My grandparents are from Da Tong city of Shanxi Province, where coal mine business is much more prosperous than agriculture industry. My Grandpa was a coal mine worker for most of his life. Before that he was a Shepard taking care of goats. My grandparents rarely talk about beautiful village scenes, instead their home town is bitterly cold in winter, and always covered with coal dust. They are content with their solitary and peaceful lives, and they want their children to live freely, go as far as they want, and do whatever they could do, and they never considered to give birth and raise their children are for the purpose to ask for returns later, and they are very much unconditionally loved and raised their children, and again unconditionally loved and raised their children's children.
I think my grandparents are very rare existence of a combination of blue collar workers and true followers of the Confucianism- because they are blue collars, they did not suffer much from the Culture Revolution. They kept quiet and did not hang out with neighbors enjoying chatting rumors. They prefer to hang out with their plants and animals in the back yard: tomatoes, grapes, apple and apricots trees. They raised chickens, roosters, dogs and goats, not for commercial use, but to have companion. They took care of them and talked to them.
When I was a small child I grew up with animals and green plants. We always had free fruits and eggs. Sometimes the fruits and eggs would get stolen by thieves (which would be a big event at that time), but my grandparents never cared-they even say things like "that apple is not fully ripe yet, it won't taste good!". My grandpa could read and write, and he told me many stories from Chinese classic literature, most of them are teaching me how important it is to be a moral person.
My mother-side grandma took care of me until I was 4 years old. She is the most silently hard-working person I have ever met. She was always the one to rise the earliest in the morning, cooked three meals a day, hand made shoes, quilts, clothes, for the entire family of seven.
She could not even read or write her own name, but she could draw beautiful complicated base pattern with impeccable one stroke, and embroider beautiful pictures full of imagination. I never saw her stop working, make herself a cup of tea and sit down for a break.
My grandma would always manage to remain calm amongst chaos, and keep working on things she could help with the situation. If she is around, we could feel safety and hope no matter how wrong life could go. She is also the most loving person that I ever seen. I remembered how happy she was to have me around. I liked to watch her hand-working on the dough to prepare steamed bread (Mantou) for the family. She would give me a little piece of dough to play with, and she would work her chores while singing. We laughed so much together.
When my parents took me to another city to live, she pretended happily to urge me to go for it, because she wanted me to get a better education and a better life. Her panic red eyes were branded in my mind when I caught her hiding in a corner and heart-breakingly weeping.
Last time I traveled from Tokyo to Da Tong again. I saw her in her deathbed, silently fought her cancer with her body shrinked like a child. She saw me, surprised, and then studied me up and down, couldn't believe that I have grown up to my late twenties that she could barely recognize me. She was so proud that I have changed so much, and she was apologizing with tears that she could not fix me some good food to welcome me home.
That is my Grandma and my Grandpa. I love them and they are the ones created who I am today. My face was covered with tears when the first time I heard the song "The Wind Beneath My Wings", and I want my friends and my family to remember them, and all the other wonderful loving grandparents, the true heroes stepped behind from being seen.
