Passionate Outburst

並不一定悲觀的現世感。

2012-01-25T13:29:00.000-08:00

過新年，我在布魯克林Bedstuy吃素夥伴家的派對找不到一點食物吃。我想我逃避正常的用餐時間就像是我逃避著學期即將開始。我喝著過淡過甜的廉價紅酒及充滿反式脂肪的鹹餅乾，和波蘭裔德籍的M、荷蘭籍的N、以色列籍的E討論五月一日動員我們系上同事罷工的可能。邏輯是這麼的簡單。妳恨妳的工作，於是妳就不幹了。但是實際的工作場所運動是那麼地困難，充滿系上和工會官僚的阻礙。冒著被列為學術界黑名單的危險，或者失去工作或者簽證，我想我喜歡這種美國公立大學的工運落在我們這群「外國人」手上的荒謬感。四名從德州Austin和Houston的運動同志來紐約探望我和C，我想從大學二年級後我已經多麼久沒有這種公社般的生活，每分每秒談論列寧、義大利autonomous-marxist流派、和組織裡人際分裂的黑暗期。我想我在這個極度鬆散的house party中我對於革命者的生活有了另外的、比較正向的想像。搞電影的M說得是對的，一天中有那麼多的會議，我們到最後還不是選擇去參與有我們喜歡的人的會議。我想這是我喜歡紐約的原因，這麼多荒謬的奇異的相遇，我連荷蘭是在德國的南邊還是北邊都不曉得，卻可以聽N批判一個北歐福利國家的假象，和M討論德國人對於法西斯主義再度崛起的恐慌，或者和E一起去以色列／巴勒斯坦。有時候我多麼憎恨厭煩學術界，這麼多裝模做樣的人，假惺惺的辭彙，但是若妳夠幸運，妳可以遇見這些對於世界和地理和未來有多麼不同想像的人。E說她的目標是今年送出她的論文提案，回去伊色列住在一個公社裡然後用朋友的精子懷孕生小孩。我並沒有什麼特大的期望，除了這個學期可以記住我五十個心理學學生的名字，還有養一條叫做「黑珍珠」的八哥狗。當然我也想要變得更健康更聰明，最好可以在夏天前有很結實漂亮的手臂，或者讀Capital Volume II，但這種設了太多次卻無法達成的計畫，似乎代表著這類活動本身的局限。今年，必須在理想和現實之中，重新找到合理的平衡。於是，沒有太多華麗的花招或者鞭炮，在大雪後的城市，又是一個新的年。

海洋學。

2012-01-19T12:13:00.000-08:00

夢裡我急切渴望一個母親形象女人的懷抱。高大的、粗糙的手，肌膚和肌膚間摩擦的粗糙感，女人有著堅挺的鼻子和一副地中海的眼。女人告訴我有人在夢中死去了，而她會從此安撫著我。我感到完全的失去力量，在她厚實的聲音和柔軟的乳房中，我無法睜開眼，無法辨識她的真實身分，我們在以色列或者巴勒斯坦，我說我不明白為什麼有些人可以承擔那麼多的痛苦，我想要做的不過只是永恆地留在被安撫的角色之中，那麼軟弱。我想要被懲罰著鞭斥著我所無法完成的一切。我想要放棄理解愛而只跟隨慾望本我的咆哮。那麼多的我愛妳像是無法辨別出名字的島嶼。那麼多的我愛妳都只能在沒有面貌的夢境中被理解然後遺忘。

house party的理由都是為了下一場的house party。

2012-01-08T10:31:00.000-08:00

紐約開始感覺變得小了當妳換了三條地鐵線為了到每個月一次的免費布魯克林博物館派對，然後遇見全城市的酷兒和同一個DJ同一件flannel shirt。妳的朋友把妳拉去一個博物館正對面的酷兒house party，介紹妳是"曼哈頓"來的朋友，妳還來不及對自己的階級感到感尬的自覺或者問派對的主人究竟prospect heights這幾年來被貴族化了多少，妳開了一瓶brooklyn larger，另外一手拿著新朋友給的maker's mark，移開客廳中的桌子開始和猶太男同志對著碧昂絲的音樂跳舞。妳的啤酒空了於是妳和波多黎加的朋友談下東城的移民史，和皇后區來的韓國女同志牙醫新朋友討論台灣和南韓的女同志酒吧和女同志流行音樂團體，時代在改變，我們喝著威士忌同意，1990年後出生的女同志已經不理會太多的butch/femme之分，即使butch/femme總是讓我們感到興奮。妳和妳的女友在派對中半認真地物色3p的對象，有一個非常可愛留著90龐克卷髮的黑人女孩穿著American Apparel的小短褲和小汗衫以及亮色腰包跳著舞，派對中的所有女同志都想要跟她上床，妳的朋友已經幫妳問好了她是二十三歲而不是十六歲，妳於是感覺這個計畫比較政治正確，但是情感上還無法真的進行這類的性冒險。妳於是開了另一瓶brooklyn larger，繼續和那個比她七年女友還要性感太多的皇后區韓國女醫師女同志聊天，相約黃曆新年的做餃子派對。house party的理由都是為了下一場的house party。兩點妳要離開和房子的主人（妳的新的best friend）道別時，戴著特大粗框眼鏡的女孩抽著大麻說，下個禮拜在我們的房子我們要辦酷兒作為gentrifiers也同時被gentrified的討論會，妳知道，酷兒的"othering"，她用手指夾著大麻煙微笑做了個引用符號的手勢，妳想酷兒的圈子對妳來說還是太後現代主義了。即使偶爾妳也是那麼地想念九〇年代。

politics and/or pleasure

2012-01-05T13:25:00.000-08:00

一開始我從書寫中尋找療傷的答案。文學短暫解除了青春的困擾，卻不足夠教導我面對體制的暴力。我於是企圖從政治和運動學找答案。Foucault/Third World Feminism/Fanon/Marx/and political activity itself。我感覺身邊的一些人對於政治沒有太多的疑問，並且將某一種政治視作生命的全部，存活的理由。我卻開始懷疑政治和運動無法回答我所有的問題。有些人進入宗教，有些人投入藝術，有些人建築家庭。我不曉得我下一步該找尋的答案究竟是什麼，當我都還無法完整建設出我要問生命的問題。有時候我想問的是相當愚蠢的問題，比如究竟快樂和歡愉可不可以是想像中生命目標的一部份？還這都只是中產階級的頹廢慾望？我心中有自己的答案。但問題的癥結是，在抽象的革命概念之中，我們該如何去追尋和實行快樂和歡愉？

back to life.

2012-01-01T12:23:00.000-08:00

我降落了。我回來了。一月一日的紐約早晨異常地寧靜，也許是昨晚狂歡的人潮還在陌生人的公寓猶豫著該不該無聲離開或者留下早餐。我試圖習慣假期將過的失落感，在十二街的咖啡廳喝尋常的豆奶cappucino，翻越整理信箱溢滿的過期賀卡雜誌和帳單。生活繼續。買菜和歸箱的衣物。

我喝著一些威士忌斟酌著法國電影《The Names of Love》的黑色幽默結束二〇一一年。六〇年代的鄉愁。寧靜多好。我一點也不想要重新開啓手機或者gmail信箱。如果可以就這麼一直待在23:55pm和0:02之間的這七分鐘，假設不同種生活的可能。想要到一個完全陌生的城市，使用全新的語言，放棄任何政治的正確性，或者藝術的矯情。我想要重新學習簡單的事物，比如煮菜，騎單車，游泳，這些因為城市生活而漸漸離我遠去的活動。比如花很長的時間享受一張唱片。

暫時告別了南加州的平坦、露天啤酒花園、和新鮮的大麻。我慶幸這個旅程我認識了七〇年代jam rock all girl樂團warpaint。多麼適合這個新的一年。

再生產。

2011-12-23T09:44:00.000-08:00

三件佳節冬季毛衣、兩件襯衫、兩雙鞋。我還在決定究竟我該帶《The Reification of Desire》上路還是完全不再管馬克斯跟酷兒的關係，就看Jonathan Franzen的小說就好。我總是這麼小心翼翼又興奮緊張地迎接超過五小時的飛行。好像在飛行中我可以丟掉或者暫時脫離我厭倦自己的一部份。那些必須迎合的、必須友善的、必須故作聰明的自己。其實有時我也只想貪懶在電視機前，看連續十集的HBO影集，吃光從冰島回來朋友送的杏仁巧克力。在過度的工作擠壓之下，沒有什麼文化是特別高尚的。我們每日必須做的不過是再生產自己的勞力。

我對於這個城市已經熟悉到需要短暫的分離，不時會想念起西岸的大型廉價超商和龐大環狀的高速高路。

休憩。沈澱。改革。創作。

cheers to the unknown.

2011-12-18T17:30:00.000-08:00

I am facing a severe social burnt out. I cannot stand the small talks across hallway, the howareyous and the goods/okays/notbadness. I just want to hide in my own cave to heal the exhaustion from my own anxiety and the growing hostility toward people around me. The egos over meeting, the paternalistic gesture, the fucking superficial careerism. Sometimes I wonder I could ever feel close to another human being again without developing hidden agendas or unhealthy competitiveness. What I really want to do is to have a break for life. To read literatures. To write. To sleep without anxious dreams. To make love.

My second book is in the process of getting published and I am supposed to be ECSTATIC about it. But I am too afraid to fail in different aspects of my life to be fully committed. Though sometimes I feel art is the only pleasure left in my life and I should be more attentive and tender with it. I am practicing to read fictions again without skimming through key words and digging the theses of the author. I am learning again to enjoy a world of fantasies. Of imagination. At the end that should be what happiness is--the unknown. To not know what the future will look like. To have multiple possibilities.

I notice that I only write when I feel angry/sad/blah. What I really need to do is bring art back to my life. Even just small things. Like the poems in a 30 minute subway ride. Like a text message while walking cross town. I should not use art to vent but to create.

I need a break to do life differently.

So I start having whiskey at night again. Just a little bit in a 5 oz IKEA glass. I read Jonathan Franzen like all the characters are parts of me that I am avoiding to understand. Like a true communist's weapon is not just kapital but her power to create and to pleasure.

Yeah. Pleasure.

immobility

2011-09-23T14:27:00.000-07:00

I rarely go to public actions anymore in nyc. It just seems pointless and makes me depressed even more afterwards. the rally against the execution of Troy Davis at Union Square yesterday was a bore. The same crews of Trotskyists with a mix of hipster anarchists, maybe students from NYU. I thought i would reenergized after the 2 month work in taiwan but it's been the total opposite. Things hardly interested me. I'm sick of the research project i'm writing on for ages. The debates in my globalization class are totally frustrating. The battle between anarchist primitivist and conspiracy theory.

I've been thinking seriously about the option of medication. However, i really don't want to go through counseling anymore.

And winter is rapidly coming.

鬼打牆

2011-08-08T06:32:00.000-07:00

非常倉促就又要過去的夏天。總算可以靜下來的時候卻又突然不知所措。非常突然的情人節和非常突然的人群組合在bloody情緒錯綜複雜的熟悉感中，喝著一杯很甜的比利時啤酒度過了。我和性未解的關係。k說我是在完全享受自己身體和情感的愉快之前就已經擁有太多理論的包袱了。於是腦子操控著身體。身體於是總是那麼彆扭地偷偷地為著自己的高潮而感到罪惡。坐著c的車，我也知道很多事不是回到過去就能解決的，但在徬徨的時候總仍是會偷偷地期許如此。

請在音樂中解放我吧。在這一種我從來不曾完全懂得的語言之中。才能得到放逐。

請好好地耐心地繼續愛我。在單方面的慾望之中我只能越來越感到孤寂迷惘

這個早晨在變換的城市區塊我想著《A Streetcar Named Desire》

2011-07-29T07:08:00.000-07:00

情緒快要被內部的政治鬥爭消耗殆盡。其使我也會擔憂呀，離開了這個圈子以後，我還能在哪裡找到同志落足？妳們聽我說美國的運動史頭頭是道，但我自己的歸屬感又有幾分呢？

紐約什麼也沒有變。地下鐵的悶熱讓人煩躁。但我習慣了這個城市的匿名感。我可以是任合一種人，任何一種身分。即便是跨過了houston從壞情緒的當地人突然搖身變身成為消費觀觀客的樂趣。我們總是泡在傢具店內，熱衷討論著無法擁有的人生。

這次再飛回去，剩下三個禮拜在台灣，我能夠完成什麼呢？總是帶著這種被卡在時空中的情緒。有太多的歷史被翻攪卻不夠時間分析。太多的新關係來不及去好好解讀到貼心。我總是害怕失去了真誠了解的機會。你們會記得我嗎？我會記得妳們嗎？在忙碌之中，我很快地又會變成了我自己都不認識的陌生人，在城市中扮演著各個角色：助教、女朋友、好學生、大聲嚷嚷又愛抽煙的左翼青年、厭世的寫作者。我對生命的興趣被早晨的第一口咖啡的濃稠度給牽制著。

被自己的噪音包圍著

2011-07-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

在腐蝕的意識下讓過高音量的音樂圍饒於我靈魂以不可觸及的疲憊部份。

我總算寫完了這兩年半遲緩難產而下的小說，然後呢？

可以再溫柔些嗎。

我們並肩隔距1.5公尺的走在深夜的大街。

我想著這一切的場景是如此熟悉又荒誕而陌生。

我對於故事結尾的偏執，

就和我對於故事開頭的強烈，

一般地固執。

is this how it's supposed to be?

2011-07-01T08:26:00.000-07:00

it's been two weeks since i am working at the migrant group. i have to say that even though i thought i have some organizing experiences with me, i'm learning a lot. and i wonder why something that has been so hard to deal with back in the US, like privilege politics, racial/gendered relations, seem so easy here. and it's definitely not because this is a nationalist organization in anyway. i'm still figuring out what it is. they are productive, they rarely have conflicts, they are really good at what they do and they create all these fun projects with one another. they do music, theater, they protest, they deal with legal issues in the court. they write stories and then make documentaries. i almost wish i was growing up in the 80s in Taiwan, where things didn't seem as complicated and overwhelmed. there's not as much leftist baggage (except the chinese communist party), you just try different things and see if it works. you start to rally your classmates, and then your co-workers, and you walk to the capital, and you just decide to occupy it because the government officials weren't listening shit. you start to organize because your co-workers' arms are cut off but she only got $1000 from the government and then her whole life is pretty much ruined.

now i wonder if we can really create a tight revolutionary organization where people barely know one another and only know one another through politics. i believe it can happen for some people. but i wonder why there almost always seem to be more conflicts and self-doubts and backstabbing than friendship, care, or even just collective passion for an alternative way of life. if we have to feel policed by our comrades all the time, if our language is too reformist or too soft, then why the hell do this?

i'm really tired and never feel this alone. i feel more alone than the the time before i have my first queer community in the US. because i don't really know what community i belong anymore. i sensor myself everywhere. at home, at school, at work, over email. even in my novel, i cannot write the ending.

my uninvolvement in the city

2011-06-21T05:15:00.000-07:00

i wake up around 5 every morning due to jet-lag. but i also like the morning in taipei because you can really feel like the city is about to rise to its full working potential while the subway is packed and people walking by you speedily. i feel instantly exhausted when i head out because of the heat. we took an one hour highway bus to Hsinchu, Ku and i discussed the sectarianism and the general uninvolvement in the Taiwanese left. 4 hour coalition meeting with concerned Catholic church Fathers and Sisters. Salvation Army-Taiwan wanted to join the coalition and "save" all the migrant sex workers. you can be saved as long as you are forever damaged. i ate instant ramen and kept sweating in this tiny forest of progressiveness and wondering if the Fathers wanted to save me big queer too. we took the train back to taipei and it was raining a little bit. i worry that another typhoon is coming soon. i passed out in bed by 9pm in a dream of sadness.

solidarity is a phantom concept.

