Dear Friends.

                                         

To friends

致朋友們，

I always think that I belong to a different era, and the best compliment anyone has ever given me is either that I am a hostess of an art salon from 1890s Paris or femme la mode from the 1930s Shanghai.

我一直覺得我屬於另一個年代，有人曾對我說我是從法國1890年來的沙龍女主人，也有人說我是上海1930年的交際花，而我覺得這是對於我來說最不吝惜的讚美之詞。

2019 is fine, it is my last teen year of the many decades in my life. 

2019年還可以，是我人生中最後一個一字打頭的年紀。

11/26/2019 was fun, just all of my best friends, they are the family I have in New York. When people ask me where I am from, I can finally unashamedly say that I am a New Yorker because this is the only place that I am just Ariel. There is no shame in believing in freedom and not believing in boundaries, there is no shame in sleeping with whoever I want to sleep with and loving whoever I fall in love with. 

11月26號值得銘記，我最好的朋友們，我在紐約的家人。當人們問起我從哪裡來，我終於可以大言不慚地說我是紐約人，因為紐約是唯一我生活過的地方裡，我可以做自己，我只是Ariel。我可以去相信自由沒有邊界，可以和想要的人上床，可以愛上任何人。

In the foreseeable future, I would be moving to Europe, and people would ask me where I am from, and I would shallowly yet profoundly answer them that I am from New York: the city is engraved in my bones. 

在能看到的將來，我會搬去歐洲，他們會問我從哪來，我會膚淺而深刻的告訴他們我來自紐約，這個城市已經雕刻在我的骨髓裡。 

I do believe in a past life, and ever since that night, I begin to think about what would be the past life of ours, I have always related to the 1930s, simply because of the striking similarities to the era we live in now, minus all the stupid looking leggings and hoodies, it is practically the same. There are people living on the street while there are people spending thousands of dollars on stupid things. The world is more divided than ever, and half the major countries have a dictator coming to power. Democracy was a fantasy that few people believe in the country where I was born. Women are once again, oppressed with the current political circumstances, even though we have fully came to realize that we are more powerful than ever. So what would we have been like, if we were in the 1930s. 

我相信前世，然後自從那天晚上我一直在想，我們這一群人的前世會是怎麼樣子。我心中總有個影子來自於1930年代，因為它跟我們生活的時代太驚人地相似，當然除了連帽衫和瑜珈褲之外。有人無家可歸有人有世界上最多的金錢和東西，世界從來沒有如此地分化，很多主流國家有獨裁者登上歷史舞台，民主和自由在我的國家是少數人信仰的幻象。女人們雖然認識到了自己的力量可卻從新被束縛起來，她們放下裙擺，努力讓別人相信她們是好姑娘。所以如果我們生活在1930，我們會怎麼樣呢？

Yuanyuan would be this woman author with her "new thoughts", her cigarette and her typewriter, she would be publishing stuff around the world, and she would be actively cheating on her husband. Lola and Ariana would be these suffragists who are fighting for the minimum wage for women and children, they would fall in love with a musician against her parent's will. Alessia would be the good Catholic girl gone bad, she would be looking at the most gorgeous European beaus with her bambi eyes and fall in love again and again until she's so hurt that she would feel numb, then she would go to Italy to see Bernini's Persephone, and she'd realize that she's the queen of the underworld. Chang would be this retired soldier who has a family while sucking dicks on the side, and that could be his commander . Marcello can be the risky artist who complains about the shortage of silk satin and how that could be limiting his imagination. And who would I be? I would still be Ariel, doing things that I should and should not be doing, sleeping with people I should and should not be sleeping with. I could be his tiny dancer, living in London with a family that I would turn to someday who stop me from me dancing.

爰爰會是這個女作家和她留洋過的想法，她的香煙和她的打字機。她在世界的主要刊物都有發表作品，她會和除了她愛人之外的人上床。Lola和Ariana會幫助從歐洲來的難民，她們是選票女權者，她們爭取著女人和小孩子的最低工資和保護法，她們會愛上她們父母不喜歡的音樂家，然後去環遊世界演講。Ale是天主教會的乖乖女，她小鹿一般的眼睛對那些從歐洲來的美麗男孩子們一眨一眨，然後她會愛上他們，直到她一次又一次受傷，直到她麻木，然後她會去看bernini的雕塑，做她的藝術，發現她屬於地獄。chang會是退役的軍官，他會有妻子有家世，可他愛上的是他的上級穿著軍裝的樣子。 Marcello會是一個有才華的藝術家，他會整天抱怨經濟危機帶來的高級布料的短缺，以及對於他藝術的“限制”。我會是誰？我還是Ariel，做我該做的不該做的事情，和我應該及不應該的人上床，我是他的小舞者，總有一天我會生活在倫敦有著讓我無法起舞的家人。

The world was going to end and all we did was dancing. 

世界就快要結束了，而我們卻不停地跳舞

I realized that I am drawn to the Pre Raphaelites artists because they were once just like us: a bunch of talented students who hang out during the limited free time we have from art school, and accidentally the obsession over the "old" aesthetic led to an entire art movement. To be honest, that can easily be us.

我認識到我喜歡前拉斐爾兄弟會因為他們和我們一樣：一群有靈感的小孩在藝術學校的空閒時間一起玩，對復古審美的熱愛恰好引起了整個藝術運動。說實話，這難道不是我們嘛？

These experiences made me realize how I would bore to death if I am living in a traditional non-artistic life. 

這些經歷真的讓我意識到，如果我生活在一個沒有藝術的世界裡，我會無聊致死。