My Mom and Towels...

When I was younger, and we went on trips where a hotel stay was included, we ALWAYS brought our own towels.  We never used the hotel towels, because according to my Chinese mother, they could be dirty or not truly washed.  If we did use them, we never used them on our private parts, because heaven forbid stained disgusting towels disguised with bleach as clean be used on private parts!  But they wash the towels after the prior occupants Mom. "Yeah, do you think a single wash will wash away a stranger's private parts touching these towels?!"  Yes...?  "No! You don't know what the person who stayed here before did to these towels! Sometimes bleach not washing away dirty"  We didn't travel a whole lot, so this wasn't a regular occurrence anyway.  If we visited family friends, we always brought our own towels.  Always.

While I was working in Corporate America in my 20s and traveling for work, she would always ask if I packed a small towels for my work trips.  These were really nice five star hotels, the best the firm could provide to keep all its employees happy (as they worked us to death at night and overtime).  I'm disappointed to say I did lie to my mom, small white lies, little whispers of, "yes mom, I brought my own towel" when indeed I did not.  The luxuriously soft hotel towels were so different from the rough towels I had become accustomed to at home where we hung all our linens out to dry in the sun.  We lived in California, it just seemed fiscally responsible to hang dry all our clothes.  The lines my dad had carefully constructed between trees made it easier to "dry the clothes" outside.  I wouldn't ever learn how to use a dryer or that dryers made sweaters shrink until college, so I welcomed the soft plush towels from hotels, I might have even tucked a few away BY ACCIDENT! during that time...

I remember the first time I visited my now sister-in-law when Andy and I were dating, and I brought my own towel.  I had become so accustomed to bringing my own towel wherever I went, my mom had instilled it into me from my youth, so it just made sense.  It wouldn't be until after we were married, that she would ask me why I brought my own towel.  As I tried to explain it, I started by saying well sometimes there are different scents in towels so.... all of a sudden, I realized I was inadvertently offending others by bringing my own towel.  You don't like the way our towels smell?! Do they smell bad? No, it's just not the smell I'm used to.  What are you used to?  As I tried to explain the history of towels based on my upbringing, to chuckle at the "bring your own towel even to a hotel" mantra my mom would repeat, the new family I had just married into seemed to draw further and further away in disbelief and ridicule.  So I made a commitment to stop bringing towels wherever I went, if just to save face (more on that later) with the new American family I had married into. 

I am proud to state that change is possible!  I no longer bring towels with us on trips.  I occasionally bring kid towels (it's just easier because sometimes normal towels are so big...plus when we visit my parents, they still have the really hard towels because they hang dry all their stuff).  Alas, when my family visits us in Salt Lake (the few times they have... also more on that later), they still bring towels.  Old habits die hard for some. 

Never Trust White Man

Despite my upbringing and the constant reminder from my mom and aunts that I was never to marry a “white man,” I never thought much of it.  

"If you marry a white man, you will have to have cheese at your wedding reception," my aunts told me, disgusted and shocked that such a thing existed.  

"Cheese makes your butt big!  Don't eat it!" another aunt of mine once said.  

I never thought much about the lack of cheese in our Chinese diets.  I did however notice white people all had large eyes.  Double eyelids, all of them!  Sometimes, I couldn’t really tell them apart from one another, but for the most part, they were nice.  The ones I knew at least.  And for the most part, I never really felt intimidated by white men.  Or so I thought. 

I was working at a large public accounting firm right out of college with a bunch of like minded young professionals.  I was living the American dream.  We went out to lunch as a team and as I was eyeing the American menu of deli options, I came across “rye bread.” 

 “What’s rye bread?” I asked another teammate, a genuinely innocent question I knew someone would answer.  To me, eating in a deli was foreign and new. 

“How do you not know what rye bread is?  Didn’t you grow up here?” he asked me.  It was a sincere question on my part, but he seemed to think I was making a joke.  I seriously had never heard of such a thing. American bread was white or wheat, if that.  At home, we only ate the soft white bread from Chinese bakeries.  Or, there were rolls, sponge cake, sweet, salty, sometimes with hot dogs, eggs, Japanese mayo, dried pork, and green onions. So what the heck was rye?   