2011-06-15T06:04:00.000-07:00

i really appreciate these accidental friendships that seem to consolidate themselves into something larger with time.

you meet a lot of people in new york, millions of them everyday. in the anti-austerity rallies, union meetings, conferences, concerts, school bathrooms, parks, drag shows in brooklyn, subways...but rarely they stick around. they become something in the background of your reflection. and you forget their names the next time you seem them out of the original context.

yet perhaps its time. more and more of those people passing by start to stick around over late night politically-absurd low budget queer movies, over beers, conversations about the assimilationist neoliberal multiculturalism of the canadian state. they sort of stick on your mind for longer. and you think about them, you really appreciate having to know these people in your life, even in such brief moments.

i like to think that my consciousness is located in parts of these people. they make up the sense of my world. Vygotsky was right a long time ago, it's bullshift that there is any solitary individual existing in this world. we are all part of each other. it is that creepy.

rethink.

2011-06-14T14:28:00.001-07:00

I've changed the layout for a new start. I buried my inner speech to deal with the stress for too long. I promise myself to write again this summer. No more anxiety about the definition of revolutionary. It's the vanguardist doctrine anyways. I need to read poetry and fiction. Life exists materially outside of the orthodox texts and confined ways of living.

I need to learn to how to be free in a nonfree world, from the left and the right.

雜音。

2011-04-02T18:41:00.000-07:00

好累。累壞了。好像忘記怎麼休息，六點半總是被街上的公路維修吵醒。然後一天的開始，十二盎斯黑咖啡至少可以撐過兩個半小時的課。博士班充滿太多不必要的猜測。說太多或說太少都是錯誤的。我喝了一些紅酒，躲進禮拜五下午沒有人的研究室中，重讀Fanon，尋找社會心理詮釋“identity”抽象乾澀人性外的其他選擇。唯一一些還讓我保持著理智的東西，也許就是每個禮拜三小時的Marx三人讀書會，和e.e.cummings的詩。俄國vygotsky學術傳承的成長心理教授說，我們現在需要的正是一個人性的馬克斯心理！也許我的依靠會是擺脫列寧包袱的俄系人性思想？在走道上和c交談近來組織中的一切變化和父權，像是個他媽的煙魂不散的陰影。L說我總是逃避談論我爸。我想我已經非常有效地埋藏十九歲之前的一切一切。

傷痛和快樂都不再算數。每天我學會擺脫自己一些。

anxiety in the suburb of southern california. counting palm trees.

2011-03-11T11:01:00.001-08:00

sitting in the hotel in riverside, california, wondering why i even came to this place in the first place. "critical ethnic studies: the future of genocide" is the title of the conference. it sounded like a pretty neat idea last year, but the whole field perpetuating with academic jargons totally drove me crazy. homocolonalism? this one is new. we are telling the young minds to follow the master's languages and keep reproducing differently decorated but inherently the same ideas. i like how at least at this conference people generally have a sense of discomfort of being in academia--but i wonder if this discomfort has transformed to a hipster logic that "it's cool to criticize it but not cool to admit you can't avoid being part of it, too." every panel has little deconstructionist aesthetics of ( ) and other weird symbols in it, such as (de)colonizing queer or (re)imaging, etc, etc. i don't get the significances of the symbols. so what can we really achieve after knowing the inherent anti-blackness in mainstream gay and lesbian movement, or the neoliberalism in queer category?! then what?! or what do we get from know that homonationalism is not a post-911 thing but occurred back in roosevelt's days? i'm looking for a methodology in not only thinking, but doing something about this. calling out for "alliances" is definitely not enough anymore. nor is (re)inventing flashy terminology, pardon me.

for the egyptian revolutionaries, and my lover:

2011-02-15T19:34:00.000-08:00

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

by e.e.cummings


somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond 
any experience,your eyes have their silence: 
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, 
or which i cannot touch because they are too near  

your slightest look easily will unclose me 
though i have closed myself as fingers, 
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens 
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose  

or if your wish be to close me, i and 
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly, 
as when the heart of this flower imagines 
the snow carefully everywhere descending;  

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals 
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture 
compels me with the color of its countries, 
rendering death and forever with each breathing  

(i do not know what it is about you that closes 
and opens;only something in me understands 
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) 
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

也許當妳無法擁有某個東西的時候，妳總是意外得到另外的。

2011-01-29T05:31:00.000-08:00

睡不著好痛苦。回來紐約後連續吃了三天的抗焦慮劑才能睡著，原本想一切都調節好了，卻怎麼也無法入睡。夜晚外頭的積雪反著微微的光。畢竟是凌晨四點多都還有人車在街上咆哮的城市啊。讓我的失眠感覺沒有那麼地異常。

渡了個看著電視小說美食珍珠奶茶的假日，該是回崗工作的時候了。和組織見面一切順利。六月回去一塊打戰吧。寫了快兩年的小說就要步入將近十萬字的怪獸。如果真的是關係這個世代的末日，那麼2012年也許真的是適合完成並推出去的日子。反正這種女同志的政治立場一定是賺不了錢的，還不如自己照自己想做的方式幹吧。

校訂、寫作、失眠、煮咖啡、被融雪浸溼的鞋、HBO影集、失眠、寫作。

為什麼見面時的我們總是那麼地禮貌呢？。

都過了這麼久了。想念的長度仍是遠遠大過於我們被允許擁有的時間。

A failure to escape.

2010-12-25T15:28:00.001-08:00

I'm at a post-shiatsu peace in a little industrial town of the orange county called downey. Suburbs are just so depressing to me even in Christmas time while every house is blasting their baby Jesus lights. I think I forgot how to relax so when I'm not busy writing papers or reading I just feel lonely. It's in this time of the season when you are at your half Chinese American girlfriend's house, highly organized family gathering, you think you are not alone anymore and one little thing can easily break you down, like some overly creamy clam chowder reminding you that you are not American after all, that your lactos intolerant body simply cannot take it. And it's at this time of the day when everyone is gone and there are all sorts of dirty dishes in the kitchen, you are reading some lesbian poet's fictional memoir alone by the empty dining table, the house completely quiet, you think oh how I'm glad that this emptiness is not my life, and then you suddenly think about how similar your life really is, to this post-party everlasting silence and mess.

did i just miss the first snow in new york while smoking indoor?

2010-12-13T17:48:00.000-08:00

我一直沒有辦法寫完這篇文章我想我是真的太累了。總算，總算完成了第一學期的所有事情，我卻沒有力氣歡呼只想就這麼陷入龐大的沙發之中忘掉自己過度僵硬的肩膀和頸子。我看著CSI:NY被那個極度俗氣的高科技犯罪探測器具畫面逗得想發笑。為什麼這個世界上會有這麼多的警察影集呢？我竟然就被腦死的自己絆倒在家在窗邊抽著煙然後錯過了紐約的第一場雪。聖誕節就要到了而我在美國住了第八年仍是無法融入小燈泡、甜食、擁擠的商店、關於耶穌基督的一切。

my winter reading list:

1. borderlands/gloria anzaldua

2. women, race, class/angela davis

3. the truth that never hurts/barbara smith

4. a brief history of neoliberalism/david harvey

5. the enigma of capital/david harvey

6. nations unbound/linda basch

7. maid to order in hong kong/nicole constable

8. and the everlasting capital i...ah! damn marx. i will conquer you.

9. marx at the margin/michael lowy

10. queer migrations/luibheld and cantu

11. constructing the subject/kurt danziger

12. when prophecy fails/leon festinger

you see i'm going for the third world women comfort mixed with some marxism and transnational queer and then have to go back to the asian roots and some social psychology. that's what my winter will look like this year.

might as well enjoy the chaos.

2010-11-30T20:07:00.000-08:00

Dr.E有張非常親切鄰家的臉，總是穿著剪裁良好的腰身西裝外套和配套的西裝褲，眨著眼在接待室帶我走過長廊到她暗橘色燈的諮商室。她將椅子拉向我非常非常地近：「這個禮拜一切都好嗎？」充滿母愛並具有專業性的關懷眼神。我開始懷疑我看心理師和上心理博士班的底層動機是不是都是為了同一個原因--尋找具有權威性的母愛關懷？其實也沒有甚麼好說的。意外多出來的五天假期讓我覺得生命並沒有那麼糟糕。至少我還可以享受一些最基本的娛樂，比如美食、比如浪漫喜劇片、比如公園和陽光、比如一些關於感情最最基本幾乎客套的對話。Dr.E迫切地說：「但是，那麼妳呢？妳需要的是甚麼？」我可以明確回答關於Kurt Lewin's Field Theory和W.E.B DuBouis社會心理理論跟馬克斯和法農的關連，或者例舉十個以上可以值得我留在紐約這個城市的理由和十個我為什麼想離開的原因，卻在當下完全無法回答Dr.E這個看似會在lifetime電影連續出現的second wave女性主義問題。

我到底需要的是什麼？。

我們跳到關於我和我父親的關係。Dr.E對於我和我父親沈默並抽離的關係非常的有興趣。我已經可以想像到分析的結論是，我在感情中不斷尋找對我冷淡的對象，是為了試圖彌補我父親從小到大無法預測的暴怒以導致的距離感。我想到關於我為何不、斷、地、在為了離開我或從我生命終消失的人負責。這些罪惡感和焦慮是可以擺脫的嗎。這樣的重複著的感情模式。

我想念西雅圖的朋友。想念我們就這麼聚在solstice後院抽著煙死不買咖啡的談著天下所有的事。取代那個自然的療癒環境的是研究方法課後在八樓學校餐廳的小聚會。N會告訴我她在她的樂團表演完後和22歲的女生在大排長龍的女廁裡醉得要命的makeout的糗事，然後以替我分析brooklyn女同志圈的市場，偶爾上去okcupid女同志交友網站寄給沒有機會約會的對象莫名其妙的訊息，然後我會鼓勵她和五年級的學姊上床。她取笑我說：才三個月紐約就讓妳有了第一個危機。妳可以想像未來的五年會有多荒唐嗎？

噢我可不想想像。

this winter is dragging me down

2010-11-27T21:08:00.000-08:00

凌晨五點無法入睡。昨夜的腦袋還泡在啤酒和威士忌裡面混合成解讀不出的情緒。整個宿醉的下午穿著芥末色的毛衣因為冷而不想要離開沙發一步。下午兩點到五點--一個人難得的放空狀態。打了幾通電話，回信，泡咖啡，吃頭痛藥，洗碗，折好一直懶得收起的夏天衣服，把隔夜留下的晚餐裝盒冰好，澆花。其實一個人的生活一直就是這樣。和時間和天氣拉扯。期待著，失望著，被害怕拒絕著，倔強著，反覆著同樣的情節和對話。不想念卻回憶。和心裡的恐懼打著精神戰。究竟在這樣的情景中有誰可以操縱著生活的決定呢？我在最脆弱的時候都仍是會敞開。而後果呢？被踐踏過的地方原來還存在啊。我想我就這麼坐在窄小的石梯上抽著過分重稅的香煙看著某些珍貴的東西在我面前漸漸逝去。而我卻一點挽留的台詞或抵抗的力量都沒有呀。

愛／無愛的矛盾

2010-11-22T19:17:00.000-08:00

在匆忙清潔整座公寓因為性／無性的焦慮下我非常困惑而我想我永遠不會明白究竟愛是尋找長期廝守的溫柔陪伴還是令人慌張頭疼失眠又莫名感覺甜蜜的瘋狂精神狀態呢我收到她的包裹像五歲時候第一次買任天堂般著急地扒開我是這麼焦慮著又抽起煙卻捨不得弄壞她寄來的任何一絲記憶的證據

存在。

2010-11-11T20:25:00.001-08:00

London, yesterday. 50,000 students' riot against educational cuts.

我不覺得我是個軟弱的人但我此刻感到非常的脆弱。決定在回到心理諮商--好像也沒有其他更有想像力的方法？你以為學心理的人會很厲害的幫自己分析壓迫的慾望情緒然後灑脫的嘆口氣說：『阿，這就是人性。』之類的哲學領悟。我也不過是在過分擁擠的課程中，在學校圖書館二樓的書間和猶太女同志的同學商討自己的感情處境。卻在討論明年組織計畫的簡短會議中也可以突然地崩潰。S和C很好的當下停止會議而捲香煙給我。在恐怖充滿不禮貌觀光客中城裡的星巴克前抽煙一邊喝著薑味汽水。身體不停止的發抖。前一分鐘第五大道上才有充滿帝國主義血腥味雄壯威武的老兵遊行，我因為警察管制而無法到十步之外的對街，卻有那麼多的人在揮著美國國旗。而前一秒鐘我們才在課上討論帝國主義和酷兒國族主義的關連。在紐約這個城市中生活每天就是處於在這樣的矛盾之中。或者你興奮的跟媽媽討論你的台灣移工運動的研究計畫，她卻覺得你是激烈分子並且可能會自斷未來研究基金。我做的事很少是完、全、理、智、的。因而也不停犯錯。但再也沒有比那容許自己為了所相信的價值觀而行動下更迷人的關於存在的事了。比如暴動、比如愛戀、比如感受絕望而決心裁斷過去所有的一切。

七天。

2010-10-30T10:22:00.000-07:00

有些錯誤是美好的。

有些美好必得犯錯。

a precarious situation of love and everything else

2010-10-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

this song made me cry. the first time i listened to this song i was in a situation that i felt like i didn't understand love anymore. and this time-

貪心。

2010-10-24T12:54:00.000-07:00

想要在遺忘睡眠後的天亮醒來和一個人擁有完整的早晨。

機會和放棄的總和。

2010-10-22T20:28:00.000-07:00

身體好累但是思緒停不下來。地上散著一篇一篇的學術論文和幾本馬克斯，寫乾的原子筆，印錯的回收紙。有種被從脊髓掏空的感覺。逼近凌晨接到不明來電以為會是L從中國打來的電話，結果是媽媽。是媽媽也很開心。跟我說妹妹要跟男朋友分手因為控制欲太強。我妹妹不知不覺中已經變成了在談戀愛的青少女了啊！我怎麼沒有長打太多的卻已經錯過這些。越長大發現跟媽媽越來越像，除了選擇了這麼相似的學術路線，我想我們打從骨底都是孤獨並且完全習慣孤獨的人。“甚麼時候準備回家呢？”我也不曉得甚麼時候可以。冬天的假期只想窩在沙發上看偵探小說喝過甜的巧克力。房子亂成一團，水槽裡積著兩天前的咖啡渣。才一個禮拜，這公寓已經越來越像是我在西雅圖的單人公寓。像是我過度壓榨後的腦袋無盡止癱瘓。也許這是為什麼我無法再理解小說了。太多字裡行間的感情，我已經快要讀不出來。其實有這麼多的慾望，該怎麼分散呢。我大概很快就會像人造衛星情人裡的妙妙白了頭髮。”do you fancy a coffee?“從英國來帶著極重蘇格蘭腔調的年輕女同志學者問我。我想，我們是要聊勞工階級女同志還是要聊我們的感情狀態呢？她才要三十歲但居然沒有手機。我想她也許過著比較有品質的生活。芝加哥來的臨床心理學生：過分友善的微笑、迷戀精神分析、看起來很舒服的針織帽和棕色靴子。我只是想，若是以前的我會怎麼做呢？昨晚的我走在orchard巷裡非常想要抽煙，但是我沒有。我想每個敏感的話題都將接二連三的斗出我壓迫遺忘的事情。有時候我想生活不是一連串的機會，而是一連串選擇該放棄哪些機會後的總和。昨晚我給了新朋友一本告解。我又開始翻起黃碧雲了。媚行者總是莫名其妙的讓我想哭。

who defines insanity?

2010-10-16T14:42:00.000-07:00

I think having too much work is driving me toward insanity. I'm doing some literature reviews on clinical psychologists during the post-WWII period using the TAT test to examine homosexuals. These pictures are horrifying--how can you not feel crazy when you see these pictures? I've been in the apartment too long, and the same music is repeating.

L is in Beijing. I don't know if it feels like winter already there, too.

