148. Looking at Places Past

My grandparents on my mother's side went for a visit to my parents' home in Beijing 4 weeks ago, and stayed there until last week. They were there to have a vacation in Beijing, to see their granddaughter (my cousin) who is pregnant, to see my uncle-in-law who has cancer, and to get treatment for my grandfather, who was having problems with his blood pressure. All in all, they were very practical reasons. Since I was not there, they had an extra bed to sleep in. They arrived by car, driven by my uncle (mom's older brother). He and my aunt-in-law were not staying with us -- they were going to stay at their daughter (my pregnant cousin)'s house.

Mom was exhausted from their visit. Little did she know, her parents had many unhealthy and unsanitary habits. Grandmother would perform her morning exercise by slapping her thighs and arms hard, and created an unimaginably large sound that could be heard by people walking on the sidewalk. Mom and dad were always awoken by the sound. Grandfather is not very sociable, but his gloomy attitude disappeared once either my aunt or my cousin visited. When he was in the house, he would rotate between three spots: The armchair in the living room, the sofa in the living room, or the chair in the balcony -- a grand total of 3 meters in distance separating the three. Since he wasn't really moving, when he was eating things like cashew nuts, he would flick the shells so that many landed on the carpet, and stayed there until mom cleaned them up. My parents tried getting him a large platter to hold the shells and fruit skins, but he would not use them. Mom spent 2 hours each night vacuuming and washing everything they used during the day.

After my grandparents finally went back to the countryside, my parents and I chatted on Skype. Mom looked thinner than before. They could not stop ranting about the personal misdemeanors of their parents. Mom mentioned how she finally remembered hints of my grandparents' selfishness and laziness apparent in her childhood, which, along with her life in the countryside, she has abandoned for over 30 years. She told me how grandmother would sometimes grab forks and spoons out of her hands without any prior notice. I listened.

When I was in elementary school, I wrote an essay about my grandparents. I said they were people with big hearts and acted in a careless demeanor. Upon hearing my parents' stories, the memory of my loving grandparents began to crack. I knew they had a favorite child in my uncle and that mother had not been living with them for many years, but the troubles my parents had with coping with my grandparents' stay showed that they were not as big-hearted as I had imagined them to be. They are still nice people, granted, but their world is closed, even to some of their children like my mom. My grandmother was quoted saying, "Your house is so clean, like a hotel!" She indeed treated my parents' house like a hotel, and not the home of their daughter.

On an unrelated note: I will head down to Boston in mid-November for the Boston Career Forum for Japanese-English bilinguals. I will be able to meet some of my middle-school friends and Japanese friends who plan on finding a job back home. But on top of my agenda is the rediscovery of Bostonian culture. Since leaving Cambridge in 2004, this will be my first time going there. My memory of Boston is that of a child, who biked all day just to window-shop at malls or went to the library only to play video-games. This time around, I will be looking at it from a different perspective. The things I ignored before may hold new significance for me. Like my memory of my grandparents, my memory of the city needs to be updated.

I look forward to all the surprises Beantown has to offer.

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Written by micr0q, copyright 2011. Images belong to their respective owners. No copyright infringement intended.