1
In February 2016, my boyfriend, Kun, had a car accident on his way to pick me up from work, and as the party responsible for the accident, he was put in a detention center pending treatment. For the next week, I couldn’t get in touch with him, and I was in a state of distraction and confusion.
Kun’s mother is probably similar, that day, her voice hoarse at the end of the phone: “You write a letter to Kun, I know he must miss you, you write him a letter, I asked someone to bring in ……”
The next morning, I rushed to the old street business district, into an old-fashioned furniture store. The first time, the Kun family relied on this small store just bought a house in town, there are few savings left. It was very difficult to find a way to come up with the compensation in a short time.
This was my first meeting with Kun’s mother. She wore a curry coat, had long, curly, thick hair like black algae, and very white skin, which made her eyes more and more puffy and red and haggard.
“Is the letter ready?” She walked quickly toward me.
I was suddenly a little nervous, “Well, I wrote it last night, and I went to write it after answering the phone.” After saying that, I added as an afterthought, “Auntie.”
She nodded repeatedly, reached out and pinched a corner of the letter paper, fingers shaking slightly, “I’ll ask someone to send it, and usually he wears a few dress pants together, he must be able to see some peace of mind ……” finished, she folded the letter paper again, gently tucked into the pocket.
The door was closed, and I watched her back as she left, slightly baffled. Before that, I had thought many times about the scene of meeting with Kun’s mother, but how could I have imagined that the first meeting would be such a scribble and hasty.
But in any case, all of this was insignificant, I just couldn’t wait for Kun to come out and marry me.
A year later, Kun and I finally overcame many obstacles and got engaged.
During this period, my life was not much different from when I was single, and I did not have much contact with my future in-laws. From the purchase of three gold to finalize the bride price, Ah Kun’s family almost all the money, even though my mother is still a bit dissatisfied, but I can not help but stand firm. In the end, Ah Kun’s parents even put a down payment on a car for us and put my name on it.
Six months after the wedding, I got pregnant and stopped helping out at the family restaurant and started to rest and raise my baby. However, an unexpected “family war” broke out.
The home of Ah Kun is not in the town, is a slightly remote rural area, my mother suddenly proposed that he move his account into my house, the attitude is also very strong – in her opinion, our village has better benefits, may not be able to have any benefits in the future, it is more cost-effective to move over.
The best friends know that they are not happy: “What kind of thinking is your mother? The actual fact is that your mother-in-law is not likely to agree. The actual fact is that you will be able to get a lot more than just a few of these. It will be laughed to death.”
My heart sank even deeper, but my mother’s attitude became more and more urgent every day. She is a soft-hearted person, and she is good at saving face. Maybe someone has teased her a bit, and she has become more domineering and stubborn.
I had to tell Kun about this, he was silent for a while and said he had to go back to his parents to discuss. However, surprisingly, my mother-in-law agreed: “Since Ah Hui’s mother is so insistent, let her do what she wants, don’t wait for her to push, you find a time to do it early.”
2
The date of delivery is approaching day by day, but there is no peace at home, my mother once again “trouble”, on the grounds that I am an only child, the baby will take the mother’s surname.
The best friend said: “Your husband’s account has been moved to your home, the future of the baby’s account whether it follows you or follow the father’s surname, not in your family account book? Seriously, your mother did not calculate from the beginning, right?”
I said, “No, my mother is not that clever.” But when I touched my bulging belly, I sighed heavily.
That day when I went back to my in-laws’ house for dinner, I was stuck in my mind and didn’t know what to eat. After the meal, the TV commercial was replayed three times before I made up my mind and said, “Mom, didn’t Kun move his family registration to my house before? At that time, we thought the village could have some good policies. Now the baby’s account to follow Ah Kun, it is equivalent to register my family’s account, I went to ask, this can not be changed for a while ……”
“Oh,” the mother-in-law obviously froze for a moment, the hand holding the remote control down, “you mean that after the child is born, the household registration must also be registered to your side, right? I don’t have anything to do with it, but Ah Kun’s father will think a little more, before Ah Kun’s account to your family, I did not discuss with him, he lost his temper, but also by relatives said a …… forget it, I came to talk to him, recite a few words let him recite, this old stubborn donkey, just talk a lot, I am also used to it. “
The mother-in-law’s reaction was much calmer than I expected, and my heart dropped a big part of it. The first thing you need to do is to send a message to your girlfriend’s WeChat group, and the group exploded.
