Lead, Kindly Light

I have been strangely peace-filled the last few weeks, and I (together with my friends) have pondered why this is so. Bar exam study season is not exactly the intuitive setting for the type of tranquility and contentment that has recently washed over me like a warm wave on a lazy beach at sunset. After all, there are no fewer than twenty-one subjects to be learned and mastered in just eight weeks’ time (and only 31 days are left!), and my law license depends on my ability to pass this two-day test at the end of July. Any bar applicant will tell you that this is no small deal.

So why the inexplicable calm in the midst of an embroiling storm? I’ve been thinking about it, and I am finally approaching a plausible theory: the bar review is my escape. It’s an outlet and a black hole into which I shove, stuff, and otherwise aggressively channel all the grief and sadness that I otherwise would focus on and feel because of the life changes that are about to take place in a couple short months — New job. New city. New faces. The old, the familiar, and most of the most-loved — mostly gone.

Already, my 1L and 2L friends are off doing their summer jobs, but when they return here in the fall, I’ll be gone. And some of my best 3L friends are already moved away… others are here for the summer, but will not be accompanying me to the City in the fall — instead, they will go back to their countries to pursue careers there, or they will remain here in Cambridge to keep on keeping on. In other words, my time with some of my dearest and most beloved people is either up — or quite near finished.

The magnitude of these truths is too weighty for me to manage, so … like an ostrich with its head buried in the sand, I refuse to confront what lies squarely in front of me… and I bury my nose deep into my Barbri books. All thirty-five pounds of Barbri books. In those books, lines of text summarizing reams of settled law march in neat little rows, paragraph after paragraph, and page after page. Everything is numbered, sequential, outlined, logical, and ordered. In this little nerdy legal universe, there are no emotional attachments, just a sizeable task at hand and a tight deadline that must be met.

It doesn’t mean that I don’t still feel the tension. I think our souls crave truth no matter how much we try and shield ourselves in the name of self-protection; and occasionally when I come up for air from my hiding, I do realize that I’m standing in a doorjamb these days. One foot lingers in yesterday and the other stands ready to step into tomorrow. The hardest part about standing in the doorjamb is this status of in-betweenness — which is neither here nor there, neither ‘will be’ nor ‘was.’ Everything is in flux. There is a constant push and pull, an urge to hang on and yet the pressure to let go. And I just don’t want to deal with it.

That’s where bar exam studies come in. While my life is generally very active, this bar review has significantly diminished my capacity (in the way of both time and energy) to perpetuate the type of social life I had before. Now I carefully guard my schedule and make plans for no more than one social engagement per day (if I can help it). And every day, I get up at the same time (6:58am), head to the gym and work out for exactly 45 minutes, hop in the bathroom to get clean around 8:11/8:13, am out by 8:21/8:23, eat breakfast and get out of the door by 8:45/8:46 — to arrive for class just before 9am. My double cousin sits to my right, and my friend Gee Whiz sits to my left, and off we go. We sit in class for 3-4 hours a day, grab lunch, and then study in the library in the afternoon.

It’s the practically the same thing every single day. I see the same people. I study the same material (after a while, all 21 subjects start to sound the same). Breakfast is always the same (six identical cereal boxes in a row so far). I even eat the same roasted chicken/hummus/tortilla wrap sandwich day after day, week after week [note: I do switch up the flavors of hummus, though]. I call my parents at night, then get to bed as close to 11:45 as possible. Day in and day out. Just like clockwork, with minor variations depending on which friend I’m suppering with and whether I’m taking an evening break to watch “The Wire: Season One.”

But really — this routine is like a drug, a mindless and perpetual cycle to occupy my days and tie up my thoughts and energy toward an admittedly legitimate end (I mean… who can fault me, right? It’s a good thing to pass this bar exam). What a convenient “out,” though. In reality, I know I’m enjoying this way more than I should. I’m savoring the daily grind of work to get me through this transitional phase, and thankful for its power to numb me and spare me from thinking too deeply about a tremendous life change that I will eventually have to face.

