view, not only because it was based on evidence, which means no one would just invent such idea by imagination, also because no human being would be "spiritually" or "emotionally" benefited by knowing we evolved from lower life forms. On the other hand, to say faith is subjective, not only because we got this idea out of our imagination, but also the idea makes us feel good, so called "wishful thinking". Imagine, if the story of Adam and Eve was true, would we not feel much better by knowing we are protected by God, and a guaranteed life after death? So, from this view, science and faith, which one would be "truer" should not be a dispute, and which one would make us feeling better but may not be true is also obvious.

Science doesn't always do "good" to human, because it does not mean to - it is out of our curiosity, an instinct that is like our sex drive, or our appetite for foods. To simply put, we just need to know, regardless of the outcome; faith is not always truthful because truth is not its concern, rather, it was created for consoling our desperate living situation. The reason that science and religion fought so violently for centuries, by my opinion, is because most people confused by the essential difference of these two fields, so they ask science for "good", religion for "truth", so when people found that science can do "bad", they think we should not at all believe whatever science says, and when they found faith is not "true", they would think we should be completely cynical, not to have faith at all. People forgot that these two fields derived from different side of our brains, serve for different purposes, and they have their respective necessities for human existence. Unfortunately, I found many people, probably majority, due to many reasons - possibly both natural (biological) and cultural (educational) reasons, only possess one type of thinking style, either subjective, or objective. Only in minds of some, maybe minority of population, these two thinking styles can coexist peacefully.

By saying "these two thinking styles coexist peacefully", I did not mean they (science and religion) should negotiate with each other, thus lose their own attributes, rather, I mean whoever possess these two different thinking styles know how to use them for different purposes, such as, when concerning about "truth", or facts, they go to science; when talking about value of our life, struggle in despair, fighting with injustice, pursuing happiness, they would hold faith without hesitation.

So, science and faith, rather than letting them fighting with each other, we probably should let them be "friends".

Hope I don't sound so confused after all. :-)



-----------------------------

*In this article, "science" means scientific spirit, or an objective attitude towards world, doesn't include all contents under the full definition of "science", such as scientific knowledge, discoveries and technology, etc.; "religion" here means faith, or spiritual attitude towards world, doesn't include religion institutions and doctrines.

Disappointment And A "Period"! -- My Battle With Confucianism Is About to End

Wang Xiang (Osho) ice fishes for mother's meal (Photo credit: Claremont Colleges Digital Library)

It has been frustrating. After I initiated two blogs and one facebook page for Su Li's Day (a day for remembering a girl who was tortured to death by her own mother, also for all child abuse victims in China), a netizen friend suggested that I should write a petition (a joint signed letter) to legislature in China, to appeal for actions in Chinese government to concern this issue, to establish a more executable law and some organizations for children's protection. I thought this was such a great idea. Though I knew this may not work out, I wrote a draft nonetheless, just to see how far this could go. However, after I posted the draft in the forum of CND (Chinese News Digest) and another Chinese popular website, asking for advices or suggestions, and support (by sending me their "signatures", basically just names), the responses were very disappointing. Only a few people responded, most of suggestions were neither geniune, nor relevant. And needless to mention some of them were scornfully discouraging. Even though dozens of people supported the idea before I made draft, only two people sent me their signatures after 3 days since I posted draft.

In 2011, some school activity: washing parents' feet. Serving 

parents (like "slaves") is the primary teaching of Confucianim. 

Personally, I do not believe China has much hope from within. If we want to see some progress in humanity in this society, some fundamental cultural ideology has to be changed, even eliminated, but very few Chinese people would agree on this view. Many people （include some none-Chinese) might see China appears to be very strong now, but please be aware, that the recently decade of soaring economy was promoted by international markets, together with all imported technologies. Under such glowing surface, the disparity of rich and poor, the degeneration of morality accelerated by the same speed of economy rising. And for solving moral problem, again, Chinese society turned to Confucianism, an ancient outdated yet lifeless ideology based on ancestor worship. This ideology was superficially "destroyed" by Mao, especially during Cultural Revolution, but after economy "prospered" during recent couple of decades, Confucianism not only did not weakened, but revived. I was saddened a few days ago when I heard that "24 Filial Piety Exemplars", a notorious traditional Chinese moral teaching text, virtually nothing more than a book of child abuse, again appears in some elementary schools' textbooks in China.

