It was supposed to be a normal morning over thanksgiving break. The day should have been comfy and cozy – a holiday morning, snuggled in my own bed, and looking forward to time with my parents. But as I dug out my phone from under my quilt, there flashed a news article titled THREE COLORS at the top of the trending topics on the Chinese website Weibo, a fixture on my home screen. I clicked it, as normal, not knowing the horrors that awaited me. It read that a group of teachers from Three Colors Kindergarten had drugged and sexually harmed their students. While this was already a terrible story to read, the real dread set in soon after when – in a matter of minutes – the articles and videos reporting the event literally evaporated right before my very eyes like ether. My brain buzzed, and I found myself drowning in a quagmire of confusion and anger. Part of me was furious that the government attempted to sink this horrible story way down into an abyss, and another part of me felt horribly resigned to the fact that this was happening. I soon became sure of one certainty: that more people should hear this story. Still, nothing changed as the day wore on, and online administrators deleting posts, articles, and videos one by one and bit by bit like clockwork.
     This story in my home country on this normally peaceful Thanksgiving morning reminded me of a South Korean a film called The Crucible released six years ago. The film adapted the true story of a school’s principal who sexually assaulted young, deaf students. Later, the principal bribed the student’s parents and their criminal prosecutor, earning him the lightest sentence possible for his heinous behavior. I imagined the film principal’s cold and disgusting smile as I tried to fall asleep the night after watching the movie—my mind could not be lulled to sleep. This film came to mind as I struggled to come to terms with the events at Three Colors. Every memory of the film haunted me like a reappearing apparition; I heard the principal’s stoic voice mocking my innocence.  Fear occupied me as I frantically wondered why the articles were removed. Who benefited from the articles being taken down? Would criminals avoid the punishments they deserve? These questions lingered, and all possible solutions made me envision my world as The Crucible came to life. Of all my fears, the worst was that this viciousness could become normalized in our society. This same fear made me feel unmoored from reality.
     Eight years ago, I read an article titled “The Left-behind Children” on Weibo. Clicking the title, I found myself drowning in a sea of complaints and accusations. Some people seemed to greatly sympathize with the children who rarely saw their parents each year and had to be left in rural areas. Others behaved more radically and even blamed the government for not guaranteeing the children a better environment. I, on the other hand, was standing on an isolated island and merely watched from the outside in. It appeared to me that such heated debates were useless. After all, we could not change the way that the left-behind children lived, not to mention the policy regulating their well-being. More importantly, I doubted whether we should be “concerned” about those we did not even know. Nevertheless, I joined the debates as well, but unlike anyone else, with an unemotional voice.  I typed: “Hey you guys, stop wasting time on these things in which you cannot make a difference! And stop pretending to be concerned for these children—how is it possible if you don’t even know them?” Indeed, I threw these words directly at the people who expressed their intense feelings. At the time, the more I thought about the words I uttered, the prouder I became. Selfishly, I considered myself a “savior” of those whose minds were filled with impractical ideas.
     Back under my quilt on this Thanksgiving reprieve, however, I felt differently. Aside from such a calm reaction to the past news, I found my firm “confidence” when arguing against others even harder to understand. Unable to understand my course of action, I decided to emerge from covers, walk down the stairs, and to heat some water for calming my mind. After filling the kettle with cold water, I pressed the button and waited for the water to boil. As the water heated up more and more intensely, it began to hiss and simmer. Once it had reached its boiling point, the sound of the boil disappeared. Staring at the sweltering water, I heard it echoing the answer that I had been seeking.
     There has always been an intense heat lying under my “calmness” like that water, and I resisted feeling the heat eight years ago. The heat, like a ghost floating around me, spooked my heart, whispering to me that life is no fairytale. After all, everything hurt. It hurt to read this news. It hurt to know that I could no longer be surrounded by fairytales once I grew up. It hurt to imagine a childhood smudged by the hands of relentless evil. It hurt to witness the courageous voices gradually hidden from view. And it hurt most to think that nothing could be done.
If I were to ask myself which world I would rather believe in—the one I imagined when I was a child, or the one that I know now—I would much rather believe in the former. After all, why would I be willing to lose myself in the sorrow of a rainstorm rather than enjoy the view of a rainbow? But no matter my wishes, reality is harsh, and injustice sometimes prevails. My favorite Chinese writer once wrote in his poem, “The night has given me dark eyes, but I use them to look for light.” At one time, I was not able to capture the message that he tried to convey. Reading these lines now, however, convinces me that the existence of darkness is as irreversible as the color of our eyes, but with hope, that we can continually fight for the light.
     If nothing else, all I want is to let the water boil.