The Bistter Sea: Bitter-Sweet, Voyage.

One person lived a life which he would recall as “the Bitter Sea.” If we compare our lives as a voyage on the sea that would define ourselves of who we are and where we are heading toward, Charles N. Li’s voyage is made through consecutive strikes of Hurricanes. However, those hardships are hard to be compared with a natural disaster. Despite the situation that Li has to deal with, he is able to make decisions over his life. Both the environment and his own decision paves a way for him to achieve maturity as an adult.

Once growing up as a son of the wealthy Chinese government official, Li becomes a street kid in the slum unexpectedly. After spending a year at the foreigner’s camp in the Communist China, Li realizes he has been used by his ambitious father who aims to regain his political strength through his son. Bitter yet sweet, his life is a restless ride on a roller-coaster that does not have an apparent destination. This quaky departure is solely based on the rigid and disfigured relationship between his father and him. Filial piety’s influence in China is beyond its meaning of philosophy. In this father and son relationship, there are no exchanges of affectionate words or eye-contacts. As if they have made a contract, Li and his father simply acting out their own roles. Li takes a role as an obedient, diligent and smart student, and his father as a provider of food and shelter.

Throughout his life, all Li wants to earn from his father is freedom. Li recalls that his years spending in the slum are the most delightful and unforgettable memory of all times.

Later on, Li’s encounter to Communist China’s restrictive atmosphere of controlling ideas elevates his inner conflict of raising his self-consciousness. At the end, he is able to step out of his father’s shadow and face the world by himself.

The pivotal moment for Li turning into adulthood is when he comes back from the Communist China and decides to be independent from his father. He financially, physically and mentally detaches himself from his father’s influence. As he prepares himself for another enormous transition in life of studying abroad in the United States, Li is able to understand his father for the first time and finally forgives him. He even embraces his father’s never-ending political ambition. Li decides to mend his disrupted relationship with his father at the beginning of his new life.

I do not believe Li’s present self is drastically influenced by either Chinese culture or Communism. Every person bears his or her own burden of life. Through challenges, a person is simply learning how to move from the past or flow with it. Nonetheless, I greatly appreciate Li’s story because he is volunteering to be a role model who assiduously and audaciously steps forward to face destiny and eventually, finds himself.