Tuesday 5th May 2026
Blog Page 991

Letter from abroad: China

Will Gardner
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Letter from abroad: China

My phone says it’s 4am, and the sun is definitely right over my head. It’s 37 degrees outside: the horizon a blurred band of heat haze and smog. The roads have ten lanes, yet the taxi driver treats his rear-view mirror like the evil queen in Snow White: glancing at it, but not really getting what it’s all about.

“Where are you going?”, he asks with a strong Beijing accent, through a mouthful of orange peel and cigarette smoke. I was already asking myself a different question: “Where the hell am I?”

The first couple of weeks were a bog of bureaucracy as I trudged around this new and impossibly vast city I had to call home. I collected countless tissue-paper thin documents, concluding with my ‘Residence Permit for Foreigner in the PRC’. This turned out to be nothing more than a big blue sticker in my passport—what was all the fuss about? With the ‘abroad’ half of my year away signed, sealed, and collected from the Aliens’ Exit and Entry Administration Office, all that was left was that other bit: the year.

Full of optimism, I started looking for a place to live. Walking into every new apartment I asked the same carefully pronounced questions: Do we have to pay for the gas ourselves? Is there internet access? Are kitchen utensils provided? Textbook.

“Yes…” a string of potential landlords answered, patiently, but nevertheless completely baffled. I soon found out our role-play material was aimed at students going to Taiwan in the ‘90s. Apparently, Beijing estate agents use a different set of jargon in 2017.

Outside of lessons, everyday chats with the family who run the local dumpling stand, old men drinking tea in bookshops, and total strangers in elevators are constant reminders of how friendly and interested people can be.

December came quickly, and I was having a rough day. My 9am class had been a waste of time and my Chinese seemed as stilted and laboured as ever. A bitter wind ripped through the frozen, grey city, pressing my uncomfortable pollution mask up into my eyes. I missed my friends and family, and the VPN wasn’t working—I couldn’t even look at the Facebook post my twin had tagged me in. I got in the elevator, grouchy, joining a little boy and his mother, who crouched down beside him.

“Look,” she said, “a foreign uncle!”

“Uncle!” He cried gleefully, staring at me.

I knelt down, “Look,” I said, “my Chinese friend!”

He did the ‘a foreigner just attempted to speak my language!’ double-take before bursting into a fit of giggles.

“You look like that… what’s he called? Harry Potter?”

She was right, I did need a haircut.

“He does!” He gasped.

And with that, my love for Beijing was back again.

Whilst visiting Mongolia for a week, the family I stayed with invited me to lunch. I accepted, albeit nervously, knowing that ‘vegetarian’ is a loosely-defined concept in China. However, an uncomfortable encounter with a ceremonial chicken foot was surpassed by drinking distinctly petrol-scented spirits with an old Mongolian man, and getting uncomfortably sozzled for a Tuesday lunchtime. But, it was all laughed away during an authentic and delicious meal, and I boarded the 15-hour train home in high spirits.

A few hours in, I was bored senseless and got my phone out to watch the episode of The Great British Bake Off that I had downloaded. After a few minutes, I realised the people around me were all craning their necks to see what it was all about. I unplugged my headphones and leant the small screen up against the window. My neighbours loved it, and bombarded me with questions. Unfortunately, my cake and baking related vocab was (and remains) rather limited. Describing Candice’s Danish pastry croque monsieur kites as “a bread, a sandwich really” made me feel rather incompetent.

I’ve travelled 5,000 miles, and whilst Oxford can feel more distant than just a plane ride away, I’ve rarely found myself lonely. I’ve arrived in a vibrant city full of friends and found places that I love.

Pandora extols wisdom, seated upon box

Cherwell Life
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Pandora extols wisdom, seated upon box

With 5th Week Blues nearly behind us, Pandora (Cherwell Life’s omniscient cat) decides to give her own advice on how to deal with the pressures Oxford may still bring…

 

My tutor still says my collection was poor.

But I had a nice holiday.

Conclusion: he is a fool.

 

I have a tutorial to prepare for.

But I am awfully stressed.

