Chu Shihong

**tw: illness, blindness, depression**

## Personality

In her youth, Shihong was very bubbly and outgoing. She was often referred to as a vitamin among friends and, although things have changed for her significantly since she was a child, Shihong still retains that small spark of childlike curiosity in her heart.

For the most part now, she is mature and responsible, especially when it comes to her work. Music is her passion and she takes it seriously. She loves creating music and making people feel different emotions with her compositions. Since her diagnosis, Shihong has made playing in front of others a priority.

## Biography

Shihong grew up in the coastal city of Tongyeong. Some of her earliest memories are of her and her mother sitting by the seaside and listening to the crash and fall of the waves. It was the first time Shihong remembers falling in love with the sound of nature and the world around her, and that feeling has never left her since.

From a young age, Shihong was enrolled in piano lessons. It wasn't a thing she enjoyed at first, but her parents urged her to stick with it for a year and, should she still decide she disliked it, they would sign her up for something else. Within that year, Shihong became tuned to the keys of the piano in ways she never knew possible. Frustrating and infuriating at times, she was determined to get the keys and sounds right. She wanted to make the music feel beautiful and she worked hard until it did. By the end of the year, when her recital was approaching, Shihong begged to remain in piano lessons, much to her parent's delight. For her following birthday, they purchased her her very own piano and it was the beginning of the rest of her life.

Flash forward nearly twenty years later and Shihong is still playing melodies on her piano. She's not a prodigy, nor does sh consider herself one, but she does know that she is skilled. She enjoys playing for audiences and helping other artists hone their craft so that they, too, can fill the world with beautiful sound. She's a professor at a high-class music university and she has the entire world in the palm of her hands, until things begin to shift.

It was subtle at first. Blurry eyes and once clear figures appearing as nothing but foggy shapes. She thought it was a passing thing, a part of getting older, but as the symptoms increased over the years, Shihong suspected something may not be right.

It only took one doctor's visit to change her entire life. Chu Shihong, the girl who was the happiest she could be, the girl who had it all, the girl would was living her dreams, was going blind. She panicked. Of course, she did. Blindness wasn't rare, but it was uncommon and even more so in people her age. Many people suffered failing eyesight and blindness after their sixties, but Shihong was barely into her 30s and her vision was betraying her. Even if the doctor's assured she would be alright, Shihong didn't think so. Going blind meant being plunged into a life of darkness. How many things would she fail to see once her eyesight was completely gone? She wouldn't see the trees and flowers. She wouldn't see the face of her future husband or children. She wouldn't be able to see the faces of the audiences listening to her music. She wouldn't be able to see the keys or the music sheets.

But the doctors were confident that her ailing eyes wouldn't stop her from playing her music. After all, she had been playing for so long, that Shihong knew the keys by heart and could play with her eyes blindfolded. But it was the faces of the listeners that haunted her most. In no time at all, she would be plummeting into an eternity of pitch blackness, never to see shinging faces ever again. As easy as it was for her to feel knocked down and helpless, she knew what she had to do.

If the future was inevitable, she couldn't waste her time moping around. Precious hours and moments were being wasted as she pitied herself. Moments she could be spending admiring flowers and taking in the scenery of the world, as any moment may be the last time. It was soon after that she decided to embrace her fate. There was nothing they could do about her vision. It was going to leave with or without her permission, but whether or not she chose to enjoy her last days in such a beautifully scenic world was all up to her.

It's been almost two years since the initial diagnosis, and Shihong clings to the small bit of vision she has left. She no longer sees starbursts and haziness. Now her sight is limited to fuzzy blobs and dark outlines of passing figures. She knows one day even that much will be gone, but she won't stop living her life because of it. She still teaches at the university, albeit with a little more assistance.

She hates telling people about her condition. She knows what people will say and think when they hear what she's going through. Shihong doesn't want their sympathy. Although she knows one day it will be impossible to hide her blindness, she takes pride in pretending to be perfectly fine. She's only told a handful of people, one being her grandmother and another being her borhter. She doesn't dare tell her mother or her boss at the university. She doesn't know how they will react and how their reactions could change the course of her life. Until she has no choice left, she will live as normally as she can.