Back in Kunming, for already 50 days this time. I do come back for my obligations almost every year except 07 and 08.
Born in China and having lived in Sichuan and Kunming, Yunnan for 38 years, weirdly and very uncomfortably, I find that I am going through the 2nd cultural uneasiness from my own country, own culture and own people after working and living in Montreal only for 12 years! I do not say shock, because the 1st time was a real shock and it had made my mind stronger and my immune system tougher.
I guess that is the fate of anyone who lives across countries and cultures! We are curious people who are attracted by the honey of flowers, the essence of lavender, the heat of the sun and the enlightened souls. We search for novelty and invention, our hearts glitter with direct warm eye contact and our souls indulge in appreciation of different forms of creatures and existences… We are also passionate people who can not stand boredom a single minute nor repetition for centuries of the same moral teachings, the same tune that sings the miseries of its people for thousands of years…
We are people who do not feed on misery. We feed on happiness and “looking-forwardness”. It is not at all that we do not understand life can be hard and miserable, it is truly that we accept life as it is and face it with noble attitude, feasible solutions and graceful tolerance. We tend not to judge because we know that we do not know enough to do so and we are becoming more sincerely modest about right and wrong. Our conscience of standards for matters is becoming clearer and yet blurred at the same time. Especially as a Chinese — or still a Chinese in foreigners’ eyes and a “foreignized” Chinese in Chinese eyes — I am slowly but surely, after 12 years, beginning to see the wider horizon of the universe, in its subtlest ways that I often feel wordless, but beautifully numb about…
Yet, my insightful (modestly would be in-side-full) wonderful feelings and widened horizons meet with ice that has been frozen for centuries. For sure, we can not generalize matters and people, yet we can if we narrow our categories and terms of descriptions and summary. I will not do that here, because it will make me seemingly shallow and heartless. But I can tell you how I feel.
I have been feeling very cold here in Kunming since coming back. Physically of course, there are days with 3-4 degrees outdoors and 7-8 degrees indoors for 24 hours… Thinking of my home in Montreal, with -25 degrees outside and 23 degrees inside… Yet, there are things that are even colder and more depressing. TV programs and vision of people around…
My parents are in front of the TV every night and they like to watch the programs telling miserable stories of Chinese daily life. You would be surprised how many programs live on this kind of subject and how well they do. It seems that we have no misery in Canada or elsewhere, but this is definitely not true! The difference is that here in China, the programs have moral teaching whereas over there, they are news without much emotional bombs and exaggerated sad music to put salt on the wounds. Foreign TV programs treat audiences as normal human beings who have the intelligence and basic empathy to understand the situation. Here, not so, we are all kids, in front of the TV moral teachings, in front of parents, in front of school teachers, sometimes, even in front of friends… Of course, 70% of the population can afford to finish high school and the people’s behaviour is always another look from the 10 years teachings…
China has been a country without insurance for its people ever since the history. The single-party system (Kings’ Sovereignties and Communist Party) has left heartless treatment of its majority lower classes of people in constant fear for so long that they forget about everything else but try to be secured. Yet, I regret to utter these ugly words from my soft and loving heart, Chinese have not succeeded in nurturing their people into this wonderful quality of being carefree and having this marvelous ability to enjoy soul liberty. Their ways of obtaining security is by gathering money individually and hammering into the bones of their children this holy responsibility of respecting their elders in time of sickness and for the last stage of their lives. This has been a great tradition of China to solve the old age problem. They make sure with every way possible (TV, newspapers, etc.) that they own their children as their life and medical insurance, but not smartly as western countries have been doing since the 1920s.
There is a BIG dilemma in Chinese culture. Chinese are, if you are their friends or families, very warm and even over killingly nice in treating you, yet on the other hand, some one could run over an unknown 3 year old kid and many just passed by without even noticing,with their mind some where else. You could have heard on TV that some old ladies grabbed no matter whom to blame for her fall in order to blackmail for the medical expenses. Absolutely most Chinese would think I am a fool smiling at them on the streets while I am not their friends, nor their families…etc.
We work hard over seas. Some turn out excellent, some don’t and some are living their miserable lives across the ocean, just as the Chinese here. It seems that they would wish you do bad over seas so that they can continue feeding on our miseries and feeling proud of themselves not being any where else in the world. Many, like my parents refuse to believe that I could still be happy after 2nd time of divorce and still in a status of legally single. They have to know that I have a boyfriend so that they will give some credit to my happiness, otherwise, they will for sure say that I have become psychic being ALONE too long, lol.