Conclusion: take nap.

 

I should probably read some books.

But the bar is open.

Conclusion: wine.

 

I hear people chat shit about me in the bar.

But I do not care for these people.

Conclusion: do not care.

 

The tomcat behind the bar winks. He says I should go to Cellar.

But mother would be dubious.

Conclusion: wink back.

“It’s about the ways that hope and faith fill up the cracks in pain”

Hannah Chukwu
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“It’s about the ways that hope and faith fill up the cracks in pain”

Dying Light is a beautiful production of a beautifully bittersweet play. As soon as the audience walked into the BT Studio to be greeted by a dimly lit stage, sparsely clad in the paraphernalia of a hospital waiting room, we knew the types of emotions we were about to be confronted by. Set in America, Dying Light tells the story of two teenage terminal cancer patients who meet in a cancer ward and fall in love, and explores the ways that hope and faith fill up the cracks in pain. “You always have to believe you’re gonna get better”, Jenny tells Tom, and the story’s arc explores how that strength of faith can tangibly play out in the face of extreme hardship

Both Charithra Chandran and Chris Dodsworth gave stunning performances as Jenny and Tom—Charithra’s consistent tears-on-cue were an impressive touch and were placed at key moments that allowed the play to feel continually raw, real and painful. With the production’s intimate and minimal stage setting, it was important for the actors to address the issue of maintaining the fourth wall and they achieved this expertly. The director, Lara Marks, did a wonderful job—and her choice of music was perfect for the atmosphere, as a few well-placed songs gave the play time to pause and space to breathe in such a heart-wrenching storyline.

The only noticeable first night hiccoughs were due to the Burton Taylor’s impressive blackout system, which left a few of the actors tripping over props during exits and entrances. Saying this, however, there was a gorgeous transition conducted in low light that saw Charithra and Chris change the set together—the audience watched as they built a home over hospital waiting room chairs and clinical hand sanitiser—and followed their attempt to build beauty out of their forced abrupt transition from childhood to adulthood.

In the end, this was a play about hope and faith, and both main characters enacted this necessary warmth beautifully. Their chemistry was lovely throughout, and the slow unravelling of their love story was poignantly demonstrated throughout the minutiae of Marks’ direction; the audience was warmly invited into their intimacy. The transition between emotionally draining monologues and witty quick-fire dialogue was tackled expertly—reminding the audience of the polyphonic way in which grief and love criss-cross over daily reality. The production placed an emphasis on the childish innocence present within both of the main characters, using tactful costumes and light-hearted interactions which resonated in the gravity of the story’s circumstances.

The tense-and-release aspect of the play was impressive, as the script moved from jokes about science fiction films to doubts about faith and the value of life with dizzying speed. The entire production felt like a collaborative project between the creative team and audience to navigate these questions, and the audience left having confronted the full range of emotions they conjure. This production is intimate, warm, and touching, and handled the huge topics it grappled with extreme sensitivity. “I love it all”, says Jenny, as she imagines the vastness of humanity and the miscellany of experience we call life—and I did. I loved it all.

 

Breaking: Wadham gives homeless squatters two weeks to vacate shelter

Jack Hunter
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Breaking: Wadham gives homeless squatters two weeks to vacate shelter

Iffley Open House (IOH) squatters, currently using an old VW garage owned by Wadham College as a homeless shelter, have been told by the college that they have two weeks to leave the site, according to the group.

The group say that in January, the leaseholders of the ground floor of the building, the Mid-Counties Co-Operative, negotiated a lease to allow the squatters to stay until 10 April.

However, Wadham confirmed this week that it had terminated the Co-op’s lease and intend to take legal possession of the property at the end of February, in order to move forward with plans to redevelop the site into student accommodation. Wadham reiterated that the college’s “intentions and time-line remain the same as previously and consistently stated”.

In a statement, the college said: “From the start of the occupation, we have made it clear that the squatters could not remain beyond 27 February, when the site is required for pre-demolition works. We welcome the renewed commitment from representatives of Iffley Open House that, as they have always promised us, they will adhere to this time-line and vacate the property by this date.”

