Dear Mom,
Thank you for your impassioned and
expressive email. I think of you every June 4 and of the way you take a
personal stand every year for something you believe in strongly, and I, like
you, can feel the power of memory and the risk of forgetting. Our minds -- and,
for those who believe in them, our souls, or our essential selves -- are really
all that we bring and leave behind in this world and the impact we have on one
another, the ways we touch each others' lives, are, to me, the closest thing we
have to 'immortality.' I am not saying we should strive to be immortal; I am
saying that we are more than our time on earth and that the difficult distance
between life and nothingness finds a beautiful bridge in things like memory and
family, and the idea of passing on a legacy or a set of core values, or even of
having brought children into the world who then go on to have their own impact
as well.
I think Liang's Mother's Day email
expressed it perfectly: something about caring for children forces a
restructuring of the brain towards selflessness, towards thinking about how
each action and decision will affect someone else before oneself.
What I find inspiring in your example, and
in Dad's, is that you have both translated that selflessness toward the world
at large and that you are both engaged in the complicated political and social
challenges we face.
Living in Quebec and in Montreal, where,
much like in Hong Kong, there is a daily culture clash between English and
French -- in Hong Kong, I see the clash between the Hong Kong citizens and
mainlanders, I am learning a lot about living with uncertainty, with
disagreement and with a fundamental clash of values and human rights. I won't
go so far as to call it a clash of civilizations and really I think Fukuyama is
now outdated for our interconnected world where people from all different
countries move to and live in all different countries and kids grow up having
moved all over the world, but regardless, I feel like I am able to practice not
only how to be respectful and civil towards people with whom I strongly
disagree, but additionally, to practice how to contribute towards a fun-loving,
healthy and creative society regardless. I do this because I want the world to
be a better place for my children, but I also do it because I have watched you
both in action and know that we are all powerful -- individually and
collectively, as a nuclear family and as an extended family, for each other,
but also for ourselves.
Love,
Xiang
1 comment:
Really impressive!
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