1










Residing in Nepantla






I wish to write about my marriage, because it might be an unusual occasion. Me and my wife Diana are from two neighboring countries——China and Burma. But we met and started our lives elsewhere: Chicago, Taunggyi, and now London. Between these lodgings, there is a constant back-and-forth of homes——Kunming and Yangon. While Taunggyi is the physical borderland of Yunnan-Southwest China and Shan State-Northeast Burma, I realize that Chicago and London are also coming to be the borderlands of Diana and I. And as long as we are together, we will forever live in the borderlands of each other. “But I find people using metaphors such as ‘Borderlands’ in a more limited sense then I had meant it, so to expand on the psychic and emotional borderlands I’m now using ‘nepantla’.”¹ Nepantla is a Nahuatl word from South America meaning “middle”. The American Chicano writer Gloria Anzaldúa reinterpreted it as a “space between two bodies of water, the space between two worlds. It is a limited space, a space where you are not this or that but where you are changing.”² With her intuitive words that carve bones and hearts, I dare to imagine a life anchored to a moving stone, settling in the nepantla of unsettled, making it a soft ground for a new home.




1. Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Interviews/entrevistas. (Routledge, 2000), 176.
2. Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 4th ed. (Aunt Lute Books, 2012), 276.
656 w 35th St, Chicago, IL 60616
2













656 w 35th St, Chicago, IL 60616

It was sometime in 2020, before we got married. The global pandemic had silently redirected everyone’s norm. Diana and her brother Aye moved to my rented house near Chicago Chinatown after their student dorms were shut down. One evening, or perhaps an afternoon, both Diana and Aye sat in front of their computers with excitement. They were watching their national election result, and the Myanmar embassy in America contacted them to arrange relief flights for Burmese citizens in the U.S. to go back home. I remember they joked with me that if the Chinese government would do the same——and if I know what it feels like to vote.

         The relief flight came as promised on 31st January 2021. Diana and Aye left in the snow. I remember that the Uber driver struggled to start the car on a slippery slope. On their plane to Incheon International Airport for transit, I took a long nap and woke up with the news of Burma just had a “coup” ––It was a word that I did not understand, and though not banned, the word had slowly disappeared from mainland Chinese glossary. The news of the military coup arrived like a period for my memories at Chicago house. While Diana and Aye were stranded at the Incheon airport for a week and later joined the protest in Yangon, I lived alone for another half year with only more news: people flooding the streets, people getting shot in the head, the military drugging prisoners and releasing them to burn villages…I did not understand that “the life you thought inevitable, unalterable, and fixed in some foundational reality is smoke, a mental construction, fabrication.”³


656 w 35th St, Chicago, IL 60616
2021
Three layers of photolithography, 
etching, letterpress
20.3*81.2cm


3. Gloria E. Anzaldúa, Light in the Dark. (Duke University Press, 2015), 138.

A Lost Train of Thoughts & A Series of Prints
3























Kunming City, Yunnan Prov. China 650206

In the summer of 2021, I went back home. Although the mainland China mailing system had long stopped using postcodes, I include mine in every document as the number looks similar to my Chicago ZIP code. While I was in Chicago, I came from Yunnan. But once I came back to Yunnan, I was from Chicago. Part of me had also belonged to Burma, yet I was living in an opposite reality from Diana. 2022 was the strictest year of pandemic control in China. To enter any shared space, a negative Covid test result was required every two days. While I spent an hour or two in the queue for nucleic acid tests every other day, Diana——two-hour flights away in Yangon——was taking care of her sick families, and many of her friends went into the jungle to join revolution forces. I, too, belong to the revolution, because I grew up wearing a “red scarf”——all children in new China are socialist pioneers——for our revolution had won. And as inheritors of victory, we need to remember that red symbolizes blood. Now that part of me belongs to Burma, I witness the blood behind victory, and there is no pride but only sorry.



