The Past and The Future

I went to the cemetery today. It was far away from Tianjin (about 2 hours drive) and really, it looked to be in the middle of nowhere. Wild chickens ran amok and dust collect on graves untended. My dad, my uncles, and my grandmother led me to my grandfather’s burial site and immediately, I was filled with grief. If he were alive, he would have been so happy to see us gathered together once again but he is not. We kowtowed to him and the other members of my family while my grandmother said a prayer. It was sad and I was desperate to forget but we cannot forget our past. My uncle cried so hard, blood sprouted from his nose. I thought it was somehow poetic that a red pool collected beneath my grandfather’s headstone. In china, red means love, it means good luck and good fortune. These are the thing my grandfather would have wished upon us and it was one more thing that brought tears to my eyes.

Later in the day, we traveled to my relative’s house. I met my grandfather’s younger brother, his wife, their son, and their granddaughter. The little girl is 8 years old and in third grade. She was really sweet. Because education is so important in china, I asked her about her schoolwork. Already, she is learning to read and write English but she doesn’t like English. She tells me that countless times, she’s cried because her schoolwork is too hard yet her parents always stress that she study. I understand her plight. To china, the young is the future and too many parents here live vicariously through their children. The sense of failure is too much for some children to bear and I felt of sense of pity for this cousin of mine.