Chen and his life in search of transcending two worlds: western and eastern, inner and outer.
Chen is an Italian fella from an Asian family who is here in Seoul for an international student exchange.
“I was born 27 years ago in Italy, in Belluno, when I was little I moved to China for 5 years in Shanghai, my father’s hometown. I then returned to the Italian peninsula, to Rimini, when I was 6 years old.
Here I started going to school: I had a lot of fun in elementary school, I still remember when I was learning Italian watching cartoons. I lived in an environment made up of an interesting mix of multiple cultures, with classmates from local, Asian, African and European families. Friendship, today as in those days, has always been one of the most important values of my life and multiculturalism was obviously essential as I was always looking for people similar to me.
I remember childhood as a good time … and bad at the same time. I lived in a new culture and everything was interesting, but I also experienced the problem of my separated parents, I never met my mother, it was not an easy thing.
I was born in an oriental family, but I was greatly influenced by Italian culture, the culture in which I grew up. I had to face a situation of cultural adaptation.
It wasn’t easy but I don’t think it was dramatic either, as I have grown a lot on a personal level thanks to this situation: I went through many difficulties and challenges, especially on a racial level, which taught me a lot. From here I began to understand the importance of human connections, relationships between people and above all the relationship with myself, I have always been looking for a connection and a bond that could unify my double culture.
A personal trait that at first was like a condemnation for me, but then I realized it was a treasure.
A condemnation because it created an emotional conflict in me connected to this cultural division in which I was living, a situation that obviously generated suffering.
A treasure because this experience was comparable to a door that opens towards personal development. I managed how to unify these two parts, these two cultures that live in me, reaching a point where I no longer saw any defect or separation, I began to consider these differences as a reflection of my interior. In the end, I realized that the problems were related to my blaming the difficulties I had on someone else, on people, on society, I had entered a dangerous game of the guilty and the victim, a sadomasochistic game from which one only emerges destroyed. I realized that if you love yourself you also love others, people who don’t love you is because they have problems themselves. I think humanity is an infinite possibility of connections.
In addition, this situation connected to my dual culture also led me to enroll at the University of Oriental Languages in Venice, specializing in Chinese … language I had learned when I was little but which I was forgetting.
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In high school I was in a situation of existential crisis, fortunately here I met a professor who helped me, giving me a lot of wisdom and understanding. He pointed out many things that I did not see, he helped me to better understand the Italian culture, with its behavioral styles and its history, moreover, at the same time I studied and met people of Chinese culture looking for a comparison and a union between these two different worlds, fate has given me the opportunity to meet people who have helped me.” Definitely a life that has been a challenge since the beginning for Chen, a demanding challenge that he accepted in a courageous way and that led him to become a mature person in search of a meaningful, unique and not superficial way of exist on this planet, trying to live a fulfilling life.
“After high school, I traveled abroad for the first time with a cultural exchange project, an experience that gave me the opportunity once again to test myself thanks to many unexpected challenges. Here I also met my first girlfriend, I was about 22 years old. At first, I was very shy, it was my first experience in the field of love. Thus I began to open up much more, especially towards the female world, until I became a more mature person.
A process of change that continued by joining an acting course that I started attending, meeting and chatting with that professor and other interesting people, participating in many dances, sport and culture events. From here on I started to open up a lot, a turning point in my life, from which I consider my existence has always been improving, at the level of personal growth. Like in a stock market, a curve that always rises.
I am grateful to life for its difficulties and joys!
I am very interested in the world of spirituality, I consider it a way to understand ourselves and the other living beings of our planet.
At university I practiced martial arts, I started with karate, which gave me the opportunity to meet a teacher who gave me many insights into wisdom, then I continued studying tai chi and meditation, slowly I began to read many books about esoteric subjects, especially books on Buddhism and Taoism.
The concepts related to the study of the human being have always fascinated me, I have always wondered why human existence was so special and so I started this journey of research and experience.”
Now Chen has been here in Seoul for several months for study reasons. “I find Korean society to be a community where all people blend together in homogeneity. It has sides that I find are positive but also several negatives. I like South Korea for its art, it is a technological, practical, functional and always in progress country, active 24 hours a day, I like its style and its fashion. One of the negative aspects is that most people live as if they were inside a bubble, as if everyone wanted to be one color, forgetting all other shades. This burns and removes the possibility of an alternative development, both human, artistic, political, economic…” Standardization is a factor that I have found in many other cultures of the countries I have visited around here in Asia (but definitely a characteristic which can also be present in the West, probably in a minor key), a characteristic connected to an atavic fear of getting out of the group, of the schemes, being oneself could lead to isolation. “One thing I see much stronger here in South Korea, which has a very socially influenced population, even the youngest one. This desire to blend with homogeneity destroys individuality and creativity, but obviously, this thing is not found only here on the Korean peninsula.”
