First Excerpt from Chinese-American or Something Like That...

I'm so excited to share an excerpt from what I have been working on since 2004.  No joke, for my college senior thesis, I wrote about what it was like growing up ABC (American born Chinese).  It's changed a lot along the way and I haven't really focused on it until 2012... but this year, my goal is to actually finish it so here's one excerpt.  Enjoy!

Chinese-American.  Is that what I actually am?  I’ve always felt like a foreigner.  To the white man, I’m just an Asian girl.  To the true Asians abroad, I’m just an ABC (American-born Chinese).  I love the USA.  I also love my Chinese heritage.  I speak English.  I speak Mandarin.  I speak Chinglish.  I’m really just sort of lost somewhere between American and Chinese.

In reality, I am part of a small minority of immigrant children who think they can speak Chinese fluently and eat all the food from Taiwan or China, only to venture to Taiwan or China and find out I’m too dark, too thick, have an American accent, and my weak stomach can’t actually handle any authentic Taiwanese street food.  Lost somewhere between generations and cultures, learning along the way what it actually means to be American, my life has been filled with struggles to figure it out. 

I remember it took some time for me to fully realize we just didn’t celebrate American holidays the same.  I remember learning about how the Indians and Pilgrims would celebrate that first Thanksgiving together and how the tradition of elaborate Thanksgiving meals complete with corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce would make everyone giddy with excitement.  I remember spending weeks on end during our designated craft time at school carefully using a pencil to stick brown tissue paper all over a newspaper filled paper bag to make a grand master turkey centerpiece.  I remember taking it home to my mom, telling her it was supposed to be a used for our Thanksgiving dinner, and then coming home one day and finding out she had thrown it away because it took up space.  I remember another elaborate craft project tying red and green tissue paper around a wire hanger that we had molded into a circle to make a red and green and very festive wreath for our front door.  I remember the excitement of bringing it home to my mom who told me our door didn’t have any means to hang anything on it.  I remember never writing letters to Santa Claus.   I remember opening one present from my parents on Christmas Eve because there was no such thing as waking up early on Christmas morning.  

Part of me vowed never to throw away my kids’ art projects, but mostly, it didn’t matter much.  We might not have celebrated Thanksgiving or Christmas the way white people did on the television, but we always had family, all our cousins, lots of mah-jong, and lots of Chinese food.

I think it’s funny to look back at the things I missed out on because my parents were immigrants but also fun to think about the unique experiences I did have because of that.

While American mothers were teaching their kids how to make chocolate chip cookies, I was rolling glutinous rice balls for our red bean soup.  While American mothers were making baked goods for the school fundraisers, we were taking a trip to the American super market (a rare occurrence) to buy some already baked goods to donate. While American mothers were taking their daughters to brownies and girl scout meetings and activities and AYSO soccer practice, my mother was scheduling my private tutoring sessions, speed reading classes, piano lessons, Chinese school, and dance lessons.  While American mothers were planning grand Thanksgiving dinners with stuffing inside the turkey, we were stuffing our turkeys with Chinese sticky rice (which btw is way better than stuffing).   

There were just a lot of things my mother didn’t care to adapt to when it came to the American culture.  She never said I couldn’t do what the white kids were doing, she just didn’t bring it up if I didn’t.  And because she didn’t really understand the American pop culture of the time, we were essentially fresh off the boat (“FOBs”).  I looked like I was a byproduct of Taiwan, not America.  My mom dressed me in shirts with awkward improper English phrases (I can being your friend too!), and blouses and skirts adorned with unfamiliar Chinese cartoon characters.  My mom put my hair in pigtails with big fluffy balls instead of neon shoelaces and anything of American trend in the 80’s.  I didn’t have big hair or big bangs, I had straight black hair that was flat, never crimped or curled.  And yet I had a fantastic childhood… one filled with Chinese expectations and American struggles, but fantastic nevertheless. 

 

The Fever One

Not Chinese Mom Say ...Technically, my aunt said this one, but she's like a second mom to me so anyway, she just sent me a photo I had previously sent to my mom of my daughter.  In the text she wrote, "my fever one"

hehe.

I'm pretty sure she meant "my favorite one."

Love my aunt.  Isn't she a beauty?

No Allowed Going Out For 30 Days

That's what my mother told me after I gave birth to my firstborn.  This after going through 38 weeks of her reminding me that I wasn't allowed to move furniture, use scissors, or eat watermelon.

large and in charge and far away from scissors and watermelon

Traditional Chinese post partum rules mean confinement for 30 days or a month following birth and no washing your hair.  The confinement itself is filled with good intentions to provide the new mother ample time to rest, bond with baby, and ensure you eat all the required authentic foods to help your uterus shrink.  The hair washing is because back in the day, they didn't have blowdryers so I'm guessing people died from washing their hair?  Not sure. .... For a month, I may or may not have zuo yue zi or in English, "sitting the month." The Chinese believe that maternity doesn't end at childbirth and that there is actually a fourth trimester, and this my friends, is what it means to be confined.  The 30 days are heavily believed by traditional Chinese to be a time of recuperation, rest, and ultimately helps you produce more breast milk and revitalizes and rejuvenates your body.  Or so we're told...

