Remember your own childhood, recall those times when you weren’t sure, you had some ideas but couldn’t say what you believed in, what you wanted to do; think of those times when you blew up, were just angry at your friend or parents or everyone and the whole world seemed to be angry at you, but you had to yell or cry or hit that person to release all that tension in you; revisit the mind of a frustrated young student who may look a lot like you, but still had the youthful open-mindedness and curiosity that you try so hard to hide in you today from others, but especially from yourself.  You do not need to hide your inner child.  In fact, I would rather you not.

You say you didn’t have many thoughts as a child and didn’t know how to think or imagine.  I have never met any child without at least a bit of aspiration and a unique way of thinking.  The youngest children may not think as clearly as adults can, nor as abstractly or realistically, but they have the instinct of imagination.  This imagination does not disappear when one grows up; no, it is only shoved away because one thinks he/she has to now act grown-up and fully aware and accepting of existential limitations, that really there is no point in acting unique because that is equivalent to acting strange.  Unfortunately, you and your elementary school classmates were taught so young that there is only one right answer and only one way of doing things that it is extremely challenging to allow yourself to be random and take a different, seemingly less realistic point of view of the world at times.  This may have worked in China, but in the individualistic culture of the United States, it is limiting. 

You are right that I am a child with the boundless, imaginative energy of youth and very much loathe having limits.  But listen, really listen to me so I will learn to listen to others.  I am a thinking child who desires respect for my own uniqueness of thought.  Only with respect, quiet, and room to run can a thinking person refine his/her ideas and be able to eventually put them to good use.  At this time I wish to experiment with how some my ideas can be put to good use, while still refining others.  At this point in development, I need someone to kindly remind me that my ideas still need refinement, while supporting me in refinement and experimentation, so that I will become more comfortable with what I can and cannot do, my sometimes radical ideas and my current shortcomings, and become confident that I can improve those shortcomings and continue to grow intellectually, emotionally, and socially. 

I want you to sympathize with me, to retrieve your memories of adolescence and growing up to connect with me.  Do not hide from your childhood; although it was many years and miles away in China, it continues to have meaning and purpose for you.  It is what shaped you, and it is what can continue to shape you, through your reflections and observations of me. 

You made choices then in China, and as far as we know, you could have chosen otherwise for each of them.  But those choices aren’t completely gone, as we can all learn from them.