Just… not now, please. Not now.

The ten rules from “My Sassy Girl” –

1. Don’t ask her to be feminine.
2. Don’t let her drink over three glasses. She’ll beat someone.
3. At a cafe, drink coffee instead of coke or juice.
4. If she hits you, act like it hurts. If it hurts, act like it doesn’t.
5. On your 100th day together give her a rose during her class. She’ll like it a lot.
6. Make sure you learn fencing and squash.
7. Also be prepared to go to prison sometimes.
8. If she says she’ll kill you, don’t take it lightly. You’ll feel better.
9. If her feet hurts, exchange shoes with her.
10. She likes to write, encourage her.

Watch the video to Shin Seung Hun’s “I Believe,” the theme song of “My Sassy Girl” here

The movie had some weird tangents that could have been omitted to make for a much more concise and poignant movie. But some parts were just priceless (see the ten rules above), as was the occasion for watching it. A surprise DVD, the prize of his hunt in K-Town’s videostores. Smooth move, Romeo.

For months, I couldn’t even listen to this song. I faithfully kept it on my ipod even as I shuffled other songs in and out of my current collection, but I was just as faithful in skipping it every time the familiar sprinkle of beginning notes began to sound.

When summer gave way to autumn, just as the leaves turned their full bronzes, golds, blazing reds, and blinding yellows, I felt the seasons begin to shift in my heart. I remember the first time I went back to play this song on the piano. It was oddly comforting to me then, though I was frustrated that my Korean fluency skills were infinitely minimal so I couldn’t sing along. I’d read some English translations, but surmised that none of them captured the true essence of the emotions of the song. “Was the world dazzling before I met you? Underneath that sky, all I’m left with are tears. I will save this place next to me…”

With only the melody to keep me company, the memories (in such a short time, so many were made, and magnified) just tumbled back in droves and swirled around me as I played. After months of holding back and protecting myself, I finally let myself go. With no one home except for the piano and me, the apartment was large enough to accommodate the mountain of emotional baggage that I hauled in with the simple movements of my fingers on keys of white and black.

* * *

I am thankful (and relieved?) to say that it’s getting easier and easier to leave this behind — the right way (I think), this time. It’s a daily exercise in lifting up the entire burden to God and asking Him to manage it, and manage me.

The picture painted on my heart last summer was full of promise; it was beautiful, vibrant, and irresistibly captivating. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, even when the Artist abandoned the picture. And there it has remained, an unfinished portrait of what might have been. As time ticks on, the paint continues to dry and the color continues to set on the canvas of my heart. The Artist may have ceased to paint the picture I wanted most, but He certainly has not abandoned me. On the contrary, He keeps adding scenes in the forms of family, friends, and experiences.

And as the canvas of my life both extends and becomes more populated, the painting I desired so greatly at one time has lost its urgency along with (dare I say this?) some of its significance. But it still has a role to play. Though I have often wished for selective amnesia of the heart or an emotional drug to numb my senses, I have gradually come to embrace a different hope. I’ve decided that I still want to hang onto these, my sweetest of bitter memories. They are part of me, indelible pieces of my heart’s past and proof that it can love recklessly.

“Love is the only reason… as days pass by, if you forget the way, I’ll be waiting…“

Today we hit another milestone.

It came most unexpectedly. I usually call my parents once a day, but since they generally go out every Friday night, it’s typical for me to just leave a message for them while they’re out. But today they were home when I called, since I got back in later than usual. And during today’s conversation, Mom said something that meant a lot to me.

She had gotten together with a family friend of ours today, and while the two of them looked at pictures from my recent graduation, the subject of my middle name came up (probably because it appears in one of the pictures in which I’m holding my diploma). When the friend commented on my relatively unusual middle name, Mom shared with our friend the story behind it — which also happens to be the story of how I came to be. The basic version of the story goes something like this:

At some point when Mom was pregnant with me, she had some routine medical tests done to check on my health status — and the tests revealed two conclusions, that I was a boy, and I had a high probability of having severe physical and/or mental defects. Mom had her reasons for wanting a healthy baby, and she was early enough in the pregnancy to terminate it, so she went to her obstetrician and requested an abortion.

