The Bluestocking 2023-24

figures that have ruled before our time. they, too, have cut open their soft flesh to show us the cerise fruit of their labours. when i got accepted into Columbia, Jun told me that all she expects of me two years from now is for me to land a good internship. she grew up in a rural town in China where she scrubbed her mud-soaked arms with calloused fingers in river water. where the greatest gossip in town was the date of the next big exam. where everyone tallied the rest of their living days with white chalk on parchment paper. Jun, your American dream is my own now. our dream. “and after you make your own money, you better fly me to new york, child. invite me to breakfast.” i don’t know much. but i do know about the Confucian concept of filial piety. was i privileged to think that a soup alone cannot suffice for all the years Jun has spent as a giver?

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