衝刺。

2010-10-14T20:45:00.001-07:00

好累。L剛搭車離開去機場，和家人在中國旅行兩個禮拜。這是我第一次一個人在這間公寓。突然覺得四周安靜的令人緊張，即使樓下新開的小展覽場還是有人拿著啤酒抽煙吵鬧。公寓間的任何行動彷彿靜止了。我開始想著這一個半月來的一切：在紐約的生活就像是燒紙一樣的快。瞬間我已經在自己製造出的濃煙之中，容易失去方向。也許生活是關於不斷地推動自己的極限--但那塊緩慢享受的一面呢？我剩下的娛樂是每天早晨在地鐵上完我iPhone裡的俄羅斯方塊十五分鐘，在繃緊神經的社會心理理論基礎課和教授對持前，在又喝了太多咖啡前，十五分鐘不用考慮下一步該怎麼走，該完成些甚麼。期中考要來臨了，一大堆文章要寫。我腦子裡卻只不斷想著L、北京、人民會場、和在這裡那些自殺的年輕同志男孩。

a blog post me and JOMO wrote in response to the recent anti-queer violence and gay marriage debate

2010-10-14T14:29:00.000-07:00

Beyond Gay Marriage and Queer Separatists--A Call For A Working-Class Queer Movement

The gay marriage debate has take over all the attention from the queer movement left and right. The right wing is consistently and stubbornly denying the existence of queer folks by saying that it’s an immoral choice of lifestyle. The liberal gay and lesbian organizations are continually pulling millions and millions of dollars to appeal to the state for marriage equality under the rhetoric of “we are all the same.” On the other hand, queer separatists are fiercely combating the liberals with the slogan: “we are totally and absolutely different from the heteros,” and have made good points on criticizing the oppressive patriarchal nature of the institution of marriage and how queers should not seek this type of inclusion (see: against equality). However, these critiques have not necessarily been able to generate an alternative grassroots movement which can seriously take on the demands of those queers who are marginalized--queer people of color, trans folks, working-class queers, queers with disabilities, and third world and immigrant queers--from all of the above approaches.

There has been a series of intolerable queer violence that occurred very recently in the country--torture, youth suicide, school bullying--while the violence is nothing new to queer folks, it is urgently calling for the communities’ response to these issues. Though the liberals are posting heartwarming videos and articles and holding vigils saying that “it gets better” (Dan Savage’s video), we know that the fight cannot end here. As oppressed folks we know that queer oppression does not end when we graduate from high school bullying and move to San Francisco and suddenly become successful professionals who hang out in fancy bars and overcome all of our internal and external conflicts. (QPOC’s responses to queer youth suicides: “It doesn’t get better. You get stronger” and “For colored boys that speak softly”) The liberals see gay marriage as the end of the queer struggle, and have this fantasy that if gay marriage was legal national-wide, then soon it would “trickle down” to the marginalized communities and thus end all queer oppression.

Yosimar Reyes; "for colored boys that speak softly" from Corduroy Media on Vimeo.

We know for a fact that the gay marriage demand alone is incapable of solving our problems of physical, psychological, and economic violence, but instead normalizes a different though limited type of family under capitalism. Criticizing the approach of marriage equality alone has not helped much with movement building either. The debate overall has clearly not been very productive so far, but instead, it has instigated so much anxiety among the queer communities--many politically conscious queers are having panic attacks just over the moral decisions of choosing to support and/or participate in gay marriage if they had the rights to do so. All this overwhelming anxiety around the gay marriage issue is exactly because that there has not been an alternative queer movement that can channel the energy, and this debate has been monopolized in the framework of “individual choice” and “individual freedom.” Under this liberal ideology, many queer folks think that, of course we should have the right as individuals to choose who we love, who we want to have sex, and who we want to have family with! If straight people do why can’t we?! While queer folks are absolutely discriminated against by the heterosexist state which should not be tolerated, seeking freedom under this individualist ideology has not gotten us too far. Instead of carving out a tiny gay space out of the small stream of bourgeois, legislative rights, can we imagine a kind of sexual freedom that is for all people? A kind of freedom where a single mom is able to bring up her child without feeling obligations to marry? A kind of freedom that no one would be restrained in pantyhose at work anymore? A kind of freedom that as a culture we are finally not tabooed to talk about sex, but does not idealize or professionalize it either? A kind of freedom that everyone would play with gender without shame, and a culture that no youth would commit suicide because of school bullying, or because they might just have a different sexual fantasy? A kind of place that no one would be afraid to walk the streets at night, where none of our body parts-- our brains or our genitals --are pathologized. A kind of freedom that is multifaceted, and does not merely carve out a different shape of box to fit in a particular sexuality, but opens up the possibility to more creative desires for everyday folks.

The mainstream gay movement today has hijacked the revolutionary sexual liberation movement in the 70s and turned it into a short-sighted individual rights agenda. They assume that every queer person has the same class position and desires the same kind of American Dream. Their answer to the queer working-class concern is that marriage can help poor folks get access to spousal benefits such as health insurance--which is fundamentally contradictory. For instance, many of our partners do not have health insurance in the first place because we do not have stable jobs or jobs that offer it in the first place. That said, the issue of gay marriage should not merely be decided by who participates in it. Rather, we should ask--who are the people controlling the movement? Whose voices are not heard? And, what is our alternative? While having equal rights can perhaps open up more space for our struggle, we cannot let the liberals such as the Human Rights Campaign and Democrats define our movement. We also cannot let the queer separatists defeat us and push us out of the struggle.

What we need is to build an issue-focused working-class movement that centers queer analysis. Our demands should cut across sexuality and gender lines, while fore-fronting and popularizing queer needs. We should demand universal health care that includes access to hormones, gender reassignment surgeries, and an anti-heterosexist health system that does not attempt to pathologize our queer bodies and erase the traumas we face in a violent homophobic society. We should demand asylum for all immigrants and not solely rely on the liberal, imperialist reform agenda such as the DREAM Act that attempts to draft the youth from our communities into the oppressive military system. These need to be our demands because we know that our fate as workers are bound up with the exploitation of the undocumented workers and the exploitation of youth of color. Today, anti-queer violence erodes our sense of community and leaves us feeling raw, vulnerable, and fearful for ours and our friends’ safety. This is a crucial time for queers and allies who distrust the state and the police to come together and mobilize from the grassroots to defend ourselves from homophobic violence. We should take the lesson from the initial domestic violence movement which set up grassroots phone trees, patrols, and shelters to challenge patriarchal violence in the households and in the streets.
Today, we need to resurrect this sense of grassroots unity that links our struggles together and not to rely on the compromised liberals and non-profits, or the homophobic, racist state institutions that divide and assault our communities.

When the gay liberal assimilationists say to middle-class straight folks, “we are just like you,” and the queer separatists on the other say “hell no we are nothing like you” and form their own blocs, we should be the force that says to every day folks who struggle that “we are just like you, and you are actually just like us”--because queer folks have always been part of the working-class and we are not fundementally different from one another. Our oppression as queers is not a fixed pathology. It is a product of the heteronormative, homophobic society, and it does not have to stay that way forever. In fact, the essence of queer liberation lies within the ability for everyone to celebrate and experiment their sexuality, gender, and desire. It is not enough to only carve out another limited category of acceptable sexuality for a certain group of people. This kind of change is not liberation--it is a very limited imagination of freedom. We need to start off with this fundamental vision of uniting the working-class and queer struggles and ensure that not any part of ourselves will be forced to compromise in the movement.

existential crisis or something close

2010-09-14T21:26:00.000-07:00

shit, i really miss home lately. i don't know why it just hit me the other night, after going to an exhausting 9/11 counter-protest. sometimes i wonder why i'm here? why am i chanting in these streets that don't even care if i recognize them as home. and these people around me probably just think i'm a foreigner or tourist anyway. why do i even care? i know i care because the same thing could happen at home--violent police, xenophobia, racists--i know it's everywhere. a japanese visiting scholar was in the rally, he came to me and c., asked what we were chanting about? we said, "bigots go away," he said, "bigots are small-minded people?" we smiled and said, yes, very small-minded people. it's sad that bigotry is perhaps a universal concept and human experience across cultures. it's not that hard to make that conceptual connection. but what about fighting against the bigots here? what does that mean to all the injustices happening at home? what about those bigots with the same skin color, speak the same language, and grow up on the same land as i do--don't i have more leverage to fight them? will i feel less powerless, more meaningful than how i feel here?

it's hard to be stuck in two different spaces all the time. reading all the news from home and wish i could be there and put in my body. it made me really sad to think that at least in the next 5 years i would not be able to live in taiwan. and more likely to be longer. i know a good thing about being in academia is that the nature of the work is transnational. but research is one thing and organizing is another. i feel like if i would ever wanna risk something that big, i want to risk it for the people and the land i truly care for. like how fanon pretty much abandoned his psychiatric work and joined the revolution in algeria. maybe it's because of the dislocation i'm feeling alone again. i wanna be with people i don't have to feel culturally self-conscious with, i want to speak the language i used to, i want to write, and discover life back home. i feel extremely sad to think about what i would have missed.

the edge

2010-08-29T10:56:00.000-07:00

When i get stressed i start obsessing with every little thing around me. My phone, the charger, the bedsheets, the plant that looks like it's about to die, hair in the bathroom, the smell in the kitchen sink, the fabric of the couch. Every little thing drives me crazy. I was at this wine and cheese welcoming event at my program. Having to be genuinely interested and interesting for 3 hours was just too difficult of a task to accomplish in my mental stage. It's been a month since i moved to the city, when i just thought everything was getting more comfortable and familiar, i got completely overwhelmed by the number of people around me all the time. I used to have alone time all day, when i was unemployed and applying for school. That solitude made me feel almost too lonely sometimes, but it definitely didn't make me feel like a crazy person with too much repressed anger. So much to learn and observe, to be able to sound excited enough, militant enough, competent enough, smart enough, ambitious enough, empathetic enough. I feel like i'm always catching up every since i came to this freaking country. And the race is definitely not over yet. It is not a marathon, because i don't even know where the endpoint is, if not death. Maybe i need a spiritual leader to tell me that life is not a competition, but why it damn feels like it is all the time. I've subscribed to way too many newsletters to try to understand this world better and forgot to write and reflect. That is what is driving me to the edge and i can see myself wanting to jump in every minute.

my new home that doesn't feel like home yet

2010-08-09T07:33:00.000-07:00

it's surprising to me how homophobic new york can be. i almost can't even tell if it's just east coast aggressiveness or i'm being too sensitive in a new environment. but seriously, i've gotten more homophobic comments in two weeks than i've got in the past year in seattle. lower east side is weird. it could be all white hipsters hanging out in bars and boutiques in one corner and the next corner would be all Puerto Rican workers getting pizza for lunch break. and the old asian ladies often walk toward south while picking up stuff in the streets to earn some recycle money. the stories about gentrification. i don't know how i fit into all of these. maybe folks here just see me and L as the new lesbians on the block and don't give a shit or give us too much attention. growing up in taiwan i always found comfort and safety in crowdedness and that was why i thought i would like new york. but i think i might have to change my mentality here and learn some kickboxing.

prop 8 is overturned in cali but i'm still looking for where the queer struggle lies and what is the most fundamental queer concern. after all we are just like any other oppressed folks, worrying about our safety, next month's rent, getting a job, having a caring community and friends to hang out in the park. i know it's gonna take a while for me to feel that comfort again. but i really wanna like this city. i'm committed to this.

倦怠。

2010-07-29T14:15:00.000-07:00

訂冷氣機訂床墊開水電帳戶寫ikea傢具清單。整天窩在無限網路空間裡處理這些搬家的雜事。精神卡在城市夏日熱氣中的空洞之中，不進不出。St Mark街上都是NYU的吵雜大學生。去上瑜珈課想要放鬆，卻從來沒有更焦慮過。小小的無空調房間之中擠了五十個以上狂流汗的年輕人，吐氣像是鯨魚的哀號一般。吃日本蕎麥麵然後frozen yogurt，隔壁桌的女生在討論bad bugs的蔓延程度。我應該要提起精神讀conference的勞工文章，或至少打開mac上的文件夾繼續寫小說。我卻怎麼也提不起勁。q wave認識的小T要我幫忙發在bryant park酷兒青年野餐聚會的傳單，我突然有種年華老去的感覺。東村這裡每個走在街上的人都拿著一支smart phone或者一支煙。我好久沒那麼想抽煙了。

the city of heat.

2010-07-25T19:47:00.001-07:00

I think i can finally understand why in almost every movie about new york people talk about the heat. It really occupies you and dramatically changes how you structure you life here. I thought my semi-tropical upbringing has trained to get used to this heat. But no. Not with so many cranky people in the streets and no where to sit in a coffee shop. I'm just glad that L and i finally found an apartment. I'm excited to go to IKEA and be the biggest lesbo ever planning on the interior design. Living in someone else's living room and worrying about the bad bugs epidemic in the city is really not fun. We eat japanese foods almost every day in the east village. I feel beyond normal to be a fob here because there are always more tourists than fobs. I just wonder where the lesbians are? Lower east side is full of hipster gay boys but haven't seen any dykes so far. Met some cool folks from q-wave today at this cute taiwanese tea place. That might be a good start.

stolen vacation on the oregon coast.

2010-07-12T11:08:00.000-07:00

There is literally nothing around here except the ocean, unless you really find whale watching entertaining. Nothing. No 3G. No flat screen tv. Even my cell phone reception is choppy. I guess it's the best time to be sick and mellow with your girlfriend's family. I take some cold medicine and just lay by the ocean all day reading Sarah Schulman's Girls, Visions, and Everything, some lesbian novel from the 80s. L and her sister are really into tanning but I still can't decide if I would look good tanned or not (my East Asian baggage). The little towns nearby such as New Port are pretty depressing. There is giant Safeway or Fred Mayer but none of the little stores seem to be able to survive. It's sad when you go to a different town and want to see how the local life is but still end up going to Rite Aid buying the latest GQ magazine. We get high on the parking lot of the only theater in Lincoln city and watched an animation about a Russian villian's inner fatherly love, then play Sudoku until we fall asleep by the sound of the ocean.

旅途中必要的顛簸。

2010-06-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

公寓就快清空了。這我小憩了三個月的地方，其實已經很像家。L和我從未爭吵過，除了有時候我洗碗洗不乾淨，燕麥片黏在陶瓷碗上，或者關於我無法喝完一整杯咖啡／茶／水的壞習慣。也許這跟我的兒童心裡是有關係的？我聽著某首中文流行樂的時候還是會傷感，這幾年來長大的其實是關於面對現實的能力，心裡頭那點想要對一個人非、常、浪、漫的慾望還是沒有減弱太多。而對於延續伴侶溫柔生活的能力，我還在練習著（並且不斷犯著必要的小錯）。剩下一個星期在西雅圖，然後奧瑞剛海灘，接著一路開四天的車到南加州。而後飛行。

this is how summer should be like.

2010-06-22T17:07:00.001-07:00

Wake up jet-lagged in early afternoon to meet up with friends who skipped work to watch world cup. Root for whichever team that has the lower score at the moment. Eat big garden burgers and garlic fries and not care about the calories. Sip on a beer and get a t-shirt tan outside. Borrow a cigarette from some boy who's trying to impress his date. Talk with friends about things that you should have or shouldn't have done in the short trip abroad. Appreciate what you have now because we all know that nothing is gonna last forever, not in summer.

the american side of us.

2010-06-21T03:48:00.000-07:00

一整夜無法睡天亮時也是要吃有蛋有臘腸有燕麥粥的早餐。妳買了peptobismol給我聽說可以幫助旅行中胃的壞脾氣。無論如何都是硬要走下樓喝一杯豆奶拿鐵。戲院也就在對面而已。如此的週末慵懶生活。在柔軟的語調之中便不再過問飛行之間的種種。畢竟新的生活就要開始，而時間是從來不等人的。公寓中的小空間慢慢成箱成櫃。我們漸漸開始跟朋友道別。我在一個人醒來的夜晚幫妳蓋上黑色的圍巾。只要還能夠不猶豫的在沙發上擁抱並說話那麼愛應該是仍存在的。

我是那麼習慣地被妳溫柔慣壞著。

失眠拆解。

2010-06-20T04:28:00.000-07:00

回到這裡後又是一個人。即使失眠時有十三吋的mac pro會亮起的美好鍵盤。都是一樣的。愛人熟睡時寂寞的意義變得那麼明顯。也許我終於比較明白十六歲時躁鬱的情人無法接受我可以那麼輕易地入睡而她卻無法的痛苦事實。在一段無論多麼緊密的感情中，終究還是會有兩個人的時差、兩個人的燈、兩個人的消遣、兩個人的食慾。兩個人的性。其實我也不想這樣，擁抱的時候仍是感覺那麼的快樂安全。她因為我開了燈而戴上了眼罩。我因為忍受不了寂靜而塞上耳機。十二個小時，只有音樂和我。東岸的new york times在凌晨兩點多就已經送到信箱之中。我在craigslist上看著曼哈頓和布魯克林中四個不同區的公寓出租訊息。就要離開了吶。我連自己從台灣回來的夏日行李都還未拆箱。

i've been there many times.

