Since the beginning of the month, the need to run various errands that required more social interaction pulled me into a significantly more socially open mentality. Nothing big, just making phone calls, talking to people, etc, but all the little things put me in quite a different mental space, and I felt more confident, and willing to engage, and my speech pattern also significantly improved, a nice by-product.
Among the social events was that I was reconnected with a relative after they moved back to the town recently. The family suffered from a tragic death, and for the past few years had been living in the capital city. It is only natural that I wanted to reconnect, esp. since they had a toxic relationship with the immediate branch of the (extended) family while dealing with the tragedy. They had a child now 6 years old, who just started the first grade of school.
I was told many stories, both good and bad, happy, sad, and angry, lots of emotions. I have always been sympathetic for their life experience, and offered to help when I can.
One of the things I did for them was simply sharing solid information, e.g. they were long-time users of traditional Chinese medicine, including the child (due to that being a common prescription pattern among doctors of the capital), and I warned them of the toxicity of many ingredients as summarized by Fang. Similarly, I introduced regular use of Listerine for dental hygiene (for the parent had been suffering from toothaches). In late September, the child got severe tonsillitis from school, which worried the parent intensely. I looked up the diagnosis and treatment info on Mayo Clinic, and provided them the Chinese translation, including the many at-home care strategies, and the necessity to determine whether the cause was viral or bacterial before taking antibiotics. The doctor didn't suggest a throat swab, but did do a complete blood cell count, which showed no abnormal WBC ratios (likely due to unsupervised antibiotic use at home). The rule of thumb is, increased neutrophils indicates a bacterial infection, while increased lymphocytes indicates viral. I again warned against unsupervised use of antibiotics, esp. without knowing the cause of infection (but they had already done it). And the doctor again prescribed traditional Chinese medicine, surprise.
One of the more serious matters discussed was whether to disclose the tragedy to the child. As the single parent, it had been a very difficult thing to do, that I can understand, at least rationally, but I was told that the deception (just being far away abroad) was meant to give the child some kind of "hope", and that I gently disagreed, as hope is for things that are possible. I suggested that the fact be properly revealed to the child, the sooner the better, even though it doesn't have to right away (e.g. professional recommendation should be sought regarding how the information should be presented, what details can be left out for later, etc), because I believe a child can take a lie much better than an adult. It's a white lie for sure, but at the same time, it's a lie about the death of a parent, not that Santa isn't real (yet most parents did the Christmas debriefing when their children were young). Speaking of Santa, even if parents couldn't manage to break the hearts themselves, many children became aware of the truth on their own via various means, and if that's how the child gets to know what happened, there will not only be heart-breaking about the death, but perhaps even more so, the lie that could be interpreted as a form of mistrust and disrespect. So I made my point clear, with my reasoning, even if it's such a sensitive issue.
In turn, I was asked quite a few personal matters of myself. I gave my trust, and disclose without much reservation. The topics ranged from values of life in general, to specific issues about career, marriage and family. That was some open, honest discussion. I am an introvert, but I decided to not shy away from speaking of such things because I believe firmly that there's nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to making your own decisions about your own life. So hiding away from that kind of discussion isn't necessary, and does no good.
One extra segment of the interaction was a little "job application" that I agreed to give a try. It was an online tutoring position, they are taking the course for the 1st grader as well, and thought I could be a good fit. I thought it was a fun new thing to try and it might give me a chance to live a more social life, plus the financial benefit. The process involved a resume + personal statement, as well as a video recording of self-introduction. I made ample effort in the production (being a total newbie in recording myself speaking), and the writing was some decent effort as well, albeit not "flashy". The result didn't come after one week's waiting, until I had to ask the HR myself. They weren't interested, because of my lack of pre-existing experience in that line of work, they even made it clear that at the moment, they needed those who are veterans in the field who could pick up right away with little training. In short, they had no intention or resource to invest in newbies. And that is good to know. For anything job, I value growth and learning, and clearly, this is not to be expected there. (By the way, just for the record and perhaps for laughs, the teacher's cut is 280/850/8 = 4%.)
Although all this took time and energy, I never regretted this reconnection. Most of it was frank and loving. However, things changed after one incident.
One day, I was asked to send them a few of my photos for the child's photo contest at school. That is, by pretending that the child took them instead. I gently refused, stating that the prerequisite of any honor is honesty. At first, they (the parent, as I was later told, the child wasn't even aware of this contest) seemed to have let it go, and I thought that was it, they surely understood the obvious. Then for the next three days or so, there were three waves of criticism and lament for not helping them out with such a puny demand. For both defending the moral principles that I hold, and the fact that we had such good conversations so far, I took time and effort to discuss the issue, in terms of the attempt to commit fraud, regardless of how insignificant the little school contest was, emphasizing the negative influence it would likely pose on the child (could mislead them to think that such deeds are legitimate, or "no big deal because everyone is doing it"). But every time I sent my written essay, there came dozens of voice messages in response that showed greater disdain or disappointment, stating that with my mentality, there is no way to survive in the society (and specifically, the only way out is to commit suicide, which I also argued against in a followup piece and gently disagreed). There were lots of contradictions and logical fallacies in their response, and I tried my best to clarify what this request and my refusal were about. And what I felt most upset about was their repeated moral attacks on my way of social living in general, while my discussion had been staying strictly on the specific matter itself. And yet, after my third and final response, their reaction wasn't any understanding, based on the fact that they sent the response shortly after receiving mine, they probably didn't even attempt to read my writing, and instead, they complained in a way as if my long essays were harassing and annoying, and they were so tired as a result. They even apologized to me, but in a way that clearly showed that it did not come as a result of understanding, but as a way of dismissal and rejection. I had to remind them that at the beginning of the request, I was trying to be discreet in a gentle refusal; it was them who afterwards kept sending disapproving messages for three days. I had to spoke for my principles. Because those are not really just my principles, they are universally accepted principles that I believe make the world a decent place to live in, and it is just unethical to badmouth those who try to hold them whenever possible.
