 My name is Yan Huang and I go by Linda at my other life working as a computer engineer at Cal. I was born and raised in mainland China. I grew up reading political propaganda. As a teenager, I found relief in reading French novels in translation. They opened my eyes and showed me that literature could be about ordinary and flawed people rather than tool for political agenda. First of all, let me introduce myself. My name is Huang Yang. I'm a computer engineer at Berkeley University. I grew up in Jiangsu City. When I was a child, I read Chinese modern literature. I read some revolutionary novels or books that control literature. The characters in them are a bit exaggerated. They are a bit high-class. They don't treat me well. When I was in middle school, I went to French literature. These 19th century foreigners seemed to be closer to my heart. Then I read a lot of translation literature, such as middle and long novels. At that time, I wanted to grow up in France and study French. I studied physics during the two years of college. I loved science, which to me is abstract and beautiful. Very much like the arts. I came to the U.S. to study computer science. At first, I didn't like engineering. It was too concrete and hands-on. It felt like a blue-collar job, but I was grateful to work as an engineer. It makes me feel grounded, useful, and problem-solving is addictive compared to writing, excruciating personal evolution. The engineering work feels like instant gratification. I spent two years in university in Shanghai University. I like math, which is abstract and logical. It's actually very close to art. I came to the U.S. to study computer science when I was 19. At first, I didn't like it because it was too practical. It was like physical activity. But I found a job as an engineer. I was very lucky to be able to move a green card. I also fell in love with my own work. Not only literature, but also social life. I also wrote the lonely days of writing. My work made me feel happy. Helping others solve problems is very rewarding. So you can marry a job and then fall in love with it. But I wasn't satisfied. Having a job is to earn my keep from society. Writing is to give back to the community, my soul, my struggle, my faith in humanity and future. So I had a midlife crisis at age 23, which might be a typical immigrant experience. I went back to school part-time, worked full-time, and kept quiet about it. I took English writing courses, eventually earned MFA in fiction. Most importantly, I have kept writing. So on this issue, we should still talk about it. But I wasn't satisfied. I came to the United States in 1989. To me, my background was not only a stable job, but also a sense of mission, to contribute to the community, and to become a part of the American society. So when I was 23, I had a midlife crisis. I knew that I couldn't break down into a head-to-body art. So I went to work full-time, and went to study English writing. I got the knowledge of English writing and writing. Most importantly, I kept quiet about it. This collection is not new. I wrote the stories years ago and published them in the literary journals. At the time, I couldn't get the book published, so I began to write in novels. I published Living Treasures four years ago. But my old faithful is my real debut. In this collection, all the stories stand alone, but want to become longer. They're interconnected with reoccurring themes, settings, and characters. So the book becomes a bigger family novel than the individual stories. For those of you who have read Living Treasures, you know that I love to write about nature, society, family, and the aspects of society that impinge on individuals. My middle-class painting is actually my first female work. Four years ago, I published a novel, The National Treasure, and received a lot of good reviews. Many readers who know nothing about China have a strong reputation for their stories. I have a lot of Chinese readers and parents who share the experience of writing and cultivate Chinese students. My middle-class painting is a related short novel about an ordinary Chinese family of 80s. This family of five has parents, two daughters, and a son. Some of my friends have read The National Treasure. You know that I love to write about the stories of nature, society, and family. I shelved this book after a number of rejections. I waited several years and finally submitted to the Juniper Prize. To my astonishment, my old faithful was selected to be the winner for fiction. My first reaction was, could this be a fluke? You know, I submitted in August 2016 After the November election that year, I went into some kind of stupor and questioned everything I had taken for granted, my beliefs and values, and my priorities in life. Unbeknownst to myself, it developed into a personal crisis. I like to consider myself a survivor, even though I had a more or less normal childhood. It wasn't easy to grow up in China where human rights violation and censorship was a matter of life. Privacy was non-existent. Individualism was frowned upon. Even creativity was suspect. I'm grateful to become immigrant writer because I wouldn't have written fiction in China if I still lived in China. We made our home in the Bay Area and my children were born in Berkeley. Now they're teenagers and Trump is a president. This beautiful