Chapter 8 Eight

I went home and kept washing my body with soap, and even brushed it, but what came off was not black, but red, and blood! don't make yourself more lonely In the evening, standing in front of the office building in Taipei, I saw a bus passing by, and a black man was looking out from the rear window. Scene: A black mother got into the car with her little daughter who was only four or five years old. The child who didn’t need a ticket ran to the front row and sat down. The black mother jingled and dropped coins, but just as she was getting into the car, the driver stopped her. : "Hey! Don't go, you missed a dime!"

The black mother walked back to the toll machine, counted for a long time with her head down, and murmured, "It's not wrong!" "Really?" The driver glanced again and waved his hand: "Oh! No less, you can go!" A shocking thing happened. When the black mother blushed and walked towards her little daughter, she slapped the little girl hard. The girl was stunned, covered her hot cheeks and looked at her mother, showing fear and ignorance in her eyes, and finally burst into tears. "Go away! Go to the last row, have you forgotten that you are black?" Mom yelled sharply: "Black people only deserve to sit in the back!"

The whole car was quiet, and everyone, especially the arrogant ones, felt that the slap was a hot slap in the face. That night, when I told this story to your mother, she told me another touching story.A black student wrote in the autobiography of the admission application: "The clearest childhood memory is the first time I went to play with my own children. I stood among them and smiled at them, but they didn't seem to see it." and ran away from me. I was wronged and cried. Other black children, instead of comforting me, came to laugh at me: "Don't see what color I am." I went home and washed my body with soap, and even took Brushing, hoping to wash myself whiter, but what washes out is not black, but red, and blood!"

What a shocking text!It makes me almost feel that the bright red blood is flowing in front of my eyes, and it also reminds me of a picture of the movie star in "The Adventures of Tom"—— The black child was injured, and the white child said in amazement: "Oh my God! Your blood is also red!" This is not a new joke, because we make this kind of joke all the time, we naturally divide people into different levels, think that we are superior to others, and deliberately ignore the essence that everyone is also a "human"! Recently, a friend "built" an ideal house in Danshui. It faces a large green area in front, and there is a hillside in the back. You can see Guanyin Mountain and Danhai from a distance.But just the day before he was about to sign the contract, he suddenly changed his mind because he knew that a national residence would be built not far from that house.He said angrily:

"Can you tolerate your children playing with the children of those cheap state houses in the future? To buy a house worth 20 million yuan, you must have neighbors worth 20 million yuan!" This also reminds me of a trip to Alishan with my friends a few years ago, taking the train to Chiayi City, and then taking a taxi up the mountain.There were four seats in the car, so we had to share the ride with a couple we didn't know. On the way they recognized me, and they chatted about my hard work in the shoe factory and about me in New York. After getting out of the car, my friend said very unhappy: "Why do you talk so much to these small workers? It hurts your identity!"

To be honest, what he said hurt his own identity!Because people who don't know how to respect others.It is showing his own ignorance, even the arrogance caused by inferiority complex. I once saw a painter demonstrating his strokes in an American gallery. When the audience was amazed by his skills and received warm applause, someone raised his hand: "Excuse me about the relationship between Chinese painting and Japanese painting." "Japanese paintings are all learned from China, but they are boneless and unequivocal, so they are not worth seeing!" Before the conversation was over, the audience had already left their seats.

He did not know: "Show yourself, don't deny others! You can disagree, but you can't completely deny it! People who deny others often cannot have good interpersonal relationships, because they have a barrier in their hearts; blocking others also hinders themselves. Your elementary school teacher once said to me: "When you discover that a child in a lower grade is actually racist, you don't have to tell his parents, because what does a child know? Most of his discrimination is learned from his parents! , I am worried that this kind of child will become lonely in society in the future!"

She said these things to me because you were discriminated against by white children and called you a "Chinese slave".Do you remember how I comforted you when I got home?I say: "If you find that this society is unfair, instead of complaining, you should work hard to create a fair society. So when you find that white people discriminate against yellow people, on the one hand, you must work hard to prove that yellow people are by no means inferior to white people. More respect for other races! If you discriminate against black and brown people yourself, why should white people not discriminate against you?!"

