I never mentioned that i've got a bit of blood in town. My deceased grandmother's 88 yr old sister lives dntn in a very modest apartment. She is tres tres cool. Pretty laid back, and surprisingly progressive, and she speaks some pretty sharp English. Hey did she just say 'dilapidated'?i couldn't believe it when we went out for lunch, and she brought her own chopsticks and tupperware for leftovers. She even claims that she doesn't want xmas cards because of the environmental waste they create.
She talks about the cultural revolution when her husband was locked away in a building for a year, and where she had relatives put to death without reason: "you can't imagine how horrible it was!"
She occasionally makes comments about how it's not good for families to spread out all over the place. Parents end up never seeing their kids and families grow distant. She gets the guilt flowin' a bit about how i should be more involved w/ my folks, and that my parents are disappointed when me and my bro go to Calgary for xmas but don't hang out w/ them much.
i've met up w/ her a 4 times now, and she helps me w/ some mandarin, and i help her w/ some English. Today H and i hung out at her pad for some chit chat and mandarin time so she could give us lots of encouragement and sincerity while letting us know our accents were all wrong.
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