Real Life Interviews

Image by Erika Varga from Pixabay

The other day, I watched an Asian TV program, in which a young reporter–a girl probably just graduated from college–went around to interview several centenarians in a mountainous subtropical region, which is well known for its clean air, pristine environment, and people who have longer life spans than those from other regions.

It just happened that all those centenarians being interviewed were women. Before the pandemic, the place was enjoying booming tourism–people from other areas would come to visit the place, and pay money to chat and take photos with centenarians, who are considered the symbols of good luck and longevity. And recently, the area has been recovering from the tourism slump caused by COVID.

Anyway, the reporter asked each of them this question, “what is your best advice to give to young women?” And these centenarians, obviously equipped with well prepared answers, all gave pithy one-liners as positive as one can imagine, like “expediency can lead to disaster”, “love is rare but it exists”, “if he doesn’t love you, he’s not likely to share power with you.”

I was waiting for something like, “I wish I had more opportunities to meet more people, explore the world, shed my bias, learn new things. I wish young women will do that.” But this was never said. Actually nothing that revealed the centenarians’ true thoughts was ever said. At least I felt this way. These centenarians behaved exactly like my mother and my grandmother (both extremely narcissistic by the way) who only revealed their true thoughts when they were complaining or venting or infuriated; when they were not complaining or angry, they could be didactic, scheming, purposeful, which make them sound more like an indifferent school teacher than a mother.

I don’t know how other people feel, but my experience has been that my mother, grandma, or aunts can’t offer any advice at all. Since my relatives are all very narcissistic and quite different from normal people, I can’t say that other people feel the same way as I do. And even if one of their advice sounds reasonable, I often suspect that they insert their own agenda into it–although I don’t know what that agenda is. It is usually hidden until one day it explodes in my face in the most inopportune moment. Probably I speak too negatively about my narcissistic relatives, but that is how I feel about them.

Well, now I think of it, I shouldn’t be so hard on my relatives. For my mother and my grandma’s generation (and many people of my generation), women’s life, thoughts, issues, problems were supposed to be hidden and unrevealed–people even developed an absurd aesthetic feeling, such as the feeling of “silence being profound”, “unspoken words being more beautiful and imaginary”, just to cater to the social norm. When I was little, married women always spoke in hushed tone about their pregnancy, the childbirth, or any issues related with it. They didn’t share this with children or unmarried women or even their husbands. Sometimes I could catch them complaining bitterly and angrily about something when they thought I was not present. Obviously they were not happy with the profound silence or couldn’t feel the beauty of unspoken words.

I wonder what kind of interesting stories the centenarians will tell if they can share their experiences honestly and openly. I want to know how they survived WWII, bandits, famines, family tragedies, social turmoils, how they fought for themselves and their children, how they defied or stalled the system that pressed them to conform, how they made true friends even if they were not allowed to speak up or be truthful. They have so many things to share with the world and to benefit women younger than them.