A Tiger's Heart

I may get myself shot for writing this, but it has been boiling on my mind for a while, so here it goes. Two things have prompted me to write.

I was having dinner at Anchovies with friends. Sitting next to me was Mark, who read my memoir and had always been extremely nice to me.

Someone said casually: “What do you think of the Occupy Wall Street people?”

Chewing pasta, I carelessly blurred out: “I think it’s stupid! They don’t even know what they want!” (I know, I should not use “stupid” so often).

All of the sudden, I saw Mark’s body stiffening. He pressed his palms against his temple and screamed to the air: “You have no idea what you are talking about?! The income inequality in America has become so extreme! Corporate greed ruins the society…How dare you say that?…”

Remember, this is a friend who had just hugged and kissed me on the cheeks. I was stunned. What did I do wrong? He then became my enemy of the night, refused to even look at me.

Every day I walk by Dewy Square on the way to work, where the colorful tents are set for the Occupy Wall Street protesters. One day I slowed down and took a curious look at what they were doing. I saw a man pissing near a tent, a girl lying on top of a guy on a bench in the sun with a guitar next to it, a young man dancing and singing, someone selling memorabilia and a lot of cops idling around.

I wonder: besides spending taxpayers’ money on the policing and polluting the environment, what value are they adding to the society? What are they going to do once they occupy the Wall Street?

I understand all the ideas of income inequality, high unemployment, lack of skills, foreclosed houses, corporate greed, life is tough….etc.

But first of all, let’s get this straight, life is not fair. If someone told you that life should be fair, go back and give him a good slap, because he lied to you and it isn’t. I wish my father is the Chinese Prime Minister Hu Jin Tao, not a rice farmer, but tough luck!

All I can say is life is what you make of it. Chance is that while I was sleeping underneath the bench on the cabin floor of a running train in South China in 1997 being a homeless Amway saleswoman, Mark was skiing in Vermont or beaching down the Cape. While I was planting rice in the muddy fields of China and worrying about my next meal, I bet Mark was in high school chasing after girls and making plans for the prom.

I cannot put myself precisely in the shoe of an ordinary American, but I can offer what I know about the Wall Street and the hedge fund people because I’m one of them and I deal with them every day.

Yes, they get paid a lot, perhaps more than they should but a lot of them deserve it. Rome is not built in one day. Perhaps a few of them are lucky to be born with silver spoon, but the majority of them work really hard during their entire lives.

They’re smart, are usually top students in class, and have gone to Ivy League schools. They are disciplined and focused. They emerge out of South Station every morning when it’s still dark because they need to get ready for the stock market. They head to the gym after work to train for good health. They watch what they eat. They are asleep every night before 10pm, because money management, hedge fund and the stock market take a lot of energy and require full concentration. They usually have white hair in their 30s, they often lose sleep at night due to stress.

A Citi stock analyst I know gets million-dollar bonus at year-end, but whenever I call his HK office in my afternoon, which is 3am his time, he always answers the phone. He lives above his office! He sees his children only 20 minutes a day.

A friend of mine at Goldman Sachs literally worked 140 hours every week. One night at 4am she couldn’t hold up any more and went home for a shower. Her boss’ email came when she opened the door: “Have you gone HOME? Are you serious?”

We reap what we sow. You cannot blame the weather, the air, the society and others for what you are. If you are not happy with your situation, do something and change it. If you envy the top 1%, don’t spit on them, try to become one of them!

I know, time is tough, economy is not booming. I know when life forces you to a corner, it’s easy to get despaired. But don’t let it get you down, don’t give up. If you cannot find a job that you used to do, find something else. If no one wants to hire you, beg them. If you don’t have enough education, go get more.

America is not a dreamland any more, but it’s still far better than 99% of the other places in the world. You have freedom of speech, you have government welfare, you have clean air, you have your dignity, you have your rights.

Imagine you are the hungry and dirty children on the streets of Mumbai running in traffic and begging for pennies. Imagine you are the rice farmers in rural China working the whole day for a few bucks whose life is so insignificant that he could just disappear tomorrow if someone wants him to. Imagine you are an unemployed Muslim young man in Egypt who carries a huge case of bottled water on his shoulder and tries to sell them to tourists for a few pennies.

Americans have it good and they don’t realize it.

The bailout money the government spent on big corporations was returned with interest, don’t forget that. America’s financial system is so vital that let’s be careful talking about dismantling it. Before the Main Street has a viable solution to what should replace the Wall Street, let’s save our taxpayers’ money and end this ridiculous movement.

I haven’t blogged for so long that I seriously feel guilty to the people who have read my story and care about me. There are a bunch of reasons, and let me tell you why.