country that once infused me with hope and dreams now fills with me trepidation for a certain future. Intellectually, I can stand that. Some Americans take democracy for granted, but it doesn't soften the blow. For months, I had not been able to sleep at night. I slept worse than the days after childbirth. Back then, I didn't publish my Chinese, so I put it aside. Many years passed, and in 2016, I voted for Johnnie Boe's award and accidentally won the award. I don't think I was wrong. After the election, I felt like I had experienced a storm of blood. I grew up in China, but I never had any hope for the government. But our children were born in Berkeley. Suddenly, they had a president that we didn't like. This has become a foreign country for us. I was worried, but I couldn't help it. I just wanted to get through it. But I was worried for a long time. I slept less than the days after childbirth. I felt so hungry all day. When the news on my little book came, I became like a mother, ready to birth a new book. I read these stories. I became reacquainted with my younger self, who had a burning desire to tell these emotional stories. In case you're wondering, these stories are not autobiographical. There are two sisters in the book, but I don't have a sister. Although the events are fictional, the people and place are real. I modeled the stories on my family and other families I knew during my teen years. We used to live in a community of six apartment buildings. The residents were professors and staffs family at Yangzhou Teacher's College. My parents, like all Chinese parents, compared my brother and me to our schoolmates who excelled in studies or had a special talent. It was normal for us to have anxiety and feel inadequate. I'm curious. How many of you here have had teenage children? Please ask which of these children have teenage children? Not that many here. Several, including myself. Thank you for being here. My sons are 13 and 15 this year. I can commiserate with you about parenting these precious, intelligent and sensitive young people. For the rest of you, do you remember the time when you were teenagers? How your parents seemed so banal and old-fashioned. Then you're sure you'll grow up to be different. Well, congratulations. You're far more technologically adept than your parents. My children are 13 and 15 this year. They're taller than me. Actually, there are many places where I can do a lot. I'm a computer engineer by profession, but my 13-year-old programmed my iPhone to enter all his fingerprints. None of them are in my phone. When he called Siri, all three of our phones answered to his voice. When my husband, who has a PhD in computer science, couldn't get his voice activation to work, smartphones and gadgets aside, we all can families with teenagers. I can count on you to understand some of the struggles from children's perspectives. And parents, too. My fictional family has five people, father, mother, two daughters, and a son. Each person tells two stories about the defining moment of my childhood. One is a child. Another is a mother. Another is a mother. Another is a child. Another is a mother. Another is a mother. Another is a father. They are defining moments of their lives and their peripheral characters in other people's stories. The characters are honest with themselves when other people are not eavesdropping. I was drawn to the moment's weakness when the outwardly decent person makes a bad decision. To give you a feel of the stories, I want to read the opening scene of the story, the umbrella. Now imagine I'm a 44-year-old father with three children, the youngest, a 15-year-old daughter. The characters in my story are basically political, but they are either eavesdropping or weak-minded, making mistakes or having blind spots. Next, I will read a story of my father's gentle and caring and caring daughter in the umbrella. It shows her patience when she was young. A clap of thunder seems to rip open the hole in the sky. I watch rain piled down your hard sheets from the up-sales balcony and worry about my younger daughter, who's stranded at school. Lian is not a strong kid. Last night, she complained about menstrual cramps. I mustn't let her be soaked on her way home and catch her death of cold. I take out the largest umbrella from storage and dust it off. May has come before I could have a rain gear fixed. Two of its bamboo rips are broken, so a corner of the oil cloth is drooping. It cannot be folded into a backpack or opened with a flick of finger. I push against the wall to slide the runner up the shaft until it clicks with a squeak. A giant-toed canopy shadows me as I hold the antique. The only umbrella useful in this downpour. I close the butt to put on my raincoat and hurry away to Lian's school. Nearing a noodle shop, I catch sight of a tall young man who stands in doorway holding open his raincoat. The hair on the back of his head is wet and smooth, gleaming jet-black. Passing by him, I become curious about the face the man wears with his fine physique, so I peer back. He bows his head with one cheek pressing a young woman's temple. There behind the breast of his raincoat hides a little face of my 15-year-old daughter. I whisper, Lian, and clears my throat. Lian loosens her grip on the man's waist. With the bangs heaped to one side on her forehead, she appears