“The first thing you need to do is to get a good idea of what you want. The actual fact that she doesn’t know what it means after she agrees to it? The son and grandson’s account are registered to the woman’s family, this in the village out, how bad it is to hear, your groundnut mother is really do not understand the human world or stupid ah?”
“The good thing is that your mother-in-law doesn’t know anything, it doesn’t seem to matter, otherwise she would have to bar up with your mother, your mother’s temper, tsk tsk, I can’t imagine.”
……
I put my phone back in my pocket and looked at my mother-in-law, who was getting up to boil a pot of hot water and prepare to scrub the kitchen hood and countertops once again. She stretched and yawned, a sleepy look. This is something that seems to be a big deal to others, but it doesn’t seem to affect her.
I was relieved and thought, “Having a mother-in-law with a big heart is not a bad thing.”
In the group of girlfriends, the chat messages were flying and lively. There are only so many topics to talk about, and there is certainly no escaping the relationship between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.
The other day I just said, “I’m okay with my gourd mother, I don’t really care about our business, and I’m quite good at talking.” Immediately there is a voice back: “A Hui, you are not yet living with your mother-in-law, time together is not much, when you want to live together, and then have children, you must also come to spit. I’m telling you, never live separately from your mother-in-law, remember remember remember!”
At that time I did not take this to heart, no matter before or after marriage, I was comfortable living in my mother’s house. The first thing you need to do is to take a look at the food. My mother started out as a noodle shop, and she can cook pancakes, wrap dumplings, steam mochi, and pickle salty goods, and she can almost support a restaurant’s kitchen. In contrast, my mother-in-law’s skills are really unimpressive.
Most of the meals at my mother-in-law’s house, I only scratched a few bites of food, and I would rather pick up white rice than put my chopsticks into the soup with a thick layer of oil floating in it. When the vegetables were heated, they were yellow and soft, and the braised fish was dug into a few chopsticks and left almost untouched on the side. Only the radish and pork ribs soup could barely enter, but the radish was cut as big as half a hand, the soup bottom was black and yellow, and the pork ribs were so old that they were stuffed with teeth.
“How many times have I said, don’t put so much oil, A Hui can’t eat ……” before moving the chopsticks, Ah Kun’s brow furrowed.
I did not say anything, forced down the strange taste of oil between the tongue, swallowed a small piece of meat, thinking: “In the future, I will not live with her for a long time.”
3
In March 2019, the boy was born. He still took his father’s surname, with his mother’s surname in the middle, and the last word was taken by my father – my mother was happy with this arrangement, and I was relieved.
I was wheeled out of the delivery room, my husband walking beside me, and my mother-in-law took the baby from the nurse and carefully carried it into her arms. Somehow, this extremely ordinary scene made me feel a strange irritation in my heart. I noticed at once the dirt on my mother-in-law’s nails, and she lifted the corner of the wrapping with her rough, cracked hand, her fingers pressed against the baby’s delicate cheek.
I forced down the displeasure in my heart. I didn’t expect this kind of freakish emotion to stay with me through the longest and most difficult period of the postpartum period.
During the menstruation period, my sister-in-law slept in the same room with me. After giving birth, my body was weak, and the sweat and milk stains wet my thin menstrual clothes through and through. I looked forward to going to the bathroom every day to wipe my body, but expected not to have to go, because every time, my sister-in-law would call my mother-in-law to help watch the baby.
Many times I watched through the bathroom door while my sister-in-law was wringing the towels. My mother-in-law was sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to me, cradling the baby in her arms – so close that I couldn’t help but cringe; she was kissing the baby with her mouth, which had just finished chewing onion cakes, and the spittle on the baby’s face was unbearable.
I was also increasingly afraid of the baby crying, and as soon as the cries started, my mother-in-law would rush into the house, smelling of kitchen fumes and carrying the baby into her arms with her greasy hands. My husband bought two bottles of hand sanitizer and put them in the kitchen, telling me many times to wash my hands before holding them, but even so, as long as she held them, I could always smell the unpleasant odor that remained on the baby’s blanket and clothes.
Feeding around the clock, repeatedly blocking milk, breast milk, inflammation, so that I was physically and mentally exhausted, my mother-in-law’s intimacy with the baby, but also a thorn in my heart. In the postpartum hormone push, my psychology became more and more pathological.