Spring 2022
etching, wood frame
16.8*22cm

Drawers—Oh Train 2022
etching, wood frame
22.5*31.5cm

Those Nights I talk to you about Chagall 2022
etching, wood frame
22.5*31.5cm

Your Pride 2022
etching, wood frame
16.8*22cm

The Moon is on the Moon 2022
etching, wood frame
16.8*22cm

One More Station 2022
etching, wood frame
22.5*31.5cm


A Lost Train of Thoughts & A Series of Prints (Letters from Yangon) is a collective project of Diana and I, published by LEAP Magazine. The project consists of one monologue from Diana, six prints from me, and two letters between us. It serves as a personal response to the political crisis in Myanmar in 2021.
Notes on Taunggyi
4




Shan State Buddhist University (SSBU), Phaya Phyu Quarter, Pannabodhi Street, Taunggyi, Shan State, Myanmar 06011


In May of 2023, I moved to Burma, living in Taunggyi with Diana for about a year. It was after I had a trip to Yangon and Diana had a trip to Kunming. We stayed in this Buddhist university as well as monastery to do academic Buddhism studies. The president of our school, Ven. Khammai Dhammasami founded the institution in 2014 after having a PhD from Oxford University and living abroad for 22 years. His vision was to reform traditional Theravāda Buddhist education where memorization by heart has long played a prominent role in learning. We had the privilege to study closely with this renowned monk, who used to live in his luggage before 2021, but now settled back at the university due to the ongoing civil war. Diana often describes Burma as a country where three groups of people live together but never talk: military soldiers, Buddhist monks, and the rest of others. Here in this monastery, she got the chance to secretly share food with monks. 

       Shan state borders my hometown Yunnan, but is much farther away from Diana’s city Yangon. Some classmates here speak multiple languages––Burmese, Shan, Wa, English, Chinese, and the traditional religious language Pali. We realized we were each living in the borderlands of one another. As Anzaldúa wrote, “Removed from that culture's center you glimpse the sea in which you've been immersed but to which you were oblivious, no longer seeing the world the way you were enculturated to see it.” Our time in the monastery was mostly peaceful, despite being surrounded by wars of varying scales. I noticed that our Sayadaw,Ven. K. Dhammasami––a devoted teacher who would louder his voice in excitement whenever students challenged him——spent much of his time mediating between the military government and local ethnic armies.

        One night around 4 a.m., sounds of explosions woke me. I assumed it was fireworks from nearby villages, as often seen in China. Until Diana called, warning me to stay away from the window because there were gunshots from two armies fighting. The next day, a small troop came to our monastery with a donation of food–– an apology to the sangha. It is not unusual to have people with guns coming, as the monastery is a neutral zone. They always come with good food. I also noticed the soldiers on guard never ate. They stood under the sun until the well-dressed guests had left. 

       In Buddhism we were taught that “there is a middle way of practice for giving up vanity and negligence. It gives vision and knowledge, and leads to peace, direct knowledge, awakening, and extinguishment.” In Pali, the “middle way” is called magga, a word sounds almost like the English “mega”. Its grandness and efficiency are repeatedly emphasized in different suttas. “When I stood still, I went under. And when I swam, I was swept away. That’s how I crossed the flood neither standing nor swimming.” But the longer I lived in the land of the middle, the more I realized that the middle way was not a smooth path but a sharp, narrow crack. 

           “Take heed. On earth it is a time for care, it is a place for caution.
            Behold the word; heed and guard it, and with it take your way of 
            life, your works. On earth we live, we travel along a mountain 
            peak. Over here there is an abyss, over there is an abyss. If thou
            goest over here, or if thou goest over there, thou wilt fall in. Only
            in the middle doth one go, doth one live.”
——  Florentine Codex, Book 6, Chapter 19

       In Nahuatl, “middle” is nepantla. This passage from the 16th Century records how Nahua mothers spoke to their daughters upon reaching maturity. Unlike magga, nepantla indicates that the middle is a path to walk with caution, and one can fall easily. This is the middle way that our Sayadaw walks, and a path that we are learning to tread.









