Lunar New Year Eve

The Chinatown Hale

People used to tell me about the apartments on the second and third floors of Chinatown, sometimes called Hales, where many of Hawaii’s poorest communities resided. Conditions were decrepit with shared bathrooms, the scent of drugs, and no running water in the rooms. It felt like the version of Chinatown that still lived inside a black and white movie. Rent was dirt cheap, and affordable even for those on the edge of homelessness.

Nobody thought that they would one day live in a cramped room beside drug users, criminals, prostitutes and the mentally unstable. Yet not everyone there are the hardened criminals we imagined them to be. To the contrary, most are victims of our social system that criminalized and rejected those that needed help the most. Some people I knew who lived in such conditions dreamed of the day when reality didn’t feel so much like an unwakable bad dream. Some I knew used to even be good students or successful immigrants who fell prey to mental illness, racism, classism and stigma.

Meanwhile, it felt like the kids who were once classroom bullies, popular and rich, or most likely to succeed were the ones who “made it” in the end. Life wasn’t fair, and many here who had found success were the ones designed to reinforce a system that catered to privilege.

Punahou Carnival, The Privilege of Safety

Almost every year, Jane and I used to visit the carnival held by the private school, Punahou Academy, where I had once attended high school. It fell on the same weekend as Lunar New Year and Women’s Support Group for the mentally ill. Looking back on my last visit there with Jane in 2019, I couldn’t help but feel that it was the moment when innocence and the safety of youth as we knew it were changed.

It’s strange how life can go from comedy to tragedy at any given moment, and that year was no different. It felt like the final days of the Hawai’i middle class dream where there were unlimited prizes and games, affluence and fulfillment. It was a sleepy world of wedding parties, multiculturalism, and belief in the integrity of our institutions and values.

I had not understood much about the lower class, then. I believed that drug addicts and criminals were born that way, and good things ultimately happened to good people. At the time, I still held on to the fading delusion that I could be happily married one day, in spite of my schizophrenia, and we were all going to celebrate this life together.

Jane moved to Las Vegas a couple years later and was exploited and drugged. Suddenly, the world of safety and life that she had built up in my mind were destroyed. Forget marriage, friendship, carnivals and games – even a matter of life and death were dwarfed by the feelings of pain, fear and the effects of sadism. It was no place for a young lady like Jane, and there were far more people who advocated for opposition from hope and change than those who lifted a finger to help. It suddenly made me realize that safety and the right to live were privileges, and the real world could be a cruel place championed by the wrong people.

Love in the Time of Darkness

It was a tradition during Lunar New Year’s Eve to send bells to the people you love. There were yellow bells for friendship, red bells for love, and white bells to apologize. Or, at least that is what Jane’s friend Sarah had told her.

Many years had passed and sometimes Jane felt that the old version of herself, that held innocence, hope and ambition were all eroded by time. Her hand of cards held nothing, and watching the empty streets on Lunar New Year’s Eve brought back memories of a world where Asian and minority cultures were celebrated and accepted. Throughout this experience, Jane held on to one hope – that love will find her in the end and that the lasting bonds of friends, family and a partner were written in the stars.

Jane held on to the yellow bells that Sarah had gifted her during their final Lunar New Year’s Eve together. It was a strange time to be mentally ill, and sometimes it felt like behind the walls of this small world was another kind of reality that made this lifetime feel like only a dream. What could we hold on to in this world where nothing was permanent? What exists besides the opportunity to love? Perhaps there was nothing more real than the things that could not be touched or seen.

Sometimes to keep going is the greatest testament of strength, and it brought back memories of her life with Sarah. She had never seen herself as particularly smart or talented, but she had a vision of a world where feelings felt less numb, and showered the heart like a storm of Spring rain. Deep down, she wished that she could’ve spent one more Punahou Carnival or celebration at the Cultural Plaza in Honolulu.

The Office Space of Women’s Group

Jane and I had been shopping for used goods and books at the white elephant sale at carnival. Jane was living in a gated condominium and never smoked or committed crimes or had done anything that could be interpreted as thrill seeking or irresponsible. She was talking to me about how she wanted to add more self help books to her small collection in her room, and thought of how her blessings could grow over the years alongside her fantasies of mental health advocacy and success in the face of growing stigma.

Jane and I spent the rest of the afternoon waiting outside a business center in Chinatown where monthly Women’s Support Groups were held. We sat there watching as honeymooners took photographs by the pier lining Chinatown and the slow setting of the evening sun.

Around sunset, Suzanne, the facilitator of our support group, arrived with plates of food. Our friends Deborah and Christine were also there. Deborah had even found a box of chocolates on the reception sofa of the medical office where support groups were held, and we all had fun eating chocolates and sharing our latest gossip and news. For many of the women at the support group, the main topics of interest included love, work and school. Many women there used humor and desires to cope with the difficulties and stigmas related to mental illness, poverty, the mental health system and age. It was then that I realized that the mask of horror was a smiling face, perhaps one as handsome as a prince, that lulled people into acceptance and tolerance of a deeply uncaring society.