Dreams...

Dreams… In the span of our entire life, how many dreams do we have? How many dreams are conjured up and then forgotten only to wither away into the abyss of lost and neglected dreams? Today I chatted with another Beida student, her name is luo ying, and she is finishing up her MA in Indian studies at Beida; she just came back from Pakistan after spending 10 months there on a government exchange program. She came back early just so she could look for a job. We talked for an hour about the importance of having a dream and a goal in life. I asked her why she was thinking of applying to Deloitte and other top accounting firms, and she told me that it would be a good opportunity and a safe job. After probing further, I realized that she had no real plans for her life; she wanted to teach and continue learning languages if she could, but the prospect of using Hindi and Weigur in a job were slim so she figured her best bet would be to work at a large company that would give her good training and other opportunities to expand her career potential.

After talking it through with her, we came to the realization that the choice wasn’t such a bad one after all considering that she might have the opportunity to transfer to a location that could utilize her specific language abilities if she entered a multinational company. I thought it was ironic that we ended up coming to the conclusion that sometimes our dreams are not fit for reality and so we must make the next best choice. She said that it isn’t so easy in China to find a job that you like or one that will make your dreams come true; I told her that it was the same in America even though the competition for regular jobs doesn’t seem nearly as competitive as it is in China.

I’ve just spent the last hour or so trying to fall asleep; tossing and turning in my bed, I’ve been thinking about the future and the uncertainty that I will have to deal with in the coming months while I try to find work that is both meaningful and along the lines of what I want to do. The last thing that I want to do is to do something that I don’t care about. I’ve already decided that so long as I have the choice, I will choose to do something that I love and am passionate about. The only problem is that you can’t really find out what that is until you do it. I wonder if it is an easier choice to make for me because I am an American as opposed to my friend who is Chinese.

I also made a very important realization today while I was walking around with my friend Takeshi Nakamoto. I was telling him about my dream of being a film director—one that I’ve been throwing around for quite some time now, but for some reason still feels a bit ethereal. He asked me what kind of movies I wanted to make and I told him I wanted to make international movies. I then started thinking out loud and as I was processing my thoughts while speaking to him, I realized that one important goal of being a film maker for me was to create stories that I could relate to. It was one of those feelings that you get when as you are talking, you realize how much sense you are making. Ever since I was little I’ve enjoyed watching movies and reading books, but it wasn’t until I reached high school that it finally dawned on me that most of the movies I had watched were ones featuring white people and black people and other ethnicities other than one I could identify with. The issue of race became unavoidable when I thought about why I felt distance from the stories of my favorite movies.

There are no protagonists that I can really say I identify with because when you watch a movie on screen race is no longer something that can be overlooked; this realization hit me pretty hard on the head and has gotten me thinking. Lately I’ve been looking for my motivation to keep working at filmmaking, but it has been hard because of a number of factors.

I also managed to mention to luo ying that I really felt like I have no home; she corrected me by saying that I probably felt like I had no home country. I’m not sure whether she was right, but I explained to her that what was missing was a strong sense of identity with America. The America I identify with is one of ideals; it is one that exists in my mind becomes real in so far as I speak the words that I am an American and feel the surge of patriotism and nationalistic identity that come with the phrase, “I am an American.” But it really only goes that far. I suppose for some people it is enough but for me it isn’t. I’m looking for something more, I don’t know what exactly, but I know that I whatever it is I don’t get it while I am in America. I told her that was the reason I’ve come to China and why I’ve spent so much time in Japan. I think it fundamentally has to do with culture. I am searching for a culture—one that I can call my own.

That seems like a good answer to the question why I don’t want to work in America after I graduate.

But the bigger question seems to be: Why is culture so important to me? I think this question is a lot more complicated than it my seem at first glance.