One day I was visiting a co-worker, a friendly and funny guy. He told me that he heard of my story and he was reading about it on my website. He clicked his keyboard. Boom, there it was, amid all the phone ringing of the trading desk, where everything seemed to be a complete chaos and where millions of dollar flows as a unit, I saw my website and my blogs on the screen, where I pour my emotion, bare my soul, talk about my life, dating, happiness, sadness and miseries…etc. All of the sudden, I realize my life is on a display, lots of people who see me every day knows my past, knows everything about me, the darkest secrets of mine, yet I have no idea they do!

I know it’s a consequence of publishing a memoir, I don’t regret it for a minute that I did it, but from the deepest of my heart, I need to admit that I don’t have the guts to tell all today. I am no longer that girl with ponytail trotting on the Wellesley campus who was willing to tell all because she had never heard of the word “privacy” in China, because she was so grateful of the gushing feeling of fortune brought by Wellesley that she was willing to love the whole world.

Today, I am a bit more established? So that means I am a bit more afraid of people judging me from my past. When I pitch a stock, talk about an industry, will my audience who are predominantly white males in blue starched collar shirts listen to me because of my thorough analysis and my convincing argument, and not look at me with colored eyes, that I had crooked childhood, twisted sexual experience and board line criminal behaviors in my past? Perhaps they don’t, but after these many years’ of fighting, I just realize I am still the biggest enemy of myself. I judge myself. I cannot convince myself to love myself.

Steve Jobs said to stay hungry and stay foolish. I say stay happy and stay content because it’s really the most difficult thing to do. For the majority of my life, my goal was to make a lot of money to prove to the world that I am able, competent, invincible and incredible. It took me so many years to figure out that money doesn’t equal happiness at all! It’s so simple, right? But for someone from a rice village in China, it literally took 35 years to figure this out!

It’s been almost 10 years since the end of my memoir. I wish I can hand in a report card to all my readers that my American dream story has a happy ending, that I am making a lot of money, that I am happy in America, that I have finally found love in my life. But it’s not true. So I am ashamed to tell you the truth, ashamed to tell you that I am still miserable sometime, that I am so lonely, that I still use sleeping pills sometime, that I still need to see my shrink once in a while, that I still haven’t found love…

I do make a lot of money, happy to report. The other day I found out that I do belong to the 1% of American population who the Occupy Wall Street crowd is protesting against. But this is where the truth that money doesn’t get you happiness comes. I am not happy. I am alone in America. It’s been three years since my divorce, but I still cannot open my heart, I am so afraid to be hurt. I am desperate for love but I just cannot find it! I meet a lot of men but I don’t date many. I fall in love easily but I always get myself completely hampered. I often look down upon myself, I don’t even like myself sometime! It’s awful, right? Because from my memoir, I gave you the impression of a woman warrior, a tiger who has no fear, but that’s not true, today I am still scared, lonely and sad! My mother still drives me crazy, making sure that I know that I haven’t achieved anything in life. I travel all over the world by myself, learn to enjoy being alone, but deep down I really want a family, companionship and love, yes, love, the thing that I didn’t have since the day I was born and have been looking for my whole life.

I don’t know what’s waiting for me tomorrow, but it feels good to tell you what’s on my mind. Life is like a riddle, or a puzzle, you take a step and try to figure out what’s next, with which it comes with all the emotion. I don’t know what’s next for me, but one thing I hold onto and firmly believe in is—what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. This is what keeps me go on.

Nine days in Egypt and here are a few thoughts and observations:

1. The archeology wonders of Egypt are indeed unique and their greatness is not at all exaggerated. That kind of feeling you have when you stand in front of a 4,000-year-old temple that used to be buried in sand, or giant statues of the kings sitting on thrones or a forest of 25-m-tall sandstone columns with the backdrop of blue sky is so incredible, hard to describe with words. Looking at the tombs of kings hidden in the valley deep in ground with the vivid colored painting, you can easily get lost in its sheer beauty and mystery and the feeling of eternity it represented. And when you think of the fact that these things have been erecting on the earth for a few thousands of years, over many dynasties, the Romans, the Greeks, the ebbs and the tides of the Nile, you are just feeling stunned and at the same time pounding your own insignificance.

2. The ancient pyramids, tombs and temples are just small parts of the country. Egypt is big and these archeological sites are located sparsely all over the country. Before I arrived I had the impression that I’ll stumble onto statues and pyramids wherever I step my foot on. Of course that’s stupid. You have to be flown, boated and bused over almost the entire country to see these famous sites described in documentaries and beautified in pictures. Often a temple lies on a riverbank or island and is small in the grand scale of the city it belongs to. Beyond the parameters of the sites everything just speaks of Egypt’s vast underdeveloped land and extreme poverty. Everywhere you go, there’re low unfinished brick buildings with copper wires sticking out on the roof, dusty streets and flying by motorcycles and horse carriages, sometimes donkeys with roped men, and flocks of adult males sitting on streets being idle or trying to scam tourists for a few bucks. Modern Egyptians live next to the ancient sites, come and go, talk on cell phones and who cares about that 3000-year-old temple situated right over there? Unlike the city of Rome where historic buildings and magnificent architecture are all over the city even next door to your residence, Egypt is more like a dirty, dusty, poor and earthy country with a few incredible temples and pyramids dotted here and there for the Egyptians to bank on.

