2023-08-10
My flight to China is tomorrow. I don’t know how to describe what I’m feeling right now. But I know for sure I’ll cry. It’s been more than three and a half years since I last visited.
When I last visited,
I was not yet 30. My mom was not yet 50.
I was simply Chinese instead of Chinese Canadian.
The pandemic was just getting started — Wuhan got locked down three days after I got back in China. Now that feels like a lifetime ago.
I hadn’t come out to my parents. The drama is still developing, a drama too silent, its characters full of words unsaid and emotions unexpressed. A typical Chinese family drama.
I just had my laser eye surgery and threw away the glasses I’d detested for years and years.
My grandma was still alive.
My brother was still in college.
My dad hadn’t had that terrible accident in the factory and had to stay in the hospital for a month.
I’m excited. I’m anxious. I’m worried the chocolates will melt. Oh they’ll melt for sure.
2020-08-14
I’m in the McDonalds in the Suzhou train station, waiting for my train to Xinyang. This is the first time I’ve been to Suzhou. My parents work in the factories here. I went to the tiny place they rented. My dad is not working for the following few days because there is not enough to do at his factory. My mom had the weekend off. My brother and I booked a hotel room nearby because we won’t fit into my parents’ place. The family hung out in the hotel room in the evenings.
My mom seemed to have finally accepted that I won’t get married and have kids. I know it’s difficult for her. We bought her some flowers and that made her very happy. She joked about taking the flowers to her Mahjong friends to show off.
I’ve been thinking, I’m doing fairly well for myself but what can I do to make my parents’ life easier? Start a business so they can work for me? What business?
My next stop is my hometown Xinyang.