Month: October 2022

When I wrote about my family for the Guardian in September 2007, I remember telling my whole family because I felt like it was the kind-of thing that would have made them proud, because I was raised in this way.

Instead I remember my aunt and my British uncle-in-law saying nothing positive about the article, as instead they told me that no, my grandmother had not been through the fabled Long March. There weren’t any comments about the actual article itself or that I had accomplished this at 21. I wish they could have said more.

How many wasted lives and how much wasted time.

I think it’s the inability for her to let go. The last time I was there, and all the times I’ve been there, I’ve realised how much of her power is about control. And I am able to recognise this because I don’t want to control anyone, and so it makes it easier to recognise for me.

And I realised that because of this conditioning, I was constantly showing up and expected to be treated badly, or worse, when I showed up to something it was as if all I could get from it was disappointment. I would show up for something, trying to do my best, but it was as if there would be a predestined outcome, and that would be exactly what would happen, almost exactly as predicted.

The last few weeks have been a complete rollercoaster of sorts. I found out that my stepdad had died and that my aunt in Beijing has cancer. This stuff is really hard to write about.

But I guess at the same time I have always come from a place of real privilege. It’s interesting that I always come back to my own privilege; I don’t really know why I do it apart from trying to get away from the sense of entitlement that I was raised with.

I am constantly feeling guilty about this privilege, and trying to do a lot to remedy it. I don’t know when it began that my family accessed this immense privilege, but I could feel it as soon as I was born. It’s about having those connections since birth.