As a resident of Silicon Valley, I swim in a sea of immigrants and the offspring of immigrants. On my street alone are neighbors from Bolivia, Iran, India, Taiwan and China, while our housekeeper and yard man are both from Mexico. As a nondescript old white lady, I'm virtually invisible to all these people as they dart about self-importantly. It appears we have nothing in common, and that it is I who is out of place.
However, through our neighborhood writer's group, I have recently established a channel of communication with a fellow of Chinese descent who is half my age, and we seem to be on the same wavelength, sometimes.
This new friendship has caused me to think about the big influence of Chinese culture in my life. In my twenties, I was primarily seeking enlightenment, and I read books about Tibetan Buddhism, Taoism, and Zen without concern for their national origins. My first book of Chinese philosophy was the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tse Zu. I associate Taoism with peace of mind through rational detachment from the past and the future, and total immersion in the present.
During that period a Jewish friend and mentor got me interested in the I Ching, an ancient Chinese book of divination, or fortune-telling. For several months, we consulted the I Ching whenever a question about the future arose. Instead of giving a pat answer, like a fortune cookie, the I Ching presents a set of evocative imagery about mountains and lakes, and other aspects of nature, that require deep interpretation, thus stimulating the imagination. It gives totally non-Western advice like, "The Great Man leads by following, or "Great action may be achieved by doing nothing."
When I was 28 years old, I was shocked to discover, on the last page of Time magazine, a profile of Maxine Hong Kingstong, a Chinese-American woman my age, who had written a book called The Woman Warrior that had quickly become required reading for freshman English majors. When I was an English major, only ten years before, we read only the work of white guys, mostly dead—very few females, and no authors who were thought of as second-generation immigrants at the time. I read Maxine's book then, and twice or three times more over the decades. It is such a heady mix of fantasy and reality that I still don't feel I have conquered it; it always leaves me in a state of mystification.
I followed Maxine's career, and read all of her work. Then as fortune would have it, I had a chance to meet this great author through mutual friends. She and I, with our husbands, have attended the same annual Christmas party for many years. When we chat, she is always very supportive of my own paltry efforts at writing; she's a great teacher as well as a great writer, and she taught at UC Berkeley for most of her career. From Maxine I got the idea that the effort to synthesize the Chinese and American cultures into one workable personality is challenging but rewarding.
As a student of art history, I'm also familiar with some contemporary Chinese artists. Until the 20th century Chinese art was confined by tradition and consistent adherence to art values that had been dictated centuries ago. There was little room for innovation or individualism. But in the 20th century some Chinese artists asserted their individuality, and adapted tradition to an entirely radical message.
The most obvious example is Ai Wei Wei, the maverick who got himself imprisoned by exposing the hard reality behind cheery Chinese propaganda. An iconic example of Ai's work is an installation of a long snake-like form composed of identical children's backpacks, such as those worn by the school children who were killed when a school collapsed due to shoddy construction. The show which has had the most impact locally was installed at Alcatraz a few years ago. Ai used the abandoned cells as exhibit spaces for installations related to the prisoners' experience—such as the recreation of the hospital ward, and another with speakers playing recordings of prisoners talking.
On of my favorite contemporary painters is a Chinese-American named Hung Liu. Hung Liu was a teenager in China during the cultural Revolution, and was sent to work in the fields at the time she was supposed to be entering college. She survived that and went on to get an art education and become a successful art teacher. But she always felt her personal vision was repressed by Chinese traditions of paintng, and even more confined by the dictates of the Communist Government. She was always looking for a way to get to the U.S. In her late thirties, she finally came here as a graduate student and quickly settled in, establishing a family and becoming a citizen. Most of Hung Liu's paintings reflect sadly on Chinese culture before it got erased or perverted by the Communist geovernment. She is adept at all Chinese traditional forms, but she always includes abstract element in her canvases, such as a veil of linseed oil drips, to show that her work is modern—as well as to express a feeling of loss.
As long as I'm doing an inventory, I could mention that the first international trip my husband and I made together was to Hong Kong. I remember colorfully elaborate architecture and decor, huge shanty-towns, opium addicts asleep in the street, vibrant Chinese temples with arcane rituals, and a hovercraft ride through a huge and fascinating harbor. My Hong Kong experience was completely disorienting—please forgive the unavoidable pun.
For me, exposure to Chinese culture and philosophy has been a crack through which I could escape the aggressiveness and hostility of Western thinking. With Westerners, life is all about dominance and power. With the Chinese philosophers, life is about detachment and acceptance, for the sake of peace of mind. I can relate to that. My goal is to let go of thoughts and emotions, to let them pass, for the sake of attending to the present moment.
It's reassuring to have this connection with one of the Chinese-Americans in my neighborhood. It makes me feel less like a stranger in my own land.