To Mom’s surprise, the obstetrician actually refused to perform the abortion for her. This part of the story is fuzzy to me, but basically the obstetrician disagreed with the results or interpretations of the earlier medical tests (and whoever had conducted them), and told Mom that her baby was fine. The doctor was so convicted on this point, in fact, that she chose not to do to the abortion.

Not to be deterred, Mom made her way to an abortion clinic. She went in, … and she could have gotten the abortion. But she came out, and I was still there. She says now that she kept remembering what the obstetrician said, and that played into her decision to keep me. So Mom went through with the rest of the term of the pregnancy, and a few months later, I was born.

Mom was thrilled to find out that I was a girl, not a boy (she always wanted a little girl) — and even more so, she was relieved to find out that I was both physically and mentally intact. I had (and still have) a congenital heart problem, but so far it hasn’t caused any major problems yet. And Mom was so happy with all of this that she actually gave me my obstetrician’s name, as my middle name.

* * *

Mom shared this story with our family friend, and the two of them went on to discuss my future plans to be a federal prosecutor, a college lecturer, and hopefully/maybe a juvenile court judge. Our friend looked at Mom and said, “It all fits together — the doctor rescued your daughter, and now she is going to become a rescuer.”

Mom repeated the same to me tonight, and said, “[Family friend] said that, and I thought — that’s right. I never thought about it that way. Originally, there was no you, according to me. But you were rescued, and you have your dreams — to rescue others. And I’ve always known you have those dreams, and that God has a plan for you. But I think it started to really click today, knowing that God has a special plan for you.”

That was the milestone. I won’t get into much detail about it now (it’s late and I’m tired, but I at least wanted to get this much down), but it’s been a long road to and through law school, especially with regard to my parents. They have always wanted the best for me, but they have not always understood — let alone encouraged — the visions that I grasp and bank on, because I believe they are heaven-sent. It has been difficult for me to keep walking down a road under the shadow (and sometimes weight) of their disapproval or doubt, but moments like today make me realize that God is paving every step of the way.

Sometime between high school and college, after opposing the idea for years, Mom finally accepted the fact that I was going to pursue a career in law. Then, the year before I started law school, she was convicted by the Holy Spirit to move beyond acceptance, and she vowed to be an active encouragement and support for me in my aspirations, because she understood that I believe that my criminal law work is a calling from God that I must answer. But today — today, she began to believe for herself that God spared her little girl from abortion for a reason, perhaps to rescue others, just as I had been rescued.

I’m thankful beyond what words can express.

You never were my strong suit, and in all honesty, I’m not sure I have ever laid out a welcome mat for you.

I found you too unfashionable, too staid in all your calm solitude and vanilla peace. I found you too inert, and thus incompatible with my life and schedule, which is (in?)famous in my social circle for its constant movement and happening. I found you too unstructured; one never knows what to expect with you, and your unpredictability diametrically opposes my almost addictive affinity for control. I found you too slow for my fast-paced life; at times I scurry, and at other times I hurry, but you… I felt as impatient toward you as so many men feel toward their high-heeled female companions. And I found you too unproductive; how many times have I inwardly and ignorantly scoffed, what does quietude ever accomplish? 

I kept you at bay for much of my life; sure, I reached out for you intermittently, when I couldn’t hold out any longer and my spirit cried out for rest. But I never really liked you much. Still, you were so faithfully present every time, and lingered as long as I’d let you stay. But it was never long before I sent you on your way.

You came back recently – again, because I needed you. I broke down and let you in when you gently arrived at my door, sent — no doubt — by my heavenly Father who knew you could help heal me. I grudgingly let you enter, but only because I was too weak to protest. This time you remained.

