My name is Jiali Mei, and this is my blog. You can find out more about me on the other pages of this website.
This introduction is called What was I thinking. It is about things I’d like to talk about, mostly about pop culture, literature, technology, and feminism.
What was I thinking is a question I often ask myself with a bit of resentment and regret for the past me. This happens for example, when reading a bit of code written several years or even months back. The same feeling also applies to clothes bought in the past, posts posted on the social media in the past, and life choices made in the past.
Irony aside, I also mean to answer sincerely, mostly to people in my life, when they ask me what I was thinking. I get this question sometimes, in the same way as illustrated in the following passage from Gillian Flynn’s novel, Gone Girl:
What are you thinking, Amy? The question I’ve asked most often during our marriage, if not out loud, if not to the person who could answer. I suppose these questions stormcloud over every marriage: What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?
Languages fascinate me. I believe that by means of explanation and communication, this world can become a much better place. Words do have their limits, and trust in other people comes into play when we are occasionally unable to find the right words.
This blog will contain posts in English and Simplified Chinese, as these are my primary thinking languages. If you cannot read both languages, I’ll have to ask you to trust me that the two kinds of posts have similar opinions and are coherent with each other. French might find its way into the posts as well, in that case, I have no other choice but to ask you to pardon me.
如你所见，这个博客叫 What was I thinking. 我打算在这里讨论流行文化、文学、技术和女权主义。
博客的题目“我在想些什么”是带着对过去满满的悔恨说出口的，大约描述的是你打开自己几年前或者几个月以前写的代码，面对满目苍夷的compiling log，满腹狐疑，满坑满谷的bug从屏幕上冒出来时，那样的一种心情。这种感觉绝不仅限于编程，也同样适用于过去买的衣服，发的朋友圈，还有那些让你后悔的人生选择。
讽刺以外，我也想能够在别人问我在想些什么的时候，真诚地回答这个问题。有时候有人会这样问我，就像吉莉安·弗琳在《消失的爱人》当中写的那样：
“你在想些什么呢，艾米？”自结婚以来，这是我问得最多的问题，即使我没有大声问出口，也没有问那个掌握着答案的人；但据我猜想，这些问题恰似阴云一般笼罩着每一宗婚姻——“你在想些什么呢？你感觉怎么样？你是谁？我们都对彼此做了些什么？我们该怎么办？”
语言从来就让我着迷。我相信，如果每个人都能多花一点力气解释他们在想些什么，付出一点精力与人沟通，这个世界可以变得更好。词语当然有它的局限，偶尔词不达意的时候，还是要依靠人与人之间的信任。
这个博客的主要语言是英语和中文，跟我的脑子一样。如果不是两种语言都懂，我也只能在此抱歉，并期得到你的信任。我保证说英语的我和说中文的我看法基本相同并且自洽。如果不小心在博客里写了法语，我也事先在此一并请求原谅。