I reflect

Last Saturday my spine was injured so I became immobile and rather dependant. Fortunately, my childhood friend John and his wife live upstairs. They have been really good at trucking me around to see the doctor and get stuff. As a result, we have also eaten most of our meals together. I have not used my Chinese language for so long with such intensity. I was persuaded to watch a Chinese movie called “TangShan Earthquake”. John and Sue have seen it twice and both of them cried watching it. They gave me an ipad with headset and a wet towel. I joked that I might not be able to cry and could be accused of being heartless. I watched the movie unsuspected thinking that not likely I would break down.

To my surprise, the movie touched me deeply. I covered my face and tried very hard to smother my bawling numerous times during the movie. Yes, I do occasionally cry in a good movie, but not really bawling. John and Sue expected tears but were surprised how strong I reacted. At the end of the movie, I also laughed that the main character married a westerner and moved to Vancouver with her daughter. I was shocked after the movie because I thought that I had dealt with most of my inner trouble and sorrow, but I was wrong. There is something I have hid well from myself. Just like the other day I wrote to Sally about not knowing myself.

I talked to John and Sue about my childhood. John knew me since I was three, but he never knew that I was deeply depressed because I never let anyone know. I resented people in Nanhui so I never made any endeavour to learn or speak the local dialect – Nanhui Hua, even though it was not a hard language to learn since I speak Shanghainese. It was my secret defence against people who had shown prejudice against me.
The fact that I was adopted was not a healthy topic amongst people who knew. It was a topic of gossip and it usually made the room silent when I walked into it. I was discriminated against because I was adopted. I could not get the truth out of anyone including my parents which made me subject to discrimination without any defense or comforting. As I learned the truth about the adoption, when I was almost 18, I was quite moved by the fact that my biological parents were willing to give me to my parents as a gift. I was moved by the friendship between 2 sets of parents and felt consolation even though I had to suffer the discrimination in my early years. In recent years, I discovered my mother’s inability to feel security of my love for her as a mother, she often vented on her sister (my birth mother) and me, and how my aunt (my birth mother) has been tiptoeing around her and tolerated her sister’s anger and unjust accusations. Even though I have a hard time to understand my mother’s insecurity, I have more trouble to see that my aunt quietly took in the anger and unjust accusations. I knew that she was suffering and hurt. I could not openly express my support so I took it all inside of me, which made it hard for me to forgive my mother’s behaviour. It has become unbearable for me that I have difficulty to phone my aunt to just chat. It’s too overwhelming hearing her voice but not being able to do much. It has been over 6 months since I spoke to her last, and it is getting even more difficult now to pick up the phone.

This was the first time I ever revealed this to a friend and now I even try to speak Nanhui Hua just for fun, something I have never done in my life. I am a queen of hiding my innermost feeling and now I am letting it out. Things I thought were humiliating and embarrassing. I ran away from China for that reason, I was running away from my memory. Now it is a global village and I can’t keep running away.
I was really lucky to have Daryl as my husband as he tolerated my baggage, anger and depression. He is very patient and he has given me room to come out of my own cocoon. Daryl told me the story about his god parents adopting a boy who had a terminal illness and gave him 15 beautiful years of life. In China, people in general have been so indoctrinated with passing on the family name, that adoption is now an embarrassment, instead of something utterly beautiful, a chance to show unconditioned love. Mom and dad, at that time, felt and maybe still feel sorry about their inability to have their own biological child. They neglected to see the unselfish love their sister and brother-in-law had shown them. I had a very hard time to accept that, more than the discrimination I received when I was little. I need to forgive my mother and love her in spite of this. I was hurt and I was not impressed, but more importantly I needed to forgive and accept people for who they were, as others accepted and loved me for who I was.

I often felt sorry that I was born because of all the suffering, but today I feel indeed fortunate.