And in the past month you have debunked every myth I ever believed about you. You have toppled each excuse I ever created, and you have given me so many reasons to like you. And I do, finally. I like you. I enjoy your presence, and I am already hoping that somehow you and I can stay close friends in the years to come — in my life to come.

The truth that I’ve discovered about you is that you’re not unfashionable, inert, unpredictable (in a bad way), or slow. And you are anything but unproductive.

In you, in quietude, there is space. But it’s not empty space — it’s meaningful space in which there is enough calm and sufficient stillness to approach God, soul to deity, and just be.

In quietude there is the precious commodity of time. Time to pray more deeply, about more things. To seek wisdom, persistently, in a meaningful way. To listen for God’s voice. To look for His guidance. To enjoy His presence. There is nothing boring about approaching the throne of God, and creating time — more time — to sit at His feet and pour out everything, in detail, with every last parenthetical and tangent included.

Quietude looks like inertia, but it is more stunningly dynamic than my whirlwind schedule ever could be. In hopping from appointment to appointment, from meeting to meeting, and in checking tasks off an endless list of daily to-dos, time often does no more than tick and then drain away.

Quietude, in contrast, stirs up the waters of the day – it is majestic in its power to surge and swell the soul. Each close encounter with God, which is greatly enabled through quietude, is a life-inspiring celebration. In that mysterious way, quietude slakes the thirsty soul by bringing it to the River of Life to drink and be satisfied. Nothing could be more productive.

On the outside, life keeps going. You’re not the loner I thought you were; you have demonstrated to me that I can still keep moving with the rest of my life (and my hectic schedule) — for I know that my role in the Kingdom of heaven requires many hours of work. Yet you are still here with me at all times, and I am amazed at how your presence actually enables me to do the rest of my life better, with greater peace, and with a quieter but unfailingly genuine joy.

You never were my strong suit. And even this time around, you came to me not by my own choosing, but by circumstance. I don’t deserve much of anything, but at least credit this to my account: this time, I choose to let you stay. I invite you to stay.

In a fitting coincidence, the weather yesterday exactly mirrored the weather we had a year ago yesterday. It was beautiful and sunny in the morning, and an onslaught of rain steadily pattered and poured outside my open window as I studied for the bar last night — just like June 16, 2007, a day that I still remember very well.

It was a sunny Saturday morning. I had an eggs benedict brunch at Pastis, followed by random wandering through a handful of art galleries in Chelsea. I’d never been to any little art galleries in that area before, and I remember marveling at how much real estate must cost. I couldn’t believe how much artists and gallery owners were shelling out to house a few small pieces in such vast and open spaces! I repeated my bemusement aloud in various permutations over the next couple hours.

I remember one particular artistic installment invited visitors to reform a wooden sculpture by moving planks; in that way, we viewers could actually participate in the sculpture’s evolution. He was hesitant, but I insisted, and we had a lot of fun recreating the artform. From noon to three, we bounced in and out of galleries, hand in hand, arm in arm, and all was well in the world.

After that, we watched another episode of “Prison Break,” and I jumped and yelped a bit at all the appropriate parts, to his amusement. He nestled his head in the crook of my arm and great peace settled around us. But it was short-lived. We moved from where we wanted to be, and especially where I wanted to be, and we took a one-way trip to the zoo, with him holding my hand but nevertheless leading the way. He took me there to pay a visit to the big elephant in the room.

And as we visited it, and talked about it — almost as if scripted in a movie, clouds moved past the sun and descended lower and lower until your room became so dark that his face was shielded with a shadow. It was depressing, but fitting, for as the next hour passed, our dialogue soon reduced to apologies and an almost audible silence, and sorrowful tension filled the space that had known peaceful contentment just hours before.

Outside, rain poured down. I don’t remember hearing thunder or lightning; I just remember lots and lots of rain — a multitude of super-sized drops falling from the heavens to steadily soak the ground, splash furiously on the sidewalk, and collect in pools along the curb. And deep down somewhere, in a silly and self-centered sort of way, I almost felt like the rain fell for me, as if the skies were already sympathizing with me and preluding the many tears I’d cry in the weeks that would follow.

