The Observer

Your facebook account was hacked, and it was a disaster. Your account started to mysteriously sending out messages to all of your friends with a fake facebook-looking webpage aimed at compromising more information. Then in the next hour or so, your Gmail account started to show your very own facebook inbox was flooded with inquiries such as “what is that?” “is your account hacked?” “Hey long time no see, what is it about?” from names that you may not even remember.

Don’t open the link, you murmured.

But sitting in the office building at Midtown East Manhattan in front of a huge computer screen, there is nothing else you could do. Facebook is blocked at work, obviously.

Things could only get worse though. This morning, I saw a degrading message from a close friend and bro whom I used to respect so much that I couldn’t believe my own eyes that this message just appeared on my wall posts. And the most devastating part was I don’t even know if this message was really sent by him. For someone I came to know for 3 years and who had constantly impressed me with his moral boundaries and mental strength, I would never imagine he could judge me like this, in public; and the most suspicious part of the comment is that, there is no way he could have understood what I wrote about shoes, because I did that in Chinese.

It must be a hacker, I tried to comfort myself. Whoever he might be, he’s obviously decently good with English but sucks at Chinese, with all that deliberate misunderstanding of my observations comparing shoes to relationships? Yet at the same time, I began to realize maybe some people may interpret my thoughts and ideas differently. So I asked some of my close friends what they actually think of that article. As expected, I got comments from both sides of the spectrum, but one of them pointed out it is surprising to see me care so much about how people judge me from my blog. As I have always said, this is my life, which has nothing to do with anyone else in the world.

Right, I know. I have been proud for long that I could “walk my own way and not to care much about what other people say”, and I believe only when we free ourselves from other people’s judgment could we make greater improvement and achievement. However I have to admit that I do care, like everyone else. But I care less about the fact that people judge (which is inevitable anyway), more about why. I recognize I can be a little weird and a lot of times I think differently from other people and I am very expressive on a lot of things, for good or for bad. For those who do not know me well, it is very easy to misunderstand my characters and behaviors. I also want to defense myself, simply because I think misunderstanding is unhealthy.

In this particular case, I really wouldn’t care if it is a random person. But it came from someone I respected so much. It struck me pretty hard so I had to take it seriously.

Maybe it’s not too bad a thing after all. We always have to step out of our own culture to truly realize what values we have embraced within. We also always have to step out of ourselves as human beings to truly identify the problems we have in order to grow. Actually this is the very reason I wanted to defend myself when someone thought that I have “treated the men as if they were trophies, or perhaps better expressed in my own words, "like shoes." This is one of the most detrimental comments anyone could ever possibly make about me. For anyone who could read my article slightly more carefully, he/she would have realized I am not talking about my personal experience, but simply making comparisons as an observer.

Believe it or not, I happen to have a very detail-oriented eye to see things slightly different, and many times more interesting, than other people. I have enjoyed putting down my observations in metaphors or in sarcastic ways, only because I know certain exaggeration is needed to make a louder voice, and I am sorry if that’s disturbing to you. I have also enjoyed illustrating abstract matters in concrete forms, analyzing my own emotions and decomposing factors of any reasons and results, right or wrong, simply because I believe when put into concrete languages, even obscure matters could be understood more effectively. It is also disappointing to me, my dear hacker friend, that you will not agree with this.

Maybe one day you will.