It was at school that I learned the custom of celebrating birthdays. In traditional Chinese culture, only people who had reached an advanced age celebrated birthdays. Then, it was they who gave presents to their family and friends to share the good fortune that allowed them to advance to such a ripe age in prosperity.
But I wanted to please Ba, make him a little happy, and make him like me more and hit me less. I knew that his birthday was approaching. I wanted to get him a present. But how? My nickel from cleaning the bathroom wasn’t enough to buy anything of value, and I wanted to get him something special.
I thought of the laundry stored on the highest shelf. After a time, when a customer did not pick up his package, we removed it from the lower shelves and stored it on the topmost shelf, hoping that he would someday return to claim it. There was one package I knew with certainty had been there for years. It was stored high in a corner behind other packages.
One day, when Ba was out, I climbed up there and brought it down. When I opened the package, I found a bundle of all different types of clothing. But right on top was a crisp, starched handkerchief folded up nice and tidy.
I took this out, rewrapped the remaining clothes, and put the whole bundle back on the top shelf in its corner — the handkerchief I carefully wrapped in paper and hid away. When the expected day arrived, I brought the gift from its hiding place.
“Happy birthday, Ba,” I said, handing him my little package.
Ba squinted his eyes in suspicion, looking ill-tempered and tired. It had been another long and exhausting day. Opening the package to find the handkerchief, he sharply asked, “Where did you get this from?”
“I … I got it from the oldest of the unclaimed laundry packages.”
Ba slapped me and said that I was never to do that again. I knew then that it was no use trying to explain that I understood that the handkerchief did not belong to us, that it was dangerous to climb to the…
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