离开上海去日本之前在wordpress开了一个小众博客，虽然有着一个月一篇文的野心，坚持了五六篇后也懒散下来，不过对于我来说，码字比看心理医生还有效，所以继续不温不火的写着。
我是在四月份结束日本生活回到重庆的，一年前去日本时我的目标很明确，放纵六个月，好好冲刺语言，大半年之后找工作，安定下来，顺其自然结个婚，不能自然就四五年后再从长计议。但过去一年里家里大大小小出了不少事儿，我爸只干干脆脆的丢了三个字“你自私”！为了维持我和这台永久牌ATM的关系，年初回家时立了保证书，画押（震得墙都裂了）。
周围的朋友都说对比中国目前越来越冷的家庭观，我这一举动是大孝，但提到日本的父母与子女关系，那是真的冰霜。我的那位快七十仍在教书的日文老师，自曝和她女儿同住屋檐下却是二十年没有真正交流；另一位三十岁时髦活泼的日本女性友人，大学离家后维持着和家人一年仅仅一通电话的频率。这不是特例，而是日本的普遍社会现状。相反国内个个看似酷到不行的朋友，每年都牵着爸妈东走走西晃晃，在日本人看来应该反而是骚扰了彼此吧。
日本最基本的生活原则就是“不要给别人添麻烦”。去银行申请开户，如果对自己的日文没有足够的信心，那请你叫上日文好的朋友，否则就会给银行的工作人员“添麻烦”，耽误所有人的时间。去失物招领处取回遗忘在地铁里的钱包时，除了谢谢，你还得说对不起，给你添麻烦了-- 不光麻烦了那位捡到你钱包送过来的人，还麻烦了这位帮你保管的朋友。电影正片看完之后你得傻傻的耐心的静静的坐到整个演职人员名单，主题曲，插曲，赞助商全部播放完毕之后才可起身走人，不然又是给别人“添麻烦”的行为。日本的文化里，即使是父母也是别人，相比中国家庭四个老人围着孙子孙女转的情况，在日本要请老人帮忙带小孩，那也就是一件“给别人添麻烦”的事。大概是崇尚集体主义的日本人年轻时没有太多自己的时间，现在好不容易退休解放了，怎么能被第三代绑架呢？所以日本的老人们生活都非常繁忙，有的直到80岁还在继续工作（老龄化问题使日本60岁退休后老人仍可继续少量的工作），有的热衷于园艺，严谨的安排着根据不同植物生长周期的作战表，有的就流连于小钢珠和居酒屋潇洒人生了，反正也不用担心儿子女儿的学费生活费，因为那都得孩子们自己打工赚。
我和我爸的关系一度也是这样不闻不问，小时候家里穷，我们全家三口和二伯全家三口以及爷爷奶奶，8个人一起住在一个80平方米不到的地方，那时候跑来跑去也并不觉得拥挤。全家以八路军爷爷为中心进行着食不言寝不语的军事化生活，导致刘家的小孩全部都是挨打挨过来的。由于爸爸忙着挣钱，一年到头也看不到几眼，能记住的都是被教训的时刻。记忆的高潮就是反叛期的我，一度被我爸一根筋的认定有了早恋的苗头，早恋就要扼杀！隐约感觉那段时间有人跟踪了我两个礼拜，但那时谍战片没现在这么普遍，所以见识少的我完全没有还手的机会，只能祈祷着考上最远的大学，离家。不过真走了之后，我也有过由于想家躲在宿舍厕所里嚎啕大哭的经历，心也随之软了下来。大概是大三回家过年时，发现老爸开始喜欢追忆往事，眼里闪的光除了柔也还是柔，这应该就是人开始变老的时候吧（如果你的口头禅也变成了，你还记得我们以前...... hello 老人）！加上受到太多洋片和洋文学“爱要及时说出口”的影响，我开始大踏步向爸妈靠近，主动汇报，主动分享，我爸还在男朋友的问题上对我谆谆教诲，一针见血的指出不能只找帅的，打篮球打得好的。我还是奔着脸蛋去了。
爸妈退休后我非常义正严辞的督促他们多学习，多栽花种草，趁着能走多尝试新的挑战。我这人对自己不严格，对身边亲近的人反而非常严苛。我爸在我的唠叨下火了，野心爆棚的赶往乡下一心一意的搞什么梦想农场，有猪有鸭，还要打造自酿酒窖，已经差不多快两个月没看到他；我妈则选择沉迷于书的海洋——网络穿越小说，把每个男主角都幻想成陈伟霆，活得比我还少女。
看看父母，想想一晃过了1/3的我的人生，脑海中飘过一篇去年读过的文章，想要跟大家分享。大意就是如果我们能幸运的活到90岁，一生的时间用图形表示出来，按年看是这样：
按月看是这样（每一横行代表36个月，3年）：
按天看就是这样（每两行一年，每段十年）：
那我们能和父母在一起的剩下的时间（文章作者以自己为例，今年34岁，假设高中毕业前每天与父母见面，上大学之后平均每年与父母见面10天，活到60岁时父母仍健在）
所以，当我们步入大学校园时，就已经用掉了差不多93%能和父母相处的时间，现在，正消耗着临近结束的5%的时间......心突然疼了吧？把父母换成生命中其他对你重要的人再想想，兄弟姐妹，你的发小，你远在天涯的挚友，虽然并不是再也见不了面，只是我们和他们每次见面的时间也已经慢慢接近了最后一面的边缘。
时光流逝，光阴荏苒，我们能尽力做到的也只有：
1. 定居在一个有你爱的人的城市；
2. 把更多的时间留给你认为重要的人；
3. 记住上面的插图，好好珍惜每一次相聚的时光。
－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－－
I started a blog a year ago before my departure to Osaka. I was updating it once a month in average at the beginning, until my level of ambitious got tempered by an urge to truly embrace the comforts of Japan - I was too comfortable to write. Words have always been therapeutic for me; therefore, I am about to load and unload again...