“I’ve been to a few other countries around here like Japan, Taiwan, China, but I’ve never been to Korea. I was curious to find out more about this country, especially after meeting a kind Korean professor at the University of Oriental Languages in Venice.
I was planning to stay here for 6 months and then I wanted to go to Singapore for an internship at a local company in August. But the coronavirus has changed all my plans, the lessons have been postponed due to the various restrictions. I arrived at the end of February, the university was supposed to start in March and finish in July, but now everything has moved forward a few months. In September I finally started and will finish in December, next month. After I think I’ll go back to Italy to graduate and see some good old friends again. But if some border opens I would like to travel around Asia for a month.
My goal is to become a teacher or work in an international import/export company.
In addition to getting my degree, I want to become independent economically as soon as possible, I’m trying to understand how the financial and investment market, like forex, works.”A particular dichotomy between a super spiritual life and interest in the currency exchange market: “A person needs time to develop his spirituality, hobbies and passions, and you get time when you reach financial independence, I want not to be a slave to a capitalist society. I don’t want to be rich but I want to be financially independent, have enough money to earn my free time.”
“Thinking back to the past I find that all the mistakes, the problems, the difficult moments have been a reason for growth for me, I had to go through those winding roads, to grow and become aware.
I’m afraid of being alone, loneliness scares me. Even losing myself scares me, not finding yourself anymore, it would be horrible.”
“I see the experience in South Korea on the one hand positive and on the other negative, a sum of everything, like life: bittersweet…and spicy. Sweet to have met a new culture and different people who gave me new ideas. Moreover, nowadays, here there is the possibility of being in a safe place where we can move as we want without too many restrictions caused by the virus.” In South Korea there have never been real lockdowns, only (anti)social distances at various levels based on the cases of infections counted, it is probably the best country to be at the moment. “Bitter for the bullying of certain groups of the elderly towards the new generations, justice is needed for young people. And also because it is a rather closed society: I imagine it as if it were a frog in a well, which looks at the moon but does not see its surroundings, does not see all the other stars.
And finally spicy, because it is adventurous to be here … especially for love relationships. With its ups and downs, many joyful moments and many dramatic ones. I have been here for 8 months, I have had many life experiences, many moves from one house to another, friendships, some financial problems, I have had to face a different culture, a culture that can make you disappear, as it can change you too much and make you become like most of the people here: conform into a superficial, frantic system. But it is also a culture that can make you stand out even more, as it puts you in front of several unique tests.
Freedom is when you are conscious of your consciousness. When you master yourself, you can consider yourself free: you understand the laws of the outside universe and accept them, they envelop you but you are serene in your inner peace, you live your freedom. Like a person in prison who is suffering from his maximum restriction on a physical and movement level, but who by achieving peace and self-control can still feel the freest man in the world. Like what happened to Nelson Mandela, for example.”
“On the one hand I am satisfied with my life, on the other I am not.” Chen’s answers are always very thoughtful and balanced. “I am satisfied with my personal growth. I understood a lot about myself, the environment, people and cultures around me. But I am not satisfied with my financial situation: I would like to be more independent and have enough money to live more decently, I don’t want to be afraid of reaching the end of the month without money.
Despite all this, I am grateful for life. As long as I am alive I have the opportunity to experience all the joys and sadness of this existence.”
“Sadness will end sooner or later and joy will come.”
“Learning something new every day makes me feel alive. On a daily basis, having an idea that upsets me internally and a variety of new stimuli gives me the opportunity to learn and grow as a person. I learn by traveling and meeting new people, trying new things, participating in political, social, economic, religious debates. The human works when there are these interpersonal exchanges!
But I also need my quiet moments of life, where I am alone and where I do things at my own pace, slowly.
In life everything happens for a reason, I believe in astrology and I study the system called “human design”, related to human energy: a mix of Chinese and Greek astrology, Kabbalah, ideas related to the concept of the Indian Chakra and so on. I believe that every person in this world is born with his specificity, individuality and wealth and that he must fulfill his role in this universe, he must walk his own way, meeting his own destiny and giving value and meaning to his life.
“Self hammering” is important in my opinion, it is not to be understood as masochism, but it is destroying one’s own belief system to continue to grow and create new things. Always questioning yourself, not being blindly convinced of your own ideas, not thinking you have the truth in your pocket, accepting the ideas of others, the diversity, the different lifestyles and realities of this world.
Better or worse, it’s not important, what matters is change and being always on the move: like when you climb a mountain, you want to get to the peak but once you get to the top you don’t stay there, you go back to the valley and then you try to climb another one! “
Chen seems to me to have managed to overcome the boundaries of the two worlds in which he found himself living, growing as a person transcending the concepts of cultures and races, to become a human being free from any patterns living on this planet, a planet madly in love with its own false limits.
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