what did you say?

I have a few favourite movies but the most recent one is ‘Better Days’ (2019) directed by Kwok Cheung Tsang. Better Days is about two teenagers, Chen Nian – a high school student who becomes the target of the school bullies and is ostracized for her mother, who while trying her best, can’t seem to escape accusations of being a scam artist. Xiao Bei, a teenager who dropped out of school and spends his time doing petty crime and getting into fights. Chen Nian just wants to write her final exams and turns to Xiao Bei to protect her, just for the time being. What results is a soft and tacit understanding between two people the world hasn’t loved enough. There are many scenes I’d like to write about, but for now I’ll settle on one. Towards the middle of the movie is montage of scenes between the two as they grow close, including one when they’re on a motorcycle, speeding through dark, orange-lit streets. Chen Nian says, “Don’t you think maybe I don’t deserve your kindness?” to which Xiao Bei replies, “What did you just say?” suggesting he didn’t hear her, but a small smile says he did – and he doesn’t care.

 

The scene tossed around in my head until I came across a reel that put it into focus, the reel by thedailyvictorian on Instagram that starts ‘Welcome to life, you’ll get hurt here’ is about the sweetness and bitterness of life, and all the things you can expect and look forward to. The one line that resonated with this scene was: “Or someday you’re gonna tell someone that one thing you’re sure makes you irredeemable. And when you search their eyes for disgust, you’ll find only love.” Chen Nian asks Xiao Bei this after saying she knew Hu Xiaodie was being bullied, and even though she wanted to be her friend, she was worried it would make her a target of the bullies too. Useless, because in the end the bullies targeted Chen Nian anyway. But when Chen Nian asks, “Don’t you think maybe I don’t deserve your kindness?”, she is revealing her shame and her guilt to which Xiao Bei doesn’t even acknowledge the question because it’s not a question. She doesn’t need to deserve his kindness – she has it regardless.

 

To ask ourselves if we deserve love, if we deserve kindness suggests there’s a state in which we are unlovable and undeserving – but the truth is, we aren’t. Ever. I used to think I was waiting to be a certain kind of person; that for now, I could only give love and kindness, I hadn’t earned receiving it yet. That was something I would have to work for. And I believed that up until very recently where I sat in my therapist’s office and said, “There isn’t a point where I become loveable, I am always loveable”. Even when my hair is unwashed, even when my room is messy, even when I miss all my shots in Apex Legends. To withhold love and kindness on the basis that you just don’t deserve it yet, is not a concept worth tolerating – instead when it arises, we should respond like Xiao Bei: “What did you just say? I didn’t hear you.”