Nina | Teen Ink

Nina

January 28, 2023
By Adaaaa SILVER, Wenzhou, Other
Adaaaa SILVER, Wenzhou, Other
5 articles 7 photos 1 comment

Nina is a Filipino maid, smiling, short, dark skinned and full of freckles and pimples.

I remember that she was often in poor health, even in spring, she was always wrapped in thick clothes and looked bloated, and it was because of her health that she went back home.

When Nina first arrived, she was a first-time nanny. She was in her early twenties, did not speak Chinese, and could only try to communicate with me in broken English with an accent, and she had no family, only an agency brother who used her as a moneymaker and left her alone to work in a foreign country.

On the first day, he did not know that he had given me a cup of 100-degree boiling water in the thermos, and that afternoon I opened the cup and jug, and dropped the cup like lightning when my mouth touched it. I can't believe it! My mouth is still hot, you are not good at all!" The glass of water then hit the other end of the sofa heavily.

At that time, I was very young, I didn't know the world and I didn't know what to do, so I always said to Nina, "Nina! Nina always while tidying my broken hair, while sighing, helpless frown whispered: "Ada, you again, I'll go back!" As a result, she really, as soon as she turned around, went back.

Now that I think about it, the more time passes, the more my guilt settles in and I can't let it go. Many aunts came and went, passing by in a hurry, but I could never forget Nina, the first aunt who took me, not so much as a babysitter, but a friend I knew, a raw girl venturing into the city alone. Gradually, as life calmed down and those past events began to resurrect, I grew up more and more, experiencing some injuries that personnel could not help, some bumps in the road that no one expected, and for the first time I stepped out of the comfort zone that my family had built for me, and only then did I understand the pain of Nina's fence, her superficially hidden thoughts, "You can never really know a person unless When you walk around in his shoes and think about things from his perspective, you will feel sad even passing by."

Over time, she also mostly knew some Chinese. She was especially good with the children, especially my sister and I. After all, he was considered a child. I vaguely remember us lying on the wooden floor at night under the chandelier in the living room, barefoot, painting with colorful watercolors on white paper, and her saying "tree." and me saying "tree." My sister was drawing oddly shaped doodles all by herself. Sometimes she laughed and told us stories, and I remember her smiling sweetly, her eyebrows furrowed together, her head thrown back in a wide grin, revealing eight white teeth, and the pimples on her face suddenly not so obvious.

Grandmother from time to time secretly give her money, hundreds of hundreds, because her salary is always to be given to the agent without a penny, which is her so-called cousin, grandmother said: "Keep it for yourself, so do not pay again, so silly. "She always waved her hand with a difficult face, collected sooner or later, she said helplessly.

At the end of winter, her body is getting weaker and weaker, and not half better, often drooping head, like a bitter gourd, but also no smile. The family discussed that it was not a solution, and advocated that she be sent back. The afternoon she left, her eyes drooping, I sent her forward for the last and first time, I knew that she had just become familiar with the place, and had to rush to another unknown place. I dropped her off at the bus stop, the weather was really heavy that day, and for a moment the pressure kicked in, and I saw a man waiting for her, her brother with a somewhat fierce face, with a low duck cap, and his head buried in his chest lighting a cigarette. She was draped in a robe and her face was weak as she caught that bus.

Nina was a Filipino maid, an illegal immigrant at that time, with no family registration and no identity, so before saying goodbye, my family deleted all traces of contact with her, except for the photo I had hidden.


The author's comments:

Standing here is a storyteller who faces the strife and coldness in the corners of the human world from the perspective of a bystander, depicting it down in a straightforward form and reflecting the depth of her own thinking. May my readers be able to weigh the weight behind life through her articles. I hope that after reading my words, you can have a more tolerant temperature towards the world. I am a sensitive child, good at observing things and human feelings through the color of my eyes. Perhaps by chance, I caught a glimpse of hunger in the warm lights, bumped into death and angels having dinner together, and accidentally heard sorrow sighing softly under the Thanksgiving lights.


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