second week home: "情绪价值" pt.1
i'm alone with minimal peace
I have a cold again😇
Dad brought home some medicine at lightning speed—which is why I told pretty much everyone else before I told him. It’s a painkiller of some sort, a quick search online warned me that this should not be taken alongside Ibuprofen. Some people said it’s better than Ibuprofen, but it does come with a mild side effect of insomnia—huh?
Oh it has caffeine in it.
WHY?
I laid there awake at 2am last night. Texted Zac because today was one of those days where he actually responds. Scrolled on a Chinese social media app that I should probably spend less time on. Bit the bullet and bought myself a memory foam pillow from Ikea—this couldn’t wait till the morning, my upper back has been going through hell for two weeks now. Texted my best friend to complain about not being able to fall asleep, he’d respond in the morning.
I’ve been actively trying to not be glued to my phone since coming back. It’s been a futile attempt.
Every day I feed this dumb fuck chicken. That’s a bit harsh. She’s kinda like my digipet. This app is what I use to pay for lunch, pay for the metro, pay for my coffee outings, pay for my absolutely necessary online purchases, pay for rental bikes, pay for rental portable chargers... The more ways I spend the more ways there are to feed this chicken, and every day there seems to be plenty of ways of spending because her food bag has been full for two weeks now.
Before I came on Substack to write this entry, I’ve just spent ￥1000. It sounds like a lot, and felt like a lot, but really it’s about $150. 11/11 and 12/12 are the Chinese equivalence of Black Friday in America, but it feels a lot more intense than American consumerism. 1000 Chinese dollar feels like 1000 dollar, not 150, if that makes any sense. I did get myself some gadgets to play with, but for the most part it’s just things I need for my upcoming travels.
I stared at my shopping carts containing 10 items, trying to find one thing that would bring me immediate joy, or maybe one thing that can be considered as a pointless purchase. Couldn’t find it. Started thinking then why the fuck did I just spend ￥1000?
I built this shopping cart over the course of a week. Then spent about a whole hour dedicated on final touches before finally scoring the maximum discount I could get—it was entirely too much math for someone with a cold, just like how I always use too many dashes in my writing.
Within that hour I responded to my best friend, my other best friend’s girlfriend, my dad, Dakota, contemplated over should I respond to any of the iMessages left untouched, picked up my mom’s call because I suspected that she would just keep calling. Before that hour my dad showed up for the second time today to “check and see if I’ve been eating” (dad, I’m sick. I want to be left alone and I feel nothing and I’m 25), ignored a call from my mom, checked emails for the second time in a week.
This whole time I was sitting on the same couch. This whole time I could only move from my iPad to my laptop to my phone. I couldn’t even pick up a book, should probably write in my diary, couldn’t really decide on a variety show and I needed to show Dakota this random hotpot video from Xiaohongshu (the Chinese social media I mentioned above).
My ADHD brain was not meant for this much immediate communication and this much easy access to media—let alone one that is closely knitted to consumerism.
When my cold was not as severe just yet and I was CRANKED on a pourover with an empty stomach at 2pm yesterday, I walked out to the streets of this renovated historic district and just felt dazed. Actually I felt drunk. My body has been repelling almost all substances this year, so sometimes one (banging good) coffee and a good conversation with the barista in my native language is enough.
Once again my appreciation for my home washes over me. How absolutely gorgeous it is. How sunlight looks different in every city. How history feels way less haunting but dignified. It’s almost enough to make me miss Los Angeles less. There’s a whole life waiting for me to be back. A life that is not transient. A life that is not I’m unwillingly alone at a foreign place on a Wednesday afternoon, but everyone can reach me, everyone is entitled to a piece of me—I don’t mean this in a cynical way, it just somehow feels like that.
Top of this week I had my first catchup call with Rio in 4 years. She put it together neatly: it comes down to value differences. Neither me or her can see ourselves living in our home countries long term, despite an inherent connection to our cultures. There are fundamentals that I cannot live with, like how multiple times people told me “we’re just working for a job, it’s so great that you’re still living for a dream,” like how people never greet people serving them or the delivery guy, like how my kindergarten best friend said “we don’t have to talk about it, it’s your 家事 (familial affairs), that’s not something to be talked about anyway” and I felt hurt, like how my dad says he prefers some talentless assholes over people who are genuinely talented in entertainment today, because the talentless assholes are able to be popular, but most talented people are 另类 (othered).
These are small things in China, things that aren’t batting an eye to—that makes me sad on a daily, not too dissimilar from Nashville.
I have yet to explain the word in the title but I think I’ll leave that for next week. It’s connected, kinda.
