love poem 1

smoggy today. it is march, but the world smells like autumn, like the cough of smoker gods, like the teeth of portals. in the morning, i bike over the fourth ring bridge and wish for a thaw. 

before you board your plane, i tell you to bring face masks, because my head is swimming with the stink of space heaters. then i laugh and marvel. how mundane. this time last year, we were too afraid to speak in anything but the profound. i send you theory. you reply with rumi: no strength but yours. soul of my soul of a hundred universes. this is when i tell my friends, i am in love, and my friends tell me, tell her. but i don’t tell you. instead, when i see you, i say, i’m not very good at this. it is the best kind of truth, because it is meant to spare you. 

you kiss me anyways.   

tonight, your plane will blink over russian airspace, because it is a chinese airline. it is the brightest thing, so i will see it easily. i will reach into the blue gauze of the sky and pull you down, matching birthmark pressed to matching birthmark. you were the one to notice them, twin petals curled on our thumbs. 

last autumn, a real autumn, i downed a bottle of plum wine and shouted cantonese karaoke at a chongqing sky. all of them love songs that my mother had loved. you were laughing, and i was on the verge of tears, because how would you ever know? how would i ever tell you?

you know the lyrics now. of course, i had confessed. of course, you had confessed right back. 

in the evening, i bike back over the fourth ring bridge and almost crash into a taxi. it is one of the many things that can go wrong before i see you again. that will leave one of us standing alone at the airport, dropping whatever is in our hands—roses, suitcase—to an earth that should carry us both. i choose not to worry. i will see you tomorrow. together in my apartment, we will turn on my space heater, and we will wait out the smoker gods. and i will tell you, and i will tell you, and i will tell you.

for asha, march 2025

Oxford, Junior Year

I suppose it’s time to write about Oxford—which sounds a little ironic, because I’ve been doing nothing but writing since touching down at London Heathrow. It’s just been very hard to collect my thoughts about spring quarter on Punderings, because without the benefit of retrospect, there seemed to be no linear narrative to spring quarter.  

Oxford felt less like a physical location than a happening: I know that when I reminisce, it won’t just be about the glow of the lamplight on the cobblestones after a midnight rain, or the vaulted dome of the Radcliffe Camera, or an oar cutting into a river made blue with dawn. It’ll be about the continuous revelations and confrontations with myself. Oxford was a time of the hardest truths and the gentlest comforts. I started therapy, came out to my mother, set boundaries with my family. I cried and cried and cried, for all sorts of reasons. What became of the rawness of it all was a startling growth of myself into a softer, more sincere person. A person who learned how to make a home for herself and in herself, who could anchor her body to more than just its fears, and whose first instinct was no longer to flee. 

Oxford was a time of limitlessness. I’d unknowingly gone through much of my life believing that it was too late: too late for me to choose or experience a path outside the confines of high achievement and dance, too late for me to have a good romance after a comically terrible romantic history, too late for me to define a self separate from traumas and hurts and wounds. All of this was proven wrong. For the first time in a decade, I took an intentional break from ballet and joined the Magdalen College Boat Crew (my fat ass broke a boat during our last race in the Oriel Regattas, but that’s a story for another time), spending my mornings on the green skein of the river. I took a class on political theory, and the vocabulary I gained from it enabled me to write about gender violence for the first time since surviving sexual assault in 2018. I started therapy, and after breaking down into tears when my therapist asked me about my relationship to myself, I slowly began to dismantle my belief that there was something inherently wrong about me, a process reaffirmed by a romantic relationship that was brief but ever so gentle and good. I stopped performing my personality to compensate for how invisible I’d felt in my own life before 2022, and suddenly, all my relationships felt imbued with magic and meaning. I felt so present, guided to the edge of myself by the sheer brilliance and love of the people around me, and then past those edges into personalities and pursuits I could’ve never imagined myself undertaking a mere quarter ago.

