Portfolio of Drama Healing
School Documentary of Cuckoo Home
No.476
-This is a memoir dedicated to my grandma.
The “longtang” that used to be so lively,
Became so empty that you can hear the echo of your whisper.
With no one
Playing chess while eating sliced watermelons on a summer’s day,
Or
Children carrying a bottle of soy sauce and a pot of sugar and a huge wok,
Shuttling around the steamy, sweating kitchens,
Like a tiny mouse
On Chinese New Year’s Day.
I see why grandma is always desired to come back, to no. 476
The door painted burgundy,
And the emerald and cream metal door plate
is where grandma spent her whole life,
as a teenager, as a mother, as a grandmother.
From the first day of school,
To the last day of school.
From the first meal she cooked,
To the last meal she cooked.
Nowadays the red door has its hue chipped away,
the plate has lost its lustre,
alongside the rusty mailbox,
sitting emptied and silent.
“When are we going back to 476?”
That’s what grandma calls the house.
She asks every morning and evening.
“Mom, we will leave this house tomorrow morning”, answered Mom patiently.
“Great, I miss Kitty.”
The teeny tiny kitty, was muddy when grandma first discovered it.
Kitty was her friend, her tree hole, her gift,
That was by her side whenever she needed it.
Grandma had to tell the story of Kitty every time we meet,
And requests to feed Kitty with the nicest feast,
Of fish and shrimp and chicken and beef,
Accompanied by gulps of milk that is fresh and sweet.
What grandma does not know,
Is that Kitty had disappeared,
With no footprints, and no sound,
As if Kitty has gone in a woosh.
“Can we go back to 476? Can I meet Kitty?”
Grandma keeps requesting.
Now I know,
The 476 grandma wants to visit;
The Kitty grandma wants to meet,
is no regular address that can be found on the map;
is no regular pet that can be purchased at a shop.
Instead,
It is a series of memories,
From youth to adulthood,
From joy to agony,
That we can never replace in grandma’s mind.
Connie
Autumn 2022
In my student editorial submitted to the New York Times, I have outlined the existing medical resource inequality and its origin that is apparent in our society. To elaborate on that, I hope that we can discuss what can we, as individuals, do to face this disparity. This has been an issue that frequently comes up in conversations between parents, teachers, and I. Representing Cuckoo Home, I believe I have taken action.
Just like how I presented this issue in my student editorial, we often display statistics when we come to talk about medical inequality. The number of hospitals, the number of patients in the intensive care unit (ICU), the number of ventilators, or even the medical-worker ratio of the population. During our three years of the pandemic, these statistics are no longer as impactful as they should be. This poses the question: other than alarming civilians with these figures, what else can we do?
In my discussions with parents and teachers, we all know that managing a hospital and developing health professionals are not simple and economical. Instead, this process requires time and appropriate resource allocation to ultimately solve the imbalance. However, during this timely process, individuals who aim to thrive in society cannot simply wait for them to be allocated to the correct position, as the shift from imbalance to balance is long-term. Thus, individuals should be thinking from their own perspectives in making a change to adapt to the imbalance, making themselves victorious in the dynamic, and leading the individuals to act too. Or so, from another perspective, by accepting the imbalance that is posed in front of us, adapting around the imbalance, maybe could lead to a quicker pull-out from the unequal quicksand.
This might be frustrating as we are advocating to accept what is being posed in front of you. However, I would argue that this is not compromising or giving up on inequality. Just like what I have learned in Psychology: fighting against destiny and accepting destiny are not incompatible, but what is important is your decision-making towards the two choices. This also reminds me of a joke in Chinese: even if you want to go on a diet, you will have to eat more so you have the energy to go on a diet. Even though this is a joke, it reveals how neglecting food and drink does not lead you to a healthy body, while adjusting your attitude, adopting a suitable method, acknowledging the environment around you, and utilizing the available resources to:
1. Make changes to yourself to be stronger and thrive in your environment.
2. Make changes to people you hold dear for better living conditions.
3. Make changes with the efforts of others to alter the imbalance to balance, even just a little, to help larger communities in other areas or even the next generations.
Therefore, when facing inequality, we shouldn’t be simply accepting the cold reality, or reaching for immediate change. What we should do is adapt our attitudes, methods, and thinking towards the environment and the obstacles we face.
What we should aim for is not only inequality but also learning to face such obstacles of disparity.
*I would like to thank my parents and teachers who guided me and gave me assistance in writing this exploration.
Simply accept the inequalities?
Maybe there is another way.
Experiment
Cuckoo Home is a service-based learning project that is initiated by high school students. In circumstances of shortage in budget and energy, how should we go beyond the conventional methods (financial donation) to help as many people as possible?
