A Twinkle in Your Wrinkle

Last Saturday, my train arrived at the Shanghai Railway Station. I was there to meet a local journalist/fixer, to help me scout locations for my upcoming shoot. I got off the train and made my way to the exit area, but there were a lot of people on the platform. I have been living in China for a few years now, so crowds are pretty normal to me, but that day no one was moving. Are they giving out free booze or something? I wondered.

My phone vibrated, it was my fixer, I picked up. “Hello my friend, you arrived?” she said. “Yeah, but I can’t get out. Something is going on,” I said. “Yes, small problem, don’t worry. One man die,” she said. “WHAT?” What happened?” I couldn’t believe she asked me not to worry. WTF. A man just died for God’s sake. “I talk to police okay, soon you come out.” she hung up.

Now I would have asked people around me, but I’m one of those dumb travelers in China that can’t speak Chinese. So, I waited. Soon the crowd started moving and I found my fixer. On the way to her car, she told me that it was a suicide attempt. A 55-year-old man. “Did he jump?” I was curious. “No, overdose,” she said, “too much pressure for young people these days.” Young? Didn’t she just say the guy was 55? I nodded, I guess age was just a number anyways. We got into her Tesla, and made our way to the first location.

“Are you married?” she looked at me. I shook my head and smiled. “You lucky, you no Chinese,” she hissed. “What do you mean?” I looked at her.

She explained that the 55-year-old man who collapsed at the train station had a note in his pocket, which was addressed to his son. It said something like he lived a life of shame because his son had yet to start a family. “You’re making this shit up,” I laughed. “No, I serious,” she looked at me, “you know I also work for KNews, so I talked to the police,” she turned the left indicator on, and changed lanes, “the worst thing is that the son is only 29 and the dad thinks that his son has not achieved anything in life,” she shook her head.

“No fucking way,” I said, “I thought that only happened in bad Bollywood movies.”

In the past, I have written about the derogatory term Sheng Nu (“leftover women”) - a lot of unmarried Chinese women over the age of 25 deal with this shit, but I could’ve never imagined that Chinese men are pressured as well. What was I doing when I was 29? I thought. Then it dawned on me that I kind of dealt with a similar issue when I was 29.

If you’re one of my regular readers, you know that I get the birthday blues. But when I thought about my 29th birthday, I remembered celebrating it with my friends in Toronto. I had thrown a huge party and I remembered that it was a blast. How was that possible? I didn’t understand how I was able to enjoy my birthday one year and then the next was a disaster. On my 30th birthday, I remember being extremely drunk, calling my uncle in Houston, telling him how much I hated my life and that I had disappointed my parents. I wanted to die. What changed during that year? I dug deeper. I went back and tried to recall all my birthdays, and then I saw a pattern.

“You didn’t finish your undergrad on time,” my dad said. That year, I didn’t celebrate my birthday. “You didn’t get married when you were supposed to.” That year, I didn’t celebrate my birthday. “You didn’t buy a house. All your friends already have.” That year, I also didn’t celebrate my birthday. But I did celebrate my 29th birthday. Why? I wondered.

The reason I celebrated my 29th birthday was because I got on the Top 30 Under 30 List. I had called my dad and he had said how proud he was, “you deserve to celebrate,” he had said. Deserve, his voice echoed in my ears. That was it. I realized that all my life, I have tried to please my father, to fulfill all his expectations. To him, everything has an expiry date. It’s a race, worse than the rat race.

“What are you thinking?” my fixer parked the car at the edge of a hill, overlooking a landscape of nature and modern architecture. “Nothing,” I said, and looked over the horizon. That old man should have jumped from here, it would have been much easier, I thought. But I knew that he would never. He wanted drama in his life, like many people from his generation, and what better place than a crowded train station. Many of these people never followed their dreams, they never challenged the status quo, they always followed the herd. So, no wonder they expect the same from their children.

“What do you think will happen to the old man’s son?” I looked at my fixer.

“It all depends on what happens to the dad,” she said.

“What if he dies?”

“The son will be lucky,” she laughed.