Of Nights and Men

It’s quite incredible. My mom was just a girl born in the countryside of a country which, at the time, saw the acceptance of next to zero girls in her situation into college. Yet she remarkably overcame all the obstacles to make an unlikely entrance into college.

Years later, she has a Ph. D. degree and is telling stories of her crazy childhood to me. Having heard all these tales, we finally ventured back to her hometown in China.

Now I have actually been to China once before but since I was essentially a toddler, I have absolutely no recollection of that experience. So for me, this trip to Zhejiang province in 2009 was what really felt like my first step in China.

After leaving Shanghai, my dad’s hometown, my mom’s little country town seemed to directly contrast the big city. For one, the village, surrounded by sprawling, green farmland, possessed much less than one percent of Shanghai’s crowded, overbearing population. In comparison, Shanghai is New York City to Houshan’s Esopus. But most strikingly, the entire ambiance felt different. Out in the country, everything felt expansive yet beautifully open, whereas in the city, I felt crowded and encountered the nastiness of Shanghai.

Don’t get me wrong, I am 100% a city person. But maybe it’s something about the grueling reality of urban China, where beggars without arms or (or, in even worse cases, and) legs plead haplessly for change, that really made me like my mom’s small town hometown so much.

Juxtaposing the image of a bleak, smog-filled Shanghai, where the gray made the birds go away, to the vision before me of a calm and clean backdrop, where the red sun could shine on the songbirds all it wanted really made me feel at home in a place that never had been my home.

In the house where the roof was the sky holding the sun, I felt as if I was in a natural environment that was like habitable. It’s the moment when you can feel perfectly peaceful living “outside” (there were fruit trees within the house), with no disruptions whatsoever, that you feel truly serene.

The moments when I could sit under the open roof in the sun, eating a persimmon, and feeling carefree about the things I needed to do later capture the moments among which I have felt the most at ease, ever.

Yet there’s more to this “house.” As I look back at the stories my mother told about her childhood upbringings, I realize the greater connotations of the house. It was the place where the Red Army confiscated much of my grandparent’s belongings, much of which dated back to the Ming Dynasty. It was the place where they raised four children from very little. But most of all, it was the place where my mom spent countless nights studying and stressing in order to near-miraculously make it into college.

When I think of my grandparent’s house in Houshan, I think of all this. It really is all comforting. Not only do the summer moments of blitheness bring back feelings of relaxation, but my mind’s flashbacks to my mom’s teenage years remind me that as long as you work and toil, you will achieve success. This is what gives me the most comfort.

Describing such a countryside town such as Houshan, the video seems to be of no relationship. It’s a video of Shaoxing, a city a few miles from Houshan. But Shaoxing is significant. Years ago, my grandparents took in their poor friends’ 7 year old and raised him like their own. Today, he is a successful and rich businessman in Shaoxing. He remembers my mother’s family and has given back for their hospitality.

From the stories of my mother’s childhood, I’ve learned much about the convoluted roller-coaster called life. I’ve found a comfort in seeing the importance of following these lessons.