In the workshop, I'm loud. Shouting all day. At home, I barely talk. My wife says: "Do you use up all your words at work?" I tell her it's not that I don't want to talk—my mouth is just tired. She laughs and says "how tired can your mouth be?" Then she drops it and puts the food on the table.
My son is in middle school. His grades are average. His teacher says he's smart but doesn't apply himself. I'm not mad when I hear that—I was the same way. One night I thought about it and told him: "Just put in a little effort, okay? So you don't regret it later." As soon as I said it, I regretted it. That's the kind of advice that sounds like no advice at all. I don't know if he heard me. He just mumbled "okay."
I was cleaning out some stuff at home over the weekend and found an old photo. It was from when I worked at a different factory years ago. I was thinner. Had more hair. I stared at it for a while. My wife looked over and asked: "Who's that?" I said: "Me." She said: "You used to look like that?" I said: "Yeah." She looked again and said: "You still look fine."
At work I'm "Old Zhang." I run the workshop. I watch the machines. I'm loud and I move fast. At home I'm just a husband and a father. I don't cook. I don't help with homework. I don't know how to talk to a teenager. Sometimes I think I'm pretty good at what I do—people at work actually listen when I say something. Other times I feel like I don't know much at all—like when my son says something that shuts me up and I can't think of a reply.