PART: In The House Watching Shirley Temple – Mr Chong’s House
The room was brilliantly lit by the shine of the lamp. An old grey sofa was the center of attention of the room. It was a dull room and tend to be uninteresting. There were a woman and her daughter watching Chinese Shirley Temple excitingly. Once the mom said to her daughter “Ni kan” – You watch. A big hope was emitted from her old face as it reflected all her failure in her life. Her thin lips seemed so weak for the pale color of simplicity.
“Ni kan”, said the woman again, “You already know how. Don’t need talent for crying”, said the woman while she snapped her fingers as it’s so trivial.
Her face became more enthusiastic in watching the show. She did believe that her daughter could do it without problem for she believed her daughter was a prodigy child.
Soon after watching the show she took her daughter to a beauty training school to make her daughter looked like the woman on the show, Shirley Temple. She realized that she didn’t have any money left but $ 5 in her purse. However she wanted a good look for her daughter. She glanced on the price list of cutting with a way face. She found no $ 5 for cutting. It was $ 15 at the minimum. On the corner of the room, there were a bunch of people learning how to cut from the master. By the massive hope to her daughter, she walked nobly to one of the people in the corner of the last row.
“Would you mind cutting my daughter’s hair? I have $ 5 for you”, she said while winking her eyes. The student looked blank for the order as it’s her first debut in cutting hair.
Thirty minutes later, the woman and her daughter came out from the beauty school. There was no expression on her face. She found it disappointing to look at her daughter’s new hair.
“Peter Pan is very popular these days”, said the instructor who tried to please the woman by the time she closed the door.
It was so contradictory to look at the girl beside her who was smiling along the way back home while the woman was lamenting. The woman just shook her head when she looked at her daughter smile, especially when the daughter looked at her reflection on the big window of a restaurant in the avenue. She found that her daughter sense of satisfaction was different from her.
The night came, the woman prepared the dinner on a dull table in the kitchen. It was the same meal again, the woman looked so regretful for the meal, more over when she saw her daughter’s face as it’s looked so boring. By the time they wrapped the dinner up, she grabbed a few magazines from the pile of the bathroom. They were second hand magazines for the year of publishing was three years older than the current year. She took a Rider’s Digest magazine and glanced for a prodigy child story. There was a story about a child who could mention all the capitals of all the states in America and even most of the European countries. The woman looked stunned when she found that three-year-old boy could do it. She closed the magazine and looked at her daughter for she believed that her daughter could do it better.
“What’s the capital of Finland?”, she asked. “Umm…Nairobi”, said the girl without confidence. “Helsinki” said the mother disappointedly.
It became an usual activity every night after dinner. The woman would ask the daughter with the horrible questions which were harder and harder everyday. And at the end, the woman always found it disappointed as her daughter was not as prodigy as she thought. Once she looked at her daughter face which seemed resentful to the bloody questions. She knew that when her daughter answered the questions lazily. She realized that it was boring and exhausted for her daughter but she wanted to proof her daughter’s prodigy to the world. She did hung every dreams on her daughter for she had lost eveything in China included her children and parents. Once, she heard her daughter was crying inside the room. She felt so sad when she heard her daughter’s sob. Her heart was broken into pieces every time she heard the sob. She dashed into the kitchen and began to cry for her hopeless hope. Nothing made her disappointed but finding her only dream was sinking by the tears.
The days after the night, she never tended to talk about the prodigy child again. She had buried her dreams about her daughter’s prodigy. It did help the daughter found her smile again. The girl looked so happy as she thought that her mother had forgotten the bloody prodigy. One night there was The Ed Sullivan Show on TV. The woman who had just finished working found her dream as she dig her dream up from the grave. There was a nine-year-old Chinese girl playing the piano nobly. She began to imagine the time when her daughter became a public attention and deserved all applause. Every single tone from the piano filled her heart with hopes and dreams.
“Ni kan! Look here!” she said when she saw her daughter passed the TV. It was like a thunder in the midday as the girl saw again her mother nasty expression which actually had dissapeared three months ago.
“You could do it better than the girl.”
In the morning after watching The Ed Sullivan Show, she came to Mr. Chong’s flat which was on the first floor of the same apartement. She started knocking the door and calling Mr. Chong.
“Mr. Chong, I heard that you are a good piano teacher in this city and you have just retired from the school where you teach. Is that true?” she asked as soon as Mr. Chong opened the door.
“Yeeah, I am 70 years old now and I find it tiring to teach,” he said weakly. Knowing that Mr. Chong wasn’t interested in teaching piano anymore, she tried to beg him.
“Ooo please Mr. Chong. Help me please. I beg you to teach my daughter. She is talented enough to play the piano. I will do anything for you”. She begged doggedly.
At first, Mr. Chong seemed so ignorant to the woman. He didn’t care whether the woman would cry or not. Even if she kissed his feet, he won’t do anything for her. But his heart started to weak by the time her tears touched his feet. He could feel her sincerity in loving her child.
“What can I do for you? I am old and I begin to be deaf,” he said softly. “How much money do you have?” he asked.
Her face began to be pale, she realized that she didn’t have any money left but she really wanted him to teach her daughter piano lessons. Then she tried to make a negotiation with him for trading housecleaning service to weekly lessons and a piano for her daughter to practice on every day, two hours a day, from four until six. She realized that it wasn’t equal for Mr. Chong, but she would do anything for her child’s prodigy even if it needed her sacrifice.
Mr. Chong tried to manage his dignity for he had said that he won’t do anything for her but he always failed to manage it by the time he looked at the woman’s eyes. They were full of love and sincerity. Finally he said “yes” for the negotiation. Her sincerity made him realized how magnitude the mother’s love was. He began to cry by the time she closed the door as he remembered the time when his mother was killed by the communist insurgent.
“If only I could feel my mothers love…” he said while his tears were streaming down on his wrinkled cheeks.
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