2010-06-17T08:22:00.000-07:00

一整晚的失眠和數夜酒醉的淺眠。想念好沈。好沈。像是餵食過多止痛劑的大腦。這麼多年過去，我只是陷在這樣的情節中越來越深。在一起的時候好像高中生，只有一個簡單的目的地，熟悉的風景，並戰戰兢兢地學習著對待愛人溫柔。我們的生活都一年一年變得更複雜並現實，但是關於對於感情的態度和需求，似乎反而漸漸地簡化著。疲憊的時候還是只是想和一個人，肩並肩的看電影。只想要這樣安靜的依靠著。有時候我會希望那個人是妳。而大部份的時候我希望妳快樂，並永遠的自由。那麼我的感情應該會一直是緩慢，持久，而不自私的。

梅雨季節聽甜梅號吧。

2010-06-13T18:05:00.001-07:00

sugar plum ferry for the plum rainy season.

我在末班南下的高鐵上不斷地想她

2010-06-13T08:06:00.000-07:00

不斷地重複著擁抱的細節和嘴唇的溫度。也許是台大那場中國留澳男同志博士生的酷兒小說論文的關係，不斷地重複著蝴蝶的情節，關於六四，大雨，和八釐米攝影機。在意識疲憊時想像都是毫無歸續的。也許在另一個次元裡，我是一個年輕的香港民權行動主意者，還在追求可以不顧一切的戀情和暴動後的和平。也許是只有在別人的分身中，我才又再度感覺慾望的安全（或者危險性？）

除了想念我似乎找不到更好的辭彙。是這般遙遠的，無法伸手觸及，卻又彷彿那麼的熟悉。

另一件勞工死亡的大問題：美商RCA在台灣造成的女工職業傷害

2010-06-13T07:39:00.000-07:00

Thousands of workers have died and injured from working for the US owned company Radio Company of America in Taiwan in the 70s because of the toxic chemicals the company used. Many of them are still suffering from all kinds of cancers and physical complications now. For the female workers, especially, many of whom caught breast cancers, had abortions, became infertile..., the damages are far beyond physical and financial...

哭泣的母親們—記那一年代電子女工的泣飲

RCA職業傷害—台灣司法使上史無前例的案例

爭議十餘年 RCA案首傳證人

My Foxconn post on Gathering Forces:

2010-06-13T05:49:00.000-07:00

Foxconn suicides and Honda strike in China: Call for Asian worker solidarity.

官商勾結，勞工更必須團結。

2010-06-11T06:02:00.000-07:00

Taiwanese labor org protesting against Foxconn.

Honda worker strike.

當中國政府為上海世博慷慨重金砸下最多可至五八億美金，在富士康的中國工人卻一個一個跳出他們血汗工廠的高樓。富士康在中國僱用有六十萬員工，並且身價去年營收高達一兆四千兩百多億，郭台銘還是全台首富，他的員工卻一個月只賺人民幣三百多元，工作時數長達十五個小時一天。這不是現代的血汗工廠，難道是中國政府世博強打的「Better City, Better Life」？！今年已有十二名青年工人跳樓自殺，這不僅僅是薪資的問題，也不僅是管理的問題，更不僅是深圳政府或郭台銘說的：「個人心理和感情問題。」這是資本主義下長久以來的勞資問題和勞動的異外(alienation)。全中六十萬名員工，有幾個可以付得起他們日業加工拼命製造出的iPod!?在軍事化的工廠管理下，他們也無法對於整個產品製造過程有任何控制，或甚至創新。勞動的異化來自於工人賣出的勞力變得沒有意義，甚至成唯一種敵對的關係。

即使富士康跳樓的事件是如此地不堪並且令人憤恨，中國血汗工廠的勞工環境並不靜默勞工階級而反之有組織他們的潛力。在自殺事件之後，富士康的工人得到兩倍多的加薪，而許多在中國南部的工人也開始發動勞工運動。五月十七日，將近兩千名Honda汽車的工人罷工了兩個禮拜之久，要求加薪。即使這一點點的薪水根本不足以償還這些工人在新自由主義中國城市下的勞力和生活開銷，富士康事件和Honda罷工都表現了中國工人的氣勢和全國組織後的勞工力量。同一時間，台灣的十多個勞工團體和香港的學生勞工團體也與中國勞工階級團結，抗議富士康的血汗工廠。富士康事件跨越族群及政治的邊界。喚醒了兩岸三地長久以來的階級問題。

血汗工廠並不只是一個獨特的中國問題，而已蔓延至東南亞及其他發展中的國家。西方的大老闆像是蘋果電腦或者HP會繼續地和中國官僚以及台灣老闆合作，確立他們的利潤不下降並且一再地防止工人的組織，即使這代表謀殺他們的工人或者偷竊他們自己國家的資源。我們聽到在美國和台灣的勞工階級抱怨著工作都被中國人搶走了──但是他們並沒有搶走我們的工作。我們的工作是被那些美國的大老闆，那群和中國官僚牽著新自由主義合約的台灣政府給毀滅了。像是國民黨不斷推動不顧勞工階級反對並且沒有人真正懂得是什麼的ECFA──其實說穿了就是自由貿易協定(Free Trade Agreement)但是少了全部相等的保障，允許大筆資金自由穿梭台灣海峽，並且將減少台灣製造業工作機會以及基本薪資。當台灣和中國官僚說他們支持「兩岸和平」或者「兩岸經濟發展」，他們並不代表他們是真的主張和平、或者反戰、或者製造更多就業機會給勞工階級。他們的意思是，忘掉我們的自主權吧，忘掉台灣中國東南亞的工人奮鬥，統治階級會和企業家團結並且以一塊地剝削我們來繼續鞏固他們的地位。我們的國家都已經被帝國主義者還有資產階級給出賣了太久，而現在什麼都沒有改變，只不過他們學會更多的方式還欺騙我們的勞力，告訴我們：「更好的日子即將來臨！」就像那個極度奢華浪費傷害環境也毀壞居民家園的上海世博。是時候我們該比我們的老闆們更有組織，並且在族群及國家邊界之外，召集國際的勞工團結。

成長然後失去的。

2010-06-09T18:47:00.000-07:00

一切都發生得好快。就這樣畢業就快一年了，智齒全拔光了，回了家又要回美國了，要搬去紐約了，五年的博士班就要開始，一年多的感情也加速的變得認真盛大，不管又遇見了誰，似乎都得好好負責任了。不能再談半吊子的感情，好像也沒那個本錢了。我是吃了太多止痛藥還是為什麼，被困在家然後多愁善感起來。我的家究竟會在哪裡呢？有一些人已經聽不出我的口音。在台灣混血兒似乎越來越紅就是了。給L看台灣中英混血多多妹的新聞採訪，她以後想要開蛋糕店吶。這麼可愛，也來生一個好了。以後還會有人陪我在九份山腰喝啤酒抽丁香煙嗎。還會不會有人陪我在日新大戲院看畫質一般的好萊屋片，然後出來吃忠孝夜市的牛肉炒麵。還會不會有人邀我在台大校園呼麻做鬼臉給晚上出來騎單車的小孩呢。一切發生得太快，我的書櫃突然都是生硬的英文左派理論和心理學非文學。那些俗氣的女同志小說呢？前年去日本買的舊香煙放在衣櫃裡全部潮濕了就都丟了。已經到了書櫃中的書會泛黃的年紀。這樣的改變究竟是好還是不好。也許成長就是如此，難以定義或判別的吧。我只是有時懷念過去的自己。

戰友

2010-05-31T19:11:00.000-07:00

維持這樣的模式
一年一度從我西方的戰場
偷渡回來見妳帶著零星的行李
一盒火柴一枝筆
美利堅城市砲火暫息
是因戰事綿綿燎原至太平洋島嶼
妳說妳已在地底埋伏了數年
戰後的美好日子不過是資本政府的謊言
我們在雜亂的草地上排石拆字
談論馬克思列寧主義
以及種種武器的設計感
並交換勞力剝削的憤恨親情的負擔
禮貌地陳述近來的愛情
妳的熟悉彷彿觸手可及

卻閉口不提過去
深怕踩踏長年未拆的地雷
(就算那規模的傷害已不再要緊)
多年前因為時代的困難
妳離開了無憂的青春我離開了家園
在不友善的世界中被迫成長心壁磨出厚繭
而後妳必要性地離開了我
(留下幾張未洗的相片和粗糙的詩)
在北方寒冷夜晚孤守一人的沙場
我無法不想起妳
那些流著汗相愛的夏日即使短暫
妳當年送我的燈
一直都在我的胸腔中暖著
如今妳找到東海岸的寧靜愛情
我也有了不同國籍的長途伴侶
(彷彿是秘密中地約好要這麼錯開彼此)
維持這般戒嚴時期的緊張距離
我卻仍是想兌換我的所有行李
給妳出入我國境的無限期簽證
就算只是肩靠肩地喝一杯咖啡
看場結局模糊的東歐電影
陽台上捲一支American Spirit的香菸
我真的願意在這動盪年代
沉默收藏妳美麗的手臂線條
無拘束的髮那永遠好奇的雙眼
和妳忐忑卻慷慨的曾經的愛情
做妳遠方的戰友

生命薄弱如紙
這空洞繁華的城市
一根菸蒂毀滅的光景
我只願我們都還能夢見此刻

被視為瘋狂的新世界

台商在中國的血汗工廠!

2010-05-27T21:45:00.000-07:00

富士康12連跳事件整理

Capitalism at work in China: Suicides Highlight Oppressive Conditions at Electronics Supplier

i feel perfectly normal in this in-between space

2010-05-27T00:58:00.000-07:00

On the train from the airport to taichung i repeatedly listened to the xx's album. A british band with simple emo sex music and it fit with my sleep deprived exhausted arrival perfectly. I've watched too many war movies in a roll during the 16 hours on the plane--the ones completely lacked of any gender or class analysis--maybe that's where i got my bad headaches from...The air is really humid and muddy here. I swallowed some aspirins from my mom. We had taiwanese-german breakfast, milk tea, and talked about PhD programs, the economic crisis, and the smart evil people on wall street. My mom is probably some kind of social democratic and she is worried about me being a communist. But i do wanna talk to her about socialism someday. Instead, we talked about the world expo in shanghai and how flashy the chinese goverment is. She got some special promotion stuff from the airline so we are going to hong kong for three days next week. I hope i will run into wang faye or something. It just feels right to be so close to these places, not seeing them in some random white dude's academic presentation in the US.

I briefly talked about the new york moving plan, and about L. When we got home, she actually said to me, "if you wanna call someone in the US, it's half-priced to call it from the land line." I'm so stoked that she remembers L's name.

airport complex

2010-05-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

It's awfully empty and quiet at 11:30 pm in gate S11 at the airport. I guess May is not a busy season for people to travel internationally. I'm sitting in front of a whole wall of windows watching the airport workers do their magic work with cargos and planes. The sharp flashing lights never seem like this beautiful before. I just said goodbye to L and it was really hard. The short drive in the car we were listening to the knife and it just started to rain. My heart suddenly got dense and heavy. I'm writing down her phone number everywhere i could--on my palm, in my notebook, on the bookmark, on the itouch, as it is the most precious thing that i could not lose and that my life depended on it. I never rely anything on technology. The mind is the best storage place for the most important things. I still believe.

An EVA flight attendant got a phone call and ran to the corner to cry. She sounded confused about what has just happened. I can't really articulate how i feel at this moment either. I only know that it's too big of a emotional change to start reading this new paulo coelho novel i bought about power and fame. I'm not ready to turn off my phone yet even though i already said goodbye to L and she's probably peacefully in bed. I watch the dark night and the flight attendant, trying to locate a precise emotion. I find the bright neon light of the gate number rather comforting.

I started to write a poem for L this early afternoon but got stuck because i was too caught up in my own fear and anxiety of being apart from her. Because how openly we communicate with each other i think i forgot how to describe my feelings beyond using the simplest words. When i say i miss you at this moement, I mean I want to wrap you in my arms and kiss you goodnight, i want you to take care of yourself and think of me when you are in the house, full of our smell and sound. I want you to remember we have a big plan together and i will do anything i can to make that happen. And that this time i won't mess up.

the openness in separation.

2010-05-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

I'm tired of this cloudy showering weather that always says "65%" chance of rain in seattle. This spring feels like an enternal dysthymic depression. It's time to be home and to sweat out this bad energy. I'm happy but not as excited as i wish i could be. I think I'm just exhausted. Exhausted from this crisis state we've been in. Greece's economy is falling. Oil spills in Gulf coast. Thai red shirts uprising. Trans sex worker murdered in Wisconsin. Taiwanese managers forced feeding Indonesian Muslim migrant workers pork. Ths list goes on. Sometimes I don't know if it's psychologically healthy to read all the shit that happens in the world without seeing everyday folks fighting back. How could we resist that if we couldn't even convince ourselves that we have the power to do so? I think i need a break not because i lost my hope. I need a break because i simply do not have the mental capacity to make sense of it all right now.

I'm sad to be apart from L during this stressful time before moving to new york. But i know i have to go home because i might not get to for a while. You think it'd be easier now it's probably the 8th year and 20th time i had to do this. But it never really gets easier. Having separate homes across the oceans. Every time i travel i feel like i lost my language somehow--the words i used to speak to describe my feelings about home. Now i only have a few left--"sentimental," "warm," and "distant." What I want to do at home is to read literature, walk in shorts, drink lots of tea, talk to mom and sis, and hopefully to find peace in all the separation and relocation thats necessary for our growth, instead of feeling stuck or scared.

I remember how i could find the greatest happiness in something dramatically simple like writing a genuine poem for someone, or drinking a beer in chaotic streets at night just watching people walk by. I think when we learn how the world operates and how it brings so much oppression and pain to every day people, we forget about all these simple things, because everything is about a historical, systematic plan to destroy and harm. Especailly in the US i can't help but thinking about most things in a professional, dramatic term, just because that's what i only know and how i relate to this land. But i want to learn to think about the place we live in a humane way sometimes. Like i have this 35% chance of sunshine and i really want to walk to the bookstore, get some natural vitamin D, and read this probably politically incorrect lesbian novel.

WE WILL NOT FORGET PALESTINE

2010-05-17T10:50:00.000-07:00

一九四八巴勒斯坦種族淨化
by周世瑀

五月十五日是巴勒斯坦人的浩劫(Nakba)日，也是巴勒斯坦人哀悼以色列宣告獨立翌日，旋即以軍事行動種族淨化巴勒斯坦。

以色列政府自一九四八年迄今一再謊稱巴勒斯坦人拒絕聯合國於一九四七年十一月分割巴勒斯坦領土的建議，係因巴勒斯坦人無意追求和平。以色列於一九四八年五月十四日甫宣告獨立，旋即遭「心有不忿」的阿拉伯聯軍圍攻。阿拉伯聯軍廣播要求巴勒斯坦人「撤離」巴勒斯坦領土，待阿拉伯聯軍「消滅」以色列後，巴勒斯坦人即可返回。由於聯軍來勢洶洶，以色列只得死地求生。第一次以阿戰爭期間，阿拉伯人係「自願離開」巴勒斯坦。此為阿拉伯國家發動「侵略」戰爭自食惡果。阿拉伯人所謂的以色列種族淨化巴勒斯坦、巴勒斯坦難民問題、七十五萬巴勒斯坦人在一九四八年遭以色列軍隊驅逐的浩劫，皆為阿拉伯人捏造。儘管以色列的建國神話荒誕不經，至今仍有人深信不疑。(read more)

my almost last party in seattle

2010-05-04T16:34:00.000-07:00

I spent most of April trying to pull off a queer people of color dance party as a fundraiser for the may 3rd strike--it was extremely stressful but too fun to resist! We got the space at Hidmo, awesome qpoc spoken word poets and musicians. Everything just seemed to come together on that night, the poetry, the movie, the music, the people, the space, and the political messages we were sending out. It's weird because you would think that making qpoc the targeted audience you would be limiting who you were attracting. On the contrary, we had almost 200 people showed up that night--and lots of folks can't wait for another event like this. As a qpoc i feel everything we are fighting for--labor, immigrant rights, queer lib--just came together on that night, when i saw a room full of queer folks and folks of color responding so well to the May 3rd strike and March 4th action against privatization of university and its workplace. Some queer folks may see labor as something not concerned them or not related to their life struggle, but i would say labor is as much about workplace as bedroom. I know locally some queer activists are fighting for a grant that can build a cafe shop that would continually hire queer youth. While I understand the work is important, I also feel like we've fought for queer only space for a while, and it's about time for us queers to join the struggle at workplace, fighting for more accessible education, and just workplace for all. This notion of queer vs. class could be really harmful for the working-class and queer communities and would just continually privatize queer issue as something thats only about our sexuality.