For me, this meant I was forced encouraged to consume fish soup, black chicken soup, pork liver, fried pig feet, red bean soup, rice wine soup, peanut soup, sesame soup, and a plethora of soups made with traditional Chinese herbs such as red dates, dried longan, huang se, eucommia ulmoides bark, dong guai, and gou gi.  Sorry, I am not sure what any of these items actually are either, but since I was so accustomed to the taste of such traditional herbs from my childhood, the tastes of all these foods was actually warm and welcoming, like a taste of home that I had grown apart from as I became more American with time.  And maybe a part of me actually believed that the qi or energy I would regain came from some of these foods.  So the apple doesn't fall so far from the tree after all...

 yummy chicken soup with chinese mushrooms

red bean soup.. good for increasing milk supply!

But the truth is... I am American now.  So staying home for an entire month without hopes of walks outside in the California sunshine drove me insane.  I didn't exactly want to go out to a ball game or a theme park, but I didn't mind a walk around the block or even a trip to the local grocery store.  Of course I didn't tell my mom.  I didn't even think she was really that serious about it anyway.  I did have to go to the doctor for my firstborn's weekly check-up before 30 days came anyway.  But I also didn't offer up the information that I did walk around the block or did wash my hair (in my defense, I used a blowdryer and in ancient times, they didn't have blowdryers so OF COURSE they didn't wash their hair for 30 days after giving birth!).

confinement wasn't that bad.. there were moments like this...

I'll never forget how completely irate my mother was when she found out I had gone outside before my 30 days.  And of course, all my aunts congratulated me for making it 30 days confined when we had our traditional one month celebration and coming out party (of confinement that is), meaning my mom had not told them of my complete disobedience and lack of respect for our Chinese culture and tradition.  We celebrated with smiles, hugs, photos, good authentic Chinese banquet food, red eggs and ginger candy.  We had made it.  My child was now past the 30 day mark, a milestone that not many made in ancient times.  (If you're wondering, the eggs are symbols of life changes and life while red is good luck in Chinese, and ginger helps to balance the yin and yang or cold and hot.

After my first child, there was no absolute way I could truly be "confined" for 30 days because he was in the NICU for a month.  The red egg and ginger party celebration also didn't happen since I had moved away from my family.  With my third child, who was also in the NICU for a month, confinement was also looser and there was no one month celebration after.  In a lot of ways, I don't think my mother would ever say it, but she just might be thinking it's because I didn't take my confinement seriously the first time around.

We don't really talk about it.  In fact, we sort of made fun of my cousin's confinement when her mom demanded that she not drink any water because she had read it in a Taiwanese book somewhere.  So maybe we both became a little more American along the way.  Either way, we both will never admit it.  Me that I didn't take it seriously and she that she may not take it as seriously anymore.

As for the food?  I still eat it.  She buys it from a place and mails it to me (yes, businesses are made with this stuff.. it's legit).

Things My Chinese Mom Says

For as long as I can remember, I've wanted to write a memoir of all those funny little things my mother said to me growing up.  Even to this day, despite the fact that I am 32, married and with three kids,  the infinite amounts of Chinese wisdom and wives' tales silliness that pour out of my mother on a daily basis never cease to amaze and stupefy me, all at once.

So while I slowly try to finish my book on the side (life's busy with three kids under four and a part-time job from home), this will be an easy way to capture those things my mom says for now.

And so.. Chinese Mom Say is born.

#Chinesemomsay #abckidprobs #immigrantchild #foblife

My mom would probably kill me if she saw the photo of my big mouth.  Have you ever put a slice of orange into your mouth so that the orange peel fills your entire mouth and you have a big mouth full of orange peel?  Yeah, me neither.. and my mom also never told me to stop doing that for fear of making my mouth bigger.

"Stop laughing with your mouth so wide open!" she'd tell me.  "Looking pretty, but the mouth is too large and open, close your mouth honey," she'd say.

"Don't smile with your mouth open!" she advised for the 4 years I had braces in my mouth.  I was so mortified by my ugly brace face that I ripped up a photo in the seventh grade of my ugly smile with braces.  But then, I also got in trouble for that because I wasn't "having enough confidence!" and I was punished for that as well.  Life is tough when you can't quite figure out what your mom wants you to do.

Sorry mom, I just have a really big mouth.  And while the orange peel may have exacerbated it, in the American culture, big teeth and big mouths with thick lips seem to be a thing of appeal.  So there!

Here's to big mouths everywhere.