Biwen Su

You’ve been there — after a long day, no phone, out on a boat with your coworkers, and you finally get internet again, so you’re doomscrolling, checking out what your friends and family are up to.

And it’s fun to see how my friends have changed. Some of them have toddlers, babies; they live in China. And most of my NYC friends are hustling, making new progress, grinding.

Every time this happens I wonder — the me in a parallel universe, would she have become one of them? Kids, a husband, an ordinary life. Or the me from a year ago, the one who didn’t quit her corporate job in New York — where would she be today?

One friend’s posts really stayed with me. Let’s call her Huo — fire. She said she’s like a ball of fire, living white-hot. I met her in a basement in Beijing. At the time I was crashing at a friend’s place — he lived in a basement out past the fifth ring road, making rock music, and at night he’d go into the city to play shows. He really loved music. He put up a post on Douban inviting strangers to come hear live music at his place. Funny thing: the seven or eight people who showed up were all women. That’s how Huo and I met.

We spent a few summers in Beijing. We didn’t go to college there, but for the two months of summer break we’d both come to the city to intern. Outside of work we spent most of our time in movie theaters, at the Beijing Film Archive, or raving — listening to music together at live houses. Back then we had dreams, films, literature. Back then Beijing was still relatively open.

Then we graduated, both of us run ragged. Living in a big Chinese city isn’t easy — high rent, long commutes, long hours. Our generation had more than ten million college students graduating at the same time, plus all the returnees from abroad competing too. Pressure stacked on pressure. I remember it clearly: my first year working, by the end of it my energy had dropped so much that when people asked what my hobbies were, I couldn’t name a single one. You have to solve survival first. Only once survival is handled can you think about hobbies — and having a lot of hobbies means you have free time.

Huo is still in Beijing, still at the same company. She’s in publishing, making books. Her stance on Chinese politics is close to mine — she knows how the political climate and the censorship keep tightening, endlessly. I chose to run. I went to New York, Hawaii, now Alaska. She stayed put in Beijing, doing what she loves inside the smallest margin of freedom.

When I think about that, I’m so grateful for the life I have now. Alaska is a hard, cold place. Every morning, no matter how long I’ve slept, the cold makes it take a few extra alarms to get out of bed. At my job now, my coworkers and I don’t just work together — we live together too. That’s the second big challenge. There are frustrated moments. But on the whole I’m grateful. From China to Hawaii to Alaska, more than halfway around the world, with no plan — all of it decided on the spur of the moment. I have always chased my wildest dreams.

Sometimes when I think back on the risks I took, I feel a delayed fear, and gratitude. Grateful to be alive.

I don’t scroll social media much, but I like to check in once in a while to see what my friends are up to — it makes me reflect on my own life too. And I think this is how my generation “checks out” each other. Nobody just randomly calls me anymore, unless something big comes up and they need help. Normal people don’t call. A phone call needs an appointment now. Today the captain — he’s 37 — saw me with my head down in my phone and called me a “screen teenager.” I didn’t get it at first; I’ve only been in the US a little over three years. Then it clicked: he was calling me a phone-staring teenager? Generation gap, I guess.