In springtime, Los Angeles is bathed in sunshine, and vividly enchanting. The sweet, fragrant scent of wine fills the air. The city is utterly intoxicating.
Wearing a traditional cheongsam dress, I accept my award for excellence in Chinese literature from US Congresswoman Hilda Solis, and the audience erupts into applause. Their enthusiastic cheers are all for me, a woman hailing from an ancient culture on the other side of the world!
At this very moment, "success" , a word that invokes envy and desire in the hearts of many, seems to have already deemed me worthy. Once, I was an ordinary girl who grew up among the mountains of the Chinese province of Guizhou. Now, I am like a phoenix reborn from the ashes, soaring through distant blue skies to praise and accolades.
Yet when I reflect upon the road that led me here, I see a fatherless eighteen-year-old dropout, alone, scrambling over a rough and winding path. The girl runs, only to stumble again and again. It is a bitter path that she is forced to follow. I see her fall to society's lowest rungs, where she encounters contempt at every turn. I watch as fate throws one disaster after another upon her, and I see her hanging on the brink of desperate collapse time and time again. She reminds me of a fish caught in boiling water. Unwilling to resign herself to her fate of being boiled alive, she struggles with all her might to break through the surface. However, she always ends up crashing head-on into her shattered dreams and fantasies…
Yet she endured it all. She remained on the path through every twist and turn, until she finally reached the end.
Does this sound far-fetched? Indeed, it does.
I want to tell you my story. As this warm, dark night gathers around us, listen closely…
Spring 2007
