For three weeks, my nest is empty once again. My mood now is completely different from when my children were studying in Europe. At that time, I was filled with worry, now I am filled with peace.

I have time to savor home slowly. I think a warm home can really make life full of sunshine.

This February, my beloved second aunt, my father’s little sister, passed away. I realized my pain while paying my tribute to her while far away from her. She, the last parent-generation relative who cared, loved, and watched my brother and I grow up, is gone, and there is no more such relative who remembers our childhood stories. The end of her life is also the ending of some stories of life, which is painful…

Letting go of the pain, thinking that although my parents have passed away for many years, my brother and I can chat about our dear parents and relatives in heaven and talk about our hometown and the relatives and friends there, those chats warm my heart! I am grateful to my parents for showing us the warmth of home throughout their lives, so that my brother and I can always talk about trivial matters across the ocean and understand each other and encourage each other.

After my brother encouraged me to create a channel to publish my short videos, whenever his friends praised my short videos, my brother would forward the chat records to me in time. My original intention of making short videos was to help my brother and sister-in-law’s business, after some time, I started to entertain myself by telling stories in my heart, which I enjoyed a lot; the pleasure of bringing entertainment to others through my short videos is an unexpected enjoyment to me. This is the feeling of human love, floating and flowing warmly in the world by words, by messages, and by short videos.

Last night, while chatting with my daughter on the phone, I heard an interesting story about my little grandson, Ben. After his one and half year old little sister tore off the duck attached to the head of her plush toy, she was very upset but was not able to express it in words.

Ben saw his sister was upset and said to his mother: “Use tape (to stick the duck back)!” When I heard it, I laughed and replied: “He really is your son! He already knows the power of tape.” My daughter also knew early on that tape can repair walls, fix books, and things, which made me very proud, as when I was a child, I did not known about tape. Until one day, my daughter told me sadly that the tape failed to fix the fallen hem of her skirt.

Her words made I felt sad and regretful because when I was my daughter’s age, I liked knitting, crocheting, cross-stitching, embroidery and other handicrafts. I remember that my father bought a shed and special needles from Chengdu for me to do embroidery; but my daughter has never seen me do any needlework, because I was busy working and never had the time. This is a glimpse of the tiredness of the first generation immigrant working mothers. After that incident, I began to consciously let my daughter and son see or enjoy me needlework (my daughter learned mending when she was a graduate student, but my son never learned it). I felt at ease knowing that I had tried my best. The three circles in the photo are three embroidery sheds of different sizes.

My daughter also told me on the phone that people praised the trousers I made for Ben using the two long sleeves of an old sweatshirt. I was very happy that my daughter could chat with me about trivial family matters in an interesting way.

Before my mother had Alzheimer’s disease, she often talked about her needlework on the phone, such as altering a piece of clothing or mending an apron. Unfortunately, at that time I was too busy with work and housework and didn’t have the energy to praise my mother.

My daughter also asked me if I had a good dinner last night. This is because I told her the day before yesterday that her brother and sister-in-law would come to dinner on Saturday. I told my daughter that on Saturday morning, Shan (daughter-in-law) said she wanted to eat porridge, but didn’t say what kind of porridge; I cooked three kinds of porridge: millet and pumpkin porridge (millet itself needs to be cooked for two hours), rice and sweet potato porridge (add sweet potato and cook for another hour after the rice blooms in the pot), and rice, glutinous rice and green bean porridge (these three things are soaked in water for a few hours and then put into the pot with cold water to start stew). After hearing this, my daughter praised me. I told her that I made two versions of twice-cooked pork: one that her brother liked, and one with garlic sprouts and steamed bread slices, fried a plate of carrots, lettuce and pumpkin cubes and a plate of broccoli, and boiled a lotus root soup.

There are people to eat, people to listen, and many pots to clean, this is a great joy that only chefs can enjoy.

