Republished: East Asian Romantic Core Values

From John Wallace, one of my favorite professors at Cal, his final thoughts on the East Asian Romantic Core Values. Generous offering, inspiring!

1 Some of my core assumptions:

* from Buddhism/Freud: empty self

* from Lacan: Identity loops through another, so what it means to be you includes your place in an intimate relationship, family, social groups and so on, and so cultural differences are real

* from study of literature & Derrida: central role of narrative — narrative is the primary activity for creating the illusional (“imaginary” in Lacanian terms) content of the personal self (and ideas can alter the structure of one’s psyche)

* from Foucault, Kristeva and Nakanishi: history is real, the past is in the present

* from Irigaray, Cixous (critique of phallocentrism of language and culture) and female friends: men have problems seeing beyond their testosterone

* from recent developments in brain science: the experience of the self reaches across multiple structures from the most constructed and discursive (language-based) conceptual notions of who one is to the deepest, reptilian brain and later limbic system (both of which are experiences non-discursively); further, the experience of love, as a compressive self-event, stretches across all of these but, on the other hand, since the physiology of the female and male brain are different, the experience of love may well be substantively different

2 Where you are in terms of romance: not building families so traditional has yet to kick in (what it means to be happy once a family is built: prosperity, stability, love between partners, children, children’s welfare (envisioning future or not)

3a Fundamental difference in dominating philosophies of East Asian and European culture: Confucianism complicit with social order; Taoism complicit with cosmic order – both suggest that one finds one’s place within that order and both do not deny the value of secular success (material, corporal); Christianity posits a higher authority with the highest social mode being communion with God’s will through the exercise of one’s free will and God’s kingdom is not on earth and values spiritual matters over physical. (paradigms of devotion and self-sacrifice are acts of free will – know thyself -- that indicate one’s honoring of another, God or one’s partner … sacrifice in the Confucian context means acceding to the system)

3b Position of women: Greece had a closer affinity to Middle Eastern and Asian attitudes towards women. Christianity changed this through the cult of the Virgin Mary and the Catholic assertion of the sacred state of marriage.

3c Cyclical & Layering vs. Discrete & Linear: love is a frame of mind so psychological this type of layering is understandable, and the cosmos penetrates this world …. Heaven and earth are separate, love is a real act not just a frame of mind (the layering example: movie 2046)

3d Confucianism, Buddhism and Shintoism do not take up the issue or sexuality or romantic love directly (the mark of romance, a certain sort of obsessive frame of mind, is seen as disruptive in the West seen as discovery of something true so “lost” on the one hand “passionate” on the other)

3e Desire: desire may or may not be socially disruptive (argument in Chinese as to whether man is fundamentally good or bad – but ultimately rather humanist); desire in Greece is towards the beautiful which can be redirected as towards the good and this becomes in the Christian context desire toward God as part of the manifestation of faith, so desire orients the person towards the good (which allows the desire within a sexual relationship a different interpretation)

4a Loneliness is a core experience, speaks to that because of notion of intimacy and companionship

4b Sexuality is a core experience, romantic notions participate in lust

4c Desire is a core experience, a romantic partner, to the extent that he or she is viewed as a prize object, is possessed and protected from the possession of others

5a We have bodies; bodies have chemical imperatives and they are real

5b We have psychic structures, these, too, have real imperatives: the psyche is empty at the center and spends a life trying to convince itself that is not so (Freud and Buddhism); the psyche is thus profoundly lonely and fearful … loving someone or something is a solution to this

5c We exist within a social matrix, we cannot transcend this, social imperatives are as penetrating as corporal and psychic imperatives but more complex

6 Beyond the imperatives the experience of love is built along clues of the cultural context but, in that that is a diverse field, individual contribution is very important

7 “Love” is a catch all term; we need precision but in that it vaguely refers to our core imperatives we need both catch all terms and precise terms

Republished: The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination

By J.K. Rowling, from http://harvardmagazine.com/go/jkrowling.html, recommended by a friend.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had already been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more to me than any qualification I ever earned.

Given a time machine or a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

************

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s minds, imagine themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces can lead to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise may enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped transform for the better. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I can wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives.

I miscarried in Hawaii

This pregnancy was different from the others. I hardly felt I was pregnant, except for the frequent bathroom trips. My mind was hazy, and I sort of liked it. Being high-strung and sensitive wasn’t very desirable and could lead to insomnia. I named her Sophie. Victor said it was two Sophia girls and told me how much he loved them. Oliver rejoiced at the prospect of becoming a big brother.

