They told me the story over and over again, with pride, as if it was the only correct way of living.
Jiujiu grew up to be a lazy fat man with much more greed, my mom stayed humble, hardworking, self-sacrificing, kind, and pure all her life.
My mom always wanted a boy, but my dad was okay with me being the girl single-child, therefore eventually my mom accepted, over the course of 30+ years.
Whenever she was in her mood swings or overworked, which is very often, she would scold me with harsh words like "Girls are worthless!" "Women are useless!" "I wish I had a boy!" over and over. Sometimes it sounded like she was referring to herself, sometimes it sounded like she was not happy about me.
Nevertheless, I hated acting girly. Never played with dolls, never had long hair, never knew how to comb my hair (of which Raj is annoyed with thoroughly), never knew how to "girl talk" or "girl act", and never wanted to worry about what I wear, each batch of my friends consisted of more boys and I never really had anything like bff or whatnot. But boys all had secret crushes on me, I mean all.
When I was a teen, I tried to walk like a boy, talk like a boy, and study and achieve better than a boy, which I did throughout my teen.
Popo told me this story many times when I was on summer vacation back from my college companying her, I would take her for a walk after dinner along the river bank. She told me when she was pregnant with jiujiu, some of gonggong's old colleagues saw her in the street and pointed to her belly condemning "Useless belly, only could carry girls!" Before jiujiu there were my mom and my two aunties. With jiujiu, popo had several times of bleeding and scare of miscarriage, but somehow she made it through so jiujiu was born. They treated him like a pearl they had never seen.
For as long as I could remember, my mom was the one who secretly put cash in everyone's pockets, nonstop, every month every occasion every small big festival, my gonggong popo, my jiujiu, my aunties, and their children basically ate in my home every day. My dad would sometimes complain but he let it all happen. My mom is forever grateful to my dad.
Years ago jiujiu and two aunties got into a huge fight, fighting over the ownership (compensation) of gonggong popo's old house. My mom gave away all her shares to jiujiu to make him agree on a number that the two aunties were okay with. Jiujiu was trying to snatch 95% of it initially. Half a year later, my mom finally remembered to tell me about it, and she asked me, "Would you mind?" I was like, "Lol, mom....Thank you for seeking my opinion but I don't want to take even a penny from this fight. Lol mom, are you kidding me?...I just wish they are good now and my baby brother and sisters were left out of all this madness."
My dad was quite disappointed by the greediness that came out from such a sudden and eruptive fight, "I have given them so much my whole life. Your mom has been giving them so much nonstop!" Dad, you should read a picture book called "The Giving Tree", it's merely human nature, don't take it so hard.
All in all, apple skin does contain intense vitamins, even more than the juicy apple flesh.
