One of These Days...

If I have any literary talent, one of these days, I really should write about a few friends of mine from my college days, with whom I am still in constant contact. Over 20 years ago, we were all so young and so curious about what the future would bring to us. Today, one might say that life has turned out to be totally unexpected for us. Strangely, though, one could also say that in some ways life has turned out utterly as predicted.

My best friend back then was kind of a tom boy. I was very annoyed with her when I first met her back at the military academy where all freshman of Peking University had to go through a whole year of military training. I hated the environment and I did not want to be there. I was in a bad mood. She was transferred into our room together with two other girls just a month after we started at the military academy, presumably because these three girls were "better" behaved so that they could teach the rest of us rebellious girls. She and I shared a bunk bed, with her taking the upper bed. I saw her hang up her cap on the nook that I used, and I told her without smiling that it was mine. Without a second of hesitation and without any flash of displeasure, she immediately put her cap on the other nook, and was like, "oh sorry". - I felt a little better. Then she and I got the worst shift of guard duty one night (2 am to 4 am), and there was really nothing to do except for chatting to stay awake. She started talking. I don't quite remember what she said, except that she suddenly realized that she had written letters to everyone else except for her brother. Two hours passed quickly. The next morning when I woke up, without realizing it, I decided to talk to her more than anyone else. And I just talked and talked, to the point of others suspecting lesbianism. We would chat about going abroad to study, and she said that we would go to San Francisco together. Fast forward 20 years - she and I are both living in San Francisco Bay Area, her daughter 7 months older than my son. She and I are both in the biotech industry, with her in research at a big and stable company, and me in business doing dangerous startups. We still talk a lot, and can't imagine living a life without friends to talk to all the time.

Another friend, whom I have mentioned before, now lives in the UK. In every movie about girls, there is always one girl that's a bit chubby and loved by everyone else. She's like that. She was funny, kind and considerate. We became friends because we both loved George Michael! As I mentioned in a previous blog, she would invite another friend and myself to her home which is just a few blocks away from campus to watch MTV videos of American pop music. After college, she went to Rhode Island to study, while I was attending MIT. We had so much fun seeing each other on some weekends. We went to buy crabs directly from the boats at Galilee. We went shopping in Downtown Crossing on a work day, because she came to visit me while my boss was out of town. We went to the same Chinese restaurant Sichuan Garden over and over again that the owners remembered us. Michael and I once knocked at her door (uninvited) on the way back from a trip to New York and I so enjoyed seeing the surprised look on her face. She and her husband drifted apart over the years. She joined a big multi-national company and moved from Austin to Beijing and now to England. A tough professional woman on the facade, she is actually quite a romantic.

The other friend on those MTV video watching afternoons lives very far in New York, but feels very close because we talk all the time still, chatting about movies and books, and complaining about everything including work, kids and husbands (especially husbands). She is so sweet and dear to me. She and I helped to organize a 10-year reunion of our class including an electronic year book. Even today, some friends commented that it's really a joy to read that book, although at the time we had to use all kinds of tactics to make people write something, which pissed off some people who pissed us off as well! I am utterly convinced that without her involvement, it would be hard to organize anything again for our class, for she alone possesses the discipline and organizational abilities. She was also the most popular girl in our class. A professional woman married with three kids working for a major media company in New York, I am sure that when she was in college she never would have anticipated that. One thing did turn out as anticipated though - she married her highschool sweetheart. I still remember that once I saw her coming out of our dormitory building, dressed in a flowery skirt, ready to meet up with her boyfriend. She was as pretty and fresh as the flowers on her skirt.

Every girls' group would have someone really cool, artistic or poetic, and our group was no exception. This girl was not a classic beauty, but she has something resembling an "it" girl. She was into rock-n-roll music. She knew artistic people. She could write poetry. She could recite lines from the movie "Dead Poets Society". She had tempestuous love affairs. She would smoke. She dressed in fashionable clothes. In summary, she was utterly cool. True to her spirit, she got married almost immediately right after college, and got divorced almost as fast. Fast forward 20 years - she's been working for the same company after graduate school in the same city (Houston). She's married with two kids. Her older son Aidan was about Winston's age when I went to visit her in Houston, and I completely fell in love with him. I think Aidan was the reason why I decided to have a kid, and for that reason I think Winston even looks like Aidan a little bit! Compared to her past, I have to say that one cannot find a more model wife/mother than she is - stable career, nice husband, two adorable kids, and a beautifully kept house in suburban Houston. In this case, life has turned out completely differently for her from what I anticipated.

