Thoughts Tonight: Three Tentative Non-academic Ideas to Work on

In Wild Swans, Zhang's perspective of outlining the influence of Cultrual Revolution on the three generations lived during the past century is very unique because of her special political background. I personally agree with her success in associating the life of normal people with the broad political environment. This is a factor that makes almost every good story of human life count. Even the smart manufacturers of sweety and sloppy love stories involve some political threats or movements in their stories in order to creat an intriguing plot. I have always been convinced that my choice of life was highly influenced by my parents and the way they spent their youth in those political stringient days. The same situation is true with many of my peers. Our parents and us are more cohesive as cohorts than generations before my parents and those after us. The reason, according to my understanding, lies in the fact that the political periods in which they grew up was so unique (if not necessarily unique, then sufficiently different from the other periods) that it influenced their lifetime values, they career goals and their educational strategy on their children. This would be a very good angle to characterize the impacts of Cultural Revolution on Chinese people and more specificly on the living pattern of a typical three-people-family and their children born during the late 70s to early 80s to compete for social resources. So far as I know, there is no fiction or documentary work produced through this perspective. But I can be absolutly blind in my assertion since I have not touched much modern Chinese literature since my mid-college days. Anyway, I have this strong interest in writing something to fill the gap. However, different from Zhang, I'm more inclined
to produce a non-fiction and non-first-person work. Need to consult my parents on this idea. Plus, first hand information needed. Sounds like an academic survey analysis to go.

I suddenly realized that my unfinished fiction probably rooted from my increasingly anxiety of not being able to locate a sense of home anywhere. Nowhere to find a place.  I need Life in Mono as my background music for the story. 

Once Upon a Time in Canglang is the title for my essay collection. I'm not in a hurry to put an end to it and seek for publishing. It's more like the drops in a stream that goes through my entire lifetime. And of course, it is more personal and private. So never too old to publish an autobiography, although I prefer breaking the stream into different drops and not making my life story in a cohesive way.