Since New Year’s Eve the group have being using the building to house up to 20 homeless people. They have been providing cooked meals, washing facilities, as well as providing skills to held the residents find new work.

IOH say that since opening the shelter, two residents have been rehoused, one has been accepted into University, a further two have started new jobs, and several others are awaiting responses from job applications.

Cherwell understands that there are 13 residents currently staying in the shelter, who could be forced back on to the streets. The group are calling on the local community and council authorities to help them find a new space to house the residents from 27 February should the homeless squatters not find alternative accommodation.

Sandra Phillips, a volunteer at Iffley Open House said: “This space has changed lives. We are concerned that we have to move on before the end of winter, but hopeful we can find a new home and we are determined to continue working with and supporting the residents.

“So much has been achieved in the last six weeks – in total we have provided 600 nights of warm, safe accommodation, almost 200 volunteers have given their time and thousands more have given donations and have sent messages of support. This shows what is possible when we work together as a community.”

Wadham stated its “profound sympathy for the plight of the homeless in Oxford,” and said that it remained in regular communication with IOH representatives. The college said it was in contact with “members of the local council and local housing charities to encourage their attempts to find alternative accommodation for this homeless group, whom we have been happy to shelter temporarily at the Iffley Road site for several weeks.”

The super-societies beneath our feet

Calum Stephenson
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The super-societies beneath our feet

Existing all around us, but disregarded by most, are the greatest societies the world has ever known. Dating back over 100 million years, they have influenced our climate and drastically engineered the environments in which we live. No, these are not some laser-shooting invaders from space hell, but the humblest of conquerors, going about their day to day lives in the shadows. These are the social insects—the ants, termites and bees, unique in their ability to form colonies numbering into the millions of individuals.

Though genetically diverse, the social insects are grouped together due to their similar societal structures, centred around a single reproductive ‘queen’ who serves no other functioning role except to produce the brood. In most cases, all the other individuals in a colony are the queen’s offspring, called the ‘workers’. They raise the brood, forage for food, and act as the colony’s defence force. In some species the workers are divided into different role-based ‘castes’, ranging from large ‘soldiers’ which act as the first line of defence with their powerful mandibles, to the tiny ‘minims’ which carefully tend the brood. Such specialised division of labour allows optimisation of both colony resources and time.

Bees, like us, are primarily visual creatures, having compound eyes sophisticated enough to sense coloured light. They use their vision to locate flowers, the source of their food, but then must relay this information back its colony-mates back at the hive. It does this by performing an elaborate routine colloquially known as the ‘waggle dance’. The bee will dance in a figure of eight, and as it crosses over from one side to the other it will ‘waggle’ its abdomen, releasing various pheromones according to the type of food to be found. The direction of the food source from the hive is conveyed by the direction in which the bee is waggling. The dance is also able to express the distance of the food through the exact duration of the waggle portion.

Such modes of communication are sufficient when the hive is composed of perhaps only a few hundred individuals, but in some insect societies the population can exceed that of humanity’s greatest cities. Termites, for example. Termites set themselves apart due to their unique success in architecture. Across vast swathes of the Australian and African savannah stand imposing mounds up to seven metres tall and 30 metres wide. If the average length of a termite was one centimetre, and we take the average human height to be 1.65 m, this would be equivalent to humans building a structure well over a kilometre high. But writing off these chimneys as mounds of dirt would be terribly naïve. Termites’ towers are meticulously constructed ventilation systems designed to keep the actual colony conditions, located deep underground, at a perfect temperature and humidity for termite life. Termites are the greatest architects on the planet, and success on this scale could never be achieved without their ability to communicate and co-operate.

It is easy to be unsettled by the ‘mindless’ efficiency of these insect super-societies, in which each individual is willing to sacrifice its reproduction, independence, and even its life to preserve the colony as a whole. Could our society be heading in a similar direction, prioritising efficiency over individuality?  Our never-ending scramble towards greater productivity, from intensive agricultural techniques to increasingly rapid mass communication, means that with each passing year we may ever more aptly be described as a super-society.