4. Gloria E. Anzaldúa, This Bridge We Call Home. (Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2002), 549.
5. Sayadaw, a Burmese Buddhist title used to address monk with respect.
6. Dhammadāyāda Sutta, MN 3, Sutta Central.
7. Oghataraṇa Sutta, SN 1.1, Sutta Central.
8. Bernardino de Sahagún. Florentine Codex, 1577. Digital Florentine Codex.

Notes on Taunggyi is a writing and print-making project yet to begin . Each print is based on sketches drawn in Shan state, accompanied by short texts reflecting on memories of living across different communities.
‘Weddig’ Box
5


Mayangone Township, Yangon City, Myanmar

In April 2024, Diana and I got married in Yangon. Since we are from two different countries, the marriage required approval from the legal world of both sides. At the Burmese court, I had to submit a notarial certificate declaring my singlehood in China, along with my passport, national ID, and family registrations. Despite providing sufficient documents––even those fully in Chinese––we still need to bribe the judge with money and fabrics. More importantly, I was required to make an oath, saying I acknowledge myself as a Buddhist since birth, though my Chinese family registration listed me as an atheist. We also had to fill in our occupations on the marriage certificate, which I wrote myself as a “teacher”, and Diana as a “dependent”——the most harmless combination in the eyes of the law. 

        On the Chinese side, the embassy in Yangon required the Burmese marriage certificate along with an official English translation——though what it means to be “official” remains a myth. The translation was completed by a mixed marriage agency, which is a mature industry in Burma, usually run by the local Burmese Chinese. We signed another paper at the Chinese embassy, affirming we were mentally sound and marrying of our own free will. Then came a compulsory interview to assess if we could communicate. Another couple was being interviewed beside us——a Chinese man around 40 and a 19-year-old Burmese girl. When asked how they met, the man replied, “online.” He couldn’t speak Burmese, nor did she speak Chinese. When the officer questioned how they communicated, the man waved his hands around and said, “Just like that.” I described my marriage as unusual at the beginning of this writing, but we were just one of the everyday cases to examine in the world of immigration.

        My future remains uncertain, even though I am now a husband after rounds of affirmation. I am also now a Buddhist, not through studying at a monastery, but by an untruthful oath. And I am still a socialist pioneer, a title long forgotten after primary school. However, I am assured to have become a nepantlera, “who facilitate passages between worlds…with states of mind that question old ideas and beliefs, acquire new perspectives, change worldviews, and shift from one world to another.”


Yangon Wedding invitation



Burmese traditional owl couple toys, as gift to guests (Photographs by @Shijie)     
My head dress      
Diana’s wedding dress     


9. Anzaldúa, This Bridge We Call Home, 1.
‘Weddig’ Box
6



The Wedding Venue; Novotel Hotel, Yangon
& The Banquet (Xiyan), Kunming

We had two weddings in both places of home. It was almost a traveling curation project themed around “dignity” and “well” on two ends. We were the curators, performers, and tour guides. Many of Diana’s close friends could not return to Burma——some were in the jungle or aboard joining the revolution, others avoiding the compulsory conscription. Meanwhile, my friends from China were able to visit, but they spoke neither English nor Burmese. They came with blessing, but without awareness of those who were absent. On their ten-day trip to Burma, they were guests, not friends. 