I got back to my hometown Chongqing this April. I had immense clarity and perspective before I chose to take a sabbatical in Japan. Balance and build in rest, master the language, settle down and maybe get married; relocate to somewhere else after 4 or 5 years if I am still not married off by then. But last year was pretty rough for me and my family, lots of unpredictable changes. My dad had called me SELFISH to my face at some point which was a kick in the head - do I really want to upset my permanent ATM? NOT A CHANCE. Without any hesitation, I signed this "Moving back to Chongqing" unequal treaty.
Well, they say my act was rare given nowadays very few children in China care about their parents. Lately a survey indicates that Japan has weakest parent-child relationships among Trumpland, South Korea and China. My 60 years old Japanese teacher and his daughter stopped communicating 20 years ago despite they live under the same roof. Another stylish Japanese friend of mine, said she only calls her family once a year after leaving for college. Look around my Chinese friends, 90% of whom would make time to travel with their parents every year. Who said we don't care?
As for Japan, DO NOT cause troubles for someone else is the ultimate rule living in this country. Don't go to the bank or post office alone if your Japanese is not good enough, you will end up causing troubles for the staff and others waiting in the line. When you go retrieving your lost item at the Lost & Found centre, besides "arigatou", an apology is also necessary since you troubled the person who found your item as well as the one who handed back to you. In Japanese schools, teaching children self control is as important as teaching academic content. You need to possess unnatural patience to "stay out of trouble" when going to a movie in Japan, no one leaves their seats until the entire credits sequence rolled up after the movie ends. In Japanese culture, parents are considered "someone else". Compared to Chinese grandparents who "lean in" holding the baby in order to help their children pursue professional goals, Japanese grandparents refused to let that baby hijack their own lives. They might keep working (labor shortages due to its shrinking population), concentrate on that gardening project which was supposed to be done 30 years ago, or chill in the pachinko place, get buzzed and happy. After all they got nothing to worry about, their kids are paying their own way through college once they turned 18.
My dad and I used to be that "indifferent". Our family of three, my uncle's family of three, plus my grandparents, eight living human beings shared an apartment of 80 square meters big. It was awesome (hurdling was the major sports in the house). We lived by the Confucianism 101: Do not speak at the feeding or sleeping time and believed in Tiger Parenting. I had to run down 4 floors one time to pick up the bun skin that I threw out after attacking the meat inside when my grandpa caught me in action… I wasn't a sharp kid. Like every other family in China at 80s, the father had to provide. I barely saw my dad when growing up since he was always out. Yet he still managed to have me followed cuz he was convinced that I fell in love with some bad boy during my teen rebellion period. It might look funny now. But I was really hurt at that time. I stopped talking him and my only wish was to stay far far away. As a matter of fact, emotional abuse is the worst kind. Some tips for today's kids, you have seen The Bourne Identity or Mission Impossible, there are many better approaches to lose a tail!
I can't remember exactly since when things started to change between dad and I. Perhaps it was around my junior year spring break, my dad somehow admitted how he felt sorry that he wasn't there for me when I needed him. I suddenly noticed a deep tenderness sparkling in his eyes. I couldn't help giving him a real hug and told him I am ok now. Yes, all those cheesy "express your love before it's too late" lines in rom-coms I had watched way more had affected me. We began to talk more and trust each other more. He even gave me advice on boyfriend - enjoy boys for who they are, not because they play basketball well or look pretty. Dah!
Since my parents got retired this year, I have successfully transformed into a hovering helicopter by rushing them to come up with a retirement plan, not only the want-to-do list, but also the detailed how-to-do agenda. I wasn't always hard on myself but I was always super hard on people closest to me. Thanks for that, my dad is cultivating his dream farm in the countryside, building up the pigsty and fixing a mini rice wine factory every day. Great, I haven't seen him for two months already. My mom? Following my advice of reading more books, she is now addicted to the time travel romance novels on the internet and obsessed with handsome young actors in the time travel TV series.
As I am writing, I thought of this article that I had read before. I think it is worth sharing here as it reminds us a very important part of life. If we can live to 90, visually it my look like this by years:
By months:
By days:
And the days of our in-person parent time (let's say you are as old as the author, 34, hypothetically having both parents alive into his 60s, and the average of his in-person parent time after leaving home for college is 10 days per year)
It turns out that when we went to university, we had already used up 93% of our in-person parent time. We are likely now enjoying the last 5% of that time. WE ARE TOWARDS THE END. Mind you, it's a similar story with our sisters, cousins, and dear always-on-the-same-thought-wave-length friends. Despite not being at the end of your life, you may very well be nearing the end of your time with some of the most important people in your life.
What we do with all these negative energy? Time is fleeting and I don't think we will all live to 90, for that reason, you may want to consider these three things:
1. Living in the same place as the people you love matters.
2. Priorities the remaining face time with people that truly matters to you.
3. Keep those charts in mind and cherish every minute when you are together.
原创文章，请勿随意转载
