On not doing well. Going to gravesweep for my grandma after one year was not pleasant. I walked into that alleyway and that room knowing that all previous times I had walked with her, not with myself. Because Babaoshan is where all the revolutionary martyrs are buried, a holy place for the CPC, it was weird so to see someone break down so publicly. But at the same time I guess it wasn’t a surprise for them at all, since the place was built to remember death. But I guess you were also supposed to be sombre, especially if you come from a background such as ours. But I chose to break down anyway, just before I got the wreath out, just as I walked along the main road. It was odd, I hadn’t seen my grandparents being put together, on one grave stone. I hadn’t registered that she died on January 26, which is now the date of her death— her death-versary. I’d blocked that out, I guess, until I was able to see it in black and white. I guess the older couple who were walking in front of me into the sacred cemetery thought I was a fake, since I looked so young, and there was a sense of self-consciousness when I realised they were aware of my every step— until I began crying for real, and then the grief was so real and raw and hard that they turned to look away. And then they turned back, psychically, wondering if they should, as elders, help this desperate woman who looked like she might pass out. She loved too hard, she had lost a grandparent (a parent?), she wasn’t okay, the grief was recent.