Femto Playground: January 2008

I've been reading a book for class, which is called We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch. It's a well written heartbreaking book to read. As much as I love to read, there are times that I just cannot keep on going. I was definitely shaking and almost tearing while reading about the most mind blowing genocide event that happened just 14 years ago. I can never understand how could the developed countries or the UN never quite do anything about it? How could the French government helped the people who is doing the genocide? How could Clinton administration deny to use the word "genocide"? How can people hate the other "race" so much that they would kill whoever they see? What's wrong with the world we live in? Why are people so cold?

Yes, I have all those questions in my mind and strikes me, but what hurts the most was not just how many people die during that 100 days. We promised to ourselves that "never again" after the holocaust in WWII, then Rwanda, 14 years ago; Darfur, right now. Is it really like "a million people die is just a statistic"? Why we never learned anything from any of the incidents happened before?

Looking back to the situations in Taiwan. Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised by how some Hutus just absofreakinglutely hate Tutsises. Looking at the "Taiwanese" and the "Chinese-Taiwanese" that live on the same land and originated from the same place, China, just went to Taiwan in different period of time.

According to CIA, there are 14% of Chinese-Taiwanese and 84% of Taiwanese, and 2% of aboriginal people.
Flash back, there were 14% of Tutsis and 85% or Hutu.

Chinese-Taiwanese were the ones in the high power till 2000.
Flash back, Tutsis were on the top of the power game till 1962.

Some Hutus hates Tutsis cause they ruled over them, cause they are a different "race", cause the history, cause they killed some of the Hutus etc.
Look back in Taiwan, SOME Taiwanese dislike Chinese-Taiwanese because of Chinese-Taiwanese ruled over them, cause we are different "race", cause the history, cause Chinese-Taiwanese killed some people which includes both Chinese-Taiwanese and Taiwanese etc.

Hutus thinks Tutsis are cockroaches and want to eliminate them.
Flash back to the "wonderful" president of Taiwan, he said "why don't you swim to China, there is no top on the Pacific Ocean, and if you do so, DO NOT COME BACK."

While Hutus are trying to disappear all of the Tutsis on "their" land, Taiwanese are talking about since you are Chinese-Taiwanese, you must not really care about Taiwan, you must not really love Taiwan; if you had a green card and if your kid have an American passport, you definitely do not like Taiwan at all, you are friends with the enemy, China, maybe you should not be here, you are toxic to our society, you are a filthy rat.

What a similarity we got over here. They've been preparing the hatred for 40 years before the genocide, we've been doing the "Chinese-Taiwanese" thing for... more then 60 years. They used radio to spade the word of eliminations, while we are using radios so attack "Chinese-Taiwanese", attack KMT, or attack people who does not agree with what the president did/do/doing.

Isn't all these comparison scary? I don't think there will be racial related killing in Taiwan, at least, that will be my hope.

As a twenty-something girl, conversations about "the one" just keeps on popping out. If he is the one for me, the the dress is the perfect one, if... a lot of things. For me, it has always been "if chemistry is the career for me."

I keep on questioning myself is not because of I don't like it or I know it is totally a mismatch. I ask myself this question is just simply because of I want to make sure that I am ready to face whatever I am getting myself into. I will panic once in a while about the slight chance that maybe chemistry is not the one. As the graduation date approaching, I start to panicking about maybe, just maybe, chemistry is not the one. Maybe chemistry does not fits me. Or maybe I have a wrong attitude, it is not chemistry fitting me, but I'm not the on who can fits chemistry.

Maybe it is not about finding a career that fits me but careers that I can trim myself and fit in. Maybe there is no such a thing called "I", maybe "I" is just a big fucked up blur and the job here is make the fucked up "I" become less fucked up. Maybe "I" don't even exist, and all the "I" memories are just reflections of other people's experiences. How sad will that world be?

What am I good at? What will be a good thing for me to do as a career/profession?