Translators: Gang Zhao Proofreader: Xu Junqing
When I was seven, I couldn’t read it.
At that time, all my classmates could read it.
I used to feel ashamed because I want to learn as much as anyone else.
My mother bought me some books. It was an audio book with a CD.
Since I can’t read, I “read” the book by listening to the corresponding CD
In the end, I learned to read.
When I was free to read, I suddenly discovered that the whole world opened my arms to me.
I started dreaming about doing things that I thought were out of reach.
Because the book told me: “You can do it!”
One of the dreams is to go to college.
None of my family has a bachelor’s degree.
But I think I should go to college.
For this reason, I made up my mind.
I told myself: I must go to college. I must realize this dream.
I said to my mother: “I must go to college.”
Although paying tuition at the time was an astronomical number for her,
However, she still paid for my tuition.
I entered college at the age of eighteen.
I studied one of the most promising majors in one of the key universities in the country:
Architecture and Urban Planning.
What I thought at the time was: “This is a great ending! Everything is perfect.”
But the fact is not the case.
For people like me, the university environment does not seem to be waiting for me.
Nothing to do with profession.
It’s your skin color that determines how you get paid.
In addition to people of color, I am still a woman.
I really like to communicate with people.
But it’s not like standing in front of people like this. I like writing. This is an obstacle.
This is when I began to feel uncomfortable at university.
As time goes by, I feel worse and worse.
There was a time when I was very sad.
This is not accidental. It often lasts for months or a whole year.
You will feel like not going out. I don’t want to go out at all.
I am depressed. Then I went to the hospital. I think this has become a turning point in my life.
Such a blow is so large that I can hardly speak.
I just want to cry.
I want help.
At the time the doctor said to me, “You have depression.”
OK, now what should I do?
In 1996, when I was just three years old, my father left me.
My mother suddenly discovered that she was alone, pregnant and had a three-year-old daughter.
This is the story of many women. It is the story of a black woman like me.
My mother, in order to try to deal with the current situation, wrote me a letter.
I’m three years old; I can’t read it.
I said that because of reading I feel left behind.
But she still wrote to me.
So I understand that my mother did write a letter that I read only after many years.
Because she is trying to treat her own pain.
A few years later, my grandfather died. He is like my father.
He is the first man in my grandmother’s life, and is the only one.
That my grandmother gave him a lifetime.
She missed him. I miss him too.
and so……
Every day my grandmother wrote to Grandpa.
She wrote every day and wrote all day. I cried.
She opened her notebook and wrote: “Dear Daniel…”
She told him what he had done in a day.
……
A few years later I read a book called Child of the Dark.
Its author is a black woman living in a slum,
She raised her child alone.
She used to find paper and scrap to sell from the bin.
As the book says, when the woman feels nervous,
When she feels she can’t face everyday life, she writes.
She wrote on the paper found in the trash.
Now, when I need help, I say to myself:
“If all the important women in my life are writing,
Why don’t I write? ”
Since then I started writing. I wrote everything into the diary as much as possible.
I started writing poetry and I started writing on social media.
Someone asked me: “Would you like to write an article for my blog?”
I asked myself: “Why not?”
I started writing on a blog and then another.
I write columns in some places.
I got thousands of black women fans like me.
They sent me a message:
“I think what you wrote was me. It was written for me.”
I thought, “Oh my God, this exceeds my expectations.”
In the 23-year-old year,
I was invited to write a book for the most important publisher in the country.
(applause)
I say this because writing is very important to me.
As writer Paulina Chiziane said,
Through writing, we become elegant.
This is what literature means to me.
I want to talk about being a black woman
How do I face my own weaknesses?
Society says I must be strong, I can’t stand to cry;
For example, I can’t say on social media:
How difficult it is to live without a father.
Society thinks I must take it all.
I must become stronger and stronger and stronger.
But I can’t stand it anymore.
I don’t want to be strong. I want to have the power to express my power.
So I write. I don’t write for guilt. I write to forgive myself.
I invite you to try it too, because for me, writing has a healing power.