I was no longer being tossed every which way by the world and its expectations—at Oxford, for the first time, I took a step back and constructed a life on my own terms, with an agency that was both bewildering and beautiful. The experiences of my pre-Oxford life, including my survival instincts and coping mechanisms, were no longer adequate frameworks or tools with which I could approach my Oxford life. Nothing—not even my year in Shenzhen, which felt less like a revelationary new way of living than a linear progression of the standard Asian American narrative (the Prolonged Return to Homeland, And Its Necessary Dissonances and Disillusions)—could’ve prepared me for how thoroughly I stepped out of my preordained life. I felt unmoored to all but my dearest and most instinctive pursuit: writing. 

And words flowed from me. In terms of sheer word count, only my freshman winter—when I deluded myself into thinking I needed to produce at least ten-thousand words per day—could compare. I wrote about everything: flowery descriptions of campus, unsparing appraisals of my Stanford House and Magdalen classmates, my own wandering and contradictory thoughts regarding therapy sessions and romance and the future. I spent hours on the second-floor balcony of RadCam, hammering away at my gay novel beneath the stern gaze of Johannes Radcliffe. I saw my tutorial papers clearly before they took form, my arguments and wordplay bending to my whim with an ease I’d struggled to find at Stanford.

During my last weekend at Oxford, I bought three notebooks at Scriptum, a stationary store that’d become my post-RadCam-study-session haunt, and had been surprised when the cashier took out the gift-wrap. “Those are all for me,” I said. And then, more smugly, “I’ll probably finish them by the end of the summer.” It was the kind of brag to which I’d wanted so badly to lay claim when I was younger. I’ve always known what it felt like to be carried away by my words, to be compelled to write—but this was the first time I took control of that compulsion, channeled all my creative energy into challenging myself and my world through the written word. Not a single page of my journals was wasted—everything brought me something new. I felt like I was burning, blazing, with intent, despite the seeming directionlessness of living such a different life at Oxford.

I was trying to get to the bottom of myself, and I soon realized that this search was the bottom of myself. I entertained the idea of calling this search my soul: one’s soul is one’s search for themselves, including the evidence and methods of that search. This definition is still a work in progress, especially as I’ve been playing around with another concept: 混, the Chinese character used in “primordial chaos,” “anarchy,” and “mess.” 混 implies a deep unknowability at both the personal and existential levels, a certain unformedness that can’t be shaped into a personality, chain of events, or linear narrative—and while it stands in opposition to my definition of a soul, it is also part of us (and a part of myself that my self-curating and controlling tendencies were loathe to accept). The oldest Chinese texts do claim that a person’s soul has two parts (hun and po), though, so maybe my idea isn’t entirely unfounded: the search to know oneself and the utter unknowability of the self are two most basic qualities of the human soul, and they sustain each other. If my time at Oxford brought me closer to both my search and my unknowability, it brought me closer to my soul. 

My newfound agency extended beyond my creative writing and to my academic pursuits. In true ADHD fashion, I took full charge of my tutorial. My tutor, Dr. Nie, gave me free rein over what to study and what to write, and in the name of interdisciplinary studies, I bounced through a dizzying array of subjects: Chiang Kai-shek’s narration of the Anti-Japanese War of Resistance, the 1980’s documentary River Elegy as an analytical framework for Zha Jianying’s China Pop, the similarities in Russian and Chinese memorializations of war, the cultural phenomena of Iris Chang’s and R.F. Kuang’s The Rape of Nanjing and The Poppy War in Chinese America, the combination of Rana Mitter’s moralist interpretation of WWII geopolitics with Shelley Chan’s model of “diasporic moments” to study global diasporic activism. I produced weekly essays, which we discussed and debated in two-hour sessions over tea.

Dr. Nie was a Chinese woman—and it was only with her guidance, which at times reached aunty-level care as we talked about our days and worries and families in Chinese—that I felt comfortable with such a wide range of topics. International relations and Chinese politics had always felt intimidating at Stanford, especially as almost all classes are taught by conservative white faculty; there was no footing for my budding interests in diaspora theory and ideology at a school so dominated by empirical and quantitative political science. Dr. Nie’s tutorial felt distinctly human, meant to build and reshape the frameworks through which I viewed the world: for the first time, I confessed to my hatred for studying war and violence at a dehumanizingly quantitative school (Stanford). I told her that creative writing had become the means through which I asked and answered the world—then, on a whim, sent her the first five chapters of my book. I know now that I want to continue with tutorial-style studies when I return to the States, perhaps with a directed reading.

