Translating the Mess

Hi, this is Yangzi. Born in China, I came to the United States in 2008 for my college education. Now I have been here for more than a decade, enjoying the family I built here and struggling to hold on to my career in a very unpredictable economy. My experience in conducting survey research in a global educational institution got me interested in relishing the nuances across languages at the first place as my team constantly need to translate concepts, questionaries, and findings across China, the United States, and Brazil. Since May, 2025, I began my Japanese learning journey, a language so similar to but also so different from Chinese. Class meetings, conversation gatherings, and endless self-learning online searches have brought so many joys to my 9-to-5 life and opened a door to so many things I didn’t know about. Needless to say, this experience also introduced more confusions, more chaos, and more agonies into my world.

The eager of logging these exciting moments and these depressing moments have grown stronger. Although I enjoyed blogging for a bit when around my senior high age, the sad truth is that writing statements in applying for graduate school, writing research articles in graduate school, and writing cover letter in competitive job market have taken away the joy of writing. My English is not really that good, and my reasoning process is not all that clear, and from time to time, the way I want to deliver my mind could be weird. All these invites endless edits, revisions, and questions. These trainings pushed me to keep working on my English and polishing my ideas. I truly appreciate that. But I cannot deny the fact that these back-and-forth writing activities took away the “Yangzi” a bit. I’m constantly in the responding or defending mode. When I got tired, no more energy left in my brain, I accepted whatever these suggestions and edits were.

The moral teaching is that you should stay humble and appreciate any critics for you are not that good and these critics are here to hone your sword. Plus, I know the objective fact is that I am not that good. But I’m not a saint. And I graduated. I cut 80% of my intellectual life to be very conscious and receptive to feedback, critics, and suggestions. I think I can indulge the remaining 20% to write and express as freely as I can. My life has gotten messier and my mind has gotten messier. If writing can help sort these straight, good. Otherwise, let the writing be messier. If the tangible words we typed out and audible words we voiced out are translation of our mind, being mess means being faithful to the true state.

As mentioned earlier, learning Japanese ignited the passion for writing again in my life. Therefore, I think most of posts here would be related to language learning. But these probably will be filled with incorrect understanding of many concept and pre-matured ideas about the world that is shaped by language and constantly shapes our language. Absolutely not a place about offering learning tips for these who need to pass an exam. We are already the living in a world where constantly need to show clients the polished final deliverable. Let the journey be the journey. See the skiing girl there, her name is Li Xiuli (李秀丽/りしゅうれい), main character in my Japanese text book 《标准日本语》. She tried skiing for the first time with her Japanese colleagues in Lesson 19. She felled several times, but she had so much fun.「何度もころびましたが、とてもおもしろいです。」

However, I’m still a social being. No matter to what degree I think I’m an introvert, there is still a tiny me inside who’s looking for some agreements, some echoes, and some provocative thoughts. So here is the published blog. If one or two random ideas here can make you chuckle or make you feel something, I think that’s good.

About AI, as of Jan 11, 2026, when I wrote this first piece, I believe it’s probably better for me to stay away from it as much as possible. I believe we use AI to help us put up some reports not because we love (writing) these reports, but because we see little values in putting our time in these reports. My original idea of starting blogging is to reclaim the joy of writing, the joy (or some sort of emotional relieve) of letting thoughts crowed in my chest out. Let me not defeat that purpose.

じゃ、始めましょう。