2 Questions Every Girl is Asking Herself

Chapter 22

After visiting Ketut, I'm like a little girl bouncing up and down with excitement. But what to believe? And what not to believe? Can I believe what Ketut said if he says a lot of the same things to other people too? Not everyone's going to live to 101, but everyone who sees Ketut will? And did he really say WRITE? Maybe he said alright? Maybe we all heard him wrong?

Sometimes it's not about believing what's true. It's about believing first, and then, the truth will follow. Even if the signs were wrong to begin with. Mom and Dad will attest to that. Their union is like the comedy of errors, the perfect wrongful interpretation of signs in male/female relationships. A beautiful misunderstanding, without which, I wouldn't have been given life.

Mom and dad's families have been well acquainted since the 1930's. Their fathers used to attend the same high school together. In Chinese culture, it's customary to visit friends and relatives around Chinese New Year bearing gifts of fruits and pastries. Being the eldest son, dad would often be given the task of visiting mom's house every year to wish them Happy New Year. Usually my grandmother would receive him in the sitting room. One year, she happens to be napping in the bedroom when Dad visited, so my Mom received him for the first time.

Dad was in his twenties at the time, and had a bit of a boyish face. Being a man of rather modest stature to begin with, he made the poor choice of wearing a fat and heavy cotton wadded jacket, which dwarfed him even further,. Mom opened the door, looking at Dad, thought to herself, "Who's this kid still in elementary school?" Dad politely introduced himself, and mom invited him in for tea.

Usually this kind of social calls wouldn't last any longer than 15 minutes or half an hour, the host and the visitor would exchange the usual pleasantries and the visitor would be out on his way to the next family friend's home. But mom and dad ended up talking for the whole afternoon, mostly because they got into a discussion about Dad's upcoming arranged marriage.

Dad's the eldest son from a family of five. He needs to marry before the rest of his siblings could marry. A lot of his younger brothers and sisters were already ready to tie the knot, whereas Dad doesn't even have a girlfriend. So his mother finds him a nice, stubby, sturdy, hardworking woman with strong arms and big hips perfect for child bearing and "housewifing". Grandma said to him, "My son, your name is Study and all you think about is studying, you need someone to take care of you, and this woman will take good care of you."

"I don't need a maid! I need a wife that I can talk to!" Dad protested to grandma.

But his efforts were futile. The family proceeded to making wedding arrangements as if his opinions didn't matter. They'd even started purchasing furniture for his wedding chamber, which included an electric-blue wedding bed placed in center of his room. The impending doom was drawing near.

When mom heard his story, she was forthright with her indignation, "If you don't love her, don't marry her!" And then she proceeded to listing a bunch of reasons why Dad should defy his family and call off the wedding. Mom is a really straightforward woman. If she's feeling something, whether it is pleasure, pain, or anger, she's certainly not afraid to show it. Well, she couldn't hide it even if she tried. Of course, Dad didn't know that about her at the time.

He was impressed by mom's opinionated personality, and rather taken aback by her burst of anger, thinking, "Why is this girl so worked up over my marriage? Could it mean she's interested in me?"

Mom was just being her regular self, trying to help this poor kid out.

Seeing the sign, Dad initiates pursuit. He started visiting her every day after work. Mom would always make him something to eat with her mini electric stove. Mom was a nurse in the Chinese military, and lived in the staff dormitory at the hospital. When most people were struggling to make ends meet, mom earned twice as much as the average person, while having all of her living expenses covered by the military. She gave away most of her salary every month to distant relatives who needed it more than she did. With whatever she had left, which was still more than she could spend, she'd buy things for people around her whenever she could.

Dad mistook her kindness as yet another sign, 'She must really like me if she's cooking for me'. Whereas mom figured he probably doesn't have enough to eat at home. At the time, the entire country of China was going through food rationing, due to a series of natural disasters. Each family was only allowed to have a certain amount of rice, corn, wheat to eat for the year. Since she worked for the army, she always had more than enough.

So Dad kept visiting, and mom kept cooking. They never ran out of things to talk about. One day, Dad decided it's time take things to the next level. He asked mom to be his girlfriend.

Mom looked at Dad a long while, in a state of shock. As she contemplated the image of having this man as her boyfriend, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind, "But you're so short!"

Sometimes mom speaks without thinking.

Dad fell silent. He turned around, and walked his bicycle slowly into the distance.

Dad was thinking, 'she thinks I'm short, there's nothing I can do about that.' (Note here: he didn't ride his bicycle. He walked it, slowly, hoping she'd change her mind and call him back.)

Mom watches him as he walks away. All the way till she couldn't see him anymore.

That night, mom lay in bed wide awake, thinking through the day's events. She began to wonder, "Why am I rejecting a good man on the basis of his height? What kind of person does that make me? A superficial one, that's for sure!"

The next morning, mom called dad to meet up at the Lake Park, and apologized. Dad of course, forgave her. From then on wards, they officially became a couple.

Back then, telephones were still a rare commodity. An entire neighborhood or office would be sharing one telephone. When dad called mom, someone would holler to the rest of the building, "so and so, there's a man on the phone looking for you!" And the entire building would know about it. So dad chose a more old-school, and in my opinion, more romantic method of communication, he wrote letters to mom.  

But one day, the letters stopped coming.

One week passed...

No word from dad,

Then two...

Then three...

Still no word from dad.

Mom began to worry.

What happened to him?

So she called one of dad's friends to find out.

What happened was, Dad continued to receive pressure from the whole family to marry the "chosen" woman. Grandpa just about disowned him for disobeying the family. Pretty soon, Dad's boss, coworkers, friends, and the entire neighborhood were trampling into his house convincing him to marry this woman. Explaining how it's a great match for him considering his circumstances, calling him all kinds of names, drawing parallels between his actions and historic heartbreakers in Chinese Opera.

Buckling under the pressure, Dad fell sick. He fell asleep and left a tiny crack of his bedroom window open. This was middle of the winter, and the cold draft could really do some damage. The next morning, when he woke up, half of his face was numb and unable to move.

They tried to fix it with this and that, but by the time they finally took him to the hospital, it was too late. The doctor said it may never be fully healed.

The first thing that came to Dad's mind was, "I don't deserve her anymore."

He stopped writing to mom.

A few weeks later, when mom found out that Dad had fallen sick, she promptly took herself to his house, paying no attention to the curious glances from Dad's family, marched right in, pulled out her acupuncture kit and started working on him. (Like a soldier on a mission...)

For the subsequent two months, without fail, she would come in to treat Dad every day.

In the end, she cured him.

Dad saw this as a sign again, that she must really love him to have been there for him, literally, in sickness and in health; even though mom was simply acting on her nursing instincts. That was when Dad made up his mind that he would to marry her.

And now 30 years later, they are still happily married. I don't think Mom could've asked for a better husband. It all happened because Dad misinterpreted a few signs.

Sometimes seeing only the signs you want to see could lead to a lifetime of happiness. 

Maybe that's what I should do with Ketut.