this is an excerpt of my playscript
word count: 4,257 words
approximate reading time: 17-20 minutes

1. the Attending

A wooden framed bed upstage. On the bed is a tray of fruit assortments: apples, oranges, and bananas.

A table downstage with two chairs. A blue-ish grey jacket is hanging on the back of the empty chair; it has a patch that reads ‘N4A’ on its left chest area.

A young man in his early twenties stands downstage. He wears a pink printed T-shirt and white joggers (contemporary clothing).

Spotlight on the young man.

He addresses the audience.

Young Man:  

I am fascinated by the concept of human expressions. It’s universal, you know. People laugh, cry, cringe, get mad, no matter the age, gender, nationality, race, skin colour. It’s universal. You don’t need to learn a new language or understand a different culture to be able to recognise these emotions. And you respond the same. You like to see people laugh. 

Crying, well, not so much. Maybe. There are all kinds of messed up people out there. You never know, big forest, all kinds of birds. 

Personally, I hate it when people cry. I guess partially because I cried a lot growing up. Whenever, wherever I see someone cry, I put myself in their shoes and relive some of my worst memories. And I get upset.

But there is one thing I hate more than seeing people cry. Making people cry, not in a good way. Not like tears of joy, tears of relief, no, nothing like that. Painful tears. Tears you shed when your favourite things just got torn to pieces. Tears you shed when your second-grade art project got accidentally thrown to trash. I just hate it. 

On top of it all, making my family cry. Blood family, chosen family. People you love. Well, maybe except for my father. (He stops and thinks for a bit) Nah, I wouldn’t want to make him cry, either, not even him. 

I guess what I’m trying to say is… I made my granny cry once. I was ten. You understand; children are awful. They are little psychopaths. And it wasn’t nothing major. Not at all. It’s just a tiny little thing. But I made my granny cry. I just—it was because of the way I said things. You know how kids have that kind of innocent nonchalance, like they can be saying ‘I think Jimmy needs to be bullied’ while looking like they stated a simple fact. It’s scary.

I would know, because I was like that. My ma was traveling, and she left me with my grandma. And you know how grandparents work, they spoil you to bits. So, lunch time, my ma dropped me at my granny’s. She asked me if I was hungry. And somehow the little psychopath inside my ten-year-old body decided that it’s time to go out for a spin. So, I said, ‘No, I’m not hungry! I don’t want to eat! I hate granny’s cooking! It tastes so bad!’

I still remember the look on her face, utterly shattered, vulnerable. The look you make when you unexpectedly heard the news that one of your loved ones just passed away, disbelief, denial, shock, waiting for someone, something to step in and be your Deus ex machina. 

Deus ex machina. What a fancy load of crap. God from the machine. Imagine being in a situation so awkward, so tragic, so desperate that you need someone dressing up as gods materialising to your rescue. Imagine that, out of nowhere, a trapdoor opened, and some snob entered, on a fucking lift. That’s the level you need to go to resolve the situation.

Unfortunately, nothing like that happened. Also, that was when we were back in China, way out of Greek deities’ jurisdiction. But my grandma didn’t scold me or anything. She just sat there, visibly upset, trying the best she could to hold back her tears. In her shaking voice, she said, ‘Sweetheart. I bought you crispy roast duck. Your favourite.’ 

A fucking crispy roast duck. 

And like a normal ten-year-old, I immediately forgot what I just said and skipped to the table for it. My granny didn’t move though. I think she was sitting back there crying, in silence. 

Downstage lights dim; upstage is lit by yellow atmospheric lights. Smoke generates upstage.

Clock ticking sounds.

A woman walks on stage. She is in her forties and wears hand-sewn dark green clothes made with coarse cloth. She is heading towards the bed.

Young man turns and looks at her. She is his mother.

Woman:         (to the young man) Remember, no crying. If you can’t hold back your tears, at least cry in silence. 

The woman picks up the fruits tray, walks downstage, puts the fruit tray at the centre of the table, and sits.

Silence.

Upstage lights off; downstage lights back to normal.

A. Great grandmother/mother

Young man sits down across the woman, puts on the N4A jacket, and buttons up, completely covering up his inner clothing. He becomes his grandfather in his youth, and the woman now is his great-grandmother.