On the next day I saw a lot of qpoc from last night at the May Day immigrant rights march. That was the time i felt this is really my community. I felt very honored to work alongside with everyone for queer lib even though we have to fight through so many barriers to come together and to finally get to know one another.

this is what i mean when i say queer.

2010-04-08T00:03:00.000-07:00

when i say queer i mean, most of the time i feel fucking gay.
when i say queer i mean having sexual fantasies about girls
at the age of 13 and thought i was a human monster, a hermaphrodite, a psycho freak.
when i say queer i mean not even knew that sex was possible,
until i discovered lesbian chat room and was talked dirty
and unpleasantly seduced by an older woman.
when i say queer i mean feeling rejected and being emotionally
shut down in my family for at least 10 years.
when i say queer i mean i did a lot of fucked up things to people i love because i simply did not know how to love myself.
when i say queer i mean my lover committed suicide when i was 17
and i thought about death every day and night for the 3 years after that.

when i say queer i mean i'm not the white power gays who only worry about their cocktail parties, their newly remodeled house, their muscle mass, or their summer exotic southeast asian trips.
when i say queer i mean i struggle to even be recognized as a person with something important to say, because of my skin color, my accent, my gender, my learned defensiveness with most white straight men and my failure
to relate to them or treat their ignorance patiently.
when i say queer i mean strange men yell dyke at me and give dirty looks and threesome jokes when i walk with my lover in the street .
when i say queer i mean i loathed my body because it was too feminine, too masculine, too weak, too small, too awkward, and too foreign.
when i say queer i mean it took me a borderline eating disorder to love my own body.
when i say queer i mean i cried the first time i had sex with a woman because it changed everything i thought about the world.
when i say queer i mean people i love are traumatized by patriarchal violence physically, emotionally, and constantly.
when i say queer i mean i am fed up with being the token lesbian and the token asian and the token immigrant in every space.
when i say queer i mean i am so sick and tired of being polite and politically correct.
when i say queer i mean i am not gonna explain myself anymore.

when i say queer i mean seeing my queer friends find themselves, lose themselves, doubt themselves, risk themselves, and hurt themselves because of shame.
when i say queer i mean fear of not being able to recreate
the sense of community and family we once had.
when i say queer i mean i feel resentful when my straight friends
off to get married one by one. i feel betrayed.
and then i feel powerlessness.

when i say queer it is agony.
it is silence.
it is grief.
but it is also desire.
it is passion.
it is love.

when i say queer it is not about my biology my brain cells my ring finger or aboout social construction or fucked up family dynamics or capitalism or the oppressive human nature.
it is about my life.
when i say i am queer it's not about trendiness or progressiveness or the right consciousness.
it is still about my life.
when i say queer i mean i don't worry about alienating straight folks and being too confrontational, too aggressive, or too shamless.
when i say queer i mean i don't care if the corporates don't get to sell a piece of our oppression.
when i say queer i mean the gay power movement was co-opted by white middle class assimilationists and it's time for us trans folks and queer folks of color to take back the movement.
when i say queer i mean i want to fight alongside other oppressed folks
not because we are all the same but because we have the rights
to live as different as we fucking wish.
when i say queer i need to say it repetitively because our youth are homeless or home beaten up or dissecting themselves with razor blade.
when i say queer i need to say it repetitively because we are divided by borders, by prisons, by hospitals, by marriage.
when i say queer i need to say it repetitively because our trans brothers and sisters are still getting murdered in the street.
when i say queer i need to say it repetitively so it sounds as heavy and urgent as it is.

when i say queer i need to say it loudly and unapologetically
because it is agony.
it is silence.
it is grief.
it is desire.
it is passion.
it is love.

資本生活中的矛盾是被經常過度簡略的挑戰。

2010-04-02T15:44:00.000-07:00

我坐在roy street上的咖啡廳看著這莫名其妙的雨－－極快速地、四十五度傾斜、綿密的雨，而感到疲憊不堪。我目前的生活充滿著我應付不來的矛盾：和學校工友組織的勞工運動，革命者訓練，並一邊兼差幫一間支持戰爭的保守日裔美國人組織做數據管理的工作，你會非常驚訝他們可以籌到多少亞裔美國人的捐款！一週的下午全被會議的時間佔滿，即使搬來和L一起住，我們頂多只能在睡前一個小時好好說話，然後就是睡眠時間和在這資本主義社會下另一天的開始。媽媽的政治家學生的朋友在曼哈頓中央公園旁有一棟兩億的公寓，只是空著來招待朋友；而台北的房價炒到一坪八十五萬－－這樣的房子到底有誰可以買得起？！我身邊圍繞著比例相對高的勞工運動者，但一離開這個圈子，大多數的人還是迫不及待想要成為中產階級，考醫學院、唸MBA、上大型企業公司、競選民主黨的新星有色人種政治家、花六十萬去歐洲旅行。這對將要上博士班的我代表的是什麼呢？即是我拿的是比低收入戶還低的獎學金。也許學習去拿些生活中存在的這些矛盾是目前生存的必須。我只是想要有更多的時間建築我的感情和社群，並且更多在短期計畫之外的自由思考空間。我在清掃房子時發現去年買的鴻鴻的詩集《土製炸彈》，一直沒有時間好好讀，現在才發現原來這是一本不僅是反戰，並且是反帝國主義和反猶太復國主義的驚人詩集。我想這些看似過度簡單或草率的知識一直是存在我們的周圍，但有時候它的傳導力量和解析都比什麼薩伊德的東方主義還來得有力量多了。也是這些露骨或溫柔的文字一直督促著我學習的動力。我的焦慮總是在閱讀文學或者胡亂寫些日記後減輕許多。即使這雨還是他媽的奇怪地傾斜下著。

My post on Gathering Forces on transliberation.

2010-03-29T11:57:00.000-07:00

Sylvia Rivera, transliberation, and class struggle

Street Trans Action Revolutionaries (STAR) was founded as a caucus within Gay Liberation Front (GLF) in 1971 to put forth trans demands in the gay liberation movement. The co-founder of STAR, Sylvia Rivera, was a Puerto Rican trans woman who led the Stonewall Riots in New York City in 1969 along with other trans of color. Yet gradually, the gay liberation movement was co-opted by white middle-class folks who are gender-conforming and became conservative. Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), a New York based gay rights group was founded by ex-members of GLF who did not appreciate its radicalism and wanted to form a single-issued organization that only focused on reformist gay rights. GAA’s conservatism and transphobia showed when they dropped the trans demands while advocating citywide anti-discrimination rights in the 70s. They saw actions put on by STAR and Sylvia Rivera as too “dangerous,” “crazy,” and “extreme.”

Trans folks were not only attacked by mainstream gay rights groups but also in their own neighborhoods. In the West Village, a gentrified gay neighborhood, trans sex workers, who were mostly homeless and of color, were kicked out of the streets by white gay homeowners because they were “low-class, vulgar transvestites” not the usual entertaining drag queens. A real-estate-driven Quality of Life campaign led by the city continually pushed for the closure of clubs where trans folks hung out. Fighting for trans rights is thus a class issue. Rivera, who was homeless herself, saw the link and pushed STAR to organize a community space for homeless trans folks as well as fight for labor justice. They found a building for street gay kids, fed them and clothed them, while the government was cutting the healthcare, taking away food stamps, and putting more people with AIDS, youth, and women on the street. In Leslie Feinberg Interviews Sylvia Rivera, Rivera reiterates the importance of not only doing community work but also fighting against the government and the ruling class. STAR joined the mass demonstration with the Young Lords, a revolutionary Puerto Rican youth group, against police repression in 1970. STAR also built alliances with the Housing Works Transgender Working Group and the New York Direct Action Nextwork Labor Group to form picket lines at a club where a trans dancer was dismissed from work. Fighting for trans rights is a class issue–to resist the rich property owners who push trans folks out of their neighborhoods, to confront the managers that try to fire trans workers, and to fight back against the state that cuts back healthcare...

(read more on questions and comments)

breaking rules to survive

2010-03-26T10:23:00.000-07:00

I enjoy very much using a white girl's bus pass found in the street to commute to campus and pretend that i'm still one of the college kids every morning. There's something that feels really great when you break the order of the universe, even just something trivial like pretending to be a blond college student. I'm reading my future PhD advisor's (no i really wasn't stalking her) interview with a feminist group--it really blows me away. Ever since i knew i got into the program i had some sort of intellectual crisis with this discipline i'm going into. Oh psychology. My training at UW focused so heavily on the classics, strict experimental methods, and decontexcualizing reality to find the precise variable that would get your statistically significant data. I had to stop and ask myself if i really wanted to be a scientist who objectively stays behind the scene and believes that i could understand human mind and human behavior this way? FUCK NO. She says in the interview and i agree with her, that it's important to ask where the knowledge lies and WHO HAS IT. Almost always when knowledge lies on the bottom of social hierarchy is neglected by intellectuals. Such as a custodian knows how to work under the repressive management and redistribute her shift with her coworkers. Or like a lesbian plumber knows how to navigate in a male-dominant workplace but still remain her queer working-class cool. And this kind of knowledge is not articulated enough, not in grad school.

There is something really problematic with the way psychology categories its subjects. If we wanna study race, we go find 100 African American samples and sometimes Latino. If we wanna study women, we recruit 200 college-educated white women and give them Starbucks gift cards after the interviews, and we would be glad if we had 5 lesbians or 20 women of color and maybe 3 immigrant women to make the sample somehow representative. If we wanna study class, we go to the low-income communities, and we find all sorts of folks--blacks, immigrants, queers, youth--so are we studying class or race or sexuality or immigration or what? Most of us get panic. This kind of categorical understanding of social identity is very limited. We simply can't understand class if we just go out to survey poor people, she says.

The hardest part is that in this discipline, researchers who use the classical methods (often white men with good intention studying "minorities") are the gatekeepers and they are the standers of who psychologists are--which means who gets the funding, who gets to publish, and who gets the job. The way to understand social injustice can't be monopolized by a singular method--and this would probably be one of the biggest challenges for me at least in the next 5 years. How can i navigate the classical but also the critical method? How can i estabalish myself as a psychologist thinker but also a serious organizer and revolutinary? At least it seems like my future advisor can very much be some sort of an anti-zionist socialist femnist--that would certainly make my grad school life a lot easier.

(psychology's feminist oral history project)

anxious spring

2010-03-19T09:46:00.000-07:00

The weather is so nice out lately like spring is coming but i can't help but feel anxious over nothing. When i didn't have a job i felt anxious about it. Now i got a job i'm already stressed over it. I worry about school next year--how am i gonna prevent myself from becoming another academic bullshit. I worry about small things--address change, heater, email exchange, blogpost, this vanilla cereal yogurt that just tastes too sweet. During yoga i was tensing my shoulders while doing the warrior pose. When i get anxious i just feel mentally and physically stuck. Eager to look for solutions but not recognizing that this is nothing important in the big picture. I start believing that there's some genetic disposition that just makes me feel anxious while there's no acute stress. Speaking of biology and childhood--when i was a kid i bled my nose every time when i thought i was gonna be late for class. I asked L what to do and she, the referral expert, of course suggested me therapy. I said, maybe i have Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Just look at the symptoms:

Difficulty concentrating
Difficulty controlling worry
Excess anxiety and worry that is out of proportion to the situation most of the time
Excessive sweating, palpitations, shortness of breath, and stomach/intestinal symptoms
Fatigue
Irritability
Muscle tension -- shakiness, headaches
Restlessness or feeling keyed up or "on the edge"
Sleep disturbance (difficulty falling or staying asleep; or restless, unsatisfying sleep)

(google health)

See--i definitely have 5 out of 9! Anyways, there's probably no hope for curing unless i develop some sort of long term strategy to deal with those times i feel like i just get stuck with anxiety. Maybe this vanilla cereal fiber power yogurt is a good start for lifestyle changing. I believe there's definitely something about hiding my life from my family over the past 10 years that has made this anxiety become an essential part of my cognition. Now i've resolved some major conflicts with my mom i just need to eradicate the old anxious cells in my body. I think spring is a good time for that.

我和比我想像中還多的雜物生活了好久。

2010-03-08T17:21:00.000-08:00

趁著好天氣要搬離住了快三年的公寓－－清理著在美國七八年來的生活用品後才發現原來有這麼多的東西是不那麼必要的。這些意識外存在的物品究竟是以怎麼樣形式被留下來的呢？關於要搬去紐約這件事似乎怎麼樣的準備都是不夠的。一箱衣物、一箱書、一箱電器產品。我真希望所有的物品都能夠像是電子檔案般的存在隨身記憶碟中。清理物品是件意外解放的事情。一袋一袋的大學筆記仍進回收箱裡。再見統計！再見認知心理！再見社會人格心理期刊論文！再見了跨性研究和我永遠都看不懂的judith butler！即使博士班的生活大概只會讓人得花更多的力氣去抵抗深陷於這類不必要深奧的理論之中。秋季開學之前我決定要非常樸、實、並、逐、字、地、生活。像是小學的夏令營，在公園做團康活動。任由一些奇異的事發生，比如說東海大學社會學教授趙彥寧的電子郵件，關於她來華大的台灣酷兒女性演講以及順道碰面這件事，大概隱喻著我未來至少五年將要非常非常酷兒的研究生活。

MARCH 4TH HELLA STRIKE!!!

2010-03-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

Nearly 1000 students and workers came out to form picket lines with us. Lots of women and people of color leadership--that's what's up! We took over the Ave and had speak out in the busiest intersection on 45th. We got away with hella shit while the cops are around. The movement has just started and i can't wait for the day when we take over 1-5!

Some students were dissing my "Queer Struggle is Class Struggle" sign. But brothers this is the worst timing for you to hate on queers because WE ARE FIGHTING FOR THE SAME THING. Get used to it, don't fuck with us!

Video News on Kiro

What our comrades in California and NYC did:

STUDENT STRIKE ON MARCH 4TH! 1PM ON QUAD!

2010-03-01T10:43:00.000-08:00

Post-racial soceity? That is white liberals' myth

2010-03-01T09:21:00.001-08:00

A climate of campus racism
UCSD & UCLA sit in/occupation
Open Letter to White Student Movement

It turns out that the white supremacists hang out in UC San Diego. Maybe it's because I have been in Seattle for too long, this passive-aggressive city where racism is more subtle, it's hard for me to imagine some people can do such outrageously racist acts near a university campus. But this incident also shows how oppressed people united quickly to respond to the violence. The Black Students Union occupied an administrative building soon after the incident and put out demands for racial justice on campus. Anti-budget cuts activists from UCLA, UC Irvine, and UC Berkeley soon responded by organizing solidarity actions on their campus. March 4th the National Day of Action to Defend Education is coming up. It seems like the movement has a potential to move away from the white liberal occupationist/dance party tendency to a mass movement for racial, gender, and economic justice. As people of color involving in the work that has been dominated by showy white men, we need to keep our demands and presence front and center. The struggle cannot be a mass movement if we don't engage or outreach to women, people of color, queer folks, and folks with disabilities. History has erased us thousands of times and we cannot tolerate to let it happen again.

moving from the caffeinated city to the city that never sleeps

2010-02-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

It's great to feel like after so many rejections and self-deprecating that some people approve your work and can't wait to learn more about what you can bring to the table. Especially in academia, when so much is about your background, big names you worked with, and big terms such as hegemonic heterosexual discourse that you can pretend to use CASUALLY over coffee, it's good to know that i can belong in some degrees but also different enough to feel secure about how i want to position myself in the world.

