May 08 2008
An ode to my mother
I have never attended a public gathering voluntarily. Decided to go to one this past Sunday. Although missed it, but it surprised me that I wanted to go; second, how this Tibet/Olympic thing is pulling all Chinese together (as 9/11 glued Americans together). Especially with Pumpkin in toe, it reminded me of my mother, who’s very outgoing and much more involved with the current events than I am.
Among very few things I remembered of my mother, one was that she loved to take me to adult movies and public gatherings. Please keep your eyebrows at proper place. Adult movie during her time, in the 60s and even 70s, referred to the scarce and coveted foreign films. She always had large entourage or groupies, either at her apartment in Zhongguancun Building #28 or at Yeye’s house in Xidan in the city. They were mostly her colleagues (before Yizang’s mom movied from Shanghai to Beijing, his dad was one of them) that included Lin’s dad, Aunt Spalding, Uncle Chen Yixin etc. One night after dinner, they had tickets - they were free, but you had to have guanxi - connection to secure one: not for sale - for a film. They all took turn holding me, walked to the place. It wasn’t a movie theater, those kind of movies were always shown elsewhere. The door guy looked at them, said, sorry, folks, no kid allowed. As usually, mom would argue that I’d be fast falling sleep, leaving no chance the little future of China be corroded by 封资修. The guy at the door won’t budge, insisted we were short of a ticket. For the enjoyment of the whole group, Uncle Chen volunteered to baby sit me. Not sure how we spent that two hours, but remembered the adults told me years later that Chen had to pull all sort of tricks from his hat to entertain a very demanding audience, included a chocolate that landed more on my face and hands.
Another time mom took me to a meeting at Xiyuan Guesthouse in a summer evening. After entering the gate, as we were approaching to the site, the meeting has already started, badly. Two factions were eyeing each other viciously, on the brink of violence. Mom wasn’t sure as to proceed or retreat. As I recall it now, as if we could smell the sweat and taste the blood, surprise to think that she would debate to continue. The die hard activist. Someone yelling out loud something, then everyone was yelling and screaming, followed by stone flying and sticks/tree branches in the air; the dust rose as one group chasing the other .. .. just to think about it made my knee soft.
Mother’s Day is coming hence this short ode to my mom.