Biography: Arie Chang

Arie Chang

Arie Chang is the eldest daughter of Han Ruo Chang, or "Ernie" as he chose to be called in America, and Jingwei Chang, who likes to be called "Melissa." She has one younger sister, Trina, and the family has lived in the Mount Hill region since Arie was ten.

While her parents emigrated from (different provinces of) China, applied for green cards, and met abroad, Arie was born on American soil, making her a naturalized citizen; her sister Trina was the same. While they have their share of Asian friends, Mount Hill is not the most ethnically-diverse area in the nation, curtailing their ability to stick with (what their mother would call) "our own kind." Neither Arie nor Trina, however, has felt particularly hindered by the lack of fellow Asians.

Like many Asian-American parents, Mr. and Mrs. Chang were very concerned for their children's educational opportunities, and moved to the prestigious Mount Hill School District the moment they could afford a house there. They encouraged a love of math, sciences and music; by the time Arie was ten, she had been taking violin lessons for several years and was acknowledged to be quite talented at it. Trina, similarly, was occupying herself with the flute. Despite plenty of opportunities and common ground, the two never really became friends, a fact their parents lamented. Both Mr. and Mrs. Chang were products of the Baby Boom, and had been close with their numerous siblings; unfortunately, the diaspora involved in emigration had led to those uncles and aunts becoming widely scattered across the world (one in London, some in Australia, several in America but on the wrong coast), and both the Changs felt not only themselves, but (even worse) their children to be cut off from the life-giving network of family.

Mrs. Chang was a perfectionist, an attitude echoed to a certain extent by the exigencies of American individualism; to receive recognition, one must be one of the best, and Mrs. Chang was determined that her children meet that mark. She pushed both Arie and Trina to excel musically, scholastically, personally and at whatever else they tried. Arie would later look back upon this treatment with some appreciation, as she learned from it that personal limitations are among the most elastic of barriers; rarely does one exist that cannot be bent or broken. At the time, though, she found it numbing and even violent. Mrs. Chang had very little praise for her children, instead berating them over the most meager of flaws. Whether or not Arie or Trina had any personal inclination to be straight-A students, they found the threat of being kicked out on the street to be a sufficient motivator.

Unfortunately, any sort of pressure has consequences; eventually the medium being pressed upon will deform. For Arie, this came in the practice of self-injury. Arie was thirteen the first time it happened; she had just had an argument with her mother over a poster she was doing for a school project. After the screaming was over and her mother had finished tearing up the poster she'd spent three hours on, Arie found herself sitting alone with shreds of construction paper and art supplies and what felt like an ocean of tears. She picked up her X-Acto knife, but instead of getting to work, contemplated the blade. Perhaps she had considered opening her veins; in later years, Arie could never recall with any precision, but logic suggests it was that, because she remembered that what she tried next was a test of what the pain would feel like. Gently, she ran the tip of the X-Acto knife down her arm. Blood welled out immediately, bright against her pale skin, and Arie felt better. It was good to be bleeding. It was good to be in pain. Physical pain was easier to deal with than emotional pain.

From that point on, whenever things got too bad, Arie would cut herself. The objective was not cosmetic surgery, nor suicide; the objective was stress relief. She learned later that she was invoking her body's endorphins, the natural painkillers that cause the so-called "runner's high," actually creating a sense of physical relief; like any high, this was somewhat addicting, which Arie would have to fight against later. She also felt that the resulting scars created a kind of symmetry: she was (as her mother reminded her on a regular basis) a very lucky person to be living in America, to have such good chances for education, to be as talented as she was. In theory, Arie's life was perfect, and Arie herself blissfully happy; certainly her mother thought so. Why, then, was Arie so miserable? She didn't know, and couldn't explain it; but the scars, at least, destroyed the illuson of perfection.

By the time she was fifteen, Arie had found others like her. She had joined a website called "Candlelight Vigil," whose membership primarily consisted of other cutters. Through their opinions and feedback, she had diagnosed that she was clinically depressed. It showed; it was difficult for her to summon the energy to care about her homework, or her friends, or even to get out of bed. What was the point? Things might be good today, but tomorrow, or the day after—inevitably—they would get bad again. There was no hope, nor any reason to. We're all going to die in the end; what does it matter what we do in the meantime? These were the thoughts that made it difficult for Arie to see any point in living, much less getting to school on time. Her mother decided it was a phase—teenagers being teenagers, and darn this American ungratefulness!—and kept chivvying her out of bed.

The school principal, Dr. Zelvetti, had other opinions; her doctorate was, after all, in psychology. One morning she called Arie into her office. After a pull-no-punches conversation, she agreed to give Arie much more slack than the average student would receive in terms of attendance, lateness, homework due dates, and so forth. However, this freedom would come with a price: Arie would need to participate in the Naked In School Program at the beginning of her junior year.

