Dr. Zenglo Chen remembers his childhood in Beijing at the height of the Chinese Cultural Revolution:
“I start my depression when I was close to 4 years old. My parents were prosecuted and they'd been taken away by the Chinese authority. My younger sister who was 12 years old then took care of me [in my] daily life. She even had hard time to take care herself. I felt tremendous fear: hopeless, helpless, and paralyzed.”
Now 50, Zenglo has lived exactly half his life as Chinese and half as American. Unable to shed his sense of hyper-vigilance and feelings of abandonment, he experiences two decades of severe depression and recurring suicidal thoughts. In pursuit of self-understanding, Zenglo becomes an organizational psychologist. He simultaneously explores a second path, crossing continents and studying wide-ranging religious traditions in search of a faith that might offer him a sense of security and release from suffering.
Told in Zenglo’s own words, with exquisitely crafted hand-drawn and stop-motion animation, Fear considers the consequences of deep fear that outlives its utility during one life phase, and morphs into a dangerous entity of its own. Zenglo speaks with grace and humor from the midst of his journey, sharing his learned wisdom, small victories, and ordinary joys.
“I start my depression when I was close to 4 years old. My parents were prosecuted and they'd been taken away by the Chinese authority. My younger sister who was 12 years old then took care of me [in my] daily life. She even had hard time to take care herself. I felt tremendous fear: hopeless, helpless, and paralyzed.”
Now 50, Zenglo has lived exactly half his life as Chinese and half as American. Unable to shed his sense of hyper-vigilance and feelings of abandonment, he experiences two decades of severe depression and recurring suicidal thoughts. In pursuit of self-understanding, Zenglo becomes an organizational psychologist. He simultaneously explores a second path, crossing continents and studying wide-ranging religious traditions in search of a faith that might offer him a sense of security and release from suffering.
Told in Zenglo’s own words, with exquisitely crafted hand-drawn and stop-motion animation, Fear considers the consequences of deep fear that outlives its utility during one life phase, and morphs into a dangerous entity of its own. Zenglo speaks with grace and humor from the midst of his journey, sharing his learned wisdom, small victories, and ordinary joys.
