lele’s entry about her cousin makes me want to talk about mine. fortunately i don’t see my cousin often at all. in fact i barely know her. but my experience with her from my visit to china last summer was enough to make me dislike her. i wouldn’t probably getting in a picture with her if it weren’t her parents taking the picture.

her name is fei. she’s my youngest cousin. she was still a baby when i left china. so she was only 8 last summer. and gosh she doesn’t have any innocence that an eight year old should have. she acted like an angel when adults (her parents and/or her grandparents) are around, saying all the pretty stuff to get attention and rewards. but once she’s left with us (her cousins), she is plain insulting and mean. i never believed i could describe a child with the word “evil” but she… hmm i dont know. i only hope she will be less like what she’s now when she grows up. what truly amazes me is that her parents were nice. at least to me they were. or were they just acting like her?

when i first met fei, i assumed she was a great kid. i treated her kindly since she was young and that it was my first time seeing her. soon i learned she had two faces. my first bad experience with her took place in one hot afternoon. that day her parents and her took me out shopping. it was an extremely hot and humid day. shopping in shanghai means LOTS LOTS LOTS LOTS of walking. not able to cope with the heat, i was near the brink of dehydration by the time we were done and were heading to their home. i didn’t want to act weak, but i had terrible headache and i could faint any time. so her parents took me to this air conditioned bank where i could sit down. since i couldn’t recover right a way, they decided they’d leave me with her daughter so they could go home and turn the air on. as soon as her parents left, fei started bugging me and wished i would play with her. i was so sick that i could bearly talk or lift my head. i gathered my energy and told her i was physically weak and that i’d appreciate if she could leave me a lone. at first she did. she walked around the bank. but soon she got bored and came back. she was pushing me and bombarding me with questions. after getting no response from me, she started insulting me. she started complaining how annoying i was and that i was only acting for the purpose to ignore her. i stared at her a bit. i took that as a joke or her way of getting my attention. i really didn’t want to fight with an eight year old esp. that i didn’t have energy for any kind of fight. that girl didn’t shut her mouth for the next 5 minutes. i wanted to slap her silly but both of my mind and my body didn’t allow me. she continued her rude self until we got to their house. as soon as saw her parents, she acted like a compelete angel. she made up senarios about how she helped me and took good care of me. sick.

one time i heard she telling grandma how ugly our second cousin is. i was amazed how well she could insult someone. she said “she (cousin qian) had so many freckles on her face, it looked like an old woman’s ass. no boys would ever like her.” when we visited my cousin qian’s family later, i heard she telling my aunt how pretty she thought cousin qian was and that she wanted to be like her. i was sick to my stomach when i heard she saying that. of course i couldn’t do anything. i just kept my mouth shut. again she amazed me with her ability of lying and acting sincere.

when we were shopping with my cousin qian. she complained being tired and wanting to go back. she demanded cousin qian to pay for a taxi ride home. i told cousin qian to totally ignore her request. it was ridiculous why we needed a taxi ride for just a couple of blocks. she rolled her eyes at me and started to complain about how poor and cheap cousin qian’s family was. i finally told her to shut up. but she screamed back at me and called me a bitch. that girl seriously needed some displine to learn to respect others.

she was also very manipulative and lazy. one time she was doing her summer homework. there were questions about english language that she couldn’t answer. instead of asking me, she simply skipped them and annouced that she finished her homework. i saw what she did so i told her to show grandpa her unfinished work. she didn’t have a choice but to ask me how to do them. she then asked me about a problem considering the chinese language, i wasn’t too sure. so i suggested a possible answer and told her i wasn’t sure. later she asked our uncle about that problem. he said what i said wasn’t right and she yelled as loud as she could that i was the one who told her. she definitely didn’t mention about the part that i wasn’t sure.

there are many more examples about how she acted like a brat. it was my total disappointment to have such a cousin. i really didn’t know my father’s family well due the fact my mom banned me from visiting them when i was young.

what made a 8 year old child act like that, i really don’t know. it was just sad.