Grandma loves her par­rot. We carry it around for her, and she sleeps with it on her bed­side table. Whenever she talks to it, I can never really tell if she really is talk­ing to her par­rot in an act of senil­ity, or whether she does it to humour us.

A note on the trans­la­tion: The name “Fat Bird” is really “Fat Woman Parrot” in Chinese. The word “par­rot” is a homonym for the last part of grandma’s name, so “Fat Woman Parrot” sounds like it’s refer­ring to her as well. That’s how she got her nick­name as “Fat Woman”.

This is grandma on a good day. I love to see her smile and laugh.