more surprised than I do. I'm almost too ashamed to speak, but she asks me, Dad, what are you doing here? I thumb the ground with my umbrella. I brought you this so you wouldn't get drenched. From the corner of my eye, I feel the young man watch me. Professor Chen, he calls me, but he's clear at Lian why he explains. You taught child psychology my sophomore year and found the physical education department. We now practice teaching at Lian's high school. I thrust the umbrella into Lian's hands. Take this and go home. The young man steps into the rain but I wave him back. You don't have to follow us home. Give me your name and phone number. We have to talk. What do you think of this man? He seems to be a loving and protected father. In this story he takes a strong ethical stand on a teacher's role as an educator and a parental figure. The 10 family stories span over three decades from 1960s to 1990s in China and the U.S. before the Internet, social media, and cell phones. People talk and listen to one another, and feel letters on postcards by hand. The story is about sexual awakening, sibling rivalry, pain and joy of raising children and aging. On the surface, it is a loving and protected family underneath their secret strivings. Jealousy, betrayal, pain, as well as joy and constraints of love or loyalty the bind and separate family, cross-time and space. This book talks about two stories that are all about their life-changing stories including the struggle between siblings, growth and aging, etc. On the surface, this family is very harmonious but there are many struggles in the dark, jealousy, betrayal, and pain. There are also unimaginable tenderness and loyalty. As we saw earlier, the father is essentially a decent person, but he wasn't always so patient and kind. Otherwise, I wouldn't have several stories here. Now, eight years later, his teenage daughter grows up and studies in the U.S. She brings home a family story from her childhood. The story is about her childhood. She grows up and studies in the U.S. She brings home a brown man to meet her conservative parents. I read a scene from her story, The Gold Med, told by the younger daughter. Now imagine I'm a 23-year-old engineer who works for Simmons Data Communications and lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. I'm on vacation to visit my parents in China and my colleague Amal travels to China to see me at home. Amal looks like a dark giant planted in the middle of our living room, towering above my mother. His head is only inches under the ceiling fan and his large shoulders seem foolish and out of place, but I dare to my sight. Amal, I call him. He spins around, causing the bulk of his body to momentarily lose his balance. You're here, I shout. With a laugh, I read my arms around his scalp back. He smells of a lightly pungent perfume. How are you, Lian? He brushes my elbow with his fingertips. I squeeze him hard, then let him go. If Mom had not been watching us, I would have realized the day is really too hot for hugging. Has he eaten? Mom asks in a timid voice. I march to the kitchen to pick out two tofu dishes and chives with scrambled eggs and fill a bowl with rice. Why don't you take out some meat dishes? Mom asks. Your friend would think we're stingy. He doesn't eat meat, I tell her. Then how did he grow so tall? I ignore her. It's a miracle for a flight to be an hour and a half ahead of schedule. A most loud voice echoes in the bathroom. Fortunately, I had a first class ticket. All my bones would have been hurting after crouching in the seat for 20 hours. He stumps out with his sleeves rolled up to his elbows showing his hairy forearms. It's so good to see you again. He says with water on his grinning face, I miss you at work. What did he say? Mom asks. I pull out a chair to invite Amal to sit down. Mom, I can't carry on conversation if you ask me to translate everything. Amal thanks me. Has your mom said something about me? He whispers to me. Yes, I smile. She wishes you a good appetite. That will make her happy. As you can imagine, the mother is very curious about Amal. So when she sleeps with her daughter in the same bed that night, the gossip about him. Your friend looks awfully tanned, Mom says. Has he gotten a lot of sun? Amal is an Indian, you know. He has long hairs on his arms. He eats with his hands. I shake my head angrily making the pillow crunch under my neck. Other than that, he's not bad looking. But I'm worried he's such a big man and you're a fine-boned skinny girl. The marital life, Mom stops short because I burst out laughing. For three years, I hadn't heard the marital life as a euphemism for sex. I press my face on the pillow and let the fine bamboo mask squeeze a few tears out of my eyelids. What's tickling your funny bone? Mom rubs my shoulder blade. You see what I'm getting at? I pick my head up from the pillow. What do you mean, Mom? That he's too much a man for me? He's a big fella. Well, I've had boyfriends. The air seems to freeze inside the mosquito net for a minute. Then I smell the delicate aroma of sweet olive and Ulaan magnolia. The scent raises goose flesh on my arms. You've never told me, Mom ponds the mat with her cupped hand. I feel like old foggy. I blush to the roots of my hair. I have never with Amal. How would they, she asks? Why'd I like a child? I roll away from her as far