When I was cooking the sweet potato porridge on Saturday, I suddenly remembered my tiredness of working in the past. There was a period of time I wanted to eat sweet potato porridge and knew how to cook it, but I didn’t have the time or energy to make it. I often went to the deli next to the Chinese supermarket and paid three dollars to buy a cup of very watery sweet potato porridge. At that time, I said to myself: “When I have lots of free time, I will cook a big pot of sweet potato porridge and eat it slowly.” After I became free, my desire to eat sweet potato porridge faded, so I still haven’t cooked a big pot of sweet potato porridge for myself to eat slowly. Today, as I cooked sweet potato porridge for my daughter-in-law, I felt very happy after thinking of this past, because I finally had time to cook sweet potato porridge and eat it slowly.

It is very nourishing to savor the taste of home in my spare time, in my temporarily empty nest.

I never dreamt I would drive my convertible bought in California to Revere Beach in Massachusetts for my favorite holiday of more than 40 years: International Children’s Day on June 1.

At the beach, We enjoyed the benefits of coming on a working day: plenty of parking spaces and very few tourists. On the beach that I had dreamt countless times in my childhood of a sunny afternoon, just sitting down and watching the ocean view brought me a sense of achievement. While watching the tireless ocean waves, listening to its powerful sounds, and smelling the salty ocean breeze, I enjoyed the ocean surroundings subtly and deeply. That I was able to experience such a enjoyment brought a sense of achievement that I couldn’t grasp when I was a child. As my mind frequently travel from 40 years to now and from my hometown Zigong in China to the beach in US, I was very happy for not being confused or lost.

While sitting on the beach and reciting Lemontov’s “Sail”, one of my favorite poems, the ocean breeze softly blew on my face and I enjoyed the beauty of words. I suddenly found that the “lonely moan and tangled loss” blue I used to tasted from “Sail” had disappeared. I once again realized that after many rich life experiences, the same words could induce different feelings. The doctors can only perform a physical check-up on me but reading can perform a spiritual check-up on me. Reading helps me to enjoy the harvest of my soul.

While sitting on the beach, I searched for my memories of longing for June 1st Children’s Day: I wanted sweets because candy was rare, I wanted to wear skirts because “To face the powder and not to powder the face” was the popular trend. The joys at that time were very simple. I remember that the long-awaited desire to wear skirts on Children’s Day was not often realized because there were no pantyhose then and it was often too cold on Children’s Day.

In the mind of my childhood, the teacher was the absolutely correct representative and a higher authority than my parents. I don’t know whether this cognition was my understanding or if it was the social custom of those born-the-60s. My mindset made me lament the generation gap between me and my children on International Children’s Day in 2017.

My mother is always a part of my childhood. While sitting on the beach, I told the story of my late mother and also listened to the story of another mother. While looking at the sea and talking about mothers, I thought of the lyrics of “the great ocean like my mother, no matter where I am, is always by my side” from the song “The great ocean, my hometown”, which was very popular in the 1980s in China. On June 1st. Children’s Day, I sat on the beach and told my mother’s story and I felt that my late mother came to me and we exchanged the joy of loving and being loved.

On Children’s Day, at the seaside, it was wonderful to recall and share the joyful good old times which I want to remember forever. “The good old times when we were poor economically, but psychologically rich and genuine.”

Be childlike！ Maturity is an attitude towards life, but being childlike is a way of life.

Little Episodes

1.The Sail
（Russian） Mikhail Lermontov
(First paragraph)
A lonely sail glowing
In the blurry see.
What is he looking for? In this far away space.
What is he leave behind? In his home place.

2. 11-17-2013, when Nianqin was alive, I quoted from her:

Nianqin, my late high school classmate, once said: “In Classical Buddhist: a person’s maturity is in the mind. A person’s innocence is in his eyes. Maturity and innocence are not contradictory words. Maturity is an attitude towards life, innocence is a way of life. Every face will grow old, but the way of life can be young for a lifetime. If LaoTian loves you and is watching over you, he will make you childlike all your life.”

3. 2021-06-01, The sun, the beach, and the ocean wave…

After living for half a century, on International Children’s Day in June 1st, a ceremony on the beach is like a dream: singing songs, reciting poems, sharing the past, chatting about parents, being blown by the wind in a convertible, doubling the fun by Chinese white spirit, oh, it’s unforgettable.