Woman:    I’m just saying. She’s not putting in the work. She can’t even cook properly. What kind of wife doesn’t know /how to cook for her family?

Young Man:  /Ma, it doesn’t matter! We are in the army; mess squad cooks for all of us!

Woman:        Do not interrupt me. Do you think I’m saying this for myself? I’m saying it for your sake. You can’t be in the army forever. What happens after you leave, hm? Have you thought about that? Imagine what people would say about you, a soldier marrying a woman who can’t cook—they will mock you!

Young Man:  Let them! Ma, times are different now. This is a new country, a country that countless men, and women, have fought for years to liberate. Don’t you listen to the broadcast? Chairman said that ‘women hold up half of the sky!’ My wife and I are equals. (Stands up) I don’t need her to cook for me. I’ll cook for her.

Woman:        (stares at the young man) Sit down. 

Young man sits.

Woman:        Seventeen. That’s how many men left. When they were fighting each other in the west, we thought ‘oh let them fight, it doesn’t concern us.’ And then the Japanese came. We thought we’d be safe. We had a son, we had you. Your father sold two cows and bought you a wife. But you just had to run off and join the army. You got lucky. Do you know how many men returned?

Young man doesn’t answer. He doesn’t look at the woman either.

Woman:        How many?

Young Man:  (hesitantly) Nine.

Woman:        How many?

Young Man:  Nine, Ma. 

Woman:         What happened to those eight boys?

Young Man:  Ma, I—

Woman:        What happened to them?

Young Man:  I don’t know, ma.

Woman:        I’ll tell you what happened to them. They are dead. That old butcher’s widow, the one that had a garden, she had a letter two months ago. She can’t read. Nobody here can read. She walked four miles to the nearest town to find someone to read it for her and only to find that her son had died clearing a mine field. Her hair turned all white overnight and went straight crazy. Now she just sits in her yard all day and sings. Do you want your mother to end up like that, too?

Young Man:  No, mother.

Young man looks down. Woman looks at her; her expression softens a bit, almost wants to comfort him, but she stops herself.

Woman:        Will you stay?

Young Man:  No, ma. They assigned me to the infantry in the north.

Woman:        When will you be leaving?

Young Man:  Next month.

Woman:        You are my only son.

Young Man:  I’m sorry, ma.

Woman:        I know.

Young man looks down again as if he has done something wrong.

Woman:        I’ll talk to your wife tomorrow. 

Young Man:  What for, ma?

Woman:        She needs to learn how to take care of you.

Young Man:  She is taking care of me.

Woman:        She needs to learn how to cook. I will not be there for you; you have decided that much.

Young Man:  You can come with me, ma. The army provides accommodation. They are rebuilding the country out there. You should see, you and pa both.

Woman:        We are perfectly happy here.

Young Man:  (looks at the woman in the eye) Why do you have to be so stubborn?

Woman:        I’m done talking. 

The woman puts her right arm forward suggesting young man to give her something.

Woman:        Your jacket. It has some tears on it. Give it to me and I’ll patch it up for you tonight. 

Young Man:  Ma, it’s fine. I’ll get Ah-Ying to do it tonight.

Woman:        Then go find your father in the field. He can use your help.

Young man nods. He gets up, turns around, and starts walking offstage.

Downstage lights dim. Yellow atmospheric lights upstage again.

Clock ticking sounds.

The woman watches her leave, then walks upstage and sits by the bed. She puts her hand out as if caressing someone’s face.

Faint crying can be heard in the background.

Woman:        Hush, no crying now. Ah-Ying, Ah-Mei, go fetch the offering papers and get ready.

All sounds fade. She continues to caress.

2. The Dressing

An old man walks on the stage and sits on bed. He has problems walking. He uses a cane. He has an old army dark green jacket draped over his shoulders, three medals on the left chest area.

As he sits down, the woman leaves the stage.

Young man walks onstage carrying an incense burner. He is wearing contemporary clothes again. He puts it on the table, sits down, and pulls out his phone. He is himself again.

Young Man:  (puts the phone to his ear) Sorry ma. I can’t make it home for Spring Festival. 

He listens.