For more like this, pick up the Communication Issue of Bang! Science Magazine in fifth week

Third week news summary

Cherwell Broadcasting
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Third week news summary

Cherwell Broadcasting presents a summary of the news from in and around Oxford in third week.

Rebels, romance, punk and fashion houses

Anoushka Kavanagh
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Rebels, romance, punk and fashion houses

In 1926, Coco Chanel revolutionised women’s fashion when she published her famous sketch of a simple black dress in Vogue magazine. Favouring simplicity over superfluity, she transformed a colour that had previously been part of strict mourning uniform into a symbol of practical elegance and style. Since then, the little black dress has become a staple in every modern woman’s wardrobe. It’s classy, understated, and slimming. More to the point it’s safe. In Karl Lagerfeld’s words, who took on the Parisian fashion house in 1983, “if you’re wearing black you’re on sure ground”. No matter what happens, black will always be ‘in fashion’.

Our style obsession with the colour has more to it than its uncanny ability to make you appear two sizes smaller though. Rather it stems from black’s duality, changing status, and symbolism. For black can be traced throughout history to have represented both authority and humility, wealth and austerity, rebellion and conformity. It’s a highly powerful colour, with strong subversive tones. In fact, when Chanel rebelled against the melancholy social restrictions on women’s fashion by reinventing black in womenswear, she was joining a long line of non-conformists who had utilised the colour before her, and would continue to do so over the course of the next century. It is this rebellious quality that has ensured the colour’s status as timeless.

Black clothing has been appropriated by many subversive political groups in western history. During the Renaissance, black was adopted by the rising orders as a symbol of wealth and authority. The mercantile and banking classes of the Northern Italian city states had been banned from wearing any garment of colour under measures known as the Sumptuary Laws. Black was the second best luxury, and so they welcomed the tone into their outfits as a sign of their underlying power. The colour’s luxurious reputation was reversed upon the eruption of the Protestant Reformation in Europe though, as Calvinists donned black robes in a demonstration of austerity. The sombre shade once more became a symbol of opposition, this time to the rich colours of the Catholic clergy’s vestments.

18th century political revolutionaries in France would later too adopt black clothing in retaliation to the pastel palette of an enlightened elite, demonstrating their humility. Whilst the paramilitary wing of the Italian fascist party came to be known as the ‘blackshirts’ after the attire they wore in the 1922 March on Rome, asserting their subversive political authority in the colour of their uniforms.

Black has also been the colour of choice for non-conformist social and intellectual movements over the last two centuries. The Romantic poets Keats and Byron assumed the colour into their melancholy identity, using it to set them apart as a movement. And in the 1950s, black came to symbolize intellectual individualism in New York and San Francisco when the Beatniks donned their famous black turtleneck sweaters, berets, and dark glasses as a mark of identification for the academic subculture.

Perhaps most famously, black became the uniform of the London youth culture of the ‘70s and ‘80s. Goth and punk sub-cultures assumed bondage trousers, biker boots and heavy eyeliner in an act of teenage expressionism, rebelling against the brighter colours worn by their parents’ generation. Rei Kawakubo famously cemented black’s rebellious reputation then in her 1981 debut of label Comme des Garçons. The dark, ripped, and hole-ridden outfits paraded down the runway were the epitome of anti-fashion, serving as a reminder that black has long been the colour of expressionism and subversion.

No other colour could conceivably unite punks and Calvinists as black has done. But black has a uniquely versatile history, and deep founded associations with individuality that means it will continue to be appropriate for years to come. As long as we have reason to evolve and rebel, we will always come back to black.

Second week news summary

Cherwell Broadcasting
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Second week news summary

As ever, Cherwell Broadcasting is here to bring you the latest news from in and around Oxford in second week.

Head to Head: The future of Arsène Wenger

Karl Frey and Sam Pace
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Head to Head: The future of Arsène Wenger

Karl Frey for ‘Wenger out’

Some of the things Arsène Wenger has achieved with Arsenal Football Club are extraordinary. Nevertheless, I believe Arsène Wenger has had his time to be a hero and should resign as the manager of Arsenal Football Club.