After my sister-in-law left, I didn’t leave my home to take care of the baby, and I didn’t even want to open the door to my room. Whenever my mother-in-law held the baby, I had to use all my strength to keep a smile on my face – I was disgusted with myself, but I couldn’t control it.
The first meal my mother-in-law cooked for me had boiled ginger wine in the egg custard, and the smell almost made me vomit. I shouted, “Mom, why did you put ginger in the egg custard?
“Ah, I saw that the wife put it in your steamed fish, it’s to warm your stomach.” The mother-in-law rubbed her hands on her apron, bewildered.
“I hate eating ginger, the top of the fish can still be picked out, this egg is full of ginger flavor, how to eat.”
“Then, I’ll steam you a new one?” Granny whispered.
“No need!”
At the table that day, the stir-fried cabbage smelled strange, the stewed pig’s feet with peanuts was oily and salty, the stir-fried meat with lettuce was scorched and the vegetables were hard, and the tomato and egg soup was too oily to swallow. I lost my appetite, casually ate two bites of white rice and left the table. If this continues, the milk will be cut off.
There was more to it than that.
That afternoon, I slept in the house for nearly two hours, but the baby still cried. In the evening, my mother-in-law pushed in the door and the baby, who was lying on my shoulder, visibly trembled. I didn’t expect to see her again less than 10 minutes later, but she poked her head in the door, her voice loud and clear: “The silver ear soup is ready.”
I hurriedly lowered my voice, “No, no, no.”
But it was still too late, the baby “wow” a fight, little face crying red piece. The mother-in-law panicked and went over to coax, shaking and turning, but the baby continued to cry harshly. I could no longer suppress my emotions and impatiently picked up the baby, saying coldly, “You woke him up by opening the door, and now you’re crying like this!”
Grandma froze in place, and after a while, she turned around and walked out again.
When Kun came back in the evening, I was still angry and complained. Ah Kun frowned and got up, ready to go out and talk to mother-in-law, trying to make her not to be so reckless in the future. I hastily pulled him back: “Forget it, if you say it, she’ll think I’m talking to you about her, so don’t say it.”
My husband nodded and went out, but within a few minutes, he came back in a hurry, “What’s going on? I just saw my mom crying in the kitchen, did you say something about her?”
I was baffled and my heart flared up, “She came in twice and woke up the baby, so why shouldn’t I say something? And what did I say about her? It’s her fault, not mine.”
“She said she wanted to call you for a snack, not knowing that the baby was going to sleep.” My husband sighed and said helplessly, “Don’t worry about it, she’s just careless, and it seems hard to talk now, so don’t take it personally.”
Since then, my dissatisfaction with my mother-in-law has risen to the highest point. I always thought she had a big heart, but now it seems to be a heart of glass, which cannot be said and cannot be touched.
4
After the baby was one month old, I moved back to my mother’s house. The actual fact is that you can find a lot of people who have been in the market for a long time.
“You take your mother back to sleep, we sleep here at night.” That day at the hospital, my mother-in-law, holding the baby who had just finished breastfeeding, quietly pulled me aside, “Is there enough money for the next two days? I still have more than 10,000, Ah Kun’s father does not know, take it to you first, later I will talk to his father, how much is in the card to you first.”
“No need, we can still cover ourselves now.”
“You don’t understand, there are more places to spend money in the future. I don’t know how to make a WeChat transfer, or take cash to you. All right, hurry up and take your mom home, look how tired she is.”
A month or so later, Dad was transferred to the city hospital and Mom rushed to take care of him, so I had to take the baby and move back to my in-laws. Due to excessive grief and tears, I almost lost my milk at once, and my mother-in-law began to find ways to make food for me.
“Is there anything you want to eat? I don’t know what to buy, but I’m afraid you won’t like it.” My mother-in-law said.
“These are just fine.” I forced a smile. At this point, eating was just mechanical chewing for me anymore, and I couldn’t talk about any expectations.
One evening, we took the baby for a walk to the supermarket and he showed great interest in the fish tumbling in the tank. I looked at the fat black fish for a while and casually said, “This fish is suitable for boiled fish.”
The next day at noon, I was napping with the baby in my bedroom when I suddenly smelled a familiar spicy aroma. The aroma squeezed in through the doorway, and the wisps were endless. Since giving birth, I’ve been restraining my diet, and I don’t know how long it’s been since I’ve smelled such a mouth-watering aroma. I was so moved that I carefully closed the door and walked out.