After being disappointed by all of these, I realized, that this open letter I drafted, which nonetheless will be read by some people, would be a "period" of my over ten years serious thinking about this subject - how the widely spread child abuse in China relates to Chinese tradition. As an individualist, I have no interest, nor energy to involve in any social activities, writing this petition letter was completely motivated by my own personal conscience. And I am fully aware of that this petition will be like a water drop in ocean, soon disappears without any trace of it. I am just fine with that, because I understand, when facing such a stubborn tradition, the real solution lies in collective effort. And if the society doesn't make any effort, or if the collective effort went to wrong direction, the solution would have to rely on some natural/historical mechanism, which doesn't always favor human-interest (if you know what I am talking about).

Yes, I am disappointed, but not personally unhappy, because my interest will move on, from this "Chinese problem", to some much more fascinating "human problems". (Oh boy, I am certainly not a problem solver, but a problem finder. :-))


*The illustration above is one of 24 Filial Piety Exemplars which tells a (adult) son lying down on icy surface of river, using his body temperature to thaw the ice, in order to get fishes for his mother to eat. So please don't be fooled by the beautiful art style, the content is sticky!

Quote From "Story of Civilization"

... in calling other human beings "savage" "barbarous", we may be expressing no objective fact, but only our fierce fondness for ourselves, and timid shyness in the presence of alien ways. ---Will Durant, Story of Civilization.

Two Different Kinds of Human Problems

There are two different kinds of human problem: the problem of human, and the problem of cultivated (or civilized) human.

Who was Su Li? What is Su Li's Day?

(Caution: If you are emotionally fragile, this post may not be suitable to you.)

After I posted my article "'Filial Piety and Child Abuse" - an article I wrote two years ago, in a Chinese forum, an online friend suggested that I should initiate a community to memorize Su Li and promote the awareness of child abuse situation in China. I thought it's a good idea. After I initiate two shared blogs, I also started a facebook page "Su Li's Day - Chinese Child Abuse Awareness Day". Below is what I wrote in "About" page in facebook page:

Su Li

Su Li (1988 - 1993, "Li" is first name, I put her name in the order of Chinese custom just for the a better recognition by pronunciation) was a little girl who lived in Xining city, Qinghai province, China. Through her young life, she was abused and tortured daily by her biological "mother" Yan, Zhiyun (I have to put quotation marks simply because this woman is not deserved to be called as "mother"). How she was tortured was beyond any humans' imagination - not only being beaten up and given little or no foods at all, her mouth was - at least twice - sewed together with needle and thread - only because she was so hungry that she stole some  chicken feed. During the last several days of her life, just because she begged for foods, she was fed with hot boiling cooking oil, and together with other physical abuse. She finally died.

After she died, the coroner from police department found no intact skin or flesh on her body, inside and out!

This monster Yan, Zhiyun, the women possibly committed one of the worst crimes in entire human history, was only sentenced 7 years in prison. This may sound strange to a country that still practices death penalty to murders, but the reason for Yan, Zhiyun's special sentence was simple, because she is the mother of Su Li. Parents do everything for children's good. Does this reason make sense to you?

After Yan, Zhiyun got out of prison, she went straight to destroy Su Li's tomb, to release her immense hatred or rage, whichever, that no humans could comprehend.

Su Li's situation was not hidden from society, it was known to the neighborhood and once even was reported by a newspaper. Yet, her "mother" never was punished, and no one thought of rescuing Su Li from her evil "mother". Su Li was left alone, lived in the living hell until her young life could not bear anymore. I understand that "evil" like Yan, Zhiyun can be traced anywhere in the world. but only in China, she (or/he) could go this far without hiding herself. For me, Su Li was more a victim of society, a tradition, than a victim of an "evil" individual.

In China, for thousands years long, under principle of "filial piety", children are "belongings" or "properties“ of their parents. Parents have absolute power over children. Parents are entitled to "teach" their children in anyway they think is "appropriate", include corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is totally encouraged, if not advocated directly, by Confucianism - the mainstream Chinese ideology, which still dominates Chinese people moral thoughts and behaviors. This tradition has been ingrained inside most Chinese people's mind so deep that even a sacrifice like Su Li doesn't seem to be enough to make it shake.

Su Li died over 20 years ago, yet numerous similar stories are still witnessed, heard, and thousands, millions of Chinese children are still being abused by their biological parents, everyday, more or less by different means. That's why it becomes so necessary to do something, call all the people, Chinese or non-Chinese, to remember a life like Su Li, to remember what she suffered,  and think about what we can do to make a change.

