E tenebras, lux dormiens

A Preparation for Chinese New Year
And a Remembrance of a Bitter Memory

I and my parents were looking around in Oakland and San Francisco yesterday--to go shopping for the Chinese New Year, which will happen in January 22nd. It's a celebration that will last two weeks. Each day of the fourteen days has a theme, but we don't necessarily follow the Chinese traditions on the holiday very thoroughly. The celebration ultimately culminates in a parade of grandeur on the fifteenth day.

Anyway, when we were in Oakland and my mom was purchasing some Chinese New Year food, I was hit by a bad memory that I hadn't had for a long time. Why it hits me at that moment I don't know.

I'll describe the memory and then, what triggered it:

It was senior year of my high school, and I was sufficiently ebullient at the time because we were going to practice our graduation ceremony. There was going to be a discussion of the graduation. My memory isn't imbued with my details, but I remembered that day for what that evil, malicious thug did to me. I'm not sure if I've already written about this in the blog, but I haven't forgiven him no matter what.

On this particular day, I was assigned the duty of passing out yearbooks for people who have already purchased their own. Performing my usual duty, I enjoyed being the individual I envied, the important distributer. I always enjoyed being the server, I guess, in effect, being needed. So I calmly did my duty to the best extent that I can.

Carlos Montez, the pathetic bully, decided to pull off a simple ploy that humiliated my prized possession, the vigilance that I had of being ever watchful, ever careful with my possessions or that which I was given the duty of supervising.

He came up to the windows, the place where the people normally distributed the yearbooks. And he chose mine as the perfect target. I was alone in this room. All others had gone out of the room for that moment.

As I usually do, I had my yearbook to the side of the windowsill, on a table. I expected him to give me a ticket indicating that he had purchased one. Immediately, he preyed upon the fact that I could not hear and seemingly directed me to seek someone else to talk to him for me. I could barely understand what he said, perhaps an intentional fabrication. He said to leave the yearbook there while directing me to the other direction. I knew not to what he pointed, but I proceeded onward to ask an acquaintance for help.

I heard a bang, out of the corner of my eyes, I believed to my horror what I saw. He ran away, and I could do nothing--my body frozen as it were--to stop him.

I did not cry. It is not in my nature. But I glared with the reddest eyes of the most heartless monster at him, willing whatever God exists to burn him and his soul before he ran away.

Countless times have I dreamt of how I could have reacted, could have prevented him from making way with his worthless possession. I could have jumped out the window and made a dashed at him. I could have caught up with him because he is a fat boy. He is overweight, he is obese. Not obese to the point that he cannot run, but he, like a football quarterback, is slow of movement. I could have, kung-fu style, beat him to bloody confusion, myself as well.

Two main things prevented such an action: I am out of shape and I know nothing of martial arts nor even of ways to bring down a man one and a half times my size.

Other things include the fact that I had no support. There was no one who could have seen me or corroborate my words. Though I have gone to my teacher and to a security guard, nothing was done, unfortunately. What justice is there in a warning? Was it not a Commandment of God that Thou Shalt Not Steal. Although I do not follow Christianity, many religions, and even the insanest (I believe) athiests would agree that thievery must be punished.

I was also fearful, because he likely has a gang of thugs waiting in the wings. Had I chased him, there is a possibility that I would have trapped myself in the roily-toily struggle against the worst-case scenario: getting a wedgie, having my hearing aids taken and thrown away, my glasses as well, my shirts, my pants, my dignity. Although murder would have been unlikely the harsh light of day, and anything involving me getting beaten up would have immediate repercussions, I was in too much of an intellectual calculations to do what must be done. After all, what short-term benefits might be got, would have long term consequences not easily foreseen.

Look at me now. Even though I might arrogantly consider myself the paragon of human reasoning. I am just a pathetic, deaf, Chinese, near-sighted, unfashionable, 19-year-old student at a university for which he has only mild liking who will be 20 in May, ranting about something that has happened more than a year ago, about something people will probably say I should get over and move on from.

I don't know. I suppose I should just leave it alone. But I know for a fact that if I simply leave it alone or avoid dwelling on it, what will happen is that one day, it will come back to haunt me again. My heart is even feeling heavy now. Who knows if that day will be when I am 40 years old, obese, and at that moment, I have a heart attack? So I must struggle with this. Maybe I will see that guy again, and when I do, maybe I will forgive him for what he did at that moment. Maybe I will just wake up and say, I accept that. I cannot forget the pain that he has caused me, because I consider what he did to be a true violation of what I am, of my self-esteem, of my entire being.

It is as if I define my worth by how many things I have not let be stolen. Perhaps this will be my undoing in the long run . . .

A year since then, what have I done? I have not done anything to prevent it from happening again should I be put in the similar situations.

I have not been inspired to learn any form of fightings, such as Judo, Karate, Tae Kwon Do, Kung Fu, etc. I have not trained myself to run for long distance. I have not learned to watch my belongings, and I'm not sure I have learned to make sure that any time a stranger comes up to me to buy something from me, that I am careful not to turn my eyes or my body away from his line of sight, and even then, to keep my body close to what that stranger values, so that if the worst comes to blow, I am ready to strike back. The reason I might not have learned is because I have not done anything like that again. I have not had the responsibility of selling things, as it was my last year of school. And the university has almost no events happening for which I could make myself useful.

If I learned Judo and running long ago, rather than be so entirely focused on learning, watching TV, and not doing anything else of sports, social support, etc., I could have just jumped out the window, run after him, and after catching up, subdue him with several firm and quick moves to bring him to the ground and take the yearbook from him.

I just remembered a scene from a movie, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. There was the girl whose comb was stolen by Lo, the leader of the Dark Cloud gang. And she had the gall to take a horse and proceed to chase after him for as long as possible to get her comb back.

Anyway, I just wasted a post ranting about a past, but I suppose that's the way it should be.