Me in front of the Living Jade Buddha at the Kim Cang Temple
The title is really self explanatory. If you are indeed a Christian or Buddhist, and the idea of my story may possibly offend you, I’d recommend stopping here. I don’t say this because I don’t want people of particular faiths reading this, but please understand, that we all carry our own spiritual beliefs, and I am in no way saying one way is right or wrong. This is simply my first-hand experience.
Now that’s out of the way, are you ready? First some backstory.
1. I was born in the United States, specifically in Louisana. At the time, when I was growing up, the idea of being Asian and born in the US in the Southeast was strange and unheard of. I have very vivid memories of people’s look of surprise when I [still] tell them that I was born here. To clarify, my parents were refugees escaped from the Vietnam War, and I am a first generation Chinese/Vietnamese-American.
2. Quick explanation of the belief system I grew up in, which may get a little confusing if you have no reference. I grew up Buddhist with a heavy emphasis in Chinese folk religion. This means that while we identified as Buddhists, a majority of our practices come from paying respects [through prayer and offerings of incense/fruit] and seeking spiritual advice from our ancestors to guide us in this life. A better and deeper explanation can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_China#Veneration_of_Ancestors
Now to me, this was my idea of normal. Until I started going to school at age 5 in a very very very small town outside the city of Savannah in Georgia. I don’t think my parents could have really prepared me for what I was going to face in the future. Growing up in a small town where everyone knew each other, I was initially asked questions that I didn’t know how to answer. According to most, Chinese people only ate with chopsticks (I didn’t learn until age 6), were geniuses, played the violin (I had piano), and ate dog (which I never did, it’s forbidden to us). At that time, my parents advised me to just be honest about things, and to be myself. Then came the name calling, which if you ever remember being a child, I’m sure there was some of this in your life and how painful words can be. However, it wasn’t being a nerd or any other personal attributes that triggered it, it was simply because I was different. I wasn’t African-American, Caucasian, or even a Christian, and to the people I grew up with that was different enough. I could run the long list of every name that was shouted across a playground, in class, or yelled from a bus window. I can’t tell you how many times I was told that I was: 1. a Sinner, 2. a heathen, or 3. going to Hell 4. or a variation of some ethnic slur in conjunction to my non-beliefs. This would go on throughout my high school years until I moved at 17.
Quick note: Let me be the first to say that while this was tough growing up, however, I wasn’t without friends and people to support me. And while, the things that I faced were difficult, there people who genuinely wanted my soul to go to “heaven”. I understood the concern, even if they didn’t really fit into my own beliefs.
So, let’s jump to middle school. Around middle school, people were getting into an age where they are more interested in their beliefs, or rather coming into a type of understanding of what they believe. At this time, my parents were all about letting me explore other cultures and belief systems. We were still practicing at home, since at the time, there weren’t many Buddhists in the area or even a place where we could commune to practice. My mom even enrolled me into a Vacation Bible School for several years where I later volunteered to be an art instructor. I really enjoyed the community these activities brought on, even if they weren’t available to Buddhists. Through this, I learned about the Bible and even read it.
When I was 13, I went to a revival with a friend and walked out of there Saved and a Christian. I felt liberated, sitting at the bottom of the steps to the pulpit with the entire congregation there for encouragement, and felt that “spirit” that people often spoke of. People were congratulating me on crossing over, and for once, I was treated well by my peers. Not only was I being treated well, people genuinely wanted to be my friend now, we had this shared bond of Christ, spreading the gospel, and our eternal souls going to heaven. But that’s really when I had the wake-up call. Where people separate themselves by faith, there was so much more in common on a universal level.
The next few years, I heavily studied the words of Christ, went to church, and even took it upon myself to spread the word. The more I learned and experienced, the more I realized that the words of Christ were very similar to the words of Buddha. To love one another, helping each other, respect for all beings, and accepting all as part of a community filled with unconditional love. At this point, I began to really study Buddhism and Christianity more to find the answers that I was looking for, and eventually removed myself from the Christian organization all together before by the time I was 14-15, and returned to Buddhism.
So what did my parents think? At first they were not happy by my decision to convert, but as Buddhists, they encouraged me to learn, study, and understand other cultures so that I could ultimately find myself. Instead of pushing me further from them, it pushed me closer to my parents, and I still thank them for not judging my need to explore.
At 14/15 the Buddhist community in Savannah was finally able to build a temple for everyone to come to. My family was one of many Chinese-Vietnamese people to come together to turn a run-down, falling apart house, into a beautiful temple funded by the community, and volunteers. It was a beautiful culmination of people for one cause. Community. During this time, I found [and still do] solace and comfort in attending Temple, listening/studying, and paying homage to my ancestors before me. To this day, the same temple welcomes people of all kinds, and even if they just wanted to learn and explore. They have always encouraged and helped people understand Buddhism, even if they had no plans what-so-ever to convert. The temple was always happy that people are simply curious and interested.
At 20, a few months before my 21st birthday, my grandfather died, and later close friend/brother would also pass well before his time. For my grandfather, we took on the tradition of 100 days of mourning, which meant no drinking alcohol, sex, meat, onions, garlic, and going out. This time was really important to me because I took the 100 days to really think. While I missed my grandfather and mourned his death, there was no real sadness in my heart for he had lived a very full life. I felt comforted knowing that he had moved on to the next life.