In retrospect, this was the beginning of her life's slow uphill climb out of The Hole, and later Arie found the flippancy with which she agreed to be somewhat embarrassing. But at the time, there seemed nothing to debate about. The idea of going around with no clothes on was terrifying only insofar as it would reveal her scars, which by now marched in neat tracks up all four limbs; it wouldn't make her any friends, and might lose her some, but now she had Internet support and was increasingly turning to them for the kind of understanding she simply didn't have in person. The alternative was for her parents to receive a report card in which the only "A"s were the ones in her name. The choice was easy.

And so, shortly after the start of junior year, Arie met her Program Partner, Brandon Chambers, and went through The Program.

The success was beyond her wildest dreams. In Brandon she found a friend, a compatriot, a brother, who understood her depression (he had barely climbed out of The Hole himself!) and could provide the kind of emotional support she'd previously only gotten through the Internet. In Brandon's friends, Zachary Crane and Sajel Malhotra, she found people who were willing to accept her for who she was, scars and all, and who didn't treat her any differently just because she was weird. Through the events of the week, she found a boyfriend, Derek Strong, whose relative youth and innocence (and stability) were contagious; by Christmas she couldn't imagine life without him. And, through the encouragement of all these friends, she began to stand up to her parents for the first time. The confrontation was not vitriolic; for Arie, it was an errand of mercy, for she had discovered that her own sister, Trina, was also a member of Candlelight Vigil, and that (by her reports) her lot was even worse than Arie's. In a heart-rending conversation, Arie stood up before her parents and told them the truth; and, loathe though they were to accept it, they had to admit that it was, in fact, true.

Things did not change instantly, of course; it took many months of therapy for the Chang family to become whole; many months for Arie to be completely free of The Hole, a project both intrinsically linked to and completely separate from her family's evolution. But the seeds were planted. The healing had begun.

Arie and Derek remained together for the rest of high school. Brandon and Meredith were all but married, and the thought must have crossed Zach and Christa's mind a couple of times; it was only natural for Arie and Derek to wonder as well. Could they envision themselves together for life? In Derek, Arie had a man who was endlessly supportive, whose compassion sometimes overwhelmed his common sense; who had both the impetuousness and the seriousness that Arie needed; who had never stopped being able to surprise her. Derek found himself with a girlfriend both wise and sly, who never let a dull moment pass; who encouraged him to not become so focused on whatever happened to be in front of his nose that moment that he forgot the rest of life; whose sexual energy and curiosity were any man's dream. For both of them, the answer was a resounding Yes.

Alas, not all dreams come true. During the summer before both of them were to move to the University of Seattle together, something happened. Both Arie and Derek prefer to be private about the matter, and out of respect to them we will not speak of it here. All either of them has admitted is that things were done and said that they could never forgive themselves for.

For their first semester at Seattle U, Arie and Derek avoided each other as best they could; Derek announced that he would either transfer to another school or leave college entirely. Arie bid him live as well as he could; for her part, she was in the grips of full-blown depression. She was stronger now, and could fight it better; at least she was able to go to classes. And, gradually, as routine reasserted itself, she began to make new friends and meet new people. One of them was a broad-shouldered man with bronze hair, a charming man to be certain but a gentle one as well. His name was Ralph Steiner.

The two dated on and off throughout college, testing the waters. For the most part, they felt like things were too good to be true. It was as if Ralph was Derek in disguise: they fit together almost the same way, but with the added virtue that Ralph had experienced The Hole, something Derek had not been able to say (during their relationship, at least); he only had two scars, one on each wrist, but they made all the difference. Ralph was like her brother, Brandon, and her lover, Derek, all rolled into one. Could this be? They strayed from each other mutually, tempting fate, but always kept wandering back; whatever was between them, it was too good to be denied.

Fate made the decision for them when history repated itself: during the Spring Break of her senior year in college, a year after her friend Meredith had gone through the same thing, Arie found herself unexpectedly pregnant. A hasty wedding was arranged for that September; and on December 28th, three days after Christmas, Arie gave birth to her first (and so far only) child: a boy, whom she named Rowan.

Arie and Ralph Steiner have settled in the Seattle area, both enjoying the rainy climate. They find each other to be a stabilizing influence, and have rarely had to fight The Hole anymore. They are raising their son as best they can, and hope one day they can travel with him back to Mount Hill: Arie, much to her surprise, has turned into her mother, and is dismayed at how cut off she and her son are from the family Brandon has assembled. As for Derek, Arie calls him from time to time, checking up on him; she tries not to do this too often, because she can tell it hurts him to talk to her. She can't help worrying about him, though. Ralph understands that, while her husband and son will always come first, there is a part of her heart that will always belong to Derek; too much passed between them for her to just cut off. Nonetheless, Arie hopes he will find his own path in life, for she has found hers.

Arie, like many of my characters, was inspired by a real person—actually, several real people. But, even if all of them were Asian (which one of them isn't), for obvious reasons I cannot use photos of them here. Instead, these pictures were "borrowed" (without permission) from someone who started an Amateur Pics thread at the Literotica bulletin boards, and is actually very similar to what Arie looks like.

• Arie, with hair
• Arie, now naked
• Arie, preparing to be ambushed by Derek