The healing gift in Shang-chi’s ten rings
When I watched Shang Chi for the first time in 2021, I didn’t expect to cry at all. It was a Marvel film, nobody cries during an action-packed movie, right?
To be honest, I tuned in mainly for Tony Leung. After all, he’s legendary. In one of his promotional interview, he talked about how he wanted to give his character more dimension instead of just portraying a cruel villain. He wanted to show that the master of the ten rings loved his family very much, but didn’t know how to love himself.
The show gives us a beautiful backstory of how Wenwu meets his wife, Ying Li in her village and the epic scene of how she subdued him, perhaps, the only one who could. Together, they had a daughter and a son. Sadly, the latter grew up resenting everything his father taught him and ran away.
For someone who grew up in a typical Chinese family, the way Wenwu said to Shangchi, “I always know what my children are,” reminded me of my dad. His controlling and manipulative behaviour haunted me for decades, even after he had long abandoned our family.
Yet, I found myself very similar to my father. I hated the condescending voice in my head. It took me awhile to realise that I was stonewalling my mother in the same way he left me to freeze to death with his coldness. I refused to connect with him or see the good in him. It took me years to realise that the more I denied him and his existence, the more I rejected myself and my story.
The movie found me at a time when I was ready and receptive to healing.
Shangchi’s inevitable fight with his father mirrored the one in my heart and mind. With the ten rings, his father was almost unbeatable. Luckily, moments before Shangchi gets into the last battle with his father, he remembers his mother’s words to him. “你有神龙之心。你是妈妈的血脉，也是爸爸的。你要把我们给你的一切化成自己的力量。” (You possess the heart of a dragon. You are my bloodline, and father’s too. You have to take everything we have given you and make it into your own strength - my translation.)
Her words spoke right to my bones. And for a moment, I stopped breathing too.
Using his mother’s martial arts technique, he gained control of the rings and made it into his own weapon. It was a truly powerful visualisation of combining the good parts from our parents to make it our own.
We cannot choose what we inherit. But we can choose what we keep and pass on.
As I hit the 10 year mark on my inner child healing journey, about 4 years after watching Shang Chi, I discovered my talent and passion for soft pastel art serendipitously when a client asked me to counsel her son. Before the session, I intuitively sensed that soft pastel art would be a good avenue for him to express himself.
Seeing the bright colours made my inner child want a set for herself too. And so, I bought one that gave me the most value. Cheap, with lots of colours.
Without any practice or training at all, I surprised myself and the people around me with the animal art I made. Feeling limited with the quality and range of colours, I then purchased an artist-grade set that was really cheap too. It seemed like lady luck was on my side. :)
Sophia, the grandmama orca who took down a great white shark
Drawing with soft pastels gets me into a magical flow state unlike anything I’ve experienced. I literally forget to eat and lose track of time. But that said, this happens whenever I give myself the space to get messy. When I don’t have to rush through life. It’s crazy remarkable. But knowing how we inherit our best qualities and memories from our parents, I know this is no coincidence.
Of all the art medium I’ve tried, soft pastels was probably the closest thing I’d first picked up as a child. I loved the bright colours and how I could just shade intuitively. And because I had no formal training, I had to go super slowly, erasing my mistakes and redo parts of it countless times. For some reason, I never found it difficult or daunting, unlike painting and even writing. (Although I was once a copywriter.) I just knew I could do it somehow.
My mother is a draughtswoman. When I was a child, I witnessed her drawing a perfect cube on our coffee table with just a pencil and a ruler. Perfect angles and all. The sense of amazement from that memory never left. And deep in the recesses of my memories, my heart remembers feeling loved when my father patiently applied medicine on my scalp, combing strand by strand, taking more than an hour. He was the sort of person who believed that if we wanted to do something, we should do it properly. He once chided me for having a “just get it over and done with” attitude with my art homework.
It was hard to admit that my parents had offered me something valuable, especially when I still resented them.
My mind remembers a shit ton of things they did, how they destroyed my self-esteem and made me feel like I don’t belong. I hated them for a long time and I used to think that healing looks like walking away for good. But now I know, part of healing is realising and admitting that I love my parents despite what they have done, or may still be doing. Healing meant softening the heart that had turned bitter, to find that radiant inner child who sees hope, joy and beauty at every turn. It was a really long journey, learning to love myself properly, giving myself the grace, patience, acceptance, kindness and compassion that I wished my parents had given to me. And I know this journey will never end because I seem to keep uncovering more things that I’d suppressed. But I’m not afraid anymore.
Deep in my heart, there’s a home warm enough to accept my imperfections, strong enough to withstand external pressure and spacious enough for trial and error. And perhaps that’s why, I can extend this grace to my parents more effortlessly now.
I recognise the limitations of their love for me and I accept it now, that’s why I enforce my boundaries. Different levels of boundaries for different parents. I still don’t talk to my dad and I can feel it’s a good decision now.
I’m grateful to my parents for the moments that inspired me. But I’m even more thankful to the part of me that never gave up on me.