God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [94]
Liao: At least you read things with a critical mind.
Ho: Glad you think that way. Anyhow, I idled around the house for two years and constantly got into fights with my mom. Since I passed the college age, going to school was no longer an option. Watching Chinese Idol couldn’t be counted as a profession. So I told her I would go look for a job. But it was hard. I didn’t have any talents or skills. Besides, I had stayed home for too long. My limbs had become weak. Even a little bit of physical labor made my heart beat fast and muscles ache. Then my dad got me a job through a friend. I was supposed to work as a company security guard. The first day on the job, I carried my MP4 player. One day my boss tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t hear him because I had the headset on. I just kept walking, enjoying Li Yuchun’s songs. When my boss caught up with me, he grabbed me by the shoulder and howled in his thunderous voice: “Get out of here. You’re fired.”
My parents got really sick of me. They were too tired to even scold me. My mom and dad met to figure out what to do about me. My dad kept shaking his head, saying, “I don’t know when he will grow up. Let’s put a hold on finding him any jobs. Let him stay home until he’s twenty-five. Maybe by then he will be mature enough to handle a job.” My mom had to agree. She consoled herself by saying, “There are so many young people staying home nowadays. At least, he’s not alone.”
Liao: How could you take it?
Ho: I couldn’t have cared less. I was in no hurry. I didn’t have a girlfriend to pester me. My mom cooked for me and bought me clothes. I got pocket money each month. It wasn’t bad. But one day, I became bored at home. I opened up the Bible and flipped the pages and stopped at a passage in the book of Jeremiah: “‘If you will return, O Israel, return to me,’ declares the LORD. ‘If you put your detestable idols out of my sight and no longer go astray, and if in a truthful, just and righteous way you swear, as surely as the LORD lives, then the nations will be blessed by him and in him they will glory.’”
I was totally, like, thunderstruck. My mind blanked out for a few minutes. My God, I thought about all those detestable pop idols that I had worshipped—Li Yuchun and Jay Chou. They ran past my mind like floating clouds. The Lord knew me well. He understood my generation well. We had been plunged into a bottomless pit of pop icon worshipping. I couldn’t get myself out, and my life had almost been ruined. God finally revealed himself to me. His words were stern. I had to remove all the idols out of his sight, and I swore to be good.
When my mother came home that night, I told her that I wanted to be a Christian and I wanted to be baptized. She looked bewildered and didn’t know what to say.
Liao: That was quite a sudden change.
Ho: If you really believe in God, you should be baptized. If you don’t, suit yourself. That was what I thought at that time. I’m a prototype of the posteighties generation. For years, I followed all sorts of pop icons and knew how to sing all their songs. When a new one came along, I discarded the old ones. I spent my whole life chasing idols like a dog chasing a ball. But then I learned to sing hymns and I never get tired of them. The hymns touch me on a deeper level. They change me. We used to have very free discussions at the church. When I confessed to my Christian brothers and sisters about my problems and my doubts about life, no one laughed at me or thought I was stupid. When I told them I didn’t have a job, they all helped me. I got several interviews with different companies. During each interview, I would say: “I’m a Christian; I’m young and inexperienced, but I’m hardworking and dedicated. If you don’t want to offer the job to me, offer me an internship or I can volunteer.