Just smile, Dong,” said an old gentleman looking into my serious face. He was my English instructor of the ESL class soon after I landed in Canada. He said: “Why so serious? Life is brighter when you smile.” I nodded. He went on: “The easiest way to tell a Chinese from other people is to observe his face. If there is not a slightest hint of smiling, the person is a Chinese. ” He was jokingly serious and I got it: no smiling could be rude. His candor had rung the alarm.[……]
Category Archives: Creative Writing
My Childhood Superheros
At the time when I was a kid in China, market economy was in its infancy, and political propaganda of communism still dominated the popular culture. One effective way of propaganda was producing popular icons and heroes, in hope to boost people’s morale for Communism. The stories of these heroes were presented in all sorts of media, including school textbooks, picture books for kids, posters, mural paintings, radios, and movies. They squeezed out traditional Chinese folk tales or kids friendly stories, leaving no alternatives for stories lovers like me. [……]
An immigrant story
For a long time, I was fully convinced that he was the latest model of robot with artificial human fresh. I did not realize he was a real fresh until one day he was seriously sick by working too much. So he was not a robot; then he must be a slave. Since he was sick and home bound that day, I took the rare opportunity to have a conversation with him. I asked: “Do you ever have any days off?” “Why taking a day off?” he was surprised and asked me back.[……]