Once during the National Day holiday, on a coincidental occasion, I was asked a simplest question "How old are you?" by a distantly related grandma who came from afar as our guest. Out of my habitual sense of humor, I ingeniously made the answer indirect, stating it as "One year older than coming of age."

This tricky response has a lot to do with what I'd rather believe I am. As a matter of fact, for the sake of my grandma's comprehension, I used a common term "coming of age"; but subliminally I just can't help thinking that what I should have said was, "I am one year older than an adult!"

In retrospect, when I was a kiddie who was beneath not only the shelter, but also the shade of my parents as well as other relatives, there used to be too many times in which I would be suffering a certain kind of awkwardness, or having a bitter pill to swallow in a certain situation. In a sense, those experiences are more intensively portrayed in my soul than in my memory. However, if it matters to give a narration, I'd like to come to my family reunion.

In those times when by any chance my various relatives got together, except performing the conventional routines of greeting and around- the-table dining, the real primary event was the evening-time chats and rumbles. In that event, I automatically chose to be isolated, and installed myself in a study room, while what's in front of me was a computer screen and facing those awful adults just the back of my head. And then, they commenced with, and further held and carried on with, their discussion, conference, congress, etc.—whatever in which I am related. That bout of buzz aggressively permeated in the air, babbling as, "To all appearances, he's still too naive", "Anyone else' child will off hand be slapped if he behaves like him" and "Let it go! Do we have everything to do with what he's gonna be like?"

Then through years, until today, it has been truly proved that they can really not have everything to do with me. My day-to-day life trifles, my study in and out of class, my work in the student union... Let alone aid, they can not even acquire the concepts of most affairs that I'm engrossed in, such as entangling myself in deciding on where to use a punctuation to rhyme my scribble of a poem.

When that grandma went on to ask if I was overjoyed to be back home, I said, in contrast to the majority of other freshmen, that "I am rather reluctant". And afterwards she burst into laughter the second I set forth my reason, "I feel free and independent when at school." No wonder she laughed, for that two adjectives are much better if used to describe a nation rather than, what to put it, a child.

In any case, what's undeniable and above all is that my parents and other relatives are always backing me, whenever it is and wherever I am. I have belief in it which is said to be the "woven intimacy", though sometimes it's unbalanced and one-sided, I do have my sense of being indebted and regretful for them. This sense was confirmed by my trickling tears right after the erupting cheer of my grandpa, who answered my Double Ninth Festival call with simply an exclamation, "I just can't be more excited hearing from you today!"