Which brings me to senior year. In September, I’ll have my last first day of school, and I’ll start my two honors theses: a quantitative and theory-based project with the International Relations department on diaspora politics, and a novel with the Program in the Arts. Senior year will be the first year I don’t do research for a professor, and it’ll be my last year dancing in a semi-semi-semi-professional capacity. I’ll apply for grad schools. I’ll graduate. I’ll be deeply thankful to leave the Bay Area. And the rest of my life will be there to catch me. I had a taste of what that rest of my life might feel like at Oxford—a life that was under my control, that was so utterly different from everything that had come before.

At times, it felt like I was escaping into a life that couldn’t possibly be mine, like I was stealing moments from a parallel universe Ana: an Ana who had stayed for her last year in high school and was now a second-year student at Magdalen. An Ana who spent her mornings rowing with MCBC and bused to the China Centre for her tutorials in her afternoons, an Ana who lived off Sainsbury’s green smoothies and long evenings in the RadCam and picnics in the Christ Church meadows. An Ana who was gentler and unhurt, and who glowed with possibility. It took me a long time to understand that what I was experiencing was not a parallel universe or a temporary deviation from normalcy, but qualities of myself I’d long thought dead. I’d flung myself so completely into Oxford, had given myself the space to lay roots into grounds I’d thought could never be mine. I’d never fully understood the implications of them being mine until they were. 

“I don’t want to leave,” I told my therapist during our last session. I’d been so full of dread during my last days at Oxford that I’d hardly been able to muster any excitement for my summer in Berlin. “If I leave, I’m gonna go back to my old self—all my old coping mechanisms, my old fears, my traumas. I’m gonna lose this life and the opportunity to be someone better. Someone more.” 

My therapist had shaken her head. “No,” she said. “Don’t you realize? This isn’t some sort of parallel life, or someone else’s life. This is your life. Oxford might have reflected back at you all the possibilities within you, gave room for you to grow, but it was all you. And if you want to come back—”

“I do.” 

“—it’ll still be here. It’s been here for so long, for better or for worse, and it’ll be here for you when you return.” 

Huh, I thought. It was all me. And she was right. I’m in Berlin right now, in a cafe called Hallesches Haus, which I suspect will become my weekday summer haunt by virtue of its hanging plants and sunlit spaciousness and good food and casually queer staff. I am alone, away from Oxford’s cobblestones and secret libraries, away from all my friends and tutors, away from the only place in which I’d thought I could live as this version of me. Yet still I feel calm and at home in myself, and still the words flow so readily from me, and still the world stretches wide before me, ready to catch me with all its possibility. There is so much magic, I could cry.  

Shenzhen, Sophomore Year

I couldn’t write much about Shenzhen because all my months were blurring together. By February, I was familiar enough with Shenzhen that I could give directions to other people. I attacked the streets with the cockiness of someone privileged enough to be living in Houhai without working full-time. I had friends, and my Chinese improved to the extent that I could make them laugh. But by March, I was burned-out from living here (and from the fiasco that was winter quarter), and almost desperate to get out. Shenzhen had blurred before me: a never-changing, never-ceasing stream of VC’s and tech and pretty buildings and mosquitos. One month later, having used every possible excuse to avoid Shenzhen, and having completed a whirlwind of a tour around China, I think I can sit down and write about it.

Shenzhen has imprinted on me in very subtle ways. I’ve bought a new pair of aviator-inspired glasses. I’ve started using reddish eyeshadow. I wear long, loose black pants, and finish my WeChat messages with ~. I’ve perfected a disdainful face for the high-end malls, and I’ve created a maximum-efficiency routine for getting through subway security. I could’ve written about these personal developments (could you even call them developments? I think they’re just adaptations), but what I wanted to write about was Shenzhen itself: the city that’d become progressively more suffocating over the last few months, but which I still find too immense to put into words. Only now have I realized that it’s very hard to write about a city. I’ve tried, anyways.

