Hi, how are you?

Hello, my dear readers. How are you?

It’s been such a long, long time, I know. The last time Yan and I spoke to you guys was on October 2018, through an article we titled, “When the Weather Change”. More than a year has passed, finally we are here again, ready to talk.

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In the past year or so, whenever Yan and I got asked about why we stopped writing Elephant Room, we normally would just shrug our shoulders and say, “we got lazy”, or, “life has been busy”. Both of these statements are more than true, yet they only spell half the grain of truth. The rest of the answers?

Let’s go back.

The article we published on October 2018 started like this:

"It’s been well over a month since we last updated an article. The piece on the Chives State really drained so much of our energy; the writing process took almost two weeks, and upon its completion, we both agreed that we needed a break from writing. “We can’t be like this anymore. We need to stop being so depressed.”

A week later, when Yan and I felt that our Elephant Room break had been sufficient enough, we sat down to run through a few potential topics for a new piece. We soon realized something in us had changed: the “usual” interesting events, such as the censorships, the consumption trends and the new memes invented by netizens could no longer attract our interests. Even worse, we found ourselves to be more drowned in the feeling of depression; that “we-are-all-doomed” back noise has now become the theme song that’s playing in our heads all day, every day."

What. Is. Wrong. With. Us?!

We tried. We continued looking for topics, searching for angles, and engaged in conversations like we always had. But we were stuck, finding it difficult to produce the next piece. Meanwhile, new things had been happening in our lives: the Chinese media start-up my father established a few years ago was in urgent search of new management roles, and things weren't looking too well for the company. So me and Yan joined, taking on the roles of CEO and Vice President. None of us had any management experience before, but we wanted to give it a shot anyway, offering helps in means we could.

I wouldn’t say the management roles consumed all of our energy, but they kept us busy enough. More importantly, they lifted us away from the depressing state we were in back then. We were (and still are!) a young generation who were eager to change things; such eagerness motivated us to start Elephant Room, and it pushed us into a deadlock. We wanted change so much, yet we realized there was so little we could change by just writing. Moreover, we were also, simply and shameful to admit, scared. Yan and I had always been (and again, still are!) keen on social and political issues, yet the political climate of our motherland hasn’t been easy for those who like to speak out. Our vocalness on issues such as censorship, gender inequality, and social injustices had certainly gained resonance with some people, but they also had the potential to lead us to a risky situation, as many had warned us. We wanted to keep making voices, but running a company with 20 employees meant we needed to be more cautious, more aware of the consequences of our own actions.

So our mindset changed. Instead of speaking on what we wished to say, we began to constantly think about what we should not say, or how to say things without getting into trouble. Such was not a state for honest, good writing, Yan and I both knew. So we decided to stop writing Elephant Room for a while, and devoted more energy into our Chinese business.

The experience of running a company has taught us so much about the society and ourselves. Growing up, I was always educated that money-making isn’t the end-of-day goal, life should be about something greater, about chasing dreams and making a change. I only got to realize such a belief was a privilege when I took on the CEO role. By working with a team of Chinese colleagues and solving problems with them everyday, I learned how small I am, despite my fancy “international” background and so-called “elite” education. You want to make everyone understand China? Oh, great mission. But do you even understand the country yourself? Do you really know enough to speak up, to take a stance? Do you really have the guts to stick with what you believe in, assuming you really know our beliefs?

There were many, many doubts.

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Several months ago, Yan and I were having meeting with our Chinese company's editor-in-chief Tao, a kind, hard-working, knowledgeable guy who was born in a small village in Shanxi Province, made his way to a top Chinese university and worked as editor in some of the top Chinese internet media outlets. The meeting somehow got loose, and we started to chat about “abstract” things (aka things that don’t lead to productive result in office meetings), more specially, how the Chinese public perceived issues such as censorship and the social credits system. The conversation got a bit heated as Yan and I showed our attitudes: we were critical, of course, and we didn’t bother to hide it from our colleague. Tao listened, objected with euphemisms, and shared how he saw China, the Chinese people and the government. After a round of speech filled with opinions, facts, and personal experiences, he signed, cheerfully yet also sadly, “well, you guys are the ones who’ve actually seen the world. Of course you’d see things differently.”

Tao’s words were so casual, so “not-a-big-deal”, but they drew a vivid, almost harsh line between us and the vast majority of Chinese people. To say it was an awaking of reality is an overstatement, but it did get us silent, and made us think until this day. So which "side" are we on exactly? Sure, we are unable to see China as "the majority" does, yet over the course of last year, we've also started to question some of the "western" values that we were taught to believe in. It seems that Yan and I, and perhaps some peers like us, are distanced from both sides; we belong to no certain label, and cannot speak on behalf of anyone other than ourselves.

This distance is what shaken us, and, in many ways, made Yan and I continued believing in the value of Elephant Room. Forget about all the self-doubts and self-explanations and reasons like "we are stuck"or "we've changed", in the end of the day, we still want to, and just want to share opinions, to open doors for conversations. We want to be honest, be critical, and to keep writing on China - a wonderful, exciting place that we call home.

So yes, we are back. I couldn’t tell you how thrilled and guilty we feel whenever we noticed new subscribers/comments popping up in the past year, despite the fact that we haven’t produced anything for such a long, long period. We all live in such a noisy internet world where peoples’ attention spans are shorter than the gold fish's, nonetheless you chose to read us, to stay interested, and to witness our journey. No word can describe how much we thank you for forgiving our laziness, for tolerating our self-conflicting confusion, and to continue paying attention to our journey. Thank you, really, thank you.

Hope all is well, and see you soon, in our next article.

Love,

Biyi and Yan