I cried all night on the phone with friends and on the phone with my parents, and the next morning, I got up and went to the early church service…then I boarded a plane from Newark and headed to the West Coast for less than 24 hours on business (from there I would go to Nashville via Atlanta on another business trip that would last less than 24 hours, and head to DC for litigation training just three days later).

Since I was scheduled to be in LA for such a narrow window of time, I know that my time there was nothing less than a well-orchestrated act of providence — God actually arranged for my business trip to coincide perfectly with a wedding that had brought three of my closest brothers to the West Coast as well. So when I got into LAX, we all ate dinner together… and the blanket of love with which they surrounded me was to me a direct and clear expression of God’s love. It served as a powerful reminder that He was still with me. I journaled that night, “My friend KE used to tell me that if God wants you in Egypt, He will send twelve angry brothers after you to put you there, if necessary. Well I see that God wanted to comfort me, and He has sent me–and my three brothers–2400+ miles away to do it.”

That was the beginning of a long and eventful journey to where I am today.

* * *

Last night there was a storm outside — just as there was a storm last year around this time — but this morning brought a gloriously new and beautiful day. Leftover droplets glistened in the bright sunshine, bringing a sparkle to the landscape that would have been missing if it weren’t for the rain. The same is true for our lives, I think.

As I walked to the gym, Nichole Nordeman’s “Mercies New” flowed from my ipod and into my ears, and into my heart –

Lord, Your mercies are new every morning
So let me wake with the dawn
When the music is through or so it seems to be
Let me sing a new song, old things gone

I still carry the past, especially this particular part (which is why I speak of it so often) and a few select others, heavily within me even now. But as I pause to look back on the road I’ve been on, it is easy to see that God’s mercies have accompanied me every step of the way. There were so many dark moments in the last year, but at the same time, in absolutely every day I have had things to be thankful for (and I have a daily journal recording such things, to prove it). God’s mercies truly have been new, literally every morning.

The same is also true at a macro level. It’s a year later now, and I now have the benefit of seeing that part of my past in greater perspective. Distance is a funny thing; we so often think of proximity as being proportionally related to familiarity and understanding, but that’s not always the case. For instance, when we hold up a magazine to our noses, it’s so close that we only see a blur. It’s only when we allow some distance to intervene that we can read clearly and see things for what they are.

Much in the same way, an entire trip around the sun has occurred since that sunny-to-stormy day last June. Today I reflect on events from a year and a day ago, and I see that all of it was inevitable. At the time, I wanted the laws of the physics that govern life to be bound by the law of inertia. Admittedly, it’s hard to say now whether, if given the choice, I would actually go back and freeze my life — our lives — in that moment and keep it there forever. Sometimes I think I would; but increasingly, I am learning to trust that God intended the outcome, and in His hands I must rest my then-regret.

In all honesty, I think I’m still quite a ways away from regaining the same innocent and hopeful trust that I used to enjoy before last June, but I can attest that the stormy night is — I think — coming to a close. Or at least it’s morphing in such a way that I can begin to see the light again.

After an emotional rollercoaster of a year, things are finally settling down for me, so much so that in recent days, I have been experiencing a deeper and abiding contentment, and a stillness in my spirit, that has eluded me for longer than I care to acknowledge.

God did not promise that our lives in Him would be easy or anywhere near perfect, but instead He promised something greater… so all praise be to a God who promises to hold our hand through every dark valley, and who pledges to walk alongside our every trouble, and who vows to faithfully surround us forever with the greatest love and compassion we will ever know in this life. And all thanks be to a God who conquers our sin and reserves an eternal inheritance for us in the next.

Lord, your mercies are new every morning, so let me wake the dawn…

Yesterday’s sermon at church was based in part on Job chapter 1, and I took notes on a couple of the key points that stuck out to me … I’ll try to be as faithful to the message as possible, but edit the language and fill in gaps so things make sense –
How do we manage suffering in our lives? God didn’t promise anyone that this life would be easy, which is why we can each attest that this life has its fair share of difficulties, sometimes in unfair proportions. The question is, how do we deal with suffering?