The social psychology program at CUNY trains its students to be familiar with the classic psychological theories but also the critical. They are pretty innovative about their research methods and encourage students to take initiatives in a variety of projects across disciplines, instead of just cloning your advisor's work for five years and become paper publishing machines. It's good to know that many students remain engaged in the community work instead of entirely detached from it and just crunching numbers throughout the academic life. I think that compared to other social psych programs, CUNY can help me think of research in a different way, to use its resources as my own advantages to access the communities i wanna work with.

Besides the whole school business, i'm just excited to be living in NYC for the next five years of my life. I feel like it's a good time to push myself out of the comfort zone and experience something different. I'm excited to be around the queers and immigrants in the city, and not driving for once. I think new york is such a big place with hundreds of different neighborhoods, it really depends on what you wanna make of it. I'm ready for wherever it's taking me.

你為何不乾脆做我的女朋友呢，台灣？

2010-02-18T17:47:00.000-08:00

我們有這麼多的共通點，但是又不一樣地足夠
留有一些情趣。我們說同樣的語言
卻有不同地域性的腔調
我也遇見過和你相似的女孩，在北美
但是她們都令人失望地中產階級
喝星巴克拿鐵、去時尚沙發酒吧
大概還有Club Monaco的貴賓卡
星期天晚上韓式美容Spa

沒有人理解
我為什麼不能忘卻你，台灣
分開已經這麼多年
你的影像已漸漸變得模糊
但是你的味道，那濕熱，和
那微妙的酸，我無法忘懷
我想要像國中生般牽著你的手
在夜市裡散步
不計較卡路里地吃甜點
我想要和你到屋頂上
看月亮形狀的變化並且談
二二八，那場向國民黨專政
的反殖民暴動。都還不到一個世紀
大多數的人卻已經忘記白色恐怖
像那只是一部紅極一時的好萊屋
恐怖電影

你曾經跟我說過你的前任，那些
多毛的歐洲渾蛋，對待你
像是他們貴族航海旅遊的臨時賓館
還有那個父權的日本鬼子
完全的控制癖，試圖抹除你的身分認同
並且恐嚇殺死你，若是你出軌
你發誓你再也不要和那些外國人交往了
畢竟被物化和被剝削並不是一件好玩的事
你只想要認識一個家教良好的華人男孩
但你從來沒有想到，當民國三十八年
國民黨進入你的生命，你的惡夢才正開始
他比之前的日本人還糟
即使他不斷宣稱你們留著
相同的血液。他殺了你的阿公阿罵
辦了幾場腐敗的選舉還說
這對你是好的。噢台灣，
這是一件經典的家暴案例
而當你向外界求救，那些西方的涉入者
只對你的錢和你的身體有興趣
你開始覺得他們就像你的前任
那些多毛的白人資本主義混蛋

噢台灣，你為什麼不乾脆做我的女朋友
你比自己想像中還來得酷兒太多了。你是如此
充滿生命。我想要打破你歷史創傷
建築的那些牆。
我想要和你一起去伴侶
心理治療。想要帶你去女同志酒吧
喝廉價啤酒
嗑瓜子，談馬克思主義
和那些被銷毀的激進歷史
我想要帶你去所有的派對
向我的朋友炫耀你
我想要和你一起回家。
重建。追憶。和革命。

why don't you be my girlfriend, taiwan?

2010-02-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

we have so much in common, but different enough
to be erotic. we speak the same language with distinctly
geographical accents.
i've met girls that remind me of you, here
in North America, but they are so disappointedly
bourgeois. drinking Starbucks,
frequenting fancy bars,
have membership at Club
Monaco, Sunday evening
Korean spa.

no one understands
why i can't get over you, taiwan.
after all these years being apart
your image has become a bit fuzzy
but your smell, the heat, and the subtle
sourness, i can't forget.
i wanna hold your hands like middle schoolers
take a walk in the night market
eat sweets without calculating
calories. i wanna get on the rooftop
watch the moon change its shape and talk about
228. the anti-colonial uprising
against the KMT. it hasn't even been a century
but people already forgot about the White Terror
like it was just another Blockbuster horror movie

you used to tell me about your exes, those
hairy European assholes, treated you like a motel
of their royal voyage. and the patriarchal Japanese,
the control freak, who tried to erase your identity
and threatened to kill you if you cheat.
you swore you were done with the foreigners then
it's not fun to be objectified and exploited, after all,
you just wanted to date a good Chinese boy
but you never expected that when the KMT
arrived in your life, your worst nightmare began
he was eviler than the Japanese
even though he claimed to have the same blood
as you do. he killed your grandpa grandma
held a few corrupted elections and told you
how it was supposed to be good for you.
oh taiwan, it's a classic domestic violence case
but when you ask for help, the Western interventionists
were only interested in your money and your body
you start to think that they are just like your exes
those hairy white capitalist assholes
they are all the same

oh taiwan, why don't you be my girlfriend
you are so much queerer than you think you are
so full of life. i wanna break those walls
you built around yourself from past traumas
i wanna go to couple's therapy with you
take you to a lesbian bar, drink cheap beers
nibble on watermelon seeds
talk about Marxism, and all the radical history
that has been erased. i wanna take you out to every party
and show you off to all my friends
i wanna go home with you.
rebuild. recollect. and revolt.

Where was/is the Taiwanese Left?

2010-02-16T12:43:00.000-08:00

我最近在讀兩本書，Tony Cliff的《Lenin》和陳芳明的《殖民地台灣：左翼政治運動史論》革命性地改變我對左翼運動的看法。在充滿著反共意識的台灣長大，我對於台灣的左翼沒有一點概念。究竟是台灣的左翼不存在，還是這些歷史都被扭曲殲滅了呢？陳芳明的這本書回答了我一部分的疑問。一九二八年台灣共產黨，在第三國際的指導下成立。初期的主要領導，謝雪紅和林木順等人，都曾去莫斯科留學，修習馬克思列寧主義的革命理念和方法，並在台共的黨綱中強調，在日本殖民之下，反帝國台灣民族獨立運動對於全球階級革命的重要性。他們認為，若是殖民地能夠發動獨立革命運動，就能夠有效推翻帝國主義的基礎並動搖殖民母國的經濟體制。這種殖民地革命具有民族革命以及階級革命雙重效力的想法根源，即是列寧的主張。雖然台共才生存了短短三年，在中共的干涉，和新美帝國主義的破壞下瓦解，台共留下許多今日的左翼行動主義者可以學習的策略，比如聯合陣線、刊物發行、反殖民及民族運動在階級運動中不可妥協的必要性。在西雅圖做巴勒斯坦反殖民和勞工運動後，讀起這些厚重的歷史我漸漸有了較深的理解。台灣的左翼運動在日本殖民者、中共官方、和國民黨的邊緣化之下，被歷史描寫地微不足道。而現今的政府仍以經濟為藉口，向中共靠攏，中國意識和台灣意識混亂不清。就如陳芳明所說的，這些都代表著台灣尚未進入後殖民的社會，能夠去釐清殖民者錯誤歷史解釋。而現今的左翼人士該學習的，就是那些被抹去的運動歷史，並隨時保持著批判的和不斷改進的精神，反抗統治者的專權以及民族和階級的壓迫。

bottom up mind shift

2010-02-10T10:27:00.000-08:00

Since 2010, there are a few significant changes in my life:

1. My relationship with my family, especially my mom, has drastically changed. I still can't comprehend what CONCRETELY that looks like. But i already feel the warmth and openness from both her and myself. I feel like I am finally not running away from them anymore.

2. I believe that revolution is necessary in order to change the lives of the oppressed. What I mean by revolution is a class struggle from below. Yes, social service is important, but it cannot change the structural violence that causes many of us to end up there for support in the first place. Yes, workshops are good. But you can only raise awareness and educate people to a certain extent. Folks don't learn through being what to do or what not to do by others. Folks learn through fighting for our own living.

3. I have an awesome partner who supports all of these things I believe in not only emotionally but physically. This has freed me from the myth that i need to have a middle class lifestyle in order to live happily in my life. I cannot verbalize what a radical change it really is in my mind. But it really is. Love after all is really almost spiritual in a way. It's not about what kind of house we will be living in or what kind party we will throw. I feel secure, content, and excited about what we have and what's gonna come in the near future.

the dark age of trip-pop

2010-02-09T12:46:00.000-08:00

Last year Portishead's album "Third" was as dark as i could comprehend. Massive Attack's new album which is coming out TODAY(!!!) is similarly dark, cold, metallic, futuristic, and full of destructive power.

FUCK I AM TOTALLY OUT TO MY FAMILY

2010-02-02T17:53:00.000-08:00

And I'm still alive. My mom is still alive. No one killed anyone. It went fine.

10 years of fear and agony are suddenly resolved in a 10 minute conversation. I think we were all dying to talk about this. The hardest part was to overcome my own guilt and defensiveness. I meant to communicate with them but I was just too afraid. Too afraid that I have built up my defense walls for so long that they could not open me up anymore. But I decided that it was the time for me to change my relationship with my mom. I know if I didn't do it then I probably would not do it for another 10 years. She said, you are an adult now, and whatever you choose to do, it's your own responsibility. That's exactly what I wanted to hear from her.

One more layer of homophobia is torn apart, in my personal life at least. Just wait to see how much energy I have now to fight against the rest.

is it guilt or is it really homophobia?

2010-02-01T09:17:00.000-08:00

I feel the urge to write because I'm gonna lose it if I don't.

Sometimes I really feel like I have nothing to say to my family. Because everything I say would just be attacked, rejected, or I would reveal too much about myself. And the thought of it is really, really frightening. "What have I done wrong? I never beat you or punish you," my mom says, "you never wanted to tell us about it since you were 13." I didn't say anything back. I don't know why I have always scared of my parents. They are always so serious. I don't remember ever having fun with them. The society's homophobia, of course, also made me feel like I'd be the worst daughter if I told them I was gay, especially when I was that young. "You never gave us chance. We always found out when bad things happened," she says. It is true. They have known about it for a long time. But there was no acceptance. There were doubts, verbal attacks, and financial control. But I don't want to talk to my mom about this again. It's simply too fucking hurtful. I can't believe that she doesn't remember it anymore, her and dad, asking me to choose whether if I want to be their daughter and be supported throughout college or I keep being homosexual and be disowned. Maybe I never forgive them about what they said then. Maybe they wouldn't even acknowledge that they threatened me that way, or they forced me to break up with my girlfriend, one after another.

And now, she's pushing me to open up again. But I feel so uncertain if I should tell her anything anymore. Maybe she's trying to save our relationship because she knows that I can and will be very, very far away. When I look at her serious face, I only have an unquantifiable amount of fear, and guilt.

媽媽打電話來擔心我加入恐佈組織。

2010-01-25T09:12:00.000-08:00

「聖誕節炸機的那個人就是去了倫敦後被影響然後變成恐怖份子的。」我一再強調，現在做的勞工運動，是跟學校結合並且多半是由學生以及和大學雇用的工人組成的獨立組織。我並不是被任何黨派吸收，也對黨派政治沒有一點興趣。「蔡英文當時也不知道自己會成為民進黨主席。」她說。沒錯，我們是在挑戰學校行政。沒錯，我們在做以行動為主的街頭運動。但是我們訴求以非暴力的群體運動來達到訴求，並沒有任何不可告人的秘密會議計畫或者炸彈埋伏。我了解去年做巴勒斯坦及中東團結運動的時候，很容易被恐怖主義聯想在一起。但那正是我們要擊破的激進的有色人種行動主義者都是不理智恐怖份子的種族歧視謊言。若是訴求合理開放的教育或者安全的工作環境，都被視為異想天開的後青少年反叛或者恐怖主義，那我想我們乾脆圍起i-5高速公路在上頭跳集體大腿舞罷了。為什麼想要有任何社會改變的想法會被當作那麼不理智的人生選擇呢？反陳雲林的抗爭遊行，我爸好歹也去了。他們出生於戒嚴的時代，比我這一九八七年出生的人還經歷過更多波的民主運動。他們醫師教授教授同軰的小孩，現在也一個個學成歸國，準備考後醫系或者進大公司當經理。也許對於他們而言，那才是所謂的理想人生。擁有一個移民的女同志行動主義者，不想當醫師也不想當律師，懶得討好領導階層的人，更不用說會去做競選立法委員這種違背良心的事的女兒，也許真是個心理的負擔吧。

WE TOOK OVER THE STREET!

2010-01-22T09:06:00.000-08:00

We pulled off three rallies on the same day over only one week. Around 80 students and workers came out to protest against the budget cuts. The cops were quieter and maybe too embarrassed to interfere our action so much this time. It's great to see that the workers' demands are front and centered with other students' demands. The next goal is to reach out to more people on campus and stress the urgency of fighting against the privatization of UW.

My arm is hella sore from holding the bullhorn and i totally lost my voice. But it was worth it.

See the Daily's article on the protest.

Watch the action led by International Workers and Students for Justice against abusive manager.

DEMOCRATIZE UW: Fight the Budget Cuts! from Wen on Vimeo.

my Chinese, superstitious, Buddhist, or the psychologically repressed hesitation of joy.

2010-01-18T12:30:00.000-08:00

So last weekend there was finally one good news in terms of the tedious graduate school application process. But the Chinese or superstitious part of me is afraid to share this good news with too many people so that I would not jinx it. I always have this strong need to keep the balance of the good and the bad to feel that I'm living in a realistic life. Maybe that's very Buddhist of me, or it could just be pure anxiety. Now I'm writing on this blog which technically people all over the world can read but still not saying what IT really is. You can probably tell how repressed I am about expressing happiness.

I got this amulet thing specifically for school when I was in the Old Streets in Tainan last month. An old man who smelled like temple incense handmade it which made it seem very legitimate. I don't even understand the difference between all those tiny stones in the bag. But somehow having them in my bag makes me feel safe and protected. If it's the Higher Power's will to make me be as queer as I can even in academia for at least the next 5 years of my life, then I guess I should not resist.

Just let me go to NYC already, please!

Protest abuse against UW custodians!

2010-01-14T09:21:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, January 13th, 30-40 students and workers came out to support custodians facing abuse by management and the cops! Protests targeted the abuse of Andre Vasuqez. Basically, he is a racist jerk manager who collaborates with cops to screw over the immigrant custodians. He is WANTED by the UW community for the unjust abuse!

Check out the VIDEO of action here put on by Democracy Insurgent.

a potential ally sister, maybe that's the point of the dream.

2010-01-12T12:39:00.001-08:00

I have a dream last night that my sister has two lesbian friends who are a couple. The cute kind. 17 years old. They both look kind of androgynous, like they are neither boys nor girls. Just two lesbians who hang out on the roof top and smoke cigarettes and probably will never grow older, or taller. I am not actively involved in the dream except that my sister delivers the new Japanese Men's Non-No to me at night. I don't know what the point of the dream is until my dad comes into my room one night, throwing out all my Japanese Men's Non-Nos and giving me this dirty look like he knows what I really am, or that my sister's friendship with these two cute lesbians are is my fault.

In the morning while I turned on the radio and made tea, I realized how much guilt and anxiety I still have about my queerness when I think of my family. I'm glad that on top of all the stresses of being a teenage girl my sister understands and accepts me. I really don't know where I was going about writing down this dream. But it seems to sum up my unanalyzable feelings so far.

unemployed and gay

2010-01-08T16:44:00.000-08:00

Looking for a job has been a stressful process. I feel like I'm stuck in a weird time, waiting to hear back from school and to move, but somehow it's still important to get a decent job so I can be treated like a normal adult. Six applications this week. More waiting. I don't know if it's because I have this so-called cultural issue of not knowing how to sell myself or the economy is just that bad. I almost felt okay last weekend, thinking that I should use this time to read, write, organize, volunteer, and maybe finally learn to cook. One phone call from my mom where she said, "if you are not doing anything in America, you should pack your bag and come back to Taiwan," totally destroyed my inner peaceful state with my unemployment.