I know. Look, I have an internship. It’s really important for my portfolio. If I go back, I can only stay for five days, not to mention the jetlag and everything. After that, I’ll have to go back again. It’s not worth the two plane tickets, ma.

He listens.

I promise I will be there next year. Say hi to grandpa and grandma for me.

He hangs up his phone and puts it in his pocket.

Young Man:  Phew, another bullet dodged. (laughs) Don’t you hate it sometimes? Family reunion and all of that. Some old geezers you don’t even know come up to you and claim to be your sixth uncle and that you pissed on him when you were three. How am I supposed to remember that? And it’s always the same story. According to them, I have apparently pissed on eight uncles, puked milk on three aunties. Oh, and two of them happened simultaneously. I guess I had superpowers. Some milk my ma gave me huh. 

I hate family reunions. Every time I go back, I somehow turn into a miserable fucker who suffers chronicle depression and lose my ability to think and engage in conversations. I’d ‘haha’ or ‘oh, really,’ or ‘I guess,’ or ‘No, I’m not doing anything like that.’

Nothing positive could ever happen in my family reunions. You think your Christmas dinner is bad? Mine has fifty people in it.

Go say hi to your four cousins! Five uncles! Six aunts! Seven grandmas! Eight grandpas! No wonder they are doing population control. They must have been fed up with strangers coming up and telling you embarrassing stories of yourself that you can’t even remember. 

It’s either this or ‘where’s your girlfriend,’ ‘when do you plan on getting married.’ It gets worse now that I’m in college. I study linguistics. And that for them means I speak every fucking language that ever existed in the entire human history. 

‘Say something in French!’  As if they can understand it! I could be spitting gibberish and they’d still be cheering as if they just witnessed the resurrection of fucking Jesus. 

It’s baffling, man. 

That’s why as soon as I graduated college, I came here, to London. Fresh start, literally nobody here knows me. It’s liberating. I can do whatever I want and be whoever I want.

He laughs a little, and sighs.

But the worst part is, no matter how confident, how eloquent, how successful I am here, once I go back, I will shrink to that little old me, that small, clumsy, awkward cry-baby.

I don’t want to be that person again. I can’t.

You know there’s a term for it, in linguistics I mean. It’s called code-switching. Have you got someone in your life who answers the phone different? Their tones and mannerism change, like being possessed the moment they pick up the phone. It’s hilarious to watch. Yeah, that’s code-switching.

He pauses as if trying to determine his feelings.

I hate it.

If I use this theory to analyse the shit out of me. It suggests that somehow in my first eighteen years of upbringing, I established a discourse system that builds a version of me who is shy, timid, and afraid.

And I hate it.

It’s not that I don’t want to go back to my family. I want to. I want to walk into that door like fucking Marcus Aurelius with a fucking winged victory over my head. 

But I can’t do it. Instead, I run away, finding every excuse possible to not go back. 

Sometimes I wonder whether they feel the pressure as well, my relatives, having to remember every cousin and their spouse and their kid and their dog. It’s exhausting. 

But it makes the elders happy. Like my grandpa. 

He smiles to himself thinking about his grandfather.

He loves it when people come to visit. He doesn’t show any emotion on his face though. I’m convinced that he lost the ability to move his facial muscles during the wars. Yeah, he’s a soldier for most of his life. But he’d get up early and dressed up in his army uniform. Three shining gold stars on his shoulder. His captain uniform. And he’d sit in his front yard waiting for people to arrive. 

Young man pauses, remembering the uniform.

Yellow lights upstage.

Clock ticking.

A Young woman, sixteen, walks on stage, carrying a hand-sewn white cloth bag. She goes to the old man and helps him to properly don the jack. She opens the bag: a captain service hat and a pair of black boots. She helps him put these on.

Young man continues to speak in the meantime.

Well, I don’t know if it’s true but old people I met loves it when family comes to visit. They revitalise. They can hardly get out of the bed on their own, but once family come to visit, they suddenly can stand up straight and walk two miles without breaking a sweat. It’s a like flipping a finger to the face of medical science.

I guess that counts as something that I actually don’t hate about family reunion, you know, seeing my grandparents. We were very close, my grandfather and I.

Lights dim downstage.

Young woman has finished dressing up the old man who now lies properly on the bed. She picks up the hand-sewn bag and walks towards the table.

