Wow! It’s really hard to believe that eight weeks of teaching, rehearsals, frustration, and finally overwhelming success could come by so quickly. If you haven’t noticed already, I’ve been writing stories for the entirety of this DukeEngage blogging experience so I thought it would be cool to write just a normal blog for once. :))))))
This summer has been one of the most difficult summers of my life. While I am physically tired from the classes and rehearsals and meetings that have culminated in the very last week, what it has done to my emotions is incomparable.
This was the first year in my life that I would spend more than eleven months away from my family. Every summer before, I had spent with my family in Houston, and as I would be returning directly to Duke for the rest of the summer, the prospects of not seeing them until October was particularly tough on me, especially since the unity of family was a value that was paramount in my upbringing. I would often spend tremendous time on the weekends and nights to have a semblance of a presence in my parents’ life, talking to my dad about the latest in his scientific research, coaching my worried mother for her new job interview, tutoring my sister in California in organic chemistry, a class that she had been stressing over for months. All this while I was balancing a long distance relationship with my girlfriend in India, and though long distance was an experience that I deeply cherished and learned to value, it would have been naïve to say that there were not any bumps and arguments during our physical separation.
This summer was also a time of medical school applications. I will definitely admit that I came into the application cycle underestimating the amount of work and dedication that I would need to be successful, but the application preparation I had done was still more than many Zhuhaiers in the past. On the weekdays after I had finished the constantly changing lessons and musical arrangements for my English and music students, I found myself writing essays up until 2 or 3 AM past midnight only to have to wake up at 7 AM in the morning to begin my morning classes with an enthusiasm to motivate my students. There were so many occasions where I could not go out with the Duke Engage squad simply because I had a mountain of essays waiting for me at home and important activities and meals with my host family that I definitely did not want to miss.
Some moments on this trip have been the saddest times of my life. There were times in Beijing and in Zhuhai where I wanted so badly for each and every member of our group to be happy and revel in friendship during the brief time in our lives that we would be together, and watching the hurt in our relationships with one another, pain that seemed to be irreparably broken, was enough to make me want to cry at times. There was a particular school day when Shelsea was sick and could not help me teach our English classes, and a particular class of students believed that it would be okay to misbehave with only one teacher in the classroom. I had yelled at them, making a whole classroom of middle school students cry. I had never done that to any student much less an entire classroom full of kids, and even though this was something that had to have been done, knowing that I had made the right judgement did not remove the guilt and sadness that I had felt for the students. I think the saddest moment on this trip might’ve been the Saturday before our group excursion to Beijing. That day, my aunt, cousin, and le-le (my niece) had come all the way from Hong Kong to Zhuhai’s Chang Long park. They had booked an expensive room in the park’s resort-styled hotel, not only because it would have been easier for my aunt to go back to Hunan (She is 60 years old), but because they had wanted to surprise me with the experience of living in the resort, which of course was simply incredible (It was a two-story hotel room with three beds and a backyard). They were a little sad when they learned I could not stay with them for the night, but the worst was that on the day we met at the park, I was preoccupied with a lost SIM card that I wouldn’t even end up using in Beijing because of my WIFI, international calling plan, and the fact I was always with the core group of people. I had only come back to China once in my entire life, and that was at a time when I could barely remember the people that I had met (in third grade) and seeing that medical school was on the horizon, I probably would be able to come back to China for a while. The part that hurt the most, however, was that my mother had called me after I had gotten back to my home and told me many stories of my aunt, who had left her job to take care of me when I had just been born. The realization that I had spent the whole day thinking about a stupid SIM card and the argument my mom and I had about purchasing a new SIM card, rather than using the opportunity to fully engage and appreciate my aunt and the rest of my family members who I would not be able to see for a long time was truly devastating for me.
There were really only two incidents that my emotions had gotten the better of me. The first was during the first week when we were putting together the acapella performance and I thought were not going to make it (If you don’t want to be here…hahaha). The second was in Beijing when I felt I had been put into a translator role that I didn’t exactly consent to and even when I was trying to do my job, I felt that others were doing things that was making my job more difficult. That incident, however, I quickly got over as I realized that it was necessary on my part to be of help for others on the trip to enjoy their time in Beijing and also that some things were completely unintentional.
But throughout every other tough moment on the trip, and believe me, there were many, I had quietly internalized all of my emotions. When one of my peers told me to shut up and treated me disrespectfully, I did not express my indignation because I knew that that might’ve been the only way s/he ever knew of conveying forceful thoughts. When I woke up feeling exhausted from a night of essay writing, I made sure to come to my morning classes with energy for a new day of classes, because my exhaustion was surely not going to keep the kids engaged, and they certainly deserved better. Even though there were times where I felt like yelling or sobbing in the corner during the tough discussions and broken hearts that we had experienced as a group, I pushed down those emotions and tried my best to understand what was going through the minds of the other students on the trip. Through all of the rehearsals, trying to set the perfect lighting and background for the performance, trying to sympathize with some of my fellow Duke students’ situations, trying to learn an extra song for a performance that had been dumped on me at the very last second, trying to make sure my students were in a good place emotionally for the performance, on top of all the million things that was happening in my life, I had tried my best to always smile and be of a playful, light-hearted, sometimes even silly person for our group, to understand that some of the frustrations of our group were simply a matter of circumstance, and to suppress my overwhelming emotions because those were simply not going to help our group succeed these challenging times.
