Eric Tian

A shriek followed by hysterical sobs. Those nearest instinctively raised their heads in concern but the sobs did not cease. A middle-aged female reached her first.

“What on Earth is the matter with you?” The sobs were violent and loud and for a moment it was all the young girl could do. We waited for her to calm down as the bus took a left.

“Liam Payne is dead,” she finally managed.
“Who?”
“Liam Payne!” Murmurs rippled around the bus. Behind me, a man wearing a turban asked who that was. The girl didn’t answer but stared at her phone, reading the news article. It was confirmed: Liam Payne has died in Argentina, aged 31.

Liam Payne is an English singer and songwriter and former member of the boy band One Direction. 1D came together in 2010 during the X-Factor UK and quickly amassed a massive following, especially in adolescents. The frenzy of their fans often led to whole streets being closed during concert tours. While the band separated in 2016, they remain one of the best-selling boy bands of all time with over 70 million records sold worldwide as of 2020.

The 1D craze had affected me as well. In high school, I purchased their first three albums – Up All Night (2011), Take Me Home (2012), and Midnight Memories (2013) – and knew a dozen songs by heart. Pop wasn’t my favourite genre but there was something special in singing familiar tunes together with a group of fans. There were people I met through 1D who I never would have met otherwise. This is one of the powers of art: connecting strangers through a common love. So when the group separated in 2016 to pursue individual projects, I secretly hoped they would return to write songs that would unite people. I think many people did.

Looking at the young girl on the bus, I saw a generation’s hopes fall with her tears. While fans’ reactions to celebrity deaths might seem overdramatic, they represent something deeper: the end of an era, the loss of shared memories, the realisation that time moves relentlessly forward. These artists soundtrack our lives, their songs becoming timestamps for friendships, loves and connection.

Rest in peace.

When I was in Seattle, I often watched my niece learn how to walk. At first, her steps were awkward and unsteady. An adult was required to hold her hand; if we let go, she would almost immediately fall.

She would cry at this point, sometimes for many minutes. “I hate this,” I imagined her tears saying. “This hurts. This is humiliating. I just want to be carried around by Dad.”

Yet during her crying fits, there would always be a moment of clarity where her eyes transitioned from anguish into determination. In these moments I imagined a fierce battle inside her mind: you will walk, damn it. You will learn this, as long as it takes. And once her tears dried, she would get up, lift up her short arms for an adult to hold, then take one step in front of the other, brow frowned into focus. Yes, she would fall again. Many times. But as her neurons gradually learned the movement, she improved with each attempt.

By the time I left, two weeks later, she could walk for long stretches by herself. A few weeks later, my sister sent me a video of her walking independently outside. I nearly cried.

My favourite stories are those that contain overwhelming internal struggles. Tanaka in Haikyuu is a one I personally adore, but there are so many examples: Harry Potter, Frodo Baggins, Mulan, Katniss Everdeen. These characters all have quiet moments of internal struggle which define the rest of the story. I think one of the reasons why David Goggins is so popular is because he personifies this philosophy: finding meaning in the harsh struggle of overcoming oneself. And it is beautiful.

Emily Dickinson writes in her poem To Fight Aloud is Very Brave:

“To fight aloud is very brave,
But gallanter, I know,
Who charge within the bosom,
The cavalry of woe.”

If you ever wondered an animated child of 1984 and Brave New World looks like, this video might be the answer.

Here is Happiness.

Rain has always held a special place in my writing. Partly because Melbourne, the city I have spent the last few years living, constantly rains. But beyond this, I have a deep respect for this elemental force.

Growing up, one of my favourite things to do was to run outside in the rain. I would imagine that each rain drop was a drop of gold and my goal was to catch as many as possible. Each time a drop hit my face, I would laugh and delight at this gift from the heavens. It made me feel at one with nature, the wetness seeping into my soul.

Rain symbolises a number of things. In media, rain often represents unhappiness or melancholy; when someone is ‘awash’ with sadness. But it can also represent rebirth and renewal, the washing away of the past, shown in the ending of The Lion King. In a different context, rain can be symbolic of struggle or disorientation; there are few things more challenging than running through a storm. It is also commonly used to illustrate romance, such as Darcy’s confession in Pride and Prejudice.

At its core, the power of rain lies in the vulnerability it evokes. When caught under the rain, there is no avoiding its touch. Even if you have an umbrella, your feet will get wet. This elemental graffiti exposes one’s self to some degree, amplifying gloominess into despair, or playfulness into ecstasy. There is a stripping away, leaving one more vulnerable than before.

And in vulnerability, stories of human connection and perseverance emerge.

I was at a cafe yesterday when it began to rain. A young boy was jogging past. The shop owner yelled at the boy to come in for shelter; it seemed like they knew each other. The boy spread out his arms and had the biggest grin on his face, running faster and faster past the cafe, across the road into the downpour. I pictured myself at his age, doing the exact same thing.

I almost joined him.

Glennon Doyle writes in her memoir:

“Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.”

Anyone who has had to choose between the genuine choice and the expected choice can relate to this.

Medicine is sexy. CAR-T cells, stem cell transplants, monoclonal antibodies, CRISPR gene therapy, you name it – there always seems to be a cutting-edge therapy being developed and thousands of patients ready to sign up for clinical trials.

Preventative public health is less sexy. Educating children about nutrition, advocating for transparent food labeling, and implementing alcohol regulations might seem mundane. Yet, these interventions yield results that far surpass even the most advanced medical treatments.

