Ling Zhang (Ling)
ENGL 401A
Jovana Milosavljevic
11/23/2015
An Unforgettable Memory Memory of a time when I always touch or feel index finger of right hand’s scar, and I have never been more petrified in my whole life. In just two seconds, I experienced a life-or-death situation in an accident. In the winter of 2010, the weather was always rainy or overcast in the south of China where my hometown is called Jiangxi province. Normally, it was raining when I went back to my hometown to visit my grandparents. It seemed that the terrible weather had predicted that some unlucky things would happen. This was my first time gerund my grandparents’ house after 4 years, and I just had blurry memories about my hometown that I spent my whole childhood at there. Moreover, I didn’t realize that we had already left freeway, and rural scene started to trickle in. My mother said: “Honey, I don’t want to say one more time: put aside your math book. Why don’t you spend more time on exercising dancing or calligraphy? You always waste your valuable time in doing useless thing.” My father always kept silence when my mother was talking about my study, and I also thought he never cared about this kind of thing because he only concerned about how to make more money. Meanwhile, I also didn’t want to say anything because we had wrangled many times for the same reason, and I knew that she still was watching me through the rearview mirror. I had to put away my book and change my sight to outside.
In the next second, I was shocked immediately. Lots of things had changed, in my memory, my hometown’s roads were clay rather than current concrete roads. In my childhood, people still needed to walk about 30 minutes to the nearest market, and most of people couldn’t afford a car in that period of time. However, people built the circuitous highways above the farmland in recent years, and it was convenient for everyone. While I was sitting in the car, I looked at outside world that was totally different with urban scene. Without any skyscrapers or rumbustious business streets, every building still kept the natural scene. We could see the vegetables and many fruit trees in the yard, and many flowers were planted in the front of houses. Every house had a stone path to connect with street. We also could see that all the houses used the white bricks and utilized black glazed tiles as roofs. People would like to use warped roofs and roofs lifted off, the formation of such a bird wing stretched all parts of the roof of Yan Jiao. Meanwhile, there was a pair of stone lions on the both side of the door. When I breathed fresh air from car door, initially, I would feel that I had escaped from the crowd and noise of modern life, and I didn’t need to breath any automobile exhaust and enjoyed this idyllic pastoral scene and low-carbon life. Even though, I was in rural area, I still could see the house built with newly environmental materials and energy usage, especially about electrical house hold appliances was eco-friendly. My eyes always focused on outside view because I didn’t want to miss any changes in my hometown. Due to raining, my father drove very carefully because the roads were very narrow and smooth, and the most important was all concrete roads were built above the farmland about 10 meters through piers because farmers didn’t want concrete roads to occupy and destroy their farmland, and there still were clay road in the village. Concrete roads were only built for main trunk roads, so it was convenient to connect with each villages. Therefore, we still can see that there were clay roads in many villages, so clay roads still were used to connect with each house in a village. After few minutes, we left the concrete road and turn onto a clay road, which was the only road could enter my grandparents’ village. While the car was turning, I couldn’t see any road border, only a paddy field, and the car also had a little bit incline. I even felt a little bit scared when I was passing this bend, and I involuntary clenched the doorknob. It seemed that I would fall down from here next time. Eventually, I arrived at my grandparents’ house safely, and they had been waiting for us for a long time. Grandparents prepared all kinds of food that we couldn’t eat in the city. The fish was caught by my grandfather in the morning so it was very fresh, and all vegetables were collected from our own farmland. Everyone’s face all with a big smile, and adults toasted each other. With such delicious and exquisitely prepared food, we shared lots of interesting things that happened at our living or working situation in the past one year. I really felt happiness at that moment because I could felt that all of us were very relaxed without any pressure.
