When I first became a student of English literature in the late 1970s in Shanghai, I was obsessed with English idioms. I considered them to be the authentic wisdom of the west, and through them I thought I could discover a different cultural perspective.
Among the phrases I copied down in my notebook was the saying, “Honesty is the best policy.” I used to read it aloud again and again, pondering why the Western world thought honesty was a good human attribute. Growing up, I never thought being honest could be good at all. During the Cultural Revolution, my father was jailed repeatedly for speaking his mind. Whenever my parents fought about the troubles his candor brought them, my mother always challenged him, “Why are you so honest? Why couldn’t you keep your own thoughts and feelings to yourself? Why couldn’t you make up a better response?”
Although my father was a laborer with only a few years of elementary school education, being truthful, somehow, had always been an integral part of who he was. He would never lie or make a false statement even after he was jailed and physically tortured for telling things the way he saw them.
Witnessing his plight traumatized me greatly. Starting at the tender age of eight, I knew what starvation and abandonment by friends and relatives felt like. Most of all, I was scared to death about going to prison like my father. I knew I couldn’t be honest like he was, but I didn’t want to lie either. So, I coped by not talking to anyone and learned to survive in a very lonely world.
It took me a long time to shed this protective shell and live like a normal person. After many years of contemplating how to walk on a fine line between honesty and deceit, what the world around me wanted me to say versus my inner voice, I have finally been able to get my spontaneity back, now free to be honest with myself, free to express my emotions and opinions, free to act whimsically, and say what I want when I want.
Having lived for decades of my life on two different continents have realized that honesty has
not always been the best policy for me. Still, being truthful to myself and my family and friends helps
lighten my emotional baggage and physical stress. It makes me a brighter and more wholesome person. Considering all that, when the world permits it, honesty is the better policy.
You can always reach me at qstubis@gmail.com, or please visit me at QinSunStubis.com.
You can find a copy of my book, Once Our Lives, online at Amazon.com.