Since my visit "home", I've started loading up on hours of Vietnamese t.v. watching -- which includes and all things brainless: variety shows, kung fu movies, epic films, etc.
Not that these things are usually brainless b/c they can contain great moral content, but it's mostly b/c I get to watch w/o having to over-analyze.
However, earlier this evening, I sat and watched in dumb amazement, speechless, as one of the show's commentators talked about how at 25 year old, certain women are considered "expired goods" if they have not married and produced offspring.
In Vietnamese, it's something called being "e". (Sorry, I can't do diacritics on this site for some reason.)
There's so much more to "e" than meets the eye, and the negative connotations defy definition. Expired, unwanted, soured, etc.
Picture the sad, lonely looking zucchini that for some reason has been left out far too long and no customers want to purchase. Picture the pickled vegetables sold in jars gathering dust on the shelves which no one seems to want. Picture the lone gerbera daisy and her droopin petals, the flaccid neck no longer able to hold up the browning head. Picture the unmatched sock which you finally have to donate after failing to locate its partner after three months of searching.
Lucky for me, despite being past the 25 year mark, I'm happy. Education, career/vocation, church, family, friends -- there is much to be grateful for. Unlike what some folks tell me, I don't feel my life is incomplete. Perhaps when I meet my future spouse, he and I will feel our lives more in sync, but right now my life is not unfulfilled. Despite what people think, I don't feel at all like that lonely "e". Am not sitting dusty on some shelf somewhere hoping to be salvaged. This is to say I've taken myself off the shelf, and am jolly about traipsing through life. If you, too, want to skate away, let me know...
No comments:
Post a Comment