what do i want to say here?

nothing...pei's out of words for the day. she's exhausted and she doesn't want to do any work, but she has to because she has homework to do... this week is not as great as the first 2 weeks of the semester.

do i just babble on?

hmmm...

ah, mrs. danielson told me about the prank call that we got yesterday morning. it was hilarious... if i pick up the phone, i'd definitely whisper back to this person and make up stories...muwahahahaha.

i dunno...

this entry is going to be really boring because i don't know what i want to write about...a lot of things happened, but they are normal, nothing exciting.

the only thing that i really really want to do is go back to taiwan and celebrate chinese new year like i used to do 5-6 years ago. i miss my mom's chinese new year eve's dinner and the time when my uncle's and aunt's (dad's side) families are over for the delicious dinner. i miss the new year day when i have to wake up at 5am and wear brand new dress, shoes, etc. i miss saying the phrase "gong xi fa cai" to relatives and getting the red envolope. i miss going to my grandma's sister's old house to eat the dumplings (called the "yuan bao") and pray to the ancestors for a good year ahead. then we would light the firecrackers and listen to the scary exploding sound...the smell of burned gun power (?). yee and i would go to the little pond by the old house and see if there was any fish in the deep pond that we could never see the bottom. then we would go to visit the relatives close to taichung and say "gong xi fa cai" to them. we'd go back to grandma's house (mom's side) and have all those great yummy authentic chinese food... she'd try to tuck the red envelope into our hands even though we know it is bad to take money from her... she never asked for anything...

she's an amazing woman... mom told me about grandma's story...

she was from jiang su, china... during the sino-japanese war, china was under attack by the japanese people. i don't know of the people here have ever heard of the "Nan Jing Massacre" where the japanese soldiers killed a lot of women and children on top of the men there. because they were ruthless toward women (raping them and killing them afterward...don't really want to go into details because i have seen the horrifying documentary pictures taken during that time), she cut her long hair and dressed like a boy to hide away her femininity. anyways... she met my grandpa who was working for the nationalists as a "spy" who was protecting some of the important documentaries/valuable things for the nationalists. unfortunately, his role was discovered and his leg was shot during his escape from them. he hid by the bank of the river where there were a lot of tall grass, and grandma's sister found him and took him home to heal his wound. like all the fairy tales, my grandma and grandpa fell in love and got married. the happy story didn't last too long. they had to part because the communists were winning the war. mom said that she just gave birth to my 3rd uncle and she had to take my other 2 uncles and aunt to somewhere safe by herself because grandpa was on duty again. so with some friends' help, my oldest uncle followed another group of people and fled by the route of the mountainous range in the southwestern china. i am not exactly sure where exactly, mom doesn't really know either...and grandma never talked about it when she was still alive. grandma, my 2nd uncle, aunt, and my 3rd uncle went the other route. according to mom, grandma and the children had to went in a big circle around half of china before they went to taiwan... they thought they would be able to get back home again, but they never did.

grandpa then met grandma again in taiwan after his duty was done... grandpa worked as the admistrator in the police department in taipei...they always praised him for his dedication. he never took any gifts from anybody because he doesn't want the gifts to be taken as "bribes" by outsiders (just like my dad). He died from a liver disease when my mom is in college. I never knew him personally. grandma, on the other hand, had to raise my mom in college and my two other younger uncles (my pang jiu jiu and my xiao jiu jiu) with the compensation from grandpa's work. she was so strong that she never complained. i never heard her complaining before...She got stomach cancer when mom pregnant with yee. even though the cancer was pretty advanced, dad's friends operated a very successful surgery on her that she recovered with only 1/3 of her stomach remained. um..yeah...but she passed away 4.5 years ago because of another cancer somewhere near her gallbladder and later moved to her brain.

i never got to see her when she was in the hospital... i was here. she loved me...spoiled me, i'd say. she spoiled all of her grandkids. i used to be really close to her...she was like my second mom to whom i would always complain about my own mother (ironic, right?). she never really told me anything about her past... not really... perhaps i was too young to understand even if she had told me her stories. it is a shame that i know so little about her and grandpa. she was reserved... perhaps she didn't want to reinjure her old wounds, all those saddness, bitterness, and hardships. how i wish she's still around... i'd tell her about all the things happening here in the states. i'd be able to learn how to cook really good chinese meal for my friends... (right now, i really want to have some warm "tian jiu niang" with her home-made "gui hua" syrup. mm...that'll warm up my cold fingers. i wonder if any of my friends here have ever had this before)

mom is just as strong as my grandma... i think i'll be a really strong woman, too, maybe not as strong as grandma or mama.

i wish i could go home for new year.....i am so homesick right now.