My Mother: Dare to Dream

May 2020

In my mind, overcoming obstacles is not only facing difficulties and solving them but also dare to dream. If we are not having a destination, we will definitely sail toward nowhere. Besides confidence and determination, I also need a destination, or a goal to pursue. My mom has always encouraged me to read more and have a big dream. However, to her, the dream is not a fantasy, but a goal that can be measured and identified. When we are talking about “dare to dream”, she tells me her most crucial choice in life. She has always wanted to become an English teacher ever since high school, although most of the top students like her choose to study science major to have a better future chance of employment. When she decides to study English in university, nobody supports her decision for it seems not so promising to have an affluent life with such a not-so-realistic major of language learning.

My mother told me about her bold choice in life and her childhood love for reading. She was always grateful for her grandmother who helped cultivate her love for reading. Her grandma had a keen love for ballad telling of legends and myths in ancient times. As my mother recalled, she was so fascinated by the ghost stories told by her grandma which were both enchanting and intimidating.

“It is not me who chose literature as my future career but rather literature who found me,” my mother said without the least bit of hesitation when I asked her about her journey to becoming a literature teacher. It is truly a coincidence encounter for her to be found by literature. My mother’s brother, who is 7 years older than her, was an avid lover of Kong Fu novels at that time, but his favourite collections were always confiscated by their father because he considered reading this kind of book as a waste of time and would distract him from studying. My mom, sitting opposite to me, seems lost in recapturing her childhood memories, her eyes glittered with childlike excitement. The funniest thing of all, her father himself could not resist the temptation of these novels he took away from his son and was reading them secretly. Having discovered her father’s secret, my mom got so curious and she couldn’t help taking a glance at these magical books. She was so obsessed with those stories that minutes stretched into hours in the wonderland of Kong Fu novels. This chance event became the starting line of the long run of my mother’s literature journey.

I was very curious to know why my mother chose to be an English teacher upon graduating from university, and I asked what made her choose to become an English teacher. Pondering and smiling, she seems to be so immersed in her youthful days. “At the time when I was in high school, I happened to watch a lot of Hollywood movies at my friends’ home. There were so many unforgettable movies we watched, “Gone with the wind”, “English patient”, “Out of Africa”....” She began to talk about how they watched movies with tapes, which is so rarely seen at that time and also so rarely seen now. We are both excited to travel back to the entertaining moments almost thirty years ago. She then told me the reason why she wanted to learn English and even choose it as her major in university. “Although the subtitle of the movie is in Chinese, the soundtrack is the original soundtrack and audio which is English. I was very curious about this language, English, as well as a foreign culture. Then I took every chance to learn English and made preparations for college. However, I am surprised to hear when my mom says, “after graduation from the university as an English major, being an English teacher wasn’t the first choice of my job. I wanted to dig deeper into the differences in cultures. I became an English professor after I obtained my doctoral degree in comparative literature.”

My mother’s childhood had always been a mystery to me. She grew up in a place in the northern part of China which is really far away from the place where I grew up. I decided to ask her about her life around the age like me.

This time, she starts to ponder longer and gets lost deeper in her childhood memories. Finally, tucking her hair behind, she bursts into a smile and says, “When I was young, our parents were very busy, we spent most of our time with our neighbourhood friends. We went to school together in the morning and hung out every afternoon after school…... It was the time without a computer or games which means we had a lot of time to spend with real people and friends…… After school, the courtyard between our houses became the biggest playground. Dodgeball was one of my favourite games as a young girl even though I was always the kid who got hit on the face and had to stand out and watch them playing sadly.” Both of us laughed at her funny experiences and lack of skills in dodgeball. She continued to say after that, “Summer was always my favourite. For it was the busiest time of the year for my parents, which means I and my friends got even more time to play without being noticed or interrupted.”

As she mentioned her parents were very busy, I assumed she must be very lonely. Her answer surprised me. “To be honest, life was not too bad without my parents spending time with me every day. I knew the neighbourhood very well, and we all shared a big courtyard playing together. At that time I felt we were more connected as a small community... Sometimes when our parents couldn’t make it home to cook dinner for me, I could go to my friend’s house next door to grab a bite. When I grew up, especially when we moved out of the community to a big city, getting a better chance for education and other facilities, I never had that kind of intimate connection again. How I missed all these worry-free days and my childhood friends!”

I was expecting my mother to tell me she felt unhappy without her parents’ company. I was expecting my mother to tell me how lucky she felt to move from a small town and work in a modern city. So I am shocked to hear from her that she missed so much the past golden times and fragrant memories with her grandmother, with her secret reading, and with her neighbourhood playmates. That leaves only one question for me. What, then would I recollect if I were put on such an interview years later?

I thought it over and over again after interviewing her. For myself, I grew up with my parents but I spent much of my free time watching TV, interacting in real-time with friends on social media. And it is not exaggerating to say playing video games is the main source of joy for my entertaining with friends. I felt less and less connected with those who are actually closer to me in real life while staying strangely “connected” with someone in virtual life. What will be left for me to recapture when I grow older? Will there be some unforgettable memories for me to savour? I felt a chilly thrilling ache in my heart. I realize that my childhood is more virtual and internet-based compared with the lively and vigorous childhood my mother cherished so much. It is time I had to make a change! Right now, at this critical time when we have to stay inside, why not start to find the values of inside? Then, I need to have an inner interview with myself to learn what are the most valuable things to me.

I am so touched by my mother’s courage to pursue her dream, and begin to ask myself over and over again, what is my dream then?