Climbing Mount Chinese

I've been a good little capitalist consumer this last month.

First, my wife bought me an Amazon Kindle electronic book reader for my birthday.

Then I bought us (meaning mostly me) a new Sony Bravia 52" LCD TV.  It was a special deal bundling in a Sony PlayStation 3 also.  So now I can watch Blu-ray movies (and play a few games too).

I'm so glad I can both live the American dream, and help keep capitalism going at the same time...

...while millions continue in poverty.

To be fair to myself.  I also paid fifteen times that amount in charity this year.  So I can alleviate the guilt...somewhat.

But it's sad, the great inequality in life.

Fortunately, the overall purpose in life is not to amass large fortunes and many posessions.  It's to learn and to grow.

You don't need a TV for that.  In fact, you'd probably be better off not wasting your time with it, but filling your head with something more meaningful.

But as for me, I'll keep my TV, thank you.  I like watching it.  It keeps me from having to think about more painful things.

-John

Last Thursday at 3:00 pm, Susan, a woman I knew at my church, with a husband and 8-year-old daughter, calmly left her apartment without telling anyone where she was going.  Friday night, the husband and a friend went out to look for her while the friend's wife sat with the daughter.  Because the friend's wife had to leave to pick up her son, she called my wife and I to come take over sitting with the daughter.  At the time, we figured it was just a case of the woman running away for a couple of days for some reason, but that she would come back.

She didn't.

The next day, while my wife and I were driving down to southern California to visit my mother-in-law, we got a call from another church member.  We were informed that she had been found in the woods west of the town, apparently the victim of suicide.

Susan and her husband came over to the US from Taiwan a number of years ago.  I first met here about two years ago when she joined our church.  She was a quiet woman, but very warm and friendly in a shy kind of way.  I enjoyed the few times I was able to talk with her, and it was fun playing with her daughter, who was not shy at all.

In Taiwan, they had owned a construction and real estate company.  From the happy pictures I saw of them vacationing in Europe, they apparently were doing very well, at least at one time.  But the business failed, and they came to the US to join other family members already here.

Because neither of them could speak much English, the husband was an hourly worker in a warehouse.  Quite a difference from the affluence they knew before.

So many people come to the US with dreams, only to find that without English language ability, and without sufficient education, their dreams were only just that.  I know so many unskilled and skilled Chinese who come here only to find themselves working 12-hour days in Chinese restaurants, or other unskilled jobs where they are (seemingly to me) exploited by other Chinese immigrants lucky enough to own those businesses, and struggle against the high cost of living here.  The only ones that do well seem to be those with professional training, such as engineers and technical people.

However, over the last few days, I learned more about Susan's situation, with her brother seriously ill from cancer, money problems, conflicts with the husband's family, and other family problems (you can probably take this to mean a lousy marriage), which apparently contributed to her depression, which none of us were attentive enough to notice.

Sadly, it seems that some people don't inherently seem to know how to reach out for help.  To make it worse, Chinese culture seems not to think much of counseling, and that combined with language barrier and lack of resources, were probably additional stumbling blocks, even though for the latter, there are free counseling resources available.  I personally know three counselors I could have sent her to for help, had I had a clue as to what was going on.

Suicide leaves many people behind feeling guilt over not knowing and not having done anything.  But you might be surprised to know that for me, my initial reaction was not guilt, but more of a mild anger or disgust.  I felt Susan's choice was a selfish and stupid one, especially considering the daughter she left behind, and the help and alternate choices available.

I thought back to the dark time in my life, freshly divorced, my wife having left me for another man, and the separation from my kids and the associated financial burden, newly alone in a tiny studio apartment, but I never seriously considered suicide as a way to escape the pain.  But then I know that suicide often comes from a state of mental illness where the person probably has diminished capacity for rational choices, and that I'm in no position to judge here.  Now I just feel sad for the family, especially the daughter.

So here we are now, scrambling to help the family make the myriad funeral arrangements, bringing meals, trying to console the family.  Too bad we couldn't have used that effort to actually help Susan instead.

-John

What does one do when they get tired of studying their language of focus?

Well, this happened to me recently.  I just suddenly felt tired of studying Chinese.

Fortunately for me, learning Chinese is just a hobby, so I had the luxury of backing off it for a couple of days.  Mind you, I didn't stop completely, that would be unnatural for me, since it's such a big part of my life, but I did relax a bit, and only did a token amount of study and practice.

But after just a couple days of this "rest", the interest came back.  So maybe it's a natural thing for one's interest in something to fluctuate, to ebb and flow.  And perhaps, to avoid burn-out, we do need to take it easy from time to time.

I used to do programming projects in the mornings before work for my hobby.  As if I didn't get enough programming in my job.  (I am a software engineer.)  But it filled some need for me to be able to work on something that I chose.

I worked on this one project for nearly 7 years, a game engine framework with a 3D modeler.  But one day I got up early as usual, and sat down work to work, but then said to myself: "I don't want to do this any more."

So I didn't.  It's been nearly five years since then.  I guess I just burned out.

Actually, the fact that one of my sons got into some major trouble had something to do with it.  My project just didn't seem so important any more.

The sad thing now is, I feel that way about work in general.  But unfortunately, I can't just walk away.  At least not yet.  Some day...

Many of you are young and just getting started in your careers.  Or perhaps you are still in school.  (It seems that most who hang around EBaby are in their 20's.)  It makes me weary just to think about being in your shoes and facing all the work in front of you.  But fortunately, the thing you have that I don't have is that boundless energy of youth and optimism for the future.

Well, maybe you don't feel that way now.  Maybe you feel exhausted from a late night of studying or a hard day's work.  But I think when you get to my age and look back, you'll see how strong and energetic you really were.

What do you think?  About anything.

-John