Thinking About Boycott A Chinese Online Magazine

My recent article "Ten Thousand Full Score Tests Aren't Worth One Happy Childhood" (published on cnd.org - Chinese New Digest) faced overwhelmingly criticizes and personal attacks. The thread in discussion forum about my article titled as such: "Is this kind of grand idea a sign of paranoia?" I did not plan to get involved in discussion but somehow I got in, and the end was not quite unhappy. 260 comments, only less than 15% supported my view points, over half of them are judgement and personal attack, the rest of them (less than 1/3) are neutral opinions.
I don't might different opinions or criticism, but in a place that I was rejected by majority, I think it's better for me to leave. However, this Chinese online magazine so far is the best one I found outside of China, and they have excellent engine support publication and discussion forums. I participated this place since 2004. So it would be a hard decision to make. I already back up all my Chinese articles. Just need a little more time, to see if I still think it's a good idea.

Quotes From "Van Gogh: The Life"

"He (Vincent) carried his chair, a portfolio of paper, and a plank of wood. He worked so intensely --- holding the big carpenter's pencil in his fist like a knife --- that he needed the heavy plank to prevent tearing the paper. He planted himself in front of trees and shrubs, outside framers' cottages and barns, overlooking mills and meadows, along roadsides and churchyards. He sketched animals as they fed, and implements --- plows, harrows, wheelbarrows --- where they lay." (page 230)

Marsh With Water Lillies, 1881, pencil and ink 

(In his sketch, see left) "Vincent looked out across the same swamp vista and cast his eyes downward. Pushing the horizon almost to the top of his much larger sheet, he relegated the town to insignificance and fixed his gaze on the teeming water at his feet: a tangled world of reeds, flowers, lily pads, and leaves, each with its own slant or arc, its own shape and shade, its own cross-hatched reflection on the still surface of the sunlit bog. With a manic vehemence not taught in any exercise book, he filed the bottom of the sheet with clusters of dots, random dark sports, floating circles, and meandering lines in an effort to render the bottomless fecundity that he knew so well from the banks of the Grote Beek. He added a bird, a visitor from his childhood, swooping low over the water in search of the life squirming unmistakably beneath the pencil marks." (page 234-235)

Flying Dream Is Back!

English: Flying Herring Gull (Larus argentatus) on the baltic sea (4) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had flying dream last night, or this morning, be more specifically. I dreamt I was walking on Tobacco Trail (though it did look like that trail at all), alone, felt a little dangerous, so I thought I probably should fly up, so I did! I immediately took off and flew over woods and meadow, soon I was in sky! Very interestingly, even in dream, I was thinking: "hey, finally, I am having this dream again!"

I could not remember when was the last time I had flying dream, but I believe it was at least over 15 years ago. So this is something very specially to me. Not only I had this dream back, I found in my dream last night, I took off much easier than I did in my previous flying dreams, and flew much higher.

I should celebrate and mark this as the most important invent of my snake year!

"Qingwen" - A Children's Day Memory

Chinese children (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(Caution! I tried my best but some of description of physical abuse can be disturbing to some people.)
(This is a translation of my Chinese essay with the same title.)

------------------------------

I don't usually celebrate June First - the international children's day. However this year seems to be a little different, I've been thinking about one of my childhood friend: "Qingwen", and like to write an article about him. I don't remember what his family name was, nor how to spell his name in Chinese characters, because I have not seen him again since I was 5 and half year old, and for all these years, or decades I should say, he was totally absent fromn my life. Now, as Chidren's Day is coming, he suddenly came back to my mind.

When I was 4 or 5 year-old, both of my parents were too busy (working "for Communist Party and the Country") to take care of me, so I was sent to a temporary foster family. It was not so temporary though, I lived with the family at least 2 years. The family name was "Guo". Mrs. Guo was an old lady and everyone called her "Mother Guo", I called her "grandma". Even though non of my grandparents were alive upon the time I was born, I felt "Mother Guo" was indeed my grandma. Mr. Guo - to whom I called "grandpa"-  also treated me kindly, so did all their children, who were all much older than me. I received plenty of love in this family and I felt more attach to them than to my own parents. Though overall my childhood was dark, the years I lived with this family was bright, except one shadow, which was Qingwen.

Qingwen was a son of a single father, who lived next door to Mother Guo. He was about the same age as me, or probably slightly younger. I cannot remember how he looked like, nor what kind of games we played together, but it doesn't matter, because what I am going to write, is not his biography, but the only memory he left in my mind: a child who was abused terribly by his own father.

Mother Guo's house was a in one-floor building complex, in which 3 families resided. Guos was in the middle, contained multiple rooms, which was a luxury at the time. On the left side, was Pens' family, whose youngest daughter was my best friend; on the right side, was Qingwen's home. His home had only one room. None of our friends visited his house, occasionally we would take a "sneak peek" of inside from the door, it was dark and lifeless. I could remember seeing a messy and dirty bed, a table, a few chairs, and some random items scattered on dirty ground. Qingwen's father was a blue laborer, I don't remember what kind of job he did, all I remember was one of his eyes was blind, and he was always drunk.