On 5/24 I woke up early. I tried to get ready for the trip, but I had a bad headache and felt ill. In late morning I felt I was going to collapse. I had to lie down for a nap. The bleeding continued, but I never thought I could lose the baby. I even carried Victor up the stairs into the house. In the evening I felt disoriented and confused. I had trouble having coherent thoughts. That went on for a few hours, and around 10pm Qin said I should rest: it’s okay if we cancel the Hawaii trip, it’s not the end of the world. That assurance lifted a thousand tons of weight from my shoulders. I was deeply grateful that he put my health first.

5/25 When the plane landed in Honolulu, I started to feel cramping, like what I got before giving birth. Then I felt a lot of pressure in my pelvis. I was frightened and felt helpless. I told Qin I was miscarrying. He looked a little upset but didn’t know what to do. He didn’t even ask me to sit down, etc. I carried the bags, got the luggage, then went to look for grandparents and Oliver, all the while I was in active labor. They spent a lot of time looking for Oliver’s car seat. My legs were numb. They asked me to do things but I couldn’t understand their words. Poor me, having labor while they treated me like the regular mommy.

We went for lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I hurried to the bathroom. There on the pad was a piece of blood clot, and a wad of tissue the size of a half egg. It was an organism, complete in itself. It was all the hard work my body had done in the last two months, and now it was on the pad. I thought of keeping it but didn’t, so I left it in the bathroom, my Sophie. I came out and told Qin that I had miscarried. He looked at once frightened and disgusted. Parents-in-law were silent for a little while, then carried on cheerfully because we were in Hawaii, sat in a Chinese restaurant, and ate Dim Sum. Of all the places you could miscarry, Hawaii was probably one of the nicest and also the least likely place for you to brood and reflect.

Qin took me to the Urgent Care unit at Kaiser Honolulu Clinic. A Hawaiian nurse gave me warm blankets. The doctor was a blond lady about 40 years old. She said most early miscarriages were caused by genetic problems and couldn’t be prevented. She had had a miscarriage between her first and second child, at 11 weeks. In the end she told me my pregnancy hormone was at 300, while at 9.5 weeks it should’ve been around 15,000. Something had not gone right for a while, and it wasn’t because something I did. It meant so much to me under the circumstances. In hind sight I could’ve blamed it on so many things: I didn’t take care of myself (didn’t take the lunch breaks, didn’t rest, didn’t eat enough); I felt terrible on Saturday but I didn’t rest, instead I planned, packed, and worried about every details of the trip; that night I didn’t go to the hospital and next day I went on the airplane; I carried Victor, heavy bags, and later fell down; I didn’t restrain my activities and walked long distance, etc. etc. The doctor told me it was normal to grieve, feeling sad, spacey, confused, and disbelieving.

We returned to the hotel. I felt empty and sad. I told Victor that Sophie got sick and died, and she came out of Mommy. Victor looked frightened and repeated after me, “Sophie got sick and died. How did she come out of you, Mommy?” “I want Sophie. I miss her.” Oliver asked me to have a baby, so he could become a big brother. That night was hard. I held Victor in my arms, so I could feel some comfort. I didn’t know what I’d do if I was away from my children. Their presence comforted me, and they never appeared so precious, beautiful, and loving.

On 5/26 we went to the Pearl Harbor. I sat on the stone bench while they waited in the long line that turned several corners. I overheard many tourists talking about the Pearl Harbor: some Americans, some Japanese, some Chinese, some from Hong Kong. Victor and Oliver chased the birds in the lawn. They were adorable and made people smile. Finally we went inside. The movie was sad and heroic. The loud exploding sound made Victor jump. I told them after the show that 1177 sailors were buried under the USS Arizona Memorial so they must be quiet. The pilgrimage to the Arizona was solemn. I thought how fitting it was the day after Sophie had died. Qin threw a flower to the sunken hulk of the Arizona. I saw a boy about 13-15 years old. He stared at the sunken hulk, lost in thought. People walked slowly beside him, but he remained immobile. Was he trying to imagine the 1177 young sailors perished within 8 minutes? It was too much for me. It was unbearable to look at the names on the wall. Life was so fragile, so short, and so futile. The memorial was a heartbreaking place, yet so heroic, pure, and noble. It was probably the only righteous war (besides the brutal Civil War) that the U.S. has fought. It reminded us how war could be necessary under trying circumstances.

