The rest is just noise

In late May, the second semester of Louis' freshman year came to an end.

He completed the exam and had more than two months of summer vacation.

On the night after the exam, he, Wu Sansheng, and several other Asians in the same grade on campus went to B-B-B for a carnival.

They had so much fun that they lost consciousness in the end. Louis woke up in a strange bed with an unknown woman lying next to him.

They had breakfast together, and when they parted, he didn't even know what the other person's name was.

This kind of life of being happy until death is like John Lennon’s famous saying⑴

Louis was not sure if Wu Sansheng had lost his virginity, it didn't matter, he was leaving for home.

He was born in Hong Kong, but he has little memory of that place because he came to the United States with his parents when he was 3 years old.

Since there were relatives in the family who settled in Cleveland, the family also chose to settle in Cleveland. They stayed there for 15 years.

If you had to find a hometown for Louis, Cleveland might be a closer answer. Although he was not born here, he is good at it.

The current Cleveland is not the backwater that James fans will dislike in the future. Today in 1977, this is the fifth largest city in the United States.

With the decline of the traditional industry in the United States, the rise of foreign industrial powers such as Japan and West Germany, which impacted the United States with better, better, and cheaper products, and the technological revolution in the early 1970s, the domestic industry in the United States gradually weakened.

The first to bear the brunt are traditional industrial towns such as Cleveland and Detroit.

The wheel of history is rolling forward and cannot be stopped, but a skinny camel is bigger than a horse. At least in the late 1970s, Cleveland was still prosperous.

The airport is full of religious preachers and begging homeless people.

The problem is that these beggars are more handsome than Louis in terms of dress.

He went home for the sake of the scenery, but chose the outfit that he was most satisfied with.

At first, Louis felt compassion for the people who came to beg. But as he saw more and more beggars, their dressing more and more exceeded his bottom line - they looked worse than me.

Handsome, are you begging? Is there no market for selling your butt? - So, when he put his hand into his pocket and took out nothing and shook his head "No.", the other party cursed in disgust: "Stingy"

Orientals!"

At first, Louis didn't know that "Oriental" was a discriminatory term covering all Asians, but now he knows.

So he replied unceremoniously: "Stinky stray dog."

Influenced by Louis himself, he began to instinctively dislike the term "Oriental".

The word "Oriental" comes from the Latin "oriens", which means "east" or "the direction in which the sun rises." The Romans called the eastern part of their empire "Praefectura Praetorio Orientis"

——Including the eastern Balkan Peninsula and present-day Syria. The East as understood by Westerners expanded to the Asian region where Western explorers went deep. Until later, Europeans used this term to refer to the vast area east of Europe that extends to the Pacific. The East occupies

A quarter of the world, including China, Egypt, Nepal, North Korea, Turkey, Mongolia, Indonesia, Lebanon, India and Japan.

When Europeans occupied most of the East, they popularized the concept of "Orient". The colonists conducted academic research on Eastern thinking, Eastern character and Eastern society, and used the research results to conquer and manage the occupied areas. Visible, concepts and conquests

are closely related.

The underlying assumption is that the East is inferior to the West: the East is feminine and passive, while the West is masculine and domineering; the East is emotional and introverted, while the West is rational and extroverted; the East is conformist,

The West keeps pace with the times; the East is primitive, vulgar, and defenseless. The West is the beacon of civilization, the benchmark of elegance, and has powerful military power. The East needs civilization and enlightenment.

In addition to being slow in development, Easterners are submissive, have an outsider's temperament, are mysterious, cunning, and beg to be seen through by others. Easterners are destined to take orders from strong, rational, and energetic Westerners.

For Easterners, yellow is the most suitable skin color for them. This is the most superficial description of skin color. And cultural interpretations of color resonate with Western perceptions of Easterners. Caucasians or Europeans are white—

- is a symbol of purity and ability; Negroes or Africans are black because they are ignorant and rude; Mongolians or Orientals are yellow, which is the color that represents illness and cowardice.

Calling Asians "Orientals" in the United States is the same as calling black people "Nico".

Louis was tall and strong. Even if the tramp was angry, he didn't dare to do anything. He could only watch him leave indignantly.

Louie hitchhiked home.

This summer, he should make good use of it.

Because the scouting report he has on hand is time-sensitive. John Long has already graduated as a senior and is about to participate in the draft, with a high probability of being selected. When he enters the NBA, his report will be a piece of waste paper.

It just so happens that there is an NBA team in Cleveland.

Their season is over, and like many teams looking to improve, they're recruiting secondary scouts.