as I can go until the mosquito net covers my face like a ghost mask. I suck a patch of cloth between my teeth, tasting the clean gauze. They're only human, Mom. Only human. So the somewhat naive mother gets a belated sex education from her daughter. Life can teach and humble you in unexpected ways. A couple of stories resonate with the Me Too movement. I'd rather have you read them and tell me what you think. Sexual harassment has been pervasive throughout human history. This is nothing new. What is new is awareness about how harmful it is. Unfortunately, a person may first encounter sexual harassment in the family. I decide not to shy away from a dark story. A look at straight in the eyes, so to speak. You require a lot of courage not to temper with the characters and let them surprise and teach me who they really are. Here are some love stories. There's a story that makes me think of the Me Too movement. In fact, sexual harassment has always been a problem in the human society. What we see now is the progress of the society. My sister in-law is trying to protect herself, and defends and defends her brother. But she's been hurt by her heart, so she doesn't trust anyone. In the story, Yushan is talking about her father's love for her daughter. He's been in love with her daughter for years because the relationship between the teacher and the student is a relationship between the elder and the younger. He can't use the trust of the child. This is his theory, but he doesn't know that the daughter has a painful teaching at home. These two stories reflect the relationship between the love theory and the family and the Me Too movement. When I wrote the book, I identified with the children and took a job at the parents. Finally, I could get into the heads, walk about and throw my weight around. By the time I have the book, my children are taller than I. I have gained sympathy for a difficult parenting job that is so fluid and in a way seemingly thankless during the teen years. You don't get objective feedback perhaps until decades later. Even in hindsight, you're not sure how you can do better than your parents because children expect more from me today. My American children don't abide by the same obligation as my brother and I once did. Now they have cell phones, internet, social media, and even Trump. The supportive role of the family becomes paramount because you don't get a second chance. There are no hard and fast rules about perfect parenting. You take the journey but wind up in a different place than intended. So your beliefs about duty, opportunity, and happiness are challenged every day. When you go with the discovery, your heart is in the right place. You take a detour and a homeboat and thereby find yourself and discover love in unexpected places. For every cruel trick life throws at you, you can remain courageous by keeping your heart and mind open and may find hope and kindness to pull you through. My grandfather used to say, just as the leaves of a tree show its health, the children of a family demonstrate its wealth. My children are in middle and high schools now. I'm still in denial when they tell me that they don't need my help anymore. When they were in elementary school, I was so mad when I heard that they practiced the school lockdown. But now I'm worried that they don't practice lockdown drill. Can we treat it like an earthquake drill? They told me, don't worry mom. I'm grateful for the courage. Today I can compare the March for our Lives movement to the Tiananmen Square protests in my youth. In 1989, our March for Democracy was millions of people, not just students, but also teachers, workers, and people from all walks of life. For a short while, there seemed to be real possibility that democracy and political reform could come to China. Our hope was dashed by Tiananmen Square massacre. Then came the crackdown and conspiracy theory that students were used by the senior officials for the political gains. Those leaders were subsequently ousted, and the protests and massacre were censored behind the Great Firewall of China and erased from the collective memory. Today a similar conspiracy theory was used to discredit the March for our Lives activists, but we know it is a lie. This is what happened to us shortly after the crackdown. My grandfather once said, look at the leaves, look at the generations. Now my children are in middle and high school. When they were in elementary school, I heard they were playing hide-and-seek. A group of children were swimming in the toilet, and they were so angry that they didn't dare to go out. I was so angry that I felt that it was too absurd. But now I'm still holding them back. Why didn't they play hide-and-seek? The children said, Mom, don't worry, I admire their courage. This year's March for the Lives activists reminded me of the 1989 education I had experienced. In 1989, I participated in the WHO movement where students, teachers, workers, and social people were all involved. At that time, the political change and democracy seemed to be at hand, but the WHO broke our dreams. Then it forced the policy and the investigation system. The students were forced to use the tools of the leaders. After the leaders were tested, the WHO was completely forgotten. The young students who are now living in the big world were also forced to use the policies. But