On the dining table, the white rice was served high up on the table, with a large stainless steel pot in the center. In the bright red broth, the white fish fillets were slightly curled around the edges, drizzled with finely ground chili pepper and sesame seeds, and topped with a handful of cilantro. At the bottom, cucumber green, bean sprouts fine yellow, all melted into the red oil.
“I asked the people in the food court, boiled fish put special seasoning packets on it. I heard that this brand of seasoning packet is the most delicious and sells best, follow the steps she taught me to do, and I don’t know if it’s good, you eat it.” My mother-in-law took out a pair of chopsticks and handed them to me, and moved the rice bowl towards my place.
Saliva was secreted in my mouth, and the spicy oil slipped off when the fish was picked up, and I was too busy to move my head to receive it, and immediately tasted a mouth full of spicy tenderness. “Delicious!” I exclaimed.
Compared to the greasy, salty and spicy boiled fish that I had eaten in restaurants before, this pot of fish made by my mother-in-law was fresh and fatty, hot and spicy, with the right amount of heat, and even more delicious than I had imagined!
“What, I wrapped the fish with starch and egg white, is it tender?”
“Yes!” I sip the spicy oil on the tips of my chopsticks and start fishing for the cucumber underneath.
A bowl of rice went down in a flash, and before I got up, my mother-in-law had already taken my rice bowl away and handed it over with a full bowl of rice, “I’ll save half of it for you to make tonight, there’s still cucumber and bean sprouts and everything else, it won’t taste good when it’s cold.
The mother-in-law took a bite of the bean sprouts and immediately coughed repeatedly, covering her mouth with her chopstick hand, “It’s really spicy. Eat more, finish it all, there will be more tonight.”
I wiped a handful of hot sweat from the tip of my nose and hissed, “I’m still breastfeeding, will I eat spicy food?”
My mother-in-law laughed: “It doesn’t matter, it’s the same as eating a full meal, you eat more and feel better, your milk is better. Either wean him off the milk and eat formula, so he can get used to it sooner, and you can go out easier.”
5
From then on, my mother-in-law cooked me boiled fish every now and then, and she seemed to be encouraged by my surge in food consumption, and her cooking skills improved by leaps and bounds.
Sometimes when I came across a vendor selling wild river shrimp, my mother-in-law always bought two more pounds and came back to put old wine and rock sugar into the stew. The soup is clear, the river shrimp red, is my favorite fresh sweet taste. I don’t know who she asked for advice on how to make sweet and sour pork, but she knew I had a sweet tooth and put extra sugar in the old ice.
“It’s too sweet.” A Kun tasted a bite, smashing mouth.
“You take a few bites less, for Ah Hui.” My mother-in-law moved the plate to me.
During that time, I would go to the hospital every two or three days, and my mother-in-law would always think of the dishes to bring to my mother in advance, and buy them early the next morning to make. I would often hear the kitchen hood humming in my sleep, the frying pan clashing with the spatula, and soon the faint aroma of the meal would waft to my nose.
That morning around 9:00, I walked out of my room and my mother-in-law had already packed the food, along with a bottle of soju, a few salted cakes and dumplings – my mother loved salted cakes, and my mother-in-law had made a note to buy them from the grocery store early in the morning. The freshly baked salted cakes had a crispy brown skin, and when you bite into them, the layers were so crispy that they fell off.
“Mom, there are so many, my mom can’t eat them all by herself.”
“Where is this much? Your mom doesn’t have much to eat over there, what nutrition can she get from cooking her own noodles and eating porridge all day long? It’s a pity that the weather is hot and the fresh vegetables can’t keep. I’ll fry some salted fish and pickled vegetables for her, she might like them. The cake and dumplings are usually eaten as a snack when you are hungry, and the wine has been stored for a long time, so your mother can drink a little every day. All right, I’ll take the baby, you go now, go late your mother should be hungry.”
Since the baby started drinking formula, I could finally trust my mother-in-law with the baby when I went out. At this point, in terms of patience and attentiveness, I was nowhere near her.
In the corridor of the hospital, my mother set out the dishes I brought to the bench. That day, my mother-in-law made crab, pan-fried pomfret, stewed bamboo shoots with pork ribs, salted fish and pickled vegetables.
Mom paused and said, “It’s really embarrassing to bring so many dishes every time, your father wants to eat Chinese medicine is still all she bought, you have to give money to your mother-in-law privately, can not always let her buy also burn.”
