Scarlet Butterfly: The Memoir I Wrote At Age 20
A seven-year-old kid marveling at the Lunar New Year lanterns in Chengdu. A teenage girl forced to become her own warrior in an undeserved tempest. And the person I am today, triumphant and smiling.
Two and a half years ago, in the spring of 2022, I wrote a memoir called Scarlet Butterfly in five weeks. I recall crying joyous tears on my office chair as I typed the final words. Daylight by Taylor Swift had been playing softly from my laptop speakers.
This monumental moment marked the end of my first completed manuscript. I’ve been writing since age eleven, but this was the first time that I had typed those two magical words: The End.
From its inception, I had wanted Scarlet Butterfly to be the physical embodiment of completion, the finale to a life cycle that had given me more undeserved pain than anything else. There are a total of 29 chapters in the book. The first 26 remained firm since the moment I bled them onto the page. But the ending that I had in mind during Spring 2022 was far from the actual one.
I had tried to write the true ending in December 2022, July 2023, November 2023, and September 2024. But it wasn’t until November 2024 did I finally find closure.
The final book contains 37978 words across 214 pages.
I also give a Chinese title to every single one of my projects. For Scarlet Butterfly, it is 红蝴蝶.
I am keeping this project to myself. The print copy will arrive in the mail after two weeks.
But here are some of my favorite excerpts.
All names have been changed for privacy reasons.
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Childhood Memories In China
This is my home city: Chengdu (成都).
In 2007, summer seized the city of Chengdu in a chokehold. Furious sunbeams threatened to set everything ablaze, baking the clothes on washing lines and scorching the uneven pavement littered with cigarette stubs, candy wrappers, and the occasional dog manure. The streets teemed with throngs of people in short sleeve shirts. Some snacked on milk popsicles purchased from the nearest Hongqi chain store. Others carried polka-dot umbrellas to fend off the sun.
A green taxi dropped me and my mom off at a bustling boulevard. Teenagers loitered outside internet cafes with flickering neon signs. Elderlies played mahjong inside teahouses. At a nearby construction site, workers gulped iced water and wiped sweat with white towels. One of them flashed an odd look in my direction, and I tightened my hold on my mom’s hand.
This next one is about the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake (汶川大地震). I experienced it a month after I turned six. My heart goes out to all the lives buried, the people who went missing, and the families who had lost their loved ones.
Amidst the fray, an inhumane wail rang out. People stopped running and turned to its source. It was a woman. She was pointing at a building in the distance. A crevice raced down the top of the infrastructure, splitting it into two before stopping at the middle.
The earth stopped raging.
The humans fell quiet.
We all gathered by the woman, me and my family pushing through the crowd. Due to my size, I was able to elbow my way to the front, close enough to hear the woman’s frantic whispering. She looked at the building once more, her lips repeating one word.
Son.
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The Summer After Fifth Grade
This is the moment when I realized that writing was a thing that people did. I was eleven-years-old at the time.
To avoid speaking to my grandma, I spent most of my day on Google Plus with Lucas and Cameron, the three of us assuming the identities of our favorite anime characters and roleplaying in the comment section of Lucas’s YouTube videos. Summer activities forced Lucas offline. In his absence, Cameron and I soared to new heights on the mountain of camaraderie.
Cameron was a lone star in the night sky, a brilliant force undermined by the darkness around her. Her thoughts were not shallow streams but fathomless oceans. She had hair like raven feathers, eyes that never lost the spark of childlike curiosity, and a bonfire of a heart that warmed us both as the rest of the school cast us aside.
One night, when we were roleplaying as Starfire and Raven on Google Hangouts, Cameron asked me if I had ever written a story before.
“What do you mean by ‘writing a story?’” I typed, lifting my brow at the screen.
Cameron’s text response popped up underneath a picture of Raven smiling. “Like writing down your ideas and turning them into books or online novels.”
“You can do that?” I asked.
Cameron replied. “Yeah! You didn’t know that?”
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Thriller In Real-Life
This was literally one of the spookiest things that happened in seventh grade.
