New York Refugee Designer's Life Changing Story

The lotus necklace is a special design for me because I embedded the idea of cultivation there. When I'm making the lotus necklace, I cannot be distracted and cannot have any bad thoughts. Otherwise, the shape of the lotus will be twisted. Just like the cultivation, you have to let go the pursuit about the wrong things and you will feel the real freedom of life. My name is Ariel Tian and I'm the founder and jewelry designer of Yin Boutique. When I was very young, I just loved handcrafts. When I make a small doll and paper art, it makes me feel serenity in my heart and I feel so much love. I love handcrafts, but I don't think I can take it as a career because doing handcrafts doesn't consider to be a decent job. When I was very young and sometimes my parents or my other family members, they usually they try to frighten me when I was not diligent enough when studying and they told me that if you don't study well, then someday you're going to do handcrafts to make money. You know, you won't be successful in society. That makes me feel like doing handcrafts is the very last choice I can make for my career. I didn't realize that is also the change of all my future life. It's a flyer about fangong, which was a spiritual practice that's severely persecuted in mainland China, but I never knew that when I lived in China. I searched online and I found out that how those practitioners were severely persecuted in mainland China. They were put into labor camps and I found out a report called Bloody Organ Harvest and it shocked me so much. Sometimes it really takes great courage to face to the truth. I remember one of the quotes from a show that is saying that knowing it's real means you've got to make a decision. One, keep denying it or two, do something about it. And I made that decision and I decided to do something about it. I want to face to the persecution and try my best to put it to the end in my own way, which is to express the beauty I experienced in a beautiful practice through a special language, which is handcrafted jewelry.