Wenger is stubborn and football is constantly changing. The Premier League has introduced a plethora of international players over the last decade and the style of play has evolved. Teams have made transitions in personnel, formation and tactics, while Wenger is stuck in his 4-2-3-1, trying to find a way to accommodate the players that he should not have purchased.

We have to give Wenger credit for some of the great players he has signed in the last few years: Mesut Özil, Alexis Sánchez and Shkordan Mustafi have mostly been fantastic. Nevertheless, his transfer policy is criticised by a lot of football fanatics around the world. Wenger sells his best players and doesn’t replace them adequately. Van Persie, Adebayor, Nasri, Fabregas, Cole, and Alex Song were all sold by the Frenchman.

In return he has signed players of the likes of Gervinho, Chamakh, Yaya Sanogo, Flamini, Debuchy and Bramell. Over the years, Wenger has put blind faith in some players without any reason. For many years, he relied on Per Mertesacker as the first choice centre-back, despite him simply being too slow to face some of the fastest strikers in the game. Similar things have happened with the likes of Olivier Giroud, who, considering the playmaking quality he has behind him, isn’t prolific enough. In the 2016 summer transfer window, Wenger promised to sign a world class striker. After unsuccessful talks with Benzema and Lacazette, Arsenal ended up signing Lucas Perez, from Deportivo la Coruña, who is simply not good enough to start for Arsenal and doesn’t even play as an all-out striker.

Teams all over the world adapt their style of play to face particular rivals; Wenger seems to have the world’s worst team management. Following last week’s home defeat to Watford, a furious fan stated on Arsenal TV: “Walcott scores a hat-trick (against Southampton) and gets left on the bench. Welbeck scores two and gets taken out of the squad completely. Our first choice Right-Back [Bellerin] is fit and he is benched for f***ing Bambi [Gabriel]!”

Wenger has had a tough time with injured players every season, but I think he must be given much of the blame for this. Players such as Diaby, Wilshere, Welbeck, Mertesacker, Ramsey and Debuchy have all suffered from several long term injuries. No one can say for sure, but in my opinion Wenger over-strains players during training and doesn’t focus enough of their fitness. I also believe that the medical staff management must be poor. I find it illogical that a team could suffer from injuries so severely every season—there surely is an underlying problem.

Don’t get me wrong. Arsène Wenger has achieved incredible things with Arsenal Football Club. If he wants to be remembered as a legend amongst fans and in the world of football, he should resign from management before he gets sacked. There are simply better options out there for Arsenal. As a fan myself, I would love to see a manager with strong character signing this summer. Massimiliano Allegri, Diego Simeone, Carlo Anchelotti, I’m ready to embrace you with open arms.

Sam Pace for ‘Wenger In’

Arsène Wenger has managed Arsenal since 1996, and has taken the club from indifference to being the most consistent team in the Premier League during his time in charge. In the 16 years that he has been at the helm, Arsenal have won three Premier League titles (1997-1998, 2001-2002 and 2003-2004), and six FA Cups, two of which have come very recently, in 2014 and 2015. Additionally, Wenger has won six Community Shields.

His win percentage at Arsenal is one of the best from the Premier League era (57.4 per cent), and consistently, year on year, for 16 consecutive seasons, Wenger’s Arsenal has finished in the top four, guaranteeing annual performance in the Champions League, Europe’s elite competition. He has also navigated Arsenal successfully from the League’s group stages every single year to date, finishing above the French champions, PSG, this year.

Accolades aside, Wenger has been attributed as the defining factor in the development of some of the best players of the 21st century. Great players, like Bergkamp, Viera, Henry, Fabregas, Van Persie, Pires and Ljunberg all became world-class players in large part thanks to Arsene’s stewardship.

Thierry Henry said that he left Arsenal because he “did not know if Arsène would be staying”. A similar sentiment has been echoed by the current Arsenal crop of talent, with Sánchez and Özil demonstrating caution about signing a new contract. Özil has sited the uncertainty surrounding Wenger’s future as the cause for his hesitance in committing his future to Arsenal.