It seemed that Qingwen's father went to work everyday, left his son alone at home. So Qingwen played with us sometime. When his father came back late afternoon, if he was in good mood, Qingwen would be OK, but if not, Qingwen would get beaten up for no reasons at all. Usually the "father" used some sort of bamboo stick slash son's hand, but in "severe" cases, a hot red metal fire rod would be "necessary". We often heard crying from next door, but it seemed to be "normal", and it was no body's business. I don't remember how many times when I passed his house, saw Qingwen was tied up on a tree in front of his house, crying alone, looked at me in despair. I also remember, not only once probably, when I passed their door, I saw his father using a red fire rod to slash his bare feet. The "father" was yelling something, and when his voice raised up, the red fire rod would land on Qingwen's naked skin. Qingwen was jumping around with unimaginable pain, and screaming. I also remember that he always screamed before the fire rod touched him, with that unspeakable fear, and when it touched on his skin his scream was simply just louder, probably loudest he could make. He must wanted to escape, but he had certainly nowhere to go, also he was ordered not to, so all he could try was few square feet area, jumping back forth like a crazy little animal.

I often saw Qingwen was tied on tree, but never saw his father torturing him while he was tied. Qingwen was beaten always while he had his hands and feet "free", and no matter how much pain he suffered, he always stay in the same spot after jumping or crying, "voluntarily" gave his father's "job" the most "convenience". His father sometime even could sat comfortably, made his son creaming and jumping by easy lifting of his arm (How powerful was that!). Years later I realized, that tying Qingwen on the tree was actually for another kind of "convenience" - the "father" often went out (probably to buy liquor), but he did not want his son making "trouble", and did not want to bother neighbors, so the easiest solution for such "problem" was tying his son up.

Probably because back then there was no ventilate system inside houses, people would put their stove - the old fashioned coal stove - outside of house. For a few times, I (together with some of my playmates, I guess) stole the fire rod from stove, either put it in water, or threw away. That might be the only help Qingwen received from people, and obviously, it did not help him much. For after all these years, the only memory jumps into my mind, was still his despair expression in his eyes when he was tied on the tree, watching me passed by quietly.

Though there was Qingwen's misery, I was too young to understand the kind of misery he suffered. My life in Guo's family overall was happy, everyday so many fun things to play with. It was later, after I had similar experience, after I acknowledged what child abuse was, how it would traumatize one's life, I started thinking Qingwen again, started imagining what kind of horror he lived with daily.

Qingwen was not at all an unusual case in China. Regardless my own experience, many of my friends and schoolmates were severely abused. For example, one of my high school friends was often threatened to be "thrown out" from family, often got beaten with no reasons, and once was almost strangled to death by her mother; one of my classmate in elementary school was not only beaten by his father often, but also "treated" by pliers (how his father used this device we could only imagine); in the school my parents taught (where I grew up), one of professors tied his son and hung him up, then beat him. However, all these cases, include Qingwen's, would be considered as "merciful" if compared with the one that happened in 90s of last century - which was only less than 20 years ago - in Qing Hai province, a girl whose name was Su Li, was tortured by her own mother for years (beyond any sane human beings can imagine) until her young life could not bare any more. She died at age of six.

I often don't understand why so many Chinese people are so "unfamiliar" with the terms and behaviors of "child abuse", as if this kind of crime is some "particular production" of Western society (a Chinese lady I know literally told me so), just because they "invented" this term. Are they blind? Or they are just numb about life, don't think children could feel? I personally would say, with just a little exaggeration, that the entire history of Chinese morality is a history of child abuse. Sounds extreme, right? If you think so, you may be interested in reading "24 Filial Piety examples", or1994 the fire accident in Karamay, Xingjiang province. Yes, in the past and present history of China, children have been something "spendable", for some "higher moral purpose", or for any purposes.

LuXun in the 1930 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

After I entered middle age, I wrote lots of essays (in Chinese) about child abuse in China, about how it is connected with Chinese tradition, especially "filial piety". But writing this short post, I do not mean to do the same kind of "rational thinking", rather, I want to have an emotional touch on my far lost memory, to remind myself, and hopefully others, that this kind of experience, though better be forgotten by its sufferers, should never be forgotten by society, because only when a society recognizes the existences of such abuses, defines them as crimes, it can start rebuilding a new environment for children to grow healthily.