This is it. Under the Capitalist structure it is hard to feel like a decent human being without a job. The funny thing is, no one around me who has a job loves working anyway. We are all just trying to get by, probably with some hope of upward mobility.

But fuck I can't just go back and live in my parents' guest room now pretend that the world is still a cute and fuzzy place with lots of good street foods. They almost make it sound so easy for me and I hate the misguided feeling of comfort. I hate this nasty rain in Seattle but it always reminds me that life is a struggle. There are things needed to be fought for. I feel calmer living with this state of mind than pretending that the world is made for us. And that there will always be warm meals on the table at 6:30pm when you go home.

But hey can you just freaking call me back, H&M??!! I would even try Banana Republic but i might just be too Asian or too queer for them.

Jane mee's awesome article on queer liberation and class struggle:

Queer Liberation is Class Struggle

2010, etc.

2010-01-02T14:21:00.000-08:00

回到西雅圖晚上的第一件事是和女朋友去吃越南河粉。than vi的大哥記得，還說，真開心見到妳們！城市很凍但是沒有想像中的不堪。一直都還下著綿綿的雨。我問L，真的會有人想來西雅圖觀光嗎？downtown溼答答的剩下幾棟大型百貨公司仍亮著光。元旦前夕的R place可是熱鬧的不得了。我為了配合L兩吋高的靴子也穿了靴子。whiskey ginger, 7&7, vodka soda...很快就醉了。舞池裡紅紅紫紫的光。april在倒數前趕來，拉著我們轉圈。電視牆壞掉了所以我們跟著DJ一起大喊，54321...！2010。世界還是一模一樣地運轉著。只差一年中只有這秒鐘會有鈔票從氣球裡面掉下來。睡面時間因為時差依舊混亂著，這三天來我已經吃了五顆以上的肌肉鬆弛劑，還是夢到關於學校和搬家的事無法繼續入眠。因為找不到好的工作仍是做著免費的研究勞工。這是新的一年，該有新的樂觀能量？L這個整潔狂正在幫我重新組織我的廚房用具，前任留下的香料和千層麵，和我數不清種類的藥丸。我喝著有機椰子水補充著電解質，準備迎接任何可能。我只是開心我仍是擁有書寫的欲望。

[day 20]旅程的最後等待。

2009-12-30T04:21:00.000-08:00

太早到機場了。因為聖誕節當天的奈及利亞裔飛機炸彈客的事件，所有飛美的班機加強防安措施。其實也沒有多嚴重，我連鞋子也沒有脫的就走過檢查門。以前因為遠距的關係總是對於機場這樣的情節特別地多愁善感。但是這是第一次，在長榮休息室中，望著一排的公用電話，卻沒有任何在離開前需要用著所剩無幾的電話卡告別的人。右側坐著一個染著橘褐色頭髮有著良好閱讀姿勢的女生，仔仔細細地用好聽的日文跟電話中的人交代事情。講英文的小毛頭在地毯上奔跑。看起來很nerdy的亞洲男生牽著一個長相普通白人女生的手。而後頭坐著一對看著報紙的中年移民台灣夫妻，大概在聊他們已經不會講中文的小孩的事情。我想要吃第二個芋泥小包，和更多的米粉。不曉得為什麼在高鐵上一直想著黃小偵和張懸的事情--如果真有這回事。想要打電話給女朋友，但現在是西雅圖的凌晨吧。我還有兩個半小時得要自己慢慢消耗。我帶著我的肌肉鬆弛劑，和反法西斯主義的死去瑞典作家的懸疑小說。每個大人都問我會不會孤單。其實進進出出了七年多我是真的習慣了這樣的飛行，以及活在兩個並存的世界。明天，我的十二月三十號將要再重複一次。

[day 19]離去前短暫的慾望氾濫。

2009-12-29T08:09:00.000-08:00

聖誕節那晚和maggie兩個人去看了畫面聳動劇情內容非常平凡的偵探院線片，因為小時候對於這部小說有的特別鄉愁吧。前一晚在鼎王才被沒有預警地出櫃。不過一切似乎都很自然，我盡量不去想她和我存在著某種算是職業上的關係。其實我一身就是女同志樣子也沒有太多什麼好藏的。在台灣聖誕節一直都是太過於屬於情人的時刻，我也不經意地對於這晚所做的事感到敏感起來。晚上十一點，從中港路和她騎車回到東海時，風好大，隔著安全帽和這樣的時速聊著關於勞工的話題。這個情節讓我想到太多關於國中時期的戀愛。我曾經抱緊過的那些人。都到哪裡去了呢。和女朋友分開快二十天，我快要忘記被擁抱的感覺。終於明天我就要走。我迫不及待能和我被氣壓和座椅壓扁的頭髮和衣物在機場跟她擁抱。這次回台灣其實非常地開心，除了一些因為忙碌而約不到碰面的朋友。我還真不確定什麼時候會再回來。也許明年春天？我會一直記得這個冬天我們分享的精神能量和食量。

[day 13]實驗觀光客場景。

2009-12-21T07:44:00.000-08:00

午夜被學姊tiff的車載走一路超車地飆到了桃園機場（其實也沒什麼好趕的只是在這樣微弱的危險中似乎比較浪漫），接到在印尼泰國結束短程旅遊的april。在台灣見到西雅圖的朋友，時空嚴重錯置。帶著april、mego和新朋友鴨鴨在寒流來襲的台北街頭拿著五袋小吃竄走，總是要冒著被當成外國人或討人厭的ABC的風險，用英文翻譯著一切。關於台北，沒有太多的事情可以再讓我留下什麼深刻的印象，甚至也沒有什麼煙癮。除了在val的劇場表演之後，一整屋子密集著精心打扮過的年輕人，讓我莫名地焦慮起來。很開心遇見了讀過我書的朋友雯琪，在夾雜在檳榔攤中的表演場聊天。感覺世界真小。關於創作美好的事情還是在於建立一個也許物理空間無法成型的社群。而關於創作者的腦內運作，《上層腦內被潑了那傢伙的東西！》也許是想要表現一種沒有特定邏輯的詭異創作過程。用藝術來表達藝術的製造本身是一個相當後現代的嘗試－－也許若換我要來用書寫表達我的書寫過程可能會變為沒完沒了的小學生復仇日記。在taboo，都沒有人跳舞所以喝醉。十一點後完全是抱著一種在變了型的女同志異性戀酒吧中反正也沒有人認識我的態度在DJ前搖起來。要解釋和april的關係或者她的國籍總是很難一句話就完成的答案，所幸省略著保持神秘吧！宿醉早晨的便利商店早點非常美味。那一晚我們在台中的春水堂因為喝了過多的鐵觀音奶茶而咖啡因過量失眠，剛好趕上中港路上對陳雲林的示威遊行。我給april在統聯巴士中襯著台灣國旗照了張相，我覺得自己真像是個盡職的觀光客！因為過量茶葉又再次失眠的夜晚，我們和成都、香港、雅加達的朋友同時gchat尋找各地的素肉、熱水壺、愛情的道德觀、以及藝術靈感。

[day 8]速食的享受以及緩慢的和平。

2009-12-16T02:51:00.000-08:00

昨晚被逢甲的人潮混亂完全地給淹沒了。街道中充斥著不同層次的粗糙複製感。象徵巴勒斯坦團結的keffiyeh像豹紋圍巾一般被拍賣成一條五十塊的冬日保暖物。我在夾雜在吃鹽酥雞的大學生、大陸觀光客、和表情僵硬的老外的小巷之中，懷疑起自己的存在。見到connie和mego才放鬆起來。有女朋友有有女朋友的困擾，沒有伴也有沒有伴的困擾。這個年代即使有美國學歷也是無法找到決定性的良好工作。而為什麼這麼多T都上電視拍沙龍照了，我們還要為無害的感情以及家庭的包袱感到無助呢。我想著我對家的距離感和這種無解恐同的必要關係。我也想要牽妳的手在雜亂的小巷中喝珍珠綠茶或者吃耶誕情人大餐。回家時身體疲憊不堪，但是我的身體仍是不放棄地想念她。慾望臃腫，我在僵硬的床墊上無法入睡。我想念我們在西雅圖時那樣的簡單，在咖啡廳讀一個早上的書。下著雨也無所謂，我們在深木的小公寓中和窗邊的盆栽一塊平地生活。在床上臉頰碰臉頰。妳的鼻息是我夢境的節奏。

[day 1] 34 minutes before arriving in taiwan.

2009-12-10T23:46:00.000-08:00

I stare at this little monitor in front of me showing the location of the plane above the dark blue dark green symbols of the earth- i can't wait to touch the ground and find the fastest way to reach your voice. My excitement of coming home this time hasn't increased through the length of the flight. 12 hours passed. The reality of being away from you has entirely overwhelmed me more than anything. I know I've done this before, so many times already. But I don't know why it's so hard this time. I miss your sleepy face. It's hard to say overly romantic things to you- maybe it's because our relationship is so simple and genuine that it's raw. We don't need anything overly dramatic to sustain us. I just want you to always hold my hand, like how you do when you drive, solid. And I'll know that you're taking us to the right place. I never have to doubt. Without you I am easily lost, like now staring at this little LCD screen trying to figure out how far this flight has gone by. I wish you were here to guide it.

i'm a light packer

2009-12-07T12:07:00.000-08:00

1. passports, of course.
2. iTouch and gameboy for the flight
3. books:
anarchism theory and practice
foxfire
different daughters
lying on the couch
the other side of paradise
korean workers
4. melatonin, advil, muscle relaxers
5. cameras, films, camcorder
6. laptop to stay connected with rest of the world
7. tampons
8. fiber pills
9. and this:

i will miss you so much.

Birth of a new movement!

2009-12-03T10:38:00.000-08:00

existence.

2009-11-30T13:23:00.000-08:00

My body must have freaked out by the sunshine and warmth in long beach, california- 80 degrees winter. And all the turkey on Thanksgiving and the never ending leftovers. I love leftovers. I think microwaves are perhaps the greatest invention of the 20th century. I felt grateful to be invited to spend this holiday with Lindsay's family- a close 2nd and 3rd Chinese American family that eats 油飯 (Lao Mai Fun, how they say it in Cantonese) on the most generic American holiday. My mom called me twice to tell me about the current economic crisis in Dubai. That's the way we communicate and care for each other, whether like it or not. This holiday reminds me too much about being an immigrant. I remember gathering at Alex's house having the Taiwanese orphan dinner around this time of the year. No matter how much we try to overlook the power of biological roots and cultural family trees, building a community with friends who share no bloodlines, they are still powerful enough to make you feel vulnerable and doubt your own existence on this very time of the year. I cried while talking with L even if i wasn't necessarily sad. I don't like to feel overpowered by own identities that I seem to be so comfortable with and have intellectualized over and over again for the past 4 years.

I slept better even though I wasn't in my bed. 10 hours every night on L's childhood bed. I wonder if it was because of being in an unfamiliar town, cellphone off. Quiet and absolute darkness. It felt like an escape before I realized we were coming back to Seattle soon. I had several dreams about my insecurities over this relationship even though I feel so strong about us. I think it's something about going back to Taiwan that made me anxious.

I didn't want L to leave for work at all this morning. Maybe it's because of my sickness that's making me feel more vulnerable and want to be taken care of. I'm trying to imagine a world with absolutely no time limit. What kind of people would we be? I took out pho to eat at home even though it was so environmentally incorrect. My alone time has extended 10 time this winter compared to fall. Perhaps it's contributing my decreased threshold level of interacting with people. Some people think I'm reserved and cold. Some think I'm timid, or angry. I think they are all not incorrect. I'm just too aware of other people's existence. If we were living in a world with no time limit, maybe you would get to know me better. But for now, I'm heading home and turning on the music so i can feel calm again.

stuck in an undefined space

2009-11-16T16:24:00.000-08:00

在西雅圖都待了七年了，溼答答的冬天還是讓我感覺憂鬱。Alex從蒙古email給我第二個刺青的草稿--大概佔據四分之三背部的空間，我準備好了嗎？關於移民和家，作為一個移民者代表著永遠地想家，那為什麼我媽打來的電話總是讓我那麼焦慮？即使我們只不過是在談著天氣或果汁機。我不想變得無法快樂起來。聽著Mogwai的舊唱片，外面溼的一大糊塗。我感覺自己總是卡在一種尚未完成的空間裡：未完成的青春期、未完成的國際身分、語言、未完成的感情、未完成的研究、尚未抵達的學術目標。在這麼多未完成的空間之中，我的真實身分又是什麼呢？An unfinished adult, unfinished scholar, unfinished activist, unfinished lover, and nationally and semantically confused, all the time. 我渴望一份確切的旅程表，告訴我，在多少小時多少年，我可以結束這段亂流般的飛行，擁有一個可以被認清的身分，毫無猶豫地降落於地。

書寫者的空間。

2009-11-14T07:59:00.000-08:00

禮拜六早上七點自然醒來，禮拜一到五工作的女朋友還賴在床上。天很快就亮了。關於研究所申請的事情總結束了最痛苦的一部份，剩下的都是些瑣事了。攤開一年前開始的一篇長篇小說，猶豫著是不是要繼續寫下去。腦子裡已經是很難再無限浪漫起來的人，每天想著的都是勞工、研究所、投履歷表，中文用字也越來越不準確，我想要完成這篇具有強大野心的長篇會是個馬拉松般的挑戰。我和書寫的關係越來越遠離，而這個事實讓我覺得焦慮。我需要一個假期，一個安靜的空間，一百個只喝著咖啡不說話的早晨。我相信書寫是一種勞動而不是單純地情緒發洩。十二月快來了，我的短期假期快來。昨晚April免費混進KTV跟我道別，她明天的班機去印尼，然後泰國，然後台灣。我說，我們台灣見！

Workers and Students Unite!

2009-11-14T07:42:00.000-08:00

Out largest rally last summer against custodial swingshift cuts from the management. Tons and tons of workers came out. We broke into the UW administration's 26 floor tower. We witnessed the fear in their eyes and it was fucking awesome.

No Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics on Native Land

2009-11-11T14:18:00.000-08:00

An Indigenous anti-Olympics organization came down to Seattle for a panel about their anti-colonial and anti-Capitalist struggles around this coming Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada. Olympics are not more about multi-billion industry building and waste productions than about sports. It brings along severe problems including homelessness, ecological destruction, huge public debt, sexual tourism on women of color. An Indigenous movement has risen to challenge the colonialist and Capitalist nature of Olympics as well as the Canadian state.

Resist 2010: Eight Reasons to Oppose the 2010 Winter Olympics. (LOW RES) from BurningFist Media on Vimeo.

No Olympics on Stolen Native Land

10 Reasons to Resist 2010

1. Colonialism & Fascism
The modern Olympics have a long history of racism, from its early founding members (i.e., Pierre de Coubertin, a French Baron who advocated sports as a means of strengthening colonialism) to recent IOC presidents. The 1936 Berlin Olympics empowered Hitler’s Nazi regime. Both the 1988 Seoul and 2008 Beijing Summer Games helped legitimize authoritarian regimes in Asia. The 1968 Mexico City Olympics (where over 300 student protesters were massacred by soldiers, days before the Olympics began) also helped legitimize state terror. IOC President Avery Brundage, an infamous US racist and Nazi sympathizer, didn’t even acknowledge the massacre. But when two Black US athletes raised their fists in a Black power salute on the medal podium, he had them immediately stripped of their medals and ejected from the Games! Another well-known fascist IOC president was Juan Antonio Samaranch (IOC president from 1980-2001), a former government official in Franco’s fascist regime in Spain.

2. No Olympics on Stolen Land
BC remains largely unceded and non-surrendered Indigenous territories. According to Canadian law, BC has neither the legal nor moral right to exist, let alone claim land and govern over Native peoples. Despite this, and a fraudulent treaty process now underway, the government continues to sell, lease and ‘develop’ Native land for the benefit of corporations, including mining, logging, oil & gas, and ski resorts. Meanwhile, Indigenous peoples suffer the highest rates of poverty, unemployment, imprisonment, police violence, disease, suicides, etc.

