A big chunk of my childhood was spent at my grandma's. It was an old building left by the wealthies before they got forced out by the communists. My grandparents had been living there ever since they first moved out to Qingdao, from the rural part of Yantai.
The building has 3 floors, and we occupied the top floor with another neightbor. The landlord converted the one-bedroom suite into two rooms. We got the living room, and the other family got the bedroom. Kitchen was across the communal hallway, and we shared the bathroom.
Grandma often praised me being quiet and drama-lite, as opposed to my cousin. They could leave me alone for hours without worrying that Im gonna run into some sort of trouble, i.e. step into the urinal, bump my head onto sth I shouldn't be near, or crying out loud for attensions, etc. I was a quiet kid from the get-go I suppose. Maybe people do get born with pre-determined temperament. All the postnatal events may not even be relevant...
My pre-school years were pretty naive and eventless too. I didn't remember any major family getaways, except for that one trip to Beijing. I remembered being hauled up 5am in the morning to catch the early train; I remembered the big piece of snowflake floating down from the dark sky while looking out of the train window; I remembered looking into the window of the emperor's bedroom in the forbidden city; and I remembered the dumplings from our hotel restaurant... ... my mom told me later on that I was really hyper during the whole trip, jump up and down, singing songs, and never shy away from strangers. As a matter of fact, I even made friends with an american couple at the restaurant...
Later when I got old enough to go to kindergarden, Mom took me back to our little apt on the west side to go to her company's childcare. Memories about the kindergarden were pretty spotty too, I remembered the yummy wonton, remebered being caught chewing chocolate during nap time, remembered bullying another girl swallowing a glob of plasticine (yeah, pretty evil)...
One anecdote Mom likes to tell often is that one time, she needed to run back to her office to pick up sth, so she asked me to wait for her in front of the building. Lest I would run around, she used her feet to draw an invisible circle on the ground and told me to stand inside of the circle till she came back. Don't go with anyone, just need to wait for Mom...and that's what I did, I stood still in
that circle for a good 5 minutes without moving. Some of my Moms' coworkers asked if I wanted to go with them, and I answered no, very firmly, need to wait for Mom...Later I wonder, if it's due to my Mom's upbrining, or someting inate, that I am such a rule-abiding person, sometimes to my detriment...I would draw those invisible circles around me, and inside those, are the so called comfort zones...
