Voices on the New Diasporas - an MIT student journal
Submission deadline for Spring 2008 issue is March 15, 2008.
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Jade
by Kathleen Cui, Class of 2008
Before I left, my grandmother gave me a piece of jade. In summers when everything melts, I touch it with my fingertips and it is always cold. I like the way it looks transparent, but when I hold it up to the light I can’t see through it. It is a mystery. I bite it. I search for cracks. I know that it breaks cleanly. I know that it is strong.
When I was small I used to stand by the stove and listen to her talk. My toes curled in because the room was cold. Coldness rose from the tiles, making the space between the stove and the table more defined. I lifted the soup lid and leaned in, moon face hanging, suspended above hot steam.
August days in WuXi remind me of what it is to slowly simmer. On the grave-mountain, I was staring at my name engraved on the stone in fresh red paint. Someday it will be painted black like my Grandmother's. I think to myself: I don't want to be buried here; I want to live here, on the side of a mountain with these overgrown ferns and soaring gravestones. When I lie near her quietly, press my ear to the cold tile surface, I can hear the water running downstream; I can hear her cells splitting.
Mrs. Deng told me once that they had picked a very auspicious day for her wedding. First they studied the Chinese calendar for days favoring marriage. They consulted with the neighborhood weatherman, and he came as close as any weatherman could to guaranteeing sunshine. They checked the astrological charts to avoid the Venus retrograde. It was very lucky, very lucky, she admitted. When they were presented as man and wife, it was the happiest day of her life, she shouted over her shoulder as she lifted the screaming kettle from the stovetop.
But my grandmother said there is a mystery in the center of every Chinese woman. She keeps her true nature hidden. She remains quiet so that her selfish wishes are not revealed. Her objective is not to learn from her mistakes, but to have the wisdom not to make the mistake in the first place. Wisdom comes from parents, obedience, and observance.
I am expected to be strong, healthy, and virtuous. But there is a greedy little girl inside of me--the one that breaks china and steals steamed buns and runs barefoot through the house screaming verses from “Romance of the Three Kingdoms”.
“Tell me about Chinese winters.”
“They are endless cold.”
She proceeds to tell me about white snow falling on black hair, and firecrackers popping in the cold air. Red-cheeked children plug their ears and laugh. Children receive jade from their mothers and their mother’s mothers.
It has been fourteen years since I first bit my piece of jade, five years since I visited my grandmother’s grave on a mountain. But I could still tell you about the tops of mountains in the country I was born, where you never see the tops of mountains.
