stopped. I buried her like
you bury a stranger,
with no tears in your eyes and no memories left behind. She became a no
one for
me, a stranger, same as I was once a no one to her, a stranger. I
refused to
let hate poison my heart and I chose to let only the love and
appreciation for
my Indian girl fill my days.
I replaced the bad memories of my mom’s cousin
with the happy ones
with Simrin.
I learned to forgive, but never to forget.
Because forgiving sets
you free, while forgetting gives others another chance to hurt you.
With Robert and Simrin by my side, I started
again to look for jobs
and rooms for rent in a more populated area.
Like a Phoenix, I was determined to rise from
the ashes.
----
Dora’s
Journal Notes
If the road starts
being bumpy, tighten
your seat belt, look ahead, and keep driving.
Where there is a
way down, you can
always find a way up.
There may be times
when the action
itself does not say much about us, but the circumstance in which it is
done
says everything.
Memories are a bit
like your clothes.
Only the best ones are worth keeping.
----
11
A Chinese Roommate, the Philosophy of a Nation
Your
house is your castle,
Some
might wisely say,
But
how to find the right one
Nobody
can say!
Moving in with a
roommate is like buying a lottery ticket. You never know how it will
turn out.
However, no matter the outcome, I’ve always
found it to be an
opportunity to grow.
I learned new habits, new smells, like curry,
and sometimes I even
made new friends, like Simrin. Having roommates of different
nationalities opened
my eyes to new cultures, stirred my curiosity, immersed me into others’
ways of
being, and exposed me to experiences I couldn’t get as a tourist. It
taught me
to respect every person, each story, and every culture, and to realize
how much
we can all learn from each other.
For an Eastern European girl like me, Chinese
and Indians were
particularly interesting, so different and so exotic. I had never used
chopsticks, never heard of dumplings or curry, and all I knew about
them was
from books.
After my pleasant experience with Simrin, I
found a room for rent
with a Chinese lady, Ning.
Ning was what we may call a woman with a
mission. She worked around
the clock and everything she did followed a strict plan. She did not
let her
feelings, assuming she had any, stand in her way, and getting pregnant
was not
an exception to the rule.
“Why you cannot come over tonight?” she said to
her boyfriend over
the phone, one Monday night “You don’t understand. Saturday will be too
late. I’m
ovulating. You must come now. It won’t take long,” she assured him.
And she was right. It never took long. He went
to her bedroom and
before I knew it, he was out the door.
“Time is money,” Ning used to say to me.
“Is it anything else, other than money, Ning?”
“What else? There is nothing else.”
And for her, there wasn’t.
She saved each penny, spared none, and
monitored each deal on the
market, whether it was for elastic bands or for rice. Money was her
only and
constant obsession and if having lots of it meant working day and
night, she
was ready to do it.
Wearing the same sturdy pair of shoes on all
seasons, she was the
retail business nightmare and the shame of all the women on the planet.
No
dapper wardrobe for her. All her clothes, including the underwear, were
self-made in her room each night after work.
But, to really know Ning, you had to go with
her for a drive.
“Ning, you’re driving like a true Chinese,” I
told her, seeing her
facial muscles tighten, her steady look, and her hands grabbing the
steering
wheel as if it was a lifesaving device.
“What do you mean like a Chinese?”
“It means bad, terribly bad.”
“Chinese not good at driving cars, Chinese good
at driving people,”
she said in her broken English.
“If by driving people you mean driving them
insane, then you are
right, very right,” I teased her.
Although it was hidden deep enough for
you bury a stranger,
with no tears in your eyes and no memories left behind. She became a no
one for
me, a stranger, same as I was once a no one to her, a stranger. I
refused to
let hate poison my heart and I chose to let only the love and
appreciation for
my Indian girl fill my days.
I replaced the bad memories of my mom’s cousin
with the happy ones
with Simrin.
I learned to forgive, but never to forget.
Because forgiving sets
you free, while forgetting gives others another chance to hurt you.
With Robert and Simrin by my side, I started
again to look for jobs
and rooms for rent in a more populated area.
Like a Phoenix, I was determined to rise from
the ashes.
----
Dora’s
Journal Notes
If the road starts
being bumpy, tighten
your seat belt, look ahead, and keep driving.
Where there is a
way down, you can
always find a way up.
There may be times
when the action
itself does not say much about us, but the circumstance in which it is
done
says everything.
Memories are a bit
like your clothes.
Only the best ones are worth keeping.
----
11
A Chinese Roommate, the Philosophy of a Nation
Your
house is your castle,
Some
might wisely say,
But
how to find the right one
Nobody
can say!
Moving in with a
roommate is like buying a lottery ticket. You never know how it will
turn out.
However, no matter the outcome, I’ve always
found it to be an
opportunity to grow.
I learned new habits, new smells, like curry,
and sometimes I even
made new friends, like Simrin. Having roommates of different
nationalities opened
my eyes to new cultures, stirred my curiosity, immersed me into others’
ways of
being, and exposed me to experiences I couldn’t get as a tourist. It
taught me
to respect every person, each story, and every culture, and to realize
how much
we can all learn from each other.
For an Eastern European girl like me, Chinese
and Indians were
particularly interesting, so different and so exotic. I had never used
chopsticks, never heard of dumplings or curry, and all I knew about
them was
from books.
After my pleasant experience with Simrin, I
found a room for rent
with a Chinese lady, Ning.
Ning was what we may call a woman with a
mission. She worked around
the clock and everything she did followed a strict plan. She did not
let her
feelings, assuming she had any, stand in her way, and getting pregnant
was not
an exception to the rule.
“Why you cannot come over tonight?” she said to
her boyfriend over
the phone, one Monday night “You don’t understand. Saturday will be too
late. I’m
ovulating. You must come now. It won’t take long,” she assured him.
And she was right. It never took long. He went
to her bedroom and
before I knew it, he was out the door.
“Time is money,” Ning used to say to me.
“Is it anything else, other than money, Ning?”
“What else? There is nothing else.”
And for her, there wasn’t.
She saved each penny, spared none, and
monitored each deal on the
market, whether it was for elastic bands or for rice. Money was her
only and
constant obsession and if having lots of it meant working day and
night, she
was ready to do it.
Wearing the same sturdy pair of shoes on all
seasons, she was the
retail business nightmare and the shame of all the women on the planet.
No
dapper wardrobe for her. All her clothes, including the underwear, were
self-made in her room each night after work.
But, to really know Ning, you had to go with
her for a drive.
“Ning, you’re driving like a true Chinese,” I
told her, seeing her
facial muscles tighten, her steady look, and her hands grabbing the
steering
wheel as if it was a lifesaving device.
“What do you mean like a Chinese?”
“It means bad, terribly bad.”
“Chinese not good at driving cars, Chinese good
at driving people,”
she said in her broken English.
“If by driving people you mean driving them
insane, then you are
right, very right,” I teased her.
Although it was hidden deep enough for
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