3. The next thing I’m going to say is not flattering and may not be liked everyone but I need to be honest. I don’t trust almost any Egyptian in my sight because I’m afraid he’s trying to get money out of me. I’m sorry but I feel the whole nation is trying to scam tourists, from big travel group to men hawking souvenirs on the street. I’m literally a walking wallet. The 5-year-old boy from the supposedly-honest Nubian village, who couldn’t speak any English, bullied to get $20 Egyptian pounds from me when I was riding the camel he was leading and after I said no he whipped the camel in the attempt to make it go faster. As the camel trotted in the sand on the high and narrow riverbank of the Nile, I was seriously worried that my life may end up being finished in Aswan, Egypt. The country is poor and people seem desperate to make money from the tourists. The tourism system is sadly dysfunctional because people get pathetic salaries from the government therefore rely on tips or any other possible ways to make a buck. Everyone has a hand out and eyes your money. The guards in the tombs will let you take pictures of the precious paintings on the wall for a few bucks; men in turban squatting at the foot of the columns at the temples will jump in front of your camera offering to let you take picture of him for money. Wherever you go, flocks of men in dirty ropes circle around you within an unbearable distance shouting broken Mandarin or Japanese then English to get your attention.
“Chinese?”
“Japanese?”
“Excuse me! Excuse me! Excuse me!”
“Lady! Lady! Hello?”
“Where are you from?”
“Give me a minute and I will make you happy!”
I got so irritated that I had the impulse to cover my ears. I have learned to look at the road and not even wandering my eyes anywhere let alone speaking to anyone. I usually roam on the streets when I travel to a new place but I haven’t done so in Egypt because once you are on the street you are the target of hundreds of men screaming to you or pointing somewhere in the air and trying to sell you everything from water to crappy pyramid imitates, Egyptian clothes, scarves, horse carriage rides, postcards, fake papyrus or just ask for money plainly. The experience would be so much more wonderful without all these distractions.

4. The next is about the Egyptian men. I can’t say much about the women because they are virtually non-existent in public and the majority of the ones I do see on street are covered from head to toes in black ropes. The only women I interacted with were the ones in the supposedly-honest Nubian village who gathered in front of grocery store waiting for it to open so that they could use the government coupons. When I passed by and looked at them curiously, one of them asked in local dialect if I wanted to take picture of her. I did and gave her 10 Egyptian pounds ($2) and set to leave but another woman and her tried to stop me by pulling my sleeve and asked for 15. Egyptian men dominated the society. They are all over on the streets, peddling or in the coffee shops smoking water pipes. Except the female guide in Cairo, everyone I saw and dealt with during the trip was male. Clearly not many women worked in tourism especially in southern Egypt where it’s poorer and hotter. All crew on the Nile Cruise are men, all taxi drivers are male; everyone working in the restaurants is a man. How should I describe their attitude towards women? They are very nice, they smile and greet you whenever they see you but then they just plainly stare at you and literally don’t move their eyes away. I always had to quickly move my eyes away to avoid the embarrassment I felt. I wonder if it’s because there are just so few female in public and the few ones are all wrapped around in cloth so when they see women in normal clothes showing arms or some legs they like it so much that they can’t help themselves? I was told me that Muslims don’t have sex before marriage. Mido, the nice and smiley man who gave me a bud mask on the Nile Cruise told me he is 26 but he has never kissed a woman and he’s a virgin. He said his girlfriend just won’t let him kiss her, and then he shyly asked if I could teach him kissing! Clearly they do know how to express interest in girls. The bartender on the cruise immediately asked if I wanted to get off the boat and have a drink with him after his shift ended, once he figured out that I’m single. The cabin cleaner told me he had a special gift for me when I returned to my cabin and ran into him in the hallway. When I opened the door I saw he had made a goose and a heart using the towels and they are beautifully displayed on my bed!? A bunch of small ducks the next day, and a snowman the day after! Gosh I don’t know how to deal with it properly, should I say no firmly or just smile and pretend I don’t get it? I’m confused about the Egyptian men. It’s true like one of my friends say—they’re messed up!

5. The power of religion can never be underestimated. 90% of the population is Muslim, 10% is Christian, I was told by the guide as I arrived in Egypt. So 100% of them are religious. Next thing he said is that in Egypt religion is number one, then work. Wherever we go the mosques’ calling for prayers seem non-stop. The amplified chanting of Allah the greatest is always there in the background, natural like the birds chirping water flowing grass growing in Egypt. It’s still ringing in my head even after I am back in the U.S. 5 prayers everyday takes an hour and half if you go to the mosques, how can Americans imagine doing things like that? The day I left Egypt, there was a clash in Cairo between the Muslims and Coptic Christians and the army where more than 20 people were killed. I didn’t know it until I heard the news the next day. Why do people let religion dominate their world so much?