Every time I gave my mother-in-law money, she didn’t want it and said, “It’s just a few dishes, what’s the trouble, it’s just that I’m a terrible cook, I’m afraid your mother won’t be used to it.”
My father was in the hospital for nearly seven months, so she prepared meals for my mother for most of the year. And I don’t know how many meals of boiled fish I ate.
6
In December 2019, it was close to New Year’s Day. On this day, I arrived home before it got dark.
When I opened the door, my mother-in-law was sitting at the dining table eating with the baby in her arms. I inadvertently glanced at it, but saw my mother-in-law chewing the rice, taking a bite of it with her own chopsticks and sending it directly into the baby’s mouth, before pulling out her chopsticks to sip it again.
“Mom, why are you giving the baby dry rice? He can’t digest it at once!” I was so shocked that my voice changed its tone.
“I’ve been giving him this for a long time, and look, he’s eating it well.” My mother-in-law didn’t care, she took another bite of rice and put it in the baby’s mouth.
Is this how she always feeds the baby when I’m not around? I felt my head “buzz”, almost ready to explode: “The baby has just started to eat supplementary food, he has not grown a few teeth, can not chew directly swallowed, even if you want to eat, you have to start with soft food, and slowly adapt, how can you eat so much at once!
“Besides, the baby is still so small, how can he use the same pair of chopsticks as adults?” I held these words back in my stomach.
My mother-in-law took another big bite into the baby’s mouth, “There’s no need to be so particular, it’s not good to eat? Ah – open your mouth.”
I was so angry that my head was smoking, I took the baby back into my arms and closed the door with a clang. But no matter how I coaxed, the baby did not want to eat a mouthful of milk powder, shaking his head and struggling, crying, and finally threw up on the ground.
I asked around and found out that my mother-in-law had fed the baby not only rice, but also rice crackers, tofu, bananas and oranges. That night, the baby cried until 2 a.m. because of intestinal distress, and we carried him to the town health clinic for emergency treatment. My mother-in-law accompanied me on the side, and I grimaced and did not talk to her.
The next morning, Ah Kun in the kitchen and mother-in-law to talk: “children can not speak can not express, we adults to grasp the proportion, to know the science of feeding. Last night so, we work hard or second, the child is not comfortable crying like this, how suffering, how poor ah ……”
“I know.” The mother-in-law heard the movement, busy peeking out from the kitchen, lowered her voice and asked me: “Awake?” .
“Still sleeping.” I said softly.
“I’ll tell you what to give him in the future, and if you can’t eat it, don’t give it to him first.”
My mother-in-law took the initiative to come over to me, first lamenting the hot weather, and then suddenly opened up the conversation: “Speaking of which, when I gave birth to Kun, it was still summer, and the heat was really unbearable. I was sitting in a rented room, and the room was so stuffy that there was only a small window on top, and there was no electric fan, so I took off my clothes and sat under the window in short sleeves and shorts, waiting for the wind to blow. The wind was so strong that it gave me a headache, and the heat was so intense that I couldn’t breathe.”
At that time, Ah Kun’s father had to invest in a furniture store, because the mold was not right, and the furniture made was thrown away one by one. They had no money, so they had to take cheap watermelon as food, and later, when Ah Kun was a little older, he bought a few dollars of milk powder for him to drink, “all flavored, very sweet.”
Ah Kun’s father loved to drink when he was young, did not do work, and scolded his wife. The mother-in-law had to move goods, manage goods, handle accounts, take care of the household chores alone, busy as a spiral. He also did not care about the two children, Kun and his brother followed the mother-in-law to have a meal, and always did not grow meat.
My mother-in-law seemed to be caught up in the past, chattering intensely: “It’s not like the old days, it’s better to be more careful, be more careful, don’t let the child be as thin as his father, his stomach and intestines are not well nourished, and he will suffer for the rest of his life!
I turned my head sideways and noticed that my mother-in-law’s nose was straight and her side face was very nice. Before that, I rarely really looked at her closely. In my impression, my mother-in-law was a clumsy, poor cook, and not very sharp, and her hands were covered with black calluses all year round, looking very rough. But Ah Kun told me that my mother-in-law was a beauty when she was young.
