silva rerum

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

Any inter­est­ing stor­ies about the Chinese-​Canadian con­nec­tion? (From Isabella Mori)

Funny you should ask! Ever since I was a tod­dler, I’ve been very close to my grand­par­ents, par­tic­u­larly my paternal grand­mother. Because both my par­ents worked, she would take care of me as a child.

Precocious as I was, she never became exas­per­ated with me. Instead, she gave me nearly every free­dom pos­sible (i.e. tele­vi­sion remote priv­ileges). I have her to thank for my aptitude with tele­vi­sions; exper­i­ence push­ing all the but­tons on the remote sys­tem­at­ic­ally (push­ing each one once, then push­ing it again so as to ascer­tain the effect – my first foray into empir­ical know­ledge!). Unlike other chil­dren who bawled when told to take a nap, I would feign sleep­ing and, once cer­tain that my grand­mother was sound asleep, creep out quietly to turn on the tele­vi­sion to watch Sesame Street or the Big Comfy Couch.

I’m a little sorry to say that I never asked my grand­mother about her life until these past few years. She’s always offered words of wis­dom but only recently have I asked her what life was like for her. She con­tin­ues to inspire me and she loves me uncon­di­tion­ally. She’s my rock!

She’s told me stor­ies of heart­break while par­ent­ing my dad and his three sis­ters, stor­ies of gruelling work back in Shanghai (in order to care for the bur­geon­ing fam­ily) and stor­ies of enter­prise, of how she and my grand­father star­ted a store from scratch and made enough money to send my dad and his sis­ters over­seas for uni­ver­sit­ies (and even helped with a down pay­ment for their houses!).

She never learned how to read or write but always encour­aged my dad and his sis­ters (and now, my brother and me) to study hard in school.

I wrote a Facebook note about my grand­mother once, here it is (the gram­mar is a bit stil­ted, in hind­sight, but the right emo­tions are there):

Today some­thing happened the likes of which may or may not ever hap­pen again. Those who know me real­ise that my grand­mother brought me up since I was knee-​high to a grasshopper.

I learned about Chinese tra­di­tions through her and she always treated me to Sugus or White Rabbit candy, Chinese treats I never gave much thought to. To me, she was this won­der­ful grand­mother who never seemed to age a day. She would walk daily, strolling around the school after deliv­er­ing me to class and after pick­ing me up. She’d cook lunches and break­fasts and, when the need arose, din­ner. When I was nervous or tired or unhappy, she’d be there, will­ing to listen. She just never aged, at least in my eyes.

But today it all changed. I look upon her face to real­ise she was old. Lines marked her face, lines of sor­row, lines of joy. Her eyes, once spark­ling with youth,showed the slight­est hint of the dull­ness of old age. And I real­ised, with great hor­ror, that as she grew older and learned about my likes and dis­likes, I never learned enough about her past and who she was. So today I resolved to do that.

As it turns out, my grand­mother was born in Shanghai, the young­est of a large fam­ily. Born in the 1930s, it was the Great Depression for the former part then…the Sino-​Japanese War for the lat­ter. She speaks bit­terly when she remem­bers that her father was killed by Japanese sol­diers, under­stand­ably unable to ever for­get that atro­city, and remarks sadly upon her mother who had to work harder after his death. Some of her sib­lings had mar­ried, by then, so they helped out. She remem­bers fondly of a zoo nearby and of cel­eb­ra­tions on hol­i­days. Running to and fro, selling freshly picked man­darin oranges, homemade umbrel­las, bam­boo and straw san­dals, she fondly remem­bers selling her homemade mer­chand­ise to help sup­port the fam­ily dur­ing the war.

In her 20s, liv­ing in Shanghai, she remin­isces about pulling rick­shaws that were so heavy she felt like her back would break. But, she also recalls, it was all worth it as she had begun to have a fam­ily to support.

Years later, she moved to Hong Kong where she worked, unable to read or write, for eight dol­lars a day. She and my grand­father saved up enough money to open a shop where she sold homemade drinks, food and ren­ted the area out for eager people will­ing to mah­jongg. Six people, she remarks, six people to do laun­dry for! She jokes about how much laun­dry there was — six people, and each of them wore mul­tiple out­fits too! One for school, one for sleep, and a couple to go out on the town in. Every day, I’d wash them by hand, she tells me.

She remem­bers more. She sent my aunts and dad to Canada to study — edu­ca­tion is pos­sibly the most import­ant gift she could give to them; without edu­ca­tion, what would they do? She told my grand­father to work night shifts as well, while she took care of the house. She remem­bers his unwill­ing­ness to work at night to pay for my aunts and my dad and told him that if he didn’t work, she would. Of course, she laughs, remem­ber­ing how my grand­father hope­lessly tried to take on all the domestic duties of cook­ing, clean­ing, laun­dry, watch­ing the shop, etc. So he, begrudgingly, con­tin­ued to work night shifts while my grand­mother took care of, lit­er­ally, everything else.

As years past, my grand­mother decided it was time to pur­chase a house in Winnipeg, where my aunts and dad stud­ied. It’d be nicer, she had decided, to have a real house, rather than rent­ing out space and all. A space of their own. So she picked up her roots and moved to Canada. One of my aunts mar­ried, so she decided to pay for her house too, after all, mar­ried couples enjoy their pri­vacy, right?

Then she looks at me sol­emnly. She tells me to study hard, respect oth­ers and to believe in myself. She advises me to hon­our my par­ents and to do my best at everything I can do. Study hard, she says, because it will greatly determ­ine my future.

The thing is, she doesn’t real­ise some­thing. Her kind­ness is really what’s determ­ined a lot of who I am. Not know­ing how to read or write, or speak English, she man­aged to raise me into the young per­son I am today. Her kind­ness and spirit is a part of me. And I’m regret­ful I didn’t learn all of this before.

And as the smell of her mois­tur­iz­ing lotion lingers in the air, I won­der what more I can learn from her about life, love and learn­ing. There’s no more time to waste.

It reminds me of a quote I once read.

“Kindness in words cre­ates con­fid­ence. Kindness in think­ing cre­ates pro­fund­ity. Kindness in giv­ing cre­ates love.”
- Lao Tse