My grown up son and daughter still enjoy visiting zoos. When my son came to visit us during the July of 2021, my daughter booked a trip to visit a zoo.

In early July, Greater Boston experienced unusually heavy and frequent rain so the zoo asked us to reschedule the trip. After checking the weather forecast, my daughter postponed the trip for a week, then she had to move it forward a day to avoid being rescheduled again.

I joked, “Staying at home during vacation is boring. Rescheduling the trip lets us feel changes, not bad at all.”

On Tuesday morning, we drove to the zoo in a heavy rain, luckily the rain stopped after we arrived to the zoo. On that unusually cool Tuesday in July, the big animals, lions and tigers, were not sleepy but instead were very active.

The tiger was constantly patrolling, It was my first time watching the king of the mountains so closely for so long. The black and yellow strips of tiger were eye catching. I pointed to the tiger close to us and said to my son who was born in the year of tiger, “See, the black lines in the white area above the tiger’s forehead look like the Chinese word ‘王（King）’. I often heard people saying that the tiger is the ‘king of the mountains’ in my childhood.”

The lion was very alert and I felt its staring the first time, which is very impressive. The animated movie “The Lion King”(1994) was my daughter’s most favorite movie in her childhood. The movie “features adventures of the young lion Simba, the heir of his father, Mufasa. Little Simba escapes the stampede of wildebeests plotted by his wicked uncle, Scar. Later, Simba returns as an adult to take back his homeland from Scar with the help of his friends Timon and Pumbaa.” After watching the very alert lion and taking the very slow train in the park, we went to see the hogs, because Pumbaa, Simba’s childhood good friend, is a warthog.

It was very refreshing to see the scenery and the animals, to recall the old memories of visiting the zoo with children in the past, and to enjoy our time together now.

As adults, my children fed goats which reminded me of the fun they had feeding and petting goats in their childhood in Happy Hollow in San Jose. I took a lot of photos of them interacting with the very aggressive goats. At the same time, I was also immersed in the memories of the time my children were still young.

After watching my adult children feeding spotted deer, I was eager to participate and fulfill my more than 30 year old wish of getting close to spotted deer, after listening to my college friend Li’s story about her going to the deer farm and petting spotted deer when she was an intern teacher in Guanxian County in the autumn of 1984. Li is good at telling stories. I still remember her telling a vivid joke about the beautiful “little fish”, our classmate, walking on the street of Guanxian county and unaware of attracting attention, resulting in a handsome boy on a bicycle losing his balance and falling off his bike because he looked sideways after “little fish”. While feeding the spotted deer and remembering the magic attraction of our “little fish”, I laughed silently.

Episodes

(The black lines in the white area above the tiger’s forehead look like the Chinese word “王（King）”.

(From left to right, from top to bottom) the highway with heavy rain, the alert lion, the intoxicating green on the East Coast, the patrolling tiger, the small train we took, and the hog

(From left to right, from top to bottom) we take an aerial cable car overlooking the park, my adult children fed the goats, and I fed spotted deer.

Recently, I heard a children’s song in my hometown Zigong dialect: “The Zigong dialect is like putting salt into a hot pot. We Zigongians think it’s just right, but you will say it’s a little salty”. I laughed about it for a while and could not help thinking of the white salt in my hometown Zigong and my Zigongian memory about salt.

In the 1970s, after meat, sugar, tobacco, and wine were limited by monthly government issued coupons, soy sauce was also limited, yet there was no limit on salt in Zigong. While mixing salt with water as soy sauce, Yeyi, my nanny, would say: “The color is wrong, but the taste is the same.” Recalling this, I realized that as a child, my taste was not very sensitive. However, my children’s taste was very delicate. I still remember the first time I put sugar in the double cooked pork belly for my son, he immediately felt different and told me that he didn’t like the dish with sugar in it.

