In Retrospect
With my senior year of HS in session and with everything that has been going on, the documentary had been piled onto by my other priorities.
I recently just dug it up and decided to really focus on it, because it was nearing the end of the year and I thought it was time to get this thing done and posted, so that positive change could possible come as a result. Maybe in all the mess and chaos of other things and distractions, improvement and reform of other sorts and other time periods were put on hold, too.
We do call this summer's experience "A Work In Progress Project," but I now realized how much progress is really meant. It's a continual effort that doesn't stop for an event. Progress is hard. It's difficult to keep something going on for so long and so hard, like how some people probably can't even remember the new year's resolutions they made 11 months ago.
So, I dug this project back out, and I'm amazed at how much 4 months can bring to light. I am in the process of looking through all of the interview footage and I stopped because I realized something and had to post on this blog right away of this new progression.
I was extremely naive and unprepared. I could have gotten so much more from this experience had I really focused on learning Chinese instead of seeing it as a chore and an utter bore. Looking through the footage now, I see that I still can't understand every word Lipeng said.
And I remember telling my new Chinese migrant worker friends that they can come to CA and stay with me at my place if ever they came. How can they come? They can't even afford to live in their own apartment. How naive I was. How naive I still am.
More to come as I excavate summer's past.
-Hedy
