Memories, translated…
These couple of years, after I’d showered, I’d gotten into the habit of wiping down the water in the tub. There was a shower curtain installed, and although the water that splashed out of the tub isn’t all that much, but wiping off the floors, the walls, can keep the bathroom dry, and keep this thirty-year-old house well.
But, my becoming an active cleaner after I’d showered, may have something to do with something that happened thirty-two years ago.
not my photo…
As I was growing up, we weren’t that well-to-do, we’d not had a bathroom in our house, bath time was when after supper, we’d no longer used the kitchen, and everybody goes in, and fill up the bath tub, then, used the ladle to scoop up the water to wash ourselves. We’d moved in my high school year, finally, there’s a bathroom, and a tub too, but my aging parents got used to scooping up the water to take their baths already. As I got married, I’d kept this habit too, especially after I’d had my children, I’d felt, that this sort of a larger sized tub is better. Which household with a baby doesn’t use a tub to bathe? And naturally, I’d not minded that I’d gotten the floors wet.
As my two kids were four and eight-months old, I was sent by my organization for a study seminar to the U.S. for three months. That, was the very first time I’d gone abroad, my manager took me to one of her Chinese old friend’s place to stay, and was ready to transfer us both to a hotel the very next day. Inside the friend of my manager’s house, it’s the very first time I’d used shower curtains—in my thirties, it wasn’t my first time to see a shower curtain, I’d seen these things in the movies. Originally, it was, no big deal, using the curtains, but, this was the first time I’d used it, I’d not paid attention to make sure that the curtains stayed in the tub as I showered, and naturally, the water splashed all over the places. As the owner of the house entered into the bathroom later, saw the wetted floor, he’d gotten angry, and, used an almost blaming tone of voice, grilled me on why I’d not pulled the curtains, made the bathroom so wet? The female owner of the house said, that I was in an unfamiliar place, but the owner of the house still mumbled on, as he’d, mopped up, and my manager right next to him didn’t know how to react, and, I’d passed through, a really awkward evening.
Although I did, apologize right then and there, but thinking back, I was still, very shocked. That was, the very first time I’d gotten treated like that as a guest to someone else’s house. In Taiwan, as we went for a visit with someone, we’d not known the rules of the person’s house, and, we’d complied to the guests, and, clean it up afterwards, but, although the house was owned by Asians, and maybe, it’s because they’d gotten used to American ways of interacting, they’d gotten used to being so straightforward like the foreigners.
not my photo still…
Later on, I’d installed shower curtains inside of my bathroom too, and, every time I’d wiped down the water, I’d recalled how, thirty-two years ago, I got grilled, in the States.
So, this, would be how the households are different, and maybe what you’re used to, isn’t acceptable in someone else’s house, and that, is why you need to comply to the rules of the people, whose house you’re staying in…………
Life, the Obstacle Course 