6. The Nile is the greatest gift given to the people of Egypt. It’s magnificent, calm, eternal, caring, protective and giving. It sits there and looks after the people for thousands of years. In Aswan people tell me it rains perhaps one day a year! It’s so hot that it’s unbearable to walk outside after 10am, how can people survive without the Nile? Love you the Nile!

7. I’m not too impressed by the Egyptian food. The cuisine cannot even be compared to its history. A type of plain bread is essential, then falafel. I tried two kinds of famous Egyptian food, rabbit and rice and stuffed pigeon (don’t be grossed out because they are supposed to delicacy), and I have to say I perhaps can cook with more flavors. A LOT of food is fried, actually 80% of the whole table of food when I visited a local Cairo family. The hostess spent many hours preparing and I felt bad that I couldn’t eat much because there were lasagna, fried chicken, fried falafels, macaronis and rice, grape leaves and bread. All was very dry. It doesn’t help that the Egyptians have a late lunch around 2-4pm and then an even later dinner, after 10 in the evening. When I finished dinner at a restaurant around 9, I was still the only one there. Heavy food, late eating and no exercise habits don’t seem to be helping the Egyptian women, the majority of who seem overweight, even the younger ones. Men, on the other hand, seem fitter than the women as they are the ones hustling on the streets but overall I do see a lot of men with pot belly. The good thing is that Egypt is big on essences and oil and almost everyone smells nice in the dust!

It’s Saturday morning. I had a good night’s sleep, worked out for extra long hours in the gym and I was feeling great. The day started absolutely on a high note. I called up Neiman Marcus’ Ellen, the lady who takes care of my cosmetic needs.

“Morning, my dear, how are you?” Ellen’s soft voice came up.

“I am feeling awesome, thanks!” I screamed to my cell phone while walking down the street, “Is Cesar there? I want him to do my make-up for this evening, I have a date.”

Cesar is Channel’s make-up guru.

“Cesar…” Ellen paused, voice becoming lower and softer, “Cesar passed away…”

I couldn’t comprehend what she said, stayed quiet for a few seconds and then shouted: “What?”

“Cesar passed away two days ago…He had a heart condition that he didn’t tell anybody…”

“But I just saw him last week. He did my make-up. I was drinking champagne, we were laughing and he told me he’d do my make-up when I get married…” I was rambling on the phone.

I turned direction and went to Neiman Marcus right away. As I stood near the Channel counter where Cesar used to operate, I was shocked first, speechless for a while and then my tears came down. It’d been so long that I cried for someone.

Cesar was this bubbly, bald, thin and extremely nice gay guy in his early forties that just knew how to make every woman beautiful. Concealer, eye shadows, lip liners, powder…all these little gadgets were his secret weapons that became alive under his hands.
Just a week ago, I was sitting in a high chair, holding a glass of champagne in my hand, and entrusting my face to Cesar. I didn’t stop laughing the whole time while he was putting a smoky-look on my face.

“Cesar, do you have a boyfriend? I asked jokingly.

“Oh..my dear, boyfriend?” Cesar giggled with his husky voice, “I have two…don’t tell anyone. I am having trouble not to mix them up and remembering their names correctly.” And then he looked around and shushed, “I am so afraid that one night I call out Rob’s name with Shawn sleeping next to me…” He was so cracked up by his own words that he was bent down and laughing.

“Well, Cesar, why make it so difficult for yourself…just call them both ‘honey’! That way you’ll never mix them up.” I pretended to be worried about his problem and suggested with a straight face.

“Oh my god, you’re bad…I love this idea!” Cesar exclaimed and looked at me with wonder in his eyes, with a brush in his right hand.
We were both laughing like crazy.

He stepped back and looked at me: “you are so beautiful, like a doll! Asian eyes are difficult to do make-up for, but I love them. One day when you get married, I’ll do your make-up, I promise.”

“Ok, Cesar, deal. I was thinking of marrying you so that you could do make-up for me every day, but this is not a bad idea at all…” I didn’t know if I’ll ever get married again, but having Cesar’s promise made me look forward to it.

“Well, my dear, I think you need a handsome straight guy…” he paused his hands, turned sideway and gestured to me: “how about that guy near the perfume counter…look at him, he can be a model.” Cesar shook his head in admiration and turned to me, “you guys can be a good couple! Do you like him?”

The hour went by so quickly with jokes flying around like that. I told Cesar that I would pick a good dress to go with the make-up, take a picture and send to his phone. He said we’d go out one day after his work and grab a drink. I said goodbye and “see you next week” and left Neiman.