3. Ecological Destruction
Despite claims to be the “greenest Olympics” ever, and PR statements about ‘sustainability’, the 2010 Olympics will be among the most environmentally destructive in history, with tens of thousands of trees cut down & mountainsides blasted for Olympic venues in the Callaghan Valley (near Whistler) & the Sea-to-Sky Highway expansion. In the summer of 2007, a record number of black bears were hit on the Sea-to-Sky Highway, with at least 11 dying (attributed to loss of habitat). Massive amounts of concrete used in construction have also caused millions of Salmon to die in the Fraser River, where tons of gravel are being mined to make concrete.

4. Homelessness
Since winning the 2010 Winter Games in 2003, Vancouver has lost over 850 units of low-income housing; during the same period, homelessness has increased from 1,000 to over 2,500. It is estimated by 2010, the number of homeless may be as high as 6,000. Since the 1980s, Olympic Games have caused the displacement of over 2 million people (Fair Play for Housing Rights report, 2007). In Seoul 1988, some 750,000 poor were displaced, in Atlanta 1996, over 30,000, and for Beijing in 2008, an estimated 1.5 million have been displaced. Yet still today Olympic officials talk about ‘sustainability’ and ‘Olympic legacies’!

5. Criminalization of the Poor
To ‘clean out’ the poor and undesirables, Olympic host cities routinely begin a campaign to criminalize the poor. In Vancouver, the city has launched Project Civil City and new by-laws to criminalize begging for money, sleeping outdoors, etc. It has also included hundreds of thousands of dollars for increased private security (i.e., the Downtown Ambassadors). New garbage canisters on streets make it more difficult for the poor to gather recyclables, and new benches make it impossible to lay down. These measures fit with government plans to remove poor downtown residents to mental institutions, “detox centers” on former military bases, and the ‘fly-back’ scheme by police to return persons wanted on warrants in other provinces. This is nothing less than a process of social cleansing!

6. Impact on Women
Events such as the Olympics draw hundreds of thousands of spectators and cause large increases in prostitution and trafficking of women. In Vancouver, over 68 women are missing and/or murdered. Many were Native, and many were reportedly involved in the sex trade. In 2007, the trial of William Pickton occurred for six of these murders, and he is to be tried for an additional 20 more. In northern BC, over 30 young women, mostly Native, are missing and/or murdered along Highway 16. The 2010 Olympics and its invasion of tourists and corporations will only increase this violence against women.

7. 2010 Police State
Some 12,500 police, military and security personnel are to be deployed for 2010, including Emergency Response Teams, riot cops, helicopters, armoured vehicles, etc. The RCMP plan on erecting 40 km of crowd-control fencing along with CCTV video surveillance cameras. Special security zones will be established to control entry near Olympic venues. For 3 weeks, Vancouver will be an occupied Police State! And once the Olympics are over, there is no guarantee many of these security measures will not remain (i.e., CCTV).
Repression also involves attacks on anti-Olympic groups & individuals, including arrests of protesters, raids of offices, surveillance, media smear campaigns, cuts to funding programs, etc., all in an effort to undermine anti-2010 resistance. This repression has already been used against anti-poverty & housing groups, environmentalists and Natives, in Vancouver.

8. Public Debt
VANOC and government officials claim the 2010 Games will cost some $2 billion. However, this amount doesn’t include the Sea-to-Sky Highway expansion, the Canada Line Skytrain to the airport, the Vancouver Convention Center, or the lower mainland Gateway Project. Including these costs, since they were necessary to win the bid and had to be completed by 2010, makes the true cost of the Games some $6 billion, which must be paid for through public debt, money that could’ve been spent on social services, housing, drug treatment, healthcare, etc.

9. Olympic Corruption
The modern Olympics are well known for their corruption, including both top IOC officials involved in bribery scandals (i.e. Salt Lake City 2002) or athletes found to be using performance-enhancing drugs (such as steroids). Yet the IOC still claims the youth need an inspiration and a “model” of good sportsmanship! Despite published reports of bribery scandals involving IOC members and host cities (i.e., The New Lords of the Rings, by Andrew Jennings), the Olympics continue to be seen as an honorable & noble enterprise, thanks to the corporate media.

10. Corporate Invasion
Government’s and business use the Olympics as a means to attract corporate investment. In BC, the Liberal government has ‘streamlined’ application processes, cut taxes, and offered other incentives to increase certain industries such as mining, oil & gas drilling, and ski resorts. This includes large increases in transport systems, including new ports, bridges, expanded highways & rail-lines. This is all part of their Investment to 2010 Strategy. The results have been dramatic, record-breaking increases in these industries, resulting in greater environmental destruction and more corporate power & influence over our daily lives.

Many of the main corporate sponsors of the Olympics are themselves responsible for massive ecological destruction and human rights violations, including McDonalds, Coca-Cola, Petro-Canada, TransCanada, Dow, Teck Cominco, etc., while others are major arms manufacturers (General Electric & General Motors).

Tear down the wall!

2009-11-09T09:49:00.000-08:00

Palestinians mark 20 years since Fall of Berlin Wall by tearing down part of Israeli apartheid wall!

The workplace is crazy, not the workers: In Soo Chun's suicide and memorial

2009-11-02T16:48:00.000-08:00

A former Korean custodian, In Soo Chun, self-immolated on Red Square at UW on October 30 last year.

I was only several feet away inside a building while him pouring gasoline all over himself and lit himself alive. My co-worker walked into the office and was completely in shock. He said to me, "there was a man on fire outside." I could not believe it. We walked out and saw helicopters and firetrucks and knew it was probably true. I learned about his story a year after from his coworkers. They said In Soo Chun was a hard-working man but was facing arbitrary transfers from the manager and was eventually terminated by the custodian services two months prior to his death.

There was no explanation from the UW administration or the media except that he was perhaps a "troubled man." His death left a ton of questions for people who witnessed the traumatic event, for his coworkers, for this public institution. The workers and us planned this memorial for him--not only to remember him but also to seek answer to the questions he left for us. Right now, workers on campus are still facing the same workplace harassment and unjust labor practices he faced. We were all wondering, who is gonna be the next among us to go crazy?

Some people walked by and said we were not being respectful for politicizing his death. While i understand that processing death and trauma can be a very private matter, I also believe that it's the individualization of the process that aggravate the degrees of grief and trauma. I've experienced the pain of suicide from someone I was very intimate with. And I wish there were someone to explain to me why people would decide to take their own lives away all of a sudden. I wrapped myself in a limbo and nothing had really resolved during those years. The individual process of grieving almost pushed me to the edge of killing myself, might as well. If I didn't devote my energy into writing, into studying psychology, understanding mental illness, I would not be able to recover from that trauma then.

That's why I think, it was important for us to gather the community, together seek answers for In Soo Chun's death. We would probably never be able to find them, because suicide is such a psychologically complex behavior by its own. But the meaning of this incident for us is concrete. The community that this event brought together was concrete. Even though I did not have chance to get to know this man, I would like to honor him with the actions against injustice on this campus where he chose to die.

In Soo Chun Memorial Video

On Seattle Times

【樹正腥妖】

2009-10-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

produced and directed by my video-maker friend, val, who is completely obsessed with the color green.

in defense of gay marriage

2009-10-25T23:50:00.000-07:00

Lindsay called me after her family wedding in San Fransisco. It's always at times like this, when we are apart from each other, we realize how different our relationship is compared to others, the heteronormativity of this planet. People always say, "it's okay, you can still have a commitment ceremony and dress pretty," or "why don't you go to Canada?" Yes, we understand that we can't get married here, if we even wanted to at the first place. But what they don't understand is that marriage is not just a simple ceremony. It's so deeply rooted in the state, the culture, our legal and gender identity, our concept of romance and commitment. I used to be very anti-marriage, seeing it as a reactionary and assimilationist move for queer liberation. However, now I just feel like why the fuck we can't have the same rights that straight folks have? There is something really disruptive about how some radical queer activists protest against the rights we should not be doubted to own. In reality, many queer folks can afford to hate on marriage because they already have enough material resources to live a comfortable middle-class life with people they love.

Of course there is a lot of messed up things about marriage--religion, the question about monogamy, patriarchy, state control and Capitalism. The biggest mess in the queer movement now is precisely seeing gay marriage as a revolutionary demand or queer utopia. It's just like saying that granting every immigrant a green card and a job could smash U.S. imperialism and White supremacy. Gay marriage is a reform just like how interracial marriage was a reform in the 60s. It apparently didn't end all racism but it resolved some urgent issues that people of color faced. At the rally for Referendum 71 in Seattle this month, people were pumped up about how domestic partnership and marriage were like Black folks' struggles against slavery, KKK, or segregation. I found it extremely disappointing because how could we talk about gay marriage as a revolutionary demand if we didn't even start talking about racism, elitism, transphobia, and the upper-middle class White ass snobbery in the queer community? Of course we immigrant, working-class, people of color queers would not be so happy if gay marriage was only about showing off some rich White gay men's engagement rings or adopted Chinese babies.

I believe that gay marriage can be fought for in a package including other demands such as immigration, health care, and workplace reforms. It also has to be fought with a long term vision that every one's material benefits should not be tied with relationship status--whether you are straight, gay, poly, or choose not to fuck. Only when we all start seeing that queer liberation is not just about arguing whether missionary position or fisting is more progressive, and bridging our struggles and demands with the working-class, POC, trans folks, and immigrants, and push our demands through collective direct action (i'm not talking about orgy here, you queers) instead of the annually legislation bullshit, I would say that we have a movement going. And by then, I could truly care less about marriage. I might still want our 3/4 Chinese baby, though.

軟耳朵，硬骨頭。

2009-10-24T17:41:00.000-07:00

我最近感覺非常脆弱。一些無關要緊的話或者意見都可以把我拆成碎片。總是在這樣的時刻我發覺我還有大半的自我是建立在別人的肯定上。要怎麼樣才能超越這樣的思想狀態呢？

十點上床，七點醒來。十點在solstice。每天，盯著十吋的電影不斷修改三種版本的研究所申請文章。把自己的身分扒開再裝飾。誰在乎妳是什麼移民酷兒有色人種呢？這幾年的困境可以用兩頁的word document說清楚嗎。我們每天面對的自我懷疑，即使只是幾分鐘的不悅，在這種沒有多少人性的篩選過程一一曝光乾淨。沉著。沉著。每次快要焦慮爆發的時候就開始寫中文字。為什麼我這麼害怕犯錯？誰又是我想像中的審判員？

Lindsay在舊金山參加一場家庭婚禮。我不習慣沒有她在身邊。尤其當我覺得焦慮的時候，總是希望她可以用她治療師的語調告訴我，I know you can get through this。

關於博士班以外的人生選項：

１留在西雅圖工作並和女朋友搬進一間單人套房。
２搬去舊金山寫女同志小說。
３心理治療師培訓。
４回台灣做心理研究助理或自殺防治熱線。
５唆使JM和我搬去中國搞社會運動。

我想我會沒事的！即使目前所有的替代選項都在加速我會變成硬核革命份子的傾向，也算是好的一面。

季節病。

2009-10-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

冬天總是帶出我最黑暗的一部份。這些下不完的雨，讓人想起想離開西雅圖的種種理由。即使我們的靴子我們的皮膚我們的不帶雨傘，都已經那麼習慣這樣的潮濕。早上七點和女朋友醒來，套上衣服，走到樓下買一杯咖啡。開車回家短短七分鐘的路上聽著音樂，和所有上班的人車往返方向前進，常常都想沿著開速高路一直開下去。

申請研究所博士班大概是我經歷過最非人性化的程序。所有的統計數字都告訴你成功的機率小於2%，而你卻得在每一個欄位，每一篇文章中表現超乎百分之兩百的自信。這個學校要social justice，那個學校要diversity，我想他們還不如給我做個腦部斷層或基因檢驗，或者乾脆把我的胸口壓在影印機上列印一張我的熱情吧。UC Santa Cruz幾個禮拜前才被幾百個對於州政府學術預算裁減憤怒的學生和無政府主義給佔領，完全就是我們組織運動的目標之一，這樣的學校若還不收我我也沒有辦法！

在美國也待六七年了，若是萬一發生什麼要搬回台灣，比要留在美國二三十年的想法還讓我緊張。若是學校的事情一切順利，畢業後和女朋友搬到台灣，養一個會說中文的混血小孩兒其實聽起來也不錯。昨晚吃飯時問女朋友，若是妳不做社工或心理治療的工作，妳會想做什麼呢？二手衣服買賣？畫畫教室？也許明年我們真的搬去紐約，住在一間衣櫥大小的房間，天天往外跑，很多半熟的面孔而沒幾個真正的朋友，而不由得想念起西雅圖的雨季、我們的亞洲酷兒圈、數不完的咖啡店、和稍為人性化的居住空間。

the last session-heading back to a sort of pan-eastern philosophy

2009-09-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

That morning i went to see my therapist and felt ready to end the whole thing, not because all issues have been resolved but because i felt i could start handling these conflicts in a less self-destructive way.

I spent a great weekend, could not have been better, with lindsay and her family at long beach. Her mom reminded me so much of my mom, the seriousness thus was translated into a kind of warmth. I was so happy to feel accepted by a family, especially her family. There was a kind of bitter sweet sadness coming out when i was there, because i wish i was closer to my family like lindsay to hers. I wish they could take me and the people i care as the people they care. Maybe love means to hold all the conflicts together while still seeing the sign of the subtle tenderness and desire to be close. I wish they could understand it.

I am still anxious and afraid of losing, losing people, losing confidence, losing hope, losing the sense of purpose and the place i stand in this fucking bizarre world. My therapist said things always go wrong when we fall into the binary trap, seeing there's either success or failure. What i need to work on is to find a solid, center place in myself that can hold these conflicts together and know that i do not have to choose to be either way; to love my family or to be queer, to get into school or become or a complete failure; to be burnt out from organizing or become a hypocrite; to be have a flawless relationship or die alone; to be caught in the past or neglect what happened and move on with a lie.

Maybe things will be okay. Truth is, no one has left me yet. I always need to come back here and do a reality check knowing that most of my stress comes from these anxious anticipations of some sort of unrepairable destruction. When things are going so well there must be something bad thats gonna happen soon--growing up as a chinese kid we learned how to be modest about life, taking as little space as possible. Now i'm learning to be bold but also be ready for any consequences possible and knowing that whatever happens i will not fall. Or that maybe it's okay to fall a couple times. I wanna experience what it feels like to be on the ground and appreciate the taste of soil and sand in my scratched palms.

I feel strong, vulnerable, yet hopeful about whats coming next.

Therapy, first day.

2009-09-02T09:38:00.001-07:00

I was sitting in the waiting room completely fascinated by the noise machine and the warm deadliness in the whole floor. It was 10am and there was only one white girl sitting next to me, browsing the New Yorker like she didn't care. I didn't even see what she looked like, only the paleness and frailness. And i was anxious. Anxious about what i should say and what i should not. But my therapist was this tall warm woman, came up to me asking if i was wen (the entire time i was thinking if i was her first Asian client). She asked me if i wanted some hot tea and automatically liked her just that much more.

The office was awesome. Bright and green and warm and the window covered the entire wall. No tribal decorations or pictures of starving black kids. I was relieved.

She said you must be anxious because i'm a complete stranger to you now. I felt all prepared by some HBO therapy tv show and 4 year of college psychology course and a psychologist mom and a social worker girlfriend! In this way it's actually good that she is a complete stranger. I felt really scattered about my personal history and sometimes i couldn't remember or articulate what happened especially during my high school time in seattle. I remember it was probably the most depressed period of my life so everything seemed so stale and static. Part of me really resisted revisiting it. I thought i had already done all the healing and analyzing and introspecting and so sealed it in a box and buried it under my bed. My memory of 17 was a blank and lots of dates and calorie counts. She asked me how long has it been since Anne was gone i didn't have that number in my mind only 2004. I said August 2004.

I think whats good about therapy is that you could hand something you've been occupied with temporarily to the therapist so you don't obsess it over the day and night, knowing that someone will go through the trauma or stress or obstacle with you. Even though after all the shit is still mine and i am the one who has to take all the consequences, it's good feeling that someone is bridging the gaps from irrational destructive thoughts to the possibility of healing.