Back in our college years, "love" was the most discussed topic, and understandably so at our age back then. As we are entering middle age, most of us are exhausted by the demands of work and family. In addition, yes, familiarity breeds contempt to some extent, as we cannot possibly remain fascinated by the same person whom we know better than anyone else. But one friend has remained "hopelessly romantic". She was beautiful, sweet, considerate and incredibly romantic. She was always into "passionate" and "true" love. She would fall madly in love with one guy, and then a few months later fell out of love. It does not mean that she was cavalier about it. She really can only be with someone whom she absolutely loves. By the time I transferred to Harvard, she was dating someone two years older from our college very seriously. They remained together for many years and went to Hong Kong together. It was there that she met her current husband. Always honest about love, she has been with her husband since, and mentioned many times that she could not imagine she could have met anyone better. She has moved to her husband's native Netherlands, and they have an adorable half Dutch half Chinese son. When her husband's kidney disease required a kidney transplant, she gave him one of her kidneys. If anyone fits the description "love conquers all", she does. In a way, she has remained the same as 20 years ago - romantic to the core. I love her for that - it is incredible and inspiring.

Indeed my friends deserve a book, but I don't have the talent to write about them, except for in this lame blog. How I wish that I could capture their essence, their spirit and their lives with my pen!

Hiking Again!

Today is a beautiful day. I went hiking again to the Stanford Dish. The view was breathtaking.

This time I went hiking with my friend Debra. Interestingly, when I thought about my hiking companions, I realized that both David and Debra are the classic "entrepreneurs". They have both made millions from working super hard and taking a lot of risk, very early on in their careers. David then decided to invest his money into a venture firm that he formed with several partners, and unfortunately this partnership was a failure and he lost a few million dollars. In Debra's case, she had been working on a second startup the past four years, and finally decided that it was time to give up, as there was not even traction and she's been funding it with her own money. With both of them, they encountered failures after enormous success.

I have had my very modest share of success with my first startup. My second startup has not been a success. It seems that in the world of entrepreneurs, those who remain in this community usually had success early on. Yes, they have experienced failures, and sometimes even crushing ones. But few life-long entrepreneurs encountered failures at the first try. It now makes perfect sense to me. Basically, if any would-be entrepreneur experienced crushing failure at the first try, likely he or she would come to the conclusion that this is the wrong career choice. If the first time is a success, and the next one is a failure, likely he or she would say, "well, it is not easy to do startups, but I have done it before and I can do it again."

I greatly enjoyed hiking with my older and wiser entrepreneur friends, but unlike them, I should not and cannot retire!

Upcoming Christmas Cruise

A friend recently forwarded some information on a Caribbean cruise this coming Christmas. Apparently her friend's friend got together at least 20 families so that an agent could offer a discounted group fare to them on this cruise. Now that she has decided to book it, she is forwarding the information to more people.

Long story short - I am now going on the cruise with at least five other families, including my cousin's family in Irvine! I am so excited, not necessarily because of the cruise, but because it will be like a continuous party on the sea that requires no work at all! If Winston is interested in joining the supervised kids program, I could have even more time with my friends! Yeah!

It will be his first international trip. I was utterly exhausted on his previous two trips. One was just a short overnight car trip to Monterey, and the other was to Seattle. On the first trip, he fell sick afterwards. On the second trip, I was still sick from a bad cold before we took the trip. He did have a great time on both trips, but I was almost traumatized by the experience. Hopefully when he's three and a half years old, it will be a bit easier!

Hiking

It was a beautiful day yesterday. After many days of raining, the hills have finally turned green. My friend David and I decided to go hiking at Foothills Park with his dog Hoku. While I have remained terrified of cats (yes I know it sounds ridiculous), I am not afraid of dogs - well, at least not David's dog.

Walking up and down the hills and looking at the scenery, I could not help thinking that perhaps the chance to do some hiking in the middle of the day with a friend who can do the same is something worth treasuring. We the drove all the way up Skyline Boulevard to have lunch at Alice's Restaurant - a cool place right in the heart of the redwood forest. The food was generic - I had breakfast food (eggs, french toast and bacon) and David ordered some ribs so that Hoku could have a treat as well. Still, eating on the patio of Alice's Restaurant, breathing in the fresh mountain air, while appreciating the scenery, I felt true bliss.

When Winston grows up, I hope that he will enjoy nature and hiking on those nature trails.

