Part 1: Why Am I Drawn to Art?

A Rebalancing Between Rationality and Sensitivity

What do you think is the appeal of art? How is it different from the logic of tech or finance?

I think the first appeal of art is beauty. As human beings, we are naturally drawn to beautiful things — this is instinctive.

But how is it different from tech or finance?
To me, people are simply drawn to different things. I know quite a few founders, and two of them — Matthew and Louis, one Russian and one French — really love computers and programming from the bottom of their hearts. Even during their days off, they think about structures, systems, and care for the “formal world” inside a computer.

My husband, although he is a machine learning engineer, spends his free time reading about economics and monetary policy — he genuinely loves the system of finance and currency.

So instead of saying art and tech/finance have completely different logic, I feel that different people are attracted to different fields. A person can absolutely love art, and also be deeply interested in tech, economics, or entrepreneurship.

I once talked with a medical anthropology researcher, who said our modern disciplinary boundaries are artificial. Creation and writing are never separate. We, as people, were never meant to be split apart.

Lastly, I’ve always hoped to become a “beautiful” person, and I love beautiful clothes, patterns, and objects. That, too, is part of my belief system.

Is there a work or moment that made you want to ‘feel life again’?

Art really makes me love life more. Whether it’s painting, photography, or sculpture, any medium sharpens my senses: it makes me aware of the space I’m in, the lighting, moving figures, and even the relationship between my body and the environment.

Recently, I’ve fallen in love with film photography. It made me rediscover the streets of San Francisco with fresh eyes. With a camera on me, whether I was walking near Salesforce Tower, at Salesforce Park, waiting for a bus, or taking BART, I found myself wanting to observe more, record more, feel life more.

When I was flying frequently for work, looking out the airplane window at the clouds reminded me of Georgia O’Keeffe’s cloud paintings I saw years ago at the Art Institute of Chicago. Even though flying has become mundane for our generation, the clouds suddenly made me think:
Life is so lovely.

Moments that make me “want to feel life again” happen all the time. It doesn’t have to be a dramatic connection — sometimes it’s a movement, a silhouette, a patch of light, a pattern. They spark a dialogue between past and present, and make me see the world anew.

So I think we’re not only “wanting” to feel life again —
we are constantly re-feeling life, again and again.

What was your relationship with ‘creating’ as a child? Was it suppressed or forgotten?

I loved drawing as a child. My parents sent me to learn Chinese ink painting. I still remember the teacher showing us how to dip the brush in water, touch it lightly to the ink stone, and let the ink spread through the brush. We’d press it onto the rice paper, watch the ink bloom along the fibers, add a little color — and that became a grape.

I was only four or five. Looking back, I’m so grateful I had such a good teacher and such a free form of art to begin with. Ink painting doesn’t care about accuracy, realism, or perspective. (To be honest, I’m still terrible at perspective, but I don’t mind — and others don’t mind — because I’ve moved past the “does it look like it?” mindset.)

Later, because my family moved frequently, I didn’t get to study art continuously. But I’m especially grateful to my mom. Even though we didn’t have a lot of money, she always tried her best to expose me to creative experiences.

One of my happiest childhood memories was going to a suburban real-estate showroom every weekend. They offered free workshops — kite making, pottery, crafts. My mom would bike a long way to take me there, and those sessions became my joyful creative sanctuary.

She also encouraged my visual sensitivity. She bought potatoes for me to carve into stamps. We’d go to Metro supermarket because they had a DIY cake shop next door, and we’d decorate cakes together. We weren’t rich, but she used whatever the city offered to create a universe where I could explore freely.

I still remember once painting bamboo all over the wall when my parents weren’t home. They didn’t scold me — instead, my mom later regretted not taking photos before we repainted the wall.

As I grew older, I entered a competitive foreign-language school, then the science track. Like many Chinese students, I had no time or opportunity to continue art during middle and high school. Everyone was focused on elite college admissions, and art wasn’t considered.

So yes, art was put aside then.
But that’s okay — like a path you detour from, as long as the landscape stays in your heart, it will reappear later. The seed of creation planted in childhood was always there.

Why do we often equate “doing art” with “not having a proper job”?

People often define a “proper job” as something with stable income. In that sense, art doesn’t qualify. It’s not concrete; it’s a fluid state, beautiful but not aligned with society’s expectation of stability.

There are also stereotypes about artists — that they’re eccentric, radical, dealing with taboo topics like sex, violence, or blood. Compared to ordinary daily life — commuting, family, childcare — art feels distant and disruptive. It’s niche, often extreme, and financially unstable. Naturally, people label it “impractical.”

But this view is incomplete.

I think making art, writing, or music is deeply respectable. These pursuits explore beauty, meaning, and how humans should live. We need idealism — but idealism must rest on some foundation.

My personal belief is:
If you can’t secure your basic livelihood, you shouldn’t jump blindly into art.

This doesn’t mean relying on family or a partner — it means being able to support yourself. Art shouldn’t be a privilege reserved only for the wealthy. Many artists do come from privileged backgrounds. If we don’t, we need to work harder to build our foundation before growing upward.

I’m reminded of something Obama wrote:
“Being broke is overrated.”

So yes, art is serious work — but committing fully before resolving practical needs requires careful thought. And as women (many who come to me for advice are women), this tension can be felt even more deeply. Though that’s a much longer conversation.

If art is a language, what do you hope to express through it?

For me, art is definitely a language. Many artists depict different facets of the world — some document reality, some amplify unheard voices, some portray classic scenes like Edward Hopper, and others channel nature and inner emotion like Georgia O’Keeffe.

But for me, art is a response.

When I read Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, or The Yellow Wallpaper, or Vanessa Springora’s Consent, or Duras’ The Lover, or Orhan Pamuk’s My Name Is Red, something inside me responds.

I don’t set out to “express a message.”
I simply want to respond to what moves me —
to myself, my friends, my parents, to the life I am living.

Some feelings belong in sentences; others need images, composition, scale, color, or material.

Art is my way of responding to the world —
a medium for dialogue between myself, others, and life itself.