The 2nd week after I was back, seeing that I was happy as a bird, whistling and laughing around my condo (my parents occupy it), my mom commented with a careful sarcasm that I was about to have my menopause! I was not knowing how to react on her either almost vicious or too funny comment on her dear daughter who bought her 1st condo in Jiang An Living area, sold and bought the 2nd beautiful spacious condo with an elevator with front and back gardens for them, which is now worth 1.5 millions. I also started giving them a some of 20k RMB as their birthday gift since 2010,less alone the fact that I moved their son’s whole family from Sichuan to Kunming in 1995, helped their son with the down payment (a gift) for his condo after his divorce…
I never wanted to mention my glorious Chinese deeds for my family before I heard my dad said that I was becoming more like foreigners who are, in their eyes, selfish, mean (小气), and who do not understand relations and affection of a good family (hohoho!!!). They, and many others including my son’s dad thought that I made a big mistake getting my son to Canada and my mom said clearly that my niece going to Milan Italy is another mistake.
I do not know what I did was ever right in their eyes anyway! Yet, as a foreignized Chinese who probably does not understand the relations and affection of a GOOD family, I tolerate them as people who still live in fear, before for things that had their reasons, and now for the fact that they are getting close to their last stage. Yes, I should be here for them as their last straw for escaping their fear of death, financially and emotionally secure them before their due time, only that I have to be prepared that there will be no gratitude from them for doing so, as the “glorious Chinese tradition” make some people take granted their children’s kindness…
Again about my niece, I know the NY best seller: Eat, Sleep and Pray is among the books my niece reads. She is a nicely mild and intelligent girl who agreed to her aunty’s strong opinion on her coming back after studying in Milan. The aunty said they have to benefit from the investment, and it seems that the aunty is one step ahead of my mom, or my mom knows that their teachings will be lost to my niece’s own judgement in later years…
I feel cold, cold in such a city famous for its warm weather all the year round. I miss Montreal, my nice cozy home that I designed and partially executed. I love the tranquility by the river St-Laurent where I hear no noise of greed, worries and fear. I love Helen, Paul and Isabelle, my neighbours. I love the fact that Canadian seldom talk about money as a way of security (at least now, and I am very lucky). Maybe I do not live among the poor there, well, my parents can surely not be classified as poor in China with 100 thousand Yuan a year (20 thousand from me), 80% medical expenses taken care, a free condo to enjoy the sun…I do not understand what they are afraid of, compared to those many truly miserable people in China and in the world…
Then, I found this little O’Reilly’s Irish Pub close to Feng Huang Cheng (where I have my condo). My darkened and frozen life suddenly lit up. They do have a gas heater at the entrance and another air-conditioner on the 2nd floor. I popped in one day and investigated. Nice authentic 2 floor Irish style pub ran by Tim, Adrien and Mimane, all under 30 years old of age. For sure they know that I like their Pub, yet I wonder if they really understand the true reason. Yet Tim can only understand given he himself is a Belgian now 20 yrs gone…and not really Belgian anymore…and Mark, an Australian who has businesses in China, would most definitely resonate some of the pain and joy, nonetheless opportunities for endless unreachable goals for the ordinaries…
This little lovely pub, in my heart, has become a kind of special, non-bleaky white colour home to the freezing soul of an estranged (strayed) Chinese, in a far away cold Spring City in China. The experienced I unnaively know that in other Irish Pubs go the stories of similar frozen hearts… I also know, on the other side of this same and different world of me and my parents, they are coldly lost as well by letting their insurance ME so far away and so estranged that they could never hear all the yeses they have always been dying to hear…Who can be their O’Reilly’s Irish Pub which can warm their hands and feet, and lit up their souls? It might be me to be the path, but the hard thing is that they do not drink, especially Irish Guinness.
My parents do not understand English! lol, My love for them will never change as I had promised myself that I would always bring them along with me . I love them so, not because I am a traditional Chinese who understand the relation and affection of a GOOD family, it is because I am a widely traveled and better informed world citizen and I met my dear Stephanie Kribs and Chris Van Gorder with a few others who showed me this special love other than the love I knew between family members and friends, otherwise, my parents have to bargain, if not manipulate, for more of my love with no bait (NY Times Article: Bargaining for A Child’s Love). Mature love or love with strong conscience does not change!
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