I am not a racist, nor a nationalist, but I would still like to dedicate this post to Chinese children, because they have been suffering too much for too long, and their suffering has been always overlooked, covered up, forgotten, even justified by so called "cultural tradition".

Remember Qingwen, remember Su Li, "Save the children!" (Lu Xun)



*1994, in Xingjiang province

My Love&Hate Relationship With Art - A Memoir of A "Professional" Artist

Recently I spent some serious money to frame several paintings I did long time ago (some of them over 20 years ago). As a person who claimed "disliking 'art' intensely" , I found myself enjoying seeing those paintings with frames - they seemed more complete, and even more "expensive". While I looked at them with appreciation, I could not help pondering my life as an "artist" - my "love and hate" relationship with "art".

Two of my old paintings in frames
(painted over 10 years ago).

For years, I had been feeling uncomfortable to be called as an "artist", especially when it meant "professional artist". The reasons were complicated and manifold, yet tangled with deep emotional traumas. But to simply put, I would say first of all, as a person who has extremely wide range of interests, doing art full time means nothing else but "torture"; secondly, art as career was not my own choice, but my parents; finally, probably most importantly, I do not believe art as a creativity should be a profession.

When I was a child, I liked to draw just like any other kids did. My parents both were teachers (or "professors", as we call it in this country) in a well known art college in China. I started to draw quite "formally" when I was in about 6 or 7 grade, but still mostly just for fun. Then suddenly, at age of 12, my parents made a big decision to me, that instead of going to normal high school, I should go to art high school (the one that was attached to the art college they worked). I obeyed them without any thinking, just like I had been hitherto doing due to their absolute authority. In school I was a bright kid and excelled in almost every course, if I could've waited later, until I graduated from normal high school, I could have much more choices, but at the age of 12, I had no ideas about the seriousness of career choice. It was until years later that I realized that was such a fatal mistake of my life path, and if I could have a chance to go back to redo it myself, I would be willing to sacrifice anything just for that chance. I still remember one of teachers in middle school said to me during class, personally, with a low but clear voice: "we all think it's a mistake that if you go to art high school." (How I wished he was my father!) Nonetheless, after finishing middle school, I passed exams and enrolled in that special art high school. Thus my art career began.

Two oil paintings I made over 20 years
ago.

Later, I found that in this special high school, not only 60% of time I had to draw or paint all those boring things like a robot, but also I lost opportunity to study many other subjects that I once enjoyed in middle school. Since I was a naturally curious person, I found studying in this school was a completely waste of time. So 4 years later, after graduating from this high school, I fought against my parents, trying not to continue my art education. But my parents "violently" suppressed my "revolt", and consequently, I involuntarily went to art college. Upon this time, I still yet to know how difficult my life would be in future due to this choice of "art".

In art college. I was the only girl in the 

photo. (Of ocourse, if you can figure

out which one is a girl. :-))

It would be a lie if I said that I did not have fun in art college. On the first day of my college "education", I decided that I should enjoy it. And I did, though not necessarily in classes. My parents worked at the same school, but I was not majored in their fields, and I lived in dormitory, so they did not have much control over me. I enjoyed lots of free time due to the super easy school curriculum. The college that I considered as "trashy" did not give me knowledge my curiosity craved, but nurtured my free spirit to its full scale - reading books by my own choices, making friends, falling in love, drinking, smoking (yes, I was definitely one of - possibly the first - pioneer girls who smoke cigaretts "openly" in "modern" China!) and wandering, even worse - escaping dozens dozens of classes, I was a true "hippie" at the time.

I did not "hate" art back then. As matter of fact, I had my fun time with art. Also because I was young, I was totally confident about my future, believed that I was fully capable of correcting the mistake my parents made to me. It was not until 20 years later that I realized I totally overestimated my ability to fight against fate.

Career change is not a super difficult thing to do, but it could be somehow different if you were majored in special field such as art at an early age. And if later your life had to start from scratch as a immigrant without any supports, things can be a little "tough". Even though I made my primary goal to change my career when I came to USA, after fighting battles after battles, years later, I found I still had to make living by doing art professionally, either computer artist, or portrait artist. And another giant obstacle which I never foresaw was, after I entered middle age, at the time I finally settled in new country, ready to prepare for some "real" changes, my health slid straight down to a never-ending chronic condition, which made a simple daily routine tasks like a mammoth achievement. Little by little, I found my "dream" vanished away beyond my reach, I fell into despair and tasted a complete failure of life.

