Chapter 13 oh mom!

oh mom! ——Wu Jingmei's story Five months ago, at a crab feast to celebrate the Chinese New Year, my mother gave me an amulet, a piece of jade hanging from a gold chain, which was not my own fancy.It is almost the size of my little finger, mixed with green and white, and carved with many patterns meticulously.To my eyes it was not a good talisman, being too bulky, too green in color, and too pretentious.So I just put it in one of my lacquer boxes and forgot about it afterwards. Yet these days I am reminded of it.I don't know what it means because my mom died three months ago and no one has ever explained it to me.The day she died was exactly six days before my thirty-sixth birthday.

Now I wear this piece of jade every day. I think the patterns carved on it must have their specific meanings, because those lines and patterns often have a special interpretation for Chinese people.Of course, I can ask Aunt Linda, Aunt Anmei or other Chinese friends for advice, but I firmly believe that what they say is far from what my mother wants to express.Even if they explained to me that the pomegranate pattern on it means that my mother hopes that I will have many children and grandchildren, but if I have many children and grandchildren, so what? Therefore, I also pay special attention to this kind of similar ornaments on other people's necks - the pendant about two inches in size like mine, oval in shape, dripping green and green.But many of us wear it without knowing what it means.

For example, in a bar last weekend, I found a waiter who had a similar one hanging around his neck, so I pointed to the one on my own neck and asked him: "Where is this thing?" here?" "My mother gave it to me," he said. I asked him why the fuck was he giving him this.Naturally, that has violated other people's privacy, just like asking around. This kind of question can only be asked by one Chinese to another Chinese.Anyway, in a group of yellow-skinned and black-haired people, there is a feeling of family between two Chinese. "She gave it to me after my divorce. I think she has a reason."

But I heard from his words that he himself had doubts about the meaning of this pendant. At last year's New Year's dinner, my mother cooked a total of eleven crabs, and each person could eat one more crab.That's what she bought with me in Chinatown.My parents' residence is only six roads away from the advertising company I work for, so two or three times a week, I would go to their place after get off work, and my mother would always cook a table of good food and wait for me. The Chinese Lunar New Year fell on Thursday that year, so after I got off work early, I went shopping with my mother for the new year.

Mom is seventy-one years old, and she still walks like flying, with a small body upright, with a colorful plastic bag under her arm, and I drag a small trailer behind her. Every time we walked around Chinatown, she always had something to say about other Chinese women. "Ms. Hong Kong." When she saw two well-dressed ladies in black mink fur coats pass by, she muttered in a low voice.When another woman in a hand-knitted wool hat and a men's shirt walked by, she rolled her eyes disdainfully: "Cantonese, country bumpkin." She herself was wearing light blue chemical fiber trousers with bright red sweater, and a green down jacket worn by a child—very different.She came to the United States in 1949.Since she escaped from the war in Guilin in 1944, she went north to Chongqing, where she met my father, and then they traveled to Shanghai, and then fled from Shanghai to Hong Kong, and then arrived in San Francisco by boat.She traveled to many places.

As she walked, she complained to me about the tenant on our second floor: "...it's true, I can't get rid of them..." As early as two years ago, she used the excuse that there were Chinese relatives coming to live, and wanted to evict them , but the couple just ignored her, saying they would pay the rent on time and not move out: unless her Chinese relatives actually came.Since then, I have had to patiently listen to the bad things my mother told me about the two tenants. "That man, every time he takes out the trash, he needs to use so many trash bags. Isn't that intentional for me to spend money?"

The lady, a yellow-haired, artistic woman, once painted the walls of her room in scary reds and greens. "It's really terrible!" Mom still has lingering fears when she mentions it. "And they don't know how many times a day they have to take a bath, at least two or three times, and they can only hear the water running from the faucet all day long!" "Last week," she said, pissed again, "that gangster falsely accused me," she always called the black-haired Caucasian, "that I mixed poison in his cat food. here, to poison their cats." "Which cat?" I have indeed seen a tomcat with big ears jumping outside my kitchen window, baring its teeth and claws at my mother.

"This dead cat often raises its tail and urinates at our door. It stinks to death!" Mom kept complaining. One day, I saw her chasing the cat at the entrance of the corridor with a bucket of boiling water.So I suspect that she might actually do such a thing.But I can never help others. "What happened to that hunter?" "It's gone, it's gone!" She laughed gloatingly. In Stockton, Chinatown, we scoured almost every seafood store in search of the freshest crabs. "Don't pick dead crabs," Mom warned me in Chinese, "Even beggars don't eat dead crabs."