My responses were extensive over those three rounds, I don't want to repeat myself here. But to summarize, their main argument was that this wasn't a case of fraud at all, and they ensured me that on real, serious matters, they would never do anything unethical, and thus I was just overreacting and unhelpful. They later supplemented the argument by claiming that 1) there wasn't really any (significant) prize in that contest (and the child was by no means short of prestigious prizes), 2) even the teacher permitted such acts, and that virtually none of the photos joining the contest were taken by the students themselves, and 3) it was really meant to make my photos seen by more people, because they really liked what I had done. My arguments were actually quite simple (most of the words were attempts of elaboration when realizing that the previous attempt wasn't well understood, e.g by using more examples): 1) the act of joining a photo contest using someone else's photos is a fraud, regardless of how "insignificant" the contest is, and 2) if the contest is as reward-less as they claim, then it just makes the fraud even more pointless (stealing food when starving to death is at least understandable, but stealing without any gain is pure moral damage for nothing); but most importantly, the act of fraud, if committed, will have toxic effects on the innocent child - if this case is trivialized and legitimized, how about joining a writing contest with someone else's work? It is a slippery slope, and we are already seeing too much of this today, esp. in China.
The last voice message I got from the parent was that the kid didn't know about this at all, meant to be reassuring. But that's not a relief to me at all. Parents committing fraud on behalf of their children behind their back, which again isn't so rare today, is more repulsive to hear, as that is an utter disrespect and even violation of the children as individual persons. Kids are not the puppets of their parents, after all. They're not their avatars, not their pseudonyms. Stop using them, stop corrupting them. (But I didn't say any of this.)
Afterwards, we never spoke. The date was Oct 9. I don't regret it. Yes, I felt that much of the effort of trying to convey reason to them was a waste of time, but the fact that I didn't compromise just in order to please people, and that I did what was the right thing to do for those who I cared about, offered a bit of consolation.
The child is innocent, but I am a bit concerned now knowing that the only parent holds a flawed system of ethical reasoning, e.g. if the society in large is corrupt, it is then OK or even appropriate to be corrupt when navigating one's own life. And even worse, they refuse to listen to reasons, anything they disagree with is promptly shut out.
勿以善小而不为，勿以恶小而为之。They claimed that they knew that, and I tried my best to explain to them that joining a photo contest with someone else's works is a fraud. But they still insisted that it was I, who refused to help, was to blame. They're like, Look at your corrupt southern town, so many filthy deeds on a daily basis, people all selfish and cold, and yet you're trying to be all dogmatic on me? We northerners (esp. of the capital, where everyone is kinder and warmer, it's in their culture and blood) always hold the value of "families stick together and help each other out", that is the place I belong.
I'm paraphrasing above, but that has been the strong opinion of theirs. They decided to move back to the awful town only to get prepared for the college entrance exam 12 years from now - FYI, birth/residence registration dictates that they have to take the exam here, and they believe that going to school in the capital city will put the child at such a disadvantage that it'll be basically impossible to get into the best college, which happens to be in the capital. That's why they decided to leave the loveliest place of all for this dreadful town.
I am being sarcastic, but not because I think that my town was super wonderful, that would be delusional. To me it was good enough, at least for now, and I appreciate that I'm left alone. But their deep prejudice against the southern people is quite unfortunate. Yes, they met a bunch of subpar people here back then. But such people exist everywhere. Extreme over-generalization just keeps their hearts closed off. I told them, even identical twins can grow in different environments to become vastly different persons, a city is not made up of a bunch of clones. But words won't change them. And who am I to defend a city? And I defend principles, not places.
I'm glad that I wrote this piece. It was rather painful, to be honest, during those three or four days. And I could have just let all this fade away. Here I do not intend to fully cover the entire story, but I think it is a very good thing that after the incident has passed, I am finally able to gather up some mental energy to take a look at the matter. It wasn't anything super serious, but it is something of significance in life.
The take-home message isn't that being more social just leads to bad outcomes. Of course not. Well, really good outcomes are rare, but I believe being social isn't about pursuing such gains in the first place, it's more about a general sense of responsibility, to be involved in the interaction and play a decent role with all your background and experience (again, you carry many of the memes you believe in). The end result shows on its own, in a sense, we can only observe, not control (it's not a movie where someone directs a predetermined story). Just think about what you should do at each moment, don't worry about what comes out.
Don't be burdened by the end. Mind the journey.