Everybody’s Talking
11/01/2006
2006 started badly for me
It started out with a bout of flu over the New Year holidays. Then it was getting caught in the unusually persistent rain again and again. The lastest in my growing list of problems – an ear infection.
Otitis media is an inflammation of the middle ear, and is sometimes caused by colds. Anyway, I had to go to the doctor, get set up with ear drops, antibiotics and a decongestant. And in a few more days, I’ll have to go back to get my ear checked out and flushed. How fun.
Passing time
Anyway, the weather hasn’t been all that great, so sick or not I’d probably be at home anyway. It’s actually nice this way – I get to catch up on some reading, laundry and hot chocolate.
During an extraordinarily fruitful session – I managed to finish Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter by Adeline Yen Mah. The title pretty much tells you what it’s about, and the details read like a Korean soap opera. So it’s not something you wouldn’t have seen or read, if you’re in some way Asian.
What was interesting was the backdrop with which her tale of woe is set: growing up in Tianjin and Shanghai in the fifties, the world the author describes seems so old-world. Yet it was only a generation before mine.
It’s worthwhile to note that even though the author tries her darndest to explain how and why she was held emotionally captive by her parents for so long, it seems only someone from an Asian/Chinese family can truly appreciate. The complex, sometimes misguided Confucian values and priorities we inherit are at once what propels us to progress and what holds us back. I think when he thought it up his rules eons ago, Confucius really meant for it to simplify life. Generations later, as it complicates our lives and thoughts, you gotta wonder what he really intended.
In any case, it was an easy, relaxing, 8 hour read. I found the first hand accounts of the turmoil in China through the Cultural Revolution, and what the Chinese families who could afford it do to escape the red wave particularly interesting. Let me know if you wanna read the book.
