Ruth Silbermayr started her blog chinaelevatorstories after moving to China in 2012. Currently she lives and writes in Austria.

Below you can read an example of one of her recent posts:

Chinese Feng Shui and Cats

by Ruth Silbermayr

I am not very knowledgeable with regards to Feng Shui, but I have always found certain concepts interesting. Feng Shui is a very complicated theory, and there are different schools of Feng Shui. One school of Feng Shui may say one thing, another school may say something else, making it a bit more complicated in practice than it sounds in theory.

My Chinese ex-husband used to mention certain Feng Shui strategies often. He used to tell me that I can’t put a certain object in a certain spot, because it would cause bad Feng Shui, for example.

One thing he always used to say was that cats have bad energy, which is a common belief in China. My older son used to love watching a cartoon featuring an old man and a cat, and he was very much in love with the cat. My ex-husband, when he entered our flat in the evening, would be quite stern and tell my son that he isn’t allowed to love cats, because they have bad energy. They were too Yin, in my ex-husband’s words.

While dogs were commonly seen in public spaces in Northeast China, where we lived at that time, cats weren’t seen as often. I once took my children to a small shop, though, and there was a little cat. They both started playing with the cat.

A little later, I moved to Germany and later Austria to prepare my ex-husband’s residence permit for Europe. I left my children with him, because he didn’t allow me to take them with me. They were 5 and almost 3 years old at that time. I was hopeful, thinking I would see them again within a few weeks.

Today, it has been 5,5 years without my children. The whole story can be read on my blog.

I had no information about my children for 3,5 years. In our first video call after many years of not being able to reestablish contact, my children showed me their two cats! This was a real surprise, because there were a lot of things they weren’t allowed to have when they were smaller, including pets. They love their cats very much and always showed me their cats in video calls.

In the case of children who have lost their mother because of her ex-husband’s actions, the fact that they now own cats is something I consider to be very positive. Pets can be comforting and cause children to feel less lonely, as well as cause them to learn valuable life skills. The trauma of having lost their mother can also be better processed, I believe, by having a furry friend who is there for them (though, for certain, the trauma will always be there).

I never wanted to separate from my children, and these years have been very hard for me. I have shared a few stories on my blog about my experience.

Do you own cats?

*******

I hope you enjoyed Ruth’s story. If you’d like to read more stories, you can visit her blog here: https://chinaelevatorstories.org/.https://chinaelevatorstories.org/