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Content Warning: Discusses political persecution and resulting intergenerational trauma.
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“Blue hour” series by Shilan Gu, 2025
Conversation of two women with activism experience in the U.S.
Close to midnight, Shanghai, Oct. 2025
I approached Michelle after a documentary screening she hosted about the Zapatistas, a radical movement of local people in Chiapas, Mexico for land autonomy and self-governance against colonial globalization, and similar movements they inspired around the world.
“I’m curious about your experience as a US-based activist. I also did a lot of activism in college in the US,” I began, “but I was so often the only Chinese, or even the only visibly East Asian person in the group, and none of my friends did activism.”
“Oh my god!” Michelle immediately rolled her eyes in understanding, “you are like vocalizing my existential crisis right now. That’s sooo real. I often felt I was just living in between two different realities.”
“Exactly!” I felt instantly relieved, “you know, none of my Chinese friends were involved in activism on campus, and every time somebody else in my activism group mentioned how Chinese students were apolitical, I guess on some level I felt a little ashamed. They see that some of us are not participating in stuff they care about, but they don’t understand why.”
“Yeah, they think we are cowards and sell-outs!” exclaimed Michelle, “but just think about what happened to our parents’ generation and our grandparents’ generation. That trauma is really too recent.”
“Also present.” I added.
Zoom online class - Introduction to Feminist Studies
Midnight, Shanghai, Dec. 2020
Professor: Ok, so, given what is going on now in the country, I thought I would start every class this month with an open discussion for people to talk about whatever’s on their minds about the US presidential election. The floor is open.
People started to talk. I tried to listen.
Someone: ...yeah but I think a lot of good things are happening on the micro level. My city elected [name of person] and she is the first…
A Wechat message popped up on screen. My friend E asked: “你听得懂吗？(Do you understand what’s going on?)” Smiling, I sent her a meme with a puppy shaking its head.
People continued to talk. They seemed to be in some sort of agreement.
Someone: We really need to vote. We need to get people to vote.
We don’t vote our political leaders here in China, or any leader of importance, really. Absent-minded, I flipped through the syllabus and noticed how not one author looked or spoke like me. I read on: “In this course we will discuss the history of the field to our contemporary moment...”
A Weibo news alert popped up on my phone: “Wuhan Lockdown: A Historical Choice and Its Implications...”
Before I knew it, I was scrolling through my front page.
Fuck. I really gotta put my phone on mute.
People of Color
College dorm common room, U.S., Dec. 2022
A group of student activists were having a meeting, discussing organizing protests on campus against institutional racism and neglect of student mental health conditions and well-being in general.
Tired and cold, I simply listened.
“I don’t know if my fellow Asian students will wanna participate, cuz they are really apolitical.”
“I don’t understand. It’s somehow always the East Asian people.”
“It’s really the proximity to whiteness, you know.”
“But they need to realize that our struggles are all connected. We POCs need to be in solidarity.”
Our struggles are all connected. When did I last hear that one? Ah yes, on the steps of the campus center. And in sociology class. And in statistics class. And in political science class. And in the house council meeting. I don’t remember the names or the faces of the people who said it with such passionate conviction. I doubt they remember mine.
Our struggles are all connected. But what exactly do you know about me as a person? What exactly do you know about my struggles, their causes and their manifestations? When was the last time you actually read news about China from a non-western venue? So I wonder if underneath “our struggles are all connected” is really just “I understand my own struggles and you must also share them because why wouldn’t you?”
Our struggles are all... A Wechat message popped up.
I checked. My friend asked me if I was going to the vigil that evening for the Ürümqi fire.
“How do you think they organized it?” I asked.
“I heard it was all over a groupchat in Signal, cuz, you know, the Chinese government can get data from all other SNS apps.” she said.
“And the people who are going to speak at the vigil tonight?”
“They shall have facial protection, you know, masks.”
I tried not to laugh because it would seem rude.
*Note: In November 2022, a fire broke out in a residential high-rise apartment building in a Uyghur-majority neighborhood in Ürümqi, Xinjiang, China. Strict enforcement of the zero-COVID policy prevented residents from leaving the building. This triggered widespread protests across China and among Chinese diaspora communities overseas.
Reflection of the day
Shopping mall, evening, Shanghai, Aug. 2024
Miranda is an anthropologist specializing in intergenerational trauma and emotional experience. We were talking about her fieldwork in China, when she told me something that captures my lived experience all too well.
She said that people whose family has experienced political persecution may be more affected during the pandemic, because they are more sensitive to large-scale changes or developments in the political landscape. In a heightened political moment, their “memory” of past persecution gets awakened. The result can be stress, somatization, episodes of mental illness, or more. Although I was born after the Cultural Revolution was over, the experience of persecution does not just vanish. Instead, it gets passed down in the family in the form of intergenerational trauma.
It’s like I am haunted. But like all hauntings, it’s almost impossible to explain it to the people who are not haunted. An encounter with ghosts is always solitary. When I don’t have the vocabulary (because my education did not include the proper words, or systematically excluded them) to talk about my ghosts, hearing others claim that we are all in solidarity just feels...empty.
hebe