       To conserve tradition is to re-perform it. At the Burmese wedding, we were adorned with the headdresses of the king and queen. Every setting was about us, but we were puppets that could only smile. “Petrified, she can’t respond, her face caught between los intersticios, the spaces between the different worlds she inhabits.”¹ The ten-day wedding trip did not allow Diana to rest. As the bride, the families expected her to perform manner and grace at all times. Though Yangon was mostly at peace, it remained unstable. She was also to take responsibility for the safety of all guests from China, including me. “The ability to respond is what is meant by responsibility, yet our cultures take away our ability to act.” ¹¹

       The wedding in China took place later in July. When asking my parents if there were any crucial traditional procedures to follow, my mother contemplated and said no, while my father turned to TikTok for research. Chinese history has been refreshed over the past hundred years through revolution. And by being away from central China, I realized that our traditions in Yunnan are imagined. Just as we invented new customs during the spring festival in Chicago, we reimagined our wedding in Kunming. Therefore, we built our own stage, with friends from Yunnan, America, and those from Burma but living aboard. Together we wrote a play. “Besides fighting, fleeing, freezing, or submitting las nepantleras usan otra media——they employ a fifth tactic.”¹² The play contained the important wedding formula of exchanging rings and kissing. Both sides of parents were satisfied, and we introduced them to the stages as our great sponsors. “For nepantleras, to bridge is an act of will, an act of love, an attempt toward compassion and reconciliation, and a promise to be present with the pain of others without losing themselves to it.”¹³ Imagining a wedding was not a radical move, but it was a small revolution——to our elders who lived away from the border, and the imagined tradition they uphold.




10. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 42.
11. Ibid., 42.
12. Anzaldúa, This Bridge We Call Home, 567.
13. Ibid., 4.



Kunming wedding invitation
Kunming wedding liquor label




Kunming wedding stage (photographs by @Wild Camera)
Collective improvise drawing during the wedding ceremony
Flower path to the stage of wedding


7



New Cross, London, SE 14, England

London, the homeland of the colonized and the colonizer. Here I met Gloria’s words, 21 years after her passing. At the beginning of her famed book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, she wrote, “To you whom I never chanced to meet but who inhabit borderlands similar to mine.”¹ The word nepantla drift away from her Texas-U.S./Mexican border has now find a place between China and Burma, weaving into our shared old tales——It is said that the Gautama Buddha was once a prince, born in a family of luxurious. But rather than continuing his life of kingship, the prince turned to be homeless. After years of wandering and self-mortification, the ascetic realized such practice is unworthy. So, he stopped under a bodhi tree, where he realized a middle way that avoids extremes and leads to calm and insight. I believe that the Buddha was once residing in nepantla, and this prince as well homeless was also a nepantlera

   
       “Affliction is identical to enlightenment.”¹ The nepantla is at the same time magga. “The future…depends on the straddling of two or more cultures. By creating a new mythos——that is, a change in the way we perceive reality, the way we see ourselves, and the ways we behave.”¹ Me realizing the borderland is me being disintegrated. Only then revolution is allowed to happen, not by creating blood and volution of abysses, but to revolve around abysses, and to build bridge where none exist——that is residing in nepantla.



14. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 1.
15. Vimalakirtinirdesa Sutra, The Pennsylvania State University.
16. Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 102.


Bibliography:































Anzaldúa, Gloria E. Interviews/entrevistas.Routledge, 2000.

Anzaldúa, Gloria E. This Bridge We Call Home.
Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, 2002.

Anzaldúa, Gloria E. Borderlands/La Frontera.The New Mestiza. 4th ed.
Aunt Lute Books, 2012.

Anzaldúa, Gloria E. Light in the Dark. Duke University Press, 2015.

Bernardino de Sahagún. Florentine Codex, 1577.Digital Florentine Codex,
https://florentinecodex.getty.edu/book/6/folio/83v?spTexts=&nhTexts=


Dhammadāyāda Sutta, MN 3,Sutta Central, https://suttacentral.net/
mn3/en/sujatolang=en&layout=plain¬es=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin


Oghataraṇa Sutta, SN 1.1,Sutta Central, https://suttacentral.net/sn1.1/en/bodhi?lang=en&highlight=false

Vimalakirtinirdesa Sutra.The Pennsylvania State University, https://www2.kenyon.edu/Depts/Religion/Fac/Adler/Reln260/Vimalakirti.htm