I stuck a pencil into the crab pots and fiddled with them to see if they were alive and well.One of the crabs broke a leg while struggling. "Put it back," Mom hinted at me softly, "Eating crabs with missing legs is unlucky in the New Year." But a man in a white uniform was negotiating something with Mom in Cantonese, and Mom's Cantonese was as bad as her Mandarin.Anyway, the two rats croaked for a long time, and the crab with its missing leg was stuffed into our bag together with its broken leg. "It's all right," Ma said rationally, "the crab with the missing leg was given to us as extra money."

When I was eight years old, on the day my mother invited me for a birthday meal, I also ate crabs. One of the crabs established a relationship with me. Named it, Mom has thrown it into the pot and boiled it in the water.I stared in horror at the gradually increasing temperature of the cauldron, and I could clearly hear them struggling inside. I saw a bright red crab leg protruding from the lid of the pot, and I screamed.I hope they don't have enough IQ to tell the difference between taking a bath in scalding water and slowly scalding to death. To celebrate the Chinese New Year, Mom specially invited her old friend Aunt Linda and Mrs. Gong Tian. Without asking, Mom knew that the children from the Gong family would definitely follow.Their children, I mean son Vincent, thirty-eight years old, who still lives with his parents, and their daughter Waverly, who is about my age.Vincent called to ask if he could bring his girlfriend, Lisa Lemm.Waverly said she was bringing her fiancé, Richie, too.Rich worked with her as a tax agent in a company.She also asked if my parents had a VCR because she was bringing her four-year-old Suzanne with her ex-husband.In case Suzanne can't sit still, you can show her.At the same time, my mother reminded me that I should also invite my piano teacher Mr. Zhong: he still lives in the old place.

