9 Tender Stories with Tears in Laughter: Life is Bitter

Life is bitter, spend more time with sweet people

Those cheerful people

The heart is always full of sunshine

Life's storms are more

It will also light up our mood

Grandma's view of poverty

"There are two kinds of poverty: poor and depressed and poor and cheerful. Our family is poor and cheerful. We are not the same as people who have become poor from rich to poor, our ancestors have been poor for generations.

It's hard to be rich, you have to eat well, you have to travel, you're busy. You have to walk in good clothes and worry about falling. Poor people wear dirty clothes, get wet, sit on the ground, and fall. Ah, it is good to be poor!"

It's not money that sways happiness, it's your mindset.

The joy of frugality

When Grandma went out, she always tied a rope with a magnet around her waist, because it was stuck with nails and scrap iron, and "clanked" along the way.

"Just walk and do nothing, what a pity, tied to the magnet walk, you see, can earn a little extra money it!

"These scrap iron to sell can be sold for a lot of money."

Grandma always smiled and said, "If you don't pick up the things that fall on the ground, you will be punished by God."

True thoughtfulness is imperceptible

The tofu vendor would sell us the tofu that was broken that day for half the price of $5.

One day, I probed and found no broken bones, "Grandma, no way, there is no broken tofu today." I was about to run home when the uncle called out to me, "Yes, there are broken ones."

He reached out and pinched a broken piece and winked at me, "Here, five dollars."

That's what he used to do in the old days when there was no broken tofu. I told my grandmother much later.

Strange kindnesses

Once, a professional baseball team from Hiroshima stayed at a nearby hotel.

When I saw a baseball player out, I was busy asking, "My mother works in Hiroshima, her last name is Tokunaga, have you met her?" I wanted to hear about my mother.

The player froze and smiled, "I haven't met her, how come you are here?"

"My mother is very busy at work and has me in foster care at my grandmother's house."

"Ah, so, wait a minute." He returned to the hotel and took out a packet and handed it to me, "This is for you. When you see your mother, give her my regards."

It was a packet of ganache beans.

The sugar-coated beans were sweet and fragrant in my mouth, imbued with human kindness and warmth.

The friendship of boys

Friends know that my family is poor, and often send me many things.

Nanli, a farmer's son, learned that I liked to eat rice cakes and said he would bring them to me. The next day the teacher suddenly had to check my school bag and found that Nanri's bag was full of rice cakes instead of textbooks. Another time it was full of onions and potatoes.

The Hashiguchi family ran a laundry, and every Saturday night, they would sneak my school uniform into the laundry delivery, and by the time class started on Monday it was penciled in as good as new.