The Chinese original is in
寞山的洄瀾 (Ripples of a Hermit’s Thoughts)
隨手拈來大小事
“I found a photographer. She’s only
a few years older than me. We get along very well; and she can even do a gown!
It would be a lot cheaper than buying one.” It was my daughter’s excited voice
at the other end of the phone. She meant to save money for her parents. As a
mother, I didn’t want to rain on her parade. To avoid hurting each other’s feeling,
I just reminded her, “Getting along and liking her is good, but experience told
me that maybe you are just ‘looking for an older sister’. This has nothing to
do with whether she can do the gown. Don’t rush the decision, better asking her
to alter one first and see what happens.” We all think marriage is a life time
affair. To a bride-to-be, wedding planning always aims for “perfection”. It
takes a whole year: whom to invite, the design of the invitation card, the
colors of the decoration, the choice of the venue, the music for the wedding,
the selection of the band, the outfits of the maids-of-honor and the best man,
the menu, the cake, etc. the list goes on. Joyfully and meticulously trying and
retrying. I was shocked that during this joyful preparation, out of the blue,
she told me she planned to sue the photographer.
What happened was that she had paid
the photographer a down payment and also asked to alter a beautiful blouse that
was a little loose. She meant to test the photographer’s tailoring skills
before asking her to make the wedding gown. The photographer blotched it
completely; “She did not alter it the way I told her to. What if she photographs
the wedding the way she wants, instead of the way I want? I cannot let her
screw up my wedding.” My thinking was to just let go of the down payment and not
spoil the joyful event with a lawsuit. My conventional attitude of minimizing
the un-pleasantry did not sit well with her. Now, for a whole month, her new focus
was to prepare for the lawsuit—documenting the incident, finding the witness,
and submit the paper to court. At the court, she stood confidently in front of
the judge, alone. (A small claim court does not need an attorney; it needs only
the judge, the plaintive, and the defendant.) The judge made the decision
without even brought up the witness—the down payment is to be returned, plus the
penalty due the defendant. My daughter, of course, was elated and proud of
herself. She even posted the story on her blog. My friends were all very impressed. It also prompted me to
re-evaluate my attitude of “fight over what’s rightly yours” versus “not fussing
over small matters to keep harmony”. I got an alternative way to look at
things.
Good news arrived from Taiwan—a
niece is getting married. She chose to get married in court, without a wedding
ceremony. My daughter was perplexed—why
omits the all-important wedding ceremony? Yesterday, the niece sent us her
pictures in wedding gown. A-ha, ceremony or not, the world over, the pictures
of the bride in wedding gown is a must. It reminds me of a friend, who had
separated with his wife for a few years. He said: The wedding ceremony shall
not be skipped; the tedious and laborious ritual is an important psychological
preparation for the marriage. It paves the way to a sound marriage; it prepares
us to face the numerous problems we’d surely face with in-laws. This, to me, is
yet another way of looking at things: The seemingly trivial things in preparing
for wedding sets the tone for a happy marriage.
Four, five years later, on my
daughter’s kitchen counter, I saw a booking talking about the seven pillars of
a happy marriage. It seems she has entered another milestone that is preparing
for a happy marriage that will last. Some time ago, my husband’s company, a
multi-national conglomerate, got a new sector president. Through video
conference, he introduced himself and told the tens of thousands of employees,
live, that he considered “Family is my number one priority; career is number
two.” My husband said he could not agree more. A company president, he has
great responsibility. Yet, he considered family is the number one priority.
This probably surprised many corporate ladder climbers. At different end of the
scale; how many homemakers would proudly admit that family is their utmost
priority in life?
The other day, sitting in a coffee
house with my husband, sentimentally, I said: “My life is not very meaningful. I
have no achievement. All I do is to shop and cook for the family; all trivial.
You should have discussed with me on some of the decisions you made
unilaterally.” He reminded me that family financial health is a huge thing—it
had been 3o or so years since our wedding, I had managed all of our budgeting
and investment; that all the big decisions we made together. Because of his
training and work, he said he had to be biased toward action, had to
prioritize, and make decisions. If the ill effect of an action can be easily
remedied, he usually does not fuss over a decision, he prefers to get it done
first. That’s not how I work. Time efficiency has not been my way of doing
things; even when I had a preference, I always get the consensus first. He
wondered why I didn’t appreciate when he took care of the trivial things
quickly. Therefore, he thought I fuss over trivials. Ha, after his explanation,
I now treat all those previous fuss-over-trivial water under bridge.
There are myriad little things in
life cannot be measured by monetary amount. Traveling, especially traveling
abroad, costs 4,000-5,000 US dollars. A two-week tour adds spice to a mundane
life; it’s really quite an undertaking. A few friends hired a tour guide and
toured Europe as a group. Listening to those 60-something, 70-something seemingly
respectable men recounting, “temporarily” out of character, their trip, all I
heard was how much fun they had flirting with the tour guide; I was amused over
their tails wagging the dog. Alas, the clever tour guide, reacting to those
senior citizens’ behavior with a few off color jokes, was able to play them in
her palms for two weeks. Ha, such a piece of cake playing those people’s heads!
I remember the first time we bought
a home. It’s a huge milestone to me; a six figure price tag. I wanted to
control everything, even the scenery of the neighborhood. The next door
neighbor kept on parking his car by the street. Contently looking out of the
window of my hard-earned new home, I did not appreciate seeing other people’s
car blocking my view. I dared not negotiate with my neighbor; my poor husband
had to do the dirty work. Years later, I blushed. Fortunately, the neighbor was
a nice man. He did not fuss over little things. He was to be credited for our
peaceful co-existence for 10 plus years.
However you look at it, learning to
drive is a big thing. It involves, just to name a few, steering wheel handling,
braking, gear changing, and parallel parking skills, etc. In the community,
there are traffic laws, no drink and drive, traffic signs, etc. All these
little things combined to become one big thing—so that everyone can go home safely.
World Health Organization published a report in 2004: Chinese owned 3% of the
world’s cars, and 21% of the world’s car accident fatalities. The New Yorker
has an article pointing out: Driving schools in China don’t teach people how to
drive; instead, they teach how to react to other people’s bad driving habits.
The traffic laws are flexible—they change according to the situation at hand and
rookie drivers’ skill. Mr. Hessler, the author of the article, said he heard a
coach giving tips, instructing students not to use turn signals, because that
may distract other drivers. Wasn’t it putting the cart before the horse?
A tour in life, from cradle to
deathbed, we experience numerous things. Sometimes it’s walk in the park and
everything goes smoothly, other times we have adrenalin pumping ready for a
battle. Sometimes we trivialize arguments and choose to put harmony above all;
sometimes we do things we need not bother, other times we fuss over things we
have no business bothering… Isn’t it that life is like looking through a kaleidoscope;
the flower patterns in it change all the time? How interesting!