Consider some examples and their ripple effects:

1. Early detection through cancer screening tools dramatically increases survival rates.

2. Limiting fast food accessibility tackles obesity—a major risk factor for numerous non-communicable diseases.

3. Creating public spaces for exercise enhances both physical and mental well-being, reducing overall patient influx.

One of the stories we are taught in medical school is the Upstream Parable. It illustrates the futility of treating a disease when it appears rather than addressing the root cause. This concept is captured in Sir Michael Marmot’s book The Health Gap:

“Why treat people and send them back to the conditions that made them sick?

Indeed, this question strikes at the heart of modern healthcare. While we marvel at medical breakthroughs, perhaps our greatest advancements lie in preventing illness altogether: in looking upstream at the cliffs, rather than the raging waters below.

I was at a London souvenir store last week when I saw an umbrella being sold for £20.

“20 pounds?!” I thought to myself. The most I would ever pay for an umbrella would be £10. Maybe £15, max.

A few days later, I was walking to the hospital when it began to rain. Except this was no ordinary rain: it came violently, all at once, like floodgates opening above your head. Within seconds, the whole street was drenched. I was still 12 minutes from the hospital and dove under the nearest building I could find.

I found myself inside a little electronics store.

“Do you sell umbrellas?” I asked.

“£20,” the shopkeeper replied. I handed over the money without even thinking. It was a cheap, plain umbrella, far worse quality than the one from the souvenir store.

Only later did I realise how fast my value judgment had shifted with context. On a sunny day, buying a £20 umbrella was wasteful. On a rainy day, it was a necessity.

I think the broader lesson is the value of anything—be it an object, a person, an experience, or even knowledge—is deeply tied to circumstance. What seems trivial in one moment might prove invaluable in another. The real tragedy would be to disregard something permanently based on a single, contextual judgment.

In a small riverside town, a bystander noticed a disturbing sight: a person drowning in a fast-moving current. Without hesitation, a group of townspeople plunged into the waters and rescued the drowning swimmer.

As days passed, more people were spotted struggling in the water. The town, unnerved by the findings, organised a team of strong swimmers to act as lifeguards. They constantly patrolled the river and rescued those in danger. They became skilled at saving lives, and the town took pride in their heroic efforts.

However, the flood of people needing rescue kept increasing. The lifeguards were working around the clock, and the town was spending significant resources on rescue equipment and training.

One day, a visitor to the town observed the situation and asked, “Why are so many people falling into the river in the first place?” Curious about the answer, she decided to travel upstream.

There, she discovered a cliff with a beautiful view overlooking the river. Many people would come to admire the scenery, but the path was treacherous, and some would slip and fall into the rapid waters below.

The visitor returned to the town and suggested building a fence along the cliff’s edge. Despite initial skepticism, the town agreed to this experiment.

The result was transformative. With the fence in place, the number of people falling into the river plummeted. The town soon realised that preventing people from falling was far more effective and less resource-intensive than constantly rescuing them from the water. They began to look for other ‘upstream’ solutions to problems they faced.

In the prologue to his short story collection, Mo Yan writes how his childhood governed by famine shaped the stories he wrote (emphasis mine):

“As kids, we had little meat on our bones; we were sticklike figures with big rounded bellies, the skin stretched so taut it was nearly transparent – you could just about see our intestines twist and coil on the other side. Our necks were so long and thin it was a miracle they could support our heavy heads. And what ran through those heads was simplicity itself: all we ever thought about was food and how to get it. We were like a pack of starving dogs, haunting the streets and lanes sniffing the air for something to put inside our bellies…

“Up to this point, three of my novels have been published in America: Red Sorghum, The Garlic Ballads, and The Republic of Wine. In The Garlic Ballads I reveal a critical view of politics and my sympathy for China’s peasants. The Republic of Wine expresses my sorrow over the decline of humanity and my loathing of a corrupt bureaucracy. On the surface, each of these novels appears to be radically different from the others, but but at their core they are very much alike; they all express a yearning for the good life by a lonely child afraid of going hungry.”

As for me, I have published three short stories to date. The Golden Apple is about a midnight duel that is taken over by one person’s obsession. The Magic Cow is about a merchant who sells a cow that promises magic, only for the town to be wholly ruined by it. Finally, Nurture is about a young girl who mistakenly arrives at a wrong boarding house and story of the couple that take her in.

These three stories, amongst my other drafts, all have one thread in common: they are stories of when our emotions get the better of us and result in uncharacteristic decisions.

Upon reflection, this interest arose due to a series of events that occurred in my early teen years. Our neighbour at the time was a strange, unpredictable person who would frequently play loud music and make racist remarks towards my family. At night, when we attended to our garden, he would stand at the fence separating us and stare. If we looked at him, he would make these strange facial expressions to scare us. I later found out he had schizophrenia – my first experience with mental illness.

Next was a series of bad decisions I made after my father passed away. The grief I faced nearly resulted in me being suspended from school. My teacher remarked in front of the class, “This is so uncharacteristic of him.” This was utterly humiliating – my first personal experience of emotions taking over someone.

Finally, related to the passing, was my subsequent experience with video game addiction. It became my coping strategy and was an effective one, but led me down a deep hole that has proven difficult to climb out of. Its hold still echoes in me sometimes. This was my first personal experience of addiction.

These three events are reflected in my first three stories with its themes of addiction, mental illness, and grief. I hadn’t realised it at the time, but the stories that I felt compelled to write were direct reflections of experiences that had shaped me growing up. And I think these experiences also shaped my transition into medicine, as I felt compelled to study diseases and help people suffering, and my more recent interest in Psychiatry.

The threads from our childhood tug at us, conscious or not.