Love is more than just an emotion

[Music]

[Applause]

many of us

see love just as an emotion we think of

love

as a deep affection for another person

but we forget

that it is also action that comes as a

result

of the emotion seeing love only as an

emotion

makes it very difficult to recognize

love from people

that say they love us or people they

don’t say it

but show it in different ways

one will appreciate that love comes in

the form of action

motivated by deep affection we can begin

to appreciate

the different ways that people love us

my asian culture is quite a restraint

and

implicit where i’m from love often

equals responsibilities

anything outside of this was considered

priorities

i was born in an ordinary family in

shanghai my father

is an engineer my mother is a teacher

and the family

has always been harmonians since i was a

little girl

however in my family apart from the

chinese new year

my birthday my brother’s birthday

we never celebrate anything else i never

ever remember the days

like my parents birthday anniversaries

or

valentine’s days because my parents

never saw love as a celebration

instead they saw love as a

responsibility

in middle school i started the process

called the view of my father’s back

by the famous chinese writer mr jutsu

ching

in this pose mr zhu writes about his

father

seeing him off the train station and

when they get there

his father first makes a fuss of

asking the attendants to take good care

of his son

during the journey his father then go

through the trouble of getting him

tangerines before he eventually leaves

the station as mr jew

watches his father’s back leaving the

station

tears right to his eyes

in that story the love that father can

give to his son

is the moment when he buys tangerines in

a hurry

while missed jules love is silently

looking back

with tears in his eyes

between them no words are said

they didn’t have to say it out loud

they loved each other

my parents traditional view about love

is a responsibility to give

they give us food shelter clothing and

all the good things

they give us their time and even give

themselves

to children’s families too

they’re like fire fighters because they

are usually the ones

putting out problems

the babysitter for their kids cook teach

and sometimes become the bank

that is how our parents told us

that they love us

now that i’m no longer a little girl

i find that i have also adopted

my parents style of expressing love

however i’ve taken it a little further

than just

one-sided responsibility

let me tell you about jessica

jessica is the daughter of a friend she

lived in my home for four months

while her visa issues were being sorted

out

at first i was very confused

about the right approach to being a

temporary parent

to a girl who was used to being spoiled

by

six adults her two parents

and four grandparents from her asian

background

the first and the obvious choice was to

give her

everything spoil her even and this

is similar to the love that my parents

showed me but i realized that

this responsibility to give was

one-sided

so i opted for the second and less

obvious choice this choice

was to give but also help her

become more mature by guiding her to

learn

some housework such as vacuuming

cleaning the bathroom cleaning the

bathroom

cooking noodles and so on

you see i knew that jessica had

never done anything like that before so

i wanted to teach her

a different way to be independent and to

care

for herself in the future

if i’m being honest this second choice

of showing jessica love

scared me a little because i was

afraid of how her parents would feel or

that she herself would feel that she was

being

treated unfairly fortunately

it all worked out well

because in those four months i started

seeing clean bathrooms and spotless

kitchen counters

i showed jessica love beyond just

the responsibility to give her the

things she needed

i taught and guided her

jessica intern showed me love by

being more responsible with our shared

space

now we have gained the trust and respect

for each other

in turn she makes me amazing homemade

sweet desserts and gives really good

hugs

the differences in the ways that we

express love

doesn’t just cut across different

cultures

it cuts across generations this year

when the coffee 19 broke out the whole

family

stayed together on 14th

of february valentine’s day

my son john told us that he had ordered

dinner downtown for a special evening

he had booked it two weeks ago and

hoped that his mom and dad could have

the experience of

romantic holiday

that happened to be our first romantic

candlelight dinner for valentine’s day

ever

my husband and i typically do not

celebrate much

and apart from birthdays other festivals

are not

paid special attention to in our family

he believes that we do not live on

anniversaries or

festivals he believes

that when we need to be happy we do not

have to wait for

festivals we can celebrate any time

but to my son john equals celebration

of even the smallest things

this is his generation’s way of showing

love to parents

and even themselves

although it’s different from how either

i or my husband express love

or are used to receiving love

we recognized his gesture for what it

was and that is an action motivated by

his deep

affection for us and that

is love

so we choose to respect and enjoy it

anyway

observing and appreciating the different

ways

that people express love has been very

exciting for me

but something i find even more exciting

than

that is the different ways that people

identify love

believe me it’s different

when i was seven years old my father

took me to his workplace

in another city for a week i already

knew

a bit about my father’s job and how

large

his factory was but that was the first

time

that i ever left home to see the

real world i got to attend the company’s

big new year

celebration we boarded a huge ship

and i got eat a lot of seafood

i can still remember every detail of

what i

saw what i smelled

and how curious i was

even though it was 45 years ago

from my perspective even as a little

girl

that was love

my parents giving me experiences that i

would

never forget and showing me the word

was more important than giving me a back

as i’ve grown older i’ve continued

to observe the different ways that we

show and

receive love i’ve seen the difference

between the way my generation shows love

and the way

my son’s generation shows love

it’s all very beautiful and incredibly

fascinating

in romantic relationships there’s a term

for this

and it’s called love language

love experts believe that there are

certain actions

and behaviors that a person would only

show

if they love you and that they would

interpret

as love if their partner exhibited these

behaviors

these behaviors could be as little as a

good morning text

or as flashy as a new product boots

i think that this concept in a much

broader sense can be applied beyond

romance

to non-romantic relationships not only

should we express

love in our own personalized way

but we should also be patient with

others and try to understand and

appreciate the language of

love that they speak and

understand

love is love and different people give

and receive love in different

ways whatever it looks like

as long as not harmful

you and i can still receive and

appreciate

whatever it looks like from

whomever it is please

give accept respect

trust and enjoy love

my husband has promised that for next

year’s valentine’s day

he would be inviting me to a fancy place

for dinner

it’s a new expression of love for us and

we

are both very excited about that