I kinda contemplated for a bit whether writing this post was the right thing to do. But somehow, my gut told me this is a story worth sharing. So here’s where I’m going to air my dirty laundry for a bit.
This story is about a project I did with my grandpa.
“Oh, that sounds cute,” you might think. But honestly, the beginning wasn’t cute at all.
Growing up, my relationship with my grandpa wasn’t the best. Scratch that. I was being modest. I kinda hated him for his overpowering, patriarchal attitude. He was constantly yelling at everyone, especially treating my grandma as if she were his slave, and would lose his temper over the smallest things.
(I’ll skip the other family members’ stories since that might be a bit too much, but you get the gist — things were bad as a whole, a cycle.)
I was afraid of him. In fact, I think the younger me not only truly hated him, but was also deeply traumatized and embarrassed by the fact that I was related to him by blood. I hated him so much that I would always pray for my grandma and everyone else to just leave him because he was so toxic.
But it wasn’t until 2023 that I had this long heart-to-heart talk with my bestie, and I literally poured out all the sewage water I had bottled up inside me. It was the first time in a really, really long time that I blurted everything out without filtering myself. I felt lighter afterward, but I also knew that eventually, I had two options:
(1) Continue hating him
(2) Do something about it—to remove (or at least reduce) the weight of that baggage that had been dragging me down for so long.
I chose the latter because number one? Been there, done that. And it didn’t bring me anywhere. Also, hating someone is like having sewage water as oral wash, you are neither spitting it out nor swallowing it, and you are the only one dealing with this shit. wtf. So why not try number two and see what happens?
But honestly, I had no idea what to do about it.
I just sat with this vague idea of doing something for a really long time… until I went to China last year.
I visited a free museum in Zhejiang and saw a bunch of wood carvings. Then the idea just came to me, as if some invisible hand flicked a switch in my head. I took out my phone and sent photos of those artifacts to my grandpa. Then I sent an audio message asking, “When I come back, can you make one for me?”
(Oh, I forgot to mention that my grandpa does wood carving professionally. He’s been doing it his whole life. It still baffles me how someone with such a low boiling point and so little patience could pursue a career like that and actually be so good at it. But that’s a story for another day.)
It was so out of character for me to even ask him that. But I didn’t give myself time to doubt or overthink it. I just knew it had to come from me, and I had to act.
Throughout my trip, I was constantly on the lookout for inspiration for the wood carving we were going to do (or rather, waiting for inspiration to drop). At this point, he still hadn’t given me a solid yes, but I just knew that somehow, I would get him to agree. I couldn’t think of any other way to mend our relationship, since we never really had a solid foundation to begin with.
And then the idea hit me in a total no-brainer, gut-feeling kind of way: Make a malus ‧˚❀༉‧˚
The whole reason for my trip to China was to watch the malus flowers bloom. I’d read about how beautiful they were in a novel and needed to see them with my own eyes. I did fall in love with them, so I knew the theme for the wood carving had to be malus. Coincidentally, my grandpa specializes in carving dragons, phoenixes, and florals.
When I got back from China, I deliberately made plans to go out for lunch with him so we could talk about the project. Not gonna lie, it felt odd hanging out with him without anyone else around except my grandma. There were moments of silence, and times when he’d say something that triggered my self-defense mechanisms like when he raised his voice or insisted on things going his way. Not necessarily about the project, just in general, during meals or when I was at his house.
I endured it and kept consciously reminding myself on repeat: It’s okay. I don’t need to see him through that old lens anymore. This is a conscious choice.
So, after I “bribed” him with a few lunches, we got to work.
But to my dismay, he told me he wouldn’t design it for me because he had no idea what I wanted. All he could do was carve it based on a sketch I provided.
I spent several months trying to figure out what I wanted the malus carving to look like and how I was even going to come up with a sketch. I’ve never been good at drawing.
Thankfully, after searching high and low, I found a malus drawing I really liked on Red Note (China’s version of Pinterest).
This is the original image that I found on Red Note.
But I didn’t want to copy it directly. So I combined it with a frame I loved from a Suzhou museum I visited during a Hanfu photoshoot with a friend.
I created this concept with Canva.
Then came the task of combining both drawings. Eventually, I surrendered to the most “prehistoric” method: drawing it by hand, using tracing paper, and pretending like I had my shit together.
I trashed two pieces of tracing paper on my first tries because I kept messing it up out of impatience and frustration. Then I turned on a C-drama to keep me company, and 4–5 episodes later... it was done. To my biggest surprise, I actually did it!
I passed everything to my grandpa, and over the next 10 months or so, I made a deliberate effort to follow up with him. I visited his place for no reason, arranged additional lunches, brought over snacks, and stayed in touch. He would send me videos of his progress and call to ask when I would come to his house to check on the woodwork, as if he couldn’t wait to show me every little detail.
Fast forward to June 2025, it was done!
It's perfect!!
I picked it up and custom-ordered a matching wooden frame to keep it protected.
Not gonna lie, when I saw the finished product, I was really happy. Needless to say, I love the woodwork—my own malus that doesn’t wither, made from my clumsy and amateur sketch. But the deeper feelings didn’t come from the woodwork itself. They came from the fact that I had taken that uncomfortable, unfamiliar step to mend things with my grandpa (without ever telling him directly). The woodwork was just the means. What I really found was the end I’d been searching for.
It had once felt so distant and unrealistic. But now, I can proudly say that even though I still struggle to find topics that spark conversation with him, I no longer carry the resentment I had as a child. That pain and trauma dissolved somewhere between all those shared meals and snack deliveries. I changed how I saw him, and somehow, things changed too. Now, I can be with him without the hatred, fear, anxiety, or that constant urge to protect or defend myself from the next outburst that used to take over.
That shift didn’t happen overnight. It came in quiet, ordinary ways, in the trying, in the awkward silences that got just a little less awkward. I wouldn’t say we’re suddenly close or that he’s turned into some sweet grandpa from a feel-good drama. But I can say we’re in a better place. A place that feels more real. Less scripted. Less tied to old wounds.
Though I am proud of myself for making this effort, I’m also deeply grateful to him for saying yes to this project and doing it for me. This is the first real gift he’s ever given me, and I’m going to cherish it forever.
Sometimes, healing doesn’t look like big declarations or emotional apologies. Sometimes, it looks like showing up. Sitting down for a meal. Sending a random photo (about the progress of the woodwork). Dropping off snacks without saying much. Putting the past behind us.
So yeah... this is the story behind the wood carving. A personal project wrapped in quiet, heavy history. A small wooden object that somehow carried a lot more than just craftsmanship. And maybe, just maybe, it carved out something softer between us, too.
Post a Comment