As far back as I can remember, parents, teachers and other relatives have always emphasized to children that studying is the most important thing for us. Without good grades, there is no good college. Without good college, you won't get a good job. Without a good job, you won’t get a rich paycheck. Then your life will become miserable and impoverished. I was born in Shandong, China, and if you're also Chinese, you'll know how strong the desire for stable government jobs is in our region. It's a very densely populated city with immense pressure to find employment, leading to an extraordinary yearning for job security. This also results in parents often adopting a very strict approach to their children's education. I was born right when the one-child policy was in effect. At that time, the government encouraged eugenics, and banners saying "Boys and girls are the same" were hung in many places in the village. This aligned perfectly with my mother's thinking, and as a result, I successfully benefited from the opportunities of the time and became the only child in the family. 

My family has high hopes for me, their only child, wishing me a successful and respectable life in the conventional sense. They want me to have a stable job and not have to worry about career problems in middle age, unlike them. To achieve this goal, I, like my classmates, am constantly busy every weekend. After school, they first go to math tutoring, and on weekends they go to dance and vocal lessons, so that they can develop morally, intellectually, physically, aesthetically and practically. Unfortunately, despite all of this, I still grew up to be a very ordinary child. They kept reassuring themselves, believing that my ordinariness was only temporary and that I would eventually "blossom." Then I gradually went from being an ordinary child to an ordinary teenager, and now I'm about to become an ordinary adult. 

I thought getting my parents to accept my ordinariness would be a long and arduous battle, but I never expected this day to arrive so suddenly. The reason the whole thing blew up was actually the recent college applications. To help me get into a good university, I crammed for the SAT for three months, studying and doing practice tests until past 2 AM every day. I even lost a lot of hair during those months. In the end, I only got an average score. Although there was some improvement, it definitely wasn't good enough to brag about. After a period of chaos and my repeated assurances that I would still be able to get into a good university, the situation finally calmed down, at least on the surface. But privately, especially my father, he had already given up hope regarding the universities I might be able to choose in the future. He believed that that one exam determined everything, even though I repeatedly tried to explain that things weren't as he thought. After silently processing what he perceived as the truth, he finally accepted that I was just an ordinary person. At the dinner table, he seemed determined to comfort me, even though I probably didn't really need that comfort. 

“You know, actually girls don't really need to be under so much pressure?” 

I looked up at him, feeling confused.

“Just go to a decent university, and then find a decent job.” 

I felt a vague sense of resentment, but also found it somewhat amusing. After all these days of contemplation, the reason he finally came up with my ordinariness was my gender. It's as if he only suddenly realized my true gender today. This reminds me of a long time ago, when I encountered many things that I considered illogical. Although even when I was young, I knew that many people in my hometown would be hoping to have a son. But this is just a vague concept, because I was the only child in my family, and without any siblings to compare myself to, I naturally didn't experience that feeling. I started noticing this during a casual conversation with my mother about my grandmother. My grandmother had already developed Alzheimer's disease when I was in elementary school, so I don't have many memories of spending time with her. I only vaguely remember that she was very loving towards me when I was little and was very much looking forward to seeing what kind of person I would become when I grew up. At that time, my mother was making dumplings, and I sat beside her, listening to her tell some embarrassing stories about my childhood.

“Your grandmother really likes boys.” She said this in a casual tone, without looking up, while she was making dumplings. 

“Really?” I was surprised, but also very curious.

“But she likes you” I know this. “Do you know what she said when she saw you for the first time, when you were born?” 

She paused for a few seconds, as if to build suspense.

"Such a beautiful child, it's a pity she's lacking something." She could imitate my grandmother's mournful tone, which made me giggle.

“What am I lacking?” I asked the question even though I already knew the answer.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    

“You know what it is”  

At this point in the conversation, I didn't feel that lacking something compared to the boy was a big problem, but at least this conversation answered some of my questions. For example, teachers might be slightly more tolerant of boys' mischief and mistakes.

That happened when I was in elementary school in China. Memorizing tests was always the part of school I hated the most. In my elementary school, you had to memorize many poems or essays, and then you had to write them down from memory, without a single mistake. I often forget what I had memorized after a night’s sleep. This led to me being called to the reacher’s office again along with another girl. Our Chinese teacher will always glare at us angrily, and this time was no different. Then we were told to lie on the ground and copy the article we had discussed in class that day, because children who don't study properly don't deserve to sit in chairs. 

“ Do you really think you deserve to be in school?” She glared at me, her eyes blazing with anger as if they could shoot fire.

“Of course I do”, I thought to myself

“Do you know how many kids have no chance to get into a school? And you are just wasting your opportunity” 

Seeing her angry face, my classmate and I silently pretended to be mute. Although our silence wouldn't calm her anger, we knew that saying anything at that moment would only make her even angrier. 

"As girls, why can't you have some self-respect?" 

She used that sentence as her closing remark, and then she kicked us out of the office. As a child, I didn't understand the connection between not being able to memorize essays and being a girl, or how it related to being shameless. I was simply anxious because the teacher might call my parents and complain about me. Every time she got angry, she would repeatedly mention that girls should feel ashamed for not being able to do these things properly, as if it were a magic spell to awaken our conscience. Even after all these years, I still can't fully understand her way of thinking.

In short, there are still many conversations going on in my brain that are based on the body parts I'm lacking. At the dinner table, my father tried to suggest several professions that he thought would be relatively easy for me. 

“It's perfectly fine for a girl to have an ordinary job, as long as she can support herself.“ He has convinced himself very well.

“Nope” I said “Actually, I've always considered myself extraordinary.”

I didn't choose the stable professions that girls are supposed to choose, nor did I try for the high-paying, respectable jobs he had always hoped for. I chose what I liked.