I made a new friend the other day. She was introduced to me by my daughter, who is currently living in Beijing, China. Jenny and my new friend are organizing an international women's conference in Shanghai in the fall, and she thought LWS would fall right in step with their goals. Exciting! More on that later, but first: on my new friend.
Based out of Shanghai, Wang Wei is the founder of www.Z-Vita.com, a website targeting women in China who are looking for resources and methods of appreciating life and living it creatively. When Jenny first told me about Wang Wei, I was a bit puzzled, since both Wang and Wei can sound like surnames in Chinese; it made it even more confusing since in Mandarin, we present our last names before our first names. I pondered back and forth: “is it Wang Wei or Wei Wang?” So the first thing I said (blushing silently into the phone) when we had our first Skype chat was “What is your first name?” Detecting a smile in her kind voice; she chuckled and said “Wei.”
One of the reasons I ruminated so long over whether my new friend went by Wang Wei or Wei Wang is because I consider myself to be Chinese-American. I am Milly Xu, not Xu Milly. Even being born and raised in Shanghai, and having left for the States at a very late age, growing up, my parents were quite Westernized (especially unusual during Mao’s reign in the 1940-70s). So I inherited the love for and skill of Romance languages from my parents and their parents, which later helped me to become a self-taught English student when I arrived in America.
Two hours later, Wei and I came to the end of our conversation, but it hardly seemed as if any time had passed. We had filled each other in on our pasts, shared our outlooks on, insights of and passions for life, and our ambitions to make a difference, if even in a small way. We had to remind ourselves to take breaths between telling our stories, and being inspired by one another.
Wei and I seem to be on opposite sides of the world, and name spectrum, and yet we are so strongly connected via our passions of Z-Vita and LWS, aiming to enhance quality of life globally. I am grateful for this new friendship because it will allow us to help one another cultivate Z-Vita's “reflecting life’s beauty” and LWS' “review, renew, inspire,” and hopefully bring these values cross-border.
Thank you, Wei, for being such an inspiration!
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