In the small shop near my home, the white salt is placed in a large bamboo dustpan with a diameter of about one meter. The salt is always wet because it absorbs the moisture in the air. I often went to the small shop to buy salt. It costs a few cents a pound and I never thought salt was precious.

The first time I knew salt was very precious was in 1974, in the popular children’s film “Shining Red Star”. When I saw Pan Dongzi, the child protagonist in the film, on the way to deliver salt to the guerrillas on the mountain and after passing the White Region guard’s inspection, he lifted his cotton-padded jacket and said proudly to his old friend: “Grandpa, salt!” (he had dissolved the salt into water and poured it into his cotton padded jacket earlier). I could not understand why and how salt could be so precious in the film.

In July 2021, while talking to M, an retired professor of European history, about our origins, I said, “I come from a small city in inland China.”

M professor immediately asked, “I’m curious about how the salt is transported to inland cities in China?”

I asked in surprise, “Why do you suddenly think of salt?”

M professor explained: “I heard that my ancestors in Russia, under the rule of Catherine II in the middle and late 18th century, are a family licensed to transport sea salt to the deep inland of Russia. Edible salt is a rare necessity in the inland. I wonder how sea salt got to small inland cities in China. ”

As soon as I heard it, I said proudly, “My hometown Zigong had already produced well salt 2000 years ago. Zigong, also known as the salt capital, is famous for its prosperity. ”

After circling half the earth and after living for over half a century, I finally understood how salt used to be so important to ordinary people, and why Zigong, my hometown, used to be so important. This once important small city has accumulated a rich cultural history, which is the pride of the native Zigong Salt capital.

Little Episodes

1. “During the Anti Japanese War, Zigong was the city with the highest amount of donations. More than 200,000 Zigongians either donated money and/or bravely participated in the war. Their donation of 120 million yuan ranked first among Chinese cities, surpassing Chengdu and Guangzhou, which made all the Zigongians very proud. ”

The famous Shenhai well, which was dug in 1835, is 1001.42 meters deep and covers an area of about 1500 square meters. It is the first well over 1000 meters deep in the world. It still retains the layout and style of the early 19th century. It is a typical well salt production site in the Qing Dynasty. According to records, salt workers of all dynasties have successively drilled more than 13000 wells in Zigong. ”

2. The inscription of “Resistance and Revival” on Guangguang street, Ziliujing District, in Zigong:

“During the Anti-Japanese War, because sea salt was blocked, the civilian and military supplies of salt in Hubei and southwest provinces of China depended on Sichuan salt, and Zigong was the most important salt supply city. In the spring of 1938, Zigong was ordered to increase salt production and transport with remarkable results. Therefore, Zigong became a key target for the Japanese in an attempt to cut off the salt supply and to shake the will of the Chinese army and people in their resistance of Japan. From October 1939 to August 1941, the Japanese carried out 7 times and 18 batches of indiscriminate bombing on Zigong, causing great disasters to the Zigong people.

The people of Zigong rose up to resist and set a record in the history of salt production in the three years of indiscriminate bombing by the enemy. The salt production increased from 7% in 1937 to 27% in 1941. It effectively smashed the aggressor’s strategic plot to cut off the supply of salt and disintegrate the fighting spirit of the Chinese army and people in the war of resistance against Japan.”

3. In the 1974 popular children’s film “Shining Red Star”, the scene of Pan Dongzi showed his old friend his cotton-padded jacket soaked with salt water:

4. Qingzi, my high school classmate, left a message after I shared this story among my friends: “The story of Zigong, my hometown. The story of an ancient small city with salt flavor and sentimental.”

“Anthropologist Ren Naiqiang believes that the development of human civilization before the 17th century was mostly accompanied by the expansion of the salt road.”

At that time, we didn’t have a thermometer to measure our body temperature. If Yeyi saw that we were uncomfortable or weak, she would measure our body temperature using her forehead to touch our forehead to feel whether we were feverish or not. From this, if Yeyi felt we had a fever, she would make egg flower soup with sugar for us to drink, instead of a regular meal.

When my brother had a fever, he often said: “Yeyi, I couldn’t drink the egg flower soup.”