After lunch, I wanted to eat a special snacks that could only buy in my hometown, called Rice Sugar. Rice Sugar was one of the most important memories in my mind. Owing to I was very naughty, my parents always didn’t know how to pacify me when I was crying. They told me that they had tried tons of ways to let me stop crying but they all didn’t work for me. However, my grandmother always knew how to claim me down. She would give me a Rice Sugar when I was out of control. Once I got it, I would stop crying immediately and waved my little arms and legs happily. My parents still confused why Rice Sugar had such attraction for me. Therefore, it not only meant a kind of snack for me, but it was a part of memory of my grandmother and hometown. However, the nearest shop was located in another village. My elder brother said that he was willing to take me there, and he told me that it would only spent 10 minutes by electric bike. When I knew it wasn’t very far away, I had determined to go there without any hesitation. Even though it was pouring rain outside. My parents were very much against, because they always thought that snacks were not good for a child, even they didn’t allow me to try it one more time. I felt very angry because this was a part of my childhood, why they can deprive it. My parents always denied me, no matter in the car or toward all of family members. In my opinion, they would never consider my inner thoughts and asked my own advice. We started to squabble, and I knew that it only was a little thing that we shouldn’t develop such terrible. However, we both couldn’t control ourselves. Actually, we both didn’t want to hurt each other but I had to say that my parents always wanted to control my life. When I was child, I was persuaded to learn lots of things, such as dancing and Chinese calligraphy. They would never ask whether I wanted to learn them or not. Their hopes were imposed on me, and I could understand their inner thoughts so I accepted their all arranges. As time went by, I started to have my own dreams and aspirations. I wanted to take mathematic course, but they thought my math grade had already been best so I didn’t need to take extra course to learn it. Therefore, I had to study it by myself after school and I would buy lots of book to study math. However, my parents would be unsatisfactory because I didn’t spend time in learning dance and Chinese calligraphy. We had argued about this issue for many times, but it was useless. Even they wouldn’t give me pin money in order to limit me to buy mathematics books. They always thought me was wasting time to study hopeless thing, because they thought girls could do very well in mathematics field is impossible in the future, and study math needed lots of time so it was not good for a girl. In their opinion, girl should have a stable job and pay more attention on her family in China. On the other hand, I didn’t want to do this! I had my own dreams, why couldn’t they support me?
In the daily life, they weren’t willing me to buy any sugars or snacks, first of reason was these things were bad for my healthy, then the second reason was that these junk food would make me fat. However, I was 17 years old! Why not let me try a little bit? Even Rice Sugar was a kind of connection between grandmother and me, and I missed her very much every time. I still remembered that she gave it to me with her warm smile. My parents saw my eyes were filled with tears, so they had no alternative and agreed me to buy Rice Sugar with my elder brother.
On the way, I sat behind my brother, to be honest, I felt a little scared without any reasons, and I could feel my heartbeat every times and my hands were filled with sweat. I didn’t know why I was afraid at that time. However, I forgot all the anxious things when I had gotten my snacks. On the way back, I wanted to remind my brother that he shouldn’t ride too close to the road border because all the roads were built above the farmland about 10 meters. However, I didn’t say anything, just clenching his coats tightly. When I was passing that bend again, owing to the clay road being too smooth, our wheels skidded! Suddenly, I heard a screech of breaks and I fell down from 10 meters’ concrete road to the paddy field. I could see the ground was getting closer and closer, I was afraid of closed my eyes. I wanted to take some reactions to protect myself, but I couldn’t because time was too short for me to take actions. Only few seconds, it seemed like one hour, and I had felt the sky and earth were spinning round. Just then my head slammed hard, eventually, I could feel that a pointed stone hit my back. At that second, my brain was an empty paper, and I couldn’t hear anything. Even my brother was shaking my shoulders and yelling my name again and again. While I was trembling and without breathing for few seconds, I thought that I just heard my brother’s shout, and the last person I saw was my mother’s face. Finally, my world was becoming dark… When I came to, I looked around the room, which was a hospital ward. I realize that I had already been sent to the hospital. Immediately, I saw my mother’s anxious sight and filled with tears, and she said: “Oh, honey, what’s your feeling now? Do you feel any places hurt or uncomfortable now? Are you hungry or thirst?” and my mother touched my hair slowly. “Which question I should answer first?” I said with smile because I could feel her anxious and I felt sorry about her. My mother told me that I had been sleeping for three days, and I had suffered a concussion. Moreover, my left hand was cut by a piece of glass but it had been sewn up. Next, my mother said: “Sorry, my dear daughter, Mom shouldn’t force you to do your dislike things, and I just want my daughter to be healthy and happy now. You should charge your own life, rather than me. Can you forgive me?” My eyes were filled with tears and I didn’t know what I should say next so we embraced with each other without any words. “Thanks, Mommy.” I repeated again and again. I also saw my brother whose eyes were full of apology, I stretched out my right hand to hold his hand, said: “Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt at all!”
After that, I stayed in hospital for 2 weeks, and I thought a lot when I was lying at sickbed, and I saw my parents meticulous care of me. Actually, it was my first time to face death, and I still remember that the last person I wanted to see at that time was my mother. Even I bothered my parents didn’t love me and they would like to control my life just few days ago, but they always were the first people that I wanted to see at the first time when I was afraid or scared. I started to introspect myself. This incident had become an unforgettable memory in my life. Through this traumatic experience, I knew that I needed to understand my parents, because there were no parents who didn’t love their child in the world. I also needed to communicate with my parents because it was better to talk with each other than hided thoughts with each other. Right now, I still remember everything that happened in that day, and words couldn’t express what I felt at that time. This accident also becomes one of lesson in my life.