Lan Zhang (1969-2020): A Personal Tribute

Lan speaking at our wedding reception in 2008

A week ago I took a break from this blog to mourn the sudden loss of one of our family's closest friends, Lan Zhang. This post is part personal tribute, part memorial. Friend, writer, artist, curator...  I don't expect to do justice to Lan Zhang and her accomplishments or her importance to us in one blog post, but I will say what I can say, just as she did in her much more widely read and admired blog.

On the morning of March 27, for reasons not entirely clear, Lan left her home in Fort Lee, NJ, walked a few blocks, and within five minutes or so was struck and killed by a van as she crossed a major intersection. From what we know, Lan was in a pedestrian crossing, had the right of way and should have been in plain view. Yet as the driver made a left turn he struck her with enough impact that she expired at the scene a few minutes later. Her bereaved husband Michael had spoken to her just before she left, offering to walk with her, but she wanted to go alone. Within 15 minutes several policeman appeared at the door to convey the grim news. 

How much can slip away in a moment's time? The time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, check your email, or take a shower? Everything, it seems. As the entire world focused on a deadly new epidemic, a more common kind of hazard took the life of our friend at 51 years of age. (The newspaper and police reports incorrectly gave her age as 59 - how we wish she had even those eight more years to fill the world with her energetic and generous spirit.)
  
My wife, Hui, met Lan some 15 years ago, initially through her popular blog, whose title is rendered in English as "New York Lan Lan". (Sometimes it is translated as "New York Blue", because "lan" means "blue" in Mandarin.) On the blog Lan posted poetic personal observations about her life in and near New York City. Her writing, which unfortunately I can't read in the original Chinese, became very popular not only among Chinese women in the U.S. but in China as well, and has been published in a variety of media. 

Lan and friends with Hui at our ceremony

Through Lan, her blog and a WeChat group, Hui met other friends, and as the circle expanded, our social lives increasingly intersected with that of Lan and her friends. She and Michael frequently hosted gatherings at their home, as did other friends, and from Fort Lee to Fort Hamilton Parkway, Long Island to Old Greenwich, CT it was a moveable feast of homemade dumplings, mung bean jelly, roasted duck, hotpots and other Chinese cuisine in its endless variety. Children found each other in mansions with endless rooms and small homes with backyards to entertain themselves; husbands and boyfriends played guitars and drank Chinese liqueurs, and the women sat around the table eating and deciding the fate of the world.

Lan saw two generations of my children as they began to grow up, those from my previous marriage, who got to know her children, and my young daughter with Hui. Her welcoming and generous spirit came home to us repeatedly at our wedding. First we held the ceremony, on very short notice. Although Lan and Hui had known each other only for some 3-4 years, it was Lan who read out Hui's vows in Chinese (this was especially important for Hui's mother, who speaks only Mandarin). The reception was several months later and Lan spoke again (see the photo above). Many people follow the unwritten code of giving a wedding gift that at least covers the cost of seating them. Lan and Michael left an envelope on the table when they arrived, but then we saw Michael striding down the aisle toward us with a large box on his shoulder: a complete set of china. For the past week, as we have been mostly confined to our home, about once a day Hui looks at something we have, and then looks at me, and quietly says, "That's from Lan".

Lan and Michael at Yue Minjun exhibit,

Queens Museum of Art

But Lan was important to us not only because of her social circle and generosity, but also because of her role in the contemporary Chinese art community. Apart from being a popular writer, a talented web designer, and an innovator who used technology to further her artistic and literary imagination, Lan was an artist and an art curator. Time and again one or both of us would make a pilgrimage to some museum or Chelsea gallery to attend openings of shows she had curated, or to jointly visit exhibits of Asian artists with her. Her father had been an artist, and many of her friends are artists as well. Thus Lan brought us into frequent contact with the thriving contemporary Chinese art scene. 

Lan (back row, 4th from right) with other artists at an exhibit that she curated.

As a writer Lan may have reached a wider audience than some of the better known Chinese-American women who have recently published memoirs or autobiographical novels. I'm told that a recent series of essays, based on observations in the New York City subways, and another on the current epidemic, were read by hundreds of thousands of followers; I can safely say that that is many times the combined views of every blog post I have ever written. This literary memorial site gives a couple of examples of her writing; it's in Chinese but if you have an Android phone you can send it to your phone and use Google Translate to read it.

