Yanwen’s blog

Tuesday, July 8, 2025, I had a preventive colonoscopy done today. All went well in the end—but only after nearly canceling it the day before.

It all started early in the morning—2 a.m. on July 7th, the day I should start preparation for the procedure. I woke up with an unexplained sense of unease. Something told me to double-check the estimated cost of the procedure. I remembered seeing a past email suggesting it would be a little over $200, which is okay. Still, the feeling nagged at me: What if I missed something huge?

First thing that morning, I searched my inbox. Strangely, I couldn’t find the email I remembered. But then I stumbled on another one—one I hadn’t seen before. This one listed the estimate not as $200, but as $1,240. My stomach dropped.

How could the price jump so drastically? I called and found out: the $200 was the estimate from the doctor’s office. The $1,240 came from the LEC, the facility performing the procedure.

The woman on the line explained that the procedure had been coded as diagnostic, not preventive. That meant I’d owe the full deductible and 20% of the rest—adding up to $1,240. 

I told her that I’d already confirmed with my insurance company that preventive colonoscopies are fully covered. I'm not sick. There’s no condition being diagnosed. It’s routine screening. Could the procedure code be changed?

To her credit, the woman contacted the doctor’s office right away. Within the hour, the code was corrected. The billing reclassified as preventive. My financial responsibility? Zero.

I breathed a long breath. I almost paid more than $1,240 out of pocket—for a preventive procedure that should’ve been entirely free.

What This Experience Taught Me

This shows how easily a procedure can get misclassified, how opaque the healthcare system still is, and how even the most responsible patients like me can get trapped by their mistakes—unless we speak up.

What saved me wasn’t luck—it was listening to that 2 a.m. unease. When in doubt, call.

No matter where, self-advocacy is essential.

Friday, July 11, 2025, Thirty-eight years ago today, my father left us. He was only 57.

Just a few days ago, a Chinese saying came to mind:
司马昭之心，路人皆知 (Sīmǎ Zhāo zhī xīn, lùrén jiē zhī)— “Sima Zhao’s ambition is known to all, even to passersby.” In other words: it’s an open secret, or his motives are plain as day.

That phrase stirred a wave of memories.

I first learned it as a teenager in Tianjin during the Cultural Revolution. In our modest home, there was a large locked bookshelf—my father’s treasure chest. Inside were the books he loved most: ancient Chinese classics, history, and political theory. We didn’t have much money, and to this day I don’t know where he got those books. I remember he enjoyed reading and talking about history stories, especially those from the Three Kingdoms.

司马昭之心，路人皆知, this saying came from one of those stories. I probably didn’t fully understand it back then, but the moment he shared it has stayed with me all these years.

Now, on the 38th anniversary of his passing, I find comfort in knowing that his love of reading and teaching still lives on—in me. I can’t think of a more meaningful way to honor his memory and to reflect on the ways he still lives in me today.

As a parent of a daughter, reading The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante was an emotionally difficult experience.

Giovanna, the novel’s teenage protagonist, is every parent’s worst nightmare—angry, unpredictable, and determined to dismantle the moral authority of the adults around her. Ferrante has always excelled at portraying the frailties and contradictions of adult life, but this novel struck closer to the bone: What happens when your own child begins to see you as the enemy?

Giovanna is rebellious, cruel in moments, and cold in others. Her descent into adolescent fury begins with a single overheard insult, but it quickly spirals into distrust, self-sabotage, and alienation.

As a parent, it’s hard not to think: Her parents weren’t saints, but they didn’t deserve this. They didn’t deserve to become targets of such harsh judgment from their daughter.

And then there’s Vittoria—the aunt. Mysterious, venomous. She becomes a symbol of the chaotic adulthood Giovanna longs to explore, precisely because it seems so brutally honest, in contrast to her parents’ guarded world. But Vittoria’s world isn’t freer or kinder—it’s just more raw, more wounded.

What terrified me wasn’t that adults were exposed as flawed—this we all know—but that the generational bridge between parent and child could collapse so easily and completely. That parental love was so fragile. That a child could decide, seemingly overnight, that love had been a lie all along. And that parents, no matter how earnest or well-meaning, are so vulnerable to rejection.

Postscript: What Ferrante Taught Us About Parenting

Reading The Lying Life of Adults felt like watching a slow-motion car crash—inescapable and devastating. Giovanna’s sudden transformation—her defiance, her bitterness, her urge to unravel everything her parents stood for—felt more like a cautionary tale than fiction. I kept asking myself: Is there a way to avoid raising a daughter like Giovanna? To not become the kind of parent a child fights against?

I’ve come to believe that, instead of offering moral lectures or pretending to be perfect, perhaps honesty really is the best policy. We need to allow our children to question us without fear, see us as what we truly are, and we need to be willing to listen—even when it’s uncomfortable.

Ultimately we can’t choose our children’s paths. But we can walk beside them as loved ones, long enough—and openly enough—so that when they need, they’ll know where home is—and that it’s a place where truth, love, and forgiveness live.