we know the truth. I'm grateful for America's peaceful transition power, which could not have happened in China. Yet the new erosion of principles, morality, and decency takes a toll on the public life as well as the private life. Resistance is for survival, because if we're not careful, soon, before we know it, our children will be left with nothing to squander. As we come to a precipice, there will be no safety net. Grace, honor, or compassion to catch our folly. Do I need to tell you that after working on this collection, I was finally able to sleep again? I'm still worried about our country, and won't go out at every election. But deep down in my heart, I know we have the most powerful arsenal of our time. That is family. We are bigger and more resilient than problems. Every one of us is unique, flawed, fragile, yet powerfully human. Please reach out and touch one another with your compassion, humility, and courage before it is too late. I'm very grateful for the peaceful transition power of America. Not every country can do it, but many principles and principles are challenged by the bottom line. The bottom line is for survival. If we're not careful, soon, we will be on the edge of the cliff. There will be no safety net, no grace, honor, or compassion to catch our folly. One step ahead, there will be thousands of victims. To be honest, after working on this collection, I still have a lot of worries, but I know we have the power. Family is the way forward for everyone to grow up, and to walk the path of life before the society. True to the truth, every member of your family feels your position and responsibility. There is a deep meaning to it. Everyone of us is unique, fragile, with a lack of power, but with endless potential. To treat ourselves and others will make our world more fair, peaceful, and beautiful. Now I'm going to read the story of my mother, my middle-aged flower. I want to read you the opening scene of a title story, my old faithful. Now imagine I'm a 51-year-old mother with three grown children. As soon as I set foot in the nurse's garden, I find the auspicious flower, a red double peony. So this is what it looks like. Its huge blossoms burst forth as it brimming over with rose-red joy. As standing all, what the store clerk tells me, its strong stems never fall, even in the harshest weather. Its name, old faithful, makes it perfect for my home. As my husband, I am going to have our 30th wedding anniversary in two weeks. Yes, I say. I carry the potted peony to the storefront. My husband is talking to a young woman with a fluffy consentement like hairdo. Can you give me a hand? I call out to him. The woman glances me, backs way to the crowd and boards the bus. My husband takes my heavy pod and clamps onto the back seat of his bike. There was some business, he tells me with a smile. What sort of business? The body kind. He crisscrosses his pod with nylon rope and fastens the dead knot. I'm pretty sure she's a prostitute. You mean she wanted you? He pushes the bike onto the sidewalk. Am I not a man? Don't I have a wallet? Watch your mouth. I have a sharp pain in my back and grabbed the seat of his bike. My five boys are acting up again. I've had them for more than 10 years, now beginning to have belly and back pains. My husband took me to the hospital this morning and doctors suggested I have a hysterectomy to have both my uterus and ovaries removed. I told her I had to think about it. I'm upset. I left the hospital with a single thought that I'd buy something nice to cheer me up. I found the old faithful. But what's the use of that if my husband is bent on ruining my day? You carry on like this and make sure that bad luck follows my heels. I accuse him. Take it easy. He holds my hand and squeezes gently. She wants business and we don't. So there's no transaction. End of story. I watched the crowd moving the street. Young men and women dressing white, fawn, lavender and summer outfits that bring out the radiant faces. No one knows I'm about to lose my uterus with which I have carried three children. Here I stand on sidewalk in the midday sun feeling stranded on island of youth with my old man. Look at you. I stroke his sunken cheek, his lustless skin. You're not too wrinkled for a 53-year-old, I guess. He wraps his arm around my waist and pushes a bike with his free hand. Wife, you are shapely, fifty-one-year-old. This mother worked so hard to raise three children. She was found out to have a son-in-law and had to be a son-in-law. At that time, a young lady and her husband had a conversation. They had to make a deal. You said how wrong this mother was. But it was cold and cold. You raised your family should be your home. This cover image is paper-cutter peony. You cut it out a piece of red paper by pulling it through a set of blades. You have to do it right in one cut. It cannot go back to fix the curves. It's a metaphor. Whatever the family has done to you, we carry forward and we'll pass it down in generations. This cover image is a peony. It's called the middle-aged man. This is a paper-cutter. You cut a piece of red paper from the beginning into a set of blades. It cannot go back to fix the curves. It's a metaphor for the family. Whatever the family has done to you, it has always had an impact on you. You will have an impact on the family. Thank you all. Thank you.