Il faisait frais[e]

A bottle of ink and two black pens beside an open notebook. My muse from Malaysia shares with me another glimpse of her life. The ink drawing depicts a young man holding a book and wielding a brush against the night sky. She entitles her picture “window”, for it symbolizes “an escape where my imagination speaks of my dreams and hidden desires.”

Rouhui is a chemical engineering biochem major, an archetypal path of study for a young person of Chinese descent. She tells me often about the struggles of schoolwork, but her cheerfulness is unflagging, and more often than not, she manages to inspire and console me seemingly without effort. But Rouhui’s true passion and talent lie in art, especially the ability to ply traditional media to her will. Each piece comes with a story, anecdotes from her childhood, snippets from her daily life; they are her messages of encouragement to students, artists, young people across the globe

In “window”, Rouhui describes the pressure she feels from her family - in particular, her father - to abandon her art: “Ashamed, I bury myself in books in his presence. But the more I read, the more I end up drawing something in his absence. ” While expressing her desire to escape, at the same time, Rouhui never fails to present a determined face with her fierce creativity.

Since we met through a digital picture book project in 2005, Rouhui and I have been escaping in each other, she through my music and I through her art. For a long time, though, I never quite got my finger on what exactly it was that - on a deeper level- drew us to each other. Then, I saw “window” and, as if remembering, I realized.

Last year, I read an article in National Geographic entitled Gilded Age, Gilded Cage. It was a case study following a girl named Bella (Jiaqing Zhou) from the age of four to the age of fifteen. Growing up in Shanghai, Bella’s life exhibits many of the defining aspects of a single child coming of age as a part of China’s expanding middle class - all the competition, stress, frustration, and self-doubt. Emerging from elementary school, children must take standardized tests in order to battle their way into the top middle schools, and at the end of middle school, an even more ruthless round of testing winnows out those fit for the very best high schools. As for college entrance exams…let’s just say that China has a scarcely imaginable rate of teenage suicides and leave it at that.

But in spite of the cut-throat environment, Bella remains a headstrong girl - a bit of a diva - with a tendency toward loquaciousness and a startlingly eloquent pen. Reading her description of her final days of middle school, hot tears sprang into my eyes: “I sit in my middle-school classroom, and the teacher wants us to say good-bye to childhood. I feel at a loss. Happiness is like the twinkling stars suffusing the night sky of childhood. I want only more and more stars. I don’t want to see the dawn.”

Her sentiments cut a melting swathe across my heart as my thoughts cried out to her, with her, “Why?”   Why are children like us - and yes, we are children - forced to see the dawn? Children of Asia, whether or not we live in our motherlands, can never seem to leave the tethers of the motherland behind. We are driven by our parents, reminded by society, that unless we do as we are told, unless we achieve as we are expected - and more, we are worth less than nothing at all.

I myself am unspeakably lucky.

Tian must do battle to keep her construction site standing in the present; Rouhui must climb through her window to escape the scorch of shame; Miyako and her sunflowers must feed and thrive on dust and exhaust.

As a child with progressive Asian parents, I watch their undulating griefs and triumphs, and I feel that I am blessed beyond belief to have the opportunity to be myself without fear.

As an adult with promises, I am both honored and inspired to be their friend and to bear witness to their courage and integrity.

Our generation is at a tough transition in Asian society. We have no right but to stay strong and fight for our due. Our lives are a bridge to a better future.