So with this number of people plus my parents and me, there are eleven people in total.But at that time, Mom only counted the shares of ten people.Because she thought Suzanne was just a child at all, and she couldn't be counted, at least as far as crabs were concerned, she didn't have her share.But Mom didn't think about it, Waverly didn't think so. As soon as a plate of red-boiled crabs was brought to the table, Waverly picked out the best plump and firm crab for his daughter.Then, put the second best on her fiancé Rich's plate, and keep the third best for herself.She does this very well.Because she had learned the skill of picking crabs from her mother.So, by analogy, her mother naturally picked good crabs for her husband, her son and his girlfriend, and herself.When it was my mother's turn, there were still four crabs left on the plate, and my mother took the plump one out of the four and gave it to Lao Zhong.Because he was nearly ninety years old and fully deserved such respect.Then, she sent the second best to my father's plate.Now, there are only two crabs left on the plate, one of which is the eleventh crab with a broken leg. Mom took the plate of crabs and brought it to me: "Take it, it's already cold." I don't like crab very much.Ever since I was eight years old, seeing live crabs boiled bright red, I have lost interest in crabs.But I can't refuse the food that Mom brings, because it's usually a way for Chinese mothers to show their love.Their love for their children is usually not shown in hugs and kisses, but by steaming gnocchi for them, cooking dried duck gizzards and crabs... I thought, I should take the crab with the broken leg.But my mother stopped me loudly. "No...no, which one you choose. I can't eat any more." Everyone's pots on the table are very lively: cracking crab shells, peeling crab meat, only the plate in front of Mom looks deserted.At the dinner table, I was the only one who noticed that Mom first pried open the crab shell, put her nose up and smelled it, and then went into the kitchen with the plate. When she came out again, the crab was gone. Everyone had a good time, and the topic came. "Suyun," Aunt Linda pointed at my mother's red sweater with a crab toe: "Why did you choose this color? You can't wear this color, it looks too young." Mom, however, took this troublesome words as a tonic. "I bought it in Cape Clair for nineteen yuan, which is more economical than the one I made myself." Aunt Linda nodded, it seems that at this price, the color is bearable.Then, pointing at her future son-in-law, Richie, with a crab toe, she said, "Ouch, he just can't eat Chinese food." "Crab is not a Chinese food." Waverly immediately retorted, "Be good, the tone is still the same as Gan five years ago, and she also said to me in the same tone: "You are not a child prodigy like me." Aunt Linda glanced at her daughter in exasperation: "Why do you say that's not Chinese food?" Then she turned to Rich and said in an authoritative tone, "Why did you leave the best part? " Richie just smiled happily and didn't feel anything at all.I found that the color of his skin was very close to the crab on his plate.While he was giggling, Aunt Linda picked out the orange crab roe for him with chopsticks: "Here, this is the most delicious thing." Waverly and Ricky made faces at each other, and Vincent whispered to Lisa, "How stupid!" and chuckled. Uncle Gong Tian sniffed and started to tell a joke. It could be seen that he had practiced a few times without knowing it. "I told my daughter, hey, why are you poor? Marry a rich man." ① As he spoke, he himself laughed the loudest.Then he elbowed Lisa, who was sitting next to him. "Hey, do you understand? She's going to marry this young man Richie. I told her to marry a rich man!" ① Rich is rich in English, interpreted as "rich". ——Translator's Note "Your hair looks great." Waverly said to me across the table. "Thank you. David, my barber, usually does a good job." "You mean, you still have your hair done in that barber shop on Hu Hua Street?" Waverly raised his eyebrows in a fuss, "Aren't you afraid?" I was terrified when I told her about it, but I said, "Why should you be afraid? He's not bad!" "I mean... he's a loose guy. He may have AIDS, but he cuts your hair... Maybe I'm being too jumpy, but it's always disturbing..." Suddenly, I just felt that my hair was covered with bacteria. "You should ask my barber to give you a try," Waverly continued, "Mr. Laurey, his craftsmanship is beyond words. Of course, his fees will make you not used to it." I feel insulted.She always likes to hurt people secretly like this, it has always been like this.Since she is a tax agent, sometimes I just ask her a question about taxes, and she will throw out a lot of words. "I really don't want to talk about these tax issues outside my office. This issue must be discussed seriously in the office. If I just casually talk to you while eating, and It is not good for you to follow it seriously. Because you did not provide me with your complete materials..." The implication is that I intend to save her consulting fee. It drove me crazy when she showed her own dignity by teasing my hair so publicly at the crab feast.No, I want to show her some color too.It just so happened that as a copywriter, I wrote an advertisement for the company she worked for, but it has been more than thirty days now, and they have not paid me, so I retaliated against her. I put on a sardonic smile and said, "I can afford to pay for that Mr. Lorey's haircut of yours, but as long as your company doesn't delay my check." I'm glad to see, Waverly This time I choked, and my face flushed. I continued to vent happily: "It's really shameless. Such a big company can't pay people their remuneration on time. Waverly, why are you willing to work for such a petty company?" Her face darkened all of a sudden, and she said nothing. "Come on, girls, stop arguing!" Dad smoothed things over. In his eyes, we were still two little girls fighting over tricycles and colored crayons. "Okay, let's not talk about that," Waverly said calmly. But I didn't want to stop there, "Then we've agreed, you can't talk to me with this tone on the phone from now on." Waverly turned to look at Rich, who just shrugged.Then she sighed and said: "Okay, Joan, let me tell you the truth. How should I put it? Anyway, our company may not accept the