Since then I’ve tried to be kind to myself. I rested, took time off writing, and even started a Chinese blog http://blog.sina.com.cn/yangwrites. There I had less freedom but more responses. I chatted with a few girlfriends and learned that miscarriages are much more common than I realized. I can’t say that I put it behind me, but I’m ready to move on, slowly and surely, one day at a time.

Victor said goodbye to his favorite preschool

On May 15, Thurs. Victor came home and said his left thigh ached. He said child N bumped into him on a bicycle. Victor had been hit and pushed by N many times before, but the school ultimately wasn’t able to intervene. Over time the school lost its charm to me. It made me (and some teachers) sad that Victor loved N as a playmate in spite of his impulsive, hurtful behaviors.

I examined Victor’s thigh but saw no bruises, so I let him be. At night he limped. I told him he’d feel better in the morning. He went to bed whining a little. I thought he was cute.

On 5/16 Fri. he couldn’t get out of the bed. Victor usually ran so fast I couldn’t catch him. Now he lay on his back, because he couldn’t use any force on his left thigh. When I carried him upright, he could only crawl. Was he maimed? I was terrified.

For days I’d been obsessed with the earthquake in China. Now Victor, my gentle boy, was hurt by N at his preschool, a nationally accredited school. What kind of a mother am I if I did nothing about it?

I took him to the Kaiser, because they could do X-ray on site. If he had a fracture, I’d sue the school. The pediatrics director would see him. I expected a hoary old man, but Dr. Leo was a small Asian man who looked like a teenager. His friendly, warm demeanor won Victor’s trust, and he followed the instructions precisely.

Dr. Leo put his hands on the various places of Victor’s body, applied some force and asked him if/where it hurt. Most of the time Victor shook his head. Suddenly he said it hurt. When Dr. Leo asked where, Victor pointed to his waist where Dr. Leo’s fingers pressed against it. We laughed. Dr. Leo said, “That’s good, that’s what I want to hear.”

Dr. Leo said it was almost impossible that Victor had a fractured femur, or he would have bruises and a lot of pain. Victor had a muscle sprain, so he felt deep ache after sleep, much like that a person got a back pain the next day after a car accident. If I massaged him, he’d feel better. That was a great relief. Victor was able to walk when we left the hospital. He recovered over the weekend.

On Monday I told his teachers, “Please keep him safe for 4.5 days. He won’t be here for the summer.” Ms. S was concerned when I told them what had happened. She said she wouldn’t allow bikes that day. That was comforting. I counted down the days with Victor, “Please stay safe for one more day!”

On Thurs. 5/22 I had a brief conference with Ms. S. She said she was sorry about what had happened that semester; she had a lot of challenging children, Ms. K left suddenly, she missed her and the children missed her. Next time she’d call in help much sooner before the situation got out of hand. I thanked her and said that you did your best, and we parents felt supported.

On 5/23 Friday I went to the potluck at the preschool. Ms. S was sad that some children were leaving. She gave a moving introduction to every child at the ceremony. She said, “Victor didn’t speak when he first started. Now he talks so much! He always knows the answers to my questions. He’s so ready for kindergarten.”

Victor was happy at the potluck. J’s mom left me their contact information and asked for my phone number. When I cleaned out Victor’s cubby, he realized that he was leaving for good. He cried and wouldn’t leave. The teachers comforted him but he kept crying. Ms. P said, “You’ll make a lot of new friends, Victor.” Ms. S asked if I needed any help. I said he just needed to cry. Their eyes got wet. Finally Victor agreed to leave. Ms. S left me her home phone, and I gave her our web addresses. Victor clutched tightly onto the paper with her number and seemed to find some comfort in it. Ms. P said, “Victor, thanks for all your help!” She told me, “He was a lot of help to me.”

I took Victor home and returned to work. I stayed late to finish up work and try to finalize the Hawaii trip details. I left at 8pm while the office building emptied at 3:30pm. I felt drained and a bit ill. At night I saw Ms. S’ email. She cried after reading my blog and suggested that I should send it to the school. I was moved. Victor left his favorite preschool, not voluntarily, but I couldn’t allow him to be hurt physically, emotionally, or intellectually. I was too overwhelmed to take an action against the school. I didn’t know then that I started to miscarry at 9 weeks.