Helene Kwong: Renaissance Woman

(Video featured above is of a TV anchor’s response to cyber bullies regarding her weight)

Yes, I was bullied as a child and still on occasion am bullied as an adult.

Growing up in Radford, Virginia, a small town in the southwest part of the state by the Blue Ridge Mountains, I was surrounded by mainly caucasians and African-Americans. To be outside of that binary, well, was to be bullied. It didn’t help that I was also a chubby kid, so other kids made fun of me for being both Chinese AND fat.

There was a bully who kept picking on me from about fourth grade to eighth grade: he and his friends would laugh at me, call me names, and make jokes like “Hey, hey…he wants to go out with you!”

One time, while doing homework at the public library, I caught him staring over my shoulder. When I looked up, he said to me, “What the hell are you looking at?” At that moment, I realized that all the years of his bullying me was more of a front to hide that he admired and respected me. There I was, being a diligent student and doing my homework; perhaps he knew that I had a future of leaving our hometown, while he didn’t feel like he had much of a future.

Even though I have endured bullying and have been angry over these injustices, I can also see how these experiences made me stronger: I didn’t let them take me down in their cruel words. I went on and did my own thing and made sure I was taking care of myself and keeping myself strong.

And like my post on forgiveness pointed out, I have moved on from these experiences and taken what I’ve learned from them going forward.

Throughout my life, I have always stood by the saying, “Treat others the way you want to be treated.” When I was a kid, I knew I was different from others (being Chinese after all), so I sought to be as kind as possible towards my classmates, hoping they would also return the favor.

That mission went a bit overboard at times, as I began to bring huge bags of candy to school to share with my classmates. During one school year, I even went out and bought a lot of gifts for my friends and classmates, hoping that the gesture would inspire them to also bring me gifts as well.

But I was wrong: throughout my school years, I became known as the “candy girl” and people began to take advantage of my kindness. I noticed I was also bitter about nobody ever showing me the same kindness I showed them, at least with the gifts and all.

Granted, once I got into college, I didn’t do the whole candy bit anymore, but I showed my kindness in other ways, like giving friends rides, paying for meals, etc. Essentially, throughout my life I have always bent over backwards for others.

I don’t know when I learned my lesson, but it was within the past couple years of my life, though. That bitter feeling I once felt as an adolescence has dissipated though, as I have come to realize that to be giving and kind to others, I needed to let go of that feeling that others “owed” me something in return. Sure, it was a nice feeling to have someone return a kind gesture to me, but I no longer needed that validation to feel that I had done the right thing.

I have also learned to set boundaries on my level of kindness, knowing that I didn’t always need to bend over backwards for others. I shouldn’t feel obligated to do more than I need to do, especially if it makes me feel uncomfortable.

Being kind and selfless really does mean giving and doing for others with no need for anything in return after all.

I find it appropriate to write about this life lesson on the 39th anniversary of my father arriving in the U.S., which changed our family’s destiny from living a peasant life in China to living the American dream. My father’s story will always inspire me to be a better person (more on this in another post, perhaps).

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Growing up, I always knew family was most important in my life, but living a typical adolescence, I also strayed from spending time with my family during my teenage years. Ah, those growing pains of not wanting to be close with family anymore at that point; my friends knew me better than my family did! Or so I thought.

As I matured and watched supposedly close friends drift in and out of my life, I see that the constant in my life has been my family: whenever I go home to Radford, it’s always to see my parents and rarely anyone else. Granted, I’ve only really been home over Christmas during most of my 20s post-college, but still: the only reason to be back in Radford is for my parents and my siblings, who fly in from all over the country to spend Christmas altogether.

When that freak accident occurred in 2010, I was already with family: two of my female cousins and my younger brother, Adam. However, I had blacked out before impact and was unconscious until the early morning of my 25th birthday. The first person I saw after I finally came back to consciousness? My brother, Adam. He had stayed by my side the whole night, unsure of whether I was alive or dead.

During my intermittent periods of being conscious/unconscious, I remember seeing many people visit me in the ICU: my co-workers, my friends, my cousins, and then, last but not least, my parents and my sister, Lisa. They immediately booked tickets to San Francisco and arrived at the ICU on February 1st. When I saw them, I remember waving at them in my stupor and then blacking out again. Later, my sister Lisa told me how, when they all first saw me in that hospital bed, she and our mother started crying and our dad was furious, wanting to find the man who hit me and give him a piece of his mind.