………

And poof, he’s gone, completely. Such a lively and wonderful soul. How can I accept that fact that he’d never appear again on this earth? He was just there last week…Life, why are you like this?

I officially declare that I have been bitten by the travel bug. Four days into my vacation in Hawaii I was already looking online to book my next trip. I am thinking of flying to Phoenix and then driving to see the Grand Canyon. Nothing calms me down more than driving on the highway with mountains flying by and radio playing soft music. At that moment I feel I am living life, the true free American life in which you can go where your heart desires. Coming from crowded and polluted places like China or India, you get to appreciate how vast and free America is. An automobile and a credit card can get you all the way to the other side of the horizon. This freedom is priceless for someone who was trapped in the system and was so insignificant to even realize her own value. 

It’s so true that traveling widens your horizon and changes your perspective. Chinese ridicules the frog that lives at the bottom of the well. All he sees is the sky above the well and he thinks that’s the whole world. The funny thing is that the more you see, the less you think of yourself, because the world is such a vastly different place, such a huge planet, with human living almost every corner of it with completely different lifestyle. So as you see more places, you realize you need to respect other cultures and your personal business is like a sand in the ocean, not a big deal. No matter who you are, a billionaire or a beggar, other people so not give a damn about you. 

I am sitting in the lounge of Haupana Beach Princess Hotel that overlooks the beach with huge palm trees swaying in the background, sipping a very dirty martini (this is my new drink) and trying to give an awesome conclusion to my Hawaiian venture.

I realize I am grateful to my job. Because I work so hard, because it’s so stressful therefore rewarding financially, I get to take vacation and enjoy life like this. I am grateful to life. It’s a meritocracy system, you work hard, you get what you want. I know it doesn’t for everyone, but it has for me so far, therefore I am grateful. It’s such a wonderful thing, living life. I had never dreamed of reaching this far. 

Hawaii is the most beautiful place I’ve ever been, especial the Big Island. There’s no place on the earth like this island that has the perfect combination of lava earth, blue sky, black sand beach, crystal-clear water, huge palm trees, bright-colored flowers and millions of birds chirping. It’s a true “paradise”, and I am not exaggerating at all. Time slows here, your heart softens here and you are more romantic, more gentle here. 

Today I drove two and half hours across the island to the other side called “Hilo” to see the volcano national park. The island has so many different climate zones that during the ride it literally had sunshine one minute then huge rain for five minutes and drizzle. Once in the park I decided to hike the Kilauea Iki trail that stretched four miles, half of which was literally walking on the crater of lava left by the eruption in 1959. More than forty-year later you can still see the cracks where the red hot lava stormed out and nowadays you can still see smoke coming out from the heat. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience to stand in the middle of a giant lava crater in the drizzle. I am lucky to be one of the humans who have done this. 

Hawaii is also the best place for scuba diving. The water is so clear that you can see through 40 ft under from the boat. Imagine you are that close to the pinnacles, coral, reef, and colorful fishes. I was so lucky to see two huge manta rays swimming by who usually don’t show up in daytime. I was under water for total two hours, one hour each dive. And the whole trip my instructor didn’t know I cannot swim

Tomorrow I will have to say goodbye to this wonderful place. But I’ll make sure I’ll get enough beach and snorkeling before I leave. I just know that I will keep working hard so that I can go to my next vacation. 

