Therapy

by Lo-Ching Chow

As many of you probably already know, moving to a new place presents numerous challenges and opportunities. Initially, as my study abroad advisor in college liked to emphasize, there will be a honeymoon stage in which everything about the new place seems fresh and exciting. It is only after this stage of ignorant bliss that one is blindsided by the onset of disillusionment — the realisation that all’s not well in one’s new (temporary) abode.

Shanghai, perhaps more than any of the other cities I’ve lived in during my post-collegiate years, reinforces this model of an individual’s experience living abroad. Upon my arrival in the “Pearl of the Orient,” I was struck by the city’s modernity and energy. The streets bustled with energy as pedestrians and motorists hurried from one place to another, all under the auspices of massive buildings and bridges. And in some ways, the city was an amalgamation of Chinese and foreign traditions — a cursory glance at the culinary offerings available in town would yield one with an embarrassment of riches: from traditional hawker stalls to high-end restaurants, from Sichuanese hotpot to French haute cuisine, the city truly had it all.

However, as I came to better understand Shanghai’s geography and demographics, I also came to realize that all this opulence is, as some Shanghainese old-timers would put it, rather “hollow.” In the government’s haste to modernize the city, it dismantled many old buildings with rich Chinese and European heritage. From the periodic dismantlement of traditional shikumen architecture [an architectural style combining Chinese (notably the courtyard and garden) and European elements (rococo, baroque, and neoclassical motifs)] to pave the way for new commercial complexes to the “renovation” of art-deco landmarks, emphasis is placed on the structure’s newness and ostentation as opposed to its artistry and history. Hence Shanghai’s reputation as a “city without culture”: its attempts to integrate both Chinese and Western influences, while quite successful in the realms of commerce and technology, have been rather unimpressive in the artistic spheres.

This disappointment was exacerbated by the stress of daily life. Shanghai is a fast-paced city, almost cutthroat in its attitude toward visitors who do not embrace the Chinese white-collar modus operandi — “me first, everyone else after.” This attitude manifests itself in all aspects of city life — from getting on and getting off the metro trains to lining up at hospitals and museums — people will take any opportunity to gain a small advantage, be it budging in line or pushing people out of the way to get a seat on the train. And after the umpteenth time of getting pushed back onto the train as one was attempting to alight, it can get rather infuriating, to the point where one would nearly find oneself in a verbal altercation with the impolite offenders.

While I do not pretend to be an expert in the nurture versus nature debate of academia, I am a proponent of the nurture argument when it comes to an individual’s social and personal growth. This belief led me to realize that I was being corroded by the vagaries of Shanghai’s hectic everyday life — buffeted in the tempestuous sea of humanity, in which every droplet of water moves according to its own caprices and desires. And I was experiencing an extreme case of social osmosis — I was starting to become very antagonistic toward these impolite people on the metro, exacerbating one case of impoliteness with another. After one hellish week, I decided that I needed to find a healthy medium to work these frustrations out of my system. And throughout my life, that has been writing poetry. While they are not quality compositions, they do fulfill their primary function — therapy.

Below are two pieces (Untitled 3 and Porcelain Dream) from a series of of poems that I composed over a six-month period in 2015:

Untitled 3

Enshrouded in the habitual fog,

I make for another day in the jungle.

In the wilderness of humanity where

Machinations and prevarications are the norm.

I trudge through the greyish fog

Oh how the fog shrouds all and damns all

Smothers and conceals, blends and chokes.

I honour this daily ceremony, pushing past humanity.

Stationed atop a tower of cold steel

Illuminated by long tables of light

Overlooking the grey world below

And wondering if the sky is really celestial at all.

I leave the grey temple, where I perform my rituals

In worship of cold metals and flimsy paper

Whose divinity is of unnatural derivation,

In whose unimpeachable divinity countless deities have been slain.

I trudge through the greyish fog

Oh how the fog shrouds all and damns all

Concealing the cries and stifling the moans of the terrestrial

Orb, while voices urge us towards the Optimist’s future.

I return to my shelter, of crumbling concrete and rusting steel

Where my mental tendrils reach no further than the Wall

Where the wonders of this dying terrestrial orb

Are barred from this greyish prison of the soul.

Porcelain Dream

Urging boulders up adamant inclines

Riding landslides down precipitous declines

Forward toward the porcelain dream.

Transmuting arbor into false gold

Transforming lakes into blighting bile

Forward toward the porcelain dream.

Building blocks for crumbling megaliths,

Oiling parts for coughing machines.

Forward toward the porcelain dream.

Arbor dreams and crystal lakes,

Cornucopia for all to take,

Lost in the desert sands,

Immortalized in the shattered porcelain.

I know that the pieces are rather depressing, but that is the essence of therapy: to expel one’s negative emotions and thoughts from one’s body and soul; it’s no use punishing oneself over things and events that are out of one’s control.

Find your own sense of agency, and liberate yourself from the shackles around you!

Until next week,

Lo-Ching Chow