Young Man:  Wait, why did I say ‘were’?

Young man notices the young woman. She is his grandmother in her youth.

Young Man:  What is happening?

Young woman pulls out a white hemp garment from her bag and slips it over the young man.

Young woman: It’s time.

Black out.

Clock ticking stops.

Overwhelming crying sounds.

B. Grandmother/wife

Black out.

Young Woman: Wait!

It’s nighttime.

The woman walks onstage, carrying three ceramic bowls and some offering paper. She puts them respectively at downstage left, downstage right, and upstage centre. She burns the offering paper inside the bowl.

After finishing the offering bowls, she kneels beside the old man.

Crying sounds fade.

Young Woman: Ah-Hsia! Where are you?

Young man turns and sees her. He is his grandfather again. He runs towards her.

Young Man:  What are you doing here?

Young Woman: Are you going to leave without me?

Young Man:  You can’t come! It’s dangerous for you.

Young Woman: Are you going to leave without me?

Young man takes the bag off her hand and carries it. He takes her hand and looks at her.

Young Man: I am going to the army. People die in the army.

Young Woman: Don’t make me ask you again.

Young Man: Please go back. Ah-Ying, please go home.

Young Woman: Are you going to leave, without me? Are you going to leave me alone? Are you going to abandon me, like my parents did? (She breaks away from his hand.) Who do you think you are? I am telling you; you don’t get to decide what I do. Not anymore. 

She wipes her eyes with her forearm.

Young Man: I would never abandon you! Please don’t say that. I just want you to be safe.

Young man holds her face with his hands with tenderness. She looks him in the eye for a moment and gets away from him.

Young Woman:What about what I want?

Young Man: What?

Young Woman: Everything is about what you want. You never asked what I want.

Young Man:   That’s not fair.

Young Woman:Isn’t it? What’s the first thing you said after I was brought to you?

Young Man:  That was eight years ago! 

Young Woman: You looked at me, and turned to your papa, and said, ‘I don’t want her.’

Young man puts the cloth bag on the ground and takes a step closer towards her. She stands still, staring at him.

Young Man:  I… I didn’t mean that I don’t want you. I said it as I don’t want a child bride. 

Young Woman: I am your child bride.

Young Man:  Ah-Ying…

Young Woman: First it was my father. He didn’t want a girl. Then it was your father, he wanted to give his precious son a wife. Then it was you, you don’t want me. Then it was your mother, she wanted me to stay. I kept my silence. I did what you asked. I know I should be grateful for the bed in my room and the food in my belly. But for heaven’s sake will you please listen to what I want for once. I am begging you. 

She collapses. Young man sits next to her on the ground. He reaches out his arms but doesn’t know where to put them. He finally makes up his mind and holds her with one arm.

Young Woman: I am begging you. Please, listen to me for once. I don’t want to be here all by myself. I don’t want to go out to the field everyday and be looked at by those men. I don’t want them to look at me like that. I don’t want to go to the well and listen to those old women talking about me. I don’t want them to talk about me like that. I don’t want to be that girl that nobody wants. I want to be wanted.

Young Man:  I am not leaving because I don’t want you.

Young Woman: I don’t care.

Young Man:  I care.

Young Woman: What?

Young Man:  I care about you.

Young woman: Liar.

Young Man:  For real.

Young Woman:You said you don’t want me.

Young Man: I said I don’t want a child-bride. 

He stops her before she could say anything to loop back to their earlier argument.

Young Man: Can I tell you something?

She nods. He takes her in his arms.

Young Man:  I lied when I said I can’t remember eight years ago. I remember it clearly. Your father carried you to our village in a wheelbarrow. I knew you were coming. My ma told me. So, I got up early and slipped out of my room. I hid behind that old pagoda tree by the river and waited. I watched your father wheeled you in. You had a towel on your head to shield yourself from the sun.

Young Woman: (chuckles) I still have that towel.

Young Man: I know. You always used that to wipe the sweat off my face.

Young Woman: Your hands were always dirty.

Young Man:  I was in the field!

Young Woman:There’s a river run right beside you!

They look at each other and burst into laughter.

Young Woman:Tell me what you did after.

Young Man: After what?

Young Woman: After you saw me in that wheelbarrow.