A look at the Premier League table tells another story. Arsenal sit in fourth place, just three points behind Spurs and two behind Manchester City, but above both United and Liverpool in the standings.

After every Arsenal defeat, the ‘Wenger Out’ brigade start brandishing their garish., Wenger-hating posters, but such displays of animosity and anger are not applicable to Spurs, City, Liverpool or United fans, who all sit similarly out of reach of Chelsea, thanks to the Blues’ stunning run of form since Arsenal’s 3-0 thrashing of them earlier in the season.

A look at Wenger’s current nurturing of the Arsenal youth reveals hope for fans. Alex Iwobi has been in scintillating form this season, with three goals and four assists in the Premier League, taking him to Nigerian Player of the Year, over talents like Iheanacho.

This rapid rise would not have been possible without Wenger’s management. Another glance can be taken at Héctor Bellerin, arguably the best offensive right back in the Premier League, and his rapid rise to form, after a disastrous debut against Dortmund, is directly related the confidence Arsène has instilled in him. Bellerin has in fact rebuffed any claims of moving back to Barcelona, stating Wenger’s loyalty to him as a key factor in this.

Wenger should not leave Arsenal, not just yet. He has created a legacy, and has helped in producing some of the greatest talents to have ever plied their trade in European football. Any ‘Wenger Out’ cries from supporters of Arsenal should be accompanied by ‘Mourinho, Klopp, Guardiola and Pocchetino Out’ calls from every other club in the top six.

“We will not go away— welcome to your first day”

Emma LaPlante
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“We will not go away— welcome to your first day”

It was the end of the day, the early evening hours of 21 January in Washington, D.C., and as the sky darkened I left the Ellipse, the park by the White House, and soon arrived at the U.S. Capitol. It was a bit of a deconstruction site, with bleachers and shelters erected for Inauguration Day still partially standing, but beyond the remnants was the Capitol Building itself. I gazed at it, drained after a day of my emotions running high, feeling a sense of gravity and sobriety when I felt anything at all. It was tall and white, elegantly domed, looking just as noble as it did all the days I walked through it this past summer.

Funny how that worked, with all that’s happened between then and now. Last summer, D.C. bustled: home to the Obama Administration and all the young and naïve progressives who came along with it, it vibrated like a cello string in anticipation of our first woman president. Now, the city’s very DNA had mutated. Passersby eyed each other, pink hats versus red ball caps, trying to decide who they could trust. The D.C. spirit of neighborliness that I’d so loved in the Obama era felt nonexistent. And yet, there was the Capitol Building, still stand- ing proud. Everything was the same, and nothing was the same.

The half-moon was luminously bright. “No matter what happens, the sun will rise in the morning,” President Obama told us on 8 November. He was right, but I hadn’t really wanted him to be.

Walking on, my friends and I picked our way around litter and discarded cardboard signs. A couple sat in the grass, gazing silently at the Capitol Building like it was a fireworks show. It was eerily quiet. A man crossed the street in front of us and said D.C. looked like a war zone. I knew what he meant; it felt surreal to me, too. But it reminded me more of photographs of the aftermath in Rio in 2016 or Beijing in 2008. Maybe the Olympics aren’t such an odd metaphor for what actually happened in D.C. that day. When else in recent years has there ever been such a day of cathartic, sweeping patriotism?

‘Dissent is patriotic,’ read many of the signs I saw at the Women’s March on Washington, and it gave voice to the feeling I’d had ever since I heard that there was going to be a march at all. The feeling that as an American—a feminist American, a politically-minded American, a justice-demanding American, but mostly just as an American—I needed to be there or I would never forgive myself. Although I’ve been involved in feminist and racial justice activism in high school and college, I’d never been in a march before. I arrived at my university in St. Louis, Missouri, less than a month after the murder of Michael Brown by a police officer in the city of Ferguson, which was only about eight miles away. Eighteen years old at the time, I was terrified of the Ferguson riots I saw on the news, and I steered clear of the protests that year, to my continual shame. I promised myself I would not make that mistake again.