Naturally, I would help him drink his egg flower soup.

But when I had a fever, I always drank the hot egg flower soup with sugar, made by Yeyi, quickly.

Later, Yeyi said to me: “When your brother is sick, he has no appetite for egg flower soup. You usually have no appetite for regular meals. However, when you are sick, you always have an appetite for egg flower soup. Are you really sick? ”

Yeyi seemed to suspect that she was misdiagnosing my sickness, but I didn’t know how to answer Yeyi’s question.

Then Yeyi said to herself: “Little kids will not pretend to be sick.”

Looking back to the past now, in my childhood when the supply of pork meat was limited by government issued coupons (to half a pound per person per month), we could buy eggs from farmers market without limitation. So I ate more eggs than pork meat, and I had more chances to enjoy eating eggs as good things. Even when I was sick, I could drink egg flower soup, which showed that I really liked delicious things as a child.

Little Episodes

Yeyi’s egg flower soup recipe:
1. Crack a raw egg into a small bowl.
2. Beat the raw egg with chopsticks.
3. While stirring the raw egg, slowly pour the just boiled water into the bowl containing the raw eggs.
4. Slowly, egg blossoms appeared one by one in the water.
5. Add a spoonful of sugar to the egg soup, mix well and drink while it is hot.

When the supply of pork was limited every month (half pound per person), we could buy eggs from farmers market without limitation. Therefore I had more chances to eat eggs than pork. Delicious eggs retained several stories of my childhood.
Stealing Egg.
Egg as snacks.

10－27-2020, A Monday

My mother loves flowers, she loves light-colored fragrant flowers, such as sweetbay magnolia (含笑), chloranthus elatior (鱼子兰), Chinese perfume plant (aglaia odorata米兰), orchid, jasmine, winter sweet, osmanthus fragrans… I learnt how to enjoy flowers from my mother.

I never thought I would be attracted to the morning glory by my mother. Because the morning glory, bright colored without any sweet smell, is not my mother’s favorite type of flower.

From December 2017 to May 2018, during my mother’s last few months when she was too weak to step outside of the house, there were blooming morning glories inside the house. Therefore, morning glories were one of the last flowers my mother saw in her life. Because of this, I planted some morning glories in the front of our Waltham home to remember my mother.

The morning glory blooming in late October.

October 25th, 2020 is September 9th in the lunar calendar, which is the Lunar Double Nines Day (ChongYang Festival), a very old Chinese holiday that began as early as the Spring and Autumn Period (770 – 476BC) . Nowadays, during the ChongYang Festival, similar to the National Grandparents Day in USA, Chinese people usually send happy wishes to their older parents and grandparents.

The morning glories blooming on October 25th, the Lunar Double Nines Day, lasted for two days and faded at the end of October 26th. The extremely long blooming morning glories was like a lingering desire for the story of my mother deep in my heart…

In my hometown Zigong in the 1980′s, when my retired mother and I went out shopping, my mother often met her old colleagues and often stopped to chat with each other for a few minutes. After my mother finished chatting, while continuing towards our destination, my mother would tell me a bit about the colleague she had just met.

As a career woman who devoted her youth and beauty to her work, my mother told me the story about her colleagues which was also story about herself.

One day, we went out as usual, and my mother met a man. My mother stopped to chat with him for a while, and then we continue to walking. My mother told me a story that I never could forget.

“I first met him in 1964 when we were extremely busy, working day and night to visit factories and to prepare reports in the office. He just came to the office from a factory to replace my position.

When I started to transfer my tasks to him, I told him that I had scheduled an abortion in the hospital and need sometime to rest and recover so I needed to hand over all my current tasks to him. Once he heard my reason, he urged me not to do it, as abortion is very dangerous… At the end, I did not go the hospital, because your Yeyi also said she could take care two children so we had you.”

My mother hid this story about my life very deep; I only learnt about it after I grew up and after I became a high school teacher, and only by accident.