The Challenge of Parenting

Yesterday a friend came with her son for a play date with Winston. As we were chatting, she said that she was surprised to find out that some of the seemingly relaxed parents actually agonized as much as she did about which school to send their kids. Then it suddenly dawned on me what I heard from another friend - as we are entering middle age, we might be exhibiting some of the college behaviors in a different way.

In college, and especially academically competitive colleges, it was common for students to tell others that they hardly studied and partied like crazy, only to study like crazy behind doors. Reason? I guess most people want to feel good about themselves, and being appreciated and admired is one way. Peer recognition is a major force.

Now that we are parents, I often feel the pressure to "relax", as "so and so is really enjoying life and the kids and the kids have turned out just fine". Of course that only makes me feel less sure about myself as a mother, as surely I can't imagine being totally relaxed while Winston would just "turn out fine". As it turned out, he has had some issues that I caught early because I was vigilant, and some that I did not catch early enough because I was NOT vigilant enough!

Is it possible, however, that the force behind college students to deny they ever study is the same behind parents claiming that they are having a good time raising the kids, have no serious arguments at home, maintain a very functional household, all without much effort?

For one reason or another, I have never felt the need to claim that anything is easy. It is not because I am more secure about myself than others. I simply feel the need to tell others that I have studied hard, or that something is challenging, or that I have had a sleepless night, or that I fret over Winston's health, education or development. It is entirely possible that the way I talk does make other parents want to share their struggles with me, because I am certainly not pretending! Therefore, it is no wonder that Michael hears the opposite from others, because after all, who wants to look like that they are not handling it well without effort in front of someone whom they might think is quite judgmental?

In this competitive parenting culture, not only are parents subject to the pressure of making sure that we do their very best for their kids, we could often be compared to those who can seemingly do the best for their kids without effort, complaints or struggle at all. Of course if you get to know them better, you know that they don't have any bad intentions - they just want to look good in front of others, and feel good in front of others, which is utterly understandable. That is why they claim that they had great fun on vacation trips, even though they were sleep deprived and argued vehemently over petty things on the trip due to exhaustion. That is why they claim that they just let the kids do whatever they like even though they agonized over which school to send the kids.

Interestingly, both Michael and I were disdainful of TV before, and we hardly watched any shows. Recently I watched a few episodes of "Desperate Housewives" and "Sex and the City". Now that I have a kid and have experienced the challenge of a raising a kid, I actually could find some merit in those shows. In one episode of "Desperate Housewives", Lynette was having a breakdown due to the kids, and Susan and Bree came to comfort her and told her how much of a basket case they were when their kids were little. Lynette was like, "why didn't you guys tell me this before? I thought that everyone else except for me found it easy." In an episode of "Sex and the City", Charlotte and her first husband invited a married couple with three kids to dinner. Watching how the kids were misbehaving and the couple making nasty comments at each other at the dinner table made them have second thoughts about having a kid. After all, this couple was "so much in love with each other before", and "now they are just parents." Movies and TV shows are supposed to be fake, but sometimes I feel that they can be more real than reality because no real person's pride can be hurt by the brutal honesty displayed in the show.

We cannot change others, but we can change how we respond to the environment made of others. I thought to my days as a student, and tried to remember why it did not bother me at all to hear others claim that they did not study at all, whereas I did. I realized that it was because I did very well in my classes - that was what I cared about. If I did very well, I did not care if others did just as well due to less or more study. Right now, it is easy for me to be affected because raising a kid is like an ongoing exam that one can never ace. I can never be sure that I have done well. No parent can be sure, as it is a process as opposed to an end game.

Mao's Last Dancer

I have a slight interest in ballet. I have an intense interest in China-related topics. Therefore, it is not surprising when I noticed a film based on a Chinese ballet dancer's memoir "Mao's Last Dancer", I decided to watch it.

Li Cunxin grew up in abject poverty in rural China, and was selected to be trained to be a ballet dancer at age ten or eleven. Nine years later, he got an opportunity to study with Houston Ballet in the US. This was 1981, when very few Chinese people had ventured outside of China, with portrayal of "Capitalist countries" like the US so distorted in China that it was downright comical. I am ten years older than Li Cunxin, and even I got a tail end of that wave of communist indoctrination which taught us that we were living in great happiness whereas the people in "capitalist countries" lived in pure agony.

