Month: November 2018

Thanks mum, thanks dad

Today is Thanksgiving weekend. 

It is also the day when I realise how damaged I am, when it comes to family.  I’m not saying it as a bad thing, but probably more just a realisation and a factual statement. 

Part of it is growing up in China, and then growing up as part of the Chinese diaspora in London, England. 

That was a very damaging experience, which I will write about later: growing up in China through its turbulent history and then in the UK. In the meantime, I’m working on not feeling like biological parents have to define everything for me, which reminds me of this clip from a movie that helped me through some shit for a while. 

It’s a film from 2013, and it stars Jake Johnson and Olivia Wilde. 2:04 in this trailer, taken from YouTube, is how I feel today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz12fvyhcdI

Granny project update #1

麦新 大刀Download

I wanted to send an update on writing on my grandmother, as well as other miscellaneous thoughts.

I’ve been on a trip around the States, and I thought about my grandmother. On the way over there the only thing I could play on my computer was the recordings of her talking.

In this particular snippet she sings a song called “Knife” by a composer called Mai Xin (1914 – 1947) . This anti-Japanese song was a hit back in the day. 

The first line from the song, which I ask her to sing, translates roughly as “A large knife / Strike / The heads of the Japanese devils. / Armed brothers / Get ready! / It’s time for resistance against the Japanese!” 

What I like about this recording, from 2015, aside from me egging her on to sing the revolutionary-era song even though she says she can’t remember the words, are the sounds of the house that I grew up in. The State-propaganda news playing on television in the background, and someone — either the help or my aunt-in-law, chopping and dicing onions or garlic in the kitchen.

These sounds are precious because I know that all those times when she and I would sit together, when other things were going on in the background, will be some of the best memories I have with her.