An honest look at human nature — especially in America — shows that we all have a tendency to “manage suffering out of our lives.” For some of us, we manage suffering through “clothes, cars and careers.” Some of us spend money on fashionable apparel with the anticipation that looking trendy and cool will make others like us, and then our lives will be easier. Others of us spend money on cars with the goal of attracting the admiration of others who see us with our hot wheels, expecting that such admiration will quench the unbearable thirst that suffering brings to our lives. Many others of us invest hours and hours and make sacrifices on multiple and crucial levels for the sake of advancing our careers — with the hope that earning a bigger paycheck or climbing the corporate (or whatever other professional) ladder will provide the capital we need to buy enough cushions to insure against every fall we may encounter in life.

Still others don’t struggle with consumerism, but they struggle with other forms of self-help, through addiction. Alcoholism. Workaholism. Binge-eatingism. We put our hope and trust in so many things to fulfill us. After I get married, I’ll never be lonely again… after I have children, I’ll never lack for love again… After I get this promotion, my life will begin… After I travel to all these exotic places on earth, my life will be complete.

All too often, we turn to ourselves to heal the hurts and to numb the pains, since every day/week/month or year seems to bring some sort of calamity, whether tragically large or mercifully small. While cars, clothes, careers, marriages, babies, food, diligence, and even the occasional glass of wine are not inherently bad, they become issues when, in pursuing them, we minimize the role and sovereignty of God in our lives. They are problematic when we attempt to use them to demonstrate control over our lives in a suffering world… and when we use the tactics not just to manage suffering — but to manage suffering out of — our lives.

So if that’s how we actually (at a broad, general, and empirical level) deal with suffering, how did God intend for us to deal with suffering? A visit to the the first chapter of the book of Job suggests a preferred method of dealing with suffering.

But first, a little background on Job. Earlier in chapter 1, we’re given a brief biographical sketch of Job – Job 1:2-3 says, “He had seven sons and three daughters, 3 and he owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen and five hundred donkeys, and had a large number of servants. He was the greatest man among all the people of the East.”

The middle of chapter 1 swiftly summarizes the depth of tragedy that fell upon Job in a single day – he lost all of his oxen and donkeys, and all of his sheep and servants. And then… he lost all ten of his children. In a single day. Job quickly went from “greatest man among all the people of the East” to “most entitled to throw a pity party among all the people of the East.” Losing his vast property and wealth was shocking in itself — but losing even one child, let alone all ten, was unthinkable.

How did Job react? In chapter 1, verse 20, we’re told that,  “At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head.” He must have looked like an utter mess. I envision a Job who was overcome with grief and mourning; he was, after all, human. But the story doesn’t end there. Verses 20 and 21 then tell us, “Then he fell to the ground in worship 21 and said: ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.'”

Job fell to his knees in worship to God, even in the immediate aftermath of his incredible loss.  And why? Because Job understood something that we struggle with every day – Job realized that there is only one constant in this life. At the beginning of the day and at the end of the day, and at every nook and cranny of a moment inbetween, God IS.

The rest of life is unpredictable; our circumstances so often change in ways we hardly could have predicted. Our fortunes can be built and dashed in a day. Joys that once delighted us can be extinguished swiftly with a whisper. We can fall so quickly, and we do.

Job understood that. And Job also understood that God’s faithfulness and presence endures forever. He knew that his Lord was good that His mercy endures forever. Because of that understanding, even in the midst of his tragedy of epic proportions, Job fell to his knees in worship and acknowledged that God was God.

So should our reaction be — in the midst of good days and bad. In wealth and poverty, in sickness and in health, in joy and in sorrow – the Lord’s praise should be on our lips and in our hearts. Because we may not understand what He is doing, or what His plans are. What is happening to us may not make sense – but if we could just understand that God is in charge of our lives, down to every last detail, then we would praise Him, even when tragedies abound.