I never labored under any assumption that my one additional body would make such a difference, but ever since the election I had been wracked with guilt over how far I am from my friends and my communities that are suffering so existentially. The election pushed me from feeling blessed to feeling selfish by spending a year at Oxford. I can still donate money from afar, and I can call my representatives, but when the Women’s March began to take form, I knew I needed to be there in body as well as soul. So I found cheap tickets and I went.

Walking around that evening was a surreal end to an unreal day. I’d woken up that morning to a house full of people—I was sleeping on the apartment floor of several friends who hosted people (including a boy who’d just spent a day in jail for his involvement with a Marxist protest the day before) for breakfast and sign making before the March. It was unseasonably warm; all I needed was my sweatshirt, emblazoned with ‘USA.’

We packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and walked to the rally, bypassing the metro (a friend of mine was immobilised in a metro station for two hours, unable to push past the throngs of protesters converging on every side). On our way, several little old ladies stopped us to say thank you, and as we passed a group of empty-handed young women we gave them some of our signs. We’d brought extras; it felt like a good day to share.

As half a million people poured into the streets around 10am to listen to the speakers, it became apparent that this was bigger than anyone had bargained for. The crowd was so massive that it extended all the way back to the White House, where the marching route was supposed to end. The protest was too big to suddenly turn around and start marching. For about an hour, organization disintegrated as some people grew impatient. The March had been modeled after the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, but it differed significantly in that its leadership was grassroots, lacking a clear, MLK-type visionary. The protesters around us, much like the Fourth Wave of feminism and every Democrat in America for the past several months, wrung their hands anxiously for a while, trying to decide what to do.

But I believe in the power of stories, and I was mesmerized by the speakers. I cried when six-year-old immigrant rights activist Sophie Cruz spoke about fearlessness and God. As the Mothers of the Movement led the crowd in shouting their children’s names in a gospel-esque and not entirely irreligious rhythm, I let my heart crack open and sent them silent messages of love through the cloudy atmosphere, trying to affirm, ‘Black lives matter to me.’ And when newly minted Senators Tammy Duckworth and Kamala Harris, either of whom could become our first woman president, gave speeches exhorting young women to run for office, shivers of exhilaration traversed my body.

“Are we marching for everything?” my friend’s mother asked as another speaker representing a cause took the stage.

“Yes,” we replied. It’s what makes sustained activism so hard.

Eventually we started moving—not as a bloc but more organically, with several distinct thousands-strong groups finding their own ways to wind through the streets. Some of the marchers stopped at the Washington Monument. Others diverted to shut down traffic near the brand-new Trump Hotel; I kept going until we reached the White House, which despite its new tenants somehow also looked the same. (This is helpful for me, thinking of Trump as a White House tenant, the temporary renter of a space that will someday return to the likes of Barack Obama.) Just as we arrived, a willowy woman with a guitar was leading the crowd in singing ‘This Land Is Your Land.’ A few minutes later, we were dancing in a drum circle. A girl beside me turned to her friend. “We’re dancing in front of the White House right now,” she said. Everyone grinned.

It’s an achingly detailed moment embossed into my memory: little kids, people of color, gay people, Muslim people, all holding their signs in the air like badges of honor and dancing together to the heartbeats of drums. We were there less than an hour, but during that time I had this inexpressible feeling that we were reclaiming this moment for joy.

Since November, joy has been largely phased out by anxiety and anger in my daily repertoire of emotions. As things keep getting worse, I am finding small ways to reverse that trend. When the world seems bent on taking you and your friends down, joy is radical, and it is resistance.

Most of the women who came to the March weren’t raised to be protesters. We were raised to be peacekeepers, to ease tensions and swallow our pride. The familiar phrase, ‘It is better to be kind than to be right,’ comes to mind (I’ve always been a bit obstinate), advice that I doubt is shared with little boys as frequently as it’s shared with little girls.

It feels counterintuitive for us to take up space and make our voices heard. But we are claiming our place in this resistance. Ours is a nation of protesters and hell-raisers, and I have never felt more American than when I was surrounded by 500,000 people chanting ‘Water is Life’ and ‘No Justice, No Peace,’ many of them for the first time.

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