After three busy days in Honolulu, I took a Hawaiian Airline inter-island flight and landed in the so-called Big Island of Hawaii. What a different sight from Oahu, starting from the minute of the plane circling above the tiny airport. The earth on the island is not covered by yellow dirt like everywhere else in the world but by black chunks of rocks or clays that you see only near volcano. In fact the island is like a giant crater left from a once-active erupting volcano. Low yellow bushes grow out of the black earth, with the background of low mountains and blue sky, the view on the drive out of the airport  is so breath-taking that I had to stop a couple of times just to take in the view. My heart was literally beating faster because it was just so astonishingly beautiful. 
Being alone in the rental car and driving myself on the road of the Big Island of Hawaii, with pop music playing on the radio, is so surreal that I had to remind myself—to think of where I come from to where I am doing today and be proud of myself. 
About forty-minute drive later, I turned left on Mauna Lani Drive, where a true “paradise” is displayed in front of me, bright Hawaiian flower trees, lush-green landscape and golf courses, palm trees in the blue sky with the sound of the ocean waves. I got lost a couple of times trying to find the Mauna Lani Bay Hotel and Bungalows, but I didn’t mind driving around on that road at all. 
Concierge greeted me at the entrance and valeted my car. I entered the open lobby area overlooking the ocean and was greeted with a wam wet towel and a papaya juice. I took a look around the hotel and the outside view, and I am in heaven. If there’s a place that can be called “paradise”, Hawaii should be that place. Among the places I have been to, and I can say quite a few countries, there is no place like the Big Island where you can find tranquility and breath-taking view of nature. It’s as if mother nature gave all the good things she has to Hawaii, greens, ocean, sunset, beach, sky, flowers, and worked with humans finding the best way to build resorts so that we can enjoy these things. 
Of course the next thing I discovered was how high the price tag is to be alive in places like this. A burger and glass of wine costs $40, a slow yoga class on the beach costs $15, a mud-wrapping body massage wants $180, a scrub a-diving trip costs $170…so on. Alas, I thought I could afford a trip to Hawaii but I didn’t realize I am just not in that league yet, where you can really “afford” a vacation like this. Sadly I have to cut this and that from my to-do list.
At this point, I have to say something about the contrast between India and Hawaii. I just returned from Mumbai a month ago, the memory is still fresh from the slums on the street of Mumbai, half-naked dirty children running on the dirt road chasing vehicles begging for changes, the air was so muddy, sticky, dirty and stinky that it’s hard to be outside of the hotel for more than a few hours. It was madness in downtown Mumbai where millions of people struggled to breathe and live, with deafening car honking and crowd screaming in the blistering sun. 
Sometimes I don’t understand how the world can be so different from one place to another. The same piece of earth in Mumbai shelters millions of times more people than the earth underneath Hawaii, so a human life in Hawaii is millions of times more precious than a life in Mumbai. The air and the sky is so vastly more enjoyable than the ones in Mumbai, therefore life quality of Hawaii is thousands of times above that of Mumbai. It’s so unfair, depending on where you are born, that some people are gems but some people are dirt. But like the French likes to say, this is life. I sincerely admire people like Bill Gates who tries to balance the inequality even just a little. 
A little bit recounting of my three days in Honolulu. It took my mind one day to learn to relax. I stayed on the beach for only a couple of hours, but then I had to keep going. That afternoon I hiked the rainforest to see a small hidden waterfall, not that a big deal. The next day a sail to Ko Olina resort on the beautiful north shore of Oahu island. I couldn’t swim but I enjoyed tons of snorkeling and dolphin watching. It’s simply amazing to be floating on the surface of the ocean and watching three giant sea turtles wobbling just several feet below you in the blue ocean water. After the sail, I said bye to the crowd, carried my beach towel and bag and trotted along the lagoons, stopped at times just to lie on the beach and be lazy, and finally got to the neighboring Paradise Cove resort for the famous Luau, the Hawaiian style dance and entertainment. 
One thing I have to mention is that I travel alone, and that always makes me stand out. I hadn’t encountered any other single female traveler in any trip or activity I had gone to so far. It always brings surprise, sometimes pause of the entire group, when I proudly usher: yes I am here alone. Of course it always bring the attention of male once they learn I am alone. It’s hard not to notice this small Asian girl walking, running, trotting alone from one spot to another with head up straight and a fearless look on her face, for example, in this resort, I was immediately noticed by this gorgeous Luau dancer, a handsome young chap who performs muscular Hawaiian-style dances on stage every night therefore has a body that every man will kill for, even worse with his sweet tanned face with mixed Asian and Caucasian features, he walks around with a Hawaiian flower above his ear and barely clothes on or just a cloth wrapped around his waist therefore making every female drool with lust. When he saw me and smiled to me with Aloha and then kept sending intoxicating vibes through his eyes every time he spotted me in the crowd, for a moment I thought my old soul was shaken and I was actually in love with this simply beautiful Hawaiian man. To add to the exciting story (something I am sure my girlfriends would want to know), he was very happy that I asked to have a picture taken of us at the end of the show. He held his guitar in one hand and held me with the other and whispered to my ear that I should not be afraid to pose intimately for the picture. Haha, and then he gave me his phone number. But don’t worry, the number is not used and I will not move to Hawaii.  
There hasn’t been a place like Oahu where I feel so free, so vibrant. I feel lonely all the time even walking on the very crowded streets of Honolulu, because I am alone, but I feel very much alive, and tonight in this sereneness on the Big Island I look forward to living more. 

It’s 10pm in Hawaii, 4am in Boston. I am sitting at the beach bar of the Westin Moana Surfrider Honolulu, with the warm sea freeze and soft playing music, trying not to fall alseep. I can barely keep my eyes open but this moment is so precious that I tell myself it’d be a crime to let it go without me being a part of it.

It’s the first day of my vacation in Hawaii. I did a lot of things, spent a lot of money, deliberately. I passed by the Apple store at 7am when I went for a run in the Hawaiian warm air and saw the line of people waiting outside the store. I thought to myself, why don’t I get myself an Ipad too? After an hour and half’s waiting, I walked out of the store with one. What am I going to do with it? I don’t know, but I just like the feeling of spending money spontaneously for myself. Then I went back to the hotel and booked myself several tour packages. Every time when I hesitate, an inner voice says to me: why do you think so much? Why do you care? Isn’t it time to be nice to yourself? Be selfish, then the guilt will go away.