Needless to say, he arrived in Houston utterly shocked and disoriented. He decided to defect and married an American dancer. The event caused quite a stir in the media at the time, and eventually the Chinese government decided to let him go but dictated that he could not return to China ever again. He went onto have a great career with Houston Ballet. Eventually the Chinese government softened the stand, and his parents went from utter shame of having a "traitor son" to the great pride of having a famous son returning to China to perform with Houston Ballet. It was a great personal story, with the upheavals of the times as the backdrop. Li Cunxin has retired from dancing, and is now working as a stockbroker and living in Australia with his Australian wife and three kids.

How times have changed! Back in the early 1980s, a ballet dancer's decision to stay in the United States effectively made him a traitor. Nowadays, the piano prodigy Lang Lang came to study in the US right after his talent was discovered. The basketball star Yao Ming moved to Houston to play professional basketball with the Houston Rockets. The amazing ballerina Tan Yuan Yuan joined San Francisco Ballet, and has been hailed as a role model in China. Even the daughter of the upcoming Chinese leader is studying at Harvard. Times have truly changed. It is mind-boggling.

Li Cunxin may not have been the best Chinese ballet dancer, but he certainly was the last dancer we know of from the Mao era.

Dream

Last night I had an odd dream. It was an elaborate corridor. I was with my friends from college. It seems that we were all back to the age of 18 or 19 years old again. My friend, who was a bit chubby and very jolly, was with me, seemingly playing hide-and-seek with another two girls. Suddenly they found us - we shrieked and my friend grabbed my arm and dragged me with her and ran like crazy through the corridors. The other two girls started chasing after us. One of them was very petite and was usually very quiet and sweet, but occasionally startled us with her rebellious sparks and vivacious individuality. Her friend who was running with her was a bigger girl who I did not know very well, but I remember that she was very cheerful and considerate. That was the whole dream - the four girls screaming, laughing and running through the corridors.

When I woke up, I still could not shake off the odd feelings from the dream. Since I recently watched the movie "A Dangerous Method", I could not help but wanted to analyze my own dream a little bit. Clearly, the obvious analysis is that I have tremendous nostalgia for the days when I was much younger and more innocent, and that I envy my own son Winston for running around the house and laughing his head off, as I just did the chasing with him yesterday. There was nothing much to the chase, but it was uninhibited and unadulterated happiness, as is in Winston's case every time he starts running around, seemingly drunk with happiness.

My chubby friend who was running with me in the dream now works and lives in England for a multi-national oil and gas service company in technical management. Back in our younger days, we all thought that she was going to be married with many kids running around her, with her cooking delicious feasts for them and her friends constantly - she was an excellent cook. Now, she bosses people around, gives orders, and moves from one continent to another for her work. If anything, she now represents the classic tough professional women!

My petite friend was a star student from early on. Despite her easy-going manners, she was always incredibly driven and fairly competitive. She got a PhD from Columbia and MBA from Cornell and is working for a multi-national media company in finance in New York. On top of that, she's married with 3 kids! Her parents have been helping her, which is great. But at the same time, she also has to help take care of her parents' occasional health problems in addition to the numerous viruses that her 3 boys bring home from school all the time. She loves her boys to death, and is thrilled to have them, but she probably could have achieved much more professionally without them. Maybe that surfaces in her mind once in a while, although I know that negative thoughts or wishful thinking generally do not occupy her mind - she simply has no time for it. It makes sense that both she and my chubby friend were in this dream together, since I got to be friends with them at the same time. We were watching MTV videos at my chubby friend's apartment in the afternoon. As the hours went by, and "Like a Virgin" was followed by "Careless Whispers", my chubby friend first drifted off to sleep on the couch. After a while, my petite friend apparently felt sleepy as well. However, being the organized and conscientious person she always was, she first got an ottoman, and put my friend's feet up there, so that she herself could have some room to sleep on the couch as well. I was the only one left staying awake to watch the videos, with Tiffany followed by Tears for Fears, and so on.

The girl who was running with my petite friend was a very nice girl, but I never knew her well. It is interesting that she was in the dream, as I have not been in touch with her for years. In a way, it makes sense that she was in the dream. In my youthful and arrogant days, perhaps I kept to myself mostly or just very few close friends. Now that I am older, I am regretting not getting to know many other girls in my class better, or not making friends with them. Interesting how my perspectives have shifted so much as I get older! In the old days, perhaps I wanted to be "cool", albeit in a nerdy way as opposed to the classic definition of "cool". That applied to how I made friends as well. Today, not only do I not care about being "cool", I no longer know what is "cool".

I am sure that my dream analysis would be dismissed by the Freudian psychologists. But I never care much for Freud anyways.