Family History

     Even though my mother would sometimes talk about her childhood, she never really talked about it in details. She would frequently repeat the same over-arching story over and over again - that she came from a village so she always had to race to catch the bus to go to school (especially if she wanted a seat because it was always crowded and the drive was over an hour long), that she would often cause trouble around the village with her two older sisters (she is the third of five kids), that she loved track (she jumped hurtles), that she would have a lot of chores to do (since she was “old enough to help out around the house”), and that she, as well as she sisters, would often steal fruits off of a neighbor's trees (she never gave a justification for this one).

     Luckily, one of my aunts (I can never tell between which is the oldest and the second) visited from China a few months ago and told more detailed stories about the mischievous troubles she, my mom and the other older aunt (by this, I mean the three oldest kids of their family: my mom and her two older sisters) would get into. Because this story was told over a small family gathering of my mother’s side of the family, more than one person spoke when this story was told. In addition, the topic would often shift a bit to an off-topic topic and back. As my aunt promised, the main story was funny – a memory that will make you “laugh to death”. However, this amusement might be lost due to the maybe inaccurate Chinese translation as well as the fact that this story may be hard to comprehend if it is not heard in person. Either way, I will tell this story as I heard it so the “I” in the story would refer to whoever is talking at that moment (which would mostly be my aunt; I do not think anyone talked during the story, only afterwards); however, I will use parentheses to insert explanations so the comments in parentheses are not said by the person telling the story in the family gathering. The story is led by my aunt:
     “Back in our childhood, aunt and I would often do a lot of mischievous things around the village. The two of us would cause a lot of trouble – your aunt and I were well-known in the village for being the best arguers; we could even silence the village’s bakpo (I do not know how to accurately translate this word but the closest I can think of with a similar meaning is the English word “b*tch”) with our arguments. In addition, these arguments often led up to fights so your aunt and I often fought with other kids in the village.

     “On the other hand, your third aunt and uncle were more obedient. Your third aunt rarely got into trouble and your uncle was just mostly selfish. He loved watermelons so much that when we cut one, he would take a bite out of every piece and hogs all of it; however, your uncle also did many some stupid things as a kid (she means that he did stupid things that caused trouble, but was not trouble itself). For one, your uncle messed with a beehive once and got stung so much and badly that your aunt had to piggy-back him all the way to the hospital. Even since that incident, he now hates bees, and he learned the hard way why he should not mess with beehives.

     “Another incident almost led to his death. Back in those days, there was nothing set up around the near-by lake to prevent people from falling in. One day, he and his friend went to the lake to play and they accidentally fell in. Neither of them knew how to swim and there were currents. Luckily, your uncle was able to grab onto the root of a nearby tree and his friend grabbed onto your uncle’s legs, preventing neither of them from being swept away and drowning unless they let go (I did not ask how the tree root supported both of their weights). In the end, they were saved because someone heard their cries of help and went to check out what is wrong. When your grandmother got home, she freaked out and scolded your uncle a lot afterwards.”

     Here, my grandmother interrupts the story:

     “Everyone in the village blamed me when all of you cause trouble. They often came to me and said ‘Run jie (“jie” means “sister” so it is “Sister Run”), can’t you teach your children some manners? They are so misbehaving.’ But how can I control you when I am always working in the fields? From dawn to dusk, I had to work so there is not time for me. I also had to pay for the fruits all of you picked from other people’s trees so, in the end, I was never able to make much money.”

     After my grandmother’s interruption, my aunt continued her story:

     “Your mother is like your third aunt; she often did her own thing – picking fruits off of other people’s trees and such; however, I am going to tell you about how she made a fool out of your aunt and me. I do not know if your mother remembers anymore, but this is something your aunt and I would never forget. Your mom, aunt and I were looking for chai (a word that basically generalizes things that an individual may find and use in a cooking fire such as branches, twigs, leaves, etc) that day. Then we went our separate ways home. Your mother likes to run and jump hurtles a lot so she went ahead of your aunt and me. However, we soon caught up to her – finding her crying next to a knocked over si ton (this is not something I want to know too much, nor get into too much detail about but it is basically a container in which they used in the past when they did not have modern bathrooms yet). Well, because we saw that your mother was barefooted and crying next to the si ton, your aunt and I stuck our hands into the waste in search for her shoes because we had concluded that she had tried to jump over the si ton but accidentally knocked it over instead, lost her shoes in the waste, and was unwilling to stick her hands in to search for her shoes. It took your aunt and I a while both we realized that your mother had stopped crying and was now laughing. We were foolishly searching for her shoes when the truth was that your mother did not wear shoes that day. Only later, when we got home, did we find out that she was crying because a person had lectured her for knocking over the si ton when she had only been passing by. Your aunt and I had seriously thought that your mother was in some kind of trouble when we found her crying but, in the end, she made a fool out of us. Even now, almost thirty years later, this is something I still remember. It reminds me of how stupid your aunt and I were to have foolishly come to that conclusion we had and it also teach us that your mother is a very cunning person. For a long time afterwards, your mother had constantly reminded us of that incident because she found it really funny – that we had stuck our hands in waste in search for something that was not there. From this, your aunt and I learned a lesson – that when it came to your mother, it is best to know all the information before coming to a conclusion because an assumption may end up with us making a fool of ourselves again.”

     Although my aunt told this story during the dinner mostly for a good laugh and to remind my mother of an incident where she made a fool out of her older sisters, I find that this story includes a lesson simply stating that rather than concluding and assuming something based upon what a person sees, the individual should decide on the action to take after finding out all of the facts. If my aunts had chosen to ask my mother the reason to why she was crying first rather than sticking their hands into the waste in search for something that was not there, they would have understood that their assumptions were nowhere near the truth and might not have made a fool out of themselves.

     In a sense, this advice is important to me because jumping to conclusions is not really something desirable if the assumption turned out to be wrong. Even though my aunts may have learned this lesson in the old village life, it does not mean that it is not applicable to today. For me, this can be a lesson learned without having to do something foolish.