You are the source of life

I can’t be left behind

No one else will do

I will take hold of You

I need You Jesus, I need You Jesus

My heart is Yours for life

I need Your hand in mine

No one else will do

Lord I put my trust in You

chorus

I need You Jesus to come to my rescue

Where else can I go?

There’s no other Name by which I am saved

Capture me with grace

I will follow You

My heart is Yours for life

I need Your hand in mine

No one else will do

Lord I put my trust in You

From an assignment I entitled, “The Collateral Effects of Exile and Immigration”

In examining Prospero’s exile in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, many interpretations focus on the deposed duke and how the consequent expulsion influences him. However, deeper exploration leads one to examine the additional effects of exile on Prospero’s daughter, Miranda, whom one may appropriately view as a collateral victim of the dislocation because though she did not provoke the exile, she endured the consequences of it. Through Miranda, Shakespeare makes a profound comment on the theme of involuntary separation from one’s home by illustrating its effect on her, a bystander: it hinders one’s ability to establish a complete and sure sense of self identity. The consequent, adverse effects of this problem manifest themselves in one’s incomplete perspectives of reality. In reexamining my own experiences as a second-generation Chinese immigrant who struggled with uncertain identity, I find that Shakespeare’s insight helps me understand that troubling aspect of my childhood as he illuminates the source of the alienation and confusion I often felt but could never articulate.

Shakespeare’s portrayal of Miranda as a rootless girl without a strong sense of self or identity due to an insufficient connection with either her ancestral past or present community is one that mirrors my own struggle with identity as a child. An early conversation with Prospero clearly testifies to Miranda’s rootlessness as a collateral victim of his exile. In the midst of Prospero’s explanation of his personal history as duke, she says, “You have often begun to tell me what I am, but stopped and left me to a bootless inquisition, concluding ‘Stay. Not yet’” (1.2.42-45). Because she left her home at a very young age, she has no memory of her past; thus, any understanding she has of her native culture stems not from her own experience but from her father’s declarations of who she is. Consequently, she bases her connection with her ancestral past on the subjective evidence her father provides rather than on her own experiences as part of that heritage community, which would have exceedingly more credibility to her surety of self–and therefore, heightened foundational value. Furthermore, Shakespeare highlights the negative results of her unsure sense of identity in her reactions to various circumstances. In one such instance, Miranda protests mightily at Prospero’s maltreatment of Ferdinand. “Why speaks my father so ungently?…Pity move my father to be inclined my way” (1.2.534, 537). By portraying Miranda as unable to appreciate the ill will her father has towards Ferdinand and his father due to her weak and unsatisfactory connection with her past, Shakespeare demonstrates its adverse effect on her. I see a parallel between this and my own life as an American-born Chinese who never experienced life as a Chinese youth in a Chinese environment. I did not regularly interact with Chinese people apart from my parents; therefore, like Miranda, my connection to my ethnic heritage was limited to ideals and experiences that my parents passed on to me. These failed to constitute a strong groundwork for my sense of self-identity because they were not truly my own experiences. I did not feel fully–or even primarily–Chinese because of so many things I lacked: mastery of the language, interaction with other members of the Chinese community and its inherent cultural enrichment, and an upbringing under the constructs and constraints of Chinese society.

