Grandpa « Cloudy in Beijing

2Feb/09Off

Grandpa

Though this is my ninth time inTaiwan, this visit is a bit different because my Chinese has improved.

I had hoped this would allow me to speak more to my grandfather. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Talking to my grandfather can be depressing.

It feels like whenever I speak with him he first starts off with the state of his body: old and broken down.

“I can't really walk anymore,” he says. “It's hard for me to breath, I have asthma and I wheeze.”

“I can't really take care of myself. I need to rely on your grandma, or the caretaker.”

“I can't visit China.”

“There's no way I can visit Taiyuan (where he grew us as a child).”

“I can't visit America; I can't ride a plane.”

He's old now, at 86 years of age. Five years ago, he tripped and fell, injuring his leg (The accident was indirectly my fault. He had taken me to visit a political event I wanted to see, and upon returning home he fell). His health has gone downhill ever since, even surviving a bout of cancer at one point. My dad told me once about grandfather and how he had grown depressed over the years. Now I could see it so clearly.

I think this whole time I've been here I haven't seen him laugh, not even smile. When I talk with him I instead think he's on the verge of breaking out tears, talking about his regrets and how he can't take a bath by himself anymore. The state of his body seems to be a reflection of his state of mind. His hair is all white now, I remember when I was younger he'd at least die it black.

Seeing his pessimism I asked him, tell me about the times you were most happy.

“When we were young, we were never happy,” he replied. “During the war, we especially were never happy.”

He then told me during the World War II he had to eat a certain type of food they made at the school. It was so bad that you couldn’t even shit, he said. But you had no choice but to eat it.

Later he told me about his happiest times. I had maybe expected that he'd say when children were born, or when he got married. But he told me his favorite moments were when he was far older. From when he was 70 to when he was 80. When he finally retired, he felt relieved of all the work and its pressure. He traveled the world with my grandmother, going to Florida and seeing Disney Land, to London and Vienna. He regrets not having a chance to visit Spain.

I talked to my grandfather for over an hour today. And I noticed how when I look at him, I can't see myself in him. I see so many similarities between me and my father. But I’m not sure if I see anything in my grandfather.

My grandfather lived in another time and place. He lived a difficult childhood; his father died when he was only 15 or 16. Later he was separated from his five other siblings after the communists took over the mainland. For the first decades of his life, survival was on his mind.

As for me, I muse about luxuries: about adventure, happiness and trying to write some science-fiction novel. I can only look at myself now and feel disgusted.

I'd like to just tell him to enjoy life, but then again, I have no idea what he's been through. I live in a different time, where I don't worry about getting a job, or money, or what I have to eat. I don't worry about if I can walk across the room without falling down, or if my asthma will come back.

I suppose the worst part is how my grandfather can barely hear now. He wears two hearing aids on both ears, but still, I have to literally yell at him so that he can understand. It feels impossible to have a normal conversation with him; instead I mainly listen while he lectures me. He continues to lament, about how I can't go to a steak place he likes because its on the second floor and there's no elevator to it. I tell him in Chinese “no problem, ???.” But I'm not sure he hears it. All this Chinese I know now, and he still has trouble understanding me.

Things were worse when I recently visited my maternal grandparents.

My maternal grandfather is old as well. His hair is almost gone; the skin on his face sags down making him seem gaunt. We just met for 30 minutes and I struggled to find things to talk about with him. At the end of our visit, I tried hugging him, but he gave me a disturbed look, like he didn't understand what I was doing to him. I've heard that hugs are a western custom.

I only saw my maternal grandmother for a moment. She was busy playing Mahjong and couldn't leave the table.

I guess my relationship with my grandparents is unique. Growing up, my Chinese was mediocre, if somewhat sub-par. So talking with and understanding them was always limited to what I knew in the Chinese language, a barrier I was too young to care and try to surmount.

Now I know better. But still, I'm such a different person from them; though are worlds often intersect, there are cultural and generational gaps. As my grandparents have told me before, they would like me to get married and have children, extending the family line again. Marry a Chinese girl, or at least one that can speak Mandarin. I could care less.

But it's probably no different from any other familial relationship. One day my grandparents will be gone. Despite the difficulties, I have to remind myself I need to enjoy these times as best as I can.