Lỗi - Error 404 English Translation

Phần 1 (T11-16)

My mother is born in the year of a monkey, so everything I have must be monkey themed. 

I never believed in Santa Claus. I don't know why, no one told me that Santa was not real, I just knew it, like born disillusioned. My mother was naturally bright: Every year, she hired a Santa Claus to ride a motorbike to give me a monkey plush. Every year, different men showed up, one was thin, one had a face full of acne, one with a lisp tongue claiming they're Santa Claus. When I first met him when I was six years old, I thought; "What the hell is this, who do you think you're fooling?" After thinking for a bit, I decided to not say anything, if not my mom would come up with something that was even more extreme to imagine. Acting surprised, I stroked his beard and thanked Santa, I followed the same procedure for seven consecutive years.

2003 was a special year, 2003 was the first year Santa gave me a gift of a lifetime: it showed how people hate me. As always, I opened the door, "surprised", stroked his beard, took the monkey from Santa, and closed the door. Just then, suddenly I hear children coming. About a dozen children were led by the oldest captain, the porridge vendor on the other side of the road. They climbed onto the motorbike and clung onto Santa. They jumped up and down and asked, "My dear Santa, where are my presents, my presents, my nephews!" He casually shouted: "No way, only for the address of this girl!" and then he drove away. 

The captain carried the crying brother, the days were hard, but now his face was crying, both of them screamed, "Santa, next year I promise to be better." I was also in a hurry because the iron door was not thick enough, the eyes seeing through the door like bullets piercing in. The captain's expression, was what I could not forget all my life. 

My mother, was a person who never let me cut my hair. That long hair, everyone loves it but me. I was more than a metres tall, my hair was about eighty inches long, and every time I had to wash my hair, I would cry out loud because it was too heavy to lift my head.My mother loved me so much that she asked my maids to help wash my  hair, until i was fifteen when i came to Singapore to live alone. I had to wash my hair for the first time in my life. In hot summers or cold winters, it always takes half an hour to get up for braiding in the morning at six o'clock before going to school. Once a month, mother highlights, curls, straightens and styles my hair to her desires. Because of that hair, I didn't dare to go to the beach because of the salt in it, i would most likely spend half of the trip getting the sand out of my scalp. Because of that hair, for the first time I went to get a haircut outside, I was afraid of my mom's reactions and I felt the chilly wind go through my scalp. 

Did I tell you that my mom loved me so much, that I don't stand a chance in playing with the neighborhood kids? Because "my child cannot play with the people on the streets". I'm too young to understand the geographic location of your home, where unfortunately the place you were born into, has profoundly affected the cultural life and spirit of your childhood. 

Nobody has invited me to their birthday party. No friends can step into the house. In class, no one even craves to play with me because of the "chubby actress". My mother chose a friend for me, she quickly chose it for me. I was able to play with exactly four people, the children whose parents are also actors to make it deserving. 

In my group of friends, we live in a way that collides with each other. Never talking outside of being taken to the party with our parents, never even thinking about each other, but just sitting together, we knew each other's stories, and we understood each other. Everyone in that house and that street side over there, while we painted vases. Together we support the burden of names we know and only we know. But I was always a lime pot, I was always the one that got smacked when my mother brought me. I was throwing glances at everyone at birthday parties that my friends were forced to invite me, and being thrown at the reasons when I was ten years old. I never understood why. 

There is one sister, one year older than me in that group, named May. Of course, she was good at school, she was good on pianos, talented like all of us. In 2002, when my family and my friends' family went to China for a vacation together, may let all the children stay at one room and did not allow me to. 

- "Why is that so?"

- "Because we don't want to be with you." 

- "Why is that so?" 

- "Because you're different." 

- "Why is that so?"

- "If you don't understand, how can I understand?" 

I still never understood why. Later, I knew, I knew I was different, but I still didn't understand why.