My Family Story and I

My family story and I

I was born in a big family. But the “big” is different from the meaning that exist in people’s mind because of my last name is profound in Chinese genealogy; and my last name is Li. According to the book , Li is ranking second, and we always get proud of it. Meanwhile, my hometown is a historic old town called Jingzhou, which located in Hubei Province. It is famous for Three Kingdom period. The most famous man in my city is Guanyu. Some people says we are sons of Guanyu. Therefore, most people believe that there should be a chivalrous heart in our body. But that is in old times, my story is not legend, and my story cannot leave with my grandma because she was my abecedarian in my childhood.

Let’s talk about my grandparent first, my grandma was born in a landlord family. She is the only one child in that family; in general, my grandma should learn that traditional knowledge like poetry and painting. But she was not interested in those stuff, she is a naughty but beautiful lady. There is a old poem in , it writes “ a ragged fringe is the floating-heart, left and right we trail it. That mind-mannered good girl, awake, asleep, I search for her.” My grandma is a such that girl, and there always a lot of pursuers stand in front of our entrance door, but she never pay attention to them. He parents used to ask her what kind of young man she liked. And she said “braver than me, smarter than me, love me more than everything, respect me. I do not care how wealthy he is, but this guy should have the sense of responsibility.” These words are still influencing on me. As in the old time in China, women stood in a lower social level than men, there was a common phenomenon that most families looked up to men and down on women. Let alone chose one’s spouse by free even my grandma was an exception. I can exactly remember how she met my grandpa and fell in love with him because this was my bedtime story in my childhood. Even I can recite it now. My grandfather was a expert and forced to go to countryside to farm, and the farm which he worked was belong to my grandmother’s family. He was the most conspicuous in those farmers as he dressed like a man who attended to a party. She went through him and made fun of him, “you are a farmer why you dress like an officer”, and it made my grandpa’s face turns crimson with anger, but he did not say one word because he believed that preoccupied with a woman was harmful to his good manners. However, she did not leave the matter at that and she went to farm everyday. She told me that every time she went to see him, she would change a lot of dress and make up very beautiful. Sometimes she just watched him, sometimes she played with the dog, but most of time she just walked through him and came over again deliberately. She tried different kinds of ways to make him speak, but it did not work.

As time goes by, it had become her usual practice to see him, no matter where he was, she could found him. One day, my grandpa invited her to go for tea, and she was sleepless all night. On the second say, she went to that café, and my grandpa had already sat there, she looked into the mirror to make sure her outstanding was fine. I know it seems like funny because on that day she dressed like a hot turkey. Indeed, it shocked my grandpa. But sooner, he became normalcy. The first word was “Hi”, the second sentence was “would you like something to drink?” everything seemed to be as normal as usual, even she was nervous, but the third sentence made a red flush spread from her face to her neck, which was “you do like me, right?” The result was that she ran away fast, and from my grandpa’s eyes, it looked like a big, hot and rolling red turkey running in the street.

After she came back to home, she told her parents that she was fell into with a farmer, and she was going to marry him. On the one hand, her parents felt happy because she grew up; but on the other hand, they worried about their future because the man she loved was a poor farmer. Later, they invited my grandpa to their house to have a dinner. During the time in dinner, my grandpa showed a very good accomplishment, and he promised that he would bring a happiness future for her.

The story for them did not end so fast. In their wedding time, my grandpa had no money to afford a car, and also, he refused my great-grandparents’ assistance. He brought a bicycle and tied a red flower on this bicycle, later, after he picked up his wife by bicycle, the veil was flew away. he had to go back to pick them up. And finally it delayed the good occasion. The worse thing was not as simple as that. On their way to my grandpa’s house, they met a bride-snatching. They took the valuable things from them, like jade bracelet, pocket watch, leather shoes, earrings, and the bicycle. The most interesting thing was my grandma gave up their wedding and chose to chase after the thief, and left her husband alone. My grandpa told me that was the most embarrassing time that in his life. Every time I heard this part, I will burst into laughter. So how about the wedding? After my grandma came back to my grandpa’s house, her shoes were broken, her hair was shaggy, her face was dirty, it was hard to imagine that she was a bride. His father and mother felt angry, so did he. No matter how hard she explained, he did not speak one word. A long silence later, she gave him the pocket watch, and said, “I know this is very important to you.” When my grandpa saw it, he would not say anything but tears unspeakably. Until now, my grandpa has been keeping this pocket watch, and this is a symbol for their love and my grandpa has been loving ardently to his wife.

At this time, you might ask why I spent so much space to share their love story. Because their story influences me a lot from my childhood until now, even my life ends. I was rose up my grandparents, my parents were busy to do their business, they had a restaurant at that time. So they had no time to take care of me. When I was young, my grandma liked to take me to the market to sell our own vegetables, and in those time, we got up very early, maybe 3 o’clock in the morning, I would take some small changes, and my grandma took the shoulder pole, and I liked to seat inside the pole. When we arrived, it was always fulfilled. It definitely meets a famous saying, “the early bird catches the worm”. After we arrived to our booth, we would take out of our vegetables and arranged them in front of customers. Then I would call out, “come to see our vegetables, fresh and healthy, come to buy, sell the cheap but good vegetables”. And lots of customers come to our booth and pick up what they needed. I am pride of our vegetables all the time. There was another reason why I preferred to go with my grandma to the market was that those customers who saw me sell vegetables would compliment me; for example, they would say I was a well-behaved and cute girl. from children’s heart, it exactly met my vanity.

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