Eating Bitterness
a series of family portraits, revisited and manipulated. a letter of reflection to myself, about us.
a series of family portraits, revisited and manipulated. a letter of reflection to myself, about us.
October 2021
ever since i was a child, i loved sweets. in fact, halloween was my favorite holiday simply because of all
the candies we could devour for the whole week afterwards. my mom always told me to stop eating so
many sweets, and that i would get cavities. i didn’t listen to her, and i did end up getting cavities (5 of
them in fact, throughout my childhood).
i also got sick rather often when i was young. when i did, my mom would mix a medicinal herbal tea, brought back from china, and it was extremely bitter. she said that i just needed to bear the bitterness for a brief moment, and soon the tea would make me feel better.
that was a phrase she would say to me a lot. “在生活中，要吃苦。” directly translated, it means in life, we must eat bitterness.
my feelings towards my identity as a chinese american has especially been amplified in this past year or so, in the wake of the pandemic and the rise in violence against AAPI and asians living in america. in this past year i have felt things on a level that i hadn’t really felt before: anger, fear, sadness, guilt. in particular, those were the emotions i felt towards, and for, my parents.
in this project, i am exploring the immigrant’s virtue of choosing to eat bitterness, of their sacrifice, and the guilt of the immigrant’s child.
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i also got sick rather often when i was young. when i did, my mom would mix a medicinal herbal tea, brought back from china, and it was extremely bitter. she said that i just needed to bear the bitterness for a brief moment, and soon the tea would make me feel better.
that was a phrase she would say to me a lot. “在生活中，要吃苦。” directly translated, it means in life, we must eat bitterness.
my feelings towards my identity as a chinese american has especially been amplified in this past year or so, in the wake of the pandemic and the rise in violence against AAPI and asians living in america. in this past year i have felt things on a level that i hadn’t really felt before: anger, fear, sadness, guilt. in particular, those were the emotions i felt towards, and for, my parents.
in this project, i am exploring the immigrant’s virtue of choosing to eat bitterness, of their sacrifice, and the guilt of the immigrant’s child.