I was the ripe age of 22, had just graduated college where I met him, a tall dark and handsome Jewish man three years my senior because he had gone back to school for a masters in accounting after working a few years.  He was tall enough to be a professional basketball player.   Even though I was 5’8, almost 5'9, and quite tall by normal Asian standards, I felt so little next to him. 

He was outgoing, funny, well liked by all the female clientele (especially the older ones who would immediately toy with their rings and sometimes turn the diamonds down…) well built, and had a dominating presence, but even then, I wasn’t attracted to him because he was just an intimidating white man, the kind my mom and aunts had warned me about all my life.  And in this moment, thought I had never felt threatened by him, he was suddenly the enemy, making me feel like I was fresh off the boat when I in fact did speak perfect English and was born in America!

I felt so little next to him.  Tiny and insignificant and now, I felt stupid too.  He towered over me with height and confidence as he looked at me in disbelief.

“Umm… I dunno, am I supposed to know what that is?”

“Have you seriously never had rye bread?”  he asked me again.

“No…” I responded politely, hoping the conversation would end at that.  Of course it didn’t. 

“Didn’t you grow up here?  Aren’t you American?” he asked

What gave it away?  My not blonde but very jet black hair?  Or my not blue but very dark brown eyes? 

Now I know that having been born in America makes me an American.  I know that I’m not supposed to use the terminology “Chinese-American,” which is actually a little offensive given the melting pot that is our great American nation, but having been raised by immigrant parents who had journeyed to America to give their posterity a better life, having spoken Mandarin before English, having eaten rice almost everyday with Chinese dishes at home, I just didn’t feel truly American.  It wasn’t until college that I even experienced American meals or dessert.  At home, we had fruit after dinner, and we only had cake or something sweet for special occasions.  In America, dessert seems to be daily with cookies, pie, cakes, cobblers, or a combination of all of those even when it’s nobody’s birthday or a holiday (no wonder we have an American obesity problem).  I also had never encountered meatloaf or casserole, I had heard about it – it was the food that most children groaned about on the popular television shows I watched growing up, but I never had any.  The extent of exposure to American food for me was fried chicken, pizza, pasta, French fries and burgers, and most of that is Italian before it’s even American. 

The more my Chinese mind processed the information at hand, the more upset I became.  In fact, now I didn’t feel stupid anymore.  Now, I was mad! I clung tightly to all these unknown American ways as further indication that I was truly NOT American, and was simply mistaken for an American due to my perfect English untainted with a Chinese accent. 

“No … I actually have NEVER had rye bread!”  It was like I was back in the second grade, being ridiculed by the white kids about my seaweed and dried pork bento box only this time I wouldn’t go away feeling bad about myself, wishing my Chinese mother could make me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.  This time, I would stand up for my Chinese heritage, which shockingly did NOT include rye bread!  We barely had white bread in our home growing up, why in the world would I know what rye bread was?   

I wanted to scream at his ignorance, dare him to tell me if he’d had chicken feet or pig’s blood or cow intestine or duck tongue or fried intestines (sprinkled with just the right bit of salt of course), but the Chinese side of me submissively fired the rage of thoughts in my head and remained calm on the outside, demure, silent and obedient, as I had been taught all my life by my Chinese mother.  Not to retaliate.  Not to talk back.  Not to cause trouble.  I gave a little smile, as if to say how amusing though I was really thinking how idiotic of you. 

“Well, thank goodness you finally know what it is.  About time.” he informed me. 

“Thank you” I said, meaning to drizzle it with sarcasm but of course restraining myself and instead conveying it with a genuine note of appreciation.

“You’re welcome”  he said, so proud of himself, and walking even taller and puffing his chest out even more than I remembered him normally. 

The white boy had helped the poor Chinese-American girl out.  Another win for the white man, I thought to myself.  Ugh.  My mom and aunts were right. Never trust white man.