A lot of Ambien last week, the heaviest since almost two years ago. The daily movement of the stocks finally got to me. No matter how tired I was, how much wounded-up my brain was, I couldn’t fall asleep. Lying in the dark, I saw a flash movie being played in front of me, darts flying across the room, dots and lines crossing each other, stock symbols popping out like cartoons from no where. My stocks are like my barn of piglets, some of them go by rules but most of them have bipolar disorder or mental disfunction. I watch them day and night, I want everyone of them to become a star but forget it’s best to have above-average “everything”. Having been in finance in five years, I still haven’t learned to accept mistakes. I cannot allow myself to be wrong, to be ridiculed by others, to be a fool in other people’s eyes. How stupid is that?

But I wrapped up the week and boarded the plane for Oahu on Saturday morning. I am well aware that I deserve this vacation, but I am constantly questioning myself why I cannot be in China taking care of my family when they need me the most.

I am sipping a cocktail called “naked pinky cosmo-tini” at the beach of Wakiki, yet my mother has been lying in bed for the last four weeks back in China. She fell from her three-wheeler and hurt her back and neck after colliding with a bike. She stays on a temporary bed downstairs in the house, cannot even move her neck, no one put even a TV in front of her, no one is there keeping her company or cooking for her. I cannot imagine how she spends every waking moment staring at the wall and being in pain. My god, my heart aches when I try to imagine how she feels. I cannot let myself think further. The guilt is swallowing me. What should I do? I should’ve canceled my Hawaii vacation and flown to China instead. I didn’t. I didn’t even think of doing that. I wanted this vacation so badly. I don’t care about my mother that much. This thought makes me feel guilty. I cannot take care of her any more. I need to take care of myself first. I requested myself to stop thinking how sad and miserable she feels at this moment. I really want to cry, I just don’t know what to do. All she ever wants is to be cared when she needs it, but my father works from dawn to dusk, my sister takes care of her shop and son 12 hours a day, and me, the person my mother thinks the only one who can be counted on, is thousands of miles away. No matter how much money I make, it doesn’t matter to her I guess. I just cannot give her what she wants, and I am feeling like crap because of that.

And then my sister was physically beaten by her ex-husband, who I just cannot understand why still is involved with her 5 years after they divorced. I just cannot comprehend why this kind of man exists and why for God’s sake he was sent to my family to torture every single one of us. My sister Spring, the sister I love yet hate sometimes, just couldn’t say no to him because she and he shared a child and she wants the best for that child. So this man is like a snake being let in a little by a little into the pocket, and poof he jumps and bites the crap out of her. It just never ends.

So when my bed-combined mother and my grieve-stuck sister in that hateful Shen Hamlet need me the most, I am walking on the street of Oahu in my jean shorts and bare foot dancing with the drum beats and drinking rum to my heart’s content. I block them out of my mind. I stare at my guilt face to face, and I turn around and walk away. This time I made the deliberate decision of not doing anything for them but doing everything for myself. It’s so difficult to be selfish but I am learning it.

It was 1995, I remember, when I was 21 and teaching English to middle school kids in that remote farming town in China, when I spent most of my days being miserable and wondering why nobody in this entire world loved me. I absolutely didn’t have a shred of self-confidence. I walked quietly at the side of the streets like a mouse. My footsteps were always gingerly and uncertain. I smiled with my mouth closed when I had to smile. I wore black or gray. I scolded, cursed and belittled myself whenever and wherever. It was the worst thing in life, when you don’t like yourself.

Fast forward 15 years. Everything is great. I have completely changed to a new person. Magna cum laude from Wellesley. A great job in the greatest country in the world, a financier! I travel to all parts of the world. I eat salad and lift weights every day. I have a whole closet of fancy dresses and high heels. I walk with my head up straight. I laugh with my mouth wide open, without reservation, laugh from my heart. I tell everyone who listens—love yourself because the worst thing you can do is not like yourself.

For some moment, I really thought I was healed—I am this confident American woman who can go on with life happy with herself forever. But I see new things. I am getting old, getting wrinkles and no matter how many crunches I do I won’t have a flat ab any more…even worse, I am still alone. Still nobody loves me.

So many years later, I am sitting in my apartment, doing the same thing, being miserable and alone. Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. And I just heard the news that my ex-husband had just have a baby girl, three years after he told me that he didn’t think he would ever want a family. My first reaction was that I am lucky I wasn’t the baby’s mother. My second reaction was that why someone like him, or everyone else except me, has a family?

