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I was born in China, but I moved to Canada when I was three, so I have internalised a lot of Western values, but still retained my Chinese culture. I think in spirit, the latter focuses a lot on how humans need to live in harmony with nature, which is reflected in our language, philosophy, practices, and even in our art. In the West, I think there is more of a mainstream emphasis on the divison between humans and the environment, ranging from nature needing to be dominated or feared, sometimes both, and even a romanticisation of nature, which is still a separation of nature as "other" from us.

Growing up with dual cultures, I think I absorbed a mixture of both Chinese and Western cultures, with more of a leaning towards the Western idea of our environment as being separate from us. I do not think that it is something that needs to be dominated, but we do have to respect it, as the natural world is its own entity, with its own ways of living.

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I come from China, but a majority of my life has been spent in Canada. Here, there is an emphasis (that I have absorbed) that this land belongs to the Indigenous peoples, and that us settlers need to acknowledge and give gratitude to them and to our environment. In addition, Alberta is an oil and gas province, and through the news, I have seen how the industry's exploitation of the land has detrimental effects on the environment and its made my worldview shift in the opposite direction towards exploring more sustainable energy sources.

I have also always grown up in the city, even in China, and I think being surrounded by infrastructure has stunted part of my worldview, as there has not been much opportunity to connect better with nature. Since industrialisation, humans' relationship with nature has suffered from constant exposure to urban life.

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While I am limited to only English, I am able to understand some basic Chinese words and phrases. Agriculture was (and still is) integral in Chinese society, and much of the characters linked to farming and nature play a central role in its language. A lot of the characters even look like their real-life counterparts.

A lot of Chinese proverbs are also in the context of nature including this famous idiom from a Tang Dynasty poet, Li Bai, with its rough English translation.

天不言而四時行 地不語而百物生 (“Without a word from the Sky, the four seasons rotate (and thus all things continue to change), and without utterance from the Earth, all life continues to be born, grow and flourish.”)

The meaning is that the sky and the earth are unable to speak, but the four seasons still happen, and everything as usual thrives. In essence, everything operates by its own laws, and a big part of Chinese philosophy is to respect those laws of nature and to follow the flow of nature.

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I grew up non-religious and I still do not align myself with a specific religion, but a big part of Chinese culture (and in my household) is the Taoist practice of feng shui: the harmonising of individuals with the environment in order to balance chi, the energy in the world. Important to this practice are the five natural elements of earth, fire, water, metal, and tree (wood), which are seen as the building blocks of life. They are also integral to traditional Chinese medicine, and while they are more spiritual, rather than practical applications, there is still the idea about how our health is closely intertwined with nature.

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A major life event was adopting my cat, Kit, in 2016. A lot of my lifestyle had to significantly change after we started living together, as well as influenced my mindset. Much of sharing a space with an animal is framed in the words of ownership and possession; humans are seen as the dominant species, and our companions must obey us. However, while I have always had a respect for animals before Kit, I think actually having another living being in your home (who is not human) forces you to rethink the division between animals and humans. We have to be able to live side-by-side and let them be an animal, because that is what they are, and what they would be out in the wild. Trying to mold them into the perfect, obedient pet, and using abusive tactics to achieve that goal is out of the question.

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Some of the values that are important to me are openness, loyalty, justice, and kindness. I think in examining our relationship with the environment, these beliefs are important as we need to be open to connecting with nature and to be kind to it. As for justice and loyalty, I think there needs to be a dedication to caring for the planet, not just for our benefit, but for the earth itself, and for future generations, as well as advocating for the rights of those affected negatively by what we have done to the environment.