New Yak

Here is my latest posting on the yak board. It was adapted from a story I wrote for a reflection on life in urban China.

Grandma's Laughter

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One.
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The bolt on the door slams back with a satisfying clank that activates the clap on style lights five stories up. I take the stairs two at a time as I make my dash to the fourth floor. I arrive at the door I am looking for. What is usually a plain green door is plastered with red and gold ornate (dare I say garish) paper decorations. The centerpiece is a red diamond with a cartoonish dancing ox. I knock three times on the door. My grandmother being hard of hearing, I raise my hand to knock again when I hear a shout from inside. I can't make it out over the blare of my grandmother's television, but I get the gist: she is on her way. She catches a glance of me through the peephole, and before the door is even open she has started with her chorus of high pitched "Hello!"'s. Strangely, these are often accompanied with "Buh-bye"'s, even when I am just arriving home. If she knew any other words in English I have no doubt that she would yell those at me as well whenever I was coming or going. I echo her greetings and we start the laughter that will continue throughout the evening.

Tonight she has some food prepared, so that when I emerge from my room in sweat pants and a hoodie, she is waiting to serve it to me. I sit down and the head of the table, my customary position, and she begins to dish out the food. Normally how the set up works is that I will have a bowl of rice, and all the dishes will be on the table. Everything that I want goes on top of the rice, and is eaten out of that one bowl. There is no food separation possible. But tonight we are havin jiaozi. My grandmother's prize winning (according to me) vegetable dumplings. For me this is enough. There is a plate in front of me that would normally go unused as I eat straight from the giant platter of jiaozi. Tonight my grandmother wants to serve, so I politely defer to her. She picks up the jiaozi and tilts the platter to start to scrape them into my plate when they tumble, they pour, they cascade, they avalanche. And they end up in my lap. I look down at the jiaozi, and then back up at my grandmother. She bursts into hysterical laughter. Barely putting the platter of jiaozi down in time as she flails with laughter. Our laughter mingles. I read somewhere once that if you belly laugh at least once a day you will live longer. Based on this scale my grandmother will live forever. Her laughter is contagious, but after a while, we both have calmed down enough to clean up and finish the meal.

Later on, my host brother Frank and I are watching a movie. Or at least, I am watching it. He is sitting there with a comic book, only glancing up occasionally to pick up the very basest plot lines. Grandma emerges from the kitchen. She is bearing gifts. Yellow watermelon and musk pear are tonight's snacks. She places them on the table and issues her command: Chi ba! Eat! Without looking up from his comic book, Frank declines. I quickly follow suit, begging full from dinner. Unfortunately, my begging falls on (nearly literally) deaf ears. My grandmother grabs one of the small rock hard pears and throws it at me. Hard. It is as unexpected as it is disorienting, and as I scramble to grab it before it falls to the floor, I realize that my grandmother is stronger than she looks. It is just as I recover the first pear that the second slams into my chest. At this point my grandmother is giddy with glee, and her sights are set on Frank. She fires off two shots at him and he retreats into the fetal position to avoid the blows. My grandmother's laughter now fills the room as she turns back to me. She will certainly live forever, but I don't know how much longer I will. She points to the watermelon, repeating her command: EAT!

This time, I am too afraid to disobey.