There is a wonderful thing in America, called anti-depressant that supposedly fixes the chemical imbalance in your brain and pulls you out of this dark hole where you sink to the lowest. I loved this magic pill. Because it indeed worked. Over the last 10 years in America, I was on this magic pill for 5 years. It’s shocking now that I put the number together. It helped me when writing my memoir put me back the old days, it also helped when I learned my ex-husband wasn’t sure if he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me.

But I am sick of it, I wanted to stop relying on medicine to be happy. There should be true happiness in life that comes to you naturally, shouldn’t there? There’s self-confidence from within your own heart, isn’t there? So I made a decision to stop the medicine, and now I am suffering…while realizing the cause of my sufferings. 

Life is so complicated, and I am still figuring it out. Meanwhile, I went to the florist today and bought some roses for myself. If I don’t have a Valentine to share my life with, just let me be anti-Valentine, for now, hopefully not forever.

What’s the purpose of life? This question has been on my mind so often lately. I am perplexed myself, I don’t know why I have to find a purpose for my life. I don’t want to, because I know I may never get an answer, and the constant questioning can only bring myself confusion, frustration and unhappiness. But it kills me not knowing what I live for. 

Some people may say they live for the common good, for the society, for the benefits of the mankind. To be honest, this has never occurred to my mind, I am never even close to be this great, this selfless. The constant struggle accompanying me during my childhood in China had never given me a chance to think of other people besides myself. All I wanted at that time was a little love, a little happiness, being beautiful and having a lot of money.

So life runs its own course. I got my money, got my love, though it comes and goes, I had them, I tasted it, cried and laughed for it. And even more fortunately, I have beauty now. It comes from self-confidence, self-respect and of course countless hours in the gym. It comes from bettering my own taste from observing and learning about fashion, history, art and all those so-called “sophisticated” things in life.  

Today I am living the life I had always wanted. I don’t need a man to feel pretty any more, I don’t need anyone’s financial help, I can afford the things I want, I travel all over the world, I live in the city, I take care of myself, I eat healthily, I dress well, I analyze the stock market for a living, I realize value from the work I do…I am a modern and independent woman, finally. 

And then this damn question pops up—what’s the purpose of my life now?

Do you wonder about this like I do? Should I just live my life day by day and enjoy the every day? There needn’t be a purpose of life, need there? Is life given to human beings so casually that it’s natural to watch the sun go down and come up, again and again until the moment you stop breathing?

More than once I was told that I need faith, and that’ll give me the purpose of life, more directly, I need to believe in God. I am skeptical. I have such an independent mind that I don’t want to be given a faith just because I am searching for an answer to the purpose of my life. But I also wonder, does faith make life more fulfilling, happier and make people more contempt?

I was given the Bible some days ago and told I should give Jesus Christ a shot. The book has been lying on my desk. I haven’t taken a look at it. I am debating.

Or maybe my life is just too good now that I am making something up just to make myself feel vulnerable, sentimental and meaningful?

Five minutes before my meeting with the management of a Japanese company, I was sitting in front of my computer, staring at the screen and stressing out on the stocks that I liked but never seemed to work out.

 My office phone rang. As soon as I picked it up, a loud child’s voice rushed to my ear: “Auntie, I got 91 on math, 94 on Chinese and 96 on English.”

 It was my seven-year-old nephew in China who has just finished his 1^st grade, who I could never get to the phone to even say hi to me. Whenever my mother asked him to the phone, he’d yell, I am tired, or my legs hurt, or just turn a deaf ear and focus on the TV.

 It was such a pleasant surprise. I was so happy to hear from him. He pronounced his scores in Mandarin, not our local dialect, clearly very proudly but tried his best to contain himself and sound cool.

 I couldn’t help but exclaim: “I am so proud of you, Tiantian! Is Mom happy?”

 “So-so..” he said.  I laughed secretly, he sounded like an adult.

 “What should auntie give you as a prize?” I asked. I know he’s living in the shadow of his aunt who always scored 100 in every subject back in school and has to bear the comment from his illiterate grandmother who doesn’t really think he is that smart.

 “Oh, just taking me to the Hainan Island should be enough…” He is not a greedy boy at all. For years he’s been drawing the palm trees and beaches of Haihan, a tropical island in the southeast of China. And for years I have been promising to take him there, but my American life has always kept me from fulfilling that promise.

 “I want to take a boat.” He said. He’s never been to the beach, has never taken a boat. Something so common for an American is a luxury for a boy in the countryside in China.

 “Ok, Auntie promises you that we’ll go to Hainan this October, and I’ll teach how to build a castle with sand!” I told him, very seriously and solemnly.

 It’s just a simple call from my little nephew, but I am amazed how much it impacted me throughout the entire day. I walked more briskly and went to my meetings with a fine mood. Somehow I had more energy and more smiles on my face. Sometimes it’s that simple.

 It’s nothing extraordinary at all, but I cannot help but sharing it with you. It just makes me really happy.