More than 20 years ago, my mother-in-law took a documentary photo, which still remains today, in which she has gentle eyebrows and white skin. Now, after half a lifetime of hard work, my mother-in-law’s health has been damaged, not only lumbar disc protrusion, viral inflammation of the lungs, the past two years and suffer from hyperthyroidism, resulting in protruding eyes, waxy skin, and increasingly fat body.
As a woman of that era, my mother-in-law did not have a choice, it was life that polished her into what she is today. When I think about the tantrum I threw yesterday, I started to feel a little sorry for myself.
7
In January 2020, my dad was finally discharged from the hospital, and since his accident, my mom has been sleeping with the lights on. To make care easier, I moved back to my mother’s house with Kun and the kids, and my mother-in-law came over to help daily.
Dad either fell into a deep sleep or looked upward with his eyes open, and no matter how much we fiddled with him, he didn’t respond. All this hit Mom too hard, and during menopause, she would lash out at us when she was not feeling well.
A black cloud seemed to hang over the whole house.
One morning, I lost a dinner plate while tidying up the house, and my mom was furious, letting out all her frustrations. I couldn’t help but talk back a few times, and she pointed her finger at my nose and cursed, so I had to run out to the balcony and cry.
In the morning, my mother-in-law entered the door carrying dishes and smiled, “A Hui mom, I’ll cook the boiled fish at noon.” Mom grimaced and went straight to her room with a “hmm”. My mother-in-law noticed something unusual and asked softly, “What’s wrong again?”
I sat on the floor and complained, and Ah Kun also spoke sullenly: “I can’t stand your mother’s temper any more. Your mother and I really don’t seem to get along, so why don’t I go home for a few days and you stay here with her.”
I bit my lip, tears rolling down my face, when my mother-in-law sternly reprimanded Ah Kun: “What nonsense! You should go home and let Ah Hui stay here by herself with the baby, what kind of talk is that? Her mother’s temper is not unknown to you, she is an elder, you are a junior and a man, can’t you be more generous and have a bigger belly?”
When no one was around, my mother-in-law told me about a past incident.
She said that when Ah Kun was a child, she and Ah Kun’s father often quarreled, and whenever they did, Ah Kun’s grandmother rushed over to help her son and called her a shrew. “I thought in my mind at that time that when I had a daughter-in-law in the future, I would not let her suffer this kind of aggression.”
The mother-in-law also talked about my mother, who was not treated well by her mother-in-law when she was young, thanks to my father, who was an honest man and always treated her well. “The company’s main business is to provide a wide range of products and services to its customers. You can be submissive to her, don’t make her unhappy.”
I answered, “I know.”
It wasn’t long before the kitchen hood was roaring and my mom was cooking, and she poked her head out and offered to talk to me. At noon she cooked several dishes, the last one out of the pot was my mother-in-law’s boiled fish, and the moment it was brought out, a hot and spicy aroma filled the room.
The moment it was brought out, the room was filled with the hot and spicy aroma. “A Hui mother, would you like some wine?” The mother-in-law asked.
“Sure, you want some too?” Mom scooped out a small glass of wine from a glass jar steeped in goji berries and herbs, which are good for pain relief.
The mother-in-law was busy smiling and waving her hand, fetching a bottle of drink. The two mothers raised their glasses to each other, and whatever they were drinking, the atmosphere was harmonious.
The boiled fish was served in the middle of the table, with white fish fillets and red peppers, and the basin was almost too big to fit. The name of this dish sounds bland, but it is heavy, sometimes I just feel that the family’s life is also like this pot of boiled fish, to taste good, cooking techniques must be varied – fish head, fish bones, fish tail heavy, to hot oil stir-fry to cook through the taste; fish fillet thin, just in a hot pot of boiling soup splashed with oil to moisten a moment. Pepper numb mouth, chili stimulation, constantly impacting the taste buds, while cucumber, bean sprouts, and will bring a little refreshment.
A pot of fish is still varied, let alone between people?
The boiled fish is served with white rice and hot soju, and the family speaks hotly. All the differences, misunderstandings, embarrassments and grievances were melted away in the spicy red oil soup.
The baby was on short legs, laughing and circling around us, picking up a raw bean sprout from somewhere and holding it in his mouth, his saliva smeared all over his face. He stumbled and fell and got up again, and grabbed the mud from the potted plant and stuffed it into his mouth. When I look at the child, I suddenly feel an unspeakable emotion in my heart. In a few years, it is possible that I will also become someone’s “groundnut lady”.
What will I be like then?
Recent Comments