I remembered Yeyi（叶姨） often said to me: “When your mother was carrying you, I often used a whole big bowl of very hot red pepper to make fish for her, the fish was too hot for me, but your mother always said it was not hot at all. Very strange, because after you were born, your mother could not stand even a little bit of hot spicy.”

However, when my Yeyi was very angry about me, she never mentioned that I was once my mother’s unwanted child.

In 1960′s to 1970′s, there was probably not much knowledge about children’s psychology in China. That my mother and my Yeyi tight-lipped about my birth story for more than 20 years made me realize that loving makes people wise and I was deeply loved by my mother and Yeyi.

I am very thankful for the deep love from my mother and Yeyi.

Little Episodes

On Sunday, ChongYang Festival, the blooming morning glories in the afternoon

On Sunday, ChongYang Festival, the blooming morning glories in the evening

On Monday morning, still blooming morning glories

01-27-2021 a Wednesday with 3 inches of snow.

A few weeks ago, my daughter asked me what kind of songs I sang when I was little. I quickly recalled “A Screw on the Side of the Road”. I was surprised to hear I could sing the entire song without missing a beat.

When adults sing childhood songs, it is like turning back time and enjoying the pure innocence of childhood after a very long journey. This was what I felt when I sang “A Screw on the Side of the Road” to my daughter. I guess such feeling belong to the generation who were born in 1960′s.

A screw on the sideway is lovely is a childish expression. A screw in the oven is wretched, this is a reality of life, because the screw in the oven tortured my daughter and I for two days.

On Sunday, I was planning to roast lamb and found out our oven didn’t work. As I don’t use the oven often, I didn’t think the oven not working was a big problem. However, my daughter used the oven a lots. She said: “We must fix the oven on Monday!”

So on Monday morning, my daughter told me: “I searched online and found that when oven doesn’t work, 60% the problem is caused by malfunction igniter. Replacing the igniter will likely fix the problem. I already ordered the igniter, which will arrive tomorrow. So today we should do all the preparation.”

I wondered: “Do you know how to replace the igniter?”

“There are online videos which give step-by-step details on how to replace the igniter.”

After she took off the oven door, she told me: “Unscrew the screws on bottom cover and remove the bottom cover, then we can replace the igniter.”

We thought unscrewing the screws would be easy! but …

There are two screws on the bottom cover, one screw was easily removed, but another screw was too tight to be unscrewed. We thought the screw was tightened by oil, so my daughter used hair blower to blow on the screw for a long time, but we still could not unscrew it.

After doing more searching on the computer, my daughter said: “Our arms are too weak, let’s buy an electric screwdriver.”

We bought back an electric screwdriver, but instead of unscrewing the stuck screw, it stripped out the cross on the cap of the screw. Now no screwdriver can hold the screw to make a turn, which was very frustrating.

My daughter did more research on the computer and got a sound suggestion: buying a wrench, steel glue, and a hex nut. Glue the hex nut to the screw cap, wait for 6 hours, then use the wrench to turn the hex nut to unscrew the stuck screw.

But after the first 6 hours, the hex nut was not glued to the cap, so the wrench took the hex nut away from the cap. On the second try, we waited overnight until Tuesday morning.

Monday is the last day of Groudon and Kyogre hatching in Gyms for Pokémon Go, so during our scheduled oven maintenance, we dashed out to catch Groudon and Kyogre. Well balanced working stress and playing joy made our Monday fun.

But on Tuesday morning, the wrench still could not turn the stuck screw, and the igniter arrived.

Tuesday’s reality created much tension for us. Both my daughter and I made many phone calls seeking help…

Luckily, Entei, a different legendary Pokemon, started to hatch in Gyms on Tuesday. My daughter said: “Shiny Entei is very similar to our princess Kara. I want to catch a shiny Entei.” Her enthusiasm for shiny Entei diluted the tension created by the stuck screw.

On Wednesday, handyman Lin came over, unscrewing the screw and replacing the igniter with ease.

Little Episodes

My daughter thought the shiny Entei resembles our princess Kara. On Tuesday, I caught a shiny Entei and renamed it Kara. Our princess Kara sits on one of my biggest projects.

