We are Siblings

    I was not with my little brother when he was born. My earliest memory about him starts from his round and soft face, red lips, big eyes with long eye lashes. He was about two years old, wearing a bright red jacket that I had worn before and a fuzzy blue Bennie. He was so adorable and no one could confidently tell he’s a boy or a girl. When people asked, he would shock them by answering “I’m a boy” in his super scratchy voice. I don’t know if it was embarrassing to him, but it’s fun to see other people’s reaction after hearing that. He had a very good sense of pitch, tone and beat since he was a child. However, no one believed he would be able to sing a song because of his scratchy voice that accompanied him till his teenager years. Surprisingly and fortunately, his voice turned to be deep and clean after the changing period. He fell in love with singing and is an attractive singer, even a “mic hog”, in karaoke.

    In my childhood memory, my little brother was the most adorable boy in the world. I was willing to give him all of the cute names I knew, including those I learned from cartoons. Cutie pie, sweet dough ball,  Little Mole, Denver the last dinosaur, Yixiu the smart little monk… I liked to rub his face and played our secret games with him under the quilt.

    At the same time, he was also super naughty and sometimes annoying like typical boys. He had tons of energy everyday to plays tricks. Luckily he liked sports too which consumed most of his energy and saved me. His early years were devoted to soccer and often played it till it was completely dark. Later when my mom bought Ping-Pong and badminton sets for us, my brother quickly mastered the skills as well and turned to be a competitive Ping-Pong players in his school. He was selected to join the track and field team when he’s in elementary school. The most impressive thing I remembered when he was about 9 or 10 years old was that one day he came back home to tell me he decided to quit 100/200m but train for 3000m. I was surprised because he liked sprint. But he said too many boys wanted to do sprint as it’s fun; although he’s one of the top runners, it’s hard for him to secure champion every time. He found he had a much higher chance to win in 3000m, the longest distance running in his age group, as much fewer people were willing to devote into such a hard endurance training. That was the first time I admired my brother.

    My younger brother is super dedicated to anything that he is passionate about. He was a varsity basketball player in his high school and college. The extra training hours he put in was tremendous. He fell in love with guitar when he was in high school and spent hours after hours to practice chords, even on toilet seat. He likes movies. After watching the same movie numerous times, he could recite the actor’s lines precisely and taught himself Cantonese through it. He likes video games as many other boys and without doubt he was one of the best players in the games he played. I prayed he would find the same passion on his school work one day so he would be the top student in academic. Unfortunately this never happened.

    I have to say he is a very different person as I am even though we are from the same parents. The way he opens this world is from an aspect that I didn’t understand and could not accept at that time. Only till mid-age, I could see his colorful life more clearly and start appreciating such a different lift style. Of course, it’s also partially because he established his career and I saw him turn to be a responsible husband and father. I regret I gave him too many lessons when he was young because he’s not a typical model student as I was. I regret I didn’t spend time to communicate with him in his way and see a different world from his eyes. I could have learned more from him.

     He probably has different options. Once he told me that he suddenly realized how much influence I was on him when he chatted with his friends. Although both of us denied it for many years, actually what we are alike is much more than what we are apart. After all, we are siblings.