Selia

Selia is my BFF.  She just turned 21 so I sent her an electronic birthday card.  She told me it was the first card she had ever received and she was so touched.  I clarified, “You mean, it is the first electronic card you have received.”

“No, I never received a card before today.”

Selia is from a small village.  Her parents are older, they are in their 60s.  She was adopted.  Her uncle came across two babies in Shaghai so he took one and he gave the other one to his sister and they raised Selia.  But her parents have never told Selia that she is adopted.  She only knows this because every family in the village knows this and the kids used to make fun of her when she was a middle school student.  There is shame in being adopted.  Your mother didn’t want you.  So this eats away at Selia.  She tried to talk to her uncle once about the adoption but he became very angry with her. “It’s not the Chinese way to talk about these things.”  She told me.

Selia only told me about her adoption because I watched the Joy Luck Club movie with her.  I had forgotten that the movie mother abandoned two babies.  Selia cried during the movie and told me that maybe her mother had to abandon her so that she, too, could live. I asked her if she would ever search for her birth mother.  But she didn’t know how to do that.  We looked up some information on the internet and she is going to give it some thought.  She also thinks she will show the Joy Luck Club movie to her sister who is 35.  She is hoping that this will spark some conversation.

Selia is a go-getter.  She is studying Chinese- English translation and she knows how to network and make connections.  During my opening presentation to the students, I had a PowerPoint and I indicated that they could find out more information about me on linkedinin.com.  No one in the audience had ever heard of it.  So I explained the concept and left it at that.  After my presentation, I went out to dinner and when I came back to my room, I had an email from Selia.  She had opened a LinkedIn account and wanted to connect with me.  She heard me talk about my niece, Lauren, so she went through all of my connections and found a Lauren and connected with her, thinking that was my niece.

She knows everyone on campus and she knows exactly who to call to get things do.  When I need a van to take students somewhere, Selia makes those arrangements.  When I have to exchange currency, Selia knows exactly which bank handles that.

So I am going to her village this weekend.  It is Tomb Sweeping Day and we have a three day holiday.  We will take the train there.  Selia had asked me to visit her village weeks ago but she said we had to wait to visit her family and home.  There is no heat in the house and she didn’t want me to be cold. She also told me that there is no running water.  So there is no shower and no working toilet.

The first shower Selia took was when she came to college.  The first time she used a computer was when she came to college.  I think there is electricity in her home but I think it is limited.  There is no family car.
Her mother may not be around this weekend.  She has found work in a distant village that pays $10/day and the family needs the money to support Selia who is the first in her extended family to go to college. Selia does not want her mother to take the job because it is back breaking labor and her mother is not well.  But the mother insists.  So Selia breaks down and tells her that one of her teachers has been giving her food money, there is no need to make extra money for her.

Selia’s ex-boyfriend’s parents are contributing to her tuition.  She applied for a scholarship through our program and when asked why she needed the money, she said she had to get away from the boy because he was abusing her.  She did not want to be beholden to his parents.  She got the scholarship.
She has her mind made up that she is coming to the US in a year or two to complete an internship and then she is going to go to graduate school.  I wonder how someone from such a small world can dream so big.