saving face

TALKING BADLY TUESDAY

Oh, to be human can cause us such miseries. It’s how I experience life. I have to remember that I am talking for myself only. To punish myself and feel worse, I judge myself for my humanity. That is part of being human, too. So pardon me for speaking out, breaking the taboo of airing my dirty laundry. I’m not British. I don’t have that stiff upper lip. The thing is, I’m Chinese. We like to ‘save face.’ We don’t talk about ‘private matters’. At least my mother and her generation doesn’t. I am not made of sterner nor noble stuff like that. I am unable to harbour all this ‘stuff’ inside. It’s toxic to my soul. I have to vent.

Brene Brown has done much important work on human connections. Her TED Talk on the power of vulnerability is powerful. I was quite blown away when I first watched it. I had hoped that it would strike a chord within all of us to open up, be vulnerable and share. I don’t think I have that problem. My problem could be the opposite. Maybe I shared too much. I was so busy doing that I had no time, or maybe it was I never gave other people an opportunity to do their sharing. I found myself quite taken back later, like years, that I had been in the dark – without a match, without a clue.

You can imagine the hurt I felt. I spilt my gut, my innards bleeding on the sidewalk but you/they kept mum. My mother would have found that admirable. But I can only talk it out -badly. Isn’t it what they all tell you to do? Get it out! Hash it out! Not too many people I know do though. Are you surprised? I’m not. I’ve learned it from experience. Am I disappointed? No. That’s how we are. Well, it’s not really how I am but I am learning to be that way. I’ll let you know if it is a better way. You know what they say. The less said, the better.

LATE NIGHT RANTINGS

I am feeling sad tonight having read someone ended a beloved pet’s suffering.  I have also learned today that an old friend has passed away.  His suffering has also ended.  It is hard, nevertheless, for those left on this side of life.  I am sure God will forgive me my tears. They are coming down in the dark of the night.

I am still wondering what is it all about, Alfie?  Will I find any answers?  Life has tricked me into believing that it gets easier with age.  I have not found it so.  It has been harder. Life has caught me unaware and unprepared – to grapple with all these complexities of modern, New Age living.

It was much easier when I was young.  I went to school.  I did my chores.  I obeyed my parents.  I respected my elders.  I respected my teachers.  I listened to their wisdom.  After all, they’ve lived longer than me.  They knew a few more things than I did.

Not so anymore.  Children can divorce their parents.  You dont always seldom get respect from the younger generation.  They have this sense of entitlement – they know better.   They are better and it is you who should listen to them.  Sometimes we tiptoe around them, afraid to lose their love.  They are the ME generation.  I am, of course, generalizing. I am making the mistake of putting them all in the same basket.

Experience has made it difficult not to generalize and take things personally.  It would take a better woman than me not to do so.  I am ranting my deficiencies in the silence of the night.   I am exhaling my poison.  I am also remembering those other youths.  I should not lump them altogether.  Some are wonderful, loving and knowing – more than we know.  They know the word respect.

Respect, saving face is of utmost importance to the Chinese.  I should know.  The teachings of respect is ingrained into my very fabric.  My mother has done a good job with me.  I am grateful for it.  What are we, without respect?  We all crave it and yet so many of us are so reluctant or unable to give it.  Pity!  Regardless, I do respect myself.

Forgive my late night ranting.  I am but momentarily disillusioned with this thing call life. I am sickened by the wrongs and woes of the world.  How can I not be when I hear news like Jian Gomeshi and stories like Rhtaeh Parson?  Then there are all the killings and wars. I could go on and go.  How can I keep my spirit up and my heart intact?  Down which road has humanity gone?

I am only a simple Asian woman in her middle years.  I have no answers nor solutions. Tonight I can only rant.  But tomorrow is another day.  Hope is just around the corner.

TAKING OUT THE TRASH

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The prairie wind is blowing again.  It blows and blows, the kind that makes you feel weary.  It is the kind that gives me a headache and the shivers, as if someone is going to walk over my grave soon.  So it feels so good to have a shower, washing off the layer of old sweat and grime.  I am clean once more, unencumbered, naked and pure.

I take out a bag of trash…old underwear and an old hair dryer.  The heat had somehow melted a hole on one side and I burnt a finger on the hot molten plastic.  Until then I was still using it.  How foolish I am to hang on to it when I have another one in better condition.  I take that as a sign to let go of the broken, misshaped and the dysfunctional.  But it is easier said than done.  So I MUST be alert and pay attention to these things before they bite me in the ass.

My mother use to tell me so many things….things that nagged on her.  She tells them to me because I’m her oldest and she needs to get things off her chest.  And when I said to her that she shouldn’t talk so to me, she said who could she talk to if not her daughter.  It was just garbage and for me not to mind and to throw them away.  That, too, is easier said than done.

But she did listen to me when I told her it was making me sick.  I am not getting so much now.  Chinese people are proud and private.  They do not like to air things in public.  They have to save face.  Something must have happened to me.  I am not such a good Chinese.  I am not saving face.  I am a stranger in a strange land.  I’ve discovered that I cannot go home again.

But I have found a new land of LOLL where each person takes care of their own trash.  In this land of mine, there is no history, no accounting, no envy, no accumulation of trash….Each day starts anew.  The sun still rises in the east and sets in the west.  And all is as we make it to be.

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