If Lan already seems like the definition of a Renaissance Woman, according to a biography in the memorial site just mentioned, she was also Vice President of the New York Chinese Writers association, and "a founder of (the) Sina Mingbo and WeChat public account 'Yixiangfang Literary City". The same source lists about a half dozen journals and other media that have published her works. Another site suggests that some of her work was about to be published as a book; I don't have any further information about that, but I will update this if I find any. 

Lan's bachelor's degree in China was in fashion design, and in the U.S. she obtained a Master's Degree in Electronic Media Design from the University of Missouri. She also studied at Parsons School of Design and Syracuse University. On her web site she says she is "using Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing methods to produce a range of computational comedy experiences, hoping to create an alternative genre within the American comedy landscape." I don't know how far she went with this project but it is a little mind-boggling that she even conceived of something like that. 

Fundraiser for earthquake victims

As if she needed additional credits, Lan also involved herself in philanthropic work. In 2008 we attended a fundraiser that she and Michael organized for the victims of the Great Sichuan Earthquake. I don't know the full extent of her later philanthropy but I know it didn't stop there. 

At the fundraising event, before modern smartphones (the iPhone debuted in 2007), before Facetime or Zoom (without which we would all be lost right now), Michael demonstrated a technology he had developed that allowed him to project a live video feed from China through his cellphone. Apparently, whether or not great minds think alike, they do attract. And equally great must be the loss when they are separated. Michael and I worked in adjacent buildings for a while, for different New York City agencies, and got to know each other much better during that time. Among the many things I learned about him, one that I admire most is his deep appreciation of the arts, which I'm sure helped cement the bond he had with Lan. He began his long business career working for photographer Milton Greene, famed for his portraits of Marilyn Monroe. I also have an association with a 20th century photographer, my uncle Harold Roth, so we had plenty to talk about on that subject alone. But Michael could offer a personal anecdote about a famous CEO or senator, chat about a Led Zeppelin concert and make insightful comments on a black and white art photograph - quite possibly in the same sentence. The two polymaths seemed like a natural couple; Michael averred that he proposed to her 15 minutes after they met. I spoke with him the day of the accident, but there is no way I could hope to find words that convey my sympathy. For a loss like that, ongoing friendship may be the only balm one can offer.

Lan's accomplishments stand in even greater relief when you consider that at the same time she was raising her two daughters, Ivy and Lucy, now in their 20's. Brilliant and artistic, they remain her living legacy. We have known them both since they were young children, and never expected to be grieving with them so soon, especially at something like this. Especially with another kind of terror bringing the world to a halt and turning lives upside down, it is quite a jolt to endure at their age. If there is any bright side it is that they have the love, support and good will of Lan's worldwide network of friends, as one can verify by clicking on the above link to their fundraising site.

It seems to be human nature that when disasters of any kind occur - 9/11, coronaviruses, or even a tragic traffic accident - we look for hidden messages, meanings, motivations. So the Lanosphere (she was that popular) is alive with theories. Did she go out that morning to take pictures of the George Washington Bridge, all but empty of traffic, to accompany her blog posts on the epidemic? Certainly that is possible - Fort Lee is, if you recall, the city that was intentionally brought to its knees a few years ago through the unannounced closing of GWB access routes by vindictive aides to then-Governor Chris Christie. (It helped derail his presidential campaign.) The sparse traffic on the bridge lanes today is certainly an unusual sight for local residents. But we will never know for sure if that's what she was up to. Did she walk out abruptly because she was angry about something? With a global epidemic that has cooped up couples fighting for personal space while suffering major financial stress, leading to a rash of what has been nicknamed "covidivorces", it wouldn't be unusual if there were issues at a time like this in a modest-sized household with four adults sharing the space.

What we can say for sure is that without the social and economic restrictions we are facing as we wait for the worst of the viral nightmare to pass, all our lives would be different, our routines would be more typical, and this tragedy might not have come to pass.

I can't think of a better way to end this tribute to Lan Zhang that to borrow once more the words of the poet whose name and words I have used in the masthead:

"And now my work is done: no wrath of Jove
nor fire, nor sword, nor time, which would erode
all things, has power to blot out this poem.
Now, when it wills, the fatal day (which has
only the body in its grasp) can end
my years, however long or short their span.
But, with the better part of me, I'll gain
a place that's higher than the stars: my name,
indelible, eternal, will remain."
                           Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XV
                           (tr. Allen  Mandelbaum)