Information


Meili has a minion!

Mao-Mi the Nazzy




Meili
Legacy Name: Meili


The Custom Glade Neela
Owner: Tribe

Age: 10 years, 6 months, 5 days

Born: September 22nd, 2013

Adopted: 2 years, 2 months, 2 weeks ago

Adopted: January 11th, 2022


Pet Spotlight Winner
October 4th, 2023

Statistics


  • Level: 241
     
  • Strength: 602
     
  • Defense: 602
     
  • Speed: 599
     
  • Health: 604
     
  • HP: 560/604
     
  • Intelligence: 270
     
  • Books Read: 270
  • Food Eaten: 0
  • Job: Unemployed


CREDITS

profile template (c) helix (get it)
template edited by Tribe, spacemage, OCEANE
story by Tribe
background courtesy of Unsplash user Alex Ferdean
overlay by dalice
adopted from User not found: lunae on 1/12/2022

What do we keep hold of?

We capture snapshots, breathing life into the moment, both the big and the small.

When we're young, we live with blinders on, believing that we know what we'll value years down the line. We bristle even at the idea we could be wrong, so set in our convictions.

I mean, for better or worse, I know I was this way.

I was so eager to put my culture behind me; I thought it had no meaning here, among people who didn't understand a lick of Chinese. It would be better to be like them, I thought--like beating them at their own game.

I wanted to wriggle free of weekend Chinese classes and the piles of language exercises, of unjumbling sentences and tracing character stroke patterns. I wanted to forget about memorizing idioms and Tang dynasty poems, dusty lessons that felt too far away from my lived experience. I wanted my language to mean something more to me, for it to be more than a performance on a phone call for grandparents an ocean away.

Deep down, I wanted to be a normal American kid--I didn't want to be a foreign other. I didn't want to wrestle with this too-big idea of cultural connection, of being obligated to a culture I'd never truly known. I didn't want to inherit this tug-of-war regarding my identity, somewhere between Chinese and American.

Yet here I was, grappling with this heritage rich with the stories of kingdoms and wars, of fiery revolution and ham-handed resolution.

I just... wanted things to be simple.

But the simple truth is: they weren't.

In hindsight, my immigrant parents, while they tried their best, weren't prepared to tackle the conversation with me. Even now, I don't know if they'll ever be.

-

It wasn't until I'd worked with a Chinese-speaking patient that I comprehended what it meant to know the language. See, she'd been a lil bit grouchy with other staff, gotten frustrated with our virtual interpreters... yet her face lit up when she realized I understood her, that she could communicate with greater ease. My grasp of Chinese, while rough around the edges, made her feel safer and better understood.

We cracked little jokes; she laughed at my spoken Chinese missteps, lightheartedly hitting me with a grandmotherly tsk-tsk of disapproval.

She told me stories—

Of her life back in China, before she and her husband came to the States to live with their children: she waxed poetic about the best street vendors, the raucous wet markets, the tranquil scenery of the Hangzhou lakes.

Of the life she'd carved out here: how proud she was of her daughter for working hard and finding success, how happy she was finding good Asian produce at supermarkets, how she doted on her grandchildren.

... And, when her husband was out of the room, she confided in me about how afraid she was. She told me how she was so profoundly terrified of being a burden, so afraid of living with this disability--this consequence of her health condition.

It was one of those moments that crystallized in my mind, wherein I wished my Chinese was better; I deeply regretted my flippant dismissal of Chinese culture when I was younger, that I did not have the perfect words to put her mind at ease.

It was a somber homecoming, a kind of reclamation.

It was no thunderclap, no sudden epiphany--but rather a dawning realization, this new sense of recognition and acknowledgment.

-

Language is not always about what it is to us, but rather what it can be to others. In language, we capture our stories, taking note of our meaningful moments--both the highs and the lows. Put simply, it is the essence of our culture, the ways in which we put our lives into words.

And our culture, this thing of both history and beauty... I think about what it means for the lens of our lived experience, what it means for the spaces we inhabit and the marks we leave behind. How do we live shaped by our culture and how does it, in turn, live on, shaped by us?

So I think on this question:

你觉得这生命,这世界,是美丽的吗?
Ni jue de zhe sheng ming, zhe shi jie, shi mei li de ma?
Do you feel that this lifetime, this universe, is beautiful?

We hold tight to what is beautiful, what is precious. We capture the moments that matter, spinning remembrances into ephemeral gossamer. The little details, exquisite and whisper-thin, are tucked and woven into our stories: personal anecdotes, community histories, cultural legacies.

Beauty has value, but no form: its meaning is what we make it.

So, in this swirling nebulous universe that marches on with or without us, I choose to believe that our lives can be beautiful; that our memories-made-stories find shape in the light of our humanity; that our culture, this long-lived vessel of history and tradition, gives us something greater to bind this story-bound beauty, to both glimpse the past and pass on to the future.

Pet Treasure


Shengui Guo Fisherman Doll

Higayu

Mizami

Shengui Guo Noblewoman Doll

Authentic Hand Sewn Legeica Plushie

Humble Wooden Offering Doll

Matrimonial Spirit

Shengui Guo Cursed Sake

Enchanted Lantern

Yunlong

Elegant Fuu Statuette

Pink Round Fan

Enoki Mushrooms

Beansprouts

Lotus Root

Longan

Pork and Mushroom Zongzi

Bamboo Shoots

Daikon

Nappa Cabbage

Winter Melon

Yardlong Beans

Bitter Melon

Durian

Taro Root

Water Chestnuts

Persimmons

Tea Eggs

Oyster Mushrooms

Pork Bao

Steamed Rice

Bamboo Food Steamer

Shengui Guo Inkstone Mask

Traditional Bamboo Sheeta Hairbrush

Knotty Bamboo Slips

Chinese Textbook

Tumbled Jade Beads

Imported Jade Clasp

Chajin Scattered Leaves

Chajin Tea Hills Beanbag

Chajin Favored Pot

Chajin Fading Scrap

Wanderlust Spirit

Lunar Rabbit

Box of Dried Chrysanthemum Buds

Sweet Spirit Offering

Chestnut Incense Burner

Shengui Guo Boat of Flowers

Cream Hydrangea

Yellow Chrysanthemum

Pink Peony

Pink Lotus

Zodiac Rat Spirit

Zodiac Ox Spirit

Zodiac Tiger Spirit

Zodiac Rabbit Spirit

Zodiac Dragon Spirit

Zodiac Snake Spirit

Zodiac Horse Spirit

Zodiac Sheep Spirit

Zodiac Monkey Spirit

Zodiac Rooster Spirit

Zodiac Dog Spirit

Zodiac Pig Spirit

Pet Friends