information you wrote." "Impossible. You said it was valuable." Waverly sighed again. "I said that. It's just that I didn't want to discourage you. I've been trying to make it acceptable to the company, but now it seems unlikely." So, we started the second round of mutual attack. "But this is just a sketch," I said. "The so-called sketches are usually rough, and I still need to make revisions." "But, Joan..." "I can revise it again, and praise you again for free." But Waverly just pretended not to hear. "I'll tell them, let them at least pay you a rejection fee, because you have spent some energy and time on this." "You just need to tell me which paragraph they find unsatisfactory, and I can make further revisions. I can read it to you line by line, and then revise line by line." "Joan—I can't," Waverly said with a repulsive indifference, "it's hard. I'm sure you've done a great job, but we're a big business with our own style and taste .” As she spoke, she raised her finger to her chest, as if she herself could represent her company. Then she smiled and said, "I mean, Joan," she began in a standard telephone operator tone, "for today's, tomorrow's tax needs . . . 'Specialty'... to establish our own style and image..." She made everyone laugh, and the worst thing was, I heard Ma say to Waverly, "Well, style, image, that's something you can't teach, it's something that comes with you. Like, Joan, she doesn't You're capable like that, it's just innate." It's terrible, I was passed by Wilfred again, and, those words came from my mother's mouth.I had to put on an unnatural smile, stood up and pretended to clean up the table.At this time, I discovered that some of the pots my mother used had gaps on some sides. I wondered why my mother didn't use the new set of pots I bought for her five years ago. The table was a mess, full of crab shells and legs, Waverly and Ricky lit a cigarette, and took a crab shell to use as an ashtray. "Wavley," Aunt Linda said, "you ask Joan to try again, she's just a sloppy trick, so it's not enough." Ma was eating an orange, making crunching noises. "This kind of thing just takes time." Aunt Linda continued. "Put more adjectives," Uncle Gong Si persuaded me, "Put more adjectives, that's right." I put the basin into the sink and laughed. Well, that's what I am, a little copywriter, working in a small advertising agency, writing the ad for every client: "We sell meat that's sizzling right out of the oven . . . ""It has three 'good' and three 'wonderful'... Anyway, there are three reasons why it is worth buying its meat. In addition, there are T-1 multiplex frequency converters, meat grinders...etc .” I turned on the faucet and started washing the basin, and at the same time, I didn't feel angry with Waverly anymore.I think it's so boring and stupid. I picked up the damn basin, and the crab with the broken leg was still there.The guests dispersed, and Mom walked into the kitchen. "It was a good meal, thank you," I said. "Not good." She said, picking her teeth with a toothpick. "What happened to your crab? Why didn't you eat it?" "That's a dead crab," she said, "not even a beggar would eat a dead crab." "How do you know it's a dead crab?" "I knew it before I put it in the pot. Its legs hang down feebly, and its mouth is open, like a dead man." "Since you know it's dead, why do you want to take it out?" "I think... it's probably just dead, maybe edible." "What if the customer picks up this crab?" Mom smiled: "Only you will pick this crab. I expected it a long time ago. Everyone wants to pick the good one." I suddenly remembered one thing. "Mom, why don't you use the new set of pots I bought for you? If you don't like them, you should have told me earlier, and I can change them to other colors you like." "Of course I like them," she said. "I like them too much to use them. Haven't used them and haven't." Then, as if suddenly remembering something, she took the necklace from her neck and put it in my hand. "No, Mom," I said, "I can't." "Take it down." She said in Shanghainese words, "I always wanted to leave this to you. Look, I wear it next to my body like this. Therefore, you should also wear it next to your body. This is your amulet." I looked at this necklace with a green jade pendant hanging from it. "You gave this to me just because of tonight?" "What's up?" "What Waverly said." "Hmph. You listen to her? Why do you take her words so seriously? Well, she's like this kind of crab," Ma said, picking out a crab shell. Go your own way." When I put on the necklace, I just felt a chill on my neck. "This piece of jade is not of the highest quality," she said. "Its color is still too light, but if you wear it more often, it will darken." Since my mother passed away, Dad has not been able to eat good food. So as long as I go to his place, I will cook something delicious for him by the way.Today, I am going to cook a bowl of spicy tofu for him.Mom often said that eating hot food can help restore vitality and spirit.Dad likes to eat spicy tofu. Suddenly, I heard the water pipe above my head rattling again, and the water from the faucet on the sink suddenly became thinner.The upstairs tenant is in the shower again.I remember Mom complaining about this.It is indeed troublesome. Suddenly, another black shadow flitted across the window sill, which startled me. It turned out that it was the cat, and it raised its tail and took a stance again. "Go away, go away!" I waved it away, but it just grinned at me and growled loudly. Queen Mother of the West Heaven "Oh, bad thing, little villain!" The woman teased her little granddaughter. "Is it the Bodhisattva who taught you to laugh like this?" The child giggled even more happily, and this woman only felt a warm current pouring into her heart. "Even if I live another hundred years, I will never understand who taught you to laugh. I also lived in such an innocent age, and I would laugh like this for no reason." "But later, in order to learn to protect myself, I lost that innocence. Then, I taught my daughter to do the same. Here, it's your mother. If you want to protect yourself, you have to lose that innocence. " "Little villain! Am I wrong?" The kid just giggled. "Oh, oh, still laughing. Did you say you are the queen mother? Oh, little queen mother, teach your mother that what is lost is the innocence, but it is by no means a lost hope. Always smile!"