A handful of young adult thrillers followed the premise where the protagonist received threatening messages from an anonymous source who turned out to be one or a group of murderers. Such a concept elicited cold sweat from readers, imprinting kisses of paranoia down their spines. These stories usually ended with the main character’s triumph and the killer’s demise.
I never thought I would experience such scenario in real life. In Spring 2015, odd messages began to crop up on several classmates’ Instagram, spreading like a plague until almost the entire class had been contacted by a self-proclaimed time traveler from the 2030s returning to exact his vengeance.
Fortunately, it was my classmates and I who had the last laugh.
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When Middle School Actually Felt Nice
Lucas, when you speak, people listen. And yes, Cameron still remembers the time when we clogged the toilet together eight and a half years ago. And I miss Ria.
Middle school ended with cheers and tears.
The last few weeks passed by in a frenzied blur. Ria zoomed through the first three volumes of Pretty Little Liars and asked me to coauthor a fanfiction with her. Cameron and I were dared to clog one of the toilets in the girl’s bathroom. We dumped a plethora of paper towels into it, adrenaline rushing through our veins. Cameron had to jump onto the toilet seat when a teacher came in so there wouldn’t be two sets of feet under one stall.
On graduation night, everyone donned their caps and gowns. We sat on metal fold-out chairs as the principal delivered a long-winded speech on the importance of education and the math teacher crooned a heartfelt farewell. Parents crowded the wooden bleachers on both sides of the indoor gym, cameras flashing and faces beaming. Whispers rippled through the student body as Lucas took the stage to give his speech as the president of NJHS.
Soon after, we were called one by one onto the elevated stage, our heels and loafers striking the steps as we ascended. My turn came. I shook hands with the principal, smiled at my four teachers, and received my diploma. The fancy folder containing the culmination of my blood, sweat, and tears for the past three years felt hefty in my grip.
Legit, Lucas and I go way back. I miss Cameron too. And these are not their real names, or the names they went by at the time. And oh my gosh, literally nobody knows what happened to Kate after middle school.
In the first week of summer, I found myself in multiple five-way Skype calls with Cameron, Lucas, Sandra, and an acquaintance named Kate. We roleplayed as various anime characters and photoshopped a goose’s head onto a muscular male body. In the second week of summer, I found myself on a plane to Heathrow airport.
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Trip To Europe In Summer 2016
When London gives you nothing but rain on your first day there. And your second day. And probably every single day.
After dinner, the eight of us walked the London streets. It was an overcast day with pregnant rainclouds blocking the sun. Fingers of wind pried at our clothes and bags, attacking banners on lampposts advertising showings of Shrek the Musical. Pigeons swooped down onto cobblestones and fled when Alisa darted toward them. We passed a man blowing bubbles beside a midnight blue storefront and a mariachi band playing at an intersection. The London Eye loomed in the distance.
“How you’ve been?” I elbowed Angela.
She startled. “Good.”
“You sure?” I asked.
We were nearing the waterfront. Angela peered at the Ferris wheel we would soon board, a sigh escaping her.
“It’s been a bit tough,” she said, “but I’ll manage.”
I wanted to tell her I would always be there for her, but Alisa started screaming at Lex, and Angela had to step in as the eldest sister. When we arrived at the base of the London Eye, there was not yet a line. We hurried into one of the cars.
Conversations hushed as we ascended toward the heavens. I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, gazing down at the waterfront and the tiny people moving on the streets nearby. Even the Big Ben came into view, the clocktower sleek and beautiful. We were so close to the sky that I wanted to jump out of the car and fly into the clouds. My name was Feifei after all, and Fei meant flight. Lex and Alisa argued on the bench beside my mom and Luna. Benedict and my mom’s husband were snapping pictures. Angela asked her sisters to hush. I peered at the clouds once more, thinking about the desert girls. My chest tightened.
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Girl, You’re A Baby Gay
When you fall in love with that butch girl ~~~
We left the restaurant before midnight.
The clouds had ceased crying, but the streets were dotted with puddles that reflected the neon lights of the city. I waited with her at an empty bus station even though the drivers were probably already snoring in their beds. She leaned against a lamppost, her studded leather jacket hanging open to reveal a white shirt marred with grease stains. I found myself straining to catch a glimpse of her tattoos. My cheeks felt hot, and I willed the earth to crack open and swallow me alive.