Young Man:  You know what happened after. You were there.

Young Woman: I want to hear you say it.

Young Man:  Alright, alright. Whatever you want.

Young Woman: You rascal!

Young Man:  Where did you learn to say that?

Young Woman: Are you going to tell me or what?

Young Man:  Fine! I slipped back home after I saw you. He brought you into our yard, and you jumped out of that cart and hid behind your father. Do you remember that? You didn’t dare to look at me. I saw you, and I said to my pa. ‘I don’t want her.’ He kicked me in the butt.

Young Woman: You deserved it.

Young Man:  I guess so. And my ma took you inside. Our fathers went to the shed to pick the cows. And my ma asked you for your name.

Young Woman: I didn’t answer her.

Young Man: And she asked you again.

Young Woman:And I still didn’t speak. And then you asked.

Young Man:  What’s your name?

Young Woman: Ah-Ying.

Young Man:  I’m Deng-Hsia.

Young woman turns her head and looks at him. He is looking back at her. She looks down again.

Young Man:  How did you know I was here?

Young Woman: I saw you talking to those soldiers, asking where they were headed.

Young Man:  And you know I was going to sneak out and follow them.

Young Woman: Mm-hm.

Young Man:  You are incredible, you know that right?

Young Woman: I am not. Otherwise, my parents wouldn’t sell me to you.

Young Man: Their loss. 

Young woman doesn’t answer. She scoops herself closer into his embrace, feeling the warmth of his body. They sit in silence for a while. And then the young woman starts to draw something on the ground with her fingers. She draws, stops, thinks for a bit, continues, and repeats. Young man notices and watches her.

Young Man: What are you drawing?

Young Woman: Writing.

Young Man: What?

Young Woman: I’m writing.

Young Man: Since when you learned how to write?

Young Woman: That woman with the soldiers showed me how to write my name. 

Young Man: She knows how to write?

Young Woman: Mm-hm.

Young Man:  Let me see how you do it.

She wipes the ground with her palm, erasing what she wrote earlier, and writes her name again, stroke by stroke, carefully. She shows it to the young man, and he reads it.

Young Man:  Hsia…Yun-Ying. So, that’s your name. How did she know which Yun which Ying it is? Everybody just calls you Ah-Ying. I didn’t know how to write your name.

Young Woman: She picked the most beautiful ones. Yun, like those clouds in the sky, and Ying, like the goddess. I never knew my name could be so pretty.

Pause.

Young Man:  What’s wrong? What’s the matter?

Young Woman: Why would they give me such a pretty name but didn’t want me? 

Young Man: They are stupid.

Young Woman: Don’t say that!

Young Man:  It’s true. Your parents, my parents, their whole generation is stupid. They are stuck in the past. That’s why I am going to the army. Those people are different. That man leading the soldiers, he can talk to those hairy men from the north. He’s been to other countries. He said that they are fighting to build a new country.

Young Woman: He talks to those hairy men from the north?

Young Man: Yeah, he can also write in their language. He had this whole notebook written in their language. 

Young Woman:Do you think they will teach us?

Young Man:  Why not?

He realises what she is implying.

Young Man: You are not seriously coming with me.

Young Woman: Silly, why would I bring a pack with me otherwise.

Young Man: There’s no turning back you know.

Young Woman: I never look back.

Young Man:  Never? Don’t you miss home?

Young Woman: I am home.

He holds her closer.

Young man notices burning bowls.

Young Man:  What’s with all the burning?

Young woman looks at him, all emotions have left her.

Young Woman: They are dead people’s money.

Young Man:  For whom? Who died?

Young Woman: For you. You died.

Young Man    (takes a step back): What?

Young Woman: What’s wrong?

Young Man: Where am I?

Young Woman: Does it matter?

Young Man:  What is happening?

The woman starts to kowtow.

Crying sounds again.

Young Man:  What am I wearing?

Young Woman: We spent sixty years together.

Young Man:  No.

Young Woman: This was how it all started.

Young Man:  No.

The young man walks towards the old man, kneels, and starts to kowtow as well.

Young Man: NO!

He tears open the cloth bag left by the young woman. It has a framed monochrome portraiture of the old man. He picks it up and puts it on the table. He is himself again.