When my friend/brother passed, there was so much anger and sadness, and would be quite some time before those feelings would eventually move to forgiveness. My friends and I were so angry. We were angry that he had done nothing to deserve an early death, except being at the wrong place at the wrong time. To this day, I remember his girlfriend standing at my front door asking if he was at my house, since he was on his way to my place from theirs. For months, I would put offerings and incense in front of his picture, in hopes that he would find peace. My parents watched me from a distance often encouraging me to let go, and that my actions was keeping him as a ghost this plane. For some reason I couldn’t let go, to me, letting go meant that he wasn’t there anymore, and that I had to accept what had happened. For a long time, I couldn’t let my Brother go, and it would haunt me daily. There isn’t a day that passes that I don’t hear his guitar or think of his goofy smile.
When I was 23, 3 weeks before my 24th birthday, my beliefs were heavily shaken again. I had created some distance between myself and my family, and my life had taken some interesting turns. I had turned to drinking and partying heavily just to forget, and I had lost a significant amount of weight down to being 88lbs. The spiral was going down and fast. My dad called me up and informed me that through a reputable nun, that I was going to die before my 24th birthday if I did not come back home immediately. I had no idea what this meant, and he informed me that he would be picking me up in ATL ASAP. Did not ask me, informed me. After my mom got wind of this news, she reinforced my dad’s decision and off I went. I didn’t know what to do, so I went. Now, you would ask yourself, why couldn’t a grown woman stand up and say NO. The answer is this: I didn’t know how to say NO at that time, especially to my parents.
The time that I spent at my dad’s house with the nun are still vague to me at times, and there is a full week that is still a blank in my mind. But here are the things that I do remember. I was told early in the morning that I would receive a spiritual cleansing, because they were told that ghosts were following me and trying to take over me. That’s what their explanation was for my underweight and extreme emotional/mental instability. Whether or not that’s true, I don’t know. I remember being told to kneel and the nun began to chant over me and would hit me these certain branches of leaves [that bear some significance], at some point I blacked out, and came to when water was thrown in my face. That was the first time, this process was repeated again 2 more times during that week, and I was given a new Buddhist name and cleansed of all my spiritual ailments. I was also heavily pressured to eat 7 times a day eating only vegetarian meals [since I was a vegetarian at that time] for 2.5 weeks, in efforts to bring up my weight. I was also told to leave my boyfriend at the time, since they thought he had a trait in Chinese Face Reading called a “broken face”, which is a saying to say that he would live an inauspicious life and that we were not compatible. I was not allowed to communicate with him during this time, and my parents had to explain it to him over the phone that our relationship was over.
The only positive side to this was that I got to know my step-mom and new toddler sister very intimately and became very close to them. They showed me the joy of communing as a large family, and how close women are in our culture. I was able to show my elders that my tattoos or mental condition was not a curse, but had helped me be stronger. The nun that was residing with us showed me how to knit, and found joy in the fact that I was part of the new generation of Buddhists were turning to yoga as Buddha did in his years. I also got to travel across the South, during this time period, visiting every temple from Georgia to Texas. I even saw a nun that I knew from my temple in Savannah, but moved had moved to Houston. We also travelled back to my place of birth, where my dad showed his new family where I was born and where my parents apartment used to be in ghetto of Lafayette.
Needless to say, until I was 25 turning 26, I held a great deal of anger and resentment towards not only my parents, but towards our faith. I could never understand how this sort of exorcism was OK according to the philosophy of Buddhism. Since then, I’ve come to terms with the fact that what I experienced wasn’t a part of Buddhism, but how people in Chinese folk religions (including my predecessors) dealt with certain situations. My parents efforts to spiritually save me were traumatic and left me feeling like a walking shell. I felt stripped of my own identity, and further distanced myself from visiting my dad or his family for 2 years. And for awhile, my parents were strangers to me. It was an angry and sad time for me, and as an end result I made a lot of bad decisions that I since have moved on from.
Today I still consider myself a Buddhist, but ultimately, just a very spiritual person. I still offer incense and fruit, and eat vegan food on certain holy days, not out of obligation, but to pay homage to my ancestors and the positive things that have manifested into my life. I still struggle at times with finding peace and closure, but I believe I’m getting closer everyday.
The path to forgiveness and acceptance has been a long and painful one. I’ve since then spoken and reconciled with my family, knowing that they will never take back or even think that what happened was right or wrong. I’m still friends with some of the people I went to school with, respecting their beliefs, but coming to terms with my own. Most importantly, I’ve learned to forgive myself and let go. Needless to say, self-punishment is the worst when it comes in the form of self-loathing and the inability to let go. Not to say that I would forget what’s happened in the past, but now I’ve learned that to forgive and letting go is the biggest favor your can do for yourself. By doing those things, not only are we better people, but we manifest a better future for ourselves.
My favourite portion of it, are the lace cap sleeves and the button details in the back. No wonder why brides go through such a long process for a dress. They had so many beautiful pieces. Plus, I got to see my friend and fellow model Dianne! She looks like the perfect bridal pinup. I had such a great time hanging out with new friends and being of a part of this shoot. Definitely something different from my usual spot directing and styling.