The stuck screw in the oven, the hateful screw

Torture on Monday

Torture on Tuesday

Lyric of “A screw on the side of the road” (a very popular Chinese children’s song in 1970′s)
A screw on the side of the road
A boy saw it on the way to school
Though the screw is very small
It is needed to build up our country
Pick up it and look at it
Wipe the dust off it,
So good is it
Give it to the worker
Who puts it on a machine
Hay! The machine sings and we clap and smile

Chinese Version

Today, Professor Ye, one of my college classmates, said that my father’s articles exhibited “a strong writing style like that of floating clouds and flowing water.”

Actually, my father possesses not only a “strong writing style like that of floating clouds and flowing water”, but he also has a good mindset about turning big troubles into little ones, and little ones into nothing. I have a personal story about this.

While living at the LouWan Compound during the Cultural Revolution, we shared a public kitchen with a few neighbors. We also shared a big dining table in the kitchen.

When eggs were in season, Yeyi, our nanny, would hide a cooked egg under the hot porridge as our breakfast. She then left the bowl on the dining table in the public kitchen. After getting up in the morning, we would go to the kitchen eat the cooled porridge along with the egg.

One day, I got up earlier than my brother so I went to kitchen alone. I ate my porridge and my egg, then I secretly dug out the egg from my brother’s bowl and ate it too.

After breakfast, my brother told Yeyi that there was no egg inside his porridge.

Yeyi was very angry and immediately went to question the neighbors who shared the kitchen with us: “Who stole our egg this morning?”

As all of our neighbors said they did not, Yeyi got even angrier. At the end, most of the neighbors knew that the egg which was hidden in my brother’s porridge had been stolen that morning.

Finally, I could not stand up to the pressure and admitted that I was the one who stole the egg.

That I was the one who stole the egg became a well-known story among our neighbors, a story which made me feel very ashamed.

Right after the egg episode, my father came home from the army. He told me that other girls also ate stolen egg with a story:

Once upon a time, a little girl quickly ate a stolen egg by swallowing the egg whole. She was choked to death. A thief dug through her grave right after she was buried in the ground. The thief was scared the corpse was still alive so after he opened the coffin, he hit the girl’s chest three times to check whether she was alive. After being hit on the chest, the whole egg went down to her stomach and the girl returned to life.

I was scared by the story for a long time. Recalling this story now, it seems my father made this story for me and to let me know eating a stolen egg could be life threatening.

Nowadays, when I tell my children the story of my stealing Jiujiu’s egg, I no longer feel ashamed, but feel childish joy. As we age, our cognition is altered.

However, when I was little, steeling that egg was a huge scandal in my mind. Big troubles inside an innocent mind require a wiser person to diminish the troubles, so that the innocent mind won’t be silently tortured for a long time.

Today’s big thing will be tomorrow’s little thing.
This life’s big thing will be next life’s nothing.

In the morning, my daughter who had just come back from a week-long camping trip and I went to the Country Inn Cafe in Almaden Valley for breakfast.

I ordered a set of fruit crepes, and my daughter ordered a chiken walnut waffle. She also asked to add bananas, instead of chicken, to the top of waffle and put the chicken on a separate plate. The chicken she ordered came along with a dipping sauce. I tried a piece of dipped chicken, it was crunchy with strong flavor of dipping sauce, delicious.

In the sunny autumn morning in California, while sitting next to a window in the cafe, I slowly enjoy my fruit crepes, beautiful and tasty, which awaken some sweet memories.

I asked my daughter: “Do you still remember that you introduced crepes to me, in Wurzburg last October?”

“Of course, I remembered. It was in a festival, I ordered a crepes from the street side mobile truck, because you asked me what are crepes.”

“Eating crepes always reminds me about a famous Chengdu dish, DanHongGao, which has a flavor similar to crepes.”

“Sure, the mild flavor of crepes just fits your taste.” My daughter was happy to extend the theory of crepes has the same flavor of DanHongGao for me, because she knew my taste very well.

