What Lies Beneath

//What Lies Beneath//

One statement that I'm so tired of hearing is...

"哎哟, 你为什么这样瘦。减肥huh? 还是功课压力太大?

I hear this every friggin' time I meet my relatives (father side that is)...almost every single one of them will say this to me everytime they met me. (luckily I don't see them often)

Even worse, I met my uncle (from my father side) today...and when he said this, he had a look of digust on his face, as if I'm as skinny as some starving kid in Africa, which is such an insult to those kids.

And my replies to them started with "没有啦, 我吃很多的" to "不会啦, 我那里会瘦?"(then I will subconsciously put my hand on my tummy) to *sheepish smile* and not even bothering to respond.

I admit, it's better to hear from others that you are skinny than to hear from them that you're fat...I've went through that stage where every relative I met will say that I'm so fat once...so this is better...to hear from them that I'm thin...

But seriously give me a break! It's like their way of saying hello to me everytime I meet them...

But seriously...I questioned how much they know about me...all they see is the surface...they don't seem to notice what lies beneath...my big tummy which rivalled my brother's...

I'm not really bugged by the fact that they didn't notice my tummy...who cares if they do or don't....it's just that they really don't see what lies beneath...they only see the superficial...

All they know about me is what they see..that I'm thin...they knew so little about me that commenting that I'm thin is the only thing they got to say to me...hardly do they have anything else to say to me...my relationship with them only remains on the skin deep...superficial level...

During my grandma's (father side) funeral...it's the exam period (she passed away the day before Oral Defence) and the whole funeral took place right during the exams, the last day of the funeral was on the day of Bio exams (I still remember mugging chemistry right after the end of the funeral).

So you can imagine...grandma's funeral...lots of relatives will be here....the funeral was held downstairs (since she lived with my family for the last few months)...I was actually somewhat glad that it was during exam period...cause this give me an excuse to stay at home instead of going downstairs to help....

Going down to help means meeting most of my relatives, which means lots more "哎哟, 你为什么这样瘦." followed by silence and hardly anything to talk about...I mean it's one thing to have this kind of awkward moments with friends but it's totally another story with relatives...and all this will just lead to one thing..boredom..so yea for once I was glad that I was at home mugging...

And actually, I think it's actually the same case for friends...not all friends but most...what we know about our so called friends most of the time are really superficial too...especially in a school context...

No matter how close you are to that friend, there are still some things that you keep to yourselves...we all have our dark little secrets...even if it's not big deal sometimes, we still choose to present only certain parts of our life to our friends...hiding some of the not-so-nice things about our family or anything...

Was having lunch with a friend today...I shocked him with some of the things I told him about my family (and relatives)...well, not exactly shocked, but he definitely looked surprised...he also revealed some surprising facts about his family too...

So I guess what we see in our friends sometimes...what we think we know about our friends is actually only a small part of them...there's a whole lot of stuff about them that we still don't know...

Mary Alice Young once said something which illustrate this point very well...

"An odd thing happens when we die. Our senses vanish. Taste, touch, smell, and sound become a distant memory. But our sight. Ah. Our sight expands. And we can suddenly see the world we left behind so clearly. Of course, most of what's visible to the dead can also be seen by the living. If they only take the time to look."

"Like my friend, Gabrielle. I should have seen how unhappy she was. But I didn't. I only saw her clothes from Paris. And her platinum jewelry. And her brand-new diamond watch. Had I looked closer, I would have seen that Gabrielle was a drowning woman. Desperately in search of a life vest."

On a side note...can anyone think of something which I can respond to my relatives that will shut them once and for all? Without being too rude?

Maybe I can reply "Ya lor, 我瘦了, 你要我给你一些建议怎样减肥吗? 因为你很像胖了不少。" This will shut them and they will never talk to me again about how thin I look....