Until I was 15, I lived in a remote village on a huge mountain in Guizhou Province, China, with my parents and two younger brothers. During the ’80s and ’90s, we lived in poverty. On our birthdays, we never had a birthday cake. Our gift was a hard-boiled egg. But when I turned 15, I got a special birthday gift: two plums.

There were three plum trees in front of my old house at the edge of a small, flat plain. During early June of the lunar year (August in the Gregorian calendar), ripe plums hung from the branches or rose through the leaves, shining in the sun.

The plums were big, with a layer of white fuzz that seemed like the frost that covers grass on an early fall morning. The sunshine turned one side of the fruit a light golden hue that faded gradually to green. The golden ones were the sweetest and most delicious. On each market day, my mom would sell the plums to earn extra money for us to buy pens and notebooks.

My two brothers and I climbed the trees as deftly as monkeys. I even could climb with a pair of slippers on! But I quit climbing trees when I went to middle school, and I started reading as a hobby.

At noon on my 15th birthday, my mom was napping and my brothers and father disappeared somewhere. The sun was tilted in the sky, and the shadow of our house’s eaves stretched across the yard. The breeze was gentle. The only sound was the song of one or two cicadas in the trees around the house.

As I always did, I sat on a wooden chair under the eaves, reading — “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon” on this day. I was too engaged in the novel to notice my parents’ movements around me. My father approached from the narrow road that connected to our yard, and my mother had gotten up and was sitting on a low chair to one side of the gate, across from me.

“Where have you been?” my mom asked my father. Her voice caused me to look up.

“Over there,” my dad answered with a mysterious smile. He was at the end of the road, in the bright sunshine.

I resumed reading. My dad said, “Ying, do you remember what day it is today?”

I shook my head no. My mind was full of Yu Jiaolong in the novel and her newborn baby.

“Your birthday,” my mom said, yawning. Sleep was still in her half-closed eyes.

“Oh,” I said, returning to my book.

“Here it is,” my dad said, stretching one hand to me.

Two big golden plums lay in the center of his palm. He had scratched off the white fuzz so that the fruit skins were smooth and shining.

I picked up the plums.

My brothers had climbed the plum trees every day without finding any over the past week. “These must be the last two,” my father said.

I split open the fruits, took out the stones, and put the flesh in my mouth: crisp, fresh, sweet mixed with a bit of sour. Today, I can still recall that taste. I have never found a plum as delicious. I didn’t say thanks to my dad, and my dad didn’t say “Happy birthday” to me.

This is how I get along with my parents. Most of my friends from my hometown have the same way of being with their parents — we have never said “I love you” or thank you to one another. No matter how big a mistake the parents made, they didn’t apologize to us, their kids. I have never held my mom’s or dad’s hands when we go out together. It is as if there is an invisible barrier between me and my parents.

In 2014 I moved to the United States and married not long after. To my surprise, I noticed that my husband always said thanks to his parents, something that where I am from was only expressed to and from guests. I noticed, too, that my husband and his parents always ended a phone call with “I love you,” loud and natural. On our son’s first drawing, my mother-in-law taught him to write “To mummy, love, Rang.” I can’t imagine what my hometown people would think of these declarations of affection, for where I come from, love can’t be expressed by words but through actions.

On the first day of the Chinese New Year, I video-chatted with my mom and dad. There was no “Happy New Year” uttered between us. I wanted to say something, but I was afraid they would consider me more of a guest than a family member if I did.

My parents and I will not change our habits of expressing love. But I have learned to say thank you, sorry, and “I love you” to my son, and I enjoy and appreciate his hugs and kisses.

NOTE: This essay is accepted, edited, and published in The Boston Globe Ideas section on June1, 2022.