In addition to Miranda’s deprivation of her historical culture, Shakespeare also reveals her lack of adequate connection with her present community; moreover, the play shows that Miranda’s—and my own—uncertain sense of self-identity is a natural consequence of the combined effects of deficient ties to both past and present. As Miranda later relays to Ferdinand, she had no prior contact with anyone she considers human apart from her father on Sycorax’s island: “I do not know one of my sex, no woman’s face remember, save, from my glass, mine own. Nor have I seen more that I may call men than you, good friend, and my dear father” (3.1.59-63). The only other creatures with whom she has interacted are Caliban, a black native, and Ariel, a spirit. Because Miranda cannot commune with either one on a personal level because of her father’s restraint and their stark differences, she does not have anyone in her present community with whom to relate. Thus, she is destitute of roots, unable to establish a self based on her own vision of her heritage or current society. Again, I relate fully to Miranda’s plight as I recall feeling entirely out of place throughout grade school. My social community as a child consisted of predominantly Caucasian children. Because I looked physically different from my peers, some of them often ridiculed and made fun of me. Furthermore, although I had Caucasian friends, I did not ever feel that I was truly part of their community. For instance, my immigrant parents’ relative isolation from the broader, Caucasian community was the source of my ignorance about many of my friends’ activities. The value systems upon which we were raised were very different: one evident manifestation was the way their parents lavished frivolous gifts and privileges upon them in ways that my frugal parents would never consider. Though the differences did not disturb me greatly, I was aware of them and they only served to increase the chasm of cultural difference between my peers and me. Moreover, many of the customs and traditions they observed—such as large family gatherings for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve—were not ones that I could relate to because my extended family celebrated neither holiday, nor were they geographically accessible for reunions. Therefore, like Miranda, I struggled with establishing an identity based either on the past or present, as I felt sufficiently tied to neither. Until I examined the parallels that bind my own experiences to Shakespeare’s construction of Miranda’s life as a victim of involuntary separation, I did not recognize the causes of my alienation so clearly and was therefore unable to articulate them, much less understand them fully.

Besides ascertaining the causal relationship of Miranda’s dislocation at a young age and her ambiguous self-identity, Shakespeare tackles the consequences of this inadequacy by demonstrating how it narrows her perceptions of reality and leaves her ignorant of insights essential to her understanding of events occurring around her. For example, because she is completely insensible of Prospero’s perspective towards the King of Naples and the new Duke of Milan, Miranda does not understand why he brings the tempest upon Alonso’s ship. She protests and claims that she would never subject the ship and its men to such a terror at the start of Act 1, scene 2. Moreover, even after Prospero explains how Alonso and Antonio betrayed and deposed him, she still asks, “And now I pray you, sir—for still ‘tis beating in my mind—your reason for raising this sea storm?” (1.2.209-211), demonstrating her persisting inability to understand and appreciate her father’s acts of vengeance. Because she neither identifies herself with his past nor views her own heritage as inseparable from his, she cannot develop a perception that coheres with his. Likewise, as an American of Chinese descent, I often could not understand many of my parents’ firmly-held convictions regarding education, diminished autonomy in the event of conflict with tradition, a seemingly overwhelming duty to family, and other ideals. Thus, Shakespeare’s comment on Miranda’s life corresponds to my own in that, had my parents raised me in a Chinese society, I would have formed a definite and desirable sense of Chinese identity. Therefore, my struggle to conform my perception to that of my parents’ would not be so difficult because my perception would be completely informed, corresponding fully to my own sense of self. Furthermore, I could have avoided a cultural limbo and thus would have been able to identify with one culture fully and own its values and traditions confidently.

Though riddled with references to ancient Greek gods and saturated with language of sixteenth-century England, aspects of Shakespeare’s The Tempest are nonetheless relevant to me, a student studying his work in twenty-first century America. Shakespeare’s portrayal of Miranda’s character as resultant of her circumstances of childhood displacement provides me with a remarkable understanding of my own history as a child who often wondered about which identity to embrace. His analysis of the collateral consequences of involuntary separation shows why I often found myself confused as to whether I was truly American or Chinese. It also proves to me that, given my circumstances as an American-born Chinese in a predominantly non-Chinese society, it was natural not to feel part of either culture nor grasp the ideals of Chinese or American society. Now that I am older, I have accumulated enough experience to glean from and synthesize parts of both cultures to form my sense of self, but Shakespeare’s Miranda sheds an insight into my life that helps me come to terms with my oft-confounded childhood.

“It was now clear to Shevek, and he would have thought it folly to think otherwise, that his wretched years in this city had all been part of his present happiness, because they had led up to it, prepared him for it. Everything that had happened to him was part of what was happening to him now.”

– The Dispossessed, by Ursula le Guin