Shenzhen was created for economic gain, and it’s very good at what it does. It’s not a city meant to be walked through, at least not for leisure or sightseeing. It’s Silicon Valley dialed up to one-hundred, if Silicon Valley received both the full funding and protection of the government, alongside immense FDI (foreign direct investment) and the privilege of housing a considerable portion of the country’s financial power. Its skyline, already intimidating in its endless slew of glass buildings, is made indomitable by its mountains and seas. There is nothing more exhilarating than driving past the lightshow of the Luohu skyline at night, and there is nothing more exhausting than walking through Futian’s tech finance hub during the day. Prior to 2021, I’d never stayed in Shenzhen for longer than month—giddily, I’d thought I could never get enough of its modernity. Shenzhen makes a cold beauty out of pragmatism. It’s glamorous in a calculated moderation—a calculation that works to stunning effect—and I still can’t say that about any other city.

Yet here I am, five months later, with a distinct feeling of defeat: this city, for all its glory, considers itself secondary to its function. There’s not much more to see or experience, but there’s a lot I’m expected to do. Everyone lugs a suitcase through the shopping malls, financial districts, and subway stations—people rush here to work, rush back to a more temperate home once they’re done. Everyone stares at their phone. People talk loudly about weight-loss pants and skin-whitening products, and nobody’s ever enough for anything. The malls are devastatingly expensive and flawlessly air-conditioned, and no shop here feels like a shop (they’re fancy hallways filled with Instagrammable props and empty, edgy pseudo-art exhibitions).

Shenzhen’s too beautiful. Of the natives and migrants I’ve talked to, none of them feel that the city is truly accessible: they can come to a mutually-satisfactory agreement with it, can come to enjoy or thrive under its backbreaking pace, but there’s nothing underlying the city’s function that they can grasp: no sense of group identity or culture. Shenzhen’s too young to have many natives (my family is the rare exception). It can’t fall back on a history. Tourism might comprise a massive part of its economy—indeed, the streets are replete with white tourists who don’t wear masks—but it’s not like Beijing or Chengdu or Shanghai, one of those cities overflowing with history. I could spend an entire day walking through any of these cities, without any destination in mind, and emerge exhilarated and triumphant. In Shenzhen, without a destination, I’ll just end up slumped over a coffee or boba as I wait out the afternoon humidity. Everything’s too far away when I’m walking—nothing ever seems to be getting closer—yet everything presses down on me when I’m sitting still.

Everyone tires of a city. I have friends from Beijing who insist that Beijing is a very boring city, friends from San Francisco and Seattle who say the same. But never has a city tired me out like Shenzhen has—although this may have to do with how Shenzhen is, indisputably, the city that marked my transition into adult life. Having to fend for myself in an urban center on a different continent has been a power trip at best, and a complete mess at worst.

So, where do I—both literally and metaphorically—go from here? I know I won’t be able to live in Shenzhen in the future. I also know that this city has played an immense role in shaping my sophomore year: I’m genuinely thankful for all that I’ve learned, and all the opportunities I’ve been afforded. Interestingly, my creative writing has also improved—albeit only after I’d returned from traveling. There’s just too much dissonance in this city. How could someone possibly process it all without poetry? Some cities turn their noses up at romanticization, but Shenzhen hasn’t—and I’ll take full advantage of that.

Then again, perhaps I’m asking too much from this city. There’s always a pressure on a diasporic kid to rake up as much of the motherland as possible when they visit: yes, modernity, but also history, language, culture, belonging, as if we’re trying to compensate for the perceived inadequacy of growing up in such detached environments. For Asian American Heritage Month, I’m closer to my heritage than I’ve ever been, yet it’s jarring to think that Shenzhen is my heritage, too: the VC’s and thirty-story apartment buildings, the business dinners and decanted red wine. For Asian Americans, heritage is not only a means of connecting to the past, but a hypothetical. What could we have been? What could we be more of?

But here’s the thing: at the end of the day, I think I belong. I can hold my own at work, at dance, while shopping. I can stride through the streets like a native. I know enough ways to overcome someone going against me—with a look of scorn, with a certain kind of laugh, with a subtle brag—and I know how to hold back, in that particular Shenzhen way, before I act. And that’s at once scary and exciting: that I can move at the same pace as everyone else, at a pace so fast that I can only see what comes next.