the China that they knew and the China that I know now. I’m so glad that all this awful stuff happened, because just before when things were not happening, time was slow. I had denied so much of myself, for so long. We had missed some key points, but i realised that I had to understand that yes, my parents were never going to compliment me in a way that made me feel special, but they loved me. What they did was instill fear in our hearts, that if we don’t do as we were told then they would not love us anymore. I felt like bringing the old back. There’s so much treasure-troving in the old. Also I realised something, which was that I was always on the side of the victorious. That our whole family were, we had been the victors of history. And I understand how helpless my parents were, to be in a new country, to not know, to not know anyone, to not know anything, and had to rely on the hands of evil-doers, who then maintained their role with me all my life, an insidious influence on me that some days I feel as if I’d never shake. And today I still let these people, in.
But in some ways that helped me understand my parents, because they, too, were in this needy, helpless, tough position. We were and are all the possible victims of a Svengali. Half brothers who murdered each other, families who turned against each other, except, as the victims and the none-oppressors, we just sat back and waited. My mum, my dad, and I. The three of us, against the world. I was always meant to find healing exactly in the place where I had lost myself, and that meant my mum and dad. The sacrifice that they had made isn’t something I think I could do, now. At one point my mother had turned to my dad, before I had gotten to the UK, and said “I want to go home.” They had been professional musicians, but they had to wash dishes. what it would have taken for artists to give up on their dream. What it would have taken for them to give up. and then all that that they became, and it took me decades to understand it, and to travel back to see them, like Odysseus to Ithaca, about thirty-seven years. They became citizens without a country.
And now I am like them, and it feels like a privilege to be like them. To understand where I came from, and to deserve that. There is such a thing as *deserving* the love that is given to you, rather than just sitting back. what was love in the end but sacrificing your own needs and taking care of someone else who needs love more than you. i wonder if there is something where you have to go through the icy waters of hell. to understand that someone’s love meant they laid down their lives for me.
And now I feel as if I am going through a second period of rebellion, as if the first one wasn’t bad enough. The second period of rebellion being triggered by my grandma’s death and a reassessment of my whole life; a second adolescence. I started to, just as in adolescence, re-evaluate what I had lost (childhood, innocence) with what’s in front of me (maturity, experience), and preparing to battle with the latter. The first time though I was actually 15. The second time 37.
The China that they knew and the China that I know now. I’m so glad that all this awful stuff happened, because just before when things were not happening, time was slow. I had denied so much of myself, for so long. We had missed some key points, but i realised that I had to understand that yes, my parents were never going to compliment me in a way that made me feel special, but they loved me. What they did was instill fear in our hearts, that if we don’t do as we were told then they would not love us anymore. I felt like bringing the old back. There’s so much treasure-troving in the old. Also I realised something, which was that I was always on the side of the victorious. That our whole family were, we had been the victors of history. And I understand how helpless my parents were, to be in a new country, to not know, to not know anyone, to not know anything, and had to rely on the hands of evil-doers, who then maintained their role with me all my life, an insidious influence on me that some days I feel as if I’d never shake. And today I still let these people, in.
But in some ways that helped me understand my parents, because they, too, were in this needy, helpless, tough position. We were and are all the possible victims of a Svengali. Half brothers who murdered each other, families who turned against each other, except, as the victims and the none-oppressors, we just sat back and waited. My mum, my dad, and I. The three of us, against the world. I was always meant to find healing exactly in the place where I had lost myself, and that meant my mum and dad. The sacrifice that they had made isn’t something I think I could do, now. At one point my mother had turned to my dad, before I had gotten to the UK, and said “I want to go home.” They had been professional musicians, but they had to wash dishes. what it would have taken for artists to give up on their dream. What it would have taken for them to give up. and then all that that they became, and it took me decades to understand it, and to travel back to see them, like Odysseus to Ithaca, about thirty-seven years. They became citizens without a country.
And now I am like them, and it feels like a privilege to be like them. To understand where I came from, and to deserve that. There is such a thing as *deserving* the love that is given to you, rather than just sitting back. what was love in the end but sacrificing your own needs and taking care of someone else who needs love more than you. i wonder if there is something where you have to go through the icy waters of hell. to understand that someone’s love meant they laid down their lives for me.
And now I feel as if I am going through a second period of rebellion, as if the first one wasn’t bad enough. The second period of rebellion being triggered by my grandma’s death and a reassessment of my whole life; a second adolescence. I started to, just as in adolescence, re-evaluate what I had lost (childhood, innocence) with what’s in front of me (maturity, experience), and preparing to battle with the latter. The first time though I was actually 15. The second time 37.