July 7, 2025

It began on the morning of July 5th, while I was walking with my daughter along the Brooklyn waterfront. As we passed a poplar tree, I plucked a leaf and showed her a childhood game we used to play. I curled four fingers inward to meet my thumb to show her the game.

The Leaf‑Pop Game

The game goes like this: you curl the four fingers of one hand inward to meet the thumb, forming a circle with a hollow center. Then you place the round blade of a poplar leaf over the opening, aim well and give it a quick slap with your other palm—POP!—and the leaf breaks, its echo ringing like a tiny firecracker.

Sometimes, when the leaf tore silently—what we called a “哑炮” (“dud”)—everyone laughed, and the unlucky player was left with a stinging hand and bruised pride. We’d slap harder, chasing the loudest pop.

The Petiole Tug‑of‑War

We didn't throw away the rest of the leaf. We'd keep for another game the petiole of the leaf—that long, string-like stem of the leaf. It's called “拉钩,” like tiny tug‑of‑war ropes: two players would hook their leaf petioles together and then pull, each trying to break the other’s petiole without snapping their own. The one whose petiole stayed intact was the winner.

Next, I told my daughter that we didn't have money and toys, but we had plenty of time and a lot of play time. We played many games and made our own toys with whatever materials we got hold of.

Clay Pots, Ice‑Stick Swords, and Other Lost Inventions

We invented games and toys from whatever we could find. Even now, whenever I see something discarded or ordinary, my mind still wonders how it might be repurposed or recycled—how something that looks like junk could become a toy, or a useful thing. And even today, whenever I have a piece of paper in hand, I always think of folding it into some toy like bird or flower or pig or dog.

• “炸锅锅”: a game we enjoyed playing. We mixed dirt and water, shaped it into clay pots, slapped them on the ground, and thrilled at the crisp explosion.

• Popsicle‑stick treasures: materials for toys. We picked and saved these sticks and used them to make whatever we imagined.

• Pencil knives & wood scraps: we carved our own slingshots and wooden “handguns” with found wood and our pencil knives.

• Dragonfly hunts: catching dragonflies in summer was a fun summer thrill, with the exhilaration of a swift catch.

• Bottle‑cap markets: some toys that cost money that we didn’t have, like color glass marble, we bartered our handmade toys to kids who did.

I grew peppers and green beans using discarded broken pan. Every alley and field was both playground and treasure-island.

A Contrast

My daughter listened, wide‑eyed. Her room closet was overflown with toys that I could never have imagined, yet she never seemed to have time for them, with all kinds of interest classes, music, sport, art, etc, the modern arms race of childhood achievement leaves little space and time for creation or aimless wonder.

Back in our childhood, unstructured play was abundant. We had little in material things but plenty of time to imagine, create, and explore. Today, the contrast is stark: material abundance meets time scarcity, and free play has become a rare luxury. Maybe it's time we loosen our children’s tightly packed schedules, giving them back the space and time to wander, to tinker, and to simply be themselves.

Why Record This?

“These stories are history,” I told my daughter. “If I don’t tell them—and write them—they’ll disappear.”

One leaf, one story, passed down before it fades.

July 5, 2025

I've been working on an article about China’s fourth-generation universities, but despite days of effort, I haven’t made much progress. Other writing projects have also been postponed.

Then something happened today—something small, perhaps, but truly meaningful to me. I want to write it down before the memory fades.

We’ve been staying at my son’s place since July 3rd. Early this morning, my daughter came over and the three of us went for a walk along the Brooklyn waterfront. Afterward, we wandered east in search of breakfast. That’s when we noticed the empty streets and a line of NO PARKING signs.

NO PARKING
Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular
Thurs., July 3, 2025, 8:00 PM through July 5, 2025, 1:00 AM
Violators will be towed.
New York Police Department

We had parked our car around 5:30 PM on July 3rd, not seeing any signs at the time. If the no-parking rule went into effect at 8:00 PM, that gave less than three hours' notice—far short of the 24-hour minimum we thought was required. We assumed Joralemon Street wouldn’t be part of the restricted area.

Still uneasy, we rushed over to check. When we arrived, our car was gone.

We stood there, stunned. Speechless. Our minds immediately raced to the worst: the car had been towed, we’d have to navigate a maze of bureaucracy, pay a heavy fine… What a way to ruin a wonderful weekend!

Before I could even finish a thought, my daughter had already pulled out her phone, looked up the relevant number, and made the call. Within minutes, she got through to someone, found out exactly where the car was, and confirmed that there would be no fine—since it had been legally parked. Unbelievable fast turn of event!

Just like that, what could’ve been a full-day ordeal was resolved in ten minutes. A happy ending, thanks entirely to her quick thinking and problem-solving ability.

It reminded me of a friend of mine back in Kansas. She had just turned 65 and was trying to apply for Medicare Part A. Her English isn't strong, and she struggled to understand the process. She called her daughter—the only person she could turn to—left messages asking for help, but never heard back. Eventually, she called me to help with the application.

The contrast stayed with me.
I feel so blessed to have a daughter who not only shows up but steps up—especially in moments like this.