Because of this, I went to Alishan with my friend who bought a freshwater villa. "How lucky we are to live in this country with no obvious racial distinctions, why do we need to classify ourselves in our hearts?! The small island of Taiwan, standing in the middle of the ocean, is already lonely enough, don't make yourself more lonely !" I am writing this letter to you on the eve of your graduation and further cross-human society.Hope you have a big heart! I saw a glass box on the girl's bed, and there was a handful of yellow and black hay in it... It turned out to be the small grass flower I gave her a long time ago...

love message This afternoon, when I walked into the study room, I suddenly found four big worms standing on my desk. They didn’t move at all, but bared their teeth and claws like the strange dogs in the movie "The Great War". down the dry shell. "Who put all these filthy things on my table?" I thought to myself, if I wanted to yell or not, I thought about it, it can't be your mother or you, because you don't have such leisure time; of course, it can't be your sister , she doesn't have the guts.So I hurriedly took back the words that came to my lips, and shouted again.

"Wow! Awesome! What a complete cicada shell!" Saying that, I saw your grandmother walking towards me with a smile. "Yes! I saw one in your cabinet before, and I knew you collected it, so I saw it in the yard and picked it up for you!" The eighty-four-year-old man smiled innocently like a child.Did she know that this is rare in Taipei, but in our yard, as long as you go to the high tree trunk, you can find dozens of them at once! You may ask me why I don't explain it clearly, but have you ever thought that there is so much love from the elderly in those four ordinary cicada shells? !How happy she was when she heard my admiration! Remember how many children's graffiti were always hanging on the wall of my studio?Why do I hang up?Because it was given to me by a student's youngest daughter.Every time the students come, they are very excited to see her daughter's painting placed in the most prominent position.Every few weeks, I brought a new work and said: "Now that my child has improved again, I will give the teacher a new one!" So you have to laugh at me for being fake!But what is false?what is trueI think the most real thing in this world is caring.I did this to show that I appreciate the child's love, and also aroused her mother's love. I get new love from time to time, which improves the child's interest in painting. Isn't it more true than anything else? I believe you must not remember.When your sister was just able to walk, she once plucked a dandelion flower for you in the yard, and you took it, snorted and threw it away.The younger sister twisted and picked another one and gave it to your mother, who shouted happily: "What a beautiful little yellow flower! Thank you! Thank you!" and put it in her hair. Excuse me, since then, has my sister picked flowers for you?And your mother always has little dandelion flowers in different places. Anyone in this world, no matter the elderly in their eighties or nineties, or the toddler who is just toddler, is full of love, and will be excited by the echo of that love, and may also be hurt by the indifference of the response.We can even say that everyone is receiving and delivering messages of love at any time, and many seemingly meaningless actions may have deep meanings! When I was in college, during a class outing, a male student climbed to the rock wall and picked a bunch of small grass flowers for the female students.A few months later, that male classmate said to me: "I found that I might fall in love. It wasn't that I took the initiative to love her, it was her who forced me to love her!" Seeing that I don't understand, he continued: "The day before yesterday's school celebration, the girls' dormitory was open, and I went to visit too. Do you know what touching pictures I saw? I saw a glass box on the girl's bed, and there was a handful of yellow and black hay in it. I first I was very curious, looked carefully, and realized that it was actually the handful of grass flowers that I gave her a long time ago..." Later, they really fell in love! You said, isn't that little grass flower the "message of love"? !And people are most easily moved.It is in his ordinary performance that he has gained the attention of the other party.Because if there is no heart, no love, who will pay attention to other people's little actions? There is a very famous confidential secretary in the political circle. She is not highly educated and not strong in foreign languages, but she has become the target of everyone's competition for employment.Because whoever she is with, whoever she is in the political arena will do well. It does sound a little superstitious, but do you know her greatest strength?She said to me privately: "Politicians have a lot of work to do every day, so it is impossible to pay attention to other people's trivial matters. And every time my supervisor goes out to socialize, I will remind him who he may meet that day, and those people are private, and what happened recently. I even He wrote a note and reviewed it again in the car. Therefore, even though he hadn’t seen a friend for a long time, he could immediately greet each other’s current situation kindly. For example, "How is the new grandson?" "Is my son getting married soon?" I heard that Mrs. Zun has just returned from a trip to Europe!" "The article you published in a certain newspaper is excellent!" So everyone felt that they were cared by him, and they were even more surprised by his spirit of news and strong memory. Of course, he was welcomed by everyone, and things went smoothly! " After hearing so much, do you think they are fake?Actually not at all!As long as you have the heart to pay attention, to remember, to express, it is true! That's caring! And care can always get equal feedback!