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Lesson 69 Judgement
A few months ago, one of my friends asked José to help correcting her Master thesis, José agreed and he finally accompanied her along all the process.
After a few months of hard work, finally she got the paper.
And then she wrote an email to thank José saying, “José, thank you very much ! Without you, I could not get through it.”
That is true.
José answered her by saying that it was his great honour to help her, and that he was very proud of her.
José told me that my friend needs to have more confidence in herself.
Because in his view, her English is very good, and her spoken English, her pronunciation is even better than mine.
There is no doubt, she majored in English.
He said he understood it is not easy for her, as a Chinese who lives in China, to keep the capacity of speaking and writing in good English, which means that she has to make a lot of efforts continually to maintain and improve her English skills.
Now, she goes even further to get a master paper in English literature.
José said, “As an adult, making the decision to go back to study is never easy. You went through it, so you know what I mean.”
I said, “Yes, I feel she did that to please her parents. Because both of her parents were graduated from top universities in China. So they should be proud of her to get the Master paper from the same university.”
Jose said, ‘Well, I admire her a lot. It was a long process and it took a lot of determination to do that.”
I said, “Yes, but she is always very good at learning foreign languages. I know that she is studying Japanese also.”
José said, “Wow, which means she is a trilingual now. Chinese, English and Japanese. “
I said, “Yes, but I don’t understand why she studies Japanese, unless one day she might decide to immigrate to Japan.”
José said,”Hmmmm.”
I said, “Language is like that, if you don’t have the opportunity to practise it, you will forget it very fast. And all will revert back to zero. I learned Japanese at the university, and today I forgot everything, except “Good morning”, “Good afternoon” and “Thank you very much.”in Japanese. All the other words, I forgot.”
José said, “Well, you don’t need to worry for her. She definitely has her own reasons to do it.”
I said, “I told that to Xiao Pang’s mother also ; she knows Azalea. I told her that Azalea tried to apply for the Master degree in English literature.”
José smiled, “Ok. So maman is very proud of Azalea also, right ?”
I said, “Well, maman said, what is the use of the Master degree at her age? She said the right thing for her to do now would be to find a man to get married, not to study…”
José was astonished and totally taken back, he said, “Wow, that is… very…”
He hesitated and tried to find a proper word, but finally he said, “That is very Chinese…”
I said,”Yes, Chinese parents are like that…”
José looked a bit grim, and he said, “Hearing that made me admire your friend even more.”
Well… it is true, Chinese culture is not easy, for women, yes…
But where is the easy place for women, in fact ?
José said, “I watched a lot of documentaries about China before, and I also followed You-tubers who live in China talking about the Chinese culture. I know it is not easy to live there. I am not talking about the lack of money or anything like that. We all know that China is a very rich country. But there are still a few things that people don’t have to suffer here.”
I asked, “Like what ?”
Jose said, “Like obligations, the social pressure, for exemple. In China, there are so many obligations you need to fulfill. You should do this, you should do that… And the culture of saving face… You need to save face for your family, your relatives, your friends, your neighbours even. That is terrible… Here we don’t have that. Everybody lives freely, quietly and respectfully. Every one enjoys his/her freedom.”
I said, “Yes, in the Western society, we only focus on ourselves. We don’t quite care about the others.”
José said, “No, it is not about caring or not caring. We simply live our own lives. Everyone has his own way to live. Everyone has his own homework to do. And we don’t judge people. We don’t put up a finger on the others’ face saying, “You should get married ; you should separate ; you should do this or you should do that… What is an adult ? Being an adult means the person can make his/her own decision. All in all, it is his/her life, he/she does what he/she wants. It is none of the others’ business. “
I said, “Well, Azalea should be very happy talking with you…”
José said, “And you, Yuan, you should not judge your friend. Why she goes back to study ; the reasons might be for herself or for her parents ; or for any other thing, remember, those reasons are her own. You don’t want to be judged by the others, right ?”
I shook my head.
José said, “Then, if you don’t like to be judged ; don’t judge the others either.”
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