It was during this period of time, both my "hatred" toward art and my resentment to my parents were intensified. Though I probably smile to show gratitude, but inside my heart, I almost took every compliment given to me for my art as a justification of my parents' "wrong doing", and a denial of my other talents, intelligence, or the "true" value of my life.

However, as many people usually did at the "dead end", the turning point also came to me during my most desperate moment. One day in the mall, standing in front of my portrait business location, after receiving one of endless compliments to my works, I suddenly realized, that the compliments meant to give to me, not my parents. I realized, the reason I did so well in art had almost nothing to do with my parents' choice, but everything to do with my own talent. Since then, I learned to give credit to myself, and by doing so, I felt easier to face the reality. Even though later I still had lots of homework to do, but it was specifically since that moment, I made peace with art.

Dear Frida, oil on canvas, 22x28

painted over 10 years ago.

Still, making peace with art only mean I did not resent it anymore, but it didn't mean I would feel good to live with it everyday. 2 years later, I finally found my "refugee" in art teaching, a job that I don't have to actually do or sell any art works, but only interacting with my students. This is by far the easiest job I ever had, and the large amount of free time makes me felt that I finally found what I really fought for: freedom.

As I mentioned earlier, I believe that art should not be a profession. So fundamentally, no matter my parents did or not, I would never choose to be a professional artist. I think that from the first day when art was born in human history, it did not meat to be a "profession". For me, art is nothing more than a natural expression of personal feeling. It is inspirational, refreshing and unrepeatable. Unfortunately in human society, "professional art" became something else, something technically reproducible, something can be valued by money, something in demand in market business. Art market has been commercialized beyond reasonable (especially in current China). It is a place not only dealing with art and money, but hypocrisy, vanity and greed. It is a place where.passion can be, or has to be pretentious and priced. Art, the most intimate and friendly activity of life, was alienated, "sanctified" as something far above life. Certainly, from the beginning of my "art career", I found I was a total stranger to this "professional art" world.

Looking back, I am proud that I had fought so hard to free myself from the "manacle" of "art profession". I have no slight regret of what I did. Also by choosing art education (I had not other choices anyway), I learned to accept fate, my fate, so I no longer feel miserable for "what I could do if..". But I would still say this, if I had freedom to choose my own path, if my profession was not "art", my life would be 10 times, or 100 times easier. It is true that I learned a lot through the difficulty journey of my life, but this doesn't mean that I could not learn the same thing in a different path. As I don't believe misery is necessary for compassion, I also don't believe adversity is necessary for wisdom. And this difficulty, this ordeal I went through was unnecessarily "man-made", due to my parents' sheer ignorance to human nature.

Early Fall, acrylic, 12x16. Newly painted

At the end of my lifelong "battle", I made peace not only with art, but with my parents, and my fate. Now, looking at all those paintings framed, hanging on my wall, I feel an intimacy between them and myself, as if they were my tangible children. Yes, the "art" I "hated" was not this kind. I am glad and proud that I have my fare share of art, the art by my own definition. Maybe after all, my life path was not that bad. I don't even feel resented to be called as an "artist" now. However, deep inside I know I am not qualified to be any type of "professionists", because I am simply a person who enjoys things randomly, and never really know what I would be passionate or not passionate about when I wake up tomorrow morning.

Busy With Love, No Time for Math

You Send Me (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Last night while watching TV, I "accidentally" heard a song by Sam Cooke: A Wonderful World. I heard this song long time ago but never really got chance to know it better. Last night I felt a little different, not only I wanted listen the whole song, but also I wanted to know the lyrics. I don't usually care about lyrics because I believe music is the "soul" of a song, but this time I felt an urge to know what he was sing about. So I got this from google:

Don't know much about history 

Don't know much biology 

Don't know much about a science book 

Don't know much about the French I took 

But I do know that I love you 

And I know that if you love me, too 

What a wonderful world this would be ...

I was literally "electrified' by these words, especially when they were sung by Cooke's - God helps me find a right adjective- voice. After some moment of emotional stir, I like to write down why this song means so much to me:

First of all, it relates me personally. As a self-claimed intelligent person who was forced into art profession by tyrannical parents, it was my "life time" pain that I did not get chance to develop my intelligence "academically". I fought my fate, fought so hard that I almost "died". At the end of battle, with plenty chronic health problems together with plenty of freedom in hands, I found LOVE, thus I realized that knowledge, or intelligence no longer matter that much to me. Of course, this doesn't say that I gave up pursuing what I once longed for, but only means that I no longer feel "anxiety" about all those that I have not yet known, or those that I will never be able to know.