I don’t like to eat very sweet food, because I grew up at a time where buying candy required government-issued coupons. For example, brownies are one of the popular party sweets here, and they are also my children’s favorite. However, I rarely eat brownies because they are too sweet for me.

My children love sweets, just fit into a folk saying: “Growing up coated with sugar.” Because desserts in the United States are usually very sweet, my children were well-trained to have a magnanimous attitude toward sugar from various parties starting from kindergarten.

While studying ancient languages in Germany, my daughter also noticed that American desserts are usually sweeter than the German ones. With the mindset of a historian, my daughter explained that during the Second World War, in the United States, citizens were not limited on sugar supplies, but in Germany sugar was mainly for the military and citizens had very limited sugar supplies. When I was little, we also had very limited sugar supplies. Therefore, nowadays, desserts in China and Germany usually aren’t so sweet as desserts in the United States.

The crepes introduced to me by my daughter carry a familiar Sichuan flavor.

Enjoying crepes in the United States is always a warm sweet experience for me, because crepes crosses my European, American, and Asian memories. Sweet food retains a sweet memory…

Little Episodes

1. The set of fruit crepes I ordered：

2. My son is faraway from home. The gardenias, which I planted for my son at the front of the house, were blooming happily today. Though the flowers have a delicate fragrance, instead of a summer aroma, I felt the fragrance carried the blessings of my whole heart.

2017, June 1st is international Children’s Day.

That day, my out-of-the-nest flying birds happened to be back home. I happily said to them: “Today is Children’s Day so let’s celebrate!”

The little birds replied:“We are college students and no longer interested in children activities.”

Then, my favorite Children’s Day went on without any ceremony.

June 1st Children’s Day is a big holiday celebrated among pupils and teachers in Chinese elementary schools. It seems schools in the United State don’t celebrate June 1st at all. This difference leads to the gap between myself and my children, with regards to Children’s Day. The difference in surroundings, culture, and folk habits is a gap creator among immigrant families. Immigrant families likely have more gap elements across the generations.

The next day, on June 2nd, I was surprised to hear my children suggested to go to the movie theater to watch the film “Captain Underpants”, I asked:“Do you really want to watch a little kids’ cartoon movie?”

The children replied:“Yes, we liked the Captain Underpants series before.”

College students don’t care about Children’s Day, but enjoy watching childish cartoon movies like “Captain Underpants”. It seems to me, childhood memories influence adulthood a lot, no matter how long ago childhood was. I enjoyed Children’s Day when I was a kid, I still love to celebrate Children’s Day after more than forty years later. My children enjoyed “Captain Underpants” when they were little and they are still attracted to “Captain Underpants” after more than ten years passed.

The “Captain Underpants” series are popular books for children born in 90’s. Those children were also used to the elegant visual pictures and nearly perfect animations in video game when they were young. But being used to elegant visuals doesn’t reduce their visual enjoyment on rough and silly cartoons like “Captain Underpants”. This reveals that the memory of childhood silently influences adulthood.

The “Captain Underpants” cartoon movie we watched is simple and funny. The main characters are: two misbehaving and their school principal who is the dummy. I felt the movie respected friendship a lot, but it belittled the principal a lot too. I was taught to respect teachers, to behave well as a child, so I felt “Captain Underpants” is sort of against the education I received as a child. “Captain Underpants” revealed a big generation gap between I, who had grown up in China, and my children, who had grown up in the United States.

Many children born in 90’s also enjoy reading “Harry Potter”. When the first volume of “Harry Potter” became popular, my daughter was in elementary school. I started to read “Harry Potter” along with my daughter, so I could understand her more down the road. However, she enjoyed the book a lot, while I could not get into it. Later, I watched my daughter and my son be fans of “Harry Potter”, I realized that there will be many generation gaps ahead of us, because of the differences in our childhood. Like my children commented on me:“Mom, you are too serious!”

Believing in and wishing for the best for Children
is a way to reduce the generation gaps between us.

The Chinese version of this article here was first published in June, 2017 on WeChat.