This is the lowest level of scout, similar to a temporary worker. If he cannot produce results in a short period of time, he may be fired.

If he wants to be a professional scout, Louis needs to put aside his studies. Although the risk is high, it is worth it. He believes that this is the only area where he has an advantage in the modern era.

However, before that, he must first obtain his mother's support.

The mother who I remember as extremely irritable.

She longs for her children to get ahead and work in decent jobs - the medical industry is the best choice.

Louis' home is on 34th Street in East Euclid Street. When they moved here, it was still very prosperous. After more than ten years of renovation, half of the residents nearby have been reduced.

Some economists predict that this area will become a suburb or a slum in the future.

However, Louis' mother Li Xuanbing never believed what experts said.

Today she prepared a sumptuous dinner to welcome her son home after a successful completion of his freshman year.

Unlike ordinary American families who eat pork chops with gravy, chicken sauce, and hot dogs with sauce, Li Xuanbing's cooking is still traditional Chinese food, hearty home-cooked dishes and rice with clear grains - neither she nor Louis like to eat sticky soft rice.

It needs to be slightly dry and hard to fit the mouth.

Before entering, Louis struggled with how to say hello.

After entering the door, it was like all the conditioned reflexes that happened to him.

Louis shouted uncontrollably: "Mom, I'm back."

Although Li Xuanbing often appeared in Louie's memories as a grumpy person, at this time, she was as happy as any mother who hadn't seen her child for a long time, "Quick, put the food down and eat it while it's hot!"

Louis found that it was not difficult, not at all. What was difficult was how to tell Li Xuanbing that he had given up his dream of going to medical school and devoted himself to becoming a secondary scout for professional basketball. In the first few months, it was very likely that he would be distracted by work.

If you can't do your job properly, you will be unemployed. Even if your job is stable, your monthly salary will only be just over US$1,000.

This is very different from being a doctor. In Li Xuanbing's eyes, scouting is definitely not a decent job.

Confessing truthfully will likely pay a heavy price...

Physically, Louis is a young man.

But psychologically, it was no longer the case. Confessing to my mother would do no good at all.

She couldn't understand that her mother would only bring trouble and distress. No matter how she described the prospects of professional basketball, at this moment, her thoughts were the same as those of most Americans. It was a business organization with no future. She gave up becoming a professional basketball player for a job with a starting salary of $1,000.

The doctor's possibilities are simply crazy.

Moreover, the chances of success in this "job search" are not high, so why bother to embarrass yourself?

After various considerations, Louis decided to give up the idea of ​​confessing in advance.

Even if he succeeds in applying for a job, he cannot confess immediately.

It's best for mom not to know anything until his income is "decent" enough.

Being able to eat familiar Chinese food moved Louis quite a lot. In the past month, he not only had to experience the madness of the 1970s every day at school, but also concentrated on preparing scouting reports, and he also had to endure delicious but greasy junk food.

...These all gave him an unreal experience.

Li Xuanbing's Chinese food was not to his taste before time travel, but now, it is the most delicious food.

It couldn't be more perfect.

His son repeatedly praised his cooking skills, which made Li Xuanbing feel unbelievably shy.

In my impression, Louis is a very reserved person.

At most, he can only say "it's delicious" but not "it's so delicious", "I'm about to cry", and "Mom, I love you to death".

Is it really true that distance creates beauty? After being away for a year, things changed drastically.

She was initially worried that Louis would be blinded by the colorful world of Goblin County. She heard that the nightclubs and various clubs there were very unique, and the girls were generally much more unrestrained than in Cleveland, a stronghold of conservatism.

She is worried that her child has become bad.

Now it seems that after being away for a year, this kid is more mature than before.

"Mom, why are you always looking at me?" Louis laughed, "Move your chopsticks!"

"Hey, I'm not hungry. This soup has gone cold. I'll heat it up for you..."

Seeing Li Xuanbing running around in a hurry, Louis felt that his decision was correct. If he had confessed as soon as the table was served, where would this scene of loving mother and filial piety come from?

Let's leave it at that for now. It's important to let mom know the truth, but if you know that she doesn't support it and you want to destroy the beauty in front of her and force her to support something she can't understand, how is that possible? Maybe she has been kicked out of the house by now.

Already.

⑴The teacher asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up, and I said "to be a happy person." The teacher said that I didn't understand the problem, so I told the teacher that he didn't understand life. When I was five years old, my mother told me that the key to life is happiness.

After I went to school, people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I wrote "Happiness". - John Lennon