joy luck club
"that is the way it is with a wound.
the wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much.
and once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath,
what started the pain."
"Back home, I thought about what she said. And it was true. Lately I had been feeling hulihudu. And everything around me seemed to be heimongmong. These were words I had never thought about in English terms. I suppose the closest in meaning would be "confused" and "dark fog".
But really, the words mean much more than that. Maybe they can't be easily translated because they refer to a sensation that only Chinese people have, as if you were falling headfirst through Old Mr Chou's door, then trying to find your way back. But you're so scared you can't open your eyes, so you get on your hands and knees and grope in the dark, listening for voices to tell you which way to go.
I had been talking to too many people, my friends, everybody it seems, except Ted. To each person I told a different story. Yet each version was true, I was certain of it, at least at the moment that I told it."
"Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside or outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?"
"but to despair was to wish back for something already lost. or to prolong what was already unbearable."
"why do you think you are missing something you never had?"
"I sat there quietly, trying to listen to my heart, to make the right decision. But then I realised I didn't know what the choices were."
"I know how it is to be quiet, to listen and watch, as if your life were a dream. You can close your eyes when you no longer want to watch. But when you no longer want to listen, what can you do?"
"And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. but somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. you have to pay attention to what you lost. You have to undo the expectation."
"I still don't which way I would teach you. I was once so free and innocent. I too laughed for no reason. But later I threw away my foolish innocence to protect myself. And then I taught my daughter, your mother, to shed her innocence so she would not be hurt as well.
Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever."
joy luck club
the wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much.
and once it is closed, you no longer see what is underneath,
what started the pain."
"Back home, I thought about what she said. And it was true. Lately I had been feeling hulihudu. And everything around me seemed to be heimongmong. These were words I had never thought about in English terms. I suppose the closest in meaning would be "confused" and "dark fog".
But really, the words mean much more than that. Maybe they can't be easily translated because they refer to a sensation that only Chinese people have, as if you were falling headfirst through Old Mr Chou's door, then trying to find your way back. But you're so scared you can't open your eyes, so you get on your hands and knees and grope in the dark, listening for voices to tell you which way to go.
I had been talking to too many people, my friends, everybody it seems, except Ted. To each person I told a different story. Yet each version was true, I was certain of it, at least at the moment that I told it."
"Can you imagine how it is, to want to be neither inside or outside, to want to be nowhere and disappear?"
"but to despair was to wish back for something already lost. or to prolong what was already unbearable."
"why do you think you are missing something you never had?"
"I sat there quietly, trying to listen to my heart, to make the right decision. But then I realised I didn't know what the choices were."
"I know how it is to be quiet, to listen and watch, as if your life were a dream. You can close your eyes when you no longer want to watch. But when you no longer want to listen, what can you do?"
"And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by inattention. but somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. you have to pay attention to what you lost. You have to undo the expectation."
"I still don't which way I would teach you. I was once so free and innocent. I too laughed for no reason. But later I threw away my foolish innocence to protect myself. And then I taught my daughter, your mother, to shed her innocence so she would not be hurt as well.
Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innocence but not your hope. How to laugh forever."
joy luck club
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