Today mood was strangely lifted, even though it's weekend. Dad has just come and gone. He'll be back next in another four weeks' time. The house is really quiet without dad, although in retrospect the house has been quiet most of the time with him as well. And mum was so agitated and acted up again. Poor mum, who kept trying to get dad's benevolent attention but there's already deep prejudice between the two. When mum fails to raise the correct sort of alarm for her problems she gets quite resentful. Yesterday we made a phone call to my dad's parents. My uncle's wife was called to speak to mum, for they thought in the family that they were friends, both being wives of sons. So my aunt spoke with the usual kind of Shanghainese vigour that sounds like quarrelling. Shanghainese speak like that to show intimacy and friendliness. When pressing others to accept a gift, they like to say things like "Just take it! What are you doing all these things (refusals, oh-you-really-shouldn't-haves) here with me for?" with an earnest expression of anger. My mum's never been at ease with this kind of demeanour. I guess that's why she still has inferiority complex with respect to the city dwellers. So she was properly terrorized by aunt's demands of why we aren't back to visit for so long. She actually was so at a loss to say anything that she kept saying "I'm sorry". At that moment I thought mum can well be clinically determined to be socially dysfunctional. Aunt said something to the extent that, "I have to say this even if you are angry. Why didn't you...etc" So later mum got it into her head that the aunt said these fierce things to teach this younger wife a lesson in front of their mother in law, my grandma, because the latter has always hated her (mum, not aunt), etc etc. This is past feeling bad for getting a shower of non-sensitive behaviour which she's not accustomed to. This is making up stories to appease somewhat the bad feelings. When dad and I protested that it's not true she got really angry indeed. And she never thought of how I feel, as a person close to her, when she gets angry. I think the rational and understanding front that she's been trying to build up for me (for which I'm utterly grateful) totally collapses when dad comes. She's got just too much resentment for him.

I wish peace for those who passed away on 911 '01 and for their families. Also peace for human beings who suffered in tragedies big and small, taking the chance of the 911 event that has the proper amount of magnitude and drama to be representative, to express such a wish.