People Watching

I was once told that one of the most interesting leisure activities is people watching, and I could not agree more. Not knowing from when, I grew a strange hobby to watch people while I had my daily walk along the bridge near my home. That was a lot of fun.

When I was leaning against the balustrade, enjoying the refresh breeze from the surface of the river on the bridge, I watched different kinds of people, young and old, busy or casual. They either turned up regularly or only passed away and never appeared again. Some of them may nod at me after some time, and some just ignored me and went on their way. Some were polite, but some looked snoopy. Some were gorgeous, and some were ordinary. There were important-looking people rushing ahead like buffaloes, paying attention to nothing but their watches. There were some women, brand from head to toe, having nothing to do but telephoning loudly in the streets to other women to hang out for shopping. There were old couples with grey hair and canes appreciating the beautiful sunset, hand in hand. There were also moving stories happening at times, which moved me very much. Here was one of them.

One day, I was sitting on the bench on the bridge with my mother, again watching people. We saw some funny guys as usual and chatted happily. It was a mid-summer dawn just after my university entrance exam. In the golden sun light, we could not help recalling my childhood. My mother said with a smile on her face that when I was a child, I did not do well in school. Thus, sometimes she really got annoyed at me, especially when my final year results came out. I was astonished, since I did not remember even once she had glared me or shouted at me. Then I asked indifferently, “So did you spank the little devil and throw her to the hell of “detention room”?” She continued to smile but did not respond.

Just at that time, we heard a vague cry from distance to nearby. We looked along for the source of sobs and saw a little creature, following a bicycle, which was pushed forward by a young lady, eyes fixed straight towards the front, whom we assumed to be the girl’s mother. The little girl cried louder and louder, muttering, “Mum, mum.” The mother seemed to not care about her at all. At first, the girl was wiping her eyes with both of her hands. Then, after a while, she ran a few steps, stretching one of her hand, to grab the lace-edge of her mother’s skirt, but the mother pulled her hand off her skirt and went on walking. She walked faster and faster and finally, she seemed to be so furious that I saw her bite her lower lip, mount the bicycle and ride away. At the sight of this, the girl burst out a sharp scream and ran after her mother. Of course, she was not able to catch up. The girl continued to run, shouting with tears and hiccoughs, but her mother just speed up as if she wanted to get rid of her daughter as quickly as possible. I was amazed at what I saw, thinking how cruel the mother was, because the girl looked only about seven or eight. I turned to my mother, she appeared thoughtful but made no comments. The girl did not stop running but to shout more sympathetic in vain. Suddenly, she was tripped over her shoe laces and collapsed. I was filled with anger and was about to run to help her. My mother pulled me back, and within a second, the mother ahead dropped her bike and ran back with a worried face. She supported the daughter up with both of her hands and hugged her tightly, with her eyes watering. I turned around to my mother and found that she was beaming at the scene and said, “When the daughter does wrong, no matter what she does, the mother will forgive her.” I turned around, just in time to see the mother put the daughter onto the bike, saying something comforting and mount the bike, riding away in the light of the failing sun.