All my life, I had been taught to show grace to others. This was a value that became especially apparent to me in my experiences in the medicine and working with others whom came from different life circumstances and backgrounds than me. Everyone is living some sort of battle in their lives, and while that might not be the most apparent on the outside, it certainly doesn’t hurt to show some extra kindness to the people around you. I think the inability to show grace by some in the program leadership and the personal attacks that follow can be very hurtful and ultimately myopic of other people’s emotions, feelings, and lived experiences. I do not need to spend every single second of my life working myself to death especially after an entire summer of mind-numbing stress, and when it comes to writing an extra essay or another blogpost and my mental health, I am going to choose my own health. That is simply my decision and not someone else’s.
There were moments on this trip that definitely informed me of how much I had grown in terms of my relation to self. As a child, I was not enthusiastic about my Chinese heritage. Growing up in Augusta, Georgia, I attended an elementary school that had very few if almost any Asian Americans, and with a name like Jinjie, I became an easy target for blatant stereotyping. Even when my family moved to Houston, I continued to fear the first day of classes, not because of the impending homework and tests, but because it presented another opportunity to be humiliated by the new pronunciations of my name. Some of my teachers didn’t bother to hide their amusement as they played around with the syllables. A sixth grade teacher even went against my own consent to refer to me as ‘J-squared’, a not-so-subtle mathematical reference. But while the mispronunciation of my name was at least endurable, the assumption that I was good at math due to my Asian descent was simply unbearable. There were many math tests where I purposefully missed questions just to avoid the inevitable smirks from my classmates. While this fear had largely evaporated by middle school, the psychological damage had already been done and left me a reserved middle school student sensitive to the judgement of others. I resented my heritage for making me vulnerable to attacks that I could not defend against, and to a much smaller extent, I resented my own parents for giving me my name in the first place.
To escape the racially-contrived notions that I was unathletic, I filled my middle school years with sports. Mornings became long runs with the cross country teams. Afternoons were filled with track meets, tennis practice, and basketball games with my friends. I was constantly running from something that I could not escape, but wherever I went did not change the fact that I would always be Asian American. It wasn’t until high school when I finally came to peace with my heritage. I began taking Chinese lessons outside of my academic classes to improve my writing and reading proficiencies in the language. I frequently found myself doing community work in the libraries, talking to the elders amidst the intense wei-chee matches and to the idling parents who waiting impatiently for weekend classes to finish. Slowly, I got to know the peoples of this community and the rich histories that they brought with them, from my own healthcare providers to my Chinese teachers to the little kids that played with me at cultural festivals that lit up Chinatown during the holidays.
In my senior year of high school, I was awarded the annual scholarship sponsored by my Asian-American community. The elders had congratulated me on my accomplishments, wishing that I would represent my communities and peoples with pride in my next chapter of life. As I stood next to these distinguished individuals, many of whom had carved names for themselves and the Asian American community in medicine, politics, and business, what came to my mind was actually two simple Chinese characters: Jin-jie. Beneath those two simple characters was a mother’s unconditional love, a storied Chinese heritage, a name that mother had spent months of walking on the beaches of Xiamen to think of, a name that means hero. My whole life, I had been running from a name and label in which society had imposed its own superficial judgement, but not once did I think about what my own name meant to me.
This trip certainly dug up old wounds as some of my peers frequently would call me by other names that I did not like some of which include Gingerbread and bad mispronunciations of my name in Chinese even when I hinted at my displeasure. While I might have been traumatized and very hurt hearing this in the past, I realized that all eleven of my fellow students may never have had the lived experiences and adversities of growing up with a non-western Chinese-influenced name. By no means am I myself perfect, and I have definitely hurt others unintentionally before on this trip, but I think my coming to terms with my name is just another testament to how much I have learned to unconditionally embrace my Chinese heritage.
Okay enough venting!! And I promise that after I finish writing this long blog as my relatives wait outside in the living room, I will be back to the always smiling, happy-go-lucky, ridiculous, optimistic Jinjie that you guys have all learned to know so well.
The real reason I am writing this isn’t about how all the rehearsals we had, all the tough times that we had to endure, and not even the final singing performance that my students sang perfectly (pun intended), because I thoroughly believe that those are memories that words cannot begin to do justice. Rather, it is because of a simple WeChat message that a student sent me after we said our goodbyes.
In the last little part of my student’s message:
“I knew from the beginning we were destined to say goodbye. But when it came unexpectedly, I could not accept it. You changed my world my world, and then you go. Thank you for coming to my world.”
I’ve thought for a long time about the nature of my relationship with the students and the Zhuhai community and everything seems to direct me to a simple, yet poignant conclusion. This gigantic world that we call earth really is built upon the foundations of billions of smaller ones that revolve around individuals, groups, and communities. In the puzzling process of life, our tiny worlds intermingle with others from around the world, with others that don’t necessary speak our language or share in the same culture and religious beliefs, with others who gone through different hardships, life experiences, and adversities. Our worlds collide only intermittently, and it is only in these precious moments that we can garner new things about the little worlds of others. And while these moments when worlds touch and embrace in one another are inherently short in the long run, as we take our worlds to our next place in life, they are forever impacted for the better by the experiences and friendships that others have had on us.
Perhaps that is why I love music so much. Music is the ultimate language of the human experience and the means by which we convey the experiences that are all common to our billions of tiny little worlds. It is through music, that I was able to come to my student’s world and for her to come to mine for the brief little time in our lives.
Thank you Zhuhai, Number Nine, and the many students that have shaped my experiences here, for letting me be a part of your world, if only just for a moment.
Love,
Jinjie