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When my uncle got married with my mother’s cousin by an arranged marriage, my grandfather paid for his new house. He was proud of having his own darkroom in the house. His hobby was photography and he used to have the latest models of a camera. He planned to enrich his hobby by developing pictures by himself. After he quit a job at a gas station, he found a job supplying ice cream to small candy stores. He finished drifting jobs, had two daughters and finally settled down. I visited his house with my parents one day, and found that his darkroom had been converted into a family closet. He explained he no longer spent so much time taking pictures as before, with a weak smile. Several years passed and I had become a student at a private Catholic school. The school was a prestigious girl’s school that included from the elementary school to the college. I had been there from the junior high and had acted as if I had been from a rich and noble family to fit in. By the time I advanced to the high school, I had been quite popular among the snobbish students. Most of their parents were rich, and they looked down some students whose parents weren’t so rich. One of those girls we looked down came to me and said, “I saw your uncle yesterday.” And she started talking about my uncle to my friends. “Do you know what her uncle is? He’s an ice cream man!” she giggled. Her parents ran a grocery store and my uncle went there to refill their ice cream case. He noticed her school uniform and told her I was his niece. Her point was that I was a niece of a funny, loud, rude ice cream supplier in spite of my snobbish attitude. She went on spreading her encounter with my uncle to other students and they all laughed at me. I was indignant rather than embarrassed…