Secondly, as a person come from a culture that lacks love, I especially appreciate this song. In Chinese mainstream culture, intelligence, or more accurately, "smartness", is something so "worshiped" that one's most fear would be being told that he/she was not smart. Though I am a person who respects human intelligence, how this culture practices "intelligence" is something I precisely despise (yes, I mean it!). It seems to me, for a significant amount of people in this culture, intelligence, or smartness, has only one single use: to compete with each other, or to climb to the highest (or as high as possible) position in social hierarchy. Compassion, love, have little rooms in this culture.

Finally, from humanity view. I adore ancient Greek culture, adore knowledge, but more and more I realized, that the best knowledge we could ever have, is just one simplest thing: Love. For a person that know how to love, he/she doesn't need any thing more. This is exactly what this song expresses in such a simple yet beautiful "fashion".

Yes, love alone is enough. For this reason, I found I do not mind that much about knowledge, about math any more; for this reason, couple of days before, I opened my door to two lovely ladies from Baha'i church. I am going to have friends. As long as they believe in love, I don't care to what church they belong. 

Annotations by Alexander McCall Smith

These are annotations made by Alexander McCall Smith in his book "The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency". I really like them so I like to make a copy of them here:
--------------------

'The opening line is a homage to Karen Blixen's "Out of Africa" which begins: "I had a farm in Africa..."'

p.1 'This tiny white van was to become very important in the Mma Ramotswe saga.'

 p.7 'Mma Ramotswe is fond of men, but she understands their weaknesses.'

 p.72 'This story was originally not in the book. It is a dark tale, and I introduced it at the suggestion of the publisher who was first going to publish this but then changed his mind. He thought the book too tame - too positive! However, this particular story does add to the book in an important way.'

 p.83 [of the clock flashing 3:04]'People have often asked me of the significance of this. The answer is none. Often things that happen in our lives have no significance!'

 p.123 'Mma Ramotswe's hero, Seretse Khama - a great man who set his moral stamp on Botswana. I never met him but I came to know his son Ian Khama, who became the fourth president of Botswana.' 

p.209 'This scene was beautifully realised by Anthony Minghella in his film of this book. He showed me the relevant section shortly after it had been shot and I ended up in tears.'

p.213 [on the last line] 'And I thought I had finished the story and was saying goodbye to Mma Ramotswe. I was wrong.'

Two Different Kinds of Humans

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It seems, in regard to knowing the ultimate truth (of universe, of life), humans can fall only in these two different categories: those who don't know, and those who pretend to know.  

(Did I hear someone saying this or it came out of my own mind? Anyhow, it is what I believe now)

Spring in Giant's Garden

I was deep moved by a drawing, made by one of my students Rachel Liu (7 year-old). It was a illustration of "The Selfish Giant", a fairy tale written by Oscar Wilde.

She created this drawing yesterday in my class. During the class I let kids reading story and watching a video first, then they seemed to be very pleased, and immediately had many ideas about what to draw, no need to be bothered by their teacher at all.

"The Selfish Giant" tells a story about a giant, who always chased children away when they came to play in his garden. So his garden was always cold like winter. Once, Giant left for a long time, children came and played freely in the garden. "Magically", garden finally entered in Spring - each tree blossomed when a child climbed on it.

I don't remember all details about this story, but it remains as one of my favorite fairy tale ever. I created a picture sequence about this story when I just learned to use computer in school, unfortunately the project was lost in "cyber space" due to my ignorance on saving digital files (That was when I first came to this country and I was not able to understand what professor said in class). But here comes my compensation, what Rachel did yesterday absolutely brought me pleasure. She pick up the moment when giant left and garden. If you look closely at trees (in the second image), you would see some children here and there, playing joyfully.

Details of trees

My Dreams

Full Moon 2 (Photo credit: ecotist)

I was officially 48 year-old by last month. Somehow I felt an urge to write an auto-bio, but my instinct told me to wait a little longer, in case I get really famous so my bio could make me lots of money. Plus, my English isn't quite "there" yet. Nonetheless, I decided to satisfy my vanity vicariously: instead of writing a bio - an experience that mostly related to what I did during daytime, I would write my dreams - an experience about what I did during my sleep. I believe dreams are more or less reflections of our daytime life experience.

Below were some quite interesting dreams during the first half of my life (if I could live until 96) , in chronological order:

Escape dream: these type of dreams occurred in my earlier life, from my childhood to my early teen years. In these dreams, I always carried my (older) sister on my back, running away from some dangers. The typical scenario was during WWII China (obviously adapted from some movies I watched), I was running away from Japanese soldiers who were chasing us. The dream was extremely intense, like some suspense thrillers, and always ended up with my waking up with despair in the last moment before I got really captured.
My interpretation of these dreams is very simple, in early years of my life I was burdened by my family, there were times that this burden was too heavy for me to endure. Poor me!