Thank you.
(applause)
When I was seven, I couldn’t read it.
At that time, all my classmates could read it.
I used to feel ashamed because I want to learn as much as anyone else.
My mother bought me some books. It was an audio book with a CD.
Since I can’t read, I “read” the book by listening to the corresponding CD
In the end, I learned to read.
When I was free to read, I suddenly discovered that the whole world opened my arms to me.
I started dreaming about doing things that I thought were out of reach.
Because the book told me: “You can do it!”
One of the dreams is to go to college.
None of my family has a bachelor’s degree.
But I think I should go to college.
For this reason, I made up my mind.
I told myself: I must go to college. I must realize this dream.
I said to my mother: “I must go to college.”
Although paying tuition at the time was an astronomical number for her,
However, she still paid for my tuition.
I entered college at the age of eighteen.
I studied one of the most promising majors in one of the key universities in the country:
Architecture and Urban Planning.
What I thought at the time was: “This is a great ending! Everything is perfect.”
But the fact is not the case.
For people like me, the university environment does not seem to be waiting for me.
Nothing to do with profession.
It’s your skin color that determines how you get paid.
In addition to people of color, I am still a woman.
I really like to communicate with people.
But it’s not like standing in front of people like this. I like writing. This is an obstacle.
This is when I began to feel uncomfortable at university.
As time goes by, I feel worse and worse.
There was a time when I was very sad.
This is not accidental. It often lasts for months or a whole year.
You will feel like not going out. I don’t want to go out at all.
I am depressed. Then I went to the hospital. I think this has become a turning point in my life.
Such a blow is so large that I can hardly speak.
I just want to cry.
I want help.
At the time the doctor said to me, “You have depression.”
OK, now what should I do?
In 1996, when I was just three years old, my father left me.
My mother suddenly discovered that she was alone, pregnant and had a three-year-old daughter.
This is the story of many women. It is the story of a black woman like me.
My mother, in order to try to deal with the current situation, wrote me a letter.
I’m three years old; I can’t read it.
I said that because of reading I feel left behind.
But she still wrote to me.
So I understand that my mother did write a letter that I read only after many years.
Because she is trying to treat her own pain.
A few years later, my grandfather died. He is like my father.
He is the first man in my grandmother’s life, and is the only one.
That my grandmother gave him a lifetime.
She missed him. I miss him too.
and so……
Every day my grandmother wrote to Grandpa.
She wrote every day and wrote all day. I cried.
She opened her notebook and wrote: “Dear Daniel…”
She told him what he had done in a day.
……
A few years later I read a book called Child of the Dark.
Its author is a black woman living in a slum,
She raised her child alone.
She used to find paper and scrap to sell from the bin.
As the book says, when the woman feels nervous,
When she feels she can’t face everyday life, she writes.
She wrote on the paper found in the trash.
Now, when I need help, I say to myself:
“If all the important women in my life are writing,
Why don’t I write? ”
Since then I started writing. I wrote everything into the diary as much as possible.
I started writing poetry and I started writing on social media.
Someone asked me: “Would you like to write an article for my blog?”
I asked myself: “Why not?”
I started writing on a blog and then another.
I write columns in some places.
I got thousands of black women fans like me.
They sent me a message:
“I think what you wrote was me. It was written for me.”
I thought, “Oh my God, this exceeds my expectations.”
In the 23-year-old year,
I was invited to write a book for the most important publisher in the country.
(applause)
I say this because writing is very important to me.
As writer Paulina Chiziane said,
Through writing, we become elegant.
This is what literature means to me.
I want to talk about being a black woman
How do I face my own weaknesses?
Society says I must be strong, I can’t stand to cry;
For example, I can’t say on social media:
How difficult it is to live without a father.
Society thinks I must take it all.
I must become stronger and stronger and stronger.
But I can’t stand it anymore.
I don’t want to be strong. I want to have the power to express my power.
So I write. I don’t write for guilt. I write to forgive myself.
I invite you to try it too, because for me, writing has a healing power.
Thank you.
(applause)
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