Feel Like Crying

I spent 10 days in last Summer holidays. It was the second time I visited there. I stayed at a couple's apartment and the guy's mother cooked for me. This lady had a very mild personality and I liked her a lot. Thanks to her, I didn't get serious homesick when I was in Beijing because she felt like a mom. She became a widow many years ago and raised up her son by her own. Her life was not easy. But her daughter-in-law was about to have a baby.

But very sadly, today I was told she had cancer and it was advanced. Her son just went back to their hometown to pick a cemetery with good Feng Shui. WHAT HAPPENED? My memory is still vivid, but things have already changed into the worst only half a year later? Just when her tear and sweat is about to pay off, she is leaving? NO WAY! The last thing in this world that I could handle is my beloved relatives or friends passing away. It'd tear me up. I don't know whether I should call her or what am I gonna say to her. I feel so devastated.

One month ago, I gave it a lot of thought and decided to abort my study-in-Germany plan. It was sad to quit but it was for the best. Shame that I'm not as cool as those people who chase their dream bravely. I'd keep on learning German but I'd stay, stay in my city. I should face the reality and be responsible to my mom. I can't just ask her for a great deal of money and leave here alone. My friends said I would come back anyway but who knows what's gonna happen during my absence. There's a Chinese proverb, saying "A tree desires to stand still, but wind does not stop. A son desires to serve his/her parents, but they have gone."

I love you Mom! I love you all, my friends.

one side effect of Spring Festival

22 is a bloody evil age since people around you, no matter how free and easy you used to think they were, started to ask about your relationship status. Sometimes parents or older relatives could be a little too helpful with it. They urged you to get involved in a marriage-oriented relationship. They kinda held the opinion that "you don't have to love him or her deeply because your passion could thrive in the long run (yea, right). You just gotta find someone good enough to have a family with". I just tried to be kind and firm but I guess I'd have a family-reunion phobia after one year or two if I stay single. Well, it's not gonna be any better even if I find my right one, because they would urge you to marry by then.

Chinese people generally tend to be family-oriented and very much appreciate our family bonds. But at every Spring Festival I got the feeling that I was brain-washed. It's no fair to blame mom or other relatives on giving me the brainwash but I have to admit that what they did and said affected my mind in some ways - I barely paid attention to the things in my routine life and I neglected school, my ambitions and even didn't bother being cynical. Instead, the definition and the concept of FAMILY became more graphic in my consciousness. Maybe that was what Spring Festival originally for.

The other day I invited my British friend over for dinner. It was not the first time for mom to meet my foreign friend, but she was still being very Chinese. When he said he hadn't really thought of marriage, mom started to enlighten him (in Chinese though). It seemed funny to me. Well, I believe foreigners like my friend would take marriage more sincerely and seriously than most Chinese people (although they get divorced more easily) because most Westerners must commit to the ones they love, but not the ones "well-matched in their social and economic status".