Through the screen of my phone, I witness, in the distance, a painful process. In Shanghai, my grandmother’s health is deteriorating. Every day, my mother has to go by her side to take care. I had never fully realized how their relationship was strained and it’s a hard blow to rediscover the violence of this world I ran away from.
When eventually, I arrive in China, my grandmother has already passed away. My mother lives alone and she is entirely devoting herself to religion. She spends most of her time praying and performing rituals she once taught me. Her devotion on the backdrop of the most trivial mundanity seems perfectly absurd.
To escape from this oppressive atmosphere, I walk around in my childhood neighborhood. I meet with humble people who talk about families separated by the necessity of earning a living. When I come back to our apartment, I realize that, just like me, my mother has always been craving for maternal love.