“I should go,” I said. “It was nice hanging out with you.”
It’s such a sapphic thing to compare your darling to a deity.
I cleared my throat, my lungs full of floral fragrance, my stomach jittery over the fact that I commanded her full attention. The concert hall was spacious with rows and rows of crimson chairs, gilded box seats mounted to the side walls, and a domed ceiling of mosaics depicting weeping deities. Yet, in her imposing presence, everything else seemed so small and dull.
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I Love The Details Here
Gay. Gay gay. Gay gay gay.
Her cinnamon scent filled the room. She had shorn off her hair. Styled it into a wavy bob. Dyed it pitch-black. I beamed at her, giddy. Her outfit consisted of a white button-up shirt and boot-cut jeans. Her accessories were her cremation diamond ring and her gold chain. We peered at the slumbering city.
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Yes, Girl, Get It
Yes, girl, get it. Yes, go, go!
The truck speakers crooned a soft lo-fi tune. Raindrops smacked the windshield, streaking the glass like tears. Vents puffed out cold breaths. I leaned back on the passenger’s seat, staring up at the somber sky through the sunroof. My favorite person drew circles on my palm over the cupboard, her other hand steering the wheel. She wore a black sweatshirt with her surname printed on the back above the number one.
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Do We Really Have To Take A College Gym Class?
It was the only class that had some seats left, but dang, it was arduous.
Sunlight stabbed my eyes. I blinked away lurid-colored splotches in my vision, inhaling woodsmoke and wet earth. My university required every student to complete at least one physical education course. Enrolling in a jogging class that met every evening in the throbbing heat of late summer was the opposite of prudence. Humid air knifed my nostrils as I panted up a hill, desperate to complete this mile. The trees thinned, and the finish line wobbled in the distance.
A boy appeared by my side and began shouting encouragements. I was so taken aback that I nearly tripped over a fallen branch. He cheered me on as I dragged myself to the coach who recorded my time.
The boy patted my shoulder. “Hell yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.”
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I Haven’t Seen This Guy In Years
It’s crazy how I befriended him in Fall 2021, and then we drifted apart. And then I befriended another guy in Fall 2022 who turned out to be the first guy’s roommate. And the second guy told me how the first guy is a player. And that’s when I realized why the first guy had asked me if I had a boyfriend when I first invited him to lunch. I just wanted to see his Qing Dynasty coin collection. But we all view the world in a subjective manner…
Antonio grabbed lunch with me at the buffet of our dining hall. He was blue all over. Cerulean button-up and navy shorts. Indigo drawstring bag and azure folders. With a mind sharper than daggers and a passion for economics, he tutored freshmen in the morning and frequented boba shops at night. We settled onto wooden chairs with our soups and salmon.
“So you said you write in your free time?” Antonio asked between bites of fish. “What genres?”
“Yeah, I love writing,” I said. “I’m all over the place with cyberpunk, speculative noir, historical fantasy, dark academic thrillers, tragic contemporaries, poetry, epistolary forms, and basically everything else.”
He popped more salmon into his mouth. “Can I read a snippet?”
I handed him my phone. The savory richness of chicken noodle soup caressed my tongue, and I downed my salmon in six bites.
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We Made It!
It was the end of an era, and I had risen from the ashes. Just as snakes shed their skin and green reclaimed foliage, winter would inevitably yield to spring and darkness would once again be banished to welcome the light.
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Here Are Some Quote Graphics
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And The Cover Designed By Me
Here’s the memoir’s Pinterest board: Click Me For Visuals
And the memoir’s playlist: Click Me For All The Feels
All right, lovely people. It is almost 3AM, and I must go to sleep.
I hope all of you are doing well. Don’t forget to love yourself! Hydrate! Smile!
You all look great! You all are doing great! You all are great.
And just a quick reminder that my first album, Nine Nine Nine, is dropping on YouTube in 5 days on 9/29/2024. I have a release day post scheduled to go out that morning detailing my music journey from playing the cucurbit flute as a kid to making original music. The link to the album on YouTube will also be included in the post. The album will become available on all major music streaming platforms in the upcoming weeks. So stay tuned for that!
Have a great day!!!