Sunday, April 12, 2009

The Stumbling Son

I'm in a taxi and we stop at the light. I see a thin old man with grey-white hair and his taller thirty-something son walk arm in arm slowly across the street.

I'm always amazed at how integral xiaoshun (孝順, filial piety) is to Chinese people, that a grown man would be walking his father across the street. I remember returning to the States and walking with my grandmother across a parking lot to go into a shopping mall. I instinctively held her arm. In that way, perhaps China has changed me.

I watch them cross and then upon closer examination, I realize the young man isn't walking his father across the street at all. I see that the young man has difficulty walking and his face is slightly distorted, tilted, and has a haze as if he has some musculoskeletal disease.

The father, however, walks upright with clear eyes, guiding his son as they slowly make the trek. As they approach the curve at the other side, the son stumbles a little over his own two feet and his father supports him, as he surely has been for a very long time.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Roni,reading your blog is a big you fun,but i am curious that you don't write chinese anymore in your article,comparing those you wrote in 2007!anyway,i am still happy to know your life in china,also love those articles when you were in Taipei!I am homesick too,i miss it!Best wishes!