My parents stayed with me that whole month of February, not even questioning what to do about our family restaurant back in Radford. They stayed with me to make sure I would heal well; to take care of me and Adam during the tough time post-accident. My oldest sister also visited during that month; my older brother helped Adam and me out with expenses so we wouldn’t have to worry about things while I was incapacitated.

Five years later, I still think of that accident as a prime example of my family coming together and reminding me that family is most important. There are many other examples I could write about, but that one rings the truest in my memory.

Another item I wanted to cross off my 30 Things To Do Before 30 List: attend a one-day meditation retreat. During 2012-2013, I was very interested in meditation, thanks to my friends at Mayu Sanctuary. I dropped by the sanctuary several times a week to partake in drop-in meditation and a few of the classes offered there. One thing I hadn’t committed to though was a one-day meditation retreat, so when I saw on the Mayu calendar that they were going to have a retreat at the end of that month, I registered.

The retreat was on a Sunday at Mayu Sanctuary. I arrived early with my meditation cushion, my lunch and snack for the day, and some water. The room was already buzzing with other participants. I found a spot off to the side at the end of one of the back rows and got myself settled in.

Our retreat was going to be facilitated by Ajahn Thanasanti Bhikkhuni (or simply, Amma), a Buddhist nun from Colorado Springs. She helped us get settled in and led us through a few guided meditations. Even though I had practiced some meditation before, I couldn’t help but become restless during each session. Amma’s voice was very soothing though, and we got through the guided meditations all right. Before lunch, we had also spent some time doing walking meditation, which I hadn’t tried before.

At lunchtime, we ate our foods quietly and also brought offerings to give to Amma (I forget the reason why, unfortunately). The afternoon session was shorter, but still an insightful experience: we did some chanting, where Amma chanted a few lines and we repeated back to her the same line. We also discussed “qi/chi” and experienced some of it through a small exercise.

By the end of the day, I thought I was going to feel rejuvenated and wiser. However, because it was the first time for me to sit still so long in meditation, I was quite restless at the end of the day and couldn’t wait to get out of the retreat.

Don’t get me wrong: it was a wonderful experience. I learned more about Buddhist meditation and felt honored to have had Amma as our facilitator for the day.

If I were to try a one-day meditation retreat again, though, I’d make sure to prepare myself a lot better so I won’t feel so restless at the end of the day again!

I received an email the other day that made me think out loud, “You know, I think God is telling me I need to forgive this person.” I didn’t even have to think about it; I knew to take the situation as an invitation to open communication again and forgive the person for the past.

I held grudges in my past: there were some friendships that fizzled away over things that seemed so important at the moment but nowadays, I can’t even recall what had happened to make us angry at one another. I lost friendships over petty things in middle school, high school, college, and even post-college.

The first time one of these former friends came forth to me to apologize and express forgiveness towards me, we were seniors in high school. This friend had moved away and had messaged me on AIM to let me know that she no longer had hard feelings towards me. It all seemed incredulous: at that point, of course, whatever we had fought about was still fresh in my mind (despite the fight happening probably during freshman year); although I replied and said I also forgave her, I didn’t believe my own words. We were amicable with one another for a little bit after that, and then we drifted apart again as we both went off to college and she got married.

Only after the hurt subsided from that friendship (and, well, I forgot about what we had fought about), did I finally decide to forgive her. But by that time, it didn’t matter anymore because we weren’t talking anymore. The moment was gone.

Another instance of forgiveness occurred around four years ago: a good friend of mine had asked if I wanted to see a particular mutual friend of ours while I was visiting Virginia. When he had asked me this question, my mind flashed back to all the pain the three of us had gone through in college, when the falling out had occurred. I then smiled and said to him, “Of course we can all hang out together; what’s the problem? I’ve moved past that stuff from college.” And I really had; I didn’t have hard feelings towards her anymore, and I didn’t really get to express my forgiveness towards her until that trip. The three of us met up and I could just sense the feeling of relief wash over all of us, especially my two friends.

Life’s too short to hold onto past hurts, especially when I can’t quite remember anymore what had made me so upset in the first place. I have learned over time that really, to forgive someone is to move on with life and let go of the past.