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As a child, I was always forced to do chores.
Washing dishes, walking dogs, folding laundry –
You name
it, and I’ve probably done it.
SIKE!
Truth be
told, I was (and still am) a pretty lazy kid. My youth was
composed of “troubles” like getting the gimpy swing during
recess or picking raisins from our Snack Box at school – and
my worst memories probably consist of bullies and failed
grades. Childhood was carefree. Worries revolved around what
I was having for dinner, not whether or not I was having
dinner in the first place.
To be frank –
“I’m lucky.”
And
that’s the message author Da Chen beat over our heads during
his visit to Stony Brook on October 21st.
Walking
into Wang 202 at 9am was not exactly what I had in mind for
my Wednesday morning that week (nor was trekking to Staller
for Chen’s lecture the expected epitome of my afternoon) –
but I still miraculously made it to both events. Upon
entering, I was graced with the presence of a rather regal
man donning traditional Chinese apparel.
But, refined as he was, I kept asking myself –
“How the heck am I going to stay awake?”
Thankfully, rather than zoning out to the monotone drone of
professors like I usually do, I was educated and entertained
throughout this year’s Undergraduate College Commons Day.
Chen
took full reign of the floor during both the press
conference and the lecture, using the white board at his
will to demonstrate Chinese calligraphy – and even “brought
us back to China” through the musicality of his bamboo
flute.
“How do
you keep the bamboo alive?” he asked the crowd jovially.
“The weather’s not right.”
But
amidst the humor – from his wife’s effort to make him look
“even more Chinese” in time for Commons Day to his son’s
effort to show him how to Soulja Boy – Chen still managed to
impart some knowledge onto us freshman.
“You are
fortunate,” Chen told us as he elaborated on his
experiences.
Unlike
us (or at least, me), he was born and raised in the poor,
desolate country of China – a China that is simply
“forgotten” by elders and completely unknown by youth. His
acclaimed memoirs,
Colors of the Mountain, and
Sounds of the River, started out as innocent stories
to his children – from joyful recounts of sneaking around
for impromptu sermons by foreign friends to donning
disguises as Mongolian men to buy cigarettes at the
Friendship store.
But, Chen confessed, the more he remembered about his past,
the more morbid his past became. Jocular stories were
tainted with the recollection of corrupted professors and
deans. Boisterous boyhood memories were distorted by the
suicide of a dear friend. But despite the negativities
thrown at him, Chen still aspired to expose the truth – to
reveal himself, rather than conform to his culture’s
tradition of “staying silent.”
“People
only see the beautiful things,” he stated.
But as
anyone would know from reading Chen’s novels, beauty is not
based on joy alone. It also resonates from the strength
within a person to persevere, from a person’s ability to “be
the light rather than the darkness.” Like Chen, whose
tenacity guided him from Fujian farms to Columbia
University, we need to set precedence – to showcase the
power of one person, and his dream for More.
Whether
we are college students cramming for Organic Chem or third
world dwellers pining away for low wages, Chen states, “We
are all much stronger than the negative force in life.” We
all have the innate ability to overcome anything, no matter
how commonplace – or complex – it may be.
But
we’re only (lazy) humans, I know.
So I stopped to ask Chen for one last piece of advice while
he dined near the aesthetics of the Charles B. Wang Center’s
koi pond:
“Is
there any advice you’d like to impart onto our E-Zine
readers?”
“Yes – Seawolves, Go. Fight. Win.”
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