Apart from our Drama Healing collaboration with SDAC which exceeded conventional financial support, I planned a special visit to the Children’s Hospital prior to my visit to the US for YYGS. With the discussion with the social workers at the hospital, we have decided to implement an interesting yet valuable trial (experiment):
1. Let a patient (Patient A) who has received support from Cuckoo Home (no matter financial or emotional) seek an individual whom he/she is willing to support (Patient B)
2. Patient A and their family discover a method to provide support to Patient B
3. Patient A proposes the materials needed to Cuckoo Home in order to help Patient B.
What I worried about this design is that Patient A will only understand the help he/she received, and not actively seek ways to pass on the help to Patient B.
After discussing this idea, the social workers and I visited one of the wards. We saw young patients who were healing and getting better, and we introduced this idea to the patients and their families.
The response I received exceeded my expectations. The patients and families were extremely willing to pass on their love and care received from Cuckoo Home. There were two cases that made me surprised and grateful for what I have accomplished through Cuckoo Home:
1. A 15-year-old patient received a Cuckoo Home donated Bluetooth speaker during June 1st Children’s Day, which downloaded the poetry recordings as part of the Drama Healing project. He willingly promised that he would audio-record one of the short stories he created during his stay after he moved out of the hospital. He hopes that this simple act can give the next patient staying in his room luck and positivity.
2. Another patient received a sports watch for a heart rate monitor from another individual donor, and yet she expressed her interest in our project. She will gift the watch she received to another patient when she gets better.
This seems more of an experimental trial, but something that is displayed in front of us in real life.
I believe that when people realize the good in this world by receiving support from other individuals, they are willing to use their power (even the least) to help people around them. This is exactly what we have discussed previously: when facing imbalance, how to change one’s self to help others, face imbalance, and collectively make change.
Here I would like to thank these loving patients and families who were happy to take the place of this experiment. After my YYGS experiment, I am sure that I will develop this experiment, record the good things, and make an effort to change the imbalance around me.
Mood Matters: Medical Care Beyond Treatment
I walked down the corridor of an outpatient building, passing rows of cold metal benches occupying the waiting area with walls painted in lifeless cream and white. Upon the entrance into the inpatient zone, highly built nurse station entered my vision. Under the gloomy yellow light sit four beds, separated only by thin curtains. Next to the beds are stiff steel-frame benches for the overnight stay of patients’ families or friends.
That’s a typical scene I’ve witnessed for two years as I operated at Cuckoo Home, an NGO offering support to the patients and their families who have traveled across the country to seek better medical treatment. Behind the hustle and bustle is the grumpy mood of all involved in the medical activity, including doctors, nurses, patients, and hospital staffs. And depressive hospital environment due to improper designs without positive distractions only has worsened the situation. According to a study conducted by Dr. Ulrich back in 1991, a lack of positive distractions can lead to the patients (also doctors) over-focusing on their worries, increasing their stress level.
While the government is working hard to offer accessible healthcare to all, the complex moods of people in medical activities are often neglected. During my social work experiences, I have communicated with multiple patients and their families who arrive in Shanghai, a metropolitan city that holds the strongest medical system with doctors with expertise in China, for better treatment resources. Yet the experience of seeking medical treatment was frequently categorized as “disrespectful”, “lack of privacy”, and “no sense of warmth”. The situation in other parts of the country with low government funding to hospitals and low medical insurance rate can only be worse.
It’s time for the society to realize the equivalent importance of treatment-seeking experience to treatment itself because mood matters, not merely for the patients, but also for the hospital workers. We should pay extra attention to the overall design of the hospital. With better moods, we will have more solid doctor-patient relationships and smoother transition towards medical recovery for patients.
Back in 2010, 17-year-old Kendall Ciesemer, who has spent a large proportion of her life in a hospital, brought changes to the experience of visiting a hospital. Her proposal of forming an outdoor activity space has been put down to action in the Ann&Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, accentuating the world’s awareness of the healthcare-seeking experience. The next step of medical systems that are well-rounded in terms of providing health care to all citizens should be similar: medical worker training, redesign of public space, renewal of facilities, and more that establish attentive care towards both doctors’ and patients’ moods in the process of medical care.
Works Cited
Breu, Giovanna. “Hospital’s Design Is Guided by Experiences of Youth.” The New York Times, 4 June 2010.
Deng, Shumin, et al. “Doctors’ Job Satisfaction and Its Relationships with Doctor-Patient Relationship and Work-Family Conflict in China: A Structural Equation Modeling.” INQUIRY: The Journal of Health Care Organization, Provision, and Financing, vol. 55, Jan. 2018.
Liang, Huigang, et al. “Patient Satisfaction in China: A National Survey of Inpatients and Outpatients.” BMJ Open, vol. 11, no. 9, Sept. 2021.
Ulrich, Roger S. “Effects of Interior Design on Wellness: Theory and Recent Scientific Research.” Journal of Health Care Interior Design, Feb. 1991.
Challenge oneself, Explore and discover!
Reflecting on inspirations self-discovery from the Gobi hike as a student representative, while bringing back the values of stretching limits to Cuckoo Home to encourage the young patients.
Coming Soon
Please Visit Blog Section to Learn About Our Latest Events