Flying dream: my happiest dream ever! Inside I would literally fly, high or low, I had that wonderful view of earth. Sometime I seemed to descend unwillingly, but with a little effort I ascended again, soaring through mountains, cities, forests, and oceans!
This dream is the dream of freedom - while flying high, I had a tasted that ultimate freedom I yearned for. I don't know when I started having these dreams but I know I started when I was very young, and during my early middle age they seemed to vanished. Maybe that means I felt trapped during my years of middle age hazard. But now I do feel free again, and I hope they come back soon!

Supernatural dream: these dreams are quite unexplainable. Here is the latest example which I would call "phone dream", it was about my phone. In reality, I have this normal telephone set, if someone call me, the light in screen of my phone would turned on first, also the red light signals on answering machine would flash a couple of seconds before the phone rings. One day (about one year ago) I was taking a nap, I dreamt my telephone handset started flashing some signals, then it rang. I know this is no miracle at all, but what really happened was, my phone in reality rang at the same time as in my dream, EXACTLY the same moment! This means, somehow, even if I was sleeping, I foresaw the upcoming event in perfect precision.
Here is another example which took place much earlier in my life, about 20 years ago: in a dream I was sitting inside a room. The room had a window that was on the same side of the door, which means, if someone come to my door, I usually would see him/her passing through the window first. Then in my dream I saw a person walking pass the window, as if she (I believe it was a girl) was walking toward my door, then I heard the sound of knocking door. And just like my "phone dream", the sound of knocking occurred at the exactly same time in my dream and in reality - someone was outside my door. Of course I woke up, startled, opened the door, and there stood my friend!
This type of dreams happened several times in my life, for what I can remember, at least 4, or 5 times. I found they are quite unexplainable.

First-lady dream: another unexplainable dream! In this dream I was a first lady of the country (China) during Nationalist regime (before Communist). This is a big deal, because it means, as a lesbian, somehow I managed to be the wife of Jiang Kai Shek! The "scenario" was simple, I was standing beside my President husband, posed idly for press conference photo taking after some important meeting regarding some important international matters.
I have absolutely no slightest idea about how I had this dream, but one thing I do understand is the choice of scenario - after the "important meeting", because even in my dream I deliberately avoided the situation that would expose my completely ignorance about those "important international matters". However, I have to admit, the choice of Jiang Kai Shek was extremely unsound, consider I had total freedom to choose any president I wanted.

1986, I walked through a plank road on Hua

mountain in China, the most precipitous

mountain in China. Underneath about

one foot wide wooden plank which I

stepped on was thousand feet high cliff

 (over 80 degree steep).

P.S. this photo was not taken in my 

dream:-) and I indeed reached the top

of cliff - see next picture.

Climbing Dream: I had this dream a few times in different phases of my life: I was climbing a very steep cliff, either by hands or by driving (a car). The cliff was so steep that it almost passed the 90 degree and I was at the edge of falling off. A few times I woke up in panic condition, a few other times, I don't remember how I ended the "story", but I do remember couple of times I did reach the top of cliff.
I had these dreams usually when I had some "goals" to achieve. Indeed, sometime my goals were just too high. I am glad I do not have any "goals" anymore.

Blind Dream: these dreams were devastating. Inside them I either drove a car with a broken break, or saw the heavy snow or rain covered my windshield, in whatever way, I could not see things in front of me. The worse thing was, the car was always moving, which made me felt complete loss of control.
These dreams happened during first half of my middle age (I suppose I am still in middle age::-)), when I was totally lost, totally don't know where to go. Good thing is, after sky fell, I saw another wider sky. So I don't have this kind of dream any more. Thank God!

Journey Dream: I started having this dream during recently years. In it I usually rode bike, needed to go somewhere that seemed to be too far away to reach. It usually happened in the night, where I could not get any helps - no bus, no train, but only a bike,... During the dreams I was not terribly dreadful, but I did feel tired, and inadequate.
These dreams reflect my chronic physical problem. It lasts so long that sometime I did have doubt that I could ever get recovered completely. I occasionally still have this dream, but hopefully, as my physical condition improve, they would go away.

Above are some dreams I think worth to write down so far in my life. I think they somehow interpreted my life experience. There must be tone of other interesting dreams but unfortunately, I can only remember them on the day when I die. Most of these dreams I remembered happened multiple times during different phases of my life, except "first lady dream", which was a "one time privilege", I suppose.